Today is one day before my one-year anniversary at the Mars Space Flight Facility, and also one day after I finally got something else launched that the public might have a remote interest in.

Yesterday we sent out the official press release about our Suggest an Image project.

In a nutshell, for now you can go to the site and download a KML file to load into Google Earth 5. This file shows you where the Mars Odyssey spacecraft is going to be orbiting over the next week, and lets you suggest areas on the planet for the mission planners at my office to image with the THEMIS camera. If you've got the Google Earth browser plugin installed, you can also try this out without ever leaving your browser.

If/when the spacecraft takes the picture, we email it to you, and it looks something like this.

Eventually (i.e. when the Google guys get around to it) this will be a feature in the Mars Gallery in Google Earth itself.

For those of you interested in how this is done with Drupal, I did a writeup here.

Demonstrating the application at JPL's Open House earlier this month:

Good job ASU students! When you're not rockin' out to bands in the middle of the day next to the library when kids at other universities are studying, you're getting the leader of the free world to throw the shocker!

It makes me proud to be associated, even remotely, with you.

(Yes, I'm aware of the pitchfork gesture, but I think this is a very grey area).

Came in this morning, and the entire central part of our building ... reeks of cat piss. Apparently this happens whenever it rains with any vigor, due to the crazies that are raising colonies of feral cats under our building.

I watch them feed the little buggers outside my window every day. I'm tempted to "accidentally" dump water on them one of these days.

Thankfully, my office is not in an area affected by the stench. Yet.

Yarns have already been spun by MSFF old-timers about the unholy aroma that permeates the building when one of the many cats actually dies in the crawlspaces. I cannot wait to experience that myself.