There’s nothing really to write about. I just didn’t want you, my devoted audience, to think I’d fallen off the end of the earth. Close. We were working outside in a pretty good windstorm, and I almost got blown away.
But I’m still here.
We’ve been doing outdoor/loader work the last couple of shifts, which makes me very happy. I’ve put more than 11 hours on the hour meter in Jeckle over the last three days.
Joe cleaning the windshield of my loader for me.
We got a pretty good storm last week/weekend – dumped a ton of snow on us. There’s been a fair amount of shoveling away snow drifts this week as a result.
Ob Hill disappearing in the storm, as seen from my dorm steps.
I’m signed up to go on a Delta trip this coming Saturday to go out to Cape Evans and into the ice caves. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather cooperates, and that we see penguins…
We went out to the Ice Runway on Monday, just to watch some planes take off and do something besides watch movies. We had a lot of fun playing in the snow.
And while we were out there, a couple plumbers were replacing toilets in the bathrooms or something, and they pulled the old toilets out by their truck to haul back to town. We couldn’t resist the photo op:
Ned & Sharon, multitasking.
Ian and Tyler.
Ian the Philospoher.
Random “As Seen Around MacTown” update, you ask? My pleasure. MAPCON, our inventory software, has these little “inspirational messages” or whatever on the home page when you log in. This one made me laugh:
The people in Central Supply have a series of three Etch-A-Sketches that they like to draw various pictures on (they change pretty frequently). I think this is Erubus erupting:
And I’m out. Seriously, NOTHING good to write about. Hope your lives are more exciting than mine right now. Peace. -Ceds
Almost forgot one of the daily routines specific to this place. On my way to the Galley for breakfast-dinner after I get off work, every day, I have to stop in the 155 Highway 1 bathrooms to blow my nose. See, McMurdo is infamous for causing the most gimongous boogers you’ve ever seen. Combine that with all the dusty gasket moves and the like that I’m so deeply involved in these days, it’s almost legendary. Seriously, I got one the other day that was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen come out of a human nose – I mean I saw something worse come out of my horse’s nose once, green and rotten-egg smelling, but we’re talking humans here. Grossed out yet? Well, that’s just life in MacTown.
The other morning as I was eating breakfast (my dinner), it struck me how strange even a typical day can be here. It seems so normal and routine while you’re here, but rather strange when held up against a normal day back home. Any place where Wednesday is locally known as “Cookie Day” – the namesake of which can spark some pretty serious controversy in the Galley if someone is too greedy – is odd. I thought I might give a rundown of a typical day for me to try to convey something of the atmosphere.
I set my alarm each day for 6:15 p.m., though I typically wake up on my own around 5:54 p.m. I open my eyes and immediately feel an odd, seemingly misplaced amount of annoyance… until I look at the clock and realize I could have slept for another solid 15 minutes. Damn.
I drag my roadkill-like self down the hallway to the communal bathroom, often eliciting a fair amount of sniggering and commentary from the dayshifters I pass along the way who are just getting off of work and are wide awake. Jerks.
When I get back to the room, I put on my standard work outfit: long underwear (top & bottoms), t-shirt, synthetic wool socks, Carhartt bib overalls, insulated work boots, a hat, and my bandana/kerchief around my neck. I immediately start sweating because the clothing is too heavy for inside the dorms, but as soon as I step outside I’ll be just right. I grab my backpack already set to go with extra ECW (goggles, a warmer hat, glove liners, neck gaiter) because you never know what conditions you might end up in, as well as my Nalgene, camera, and my own coffee from home (the crap they serve down here is atrocious). I’m on the second floor and there’s an outside staircase, so when I step out the door I pause a second and look over the tops of the town buildings and out across the sea ice toward Black Island/White Island/Mount Discovery/Royal Societies to get a read on what the weather’s going to be like tonight. If a front’s moving in, I’ll probably get a wind-slap in the face and won’t be able to see the mountains. If that’s the case, I cross my fingers and hope we’ll be working in a heated building tonight.
