Telders and the crew left about an hour ago on the helicopters. They got the Array up and running, but it started buzzing like mad just after they left. Figures. I’ll have to try to fix it tomorrow before the first experiment. I don’t think I can deal with that noise for the next 6 months.
It looks like the Husky has found a warm place under the server rack. He’s snoozing quietly next to his bowl. I should find a name for him.
Antarctica is cold.
The Husky and I went out to the Array field to try to recalibrate the Array and I think I made the buzzing worse. Maybe there’s too much iron under the surface or something. It was hard enough to sleep last night and now it’s even louder. Husky dog seems unhappy about it too. He barked like crazy every time I adjusted something. Maybe I’ll name him Buzz. Is that mean?
Alright, enough of this. Time for experiments.
Spent the day s
canning 19h22m22s ± 5s, −27°03′ ± 20′ and 19h25m12s ± 5s, −27°03′ ± 20′ , which, of course, are the locations of the famous "Wow!" signal discovered by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman in 1977. Naturally, I didn't find anything, but it was a fun place to start :)
In other news, I have so much bacon here, it's coming out of my ears. Ahh, the good life.
Going to take Buzz for a walk and check out the penguins.
My new Nikon D90 is toast. This was a really nice portrait of a Chinstrap penguin. For some reason the picture looks fine on the camera's screen, but once I copy it off the SD card it looks like this. I tried a several SD cards, and copied the files to my laptop AND the lab desktop with the same result (*・_・)ノ⌒*
That, and the buzzing from the Array is so damn loud I can barely stand it. Grr. Where's my bacon.
Buzz slept with me last night and we piled the pillows on our heads to keep out the noise from the Array. We woke up early this morning and found some foam earplugs in one of the supply crates, which cuts out about 60% of the noise. I can't tell you how happy I am about that. I thought Buzz would complain, but he let me plug his ears as well, and now he's stopped whining. So, off to a good start for the day, I think. I also found two old digital cameras, both Sony Mavica MVC-FD5s (the old models with the 3.5" floppy disks!), in the same crate, so I'll go out this evening for some pics of the Antarctic and try to get another close up of a Chinstrap penguin. But for now it's time to aim my Big Ears at the Archer.
...hell? W
e're just back from a walk with one of the old cameras and every single picture I took with the Mavica is similarly distorted. This has got to be related to the Array.
OK, I'm going to cycle the Array. The last two day's scans have been completely normal, but the buzzing and the bizarre interference (or whatever it is) with my photography leads me to believe something is very wrong. I'll set the computer to run diagnostics and auto-calibrate overnight. Let's hope it comes back online in the morning. I don't want to sit here for the next 6 months eating bacon. Or do I?
I was up all night attending the computers, so I didn't get much sleep. There are more DVDs at this station than bacon, so I kept myself "entertained" by watching John Carpenter's The Thing. A word of advice: if you're all alone in the middle of Antarctica in some dark research station just a few hundred miles from the location of events which occurred in the movie "The Thing", DON'T ACTUALLY WATCH THE MOVIE, "The Thing". Because like me, it will scare the holy crap out of you. I ran to the windows more than a few times after hearing strange noises, half-expecting Kurt Russell's disembodied head to be slithering around the camp on sprouted alien tentacles, searching for a new host.
In other news, the Array is almost ready to come back online. After boot, I'll do some test scans and hopefully we can get back to work this afternoon.
The Array is back online, everything is good and happy, and most importantly, the damned buzzing has ceased to exist.
I'm sure you don't want me to go into detail about how much wax has built up in my ears over the last 3 days from the horrible noise the Array was emitting, but let's just say if I had a box of wicks, I could light my own birthday cake. And I'm no Spring chicken.
Buzz getting some sun. He seems to love this little hill next to the hut. I've named it "Mt. Buzz". Also, as you can tell, my camera is working properly again.
