Nowhere To Go But Up

One of the many ways to kill time at the South Pole and in Choteau, Montana is to watch movies. I have tried to stay away from watching 'pop' Hollywood movies just because those are constantly being played in the public spaces here. I have gone ideally for movies I've never heard of or at least movies that I have heard suck (which means I'll probably like them). To the best of my memory, here is everything that I've watched since leaving the States:

Little Fish - I caught 90% of this movie while I was flying down to NZ. I liked it, it had Hugo Weaving and the chick from The Life Aquatic.

Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa made me not want to be a farmer 700 years ago in Japan.

Blood Simple - I had seen the very end of this movie when I was much younger, but I had no idea what movie it was. I watched it down here and wow, I know why this put the Coen bros. on the map.

Pecker - John Waters, you either love him or think he's a freak. I fall under both categories.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (BBC) - I saw the Hollywood version and was underwhelmed. I needed this to get the taste out of my mouth.

Barton Fink - More Coen Bros. goodness. This movie made me sweaty.

Whale Rider - I almost saw this on a first date a few years ago, but instead saw Swimming Pool. I liked Whale Rider better. It's a tear-jerker.

Being There - Peter Seller's last movie.

A Bridge Too Far - Super star director, super star cast. I watched all the way until the bitter end. I really felt bad for the weather man.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - I don't normally like musicals, but I loved this movie.

The Man Who Wasn't There - The Coen Bros. gratuitous use of Frances McDormand in their movies has always endeared me to them. I even found Billy Bob to be worthwhile in this movie.

Kagemusha - Another Akira Kurosawa film, long but beautiful.

What Have I Done To Deserve This? - This is a foreign film with a lot of, uh, culture.

Miller's Crossing - I guess you could say I got caught up on my Coen Bros. movies. There's a scene with Albert Finney and a tommy gun that makes the whole darn flick.

I'm about to watch Monster and the Road to Perdition. Don't tell me how they end.

I stole this from Old HorseTail Snake.

+ + + + + + + +

I AM up past my bedtime
I WANT 70 degrees of latitude
I WISH I may, wish I might
I HATE people who talk with their mouth open
I MISS but I keep shooting
I FEAR the dark and the cold
I HEAR that big hair bands are making a comeback
I WONDER who wrote the book of love
I REGRET the previous 111 posts
I AM NOT interested in your mind
I DANCE like somebody is shooting at my feet
I SING at a frequency that only dogs can hear
I CRY during previews for bad movies
I AM NOT ALWAYS the shortest guy in the room
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS that which cannot be made with my feet
I WRITE to the beat of a different drummer
I CONFUSE penguins
I NEED my own theme music
I SHOULD do everything I can to be a fine, upstanding Polie
I START rumors about you on the walls of the men's bathroom
I FINISH only books with large print and many pictures

+ + + + + + + +

I knew at some point that I would run out of things to post on here, I just didn't think it would be so early. I thought I could pull off a few more weeks of talking about science at the south pole, how we live, and what the people are like. In the last week I've mostly focused on various hairy parts of me and what out toilets are like. Today I've gone to a new low. In response to sexylovepits' call for some posterior photos, I have caved in and done the deed. I actually tried to recruit a couple of people to take the photo, with various different levels of dismissal:
"I'm trying to eat here".
"I'm going to my room".
"HAhahahaHAHahehe".
"This is a strange conversation".
The list goes on. I finally decided that during one of my busier moments that I would just squeeze off a self-portrait.

The original intent of this blog was to keep in touch with my family and a few friends. Oh, how far I've come. Hi mom.

Today's post was going to be about how I got jacked up in last night's basketball game (bruised sternum, pulled muscle in my back, misaligned spine, etc). It turns out that it was nothing that a little acetaminophen and a heating pad couldn't cure. I did have to skip tonight's basketball game and I spent a fair amount of time walking around looking for sympathy. There's nothing like going up to people, lifting your shirt, and saying, "See what happened to me?"

