Life Of Verve

Working Adventure (Antarctica Post 2)

So, over a month later, I finally post again about Antarctica!  Adjustment from the "ice" has taken longer than I expected.  I've been back in the states for almost 3 weeks now and I would say it took me 2 to adjust back completely.  I was on NZ time, which was -6 hours from Eastern, but we were also on the night shift because of the hours of the satellite (starting work at 11PM and going to bed at 6-7AM), so we were actually working EST -12 hours, which was kinda India time!

I was at the South Pole for a total of 7 days (Jan 8-14), and in Antarctica total for 10 days (Jan 7-16), then afterwards I spent 6 days (Jan 17-22) in New Zealand mostly around Queenstown on South Island.

Here is our team from the satellite ground station upgrade.  There were 3 of us from Maryland and 6 from Colorado (Raytheon/RPSC).


The tunnels underneath the "ground" at South Pole weren't that long, but snaked all around.  If you look closely you can see the thermometer.  It reads -65F!!  I can honestly say that is the coldest environment I've ever been in.

My last full day at McMurdo I went for a 6 hour hike to Castle Rock.  Here is Castle Rock (the pointy peak just right of dead center of picture) as seen from Ob Hill.  In the background is Mt. Erebus, the active volcano in Antarctica.

Just after reaching the summit of Castle Rock.  No good view because of the snow white-out.

This gives you a good idea of how close the Adeile penguins get (note Craig's shadow!).  They are very curious and bold.

Click for more Antarctica pictures

Work and Life

Here are two pictures of where I've been living and working the last three days.  The new big building at the South Pole is called the Elevated Station.  Its raised up so it is more isolated from the ground cold.  The decreases the heating costs needed.  Its a pretty nice building.  The room I'm in is pretty small, but nice.  This Elevated Station included a basketball court, exercise room, dining facilities, 2 conference rooms, a library, and lots of living quarters.  All the doors outside are the same doors you see on walk in freezers, the giant, 9 inch thick doors, with the plunger handles.  Another interesting note is nothing is locked.  No one really has keys.  Its one of the culture aspects here.  If you get here, you are trusted to not do any funny business.


\--> The Elevated Station with the ceremonial south pole and flags on the right

I have about a 3/4 mile walk to and from where I work.  Its basically on the far end of the South Pole Station.  The radio frequency (RF) facilities consists of two buildings, the dome and the RF building.  The RF building you see is about 1 building story off the ground and then 1 story tall.

\--> The RF facility

Here are a few links and images:
NSF South Pole Special Report
NOAA South Pole webcam
The United States Antarctic Program Official Website

The Ceremonial South Pole

I've been on the ice at Antarctica for about 4 days now and I finally posted!  You would think I've been slacking, but its been a very intense last 4 days, and including the last week, its been about the most intense of my life.

So, to betray my engineering mind, here is the last week, day by day.

Thursday, 4th

Arrived at Christchurch, New Zealand after changing planes in Auckland.  The flight was easy and I was very glad to arrive after all the complications.  I checked into my hotel, the Commodore, and just relaxed for the next 2 days.  I really needed the recovery time.  The other guys on my team left a day earlier and I could have gone with them, but I just needed to rest.  I even went to a massuse and got a knot out of my shoulder.  She did a deep tissue massage and actually used her elbow.  It really hurt during her session, but afterwards, I felt so much better.

Friday, 5th

Two rest days.  I did some work on my laptop.  Near the end of the day I went for a short jog to help recover from my sickness.  It was a nice jog and I got to see part of Christchurch (near Canterbury University).

\--> Arriving at South Pole On The LC-130

Sunday, 7th
Left Christchurch, New Zealand to travel to the edge of the Antarcic ice, at the McMurdo Station.  I was going to fly the day before on a C-17, which would have been a 3 hour trip, but because I just didn't feel recovered enough from my food poisioning, I decided to wait a day.  So I flew out on an LC-130 Herculeas, and it was over a 8 hour flight.  The LC-130 is a much slower plane, noisier, and has a very nasty vibration to it.  There were only 13 of us on the 130 flight, because it was mostly a cargo fligth.  I wanted to sleep on the flight, but I just couldn't.

\--> Our accomodations on the plane: webbing seats, very noisy, and extreme vibrations.

