Working weekend

Well, things were hopping here at Pole for me over the 2-day weekend most of the station enjoyed. While the children were still nestled all snug in their beds, I was sweeping and mopping the mezzanine and my work area in the science lab. That took about three hours of my morning, and about 1.5 hours of my afternoon were taken up by cleaning on of the janitor's closets, which was very much in need of a large amount of scrubbing. The whole station will be working on Mega House Mouse today, which will hopefully get most of the rest of the facility spruced up and ready for the new occupants to commence habitation.

Tomorrow, weather providing, we'll have the Basler pass through and a Twin Otter spend the night.

I'm in the final throes of document updates and turnover report writing, but there still is a lot of work to be done before I pull up stakes and rejoin the World for a while.

Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.
~Seneca

Busy before big week

Well, once I get myself ready to go this morning I'm going to start in on the very large amount of cleaning that in my share of opening this station up for the summer. Every week we have had routine "house mouse" duties to keep the station in relatively tidy order, but spring is upon us-almost summer-and we have to get the place ready for some company.

My turnover to the 3 people replacing me in various capacities is going to be an interesting process. I don't know exactly how I'm going to juggle every body's schedules, but hopefully everything will sort itself out on its own. I'm nearing the completion of all the document updates necessary to turn the reins over to the new guys, and I'll gladly be shot of that stuff once it is indeed through.

The bands have continued to practice, and between the two of them (Picardis and the Irish band) we are adding 3 new songs to the combined set list. I believe we're at just a couple days short of 3 weeks until that concert is currently scheduled to happen.

Tuesday a Basler and Twin Otter aircraft will make appearances at Pole. The Basler will continue on to McMurdo after refueling here, but the slower Twin Otter will spend the night and continue on to McMurdo the next morning. This schedule is all naturally dependent upon the weather. Once those aircraft reach McMurodo then the personnel scheduled to come down before the main station opening with the C-130 aircraft will start flying. Again, the weather has primacy in this schedule.

Hopefully things will go fairly as well as planned, because I've started the booking process for my airfare to facilitate this great trip to Australia (Sydney, Alice Springs, Darwin) and SE Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia). I should be getting home on New Year's Eve, so that will be quite a weird time to be reinserted into my past life. I'm just waiting for confirmation about the airfare from the company travel agent to book my tours, hostels, and Cambodian visa before I drop the rest of the cash, though I may cave and go ahead and do that today if I have the time while the satellite is up.

Anyhow, things are going to get really interesting here pretty quick. I'll try to keep a better stream of updates coming as station opening and turnover gets underway.

bright sunshiney day

Today the sky is very clear, and the light outside sure looks like it did during our summer months. We've continued to have C-17 flights to McMurod shuttle people down to the Ice for the summer season, and next week the Basler and Twin Otter aircraft should make their arrival on the Ice. Everybody, well, most folks, are hurriedly getting all that last minute work done before the people they have to turnover to show up.

I'm trying to go ahead with travel plans, and can't quite make myself stop applying for jobs. My travel agent really needs to get back to me with airfare, so that I can get on with making all the other arrangements for tours and accommodations and the like.

Our bands keep practicing and sounding better and better. The Irish band is adding another song or two to the existing set, which will be significantly different than anything we've done before. I won't spoil it for any folks that might be headed this direction. That music event at station opening is going to be one awesome way to make an exit after a year down here. It still remains a bit surreal being a part of something like this. Hopefully folks will appreciate all the hard work the band members have put in over the course of the last 9 months.

decisions, decisions

Nothing new to report work-wise or really otherwise here at South Pole. I'm just in the throes of indecision about whether to start booking airfares and such for this trip home I conceived via NZ, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia. ARRGH! Why does the economy have to tank just as I'm about to get my first day off in nearly a year?

same ol' situation

Well, I'm still here and still working at essentially the same tasks. A C-17 flight to McMurdo got "boomeranged" (turned back to Christchurch without landing in Antarctica) this morning, so the huge crowd of people headed for the Ice sitting around in New Zealand didn't get any smaller.

Monday night we wrapped up recording the last tracks for the Irish band and Picardis recording project. It's amazing how well they turned out, and doubly amazing to find myself doing this when in February I wasn't a singer or much of a guitar player. We're now back to the normal practice schedule in preparation for a concert to be given for the opening of the station for the summer season. Considering that we'll have a bunch of new people with a bunch of energy, it will probably be the best gig in which I'll ever have a chance to play.

I'm starting to slowly develop a plan for some travel immediately following my redeployment from the Ice. Yesterday I decided that I'd probably add on a quick couple of days into Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, which has me pretty excited. I have a lot of decisions to make before I lock into any trips, though. Not getting any replies to my various job applications is somewhat stressing, but I may take it as an opportunity to be unfettered by employment and see a bit of the world for a few months following this super-ultra-mega-marathon of workdays on the Ice.

Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.
~Seneca

WX Delay

Well, the paid vacation goes on for the folks backing up in Christchurch that are trying to deploy to the Ice. The delay today is due to the fact that there are 38-kt sustained winds with 58-kt gusts and ~100m of visibility in McMurdo. So, the folks on that first flight, ~118 or so of the 400, are on-call every morning to get to the airport and deploy. The rest are just picking up their per diem every day and enjoying the fair city of Christchurch. I think some of them have probably been paid to not work already more days than I've had in the last year. Oh well, it's not their fault.

After a few days inside the ping pong ball here, the overcast is pretty much gone and the light isn't totally flat. I actually like it when the light goes that flat, because it is almost a surreal uniformity that takes over ground (well, ice) and sky. It always reminds me of the loading program in the movie "The Matrix" where the characters are just walking around in featureless white space, until they want something like "guns, lots of guns".

I didn't have time to pack anything up for our first post office of the year, but have been sorting and packing some here and there since then. I unloaded a bunch of my WWII history books I've already read that an uncle sent down this summer. I've still got 6 to go, so some of them may come a-travelin' with me if I can't get through them all. Right now I'm reading a really good one called "Winged Victory" that chronicles the history of the Army Air Force (AAF).

The bands have almost finished our recording project, and things are sounding pretty decent. A couple nights ago we did a bunch of background vocals for the various songs that needed them. It was pretty fun singing along with 5 other guys into one microphone. After that was finished up our ringleader and I stuck around and did harmony parts for "Authority Song", which was a really educational experience. We heard the size of the song just balloon, and essentially did the musical equivalent of making hamburgers into steakburgers. How's that for a dated, bizarre metaphor?

Well, the grindstone is missing me.

South Pole: Endgame

Well, yesterday we had the first attempted flight into McMurdo Station to open the summer 2008-09 season in Antarctica. Unfortunately the flight "boomeranged", turning back to Christchurch, New Zealand without landing at MacTown. I worked some of the flight following here, which likely sounds a whole lot more exciting than it is in actuality.

Work continues apace here at Pole, and some of the station opening activities have begun already. I'm thick into document update mode, and hope to get that all polished off in relatively short order. I finally managed to get those photometers off the roof after a few days gradual thawing, in addition to a little elbow grease facilitated by a pry bar.

I'm still trying to make some plans for travel once I leave, but am increasingly leery of the economic situation. I guess if things really tank then this trip could be a last hurrah for a while. It'd be a shame to lose the opportunity to see some "far off" lands whilst on this side of the planet. Besides, I've only spent like $15 down here since the station closed for winter. I need to re-acclimate to being a good little mindless consumer if I'm going to rejoin The World for a while.

“A man knows nothing if he knows not
That wealth oft begets an ape.”

~Old Norse quote
(I originally found this a few years ago in "The Long Ships" by Frans Bengtsson)