Thursday. June 17, 2004 (1:00 AM)

Its thursday (just barely) and its the first chance that I've gotten to write in my journal. This trip is just so awesome! Last night (Wednesday) was our first night looking at the Fenton Hill night sky and it was absolutely gorgeous! I've never seen so many stars in my entire life! Jacksonville just does not compare. You could clearly see the milky way. Everytime I looked up throughout the night I was both surprised and amazed at the number and beauty of the myriad of stars.

(Sunday) It turned out that I was the very first arrival. I was a bit nervous walking down the security aisle, but then I saw a crowd of people with "Welcome Ned Fulmer!" and "Earthwatch" signs and my nervousness was transformed into laughter. I met all of the staff (many of whom I reckognized from the website of past expeditions) and waited for more of my fellow earthwatchers to arrive. The next two arrivals were Frank (a fellow lacrosse player) and Christina (the statistician) or at least thats what I remembered out of their bios (I was soon to learn much more about everyone. The three of us went to get our bags and got to know each other some. I think Derek was next, followed shortly by Chad and Juanama and Elizabeth (who is a yankees fan...grrr). Hannah was delayed and came halfway through lunch.

Lunch was at a Mexican restaurant in old Alberquerque where I had my first experience with sopapillas (very yummy with honey!). Pretty much on the first day we did a lot of talking, laughing, and making friends both in the restaurant and on the long drive to Los Alamos via Fenton Hill. On the way we stopped at a cool waterfall/hot springs where I did some climbing and exploring. We toured the Fenton Hill Observatory (or FHO) and found out how all of the big telescopes worked. There are the RAPTOR sky scanning 'scopes (for GRB's) and the tamagashi? and Berkley HOU manually/computer operated big telescopes, and the three schmidt-cassegrain computer/manually operated telescopes.

I think we ate at pizza hut after we got settled, but dinner was relatively small in comparison to lunch. We checked in...I'm rooming with Chad. He's a funny guy, I like Chad, we've had some good times together (especially with the video camera). That day we got to bed at a reasonable hour (after some late night frisbee with Scott, Frank and Derek and Some Random Gas Station Worker of course), but that was soon to change.

(Monday) On Monday we were up bright and early to go to the main administrative LANL facility to get our ID badges and our General Employee training manuals. It was really cool seeing all of the government stuff (Its official, I'm a DOE employee). Soon after we toured the Bradbury Science Museum and learned about the history of the laboratory and nuclear stuff in general. We ate lunch at a bar with pool tables which was really cool because they happened to be free (so I played a lot of poolskies). In the afternoon, we had our first experience with Canyon School room 168 (our base) where we learned about CCD cameras and were introduced to telescopes. CCD's are really neat, you can do all sorts of stuff like light inferometry with them. Its basically a fancy digital camera for taking pictures and analyzing stars by recording the amount of light by using the photoelectric effect. Later we attended a lecture at The Bradbury Science museum about Cosmology. I gained a new perspective of the Universe (makes me want to go read a Brief History Of Time again) Its flat, but only in geometry. Its a normal 3D universe (not like a pancake) that apparently will keep on expanding forever. It seems like he was evading my questions however. I much rather liked today's lecture on the Cassini mission better. (even though the part about "dark" mater and energy was intriguing). I'm very tired now, so Ill pick up where I left off).

Friday, June 18, (4:00 AM)

(Monday...continued) After dinner we had some time to chill out, play a little frisbee and study for our GET test (snort...yeahright). Actually Chad and I did do a 15 minute cram session, but soon we realized that a) it was an open book test b) it was midnight c) the questions were like "IF you encounter a nuclear waste sample do you 1) touch it 2) swallow it 3) Inhale It 4) Notify your supervisor, Implement the ALERA process, and immediately report to your nearest safety area" Time for sleep...so we slept.

