Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas season - all the kids were home (except Sam - we'll have to catch her later!) at one point or another and we really enjoyed seeing them. 

Eric & Heather were here for a week, they left on Thursday because Eric had to work this weekend.  They are both doing so well in school - really great grades (except for Organic Chemistry - and that is admittedly very hard!).  They're both working too.  Heather starts a new job in January, so we're looking forward to hearing how that goes.

Lauren has been biking (80 miles yesterday) and reading Lord of the Rings (a gigantic novel!).  Oh, and she's been taking care of her new baby donkey's, which were born within hours of each other on Christmas Eve.  They're doing fantastic, despite one of the mother's rejecting her foal - but the other mom adopted it, and now she's feeding both of them!

Chach has been vegetating this week - I think de-compressing from his busy school/work clinical rotations (which he starts again next week - Internal Medicine! How exciting!).  He spent ~ 60 hours so far this past week playing Skyrim, which is a computer game (not sure what it is, other than some big soldier-looking guy who battles constantly - but it does have really cool graphics!).  We missed Sam for Christmas, but we got to Skype her into some of the activities - I thought it worked surprisingly well!  Amazing what technology we have nowadays.

Lisa has been doing alot of cooking and baking the past 2 weeks.  I think we're all full and ready to go back to our normal diets!  Today she had a "Donkey Party" and invited alot of families w/small kids over - they all loved seeing the donkey babies, chickens, rabbit, and turtles.  She's also trying to finish her latest quilt.

I have a couple more days off, then it's back to work.  Spent yesterday raking and mowing up about a billion leaves!  And today/tommorrow will be expanding my garden - I want to grow more vegetables this year, so we'll see how well it does.  Let's hope this year brings more rain than last!

It's New Years Eve now, and Lisa & I are having a quiet evening at home.  Chach & Lauren are at the beach down in San Louis pass tonight - I guess fires/fireworks are OK down there.

Happy New Year to everyone!  Love, Dad

NEW AT THIS

I have never 'blogged' before and don't know if I'm doing right or not.  I just followed the directions that Sam outlined on her directions. 
I think this is a good idea especially as our family is growing so fast and we seem to be scattered all over the US.
Sam, I have a great niece that has also just moved to Boston and is working in the medical profession up there.  I'm trying to find out how to contact her and will advise when I do.  She is about your age so maybe you all might have something in common.  She's from Dallas, but don't hold that against her.
We are busy preparing for Christmas and are looking forward to seeing everyone that can make it.
Grandpa Lundquist

Well, hard to beat helicopter ditching exercises!  I think that could have been on America's Funniest Video.  Since we're talking shop now, I'll go ahead and pass on a few of mine.... had an interesting meeting today - it was a review of the forensic evidence after the Columbia crash.  Believe it or not, all 7 astronauts bodies were recovered (to some extent) after the explosion at 140,000 feet high.  It was kind of like CSI, NASA-style.  Actually, alot was learned from the autopsies relative to the injuries and they wanted the next generation spacecraft designers/managers (me) to have that information so we could account for it in future vehicles.  Some other things keeping me busy...tomorrow we are conducting a test of the capsules ability to survive a water impact landing - shooting out a 20,000 lb test article it from a tall gantry into a pool.  Then next week we're testing the parachute landing system.  Dropping a capsule out of a C-17 bomber at about 17,000 feet high and deploying the landing & recovery system on the way down.  We're simulating a "chute out" case, where one of the 3 chutes has failed to see if we can successfully land with only 2 chutes.  Also tommorrow, we're reviewing the design of a European-provided portion of our spacecraft, as there is a possible joint venture b/w us.  Alot of folks on my team are traveling to Paris in the spring for the design review (tough assignment).  Oh well, enough shop talk.  Christmas is right around the corner!!!  I put stockings up today over the fireplace.  Only 12 more days till Santa comes!

Helicopter Ditching Survival Training

I got talked into volunteering for HUET training at work.  HUET stands for something like 'Helicopter Underwater Emergency Training'.  Any worker that goes to an offshore oil site has to have this training where they learn how to get out of a helicopter that crashes into the water, then they have to survive for a while till rescue gets there.
So first they put us in these thick cotten overalls that offshore workers would wear, and we had to swim around for a while, so it was like swimming around with a brick!  We were also taught lots of water survival tricks, like how to make a life preserver from your pants, and how to tow someone who is injured, and how to put on your life preserver when there is splashing and waves.
Then we got to learn about deploying the life raft.  Evidently all these offshore helicopters have life rafts, big honking life rafts.  And if the liferaft happens to deploy upside down (which evidently is very common), then you have to upright it.  I was chosen to 'upright' the liferaft.  I didn't think that there was any way that I could actually tump it over, so I didn't plan ahead on how to get out from under it when the sucker actually went over.  Here is the video:

After all the survival skills and life raft tumping, then we moved on to the 'getting out of a ditched helicopter' skills.  By this time, it is around 1pm and I am rather anxious for a potty break.  I could not seem to make myself pee in the pool, and I really, really tried, because hauling my wet coverall butt through the chilly facility was not going to be fun.  So while group 1-3 were being lowered into the water, I hauled wet dripping coverall butt to the bathroom.  I may have missed a little of the instruction.  When we were submerged into the water, we were supposed to wait 7 seconds before undoing our seatbelt and swimming out of the downed copter.  But I just counted to 7 (really fast) and was out in record time.  So the instructor went over how to count to 7 (slowly) with me. 
Next, they put the windows and doors on the helicopter mockup and we were supposed to push out the window and then egress the underwater copter.  There were a couple of people who never did get their window to pop out, so they had to be 'helped' by the safety divers.  This did not inspire confidence in me.  I sat by the door, which had a release handle, so my door came open really easy.  I even waited the 7 seconds, and all was fine. 
All of that was just practice to get familiar with ditching and how to pop out windows.  If a helicopter does crash into the water, then it usually tumps upside down.  So the helicopter mockup that they lower into the water has this trolley system that makes it rotate 180 degrees.  So they lower you into the water, rotate you really fast 180 degrees, then you are supposed to wait 7 seconds and pop out the windows and swim out.  In typical training you try this first without the windows in, then with the windows in.  We were running short of time, so we were only do the upside down ditching scenario with windows out.  Well..... I counted really fast again, cuz I wanted OUT of there.  That spinning around got water up my nose and I was all confused.  I did find the exit, but was having trouble getting out, then I felt the instructor push my butt out the door and I popped right out. 
The instructors did off the 16 of us a chance to do the upside down ditching with the windows in, but by then it was 2pm, we had been in the water for 4 hours, and he only got 2 takers.  I was not one of them!

Getting close to Christmas!

Well, not many people are posting.  I guess it's because we don't have as funny a stories as Sam does!  Boston mexican food is hard to beat!  So I'll just let folks know what's going on around here...The donkeys still haven't had babies, though they appear to be emminent.  It's been cool weather - lows in the 30's, but no freezes yet.  Due to some recent rains (still classified as extreme drought though), it's greener now in December than it's been in a whole year.  When I was in Huntsville earlier this week, Santa must have come by the house, as there seem to be a number of presents under the tree now.  I haven't checked the labels, but apparently at least one person has been good this year (I don't know who that would be).  I am allowed to play Christmas music now, so I'm taking advantage of that.  Probably will be buying eggnog this week, in advance of Mom's cookie party next weekend.  Gee, this sounds boring, but I guess that's because I'm leaving out the 60 hours/week spent on work or Mom's school (which she's wrapping up tonight - hooray!).  Looking forward to seeing everyone, Love, Dad