New Year’s Revelations

I stole this from Miss MyLastName - my spiritual guide into the world of technology…

10 Random Things About Me
1. After getting a haircut, I must immediately take a shower. I have crazy itchy hair… no kidding, back when BC ex-girlfriend gave me haircuts (money saver) one of my cut hairs gave her a splinter.
2. The first thing I do when I wake up, even before getting out of bed, is pop my back. Ahhh.
3. My middle name is Isamu - my Japanese Grandfather’s name. Mom tells me it means courage.
4. I’m the only one I know who can control the focus of their eyes, purposefully blurring them. No one can ever tell. No cross-eyed action or anything. It’s kind of like being able to wiggle your ears or flare your nostrils (I can also do those), and came in handy as self-conscious kid watching horror films with his friends.
5. I’m a terrible speller, but still a pretty decent Scrabble player.
6. I think all feet, by nature, are ugly. The ugliest part of the human body in fact. It’s probably because I have bunions and flat feet.
7. I love to have my hands rubbed.
8. July 14, 2005 was the hardest night of my life.
9. I’m violently ticklish.
10. I was THE sickly kid… allergies, inhalers, asthma attacks… all that. Skinny as a rail (think orange on a toothpick).

9 Places I Have Visited
1. Japan
2. Samoa
3. Fiji
4. Cook Islands
5. Thailand
6. Antarctica
7. Texas (zoiks!)
8. New Zealand (very, very, soon!)
9. Ummm… Canada? (this is sad… must fix this situation soon)

8 Things I Will Do Before I Die
1. (Re)learn Japanese.
2. The PCT.
3. Raise a family.
4. Bicycle Ireland.
5. Post-Graduate Studies (whatever that may entail).
6. Work abroad (Antarctica doesn’t count… it’s not even a country).
7. The NYC marathon.
8. Learn to sing (well enough for the kiddies anyway).

7 Ways to Win My Heart
1. Be kind,
2. And genuine,
3. And secure enough to be silly.
4. Inspire me,
5. Surprise me,
6. And Push me.
7. Enjoy your life.

6 Things I Believe In
1. Freedom of Choice.
2. My brothers.
3. True love.
4. Myself.
5. Eye contact.
6. That I have a purpose.

5 Things That Scare Me
1. Scary movies (don’t laugh… they still do).
2. My predisposition to alcoholism.
3. Paralysis (I’ve always dreamt it would happen).
4. Rejection.
5. Not finding my purpose.

4 Things I Love About My Bedroom*
*seeing as I now share a windowless dorm room with 3 smelly dudes in Antarctica, I’ll try for “4 Things I Loved About My Bedroom in Seattle”.
1. Non-white walls (blue to be exact).
2. My bed. (Splurged on my first non-twin bed after landing a “real” job)
3. Adjacent bedroom belonged to Pre-school Teacher Roommate.
4. The South-facing window.

3 Things I Do Everyday
1. Let out a “Ts’ahhhhh…” after my first sip of coffee in the morning.
2. Whistle.
3. Check the sky to see if there will be a sunset.

2 Things I’m Trying Not to Do Right Now
1. Give into the sandman. Much work to do online tonight.
2. Feel disappointed with this past New Year’s celebration.

1 Person I Want to See Right Now
1. So tough. Just one? Gotta go with Cooler-Than-He-Knows brother. Tell me a story bud.

Come on readers... pick a catagory and share. All I want for Christmas are some new comments.

Pan-o-rama

Castle Rock & Mt. Erebus (click the pics to enlarge)...

I finally updated the pictures on my Flickr page. Click HERE.

Monday Funnies by Gary Larson

Two for the slow...

Two for holiday family gatherings...

Two for my fellow DA's...

my simplified pleasures...

I just devoured the most amazing turkey sandwich. It. Was. Life. Altering.

- Whole Wheat Bread (toasted, of course)
- Hummus (made from scratch… on both faces… yay-ya!)
- Turkey
- Provolone
- Sliced Roma Tomatoes (freshies!)
- Red Onion (Freshies!!)
- Green Leafy Lettuce (FRESHIES!!!!)

Last night McMurdo Station received its first plane load of fresh produce in 3 weeks. I never thought I would crave fresh fruits and veggies sooo much. Frightening.

After lunch I made a second sandwich, debated cramming it into my overstuffed belly, then wrapped it up for an afternoon snack.

Monday Funnies...

some wintry laughs courtesy of one mrs. weed…

The Crud

Ahhh… da’ crud, da’ CRUD!

