Holiday Break

Its been business as usual on the IceCube front. We took a couple of days off for the Christmas holiday, Wednesday, Dec 24 and Thurs Dec 25. On Friday, Dec 26, drilling started again, in erenst and we deployed string #9 of this season Saturday night, Dec 27 into Sunday morning, Dec 28. Drilling has begun on hole #10. The drill is now at about 2000 m on the way down and the 12 hr reaming process will start in a couple of hours. NOTE: Drilling is on the way down and reaming is coming back up (I just learned that this season).

Saturday morning, I caught the worst bug I've ever had at the South Pole. It was a terrible cold combined with the worst flu, achy, vomiting, fever, you name it. I lost more than 5 lbs in two days... lots of bed rest and fluids, but now its on its way out, leaving behind a smaller, frailer, thinner Mike, with a terrible sore throat. Whatever doesnt kill you, makes you stronger, right?

Christmas was... well, it was... Christmas sucks at the South Pole. Sure you get to see snow all around, but is it really snow? It doesnt actually snow here, ever, so it really doesnt count as snow. Sure, there are decorations, a tree, wreaths on the walls, but does that make it Christmas? Bah humbug! The one saving grace Christmas had for me this year was the most wonderful video skype I had with Christine and little Mikey. I got to watch him open up presents, with family and got to see his reactions to his first Christmas experience! (not that he knew what was going on... but the paper sure tastes good.) That completely made the holiday worth it for me and gives me something to look forward to next year.

On the other hand, we had a great meal here, Beef Wellington, lobster tails, the best mashed potatoes (not from a box) and gravy, cherry pie, cheesecake... mmmm, it was great! Of course, there was so much, we had it again the next night. AND... Santa made a special trip all the way here to, well, get drunk, I guess. It looks like he had a great time.

So, as things start to gear up for the new year, I have started the countdown (ok, maybe a few countdowns). 2 days 'til my birfday! Yay! After this next deployment, only 6 more "scheduled" deployments (the NSF may grant us up to 3 additional) and 31 days left on ice... which means I'll be home in 35 days! Woo Hoo! We'll take a couple more days off for the new year and then its nose to the grindstone until its time to go home... one last push.

I cant wait to see all of you back home!

J-Mart has left the building...

"I went to Antarctica to be part of Antarctica, and then it became part of me." - Jerry Marty, NSF Representative to the South Pole

Jerry Marty is the quintessential Wisconsinite (Sconnie). Anyone from Wisconsin, or anyone who knows anyone from Wisconsin knows what I mean. He is kind, hard working, easy to talk to, easy to get along with, and concerned about everyone around him. Oh yeah, he's a Packer fan and he likes to drink beer.

I met Jerry 3 years ago on my first trip to the pole. He was a modest man, sitting in his modest office out in the Cheese Palace (named not only for the Sconnie that worked there, but also because it represents a large

cylinder of Colby cheese) and had modest ideals about how to get things done at the pole. I would later find out that he came to the South Pole first in 1969, just after graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Platteville, also my alma mater. He grew up in Monroe, WI and still likes to travel back to his hometown, where he takes an active role in the community and schools.

He returned to the pole for the 1974-75 season, with his wife, to help inspect and dedicate the new South Pole Station, the "Dome" or "90 South", as it is known. He has been to the pole every season since (Jerry, correct me if I am wrong). In 1993, he was given the reins to oversee the design, construction and opening of the new new South Pole Station, the elevated staion that I'm staying in now. And now, after 40 short years, he is retiring from the NSF and the Antarctic program.

Last Friday, after a short flag ceremony, he was presented with the flag that not only flew over the elevated station, but it was the same flag that flew over the Dome for the last 35 years. It was a very touching ceremony and a memory that I will cherish. Afterwards, a party was thrown and a couple more gifts were given. First, an IceCube Digital Optical Module (DOM) was presented to Jerry. IceCube decided to go against its self-imposed rule of not naming any DOMs after anyone still alive... we now have a DOM named Jerry Marty. After signing the DOM, Jerry was informed it will be deployed this season. Then, Beth Watson and Bob Spotz presented Jerry with a custom machined cribbage board, made by Bob. It was a tough secret to keep from Jerry, since the back of the board was available in the science lab for everyone to engrave their name on. The board turned out beautifully and will be cherished by Jerry. After all the gift giving, the party continued and everyone was able to spend time talking, reminiscing and drinking with Jerry, getting in their last good-byes.

