We are all hopped up on sugar from the many shipments from loved ones and friends at home of candy for the holidays. The holidays are a time when people focus on internet shopping, two day weekends ahead (for Christmas and New Year's) and packages from home. This year, unlike other years, we are actually celebrating these holidays on the correct days. In the past, all holidays would be celebrated on the closest Saturday....it felt especially silly on New Year's Eve!
Did you know that we can receive mail and packages down here?
Michiel Gitzels (or Sheri Bluestein) , RPSC
McMurdo Station
PSC 469 Box 700
APO AP 96599-1035
I'm writing today to share the ridiculous article in MSNBC written by a reporter who arrived yesterday. This article been circulating around here in email with the subject line: "Mr. Poopypants" as the piece is simply his whiny description of how difficult his trip here has been. One of my co-workers is the "snoring" roommate and has cancelled any personal guided tours he would have done for the guy. He has also pledged to get really drunk tonight so that he REALLY snores tonight.
Check it out at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15834019/from/ET/
You can also check out the response on Big Dead Place, a website written by the author of the book by the same name, who is a former Antarctican with plenty of harsh words about life here. http://bigdeadplace.com/frontierwatch.html
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Snubbed by Werner
There have been two film crews down here working on documentaries. One is focusing on human life at McMurdo and is being directed by Anne Aghion, an award-winning film-maker who has done several films on the post-genocide trials in Rwanda. She and her her crew of 2 (one sound guy and one camera guy) arrived in August with the small group of employees in charge of getting the station ready for it's main season (Mainbody). Those of us who arrived in October for Mainbody were surprised (to put it mildly) to have a camera and boom mike shoved in our faces as we greeted old friends. I did enjoy, however, seeing one of the Rwanda documentaries and listed to Anne describe her experiences there.
Two weeks ago, Werner Herzog, the German film/documentary maker - best known for "Aguirre: The Wrath of God", "The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser", and most recently "Grizzly Man" - arrived on station. He is planning to do a documentary from out in the field about the natural beauty of this land. Before he heads out to the field, he has been hanging around town and doing some filming. He brought his cameraman to last weekend's talent contest and got up on stage and in people's faces while they performed (I was surprised at how close you have to get a microphone to someone's face in order to get good sound). The winner of the talent contest called Freak Train, by the way, was a woman who did a Tina Turner impersonation. Excellent! But I digress....
I was excited about having him here on station as I had really appreciated his perspective and treatment of Timothy Treadwell in "Grizzly Man". I found the film to be thought-provoking and balanced.
Last night, Mr. Herzog screened a film from 1932 about circus freaks called "Freaks". He gave an introduction to the film and discussed why it was meaningful to him as a film-maker and how he, like Tod Browning, the maker of "Freaks", tried to show the humanity and beauty of subjects seen by society as ugly, scary and freakish. He compared this approach to that of some of his films. After the film, he mingled and I asked him if "Grizzly Man" was also of the same vein. Perhaps I offended him by suggesting that Timothy Treadwell was a freak or perhaps he snubbed me because I was so mainstream as to only mention his most popular and accessible film. In any event, he turned away from me, looked at someone else, gave a short response and then changed the subject.
Nothing like meeting "a star" in real life to shatter any positive feelings you might have had.....
Two weeks ago, Werner Herzog, the German film/documentary maker - best known for "Aguirre: The Wrath of God", "The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser", and most recently "Grizzly Man" - arrived on station. He is planning to do a documentary from out in the field about the natural beauty of this land. Before he heads out to the field, he has been hanging around town and doing some filming. He brought his cameraman to last weekend's talent contest and got up on stage and in people's faces while they performed (I was surprised at how close you have to get a microphone to someone's face in order to get good sound). The winner of the talent contest called Freak Train, by the way, was a woman who did a Tina Turner impersonation. Excellent! But I digress....
I was excited about having him here on station as I had really appreciated his perspective and treatment of Timothy Treadwell in "Grizzly Man". I found the film to be thought-provoking and balanced.
