Crazy Going Slowly Am I

I had to look back on previous posts to see when was the last time I left this immediate vicinity.  May 14th.  That was two weeks ago today.  I've walked to the nearby town a couple of times, but that's it.  And to add insult to injury, I was talking with the vice chair of the field station today who was shocked that I'm stuck here.  He assured me that this area is fine for foreigners to visit with no problem.  He said there's no reason for me to be stuck here all day - they have international visitors every year and have even had people go wandering off to work in the depths of the desert by themselves with no Chinese colleagues with no trouble.  He very kindly offered to take me up to the mountains tomorrow when he and his team go to collect data, but I had to turn him down since our rodents arrive in the mornings.  He said that if any police question me for anything, it would be to make sure that I'm safe and haven't been robbed or anything, because apparently the police would get in trouble from their supervisors if anything happened to me.  He thought the whole thing about me being stuck here was hilarious and offered to speak to Professor Zhang about it and reassure him that I am fine to travel around this area, but now I'm afraid of offending anyone if they felt questioned about the decision to keep me here all of the time.  Apparently no one actually spoke to anyone at the field station about me traveling in the area - I'm stuck here on the paranoid gut instinct of the retired professor in charge of our team. I respect him enough to not question his decision, but it frustrates me knowing that I don't *have* to sit in my room all day.

  *BUT* at least I'm not stuck with three other people on the international space station with no functioning toilet in zero gravity.  Things could be *far* worse :)

So yeah, that's it.  The rodent collections are going fabulously well.  We've encouraged the economic development of a Kazakh family who runs a collection of desert field sites under the Ministry of Forestry.  They live about 60 km away deep in the sands.  There are about 8 men, and they've got 4 all terrain desert four-wheelers.  They've gotten quite excited about this whole rodent catching business, and they seem to be perpetually on a mission to better the previous day's numbers.  The first day they got 4.  The second day they got 14, but they were all killed fighting amongst themselves, so we paid only a pittance since the understanding was that the animals would be provided alive.  They learned their lesson after losing so much money, and so by the third time they captured a bunch and housed them all in individual compartments so that we got 20 live animals.  Last night they caught 30, and tonight they're hoping for 40.  Of course, they're getting paid about $7 per animal which is not a bad deal for them.  So we all win!

If you wanna see something *really* hecka cool, this is a pic of the Mars Phoenix lander being photographed by the Mars Orbiter.  I've seen it online described as "a speeding bullet being photographed by another speeding bullet." Science rules.

P.S. to Jenna:  We might *actually* have to get on Facebook now that the Chinese Prime Minister has his own profile.  Or we could set the standard to "I'll do it when Cliff gets his." :)