Happy Campers

One thing I've noticed here-I tend to smile at people. At home not only did I see relatively few people most days, but I had little to say to most of them.
Down here I at least recognize most of the people on station (at least until the 3rd, when the rest of the population arrives). And I seem to be ready to like them, which is definitley NOT the case at home. So I see a vaugely familiar face and I smile. It does make for a nicer day.
It helps that they smile back, and that they appreciate what I do for them. "That chocolate thing last night-it was awesome!" makes it easier to enjoy someones' company. Also, they seem to understand that we've got to get along here for the summer, so being friendly will only help.
And I have a social life! After 5 years of working nights with people I did not want to socialize with, and not many chances to meet folks I might find interesting, I can get off work, change and go OUT. There are 3 bars here, to meet every expectation. The Coffeehouse serves wine and coffee and cocoa, with some booze to go in the hot drinks. It has couches and low tables, a big room to show movies (excuse me, cinema). It's non-smoking and low key and seen as the intellectual hangout. Then there's Southern Exposure, whose logo is a Skulland corssbones, with red eyes and a cigarette hanging from the bony jaws. Southern has the best pool table, and a nice shuffleboard, and serves beer, liquor and sodas. You can also smoke there, Unfortunatley, most of the people I like talking to all end up at Southern, so I often end up there as well. I get the cough without benefit of the nicotine. The other bar is Gallagher's-the non-smoking bar. Not much is happening there these days, but I'm told it will be hopping after mainbody gets here. I'd like that- my friends can drink the cheap Canadian whiskey they prefer and I don't have to eat smoke. Last weekend they had a talent showcase there. The usual kind of line up-some good, some just willing. But a fine time was had by all. I may even try to be in the next open-mic kind of thing that happens, but no one is sure when that will be. More pics will post soon!

There are some new pictures up at the same old link.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/heydemann@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=371escd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos
The first set show what happens to the trash. It all gets sorted, bagged, collected and sorted again, before being shipped off for resale, reuse or recycling in California. Sewage we treat at our new wastwater treatment plant, just like at home.
Then there are some shots of the inside of the frozen food warehouse. You can see just how much food is piled up in there. I think there's some stuff I want in the middle of aisle 4, near the bottom. It will be a while till I can get it....
The next set of pics are the power and water plants. The generators run on disel fuel, and generate lots of electricity. Which is good, becaue we use it to cook with! We use about 24,000 galloons of fuel per week. That's Adam on the right by the control panel, and my pal Rick on the left. Rick is the guy I lift weights with. He runs the water plant and got me this tour.
The water we get from the ocean, and just like a plasma donation we pull the salts out and return the concentrate to the ocean. We get about 40% as through-flow, that is the amount of potable water from the volume we pump in. There are 4 of the big green tanks, each of which holds about 20,000 gallons. All of the reverse-osmosis process runs through the long tubes, pushed by the high-pressure pumps.
And the radio came on while we were looking at the new generators, which are almost twice as efficient as the old ones. Condition one weather was declared-and this is why you mostly stay indoors, where you are, when it hits. Condition 3 weather is a nice day, or maybe breezy. Condition 2 will be blustery, but you can still see to walk around.
A nice day off- laundry, plant tours, a stint in the gerbil gym (on the machines) and now a chance to go bowling! And I even had a brownie for dessert. Damn, we do good work in the bakery! If I do say so myself.

How's the weather

There are a few ways to tell what the weather outside is like-if the smoke (or steam) from the buildings is lofting straight up, then it's calm. If the smoke is blowing sideways then it's breezy. If the "whoam whoam" as the wind cuts through the multiple stacks on the water plant can be heard as you step out of the galley then there's a wind. Walking with this wind is a skill. Try walking into it and resistance training takes on a whole new meaning. Walk with it and you might just sail along-not quite on the ground.
The average air temp is at about 20 degrees below, Farenheit. When the sun is out for a significant portion of the day it can get up to 0! Soon enough it will approach the 20s and 30s, and the whole place will become Muck Murdo. At this spopt the ground (volcanic rocks and gravel mostly) is at the surface. Not to mention the tons of "fines" (crushed volcanic gravel) that are spread everywhere outside to help folks walk.
Most days I'm fine in my Big Red Parka and gloves, but for longer walks than from dorm 203B to the Galley I put on my charhart insulated overalls. They are brand-new, and consequently a little stiff...I look and feel quite like a penguin in them.
Well, must be off to my daily toil. Today we're baking chocolate cake rolls with a cinnamon cream mousse filling, something fruity and many many pieces of naan bread. Also making up some danish for breakfasts.

Trying again with the comments....

Just trying a new post to see if I have the comments turned on correctly. Made eclairs yesterday, which were very well recieved by the community. At least one young man took 4! He did not seem to grasp that that meant someone else didn't get any.......soon I will be starting to make crepes so we can have blintzes for Hannukah. As the whole population will be here by then I need to make at least 1,000 crepes. If I do a few hundred at at time it won't take too long, And that takes less time thant you would think.

