He sent me birthday wishes a day early and talks a little about how the long hours and constant daylight causes them to get a little discombobulated.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, love you boy…
we are getting punch drunk from working the Ice, yesterday a critical part was left out of the drill string this after 3 sets of eyes had looked at it (or should have seen it) … we were lucky that it did not begin drilling, although it did make it to the bottom of the hole…… had it begun drilling, it would have become stuck, perhaps permenantly..my eyes were the first ones that missed it, then the senior designer, then the senior computer guy…. whew…. we have not had a complete day off since christmas…this coming sunday is the first one since then….
we also had the tasting of the mead jonathon and I made here john does the weather and a very good rendition of “I’m a lumberjack”…. mead turned out pretty good….. the cook donated some honey and we started it 4 weeks ago… (wow I can’t even remember when that was) everything is blending into one long day here, no darkness, just either sun or clouds…. got 9 hours sleep last night, and wanting more…
AS we recover here, so does the drill team on teh Ice.
howdy, so yesterday was to be a day off for us all, however, events happened, and we needed to do critical maintenance on both the top sheave and the transfer cradle, both damaged due to use. I volunteered to help, so we removed the main sheave, ( a 42 inch dia 1 1/2 inch thick grooved plate the cable is routed around, and replaced the bearings on it as they had begun to fail. I also did some blacksmithing, I had bent the transfer cradle several days ago and another worker then redid my bend day before yesterday, this due to the electronic stops on the transfer cradle being set incorrectly, so we had to straighten and strengthen it, I did my magic and it came out almost perfect…. but it was a long day, and I now have to work 10 days without a day off, having used up my “sunday off”…. but we now can continue to drill at high speed, with the bad sheave bearings, we reduced trip speeds up and down the hole to 60% speed, slowing us considerably….
900 meters deep right now….we started at 581 when I got here..(when was that? so loooooong ago, time seems to have stopped, wais seems a bill murray ”groundhog day” movie of sorts) and still in brittle ice. I can stand in the core handlers side of the Arch, and if it is quiet, (when the refrigerators and air handlers are shut off) hear the Ice we have already drilled that is sitting in aluminium channels waiting for additional core science work, popping every now and then, due to internal pressure overcoming the atmospheric pressure and temps…. so we are deep into brittle ice now, should be through it around 1300 meters or so.. at our rate of drilling, we might see 1400 meters when we stop for the year….I think my flight out of Wais is 23-25 jan…. but I do not know…… besides, plane schedules are not ontime here…. we have seen “no plane” times of 10 days or more here….
not much else, hope everybody is well and healthy and please drive carefully…