340 miles and 12 waypoints and 3 calls
Sep. 7th, 2002 02:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jay"You've saved our whole week of fieldwork." "This has worked out far better than I ever expected." "We made no progress until you got here." These were pretty gratifying things to hear this afternoon, coming from other project leads and colleagues on site. The trip out here was certainly worthwhile...
I got up at 5am in Las Vegas, drove 340 miles to the test site north of Joseph City (got there around 11am), organized a test session, fought dust storms, got the data. Now I'm in Winslow, AZ... I stood on the corner downtown, but no attractive women driving flatbed trucks tried to pick me up ;-).
The drive was uneventful... I could cruise at 80-85mph for nearly the whole way. AR's directions were lousy (took me to a landfill !) and I wandered around dirt roads for awhile. The test site wound up being located a mile behind the landfill... on private land for which the USGS has access permits. It's not that great of a Mars analog, but wonderful geologically. On the edge of the Painted Desert area, part of the Blue Mesa formation... full of signs of ancient rivers and lakes. And awash in petrified wood... all over. Even a few logs. It was hard to not over-sample. Lots of fully agate pieces, varieties of colors and processes.. one with fine-grained structures still preserved! And water-rounded specimens, one with banding around it. ;-).
But... six inches of loose clay and silt, which made it hard to keep tent stakes anchored. As I arrived, so was a thunderstorm... as at Burning Man and other desert locales, the preceding winds carried a dust blanket. All over us and our equipment. Then rain that turned the top inch of clay into sticky mud. The spacesuit guys from JSC gave up and left... they can't handle mud in the joints of their pressurized suit. As did the communications team from NASA-Glenn.
Our ARC folks were muttering about the weather and doing likewise. I wasn't going to drive out there just to go home... so I told them that I was going to take the sim-rover out and collect images for the 3D database, whether or not they wished to come along. They did.. at first reluctantly, then with increasing enthusiasm as they began to see data and results. The first systematic data collected this week... weather and equipment have not cooperated. And they lacked leadership, someone to be a bellwether and just start out. And organization...
I got my 100m-spaced grid points in a 3x4 matrix, with panoramic and closeup images at each waypoint. And I gave AR and SD something that they could also point towards as a success after their frustrating week here.
Following an excellent suggestion from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daltong, the whole team went to the restored 1930 railroad hotel (La Posada), where I had meltingly good chile-mint lamb chops...
Then I came back to my room, feeling self-confident and generally happy with developments. But three phone calls from three friends/sweeties later, I'm down and feeling isolated and alone... sigh. I'm not going to go into specific details. Other than I will have to be quiet, suck it up, and get through the next two weeks. And the long term is unsettled in two of three cases. And APC9 is problematic, looming in November... that issue tears me at least three ways.
True to form, I can rack up successes at work, while struggling at the personal/social level.
Tomorrow, I'll visit Barringer Crater on my way to Flagstaff and thence home by Saturday afternoon. No weekend plans, other than buying groceries...
I got up at 5am in Las Vegas, drove 340 miles to the test site north of Joseph City (got there around 11am), organized a test session, fought dust storms, got the data. Now I'm in Winslow, AZ... I stood on the corner downtown, but no attractive women driving flatbed trucks tried to pick me up ;-).
The drive was uneventful... I could cruise at 80-85mph for nearly the whole way. AR's directions were lousy (took me to a landfill !) and I wandered around dirt roads for awhile. The test site wound up being located a mile behind the landfill... on private land for which the USGS has access permits. It's not that great of a Mars analog, but wonderful geologically. On the edge of the Painted Desert area, part of the Blue Mesa formation... full of signs of ancient rivers and lakes. And awash in petrified wood... all over. Even a few logs. It was hard to not over-sample. Lots of fully agate pieces, varieties of colors and processes.. one with fine-grained structures still preserved! And water-rounded specimens, one with banding around it. ;-).