Last night, Mr. Herzog screened a film from 1932 about circus freaks called "Freaks". He gave an introduction to the film and discussed why it was meaningful to him as a film-maker and how he, like Tod Browning, the maker of "Freaks", tried to show the humanity and beauty of subjects seen by society as ugly, scary and freakish. He compared this approach to that of some of his films. After the film, he mingled and I asked him if "Grizzly Man" was also of the same vein. Perhaps I offended him by suggesting that Timothy Treadwell was a freak or perhaps he snubbed me because I was so mainstream as to only mention his most popular and accessible film. In any event, he turned away from me, looked at someone else, gave a short response and then changed the subject.
Nothing like meeting "a star" in real life to shatter any positive feelings you might have had.....
Monday, November 13, 2006
Castle Rock Outing
Yesterday was a gorgeous day - lots of sun, blue skies, 20 degrees F(-8 degrees C - downright blamy!) and little wind. We took advantage of our day off and the great conditions to do the longest marked (note the flags along the route in one of the photos) hike in our vicinity called the Castle Rock Loop. The entire hike from the Fire House, where we are required to check out and receive a radio, to Scott Base station (the New Zealand base) is 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers).
Here are some pictures from the day.
Here are some pictures from the day.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Our life on the ice
Our life this season isn't terribly exciting - except when we scavenge Gear Issue for fun party clothing and then come back to our humidified room. Generally, since we both have fairly stressful jobs, we don't have a lot of free time. We get up at 7 AM, eat breakfast in the room or at work, put on our parkas and walk to work. I work until 7 PM; Michiel has a bit more flexibility and can work later but take some time off during the day to go for a run. We generally grab some extra food at lunchtime and eat "supper" at work. After work, we go to a yoga class, take a hike or a walk, watch a movie (documentary nights are on Fridays), go to a lecture or a travelogue or go to the wine bar or regular bar. On Saturdays, I work a half day and will probably work a couple of hours in the greenhouse around lunchtime with Michiel. We get a day off on Sunday and usually start the day off with brunch. Since we have had so many large military cargo planes flying here from Christchurch, we have a steady supply of kiwifruit, apples, oranges, plums and bananas. At brunch, we are also treated to melon, pineapple and papaya - quite luxurious, really.
Sunday afternoons are set aside for activities like playing music, playing basketball, running, hiking or going on special trips like the one we went on this past Sunday to Cape Evans. In 1910, Robert Scott built a hut at Cape Evans to support his push to reach the South Pole with ponies. Wiht our dry, cold climate, the wood of the hut and all of the products within have been perfectly preserved (even the wheel of Dutch Edam cheese from Rotterdam!)
We have a great room this season - with high enough season to accommodate a loft. We've created a sitting area underneath with a "borrowed" couch from elsewhere on station. It makes a huge difference having a comfy and "warm" space to come home to.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
More Halloween
Richard Simmons!
Groundskeeper Willy from the Simpsons
Winner for Sheri's Most Favorite!
Groundskeeper Willy from the Simpsons
Winner for Sheri's Most Favorite!
Halloween
As always, Halloween is a very big event in McMurdo. The big party at the gym and the possibility of winning a fun trip if you are chosen as the funniest, scariest, best Antarctic Theme or best overall are good reasons for people to put a lot of time and creativity into their outfits. Here are some photos of some of the best:
The Biggest Loser - Before and After (by the way, we have a group of people competing in McMurdo's Biggest Loser competition. Each one is putting $100 into the pot.)
The lounge lizard won for Scariest Costume
The Biggest Loser - Before and After (by the way, we have a group of people competing in McMurdo's Biggest Loser competition. Each one is putting $100 into the pot.)
The lounge lizard won for Scariest Costume
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Finally! A posting from Antarctica
I finally have enough free time at work to do an update from McMurdo Station, Antarcica. I arrived on the first flight of Mainbody and Michiel joined me about 5 days later. After my flight arrived, the weather turned for the worse (wind and low visibility) and the flights scheduled after mine were delayed. The passengers on those flights (including Michiel) enjoyed several extra days in New Zealand, jogging along the river, visiting the Botanical Gardens(see below) , eating goooooood Asian food, and shopping.
