Friday, December 26, 2008

The Three Days of Christmas

It's kinda like Groundhog Day. But with Christmas. And with less Bill Murray.

The town party was Christmas Eve, here. The party wasn't bad. There was no live music nor a DJ. There was a limited bar that offered beer and wine and sodas. There was a corner set up to have your photo taken with Santa, and judging by the photo name I was the first one up for that. It was mostly a social party and I remember talking to plenty of people. I got quite noisy at one point with all the people talking at once.
I did arrive at the party right as it opened and was there until they kicked everyone out.

On Christmas day I slept in a little. I had gone to bed at midnight the night before and got up at nine in the morning as I usually do with days off. I then spent the rest of the day trying to take naps as I wasn't feeling terribly great. I wound up having a nap through my scheduled dinner time, but dropped into the 7pm dinner and wound up sitting with my volleyball team and others I knew from working in Crary Lab. I'll have to see about tracking down all the photos. For dinner I Prime Rib (they had extra), shrimp, potato (it was horrible), a dinner roll, green olives, black olives (I love olives), an ear of cauliflower, and Frosty Boy for dessert (with my usual excessive amounts of hot fudge and dot sprinkles).

And now today is the day after Christmas here, but back in the States it is Christmas, so its like Extra-Innings Triple Special Christmas. I am working Firewatch again.
Apparently a cruise ship was supposed to stop by today. Since the ice breakers have not opened the channel yet the cruise ships fly their passengers over in helicopters and then they get a tour of the town. I had signed up as a tour guide for the cruise ships, but I was never informed of the first training for that and today's training was canceled for the cruise, which was in turn canceled because they did not want to take off in 45knot winds.
I suspect it might also have been too cold for the tourists. Ha.

I realized this is my first Christmas away from family. It would have been nice to have seen everyone together at my Grandparents' house, four of my brothers and my niece and nephews in one place. Conveniently my father did not have to mail out any of the presents I mailed to him, since everyone was in one room.

I am not too worried about not being able to receive presents. I could have had things mailed to me, but it is better to wait until I get back. I also like the thought that there is now a growing pile of packages for me back home, a combination of gifts and things I ordered online.

I know, I've been a bad boy. I need to take more photos for December. I have a few to upload, but nothing really nice yet. I plan to wander around Station soon and take a lot more of the various vehicles down here and maybe several more panoramas.

I am also probably due for a shower and I hope I can get my laundry in tonight.

Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Excuse me my kind sir, hast thou seen mine brains?

My head is a bit fuzzy today.  It sometimes gets that way after I have spent the entire day reading, which I did.  Today.  And some of yesterday.  And lots of the day before that though with less obvious effects.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an awesome book series that I fully endorse (though am not getting reimbursed in any way, shape, or form to endorse as such).  If I ever go completely insane (which I may do by the end of my contract period down here) I hope it'll be something very similar to the events in that book.

Also, today I was staring at myself in a mirror and noticed a gray hair or two.  This is either definitive proof that 26 is 'Old' (as I have just turned 26 not two weeks ago) or that Antarctica is a harsh continent (I will take that more seriously now the next time I hear it, as I hear it often) and that it will chew you up and spit you out, then set you on fire and dance on the ashes while singing "I'm a little teapot" and rubbing itself down with a bowl of pudding as if it were bath soap, thus proving how much this place is not something to be messed with. 

I am sure there was a much better way to contruct that last thought, but the book I have just finished has severely warped the way in my brain processes.

With any luck, tonight will result in some quite interesting dreams and I will awake to an interesting new reality.

Friday, December 19, 2008

The Grinch who STOLE MY CHRISTMAS DINNER!

Much of the same.  I did another two days of Firewatch in Crary Lab.  This time I took a copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to read in the downtime.  I got nearly halfway through the 700+ page novel today.  Good stuff.

I checked my mail the other day.  I saw from the package list I had something, but I did not realize that I had two letters from my Grandmother.  I kind of lose track of the days that seem to go by quickly, and Building 140 (which is home to the shuttles office, central supply, and the post office) is kind of out of the way of my daily routines so I forget to check for regular flat mail.  It was nice to see the birthday and Christmas cards which are now taped up on my closet with the rest of the mail I have been getting from friends and family.  Also, my package consisted of four pairs of REI wool hiking socks.  This brings my current REI wool hiking sock count up to 5 and a half pair (I lost one in the line of duty during laundry day, I may put up 'Lost Sock' flyers).

The program seems to be toying with the notion of using commercial airliners to transport station personnel.  I have already heard about the trip in one of these from a woman who flew down in a big Airbus.  Apparently half of these things are business class (first come, first seated) and that they have flight attendants and drink service.  And everyone has a window to watch the entire trip.
I can only hope they keep these around for my flight back!

Christmas is rolling around.  One more week.  Decorations have been going up all over town and I am tempted to buy candy to dump into all the stockings hanging on doors all throughout the dorms and Crary.  Someone has to fill them.  Lacking lumps of coal, I may substitute with rocks from the ground outside for some.

Bad news on that note.  The galley staff pulled out something like 150+lbs of prime rib to thaw for Christmas dinner.  They left it out on the back loading dock.  It has since vanished.  This could be another product of the McMurdo Rumormill (in which anything goes!) but I have heard it from several people now.  I suspect to hear about a 'steak party' soon, or of the Kiwis the next town over throwing a huge party.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Still Fog

Well, yesterday's fog wall is still rolling over the town.  I have seen the weather do this before.  McMurdo is surrounded by large hills on three sides and open to the sea on the west, I believe.
The wind blows in from the east, bringing fog with it.  The fog rolls over the tops of the hills and creates a low cloud ceiling while leaving most of the town fairly clear.  It is interesting to watch this white blanket slide over McMurdo.

Since I worked all of yesterday I get today off.  Not quite certain what I'll do yet, since my Sunday plans generally just involve 'wake up' and 'go to brunch'.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Condition Fog

As I sit at a computer in the second floor of the Crary Science building I cannot help but notice the closing wall of fog that has been slowly approaching the station. Looking down along the road I noticed two small specks. Upon looking through a telescope I noticed that there are two people on skis heading into the weather. I followed the road with the telescope and it disappears into the wall. I have no clue what they are thinking. That wall of fog looks like it is over a thousand feet high and I have been watching its progress and it looks like it is fast closing. I would never consider skiing into that.

More of the same

A lot of the same still going on. McMurdo is still melting and there are large puddles and streams all over the place. Any of the dirt that is dry kicks up a lot of dust any time a vehicle goes a little too fast across it. Temperature today is 32f, which it has been for the past week or so. I routinely walk across town in just a tshirt when it isn't windy.

My 26th birthday was Thursday. Not really too spectacular, and I was worn out from cleaning out another boiler room. I managed to avoid working American Night shuttles and wound up at Gallagher's Bar where a few people bought me drinks. I also wandered around in a tshirt and swimtrunks and my Crocs flipflops.

We got new mattresses on Wednesday. They were kind of like an early birthday present. For an hour I helped the housing department and some other volunteers haul the new mattresses about the second flood of my door while carrying away the old ones. I was tired when I wandered back to my shop for a meeting.

