Is it Cookie Day Yet?

Frostnip, Purple K, foam parties, rugby, aborted medevacs, auroras and nacreous clouds.

It's been a busy week. Or two. Or...more? I don't really know at this point. Time is really starting to blur right now. We've been working a lot of extra hours lately for many of the above reasons.

I'll try to explain them as best I can, one by one. Savvy? Sweet as.

To begin, I'll start with the frostnip. For those of you in a warmer place than here, frostnip is an early, reversible, stage of frostbite. It is in no way fun and it will sneak up on you without realizing it.

Continuing, we happened to be out at work one blustery day. We had just completed a few inspections and the weather was starting to turn bad again, which is not an uncommon occurrence here this time of year. (Bad weather here comes up fast, like a summer thunderstorm back home, and can last for days.)

Anyway, I was driving the engine, and we needed to get fuel before returning to quarters. So, a short drive over to the gasboys later I hopped out of my nice warm cab to add fuel.

I wasn't even outside for five minutes. The diesel pumps are pretty quick, and I only put in 16 gallons. I stood there suffering with my back to the wind (face uncovered but turned away from the wind with my collar up) until the pump finally stopped. I jumped back in the cab, and the first thing I hear is my lieutenant telling me that my nose is completely white, a clear indication of frostnip. After I let loose a few less than pleasant words about myself being less than genius that day, we went back home.

I got lucky, though. Since I never got the pins and needles feeling that comes with rewarming the affected area, it wasn't full thickness. My nose will probably peel some later, but it has come back just fine.

Lesson learned, I promptly went to the ship's store and purchased a nice, warm, and windproof face mask. It's been seeing a lot of use.

How cold was it, you ask? Probably hovering somewhere around -30F with windchills in the range of -80F.


Moving on, I'll explain about the foam party and purple k experience.

As I believe I mentioned earlier, we've been having issues with some of our crash trucks. These are unique, one-off systems that are largely untested due to the hazardous materials issues that arise when we discharge agent. However, due to some issues that arose with a truck fire we had a couple of weeks ago, we've been tearing down these systems and inspecting them for issues.

Without going into complicated mechanical details, I'll just say that certain important parts have a tendency to stick in the wrong position, causing problems (and resultant foam parties). Unfortunately for us, we're learning all of this the hard way.

The first time we learned this, we were just coming back into the firehouse after doing some inspections. I was backing the engine up, and the Kiwi kept telling me to stop. After the second time, I was left wondering what the hold up was until he came up and told me that Red 4 had discharged from the turret.

Several loud, less than polite terms were then made audible from myself.

It turned out that while our new mechanic and a lieutenant were working on the system, something stuck in the wrong position. Unfortunately for us, that something caused several hundred gallons of finished foam to spew across the bays, leaving us a mess to clean up.

Two hours, six people, a few pictures, shovels and mops later, we had finally cleaned up the mess. Pleased we were not, but we were done.

Proceed 24 hours later. Then repeat this entire process when something else failed in a similar fashion. It proceeded to dump the rest of the 300 gallon foam tank onto the floor, though with some quick action, they were able to save about two 55 gallon drums of foam concentrate after a quick shutdown. Luckily for me, B shift was on, so I just had the pleasure of hearing about it at dinner.

Fast forward another 48 hours. I'm on my Kelly day (my extra day off every two weeks) and bored. So, I offer to come in to help with the mechanical demon of a truck sitting in the bay. This time we're not testing the foam system, which I was happy about, since it has had a less than spectacular track record in the previous week.

This time, we're testing the Purple K system. Purple K is a special fire extinguishing dry chemical powder often used in airport firefighting equipment. When used in conjunction with foam, it delivers a great one-two punch to fire. We use a slightly different type of Purple K that has an extremely bright and vivid purple dye added to be better able to see it in a fire situation.

Now, the Purple K system has not really had a history of issues. It's an older design that's been used for years in places around the world. Ansul has refined it into a system that we can even trust down in the frozen south. Unfortunately for us, however, we forgot that part of it runs through the other half of the system...

After a successful test of the turret operation by shooting the Purple K into a containment barrel and blowing it down (blowing down removes any leftover agent sitting in the lines) with only the normal mess, we were pleased to conclude the test a success. Thus deemed, I moved the containment barrel to the back so we could test the hand line.

Moving into position, the lieutenant I was working with flipped the switch to begin the hand line test. Upon this activation, the gurgling, whooshing, coughing sound unique to the turret was heard. Knowing doom was impending, he quickly shut the system back down. Unfortunately for us, once the system is charged, it has more than enough air flowing through to make a mess.

