12/02/02
A restless night tending the computer. Philipe
Herquet, my Belgian physics professor roommate, was persuaded
by me to knock out a French translation of the AMANDA video. (I
had all the working files on my computer, as I just finished an
English version a few days before I left). But the computer was
responding slowly, and it was frustrating because it would stop
recording, so I tried to defragment the drive, but the directory
was bad, blah, blah. Typical computer story: all fixed by about
noon, with me tending it every few hours in the night.
Breakfast was very light. They do a big Sunday brunch, but if
you get up early, it's not much. But we put on some cold clothes
and Christian, Phillipe & I climbed to the top ob Observation
Hill. It's very steep, and the real test is to regulate closely
the clothing so that you're not too hot, and not too cold. And
once you're at the top, bundle up quickly, as the wind cools you
off very quickly. I wore jeans and sneakers, which turned out
to be a fine choice, as the day was sunny and the wind was even
lighter than yesterday.
Scrabble up the hill, deceptively large, but
there's no scale, not even a bush to tell you how far away the
top might be. Very loose volcanic stuff, like everything around
McMurdo, so pretty slippery and tiring. What a view at the top!
Mt. Erebus, Antarctica's only active volcano, belching away. The
station down below. Big snowplow blower tractor making a big arc
of snow in the middle distance, clearing the road out to the runway.
The famous Dry Valleys across the frozen bay, New Zealand's Scott
Station down below, and a cross to commemorate Scott & his
four companions, dead on the way back from the pole.
On the way back, Philipe & I followed the road through an
industrial depot area. We discovered prefab parts earmarked for
the new South Pole station, and the depot for the helium balloon
experiments. Balloons are used in high altitude research. If you
put one up at McMurdo, it tends to come right back in a few days:
convenient!
We also found some old steel fuel tanks, cut
open. Fabulous echo!
After brunch, Philipe & I returned to the tanks and used contact
microphones to do some site recordings. The results were really
spooky & good. We placed the contact mikes under some steel
slabs cut out of the floor, and listened through headphones. Anywhere
I touched the tank, even the far side, LOTS of sound.
Got back, and went to read email on the very slow computers downstairs. Here's an email from my wife that made me laugh:
Rico (my 4 year old, very feisty son) had a
good time at the zoo with his uncle Don, who takes very good care
of him. We were driving to Chinatown and talking about Emilia
and how she didn't like to eat exotic foods. She said, "Yes,
I do!" My sister responded,
"Well, Vietnamese people eat monkey brains." So she
said in her fake innocent voice, "I would eat some",
so Rico blurts out, "Well, let's just drive back to the zoo
and get some monkey brains out of the monkey and stuff them in
her face so she'll shut up!" Very appropriate, and he hadn't
been saying anything so it was very efficient. We all laughed
because she is a nonstop chatterbox.
Philipe & I went back to Hut Point for
some more kite flying with the big kite (Poppa) and the full electronic
remote control digital rig. I wanted to try McMurdo while I had
gear, because we had to check bags at 7pm tonight. The rig worked
fine, but Poppa was not quite strong enough to lift the rig. Hopefully,
I'll get another chance here at McMurdo.
I met, quite by accident, the main NSF tech guy, at bag drag,
because he's also going to the pole tomorrow. Nice conversation,
with net result that I was able to connect to the www and upload
lots of movies I've been working on.
Looks like Pole tomorrow!