Thursday May 7^th 2009. Launch -7 days and Counting.

The stress level is rising. A week to go. However well prepared we are, we know that this time it is for real. The Boss is getting increasingly nervous because he is the guy who will get the blame, correctly or not, if anything goes wrong here. We know that we have done as much as we can, but there is always the horrible feeling that we may have overlooked something somewhere.

The revision of the documentation is slow, painful work. There are a lot of places where I have to stop and check if a detail or a piece of information is correct, or still valid and many places where what is written is out of date. We need the final version of the program to finish the manual and, even as a result of the revision of the manual we are finding small changes that need to be made in the program.

This evening is the internal football tournament. Each mission or group will supply a 5-a-side team and compete for honour on the tennis court. Signor Peppone and I had to decide: football or golf practice? My strength is still very limited and today I have had little breakfast, no lunch and two round trips to work and back. Several games of football would just go beyond my physical capabilities. Instead Signor Peppone and I enjoyed an hour out in the countryside hitting 150 balls each. I have to dominate my hybrid 3-wood before the ESA Golf Championship at the end of the month. Early signs are only moderately promising.

By the time that I got home I was almost too tired to stand up. Something that I ate last night disagreed with me and my digestive reacted somewhat violently this morning. Had a couple of sandwiches and, glory be, did not suffer for it. Early to bed, utterly exhausted, half way through the film “Entrapment”. A wonderful film. Sean Connery is superb in it as a gentleman thief.