Looking forward to the turret, it coughed, hacked, and proceeded to puke a large, brilliant purple cloud. Within five seconds, the back half of the bay was a lovely shade of violet.

Much sweeping and mopping followed. We'll be finding more purple for weeks to come.

While we've been receiving the short end of the stick with these trucks lately, our daytime dispatcher has had the pleasure of seeing each of these events through her office window and not having to be involved with the cleanup.

I would've liked to have seen the jet of foam shooting across of the wave of purple that drifted by her window...


Rugby. This one is a short explanation. We watched the New Zealand All Blacks play the other day. They were up against the Wallabies of Australia in the final Tri-Nations game of the season. While the first half was disappointing, the stunning come from behind victory by the All Blacks was worth it. This win marked their tenth straight and they left as Tri-Nations champs (though they actually won this honor after their last match).


Auroras and nacreous clouds. I'll make this one short, too.

They are incredible.

Not much of an amazing story behind it, but I think you'll appreciate it better if I ever download my pictures.


So we have a medevac flight that's supposed to come down. It tried to come down yesterday, but failed due to rapidly deteriorating conditions out at Pegasus. I had an opportunity to read the Terminal Area Forecast for it, and it was amazing to see how fast the weather went from flyable conditions to horrible conditions. I think it was less than five minutes that made the difference.

Luckily I got to stay in town for the attempt yesterday. Red 4 decided it would be fun to puke glycol again, and made about a hundred yard mess behind itself. This is actually better than the typical half mile mess we end up with, but I still felt bad for the guys that had to go out and shovel it up. I know at least one of our guys came back with a little frostnip from it, though he'll be fine.

They tried to get the flight back in here today, but they canceled it very early on, for which I was appreciative, though I'm pretty sure the poor guy sitting in medical thinks differently.

We're trying again tomorrow. The forecast is supposed to be a bit nicer. I won't get to enjoy driving out to Pegasus and back, though. I'll be at sea ice training most of the day, a welcome escape of a two hour commute in a lumbering Chieftain.


That's about all I have for right now. I guess I'll fill you all in on my sea ice adventures later if I don't freeze to death first. In the mean time, I think I'll start putting together some ideas for my post-Ice travels.

Et Finis?

To all of my formally loyal readers, I am forced to issue you my apologies.

I haven't been very good at keeping up with this blog. It was partly out of laziness that I did stop posting, but I also had a few other reasons which will go unnamed at this juncture.

Anyway, I would like to at least partially make it up to you by at least creating a "final" post and give you a run down on what's happened since the rugby game so many months ago.

If you haven't heard or can't tell, I'm off the Ice now. I miss it terribly. I made some wonderful friends down there and I hope to see many of you again someday. There's never a promise of that, especially considering the often daring and often long-legged wanderings of the Ice people, but the paths of wanderers cross more often than you'd imagine.

Looking back through my hundreds and hundreds of pictures, I remember vividly many fun times and amusing anecdotes. For a brief conclusion to this adventure, I'm going to post some of these pictures and tell the story associated with them.

Standby for the past...



As mentioned in a previous post, we had our annual rugby match with the Kiwis. Of course we lost, though there was some talk of the Kiwis cheating substantially through illegal substitutions (hard to tell when their jerseys don't have numbers) and of a covert early morning widening of the pitch.

Regardless of speculation, we kept with tradition and lost with only one concussion for the day.

If I ever go back, I'm joining the rugby team.



To give those of you an idea of how far behind Mactown is in some respects, I show you one of the supplies stocked on the ambulances. The packaging is of Petrolatum gauze (something I'd never heard of before the Ice) and is presumably for burns. If you look closely at the bottom of the picture, you'll note the date of manufacture.

No, that's not a typo. That's mint condition 1972 Petrolatum. Since there's no expiration date, we can only assume it's still good.



Pictured above is our lovely and vivacious resident Maineiac staring wistfully at the Swedish icebreaker Oden as she tears through what was once Ice Town. Since the Maineiac is a winterover and is still on the Ice making sure that Mactown doesn't burn down before next season, I'm pretty sure the thoughts going through her mind in this picture go something like this: "I signed up for fourteen months on the Ice...but if I can just stow away...and they have a coffee bar..."



Hawaiian shirt dispatch days. This is what happens when we run short on a dispatcher and they need a dedicated firefighter to fill in. Contrary to how it looks, I'm actually working very hard. It's quite difficult to look that good all the time, after all...

