"Team Crunk, Yo!" After Winning Antarctic Trivia Contest Second Month In a Row

Nothing moves in our sky.

Birds don't fly this far south for the Winter and airplanes don't travel in and out of McMurdo with their runway lights blazing. We would be more apt to see a flightless penguin streak across the moon riding in the basket of a young boy's bike, then we would to see something flying into McMurdo.

One if by land.

Two if by sea.

Three if by air and I'll pee my pants.

Now that the sun has set we have had a couple of days with very nice weather. Today I worked outside most of the day. It got as high as 15 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind took the day off. Considering Noah could have sailed an ark for as many days as the average here been below zero, 15 was very warm.

Imagine what it must be like to work outside all day in Antarctica. Breathing the air is like putting a box of Halls Mentho-Lyptus cough drops in your mouth and then sticking your head in a freezer all the while you're sucking on an ice cube.

I've had friends say they couldn't work in Antarctica because "it's seems so cold." Even on days when it's as high as 15 it's not cold here. When I step outside to work for 10 hours, my body and brain don't say, "Burr, it's so cold." No, I usually get a resounding message firing from synapses to my capillaries yelling "Survive. Survive."

Working outside today, I spent most of the day forging crevasses and making new trails across the ocean on a snow machine so science groups could travel safely around the continent. The Winter over crew is considered to be kind of like the red shirts on Star Trek-we're tough, but expendable.

Oh, wait-that's what I do in my dreams about working in Antarctica.

Today I did inventory-Outside!

We have these things called "Milvans," because that's what they're called. Working in a milvan is like spending 10 hours sitting in the back of a 14ft U-haul trailer. In some of these milvans there are shelves and on these shelves are all of the supplies a science group in the future might need to forage crevasses and to make new trails across the frozen ocean.

Over the Winter I count everything from their microscopes and centrifuges to their tinfoil and zip lock bags. Antarctica taught me today that the science groups next year have 4,000 cotton balls waiting for them.

Working with me in Milvan 819 was my/our (depending if you know her) friend Shandra. Her job was to do all of the work, and my job was to sit on a box of 20" Dry Wipes and to let Shandra know, for instance, how many cotton balls she might come across on the shelf. I held the paper work with all of the information we needed to do the job.

We spoke in a special Antarctic code, called MAPCON to do our job. Shandra would say, "0040891" then I would say, "4000" and she would say, "4000. D2458."

This meant MAPCON number 0040891 (cotton balls) was the next item on the shelf. I then responded, "4000" letting Shandra know this is how many cotton balls we should have on the shelf. When she responded with "4000," then I knew she found the correct quantity. And, the next item on the shelf would be cheese cloth D2458).

Basically, I only had one job, and for eight hours I looked at the paperwork and said, "37 feet of tubing" or "4000 cotton balls" or "9000 zip lock bags" or "three pieces of cheese cloth."

And then, at the end of the eighth hour, I heard Shandra say, "D4217." Since the box of Dry Wipes I was sitting on was at the other end of the Milvan from where Shandra stood, I turned my head away from the sky that looked so clear, with stars starting to show above Observation Hill and said, "What?" The hue of our sky was kind of blue, but at the same time it wanted to be pink. The sky was very androgynous.

Shandra was holding a box, and she said again, "How many are there of D4217?"

I said, "I don't know, you're the one holding the box." It was like I had just been transported to Milvan 819 and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with Shandra's obscure numeric gibberish question.

I could tell she was getting frustrated, but at that moment I don't know if I could have told you her name. I was kind of like an overdue library book. I was checked out. Maybe it was too many numbers. Maybe it was the cold. Or maybe it was the sky. Or maybe, "Phil, do you need a break?"

It was the cold that isn't cold. It was the cold that says, "Survive. Survive." I only had one job to do, and sitting on a box for so long, I had frozen my ass and then forgot to think.

After work, I was walking back to my dorm room and I looked up into the night. Now my brain said, "consider peeing your pants."

The sky had definitely transitioned through its genders and had decided to be black. I could see the Southern Cross and the Milky Way and then I saw the brightest star this side of Bethlehem.

This star was brighter than the moon. This star made me look around for two of my trivia teammates so three Wisemen could gather Cold, Frozen Tents and Burr to follow the star.

Then, after a little bit of thought, I remembered looking at the sky right were this star was and milliseconds earlier the star wasn't there. As I was thinking that thought the star had other things on its mind and started traveling from right to left towards McMurdo.

