mac makeover

Sorry for the slow pace of updating these days; I think there are
probably two distinct reasons behind the slowness. First we have
reentered the last zone on earth where the email has to be sent by
the "iridium" satellite instead of the "inmarsat". Not that the
inmarsat is hugely fast, but apparently the iridium is extremely slow
(effectively 1.9k/s) and needs constant monitoring because it cuts
out. We actually were in this zone for a while in Pine Island Bay a
few weeks ago, and that happened to be timed with the day my partner-
in-crime Brice had to send of a very important paper, which he had to
shrink with all methods available and then send in six parts. 4
hours later, the paper was sent (we think).

The second is that I've been battling with a little bit of burnout,
especially towards the end of the day, when I'd been writing my
commentary. It's actually a weird mix of burnout and stir-craziness
-- most times I feel like running around the ship or playing some
soccer out on the ice. The work schedule, even though it's 12-13
hours/day and no weekends, isn't all that hectic, and some of the
time if there's a lot of time between stations, you can play pingpong
on your watch. But I'm finding it hard to sit down and work on the
final cruise report and/or extra work and/or preparation for my
reentry into a normal work schedule/environment.

I'm spending a lot of time -- mostly before I go to sleep after
dinner -- taking advantage of my new mac. As some of you know, I've
recently switched from stodgy pc guy into cool and laid-back mac
dude. Up until this point I've justified it based on the behind-the-
scenes UNIX platform, speed, and other solid practical reasons. I'm
not spending a lot of time working on "garage band".

But now that I've been a mac dude for at least 3 months (and I've got
multimedia to work with given all the cruise pics and my addiction to
itunes), I am not worried that no one will take me seriously because
I'm using imovie and iphoto to create slideshows and movies with the
"ken burns effect", music, and sweet effects. I think it's a
temporary cure for burnout -- it makes you remember the craziness of
what you've seen and done -- but it does feel a little weird to be
documenting before the trip is over, kind of like you're living in
the past. I can come up with a practical reason -- that it might
never get done if I put it off till I get back. I can't quite shake
that need to justify creativity.

Oh well, I guess we're all a little PC.