Right - time to pack and head out to the airport for two weeks away - I doubt I'll have the chance to check in while I'm away ( and actually the idea of two weeks away from the 'net all together is quite appealing! ) - first holiday in > 3 years so I'm very much looking forward to it. If you live within about 100 miles of Malaga, look out for the stupid Brit in a Clio driving on the wrong side of the road

Nico (nix) is the man to speak to if you have any trouble - and Jason, Bjorn, Michael and Alan are the Moderating team. Panic not - steps are in place to make sure that the place is backed up regularly in my absence.

So, be good, be creative, be whatever it is you've been for the last 2 years that makes this place so great and I'll see you in a couple of weeks!!


Doug

Have fun

If we happen to have a party while you're away we'll try to ensure we get the stains out of the carpet before you return...

Chris

Sure, watch on both sides before crossing the street!!!It was the crasiest thing that I have benn when I visited in London. Before crossing the street, stop and watch both ways. My brain does not work like to britons. Your case, the driving, your brain must be processing at the twice speed with your Hazcam turned up in advance.

Rodolfo

It helps to have two people in the car. When a buddy and I were tooling around Ireland some years ago, the passenger would always shout "left-left-left" when we were making a turn. Apart from some spactacular swerving when turning onto O'Connell Street Bridge in crowded downtown Dublin, we pretty much had it down after two days

Have fun Doug, you deserve the break. Send us a post card!

I think chances for a party in about 4 days is very high

Something about a certain rover and the number 669...

I chanted "left, left, left, left, left..." the whole time I drove a rented car in Australia. Actually I did pretty well -- but I kept on turning on my windshield wipers instead of my turn signals!

Have a terriffic time Doug, you deserve the break! --Emily

... and don't forget to enjoy spanish "tapas", "paella", "jamón" and all those great dishes.

Someone should send him a message while he's away noting that we created an "A1ien Abducti*n" section of the forum and it's getting lots of attention and plenty of new members.

Time of your life, eh, kid?

-the other Doug

I'll get my Bob Seeger CD. Who wants to dance in their skivvies?

Its a long time since I've been called that

My father has the right approach - at the age of 80, he says he never actually grew up, and is a "tired child".

Chris

PMSL!

Bob Shaw

Sounds like my morning commute. Spectacular swerving around the intersection at O'Connell St and the Quays is about par for the course for any poor sap who as to do that on a daily basis. I don't have to deal with that particular lunacy but having spent 10 years in Africa I still have difficulties coming to terms with the level of chaos that is accepted as normal driving here in Ireland.

>Someone should send him a message while he's away noting that we created an "A1ien Abducti*n" section of the forum...

Let's create that new section and surprise him. I know where the Menu is hidden...

--Bill

Arggghhhlllll....tempting.

Be good now

Nico

Evening ladies - where's my cold slice of Pizza

Driving on the wrong side of the road was actually - quite cool It ended up being a little VW Polo instead of a Clio, but we watched Dolphins jumping thru the Med before heading off to the Airport yesterday for the flight home - and we got to see some great geology up in the Sierra Nevada ( pics at a later date, but I found a jumbo version of Larry's Lookout )

Congrats and Kudos to the Admin and Mod team - they did a great job of looking after the place, I wasnt worried for a moment - honest

Doug

Hello Doug, nice to see you back. We'll tidy up in the morning, honest! That two weeks went rather quickly!

Welcome Home Doug

I'll recommend taking a look at the latests flight director updates to begin with

AHh - I cheated mid-holiday and checked the MER site, the Athena site, Emily's Blog and saw the Director Update - very cool I thought

Doug

Welcome back mate

Chris

Welcome back Doug.


Be reassured, there was not many kooks during your holydays, just me.

Hola Doug,

I hope you enjoyed Spain.
Welcome back.

YEAH WELCOME BACK TO YOUR FORUM!!! Post some pictures from your holliday...
Everybody is doing it so why not me....

Welcome back!

Are you going to launch www.mannedspainflight.com for your vacation pix?

Nice one!

Welcome back Doug, you have a lot to catch up on...

