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While the Station continues to be plagued by problems with electrical supply and demand, the Pole has also been visited by more skiers.The New Power Plant (NPP) for the Elevated Station and the outlying science buildings continues to be plagued by problems. The biggest problem at the moment is a lack of necessary parts that need to come from the US. We’re currently running on one generator, with another about to enter reserve status. Unfortunately, the generator we’re currently using, #1, is overdue for a major overhaul, so as soon as #3 is available, it is possible that #3 will become our working generator and #1 will be torn down for repairs. Due to the fact that our generator system is somewhat precarious, we have no peaking generator and the Station’s electrical load is carefully and constantly monitored. Towards that end, many of IceCube’s computer systems are currently shutdown and will likely remain that way until I leave the Pole.

Yesterday, Hannah McKeand reached the Pole breaking the previous record for a solo, unsupported ski to the Pole from the coast by two days.

Last night, the British Royal Navy/Royal Marines PolarQuest team, Hannah McKeand, and a representative of the Indian Navy all gave talks about their respective quests to reach the Pole on skis. In general, all of them were engaging speakers and their physical exertions cannot be diminished. The Indian Navy might only have skied the final 97 miles to the Pole, but considering that most of them had never been on skis before April, 2006, their trek was worthy.

This morning, myself and some other Polies went out to see the Indian Navy and Ms. McKeand off as they were picked up by a pair of Twin Otters operated by a private contractor. The image at the left is of two members of the Indian expedition, Sven Lidstrom (an IceCube winterover), and myself at the ceremonial Pole.

The Brits are still here as they are trying to wait out persistent winds. Since they are planning to kite-ski back to the coast, the direction of the wind is a fairly critical component of their departure planning. They were hoping to get out today, but the winds were a direct headwind. The picture at right shows a bit of the British camp out near the Pole, their sleds, and one of the Twin Otters that came in to pick up the others.

After their talk last night, myself and a couple of others invited members of the various expeditions down to the Station’s bar for a couple of drinks. All told, there were six members of the various expeditions, and perhaps eight or so members of the South Pole community. Expedition members are allowed to purchase most everything from the Station store, except liquor or beer, so we made sure to have a good supply on hand. As one expedition member reverentially said, “This is the first beer I’ve had in seven weeks.” Some folks wanted to pay us for the beer. Our response? “Your money is no good here.”

My departure date has been moved up from 05 Jan 07 to 03 Jan 07. I asked for the change since it meant that I wouldn’t have to spend four days cooling my heels in McMurdo, waiting for a flight out. That could still happen if the weather turns sour, but at least it isn’t a sure thing. The odd thing is that I’m getting more comfortable here, meeting more people, and yet am just about to leave. The time seems to be rapidly slipping away.

Unlike McMurdo, where some television stations are available via the Armed Forces Network, there is zero television here. That makes watching football something of a novelty. During the NFL season, a handful of VHS tapes containing of football games from the previous weekend are flown in to the Pole once a week. The tapes are made in McMurdo off the AFN broadcasts and are hardly the highest quality. Today I spent part of the afternoon watching the Denver/Cincinnati game from a week or so ago with a number of people in one of the Station lounges. We had pizza (it was pizza night in the galley) and beer and if you could get past the snowy picture and the extraordinary number of public service messages on AFN, it was almost like being back in the States.

Tomorrow night, there is a station-wide New Years party in the Station gym. There are two bands here on Station that are planning to play, and apparently there is a supply of non-alcoholic sparkling wine hidden around here somewhere, so a good time should be had by all.

Two days ago, four anonymous skiers could be seen dragging sleds towards the South Pole.
At the time, I assumed it was another group of skiers engaged in an attempt to ski “the last degree” towards the Pole. Skiers who ski the last degree are generally somewhat wealthy and fit as they pay gobs of money to a private organization to support their quest to reach the Pole.

As it turned out, the four skiers I saw were the British Polar Quest team. The four men on the team spent the previous 45 days skiing from the coast to the South Pole towing sleds behind them filled with their gear.

Yesterday at lunch I sat down with them and chatted for a bit. They were all quite tired, but happy to be back amongst people again. They were especially pleased to drink coffee again. Since coffee has no nutritional value and it acts as a diuretic, they hadn’t had any since they started on their journey.

After lunch, I helped to lead them on a tour of the various IceCube facilities here at the Pole. They were really good guys and very engaging to speak with. At one point, as we were leaving the IceCube drill camp, one of the men said, “After you spend forty-five days in complete wilderness, you never expect to arrive at the South Pole and find people, hot coffee, and one of the most advanced industrial operations on the planet.” In the photo at right, one of the IceCube Winterovers, Sven Lidstrom (red jacket), explains part of the drilling process to three of the British skiers. One of the IceCube drilling towers can be seen in the background.

The Polar Quest team is resting here for a couple of days until the wind shifts and they can begin their kite-assisted return trip to the coast. Using kites and the prevailing winds, they hope to return to the coast in as little as fifteen days. You can keep up with their progress on their ice log.

Yesterday, a group from the Indian Navy skied in to the Pole from roughly 120 miles away. They number more than four (eleven or so), but I haven’t met any of them yet. Both groups are camped out by the Pole in tents as they are not allowed to use many of the Station’s facilities for esoteric and political reasons.

We’re still working hard here now that the Station’s power situation has stabilized. In the next day or so we hope to have all of our equipment and experiments up and running again.

I got the following picture of the road across the skiway, heading into the Dark Sector yesterday morning. Apparently, duck-billed platypuses now have their own path across the skiway.

While today started off like any other, by the end of the day it was one that will surely be remembered for some time here at the Pole.
The morning started off like any other. I got up after a night of restless sleep, threw on some clothes, washed up a bit, and headed to the galley for a light breakfast. After breakfast I took care of some chores that had accumulated in my e-mail inbox overnight before calling family back in the States to wish them a Merry Christmas.

While I was on the phone, the fire alarm went off indicating a fire emergency in the New Power Plant (NPP). There were no instructions for non-emergency personnel, so I decided to remain out of the way in my berth and continue my phone calls.

Minutes passed and the alarm was repeated several times. Eventually, an announcement came over the Station’s All Call telling all personnel in the Elevated Station to report to the galley. Just moments after that announcement was made, the power went out to my room, dousing the lights and killing my phone call. I grabbed my water bottle and headed for the galley.

Upon arriving the galley I gathered with some other IceCubers while we waited for news. Eventually, the station manager made an appearance and gave us some information.

The Station uses a clever system whereby waste heat from the diesel generators that provide the Station’s power is circulated through the station in a glycol loop to provide heating.

Unfortunately, this morning the heat exchanger system failed and glycol started leaking out on to the running generator, Generator #3. Once the glycol touched the hot generator it was vaporized, producing a thick cloud of toxic smoke and vapor. Soon, there was a toxic could of glycol in the air and a thick lake of glycol on the floor.

The two workers in the power plant at the time were overcome and while the Station’s emergency response crews worked to control the mess in the power plant, trauma teams rushed the two workers to Medical. Volunteers were needed to help carry the litters up to Medical (on the second floor of the Elevated Station; so a carry of three floors). I’d rather do almost anything in an emergency than just sit around, so I volunteered to help carry the injured, even though it meant combining two of the hardest activities here at a high elevation, carrying something heavy and climbing stairs.