Right now I am playing Firewatch again on a Sunday.
Firewatch had been turned over to someone else so that they could preform that duty while I was sent inside the fire suppression water tank. Initially my supervisor had intended to keep me on Firewatch and for us to constantly switch back and forth whenever I had to go into the tank, but that seemed excessive given that the key-card I use to get into half the building needs to be reprogrammed every time someone else uses it, as they are linked to your name. I pointed this out to my supervisor and he just had us switch permanently. The other guy is a GA as well, but the UT shop supervisor had decided that the other GA was probably not as small as I am and that he would have trouble wriggling into the fire suppression tank.
The fire suppression tank is a piece of work. A cylinder maybe seven or eight feet around a somewhere around 20 or so feet long, the tank qualifies as a confined space. The entrance itself is just barely big enough for me to get my hips through with the safety harness on. I had to be fitted with a respirator mask to keep dust out of my lungs, and wear a full-body suit to keep the dust off me as well.
I worked with two painters from the carpentry shop and another GA from either the plumber or welder shop. Decent guys, but I don't think liked having me around, as they have been recently doing more work and never requested me back.
Anyways, you have to rotate out workers as it is a confined space. We were only allowed to work for 30 minutes at a time before coming back out for a break. A couple days we went in one-at-a-time while another day we went in two at a time when we wouldn't be getting tangled up in power cords. Climbing in was not fun since the opening is tiny and you have the harness on. Once inside you clip on the air sampler box which tests for toxins
and beeps when you need to GET OUT NOW. The exit gets sealed up behind you as it creates a seal so no dust escapes. The foam seal has a hole in it for a large hose which is hooked up to a HEPA vacuum which filters the dust out of the air from the tank before venting into the attic space above Crary.
The first thing we had to do was grind the rust and bad paint off the inside of the tank with an electric grinder. This was awkward since the grinder was heavy and the tank is rounded which makes it hard to get close to some of the walls. Later on we went through and scraped off bad paint with a combination of brushes, a smaller grinder and a metal blade.
I never got too hot in the tank, mainly because I only wore shorts under the full-body work suit I had on, but sometimes my face would sweat. I think the other workers were getting too hot, but they were wearing jeans and tshirts while in there, too.

I got moved onto other tasks too. The foremen in the FEMC building 136 which houses most of the trades underwent relocation to some trailers outside. I had worked on these trailers before. Now they were ready for the administrators and foremen to move in. There was a lot of moving old furniture and boxes into the new spaces. The trailers looked like little more than portable offices you would see on an construction site
but with what looks like a door to a large commercial refrigerator.
I must have been the only person concerned with tracking mud in as I was the only one trying not to walk through all the mud everyone else did. At one point a large box got pulled through the mud and then carried into the foreman trailer.
The empty space back inside the building will most go to the UT shop which I am in. They will be getting an extra workroom which used to be the office for all the foremen. The smaller admin office will be turned into a computer kiosk for the tradespeople to use.

Today I am back on Firewatch and about to go back on another round. Sunday is usually a day off so I am taking a shift today. Luckily I'll get a comp day for it, a day off for the one I have to work now. It is pretty empty in here though there are people in the labs.

Only one real problem lately. The guy that took over Firewatch for me came by my room the other day to inform me he wanted me to show up an hour earlier to get the building keys from him. Unfortunately the power of being Firewatch has apparently gone to his head and he now thinks that he is Czar of McMurdo or something and helped himself to my room. I do not remember him knocking, but he opened the door on his own without waiting to be invited in.  Later on he gave me an attitude as if I was at fault for sleeping in my room and that he would would try and get ME in trouble if I reported him.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Fire fire, pants a liar.

Much of the same with a little bit of the different just to keep things interesting.
With the whole town melting all around it is funny to see it suddenly really start snowing quite heavily as it did the other day, though all that fresh snow is melted by now.

I recently got sent back to the UT Shop to help with boiler cleaning.  Another messy job once the soot is in the air, but luckily I got moved around enough to where I managed to avoid getting too filthy.

Yesterday I got assigned to Fire Watch in the Crary lab.  While the fire suppression system is down for inspection and repair I get to go from room to room every hour and look for fire.  It isn't a bad job, but I wish I had wider boots as they have been causing problems for my feet since I got here.  The other problem is every Grantee in Crary likes to think they're funny.  I walk into an occupied room, announce that I am Fire Watch, and I get mixed replies.

"Back again?"
"Is this all you do?"
"No fire yet."
"You just missed it!"
"We put it out already"
"I'll start a fire for you next time."
"Fssssssshfssssshfshfshhfshhfsssssshfsh."

I think that last one is supposed to be the sound of fire, but I am not certain.
I have a key to every room in Crary except for one: the office of the two UT shop members.  Odd.

Why doesn't the Firehouse itself run the Fire Watch?  Good question.  Everyone keeps asking it.  Myself included, as I am everyone too.
I heard that the Firehouse first wanted to run a watch every 15 minutes, but did not have the staff to pull it off and it was deemed rather silly.  Second, they wanted to install an Auto-Dialer to keep them informed of the status, but I think I heard they decided against it since it would mean lots of calls.  So they settled on having someone in Crary do it.  And Crary decided it would be the UT Shop, and the UT Shop decided to relocate one of their GAs to Crary for the task.  So I set about inspecting the building every hour and phoning the Firehouse with the results until they came in later in the day, handed me a clipboard and told me not to call every hour anymore and just to keep the log myself.  I guess Helen in the Firehouse got tired of talking to me.

Working in Crary isn't bad.  I get to see some interesting things, like the one underwater camera that looks like a small torpedo, or the touch tank which is filled with some creepy looking things, like the large aquatic pillbug thing that looks dead but is always in a different place when I check the tank.

I also joined a volleyball team down here.  Two of my teammates work in Crary so I see them daily (for my duration of working in there).  My first game was last night and I apparently did quite well for not having played since High School PE.  Several times I would dive for the ball, bump it back into the air, only to have someone else bump it back to me while I was on the ground and thus have to preform a kind of breakdance spin-in-place to propel the ball airborne again.  I think I got a decent workout and there is now less skin on my knees as a result.  Good times.

I have been sending some packages out to friends and family.  Postage OUT is actually not too bad, since it only gets calculated as leaving San Francisco.  An entire box of Christmas presents wound up only being like $12 and some change.

Laundry has become a problem.  There are only 6 or washers and dryers in the laundry room in this building and they're quite often in use.  Like right now, I would like to do laundry.  I have become quite fond of my REI wool hiking socks and tend to wear the same two pairs every day.  This is bad, as I think the wool has gone flat.  I'll start trying to rotate my other socks tomorrow and we'll see how long I can get until my next load of laundry.

Note for next year: pack more REI wool hiking socks.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Condition: Turkey

Well, Thanksgiving was interesting. 

In order to eat at holiday meals you have to sign up for one of three dining times in order for the galley staff to prepare enough food for everyone.  I can kind of see why they would do that, but at the same time it is very annoying since in theory if you do not sign up you cannot eat.  Then again they did not check any lists around dinner so I don't think it mattered.  A lot that goes on down here appears to be on an honor system.  Like then the bartender at Gallagher's runs into the bathroom with the bar unattended.
Anyways, I had signed up for the 1700(5pm) dining time, but was annoyed enough at the whole 'reservations' thing that I decided to sign up for take-out and just retreated to my room with a full plate of food and a bottle of wine.
When I went down at 5pm with my roommate to get food there was a line leading out of the galley and down the hall clear across the building.  We got in line to wait and it took fifteen minutes to half an hour before we got to the food.  The galley itself was very crowded and all the tables inside were decorated with tablecloth.

Saturday was almost a bust as far as the holiday went.  Weather outside for to Condition 2 for most of the day, and if Mother Nature had decided to crank it to eleven it would have made it difficult for people to get to food, although I doubt a Condition 1 would stop people from going for food.

On top of the weather the fire alarm managed to get tripped.  I had time to grab my Crocs flipflops and my Big Red before going outside, which was Condition 2.  The fire department would not let us hang out in the warmth of the entry room so we all got pushed outside.  Someone had mentioned they thought the bar was open, so I decided to go there to keep warm.  Unfortunately it was not, but I remembered the one gym was nearby, open all day, was heated and had tv so I wandered over to there.  Now, while usually I will walk from building to building in these warmer months in just a t-shirt, jeans and my flipflops it is still very cold to walk outdoors when you get snow into your shoe.  Luckily all the buildings are close together for the most part.
Anyways, I made it to the Gerbil Gym and hung out with others seeking refuge in the warmth of indoors while watching out the window for the firehouse to let us back in.

