Southernmost IKEA?

Last summer, it was decided by someone in charge
that this awful color of blue was a good choice
to paint Building 155 here at McMurdo. Building
155 is the central building in town, where people
eat, some sleep, etc. Although I've heard the
comparison before, someone with too much time on
their hands played with photoshop and turned it
into what many of us think it looks like...the
world's southernmost IKEA store. I've seen lots
of cheap furniture in this building, but nothing
for sale!

Where's Tom?

Click on Photo to Enlarge

On one of our trips this summer, we found a Waldo
(you know, Where's Waldo?) in the parking lot of a
Wendy's in Silverthorne Colorado. Lynn brought it
with her down to the Ice and it's currently residing
in our Dorm room. This inspired me to create a small
map titled "Where's Tom?". Maybe I'll expand it someday,
but for now, I spend roughly 90% of my week in one of
three places or walking between them:

A) Dorm 208 - Where I sleep
B) Building 140 - Where I work
C) Building 155 - Where I hunt and gather food

Blue...Really?

The future is here. And I'm not liking it.
A project that is seemingly taking all summer
is the painting of Building 155. And what a
horrible color it is too! Not a happy sky blue.
Not a cheerful robin's egg blue. Blue...I have
no words for what color of blue it really is
although I plan to find out. It reminds me of
the dark blue chalk that comes in one of those
multi-color boxes teachers use on chalk boards.
I've heard that almost all of our buildings will
eventually be painted this color. The reason?
Because all of Scott Base's buildings are painted
one color. However, their buildings are all
Chelsea Cucumber (a kind of mint-chocolate-chip
green). This is just ugly. The blue does give
more credence to my roommate Ben's theory about
the color blue in the Galley though. The color
blue causes one to want to eat less, therefore
saving the Program money. That's why so many
things in the Galley are blue. Trays, cups,
paint trim, the clock, the Dining Attendant's
shirts, the tile floor... So, why not paint the
entire building that houses the Galley blue as
well. Will our appetites be beaten into total
submission by the color blue...or just our eyes?

H1N1

Although it's unlikely the H1N1 Virus will find
us here, down at McMurdo (H1N1 shots are available
to anyone that wants one), someone in the community
is keeping a sense of humor about the situation.
The small building on the left is a warm-up shack
for folks that are painting B-155. It's a portable
building that's designation is "H1". When another
building was moved nearby, it was promptly labeled
"N1". People with too much time on their hands,
apparently.

Aftermath

This morning, on the way to work, I found
justification for having my snow boots here.
Normally, summertime at McMurdo is a land of
light snow, then mud, and finally dust. With
the last few days of inclement weather, however,
my boots came in handy. Many inches, helped
along by very strong winds, piled the snow up
into a snowstorm most midwesterners would be
proud of.


There was a sense of serenity this morning, as
very few people are out and about at 5:30 AM and
the few people wandering around in the snow gave
kind of a surreal feel to the town.


Being a many time winterover, I've seen storms
like this often...just not in mid-November.
With this storm, like others, the deficiencies
of the infrastructure here become obvious.
For example, this view of the entrance to
Building 155 shows that the snow has nowhere
to go, so it dumps at the stairs leading into
the building. Other large drifts formed in
various places, including a nearly waist
high drift on the goat path leading to the
building I work in. McMurdo is a fickle
mistress though, and knowing the history of
the changes in weather, most of this snow will
be melted and gone in several days, replaced
by boggy thoroughfares of mud. I need to
remember to enjoy the "cleanliness" of the
snow while it lasts.

Crew Tour

After yesterday's crew tour no-go, another
C-17 arrived today and my new co-worker, Mia
and I went out in a van to meet the crew.
There were only four crew members taking the
crew, but we had less than an hour to show
them McMurdo. The place most people like to
go to is the store in Building 155. All four
of them bought lots of fun things to take
back home. Ironically, crewmember Kathy
(in this photo, shopping) spends part of her
time working at Altus, AFB in Oklahoma, where
my brother in law, Greg works. She told me
she's going to look him up when she gets back
to work in Altus!


All four of the crew members posed for me
outside of the store in B-155, carry their
purchases


Our last stop of the tour was the McMurdo
Station sign where many people take their
"Hero Shots", proving that they were here.
They were a fun group and it was a pleasure
showing them around.

Dorm Doors of B-155

There was a photo exhibit of Dorm Doors of Building 155 on
the I:drive today. The one above of our friend Grump's
room is my favorite. Below are some other interesting
shots.

