It's June?

Not exactly updating twice a week, but hopefully you will be satisfied with the below posts.

News from Bermuda:

I will be at sea at least every month for 6 days until February 2010. For 2009, I will probably have spent 3 months at sea. Wild.

Working out in the morning is going “well”. I have probably lost a couple pounds and have put on between 1 and 35 lbs of pure muscle.

My bike is fixed.

My boat is about to be fixed. X. Those are fingers being crossed. In the form of an x.

Other thoughts:

Lebron is going to the Knicks. Varejao will no longer have a reason to be in the NBA.

Scalabrine is above and beyond my favorite player in the NBA.

Wings in 6. Damn they’re playing good. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a lot of talk about the absence of Datsyuk.

I will be home probably August 11. If anyone has any ideas for reconnecting past memories between August 16 and August 27th, I will be happy to support them.

Great Travel Spots

I saw this on CNN's home page. The link read as "Most Dangerous Countries: These countries market themselves aggresively as tourist destinations. But is the risk worth the trip?" After I list the countries they tell you to stay away from, you'll probably think the same as me..."Who the hell would want to go to these countries?"

Each slide has the "allure" for each destination. I will share.

1. Pakistan. Are you serious? This place is invested with Al-qaeda and Taliban. WHY WOULD ANYONE CHOOSE THIS AS A VACATION? Travel Leisure I am beginning to hate you.

2. Sudan. "The Allure: Dip your toes into the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile." Can't I see the Nile in Egypt. And doesn't Egypt not contain a place, named Darfur. If your idea of leisure vacation is 6 months of volunteering for malaria than this is the place for you.

3. Georgia. The Allure: ..."described as the Alps meet the Mediterranean, offering everything from winery tours to heli-skiing." When you're surrounded by Russian tanks. Relaxing!

4. Lebanon. Sounds too close to Lebron. Definitely avoid this place.

5. North Korea. You've got to be kidding me.

6. Syria. Warning: "...The past decade alone has seen car bombs, assassinations, an attack on the U.S. Embassy, and violent anti-Western demonstrations." Syriously, no.

7. Yemen. I don't know about a lot of these countries and I especially don't know much about Yemen, but I'd decline based on the high heat and not that a group of tourists were killed in 2008.

8. Uzbekistan. "The Allure: Travel the ancient Silk Road cities of Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand. Go on camel treks in the desert and visit historic mosques." Ooooooohhhh, sounds so alluring.

9. Iran. Actually Travel Leisure, I don't see this as a terrible vacation choice. Definitely not one I would choose, but I'm not going to rag.

10. Algeria. Allure: "...Camel-treking..." Almost every single one of these locales has camel treking as an allure. Horse riding sucks. I can't imagine having that transfered over to a bitter, angry animal in plus 100 degree heat. These people are nuts.

11. Afghanistan. Allure: "Tombs(Egypt), historic teahouses(No), ancient market towns(Suicide bombers), and the country’s first national park(Dirt)". Unfortunately, the parenthenthesis is not part of the quoted text. Also, I spelled parenthenthesis without spellcheck.

12. Eritrea. Eerily similar to Urethra.

13. Zibabwe. Victoria Falls and Hwange National Park, those are legitimate allures. But, I would avoid("...the State Department lifted its travel warning on April 8, 2009, because there was a return of basic medical, food, and fuel services.", THANKS TRAVEL LEISURE!

14. Burma. Earlier this week I actually said to someone, "I want to travel to Southeast Asia...Burma, Indonesia, Thailand." Apparently, Burma is a cash society(No credit cards, ATMs). They must make it rain allllll the time over there. With bullets.

15. Iraq. Only if I get a exclusive tour by Saddam. Which I hear he might booked for a while. BY SATAN. Ha!

Chili Peppers Redubbed

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

Hilarious. I hope this is the first time everybody has seen this. It gives me much more satisfaction when I present something "fresh".

Back in Black

I don't know why I've titled this Back in Black. Black has nothing to do with anything I've seen or been apart of in the past month. But I am "BACK". It has actually been a month since I've updated. Thanks to Joe, it was called to my attention. Of course, I haven't forgotten about this blog, but it always gets put off or there's something else of higher priority. Now here I am again, thinking about how long this blog post will be. Now I'm sure many of you want to know how the trip went and pretty much all my responses to people in Bermuda have been quite short.

"How was the cruise?"
"Good. Pretty long, but good. Cold and icy as you imagine."
"Ah, well that's good. Nice to have you back."

That's it. Now, a lot of these people have been on cruises and basically know exactly what goes on, exactly how you feel during week 1, 2, 3, and so on. So I'm going to spare you of the 38 day narrative on my trip in all its glory and break it down into a few categories. Enjoy.

Things that were exciting:
-Departure. Very cool to be on such a massive boat, leaving Artic Islands.
-Artic Wildlife. Seals were very cool to see, Walrus were fat slobs. Bald eagle is the most badass animal around. Besides Sharks. Also I tamed a Wild Horse. I think one of them wanted to get busy too. One of the girls was petting it's nose and all of a sudden I see this lurking, growing monster on the horse. She stopped petting then I noticed the horse suddenly got a lot smaller. That horse is a sick freak, I stayed the hell away from all of them after that nonsense.
-Small boat and sediment traps. Instead of the usual badassness of a hardhat on deck, I get to wear a helmet, sweet vest, buoyant suit, while cruising in the Bering Sea. Legitimate discovery channel shit.

Things that were surprising:
-I can survive without Alcohol for 38days.

Things that were disappointing:
-I didn't have alcohol for 38 days.
-No Polar Bears. Which means, no pictures of Doug on a Polar Bear.

Things that were good:
-Awesome boat.
-Pretty good food.
-Majority freindly, good scientists.
-Being part of a project based on Climate Change and seeing the project as a whole.

Things that were annoying:
-I didn't get to see any fueds between scientists. I was really hoping for some tension.
-Being on a boat 6 week straight does get old. You eventually get tired of a lot of things.

Things that occurred in Bermuda while away:
-My boat's trim motor broke.
-My bike's drive belt snapped. Well, not exactly while I was away, but first few miles riding it, it snapped. I was letting someone ride it while I was gone.
-It is HOT. You can feel the humidity rising. Bringing back those nice memories of lacrosse camps and the amount of sweating at them.
-Water is warmed up. This happens when air temperature rises. The air temperature rises due to the increase in sunlight. The increase in sunlight is due to both the angle and the amount of daytime. Water will actually cool down, during the night, when there is no sun. I've returned a scientist.
-It hasn't rained in about a month. It drizzled for maybe 5 minutes this evening, but that's not rain. Well, it is....but not really. Kind of like how Vin Diseal is an actor.

I'm guessing a lot of you may have broken screens from getting frusterated and yelling "DOUG WHERE ARE FREAKING PICTURES....RAAARRGGGHH." I'm thinking about putting together an album through pixtera, but basically all of you are on Facebook and can see them there. I've got one more album to put up and a few others photos that are not taken by me, obviously seen by the quality of a non-toy camera.

As I've said many, many times, I'd like to get back in the swing of things with at least weekly updates. But, I'm guessing like all of you, we're all pretty busy and it's tough to allocate time to basically talk about myself.

One last note. I've geared myself into getting fit. This came to be from three reasons. One, seeing the Michigan Lacrosse team win a National Championship and everybody is fit/jacked and remembered being that way. Except for the whole jacked part and maybe throw mildly in front of "fit". Either way, I thought I need to be more healthy. Less binge drinking nights at the wind. More responsibility. I am getting lamer by the sentence. The second reason is a friend has started training for a triathalon, while getting a PhD. All I do is drink beer and play soccer. Again, need to be more healthy. The third reason is Bermuda Lacrosse. We have a "tryout" with a few coaches for our National Team in a few weeks. Which as of Sunday, is now considered an Official National Sport in Bermuda...pretty cool. So, we've got a few more of these practices and I want to actually be in good shape, ready to play, get the skills back, and somehow lead by example in fitness and effort. I'd really, really like to make a run at winning the lower tier championship in the World Games.