(Tuesday) We woke up and ate a really cool continental breakfast (they had a waffle machine!!) and headed off to another Administration building to take our GET test. We took it on a computer, which was unique, and it was as easy as promised. Perhaps our studying actually paid off (Chad and I formed the 100% club). So its official, I'm one of the best darn general employees that Los Alamos has ever seen. Maybe they'll rehire me next year. Heh. That would be cool. So it took a while for everyone to finish and we were done around lunchtime and ate lunch at a place that I forgot.

Then we went up to the Canyon School and learned more about hands-on how to use the telescope. I was getting really excited for my first Fenton Hill Experience. Next we got briefed on our asteroid tracking project. Then we ate dinner...I can't remember where either (but dinner wasn't really that important anyways). Then we went to Fenton Hill for the first time, the moment that we had all been waiting for.

It was very new and exciting just watching the telescopes being set up and aligning them with stars. I started to learn the various constellations. It was beautiful, but I hadn't seen the half of it yet. The sun hadn't even fully set. Half of the stars weren't even out yet! I looked down at the telescope to look at Jupiter and after a while I looked up again and the sky was literally covered with stars. I felt like I could just stand with my neck tilted back and my jaw open forever. Well, not forever but at least every night for the rest of my life. Then I started searching for the asteroid. The telescope was slightly misaligned, so we couldn't find the asteroid right away by just inputting the RA and DEC, so John helped me on a lengthy but rewarding star hopping process and we finally found it. We identified mini constellations such as "The Little Man" "the arrow" and "the six die" and slowly went from one constellation to the next and moved the field of view to the area where the asteroid is. So I sketched it, and then an hour later I sketched it again and I actually saw it move! It was so awesome. The thought that out of all of the billions of stars you can see one, Identify it as an asteroid and actually calculate how far away from you it is. Wow. Hardwork, but really cool afterwards.

Then I watched Don, Brian, and Diego trying to manipulate the big telescope with the CCD camera (they were having problems with the alignment...they still are). We got back at like 4 something in the morning. It was simply awesome.

(Wednesday) So of course after the 5:00 bedtime we got to sleep until 2:00 PM which was pretty sweet. Then we went straight to John's office and learned about the E-M spectrum and did a followup on the asteroid tracking. We also heard a talk by Galen about how the meteor that killed the dinosaurs affected the earth and watched some really cool simulations that he made using the giant computer at the lab. Then we met Claire Peeps, our sponsor from the Durfee foundation, and ate dinner at this really good restaurant that had paper tablecloths that we could draw on. It was lots of fun, even though I am not very good at drawing things. I drew this wierd Aztec looking head. It looked like some sort of a sun god. Juanama drew her characteristic "fantasy dragons." It was good food too. We got to go to Fenton Hill again with Claire. I saw my asteroid again and it MOVED!! I drew another sketch of it...tomorrow or the next day we are going to start measurements and calculations. It was a shorter night, since we had an early wakeuptime, but it was still really beautiful (as always). After we got back I hung out in the self-dubbed "Party Room 114" (or PR114), but I was pretty tired, so I left after about 20 minutes (and some tea of course).

Thursday, June 17, 2004 (5:00 PM)

(Thursday) So after about 3:00 today things pretty much went downhill (both literally and metaphorically) however the day started out really well. Let me explain...We went on a geology tour early this morning, and surprisingly enough I was feeling pretty good in the morning despite the fact that Chad and I got like 5 hours of sleep last night (there was a late night observation session). The geology tour was really interesting, and it reminded me of a similar tour/trip that I went on last year to the Grand Canyon (the tour was given by the self-christened "Canyon Dave"). I really enjoyed learning about the history (and I mean really really old history) of the area (ex: the caldera). All of the landscape is absolutely gorgeous here and it makes me want to live here. We did everything from fossil hunting to pumice grinding to mountain exploring. I found some really cool brachiopods (they look kinda like clams) and some spi0rally looking things whose name I can't remember. We then visited a hot spring, where Derek, Frank, Hannah, and I went climbing and hiking on a nearby mountain. I went ahead of them to the top and the view was absolutely stunning! I could see for so far in almost every direction and it was just beautiful! I felt such a sense of swelling physical achievement!

