More technical difficulties…

To All My Faithful Followers:

I have noticed that there are some visual errors on the blog and I am currently working on fixing them. 

I apolgize for those of you OCD people that are concerned. 

Thank you for your patience.

It Was the Worst of Times, It Was the Best of Times

As a typical day goes, I get dressed for work, put on Big Red and head to Building 155.  I take off my coat and put in the SAME spot and then head to the kitchen.  I work, work, work and then plan to head home to sleep.  I go over the cubby where I have consistently left Big Red and it was GONE!  GONE! 

I was so distraught!  I felt like I had been violated and didn’t know what to do. 

I couldn’t report a theft.  Who would I even report this to? 

I took a few deep breaths and started perusing the other coats for my name.  Since they all (or most) look alike, I searched the name badge on the front and tried to do this calmly.  It was very challenging not to go postal right away.

Since it’s around 7am, most of the community is coming in for breakfast or leaving the dining area to head to their work centers.  There was a great deal of movement and chaos in MY cubby!  I was trying very hard to deal.

I continued searching and searching and even headed back to the kitchen to see if maybe I left it there and forgot.  I usually have kept my coat in the cubbies since the coat starts to smell like a kitchen (you all know how bad that can be) if I have left it in the back for a few shifts.   No such luck.

Feeling optimistic, I checked the cubby once more and still no success.  I felt so naked!

I headed back to my dorm, coatless, yes coatless.  Fortunately it was not that cold or windy and I just tucked my bare hands in my armpits for warmth.  I might have looked a little big odd, but it worked.  I made it home pretty quickly and only had cold ears when I arrived at my dorm.  It’s nice that all the buildings are pretty close.

As usual, I got into my room and went to sleep.  I tried to relax and not think about my loss.  Okay, maybe I was being a bit dramatic, but I have gotten really close to my coat over the last two months.

I got up and decided to head to the gym to clear my mind in the hopes my Big Red would reappear.  Either that or the person that wanted to borrow it was through with it and would want to return it.  I stopped by MY cubby and lo and behold… my Big Red was safely returned to it’s original spot, and yes, my great gloves (the warm, fuzzy-lined, sent by the Long Island Bufferds gloves, sunglasses, and ear warmers were there just as I had left them.   I felt so relieved and pleased.  I didn’t even ponder where it went or why it was gone. 

I was secretly hoping that whoever borrowed it for the short time would leave me a quick note of apology for what they’d done.  That didn’t happen.  Oh well, I guess I will always wonder!  Somethings in life are there for us to question, right?

So, wearing Big Red, I headed to the Gerbil Gym very excited about my new find.  I hopped on the treadmill and started running.  After a  few minutes, I grabbed my workout towel (the one my parental units sent recently in an AWESOME package) and got THE BEST smell in the world…

HOME! 

I am not sure if it was my home or my parents home, but it was the best scent I have smelled in a very long time.  It was such a great feeling to be connected back to my life in Colorado by just a scent. 

This made my day! 

For the rest of the workout and during the rest of the day, I would stop and smell my towel.  I even placed it on my pillow when I returned to my room in hopes that my pillow could smell so wonderful! 

So as you are reading this and following along with my adventures, over the next few days, don’t forget to take a few moments to stop and just smell the life around you.  It might not always be the best scents (ie: the gym, taking out the trash, dog poop, etc.), but it’s home!

A Change of Venue

So it finally happened that I moved out of the penthouse suite with the ocean view living with McGeyvor.  Linda and I visited our new living quarters, building 201 (aka as 2-0-Fun we shortly learned) and instantly felt we could make this small space work.  I have lived there about one month and made some great adjustments.  Here is our new pad:

-

The best chair in the house and our ‘moist-maker.’  The chair (the exercise ball) is great for chatting on the phone, writing a letter, or just watching TV.  The ‘moist-maker’ is our constant source of moisture in the room, another donation from McGeyvor.  She plays a strong presence in the room.  Since we don’t have her, we have her things and her spirit!

 

The back of the room with my side on the left and Linda's on the right. We have added the beads from Skua plus some posters of Antarctica donated by McGeyvor. We have a nice dorm fridge and two mini filing cabinets as night stands. The lights add a nice touch and circle the room for added ambiance.

Our welcome mat, donated by McGeyvor. Since all of the doors look EXACTLY alike, it's a great and easy way to locate our room.

The entertainment center complete with a TV, DVD player, VCR, hot pot, phone, and desk. All you could want (within our tiny room).

The personal recycling center with all needed bins: mixed paper, plastic, biohazard, food waste, and non-recyclables.

The pet zone with my monkey, Linda's pigeon Oswald, and her penguin. We will add Piglet to the collection thanks to Karen from CO for sending him.

 

 

The food pantry that is now MUCH more full thanks to both the Levine and Fallowes parental units.

The comfy loveseat (although not as comfy as my couch at home) plus our foyer. It can get much more full when we both have all of our ECW gear out, but it's cozy. We can still take a catnap at ANY time!

