(smithville, MO) why??

and they sell t-shirts. i will give it to whomever gives me the best offer in the comments on this post.

(dc) global warming revolution

hi. we are starting a revolution - our target is north american and chinese youth. we need to help the youth demand that they (and the polar bears and whales and ice) will have a planet to live on in 50 years. i hope you will help. as a first step, do everything you can to go see gore's movie, "an inconvenient truth" and go with large groups of friends. try to ignore the things about it that are annoying (a thousand shots of gore looking pensive, the fact that it seems to be a movie more about him than about the problem, etc.) and really pay attention to the message.

i really really hope you will help. if enough people help (especially americans), it will make a huge difference.

as a second step, do the things that gore suggests in the credits. well, first of all, watch the credits till the end. use energy efficient light bulbs. take shorter showers. consciously use less toilet paper. recycle (even if you have to go out of your way). turn stuff off when you don't need it. consider buying a hybrid car. consider becoming vegetarian. take the stairs. use natural light when you can. stop killing everything in the rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans with bleach - buy environmentally friendly products. write to congress (this site tells you how) and tell them you care about the environment. walk or bike when you can. use rechargable batteries. if you can, consider converting your house to solar energy. and if you're really feeling ambitious, learn about the science of global warming.

we are facing the task of changing our consciousness and becoming aware or our impact on the world as individuals and as the most wasteful nation on the planet.

if you're reading this blog, you've got time to click here and read a bit about global warming. educate yourself. find things you can do to help. this is not a political issue - it's an issue of survival.

today i realized that it might be hard, on first glance, to see what i really care about by reading my blog. this is something i really care about, and i desperately want others to care about it too.

(dc) beauty pill

i was wondering why i hadn't heard from my friend chad lately. turns out beauty pill is on tour. if you're anywhere near any of these places, check them out. they're great.

(dc) i like matt

he's awesome.

(dc) koby snaps a a moment

we take a short break as we pack the trucks for the caravan back to santiago on the last day at yungay. i'll finally post more chile photos this weekend.

(greenbelt) goddard culture snippet

i love that i work in a place where, when people walk by in the hallway, the things that filter into my office are words like "spectral signature" and "doppler shift."

(*dc) sweetest memories

photo by john conley

(*bed, dc) how do they do it?

i'm still sick, but i finally got antibiotics today. my throat was hurting and head exploding so badly i couldn't take it anymore. after a week of this misery, within a few hours of taking the antibiotics i started feeling human again. how do they work so fast? it's astonishing. and it's not like it was a powerful antibiotic or anything. just regular old amoxycillin. all praise modern science.

we think it's a sinus infection. i wish i'd hit it with the antibiotics on tuesday or wednesday. i might have been able to work last week.

my throat still hurts, but my head is clearing. should be good as new by monday.

(*bed, dc) ahhhh

(*dc) sick

sick

(*bed, dc) sick

still sick

(bed, dc) sick

i have a nasty bolivian virus. i feel awful. fever, sore throat, aches all over.

(santa cruz, bolivia) behind

i've been putting off writing more details about chile because there is too much to write and i'm overwhelmed. but today i will sit and force myself to write it all up, or i will no doubt forget a lot of the little details that made it so incredible. the images are so slow to upload, i may wait till i return to supply pictures here.

like the way alfonso and nick saved a butterfly that was drowning in chocolate milk (was it chocolate or just milk?), even though cassie said it was already dead. (look at that sweet face)

and the way alfonso made expert donuts in the desert to generate dust then raced ahead to catch the cloud.

and our new experiment (version 1.0) with the ladder and laughing at ourselves

and then the improved version 2.0 with john's tripod

and hunting for dust devils

and our brief time in calama (the way we drove in circles looking for the church, the way we radioed blindly to cassie and john, whom we were supposed to be meeting "in the church square" to swap pierre for john, the way we teased pierre, the way they finally showed up and john took pierre's place (and food) at the croatian restaurant on the square, the way we randomly saw the long TV spot about our project and watched ourselves on TV at the restaurant, with my image and alfonzo's voice, the way we were low-grade celebrities after that with people recognizing us from (national) TV in multiple cities, the gorgeous drive down the coast listening to grupo yanquee, the way everything made us laugh)

there's just so much to write.

i don't know where to start.

(santiago -> santa cruz) oxygen

i had an eventful journey on my flight from santiago to santa cruz. we had
to go through la paz, where we had to take all our
stuff off the plane and go through customs and then
reboard. towards the end of the santiago-la paz leg,
a guy i'd been chatting with in the airport before
the flight (who happens to be a pilot for the airlines
but was just on a trip visiting his brother) came back
to my seat and asked me if i'd like to go into the
cockpit. this is something you never get to do
anymore in the states, so of course i jumped at the opportunity. he said to
bring my camera. i had just been sitting in my seat
looking at the pictures from yungay. the
memory card was full but i took the camera and we went
up the the cockpit. when i got up there, we were just
flying over calama, so i took a picture of it for alfonso
from there. my new friend took a picture of me with the
pilots and the instruments. then they let me stay
there for the landing! i'd never done that before in a 727.
after we landed in la paz everyone was getting off and i had to
make my way back to my seat. i grabbed all my stuff
(SO heavy) and left the plane. when i got in the
customs line, i started to feel woozy - light headed
and nauseated. i made it through the immigration line
and started feeling worse and worse. there was a
bathroom right next to the boarding area, and i sat in
there for a long time on the toilet with my head down
between my legs. i felt like i was going to pass out.
i dind't know if i could get up. finally i thought
if i dont' get up i'm gonna miss my flight, so i got
up slowly and barely made it out the bathroom door and
onto the floor. i was right next to the line of passengers, and
everyone was staring at me. i guess i didn't look so
hot cuz people were coming over to me and saying stuff
to me in spanish with concerned looks. i couldn't think straight enough to
tell them i didn't speak spanish. someone rushed away
and came back with an oxygen mask, and that made me
feel a lot better. an american lady who spoke spanish
really well started translating. eventually they
wheeled me back out to the plane in a wheelchair and i
got back up the stairs and into my seat. but when i
got back there, the plane was full and i realized my
camera was gone. i don't know exactly what i did with
it, but i think i accidentally left it on the plane.

i'm so sad to have lost all those pictures. there were some really good ones of our experiments.

when i arrived in santa cruz, we stayed behind and
filed a report, but i don't have much hope of finding
the camera. the guy who had invited me to the cockpit
spent some time asking the plane-cleaners whether
they'd found it, and he also had someone go back into
the airport and look, but no joy.

i hope he writes me and might be able to keep an eye out for it on future trips through la paz.