Nowhere To Go But Up

Since we're still waiting for the first flight to land, I thought I would discuss something else for a change. Normally, the first real celebration of the new season is our Halloween party. It's a mingling of our winter-over and new summer crew. The parties of the past have been sort of a relief for everyone: either you're happy to be here or happy to leave. Plus, who doesn't like to dress up in costume and make a fool of themself with their cowokers?

This year though, the party was missing the key ingredient of the summer crew. They still hadn't arrived by this weekend when we traditionally have the party. On Saturday, in the morning after the day's flights had been cancelled, it would announced that there was going to be a "big party". This caused a lot of eye-rolling and comments alluding to the fact that every party since April was about the same. The lack of enthusiasm was contageous and before long a large group of people had assembled in the galley to ponder another day with no planes.

I had come up with an idea for my costume about 6 months ago. I thought that it was awfully clever and very specific to the south pole, especially this season. With no party, this great idea was going to waste. I decided to go ahead and pull the costume together. The real costume required me to shave my beard, which I couldn't bring myself to do since I was the only guy dressing up (one girl did get into costume). So, without further ado, here it is....

Don't get it? Come to pole for a winter sometime and you'll have a pretty good idea.

If you're wondering why I haven't been talking about the first flight, it's due to the fact that it has been on weather delay all week. There was a day where we thought the Basler plane would come back to grab some people, but that was a false alarm. Here was my reaction to the news:



Today (Thursday) doesn't seem like the right conditions for flying either, so maybe tomorrow....or Saturday....or...... In the meantime, we're all just trying to keep it together long enough to make it back to reality.

So we finally got to the temperatures necessary to allow the big Hercs to fly in with the summer crew. Unfortunately, in McMurdo they are having their own weather difficulties so the planes cannot come yet. We had a twin otter plane land on Friday crewed by some gentlemen from Calgary. At first it seemed like these guys were big, tan, Canadian Vikings coming to rob, pillage and take our women (they can have them...how about some fresh fruit????). I got to meet them briefly and they are actually pretty cool (though still pretty tan). Since the weather changed at their destination (Mactown), they are stuck here despite the great weather we are having. They took this opportunity to fly around the station and get pictures of how much drifting we had over the winter. It was strange to wake up this morning to the sound of a plane buzzing arond overhead. It sounds a little bit like a dive bomber, so I was wondering if we were under attack. Once I realized that my dream about the aircraft carrier going down in the Pacific was just a dream, I welcomed the realization that the station opening is just around the corner. I'm not sure which corner, but it's around there somewhere.

Today we went from 64 winter-overs to 62. We had a Basler plane land to refuel. They had a little extra space so they took along two of us. When I say "us", I mean two other lucky bastards. Craig, who I have worked in the store with all season, and Dan B. were the winners of a lottery to see who got on the plane towards McMurdo. They were given twenty minutes notice to get all of the belongings and get out of town. Both of these guys were scheduled to leave on the first Herc flight anyway, so this wasn't as big of a deal as it might sound. Craig was out there almost right away after getting weighed, but Dan took a little longer. So, here's a picture of Craig's last stand:


I know Craig had his daughter's wedding to get to as well as the normal desire to get the heck out of here, but it still was hard to see him off. Dan also had plenty of reasons to get home. I'm pretty sure both these guys are eager to see their wives. Our big family got a little smaller today. Good luck you guys!

Starting Saturday, when the temperature rises above -50C (we are currently at -60C), planes will begin landing at the south pole again. They will bring along with them our first wave of summer replacement workers, new supplies, fresh food (mmmmm, bananas....hopefully), and of course, germs. We have been living in such an isolated environment that it's nearly impossible to get sick down here. People from all over the world will bring all sorts of cooties to help get us used to being back in the real world (anyone coming down who is reading this: WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS!). The fruit, man I have to admit, I am really looking forward to some fresh fruit. Of course it will be nice at first to see some fresh faces. By fresh, I mean 'not the same faces I've looked at for the past 8 months', but also seeing faces that haven't endured this winter and have a little bit of that 'I'm at the south pole for the first time' sparkle. Traditionally there is a bit of the 'us' vs. 'them' attitude when the winter-overs try to mesh with the summer folk. We'll see if that actually happens. I think it will be pretty cool to have a conversation where I don't know exactly what the other person is going to say from the get-go. The galley will be crowded at lunch time now, instead of having copious amounts of space for elbow room that we have enjoyed all winter.

