Nowhere To Go But Up

I’m going to dedicate this posting to my mom, my sisters, my dog, all of my old roommates, most of my ex-girlfriends, and anyone else who has witnessed my prowess in the culinary arts or at least seen me walk through a kitchen. During my working career I have avoided with a vengeance the food industry. I have also rarely shared my cooking with anyone else for fear of being liable for their trip to the emergency room. I seldom cook for myself even, believing that if a meal must be cooked for only one person, then let the professionals handle it. I have grilled meat outside and boiled water successfully enough, but cooking or any other kitchen task has never really come natural for me.

Today all of the various groups at this facility chipped in to give the kitchen staff the day off in appreciation for the wonderful meal they put forth on Christmas Eve. The group that I work in, science, had the duty of preparing lunch. The menu was grilled ham & cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, French fries, and for dessert we had jello and chocolate peanut butter bars. The desserts were made in advance by the normal cooks, so all we had to do was boil the soup and assemble & heat some sandwiches. That seems easy enough. We also have to refill the drink dispensers. OK. Then there’s the cleanup crew. No problem. Throw in that none of us know where anything is in the kitchen and that there were 250 hungry people looking for a well-deserved lunch. Time to hustle. One of the main reasons that I have avoided food service is not that it’s busy, but that people are not any pickier about anything anywhere in the world than when they sit down to a meal. There’s too small a margin for error and you can never completely satisfy everyone, at least not on the first try.

Initially I was in charge of making soup. Tomato soup from a can is possibly the easiest thing we had to make today. I was happy with that task. There were three large vats of soup to stir, monitor the temperature on, and season. The seasoning is the tricky part. Everyone had different ideas as to the correct flavor of the soup. Some want it plain, some want Tabasco sauce, and some want a little pepper. You name it and I heard it as a possible ingredient today. I settled on my own design of a little oregano and basil, though the guy who wanted pepper went ahead and added some. Once the soup was deemed ready, then I moved on to the next task.

My favorite thing to eat is dessert, as is widely known, so it was only natural that I was the dessert guy. As I mentioned, the two dessert dishes were prepared already. All I had to do was cut them into bite-sized pieces. First thing, I eat big pieces; second thing is that for safety reasons, using a knife just isn’t worth the effort (we have to wear Kevlar to handle a knife). The jello is easy enough; just drop a big spoon in. The chocolate peanut butter bars had a crispy chocolate upper layer then a creamy peanut butter middle with a crunchy chocolate crust on the bottom (I sound like a commercial for the stuff). After I cut a couple of rows using a pastry cutter, the creamy middle started to gush out everywhere. This totally ruined the presentation. I tried to get away with just cutting larger pieces (Neal-sized), but the head chef walked by and mentioned that I was going to kill people with pieces that size (plus we would run out in a hurry).

People started arriving to eat so I went into cleaning mode. Amazingly, five minutes after we started serving food people were dropping off dirty dishes. Now, I have washed dishes plenty of times in my life, I just happened to have lived in apartments or houses that have dish washing machines for the past 11 years. There is a unique system at the South Pole for cleaning dishes, as with most tasks that take place here. We separate everything as follows: excess food goes down one chute, burnables (napkins, straws, etc) go down another chute, plates & bowls go into one tub, cups get a tub, then silverware get a tub. The reason for the separation of food items from paper items is that we handle them differently at the other end. Everything at the South Pole that can be recycled, is recycled. There are three categories which don’t get recycled: food, burnables, and human waste. Food goes to a landfill, burnables are sent back to the USA and incinerated, and I don’t want to know what happens to the human waste.

The task for a dishwasher is pretty clear really, just empty out each tub and wash it. After using a sponge and soapy water to remove the food from an item, then everything is stacked neatly into a tray and sent into a sanitizer. The sanitizer is simply a high pressure, high temperature final wash. Utensils go through three times. There are pots and pans coming from the kitchen that go through a cleaning in a deep sink as well. The whole system is pretty simple and efficient, but the problem is that people eat in waves and drop their dirty dishes off in waves. There isn’t really enough of everything so that everyone can eat all at once, so we have to keep churning out clean dishes to keep pace with the new people arriving for dinner.

Needless to say, after an afternoon of watching everyone drop off dish after dish of crumbs and bowl after bowl of half eaten soup that I heated up, I am a little beat. I’m sure if I did it every day I would get used to the way things are done and the pace, but for a tall guy like me to hunch over a sink made for little folk, my back gets a little sore from it all. Honestly, tomato soup and grilled ham & cheese has never tasted so good. When winter arrives everyone is expected to help out in the kitchen, so at least now I have a better idea of what to expect.

It's just a couple of days until the new year here at south pole. I started this blog to track my life in Antarctica, but I just can't resist the opportunity to post a year-in-review. I've been asked more than a few times how I came to be in such a frigid place. What better way to get into that than to talk about where I was just a few months ago......

There were what I would consider three major events in 2005. They are all inter-mingled, so I'll present the sub-events and conditions that led up to them all:

1) As 2004 was winding down, I had just had a very good roommate move out. He's in the military and they ask their people to move from time to time. I went on a hunt for a new roommate to share the expenses at my house, but what I found was a sorry excuse for a substitute for my old roommate. We barely ever got along, he was fairly helpless to keep up his end of the maintenance of the house, and he had a horrible laugh.

2) I lived in a cookie-cutter subdivision on the edge of the highest crime area of Colorado Springs. My house looked like my neighbor's house, just the number on the front distinguishing the two. There was an homeowner's association, who's only function seemed to be to take my money and tell me how to run my household. I was consistently being forced to make 'improvements' to my house and yard that I felt should have been done with the dues I paid to the HOA. I despised the fact that I paid for a place that I didn't control. It was worse than an apartment.

3) I had been dating a wonderful woman for about a year at the beginning of 2005. We began to talk about moving in together, but we both owned our own homes. The first plan was to sell hers, move into mine, kick out roommate. That plan failed when we ran up against the wall of selling her home, which she had owned for about a year, for what it was worth. The next plan was to sell my home and move into hers. I called the realtor she had used only to test the waters and see what kind of offers I would get. The house sold in three days. (The story is slightly more complicated, as selling a house tends to be, but that's the reader's digest version).

4) My job was stagnant. It had been for about half of my time there since 2000. I don't blame the job, we had grown and added people. When the economy turned, we managed to keep everyone but there was less to do. It was hard to be fulfilled in a position that was actually smaller than when you started. With little hope of moving up (4 managers already for 8 engineers) or even sideways (everyone else was doing what I was doing), I began to look elsewhere for a career. The search was pretty much nation-wide, but it wasn't a full time effort. It seemed that I would look hardest after a particularly boring day on the job.

