Leaving tomorrow

This is just going to be a list of things I have done and don't want to forget. The people too. VERY rambly. I wouldn't bother reading, if I were you.

- Thursday night drinks with Casey and Dave (remembered his name!), Sidney, Jase and Colin (and briefly Nils, who looked like he was going to fall asleep the whole time) in the library. Sidney is one of the stewards (same as Casey and Dave), and spends 60 hours a week cleaning up after people. In real life, she's a graphic designer (I think), on websites. She's one of those can-do-anything people. She's about 6 foot tall, plays basketball, plays piano, loves hiking and so on, is really easy to talk to, and just lovely. Jase is one of the cooks  - but not the main one, but a gooood one. He's from a farm in Alaska (I think), and will be over-wintering (I'm jealous). He's also really easy to talk to, really likeable and lots of fun (Casey told him he'd be a fantastic big brother, which I think describes him perfectly). Colin is very similar to Anton. He looks and moves the same, and he can't really sit still.. he's here for a week from McMurdo, to help in the kitchen. Apparently (and I did not realise this, so credit to them), the kitchen staff have been one person short since the beginning of the season. Equally apparently, the reason I did not notice this at all is Jase, who's been essentially doing two people's jobs. So the decision was to send in a new person each week from McMurdo..
Casey, Dave and Jase ran a 7-hour marathon on their Saturday off, managed to make it through dinner and drinks on Saturday night, and were back working their ten hour shifts standing on their feet yesterday (Sunday). 7 hours doesn't sound amazingly impressive, until you realise that the furthest any one of them has ever run (I believe) is 13km, and not at 3km altitude. I am going to miss these people!

- Friday, I think was a fun day. I can't remember what else I did

Also. A story. Probably funniest camping story I have heard. I dare say it will lose some of the funninness with me retelling it, but just imagine facial expressions, and it will be funnier. It is true, but I'm not saying names. A girlfriend and boyfriend were camping on a beach (I think in Spain, but I may be wrong). Their toilet was essentially a sheet up against the side of their car for privacy - held out from the car by the other partner when in use, and a hole in the sand (standard practice at this campsite). They would dig a hole, do whatever was required, chuck the toilet paper down the hole, burn it, and cover it back up. In this particular instance, the girl (not yet a seasoned camper) got all the way to lighting the toilet paper part, put the lighter down, on top of, or quite close to the toilet paper, and as boyfriend (holding the sheet out of the way) went to make a comment, there was an incredible bang, girlfriend came rocketing out the other side of the sheet, pants around ankles, in some sort of shock.. in the middle of a beach full of campers... anyway. It doesn't sound nearly as funny as hearing it first hand, but I tells ya, I was on the floor.

- I think Friday - for some reason I didn't sleep - it's funny - I haven't been tired here. I blame the eternal light.. - and Adam had cabin fever, so we went wandering around camp and found a sled, and then took it down all of the man-made snow hills in sight. The steepest was the most fun. THEN I went to bed.

- Saturday night was a cheese and wine party, in one of the science labs. They also had cookies. I went for a bit, spent most of my time in the hall talking to Sidney and Colin, a little bit of time talking to Martin and Grant T, two of the Grantees on the SPUD project (5 telescopes, looking for Cosmic Microwave Backround bits and pieces, and kindly sharing their building with us),- also lovely people.. and I met the infamous Cathy (I think that's how you spell it), with a very quick tongue and a wicked sense of humour. and then it was too many people that I didn't know, and not enough wine, and I went and hid in the library with a book.  

- Sunday morning I slept in (so much for the intention of going to work early), helped clean up in the kitchen for a bit (good company in Casey and Dave), met a guy in line for food (fresh eggs! cooked by Jase!) who was on the first of two South Pole Traverses this year (on land, from McMurdo to South Pole - making bridges across crevasses on the way). His name is Paul, he's a climber/crazy fit outdoors person, and when he's not here, he's working in Yellowstone national park as a search and rescue person. He has climbed El Cap four times.. and if we ever make it to that point, Andy, we're supposed to let him know we're coming so he can show us around. We had a good chat, then I got introduced into the Mate (South American tea pronounced Maat-ey) drinking ritual. The first rule about drinking Mate is that you don't talk about the Mate. Met a friend of his, Teague, and then we went to watch the traverse leave. It's pretty impressive. Imagine 8 (big) tractors on treads, towing at least 15-20m of trailers, from empty sleds (that held the fuel coming in), to I think three half-size shipping containers, all in one massive line. While we were waiting to leave, Teague and I went and had a play in the climbing gym. and then missed them actually leaving, by about a minute. but we saw them off in the distance..
- played volleyball (all sorts of fun after I remembered how. I need to find a team when I get back), played indoor soccer, which was also all kinds of fun, and amusing for everyone who wasn't on my team, and for the first time, actually felt physically tired enough to explain my out-of-breathness, took photos at the 'new' South Pole, went to work to finish soldering temperature sensors, got halfway through and remembered that Craig and Michael were giving a talk on our project, ran back, and got there just after the first slide. It was a good talk. I now know what HEAT (the project that we built our power system for) is actually doing - it's looking for Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules, to figure out how stars actually form. Apparently no-one's ever seen that before, because you can't see out the earth's atmosphere at those frequencies... except at Ridge A.
- went on a tour of the .. will remember the name in a minute.. facility, given by John (who will be in Sydney at some point shortly and I've volunteered myself as a tour guide). They are also looking at the CMB, at comlimentary frequencies to the massive South Pole Telescope (SPT) that Nils and Dale (and 20 other people) are working on. John had to change the liquid helium in the telescope, and the gas coming out was so cold that the liquid condensing on the pipe was not, as one would normall expect, water, but was in fact, liquid Nitrogen and liquid Oxygen. I would say that that takes the cake for the coolest thing I've seen here (bwahahahaha pardon the pun).

- today, I am up ridiculously early, because I have been using my phone as my clock. It is on Sydney time, and so I have to add two hours. This morning, it was flat, and I used the clock on the phone in my room, and added two hours. Which was incredibly intelligent and resulted in me eating breakfast at half past 5 this morning...

There is an air drop at 8am that I would like to see, so I will stay awake til then, then wander out to work, finish temperature sensors, test temperature sensors, fix up CAN power box in the engine module (forgot to thermal paste it), and come back and pack, and bag drag (check in), and find everyone to say bye to..