Just at the first moment when the first trickle of piss was going to moisten the bottom of four layers of clothing, I remembered hearing about this phenomenon called an Iridium Satellite. I suppose it's not really a phenomenon if it's manmade, but my Jockey shorts are manmade and I considered it a lucky phenomenon they weren't soaked.

From what I've learned, an Iridium Satellite has very large gold wings (at least it does in my imagination), and when the Satellite passes over this polar region it reflects the sun like a magnifying glass trying to fry ants on McMurdo. Possibly this happens all over the world, or just here, I haven't figured that part out, but those smart scientist have a place on the World Wide Web that will tell me, to the second, when the next satellite will pass over my head.

Chances are if I can't even remember what my one job is when I only have one job to do, this will be the last time I remember anything about Iridium Satellites until the next time I think that I am the Chosen One.

On February 28 the last person left Antarctica and they forgot to turn out the lights. When the last plane left McMurdo, there was so much daylight in any given day, that it took another week before I even saw a star.

For awhile there it felt like we had started the Winter and were getting away without paying our electric bill but still getting free sunlight.

On the 24th of April, the utility company of God, Jesus, Allah, and Apollo got together and realized that they were lapse in their late notices and decided it was time to set the sun on Antarctica. I don't know what's going on in your neck of the woods, but down here-we're in the dark.

However, you can keep your Christmases and Chanukahs and celebrations that go on up above the Antarctic Circle, because down here, we celebrated the setting of the sun and while Hell may still be hot I can only guess that the Devil has pulled out his cardigan because at the bottom of the world life has frozen over.

My friend Holly sent me an email a while ago and she said that according to her random facts and useless knowledge rip-a-day-page-calendar that Antarctica is the only continent where wine is not produced.

So-to celebrate the setting of the Sun, we had a wine tasting party. While this may not prove her calendar incorrect, at least it goes to show we still know how to enjoy the movie Sideways while seemingly standing Upside Down on the bottom of the world.

There were eight different bottles of wine to sample including six red wines and two white wines. The reason there weren't more white wines is because we are surrounded by white. Our life is a white whine. There's really no need to drink white in Antarctica.

The wine tasting was a semi-formal affair, at least that's what I found out after I showed up wearing my best baseball cap, Carhart workpants and a sweater that still had cat hair on it because I hadn't washed this wool since arriving here in January.

Trust me. I'm not beating a dead horse, but tonight I'm working at the Library and seven minutes before I walked through these doors, I had three people (two of them librarians and one person who refuses to return to the library because of an "other worldly experience") say, "Beware of ghosts."

I think what I should really be aware of are people who are jerks. We may not have every thing you could possibly want down here, but the "Jerk Store" certainly isn't running out of their supply.

I don't really think about the things I don't have, or what I wish I had available to me in Antarctica, I think that's kind of like asking an Astronaut if he is tired of Tang. There are too many new experiences to miss the old ones. But recently someone asked that very question. At dinner I asked a couple of people what they missed, then a few people at lunch and I contemplated my oatmeal at breakfast. The answer to what we miss was completely different, but also exactly the same.

We talked about our cats and dogs.

At some point in Antarctica history, with treaties and tree huggers getting their tongues stuck to icebergs, it was decided that absolutely no non-native animal could be brought to Antarctica. Possibly it was because Ernest Shackleton had a stowaway cat by the name of Mrs. Chippy on his ship the Endurance that soured this continent on the nines lives of cats in a cold climate. Mrs. Chippy was the companion of the carpenter Henry 'Chippy' McNeish.

After the Endurance buckled under the pressure of the ice, Shackleton "The Boss" said to Chippy McNeish "What's Black and White and Red all over?" And Chippy answered, "A Newspaper?" and Shackleton replied, "No. The Snow once you put a bullet in the brain of your cat."

Shackleton wasn't known for his sense of humor.

Even though I'm in The Library, surrounded by books and hooked to a computer connected to the world wide web, I don't have an answer to the question of when animals were no longer allowed down here. Let's just say, the movie "Eight Below" took place when Madonna really could have been "like a virgin."

There are a few people on station who "think" they own a cat. There are litter boxes and food dishes stationed around McMurdo. In my dorm, on my floor, three doors down from my room there sits a bowl with three pieces of cat food in it. I suppose--waiting for a cat named Godot.

The only animal I've heard of down here right now, perhaps the only animal on this entire continent is a spider named Vern. And even though Vern has eight legs he is currently on his last one. I mean, what do you feed a spider, when there aren't any bugs in any of the darkest corners of a room?

Vern came down here this summer on a shipment of lettuce. Like a gladiator he fought his way to the top of the food chain by besting several other spiders, grubs and random bugs. For being the best and strongest spider on an entire continent, he is now rewarded with a diet of water. There are no creepy crawly things to feed Vern and he's starving, but he won't eat, and we've tried everything.

