Wednesday, April 21: High 20F Low: -2F Length of Day: 21h 35m
Thursday, April 22: High 22F Low: 13F Length of Day: 22h 22m
Friday, April 23: High 23F Low: 11F Length of Day: 24h
By Wednesday, I'm really sleep deprived, but I know that I'll get to sleep on the plane. Thank goodness I have that ability. I really feel sorry for people who can't sleep on planes. It's about the best way to pass the time in my mind.
The CRESIS teams shows up around 3pm with the last data set of the mission. I'm about 80% done with the third data copy of the old data, and I really think I can get this data copied and everything packed up by 8am the next day. People stopped by with words of encouragement every once in a while, but at no time did I feel pressure to get finished any earlier than I possibly could. The scientists on this mission were really top notch, and I enjoyed working with the team. A small part of me is going to miss everyone, but it's a very small part compared to the part that would love to get home sooner than later. I'm about as motivated as anyone else to leave early, and I put the pedal to the metal to get it done.
Ben and Reed come by after dinner and we pack up about everything we could at that time. I'm up all night, but I get everything done as planned by 6am. At 6:30am, we have an all hands meeting to see where we are, and everyone is happy to know that we're headed home today! I pack up the server and the rest of the gear and head to breakfast.
By the time I'm back from breakfast, Ben and Reed and three other team members have hauled all of the gear down to the lobby. I pack up what's left of my groceries and head to the dorm where the Go North! people are staying. I figure they can use those groceries while the hotel will most likely throw them away. On my way back to the hotel, I drop off a sticker in the museum and hope that Miss Dell will get it and add it to the wall. I then take down the wireless router, grab my luggage, and head to the hangar.
We pack up the plane and are off the ground well before 11am. We are headed to Kanger in Southern Greenland first to drop off equipment which will be used in the next set of missions taking place in May. I immediately plop down in a seat and fall right to sleep and don't wake up until we land. Kanger is really beautiful, and the airport is surrounded by mountains. It was expected that it could take us a couple of hours to unload the plane, but the crew does it in 45 minutes, and then we are back in the air. As we head out and leave Greenland, you can see hundreds of tiny white specks in the water. Each one is an iceberg big enough to sink the Titanic. It's beautiful and eerie and fascinating to look at.
Our next stop is Bangor, Maine where we will go through customs and the crew will spend the night and rest before heading to Wallops. We get there around 4pm, make it through customs very quickly, and then head to a Holiday Inn. We all then head immediately to the Sea Dog Brewing Company where we drink micro brewed beer and eat mussels and lobster. It was a fantastic dinner and the beer was great. We head back to the hotel and I have a last beer with Michelle and Brian from the LVIS team before heading to bed.
CRESIS has gracious bought me a last minute ticket from Maine to Indy for Friday morning which puts me home a day earlier than I had expected. After a dip in the hot tub to relieve a bit of aches and pains the previous four days had given me, I have breakfast at the hotel and head to the airport. The Bangor airport is tiny and it only takes me about 10 minutes to get checked in and get through security. A stop in La Guardia, then off to Indy, a shuttle ride later, and I'm home.
It was 33 days, over 24TB of data (copied three times!), over 100 hours of flying, and over 40 new colleagues. I had a lot more fun than I thought I was going to have. The DC-8 is a fantastic plane especially one as cushy as this one. The NASA crew was so experienced and confident that you always knew you and the mission were in good hands. It was for me a once in a lifetime experience, and I'm glad I took the opportunity to go.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Winding down
Sunday, April 18: High: 17F Low: 0F Length of Day: 20h 05m
Monday, April 19: High: 7F Low: -4F Length of Day: 20h 31m
Tuesday, April 20: High: 13F Low: -4F Length of Day: 21h 00m
Sunday morning I wake up early and go see the Go North! teams' dogs. They were chained up outside near the end of the hangars. The chains were keeping them separated which is good since one dog and bitten another dog the day before. The victim dog was really sad when I got there with a a big mat of bloody fur on the left side of his face. Obviously the omega dog, he sat there all dejected even while an ambulance goes roaring by with its sirens blaring. All the other dogs howled at the sound, but the omega dog just sat there, looking at the ground. I was hoping to see some of the team out there, but it was pretty early and they hadn't returned from breakfast.
Sunday is still a manic data copying day, because the mission is winding down, and I'm running out of days. During the evening science briefing, it's decided that we'll fly for the next three days, pack up as quickly as possible and leave late Thursday morning. A lot of focus was on me during this meeting since I'm the person that will take the longest to pack up. If they fly on Wednesday and bring me data at 4pm and we leave less than 24 hours later, that doesn't give me a lot of time to get three copies of the data done and pack up. I assure them that I will try my best, and everyone is really gracious allowing for us to leave Friday morning if that is necessary.
The next four days are probably the roughest of the entire trip. The team flies Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and while making a third copy of the earlier data, I'm also making three copies of the new data. I don't sleep much, and the sleep I do get comes in bits and spurts. At this point, I can't afford to lose a lot of time because of a failed copy or a dead disk. In order to leave Thursday, the system must be monitored pretty much 24 hours a day.
I do manage to do a couple of fun things while working my tail off. The days are really getting long, and the amount of time each day is lengthening is accelerating. The "nights" aren't dark at all any more, and by Friday the sun won't even set. I setup a camera on Sunday night to take pictures every 15 minutes to try to capture what the 24-hour sun is like. I'll have to see if I can make some sort of time lapsed movie when I have some more time.
On Tuesday, I go back to the laundry to talk to Erlinda and pickup the boys' jackets. She has put a dog sled on the back of each one and it's really awesome. She also gives me an embroidered panel of a picture of Greenland with a picture of Dundas Mountain, a dog sled, and the four flags of Thule - Greenland, Denmark, Canada, and the United States - that says "Thule Air Field" at the top and "Greenland" at the bottom. I'm absolute floored by her generosity. I stay for a cup of coffee, and we talk about her up coming trip to see her daughter in Denmark. She's worried about the Iceland volcano that has closed most of the airports in Europe as she's leaving tomorrow. Hopefully the ash cloud will clear out and she will make her trip. She also talks about taking recordings of one of the TV channels on the base that is broadcast by the Community Center. They air a slide show of pictures from all of the events they have had such as the dog sled races for Armed Forces Day and the trip we made to the ice cap. She's hoping to show her daughter the recordings to give her an idea of what it's like at the base.
That gives me an idea for a present for her and Miss Dell. After leaving the laundry, I head to the BX and pick up a couple of memory sticks. I then go to the Community Center and get a copy of the pictures from those two events. I then go back to the hotel and copy those pictures, a bunch of pictures that I've taken this trip of the DC-8 and Greenland from the air, and also a couple of pictures of they boys onto the two memory sticks. It's not much but it's about all I can think of to give these lovely ladies. Even if they aren't interested in the pictures, I'm sure the memory sticks will come in handy.
Tuesday evening, Miss Dell volunteers as staff for the front office of the Thule museum, and I figure this will probably be the last chance I have to see her before I leave. After checking on all the backups, I head over to the museum. I get there about 20 minutes before her shift, so I walk around and take a bunch of pictures of the displays. They have a dog sled and several things about the local people of Greenland. But the majority of the items are from the base over the 50 years the base has been opened. They have lots of old computer equipment including a DECwriter and a tape drive. They have several displays about different incarnations of the monitoring stations or BMEWS which stands for ballistic missile early warning system which is the main reason the base was built to begin with. There's an entire wall of stickers from various missions to the base, and I regret not having given one of the Ice Bridge mission stickers to Miss Dell.
Once she arrives, we sit down and talk for a bit. I give her one of the memory sticks and purchase some DVDs of documentaries and CDs of pictures about the Thule air field. She gives Erlinda a call, and she heads over from the laundry. I've brought the tapestry with me, and when Erlinda arrives, I give her the other memory stick, and I ask her to sign the tapestry. I vow to bring a sticker sometime before I leave, and in a hurry to get back to the backups, I take off knowing it'll be the last time I get to see these ladies. I do get Erlinda's address with the plan to keep in contact with them and send them some nice thank you gifts when I get home.
Monday, April 19: High: 7F Low: -4F Length of Day: 20h 31m
Tuesday, April 20: High: 13F Low: -4F Length of Day: 21h 00m
Sunday morning I wake up early and go see the Go North! teams' dogs. They were chained up outside near the end of the hangars. The chains were keeping them separated which is good since one dog and bitten another dog the day before. The victim dog was really sad when I got there with a a big mat of bloody fur on the left side of his face. Obviously the omega dog, he sat there all dejected even while an ambulance goes roaring by with its sirens blaring. All the other dogs howled at the sound, but the omega dog just sat there, looking at the ground. I was hoping to see some of the team out there, but it was pretty early and they hadn't returned from breakfast.
Sunday is still a manic data copying day, because the mission is winding down, and I'm running out of days. During the evening science briefing, it's decided that we'll fly for the next three days, pack up as quickly as possible and leave late Thursday morning. A lot of focus was on me during this meeting since I'm the person that will take the longest to pack up. If they fly on Wednesday and bring me data at 4pm and we leave less than 24 hours later, that doesn't give me a lot of time to get three copies of the data done and pack up. I assure them that I will try my best, and everyone is really gracious allowing for us to leave Friday morning if that is necessary.
The next four days are probably the roughest of the entire trip. The team flies Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and while making a third copy of the earlier data, I'm also making three copies of the new data. I don't sleep much, and the sleep I do get comes in bits and spurts. At this point, I can't afford to lose a lot of time because of a failed copy or a dead disk. In order to leave Thursday, the system must be monitored pretty much 24 hours a day.
I do manage to do a couple of fun things while working my tail off. The days are really getting long, and the amount of time each day is lengthening is accelerating. The "nights" aren't dark at all any more, and by Friday the sun won't even set. I setup a camera on Sunday night to take pictures every 15 minutes to try to capture what the 24-hour sun is like. I'll have to see if I can make some sort of time lapsed movie when I have some more time.
