February 8^th 1999

Mark Leon and Damien Canerot have joined me.  They came in to town last night at around 2 
in the morning.  I came back into town from the bay area at about the same time, maybe 
a little bit later.  The day has been eventful for us.  First we got to the site and the Rover 
was already out in the field.  We wanted to get video back to the encoder in the RV from 
the landing site.  Hans had mentioned the wireless video transmitters that we could use.  
We started to get things ready for that.  We finally got it hooked up but it was interfering with the wireless Ethernet on the Rover.  So we disconnected that and proceeded to set up 
the other transmitter on the other camera for our use.  We disconnected the other camera 
and connected our camera to it.  It worked out well.  Although it got somewhat windy and before we could brace the tripod the camera was on its side.  I quickly ran over and made 
sure it still worked.  One piece broke off.  

Luckily it does not have a very particular function to operation.  Also the casing of the
camera was not looking quite right but it still works so that is what really matters. There are some other new people here as well.  They are here for spectrometer readings and other geological testings.  I proceeded to do biographies on them as well as take their picture.  Their names are Jeff, Ted, and Keith.  Oh another interesting thing that happened today was that Jeff's friend came by and he was just going to say goodbye but he go stuck in the sand in the process.  His truck lost four wheel drive and so it was up to me at the time to pull him out of the sand.  My trusty Chevy proved to be worthy of the job.  For anyone that cares I saw a little lizard today.  I took a picture of it.  You can see it on the web sometime soon.  When I went back to the Bay Area I brought back with me my mountain bike.  So far I got to use it once and it seems to be a lot faster than riding in the truck, or even running.  I also ran around too.  Need to get that exercise somehow.  

Right now I am sitting here in my vehicle.  It is getting dark.  It has been rather
nice in regards to weather today.  Right now it is very windy though.  It will start to
get cold pretty soon.  I have noticed that the very few bushes that are here have turned 
to somewhat of a more greenish color.  It is nice to see more color in the desert.  It must 
be from the rain we had here a couple of days ago.  I wonder if it is still raining in the
 Bay Area.  When I left the weather was not good at all.  I took a number of pictures today.  
I hope you people are enjoying them.  The next couple of days should be interesting.  As 
the days go by it seems that we are getting closer and closer to more exciting stuff.  
Well I must think about packing up and going back to my room now.  I hope to bring you 
more information as time passes.  

This is Seth signing off.