Houston, Phoenix Has Landed

Filed Under Personal

I remember my friend Kendrick and I drove through Los Angeles to either sell or buy something from a person Kendrick connected with on Craigslist. I thought the whole idea was a bit odd at first.

On our drive through Los Angeles, I think we took the 110 Freeway and got stuck in traffic. We stopped and I got the bright idea of jumping out of the car to take a picture of Los Angeles and all its glory. I jumped out and took a picture and Kendrick drove forward about 2 car lengths. I ran up and jumped back into the car. Ah, how I could remember seeing a driver staring at me and probably thinking I was out of my mind. I was just out of Kendrick’s car.

We eventually got through traffic, made it to the home of this Craiglists person, Kendrick bought or sold whatever (I think it was a computer power supply) and continued out our way to Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for some major event (I am almost certain it was the landing of the Mars Rovers) or some lecture about them or something related to robotics/space.

We reached the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) and for the life of me couldn’t find JPL. Come later, I learned that JPL is not next to CalTech like I thought. We drove around for miles and miles, we asked a group of CalTech students who didn’t know what the hell we were talking about and as day turned into the night and the event started and ended, our journey concluded.

I was bummed out by the entire experience. After Kendrick dropped me off at home, I Googled JPL, realized we were in the wrong place and then took a nap in frustration.

Fast forward to today and my spirits our soaring. The Phoenix Mars Mission has landed! In a nutshell: “Launched in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission is the first in NASA’s Scout Program. Phoenix is designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian arctic’s ice-rich soil.”

I am stoked to see what Phoenix finds! Check out http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/ for the latest information!