Then I started down the hill. It was kinda like surfing really; I was sliding down a storm of dirt and rocks, trying to keep my balance. It was fun. Upon reaching the bottom, I bought a gallon of water and chugged about 3/4 of it in 10 minutes (though it took me another 40 to down the rest...but I did it!). Needless to say I was feeling a little bit queasy afterwards (and had a slightly less swelling sense of achievement). We went back to the hotel and got to get all de-groatified, and then went to Canyon school to work on the websites. However, I was a bit late so I started to run, but I had flip-flops on, and everything was just moving to fast and chaotic, and suddenly I tripped, but I thought I could steady myself, but I couldn't and I was falling and I couldn't stop myself, and...everything...staaarteeed...to... sloooow... doown and ..if I was in a movie there would be some beautiful actress screaming "Noooooooooooo" and I fell. Hard. I ate it. Hard. On asphalt. And it was such an embarrasing story too! The beautiful actress would more likely be saying "What a clumsy dork!" I tripped over my own flip-flops! On asphalt!! Hard!!! Ack! Why am I telling the entire world this!?! Now I see why you aren't supposed to wear them going up stairs. Ugh! It was terrible! And if that wasn't enough: once I got all bandaged up with the help of Elizabeth who was kinda like "Ew...blood!" (not what you want for first aid), I walked to canyon school and started working on my website, but then BECAUSE OF A STUPID MACINTOSH all of 99 pictures got deleted from my camera which I was trying to connect. I didn't even know that that was possible! It was the best magic trick in the world...now you see it now you don't! Hey! that's just peachy! And afterwards it gives me an error message that says something like "In order to avoid data loss, you shouldn't disconnect and reconnect your camera" Oh thanks apple, now I know for NEXT TIME! How considerate of you. Ergh! I can see it now...To whom it may concern, or Dear Apple,...YOUR COMPANY IS TERRIBLE! I curled myself up into a fetal position and cried. Of course its not completely their fault: if I had followed their rules and played their game maybe I would't have lost my pictures. Lousy systems incompatibility!

But the day got better after that, that was kinda the low point. We got to go to Fenton Hill and hear a really interesting lecture by Ed Feinimore. He was a really good speaker, and it was really neat learning all about Gamma Ray Bursts (A subject which I knew absolutely nothing about before this trip). I spent much of the time at Fenton Hill helping with the CCD camera with Derek, Brian, Diego, and Don. It was very frustrating because we could not get it to work and we could not identify our star field and we had no idea where the asteroid was and I hit my head on the counterbalance. But then I went outside again and saw a meteor and it was all cool again and I was in awe with the sky. Everytime I look up I just am shattered. (but definitely a good type of shattered). More late bedtimes, more PR114, more stomach hurting laughter.

Oh, I forgot! Remember my painfully embarrasing flip-flop story? So there was this team of basketball girls just randomly staying in our hotel and were congregating outside our room. So I was talking to them, telling them about the program, but upon seeing my multiple cuts and scratches they were intrigued. So (in my impressing girls mode) I was like crump! I can't tell them the embarrasing story! So I made up this crazy story that I completely expected them not to believe, but it would be funny and dull how pathetic the original story was right? So I said something about how a blonde bombshell was captivated my emanating masculine beauty and lost control and her stroller got accidentally pushed into the street and she was panicking because there was this semi-truck about to run over the stroller and I was like ohmygodihavetodosomething! and so I dove out into the street with a "noooooo!!" and pushed the stroller out of the path of harm, placing my own life in danger, but then the semi truck squealed to a stop right in front of me and i escaped unscathed (well...scathed, but not dead). Afterwards they were saying things like "Awwwww" and "were you on the news?" and "Did you win a prize" and "Thats so brave!" Wow I guess I have a bit of Blarney talent. I kinda felt bad for decieving them, but it was so funny and my intentions were benign (not to mention it was a testament to my acting ability). And afterwards (the next day) I saw some of them and they said "Hey Ned" and I was thinking....Whoa.

