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.