Later in the day we had a fire drill. There was real smoke for a change. For awhile, I thought it was real (we often announce fire drills), but today we were going for realism I guess. Once I carried a few cannisters of O2 and a couple of fire extinguishers, I realized that my back was doing much better.

Oh, for those who don't know, the Red Wings now trail in their best-of-seven series 2-1. Those of you thinking negative thoughts about the Wings need to cut it out.

To demonstrate the fact that we have no plumbing in the ARO building, here is a picture of our facilities, it their entirety. If you need to use the can (as opposed to the funnel), then be prepared to fill a bag, which gets disposed of into a frozen cannister out on the deck. I've decided that if I have the slightest hint of an inkling of the vaguest premonition of a twinge that remotely resembles the idea of the urge to go do number 2, then I'm immediately jumping in my ECW and heading for the station.

I was going to write a small bit about our bingo game this weekend, but there was nothing I could say that Jeff didn't already say here.

When I'm not doing the incredibly important job of looking at the sky, spending time writing reports, or adding to the blog, I have a part time job working in the South Pole Station Store (affectionately known as Pole-Mart). That's me on the left, I'm standing on a platform to make me look taller. I have many very important duties there: I open the door and let people in somewhere near the posted opening time; I sometimes play music to entertain customers; when not playing music, maybe I'll pop in a video; when I forget about these things, I usually am just entertaining in my own special way; I check in videos and put them on the shelf (unless I want to watch it, then I just check it right back out); I check out videos to people and ask them three times how to spell thier name so I can enter it in the system; I ring up people's purchases and sometimes I even make correct change; I mill about; I talk to my coworker Craig, who shares all of these arduous tasks with me; at the end of the night, I count up the cash from sales, take my standard 15% off the top, and lock up.

You might wonder what we have for sale in the store. No? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. We have a wide assortment of hot-selling, high fashion sweatshirts, T-shirts, caps, cups, key chains, stickers, pins, post cards, medals, and other such sourveniry stuff, all with some reference to the South Pole or at the very least, Antarctica. Nobody really buys this stuff unless it's the summer time and we have lots of tourists and scientists coming and going. The main staple during the winter is the beer and alcohol section. We sell a wide variety of libations. Honestly, once people realized that we're not going to run out of anything, we hardly sell much alcohol at all. There's a limit of 1 liter of hard alcohol, OR 2 six-packs of beer, OR 2 bottles of wine, OR a beer and a wine, per day per person. This means you have to plan ahead if you want more than that for the weekend. It also means that if you're planning ahead, then you might need to get some help. Another popular area of the store is the video section. We have literally dozens of videos to choose from. There is no cost to rent the videos and the only penalty for returning them late is that the computer beeps when we check them back in. Of course, you can't have a store without candy. This store has some of the best dried candy you'll find this far south. The store doubles as the post office during the summer months, but I don't plan on getting caught up in that despite the fact that it's in my genes to do so.

As you can see, I woke up this morning to a full and uncontrollable beard. It's the kind of beard that freezes to my gaiter and catches any food before it makes it to my mouth. I'm fairly certain that if I were shot in the face, the bullet would deflect off of my beard (well, maybe a BB). I started growing the beard in early December, just as I arrived on the ice. The only part I have trimmed is my neck and the part the curls into my mouth (from the picture, you can tell it's due).

Today, just after lunch, for reasons that aren't easy to explain, I began shaving off my beard. I had a couple of onlookers that I had to shoo away. It was a quiet, personal time. I wanted to be alone in our final moments together. I started with a swath off of the chin, which was the biggest collector of food particles. This made me look somewhat like an American Civil War veteran. I paused as I contemplated spending the rest of the winter with that look, but eventually I pressed on.

