all photos

[12/8(Sa) National Geographic documentary]
Woke up once but was very tired for some reason and fell back asleep and could not get back up.
10:30AM Reported to the Science meeting as a representative of our project. There were representatives from the main current projects: IceCube (neutrino observatory), the 10-meter telescope (my advisor's project), BICEP (our telescope), QUAD (another telescope that's being decommissioned), and 2 atmospheric research projects including one by NOAA. After my report, the science representative told me that there will be distinguished visitors from the National Science Foundation on Wednesday and they have my name down to present them our telescope -- I'd better do a good job!
I skied to the lab again, but the snow felt so sticky that i had no glide... It's overcast, and it seems like when it's sunny it's slightly better maybe because the sunlight microscopically melts the very top surface of the snow to offer at least a minimal glide... By the time I finally reached the lab, it was so exhausting that I had to take a photo of my self -- unfortunately, it looks a little too miserable to be published...
The way back almost always seems a little easier, probably because there's a slight slope down back to the station -- a slope that I never noticed when just walking.
8PM The station showed a National Geographic documentary about the construction of this new South Pole station, filmed last year. I remember there was a someone from the National Geographic last year, but didn't know about this documentary. It was very dramatic and made me want to go there. I didn't know all that drama was happening while I was there (maybe it was exaggerated).
[12/9(Su) computer crashed again!]
7AM Today is the cryogens fill day where I have to climb up the telescope, so I should wear my normal boots for good traction, but it's also Sunday when i can ski without many people outside to see me struggle. I chose to ski to the lab. It's clear today, but I'm not sure if my theory about the sunlight melting the snow has any truth... i wasn't getting any glide... It felt like I was taking longer than just walking! I was thinking, there's no way I'm going to ski back... it's just too painful. Maybe it was just too early in the morning, and i also only had a cookie or something for breakfast (since Sundays have only brunches from 10:30).
8AM Finally reached the lab and saw the control computer had crashed again just now (everything was fine when I left my room). This is getting to be a problem. I did a lot of work this morning, and thought I'd fill liquid helium after brunch. But I remembered the site manager Katie say there'll be a emergency response tour of the power plant at 1:30pm today, so I had to decide to do the fill even though I couldn't find anyone around to help me. I used the extension cord to place the switch (that I usually have someone else control) up on top of the mount where I can reach. I was slightly nervous but realized that if I'm careful, the worst that can happen is some wasted helium. It went very well and i thought the efficiency must be at least as good as previous fills, but when i calculated it I was disappointed to find out it was lower! Not sure why, but at least I have an excuse.
The liquid nitrogen fill before the helium fill took a very long time (I could've sped it up by pressurizing more with the nitrogen gas, but didn't want to waste the gas too much...), so I skied back to the station in a rush, but it was almost 2pm when i finally reached the power plant. Fortunately, the tour was still going, and I was able to see many parts of the station that I hadn't seen before, including the fan rooms, water tanks, electrical room, communications room, emergency power plant, ... mostly "authorized personnel only" places.
3pm The tour finally ended, and there was an art & craft show/sale in the galley. All of a sudden I realized that it's almost time that the observations need to start, so I rushed to my computer and started the schedule. Maybe I should carry an alarm to make sure I don't forget.
4pm I went to the gym for volleyball, but no one was there :( so I wrote a postcard. I want to send some holiday gifts, but have to borrow some cash!
During our calibrations using the mirror, Denis found out that whenever aircraft comes here, our telescope detects a strange periodic signal with a period of ~2 seconds until the aircraft leaves. Not sure if this is true, but I heard they started using transponders this year and can be tracked on Google Earth! So I got the list of on-deck times of the LC-130 aircraft in case we see this signal even during our sky observations.
7PM I went to watch the Outdoor Safety Lecture video to be able to do outdoor activities in McMurdo in case I have time there on the way back -- it was my 3rd time seeing the same video... I really hope to find penguins this year!
8PM This week's Science Lecture was about Ozone Hole -- it sounded like the ozone hole problem has an optimistic future, and I became very sleepy.
[12/10(Mo) computer crises ]:
By today I had forgotten how painful skiing is, so I skied again, and again it made me feel like I need to keep a record of this suffering on the photo =>
Today I'm going to prepare the backup computer since we'll most likely replace the control computer that keeps crashing. To do this, I tried using the backup computer to make a clone of the control computer's hard drive. But the hardware that makes the clone was not working on our backup computer :( It started not even detecting any hard drives! I skipped dinner and reported all the details of what I did to my team members and got some suggestions for things to try... To make sure that the hard drives are fine, I tried putting them in another of our computers, but then that computer also stopped detecting any hard drives! Could the hard drive have somehow transmitted the damage from the backup computer to this computer? I felt devastated with now 2 apparently broken computers! As I wrote to the team members what happened, at least everything I did seemed sensible. It was getting late and I just skied back and went to bed around midnight.
[12/11(Tu) continued computer mystery]
7AM I was a little tired, but my desire to get better at skiing got me skiing again even though the weather was pretty bad and windy; you can see the damage it caused => The computer problems remained a mystery for everyone. I decided I won't try anything with the hard drives or the cloning hardware unless other agreed -- the blames need to be shared in case even more things break.
