New Blog location!

After a lot of deliberation and poking around, I've decided to move my blog back to my personal Web site, johnj.com. The new link is http://johnj.com/southpole/2009/. I hope to see you there!

A Bath

Anakiwa Boatyard Tracks

"Sing ho! for a bath at the close of day."

Legs now completely turned to rubber after my two-day, hilly, scenic marathon. I pushed the pace this morning because it looked like time might be tight to catch the water taxi at the end of the track, but I wound up arriving two hours early and the boat was an hour late. In the mean time I rested from my walk, went wading on the beach, and talked to a nice young British couple I met on the path. Turned out they both had degrees in physics and so were very curious about the details of IceCube.

The end of the Queen Charlotte Track, closest to Anakiwa, is busier than its beginning at Ship Cove; there are more mountain bikers on the path and motorboats on the sound. But it is still quite beautiful in spots, and I'm glad I went as far as I did (and no further, for the sake of my aching leg muscles).

Things seen up close today:

Goats with horns as long as my forearms.

Mussel shells the color and size of eggplants.

Thousands of translucent jellyfish surfacing as we passed through the wake of the ferry from Wellington.

Best of all, and unexpected, the cottage I have at the Gables has a bath, my first in more than a month.

Tomorrow I go to Wellington to see Neil and Amelia, eat sushi, hopefully see some art, and relax for a few days before diving back into winter in Chicago.

Green Marathon

QC Sounds Opening

2/16/08 Debrett's backpackers, Portage Bay, NZ

I am halfway done with my walk on the Queen Charlotte Track and too tired to do anything physical other than sit and write. Today and tomorrow are basically each half-marathons in mountainous terrain (mountainous by Chicago standards, anyways).

Despite a tight schedule, things have been smooth since I left South Pole on Wednesday, just two and a half days ago. The process of getting reintroduced to the planet has unfolded in stages, the highlights of which I will now share with you:

1. The Trans Antarctic mountains as seen from our C-130. Glaciers, crevasses, nunataks, mountain peaks, ice falls. I never tire of the views from the plane.

2. At Pegasus field outside McMurdo, twice the oxygen I've been breathing, and the sights of Mt. Discovery, Ross Island, Black and White island. The pleasure of actually seeing something on the horizon. Unlike the last two years, our C-17 actually arrived just after we landed, though we had to wait a few hours after that for cargo offloading/loading and for passengers to arrive by bus from McMurdo.

3. Night in Christchurch: darkness for the first time in a month.

4. Wandering around town, shopping, eating non-Pole food; saying goodbye to friends/colleagues.

5. The train to Picton. Rocking sleepily through rain-blurred green landscapes. Watching sheep fleeing from the tracks as we passed. Meeting and comparing notes with other Ice people.

6. Getting on the mail boat in Picton and seeing Marlborough Sounds from a completely new perspective (in the past I have just taken the ferry straight to Wellington). During the four hour or so trip, the mail boat visits a dozen small homes or clusters of homes reachable only by water. The first time we approached a house/pier, I was sure we were actually going to ram the shore! But our skipper stopped on a dime just short of the pier and brought the boat close enough to exchange mail bags and a few words with the gentleman who came out to meet us. Then we were speeding off to the next harbour. The jocular skipper asked where I was from.

"Chicago," I replied.

"Chicago!!! Do you have a rat-a-tat gun?"

"Uh, sorry...."

"No?! I thought everyone in Chicago had a rat-a-tat gun, like in the movies."

There are dozens or hundreds of isolated homes on the Sounds, most probably reachable only by boat. Any of these would make a perfect getaway, or movie set.

7. Arriving at Mahana lodge, whose dilapidated dock looks like something from a Tarkovsky film (I fell in love with it instantly). Ann and John's home-cooked meal was by far the best food I've had in five weeks, accompanied by rain, thunder, and (!) hail. Sleeping in a room with three other people and being so tired I just fell asleep instantly.

8. Walking here. The Queen Charlotte track takes about three days, two days of which I'm doing. The mail boat takes your bags from lodge to lodge while you walk. The track winds over low mountains through terrain varying from dry scrub to rainforest, with vistas of the sounds opening up now and again on either side. I saw, in no particular order, birds called "wekas" which look exactly like a cross between a chicken and a kiwi bird; a dead worm the size of a small snake; gazillions of tiny pink mushrooms and a few large bright orange ones; strange plants with a straight stalk and long rigid leaves like green knives serrated on both sides (I had seen these in the Christchurch botanical garden but was convinced they were from another planet); and maybe a dozen people.

Most of the time it was just about the walking, with plenty of time to think or just look at all the growing things.

Tomorrow will be more of the same, though perhaps a little easier going. Which is fine with me and my sore legs. Then I have a night in Picton all to myself in a small cottage attached to a B&B, and finally to Wellington for three nights until I fly home.

Sprung

View from Desk in B2 Lab

2/15/08 En Route to Picton

The view to the right of the train is the sun-speckled green Pacific, a welcome change from the ocean of white I have been living on for the past month, over whose skies alien prototypes of clouds lay flat, singular and as wide as the horizon.