You may be asking yourself, "Why Neal? Why would you do this to the beard that has been so faithful to you for all these icy months? How could you do such a thing?". The short answer is: hockey. I am a fan of the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL. Every year for the past half decade I have grown a hockey beard to show support for my team during the playoffs. The main rule of a hockey beard is that you start out clean-shaven at the beginning of the playoffs and you cease shaving from that point forward as long as the team you support remains in the playoffs. If the team loses, you shave. If they go all the way to the championship and win, you may shave at that point. The NHL playoffs last about three months, so if your team does make it all the way, then there is a good chance you'll end up with a pretty scruffy look about you. The key to a hockey beard is starting out clean-shaven. It doesn't count if you give it a head shart. I made the decision to carry though with this several months ago, despite the fact that I has said I would grow a beard all along. If I had said that I was going to shave at the start of playoff, you wouldn't be suprised right now, would you?

So there I was proceeding along with the scalping of my face. I'm proud to say that I bogged down the clippers a few times on the thicker areas of my chops. I found something very interesting had happened to my skin during the months of being covered in fur. It has stopped getting any kind of moisturizer and as I have pointed out before, it's dry here. As I was running the clippers over my fascade, I found that I wasn't just losing hair but I was losing a layer or two of dead skin. I found this a little disturbing. After I was done using the clippers, I moved on to the razor. Turns out that a little soapy water and a sharp blade across the face was all I needed to complete my exfoliation. When I was done, I didn't exactly have the 'smooth as a baby's butt' thing going on, but it certainly was different than what I was used to seeing in the mirror. I have one more day to clean it up before I start on my brand new beard. Hopefully, we will remain good close friends for a long, long time. GO WINGS!!!

Today we had Thai food for lunch (ok, it's after midnight, so technically yesterday). My stomach still burns a little hours later. I love Thai food. Eating Thai on a Thursday used to be a tradition at my old job. My buddies and I would pile into a car and drive downtown to a hole in the wall (actually, it was a hole in the alley) restaurant called Little Bangkok. The place was a dump. They played cheesy airline music, the table cloths were always dirty, the glasses had lipstick on them, but the food was soooo good. We would go so often that the waitress just knew our order. "#41, chicken". Oh man, it hurts thinking about ordering extra spicy. Afterwards we would cool off at Josh & John's Ice Cream. Oatmeal Cookie ice cream there. There was a trivia question or two each day and we'd peak on our way to Thai and discuss possible answers. If it was summer we would sit on the patio and people watch. While the Thai and ice cream were duking it out in my stomach, it would occur to us all that Thursday night was hockey night. Had to go to the bar after work. Had to have a dozen wings with extra sauce. Had to have a tall Fat Tire. Or 6. Oh the things that would happen at the bar. We saw women get topless, guys doing magic tricks, the grandson of the grand dragon of the South Carolina KKK (twice), the prelude to a gangbang, and of course macking (some of it in our heads) on the ladies. My buddy Matt met his fiancee Erin there. I, well, I bought a drink for an underage girl once. That's the only story I'll share about me.

Yeah, I used to look forward to Thursday more than I looked forward to the weekend.

Despite the tone of my blog most of the time, it's not always fun and games here. The United States Antarctic Program lost one of our members this past week.

"First you fall in love with Antarctica, and then it breaks your heart." - Kim Stanley Robinson

__________________________________________________________________________________
Press Release 06-070
Crew Member on Antarctic Research Vessel Missing

April 18, 2006

A crew member aboard the National Science Foundation research vessel Laurence M. Gould is missing and presumed dead after apparently falling overboard in Antarctic waters.

The crew member, employed by Raytheon Polar Services Co., of Centennial, Colo., was discovered missing in the early afternoon on Monday, April 17 while the ship was en route north to its home port of Punta Arenas, Chile from NSF's Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Argentine and Chilean search and rescue officials were notified.

NSF is not identifying the missing person. Next of kin have been notified.

The Gould was at approximately 60 degrees south latitude when the incident occurred. It turned about to retrace its path while crew members performed a thorough search of the vessel.

Weather and sea conditions in the area where the Gould was operating are among the harshest in the world, but were not unusually severe are the time.

NSF manages the U.S. Antarctic Program and coordinates U.S. scientific research on the southernmost continent and the surrounding oceans.

