Icestock 2010

Icestock is the traditional New Years-ish event that
takes place every year at McMurdo, featuring local
bands. Some with talent and others with, well, er,
attitude. It was held at the very inconvenient time
period for night workers of noon til 6pm. So not only
did we miss most (or all, for some) of it, we "got"
to hear it being played very loudly while we were
trying to sleep. However, I wanted to see at least
part of it, so I got out of bed at 5:00 (my morning)
and crawled out to the concert grounds. The last
group was playing (not my fav, but talented nonetheless)
and I got to catch up with friends. I found out
that the group with my friends Nathan, Tony and Sara
were playing later that evening at Gallagher's.
Inside instead of outside. I got there early, and
heard three other bands, including Phat Ass Bluegrass.
It was a nice change of pace and there were some
talented folks in the band including one playing
mandolin and one slide guitar. Made for an interesting
sound. Last up was "Stimulus Package", starring my
friends, and they didn't disappoint. Playing mostly
80's covers including some that were older than at least
half of the crowd there, they packed in the biggest
audience of the night and no one left disappointed.
Overall, I enjoyed this year's Icestock. Especially
since I got to see my favorites after all.

Happy New Year!

Since we are in the time zone nearest to the
International Dateline, we will be amongst the
first to celebrate the New Year. I'm at work
so it won't be much of a celebration for me,
although it's always worth looking ahead to a
new year, hopefully better than the old one.

A family tradition that I won't be able to
participate in this year is eating Kielbasa and
Sauerkraut on New Year's Eve. Supposedly, if you
have sauerkraut on New Year's, it is good luck
and you will make lots of money in the coming
year. Something similar is the tradition of
eating black eyed peas in the South. Eating
sauerkraut has never has seemed to make me wealthy
in the past. Maybe I'd be even more broke if I
hadn't eaten any. In fact, one year it even cost
me money. The first year Lynn and I lived in
Estes Park, Colorado I explained the tradition to
her and we went out to buy our sauerkraut at the
local Safeway. Neither of us like the stuff, but
we had our obligatory forkful. After gagging it
down, we threw the rest down the garbage disposal.
Wrong move. The sauerkraut wrapped itself around
the disposal mechanism and clogged our sink,
causing us to call a plumber on January 2nd, which
of course was not cheap. We enjoyed the kielbasa
of course but have regularly not endulged in
sauerkraut since.

So on this New Year, I wish everyone a happy one,
and the piece of advice to eat your forkful of
sauerkraut, but throw the leftovers in the trash!