Insanity

So this was the last week of Winfly before the “hordes” from main body will arrive.  The last bit of quiet before all the groups come.  It’s nice having plenty of table options at the galley, always having open computers, and spots on the rack for our coats.  Winfly is a very calm and relaxing time, but the craziness will soon start with main body.  But with main body comes a lot of my friends back including Shuttle Elisha, Shuttle Jen, and Shuttle Cassa.

The food here has been so good and my lab/office job very sedentary, so I decided I needed to start a more intense workout scheme.  Cargo has started this weigh in thing to monitor weight loss and it’s a competition to see who can lose the most by Christmas.  I joined this and then joined some friends (FSTOP Chandra and Cory,  Cargo Twan, MC1 Kelly, and Shuttle Queen)in this intense cardio/core program called Insanity.  It has been very tough, but fun, especially since it’s with friends and we like to laugh at the people in the video.  But I pushed myself a bit too hard and strained my back, so I’m on recovery for a bit.

This week we had 9 Emperor Penguins head out across the sea ice a couple of different days, so that was cool to see.  They were the biggest group of Emperors I have seen here.  It still gets dark here, but much later at night.  Now about 10pm, and it’s definitely light when we head out to work.  But the lighting and sunsets are still amazing!  And now the moon is nearly full, so we’ve seen some gorgeous moonrises over the Royal Society Range and up over arrival heights.

This week I also had snowcraft 1 refresher (aka Happy Camp refresher which is the outdoor survival/camping class)  I took the actual training last year where you get to spend a night out on the ice shelf, but this one is just classroom stuff as well as tent, stove, etc set-up in one of the big garages.  I also had the field portion of sea ice training this week.  It was pretty cool bc we went out in a hagglund onto the sea ice and made a crack profile so that you can analyze whether it’s safe to drive your specific vehicle over it.  While we were out there, we saw the best fata morgrana I had ever seen.  Really amazing!  It was super cold too.  About -15 to 20F, and we were out there all afternoon, so we all had cool frost things in our hair, on our goggles, on our big red hoods, and on our face and neck gaiters. 

It’s been pretty cold lately.  -25’s of ambient temp and some -50F with windchill.  And one day we even had some -70F windchill.  It’s always amazing how cold it is and how quick it can affect things.  If you walk the 100mts to the galley after you’ve taken a shower, your hair is instantly frozen.  And if you walk anywhere, the liquid in your nose also freezes instantly and your nose gets hard and feels funny

Yesterday we had an all-hands meeting and they told us that they are going to allow the craft fair now, but that bc of funding cuts, there won’t be C-17 flights from the end of November until mid-January, which means there won’t be so much freshies or mail during that time.

Yesterday was a day of parties to celebrate the hard work being done at winfly as well as to have a final get together in the calm before the storm.   In the crary lab, we had a calm before the storm get together where we used liquid nitrogen to make ice cream.  In the galley, we had a luau with a bbq’ed whole pig as well as lots of icecream and other Hawaiian things.  There was a big carp shop party at night, but I wasn’t really feeling like partying, so I ended up just having a chill night and watched some daily show episodes.

Right now I’m watching the Wisconsin-Nebraska game.  Go Bucky.  Huck those Fuskers!

The Fungergames: The War on Fun

Everyone has been calling this year in Antarcitca, the Year of Change.  There have been tons of changes.  To start with, Lockheed Martin replaced Raytheon as the contractor.  So now I work for the Antarctic Support Contract under Lockheed instead of Raytheon Polar Services.  Lockheed is contracting out, so actually most my friends will be working for PAE, while I am an actual LM employee.  With this new contract has come some changes in policy and finance.  Lockheed and the NSF want to reduce the population of the station by 20%, but still do just as much science.  That means that most departments have lost at least 20% of their employees from last year (In my lab office there were 4 last year, and this year there will be 3).  Shuttles lost about 60% of their drivers going from 26 or 27 last year to 11 this year!  This of course is making the already hardworking workforce down here (we work 60 hour weeks in tough conditions) work that much harder.

