Thursday, November 10, 2011

Hanging in there

The week rolls on with me still filling the 3 science support tech roles. Hopefully the flights next week will arrive on time and with healthy replacements ready to get to work. I have had a few extra things to deal with in the last few days, beyond the normal operation of the various projects. Yesterday we began work on a project to extend the entrance to an instrument vault, which thus far has meant doing a lot of digging to clear the entire lid of the vault housing a magnetometer. The science carpenters are building the new structure, and we hope to have it installed in the next few days. The original entrance had drifted in to about 4 feet of depth from the surface of the snow, which was starting to hamper safe ingress/egress during calibration activities. I'm glad to have gotten this started early, since the science carpenters are not too busy yet.

The station still seems pretty quiet, but we are still probably the better part of 100 souls short of our full capacity for the summer. That will change all too soon, and in about a month I bet this place will be jam packed, not only with workers in the program, but with all those tourists here for the Amundsen centennial.
“Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.”
~President Calvin Coolidge

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