Its another beautiful spring day in Houston. The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and I only have to drive up to Rice once, potentially twice, before the summer. Once for a project (something about compressible flow that I find "interesting", ha, yeah, right). And a second one to return my take-home final. The Rice honor code continues to amaze me. Not only are profs forbidden from proctoring tests, but they are required to send the exams to be taken at home (even if they are timed, or closed book) if the class size is under 50 people.

It looks like Karen found Jen O. last night during her two-day visit to California. She almost had an Ireland moment.

You won't here from me for an entire week. Here's my itinerary, in case you need to supress the temptation to call out the National Guard to track me down (Mom!):

Sunday afternoon : Depart for California

Monday - Friday : Fly/Observe Flight of Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA Ames, try not to be too awestruck by precense of multiple astronauts; get reminded that my job really is darned cool occasionally.

Friday Night: Take Red-Eye to Washington, D.C.

Saturday: Be my Aunt Diane (and/or Aunt Ellie)'s lacky in all ways possible; potentially throw in the possible glamour of a reception at National Geographic and/or a Congresswoman's housen (need to remember that engineer's business casual and D.C.-business casual are two different things); Hope I end up hanging out with Maayan and/or the Twins.

Sunday: March. Keep the people in the front of the line out of too much trouble and moving forward. I've never actually marched on Washington. Should be an educational experience. You'd think this would be required of all high school civics classes. Yes, the weirdest things qualify as a "family obligation" in the Cutri family...