Cryobot Day

Long, busy day. I stepped on a small Burger King bobblehead too. No damage to the bobblehead, since I missed the head itself, and only slight pain for me. But where did it come from? I haven't visited a Burger King in a while, and as mascots go, he's one of my least favorites, so I wouldn't have picked it up elsewhere. I suspect small hands brought it here somehow.

But at least I had the satisfaction of writing about cryobots today, in a short squib for a magazine client of mine. It wasn't anything I knew about before -- a probe that penetrates serious ice by using heating elements in its nose, or jets of hot water.

By serious ice, I mean the sort that Antarctica has on top of a feature called Lake Ellsworth, a subglacial lake. In a couple of years, scientists will be melting a small hole down to that lake, to found out what they can find out. Lake Vostok is a more famous stygian pool, but Ellsworth's probably just as interesting. Cryobots may one day go to the Jovian moon Europa as well. All I can say about that is I hope to live long enough to hear about it.

Way Down South

Not much time for writing today, but I will post an image, the very first at this site, and one I just received from Ed, who's lately been to Antarctica, South Georgia, the Falklands, the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (look it up) and other extreme points south. If I had 10 grand and a few weeks to spare, it is a trip I would need no urging to take. Best of all for him, someone else paid for his trip - he is, of course, part of that rare tribe, the professional travel writer.

Ed didn't say, but I assume this is Antarctica. He's interacting with the natives. Also, I received a postcard recently from him with a British Antarctic Territory stamp on it. Wow.

Down Antarctica Way

Yesterday we had cold rain, then freezing rain and sleet, then snow: a full array of wintertime precipitation, for your sensory pleasure. Much of the time the air was slightly above freezing, so water flowed from the driveway into the gutter. Or it did, at least, after I removed some of the icy slush at the base of the driveway, to drain a huge puddle of icy water. Today, just snow. Dealing with plain old snow is a lot more simple, and I have a foolproof method -- don’t go out in it. (That almost worked, but I did have to take Ann to pre-school.)

An e-mail from traveler Ed, who’s gone south for a while -- really far south, Antarctica: “Got the passport stamp at a Ukrainian research station (which used to be a British station, which was where they discovered the hole in the ozone layer) at 65 degrees, 15 minutes south,” he writes. “Shy of the circle, but as far south as we go on this trip. Penguins, fog, ice. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect.”

We’ve got ice, and sometimes fog, but no penguins around here. Though from my home office window, I do see a variety of things go by, so one of these days a waddle of penguins might wander by.