Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

We had our town Christmas party last night. Interesting finger foods, music and company in the Vehicle Maintenance Facility (VMF). I have two days off. I am primarily working on my video for the McMurdo film festival. The criteria is they must be less than 5 minutes, rated PG-13 and must be edited (and primarily filmed) in Antarctica. I also plan on getting up to the ham shack with a spectrum analyzer to track down some interference. The South Pole Station has a brand new ham station. it sounds like they have been getting out to the US occasionally. So I will be using that station the 7 days I am at pole. I will also be publishing a time I will be in front of the webcam when I get there. Somebody will have to take a screen dump of that for me. I won't be hanging around outside for hours I am sure (well maybe). It is about -40 at pole (it is summer after all). It has never been above zero F at pole so the temperature is always refered to at an absolute number..."Today it is 4...

I participated in a art project last night. They were looking for volunteers. It seemed strange enough, why not? Rather than have me try and describe "the work" you can read all about it here. http://www.stellaraxis.com/ Overall, I decided that this was an interesting way to seek into nice fashionably designed homes with nice interior decorating, fancy canapes and expensive champagne. My plan is that I can sneak in as part of a Magazine or coffee table book. My photo will be in the pages. I am hoping that my entrance will otherwise be unnoticed in these fashionble living spaces. Wish me luck. I am going in.

Whoo Hoo!. I am getting a trip to pole. (We don't often say South Pole since it is pretty much redundant). I will getting a week long visit at pole filling in for a tech who will be on R&R for a week. Sometime between 1-15 and 1-20 I will be heading down there. It will be good to see the differences between mactown and the brand new South Pole Station. I will see the dome before it gets shipped back to the states and ends up as a mueseum or a bar... or both. I took this pic in the dry valleys a while back. Critters just get lost I guess, really lost. This is many many miles from the sea. I went to another session of cruise ship tour guide school today. We may get a couple of ships in January. I do miss being home for Christmas. It was choice, a tough one. I am here. The thing I don't miss is all the BS and hype about Christmas from the advertisers and all the stress and all that. There is none of it. The holiday is a lot easier to appreciate as a solitude and a perso...

Here are a couple more shots from Mt. Terror. It looks like I will be getting up to Mt. Erebus pretty soon. Erebus is in the background. Some one was telling me they saw some time-lapse of Erebus and the smoke coming out of the cone pulsated like a steam train. Any change in your perspective of time can be illuminating. The other night we had our shop Christmas party, one of the guys made us all traditional Russian food and drink. We had to draw the line at that silly dance they do.

I made it up to Mt. Terror today. It was a totally different scene from the other day. It was calm and the snow had become the familiar "styrofoam packed" stuff that has a predicable rheology. We landed after a few passes and only one attempt. The helos have a problem with "contrailing" in these conditions. It can be very dangerous. The craft becomes engulfed in its own contail making visibility impossible at landing. It takes a lot of skill and experience to avoid the situation. It was expertly done. The ship was really steaming on our final approach. After we landed we still had to climb up an ice sheet to the summit where the gear is, about 200 feet in altitude.The training with the ice ax is really appreciated... such as how to use the ice ax after you fall down a glacier face to save yourself. It was a peak experience. We were supposed to be dropped off and the other tech was flying to our "end user". It turned out the "end user" was ...