Until the first flight, there is a lot of busy work to do. By busy work, I mean cleaning. I call it busy work because it will get dirty again and will need cleaning again, so why clean it at all? We are essentially cleaning the whole station, top to bottom. I also have to move my junk out of my room into a smaller room, similar to what I had last summer. The up side is that it will make me pack and be ready to go, the down side is that it is making me pack. Moving ranks as one of my least favorite chores, along with painting and backing up a vehicle.

Oh, by the way, go give a visit to Heidi's site. She's another new female south pole blogger. Heidi is our physician's assistant. She recently stuck me with a needle, passing through the skin out the other side, promptly squirting TB bacteria across the room instead of under my skin. Needless to say, we got to try that one again. Good times.

One of our cooks, Dan, made a list of what we polies ate this winter. Some of the average numbers seemed kind of low to me.....

Here is a summary of what was consumed this winter (February 21st) so far and what we plan to until Oct 20^th.

What we ate/drank:

5428 pounds of Beef

22720 Eggs

1527 pounds of Fries

3948 pounds of Pork

2811 pounds of Poultry

2457 pounds of Seafood

82 case of Cold Cereal

1590 pounds of Cheese

1170 pounds of Butter

2638 pounds of Canned and Frozen Fruit

24300 slices of Pre-Made Bread

418 lbs of Meatless Protein (Tofu, Tempeh, TVP…)

39 gallons of Ketchup

11520 blue cups worth of Orange Juice (blue cup is 16oz)

8450 blue cups worth of Milk (blue cup is 16oz)

432 gallons of Ice Cream (after air is added by the ice cream machine)

What is your share:

Assuming everybody ate the same amount, which I know is not true.

84.81 pounds of Beef

355 Eggs

23.86 pounds of Fries

61.69 pounds of Pork

43.92 pounds of Poultry

38.39 pounds of Seafood

1.28 cases of Cold Cereal, so about 18-20lbs

24.84 pounds of Cheese

18.28 pounds of Butter

41.22 pounds of Fruit (This doesn’t count Freshies from beginning of winter)

380 slices of Pre-Made Bread

6.53 pounds of Meatless-Protein (But of course this number is much higher for those that eat it, since most don’t)

.6 gallons of Ketchup

180 blue cups of OJ

132 blue cups of milk

6.75 gallons of Ice Cream

A week ago we all (by all, I mean all who wanted to do this) got together out by the ceremonial pole marker, launched a balloon with a camera tied to it, and posed for pictures. It was a really good idea, but with the slight wind we had coupled with having no idea where the camera was pointed, we didn't get to many great shots. Most of the pictures where we were lying in a circle were cropped off. Here is one of the better ones, though we're just standing around:

For those of you who can't get enough of staring at the new station, click here.

About this time a year ago I was eating dinner one evening and waiting for the results of my Physical Qualification (PQ), when the phone rang. Normally, so I hear, the PQ process takes a few weeks to complete. There is A LOT of paperwork and several visits to the doctors, dentists, doctors, clinics, doctors, nurses, doctors, PA's and doctors. There is poking and prodding, lots of stripping, even a nice oily massage for the ultrasound, but somehow the whole experience ended up not being very much fun. I completed my PQ in two days. I was living in Colorado Springs at the time and the entire PQ process took place in Denver. I spent more time during those two days starving myself, sitting in waiting rooms, driving around with one eye on a map/directions and another eye on the radio dial, getting blood drawn, peeing in cups, looking for parking spaces, stopping by the home office to find out that I hadn't completed some form correctly, and generally wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. After the PQ, I went out to dinner to celebrate (and to finally eat again after fasting) and I got a call from one of my PIs (Principle Investigators, the grantees who are in charge of the science projects down here) to welcome me to the program. I spent the following two weeks in training in Seattle, Daytona, and Albuquerque. It was a hectic few weeks leading up to deploying. I deployed late, many other polies were already on their way down here when I heard about the job. Ahhh, the memories.