All in all not too bad, especially since I enjoy bad weather.


A bottle of [yellow tail] shiraz, a piece of turkey, a hunk of steak, a baked potato, a roll, a handful of green olives, several chunks of cheese, a slice of flourless chocolate cake, four truffles, and the traditional Thanksgiving shrimp cocktail.  Wait, what?

Thursday, November 27, 2008

...and made it back with all my toes!

So Tuesday I packed my bags and walked over to the Science Support Center for my Happy Camper (Snowcraft I)class.  I arrived early so I had to wait for quite a while.  Eventually class started.  Everything I learned in the classroom was familiar as the Carpentry Shop had originally signed me up for the Snowcraft push-course, which is an abbreviated course with no outdoor stay. 

Eventually my fellow fourteen campers an myself piled into the back of a Delta and made out way out to the bus stop along the road to Williams Field just outside Scott Base.  Now, one of our two instructors had told us we could pack as much as we like because we were 'Car Camping', but this turned out to BE A LIE as we still had to walk over a mile with out bags.  Our trip went past the turnoff for out campsite and then up a road to a place I had been before, the I-hut I had helped set up two months prior with the Carpentry Shop.  We piled into the building and went over some more instruction, and then practiced using the stoves to light a cooking fire.

We had lunch and then went back outside to another little heated shelter to assemble our sleeping kits.  Lorrine and myself were picked at random to be 'leaders' for the sleep kit assembly, and we kinda organized an assembly line to put two sleeping pads, a wool blanket, and a sleeping bag into a large duffel.  Then we loaded the completed kits onto the instructor's snowmobile and again walked, back to the turnoff for the camp.  Once we reached the shed at the turnoff, we loaded the other supplies we would need, such as shovels and flag poles and the like, onto sleds and pulled them over to the campsite.

It was an interesting place.  Our campsite was flat and featureless, but all around it were the remains of older campsites, making it look like we were camping in the middle of some kind of ancient Antarctic ruins (sorry, no Stargate or Elder Ones).  Our instructors Dylan and Jen taught us how to set up the Scott Tents and snow walls and the other camp elements.
Our kitchen (above) was dug into the ground with seating steps along the southern side to allow us to sit in it while eating meals or having a steaming mug of whatever keeps you warm.  A snow wall was built along the North/Northwestern side of the camp to protect us from the winds that commonly came through, usually used in a more permanent camp so you do not get covered in snow.  I had fun carving out blocks of snow for the wall, but apparently kept carving them too big, even when I tried to make them smaller. 

Other than the tents we were shown how to make two other shelters.  The first was a survival trench.  Before the roof is constructed it looks like little more than an open grave.  When it is done, you climb down into a small hole, then under a doorway into a more open room which is large enough for one or more people to sleep in.  

The other snow shelter was called something like a 'Quinsie' Hut, though I am not certain on the spelling.  To build this we threw all our sleep kits into a large pile and buried them in lots of snow.  We then packed the snow in and walked away to take care of something else, then we came back later, dug an access hole into the shelter, pulled out the bags and started to hollow it out.  I started on the digging, going from having little room to even sit up in to having standing room inside.  Several women dug the entrance, which was a stepped entrance down to a very low hole into the hut.  I shoveled snow out the access door to Karen who then shoveled it away.  When you are done the access hole is covered over, leaving just the smaller hole for access.  Karen and another woman wound up spending the night in there, and the next morning I had to go and nearly climb inside with them to wake them up, as they had piled luggage against the entrance to block out the cold.
As with both snow shelters the snow insulates heat and sound.

The tents themselves are set up like you would normally assemble a tent, but to anchor the fly you have to burry special anchors in the snow.  These anchors consist of short sticks of bamboo we buried sideways with the fly chords wrapped around them.
Since we were 'survival' camping we had only what we would normally have in an emergency, though in larger amounts so it wouldn't be unbearable.  We had plenty of food, could make our own water, and had tons of coffee packets, cocoa packets, cider packets, tea bags, and chocolate bars to give us energy.  Meals consisted of dehydrated meals.  I was lucky enough to find something labeled 'Black Bart Chili with Beans'.  It turned out to be pretty good, though I still have gas from that two days later (our instructor also warned us that this is a result of not properly preparing the meal).  To cook the meal, you needed to opened the bag, remove the little silica packet, add boiling water, wait ten minutes and then enjoy.
You know you are a rugged outdoorsman when you have enjoyed a bag of chili in your improvised snow kitchen.
Two of the girls in camp got bored and wanted to get back at our instructors (who left to go back to their heated I-hut for the night), so after the instructors came by later to check on us before heading out on skis, they headed out to the I-hut and sabotaged it, making a mess of toilet paper and arranging the chairs around the door.  Later on Dylan came back to check on us, only to be called back by an urgent radio call by Jen, requesting presence immediately and without explanation.
At one point things slowed down and people headed back to their various dwellings I got bored and decided to build something, as I had two or three hours until it would be ten o'clock, my usual bedtime.  I started off by digging a large pit, maybe seven or eight feet across.  It was maybe two or more feet deep.  I then thought I might try and build a kind of igloo.  If I had made it how I wanted, it would have been made from large snow blocks in smaller concentric rings of blocks on each level.  Eventually I realized this would take too long on my own, and so just to make it as tall as I could before bed I started cutting my large blocks into smaller slices and stacking them until finally a couple blocks collapsed into the pit.  At this point I decided it was as good a time as any for bed, even if it were before my bedtime.
It took me a bit, but I found an empty tent (I had not wanted to just stick my head in, as people were sleeping and I didn't know which tents were claimed by women).  I also took in a large uninsulated jug of water we had as part of our supplies.  Let me tell you this: changing out of your ECW gear into sleepwear in a small mountain tent is second in awkwardness only to trying to get out of your ECW gear to go to the bathroom (which, by the way, was an outhouse over a hole three feet wide by fifteen feet deep).  It is a pain to peel out of not just your outer shell layer, but also your mid layer and underwear layer.  Luckily I only had to take off my jacket, boots, and change sweaters and I climbed into what appeared to be an extra large sleeping bag.  When I had it zipped up, the opening for my face was well above my head so I had to wiggle around some to adjust it.  I then slept about as well as I do in a normal bed, but it was more awkward.  For one, even though the airfield was over five miles away I could still hear (and even see the four planes parked there).  That didn't wake me, but was odd.  It was also very bright in the tent because the sun is ALWAYS UP now.  At one point I tried sleeping with my snow goggles on, but that was awkward as well.  As was draping a sock across my eyes.  I ended up adjusting the head of the sleeping bag to cover my eyes and slept fairly well, only waking up every hour or two as I normally would to try and roll over (which didn't work with no pillow) before going back to sleep.  When I would wake, I would either notice my feet were warm and my body hot, so I would open the opening on my sleeping bag more, or my feet would be chilly so I would close the sleeping bag.
The last time I had been camping (last summer in Wisconsin) there had been a tornado warning in the county that night.  There was pounding rain and loud thunder and bright lightning, but I feel I slept better through that than I did here (maybe because I had an actual pillow then).

I crawled out of bed sometime before six o'clock and helped Tara get the stoves running.  I had noticed my carpal tunnel was apparently aggravated by the work I had done the previous day (but I couldn't help myself, I had fun digging in the snow).  We sat around as camp slowly woke, then later on disassembled camp.  We ended up finishing this early so we all sat around the empty kitchen pit and talked.  I knew we should have hung onto a couple extra shovels and saws so we could build to keep occupied, but it was probably good I didn't irritate my hands further.