On Tuesday, I go back to the laundry to talk to Erlinda and pickup the boys' jackets. She has put a dog sled on the back of each one and it's really awesome. She also gives me an embroidered panel of a picture of Greenland with a picture of Dundas Mountain, a dog sled, and the four flags of Thule - Greenland, Denmark, Canada, and the United States - that says "Thule Air Field" at the top and "Greenland" at the bottom. I'm absolute floored by her generosity. I stay for a cup of coffee, and we talk about her up coming trip to see her daughter in Denmark. She's worried about the Iceland volcano that has closed most of the airports in Europe as she's leaving tomorrow. Hopefully the ash cloud will clear out and she will make her trip. She also talks about taking recordings of one of the TV channels on the base that is broadcast by the Community Center. They air a slide show of pictures from all of the events they have had such as the dog sled races for Armed Forces Day and the trip we made to the ice cap. She's hoping to show her daughter the recordings to give her an idea of what it's like at the base.
That gives me an idea for a present for her and Miss Dell. After leaving the laundry, I head to the BX and pick up a couple of memory sticks. I then go to the Community Center and get a copy of the pictures from those two events. I then go back to the hotel and copy those pictures, a bunch of pictures that I've taken this trip of the DC-8 and Greenland from the air, and also a couple of pictures of they boys onto the two memory sticks. It's not much but it's about all I can think of to give these lovely ladies. Even if they aren't interested in the pictures, I'm sure the memory sticks will come in handy.
Tuesday evening, Miss Dell volunteers as staff for the front office of the Thule museum, and I figure this will probably be the last chance I have to see her before I leave. After checking on all the backups, I head over to the museum. I get there about 20 minutes before her shift, so I walk around and take a bunch of pictures of the displays. They have a dog sled and several things about the local people of Greenland. But the majority of the items are from the base over the 50 years the base has been opened. They have lots of old computer equipment including a DECwriter and a tape drive. They have several displays about different incarnations of the monitoring stations or BMEWS which stands for ballistic missile early warning system which is the main reason the base was built to begin with. There's an entire wall of stickers from various missions to the base, and I regret not having given one of the Ice Bridge mission stickers to Miss Dell.
Once she arrives, we sit down and talk for a bit. I give her one of the memory sticks and purchase some DVDs of documentaries and CDs of pictures about the Thule air field. She gives Erlinda a call, and she heads over from the laundry. I've brought the tapestry with me, and when Erlinda arrives, I give her the other memory stick, and I ask her to sign the tapestry. I vow to bring a sticker sometime before I leave, and in a hurry to get back to the backups, I take off knowing it'll be the last time I get to see these ladies. I do get Erlinda's address with the plan to keep in contact with them and send them some nice thank you gifts when I get home.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Storms and brou, ha ha!
Thursday, April 15: High: 18F Low: 8F Length of Day: 18h 58m
Friday, April 16: High: 19F Low: 17F Length of Day: 19h 19m
Saturday, April 17: High: 23F Low: 15F Length of Day: 19h 41m
Thursday morning, at 7:30am, the staff come through the hotel banging on all the doors, making sure we are all in our rooms. A storm has popped up, and we have advanced to a storm level of charlie. This means that we are all stuck in our quarters and cannot leave the building. It's snowing, but the real problem is the wind. At times, the gusts get to 75 MPH which creates blizzard conditions.
The hotel has MREs to eat and beer to keep us entertained. The MREs are disgusting as far as I can tell, but I don't have to eat them because I have food in my fridge. The odd hours I'm keeping means that I'm eating at hours when the mess hall isn't open, so I've got a fully stocked fridge. I had also been gearing up to make a chicken stir fry, which took me about a week to find all the ingredients on base. Of course, how I'm gonna make food in front of a bunch of starving men without them rushing me is beyond me. But Friday night, I make up as much stir fry as I can. I feed 4 other people with my leftovers and left a bunch of chopped up vegetables on the counter for people to munch on. Next morning, I made eggs with spinach, bell peppers, and onions. I then make up the rest of my eggs and leave them on the stove. It's all really appreciated because those MREs are really nasty. I'm also really happy that the women have their own restroom because over the next couple of days, the rest of the bathrooms in the place get really nasty too.
During those two days, lots of games were played. I learn to play Ukrainian checkers which involves treating kinged checkers like bishops in chess. You can move them diagonally as far as you like in order to jump the other players pieces. It's an interesting variant. Mike, who's from Ohio, and I teach people how to play Euchre and we spend many hours playing that game. Teaching people to play it reminds me what a great game it is. At one point, an arm wrestling match pops up between the United States and the Ukraine. I don't know who won, but there was lots of yelling involved.
Saturday morning at 2am, the storm alert is raised to bravo which means we can leave as long as we don't leave alone. By 7am, the storm alert is raised to alpha which only requires us to be aware of the weather, and we are back to normal conditions by noon.
I'm happy for the lockdown in a way because I have to make an extra copy of all of CRESIS' data. With all the disk problems we've had, it's decided that another copy will ensure the integrity of the data, so I put these free days to good use copying data. Hopefully one of the three copies will make it back to the states intact.
The storms have also delayed the rotator, which arrives Saturday morning. It brings a couple of dog sled teams from a project called Go North! This project goes on adventures around the world and lets classrooms track them and interact with them along the way. It's a K thru 12th grade teaching project, and the people are very nice. This team is taking dog sleds up to the ice summit in Greenland. Someone tells me that the trip will take several weeks. I make plans to go out and meet their dogs on Sunday. They aren't sure exactly when they are leaving, but are hoping to do so Monday morning. I'm looking forward to checking out their project more, and I send emails to my kids' teachers to see if they will also join in on the project.
Friday, April 16: High: 19F Low: 17F Length of Day: 19h 19m
Saturday, April 17: High: 23F Low: 15F Length of Day: 19h 41m
Thursday morning, at 7:30am, the staff come through the hotel banging on all the doors, making sure we are all in our rooms. A storm has popped up, and we have advanced to a storm level of charlie. This means that we are all stuck in our quarters and cannot leave the building. It's snowing, but the real problem is the wind. At times, the gusts get to 75 MPH which creates blizzard conditions.
The hotel has MREs to eat and beer to keep us entertained. The MREs are disgusting as far as I can tell, but I don't have to eat them because I have food in my fridge. The odd hours I'm keeping means that I'm eating at hours when the mess hall isn't open, so I've got a fully stocked fridge. I had also been gearing up to make a chicken stir fry, which took me about a week to find all the ingredients on base. Of course, how I'm gonna make food in front of a bunch of starving men without them rushing me is beyond me. But Friday night, I make up as much stir fry as I can. I feed 4 other people with my leftovers and left a bunch of chopped up vegetables on the counter for people to munch on. Next morning, I made eggs with spinach, bell peppers, and onions. I then make up the rest of my eggs and leave them on the stove. It's all really appreciated because those MREs are really nasty. I'm also really happy that the women have their own restroom because over the next couple of days, the rest of the bathrooms in the place get really nasty too.
During those two days, lots of games were played. I learn to play Ukrainian checkers which involves treating kinged checkers like bishops in chess. You can move them diagonally as far as you like in order to jump the other players pieces. It's an interesting variant. Mike, who's from Ohio, and I teach people how to play Euchre and we spend many hours playing that game. Teaching people to play it reminds me what a great game it is. At one point, an arm wrestling match pops up between the United States and the Ukraine. I don't know who won, but there was lots of yelling involved.
Saturday morning at 2am, the storm alert is raised to bravo which means we can leave as long as we don't leave alone. By 7am, the storm alert is raised to alpha which only requires us to be aware of the weather, and we are back to normal conditions by noon.
I'm happy for the lockdown in a way because I have to make an extra copy of all of CRESIS' data. With all the disk problems we've had, it's decided that another copy will ensure the integrity of the data, so I put these free days to good use copying data. Hopefully one of the three copies will make it back to the states intact.
The storms have also delayed the rotator, which arrives Saturday morning. It brings a couple of dog sled teams from a project called Go North! This project goes on adventures around the world and lets classrooms track them and interact with them along the way. It's a K thru 12th grade teaching project, and the people are very nice. This team is taking dog sleds up to the ice summit in Greenland. Someone tells me that the trip will take several weeks. I make plans to go out and meet their dogs on Sunday. They aren't sure exactly when they are leaving, but are hoping to do so Monday morning. I'm looking forward to checking out their project more, and I send emails to my kids' teachers to see if they will also join in on the project.
New arrivals
Sunday, April 11: High: 6F Low: -7F Length of Day: 17h 44m
Monday, April 12: High: 1F Low: -9F Length of Day: 18h 02m
Tuesday, April 13: High: 4F Low: -11F Length of Day: 18h 20m
Wednesday, April 14: High: 9F Low: -11F Length of Day: 18h 39m
Along with Michelle, the rotator brought in lots of other people. A large group of Ukrainians and Danes checked into the hotel. They are in Greenland doing joint military exercises. The hotel is a lot livelier with them around although the do cramp our style a bit. This influx of people also introduces a problem. The hotel has wireless internet, but only gives out access in 3 hour blocks. NASA is paying for a DSL connection for the group, and we have a wireless router in the common room plugged into the DSL modem. Although the wireless is password protected, I left some cables plugged into the wired ports for people to use when the wireless is giving them problems. On Friday, a guy not associated with our group walks up, sees the cables on the floor, plugs in his computer and starts to use our connection. Since we pay for the connection by the gigabyte, this is a problem. But I figure we did kinda invite people to use the cables, so it was hard to confront him. As soon as he leaves, I disconnect the cables and put a sticker on the router that says "For NASA use only". The next day, we're sitting in the common room watching some TV, and the same guy comes in, looks for the cables and doesn't see them. So he leaves the room and comes back with his own cable and plugs into the router. What part of "for NASA use only" did he not understand? So, I go over and confront him, tell him that NASA is paying for the connection and can't let him use it. He gets a little aggressive, and storms off.