Here the rain clouds pile in a hundred layers of dark steel grey and tufts of brilliant cotton white.

Despite rumors of drought here on the South Island, green growth is as abundant as oxygen here. Night and rain fall again. I am back in the world.

Outta here

LC130 Departure

Weather permitting (knock on any wood if you can find it), we are flying out of here in about four hours. Something has not been right with my stomach the last 48 hours, and yesterday was a bit uncomfortable. At least one other guy here has a bad cold, so we're getting out of here in the nick of time.

On my way from Christchurch to Wellington, I will walk the Queen Charlotte Track near Picton, staying at two different lodges on the way (a boat service carries your luggage for you while you walk, so it's at the day's end destination when you get there - how nice!). On Debrett's lodge's Web site they have a list of things to bring, including "a good book."

Well, I was bringing my copy of "V" down to the library to leave here, so I figured I was going to have to do without the book. But as I was depositing my book I noticed that they had TWO copies of Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon." Figuring the odds of two winter-overs beating their heads against it at the same time were slim to none, I left Victoria's ("V"!!'s) personalized, enormous hardcover copy of M&D undisturbed on the shelf and took the paperback, which still must weigh in at several pounds. Passing Jerry Marty in the hall, he looked at the book in my hand and said, "uh oh, that looks serious." Mmm hmm, just the way I like 'em.

Sandy has a room for me for two nights at the Devon. Pray to Zeus for me that the weather holds.

Lame Duck DAQer

IceCube Party in Summer Camp

"Tengo get el f--- out of aqui," a young Kit Traverse mutters to himself under his breath while studying vector mathematics at Yale in Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day." The phrase keeps rattling around my head as the hours count down to our straight-through flight to Christchurch the day after tomorrow. My eyes are tired, my brain is fried after 30 days with hardly half a day off, and my stomach has just about had it with the food here. I have hit my wall and, while I will do a bit of work tomorrow, mostly the day will be about packing, enjoying the surroundings and taking it easy.

Oddly enough, the work has also hit its own wall. The DAQ software which worked rather smoothly throughout a month of tests finally met its match when trying to read out all forty IceCube strings. I believe the situation is very workable, but a days' worth of debugging didn't uncover an easy fix. Still, we are at least a week or two ahead of our original schedule. I find it ironic, though, that the last test (and most important, at least psychologically) would be the one to give us trouble. At any rate, we have a month to find a solution, which still puts us light years ahead of where we were last year (where we were putting the code together with spit and duct tape at the last minute before the last flight of the season came to yank us off-station).

As things wind down I want to check in with some of my other goals for the trip.

Complete and abject failures:

• Regular drawing practice. I filled maybe three pages of drawings the whole month.
• Skiing to the "love shack" at the end of the skiway. I didn't make it there, it just seemed too darn cold to get my rear in gear and do it.
• Pynchon's "V" - I made it a good 150 pages or so but the book is staying here in the library, as I promised myself. "Against the Day" and "The Lord of the Rings" in audiobook form wound up being my fiction fixes.
  

Qualified successes:

• Kept to a meditation practice perhaps 3/4 of the days here.

Exceeded expectations:

• Ran almost every day, and made it up to nearly 5 miles. Beat my previous South Pole/high altitude mile record of 8:47 by a whole minute. Lifted weights and stretched. Physically this was an enormously helpful antidote against long hours at the computer, and cabin fever.
• Work-wise I managed to meet not only most or all of my planned goals but also got a chunk of work in on a new project which will likely occupy a lot of my time this year. Also strengthened work relationships and managed to help several other people with their projects.
  

Unexpected surprises:

• The eclipse was a lovely natural and communal event.
• Going out on the deck at random times without bundling up (in shorts even) and enjoying the electric chill and the stark blazing white ocean of ice for a few moments before taking refuge back in the warmth and chemical smells of the station.
  

It's getting past bedtime - 8:40 PM and I am still up. I'm more or less on New Zealand days now. But just like this place is somehow like no-where, it is also somehow no-time: no night; arbitrary New Zealand time zone; shifting sleep schedules; and having to be aware of at least five different time zones (I regularly do time zone calculations in my head for all US time zones as well as Greenwich, England, which is the standard scientific/astronomical time base known as UTC).

At any rate, it is time for bed -- this much is clear. Until tomorrow...

Eclipse Town

South Pole Solar Eclipse

Four days left to go. I'm on a 1AM - 5PM work schedule right now. The schedule has picked up considerably as everyone tries to fit in as much work as possible before we redeploy back to New Zealand.

One noteworthy event happened a day and a half ago: a near-total (80%) eclipse of the sun. I stayed up several hours later than usual to see it. A bunch of us "beakers" went out when it started in order to see the light change and to take pictures. Wind chills were about -75F. You know it's cold when your eyelids try to freeze shut when you blink, or when you can eat the icicles forming on your mustache.