So far it's been 3 days. I wake up an hour and a half before work. How fucked up is that. I go for a quick run along an ocean trail, followed by a jump and swim in our bay. The swim in the bay is actually neccessary, because my boat's bilge pump motor stopped working and it's always a good thing to check on water level in the bilge. Two things about swimming. Salt water pisses me off; I flail around hopelessly sometimes, trying to see. Thankfully, usually nobody is around or else they'd think there's a sick dolphin in the reach. Second, I can swim maybe 20m before needing to side stroke. Pathetic, I'm basically a shitty buoy. After, I even eat a complete breakfast before heading into work EARLY. How do you like them apples. Because I do...I try to eat one a day.

BEST Entry #7

What's up yo?

Sooooo sorry for not having any pictures of me yet on that website. I see that you all still read on a 4th grade level...strictly pictures and no text. Good news in the photo department, I've been told by the writer that tomorrow(Thursday) is Doug and Mike day. I informed her that it should be strictly, Doug Day, and that we should celebrate it like Black History Month. Which, I know, turns the whole day into month long celebration. Just makes for more Pinatas.

The reason for the Primary Production day is because, well it was basically the last thing on their list. Check out the WHOI website for updates.

Also, great news. I did not spend my whole day filtering. We were able to deploy Sediment traps. This allows for me to go out and work on the aft deck and wear a hard hat. And instead of a work vest, we gotta wear these huge orange jumpsuits called Mustang Suits. Tomorrow, we'll recover them. The owner of the traps, Pat, has told me that the small boat must be used for retrieval. He doesn't want to do this, so I was more than happy to hop in the a little boat and spin around. Again, increases chance of Doug exposure on the website. And don't worry, I won't be alone and driving it. Because if THAT happened, I'd depart to find a seal, capture one, then try to find a polar bear for a "feeding" experiment. Those guys are so friggin hungry.

I think I recently broke a record for longest consecutive streak of breakfasts eaten before 8am. Going on 21. Nobody's done that before. Ever. If anyone is interested, I'll sign a photograph of a muffin and fax it to you.

So starting with B-fast, generally this is how my day goes.

730 - Talk about Breakfast streak, WHILE, eating breakfast.
800 - Wander down to main lab. Stand around.
830 - Suduko.
900 - Sample CTD.
1000 - Filter water, alone, in a room with red light, to the background of ACDC mixed in with your greatest hits from the 80's.
1130 - Eat lunch. With a motherfucking salad.
1200 - Return to lab to figure out how bored I am.
1203 - Sudoku
1240 - Nap/TV or sample another CTD.
100-400 - Wander semi-aimlessly between research papers. I'm getting smart. Watch out. Or watch the absurd amount of playoff sports there are on tv. Love it, especially like watching them during the day. Did anyone notice KG's impression of a retard after Ray Allen hit that shot. Jesus.
500 - Dinner. With guess what....another friggin Salad.
600 - Back to lab, probably filter or perhaps reading Chlorophyll samples.
800 - Emails and whatnot. TV.
900 - Work out. You know when you take out the trash and you throw a full hefty bag into the can, and it doesn't quite fit and kind of spills out over the edge. Well that's basically what my stomach looks like going into my torso. Thank god they have a treadmill.
1000 - Sometimes CTD, or read papers on phosphorus.
1200 - Bed. Not ONCE have my sheets stayed on the bed. The stretchy thing on all bedsheets is one of the most underrated things in my life.

All for now.

Doug

BEST Entry #6

Date: Monday, April 20th.
Local time: 0012

So, here's actually a live blog post. I had written those other posts previously, obviously. I had wanted to post them all with pictures, but whatever, you'll have to just read the boring text.

Just a word of advice, start from the first entry and work your way to this one. This one won't be much of a post anyway.

We're about 2.5 weeks into it, 17 days, with 21 more to go. Like I said before, the days have gotten repetitive. I had no idea it was Saturday a few days ago, until the NBA games were on around noon, our time.

I don't often re-read my posts, but I did this time. I am disappointed with the quality of them. You deserve better, I will be better. Just not this one. I am tired.

So, again I apologize no pictures. Check out this website... www.polardiscovery.whoi.edu. Go to live from the poles, Expedition 5, Today on the Ice. Great pictures. I managed to convince the photographer to take a few seducing shots of me on the ice, with the Healy in the background. It's definitely Calender worthy.

Also, at some point, the writer and photographer will cover my work a little. How bout that?

Anyway, expect more frequent posts, that contain way funnier, edgier material.

-DFace

BEST Entry #5

BEST Entry #5(Day 14)
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Location: Heading East about 61N. Again crushing slowly throught ice…~6 knots.
Local Time: 11:15pm

Been about a week or so since I updated, pretty typical of the standard blog. I guess I didn’t have anything particular to discuss over the early part of the past week. Now, there is really no concept about weeks, weekends, and weekdays. Just one day after another, one station after the other.

We’ve basically finalized our sampling plan. So we do Process stations every other day, these include incubations, filtering for pigment, filtering for chlorophyll, and taking samples for use with microscopy(4-5hrs of work). About every other STATION, which we may do 2-3 per day, sometimes more, we filter for chlorophyll and take samples for cellular analysis.

I know, doesn’t seem a lot to a work day and its not. I’ve found other fun things to do like, sleep and eat. Also, I’ve been reading exciting ocean biogeochemical dynamics.

Oh, I actually read a non-textbook for the first time since who knows. The Watchmen. Movie previews looked great, I’ll never really have a chance to see it Bermuda, and its one of Times 100 greatest novels, so it was one of the books I actually somewhat sought to read and lucky enough it was found on the boat. From all the reviews of the book, I thought it was going to be spectacular. It wasn’t. There’s something about reading a book and conjuring your own dynamic images in your head, but you when you read something in comic form, where images are stationary. I found it difficult to relate the static pictures into exciting action sequences. Story line is definitely good and a lot of good characters, I just figure the movie might be a better experience than the book. I hope I’ve successfully discouraged anybody from reading it. And if you hear anybody saying, “oh the book is so much better”, without reading it, you will know its not. Because of me.

The past three days have been irregular from the first week and a half.

For one, Sunday was Easter. Some of us had a discussion of how the date of Easter Sunday is determined, none of us knew. In light of Easter lore, how much do you think Jesus could bench press? Pre-resurrection and post? I bet one of those dudes from ESPNs World Strongest Man could probably move a boulder similar to Jesus’s rock.

Here’s something funny, Excel Word gives Jesus’s, with an apostrophe as a typo. This can either mean two things. One, Jesus is/was poor as shit and does not own anything, so there can be no possessive form of Jesus. Or two, Jesus needs a post apostrophe like Jesus’ (not typoed) and is non-singular. So Jesus’ must also include LeBron James.

Back to Easter on the Healy. They cooked two pigs. We ate them in the helicopter hangar. Without the helicopter, unfortunately. It was alright, nothing special.

Today, on the other hand, was quite exciting. I was able to go on the ice. We’ve starting to head back East. AFTER, crossing into Russian waters for a little bit, how fucking awesome is that. I’m SURE the Russians were very closing to launching torpedos.

So, we’ve been crunching through ice, which makes for good, solid ice stations for science. To go on the ice, you must attend an on-ice briefing in the morning, which is usually during my filtration times. I managed to make this briefing and planned to go out later(1600) to help bring up sediment traps for ice holes, cored out in the morning.

