So many people have been sending me messages, wishing me well. Thank you to everyone!
Also, I’m still so busy. We’re going to start the finishing steps for the IceTop deployment today, so I’m very busy.
I haven’t been taking many pictures on this trip either…. IceCube is really getting it’s money worth sending me.
Later!
-Jonathan
Well, it’s Distinguished Visitor day here at the pole. Senator John McCain and a bunch of other people from congress are in the air right now, flying to the pole for a whirlwind 4 hour tour. I’m starting to wish that I had purchased my souvenirs earlier, as I bet they’ll take all the good stuff. Beyond souvenir purchasing, it means everyone has spent a lot of time cleaning everything. I spent two hours on Bathrooms yesterday.. fun fun fun.. They’ll take a tour of the new station, IceCube and some of the other science projects around the station. Hopefully we can wow them.
I was told to turn on my muon tagger, with it’s blinky lights and such, so it’s sitting in the lab silently taking data that I’ll never look at. Don’t tell them that though.
In the mean time, I should get some more work done (more about what I’ve been working on later).
-Jonathan
Hello!
Sorry to anyone who’s been checking my blog for news, because a lot has happened, and I’ve failed to report any of it. So, let’s start with “Happy New Year!” I know, I’m a bit late, and since we’re on New Zealand daylight time (GMT +13) we were in the new year well before the rest of you in the states. New Year’s was fun, with live music, good food and friends. I was even at the pole at the stroke of midnight, so that’s pretty cool.
First, I need to apologize to everyone who’s been checking my blog, looking for news of my trip. The last couple posts were put up just minutes ago. All of the activity in Christchurch left me pretty exhausted at the end of the day…
Anyway, I’m at the pole now, and the satellite is up, so I can finally read all of my e-mails and catch up on some work.
I’ll post soon, I promise.
-Jonathan
This morning I had breakfast with Justin and Chuck, and arranged for a shuttle to come pick us up to go to the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) at 1:00 to get our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear.
I realized that I hadn’t packed any normal socks, so I went down to Farmer’s, the only department store that I could find in downtown Christchurch, and spent most of the morning randomly walking around.
Picking up clothes at the CDC was a bit easier this year than the first time around, as now I knew what I’d be using and how things should fit. I had way too many gloves, and different types of gloves that I didn’t use at the Pole last time, so I didn’t bring so many extras, just the ones that I knew that I liked to use, and left behind a bit of the other “standard” gear. I guess we’ll see if that was wise of me or not.
We’re still supposed to check in at 6:30am tomorrow to fly out. I hope we go!
Merry Christmas to everyone. Today has been a pretty laid back day. I woke up in time for breakfast downstairs. When I got downstairs, there were a couple familliar faces; Justin and Chuck. Justin, as I mentioned is a grad student working on IceCube at Berkeley, and Chuck a Raytheon guy who is on his way to Hawaii from the ice. I had flown to McMurdo with Chuck last year so we recognized eachother right off.
After breakfast, I tried tracking down my baggage. Unfortunately, it seems like there are a lot of people in a similar situation, as the line at the baggage desk was almost always busy or not answered. Eventually I got through to someone who said they had found my baggage arrived in Melbourne, and was to be loaded on a flight to Chrischurch that afternoon, so I would get it some time after 4:00 that day. What a relief! It all arrived safely by cab a little before 6:00.
I was supposed to meet with Tom Gaisser, the principle Investigator for IceTop, when I was here in Christchurch, but when I tried to call him at his hotel last night, his wife answered the phone and informed me that Tom was stuck in McMurdo for the last week, waiting for a part for one of the planes. Looking for some company for Christmas dinner, Justin and I joined her at a nice restaurant, which was a lot of fun. Afterward, Justin and I went to “The Bard on Avon,” a favorite bar of mine, and talked over a beer. After that, I was pretty sleepy and we called it a day. Not a typical Christmas day, but not so bad.
A perk of being in New Zealand, you get Christmas before everyone else. The downside, it doesn’t feel like Christmas without everyone else.
Mom, Dad and Laura, I hope you arrived safely in Florida, and that you’re having fun, I wish I could be there too.
There are lots of places I wish I could be (^^), but here I am, so I’ll make the most of it. In the morning, that is.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
-Jonathan
Hello again,
Well, I arrived in Christchurch, but my baggage did not. More fallout from that delay in Dallas. At the time, the people at the missing baggage desk thought it was on a flight, but they didn’t know where the flight was going to, and that maybe my baggage wasn’t actually on the flight. (fun!) On top of that, because of the missing baggage, it took me over two and a half hours between getting off the plane to getting through customs.
Usually a person from the US Antarctic Program is at the airport to meet me, and tell me where my hotel is, and when I’m supposed to get my gear. I’m not sure if they were there or not, but after taking so long to get through customs, no one was there. Remember, this is Christmas Eve.
Anyway, I opened up the phone book, found a hotel (the Devon) and that’s where I am. After checking in, I considered taking a shower, but the futility of taking a shower and then putting on the same (smelly) clothes sent me on a quest to find a place in Christchurch that sells stuff like socks and underwear. Unfortunately, it seems like all of these places are closed. Almost everything is closed today, or closing early. So, I finally settled on buying a t-shirt at one of the souvenir shops around The Square. The t-shirt reads “Same Shirt-Different Day” with a little image of New Zealand. I’m not sure what the original meaning was, but I thought it fit my situation perfectly. I tried to explain this to the clerk, but he didn’t seem to get it.
After finding a shirt, I went to find something to eat. I found a Japanese restaurant that looked interesting, so I went there. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my guide, and the staff wasn’t very verbose, so I was a little confused. Evidently I had to get my own water, which was available at the counter, and the dish I ordered, tempura, didn’t come with anything else. No soup, no rice, just lots and lots of tempura. It was delicious.
Just as I was finishing my meal, a guy walked up to me and asked if I was with IceCube. Luckily for me, it was Justin Vandenbrouke, from Berkeley, who is staying at the same hotel as I am. So, he filled me in on the schedule (pick up cold weather gear on Monday, fly out Tuesday) and we went back to the hotel.
I called the baggage people again, and they said that my baggage was on a flight to Melbourne, and should arrive some time tomorrow. Christmas presence! (sic)
Happy 9 months anniversary, I can’t wait to see you!
Anyway, it’s been a long day, and now I’m sleepy, so I’ll get some rest. Thanks for reading!
-Jonathan
Merry Christmas Eve!
After being stuck in Dallas for a few hours extra, due to maintenance, I arrived at LAX too late to make my flight to Auckland. So, I was put on a flight to Sydney instead, and I’ll go to Christchurch from there. So, it was a little annoying, but it looks like everything will be fine.
Sydney looks like a beautiful place; I had a nice view of downtown out the window of the 747 as I few in. I saw the Opera House on the water. It looked pretty neat.
Unfortunately, that’s almost all that I’ll see of Sydney, as I’m in the airport now, and my flight to Christchurch is in about 30 minutes.
-Jonathan
What?
I’m going back to the pole! I found out around noon last Wednesday. Dates at the Pole are Dec. 30 to Jan 18.
More details to come.
-Jonathan