6 Years Ago Today

On June 28, 2002 I was walking with our friend Eileen
to of all things, a Safety Meeting. There's a bit of
a slope on the backside of B-140 between there and B-175
where the meeting was being held. All of a sudden, POW...
down I go. I still remember the falling and landing part.
There had been a light dusting of snow the night before
and this was just enough to make the hard ice below
slippery. Apparently Eileen stopped me from rolling down
the hill any farther by placing her foot in my way but I
don't remember this. More embarrassed than anything else,
I tried to get up. It's amazing how your body won't let
you do something you're not supposed to do. I could not get
up off my knees. I was in no real pain. I just couldn't
get up. Eileen went upstairs into B-140 to tell Lynn and
called the Fire Department. They came in an ambulance.
Now THAT was embarrassing. Actually it was the first time I
had ever ridden in an ambulance so that part was OK. When
I got to Medical, they couldn't tell what was wrong with me.
I know I couldn't walk correctly and they gave me a brace,
thinking I had done something wrong to my knee. Our friends
Mike P. and Ken M. saved me from falling on my face between
Medical and B-155 (even with crutches) and I settled down into
my office on Highway One for the rest of the afternoon. Lynn
brought me ice packs and I hoped for the best. What a trooper
I was though...didn't miss any work! Over the next couple of
weeks they did lots of tests including ultra sounds and a tele-
conference with the University of Texas to find out what was
wrong with me. Station Manager Tom V. and his boss and our
friend Jim S. made sure that I was going to leave at WINFLY and
Jim arranged it that Lynn would be leaving with me as my
caretaker. That was a big relief. So for the next two months
I crutched it around station with an inadequate knee brace and
really cool crutches with carbide tips (kind of like Leki poles)
There was definitely not going to be a medevac and I would
just have to wait for WINFLY to arrive. It was far from fun. When
WINFLY came, I got to leave on the third flight after I did
turnover with my replacement and I was off to Christchurch to
be repaired. Leeann, who would later become our friend, took
care of us, getting us set up at Colombo in the City Motel with
future friends Brendan and Pauline and that would be our home
for the next three months. I went to the doctor and still didn't
know what was wrong. A CRT Scan showed that I had torn my right
quadriceps tendon. The doctor didn't believe it when I told him
and until he looked at the scan was dubious. "Nobody tears their
quadriceps tendon". As you can guess, this didn't make me feel
that great. They scheduled me for surgery which hopefully would
repair it. The doctor had done work in the past for the All Blacks
rugby team so that made feel better and the day I was preparing
for surgery, they drew a big arrow on my right leg to make sure
they took care of the correct leg! What didn't make me comfortable
though was the doctor told me that only twice had he performed this
surgery before...on two Samoans, and both times were unsuccessful.
Great...right before going under the knife. So they gave me a
shot, I started counting down...and was out like a light. I
remember waking up in the recovery room in a lot of pain. Thank
goodness for morphine because I kept giving myself tons of it due
to the little button they provided me to push. That night, Lynn
had to stop me from eating because she thought I was going to
choke to death since I kept falling asleep in mid-bite! After
about three days I got to go back to the Colombo and found I
couldn't sleep in a bed while wearing a hip to ankle cast. So
I slept in a really comfortable chair that Brendan and Pauline
found me and over the next three months learned the difference
between Kiwi, Australian and British accents and the difference
between Union Rugby and League Rugby as well as viewing VERY
boring cricket matches. So much for television. Lynn and I bought a
small van so she would coax me out of my chair as frequently as
possible and when she wasn't alienating the nation of New Zealand
with her other lane driving skills, we had a good time. By
October, lots of fellow-winterovers stopped by to see us and that
certainly made the boredom disappear. Finally in December, I got
the cast off and a shiny new leg brace. As a test, we visited
Queenstown on a long weekend and the brace seemed to work well.
After a bit of physio (not nearly enough) we were ready to leave
New Zealand and head to Australia. On none of the flights between
NZ and home, including Australia, did they ever check that a leg
brace was actually making the metal detector sound off. They just
took my word for it! Sydney was great but those stairs at the
Opera House were killers on someone with a bad leg! Then we made
it home and waited for the next winter.
6 years later, I have most of my mobility back, although I'll
probably never be 100% again. I have trouble going down stairs
without a hand rail and I can't run (not that I could before).
They say that waiting the two months before having surgery is
probably the reason for this. It tried to heal on its own and
didn't heal properly. Overall though, I'm OK with my situation.
It hasn't radically changed my life and I always walked a little
funny anyway!

Shades of Gray

Until Francis from the Galley made this photo available,
I had forgotten how truly colorless things are down here.
Yes, I know this is a black and white photo...I'm not stupid!
However, reality is not that far from this wonderful photo
of Derelict Junction and B-155. With winter now half over
and only the long months of July and August ahead, I find
myself truly missing color...any color besides Black, White,
Brown and Gray. Yellow would be nice. Green even better.
Only a matter of time...