Stove Making in Antarctica Part II-The Stand

To continue the wonderful world of stove making, a very nice friend of Talie’s created this amazing stand that would support a small saucepan while heating.  He calculated all the measurements and came up with a template and was nice enough to share his knowledge and wisdom with us.  One saturday evening, he invited us to his shop (a big boiler room with lots of tools) and began this endeavor.  I don’t think he anticipated it would take over two hours to guide us in making our own stands.  There were a few technical difficulties, but fortunately no safety issues!  Here are some photos to remember the occassion.

We began by getting the instructions. Notice the safety glasses, well atleast on most of us! And see the cool tool in my hand. We nicknamed it the pre-bedazzler because it made the nice holes to attach the legs.

This is Shawn cutting the metal, one of the first steps in our journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the way, I got to use many new tools in this endeavor, but don’t recall exactly what they are all called.  It was pretty fun none the less!

Here I am working diligently using some very important tool. Notice McGeyvor in the background as well as our awesome teacher!

Here is Katie using a sharp tool and a vice to prepare our stand for attaching the legs.

 

 

 

                                                                                    

A close up view of cutting the metal, not me, but this is what I did as well.

Here is B-Nelson (Brian Nelson to those not close to him). He is holding another important tool that we used to attach the legs. Notice the safety glasses as well. He was having a ball.

And here is the final result…

It may look odd, but I think itThe coolest part of this is that the stand is completly collapsable! Some might say it's pocketsized.The final product; a compilation of both classes. I think it's pretty amazing that I could use power tools and sharp objects with out injury AND create a usable product for camping or just being bored around the house!See, it will hold one of our exquisite bowls from the dinning hall.

The whole shabang; stove and stand. Georgous isn't it?

      

This stand is so cool that it collapses and is pocket sized! How great is that?

        I feel this is just the beginning of my many creations down here.  There is a pottery room, a jewelry class, and many other crafty items I am looking forward to making.  Who knows what will be next!

The Sunday Science Lecture

Every Sunday night in the dining room there is a science lecture put on by the scientists or their support staff.  Feeling adventurous as I sometimes do, I decided to attend the first one of the Winfly season.  The topic was the Ozone Hole and if it was getting better or not.

The lecture didn’t begin until 8pm and having worked my first brunch (starting at 6am-and feeling REALLY tired), I was a bit leary about how I would stay awake for an ENTIRE hour.  Around 8pm is when my body has gotten in the habit of telling me I am tired (in a number of ways!).  I poured myself a cup of tea and sat up front.

Dr. Jennifer Mercer, a research scientist from the University of Wyoming, is here ‘three months each year to measure the ozone layer by launching balloons 100,000 feet into the stratosphere.’   She first began the lecture with discussing the different layers in the atmosphere.  Some I had heard of, most of which I had not.  She then moved onto talking about the ozone hole and the ozone layer.  I couldn’t follow all the details (I was REALLY tired and having a difficult time staying awake.  Not because it wasn’t interesting, but because I was SO tired!), but the details that I found most interesting are:

1.  The Ozone Hole is only over the Antarctic from August through September.  The depletion of it is caused by a chemical reaction with chlorine and bromine. 

2.  The LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a big laser that is sent straight up into the sky to help measure moisture and cloud content in the atmosphere.    This instrument is used in determing information regarding the ozone hole.

The LIDAR being used here. It's the green laser in the center of the photo.

3.  Nacreous clouds can be seen extremely well in Antarctica.  Here are a few examples of the nacreous clouds seen here at the end of August.

A real photo (taken by F. Sheil, a coworker that was here during the Antarctic winter) of some nacreous clouds. The photo looks fake, but it's real.

Here is more information about nacreous clouds:

The nacreous color of the cloud is a result of diffraction of light through ice crystals in the clouds. In themselves, nacreous clouds are not too uncommon, and can be seen in mid-high latitudes when the atmosphere is cold enough to freeze the droplets of water in the clouds. The nacreous clouds that we see at this time of year in Antarctica though, are a special variety of nacreous cloud – a type 2 polar stratospheric cloud (PSC).

PSCs are unique to the polar regions. As their name implies, they form in the stratosphere, between 10 and 25 km  (6.2 – 15.5 miles). They also only form when stratospheric temperatures get below about -110F. There are several types of PSCs, containing some combination of nitric acid, sulfuric acid and water. The clouds we observed on Monday were type 2 PSCs, which are pure ice – these form in the coldest conditions (-120 F), and are thus the most uncommon. Because they are so high up (Mondays were approximately 20-22 km (13 miles), as determined by the Crary LIDAR), the sunlight is able to hit them before it hits us here on the ground, giving us spectacular light shows. The wavy look of them is due to wave action in the stratosphere, which is often associated with type 2 PSC formation.

Another amazing shot (also by F. Sheil) of the nacreous clouds at McMurdo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It was all pretty cool stuff and even though I fell asleep for a short part of it, I found it interesting. 

For more information about this subject, check out http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/contenthandler.cfm?id=1530

or http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/.