Post Holidays

Well I am through the holidays down here at McMurdo. One thing that it has happened is my sleep schedule is botched. It will take me a few days to recover. Luckily I am off Sunday so I can recover. I do regret not being home for the holidays though.

On other news our weight gym and bowling alley are out of commission down here. An inspection of the roof joists found one of bent badly out of shape. This means the load bearing of the floors are seriously weakened. The concern is the second floor will come down to be the first floor. So all those facilities are closed till further notice. Since the summer season only has about 6 weeks left, I doubt those of us on the summer crew will see things put to right before we leave.

Overall it's not a bad season so far. I've fixed a number of the HF receivers, and handled several problems on the Satcom side. Now I just want to finish up what I have left to work on and head on out. I likely have some type of Guard deployment this spring so I'll be back out the door right after getting home.

On the study front I've been pushing myself hard on the martial arts with both baguazhang and ju jitsu. So far I have avoided any major injury, but I might have to accept cutting back a bit on my training to spend more time to improve my general physical stamina again. I've lost ground on that front since I stopped hiking every weekend and running as much.

But the math fundamentals still go well. I've made a lot of progress in the support fields such as algebra, geometry, and trig. I feel silly having to go back and redo the fundamentals that extensively but there are just to many mental skills I have forgotten. The proofing review is going better and sticking in my head more though.

On the virtues front I've started two books that are interesting. One is on the Sung schools of philosophy from China. It is a period of Chinese philosophy that I have never studied extensively. I find it to be an unusual take on the Classics and alternate Chinese paths. I'm curious to see why it did not sustain a more direct influence on the later Chinese philosophy and ontologies. I also found a old book in the library titled 'The Great Secret of the Saints'. The original manuscript was in German, with an english translation about 1890 something. Most of it is focused upon theology of the Catholic church and the 19th century take on the miracles of the early, medival, and later saints. It is still an interesting read though.