Journals 2006/2007

Mike Lampert
West Salem High School, Salem, OR

"Infrasound (low-frequency atmospheric acoustic) monitoring" October 3 - 18, 2006

Journal Index: October 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11             12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18

October 11, 2006
Dust and Acacia trees

I am up at 6 in the morning. We give Ihrma her gift and get a great big Italian hug. We head to the array, half way there we head back for gas, it looks like the gauge is busted but who knows. Back again to the CRF and to site H2. There we meet three workers, Carlos, Ilse, and Laidai. They are hauling rock to cover the inlets. As they do that I install the capillaries at each of the secondary manifolds. These are designed to eliminate reflection of sound waves. After that I help hauling gravel one bucket at a time.

Each Manifold has a small capillary installed to minimize sound reflection in the pipes. View full version pop-up.		The small capillary is visible here. View full version pop-up.		These guys were happy to have work and very kind, hauling rock is very tough work.

Then I drive Prof Hedlin to the airport, together with two kids and a mom we picked up. At the airport we bid goodbye. I have the car now and I will supervise the workers for the pressure testing. I get another 2000ES of gas and head back to the array. Driving through the maze of Acacia trees takes a sixth sense to locate the elements of the array. When I return the workers are no further then before. They want a wheelbarrow but all I have is buckets. They pretty much only work if I am working with them. I go to site H1 and replace the inlets with plastic caps to ready it for a pressure test. This takes two hours to do half and my knees are hurting. I head back to H2. They have done the equivalent of five minutes of work. They are being paid by the local contractor at about eight dollars a day. This is normal here. I leave for lunch and meet the guys, we have a mix of potatoes green beans and an egg omelets. Food is a big deal for everyone here, I felt sorry for the workers who carry a bag lunch to the site. Back to the array again (oops, forgot to mention I picked up two women with fish buckets). I go to H2 and the workers have left, nothing more has been done, all they had to do was place buckets of gravel on the inlets. I clearly have to work hand in hand if I want to keep them busy. I go to H1 and finish there. I wait on the guys to come out to do a pressure test. It is really late so we scrap the test and head back. We have an English dinner of chicken and rice. There are lots of people coming in and out of town.

Myself, Prof. Hedlin, Don, Clint, Joel, and Eric.		In town not much can grow with goats around.