Less than a week til EclipseCon

It's less than a week to EclipseCon and I'm really looking forward to it. Today I made a bunch of progress. I rewrote the Subversion integration service, so PSICAT data can be stored in a central Subversion repository and changes can be tracked. I also updated the ANDRILL New User Wizard so I should be able to send out the new version to the MIS science team. Tomorrow will be a writing day and doing some data analysis of the ANDRILL data.

Writing and EclipseCon

I finally outlined and started writing one of the papers for my thesis. I'm planning on submitting to a special issue of Computers & Geosciences on Geoscience Knowledge Representation for Cyberinfrastructure. I'm going to be focusing on PSICAT's data representation and data capture functionality. This will be a nice venue for the paper as it will allow me to be fairly technical in describing things. The deadline is April 15th, so I had better put my nose to the grindstone since March is going to be an pretty busy month.

I also finished an article about ANDRILL and PSICAT that looks like it is going to be published in Enterprise Open Source magazine. I've got another one in the works that I'm hoping to submit to Dr. Dobbs Journal. I'm just trying to think of a good spin or hook for the article.

Besides the writing, I'm happy to announce I'm heading out to EclipseCon! I originally wasn't going to go, but PSICAT is a finalist for a community award, so that was motivation enough to go. I haven't ever been to a conference like this before, so I'm really excited. There looks to be a lot of good talks. I'm also planning on demoing PSICAT at the Open Source pavilion. I return from EclipseCon on Friday night, and then I'm home for Saturday and Sunday before flying out again on Monday--this time to Phoenix to see my Uncle. That'll be a nice and relaxing trip.

Still plugging away...

We'll it's been a couple weeks since my last entry. I've been plugging away at work--doing a bit of coding on PSICAT and some writing. The PSICAT work has mainly been some bug fixes and minor feature enhancements that were still outstanding. I'm trying to get it ready for release to the ANDRILL MIS folks this week. I've also been doing a bit of writing on some articles and on my thesis. On a related note, John Waters wrote a blog entry about PSICAT over at Application Development Trends.

The computers arrived back from the ice, so tomorrow I'm off to Lincoln for the day to square away some stuff. I'll be setting up the server so that the core images are available to the science team. I'll also be setting up some way for them to access and work on the on-ice report. I'm undecided as to how best to go about this (perhaps WebDAV?) I also need to have a debriefing with Chris about PSICAT and plan for next year, so it should be a busy trip. But it also means Chipotle for lunch :)

Post-Antarctic Life

Well I've been home for almost a week now. I didn't find the transition too bad. I've been sleeping a lot, so I guess that means I was tired (or that I'm just a lazy bum!). I'm spending this week up in Minnesota visiting Elizabeth and my family, with the plan to head back to Ames some time this coming weekend and start back to work. I've got a fair amount of work to do in the coming months. There are some updates to PSICAT that I want to get done before the sampling workshop. I also need to get the codebase sorted and released along with the data so that the ANDRILL folks can start browsing and playing with it. I need to book some tickets to go visit my uncle in Phoenix. Oh yeah, and I need to write my thesis. :)

In an unrelated note, there's been a fair amount of media interest in ANDRILL and PSICAT, so I've been talking to folks and hopefully will find some time to write a few articles for various outlets. Jon Erickson of Dr. Dobbs called me up the other day and asked me a few questions for a podcast. Thanks to the magic of editing, I sound like I actually know what I'm talking about :)

Home

I made it home. It was a rather grueling 40+ hours on planes and in airports, but getting home and sleeping in my own bed was worth it. I slept most of the day yesterday; waking up only to move around the apartment. I had to get re-acquainted with the futon and the recliner by taking naps on them :)

Last night, Dick and I went to Cinzia's house for dinner and then we rounded up the boys and went out to drink a few beers and show off my newly acquired pool skills. They weren't near as good as I remember them being in Antarctica so it must be something about the southern hemisphere...maybe a rotation thing.

Here are a few pictures from the last days down there:

I've got a few errands to run today then it's off to Minneapolis to spend some time with Elizabeth. I'll be traveling (don't worry, just around the midwest) for the next couple of days/weeks, but I'll be in radio contact.

I just want to thank everyone who followed along with me on this journey. It was fun doing the blogging and it was great hearing from everyone who was reading along. Every time I got a comment or an email from someone who found the blog, it boosted my spirits and made for a great day. So again, thanks.

Game Off

Well we just brought the last of the cargo over, so we're officially done! I took my bags over last night, so we're just waiting until the flight tonight. We fly from the ice around 10PM, which puts us in Christchurch around 3 or 4AM. I'll probably just hang out at the airport for a bit and then catch my flight home. So hopefully the next blog entry will be from home.

The Ice Breaker Cometh

The Odin arrived today, just in time to see the main group of ANDRILLians off:

This picture is from last night. It was still a ways off the point, but this morning it made it to base. I wonder if they heloed people across so they could sleep on terra firma. The Polar Sea is still bringing up the rear, and no sight yet of the main supply vessel.