The story thus far

I arrived on January 5, 2008. A lot has happened since then. Let’s see if I can catch you up:
1. Weather – Pretty miserable until the last couple of days. Nothing but grey sky, and very cold relative to my visit in December 2005. We had one big snow storm (named Julia) that dumped almost a foot of snow on us. (It's hard for me to tell how much since the wind left many drifts around the Station.) Flights to field camps were cancelled, and the Station nearly came to a halt. After the storm abated it took an extra day just to clear the runways and roads enough to resume traffic.
2. Snow school – Anyone who may be going into the field has to take an overnight training course to learn how to camp in Antarctic conditions. We quarried snow blocks and built snow walls, and fabricated a quinzee hut as well, which is sort of lazy man's igloo. (Other - incorrect- spellings of quinzee include "quinsy" and "quincy" and "quinsey.") I’ll make a post to tell you more about that. I also had training required of everyone: Environmental Protection (a biggy down here), and Outdoor Safety, required of anyone who wants to take a hike.
3. Icebreaker Oden – Every year the last few miles of ice are broken out so that the cargo vessel can come into port. While this job was originally performed by American vessels, it was contracted out to the Russians for a few years and for the last two years it has been done by the Swedish icebreaker Oden. A beautiful boat. I will make a short post about my tour of it.
4. The experiment – For the first time, a total of three balloons were launched this year. They are all making two revolutions around the Pole. The last one launched (ATIC) is being cut down today. It has spiraled into the Pole, and recovery of the instrument will be coordinated from there. My experiment, CREAM, the first one launched, has nearly completed two revolutions and will be cut down on Wednesday or Thursday, probably over the Ross Ice Shelf near McMurdo, but the surface weather is not supposed to be very good so it might get delayed. The last one to be terminated, BESS, was the second balloon launched but is still 5 or 6 days out from completing its second revolution. You can follow the paths of these balloons at the NASA CSBF site for Antarctic operations.