OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — While Timothy McVeigh is being strapped to a gurney in an execution chamber in Indiana, computer consultant Greg Leasure will be hundreds of miles away getting ready for work.

"I'm not rejoicing in the execution," said Leasure, whose sister was among the 168 people killed when McVeigh's truck bomb blew apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

"Whether he is executed or whether he is not Monday morning, it's not going to change my life one way or another," Leasure said. "I've had to learn how to forgive Tim McVeigh for my own faith and for my own personal growth."

Ken Thompson plans to be on vacation with his wife in Las Vegas on Monday rather than watching the execution, along with other victims' relatives, on closed-circuit television.

"The less I let Mr. McVeigh affect me, the better my life is," said Thompson, whose mother died in the April 19, 1995, blast. "He's affected my life tremendously, but I can't let him affect me every day."

Both men said Thursday that a federal appeals court's refusal to stay the execution brought them no happiness or relief.

After the ruling, McVeigh's attorneys announced their client did not want to pursue further appeals and was prepared to die Monday morning.

Paul Howell intends to be in a witness room on the other side of the death chamber's glass that morning. He began preparing Thursday for the trip to the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.

"It's kind of like a burden lifted off my shoulders," said Howell, whose daughter died in the bombing. Howell and nine others were chosen by lottery to witness McVeigh's execution in person. "I'm going to start preparing myself mentally for it now," he said.

McVeigh, convicted of murder, conspiracy and mass weapons charges in 1997, had dropped his appeals in December and requested an execution date. He admitted in a book this spring that he had carried out the bombing. But a week before the execution was to take place May 16, the government announced it had evidence McVeigh's lawyers should have seen. Attorney General John Ashcroft rescheduled the execution for June 11.

McVeigh's lawyers declared the government had perpetrated a fraud upon the court by withholding evidence and asked U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch to further delay the execution, but Matsch on Wednesday refused.

An appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' was rejected by a three-judge panel Thursday. McVeigh then decided to drop all further appeals.

Pat Ryan, who as U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City helped prosecute McVeigh, said that once Matsch's decision came down, he had no doubt the appeals court would affirm it.

He said McVeigh is a "poster child" for the death penalty. "If you're not going to give it to Timothy McVeigh, who are you going to give it to?" he said.

Jannie Coverdale, whose two grandsons died in the daycare center of the federal building, said she had hoped an appeal would lead to more evidence about what took place. She doesn't believe the public knows the entire truth about the bombing.

"I have a funny feeling that we will never know because the government is not going to tell us," she said. "I'm ready for Tim to die, but I have a need to know."

Doris Jones, whose daughter also died in bombing, plans to be among about 300 survivors and victims' relatives allowed to watch the execution on closed-circuit television in Oklahoma City.

She said she hadn't thought about how it will affect her.

"It's time for it to be over," she said.