Victoria In Victorialand

Technically, it’s November 1st, 2011 here on the ice.

I have survived the first major holiday in Antarctica.  More about Halloweird in a post to come.  This post is going to be about the beauty of Antarctica.  I’ve said it before and I will say it again.  There is no place on earth like the Ice.  I recently have decided to get a little “artsy” in my landscape photography and have converted to black and white photos.  Ah, the wonders of digital cameras.

The pictures that I’m attaching, some of you will probably recognize from other posts.  My favorite place so far to just hang out, relax, clear my head (oh and look for seals) is Hut Point (Discovery Hut).

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From Wikipedia –

Discovery Hut was built by Robert Falcon Scott during the Discovery Expedition of 1901–1904 in 1902 and is located at Hut Point on Ross Island by McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Visitors to Antarctica, arriving at either the US Base at McMurdo or New Zealand’s Scott Base are likely to encounter Discovery Hut as all three are located on Hut Point. Discovery Hut is just 300m from McMurdo Base.

Some confusion arises because Discovery Hut can correctly be referred to as Scott’s Hut, in that his expedition built it, and it was his base ‘ashore’ during the 1901–1904 expedition. But the title ‘Scott’s Hut’ correctly belongs to the building erected in 1911 at Cape Evans.

Regarding Preservation of Discovery Hut –

Shackleton advised future Antarctic explorers on the state of the hut after the Ross Sea party left it:

The stores placed there in 1902 are intact. There are a few cases of extra provisions and oil in the hut, but no sleeping gear, or accommodation, nor stoves, and it must not be looked upon as anything else than a shelter and a most useful pied-à-terre for the start of any Southern journey. No stores nor any equipment have been taken from it during either of my two Expeditions.^[1]

However after Shackleton left the hut in 1917 it remained untouched until 1956 when US expeditioners dug it out of the snow and ice. It was found to be in a remarkable state of preservation, and included many artifacts from both the earlier expeditions. While some artifacts were taken as souvenirs at the time (and since), this hut remained largely as it was in 1917.

New Zealand and the UK have undertaken responsibility at various times since the 1970s to restore (largely removing snow and ice) both Scott’s hut and Discovery Hut [1][2].

While the preservation of food in the freezing temperatures and dry climate has been noted, bacterial decay still occurs. Visitors describe the seal meat preserved at the Discovery Hut as smelling ‘quite rancid’, and there are concerns that the fabric of these huts are being affected by fungal decay [3]. Both Scott’s Hut and Shackleton’s Hut have been included on the World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites..

I haven’t been inside of the Hut yet, but I’m hoping to team up with one of the tour guides (also a fellow photographer) and do a “photography tour” of the hut.

Just outside of Discovery Hut is Vincent’s Cross.  From http://www.coolantarctica.com –

George Vince is the first man to have lost his life in McMurdo Sound, he was one of a party of nine men who had caught out in a blizzard during an excursion from the Discovery. Instead of staying where they were and waiting for the storm to end, they decided to try to make their way back to the ship.

Vince was wearing fur-soled boots with very little grip and wandered onto a snow slope which he slipped down before falling over the cliffs at their end into the sea. The slope was later known as “Danger Slopes”, his body was never recovered. He is commemorated by a wooden cross erected by the crew and men of the Discovery that is maintained to this day by the New Zealand and US bases in McMurdo Sound.

The above statement is the reason I stick to well worn paths.  I don’t need any crosses commemorating my experience here at McMurdo.

I can’t believe that it has been almost 2 whole months that I have been here on the Ice! 

The time has been flying by so quickly.  I’ve made some outstanding friends and have overall met some amazing people.  I’ve also learned several important things.  I’ve done a fair amount of soul searching while down here.  I’ve got my own personal goals to accomplish while here, and so far, things are going uphill, as planned.

I’ve learned to appreciate  good conversations and kindred spirts. 

I’ve learned that it’s foolish to judge someone based solely on their appearance.  There are people here that I admittedly would probably cross the street to avoid if I were anywhere but Antarctica, however, I find myself having great conversations with them.

I’ve learned that you should always eat your fruits and vegetables when they’re offered to you because who knows when the next time you will see them will be.

