Status report

My little camera: purple pics only!!

Hi Everyone.  It's been pretty darn busy in and out of the hanger lately.  The weather has been very fine until yesterday afternoon. It was sunny, warm, and muddy, but then the wind picked up and now you can lean a little without falling over out here at LDB. There's plenty of icy fetch for the wind to build on the ice, and the wind makes an otherwise pleasant day quite unpleasant.

Let's see if I can report the goings on:

1. My little camera died. I have a Canon Powershot Elph that suddenly started not retracting the lens when turned off. It won't autofocus either, so pictures look really silly. For some reason the colors are off as well.  For this reason, I am now dependent on the mercy of colleagues for pictures, and my blogs will be less colorful as a result.

CREST in a fog

2. There was a really cool ice fog out at the hanger Saturday morning. We couldn't see further than about a hundred yards. It dissipated quickly, though.  We had more hang testing during the fog, and it made for some cool pix.

3. In the hanger, I replaced veto tube 27 on the CREST instrument between yesterday and today (Sunday). This is -- er, was -- my problem child. I threw out the bad baby and got a new one. The new tube is working fine so far. Later this week we'll take it outside and see if it is happy in the great outdoors, unlike its predecessor.  Today I examined recent data to see if there need to be further adjustments to the various electronics settings on the veto detectors.

Underneath CREST with the problem child

4. Walk to top of Ob Hill.  I went on my own Thursday night to the top of Ob Hill, where I met Shuttle Bob (Bob drives a shuttle and talks on the radio a lot, hence the name).  We chatted for a while in very pleasant weather.

5. Bike ride to Scott Base.  I and a few colleagues had planned to go to a special late closing of the Scott Base store in order to do last minute shopping. It's a 30 minute walk, which is no big deal. I had been told that there were bikes available, and when I mentioned this, there was a mad rush to find bikes. There's a big stash behind one of the bars, but they hadn't been tended to since last summer, and the tires were all flat.  Fortunately we noticed a few people just returning from a bike ride on bikes that were in decent shape. Between the muddy roads, big hills, and loose earth, we ended up the trip tired, muddy, and exhilarated.  Oh yes  -  and a little poorer, since we spent money at the store.  After we were done, we parked the bikes where we had found them for the next person to enjoy.

The long and winding road back from Scott Base

Bike Team GO!

6. Debut of Jon as a bass player for a McMurdo rhythm and blues cover band last night (Saturday). Jon is an excellent bassist, and last night he played his first gig with a local band. He acquitted himself quite well.  A good time was had by all at the party.