Here I am… it’s my one day off for the week and I’m saddled with the crud. ‘The crud’ being McMurdo jargon for the flu/cold that plagues everyone at some point during the season. It spreads like wildfire in the close quarters.

Despite washing my hands obsessively, until they are raw and cracking, I’m feeling the affects of the crud… achy muscles, chest and sinus congestion, the works…

Grudgingly, I’ve decided to allow my body some rest. Danza, a good buddy of mine, and Miss Joy, my favorite Thursday playmate, are out on the Armitage Loop, running and skate-skiing, respectively. Me, I’m planning on laundry, vacuuming, napping, reading, emailing and blogging.

HA… I said blogging.

The best days are those that you’d never have guessed would be just that…

Monday.

Missed the second half of the work day when Galley-Sally (our Executive Chef – basically the CEO of the dining operation) told me I’d be going out with some fish scientists to Cape Evans.

Below...
Shelton.
Karen & Shelton.
Our Catch.

Polar Plunge

You only live once, right?

The cynic might say the same can be said for dying.

Despite a slight fear that my heart would stop from the shock, I peered into a hole through 6ft of ice, and took a dip in the 28°F waters of the Ross Sea.

The Claw

Me… “How are your hands?”

Fellow DA, Carrie… “Fine, I guess.”

Me… “I wake up in the mornings and my fingers are stiff and curled up like this. (pause… hold up arthritic mitts) I have to concentrate and work them straight... bending and straightening to get the blood flowing again. I’m falling apart… falling apart I tell you!”

Carrie… “ha ha... that’s funny.”

Me… “Look at me… look at me! It’s not funny at all!”

Carrie… “I meant funny terrible… not funny Ha Ha.”

Me… “Oh, okay…”

Theme Music of This Day...

...Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (rediscovered this album from this past spring - forgot how good it was)

...Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans (beautiful. love it in the morning)

...Say Hi to Your Mom – Numbers & Mumbles (one of several discs from Cooler Than He Knows Brother*)


*side note… I received a Christmas package from my loving family two weeks ago. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to stare at all those wrapped gifts for 5-weeks, I made a compromise with myself. I get to open one gift each week on my day off. Funny how I need to reason these things out.

Blue Tray Special

Yesterday I went on my second hike around the Castle Rock Loop. At McMurdo, off-station exploring is limited to routes that have been thoroughly surveyed to ensure safe passage. Castle Rock Loop is the longest of the permitted hikes and affords one a feeling of remoteness that should seem commonplace, but is often absent in the hustle and bustle of McMurdo Station.

The 9.3 mile hike starts at the Firehouse in McMurdo Station. A hiking party has to check out a radio from the Fire Station and forecast a time of return. Knowing that even 5 minutes of tardiness could result in dozens of phone calls and a Search & Rescue Team out in the field, we gave ourselves a couple of extra hours to complete the hike.

This week I was accompanying a group that included DA-Jeff, Baker-Christina, DA-Ben, Shuttle-Erica and DA-Richard. Last week I did the same hike with Karen, one of my supervisors. On both outings, the weather Gods graciously smiled down on me.

This week, unlike the previous, we were treated to an utterly windless day, and so we attempted a climb up the 200ft Castle Rock. The backside of the outcropping was a relatively easy scramble that leads up to the flat tabletop. Where the climb was slightly exposed, fixed-lines had been set-up to provide some protection. The panoramic views were breathtaking.


DA-Richard, one of probably four people on the ICE who can make me laugh without fail, strolled off toward the sharp edge. Inching forward and peering out, he called back to us, “Oh my God, this is so beautiful… I think I’m going to puke.” He’s scared of heights.

In turn, we each find ourselves resting on the warmth of the rock beneath us. We soak in the sun’s rays and are utterly intoxicated by the pristine landscape that fills the space between our perch and the distant horizon.

We descend Castle Rock and exchange childish smiles at the base. Our glances say, “Are you ready for this?” as though the question actually needed to be asked. Tearing our backpacks open, we pass around the bright blue lunch trays we borrowed from the galley.

Before bombing down the hill, DA-Ben tells me, “Dude, my brother Nick brought some wax with him for his skis… next week we’ll wax up these trays and see what we can really do…”

CHECK IT OUT: click on either picture and you'll be linked to other photos from the hike.

Wednesday

why i love this place...