I’ve learned that it is possible to get through the day without sending and recieving dozens of text messages.

I’ve learned that drama is not necessary.  This SOUNDS like common sense, however, it’s amazing how many people thrive on drama and drink it in like water.

Sure, a lot of those things seem like they are simple lessons, but looking at where I am now as opposed to where I was in the first half of the year, it’s shocking to see how things have changed in my own life. 

Coming down here has been an incredible, life changing experience. 

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job at home, but I had also grown comfortable in my position to the point where I was numb to the problems that were actually occurring.  The problems that drew my attention stressed me out to the point where I hated going in to work (but Tori, you said you loved your job.  Yes I loved my job but it still depressed me to have to go in and put up with all of the problems).  I didn’t like being in charge of EVERYTHING, I didn’t like the person it made me become.  I became withdrawn and anti-social.  I quit caring about things like my house, my health, hanging out with people that I adore…  It was a rough time.  But there are some things that I miss…

I miss my family, the Bakers, other close friends and last, but not least, my dog.

I’ve actually been trying to figure out what else I miss and all I could think of were things that I actually miss the idea of.  I’m sure this will change.  I miss green grass and trees.  There.  Now I feel like I haven’t completely abandoned everything.

I adore Antarctica with her crazy, beautiful weather.  I love seeing the snow.  How on earth I have managed to stay in Brunswick GA my entire life is rather odd considering my affinity for snow.  I love walking to work and hearing the soles of my shoes crunch through the snow.  I love looking out of the window in the lounge and seeing the Royal Society Mountain Range across the ice.  I love hearing the wind batter the doors and sides of buildings that I’m generally warm and cozy in.  I love how, on especially cold, blustery days, everyone says “Hello” when they pass eachother outside.  We’re generally all bundled up and it can be difficult to tell who is who, but you always say hi to people when you pass them.  Why?  Because when the weather is really bad, you don’t know if that’s the last person you’re going to see…  Ok, I haven’t been through weather THAT bad yet, but on our -81 degree day, that is sure what it felt like.

Part of me wonders why I love this place so much.  Is it because it is completely different than everything I’ve ever known?  Is it because I know I only have a limited time here, therefore the value of everything is much more precious?  Or is Antarctica, the continent with the harshest conditions on the planet, the place that I have been needing to go to for a very long time to help me discover what in life is worth holding on to and what is worth letting go…

Don’t worry, I’ll get back to more informative posts about the different things around and about McMurdo.  I just felt it was time for a good rambling post about my own personal feelings on this experience thus far.

Take care-

Tori

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Greetings all!

Since I’m now on night shift, I am hoping that I’ll be able to update my blog more often.

Last night was my first night on the night time shift.  The evening started out well and I was kept company by Lt. Phil Brunelle and Fire Fighter Mike Allard.  The group at the station was down by three members.  The reason for this was due to the need to have staffing at Station 2.  Station 2 is located in “Ice Town” out at the Ice Runway.  Unfortunately, we don’t have the staffing for a “permanent” Ice Town group to go, so we have to send personnel to standby when we have intercontinental flights occurring.  When we get a C-17 or an LC-130 landing at the runway, the shift that is technically off duty has to respond to stand by for landings and take offs.

Things were going fine until Phil kicked his flip flop into Mike’s face.  This was all in good fun and it occurred after the bandages had been thrown at each other, as well as the great rubber band battle of October 17, 2011.  Once the shoes came off, the boys decided they might better call it a night.  Mike went to find something to cook and while he was in the kitchen, Renae came over to keep me company for a bit.  It’s weird to be in this situation where we find ourselves not being able to hang out with each other in the evenings.  We’d developed a bit of a pattern over the past 7 weeks (wow I can’t believe I’ve been down here 7 weeks already) of hanging out in the evenings.  The next 6 weeks are going to either fly or drag by.

