Back South Again with More Projects

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A lot of driving. I have forgotten how much driving is involved when on the farm. Everything is far. But I also had to drive up and back twice to Syracuse to pickup/drop off Angie at the airport and a business meeting for Wisdomino in Albany. Yeah it was a lot of driving for me. All and all it was about 4000 miles in three weeks. Early in the morning I decided to check out some auctions (dangerous). I ended up being high bidder on a 2015 New Holland Boomer 33 ( "hours unknown, does not run, may have problems, no key, no battery" ) from the State of Tennessee. I figured I could swing by Nashville and pick it up on the way to Georgia. And indeed I did. It was only a couple of hours extra, maybe 4. But, it was more efficient than going to Georgia and then back and forth to Nashville. Nashville is about 4 hours from Duluth. So I was looking at a 4 hour savings. After I go through it and getting if working I will tow it up to the farm in NY. I wasn't prepared for a trac...
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Today was a great day. Making it to Antartica was an ok first step. Making it to my first mountain top in Antarctica is well... "That's what I am talking about!" I went up to fix a repeater. Mt. Coates is about 6000 ft. It is a shear cliff on most sides and flat enough up top to land the Bell 212. Actually, some of the sides are overhangs and the rock is quite brittle. I found the experience to be quite amazing. I don't know how else to describe it. I was up there for about 4 hours. The helo came back and we went home. There is always two of us together for these missions with a survival bag our ECW and radio contact to the helo (and other channels) with handheld radios. The weather was perfect. The pilot commented on the weather several times. I have hundreds of photos and the ones I have posted are not the best ones I am sure, since I have not looked through them yet.

It looks like I will be out in the field each day for a few days to different places.

Here is a very small sample of the science we support with our communications infrastucture in the dry valleys. There are hundreds of scientific projects this season, all of which need communications for science and safety. We have science lectures twice a week on station. Last night's was regarding penguins. My co-worker got some nice close ups of some penguins on Monday.

http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/antarct/ajus/nsf9828/9828html/h10.htm

http://www.astrobiology.com/lter/

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Back South Again with More Projects

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A lot of driving. I have forgotten how much driving is involved when on the farm. Everything is far. But I also had to drive up and back twice to Syracuse to pickup/drop off Angie at the airport and a business meeting for Wisdomino in Albany. Yeah it was a lot of driving for me. All and all it was about 4000 miles in three weeks. Early in the morning I decided to check out some auctions (dangerous). I ended up being high bidder on a 2015 New Holland Boomer 33 ( "hours unknown, does not run, may have problems, no key, no battery" ) from the State of Tennessee. I figured I could swing by Nashville and pick it up on the way to Georgia. And indeed I did. It was only a couple of hours extra, maybe 4. But, it was more efficient than going to Georgia and then back and forth to Nashville. Nashville is about 4 hours from Duluth. So I was looking at a 4 hour savings. After I go through it and getting if working I will tow it up to the farm in NY. I wasn't prepared for a trac...
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