Health and Safety Fair

McMurdo held it's first ever (to my knowledge) Winter Health
and Safety Fair last week and over 60 people participated in
screenings and fitness testing. Height, weight, BMI and
blood pressure screenings were done by Medical, while
Physical Therapy and several volunteers directed participants
though the 6 minute walk, flexibility, strength and endurance
tests. Supply set up a table to show PPE equipment available and
the BFC provided Yoga instruction. The most interesting part of
the fair though was getting up and down the hill to the Big Gym
in the dark! I'm sure that raised quite a few people's blood
pressure!

Missing Miles

Lynn and I flew on Thai Airways last October to and
from Krabi and from Bangkok to Paris. After waiting
a month or so, we hadn't received our mileage yet from
Star Alliance so I did the correct thing of contacting
United Airlines Mileage Plus (The Star Alliance member
airline we hold our mileage with). I filled out the
proper forms, gave the flight and seat numbers and even
received an automated email stating that we should hear
from them soon. Months pass, I try contacting them
several times and each time someone in a far away land
tells me that I should be receiving the miles shortly
(telephone operator-ese for "go away and leave me alone").
Granted, it's just three flights credit, but 6850 miles
in this day and age where someday it will cost 25,000
miles to get a bag of pretzels, is definitely a big thing.
So finally, I write Thai Airways, thinking that United
isn't going to do anything for me (Why am I not surprised).
I receive an email (not automated) stating the following:

Dear Royal Orchid Plus Office,
Please kindly acknowledge this forwarded e-mail written by
customer and also take further action as appropriate.

Thank you for your consideration and cooperation.

Best Regards,

Asawin.

Should I be encouraged? Stay tuned.

Let 'em Eat Cake

A winter tradition the last few years is to receive a
birthday cake from Mark...also known as Poo-baca,
Poo-Man-Chu, Poo-Man or any number of other Poo-related
names. Mark is the Waste Water Treatment Plant Tech
and some feel he sometimes has a little too much
time on his hands. We went to a birthday party this
weekend where Jay-Bird was presented with this pretty
cake from Poo-baca. Sometimes they look good enough to
eat. However, if you look at the ingredients, however
good it may look, it might cause a few Pepto-Bismo
momments when digested. When I asked him for a recipe
I could put on my blog, he was more than happy to oblige:

Grammy Bacca’s Poo-licious Cake

6 cups Class A or B processed sludge*

*this can be biosolids processed from belt press, centrifuge,
or compost pile; pre-tested for microbial and organic nutrient
& at least 14-17% solids content after de-watering for
consistency and body

3-4 cups Hand-whipped cream topping--cooled
6 oz. Syrup of choice--warmed
4 oz. Sprinkles of choice
2-3 oz. Candy of choice

---------------------------- --------------------------

Take the sludge and pack into a non-stick or pre-coated
decorative mold. Let stand at room temperature (preferably
20 C [ 70 F ]) for 2-4 hrs. When ready to decorate, carefully
turn molded sludge onto a serving plate/platter (preferably
fine china, silver, or acceptable equivalent) and release
sludge from mold by tapping and slight force. If mold crumbles
at all you will have to start all over or apply delicate hand
“spackling” techniques to the molded sludge to put it to rights.

After cake is satisfactorily positioned onto the plate or
platter, take the pre-refrigerated hand-whipped cream and
spread evenly onto the surface—taking extra care in easing it
over the edges of the mold. Then—as liberally and decoratively
as you wish—apply dobs of your favorite syrups, sprinkles,
candies, and accents (edible or non-edible)

***be careful when pressing or inserting decorations, for the
molded cake may crumble

Keep at cooled temperature (0-4 C [ 32-40 F ]) until ready
to serve

Serves 4-8 per cake

Enjoy!!!
Love Ya…Grammy Poo-bacca!!!

Irony...

Here's the timeline...
Last week, I post a blog entry entitled:


"Just Smurfy!"




