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.