But... six inches of loose clay and silt, which made it hard to keep tent stakes anchored. As I arrived, so was a thunderstorm... as at Burning Man and other desert locales, the preceding winds carried a dust blanket. All over us and our equipment. Then rain that turned the top inch of clay into sticky mud. The spacesuit guys from JSC gave up and left... they can't handle mud in the joints of their pressurized suit. As did the communications team from NASA-Glenn.
Our ARC folks were muttering about the weather and doing likewise. I wasn't going to drive out there just to go home... so I told them that I was going to take the sim-rover out and collect images for the 3D database, whether or not they wished to come along. They did.. at first reluctantly, then with increasing enthusiasm as they began to see data and results. The first systematic data collected this week... weather and equipment have not cooperated. And they lacked leadership, someone to be a bellwether and just start out. And organization...
I got my 100m-spaced grid points in a 3x4 matrix, with panoramic and closeup images at each waypoint. And I gave AR and SD something that they could also point towards as a success after their frustrating week here.
Following an excellent suggestion from
daltong, the whole team went to the restored 1930 railroad hotel (La Posada), where I had meltingly good chile-mint lamb chops... Then I came back to my room, feeling self-confident and generally happy with developments. But three phone calls from three friends/sweeties later, I'm down and feeling isolated and alone... sigh. I'm not going to go into specific details. Other than I will have to be quiet, suck it up, and get through the next two weeks. And the long term is unsettled in two of three cases. And APC9 is problematic, looming in November... that issue tears me at least three ways.
True to form, I can rack up successes at work, while struggling at the personal/social level.
Tomorrow, I'll visit Barringer Crater on my way to Flagstaff and thence home by Saturday afternoon. No weekend plans, other than buying groceries...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-09-07 08:56 am (UTC)"You've saved our whole week of fieldwork." "This has worked out far better than I ever expected." "We made no progress until you got here." These were pretty gratifying things to hear this afternoon, coming from other project leads and colleagues on site. The trip out here was certainly worthwhile...
That's excellent, and says a lot about you as a creative engineer.
Now I'm in Winslow, AZ... I stood on the corner downtown, but no attractive women driving flatbed trucks tried to pick me up ;-).
Did any slow down to get a look at you? ;)
It's not that great of a Mars analog, but wonderful geologically. On the edge of the Painted Desert area, part of the Blue Mesa formation... full of signs of ancient rivers and lakes. And awash in petrified wood... all over. Even a few logs. It was hard to not over-sample. Lots of fully agate pieces, varieties of colors and processes.. one with fine-grained structures still preserved! And water-rounded specimens, one with banding around it. ;-).
You should warn people when you're going to post erotic stories like this . . . . ;)
But... six inches of loose clay and silt, which made it hard to keep tent stakes anchored. As I arrived, so was a thunderstorm... as at Burning Man and other desert locales, the preceding winds carried a dust blanket. All over us and our equipment. Then rain that turned the top inch of clay into sticky mud.
Except for the mud, isn't that a good Mars analog? Aren't dust storms an issue there?
... so I told them that I was going to take the sim-rover out and collect images for the 3D database, whether or not they wished to come along. They did.. at first reluctantly, then with increasing enthusiasm as they began to see data and results. The first systematic data collected this week... weather and equipment have not cooperated. And they lacked leadership, someone to be a bellwether and just start out. And organization...
They needed you.
Then I came back to my room, feeling self-confident and generally happy with developments. But three phone calls from three friends/sweeties later, I'm down and feeling isolated and alone... sigh. I'm not going to go into specific details. Other than I will have to be quiet, suck it up, and get through the next two weeks. And the long term is unsettled in two of three cases.
*hug* I'm so sorry about that.
And APC9 is problematic, looming in November...
I wanted to go to that, but had to make plans, and there wasn't a clear go/no-go in time for me.
I hate mixed emotions. I wish you whatever it takes to iron out some of the bumps. . . .