Even sticking our fingers to draw fresh blood. This is how desperate we are for a pet.

A green laser shoots out of the building where I work. This laser studies stuff.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today. One of the prize winners mentioned the best thing about winning the Pulitzer was that from here on out she would be referred to as Pulitzer Prize Winner Suzy--or whatever her Pulitzer Prize winning name happened to be.

Along the same vain, last night I was talking to my friend Martha on the phone and she said, "Do you realize how many times in one conversation you mention that you spent 14 months washing dishes?"

First off, please refer to the Pulitzer Prize winner Suzy.

There are times in a person's life that are really defining, award winning, Guinness Book of World Record moments. Some people win the Pulitzer others hold the record for continual dishwashing (National Science Foundation Stamp of Approval) in Antarctica.

And secondly, Martha will always be jealous of my dishwashing tenure because she only washed dishes with me for eight of my 14 months.

If you happen upon this story right now, you're reading it too early. Tonight is my bowling night and I don't have time to finish this tangential thought or even correct the way to spell "Guinness." Please tune in later.

Welcome back. I changed the spelling of Guiness to Guinness and I bowled a 127.

The point I was trying to make.

My first 14 months as a dishwasher (another mentioning of my Pulitzer Prize Winning Title), I knew the entire community because I saw each and every person every dishwashing day. Last year I worked at a job called "Central Supply." This supply job was central to the community--hence the catchy name.

While working in Central Supply was an n! factorial equation three million times better than washing dishes, the Central Supply job had one thing in common with dishwashing--I worked with and for nearly every person on station. Going to work was like stepping out on a stage. Each day was a performance to keep people well supplied and, in a good customer service way, sometimes even entertained.

At the end of the day with both jobs, I didn't have much desire to put myself out in the community or go to the recreation department sponsored events. Spending time alone was what I craved more than dressing up as a pirate, a baby blue planet or frozen hurricane at the Mardi Gras party.

This year is different. Very different. Instead of working with the community, I work with MJ. Together the two of us are tasked with inventorying and preparing the science building--the Crary Laboratory--for all of the researchers who will be returning here next season.

Today we are counting microscopes, yesterday we counted underwater camera cables and tomorrow I'll be counting on my trivia team to defend last months #1 win over at Scott Base.

Now, instead of being a part of the McMurdo population while I work, I crave the community after hours.

There's an episode of the Brady Bunch where Jan (also the middle child) feels like she must participate in every after school activity from Scuba diving to the Chess Club to the Proper Horticulture Club for taking care of Astroturf in your backyard.

After spending the day counting inanimate microscopical pieces, the last thing I want to do is sit in my dorm room counting flowers on the wall.

This year, I'm Jan Brady. And that don't bother me at all.

photo by Bill Henriksen

This is Mount Discovery and I think you're familiar with the Moon.

The Sun now skirts around the horizon like a hula-hoop around a fat guys lumpy cellulited belly. In other words, just because the Sun is circling the Earth, doesn't mean we get to see it. The sun is riding so low that no sunshine actually hits McMurdo because of the lumpy terrain that we are tucked away against.

The only true sunshine that I can see is when the Sun touches the tops of the hills around McMurdo. Three days ago I had to do some inventory in a building at the base of Observation Hill and I timed it so that I could see the Sun, possibly for the last time, until late August or Mid-September. Even though I know I'm not supposed to, I stared right at the sun. It was bright. It burnt an image in my corneas. Literally. The way I see it (and I see it with a sunspot) is since I won't see the sun for five months, staring at it once should be okay.

In the mean time, I thought you should see what I see every day. There really is beauty all around.

A ping pong tournament and Alien Space party were the talk of the town this weekend. Of course, weekend is really a misnomer when you only get one day off a week.

So, what do we do on our day off, we make the most of it.

Saturday night the New Zealand Antarctic base, Scott Base, held a "Space Alien" themed party. I'm not much for dressing up in a costume so I was the last one to visit the costume room on station before heading over to the party.

My friends thought it would be fun to go dressed up as Planet Orange, Planet Yellow, Planet Green, Planet Black--you know--colors! I ended up as Planet Powdered Blue--not exactly the most feared orb in the universe, but at least I got to wear a bald eagle, baby blue trucker's hat.

As far as costumes go, I think mine came in last place. Later that night when, I went to bed, Planet Red and Planet Light Blue came into my solar system as unwanted planetary guests. They rolled into my room, jumped on my bed and covered me in silver confetti and wet toilet paper. Like my mom always said, "They only make fun of you if they like you."