We stood outside for awhile and struggled with failing batteries, aching fingers and fogging glasses, got a few blurry pictures of the eclipse, then took a few shots at the Geographic and Ceremonial Poles and headed inside to warm up. Once inside, we found out we were too early for the real action. Soon most of the people on station were crowding at the windows and doorways (unwilling to face the mustache icicles by bundling up and going outside). Several people had sheets of aluminized mylar which served as an excellent filter for photography. I was glad I had brought my big lens, as it made the above picture possible (see Flickr for more pictures).

The neat thing about the eclipse was the light really changed - after 25 days of mostly blazing sunlight, it was as close to night at the South Pole as I am likely to get. While the eclipse did darken everything, it had the effect of increasing contrast and adding a liquid silver tonality to the snow surface which usually sparkles like powdered diamond dust.

We hit a record low of almost -55F during the eclipse.

It was a late day for me but the sights and photos (and camaraderie with other shivering, clicking and squinting Polies) were worth it. As an added benefit, I am half-way shifted over to the day schedule now, which will make returning to NZ more restful.

One More Week

Ice Crystal Halo over Dark Sector

I've had a good couple days after suffering through a 24-hour stomach bug which seemed to spread through the station population like a fire through an abandoned warehouse (people were apparently wandering the hallway doubled over with hands on stomachs...). Coming out of that, I was surprised to realize the trip is already drawing to a close: I leave in seven days and a few hours. It is time to think about getting back onto a day schedule (NZ days, anyways).

Time is very strange here -- it seems like I just arrived today, but this day has been measured in hundreds of hours... which is in fact the case (the sun won't set until March).

Temperatures had plummeted to record lows, -45 F or so (-65 wind chill), but have risen a bit since it got cloudy (the clouds act as a sort of insulation). Oddly, despite the cold, one can go out on the deck for several minutes without any gear whatsoever to take pictures like the halo above; anything longer than that and things start to go numb.

We are expecting a near total solar eclipse in about 30 hours, which I will try to stay awake for -- should be a treat after a month of blazing sunlight.

Work has been progressing well. There are still two more batches of strings to be added into the detector -- we are at 34 out of 40 strings and things seem to work ok (knock on wood). When not running tests of my own I'm helping other people with theirs, and working on learning about Web development frameworks in Python, which I hope to use for a new work project this year.

I am also planning out a short vacation in New Zealand, a two day hike along the Queen Charlotte track along the coast of Marlborough (which all you wine aficionados will recognize as wine country), followed by a trip to Wellington to visit Neil and Amelia and a stroll up and down Cuba street.

In short, not too much to report other than the relatively strange routine of living life in Spaceship Pole, punctuated by trips outside to wish people farewell when their C-130's arrive (half the IceCube crew left about 20 hours ago).

IceCube Laboratory Video Tour; Midrats Finale

Tonight I jogged half a mile across the skiway to the IceCube Laboratory (ICL). Oddly enough, it was my first time out there since I arrived two weeks ago. This has been the first trip where physically interacting with the computers has not been required since all the hands-on work is getting done by other people this year. You might ask, why go at all then? There are a few reasons. First, the satellite connection to South Pole from the real world is slow and lasts perhaps 12 hours a day at best; for much of my time here, it's been rather less than that. My work is 100% focused on interacting with the computers, so a good connection is important. Second, there are many things that could go wrong which would require hands-on work (as has happened all other years previously). Also, there are several people here who I need to assist with various things. And finally, one gains special knowledge by seeing the physical system one works on (sensors, cables, building, station, ...), which is hard to quantify but important nonetheless.

Still, as various systems get more reliable, there will be less call to have so many people on-Ice. When construction is complete, there will probably be only a few seasonal people and one or two winter-overs for IceCube.

For my part, though, it was a treat to get out and see the experiment. It makes the work more exciting and vivid. Even when back home in Chicago, I spend a lot of time "inhabiting" the computers in the ICL, logging in from over the satellite, fixing things and running tests. Seeing their hyper-functional rack-mounted exteriors "in the flesh" was an experience somehow akin to looking in a mirror... the face you see in the peering back out of the looking glass doesn't correspond necessarily to your sense of self, yet it's somehow "you" nonetheless.

Jogging out to the Dark Sector was also a heck of a lot more fun than the treadmill in the Gym, despite -60 F wind-chills. On the way back, I got "stuck" on the far side of the skiway - the crossing beacon was on, indicating the approach of an aircraft. I zipped up and hunkered down for a 10 minute wait out on the snow. But in just a few minutes, the incoming C-130 touched down and I was free to finish my jog back to the station.

Software serves up endless intellectual delights, but nothing beats physical "meatspace" for animals like us.