Once the injured were in Medical, I helped one of the cooks unload the Station’s freezer and place the food outside so that it wouldn’t defrost while the Station’s power was out. It wasn’t sexy work, but it kept me busy.

Meanwhile, other teams of people were tasked to find Material Safety Data Sheets (because of the glycol), flashlights, fans (to help clear the air in the NPP), and other sundry items.

Simultaneously, technicians were dispatched to the Emergency Power Plant to get it up and running. Crews couldn’t begin to assess the damage in the NPP until they had power to run fans (to clear the air) and produce light. The Emergency Power Plant is located in my berthing pod, and soon the pod was filled with the very loud sound of the Emergency Power Plant and the distinctive scent of diesel emissions.

Once the Emergency Power Plant was on-line the call went out to turn off every non-essential item in the Station, including the coffee makers. It wasn’t long before another fire alarm sounded, summoning emergency response crews to the Emergency Power Plant because it was running too hot and producing too many fumes.

Sometime during the preceding, myself and another IceCuber volunteered to work as runners because there was serious doubt about how much longer the Station’s handheld radio system would be able to run since no generators were running and the UPS to which it was connected was rapidly draining.

We were first tasked to go wake people up in Summer Camp, which is the name for the Jamesways. Suffice it to say that we didn’t make any friends rousting people out of the Jamesways and mustering them in the galley. There are three shifts here, and many of the people in the Jamesways had only been sleeping for an hour to two before we rousted them out of bed.

Next we were detailed to run out to the skiway and act as human beacons to keep vehicles from crossing the skiway while a Herc from McMurdo was on approach and landing. Two others had originally volunteered for the job, but as the plane entered its base leg, they were nowhere to be found and out we went. As we were heading out, we were passed by a snowmobile carrying the two missing human beacons so we returned to our stations as runners in the large conference room where resources were being marshalled.

While waiting there for jobs to do, we could hear what the Emergency Response teams were doing over the radio. Four more people ended up in Medical, for a total of six, with smoke inhalation.

Since much of the air inside the NPP was toxic, those entering the room had to be on oxygen until the air could be cleared. In addition, those dispatched to Medical were placed on oxygen. As a result, the station was running out of oxygen bottles, so a flight from McMurdo was dispatched with a variety of emergency supplies requested by the Pole, including another power plant engineer.

It was about lunchtime at this point. There were five runners available (all IceCubers) and we took turns going down to the galley for lunch. Since there wasn’t any power, lunch was cold cuts, cheese, bread, tortillas, salad, bars, and cookies. Runners were dispatched to the NPP, Medical, Comms (the Station’s nerve center), and other locations bearing sandwiches, hot and cold drinks.

Once the air in the NPP was somewhat cleared, and most of the thick glycol lake had been swept and shoveled by the Emergency Response crews, runners were dispatched to muster volunteers to mop the NPP floor so that power plant crews could work on getting Generator #2 up and running.

Soon after the volunteers started mustering in the Barn, the Station’s smoking bar, I was tasked to round up as many mops as possible. So, I started digging through janitor closets on my way down to the Dome. Janitorial supplies are kept in the Dome, so myself and another IceCuber started rummaging around looking for mops. We came up with something like fifteen mops all told, which was plenty.

Once the mop crews got the floor in the NPP cleaned up, maintenance crews got to work bringing up Generator #2. The Emergency Response crews were stationed in and around the NPP in case they were needed.

After a few fits and starts, Generator #2 came on-line. It was determined at this time that the trauma teams were no longer needed, and neither were the runners, so we were all dispatched to our regular jobs.

Tonight, the Station is operating on Generator #2 while crews work overnight to put Generator #1 into service and restore the glycol heat exchanger system. The generators can work without the glycol system, but not very well or very hard since they have a harder time shedding their waste heat without the glycol system. The glycol system drained on to the floor of the NPP early on, which means that 35 barrels of glycol have to be retrieved from storage and fed back into the system. Then, the system has to be pressurized and tested before it can be put back in to service.

To ease the load on Generator #2, the Station is operating under an aggressive power reduction regime tonight. Non-essential systems are disconnected from Station power and won’t be turned on until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Almost all of IceCube’s component bits are turned off as part of this shutdown. The Station’s heat is currently being generated by boilers that were installed to back-up the glycol system.

What can be learned from this incident?

First, Emergency Response and trauma crews here at the Pole, while mostly staffed by volunteers drawn from around the Station, are committed and skilled. They worked hard, without complaint or rest, from 09:01 this morning when they were summoned, until 17:00 when the Station officially stood down. Victims were treated and moved to the professional care of the Medical staff as quickly as reasonably possible.

Second, five years after 9/11, the importance of testing emergency equipment is still unlearned. While the Station’s radios lasted throughout the incident, there were serious doubts about the endurance of the backup power supply that provided power to the radios at critical points during the day. Several times I heard how rechargeable flashlights intended to be used by Emergency Response crews weren’t charged, and hence were worthless. The equipment that could have been used to recharge the oxygen bottles couldn’t be used because it didn’t have a supply of power.

Third, it is not enough to have a backup generator or two, they must be frequently and realistically tested. Most people who have a backup generator fall in to three categories:

1. Those who test their backup generator frequently, but not realistically.
2. Those who rarely if ever test their backup generator, being content to simply have one on the premises.
3. The small remainder that frequently test their generator under a realistic load and fastidiously perform maintenance on the system to ensure its readiness.

My experience with backup generators was hard-won while evaluating data centers for some of my past jobs. Most data centers fall in to category one. They may test their backup generator(s) monthly or even weekly, but they almost never test it under any sort of load. Then, when their primary power supply fails and a huge load falls on to the backup generator, they can’t understand why it collapses under the strain shortly after it fires up.

The fire alarm created in the Emergency Power Plant shortly after it fired up is a dead giveaway that Raytheon and the NSF have not established a rigorous testing regimen for the Emergency Power Plant’s backup generators and that they clearly fall in to category one.

Fourth, while we joke about Antarctica being a “harsh continent” while we drink milk made from powered milk in the galley or pour wine into empty beer cans instead of schlepping down to the galley to get some glasses, that statement has more than a bit truth to it. McMurdo provides the nearest help during an emergency and it is an absolute minimum three hours away by plane. That three hours is an almost ludicrously low figure since it is the flying time from McMurdo to the Pole. In all likelihood, you’d be looking at four to five hours before a plane could be dispatched from the coast with needed help and supplies until it lands on the skiway.

If someone is seriously injured, the nearest hospital is in Christchurch, New Zealand, which is a minimum eight hours away. That’s like being seriously injured in Boston and but being forced to fly for medical help to London or Paris with a stop-over and a change of planes in Iceland. Realistically, you’d be lucky to get to Christchurch in less than fifteen hours since they don’t keep C-17s spooled up on the runway at McMurdo for just such an incident. Fortunately, none of the six people who suffered injuries today required a medevac flight.

Hopefully, tomorrow will see the power plant issues resolved and life here at the Station can return to normal.

Christmas has come to a close here at the South Pole. So long, Christmas, 2006.

Observance of Christmas started on Sunday with several activities including a co-ed touch rugby game, signing of POW/MIA flag by veterans at the station, and the headliner event, Christmas Dinner.

Christmas Dinner is a semi-formal affair here at the station with many people wearing ties and dresses. The galley lights are dimmed, candles are lit (empty wine bottles are the candlesticks), and volunteers pour wine and soda for diners. Since the galley couldn’t possibly accommodate the station’s summer population in one sitting, the dinner is served four times: three seatings on Sunday night and one small seating on Monday morning for those who had to work on Sunday night.

