Orbit 1 complete. Orbit 2 commencing.

Well, I’ve gone and done it. I’ve worked for one solid year with no days off from work. If I haven’t earned a little rest after this contract concludes, I don’t know what it must take for a fellah like me to get a break. 365 days at work (with no R & R), and still functioning well; I’ll pat myself on the back for that accomplishment.

We have been doing lots of emergency response turnover and training with the new crew folks that have actually arrived for summer. Only one person from the winter crew went out on a Basler, so the 2010 winter folks are still a notionally intact unit on station. Perhaps in the next few days we will get a couple more planeloads of folks that have been stuck cooling their heels in McMurdo for the last week or longer. I don’t feel too badly for them, though, since I spent 2 weeks working there while on the way down last year, waiting for the flight to come and start work on 28 October 2009... Yeah, that feels like ancient history.

Some folks are getting antsy, and the pre-redeployment jitters have set in. I still do not feel like my departure, though it be roughly 1.5 weeks away, is coming anytime soon. There is still just too much work to do before I leave. At least I got to vacuum my berthing room in a spare 30 minutes this morning. I generally do not feel like departure is near until I’m out on the actual flight line and forced to put on my Big Red parka for the first time since I last flew on a Herc.

"I think the real reason so many youngsters are clamoring for freedom of some vague sort, is because of unrest and dissatisfaction with present conditions; I don't believe this machine age gives full satisfaction in a spiritual way, if the term may be allowed.”
~Robert E. Howard