However, around 1400, over the intercom, we heard that there was ice recreation time. So much of the scientists and CG attended a briefing and then went out to “play” on the ice. It was maybe 1 football field coned off, with protection from a Coastie armed with a shotgun for defense against Polar Bears. Any biologist knows that Polar Bears are impervious to shotgun blasts and will actually make the bear, angrier, and larger. Unfortunately, none approached.

Ice-rec time was grown up recess. Lots of pictures were taken and a game of kickball started. I’m a big fan of kickball. Mostly any sport involving an inflated rubber ball. Four-square, dodgeball, kickball. All sports very under-rated. But, pretty cool to play a game of kickball in the Artic on seasonal ice-patches.

That’s about it for this entry.

BEST Entry #4

BEST Entry #4(Day 6)

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Location: Long: 171 35.124 W Lat: 59 54.378 N. Map it.
Local Time: 10:38pm

Looking out of the porthole to see the sun is finally starting to set down. It’s a little hard to tell sometimes because of the high reflectance of the white snow.

Nothing too exciting has occurred since the Walri siting. 600 were counted. Pretty unusual, the observers emailed to a few walrus experts and they were pretty geeked. Nerds.

The morning after the walri, I saw a spotted seal and her pup. Hilariously, the mother started to “run” away leaving her pup behind. They were only 50 yards away, so you could make out facial expressions as we steamed by. The mother looked completely distraught, as she ought to be, seeing a massive red machine slowly moving towards her. All she could do was kind of slowly flop away; pretty hard to move on the snow with that fat ass of hers. What was interesting to me was that the seal made the decision to make a run for it, leaving her pup to the massive red object. Better one than both, I guess is the proper survival thinking. I apologize, I didn’t have the camera at the time.

On the science side of things, everybody has been having difficulty with their incubators. There are about 6 incubation tanks outside on the bow. “Science Sea Water” that is taken from some place in the Aft and brought all the way up to the bow feeds these tanks. The problem with this was that we were creating slush as the ship moved along which led into the pump manifolds, into the tubing, into the tanks. So, instead of the tanks actually freezing up, we were sucking in ice to begin with. After a meeting with a few marine techs and CG engineers, the incubators decided with an option to use ballast water. A little warmer than liked, but was the best option.

To walk you through the idea of our incubator, here’s what it is.

1.Big tank. Maybe 3 by 3ft and 2ft tall.
2.Tank filled with ambient seawater. Flows through and empties through tubing on opposite side.
3.Into the tank are placed 500ml bottles. Bottles are filled with water from a specific depth.
4.Before placed in tank, bottles have a radioactive isotope added which tags to a certain compound.
5.Bottles are placed in bags to simulate the percent light. More mesh bags, means less light, lower depth.
6.Bottles sit in there for 24hrs.

That’s pretty much it. Sorry to bother you with all this science talk. That’s pretty much all I get around here. Lots of science, definitely too much. There are a couple of guys that follow baseball, so that’s all the non-science talk I really get on a regular basis.

I guess maybe I should talk about the boat a little bit. How about food? The messdeck. The food is not that great, luckily there’s such a wide variety that you can always be satisfied. They’ve got basically every god damn liquid you could possibly want. Like 15 kinds of soda, two ice-slushy things, three kinds of coffee, shitty milk, hot off the spout hot chocolate, about 8 juices, and water. Can’t really think of anything they’re missing. Except…hmm, maybe BOOZE. Just kidding, I can handle it.

Away from the drinks, they’ve got a pretty good array of fruit and a salad bar. The hot food is usually a combination of dry (meat/chicken/fish), potatoes(heavily greased and peppered), and two to three things I can’t look at without getting upset. Not just physically upset, but angry that someone is that terrible at making food or just the fact that they thought it’d be a good thing to eat.

To be honest, I don’t mind the food at all. It’s free and I can eat healthy and it’s varied enough to not piss me off. But this is me saying this 6 days in out of 40.

Another thing that the messdeck has is a desert table. Usually 3 desert options for lunch and dinner. Usually different. I really don’t understand desert. Growing up it was always such a special treat, but now it’s just….do you really need a piece of chocolate cake every fucking time after dinner? I see it with mostly everyone, a few cookies with either a slice of pie and cake. I’m not saying I’m innocent, I will have my cake and eat it too…but maybe that’s once or twice a week. I don’t know, that wasn’t a very good rant. I’d give a C-.

Bossman and I have slowly gotten into a routine of things. Tomorrow, we have a bunch of CTDs that we’ll take just a few samples from, nothing special. It will be a day off from Production casts.

We’re making our way west now, crunching through ice. Air temp the first few days was pretty nice, right around freezing. Today it dropped 10 below and winds probably put it around -30. My fingers almost fell off sampling the CTD.

Peace.
DB

BEST Entry #3

BEST Entry #3(Day 6)

Date: Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Location: Steaming to Station 3, crunching through ice.
Time: 2315


Change of pace is the name of the game. First of all, I eat breakfast. I rarely do this. Common knowledge states that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I’d like to switch important with inconvenient. However, my schedule has quite changed a bit. This morning, we had our first process station. Process station consists of many CTDs and ice core sampling. Our CTD(for Primary Production) went in around 8:00am. With a long morning of work, a easy-access, already made, buffet style breakfast is something I won’t pass up. So far, 4 consecutive mornings of food, if you consider a dry bagel and water from Airport vendor, twice.

A lot of our gear is in two radvans(vans that are used for stable and radioactive isotopes. Without heaters, they’re frigid. Luckily, there are heaters. The whole sampling process, with filtering took until 1:00pm. The main lab, mostly holds everybody. There are three main benches and because we were late getting set up, we got shafted and got a bench side with lots of traffic. I haven’t decided when I’m gonna start asking anyone who passes by if they’ve touched my ass. Judging from the scientific community here, they’ve won’t think it’s remotely funny.

The rest of the day, we watched our incubation chambers to make sure none of our lines were getting frozen over, which they did. I want to post a picture of Mike, my boss, working on them while I sit up in the bridge watching for birds, but internet is too slow to post.

However, there’s a reason for being up on the bridge. I was speaking with one of the bird surveyors and she invited me up to see what they were doing after dinner. Cruised on up and there was nothing but white sheets of ice and steadily shifting crack in the ice from the steadily moving Healy. There are two bird watchers that also note marine mammal sitings. We briefly talked about how they never see anything and all of a sudden we get a siting of Walruses or as I like to call them, Walri.

We first saw this group of 15/20. Then after a little while later, we started to see MASSIVE groups of these guys. Not often or ever, were that many Walri seen. Announcement went out over the loud speaker(called the Pipes) about the colony. Maybe around 200/300.

Again, wish I could post a picture.

Well, now back out to check on the incubator.

BEST Entry #2

BEST Entry #2(Day 5)

Date: Saturday, April 4, 2009
Location: On a boat between lots of ice. Actually in bed.
Time: 2315


Last time I left you all, I was moments away from falling asleep in a cozy bench across from the ticket counter of PenAir(Alaska Airlines). So yes, I managed to sleep there, wake up, and switch my flight to a 0700 departure. After three days of traveling and 14 hours in a plane the day before, let’s just say I almost broke my two fingers from crossing them.

I was definitely nervous right before the plane took off, very windy, dark lots of snow. I thought there was maybe 50:50 chance of making it. After 30 minutes or so in the air, everything cleared up and a gorgeous view of the ice came into view. It was quite interesting to see ice, ice, ice, less ice, less ice, even less ice, and then none. Then came clues of the Aleutian Islands. Little frozen rocks, thrown into the sea. Descent on a prop plane in the middle of the Bering Sea actually makes it seem like you’re flying. You know, typically on a big 757 it’s just straight up and down. With the small prop, and a sharp entrance to Dutch Harbor’s airport, you definitely felt like you might want to grab the “oh shit handle” as we swerved our way onto the runway.

