PQ-ing or "How do I gets to Antarctica?" and You...

So I feel guilty that I haven't posted anything for a while. And I've been telling people to read this blog, even though I haven't left yet. So here is a little post to hold you all over until the official start of the blog begins...


Before one gets issued tickets to go back down to "The Ice", as many veterans of the Antarctica program put it, one must be "PQ"-ed. "PQ"-ed is the USAP's way of abbreviating the phrase Pre-Qualified. The United States Antarctic Program or USAP, loves to abrevate things. You will find that many things that have to do with the entire Antarctic program have abrevations that one has to ultimatly recognize. I don't know if I really gave it that much credit last year...But, my good friend Matt Shields (Shout out to Capt. Shields, hollah) had a great post on his blog about abrevations. And in the interest of education, I'm going to steal a couple things from his entry entitled "How do you spell Antarctica?". I don't know the MLA format on how to cite blog entrys, but this list that I am placing bellow was created by Mr.Shields. So, Thank you Matt, you have made this entry wicked easy.

Abrevations 101:

PQ - Pre-Qualify
NSF - National Science Foundation
USAP- United States Antarctic Program
CHC - Christchurch (NZ)
NZ - New Zealand
CDC -Clothing Distribution Center, not to be confused with the Center for Disease Control
MCM - McMurdo Station, Antarctica
RPSC- Raytheon Polar Services Company
OPP- Yea, you know me...

Okay back to the orignial content: So, the whole process of PQ takes a decent amount of time. One must basically fill out and fax/mail back a growing stack of paperwork to Denver/RPSC. Since I am returning, the amount of medical tests and paperwork is "smaller", but not by much. I'm fortunate though to understand how this game goes. I have until the 17th to fax in everything, and thus far (knock on wood) everything has been easy. Tomorrow I have my dentist exam, and I should have two more medical tests done later this week. Once I have all of this done, my plane ticket will be issued and I'll be offically on the roster for Win-Fly.

The only sucky thing, is that I leave really soon. And my brothers wedding makes me a little cramped for time. No offense Nat! Basically, I am flying from the East Coast to Seattle for his wedding...then the day after his wedding I'm flying to Denver to meet up with the Win-Fly team for training prior to going back to the ICE. All in theory...I'm going to be runing around with my head almost cut off for the next couple of weeks, trying to see everyone and get as much "summer" activities under my belt. So, don't be mad if I seem distant. I'm trying to please everyone and keep RSPC happy at the same time.

So that is all that is up with me thus far. I'm going to be sending out a mass email/facebook post when I am all PQ-ed, so if you haven't seen that email yet don't worry. That is all, so good night everyone and take care!