After Renae left around 0200, time started to creep by.  I was fixing to go into serious cleaning mode in the dispatch room when the phone rang and someone requested the fire department to respond at a quarter til 5.  So we sent the crews out, and in order for the scene to be worked completely, I had to call out the off duty crew as well.  I will admit that I took great pleasure in waking up the guys that were off duty, I mean, if I’m awake they should be too!  I did feel kind of bad though when a few of the guys showed up with incredibly sad looks on their faces.  I had the guys out until shortly after 0630.  At least it wasn’t a call where they had to go out for 5 minutes, disturbing their sleep, and then have them attempt to go back to sleep.  If I’m going to cause chaos, I may as well REALLY cause chaos.

After I got off work at 0700, I went to the room to change and thought about heading down to Southern Exposure for “day bar”.  Day Bar is held on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays for the night shift group that might not get a chance to go out with the folks who work the town schedule.  As I was walking down Highway 1, which is the main corridor located in the building I live in, 155, I ran into Rick.  He was laughing about my Facebook post that I put about 15 minutes before the chaos started.  I had written “Good Morning from McMurdo Station Antarctica.  It’s 0430 and all is well”.  Long story short, there was a comment made by my dearest eldest sister that I was mean for waking up all of the guys, and I had previously told Rick that I was only mean on Thursdays so of course he had to make a comment about that since it is only Tuesday.  He and I decided to unwind at the Coffee House over some tea.  We talked about several things, the call of the evening and life in general.  Out of all of the people here, he’s probably one of the most interesting ones.  One of the talks we’ve had in the past regarded the fact that our age group (28-35) seemed to be the minority around here.  Now, before I came down here, I saw that the average age of person working at McMurdo was 36, but that’s because there are several young 20 somethings, and then there is the 40+ age group.  Right now, most of my peers are having children or too involved in their careers to take off and do something like this.  I would also like to say that I don’t think there is anything wrong with having kids or being too involved in a career to do something like this.  Kids, right now, just aren’t for me.  Yes, I know I generally say I’m too selfish to have them, but not seeing kids (except in pictures) for 4 more months may make me reconsider my current stand on children.  I shall move on from that little tangent now…  We wrapped up our little conversation and I headed off to bed at around 0930.

So I find myself here at work again after about 5 hours of sleep, a hot shower and a decent meal.  The kids are all asleep.  Hopefully I won’t wake them up.  But if I do, I’ll do it with a smile.

-Tori

Greetings and Salutations to you all!

I apologize most profusely for not posting a blog more recently, but things have been incredibly busy down here at McMurdo!  We’ve gotten a whole bunch of new people with the flights come freshies and more packages!  I actually recieved three packages this week but they were inadvertently placed in a closet and I wasn’t told about them until this morning.  Two of them were ones that I packed for myself (thanks Debbie for shipping them!) and one was from my parents.  These were in addition to the two that I received last week – THANKS GRANDMA and MOM AND DAD! 

So let’s see, what has been going on…  I’ve been down to Hut Point only once since my last post.  I took my roommate Renae down there since she hadn’t been yet.  I made the mistake of not wearing enough layers and underestimated the sheer force of the wind and managed to get windburn on my legs through 2 pairs of pants.  Not a good thing.  Thankfully I got my package with lotion the next day.  There was only 1 seal out which was kind of a bummer since she hadn’t gotten to see any yet, but it was still exciting for her.

Let’s see, what else.  Oh!  I, along with 3 of my firefighters, got to go down and watch Lindsey, one of the weather forecasters, launch one of the weather balloons.  We had to go through the waste water treatment plant (which smells a bit like 341 in certain areas) and then out onto Sausage Point *Sausage Point is called Sausage Point because many moons ago, a large amount of cargo containing sausage was unearthed.  So, without much fanfare, Rick took the balloon and let it go.  It floated away, looking like a giant jellyfish in the sky.

Speaking of skies, as I’m now transitioning to night shift, I’ve tried to stay up late.  I can say that the skies are orange around 3am and then fade into a shade of indigo, but it’s no longer completely black at night.

Thursday night I went to Scott Base with Rick.  The main purpose of this visit was to enjoy Glenlivet.  I have no shame in saying this.  We have no Scotch at McMurdo.  This saddens me.  So we went for scotch and to socialize with the Kiwi’s.  Then came back and went to the coffeehouse where I probably played the best game of dominos that I’ve ever played.  Then we went on to have deep conversations.  I love the conversations down here.  It’s so nice to have so many different viewpoints on things. 