James

Doug:

Ole, Ole, (Lets go)

Vale, vale, (It's true)

Por favor, Por favor, (Please)

Gracias, Gracias, (Thanks)

Welcome back to unmannedspaceflight.com

Rodolfo

http://www.rlproject.com/spain_pan/
Some quick-n-dirty-pans I've done, plenty more to come


Doug

I know I'll be dismissed as a nutcase for saying this, but I think there are some indications that might point to life (unintelligent, of course) in those images.

Going on the standard of driving around there - I'd certainly argue against intelligence

Just added - http://www.rlproject.com/spain_pan/sierra_3.jpg - the jumbo Larry's Lookout I mentioned

Doug

I can see the shadow of the Pancam on that! Very nice shots Doug. Hope you had a good holiday. It seems like the place grew by about 50% while you were away.

Well - November was busy - the most new members in a month since the oops-I-turned-off-guest-access-screw-up of early '05 - the most posts in a single month (4238) and Spirit and Opportunity forums are both about to break thru the Half-Million-Thread-View mark
Opportunity
499913
Spirit
494878

And the total is at 1.911 million thread views

November was a good month generally - 18755 unique visitors (new record up from 13k in April '05 ) 47,877 visits (new record up from 33k last month) but maintaining a fairly steady bandwidth at just under 30 gig a month.

It's all good

Doug

Yes, I suggest reading the last 15-20 pages of the "What's up with Hayabusa?" topic. That Nov 24-25-26 thread of the final sampling attempt... with the bizarre automated translations, the running gag on accumulating Lipovan-D bottles, our own discovery about what Lipovan-D was, the possibility that the JAXA blogger was reading this forum and reacting to our comments, and our new members from Japan helping pass info and translate the official statements, etc. It was really an incredible, engaging all-nighter watching all that occurring! The suspense, the hilarity, the wonder!

-RedSky

Doug,
RedSky sums it up pretty well in my view. An interesting feature is that with members around the globe we maintain continuous coverage of specific events. In my case I had to leave the unfolding Hayabusa story alone for almost 20 hrs but when I checked in again it was all there - not a single gap in the storyline.

Unmannedspaceflight.com - the place that never sleeps .

Peter

And, by the way, Doug -- we were talking about sending you an e-mail telling you that we had added a new board, AL1EN @BDUCTIONS (purposely mis-spelled here to avoid unwanted Googling), and that we had pulled in just a LOT of new members, and you ought to be proud of us for attracting new people...



-the other Doug

Still waithing for that images...don't worry if they are not perfect...just post RAW ones and somebody will enhance them...
Some guys are doing it here just for fun...including me...

No, it is SETI@HOME

Only just seen the piccies from Spain. Lovely pans Doug, keep'em coming!

I love the dam-pan!

Nico

WHERE ARE THE PICCIES?!?!?!?!?
Not only in your mailbox NIX I hope....

There isn't some part of this site that's hidden from us (me) , isn't there Doug?

To have Doug's images from Spain, open an topic "manned Earth mission".

Where is that?!?!?!
There is no such topic!
Are you guys kidding me?
Doug ???

Well, I think this thread's previous page is accessible to everybody, right?

There isn't enough stupid looking smiley to put in here
Found them!!!

Beautifull images Doug but where is "quick-n-dirty" part?
Those images look exelent...

Tree-like greenish shapes at background are due to permafrost, fiber-like images at foreground are asbestos-like rocks, the blue thing at left is the back shield, the shadow at foreground is the pancam so THERE ARE ONLY ROCKS in this picture, you kooks

As Redsky and Harder note, things went well and to a large extent that is due to the professionalism of the membership in addition to the atmosphere Doug has created. The unfolding Hayabusa story is one example, another is the mobile dust at Mogollon. Last week someone posted a tricolor image by Oppy, someone else noted that there was a depression in the dust, someone pointed out that the shape of the depression had changed over a week's time, and the drama developed from there. This is the group effort that makes UMSF work.

--Bill

And, in keeping with our usual high standards of imagery, here is a reprocess of your sierra3 photo...



--Bill

Amazing, some of the details that you can bring out with that "special processing"...



-the other Doug

I can't find separate L & R images, so it's virtually impossible to know the size of all those things.

Well, I did some sort of "guesstimation" of that blueish (may be gray?) feature to the left recognized as the backshield and it looks very small. It seems quite difficult to pack anything inside of it.

Click to view attachment

Thanks Bill for the processing, we can now better understand this scene, and the reddish sky is more realistic.