Home Again

Well, we're not really home. That would be our cozy
little house in Grand Junction. However, over the years we've
spent so much time in Antarctica, that our room in Dorm 208 is
our second home. After a couple of weeks for me, and a couple
of months for Lynn, we were finally able to move into our summer
home in Dorm 208 after our Winterover friend Mark left the room
and headed back to civilization. Of course, we have to do a
bit of furniture moving, box moving and general decoration to
make it "ours". It felt good to back in the neighborhood again.
Lynn was in a temporary room during the six weeks of Winfly, and
I joined her when I arrived several weeks ago. No more walking
down the hall to the bathroom since we share a bath with our two
suitemates. We also know most of our neighbors down the hall
since you have to have a fair amount of months with the program
to reside in this dorm. I'm looking forward to settling in.

Lynn's at McMurdo

After a couple days of delays, Lynn is on the Ice. She had
her first day at her new job and things are going well. She's
in a temporary dorm room for a while, so she can't really
settle in. However, she's getting back into the swing of things.
Hopefully she'll be able to see some clear nights and lots of
stars and auroras. Maybe even some Nacreous Clouds.

Lynn's Packing to Go South

Lynn wasn't planning on going South to The Ice this year.

She was an Alternate. Then, out of the blue, she received

a phone call, telling her that she was now the Primary.

Plus, she would be going down at Winfly, not Mainbody.

This means that she'll be leaving for orientation in

Denver on August 21st and headed for New Zealand on

August 23rd, with a on-Ice date of August 27th. Each

person is allowed 140 pounds of luggage. Usually it's not

hard to come under the weight limit, but sometimes it's

hard to fit everything in the bags. We've solved that

problem by getting space bags that remove all the air

and gives you a compact bag to place inside your bags.

Here's Lynn demonstrating the procedure.

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!

Bring Your Own

We've been informed that starting at WINFLY this
season, the US Antarctic Program will no longer
be issuing the following gear to us:

Extra Socks - Only 2 pair will be issued
Extra Lightweight Underwear
Water Bottle
Sunglasses

All of this is in an effort to cut costs. For one,
I think this is a good idea. I don't work outside
so I don't need the 10 pairs of socks that I would
normally be issued and I only take one pair of long
underwear with me anyway. I take the water bottle
and sunglasses but the last time I used the issued
bottle, I filled it with laundry detergent, and I'm
a bit of a sunglass snob, so I wear my own. What
I do worry about though are brand new folks coming
down for the first time. Most don't have a clue about
what gear they'll need (I remember how I wore my
sunglasses all the time during my first week on the
Ice because I had heard about the ozone hole and thought
it would wreck my vision...old age is doing that on
it's own). I guess it will be a wait and see but
since I don't have to take ten pairs of socks anymore,
I can fill one of my orange bags with something more
useful...like freshies or cheese!

Flooding The Transition

This isn't a current picture, but you'll get the idea.
Every winter, Fleet Ops is tasked with Flooding the
Transition. What is this you ask? Ok...first the
Transition, or it's official name, The VXE-6 Transition.
It's the area where land and sea ice meet and can be very
broken, rough and choppy. That's where Fleet Ops comes
in. Every year, a road is built over the Transition.
Most years it serves as the jumping off point of the
Pegasus Shortcut Road, cutting the trip to Pegasus Field
almost in half. It also goes to the Ice Runway that is
built during WINFLY. However, the Ice Runway won't be
built this year, so it makes the road doubly important
as the main "expressway" to Pegasus. I always wondered
why the Transition had to be flooded. It's in Ice already
after all. So while eating lunch today with Nick who works
in Fleet Ops and is one of the guys flooding the Transition,
I asked him...why? His quick answer...to make it smooth.
Simple as that. Kind of like spreading new asphalt onto
a road to make it more drivable. Only in this case, water
is used to "flood" it. After it's flooded, layer after
layer of snow is bulldozed on top of the Ice to give it
thickness. It seems odd to add Ice to a place that is nothing
less than the iciest place on Earth. But that's exactly what
they do. And to do this, they add a million gallons of water.
Yes...a Million...with a big "M". No exaggeration. It seems
like its a waste of water, but it really isn't. We get our
water directly from the sea, where it is processed using
reverse osmosis to make it drinkable. They're just placing
processed sea water back into the sea. All of this to make
a much smoother road...oh I forgot to say...It will melt and
become impassable by mid-December...one slushy pothole. I
guess it's job security for Fleet Ops. Kind of like filling
in the potholes back home every spring.

