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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 19 Well, last night our last student arrived (in theory... there are other ones scattered about who come at various times in the summer. But now the two cabins on top of the hill are full), so there was a mini party. Afterwards, the sky was so clear (usually it's quite cloudy at night), so Ethan and Ali and I trekked down the hill and up another hill to the optical lab to see the stars. We could even see the milky way a little bit. I recognized the dippers, corona borealis, the summer triangle, and scorpio, but I don't know the constellations very well here. We shall have to go again at the dark of the moon; it was gorgeous but very bright. From the hill top we could see lightning storms coming from different directions. Slept 6 hours. Letting myself get adjusted to being busy again. I wish I were motivated to do my grad school prep work in the evenings, but with all the other people around distracting me it's kind've hard. Got up early, came on down here, and found my advisor, D., and we ended up going to the platform. It was.... challenging. Interesting. Really cool and simultaneously scary. The ride in the cable car was much easier than I thought. As long as I didn't lean over the edge (which I didn't, and couldn't), it was fine. Good view of the surrounding areas and the platform as we approached it. Getting onto the platform was not hard, and it's quite secure. Lots of railings, no place to fall over at all. But there were lots of stairs, and of course you can see through the stairs and all the way down to the dish below. That was pretty freaky. I was quite wobbly-legged the whole time, clambering up and down all the stairs. There were two tricky climbing parts; not fall-dangerous, just difficult to navigate. I took it slow, and it was actually kind've fun to be up there. But by the time we finished (installing a new compressor), they'd already begun astronomical observing so we couldn't take the cable car down. So we had to take the bridge/catwalk. And let me tell you, the catwalk is far worse than I thought. It is very steep, and very holey. Nothing dangerous, just that you can essentially see everything through all the holes. The dish, the wires, the surrounding hills, the visitor center. So you're going down hill, quite steep, your legs working very hard to keep from going too fast, and there's not really a railing to hang onto, just mesh as high as your head so you keep having to let go and get a new grip. and then at one point it was just a little bit tilted to one side. Not enough to be dangerous. But by the time I reached that point, a whole bunch of other workers were on the bridge besides me and D., and the thing was starting to shake and sway and move and it was just... terrifying. That's really the only time I freaked out at D.; not badly, I just asked him to stay closer so I could watch his back instead of the swaying bridge. The bridge lets out above the visitor center so we caught a ride in a van back down to the control room. D. and I then went into town to buy piping to wrap my helix antennas around. We found some stuff that looks like it will work quite well, and nothing for the larger size, so I have to run my simulations again and see how to produce what I need on a 4.5" diameter pipe. My legs ache, as if with cramp. Too much climbing and tension. Also, my back is..... um... crispy. Yeah. That's the best word for it. But I bought some aloe vera gel now and that's helped a lot. Labels: Arecibo |
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My Other Writing Sites | |
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Webcomics | |
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Stories I'm currently working on. | |
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***Tbook1 (Time and Chaos, needs a new name, needs to be edited) ***Book of Sun (Just needs to be edited. Tis a Nano novel) ***Book of Whispers part 1 (Does not jive at all with part 2; needs to be rewritten to fit and to have less suckage) ***Book of Whispers part 2 (Needs some rehaul editing, needs some loose ends tied up, needs to fit) ***Book of Whispers part 3 (Needs to be finished... then needs to die o.o Not sure if I need a third part in the series) ***Dium's Story (Needs a point, progress, anything... needs to be integrated into Tbook1, since that is what it is a part of, mainly) ***Trio Story with Jackie and Louise (Maybe we should get together and work on this, guys) ***Demon Story (This is working out pretty good so far. I like the plot, it's a bit convoluted, and the characters are interesting) ***New Witch Story (It's only 30 pages long, dang) ***Dragon's Voices (This has SO much potential! wee!) | |
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