I just randomly picked answers without knowing how the story would go. I think it turned out quite nicely. Everyone's had plenty of time to fill in their answers, so here's the final version of....

Road Trip!

One day my Uncle Niolk and my Aunt Goo said they would take me and my sister Jenny! on a trip to Texas.

“You will love Texas,” said Aunt Goo. “It is famous for its wild llamas, its Toadstool White flowers, and its beautiful writhing hills.”

“I hope you packed plenty of poptarts for the ride,” said Uncle Niolk. “It will probably take us 42 hours.”

So we all piled into Uncle Niolk and Aunt Goo's monster wheel. At first the trip was really cryptic. We sang “pi Bottles of snot on the Wall.” Then we counted the dandelions that we saw slinking in the fields by the side of the road. But after 10 hours we had eaten all the poptarts and Jenny! was getting crack-ass.

“Are we almost there?” she asked twitterpatedly.

“Yes, Googlie Bear,” said Aunt Goo.

Just then I saw a sign that said, “Amsterdam: 2 miles.”

“Umm, Uncle Niolk, is Amsterdam on the way to Texas?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Jenny!, pointing, “and is The Sphynx on the way to Texas?”

“Remember only you can prevent forest fires, kids,” laughed Uncle Niolk. “You can trust the expert.”

“One thing's for sure,” I muttered. “I don't think we're in BC any more.”

Thanks to Jason for putting up with the cold to get these photos. I was busy staying warm. Here is what last night's eclipse looked like at the south pole:

Goo suggested that I put a Blog-Lib on my site, so I'm going to do it. Anyone remember Mad Libs? Well, this is just like that, only it's on my blog, so it's a Blog-Lib. You simply put your answers in my comments section and I will put it all together in a few days using a mish-mash of the best answers. Seems easy enough, so here we go.

You provide me with a word to match each of these:

your state

Each season at the south pole, we practice getting jacked up. More specifically, each month we have an emergency response drill and one of those each winter is designated as a Mass Casualty Incident (MCI). The MCI stands apart from a normal (typically fire) drill in that the intent is to stretch our resources beyond their limit.

We have 54 winterovers this year and each of us is on some form of emergency response team. There is the trauma team which is essentially medics that respond to injuries, fire team one which is our first responders, fire team two that consists of traditional firemen and firewomen who wear SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus), and fire team three which is the logistical support for the other teams. Most fire team members have gone through training in Denver before deploying to the ice. Due to the circumstances in which I have come to the south pole each of the last two years, I have never been to the fire team training, which means I am on team three. Team three provides anything that is needed by the other three teams: extra oxygen, fire extinguishers, fans for removing smoke from an area, extra hands in transporting victims, and even refreshments.

Normally the drills here are straightforward. The intent is to keep us all in awareness in the event of a real problem. The MCI is intended to put us in a more unfamiliar situation to demonstrate how we would handle a situation that goes from bad to worse. This season's MCI consisted of three 'injuries' that occur in our power plant after a problem during maintenance of one of the generators. One person had a burnt hand, another had glycol fumes sprayed on him (note the missing finger, that was already there), and the final victim had a bolt enter his skull.


When the alarm sounded for the drill, I responded by bringing the air quality meter to the on-site leader, known as the On Scene Command (OSC). The OSC, Lynette, informed me that the normal team 3 leader was involved in the drill, so I was promoted to the position of team lead with the tap of her magic wand. Yay for me! The main function of a team lead is to communicate and direct the other team members over the radio. So I whipped out my radio only to find that it wasn't working. That basically renders me useless. I eventually found another radio and ordered down fans and extra oxygen. Fire team two had extracted victims which were now being tended to by the trauma team. It's team three's job to arrange transportation from the accident scene up to medical in the main station. I called for two snow machines with sleds to come to the fuel arch close to the power plant. The sleds were stuck in ice so they pulled them out with an LMC (a larger tracked vehicle). The LMC tried backing down into the arch only to drive the sled into the snow, eventually breaking the tongue that connects the sled to the LMC. So we went back to using snow machines to pull the victims out. During all of this, victims were brought out, found no transport, taken back to the power plant, then recalled for transportation. The MCI is supposed to have a few twists built in to it, but nothing compared to the random unplanned stuff that goes wrong. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I woke up that morning with a stiff neck.

Eventually we got all of the victims up to medical and had a lively post-MCI meeting to discuss all that went on during the drill.

