Day 3

Good evening folks! Coming to you from Mars this Christmas day. There's a right nasty wind blowing outside. We latched down the telescope dome because apparently it has a tendency to blow off if not attached by something. I felt very not safe doing that, though. There's barely any ledge to stand on to get the rope into the eye holes around the rim of the scope. We managed to do it, but with the wind it was nerve-wracking.

Derek has gotten most of the software working on the telescope, so now I can do observing from the actual telescope dome. The idea is to have the telescope remotely controlled because it's really freaking cold outside at night, but at this point I can start performing science if the weather clears up.

I've been constrained to cooking duties because I'm not really much use elsewise. My science takes place at night, and right now with the weather it's not looking pretty for my science objectives. Hopefully it will clear up soon. Although, I probably wouldn't be able to observe anyway because the moon is so bright.

David has spent all day cleaning the latrine. I admire his stamina and his willingness to take on jobs he knows nobody else would want to do. He's an amazing commander for us, very upbeat and wonderfully enthusiastic.

Derek's having some frustration with the telescope and making it do things, but he's been plugging away at it for a good while now. I'm so grateful that he's as enthusiastic about the observing as I am, otherwise I never would have been able to get anything done. I know nothing about computers.

Jeff has also been awesome. He's spent all day on his back under the HAB trying to get the black water system working. It's a nasty, dirty job, and he's such a great person for looking at it.

Auvi's music is awesome, and he's working on a humanoid robot during his 'free' time. Zena is coming up with suggestions for a compost pile in the GreenHab. The entire crew is busy and working well together.

Jeff brought a tiny Christmas tree which we've set on the table. It's a bit light, and is knocked over easily, so we made a rule where if someone knocks over the tree they have to sing a Christmas carol. Auvi doesn't like that rule very much and is giving the tree wide berth. David and Jeff don't mind singing which is good, because they are the ones that knock it over most frequently (we're trying to get Derek to knock it over).

I'm going to try to catch the mouse during some of my observing runs if we can get the HAB computer synced up with the observatory. Perhaps we can make it the HAB pet. Hopefully there's only one. We watched Firefly last night, the pilot episode. Apparently it's become a bit of a tradition, since the rotations are 14 days and there are 14 episodes. The crew before us left a list of the Chinese translations behind to read. Some of them are very amusing. I hope to take a sponge bath tonight, I'm starting to smell.

Happy Christmas!

End day 3