-NSF-

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=106897&org=OPP&from=news

We had a costume party on Saturday night to celebrate all of the April birthdays (to everyone who has a birthday this month, happy birthday!). A mass birthday is as good of a reason as you're going to get at the south pole for having a party. We have had parties for excuses as small as: "It's Saturday night", "Well, didn't we have a party this time last year?", and "We haven't had a party in awhile". I believe that all of those excuses applied this time as well.

The fact that is was a costume party immediately meant two things: A) Half of the station would avoid it at all costs and 2) The same costumes that were worn at the last costume party (which is most of our parties) would be worn again. Let's face it, here at the south pole you can't just run down to the corner novelty store to pick up that snow white dominatrix costume on a last-minute whim. Some costumes get created, sure (pillow case in point, three of the guys showed up in togas), and a few costumes are brought down by forward-thinking folks. The rest of us just have to raid the SKUA area to find whatever is available. You're sure to see a cross-dressing kiwi, a few wigs, and the coconut bra at any costume party down here.

I had a really good idea for a costume, but it required the alignment of stars that just didn't come through for me (maybe next time). I showed up at dinner time with no idea what to wear. There were a few people hanging out with no costume, so I figured that I could just pull that off. After I sat and watched costume after costume walking by, I decided that I should make at least a feeble attempt, even if I just had to streak though in my birthday suit (it was a birthday party after all). I went back to my room and opened my closet and there it was. I had forgotten that when I moved into my room back in February, it came pre-equipped with this:

As it turns out, the suit belongs to another winter-over who had left it here a season or two ago. He's here this winter and I was supposed to give it back to him, but truely I had just forgotten about it. Anyway, that was going to be the costume of the evening for me. I threw it on, grabbed my single-serving Stoli that I had procured over the summer and headed back to the party.


As I have (dishonestly now) stated many times before, I do not dance. I have no skill/confidence/desire/motivation to do so. The problem is that you can't show up in a 70's leisure suit and expect to stay off of the dance floor. The first time they played any Bee Gee's, it was all over. At minimum after that, I was out dancing for every cheesy disco song for the rest of the night. Thankfully, skill/confidence/desire/motivation comes packaged in liquid form.

***UPDATE!***
The Blur (Patrick is his alter ego, click over on my sidebar), pictured above in the seated toga position, has posted more party pics on his site. In honor of the guts it takes to post pictures of a party at the South Pole, here is Patrick's inner thigh:

The wind has died down, which has given us views of the sky (and everything else) for the first time in days. What we've been missing has been a pretty spectacular show in the sky. There is a full moon, plenty of stars, what's left of the glow from the sun on the horizon, and some of the first auroras of the season.

I have professed my lack of skill at taking photographs in general, and trying to capture auroras is tricky at best. Factor in the extreme cold (not good for cameras or hands) and this adds up to some fairly lousy pictures. I posted the best one I have. I can't use a flash because it just reflects back off of all of the ice crystals in the air. After awhile, I couldn't stand having my hands out of my gloves anymore and honestly, I just wanted to watch the show. What a show it was. The auroras look like wisps of smoke that glow green (sometimes yellow and red, but only briefly). There were times when there were strings of aurora in every direction. They would die down so faintly that they would almost disappear, then explode in a flurry of dazzling, dancing lights. This was going on during my walk back from ARO today. I kept stopping to stare at the remarkable display. If I started walking, the activity would just pick up again, freezing me in my tracks. It took me almost an hour to get back to the station. Once, I was trying to keep up with everything happening in so many directions that I just let myself fall backwards in the snow. I lay there and watched until I started to shiver.

I have thought that the most amazing thing that I have ever seen in nature was when I went SCUBA diving the first time. These auroras are pretty close to eclipsing that. I really wish I could let all of you see what I saw today with my eyes. A picture could never do this justice since auroras are so fluid and constantly moving. Eh, maybe I'm just easily impressed.

I'm sure that without the full moon and the leftover sunlight, the auroras would have been all the more impressive. Maybe by the end of the season I won't even bother looking up at them anymore, but for now I think they're just the coolest thing. Here is a picture of what's left of the sunlight here.

