{"id":3828,"date":"2019-12-13T07:33:51","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T12:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/?p=3828"},"modified":"2019-12-13T07:33:51","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T12:33:51","slug":"updates-for-13-dec-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/2019\/12\/13\/updates-for-13-dec-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Updates for 13 Dec 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

The 7 am view up Forbes Ave, with Pitt\u2019s Cathedral of Learning in the distance. Frank Lloyd Wright reportedly called it \u201cThe world\u2019s largest keep-off-the-grass sign<\/em><\/span>\u201d.<\/p><\/div>\n

A few quick updates this morning:<\/p>\n

-Yesterday afternoon John reported that Jim, Cindy, Lauren, Emilie Nicole and Alex were on the plane flying south as of about 4 pm thursday, so barring unforeseen circumstances they made it to Antarctica late last night our time. \u00a0The first hours in Antarctica are way too busy to expect much blogging from them; the\u2019ll be subjected to some formal indoctrination presentations, informal tours of McMurdo, demands from Brian and John (who have been waiting feverishly for their labor force) and of course the overall excitement of being in such an amazing place.<\/p>\n

-I spent a couple of hours with Bill Cassidy yesterday afternoon (that was the prompt for John to call, so he could talk to Bill too). \u00a0Although the pace of his speech is deliberate and a few things that have fallen out of the old memory bin (he can\u2019t recall Davis Ward, for example), \u00a0he\u2019s still witty, charming and involved. He has a walker to help get around now, but it\u2019s more a security aid than a requirement. \u00a0And he feels the cold, \u00a0which is a pretty common late-life condition for Antarctica vets. \u00a0There was a lot of exasperated head-nodding when he listened to John and I discuss all the trials and tribulations of the modern Antarctic expedition; \u00a0he made it clear that having to groom a runway for bigger plane to land on a snowfield was pretty wasteful in his opinion. Bev Cassidy runs a tidy, well-organized house, \u00a0clearly the hub for communications among their children and grandchildren. \u00a0She too had a few things to say about the modern Antarctica; the whole idea that we were sitting in their living room using my cell phone to talk to John in McMurdo wasn\u2019t just amazing, it was also (maybe I read too much into this) eroding the rugged isolation that defines the Antarctic explorer, making things a bit too soft. \u00a0 \u00a0I made the case that changes always happen with time, they generally happen in the direction of increased safety, decreased risk, and higher rates of communication, for good and ill; \u00a0since management and double-checking go with all those things. \u00a0One thing we all agreed on? \u00a0Us old farts need to get out of the way sometimes and let the younger generation, who have the energy to deal with the increased adminstrative load, get on with the work. \u00a0As long as they don\u2019t decide that crossing a crevasse in 4 short leaps with breaks in between is the equivalent of crossing with one long leap………<\/p>\n

-As I write this I\u2019m sitting in a hotel room near Pitt, waiting for my son Tucker to get up. \u00a0He\u2019s visiting Pitt to explore getting an MS in biostatistics. \u00a0This is of course where I met my wife, who has a PhD in biostatistics from Pitt; and of course I got my PhD here too, working with Bill. \u00a0Bev Cassidy is a professional statistician who worked at Westinghouse for decades. \u00a0One of the amazing coincidences of life is that both Bill and I have statisticians as mates, and given one of Bill\u2019s daughters also got a PhD in biostatistics, \u00a0it could be that legacy will go on as well. \u00a0At least we\u2019re never far from someone who has a deep understanding of uncertainty, \u00a0always useful in the Antarctic exploration trade.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-Ralph, \u00a0from pre-dawn Pittsburgh<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few quick updates this morning:<\/p>\n

-Yesterday afternoon John reported that Jim, Cindy, Lauren, Emilie Nicole and Alex were on the plane flying south as of about 4 pm thursday, so barring unforeseen circumstances they made it to Antarctica late last night our time. \u00a0The first hours in Antarctica are way too busy to expect much blogging from them; the\u2019ll be subjected to some formal indoctrination presentations, informal tours of McMurdo, demands from Brian and John (who have been waiting feverishly for their labor force) and of course the overall excitement of being in such an amazing place.<\/p>\n

Continue reading… Updates for 13 Dec 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":3830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2019\/12\/13072244\/F547F72C-B45A-4193-B3A4-5D42B317786B.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3831,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions\/3831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}