jay | slogging forward

It's been a scramble here at times... I started the day at the 8am breakfast meeting today by pulling out a suede flogger and laying it on the table and joking that floggings would ensue until morale improved. It had been that stressful... one of the guys played along and offered to get me coffee, sir... ;^).

Satellite modem... flaky. Attempts to obtain another one are a struggle. The guys doing the satellite work are at risk of being laid off by their division after this project, so they're understandably tense. But that doesn't excuse bad behavior... I have had to get harsh a few times, to enforce boundaries.

Satellite parameters -- wrong. Had to get new ones issued today. Pointing -- wrong, had to realign all dishes to the correct satellite. No net access from CAB. Sunny and hot and every day has been over 100F thus far.

Phones keep breaking. Mysteriously high charges for data service. And my recently-serviced laptop is dead, the loaner motherboard is kaput. So much for *that* idea... I have moved my files from pre-trip backup over to a loaner 12" Powerbook that

sarahh brought along and that used to be the MARTE server a year ago in the museum.

My slides for next week, due today to ESA, aren't done... I've just now finished restoring the necessary files from backup on this machine, and am going to bed soon. I owe lots of responses and calls and email, and I'm simply in triage-mode, nothing personal.

OTOH... we *are* on track, project-wise, and accomplished all of our daily testing and setup goals here, and are headed southward to Rio Tinto tomorrow on schedule.

hopeforyou is in overall good shape with her training-class setup for next week. And I have several contingency plans underway to cover the flaky satellite modem.