King Harvest is Sure to Come

Yesterday, I did one of the more interesting things you can do at the South Pole, I harvested plants.

The winterovers are starting to arrive and the harvest planted about 43 days ago was ready and the greenhouse needed volunteers. I started with Basil. They had 4 different types: long leaf, cinnamon, spicy, and lemon. The lemon was the best. The smell was unworldly. They also harvested a couple strains of bok choi, a whole bunch of lettuce, and some chard. It was a lot of fun.


This is what it looked like as you walked in. Quite the lush wonderland.

Me with my harvesting face.

Our harvest. There were about 5 more bags inside. Afterwards. We all held up the bags as if we were DEA agents after a big bust.

Damn near froze my toes off!

Wednesday night was soccer (although it was just two of us) and afterwards, I went out to the pole in just my soccer jersey. I really wanted to take a picture wearing my team's jersey and then send it back to our sponsor. If that doesn't get me free beer, I don't know what will! After that, since I was lightly clothed, I took what's known as the hero shot. Well, not the full hero shot. I kept my shorts on...

Thursday was one of the guys in my group's last day and so I had a lot of work to do before he left. It was a full day but afterwards, I relaxed with some beers and a movie. I watched Appaloosa. It was pretty good.

Today, I got some good analysis work done that had been giving me trouble all week. Later, I watched Bananas and laughed until my sides hurt.

It's that time of the season where everyone is leaving. It's kind of depressing, but I'm really enjoying it here (though I do miss trees and weather). At around 10:30 tonight, the Keck collaboration asked me to help out while they put a giant mirror on their telescope. I damn near froze my fingers and toes off. I didn't realize we would be working outside for that long and didn't exactly dress appropriately. On the way back, I was riding on the back of a snowmobile and looking out at the reflection of the sun off the hard-pack and just thought about how amazing it is that I'm here. I get to tell about this for the rest of my life! It's very special to be able to come here.

I'm trying to post pictures, but it's just not working out. I'll keep working on it.

Ice Beard

This is what happens when you stay outside too long when it's windy...

20 hour work days and spelling bees

Yesterday, I stopped working somewhere between 5 and 6 am. Not really sure when exactly. It was a loooong day. I jinxed myself since earlier that day I wrote an email to my advisor saying how great it was to have a working telescope and not having to pull the late nights like last year... and then it was 5am. It's somewhat fun, though. Since the sun is up all day you actually are able to work later without feeling as tired. You trick your body into thinking it's earlier and it keeps going. I was helping to build this housing for a calibration test and it was fun to get back on the mill and the lathe, since it has been a while since I've had to machine anything.

I was able sleep about 5 or 6 hours and get up for sunday "brunch" which they combine breakfast and lunch on sunday with a little less variety to give the cooks a break. I got a chorizo, onion, and cheese omelette and there was a make-your-own waffle station. After brunch, there was a spelling bee in the galley so I participated in that. I made it through about 8 rounds and got out on mischievous because the lady pronounced it "mischievious."

Today was the south pole marathon, which is just an awful idea. Marathons alone are terrible. Add to that -10 degree weather and 10,000 ft elevation and you have possibly the worst thing in the world. It was supposed to take place in McMurdo but due to weather, they couldn't fly the Pole runners in so they decided to have their own. Apparently, one of the people on the station is a world class distance runner and had a really great shot at winning so it's somewhat disappointing that he didn't get a chance to run.

There's supposed to be volleyball today and soccer a little later, so I'm looking forward to that. I think the science lecture tonight is from one of the guys on our sister telescope so I'll probably do that as well. Plenty to do...