So hell yeah, I made it to frigging Dutch Harbor. But…I completely lost contact with Mike and anyone from the Healy, so how the hell am I going to get to this ship. I could see it when we we’re landing, so I figured I could walk. However, then I saw a sign for a taxi…and NEXT to the taxi sign was a guy, wearing a Healy shirt. He was a crew member(CoastGuard aka Coastie) and offered me a ride to the ship.

Sorry, no shot of the ship straight docked. I didn’t want to seem like a queer, taking a shot of the boat around a bunch of Coast Guard guys as soon as I stepped out of the van.

Got onboard, found Mike. He was very relieved to see me. I was the last one on board, and very close to being a huge asshole and making the boat wait for me. And you know how I said we’d depart on the 4th? Well, that wasn’t the case, we left the harbor at 2000.

Saw a few Bald Eagles. Unfortunately, I didn’t see them mauling any fish, just them contemplating to do it.

After departure, we had a meeting to deal with Ship operations. Basically, the science party was introduced to the Coastguard Crew and we were told how shit goes on around here. After, we spent a little time getting our lab space set up and getting things to go for the next day(Today).

This morning, after sleeping like a baby on pain medication, I woke up for an early breakfast @ 0700. Spoke with the Production/Export team(Mike, Myself, Pat Kelly(Rhode Island)) to discuss setting up our incubations.

Our incubation tank is used to determine the major analysis of Primary Proudction, C14 uptake. I’m not familiar with the protocol of it, so all I really know so far is. We take samples from a particular depth, hit them with a radio-isotope(C14). Place them in a clear tank. Feed ambient seawater through it(keeping similar temps). Then the out flow seawater runs out the bow.

After the set-up we had our first Science meeting. Here we went over transect logistics, when we were arriving to our first station, our route, who’s sampling on the first station, safety, and general bullshit. There’s about 40-50 of us. I’ll go into more about science party, rooms, food, free time, the boat, later. Right now there’s just a lot to talk about. I doubt I’ll be saying that 4 weeks from now.

Shortly after the meeting, we started hitting ice. You can feel a rumble, sometimes intense, sometimes feels like a dryer ending its cycle. Not that I’ve been inside a dryer or anything. It is loud though and I’ve been told it gets much LOUDER.

The rest of the day, I walked through protocol and locations for everything I need for sampling, since I missed out on the set-up. Early evening, we had our first CTD cast and we took some samples, just to make sure I was good to go on everything tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning(Sunday) we have our first process station. So, I must get my rest. It’s odd going to be earlier than midnight.

BEST: Entry 1 (Day 3)

Entry #1
April 2nd, 2009

Location: The Air(Ishek National Park? to Anchorage)
Time: 2200hrs

Luckily, my buzzed head doesn't provide too many hairs to pull out. It's a close to decision, but I've decided to spare you all of an expletive themed rant aimed at that asshole, Mt. Redoubt.

Asshole.

So, you're probably wondering what the hell is Imshek National Park? And I'm gonna be honest, I have no clue either. I don't even think I spelled it properly. But, I can tell you how I got there.

Original flight details put us arriving into Anchorage on Tuesday @ midnight. Instead, the flight was canceled, I believe due to a combination of low visibility due to Redoubt and the darkness. This left Mike and I a night in Salt Lake City and a plan to board a flight to Anchorage via Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. However, that didn't happen and the next confirmed departure was the following Thursday morning, SLC->Minn-->ANC. We were also put on stand-by for an 2055 direct flight SLC to ANC on wednesday night. Good news was that there was room on that stand-by...for one of us. Mike was able to make it out of SLC on Wed. and I stayed behind for the 700am(Thur) flight to ANC via Minneapolis.

So, Wednesday, the SLC Airport made me reluctantly give up my "sleeping on an Airport bench virginity". To be honest, I slept halfway decent.

Thursday morning showed great promise, everything seamed to be on time and I was getting the hell out of SLC. I made it into Minneapolis fine. I saw a Monk at the airport with Ipod. I really want to ask him what he's got on it. It also led me to wonder, "How many volumes of Pure Moods" were made?

I made it into Anchorage fine. Long flight, 5hrs. I watched the new Guy Ritchie(Snatch, Lock Stock and 2 smoking barrels) movie, RockNRolla. Not bad. A lot better than The Day The Earth Stood Still, which Delta showed us flying to SLC. Whoever decided to remake that movie should probably find another career.

So, FINALLY, I arrived in Anchorage. Because getting there kep getting switched around, my flight to Dutch had to be changed. Unfortunately, I couldn't change this myself because of not possessing a certain credit card. Mike had to do this when he arrived in Anchorage. So I was praying to have a flight ready for me when I landed. I did, everything was set to go.

Departure time was 1645. 3 hrs flight. Slept most of the way there, which left me as a very confused passenger when we landed. When I woke up it was 2115. Little over due. So, ok, what the hell. Stewardess told us to leave our bags on the plane and stretch out. Again, confused. I got out, walked inside the smallest terminal I've ever seen. The Wright brothers probably had one 10 times larger. I then, realized that we never made it to Dutch, hence the extremely foggy skies. To add to my confusion, my phone had no service, probably due to the verizon guy and pack of wolves is a prety shitty wireless support team.

So now, I here I am flying back to Anchorage. Fortunately, I'll have a whole day(the 3rd) to make it into Dutch.

Looks like Anchorage Airport and I will be having a one-night stand.

Lowrider

Here's a few shots of my boat. It's official now too, just turned in the paper work.









These pics were taken a few weeks ago when were working on the engine. Basic maintenance, I enjoy learning boat basics. We'll see if I can dock it.

Gameplan is to get it into the water this Saturday, depending on weather.

Links!!!

It might be funnier if the Pistons didn't suck so bad right now.





"Take her back to hut"

Dinosaur for Sale

Asking for $500,000 for a complete 9-ft dinosaur skeleton. I'm gonna see if AIG will give me a fat loan.

BERING SEA

So this is the post that is actually the most important. I think all of you know, but I am heading out to the Bering Sea for 42 days!!!!! My journey starts Tuesday, March 31st. First to Philly, then to Salt Lake, then up to Anchorage for one night. Hopefully...our flight from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor will be on time.

Few of you may have seen about the Volcano(Mt. Redoubt) erupted last week. It's clearing up now, but it's made it a bit more difficult for flights in and out of Anchorage as Redoubt is not far away from the city.

We've shipped all of our gear out already and a lot of it has been sitting there since last June/July. So, hopefully we(My boss and I) will get into Dutch on April 1, load/set up our lab space April 2/3. And on April 4 were our in the Bering Sea until May 13!

Honestly, I really don't feel like giving a summary, so I'm gonna go ahead and do a science no-no and "plagarize" from one of our Websites.

"The main focus of this cruise is to learn about sea ice, and how climate change will affect it. As the Earth becomes warmer, the Bering Sea may freeze for a shorter time each winter, or even stop freezing over. This could disrupt the whole ecosystem. Fish could appear at different times or in different places. Whales, seals, and humans could have trouble finding food.

As we zigzag through the Bering Sea, researchers will be looking at many parts of the ecosystem. Some will be collecting bottles of water, scoops of mud, or cores of ice to see how much photosynthesis is going on in those places—how much phytoplankton is turning sunlight into energy that will travel up the food chain. Others will be studying tiny animals that swim in the water or live on the seafloor. Still other scientists will spend daylight hours on the ship's bridge, watching for seabirds."