In case you want to try this at home--don't. The confetti ends up sticking to your body as though it were made of crazy glue. At least this is what happens if you just sleep in the confetti and toilet paper. It took over an hour for me to pick all of the confetti off my body. In the end, I had little pink confetti dots all over my body from where the confetti irratated my skin. Planet Red and Planet Light Blue were quite pleased with their intergalactic mischief.

Sunday was all about Ping Pong. When I play Ping Pong, I feel that fear and intimidation are the only way to win this game, so I sported my Lyle Alzado sleeveless T-shirt. The front of the shirt says "Shit Happens" and the back says, "Winning is the only option."

My paddle "pinged" and my paddle "ponged," but in the final game the magical intimidating figure of my shirt fell through the cracks when I was not able to put the Ping and the Pong together. Hopefully Mr. Alzado won't be waiting for me in October when I get off of this continent, because winning wasn't my option. Out of the 32 people who showed up for the tournament I came in second place.

Tonight I'm headed to the bowling alley. I'm not the best bowler, but maybe with Lyle Alzado's help, I can be the second best tonight.

The People I Work With. Supply Department Winter 2006
There's a reason I'm standing with my hands, arms and elbows all sprawled out.
See photo at end.

I just took a piss.

Now this in and of itself isn't noteworthy, I've been peeing since the day I was born. That's not the story. The fact I lifted the lid, flushed the toilet and washed my hands is barely even worth mentioning.

The story, like the Devil, is in the details.

Tonight I'm working at the Library. The last time I worked here, I let the ghosts get into my brain. After work, and for the next week or two I started paying attention to the eerie conversations around town. I started listening for ghost stories.

One of my friends I work with is convinced if he set up a camera in the gymnasium and had it take time lapsed photos during a 24 hour period, then the truth about ghosts wouldn't need to be told in words, because one picture would be worth seven words: "Holy shit. There are ghosts in Antarctica."

I've listened to the ghost stories and even searched them out. The three basic stories revolve around ghosts in the Gym, at the Library or in the Crary Lab.

Oh. Let's. See. I'm at the Library RIGHT! now and I work at the Crary Lab. I am like a child at a campfire not wanting to listen to another scary story, but also thrilled at the prospect of hearing-Just one more.

Tonight, I had a plan, my idea was to not write about the ghosts, but to write about the living people who haunt Antarctica. The people of this station, every single one of us are very important to the make up of this community. We are a small compact city of 202 people and whether you're the boss of this organization, the drunk at the bar or the asshole who you hope you don't end up working with all Winter, you contribute to the make up, the weave and fabric of this community.

Then, as I walked up the frozen stairs to the door of the Library and flipped the sign from "Shut" to "Open," the thoughts about writing about the people of McMurdo disappeared because I was haunted by the words of Craig.

He knew I was working at the Library tonight, and when I got up from the dinner table to come to be with the books, he said, "Beware of the ghosts."

This was an unprovoked ghost assault. A drive by ghosting. A class B misda-ghost. A third degree Ghostering.

Craig instantly went from one of the threads in the blanket of this community to being an ass. I wasn't even thinking about ghosts. Well, at least I wasn't completely fixating on them, like I am now.

There are only a few people who have the key to the Library, so after flipping the sign to "Open" and seeing the door was locked, I knew I should be alone. The only way anything could be in the Library tonight would be if they were, um, dead. So, for good measure, as I came bursting through the door I yelled, "Come out come out wherever you are."

I might as well have shouted, "Apple peaches pumpkin pie, if you're a ghost holler 'I.'"

Like all shifts in the Library, this one began very slowly no one comes to the Library when I'm working. Everyone I saw today I said, "Tonight I'm working at the Li-Berry, please come by."

But no one has.

After about an hour without an apparition or a patron, I needed to pee. The closest bathroom is out two doors, through the dark, turn left at the cold, and then run into the back of the Galley. The Galley toilets I know by heart. These are the bathrooms I used when I spent the record setting 14 contiguous months washing dishes down here.

Right now it's minus 11 outside. But that's a "warm" minus 11 because the wind isn't blowing-very much. It's a quick enough run to the restroom that I didn't need to take the time to put on my coat. I dashed. I splashed. I washed up.

On the run back to the Library, I started to get a really cold feeling. You know, the kind they say happens whenever a ghost is nearby. The door of the Library was unlocked and this cold feeling told me there was going to be a ghost party in the Library the likes of which would make the "Monster Mash" look silly.

