"The Land of Enchantment"

Last week, I returned from a travel assignment to Albuquerque: "the Land of Enchantment." I found out on Monday of that week I was supposed to go help test out a new system I helped develop this past year. We had to take it to a facility that is integrating a satellite system we sold last year to test our new system against the satellite before it gets launched this fall.

Two of my coworkers and I flew out late Wednesday night. We stayed at the Radisson that night. I don't think I'd recommend it though. My room was fine, but nothing spectacular since it was only a $75/night room. My co-worker, Jim, however, had a really challenging time. His key wouldn't work in his first room. And his second room was apparently occupied, even though the hotel computer didn't think so. They finally put him up in the top-of-the-line two-story suite. But since it was 1 in the morning by then, all he really got to enjoy of the suite was the bed for five hours and a dead cockroach in the bathroom!

The next morning, the three of us enjoyed a full hot breakfast at the hotel restaurant, compliments of the hotel. Alby and I didn't have to endure the misfortunes of Jim, but we still reaped the rewards by using Jim's free breakfast coupons. But just to top it all off, according to Jim, even the coffee was horrible. Maybe the previous night's experience just left a sour taste in his mouth, since Alby didn't seems to mind the coffee at all. For my part, the orange juice was just fine. :)

We went to Kirtland Air Force Base right after breakfast. It was really neat to see a part of the base I hadn't seen before. We went to a building that is specially equipped to put together and test space vehicles. The satellite we worked with was in a small clean room. The room has a constant flow of positive filtered air pressure to minimize dust and other small particles that could contaminate the space craft. Just outside that room was a high bay area. That area had another clean room in it. Only this clean room was on wheels. It was really cool to see a "portable" clean room. It was maybe thirty feet by thirty feet by thirty feet in size. Quite an impressive sight.

Our testing didn't start out well. We spent the morning just trying to get cables would work for our high-end data link. We enjoyed lunch at the Copper Canyon Cafe, a place near the base that I had been to many times before when I was doing flight tests of another system I had worked on. After lunch, we finally got our link up and running. Once it was running, then I started running. Since the satellite didn't have all of its heating and cooling system enabled, we only had an hour or so at a time with the satellite on before it would overheat. So we had to hurry fast. The satellite inside the building was linked up with our ground terminal in a humvee parked just outside the building. I was the only software engineer there, but we had two systems to check out. I would make a change on the satellite system, then quickly run outside to make a corresponding change on the ground system and check the status. I had to make about a dozen such round trips before we could verify all of the issues and get the link fully operational.

On top of that, we were really starting to be pressed for time. The Air Force folks were asking us to stay another day to get things finished. We, on the other hand, really didn't want to stay another day. So we worked as fast as we could to get it all done on time before our flight out that evening. Our flight was at 6:50 PM. We finally finished up our work at about 5:40 PM. Fortunately, the base shares runways with the Albuquerque airport. So we were at least close to the airport terminal. But we still had a rental car to return. Jim was our volunteer stuckee for that. Poor guy, he really had a lousy trip! We completely ignored having to refill the gas tank and Jim dropped off Alby and me at the terminal. We were there at about 6 PM, which was just enough time, especially since we didn't have any checked luggage and the security lines at ABQ are not often very long. But Jim still had to get to the rental car place and back to the terminal. Fortunately, the attendant at Enterprise was extremely helpful, and apparently not very busy. He offered to give Jim a ride back to the terminal so he didn't have to wait for the shuttle. Jim made it to the gate just as the airline starting boarding passengers on our flight. Phew!

Oh well, just another glorious day in "The Land of Enchantment!" Too bad I may be asked to go back for another round in a few weeks. Hmph!