On Thursday I'll be going up to Brown Univ for a seminar and lecture by Alan Howard, of the Univ of Virgina. He's a fairly prominent researcher on Martian flow features. He'll be doing a brown bag seminar on "Inferred Flow Properties in Modern Mars Gullies", then a formal lecture on ""Deciphering the climate of early Mars based upon geomorphic evidence".

Any questions anyone here especially want asked? Nick, any zingers to throw at him?

I really should make more use of living near a top planetary sciences department. I'm especially kicking myself for not noticing that back in October, one of their departmental talks was Dave Scott discussing his experience doing geological field work on the Moon (Apollo 15)!!! Plus their honcho grande, Jim Head, seems to share my interest in sampling all the beers of the third planet from the Sun, so he can't be that bad a guy.

I hope it's good. I'll be passing up an end-of-semester dinner with my old department at MIT -- alums are welcome because they dream that we might donate money someday -- but at today's gas prices faculty club chicken doesn't quite justify the drive to Boston and back. The free Sam Adams might, but then driving home would be a problem....