Cracks, Tracks, and Kelly

I actually got lucky and was able to upload some pictures today. Enjoy, and try not to be too terrified.Like I said, Halloween was an interesting experience. These are two of my fellow firefighters having a good time out at the Halloween party. While there were many guys dressed in drag, these were kilts and not considered drag. The mini-me theme worked well for them.

Myself and Lt. "Grandpa" Parkin standing by the Haaglund that took us out to Ice Town one blustery day.

Your intrepid author sitting up on top of Observation Hill on a day slightly colder than this.

A view Scott's Cross standing watch over town.

Looks like I'm a little overdue for another post. I'll see if I can catch you back up with the current Antarctic events down here.

Today is my Kelly day. This means that I have the entire day to laze about and do little to nothing useful, though I hope that I can get something more than this update done today.

The weather is what many would consider typical, light snow and clouds everywhere. We've had at least a little bit of snow every day since Sunday. We haven't accumulated too much, though when the winds kick up, the drifts are always quick to pile up on the lee sides of buildings and vehicles. Luckily, it hasn't been bad enough where we've needed to do a lot of shoveling, though the mountains and hills do have a beautiful blanket covering them. Very scenic.

The firehouse life has actually been a little busier than normal lately. I think we had our busiest day on record for the season last Friday. Our shift ran a total of four, count 'em, four calls in one shift. That included three calls in town while I was riding the Engine and one out in Ice Town for the in flight emergency. Never mind the fact that all of the calls resulted in nothing other than either resetting alarms or watching a plane land safely on three out of four engines, we were quite happy to have something to do that wasn't scheduled in advance.

As I mentioned to another east coaster, it was almost starting to feel like a slow day back home.

Another fun point of note, I was asked by our Captain to put together a drill on forcible entry. He basically came up to me and said "You're a truckie, you want to teach a forcible entry drill?" My response, of course, was yes.

While the term "herding cats" applies for trying to teach a group of Antarctic firefighters anything, all in all, it went fairly well. Most of it was review of basic stuff that we should all know anyway and a few other things that I threw in that some people weren't really familiar with. Following forcible entry, we talked a little bit about air bag operations. Now I have a few people who are interested in me teaching them about air bag operations since I know far too much about it. (Thanks to the Heights for beating the knowledge into me.)

Saturday was the first annual Ice Town BBQ sponsored by the Fire Department to celebrate nearing the end of Ice Town. While I did not attend (I was too lazy to actually walk on out to Ice Town when I had dinner less than a hundred yards away.), I hear that a good time was had by all. Our acting Deputy Chief was out there manning the grill ready for any eventuality (he was wearing a life jacket just in case the ice finally gave out and sent everyone for a swim).

This brings up an important point about Ice Town. As the sea ice is thinner this year than in previous years due to more snow insulating it from the cold, the operational life span of the field has been greatly reduced. Yesterday (supposedly) was the last time the C-17 will touch down on the sea ice. The amount of cargo that it has been able to bring down is over a hundred thousand pounds less than when the field first opened due to the condition of the ice. Operations will be moving out to Pegasus Field beginning tomorrow (I'll believe it when I see it, and I'm expecting to get a call back to go out and staff it).

While it will be a headache having to go out and staff it for a few weeks until our operations completely switch over to Pegasus, it will be nice to see fresh vegetables and fruits coming down again along with our mail, which has been held back due to higher priority cargo.

At the same time, it will be nice to not have to worry about the C-17 (or our station) falling through the ice. More and more cracks have been developing in and around our station and trucks. A large crack was found out on the ramp the other day and has since been black flagged (meaning it's a pretty serious crack).

The other day while I was working out in Ice Town, the D-7 bulldozers were out pushing snow away from everything. While they were running back and forth across the ramp and town, we could feel the entire station shudder as their tracks clanked across the ice. This wasn't a small shudder, but enough to have to be worried about things falling off of shelves and tables if they were near the edge. Being able to feel the entire ground flex and shudder beneath you can be slightly disconcerting.

Also, continuing my hot streak for calls as of late, we were awaken at three in the morning out in Ice Town for the hazmat call. One of the loaders working in town had decided to blow out a hydraulic line and dump fluid all over the ice. Just as an added bonus, they were able to drive off about a hundred feet before they noticed that they had lost pressure and couldn't operate fully. This left a nice trail of oil in the snow and ice for us to clean up.

About three hours of shoveling, chipping (hot oil tends to bury itself into the ice), and scraping later, we finally finished up and loaded about six barrels of contaminated snow and ice into the haz-waste truck. The wasties, though not thrilled to be there, were pretty happy about not having to scrape ice by themselves (and that we'd almost done all of it by the time they arrived).

After all were satisfied that the baby penguins were saved from a few drops of oil, we finally finished. My only disappointment for the whole call was the fact that while we helped to keep our organically grown baby penguins organic, I still don't know what a penguin tastes like.

After a breakfast over in the Ice Town galley, we proceeded to sit around the station until we were finally relieved by "B" shift. The rest of my day consisted of drinking large amounts of coffee, promptly falling asleep, waking up to eat and repeating the process. While I do like being kept busy by running calls, I still don't like having to wake up after midnight to respond (unless it's actually on fire, of course).

Some things just never change.

I think that about rounds out the events of the last week. The weather hasn't been all that good as of late, so it hasn't been ideal for going hiking. While I could have gone hiking in it, the views would have been disappointing.

Sadly, the weather today isn't the best, either. This has worked out to your benefit, though, as I finally updated this blog again. Hiding out in the library (with a floor covered in buckets to catch all of the snow melting on the roof) has finally got me caught up again.

Now it's time to put my laptop back, run down Highway 1, and hit up the sandwich line. Maybe after that I'll even do some laundry and read a book.

Nothing better than living the Kelly day life.