I'm a little bit behind on this whole journal thing since it's day three already, but I'll try to summarize the events in some form that makes sense. On the first day, even before we got to Albuquerque, I had already had found Sam and Ching Man before we went on the plane and later found Joe on the plane. We talked a bunch and got to know each other pretty well. Once we got to the airport we found the Earthwatch team already with Gar, but no Amy, Caitlin, or Jon in sight. It turned out that Jon missed his flight but Amy's was running on time and was going to arrive later and Caitlin shortly showed up after us. While we waited, we decided to get our luggage while waiting, once Amy came along we went and ate at some Mexican restaurant at the airport which had the best salsa I've ever had. Then we waited for Jon… and waited… and waited. About an hour and a half later, Jon finally arrived and we left for Fenton Hill. During the trip we got to know each other really well and all had a good time, everyone just kinda blends together. We had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs on the trip. When we arrived at the Hill (which is really more of a mountain), we a tour of the site and the equipment, then went back to our room, settled in, then went up and talked with Amy and Gar, then decided to play Frisbee, which was difficult because of the dark using a dark blue Frisbee

The personalities of each of us are really unique, The mentor teacher people seem really relaxed and understand that we also want to have fun here, but the vast quantities of stuff that they know in itself gets our attention and keeps us asking questions, all of which (so far) they either know or no one alive does. Ching seems really quiet and shy but welcome to conversation. Jon seems like one of the normal hillbillies when you talk to him at first, but once you get to know him and get past his accent (laight instead of light for example) he's really cool and understanding as opposed to the typical ignorant hillbilly stereotype. We're rooming together and so far had no problems and are having a great time. Amy seems really cool and just wants to have fun, but says some odd things no one would be caught dead saying in Jersey (Wicked). Gar is also really fun, but lives in California and people in Cali are crazy and say stuff like funky, another thing we wouldn't say in Jersey… ever. Amy, Jon, Gar, sometimes Ching, and I all normally stay out (much) later than when the rest of the team sleeps. Amy and Gar are picking up Jon, Joe's, and Caitlin's accent, which is really odd, considering, we've only known each other for a couple days. We typically just go to Amy and Gar's room and hang out, talk, play cards, or go outside and try to play Frisbee with a dark blue Frisbee in the dark. Joe at first appeared to me as one of the biggest brown nosers I know, but he really is that polite and nice which is surprising. That doesn't mean he's not fun to be around, he has a lot of great stories and games that help pass the time quickly. Sam seems to like to joke around and just have fun too, like we all do.

On the second day we woke up and went immediately to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in order to get our badges so we have permission to go into certain areas. After forgetting my social security number like five times, we all finally got our badges and went back to the hotel for breakfast. The breakfast was to be expected from a hotel, decent food but not amazing. After that, we went to the Bradbury Science Museum and got lectured. The lectures aren't nearly as bad as the word 'lecture' makes it seem they all have life in them and are entertaining. The lecture was about the history of Los Alamos, which was WICKED interesting; it turns out that this laboratory was the one that worked on the bombs that hit Japan to end World War Two. Once the lecture was over we hung around the museum and had fun with some of the exhibits. When they told us we had to go to the school, we went. At the school we were taught about CCD cameras, which are basically digital cameras that tell how many photons an object emits per pixel. We then went to lunch at some restaurant which had a sign saying it was 'Nuke City' which I thought was funny. After eating we came back to the school and were taught about the asteroid that we were supposed to be finding 532 Herculina. Once that was over we went to the grocery store and split up into groups of four and had a lot of fun making each other try everyone else's exotic foods that no one ever had before. And we got a watermelon we named "Bucky." We then went back to the school AGAIN and were taught about how to work the telescopes that we are using. Turns out it's much more difficult than it seems. After this last talk we finally went to Fenton Hill and got practice setting up the telescopes and maneuvering them, but it was very cloudy so we mostly just laid around and hung out looking at the sky trying to find constellations that we could recognize which was limited to the big dipper and the north star part of the little dipper. At about 1:00 AM we decided to pack everything back up and go back to the hotel. There Jon, Caitlin, sometimes Ching, and I, all hung out in Amy and Gar's room until about 3:00 and then we split up and went back to our room and slept, but Jon forgot something in their room and didn't "find" it for nearly two hours! Then we came back and slept.