This morning at 0730, my boss holds a monthly
All RPSC/NANA Safety Meeting in the Galley, and
the topic is: "Death and Destruction in Antarctica",
focusing specifically on the fires many years ago
that destroyed the Chapel and the old Vehicle
Maintenance Facility. Some great video footage
of historic fire tragedies that took place before
most of us had even heard of McMurdo. The focus
of the meeting was to keep people aware that
disasters can happen here and that we should
always be prepared for them.


This morning at approximately 1023, I'm sitting
at my desk working on a report when I hear over
the scanner that "THE SMURF SHACK IS ON FIRE".
I think two or three of us in the office simultan-
eously said "Oh Crap!" and moments later I was
racing down to Building 165 to perform my duties
at the EOC (Emergency Operations Center). The
reasons are still unknown what caused the fire as
the closest people to the Shack were miles away,
in town at the time it is thought to have begun.
Almost 500 gallons of fuel used to heat the shack
were lost and the flames were easily seen from
town, over a dozen miles away. We've asked Don
if we can have our next Safety Meeting cover the
possibilities of having everyone on station win the
Lotto since he seems to have some kind of precogniscent
ability to forcast upcoming events!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Who's That Lurking...

...in the bushes? Our friend Jason is the Greenhouse
Tech again this winter and he's bringing in some bumper
crops already this season.


This is about as thick of vegetation I've ever seen in
the Greenhouse and we haven't had a day yet without some
kind of salad. Granted, we are still using the last bits
of lettuce from the flight last month, but it's certainly
been stretched by what Jason is growing in the Greenhouse.


These are great looking tomatoes, matching almost any
tomato grown back in the outside world. With the success
of this year's crop, I may have to talk to him about getting
a few extra to make some homemade salsa.

LOST???

In seasons past, we could blissfully ignore pop culture
and when we got back to civilization we could pick and
choose what we wanted to pay attention to or what would
be just the latest pop phenomenon with their 15 minutes
of fame, ready to be ignored for all time. Now though
with the Internet (especially this winter's rise of
iTunes availability) our little bubble of seclusion has
been burst. A group of us have been rather rabid watchers
of "Lost" this winter, gathering in the "Powell Family
Theatre" once a week to watch Lost (We also watch "Weeds"
and have watched "The Tudors" but that is a different blog
post for a different time) and I was thinking the other
night while watching, how similar our world here on the Ice
is similar to those of the characters of "Lost":

Trapped on an island in the South Seas until rescue comes
Lots of strange buildings, with no idea what their function is
Questionable food and water
Odd people in which to share this island with
Another "tribe" nearby (Scott Base?)
Intermittent communication with the outside world, if at all
Very little diversity
People who have left the island, trying to get back
People who have left the island, not trying to get back...ever

I could go on and on...It's funny how the television can
sometime mirror the real world...or is it the other way around?
Oh...I almost forgot...despite what some people may think,
there never will be any polar bears on this island.

Get Well Soon Dad!

Dark Days Ahead

Click On Photos To Enlarge

2008


2007


The photos above were taken by Bill, the NSF Station Manager
this May (top two photos) and last May (bottom two photos).
Even though we turned off quite a few lights last year to
conserve energy, this year we've probably turned off twice
as many and it's very obvious when comparing the photos. I
for one am very happy since I am a Dark Sky proponent and we
will see many more stars and auroras here in town. There
are some who would rather turn on all of the lights but I
think it's more how Antarctica should be and not just some
big town on the edge of the wilderness. Safety does however
play a big part of our lives down here and I concede that we
need to have a fair share of lights on so people will not
hurt themselves. For the next few months, this will be our
view when looking over McMurdo as the Sun is long gone and
even the very dim twilight at midday will be gone in less than
a week. However, with the lights vastly dimmed, I'm
looking forward to some fantastic sky shows this winter!

That Time of Year Again

Our friend and aurora-photographer-extraordinaire Antz took
these great photos on Sunday night of the season's first
really good auroras. Typically they're not very visible
here in town, but these were really bright and they happened
around midnight when it's darkest.


Of course I missed them. Lynn was having trouble sleeping
and got up. She told me that there was some really good
auroras visible so I staggered to the window, didn't see
any and went back to my coma-induced sleep. I'm sure there
will be other opportunities in the next few weeks to see
some really bright ones here in town.