It’s usually about 6:45 p.m. by the time I head for the Galley. The meal being served is dinner, so I scour the lines to see if there’s anything to be salvaged that’s fit to be eaten for breakfast. Some days they’ll have fresh eggs to order especially for the night crew, but most days I end up getting some cereal, or toast and green salad. Funny, but green salad has become one of my favorite breakfasts because it’s fresh and it’s what’s there. Plus I have my own Annie’s Goddess dressing down here, so even if the salad toppings are sparse, the salad’s bound to be good. I retrieve my French press from the community shelf where the DAs put it after they wash it for me each night (they’re so nice) and make some coffee. I have about 30 minutes sit with some of my dayshifter friends and catch up while I scarf down a breakfast I would probably never have selected back home.
I head up the hill to Building 140, which is home to Central Supply (our base of operations) as well as Cargo, Shuttles, the post office, mailroom, ATO, and MCC. Our WOPR team stretches around the conference table, goes over the safety topic of the day – we’ve had back safety, hypothermia and frostbite, respirators and dust masks, adjusting forklift forks, and so on - and then we hash out a plan of attack for the evening, be it a massive gasket move, a scavenger hunt/dumpster diving excursion to find boxes for moving inventory, or an audit. Anytime something involving a CAT loader pops up on the whiteboard, I get excited because I’ll probably get to spend some time with Jeckle. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened much lately…
We go about our day, which is usually 10.75 hours minus an hour for lunch (the MidRats meal) and two 15-minute breaks. Our individual projects often last multiple shifts – it took us three shifts to get the gaskets moved from the downstairs to the upstairs of B132 – and they get a little monotonous, so we try to lighten the mood. Joe or I may hook up an iPod and play some tunes, I often serenade the group (I’m sure they appreciate that), we dance up and down the aisles as we’re putting things away, and Joe and I delight in doing voices. Sometimes we’re British, sometimes we’re Spanish, sometimes we’re something that might be slightly eastern European, but I’m really not entirely sure. The moves lately in
I'm the McMurdo Bandito. No messy.
B132 have been super dusty, so we’ve been using dust masks quite a bit. I hate the issued ones, so I’ve just been using my bandana. I’m the McMurdo Bandito.
We get off work at 6:15 a.m. and I typically head straight to the Galley, because my roommate usually isn’t quite up and moving yet. While most people I know love the idea of having breakfast for dinner – and indeed I, too, have previously enjoyed the occasional breakfast-dinner – I must say that having breakfast for dinner every single day is getting more than a bit tiresome. Even more so since our breakfast selection is usually pretty much the same thing within a controlled range of variation: some sort of breakfast meat (bacon, ham, sausage), some sort of potato (hashbrown, wedges, or home fries), oatmeal and grits, assorted pastries, and the egg line. Boooooorrrrrrring. Thus, I’ve been making a pretty usual habit of getting some extra MidRats food and stashing it for my dinner. Unfortunately, that meant that I missed it last week when they got FRESH JALAPENOS on the egg line. Egads! When one morning I noticed the “fresh jalapeno” sign, I abandoned the cold MidRats I’d been hoarding and switched right back to eggs and potatoes for my breakfast-dinner. I’m loving life until the jalapenos run out… AND, yesterday they had fresh avocados!! Jalapenos and avocados and mustard. Heaven on a plate.
