6/21/16
I worked a 16 hour day today. There's a radio cable running from the bighouse out for a 110 yards or so away from the bighouse. It's buried 3-4 feet deep in the snow depending on the drifts. They need to dig the cable up b/c one of the jobs this year is to raise the bighouse up (snow accumulates about 1 meter per year, so every now and then you have to raise it up). To do this they need to drive tractors around, so the cable has to be dug up. One of our duties as techs (when all the instruments are running well) is to help out with camp jobs (ex. building cargo pallets, cleaning the dorms, washing dishes, shoveling, etc). Well I volunteered to dig out the ditch. I worked solidly from after lunch until dinner at 6:30. and then I worked at it again from 9 (after our balloon launch) until nearly midnight
Today we had big old burgers for lunch and dinner was lambchops and then cooked eggplant with yummy toppings on top of it
6/22/16
After my daily rounds I worked more on shoveling out the cable. It takes a long time b/c you have to make a pretty big trench and the layers are tricky. The top layer is crusty from the wind. The middle layer is loose sugary snow, and the bottom layer can by super hard and nearly ice from the compaction. I guess they noticed my shoveling skills b/c I was called out to the fuel pits to help dig out the fuel tanks and bladders b/c they were quite buried. I was tired from all the digging, but I headed out for a bike ride today b/c it was beautiful (=no wind) and sunny. I ended up doing the runway twice b/c it was so nice.
Dinner tonight was chicken fried steak and stuffed peppers.
6/23/16
Today I did more digging. The station manager is super impressed and has dubbed the trench the Travis Guy honorary trench. That's what she calls it in the morning meetings and what I saw she called it in her daily email report to Denver and the NSF. So that's pretty funny. Around 10pm a big blizzard moved in, so I went outside and finished the last 6 feet and pulled out the cable before it all drifted in b/c of the blizzard. Kaija was just super impressed that I dug a football field length deep trench all by myself. I guess I got good at digging snow trenches from all those Klondikes back in boyscouts when we dug them to sleep in and as shelter against other troops for snowball fights.
Dave the medic is trying a new treatment on his knee these days. He alternates between an ice bucket and a hot bucket to soak his knee. He goes back and forth several times with it. The cold is obviously very painful and when he dunks his knee in, he lets out a barrage of swear words for a minute or so, which is pretty funny, especially since he's a nice guy. Then he mentioned a study in a prominent medical journal that found that swearing actually helps reduce pain.
Dave the medic is trying a new treatment on his knee these days. He alternates between an ice bucket and a hot bucket to soak his knee. He goes back and forth several times with it. The cold is obviously very painful and when he dunks his knee in, he lets out a barrage of swear words for a minute or so, which is pretty funny, especially since he's a nice guy. Then he mentioned a study in a prominent medical journal that found that swearing actually helps reduce pain.
Today for lunch we had grilled halibut and for dinner in preparation for bollywood night we had chicken tikka masala, palak paneer, dhal, and aloo gobi. Dessert was mango sticky rice.
6/24/16
Today was our last day before the new flight period starts. There are 26 on station right now, but for a week during the flight period we will have 50, so it will get crowded. It also means lots of hard work for us to prepare for the airplanes and all the people. The carps through a little happy hour party with some beer they had brewed today before dinner as a last hurrah before the station gets large. The carps all have some interesting stories of all the different antarctic deep field camps they'd worked at. Dog, the foreman who lives in Denver is a super nice guy. He told me that RMNP and Estes Park are his favorite places in the world. He likes to go camping up there with his daughter and her boyfriend and his grandkids. He told me how they went up there for the 4th of July and couldn't find a camping spot at all so they just ended up camping on the baseball field since they had had several beers and couldn't drive back to Denver. He's also a big Broncos fan and likes to talk to me about the Broncos.
In our morning meeting, Kaija our sweet manager (aka camp mom), gave us the warning to go easy on our Summit humor (generally crude as is most polar and/or field camps) for a while until the new people acclimated to the camp. Someone suggested that if we talked in a british accent, then could we perhaps continue our current level of humor to which she agreed, so I guess tomorrow there will be lots of british accents around base.
Today we had breakfast for lunch with bacon, french toast, cinnamon rolls, an egg casserole thing (with mushrooms, cheeses, and asparagus), a ham and swiss quiche, and a spinach and feta quiche, and a mango smoothie. Dinner was chicken parmigiana, eggplant parmigiana, fresh baked garlic baguette, and home-made tiramisu.
6/25/16
Today was the first day of the next flight period. The flight brought in 5 people. Grey (the new station manager, Tonja (the medic replacing Dave), Christy and Andy (NOAA folks who I met at my training in Boulder) and a carp named Russ. On the flight there was also 6 DV's (Distinguished visitors) from the airforce who we toured around for a couple of hours before they got on the plane and headed back. One of them was 2nd in command of the airforce and works in the pentagon. He took a picture with me and the other techs and said he was going to put the picture up on his office wall in the pentagon.
When Kaija tolds us 6 DV's were coming in, she said "and they have requested..." but before she could finish James said "bagel shots" to which everyone fell out of their seat laughing. We arrived to summit after the infamous bagel shot night, but we had been told about it. James, who has a rather large "raft guide" belly apparently has a huge inny belly button. He call his whole midsection the bagel and the bellybutton the bagelt hole. Robin, one of the carps I knew from back in Antarctica was very fascinated by the bagel hole. She started saying how she wanted to take a whiskey shot out of the bagelt hole. Well one Saturday night after enough whiskey had been consumed, she convinced everyone on station to take a shot from the bagel hole. So that was why we all laughed so hard to think of some DV's taking bagel shots
It was warm today (17F) so the snow was soft and sticky. The LC-130 had a lot of trouble taking off. It had to make 5 passes on the runway before it was able to get enough speed to take off. Actually in order to finally take off they had to use JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off), which are they 8 rocket boosters they put on the side and fire off in case they can't get up to speed on slow snow.
