Flight Home

My biggest comment about the flight back is that aisle seats are really boring if on both sides of you the windows are closed.

Oh, and even though it's 15C here, I'm still freezing. I'm currently sorting through pictures, to see which ones to post. They are, indeed, rather numerous.

Day 12: Guided tour of the Whipple Observatory

Today, Ken let Skippy and I go on the official tour of the Whipple Observatory which included a bit on VERITAS, two smallish optical telescopes and the MMT. Pictures to come, probably tomorrow by the time I land. This is because as I write this, I still need to figure out how to get home some of the stuff I've got. It turns out that a poncho, survey meter and a 2 lbs. bag of M&Ms (bought as a novelty, I swear!) take up considerable amounts of space in an already full bag.

Ideally, by the time I land I shall have chosen and formatted the pictures I'm going to post (there are some 200 to choose from from just today).

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In no particular order, here are three shots I uploaded from the airport while waiting to board. The first two are the MMT and the third is myself in front of the Whipple 10m telescope. If you put yourself at twice the focal length, you'll fill the dish.

On Day 11 a Mexican offered me his sister at a good price.

Today's work was pretty simple. I removed the last of the supports on the old T1 trailer such that they could move it with forklifts (an interesting sight). Afterwards, we put some conduit around some datalink cable, and at about 2 we (the Purdue guys and myself) were given the afternoon off at which point we went to Nogales, a border town.






Mexico was interesting, I bought some Coke (the drink, not the drug), which is made with sugar not corn syrup in Mexico, a poncho (which I negotiated down from 45$ to 15) and some tequila (13 bucks!). We also watched a convoy of a dozen cars, trucks and vans bellow by armed to the teeth by law enforcers (saw one carrying a G36) in quite a hurry. After that excitement, I went back to drinking my absurdly huge margarita.





Some other things that happened or that I noticed today were:

The bolt that was bleeding huge amounts of liquid:
The donkey named George Bush I got to sit on:
And a guy who threw his shirt at some girl.

I ate a fruit burrito on Day 10.

Today's mission was pretty straight foreward. I had to take down a shade... giving... structure... which was bolted down into the ground (I guess weights weren't good enough). This involved some grinding and eventually a Snorkel-Lift to take apart the roof. Subsequently, when no one was looking I took the lift high enough to use T2 as a background.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went to this restaurant that had a giant chicken in front of it. A chicken with antlers.
And I had a really strong margarita (apparently this place is known for them), and after the meal this crazy desert, called a fruit burrito. Now I am quite full and ready for bed.

Tomorrow at 3ish, Ben, Justin and I are driving to Nogales (a city straddling the US-Mexico border).

Oh, I found my pen. It somehow made its way to the car.

We're going to supper tonight, so I will upload the days activities when I get home.

Day 9(?): Back to 35 degree range

Today I got Snorkel Lift training. If you don't know, this is a Snorkel Lift:




Apart from grabbing some pretty pictures (see below), the day was mostly comprised of some heavy hauling of the last (gods, who knows at this point) of the T1 scraps.




They also moved the new T1 trailer (T1.1) to its temporary location. Inside the equipment racks are set up and tomorrow I shall most likely be installing cooling equipment and some shelves and such.

Collaboration members watching in awe.

Oh, there was, indeed, something interesting learned today: When your cocking gun explodes, you wash off your hands using a sink that gets turned on by your leg.

In what scientists are calling "pretty gay", I can't find my space pen. Had it yesterday...