5) My girlfriend's best friend's wedding in Costa Rica was planned for late summer. We spent most of the year building up to that. We bought tickets early, learned (re-learned in my case) SCUBA, and talked to everyone who had been to find out what we should do. It turns out, just about everyone has been to CR it seemed, yet before we planned on going nobody ever talked about the place. There was a lot of buildup to this trip.

OK, those are the dominos, here's how they fell. When my house sold in early June, the logical move was for me to shack up with my girlfriend. The only problem was that it happened so fast that we never really dealt with the what it would be like when it actually happened. It was always sort of a far-off thing that we were going to do someday. Then one weekend there we were, in the same house. It was a nice relief for me, free of my roommate, free of my mortgage, free of the HOA. I still lived in a house, a better one is some ways, but without the headache of owning it. I didn't see my girlfriend any more or less than before and she got to be in her natural surrounding all of the time. It really was nice. That was early June. By August, it was time to go to Costa Rica. Finally, at last, a break from reality. Wonderful, beautiful, magical Costa Rica. It sucked and we had a horrible time. We were sick, cramped, forced to follow a pre-planned itinerary that we didn't necessarily agree with, and we bickered. A lot. I'm not saying life was perfect before we went on that trip, but there were glaring cracks in our relationship when we returned. Then in September, almost out of the blue, I got laid off from my employer of 7 years. I have mentioned that I wasn't happy there and was looking elsewhere, but I hadn't found anything. I really wanted to leave on my own terms, not when they decided it was time. I left nonetheless.

So there I was, at the end of a relationship, homeless and jobless. I moved out from my girlfriend's house and into an apartment with another roommate. I did a global job search and had some interesting leads. I did a lot of hiking, drove across the country to see my hometown, and drank some beer. Things weren't so bad really, I just didn't have a plan that extended past Tuesday. Then one October day I got a call from a desperate sounding guy. He said he had a copy of my resume. I had emailed my resume out to so many places that it could have been anybody. He was with Raytheon, which made me think it was going to be a defense job. He explained that there was a position open due to a failed physical. The job was at the South Pole.

I had been clicking around on the net applying for jobs one day back in June or July and noticed a banner about jobs in Antarctica. On a whim really, I clicked on it and read the descriptions. I didn't have any experience with any of the jobs listed: plumber, electrician, site manager, researcher, biologist, drilling specialist, etc. They had every job except for semiconductor product engineer. I spent enough time reading on the site to feel like I should just dump my resume and go on to the cool site with jobs in Ireland. By the time they called me to see if I was still interested in the South Pole job, I had nearly forgotten about it. The job title was Research Associate. I listened as my current boss Al described all of the things you do without in Antarctica, as well as the things you have to endure while living here. There was a series of tests, which the last guy failed apparently, that you had to pass before you could leave. There was training. Isolation. Lack of night. Lack of day. Lack of showers. Lack of oxygen. A shortage of women and an abundance of cold. Not much space, not much to do, not many opportunities to change your mind. He asked at the end of his speech if I was interested in an interview and I said yes. Two days later I was being interviewed in Denver. I didn't learn anything that I hadn't heard on the phone. I interviewed in an office building, not on a slab of ice. I got a call from Al at the end of the day and he asked me if I was interested in the job. I said I would think about it, but I had already made up my mind to take it.

I would not have said yes to this job if I was already employed somewhere else. I wouldn't have said yes if I had a girlfriend. I couldn't have said yes if I owned a home. I'm not sure how you could maintain a house from 10,000 miles away, though some people do manage to pull it off. This isn't the type of job you take because of the great pay, as everyone incorrectly assumes exists. I struggled to get my life in order from the time I accepted the position until I deployed. I heard from Al in the middle of October. I had to get physically and mentally qualified, which is an intense ordeal when crammed into just a few days. From there, I had to spend two weeks traveling across the country to get training for the work I would be doing here. I started in Seattle, then went to Daytona, then finished up in Albuquerque. I had a pretty good time in each city and I found that telling strangers that I was going to the South Pole was a pretty good conversation starter. I was back in Colorado in time to receive family visitors for Thanksgiving. As soon as they were gone, I drove my car and my dog to Indiana to leave with my dad. I hopped on a plane in Indianapolis, flew to Denver for a day of orientation, then the next day we grabbed a flight to Los Angeles. From LA it was on to Christchurch, NZ. I think that's where my blog picks up. It was about 45 days from when I got the call from Al to when I landed in McMurdo.

Now I glossed over the year about as generally as I could. There were walks in the park with my dog, motorcycle rides, snowboarding trips, mountain hikes, fun nights out, and a lot of interpersonal interactions that are part of daily life. There are lots of blogs about people who have interesting lives (you should read them, some are really well written). I didn't have that interesting of a life so no reason to blog. My life really isn't that much more fascinating, but it's just taking place someplace off the beaten path. Originally I was going to just send email updates to everyone I knew once I got down here. I thought this would be a better way to keep people up to date as to what's going with me without jamming up their email inbox. Plus, anyone can view this. I hope it's as enjoyable for you to read as it is for me to write.

I have promised some folks that I would put a fairly regular picture of myself on here. I'm attempting not to shave or cut my hair for the year that I'm here. It turns out that most guys here don't bother with either one.

The South Pole Traverse is in town right now. It is basically proof that it is possible to move cargo across the continent over land. The traverse makes use of a set path, a way, that-which-will-not-be-called-a-road, to cross the land. The traverse is a series of slow-moving tractors & cargo-haulers. The lead vehicle is a Pisten Bulley that has a 15ft boom attached to the front. At the end of the boom is a crevasse detector. The other vehicles follow behind and stop when a crevasse is detected. Any crevasses are explored and filled for future safe passage. There are a lot of crevasses in the ice sheet covering Antarctica, many of them are several hundred feet deep. This made for slow going for the traverse. This is the fourth year they have been attempting to cross the continent. They made it a couple of days before Christmas. Now it remains to be seen if it is a more feasible way to transport cargo & fuel than the standard practice of flying things in on Hercs.