Finally the instructors showed up, and since everything was already packed up we grabbed our bags AGAIN and hiked AGAIN back to the I-hut for the rest of the class sessions.  Over brunch (finishing off the last of our box of lunch food from the galley) Jen said she had just one question.  She wanted to know if any of us noticed two mysterious figures returning from the I-hut the previous night.  We all feigned ignorance, but the guilty party gave herself away with her uncontrolled giggling (as I probably would have, had I assisted in the sabotage!).
We went over how to use the High Frequency radios, making calls to McMurdo station and even South Pole Station (after several failed attempts).

Then we did the 'Condition One' rescue exercise where we all donned our state-of-the-art Condition One simulation helmets and headed outside, attempting to find our way blindly to out instructor who was someplace outside.  We couldn't see him, and only had a way back to the I-hut with the rope we were all holding on to.  He ended up giving us a break because we were close to finding him, and the rope even went OVER him at one point, and also because he wanted to be found just for fun.  Unfortunately for him the two girls on the end of the room dragged him back by his wrists.  Once they got him to the door of the hut (I was already inside by this point) I grabbed him by a wrist and hauled him halfway across the 20-foot-long hut.

After that we went outside for another simulation.  This time we picked up gear, held out our arms and trotted behind our instructor Jen as she flew our 'airplane' about the sights of Antarctic until we crashed-landed.  All passengers were thrown from the plane and most of us survived, though the pilot and the entire plane mysteriously disappeared into a crevasse which closed up on them.  So we had to quickly establish shelter, set up the radio to call for help, and get rescued.  We threw into practice everything we had learned, but at one point I noticed one of our team members just standing around doing nothing, which I thought was odd.  Later on I saw her shivering, remembered the extent of the simulation and checked to see how she was doing, diagnosed her with hypothermia (on top of her initial 'broken arm' from the crash) and dragged her over to the tent where a few other girls took over and treated her for hypothermia (they treated her for real, packing the poor woman into bundles of layers until she was probably at risk for heatstroke!).   A job well done on my part for spotting that.

At the end of it all we walked back to the Delta stop, waited, and then got back on the Delta and headed back into our little piece of what passes for 'civilization' down here.

All in all it wasn't a bad experience.  I might be tempted to do it again if it weren't for the fact I have to wear so much ECW.  Maybe next time, if it is warm enough, I'll skip some layers out of practicality.  I would not mind if they set up day trips just to go play in the snow, though.

Enough for now!  It is late and my hands need a rest.  I'll catch you up on some more events next time!




Monday, November 24, 2008

The ice man cometh

Well, I got my email informing me I have Happy Camper training tomorrow and the next day. I will get to spend 24 glorious hours outdoors. Unfortunately there is no longer night, so I won't get to experience the more harsh weather while I am out there. I will take my camera so expect some new photos in a couple of days. One problem might be trying to sleep with the sun up. Maybe I'll take the sleep mask I got as part of my complimentary gift pack when I was on the Quantas flight down.
It'll be interesting to see what happens in the Wastewater Plant when I'm out for two days. I fully expect all hell to break loose and for me to return to a smoldering pile of turtle-scented ashes.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Now Playing

I found out that my videos appear to upload very quickly to YouTube, so I will start posting them onto there now.  
As such I now have a video link on the right side of the page.  

Monday, November 10, 2008

And the world is melting

Not a lot had happened in the last week. I am still taking care of the Wastewater Treatment Plant. The other day I did have to respond to another glycol spill, this time up in the freshwater plant. It was lucky I was working on something in the office, or I would not have had time to answer the phone since you have four rings to answer it before the phone kicks over to the message saying noone is in. Anyways, I threw on some gloves since I knew the glycol spill would be messy and ran up the hill into the water plant (after getting directions, as I never did get a tour of the base). The ceiling must have been 20ft up atleast and it was raining glycol from somewhere up there. I grabbed some of the Pigs (spill cleanup pads) and started throwing those down to absorb anything on the floor. It wasn't too bad, just messy (seems to be my luck lately, easy jobs but messy) but every so often a drop of hot glycol would drip down from someplace and land on my arm. The stuff is used to heat buildings so it is hot, but it isn't scalding. It is more just surprising to have something hot suddenly drip onto your arm from out of nowhere. I got the mess cleaned up and then realized noone else was around, so I went back to the wastewater plant and went back to my chores.

Yesterday I drove shuttles for the run to the Scott Base store which was open. I rolled down the window in the van and cranked up the radio and just drove around like that for a bit. The radio station on base either runs AFN radio or shows run by volunteers on station. It was a very busy Sunday, as I had to keep avoiding people walking on the road between Scott Base and McMurdo. I also picked up more people than I drove over because a lot of people would walk or ski (on the sea ice hiking trail) to Scott Base and then be tired and walk back. Supposedly the one trail is a seven mile round-trip.

The temperature is pinking up lately and the ice and snow on base is starting to melt. Unfortunately there is dirt under all the ice, especially since they will throw fines (gravel and dirt) down on the roads throughout the winter for traction and that mixes in. There were places on the roads yesterday where there was running streams of water. This will apparently pick up and eventually all the snow around base should be melted off. Until then there will be messes all over the floors from people constantly tracking in mud.

Best of all, the movie WALL-E was on TV down here the other night. That is such an awesome movie. WALL-E is awesome. EVE is awesome. MO is awesome. The captain is awesome. Kubrick is awesome.

Monday, November 3, 2008

WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!


DANGER!

So since I've been down here there have been several days when the station has had blastings around. In the last two or three days we've had a few just next to the Wasterwater Treatment Plant, but usully they have the things so well covered you don't even notice they've done anything.

Usually.

Today I was in the vat room, hosing down the large tanks and pretending I was someplace a lot more pleasant when suddenly BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
I looked up at the south wall and several of the windows were darkened and there was a loud rumbling. As fast as I could I turned off my hose, put it down, then RAN to the door in to the office part of the building. I saw my coworker Dale (who permanently works in Wastewater) looking out the door towards the hillside where they were blasting on. The snow on the hill facing the building was all gray with snow and rubble. Looking back at the building we noticed the outer panes of glass in two windows were shattered and there was a large dent and several smaller dings in the wall with a pile of rocks and debris at the bottom of the wall. After a quick assessment of the damage inside (there is no obvious signs of damage on the inside) we quickly grabbed the nearest white rag and waved it out the door, proclaiming that we were infact surrendering.

To anyone who reads this message, send backup! We're holed up in the wastewater treatment plant of McMurdo Station, Antarctica, successfully holding back our attackers with pressurized water hoses and handfuls of biosolids.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Smells like turtles

Well, I guess its been a while since I've posted anything on here.  There has been some new stuff, but not too much.
Here's a quick photo of the galley.  Now you have some idea of the kind of less-than-ideal conditions we live in.  No live performers?  Barbaric!

So last Sunday I went out on a training trip for trip leaders.  They train you to lead little tour trips out to the Cape Evans Hut, ice caves, and the pressure ridges, etc.  I really only asked to be able to drive Deltas for the trips, but I guess you have to do the other tasks as well.
Everything went fine until we started heading back from the hut.  As you can see in the photo above the Deltas are very very large vehicles (remember, Ivan is bigger).  Now, imagine one of these getting stuck in the snow.  Now, imagine a SECOND one getting stuck in the snow.  Now, imagine that FIRST one getting stuck in the snow a SECOND time, while all of our shovels and plywood were given to the second one to help them get out.  And the guys in the third one left before us and made it back without incident.  Yup.  Not too bad.  We still got back in time for dinner, and it was fun watching these huge pieces of machinery try and drive out of snow with their tires spinning.  I have some videos of them I'll try and upload at some point (they're large files).  Trips out to the Cape Evans Hut are long and I never really know how much time it takes because I tent to fade out and sometimes nap.

Here is a picture of Williams Field a week after I was first there.  The only buildings that were there the first time were the little control towers on sleds and one or two other buildings scattered about, but now it looks like a whole small town you might pass through while traveling cross country.  It is designed to house the airfield staff, so some of those buildings are dorms and a galley and bathrooms.