Due to our relatively late arrival on Station, all of the seatings other than the first one were full, so that made our decision easy. Unfortunately, that meant that we sat down to dinner at 16:00 and had to be out of the galley by 17:00 so that the next seating could get started on time.

Dinner was Beef Wellington, Vegetable Wellington, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, beef gravy, vegetable gravy, rolls, salad, king crab legs, and asparagus. For dessert we had the choice of pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, or cheesecake. And after dessert, we could nibble on post-dessert by grabbing a handful of Christmas cookies on our way out of the galley.

This morning started with the ceremonial raising of the American and POW/MIA flags on one of the construction cranes. The flag will be displayed until midnight tonight, after which it will be taken down and shipped north to be placed at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC during the northern hemisphere summer.

Shortly after the flags were raised, the annual Race Around the World started.

The Race Around the World is a two-mile run/walk/ski/bike/ride/waddle/trot around the South Pole. It’s probably the closest thing to an all-station athletic event and parade that the Station has. A good part of the Station populations turns out to either take part in the race, cheer the racers, or simply watch the spectacle. As someone who doesn’t run anywhere, I naturally chose to walk the course. There were a number of walkers, a couple of skiers, one bicyclist, and numerous runners. I finished the course in a respectable 35:19 considering that the course was snow-covered, the temperature was cold, and I was wearing ECW.

Several groups took time to customize equipment from around the Station for entry into the race. One group decorated a snowmobile and sled with a mini-Christmas tree, garland, ornaments, ribbon, and other fippery. Another group lashed a sofa to a sled, got some people on the sofa, handed one of them a disco ball, and towed the whole mess behind another snowmobile. By far the most original float was the IceCube Hour Shower. Some of the handier and more enterprising IceCubers modified one of the Solars (something like a highly specialized outhouse) by adding plexiglass windows, a shower head, hot water, a shower curtain, a drain, and a water pump, and a gasoline generator. This was then strapped on to one of the larger sleds. For good measure, another sofa was strapped on to the remaining space on the sled. This, of course, was too heavy for a snowmobile to pull, so one of the Caterpillar machines here at the Station was used.

Showers are so dear here at the Station that when I looked inside and saw hot running water, I immediately thought about jumping in. I don’t need an hour in the shower, but five minutes, instead of the prescribed two, sounded like a real luxury.

There were prizes for the winners, but everyone who participated also got a coveted Race Around the World T-shirt.

After that, life around the Station turned low-key as many people took naps or vegetated in front of the television with others. A two-day weekend here is rare many of the Polies took advantage of the down-time to relax. Of course, the obsessives among us (yours truly, included) spent at least part of the afternoon working. Several other IceCubers and I walked over the ICL this afternoon to get in a few extra hours of work. So much work, so little time. I’ve only got nine days left on Station before I’m scheduled to leave so I’m trying to get as much done as possible.

The Wisconsin State Journal, the local Madison paper, published a piece I wrote about Christmas at the South Pole today.

I’ve been sick with a cold since I left Madison over two weeks ago, so yesterday I decided to visit Medical.

My primary purpose in visiting Medical was to ensure that I didn’t have a sinus infection or similar disease that I was confusing with a cold. There are apocryphal stories of diseases and injuries that refused to heal with the unlucky patient was at the Pole. For instance, there is the story of the WinterOver who broke his arm mid-winter and didn’t experience any healing until he left the continent. Unfortunately, my cold seems to be of the same ilk. So, the doctor prescribed a couple of medications to control symptoms and basically told me to wait it out.

It probably doesn’t help that I haven’t had a good night of sleep since I left Madison. Last night, for instance, I went to sleep at 23:00, woke up at 01:00, was wide awake until nearly 04:00, then slept again until 07:22 this morning. Unfortunately, that’s not unusual for me here. One of these days I’m expecting to absolutely collapse, but so far that hasn’t been in the cards.

My group has been working very hard the last couple of days to unwind and turn off old systems and replace them with new systems that we shipped down earlier in the summer. So far, the hardest part has been unwinding how some of the older systems function since they grew organically over time and almost no one who was involved in the building of those systems is still around.

The weather yesterday was quite interesting here. The temperature rose to a relatively mild -13F, while clouds of snow and ice crystals closed in around the station and forced one of our Hercules flights back to McMurdo. After a few hours, the weather pulled back a bit. When we came out of the IceCube Lab around 17:00, there was a spectacular sundog located behind the Elevated Station. Since the sun isn’t scheduled to set here until sometime in March, it was a very unique experience since it gave everything color like you would see around sunset in the North. Suffice it to say that we took plenty of pictures trying to capture the moment.

Dalla menacing the Gerbil Visitors. A new hobby for her.

Did we get 20,000 pounds of corn dogs yesterday via air-drop?For the first time ever, a C-17 conducted an air drop of dry food yesterday at the Pole. The drop was a test for both Boeing and the Air Force to see if the airplane’s computers could handle navigation and drop computation this close to the Pole. A pair of Air Force officers and a handful of Kiwi Army soldiers have been on station for four or so days preparing for the drop. We ate lunch with the Air Force officers the other day and gleaned some valuable insights into the why and how of the drop.

The C-17 airdrop was originally scheduled to occur around 20:30 local time last night, which put it hard on the heels of three arrivals and departures from the skiway. Around 20:00 I put on a slew of my ECW gear and went out to the skiway to watch the fun. The evening started with the arrival and departure of an LC-130 Hercules. After that, a plane known as a Basler came in to land. The Basler is basically a DC-3 with a fancy paint-job and modern five-blade turboprop engines. Just minutes after the Basler landed, another Twin Otter came in to land, joining the one from the British Antarctic Survey that has been flying in and out of the Pole for the past couple days.

What I didn’t know, because I’d been outside to watch all these landings and take-offs, is that the air drop had been pushed back to 21:30 or later. So, I ended up sitting around the RF pad for roughly an hour waiting for the air drop. Finally, about 21:30, word came over the radio that the C-17 was ten or fifteen minutes out.

The C-17′s cargo was about 70,000 pounds of food. The local wags started wondering if there was a pallet of nearly 20,000 pounds of corn dogs in amongst all that food. The plan was for the plane to come in about 1,000 feet, make one pass over the drop zone, circle back around, and then release the food on the second pass. Meanwhile, the Kiwi Army guys and the Air Force officers were stationed in the drop zone in piston bullies and on snow mobiles.

The C-17 is an impressively big plane when it flies overhead at 1,000 feet. The first pass was uneventful, and the circling around process took about ten minutes which had all the spectators wondering if the air drop had been called off for some reason.

Eventually, the plane came around for its second pass. As it neared the drop zone, drogue chutes started appearing from the back of the plane and soon food cartons were falling through the sky. Shortly after being pulled out of the back of the plane by the drogue chutes, the main chutes opened and the food cartons floated softly to the snow and ice. The crowd on the RF pad let out a spontaneous cheer (hey, who doesn’t cheer a successful air drop?). Then, the show was over.

I trudged back to the station, which took about twenty minutes. By the time I got back to my room I was feeling the cold since I had been out in -45°F wind chill, standing on snow and ice, for over two hours. ECW gear is good, but it isn’t perfect.