An annual tradition at the South Pole on Christmas Day is the Race Around the World. Essentially, the race makes two laps around a one-mile course that encircles the South Pole marker. You can use any means necessary to complete the race: run, walk, ski, snowboard, snowmobile, ride a toilet seat, parasail…. anything. The winner of the race gets a T-shirt, as does everyone who finishes afterwards and most people who just happened to be standing around taking pictures along with some folks that were still sleeping off hangovers from the previous night’s escapades. Some of you reading this know of the fact that I have competed in races before in my lifetime, including a few that went up the sides of mountains and had pretty nasty weather associated with them. This might make you think that I had a good chance of placing well in this little 2-mile race. Here are some facts to keep in mind: 1) I have never won, or even placed highly, in any race that I’ve competed in. I finish all of the races, but I’m not breaking any records. 2) I haven’t run since August, when I had one of the worst racing experiences of my life. 3) I have only been here two weeks, where the altitude is 10,000ft+, so I haven’t quite gotten used to the thin air. 4) It’s cold here, real cold. Like Antarctica cold. Breathing in cold air hurts. 5) I drank wine, bad beer, gin, and eggnog last night (for what it’s worth, so did just about everyone else in the race). 6) Running in snow, in boots, is nothing like any race I’ve ever been in. 7) This isn’t exactly the type of race with a lot of competitive spirit. Having said all of that, I notched one of my worst racing performances of my life today. I managed to run about the first half mile before I felt the distinct sensation of my lungs filling up full of all of my bodily fluids. My esophagus was burning from the icy air. My legs were like jelly as I waded through the snowy course. I tried walking, thinking it would alleviate the pain. It didn’t, so I started running again in an attempt to shorten my exposure to the elements. That made things worse. To top it all off, everyone was breezing by with smiles and waves. They must have been acclimated. My face was encased in ice from my own breath, which I was sure contained three pints of blood from my splintered lungs. Seventeen minutes into the whole ordeal, it was over. My time was exactly where it is in every race I’ve ever run, right in the middle of everyone else’s time.

Pictures were taken, sighs of relieve were shared, congratulations were passed around to even the likes of me for bothering to come out and put one’s self through such a unique kind of torture. Everyone filed up to the galley to partake in Christmas brunch. Having half of the station show up at once for food overwhelmed the galley, so there were waits for omelets and seats. Brunch was essentially leftovers from our Christmas feast, which might possibly be the best leftovers I’ve ever had. I was coughing incessantly trying to remove whatever had collected in my lungs during the race. I made my way back to my room after stuffing myself with much needed fuel. I laid down for a nap. The coughing diminished after a few hours, but I still have a tingle in my throat when I see the color white or think about being able to see my own breath.

So, how was your Christmas?

The celebration of Christmas at the South Pole is very similar to the celebration of just about anything down here. We eat. We eat good. We eat a lot. Then there's drinking and dancing. I've not mentioned too much about the food down here in general, but it's really good. For Chirstmas they bring in special shipments of "freshies" and there are a lot of extra people helping out with the preparation. Freshies are a special treat: green salads, fruit, fresh crab & fish. In addition to crab & salad, we also had the south pole famous beef wellington, which is filet mignon with a flakey breading on the outside. Mmmm. There was also pumpkin, fresh mashed potatoes, asparagus, and tomatoes. Mmmmm. Then there was the dessert. Dessert came in waves of cakes, pies, and candies. We had porters bringing us wine & coffee and taking our dishes when we're done. Having someone wait on you and having fresh foods is such a treat when you're deprived of it for a few weeks. Everything was made by hand with a lot of special effort by the staff and helpers here. They did a wonderful job.

The eating took place in three groups of people. Our galley isn't large enough to hold all 250ish people here right now all at once. Before the meal even started they had finger foods set up in the hall to appetize the other groups waiting to eat. You could fill up just waiting to eat. After everyone had a run at the food, then the galley was turned into a dance hall. I think they're still out there dancing now. Many people went off to play board games, pool, ping pong or just watch a holiday movie. I heard tell that there was even some drinking happening in a few isolated instances.....

Yesterday I got a rare opportunity to drive the Pisten Bulley through the 'quiet sector' on the way to visit a seismic vault (here's another vault). I actually hitched a ride with a couple of surveyors who were checking to see how much the ice had shifted between the south pole station and the vault. On the way out we stopped several times so the survey guys could take their measurements. Kurt, the surveyor who was driving, comes from North Dakota, spends his summers in Alaska, and his winters in Antarctica. I'd say he's used to the cold. I enjoyed the heck out of the ride. I got to stare at the vastness of the 'quiet sector'. The quiet sector is so-named because no machinery operates there (except with special permission, like our trip). The reason is to get good scientific data on the earth and atmosphere. That's why we put a seismic vault out there. The area is aptly named. You could see nothing for miles and miles except vast blankets of snow. The sun was hanging just to the right of the direction that we were driving and it caused the snow to sparkle in front of us. I saw every color flowing all at once in front of us. It really was like driving (sailing really, the way the Pisten Bulley handles) on a sea of diamonds. I tried to take several pictures of it, but I think it's something that only can be captured by the human eye, so I'm not going to bother posting any of them. Maybe it was my novice picture taking skills. A departing Herc did a fly-by right overhead as we were driving and the best shot I could take was as it was backwashed by the sun.

We got out to the vault after about an hour of driving. It's only five miles out, but with the speed of the PB and our frequent stops, an hour was pretty quick. I could just about walk it in that amount of time, especially with the weather we've been having here. The vault is nothing too exciting. It's a deep pit with seismic meters at the bottom. Next to it is another vault full of the control equipment. That room has the look and feel of a cold war bomb shelter. It had emergency provisions just in case the weather turned foul while you were visiting. It is heated and comfortable. Other than no latrine, I could see myself waiting out a mushroom cloud down there. It would be a rockin' spot for a party other than the extreme difficulty in getting there.

There is graffiti that passes as a sign-in sheet that I added my name to (about twenty people have made it to that place). I made my checks, aligned a wayward wind-meter , and got back in the PB. Kurt offered for me to drive, which I gladly accepted. I drove the PB like I was going through the perfect storm. Kurt, the conversive driver on the way out, turned into a wide-eyed, white-knuckled passenger on the way back. I think I got up to 20mph at one point, which is the PB's top speed. Other than stops on the way back to pick up the surveying equipment, it was a seamless drive on another spectacular day at the south pole.

Merry Christmas, a few days early. I've decided to get this out there for all of the people who will be busy with last minute shopping, arranging celebration plans, organizing feasts, and generally having too much holiday cheer. There isn't too much hustle & bustle as the holidays roll through the South Pole. We're looking forward to a rare day off, a fine meal of beef Wellington, and a few extra activities (like a race, gift exchange, pool tourney, and special religious services).
I should make a comment about the picture above. In it you will see prominently displayed, from left to right: An American flag, a profile of the official south pole marker and placard, the ceremonial south pole marker (the little globe on the barber shop post), flags from various countries (I'm still trying to figure out what the pale blue & white flag is, without looking it up), the orange building is Skylab (condemned and soon to be torn down), me, background is the old south pole station dome, foreground is our Christmas tree (made of piping, snowmobile chains, antenna, chains, saw blades, scrap metal....you know, all of the stuff that you find naturally in Antarctica). For reference, if this picture panned a little further to the right, you would see the new station on stilts.
I hope everyone is having a good holiday season. From the bottom of the planet, Merry Christmas.