Here's a list of websites to check out if you're interested:

a. Polar Discovery: http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/
b. Polar Trec: http://www.polartrec.com/ Our teacher’s name is Simone Welch
c. BSIERP/BEST Site at NPRB: http://bsierp.nprb.org/
d. The Healy Web Cam: http://mgds.ldeo.columbia.edu/healy/reports/aloftcon/2009/
e. Healy's position: http://www.icefloe.net/reports_healy.html
click on "where is Healy?"

Definitely check out Polar Discovery. Go to Live from the Poles(Upper Bar), then Bering Sea, then on the side, click Research Team. I've got a little Bio up saying how big of a Nerd I am.

Also, here's an abstract of the work. Hope you can understand it.

The Impact of Changes in Sea Ice Extent on Primary Production, Phytoplankton Community Structure, and Export in the eastern Bering Sea

"Funds are provided to test the following core hypothesis: climate-driven interannual variability in sea-ice extent and duration shifts the eastern Bering Sea autotrophic community between one of two states; marginal ice-zone (MIZ) blooms vs. open-water blooms. The MIZ bloom state is characterized by high biomass, diatom-dominated blooms, high pelagic export and tight pelagic-benthic coupling, whereas the open-water bloom state is characterized by lower biomass, flagellate blooms, low pelagic export, and reduced pelagic-benthic coupling. This project will generate measurements of primary production using traditional 14C, 13C methods, and use the innovative triple oxygen isotope technique and dissolved oxygen concentrations to estimate gross and net primary production, respectively. This combination of productivity measurements will be used to test the hypothesis that while gross primary production does not change with sea-ice extent, net production does, and is inversely related to sea-ice extent.

Phytoplankton community structure measurements will allow the PIs to test their hypothesis that the autotrophic community switches from a diatom-dominated, high export system in the MIZ, to a flagellate-dominated, lower export, system in open water blooms.

This project is part of a larger program designed to develop understanding of the integrated ecosystem of the eastern Bering Sea shelf, a highly productive region of US coastal waters. This ecosystem is home to a major portion of the commercial fisheries of the US and also provides significant resources to subsistence hunters and fisherman of Alaska.

Characterization of rates of primary production by phytoplankton and the varying structure of the phytoplankton community in response to changing sea ice conditions will provide information about changes at the base of the food chain that will constrain models of the ecosystem. This information will be essential to a successful integrated ecosystem modeling protocol for the region."

Not sure how available internet will be. I've been told there is wireless and I can get online, but don't expect updates from my Blog. I WILL be writing them regularly on the ship and will post as soon as I return. I will have a Ship email as well that I will figure out.

I doubt most of you are still reading this far, but to conclude I don't really know what to expect, besides being disappointed in my beard-growing ability. I think the cruise will go by pretty quickly. With actually lots of time not sampling, I will be in full force working on a paper from our labs previous grant. Exciting! Also...I got some pretty good news too, the work I did the past summer is getting published. First publication with my name on it...WOOOOOOOOOO!

I return to Bermuda, May 15 and will be eager to host if anybody is interested!

Much Delayed Post

March 4. March 4th was the last time I updated. That's shameful and I apologize. But not really.

Typically when I get going to write some entries, I need bout two or so hours. I know surprisingly all this wit usually takes about 5 minutes per sentence. So, I basically haven't really had that much time to sit back and narrate my weeks. Thus, I will try to cover the past three quickly and get on with the big adventure up North.

First week of March was a bloom cruise. Bloom cruises are short, 2.5 day cruises. It's quite easy. Second week was nothing. Went snorkeling over the weekend, saw some big parrotfish and I believe an octopus. It's still pretty darn cold, so wet suits are necessary. Luckily, I'm available to borrow one.

The third week of March was a core cruise. Again, core cruises last 5 days. I guess I didn't realize that BIOS and BATS has the long running time-series of open ocean data in the world. Pretty cool. So for work, cruises make my day particularly busy. Lots of prep work before the cruise and then post-cruise there is lots of cleaning gear, making sure samples are put away, and getting set up for the next cruise. Doesn't really allow me to run any samples.

The actual cruise was pretty good. There were lots of visiting scientists, mostly grad students. Some were from Princeton, Delaware, and then our international grad students(POGOs). We got some pretty high seas in the middle, about 50 knot winds, so Science was canceled for the day. Once winds get around 30+, usually all science is post-poned. I felt a little off, not sick, but definitely couldn't look at a computer screen/watch a movie. The day was full of sleep.

However, the roughness made it also a little more exciting. Deploying and retrieving buoys/sediment traps hasn't gotten dull, but it's sooo much more action packed and you feel rugged when you've waves crashing around you and you're getting nice and soaked. Mostly everybody has wet gear, but I'm the asshole with shorts and t-shirt on grinning about pulling something on board.

The other high-light of the cruise was discovering Chess on my Mac. Unfortunately, the "regular" setting would kick my ass in under 3 minutes.


After the cruise followed a pretty nice weekend. On Saturday, the Bermuda Lacrosse Club(Men's and Women) hosted an 80's party. We rented out a gym, brought in a DJ and an 80's cover band. Some of us were a bit unsure, but it turned out to be pretty awesome. We sold about 150 tickets and made a lot of money with drinks. All proceeds went to the kids program and as well to the 2010 World Games.


To underestimate, I got pretty drunk. You can usually tell if it was a good night when you wake up and walk into your kitchen and the scene looks like Big Foot smoked about a pound of crack and tried to cook a pizza. I got a pretty sweet 80's jacket out of it as well.

Also on Saturday, I watched my first "real" Rugby game. I've been back and forth particularly with a guy here, between American Sports and English. For the most part, he does a pretty good job ripping into a few American sports. However, he watches Cricket which makes him basically a fucking nut. We both agreed that I'd like Rugby, so on Saturday there was a major set of games, called Six Nations. Six Nations is Italy, France, England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The game I watched was England vs Scotland; Scotland apparently sucks and showed it a little.

A lot of bickering that was going on between us was basically comparing Rugby vs American Football. To be fair, I don't have at all have a good knowledge of Rugby, but here is a list of discrepancies. Note....I watched the game with two Brits and a Scot and were very good with describing the rules and pace of the game.

1. Rugby players are fucking huge.


2. American football players are freaking large as well, however, a more variety of sizes. Large Rugby guys will top around 6'6'', much like most offensive lineman. However, a DB would get crushed in Rugby.
3. Rugby players are tougher. Generalization, I know. I'd compare them to Hockey Players.
4. Watching a sporting event is much, much better when you don't have Bud Light commercials every freaking 6 minutes.
5. Jake Long would probably be a very good Rugby player. Same with Sean Taylor.

There's a lot more that I can't think of, but obviously I like American Football more. The forward pass gives it a whole different degree of cool. I would definitely like to watch a game with a bunch Irish maniacs. Also, I raced against a Rugby "winger', like a WR, that was undergrad visiting from England. Results were Lacrosse in 30yds and Rugby in 100yd. However, most of you know that I am god awful at the 100yd dash. Even Graham the ogre will take me. I have no doubt Vasher would crush him. Sorry Bobby.

Along the whole topic of Football, Rugby and badassness, check out this Youtube. I freaking love Goalie Fights.

Can't Complain

The past week, especially Saturday/Sunday, the weather was Beautiful. It felt like a pretty nice June day in Michigan. Low 70's, slight breeze. Gave me a reminder that I live on a subtropical island. Finally some good sun led to golf on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday...all for no price. St. George's golf course is not quite maintaining itself as nicely as in January, but I've paid to play at much worse golf courses before.

