March of the Penguins is a great movie if you want to see how penguins live in Antarctica.
This day in a life documentary is a lot more boring. This is what I see in one day of living in Antarctica (You can click on the photo for a better view--I made notes on a couple of pictures).
Right now I share my room with a friend named Tad. All residents of McMurdo have to share a room during the summer August-February. Come March I'll have a room all to myself (Note: my grandma made my Penguin bed spread and my neice made my Penguin Pillow case, so don't make fun of these).
Outside of my dorm.
This is building 155. Most building just have a number. Kind of a throwback to the days when the Navy ran this place. Building 155 is the hub of McMurdo. The galley, HR, Recreation, finance, the company store and lots of dorms are in here.
This is where we eat. Best part of this photo is that I'm not washing dishes.
This would be dinner, but since I'm on the night shift I had beef and potatoes for breakfast.
Before going to work I stepped into the coffee/wine bar for a hot cup of coffee. The people drinking wine are on day shift. This is about 6:45 p.m. The wine bar is staffed by workers who, in addition to working 60 hours a week, also want to work part time one night a week. I'm not one of those people who like to work more than the mandated 60 hours a week.
Each day before work, we meet as a team to see what our tasks for the day are or updates on when the Vessel is coming to town. The supply ship should have been here one week ago. Now, with weather and ice conditions it should be here in another week. When Vessel Offload is finished, I get to go back to the regular day shift.
On this day I was assigned to move flammable material in a warehouse. This is where I walked to work.
My coworkers (not nearly as cute as penguins).
After working 5 hours we get one hour for lunch. I workout for 30 minutes in here and then eat. This is at midnight. I'm usually the only one in here (go back to galley photo to see what lunch looks like).
When lunch was done I was reassigned to work at the Crary Lab. This is where I'll be working all winter. As far as Antarctic buildings go, this one is very plush. It doesn't look like a warehouse and it wasn't built during the time when the slogan of McMurdo could have been "If you can't beat'em then Abestos'em." A lot of buildings have asbestos paint. The coffee shop serves warm coffee and the floor tiles are made of Asbestos.
After work I climbed to the top of Ob Hill. And this is what the town of McMurdo looks like. The cross was left here by the Robert Scott's crew to honor his death when he was coming back from the South Pole in 1912.
Well, I guess this is why people who live here say it's like a real life version of the movie Groundhog Day. After climbing Ob Hill and wiping the icicles off my mustache, I went back to Building 155 ate breakfast and then went back to my dorm room and crawled into my closet sized area and went to sleep. Today I've only been working in the Crary Lab. Otherwise, today was just like yesterday and the forecast for tomorrow is looking the same.
![cribbage[1].jpg](http://www.philjacobsen.com/archives/cribbage%5B1%5D.jpg)
In order to come to Antarctica for the Winter, I was flown to Denver for the weekend to take a psychological examination. I was asked a series of several hundred questions similar to "Would you rather be a gardener or write for a newspaper?"
I suppose the correct answer was "Write for a newspaper," because I passed the test.
Aside from coloring in hundreds of black bubbles with my #2 pencil, there was also a thirty minute question and answer period with a psychologist.
One of the questions she asked was the same question a lot of people ask about Antarctica.
"What do you do to pass the time?"
I told her that I play cribbage and that my goal for this Winter was to organize a cribbage tournament and then be the Number One Cribbage Player on an entire Continent.
That's one of the best things about living in Antarctica, if you are the best, worst, fattest, ugliest, most attractive, dart player, bowler, Texas Hold'em player, Parker Brother's Sorry aficionado, etc....If you are THAT person in what ever category you fit into, then you can say "I am the (fill in the blank) on an entire continent."
Now technically this may not be true when you consider those few ugly Russians at the Volstok Base or a gaggle of Greeks or Italians smattered around this Icy Area, but statistically McMurdo has the bulk of the population of this Antarctic continent, so like New York City, if you can make it in McMurdo--you can make it anywhere.
That being said, it already could be time for me to go home, because last night (at 7:30 in the morning) the night shift held a cribbage tournament. Of the 11 people who showed up, 10 went home a loser and I partied until noon as the Best Cribbage Player on an Entire Continent (night shift).