In the last week I was transfered again.  The UT supervisor handled it better, making it sound as if there was a greater need for me elsewhere so I did not mind it.  Unfortunately I was sent to the Wastewater Treatment Plant.  Wow.  At first I didn't think it was too bad, and the place doesn't smell too horribly most of the time.  Most of my jobs are cleanup.  I clean the influent and effluent tanks, which are a small open plastic kind of 'funnel' that looks like an hour glass cut in half vertically and then lain on its side.  This is where the water flow gets measured as it passes in and out of the facility.  Yes, it does smell horrible right there, but luckily when I wear the face shield it kind of deflects that bad air around so I don't smell it as much.  Before it reaches this point it has been run through the macerator which makes everything into smaller pieces so at least you don't see any logs floating downriver.  
I vacuum the foam of the top of the three large tanks (foam created by the bacteria in the soup chowing on the grease that goes down the drains).  This is an easier job.  I just have to push the foam towards the vacuum pipe with a large squeegee on a stick.  This one is kind of tranquil because you're surrounded by all that running water, but at some point you remember what the water is and the illusion fades.  There are normal cleanup jobs like taking care of the snow outside the building, or the large ice 'ant hill' formed from someone now clearing away an ice stalagmite that built up over the winter.
One of the more interesting rooms in the building is the cake room.  At the end of the processing line the remaining 'biosolids' are run through a series of rollers to get water out, then the resulting cakes are dropped down into the cake room where they land in a very large box.  When I went in one day to set up new boxes, I noticed one of the open, full boxes of biosolids had tiny little green sprouts growing in it.  I was told there are tomato plants who like to grow in that kind of stuff.  Too bad we're not allowed to grow plants down here, though.
I also work with the Power Plant a little now, since the water treatment facilities are part of their group.  I was moping the generator room yesterday.  This room was interesting and reminded me of the engine room on the ship my father captained when he was in the navy, just by the sounds and feel of the place.  It was a large room with six very large motors running in it.  Apparently the next building over has two much larger generators in it that can produce as much as these six.

Last Thursday I worked my volunteer shift in shuttles.  I got to drive a van back and forth between McMurdo and Scott Base, which is only a mile or two away (seven minute trip).  It wasn't a bad job, but it seemed like most people were not aware of the shuttle rules, such as only 10 passengers in the van at a time.  The only problem was the last shuttle back at the end of the night when one of the drunks tried to push my hat down over my eyes while I was driving.  We were headed downhill towards a very large road grader at the time, but luckily I could still see and the grader was a bit off.  I should probably have stopped the van after that and made the drunk walk back (which is what they have to do if they miss a shuttle anyways).  Maybe next time I'll ask for an earlier shift when people haven't had as much to drink.

I also worked my shift in Gear Issue yesterday (I will be working all Saturdays this month, plus a Sunday).  Last night was the night of the Halloween Party (I did not go, I'll go deaf if I keep attending those) so everyone was rushing in to get last minute costumes.  I saw people rent costumes that no man should wear (let the girls wear the women's clothing!) and it was quite busy.  It isn't a bad position, though, so I think I will keep at it.  Hopefully next week will be a bit slower!

I think that is about it for this week.  Check out the other photos on Photobucket!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Still a lot of the same going on.  Today marks the start of the longest day of the year (which will last well into 2009!).  I made the mistake earlier of opening a window to peek outside after watching Lady in the Water in the dark lounge for two hours.  I must remember to squint next time.

I spent the day helping two of the other UTs out at Willy field.  It is one of the airfields.  It is interesting, since almost every building out there is on sleds, probably so they can move everything annually as the ice shelf migrates.  Even the two control towers.  There were also two large balloon hangers for the research weather balloons.  We shoveled out the indoors in one building while one of the UTs tried to get a generator started.  Why someone thought ducttape suffices as winter-proofing a building, I'll never know.  With all the amazing miracles ducttape can preform, it is POWERLESS in the sub-zero land that is the bottom of the world.  Antarctica is just that awesome.  Ducttape does start working again if you thaw it back out, but it might also have helped if someone hadn't just plugged an open hole with a few strips of tape  Some people don't think things through, it seems.

I've applied for Gear Issue.  I'll get to rent out instruments and skiis and boardgames to station residents to prevent themselves from going insane.  I might have to check out the solid plastic wig and the Hulk gloves and run amok around station, though.  Apparently this position pays, which surprised me, though an hour a week of volunteering shouldn't really thicken out my wallet too much

I may have slightly exaggerated the size of the Deltas in my last post, as I was never really up close to one, and the ones I did see were from downhill where I was working on the culvert under the road, but they're still pretty tall!  Though, apparently Ivan is still taller, which is surprising.  Anyways, I get to drive shuttles for American night next week, as the two or three drivers for tomorrow are already selected.
Thats Ivan on the right, one of the shuttle vans in the middle, and then the airporter next to the orange Delta on the left.  Still, the Deltas are huge!  Though I think Ivan is still pretty big.  I have some other photos of other vehicles around station uploaded to my Photobucket, so have a look in there.
I went on the tour of the Crary lab the other day.  Kinda dull, since not a lot was going on, and someone in the tour were trying to give orders to the people giving the tour, but it was neat to see the tank in the tank room at the end with the fish and spider crabs in it.  The fish in the touch tank was amusing, because he would swim around and lie on the other things in the tank, like the one anemone he spooked when he landed on it.

Friday, October 17, 2008

The wheels on the bus

I volunteered to be a shuttle driver, so today I learned to drive the two of the smaller shuttle vehicles on base.  One of them is part of McMurdo's Ford fleet.  It is just a normal van on some very LARGE snow wheels.  The problem with the Ford fleet with the big tires is its a pain getting into them, especially since most of them lack any kind of step or handle inside the cab to pull yourself in with.  The second vehicle was the airporter, a kind of short shuttle bus you see used as small shuttle busses in cities, or at airports or hotels.  It was a pain to drive since the pedal was awkward.  I still don't have the hang of pressing the gas.
Remember, I said these are the two SMALLER shuttle vehicles.  Ivan the Terra Bus is probably twice my height and can carry something like fifty people at a time.  I'll get some photos later, since I know where they park it.  The other shuttles I might learn to drive are the Deltas.  Those suckers are HUGE, maybe three or four times my height.  I think the tires alone are as tall as I am.  They can't carry nearly as many people as Ivan can, but its still a behemoth.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Where penguins are a dime a dozen

Someone in the UT shop shared a funny story the other day.  I believe he is from New Zealand.  Someone he knows in Christchurch took her autistic son with her to the Antarctic Center, which is a kind of learning center/museum right next to the building we went to for orientation and deployment.  They have all sorts of exhibits about Antarctica.  Well, at one point the woman lost track of her son.  When they found him again, and he was soaking wet.  They could not figure out how he got wet, but he looked otherwise fine.  Later on when they got home, she checked on him while he was taking a bath, and in the tub with him was a one-legged penguin.  Apparently he had managed to get into one of the penguin exhibits, picked out one of the weakest members of the group and stuffed it into his backpack.  The mother called the Antarctic Center, informing them that her son had stolen one of their penguins, who apparently assumed he had a plush penguin from the gift shop and replied, "Oh, just bring it back in a couple of days."

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Now with more ice!

