11.5-hour weekend

Well, yesterday ended up being long, but productive. We got the antenna installed atop the new station for the meteor radar guys, and they are actually receiving the calibration with their equipment. The emergency response building tours went pretty well, and we actually managed to hit a few more places on station than originally intended. The turn-out was pretty decent, and was just about right for the number of places we had on the two snow machines towing sleds to get around. I highly recommend the sleds with the hand bars so you can stand up and not eat a bunch of two-cycle engine exhaust. I got to knock off work for the week at about 6:30 pm, and am back here in the office on Monday morning at 6:00 am. After dinner yesterday an NSF representative gave a good talk about the International Polar Year (IPY) that is currently underway, the geologic history of Antarctica, and some of the major scientific projects to come in the next few years. I spent a lot of the talk thinking "How can I get a job doing that?".

This week I should have another team of beakers arrive. These guys are from Japan, and will be installing a new all-sky camera on the roof of the science lab here in the new station. I think they are manifested to get to Pole on Wednesday, but who knows whether the weather will cooperate. The other science tech could also potentially get here this week. I definitely won't mind getting back down to working just two jobs instead of three, not that the Aurora Tech position took all that much time to complete.

During our satellite window I've also started updating my resume and getting the initial information ready to send in to NASA for my first application for astronaut. The application deadline isn't until July 1, 2008, but I figure there's no reason to delay. It's exciting to think I might get the opportunity to have a job interview for astronaut while working a winter a the South Pole. That has a certain ring to it.

How can I get a job doing that?