Mood:
not sureTopic: Chile
Awoke to another small tremor this morning--throughout the day there were ones off Valparaiso, felt easily here in Santiago about 80 miles ESE of that port city. The aftershocks are down to about once every other hour now. The most evident result to us is that we still only have one working elevator of five in our 19 story building, and it is a sometime thing going only to floor 15. 
The photo shows the building; the glass stripes are the elevator shafts (left one works sometimes); in the foreground is the Spanish Embassy. At least there is an operator. That makes running out for lunch inconvenient. The stairwell is fairly boring--the only features of note are the hairline quake cracks there, which Alison keeps mental note of. I'm too busy watching my clumsy feet. Last night attendance at the ASAC meeting by video in Japan kept us aloft until midnite, at which time the lift was most definitely not running.
This is the first ALMA Science Advisory Committee meeting I've missed in 13 years. When my first flight was canceled and I was bumped from the second there just wasn't a good way to get there though others did. The telescope is back up, as the new crews were able to reach the site over the weekend to run it. The weather looks on the mend also. We have two interferometers running in parallel, the OSF one mostly to debug new antennas and the software and the AOS to commission systems. At the AOS the compact ACA config pads were supposed to get the antennas up there (100-200m baselines now, clearly not great in Bolivian winter conditions) but the quake has delayed the move to 15m baselines which would have been more useful this time of year. That is now scheduled for a week from now or so.
Another lovely day in Santiago. In the break before the ASAC telecon Kartik and Rao invisted us over for dinner. 
We had masala dosas, crepes with a filling of flavored potatoe and a chutney from Karnataka in south India. Kartik provided some Bollywood blockbusters for background. I brought a bottle of 2008 Veramonte merlot from the Casablanca Valley from the local grocer which I thought went very well. Alison, Mark and I had a great time. Kartik and Rao cook up the dinner in the background. One good thing about the current apartment design is that it allows the guests and cooks to interact.
