Mars Pics not in news
Saturday, January 31, 2004

Amazing Mars Rover pictures that I had not known about.

This one shows the rock outcroppings near Opportunity very sharp with a different filter from the main press released pictures. I feel these rocks offer a potential breakthrough in Mars research. And it seems amazingly smooth terrain to get there. Pray to the software gods...
"Left Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 4 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 12:24:16 Mars local solar time, camera commanded to use Filter 2 (19 nm). NASA/JPL/Cornell"

I didn't know they had a plaque that says "Red Rover Going to Mars, Hello" with a picture of a what looks like a Lego space man waving hello?
"Left Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 2 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 12:35:27 Mars local solar time, camera commanded to use Filter 1 (25 nm). NASA/JPL/Cornell"

A test of the microscopic imager. Nice macro res!
"Microscopic Imager Non-linearized Full frame EDR aquired on Sol 2 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 12:07:39 Mars local solar time, Microscopic Imager dust cover commanded to be NULL or N/A. NASA/JPL/Cornell/USGS"

>>> more here
---------------------posted by Caleb John Clark on 1/31/2004 01:51:00 PM


Keene, NH
Friday, January 16, 2004

I'm settling in in Keene, NH. Here's some pics.

Place
Nature

My roommates are great, just what I was thirsting for. They are all at Antioch graduate school, or have been there, and of the same ilk - natural fibers, active, limited means, but safely nets, minimal high quality products used thoroughly, tough fashion, healthy food, but not freaky limited. Used to community living, shared phone message books, cleaning, sharing space, mostly with very little discussion. I finally got DSL and wireless, as the 4 roomies were happy with dial-up, two of them actually sharing one line voice for voice and data, yelling down the hall if it's open or not. Deep breath.... Things are slower here. We rent movies, walk across the street to the neighbors to watch cable since we don't have it. If they are not home we go in anyway since all the doors are unlocked.

My job is lively and challenging by I'm all energized from the walking around all day and not being at a computer much. Teaching is great, staff development is hell, as is the chaos of a new school. It's like the hippie school I went to as a kid, except with laptops everywhere and I'm in the meetings I used to see the teachers in after the meetings were in got out. It's definitely increased my metabolism moving all day, no desk jockeying anymore. I'm lucky to get two hours on a computer in any given day. I've started a moving making class where I've made a full crew to make one movie at a time because we've only got one good editing station. It's 8 boys and 2 girls they all got it quick and picked jobs. I made the most physical trouble maker the Stunt Coordinator and he's taking it and running with it like I thought he would. He's decided we can't blow anything up because he doesn't trust the kids to be safe! The crew is ready to make what ever our writer writes, which made me very happy because that means they are a real crew, separated from content and ready to work. We're going to make a short spot for the school to recruit new students of the type that will work in the environment. We started shooting a sword fight today and it was a blast. I christened the production with a new roll of duct tape, which we immediately needed. First problem was that the DV cameras were locked up and the folks with the keys were out due to the cold and a 2 hour morning delay. The kids panicked and gave the day up for dead. I coached them on rolling with the punches and we used my little Canon still ELPH camera set on movie mode and just pretended the boom bike (a broom handle with a cheap mic duct taped to it)Makeup, camera, grips, stunt teams with mats and spotters, all yelling at each other and rushing to shoot a few scenes in 30 minutes after our 20 minute meeting. But I had coached the director and he had a good script totally professionally formatted, so we ended up doing great. I just walk around whispering in their ears about what they should say, like to the AD "before you tell the director you are ready to roll, ask the stunt coordinator if he's ready." then to the stunt coordinator "ask your two mat spotters if they are ready and make eye contact with them."

My journalism class, titled "publish or perish" is writing letters to the editor, all with the mind-set to get published and figure out how best to do that. Letters to the editor are amazing because they are no factual, they are opinion, and thus provide amazing freedom to take a strong feeling and craft it with the editor in mind. And editors love it when kids write in. I gave them 40 minutes to write, proof and send their first letter and they all made deadline. The best one was by a gear headed 15 year old who loves to race. With my prompting he crafted a short piece called "The Need to Speed" where he put forth his feelings that teenagers need to speed in cars, but they don't know about the local track where they can legally. He's been racing there since he was 9 and said it keeps him from needing to speed in town around others.

Life is slower here and people definitely are hear to slow down a little. Several times I've had people remind me to relax or slow down. People around Antioch are very environmentally sensitive, educationally possessed, white, and liberal. Great folks, even if some of them are anti-space exploration. There's talk of land trusts, solar power, teaching, and everyone seems to have been in the Peace Core. The Keene State students are your average solid mass of small town frolicking undergrads. The townies are still townies. Some dumb and mean, but most savvy, smart, strong and not interested in saving anything, college, big issues. Generally the feeling seems to be that if you just them their tools, be it cars, barns, cows, wood, steel, trucks, dirt, etc. and time work unmolested by managers, systems, meetings, paperwork, etc. they will get the job done, and done well. And they seem to reach a very enviable state of content when working well and on clear terms.

I feel that way about the meetings, process and systems around teaching. Tell me what to teach, and how we'll know they've learned, and I'll do my job. If the kids are not learning what I'm hired to teach, then we'll starting meeting and staff developing. So much time in all aspects of life is wasted by not having clear frameworks within which people can be totally empowered to succeed for fail by their own hand.

It was sunny out at mid-day last weekend, this is mid January. The sky is blue, cloudless and the blazing sun bouncing off the snow hurts your eyes. Out side it's a balmy 6 degrees. That's not a typo, 6 degrees. I walked to a dinner party last night about 10 blocks from my house and it was 15 below zero. I got lost because I couldn't see the numbers on the houses. I went through snow banks, slipped on ice, and ended up having to use a flashlight I brought, which meant I had to take my gloves off. By the time I was inside with the wine and cheese, I was barely able to talk because my face was stiff and my finger tips burned with cold. It's one thing to visit a cold place, but another to live in it. Spring and summer will be savored in ways I've not done since I was 17. They will have high levels of meaning and context, compare and contrast.

---------------------posted by Caleb John Clark on 1/16/2004 10:04:00 PM