Mt.Erebes Crash

I wasn't at McMurdo for this, but to my understanding there was a small ceremony the other day, to remember the anniversary of the Mt. Erebes crash of 1979. Back in the day, Air New Zealand, ran a tourist trip around McMurdo and the Antarctic Continent. In 1979, the aircraft experienced some bad weather and flew into the side of the active volcano known as Mt.Erebes. It was the deadliest crash in Antarctic history.

There is a wicked good article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_New_Zealand_Flight_901

I won't repost the article on here, but 257 people total died in the crash. The recovery effort was pretty long as well.

Thanksgiving AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD

First, Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone. As per tradition, Thanksgiving is celebrated on Saturday down here on the Ice. This is so that everyone can enjoy the next day off (Sunday). Friday we started the celebrating by having surf and turf. The cooks down here want us to have a surf and turf meal once a month, and who am I to stop them? We had steak and King Crab Legs, very delicious. I took this photo to let you all know that sometimes, it isn't a harsh continent.

So for our "Thanksgiving"; I decided to celebrate it just like the pilgrims did, by Frolfing. If you don't know what I mean by "Frolfing" then picture this. Take a golf course, now add fresbee disks instead of golf balls, and baskets instead of holes. There is a course down here at the Pole as well as one at McMurdo. Last I heard McMurdo's was out of service. So my buddy Corey and I grabbed the bag of fresbees and a couple beers and headed out side to play the course. There are three types of fresbees, all are different sizes from big to small. The smaller one of course is the "putter" and the larger one is the "Driver", I forget what the middle one is called...I think it was called the "approach". Anyway, it was only -45 outside, and very little wind, so we did about 15 holes, the other 4 are being re-constructed. It was fairly fun, we got to climb over millvans and snow berms. After about and hour and a half we came in.

We started thanksgiving with live music in the hallway followed with some shrimp cocktail and baked bree. After that we were brought into the galley and served wine. We had deep fried turkey, smoked turkey, mash potatoes, cranberry sauce, biscuits, and gravy. I made an epic mistake though, I had some pecan pie for desert. It wasn't as good as my moms, yea I said it. I ate it anyway, the chocolate moose pie though was wicked good. After that I had a chill night, I watched a couple movies. Thanksgiving was pretty awesome down here. Anyway, I hope you all are having a great weekend. Talk to you later!

Mail!

So Yesterday was an amazing day down here at the South Pole. Why? We'll Wednesday was a really good mail day. First, I got something I ordered a while ago from the firestore.com. Took about a month or so. Then I got a lovely letter from Ms. Jenn Scully, hilarious! And as if my day couldn't get any better I got a package from my old Capt. Shields, your package was awesome. (The photo is a Wu-Tang DVD, possibly the Southern most Wu-Tang DVD in the world? Maybe)

What is great about getting mail down here, especially unexpected mail, is that it is just like Christmas, your birthday and every other holiday wrapped up into one. I'm sure I've talked about this last year, but I think that it is important enough to re-iterate. Mr. Matthew Shields got all of the old returnee's from his days at the AFD (last season really) a whole bunch of gifts. It was fun to pass them all out. He hooked us up with some stuff that we don't usually see down here. It is really amazing how mail has such an impact on the community. Since the South Pole is really small, compared to McMurdo, often other community members will help organize and sort mail into the hallways of the station. One usually has to walk around the halls and look at the boxes to find out where their mail is, if they have any. But because the station is so small; often other people will deliver the mail. This impromptu post person scenario is really fun to witness. to My buddy Corey, who is also on the fire department, brought my package up to my locker while I was off inspecting a couple buildings.

Yesterday I also had the oppertunity to go on a guided tour/safety inspection of the Ice Cube project down here. The Ice Cube Project, is an international scientific project that really is well funded and staffed. The Ice Cube people are about 100 strong and range from German Scientists to American Drillers. The project, which I will get more information about and re-post if I am incorrect, is to find neutrinos'. To find them, they drill a whole, about 1.5 miles deep, and place a string of these round detectors.