Well, I've been working in the UT Shop for the last week, though I have yet to actually do any work for them other than label some shelves for when I later start taking inventory of one of the shop's milvans (cargo containers).  So far the UT Shop has had me helping out in the buildings supply room where they had me identify and tag used motors.  I've also been working with the electricians on the utility tunnel that runs under one of the roads behind the shop.
This tunnel was apparently completely filled with ice two weeks before, but has since had heaters blowing in it to melt it down some.  My work on this specifically was as the Authorized Attendant for the Confined Space work.  Basically, I work as a spot.  I take readings of the air with a small computer connected to a hose on a stick and keep an eye on the guys inside of the tunnel in case they get injured or pass out from toxic fumes or lack of oxygen or something.  The inside of the tunnel was HOT.  My coworkers from the electrical shop were in there wearing as little clothing as they could and still sweating like they were in a sauna.  They would come out for breaks and would literally be steaming as the sweat evaporated off them.  By the end of today most of the ice was melted.  The remaining heater will run for the next few days to melt the rest of the ice that had built up and hopefully the place will be bone dry for the next part of the work.  I never get to go inside since I am the attendant, which is fine because it is way too hot in there.  Luckily I can warm up right at the entrance with all the warm air blowing out.  I start to get cold when I'm just sitting still.
Of the three shops I've worked with so far, the Carpentry shop is the more strict one, though fair.  The UT shop is more casual and relaxed but still get their work done, and then the Electrical shop just seems more lazy to me.  Supply is neat, too.  Its like a big store filled with various machines and parts and hardware.  There are several supply offices like that around station.  

Mainbody finally arrived!  Apparently one of the flights had even made it to the runway, but could not see it to land.  They had circled for a bit before turning around and heading all the way back to Christchurch, those poor souls.  Thats roughly twelve hours there.  I'm glad they finally got here, since I've been wanting to see all the new people.  The galley is really starting to get full at meals and we're maybe at half-staff right now.  I wound up getting my roommates.  Two arrived on the second flight, they are Travis and Dhane.  The third roommate Vince arrived around 11pm last night.  They are squeezing these flights in where they can!  The UT shop holds its morning meetings in the laundry room since it is the biggest of the utility areas with enough room for everyone to congregate in, and as more people arrive, more of the bags of bed linens go out which clears a LOT more room in there.  Also, since they bumped janitors and DAs to the earlier flights we are now done with the House Mouse and DA Duty chore rotations.

Now that I'm getting more and more money every couple weeks I had been looking around for things to buy.  I'll have to start getting clothing sizes for friends and family to pick them up souvenirs from the station store.  I've also been looking at stores online for DVDs and such I'm interested in which came out after my deployment.  CDs might be nice too since my iPod is a bit lacking in tunes, though I can always borrow CDs from the library or leech off someone else's compilation of music off their computers.  Since mainbody has arrived the post office will be open more and I will be able to start sending out mail.

I was fairly certain I had more to write, but cannot remember it all now.  It is the weekend now, so I'll try and relax and refrain from using my hands for anything when possibly.  Apparently the station physical therapist says I should avoid alcohol, which isn't a problem really since i hadn't had any in about two or three weeks.

Ah well, more later when I can remember it.

Yes, tis I in my silly hat.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Tons of snow

Okay, so apparently I have carpal tunnel after all. It isn't worrying me too much, though, since it doesn't seem to be getting worse, maybe even better. This is in ADDITION to something else I have too. At least I got carpal tunnel from work like hammering and shoveling instead of something like computers. I don't use computers much in a day. Sometimes just long enough to check email and failblog.org and notalwaysright.com, or I'll bring my computer down to the kiosk and do all that, plus chat online and upload photos and write these blog entries for an hour or so.


The other day my supervisor asked me to go check on the NASA moon habitat to make sure it wasn't ripped or broken or anything. Kinda neat. There weren't any warning signs around it, like "NO PHOTOGRAPHY" or "NO ENTRY" or "GO AWAY" or anything, so I poked at it and eventually went in. The thing is VERY firm, I supposed that is so it doesn't collapse, since it is just a large inflatable tent. As I could see no damage or any loose ropes from the outside, I went in. Getting through the door is awkward, since it is like a big, thick padded quilt. You unzip it and it kinda goes limp and you wrestle with it while climbing in. Later I noticed their zippers do not appear to be air-tight, so I suppose that isn't being tested in this prototype yet. Then there is ANOTHER door like the first to climb though. I noticed the place had lots of cameras. I guess they keep track of who comes and goes. The room was set up with a heater and computer equipment. I looked around, didn't touch anything, and left. But not before getting a few photos. Job well done!


The other day we headed out south past the Kiwi base to set up the I-Hut for Happy Camper. We had to unpack a large stack of parts by hand, since the fork was broken, and then assemble a tent structure thing on a large berm of snow. Partway through this I looked south towards White Island and Black Island, and remembered people having told me that if you ever see a storm down there, you had roughly one or two hours before it hits you.
Sure enough a couple hours later during lunch, the storm hit. We had to stop grilling our turkey or peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and run outside, strapping down the large things and putting away the smaller ones either in the little red apple hut or into a Pisten Bully.

I had a little too much fun in the storm. I wound up cackling as I ran back and forth through the blowing wind and snow. I was told it was a Condition Two, but it kinda felt like a Condition One towards the end when it was really blowing and you could no longer see the nearby mountains or even Scott Base up north. I was warm there whole time, absolutely no chill anywhere at all.

Afterwards I wound up back at town. The weather tends to be better in McMurdo than it is down on the sea ice since we're somewhat surrounded by hills and such, and the ice is just big, flat, and open. At one point I was back shoveling off a winter's worth of snow from a large storage deck behind the Carp Shop. I had been working on that off and on for several days in between other tasks. I stopped and stared at it later, and realized I had probably over a ton of snow. All moved by hand, with a couple shovels and a broom. All by myself. Kinda a neat accomplishment. In that photo above, the pile is deeper on the left end where the ground slopes down into the other cargo boxes. Shoveling that much snow will keep you warm.


Yesterday I didn't go back out to help with the I-Hut, since I finally had my turn at Dining Attendant duty. Since mainbody isn't here yet, we don't have the full compliment of DAs and Janitors, so everyone gets to take a turn or two or three or four at DA duty and House Mouse (dorm cleaning). I've had House Mouse twice now. Well, since I couldn't go back out to the I-Hut, they sent me down to work at another shop during the day, which I found weird since I could have spent the day shoveling off new snow from the previous day's fall and painting an outhouse or two. Down at the UT shop I found out that apparently I was being scheduled to work there for TWO WEEKS and no one bothered to tell me. Oh well. I wound up helping the people in Main Supply inventory all the used motors that wound up on shelves during the winter. Not back working in there, and I'm about halfway through that task, but today I had to throw on a mask so I would stop inhaling dust and sneezing constantly, and later on I found out my face was filthy from all that dust, which was saturated in oil and grease from the motors. With luck I can wind up working in there permanently, its a cool place.


I found out that one of the guys I had DA duty with, and who is in the UT shop, is from the Czech Republic, which is cool!


Speaking of mainbody, they are not here yet. The first flight was supposed to be Monday, but weather caused them to turn around (boomerang). Then I think they canceled it three times now. Hopefully they get here tomorrow, since I want to see the new people (and not have to have House Mouse again). They're also backed up, second flight is already waiting. Since they can't fly down, they get to wait in Christchurch, expenses paid by Raytheon.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Condition One