Saturday morning, Jerry boarded the LC-130, never to return to the South Pole. It was very emotional for him, leaving the place he helped mold into what it is today. I am confident that we will someday be able to read about Jerry Marty, in the same way we now read about Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott, Admiral R.E. Byrd and the Navy Seabees.

Movin' Right Along

IceCube is definitely in full swing this season. We've completed the deep drilling and deployment of 6 strings and are deploying the 7th right now. We should be able to get at least one more before Christmas (maybe even two) and another two before the New Year. This is, of course, barring any unforseen mechanical or other system failure and, God forbid, any injuries.

Drilling usually takes about 27 to 36 hours for one hole. This is from the time that the drill head enters the ice (about 75 ft. below the surface of the snow or the "firn") to when the 60 ft., 1,000 lb weight stack is pulled from the hole and detached. The drill is comprised of 3 separate spools, sending 2 - 4 in. hoses and one 1 in. cable down the 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) to the bottom of our hole. The cable's job is twofold: it supplies communicatiosn to the drill head so we can "steer" it and read out the pressure and temperature of the water, thus being able to calculate the lifetime of the hole (how long it will stay open to stuff our instuments down it), it also has a kevlar type strength member to support our main drill hose. The other hose is a return water line to resupply the heater tanks and return hot high-pressure water to the drill head.

The cable is taped to the main hose with a high-tech very expensive fiber glass tape. This activiy provides two of the most boring jobs available as a driller. One is taping the cable to the hose on the way down and the other is cutting the tape off as the cable/hose comes up. Again, this is a 30 hr. process on average. Yesterday, since cableguyland is a little slow in between deployments, I volunteered to cut tape. It was a great experience and it helps me "bridge the gap" between drillers and non-drillers. After all, we're all IceCubers, right?

During my tenure as drill tape cutter, we found a section of hose (most sections are around 100 to 150 meters) that appeared to have been slipping out or through its strain relief. This is characteristic of a hose that is pulling or elongating, called "necking", which compromises the structural integrity of the hose. Once we removed the strain relief, we also found a couple of half-inch sized nics or cuts in the hose. These signs all pointed to a quick hose change, which takes less than an hour (practice makes perfect). All of this is important because this hose carries superheated water at very high pressures, something like 190 degrees F at 800 to 1,000 psi (pounds per square inch). Any abnormality in the hose or thinning of the walls can produce a catastrophic failure of the drill or a dangerous stream of water vapor.

This morning, after deployment is finished, I will head out to the deployment site and complete the deployment by doing the "cable drag". This involves paying out the rest of the deployment cable off of its spool, dragging it over out drill/deployment tower and mating it to the surface cable in the SJB. In all, this process takes less than an hour and in performed by 7 or 8 people.

Then I get to have brunch... the only thing that gets me out of bed on Sundays...

Good-bye for now.

Air Drop

"There's a uh, big machine in the sky, some kind of, I dunno, electric snake, coming straight at us."
"Shoot it."
"Not yet, I want to study its habits."

- HST "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"



For the last few years, the Air Force has been practicing cargo air drops at the South Pole. These consist of several passes of a C-17 (sometimes two), dropping large amounts of cargo (mainly food items) about 3 miles out from the station. Since there is little to do here, the air drops are a very exciting social event. Everone gathers either out near the drop site or on the observation deck at the station. For anyone in the not in the military or those who are unfamiliar with aircraft, the C-17 is a sight to behold.



To say it is a large plane does not begin to describe it. Two years ago, I rode next to two helicopters and 16,000 lbs of beer and there was still enough room for 12 rows of first class airline seating and 80 other passengers lining the walls. After the cargo is dropped in 3 passes, the C-17s make a large circle (approx. 15 to 20 miles) to line up with the skiway and make a couple of low pass runs towards the station, finally ending in a 300 ft pass right by our observation deck. The sight and sound of these planes are awe inspiring.

