Not a moment to lose

Things keep hopping during this pre-holiday-for-some week here at Pole. We've received a bunch of cargo in the last few days, which should enable us to get on with some work on the big 7-km VLF transmitter antenna. Emergency response training has been coming quickly, with tours of the IceCube facilities today and a Monday evening training session on the SCBA compressor that we use to refill our bottles for the fire brigade. On top of that work stuff, I've had two band practices in the last 3 days and have continued to hit the gymnasium regularly (love the rowing machine). I've also found time to do a bit of reading in "The Pillars of the Earth", which I'm enjoying ever so much. I'll probably pile right into the sequel book "World Without End" when I'm done with the first. Thanks, Bill!

I've tried to keep taking photos of new/different things from years previous. Here are a few more to look at:

A view of the Dome and Skylab, both of which are slated for demolition this summer:


Perihelia flank the accumulation of ice on a rooftop bathroom vent:

A nice, full halo around the sun, which is due to ice crystals in the atmosphere:


Though I never got to live under the dome, it still is going to bizarre to have that major landmark disappear. My first time down I got to see it with the buildings still in the interior, but they were demolished the winter of 2007. The physical hole the absence of these buildings will create is going to be impressive, to say the least. I reckon many folks that did get to live there will rue its passing, but such is the fate of all things.

"And a dear God indeed to them was the Roof of the Kindred, that their fathers had built and that they yet warded against the fire and the lightening and the wind and the snow, and the passing of the days that devour and the years that heap the dust over the work of men. They thought of how it had stood, and seen so many generations of men come and go; how often it had welcomed the new-born babe, and given farewell to the old man; how many secrets of the past it knew; how many tales which men of the present had forgotten, but which yet mayhap men of times to come should learn of it; for to them yet living it had spoken time and again, and had told them what their fathers had not told them, and it held the memories of the generations and the very life of the Wolfings and their hopes for days to be."
~Excerpt from "House of the Wolfings" by William Morris