Sunday is the day that GenCon event tickets go on sale. I volunteer for a GenCon event called TrueDungeon which is *the* premier event at GenCon. The tickets for this event sell out in 15 minutes, and volunteers don't get special treatment when it comes to getting tickets. So, I'm sitting in the common room, plugged into the router so that I have the best network connection I can get. I get lucky and get the ticket blocks that I want. But I hang out for several hours helping other volunteers get tickets who weren't so lucky. Then who shows up but the guy from yesterday with his computer and his cable. He sees me sitting there, and he gets really grumpy. He sits down and starts mumbling things like "There's my tax dollars at work!" and "Yeppers!" My advice to anyone is that if you want to get special privileges in this life, a smile and a happy demeanor will get you far where being aggressive will get you the opposite. He reminded me of my children throwing a fit and once they do that, I don't care *what* they want, but they aren't getting it. If he had tried to be friendly, I might have been able to set him up with a low bandwidth connection. But being all aggressive doesn't make me wanna help him out. So, I spend some time and figure out how to disable the ports on the router. It's a sad thing to have to do, but I figure it'll make it easier to deal with people like him. And as the hotel gets more guests, it'll be a necessity.
The team flies the next two days and Monday and Tuesday are busy days for me. But Wednesday I decide to go to the Greenland post office which was recommended to me by Miss Dell and Elinda. The post office has lots of crafts from the indigenous people including lots of dead things again, but also charms made out of Greenlandic gold and silver. Everything is super expensive, and I have to think about it before I decide to buy anything.
I also stop out at the laundry and talk to Elinda. She gives me a tour of the laundry facility and shows me the embroidery that she does for the base. She also offers me cake and coffee, and while I'm there, Miss Dell calls and offers to take me out site seeing next week. It's so amazing how generous these women are. I only wish I had something to give them back in return. I leave Elinda with a couple of hoodies I bought for the boys to embroider. We decide that dog sleds embroidered on the back would be awesome.
Monday, April 12: High: 1F Low: -9F Length of Day: 18h 02m
Tuesday, April 13: High: 4F Low: -11F Length of Day: 18h 20m
Wednesday, April 14: High: 9F Low: -11F Length of Day: 18h 39m
Along with Michelle, the rotator brought in lots of other people. A large group of Ukrainians and Danes checked into the hotel. They are in Greenland doing joint military exercises. The hotel is a lot livelier with them around although the do cramp our style a bit. This influx of people also introduces a problem. The hotel has wireless internet, but only gives out access in 3 hour blocks. NASA is paying for a DSL connection for the group, and we have a wireless router in the common room plugged into the DSL modem. Although the wireless is password protected, I left some cables plugged into the wired ports for people to use when the wireless is giving them problems. On Friday, a guy not associated with our group walks up, sees the cables on the floor, plugs in his computer and starts to use our connection. Since we pay for the connection by the gigabyte, this is a problem. But I figure we did kinda invite people to use the cables, so it was hard to confront him. As soon as he leaves, I disconnect the cables and put a sticker on the router that says "For NASA use only". The next day, we're sitting in the common room watching some TV, and the same guy comes in, looks for the cables and doesn't see them. So he leaves the room and comes back with his own cable and plugs into the router. What part of "for NASA use only" did he not understand? So, I go over and confront him, tell him that NASA is paying for the connection and can't let him use it. He gets a little aggressive, and storms off.
Sunday is the day that GenCon event tickets go on sale. I volunteer for a GenCon event called TrueDungeon which is *the* premier event at GenCon. The tickets for this event sell out in 15 minutes, and volunteers don't get special treatment when it comes to getting tickets. So, I'm sitting in the common room, plugged into the router so that I have the best network connection I can get. I get lucky and get the ticket blocks that I want. But I hang out for several hours helping other volunteers get tickets who weren't so lucky. Then who shows up but the guy from yesterday with his computer and his cable. He sees me sitting there, and he gets really grumpy. He sits down and starts mumbling things like "There's my tax dollars at work!" and "Yeppers!" My advice to anyone is that if you want to get special privileges in this life, a smile and a happy demeanor will get you far where being aggressive will get you the opposite. He reminded me of my children throwing a fit and once they do that, I don't care *what* they want, but they aren't getting it. If he had tried to be friendly, I might have been able to set him up with a low bandwidth connection. But being all aggressive doesn't make me wanna help him out. So, I spend some time and figure out how to disable the ports on the router. It's a sad thing to have to do, but I figure it'll make it easier to deal with people like him. And as the hotel gets more guests, it'll be a necessity.
The team flies the next two days and Monday and Tuesday are busy days for me. But Wednesday I decide to go to the Greenland post office which was recommended to me by Miss Dell and Elinda. The post office has lots of crafts from the indigenous people including lots of dead things again, but also charms made out of Greenlandic gold and silver. Everything is super expensive, and I have to think about it before I decide to buy anything.
I also stop out at the laundry and talk to Elinda. She gives me a tour of the laundry facility and shows me the embroidery that she does for the base. She also offers me cake and coffee, and while I'm there, Miss Dell calls and offers to take me out site seeing next week. It's so amazing how generous these women are. I only wish I had something to give them back in return. I leave Elinda with a couple of hoodies I bought for the boys to embroider. We decide that dog sleds embroidered on the back would be awesome.
Monday, April 12, 2010
A trip to the ice cap
Saturday, April 10: High: 9F Low: -4F Length of Day: 17h 27m
Today the community center has organized a trip to the ice cap. I'm not quite sure what an ice cap is, but it's something that breaks off from the ice sheet and feeds the glaciers. About 30 people meet at the community center and load up into cars and trucks. We travel about 20 minutes with the last 5 minutes being pretty rough terrain. I'm in a truck with Damian and Peter who are part of the security forces of the base. They are driving their boss' truck. Damian is from northern Minnesota and Peter is from Florida. We're all glad Damian is driving and not Peter as Damian knows how to keep the truck from getting stuck. Peter, on the other hand, has gotten 3 trucks stuck during his short stay in Greenland. They are pretty fun guys and both have been in Greenland for only 3 months. The troops here serve for one year, and most people seem to enjoy themselves up here. I think the short term helps make this more like an adventure than a chore.
After parking, we all grab sleds and head down a river bed. I luckily was able to score cold weather gear on the base which consisted of a parka, snow pants, wool socks, and gloves. I also have a face mask and reflective bands which are only used in case of a storm. Although it's cold, there isn't one bit of wind. I'm so warm in my gear that I sweat a ton. I really didn't need the pants and in fact, they didn't fit well and made it kind hard to walk. Walking is already hard as there is a bunch of snow, and although some of it is frozen over and well packed, there are huge lengths where you just sink into several inches of snow. It's like walking in sand. We hike 2 miles up this river bed which is formed from the melting snow. The river bed is huge with 200 foot high silt mounds on one side and a 200 foot ice wall on the other. I keep imagining how much water is in this river bed when the snow melts. It's truly breath taking.
We stop just shy of a place where the ice wall is exposed and do some sledding. Then we hike past the exposed ice wall and some people climb up to the top of the ice wall to see the ice cap. I can't make it up the hill and settle for just hanging out at the bottom, checking out rocks. There is a point where you can get really close to the exposed ice wall, and Michelle and I go and check it out. The ice wall has several layers each a different color. The brown layers are obviously formed by impurities in the ice, but there are crystal blue layers and white layers. According to Tim, a glaciologist in our crew, the white ice has more air in it than the blue. That makes sense since snow is white.
After about an hour and a half, we head back. I take off my snow pants since I'm really hot and it makes walking so much easier. We have hot chocolate and cookies waiting at the trucks and then we head back to base. Several people mention that the TOW club's restaurant is having its monthly fancy dinner and there will be steak and crab legs. So after taking a shower, I head out to the TOW club for dinner. Most of our crew has had dinner and left by the time I get there, and so I was resigned to having dinner by myself when these two ladies offer to let me join them. Miss Dell is from the southern United States and has that southern air about her. Elinda is from the Philippines, but is now a Danish citizen. Both are civilians working on the base and both have been here for 25 years. Miss Dell works for Lockhead Martin and works in SAT/COM while Elinda works for the Greenland Contractors group and works in the embroidery room. You can take just about anything to Elinda and she'll embroider it with whatever you need. I make a promise to her to stop by to have her embroider something about Thule on it. And she also has things to purchase in her shop. Miss Dell tells me about the museum on the base. She's the third person to mention the museum. I make plans with her to come by on Tuesday night when she is volunteering - as long as we aren't in Fairbanks. They also tell me that the Greenlandic Post Office might have local crafts for sale. I hope so after the dissappointing craft sale last weekend.
We order wine - an Australia Shiraz and dinner is fillet mignon with a huge pile of crab legs. There's ice cream and coffee for dessert. We spend 2 and a half hours having dinner and talking. And then Miss Dell paid for it all. She absolutely refused to take my money. I make a note to pick up something in Fairbanks for her like a bottle of wine, good cheese, or smoked salmon. It was a great end to a glorious day.
One thing that wasn't so great today is my asthma has been bothering me. Even before the hike - in fact, ever since the Ukrainians arrived - my asthma has been bothering me. I think it's a combination of the cold air and the fact that the Ukrainians have been smoking in the bathrooms that is causing me an issue. The drag is that my inhaler leaked out during my travels to Greenland. It must have been in a non-pressurized cabin at some point. I think I can get it replaced at the local medical station and many people tell me that it'll most likely be free. I'll look into it on Monday and if worse comes to worse, I'm sure I can make it to Fairbanks and I can replace it then.