I thought about writing another blog about how the winds are really strong again today, visibility is low, and walking around outside is tricky. Instead, I've decided that this posting will be about the rare Antarctic Flower. Flowers are forbidden in Antarctica, as are all plants that aren't edible (because the seeds might blow in the wind, take root, and overtake the continent...uh, right). As you can tell from the picture, we have some. These flowers, like anything organic, are edible (though probably not very tasty or nutritional), therefore they were grown in our greenhouse. These are a welcome sight for the weary eye. It's amazing how these little shriveling plants can really add to the atmosphere. It's entirely possible that I and my blog could be smote for this picture.

As far as the winds go, I find that it makes walking outside a bit of an adventure. It's certainly not boring. We're having a full moon now, which helps a little with visibility, but is hampering my efforts to turn on some of my upward-looking instruments. Hopefully when the wind dies down enough, we'll start to see the aurora.

Last night we did some Scottish Dancing, led by the master-of-all-trades, Bob. I could do an entire posting, nay, an entire blog about Bob and all of the many, many things that make Bob one of the truely unique individuals that I have stumbled over. As it turns out though, this is my blog so I tend to talk about me alot.

We met at 8pm in our gym, which is the only place big enough to do any sort of dancing without moving a lot of heavy equipment. We jumped right into the dancing. As I alluded to in my previous post, I'm not exactly known for my dancing prowess. It turns out that the Scottish folk dancing that we were doing was along the lines of square dancing. There is a lot of set movements done to a count. This helps the rythmically-challenged, such as myself. We actually started with an English country dance, just to get used to the whole idea. My dance partner for the evening was Victoria, more than likely because we're the two tallest people in the room. We kept the same partner through the evening even though we were moving around it different arrangements. Everyone seemed to be picking things up pretty quickly, thanks to the tutelage of Bob. He was running the music, teaching the class, and filling in as a dance partner all at once. We actually had an equal number of men and women, for 12 total dancers.

I bumped into a few people and I think I slung my partner a little to hard, but at least I did it with a smile on my face. All in all I'd call it a pretty good evening. I think next week there might actually be some Scotch whiskey....

Today was just like yesterday. Actually, the wind has died down quite a bit to only 15knots. It was still windy enough when I went to ARO today. I learned from yesterday's mistakes and shuffled my feet as I walked. Since I screwed up the copy 'n paste job that I did yesterday, here is what I was trying to show:
Of course, it's not nearly as dramatic as yesterday, so I have missed on the delivery a bit. Thanks to Chris for translating from pygmy.

Tonight I'm going to participate in something totally out of character for me. It's something I have only ever dreamed about doing. Anyone who knows me in person will be shocked that I have done such a thing. Women who witness this might be disgusted. Children might cry. Grown men might groan. What is it?!?!!? Well, if I told you then you wouldn't read tomorrow's blog now would you? I will say that it involves a lost bet on my part.

The weather today was abysmal. We had winds in the 23-knot range all day, with gusts up to 30 knots (about 35 miles per hour). We set a record for this day for the highest winds. You might notice that it's "only" -52F. I'll take -90F with no winds over what we had today. Usually as the temperature gets higher, the winds get higher as well (I like to think that when the temperature gets too cold, the wind won't even blow).

When I left the station for my daily trip to ARO, I couldn't see the flag line at all. I walked a few steps to where I knew it should be and I tripped twice on sustrgi and drifting snow. I was looking down and couldn't see them right in front of me. I post-holed a couple of times and started to wonder if it was worth it. I could still see the station behind me so I figured it was alright. I finally found the first flag in the flagline and I could make out the next flag so I plodded on. I turned around at the forth flag and I could no longer see the station. The massive station on stilts was nowhere to be seen. I took the picture above at that point. The flash destroyed the landscape that I was trying to capture, but it demonstrated the sideways-blowing snow. I kept going until I could see the faint red beacon on ARO. By this point I could feel the sting of frost bite on my completely covered face (one thing I've learned in Antarctica is what frost bite feels like when it starts), as the wind was penetrating all of my ECW. I hurried inside as I was only 5 flags away by then. The trip back was much easier with the wind at my back, but I still almost lost balance a couple of times.