Sunday, June 20, 5:30 AM

(Friday) H'okay...so. We got to sleep in again which was pretty sweet. At 2:00 we went to canyon school and heard a second talk by Ed Feinimore which was very uplifting. It basically shattered our previous ways of thinking about science and urged and inspired us to become scientists. One thing that I really found interesting was how he said that you can (and should!) have a wide variety of interests which you can apply to your own scientific "rat maze" and solve problems. Even if I may not want to become a scientist, it convinced me that having a wide variety of interests is important no matter what you do.

Then John talked more about our asteroid and we got to do the measurements and calculations. It was really cool converting our sketches to measurements of longitude and starting to fill in all of the variables in the big scary equation. Doing calculations was actually pretty easy (they were ratios for the most part) but the derivation looks pretty hard (I'm going to try to go through it later today). It was pretty sweet.

After that we had a picnic/concert in the park that we went to which was really fun. The music was a kinda jazzy folksy style. It wasn't so neccesarily good as just relaxing music. We laid out a blanket and had a picnic. Afterwards we went to FHO, which was sweet too, even though some people did not wan't to go at all, which was kinda depressing by proxy, but I was really pumped about it. The real downer came when we realized that the sky was hazy when we got there. We couldn't even get the stars aligned at first. Ugh. Soooo...there was lots of hot chocolate drinking inside (always a plus) and the greatest part about everything was that the skies cleared up around midnight and we could do some observing. John brought out a high power lens and we could actually see a diffration pattern that was produced by a star going through a lens (because the aperture was so small). It was the circular pattern that you see in textbooks. It was really cool seeing it in real life. We also observed (through the higher power lens) the double-double star system. Two stars obiting each other orbiting two other stars. It was amazing. Absolutely unbelievable. I also got to sketch the asteroid again. I love charting its progress through the nights. I refer to it lovingly as my asteroid. When we got back at like 5 i went to the PR114 to have another tea party. Wow I am really going to be such a party animal when I get back home--my circadium rythm or however you spell it will be completely messed up. I just will not be able to go to bed at a reasonable hour after these long night observing sessions. It doesn't matter though. I'm having such a wonderfull time.

(Saturday) So another two o'clock wakeup time-beautiful. We went to Canyon School first thing again, and learned all about radio astronomy and the "multiwavelength nature of astronomy." Afterwards, we graphed the solution curve of the asteroid's radius and actually got a solution 2.69 AU!!! (or using just my data: 2.36 AU!!!). We were a bit off, but it is amazing that just with a ruler and a sketch book and a star chart you can get an approximation of how far away some celestial body is. And we weren't to far either...i think that the real radius is something like 2.25 AU. It didn't end up near Pluto or something. Cool. Afterwards, we went swimming, always fun, and had a party at Galen's house. It was a lotta fun--he had sooo many instruments. I was playng the bugle like a mad man. It made me want to buy one. I also played the drums and the cello and the flute and the sheephorn and the trombone and the hammer delsimer? I think? and the mandolin and the guitar and the- you get the point. There was also a badminton net, and well, I am the 2A gym class badminton king so I had to try it out. I love playing badminton. I should start a club at my school. After a while it was getting very windy and the bird was going all over the place, so we had to stop. We then watched a movie of a Rube Goldberg machine that took like half an our to go. It was very creative. Like art really. Then I played Derek in chess and lost, he's good, but eh whatcanyado. Then we watched Contact which was a sweet movie. I had already read the book and knew the story and there were some glaring inequities, but that really didn't matter. Rather than complain about it I realized that the movie was a really well done movie for a movie, and if I had seen the movie first I probably would have liked it better than the book...did that make sense? but as the case is, I read the book first so I like it better, but that still didn't stop me from really liking the movie. It had a charm and appeal of its own. I thought that Jodie Foster did a fantastic job as Ellie and that the special effects were really neat.