Today the community center has organized a trip to the ice cap. I'm not quite sure what an ice cap is, but it's something that breaks off from the ice sheet and feeds the glaciers. About 30 people meet at the community center and load up into cars and trucks. We travel about 20 minutes with the last 5 minutes being pretty rough terrain. I'm in a truck with Damian and Peter who are part of the security forces of the base. They are driving their boss' truck. Damian is from northern Minnesota and Peter is from Florida. We're all glad Damian is driving and not Peter as Damian knows how to keep the truck from getting stuck. Peter, on the other hand, has gotten 3 trucks stuck during his short stay in Greenland. They are pretty fun guys and both have been in Greenland for only 3 months. The troops here serve for one year, and most people seem to enjoy themselves up here. I think the short term helps make this more like an adventure than a chore.
After parking, we all grab sleds and head down a river bed. I luckily was able to score cold weather gear on the base which consisted of a parka, snow pants, wool socks, and gloves. I also have a face mask and reflective bands which are only used in case of a storm. Although it's cold, there isn't one bit of wind. I'm so warm in my gear that I sweat a ton. I really didn't need the pants and in fact, they didn't fit well and made it kind hard to walk. Walking is already hard as there is a bunch of snow, and although some of it is frozen over and well packed, there are huge lengths where you just sink into several inches of snow. It's like walking in sand. We hike 2 miles up this river bed which is formed from the melting snow. The river bed is huge with 200 foot high silt mounds on one side and a 200 foot ice wall on the other. I keep imagining how much water is in this river bed when the snow melts. It's truly breath taking.
We stop just shy of a place where the ice wall is exposed and do some sledding. Then we hike past the exposed ice wall and some people climb up to the top of the ice wall to see the ice cap. I can't make it up the hill and settle for just hanging out at the bottom, checking out rocks. There is a point where you can get really close to the exposed ice wall, and Michelle and I go and check it out. The ice wall has several layers each a different color. The brown layers are obviously formed by impurities in the ice, but there are crystal blue layers and white layers. According to Tim, a glaciologist in our crew, the white ice has more air in it than the blue. That makes sense since snow is white.
After about an hour and a half, we head back. I take off my snow pants since I'm really hot and it makes walking so much easier. We have hot chocolate and cookies waiting at the trucks and then we head back to base. Several people mention that the TOW club's restaurant is having its monthly fancy dinner and there will be steak and crab legs. So after taking a shower, I head out to the TOW club for dinner. Most of our crew has had dinner and left by the time I get there, and so I was resigned to having dinner by myself when these two ladies offer to let me join them. Miss Dell is from the southern United States and has that southern air about her. Elinda is from the Philippines, but is now a Danish citizen. Both are civilians working on the base and both have been here for 25 years. Miss Dell works for Lockhead Martin and works in SAT/COM while Elinda works for the Greenland Contractors group and works in the embroidery room. You can take just about anything to Elinda and she'll embroider it with whatever you need. I make a promise to her to stop by to have her embroider something about Thule on it. And she also has things to purchase in her shop. Miss Dell tells me about the museum on the base. She's the third person to mention the museum. I make plans with her to come by on Tuesday night when she is volunteering - as long as we aren't in Fairbanks. They also tell me that the Greenlandic Post Office might have local crafts for sale. I hope so after the dissappointing craft sale last weekend.
We order wine - an Australia Shiraz and dinner is fillet mignon with a huge pile of crab legs. There's ice cream and coffee for dessert. We spend 2 and a half hours having dinner and talking. And then Miss Dell paid for it all. She absolutely refused to take my money. I make a note to pick up something in Fairbanks for her like a bottle of wine, good cheese, or smoked salmon. It was a great end to a glorious day.
One thing that wasn't so great today is my asthma has been bothering me. Even before the hike - in fact, ever since the Ukrainians arrived - my asthma has been bothering me. I think it's a combination of the cold air and the fact that the Ukrainians have been smoking in the bathrooms that is causing me an issue. The drag is that my inhaler leaked out during my travels to Greenland. It must have been in a non-pressurized cabin at some point. I think I can get it replaced at the local medical station and many people tell me that it'll most likely be free. I'll look into it on Monday and if worse comes to worse, I'm sure I can make it to Fairbanks and I can replace it then.
Not much going on
Monday, April 5: High: 4F Low: -12F Length of Day: 16h 09m
Tuesday, April 6: High: 5F Low: -8F Length of Day: 16h 24m
Wednesday, April 7: High: 6F Low: -9F Length of Day: 16h 39m
Thursday, April 8: High: 3F Low: -12F Length of Day: 16h 55m First day of visible light for 24 hours
Friday, April 9: High 5F Low: -9F Length of Day: 17h 11m
This was a really boring week. We only flew on Monday and Friday due to the cloud cover. Apparently a low has settled itself in the Arctic somewhere and that's creating a lot of cloud cover.
On Monday, my manager's manager helps me get a seat on the rotator for the 23rd just in case we extend our mission in Thule. I'm glad he has my back. There was no question about why I needed to come back. And my colleague Chad also agreed to come out to replace me if necessary. It's such a relief to know that my needs are covered. I really love my job.
The big news of the week is that Butler nearly won the NCAA National Championship. For a couple of days leading up to the tournament, people were saying things like "It's going to be Feel Good against Real Good." Well, I guess Butler showed them. And only 4,000 students go to Butler. They have made waves in the basketball world for many years to come despite not winning. And their coach will be able to go anywhere he wants. It was truly like watching David slay Goliath - although coming up one basket short. Go Butler!
On Thursday, Michelle showed back up. David was leaving on Friday on the rotator, so we went out to the TOW club and said our goodbyes. Also on the rotator was a group of Danes and Ukrainians. They are in Greenland doing joint military operations. They're a lively bunch, but have cramped our style a bit. We no longer have exclusive use of the common rooms. But all the natives have left the hotel, so it's a step up from the usual people roaming the halls. I'm glad for that.
And it no longer looks like we are going to extend our mission. We are going to be back in the states on the 23rd like we originally planned. I'm still going to hang on to the rotator seat for now. We can cancel up to a couple of days before without being charged. This is a good thing since seats on the rotator cost $1600. At this point, with things so up in the air, I'm glad to have all my bases covered.
Tuesday, April 6: High: 5F Low: -8F Length of Day: 16h 24m
Wednesday, April 7: High: 6F Low: -9F Length of Day: 16h 39m
Thursday, April 8: High: 3F Low: -12F Length of Day: 16h 55m First day of visible light for 24 hours
Friday, April 9: High 5F Low: -9F Length of Day: 17h 11m
This was a really boring week. We only flew on Monday and Friday due to the cloud cover. Apparently a low has settled itself in the Arctic somewhere and that's creating a lot of cloud cover.
On Monday, my manager's manager helps me get a seat on the rotator for the 23rd just in case we extend our mission in Thule. I'm glad he has my back. There was no question about why I needed to come back. And my colleague Chad also agreed to come out to replace me if necessary. It's such a relief to know that my needs are covered. I really love my job.
The big news of the week is that Butler nearly won the NCAA National Championship. For a couple of days leading up to the tournament, people were saying things like "It's going to be Feel Good against Real Good." Well, I guess Butler showed them. And only 4,000 students go to Butler. They have made waves in the basketball world for many years to come despite not winning. And their coach will be able to go anywhere he wants. It was truly like watching David slay Goliath - although coming up one basket short. Go Butler!
On Thursday, Michelle showed back up. David was leaving on Friday on the rotator, so we went out to the TOW club and said our goodbyes. Also on the rotator was a group of Danes and Ukrainians. They are in Greenland doing joint military operations. They're a lively bunch, but have cramped our style a bit. We no longer have exclusive use of the common rooms. But all the natives have left the hotel, so it's a step up from the usual people roaming the halls. I'm glad for that.
And it no longer looks like we are going to extend our mission. We are going to be back in the states on the 23rd like we originally planned. I'm still going to hang on to the rotator seat for now. We can cancel up to a couple of days before without being charged. This is a good thing since seats on the rotator cost $1600. At this point, with things so up in the air, I'm glad to have all my bases covered.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Craft sale
Sunday, April 4: High 12F Low: -7F Length of Day: 15h 54m
The natives had a craft sale on Sunday at the community center. There wasn't a lot of items there, but what was there was pretty cool. There was a polar bear skin, a musk ox skull, and a narwhal tusk. I always thought that the narwhal had a horn, but apparently it's actually a tusk. Most males have only one tusk, while every once in a while a male will grow two tusks. Females rarely grow tusks, and a female with two tusks is super rare. The narwhal tusk that was at the craft sale was about 10 feet long. It wasn't smooth, but instead looked like it grew in a spiral and was wavy because of that. There were also polar bear teeth and seal teeth for sale. The polar bear teeth were going for $50 a piece. The disappointing thing was that if you weren't into dead things, there wasn't much else to buy. I expect at least some sort of bead work or art work, but alas, there was none of that around.
Our 5:30pm daily briefing meeting are sounding like broken records where no information is actually imparted. We are told each day, "Perhaps we'll fly tomorrow, perhaps we won't. Perhaps we'll go to Fairbanks, perhaps we won't. Perhaps we'll fly a local sea ice flight, perhaps we'll fly a land LVIS flight, perhaps we won't." *sigh* But at today's meeting, it was mentioned that there are delays in the P3 which might force us to extend our trip in Thule one week. The P3 is the plane that is going out next month from Wallops Flight Facility. They are also coming to Greenland probably to Thule and to Kangerlussuaq. An extension of our trip would allow us to fly P3 missions to make up for their delay. However, I can't be here another week - my ex-husband would kill me. If we extend, I'll have to return on the rotator on the 23rd and have someone else come out to replace me for the week.
