A wake up call.....

(Ring, Ring)Ok, open your eyes. Your alive, that's good. Where am I? What happened last night? I remember.....(Ring, Ring)shit the phone, man I hope that is not work calling telling me there is something wrong. Geez, my head is killing me. (Ring, Ring) oh yea the phone, get up, that a boy good job. Should I turn on the light? Oh man my head is killing me, ok no light you can make it to the phone. Ouch!!! God what the hell did I just kick. (Ring, Ring) Wait, where the hell am I? why don't I have any pants on? I have to piss like a race horse... Where the hell is the phone!! (Ring, Ring) Awww there it is.. "hello?", "Yes, this is your wake up call." (huh) wait a minute. Wake up call? Where am I? Was this all a dream? Did I leave? Am I somewhere in Australia at a hotel? Why don't I have pants on? Is this my hotel room? "hello?" Wait, the connection is bad and there is a delay. Ok I am in my room in Antarctica. This is my couch I am sitting on. God I gotta pee, and my head is killing me. "hello?" "yea, I am here" who is this voice, it sounds so familiar. It is a girl, ok I can figure this out. Just let her talk for a minute, hmmm. I am thirsty. Just listen, listen, you know this. You know who this is, why is it so early? Well I guess 9am isn't early. Shut up and listen, wait for it, concentrate, listen you idiot.....

So it was as if someone took a stick and hit me across the face. I all of a sudden woke up and realized who was on the phone, my head stopped pounding, it was still dark, but I could see now and my sentences almost started to make sense. I probably was not that fun to talk to and I probably was not making good conversation. I will tell you what though, hearing her voice listening to her talk(because I was in no shape to do any talking) that really made me feel so much better. It is strange, down here you go months and months without talking to friends or family. And it surprises me at how just a short conversation on the phone, just a "hey, how are you" can completely change your mood. I know that all day I have thought about that call and how I wish I hadn't gone out last night and drank that one too many beers. I also wish I hadn't been working a crazy day/night shift schedule. I wish these things, because then I could have been awake and in a good mood to have a nice conversation. I hope that one day I can get another call from her, I would like that. A few weeks ago I was in a bad mood, just not feeling happy about being here and I called my mom, just so I could go over some financial things and that quick conversation from my mom put me in a better mood for the rest of the week. It was not a deep conversation, it was about nothing important. It was just hearing her voice and knowing that you have those friends and family back home that when you get off the ice they will always be there, they will be the first ones to meet you and have lunch or have a drink with. Those people are what makes going home worth it, and knowing those people are there, makes being down here easier....

Poor Planning....

The day was calm, no wind a balmy 7 degF. Above the sky painted in pinks and purples as the sun barely cracks over the mountains. Not much sunlight left here, it will be total darkness soon. It was a nice day though, still very still. A light snow fell late in the afternoon, it is amazing how quiet it gets when the snow falls. It is as if it just takes a white blanket and covers up all the sounds. I could stand outside the PowerPlant and just barely here the engines, it was so peaceful. It was one of those days that you just want to go lay outside and soak it all up. Except that your in Antarctica and its cold. As I walked up the hill from work, normally the wind just pelting me in the face. It was calm, quiet and nice. I had my hood down, a ball cap on, no beanie or neck gator. I probably could have done without the gloves, but I like my hands to stay warm. I decided I would go out and take some pictures, because it was such a nice day and we had some fresh snow so it adds a clean look to McMurdo's normal dusty feel. I guess what they say is right, it is always the calmest right before the storm.