For lunch we had chipotle style burritos with steak and fresh avocados. For a midmorning snack when the DV's arrived we had smoked salmon, quiche, and some fancy cheeses and crackers.
For dinner the carps did a bbq. Like a good ole southern bbq. There were tons of babyback ribs and pulled pork. They also had texas toast, coleslaw, potato salad, and baked beans with stuff in it. John (the mountaineer guy from Nols) made really tasty mixed berry pies. And Danny made these delicious cookie dough truffle balls. (cookie dough balls covered in chocolate). He really enjoyed himself all night saying how people "loved his balls in their mouth". Classic Danny humor. Reminds me of the SNL Schweddy Balls Christmas skit featuring Alec Baldwin
6/24/16
Today was our last day before the new flight period starts. There are 26 on station right now, but for a week during the flight period we will have 50, so it will get crowded. It also means lots of hard work for us to prepare for the airplanes and all the people. The carps through a little happy hour party with some beer they had brewed today before dinner as a last hurrah before the station gets large. The carps all have some interesting stories of all the different antarctic deep field camps they'd worked at. Dog, the foreman who lives in Denver is a super nice guy. He told me that RMNP and Estes Park are his favorite places in the world. He likes to go camping up there with his daughter and her boyfriend and his grandkids. He told me how they went up there for the 4th of July and couldn't find a camping spot at all so they just ended up camping on the baseball field since they had had several beers and couldn't drive back to Denver. He's also a big Broncos fan and likes to talk to me about the Broncos.
In our morning meeting, Kaija our sweet manager (aka camp mom), gave us the warning to go easy on our Summit humor (generally crude as is most polar and/or field camps) for a while until the new people acclimated to the camp. Someone suggested that if we talked in a british accent, then could we perhaps continue our current level of humor to which she agreed, so I guess tomorrow there will be lots of british accents around base.
Today we had breakfast for lunch with bacon, french toast, cinnamon rolls, an egg casserole thing (with mushrooms, cheeses, and asparagus), a ham and swiss quiche, and a spinach and feta quiche, and a mango smoothie. Dinner was chicken parmigiana, eggplant parmigiana, fresh baked garlic baguette, and home-made tiramisu.
6/25/16
Today was the first day of the next flight period. The flight brought in 5 people. Grey (the new station manager, Tonja (the medic replacing Dave), Christy and Andy (NOAA folks who I met at my training in Boulder) and a carp named Russ. On the flight there was also 6 DV's (Distinguished visitors) from the airforce who we toured around for a couple of hours before they got on the plane and headed back. One of them was 2nd in command of the airforce and works in the pentagon. He took a picture with me and the other techs and said he was going to put the picture up on his office wall in the pentagon.
When Kaija tolds us 6 DV's were coming in, she said "and they have requested..." but before she could finish James said "bagel shots" to which everyone fell out of their seat laughing. We arrived to summit after the infamous bagel shot night, but we had been told about it. James, who has a rather large "raft guide" belly apparently has a huge inny belly button. He call his whole midsection the bagel and the bellybutton the bagelt hole. Robin, one of the carps I knew from back in Antarctica was very fascinated by the bagel hole. She started saying how she wanted to take a whiskey shot out of the bagelt hole. Well one Saturday night after enough whiskey had been consumed, she convinced everyone on station to take a shot from the bagel hole. So that was why we all laughed so hard to think of some DV's taking bagel shots
It was warm today (17F) so the snow was soft and sticky. The LC-130 had a lot of trouble taking off. It had to make 5 passes on the runway before it was able to get enough speed to take off. Actually in order to finally take off they had to use JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off), which are they 8 rocket boosters they put on the side and fire off in case they can't get up to speed on slow snow.
For lunch we had chipotle style burritos with steak and fresh avocados. For a midmorning snack when the DV's arrived we had smoked salmon, quiche, and some fancy cheeses and crackers.
For dinner the carps did a bbq. Like a good ole southern bbq. There were tons of babyback ribs and pulled pork. They also had texas toast, coleslaw, potato salad, and baked beans with stuff in it. John (the mountaineer guy from Nols) made really tasty mixed berry pies. And Danny made these delicious cookie dough truffle balls. (cookie dough balls covered in chocolate). He really enjoyed himself all night saying how people "loved his balls in their mouth". Classic Danny humor. Reminds me of the SNL Schweddy Balls Christmas skit featuring Alec Baldwin
 |
| The start of the trench. I had to go to the end of those flags and also back to underneath the bighouse (where I am taking the photo from) |
 |
| the trench as it's going back to the bighouse |
 |
| completed trench with cable pulled out, but hard to see the end b/c of the blizzard conditions |
 |
| The greenhouse where we live, also known as the trailer park |
 |
| Dave the medic, cargo Andrew and tech hannah in the main office |
 |
| you can see the JATO rocket booster flaming on the side |
 |
| dressing up for Robin's birthday party |
 |
| moving the MSF (mobile science facility) |
 |
| They have a ice core drill here that drilled down 11,000 feet to the bottom of the ice. Here's a timeline of what era the ice at each depth was formed |
 |
| Thano and my room |
 |
| Thano and my room. |
 |
| our bunks. Thano on bottom, me on top |
 |
| Dave the medic |
 |
| the carps |
 |
| Danny Gregory |
1 comment:
Lots of digging...good work
Post a Comment