Soccer at the Pole

After breakfast and the meeting yesterday, I was feeling a little light-headed, so I took a nap. I woke up, grabbed lunch and walked the 1km to the lab. It's fairly warm, for south pole weather, only about -10 so I only really needed my wind pants and a fleece (along with gloves, a knit hat, and goggles). I spent the afternoon reacquainting myself with the lab computers and equipment and started some simple data analysis. Later, I trudged back to the station for dinner and then played some soccer. I still wasn't acclimatized so the doctors would have definitely advised against playing, but I did anyway. I just tried to take it a little easy. Playing soccer at 10,000 feet is like playing soccer in space. Every 5 minutes we have to stop to catch our breath. You breathe, but you don't feel any better. It's strange. I just can't wait until next week, once I'm fully acclimatized and can really start running. After soccer, I was feeling pretty dead, so I went to bed.

Woke up this morning and had a big breakfast of steak and eggs and headed back out to the lab to do more data analysis. I also wrote a schedule for our telescope to run which should give us some useful information. I'm currently working on another, longer schedule to be run later in the week.

I think there's volleyball tonight, which will be totally awesome and then I'll probably have a few birthday beers with some friends and go to bed.

It's hard to determine when to celebrate my birthday... Back in the US, it's tomorrow, but our timezone is across the international date line so it's a day later here. I figure, if I moved to Australia, I would be celebrating my birthday on their 13th, not the US' 13th so I'm going to celebrate today. Of course, maybe I'll just have a 2 day long party...

More fun at Pole

Counting the ways that Pole is way better than McMurdo continues. Dinner was much better and way more fun since I ate with a large number of people from my group. Afterwards, I played volleyball (which I totally shouldn't have done) and jammed with this grateful dead cover band down here. It was a lot of fun. The band sounded great and volleyball was a really good time. The weight room overlooks the gym so there were a bunch of spectators who were cheering us all on. It was gooooooood times.

Breakfast this morning was pretty good. There was a 7-grain porridge-like thing which tasted like the mash that you make beer out of. I also had peach yogurt, bacon, buckwheat pancakes, an egg and ham breakfast sandwich, and a fresh kiwi and orange. There's a meeting for my team in about 10 minutes, so I'll have to sign off.

Arrived at Pole!!!

The LC-130 that flew me to pole.

grr!!! This machine doesn't want to be in mcmurdo any more than I do.

The trans-antarctic mountain range as viewed from the plane.

me in the back of the plane.

Finally arrived after only 12 days of delays...

I woke up this morning and took my last longer than 2 minute shower for a few weeks. It was quite nice. Afterwards, I packed up my stuff, cleaned my room and headed out to meet the shuttle (at about 6:45am). The shuttle was a normal passenger van, lifted about 2 feet, and given a badass 4WD system. Usually, we take a Delta out to the airfield but since there were only 3 of us (plus the flight team) this shuttle took us the whole way. Once we boarded the plane, they started up the engines. We heard a strange sound and the plane lurched a little bit. Apparently, engine 1 had a blown starter so we deplaned and caught a shuttle back to the airfield's galley to wait for them to repair it. It was just 3 of us travelers and then 2+ crews of airmen so we spent a while talking with the pilots. They were all cool guys. Some were young and some were old and they all had different perspectives on flying these massive planes in antarctica. Some of them were asking me about what I do at the south pole and I gave a mini science lecture. I could tell that their minds were thoroughly blown by the stuff my telescope looks at. It's always fun to share science with people who wouldn't usually come into contact with it. Once we got back on the plane, we started up the engines again, this time all four started, but there was another maintenance problem. One of the generators wasn't working. I'm not exactly sure what a generator in this context does, but I can take a guess. This was a quick repair and we were ready to fly within a half an hour or so. With my luck this trip, I figured we'd scrub the whole thing and I'd be stuck in mcmurdo for another day.