The natives had a craft sale on Sunday at the community center. There wasn't a lot of items there, but what was there was pretty cool. There was a polar bear skin, a musk ox skull, and a narwhal tusk. I always thought that the narwhal had a horn, but apparently it's actually a tusk. Most males have only one tusk, while every once in a while a male will grow two tusks. Females rarely grow tusks, and a female with two tusks is super rare. The narwhal tusk that was at the craft sale was about 10 feet long. It wasn't smooth, but instead looked like it grew in a spiral and was wavy because of that. There were also polar bear teeth and seal teeth for sale. The polar bear teeth were going for $50 a piece. The disappointing thing was that if you weren't into dead things, there wasn't much else to buy. I expect at least some sort of bead work or art work, but alas, there was none of that around.
Our 5:30pm daily briefing meeting are sounding like broken records where no information is actually imparted. We are told each day, "Perhaps we'll fly tomorrow, perhaps we won't. Perhaps we'll go to Fairbanks, perhaps we won't. Perhaps we'll fly a local sea ice flight, perhaps we'll fly a land LVIS flight, perhaps we won't." *sigh* But at today's meeting, it was mentioned that there are delays in the P3 which might force us to extend our trip in Thule one week. The P3 is the plane that is going out next month from Wallops Flight Facility. They are also coming to Greenland probably to Thule and to Kangerlussuaq. An extension of our trip would allow us to fly P3 missions to make up for their delay. However, I can't be here another week - my ex-husband would kill me. If we extend, I'll have to return on the rotator on the 23rd and have someone else come out to replace me for the week.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Armed Forces Day
Saturday, April 3: High: 4F Low: -7F Length of Day: 15h 39m
Saturday was Armed Forces Day. The locals bring their dog sleds into the bay for a race. I headed down to the pier after lunch, getting there around 2pm. It was *cold*, but the sun was shining and the sky was perfectly clear. About 30 sleds each with 8 dogs were waiting for the race. I ran into Kevin, Eric, and Jim from the gravity team who had rented skis and were headed out to the abandoned village that was on the edge of the bay. It was about a 3 mile trek over the ice of the bay. I felt that they were very ambitious. About 2:30pm they started the race. Every 10 minutes or so they would start a sled team off. The objective was to race out to a point several miles away and they return in the shortest time. I was told the round trip time was about 45 minutes. Too cold to wait for the sleds to return, I headed back to the base.
On my way back, I stopped at the community center. It had all sorts of stuff to entertain people. They had a cafe where you can get froo-froo coffee drinks, a library with books and DVDs to checkout for free, a craft room with equipment for printing just about anything including posters, t-shirts, and coffee cups, and a game room with gaming consoles like Wiis and PS3s, and another video gaming room with cabinet video games. My favorite cabinet video game of all time - Arctic Thunder - was there. You'll have to ask me sometime why that's my favorite of all time. All the games were available for free.
As part of Armed Forces Day there was a pizza buffet out at the TOW club. But people who headed out there early said it was a zoo and not worth it. So, after dinner at the mess hall, I head back to the common room to catch the Butler/Michigan State game. Go, Butler, Go! Can't wait to see them play Duke Monday night.
Saturday was Armed Forces Day. The locals bring their dog sleds into the bay for a race. I headed down to the pier after lunch, getting there around 2pm. It was *cold*, but the sun was shining and the sky was perfectly clear. About 30 sleds each with 8 dogs were waiting for the race. I ran into Kevin, Eric, and Jim from the gravity team who had rented skis and were headed out to the abandoned village that was on the edge of the bay. It was about a 3 mile trek over the ice of the bay. I felt that they were very ambitious. About 2:30pm they started the race. Every 10 minutes or so they would start a sled team off. The objective was to race out to a point several miles away and they return in the shortest time. I was told the round trip time was about 45 minutes. Too cold to wait for the sleds to return, I headed back to the base.
On my way back, I stopped at the community center. It had all sorts of stuff to entertain people. They had a cafe where you can get froo-froo coffee drinks, a library with books and DVDs to checkout for free, a craft room with equipment for printing just about anything including posters, t-shirts, and coffee cups, and a game room with gaming consoles like Wiis and PS3s, and another video gaming room with cabinet video games. My favorite cabinet video game of all time - Arctic Thunder - was there. You'll have to ask me sometime why that's my favorite of all time. All the games were available for free.
As part of Armed Forces Day there was a pizza buffet out at the TOW club. But people who headed out there early said it was a zoo and not worth it. So, after dinner at the mess hall, I head back to the common room to catch the Butler/Michigan State game. Go, Butler, Go! Can't wait to see them play Duke Monday night.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Ugh
Monday, March 29: High: 36F Low: 23F Length of Day: 14H 28m
Tuesday, March 30: High 27F Low: 15F Length of Day: 14H 42m
Wednesday, March 31: High 13F Low: 6F Length of Day: 14H 45m
Thursday, April 1: High 82F Low: 59F Length of Day: 12H 39m
Friday, April 2: High 5F Low: -7F Length of Day: 15H 25m
Sorry for the delay in posting, but I got super sick this week. I started to feel bad Monday night, and by Tuesday I was so sick I didn't leave the dorm until Thursday. Although the weather is not good for going to Fairbanks, the team flies local routes on Monday and Tuesday, but I spend Monday through Thursday alone in my room. I was really trying not to get anyone else sick, plus I wasn't feeling very social. And although I was sick, I still had to do my job, so I was up and down out of bed, backing up data. That probably delayed my recovery. By Thursday I started to feel better, and on Friday I actually started being social again. The team flies on Friday as well, but then the decision was made to put Fairbanks off until next week and take the weekend off again (yay!). I still had work to do, and I missed dinner in the mess hall. But everyone goes out to the TOW club, so I meet them out there around 8:30pm and have fish and chips. Everyone was playing darts and having a good time. I head back around 11pm to finish up my work. I was looking forward to having the weekend with nothing to do. Saturday is Armed Forces Day with the local indigenous people having a dog sled race. There's also supposed to be a craft fair on Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing the dogs I've heard so much about. Also, Butler plays Saturday night. I think I have everyone around here rooting for Butler. However, there are quite a few Duke fans, so if it's Duke and Butler in the final game, things could get interesting.
Also, the days are getting really long now. It doesn't get dark until around 11:30pm, and it begins to get light at 3:30am. The days are lengthening by 15 minutes each day, and in another week, it won't get completely dark at all. 24 hours of daylight or 24 hours of night is something I've always wanted to experience.
Tuesday, March 30: High 27F Low: 15F Length of Day: 14H 42m
Wednesday, March 31: High 13F Low: 6F Length of Day: 14H 45m
Thursday, April 1: High 82F Low: 59F Length of Day: 12H 39m
Friday, April 2: High 5F Low: -7F Length of Day: 15H 25m
Sorry for the delay in posting, but I got super sick this week. I started to feel bad Monday night, and by Tuesday I was so sick I didn't leave the dorm until Thursday. Although the weather is not good for going to Fairbanks, the team flies local routes on Monday and Tuesday, but I spend Monday through Thursday alone in my room. I was really trying not to get anyone else sick, plus I wasn't feeling very social. And although I was sick, I still had to do my job, so I was up and down out of bed, backing up data. That probably delayed my recovery. By Thursday I started to feel better, and on Friday I actually started being social again. The team flies on Friday as well, but then the decision was made to put Fairbanks off until next week and take the weekend off again (yay!). I still had work to do, and I missed dinner in the mess hall. But everyone goes out to the TOW club, so I meet them out there around 8:30pm and have fish and chips. Everyone was playing darts and having a good time. I head back around 11pm to finish up my work. I was looking forward to having the weekend with nothing to do. Saturday is Armed Forces Day with the local indigenous people having a dog sled race. There's also supposed to be a craft fair on Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing the dogs I've heard so much about. Also, Butler plays Saturday night. I think I have everyone around here rooting for Butler. However, there are quite a few Duke fans, so if it's Duke and Butler in the final game, things could get interesting.
Also, the days are getting really long now. It doesn't get dark until around 11:30pm, and it begins to get light at 3:30am. The days are lengthening by 15 minutes each day, and in another week, it won't get completely dark at all. 24 hours of daylight or 24 hours of night is something I've always wanted to experience.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Lazy weekend
Saturday, March 27: High:18F Low: 5F
Sunday, March 28: High: 29F Low: 25F
It's too windy on Saturday and the airport is closed on Sunday, so we take the weekend off. I'm glad for the chance to catch my breath and get caught up on the work.
Saturday is also the First Light Festival. Since there's total darkness here from November through February, the base has a party when the sun returns. The party has a western theme, and they serve a free dinner with ribs and corn bread. At one of the hangars on the base, they have a cash bar and the band Clazz plays mostly classic rock and roll, and they aren't half bad. Because of the theme, they attempt to play what they called "country", but you could tell they were a rock and roll band. There's also a contest for the best western costume, and they sell chili to raise money for the local Greenlandic children. I have a couple of beers and enjoy the band, but they allow smoking in the hangar, so I have to head home after only about an hour.
The bunch of the crew is hanging out in the common room. We watch the end of the Butler/Kansas State game, and I'm shocked to see little 'ol Butler go to the Final Four. I'm betting Indianapolis was a zoo Saturday night. I talk to several of the crew including one of the pilots. This really is a fun group of people, and I feel lucky to be hanging out with them.
The days are long here, and in fact, it never does get really dark this time of the year. The sun sets around 9pm but it never gets dark enough to see stars. It rises at 6am and the day is getting 15 minutes longer every day. By the time we leave in April, there will be 24 hours of daylight. I was hoping to do some star gazing, but not at this time of the year. In fact, probably not any time of the year around here because by the time they reach astronomical darkness, it's probably too frigid to be outside. Maybe when we get to Fairbanks, I'll be able to do some star gazing.
Sunday is a slow day. I finish up all my backups. I also move my access point around in order to cover the hallways the best I can. I find a good spot that seems to cover just about everybody. Everyone tells me how well it's working. Like one of my managers at work says, "the easiest way to make friends is to provide a good networking service."
