Window Height?

So, here is a big question. Looking at the new sketch of the house, from the front. Do you think the window for the master bedroom (far right) should be the same height as the window in the living room, or the same as the windows in the 2 guest rooms (to the left)? Which looks more balanced? We're actually looking at the current plan as 2 buildings joined together by the entryway/corridor. Look at the 2 different roof heights and see how they're joined by a section of flat roof. Hmm, I'm not sure what I want to do. Let me know what you think.

New Floor Plan Ideas

Well, now that we're done dreaming, fiscal reality is setting in. We need to figure out how to design the house I want, and stay within the budget. It's not easy, so now it's compromise time.

Here are some drawings of the new plans. The style & shape of the house is very similar to the last plan, but the windows are much smaller. We're working on a way to afford taller windows, at least in the living room.

And then here is the new floor plan. It's workable though I want to make the master bathroom larger.And the old floor plan. I really, really like the utility corridor behind the kitchen in this one, and how open the entry is to the kitchen and living room. But, I can't increase the budget either.

And here is a drawing showing how the main entry should look.

Any suggestions?

Prudhoe Bay Morning 013008

Thursday was a gorgeous day, -30 or so and clear. The sun came up for a few hours. I'm glad I work indoors, but I find days like this just breathtakingly beautiful.

Our ice road is still under construction, and the wind last week pushed some rubble ice up against the island. So we asked our helicopter pilots to make a flyby of the island and take a few pictures we could send to the engineers in town. Stephan Hill took all of these, in fact there are another 20 or so I loaded into my Flickr photo album (you're welcome to go look at all of them, just follow the link on the right side of this page), but I wanted to post a sampling of them here.

Prudhoe Morning - this photo is taken on land, on the way out to Northstar. I'm guessing this is 'sunrise' and was probably taken between 11 am and noon.
Here is a picture of the Discovery Well monument. It marks the spot where the exploration well was drilled that proved there was lots of oil up here.

Here is a picture of our ice road under construction. The island is behind the helicopter and the shot is looking back toward shore. You can see STP in the background, it's located on shore, and a couple of pumper trucks strung out along the road.

Here is a close up of one of the pumpers. They have a big auger on the back so they can drill through the ice and pump seawater up to flood the area we want to eventually use as a road.

Here is another picture of the ice road, this time with the hovercraft headed back to shore with some passengers. Once the ice road is thick enough we'll switch to bus travel back & forth to shore, but for now we're sticking with the hovercraft.

Here is a picture of the island, it's 7 miles off shore. You can see all the ice rubble pushed up around one side, and then in the back ground you can see the pumpers on the ice road, and STP & the shore line.

More Prudhoe Bay Pictures

As you can see, I'm in the mood to post a few pictures.

We had blizzard on Wed, with was blowing 48 mph with gusts to 65 mph for about 18 hours. The sea ice out around the island is still new enough that the wind can move it around. So a rubble pile built up against the west side. It's quite spectacular really, and a bit scary for the folks who live out there. If it had kept building it would have crashed over the sheet pile wall built to keep it out.

And then here are some sunrise pictures. The sun has just come up over the horizon the past few days. So these are really sunset pictures too :-)

This one on the 22nd was taken from my office window at the airport.

This one from the 24th was taken on the island.

Retirement - I wish I was the one going :-)

I haven't posted much lately, but a few things have come up the past few days, so here we go again.

Mike, Skip and Manny

One of the guys I work with, Skip retired today. He and I both work on shore, but on Tuesday we went out to the Island for lunch, so everyone could say goodbye to Skip. Here are a few pictures. We rode out to the island in the new tucker, but came back on the hovercraft. And the last picture is

going through our bear gate. It goes around the island to keep the polar bears away from the workers.

LIMA - Landsat Image Mosaic Of Antarctica

Yes, we are officially in the "International Polar Year". Here is a new web site that is fun to look at. You can zoom in and out, looking at all sorts of cool images. There are also some intereting research links. Check out the Antarctic Mysteries at this location: http://lima.nasa.gov/

http://lima.usgs.gov/

"In support of the International Polar Year (IPY 2007-2008), LIMA brings the coldest continent on Earth alive in greater detail than ever before through this virtually cloudless, seamless, and high resolution satellite view of Antarctica. "
"The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), created LIMA from more than 1,000 Landsat ETM+ scenes."
"As the first major scientific outcome of the IPY, LIMA truly fulfills the IPY goals. LIMA is an international effort, supports current scientific polar research, encourages new projects, and helps the general public visualize Antarctica and changes happening to this southernmost environment. Researchers and the general public can download LIMA and all of the component Landsat scenes at no charge."

Continuing House Plans

Last week when I was in Homer, I had a chance to meet with David (architect) and Paul (builder). We're moving forward pretty well with the house plans. We should have everything ready for blue prints by early March and then start construction in June.

Here is a preliminary drawing I printed out of the CAD program. It shows the front of the house (though I've already asked for a couple of changes :-). When I get the next update, I'll post a floor plan. But basically 2 guest rooms and a bath on the left, then the living room/kitchen and then the master suite on the right.

The basement will only be under the main part of the house, and will have the cistern, furnance, etc., and some room at the very front for some exercise equipment. Plus a couple of windows.

Is it sunrise or sunset?

Up here this time of year, they both run together. The sun doesn't come up over the horizon, but we're getting some beautiful sunrise/sets.