This is our first real storm of the winter. It puts me in mind of a saying that my boss likes to use: "Antarctica can kick your ass at any time". I joked today that you know you're in trouble outside if you drop your flashlight when it's on and you look down and can't see it.

Weather for South Pole Station The date is 04-12-2006 at 05:35 PM
	Temperature -46.9 C -52.4 F Windchill -70.8 C -95.4 F Wind 23.4 kts Grid 11 Barometer 686.6 mb (10380 ft)
UTC 04-12-2006 at 05:35 Z If you want to see official met data - click on this link. If you want to see South Pole Weather FAQ's - click this link.

To prove that we do have a little color at the South Pole, these are pictures of the window decorations in the galley. We have to cover all of the window in the new station that face toward the ARO building and the light-sensitive experiments running there (you know, all of the stuff I'm responsible for). The idea was conceived to put some art in the windows rather than just have some white shade. We have plenty of white. Different windows have different artists/creators. Some people chose to have interactive things like word games, some provide a little mood lighting, some are informational, and others are just fun.

As a side note, I have been tagged by Barry. Here goes....


Four jobs I've had
1. Toilet-Cleaner/Top Shelf Item-Grabber/Cart-Pusher/Whipping Boy at a major retailer
2. Loader for a shipping company
3. Semiconductor Engineer for a Semiconductor Comany that makes Semiconductors
4. Research Associate at the bottom of the world

Four movies I can watch over and over
1. The entire Star Wars series (yes, even the new ones)
2. Blade Runner
3. Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
4. Raising Arizona

Four places I have lived
1. Terre Haute, IN
2. Indianapolis, IN
3. Colorado Springs, CO
4. The South Pole

Four TV shows I love
1. Whatever is on the Discovery Channel
2. Arrested Development (is it true it's been cancelled?)
3. The Simpsons
4. Futurerama (which is also cancelled)

Four places I've vacationed
1. Cozumel, MX
2. Costa Rica
3. Sandusky, OH
4. I once went to the neighbor's house and slept in a tent in the back yard

Four of my favorite dishes
1. jambalaya (I'm not changing Barry's answer here)
2. smashed potatoes
3. mom's oyster dressing
4. sushi

Four sites I visit daily
1. The Indianapolis Star site (gotta see what's going on back home)
2. TSN (for hockey news)
3. The Onion (it's the only place for real news)
4. The Dead People Server (just to see if I made the list)

Four places I would rather be right now (fill in the blank with any north of 90S)
1. Along the banks of the Wabash, nuff said
2. The 7-11 at the corner of Union & Platte, there's always weird stuff going on there
3. The north pole (spring is starting there)
4. Union Jack's in Speedway where I was served green beer once by a cute waitress

Four people I am tagging
1-4. All of you!

Last night I was a virgin, but today I'm Just Neal. I attended my first Hash House gathering. It would take a really long time to fully describe what this group is all about. It's not a secret or I wouldn't have provided a link. For those who don't know what it is, this won't help much: It's a drinking club with a running problem. There are clubs in every major city around the world, which makes it about as popular as uchre, but not quite in the same league as curling. Before attending, I ran down my list of things I like to do. Drinking? Check. Running. Check. How could this fail?

The meeting started in the gym with everyone in attendance arriving with 12 beers. We sang and danced a bit as we learned what it is we were going to be doing for the evening. It amounted to drinking and running around outside chasing after a hare, followed by some more drinking, singing, and dancing (back indoors). We sang while we watched people drink from.....well, take a look below. We finished up with some drinking and then a song. After that we knocked off a couple of drinks before singing a stirring rendition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" while acting out the words. At some point there was at least one dirty joke, some beer poured on oneself, three different kinds of insults, a really heavy necklace, a wonderful mother-daughter tale, beer freezing and exploding, a kiwi leading a song about baseball, people getting screwed on the runway, two cases of mistaken identity, 1 case of mistaken gender, geography lessons, and startled mass realization that plumbing was non-existant in a room full of beer.

