Manipulate the data!
Preflight:
June 15, the last day of school, which apparently is about two weeks after everyone else is freed, and the day before my departure to Los Alamos. We signed yearbooks and watched movies, etc. I had packed the previous weekend, minus a few last minute purchases from Walmart. Wow, what a feeling to be all packed and ready to go on what seemed like quite the adventure. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I kept an open mind about it.
June 16, the day of my flight to Albuquerque. My flight was scheduled to leave from Syracuse at 7:00 AM. Syracuse is about an hour away from Oswego, plus you have to get to the airport an hour early, and an hour to take a shower and eat made me wake up at 4:00 AM. I don't know about you, but I've never seen nor have I ever heard of such a time; I always thought that the clocks went from 2:00 AM to 7:00 AM, similar to how Santa Claus stops time and delivers all the presents. The last thing I remember was being in the airport and the lady at the desk asking me if I had any person, unknown to myself, asked you to carry a package on the plane or if my bag was left unattended at any time.
When I landed at Atlanta I was soon greeted by a "Jon, Jon Darvill?"
"Yes?"
It was David. After small introductions, we got to talking about ourselves. Then Beth arrived, later to be known as "The Jerk", but we can get into that later. We boarded with me and David practically across from "each other and Beth way in the back.
When we landed, we were greeted by Galen, Don, Donna, Megan, Matt, and Dana. It was about 12:30. Corrie and Elyne, (known to us as Elane, Eline, E-man, Ellen, Eleen, or such other mispronunciations from "E'lin") were yet to arrive. Corrie was on time, but Elyne's flight was delayed about 2 hours. When we finally got everyone together, along with their luggage, we packed into the "oversized government van". We went to an authentic Mexican restaurant, which was quite a thrill for someone from New York, where Taco Bell is about as authentic as Mexican food gets.
My first experience as a mountain goat:
After we finished eating we went to Soda Springs, where I found that I liked mountain climbing. It was really fun until, on the way down,I ran into a 20' vertical while still in lateral motion. With one foot hanging over the edge I stopped myself. Through this traumatic event, believe it or not, I lost my fear of hights.
June 17, we had a really cool tour of the Bradbury Science Museum, including replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man (not to mention . . . "Fiesta ware!" the radioactive China of yesteryear). Later that day, in that same museum, there was a talk given on Fenton Hill and Earthwatch, including the eight of us telling a little bit about ourselves. Even later that night, we talked to Don about the CCD camera, a device that takes pictures by counting actual photons of light entering in different places on the lens. We were all a bit confused by subtraction of defects and division of flat, aaaahhhhhh.
June 18, we listened to a heart-wrenching talk by Ed "the Cow-Elk" Fenimore, in which all of our science schooling was ripped from our bodies and quickly replaced with some other mumbo jumbo, THANK GOD!
These are some quotes taken from the room:
"Science is not a tree."
"Science is like a MAZE!"
"Myth: The scientific method is effective."
Important:
"Most papers are wrong."
"Scientific papers are excepted, ironically, because you trust the author."
"Everything you read isn't the Bible!"
"Don't be a lawyer." ("Try to prove yourself wrong.")
"Science needs creativity." ˆ Galen Gisler
Most interesting talk I've ever heard.
Need I say more . . .?
That night we went up to Fenton to observe. Little did I know what was in store for me. I started with the smaller telescope, which worked fairly well; I got several measurements and saw a whole lot of beautiful stars and other astronomical stuff. Then I went to the larger telescope, in the AstroDome, poor choice. I spent the rest of the time coaxing the telescope to talk to the computer. When it flipped out and started pointing straight back to the ground, I was convinced that it was possessed!
(Note to self: in astronomy, if you have something that works, STICK WITH IT!)
June 19, we heard two talks, the first from Jim Wren and the second by Jeff Bloch. Jim talked about the ROTSE program. Jeff talked about the Interstellar Medium. "All elements in your body, except hydrogen, have been in a star."
That night we went to ROTSE I to make observations. Jim helped Matt and I saw M85 and nearby galaxies in Coma Berneces. This was our first hands-on experience with the CCD camera, cool!
June 20, we went on the Tsankawi archaeology hike with Diane Roussel-Dupre. There we saw mounds of dirt where, supposedly, Pueblos used to be, wow. Later, however, we saw some shards of ancient Indian pottery. That was really cool. We got to walk around on a Mesa and find pieces of history. That night we went to Fenton with similar results as before.
June 21, we went to Galen's house for a BBQ and his surprise birthday party. It was a lot of fun. We played all kinds of strange instruments, from Brazil, Australia, and other places around the world. We also played Badminton, picked cherries from his cherry tree, and watched Gattica.
June 22, we went back up to Fenton, where I got quite a bit more done than the last time. I stuck with the smaller telescope and took a bunch of double star resolution measurements.
June 23, we heard Lawrence Krauss on the physics of Star Trek. He talked about the forces involved in going at warp speed, the problems with hearing explosions in space, and gravity on star ships, as well as the amount of information that would need to be stored in order to make a transporter work.
Afterwards we took the 43-question OPEN BOOK General Employee Training test. We all passed, did I mention that it was open book, with flying colors, although, even it being an open book test, Matt was the only one who aced it, oops!
Later, we heard about asteroids and tsunami from Jack Hills. He told us some numbers from different past collisions and probability for different size collisions as well as the damage inflicted by sized asteroids, all the way to the end of life on this planet!
June 24, we went on a four-hour "oversized government van" ride to the Very Large Array, VLA. Scientists are so creative, aren't they? It was really neat. We got to climb up into one of the dishes. Man, they're huge!
June 25, we went with Carol Hogsett in the "oversized government van" around the Jemez Mountains, while Carol told us about it's the history of the mountains. We saw natural pumice, cow-elk, and Hot Springs.
Later that day we heard a talk on the Northern lights by Geoff Reeves.
June 26, we went to Fenton Hill where I got a lot more done than before.
June 27, it was Gay day in Santa Fe, where we happened to be touristing. After we looked around, bought gifts and souvenirs, ate at a really good Mexican restaurant, and heard the YMCA song by the Village People for about the 30th time, we went to see a college production of Hamlet. It was really, really good. I usually can't follow Shakespeare too well, but this was great!
June 29, we heard a very interesting talk on neutrinos by Todd Haines, which was really complicated, and I won't even try to explain it.
June 30, what can I say . . . we left!
These two weeks were very stimulating and a lot of fun and I'm sure that next year's team will carry on the tradition.