1/10
My roomie Shuttle Jerod was one of the performers in the acoustic night at the coffee house, so we went and listened to the acoustic night there before heading out for a ski to LDB and back.
1-11
Today I led a snowmobile night tour out to Room with a View (see attached map) Unlike my training ride out here, it was a gorgeous night!! Room with the view sits at 1400ft on Mt. Erebus and is at the point where Hut Peninsula joins the main body of Ross Island. It had sweet up close views of Erebus, the Erebus glacier tongue, as well as the Delbridge Islands, and back towards Castle Rock. Definitely a beautiful night to get out of town into the icy expanse and have some sweet views while cruising around on a snowmobile.
1-13
Yesterday was my day off, and I had a pretty sweet day. I rode out to the airfield with Shuttle Bob to check out Pegasus. The road has been in bad shape bc of the high temperatures, so the last 3 miles you have to take a piston bully (a snowcat type of thing). On the way out, we saw an Emperor penguin molting. I had lunch out at the airfield and then road back with Shuttle Shafer and Shuttle Jerod towards LDB where I skied out to LDB and back to Scott Base. It was super windy so when going with the wind, I was really flying. Doing 4 minute miles!
I made it back in time to go to Insanity. Our last one! This completed 4 months of Insanity for me, 3 for Elisha, and 2 for Monica, Zach, and Mitch. We celebrated by going out to Gallaghers to listen to some good live music, then Elisha and I made banana smoothies, banana rum smoothies, blueberr/raspberry smoothies and hit the sauna before watching a movie.
Today the broncos are having a big playoff game. It's cold in Colorado. Below Zero in EP and below zero with windchill at the broncos game. I wish I could be watching! But I am stuck working. I had to give a Crary Lab tour to some Kiwi DV's (Distinguished Visitor). These were big-time DV's and their was a journalist there with them.
Sir Peter Gluckman, the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister (the equivalent to our president) of New Zealand. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London.
Sir Paul Nurse (British): CEO of the British Imperisal Cancer Research Fund, President of Rockefeller University, New York, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology of Medicine in 2001. One of the heads of the British Royal Society
Sir David Skegg: President of the Royal Society of of New Zealand, founding board member of the New Zealand Antarctic Research Center
Dr. Prue Williams: Head of the New Zealand equivalent of the NSF
The Sunday night science lecture was presented by Dr. Diane McKnight, which is interesting bc she works as part of the INSTAAR at CU-Boulder that Mark Williams, whose wife works with my dad and who I discussed about potential grad school opportunities, works for.
Diana Wall, an ecologist from CSU, recently arrived down here. If you've spent any time in DIA, you've probably seen her photo. She is featured all over the airport in a huge lit up photo standing next to a glacier as an advertisement for CSU. It's kind of interesting because I had always seen that huge advertisement and dreamed of going to Antarctica, and now I'm actually working here and helping her with lab things.
1/20
This past week has been extremely busy. I had some of the bigger science groups checking out, we had several power outages, the aquarium pump go down, and a couple of big DV groups come in. One group had the head of the Office of Polar Programs as well as some bigwig NSF people and the other group had the New Zealand Prime Minister. So this meant that we were busy cleaning the lab. The Aquarium is under my watch, so I was working particularly hard to keep it clean and nice, which is difficult with all the people going in and out through it. The aquarium is also a highlight of the tours, so it's important to keep it looking nice.
The Prime Minister's security entourage came through Crary Lab a couple of days before his visit to check if out and make sure it's safe. When they were finished checking out the aquarium, I asked them how they knew for sure that none of the animals in the touch tank weren't poisonous. They said they hadn't even thought about that. Though of course security for the PM of New Zealand is not quite the same as it is for the President of the US.
At some point this week, Elisha and I biked out to hut point to check out some penguins. From the Crary Library during the Wednesday science lecture I had seen 2 groups of penguins on the sea ice. They were big groups of 20 and 30. One was heading to the little bit of open water out by hut point, so I called up Elisha and we headed out to watch them. When we got there, a few of the penguins were on land and having trouble figuring out how to cross over the ice walls to get to the open water to join their friends. They were fun to watch as they ran around back and forth looking confused. A few times they even came within a few feet of us. The best though was watching the big group of penguins swimming from a viewpoint on the cliffs of hut point. The group was roughly 30 in size, and it was fun watching them swim back and forth, jumping out of the water like dolphins. When they swam right below us, we could see them swimming gracefully under the water. This was purely amazing.
