dantarctica

Due to some extenuating circumstances, I spent about 3 months at McMurdo Station on Ross Island…ANTARCTICA. During that time I attempted to write my first blog to capture what I was experiencing, please enjoy those posts below.

quick aside: I am not being elusive about the “extenuating circumstances” it is just that I have outlined them in embarrassingly gruesome details on a post from the archived blog: antarctica:

I have changed sites and largely abandoned that blog, but I’ve pulled along the content ever since. In this most recent endeavor, I have even gone through to clean up the links to photos and attempted to use higher resolution photos that I had not posted previously. I, mainly, left everything untouched (even some blatant typos) but did update a few thing here and there so it is not exactly the same, but pretty darn close.

I took a picture of myself every day because one of the things I was doing was not cutting my hair or beard. I’ve probably had a dozen beards since then, but that was my first. It is chronicled here:

water

The Freezing Man thing last night was a neat experience. It was perfect for those free spirited, crazy people. Not perfect for me, but still fun. People were dressed up in whatever they felt like.

probably the best icebreaker in the world

no doubt about this motto The Oden returned today. I don’t think I ever mentioned that it left, but it did. And it came back in today.

more fiber?

Like I said yesterday, we weren’t able to get too close, it was overcast, and they were pretty lazy but here is a picture: me with Emperor penguins in the background The rest of the pictures are HERE.

emperor penguins

During lunch today I signed up to go on a “See the Penguins” trip in a Delta (that’s those huge Orange monsters that I rode to the Ice Caves in). These are the Emperor Penguins like the ones that you imagine, the real majestic ones like in Happy Feet.

back that thing up

The ice breaker Oden arrived and docked today. I was there when it happened. I didn’t actually even touch the line as a line handler this time because there were about 15 people too many volunteering.

aint no party like an IT party

The IT party was tonight. I think it was supposed to be the holiday party, but it’s no longer the holidays, so it’s just a party now. And if you weren’t aware, IT parties are where IT’s at.

penguins/ship/rugby

While I was working outside this week, because I’m tough, I noticed a lot of people coming and going over to Hut Point. So today after lunch I wandered over there to see what the fuss was all about.

manual labor

I worked outside all day again today. I should correct yesterday’s post, it wasn’t really a half a mile worth of cable. I heard someone say that and it certainly seemed like more than a half a mile so I passed that on.

knight

I worked outside all day today. Luckily the weather was pretty decent. The clouds dissolved in the afternoon and it turned into a nice day. Even in the morning when it was overcast and cloudy it wasn’t too cold.

volcano switch

It snowed all night long last night and it must have snowed hard because there was about 4-5 inches of snow on the ground when I woke up. That’s right, on the ground.