I arrived at McMurdo at about 7PM, and being the only civilian on the 130 flight, I was given an orientation on my own.  They gave me the normal spiel of policies, procedures, and safety.  I heard that about 1000 people are currently at McMurdo, with that number dropping to about 200-300 in the winter.  They also got me my room key, and told me that my hot dinner was being held for me.  That made me happy.  I hadn't eaten hot food for over 48 hours due to my diet.  After dinner, Criag and I went to try to see some penguins that people had been talking about.  We caught about 30 Adiele penguins just as they were going to sleep.  Some were still stretching and yawning, but most were asleep.  They were tiny, only about 9-10 inches tall.  We were able to get within 10 feet of them.  I heard they are curious enough to actually walk up to within 2 feet of you, but they won't come any closer.  After the reward of seeing penguins, I went to bed exhausted at 9PM NZ time.

\--> Craig and I with the Adeile penguins, sleeping

Monday, 8th
I woke up at 7:30AM to catch my plane to South Pole on another LC-130, this time a much faster flight of 3 hours.  It was a bumpy flight again, but I was very glad that it was short.
We received another orientation, mostly about conserving water (we only get 4 minutes of shower per week!), safety, how cold it really is, and we then watched a video.  It definately seems like a tighter-knit community at South Pole, with people saying hi in the hallways and hanging out more after hours.  There are currently ~260 people here, which is large for the accomodations, so we definately feel packed during meal times and not everyone gets their own room.

A couple hours after landing, I started to feel the altitude.  Its about 9,300 feet above sea level, but because we are at the pole and the atmosphere is actually thinner here, it is the equivalent of 12-14,000 feet, depending on the day.  I have been to Boulder before, but thats under 5,000 feet, so this is more severe.  During that day I feel a little dizzy and light headed, and found that I did indeed need time to adjust.

\--> Antarctic mountains on the way to South Pole

Tuesday, 9th

I was really tired and ended up sleeping in pretty late.  I think my body really needed it.  I had a pretty active day, after I woke up at 3PM.  I grabbed dinner, then I helped Jeri and Lilly carve their whale tale (picture below).  After that I headed to volleyball.  That ended up really wearing me out.  I only played for about 2 hours, but I got winded very quickly from the altitude.  I played pool with a friend from NOAA.  After I took a quick nap and headed to work at the RF building at about 12:30 AM.  It was a 20 minute walk in the cold, but the temperature keeps you walking.

We made some progess at work, but definately still many long nights ahead for us.


\--> Carving the whale tail with Jeri and Lilly, you can sorta see the new Elevated Station in the background (which is were my room is and where the dining room is)

Food Poisioning

Here is a chronology of my time leading up to my trip to Antarctica.  You will see why it made the trip very difficult and delayed!

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Sunday, 31st

Ate the meal at Fox Skybox restaurant at Chicago O'Hare airport that made me very, very sick.  I didn't feel it until I landed at LAX.  It would have really been bad if I got sick on the plane.  After a 3 hour delay at O'Hare, I finally flew out at 8PM and landed at LAX at 11PM, just before the New Year.  While I was calling to get a hotel room at LAX, a lady announced over the loudspeaker "Happy New Year!!" and everyone in the airport let out a little yell.  I arrived at my hotel at about 1AM and thats when the food poisioning symptoms began.  I didn't really sleep all night, as I spent it emptying my stomache instead.

Monday, 1st

At about 7 AM, I couldn't stand it any longer and I called a cab to take me to the emergency room.  In the meantime my mom called her cousin Bette who lives near Irvine.  Bette arrived at the ER an hour after I got there.  She took care of me for the next 3 days, arranged for me to stay at her apartment complex, and drove me around.  She really put her plans on hold to take care of me.  Bless her, since she really made my sickness a whole lot easier.

Precise

I heard about this new book, called "Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience".  I don't know that much about the book, but here is what I know.  Flow is, as described by the author, a state that we state as "in the zone" or "on".  Sometimes you just feel like things are working out and everything is going your way.  It is impossible to feel sad or unhappy during these times.  This flow is contingent upon having an observed external success be dependent on something you did.  If you can't observe this external success, a success that appears to you to be objective, then you will not enter this state of flow.  Its like a child receiving feedback from their parent.  If a parent is too hard on their child and has unreal expectations, then the child becomes bitter about life, feels they can never "measure up" and in some sense, gives up on their hopes and dreams.  Having never read this book, this is what comes to my mind.

My experience of what I call precision, I believe, is analogous.

I have these moments when I feel "on" and "in the zone" and I'm knocking down tasks in my life like an expert boxer.  It feels so good.  I am even becoming a little reminiscient just thinking about it.  But the difficult thing is when I don't have those experiences for a long time.  I begin to feel down, discouraged, and see myself as a failure.  And when I say long time, I really mean, not a long time, because I feel like I need this constant feedback or "observed external success" as I mentioned above.  I need something or someone objective (as opposed to my own subjective thoughts) saying "Good job" or "Keep up the good work."  Without that I seem to quickly lose my way.

