March 11th- Day 72 on Ice

Weather: It has been windy with lots of blowing snow and cloud coverage. Temperatures are getting colder. From our meteorologist: “Temperatures dropped quickly overnight and it’s relatively calm outside. However, models indicate a sharp increase in winds late afternoon into the evening. It’s unlikely to warm-up much before these winds increase. Thus, please use caution and prepare for potentially fast increase in wind-chill (down to minus 130F).” Right now it’s -67F with 15mph winds.

It’s been a busy week, getting ready for the SPT3G collaboration meeting which is today and tomorrow. I had to get up at 0330 this morning to make the start of the meeting (10am Chicago time), and present the work that I had been scrambling to get done. One cool thing about being up early is seeing the sun from an unusual angle. The light coming into the Galley and the conference room was really nice and reminded me, oddly enough, of early-morning light coming into my Mom-mom’s beach house in Rehoboth… I don’t know why.

Between doing analysis work, exercising, climbing, playing sports, and falling asleep trying to be social during meals, I’ve been really busy! I get really stressed and anxious when trying to get analysis results and things don’t work, or my code is too messy and I confuse myself or I don’t have a complete result to present, so the daily exercise regiment is really a critical function to keep me sane.

Here is a short timelapse I took out the Galley window one night during 2nd dinner (around 11pm).

And one of me dressing to walk back to the station after doing rounds out at the telescope.

The sun is now at 3.5 degrees above the horizon, and we only have 10 days until sunset!