Look At Me Still Talking When There’s Science To Do
In Grand Rapids… thinking about Barrow (among other things)Archive for science juice
I was just sippin on something sweet.
August 15, 2008 at 3:42 pm · Filed under Barrow, Research, atquasuk and tagged: papasaurus, science juice, total season
Presently I feel that I lack the mental fortitude to craft a pretentious blog post in the manner to which I am accustomed. Maybe I merely lack focus.
This can be attributed to:
1. The presence of Bob. Yes, he majestically descended into town last night with all the accompanying pomp*. We took him out to Arctic Thai for an excruciatingly long welcome dinner. We ought to have known better than to take fifteen people to Arctic Thai.
2. The lack of sleep. I can honestly say that I do not feel a) tired or b) sleepy, but I went to bed around 4 last night and that has to catch up with me sometime, right?
3. Yesterday. The excruciatingly long welcome dinner morphed into a pleasantly long welcome party, to which ITEX donated the Science Juice. Some people appreciated the fine craftsmanship of the Science Juice more than others.
And, if I may beat a dead horse for a second here:
4. Thursday. More accurately, Wednesday. I don’t want to go home. This has nothing to do with you, family. I will be pleased to see you. This has nothing to do with you, friends. I will be pleased to see you. This has nothing whatever to do with you, dear Lake Michigan; I haven’t given you up for the charmingly flirtatious Arctic Ocean. This has everything to do with what I will miss.
We leave for our last trip to Atqasuk in four or five hours, depending on when the plane decides to leave. We are hoping for sooner rather than later so that we can bust out some serious work this evening. We are actually hoping rather more that somehow we are not able to get off the ground today so that we can stay tonight in Barrow- it’s Friday and some people are leaving Saturday, so there is sure to be some fun that we’d rather not miss. Bob wouldn’t let us change our flight to Saturday morning, even though Team Efficiency** is incredibly cocky in regards to estimating how long it will take to get the work done, with good reason. Team Efficiency has proven itself time and again to be adept at economy of motion and clever with time-saving strategies. We do not fumble our therbligs.
This weekend will be entirely working, sleeping, and maybe eating, depending on how Total Season shapes up. Total Season measurements will fill 17 columns of 192 pages of spreadsheets (fresh from the printer). It involves not only counting grass, but more measuring as well. I would be feeling nostalgic about the last trip to Atqasuk but I am saved from that fate because of the immense amount of work to be done. Oh yeah, and I’d rather be in Barrow.
*Can one use “pomp” without tacking on “circumstance”? I vote yes.
**Jenny and Papasaurus***. We are TOO that efficient.
***Jeremy, naturally. He picked this name out himself. Normally I absolutely do not condone this behavior. Self-nicknaming is cheesy at best, but the name pleased him so much that Jobby and I were willing to humor him. Now “Papasaurus” is a hit!
I just want to eat some butter.
August 11, 2008 at 4:16 am · Filed under Barrow and tagged: biomass, food, science juice, wet site
One team member is throwing up, one team member gets dizzy when looking too hard at something, one team member is getting a virtual haircut, and one team member is not sleeping more than six hours a night on average because there are too many things to like about Barrow.
There are still 16 plots of point framing left, along with Total Season measurements, the mere mention of which made our veteran team members twitch and make weird noises. I don’t think we’re going crazy, exactly, but there have been saner times.
The science juice turned out to be as delicious as everyone expected (because we are so great at science). It was a perfect compliment to the science cheese and science midnight-veggie-burgers that some people so enjoy around here.
No, I don’t eat veggie burgers, how absurd! I don’t really eat breakfast, either, because I have better things to do and I really love it when Jobby pounds on my door in the morning because he has some ants in his pants that seem to be encouraging him to go out to the field.
Who would want to eat anything, really, with such amounts of dirt underneath the fingernails? The Barrow wet site biomass proved to be especially dirty and obnoxious- just like some bloggers I could mention!
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.
