A blog post! Yep, I'm still here.

Ok, I know I owe you guys a Falklands post with loads of photos, probably a post covering all the exciting things I've done since then (but not mentioning getting so drunk at an official function that I embarrassed myself completely. Crap, forget I mentioned that!) but for now I'll slap some photos up from last weekend.

Sarah (house mate Sarah, not any of the other ones) had her parents and sister in law visiting with her sister in law's dog Gary. We went over to Channory Point to try to see some dolphins. Nope, no dolphins but I did manage to get a few pictures of the dogs that came out quite well. Maisie is the ginger Cocker Spaniel, Gary is the other one.

On the way home we stopped off at Brodie Countyfaire for tea and a cake which was nice and nowhere near as expensive as I was expecting.

On other matters I've been to see Sherlock Holmes 2 (again) and loved it, Underworld in 3D and enjoyed it (don't go unless you've seen the others and liked them!) and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. I'll say this, the flame effects in Ghost Rider were superb, the 3D was very well done (although I was expecting the chain to really fling out more) and the bike was cool. For the rest, I think it may have been one of the worst films I've seen for a very long time. Not sure what it was, just didn't like most of the film and normally I love Nick Cage in silly popcorn films.

Falklands 2010

So, second time down and a few things were different. I already knew some people down there, I had a girlfriend down there and I knew what I was doing.
That, at least, was the plan.
Turns out it took me much longer than it should have to get my mind in to the local weather and I've already mentioned that Kate and I broke up half way through the tour.

Although I didn't see any penguins I did see some other birds:



A turkey vulture at Goose Green, the second largest settlement in the Falklands, not counting Mount Pleasant. Population: about 35.

Ugly bugger up close. Which is probably what he thought of me.



This little fella was chilling inside a wreck at Goose Green, he's a night heron. Lovely, isn't he?


Sometimes called the military starling or the Falklands robin, I didn't capture just how damn RED the breast is on this Long Tailed Meadowlark. At least I think that's what it is; the chest is amazingly vibrant.


No visit would be complete without a striated caracara. This one wouldn't take off, just sat there, posing.



Just east of Stanley, this is Surf Bay, nice break, beautiful water and really white sand, it's probably a good thing you can't see that I'm wearing a full down jacket, gloves and hat. The water is about 4 degrees, rising to 8 at the end of summer.
I couldn't get to this beach last time owing to the mines that kept washing up on the beach. It's cleared now, or so they told me.


And this was a night in the Crab And Sprocket that started when Humf and Paul said "Fancy a drink?"
I think the details are self explanatory.

I'm aiming to get back down later in the year, but that might depend on some news due out of head office in the next couple of weeks.

Autumn turns, and the moon is born again

The blog title isn't leading to anything, I just thought it'd be nice to write.

In September I was down at head office doing a course in winter forecasting, which was pretty good. Like most of the training we get, it can feel that we're being overtrained, but I had a think about it and I realised that they could just tell us "if you see this, then you put this into your forecasts" but rather than do that, they teach "if you see this, then this is happening, which means this might happen." We get taught the background reasoning and systems at work, rather than just the effects. When you think about it this is probably why our training takes longer and is more expensive than other places.
I had a big hire car when I was down there, with an electric handbrake, but I did NOT like it, I can see it working with an automatic, but not safely with a manual.

Bit later, I was back south for Dad's 65th, for which mum and Becky had arranged a surprise party. Keeping a surprise from Dad is not easy but we managed it, when he walked into the room he was expecting to go in and have a half price pizza, not for there to be 50 odd friends and family from all over, grouped together for him. Which was brilliant.
I managed to see Pippa, Sara and Andi, and Sian and Matt while I was south, which was awesome, and when I got back it was Oktoberfest, again awesome.

We had the station Friends and Family day, bit like an airshow but small scale. Typhoon came round and did a very impressive display - that thing just has buckets of power! I was working for the start of the day, and did the weather brief for the Red Arrows, also got to watch them doing their pre-flight brief, where they dissected their last performance, and they are REALLY strict with each themselves and each other. Have a few photos:



Apart from that, not too much has been happening. I'm going to be moving next year, a friend is buying a house and I'm going to be renting a room from her; I've been working a lot over the road at the other station, mainly at a level above what I'm supposed to be working. I'm looking at potential job development, but have nothing concrete yet.
I've almost got used to that moment when you think "oh good, it's half two and I start work at half five." But I still don't like that thought.