The third day rolled by and we woke up to the good news that we were going to have Chinese food. Once we got there we found out that Joe never had Chinese food before. We finished breakfast and then came back to the school once again (it's like our home away from home) and was taught about naked-eye astronomy by Frank, then how to tell time from the moon by Patrick. Once that teaching was over we then went to the Central Avenue Grill which was WICKED fancy. About four of us had the same thing which was kinda funny; penne pasta. Once we all finished, we went back to the Bradbury Science Museum and were lectured on Solar Weather, which was WICKED interesting. We then departed to Fenton Hill again and attempted to find the asteroid for the first time, which was… an experience. We ended staying up until 4:00 AM at Fenton Hill. Finding the asteroid was very difficult, we first attempted to just go to the general direction of the asteroid according to a star map, but the night sky makes us see things. At around 1:00 AM we decided to do 'star hopping' which is very, very, tedious especially when you go to a different star than you think you do. Star hopping is when you move from one star or set of stars to another, making like a 'chain' in order to get to the end. At around 3:00 we finished, put all the stuff away by 3:30 and stayed up until 4:00 to see Venus. Everyone except me slept in the car which was FUNKY. When we got home we all went straight to sleep.

On the fourth day we all met in the lobby after waking up (well… some of us) and discussed where to go and what to eat. We decided on Bob's Bodacious Barbecue, which had an ugly front so we were wary when entering, but the food was good; I had ribs. We then traveled back to the school for another lecture by Frank on Heliocentric cosmology, which was more or less an extension of the previous lecture we've had by him. After that John told us how to use our data we got from the previous night to find the location of the asteroid relative to the two stars, which is called linear interpolation. We achieved this by estimating the distance between the asteroid and a known star, then adding / subtracting the minutes and seconds from the known location. After all the "fun" math, we went roller blading and played around in the back playground, which was a lot of fun. I ended up getting a huge blister on the arc of my right foot and a small one on the left, which will give pain for many days to come. From there we went directly to Fenton Hill, after such an exciting and fun day we were all pumped to see how fast we could get the asteroid, we got there at about 11, and within an hour we were taking our first measurement. A substantial increase from the 4-5 hours we took the day before. And an hour later we took our second and last measurement of the night, but stayed out there for another hour just hanging out.

When the fifth day began, we went to a Mexican restaurant to get food and then took it to the park and ate it. After some of us had our food we threw the Frisbee around and after that we left and ventured to Scott's school and took a little field trip around there. Once that was over, we decided to take a trip to the correctly named "Black Hole," the home of EVERYTHING and ANYTHING, literally. On the way there, however, we encountered something I've never seen before, nor could have foreseen in the summer in New Mexico; HAIL! It hurt. After the black hole we went to the Bradbury science museum (BSM) for another lecture, but this time on neutrinos. Never heard of them before and it was interesting, but went WAY over our heads. From there we went back to the hotel and hung out a while then went to sleep.

And then the next day rolled by. We woke up early for a geology tour which was okish, it began very slow, but when we got to the interactive portions (picking up pumice and finding fossils) it was a lot of fun, but was hot and with a lack of water, slightly annoying. When we got to the Soda Dam it was also a lot of fun, Sam, Jon, and I went hiking a bit, but it got late and we decided to come back. After that we went back to the black hole, which was a lot of fun again, but everything's so expensive. Jon and Sam got ripped off on a motor and a volt regulator. We then played Frisbee again and then went to Quiznos, which was okish. It toasts the bread but nothing on the inside, which is a disappointment. We followed that up with more Frisbee until another lecture at BSM from our Dad (Frank, our Mom's Scott). Following that we went and saw a movie, went to the park, and talked for a little while then went back to a room and hung out (again) for a little while, then slept.

The last day of the week began with a lecture from John on more calculations of asteroid orbits. Once that was through (Dad was late so we didn't start with him), we got lectured by Dad when he came through the door about light, the electromagnetic spectrum, and how to use that to determine the properties of matter. Then we went to Don's house for social, played an exciting game of charades which was very, very fun (ny). After that, we decided to go swimming, which was a good time. We went back to our rooms and hung out for another hour, then slept, it was a short, fun, day.

Jon and I, at least (Sunday = church, we didn't go; I'm not religious and he didn't want to go without his family), woke up at before noon and was over at the Canyon school to meet and have a lecture by Patrick on planets, people, and other products of stellar evolution. Then we had a short discussion about the theoretical extent of astrophysics, which only ended up in us finding out that it was impossible to see from the beginning of the big bang and around 300 million years later. After that, we at lunch from Quiznos again which was okish, again. We then went to the Bandelier National Monument, which was really cool and fun, climbing 140 feet is pretty thrilling, I'm surprised everyone made it up to the top. We also saw a lot of Native American ruins, which was very interesting. And funny, big curved branches = sexual innuendo. Once that was through with, we went to Fenton Hill to observe messier objects. We ended up drawing one of each type: Globular Cluster, Open Cluster, Spiral Galaxy, and Elliptical Galaxy, then huddling together for warmth for an hour or two, then returning home and then we slept.