A Pain in the Back

There seems to be a big push down here lately
about ergonomics and most importantly, back safety.
All the RPSC and NANA folks had to participate in
a "Safety Stand Down" this morning at 0730. Ugh
way too early to listen to corporate stuff regarding
our welfare. Especially on a Monday after a two
day weekend. I think my ergonomics would have been
a lot better if I could have spent that additional
hour in bed!

MexItalThai

Where else but McMurdo would this be one of the nicest
places in town. For McMurdo standards, Hut 10 is the
best place around when having small get togethers or
small parties with a few friends. In other locales, it
would probably be a crack house...or at least condemned.
Lynn and I reserved Hut 10 this weekend and had some
friends over today. Even though we hadn't planned it,
we celebrated Cinco de Mayo by making Green Chile and
breakfast burritos for brunch and then Pad Thai and Pizza
for dinner. Where else could you get Pizza and Pad Thai
for Cinco de Mayo? We capped off the day by playing
a "rousing" game of Global Pursuit. So instead of
sitting around McMurdo on our Sunday, we travelled the
world, eating MexItalThai and learning about the earth,
playing a pre-fall-of-the-Soviet-Union-20-year-old
geography board game. What could be better?

Just Smurfy!

Remember the Smurfs? They were those creepy little
guys back in the early 80's. I could never
understand their popularity, let alone why there was
only one old Smurf and only one girl Smurf and all
these other "young" smurfs that all looked alike
except one had glases... Yeah, those guys. Anyway,
there's a Smurf here at McMurdo and it's called the
"Smurf Shack" or "Smurf Hut" depending on who you're
talking to and in what context. Anyway, this is the
"Old" Smurf Shack and it's used primarily as a warming
hut for folks working out at Pegasus. It even has
skis on it so it can be towed around when needed. A
newer version went out on the South Pole Traverse
this year. Right now it's the only light you can see
outside of town for miles and miles away. It's
kind of spooky looking out there and knowing that no
one is there and that little shack is kind alone...
except for one old man Smurf and one girl Smurf,
making little...wait...just my imagination running
away from me again. Why is it called the Smurf Shack
you ask??? Because it's blue...that's why! Duh!

208 Open House

We've been living on the second floor of Dorm 208
every winter since we've been coming here and usually
it's a pretty quiet place to live. This year isn't
much different, but there are some new folks that
haven't wintered before living on the floor and
they decided to host a hall party. We werent' going
to participate at first but we decided to and I'm
really glad we did. Half the station showed up and
for once, our quiet little floor seemed to be the
center of the station. It was fun to have all kinds
of people drop by our room and tell us they thought
it was "colorful" and "cozy". We even found out
that one guy here is from Bullfrog Utah, near Lake
Powell, and he flies in and out of Grand Junction
when coming down to the Ice.


Earlier in the week we borrowed a DVD copy of Wonder
Showzen from our friend Nick and showed it in our room
during the Hall Party. This show is definitely
"F'ed Up". Picture Sesame Street on crack! It's
really funny but really really disturbing at the
same time. I really can't explain it more than that
and it's definitely not for everyone, but it really
made me laugh. It's kind of like watching some kind
of disaster...you want to turn away from it but you
can't! Anyway, it left us rolling on the floor and
our sides were hurting!

Tucker to Castle Rock

The MEC (Mechanical Equipment Center) is tasked this
winter to put 250 hours on the new Tucker tracked vehicles.
Once a week, Sean and Josh take two people from town out on
the Castle Rock Loop on a two hour trip. This week, Lynn
and I got to go. We hadn't been to Castle Rock before
and we hadn't ridden in the new Tuckers before so it was
a doubly nice trip. The Tuckers are tracked vehicles so
they roll over the snow easily and had no problem at all
climbing from the Sea Ice up the glacier headed to Castle
Rock.


I was pretty surprised how steep the terrain was around
Castle Rock and it's definitely a long slide down to the
bottom of the glacier. Lots of people make this 9.3 mile
loop trip on foot or skis, but they definitely have more
energy than I do. I was very happy making it in a warm
vehicle.


