Mmm... two minute showers...

You know you've been at the south pole too long when the highlight of your week is a two minute shower. At least the water was warm.

Tuesday, I finished filming the movie for SPIFF and I edited it on wednesday. I showed it to the guys who made it and a few random others and everyone really liked it. I know it's too early to start talking awards, but...

After dinner on wednesday, I had a quick band practice, followed by pub trivia. It was our week to host pub trivia so I wrote 12 questions about horror/monster movies. It was a lot of fun. Justus' category was still shots from movies where someone edited out the person's skin so all you had was the background and their clothing to guess the movie. It was kind of an easy round, but totally a lot of fun. The first round was done by Phil and every question was about military history. The scores were very low. Another round was done by Don, registered Canadian, and it was all about people on money from around the world. Aside from it being canadian biased, it was just plain hard. People seemed to enjoy it, though. How could they not? The prizes are beer!

After pub trivia, a few of us watched the movie Primer. I think I decided that I didn't like it. It's hard to tell since you have no idea the entire time what the hell is going on. It's essentially about a group of silicon valley nerds inventing a time-travel machine in their garage, but it totally throws causality to the wind. It was totally some pretentious sciencey-nerd's idea of a way to look cool to people who don't know more than him. It's like if I made a movie...

After a disappointing movie and weak beer, I went to sleep.

Yesterday, after turning in the movie, I actually finished some data analysis that had been giving me trouble for over a week. That took pretty much all day, but after dinner I was able to sneak in a half hour band practice and then played volleyball until almost midnight. The band is really starting to come together.

Concert and film festival are tomorrow night. It's going to be a crazy night. Parties like this are few and far between and the station really comes together and has a blast.

There are some very interesting people down here. Yesterday, I had a long conversation with my friend Mark. Mark has to be in his 50's by now if not older and has come down here every year for the past decade. He's also the guy I jammed with a lot last year, and the one responsible for getting me plugged into music down here. He was telling me about seeing Pink Floyd in germany in 1972 (before Dark Side of the Moon even came out). He also saw the Grateful Dead in 1970... just incredible. Mark works here for 4 months out of the year, then travels for months, then resumes a job back home for about 6 months. There are a lot of people who do that. They work here for a few months and save up enough money to travel for the rest of the year. It's pretty incredible.

Our winter-over should be getting in today, weather permitting, so there will be another hand to help with the telescope.

Ice Beard

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

Bingo, Film Festival, Fletch

I've had a busy and fun weekend. Saturday, after dinner, I practiced with my band. We had a really good practice and I think we'll have a great show next week. Saturday night was James Brown Bingo. James Brown is the head chef in the galley down here and every once in a while will host a bingo game. I only arrived for the last two rounds, but I think I got the gist of it. James Brown, dressed like William Wallace from Braveheart, complete with kilt, blue face-paint, and sword would pull bingo numbers and yell them to 50 or so drunk people. He would start by yelling the letter and then people would start guessing the number and if you guessed right, he would point at you menacingly and yell "YES!". It was quite a site. Of course, for certain tiles, there are standard responses. For example, if B4 was picked, everyone would yell "and after," or B2 "bomber" or B1 "with the universe". Naturally when O69 was drawn, the crowd would yell wildly. During the last round of bingo, where you had to black out your entire card instead of just get 5 in a row, when O69 was drawn james brown picked up a 3 foot long wooden stirring spoon (more like a paddle) and smashed a giant gingerbread house to pieces. It was quite entertaining. Afterwards, a bunch of us went into the game room and played pool, foosball, and drank. Much later on, I went with the firefighters to the "bar" at summer camp. Summer camp consists of a bunch of Korean War surplus Jamesways, one of which is a lounge that is used as a bar over the weekend. There, we had some whiskey and scotch. Outside of the bar was an ice-core from the Ice Cube experiment. This ice was upwards of 10,000 years old, so I chipped some of this ice off into my drink and had scotch on the 10,000 year old rocks. Thanks again to New Zealand's extraordinarily weak beer, I felt fine the next morning.

That morning there was the Polympics. Originally, the events sounded fun, but then there were all these stupid rules so it was more like games you'd play at a picnic than actual athletic events so I didn't feel like doing them. After lunch, I played volleyball from 2-4:30 and then soccer from 4:30 to 6 so my legs were quite tired after dinner. There's a film festival this weekend called the South Pole International Film Festival, or SPIFF, where people at the south pole make movies and submit them for judging. I decided to borrow an HD camcorder from the IT department, wrote a script, practiced some editing with iMovie and started filming. I plan on trying to make 2 movies: one will just be a documentary-style movie where I interview people around the base as to why they decided to come down here to work and the other will be my best attempt at a coen brothers style movie. The movies are only 5-10 minutes long usually, so it shouldn't take to long to complete... maybe a couple of days. I've got my actors lined up and a camera man and have shot some scenes already. It's a lot of fun. After SPIFF this weekend will be the open mic where my band will be playing. It's going to be a busy weekend.

