P-MAN X Update #19 - Mixed bag
10 March 2008 - Monday

Okay - my stuff first. Since today's plan was to meet up with Simeon and be led to the crash site that he's found on Ngeruktabel, and since hiking on that particular island is more like technical rock climbing on a mountain made of broken glass, I assessed my skill level and cut a deal with the team last night to stay behind in Koror and do some administrative stuff, rather than slow everybody down on the hike. I'm not an adept climber, and there's no question that I would have been a drag on the team.

We had built a shopping list, so I spent some time restocking the larder. I also sent a package to Betty and Jerry Holler, Bob Holler's parents, containing a little token of JPAC's esteem toward Bob that I mentioned in an earlier report. And found some batteries for the laser pointer that we've been using during our briefings in the Ready Room. And picked up some water refills at Neco.

One of the principal tasks that I'd set for myself was to visit the PALARIS office (Palau Automated Land And Resource Information System, sort of like our Bureau of Land Management) and try to acquire scanned versions of the huge USGS topographic maps that we use in analyzing our target sites - we've been using a version that was published in the early '80s, and there's purportedly a new version that was released shortly after the turn of THIS century. PALARIS has a monster scanner, so there's a chance that we can talk them out of electronic versions. So I walked into the PALARIS office. The lights were on, but nobody was home. Nobody. There was, however, a sign on the door that said EVERYONE in the office was off at a two-day seminar, and won't be back in the office until Wednesday.

Another task was to see if the National Archaeologist, Rita Ulsudong, was back from her trip to a conference in Washington, DC. She was. She actually got to spend a half day at the National Archives' College Park, Maryland facility, and seemed happy to have had at least a brief introduction there. She wants to go back.

But the main reason for my visit was that we need to do some additional business with Rita. When we submitted our original formal proposal to her Historical Preservation Office, we didn't know of any potential targets in the states of Airai and Peleliu, so we didn't include those two states in the list of places for which we requested permission to conduct searches. Since we arrived, though, we've gotten leads about targets in both states, so we need to amend our Memorandum of Agreement with HPO to add Airai and Peleliu. At Pat's request as the team walked out the door this morning, I had drafted some words about this addendum. I showed them to Rita, and she suggested something slightly different, and the inclusion of a map to indicate the areas where we want permission to search. So I came back and took another shot. We'll see if that works.

Dull enough for you?

Flip's going to write about why the team wound up not going to Ngeruktabel today, and what the team didn't find today on Ngerchaol instead, so I'll now send you directly to his daily report. Just click here for Flip's blog.

- Reid
 

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