WINFLY-WhenFly-OpenFly

The powers that be in the land up north have
decided that we will not have our traditional
WINFLY the third week of August. They're
replacing it with something officially called
ADVON, (Advanced Echelon...some vague military
term). What it comes down to though is that we
will not be leaving the third week of August as
planned. Instead we will be departing as early
as September 1st (not likely) or as late as
September 15th (more likely). This caused
several people to leave early last week that
were scheduled to Winter with us. They either
had definite plans for that period or had
immigration issues that they couldn't risk
fouling up because a date had changed. More
than likely we will only get three weeks off
before returning here for the Summer. As a
result, we can kiss our trip to Tibet, Nepal
and Bhutan goodbye as it was supposed to start
on September 4th. It seems like the folks who
are currently on the Ice might have been a bit
of an afterthought when the plans were being
drawn up for this period (whatever you want to
call it) but we are cogs in the machine and
that's the way it works. Can't get too upset
over it as it does mean three more weeks of pay
which will come in handy. My cynical side though
makes me wonder if they're planning on sending
a plane for us at all in five months.

"They said bidey-bye to them what they'd
birthed. And from the nothing, they looked back...
and Captain Walker hollered, Wait, one of us
will come! Wait, one of us will come! And
somebody did come. Walker! We's heartful to
you, Captain Walker. We's ready now. Take us
home.

More information and dates to follow when received.

24/7

Today at 1700, MacOps ceased 24/7 operations for the
season. With no more helos flying and the last group
of folks back from the Black Island Road Camp, there
was no reason to be operating. The Firehouse is taking
all traffic calls from now until WINFLY. I've enjoyed
working in MacOps the last couple of months and I feel
like I've kind of come into my own on the radio the
past few weeks, reaching a pretty high level of comfort
with it. It was nice hearing people tell me that they
thought I was doing a good job when they heard me on
Channel 3, or having the people who were in a recent
SAR situation thanking me for "being there" on the
radio when they needed help. However, I'm ready for
winter to start and to do the main job I came down here
for. I'll still be in MacOps every week, talking to
the Pole, and I hope someday to work in MacOps again,
but a page for this season has definitely turned.

Captain of a Sinking Ship

A sure sign that WINFLY (Winter Fly In) is on the way
is Fleet Ops plowing the road to Pegasus Runway. These
aren't your ordinary, average plows and snow blowers.
These guys move mountains of snow, all in the dark and
certainly in the cold. On a related note, I was in charge
of the station yesterday for almost two hours. Well, kind
of. My two bosses drove out to Pegasus with the Fleet Ops
Foreman (Bob) to check out the condition of the runway. When
you leave town this time of year, you have to radio to the
Firehouse who is leaving, how long you'll be gone and who
your contact person is in case there is trouble. I was the
the contact! So with both of my bosses gone and
driving on a road with Bob (no explaination needed there)
over a treacherous road on ice covering hundreds of feet of
water...Think of the possibilities! Alas, they returned
(I don't mean to sound disappointed) and I returned to my
normal job. Sigh.

ORACLE-O3

ORACLE O-3 "deals with experimental and modelling
research on the ozone layer, UV radiation and the
effects of personal UV exposure". In easier terms,
it's the biggest science project at McMurdo this
winter and measures changes in the Ozone Layer.


About 2-3 times per week, Paula and her Balloon Crew
brave the elements on "Sausage Point" and launch a very
fragile balloon the size of a ten story building up
to 30 kilometers into the sky. It carries a 5 pound
payload of monitoring equipment with it and can travel
as far as 160 kilometers away. Everyone is invited to
watch but the Crew are hearty folks as yesterday they
braved -25 Fahrenheit temperatures and 30 mile per hour
winds to get their launch in. These launches will continue
through WINFLY when the temperatures and conditions really
get brutal.