Last night, after doing some editing, a bunch of us got together in one of the lounges and watched Fletch Lives on VHS. It's funny to watch a VHS movie on an HD tv... It was a very silly movie. Oh Chevy Chase... used to be so funny.

Today, the other guy in my group finishes his work with the telescope, so I can take over and start running the schedules that I want. I'm heading out there after I finish this post.

Past few days

A picture of a sun dog. These are like rainbows but occur when the air is full of ice instead of water.

I'm standing on the roof of MAPO, which is where Keck is located. In the background you can see DSL which is where my telescope is located.

Sara was complaining that I hadn't updated my blog in a while, but the only chances I get to update it (when the satellite is up) I'm usually on the phone with her... so it's her fault. That, and since the internet is frustratingly slow, it takes a long time to actually make a post.

I've been working pretty hard these past few days. We've had to do a liquid helium refill (I'll have to do another today) which is somewhat fun. During the fill, the visiting priest and dentist came by (I know, that sounds like the start of a dirty joke). I gave them a quick tour of the telescope and then went up to the roof for a while to install a mirror on top of the telescope. It wasn't too cold, only -15 F and there was no wind, so it was tolerable to be up there for a while. Afterwards, we had a group picture at the Keck telescope in the next building over. There were probably close to 20 of us, which was really cool. We had to do a re-take of the photos and I decided that I wanted the BICEP2 t-shirt that I designed on full display, so in the re-takes I was wearing only a t-shirt and jeans in -15. It wasn't so bad, but I didn't want to stay out there longer than a few minutes. Later that night, we played volleyball then watched Wet Hot American Summer with some beers and scotch. A few of the guys had never seen the movie before so it was even funnier seeing them crack up. The next morning we had a telecon meeting at 9am which went well and afterwards I took a quick nap. I did some more data analysis until around dinner time, after which I jammed with my band (concert is in 2 weeks). We've got about 4 songs that we're working on for the show. There was supposed to be soccer that night but it ended up being cancelled. All day, my plan was to go to soccer and then hit the sauna but with soccer cancelled, I was still able to convince a few people to go to the sauna with me. We cranked it up to just over 200 degrees and then ran outside for a total of about 215 degree difference. It's so far the most extreme I've experienced. I felt sooooo relaxed afterwards. Those whacky norwegians are on to something here... Afterwards, a few of us got together and watched It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia until we got tired enough to go to bed.

Yesterday, I worked on my code from pretty much when I woke up until dinner. Needless to say, I was not in a terribly great mood. After dinner we played volleyball for about 3 and a half hours. For the first hour I was still pissed off and there were some real goobers who play who were annoying the crap out of me. Goobers, by the way, in this case means either really dorky and annoying or someone who is just terrible at volleyball. I don't usually mind the terrible people because volleyball is really an excuse to relax and have some fun, but they were just awful that day. Eventually, I shook off my shitty mood and started to have a lot of fun. I was actually able to pull off a move that I've been trying for a while: the ball came over the net really low and I was able to bump it with my foot--where my foot was planted firmly on the floor. I was in shock that it actually worked. After volleyball, I was hungry so I went to the galley for some leftover lasagna (one of my favorite things) and had a beer with some of the Keck guys who were there playing cards. Eventually, I went to bed.

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...

48 hour birthday

This is the Dark Sector Lab where I work. BICEP is on the right--the ground-shield is visible. South Pole Telescope is on the left (the big one).

My ice-beard.

What the South Pole looks like when it's cloudy. Can you spot the horizon?

On the 13th local time, I played volleyball for a few hours and then split a 15 pack (yes, 15) or crappy NZ beers with some of my friends down here. It was a good time, but it's no fun being hung over at altitude. Then, yesterday--the 13th in the real world--I had a couple of gin and tonics at dinner and then jammed with Daniel, the bass player I played with last year, and then went to the game lounge and had a few more drinks. They had these weird Japanese candies that tasted like real foods just like in WIlly Wonka. I had the Mexican meal which really tasted like an enchilada. After a few minutes I could even taste rice and beans. The Japanese are light years ahead of us!



Strange Japanese candies. Translations wanted...


Birthday beer.

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...