“Well, then we should try to calculate the significance of that change.” Alan demonstrated the trick also, then washed down the wing with beer. “They don’t have wings at JPL? Hell, Tom, it ain’t rocket science.”

“I’ll never figure that out,” Tom said ruefully. He picked up his next wing and simply bit into it.

“Are y’all talkin’ ’bout Mars?” their regular waitress asked with a smile as she approached, picked up the pitcher, and began refilling the glasses.

“Yeah, Rog here thinks its changing colors on us,” Alan said.

“Oh, it is!” the waitress replied. The three men stopped what they were doing and gave their undivided attention to the young blonde Hooters’ waitress — as if they hadn’t been already. She was pleasantly stacked, with shoulder length hair, blue eyes and long legs that ran straight up to a nice pair of assets. Her nametag read: Traci. It was also hard to read since it pointed more or less straight up.

“How you know that?” Tom asked.

“Oh, my advisor and I looked at it last night in PH 489,” the blonde said nonchalantly, as she refilled their glasses. “Y’all want another pitcher or anything?”

“Sure, and some more wings… PH 489?” Alan said, scratching his head.

“PH 489… hey, ain’t that a senior level special topics class?” Roger asked.

“ORDER IN!” Traci yelled as she slid the order for the wings down a wire into the kitchen. “Yeah, it’s a senior level physics elective. I’m helping with the Astronomy for Poets class in order to get time on the ten-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope in the UAH observatory. After the freshman business and art majors are through, I use the telescope to make some real observations. I’ve been watchin’ Mars for my project. I’ve got about two semesters worth of data.”