Coming down to Antarctica I thought my job was going to be assisting plumbers in the Winter. Frozen pipes, et. al. I was told I would be one of the workers in Plumbling Supply.
I kind of equated this new job to being like the guy named Verl in the plumbing aisle at Home Depot.
"Hey Verl, you got Caulk?"
"Hell Yeah," Verl would say, "I got Caulk coming out my ass."
As it turns out, I won't have caulk coming out my ass this year (good thing), I've been assigned to being the supply guy for the Crary Science building. This means I'll be fielding questions about test tubes, microscopes and other bits needed for all of those science classes I never passed in school. That's right, I'm Verl the go to guy in a department where my college GPA was less than 2.0.
This doesn't worry me in the slightest, because in the Winter time there are exactly Zero scientists on station. Science, however, is the reason this McMurdo Station is here, so this actually is going to be a very busy season for me. Lots of inventory to count and the first time I was in Antarctica I got so sick I couldn't past the Number Four, so this could interesting.
In the mean time, I'm hoping to use a bunson burner to toast bread and an electronic microscope to keep track of the brain cells I lose to lack of sunlight.
It's 5 a.m. which means it's dinner time for me since I'm on the night shift.
good morning and good night and good luck.
There are two ways to weigh into Antarctica. The slim or fat option.
Living in Antarctica is like living inside an all you can eat restaurant. If all you want to eat day after day is fresh cooked pastries, cakes or cinnamon rolls, then the galley will serve you a baker's dozen each and every day.
And it can show around town. I remember when I first arrived in Antarctica in 2002, I noticed a lot of the people who had stayed here for the winter were past the point of being pleasantly plump--some were quite fat. This was the Winter Jake the Baker cooked up his confections like a Parisian pastry chef.
Knowing the food is readily available, I decided that by coming down to Antarctica I would also try to bring my weight down. The last two times I came to McMurdo I have lost 15-20 pounds by avoiding even looking at what might be on the bakery rack.
But it's really more than just not eating the sweets. In the states my car is littered with fast food wrappers and I have a car. There are neither of those for me in Antarctica.
In Antarctica the most important piece of transportation I own are my Vasque Boots. And they have a little more to carry around this year. When I left Antarctica in February 2005, I stepped off the plane weighing 175 pounds.
Coming back to the states I quickly rediscovered my friend Ronald McDonald or I went South of the Border for a few Taco Bells. Next thing I knew, I arrived in Antarctica like a fat Weddell seal weighing 190 pounds. I think I put on the final 5 pounds in the last week I was in America.
The food selection in McMurdo, while plentiful, might not be considered "gourmet." Before arriving here, instead of cramming for a test, I did all nighters binging on food. I think I had eight consecutive Mexican meals in a row, because avacadoes in Antarctica are as rare as warm days.
In the week I've been here, I can already feel the muscles start to ache and the fat seems to be getting a wake up call to exercise. Working 10 hours a day can do this. Plus, this week the resupply vessel is supposed to come to McMurdo.
This ship, the American Tern, comes to McMurdo once a year to resupply this little science station with all of the goods we'll need for the upcomming year. I've been assigned the job to unload and count, by hand, the food we're going to eat this year.
This may not sound like fun, but when I compare it to washing dishes like the first time I was here, then counting food sounds like going on vacation.
It's midnight, the sun is up, and I need to put on my sunglasses to walk to go do my laundry. Right now I'm switching to the night shift and trying to pretend it's noon outside. The sun being up helps. The coffee helps. Weighing in at 190 pounds of American fast food, isn't helping.
It's like being on the moon.
That's the only way to describe how I feel right now.
After travelling for nearly a week to get down to Antarctica, the C-17 military aircraft that brought me and about 50 others touched down on the ice runway of Antarctica. As the plane hit the Ice I couldn't figure out how the pilot kept the plane in control. Why didn't we just slide off the runway and out into whiter fields of snow. The person I sat next thought the pilot, most likely, was constantly turning the steering wheel into the skid.
I suppose turning an aircraft cabable of carrying a maximum payload of 170,000 pounds into a skid is just as plausible as anything down here. Three days before I arrived in Antarctica a group of three senators and ten congressman came to this little field camp. That meant 1% of my town's population were from the Executive Branch of our government.