I’ve seen several mirages lately – also known as Fata Morgana.  To my brother – Yes, the mountains that were in those pictures listed as mirages were, in fact, mirages.  It’s amazing.  I will post pictures tomorrow night when I’m actually using my computer. 

So things are still going well.  I will have more time to write tomorrow night since I will be back at work.  Love to you all!

Tori

 

Today is Thursday, October 7, 2011.  This week marks the beginning of Mainbody or “Summer”.  It means that the winter-over crew is departing and the hordes are arriving.  It also means receiving somewhat regular shipments of mail and FRESHIES!  Never in my life have I ever been so excited about eating a salad as I was today at lunch. 

Back at home, where fresh fruits and vegetables are convenient to purchase, I never gave much thought as to what I would do if I couldn’t have regular access to veggies.  For the past three weeks or so, we have been eating over or undercooked frozen or canned veggies, but today I was able to have a salad with fresh carrots, fresh broccolli, fresh cucumbers, etc…  Nothing is better than that.  Nothing.  Well, perhaps the banana I had with breakfast was better, but who’s comparing.  There were several different meat toppings offered (ham, shrimp, I’m not sure what else) but all I wanted were the veggies.  Oh, how I have missed them.

So along with the wonderful goodness of freshies, we also got mail!  Thanks to Mom and Dad for the calling card, to Debbie for sending me my mail and the card, and to Kati for sending me Cannon’s birth announcement.  It is so nice to get mail.  I was sitting in the Galley yesterday, playing a game of chess, and one of the DA’s had recieved mail from home which included several letters from friends.  It was the first time I’ve seen someone cry down here.  I wanted to go give her a hug.  It’s funny, after 6 weeks here, it feels like I have known several of these people for much longer.  My sister, Beth, asked me if I have had any deja vu experiences down here with people I’ve never met before, and I have.  “That, is how you know you’ve found your people” she replied.  She has had a similiar experience before when she went to Penland. 

More people have arrived.  Our population has easily doubled over the past week.  Where it was once easy to hold a long conversation after dinner with the folks I was sitting with is now becoming difficult.  More people also means more work.  The first day people arrived I think I took 6 phone calls from people locked out of their rooms.  The fire department doesn’t let them in, but since the number (non-emergency) to the firehouse is posted EVERYWHERE, we are generally the first place people turn when something has gone wrong.  We also recieved many calls from returnees who wanted the phone numbers of their friends who wintered or came down at winfly.  It’s also amusing to see people with tans.  All of the color that I had has already faded.  I can’t imagine how I would look after a winter. 

I know I haven’t been updating my blog on a regular basis, but in all honesty, my days off are generally dull if the weather is bad.  If the weather is nice, I try to go out and see different things, then I’m too tired to write about it.  Living in a room with no windows makes it rather easy to sleep all day as well.  Of course it is a bit of a shocker to walk outside to find the sun shining and beautiful blue skies.  I tend to kick myself when that happens, for letting the day go by while I’m slumbering away.  Today I got over to the quiet coffeehouse in order to write this.  The coffeehouse is generally unlocked during the day and only serves people later in the evening, but there are two computers set up for use over here. 

The daylight is present much of the day now.  We’re at just over 16 hours of daylight per 24 hour period.  I have watched the past few sunsets and twilights in an attempt to soak in the last of the colors that I have never seen anywhere else in the world.  I haven’t seen any Nacreous clouds in weeks and I am sad to say that I believe the chance to see the Southern Lights is gone.  I guess that means I have to come back next year.

On another note, I believe we will soon be finding out which of our firefighters are going to be stationed at the South Pole for the season.  There will be a few there perminently, and 6 others that will rotate out through the season.  I’ve grown rather accustomed to the group at the station.  It will be sad to see some of them go.  The one major difference I have come to know in dispatching here and dispatching at home, is that here, we’re part of the family.  At home, the dispatchers are treated like they’re not part of the public safety matrix.  It’s an unfortunate thing. 