After that the party at Galen's house was pretty much over, but the party in PR114 was just beginning. At one point we had everyone from the expedition there. We were playing chess, talking, laughing, and having a good time. Then some people left and the rest of us watched the South Park Movie. It was actually a surprising mix of intelligent political satire mixed in with the crude (yet effectively funny) fart jokes and swearing humor. Speaking of fart jokes, a very embarrasing thing happened to me after the movie. So it was just Frank, Derek, Katie, and me left (the other folks left right after the movie) and Katie, who had hurt her back, was getting a back massage from Frank. Then Derek suggested that someone walk on her back, so I'm like sure I'll try it. So I had one hand on the bed and one hand on the dresser and was treading and kneading her back with my feet. It the type of experience that could only happen at 5:22 in the morning. It was very wierd and I could not help but laugh really hard throughout. Then when Frank said "work it, Ned, work it" I just lost it and fell over cracking up. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe and I was losing control of my gastronomical processes, and I definitely...yeah. Right in the face. It was so embarrasing, yet very funny at the same time. Notification of the fact that it was time to go to bed.

(Sunday) So I actually got up relatively early today to go to church. Weird because I don't really like going to church at home, but I wanted to experience a new church (Ironically the church that we went to had the exact same type walls as the one at home...wierd) and a new priest. The priest was actually a travelling priest. just got lucky i guess. He was a bit odd, but really good. It was father's day (Happy Fathers Day Dad!!!), and he really had a good message about things to do to be a good dad. He differentiated between a "father" (Biological only) and "dad" (a commitment to loving and caring). D for devotion, A for affection and D for dicipline. It was actually really inspiring--it both made me realize what a great dad I had and make me want to be the best dad possible (when I become one). Once again God heard my prayers to stop insufferable masses and boring priests.

So then all of us went to a diner (though we couldn't eat breakfast...grr.) and then went hiking in the beautiful Bandelier national park. It was a treat seeing all of the anasazi pueblos and ancient artifacts and caves. Besides the vistas were just amazing (I got pictures..hopefully they won't be deleted). I loved it. I love hiking and doing outdoorsy things (can you say eagle scout?). It was fantastic. Afterwards we went to a concert on the green again. It was simply phenomenal. The band was called the Red Elvises and they were a unique russian rock band. They were just so awesome; they had a peppy beat, an emanating stage presence, an original flavor, and really funny lyrics. All of my friends and I had lots of fun dancing (of course I daned like a crazy man, as always---breakdancing was evident as always.) I liked them so much that I bought a CD and a T-shirt (which they all signed!!!) and met them afterwards. They were really cool guys. Awesome experience. Then to top a great, relaxing day, we got to go to FHO again--fantastic as always (even though some people were tired after having gone to bed at like 6 and woken up to go to a budhist service at 7...crazy), but I enjoyed myself immensly. Having kinda finished up with the asteroid project I started indexing double stars with Christina and whether we could resolve them or not. Then I checked up on the asteroid (even though we had already calculated the radius) just because I like charting its progress so much. Derek and I actually tried to find it and we thought that we did find it, but then we second guessed ourselves and tried blinking the images and still didn't find anything. The CCD camera continues to be frustrating. We spent a majority of the way home discussing things that we should do to fix the setup.

Monday, June 21 8:00 PM

(Monday) Wow, I am actually all caught up with my journals! I just about wore out my fingers typing in all of my written entries. So today was another relatively relaxing day. No FHO tonight because we have to get up early to go to Soccoro to tour the VLA. I did a lot of website updating at Canyon school, however we also heard two interesting talks about neutrinos and the origin of the elements. Todd talked about neutrinos (another subject which I knew very little except a Science News article about the Super-K). I think, however, that the elements talk was by far the most intruiguing topic covered so far. It bridged gaps from astrophysics and big bang theory to nuclear physics like nuclear decay and chemistry (one of my personal favorite subjects). It was just really cool. Very interesting, and I understood everything that he talked about. He also had a really neat german accent. Then we ate dinner at the good restaurant (Central Street Grill ithink?) with the tablecloths that you could draw on. Always fun. Now we are updating our journals again. and as you can see...I'm updated!

