First Shift Bartending, Crary Tour, Fozen pumps and all that jazz

So last night, I had my first shift at the bar. I will be working at the coffee house a couple shifts a month. The Coffee house is a corner stone in many peoples lives down here on the ice. The Coffee house is one of the 3 bars at McMurdo. For those of you just tuning in, there are 4 bars in the area of the station, one is at the nearby kiwi base. So the Coffee house is a great place to decompress and chill. Many people go there for the warm environment, the internet connections, the wine and coffee and the classic board games. There are often also movies shown in the Coffee House. Last year, the Fire Department watched the Super Bowl in the Coffee house.

The Coffee house is pretty neat. I chose to work there out of the 3 bars because I really like the atmosphere. So the first shift wasn't too bad. I had a lot of people come out from the firehouse to support me, so that was awesome. B shift is pretty much awesome, always has and always will be. (Jeremy if you are reading this...punch me next time you see me, you A shifter!) It was cool to be on the other side of the bar, though it is hard work. We serve wine, some whiskey and coffee. I'm just learning how to make capachinos and mocha's. A friend of mine once said, "You haven't lived until you steam your own milk". Well Spencer Arno (Shout out to Katie Perkins), you are somewhat correct. Steamed Milk is alright, but nothing really to write home about, or a blog for that matter. But for my first night, I think I did alright. I know my dad will be jealous that I have to serve wines.
Next time I'm at work (there), I'll post what we serve down here. Another bonus of working at the bar, is that I'm the DJ. I think I have a pretty good taste in music, if not a wide selection. So how could I make the first shift special with my selection of music. Well I channeled my two biggest fans of this site (Shout out to Chuckran and Capt. Shields) and played "Baduizm" and of course Ratatat. Both were major good hits...of course I also played some Beastie Boy Instrumentals and Dub side of the moon (Shout out to Greg and Brandon, respectively.) I'm not going to play any Phish, mostly because I listen to too much Phish when I hang out with Scott. Scott is you are reading this, WHAT UPPPPP! (I like making fun of his favorite music group, I've been doing it since high school...I can't stop tradition). But enough with this rant, I'll write more on the Coffee House later I'm sure...

Let's see, as far as the Fire stuff goes...its been the same old same old. We are scrambling to get everyone qualified, who passed the written test, to be Driver/Operators. It has been hard for many reasons. First is because of the environment has been tough. The cold has sabotaged many of our attempts to set up a driving course and also to have the trucks run. We are trying to use our 2nd engine as the primary learning tool. This is because Engine 1 must be dedicated to the town and Tanker 3 is very temperamental about driving when it is not an emergency. Tanker 3 has been down here since 1985, so it has a right to be grumpy. Engine 2 broke down not once, but twice today. We have had the pump freeze many times during winfly, due to extreme temperatures we are witnessing. This has been the coldest winfly in many years, we even set the record for the coldest day in September, ROCK! The big push is to have all of us trained because when the winter overs leave, we only have 1 driver on our shift besides the officers.


We also did another walk through of Crary Science Lab down here. It is the main reason why we all are down here, because of the science that goes on in that lab. It is built in three tiers, each with a specific science or area they all cover. Tier 1 being Chemistry and Bio, Tier 2 being Physics and Volcano's/Geography/Atmosphere and Tier 3 as the Aquarium. Brandon Genco would love Tier 3, there is a touch tank filled with sea creatures around here. I wanted to show this photo, for all the firefighters out there this is a pretty scary photo. Crary is filled with a couple room filled with these assortment of Chemicals. If that place ever had a fire, it would be a pretty big incident. The chemicals aren't that harsh, in the grand scheme of things, but certainly they add a level of concern. Especially when we don't have that much available resources. I think that covers all that is going on. I'm going to get going. I unfortunately have gotten sick and I am going to try to sleep it off here at work. So take care everyone!