The storm hit shortly after I got back from taking pictures, I was outside snapping shots when I started to get big wind gusts in my face. A mixture of snow and volcanic dust, a type of cold wet grit just blowing at your face finding its way into your eyes and your mouth. It was time to come down off the hill and go inside. This is when you realize that you were dressed appropriate for the conditions you were in, but when those conditions change you need to evaluate if you are still appropriately prepared for the new conditions. I made my way back inside before it started getting too bad. That was just the storm approaching, that was nothing. That was just the warning to me to get my ass down off the hill and inside, because something stronger was coming. Something I was not prepared for. They say that the storms hit the hardest and with the most force in the change of seasons. We are in that time, the sun is setting and it is getting closer and closer to total darkness. The temperatures are dropping at a rapid pace, more and more every day. Winter is upon us, and the storms are here to wash away the summer. Once the storms have taken the summer away it will be still again, it will be calm and quiet. But it will be winter, it will be that one long night, 4 months of darkness.

This storm slowly escalated Saturday night and all day Sunday. We were in a condition two storm for all of Easter Sunday. This was all a lead up, a lead up to the first condition one storm of the winter. Monday morning as I was on my way out the door to go to work, I got the call to stay put it is going "Con 1". I think its funny when I hear the term Con 1, because that was my nickname during the Winfly season this year at McMurdo. I got stuck out on the ice shelf more than anyone else in condition one's. So I went back to my room and laid low, put on my slippers and watched a movie. Later on in the day, I was called and asked to go check over the PowerPlant because they were having a lot of snow infiltration and water forming in the engine room. I asked what the proper procedure was for completing the task of traveling my way down to the PowerPlant, I grabbed a experienced friend and followed my instructions and safety measures. :)

Upon my arrival at the PowerPlant I found that the engine room's air intake fans were pulling in so much snow that when the snow hit the hot air in the engine room it would turn to water and then rain all over the engines, generators and high voltage electrical cabinets. To add to this the wind was so strong that it was blowing the air exhaust fan backwards and shut it off, causing none of the hot air in the engine room to be let out. This raised the temperature in the engine room, causing more rain and the engines to run hotter. There wasn't anything we could really do about this problem. I grabbed a few large room fans from various buildings and began to set up our own air circulation system to keep the room cool. We closed down the intake louvers so we were not pulling as much snow into the room, but once the louvers froze it didn't make any difference. After every effort was exhausted to fix these problems we went into maintenance mode. The engine room was so poorly designed and engineered that it didn't matter what we did, we could not resolve this problem. Now we just hold on and hope we last out the storm, and deal with the issues once the storm has passed.

The storm tore on for the rest of the day Monday and into the night. Winds hit a high of 76 knots with gusts higher than that. The damage that occurred around station from the storm was not wind related, it was all due to snow infiltration. This storm was a record one, 14 inches in less than 24 hours. The high snow fall combined with driving winds, just pushed snow inside of everywhere. Our nice getaway lounge type building Hut 10, had two windows blown out and over a foot of snow covering everything inside. It looks like one of the cool trendy Ice Bars they have now a days. I was busy not only cleaning up and trying to get things back operational in the main PowerPlant, but our sole back up engine had almost 2 feet of snow infiltration on the inside of the enclosure. The issue with this was that, the room is so confined that you cant dig much to get the snow out, also when the snow blew in it hit the warm engine and melted and then re-froze as ice. So not only was there large amounts of snow inside there was larger amounts of ice.

This storm changed the look of the station. Things like dumpsters, oil drums and raincaps were missing, the wind had blown them several hundred yards or blew them someplace never to be found. There was some snow drift accumulation that was over 8 feet tall around some buildings, I have never seen so much snow accumulate in one place and then 2 feet away it was bare dirt, no snow to be found. The one thing this storm did bring us, was a bit of togetherness. After the storm had dissipated and left a wake of destruction, the town looked like it just got hit by a hurricane. This in turn brought us all together. We all had to do our part to shovel snow and clean up. Everyone from janitors to mechanics to supervisors to just about everyone on station had to do there part to get the station back together. It was nice to see that, it was nice to see everyone putting there jobs aside and help out one another. Maybe that is what we needed, as this weekend is now upon us and another condition one storm is predicted we will see. We will see how this effects the feel of the crew. I am enjoying being here. There really is no place I would rather be, but I just hope that our group, our crew gets some sense of togetherness that lasts. That, I think would make this winter season be fast and ultimately the enjoyable experience I have been looking for.......