It's really warm outside compared to the previous week. The warm weather is due to the storms that have popped up. These are mostly wind storms, but it does spit snow here and there. Greenland can get up passed 60F in July, and when everything thaws, the base gets super muddy. I come to realize that March in Greenland may be the best time to visit. All the other times seem to be filled with frigid cold, total darkness, 24 hour sun, or mud.
During the Sunday briefing meeting, it's thought that we may go to Fairbanks on Monday. So, again, I pack up our equipment and my luggage. I try to head to bed early so I can get up early enough to see if we are indeed going to Fairbanks. However, my sleep has been thoroughly disrupted and although I go to be at 10:30pm, I don't fall asleep until midnight.
Sunday, March 28: High: 29F Low: 25F
It's too windy on Saturday and the airport is closed on Sunday, so we take the weekend off. I'm glad for the chance to catch my breath and get caught up on the work.
Saturday is also the First Light Festival. Since there's total darkness here from November through February, the base has a party when the sun returns. The party has a western theme, and they serve a free dinner with ribs and corn bread. At one of the hangars on the base, they have a cash bar and the band Clazz plays mostly classic rock and roll, and they aren't half bad. Because of the theme, they attempt to play what they called "country", but you could tell they were a rock and roll band. There's also a contest for the best western costume, and they sell chili to raise money for the local Greenlandic children. I have a couple of beers and enjoy the band, but they allow smoking in the hangar, so I have to head home after only about an hour.
The bunch of the crew is hanging out in the common room. We watch the end of the Butler/Kansas State game, and I'm shocked to see little 'ol Butler go to the Final Four. I'm betting Indianapolis was a zoo Saturday night. I talk to several of the crew including one of the pilots. This really is a fun group of people, and I feel lucky to be hanging out with them.
The days are long here, and in fact, it never does get really dark this time of the year. The sun sets around 9pm but it never gets dark enough to see stars. It rises at 6am and the day is getting 15 minutes longer every day. By the time we leave in April, there will be 24 hours of daylight. I was hoping to do some star gazing, but not at this time of the year. In fact, probably not any time of the year around here because by the time they reach astronomical darkness, it's probably too frigid to be outside. Maybe when we get to Fairbanks, I'll be able to do some star gazing.
Sunday is a slow day. I finish up all my backups. I also move my access point around in order to cover the hallways the best I can. I find a good spot that seems to cover just about everybody. Everyone tells me how well it's working. Like one of my managers at work says, "the easiest way to make friends is to provide a good networking service."
It's really warm outside compared to the previous week. The warm weather is due to the storms that have popped up. These are mostly wind storms, but it does spit snow here and there. Greenland can get up passed 60F in July, and when everything thaws, the base gets super muddy. I come to realize that March in Greenland may be the best time to visit. All the other times seem to be filled with frigid cold, total darkness, 24 hour sun, or mud.
During the Sunday briefing meeting, it's thought that we may go to Fairbanks on Monday. So, again, I pack up our equipment and my luggage. I try to head to bed early so I can get up early enough to see if we are indeed going to Fairbanks. However, my sleep has been thoroughly disrupted and although I go to be at 10:30pm, I don't fall asleep until midnight.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
A blustery day
Thursday, March 25: High: 14F Low: -2F
Friday, March 26: High: 8F Low: 0F
The wind wakes me up around Thursday, 9:30am, and I quickly check on all my backups. I discover that some of the data is corrupt, and we're happy to have the down day so that we can analyze what might have happened. I also make a change to my procedures to double check the data so we can avoid any more data loss. The good news is that the important data is there, so no harm no foul. But it does mean another day of data copying and verifying to make sure everything is in order.
The weather condition is alpha for most of the day and turns to bravo at points. Alpha means just be aware of the weather and bravo means you can't leave the base without gear and a partner. I figure where would I go anyway? In fact, the clouds that have rolled in with the weather system make is warmer.
Michelle and Bryan from the LVIS crew are heading out tomorrow on the rotator flight. Every Thursday, a DC-8 brings supplies and people to the base, and flies anyone out the next day. Colleen shows up to replace Michelle and Bryan, and we make plans to have a beer before they leave.
We go to the Top of the World club, or TOW club, which is a bar on the base. It actually has beer on tap and you can get food. I missed dinner because I was working, so I'm happy to get some fried shrimp with mixed vegetables. Michelle buys me a beer and Bryan reminds her she owes me a case. I really like this team of people. They work well together, are serious and proud of their work, and they have fun at the same time. Luckily, Michelle and Bryan will be returning in two weeks, so I can hang out more with them then.
Most everyone goes to bed early because tomorrow is a fly day. I stay up until 3am moving data. It really does seem like a 4pm to 3am is going to be a standard day for me for most of the trip.
Friday I wake up around 10:30am and pretty much everyone is out flying a mission. On Wednesday they flew over the Petermann glacierPetermann Glacier. Today they fly over the sea ice to the north and east of Greenland. I spend the day copying data and doing my laundry.
Around 5:30pm we have our meeting about the next mission. It's decided to take the weekend off due to another report of high winds on Saturday and the fact that the runway is closed on Sunday. It also gives the flying staff a few days down time which means they get to rest. They are a great flight crew and fly these defined flight plans with precision. Everyone here talks about how good the crew is and knows how lucky this project is to have such an experience and caring team.
Around 10pm, I'm downstairs in the bathroom getting my last load out of the dryer when a local Greenlandic woman walks in. She's really tiny - maybe 4' 10" tall, and she doesn't weight but 90 lbs. To my surprise, she walks up to me and hands me a little bottle of Vodka. With hesitation I say, "thank you", but not wanting it, I try to give it back to her. She then says "open" and the light bulb clicks on in my head. I open the bottle and hand it back not thinking anything of it. About midnight, I come back downstairs and she's now stumbling about the hallway, moving like a pinball between the walls. She keeps looking at people saying "Sssshhhh!" which I guess means she doesn't want anyone to know she's there. Then about an hour later I see her again, but this time she's turned mean. She glares at me and starts moving towards me, all the while talking loudly in some foreign language. Up here the natives speak Greenlandic, but there's a lot of Danish as well since Greenland is governed by Denmark. Her anger spooks me, and I say to her "Sorry, I don't understand you" and then quickly dart into my room and lock the door. At this point I call security. By the time they show up, she's sitting in a chair in the lobby passed out. She's so out that they can't wake her up even though the shake her. The security guard was very nice, and chats a bit with me about the NASA mission. He says that he's trying to get on one of the flights as a guest. Apparently NASA will fly the local military personnel on the missions if they have the seats. I've been told that these missions are pretty popular among the local personnel. I guess when there isn't a lot to do in Thule, things like this are pretty exciting.
Friday, March 26: High: 8F Low: 0F
The wind wakes me up around Thursday, 9:30am, and I quickly check on all my backups. I discover that some of the data is corrupt, and we're happy to have the down day so that we can analyze what might have happened. I also make a change to my procedures to double check the data so we can avoid any more data loss. The good news is that the important data is there, so no harm no foul. But it does mean another day of data copying and verifying to make sure everything is in order.
The weather condition is alpha for most of the day and turns to bravo at points. Alpha means just be aware of the weather and bravo means you can't leave the base without gear and a partner. I figure where would I go anyway? In fact, the clouds that have rolled in with the weather system make is warmer.
Michelle and Bryan from the LVIS crew are heading out tomorrow on the rotator flight. Every Thursday, a DC-8 brings supplies and people to the base, and flies anyone out the next day. Colleen shows up to replace Michelle and Bryan, and we make plans to have a beer before they leave.
We go to the Top of the World club, or TOW club, which is a bar on the base. It actually has beer on tap and you can get food. I missed dinner because I was working, so I'm happy to get some fried shrimp with mixed vegetables. Michelle buys me a beer and Bryan reminds her she owes me a case. I really like this team of people. They work well together, are serious and proud of their work, and they have fun at the same time. Luckily, Michelle and Bryan will be returning in two weeks, so I can hang out more with them then.
Most everyone goes to bed early because tomorrow is a fly day. I stay up until 3am moving data. It really does seem like a 4pm to 3am is going to be a standard day for me for most of the trip.
Friday I wake up around 10:30am and pretty much everyone is out flying a mission. On Wednesday they flew over the Petermann glacierPetermann Glacier. Today they fly over the sea ice to the north and east of Greenland. I spend the day copying data and doing my laundry.
Around 5:30pm we have our meeting about the next mission. It's decided to take the weekend off due to another report of high winds on Saturday and the fact that the runway is closed on Sunday. It also gives the flying staff a few days down time which means they get to rest. They are a great flight crew and fly these defined flight plans with precision. Everyone here talks about how good the crew is and knows how lucky this project is to have such an experience and caring team.
Around 10pm, I'm downstairs in the bathroom getting my last load out of the dryer when a local Greenlandic woman walks in. She's really tiny - maybe 4' 10" tall, and she doesn't weight but 90 lbs. To my surprise, she walks up to me and hands me a little bottle of Vodka. With hesitation I say, "thank you", but not wanting it, I try to give it back to her. She then says "open" and the light bulb clicks on in my head. I open the bottle and hand it back not thinking anything of it. About midnight, I come back downstairs and she's now stumbling about the hallway, moving like a pinball between the walls. She keeps looking at people saying "Sssshhhh!" which I guess means she doesn't want anyone to know she's there. Then about an hour later I see her again, but this time she's turned mean. She glares at me and starts moving towards me, all the while talking loudly in some foreign language. Up here the natives speak Greenlandic, but there's a lot of Danish as well since Greenland is governed by Denmark. Her anger spooks me, and I say to her "Sorry, I don't understand you" and then quickly dart into my room and lock the door. At this point I call security. By the time they show up, she's sitting in a chair in the lobby passed out. She's so out that they can't wake her up even though the shake her. The security guard was very nice, and chats a bit with me about the NASA mission. He says that he's trying to get on one of the flights as a guest. Apparently NASA will fly the local military personnel on the missions if they have the seats. I've been told that these missions are pretty popular among the local personnel. I guess when there isn't a lot to do in Thule, things like this are pretty exciting.
