-

I mailed in everything (hopefully) to be PQ'd. I should be hearing something soon about exact dates, plane tickets etc. I purchased my mandatory sunglasses (Ouch$). I get reimbursed for about half from my employer. The place I purchased the sunglasses from specialize in extreme and mountaineering eyewear. http://www.heavyglare.com

I still have a lot to get and do. Working on creating/using check lists is an important step at this point.

I am already getting booked for a business trip to Las Vegas in late February just after I get back from the Ice. In some ways this adventure to the ice will be brief. In other ways it will be long. I suspect depending on the day it will be one of the two, not the grey in between.

The following list is used without permission from: http://huey.colorado.edu/77DegreesSouth/maps.html

Quick facts about Antarctica

Size: 5.5 million square miles (14M sq. km). Fifth largest continent in the world. As large as the US and Mexico combined.

Government: Antarctica has been administered by the Antarctic Treaty since 1961. No country has any definitive sovereignty over any part of it, in spite of claims.

Highest Point: Vinson Massif 16,062' (4897m)

Precipitation: Antarctica receives less than 5 cm of precipitation a year, which is similar to the amount the driest part of the Sahara Desert receives.

Temperature: Record low of -128°F (-89.6° C).

Health Risks: Hypothermia, frostbite, snow-blindness, dehydration, sunburn.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

California, Berkshire NY, Baltimore Maryland and Washington DC

-
Image
I am back from a speaking engagement at a familiar conference (CIDM) in San Jose California. Afterwards, I met Angie at the ATL airport and headed to the farm and to see my cousins, Aunt and Sister (and my newest relative) in Baltimore and Washington DC. It was a densely scheduled trip, but nothing compared to our typical overseas vacation trips. I have been having educational fun with my recent birthday gift. It is a Radiacode 103. It is a very sensitive scintillation radiation detector. Loads of fun. The 1k µS/hr spike shown is what the carry on baggage x-ray machine doses out. I am glad I wasn't inside the x-ray equipment. Stopping at some antique stores along the way, I found a number of uranium glass pieces. Yes, they are radioactive. Yes, the dose is comparable to that you get from riding in a commercial airplane. I took a couple of pics of property in Upstate NY. Unbelievable. It will beat out images of the best trailer trash anywhere. And yes, the vehicles are systemica...
Read more

Busy and Busier

-
Image
It has been busy and somewhat stressful. I am reflecting on the comparatively relative low stress of traveling alone in Southern Africa last year at about this time. I mean in Africa, I only had to worry about getting in car accidents (maybe running someone over), missing flights, getting robbed or attacked. All of these possibilities in a very unfamiliar land. Now interestingly, I seem to have more stress -- over what? It is probably a very good example of good stress versus bad stress. Good stress comes from calculated self-directed challenge. Bad stress comes from captivity and what we feel we "should" be doing. "Should" indicates there are external forces we are beholden to --without our own devices or agency. In April, I am speaking at CIDM Convex in San Jose CA. https://convex.infomanagementcenter.com/ . I also learned I am speaking at LavaCon in October https://www.lavacon.org/ . There were 150 speakers considered and only 40 selected. It will be my first t...
Read more

The Electromagnetic Spectrum --DC to Daylight (and actually well beyond)

-
Image
Besides carrying my scintillation detector with me looking for ionizing radiation (over 2.46 petahertz) and decaying isotopes, I have been playing in the more friendly "basement" of the electromagnetic spectrum (under a gigahertz). A pic of my radio bench. I sold my IFR ( http://blog.theguysatwork.com/2025/02/updates-storm-and-other.html) . I needed to replace the function (at least a lot of it) with a cheaper digital produt. So for 1/10 the sale price of my IFR, I ended up buying a TinySA Ultra+ ZS406 Spectrum Analyzer. It is indeed tiny. It does what I want it to do and it's a fun new toy. Our autographed copy of the "Fall of Civilizations" arrived from the UK. Paul Cooper does such a great job with his pobcasts and videos. I felt compelled to get a personalized copy of the book. ( https://www.paulmmcooper.com/ ) Seeing this licence plate on the front of a pickup truck seemed fitting-- not so much as contrarian, but as a Komatsu equipment fan. It's g...
Read more