Midwinter Festival

Temperature: -57.4C
Wind Chill: -74.2C
Wind Speed: 7.2kts

Okay, a week has gone by, figured it would be a good time to update you all on something that Cully already has about five days earlier! Midwinter Festival...and, yes I will probably use a couple of Cully's photos, too!

Midwinter Festival is a time for a lot of us to realize that we are halfway through our stay down here...and it's a time for the rest to know that they passed the halfway point a while back! Just like Sunset Dinner, the place was decked out with a single long table, bottles of wine,



the lounge had appetizers while we waited for everyone to assemble...



and then it was time to feast! Started off with a salad,



and then came the soup course...pumpkin, with a sour cream swirl. Of course the galley staff had a tribute to Cully and I, which was evident when I got my bowl...



The rest of the meal was delicious, with surf & turf as a main course...a sight to behold



followed by one of the most decadent desserts I have seen...Baked Alaska!!



Dinner was delicious, and I took the opportunity later that night to get a photo with some guys that decided to model their hair style after mine...



The following day, the gym was transformed into a carnival, with games strewn all over the floor...ring toss, putt-putt golf, tarot readings...pretty cool.

Then came the auction,



and there were many items to bid on, from snickers bars, bags of Doritos...to a pie in the station manager's face!



I wound up bidding on a hand made flute, made by one of our heavy equipment operators out of a cherry tree on his property back home...sold for $240. I figured I was justified since the bag of Doritos went for $66!



Soon to follow came the concert, and there was a lot of talent up there! We listened to some vocals to start off with,



and that was followed by the electric guitar groups. The last group, in particular, was really good, and played a lot of high energy music.



During their set, they requested my presence on the floor (and this is where the talent ends...) to dance for one of their songs. Those of you who know me, know I don't dance, well or otherwise, but for some reason it seemed safe to act like a raving lunatic in front of everyone...



apparently there is a u-tube posting, and I'm sure I'll be revealing that to you when I find out what it is! At the end of the night, some kind folks helped polish off the brew, to keep from having to store it of course, and I caught some interesting shadow work...





That weekend was extremely draining, but it was well worth it for what we got to experience!

Since then, we have had some pretty awesome skies, and I hope you enjoy the skies as much as we do down here...as well as some of Cully's entertainment!



Hope everyone is safe and doing what they enjoy!
Capt. Splash

Auroras and Competitions

Temperature: -55.6C

Wind Chill: -74.6C
Wind Speed: kts

Just a quick note to let folks know I am trying to get reaquainted with my camera again. Last week, before the moon dove under the horizon for the next two weeks, I was able to snap a couple more aurora pictures from ARO.

Our pool competition is nearing regular completion play...before the finals start, and right now I am sitting pretty good. I seem to have lost some of my game, though, so we will have to see how the next couple weeks play out....

On a lighter note, I have some unexpected news! Some people down here entered a photo competition out of Tasmania, celebrating midwinter in the southern hemisphere. They sent in a couple shots, and waited a couple weeks to find out if they had been selected as one of the finalists. The photos are about the size of a sheet of paper when they are printed out, and the finalists have the option of having those prints be shown at another gallery in Australia. A couple friends talked me into entering a couple of my pictures, and I just found that the one of Cully launching one of our ozone balloons got selected!




We'll see where this goes, but I am really glad I got talked into submitting into this competition!! Looking forward to seeing what the outcome is...so far three of us from the station became finalists...our sous-chef, and our PA also got selected!

Midwinter Festival is coming up on station as well, delicious food, live music, and games will be the order of this weekend. I will try to snap a few shots of some of those good times! In the mean time, take care and we'll keep the rest of the real world up to date with the goings on down here!

Capt. Splash

Resurrection!!!!

Temperature: -65.1C
Wind Chill: -84.6C
Wind Speed: 8.1 kts

Cully's a genius! Over the weekend, he ripped my camera apart, and fixed it! Now the sensor isn't blocked anymore, and it will actually take the picture!!

When I went out to work the next morning, I decided to spend a little bit of time on the roof, and in front of ARO, familiarizing myself with my camera again. I happened to be up on the roof while the Lidar was in the middle of its rotation, so I got pictures with a couple different laser angles.



The Southern Cross was right above the building, so that was a good follow up...



