RAVS and a Fundraising Idea

We will be in town for the Greensboro MakerFaire and the weather looks warm and dry. It should be a pleasant day for a chase and projections show the balloon going away from the coast! I'm going to brave Gaspocalypse 2016 and fuel up the Adventuremobile tomorrow.

As of the time of this writing, we have re-scheduled our flight, rental car and hotel for the PIPER mission a total of three times and anticipate having to do it at least one more time. It's stressful because we can lose money rather spectacularly if we tick the wrong box, but on each iteration we learn more! I feel like our most recent round of bookings is our best yet. If you need to book a room at the one hotel in Fort Sumner, NM let me know, and I'll tell you all of my tricks. (But you should call because they are totally sick of my shenanigans.)



My best friend keeps referring to this trip as a vacation and recently encouraged me to view our itinerary changes as an exercise in radical acceptance. Now I'm calling it my Radical Acceptance Vacation Situation. I've been prepping by making packing lists and lurking on the Fort Sumner Hanger Cam. (It reminds me of late nights in graduate school watching NASA TV. Do you know about NASA TV? My favorite is when they show a mostly vacant control room with people shuffling around and drinking coffee.)

My past students are concerned that I'll add another entry to the ways I've almost died.
Current students are concerned that I'll never leave and I won't cancel class or that I'll end up in actual, what some might refer to as, "Old" Mexico.

I'm concerned that this is the trip where Jimmy and I finally devolve into some sort of ginger-speak-
crypto-language. Either that or we'll implode in full Machiavellian glory in an airport Sbarro and Ryan will finally get to lead The Unacceptable Risks and turn it into a Folk Punk band.

Feel free to place bets on any one of these eventualities as part of our new fundraising scheme. Contact our bookie, David.

I like how these pictures show me looking carefree and full of sunshine while Jimmy looks like a big ball of stress when the reality of launch day is the opposite 99% of the time. The constant blogging by phone is entirely accurate. I'm looking forward to these two upcoming launches because they are neither my circus nor my monkeys.