Breakdown

I suppose it was time for a breakdown, however, not of the emotional type. The gear box for the satellite dish that serves two of our three satelites bit the dust last week and we aren't able to fix it with out spare parts from the states. I say, it's time for an airdrop, but others don't share that opinion. Ironically, the one full satellite pass that we do have also took a turn for the worse today with some problems in New Mexico, so internet time has been few and far between lately. Today the broken dish was fixed in one location as to get us the most coverage possible for the rest of the winter, but we are still down a several hours in the morning. Oh well, I suppose we'll find better things to do.

Before I forget and my title is snatched this evening, I better announce that I am the current leader in my bracket of the 9-ball pool tournament. I won my first two series and tonight I play Noah, who will likely sweep me in all 5 games. Thankfull 9-ball involves plenty of luck, so I still have a slight chance.

"Summertime" in July

Seems like mid-July should be a good time to do an update on June. Weather has been weird. July, which should have the thermometer dropping like a rock, has brought us weather all the way up to -45F. Truly amazing. I think the first day I arrived at Pole in late Novemeber it was -40F, so in some since we've been having a taste of summer weather (minus the sunshine). Yesterday when I walked out to SPT there were some long faded auroras along the horizon and my first thought when I stepped outside was "Hey! I can see some sunlight again!" We'll have to wait another month for that yet, but in the meantime the weather hasn't been all bad.

June, however was pretty much terrible weather. The average low temperature was 6 degrees above normal, but the average wind was 17 knots which is enough to make any trip miserable. A couple days broke their wind records, getting up to 40mph. We had only two officially 'clear' days. The average temp for June (-61.6F) broke the record of -62.7F from 1965. It was also the cloudiest June on record and we had the most snow accumulation (2.5 inches in June) recorded as well. I guess we'll see how the rest of July treats us and if we get down to -100F, although today we are back at -80F already.