First dirty item: The CASLab, the Clean Air Sector Lab. Pictured below:
Notice the snowmobile in the foreground? Not quite kosher for a Clean Air Sector, right? First one to be there in fifteen years. On Monday, we officially dirtied up the air and decommisioned the CAS Lab, soon to be re-established 10km away at Halley VI.
Nothing like sullying something pristine to raise the spirits. We were in the process of pouring dirty tar all over the lab and setting it on fire - a Viking funeral for a Halley V landmark - but the Health and Safety people intervened before we threw the first torch. Damn bureaucrats.
Second dirty item: The ionosphere. Terrible this week! My wireless devices report in over 12km distances wirelessly...but they found it difficult recently. Solar flares and whatnot are causing serious interference; if it was dark, we'd have some stonking good aurora borealis. As it is, I've had to adjust my algorithms to be very, very patient when transmitting data. Like waiting up for a minute to send a kilobyte of data. Filthy, dirty ionosphere!
Final dirty item: me. I'm not going to be starring in any deodorant advertisements any time soon. Greasy hair, bit of acne, and God knows what I smell like. I miss running water. However, if everything is relative, I'm doing all right - a few people came in from deep field this week where they hadn't bathed for a few weeks. Filthy, dirty people! Not like us civilized people who bathe once a week.
5 comments:
Well, it's a filthy, dirty business, isn't it Ryan?
Filthy, dirty, so it is! I'm glad I have nothing to do with it, so I am...
Tonight's new episode of "House" was about a psychiatrist who is stricken with, of course, an unknown malady while in Antarctica. The episode was entitled "Frozen." Mira Sorvino plays the psychiatrist. I'd love to hear your comments on Hollywood's depiction of Antarctica. From your blogs, I gather that the BAS is populated by more folks than what TV land is willing to pay for extras on the set. The only outside scene must have been filmed during sunset, too. Sorry to hear about the dirt. Rub some scotch under your nostrils, but first take a shot! Either things will start to smell better, or you won't care how they smell!
Hi, Becky. Just think, half of the scoobies are upside-down now!
Somehow, the words "dirty and filthy" have so much more impact when talking about the Antarctic..... Our "white week" last week seemed so pristine..... guess not.
Was the whole "filthy dirty" thing from Father Ted?
Haven't seen much Hollywood Antarctica. Our base currently has about 100 people, more than a usual summer. This winter, it will be 12. The American/Kiwi base Mcmurdo has 1000. It even has a McDonalds. And not to worry, body odour isn't much of a problem...except when the bar gets busy, but that's like anywhere.
And yes, on the whole, it's still pretty clean around here.
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