My past weekend was marked by two large events: mass mayhem and sleeping in freezing conditions.

Before going into details I should set the stage a bit. The South Pole in isolated, maybe more so than just about any other place on earth that is actually inhabited by humans. More people have been up Mt. Everest than to the South Pole. Getting people and things in & out of here is tricky, though the people who are experts at it make it look easy. Having said that, there are certain duties that are required of even temporary visitors that normally would be accomplished by a full time person, i.e. cleaning & cooking. A more station-wide responsibility of every individual is responding to trouble. There are two specific groups to deal with trouble in its most common forms: fire rescue and trauma team. The fire team puts out fires, cleans up spills, and is the first responders to the scene of a reported problem. The trauma team comes in and cleans up the wounded, getting them to the medical area as fast as possible. Every winter-over has to participate in either one or both of these programs, simply because we can’t staff a full time team of each. To train people, many of which (including me) have no experience or knowledge of what to do in an emergency, there are weekly meetings that include role-playing and mock-ups of real scenarios. Every few weeks there is a test of our readiness, a drill so to speak. The drills are worst-case scenarios that will push the limits of what our teams can respond to and ideally are not known about by the general station population.

This weekend we had a drill that simulated an explosion in our power plant. Several people were injured in various ways and there was a fire to extinguish. I’m the new guy and haven’t been properly trained in the ways of emergency response yet, so I got to be an observer. My job was to watch everything that was happening to what was done right and wrong. This was tricky for me since I haven’t been trained enough to know what was right and wrong. When the alarm went off, I was surprised to see how fast the first responders were in reaching the situation. There were people fully geared up for fire and other hazards within a couple of minutes. Everyone was quick and professional. There was a certain amount of confusion, but that is inherent to the drill. It’s difficult to simulate smoke and heat, so people have to be told about it. The same goes for injuries. Normally you can look at someone to tell that they’re hurt, but we have to improvise these things. The whole thing took about an hour, was very stressful for certain people (it was stressful for me to watch anyway), and it probably involved about 50-60 responders. Afterwards there were meetings to discuss how things were handled before having our evening dinner.

After dinner I had to meet up with several people that were going camping. There were about a dozen of us who had signed up for a recreational camping trip. There was an informational meeting the previous night that explained the dos and don’ts of Antarctic camping. We met and organized our groups. It would take two trips to our campsite to get all of the people and equipment there. Two of the guys decided to ski out to the camp, which was about 4km (~2.5mi) away. The rest of us rode out in Piston Bully transporters. The PBs do not have tires, but rather treads like a tank or snowmobile. They can turn on a dime and uncomfortably hold about 9 passengers plus one drive. I want one J. The trip out took in the PB took about 20 minutes. I was in the first group out so we were tasked with immediately establishing shelter. The campsite consisted of a couple of semi-permanent tents (called Scott tents, after the south pole explorer), an igloo leftover from a previous camping trip, a wind barrier made of blocks of snow, and a primitive latrine. One of the Scott tents was designated as cooking tent. We set up 4 portable tents plus one more Scott tent while we were there.

Other than assembling tents while we were there, we were allowed to dig trenches & snow caves, we repaired & expanded the wind barrier, and learned a few more cold weather survival techniques. When all of the work was done, we raided the food cash and heated some water for refreshments. Several of us decided to play Frisbee. Frisbee down here is very different than Frisbee I’ve played in the summer back home. You can dive with little fear of serious injury (it still hurts), but running with ECW gear on is difficult and exhausting. Most of the activity started winding down around 1:30am as many of us found a tent, igloo, cave, trench, or hole to crash in for the night. Most people slept very soundly, but I am notorious for my inability to sleep in a tent and this was no exception. I listened to the sounds of snoring, the wind gently rearranging the camp, and the occasional footsteps out to the bathroom tent, all under the ever-present Antarctic sun. The next morning we took everything down, including most of the things that were there when we arrived. We are the last planned trip to the campsite for the season so we had to bring it all back to base. Once at base, we had to hang everything up to dry, have a quick brunch, then back to bag everything back up for the season and finally a debrief. During the whole camping experience, I was never cold. We were well prepared to stay warm, we stayed busy, and the weather was Antarctic pleasant.

I was certainly ready for a nap after all of that, but I had a fire meeting. I have been designated for the fire response team, mainly because that is where the greatest need is. I have no preference for which team I’m on and there is a lot of overlap between fire and trauma. Since there was a drill the previous day, the meeting consisted of watching a movie about fire. The movie was Towering Inferno. This is a bad movie with a lot of really good actors. I’ve seen it before, but it’s different watching it with a bunch of fire people. We basically made fun of all of the things that were wrong, similar to Mystery Science Theater. The only problem I really had with the whole thing is that it’s a long movie and I was still sleep deprived.

After the ‘meeting’ I had dinner. I thought about taking one of my two showers for the week while running my one weekly load of laundry, but that seemed like a lot of work. I still had to complete my write-up from the drill the previous day in addition to my weekly work summary. I decided to skip all of that in favor of watching Barton Fink in my room. There was a science lecture later in the night that I attended before finally crashing late. I slept completely through our satellite coverage for internet & phone, which has been reduced due to problems with one of the satellites. That was the most I’ve slept straight through the entire time I’ve been here and for many months before.

After getting a job that flew me down here and pays all of my living expenses at the south pole, it's hard to imagine that there are people out there who are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to come visit. I suppose though that it's no different than a kid running a ski lift wondering why people would pay to ski. Right now there are 5 tents out by the south pole all full of tourists who got here by various means. Last week we had a really big van drive here in 69 hours, which was a new world record. The drivers gave a speech afterwards talking about why and how they did it. Why? They had lots of money. How? They spent lots of money (and skipped sleeping for three days). A large group of Asian tourists stopped by to take pictures and buy up half of the items in our little shop. When I first arrived, a Norweigian group skiied here at a record pace.
The south pole is free. There are no park fees. Anyone is allowed to do pretty much what they want when they get here. You can hang out at the south pole as long as you can endure. All of Antarctica is protected by international treaty. It just happens that there is major research going on at the south pole, for which large sums of money have been spent. That money wasn't intended to help support tourism. So, if you decide to hike, ski, drive, fly, mush, sled, motorcycle, or snowmobile to the south pole, you had better have a plan on what to do while you stay here and a really good plan on how to get out. There have been several cases of people exhausting their supplies on the trip in, hoping to catch a flight out on one of the military aircraft. WRONG! They usually find themselves begging their goverment to bail them out of a bad situation. Other than a tour of the facility by our manager and access to the shop for souvineers, we aren't allowed to offer assistance to those who find themselves camped out at the south pole. Having said all of that, it is nice to see people from the outside world and go visit with them. They often have wonderful stories, unique perspective, and great attitudes. It's a lot of fun to take pictures of people taking pictures of you.