I always thought I was decent at golf, but I just didn't play enough to keep consistent and improve. Definitely not the case, I suck pretty hard. Especially when I'm about 10 yards away from the green. There's almost a 100% guarantee that I'm going nail the ball with the bottom edge of my club and send it sprinting across the green.

So now, I'm going to do my best to persuade some of you to visit.

Select the following text. Go to File-Print. Then go to Print Selection. Take the paper and post that shit on your wall/computer/ceiling/rearview mirror.

10 Reasons Why I should Visit Doug

1. Dude, it's Doug. That guy kicks ass.
2. It's sunny.
3. Free golf.
4. Reefs.
5. If I don't go visit Doug, he may, at some point, try to ruin my wedding.
6. Ross Perot lives like 2 miles away from him.
7. My city sucks.
8. Instead of work, I'll be on a tropical island.
9. Doug's the kind of jerk that would subscribe myself to a pornography magazine and have it sent to my girlfriend's apartment, if I don't visit him within the year.
10. Doug's got a boat.

Yeaaaaaah. Re-read 10. A friend of mine has been trying to sell it for a couple months, originally because he was leaving the island and now because he bought a new one and is sticking around. Thus, I made the decision that life on the island would be very much improved with a boat and I had enough to make the investment with the help of a few other people.

There are 4 co-owner's of the boat(myself includd), however it will be under my name for insurance reasons. It was pretty unrealistic to buy a boat without sharing. Definitely helps out with gas, repairs, insurance, especially if I'd be boating with the same people anyway.

Now to the boat itself. I don't have any pictures of it, even though it's chilling a few yards away from my apartment complex. It's an 18ft, 100hp boat called "Lowrider". Not bad. This week, the previous owner is helping/showing us how to do yearly repairs. I'll get some pictures of that.

I know little about boats, so I figured this would be a pretty kick ass time in my life to learn how to upkeep, repair, drive, own a boat.

So, there's for added incentive for a visit.



Thank you to Graham for showing me this gem. Oh and Graham, after you graduate college, you're supposed to get a job.

March?

Well, I knew I hadn't updated in a while, but I didn't think it was almost two weeks ago. I guess its a combination of being somewhat busy and not wanting to refer to myself as a blogger. Ugh, that sounds terrible. Never would I think of Doug Bell=Blogger.

So, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I've had the same question running through my mind the past couple days....How the hell is it March already??? I no longer have lacrosse to kind of guide my seasonal timing, so each week that seems the same is actually progressing through each month...duh.

Its quite a different feel tracking UM lax now. I didn't know how exactly I'd feel after it was all over, but as I thought, I definitely miss it. Its I guess, "depressing" when I check the website and see "@ Chapman 7pm Saturday" and know that I can't play in it, let alone watch it.

But it is also great to be an alumni now, there's a lot of pride to see the guys you play with work hard and get fulfillment out of the effort they put in. I can't wait for that Chapman game to be on TV. ESPN, I seriously fucking hate you Wes. And just Wes. I also thought about the '76 Miami Dolphins, only undefeated team in NFL history, and think that it'd be pretty cool if our year was the only one to go undefeated. It's not as "unique" if another team(09 Mich) does it. But that's not the case at all. I really, really hope that Michigan goes undefeated again this year. That would be unreal.

The other thing that I miss about lax is how it kept my gut in check. Graham knows what I'm talking about. I feel like Hrusovsky circa Summer 2007. But, I can't make fun of Ant too much; he's proving that somebody from Lake Forest can actually play good lacrosse.

However, I do get exercise pretty frequently. Monday & Thursday are futbol on our pitch. Usually 5 v 5 or less, but it gets me out of breath at times. Lacrosse is now Tuesday(indoor) and Sunday(outdoor). Lax usually plays out for at least 2 hours, so it's a good workout. And I can friggin walk or jog whenever I damn well please.

Breaking story though, this Sunday at lacrosse I BELIEVE to have gotten my first tan of Bermuda. Hopefully someday my tan will look as good as this guys.


The rest of my March will be a short cruise from the 16th-20th. And then up north to Anchorage on March 31st before taking a prop plane to Dutch Harbor and leave April 2nd for 40 days on the Bering Sea.

NYC Brass Ensemble

Hypnotic Underground from moriza on Vimeo.

Argentina

I think I mentioned this a while back. The Argentina Women's Field Hockey team was staying at BIOS for two weeks while they competed for the Pan-Am Field Hockey Cup. The winner gets a spot in the 2010 World Cup of field Hockey. Exhilarating, I know.

Their stay at BIOS was initially exhilarating for us males here at BIOS. You've got to understand, the ratio of males to females(my age group) are about 5 to 1. In St. George's, seeing an attractive, normal female is like seeing Big Foot...doing lines of blow off his tree stump. You just won't see it. So, when 20 athletic, hispanic, mysterious, good-looking females showed up at BIOS, we were pretty happy. We've got a big visitor housing that usually holds students, but they needed a cheap place to stay and hold their meetings.

However, through the grapevine, we heard the women were not allowed to speak to BIOS employees due to coaches orders. You could see this too, almost anytime you'd approach to say hello or walk by, it was usually eye contact avoidance and nothing else. I mean, if any team was in a foreign place with friendly people, you'd start a conversation and be interested in what was going on at your temporary place of residence.

After the initial disappointment, I went on the cruise, came back, and nothing had changed. They had started their tournament games. They are a very good team, actually won the Olympics this year.

This weekend, was the semi-final and final. A few of us, went to watch the matches and I gotta say Field Hockey at the level, was pretty fun to watch. U.S. played Trinadad and Tobago in one semi-final and Argentina played Chile in the other. Chile was pretty good looking and friendlier than Argentina...why couldn't they have stayed at BIOS. Its pretty fun to cheer for your country in another, there were quite a few Americans there too.

Its amusing to chat with them too:

American: So, who are following here.
Me: Oh, just came to watch the games.
American: You came all the way out here for just the tournament?
Me: Oh, no sorry. I live here. Argentina is staying where I work, so that's how I knew.
American: Ohhhh.
American: What do you do here(What the fuck are you doing living in Bermuda?)
Me: I work for Ocean Science Research place.
American: Really, that's cool.
Me: Haha. (Yeah, I know it is)
American: So what do you do at your job.
Me: I pretty much look at water (I don't want to get into this with you)
American: Oh ok.

No offense to the majority of people, but if I start getting into my job, I can fucking see it in their eyes that they don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Oh well.

The finals between Argentina and U.S. was awesome. It went into double OT than a shootout or what I called a slapoff. Argentina won after going 6 shots. Pretty epic. Here's a picture of the loser team from the tournament.


I'm no longer a fan of Argentina. Neutral before, now there's beef. Except for you Messi, you rock.

Width

Does anybody know how to change the width in the main column. I must be an idiot, if I can't figure this out.

B243

Recalling to about two weeks ago I was able to go out on my second BATS cruise. It had been delayed and delayed and little bit more delayed. After leaving Norfolk from its winter repairs the Atlantic Explorer made its to Bermuda initially with two engines then down to one. So not only that caused delays, but they needed to fly a engineer out to repair it. He was around a few nights, so I was able to drink with him a little bit. I've never been around a "redneck" and I don't mean that in a stupid, stereotypical way...its just if I described him as scraggly looking with a major southern drawl, wearing a dirty 'Bama hat and had teeth worse than most Brits around here you'd come to the conclusion that he is related to the Genus "redneck". Note, from what I've seen, most Brits have perfectly normal teeth. That being said, the visiting engineer was very friendly, got drunk very easily(to my surprise) and was not dumb at all. And fixed the boat.

So, we were able to depart from St. George's wharf around 800 on Saturday, the 7th. The first part of the cruise is relatively nice because I do basically jack shit. It takes maybe an hour or so to depart to our first station, Hydrostation S. BATS drops a CTD down to get a profile(for temp, chlorophyll, salinity, O2) and for a few samples. Then we departed to our next station.