Also, note the evolution of the mustache as the season progresses. Yes, I know it looks bad. Though with the shortage of eligible bachelorettes on Ice, I doubt anyone there noticed.



Pictured above are some of my associates (our new resident Jano and the Seahawk fan) enjoying another American Night over at Scott Base's "Tatty Flag" pub. It's always nice to get "Over the Hill" to enjoy the hospitality of our Kiwi neighbors. As well as meeting interesting people with amusing accents, the beer goes for about $.80. With a shuttle bus driver provided, how can an evening socializing with them go wrong?



This may just seem like a nice scenic picture of water off of Hut Point to you, but to those of us who were on the Ice, this was a remarkable time. The fact that we had open water was incredible.

Open water is not a common occurrence in Mactown. It created quite a stir in town, with everyone going out to Hut Point on their off time to gaze at the water, smell (Yes, actually smell! Something our frozen town had a lack of unless it was diesel or cigarettes.) salt water, and watch as the Adelie penguins, seals, and occasional whale provided us with priceless entertainment.



As the weather in Mactown warmed up, the local frisbee golf (or "frolf" in the local vernacular) course became more appealing to the residents of the town, leading myself and my Captain, pictured above trying to overcome a twenty foot gravel bank in a cargo yard to reach the hole, to go out and enjoy the course.

With gusty winds and the weather possibly above freezing, we made our way through the extremely technical course. Each hole is supposedly a par three, however, it is in this humble fris-duffer's opinion that most holes are at least par fives.

The prevalence of pipe hazards, frozen melt pools, obstacle buildings, pallets, forklift traps, and numerous other industrial objects-turned-irritants supports my claim. However, the Rec office disagrees and has kept the course at par three.


So it turns out that Kiwis don't really know how to operate their airplanes when they're not in the sky. This slightly battered and broken extinguisher met its fate as the Kiwi [Plane that Shall Not be Named], sometimes known locally as "Voldermort" fired up and tried to leave.

Being ready to leave, they didn't seem too concerned about the big yellow thing that happened to be in their way, so they just ran into it bringing their departure to an immediate halt. Luckily, Voldermort wasn't substantially damaged (though I'm sure some Kiwi pride was) and later departed without problems.

As amusing as this was, it actually turned into a headache for myself and Tex. We were the ones who were to do the hardstand for its takeoff. After a quick race to the midpoint of the Ice Runway, we proceeded to sit there for almost an hour as we wondered why they hadn't left yet. Eventually we decided to head back and were later filled in on the details.


Pictured above is a shameless "hero shot" of myself out at the Pegasus Ice Runway with a C-17 on the ground. Another day at work, and another day in paradise.


Above is the USS Paul Buck at the Ice Pier. The Buck is the Navy oiler that came down to resupply us with several million gallons of fuel for the next year. This was a fairly big event as it represents the beginning of the vessel period of the season and signals the beginning of the end of summer.


As the season starts to come to a close, morale on station begins to decline. People are starting to wear down from the six day a week work schedule and productivity begins to slip.

As a result, station management sees fit to provide many people from across the station with a chance to go on a morale trip, more commonly known as a "boondoggle". My trip was to take snowmachines to the foot of Mt. Erebus, our resident active volcano. The trip itself is known as "Room with a View".

The weather had looked more promising earlier in the day (this was an evening trip), but overcast began to roll in as we made our way up. The views were still spectacular, but could have been better. Being able to see some of our gorgeous landscape was great, but the real fun was being able to actually go fast again. While we were officially limited to about 30mph, the group may have gone a wee bit faster at times. How fast? I won't say, but I'll tell you it was easily the fastest I'd gone since my arrival on the Ice, especially considering the 25mph limit on the roads.



A breakdown of the Mactown population posted outside of Housing. In short, pickings are slim for the gentlemen. For the ladies, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

One of the big projects on station this season was the repainting of the galley. This was done both to reseal the roof which had developed a few leaks, and to possibly tell us of new corporate sponsorship for the NSF. Welcome to Walmart?

Interestingly enough, the paint being used is actually blue bed liner used in trucks. It's thick, durable, and being applied in temperatures well below what was intended.

Also, for a time during the most painting, people seemed unusually happy when eating in the galley. Most likely from the fumes that kept drifting in.


The M/V American Tern is coming into port at the Ice Pier. This picture actually shows it shortly after it impacted and bounced off the pier, likely taking a few icy chunks with it. With the arrival of the Tern, "vessel week" officially began.