The reality of work is starting to set in down here. The job is going to be varied (see my previous post for some details), especially for the summer. The biggest job right now is working on the transition from the old building to the newer facility. Actually, there are two old buildings and two new buildings. My lab area was in the dome and is moving to the about-to-be-completed stilt building in which I also live, eat, and recreate. Most of the measurment equipment that I'm responsible for is transitioning from Skylab (not to be confused with the space station) to a building on the outskirts of town referred to as ARO. The experiments at ARO take measurements of lights in the atmosphere, such as the Aurora Austrailis. I'm also responsible for a small project that measures RF activity in a shed that's also far off in the distance, which I refer to as Radio Shack. The dome and Skylab will be demolished this winter, ending a 40 year run. These older buildings have plenty of personality and history, but they are slowly being swallowed up by the drifting snow (there is about 5-8 feet of drift per year). The new building is on stilts and already the snow is starting to accumulate around these stilts, requiring a constant snow removal effort. There is a vast, winding network of underground tunnels that connect most of the buildings. It's fascinating to walk down these tunnels, which offer no protection from the cold. Often, the temperature in the dome or the tunnels is colder than outside. There is protection from the wind and drifting snow.
For the next few weeks, several of the representatives from the various universities and scientific organizations that oversee these projects will come to visit the south pole. I'll work closely with them to get everything set up and working in the new location. Part of the experience of this job is getting to rub shoulders with some of the finest minds in their fields. Those researchers that I have met so far have been not only sharp, but also very pleasant individuals. I look forward to the upcoming work as it is very different from anything I've ever done, location notwithstanding.

Despite hardly any mention of it up to this point, the reason that I came to the south pole was to actually do a job. The job description, as with the job description for every job I've ever had, doesn't really encompass everything that I'll be doing. I am supposed to be collecting data for various researchers from around the country. I setup, operate, and maintain sensitive equipment. I analyze data to see if there is any discrepancy with what is considered normal. I relay information to the researchers and help them troubleshoot problems. All of that I was told ahead of time. Of course, with any job description there is a clause somewhere that states that you will perform other tasks as is seen necessary by management. That's where they get you. That's where they can have you mop the floor, clean the toilet, or dig a ditch........ In my case, I got to dig a ditch 6ft x 3ft, 7ft deep. The good news for me was that it was through packed snow and not permafrost. The snow, while almost ice-like, was still just snow. It is a fine hole. I get to fill it in this weekend I think.Last night I attended a trauma team meeting. They did some role playing to get used to real critical events. Basically, there are two response teams on site, trauma & fire. I have to join one or the other since I'm wintering over. Everyone is responsible for emergencies during the winter. I'm not sure how comfortable I would be helping somebody with a gaping hole in their abdomen, so I might steer towards the fire department. In my life I have started fires and caused injury, but I've never been on the clean up portion of either of those things.

I'm going to dedicate this posting to my photos taken at the south pole markers. There are two markers: one is a ceremonial marker with a globe, the other is the true marker with a plaque. The reason for this is that the ice shifts by about 30ft each year (this is why there are no roads to the south pole....yet). The ceremonial marker stays on the same piece of ice from year to year, while the plaque is rededicated each year on New Year's day. The plaque is the true south pole designator.
It is traditional for people to bring their home country flags, a poster of their mom, even their bowling league insignia, and pose at the pole. Usually at that point, people crazy enough to do so will strip down naked and pose for a picture or two. Now, I'm not saying that I'm opposed to that necessarily, but the guy that took the picture was my boss. Also, my mom looks at this site. So, the pictures here are just of me shirtless. The temperature was -3F and there was no wind, so this isn't all that impressive.

I had a chance to tour the biggest project running at the south pole. The IceCube project was having an open house. They are located a short shuttle drive away from the main building. I was in a group with about 6 other guys. We showed up at the entrance and were given hard hats. It was more like a tour of a construction site than a science experiment. It just happens to be a very large science project. I could try to describe what they're doing, but it wouldn't be as accurate as just going to this website: http://icecube.wisc.edu . The whole setup covers a few square kilometers (sorry folks, they gave me all of the stats in metric). Basically the whole place is a giant ice-drilling project. They aren't using mechanical drills, but rather heated water to penetrate 2400meters through the ice. They do this to reach the purest ice in the world. Once the hole is drilled, they drop a string of sensors into the ice and let water refreeze around the sensors. During the tour, we were walked through the drilling process, the water treatment area, the data collection, and the little shack where they let the scientists hang out. The project has one successful hole drilled, with plans for up to 80 total. Since everything is in it's early stages, most of the buildings are nothing more than trailors, sheds, tents and other temporary shelters. On a personal note, I froze the whole time because I mistakenly thought it was going to be a mostly indoor tour and didn't wear my full ECW. I should have known better with a name like IceCube.
Sundays are days of rest here at the south pole. Even though the job I'm here for doesn't really get real days off, the mood is much more relaxed on Sundays nonetheless. After the tour I ate another fine meal served in our galley, shared some wine with a couple of USC researchers, then stuck around for a lecture given by a top NSF manager on the various science projects they are working on around the world.
I did a little exploring as well. I found the post office/store. The store has knick-knacks that you might have forgotten or run out of such as toothpaste & deoderant. They also carry a good supply of souvenirs. The price is jacked up on everything since there's so many extra people here. I've heard that there's a big sale in the middle of winter. One other place I stopped by was the greenhouse. We grow our leafy vegetables there for the winter so we'll have fresh salads. It's also a place for winter-overs to catch some rays once the lights go out. I still haven't wandered out to the actual south pole marker, mainly because I'm trying to adjust to the conditions still, but also because I'm here for a long time and I'll have plenty of chances to visit it.

