Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Life as usual at 90°S


We’ve still got a big moon, as well as some (currently cloud-shrouded) twilight lighting things up outside.  The pressure altitude has been below the 11,000-foot equivalent, which has been nice the last several days.  I think I’ve had some very nice sleeps as a result.  Work continues apace, with all of my only-active-in-winter projects transitioning to calibration or dormant modes by the end of next week.  I continue to work on doing the usual documentation, as well as the annual updates or creation of new documentation to wrap up the year’s efforts in science support and firefighting.

For fun, I continue to exercise in the early morning 6 days per week.  Mondays and Thursdays I lift weights.  Tuesdays and Fridays I do circuit workout.  Wednesdays and Saturdays I do some cardio.  I have begun my annual spin through Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings”, which is always very enjoyable.  I find I really spend a lot of mental time imagining the landscapes he describes so well, which isn’t a surprise given how limited the terrain palette of my last year has been (again).  “From the Earth to the Moon” has been on the viewing docket for evenings the last few days, which definitely has been interesting given the events of recent weeks.

Speaking of which, my medical exam report has been sent north for forwarding to Houston, so we’ll see what the United States Postal Service and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration get back to me with in the coming weeks or months.  I still feel confident about that whole situation, and look forward to whatever may come.  It certainly has been an interesting experience thus far.
“Man, I've been doing this for... listen, man. I've been in this game a long time. I'm not in it for a record, I'll tell you that. I'm not in it for a ring. That's when people get hurt. If we don't win the last game of the Series, they'll dismiss us.”
~Billy Beane, “Moneyball”