kareina

I slept in this morning till nearly 07:00, because the plan had been to ride in to the office with lord_kjar when he went in to change the tapes for backup (other than that task he has the day off today), and then walk home. But by the time I did my morning workout and was dressed, lunch packed and ready to go he was still asleep. Since it was -33 C (-27.4 F) outside I didn't see any point in trying to ride my tricycle--if the breaks and gear shift both froze into position last week at -22 they certainly won't work today. So I decided to walk to work and woke him up enough to let him know, and suggested that once he went in to change the tapes he could call me and see if I were ready to come home. (The exact time they are changed isn't important, so he didn't have to get up that early, he had only thought to do so because getting it done first thing means he can't forget it.)

The walk in was lovely. Since we have (at long last!) had six days in a row of temperatures decently to well below freezing, and it was nice and cold today I decided it was probably safe to take the short cut--head across our field down the hill to the bottom of our property, then turn to the left and walk on the ice to the road and then take the bike path as normal (the total trip is at least half a km shorter than going around by the road).

Since I was getting such a late start (out the door at 08:14), the sky was mostly light with the impending sunrise, but there was a beautiful crescent moon still visible on the southern horizon, with a planet nearby, and the trees were all nicely frosted with ice crystals.

We haven't had much snow yet this winter, and it has rained on top of the snow, so the cover is thin and crunchy, and it was easy walking across the field. The neighbour's dog cuts across our yard right at the base of the hill at the top of the field often enough that it has worn a track into the snow there, and it has also occasionally gone down to the bottom of our field on the same path that I take. There are deer tracks down near our black currant bushes, and plenty of rabbit tracks.

So far no snow machines have been driving on the ice, but a dog has walked across it, going the same direction I wished to go, so I followed's its tracks to the road.

I can report that my down jacket, which I bought back in 1994 when first I moved to Fairbanks, is still plenty warm--by the time I got to the office (47 minutes after leaving the house) I was kind of sweaty, and needed to go rinse off in the bathroom sink before starting work. On the other hand, my cheeks and nose were rather cold. It was necessary to occasionally take my hands out of a mitten and hold my face as I walked to keep it comfortable.

It is so nice to have proper winter weather again, and to have a chance to get outside to enjoy it. I am also pleased to report that I had proper energy and motivation for work today, taking care of a fair bit of correspondence when first I got into the office, and then heading to the lab to play with my laser. I set up a new (practice) experiment, with slightly different settings than the last time I ran one (so I can see what sort of effect the change has on the results), and when it was a bit more than half way through I got a call from lord_kjar saying that he was done with the tapes and on his way to the grocery store by Uni. I let him know I was soon done, and closed all of the open windows on the computer not directly related to the experiment. After it finished I copied the data over to the Uni H drive (which I can access from any Uni computer if I am logged in), and when I was nearly done with that he called to say that he was done at the store.

So I closed the last of the programs, turned off the gas supply to the laser and ICP-MS, turned off the vacuum cooling pump and the air conditioning unit, and hurried up to my office to put back my office computer and get my coat and boots. By then it was nearly 12:30, and there was a lovely orange sunset beginning in the southern sky.

He was in a bit of a hurry to get home, since C had called him to say that the power upstairs was off, and the UPS attached to his computer was beeping, but there was still power in the basement. She couldn't see any fuses in the basement fuse box that needed replacing, so he wanted to hurry home and check the outside fuse box--we have had those fuses blow before, and when they are out there is no power to the heater, and while I love winter, we also love the part where the house is warm.

However, once we got home and checked, none of those fuses looked like they needed changing, either. He then double checked the basement fuse box, and C was correct, non of them needed changing. So he went back outside and tried changing each of the fuses on the line into the house in turn to see if it helped. It didn't. So then he called the power company.

They said that our neighbours in #65 had already called with the same complaint, and that they had a team on the way to deal with it. Sure enough, about an hour after he called first the rest of our power went out for about two minutes, then it all came back at once. Yay for easily solvable power issues.

Now it is mid afternoon, and I need to decide which of the many items on the to-do list are something I want to do today and tomorrow. I don't expect to get much done on Saturday, since it is his 40th birthday, and we have invited people over to help him eat smörgåstårta and birthday cake.