December 25, 2007
WAIS Divide camp Antarctica

Time: 6 am
Latitude: 79° 28.10’ S
Longitude: 112° 3.56’ W
Elevation: 1820 m (5919’)
Temperature: -12 °C ( 10 °F)
Wind speed: calm
Wind Chill: -
Visibility: unlimited
Clouds: few clouds
Wind direction: SW
Relative Humidity: 82%
Barometric Pressure: falling
Precipitation: 0
Breakfast: Leftovers
Lunch: Leftovers
Supper: Leftovers

Yesterday and today are our days off for most folks. Though there was certainly a lot of work being done around here for a day off. Largely everyone did some work today with a little skiing, reading, movie watching thrown in. The biggest impact was that the cooks John, Karen, and Sue were also off. That means that we eat leftovers all three meals. One of our community jobs each day is being House Mouse. That means that we share washing dishes /clean-up responsibilities. Today I had House Mouse at supper time. I worked my shift with Brent and Elizabeth our camp supervisor. Both are really terrific great at dishes.

I also worked on my 3-d quadrat today in between other small tasks. If I had the right sized PVC tubing, PVC corners, and a saw I could construct a 3-d quadrat in 15 minuets. I thought that I could easily find PVC tubing here so I did not ship any and decided that if it would not work I would use bamboo poles from broken flags poles. The bamboo poles I did find in abundance but it was the glue to hold the bamboo into the PVC corners that ended up being the difficult part of the construction. Glue is glue but glue in these cold conditions is another thing. I think that I finally solved the problems though and will have my 3-d quadrat installed by early morning.

We have two folks here with stunt kites and two with ski kites. All were out for part of the day taking advantage of the free time and the breeze. Though not very strong, there was enough wind to launch the stunt kites and propel the skiers for short distances.

Since today is December 25 th it is really Christmas day though since we had our celebration two might ago I think it will be another regular day. We will save it all up for a New year's celebration.