Data, data, and more data
Wednesday, March 24: High: 8F Low: -8F
I get up around noon, take a shower, and get to the mess hall just before it closes. Again the CRESIS team is flying a local flight and I'm now just waiting for the data to come back so I can start working. This really is a second/third shift job beginning around 4pm and going until 3am. I'm seriously getting some comp time when I get home.
While waiting for the flight to return, one of the NASA crew complains about not being able to watch the plane tracks on Google Earth because he can't connect to the server back at home base in California. Our mission commander claims it's a problem at the base in California, and the California base blames us. The crew asks me to look into it. I do a couple of traceroutes and discover that I can access the site in question from my workstation at Indiana University, but I can't access it from Thule. But in both cases I can get to a NASA router. So a quick look in the whois database, and I get a number for the NASA NOC. A young gentleman by the name of Sedrick answers the phone and I send him my traces. He says he'll look into it. Well, it ends up not being a NOC issue, but with Sedrick's help, we are able to get the California base to take the issue seriously. Eventually they "discover" that indeed the California base is blocking our IP range. Why, I'm not sure. But I hand the phone to the safety officer who tells the Californians that we need to see the real-time flight data because there are 40 people on board an airplane in the middle of *Greenland* for heaven's sake with very few populated areas around. That real-time data may be the only way we know that the plane has crashed and also *where* it crashed if it does. A little more arm twisting later, and the Californians agree to open the firewall to us. You would think one base wouldn't block another. It must be an international thing. Chalk up more brownie points for me!
The flight returns and the CRESIS team hands me about 4.5 TB of data to back up. I begin the eleven hour process of copying the data. I'm still running into some disk failure problems, but I'm able to get done what I need to get done. Also, it looks like most of the drive failures are in one particular case. I'm betting that case got manhandled at some point by someone who was angry about all the equipment we brought to Greenland.
During the daily crew briefing, we're told that the wind is going to pick up tomorrow. This means we cannot fly. Also it means that we need to be aware of the weather condition. They encourage us to check out the cold weather gear offered by the base. In fact, the gear is required if we want to leave the base tomorrow. I guess you wouldn't want to be caught outside in Greenland with no snow pants. Or something like that.
I'm glad tomorrow's a no fly day. It'll be good to have a day to get things in order.
I get up around noon, take a shower, and get to the mess hall just before it closes. Again the CRESIS team is flying a local flight and I'm now just waiting for the data to come back so I can start working. This really is a second/third shift job beginning around 4pm and going until 3am. I'm seriously getting some comp time when I get home.
While waiting for the flight to return, one of the NASA crew complains about not being able to watch the plane tracks on Google Earth because he can't connect to the server back at home base in California. Our mission commander claims it's a problem at the base in California, and the California base blames us. The crew asks me to look into it. I do a couple of traceroutes and discover that I can access the site in question from my workstation at Indiana University, but I can't access it from Thule. But in both cases I can get to a NASA router. So a quick look in the whois database, and I get a number for the NASA NOC. A young gentleman by the name of Sedrick answers the phone and I send him my traces. He says he'll look into it. Well, it ends up not being a NOC issue, but with Sedrick's help, we are able to get the California base to take the issue seriously. Eventually they "discover" that indeed the California base is blocking our IP range. Why, I'm not sure. But I hand the phone to the safety officer who tells the Californians that we need to see the real-time flight data because there are 40 people on board an airplane in the middle of *Greenland* for heaven's sake with very few populated areas around. That real-time data may be the only way we know that the plane has crashed and also *where* it crashed if it does. A little more arm twisting later, and the Californians agree to open the firewall to us. You would think one base wouldn't block another. It must be an international thing. Chalk up more brownie points for me!
The flight returns and the CRESIS team hands me about 4.5 TB of data to back up. I begin the eleven hour process of copying the data. I'm still running into some disk failure problems, but I'm able to get done what I need to get done. Also, it looks like most of the drive failures are in one particular case. I'm betting that case got manhandled at some point by someone who was angry about all the equipment we brought to Greenland.
During the daily crew briefing, we're told that the wind is going to pick up tomorrow. This means we cannot fly. Also it means that we need to be aware of the weather condition. They encourage us to check out the cold weather gear offered by the base. In fact, the gear is required if we want to leave the base tomorrow. I guess you wouldn't want to be caught outside in Greenland with no snow pants. Or something like that.
I'm glad tomorrow's a no fly day. It'll be good to have a day to get things in order.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Setting up
Tuesday, March 23: High 1F Low -12F
I spent most of the day setting up the room we have for the equipment. We got a second dorm room and set the bed up against the wall for more room. I set the desk near the windows so that we could straddle the two walls hoping that the power from each wall was on a different circuit. We brought an IBM 3650 M2 and a 16-disk SATA array. Both have dual power supplies, so hopefully we have spread the power out. I have a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door not only to keep the maid from freaking out when she opens the door, but also to keep her from tripping the circuit breakers when she plugs in her vacuum cleaner. Apparently this has happened before on other missions. So far, the power has been good. First hurdle has been overcome.
I unload some of the cases and sort through the stuff. The CRESIS team left on flight mission at 8am and weren't due back until 4pm, so I had plenty of time to get everything in order. I began populating the disk array when I discovered that several of the disks had failed in transit. My failure rate was around 30% which was slightly frustrating. But all in all, setup goes smoothly and I'm all ready for the team when they arrive.
I continued talking with the LVIS team. Michelle has a MySQL problem she's has been banging her head on all morning. I show her how to solve it in 5 minutes and Michelle promises me a case of beer. Her husband, Bryan, says "She's from the UK - a bottle of beer, a case of beer, what do they know?" They show me a website where they are plotting all the DC-8 flights on Google Earth. If you have Google Earth and are interested in seeing the flight tracks, send me a note and I'll give you the login information.
I learn that there are weather alerts here. Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta are the levels. At Delta, you can't leave the building you are in - period. If you have a heart attack, we have to deal with it in the building. Also, the base offers to lend us storm gear. This gear will protect us in case we are out and about and a sudden storm comes up. At least the gear will help us get back to a building if we go out walking. It's suggested you get the gear even if you are walking around on base and it's required gear if you want to leave the base on foot. Wow.
Once the team gets back, they tell me that we are possibly going to Fairbanks, Alaska in the morning. This trip could involve 3 data runs - one on the way there, one local one in Fairbanks, and one on the return trip. We need to be able to handle the data from the run there and the possible local run in Alaska. This means taking laptops, cables, and power equipment for doing this without the server. Luckily for today's run, they only have a small amount of data to back up - around 350GB. This only takes a couple of hours, but I spend several more hours going through disks finding 20 good disks to take to Alaska and packing up the cases for the trip. I also hook up my ddwrt router so I can get internet in my room. This works brilliantly and also allows several other people to get internet in their rooms as well. I feel it's a huge success.
By the time I finish, it's 3am. The decision to go to Alaska will be around 7am, so I figure I'll just stay up. Around 3:30am, the mission leader, Kent, comes out and complains about the Internet connection. He's having difficulty accessing it, and I have to admit the connection is super slow. He sees my router and asks to remove it. I of course say yes. I don't want to cause any trouble. However, the installed AP will not allow me to connect for more that 10 or so seconds. Thus I'm now relegated to the common room with a wired connection to the AP. Ugh. However, Kent leaves on Friday and we'll rewire things to our liking at that time.
I eat breakfast around 5:30am and then take a shower. Around 7am, someone comes and says that they are not going to Alaska after all and I crawl into my bed and pass out. Thanks goodness for the blackout shades in our rooms.
If you want to check on the weather around here, use the Pituffik, Greenland weather station. And if you need to know exactly where I am, search for Pituffik, Avannaarsua, Greenland on Google Maps.
I spent most of the day setting up the room we have for the equipment. We got a second dorm room and set the bed up against the wall for more room. I set the desk near the windows so that we could straddle the two walls hoping that the power from each wall was on a different circuit. We brought an IBM 3650 M2 and a 16-disk SATA array. Both have dual power supplies, so hopefully we have spread the power out. I have a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door not only to keep the maid from freaking out when she opens the door, but also to keep her from tripping the circuit breakers when she plugs in her vacuum cleaner. Apparently this has happened before on other missions. So far, the power has been good. First hurdle has been overcome.
I unload some of the cases and sort through the stuff. The CRESIS team left on flight mission at 8am and weren't due back until 4pm, so I had plenty of time to get everything in order. I began populating the disk array when I discovered that several of the disks had failed in transit. My failure rate was around 30% which was slightly frustrating. But all in all, setup goes smoothly and I'm all ready for the team when they arrive.
I continued talking with the LVIS team. Michelle has a MySQL problem she's has been banging her head on all morning. I show her how to solve it in 5 minutes and Michelle promises me a case of beer. Her husband, Bryan, says "She's from the UK - a bottle of beer, a case of beer, what do they know?" They show me a website where they are plotting all the DC-8 flights on Google Earth. If you have Google Earth and are interested in seeing the flight tracks, send me a note and I'll give you the login information.
I learn that there are weather alerts here. Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta are the levels. At Delta, you can't leave the building you are in - period. If you have a heart attack, we have to deal with it in the building. Also, the base offers to lend us storm gear. This gear will protect us in case we are out and about and a sudden storm comes up. At least the gear will help us get back to a building if we go out walking. It's suggested you get the gear even if you are walking around on base and it's required gear if you want to leave the base on foot. Wow.
Once the team gets back, they tell me that we are possibly going to Fairbanks, Alaska in the morning. This trip could involve 3 data runs - one on the way there, one local one in Fairbanks, and one on the return trip. We need to be able to handle the data from the run there and the possible local run in Alaska. This means taking laptops, cables, and power equipment for doing this without the server. Luckily for today's run, they only have a small amount of data to back up - around 350GB. This only takes a couple of hours, but I spend several more hours going through disks finding 20 good disks to take to Alaska and packing up the cases for the trip. I also hook up my ddwrt router so I can get internet in my room. This works brilliantly and also allows several other people to get internet in their rooms as well. I feel it's a huge success.
