The Beat Goes On

Hello everyone,
I have a bunch of random things to cover in this entry since it has been a couple days since the last. First off, congrats to my parents and happy anniversary! Together 30 years on the 13th :) Sorry I called a day early for you but it was tuesday for me... just not you yet.

Tuesday was a busy day. Leslie and Mahesh went out in the helo to recover the last instrument. I almost was able to go with but they could only take two. Everything went well and they found it with no problem. They had to dig it out of the snow but everything is back safe and sound. Terry left that day for the states so it was busy making sure we had things covered before he left. He taught me to analyze our ozone data and now it's my job to do it. I also have to fill in the flight book with after each flight. After he left and we organized ourselves, we decided to launch a balloon that night. So after dinner, we launched Stanley sonde. I was able to use the helium gun and fill the balloon for the first time. It was kind of fun to blast helium with this huge gun. It was my turn to sit in Building 70 so I spent the next three hours up the hill. I had my own little dance party and called Lindsey. Her buddy was making fun of me because I was calling her at 1 am but it was only 7 pm for me. It was also very odd to walk out of the building at 9:30 pm and have it look like this...
I mean, its beautiful but really bright for 9:30 at night. Here is another view.
Wed. was pretty mellow. I caught up my lab notebook and wrote some more on my thesis chapter. Nothing too major. Took a couple pictures of the chalet now that they put up all the flags.
Later that night, we watched Zodiac at the coffee house. Long but good movie. Kinda creepy. But we walked out of there at 10:15 pm and it was a shock to come out into bright sunshine again. It looked like 3:00 in the afternoon. I don't think I'll ever get used to having it light all the time. I like it when it gets dark at night.

Today we cleaned in the lab, packed up our big instruments and I spent an hour trying to untangle the parachute from the last launch. It is a mess. We are meeting with the seal group tonight to get our reward for the bet we had with them. We were betting who would get all their instruments back first. They had 5 seals worth and we had 3 in the field. They had 4 seals back before we even had one instrument. Then Terry and I caught us up last Friday with the two we recovered. It was quite the race until the end, very completive spirits and lots of jesting. But we won! Leslie and Mahesh brought us the win on Tues. Turns out the seal group got their seal the next day, a close second. Now we get a bottle of wine and we are going to celebrate tonight. Some of their group is leaving tomorrow and we want to say goodbye. The rest leave on Monday with the albedo group and then we are all that is left from Winfly. All are friends are leaving us... oh well, we leave in 2 weeks. We have about 5 balloon flights left and then packing. The adventure is winding down.

That is all for now. Mom and I are planning our vacation in New Zealand and I'm going to keep working on my stuff. Cheers!