Cable Pulling is Done

Its that time of season when everyone starts to get a little punchy. Not outwardly mean, but the nerves are getting a little frayed. Thisseason at the Pole is just a little more hectic than the last few, there are many things going on concurrently, everyone has a job to do and all is being comounded by the fact that IceCube will be losing a few (maybe more than a few) cogs in the great science wheel that it is. None the less, we should all sit back, relax, maybe have a beer and know that we are having the best season we've ever had. Plus, Christmas is right around the corner. Now I know that Christmas is never Christmas when you're stuck on an island like Antarctica, but it is what we make of it. So to everyone listening (which unfortunately isnt alot of people down here)... LIGHTEN UP! Merry Christmas! And all that jazz.

Anyway, cableguyland has just gotten tenfold easier. Yesterday we finished our last pulling of cables into the ICL. We've pulled 20 cables this season and are finally done. It was a tremendous combined effort with Raytheon folks as well as IceCubers lending a helping hand. We (cable guys) let everyone who helped know how much we appreciate it with a little party last night, beer and scotch on us. Thanks Gary, you've been a valuable assest and we could not have done it without you.

So, that's about all I have to say right now... and the satellite is going to disappear soon.

Christine, I cant wait to see the two of you on Christmas. That will definitely make the season brighter for me (and hopefully for you too). Love you!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... Its burger day! Hey Keith, I know its only 11 am but can I get a burger early?

What is a Cable Guy?

It seems when I am down here I get asked alot, "What do you do?" Now, I dont know if I am finally growing up and this is the norm in "adult life", but does everyone spend a seemingly inordinant amount of time justifying their existance to others? Is that what people do at their jobs? I'll try to give a glimpse of what a Cable Guy does for IceCube...


IceCube is made up of many many instruments (around 5000) frozen into the South Pole ice and connected to many many high powered and very fast computers in the IceCube Lab (ICL), all networked with large, expensive, custom cabling. These cables come in many sizes and colors and materials. Some are inside, some are outside, some are buried under the sirface of the snow (called "the firn") and some are buried as deep as 2 miles into the compacted 50,000 year-old ice. Some are short cables, only 3 feet long and others are miles long. The cable that goes into the ice is called the Surface-to0DOM cable because it connectes the in-ice instruments, mainly Digital Optical Modules (DOMs), to the surface via a 2505 meter cable (that's around 1.5 miles to those non-metric folk). At the surface, this cable interfaces or mates with the Surface Cable in the Suface Junction Box and travels along the surface, is pulled up one of two towers and into the second floor of the ICL. Surface cables range in length from under 100 m to as long as 800 m, depending on how far the hole is away from the ICL. Inside the ICL, the surface cable is installed into patch panels, where shorter "patch cables" are "patched" from the surface cable to the computer hubs that make up the brain of IceCube. These patch cables range from 25 m down to 2 m.

Any and all of the connections made, from hole to computer is made by the cable guy (or cable gal, sorry Claire). Also the preparing of the cables, to be deployed downhole, to be pulled into the ICL, to be patched, labeled, repaired, tested, etc. is done by the cable guy. So, as many questions in life, "What does a cable guy do?" does not have an easy, short, simple answer, but is more of an explaination of the processes involved. I wish it was as easy as saying, "I do cables." but it isn't that easy.

Now for the Perspective... (here's the digression, skip if you wish)

Although IceCube is an amazing project with unknown implications in the world of science and unknown possibilites and applications to the real world, my paradigm has shifted. IceCube was purpose and meaning, now it's not. It was a means, now its an end.