My breakfast-dinner meal is another opportunity to spend a little time with my dayshifter and nightshifter friends together, and thus an opportunity for airing ideas, projects, endeavors, stories, etc. Michael recently informed us that we need to form a new emergency preparedness team: VERT, or the Volcanic Eruption Response Team. See, McMurdo Station is literally built on the side of a volcano – Mount Erubus, the southernmost active volcano in the world – and should it erupt, we would be (in a word) screwed. But, there are teams and “safety preparedness” lectures for everything under the 24-hour sun, so we decided we’re gonna be prepared for a volcanic eruption. A drill is in the works…
This is also an opportunity to observe or indulge in more eccentric McMurdian behavior. Danny, for example, has one of my favorite morning routines. Every single morning, our friend Danny goes to the egg line and gets a one-egg scramble (ham, sausage, and mushrooms) and one single egg cooked over-easy. He then makes some toast and his own coffee (any of us serious about our coffee make our own in the morning) and comes and sits at our usual table – the first table as you come up the 3 stairs to the raised section of the Galley by the windows; it affords premium people-watching positioning. As other friends join us – some earlier, some later – Danny very causually eats his scramble, any other tidbits he might have picked up, presses his coffee, drinks his coffee… but the single egg over-easy and the toast stay put until the very end. This is when he gets serious. He cuts away the egg white being very careful not to break the yoke, then very gently slides the jiggly yellow pocket onto a corner of the toast. But wait. Now he smooths back the edges of his moustache, making multiple passes over each side to make sure the pathway is clear. Then he lifts the piece of toast so that it’s mouth level, takes a breath, perhaps glances around to make sure no interruptions are headed his way, opens wide… and takes the biggest bite of bread and egg yoke you’ve ever seen, fitting the whole pouch of goo in his mouth in a single bite. As his teeth sink into the bread, his eyes will often close a bit and he’ll get a euphoric glow about him. I’m not exaggerating. When being teased about his ritual a couple weeks ago, he tried to explain the pleasure he derives from that daily egg yoke. He told us to imagine God blowing on our faces. “That egg yoke,” he concluded, “is God’s breath.” Ooooooo-kay. I’ve got video footage (my YouTube account is turning into a Gallery de Danny):
Soon after Danny’s encounter with God’s breath, it’s time for most of the Galley to rush off to work – normal station hours are 0730 to 1730 – leaving the Galley mostly deserted save some people with off-shifts and the nightshifters. I’ve made friends with this years MidRat DAs and janos, and we almost always have a “cool place to be” for the a.m. hours, be it a movie in the 211 lounge (211 is my dorm), wine at the Coffee House, or Burger Bar and Karaoke at Gallagher’s! (That’s was the haps on Saturday.) Last Friday, we got to see a showing of the first episode of the BBC’s new series, “Life.” The monkeys (capuchins) cracking nuts is pretty hilarious. Watch for it. After “Life,” Sharon, Ned, Tyler, and I played the longest ever game of Sorry (I won twice in the course of one game; by the way, this particular Sorry game was made in 1950 – wowsers) and then we read each others’
Tigo game.
futures/fortunes with the Tigo. There’s this supposedly ancient game called Tigo (I guess it’s real name is Bagh Chal and is traditionally played in Nepal) with tigers and goats for pieces and a Ouija-looking board, but we had no patience to figure out how to actually play, so we just took turns casting the pieces and Sharon read our fortunes. She is the Tigo Master.
After the Coffee House or Day Bar or whatever we happen to be doing, the new thing to do to wind down our evening has become a trip to the 209 (another dorm) lounge to veg on the “Care Bear” couches. As Sharon described it to me the first time they took me over there, “somebody skinned a Care Bear to make these couches.” It must have been Lucky, ’cause they’re green…
In the 209 lounge, there’s a cupboard-looking thing that, upon opening, reveals a whiteboard. Somebody had written a message on there (some may find the exact content of the message offensive, so I will leave it out, but it rhymed with “rag”), so we decided we had to add something. On the spot, while deciding what to write, we formed the He-Man/She-Woman Woman/Man Haters Club (we’ve got everybody covered), so we posted on the board that it meets every Tuesday at 9:17 a.m. Aren’t we just so clever?
Anyway, that’s a pretty typical day here. It’s definitely an interesting place, and I can’t help but love my place in this weird little world. But I’m NOT going to become a lifer (mantra: “I will not be a lifer. I will not be a lifer”). I just need to figure out what I’d rather do more, and at the moment, I haven’t the foggiest.
Until next time, my (probably un-) faithful audience, adieu.
It’s already November. Oh, how the time flies. Signs that the season is steadily progressing: the sun is no longer setting, though late at night it still gets low to the horizon and long, dramatic rays still create spectacular displays; I spotted the season’s first skuas last Friday night, and – wonder of wonders – they were circling the food waste bins; and last but not least, Halloween has come and gone in McMurdo.