The Change........

With the darkness creeping up on us, now less than 2 weeks away. I have began to notice a change in myself as well as others. The sun is virtually gone now, we get a twilight glow for a few hours a day, but right now at 11:00am the moon is still out and a shadow hangs over the station. It is definitely an ere feel. Our winter crew has not jelled together yet like everyone said we would. Before winter started the main reason I was excited to winter was because of all the great people that were staying, the people I had a lot of fun with during the summer months. Well once that last plane left and winter was upon us, all those great people that I was excited to be wintering with locked themselves away from the community. Everyone seems to go to work, get there food to go and eat, drink and hang out in there rooms by themselves or with a select small group. I am disappointed once again. I asked winter-overs from past years if this was normal and at the beginning of the season they said "yes, people hang out alone for awhile but then once the crew jells they will come out and it will be great". Well it has now been almost 2 months since the last plane left and people are the same, so I ask the question again. Is this behavior typical for winter here? Now my answers I receive are "no, this is a really strange winter and the crew just wont jell".

You know last winter at Palmer I had a similar problem. The majority of our winter crew went to Fire School and OSAR Training back in the states before we went to the Ice. During those two weeks we had a lot of fun, getting to know each other and hanging out. So I was excited to get to Palmer and spend the winter with these great people. Once we arrived on station and relationships were formed. We never saw each other outside of work and meals. I asked the same question last year to my buddy Craig who had seen different summer and winter crews at Palmer. Craig, is this season normal or what? His answer was the same as what I am getting this year at McMurdo, at first its normal but the crew should come together and it never did. So now I start to think, what is so different about these two seasons compared to past ones.

The obvious one is I am here. Hmmmmm, could I be causing the destructive vibe of the crews??? Although that could be, I think it goes back to a hiring issue. Both seasons the exact populations and the crews were not finalized until very late in the summer season. So what does that get you? That gets people who are new to the program or new to winters, this year roughly 60% and last year every single person except the station manager had never been to Palmer, let alone wintered there. This poor planning on hiring also gets people to winter that were here for summer and did not intend on wintering. I think this is a big issue, because you get your self mentally prepared to spend 4 or 5 months here and then go travel the South Pacific and go home. When all of a sudden without a break you are now spending 12-14 months here. I would say that 90% of the people I have asked why they are wintering this year, say it is because the economy is so bad back in the states and they need a job or money. To me this is no reason to spend the winter here. There have been years and years of data collected by the military on Winter-Over Syndrome. This is a mental and physical condition that you go through being stuck in a single place for a long period of time with no sunlight, fresh food, new people etc. This effect is a difficult one, people in the past who have this get very depressed and have a hard time re-acclimating to the real world and social situations.

So I go back to my original observation, people aren't being part of a crew or a community. People here are being very self oriented and loners. This is concerning to me, because I am people person. I enjoy the company of others most the time. What this observation has made me do, is look at my reaction to it. I found that I have become very anti-social, I still eat my meals in the galley with others and have conversation there, but beyond that I spend my free time or non-work, non-eating time in my room reading books, watching movies and playing video games. I normally tend to leave the door open so if someone who is walking by decides they want to sit down and join me they can. But no one has taken advantage of this. Everyone who walks by, keeps walking. So alone I sit in my room. I am enjoying my season, I am spending a lot of time reflecting on things I have done, decisions I have made, accomplishments I have achieved all types of stuff that you would normally think about when you are in solitary confinement in prison. It has allowed me to realize who I am and what I want in life and what I want to do in life. With this I plan, I plan the next step in my life. I prepare the decisions that I make today to effect the new path I want to travel tomorrow or whenever I get out of here........