We woke up Monday and immediately went to the Canyon School for (another) lecture, but this one was on galaxies, which was pretty interesting and was by a previous LANL Earthwatch student 10 years ago. From there we went to Santa Fe and had a lot of fun, I ended picking out two vials of gold and silver (one of each) for my brother, and a small bracelet for a graduation present for my sister (it's the thought that counts!). Then we went to Scott's (mom's) house for another social and had fun eating and playing pool, but it was too rainy for basketball so I was kinda disappointed. We then went to an Opera, Carmen, which was good, but in another language which was distracting. Joe, however, probably thought it was the best thing ever considering he got another two hours or so of sleep (as far as we could tell by the loud snoring). The ending was… bad… but that's not the actors' fault, that's the playwright's. Then we slept.

Tuesday we woke up early to take our four hour trip to the vlahhhhhh (VLA). I slept a lot of the time on the trip there (around 50 minutes according to how far I was on my Ipod), so don't ask me how it was, check another journal blog thingy. When we got there it was kinda confusing, we went to this one building to say hi and go to al bano (the bathroom) then got back in the van to go to another building to say hi, then walked to one of the radioscopes (radio-telescope, a word I made up). Once we were at the radioscope we put on hard hats and walked up there and took pictures then went in and on the dish. The. Most. Bright. Thing. Ever. It reflects all of the radio light to one central thing which further reflects and funnels it down, but it doesn't only reflect radio light. It's like standing on the sun without the heat. Then we waited for the other group to finish since we only had like 12 hard-hats and ~18 people wanted to go, two trips… yeah). We then went to the gift shop and since I'm a Jew (no offense to anyone reading this) with money, I didn't buy anything. On the trip back I was depressed because my Ipod died and sleeping didn't work that well due to me being big in a tight spot. The highlight of the day was, by far, Joe numbing his own leg by holding it in an odd position so when he got out of the van he completely collapsed, got about three pictures that make him look drunk, but I'm not going to show you them because I'm four days behind and lazy. Then we slept.

Wednesday we went right to the Canyon School for a Lecture on gamma ray bursts only to find out that no one knows anything about them, which was kinda FUNKY… getting lectured and told that no one knows anything. We, then, worked on our presentation until lunch, then we went to this Canyon bar place and while some of the other people played and watched pool, Gar and I talked with Johno and Cass (the person who lectured us on not knowing stuff about GRB's) about returning here for a summer job, turns out we'll make a hefty sum of monay. We'd also be paying rent and boring stuff like that, and the summer home things they offer here are little more than caves, so they suggested rooming with someone else with a family who will rent out a room to us (if the don't mind of course. Then we went to BSM for another lecture, then we headed out to Trinity's Beverage Co. We, then, went to Fenton Hill, which was, again, very cold. Odd that it's more cold in New Mexico at night than New Jersey (As far as I remember). Anyhow, we were supposed to be looking at binary stars and finding out which we could see and which something prevented us from discerning the stars from one another. Then we slept.

Thursday we woke up, worked on our presentation, ate, worked on our presentation, ate, then worked on our presentation, then we slept.

Friday we finalized our presentation to as good as we're going to get it, then ate, then did a dry run, then further polished it, then did a dry run again, then fine-tuned it, then presented it at BSM (yay! We're being the guinea pigs and get to be the first ones to present it to more than 5 people… instead we're doing 40 people! Yay!) The presentation went over very well and we got a lot of good feedback, but there weren't too many people there… maybe 10? Once we got through with that schpeel, we left for a hill for a jazz concert and had a fun game of foosball, but everyone spun! Sooo annoying! Spinning ruins the game and makes it more about luck than skill, but that's for another rant. Then we went back to our hotel, then went to play frisbee in a parking lot which had lights (!!), then went for a long walk, then I swum with Gar and Joe which was fun, but I got hit in the nads twice by Joe when we wrestled so, needless to say, he won those two rounds.

Saturday! The day before we leave! Jon and I woke up to the pleasant surprise of Gar and Amy knocking on our door and asking us if we wanted to have breakfast at Nuke City, which isn't very good and we started running out of time so we went to McDonald's which was good. We went back to the hotel and hung around for 15 - 30 minutes, then left for Fenton Hill to broadcast radio transmissions which was interesting, would have been more fun if we were the ones talking though. Then we ate and checked out this neutrino finding facility thingy nearby which was really cool. Then we left to go to this department store where I bought these chocolate coated coffee beans which are VERY addictive, then we're here blogging for the last time.

BAI2U