Halloween is a special event here in MacTown. Although I don’t think the last two McMurdo Halloween parties I’ve attended have come close to my first season - the DJ these last two years has really left something to be desired – it’s still an opportunity for everybody to “let their freak flag fly,” if you will. Costumes are great, especially those with a special link to life in Antarctica. I really liked Mandy’s:
Mandy as the victim of a skua attack.
Someone went as a bag of Sani Waste (ewwwww):
A jano nightmare (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
There was a great group costume where one guy dressed up as the barbershop pole at South Pole and four girls made cardboard naked bodies – they were the Hero Shot. There were other references to past years “misadventures,” including two digs at the infamous “moral compass” (a surviving bit of ridicule from last year). Kish was the “amoral compass”:
Kish as the Amoral Compass - the arrow's a little askew of north...
And while I’ve heard it said that Halloween is an excuse for chicks to dress slutty, I think here it’s an excuse for guys to dress like chicks:
Sully as the Bearded Lady (photo by Allan Timm).
One of the two firefighters that were Hooters girls (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
Of course, my costume was my favorite, just because it was mine and it came together way better than I was expecting it to. My friend Sharon did a dead-on Amy Winehouse. Aren’t we awesome?
Amy Winehouse (Sharon) and me, the only Antarctic Polar Bear.
Aaron & I:
Aaron was the pig-headed guy from Motel Hell; I made hand warmers out of a pair of socks so I could have paw pads.
There were lots of other good ones - the janos did a group costume where they each dressed up as one of the MarioKart characters and Keri was the cloud creature that holds the stop light at the beginning of the race. Eli was a Pink Lady apple (he wore a Pink Lady coat from “Grease”); Robin was a “death” metal rocker complete with a reaper’s scythe; Michael was a gay cowboy; John Cassidy from the firehouse was “the money you could save by switching to GEICO.” It was a great night.
Janos as Mario Kart characters (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
Travis (Gandhi) the Jano as Luigi (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
Another shot of my polar bear get-up, and you can see Keri the Cloud Turtle (or whatever…) from Mario Kart (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
Janos race across the stage in a Mario Kart reinactment (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
John Cassidy (firefighter) as “the money you could save by switching to GEICO” (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
Gay Cowboy (Michael), “Death” Metal Rocker (Robin), Pink Lady apple (Eli), and the polar bear (me) (photo by Kristen Ratcliffe).
So now you’ve gotten the run down, and quite frankly it’s been pretty quiet since the party, so I have nothing further to report. Hopefully there will be more soon – stay tuned.
I always love spotting new signs, messages, labels, or what-have-you around town. There are a number of good ones. Most of them are necessary – crates labeled, signs put up around the galley, etc – to inform people what’s going on. But the people that are put in charge of making such signs know that they have to do something a little extra to get people to notice the signs and actually get the message.
Last night we were working in one of the buildings that’s VMF overflow supply, and of course there are no restrooms there. So when – midway through slogging through a giant shelf of gaskets that we’re relocating – I had to go to the restroom, I headed over to the VMF to use their facilities. As I was washing my hands, I glanced over to the right and saw a printout of this gem hanging on the wall:
Watch out for those poopoo germs!
If you have to remind people to wash their hands, you might as well have fun with it. Similarly, labels on various boxes can take humorous forms:
Funny, because when I saw the “fork other side” I immediately wondered if you were supposed to spoon this side… and then there it was! Somebody after my own heart had obviously worked on this crate.
I’ve also been finding some funny notes in random places during my “warehouse optimization” relocation tasks. I love this one, just because it was stuck to a box with 1/4″ of dust on it – probably a good decade of accumulation – but it still resonates today(Wednesday is “Cookie Day” [as well as "Mexican Day" - go figure] in the Galley):
I’ve been seeing some really pretty sunrises (or pseudo-sunrises, since I don’t think the sun is officially setting anymore; I think it’s just dipping behind Mt. Discovery) – definitely one of the perks of working the night shift. This reflection coming into Building 140 (my base of operations) was pretty cool, with the flag whipping around in the wind and changing what you could see of the sun:
Well, that’s it for now – need to get back to work. Send me some mail, would you people? I need something to anticipate.
a Care Bear to make these couches.” It must have been Lucky, ’cause they’re green…
