A Day At MMS

I thought I'd try something a bit different and provide a snapshot into a "real day at MMS" as the day unfolds and, as hard to believe as it is, the day has already unfolded to 10:40 AM!

10:45 AM
We started this morning (as normal) around the lunchroom table at 7:30 AM with prayer, tech talk, and announcements. From there everyone split off to their various assignments and projects. I had a short meeting in my office with Scott and Dave to discuss some visioning for a project and then jumped into answering emails. It was a light email morning. For some reason the past few days have been very light as far as typical email traffic.

Since then, I've been pounding the keyboard editing/updating existing pages of our orientation manual and writing new pages to reflect changes that have occurred, and decisions that have been made, since our last evaluation of a US candidate couple in May of last year.

Karen's in to work for me today and to manage the MMS mailing list. She's already edited several draft pages for me and provided two great ideas for additional information to cover. It won't be too long before I have her start photocopying/assembling the updated orientation handbook for the candidate evaluation that starts first thing Monday morning.

Outside the sky is blue and clear which is a nice change after two days of rain and one day of constant drizzle. Air temp currently 46 with a predicted high of 63. I'll probably post again before we break for lunch.

12:20 PM
Karen's wrapping up a mailing for one of our graduate families as a final step of their transition to service with JAARS.

Karen at the postage machine.

I've just drafted another couple pages for the orientation manual. We'll break for lunch as soon as I get this post up.

My desk with the manual and some of the new pages I've written today.

While it's quiet up here in the administrative area, the sounds coming through the wall of my office that is also the hangar wall, I would say the guys have put the Cessna 210 back on the floor jacks and are testing its retractable landing gear system. I can hear the gear drop and lock into place and I can hear the motor whine as the gear is retracted back into the fuselage with a thump. They hope to return the airplane to its owner this afternoon.

1:45 PM
Karen and I finished lunch about an 45 minutes ago. We enjoyed a turkey sandwich with cheese and pickles, plain-wrap corn chips, and grapes. Karen had water to drink, I had a plain-wrap "Dr. Pepper."

It looks like I'll finish my day working on the orientation manual...wait...

I just heard the guys open the main hangar doors. It could be they're pushing the 210 outside for the owner to fly. I'll go check. Maybe I'll be able to post a photo of the airplane departing the airport later today!

3:40 PM

The Cessna 210 just made its return to service flight!

It's always exciting to see airplanes return to the sky.

4:55 PM
Well, that's about it for me. After shooting the 210's departure, finishing the edits on the orientation manual, discussing the upcoming eval with one of our staff, burning a CD of phots for another staff member, and posting over on the MMS blog, I think I'll call it a day. Karen left about 4:00 to drop off the mailing she completed, send a box of 300 return envelopes to one of the families currently raising support, and to go home to see what Tanner's torn up after being home alone all day.

Tanner's been on a destructive tear lately. We've had him on steroids for his allergies...but we've learned that steroids, while making his allergies better, increases his desire to chew, rip, and tear things up. At this point, walking in the door after having him "home alone" is always an adventure.

Thanks for following our day. Let me know if you enjoyed this type of post. If so, I'll do it more often.