Bad Dirt

southpole

John Jacobsen
Saturday, January 27, 2007

Home Other Posts

Earlier post The Last Laugh southpole

Later post Pole Bound southpole

Annie Proulx has two collections of short stories set in Wyoming. The second is titled Bad Dirt. They are gritty, dark, full of sumptuous detail and compelling characterization. If she were to write stories about McMurdo, I would pick them up in a heartbeat. Some of the craggy, dust-spattered characters here could have come straight out of her stories.

But that’s neither here nor there. The big news for the day is: the second set of pictures is up! And, for your entertainment, I’ll post and annotate a few of them here as well, starting with…

texted_IMG_2863.JPG

Figure 1: Interior of “Futuro” flying saucer house by Matti Suuronen, in Christchurch Botanical Garden.

texted_IMG_2865.JPG

Figure 2: Very large tree in the Botanical Garden. Note diminutive figure of author at base of tree for scale.

texted_IMG_2874.JPG

Figure 3: The next stage of our commute from Christchurch to Antarctica: a ride in a C-17 flown by the New York Air National Guard.

texted_IMG_2893.JPG

Figure 4: Arrival at Pegasus field.

texted_IMG_2903.JPG

Figure 5: En route to McMurdo from Pegasus, we see a C-130 landing at Willi Field. Note picturesque exhaust clouds.

texted_IMG_2930.JPG

Figure 6: Running water alongside the streets of McMurdo. Temperatures have been in the 30s up to 40F here.

texted_IMG_2938s.JPG

Figure 7: Fish in the Crary Lab aquarium at McMurdo Station. Note open mouth in bottom right image.

texted_IMG_2968.JPG

Figure 8: Catching my own reflection in window Scott’s Hut at Hut Point.

texted_IMG_2923.JPG

Figure 9: Hundreds of seals dot the sea ice around McMurdo - this group is outside Scott Base (the New Zealand base near McMurdo).

These are only a sample - have a look at the rest.

The morning’s adventures consisted of missing breakfast, walking out to Hut Point to look for penguins (no joy), and then getting our safety briefing for recreational travel around the station (i.e. the walk to Castle Rock, which I’ve never been able to do). After lunch and a nap, I jogged a few hilly kilometers to Scott Base. After McMurdo went out of earshot around the hill behind me, it became utterly silent. Just me, the dirt, Scott Base and the sea ice below, and Erebus to the north, emiting it’s white puff of volcanic breath. The only disturbance in the air was a faint, silent breeze. Strange to be in such a big space, as big a space as I’ll ever find, probably, with no sound at all but my own breath and heartbeat. We are never truly silent until we take our last breath.

Earlier post The Last Laugh southpole

Later post Pole Bound southpole

Blog Posts (170)

Select from below, view all posts, or choose only posts for:art clojure code emacs lisp misc orgmode physics python ruby sketchup southpole writing


