A quick run to Madrid

Yesterday I had a meeting at the Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB) in Madrid, so Monday afternoon I left Rio Tinto around 4pm for the 600km (400 mile) drive. I also carried Dave and Nancy back there, where they caught a flight to Amsterdam. Then returned back to Rio Tinto after the meetings, arriving yesterday (Tuesday) evening.

( Car, CAB, Roman photos )

Parodies-r-us

Now remembering the goofball reporter that called me on 9/26, just before I left for the field... I should have known better. Apparently this week's local entertainment tabloid (San Jose "Metro") includes a story poking fun at Mars robotics in general and parodying the subject. I haven't seen the story, but am apparently mocked, misunderstood (intentionally?) and taken far out of context... and I apparently "badly need a wedgie", as quoted by a co-worker via email. I haven't seen the article myself... just as well I'm in Spain, I suspect.

(no subject)

The drill is broken again, in a different way... I'm now caught up on all of the cores that have come up this week. Time to practice for my talk, I guess...

We're either inundated with incoming material (drill working) or sitting on our hands (drill busted)... griping about the results of the California recall over breakfast, and ongoing... it is hard to explain to the Spanish how that process, in which someone that receives 33% of the vote defeats someone with 47%, is democratic. Once again, I feel like an apologist abroad ("not all Americans are ignorant or that easily manipulated, honestly...").

Nifty webcast

It finished about 45 minutes ago... did anyone see it? It was fun... I was sitting on a hilltop, broad vista behind and with a drill 100m away. I cut up a bit, tried to be lively, and a couple of the students said (via chat, they could comment or ask questions) that I was the best speaker thus far :-).

We even ran a live software demo... on a laptop, on camera, on the same remote hilltop. And there were a lot of fun questions from the 500+ college and HS students. And I hit my timing, neither over-or under-time.

A novel twist: translation into Spanish was done in real-time by a remote translator, who listened in one ear while speaking. Who was located in Peru...
( photo of crew at the site )