Thursday, March 25, 2010

Day 4

Went to bed early last night, as I was pretty tired from being in the sun, and fell into a series of dreams. The last one I remember, was at a party at a friend's lakehouse, and there were bunk beds. Waking up in my bunk bed, I totally thought "I need to go get my towel off the dock" and proceeded to get out of bed. When I realized I was in a tiny cubby in a tin can, I realized I, in fact, was not at the lake, and still at Mars Desert Research Station. Had to laugh. Just to further smack me in the face, I tripped on a bucket in the kitchen that was meant to catch "Snap". It didn't catch the tiny mouse, but it did catch me. Epic fail.

Yesterday was a little bit lazier day, which was welcomed. After breakfast, I settled into my bedroom with my book series, Dead until Dark, and didn't get back up until lunch. Made myself some lunch and was catching up on some work when I heard Dan yell, "WE'VE GOT MAIL!!!" I ran downstairs to find my beloved radio equipment in the Airlock (thank you DG!), which I promptly hugged and sent up the stairs. Billy, Chris and Eric suited up with the help of Dan and Jessica and went out for a "temperature sensitive EVA" to determine what kind of clothes were necessary under the suits to keep warm while on ATVs. After their test, they came back in, reported it was pretty warm out (55 degrees) and they were ready to go on their way. The boys then set off on their more purposeful EVA...mapping the roads by GPS on ATV. Billy noticed when we were out the other day that some of the trails did not match up with his GPS, and being an avid navigator, decided to develop it into an experiment. While everyone was busy, I set up the base station of the radio equipment, and realized two of my antennae and my jpole were missing. Unfortunately, we cannot launch the repeater and get any signal without these. I set up the repeater in a pelican case and set aside; then began charging the radios themselves. Everything is connected, charged and ready to go, minus a solar panel that is attached to the hab. I will go on an EVA today to retrieve this panel and will also start hauling the repeater box out through engineering to get it ready for when the other packages arrive.

When I completed, everyone was either asleep or reading, so I grabbed my book and headed out to the trailer, which is in a pressurized tunnel. Got some sun, and then came up to finish my book. The boys returned from their EVA and I helped them take off of their suits. Cooked dinner, which consisted of rehydrating pasta alfredo with shrimp, as it was a non-cooking day. Needless to say, I look forward to the cooking days where I can actually come up with something creative and tasty. After dinner, Chris taught Jessica and I how to play poker (with paperclips for chips), and I was actually doing very well (beat out four of the crew members), but eventually lost to Dan. The crew played a couple more rounds, but by the third I retreated to my room to write a couple of emails and get some rest.

Quotes:
"This isn't worth my paperclips"-Dan
"Oh you friggin tree, you better not come over here!!"-Eric, playing some game
"I don't like being big blind. I can't see"-Jessica
"You walk outside, and it actually feels like you're wearing clothes"-Billy

Plans for today:
-Mapping EVA
-EVA to launch repeater/grab solar panel
-Cooking!!

Off to enjoy french toast and get a start on the day!

Jillian
Crew 93- XO

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