I've spent a whole day at the south pole and I can say that probably the best way to describe things here is that it's a government funded Utopian society. There is a strong sense of community here and everyone is considered an old friend. People came up and introduced themselves to me, the new guy, then instantly they were telling stories about me to passers-by and introducing me to their friends that they've known since way back in Novemeber. You serve a purpose, make a contribution to the community, and you are rewarded with a free place to stay, all of the food you can handle, access to several (indoor) entertainment options, and the opportunity to rub shoulders with the brightest scientists and some of the hardiest indivduals on the planet. You're asked to pitch in when possible (everyone here is on either the fire department or the accident response team) and you're expected to conserve & recycle everything. Hardly any of the men shave and hardly any of the women wear makeup. Most people are smiling, even when they're bitching. Everyone has a great story to tell, even if it's just about the simple task that was accomplished in -40 degree temperatures earlier that day.
Yesterday there was a group of Norwegians that were skiing across Antarctica who were camping outside in pup tents. Later that day we had our annual community-wide bingo game with cool prizes, most of which you can't use until you leave here. Tomorrow there is an open house for the largest science project down here, IceCube.
I haven't been put to work yet, at least not on what I'll eventually be working on. I helped work on a a few things with Bob, who was showing me the ropes most of the afternoon. Bob has an incredible capacity to memorize things. He was telling me minute details of people and things that he himself has been exposed to for only a few weeks. Bob, Mark, and myself (the three winter over techs) are all here for the first time. We had a meeting with our boss Al explaining a lot of the facts of life down here. Al looks a lot like what you would picture Santa Claus to look like after he's finished his deliveries.
The one task that I did do that required a little physical exertion was to carry some old drawers to the recycling bin. They were small metal filing drawers from the old building that we're moving everything out of and I only had to carry them out a door, down some stairs, and over to a bin. Going outside requires putting on the ECW gear, which restricts your motion and dexterity, but otherwise is just a hassle to put on for such a short task. I was following Bob while we carried this stuff and I realized that I was getting pretty winded. Coming from CO and having kept myself in pretty good shape didn't make a difference. I haven't acclimated to the conditions here and I could see why they're not just having me jump in a do things right away. If they did, I would either mess it up or hurt myself. Bob took me across the ice to one of the stations that we're responsible for. It was -10 degrees F, but the wind was blowing in our face. I had put on all of my ECW gear except for something to cover my face. Wow, I thought it was going to fall off. I could have zipped my parka over my face, but that would require taking my mittens off and I didn't like that idea either. The walk took about 5 minutes probably, but by the time we were in the station I was sweating under my ECW, breathing hard, and I couldn't feel my face.
I have promised to keep a photo record of the progress of my hair growth while I'm at the south pole. That's me on the right. It's been about a week since my last shave and a day or so since my last shower. We're allowed two 2-minute showers per week and I got my first one out of the way as soon as I landed. I have turned into a booger-making-factory since I've been here. I thought it was dry in CO, but there is just no moisture here. I haven't woke up in the middle of the night short of breath like some people do, but I am noticing the thin air as I mentioned before. I drink water and juice all of the time, I'm constantly putting on lip balm and hand lotion, but I still feel like I'm slowly drying up. Having to wash your hands everytime you think about germs doesn't help with dry hands. There's a big push here to keep cold & flu at bay, so you pretty much have to wash your hands each time you touch a doorknob. That makes getting out of the bathroom after you've washed your hand kind of tricky. It's interesting how we're supposed to conserve water by not taking many showers, but we excessively wash our hands and drink water. I can understand the effort though. This site is near capacity of 250 right now, so they have to do what they can to keep waste minimized.

I'm There!
Arriving at the south pole ice field two things struck me right away. One, it was much, much colder than it was in McMurdo. It hurt to not be wearing the ECW gear. Two, my head felt much as it did when I would hike a mountain or when I first went to Colorado. Yep, we were certainly at high altitude. I have been residing at 6000 ft for the past eight years, but I've spent most of the past couple of weeks at low altitude. Needless to say, I wasn't going to be spared all of the effects of living at 10,000 feet.
I was met off of the plane by a crowd of onlookers, two of which I recognized. One was Kathie, who I had interviewed with and the other was Al, my boss who I had yet to meet in person but knew from a picture. Kathie was leaving on the same plane I flew in on. Al, whose white beard was covered in ice, introduced me to Bob and Mark, two other gentlemen doing my same job. Mark offered me a snowmobile ride up to the building, which I gladly accepted. It would have been a long walk and I could already feel my ears starting to rot off in the cold. The wind on the ride wasn't helpful, but the ride was short. We entered the building through a meat-locker door at the top of a stairway. It was a relief to be inside after all of 8-10 minutes out in the cold.
Once everyone else was inside from the flight, we had "the world's fastest orientation", which turned out to be no more or less informative than any of the longer versions. I was helped to my room by Mark and Bob, who insisted that I shouldn't carry anything because I was tired from my ordeal and I didn't argue much. I immediately took a much overdue shower, then proceeded to organize my room. Ah, my room. It is bigger than a cubicle, but not by much. There is a bed, desk, and wardrobe. I have my own phone and walls as thin as paper so everyone next door can listen. It's certainly not anything to get excited about, but it's adequate and I was prepared ahead of time for the living conditions. I met Bob in the hallway a little while ater and we ate with the MidRats (the overnight crew eats at midnight). I got to know enough about my new coworker to realized that we were probably going to get along just fine, but with little in common. His career is longer than my life and he's been teaching at Cornell for the past few years.
After MidRats, I decided to hit the hay. I wasn't really tired, I just didn't want to adopt a night shift schedule right away. It's easy to do since the sun was shining brilliantly at 12:30am. Luckily(?) I have no windows in my room.

Yesterday, with no doubt that we weren't going to be flying, I actually embarked on a few fun activities. I ran into a couple of the guys that I flew in all the way from Denver with during dinner. Joel, a fireman, and Ben, a hitch-hiker (really, go see his site bassdrumben), are both spending the year here in McMurdo. They were going to try to climb the hill outside of town after we were done. I kept thinking about how it was going to get dark while we were up there, but then I remembered, "Oh yeah, that won't happen for 5 more months". We gathered our ECWs and started the walk through town up towards the peak. The wind was feroucious. I could understand why no flights were going out. As we walked closer to the hill, wind gusts would knock us off our path. Each of us is tall and slender, but I certainly had the worst height to surface area ratio and therefore struggled the most. I hadn't experienced anything like this since I climbed Mt. Audobon in CO several years ago. We could acutally lean into the wind and it would support us. Our Spidey sense was kicking in (or was it all of that safety training?) and we decided to abort before we got ourselves in a mess. On the way down we discussed how we all had grit in our teeth and how we could have done it if the other two hadn't wussed out, all as the wind hurried us back towards town.
After we got back to town, we decided to watch a movie that was showing in the coffee house. It was a catch-all movie about Antarctica that was made in the 70s and seemed pretty quaint, except that at every turn they brought you down by talking about death a lot (dead explorers, dead seals, dead whales, etc). When the movie was over, several of the people who were stuck here with me after the boomerang flights joined us. Two of the people are in construction, and 4 of them are researchers on a project called Ice Cube. Ice Cube is basicially this giant project to take a 1 mile by 1 mile section of the ice near south pole and measure the nutrino content. I suggest you Google that to learn more. They tried to explain it to me, but my little engineering brain started to melt. (Actually, it was fascinating, but I couldn't possibly recant with accuracy what they told me). We proceeded to talk about all sorts of activities, long after Joel & Ben (they have jobs) left, over several bottles of wine. Apparently, you can get wine in coffee houses here. The rumor was that we were flying out at 7:45 this morning, but after getting up and looking at the board, it looks like we're still on weather hold. . . . . . .