Speaking of meatspace and physical pleasures, tonight's Midrats (midnight meal) was the season finale. Here's the menu (details included for a certain special chef!):

• Bacon-wrapped Filet Mignon
• Grilled scallops
• Stuffed Portabello Mushroom Caps
  
• Mixed Vegetables
  
• Baked potato
• Sushi bar
• Harvest Salad with Apples, Blue Cheese, Cranberries, Onions and Roasted Pecans
  
• Triple Chocolate and Mocha Mousse
• Iced Tea

I told the Midrats chef that it was the best meal I'd had in seven seasons on the Ice -- a comment I heard her passing around to her crew. We also had tablecloths and candles (a rarity at the Pole due to fire safety concerns). The meal was explicitly off-limits for day shift but there were so many people there I suspect some folks snuck in.

Today is the first of February, meaning I'm more than halfway done with my stay. With any luck, work will continue to go smoothly (we are still about five days ahead of schedule). At any rate, all IceCube folks are leaving Feb. 13 on a straight-through flight to Christchurch. After a week decompressing in New Zealand, I am coming back to Chicago on the 21st.

SPIFF, Party, Shift Change

IceCube Party in Summer Camp

Several things happened this weekend which have made station life interesting. Saturday night we had SPIFF - the South Pole International Film Festival, where the whole station packs into the galley and watches the summer's crop of films made by Polies. Accompanied by free champagne, popcorn and raucous hoots from the audience, the festival is a true festival of camp, inside jokes, gutter humor, and heartfelt South Pole community spirit. Among others, two IceCube drillers (Tom Pi and Forrest Banks) each had multiple offerings.

One poignant film celebrated Sir Edmund Hillary by featuring his radio conversation with the South Pole from a few years ago, when he was at Scott Base (next to McMurdo).

After the SPIFF, the IceCube party in Summer Camp (from which there are many pictures posted on Flickr). I surprised myself by bartending for an hour or two.

Saturday we also had a change of shift, with Mark leaving and several new 'Cubers arriving. Things instantly got very hectic and all of a sudden I am very busy mornings and evenings discussing plans and helping the new arrivals. It may be quite hectic for the next two weeks. Fortunately I am the only night-shifter at the moment so I get a few hours of peace to do my work and nap if I am short of sleep that day (which is the case pretty much every day).

The gym is truly a lifesaver, and the cushion too. I'm going to try to get up to five miles, fast, before I leave. It is quiet enough nights now to meditate in the greenhouse, which, though noisy, presents a bit of humidity and an intoxicating panoply of smells.

Good things come in threes, or 18s

Hole 53

Good things to enjoy together after a long day at work: Walt Whitman, music of Brazilian Girls, Bass Ale.

18th string currently being deployed by the day shift. Eden called it again. Eden, fair IceCube oracle, named the number of strings three seasons in a row. Mazel tov to her and to IceCube!

South Pole Index

Number of days at Pole so far: 14
Days missing sitting meditation: 3
Physiological altitude: 10587 ft.
Best mile time on treadmill: 8:22.64
Pages of sketches drawn: 4
Times ventured outdoors (not including plane landing): 3
Times not including deployment: 2
Average hours of sleep/"night": 6
Average times/"night" woken by construction noise, talking, doors slamming, sneezing, etc.: 5
Hours of daylight per day: 24.0
Current temperature: -30.8F (-53.6F wind chill)
Current station population: 239
IceCube strings deployed: 18
Total strings in the ice: 40
Final goal for the project: 80
Maximum number tested simultaneously to date (old+new): 30
Days until station close: 20

Sleepless in the Station

Dark Sector view

Have been running a bit short of sleep; got paged on the station PA around 1 PM because of problems with the detector, which I managed to deal with. Woke up around (station) dinner time; vacuuming in the corridors at 6 kept me from getting back to sleep.

"Survival routine" helps: wake, vitamins, treadmill, weights, stretch, shower (30 seconds/day since last shower), sit. Plus the nap which I'm going to take in a few minutes, until my 3AM phone call starts.

Things are going well down here; 17th string out of 18 was just deployed today by the day shift. It's still up in the air whether the day or night shift will deploy the last string. Eighteen strings (if we get the last one, knock on wood) is really a phenomenal achievement, one which won't mean anything to anyone except those who remember broken drills, exploding hoses, accidents with cables, strings which had to get pulled out after deployment due to a constriction in the hole, and strings stuck at the wrong depth. The technique has really come a long way since the early days.... a super-specialized technique which will probably be useless a few years from now when the construction is finished. There should be a word for hard-won expertise which is only relevant for a limited time.

Meanwhile, my own work with the software is going ok, smoother than I could have hoped for so far ... for which I'm grateful, though I somehow miss oxygen and plants and darkness more than I remember doing in the past. Ah well, only 18 or so days left... and work will likely get busier and busier towards the end.

This morning, sitting by myself near a window in the galley, feeling slightly frayed and prematurely toasty [burned out on the Ice], I leafed through a five year old National Geographic magazine, looking at photos of exotic deserts in China, and I thought, "I should really go see some interesting places some time." Then I caught myself, looked out at the limitless white horizon, and chuckled.

