A Happy Work Week Begins
2007-01-29 08:52:14.000 – Jon Cotton, Observer
Atlantic Ocean Sunrise
Monday morning. The start of the week for most, nearing the end for us. Last night felt like wrap up for several of our projects. John Lind and Greg Carges finished the cabinetry in the conference room. Many people had input on what would be useful and how best to use the space. The final result is everything we wanted and more beautiful than we imagined. Cheers to that.
Don Kearney, our cooking volunteer, has been working a number of things in his own right. Two days ago he cooked a pork roast dinner for all of us plus a full EMS-led hiking trip. Yesterday was a pancake breakfast for the group (even the leftovers were good at 5pm – i.e. my breakfast). An electrician with many years in the trade, he has also applied his talents to the welfare of the summit facility this week. For State Park, he went on a circuit treasure hunt tracing wires through walls and ceilings to prep the installation of hand dryers in the public bathrooms out in the entrance to the building. Then he laid some wire to give us a few new outlets in the kitchen. The last time he was up, he traced a tangle of age-old wires forming a web a spider colony would be proud of. I am not actually sure if spiders live in, gather around, or travel in colonies. But Don’s plots helped a great deal with my work this week.
I deciphered the programming of a datalogger that has been in continuous use since before I knew lions were proud. This logger had tendrils of connections ranging from key components of our wind speed displays to instruments not in existence any longer. Determining this required eyeballing several junction panels, poking multi-pair cables, and thankfully using the diagrams Don and Neil had worked up previously.
Two paragraphs without any pictures? Trust me, even with amber side-light the terminal strips behind the weather wall are only so pretty. Winter interns Mike and Alan have been getting more accustomed to life on the peak. Both are getting the hang of taking observations and this week has provided a few challenges of cloud decipherment. Here’s a shot of Neil telling Mike he can’t come back inside until the ob is finished. Mike’s a quick study though. I caught him measuring dew points like a pro and watching the sunset both at the same time.
Towards the end of the day we’ll have our Obscast video journal posted online. If a still image is worth checking this website for, think about how glorious video is. Recently we created a member’s section of the site including specials such as additional webcam photos and sunrise/sunset time lapse video. If you haven’t signed up yet, you will need your email and member ID. If you have misplaced your ID, not to worry the membership folks down in the valley are courteous, kind, and helpful. So we’ll post the video later today and it’s gonna be good. There is amber side-light and fast action!
Jon Cotton, Observer
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