Gnomies are my homies

Daaaaamn,
Guess who hasn't updated in a while!
I check my normal people (Michelle, Paul, Summer etc.) every day and wonder why they don't post EVERY day for my amusement, but then, look at me. No posts since the 3rd! I apologize.

Some big news:
the LDB launched yesterday, and I would put up a photo of a sublime white upside-down teardrop balloon lifting the payload into the grey sky and up through whisps of clouds, but my computer has bitten it (AAAh!) so you'll have to wait a bit. Mykle and I cut class...I mean, got out of work YET AGAIN (thank you to my supervisor, Mike Poole, who has been incredibly supportive in this matter) to go and see if they would launch. The conditions have to be perfect and yesterday they were. It was not sunny, but the wind was pretty calm and we stood around in the the snow out at Willey Feild (not a feild but rather the ocean, frozen to a depth of about 68 meters) and watched as they inflated just a bit of the balloon and then relaesed it, the now-dwarfed ANITA payload dangling on the end.

Want to learn about ANITA, or pehaps track the payload?
Now you can!~The ANITA Website!

One of the scientists, a happy-go-lucky shorts-wearing Hawaaiian named Christian, has been kindly sending me photos of the launch.
Here's one:





I'm not sure if the scale makes sense, but that little white thing dangling on the end of the string is what i was sitting on to paint. I hope i didn't leave my sweatshirt on there, now that I think about it......





I also participated in the craft fair last Sunday. There are many fine crafters here at McMurdo, a lot of whom had pretty nice setups for their stuff.


I made crocheted flowers out of my now-huge supply of yarns and fibers, and put either a vintage rhinestone button or a tibetan skull bead in the middle of them. (I wasn't sure they were gonna sell, especially the skull one- I mean, crochet and skulls go naturally hand in hand for me...but I have no idea what sporty people down here would think.) I brought 10 pinbacks down with me, but also made a couple that were wrist-corsage style and flapper headbands. I had one week to prepare, but made over a hundred dollars! Yay getting paid for art again!


A bad picture of me at the craft fair:





I have gnome-face in this picture, but I guess I should just embrace that. I am wearing a hat that Mykle bought me at the craft fair, which looks like an eggplant. Gnomies are my homies (don't kill me I had to say it).



This picture is also an ok picture of my half-sleeve-in-progress, that Jessica did the day before i left. Most people haven't seen it. It's very light and subtle and detailed. I LOVE IT, and am going to be sad when it's filled in with color (gasp!) and more beautiful lines and such. It very much blends in with me and my personal style and stuff I wear. Like I wanted it to. Thanks Jess!



In case you were wondering, this is what my arm will look like when Jess is done...it's by Arthur Rackham (of course), from "The Tempest":