That is the First Iron Law of Life at the Pole.
Both yesterday and today I’ve been working hard and long to help smooth out some of the waves that we’ve created. But as the First Iron Law dictates, nothing goes very smoothly. So, things that worked well in the North fall to pieces here or fail to function at all. Systems that were built and tested extensively now appear to be nothing more than loose affiliations of gremlins and demons conspiring to ruin our peaceful existance.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. We had a reasonably tasty lunch of homemade mac and cheese with some chili that I didn’t try, but that got resounding nods of approval from all other takers. Dinner was less than spectacular. The blackened catfish fillets sounded like a good idea, but perhaps they were brined or something as they were really, really salty.

There has been a request for more photos of me, so I’ve included one that shows my typical headwear. Because the snow and ice reflect so much sunlight, glacier glasses are key to preventing snow blindness. In addition, we’re under the ozone hole here, so the UV rays are much stronger than they are in the North. Keeping your skin covered is an effective method to prevent sunburn.

The Met people tell me that today set a new record low for this date, -32.7C/-26.9F. And yes, that’s before wind chill.

A team from the British Antarctic Survey has been flying in and out of the South Pole the last few days in their bright red Twin Otter. Tonight on our way to dinner some of my collegues and I had our picture taken in front of the plane.

It’s Monday, and that means House Mouse duties for me.There are no comprehensive janitorial service at the South Pole like you might be used to seeing in public buildings in other locations. Quite frankly, it’s just too expensive to keep a large, dedicated janitorial staff on board here. So, the bathrooms and other commons areas are cleaned by the station residents on a rotating basis. When it’s your turn to pitch in with these cleaning tasks, you’re the House Mouse.

The House Mouse empties trash cans and recycling barrels (which outnumber trash cans by nearly an order of magnitude), cleans the bathroom(s) on their berth floor, and generally tidies up. Since this gets done every day, it isn’t a huge chore. The only bathroom on our floor of the berth is the women’s bathroom, so at 16:00 local time today, I found myself cleaning the women’s bathroom. This is all taken rather matter-of-factly by most station residents as women are often seen cleaning the men’s bathrooms. The station managers go out of their way to make the House Mouse system work even though their most serious disciplinary measure for failing your House Mouse duties is public shaming. They make sure that each janitorial closet has a good supply of janitorial supplies, paper products, and other necessary items.

Tonight at dinner I learned that McMurdo will soon lose their dedicated janitorial staff and adopt the House Mouse system as a cost savings measure. Their admin folks called up the South Pole folks recently to ask about “that Mouse system.”

I spent most of the day working out at the ICL as we started to move in earnest towards completing one of our major goals. The ICL is about a mile or so from the Elevated Station, so it’s a hike out there and back when the wind is blowing in your face. Fortunately, I managed to catch a ride in the shuttle van once, and on a sled towed behind a snowmobile twice. The van is okay. It’s a regular Ford fan with big tires on it driven by one of the General Assistants (GAs). The snowmobiles are more fun, even though they’re much colder. The wind chill is usually south of -35°F and adding twenty or more miles per hour of wind due to the snowmobile can make it downright frosty in a hurry. However, it seems like a better connection to the outdoors to have the wind and a plume of snow in your face than to be sitting on a seat in the back of a big red van.

The skiway, where the LC-130s and Twin Otters land, lies between the Elevated Station, ICL, the IceCube Drill camp, and several other outbuildings that house science projects. So, I cross the skiway several times a day going to work, and back to the Station for meals and the like. Of course, the Powers That Be (PTB) aren’t particularly interested in seeing pedestrians run down by a landing Hercules, so they have beacons that warn pedestrians and vehicles not to encroach upon the skiway when it is in use. On my way back to work this afternoon a plane was landing, so the beacons were on. Next thing you know, there’s the Antarctic equivalent of a traffic jam (two snowmobiles, one front-end loader, and one crawler) as we wait for the plane to finish landing.

It’s a big night for me. Shower night. Here at the Pole, where there are few substances more dear than water, showers are limited to two two-minute showers per week. It’s all on the honor system, but again, public shaming is a potent weapon to ensure compliance and from what I’ve seen and heard there are few violators. Suffice it to say that I’m a bit pungent today since I last took a shower four days ago.

A number of Christmas and Hanukkah decorations appeared around the station. That’s all well and good, but it’s hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit this year. No baking. No tree of our own. No dark nights and short days. It just doesn’t feel right.

On my way back to the Station tonight after putting in a few more hours at the ICL, I was treated to an interesting meteorological display. A pair of sundogs flanked the sun while 3/4 of a full rainbow was visible. The picture shows just one of the sundogs. Photographing a rainbow that large was a task just a bit beyond my skill and my equipment.

Sunday is something of a down day at the Pole because many of the Polies have the day off.Of course, that doesn’t mean that the scientists who are down here for a relatively short while take the whole day off. Our group is no exception. IceCube drills with three shifts, seven days a week and the schedule is very tight. The Data Handling group, of which I’m a member, spent a good part of the day preparing for tomorrow’s chaos.

Even so, we still found time to relax a bit before the upcoming week. Some of my co-workers and I took some time out to take our obligatory “hero shots” at the geographic South Pole. Since the Pole will be moved on 01 Jan 2007 by the US Geologic Survey, I’ll have to take these photos again just before I leave.

There was plenty of excitement around the base today as we got word that the ANITA balloon may be visible from the Pole at some point during the day. The ANITA balloon is an absolutely massive balloon that is conducting neutrino studies high in the atmosphere. One person familiar with the project said that the interior of the balloon could hold the entire Astrodome and part of the parking lot; another person described the enclosed volume as similar to that of the Sears Tower. Understandably, we were all eager to see such an unusual thing. The balloon hove into view in the late afternoon and was visible well into the evening. Even though it was better than one hundred miles away, it was visible as a noticeably man-made item in the sky.

I should note here that any unique person or phenomena will generate high levels of interest here at the Pole, especially among those who’ve been here for a while already. It wasn’t that the station personnel were particularly interested in the ANITA project or its results (though some of our scientists certainly were) that got people out to see the balloon. It was the idea of something different. When you’re in a place as dead as this one, with two hundred odd souls in close proximity and not another soul or habitation for hundreds of miles, different suddenly becomes very good.

The biggest downside of the day was that I had to attend another briefing. This one is known as the Outdoor Safety Lecture (OSL). A woman flew in from McMurdo on my flight and she conducted an overnight camping trip away from the station last night, and the OSL briefing tonight. Suffice it to say that hypothermia was starting to look pretty appealing as an alternative to sitting through the OSL about half-way through the briefing. At least with hypothermia I’d require immediate medical attention which would have rescued me from the conference room. The OSL course is required before Raytheon employees or NSF Grantees are allowed to do some of the more interesting hikes, ski trips and the like away from McMurdo. Since there is always the possibility that I’d get stuck in McMurdo on my way off the continent, I decided to get OSL out of the way so that I would have more recreational opportunities if I got stuck in McMurdo.

The OSL is a prime example of the difference between the Pole and McMurdo. At McMurdo, going on certain hikes (even over to the Kiwi base) means paperwork and bureaucracy. First, you have to file an eFoot Plan, which is a fancy name and computer application for “tell us where you’re going, with whom, how, and when you’ll be back so we know when to start looking for you.” Some trails require you to travel only in groups of two or larger. Many trails require you to take a radio and checkin at the Firehouse before and after you hit the trail. Of course, you can’t do any of these things until you’ve wasted an hour of your Antarctic experience sitting through OSL.