As I mentioned, there were only 3 of us in the LC-130 (that's the one with the skis) so it was quite spacious. The airmen were pretty relaxed about us moving around. About an hour into the flight, we crossed the trans-antarctic mountain range and I went to the back of the plane where there was a larger window and took some pictures. I'll try to post pictures with this posting, but the internet here at pole is much slower and a lot less reliable. We landed on snow, which is just about the smoothest landing possible and after a short taxi, we deplaned. Just about my whole group was waiting for me, which was quite heartwarming. It really felt good to be greeted with hugs and smiles by everyone after the rough travels. If any of them happen to be reading this, thanks! You're the best. The cooks made a plate of lunch for me and kept it in the oven so I had some food--more reasons why south pole is waaaaay better than mcmurdo. My room is in the station, which is excellent, and I even have a window!!!! I'm not actually sure whether or not that's a good thing.

Hmmm... fire alarm is going off... is it a test? Hmmm... doesn't sound like it... better go.

Well, it wasn't a drill, but it wasn't a problem. I'm back (about 20 minutes later). They announced that they were looking for one of my group members so I assume he was playing with matches.

I'm going to try to take it easy tonight to avoid getting altitude sickness (since we're at 10,000 ft). It's a balmy -15 degrees F (-34 with the wind). Beach weather.

It's that time of year again

Tomorrow night, I will begin my journey to the south pole for the second time. It's very exciting, although I'm not looking forward to leave civilization behind for so long.

For anyone new to this blog, or for a refresher, check out my first post from last year to hear about the science aspects of my trip. I intend for this blog to have a very small amount of science content and mostly describe what life is like at the South Pole.

As a quick refresher, I am part of team BICEP 2, which is a telescope at the south pole that is looking at the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the glowing remnants of the big bang, for evidence of the early gravitational waves that torqued our early universe during inflation, leading to the interesting universe that we see today. That's a bit dense, so in layman's terms, the telescope looks in the microwave spectrum (vs the visible spectrum of the Hubble). At this wavelength, the universe glows--a ghost signal from the big bang. Hidden in this glow are clues as to how the universe formed. We are looking for a certain signal that will show when the universe underwent a very rapid expansion--an expansion that explains several "strange" things that we see in the universe today. We're located at the south pole for two reasons. First, it's very dry there. Since we're looking in the microwave spectrum, we don't want a lot of water in the air absorbing the microwaves that we want to see. Next, there's a spot visible from the south pole that has the lowest galactic foreground contamination (it's empty) which is where we observe.

I leave tomorrow night at 11:30 and arrive in Auckland, New Zealand at 9:50 am two days later. I then get on an hour long flight from Auckland to Christchurch where I'll be staying in a hotel in Cathedral Square in downtown. Last year I stayed at a bed and breakfast which was nice but the rooms were tiny and I had to share a bathroom with the whole floor. Although they had decent food and a very nice staff, I think I'll have more fun downtown. The following day, I go to the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) to pick up my extreme cold weather (ECW) gear. Then, the next morning I will depart for McMurdo, Antarctica for an overnight stay before arriving at the South Pole on December 31st--just in time to wish in the new year.

Please post or email me any questions about the trip or random questions about the pole and I'll answer them with a FAQ section. I will have a phone number and email address where I can be easily reached assigned to me once I arrive so I will post them once I know them.

The South Pole Diet Plan

Need to lose a few pounds while doing nothing? Or don't even want to lose any weight at all?? Well, c'mon down to the south pole! Even breathing burns more calories here!

Seriously, it's crazy. I've been eating 2-3 plates at every meal... way more than I usually would, and I've lost almost 9 lbs since leaving LA. At meals, I get way too full before I'm done being hungry. I literally can't eat enough! Just about everyone I've talked to has lost weight. One guy in my group has lost nearly 15 lbs since getting here. Of course, there was this one girl who was trying to lost weight and couldn't. Maybe the key is in the attitude...

