Lights around the neighborhood

Grab a photo of a cloudy moon over the Christmas lights on Pier 4.

First Present of the Season

Looks like the First mate of the Time and Tide has been a very good girl this year as she has the first present under the tree :)

Magadan Souvenirs

Waiting on my flight from Magadan to Moscow I came across and interesting package.  Hunting and fishing is a large tourist business for the remote area similar to Alaska...which you can't really see from here but is very near, geographically speaking :)

First Sunrise seen at Kupol

We've had a lot of clouds while I've been on site.  A couple of somewhat clear nights but otherwise a fair amount of cover.  This has kept the temperatures reasonable for this time of year (no more than -22C) but also allowed a good accumulation of snow.  Heading back down to Magadan this afternoon and then on to Moscow the next day.

Bright Lights

Always have been intrigued by the apparent lack of overhead sun here in the north (and finding the North Star is a bit crazy).  Found the graphic below which shows (orange line) that the current sun never gets more than 10 degrees above the horizon.

   

Sun path
	Today
	June 21
	December 21
	Annual variation
	Equinox (March and September)
Sunrise/sunset
	Sunrise
	Sunset
Time
	00-02
	03-05
	06-08
	09-11
	12-14
	15-17
	18-20
	21-23

An Ecuadorian, a South African and an American walk outside......

I've had a penchant for wearing colorful tropical shirts on Fridays with my last few employers.  Coming to the mine site my Ecuadorian friend does the same, though on Sundays.  When in Rome.....

Test Bed

Here is a cylinder head for one of the Warsilla generators which generate all the power used here at site.  It is one of twelve heads on each generator with this particular generator going through its planned rebuild cycle.  The cylinder head is on its test stand with a jig in place covering all of the water jacket ports and then the water jacket is pressurized to ensure there are no leaks (see gauge).  the head has 4 valves---the intakes have stainless seats and the exhaust have carbide seats.

An in case you were wondering how big the valves were.....

Multi-segment Drill Machine

A highly automated drill machine just finished a 6 meter hole.  It uses segmented and threaded shafts from the rotary magazine to drill in 2 meter sections---drill, load, thread---repeat as necessary....

Stereo Saturday

A Russian mining magazine with a 3D theme cover and photos inside around on site today.  Pretty tame stuff but cool regardless.

Just after dawn this morning

Another sun-shiny day here in Siberia!!!  Looks like it's going to be a hot one...

Local Wildlife

A recent comment asked "What do you guys do all day?"........obviously hone our Photoshop skills :)

Kupol Marathon

Recent conversation concerning the half-marathon in my home town reminded me of the marathon planned for some of the more thrill-seeking (masochistic) Kupol employees over this past summer.  I went out to see if the starting point signage was still in place and it was, though a bit covered.  Unfortunately they had a snow storm on the day the marathon was scheduled (August 5th) and had to cancel the event.

And of course being the kinds of guys they are they had the route measured on to exactly 42.195 kilometers on a geographical contour map for all the aspiring Olympians.

Reindeer Games

Starting off the week with some basic foodstuffs.....some thick stew.  Let's just say this "Rudolph" won't be playing any reindeer games :)  Actually didn't taste too different than the beef version....

Heat of the Day

Looking to the south, the sun is just past its zenith at around 1pm local time.  High temperature for the day was a balmy -10C with no wind and clear skies.

Magadan Post Office

Not sure what all the gizmos on the roof are for but I was told this building house the Magadan Post Office.

The new ride to Kupol

Awesome ride to the site today.  Very smooth with the overhead wing, padded seats and a 30-40% reduction in flight time----all of that and a heated, pressurized cabin!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-72

This is the An-74 variant....

Just about done

Wandered the city last night in search of some good Russian food....ok, so I had baked pork with pineapples.  Along the way we passed the newly renovated Greek Orthodox church.  Very nicely done.  Note the offices on the left house the Kinross regional team.

Dawn over Magadan

Takes a bit getting use to the sun rising at 9:30am....lots of predawn gray though.  Not really cold---temps hovering around freezing day and night.  Looks like the flight up to the mine is called off today due to a group not flying out as scheduled yesterday.  So we all get to work from the apartment instead of the office at Kupol which was ~-18C yesterday.