On Thursday night, Elisha and I volunteered in the galley washing dishes. The galley, like many departments are very short staffed, so they take volunteers to help out. It was actually kind of fun bc as you wash dishes you get to see everyone in the base go by as they drop off their dishes. Also we blasted music and sang to it while we worked hard. And it felt rewarding after spending so much time at a computer desk that day to work hard and even sweat a little as we had to move quickly. That evening, an astronaut who is visiting gave a talk. He has been to space about 5 times and walked in space at least 7 times. He also has successfully summited Mount Everest, so his talk was interesting
On Friday, it was Mindy's birthday, so she had reserved hut 10. Her husband Reinhart is from Austria, so they made some very tasty cheese fondue with wine and cheese he had brought. He also grilled up burgers and filet mignon. Very tasty!
Last night was mustache roulette. I didn't participate this year bc my beard was just so embarrassing last year since I can't really grow one. Also I didn't know how much Elisha would like it. But they raised 1200 bucks for prostate cancer research and two of my gal friends, Charlotte and Jen, even shaved their heads for it. Mitch got a hilarious neck beard. One of my favorite was Matt Nolte got 10% shaved into his beard making fun of the part of the war on fun where the station manager accused 10% of us getting so drunk everynight that we puke. That would be 90 people puking per party night!
My roomie Shuttle Jerod was one of the performers in the acoustic night at the coffee house, so we went and listened to the acoustic night there before heading out for a ski to LDB and back.
1-11
Today I led a snowmobile night tour out to Room with a View (see attached map) Unlike my training ride out here, it was a gorgeous night!! Room with the view sits at 1400ft on Mt. Erebus and is at the point where Hut Peninsula joins the main body of Ross Island. It had sweet up close views of Erebus, the Erebus glacier tongue, as well as the Delbridge Islands, and back towards Castle Rock. Definitely a beautiful night to get out of town into the icy expanse and have some sweet views while cruising around on a snowmobile.
1-13
Yesterday was my day off, and I had a pretty sweet day. I rode out to the airfield with Shuttle Bob to check out Pegasus. The road has been in bad shape bc of the high temperatures, so the last 3 miles you have to take a piston bully (a snowcat type of thing). On the way out, we saw an Emperor penguin molting. I had lunch out at the airfield and then road back with Shuttle Shafer and Shuttle Jerod towards LDB where I skied out to LDB and back to Scott Base. It was super windy so when going with the wind, I was really flying. Doing 4 minute miles!
I made it back in time to go to Insanity. Our last one! This completed 4 months of Insanity for me, 3 for Elisha, and 2 for Monica, Zach, and Mitch. We celebrated by going out to Gallaghers to listen to some good live music, then Elisha and I made banana smoothies, banana rum smoothies, blueberr/raspberry smoothies and hit the sauna before watching a movie.
Today the broncos are having a big playoff game. It's cold in Colorado. Below Zero in EP and below zero with windchill at the broncos game. I wish I could be watching! But I am stuck working. I had to give a Crary Lab tour to some Kiwi DV's (Distinguished Visitor). These were big-time DV's and their was a journalist there with them.
Sir Peter Gluckman, the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister (the equivalent to our president) of New Zealand. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London.
Sir Paul Nurse (British): CEO of the British Imperisal Cancer Research Fund, President of Rockefeller University, New York, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology of Medicine in 2001. One of the heads of the British Royal Society
Sir David Skegg: President of the Royal Society of of New Zealand, founding board member of the New Zealand Antarctic Research Center
Dr. Prue Williams: Head of the New Zealand equivalent of the NSF
The Sunday night science lecture was presented by Dr. Diane McKnight, which is interesting bc she works as part of the INSTAAR at CU-Boulder that Mark Williams, whose wife works with my dad and who I discussed about potential grad school opportunities, works for.
