So, I log on, open up my blog, but then I've sat here for 5 minutes trying to think of something to write about. I'll just start typing and see where that takes me.
Time is just flying by up here now. I think I'm in the low 20's of days left, but I'm starting to not want to leave :) Sure, home means weather above -30°C and sweet, sweet golf, but this place has really drawn me in. There's so much to do (still) and with the changing sun conditions, more and more is available every day. Weekends are still laid back, but where else in the world can you hook up with you buddies and go watch whatever movie you want, at whatever time you want, in a theater all by yourself with an HD projector? Just one of the many amazing things that I started on WAY too late up here.
Bartending would be another one. When I first got here, I was my standard 'shy-ish' self, and although I was up at the bar, I didn't think that I could do the job behind it. As I got more comfortable up here, I started to see it as a great way to be up socializing, while NOT drinking and spending money. Now that I've started, I wish I got on the list sooner! The April schedule just came out, and I get 6 shifts before I leave, including a Friday, Saturday and 2 Mondays (pre-plane day eve...goodbye drinking without the hangover on the Herc), so it should be busy and potentially lucrative.
Work is really picking up here now, as more instruments and sampling routines come online with the sun rising. Additionally, techs are coming up to do annual or bi-yearly calibration and maintenance on their specific piece of equipment. Since they only come up for a week, they work long days to get everything done before the next plane...including weekends. I just got back from 2.5 hours at the lab, and since we've spent the week preparing for a boss visit, everything is sparkling. Got to sit back and read my book for a bit :)
Another weird Alert 'thing' that I've come to discover recently is the dichotomy between weather down South and up here. All winter you guys were complaining about cold and snow, and while I knew it wasn't much in comparison, at least you were talking about something I was seeing outside. Now, I'm getting e-mails and reading Facebook posts about the "spring weather" and "working outside gardening." It's weird to hear people say things like that, because it's not exactly time to water the roses up here yet :)
Well, that was a semi-entertaining 'stream of consciousness' post. Might add a picture or two later in the weekend, but for now, I'll leave it as the novel.
See you all [relatively] soon!
Graham
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Late Night Post
Normally I avoid late night posts because I tend to be...."happy" at this "hour" if you get my drift. But, tonight is an exception. I started bartending :D
It was a blast. Busy as stink, but I fell back to my grocery store customer service and Punchers retail experiences and made it through just fine.
Only problem...7.5 hours working for Environment Canada = $100. 5 hours of bartending = $136 in tips.
Mom...Dad....I'm dropping my degree and going to bartender school :P
Graham
It was a blast. Busy as stink, but I fell back to my grocery store customer service and Punchers retail experiences and made it through just fine.
Only problem...7.5 hours working for Environment Canada = $100. 5 hours of bartending = $136 in tips.
Mom...Dad....I'm dropping my degree and going to bartender school :P
Graham
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Call me Robin Hood
Another Alert First today :) Archery!
I hadn't held a bow since Camp Tawingo when I was like 9, so this was virtually a new experience for me. Sure, I've been working out up here, but when I started out with Dan's 65lbs draw bow I almost died. I think that I dropped down to a 35 pounder and that was plenty. I find it's one of those things that uses very specific muscles that aren't really used in day-to-day life (bowling is another such activity). I just know that tomorrow I'm going to be hurting in some odd places.
After some poor false starts, I actually got the hang of it pretty quickly. We were shooting the entire length of the gym, so even hitting the 5' x 5' target board seemed like an accomplishment. I'm proud to say that I killed one Styrofoam deer, a Styrofoam rat and a Styrofoam bunny :) (and yes, the rodent targets are that little white piece of paper on the right, lower left).
Also, I just found another good picture from that Rec trip last weekend. As we were driving out, the sun was just hiding behind a hill and we got some great pictures of Sundogs. Cool halo rainbows to the left and right of the sun.
Only one month left to go!
Graham
I hadn't held a bow since Camp Tawingo when I was like 9, so this was virtually a new experience for me. Sure, I've been working out up here, but when I started out with Dan's 65lbs draw bow I almost died. I think that I dropped down to a 35 pounder and that was plenty. I find it's one of those things that uses very specific muscles that aren't really used in day-to-day life (bowling is another such activity). I just know that tomorrow I'm going to be hurting in some odd places.