Well, today has got to be the least exciting day of my vacation to Antarctica. The weather outside of Building 155 in McMurdo is crappy, no flights in or out. It's still actually not nearly as cold as I would have imagined it to be here, but the wind is a bitch. I've been using the free time today to catch up on sleep (as opposed to the three straight days of cat napping) and do some administrative things for my new job. I'm hoping that the "great food" and "fast internet" that I've heard about pertains to the south pole, because neither is exactly knocking my socks off here at McMurdo.
I've learned a few lessons along the way so far: don't pack all of your 'fun' clothes in your check in baggage, bring fewer cold weather clothes, and pack a pillow. Being stuck here without anything to change into has really put a damper on my options. My boots keep my feet warm, but they don't offer much support for any kind of standing/walking activites. Really, they seem to only be good for sitting on a plane. The CDC gave me more than enough clothes to get me through the winter, if not in style, then in comfort and warmth. The pillow on my bed sucks. I left about half a dozen fine pillows in Indiana and it never occurred to bring one with me.
There seems to be plenty to do here and lots of people to socialize with. Everyone is friendly and most people appear to be genuinely happy to be here. I can't say that about any other job I've ever had. My only problem with this place is that it isn't my final destination and I'm itching to get to where I need to be and start with my life for the next year. It may or may not be as nice as it is here, but I would like to go find out for myself.

The flight to south pole from McMurdo is just under 4 hours. Compared to the flight from LA to NZ or NZ to McMurdo, that's a piece of cake. That is unless you fly there, circle four or five times waiting for weather to clear, come back to McMurdo, land, hang out in a shack by the runway, get back on the same plane after it's been refueled, fly down again, find out there's white-out conditions still, head back for Mactown, find out the weather there is bad too, end up landing out on a sheet of ice and waiting for a transport to come get you. That was my day, they call it a boomerang when you fly out and fly right back. Technically, I boomeranged twice today. 10 hours of flying to end up loosing my bunk in the dorm and having to snarf down my dinner before they stop serving food. I haven't had a shower for a few days because I checked in the baggage with my towel. The good news is that my nose is clogged so I can't smell myself. Oh, and I got to see the Pegasus ice sheet up close and personal.
There is no word on when the weather is expected to clear, so no way of knowing how long I'll be here. I hear that beer is $1 at the bar here.....

I just wanted to comment that the last post actually was written yesterday, but I couldn't post it until this morning due to the busy schedule and a bit of fatigue. Also, as I am struggling to keep things straight, I'll point out the obvious that I am always about a day ahead of everyone in the US and about a half day ahead of the UK. Below is an account of everything else that happened yesterday....
We landed yesterday after a really comforable flight. There was less turbulence on the Herc than on just about any commercial flight I've been on. The landing was smooth. When we came to a stop, we had to remain onboard until they had unloaded the back of the aircraft. When we finally started to shuffle out, everyone stepped off the plane and stood around marvelling at the panoramic vistas. Wow. It was like stepping out on the moon. I tried to take in the scenery without my goggles, but the sun & snow were too blinding. Once I pulled my goggles on, the details of the surrounding mountain range popped out at me. We had landed in a wide ice basin that will eventually melt and become a seaport. Scanning the area was like standing in a National Geographic documentary. Everything seems so pristine until you come across McMurdo station. It stood out in that it is everything that the rest of the landscape isn't: dirty, boxy, human. It put me in mind of Mos Eisley from Star Wars. The temperature was suprisingly balmy, 22 degrees F was what I was told.
After we dallied about for a few minutes, everyone made there way to our shuttle, "Ivan the Terrabus". The wheels on this beast are about the side of small tractor tires. The entire inhabitants of the Herc fit onto Ivan. Ivan lumbered along at a top cruising speed of about 11 mph as it snaked it's way toward the McMurdo. Many of the people arriving on my flight with me are coming to McMurdo to drive shuttles, so they offered colorful commentary on our driver's progress. They even applauded when he executed a perfect right hand turn over a small stream of ice melt.
We were taken to a small shack (as opposed to all of the large shacks in town) for more orientation, then we got our room keys and made our way to the dorms. Those of us destined for the south pole are only going to be in McMurdo for one night. I found my room, dumped my stuff on the bed, and found the galley. After piling my plate full in the galley, one thing was certain to me, they weren't going to let me starve down here (don't worry mom, I'm eating good). I finished my meal, shot the breeze with some of the folks from the flight, and made my way up to the "bag drag". Bag drag is the term used to describe taking your belongings with you to get ready for a flight. Everything is weighed and tagged. The flight for the south pole is early the next day, so we had to go up at 9pm for our bag drag. Nine o'clock at night and the sun is blazing away in the middle of the sky. Once I was done there, I wandered back to my dorm, laid out a blanket, and dreamt of star light.
I woke up this morning to the sound of 3 of my 5 roommates snoring. Thankfully, I only had to endure that symphony for one night. I had met one of my roomies briefly the night before. He was an ice diver just about to head back to the states. It occured to me that there must be dozens of great jobs down here that I haven't even thought of. I grabbed my breakfast and posted this before heading off to catch a flight further south.

