Winfly

Winfly is drawing to a close here. On tuesday we will get our first planeload of new arrivals from Chch.
Winfly has been a very laid back experience. With 400 some odd people here it has been very slow and quiet. You can always get a computer, do your laundry and find some private time whenever you want it. This is all about to change drastically.
In about 10 days the population will roughly double in size. This means that the base will be active, really active, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Some new folks I have talked to have expressed an anxiety with the approach of a tidal wave of people. All I know is it will be crazy. This is a particulary busy year for the NSF it seems. There is a new project being started this year here called A.M.A.N.D.A. or atomic muon and neutrino dector array, I think.
It will be packed with people up and about all the time. I am working at the burger bar here on station a couple of nights a month and with all these people here I could be potentially make $100 bucks in tips a night.
Also we get 2 more roommates sometime this next week, and we just finished rearranging our room to accomodate the new guys a little more. It's very cramped but we still have single beds (no bunkbeds) and have managed to carve a lounge space out of the remaining space.

I will have my first voulenteering experience in a couple of weeks as a janitor.
I am pretty sure that this is the job I want next year. I really like the independance of the job, and since I know 2 janitors this year it seems the most likley. For backup apps, I think I will apply for the greenhouse tech. That would be my dream job, or maybe somthing is housing (dealing with resident housing issues in some capacity) or possibly supply (there is cold supply for food, central supply for office supplies and other things, and some other supply I dont know yet). I realize that it is only 6 weeks in, but I really want to come back, so the sooner I am sure I can come back the happier I will be.

The weather has been beautiful here the last couple of days. Yesterday I went X-country skiing up towards Castle Rock, a formation up on the Ross Ice Shelf side of the island. It was windy and cold, but unbeleivably beautiful. Everything was pristine glorious sunshine, and you could see all the Royal Society Range crystal clear. It was fun to be on skis again, if only for a short while. We got pretty cold fast and had to turn back after only about 45 minuites.

Well, mainbody should be crazy, but fun. I think if anything the time will just fly by even faster. The weeks seem to be flying by so far. I start the week and before I know it it's saturday.

Greenhouse Fun

So in order to break up the monotony of washing dishes and picking up after the residents of Mctown in general, we DAs are periodically tasked with an odd assignment every so often.

It can be something unexciting as shoveling the snow off the steps around station (not to be knocked though, as it gets you outside), to todays task: working in the sweet-ass mctown greenhouse.

Working with the greenhouse maven, Karen, we sorted and harvested the lettuce that was ready (ripe? can lettuce be ripe?) into big trash bags to be served at tomorrow night's dinner.

All items in the greenhouse are grown using a large hydroponic system. Film feeding is the way the plants receive nutrients. Meaning that the plants roots are being constantly washed by a thin film of neutrient rich water solution fed up to one end of the long 15' PVC pipe by pumps and gravity runs it past the whole row of whatever plant they happen to be growing at the time.

The solution is checked and corrected as needed, several times daily by Karen to ensure that the PH is right (4.9-7.9 or so) and in some of the troughs, that the temperature is right. The various stations are kept full of water by a main water tank that delivers water as needed though a system of tubes, pumps, and manifold stations.

Misters keep the humidity up in the rooms, as the plants would wilt and without proper healty leaves, the plants would crash and die. But even with the misters, the leaves still wilt some so it is a little tedious.

Anyway,
it was a very welcome diversion to the everyday actvity here. Check the usual photos and videos at Flickr and UTUBE for more.

Bowling

We have a 2 lane bowling alley here on station, and last night was a DA bowling night. Much fun was had by all. I bowled a 103, pretty decent if I do say so myself. It was a pretty fun night alltogether, after the bowling was done we went back to the 155 lounge and played pool and got crazy, leaping around on the furniture and knocking it all over the place. We got a whole 2 noise complaints.

Nothing bonds like alcohol and some late night schnianiganns.

so

so whats happening?

I wish I would hear more from you all. I miss everybody. especially you

Shannon &

Alyse and Klass.


send me photos


Life of a rock of ice may seem interisting, but live on the plain old rock is sweet too.

Right now I'm listining to belle&sebastian
There're rad.
+
I'm
drunk...


Life here is nice.

Adjusting is hard.

My job requires being around people pretty much all the time.

since I am a hermit, that is not so cool.


However, pretty much everyone is interesting, so that somewhat compensates for their intrusivness.

Shannon,
run around outside and talk to your sheep for me.

A&K,
pick up E&I
and toss them about.


We have neither

sheep

nor

children

here.



really I miss home


but in a strange way


like a photograph I want to paint

or visit

or just look at.

Dinner

mmm, delicious beef tenderloin..
I realize that it may look like we exclusivly eat beef, not chicken. Well, I guess we do eat alot of beef.

SIB

This one's for my sister, regarding something none of the rest of you could ever, or want to ever, understand.

Dinner

I didn't really eat dinner for a couple of days, but here again is a tasty dinner pic.

Tonights dinner was some flavorful flank steak and rice & raspberry mousse pie for dessert.

SaturdayNight Party

Last night was my party night, and woooweee it was a blast.
We kicked things off classy at the coffee house where I had some FineTawnyPort, which was not all that fine, ate some cheese that the bartender Troy had provided and played some dominos and UNO. Then things moved to Gallaghers where I got down.
Here are some pictures to help you envision the scene.


A good time was had by all.