6 days later.

Well, there have been lots of exciting happenings of late!

But first, your local weather report... :)
Today is our windiest day yet, with winds from the SE blowing hard enough to push us around a bit in the slick, blown snow.


Onto the events!

I got notice of package mail yesterday afternoon, so to pick it up, I had to stay in town this morning, which meant a glorious little sleep-in (until 7a). My packages turned out to be the toiletries and clothes box I sent myself, which I was worried wouldn't come for another week, with all the rest of the mail so backed up -- it'd been about a month since they'd gotten package mail. And.... I got my new sunnies! They are pretty sweet; it's exciting to be able to see in them without having to wear my contacts. With the extreme dryness down here, that's been a bit hard.

I then proceeded to housing which was mostly only helpful in directing me to the laundry room, where the lady gave me a nice fat pillow and an extra blanket. Feeling on a roll, I stopped in the Rec office, where they seemed quite enthusiastic to hear I was willing to teach even a few yoga classes. The number and timing will depend on the balloon schedule, which is as random as the weather once we complete our hang test, and probably one of the many reasons we're known as balloonatics down here. :) What surprises me is that despite there clearly being a desire for them down here: the first class Amy and I went to was so packed our mats were ~2 in apart and we had to stagger just to raise our arms, the several certified teachers are not interested in leading any classes. So I thought, what the hell, and, I'm actually pretty excited about sharing yoga with people.

With all that done by 9.30a, I took a moment to chat with Rob, whom I keep randomly running into. He reiterated the invitation to join him and some friends on the Castle Rock loop this weekend (=Sunday) after ultimate frisbee. They're planning to employ skis to go up and a couple snowboards to go down. And I am nervous about my abilities, but, if worse comes to worst, I can always just take off the skis and walk. Also, there is only one downhill, which is what killed me when Jess, Jeff, and I tried it last year. I think I will go for it.... and see if Anne, who skied from the Ice shelf to the Pole with AWE in '93, has any advice for me before I go! (Sorry I can't find a better link than that at the moment. Anne's not Ann Bancroft.)

My ride didn't leave until 10.30a, so I had time to pay a visit to the Crary Lab computer techs who set up the wireless on my laptop for the lab and are in the process of fixing my big data external hard drive. Whew! On the way out to LDB, Phil then regaled me with ballooning adventures, including the glint that caught the copilots eye when they circled the BLAST payload last year....
A parachute cushions the payload's descent after it gets cut loose from the balloon, and a charge then detaches the 'chute from the payload when it touches down. Except the BLAST one didn't, so the wind played drag-the-payload into a crevasse field, which is just too dangerous to enter, even for science. So they circled and circled the main section of instrument, trying to see if the data drive was still on it or in the faint trail of debris heading back in the direction it came from. Eventually, they determined it wasn't and the copilot mentioned the glint. After more circling, photo-taking and -enhancing, they figured the ~foot x 4 in x 4 in white box on the white snow was, in fact, their data. So the CSBF (balloon) guys made a huge plan involving landing some 30 mi away, skiing in and then out again, passed it by NSF, and then BLAST got lucky one more time. The pilot was able to land just 3 mi away, and they retrieved the box. Of course, the hard drives were damaged (this continent seems to like eating computers :), but they were smart enough to have professionals extract the info. Science = success!

Hopefully we won't have such adventures!

To work...