In case anyone was starting to worry, I had my arms checked out.  From what I am told, a thoracic artery in my shoulder or something like that is causing my hand-numbing issue.  It is not carpal tunnel syndrome, but I am told it has similar symptoms.  I have been wearing wrist splints when not working to keep my wrists in the 'neutral position' and taking it easy and I think my wrists are starting to get better.  At least I no longer wake up in the middle of the night with my hands burning.
Saturday I finally saw a Condition One.  In Condition One you are not allowed out of any building.  This ended during breakfast, so we were all able to get to work on time.  At one point I had an appointment with the physical therapist to take a look at my hands, and when that was over it was Condition One again, so I was stranded in McMurdo General Hospital for an hour or so with several doctors and a trumpet-playing dentist.  
Upon arriving in the shop I discovered at some point during the previous evening someone had snuck in an entire stage for the bands playing later that evening.  Kind of surprising when it wasn't there when you left work the day before, and now there it is!  Saturday's tasking consisted of cleaning the place up to make it ready and safe for visitors.  All the large shop tools were powered off and covered.  One large table saw was covered in a small stage with railings for people to dance on at the party.  To hold drinks we(and by we I mean ME) had filled two large plastic troughs with clean white snow.   Later these were moved over to the shop via forklift and I assume someone carried them in by hand.  When I was cleaning up in the shop, I decided to think as if all the drunken party-goers were six-foot-tall toddlers who would get into everything and anything.  After work I wandered away for a while.  I did end up at the party, but can't really much of those next four hours other than wandering around talking to people.
Today several of my coworkers and I had Sea Ice training.  We showed up for an hour or so of classroom instruction which mainly just went over things we already learned in a previous class, but then we loaded up into a Hagglund, a two-compartment treaded vehicle, and rode for the next hour or so along bumpy ice roads.  I can't remember much of the trip, since the windows would ice over on the inside so we could not see out and then it was dull enough that people were napping for the first portion of the trip.  The compartments are heated, but cramped.  Especially when everyone is required to travel with their Extreme Cold Weather gear which takes up space.
The Sea Ice training course teaches you how to identify safe ice to travel over in the field.  Aircraft usually land on six feet of ice, I believe.  Most vehicle travel needs to be over at least 30 inches thick.  When you drive across the ice, you need to stop and check the ice depth along any large cracks you come across.  The first we saw was where the older, multi-year ice (ice that has been around for several years) met the first-year ice (ice that formed within the last year).  You could identify this because of a noticeable shelf in the miles and miles of ice.  It was only an inch or so drop, but when you dig down into the snow there is a difference in the depth of snow over each part of ice.  The ice itself varies in depth between the two fields.  For the experience we had drilled two holes, one on either side of the shelf.  We started with a hand-crank auger, which took quite a while because our instructor had thought it was the brand that was the counter-clockwise turning abomination, and whenever I tried to point this out to the girl who had the first turn on it, she kept on turning the drill the wrong way which did not get us very far.  Eventually we (and by we I mean SHE) figured it out and got it working, and we switched out as we drilled through the ice, one person leaning on the auger handle to push it down while someone else turned the crank.  After showing us how it was done by hand, out instructor pulled out a small powered motor as we started drilling through much faster.
As you drill the ice shavings come out like snow-cone ice.  We tasted this, which was sea ice, and it had a slight salty taste to it.  When you get down lower to the water, the ice shavings come up more damp up like a blended drink.  We tasted this too, and it was a lot more salty.  Now we just need the tequila and lime.  Eventually you break through to the sea water below and it burbles up through your hole. 
Normally you drill several holes along a line across a break in the ice.  Vehicles are allowed to travel over ice thinner than 30inches so long as the distance of the too-thin ice is 1/3 the length of your vehicle track/tire.  Or some nonsense like that.  
I finally saw some animals today! (live ones, not like the stuffed penguins in the Crary Labs) From where we were the seals looked like small little wriggly black things in the distance.  You are not allowed to interfere with the animals here, so we had to steer clear, though if you do see seals that is an indicator that there is thinner ice over there, since they chew their way through and just lie about all day.

I got plenty of photos in the several hours we were out there, some of which I will upload later on.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Party like its 11:29

So last Saturday there was a small party in the Ghallager's bar.  Open-Mic until 10 or 11, and then live DJs until dawn! (or at least until the DJs got bored, which apparently happened when the place emptied around 3am).  Its all BYOB, which makes things a little boring if you don't have a stockpile in your room or don't want to bring anything down.  Not to mention the bar itself isn't open until staff comes down with mainbody next week or so.  Anyways, it wasn't too bad.  My preferred style of dance appears to involve a lot of jumping about and moving around.  I dare anyone to say they got a better workout than me that night.

This upcoming Saturday is the Carpentry Shop party.  We'll have a few live bands and then one of my coworkers will DJ the rest of the night (he was one of the DJs at last week's party).  I guess drinks will be on the Carp Shop since we're being asked to pitch in $20 each.  It should be interesting, as nothing says "PARTY ON!" like a buncha drunk people in a shop full of dangerous power tools (we'll probably lockout-tagout everything, though).

I've been working on various projects in the shop when not clearing snow.  The other day I made 96 'dead-men'.  These are wooden snow anchors for tents made out of a 2x4x20 length of lumber with a 7' rope looped through it.  You bury the wood in the snow and tie your tent down to the rope.  The other day I was asked to make three keychains for our shop trucks.  These were to be small wooden fish to attack the keys too.  Someone else ended up making keychains out of chunks of wood, so apparently my fish project has been canceled.  I've been working on them anyways, since I already cut and sanded the fish, I might as well keep them for personal recreational use!

Otherwise not a lot else has been going on.  It would appear my body isn't used to this kind of physical labor yet.  Lately I've been waking up in the middle of the night with my hand(s) on fire with pins and needles, as if the circulation in my arm was cut off, my hand started to go to sleep and then suddenly caught fire.  This is accompanied by a pain that extends from my wrist up to my armpit.  Usually this is just in the right arm.  Someone else said they had this happen to them the other year when they were a janitor.  They were given a routine of stretches to do, which I have started in hopes to treat this.  After I have been up a while the burning is gone, but my right hand and arm are usually a little inflamed, my hand has a somewhat numb feeling to it and two or three fingertips usually are just outright numb.  I also can't close my fingers completely, I guess a side-effect of the inflammation.  Sometimes when I start to use my left side more to compensate my left hand and arm get a similar but less intense experience.  Hopefully my body will adjust soon and this will all go away.  Ah well.  Since it seems to just be from not being used to the work, it should go away at some point.

I also picked up some Super Glue for 'medicinal purposes'.  Antarctica is a dry place.  Combine that with the fact they want you to wash your hands religiously to prevent the spread of germs and you're looking at a lot of hands that are as rough ad sandpaper and fingertips that split.  I used the glue on some of these splits on my fingers.  Works much better than that liquid skin stuff.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Kiwi Town

So last night was American Night at Scott Base.  Scott Base is the New Zealand base just on the other side of the hill from McMurdo.  Their base is much smaller, and all of their buildings are the same mint-green color.  Apparently the designer was fond of Welsh farmlands or something, all that green pasture with white houses, so he inverted that scheme.  I also heard that was the favorite color of someone.  Anyways, the shuttle ride over took only a few minutes.  Normally Americans are not allowed on Scott Base unless they have an invite, except to use the store.  I guess American Night is one such 'invited' night, held every Thursday.  When I got there I hit their store first, bought a hat, a Scott base patch, and a couple plush animals for my nephews.  I decided to get my niece the penguin from the McMurdo store.  They have some nice things over there, but anything with possum fur was expensive.  
After that I hit the bar.  Its a decent-sized room with a pool table, a piano (with a stuffed Kiwi bird on it), and plenty of chairs.  Apparently since the Kiwis don't have tipping in their country, any money tossed into an upturned tambourine was turned into drink money.  If you ordered a drink while there was enough money in the till your drink was effectively paid for.  And thus I wound up having five drinks throughout the course of the evening without having to pay for any of them (though an auspicious combination of tambourine change, donated liquor and shot ski).  
Fortunately/unfortunately I did not get drunk, which was probably a good thing in hindsight given the experience with my roommate a week back.  I wound up tossing $5 US into the tambourine after I was done.  I stuck around for three hours before finally calling it a night, getting back on the shuttle and crawling into bed once I got back.
The interesting thing about the Kiwi base is that all their buildings are connected by short hallways, so they never really need to go outside.  It probably helps that their base is much, much smaller.  Also, their bathrooms were AMAZING.  Why can't we have nice things? (Oh yeah, NSF budget cuts due to rising fuel costs).

