Chris Hadfield

I had no idea when I costumed up as Commander Chris Hadfield for Halloween that he was coming to the Twin Cities.  And so soon.  On Thursday we shot over to Edina for a burrito and then to the Barnes and Noble to hear him speak.  The description of the event said 15 to 20 minutes of Q&A, but he talked for at least 45 minutes, not including a later break in signings where he talked about whether he'd ever fly again and related a story about how John Glenn was considered a national treasure and when the shuttle program kicked off, he was allowed to fly again and the astronaut consensus was they didn't want to get bumped for John Glenn, but if it happened to someone, they hoped they'd be the person who got to fly with him.  He wants to be like John Glenn.

The place was packed - this is just a small number of the people that were there.  I even bumped into Ryan off my team and we didn't know we were both going to the same event.  He avoided the microphone and waded into the audience to talk.  He even talked about how singing Space Oddity came about with the help of his son, and that a call from the International Space Station to the woman negotiating rights issues made a significant impact.



It was so crowded that I had to watch him over the top of the Romance section.  The various books showing millionaires and billionaires with babies and cats and dressed as various Village People were distracting, but manageable.  I was very glad to be as tall as I am.  My wife sat on the floor and listened.  And Eryn, well, it's good to be a kid.  Folks let her get closer and park herself on the aisle so she had an almost front row seat.


You can hear him talk and appreciate the green hat.


He signed books for a LONG time.  We missed getting a calendar page on the way in, so we were almost last.  Within a few people.  But he stuck around and shook everyone's hand and took pictures until everyone was done, within minutes of the store closing.


It will be a nice memory to think that the day humans landed a probe on a comet, we were listening to an astronaut.  "I try to go to bed every night of my life with a full bucket...I have to dump stuff out of my bucket it's so full." - Chris Hadfield on doing stuff rather than having a bucket list and celebrating landing on a comet.


Proof we actually met him and didn't steal pictures.  Can you tell I'm pretty excited?  I started college with a desire to be in the space program.  The reality changed, but the excitement never went away.  His stories about riding both the shuttle and Soyuz were particularly cool  He talked about bouncing around in the Soyuz and said it was akin to a dump truck, compared to the car ride that is the shuttle.


Eryn with Commander Hadfield.  He commented on how he liked her Doctor Who shirt.  During the Q&A he had 8 year old Natalie come up so he could address her directly about her question, "What happens if you get hit with a rock in space?"  He explained the 16 layers of a space suit including heat resistance and kevlar after he told her how her tongue would swell, her tears would freeze, and her eyes would boil and she'd be a "Dead Natalie" without her suit which was her personal space ship.  The tears were because she was so excited and she was ecstatic that he was talking to her like someone who could deal with the truth.  Her parents were all pictures and some of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on humans.


"Go around the world a hundred times. Your perspective becomes...correct. " - Chris Hadfield


I should append, this is the second astronaut we've met.  Here we are with Robert Springer at Kennedy in 2011, including me in my t-shirt that they cut off me when I was in a coma.

Space Oddity

I'd like to think my Halloween Costume had something to do with Chris Hadfield playing Space Oddity on the ISS being reposted on Youtube.  I'd like to think it.

His version is much better than mine.  So is his mustache.  And he did it without having to wear a spacesuit to convince everyone he was an astronaut.



But you have to admit, pretty close.  And my helmet is more on point.

Halloween 2014 and Commander Chris Hadfield

This post is sort of in two parts.  Part I is the pumpkin carving competition from work.  I'm not really part of that part of the post as I had a lot of interviewing to do for interns, so I wasn't at the party for more than a few moments. My co-manager told me my costume would have done well at the party if I could have been seen by more people.  His team costume won.  Guess who coordinated my meetings.  I knew they were likely - it's intern-interviewing season and Fridays tend to disappear and, out of all the things I do, I rate interviewing the highest.  Nothing sets the culture of a company (or department) as much as who you choose to bring in in the first place.

Part II is my costume.  Regardless of whether it placed at the company Halloween Party, I'm still sort of proud of it.  I based it on some DIY designs on line, and then modified it significantly.