I'm still learning what goes on at each station. It took me a while during this cruise to kind of get things figured out. I was basically on my own with all of the sampling for Phosphate and as well as samples for project with Arizona State. Luckily, a couple of grad students from ASU were there to help and actually see how their samples are taken. It took a while and luckily, another tech from our lab was there to answer any questions. There are sometimes several parts to sampling. First, is how to take water from the big CTD. Sometimes, the sample goes straight into a freezer. In other cases, chemicals need be added for preservation or the sample may need to be filtered. All of this takes time understanding the protocol and bumps and questions that go along the way.

Working during a cruise is a nice change of pace from the morning to evening routine. Because we try to fit as much as possible during the cruise, science is almost always going on, if not steaming from station to station. I don't have the schedule from the past cruise, but here is a sample of the short cruise(B243a) leaving Friday...

Day 2: Saturday 21 February sunrise: 0655, sunset: 1810

0000 Deploy Neuer PITS
0100 Depart for BATS, on station by 0400
0430 CTD cast (0-1000m, production), BATS, BBOP
0630 Deploy production array
0730 SPMR
0900 SPMR
CTD (0-500m, shallow core) BATS, BBOP
1300 Zooplankton tows (x2, 0-250m)
CTD (0-1200m), BBOP optics, MO timeshare
1500 Kadko surface water collection (science SW, or surface CTD)
1700 SPMR
1800 Recover production array
CTD (0-500m) profile
2000 Relocate on PITS
2100 Recover Neuer PITS
2200 Relocate to Hydrostation

So you can see at any part of the day, you may be called to duty. Looking at this schedule, the only thing I'm doing on this cruise is related to PITS. So, I will most likely take samples around Midnight, deploy the sediment trap, and then further take care of samples. Most likely working from 11pm to 2am. Nice to do things different. The last 2 days of B243, my work hours were 2200 to 300-400 or so.

The rest of the cruise is eating, sleeping, and hanging out in the lounge. Hours work each day can be light or heavy and late or mid-day.

I actually didn't snap any photos during the cruise. It wasn't calm, but it also wasn't bad weather. Top wind speeds were maybe 30+ knots or so, enough to cancel only a few hours of science. I'll bring the camera for the next cruise.

Overall, the cruise went well. I'm pretty confident with all of our lab's Sea Operations.

Windy

Been a while, hasn't it.

I got back from the BATS core cruise, last......Thursday, I believe. It went well, I plan on writing a post about it, but this one will be short. I just wanted to satisfy you quick update.

It's been extremely windy lately. Power got cut down late last night and luckily it came back on early in the morning. I've never really been around that strong of wind, at least not that I can remember. It's about low 50's too, so it's not exactly the most pleasant place and I'm far from a suntan. I get pretty upset when I'm forced to wear pants.

The wind has caused another problem. There was a scheduled cruise from Tues-Thurs that is an added sampling cruise for BATS that only occurs during the bloom season(after winter mixing, lots of nutrients for phytoplankton to grow). I was scheduled to go on it to do some sample collection for somebody at ASU, but it looks like I won't be going on it because of scheduling. Oh well.

I'll post about the cruise and about the Argnetinians and a big Field Hockey tournament that was here the past two weeks. Later.

Check these out for now.

Update on how insane Joaquin Phoenix is....

Joaquin Phoenix On Letterman 2-11-09 - watch more funny videos

Two big movies coming out soon.



This is Tarantino's new movie, Inglorious Basterds. If its Tarantino, it'll be good no matter what, but I still don't like Brad Pitt and his accent in the preview.




Normally, I watch almost every possible preview for a certain movie, but I won't for Transformers 2. This one hasn't gotten me too excited, but Robots with lasers and rocket launchers will be extremely far from suck. Oh yeah, and Megan Fox is in it.

Ex-Extinctions

Recently, an extinct species of mountain goat, the Ibex was resurrected by cloning, but dyed in 7 seconds due to collapsed lungs. Of course, it brings about the discussion of whether or not I will be able to have a pet T-rex in 30 years or not. Doubtful, but I'm optimistic.

Today, CNN posted a story on a pretty cool, Ice Cube, related archaeological discovery. Scientists discovered a snake that would have been LARGER than the snake depicted in Cube's Andaconda movie.


The snake, named, Titanboa, probably AVERAGED 42.7 feet and at its greatest width would have reached your hip. Now how about resurrecting THAT. Literally, would make Zenga's nightmare a reality.

Another interesting thing is that based on its size, scientists are able to calculate the average temperature of its environment of the tropical rainforests of Columbia. The average temp would of have been 91 degrees, 10 degrees warmer than now. Whether or not "global warming" is happening, Earth has seen an extremely wide range of climates.

Worst Music Video

I Found it. Found the worst music video of recent memory. You look at a Music Video now, like Milli Vanilli, and you think, man, this is garbage. Don't get me wrong, it's filth, but it was also a music video 20 years ago. All music videos were bad back then. But this one, Mavado: "I'm so Special" is easily one of the worst I have ever seen. Watch it below.





I'm not surprised either that you couldn't finish it. There's so many things are ridiculous. This got Video of the Week on MTV Hits. Jaw-dropping. Mavado's definitely special, the special kind that rides a short bus instead of his computer generated convertible.

"Mek we special, I'm so special so special so special
Dats why mi strap wid mi .45 special dem waan pree mi
Fi gal and dem waan chase like petal but jah
I'm so special, I'm so special so special so special
Dats why mi strap wid mi .45 special ha ha ha"

Delayed

The cruise has been delayed and delayed each day, starting from Tuesday. Again, this is for the February BATS cruise that are five days long, each month, out to our BATS sampling station.

Apparently, the month and a half long maintenance was not enough. One of the engines broke down on their way back to Bermuda, so the crew and cruise has been waiting for parts and an engineer to arrive and be replaced.

This has left the week fairly boring, but easy, all I've really had to do is prep for the cruise.

I don't know how everybody else feels, but I thought the Superbowl was pretty nice to watch. I really don't remember any commercials, besides MC Hammer yelling "We meltin' gold Baby!" Game was good, disappointed Cardinals didn't pull it out and a Buckeye got the MVP award, but at least I won squares. $100 big ones.


Maybe a week ago I posted that I received my official Bermuda License and after comparing it with a few others, I've discovered something pretty awesome. Because Bermuda is pretty anal about getting certain licenses for certain vehicles like needing a different test a 50cc, 125cc, and a car. So they've put "classes" that you're allowed to drive. Usually this is either a 50cc bike, Motorcycle, car. Another thing that is bullshit is a British Driver's license is no good in Bermuda, however a Bermuda driver's license is alright to drive in the UK.

Back to my license, in my "classes" section it lists a 7. Turning the license over, 7 matches up with an Ambulance, meaning, the only vehicle I'm legally able to drive in Bermuda...is an Ambulance. There's Bermuda for you. I'm not even going to bother changing it, they'll probably charge me for whatever. It's easier to just act dumb about it. Or if an officer ever pulls me over for speeding on my bike that is incapable of going 7mph over the speed limit, I'll just tell him the hospital is borrowing my ride, so I'm stuck with this....Sorry.

(Yeah, I know, great photo of the license)

It's gotten in the low 50's now, feels pretty cold. The cold and wind will make for an interesting cruise. I'll let you know how it all goes.

Superbowl Sunday

I got Arizona. I think Warner and receivers will challenge the Steeler's secondary enough to put some points on the board. The big thing will be if Steeler''s D can get to Warner fast enough. If the Steeler's win, my guess is for Harrison to be MVP. Other things that I think hurt the Steeler's are Big Ben's reoccuring injuries and Ward's knee.

