Saturday, April 21, 2007

Birthday...huh.

"Doing anything special for your birthday?"
"Define 'special'."

My birthday was last week, so here's a quick rundown of how I spent it:

12:00 - 4:30 AM Sleeping, more or less.

4:30 - 5:00 AM Wake up, stumble into clothes, brush teeth, etc.

5:00 AM Fire up Mobile 30 and pull out of driveway.

5:10 - 10:10 AM I-12, I-10, I-49, LA Hwy. 167, LA Hwy. 80

10:12 AM Pull into parking lot at Grambling State University

10:20 AM Find Media Room - No food remaining.

10:25 - 10:55 AM Hang out with other Sat. Op.

11:00 AM Return to truck, find Galaxy 11, pull cable and set up tripod, camera, microphone, IFB, and reflector.

11:50 AM Uplink is hot.

12:05 PM Power down.

12:20 PM Cookin' again.

12:35 PM "Clear"

12:40 - 3:50 PM Hang out in truck, watch sat feed of funeral, or whatever else is on the bird.

3:50 - 4:05 PM Live again.

4:25 - 4:40 PM Move truck 1oo yds. and reset.

4:50-4:57 PM Wait on 'the bridge' while one person juggles access for three sats and 30 truck ops before finally accessing the bird.

5:05 PM Standby mode activated.

5:25 PM Call access about previous cluster, have pleasant conversation.

5:45 PM "Press 1 for Galaxy 11." beep "Please enter your 2-digit trans-" beep, beep..beep

6:10 PM HPA to OFF, strike equipment and cables.

6:30 PM Dish is Down, so is the 'hammer.'

10:00 PM Get in line at Wendy's in Lafayette.

10:30 PM Get food and return to truck.

11:40 PM Park Mobile 30 at station.

11:45 PM Eat burger.

12:15 AM Get home.

12:30 AM System log ends.

2 comments:

Widescreen said...

Get over it Aries.

Mine was on April 14 and like you I went to work. For the last few years, I have promised myself that I am going to take the day off and treat myself. With what, who knows, but it never happens.

I dragged my arse around town from job to job and by the time my wife and kids wanted to take me out for dinner, I’d had it.

That’s life. Happy Birthday Oreo.

Oreo said...

Ha ha. Thanks, Widescreen. Seems like everyone around here asks if you're doing anything 'special' for your birthday. This was definately one of my more memorable.