Five Year Plan

I love Yogi Tea. Besides it being one of the better boxed teas, it has those fun little thought provoking sayings on the paper tags attached to the tea bags. Each one is like opening a fortune cookie. But this is even better than a fortune cookie since the tea is actaully yummy (fortune cookies are kind of stale and gross...). So, today's morning Yogi Tea saying of the day is: The only tool you need is kindness. I don't know how true that is if you're trying to build a house. But a nice moto to live by none-the-less.

I just got out of the Operations supervisors meeting. I sit in with my boss, Larry (who, by the way, is from Couer d'Alene) and listen to what's been happening in the Operations departments for the last week. All the fun, juicy information that the general public doesn't hear right away gets discussed... like how people loose fingers... or how power poles fall down, or who gets to fly home early or to the Pole and what-not. I know it doesn't necessarily sound super exciting, but you need to bear in mind that I am in Antarctica... and we don't have a whole lot of news to entertain us. Oooo! I just got the scoop from the cubicle land network! There was a skirmish at the Pole involving two boys fighting over a girl... not me, mind you. One was med-evaced to NZ and the other... who knows. Ahhhh, what a soap opera.

So, yesterday was Boxing Day. What is Boxing Day? (Aha! I just looked it up in wikipedia... You should take a gander if you don't know.) I just needed something to say to people who I had been emailing 'Merry Christmas!'... It's kind of a let down to have a holiday over. At least we have New Years day coming up soon. Yay! Another two day weekend! Unfortunately, we don't actually get New Year's day off. I suspect that there will be many a tired worker about town on the 1st day of 2008. Be careful to look both ways before crossing the road, or you may get mowed down by a delta or a dozer...

One thing that I like to do every five years... (I started this six years ago) is to write a five year plan, what I want to accomplish, where I want to be, etc, etc. Last year my five year plan came to an end and I had been planning on writing a new five year plan to figure out what direction I wanted my life to go in. Well... I got distracted. I still haven't written it, and now that a year of my life is past without a plan, I'm wondering where all my efforts in life are heading. My last five year plan included finishing my undergrad degree, having a pick-up, Airstream, and chainsaw. Check, check, check, check (borrowed from pops). Although having things (such as vehicles and what-not) isn't necessarily a goal, it's what having these things will afford me. This year of not being within a plan, I've tried to stay focused and move towards a goal... though I haven't stayed on any particular schedule.

Now that I'm thinking about it, here's what my next five year plan might include: continuing to convert my Airstream into an espresso stand and start up business somewhere, find a body of water to live on/near, learn how to weld, become proficient at throwing pots on a wheel (purchace a wheel and kiln), and return to practicing yoga... and maybe getting a boat... like a sea kayak and or a sail boat... or a raft... or all three. I'd also like to get my Vinny Van (Vicent the Turtle Bus) up and running again. He makes a cozy home for life on the road, especially now that I've up and gutted my Airstream.

Speak the truth...

this is what my Yogi Tea of the afternoon says. The truth is, that today I feel a bit like a zombie. After going to the Waste Barn and listening to some amazing acoustic music, I felt compelled to avoid bed for three more hours till two in the morning... not doing anything but curling up in a chair drifting in and out of sleep in the lounge with Rush Hour 2 and 3 playing. It's a good thing that today I don't have much for mental needs happening, just answering the phone and finding people to go move things around town with heavy equipment. Easy enough.

It doesn't feel like today is only two days before Christmas. I don't ususally have much for hopes in the way of holidays, but I had some fleeting thoughts that this Christmas might include a bit of romance, but alas, there is not much to be found in McMurdo these days. I should say, this is not the reason that I came down to the ice, but it does seem to be a omnipresent theme down here and it is hard not to get sucked in with the rest of the population vortex.

So there it is. It's muddy, windy, and yes, dusty too. A storm just blew in... the skies are over cast, two fat seals are hanging out on the ice pier. I have one hopeful Christmas present hiding on the top of my closet behind a curtain waiting to be opened on Christmas day... I must confess, especially since I have the title of my post 'speak the truth', that I did receive another gift in the mail from one of my wonderful lawn customers... and I already opened it (thank you Skinners!). So, I started my Christmas cheer a little early. Now I have Christmas socks to wear for the big day! Oh! and now that I think about it, I did recieve a cubicle calendar from my aunt and uncle in Virginia of beautiful pictures of Washington DC. I am going to have to go visit them someday...

Thank you for all your warm thoughts and care packages. I feel loved.

Cooking at Black Island

I have been getting out of my office and working at other offices. I have been answering the phone at Fleet Ops (the guys who drive around dozers and fork lifts and stuff), programing movies at the TV station... and just starting yesterday, volunteering at BFC (Berg Field Center) where they outfit all the field camps with everything they need (except things with motors in them...that comes from another place). I'll try to get some pictures of the BFC today. I think it has just become my favorite place to be down here. The lighting is great (incandescent, not fluorescent) and they have cozy/warm wood floors, they're organized (for the most part) and they have a kitchen area! Yay!!! A place to cook :)

Speaking of cooking, I just got back from Black Island this last Saturday. I was out there for a week, giving the cook a break. She came to town to sit in my cube and answer the phone (poor thing) and I got to go cook for everyone out at Black Island!



I think I got the better end of the deal personally... but she did get to take daily showers, hang out with her friends in the evening and also do laundry... Which are all things not possible to do at Black Island. Black Island is a communications location for McMurdo. There's a bunch of antennas, dishes and other various comms stuff out there. The two permanent residents out there are Tony, the BI manager, and the cook, Megan. Everyone else who goes out there is transient and only there for a few days working on comms things... IT guys and riggers. The max capacity out there is 8, although this year since there is a major upgrade on bandwidth happening, there has been an overload of IT guys there... Tony and Megan deserve a raise for sure.



So... since I was out there I got my fix on cooking. I cooked three meals a day for seven days... and did all the clean up too. The riggers were awesome though and helped me clean up after meals. They need to make a shirt that says 'I love riggers', I'd wear it.

Okay... I need to get back to work... and I promise I'll post pictures very soon!

Snow School & Scott's Hut Delta Trip

Sorry for the delay in posting. I told myself that I'd post once a week whether I had anything to say or not. Well, I do have lots to talk about, but this cubicle job has made me L A Z Y!!! Things are picking up in my work now though, and it seems like I'm pretty busy most of the day doing odd jobs.

Snow School was very interesting and I had a good time. I learned how to make a quinzi (sp?) hut and how to build a snow wall for protection from the winds. The winds do get pretty brutal down here since there's not a whole lot to protect you from them, especially on the ice shelf...
So this is how our day went at snow camp: We sat in a class room and went over some basics before they trucked us out to the ice shelf. To be continued... (I'm too hungery to go on)

Okay! Now with some cookies in my stomach... This last week I went on a Delta trip to Cape Evans. A Delta is a huge cartoonish looking vehicle used down here to transport people around on the sea ice and ice shelf. So, out at Cape Evans is where Scott wintered over with his people back in ??? A long time ago. His hut is still there, with an attached stable where they housed the horses they brought down here. They had the horse names stenciled on the wall where each one went in the stalls. It was kinda creepy. I think they ended up eatting their horses. In a part of the entrance to the hut was a big stack of seal blubbler. It was kinda warming up on the day I was there, even thought the wind was crazy, and the seal fat was starting to kind of flow. Pretty smelly too. Here are some pictures of the interior of the hut: there was a kitchen area, bunk beds, a very large dining table and chairs in the middle of the hut, lots of other things that I'll have to tell you about later...