Much love to you all and I hope you (whereever you are) are being blessed with wonderful weather.

Tori

Hey y’all –

Hope everyone at home is doing well.  Things have been exciting over the past week.  On Wednesday and Thursday this week, the FD had a few fire drills and I was lucky to be able to go out and take pictures during the first one.

Personally, I don’t know how these guys do it.  It takes a lot to be a fire fighter in “the real world” and down here things are completely different.  Sure we don’t have a lot of hazards that are in other areas, but we do have our own special things to consider.  Number one, it is incredibly windy here so fires could spread quickly.  Number two, it is incredibly dry here, so putting out fires is a challenge.  Also, when it comes to victim recovery, they have to be careful that they don’t do anything to worsen the condition of the victim (i.e. leaving them exposed to the outside elements).  Overall, things here are a challenge.  But our guys are up to the task.

I’m thankful that we haven’t had any actual fires yet, but here are some pictures from the drill that we had on 09/28/11.

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Good morning!

The days are much longer now.  The sky is light when I head to work in the mornings around 0620.  My dorm room has no windows, so it’s always a surprise when I walk out to see a light blue/gray sky.  We’ve been fortunate lately, the weather has been spectactular over the past two days.  Sunday when I went to work, there was very little wind and the snow looked pristine as it blanketed everything.  The weather on Saturday ensured a fresh covering a snow, thanks to high winds.  When we first arrived, the sky was still dark when I went to work.  The new dawn colors invigorate me but I’ll miss the dark skys of early Winfly, the alpenglow, the nacreous clouds and stars.

Monday was my first day off in my set of off days.  I went to breakfast with my roommate and then went back to sleep.  Ah sleep.  It’s so easy when there are no windows in the room.  The beds aren’t too bad, no worse than the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, and since we don’t have extra roommates now, I have taken one of the spare pillows for my own use.  I’m going to have to find a replacement soon.  The next flights start coming in on October 3rd and I’ll be forced to hand over my reappropriated goods.  I have a spare fleece with me that I’ll more than likely fold up and stuff in a pillowcase.  That should work.

After my nap, I joined the masses for lunch.  While at lunch, Kate and I decided to tackle Ob Hill, which I wrote about in the previous post.

After the Ob Hill attempt and blog, I cleaned up and headed to dinner.  I joined Kate, Brook and the dentist, Kressley.  Kressley is from Australia and takes some positively amazing photos.  After dinner, we sat around discussing what the possibilities of seeing auroras tonight was.  Kressley is on an email notification list and recieved a notification about Monday night being a good time to see auroras between 0100 and 0300.  We decided if the skies were clear, we were going to hike up behind the VMF and attempt to look for them.   We found some other people who were interested in skygazing and made plans to meet in my building at 0100 if things looked good.

I headed over to the firehouse for my second chess lesson with Rick at 2000.  After the game (which I lost but was assured that I did much better), he mentioned that he would play another round but needed to go to bed.  I told him that I had to go to bed as well, because I was going to be getting up at 1230 to go look for auroras.  He seemed interested in that statement and asked if I was also going out on Tuesday night.  I didn’t/don’t know if I’ll be going out Tuesday night, but I told him that I thought it would be an excellent idea if he was able to do some night time area familiarization.  Granted we only have a few weeks of darkness left, but, still it was a brilliant idea.  He told me he would let me know after he spoke to one of his lieutenants.  I also asked Genievive, the night time dispatcher, if she would page me if she heard anything from the Lt.  Shortly after walking into my dormroom, I got a page from G saying that the Lt agreed to it.  Then I got a page from Rick, informing me to be at the firehouse at 0130.

After a few hours of tossing and turning, I woke, dressed and headed to the firehouse.  I was a bit dismayed about not seeing any stars, but being out in the dark was still great.  The weather wasn’t too bad, I believe it was only -35.  It’s funny to write that.  I love you Antarctica. 

Shortly after arriving at the firehouse and talking with G a while, Rick joined us and we waited for Alan.  And waited. And waited.  Rick knocked on Alan’s door but recieved no answer.  We decided to give Alan 15 more minutes.  Then G sent him a page and Alan showed up shortly after.  The guys quickly threw on their gear, and we hopped into the ambulance and headed out to look for auroras, I mean, to do some night time area familiarization.