The South Pole is the best place to find these neutrinos' due to its isolation and its surface. Anyway, I'll talk about this project more since, it is a major event down here. They are also trying to find dark matter and dark energy (oooo electric boogaloo). In order to drill these holes, they heat water up and shoot it out of a hose and drill bit. It is really cool to look down these holes.



After the tour I did a couple more flight stand by's. I found a great way to pass the time in the ARFF rig is to read. Usually it takes about an hour to and hour and a half for a plane to land, dump fuel, and take off...and since we have to be there for a while, its good to stimulate the mind. I've been reading both a Shackleton book and when I get sick of that I read short continuing education articles for my EMT. For those who need to re-certify this year, I HIGHLY recommend "Mediced.com". I can print out articles, read them and when the internet goes back up I can take a test and get certified for taking them. I've been burning through a lot, at this rate by next week I should be all set for my MA EMT and half of my National EMT requirements (about a year early for MA, whooooo!)

So that is about it. I'll be doing a Thanksgiving themed post this weekend. Saturday is out Thanksgiving Party down here. So take care, Happy Thanksgiving and have an extra slice of Pie for me!

Big store sale! And other random news

The store down here had a final liquidation sale for most of its t shirts. It was pretty neat, they had 8 tri-walls of clothes and other stuff on sale. For those of you who aren't down with the Antarctic Lingo a tri-wall is a heavy duty cardboard box, three thick walls hence the name. Anyway, most of the station came out and helped move merchandise and help set up for the sale. I was able to grab a sweatshirt that I've had my eye on since last season that wasn't in the store when I got down here. Most of the merchandise were sweatshirts and T shirts that have been sold in the last 10 years. It wasn't a bad way to spend my hard earned cash, or spend my Sunday afternoon.

Things down here are pretty smooth. Our group is really working well, and we have a pretty good system worked out. We have done a couple trainings with the fire brigade down here. Since the full time firefighters, aka the McMurdo 6, are here for the flights...we are only back up to the station. We have helped train the volunteer brigade so that they can manage and effective work down here in case there is a fire emergency. Yesterday we taught them how to use the air compressor, and it went fairly well. Most of the people on the brigade either only have South Pole experience or not any structural experience. There are a couple who are wildland firefighter, which while it does deal with fire, structure firefighting is a different breed. Mostly because of the equipment that structure uses, wildland doesn't use air packs for example. But I digress.

Hopefully this should work...here is a quick video clip I took the other day. It was -56, so my camera took a nap while filming. But I hope you guys enjoy. Anyway that is all that is really going on down here. Take care.

LC-130's and Other fun stuff

So this blog entry is to give you all an update on what is going on down here at the South Pole. First I'll share with you one of the perks on being on the flight line. One of the jobs that sometimes we help out with is bringing the plane in. Basically we signal the plane to come off the taxiway and then tell it to stop, when it is aligned for fuel offload. The LC-130 bring almost all of the fuel needed to run this place, which I can assume you is a lot. There is also a Traverse that travels with fuel from McMurdo. Yes, the traverse is a giant convoy across the Antarctic Continent. And I thought my job was bad ass. But, I digress. All of our group has helped bring the planes in thus far. It is a pretty cool job. I was able to get some awesome photos as well. I hope you are enjoying them, as always. Not many people can say that they helped land an LC-130 at the South Pole. Bellow is the photo of me and the LC-130, photo credit goes to Megan.

Second job of course is doing inspections. The fire protection down here is very very important. There is a limited amount of water in the sprinklers in the elevated station and of course "Summer Camp" there is no sprinkler system. Due to the harsh conditions, most of fire operations are with fire extinguishers. For many of you who haven't used a fire extinquisher, you may underestimate the stopping power that they possess. It isn't a perfect system, but it is what we have to work with. Our inspections help us stop potential problems, and correct them if they have occurred.

Flight operations are the main reason why we have a presence down here. But like everywhere else the Fire Dept is the catch all. When we aren't on flight operations and inspections, we try to help out the town...as you have been reading in my blog. If you haven't been keeping up on this blog, shame on you.