Here at the Pole you can pick a direction (North, perhaps?) and start walking until the station can’t be seen over the horizon. If you’re well-prepared or lucky you’ll even get back without assistance. There is no helicopter here to assist in a rescue and the snow is so hard that the folks here aren’t likely to find your tracks in it. It’s just assumed that if you’re here, you are probably not dumb enough to put your life at risk by doing incredibly stupid things. And if you are that dumb, no amount of bureaucracy is likely to stop you, so why bother?

The kitchen runs with a smaller staff on Sunday and only serves two meals: brunch and dinner. Since I’m not a huge brunch fan, I got up early and served myself cereal and a peanut butter and honey sandwich before the galley opened. Then, I had the tail end of brunch for lunch. Dinner was pot roast. Ugh. Under the best of circumstances I don’t like pot roast so I didn’t even try it. Those who did were universally disappointed by dry, fatty, tough meat. Instead of the pot roast, I had a vegetarian curry pot pie-style dish, a big helping of broccoli, and a big serving of salad. Part of the salad greens are grown in the station’s greenhouse, so eating the salad is as close as you can get to eating locally grown food at the Pole.

I’ve started carrying my camera around the station with me as there are some funny and unusual things that seemingly pop-up for a short period of time and then disappear. For instance, this seemingly odd scene could be found for a period of time at the base of an emergency exit on the station’s second level. My guess is that they were trying to close an air leak with spray foam, but I found the sign funny nonetheless.

I took my GPS unit out to the Pole today while helping someone take some shots for a fifth grade class. According the to the unit, I’m now 9179 miles from our home in Madison, even though I’ve gone eight hundred miles further south than my last reading. However, there is some supposition that the unit doesn’t gracefully handle a situation where a user is at a Pole. The unit also had trouble deciding where the Pole could be found. Initially, it displayed S90°00.00′, but then it would never display exactly ninety degrees again, even though I had accuracy down to fifteen feet. Perhaps it just got cold and wanted to be taken indoors for another try on another day.

As Saturday evening draws to a close at the South Pole, it is time to look back and reflect on the day.
Those who’ve never experienced 24-hours of sunlight, may not be aware of just what all that sun does to the human body’s sense of time. If there weren’t clocks on the walls here, the station would be seemingly timeless with nothing to help one gauge the passing of time. 07:00 looks the same as 12:00. 12:00 looks the same as 01:30. Even though I won’t be able to post this writing until the morning, I’m writing it about 23:30 local time. I’m sitting in a room with windows and there is so much sun pouring through the windows that it feels like 14:00 or 15:00 hours on a sunny day in Wisconsin.

All of that sun makes sleeping and waking times almost arbitrary. The so-called Night Shift goes to work in bright sunshine, eats their lunch in bright sunshine, and gets off of work in bright sunshine.

When I get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, the light streaming in through the windows on the way to the restroom trigger my body’s waking mechanisms, which makes it somewhat difficult to get back to sleep.

Then again, as the Northern Hemisphere moves rapidly towards the shortest day of the year, I’ve got all the sunshine I need to avoid the seasonal blahs.

Today was something of a laid back day for the group of which I’m part. We’re waiting for some work to get done so that we can leap in to action on Monday and create 24-48 hours of chaos while we rip the still beating heart of the network out and replace it with a newer, better, faster one. Or, that’s the theory at least.

That’s not to say that I didn’t do any work today. Most everyone at the Pole works six days a week, at a minimum. Instead of engaging in some complex and risky systems administration, I spent my time exploring the existing systems looking for potentially difficult situations to manage come Monday. Many of the systems have lacked for a relatively disinterested party to oversee them, so there are some rough spots that need to be smoothed out yet.

As part of that process, I toured several of the out-buildings that house some of IceCube’s legacy systems, as well as equipment and systems for other scientific projects. You’ve never seen so many oscilloscopes, build-it-yourself cables, one-off computers, and other crazy science gear.

While I was putting some gear together in the B2 Science Lab, I took this photo of myself with a webcam that I was configuring.

Dinner was pizza tonight and while it looked good, it’s not about to knock any of My Top Ten Pizza Joints off the list. Interestingly enough, the only vegetables or fruit served tonight were on the pizza itself. At almost every meal, at least one form of vegetables is available, often more than one. While none of the cooked vegetables are remotely tasty (frozen vegetable medley isn’t likely to make anyone’s list of favorite foods), they are a good way to get fiber and nutrients that meat just doesn’t provide.

After dinner, I took a tour of the old station known as The Dome. The Dome was the station of record before the current station, the Elevated Station, was built. The Dome and its attached tunnels, known as The Arches, are being slowly swallowed by the snow here. The Dome is a geodesic dome, but if they don’t remove The Dome soon, it will be crushed as the snow is piling up unevenly on the surface and starting to warp the Dome.

Life in the The Dome was vastly different than what we know in the Elevated Station. If I want to eat a meal, I just climb a flight of stairs from my berth, and walk down to the other end of the station. In the Dome, I would have been forced outside of all heated structures to find the galley. The walk wouldn’t have been far, but in -80°F, even a twenty foot walk is a test of endurance in street clothes.

The Dome is still used, but now almost completely for storage. There are boxes and boxes of food stored there. Boxes of frozen seafood, beef, tomato paste, and whatnot are stacked all around the Dome, waiting to be hauled into the Elevated Station for use by the kitchen. There are no mice, rats, raccons, or mammals other than humans here at the Pole to nibble on the food stored so completely unprotected. In addition, there are no bugs to infest things like bags of flour or boxes or cereal. In short, the very deadness of this place helps to keep the food safe.

While I out scouting the outbuildings and the Dome earlier today I discovered some little luxuries that I appropriated to make myself more comfortable. I was quite excited to discover a cache of unused hangers which I immediately raided to supplement the one hanger that was in my berth when I got here. In the States running out of hangers is no big deal. You just run down to a drug store or department store and buy a pack of new hangers. Here at the Pole, getting more hangers is a bit more involved. Let’s say you want to get twenty hangers delivered to the Pole. First, you create the necessary paperwork detailing your needs and then you send that paperwork to the States. That paperwork is processed somewhere in the South (I’ve heard somewhere in Louisiana, though I’d be more inclined to believe Denver). The results of that processing might generate an order for twenty hangers, or two thousand hangers, you never know. The order is then fulfilled by government contractors. The hangers are then placed on a flight to New Zealand (if the hangers are needed urgently and it’s the austral summer). Otherwise, the hangers are placed on a ship bound for New Zealand. Once the hangers are delivered to New Zealand, they are flown to McMurdo as part of a cargo bundle. Once in McMurdo, the hangers are placed in a queue for flight to the South Pole. Eventually, the hangers make their way on to an LC-130 and they are delivered to the Pole where half of the shipment is immediately scavenged by others who need hangers. So, you will get your hangers, but it takes time and the end result is that you end up with some the world’s most expensive hangers due to the involved transportation costs.

It can be difficult to take pictures here. When you exhale in cold Polar weather, your breath immediately forms a little cloud of frost in front of your head. So, if you forget and exhale just before you push the shutter, you get a nice cloud of frost in front of your intended target.

The skylight at the top of the Dome. You may notice the rubber chicken that some enterprising winterovers suspended from the top of the Dome.

One of the frost-coated and snow-carpeted entrances to the Dome.

Your faithful correspondent reports tonight from a berth at the South Pole.

