Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Aloha. Mahalo. How do you say rain? (3 of 104)

Well here we are in Hawaii. The big island to be more accurate. Yesterday was a solid "4" travel day where 10 is pure hell and zero is teleportation. I'll take it! Jasper was a really good kid and did an amazing job keeping it together through airports, TWO mechanical delays on the tarmac, delays getting luggage, and a long line for the rental car. Whatta kid! That's not to say the day wasn't without drama but it was survivable. We all finally collapsed as a little family unit.

Here is a nice condo in Waikaloa. It's about twice as big as our little house at home and pretty nice. There's a pool pretty close by and the beach is within walking distance too. I went up the mountain today with my coworker, John, so I missed out on the beach experience. I did get to go alternate between freezing and boiling with Jasper at the swimming pool/hot tub.

I unpacked the instrument and fired it up and everything is working fine so that was a HUGE load off my mind today. The problem now is the weather. We NEED absolutely clear sky to make our calibration measurements and the forecast is looking really bad. Of the ten days we are here we need three minimum good days. In all the years these guys have been doing this they've NEVER had to extend a trip. John is a meteoroligist and he thinks we may be the first on this trip. I suppose the good part of that is that I'll have more time to spend with Kris and Jasper. Of course there is a pile of work that I was planning on doing from the mountain top while we let the instrument do its thing so I'll either have to figure out a time to do that during the day or I'll have to leave it for later...

That's it. No adventures yet. Jasper is such a gregarious little guy. He goes up to just about anyone he sees and tells them just about anything that pops in his mind. The only problem is that I'm not nearly so sociable so I end up on the awkward side of things.

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