Let's see what else cool happens down here...Fun fact: all the lights in the hallways are motion activated. So if someone doesn't walk down them for a while, they turn off. I might just be a wicked nerd, but I find it pretty b.a. when I walk down the hall and the lights down my path turn on. Other random news: The store down here just recently replaced its stock. I think I almost have as many Antarctica t shirts as I have fire department t shirts. Which is a big accomplishment. Anyway I think that catches you all up on what is going on with my life down here. Take care all and stay safe.

Personal Note

So I'm going to take a personal liberty here and share with you all something special.

Today was 11/15 down here on the ice. This date might not mean much to many of you, but to me it shares an interesting turning point in my life. Five years ago, I can tell you exactly what I was doing. I was back at Franklin Pierce, hanging out in Cheshire (my dorm at the time) putting off doing homework when I received a call from my friend Tracey. Tracey had just married my best friend Travis recently, a year before hand I believe. Travis was deployed soon after the marriage to Iraq with the Marines, I hadn't seen him in almost as long as Tracey. I kept in touch with Tracey, briefly after the wedding, but the tone in her voice was different from any other time we had talked. She told me that Travis was killed in Action during a raid in Fallujah. If you at all care to read about the story of the battle of Fallujah, I recommend the book No True Glory by Bing West. Travis has a small part in one of the chapters. I'm not going to recount what I did next, or how the rest of that semester went, it is not really prudent to this post. But, I did take the news wicked hard. Travis and I had been friends since 1st grade and I was the best man at his wedding. I was lucky to have a good support system both up at school and back home, it helped me out. Travis was one of the reasons why I got into the fire service, he and I planed on hopefully working on the same Department when I finished College and he finished the Marines. Unfortunately, we were never able to make good on that promise. So I decided then, in honor of his memory, I would continue to become a firefighter.

It has been 5 years, which is a relatively long time. But at the same time, I can't believe that much time has passed. I typically visit Travis's memorial in Bedford Mass, at least once a year since then. It has been tough and I've been thinking how I could do something special for his family. Last year, when I was down here in Antarctica...I had the idea of flying a flag in memory of him down at the South Pole. I wasn't able to organize it, so when I was offered the job to come back down I jumped at the chance. I didn't know I was going to be working at the South Pole, but I knew that I would at least know someone who could help me with this project. When I was offered to go down to Pole for the season, I knew that I would be down for this date. This is one of the main reasons why I chose to take a full time gig down at Pole. So today, I flew 3 flags in honor of Travis. Each flag is going to be folded and a certificate is going to be made. I'm mailing the 3 flags, to Travis's mother, his Father and his widow. It is something special that I hope they will treasure and enjoy.

On a side note:
The weather was rough down here today, 20 mph winds almost all day. You may notice that one of the bamboo flag poles that I used split. Banging the flagpoles into the snow was pretty hard. I split one of the flag poles, and cut up my hand a little bit. Bamboo can cut cotton liners wicked easy. But no worries. The flags have survived the rough winds, which is what I really wanted.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this moment with you guys. It isn't the usual Antarctic shenanigans you all look forward to read. I'll get back to that soon. It has been busy down here with all the flights, I'll try to write more. Take care everyone.

PS: Here is an article about Travis: http://iraq.pigstye.net/article.php/20041119084304927

Sundog photo

Here is a sundog photo for you all. My friend Megan took it a couple weeks ago...but I haven't posted anything recently so I have decided that I will show you this wicked cool sundog. Working outside, I get to see these guys pretty often, but I am blown away at how beautiful they are. Enjoy.

Tunnel Tour

Since the new firefighters have come down here...and the ARFF rig is in service, I've been able to explore more of the station now. I was able to take a walking tour of the tunnels under the station here. Mostly the tunnels run the waste water out of the station to the waste treatment area. The tunnels have a couple science experiments going on in them as well. There is the infamous "Gravity Station", where the gravity of the earth is measured by some equipment. I've been told it is too see if the earths orbit is going to a different type of orbit. The scientist who runs these experiments isn't down on the ice yet, but when he is I'll see if I can get to the bottom of this.

The tour was led by our own Capt. Howie. Since the tunnels are long and such, it is required that you check out with South Pole Comms. We gave them our estimate time of return as well as how many people are in the party. There are emergency escape hatches along the route. One of the more interesting aspects of the tour is the stalactites made of snow and water vapor on the ceiling of the tunnel. This is caused by the heat of the waste traveling through the pipes.