Wednesday, June 23 12:30 AM

(Monday) After we finished up at Canyon School we went back to the hotel, went to PR114 to do a little powerpoint work, but I was very tired (as was everyone else) so no one stayed very long, even though we got some quality work done. The next day (Tuesday) we were up slightly bright and early for the long drive to Socorro (about 3-4) hours to see the Very Large Array. It was Very Large. I'm talkin large!!! In the A configuration it is a marathon from the center of the Array to the farthest antenna!! Whoa! It was just an amazing sight to see. When you see it in the distance, your perceptions are warped my the sheer magnitude of it. You think that they are smaller than they actually are because it a large barren plain is in front of you and you eye is tricked by distances. They almost look like childrens toys from afar, but they seem like anything but once you get up close. 82 feet in antenna diameter, they are huge.

However, this majesty is really just a facade. In the guts of these grandiose creations of man, there is an inferiority inherent. The infrastructure very dated; although it reigned supreme in 1970, by now both the wires and the computer systems are relics. They are now undergoing a massive restructuring program to put in all fiberoptic wires and replace the computers with newer components. Once finished it will be called the EVLA (strangely sounding like "evil" coincidence? i think not.) We also learned about the ALMA array being built in an international design competition (bringing out the best in everyone). They are polished like a mirror and can resolve much smaller wavelengths at much higher frequencies, and they will be set up on a high plain in Chile where it hardly ever rains. I also liked seeing the dual processes of how the signals from the radio antennas are recieved and analyzed and also how the proposals for research arrived and were carried out (on such a strict and unforgiving schedule too!). And it was also fascinating that anyone (even me!) could submit a proposal for consideration.

Wednesday, June 23 2:00 AM

(tuesday, continued)

But enough of flowery writing about radio telescopes! After the tour (which was a bit anticlimactic after a 4 hour drive) we went to dinner at a restaurant which had really really good steak (even though Frank got his really red) and paper tablecloths. As always we utilized the paper table cloths to the maximum, teaching each other advanced math (Frank taught me the basics of calculus and I taught him advanced trig). The tablecloth was literally covered with equations (it was like something out of a beautiful mind). Pretty cool; I bet that the table buser was kinda freaked out.

So then we had a long drive back (there was much sleeping). Then we worked more on our presentation then went to sleep to get ready for the

BIG BANG!!! Wednesday morning we got up and went with our Geology tourguide carrrol to see a 600 lb!!! explosion. The thing that I most wanted to see Los Alamos, but least expected to I saw!!! A big explosion!! It was so sweet. I had my binoculars too, so I could see up close. It was very sudden, 3,2,1 boom and then there was an instantaneous fireball about 100-150 ft in diameter that was completely silent. Then as the smoke was rising we both heard and felt a resonating sound and pressure wave that was very powerfull. I can see how those things could knock you off your feet if you are up close. It was very cool . A good Los Alamos experience.

Afterwards we had lunch at Quiznos' (quality subs) and ate it on the grass. Fun. Afterwards we went to LANCE to John's office to work more on the powerpoint presentation (and incidentally learn more about Fourier Transforms and particle accelerators). I've kind of becoming a leader for the group for this presentation (along with Frank and Derek) which is cool if a bit stressfull at times. Oh another cool thing: I fixed the equation in my graphing calculator (lousy + - sign) and I actually got the solution that John got with the computer -- both of them. It made me happy, because it was something that had been bugging me since I started trying it. After dinner (and some really good risotto) we worked more on the presentation. We actually worked almost all day on it, but we did a dry run on it at like midnight and it went pretty well. So i hope everything will go well tomorrow. Wish me luck. Oh, one other cool thing...so after we got done with the powerpoint, we see this autonomous speed radar. And Frank and I just looked at each other and started running at it. That lasted for maybe about 1/2 hour to and hour of solid tiring fun before we got really tired and went in to bed. My max speed was 18 mph (but I'm gonna try again) and his was 19 mph (grr.) But it was lots of fun running again (I hadn't done it in a while). H'okay, so, bedtime.