Part I - The Pumpkin Contest

Team 12 was the team I was supposed to be on until interviews intervened.  The dropped-on-the-head motif was my idea.  Primarily because I'm lazy and the puking its own guts out pumpkin was done last year - twice - per Mike.  Mike thought they should have a category for no props in the future.  You'll see why soon - that toothpick toothed one next to Team 12 isn't even close to what he means.


Another picture of Team 12, but with Team 2's castle in the photo.  A little more prop, but still not the full extent.


The inside out pumpkin.  Very clever!  Props, but still minimal.  I think Team 6 won the competition.  I like team 11 - very minimal Nightmare Before Christmas.


This one got scariest.  Not the emoticon one, but the one eating a child.


A few more.  A couple teams went with a secondary mini pumpkin.  Team 5 has a 101 Sct. 1 citation pumpkin.  That's really only funny if you use online legal research products a lot.


Friday the 13th Jason pumpkin.  A pretty good behind the mask.  It looks a little like when Jason loses his mask in the movies.


Pumpkin Pi.  Nerd, developer/project manager pumpkin in the middle.  And the one closest in frame (on the right) is a police scanner pumpkin.  They spelled scanner wrong, but they made up for it by strapping a mobile device to the back so it would flash and make police scanner noises.  They were proud of having the most expensive carved pumpkin in existence.


Part II - My costume.

I think my costume ended up costing me more than it would have if I had just bought a finished costume on line.  There were two 12 volt battery packs as one was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and wouldn't be here on time, a painter suit, oven mitts, led lights, and several bottles of wood glue.  Ah, and a broken guitar string, a music purchase from iTunes, and an iPod portable speaker, and batteries.  And balloons.  And some wood putty I didn't need.  And paint, both white and silver spray.  And velcro straps.  You can see where it started to build up a cumulative cost.

So here's my helmet created from paper wrapped around a balloon that was supposed to be round but was more oblong.  I did not like the fact that it looked like a thorax on a bee or an ant, so eventually I chopped the top off and re-papered it so it was flatter/rounder overall.  Looked much better.


This is the piece that was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  8 AA batteries wired into an LED light strip.  I considered lights that changed colors, but that seemed like it would be a waste if I destroyed them.  And there's no getting them out of the helmet.  They're in there pretty solid.


Here it is with the top a little flatter and the LED lights installed against a silver spray-painted interior.  Believe me, with the batteries, it gets pretty warm.  Sort of like having your head in the world's most mild oven.


Test phase or Phase Selfie.  I post two pictures that are similar because...


...in this one it looks like my head is exploding with energy.  You don't realize there's that much light in there when you're in a bright area, although when you take it off, your eyes take a moment to adjust to normal.  But when it's dark, it's like there's a screen made out of light across the opening.  I'm sure it's not good for your eyes.  I tended to carry it under my arm and only put it on for a few minutes at a time, just in case it might be damaging to my vision.


And here it is so you can see my face.  I could have used half as many lights, but what would I have done with the other half?  A kid who came to the door to trick or treat told me my helmet was "on point."  I wasn't sure what he meant.  His sister wasn't sure either, so at least it's not an old person thing.


What's missing in that last picture is the mustache.  Why a mustache?  Because my costume wasn't just "astronaut", it was Canadian Astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield playing Space Oddity op his guitar on the International Space Station.  Now you know why I needed the iTunes purchase and portable iPod speaker.  The oven mitts allowed me to hide the speaker and iPod, although you couldn't really hear it over the music at the party.  My Canadian friends knew who I was, but most people thought I was some sort of Ebola hazmat doctor.  Why I'd be a Canadian Ebola doctor (I had patches for the arms) with a guitar is beyond me - I'm not sure that makes any sort of sense.


And here's the whole effect, although it pre-dates the mustache.  I hate the mustache.  Sorry Commander Hadfield.  It's itchy.  And I think the LED lights act like grow lights.  It got busy fast.  Fortunately I get to shave it tomorrow as a Movember kickoff event.  Unfortunately I then have to grow a new mustache for Movember.  I haven't decided what I want to grow yet.  No Shah Rukh Khan this year.  Has to be something new.