Is was a calm week from an IceCube operation point of view with only minor things to do. On Wednesday, we gave an IceCube tour to the soon leaving summer crew. On Saturday we drove out to The End of the World to take some inventory pictures of the drill camp for the planning of future drill operations for the IceCube Upgrade. Some of the equipment was snowed-in and had to be dug up.

Some more of the South Pole specific special social events

From a social activity point-of-view we had a couple of events on station this week. On Thursday we had the Open Ottoman where many people were showing their instrumental and singing skills. The Ukelele Fu**ing Orchestra (UFO) was playing the song ”Closing time“ by the band Semisonic, but with very funny South Pole specific lyrics. On Saturday we had an exciting contest: The 3rd Annual South Pole Head Weighing Contest. People were dunking their heads into a bucket of water and the weight of the displaced water was measured and used as the weight of the head. Josh’s and Martin’s heads were measured to weigh 9.5lbs and 10.4lbs, respectively. People with large beards got their beard measured by the contest’s science advisor Dr. Danielle Simmons and the beard’s weight was removed from the water measurment. On Sunday we had another science talk in the galley. Dr. Matthew Young talked about the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and how it measures the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. Also they are able to detect clusters of galaxies.