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.

2 comments:

mommybunny said...

Doggone it! I posted a comment several days ago but it's not here. Apparently Google didn't recognize me or something.
Is the Gear Issue job extra paid work that you volunteer for in addition to your regular workweek?

XNtr3k said...

Yes, I get paid to play in Gear Issue, but it isn't a ton extra. I'm mainly doing it to rent things without having to give up my Drivers License as collateral.