Look At Me Still Talking When There’s Science To Do
In Grand Rapids… thinking about Barrow (among other things)Archive for July 29, 2008
Who is this Craig that will save us?
July 29, 2008 at 11:54 pm · Filed under Barrow and tagged: point framing
Despite my determined cheeriness and unwavering goodwill towards lovely Barrow, we have had a few snags, a snarl or two, and at least one conundrum. Though King Jeremy of Scienceland tries his best to keep our little family together, we are more or less orphans without Bob. He has all the sweet hookups- and a killer slow headshake (suitable for belittling and teaching).
Bob won’t be here until our last week, but on Sunday we got Craig, the next best thing. Every time something* has gone awry lately, someone inevitably says sagely, “Ahh, but Craig is coming soon,” and the tension is palpably lifted.
Jean and I, wide-eyed and yet unaquainted with the mythical Craig, lapped up the stories fed to us by the initiated members of the community. Craig is ten feet tall and swift as the wind. Craig can shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips. Craig will eliminate all our problems with a twitch of his pinky finger.
Craig is the UTEP PI and great friend of Bob (equally mythical, if you listen to Jobby). When we met him on Sunday (at his Thai food birthday party), the stories proved to be true, and I count myself lucky that I could be in his presence.
Since Craig will only use his powers for good, not personal gain or frivolity, he did not twitch his pinky finger and take away the frigid winds that brought snow from the ocean today. The Science that goes on all around me had to continue to go on… and go on it did, despite the disagreeable weather. Jeremy and I, Scince Snobs that we are, looked down our noses from our Biomass Tower and pitied the poor souls who were forced to work outdoors today. We feel sorriest for Paulo and Jose, who will be out in the field from 11 am until midnight and midnight to 8 am, respectively, though we spared some pity for the other half of the GVSU team as well. Only those who complete 14 point frames in six hours may have the privilege of pulling lichens from mosses in the lab.
There is more biomass to sort before we call it a night, but now I must go to a talk to learn how to successfully live “green-ish.” Frank’s house in Vermont is off the grid- and solar powered!
Don’t you want to know how we keep starting fires?
July 29, 2008 at 4:00 am · Filed under Barrow, Research and tagged: point framing, science juice
I’ve heard from my source at Michigan State University that a “riot” technically requires only four people. I don’t know what they call it if there are fewer than four people. By now you will have added up the members of my team: Jenny + Jean + Jeremy + Rob = Tundra Riot. A charming picture, is it not?
Today we were incredibly efficient in the field. More so than usual, if you can believe that. Jeremy and I did 14 plots worth of point framing, which equals 1400 lines of data, each containing between 2 and 5 measurements. We were almost deterred by the Hiccup Incident of Julian Day 210, but Earnest Science persevered. My writing muscles were not cramped enough for me to complain about them, and Jeremy’s voice was not quite hoarse enough for him to complain about that. Jean and Rob each finished making phenological observations for their entire sites. (Not bad.)
We were so thirsty and proud after our six hours of talking and writing and phenologing that we mixed up eight cans of concentrated grape juice in the hut after our field day. Strange thing though, after mixing it up we didn’t really want any. In fact, I don’t know for sure, but I think that we probably won’t want any Science Juice for about two weeks. Maybe sixteen days or so. Let’s hope that it won’t make us sick by then.
The weather outside is frightful. It’s a rainstorm that would seem commonplace in Michigan, but I haven’t seen such a thing here yet. This does not bode well.