5:45AM - wake up
6:00AM - start work
4:00PM - finish work
4:30PM - climb in bouldering cave with Ben
6:45PM - attend yoga class
8:00PM - sit in on weekly science lecture (this week: Long Distance Balloon project)
9:00PM - rugby practice (I am learning a brand new sport at 26!)
10:15PM - shower
10:30PM - go to sleep (and repeat)

ayn rand

Jeff the Giant, a brilliant fellow who holds a Masters in Environmental Policy from a distinguished Ivy League school, spies me across the table during our morning break. He’s a DA (Dining Attendant) like me, and at 6’ 7” he towers over all of us.

Half laughing, mostly with his eyes, he says to me… “A friend of mine once told me that anyone who reads Ayn Rand automatically becomes an asshole for two-weeks afterward…”

I glance up and reply… “Huh? Make sure to slap me upside the head in a couple of weeks if that turns out to be the case.”

The Fountainhead has taken over every quiet moment I find. It’s fascinating and completely absorbing… Big Red (my parka) has a pocket permanently dedicated to the volume.

A quiet lesson in life

My eyes open slowly, effortlessly, as though the pressures holding them shut were gently lifted.

A rich darkness shrouds the room, save the headlamp that delicately lights her face above me. The only sound, that of quiet breathing from roommates sleeping in the darkness.

The lamp glows, and fringes of that light suggest the brilliance of her eyes. They are kind and focused, intent upon her hands which I cannot see, and can only feel. She shifts her gaze to mine and smiles gently – her eyes slowly closing and opening again, as though to say, “hi.”

I feel the pressure of her fingers on my aching forearm, the pain of a week’s unfamiliar labor being kneaded out of every tired muscle. Her hands work expertly, methodically attending to every tight fiber. My pain, the pain under her fingertips, is the sensation of being deconstructed. Deconstructed and reassembled in proper order.

I lie still, giving in completely to the expertise of her touch. The human form, my human form, holds no mystery. It’s not just that I am watching, experiencing, the work of competence, of purpose and pride. It’s the familiarity demonstrated in her touch. A conversation without words. Her hands speak, reducing my arms, the pain of the fibers within, to something tangible. I listen, and my physical surrender replies humbly, “yes, thank you.”

. . .

Physical contact, it’s a funny thing to consider a necessity. We need nutrition, oxygen, water to fuel our bodies. Do we need touch in much the same way? There is an intimacy in touch. It’s a trust. It’s a gift. Touch can be intimate without being sexual. It’s in awkward hugs between brothers. It’s in a comforting arm around mournful shoulders. It’s in healing hands on an aching body.

Getting me through my day

I foresee this to be the first of many posts about a gal named Shelton.

Shelton claims to be from Tennessee, and her accent is convincing, but really, I think she’s from another planet. She’s one of my favorite people on the ICE.

In the last three years she’s lived in five different states (Tennessee, Washington, New Mexico, Montana and Colorado), through-hiked the 2,160 mile Appalachian Trail, dropped out of college (multiple times), enrolled in culinary school, and accepted a cooking internship here in Antarctica.

Silly and goofy in the most endearing way possible, an ear-to-ear grin almost always decorates her face. She’s as skinny as a rail, with eyes that are wild and distant at the same time. Laughter seems to erupt from her entire body at the most unexpected times. You can’t help but smile and laugh along. One might look at her and say that she is pretty in the conventional sense, but it would more appropriate to say that she is beautiful in a most unconventional sense.

With her Southern drawl she’ll gives you the impression of being sweetly naive. Certainly she is sweet, but I also think she is more aware and perceptive then she lets on. What is probably most charming is that everything about her has a genuine fearless quality you’re only accustomed to seeing in children. Whatever the case, everyone around is happier for knowing Shelton.

For the first 2 weeks of her internship, Shelton is assigned to work as a DA. After that she will move to the kitchen and apprentice with production cooks and chefs. During one of our DA stretch-breaks, our entire crew is lying in the back dining room in peaceful silence. We are stretching our wrists, shoulders and backs to try and prevent the repetitive motion injuries that plague our crew. The light is dim, and with the breakfast rush over, all is quiet. Our peaceful stretching is unexpectedly disrupted with an outburst from Shelton…

“Last night at dinner, I saw the ma’anliest man I’ve ever seen.” The awkward pause that follows is long enough for the whole room to erupt in laughter… all of us looking at each other, thinking, “what?”

“ah-Ha’ ha-Ha',” she laughs along… mostly because the rest of us are cracking up, not really knowing what’s so funny.

“Seriously y’all. He’s really tall. He had a beard… didn’t any of y’all see him? He was really handsome… I talked to him.” She continues.

