Breaking Sim is about as exciting as breaking Passover - the only difference is, once you break Passover with a beer and a pizza, you don't have to eat, or even look at, the unleavened incarnation of constipation (i.e., Matzah) for another year if you don't want; but once you break Sim, you're still out in the middle of the Utah desert living in a two-story tuna tin. So where's the levity?

Tonight we break Sim, or simulation, and we can walk outside without a simulated spacesuit, IM people over the slow-as-molasses internet connection, and even expect to enter a clean bathroom within the next 72 hours - that's just it, 72 hours. You see, there's a hand over procedure that commences now during which we wrap up our dealings out here to get things ready for, and eventually turn over control to, the next crew. So not quite back to civilization yet. No voice mails, six-packs of beer, nor non-foul bathrooms for 72 hours during which time we celebrate the benefits of having not gone ape-$&%@ these last two weeks.

So now that we've broken sim, we're just sailors at port hell-bent on celebrating survival, right? But how in the hell does one do that in a location that has been chosen for its bounty of red-rocked nothingness?! One suggestion was to layout and watch the stars tonight, but the terrain around here is crawling with red ants - as in, thus the expression when wearing slightly ajar pants; so that one's out. But then there's this quote from Tolstoy about being out of one's element that provides some direction: "two acquaintances in society are best friends in the desert"; it's about the added value of familiarities when in strange surroundings.

So how do we celebrate tonight? One bottle of sparkling grape juice; that's how. Stand back Times Square on New Years Eve, the bubbly will be flowing here tonight (of course, under-21 modified), all in celebration of not going luny. Like my folks remind me, "when you can't be grateful for what you have, be grateful for what you don't have": Mars-base-cabin-fever psychosis is definitely not the case here. Woo hoo! And pay up, those who placed bets to the contrary; you know you are.

Jason Sherwin, PAO
MDRS Crew 47