So much to do!

Wow this summer is really flying by. My lack of updates should be an indicator that things at work and life in LA are picking up the pace.
Starting with work at JPL. My project is going very well. I have written a tool that reads flight software information and automatically creates command sequences to get some 4500 software parameters. I'm in the process of testing is on the spacecraft testbed now and it's going great. Everyone on the team has been very supportive and it feels really great to be contributing to the EPOXI mission.
Friday the 1st is a big day for my project because I have to have my sequences all tested and reviewed to be sent to the spacecraft around 5:00pm PST. I'm really excited!

Speaking of EPOXI, our spacecraft made the news the past week or so with the Earth-Moon Transit video. http://epoxi.umd.edu/4gallery/Earth-Moon_vid.shtml The activtity lead for these images was Greg Laborde, he has been helping me out with my project as far as sequence developement goes. It was really cool being at JPL and on the EPOXI team when the video got released.

Life at Caltech has been pretty sweet. Did you know that the movie Real Genius is about Caltech? Here is a Link that points out all of the relationships. It was funny watching that movie at Caltech housing, saying "Hey we're there!" There are a lot of really cool people here and the calibur of research is unprecendented compared to anywhere else I have been. One of the EE labs has at least 3 top of the line Scanning Electron Microscopes in it!

Rewinding back a couple weeks I went to Mayhem fest in San Bernardino. I got to see Dragonforce and Disturbed play live and rock the desert. I was able to snap some pretty sweet pictures.

Weekends have been pretty packed with stuff to do. We went to the Huntington gardens last weekend which was a lot like the Getty center but less artsy. My parents and brother came to visit this past Sunday-Tuesday. We had a good time in Hollywood and a great tour of JPL.
This summer I have gone to a different beach every weekend. Zuma beach is my favorite right now.

Huntington beach was also pretty cool. Ruby's diner is at the end of the pier and completely surrounded by the ocean. They had great milkshakes!

The most recent event I ventured to was 6 Flags Magic Mountain! I have never been on a roller coaster before and I got the complete works on Saturday. It was a blast. The newest ride there was called X2 and it was a total thrill, definitely worth the 2.5hr wait in line! For the most part the lines were not too bad and the long ones were worth it. We closed the park at 11:00 with the last Batman ride of the night. I am definitely looking forward to more coaster action in the future!

Today we're off to Mission Buenaventura then Ventura beach. Hoepfully I can make it back to update more often. Twitter definately gets updated frequently.

4th of July Holiday Week

This was definitely a play week. I only worked Monday and Tuesday. Monday I had a design review for my project. I had a block diagram and task list prepared for the weekly Spacecraft Team Meeting. Everyone seemed to like the design and I got a lot of positive feedback.
Tuesday Rich and some other JPL geeks went rock climbing at Hanger18 in Upland which is about 40 minutes from Pasadena. We had a really great time, Rich has been climbing for a while now and I was able to keep up for the most part.
Wednesday a handful of us went to Universal Studios. This was tons of fun! Being my first theme park experience I have no complaints. We got discount tickets through JPL and spent the whole day there. The weather was great and the rides were awesome. Probably my favorite was the Jurassic Park ride and the Mummy ride. There was also a studio tour bus that went around all the stages and sets that were used to make blockbuster movies. I managed to snag a video from part of the tour.
Thursday I drove to Phoenix to visit Alan, his girlfriend, daughter and his brother's family. It was very hot but relaxing from the fast pace the past few weeks have been. We pretty much just spent the 4th chilling out and having a few drinks.

I spend Saturday driving back to Pasadena then later that afternoon we went to Hollywood and saw Wall-E at the El Capitan theater on Hollywood blvd. We spotted Natalie Portman while we were there! She went to the same Wall-E showing we were at. After the flick I asked her if I could get a picture with her and she kindly declined. Regardless, it was fun! Outside the theater they had 1/3 scale models of the Mars Exploration Rovers and Sojourner. There was also a big NASA/JPL display with a history of spacecraft and the Phoenix lander.

Sunday a couple of us Catholics here at Caltech ventured over to the San Gabriel Mission. This was the 4th mission of the 21 in California and founded in 1771. It's about a 10 minute drive from campus. Mass was great, we almost ended up at a Spanish mass in a chapel which was at the same time as the English one. The English one ended up being in the actual mission church, it was really beautiful! Hopefully we get to go to more this summer.

I know this post is a little late, I've actually been writing it for a couple of days now. :)

As always, more pics on PicasaWeb
http://picasaweb.google.com/dan.isla/California2008

Also check out the Photo Map!
http://picasaweb.google.com/dan.isla/California2008/photo#map