Still Here

Somehow my bag made it to McMurdo, but I didn't. I will probably take my vacation two weeks from now after the design team leaves. The National Science Foundation sends in a 'design team' once or twice a season to make sure projects are going along as they intended. Basically, they tell us to jump and we say 'How high?'. I've already worked 30 hours this week... something is not right with that. They have startup meetings at 8:00am for us and then review meetings in the evening at 7:00pm and in between is tying all the loose ends on the projects. My main tasks have been to run and maintain the centrifuge which is removing oil with a mysterious origin from our heating system, create keys and drawings to explain where the data from our sensors is coming from, and to work on mechanical controls issues with a programmer and engineer so that I can run solo this winter. Its keeping me way too busy, but there is some interesting stuff going on and it at least distracts me from dreaming of my upcoming vacation, which I have a hard time being patient for.