So it begins

Yesterday was pretty quiet, as is this morning, the first of many work days for most people for the next 9 months. We followed the dogmatic rite of watching "The Thing" (John Carpenter's version) last night in the gymnasium. I've always loved that movie, and still think the grossest part is when the doc is giving the paddles to the chunky guy that's not breathing and then... Well, I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it.

I'm mostly moved out of my room in the A4 berthing wing and into my room in the A1 berthing wing. If the Dome still were there I'd have had a nice view of it from this new room.

We just got the schedule for "dish mouse", the rotation by which the community takes turns doing the dishes every day. It's always interesting trying to juggle working in the dish "pit" for 10 hours on top of getting all my science work done with nobody else to cover it for me. Not all jobs are created equally down here. At least you get a good dose of humidity when working dish mouse, and my dish washing skills are more than up to the task of handling the mess created by 47 people. Shoot, I hand-washed everything for almost twice that number at the Long Duration Balloon field camp outside McMurdo my first season.

I don't have time to post a picture, but today starts my "month-stache". We'll see how handle-barred, bristled, and generally cop-like I can get in one month's time.

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
~Henry Ford