5:30-9PM Went to pilates, had a quick dinner, started laundry, played volleyball, and hung clothes.
[12/12(We) Windy!]
After skiing, pilates, and volleyball last night, I did not wake up till I had 9 hours of sleep. During the teleconference, the control computer crashed again! I caught a snowmobile ride back to the station, and got all covered in snow =>
Today, the wind reached ~30 knots, over 10 meters per second. After lunch, skiing somewhat against the wind was hard and cold -- my hands and my right ear (the wind side) got painfully cold; I put my hands against our power supply box to warm them.
5PM Ken, who is the software guy working on the other telescope came to take a look at our computer problem -- even he couldn't figure out the mystery. I have a trauma team meeting at 6PM, but kept investigating with Ken since he's leaving tomorrow and I should prioritize my telescope work over the trauma work.
7PM I finally made it to the Trauma Team meeting, but was disappointed that the practice drill was already over :( I had dinner with several cosmologists who are leaving tomorrow, including John who is the principal investigator of the 10-meter telescope and one of the most accomplished cosmologists. He said, "fix those computers, and come work with us in Chicago". He's a great guy, and it's been nice getting to know him a little bit.
[12/13(Th) Distinguished Visitors...]
The National Science Foundation "Distinguished Visitors" had decided to visit today instead of yesterday because of the poor weather here. Today was slightly less windy, but not much better, but I had to be ready for them (their itinerary listed me as "Dr Yuki Takahashi"...). I saw on their biographies that one of them got his BS/MS/PhD from Berkeley, so to make him happy, I printed a Berkeley logo and put it on our telescope =>
I had a lot of work to do and had to skip lunch because the visitors' plane was circling above the station waiting for a better weather for landing and they could come here anytime. They finally landed at 3PM, and I saw their van in front of our building and them taking pictures, but then the van quickly left! Turns out they were here only about a half hour before taking off before the weather turned worse...
Today was very windy and the blowing snow looked very majestic. As I was walking back to the station, I saw no human activities outside. As the station building started appearing behind the blowing mist, I had an eerie thought that maybe I'm all alone here in the middle of the continent. That'd be pretty strange...
5:30-6:30PM Went to pilates again, and the Wednesday yoga teacher was there. Too bad she only teaches on Wednesdays -- I had to miss yesterday.
Had dinner with some cargo crew, including Amnesty that I hadn't talk to since last year. Another guy said "Hi Yuki", but I couldn't quite remember him... Seems like many people remember me and my name, probably because I'm a very rare Asian among this community (I don't know any other Asian person in this current population of 250, although I think there may be 1 or possibly 2 other). I often forget that I look a little different from American people around me... I wonder what myself looks like, if I could have eyes outside of me. Once in a while, I get a curious look that reminds me that maybe it's because I'm Asian. There's one African American man here (everyone else is Caucasian) -- he probably feels similar things.
[12/14(Fr) one bowl and one spoon]
I had a bad dream where I could not get over my social impairment...
3:30AM Woke up and went to the bathroom. I check the telescope health whenever I can, and saw that the control computer had crashed! apparently shortly after I went to sleep! I called the lab, and Martin was there on his night shift, so I had him reset the computer. Unfortunately, the computer didn't seem to reboot properly, but I didn't want to bug Martin again, so I geared up, ate an orange, and skied over. With the wind against me and only an orange in my stomach, I expected this skiing to be another struggle, but for some reason it was not as bad.
I tried to get feedbacks about my plans for things to try with the computers, but didn't get much responses -- either everyone's busy or didn't want to take part in breaking more things, or maybe they're just waiting for me to find something trivial that I'm missing. Meanwhile, I called my father and we talked for a long time. Having missed breakfast, I had to open up Denis package from Irina that didn't arrive here before Denis left, and had some dried fruits (thanks Irina&Denis :).
When I finally returned to my room, there was a voicemail, and it was Andrew and his Adult Living class in Michigan! I visited their classes to talk about the South Pole, and sent them a postcard with my phone number here. Too bad I had to rush out so early and missed them! Hopefully we can talk soon.
Had lunch with the site manager Katie and meteorologist Jeff -- I was happy to see that they too had one bowl and one spoon, just like me :) They are both really great people and fun.
Tonight 7-11PM is the night for "snow stakes", where we go by a line of ~40 stakes 1/2 mile apart to measure the snow height and slopes. There are 3 of these trips this week with 4 persons each, and I was happy to get the last spot on the volunteer sign-up sheet. I was going to eat a lot to prepare for this 4-hour trip out in the cold, but dinner was not too appetizing, not even the dessert... Anyways, we were advised to wear as warmly as possible, so I dug up gears that I normally never wear, like the long underpants, full face mask, and mittens and put on as much as possible without getting too hot, and put backup gears in my pockets. Got 2 bottles of water inside socks, and a box of Fig Newtons, and I was ready. Unfortunately, the trip got postponed due to the visibility being too low :(
?
=)

[12/15(Sa) ]