Seeing the future

Location:  Columbus, OH

Weather:  Clear, 54F

Ok, so this has nothing to do with Antarctica, but my life is much more than some frozen continent.

For some reason I just woke up early this morning.  I got up, made coffee, played with Nana, and went outside to look at the beautiful pre-dawn skies.  As soon as I looked up I realized that I was looking at the winter constellations.  I was always in wonder of this.  I know it's a simple notion of astrophysics, but looking at the next seasons stars has always been like looking into the future.  Seeing Orion prominently in the southern sky made me think about what might life might be like in six months when Orion will be up at 8:00pm vice 6:30am.  It's always the first glimpse into a future time to come.  It doesn't give up any of its mysteries, but it does prove the concept of the "future" and that what and who I deal with here in the present is fleeting.  

That is not such a bad thought.

Picture:  M42 - The Great Orion Nebula--I shot this last winter in Gibsonburg, OH.

PQ is a Go Go

Well, since yesterday the news is that I did receive my qualification status.  I seems that I going to leave around November 14th.

PQ a Go Go

Location:  Columbus, OH

Weather:  63F, Sunny

It stands now that we will be leaving for the ice in the mid-November range.  This will be a different type of season for me.  The plans to do the remote work on the West Antarctic ice sheet had to be changed because of budget reasons so now all of the work I will be doing will be based out of McMurdo--which if anyone of you remember is not my favorite spot on the planet.  Don't get me wrong, being in Antarctica is great, but I am just not fond of the large outpost--I guess I just have the remote field work gene in me.

The consolation is that all of our work will be like a hub out of McMurdo.  Which means a lot of flights daily, on helicopters and fixed wing aircraft (which will be new for me), which I am happy with.

Of course, there's is the PQ process.  I have not as yet been qualified by USAP to go.  I guess that will be the next milestone in this process.