Hell and fury came bursting through the doors, I planned to beat these demons at their own games, I ran up and down the rows of dead authors, pulp and fiction yelling, "Apple Peaches, Pumpkin Pie..."

Even though I had just done the Number One, the piss could have been scared right out of me if anyone or thing had come in to check out a book while I was checking my bladder at the Galley.

As it turns out, minus 11 is just too chilly to go running foolishly outside. There wasn't a cold ghost, I should have worn a coat.

The jackets we're issued have reflective tape over the pockets so we can easily be spotted in the 24 hours of darkness (The sun sets at the end of this month). By looking slightly goofy, I took it for the team and covered up the bright spots you see Pre-Me.

There is a place in Antarctica colder than Antarctica. This place is the freezer where all of our food is kept. At first thought it seems to defy all logic that there is a building in Antarctica dedicated to keeping things cold. Antarctica seems pretty capable of handling this on its own. When I first heard there was a freezer down here I thought isn't that kind of like having a building in the middle of Disney Land dedicated to not having fun.

Imagine if you were instantly transported down to McMurdo right now. I could give you a walking tour of this little town where I live. After you were suited up into several layers of warm clothing, you'd get to see the Power Plant that creates the electricity to power the Water Plant that desalinates the ocean to give us drinkable water that the cooks use to prepare our meals so the Waste Plant can process our poop and our pee and finally, for those of you who didn't give up on the tour and head to the Galley to get some hot chocolate because you were so cold, I would say, through my mustache frosted over with ice, "That building is the one we use to magically keep food cold."

During the summer when the temperatures can reach up into the low 40's, the freezer is kept cold in the same way a refrigerator works in your house but with larger and louder parts. In the Winter, the motors are turned off, and the freezer works by using the "Hey, who left the barn door open?" kind of way.

On Friday, when the temperature was a beautiful and balmy zero degrees in Antarctica, it was minus thirty in the freezer. I know this, because once a month I have to work in the freezer, and Friday was my day.

The giant warehouse of refridgerization is across the street from where the Galley is located. Once a week the cooks in the kitchen order their food, this order then goes to a guy named Ben.

Ben is like the personal shopper for the Galley. He takes the cook's grocery list and plucks the food off the shelf. The reason Ben needs help with his job once a week is because the cooks are ordering hundreds of pounds of pork, lamb, chicken, chicken, chicken and chicken. With the amount of chicken we are served on a daily basis in McMurdo, I am convinced that at some point in Antarctic History, Shackleton must have written, "The only reason the crew of the Endurance survived scurvy, starvation and mental retardation through extreme isolation can be summed up by one simple word: Chicken."

There are four or five people in the Supply Department who are on the monthly Freezer Pull project, this is why I only have to do it once a month, and this is why I left for work Friday morning dressed in all of my cold weather survival gear-not because I was going to work outside, but because I would be working indoors in Antarctica in a room that was colder than Antarctica.

A normal workday starts at 7:30 a.m. I usually revolve my morning around spending my first thirty minutes of work drinking my coffee. By eight o'clock when my first cup of coffee has been downed, I brew another pot of coffee and look forward to working the other nine and half hours in my day.

In the freezer, right around 7:40 a.m., my entire cup of coffee was frozen solid. Then the day got progressively longer.

The food in the freezer arrived on the vessel that came to McMurdo at the beginning of February. There is enough food in this freezer to last for at least one year. This means, one month into our Winter, the freezer is packed full of food.

There are towers of frozen vegetables, pastures of slaughtered cows stacked in wooden crates and entire hen houses all cooped up in this freezer. Some of the food was easily accessible, but because of the sheer volume of food right now, some was not. For the food that was stacked on the shelf 20 feet off floor, Ben would drive a forklift and I would ride inside a "Man Basket" getting raised and lowered collecting boxes in this giant motorized shopping cart.

Riding on top of the forklift after plucking 150 pounds of chicken patties and on the way to getting 200 pounds of chicken breasts the negative 30 wind was blowing through my nostril hairs and I felt like the opposite of Leonardo DiCaprio as he stood on the bow of the Titanic yelling, "I'm on top of the world!"

Here I was riding on the bow of a man basket yelling "I'm on the bottom of the world!" without fear of hitting an iceberg because I was working in an iceberg and as soon as I pulled this chicken off the shelf, I knew it would be break time. Then, Ben and I would go outside, sit on the loading dock of the freezer, take off our coats and rejoice in the zero degrees heat of Antarctica.

This is what I thought, and this is what we did. And I'll always remember that time in my life when zero degrees was hotter than seeing Kate Winslet's breast.