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:
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!
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.
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.
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.