On the way back, we were riding along the top of the glacier,
so we were fairly high up compared to McMurdo Sound to the
right and the Ross Ice Shelf to the left. At this high
up, you could see that it's a lot brighter to the north,
but you'd have to go hundreds of miles to actually see
the sun. And this was at 3:30 in the afternoon. We had
a great trip and hopefully we'll be able to go out again
after it's completely dark to see lots of stars.

McMurdo Fat Tire Festival?

It's only appropriate that since the Fruita Fat Tire
Festival was just held back home, that a photo of a
bike comes my way. I had one of those "wish I had a
camera with me" moments last night on the way home
from work. Fortunately Ken from I.T. had his camera
and took some great shots of this bike that was sitting
outside my dorm. We've had odd weather the last couple
of days. On this blog I have a little weather box that
says what the weather is like in McMurdo. Most days
it says "Windy" or "Snowy", but yesterday it said
"Mist". When does it ever Mist here??? It wasn't a
foggy, rainy mist like you would have in Astoria or in
some town in coastal Maine, but it was a cold, damp icy
mist that just kind of made the day miserable. The tires
reminded me of these Polish-type cookies that my Mom used
to make (called Chrusciki?) that are like spokes or wheels
covered in powdered sugar after being deep fried. Even
after 7 years here, it seems odd to see bicycles around,
although people do occasionally ride them even in the winter.
There is even a "Cyclocross" held here every December. But
just looking at this photo in no way makes me want to jump
on and take a quick spin around town.

Cozy

This is it. This is where I spend 54+ hours a week.
I've definitely had worse work places. Until it got
dark for most of the day, I had a great view over
town and the mountains. The one big drawback was that
it has those really obnoxious fluorescent lights in
the ceiling...so I brought in some lamps to make it
a little warmer. My office is still a mess, but at
least it's not obnoxiously bright.

It's Gonna Blow!

Talk about a clown-car scenario. There were four of us
at work the other day all trying to figure out one stupid
coffee maker. About every other time it would gorge itself
of all of it's coffee and half of the water, leaving a lake
of coffee on the table. Now this is important, because
every single one of us drinks coffee...a lot of coffee.
I've never worked in a place where everyone in the building
drank this much coffee. So when this "cheap piece of crap"
coffee maker started to break down, George started to take
it apart and ended up having more pieces left over than
what he started with, but it no longer leaks. Bill
apparently either had too much time on his hands or
genuinely has our safety in mind because he made a skull
and crossbones sign for our little coffee maker that could.

If You Wanted To

Today was one of those days that happens once in a
while during the winter. Not too cold, not too windy...
just right. Even though it was a beautiful "day" for a
hike, many people I talked to did exactly the same thing
I did. Just hung out. I'd almost rather the weather be
really lousy on our only day off since guilt doesn't
factor into the equation that way. A lot of people that
spend only the summer here don't realize that it takes
more of an effort to take a hike here in the winter than
it does in the summer. From October to February you can
pretty much go almost anywhere on a marked trail. By
yourself. Without a radio. Without checking out with
the Firehouse first. You can't even solo climb Ob Hill
by yourself or without checking out. (not that I would
want to...I'm one of many I'm discovering that are proud
of the fact of never climbing this menacing mini-mountain)
The only place you can hike by yourself, without all of
the bells and whistles is Hut Point. Not much of an
adventure. However, I do remember my first winter,
backing up to the edge of the point in the dark, taking
a photo of the cross with the town in the background.
One step behind is a VERY long drop onto the rocks and
ice. Not a good way to discover the wonders of gravity.
So the map lists many wonderful places to hike and to
have an adventure...just not so much in the winter.

Happy Birthday K-Dub

Tonight I went to a birthday party at the BFC for our
friend Kevin. He's going to be celebrating his golden
birthday on the 28th. BFC parties are always a lot of
fun and it had been a couple of years since I'd been to
one there. It's interesting what kind of fun you can
have when frisbees, dry ice and Swedish block throwing
games are involved. I came home without a headache so
the party was definitely a success.