Today was my first day of work, the temperature was quite warm. I even rode in the back of the pickup truck soaking up the sites as I buttoned up my parka. It was warm, but not quite ride-in-the-back-of-an-open-pickup-truck warm.
I saw all of the usual suspects around McMurdo. The cross on top of Observation Hill that was laid by the crew of Robert F. Scott around 1916-1917ish. This cross honors the death of Scott and three others on their return trip from South Pole. They missed being the first ones to the south pole by three weeks. I also saw Mt. Erebus, the southernmost active volcano, was spewing steam. Then, there was just the usual hive of activity as folks ran around town like a disturbed ant's hill (that's like two metaphors for the price of one--A hive of activity and a disturbed ant's hill), because it's getting to the final days when the vessel comes into town to give us our supplies for the next season.
The new highlight in McMurdo this year for me 1) there is now a Frisbee golf course set up around station and 2) I'm here until October.
Right now Im in Denver, Colorado.
Last weekend I was sitting in this same hotel sweating out the details of a psychological examination. I passed and this means I am the only certifiably sane person in my family. So, Ive got that going for me--which is nice.
Here is the last story I wrote for the Salt Lake City Weekly. Ill be posting stories from Antarctica from here on out. Stay Tuned and Stay Warm.
After working six months in Antarctica, I returned to Salt Lake City last February and was greeted by the news of the impending death of a dear friend: Juniors Tavern on 500 South and 200 East was going out of business. The prognosis was dim and the outcome was certain. The owner of the building housing my good friend Juniors wanted to expand his restaurant. Then, like Mark Twain sending a transcontinental telegraph, it seemed the rumor of Juniors death was an exaggeration.
February turned to March and March to April. You probably get the gist of how a calendar works and thats how time marched on. Each time I returned to Juniors, I felt like I was visiting a terminally ill patient who kept defying the doctors odds.
Patrons who bellied up to this bar—which has tile work originally laid back when Orrin Hatch was running in his diapers (and not for the Senate)—all had their own version of why we were still able to feel the pulse of Juniors. More important than opinions, though: What each customer had at Juniors was a beer in hand.
When November turned to December, I received an offer to return to Antarctica. Now that its January, I only have one week left in Salt Lake City before heading to Antarctica for 10 months. So much to do with so little time, and the only way to get it all done is to do double-time. When I called my mom to tell her Id miss her, I had another group of friends dialed up on a speakerphone hoping the sentiments would ring true for my mom and to those other mothers listening in.
If I didnt see you before I left town, then please fill in the appropriate blanks:
Dear [your name]: Our friendship meant a lot to me, especially that time we [fill in touching moment]. I still laugh when I think about [insert funny time]. Im sorry I left town [your name] while I still owed you [insert dollar amount], but I promise if you come to Antarctica, Ill pay you back. —Ice Wishes, PhilJacobsen.com [shameless plug for my blog]
While there are some people whom I didnt have time to say goodbye to personally, my friend Juniors was not like [insert your name here]. Besides, I dont know if the heart of Juniors will keep beating during the 10 months I plan on freezing my ass off.
Another friend I couldnt slight with bulk-rate sentiments was my buddy Bryan. Plus, since I owe him enough money that it might be to his benefit to track me down like Robert Scott in search of the South Pole, I called Bryan and offered to buy him some beers and pizza at Juniors.
Working behind the bar at Juniors was the owner, Greg Arata. I ordered a pitcher of Cutthroat and tried to ask him a question about the future of Juniors. I thought he gave me the brush-off because he said he was busy. As it turns out, he was busy.
A few minutes later when Barb showed up for the shift change, and about five minutes after our Freewheeler pizza arrived, Greg came over to our table, Heineken in hand, and asked what my question was.
“Do you want a slice of pizza?” I asked.
I dont know if Greg answered this first question, but he sat down, grabbed a slice and told Bryan and I stories about this friend of ours named Juniors.
Juniors became Juniors in 1975, but this corner bar had been there in some incarnation since the 40s. Greg thought the tile work on the bar was from the 20s and that his last day of business would be at the end of January, maybe February if hes lucky.
And then? Gregs looking at some property for Juniors Part II. In the mean time, run—dont walk—to say goodbye to an old friend. Because, before you know it, instead of a beer, you might get bulk-rate sentiments, an expanded restaurant or even a penguin to keep you warm.