Keeping in the true Mactown fashion of "if it isn't broke it doesn't belong here", word spread quickly that the Tern was busy sinking into the depths below. This was a partly true statement as the Tern had developed a leak in a seawater intake pipe for the fire suppression system that the crew could not effectively patch. After calling on the services of FEMC, the leak was repaired and the "sinking" ended.

Vessel week was a busy time, but also a time with limited amusement available. During the whole of offload, the bars are closed (with the exception of free coffee being served at the Coffee House) and the store is no longer allowed to sell alcohol. For those who had stockpiled in anticipation, it was of little concern, though for the rest of us we were without our usual vices to create minor mischief with.

Board games and coffee ruled that week. It wasn't that bad in the end, though the lack of the social aspect of the bars did create a bit of a downer.


This is a view looking down the bridge of the Tern. As offload/load neared completion, the fire department was invited to take a tour of the the vessel. It was interesting to see the insides of the vessel, especially one that had been built originally in Cold War Germany. Being a complete gearhead at heart, I could go on for a while about the mechanical aspects of the ship, but I'll spare you the details this once.


As the season came closer to the end, I was disappointed by the fact that I had yet to actually make it out to Castle Rock, our longest and one of our more spectacular trails. Pictured above is the second "Apple" (an emergency shelter) with Castle Rock looming a mile or so in the distance.

The hike out to it is long and boring. The day we went, the weather was good, but the snow was a little powdery and made for some difficulty tromping through it. The climb to the top is steep, but actually very easy as ropes have been set up to hold onto as you make your way up or down.

When we made it to the top, we could see everything for miles and miles around. Open water past the Razorback islands and the beauty of the Royal Society Range in the distance. It was certainly worth walking nearly ten miles round trip to see.


With the season winding down, and with fewer things for me to break/fix, I figured it was time to put together my tally for the season. With some spare time and a grease pencil, I marked my "kills" on the side of Engine 2, my truck for the shift.

Most of my kills were from breaking trucks in the harshest environment in the world, but the last one on the right was more of an accomplishment. I don't recall whether or not I mentioned breaking the "T-Site" or not, but I managed to do it from about a mile away. At least that's what the Captain says...


Above is my final revenge on the Seahawk fan. On a night much earlier in the season, he thought it would be fun to send a double shot of tequila down the bar for me. Not being a fan of tequila in the least, I vowed revenge.

Many weeks later, I finally made good on my promise. Holding in his hand is a beverage known as the "Four Horsemen". As you can guess, anything named after the bringers of the Apocalypse can't be good. It comprised a copious amount of several ill tasting varieties of booze. I enjoyed the look on his face as he drank it. A truce was called shortly after.


As the last of the LC-130s left Pegasus for the season, there wasn't much left to do on the final full shift out there, so the crew picked up their hockey sticks and went to work. It's amazing how easy it is to play hockey when you're living on an ice sheet.

As another interesting side note, this was the same day I drove Red 2 from Pegasus back to "The Rock" to be put away for the winter. It was a long, slow drive. The thirteen miles in between took nearly three hours to cover, and the scenery wasn't that spectacular due to overcast. The ride can be summed up by comparing it to staring at a blank sheet of paper for two and a half hours while being rattled around followed by about twenty minutes of sheer terror as I wasn't sure if it would make it up the hill to get to town without killing me (it stalled out twice and almost rolled back down the hill).


The season has ended, for me at least. Here we are, all stacked up in our Big Reds waiting to get on the C-17 to go back to the real world. It was a bit of a surreal experience. It didn't quite feel like it was actually happening.

The days preceding my departure actually got to be a little depressing. I was on one of the last flights to leave, and the dorm grew emptier and emptier with less and less to do. Halls that once bustled with activity were now silent. Friends were gone. The town was quieter, the galley emptier. I wondered where all my time had gone.

With goodbyes said to the winterovers staffing the hardstands, we boarded and flew away, on to find the rest of our destinies.


Perhaps I should have stayed?

Late Night Nonsense

So it's been a while since I've updated this.

It happens. I'm a busy person here. I have a life at the bottom of the world. I can't always pander to your every whim.

Bet you didn't think that living on a sparsely populated research station could have so many things to do in my free time. You were wrong. Most of you are missing out on some of the best times I've had in my life. I'll be sad to leave this place.

Since it is late (I'm covering the midrats dispatch), I'll be brief tonight. The large quantity of coffee I drank today has worn off. I was splattered with some ancient foam premix today and have savored the aroma all day. I'm covered in dirt after beating various fire trucks with hammers. We just came back from a bells call and the wind is blowing. I'm glad I get to engage the pump and just sit in the truck and stay warm when the windchill is below zero again. I'd like a shower, but I'd like to find my rack and doze off more.