We got our seemingly obligatory early start this morning and after breakfast and the like we got dressed in our ECW gear and hauled ourselves and our hand carry items back up the hill to Building 140 (where we had to go for Bag Drag the night before). Once there, we were once again issued ear plugs and directed on to a shuttle bus that would take us to the LC-130 airfield.

Shorty after the bus left Building 140, it stopped on one of the ice roads so that we could jump out and snap some pictures of Mt. Erebus, the active volcano in Antarctica that has provided much of the volcanic soil on which McMurdo is built.

Shortly after that, we arrived at Williams Field, where the LC-130s and the Twin Otters operate. For those not familiar with the designation, the LC-130 is a turbo-prop cargo plane that is significantly smaller and older than the C-17. The LC-130s that fly in Antarctica are also rigged with skis for use during landing and take-offs. The Twin Otter is a somewhat renowned aircraft in that it is durable, capable of landing on short air fields, and tolerant of very cold weather. The Twin Otter isn’t a terribly large plane, probably about the size of a small turboprop regional passenger aircraft.

There were fix or six LC-130s and a pair of Twin Otters at the field and after driving around and past most of the planes our bus stopped outside an LC-130. The New York Air National Guard (ANG) is charged with flying the LC-130s in Antarctica The door opened and one of the ANG crew members got on board to give us a quick briefing. Part of the briefing covered how to place a mostly opaque bag over our head if the plane loses pressurization.

The ANG was significantly more laid back than the Air Force guys, so it wasn’t long before we were all on board and the plane started taxiing towards the runway. Shortly thereafter we were airborne for hour three our flight to the Pole.

In this space not too long ago I made mention of how loud it is flying on a C-17. Today I learned, first hand, just how limited my experience with loud aircraft interiors is. The C-17 may be deafeningly loud but the LC-130 is soul-crushingly loud. We were joking tonight at dinner that the plane was probably made that way deliberately. If paratroopers spent six or eight hours on an LC-130 they wouldn’t have to be encouraged to jump because the troops would be begging to go.

The LC-130 was obviously never designed to be a passenger plane. The urinal in the front of the plane is nothing more than a green curtain pulled around a funnel attached to the forward bulkhead. Our plane was a relatively modern version as the bucket and curtain in the rear of the plane had been replaced with something like a flush toilet and a curtain.

An hour and a half or so into the flight, the plane flew over the Trans Antarctic Mountains. The mountains seemingly rise out of a featureless white plain with huge black peaks and massive glaciers. It really is quite a sight and it goes on for quite a while. Once the mountains fade into the past, nothing lies ahead but a featureless white plain and the South Pole.

Eventually, the flight landed at the Pole. As the plane was taxiing, all the passengers were busy layering on the ECW gear and their glacier glasses to disembark. When the door on the left side of the plane opened we all walked out and carefully took a right turn. Since they don’t stop the motors or the props at the Pole, taking a left turn would be a quick way to end your polar experience.

Once in the South Pole Station, it was time for another briefing, of course.

After that, I found my room/berth. It’s not spacious, but it is a single with a small desk, a phone, twelve power plugs, a clothesline (they encourage you to air dry your clothes here since it is so dry and energy is so dear), a closet, six drawers, and one coat hanger.

They encourage everyone to take it easy for their first couple of days, because the rise in the altitude is very noticeable. I don’t much notice it except when I’m climbing steps and then I notice it quickly. Everyone is doing their best to not need or want my help while simultaneously encouraging me to sit back and take it easy.

I went out to the IceCube Lab (the ICL) this afternoon and took a look around. Since that is where many of the systems I’m going to turn up are located, I’ll be spending some time out there. However, once I get everything working well I can also do work from my room, which is nice.

Because the air is so dry here, and because our bodies need plenty of water as they try to acclimatize to the altitude I’ve been drinking water and tea like it’s going out of style. I probably drank a close to a gallon of water in just an hour or so after arriving and I was still thirsty when I was done.

In my last writings I wrote that I wasn’t going to post any pictures until I got off the continent. I’ve obviously changed my mind and I’ll try to post a handful of small pictures each day.

I didn’t get a chance to take a GPS reading when I arrived here today, but since I’ll be here for three weeks, I should have plenty of time to do so.

After a long day of flights and briefings, I’m writing tonight from Antarctica.

Today began with my 03:00 wake-up call. The night before I had carefully arranged everything so that I could get out the door with a minimum of functioning brain cells in the morning. I set two alarms (each seven minutes after the other) in addition to the wake-up call. Then, I put the alarms on the other side of the room from the bed so that I would be forced to get up and walk across the room to quiet the alarms.

When I got to the front desk to check-out (03:25), the night manager commented that I was getting an early start on the day. I told her that I like to check-out early to avoid the rush. As I finished, my cab pulled up to the hotel. I threw my bags in the trunk and we were off to the CDC and the Antarctic Passenger Terminal (APT).

Once at the CDC, I had to repack my bags, since I had to work out some way to get my ECW mostly out of my hand carry (a term used to describe the not insignificantly sized orange bag we’re all issued to use as non-optional carry-on luggage) and onto my person while transferring the contents of my backpack into the hand carry, all without exceeding the strict size limits imposed by the Air Force on hand carry items. Oh, and while being repeatedly examined by New Zealand Customs’ drug sniffing dogs.

Finally I had all my ECW gear on my person (remember, it’s not really that cold in Christchurch and the twenty or so pounds of gear I’m wearing is designed for sub-zero temperatures), and I lugged myself and my checked baggage off to the APT. Once there, I was weighed with my ECW, my hand carry was weighed, and my checked baggage was weighed. Once the Air Force had all my mass measurements I was issued a boarding pass and told to report back to the APT waiting area by 05:10 for a pre-flight briefing.

At precisely 05:10 a pre-flight briefing was conducted by an Air Force load master.

After the Air Force man finished, we all got to watch a video reminding us that Antarctica is dangerous in a variety of big and interesting ways for a variety of unchangeable reasons. Having said that, most people get hurt in Antarctica by the same stupid stuff that hurts them back in the States. That is to say that most injuries are sprains, strains, broken bones, and whatnot caused by fatigue, carelessness, or both.

Once that video was done, we were treated to another briefing about how to get through security, the process for loading the plane, and the importance of using the toilet before getting on the plane. Since the plane can’t empty it’s one toilet once it gets to Antarctica, the 130 or so folks leaving the ice on that plane would face a mighty uncomfortable ride back to CHC if the toilet was full.

Then, one of the more surreal parts of the day began. We all had to put our hand carry bags through a commercial X-ray system while we were trooped through a metal detector. Unsurprisingly, nearly every single person set off the metal detector since we were all required to be wearing our ECW which is absolutely festooned with all sorts of heavy metal buckles and straps. So, we all got wanded, too. Whee.

Let me pause here to inject some editorial commentary. Why in the name of all that is green and good were we all put through such a useless security screening. Who goes through all the trouble to get accepted for travel to Antarctica just to get on an Air Force C-17 so that they can hijack the plane?!? In speaking with one of the numerous Air Force guys on the plane, we found out that a C-17 in the States can travel with a few as three crew members for routine missions. This particular plane had 14 Air Force crewmen on it. In addition, there were no less ten members of the New Zealand Army traveling to Scott Base. Those sound like pretty poor odds for any hijacker, no matter how determined.

