daily routine

12/21/07, South Pole Station

So my routine here is pretty much work Mon-Sat 7am-5pm, go to the station after work for dinner and hanging out. There is no bar here unlike McM, but do have a game room in the main station bldg with ping pong and pool. There’s a gym for basketball and stuff plus exercise room with cardio and weights. We have two TV lounges, a small library and an arts&crafts room. We hang out in the galley (cafeteria) a lot too. The food here is pretty good. We sometimes get fresh fruit and veggies, though I don’t get enough salad. We have a small greenhouse here where we grow some lettuce and herbs and such. It’s called the “growth chamber”. We even have a sauna. I keep some toiletries and a change of clothes at the station so I can change out of my quilted overalls and boots into jeans and flip flops for hanging out.

Some people have rooms in the main station, others sleep out at “summer camp” in the jamesway tents (9 ppl per tent). We all eat at the main station. Summer camp is about 200 yards away from station, I think. Out there we have a separate toilet/laundry bldg with running water. Most people keep a pee jar in their room for middle of night so you don’t have to get all your clothing on. My room is small, but at least I have no roommate. And a previous occupant decked it out with an actual wooden wall and door (some berths have only a hanging curtain), plus nice shelves. We have electricity, so I sometimes watch movies on my laptop (using headphones). We get free movie rentals from the store—pretty good selection. It’s not as cold as I thought it would be. The floor is cold, but only freezes stuff if left next to the exterior wall and insulated from the rest of the room (like my liquid laundry detergent was) otherwise doesn’t freeze stuff, well at least not alcohol--I leave my beer there to keep cold. I have 5 blankets on my bed, but it’s not too cold when I’m awake. I just wear sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt plus wool socks.

We are allowed two 2-minute showers and one load of laundry per week. We have washer and dryer machines. I usually don’t put my clothes in the dryer but hang them in my room to dry. This is to save energy and also allows some more moisture into the air. We are at only about 1% humidity. The actual elevation here is 9300’ but the low barometric pressure makes it the physiological equivalent of between 10,000’ and 11,000’. It varies. Right now we’re at 10,425’. Temps are warming up. With the initial rise in temp, we got winds which made it feel colder. But now winds have died down and it’s almost balmy at -8F. We finally hit single digits today! The temps almost never get above zero, so when we mention the temperature, we don’t even bother to say the “minus”.

We get our water from heating up a big bulb-shaped well down under the ice, and then pumping up the water. It takes a lot of energy which is why we’re limited in our water use. It’s deep enough that we are drinking water melted from ice from Julius Ceasar’s time (or thereabouts). The old bulbs from previous years are what get filled up with our waste water.

We have satellite connection for internet and phone calls 11 hrs per day. It shifts by about 4 minutes per day. Right now it’s up from 2:25 to 10:20 am. It’s with two different satellites, but the second one is old and slow, so when it’s only that one (the later part of the morning) I don’t even bother trying to get online.

My “office” is separate from both summer camp and the main station. It is also a jamesway. We have computers and internet access there. No running water. Only a “solar” outhouse. It’s solar in that the bldg is painted black so absorbs some heat so isn’t totally freezing. Well actually it is freezing, but not as bad as outside. There's a leak in the urinal so sometimes get a frozen urine falls coming down from it. Kinda gross, but kinda interesting in a weird way. I took a picture. I don’t spend much time in the office, rather outside in loader. It’s somewhat heated, but I often have to hop outside to mess with stuff, so I go in and out of the cold a lot. I’ve developed a cough that isn’t going away. I was never sick. I think it’s just the dry, cold air irritating my lungs. I finally went to medical and they put me on some steroids for it. Should be done with those soon.

Today is the solstice which means the sun will start going down. Sunset is in mid march (only one per year) I’ve gotten used to the sun being up. The jamesways are so dark that once you go inside there, you’re ready to sleep. My problem is leaving the main area and people and making the trek back to camp in the cold and sun. When you’re in the station, it’s like being in a house, so you don’t notice the sun outside, but then you walk out and it’s bright and cold and wakes you back up. If I didn’t have to wake up early for work almost every day, I’d be up even later I’m sure.

We had a nice dinner and after-party at Thanksgiving. Will do the same at Christmas. And a party at New Year. We get two day weekends for each of these holidays. On xmas, we will have the “race around the world” 2 miles around the pole and elsewhere, going through all latitudes of earth. Cool, eh? On New Year, there’s the moving of the geographic pole marker and placement of the new emblem on top. The giant ice sheet we are on is shifting about 10 meters per year so the pole marker is no longer accurate. There’s a funny shirt from years back that says “ski south pole—1 foot of powder, 2 miles of base”. On Jan 12 we have the dedication ceremony for the new station (which people have been staying in for a couple years now, but is still not fully finished on the outside). There will be a bunch of DV (distinguished visitors). Shortly after that will be the congressional delegation. We don’t know yet who will be coming for that.

Every Sunday evening there is a science lecture so we can learn more about the science we are supporting. At McM it was a lot of biology which is a little closer to what I can comprehend. Here it’s a lot of astro and particle physics and stuff. We have a big new telescope. This is one of the best places for observations because the air is clear, dry, not much other light from cities, and many months of darkness form the sun. plus you get the same view of the sky because we aren’t revolving much. That’s in the dark sector we also have a clean air sector where they take reading of air quality each day. It’s supposed to be the cleanest on earth. That’s to grid north of station (upwind). If you are downwind, however, you get all the diesel exhaust from our power plant and all the vehicles and tent heaters. Kinda ironic. Then there is the quiet sector where they try to keep all noise from vibrations to a minimum so they can study seismic stuff. Waves travel through the earth from earthquakes across the globe and are detectable here. The big new project under construction is the neutrino observatory called Ice Cube. They are drilling a bunch of holes 2 kilometers deep and placing strings of monitors down in them to detect the reaction between neutrinos and electrons. For some reason these are easier to detect in ice. Neutrinos are some whoopdedoo thing in physics and are from like the beginning of the universe or something and shoot all around. I gotta learn more about that one, but the guy who gave the lecture was not easy to listen to, pretty monotone, so I left early.

I am doing a lot of forklift support for this drilling project. I’m also doing fork support for the construction crew working on raising one of the big archways near the old dome. We get many flights a day now, bringing in fuel, food, supplies, mail and some passengers. I don’t operate loaders at the planes though, that’s for the cargo crew. I do want to learn to operate the “heavy” equipment. Right now I’m on medium equip and sometimes in the small bobcats.

That’s all I can think of for now. It’s 9:45 pm and I should think about suiting up and going home to summer camp.