The Real Obs 2009-08-23 11:41:59.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL Reality Television is the world's greatest oxymoron. The simple fact is, what we consider reality TV, isn't real at all. Now, I'm not trying to belittle the entertainment value of reality TV. I too have fallen victim to Iron Chef and American Idol. I'm merely pointing out that it is not, by any means, representative of real-life situations. It is representative of a producer who thought, 'Gee, wouldn't it be fun to put a bunch of people who would never live together in a big house and see

Severe Wx! 2009-08-22 05:26:04.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist NULL Yesterday was one of those days on the summit when I was reminded why I am in this profession in the first place. I was downstairs just waking up around 2:30 PM EST when Steve came down and told me that the radar was looking rather interesting. I hustled up into the weather room, still half asleep, to find everyone staring at either the computer screen or out the windows. Glancing at the radar, I quickly finished the waking-up process and became quite excited. The screen before me was littered

Tour of the new septic system and a run-in with The Presence 2009-08-21 09:42:22.000 - Scott Wehrwein,  Summit Intern Important Signage Anyone who's been to the summit during the winter months knows that the summit staff has to be rather careful about how much water is used. Although we have well access to as much clean water as we need, any water we use has to be stored in tanks because the leach fields for our summer septic system are frozen.This summer, however, construction has been happening on a new septic system designed to process our waste water year round

Final Days Comment 2009-08-18 18:09:21.000 - Alex Jacques,  Summit Intern One final good sunset. Well, all things come to end, and for me it's my internship here on the summit that will be concluding this Wednesday.In a nutshell, here is a list of things I have done while on the summit: removed cables, cleaned and replaced windows, the morning routine, learned how to take observations, museum training and work, tour shadowing, tours themselves, B16 entries recent and old, chopped concrete, filmed and created ObsCasts, wrote and recorded forecasts, cleaned the bottom of the Observatory Tower, took down and replaced instruments

Hedda's Last Week 2009-08-17 15:33:47.000 - Hedda Peterson,  Summit Intern Brian missing... :( Having worked in numerous cafes, restaurants, a country store, climbing gym, and as a babysitter and even a window washer, I have always considered myself fairly well rounded when it came to the working world of an undergraduate. Five weeks ago, prior to my first week on the summit as an intern, I doubted this confidence for the first time. I was not sure what my job as an intern would entail. I was a little concerned when in the interview I was asked how my plumbing

Valley Link is Down! 2009-08-15 11:39:42.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL For unknown reasons, the microwave radio connection from the summit to our Weather Discovery Center in North Conway is currently down. This link supplies those of us on the summit with access to the Internet which we use to send our observations to the National Weather Service and forecast, among many other things. That link is also responsible for allowing us to update these observer comments(I'm currently using my personal iPhone to write this update) and for supplying this website with current conditions on the summit as

Intern turned volunteer 2009-08-13 04:06:18.000 - Jeff Wehrwein,  Summit Volunteer A westward view. I expected that returning to the place I called home for 7 months would be a little weird. But that didn't stop me from volunteering on the summit this week with my mom. As an intern, I always explained to visitors that 'our volunteers get a 'free' vacation and we (the staff) get delicious home-cooked meals', but I never fully appreciated the effort that goes into that 'free' vacation. I always suspected it would be an interesting exercise to have each staff member be a volunteer for

An Obs Family 2009-08-12 13:18:43.000 - Susan Polk,  Summit Volunteer A Beautiful Place There are myriad benefits to being a summit volunteer. Chief among them is the privilege of living with the dedicated staff in a place that defies the imagination. I have had some wonderful experiences during the past week here at the Mount Washington Observatory:Cooking and baking for the staff and for Edutrip visitors, thereby indulging my love of cooking for people who love to eat.Getting up at 4 a.m. for two beautiful sunrises of the sort one cannot see where I live.Going out in 60 plus mile

Summary of the week: fox, juggling, sun, etc. 2009-08-11 16:45:20.000 - Scott Wehrwein,  Summit Intern Pic not related As a very busy and shortstaffed week comes to a close, I thought I'd spend a few minutes to mention some recent happenings on the summit.On my previous shift, I saw a lot of the fox who frequents the summit. He (she?) tends to come up in the afternoon and scavenge for food left by visitors to the summit, and perhaps even be given food by some people. Unfortunately, as a result, this fox has gotten accustomed to being around people and

Crap Comment 2009-08-10 04:07:35.000 - Steve Welsh,  IT Observer Sunrise without fog As Stacey and Mike have already alluded to in earlier comments this week this is turning into an unusual shift for us. The biggest change for me is that I'm working nights and trying to sleep during the day. This coupled with the reduced number of personnel is making things interesting and challenging.We've had quite a mix of weather this week too, along with the usual fog, we've also had a couple of great sun rises and one good sunset. It's also been quite chilly and on Saturday