Thursday, June 24 5:30 PM

(Thursday) So today we saw several talks and even gave one of our own. First was Galens 3D asteroid POWERWALL simulations (which were awesome!!!). It was also really fantastic because it was in a secret or "clearance" facility. They had fingerprint readers and all sorts of neat secret type stuff ("wow, I'm walking on secret pavement!"). It was a very fancy theater.

Then we saw a cosmic ray talk by M Shapiro (a charming old man). He had many cool stories to tell from the 20s and 30s and 40s etc. What he was actually saying about CR radiation was not as cool as the fact that he actually had known all of these famous people that he was talkng about. Neato. Did i just say neato? Ugh i'm despicable.

So then It was gametime. Presentation time. Powerpointorama. We had me coming in wearing a toga (missing the memo about a greek theme) which was a change and really funny. That was the highlight. The rest was just like practice. "Play like you practice boys" Ryan my lacrosse coach always says. heh heh. Though we didn't have a very large audience apart from earthwatch afiliated people, there was still people there, and the presentation went just fine. Then we went to Canyon School to chill and do websites and tonight whoknows?

Saturday, June 26, 3:15 PM

(Thursday...continued) So after our time at Canyon School, Frank, Derek, Katie, Ellie, and I played some frisbee out on the field (always fun) and then all of us went to see the final lecture at the Bradbury on the Heliosphere. I thought it was one of the most interesting ones yet! It was on a subject that I knew nothing about (solar wind, the heliosphere, and the Interstellar Gas Cloud or Mollecular cloud or something along those lines), and yet it also had a more "personal" feel if only for the fact that it was talking about an object inside our solar system (the sun) rather than some big bang. I realized that eventhough I see the sun everyday there was many things that I didn't know about it. Also, the Voyager probe is nearing the Bow Shock region at the end of the Heliosphere, so it is pretty cool that as I write a satelite is approaching and collecting data on the very region that the talk was about. I'm glad that I've been taking notes on everything.

After the lecture it was too cloudy to go to Fenton Hill (boo) so we went to Galen's house again instead. I played chess with Derek again in a very long game with many interesting twists. We both lost our queens on two separate dumb mistakes and then I should have won, but because of a shortsighted move he got a stalemate out of it. It made me very mad and frustrated because it was a very long game and I should have won and no one had yet beated Derek on the trip yet. Then I watched Snatch (the alternative being Pirates of the Carribean) which was a very cool movie. Although it was littered with swearing it had an extremely good plot line with many unexpected twists and ironies. It is this type of tortuous plot that I would want to have in a play script. Hmmm. thinkthinkthink. After that the team had a "yay the presentation is over celebration" in PR114 and watched another movie by the same director (Guy Ritchie) called "Lock, stock, and two smoking barrels." It had the same swearing and violence, but also the same plot twists that I love. Funny too. Very funny movie.

(Friday) Getting up today was kinda painfull. So Frank and I sprinted two nights or so ago right? Well I was definitely feeling sore today. I stretched and oooh, definitely shoulda stretched beforehand. Its ok though, It was worth it. After that we got up kinda early to drive to Santa Fe, which oddly enough did not seem like as long of a drive as I thought it was going to be. It is a very interesting capital. No highrises, no skyscrapers. In fact, much of the central part of the town was similar to Old St. Augustine in that it had modern innards with a historical (in this case pueblo) exterior. Very cool city to wander around in. Breakfast/Lunch was also very good. Our whole table got rootbeer floats (something I had not drank for too long) and most of us got a second. There were ruminations for a third, but there were also ruminations of exploding stomachs and vomiting, so nobody got a third. I had huevos rancheros- something that I think is a bit too spicy for breakfast, but then again it was about noontime.