There's really not anything going on at the south pole at the moment, so I thought I would share my list of cool words that I have been compiling. The list is not complete and I'm willing to take suggestions on any additions. There's not too many rules for the list, for instance it doesn't have to be in the official Merriam-Webster dictionary. Many of the words might be found in the Urban Dictionary* or just things that people say because they can't think of a better word. Anywhoo, here's the list:

yeti

indubitably

conch

smite

dingleberry

chakra

semipermeable

wetted

flog

cuttle

wimbled

parapet

loquacious

specificity

kaput

shenanigans

shoop

Chewbacca (Wookie is also cool)

onomatopoeia

tycoon

nooner

bumpkin

heebie-jeebies

smurfy

booger

*The Urban Dictionary contains plenty of dirty words and references to dirty acts, so surfers be warned!

Here's another worthless online quiz that I just took after breezing by Airam's site....

You're Prufrock and Other Observations!

by T.S. Eliot

Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic
and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying
to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really
heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Yeah, we have it.

Here's the report that our Met dept. sent out the other day....

Daily Climate Summary for 13 August 2007 UTC South Pole Station, Antarctica

Temperature:
Average temp... -69.9°C / -93.8°F
Maximum temp... -66.5°C / -87.7°F
Minimum temp... -73.3°C / -99.9°F

Wind:
Average wind speed.......... 8.6 mph or 7.5 knots Prevailing wind direction... Grid East Maximum wind speed.......... 14 mph or 12 knots Maximum wind direction...... Grid Southeast

Station Pressure:
Average pressure... 666.4 mb
Highest pressure... 667.1 mb
Lowest pressure.... 664.6 mb

Physio-altitude:
Average physio-alt = 11145 ft/ 3397 m
Highest physio-alt = 11215 ft/ 3418 m
Lowest physio-alt = 11119 ft/ 3389 m

Sky Cover:
Average cloud cover (8ths)... 0

Sunshine:
Sunrise on 21 September 2007
Hours of sunshine..... 0.0
Percent of possible... 0

Visibility:
Visibility of 1/4 mile or less: No
Weather: Ice Crystals

**RECORDS**
No records were tied or broken.


You'll notice that the low for the day, and for the season so far, was -99.9F. That's less than a tenth of a degree away from being able to do the 300 Club. There's still time, but chances get slimmer with each passing day.

Some more aurora goodness. Jason and I were walking back from ARO and I mentioned how it would be a cool shot to stand on top of one of the snow drifts with the aurora in the background. I was the only model handy, so here I am with the green flame in the background. The aurora were way better just a few minutes earlier, so our timing could have worked out better, but all in all it turned out pretty nicely.

Emrys takes good photos. He has a nice camera. He has no blog. So, I feel like it's my duty to put his photos out there for all to see. Even though the sun is well on it's way back, we're still getting plenty of aurora. In fact, we've had better aurora viewing this past week than we've had since early in the season. The wind has been cooperating, no clouds, and lots of aurora activity have given us quite a show. It's pretty cool when the aurora decide to go out with a bang.

When you live at the south pole, each day sort of runs together. Aprils Fool's Day is a bit like May Day which in turn is somewhat like the summer solstice that ends up being like Independence Day. I used to enjoy having my birthday in the middle of summer because it was sort of a stand-alone day with no major holidays to interfere. Nobody likes getting the Happy-Birthday-but-since-Christmas-is-right-around-the-corner-here's-one-gift-that-counts-twice gift. That doesn't happen when you're birthday is near the end of July. When you live at the south pole, what does happen is that your birthday is easily forgotten or even never known by the other polies. That sort of happened to me, mainly because I made no announcement that it was my birthday. So, when my friends finally did figure out that it was my birthday a few days later, I got a bit of a belated surprise at my desk. Thanks to Lynette & Jason for giving me a happy birthday mess to clean up.

As it turns out, you can actually get your eyeball stuck to your pillow when your eyelid isn't completely closed and you sleep on your face:

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say it's all right
It's all right

--The Beatles

It's a big enough deal in my little world that when I shave, it ends up on my blog. This week was a little bit different because the entire south pole science support winterover crew also shaved. Jason has had a goatee for about a decade straight, while Nick has been sporting the homeless Frenchman look since puberty. I, of course, have an ever-changing facial hair array. I think we now know that it's better when there is less of our faces to see.

Mark it on your calendars....

National Geographic

South Pole documentary

Thursday

September 6

9 pm Eastern

On the National Geographic television channel: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/index.html

National Geographic spent several seasons filming the construction of the new station at the South Pole.