Does that make sense at all?

Here is my catch of a 22 lb Chinook Salmon from Lake Michigan. This guy took about 30 minutes just to reel in! To see more fishing pictures, see link to Wisconsin_Fishing on the left.

MY States of the Union

So, seeing friends post maps to their blogs of where they've been inspired me to do the same. I've visited 17 states, basically a third all them all. Most of these visits have been seeing relatives, as my mother has 8 siblings and my father has 2. This means about 20 cousins, many my age, so when I was growing up, we did plenty of visits. Here's my state traveling details. Note: cities underlined mean I flew, otherwise I drove.

• Lived in:
  • Michigan - listed first, because I lived in Eaton Rapids from age 5 to 18, and Houghton from age 18 to 23 (college)
  • South Dakota - born and lived in Pierre until age 5
  • Maryland - worked at NASA from age 23 to today (almost 25, on March 18)
• Travels to see relatives:
  • West Virginia (Parkersburg-half dozen times)
  • Indiana (Fort Wayne-too many to count, South Bend-once for wedding)
  • Ohio (Marietta-half dozen times)
  • Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul-twice)
  • Wisconsin (Duluth-once)
  • North Carolina (Durham-once)
• Travels to see friends:
  • Virginia (Roanoke-three times, I really enjoy seeing my girlfriend Sarah's folks and hanging at their lakehouse)
  • Florida (Pensacola-last year, friend Eric)
  • Cali (San Diego-new year 06, Eric again)
  • Pennsylvania (Philly-once for street evangelism trip)
  • Illinois (Chicago-three times)
• Work trips:
  • Louisiana (New Orleans/Baton Rouge-one month trip, work detail for FEMA Katrina relief in '05)
  • Cali (Pasadena/JPL-once, at least 4 times in 2006 planned)
  • Virginia (Wallops Island/Goddard Annex-twice)
  • Colorado (Boulder-once for school conference at UC Boulder in '03)
• Touristy trips:
  • New York (NYC-first time early last year, only a two day trip)
  • Florida (Key West/Orlando-with dad new year '05), Florida (Orlando-senior class trip in '99)
  • Virginia (Virginia Beach-three times, my favorite beach)

You can make a map of visited states like mine by going to World66. I really enjoy traveling. It's such a big and diverse world, there is too much to see just to sit on couch at home and not experience all the difference cultures in our country. I've only been able to visit one other country, which is Bolivia. I went there in '97 on a short term missionary trip with Teen Mania. Let me know your favorite trip in the comments. See ya!

Swiss Embassy

To celebrate our six months together, I took Sarah out an evening of Swiss culture at the Embassy of Switzerland in the District.  There was dancing, playing of the Alphorn, sampling of Swiss wine, beer, chocolate, and of course, my favorite, cheese! It definately worked out good as a date and got to meet some other professionals in DC, one lady who works in Crystal City, one girl who worked for the Bush campaign in ads and media, and a girl who does lobbying for CalTech.

Break it down with the alphorn swiss lady! Ye-ah baby, ye-ah.  Work it flag twirling man...work it.

D&Busters

Went to PF Chang's and Dave&Busters tonight at White Flint in Upper Bethesda.  It was kinda a house thing so Ryan, Jimmy, Chris, and I went to PF Chang's.  Earlier in the day, I randomly called a young life campainger (core member) that hasnt come for a long time, due to being busy with his 30 hour a week job (while in his senior year!)  Jon was excited about coming, so I picked him up for a night at Dave&Busters.  It ended up being lots of fun shootin stuff with Jon. Driving Jon ended up being the best I think, because we were able to catch up and talk about how life was.  I also felt like I was able to encourage him in Christ.  Jon doesnt have a lot of people in his life to do that.  Definately a God moment, I hope things work out for Jon when he joins the army rangers in June.

San Diego

Spent 3 days in San Diego for New Years.  Unfortunately sunny So.Cal. was in its rainy season, and thats all we got.  The last day of course was sunny, but I flew out at 1pm, so I got one good picture on the way out.

I usually don't watch college football, but since we were indoor with an HDTV, bowl games it was.  I was amazed at how terrible Auburn played against Wisconsin in the Capital One Bowl.  No offense.  Sheesh.

In other news, I'm finally going back to work after 2 weeks off.  Vacation was crucial, but am I ready to get back to work?  Is anyone?  Oh wait, most people are already back to work.

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Edit: Here's a pic of my best friend Eric and I in front of the SD harbor.