Home


From Elegance to Speed code lisp clojure physics

Common Lisp How-Tos code lisp

Implementing Scheme in Python code python lisp

A Daily Journal in Org Mode writing code emacs

Show at Northwestern University Prosthetics-Orthotics Center art

Color Notations art

Painting and Time art

Learning Muscular Anatomy code clojure art emacs orgmode

Reflections on a Year of Daily Memory Drawings art

Repainting art

Daily Memory Drawings art

Questions to Ask art

Macro-writing Macros code clojure

Time Limits art

Lazy Physics code clojure physics

Fun with Instaparse code clojure

Nucleotide Repetition Lengths code clojure

Updating the Genome Decoder code clojure

Getting Our Hands Dirty (with the Human Genome) code clojure

Validating the Genome Decoder code clojure

A Two Bit Decoder code clojure

Exploratory Genomics with Clojure code clojure

Rosalind Problems in Clojure code clojure

Introduction to Context Managers in Python code python

Processes vs. Threads for Integration Testing code python

Resources for Learning Clojure code clojure

Continuous Testing in Python, Clojure and Blub code clojure python

Programming Languages code clojure python

Milvans and Container Malls southpole

Oxygen southpole

Ghost southpole

Turkey, Stuffing, Eclipse southpole

Wind Storm and Moon Dust southpole

Shower Instructions southpole

Fresh Air and Bananas southpole

Traveller and the Human Chain southpole

Reveille southpole

Drifts southpole

Bon Voyage southpole

A Nicer Guy? southpole

The Quiet Earth southpole

Ten southpole

The Wheel art

Plein Air art

ISO50 southpole art

SketchUp and MakeHuman sketchup art

In Defense of Hobbies misc code art

Closure southpole

Takeoff southpole

Mummification southpole

Eleventh Hour southpole

Diamond southpole

Baby, It's Cold Outside southpole

Fruition southpole

Friendly Radiation southpole

A Place That Wants You Dead southpole

Marathon southpole

Deep Fried Macaroni and Cheese Balls southpole

Retrograde southpole

Three southpole

Transitions southpole

The Future southpole

Sunday southpole

Radio Waves southpole

Settling In southpole

Revolution Number Nine southpole

Red Eye to McMurdo southpole

That's the Way southpole

Faults in Ice and Rock southpole

Bardo southpole

Chasing the Sun southpole

Downhole southpole

Coming Out of Hibernation southpole

Managing the Most Remote Data Center in the World code southpole

Ruby Plugins for Sketchup art sketchup ruby code

The Cruel Stranger misc

Photoshop on a Dime art

Man on Wire misc

Videos southpole

Posing Rigs art

Metric art

Cuba southpole

Wickets southpole

Safe southpole

Broken Glasses southpole

End of the Second Act southpole

Pigs and Fish southpole

Last Arrivals southpole

Lily White southpole

In a Dry and Waterless Place southpole

Immortality southpole

Routine southpole

Tourists southpole

Passing Notes southpole

Translation southpole

RNZAF southpole

The Usual Delays southpole

CHC southpole

Wyeth on Another Planet art

Detox southpole

Packing southpole

Nails southpole

Gearing Up southpole

Gouache, and a new system for conquering the world art

Fall 2008 HPAC Studies art

YABP (Yet Another Blog Platform) southpole

A Bath southpole

Green Marathon southpole

Sprung southpole

Outta Here southpole

Lame Duck DAQer southpole

Eclipse Town southpole

One More Week southpole

IceCube Laboratory Video Tour; Midrats Finale southpole

SPIFF, Party, Shift Change southpole

Good things come in threes, or 18s southpole

Sleepless in the Station southpole

Post Deploy southpole

IceCube and The Beatles southpole

Midrats southpole

Video: Flight to South Pole southpole

Almost There southpole

The Pure Land southpole

There are no mice in the Hotel California Bunkroom southpole

Short Timer southpole

Sleepy in MacTown southpole

Sir Ed southpole

Pynchon, Redux southpole

Superposition of Luggage States southpole

Shortcut to Toast southpole

Flights: Round 1 southpole

Packing for the Pole southpole

Goals for Trip southpole

Balaklavas southpole

Tree and Man (Test Post) southpole

Schedule southpole

How to mail stuff to John at the South Pole southpole

Summer and Winter southpole

Homeward Bound southpole

Redeployment southpole

Short-timer southpole

The Cleanest Air in the World southpole

One more day (?) southpole

One more week (?) southpole

Closing Softly southpole

More Photos southpole

Super Bowl Wednesday southpole

Night Owls southpole

First Week southpole

More Ice Pix southpole

Settling In southpole

NPX southpole

Pole Bound southpole

The Last Laugh southpole

First Delay southpole

Nope southpole

Batteries and Sheep southpole

All for McNaught southpole

t=0 southpole

The Big (Really really big...) Picture southpole

Giacometti southpole

Descent southpole

Video Tour southpole

How to subscribe to blog updates southpole

What The Blog is For southpole

Auckland southpole

Halfway Around the World; Dragging the Soul Behind southpole

Launched southpole

Getting Ready (t minus 2 days) southpole

Home

Subscribe: RSS feed ... all topics ... or Clojure only / Lisp only