In addition to this, they have made lots of changes around town.  One example that is actually helping me out, is that they are not issuing dorms based on how many ice years you have, but with how long your contract is this year.  Both Jerod and I have the longest (winterfly contracts) so we were put in one of the best dorms--a dorm we couldn't have hoped to get normally until our 4th season down here.  But of course this makes some of the long-time people very upset especially if they don't fly in until mid october or november and thus can't get their old room back.

Some of the other changes that are making people unhappy.  They are no longer allowing Yoga in the chapel, so to make room for it and other classes like that, they are moving everything out of the gerbil gym (the gym with the cardio equipment) and putting all of that stuff (along with some new machines from the military) into the library.  The library is getting moved (sadly bc some books will have to be shipped off continent due to lack of space) to a lounge in one of the dorms.  So there is lots of talk about the NSF "burning" books.  They are also closing the bars at 11pm now instead of 2am, even on Saturdays.  They are now charging for haircuts, which has a lot of people upset.  One of the things that has people the most upset is that they will now be following som US rule that you can't sell or make a profit on anything on gov't property.  They have several craft fairs here each year including a huge one before Christmas.  They are awesome bc people down here are just super creative and talented.  But since the whole place down here is basically private property, there can be no craft show.  Another thing they are doing which has people up in arms is adhering to the fire codes for the number of people allowed in a building.  This basically means that all these work center parties and parties in the big gym would not be allowed or must have a bouncer bc they are always way over capacity.  Everyone knows that this could have a serious effect on the fun of the parties

People are also upset about how they are cutting back so much on money and stuff and paying attention to all these minor things all of a sudden, but not helping improve things for us.  For example, at least 3 of the work-centers are in condemned buildings.  So it seems sort of hypocritical to have people working long, hard, and tiring hours doing dangerous jobs in unsafe buildings and then to enforce this fire code thing for the first time.  Apparently there are lots of things in dorms and in workcenters that really need to be done and have been put off bc this contract switch ended up taking 5 years.  To try to alleviate this the station managers is trying to do this thing called "the smell of fresh paint" in which we are doing some minor and cheaper repairs (like re-painting) so that the population thinks and knows stuff is moving forward.  This also of course has people angry bc it's not "real" progress.  Stickers have been being passed around and stuck up everywhere that say "the smell of fresh taint"  Another of the many hypocritical things is that they are going to enforce the fire codes for parties and such, but for Crary science talks, crary labs for the busy part of the season, the galley at dinner and all hands meetings, where we go over the limits, these codes won't necessarily be enforced.

People have definitely been a bit up in arms about al this.  And the All-hands meetings have been quite interesting with people asking tough questions to the station manager and demanding answers and action.  The thing is, in my opinion, he better be a bit careful bc if there was ever a group perfect for an uprising or revolt, it's the Antarctic group.  The population can be described here as highly motiviated, intelligent, and creative.  We are like college students except with experience.  They also all have temporary jobs and are used to unemployment, so that doesn't scare people.  They also are well aware that there is only one US marshall on the whole continent (the tiny station manager) and that in reality the majority of jobs are safe bc the people down here are highly skilled and basically the only people that can possibly know how to run this place. Without them, the program would virtually stop for several years.  It's a very involved and active community as well.  And one thing for sure is that they LOVE this place, and it's their home, so they will stand up to things they don't like or think unfair.  So if ever there was a place ripe for revolution and with the right people for it, it could be here.  So I think the NSF, Lockheed, and the station manager better proceed with care.
There have been these stickers floating around and stuck to many buildings that say "IMPEACH" and have a stars wars character (an ewok) that looks just like the station manager crossed out.  So far things have been pretty civil.  Even at the all hands meeting, though those have gotten pretty civil.  However, come mainbody in Oct the station population will more than double and a lot of these passionate people will be arriving.  Also there has been talk of severely limiting alcohol consumption, so that could fire people up.

So basically people have declared a war on this War on Fun.  If you've read or seen the Hunger Games recently, someone down here (Charlotte from SciCo) made this cool logo (seen on this blog) that resembles the Hunger Games logo, but of course says Funger Games.