Here is a picture taken 12/1/07. One of the guys down at ERA took it and e-mailed it to Skip who forwarded it to me. This is looking south out over the runway.

The Antarctic Sun

The Antarctic Sun used to be a summer season publication, that we all read on Sunday at brunch when I was at McMurdo. I've been reading it on line the past few years, there is a lot of fascinating research going on down south.

The web site has changed and updated this year, and it's now going to be published year round. So I thought I'd publish their link. They do have all their previous years publications on line, so if you get snowed in and need something to do, take a look.

http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/

Labels

Today I finally got around to adding some labels to my old posts. I'm starting to get quite a few built up, so this should help me categorize them.

You can click on any of the labels you see on the right side and see all of my enteries associated with that topic.

Winter - It's Here Now

Well, winter is here. It's cold and has been snowing for at least a week. I can look out my office window and watch the snow blowing down the runway.

On the bright side are the winter sunrise. This morning was clear when I walked to work. The moon was up and lots of stars. The sunrises this time of year start really red/orange. Just a faint light along the horizon. As it gets lighter, the sky turns amazing shades of pale blue.

These pictures don't really reproduce the colors, but I though I'd post them anyway.

The first was taken at 7:02 AM

And the 2nd at 7:20 AM.

More Driveway Pictures

The driveway is in and held up well to the pouring rain we had the past couple of days. I may decide to line the ditch with cobble stone, but I'll see how it all holds up after break up next spring.

And the bottom of the path close to the spring is pretty muddy. We'll look at it again next spring, but I may have a load or 2 of gravel dumped on it when the foundation is being dug out.

The spring is rather muddy, I'm hoping it clears up after the spring thaw. There is a flexible pipe buried that should let the spring water flow into the pond down the hill.

Fall Colors

Wednesday I drove up to Anchorage for a dentist appointment. Driving home on Thursday I took a lot of photo's of the color changes. We don't get all of the reds & oranges, but the yellow are beautiful too. These pictures don't reall capture all the shades of yellow and gold through the pass. And you can see a little termination dust in the 2nd picture which I took at Summit Lake.






And then here is a Friday morning picture of my lot.Greg & Joe have all the alder burned and should be doing a little finish up work today. Then we'll be done until spring.

What a difference a day makes.

Here is a picture from Monday afternoon, which was pretty nice and mostly sunny.








And then here are a couple from this morning (Tuesday). It's a bit more overcast. But the driveway construction continues. Hopefully this first part will be done by this afternoon. It will allow us to get the excavation equipment in next June to dig out the foundation, etc.

Driveway Construction Part 2

Today started out cloudy & misty, which was good for burning, so Greg got started with the driveway. Then the sun came out and the wind came up, so he had to let the fire die down. He may burn some more tomorrow, but most likely will have to wait until it snows. The road fabric is 17 feet wide, so the driveway shouldn't be too narrow.

More Fire Pictures

The wildland fire smoke continues to drift in and out. Sometimes faint, sometimes very thick. Here are some pictures of the fire, I don't know who took them.

Smokey Deadhorse

Yesterday the wind switched around and came from the south. With it came all this smoke from a wild fire between here and the Brooks Range.

It's really thick and stinky. My hair smells like I've been sitting around a camp fire all night.

And More!

Wow, I should have waited 20 min. 2 more just landed. I guess we have a Congressional Tour going on. Our Federal Tax dollars are at work.

Important Visitors

Today started out pretty quiet. Normal cloudy fall weather but flyable, so everything is running smoothly. To liven up a quiet day, these private jets started to arrive. Someone important is up visiting the field. The 'entourage' showed up about 8:30 am and Security picked them up. Then the corporate jet showed up empty about 2:10 pm. So someone very important is going home on it. I'd guess back to the UK.

It certainly is a pretty plane.

Wikipedia says:
The Gulfstream V (also referred to as the G-V) first flew in 1995, was certified in 1997, and was one of the first "ultra-long range" (~6000 nautical miles) business aircraft. Capable of carrying up to 16 people in standard seating configurations, and able to fly up to 6,500 nautical miles (12,038 km), the GV became the longest range business jet ever made (at the time of its introduction).

And here is the entourage. There were 3, these 2 Falcons stayed and the Citation left. I didn't get a picture of it.

Here's what the manufactures web site has to say:

The Falcon 2000EX swiftly rises above.
An inspired airframe, a remarkable wing and two Pratt & Whitney Canada engines give the Falcon 2000EX the ability to sprint up to 3800 nautical miles at Mach .80 and fly shorter trips even faster.

Cabin Height 6 ft 2 in

Cabin Width 7 ft 8 in

6 passengers

Lot Clearing

I got home on Sunday night, to find the guys had cleared my lot and then gone moose hunting. They should be back the end of this week to put the driveway in. Sunday was a bit overcast, so these aren't the best photos.
This first one is mom standing in front of the biggest burn pile. This is basically where the house will be built next spring. There are 2 more smaller burn piles. Lots of garbage alder to get rid of, and a couple of rotten cottonwood trees. Also one nice blue spruce that was just in the wrong place.

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Here is Jemmy headed up the 'path' from Pattys back yard to my building site. It's rather big because Greg had to get the excavator down the hill to move some dead trees and to dig out the small spring (to the left of Jemmy but not in this photo). Eventually the spring will empty into the small pond in Pattys backyard.

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And here is a view out across the bay with a few of the cottonwoods that we did save.