Last day at PanicStarrs

I'm done working!! Finally!!! And it's sunny out!!!! I got to caulk the outside of the dome in the snorkel-lift. Good times.

Clear?? Nope. Just Snow!

So, there was a 3 hour window this afternoon when you could see more than 10 feet. I did a few timelapses. I'll be redoing my website as well as a bunch of my old photo albums in the coming week(s).

Panic-Starrs 2

I got to take a few shots of work today.....

Elfus grinding the cable wrap. My next project, so I'm told.

Electrical on level 2 - the dome rotates here.
My work today - cut a bunch of insulation for level 2.

Marcus working on the azimuth mount.
Da Dome.

The hundred-year storm continues with wind, rain, and miserableness.....

Frank Andreassen

Todays APOD was amazing. The photographer - Frank Andreassen has got some awesome stuff on his website www.nettfoto.no/engelsk He has to be doing some fancy processing cause there's no way a camera catches those images like that - the contrast is too huge. I'm still blown away. I want to try to learn how to do that. Perhaps the crater will clear up... Anyways - here's a few of his "postcards". Awesome.

BJJ Bio - Thanks James

Just an fyi - James decided it was my turn on the bjj website in the student bio - check it out. It's a little foo-foo.....

Snorkel Lift

Don't ask why they call it that. It's my new favorite ride. It was dry enough to work today, so part of the afternoon was spent caulking the dome. Now it's pissing rain again.

Astronaut Pics

Can you tell I'm bored yet? I'm backing up a lot of my old files and I ran across my astronaut photography pics from the Earth From Space collection. I remembered that I never finished up that website. It's really cool stuff. Doesn't the atmosphere look like glass or something?

Thunderstorms

This weather has been very strange. Lanai had a tornado. Paia, just 20 miles away had a waterspout. Up here at the summit, we're getting 50mph winds with soaking rain. It was thunder and lightning all night last night and the power's been off a quarter of the time. Good thing we have a generator. Damn......

Sunrises

Every night it seems that the lower level shit-clouds disappear enough to make for nice sunrises. They then roll in and blanket everything for the rest of the day. Oh well right?

Panic-Starrs

The weather up here has been crap. Total crap. I've had a week now and I've only got about 3 decent timelapses and a bunch of computer work done. No hikes. There's another storm on it's way that will keep it crappy well into next week. So, needless to say, I'm way ahead on work. I was talking to the guys up here at Mees who happened to be doing construction of the Pan-Starrs telescope dome next door. They were supposed to hit first-light in January, but they still haven't weather-proofed the dome. It's been interesting to hear the construction crew's story. Basically it's been a total cluster-fuck with contract, money, and communication issues everywhere. So they're in panic mode. I mentioned that I was over here for spring break, but the weather has ruined it. Within a day, they had me signed up for 40 hours of work just doing random crap on the construction site. I've done about 12 so far. It's been fun. The highlights are - take down a staircase & scaffolding, throw a bunch of crap away, make insulated panels for a stairway, drill a bunch of holes in steel for a fan rack, and put a door-stop lock in. I'm stoked to make an extra 800 this week since I can't really do anything else.

Pics on Website

It's been rainy, cloudy, windy, and totally miserable over here the last 2 days. I've been going through all my old pictures and putting them up on my website. It's been fun. Interesting to see 5 years in a quick scroll......

Roadtrips

One thing I've been doing at night is going through all my old pictures and making websites out of them. I realized that as soon as I got back from Australia, I went road-trip-crazy. I haven't really stopped..... I thought it was interesting to see all of these.

Nick in Spain, July 2004
Phil in WA, 2002
Jesse to Yosemite, Dec 05
Florida in 2003
Jesse to Tetons, August 2002
Anders, South WA, 2001
Nay in Madison, Fall 2002
NZ, May, 2005
Carly, South WA, 2002

Bekka n Sara, Adirondacks, August 2003Nicole, Tetons, June 2003
South WA, July 2001
Caz, NYC n DC, Nov 2002

Storm Fronts

There have been some wikid clouds up here. I'm filling the hard drive every day...... I spent most of the afternoon down in the visitors center, mooching power and getting bothered by tourists but somehow managing to do my GR. It's been interesting listening to how different people respond to me telling them that I'm doing the timelapse for fun. Some are stoked and some just have blank stares....... Anyways, here's a few shots from today.

In Praise of Idleness -Bertrand Russell

Reliance upon reason, as thus defined, assumes a certain community of interest and outlook between oneself and one's audience. It is true that Mrs. Bond tried it on her ducks when she cried, 'come and be killed for you must be stuffed and my customers filled'; but in general the appeal to reason is thought ineffetive with those whom we mean to devour. Those who believe in eating meat do not attempt to find arguments which would seem valid to a sheep.....

As the political constituency grows larger and more heterogeneous, the appeal to reason becomes more difficult, since there are fewer universally conceded assumptions from which agreement can start. When such assumptions cannot be found, men are driven to rely upon their own intuitions: and since the intuitions among different groups differ, reliance upon them leads to strife.....

Maui Sunsets

This is what I come up here for..... I don't know if I've ever seen prettier sunsets.

Paper I Submitted!!

I finally managed to submit the caibration paper. What a relief. One down, one to go.

Summit

Here's what life will be like at night for the next 2 weeks...... Sitting in the kitchen at high altitude. Timelapse going on.....

Sean's World

The view from Sean's place is awesome. The's the last tall building before the ghetto. You can see all the way across the island to the other mountain range. Today is my last day on Oahu for 2 weeks. I'm headed to Maui tomorrow to go sit on the mountain and do some undistracted work.

Boxing Class

I finally managed to get some pictures of boxing class. It was really small on Friday, but you get the idea.