Post Deploy

IceCube String 53 Deployment

Well, two more strings to go. Deployment was exhausting but, frankly, the most fun I've had since I got here. We attached all the sensors in the span of three hours, much faster than I've ever done it in previous seasons. Efficient team & streamlined procedures made the difference. I was pretty tired afterwards, but it was a good tired, and a chance to get out and about (we took the snowmobile sled out to the site, but I walked back and stopped by the South Pole markers).

I took it easy today and am back at scheduled tasks in earnest tomorrow.

I just posted 70 or so new pictures on Flickr for your amusement and edification: South Pole views, deployment action, South Pole Traverse tractors (driving from McMurdo to Pole and back), McMurdo scenery (including Adelie penguin).

IceCube and The Beatles

SOP ("Standard Operating Procedure") these days is to fall asleep in my cubbyhole listening to my iPod Nano to drown out the myriad creaks, clicks, thumps and coughs. This morning, listening to the new Beatles CD, "Love" (a very fun remix by George Martin and his son, released last year), I was thinking how much genius still shows through in their music, 40 years later. How did four kids from Liverpool turn into such a musical colossus? What synergies of place, time, talent and personality had to fall into place, "just so," to create music so new and rich that few others who came after could surpass their contribution ... not even the band members themselves, working separately?

It made me ask similar questions about IceCube (admittedly not as important in the great scheme of things as The Beatles, except to a few of us) -- a three hundred million dollar project in an exotic locale performing (we hope) the amazing feat of detecting cosmic neutrinos. We are all here working together on this project thanks to a sequence of accidents in geopolitics, physics, technology and personality. Many things could have killed the effort at early stages of the game (and some still could). My own involvement in the effort arose out of a similar arc of happenstance; yet there is a certain feeling of inevitability or rightness to it, like a strange song that comes together in the right way.

While I was thinking about these things, "Here Comes the Sun" came on. I chuckled. The sun has been up here since last September.

Now it is night (by the clock only; sunlight blazes across the tack-sharp snowscape all the way to the horizon). We are deploying the 16th string of the season starting around 3 or 4 AM.

Midrats

Tank at Pegasus Field

1/18/08 2350h NZT

A quick update, since it's been a few days.

It's just before Midrats (the midnight meal) here, which would be lunch for me. Some skiers just arrived at the Pole, from God knows what coastal part of Antarctica. From the desk where I'm sitting I can stand up and see the actual geographic pole just a hundred yards or so away.

Things are going pretty well. I'm gradually getting synced to the night shift schedule, and am pretty well acclimated, aside from dry skin and occasionally having to catch my breath. I'm up to over 2 miles on the treadmill, most of it running, and managed to sleep 6 hours today, a record since I arrived.

I'm a little embarrassed to say I haven't been outside except to take a few pictures... and to learn how to drive a snowmobile. Several of us took a safety class down at the Garage Arch after one 'Cuber got slightly injured in a snowmobile accident. The instruction boiled down to learning various ways to start the thing, what the speed limits are, what terrain to look for, and safety around heavy machinery. I don't anticipate driving around much but it's actually a good survival skill to have down here.

Work is going well, and is actually a bit slow at the moment since we are waiting for strings to freeze in before I can do all the tests that are planned. I'm actually stuck at the South Pole waiting for water to freeze -- go figure. In truth I have plenty of work to do and am using the gaps to catch up on work I would have to do in the North if I were there. It is a good opportunity to catch up with the pulse of the project and get reacquainted with everyone. I also got a fascinating explanation from Steven Meyer of the other big project down here, the South Pole Telescope (ironically based out of University of Chicago just a few blocks from where I live). They are doing some very cool science. Maybe I'll try to explain it here in an attempt to understand it better sometime.

The project has drilled 15 holes this year, already a record, with the 16th to deploy in 24 hours or so. If it's another nighttime deployment (they have mostly been, for some reason) then I will help out on this deployment.

Not too much else to report at the moment, other than that I just posted several photos from the journey here on my Flickr page; I'll try to post a few every day or so, time permitting.

Video: Flight to South Pole

I just uploaded a video of our flight to the Pole ... enjoy!

The Pure Land

A nod to Ira for the title.

I've been at Pole about 30 hours and am getting used to the altitude. Getting off the plane was a thrill as always (I have video which I will post as soon as I can get some cozy time with the satellite).... the blast of sound from the propellors, the bite of the air, the endless white, familiar structures, and colleagues waiting to greet us. No need to attend the orientation for old hands - just march over to your room and start to unpack. Same faces as last year in the corridors, and the same smells in the air. And the same feeling of oxygen starvation....

My room is again in the station. It's louder in here than in Summer Camp but I prefer it because everything is close at hand: work area, gym, galley, Quiet Reading Room for meditation, bathrooms... all without having to go outside. Of course, it's a recipe for shack-wackiness, but you can't have everything.

The night shift are getting ready to deploy the 14th string of the season. The "stretch" goal is 18, and still in reach. There have been a few injuries but nothing serious so far. So we are keeping our fingers crossed. Many things from drilling through my software work are much easier because procedures are in place and, for the most part, people are better trained than ever.