Things have been busy here. We had the annual rugby game against the Kiwis and lost, maintaining our tradition of being forever winless against them. It maintains the Kiwis record of having the longest (time wise) winning streak in the history of rugby. We put up a good fight in the first half, but by the second, everybody was just tired and the Kiwis took advantage of that.

All in all, it was a good time, and I was able to catch a sled towed by a Challenger back.

So I smelled seawater the other day. It was pretty awesome. The Swedish icebreaker Oden arrived almost two weeks ago and has been crushing ice ever since with a couple of brief stops in port to let their crew wander the streets of Mactown. It's interesting to see the slab of ice that I called home for many shifts in Ice Town crushed into little bits.

Anyway, some of the ice has started to push out to sea. It's pretty incredible to walk down to Hut Point and smell the salt air (something that's not diesel) and look into the clear waters of the Ross Sea.

The penguins have been wandering about more lately, too. Packs of up to sixty Adelies have been spotted frolicking in and around town. The seals and whales have found the open water and add to the fauna. The occasional skua rounds it out.

I can hear the fuelies chattering away on the radio right now. They're the only ones working tonight besides us. A few days ago, the USS Paul Buck (an oiler) arrived to resupply us with about a million gallons of fuel so we don't freeze to death in the next year.

In about a week or so the Tern will come to port and bring all the cargo we need so people like me will still have things to break and food harvested in 1998 to eat.

Frisbee golf here in the Antarctic is certainly a challenge. Some of the obstacles I encountered included pipeline traps, bulldozers, milvans, ice covered melt pools, steep and rocky slopes, and the heckling of Cap. It's a fun time, provided you didn't get into the sport to enjoy scenery more breathtaking than unheated storage buildings and Hazwaste.

So we won the scavenger hunt the other day. I got a "Get Rec'd" hat out of it. It took us a while to find the correct cowboy and Ant. 1 sign as well as the penguin pooper, but we did it. That's the most running I've done in boots in a long time. My legs were aching for a few days after that.

Luckily, I have a new hero at the coffee house to remedy that problem. She makes the strongest coffee with whiskey of all the baristas. It goes a long way to relieving those aches and pains (Irish Coffee and extra strength Tylenol have a lot in common as they both have caffeine and thin the blood). Red absolutely hates the taste of it. It's still funny seeing the look on her face whenever I make her take a sip.

Sounds like they're getting ready to shut down the mogas transfer soon. That's a big step, but I'm pretty sure they have a lot more AN-8 to move before they're done.

So I went to "Room With a View" yesterday for my boondoggle. It was pretty cool. It was my first time on a snowmachine and I had a blast. It was the fastest I've gone since I've arrived here. I topped out at around fifty miles a hour. The machine had a lot more left in it, but since I was with a group, I couldn't just blow past everyone.

The views up there on the foot of an active volcano were pretty awesome. The ice edge has progressed up to Inaccessible Island and is apparently approaching Mactown quickly. Seeing wide open water after seeing miles and miles of white ice for the last several months is a little weird.

I just pulled a metal sliver out of my knuckle. That explains why it felt funny.

So I'm a short timer now. Officially less than a month left in this contract. It doesn't really have that good of an effect on me. I'm starting to feel pieces of my old self come back again, the pieces that I was happy to leave behind.

Thoughts of being stuck back home leave me irritable. Looking at jobs makes me miserable. If there was something back home that looked interesting, maybe I'd be in a better mood. Potential unemployment doesn't really worry me. I've set myself up so I can manage for quite some time if the market doesn't pick up.

One of the few things that I have to look past that is the traveling that I have coming to me. I'm going to wander through a few countries before I touch the states again. I'll probably even come out of them with a few interesting stories and a bunch of pictures that can be used to torture people who don't really want to hear all about it.

To all those who keep asking me when I'll be back, the answer is that I don't know. I'm pretty sure I will be back eventually, though. I'll have to pick up my stuff at some point, at least. I'd hate to just leave my tools and truck behind.

Lori just referred to me as a cowboy redneck. I denied it, but maybe there's a little truth in it somewhere.

Looks like I'm getting relieved. Time to go hit my rack and sleep. I'll put some dream time aside to looking towards whatever the next adventure is. I'm pretty sure I'll have to have another one. If I don't, I'll probably lose my mind.