Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Old (Not So) Hot Foot



So, if you’ve been outside for a while here at Pole, your gear gets pretty cold, including the soles of your boots.  Those boot soles can get pretty stiff and stay cold for quite a while after coming back indoors.  When you initially walk back in, the scrim of snow and ice trapped on them can make walking a pretty slippery endeavor.

The weeks are just clipping by pretty quickly.  We have some updated information about station opening and redeployment, but nothing solid enough to start making plans yet.  It has been a bit windier in the last week or so, and the drifting is changing accordingly.  The moon just came up, which ends our last technically fully dark period for the winter.  We will begin to move slowly back through astronomical, nautical, and civil twilight until the sun reappears in late September.  With the return of brighter light levels, the cameras and other optical instruments will gradually be shut off for the season or be covered up to remain in calibration mode until the next winter’s night.
“Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.”
~Thucydides

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