February 24^th 1999

Well today has been what I had expected. Hectic as usual. I got out here early to set up but one of the camera crews were doing an interview so we all had to be really quiet. That meant that we couldn't turn on the generator and get power until they were done. When they were finally done, we fired it up and not to my surprise I had no Ethernet connection back to the RV. For some reason Hans took my other antenna down and I thought he needed it for something else. He also changed some things to try to get better reception form the one antenna. It wasn't working so I asked him if he had used the other antenna for something and he said no. I asked if I could use it again. He said sure and I hooked it up and put everything back to the way it was yesterday and it worked. I say to my self, why change it if it works. My policy sometimes is Don't fix it unless it is broken. That policy works in certain circumstances but most of the time modification for the better is always a good idea.

I am here in my car typing away and everyone has left it seems. They are going to take some pictures of the Rover with another suit that has arrived. This suit is not from NASA though. It is from Hollywood. These people make costumes and props for movies and what not. They are here to take pictures and also to see what this particular Rover looks like. They cut the day short today because the tracking system on the Rover is not working properly. So they are going to work on that for the rest of the day to try and get it working by tomorrow morning. The live event went fairly well. We had a few audio problems, but I think it went well overall. From what Alan was telling me, about 5 schools were watching as well as people from Ames and JSC. I wish everything went a little bit smoother than it did. We didn't get to start on time because everyone was busy with the operations. It was hard to get everything together. But we eventually got things rolling in the right direction.

I hope everyone out there has enjoyed this months broadcasts. I am ready to go home now thatÕs for sure. Only 4 more days until I return to my homeland of San Jose, California. It is currently coming up upon 2:30 now. I have some time to say a few words about the pleasant town that we are staying in. There is nothing to do here. I don't know how there could be so many people living here. It is quite amazing that there are enough kids here to actually have a school. Oh well, I guess everyone goes to Las Vegas or the Nevada border for entertainment. It is beautiful out here though. I wouldn't mind living out here if I had the money to do so. I might camp out tonight or tomorrow night. The stars out here are breath taking. It's not too cold or too hot either. The locals said that we were lucky to be out here at this time of year because if we were to come out here during the summer, we would cook ourselves to death in 120-degree weather. Well that is all I have for today. I will be back tonight to report on our current situation.

It is currently 8:00 at night. I went down to the local laundry mat and did some laundry. Some of the gang went to Barstow for dinner. I would have gone but I had to do some laundry and I was quite tired. When I came home I sat on my bed and fell asleep for a little. I don't usually do that too often. I took care of some E-mail and now I am ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow we are supposed to finish up with the testing and then start packing up. Until then, Seth here signing off.