Darkness/temps falling

Twilight continues to deepen, with the sun now over 8° below the horizon. Similarly, the temperatures have been on the cool side for here, with forecast taking us back (we did hit -100°F last Saturday, setting a record for earliest date that has happened in a given year) below the century mark. More instruments for winter-only research are coming online as it gets darker, and I am thoroughly enmeshed in doing updates to project documentation and inventories. Nothing too exciting or new is happening in that regard, but quiet is often the preferred state of affairs. Some of the subcontractors are having regular meetings to go through all the usual new-hire rigmarole, but thus far there has been very little from my new employer.

Recreation will be big this weekend, with observances of the anniversaries of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned flight to space and the wreck of the Titanic. My Thursday night movie tonight is the original “The Terminator”, which should be fun.

More and more stars are visible, as the twilight deepens. There was a brief aurora visible yesterday, which was the first for the winter. I think some of the crewmembers here for the first time were pretty excited. I opted to listen to its hiss on the VLF radio receiver here in the lab. It sounds sort of like bacon frying, if you know what to listen for amongst the other noise.

“Life for humans can consist only of climbing endless topless mountains, or eviscerating perpetually renewed dragons; there’s no safety in ease.”
~Brendan Phibbs, “Our War for the World”