Anyway, we were issued ear plugs as we went through security and then put on buses for a brief ride over to the plane. We got off the buses, were handed a brown paper bag that contained a lunch and then got on the plane. The plane had fifty seats (ten rows of five) that were essentially like commercial airline seats. The seats reclined, they were padded, and they faced forward. However, they had heaps of leg room. Those who didn’t get or didn’t want one of the forward facing seats were seated along webbed seats on the side of the cargo hold. I chose to sit along the side of the plane so I could have an easier time getting up to walk around.

Already on board the plane was a fire truck that was being delivered to the continent. Once we were all seated the Air Force guys, along with their New Zealand counterparts, got somewhat busy loading our checked luggage into the plane, along with a few spare rows of seats for the return flight. Once all the cargo was loaded and secured, the primary load master gave us another briefing about what to expect during the flight. Soon thereafter the plane taxied and took off into the sky. The time was just before 07:00.

Unless you’ve ever been on an Air Force cargo plane you may not understand just how loud it is inside the plane while the it is flying. The cargo hold is not insulated at all to protect the cargo (trucks, passengers, tanks, troops, etc.) from the noise of the air rushing past the fuselage or the engines running for all they’re worth. It’s like being in an incredibly, terribly, awfully loud factory that makes metal things like cymbols or jackhammers. There wasn’t a single person on the plane who didn’t use their ear plugs for the entire flight.

Five hours later, we touched down at an airstrip (made entirely of ice) in Antarctica. We all got off the plane into sunlight that would have been blinding if we hadn’t had on sunglasses. A short walk took us to the legendary Terra Bus for the long ride to McMurdo across the ice.

We finally arrived in McMurdo and were promptly led into, guess what, another briefing! That particular briefing was delivered half-heartedly and absentmindedly by the NSF Station Manager. Once he was done, we got a briefing from the housing folks. With those briefings out of the way we split up into two groups of people: Raytheon employees and NSF Grantees (which is the NSF’s fancy word for “scientists and their support staff”). Of course, that meant it was time for another briefing. This time, our return travel to the States was the subject of the briefing. Let me tell you, there was nothing I wanted to think about at the moment more than a whole bunch more air travel.

Of course, once that was done, it was time for…wait for it…another briefing! This time, folks traveling to the South Pole were the target audience. We were all harangued into considering consumption of Diamox, a medication used to avoid altitude sickness. Since the Pole’s perceived altitude is really never less than 10,000 feet, and can be more than 14,000 feet depending on atmospheric conditions, altitude sickness is a real problem there. The doctor who gave us that particular briefing mentioned that they had medivaced seven people from the Pole in the last ten days for symptoms of either High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (the lungs filling with blood and fluid) or High Altitude Cerebral Edema (swelling of the brain). In addition, we learned that Norovirus is going around both Pole and McMurdo. Norovirus is the delightful virus that periodically drives a cruise ship to port with 300 people all afflicted with stomach cramps and diarrhea.

Once that briefing was done we were finally free. Most of the housing at McMurdo is dorm-style, so I’m sharing a room with two other IceCubers who will also go to the Pole tomorrow. Down the hall are two rooms filled with Kiwi Army guys who, upon arrival, promptly hung up their All Blacks banners and started the dangerous but necessary mission of reducing the apparent beer surplus here in Antarctica.

Once I had a bit of free time, I took it upon myself to find the geocache located in the hills above McMurdo. The wind was fabulously strong, but with my ECW jacket on I hardly felt the cold. What I did feel was the wind threatening to blow me down the back side of the hill and onto the ice that covers the bay. Geocache located, it was back to the dorms and dinner.

Dinner is served buffet style here in Antarctica and tonight in McMurdo we had beef stroganoff, vegetarian pakora, and baked chicken. None of it would qualify as good, but none of it was actively bad either.

Post-dinner, those of us bound for the Pole had to get dressed up in all our ECW gear, grab our hand carries, and lug ourselves and all that gear up the hill for…another briefing! After this briefing (topic: show up here tomorrow at 07:00 for transportation to your Pole flight), we were all weighed once again (why, I don’t know. How much weight could I gain or lose in six hours?) and then released to our own devices once we lugged ourselves, our ECW, and all our gear back down the hill.

That about sums my day. It’s now just about 21:15 local time and I’ve been awake for something like eighteen hours. Since we have to wake-up at 05:30 tomorrow for our flight, I’m off to bed soon. There probably won’t be many, or any, new pictures posted to the Photo Gallery until I get off the ice. Bandwidth is incredibly limited here in Antarctica and pushing a whole bunch of pictures through a small pipe shared by numerous people isn’t terribly kind to others. So, even though I’m not posting the pictures at the moment I haven’t stopped taking them.

Finally, I should mention that my GPS unit reports that I’m currently 9299 miles from our home in Madison. For those interested parties, my current coordinates according to the GPS unit:

S 77°50.770′
E 166°40.275′

Today felt like the first day that I started making progress towards the Pole again.
Last night, I explored the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch before dinner. The sun sets quite late here (well after 21:00) and since the Gardens don’t close until an hour before sunset, I had plenty of time to explore. Sections of the Gardens smelled fantastic as there are numerous flowers and trees in bloom. It was odd to see a giant California Redwood here in New Zealand, but they have a nice specimen, in addition to numerous other California plants. They also have one of the most spectacular eucalyptus trees that you’re ever likely to see. It’s absolutely massive.

In addition to looking at all the greenery (quite a change from Wisconsin this time of year), I found several species of birds that are unique to New Zealand. Earlier in the day, I had purchased a book on New Zealand birds, so I put it right to work helping me to identify the birds I was seeing. Disappointingly enough, European settlers introduced many common species of birds here, including house sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, and mallards. So, while there are some unique species, they are often individuals in a crowd of the mundane.

For dinner, I biked over to a restaurant named Two Fat Indians. It wasn’t until I was eating the food (lamb vindaloo) that I realized that this wasn’t the ordinary Indian food that I’m accustomed to getting. This was actually good Indian food. I can’t say what tipped me off to that fact, but I can best describe it as the difference between a Hershey’s chocolate bar and a bar of good, dark European chocolate. On the downside, their wines were awful, especially the Riesling I had. They were also touting a one-year old Gewurtztraminer as a fine wine. So, if you’re at Two Fat Indians, stick to the beer list.

This morning it rained, and I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to stick to my original plan of biking out to the CDC for my ECW issuance session. However, the day cleared up just enough that I was able to bike out there and back without any real problems.

At the CDC I was issued two bags full of ECW. Some of it I have to take. Other bits I could take or leave at my whim. In the end, I returned the vast majority of the optional gear and even some of the required gear since I brought much of my own that is either nicer or better fitting.

The big shock of the ECW session was learning that we need to report to the CDC at 04:00 local time tomorrow. That’s right, 04:00. We’re flying a military transport to McMurdo and I’ve been wondering if they folks making up the flight schedule haven’t confused this with a Navy Seal drop in the heart of night over enemy territory. Regardless, I’ve arranged for my 03:30(!) shuttle to the CDC, and my 03:00(!!) wake-up call. Both the front-desk and the shuttle dispatcher seemed incredulous when I told them what time I needed their services, but I don’t have much choice in the matter.

Tonight, I met up with a couple of other IceCube folks and we went out for drinks and dinner at the Brewers Arms. That particular restaurant’s schtick is that they heat a slab of stone up to 400 or so degrees. Then they plop a raw slab of meat of your choice on the stone and bring the whole mess to the table. Then, the meat cooks right in front of you and you can remove it from the stone whenever it is done to your satisfaction. It was unique, but not particularly compelling.