Also, sometimes, the food isn't so good. I think I've already mentioned that the food here is pretty good, and I stand by that. It's especially good considering how far away we are from anything remotely resembling a farm, and since we're not allowed to eat seals or penguins (dammit!), it's pretty fresh. We've been out of freshies for a while. Freshies are fresh fruits and vegetables, so it's kind of rough eating frozen or canned fruit all the time. We should be getting in a new shipment soon. I remember when the latest shipment of freshies came in last week. I've never seen people go so crazy over bananas. Going ape, perhaps? Har har har... ok. Sometimes, though, the food is no good. Occasionally the only salad offered will be a pasta salad, or everything is made from potatoes and white flour. Sometimes (very rarely) it just tastes bad. So it's even harder to eat all I need on those occasions.

On a happier note, I think I've finally acclimated (acclimatized?) and I'm not feeling sick when I wake up anymore. Because of this, I've been more active. Aside from soccer, I've started playing volleyball twice a week and I've been going to the gym a lot more. Volleyball is a lot of fun. I haven't played it in a while and forgot that I'm pretty good at it. I'm also not getting as winded as I was the first couple of weeks. It's still noticeably harder to breathe, but it's getting better.

Things at the lab are progressing. I think our pace may have been too fast, because now we're running low on things to do. Come monday, though, we have 3 new people coming in and they will be hand-carrying our new focal plane. Once that gets here, it's going to be a lot of work, although there will be eight of us to do it. I just hope it's managed correctly. The hardest thing I can think of (removing/installing the cryostat from the mount) is at most a four person job. Just about everything else is a two person job. I really don't want to be forced to sit around with nothing to do. I hated that at Caltech, but at least there I could leave if I was bored.

I'm scheduled to leave in 10 days. As cool as it is here, I'm really looking forward to going home. I really REALLY miss my girlfriend. I'm able to talk to her 2-3 times a day on the phone, but it's just not the same. I also can't wait to take some time to see my parents. I haven't seen them in a while. I just really miss everybody and I can't wait to get back.

Violent Femmes in Antarctica

So, sure enough yesterday about after lunch I was feeling much better. After lunch we went back to the lab to work. A new group member got in yesterday, so now we're up to 5. It was actually a pretty awful afternoon. A lot of sitting around. Wasn't much for me to do. I hate sitting on my hands, especially down here. After a while, Jamie (the new one) went back to rest and Rashmi and Phil went back because they were assigned the day's house mouse (cleaning the station), so it was just me and Walt. We were working on the computer systems. We spent a lot of time modifying and mounting the monitors to the computer rack and at the end of it all both of them didn't work. A lot of work for nothing. After a while, we decided to head back and get some dinner. All day we had been waiting for a call from cargo to get these 2 crates. First they said after 2pm. Then they said that the swing shift (the late shift) might be able to do it, but maybe not today. Well, when do they call and say it's ready? The second I start to climb the stairs into the main base. So I have to turn right around and walk aaaaaaaallll the way back to the lab. Very demoralizing. And of course, once I got there, there were 2 planes that flew in, so the skiway (the area you have to cross to get from the main building to the lab) was closed for about 40 minutes. So I just sat there in the lab for nearly an hour with nothing to do. Finally, the cargo arrived. Believe it or not, this is when my day started to get really good. Rashmi brought his iPod and we were blasting some pink floyd which always puts me in a good mood. I suited up in my ECW gear and then strapped on the body harness and we hauled these crates up. For the 2nd crate, I literally operated the crane, opened the gates, and moved the crate myself. I did the work of 3 people. The group got a kick out of it. I was just really pumped up and wanted to get the hell out of there.

We had already missed dinner at this point, and we were none too happy about it. When we got back to the galley, I asked about leftovers, and to my surprise, there were some leftover steaks. Jackpot. Although the adrenaline rush from moving the crates already put me in a good mood, this definitely pushed it over. After dinner, some people from the Ice Cube project came up and played Simpsons Clue with some of my group. I declined because I wanted to go into the music room and jam.