While I was outside, a small aurora showed up, so I went to the front of ARO and, with the moon being as bright as it was, tried to figure out exactly what shutter speed to use...I could have possibly overexposed these pictures



Taking a look at the pictures once both myself and my camera had defrosted, I realized that the pictures were a tad bit on the blurry side. Thinking that I might have actually damaged the lens during the camera's premature dismount off the tripod, Cully took another look at the camera. He readjusted the manual focus ring on the lens, labeled a couple set points, and handed the camera back. These were a couple pictures that I took yesterday...



I need to spend some more time with the camera outside, weather permitting of course, but I'm really happy with what I have so far!

Thank you Cully!!!

Hope everyone is staying warm!
Capt. Splash

Birthday Shenannigans

Temperature: -53.5C
Wind Chill: -71.5C
Wind Speed: 9.3 kts

Okay, I can't put this off anymore, the birthday was over a week ago! I'm still trying to hassle people for race pictures, so hang in there...

Last Friday, Francis, one of our chefs, made a very modest, quite small cake for my birthday, and was instrumental in providing the decoration above the frosting!



I thought the cake was awesome, but there was no way I was going to be able to have a single piece. I need to watch my figure after all!



I did, however, have a piece off the top, and got lucky with a chocolate piece. Fran had alternated layers with chocolate and vanilla, with chocolate pudding between layers...truly a delicious concoction!

That night, it was into one of the movie rooms for a couple movies that I will never say no to watching...Jaws and Finding Nemo! Poor Emily had never seen Jaws before, so we had to follow up with something a little more enjoyable for her! I must say, though, she took it well. I walked over to her to ask her a question right as Jaws started...and she screamed! That being the reaction I was going for, I returned to my seat to enjoy the rest of the movie.

The following morning, we had a balloon launch, and a couple extra people showed up just before the launch to send some birthday wishes up with the balloon. By the time folks were done signing the payload the balloon would be carrying (they even let me sign it), it was time to tape it closed and send it up.



We attached it to the bottom of the balloon,



and after I paused for a couple more shots...



we sent it on its way.



Later that day, I got to enjoy a batch of fudge that was also a part of the birthday(s). You might recall me saying earlier that I wasn't a big fan of fudge...this recipe has got me worried about my fighting weight! I got a good sized box full of bite-sized pieces...three layers deep!...my worry is that I am almost into the third layer already!


A couple weeks ago, it was a beautiful night, the sky was really clear and the wind was down a bit, so I climbed the tower, and before I decided to drop my camera off the tripod a few days later, took a panorama of the area from ARO over to MAPO and SPT. The moon is right above the station, The Dome, and the summer housing. I still have to play with settings a little, but with a little help from the Doc, it turned out okay...



Hope everyone back home is doing well!
Capt. Splash

Cinco de Mayo

Temperature: - 56.7C
Wind Chill : - 76.2C
Wind Speed: 10.1 kts

Yeah, I know, I'm a little past the 5th of May, but when I wanted to post this last week, I took the liberty of saving two pictures and deleting the text, so I'm playing a little catch up here.

Cinco de Mayo down here just proved to me that it doesn't matter where you are...if people want to celebrate something, they will find a way to do it! The galley was adorned with both good food and festive decorations! We were surrounded by tortillas,




big hats,



and cutouts of figures that looked frighteningly similar to David Hasselhoff!!



To finalize our tribute to the day, there was a jalapeno eating contest...



and there were two brave souls...Eric and Ross.



...Cully didn't enter the contest...he just really likes jalapenos!!



...and they were off! Ross put up a considerable effort during the contest, and it looked like he might have pulled it off,



but in the end, it was Erik that won the day, with the final numbers being Ross: 13 Erik: 20



Later on in the week, one of our temperature sensors on the tower decided to give us incorrect data, so Cully took it down one afternoon, and brought it inside to take a look at it. It turned out that the instrument was working just fine, but the fan inside the casing had stopped running. Cully switched out fans, and he and I wandered out to the tower to put the casing back over the instrument.

It wound up being a one-person job, but I tagged along anyway, so I could practice freezing fingers, and working on camera settings.



Within a couple minutes, Cully had the housing back on,



and we stumbled back inside to make a couple observations of the moon, and collect a couple air samples.

That took us to the weekend, and a 5K race through the inside of the station, but as I was "running" in the race, I don't have any pictures. As soon as some of them get shared, though, I will post them and tell you how the race went!

In the meantime, stay warm!

Capt. Splash