This season, I manage four people in the Passenger Services section of the Antarctic Terminal Operations department (basically – logistics). We specifically handle all movement of passengers from McMurdo to Christchurch, the South Pole and Field Camps. We enter info into our (very out-dated, DOS-based) passenger tracking software, weigh passengers and their baggage, coordinate shuttle pick ups and drop offs, order lunches (vegetarian or regular) and send out all of the communications on take offs and landings to the world. For passengers traveling to Christchurch, we request hotels and onward travel arrangements to the travel agency in NZ.
The biggest challenge is the number of changes to flights that we have to track and respond to and communicating those changes to the station, South Pole and Christchurch. We manage a PowerPoint presentation with updated flight info that is broadcast on the television and have several locations where we have printed out notifications.
My staff work 24/7 – each of them work five 12-hour days. Two of them work days and two of them work nights. We swap them halfway through the season. I am supposed to work 7:30 to 5:30 on Monday through Saturday, but I have been working far more than that. I have adjusted my schedule to 8 to 7 on Monday through Friday and a half day on Saturday. We’ll see how that goes…..
Michiel is working in the IT department as a System Administrator. He manages email accounts and updates and maintains servers (from a software perspective). I'd have to have him add more detail here! He works a normal shift - 7:30 to 5:30 on Monday through Saturday, but has a lot more flexibility to come in later or take a longer break during the day in order to go running (he is training for another Antarctic marathon). He'll make up the hours on Sundays and evenings when servers require maintenance.
We don't have much time to ourselves, but we both are trying to do some running (he is a lot more serious about it than I am - but I am training for the half-marathon) and go to yoga classes once per week. The picture below shows Michiel with his frozen beard, proving that that at the moment temperatures are quite chilly. (wind chills of -40f/ -40c) are not uncommon. In fact we are both wondering wheter it is colder than last year or whether we just chose to only remember the fine summer weather we left behind last summer. We have also been trained to work in the greenhouse and will be doing that once per week. We also try to squeeze in some movie time - Fridays are documentary night - and some socializing time and I am still trying to put together some kind of music project.
Sadly, we both need lots of sleep so we don't have as much fun and down time as we'd like.
This season, I manage four people in the Passenger Services section of the Antarctic Terminal Operations department (basically – logistics). We specifically handle all movement of passengers from McMurdo to Christchurch, the South Pole and Field Camps. We enter info into our (very out-dated, DOS-based) passenger tracking software, weigh passengers and their baggage, coordinate shuttle pick ups and drop offs, order lunches (vegetarian or regular) and send out all of the communications on take offs and landings to the world. For passengers traveling to Christchurch, we request hotels and onward travel arrangements to the travel agency in NZ.
The biggest challenge is the number of changes to flights that we have to track and respond to and communicating those changes to the station, South Pole and Christchurch. We manage a PowerPoint presentation with updated flight info that is broadcast on the television and have several locations where we have printed out notifications.
My staff work 24/7 – each of them work five 12-hour days. Two of them work days and two of them work nights. We swap them halfway through the season. I am supposed to work 7:30 to 5:30 on Monday through Saturday, but I have been working far more than that. I have adjusted my schedule to 8 to 7 on Monday through Friday and a half day on Saturday. We’ll see how that goes…..
Michiel is working in the IT department as a System Administrator. He manages email accounts and updates and maintains servers (from a software perspective). I'd have to have him add more detail here! He works a normal shift - 7:30 to 5:30 on Monday through Saturday, but has a lot more flexibility to come in later or take a longer break during the day in order to go running (he is training for another Antarctic marathon). He'll make up the hours on Sundays and evenings when servers require maintenance.
We don't have much time to ourselves, but we both are trying to do some running (he is a lot more serious about it than I am - but I am training for the half-marathon) and go to yoga classes once per week. The picture below shows Michiel with his frozen beard, proving that that at the moment temperatures are quite chilly. (wind chills of -40f/ -40c) are not uncommon. In fact we are both wondering wheter it is colder than last year or whether we just chose to only remember the fine summer weather we left behind last summer. We have also been trained to work in the greenhouse and will be doing that once per week. We also try to squeeze in some movie time - Fridays are documentary night - and some socializing time and I am still trying to put together some kind of music project.
Sadly, we both need lots of sleep so we don't have as much fun and down time as we'd like.
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