It will be quite interesting to see how things play out.  I am not too worried.  If there is one thing I know about the Antarctic population, it's that they are the most creative and smart group I have ever known.  They will figure out how to get around things and actually make them better.  They always have.  There have been many things shut down in the past that they have made better or creatively figured out a solution to.  Plus they just love fun and know how to have a good time, so they will undoubtedly still have fun. 

And of course I received news recently that Miss Fun, Cassa Grant herself, has gotten a contract and will come down.  Her on top of lots of my other fun friends will be down, so I am not worried.  There is really so much to do down here even without things like the parties, shows, Maag, and craft stuff, that I know I will still be too busy and have trouble finding time to sleep!

Joint Spacecraft Operations Center and Night Castle Rock Hike

What have I been up to the past couple weeks?  Mainly doing a lot of work and hanging out with Jerod and Spring and the crew.

The other day I had sea-ice safety training.  The first half of the day is in the classroom and the secondhalf is supposed to be out in the field.  It was a frigid day (-50F windchill), but we loaded up into the Hagglund and headed out to the sea ice to test cracks.  However, when we got onto the sea ice, visibility dropped down to zero, so we turned around and will complete the class at a later day.

Yesterday the Crary staff got to tour the JSOC (Joint spacecraft operations center) building which is run by NASA.  It was kind of a privilege for us to take the tour.  First we took a tour of their building where they showed us all their big computers where they track and control all their satellites and then we went up on the hill above McMurdo to the "golfball" where a giant antennae is housed and got to tour it and see hot it tracks back and forth with the satellites to get the information from the different satellites.  Pretty cool stuff.

Today I called ING about setting up a 401k.  The lady on the other end was in Florida and had a very southern accent and she was just so stunned and so excited to be talking with someone in Antarctica.  She couldn't wait to go home and tell all her friends and family that she spoke with someone in Antarctica.  She told me she would send some of that Florida heat and humidity through the phone.  My favorite line of hers today.  "When would be the best time to call you.  It is currently 6pm here right now.  Is this normally a good time?"  "Well ma'am, actually it's Satruday and 10am here" "I'm sorry Mr. Guy, I don't understand you.  You said it's Saturday where you are at?  How can that be?"

Last night Jerod and I suited up and took a night walk up to castle rock.  It was pretty cold (below 0 and maybe -20F with windchill), but not too bad.  It was definitely cool to do this hike up on the snowfields in the dark.  It's not completely completely dark anymore.  During our hike there was a tiny bit of twilight out on the horizon.  So it won't be long until there is no more darkness or stars.  So we wanted to get out and experience that quietness, darkness, and solitude before it is gone.  Always fun to go on hikes with Jerod.

Tonight is a tour of rooms.  It's a show off your dorm room and serve a drink kind of thing.  You are just supposed to grab a cup and go on the tour.  Jerod and I decided we wanted to decorate our room for the occasion, so we are going with a mtn ski chalet theme.  We have skis and snowshoes and ice skates around our room and we cut out tons of paper snowflakes to hang.  We will be serving spiced mulled wine to go with the decor and feeling

Con 1 and brrr...

From: MCM-Chalet Admins Mailbox
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2012 4:59 PM
To: MCM-McMurdo All
Subject: Condition One may be approaching

Hello,

There is a good chance we will be going to Condition One in 30-60 minutes.  People are free to go home or to the galley from their work centers now.  Ropes will not be put up guiding people to the galley, so you may want to bring food back to your room now if that is where you decide to go, and you do not live in B155.

Kimber Beachy

Senior Administrative Coordinator for the Chalet

X2207

It's been really cold here lately.  We had about 5 consecutive days where the ambient temperature hovered around -20 to -25 F and the windchill at -50F.  The lowest I saw it go was -30F ambient with a windchill of -63F.  That's pretty dang cold.  If I take a shower and walk outside, my hair instantly freezes.  Abe and I went outside at one point on the coldest day and threw up a beaker of water and most of it turned to ice before it hit the ground!

