Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The egg continues cracking

Work on the Dome deconstruction continues. I don't know what their projected completion date is, but I'm sure they need to have it down before the station closes for winter. It will be interesting to see whether the absence of this rather large structure has a significant effect on lessening the amount of leeward drifting.


We've had a number of NGA groups arrive and depart Pole this season, though their season is swiftly drawing to a close. This group was a bunch of women that had skied in from the coast.

With another grantee on-station for the 7-km transmitter, I may have to make more trips out there. This morning I have to run a drill for the fire brigade, during which we'll hopefully get boned-up on some search skills. The weather has brought us some actual fresh-from-the-sky snow in the last 24 hours, and I guess flights have not been going in/out of McMurdo because of it. The temperature this morning was a balmy -2.5 Fahrenheit, so it definitely is summer here. Work just goes on, as it will, unchecked by holidays throughout the rest of the summer. I've started thinking about solo performance pieces I could try to put together for another open mic event this summer, which could be fun. Life is generally fairly simple here, which is nice.
“I myself have certainly never lived a more sybaritic life.”
~Fridtjof Nansen, concerning living aboard the Fram

2 comments:

Becky said...

That is warm! Best I ever saw at the Pole was -8F. Having a god solid routine can be a real help when working away without a break for long periods.
It sounds like the party went well too. What are they doing with the parts of the dome?

EthanG said...

It's all being retrograded, with "no" souvenirs being taken.