May 19-20, 2000

	The team members from Alpha made a mad dash from SW Nebraska on 
Friday morning to get to Wichita by noon on Friday to meet the incoming Beta 
team members.  The first expected member was Jill Borden, but we arrived to 
find that Jill's flight was canceled due to severe weather.
	We bid Bill Steigerwald goodbye, which was tough.  Bill is a great 
chase partner, and we hoped we provided him with at least a few stories.  
Then we made a mad dash back to the hotel to welcome John Bender, who 
surprised us with our own RADAR on McWar.  McWar is one of the most state of 
the art vehicles out there, but we always seem to have enough room for one 
more toy.
	Grizz was the next to arrive, with his new Dodge Ram Quad cab, loaded 
to the teeth with GPS, cellular data center, mechanics kit, and on and on.  
We consider it important to have well lit vehicles in the field when we're in 
active chase, but Grizz's truck is a light SHOW.  The truck is DOPED UP!
	Back to the airport to pick up Eric from Ryboprod, a French film 
production company that is doing a documentary on MESO.  Eric proved to be up 
to the rigors of chasing, but he was perhaps unprepared for the "Down Day 
Delirium" that prevails on our team.  Jill pulled in about that time, taking 
a shuttle from the airport, and last to arrive were Doug Elick and Steve 
Chambers.
	This is the largest team we've ever had on the road, and we have a 
few bugs to work out as far as organization and communication, but I think 
we'll be just fine.
	We departed the next morning for what we would hope was the area of 
highest probability... and we were treated to some storms that popped up near 
the OK panhandle just ahead of the dryline.  The cellular connections are 
horrible this year, but one really can't expect much from the middle of a cow 
pasture.  Nothing of earth shattering proportions, but more than what we 
expected.  We even caught a little bit of a wall cloud that dropped down to 
visit for a bit, and terrific cg (cloud to ground) lightning.  What never 
ceases to amaze is the brilliant panarama that these plains storms produce... 
and how wonderfully unique they truly are.
	Highlights of the day were Allan inventing a new turtle cam, Eric 
discovering that Americans really ARE crazy, Doug discovering the outer 
limits of bladder control, Nancy discovering that calf fries are nothing 
you're gonna find on a menu in New York, and the entire team discovering that 
even McWar must yield to an angry longhorn.
	For now, we're discovering how to work together, and what different 
people's capabilities and strenths (and weaknesses) are.  A lot of people 
represent a lot of opinions, and each one is valid; or should be dealt with 
as such.

Nancy Bose

MESO     (www.mcwar.org)