On Sept 11, around 5pm, we got an alert on our pagers and email that they were going to be calling a condition 1, (you are not allowed to leave a building bc it is a complete whiteout and you can't stand in the wind) so to leave work early, get food, and head to your dorms.  I decided to instead stay in the big building 155 and get stranded there bc they have all the food, the internet access, and nice lounges for movies.  I figured that was a great place to be stranded.  I first ran to Crary (the science building) to get my headphones before they were going to call it. The wind was pretty ferocious.  I had some trouble standing up in it.  I got all set up to wait out the con 1 in 155, but in the end, it only lasted until 8 or 9 and then it went back to con 2 where you are allowed to walk around in the main town.  Con 3 is the fine weather where you can leave town and go on hikes and such.

9-13

The week or more long storm finally passed today.  It felt rather pleasant out without all the wind.  And today was the first time we saw the sun come up over the horizon!  The first day we needed sunglasses.  I got to spend the afternoon of this nice day (-8F, no wind) shoveling out our Ice Core Transit Facility.  It was nice to be outside for sure!

auroras

Aurora Australis! and brr...it's cold!

9-5-12

Around 10pm, I was all snuggled up warm in my bed, going through some photos on my laptop while finishing up a movie before we were to go to bed, when all of a sudden my phone rang.  It was Brenden who wintered over and who I knew from last year bc he used to play basketball with me on night shift.  He was also working on his masters in aeronautical engineering at CU and working for that group full of chinese guys from CU (weng tao, zhibin, and wangho) that I got along well with being that they were buffs fans and liked how I would practice my chinese with them.  Anyways, this was a case where being a buff fan, being good friends with the Chinese bc of my travels, and organizing nightshift basketball games really paid off.

So anyways, he calls me up and said to be outside my dorm in 10 minutes with my warm weather gear.  He and wangho picked me up in their truck and took me up to arrival heights.  Arrival heights is a place of particulary important scientific interest, so you are not allowed to go their without a permit, so really no one from town can go there, well except for shuttle drivers.  Shuttle drivers can go bc we needed to drive these researchers up to arrival heights.  Arrival heights is awesome bc it's the highest place you can go with a vehicle in McMurdo and it has stunning views.  The project up there is a LIDAR project with CIRES at the Univ. of Colorado.  Basically, they are studying the upper atmosphere with a huge powerful laser (if you put your hand by it, it would burn it off.  They demonstrated it with paper for me).  I had gotten the tour last year of the place by wengtao and Zhibin, but not while it was running.

So they drove me up to arrival heights and as soon as we left the lights of town, stretched out before us was an amazing dancing Aurora australis!  Up at arrival heights we stood outside and watched the aurora.  You can watch it move and dance and change intensity.  Sometimes it gets really strong, and other times it gets quite dim.

We then went inside and started up their laser.  They gave me a very in-depth tour.  Then while the laser was busy collecting data, we just hung out and talked and from time to time when we had warmed up, we would go outside to check out how the aurora had changed. 

There project is basically studing elemental composition of the upper atmosphere from roughtly 2km up to 200km (the start of outer space).  One of the things you can do when you are shooting off electrons at Iron molecules in the atmosphere is determine the temperature.  There are these thick layers of air way high up in the atmosphere that have a stable temperature--that is, they remain the same temperature year roun.  Something to do with air's density and particles in the air.  Well, this project at CU has been going on for over 30 years and one of the interesting side things they have discovered in their quest to study the composition of the upper atmosphere is that these layers of air have warmed nearly a degree ever several years.  Yet another huge sign of a global climate change.

