The Space Center's New Summer Missions are Announced!

Skyler and Emily's killer hound "Safari" patrolled the school's hallways
during our meeting. Always on the hunt for KAOS agents.
She is trained to bite and ask questions later.
"Who's a good dog then?"

Monday, January 16. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A School Holiday.

The Space Center's staff of dedicated Set and Flight Directors arrived at the Space Center this holiday Monday morning under the ruse of having to do court directed public service hours for delinquency. On my direction they had their shoes untied, hair messed up, heavy dark facial make up (for females), low riding jeans (for males), and all smacking chewing gum to give the impression to any KAOS spy lurking in the trees and bushes that nothing of importance was happening at the Space Center. Once in the building the staff's anti social costumes were exchanged for proper student attire.

Why the deception? We didn't want our advisories to know today was the day we approved our summer schedule and either wrote or reviewed our summer camp stories for the summer camp season of 2012.

9:00 A.M.
Meeting with the Phoenix staff and the Programming Guild. There was a discussion concerning new Phoenix Cocoa controls.

10:00 A.M.
Breakfast meeting.
Delicious donuts, bagels, orange juice, milk and chocolate milk were on hand to get everyone's brains ready for the schedule presentation. We bid farewell to Alex Anderson who is leaving for an LDS mission on Wednesday. The applause for Alex's years of dedicated work was heart felt. Tissues were on hand for those who needed them. Counsellors waited in the room next to Discovery for anyone who needed psychiatric help to overcome the Alex addiction (over dependency on his unique computer skills necessary to keep our ships running).

Alex will be missed.

After Alex's tribute the meeting turned to the new summer missions. All five simulators need new missions for the summer. Today was the day for them to be written or revised. Just before I brought the writing sessions to order a sound was heard on the school's roof. Jon and Miranda were dispatched to investigate. Both stopped at the Magellan's armory to don vests and phasers. I feared the possibility that KAOS agents might be hovering over the rooftop air conditioner listening in, waiting to steal our intellectual property for their organization's diabolical purposes.

"Just the wind of an approaching storm," Jon reported. We stood down from Red Alert.

"Break into your teams, write or revise your new Summer stories and meet me again for lunch at Noon," I directed.

I met with my Voyager team consisting of Emily and Jon. We discussed several cool and innovated concepts we'd like to introduce in our Voyager mission; I'm not at liberty to discuss them in this open forum for reason's given in the paragraphs above.
Ideas flowed. Opinions were given. A decision was reached.

I left Emily and Jon to make copies of the mission while I jumped into the Battlestar to collect lunch from Little Caesars.

"Six of your delicious, mouth watering pizzas please," I asked the cashier. She smiled. I noticed she had gold fillings on her back teeth. Curious an American would have gold fillings. Gold fillings were more an East European practice.

"Spasibo," she replied. At that moment she knew she'd blown her cover. She had just used the Russian word for Thank you.

"You mean 'thank you' don't you?" I replied reaching for the phaser I always keep strapped to my ankle. She jumped over the counter, pushed me to the floor and escaped into the windy wintry morning. I felt obliged to pursue but stopped when I heard a banging sound. The KAOS agent had the store manager and cashier tied up in the walk in cooler.

12:00 Noon
Lunch was served in Discovery. While the staff feasted on pizza, chips and a delicious assortment of beverages (Sprite, Root Beer and Diet Coke) each simulator made a short presentation outlining their new summer story. The excitement in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife.

12:30 P.M.
The official meeting ended. The staff had the option to stay and continue to work on their own time or leave. Most stayed, realizing that once the creative juices start to flow, stopping them abruptly could be dangerous - leading to dementia, dizziness and slurred speech.

Nicole and Zac reviewing the Magellan's new summer story
Stolen Honor (Working Title)

Megan, Wyatt and Miranda reviewing the Phoenix's new summer story
Rules of Succession


Christine, Adam, Devin and Josh reviewing the Odyssey's new summer story
Star Crossed

Matt, Ben, Rachel and Stacy reviewing the Galileo's new summer story
The Galileo Incident (Working Title)

Stacy hiding her computer screen from my camera. The Galileo staff are very protective of their work. Our staff share a competitive streak - each working hard to outdo the other in the summer camp ratings.

Emily and Jon reviewing background information on the
Voyager's new summer story
The Hunt for Horace