Flasking

Just got back from a walk (see above picture) and thought I'd churn out one of my regularly long weekend posts to relax before heading up for a plane day bar night.

To begin with, communications are back up. At about 10:15 this morning they put out word that they're officially calling them "stable" and that phoning practices and such are back to normal (Military and CBO personnel were only getting 15 minutes a WEEK on the single satellite phone...luckily EC has one for just the two of us and our boss said we could use it all we wanted).

Anyways...this week I'll talk about my Wednesday duties up at the lab. Wednesdays are flasking days. That is, we actually collect air samples to send down south. We collaborate with dozens of different groups from all over the world, from NOAA in the States to the University of Heidelberg in Germany. The flasks that I handle are in the pictures below: NOAA 007 are the slender ones, steel are Japanese and the round ones are both Victoria and Scripps.The round and steel flasks are evacuated before being shipped to us, so standard procedure is to walk 200m upwind of the lab, hold your breath, walk into the wind, hold the flask above your head and open it, wait for the hissing to stop and then allow another 5 seconds, close flask, stop walking and try not to pass out from holding your breath :) The valves on the round flasks are glass and greased, which presents a problem when the grease freezes outside. So, we tape two handwarmers around the valve and crack them 2 minutes before we have to sample.

The other flasks that you see mounted in that briefcase looking devise are not evacuated. So, they're on a pump apparatus that has a small mast that I stick up. They flush for 5 minutes, and then are filled for one. Again, 200m upwind of the lab to avoid contamination.That's pretty much it for flasking. It's not complicated, just a nice hour spent outside. The cold can get your fingers pretty good while you're trying to pop the hand warmers, but God gave me 10 fingers so that I'd have a few spares (I'M KIDDING MOM, I'M KIDDING!!).

To finish off, I'll stick in a picture of me in front of the first sun of the year up here. Yes, I'm wearing my sunglasses :)Twilight-ly yours,
Graham