And I must admit that although it was good to have a brief period away from the lunatics, it was absolutely necessary for me to return. It seems anarchy has been ruling, not to mention Sodom and Gomorrah. I will not go into details, as this newsletter is now spread on several continents, but there has been partying and headaches afterward.
There have been discussions about numbers that should not have been
discussed at this time. And there have been delays in civil air traffic.
Would this have happened in the presence of yours truly's? The silence in
the operation room as I write this speaks for itself.
Well. I must admit that there also seem to have been some very successful
flights into polar lows of extreme beauty. For this the scientists, the
noble airmen and other crewmembers - and of course The white beauty -
deserve a warm and longlasting applause. Hereby given. But please, no more
behaving like the Bavarians and Bergensers many of you are.
While I've been gone, Vanda has tried to leave. It seems she is not any
more on this island, but somewhere between here and Boulder. Please sound
a horn when you come home, dear. Mel - in a sudden flash of
lightheartedness - tried to get on the same plane, but it seems that there
is a lot of traffic on the route from Andenes to Boulder, so he will be in
Norway some more days, leaving here tomorrow and Oslo on Sunday. Anyone in
Oslo up for some classic weather stories, don't hesitate in hooking up
with Melvyn on Saturday at the Gardermoen SAS Radisson.
Erik had a sudden appearance out of nowhere. He even managed to take a
great picture of this nowhere. You can see it at the project web page as
well as on yr.no.
With me today arrived Portuguese student Miguel. He received a rather odd
warm welcome, as he was taken on a short mountain hike without longjohns
an proper eardressing. Well, that's the way we are.
Idar has left for the weekend, as the project is a little slow the next
couple of days. Tomorrow is a down-day for the beauty. Then she will
probably go over to Iceland to do some measuring for Haraldur and return
here on Monday for our final and hopefully adventurous week.
Tomorrow there will be an excursion to the Alomar observatory on a nearby
peak. See http://alomar.rocketrange.no/. They are doing lidar stuff
upwards, while the beauty does it downwards, so there might be some
interesting discussions.
We will probably try to arrange some other recreational stuff this
weekend, especially as next weekend (our ultimate) fills Andenes with a
lot of other events well worth observing - at a distance. The rock
festival Rock mot rus takes place here next Friday and Saturday
(http://www.rockmotrus.no/). I especially look forward to Jón Egill and
Andreas headbanging to the rhythms of Dimmu Borgir
(http://www.dimmu-borgir.com/) . The same weekend also the national
championship for pointing breeds take place here
(http://nmvinter2008.blogspot.com/). Our scientists could probably learn a
few things from these dogs - a disiplined pointing stand when seeing a
polar low perhaps, in stead of yelling and moaning?
Today, by the way, was the unpacking of the official campaign shirt with
the catchy slogan "Hunting high for polar lows". Perhaps there will be a
picture of that one day. Those of you that have left Andøya, will of
course get a shirt by mail or special delivery.
Enough for tonight. I enclose some cloud and plane shots from Monday, and
I'll be back with more tomorrow.
Until then,
stay calm
Gudmund-
