Team Jefferson

Click on the photo to get your own Tommy Jr. on Second Life, courtesy of Sun Microsystems.

Those who are following the other race coverage closely know that it was announced that Team Jefferson, among others, had been eliminated from competition.

Tony Tether phoned Paul last night and told him that he had decided to pull Team Jefferson in a sweep of phase 2 eliminations. The team and its leadership felt disappointed. The initial indication was that teams would run twice in each test area before any elimination decisions were made.

Today was a tough day. Our night was spent mounting a new vertical laser to better detect the railroad arm that had caused impact our first time in Area C, and when we arrived, the railway arm was gone. A rumor circulated that Mojavaton had complained, citing the rules and the California driving manual, but no verification.

Janie and I stayed out at the J.D. Pierce site with Paul and Mike Myers until about 1 AM on Monday morning. Paul returned to testing at 5 AM.

Sunset brought us back to the pit to find Dave Rubarsky right where we left him. He had "fixed some things" in lieu of sleep.

Today's format was a repeat of yesterday's. Mike Myers and I hit reconaissance in Area A first thing: merging into moving traffic, which was today's challenge for Team Jefferson.

Professor Cahen worked recon in Area B, which is tomorrow morning's challenge for the team.

Area A is cool to watch. A large loop of moving cars that start and stop on command: the tightly choreographed stunt drivers serving as robot fodder. The way this group would move and halt reminded me of the Visa commercial which has the diners coming to a screeching halt when some hapless customer uses cash.

I am usually wide awake by 6 but today, I think the entire team was tired as we left at 7 AM. George Cahen's favorite the night before - the "Olive Garden" - was the fuel that carried us into the day.

DARPA's military bent was evident today with an "0700" opening ceremony. There was a soupcon of irony here, since DARPA had decided to make this a "non ops" day, pushing our involvement with the treacherous "Area A" back by about four days - not a bad outcome.

We've made it to the semi-finals, and it's been busy, busy, busy. As we have time, we'll do updates, and on a regular basis we'll post photos to our Flickr photo stream. You can see the most recent photos on the right-hand side.

Dirt and Desert. Its everywhere here. The dirt, dust, and unction all seem to combine to leave a film on your skin. Nothing seems to grow but tumbleweed and some very twisted palms.

There are quite a few houses being built out here - but few yards - stones or dirt generally. The orange moon rises and sets on a martian landscape.

Testing continued all day at our residential site, having commenced around 8 AM. We took a break to swing by Best Buy for parts, and the Victorville base to pick up our credentials and scope our pit - which was eerily vacant.

As my plane touched down in Ontario last night, the smoke, fog, and smog seemed to be lifting. People in the town of Hesperia seemed relatively calm, the CNN reports were becoming calmer, and the Santa Ana Winds were certainly becalmed. A blood orange sunset, the color of flame, was an unruffled reminder of the fires still burning a few miles to the Southwest.