My departure is approaching. I am pretty much finished with school, well at least what I need to finish before I leave. I will be completing the remainder of the semseter from ship and after I get back in December. Unfortunately I have a caught a cold. Yesterday was pretty rough, but I feel a little better today. Luckily, I got sick right after I finished my last presentation in Convection. Hopefully I will feel better before I depart on Monday. Being the "sick guy" on ship, probably won't make me very popular.
According to Matt, everything seems to be on track on ship. Something that makes me happy, because it hopefully means there is less a chance of something going wrong while I am there.
We have come close to finishing our website that has the radar and sounding data and cloud photos taken from ship. See below for link.
Here a few important websites (some I have mentioned before) that you can check out for updates.
NCSU website
Arica, Chile weather
Postcards from the field - Something I will be taking part in once I am on ship.
Matt's journal
Ronald H. Brown ship tracker
That's it for now,
Jake
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Around the bend
So, my departure for Chile is rapidly approaching. I leave in 13 days, and will be in Arica in 14.
There have been many pitfalls along the way, particularly with the ship. As mention before, there was the fire that set us back a week. Then after the Brown made its way through the Panama Canal early last week, one of the propulsion systems went out. This forced them to return to Panama and fly down a technician from the US. They finally got underway on Saturday night, putting us behind another 3 or so days. Timing is crucial for this field study, as the stratocumulus deck hits its peak around mid-October and lasts into mid-December. They have decided to not do some of the sampling they had originally planned, so they will be arriving in Arica a day later than the original schedule. My half of the trip is unaffected (so far).
Then on Saturday, one of the laptops that Matt took with him completely crashed. Fortunately he took two, but two is what is needed to complete the work in a timely manner. He was able to retrieve his processing scripts from the machine, so all is not lost. I will be taking a new hard drive with me and hopefully we will be able to fix it before I depart Arica.
On board Matt is taking cloud photos 360 degrees around the ship. Also we have sounding, radar, and satellite data being sent back to us every day. We are working on getting a website operational to display all of the data as it comes in. Hopefully it will be up by Friday.
Along side of this, my school work has been trudging along. I have one more presentation to give in my Convection class, along with the weekly readings. I also have a mid-term on Friday in my Tropical class. So after about next Tuesday, my schedule will lighten slightly, at least until I leave for the Ron Brown.
Onto the personal life (or what is left of it). This past weekend my best friend Alex came to visit, which was a nice reprieve. We went to the fair on Sunday with my awesome roommates and my friend Kristen, which was a lot of fun. I ate way too much fried food. I will be going back to WV this coming weekend to see the family one more time before I depart. It sucks I will be gone for Thanksgiving, so maybe we can make up for it this weekend with a big dinner. I also hope to squeeze in some time to visit old friends. The next weekend is Halloween. The plan is for Mitch to come visit and then take me to the airport on Monday afternoon to head to Chile. If for some reason this doesn't work out, I will be going there for the weekend. Hopefully that won't be the case.
That's it for now,
Jake
There have been many pitfalls along the way, particularly with the ship. As mention before, there was the fire that set us back a week. Then after the Brown made its way through the Panama Canal early last week, one of the propulsion systems went out. This forced them to return to Panama and fly down a technician from the US. They finally got underway on Saturday night, putting us behind another 3 or so days. Timing is crucial for this field study, as the stratocumulus deck hits its peak around mid-October and lasts into mid-December. They have decided to not do some of the sampling they had originally planned, so they will be arriving in Arica a day later than the original schedule. My half of the trip is unaffected (so far).
Then on Saturday, one of the laptops that Matt took with him completely crashed. Fortunately he took two, but two is what is needed to complete the work in a timely manner. He was able to retrieve his processing scripts from the machine, so all is not lost. I will be taking a new hard drive with me and hopefully we will be able to fix it before I depart Arica.
On board Matt is taking cloud photos 360 degrees around the ship. Also we have sounding, radar, and satellite data being sent back to us every day. We are working on getting a website operational to display all of the data as it comes in. Hopefully it will be up by Friday.
Along side of this, my school work has been trudging along. I have one more presentation to give in my Convection class, along with the weekly readings. I also have a mid-term on Friday in my Tropical class. So after about next Tuesday, my schedule will lighten slightly, at least until I leave for the Ron Brown.
Onto the personal life (or what is left of it). This past weekend my best friend Alex came to visit, which was a nice reprieve. We went to the fair on Sunday with my awesome roommates and my friend Kristen, which was a lot of fun. I ate way too much fried food. I will be going back to WV this coming weekend to see the family one more time before I depart. It sucks I will be gone for Thanksgiving, so maybe we can make up for it this weekend with a big dinner. I also hope to squeeze in some time to visit old friends. The next weekend is Halloween. The plan is for Mitch to come visit and then take me to the airport on Monday afternoon to head to Chile. If for some reason this doesn't work out, I will be going there for the weekend. Hopefully that won't be the case.
That's it for now,
Jake
Monday, October 6, 2008
Let the good times sail
So, the RHB left port this morning! After all of the headaches of the past few weeks, things are finally underway. Check out Matt's blog for updates (http://www.millercommamatt.com/journal/).
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Fire... Oh no!
So last week, during prep for departure, there was a fire on board the Ronald Brown. I'm not 100% sure of the details, but it had to do with the electrical switch in the engine room. Apparently there was quite a bit of damage. After a lot of frustration, it was decided that the boat will now depart this coming Monday (a week late). My leg of the trip shouldn't be affected. They are doing a sea trial on Friday, so Matt is heading down to gear everything up. The issue with that is he doesn't have a way to Charleston. That is where I come into play. I'll be driving him down tomorrow after my afternoon class. It's kind of nice though because I will get to see some old friends while I am in Charleston. The bad news is that I have to be back in Raleigh for class on Friday at 12:25.
I really hope all of the bad things that might happen on the boat have already occurred. I might freak out a little bit if we are drifting around the South Pacific and there was a fire on board.
I should get back to work. I need to prepare for a presentation I have to give in my Convection class. It is the 2nd of 4 that I have to present before I live in a month. If I can make it through the next 33 days, I have a feeling I shouldn't have any problem with the rest of my graduate school career (I hope).
I really hope all of the bad things that might happen on the boat have already occurred. I might freak out a little bit if we are drifting around the South Pacific and there was a fire on board.
I should get back to work. I need to prepare for a presentation I have to give in my Convection class. It is the 2nd of 4 that I have to present before I live in a month. If I can make it through the next 33 days, I have a feeling I shouldn't have any problem with the rest of my graduate school career (I hope).
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