By the time I finish, it's 3am. The decision to go to Alaska will be around 7am, so I figure I'll just stay up. Around 3:30am, the mission leader, Kent, comes out and complains about the Internet connection. He's having difficulty accessing it, and I have to admit the connection is super slow. He sees my router and asks to remove it. I of course say yes. I don't want to cause any trouble. However, the installed AP will not allow me to connect for more that 10 or so seconds. Thus I'm now relegated to the common room with a wired connection to the AP. Ugh. However, Kent leaves on Friday and we'll rewire things to our liking at that time.
I eat breakfast around 5:30am and then take a shower. Around 7am, someone comes and says that they are not going to Alaska after all and I crawl into my bed and pass out. Thanks goodness for the blackout shades in our rooms.
If you want to check on the weather around here, use the Pituffik, Greenland weather station. And if you need to know exactly where I am, search for Pituffik, Avannaarsua, Greenland on Google Maps.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
And we're off!
A few months ago, my work asked me to travel to Greenland to provide technical support for the PolarGrid project. The PG project is a joint effort between the Elizabeth City State University and Indiana University to provide technical support for projects that study glacier melting. This means that we provide computing clusters for data processing and we also go into the field with the teams whenever needed. These field missions have gone to Antartica and Chile, and the current field mission is at the Thule Air Field in Greenland.
The trip would entail 5 weeks in Greenland with the CRESIS team, and so many things had to be done before I could go. I had mounds of paperwork to do for travel and for NASA who is providing all the flight infrastructure for the Operation Ice Bridge mission. I had to find someone to watch the boys. Luckily their dad, with a blessing from Purdue, agreed to come to Bloomington to stay with them while I was gone. I had to pay my taxes and other end of the fiscal year type stuff. All this while other projects were ramping up at work meant I was wicked busy for the month leading up to the trip. Plus I was spending the week before my trip in Oneonta, NY visiting my friends Jason and Adriane, their toddler son Rowan, and their new born daughter Amelie. I didn't have much time to prepare before the trip was looming large.
So after kissing the boys goodbye and a week in NY, I headed to Palmdale, California. I had 6 bottles of Ommegang beer, three books from Terry Pratchet's Disc World series and a copy of Stephenson's Anathem, some movies, and my son Nick's Nintendo DS and a half a dozen games to keep me busy. I went to the Dryden Flight Research Center where a DC-8 awaited along with tons of scientific instruments to whisk us off to Greenland. I got there around 2pm and found no one else from the mission at the airfield, and so had to turn around and spend the day at the Palmdale Mall. Luckily a lovely lady at the Hilton Garden Inn watched my luggage while I went and drank beer at BJ's Restaurant Brewhouse. Purdue was on the TV playing Texas A&M and I think I was the only person in the bar interested in the game. Finally someone from the mission contacted me, and I headed back to the air field. I had to leave before the end of the game, but heard later that Purdue won. I left girl scout cookies for the ladies at the Hilton, and took a taxi to the airfield.
I was escorted inside the hangar after passing through security which only consisted of signing my name to a roster. Inside the hangar was the DC-8 all loaded up with equipment. Most of the seats had been removed, and periodically through out the plane, racks of equipment were bolted to the floor. Several instruments were installed in the cargo area of the plane including CRESIS's radar and a lidar. The seats that were in the airplane were first class seats that had 5-point harnesses instead of seat belts. Each seat also had a headset that anyone could use to communicate with the rest of the team, but mostly was used by the pilot to communicate with the researchers. After a short safety brief which included a description of a plane crash as a field of hot razor blades, we left around midnight.
Unlike the researchers on the plane who were running their instruments, I had no responsibilities, and I fell asleep immediately. The seats leaned back super far, and other than being cold, I slept very comfortably. I woke up just at dawn, and went up into the cockpit to watch the sun come up over the horizon. I had never been in the cockpit of such a large plane before, and the flight team was very friendly and let me hang out as long as I wanted. We were over the ocean, and it was completely frozen, but the ice wasn't flat. It was full of cracks, flows, cliffs, and mountains. Several of the researchers were madly taking data while we were over the ice, and I wandered around a bit and talked to several of the other teams. Michelle was with the LVIS project and showed me how they were using lidar to map the surface of the ice. Her husband Brian told me about the GRACE project which measures gravity so accurately that it can determine changes in the mass of the glaciers.
We landed in Thule around 2pm, and it was super cold. The temperatures are in the single digits this time of year. We began the long process of unloading all the gear. Luckily there is a free taxi service so it wasn't too terrible getting all the gear over to the dorm. I got a first floor room to setup as our machine room for all our computer gear, and a second floor room for sleeping - no one wants to sleep in the same room as a server and disk array. The dorm has fairly decent rooms, and each room has a TV, VCR, dorm refrigerator, microwave, and a coffee maker. The dorm also has a community kitchen, and the community bathrooms are nice as well with shower stalls that actually have locking doors. There's a washer and dryer in each bathroom and the dorm even provides the laundry soap. After taking a much needed shower, we went to dinner in the mess hall which had a large selection of good food. We also visited the supermarket which actually had green leaf lettuce, cucumbers, bell peppers, and strawberries. Then it was back to the dorm where after calling home, I spent the night installing ddwrt on a Cisco wireless router. There is internet in the common room/kitchen area, but it doesn't reach our rooms. I'm hoping to change that by boosting the antenna strength of my router. I went to sleep around 2am exhausted, and although I'm 950 miles above the Arctic Circle, I'm amazingly comfortable in this really inhospitable place.
The trip would entail 5 weeks in Greenland with the CRESIS team, and so many things had to be done before I could go. I had mounds of paperwork to do for travel and for NASA who is providing all the flight infrastructure for the Operation Ice Bridge mission. I had to find someone to watch the boys. Luckily their dad, with a blessing from Purdue, agreed to come to Bloomington to stay with them while I was gone. I had to pay my taxes and other end of the fiscal year type stuff. All this while other projects were ramping up at work meant I was wicked busy for the month leading up to the trip. Plus I was spending the week before my trip in Oneonta, NY visiting my friends Jason and Adriane, their toddler son Rowan, and their new born daughter Amelie. I didn't have much time to prepare before the trip was looming large.
So after kissing the boys goodbye and a week in NY, I headed to Palmdale, California. I had 6 bottles of Ommegang beer, three books from Terry Pratchet's Disc World series and a copy of Stephenson's Anathem, some movies, and my son Nick's Nintendo DS and a half a dozen games to keep me busy. I went to the Dryden Flight Research Center where a DC-8 awaited along with tons of scientific instruments to whisk us off to Greenland. I got there around 2pm and found no one else from the mission at the airfield, and so had to turn around and spend the day at the Palmdale Mall. Luckily a lovely lady at the Hilton Garden Inn watched my luggage while I went and drank beer at BJ's Restaurant Brewhouse. Purdue was on the TV playing Texas A&M and I think I was the only person in the bar interested in the game. Finally someone from the mission contacted me, and I headed back to the air field. I had to leave before the end of the game, but heard later that Purdue won. I left girl scout cookies for the ladies at the Hilton, and took a taxi to the airfield.
I was escorted inside the hangar after passing through security which only consisted of signing my name to a roster. Inside the hangar was the DC-8 all loaded up with equipment. Most of the seats had been removed, and periodically through out the plane, racks of equipment were bolted to the floor. Several instruments were installed in the cargo area of the plane including CRESIS's radar and a lidar. The seats that were in the airplane were first class seats that had 5-point harnesses instead of seat belts. Each seat also had a headset that anyone could use to communicate with the rest of the team, but mostly was used by the pilot to communicate with the researchers. After a short safety brief which included a description of a plane crash as a field of hot razor blades, we left around midnight.
Unlike the researchers on the plane who were running their instruments, I had no responsibilities, and I fell asleep immediately. The seats leaned back super far, and other than being cold, I slept very comfortably. I woke up just at dawn, and went up into the cockpit to watch the sun come up over the horizon. I had never been in the cockpit of such a large plane before, and the flight team was very friendly and let me hang out as long as I wanted. We were over the ocean, and it was completely frozen, but the ice wasn't flat. It was full of cracks, flows, cliffs, and mountains. Several of the researchers were madly taking data while we were over the ice, and I wandered around a bit and talked to several of the other teams. Michelle was with the LVIS project and showed me how they were using lidar to map the surface of the ice. Her husband Brian told me about the GRACE project which measures gravity so accurately that it can determine changes in the mass of the glaciers.
We landed in Thule around 2pm, and it was super cold. The temperatures are in the single digits this time of year. We began the long process of unloading all the gear. Luckily there is a free taxi service so it wasn't too terrible getting all the gear over to the dorm. I got a first floor room to setup as our machine room for all our computer gear, and a second floor room for sleeping - no one wants to sleep in the same room as a server and disk array. The dorm has fairly decent rooms, and each room has a TV, VCR, dorm refrigerator, microwave, and a coffee maker. The dorm also has a community kitchen, and the community bathrooms are nice as well with shower stalls that actually have locking doors. There's a washer and dryer in each bathroom and the dorm even provides the laundry soap. After taking a much needed shower, we went to dinner in the mess hall which had a large selection of good food. We also visited the supermarket which actually had green leaf lettuce, cucumbers, bell peppers, and strawberries. Then it was back to the dorm where after calling home, I spent the night installing ddwrt on a Cisco wireless router. There is internet in the common room/kitchen area, but it doesn't reach our rooms. I'm hoping to change that by boosting the antenna strength of my router. I went to sleep around 2am exhausted, and although I'm 950 miles above the Arctic Circle, I'm amazingly comfortable in this really inhospitable place.
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