My backyard with the rising Christmas Eve full moon

Well,  I’ve tried to be good.

If you’re a long-term reader of the blog you know I’m at home this year, here in absurdly-warm (60’s) Novelty, Ohio.   Given I’m MUCH closer to the North Pole than the field team,  I’ve sent off the letter to Santa below, in the hopes he’s feeling generous.

Dear Santa,

It’s hard for a scientist to understand how you objectively measure “naughty” and “nice”, but whatever your model or analysis, I hope you find ANSMET in the latter category. Our field people are the meteoritic equivalent of your elves,  gathering fantastic goodies that the planetary materials community can find in their stockings (providing they put in the correct requests,  wait a few months, and don’t actually put them in stockings).

Assuming your discussion/interpretations/conclusions results in “nice”,  I’d like to ask for the following for the field team.

-For Morgan,   a full season, recovering lots of colorful, sparkly and oddly-isotoped specimens.

-For Nina,  good connectivity, at least one salty, hydrously-altered sedimentary martian meteorite, and Shiny!

-For Brian,  that “guiding Trump up Denali” gig next April.  The bidding war for guiding him back down should be lucrative.

-For Con,  a strangely warm meteorite that smell suspiciously of sulfur.  Maybe with a label “Made on Amtor”.

-For Ellen,  a specimen that’s just one big CAI made up of concentric layers of condensates, with a big interstellar grain in the middle.

-For Cindy, a mistake in the 2016 NASA budget that funds lab and curatorial support in perpetuity at 0.1% GDP.

-For Jim, a piece of amphibolite exactly the shape and size of a hockey puck. And the smallest dose of John’s respect (too much is dangerous and intoxicating)

-For John,  a healthy field team, flights on schedule, unbreakable snowmobiles that get 30 mpg, and absolutely no excitement as other “leaders take charge”.

What do I want?   For the field team I want everyone to have a healthy, happy season with lots of meteorites every day and good weather that makes the season seem to go by quickly (that’s for me, too).  For all our friends who study the meteorites we bring back, continued curiosity,  good funding, and a new mystery in every rock.

And for everyone else,  peace,  safety,  and contentment through the holiday season and beyond.

-rph