I had a pretty good time and only came close to nasal vomiting once. It turned out to just be a very violent nasal belch. This was the first hash meeting for most of the people in attendance, so we were treated pretty fair. The next time I hear we might have to drink more. I have described my understanding of the concepts as best I could based on what transpired and my recollection of it all.

The first flight out of here is sometime in the first part of October. I won't be on "The Flight of Shame", which is usually reserved for those who have screwed up, lost their mind, or just really, really want to go home. I get to stay for a couple of weeks to train my replacement, which means I'll get to participate in the Halloween party that I missed last year (I spent Halloween bar-hopping at the University of Washington in Seattle, which had it's own charm). So sometime in the beginning of November I'll leave Antarctica. There are folks here that can tell you to the minute when they'll be leaving, but it's too far off for me to focus on it too much. One thing I do have to start thinking about though, is what the heck I'm going to do when I'm done. Eventually I'll have to find a job somewhere (maybe I'll come back here........). A friend is getting married, so I'll have to make the wedding (CONGRATS Matt & Erin, you guys rock). Other than that, I have decided that I'm going to see the world. Following in the footsteps of Magellan, John Glenn, and Drew (over on the left there's a link to his site. Take a look at his travels, he's doin' it up right), I'm planning on circling the globe. I'll be starting out in New Zealand. A week, maybe two there should give me plenty of time to get my pasty-white skin back to a normal color. I'm tentatively meeting my sister in Australia and spending a week or two slacking off there. After that? I'm formulating a plan to hit Thailand for a few days and maybe take a motorcycle trip through the jungle (oh man, I miss my bike). From there I'm thinking Japan. If there's one food you can't get at the South Pole it's fresh sushi. I'll go to the land of milk and honey and sushi and suckle from the teet of raw fish heaven. After that, I want to go to Northern England, Ireland and Scotland. I debated in my head how the heck I'm getting from eastern Asia to western Europe when it came to me: the Trans-Siberian Railway. I'll hop a train and soak in the view through Mongolia all the way to Moscow (which I've always wanted to see anyway), drink vodka, and play chess. From there I can keep taking trains through Europe until I get to the land of beer and whiskey. At that point I'm thinking I'll be broke and I'll hitchhike home (uh, wherever that is). I estimate the whole trip will cost at least $21 and I'll be traveling for two months. That happens to be the minimum amount of time you have to stay off of the ice (as we fondly refer to Antarctica) between stays.

Or maybe I'll just visit family and friends in the states. I wonder if my dog will remember who I am.

I haven't posted a picture for a few days and I have yet to figure out how to photograph my thoughts, so here's a follow up picture of the radome golf ball that I posted a picture of at sundown. You can see that the sun is definitely below the horizon, but there's still a bit of a glow. I tried this picture without the flash, which got rid of the flashback from the ice crystals in the air (it wasn't snowing), but it came our pretty blurry. Yeah, there's an antenna in the way, that was on purpose as a point of reference for me. I'm going to have to master flashless photography if I ever hope to capture aurora pictures (auroras are only about a week away). I keep blaming the cold and my camera, but at some point you have to start looking at the user.

AND, since my posting on the snake cake drew so much interest, I have decided to give a sneak-peak of tonight's Dinner and a Movie selection. WARNING, this photo is not for the faint of heart. Last week we had apple pie with the movie American Pie. This week it's Full Metal Jacket and a cake in the shape of a bullet will go along with this. I was shown this cake at lunch time and asked what it looked like. *Long pause* "It looks like lipstick". Dan the cook replies, "Yeah, dog lipstick". (If this conversation needs explaination after seeing the picture below, then I'm just not the person to explain it). Without further ado, here is George and his bullet cake....

Would you eat this?