Things are settling into a routine now. Days off, laundry, when I go to the gym, etc. Today we had SUNSHINE-big blue skies with the almost full moon up. I'll try to get a picture tomorrow. We keep getting compliments for the baked goods-which is very nice for the ego. Of course, then we get blamed for the extra poundage folks pack on.
The folks who are leaving in October because they've been here all winter, or even longer, are all talking about where they'll be in a month. Lots of warm beaches are mentioned. When the new group arrives at "Mainbody", when the majority of the scientists get here, it will be a whole new ballgame. The population will almost triple in two weeks of daily flights from NZ, and the whole place will feel crowded.
We went on a tour of the food storage facilities today. There are three BIG warehouses, one frozen, one warm and one just unheated. In the freezer there are hundreds and hundreds of of crates 6' cubed, some on shelves and many of them all stacked up on top of each other. What ever happens, don't want an ingredient that's at the bottom of the stack-it will not be unearthed until we eat our way through the pile on top of it. In theory a new storage facility is an A list priority, but the NSF has very little money, so we don't expect to see it any time soon. The other 2 warehouses are pretty much more of the same. And because of the difficulties in finding stuff, sometimes it gets lost for a long time. There was a case of buckets of corn syrup. It dates from 1996, and has been frozen and thawed so many times it looks like expanded foam insulation. I stated categorically that I would NOT bake with it, so they could heave it aside any time. Ben- the guy in charge, agreed.
Well, just about bedtime, so check for new pics later this week!

see here!

Here is a link to see my pictures.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/heydemann@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=4e0escd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Still working on the pictures.....
I have begun learing how to use the weight room. It's fun, but my quadriceps are very sore. I hope to fit into my jeans somewhat more loosely by the end of the month.
The weather has been great-not too much wind and the sun was out of the clouds for quite a while yesterday!
If any of you could email me a copy of Marvin Bell's poem "Drawn by Earth, By Stones, By things that have been in the fire" I would be grateful-I couldn't find it online. It's in the book of the same name.
The galley keeps getting compliments this year-Sally (the exec. Chef) sends on the glowing emails from people amazed by the quality of the food. Quite an ego-boost. Us bakers are working on a take-off of "Don't Fear the Reaper" called "don't Blame the Bakers", as folks are often heard claiming that those extra pounds are all our fault. When I offer to make crud, they get all upset. Just can't be satisfied, I guess.
I have set this up so anyone can comment-please do!
Here's the address here:
Becky Heydemann
RPSCMcMurdo StationPSC 469
Box 700
APO AP 96599-1035

Wish List

Plenty of you people are generous to a fault. Here I'm willing to exploit that generousity and post a list of stuff I could use. Mail is now being accepted, and will get here in October, more or less..


Some books to keep in the bathroom.
a new five-wheel cake marker on an expandable frame. 2 1/2" wheels.
a small desk fan
a nice pool cue
a couple of bars of Spanish hot chocolate-you can get it at LaTienda.com
A new edition of Lonely Planet-New Zealand-mine is ten years out of date.
The 14" offset spatula from my kitchen in Evanston-thanks, mom!

More to follow...
Becky

New here in Town?

Well, I've gone and done it-started a blog for all you inquiring minds.
It's Saturday today, my first day off since we got here. I have laundry to get done, and a few minor matters to still clear up back in the US. Telecom is great-I can actually contact my bank etc. and it's only Friday there so offices are even open!
Life here at McMurdo Station AKA MacTown is being fun so far. I have a room mate, but we overlap for about 15 minutes a day so while we probably won't become fast friends we won't irritate each other either. It did take a few tries for me to remember her name. When she was in the shower I snuck a look at her Parka-they all have name tapes on them.
At the moment there are few of the Science Types (beakers) here-just the ones who have stayed all winter. The population is all of the service types getting everything up and running. About 400 folks, all of them with a story about why they came down. Gerald has been down here every season for 18 years-this year his three kids are down too. Apparently Mom enjoys the quiet for 5 months a year. Dawn, the youngest, is 23-we don't run a kindergarten after all.
There are several bars that open for a few hours in the evenings-I've been to the coffeehouse but not the others. There's bowling alley with TWO lanes-and you can earn spare cash being a pinsetter. If I can can score a blender off of the SKUA hut I might even make some recycled paper. I'd have to scam a bus tray from the galley-but I'm a baker so it won't look too weird.
SKUA is the spot where folks leave stuff they don't want anymore. Imagine a pretty well sorted back attic and you'll have the idea. There are boxes of clothes, books, food packets, decor, and general "stuff". It's fun to poke around.
The galley crew are all good so far, but there are many more coming down in October. With only 400 to cook for it's relatively calm, so I am doing some fancy stuff for desserts-and we do cookies once a week because round cookies for that many is too many to scoop everyday. Mostly the dough gets rolled into logs and sliced. The cooks like lots of cuisines and plenty of heat-the lime coconut curry soup last night was enough to clear the sinuses. Many of the population would be happy with pot roast and potatoes 5 nights a week, with chicken one night and hot dogs the other, but we force them to expand their culinary horizons! We also have a vegetarian/vegan option at Lunch and Dinner, and Jeff is good-he makes a necessary reliance (it's what we have here) on temphe (slabs of drier-style soybean curd) work out with a huge variation in flavorings.
When I got here it was a) the last flight for another month and b) a new box of freshies-or vegetables not from can or freezer. Some of the winter-over folks ate rather more fruit and veg that they should have all at once-the revenge of the killer tomato struck. I will try to figure out how to post the menus for the week.
Mostly the weather's been ok-but yesterday it got WINDY. Just like home in Chicago.... And it's still to early in the year for 24 hour sunshine! We get sun for about 8 hours a day, then a looong twilight, then some dark. It's odd, but there's been so much cloud cover and general area light that I haven't yet seen the stars. Fewer than 3,000 people on the whole continent, pretty dang dark and NO chance to see different constellations. *sigh*
Well, must get off to run errands. Some things, it seems, are inescapeable.
Becky
The Galley crew plays pool on Monday nights. I'm not quite the worst player there, but it's close! And all of the cues are these weird aluminum ones-they go "tink" when you break.