Draining Lakes

It has been snowing pretty regularly the last several days.  It hasn't been sticking around too long though, I guess since it is warm enough to melt it.  It's funny because it often seems warmer during the 'day' and colder at 'night', even though the sun has been up since October 21st or thereabouts.  

I think weather is interesting.  Down here I like when on clear days I can look out across 50 miles of snow-covered sea ice to the mountains on the horizon.  Then again, I also like when it is clearly visible in town, but you can not see past the edge of the ice because wind is blowing snow around and making outside of town a solid blanket of white.  Most of the wind blows in from the south/southwest, and there are mountains surrounding the station from that side.  It produces a lot of interesting weather effects, like clouds that roll off the top of the hills and just create a rolling ceiling above McMurdo.

I think I might just stick with the February 2nd return date.  It seems like at this point it would be too much of a hassle to get into something else.  I am sure I could easily get into the Vessel Offloading, but I was told that is 12 hour days for 6 or more days straight with NO increase in pay.  Maybe if the pay went up, I would bite on that one.

I painted a doorway connecting the old UT shop to the new UT shop.  It now has a nice, bright, badly-painted yellow border.  

On top of that Ben and I found a much more effective way to remove the ducttape from the office trailers.  We pointed a heat gun at some of the tape residue and it started to kind of congeal and brown.  It wipes off easily with a dry rag, but you have to be careful not to just smear it.  We'll definitely finish by our January 10 deadline (of which I was only informed of today).

There are three runways out on the sea ice.  One is just called the Ice Runway.  The one I landed at when I came down was Pegasus.  There is also Williams Field, which I have been out to multiple times.  Well, Pegasus apparently has a large meltwater lake at it.  I think I heard it is not blocking the runway, but it is still in the way of operations.  So they want to drain the lake.

How?

There just happened to be a MASSIVE pump in the back of one of the shipping container milvans on Station.  So we cleared out the front of the container and then they brought a Pickle, one of the small old Navy forklifts, in to move it.  It wound up not being the right size so they had to bring in another loader which took care of it.  Funny, I don't quite know where they will move the lake too, since I was told the ice there is a hundred feet thick (that may be an exaggeration, though).  It also seems as though the water would roll back into the low point in the airfield where the lake used to be, so they would have to have a lot of hose.

Not to mention, what do they plan to do with the 3ft deep depression where the lake is?

I attended one of the redeployment meetings today.  They went over how we would be getting out of here.  Again I get to pick my hotel, but I also get pick how long I will stay extra in Christchurch (I figured I would not mind paying for an extra day to get in some souvenir shopping) and whether or not I want my flight to deviate from the default New Zealand - Colorado path.   I think I am a little too tired at this point to really do too much, so I think I will just come home and maybe sleep in for a week straight until I feel recovered.

...I don't know when I'll be back again...

Well, I received an email today informing me that my return date will be February 2nd, 2009.  Looks like less than a month to go.  This date is subject to change, especially since I'll see if I can't ask to be around as long as possible for the extra cash.

People keep asking me if I'm eager to get back to the States.  While I would like to stay longer because work = money, I have missed out on a lot of things such as movies, tv, food, and games.  Now I'll have enough to buy all of that, so no big loss.

With any luck I'll get a great evaluation and get the level 5 contract bonus, which is lots of money.

New Years Day

Last night was the big New Years concert party.  There was a stage set up and other portable buildings set up in an empty lot between the main building 155, the Gerbil Gym, and Southern Bar.  The concert featured live music and would run form 6:30pm until 12:30am New Years Morning.  The bands that I saw were all pretty good.

I got out there around 7:30 and wandered amongst the sparse crowd before bar-hopping.  I sat in Gallagher's for a while just talking to several of the Kiwi Carpenters on station before wandering out to check out the Coffee House (where they were showing episodes of The Simpons on the big tv in the theater room) and wandering back into the concert which had picked up a larger crowd by then.

At one point I realized that while I like people by themselves, I really can't stand massive groups (which I think falls under the classification of a 'mob') as the level of general stupidity tends to increase, especially when alcohol is thrown into the mix.  Ah well.

Sleep was out of the question, as even though my room was on an interior of 155, I could still hear the concert across two other rooms and a hallway in between.  So I wandered back out and stuck around till 12:30am or so.  I knew where the after party was (in a large, empty fuel silo up the hill) but I was too tired to go wandering around, especially in the cold.

The concert was interesting, and some people had some crazy costumes set up.

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!

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.

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.

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'.