Then we visited a museum with an amazing exhibit about tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra (both of whom were the last tsars ever). Much of the pieces had never been seen before on public display and many would never be seen again once the expedition finished its 3 stop tour. It was so interesting! They had all of these archaic paintings and jewelry and royal items of ordinary life (did that make sense?) that were very ornate and beautiful to look at. It was a little odd that we were seeing and learning about Russian history in Santa Fe, but eh, odder things have happened to me. I made a cute picture sequence of some mamuska (?) dolls which I will try to post. After the museum we just kinda wandered around tried on clothes, did some window shopping (my favorites were the fossil shop and the icecream shop). At one point Derek and I played chess right in the middle of the mall (which had a very interesting color scheme) and our friends took aerial pictures. We were playing blitz/lightning chess (really fast) and I won (yay!), although he claims that he "wasn't playing for real" and "needs time to think." yeahwhateverderek. Excuses, excuses...work on your impulses. Pretty much after that we drove halfway back to go to a restaurant where I ate some really good ribs (and got really messy hands).

When we got back we went ROLLERBLADING!!! yippee! I had not been rollerblading since 6th grade and it was awesome. We passed balls around while we were skating, did the limbo, and attempted to play chess on a moving table while skating (it didn't really work, the vibrations kept moving all of the pieces around). There are some really funny pictures on the pictures page. It was a lot of fun, and just made me sad to leave on Sunday. That night I checked my messages on my phone and decided to call my family (even if it was 2:00 in the morning for them) and at least leave them a message. Lo and Behold! They answered the phone and I got to talk to them! It turned out that grace was having a sleep over and was awake anyways! What luck! So I got to talk to them, which was just great, and then I came in for the end of snatch again (such a great ending) before going to bed.

(Saturday) This morning we got up once again relatively bright and early to go to FHO. It was really weird looking at the site during the day. You could actually see where you were going! It was a little sad, knowing that we won't be able to go to the site to do anymore nightime observing on the trip (due to weather), but I've had such a great experience it doesn't really matter that we won't spend that last night at Fenton Hill.

What we were doing was some radio transmitting! Don brought out his amateur radio set and we got to transmit to people around the country! It was really neat! The Los Alamos club had posted an ad in a radio magazine, so we were officially dubbed as a "Special Event Station" and people were clamoring to talk to us. We contacted people from as far as Mississippi to British Columbia! Phenomenal! Talking was actually really hard, because I didn't know what to do. You have to keep talking in order to "hold onto your frequency" and when you don't know what to say it can be pretty stressfull. Don was saying "Go, Go!" and "I was thinking, and replying 'Whadoido?whadoido?" I got the hang of it after a while. Afterwards, we made our own radio alphabet (instead of Alpha, bravo, charley...etc.); it is quite amusing. Also today I got backed up mail! Four letters!! What a surprise! it was awesome! I am so glad that I got to read them before I left. Thank-you Lee, Annie, and Gabrella (two letters from Gabriella!). Your letters made me very happy. Then it was threatening to storm, so we went inside and John and I went on the cool Xephem program on his laptop and found imagaes and computer graphics of all of my sketches so that I can paste them into my notebook. It was really neat: I think that I am going to download that program when I get home. Furthermore, we positively identified a star as the asteroid 11 Parthenope on my last sketch (which has been ambiguous) and then made a printout of the entire FOV for the 5 nights that we tracked the asteroid. Sweet. Then I played some spoons, worked on my website and tonight I am not quite sure what we will do? Galens house maybe?

I am very sad to be leaving tomorrow. This entire trip has been such a fantastic experience for me. It has been truly majestic seeing the multitudes of stars and entirely captivating learning the physics (not to mention enormous fun in the times in between!). Thank you so much Don, Galen, John, Todd, and Earthwatch for giving me this wonderful opportunity and amazing two weeks of my life.