31 December 2007

Happy New Year!

We're leaving in a moment to meet friends and see Cake and the Lovemakers at the Warfield in SF. Hope you all have a great time this evening, and best wishes for the year ahead. What a year it's been.


15 December 2007

Love, Raytheon

Hi All,
I received a much unexpected kudo from Raytheon in the mail yesterday:

Greetings,

Please accept this coin, pen, notepad, and safety kit as small tokens of appreciation for making the 2007 winter one of the safest seasons the U.S. Antarctic Program has had. Your awareness of hazards and eagerness to continually improve the work environment is critical for everyone's safety.

Just as the emperor penguins work together to protect their young, we too must work together to protect each other.

Sam Feola
Program Director, Raytheon Polar Services







06 December 2007

Errata

Hi All,
The last few weeks have been filled with many small adventures, including the picture at left, where I took Gwen's nephew Damon fishing up at Lake Cuyamaca near San Diego, and last night's venture up to the Marine Mammal Center near Sausalito, where Gwen and I assisted with the care and feeding of a few pinnipeds. As most people are now aware, there was a fuel spill in SF Bay a few weeks ago, which sent approximately 58,000 gallons of low-grade bunker fuel into the Bay, just in time to mess up the crab season, migratory bird season (there are few things more sad than a bird flying thousands of miles only to be caught in a layer of oil) and the general atmosphere of what I consider to be one of the best places to live in the world.

Well. The best way to deal with this sort o
f disaster is to help, when you can. So we went to the Marine Mammal Center to assist our friend Lia with care and feeding of some seals . None of the seals there were victims of the spill, but help was needed, nonetheless. We had a nice time, and lo and behold, I ran into a veterinarian there who knew another vet from Santa Cruz (Dr. Dave Schuman, D.V.M) who was my temporary roommate at Palmer Station back in April 2007, where he assisted with anaesthetising seals for Dr. Dan Costa's work. A small world, indeed.