Terror, it's about 3 foot high!

Today, I learned a new type of terror.
I had to give a talk about the weather (and my job) to a group of Primary 2 children - ages 5-6. 25 of them. I'm not really that good with kids, so trying to aim the talk at the right level was hard enough, working with the teacher to control the children was even worse and I made the usual mistake - open questions! Ah, I'm a fool!
I was told, "never ask questions with more than two answers," and "never ask any question that could lead to a story about the weekend," but I ended up doing exactly that... Not horrifically but I guess I'm just not cut out to work with sprogs very much.
Having said all of that, I actually think it went quite well. I've got no idea what a good lesson is with kids that age (should have asked Kate for advice!) but their teacher seemed pretty pleased. I'd taken a load of the old school met kit that we have as back-ups, sunshine recorder (looks like a crystal ball on a stand), an "aspirated psychrometer" (two thermometers with a clockwork fan attached), hand-held anemometer (wind measuring thingy in black Bakelite - very 50s retro), small Stevenson Screen, satellite images and charts.
I had a few print outs of my favourite images such as a global map with nothing on it then ask the kids how many lightning strikes they thought would have happened in half an hour world wide (they thought 31) and then show them. In this case I'd printed out another chart with the strikes shown, and there were a few hundred at least. Certainly impressed the teacher, and I think the kids liked it.
So, although not a full win, I think I came out ahead. If nothing else when the children came in and saw all the kit laid out one of the lads said , "he's got cool stuff!" I liked that kid then.

Well, apart from that, I've had a couple of chances to get some pictures from work, and I think a few of them were alright. Comments welcome.
Firstly a Pax (passenger) transport that popped up:

Then a Merlin:

Then a Hawk (in this case from the centre of aviation medicene):

And finally some of our guys in the sun:

I need to use a bit of a faster shutter speed but had dropped it to get a bit of blur on the blades.

Course, knowledge and ignorance.

This last week I've been on a two day first aid course specialising in outdoors first aid. It ends up covering all of the Appointed Person standard but there are differences. For example, the current thing is that after checking for Danger, Response, (shout for help) Airway, Check for breathing, you then go for help. In the situations we're looking at help may be 4 or more hours away so we have to adjust things slightly.
On Thursday I went (through the snow) so the first lecture for the local Advanced Motoring group and realised I've forgotten LOTS since Yorkshire and got into far too many bad habits. We had the first observed drive today and the local group seem to do things slightly differently so the previous ones, but there are certain things that are common. I'll be adding to the Student Room AD thread to cover some of the things I've picked up.
Today the six nations starts (WOOHOO!) and there's a double bill of Firefly on Sci Fi as well (Double WOOHOO!). Following a link I came upon Rock, Paper, Cynic, and in particular, this comic. Lots of the comics made me laugh, some made me think, that one did both.
And finally, following another link, a way to see minimalist Flickr photo streams, type the browser address ihardlyknowher.com/mountainmetman or replace the last with the Flickr name of who ever's stream you want to see. Or your user name, whatever's good.

Links, 2,3,4

Okay, not a Rammstein related blog (although I have been snowboarding to the strains of Mein Herz Brennt of late) and I know I owe you all a catch up post (I've drafted a couple that I will put most of up before I head a bit south) but for now I'll just stick up a few links that I think you might enjoy.
The first is an optical illusion,
http://blogoscoped.com/files/stripes.html
which is just sooooo cool! Swiral might want to take care, the image appears to flicker a bit when used but I don't think it's a problem.
Next is the Boston Globe's Hubble Space Telescope advent calendar, which I hope will be up after Christmas.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/hubble_space_telescope_advent.html
Worth checking out just for the first animated image!
Next, still with the Boston Globe, is the firs part of their images of the year.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html
This is part of the Big Picture series (stick it on your feed reader, it's worth it!) and the photos range from the sublime to the astonishing to the disturbing to the gut wrenching and graphic.
Now for a collection of sceptical thinking blogs:
Bad Astronomy - Phil Plait's Science and Sceptical blog (and lots of Dr Who stuff).
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre's Blog, including his articles on critical thinking from the Guardian and lots about health scares and misuse of statistics.
Bad Martial Arts - martial arts without mystical explanations.
Finally, another webcomic:
http://dooomcat.com/wp/
Bear Nuts. If anyone remembers my Bondage Bear, it's kind of like that; care bears gone bad...