“I was real nervous. He was taking fried okra from the line, and I was like, ‘Wow! Do you like… okra?’ He told me he’s going to South Pole, and I was like, ‘Wow… cool… are you flyin’ there?’”

I look over at my friend Alison, another DA, and we’re laughing so hard that sound cannot escape our mouths. The only way to get to South Pole station is to fly there. Shelton shrugs, smiles innocently and laughs along with the rest of us.

wildlife... Wildlife!

I got to see sea-ice. I walked on frozen ocean. Just under my soles lay shades of blue that I’ve never seen in nature. Pure, clear and vivid blues with an iridescence that defined the sensation of cold.



Today was my one day off during the work week. Right now it’s Wednesday, which is a bit of a downer because 90% of the folks at McMurdo have Sundays off, and I miss out on spending time with a lot of my friends. However, having a weekday off has definite perks.

I was invited to join some scientists and research techs on a field trip out to Cape Evans. I was to help them collect Antarctic fish from the traps that are set in the fish-huts some 15 miles from the research station, out on the sea-ice. The researchers are looking at the physical mechanisms that allow these fish to survive in the frigid waters (-28 deg-F) of Antarctica. The fish produce a protein that behaves as natural antifreeze; they also have a higher salt content that keeps them from freezing solid.

We bounced out to Cape Evans in a vehicle called a Piston Bully, which is a relatively small (by Antarctic standards) track-driven vehicle. Imagine a miniature unarmored tank.

Halfway out to Cape Evans we came across a group of seals that had surface through a crack in one of the pressure ridges. They were just kind of resting and lounging on the sea-ice surface, so we pulled the Piston Bully over and moseyed over to have a look. It was funny to realize that these four blubbery creatures were the first living creatures (other than human) that I’d seen since arriving on this continent. There are no bugs here… no migrant birds have arrived… and McMurdo has a no pet policy.

After snapping photos of the seals we bounced along in the Piston Bully for another half an hour to reach the small fish huts that cover the ice-fishing holes. I help the scientists haul up the fish traps, but otherwise I mostly sit around and take in the experience. When the windows are covered in the fish hut, the hole through 6ft of sea-ice glows as though it were a fluorescent portal to another world.

After finishing at the fish huts, we are permitted to hike around Cape Evans a bit. With the research station far out of sight, the remoteness of our environment really sets in, and it’s a wonderful feeling.

. . .

(Click on either picture to be linked to other images from the day trip... do it!)

Lime Bug-Juice

It’s our 10:30 lunch break. We DA’s eat our meals 30 minutes before the Galley is opened up to the general public, and I’m sitting at a circular table with a handful of the colorful characters I work with.

Vince Vaughn DA sits to my right… a tall, lanky fella who eats like a 15-year-old going through a growth spurt. He’s our class clown - a charmer who is unable to stop with the wisecracks and stories.

Across from me sits Eor-DA… so called for his lethargic pace, as well as his sparing, dry and often cheerless conversation. Eor-DA, however, is probably the funniest guy on our crew. When he does say something, it's often the driest, wittiest thing I hear all day. He was a librarian of all things back in Denver.

To my left sits Kastanza-DA, who, physically, has really no resemblance to my favorite Seinfeld character. Yes, he is small, but he’s a skinny 22-year-old… not quite the short, quirky, bald man. He’s also from Louisiana, so the nasally Kastanza voice is laced with a Southern accent. All that said, Kastanza-DA personifies Jerry’s angry friend George to a ‘T’. How someone can be so funny and amusing while at the same time so irritable, neurotic, and self-involved… I’ll never know.

These guys all got here in August for something called Winfly. During Winfly, a small crew from each department comes in and takes over for the group that wintered over. Today they are sharing stories about times during the Winfly months when they were written up for some sort of deviant behavior.

Kastanza-DA chimes in with his story…

“’ey, TIM…” He has a way of over emphasizing the person’s name who he is addressing. “…so I never got written up for this, but I thought I would be.” Eor-DA and Vince Vaughn-DA already start chuckling because they know which story is coming.

“…well, you know them bug-juices, right?” By bug-juice he is referring to Galley jargon for the various Kool-Aid type beverages we serve. We have fruit punch, orange, lemonade, cherry, and lime…

“Yup,” I reply.

“A’ight, well, I’m sittin’ there one day and I’m supposed to mix up all the bug juices, you know? I do it and all… it’s my favorite thing… don’t have to talk to anyone for two-hours… just stand in the back and mix my bug juice.” He’s slumped in his chair, looking at me through squinty eyes.