Her lecture was on the dry valleys and she was also discussing how her team had found that in the dry valleys, the temperatures had be exhibiting a cooling affect, which is against the normal global warming climate change models. Of course the naysayers of global warming heavily used this info to say global warming was a hoax. But as she said, she didn't get the chance to properly explain the results before they used this as evidence against global warming. The reason for this cooling in the dry valleys is because here the ozone layer is basically gone (the infamous Antarctic ozone hole). Ozone (O3) is also a greenhouse gas (Like CO2), so bc of the ozone hole it actually lets heat escape; thus, the reason for the slight cooling. The good news is scientists expect the ozone hole to slowly heal itself bc we have reduced our CFC emissions. With this, however, the normal temperature increased associated climate change will begin to occur. So if anything, this lowering of temp due to removal of greenhouse gas actually provides evidence to global warming.
Diana Wall, an ecologist from CSU, recently arrived down here. If you've spent any time in DIA, you've probably seen her photo. She is featured all over the airport in a huge lit up photo standing next to a glacier as an advertisement for CSU. It's kind of interesting because I had always seen that huge advertisement and dreamed of going to Antarctica, and now I'm actually working here and helping her with lab things.
.GIF) |
| Room with a view snowmobile route map |
1/20
This past week has been extremely busy. I had some of the bigger science groups checking out, we had several power outages, the aquarium pump go down, and a couple of big DV groups come in. One group had the head of the Office of Polar Programs as well as some bigwig NSF people and the other group had the New Zealand Prime Minister. So this meant that we were busy cleaning the lab. The Aquarium is under my watch, so I was working particularly hard to keep it clean and nice, which is difficult with all the people going in and out through it. The aquarium is also a highlight of the tours, so it's important to keep it looking nice.
The Prime Minister's security entourage came through Crary Lab a couple of days before his visit to check if out and make sure it's safe. When they were finished checking out the aquarium, I asked them how they knew for sure that none of the animals in the touch tank weren't poisonous. They said they hadn't even thought about that. Though of course security for the PM of New Zealand is not quite the same as it is for the President of the US.
At some point this week, Elisha and I biked out to hut point to check out some penguins. From the Crary Library during the Wednesday science lecture I had seen 2 groups of penguins on the sea ice. They were big groups of 20 and 30. One was heading to the little bit of open water out by hut point, so I called up Elisha and we headed out to watch them. When we got there, a few of the penguins were on land and having trouble figuring out how to cross over the ice walls to get to the open water to join their friends. They were fun to watch as they ran around back and forth looking confused. A few times they even came within a few feet of us. The best though was watching the big group of penguins swimming from a viewpoint on the cliffs of hut point. The group was roughly 30 in size, and it was fun watching them swim back and forth, jumping out of the water like dolphins. When they swam right below us, we could see them swimming gracefully under the water. This was purely amazing.
On Thursday night, Elisha and I volunteered in the galley washing dishes. The galley, like many departments are very short staffed, so they take volunteers to help out. It was actually kind of fun bc as you wash dishes you get to see everyone in the base go by as they drop off their dishes. Also we blasted music and sang to it while we worked hard. And it felt rewarding after spending so much time at a computer desk that day to work hard and even sweat a little as we had to move quickly. That evening, an astronaut who is visiting gave a talk. He has been to space about 5 times and walked in space at least 7 times. He also has successfully summited Mount Everest, so his talk was interesting
On Friday, it was Mindy's birthday, so she had reserved hut 10. Her husband Reinhart is from Austria, so they made some very tasty cheese fondue with wine and cheese he had brought. He also grilled up burgers and filet mignon. Very tasty!
Last night was mustache roulette. I didn't participate this year bc my beard was just so embarrassing last year since I can't really grow one. Also I didn't know how much Elisha would like it. But they raised 1200 bucks for prostate cancer research and two of my gal friends, Charlotte and Jen, even shaved their heads for it. Mitch got a hilarious neck beard. One of my favorite was Matt Nolte got 10% shaved into his beard making fun of the part of the war on fun where the station manager accused 10% of us getting so drunk everynight that we puke. That would be 90 people puking per party night!
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