rip! rip!

It sneaks up every year.

Well here is an update. Tim, this will answer the number of different and somewhat conflicting rumors you have heard.
One, I am planning to stay longer than I thought, just not all at once. If I can get a job as a shuttle driver next year, I will do so and hold it for probably that year and the next.
Two, I did apply for a slightly better position here as a prep cook, and I was sadly passed over. I will tell you all details later should you want to know. I will remain an ambitious pot scrubber and plate rinser for the remainder of my time here.

We just got our first e-mails regarding our redeployment, which is the first step in getting out of here. Many of us share the sentiment that while we are excited about coming back next year, we really want to leave now and get back to the normal world.
Christmas is this next weekend, and so that means lots of preperation around the galley area for the next couple of days. Our thanksgiving was lots of fun last month so I have similar expectaions for x-mas. Lots of voulenteers come out and help, so the work load is alot lighter, and we get to do different food, which is a treat after the continual onslaught of chicken casserole this and beef carbonnade that.
Also the coming of christmas heralds the coming of the new year, which in turn calls attention to the fact that it will soon be my birthday, which is practically in the middle of january, which makes it only a couple of weeks till we are all in Christchurch partying it up.

The day before yesterday I got to go on my first, (and sadly probably last) boondoggle. A boondoggle is "morale" work trip that usually gets you somewhere cool, doing something cool while still under the pretense that what you are doing is actually something useful. The stellar axis project is someting you may want to google, they probably have more pictures and info about what this all is, but anyway the gist of it is this gal, Leta Alleghany who is a large landscape artist got a grant to set up these largish colbalt blue balls made of fiberglass to represent a portion of the southern sky during the solstice, which is actuall today. The big blue balls are of different sizes depending on the lumens of each star, the largest being 4'(Sirus) down to about 1' across. The pattern was laid out with GPS by an international team of consultant scientests and Leta herself. Our task was to further secure the 50 smallest balls so that they would not blow away in the wind that they were expecting the last couple of days. The first we saw of the field it was just at white-out conditions, so the effect was that the balls were just floating in front of us in space. Also with no frame of scale, it looked as if they could be huge, just like looking at the side of a galexey or someting. Once you got among them, you could see just how big everything was though, so I spent alot of time rolling around on the ground trying to imagine them huge and planetary. It was probaly the coolest thing I have done while I am down here, and I think the best boondoggle that has been or will be offered all season. I scored. The other cool thing is that I get to be listed in the project credits for doing my small part. So should I ever decide to break into the "careful placement of large geometric objects to enhance the natural landscape as well as make some fanciful statement about our place in the universe" scene, I will have a reference.


The distintive rock formation in the middle of the screen is Castle Rock, about 3 miles up the penninsula from MCM, Scott Base is just visible down and to the left from there as a blob of green buildings, and Ob Hill would be the next thing you would see if the picture continued any more to the left. You can see we were pretty far out from base on the sea ice. I think I was standing behing Sirus when I took this.

Well I guess it's just merry christmas to everybody, hope everybody has a good, quiet, peaceful one with family and loved ones.