At work we've been trading maths jokes, including the "classic" one:
There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary, and those that don't.
And another one:


How is Hallowe'en the same as Christmas?



Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec.

Sorry, even I found that one a bit bad.

When I finally catch up I'll tell you about the skid pan training, the snow boarding and the bed.
Not related stories, although that would be a good one!

My timing SUCKS. Seriously.

This will probably be my last post from the South Atlantic (this trip...) and five days ago I was really looking forwards to coming home.
I still am, mostly, but some things have happened in the last few days to make me wish for a bit longer here.
Since my last entry I was invited to go on a capability day by the RIC (Roulement/resident Infantry Company) which was the Rifles and is now the Green Howards (Yorkshire) where they showed us what they do, where they do it and make lots of things go BANG!
It was a good chance to see the range they use, for which we forecast, but most of us haven't been there. I got a panoramic of the range (which won't be posted) and some rather decent shots of things going bang. As I'm a civvie I wasn't allowed to shoot anything but did get to play with a sniper rifle that had been made safe.


Managed a couple of trips into Stanley and the road has been refilled. The first time I drove it, I managed to hold 40 odd mph for most of the way, feeling safe all the time. Unfortunately the last time the pot holes were starting to reappear. Not as bad as before (see previous entries) but enough to make 40 unsafe for many stretches. Ahh well, had decent stereo in the L200 each time so the trip was still good.
After this I got on another flight, this time on a Hercules C-130k. Supposed to be to the South Sandwich Islands but owing to a lack of air refuelling aircraft we only went to South Georgia. "Only" of course being relative.

When I can I'll stick up more photos, or have a look at my Flickr account, the link is in the "links" section on the right.
The Herc is an interesting aircraft, it was pretty full and all of us wanted the good photos. We were flying pretty low, about 1000 ft above the water, we were all wearing immersion suits (bit like dry suits) and one side door was open, as was the top part of the rear ramp. As there were protective nets over all the open doors to get clear shots you had to bag one of the small windows or get right up to the net. One guy had positioned himself lying down to get his lens out of the side door but was not going to move. I tried to get decent pictures then move out of the way, getting blatted by the wind and bounced by the aircraft.

On the way back we were escorted in by an F3, which was pretty damn cool!

The weather forecast was pretty much spot on for the whole trip, which is very satisfying.

The big bit of news this week: a couple of weeks back a new teacher came to the school here, called Kate. We got on great and a couple of days ago hooked up. I'm going to try to get a few pictures of her to put up, if she'll let me.
Yes, that's right, I'm no longer single.
The week before I fly 8000 miles away.
Arse.
You see what I mean about my timing? We both knew the situation at the start and are both a bit bummed by it. Her tour down here is for 2 years so there's a good chance I'll be back down before she leaves but even so it's not the best. We're going to see how things turn out but for now we'll enjoy the next couple of days together.
So I've gone from really looking forward to going home to wanting more time here. I never keep it simple, do I?

Volunteer Point and two new kinds of penguin.

I went to the northeast of the Islands today, to a place called Volunteer Point. It was windy but the sun was shinning.

We saw lots more penguins, the usual Gentoos

but also Magellanic

and King penguins.

I didn't get all the pictures I wanted, half way through I made a mistake with my camera and got the shutter speed too low, resulting in camera shake. Some of the pictures I got were alright though. Well, I think so, what do you think?

One of the things that was quite funny was that people would be focused on the birds in front of them and not notice others just behind them.

Kings live for around 20 years and can dive to around 1000 ft on their 500 mile hunting trips - that's 500 miles in each direction...

They feed their young for about 18 months until their first fluffy feathers drop off and the smooth ones for swimming come in. The youngsters are the ones covered in fluffy brown feathers.

The 'guins around this time of year were just about to moult, in one case already moulting.

So then it was back to the mess for tea and toasties.