Halo & Halo

Well, as usual, when there is a halo around the sun-as there was yesterday-I don't have my camera. They only happen when the right sort of ice crystals are present in the atmosphere. The most intense one I have seen had a sun dog (i.e. a bright spot removed from the solar disk) right down on the horizon, which was really striking.

I got to go out into the antenna field in the morning with some carpenters and a project member from Dartmouth to look into raising one of their antennas up above the snow surface. They went back out and did the raise in the afternoon, but I didn't have time to attend due to other pressing responsibilities. It seems like ages since my predecessor and I did our little excursion out there in the first week of the season.

Construction continued apace on the wind deflector supports in the B2 lab. They're currently drilling holes through the steel pieces and knocking big bolts through the entire thickness of the bracket outside, the interior wall structure, as well as the steel channel columns that were just installed in the lab. It can make for a pretty loud accompaniment to the normal workday routine.

In the evening I got in a little guitar practice before attending a showing of the 59 Second Film Festival, which was comprised of 59 59-second mini-films. Some told stories, while others were highly conceptual. A good number of folks showed up, and we all filled out review forms for which films we liked/disliked in order to help the organizers of the festival decide which clips to include or submit to some other festival.

After that I had a good time learning how to play the classic Xbox game Halo with one of my friends. It has been ages since I last played any video games, but the old first-person shooter skills haven't atrophied too much.