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It has been almost a month since I got here, to the USA.
I was VERY nervous and scared when I first arrived at Seattle Airport. My first impression of the city was 'grim.' Other Westies were uploading Airport pictures from Los Angeles and San Diego. I was kind of expecting that, but Seattle was just - meh. It was cold, rainy and cloudy, no shiny buildings, no beaches. Clearly weather was not boosting my mood, and my one-week stay at Airbnb was horror stories. It took a while for me to loosen up the guards. Ji Yeon, my co-worker who arrived a week earlier from Korea, was a silver lining. She showed me local areas, helped me make a bus card, let me have a sleepover in her room, and much more. So, it makes sense to say her presence calmed my nerves. With her, I started to see the city with fresh eyes. Slowly, weather was getting better too. Things were not as same as in Korea, and I learned how to find the fun out of it. Looking other people's gardens was fun, so was the grocery shopping. Way to cross the road was different(pressing buttons?). Poor public transportation and casual weed smell in the streets were shocking. My roommate took me to casino, and the other day, I enjoyed little bonfire with other roommates. It was exciting to learn new things and norms because they were new! Michael, and his company, Liftport was new encounter, too. It's a small, struggling company in a messy office. I am NOT complaining here because there are clear advantages in doing internship in the small company like this. Usually interns do not get to get the opportunity to be involved. Michael was different. I had a rare chance to speak to the CEO directly, make suggestions, and see the change making an impact right away. I am excited to learn new skills and challenge myself. I wish to contribute to this company in some way until my internship ends. YE
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Even in my wildest assumptions I never expected to happen something like last year. For me, it was hard, stressful, scary but also cheerful, hopeful, and eye-opening. I did not plan to get caught in the United States by a worldwide pandemic but I’m glad I had. I not only didn’t get sick but managed to learn a lot and have a nice experience that even led to a full-time job.
Due to my visa expiration, I am back in Peru once again. I’m happy to see my family and have some typical food from here. Nonetheless, now I miss Michael, Tacoma, some roommates, and life there in general. Some people told me that I should’ve stayed there, but I’m not only respectful of the laws; I have some important projects here. They may not understand that my journey with LiftPort has not come to an end yet. We are trying to establish some sort of subsidiary that works on some of the technical projects we may have. I’ve always liked the idea of entrepreneurship, and now I have a chance to work on it. Some friends and I are hoping to get some contracts to develop technology and hopefully, I can start managing that. One of my life’s goals has been to create a successful technology company that improves the lives of people, and now I see an opportunity in space technology. This is very exciting! Just like in the U.S.A., pandemic handling has not been good here. While I’m still safe, I cannot say the same for some of my extended family. But harder times also create opportunities, so I’m hoping for the best. I really hope vaccination helps. We at LiftPort got more confident running online events. I am personally confident running the technical side of the events, all the way from Peru! Even after some Brazilian trolls stormed our Gmeet room, I can say we have had successful events that I’m sure are helping the Foundation for the Future. I know these events will come to an end someday, so while we are covered for some months, we should definitely plan long term, in order to keep the winning streak at LiftPort. Fabio It has been a long time since I wrote a blog entry here. Long story short, we had a successful event that led to some interesting things. One of our attendees, Tim Chrisman, liked that event so much that he decided to contract LiftPort to run a series of events called “Blue Marble Week”. He is also a huge fan of the space elevator and he is trying to push a congressional bill to support the creation of space infrastructure. The main topic for these events is “how space development (in different ways) can improve life on Earth”. This will definitely be a challenge, but I think we should be just fine considering the huge network of important people that Michael has.
The office now is quieter because Byungik finished his internship and left for South Korea. It was nice to work with him and we will miss him (Good luck with your future plans, Byungik!). I am happy to say that none of us got sick until now. One of the many factors to consider my stay in the United States, a successful one, is to not get sick. And I am close to accomplishing that goal, so good luck to me too. I will spend the end of the year festivities here in Tacoma. Apparently, Michael has plans for it, so I will not spend it alone as I initially thought. I'm glad Gwen and him are generous people. Circumstances for LiftPort have changed a lot during 2020, we switched gears and priorities a lot, and at the end of this year, I feel that all of us contributed a little to improve the situation. The future looks a lot better than I initially thought. It is a little ironic that 2020 was a good year for us, considering what’s going on outside of our bubble. Hopefully, we can keep this streak for next year, and someday build the space elevator! Fabio This whole month we have been working on crafting a 2-hour event called Better Futures: The Future of the Space. This was the first of probably many events that LiftPort will be doing.
