After our safety meeting and our regular weekly staff meeting, I had what I would not call a fun time at the dentist. I have had a broken tooth for years that has never given me any problems. The dentist I now see through NASA insists that I have a crown put on. He is the boss of my teeth, so a crown it is. I will spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that half my mouth was deadened by the time the appointment was over which made the one-on-one class that I had right afterwards a little strange. I was really hoping to not bite my tongue or drool. . .

I managed to muddle through the class without too many issues, thankfully. The class was an introduction to the communications systems in the Russian segment. I always find it interesting that there is a mix of words on the Russian panels and in the procedures that are translated from Russian into English. There does not seem to be much consistency on what is or is not translated. Some stuff is in English and some stuff is in Russian. It seems to me, that they just go by whatever acronym is easier - the Russian or the English translation. I'll grant you, though, there are definitely words and phrases in Russian that do not translate well and the concept is much better described when simply left in Russian.

Finally had a class in the full up Station simulator on integrated voice operations, or rather, how the US and Russian communication systems do and do not play together. We covered the ins and outs of how to communicate between modules, how to configure to communicate to the various control centers (Houston and Moscow); how to configure when a Shuttle or Soyuz is docking (or docked); and how to configure to talk to the space walking astronauts.

Tuesday morning we got the results of our test from last week back. Turns out I would have gotten a 100 percent had it not been for me circling the wrong answer to a question I knew. Sigh. But, it is nice to know that that was my last written test. After reviewing the test, I had a string of classes - all Station related. The first two were in the medical realm. We had a class on the acoustic side of the environmental health system. This class was more in depth than the introductory class we had for this system last week. This class examined hearing protection again, more details on the periodic hearing tests that are done on-orbit, and sound level monitoring on the ISS. The second medically related class was a briefing on decompression sickness and how it relates to the business of spacewalks.

In the afternoon, I switched gears and started learning about the electrical system of the Station. The first class was an introduction to the electrical system - how the U.S. side generates and distributes electricity as compared to how the Russian side does it. The second class went into the nitty gritty of all the boxes that are involved in getting power from the U. S. solar arrays to where you plug in equipment inside the Station.

First thing Wednesday morning I had a Russian class. I asked my teacher if we could start over and review the basics again. I think all my Shuttle and Station training have pushed what little Russian I know out of my head. So, we did a lot of exercises with the beginning grammar. I am sure my teacher found it painful, as I am still pretty slow with reading out loud, but it was definitely good for me. After Russian I had a Station class on malfunctions in the audio system. I like the Station training approach in that you are constantly doing as you are learning. As you are being told about all the "black boxes" in a particular system, you are operating them as well as learning how to deal with problems from day 1. It is a very different approach from our Shuttle training which takes the tact of learning the details of a system, then learn how to operate it, and then finally learn how to deal with failures.

After the audio class it was back to the world of Shuttle for a class on propellant dumps. What is this, you ask? Well, there are times that you need to get rid of propellant to decrease the weight of the Orbiter. For example, you might be executing an abort during a launch and need to have the right weight for a safe landing. You don't actually dump the propellant; you burn it. So, we went through all the scenarios and procedures associated with accomplishing said burns.

Thursday was another mix of Station and Shuttle classes. My first class was on the video system in the Station. Basically, the class covered how to operate said system. It is pretty slick in that you have lots of options of what you can do. For example, you can send various video sources, such as internal cameras, external cameras, helmet cameras from spacewalkers, or video from the Shuttle when it is docked, to a whole host of destinations, such as monitors or video recorders inside the Station, downlink to the ground, or over to the Shuttle. Again, I learned about the internal workings of the system and the ways it can break as I was operating it. I am really enjoying learning the ISS systems after sorting out its problems from the ground for so many years. This is very exciting to me.

Next I had a class on the computer systems for the Station. This class was a final wrap up on the operations of the computers. The next class I have in this system is what is called a mastery lesson. A mastery lesson could be considered a final exam for the system. Once you pass a mastery class, you are considered to be trained to the basic operator level in that system, which means that you should be good to go for the integrated simulations with the control center. How neat is that? We started ISS training about six weeks ago and next week I will have a "final exam" in my first ISS system. The Station training is moving right along.

The last thing I had today was an evaluated single systems trainer class on engine burns and dealing with engine failures during certain maneuvers. While, I was not necessarily fast with all of the procedures, since it was the first time I had dealt with them in a simulator, I did feel like I had a good handle on the technical side of things - diagnosing the failures and understanding the impacts. The best part is that I think I have only three evaluated simulations left to go now.

My Friday began with Russian. We did more drilling of the basic grammar. After that I had a Station class on some of the communication tools that are available. There is actually the equivalent of a telephone on the Station that the crew can use to call their friends and family on Earth. In addition, you can set up video meetings. It is some pretty neat stuff. How nifty is that that the crew can just pick up a phone and call home?

My last activity of the week was a T-38 flight. The pilot and I tried to go to Northwest Arkansas Regional airport for BBQ since we were flying at lunchtime. There were thunderstorms near there, but we thought we had a path that would take us around them - north to Tulsa then over to Arkansas. As we were nearing the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, we could hear planes getting clearances along the path that we wanted to take, so we figured we were good to go. The clouds in front of us looked a little stormy, but not too bad. However, once we hit the line of storms that was across the northern part of Texas, we definitely did not like what we were seeing. Our weather radar was not able to read too far into the clouds which meant they were much thicker than they initially appeared to be. And, we could tell that there was a ton of lightening around us by the static on the radio. The pilot and I quickly decided that we needed to turn around before we went too far into the storm. We asked for and got cleared back to Ellington. Once we were heading south again, we decided to not go straight back to Ellington, so we asked for clearance over to Acadiana in Louisiana. We wanted to go there, since we knew that we could get food (it is all about food. . .). The air traffic controllers gave us the clearance and we headed off in that direction. But, after further discussion between the two of us, we decided that we would rather eat at one of the airports in Lake Charles. We decided we were hungry for the shrimp po-boys that we could get there. So, we bugged the air traffic controllers for yet another clearance. It was probably a good thing that each time we changed our minds about where we wanted to go, we were talking to a different controller. . .

Dealing with all the weather was a little intense. So once we finally arrived at Lake Charles, we relaxed a bit, had our sandwiches, and then made a beeline back to JSC to start the weekend.