After having not ridden in a vehicle for several weeks, riding in one, especially seated backwards, is an odd sensation.  I rode in the back of the ambulance, which is different than the ones at GCFD.  I mostly kept turned to look forward through the windshield, hoping that the skies would magically clear and we would see some awe-inspiring sites.  We parked near the base of the same hill that I attempted to hike earlier that day.  Rick assisted me out of the back of the ambulance and the three of us stood there, at the base of Ob Hill, each silently hoping that the southern lights would grace us with their appearance.  Unfortunately, the cloud cover remained and the only thing we saw were a few loaders or dozers or whatever the term for the big catepillar tractors that clear or grate the roadways is.  We gave up after a few minutes, loaded up and headed back to the firehouse. 

When we arrived back “home” (it’s hard not to think of that place as home), I thanked both of them and wished them pleasant dreams.  I told Rick that despite the fact that we didn’t see the auroras tonight, it was still great to get outside when the skies were dark. 

Perhaps tomorrow night.  I only have a few more chances to see the elusive auroras this season and if I don’t go out and try to look for them, I definitely won’t see them at all.

Greetings dear readers!

Today is Monday, September….26?  I think…  I had a pretty eventful weekend and work and took on the “crap magnet” status.  Within 24 hours, I sent B shift on 4 calls.  It was great!  I have also been dubbed the smoke and spill queen because I seem to get a fair amount of calls regarding inactive spills.  *Fun factoid – if something is spilled, glycol, fuel, etc, we have to call out the spill team.  It does’ t matter if it is a drop or if it is a gallon.  Sometimes this is annoying and frustrating, but we do what we can to protect the environment.

Unfortunately the weather was very nasty on Saturday, -81 degrees with the windchill, and one of my FF’s got slightly frostbitten on his ears.  He’s recovering though.  Frostbite is a very nasty thing and seeing it first hand was a bit eye opening.  A few weeks ago, two people went out jogging and got frostbitten as well.  Don’t worry Mom!  I’m wearing layers, just ignore the fact that I have ice on my face in my Ob Hill pictures.  I wasn’t in any danger, I had taken off my hat to try to defrost my glasses and the sweat froze to all of the little hairs on my forehead.  It is amazing to discover how much hair you have on your face when icicles form on it.  I can’t imagine having a beard down here.  I’ve had my hair freeze a few times when walking to work if I didn’t get my hair all the way dry, but it melts fairly quickly.  Luckily, I haven’t had it freeze solid and snap off.  Yes. It happens.

Today I went with one of our fire-fighters to hike to the top of Ob Hill.  I’ve been getting in better shape down here, I’ve lost weight but I’m still WAY out of shape and need to lose, oh, a lot more.  And taking on this hike with someone who is probably 130 lbs of pure muscle and a former marine, yeah…  Not my most brilliant move, but she was also very patient and understanding.  For that I was thankful.

Just the walk to get to the base of Ob Hill was challenging.  Walking uphill, in the snow (I LOVE ANTARCTICA!) to the base of a rock/ice/snow covered mountain about an hour after eating lunch made me queasy.  This impromptu hike made me realize that planning, might not be a bad thing.  So Kate and I started up Ob Hill.  We were heading up and I kept saying “I’m not gonna make it!” and she kept saying “It’s not that much further!” so I huffed and puffed and kept walking.  Turning around and walking backwards so the wind wasn’t slapping me in the face was the only way I made it as far as I did.

The view was amazing.  I FINALLY got to see Mt. Erebus, our nearest active volcano.  Yes there are volcanos in Antarctica.  Yes we live fairly close to it.  And there was smoke coming out of it.  But, there is generally smoke coming out of it.  There are also times when fireballs can be seen as well.  I will be going back up to see that.  But first, I need to hit the gym.

Enjoy the pictures!