“So I come in the next mornin’ and the cooks and Mary (a supervisor) come grab me right away. They take me back to the bug-juice cooler and they ask me, ‘Did you mix the lime bug-juice yesterday?’ and I’m like ‘Yeah I did… what the hell?’ Well, maybe I didn’t say ‘hell,’ but…”

“So they’re like, ‘Can you show us how you made the lime bug juice?’ and I’m like, ‘Sure, whatever.’ So I grabs the packet of lime bug-juice powder off the shelf and I’m tell ‘em ‘I took two of these packets like I’m supposed to, then I added 5 gallons of water, and mixed.’”

“Mary’s like, ‘Is that the packet that you used yesterday?’ and I tell her, ‘Yeah it is.’ She’s like, ‘But that’s the wrong packet… it says Lime Gelatin.” I’m like, ‘Yeah, so?’ Mary’s like ‘You made 5-gallons of Lime Jello.’ And I just start laughing right there… they weren’t laughing though… they were looking at me all serious and I stood up straight tried to stop laughing.”

“Shit man, I didn’t know Gelatin meant Jello. How the hell am I supposed to know what Gelatin is… Why do they put the bug juice packets right next to the Jello packets anyway? What are you laughin’ at TIM. Did you know that gelatin meant Jello?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle, imagining someone going to fill up the juice dispenser with a 5-gallon stainless steel canister of Jello.

“So you think you’re all smart and stuff… well, to hell with you...”

Don't call me Big Ern'

A stinkin’ 98!

Even in the Southern Hemisphere, I find I have no bowling skills to speak of… yet again failing to break the century mark.

Last night the crew of the Galley reserved both lanes of the McMurdo bowling alley. It’s the oldest in the Southern Hemisphere – built in 1961. The lanes are rutty and the pins have to be reset manually by a couple of guys working behind the scenes.

My work friends tried to comfort me with words of “those lane suck… they’ll totally throw off your game.” I never confessed that I was actually thinking to myself that the lanes had helped my game.

Eye-cicles

Definition: when the moisture in your breath instantly freezes to your eye-brows and eye-lashes, forming crystalline eye accessories.

The newest style for this winter, designers in Europe are frantically looking for a way to duplicate the look using synthetic polymers.



-10 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. I had the day off from work today and went for a hike down to Scott Base, the New Zealand Station, and up Observation Hill. Here’s a link to the pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26649384@N00/sets/1127341/

coming full-circle...

When I was in 8th grade I got my first job. Employment opportunities tend to be limited for 14-year-olds, so my Dad landed me dishwashing gig at the Cougar Country Drive-In. For a year and a half, until I turned 16 and could legally handle food, I scrubbed dishes, pots, and every sort of vile nastiness that the kitchen threw my way. $4.25/hour seemed fair at the time. My friends stopped hanging out with me because I became the smelly-kid… the stench of bleach could never be washed off. (I made that last bit up… I wasn’t the smelly kid… just the kid wearing sweatpants, skin-tight polo’s and a fanny pack. My friends hung out with me anyway).

Where was I? Oh, the dish-washing bit…

Yeah, so this week I found out that I’ve still got it. In addition to sweet nunchuck, bow-hunting and computer-hacking skills, my repertoire includes superhuman dishwashing skills. Yeah, girls only want boyfriends with great skills.

So, as it turns out, my newest form of employment has more or less placed me in the “Galley” for an indefinite period of time. I am a DA… a Dining Attendant… a position that would that would be more aptly titled “Dish Washer, Who Sometimes Helps With Food-Prep and Dining Hall Duties, But Mostly Just Washes Heaps and Heaps of Dishes”. But you know… I think DWWSHWFPADHDBMJWHAHOD wasn’t a great acronym for the folks in payroll… they're always griping about something.

It’s a job, you know? And… I get to work with some of the best folks at the station. I heard a statistic the other day that said that the Galley employees more Masters and PhD holders than the Crary Laboratory. I’d believe it too – one of my supervisors is a Masters-level biologist.

The 10-hour days fly by, and we get to crank up whatever music we want to work to. Nothing’ like scrubbing pots and pans to The Decemberists.

One of my supervisors, Spit-fire-Kim, was sitting with me during our breakfast break. She’s explaining to me the importance of taking care to avoid repetitive-motion injuries…

“Really, Tim, you have to take care of your body as a DA. Did you know that more than half of our staff right now is injured in some fashion? Most are suffering from…” she glanced down at my plate of orange slices, and blurts out, “Hey, Freshies!”

She darted for the food line and never completed her thought. On my flight from New Zealand we brought in a pallet of fresh produce.