Another cool aspect of the tunnels are the "memorials" that are set up. Many people carve out the walls of the tunnels and make monuments/memorials. These monuments are not to be touched, and are sacred. I was able to take a bunch of photos of them. Some have memories tied to them, like this fire one that was made by one of the Kiwi Firefighters who worked down here with our Department.


Some are made out of humor, like this continent one... Also for all of you guys that haven't been here...that is the general saying about living down here. I hope you enjoy the photos around the station down here. We'll that is all the time I have for now; Take care everyone.

ARFF rig is in service!

So finally after about a week of working on it, the ARFF rig for the South Pole is in service. Wednesday, we preformed the service test. We had to flow foam and dry chem from both turrets and both hose lines and make sure the entire system works. We'll as per Antarctic tradition the test didn't go without some hickups..but I'm happy to say that the system is up. I had the job of being at the nozzle for all of the tests. I got a decent ammount of purple k (purple dry chem powder), glycol and AFF foam on myself. The photo on the left is the aftermath of the testing. No photos were taken during most of the testing because, frankly we were so busy. So sorry to disappoint; there will not be any photos of me with my face full of purple k up here.

The USAF said that they would run only 5 missions down here without ARFF protection, we were able to fix our unit in 4. It was tough work, I can't tell you how hard it is to work outside in -85 degrees bellow zero for many hours at a time. It really drains your body. But all of our efforts seem to have been worth it thus far. Certainly the ARFF rig isn't the best design for this enviroment, but it is what we have to work with.

The new firefighters, all 3 of them, flew down yesterday too. We have been working to get them up to speed. These 3 firefighters will be with us for 6-7 weeks helping us with ARFF operations. The new schedule is being worked out, and we will be working on a 16 hour shift schedule with 6 hours off daily, rotating. This system works out pretty well, I've been told, so we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll be able to blog more. But at the very least its nice to have some fresh blood down here to help us with the work

Here is a shot of Elephant Man, our donated rig that tows our beloved ARFF pods. It is pretty b.a., it has similar controls to a lawn mower. I'll be sure to grab some photos of it when I start driving it next week. It seats about 5, and has a radio/cd changer. Hey, it gets boring waiting for planes to land.

That is about all I'll cover in this post. I have another post that I'll be putting up later that goes through the tunnel system under the Station. That will be a pretty big post, hence the separation. Anyway, hope you all are having a great Thursday. Take care.

Working at the South Pole

So, today is Sunday. I'm not technically working...but I'll be training later this afternoon. But in the mean time since I have internet access I thought I would write you guys. So for the past couple of days Megan, Howie and I have been working on the ARFF sled down here. Think of the ARFF sled being a really big fire extinguisher. It holds Foam and Dry chem. The photo to the left of this is what it looked like during construction last year. Steve hooked me up with photos of that. I'll take some photos of us working on it soon.

It was designed to support the USAF and all other flight operations to the Pole. So since we have been down here, we have been working to get the sled operational again. It was left outside all winter, it is so big they can't store it anywhere else. So we've been filling air tanks, replacing foam, tracking down equipment the last couple of days. It is fun to work outside, and believe it or not I'm getting used to the cold. I've been dressing warmly so don't worry, I still have 10 fingers and toes...no frostbite yet. The best part about working outside is seeing sundogs, the 360 rainbows. Wicked cool.Besides working with the ARFF sled, we've been busy helping the Fire brigade and Trauma Team get adjusted down here. It has been really busy, but I like it. It helps pass time.

Megan and I also did the "food pull" the other day. Basically, the old dome is being used for food storage. So once a week a volunteer team goes out and helps the "food grabber" in getting the right supplies back to the station. We load up sleds and boxes. It is a lot of fun, but it also is well cold. The dome isn't heated obviously..and there are a couple holes in the dome so there is a lot of snow in the dome. It is wicked cool. I'm almost out of internet time here. I had to make a couple phone calls, so I got distracted in writing this blog. So Happy Halloween everyone!