For starters, there is a huge unavoidable rift working in the socail experiment that is the Souh Pole Station. The community ios what you make it, but as in real life, cliques pop up, favortism rears its ugly head and you find that some people just aren't fit for society... even at the South Pole. This is most evident in my job with the alienation of non-drillers from the drillers. Dont get me wrong, its not as bad as it sounds, but it is perpetuated more and more each season. At the one-on-one level, it is almost invisable. Most (almost all) 'cubers get along and there are few, if any, signs of outward aggression or disputes. However there are actions and words that take place in groups that point out a clearly defined difference. It usually comes from inexperienced workers (FNGs, "fingies" or f...in new guys) or from the top, management. The FNGs do and say things without thinking about it, maybe forgivable, but still not acceptable. The management however, seem to perpetuate this rift as if it helps the overall output of the project. Gift giving, incentives, different rules... etc. Its the classic Us and Them, Bourgeois and Non (Smurfs and Gargamel???). But, if you ask a driller what they do, you get the unavoidable, "I'm a driller." What does that mean? It seems like we all need to take a big-picture look at what it is we are doing here and why each of us are here. IceCue is a large and complex network of integral parts doing what they need to do to make the project successful. The only difference I see is that if a driller fails to do their job or is injured or sick or "missing" then they can get replaced by one of 30 or so other drillers, where as if I am out of commission, I can be replaced by one or two other people.

Now for the good part...

When I started at IceCube, I knew it would be a good job. Good for me, good for the university, good for the planet, maybe even good for the universe. Now, I have no doubt that good will come of it, but the institution and organization of it has disillusioned me to the point that IceCube is just a job for me. Most importantly, my paradigm shift is due to the two most important people in my life, Christine and Mikey. I enjoy doing what I do and being with the people I'm here with, but it pales in comparison to the time I could be enjoying with my family and the future I am helping create for them and the past we will enjoy remembering...

Happiness is a video conference

What a treat! I got to see my son and girlfriend this morning. Technology is great. To think that there's only been people coming to the south pole for the last one hundred years and that I can already have a video chat here... amazing! This chat today will be the fuel that motivates me and keeps me warm throughout the week.

Today will mark a changing of the guard of sorts here at the pole. IceCube sends home 7 people today, briefly decreasing our population, but receives 6 "replacements" tomorrow. We are full of steam and chugging away at our 5th hole of the season, with 4 strings already deployed. If we can keep this momentum going, we will easily reach our goal of 16 strings and maybe our stretch goal of 18. Either way, we are not only on track, but ahead of the game. Woo hoo!

Christmas is approaching fast. I was reminded of this again when Mikey rolled over today to grab a handful of Christmas tree. He is amazing. So alert and attentive and big... this is already the greatest Christmas present ever. What a treat it will be to actually be home next Christmas, right? Anyway, I am looking forward to chatting again on Christmas morning. That will be the closest to "home for Christmas" I will have encountered here at pole.

This will be another busy week for the cables guys (and gal). We will be prearing for the final 5 IceTop tank fills by placing junction boxes in the trenches today and pulling 5 cables into the ICL on Tuesday. Then IceTop will be finished, from a cable point of view, and then it's on to deployments and concentrating on getting out of here.

Thats about it for now. I wish I could just roll over and forget about the Christmas tree and play with my giraffe... right Mikey?

Or maybe just chew on a ball...

Shout out to my family

So, I have decided take a swipe at blogging. It shouldnt be that tough I guess, really its just saying the things you wish your people were around to hear. So here goes...

Well, I'm starting my 5th week at the South Pole, on my 4th trip here. This season has been unseasonably cold (even by Antarctic standards) but is warming up. The temps this week reached a scorching -15 F, but the winds are still gusting around 10 to 15 knots, which drives the windchill to around -40 F.

Hello to all my family back in the wonderful state of Wisconsin. I have come to miss the Wisconsin winters while "vacationing" here in the deep south during the "summer", but will soon be back to share what is left of the snow, slush and ice. I have been able to breifly speak to a few of you and it helps immensely to keep in touch with the real world. To those of you that I dont get to keep in touch with, warm thoughts and prayers will find their way here to give me strength and resolve.

To Christine and Mikey, I think of you both all the time and you are the main reason I am smiling every day. Hugs & Kissses.

I'll try to update this first attempt at a blog as often as I can... stop back often for funny stories, goofy pictures and thoughts from me to you.