Eclipse...No, Twilight...no, it's New Moon...Definitely Eclipse

Greetings,

Another late add by yours truly, but us Antarctic folk were treated with a rare partial solar eclipse on the 25th of November.  It covered about 77% of the sun and the event lasted about two hours.  It was fun to see the community out and about the day before Thanksgiving taking part in the event.  A nice reward for everyone working hard during that first month of the summer season. 

Ironically enough, there was a total lunar eclipse on the other side of the world (back home) two weeks later.  So it was nice to share with the other hemisphere the beauty that these celestial bodies can give us. 

In case if I don't write again, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

I pity the foo' who doesn't respect Bingo!

'Sup,

Yep, that's me out there as Mr. T.  I did some volunteering at South Pole by leading the Bingo game last month.  The normal person who had done it became ill and wasn't able to participate.  So some people on the station wanted someone to lead the way and I was willing to step in.  I decided to do an 80's theme for the Bingo night and I took things up a notch.  I definitely had a lot of fun that night calling numbers and see who else dressed up.  There were also great reviews from the community as well.  It sounds like something that I might do again someday but probably not for the rest of the season.

Ta-ta!

Almost a month?

Hi again,

It's been nearly a month since I got a hold of you last.  I hope things are going well for you out there.  For me, the season has gone lightning fast, thanks to an able crew that I'm working with, plus all of the other duties that end up falling into my lap it seems over the past six weeks.  I'm handling the other responsibilities okay, but I just don't want to lose sight of why I came down here, which is to perform my primary job to the best of my capability.  I do need to catch up on station life's little tales shortly in a future post, but generally things have gone well so far and I'm mulling whether I would like to continue this past February.


Stay tuned for now and thanks for reading.

Foruth time is the charm....maybe?

Hello again,

I am back onto the frozen continent down south for another stint as supervisor in my department and I have been in McMurdo for one week already and I'm planning to go to Pole for work tomorrow. *knocks on wood.

The good thing going for me is that I have familiar faces that I'm working with this season, so the spin-up at the start should not take as long.

Meanwhile, before arriving on the ice, I did spend some time in Christchurch as things were so much different now than when I was there previously. There was a pretty nasty aftershock over there the day after I left on February and that it crippled the CBD and the usual haunts that I go down to and visit. But with downtown off limits, this did give me a chance to see some more spots around the city. For example, I caught the semifinal match of the Rugby World Cup with the All Blacks (New Zealand) and Australia over at one of the few remaining pubs in the city between the CBD and the airport. The two folks represent the match-up during the final between France and New Zealand. I enjoyed my time there and in case you haven't paid full attention over the past couple of years with the blog, New Zealand is crazy about the game of rugby.

The other shot features flying over the sea ice in the C-17 over Antarctica the day after the match, so it was a busy 24 hours with me during that stretch, but it's pretty par for the course for me now.

Sit back and enjoy more tales from me this season and take care now.

Two for the price of one-Season 3 Finale.

That was quick, huh.

Now were at the point of the end of the austral summer and the custom picture of the staff whom I worked with the past couple of months.

I will admit things have been different with me being in charge for a whole season. At first, I thought the whole world was going to crash on me, when in reality that very seldom if at all occurred. This helps when I have a solid staff behind me. There may have been some growing pains as expected, but we all pulled together and created some South Pole weather magic out there.

From the left, we have Dale back for another season and this time he plans to stay at Pole longer than me, i.e., he's wintering. Next, we have Jeremiah, a newcomer but he has helped out things a lot in the Met office with his experience at other places around the world. On the far right, we have Rolf. He worked at one of the field camps last year and has decided to give Pole a go-around this year. He provided assistance in different ways, yet improved on operations just the same. I give my thanks to these three for a job well done and I hope that they get the rest the get after the season, especially Dale since he won't finish until November.

Take care everyone until next time.

Young Minds that want to learn.

Hi,

Things have gotten so busy for me that I'm about three weeks overdue with my last update.

What I wanted to explain this go around was how along with my regular job, that I have been explaining schoolchildren around the world by various means what I do at the South Pole. Thus far, I've answered some questions for a co-worker's sister, contributed to a Wiki Page (http://januaryweather.wikispaces.com) and shot some video for a local teacher that I know.

It's always a good feeling that there are students out there who are curious about your work, so I did what I could to provide the answers that were needed. It may have taken more time that I would have liked, but I did what I needed to do to help fuel the minds for the next generation. With any luck, some of them might even make it down to the ice themselves.

A somewhat short post.

Hey,

I've just been super crazy busy over the past two weeks trying to be the responsible one. A lot of paperwork, reports and reviews have been on my docket. The only relief so far has been a party that our department hosted. It took some time to put it together, but it turned out to be a lot of fun for everyone on station. Here's a toast to you and myself that things slow down just a touch before the end of the season.