Jen communicating with the locals (pic: Shane Mitchell)

Jen communicating with the locals (pic: Shane Mitchell)

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Jungle Jen Vs Windows 7



Current Standing:
Windows 7 - 2
JJ: - $2500
Two useless laptops in antarctica: priceless....



WINDOWS 7 WINS


bloodybloodybloodybloodygrrbloodycursecursebloodycusscurse

So,
Windows 7 claimed another computer, this time a brand new one, sent down on V3 (Voyage 3 to Antarctica in the 2010/11 season). The first one died due to the fact that I introduced the "incurable unscrupulous unimpressive undiscriminating (insert other adjectives here) disease" of Windows 7 (its a driver update from Vista/ XP etc yay for microsoft and yay for anyone who didn't know what it was that I had to explain... impressive!!) to said computer- which was feeling fantastic before the "upgrade" and took a spiralling turn for the worst, deleted all it's precious cargo on the hard drive, including expensive software (that's programs for you... mum hehe), and then the computer gave up the goat. entirely.
Decided it had had enough of life and self destructed, hard drive and all.

Yay for computers.

RIP Toshiba Satellite:
2008- 2010.

On the plus side, the computer died just in time to order a new one to come down on the next ship- with only moments to spare before the cargo cut off. Said computer arrived, intact, and joined the impressive leagues of JJ cutting edge technology including a hand cranked wireless, pedal powered car (flintstones style) and a 1980's walkman, which periodically devours bad eighties cassette tapes. I should have gone for the eight track player. (I exaggerate- i'm farrrrrrrr too young to still own an 8 track). It worked.
And then it didn't.

And my friendly Toshiba representative was very impressed that I was calling from Antarctica with a problem with their computer...

I however, was not so impressed.

So, new computer now has another very clean hard drive after being completely scoured of any worthy (expensive) software, again, and sits, taking pride of place amongst my dust gathering collectables until my fear of killing it wears off enough to replace the photo editting software...
again....

Hence. No photos.
And also. No blog.

And Hence. Because I felt like using that word again.

But there is really no excuse so I thought I would enlighten you to some interesting webpages with news from Davis and Surrounds, including and awesome timelapse of some Auroral Activity by the masterful Boj (Sparkie)




I was going to explain a little about what Aurora's are and how they occur, but Ray, our resident Atmospheric Scientist did a great write up in last week's Icy News... a newsletter produced each week at each station to give the general public, friends and family a run down of what is happening on the ice. Check out his explanation here:

Living and Working At Davis; This Week at the Station

And! The Antarctic Division website has lots of fun stuff about Davis like...

Fun Stuff about Davis!!

And in case you were wondering, There are two Jenn's on station- the roving/raving reporter is not this jenn, but another far more entertaining form of Jenn- for now we'll refer to her as Jolly Queen!

(JJ and Jolly Queen comparing notes at Nina's Bar, Davis)







So yeah, each week the station does a little write up with some photos to show what's been going on, its a good way to get a gauge on how it is living down here, what the vehicles and station look like, and follow along with the escapades of the local tribe of davisites- a strange looking, highly irrelevant group of people who for strange reason's choose to congregate in very cold places.

Other than icy news, Davis has been cold and windy for the last couple of weeks. The days are getting shorter and shorter (we are losing about ten minutes per day now)
(check out the Davis Sun Rise and Set Times here)
And soon we'll have total darkness for about six weeks. It's messing with my sleep patterns, but lucky for me, I work shiftwork, 5:30am until 10:30pm when i'm on- yay! That means that atleast three days a week I'm out of bed before it gets light (at 11am at the moment..... i KNOW!!!) . Its tough! Even having lived in miserable england, this 5 hours of daylight thing is odd! I think I preferred the 24 hours of sunlight! Not helped by the fact that the sun has been hiding behind a thick layer of cloud for the last couple of weeks, so it's actual existance is questionable in the least.

Bring on Winter! Give us some Blizzards!!

It's getting cold down here, and the wind gave rise to a very interesting quad trip up the sea ice to Bandit's Hut- one of the furthest field huts from station- in 60kt (110km/hr) winds. It was... interesting. The ride back through the icebergs with the wind at our backs was pretty glorious (photos to come), but vaguely interesting as soon as you felt the need to turn the quad- getting blow sideways down blue ice alleys makes for some interesting body positions.

Other than the jollies out in the field, there's plenty of time to join the gym, spa, sauna and private zumba classes ( for one, run by competent confident american instructors via DVD- saving all humiliation for participant (singular haha) administered by those who happen to open the door to the yoga/pilates/zumba room wondering what all the banging, crashing and cursing is about)... There's sewing projects, art projects, carpentry projects, and a whole lot of TV series on the go- including weekly station viewing of Airwolf, Season 1.
Although we haven't got as far as seeing them in purple flight suits. Something to look forward to!
Yay for bad eighties TV Box Sets.
You can thank my brother Stephen.


I mean really. Who can resist a TV show with a lead character whose name is Hawk and flies a helictoper and plays a mean cello to woo a bird- (a hawk can you believe)
AND
All the good guys wear all white.

Dramatic Gold


and.
stuff....

jj

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