Tori

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I find it amusing to read posts on Facebook about the weather being cold at home.  Today the low was -58 with winds gusting at 30+ knots.  Makes for a bit of a chilly day.  I find that I am growing accustomed to it.  Today when I went outside, I was in jeans, boots, long-sleeve shirt and jacket.  A few weeks ago when it was the same temperature, I had to wear 2 sets of long-johns under my jeans and a long-john shirt under my regular shirt, along with a sweater, gloves, jacket and hat.  It’s amazing how the human body can adapt to adverse weather conditions.  Last night, one of the FD captains was walking around in shorts, long-sleeve shirt and sandals.  Really?  Sandals?  To me, that was a bit extreme.

The past several days have gone by rather quickly.  At work, we’ve had some interesting situations (of course none of them occur when I’m on duty).  The EOC had to be activated and then there was a situation at the hazardous waste building.  No one was hurt at the latter incident, but the first incident made for our first actual medical call since we’ve been down here.  So back to my previous paragraph, the human body adapts to colder temps HOWEVER it is important to still use common sense.  I was outside less than 20 feet away from a building in warmer wear clothing, not miles from shelter.  I shall digress.

At work we’ve been getting new furniture.  Having been in this field for a while, I know how beat up dispatch furniture can get.  Listening to my supervisor talk about the trials and tribulations of getting new furniture makes my heart go out to her.  I know what it is like to want to improve the work place environment.  There are so many things to consider down here though.  Number one, we’re working with a very limited budget.  Number two, we’re working with very limited space.  Number three, we have certain pieces of equipment that can’t be updated at this time due to costs and such.  Number four, the dry and cold of this place make it difficult to get just any sort of furniture.  The ordering of the furniture occurred way before my time.  The room was spec’d out and there was 1/8th of an inch of “wiggle room” for the new stuff.  Once it was discovered that the new furniture was here, it was brought to the fire house and all of the snow was removed from it.  Yes, the snow was on the furniture due to basically poor shipping from the company.  That was strike one.  THEN it was discovered that the furniture they shipped to us was the incorrect furniture.  The stuff they shipped was stuff they had previously told my supervisor wouldn’t work down here.  It’s not wood, it’s not particle board.  The furniture is made of compressed paper.  It looks nice but Lori fears that it won’t hold up for more than 5 years.

Other than work, I’ve hiked down to Hut Point again with my friend Autumn.  She was in the original room I was placed in.  She works in housing.  Super sweet girl.  We saw 6 seals and actually watched one of them work it’s way through a hole in the ice to join its buddies.  Someone asked me how seals moved around since their flippers are so small.  Well now I can answer that question.  Picture a several hundred pound inch worm.  Imagine it inching its way forward about 5 feet and then rolling in the direction it wants to “turn” then it goes back to inching its way forward again.  We watched this seal flop and roll around until she (I’m assuming it is a she) got into the perfect position to catch some rays and hang out with the girls.  The reason I think the other ones were girls is because we saw the stomach of one of them moving and babies are due within the next month!  Hooray!  Needless to say, I’m going to be on baby seal watch (I wasn’t there for all of my US friends having babies, I’m gonna be there for the birth of one of the natives’ babes).

Also, I’m including pictures of the sundog.  If you don’t know what it is, it’s… (from wikipedia)

A sun dog or sundog (scientific name parhelion, plural parhelia, from Greek parēlion (παρήλιον) from παρά (beside) + ἥλιος (sun), “beside the sun”; also called a mock sun^[citation needed^] or a phantom sun^[citation needed^]) is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun.[1]

Sundogs may appear as a colored patch of light to the left or right of the sun, 22° distant and at the same distance above the horizon as the sun, and in ice halos. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sundogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the sun is low.

So, things are going well overall.  I still love it here.  Enjoy the pictures!

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Sorry I haven’t posted an update in a while.  My work days have been intensely busy as well as my day off (so far).

So last night was the first dodgeball match of the season.  There were 5 or 6 teams competing and several of my guys (the firefighters I work with) were playing. 

I took my place up on the small landing area to take pictures and watched the match begin.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll just include a slideshow.  Dodgeball matches are exciting but I’m no sports commentator.

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The winners of the match were the DAs but one of my FFs was on the team and basically won the games for them.  The rest of the teams were good, but this guy belongs in the Dodgeball Hall of Fame…if one even exists.