Day 10

First Week of Work on the Books
So finished my first week of work last week. Work week is Mon-Sat, 0730 to 1730. We get two 15-minute breaks and a 1-hr lunch. The days don't feel so long, its that additional day that makes the week seem much longer. The week included lots of trainings for vehicle usage and for traveling to restricted areas. Ski-doo (snowmobile) training was definitely the funnest. After a 45-min to 1-hour classroom safety and maintenance training, we got to drive the ski-doos around for 40 minutes.

Food
Food here is pretty good. Some meals are really good, others are mediocore. Although there seems to be only "freshies" - meaning fresh fruit and vegetables only 2-3 days of the week so far. When there are freshies, there is usually a big rush and longer lines. People often take extra food when there are meals that they really like - they'll either saran wrap a plate or bring in tupperware. Everyone has a refrigerator in there room to store drinks and or food. Meals are at set times: 0500-0730 for breakfast, 1200-1300 for lunch, 1730-1930 for dinner, and a 2400-0100 midnight meal called "midrats" (this meal is for nite shift workers, but is open to everyone after 2430). PB and J sandwich making materials and cereal are available at any time.

Pictures
Here's some more pics:

The Logo. The crosshairs near the middle of the continent is the South Pole.


Map to help show positioning in world with pen pointing to where McMurdo is.


Overview of most of McMurdo Station. Taken from Observation Hill.


Here's a plane on the sea ice runway, if you look close you can see a red-orangish speck in the top left of the picture, that's a helicopter. We are scheduled to fly in the helis later. The runway supports C-5, C-17, C-141, C-130, LC-130, and Twin Otter aircraft.

Here's some pics of some of the vehicles out here. There are many vehicles out here that look really fun to operate/drive. I kind of feel like a kid in the sandbox playing with my tonka trucks, looking at all of them and thinking how cool they are. I think I'll be limited to the piston bully, ski-doos (snowmobiles), ATVs, and trucks. (Although I don't have one complaint - these all are going to be sweet to use, with the exception of the truck being the norm)

This is Ivan the Terra Bus. Its used as a shuttle to and from the airfields. Its huge, there isn't really a frame of the reference in the picture, but the tires are very close to my height 5-6 feet tall.

This is a Piston Bully.

This is a Challenger. Its mostly used for transporting cargo. Two pictures.