After some poor false starts, I actually got the hang of it pretty quickly. We were shooting the entire length of the gym, so even hitting the 5' x 5' target board seemed like an accomplishment. I'm proud to say that I killed one Styrofoam deer, a Styrofoam rat and a Styrofoam bunny :) (and yes, the rodent targets are that little white piece of paper on the right, lower left).
Also, I just found another good picture from that Rec trip last weekend. As we were driving out, the sun was just hiding behind a hill and we got some great pictures of Sundogs. Cool halo rainbows to the left and right of the sun.
Only one month left to go!Graham
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Grey, Grey, Grey
First off, to answer some questions that I've gotten from some previous posts:
Kayla: You have to hold your breath so that when you open the evacuated flask and it sucks in 5L of air it doesn't pull in your CO2 laden wind :) Hell, if you're going to sample WAAY up here, put the lab 7km away from the base, and THEN sample 200m away from THAT, makes sense to not screw it up by breathing into the sample :)
Mere: Yes, Kimwipes. I go through more than my fair share of them. Plastic gloves too.
I was just going to put up a quick post about a phenomenon that I experienced for the first time the other day. I've called it a "Grey Out." It's not a blackout, where you can't see due to dark, and it's not a white out, where you can't see due to blowing snow. We were going out to the lab on an overcast day, and with the amount of sun coming through the clouds and the snow colour, everything disappeared. Sure, you can see a building or something, but every drift and mountain was gone. The road to the lab is covered with drifts that you have to slow down to go over, and I couldn't see anything. There was no contrast. I took a picture off the roof of the lab towards the same hills that I've been capturing before for my sunrise shots. I made sure that there was a sampler in the foreground so that you could see that I didn't just take a picture of the inside of a grey bag :) And just to clarify, this shot has the horizon in it!
Also, last Sunday we went on a Rec trip to the "Love Shack", an old ice fishing hut an hour and a half away from station. It was a fun BV trip, up and down the hills, and over the lakes. When we finally got there, there was a group of like 9 hares all sitting around eating. They pound a little hole through the concrete-hard snow with their front paws "dog at the beach" style to get down to the grasses. I got lots of good pictures, but while I was taking a video I also captured something that not many people ever see, nonetheless get on film. When the hares are really scared, or trying to run fast, they actually get up on only their two back legs and bounce along like that. I thought people were just joking, but I actually have about 3 seconds of it on film :) I went to see the tracks afterwards, and it's about 7 or 8 feet between the bounces...these hares can move!
Graham
Kayla: You have to hold your breath so that when you open the evacuated flask and it sucks in 5L of air it doesn't pull in your CO2 laden wind :) Hell, if you're going to sample WAAY up here, put the lab 7km away from the base, and THEN sample 200m away from THAT, makes sense to not screw it up by breathing into the sample :)
Mere: Yes, Kimwipes. I go through more than my fair share of them. Plastic gloves too.
I was just going to put up a quick post about a phenomenon that I experienced for the first time the other day. I've called it a "Grey Out." It's not a blackout, where you can't see due to dark, and it's not a white out, where you can't see due to blowing snow. We were going out to the lab on an overcast day, and with the amount of sun coming through the clouds and the snow colour, everything disappeared. Sure, you can see a building or something, but every drift and mountain was gone. The road to the lab is covered with drifts that you have to slow down to go over, and I couldn't see anything. There was no contrast. I took a picture off the roof of the lab towards the same hills that I've been capturing before for my sunrise shots. I made sure that there was a sampler in the foreground so that you could see that I didn't just take a picture of the inside of a grey bag :) And just to clarify, this shot has the horizon in it!
Also, last Sunday we went on a Rec trip to the "Love Shack", an old ice fishing hut an hour and a half away from station. It was a fun BV trip, up and down the hills, and over the lakes. When we finally got there, there was a group of like 9 hares all sitting around eating. They pound a little hole through the concrete-hard snow with their front paws "dog at the beach" style to get down to the grasses. I got lots of good pictures, but while I was taking a video I also captured something that not many people ever see, nonetheless get on film. When the hares are really scared, or trying to run fast, they actually get up on only their two back legs and bounce along like that. I thought people were just joking, but I actually have about 3 seconds of it on film :) I went to see the tracks afterwards, and it's about 7 or 8 feet between the bounces...these hares can move!