The main topic was discussing the priorities and budget regarding to space development using the US navy analogy of “blue water vs brown water” (of course, applied to space). Even considering the few resources we had, I think it went well. I was responsible for the technical side of the event. It wasn’t very hard but I had to learn a lot of things I didn’t know before. Small things like crafting google forms, creating newsletter lists, streaming Zoom to YouTube, recording meetings, managing the internal system for the participants, moderating the comments on YouTube Live, and understand the overall technology in the background of the event. I also had to work a lot on the website. I crafted the events tab and everything under it. Additionally, I updated a lot of the content in the site, but I think we still need to work on it. I did commit some mistakes due to inexperience, such as starting the Live 4 min before the actual event (which doesn’t look good at all when people who couldn’t attend try to view our captured video), or not pinning the profile of the speaker on time. But other than that, I would consider it a successful piece of work. The speakers were amazing, timing was okay, participation and comments were insightful. Not bad! It was a little stressing (especially on Michael side) but after everything happened, it was very satisfying and cheerful hearing that people liked it and want more of this in the future. Fabio This week we posted 6 videos. 3 Related to the New Era Policy and 3 for the Book Clubs. And by the way, for the people asking what software we use for our content, I have used both Kdenlive and Adobe Premiere Pro to edit all the videos. The first runs on Linux and the second runs on Windows, and it would be nice if you have a high-end processor and even better if you add a nice graphics card to that setup. All these in order to optimize the overall usability and rendering times. They are not very difficult to work on, but you probably might want to watch a Tutorial before jumping into any of them.
Very very few people are watching our videos. It is pretty much safe to say we will NOT be able to monetize from YouTube in the short term. But that’s ok. Some good results happened because of all those videos, so it may not be a wasted effort at the end. New connections, more visibility, and a clearer plan for LiftPort future. And personally, I have learned a new skill that may useful, as I said before. Michael has been very busy dealing with both personal and business stuff to the point that some documents and tasks he is supposed to do are long overdue, but to be fair he has worked a lot with no rest and still wasn’t able to complete the 100% of the workload. I don’t blame him because there are things that are out of control that can affect us deeply. Just like the pandemic we are trying to survive. But he is trying hard to overcome the difficulties and somehow remains optimistic. It looks to me that no matter what, he thinks there is no other option but to lead LiftPort to success. I really wish I can find a project that motivates me to that extent, just like him. We have very important events and business proposals coming the next weeks. We will be very busy but I’m glad we’re actively working to improve our situation sooner rather than later. Fabio Three weeks ago, (23 July 2020), the National Space Council – at the White House – issued a fascinating document. “A New Era for Space Exploration and Development.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-New-Era-for-Space-Exploration-and-Development-07-23-2020.pdf In this final video regarding the Vision of the New Era document, we chat about:
For background context, here’s what’s going to the Moon, soon!