When I got down there, Danny and Eli (mandolin) were working out some violent femmes songs. I immediately picked up a guitar and started playing along. After a little while, a drummer joined us as well and we had ourselves our own violent femmes cover band. We must have played like a dozen of their songs. They're so easy and so much fun to sing at the top of your lungs. We were all having a blast. A little later, Mark joined and we started jamming on some blues and bluegrass stuff. Mark printed out the lyrics to Iko Iko after really liking the arrangement of it that I played. We all played it and sang and had like 3 part harmonies going. It sounded really good. We all had a blast. We're definitely playing tomorrow night after soccer, but I'll probably end up playing again with them tonight.

After jamming, I met back up with my group and played a little foosball before going to bed.

I'm still having trouble sleeping, and I'm waking up feeling just awful, but it fades as the day goes on. I think today or tomorrow I'm going to take a break from work and just rest.

South Pole Station

The C-130 cargo plane that flew us from McMurdo to the South Pole (about 3 hours flight)





Me just getting off the plane by the station, in full Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear. It was about -35 F outside with a windchill of -50 F.



My teeny tiny room.

The flight left this morning at around 9 am. We flew in a C-130, which is a propellor driven military cargo plane. It was really loud. They passed out earplugs before the flight. We had two 2-star generals and two 1-star generals on the flight, which was really cool. We figured that if anything should happen, we'd be rescued right away. Those guys are valuable. They said that they were just on a tour of the station, but I figure they were probably going to examine the alien spacecraft hidden under the ice. Since we were so heavy, we could only climb to a max altitude of 24,000 feet. About half way into the flight, the ice/mountains were over 10,000 feet, so we were really close. At one point, we dropped in and flew between the mountains. It was really cool to look out the window and see the side of a mountain. The landing was incredibly smooth (seeing as how we landed on skis on an ice runway). When we deplaned, the temperature was about -35 degrees F. It was coooooooold!!!! We entered south pole station and got our debreifing.

The crazy thing about the south pole is that is sits at an elevation of 9,3000 feet, and with the pressure and temperature, it feels more like over 10,000. So the biggest thing when you arrive is to make sure that you don't get altitude sickness. I started taking Diamox in McMurdo which helps prevent symptoms of altitude sickness, but it's got some weird side effects. Apparently, it works by ridding your blood of carbonate, which makes it more acidic, which triggers your body's natural reflext to breathe more. In ridding the carbonate, it does it one way--it makes you pee a lot. Like every 3 hours. I haven't had any of the other side effects yet, but apparently it can make random parts of your body go numb for random periods of time. Sounds kind of fun.

Here, I have my own room, well more like closet. It's got a bed, a desk, and a closet. I think its dimensions are 6'x10'. It's small. No windows either, which is probably a good thing since it will be easier to sleep. The station is really nice. It's brand new, opened last year. There's a gym for basketball/volleyball/indoor soccer, a cardio gym, and a weight room. The cafeteria is open 24/7 but has normal meal times. The rest of the time you can have left overs or cereal, etc. Lunch today was good, and I'll grab dinner in an hour or so. Lunch was beef sloppy joes (which were really tasty) and they had all sorts of sides, from fries, to fruit, to salad.

After lunch, and unpacking my things, I went to their music room and played guitar for a couple of hours. They have some nice equiptment. I started playing a Strat through a fender blues deluxe, then moved onto a Gibson SG, then moved onto an acousitc (made of carbon fiber).

I haven't been to the lab yet. I'll go tomorrow morning at 8am to check on the status of all our crates.

I haven't gotten a chance to upload pictures yet. Internet can be spotty--it depends on when satellites are flying through. I didn't even see a scheduled internet time for right now...

Weird things about south pole so far:

- Allowance of 2 2min showers a week
- 1 load of laundry /week
- they really REALLY emphasize washing your hands
- The station is on stilts
- the actual south pole is like 20 feet away from the building
- all waste gets shipped out (especially poop)
- all water comes from melted ice
- it's at an elevation of 9,300 feet, of which 90% is ice.
- There are 231 of us here right now

I'll post more of these once I learn more