It started to get late, and I had to work the next day (they stay up all night as this is the best time for their laser), so around 1am I had them take me down.  I had been sleeping for a couple hours when my pager went off around 3am.  It was Ildi (remember Ildi, the one who helped me get this job in Antarcitca last year?).  She's on nightshift right now, and when I called her back, she yelled into the phone, "check outside.  There's an aurora and it's F**king amazing."  So I walked out of my dorm in my boxers (it was about -15F) and checked it out, and it was amazing, and the reason I knew this was bc I could see it in town even with all the lights.  So I hurried and put on all my ECW (extreme cold weather) gear and head out to hut point.  I ran into Ildi halfway there as she was working by the old incinerator.  She had a huge smile on her face (as she always does) and gave me a big hug.  I then headed out to hut point where I could watch the aurora dance over McMurdo town and over the sea ice.

9-7
It got pretty cold today.  -24F with a windchill down to -51, but I was actually outside a lot today, well alot for me as a "lab rat".  I am signed up to be a volunteer hut guide for Scott's hut, and we had training today, which involved walking out to Hut Point and getting a tour and guide info session.

After that I had Delta refresher training.  Delta's are the huge wheeled passenger vehicles I drove last year.  I have also volunteered to be a driver for Rec trips.  Shuttle Queen "trained" me, though it was more like us just driving around for an hour talking since obviously I remembered how to drive them since it was my job last year.  It made me miss shuttles bc we drove up over the pass and down to scott base and the views of the royal society were just outstanding.  I miss driving around and seeing all the scenery.  It was so cold, even in the Delta that Queen's eyelashes got these cool frost and ice crystals on them.  It made her eyes look really cool.

This afternoon there was an absolutely gorgeous sunset/sunrise.  The sun now briefly rises in the afternoon, but stays near the horizon for a huge portion of the day, so we have a nearly day-long sunrise/sunset which is amazingly beautiful!

The Crary Lab job so far

9-2-12

So I thought I’d talk a bit about my new job (formely ASLO, Assistant Supervisor of Laboratory Operations and now ALO, Assistant of Laboratory Operations) and feelings about it after the 1^st week.

The first week was mainly training, and I have to admit it was stressful.  There is just tons of stuff we have to be doing, and it is overwhelming.  I am also the person in the lab who has been out of science the longest and the only without an advanced degree, so that is stressful being a bit behind them in terms of lab operations and science.  So this adds to my stress bc I want to prove myself and show I can do the job, not just good, but above and beyond. 

We definitely work hard and the full 10 (sometimes plus) hours per day.  Part of why this job has been a bit stressful and difficult is that I have been comparing it to shuttles last year.  This job definitely has some perks over shuttles: I work more directly with the researchers, I have access at all hours to the lab and it’s phones, fast computers, and private rooms which is nice in a place where computers and rooms with phones and privacy are limited.  I also getting a lot more money which is nice, and there is a good chance that I will get to go out to the Dry Valleys which has always been a dream of mine.  But the thing that I miss so far (after 1 week) was all the amazing fun and relaxed culture we had in shuttles.  Crary lab is definitely not a relaxed place and you have to be on top of it all the time.  In shuttles, you could act goofy all the time, except when driving.  Also, I will miss listening to music all the time like I could while driving.  And of course in shuttles, we actually had a lot of free time, which was nice.  Since we work 60 hour weeks, there is not tons of free-time.  And since nowadays we almost need to spend almost an hour each day just answering emails and all that, these things take away from that free time.  In crary lab I don’t have the chance to look at emails, pay my credit cards online, do birthday gift amazon shopping, read the news and espn.com, etc during work, so I must do this in my free-time.  In shuttles I always had time to do all that and more on the internet, so that was nice.  And another thing that I liked with shuttles was how there was 27 of us, and we were one big family.  It’s only week one, so we will see how the Crary family develops.  There are about 9 of us from IT to supply to haz chemicals working in Crary.