I'm currently on a RNZAF C-130 flying south out of Christchurch heading for McMurdo station. I spent yesterday afternoon enjoying the sights and sounds of downtown Christchurch. I went to a few restaurants & bars, talked to the locals, and soaked in the local culture. It really gives me something to look forward to on my way back to know what a gorgeous place New Zealand is.
I made it to bed last night around 11pm. The hotel that I was staying in, The Living Space, reminded me of the Ronald McDonald crackHouse or one of the dorms that I stayed in at Rose Hulman. The center of the hotel was open from the first to the top floor, with a skylight above to allow in natural light. Each floor had it's own theme and color scheme. My floor was mainly green, had a rec room, computer room, commons room, and the walls were covered with movie-poster montages. The place I was sleeping in was a shared 3-bedroom apartment. Each bedroom had a lock on the door and had access to a shared living space (hence, the name I presume), which contained a TV room, dining area, full kitchen (though it was full of appliances for wee-people), toilet room, and shower room. The shower had no door, so when you bathed the entire room got soaked. The toilet had a giant metal square button that you used for flushing. You pressed the button to flush and pulled it back out to stop the flushing. There was a sink in there not large enough for both of my hands at once. The entire place didn't have one mirror. The furniture was all modern and stylized. The ceilings on the second floor were about 22 feet high and none of the rooms were a standard shape. There was only one other occupant, who ended up being one of the gentlemen that was coming along on my flight today.
I awoke this morning in my wee-person sized bed as the sun was coming up. There was an alarm clock that was in the TV room that was set to go off at 6:15. We needed to catch a shuttle to the CDC (clothing distribution center) at 7am. Just before the alarm went off, I got up and fought off the crud from the first night's sleep in a bed that I'd had for over two days, got my few things together, and went downstairs. There were a couple of people already down there milling about waiting for the same shuttle. Eight of us were staying at the Living Space, several others were at various other hotels around town. The shuttle arrived on time with a rotund Kiwi driver with an indistinguishable accent at the wheel. He said something that appeard to be a question three times and I just kept smiling at him. Finally, I said "Raytheon?" and he said "Suwa" and I got in. Everyone else followed me because that's how we had all gotten through four airports together up to that point: follow the person in front whether they know what they're doing or not. Six of us were there on time, the other two were nowhere to be seen. We sent the desk person from the hotel to go look for them. It turns out one lady set her alarm for the wrong time and one of the guys I went drinking with the night before was still not quite ready to function (he had continued on well past my early exit). We finally took off about 12 after 7. \par
Once we got to the CDC, where we had spent the previous morning trying on all of our extreme cold weather gear (ECW), we quickly started putting on all of the gear we could handle. As I had found out the previous day, they had given me 3x redundant clothing, which rendered about half of what I brought of my own stuff useless. Technically speaking, you wouldn't need to bring anything of your own, outside of maybe briefs. I chose to wear the heaviest articles of clothing, fearing that somewhere over the south pacific I might lose a toe if I didn't. This clothing is designed for keeping you warm. Period. Wearing it in the summertime in NZ, when the outside temperature is in the 80s is not a fun day at the park. We also had to tote all of our own luggage and any cold weather gear that we weren't wearing. I brought two large suitcases and a backpack. The ECW took up three large dufflebags. Once all of my gear was on I got in line to check my bags. Even though this is a military flight, most of the same procedures are in place for getting on the plane. We had our bags weighed that we were checking in so they could accurately access how much fuel was needed. Likewise, we had to be weighed holding all of our carry on baggage and ECW gear. With all of my gear and my backpack, I weighed about 300lbs, which is nearly double my body weight. We were supposed to have a briefing at 8:20 am and I was a few minutes early, so I ran over to the Antarctic Center (a tourist destination that provides information about Antarctica, trinkets to buy, and food) for breakfast. I ate my breakfast during a presentation about preserving the environment at the south pole, listened to a list of things we are supposed to do (and not do) to stay alive on our visit, then proceeded to the security checkpoint. All of my bags were ran through a metal detector and I headed out into the heat carrying my 300lbs to a shuttle. I noticed that I had my backpack & 3 dufflebags, but everyone else only had 1 dufflebag. I asked about it and it turns out that I should have checked two of my bags. It looked like I was going to have to haul twice as much crap as everyone else, but when I mentioned it to one of the military flight crew, they took them for me. I told the guy thanks and he said not to thank him until I actually got them back, which might not be for awhile.
As we prepared to get on the C130 Hercules that awaited us on the other end of our shuttle ride, we were handed bagged lunch. There is enough food in these brown sacks for lunch and dinner for a very hungry person, so we're sure not to starve. My impression of this whole experience is that they want to be sure that you don't go hungry. My sack lunch had a wet spot on the bottom and eventually my food broke through.
We were sent onto the plane in groups of 5 so that we could jam our belongings in any nook or cranny available. I walked into the only plane in my life that didn't make me feel big. This thing is a hulk. It's about a story and a half high inside, wide enough for four people facing each other in a sitting position (we sit with our feet intertwined and facing each other in two rows), and long enough for about three full sized pickups. Basically, it's a flying mobile home. We're sitting as I mentioned above in cargo-net seats. We're allowed to move around as much as we please, but unless you're on the end you'll have to disturb about 10 people to get up. There is a toilet that almost everyone will use, but nobody will talk about. The flight has 41 passengers, 4 crewmen, what looks like about 8 tons of "stuff" that has been shrink wrapped, and a very large piece of scientific equipment. It resembles one of the engines on the outside of the plane and nobody knows what it's for. The flight is scheduled for 8 hours.
Our first views of Antarctica from the Herc...where the frozen ocean meets the land.

I've been flying for two days (really just one, but I crossed the int'l dateline) smelling like funk, in alternating temperature extremes, with a few digestive issues, cramped into airline seats made for dwarfs, eating crappy meals, lugging my own hulking yearlong supply of crap for the south pole, and subjecting myself to severe sleep deprivation just to find myself in NZ and all I can say is "Wow, this place is heaven". The view and the people here almost make everything up to this point worthwhile. It's too bad that I am only here long enough to get my cold weather clothing and get on a military plane headed further south.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to head off to Antarctica to spend one day and one night at the south pole. Of course, the day is six months long as is the night. I'm currently in a hotel in Denver after wrapping up a day of safety training. My luggage is finally ready to go. The rest of my belongings are scattered across the garages, sheds, bedrooms, living rooms, and closets of family and friends. I've said goodbye to the last person I'll see that I actually know. Everything from this point forward will be brand spankin' new, nothing like home, no more knowing what's going on, playing by somebody else's rules, extreme conditions, no comfort zone, no personal space, living with body funk, living without variety, and doubting the wisdom of everybit of it. Once I'm there though, it's not like I'll have anyplace to go.
Well, there's plenty of websites that describe the whole ordeal that is required to make it to the south pole. There's getting noticed for a job, getting physically qualified, training (which I've learned not everyone gets), sorting out what happens to your life while you're not there living it, coming to terms with what the heck you're about to do, enduring the trip, and settling in to your home away from reality. I'm just going to try to keep track of my personal experiences starting from the point of departure to the point of, well, I'm not sure if this will ever have a point.
I've never bothered to read anyone else's blog, so I don't expect anyone to read this one. I'm sure there's a protocol I won't follow (like being interesting) and gaps where I don't write much (how do you have things to write about if you're always writing?), but I'll give this a try.