Trying to Get Back Online

2007-04-20 09:38:12.000 – Jon Cotton,  Observer

Sunrise Tower

There is a lot of updating due from summit to you. The summit has incurred involuntary radio silence this week and a few things have happened since Monday morning. We barely sorta have our communications fixed, the shift change took a solid nine hours of work to pull off, ice has resculpted our work environment and the weather turned from wind/ice/helmets-required-beyond-this-door to beautiful sunsets and 130 mile visibility. But right now I’m waiting for 11:01 EST. I’m writing this comment to fill the next 12 minutes and yes when that minute hand ticks over I’m leaving this computer.

The summit stays on a constant time zone to keep the records consistent. Weather data is taken in the local standard time and reported in Greenwich Mean Time the world over. It makes relational comparisons easier across the geography. So 11:01pm EST here is 12:01am in the local Daylight Savings Time (valley time as we say). Yesterday our volunteer baked two desserts but only one was for dinner. The second was reserved for tomorrow. At 12:01 it is tomorrow and she was kind enough to allow a temporary operational switch to daylight time. Mike is typing up the Observation in GMT as we speak and I

have just consumed two brownies. But really the quantity is a misnomer because some brownies were cut big and others small. There is the square-versus-rectangle volume and density issue as well. As I reach for a third, I am not too concerned with such quantification. They taste good.

With all the trial and tribulation updates the summit could share from a wicked spring storm, I choose to talk about brownies first thing. Yup. Oh and I talked at length last shift about sugar product treasure hunts. Easter feels like a while ago doesn’t it…It seems through these journal entries I am putting out a rather skewed inner-life view of myself. But don’t judge me on that. Just as everyone cuts their brownies different sizes, I picked this topic to write about. Look for more physical plant updates in the next comment.

Jon Cotton,  Observer