Flash forward to today, it has been 10 months since I arrived on the ice. I will actually leave before completing an entire year due to the aforementioned late start. It's weird looking back at some of my older posts. I was a little wide-eyed when I showed up. I wouldn't say that I'm jaded now, but I certainly have a better understanding of what being a polie is all about. I have witnessed in others and experienced myself just about every human emotion. I have been as cold as I think I have ever been, but also as warm as I have ever felt. I have seen weeks roll by like a picket fence and days that seem to take a year. I have thought about nearly every thought that can be thunk. One of the more interesting things that has crossed my mind is that when I go home, it will be like I was Rip Van Winkle for a year. What will be different? Will that cool new song on the radio actually be a tired old tune that everyone else has heard a million times? Is gas expensive or cheap again? Who is this Foley guy I keep hearing about? Will the clothes I ordered online actually fit me?

OK, I have not done a very good job of keeping my blog updated with photos of my beard and hair growth. I actually trimmed it up a little because, according to a few beard watchers down here, "It was yucky." So, here is a groggy, cleaned-up self-portrait:

I've been helping pull wire through conduit for the fire alarms in the new cryo facility. This is exactly what it sounds like. Grab some wire and pull. There's all sorts of activity in the cryo building right now as they finish up construction. There happened to be welding going on in the corner, so that's why the photo looks smokey. I got to work with the fire tech Joey T. & my fellow ARO beaker Steph. Steph did most of the cable lubing (it makes the cable slide through the conduit better) while Joe & I did the pulling. Oh yeah, Steph also helped hold the ladder steady:


More non-stop cable-pulling is in store for today.

I'm going to do something that I hardly ever do on my blog; I'm going to solicit comments from my readers. I am planning a trip to this place:


Don't let the size of the picture fool you, Europe is a big place with lots of things to see. I bought a ticket to Frankfurt, Germany (the baby-poo colored country in the middle) starting Nov. 30 and leaving Jan. 11. That's about six weeks to waste. My current plans include going to Prague and Warsaw and Kiev and Istanbul and Athens and through the Balkans to Vienna. These plans are grounded in looking at that map and playing connect the dots. I want to snowboard and ride on trains. I want to see a big statue of a guy on a horse, hopefully with a sword pointing towards the enemy. If the horse has a sword too, that would be grand. I want to order some food & beer in a language that puts about eight consonants in a row on a regular basis. I want to be lost at least once per day.

My question to you, my readers, is where should I go and what should I see? Many of my readers have made a trip to Europe, some recently even. I know many of my readers live in Europe, some on that green & orange cluster of islands to the upper left. Are those islands worth visiting in the middle of winter? My plans seem to have me avoiding the western countries, but there really isn't a good logical reason for that. I just feel like I would rather see the UK in the spring or summer, but for a snowboarding trip I would rather see the Alps.

So here's a list of randome questions floating around in my head: Are there any suggestions for getting around? I was thinking of bringing a daypack and a duffle bag, is that a dumb idea? Am I wasting time/space by bringing a laptop? How do I avoid looking too much like a lost American tourist? Should I shave? Bathe? Wear a Canadian maple leaf T-shirt? Is there anyone willing to take me in? Is it better to speak English or just slaughter the native language? When riding on a train/bus, should I avoid eye contact? What about walking about the streets? Should I use a credit card or the local currency? Why is the Euro so expensive?

Any creative advice that can be offered on these and other subjects would be much appreciated.