This will be my second consecutive short posting with no pictures. We have been having problems with the power here at the station. We've kept the lights low, computers off, and limited galley function in an attempt to conserve power. Things should be under control soon. I'm not worried until I can see my breath indoors.

I got this in my inbox, thanks Bill. As you can tell, I don't have much to say today.

The myriad of comments on my last posting regarding the two 2-minute showers we're allowed each week at the South Pole has lead to this posting. One might wonder how I stay fresh down here. In fact, many polies will walk up to me and ask, "Neal, how is it that you smell so good when your last shower was three days ago, you've labored diligently all day and you've worked out every afternoon?" (really, I get asked that question all of the time). I usually tell people that it's just my natural odor that they smell, but the truth is, I have a secret weapon against sweat, grime, and funk. The secret is my eldest sister. At least, it's the care package that she sent me before the station closed:


That's right, baby wipes. Baby wipes have been used by millions of parents for years to clean poopy bottoms and more recently by me to clean my self-cleaning dog when he's malfunctioning. At the rate I'm using the baby wipes, the supply my sister sent will last for three winters, but that's ok. I won't run out. Thanks Kat.

A more traditional way of grooming between showers is the old fashioned sink bath. I have actually never witnessed this, so if anyone is doing it, it's at odd hours or they're doing it in the ladies room. Of course, there's the always popular wallow in your own funk. It happens at the south pole. As far as I know, there is nobody cheating the system and taking more showers than allowed.

As an aside, we're also only allowed one load of laundry each week. This I don't have nearly as much problem with since there's no dirt down here (oil, sawdust, fuel, sweat...yes, but no dirt). The reason for all of this goes back to the whole idea that it takes jet fuel to melt ice for our water. Jet fuel isn't cheap or easy to get here, so we conserve. This is also why there is no hot tub or lap pool here. The south pole uses about a third as much water per person as is done in the normal household in the United States. Not too shabby.

I worked to get done with my daily duties early today so that I could relax this afternoon. I was caught up by 2pm, so I went to the gym for an hour followed by my biweekly shower (I actually looked up biweekly and it turns out it can mean either twice a week or once every two weeks. In this case I mean twice a week). I decided afterwards to relax in the sauna, which I have not visited yet since I arrived four months ago (it's hard to believe I've been here four months already, time flies when you're going insane). The sauna in the new station is a little bigger than the one in the old dome. I was the only one there when I showed up so I spread myself out and soaked in the heat. As I adjusted to the warmth, it occured to me that it was the first time since I've been here that I was actually hot. When I take a shower, the water starts to get warm just as it's time for me to get out (2 minutes is all we get). I spend most of my shower time with no water running so that I have enough to wash my hair. Needless to say, standing around dripping wet in a 55 deg F room is a little, uh, refreshing. Anyway, I was warm enough in the sauna that I actually started to perspire. I've sweat down here, especially back when I was working outside in the summer, but this was restful and enervating. By the time I was done I was drenched and I probably needed another shower, but that'll have to wait until mid-week. One of the nifty side-effects of the sauna was that it made my hair extra-bushy. I didn't realize how fro'd it was until I had a few comments at dinner.

Yes, I did sit around taking pictures of myself all day. Last weekend I didn't get any free time, so I made up for it this weekend a little.

Today there was an open house in the Dark Sector. I was able to go visit the stomping grounds of both Denis & Robert (see their sites on my sidebar). These guys are both working on similar projects that are exploring the orgins of the universe. Both have telescopes looking at the cosmic microwave background (CMB). For a much better explaination than I could possibly provide, I suggest you look at Denis and Robert's sites.



Both guys gave a really informative session on what they do, why they do it, and how everything works. I was able to go inside both telescopes and succeeded in not breaking a thing. I was even able to visit the construction site for the new 10-meter telescope. It's going to be big, but now it just looks like any other construction site.

After geeking out in the morning, I spent some time in the bar followed by dinner (a real Aussie barbie) and a movie (American Pie, which included a serving of, dat dat da da, apple pie).