I will sit out this string deployment to give my blood chemistry time to finish adjusting to altitude. I had some headaches and the usual symptoms but the adjustment is going at least as well if not better than last year.

Almost there

I'm sitting on the floor of a Hercules LC-130 cargo plane, back propped up by a pile of orange carry-on bags, staring at a cargo palette full of scientific equipment; being lulled by the gentle shaking of the aircraft and the roar of the engines; hurtling through the atmosphere above the Ross Ice Shelf. These planes are by now at once exotic and familiar, their hyper-functional innards a muted military Christmas palette of green and red. Sometimes I find the most utterly functional of things to be the most beautiful.

I suspect I've flown in as many Hercs as any other kind of aircraft during the last decade. Give me the leg room of a C-130 over coach in a 747 any day. Though the drink selection is limited: you are required to empty, and then refill your water bottle at the drinking fountain before being driven to the plane.

During takeoff I sat next to the McMurdo NSF Science Representative who is on her way to Pole for a day. I asked her how many times she'd been to Pole.

"Just once so far," she said.

I told her, "It's my seventh time, and I'm still excited."

Then she told me that she's been to the North Pole eight times, and while the plane lifted off we talked about the impact of global warming and the reduced ice coverage at the North Pole on air operations there (small Twin Otters can land but not the bigger planes, at one of the spots she worked at). I expect I won't get to the North Pole before it turns into open water (at least in Summer).

In contrast to our cloudy arrival in McMurdo, on the way to Williams Field this morning the views were crystal clear, with Erebus and Discovery gleaming frosty and intricate, seeming much closer than they really were. When the weather is right, it seems as though you can see forever in Antarctica. It's like that in space, they say. Well, this is my space journey, my Sci Fi experience. Planet Antarctica: empty voids filled with rocks and ice, strange creatures which waddle, swim and croak, and dusty humans with sunglasses and greasy hair.

Time to get up and look at the glaciers.

Short-timer

Liquid Helium Conduit on C-17

Hotel California, McMurdo Station, Antarctica
This is going to be short, cause I'm for a shower and bed soon. Just got back from Bag Drag, which is more or less what it sounds like -- you have to carry all your luggage from your room to the "Movement Control Center" (MCC) where they weigh you with all your stuff for the flight. The new wrinkle this year is that the same TSA restrictions r.e. liquid, gels etc. that you get in the real world applies here, which meant I had to pour some shampoo in a plastic bag for tonight, and then check the rest of the bottle (which Sandy from the Devon gave me, and I'm still using since my other bag STILL HASN'T SHOWN UP... apparently it is due at Pole on or around Wednesday our time).

The other piece of bad news is that my good camera is out of battery juice, so no nice pictures of the Beardmore Glacier or other beautiful Antarctic terrain for y'all, at least going south. The good news though is that I spent a lot of that juice clicking pictures of a lone Adelie penguin who made its way past Hut Point this morning. It was talkative and more active than any penguin I've ever seen up close and personal. Apparently some Polies saw 40 penguins near the same spot a week or so ago. But I still feel lucky, since I haven't seen one for a few years. Sitting out on the black rocks at the edge of Ross Island, staring out at the mountains and listening to the croak of the Adelie waddling past and skidding around on its belly, was probably the highlight of the trip so far. I will post some photos and maybe even a clumsy video or two when I get some more time.

Transport for our South Pole flight is at 0700 tomorrow. With luck I'll be at Pole for lunch. Then I can start to settle in while my body chemistry scrambles to adjust for only 1/2 the usual oxygen....

There are no mice in the Hotel California Bunkroom

Clothing Issue at CDC

Collapsed about 1930 last night in the top bunk of my bed in the Hotel California. Merciful Mary... I slept nearly 10 hours despite the scratching noises in the ceiling tiles just over my head. I was somewhat amazed that mice were living in the walls and ceiling. Huh.... Mice in Antarctica, I thought.... Who knew. Those suckers will live anywhere.

This morning as I was waking up I could tell that the wind had picked up and was actually shaking the building. It became clear that the scratching sounds were just wind rattling something inside the walls.

A huge chunk of sleep did wonders for my mood. Better yet, I just got an e-mail that my luggage has been found and is in McMurdo. What a luxury it will seem to have more than two pairs of underwear....

Sleepy in MacTown

C-17 Pax

Surprisingly enough, we made it. I figured we had a reasonable chance of boomeranging back to Christchurch. There were rumors of a snowstorm on its way, which was why we were manifested at 0200h or "o dark hundred" for the earlier flight of the day. So far the snowstorm hasn't materialized, though the view was pretty hazy when we landed, and despite the lack of windows I noticed by the various vibrations and leanings of the plane that the pilot had to make a second pass at the runway before he put us down.

I've had an hour or two of sleep and am not at the top of my game at the moment. I keep almost losing things (gloves; hat; the plastic bag of bananas which I've carried in my hands from New Zealand, and almost "donated" to the Crary Lab IT techs). I'm in a bunkroom in the Hotel California with many beds and probably many snoring men, so the situation isn't too likely to improve any time soon. Once I get to Pole I will have to switch to night shift as well, causing further circadian disruption and general lack of correct neurotransmitter flow.

