Lucky to be here

First thing this morning the electricians came out and rewired the power for the twin otter aircraft to an electricity pole on the other side of the street. We did this because we were having problems turning on all of the instruments at the same time. By the time the we had everything on, the voltage in the back of the plane was down from 110 to 98 volts. This was enough for some of the instruments to stop working. The power re-route helped quite a bit, be we are still having some minor problems with everyone up and running. Right now we have a work around: we run one of the instruments off of an extension cord running from the lab to the Twin Otter. And this seems to keep everyone's instruments happy. Later on I fixed a small problem with one of my instruments, it was not a big deal, but one of those things that require you to take everything apart to do a 5 minute repair. So all in all it took a about an hour to get everything apart, 5 minutes for the repair, and another hour to put everything back. But since we had an afternoon test flight, I had plenty time to do this needed repair. Here is a photo of David Tanner from GaTech. I have worked with Dave for over 8 years on various projects in Canada, Tahiti, Greenland, Hong Kong, South Pole, Japan, etc. So I have known him a long time and can say he is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. He is really good with instruments and goes out of his way to help other people out when they are having problems. Needless to say, he has helped me a number of times. Anyway, here is photo of Dave checking on his SO2 and nitric acid instrument before today's test flight. The Twin Otter took off at approximately 2:45 PM, and flew at three extended altitude legs at 12,000 ft then 6,000 ft and finally 100 ft for 40 minutes each. The good news is that more of the instruments are working (than during the last test flight) and we think we are collecting good quality data. Progress was made on the 2 to 3 instruments that are still having some problems. This is normal, but we hope to have all instruments working before first data flight on Monday. While we were thinking it might be nice to fly on Sunday, turns out the airfield is pretty much closed on Sundays. This is OK as it gives us a bit more time to fix the last few instruments. The last photo is of one of the dorms. Not a very pretty building, but very functional. I also wanted to point out the prominent recycling bins. Every thing that is shipped to the U.S. stations here in Antarctica is shipped back when it is no longer needed here. This includes every can, bottle, piece of paper, or food waste. Everything. So all our trash has to be sorted into 6-7 different categories. Everyone that stays here has to take a 40 minute class that explains the whole procedure. Some day soon, I will devote a separate post, just on the recycling system Finally, today when I went to lunch I got to talking with one of the guys working in the kitchen, he was really interested in our measurements. Turns out that he has a graduate degree in Environmental policy and he just took the job in the kitchen to get down to the ice. I think this is a pretty common story for many of the folks working here and just got me thinking how lucky were are to be here doing our research, getting paid to do something we really enjoy. While we sometimes have to work long hours and are away from home and family, we are still quite lucky.