There are so many cool little things here and thy just won't all fit into other blog posts. So here's a journal dedicated to awesome pole stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
Spoolhenge is where the IceCube cable spools go to rest until they are taken off the ice. It's on the far side of the berms. Spoolhenge has looked more and less disorderly over the years depending on the time people have taken with organizing it, and depending on the availability of identical spools. Right now it's a beautiful, symmetrical totem to the progress we've made. Many people love Spoolhenge and I love it too. Each spool is about 6 feet tall when stood up on its end.
Spoolhenge.
Ol' Duke is the can out in the IceCube drill camp. It's perfectly pleasant in there, warmer than outside, and it definitely doesn't small as the waste is in a fan on the ice and frozen. This is silly: the seat is heated.
Ol' Duke
The heated seat.
When we were working on the cable pull I saw my first sundog, it's an atmospheric optical phenomenon. There were little ice particles floating around in the air and when the sunlight refracts through them, the light bends and there appears to be another sun next to the real one. There was even a bit of a halo around the side of the sun on the side I was on.
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Your chariot awaits.
This chariot was built for last year's race around the world. It's about 10 feet tall! It was pulled in the race around the world-a New Year's tradition where the polies run around the pole together passing through every degree of longitude on the way around. Also built: a steam-breathing dragon (not pictured.)
Dr. Tom Gaisser found a soft spot to rest while in drill camp. Why there is a couch in drill camp is unknown to me. It's cold out there!
Dr. Tom Gaisser sits on a couch in drill camp.
This box showed up right in time to start testing the water in drill camp. It contained a glycol test kit tat we use to evaluate if the antifreeze glycol is diluted enough in the rodwell.
Inside the box was water-testing chemicals. No biggie.
How do a bunch of people from Wisconsin move liquid around at the South Pole? They need insulated tankers, and one of the ones down here is straight from a Pulaski, Wisconsin dairy.
A dairy tanker from Pulaski, WI in drill camp.