-

I am all checked in and weighed. My check-in bag weighed 69 pounds. I am allowed 75 pounds. It is a good thing I sent 15 pounds back in the mail. I didn't ask what my body weighed with my carry on bag and ECW. I am going on a diet again. My survial diet down here has definately added five pounds. My flight weight wearing my helmet and extreme cold weather (ECW) gear has been 194. I figure 30 pounds for clothes. On these intercontinental flights they want your weight with your ECW and your carry-on. We first put our check-in bags on the scale and then you and your other stuff step on the scale. It occured to me that there might be a modesty issue involved for some folks, but for folks like me doing my job those aspects were lost months ago if you had any.

We had our IT department party tonight. I am shown bartending in the the "Coffee House". I was getting a lot of information about what life was like in the former Soviet-union in the '80s and '90s. In our department we have folks from Africa, Latvia, Croatia, Mexico, Ohio and other very strange and foreign lands. Being here on the ice has been a good concentrated experience for world travel (since I have not been doing much for the last few years). I will be trimming my beard and getting a haircut soon. **I won't get into the haircut scandal here on station.** Us folks in Comms (sometimes appropriately called "Kommz") are a wing of IT that gets their hands dirty. We take risks and connect what is known in telecommunications as the "last mile".

I am apprehensive about going back to the real world. I have been repeatedly told about the sensory rush I will get in New Zealand with all the biological stuff. I have fully acclimated to things here in 4 months. It all seems very normal. There certainly isn't much life here outside of the sea. In fact there is almost nothing living down this part of the globe besides scientists. I have been in the field. It is harsh out there. In town it is pretty tame.

The "Palmer" came upto the ice-pier as planned this morning. http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/support/nathpalm.jsp We had to go aboard today to get a wireless telephone hooked up.

My transport/flight isn't until 12:15 noon. So I will probably post in a few hours before I leave the ice.

.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Central Asia

-
Image
We are back from our most recent crazy trip. This time it was Central Asia and the "five stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. We made all of our objectives. And we have now been to 104 countries. Angie has 95 and I have 94 countries. Together it is 104. These five countries were packed into 12 days, 7 flights, 2 high speed trains, 1 cable car ride, 1 horse ride, and lots of hours in car trips. They are all Muslim countries, but they are better characterized as former Soviet countries. Russian langauge is a strong second language in all of these countries. There isn't much English spoken in any of them. Angie being fluent in Russian made all the difference and did intrepreting for me as well as a couple of British backpackers we met in Turkmenistan. Tajikistan is the Country with the distinct langauage being a derivitive of Persian with the others being Turkic. Ethnically, Southern Uzbecs are Tajik. Interesting, the spelling of many...
Read more
-
Image
I lived thru a Sunday. I spent a lot of time in the library. We watched the debut of "Emperors of the Ice" last night as part the science lecture. The producers/lecturers gave a talk as well. The documentary will be seen this coming year in the US. It is a National Geographic Special. It is pretty interesting to see a film like this one. It is all staged around McMurdo. To my eyes it isn't that exotic anymore. Don't get me wrong. I find it exciting and all that. However, it is like seeing a documentary about your family Thanksgiving day dinner. It is familiar. I have a very busy day today. I actually got quadruple booked today with work and training. That has to get worked out this morning. Here's me in the ham shack. I have a bit of work to do for the shack but we are going to be using 14.243 MHz USB. I will be using the station callsign KC4USV. Schedules are forthcoming.
Read more

Early Fall in North Georgia

-
Image
The weather is great-- cool, low humidity, dry. It is easy to get used to. I found an original air-box for the Honda on Ebay. I needed a few other parts to put the car air intake back to factory original. Things always cost more and take more time. But it was a mini-project and it is done. This is a pic of our cat jewel. It was great to get a pic that makes her hetrochromic eyes stand out. She is a beautiful cat for sure. Rare and beautiful. At work we had our 2024 Demo Days where we invite customers through their respective dealers to try out many different types of equipment. There were many Excavators, Dozers, Dump trucks, Wheel loaders and even some forestry equipment. It is a annual event and it is fun/busy for employees. As part of the event we were lucky to get one of the current year's Williams Formula 1 cars on display for a couple days. It was very cool showing up for work in the morning and seeing it in the lobby. I have never been so close to F1 car during its act...
Read more
-
It is windy tonight as a front comes through. Today I went to the Marathon NY hamfest. I got there at 5:30 AM, stayed 'til noon. I sold most of my stuff and brought back less than I went with. I had a long talk with the guy who gets to clean out labs at Cornell; he has some nice stuff. I am now having a special sale on adhesive tapes of all kinds. It was good to catch up with the guys. My brother is back in Tanzania this week. I thought of a quote tonight. "If you or I lived in paradise, would you or I recognize it as paradise?" If this was the theme of a speech, the title of the speech would be "Lost from before your eyes." Life is good. Drive fast. Your mileage may vary. All standard disclaimers apply. This is what we train for.
Read more