And here’s President Trump’s Executive Order:
If you haven’t watched them, already, the six prior Space Policy videos in this series are:
Michael Laine President, LiftPort Group Three weeks ago, (23 July 2020), the National Space Council – at the White House – issued a fascinating document. “A New Era for Space Exploration and Development.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-New-Era-for-Space-Exploration-and-Development-07-23-2020.pdf In this video discussion on the new White House policy, we talk about:
If you haven’t watched them, already, the five prior videos in this series are:
Michael Laine President, LiftPort Group Three weeks ago, (23 July 2020), the National Space Council – at the White House – issued a fascinating document. “A New Era for Space Exploration and Development.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-New-Era-for-Space-Exploration-and-Development-07-23-2020.pdf As we get deeper into the details and the VISION of this policy document from the National Space Council – we’re on page 6 of a 23-page document – we explore the following topics:
And here’s one of the books I referenced about geopolitics and human space flight: “Kennedy and the Race for the Moon” – by Dr. John Logsdon https://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Palgrave-Studies-History-Technology/dp/1137346493 The four, preamble, videos in this series are: A New Era: The New White House Space Policy - #1 https://youtu.be/fjROHnaTtgc A New Era: Introduction - National Space Council Policy - #2 https://youtu.be/YiPqL9qluEA A New Era: Background & Easter Eggs - #3 https://youtu.be/bMX7WXu_ABQ A New Era: A New Vision - #4.1 https://youtu.be/hD6EibGlvVY Michael Laine President, LiftPort Group Three weeks ago, (23 July 2020), the National Space Council – at the White House – issued a fascinating document. “A New Era for Space Exploration and Development.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-New-Era-for-Space-Exploration-and-Development-07-23-2020.pdf It will influence the commercial, civil, academic, and defense space sectors – for years to come. At LiftPort, we are creating a series of videos focused on ‘space policy.’ We are working through this document – page-at-a-time, a paragraph-at-a-time, and sometimes – word-at-a-time. This detailed analysis matters. The language of this document allows other government officials to adapt programs – for and against – big space concepts. So, the wording matters. Honestly, some folks find this stuff exhausting. It’s not the ‘cool & sexy’ parts of space development. This is the ‘sausage-making’ part of doing the cool stuff. There’s a saying in the space-biz that goes: “You gotta have ‘bucks’ to get to ‘buck rogers.’” Well, to get those ‘bucks,’ you’ve got to have an overarching policy document that rationalizes WHY Congress should authorize the bucks… THIS is that kind of policy document. Money will flow from this policy, money from Defense, and Civil space, money from Research and Development. And money from private investors in Silicon Valley. And, importantly, capital from other regions of the world who are looking for the US to provide leadership and ‘political cover’ for their own efforts and initiatives. And that’s why we’re spending so much time and effort examining the nuance of this policy doc. Because it matters to our long-term program of building the Elevator on the Moon. It matters to everyone else, hoping to move humans to another world. This deep dive into national policy is a regular feature of our Channel and has a dedicated playlist. This stuff matters: all the decisions we make, internally, must be anchored in the reality of Washington DC’s priority matrix. The three, preamble, videos in this series are: A New Era: The New White House Space Policy - #1 https://youtu.be/fjROHnaTtgc A New Era: Introduction - National Space Council Policy - #2 https://youtu.be/YiPqL9qluEA A New Era: Background & Easter Eggs - #3 https://youtu.be/bMX7WXu_ABQ Michael Laine President, LiftPort Group Last weekend I got a little sick. I had some weird symptoms I never had before. It started with what I thought was a severe allergic reaction when I was having a beer after eating some fish that my roommate cooked. He mentioned that my face was a bit flushed, following that I felt rashes and swelling to the point where I started having trouble breathing. Especially since I already knew that in China there is a big problem with counterfeit things; including food and beverages (Just like the imported Chinese beer I had). But since my roommate was just fine after drinking the other bottle, maybe I had food poisoning caused by the fish? I don’t know but, I had food poisoning before (I’m from Peru), and unlike those times, I didn’t feel any nausea or stomach ache.
I drank lots of water after that and was getting ready to go to a hospital just in case. But after 30 min I started feeling a little better. And since I didn’t want to go to a COVID-19 hotspot, I just stayed in my house and rested. The next 2 days I had some headaches but nothing worse than that. By the time I wrote this blog, I felt totally healthy. This week I worked on the Website. There were many things that need to be fixed. I can say that despite the simple interface and easy CMS, Weebly has a lot of limitations. I wonder if migrating to a similar system is really beneficial or not. Anyway, I took a lot of time updating the Blogs’ part, I hope it’s useful for something in the end. Even after that, there are many things we need to work on. The temperature in Tacoma was a little lower this week, and it even rained once. On the hot days, air-conditioning is a nice thing to have. In my house, my landlord sets it for a long time, and it actually makes me feel cold. So, you would see me wearing a sweater if you come to my house this summer. Fabio |
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June 2022
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