But I'm still happy and am relatively content to just be exhausted. I'm of to dinner at the galley, and then I might write some more or do a little work before heading off to try to fall asleep listening to The Lord of the Rings on my iPod in The Bunkroom. [Sorry this is absolutely vapid writing, but that's where my head is. --Ed]

Sir Ed

A footnote to toast Sir Edmund Hillary, who died today at 88, first to summit Everest (with Tenzing Norgay) and a member of the first group after Amundsen and Scott to reach South Pole (this time, by tractor). I saw him at the Pole in '97 or '98 when he came through for a visit. A soft-spoken explorer, humanitarian, philanthropist and advocate for the environment, he was by all accounts a remarkable man.

I guess if Hillary and Norgay could climb 5mi Everest in -30 degree temperatures and 100 MPH winds, I can handle being flown to Antarctica in the middle of the night in the relatively luxurious comfort of a C-17 without complaining too much, bags or no bags.

Shortcut to Toast

Photo: View from courtyard of Christchurch City Art Gallery

Ok, well, so much for comfortable beginnings. We fly at 0200 tonight, a time when everyone except Santa Claus and the Angel of Death should be asleep. Worse, no baggage yet, and no word from the airlines. Likely I won't see anything until it gets to South Pole in several days -- assuming it ever does. If I don't get my baggage at all it will be an interesting month. I hope they have some t-shirts left at the Station store, otherwise it will be a smelly month, since I have only one on me.

Of course, anything can happen - flight delays, luggage miraculously knocking at the door at all hours. Today's flight was delayed until tonight, and that's the one we're on now, too. But this particular flight has several "DVs" (Distinguished Visitors, i.e. senators or other big-wigs) who are trying to get to Pole for the inauguration ceremony for the new station, which is apparently officially complete. So it's unlikely it will slip unless the weather gets real bad in McMurdo.

But, it's off to Sala Sala sushi for me... might as well enjoy summer while it lasts (another 12 hours or so)!

Pynchon, redux

"Everyone has an Antarctic." --V

During last year's trip, I strained to finish Gravity's Rainbow while at Pole. I'd lifted my copy of Rainbow from the Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory (MAPO) at Pole in 2000, and brought it back with an eye to finishing it and leaving it behind. I failed, but finished it a month or so later, and then tackled and summited his latest, Against the Day, which, while longer and less poetically gorgeous than Rainbow, was an easier read, and just as fun.

This year I thought it fitting to bring down, in Rainbow's stead, my copy of Pynchon's V, purchased in Geneva, Switzerland in 1990. Never managed to finish it despite several attempts, but after Rainbow and Day it should be doable. I'm going to see how far I can get until Station Close - I have a month. We shall see.

I think Pole is a great place to read Pynchon. Here's why Antarctica feels like a Pynchon novel:

1. Dozens or hundreds of quirky but poorly-elaborated personalities advance and recede from view, colliding in myriad ways, like solitary molecules bonding in various configurations and then flying apart;
2. The tenor of Science lurks everywhere, a kind of unifying thermal paste holding the whole thing together, but you're not sure exactly how or why;
3. Lots of strenuous effort bent in all sorts of absurd ways (drilling holes 2 miles into ice? Christmas trees made out of metal parts in the machine shop? Driving for hundreds of miles across icy wastes searching for meteorites? Running naked from 200 degree sauna out into -100 winter air?);
4. Lots of stuff happens, sometimes exciting, often tedious, often painfully beautiful, usually strange; but there really isn't much of a plot.

Superposition of Luggage States

3 johns

Slept ok after dining on mussels and Belgian beer with Serap, Theresa, a very nice Aussie named Andrew, and IceCube drill software guru Matt. Still no luggage, and I realized that my long camera lens and both camera battery chargers are in my checked luggage. If we fly tomorrow and our luggage still hasn't made it, it means restricted photo options until I get to South Pole 3-5 days from now. Oh well -- I have my sketchbook.

Speaking of photos, there are a few more on my Flickr page.

Flights: Round 1

En route from Auckland to Christchurch

A fairly good trip so far, though not without ups and downs. Our layover in LA was 1.5 hours which is enough time if everything goes smoothly. But the weather in Chicago has been more like New Zealand summer than Midwest winter, with thunderstorms and temperatures in the 60s – truly spooky weather for January. Yesterday (well, two days ago modulo the International Date Line) the weather had started settling down but things were still squirrely enough to delay us almost an hour. That made for an exciting transition in LA, running with carry-on bags for our International check-in, inevitable stop at security, and finally a sprint to the gate, where we made it with minutes to spare before they closed the gate, only to sit on the aircraft for an hour until they could push off.

