Kicking June to the Curb

Aerospace is done. Huntsville was a lot of the same as last year - quite a bit more stuff in the NASA education center (making hot air balloons, heat shields, designing self-supporting lunar greenhouses), plus the usual wander around the space museum. Just waiting for a grade. A couple of us made a pinky-swear that we will go to Teacher Space Camp next year. We found out that both Honeywell and Boeing sponsor teachers so they don't have to pony up the $999 pricetag for the week. And if that fails, there are multiple corporations here (including FedEx, Comcast) who might put up all or part of the funding. Something exciting to look forward to.

On the health front, I saw some significant gains from riding my bicycle every day to U of M. Never once drove - in fact the only driving I did was to the flight lessons. The one field trip to FedEx I walked to a carpooling site. On the downside of the health front, at some point in early June, I got a crick in my neck. I figured it was from sleeping "funny", and tried to stretch it out while sitting in class. It was hard to turn my neck sideways, or even look up and down. Well, a quick search on Google (this one that didn't turn up anything out of the ordinary) suggested that neck cricks are usually strained ligaments, so don't stretch, and wait for a couple of weeks for it to heal up.

Fast forward to 4 weeks later, and I can turn my neck, but I have nerve pain in my right arm, shoulder and upper back. Moving the arm doesn't help - it feels like sciatica in my leg from my bulging disk. More Google goodness - hey, a pinch of the C4 nerve can cause these symptoms. Yes, I was smart enough to make a doctor appointment (this Wednesday) before leaving Huntsville to get it looked at - before I even Googled. Thank you for your applause.

July looks to be full of movies, birthday stuff, school preparation (I report on August 4) and general keeping up with things.