Graham
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Filters
Seems like I get in a blogging mood whenever I get back from a walk. Just got back from a 14km one (up the plateau too, mind you) to the GAW lab. I know...drive there 3 or 4 times a week for work, then walk there for "fun" on the weekend. I'm a little crazy. I did have to restart the flame on the Gas Chromatograph, so I was able to put in a little overtime (unfortunately not for travel time as well :P ).
This weekend I'll talk a bit about my Monday tasks, which involve changing many of the filters around the lab. The mechanics behind all the instruments is relatively similar: air is pulled in from outside, passed through a filter, then the filter is removed and analyzed. They all do it in a different way though, with different filters looking for different atmospheric constituents, from soot and carbon particles to toxic organics. We even have a radiation sampling kit ready to go in case there's a nuclear event somewhere in the world (e.g. Chernobyl) in order to observe how the particulate moves throughout the atmosphere.
Like with the flasking, we collaborate with several different organizations all around the world. The filters that I'm responsible for changing are: Toxics (first two pics, filter and housing), Hi-Vol (orange box), PS-1 (filter), PSAP (ready to be changed) and Aethelometer.
Much like flasking, there are very specific guidelines that must be followed in terms of glove changes, sterility and procedure. The first week was overwhelming, but it sorts itself out pretty quickly. All the changes are on different schedules, so there are some Mondays that have more work than others. Occasionally, you have to do a "blank", which consists of putting on a filter using standard practices, and then taking it right off again without sampling anything. This allows the filter to be analyzed for contamination introduced by the operator (aka: me).
Well, that's filters in a nutshell. I guess next weekend I'll talk about some of the other miscellaneous stuff that happens up at the lab and here at work, and then I'll be fresh out of new information for you guys. Don't worry, there's always something wild and crazy going on up here that I can write about.
Only 5 weeks left!
Graham
This weekend I'll talk a bit about my Monday tasks, which involve changing many of the filters around the lab. The mechanics behind all the instruments is relatively similar: air is pulled in from outside, passed through a filter, then the filter is removed and analyzed. They all do it in a different way though, with different filters looking for different atmospheric constituents, from soot and carbon particles to toxic organics. We even have a radiation sampling kit ready to go in case there's a nuclear event somewhere in the world (e.g. Chernobyl) in order to observe how the particulate moves throughout the atmosphere.
Like with the flasking, we collaborate with several different organizations all around the world. The filters that I'm responsible for changing are: Toxics (first two pics, filter and housing), Hi-Vol (orange box), PS-1 (filter), PSAP (ready to be changed) and Aethelometer.
Much like flasking, there are very specific guidelines that must be followed in terms of glove changes, sterility and procedure. The first week was overwhelming, but it sorts itself out pretty quickly. All the changes are on different schedules, so there are some Mondays that have more work than others. Occasionally, you have to do a "blank", which consists of putting on a filter using standard practices, and then taking it right off again without sampling anything. This allows the filter to be analyzed for contamination introduced by the operator (aka: me).Well, that's filters in a nutshell. I guess next weekend I'll talk about some of the other miscellaneous stuff that happens up at the lab and here at work, and then I'll be fresh out of new information for you guys. Don't worry, there's always something wild and crazy going on up here that I can write about.
Only 5 weeks left!
Graham
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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
Monday, March 9, 2009
Annnnd, We're back
Sergeant managed a site visit to Whiskey (the relay link that's down) yesterday via Twin Otter, and a switch to an older power supply means that comms are back up. Kinda :) Still pretty dependant on sunlight, but we're getting sooo much more a day now that the link will only be dropping out at night now. Once it's more stable I'll post up some of the things that have happened over the last week.
Glad to be back in contact with everyone!!
Graham
Glad to be back in contact with everyone!!
Graham
Monday, March 2, 2009
Ok, THIS should be it
Well, a warm snap (-25°C) extended the life of the batteries in the link south, but this morning they're reading 7.84V....which if you're not into electronics, that's bad. Likely going down within hours, so even though I've said it before...bye for a couple of days.
Graham
Graham