I just hope it's a good game, much like last year's. We are having a "party" at the Wind, so yay for cheap beer.

Keep an eye out for a few commercials during the Superbowl. They are not so much commercials but previews. Studios have been smart and are showing us the first teaser trailers for Transformers 2, G.I. Joe, and Land of the Lost(Will Ferrel's new movie, co-starring Danny McBride).

50 Greatest Guitar Solo's

I love Digg. I really do, it's such a fast and easy way to find good stuff around the web. Nearly every single of posts not relating to my work dialogue and Bermuda is found from Digg.


I was pretty happy to find this article from Guitar World.... 50 Greatest Guitar Solo's . Some easy reading and musical history for ya.

I know I heard requests of my own rankings for things like music. Well, I'm working on it. But I guarantee it'll be shit.

Bermuda Winter

Apparently Bermuda's winter starts...now. It's dropped about 10 degrees over the few days, prior to being absolutely perfect out mid-week. It's about high 50's during the day and drops to low 50's nighttime. Not too bad, but you definitely notice the change. As long as I'm able to wear shorts for work, I'm pleased.

However, the wind has picked up, pretty strong. Not great news, considering we have our February BATS cruise on Tuesday. We missed out on January's BATS cruise due to excessive repairs of the Atlantic Explorers tanks. I didn't realize that the ship is actually about 25 or some years old.

Typically, BATS does two cruises a month. A BATS core cruise covers all the essential nutrient sampling, which are 5 days long. Bloom cruises are about 3 days long and focuses on primary production. All of the samples I analyze are gotten during the BATS core cruises.

I'm not quite sure the status of going out with the BATS cruise each month, but in preparation for Bering Sea, I'm getting as much time on the sea as I can. And when I think of it, I have jack-shit for sea time, all I've gotten is 5 days after a few weeks in Bermuda. So, I still don't have complete efficiency with Sea Methods, but they aren't hard. With getting a firm grasp on any protocol, all it takes is repetition and your own trouble shooting, before you have a comfortable feel for whatever you're doing whether it be sampling, analysis, or lab prep work.

So, again, I'm quite excited to be going out to sea and crossing my fingers for good weather. One of the things I've gotta do before cruise is prep work, that is getting sample bottles together, cleaning, labeling crap. All really exciting stuff, but so necessary to be organized at sea.

I don't have too much more information about the Bering Sea cruise right now. I've only had a brief chat with the boss about the trip. For now, I know we will leave March 27-28th for Seattle.
From there we fly up to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. I'm not sure whether we will be loading the Healy in Seattle or in Dutch. I've heard that in Dutch Harbor, the ratio of men to female is 0 females to every 1 man. I'm excited to grow a pretty bad ass beard. And even more excited to shave it into a mustache after I return.

The actual cruise will be from April 3 to May 12. My duties will mostly be to do pigment sampling, like chlorophyll(MORE LIKE BOROPHYL), sorry. I'm assuming I'll do some other stuff, but that's all I know. I'll get to play on the ice, which will be cool. Maybe go Seal hunting on Polar Bear's back. Palin says they're not endangered so I'm sure I'll have a chance to AT LEAST ride one.

That's the news for the cruise.
Hope ya'll ain't got the blues.
Cuz it's cold and stormy with a chance of the flu.

Interscope just signed me. Above is a little of my handy work with the english language.


So besides, getting cold as hell here in Bermuda, I just got my license. It kind of looks like the McLovin' ID from Haiwai. It features my huge mop of hair that I recently cut off. I hadn't cut it since I orginally got here, so 4 months or so. I had the goal to grow it out and be all long haired like, but I realized the only thing that would happen with growing out my hair is looking more and more like Toadstool from the Mario Kingdom.

Before getting my license I had to take a riding portion test. This included riding around in a circle, stopping before a line, and weaving through cones. To complete it all I had to do was pay 135 dollars. 135 to ride basically a toy bike, that maxs out at 35 mph. Originally, I felt 35mph on a bike was fast, but after getting comfortable on a bike I'd really like to speed it up a little.

I need to get a pic of the bike up here. I'm quite confident it might be the best deal in the history of shitty bikes in Bermuda.

In other news, the Argentina Women's Field Hockey team is staying at BIOS for the next two weeks. That has, by no surprise, excited many of us here.


Hope everyone is doing well and getting through the winter depression. Save up some money to come visit Bermuda.


Cheers,

DB

Job Status

FYI, I'm not quitting the job. It's all good, just being sarcastic about leaving this one for the Australia "Best Job in the World".

Best Job in the World

I've got some good news and some bad news.

Bad news first, I'm quitting my job. After the Bering Sea cruise I'm quitting, I'm done with this. Surprising, I know. Sounds like I have a pretty good job here, with flex hours, sunny days out on the ocean, snorkeling at almost any time, plus actual scientific research.

But, I've found a new job(the good news). Australia's Queensland Department of Tourism is accepting applications from anybody(Graham, you're even qualified for this), for "The Best Job in the World."

I believe this has been in the news for two weeks, but I'm slow and my laziness of blogging as prolonged the breaking news of this fantastic offer.

Responsibilities of this job are "Feed the fish, clean the pool, and collect the mail." But in reality the Department is asking the "worker" to keep your adventures updated via blog, email, video diary, and interviews.

In return, the Caretaker will stay 6 months in Hamilton Island off the Great Barrier Reef and receive 105,000 US Dollars along while staying in a mansion.

Hamilton Island in the background.

All that the position is looking are the following things:

- Excellent interpersonal communication skills
- Good written and verbal English skills
- An adventurous attitude
- Willingness to try new things
- A passion for the outdoors
- Good swimming skills and enthusiasm for snorkelling and/or diving
- Ability to engage with others
- At least one year’s relevant experience

What the hell is one year's relevant experience?

Otherwise, I've got all the other qualifications on lock.

Excellent communication skills. I speak English, VERY well. I was even told by a Morrocan student that MY english was easier to understand that any Brit, Scot, or Australian he's ever met. Adventurous Attitute.....I applied for a job in Bermuda? Willing to try new things....just started liking mayonaise after 21 years. Passion for outdoors....got like 4 Northface shirts. I own snorkeling gear. I have and succeeded in engaging with other people before.

So all you've gotta do is apply at this website http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/home.

Make a 60 second video of why you're the right person. Apparently, they're getting 30 every second. Ridiculous. That's 2.5 million a day. Don't believe it's that much.

I also don't think the job is actually open. I think it's just a stunt for Great Barrier Reef exposure and free marketing via news coverage and they already got the guy lined up.

Either way, I've got an underwater video camera and it's getting used for an application.


P.S. I like hearing feedback, aka are any of you still following this blog? I don't want this turning into a solitary diary. If any of you are still following, please send me 60 bucks to

17 Biological Lane Apt 3G
Ferry Reach, St. George's
Bermuda GE01

That way, I'll know who's still reading.

Inauguration Picture

I never really got a chance to see the Inauguration Speech and ceremony this past Tuesday. Only got a chance during lunch and at that time all it was, was an empty Pennsylvania Avenue prepping for Mr. Prez. CNN talked a little bit about some spectacular never before seen approach at a picture combining thousands of images. Never saw it, and maybe you did, but check out the link below...pretty amazing.

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c

CLIPS!

Datysuk is good at playing hockey.




Pork and Beans - Weezer

I've rediscovered Weezer. This is their hit, from their most recent album...the Red Album.

I've learned that lots of things on youtube I can't view because of being outside the U.S. Thus, I have to link you to some really pink website.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Obama Closing Gitmo

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Barack gets pissed at Biden.