Today was another Condition 2.  It was COLD and WINDY and it did not help that I had to work on new office trailers, some of which were unheated while the rest of the time I was outside.  I wound up pulling on my nice, furry bomber hat which worked very nicely.  Somehow a task which should have taken the better part of the morning ended up taking all day, but it was five trailers, two people, and a lot of scratching our heads, but James and I were glad we got to work on something independently and without supervision.

Just to make things interesting, a crew in town was installing a new telephone pole a few feet from one of the trailers we were working on.  We had to made sure we cleared out by 10:30, as they were blasting through the permafrost underground.  We watched the event from the carpentry shop break room, but all we heard was a faint 'thud' with nothing to look at.  I guess the blankets made of truck tires takes the excitement out of it.
Not much else is happening, especially since I've been updating every couple of days now.  I hope you don't get spoiled and start expecting daily updates with new photos each time, though I do try and come up with something!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Jack Frost nipping at your ears

Today was interesting.  I got frostnip.  Apparently thats a stage prior to frostbite.  They keep telling everyone to watch everyone else outdoors for the signs, since it leads to frostbite.  Me and a couple coworkers were walking back from the shop down to the main building for dinner or what have you, and I realized I was still wearing my safety goggles.  I pulled them off and put them in my pockets, then touched my ears.  They felt like they still had something tucked behind them, like another pair of glasses or something.  I poked at my ears more and realized that they hurt, but also felt like they were made of plastic.  I asked my coworkers what color my ears were, and they said white.  Well, we were only right outside the main building, so I just went inside where it was warm, went to my room, pulled off my coat and then held my hands over my ears until they thawed a bit.  They were beet red for a while later, but are fine now.  I'll remember to wear a hat from now on, or at least when my ears start to hurt.  We used to walk to school in the snow and wind in Virginia, and they used to hurt like that, but I didn't think how my ears felt today was anywhere near as bad.  Anyways, frostnip you can easily recover from, you just need to get your body parts warm once they start turning white.  The ironic part is we just got done with a four hour lecture on outdoor survival and environment-related injuries.
Otherwise, things are going well.  I spent four hours today shoveling the 'Goat Path'.  Its a treacherous path up the side of a hill to the carpenter shop, a kind of shortcut carved into the snow.  Well, it used to have steps but over time they wore down from use and piled over with later snow, so they were a mess and I never felt safe on them until I started wearing StabilIcers everywhere.  Those are a rubber sole with metal cleats you strap to the bottom of a shoe, and they are awesome.  I used to walk slowly on the ice so I wouldn't hit a bad spot and slip, but after wearing the StabilIcers the first time, I subconsciously started walking MUCH faster without realizing it.  They're great, unless you accidently wear them into the main building.  The floor in there is like those garage floor kits you pour down, and the metal cleats make you slide across those like you were wearing ice skates.  Well, I had spent half the day repairing the path and making new steps where I could.  Everyone said that they liked it and that it was much better than what they had, which was probably borderline dangerous and nearly resembled an ice slide.
The seal research things we were assembling were mostly completed yesterday, which was good.  The seal researchers managed to grab a seal and bring it down.  Apparently they caught the sucker up north and were driving it down in something, so they were rushing to get the seal corral up and functional.  Kind of funny, I did not realize they would be catching seals elsewhere and bringing them in, I thought they were expected to pop up unknowingly into the dive shack where they get grabbed.
I was rather warm today.  I think the Cabela's thermal underwear I have might be a little too thick.  I'll switch back to the Under Armor thermals tomorrow.  I might need to wash them too.  I wore them for over a week and since we're urged not to shower every day things can get a bit pungent.  My Rei wool hiking socks are great, though.  I can wear just my insulated work books with them and not have cold toes unless my toes are pressing against the steel toe, like they do when I kneel in them.  All of my Outdoor Research gear I've had for the last several years has been working great, though.  The silly sherpa hat keeps the cold off my ears and the insulated cover for my water bottle has been keeping things from freezing.  The jacket is fine when you wear enough layers under, but on its own isn't enough to wear on its own on really cold/windy days.

Monday, September 15, 2008

We Can Dance if We Want to.

Well today was a fun day.  Nine hours of work outdoors.  Maybe it was only eight, since we had another safety meeting.  Wasn't all that bad, though.  I dress in enough layers most of the time to be very warm indoors, but comfortable when outside.  And it was COLD out there today.  We were assembling a little portable structure out on the sea ice for seal research.  Apparently there is a hole in the floor of the shack down into the ice.  When the seals come up for air, the scientists 'enlist their aid' in scientific research.  I've met the seal researchers already, they were in my hotel in Christchurch.  Nice bunch, though I think all the Grantees down here stick to themselves.  Or maybe I just don't know where they hang out.  
Anyways, we spent the day out in the open on the ice in the winds.  At one point we even had it start snowing on all of us.  Someone left their tool bag open, and now it is full of powder.  First we put down the floor of the shack, then the skeletal frame which was a row of arches, then over that went the blankets.  There are doors in either end and dormers in spots, and there is a heater in it so it should be warm tomorrow when we go back.
I had enough layers to keep warm.  The only time I had any issues were when I would kneel in the snow, and the cold would get into my the toes of my boots (I assume the steel toes didn't help any) and my toes would just be a little chilled.  Also, with my parka closed up around my face to block the wind I have the material right up against my mouth and nose.  There is a furry strip along the inside.  When you exhale into something like that down here, the moisture in your breath collects as frost.  It didn't freeze my face, but the sensation of having that frost occasionally rub my face was interesting.  Also, when the wind would really pick up, it would bite through my gloves, leaving my pinkies very cold.  I had a little hand warmer packet in each of my gloves, over the backs of my hands.  That helps some.

Living down here isn't bad.  I'm in the central building, so I can easily wander down to the computer room in my pajamas, or go to breakfast without having to put on an annoying amount of warm clothing only to take it off again a few minute later.  My room is small.  Once mainbody starts, there will be four people in there.  Right now I am in an inside room, so there are no windows.  It can be dark.  There are several tv channels to watch down here.  We get recent movies too.  I saw Ironman again the other day (that makes three times now), Speed Racer was on yesterday, and tonight I watched Stardust which is an awesome movie.  I'll need to get that on DVD.  
There are gyms.  I think three.  The cardio gym is also called the 'Gerbil Gym' since it has all the treadmills.  I've started running again after two weeks of nothing.  Taking some retaining.  Friday I could barely get in a mile, but yesterday I managed two without having to rest as much as I did when I was running at 7,500 feet in Cascade, CO.  Hopefully my muscles will wake back up and I can go even longer.  
There are other places to go, too.  I picked up a book of a collection of Hugo winners at the library.  That is a small little room apparently crammed into some spare space they found in the main building.  You have to go all the way around the outside to get to a room just on the other side of the kitchens.  I have not been to them yet, but there are also bars and a bowling alley.  Thursday I'll have to try and catch a ride to Scott Base for American Night.  Scott Base is the New Zealand base on the other side of the hill from us.  Americans are not allowed over there except to use the store or unless we have an invitation.  There are also several New Zealanders working in McMurdo through Raytheon.  We are allowed to use the store in Scott Base, so I might have to check out what they have.  I like anything with Kiwi birds on it.  I'll have to get my niece and nephews some plush kiwi toys next time I go through Christchurch.  
There is a store in McMurdo.  While they have a lot of things, I hear the clothing isn't the best, since its effectively just a gift shop.  Still, I like the orange hooded sweaters they have, so I might grab one.  They also have plush penguins and such which would make good gifts.  There is a post office so I can mail that sort of thing out too.

Enough for now, though, I forget everything I want to put down on here, and it is getting to be around 9:50pm and I am a bit tired from playing in the snow all day.

Supposedly the Aurora might be out tonight or tomorrow.  I'll try to catch it, since it might be one of the last times to see it for six months.  Maybe I can photograph it too!