Anyway, it’s off to bed for me. Maybe I can get five hours before my crack-of-dawn wake-up call. I’ve added a handful of photos to the Photo Gallery. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be writing in this space tomorrow from McMurdo base on Antarctica. If the plane is force to return to New Zealand, I’ll be writing once again from Christchurch, so keep your fingers crossed for gentle winds and clear skies over the Antarctic coast.

More news and information from your faithful correspondent in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Last night, I ventured over to Cathedral Square to take in The Cathedral Grammar School’s Christmas Festival of Carols and Lessons. Despite the promises of the school’s Dean, the night was not particularly fun for either the kids or the adults who came to hear them. I was one of a very few people in the audience who did not have a rooting interest in the choir (i.e., I wasn’t related to any of the participants).

Leaving aside many questions or religion and ethics, you’ve got to hand to the Catholics that they build some interesting buildings. The Christchurch Cathedral is nothing like any of the great European Cathedrals, nor is it particularly old (it’s celebrating its 125th birthday this year which makes it younger than the City of Madison). However, the New Zealanders opt to fill their cathedral with music which makes all the difference. There’s just something about choral music filling a large space that creates a particularly satisfying experience.

During the course of the performance, I learned that just because the words are the same, you can’t count on Christmas carols being sung to the same tune. For instance, the New Zealand version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is nothing like the version we sing in the US. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but because portions of the show included audience participation, I often had to sit out a verse or two until I could pick up the tune and stumble through the remaining verses.

After the chorus concert, I sought out dinner and ended up with another lesson in globalization. I found myself sitting in an English bar (The Bard of Avon), drinking New Zealand (Monteith’s Pilsner) and German (Erdinger Weissbeer) beers, listening to an expatriate Canadian (Eric Simon), sing American pop and rock songs (John Denver, CCR, Neil Young, etc.) to an audience of people that included people from Israel, Taiwan, the US, and England.

This morning, I rented a bicycle and set out to get outside of the city center. Christchurch has a reasonably solid network of bicycle friendly streets, so getting about on the bike isn’t too much work. However, for those were not previously aware of the fact, they drive on the left here. That means that bicyclists ride on the left as well, which is not an easy adjustment. Everything feels backwards when you’re riding on the left. You make left turns on red; right turns are more difficult than lefts; pulling out of a driveway always is done with a left turn; etc. The easiest way to function that I’ve found so far is to listen to your instincts. If they are all telling you that you’re doing something wrong, chances are that you’re right in the left-driving world of New Zealand.

After a while, I found myself at Sumner Beach, south and a bit east of Christchurch. There were people out running their dogs in the surf, and a group of people getting instruction in surfing.

A bit further down the road, I stopped at Scarborough Beach and rested for a while near a cafe ever-so-cleverly named Scarborough Fare. Har, har. After some time spent messing around with the various modes on my camera, I tackled the steep and winding Whitewash Road up to the top of Scarborough Head. Fortunately, the bicycle rental folks dropped off a mountain bike with a fairly low gear. Even so, I had to abandon the bike three-quarters of the way up the hill as the trail just got too steep.

Once I was at the top, I took a few photos, watched the gulls for a while, and contemplated just how much sunburn I was getting and just how little I could do about it. After a walk into Nicholson’s Park to refill my water bottle, it was back down the hill to find some grub.

For lunch, I ate at a little seafood shack in Sumner and had the Gurnard Burger. On the menu, this was listed as: “Crumbled Gurnard, egg, cheese, and tartare sauce.” I thought this might be two sorts of cheese (Gurnard and some unnamed cheese), with an egg and some tartar sauce (what for?) on a hamburger. What I got was a deep-fried fish fillet on a toasted bun with some melted cheese, a fried egg, a couple of tomato slices, some lettuce, and a generous serving of tartar sauce. So, apparently, Gurnard is a white fish something like cod. I chose the Gurnard burger because I just couldn’t think about having fish and chips, which is definitely the national dish here. I got chips with my sandwich last night, and it doesn’t seem like I’ll have any shortage of opportunities to have chips again if the urge arises.

After the burger, I stopped at The Thirsty Marriner (spelling deliberate; it’s on Marriner Rd), to rest and refuel with a Tiger Beer (from Singapore) before biking into the teeth of a stiff wind back to Christchurch.

On the way back, I stopped to buy strawberries and gooseberries from a guy selling them out of the back of his station wagon on the side of the road. The strawberries are good, but I may have to pitch the gooseberries. They’re quite sour and I just don’t see myself finishing them.

Now, I’m sheltering from the midday sun and the wind in my hotel room for a couple of hours before heading out again. The last thing I need before heading for Antarctica in a couple of days is an even worse sunburn than I’ve already got.

I’ve added some photos to the Photo Gallery that show some of what I saw and did so far today.

The first leg of my travel to Antarctica is complete. A hotel in Christchurch, New Zealand is the current domicile of your faithful correspondent.

Let me start by saying that, all things considered, my flights from Madison to Christchurch (CHC) were actually quite smooth. On all of the flights I had more room than regulations require as I was able to either snag empty rows, or drew some sort of lucky cosmic straw that put me in an empty row on an otherwise full plane. My luggage even made the journey seemingly unmolested (except by the seemingly obligatory TSA ransacking at some point in the journey) and was available for pick-up (or uplift, as they say here) each time I needed it.

Having said that, the journey is a major test of one’s patience. The flight over the Pacific is seemingly interminable, even though it is only twelve and one-half hours. Fortunately, I did the over-the-counter equivalent of dropping an anvil on my head by taking a Benedryl (an antihistimine) shortly after take off. It took the better part of an hour to kick in, but once it was flowing through my veins I was out for six hours of restless sleep. There’s no way I could have slept that long without the drug in my system. Even so, I still woke up at 01:30 local time and never went back to sleep, so I’m looking at an early night tonight.

Door to door, the journey from Madison to CHC took about thirty hours. That’s a long time to spend in the same set of clothes.

Here in CHC I’m staying at the Copthorne Central. It’s a relatively nice place, but it suffers from street noise like most hotels in larger cities. There’s a nice park across the street through which the Avon River flows and I spent some time there this afternoon.

I’ve got tomorrow off so I’ll have to keep myself busy sightseeing and the like. On Wednesday (New Zealand time), I’m scheduled to report to the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) where I’ll be issued my Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear. That’s around 13:30 local time; my day before and after that is pretty much open. However, I depart early the next morning for McMurdo, so I’ll spend part of the day, I’m sure, getting ready to depart.

What else might you want to know? There are some really big trees here in Christchurch. And when I say big, I mean big. These trees aren’t big like we think of big trees in America. That is to say that the trees aren’t real tall. Instead they’re really, really wide with huge spreading canopies.

I tried the beer at one of the local brew pubs with my lunch. I was disappointed, but not because the beer was bad, but rather because of the style of beer. It was a Raspberry Summer Wheat and I was expecting something more like a Bavarian-style wheat, instead I got an American-style wheat. Next time, I’ll probably try the ginger beer as that’s more a local specialty.

There some a handful of photos from my journey so far in the Photo Gallery.

Sarah, Dalla, and I went out hiking this afternnoon and while we were out, I took a few snapshots to test my new camera. You can view the photos in the photo gallery.