Perhaps the biggest thing I will miss though with shuttles was getting around the base, driving around outside, going on the long drive out to the airport looking at scenery the whole time, and having access of the vehicles to go look at cool things when they were reported.  In Crary, we spend most of our time in front of computers or in the lab.  The other day, there was some gorgeous light on the peaks as the sun was getting close to rising (still hasn’t risen yet!), so we got to go outside for 5 mins to take some pictures and look at the mountains.  It was cool and everyone in the lab was just so excited.  And at that moment, I was really missing shuttles bc I was thinking, “dang, in shuttles we were out driving around (with the option to stop), all the time.  Definitely in this job, I will hardly have anytime outside, it will only be during my own free-time recreation, whereas with shuttles, we were just always out in the beauty, looking at Erebus, the island, penguins, etc.  I mean there are chances with this job that if you didn’t make an effort on your free day, you may never see penguins. Actually shuttles was probably the only group last year where everyone in the work center saw penguins, and we saw them all the time.  Shuttles also had a super sweet schedule in that you had 2 days off, compared to 1 in crary, and the hours were very flexible.  So if you wanted to do something on base during your normal working hours, it was easy to switch around.  And lastly, with shuttles you were much more out in the community.  Driving all around it.  Picking up all sorts of people.  People knew who you were.  Everyone knew Shuttle Guy.  But people in Crary are much more of recluses.  Most people don't know workers in Crary.  I have no idea who the people were who had my job last year and neither does anyone, bc we are so confined to crary.  We do know all the grantees, but not the town population so much.  I hope for that to be different for me this year.  I love activities, so I hope I will still be out and I will make lots of friends.  I hope people will know who Science Guy is.

I would be lying for sure if I didn't say that I missed shuttles.  However, it is just the first week and the job will get easier, and I am excited to be trying and doing something different and to be working more closely with science.  Also it is nice hearing everyone congratulating me on my job, bc it is an impressive job on the base, and I would say that a lot of people are jealous.  So I guess I am lucky to have had two of the best jobs on the base

Today Jerod and I are going to go play some bball as it is our day off.  And this afternoon we are going to head off to castle rock to look at the full moon and hope that maybe we can see some auroras!

Winterfly in to Antarctica

8-27
We finally got the call to fly and the weather looked good.  We left ChristChurch in the afternoon and arrived at Pegasus field in Antarctica around 9pm.  The plane had to land using nightvision goggles as it was dark.  It was of course cold (about -25F with -50ish windchill) when we landed.  I immediately found shuttle Jerod and his Delta and hopped in for the hour + ride to MacTown.  One of the bonuses of being an ex shuttle driver is I got to sit up front with Jerod while everyone else was crammed in the back of the uncomfortable and cold delta passenger area where as I had a heater, leg room, and the company of Jerod.

My dear motherly figure Cindy stayed up late to welcome me (and Jeff) back to the Ice.  After such a long journey, it was so nice to have her there waiting for us.  She had wintered over and sadly is leaving in a couple of days back to Colorado (but she did leave me with some extra soft toilet paper and a reading lamp to which I am very appreciative!

After helping some people carry their heavy luggage and such, I headed to my new dorm.  Bc of a change in housing plans, I am in one of the nice dorms and only have one roommate, Jerod.  So that is a huge improvement over being in a small dorm with 3 other roommates who I wasn't particularly fond of.  We do have one issue right now and that's that our heater is broken, so our room was 42 degrees this morning and if we don't keep the door to our bathroom open, the water in the toilet bowl will freeze over.  But it's not a huge deal to me right now as I have my sleeping bag with me and plenty of warm clothes.  I would actually rather it be too cold than too hot like my dorm last year.  But soon they will fix the heat and I actually heard Jerod got a space heater for us from FEMC today (8-28).

8-28
First day on the job.  It was pretty stressful as there is so much to learn, so much to do, and I am the only one without an advanced degree in the office.  But I am hoping that I pick things up quickly.  This year I am working in the Crary lab, which is the big fancy laboratory here.  It's a big change from shuttles and has a lot more responsibility.  I have a pager I carry with me 24/7, special access key cards to get me into all the rooms in the lab at all hours, one of the fastest computers on the base, a huge office that my co-worker Abe and I share,  my own telephone, and things such as this.

It's been cool seeing Antarctica in darkness.  Though for about 6 hours each day, there is a sort of dawn to dusk.  The sun doesn't rise this time of year, but it gets close enough to rising that there is some light during the middle of the "day".