Last year I came home from Auckland in Business Class, where the flight attendants were practically waiting for you with your cocktail before your Business Class Butt hit its fully-reclining seat. Now returning the other direction across the Pacific, my seat towards the front of Steerage had, as its view, Business Class, where the cocoon-like seats beckoned like a mirage across a threshold of just a few feet, or a few thousand dollars, depending on how you look at it. The space under the seat in front was half-occupied by some sort of machinery (entertainment system? Ejection seat hardware?) so that my legs could only fit in at an oblique angle, much less my carry-on. Worse, next to me, reading USA Today, sat a man (also in the Antarctic program, turns out) as tall as me but twice as wide [Editor's note: in the shuttle from the airport in Christchurch, this guy filled us in on the flight schedule, as he manages flights out of McMurdo. We fly to Mac Town on Saturday, and Pole on Monday]. With negative elbow- and leg-room, my chances for sleeping or even resting peacefully throughout the flight had essentially vanished. This wasn't going to do. I'm interested in expanding my comfort envelope, not shattering it. I asked the characteristically amicable Qantas steward if he could reseat me should the opportunity arise. This turned out to be a good move, as a few minutes later he returned to show me to two empty seats adjacent the aisle towards the back of the plane.

The rest went according to plan: dinner, Chardonnay, in-flight movie (you might be skeptical about "The Bourne Ultimatum" on a four inch screen, but try the Moroccan fight scene during heavy turbulence while holding a hot cup of tea in your hand), followed by iPod+Tylenol PM which afforded a few hours of unconsciousness.

Of course, our luggage didn't make it – it's still in Los Angeles. I get to push my "packing light" philosophy to the limit until tomorrow. Travel makes your world grow (three continents in three days) and shrink at the same time. For 48 hours I am living out of a small backpack. After lunch in Christchurch I will have to go find a toothbrush.

Update: Arrived at Devon, home-away-from-home, lunch at Dux De Lux awaits, following a shower. Life is good.

Update II: After shopping for some essentials (toothbrush, shorts, underwear), was able to go for my favorite run along the Avon, opposite the Botanical Gardens. Now, having blissfully napped for an hour or so, it's time for dinner.

Packing for the Pole

(Photo: Dave and Kael "bag dragging" last year in McMurdo. There is obviously an advantage to carrying less stuff).

Well, packing is underway. I started this list of less-than-obvious things to remember a few seasons ago and still find it useful:

• Portable zafu
• Lightweight microfiber towel (a la Tim Ferriss)
• Basic toiletries (in case the tiny store at Pole runs out)
  
• USB keyboard and mouse (to fend off repetitive strain injuries from typing on laptop 60 hours/week)
  
• Extra bag for storing things in Christchurch
  
• Cameras/lenses/chargers
• Sketchbooks / drawing media (a whole fun list in and of itself, but probably not of general interest)
  
• Running shoes, shorts, running pants and shirts
  
• Spray bottle for humidifying room
• Saline spray for dry nasal passages
• Emergen-C (vitamin powder)
  
• Clothesline (clothing washed before bed will be nearly dry when you awaken, and will humidify your room as an added bonus)
  
• NZ maps (Wellington, Christchurch, ...)
  
• NZ power adapter (most electronics works on 220V if you have a small outlet adapter)
  
• NZ currency/coins (as the dollar continues its nosedive towards toilet-paper valuation, this becomes more important)
  
• LED flashlight (for navigating darkened Jamesways at Pole or dorm rooms in McMurdo)

Believe it or not, you'd probably do OK bringing nothing at all other than a few pairs of underwear and the clothing they give you in Christchurch. But even this "extensive" packing list will take up only half a suitcase, to which I'll add obvious clothing items, laptop, passport, etc.

Goals for Trip

IceCube is growing again this year, from 22 strings in 2007, up to 32-40 strings. 32 is guaranteed, since 10 new strings were deployed already since the season started in December. 40 is the outside ("stretch") goal.

My primary work task for the trip is to get all these new strings integrated into the Data Acquisition System. There will be a lot to do, about which I will probaby write more about more as matters progress.

Main non-work goals:

• Keep meditation practice going, 10-20 minutes minimum per day if possible
  
• Exercise daily (stretch, strength training, running; decrease high altitude mile time, from 08:43)
• Daily drawing practice from life and imagination (anatomy and other fundamentals)
  

Also this blog, photography, and notes for the drawing class I've been writing out on my Web site. Enough to keep me out of trouble during the 0.00125 hours per day when I won't be working or trying to sleep....

And, of course, to stay safe, have fun, and connect with colleagues and friends.

Balaklavas

Gotta get those balaklavas ready.

Current schedule has me arriving in Christchurch on the 10th (you lose a day in flight, and a day for flying over the date line), getting my clothing the same day (ugh), and then flying to McMurdo the next day. Of course, mechanical delays, weather, etc. make schedules very soft.... we shall see. Either I get to enjoy New Zealand (or LA, or Chicago) or I get to Pole quick and can just settle in.

Tree and Man (Test Post)

This is a test post, using a photo from Flickr, taken in Lincoln Park near my old apartment on the north side of Chicago.