Commercial Items Identified on my Commute

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I see a lot of interesting commercialitems on truck on I-75. When you make the commute many times you start to see the same items over and over again. Sometimes it is huge equipment tires, sometimes heavy equipment of different types. I see these huge blocks of aluminum going North. I think about what the mill must look like and where it is going. And how much aluminum foil a block like this will make. Using the Tesla Full Self-Driving (supervised) allows me to look for these things on the highway. The FSD also helps me through the crazy stop and goes. Easily over 70MPH and then sudden traffic at dead stops, frequently. I see accidents every trip. It is amazing there aren't more. A side note- aluminum foil has a shiny side and a dull side. The reason why is that the foil is folded as it goes through massive rollers. The shiny side is the side that faces the steel roller. The dull side faces itself - aluminum.
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Today I was in the shop. I fixed a radio or two and we spent quite a bit of time screwing around with this huge (geographically) wireless network we are building. One of the problems we have is that we have a pretty mixed bag of various vintages of equipment. Some of the stuff is ancient in terms of wireless LANs. Some is new. The feature sets vary so much it is important not to mix and match in each subnet. Even then functions across the net can cause issues.

I got word today that I am headed out to the ITASE traverse start site at Taylor dome, I believe for the put-in. What that means is I fly out in a twin otter skiplane with the folks who put up the tents and generally "make camp". There will be six of us. We will have to do a lot of hand digging and such. I understand to get one of the Challengers out of the snow it will be a manual process and then we can use that one to get the second one unburied. I have to get the radios working and install a couple more. We will probably have to rely on HF and satelite phone (if available). I don't think I can make the path on VHF. I am not sure. I have a meeting tomorrow to discuss this. I bet they are going to want Internet as well!

The important thing is that this time or another time I will be out in the field at the whim of weather and equipment. I may not post for a day or two or three. Don't panic. It just means I have to go primitive for a bit. I will post when I am in town.

These photos are from my helo ride yesterday. I have hundreds more just from that short trip. That is a great arial shot of McMurdo. Mt Erebus is in the background. Erebus is an active volcano. There have still been no trips to Pole, still too cold. I bet a few of these people would like to get home after being totally isolated since February.

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