Radios are beeping ceaselessly, the galley had a line for food for the first time in months, questions for the IT department are coming in rapid-fire, and new faces keep popping up where no one previously tread.

The first load of new folk came in yesterday and the mayhem on station has multiplied many-fold.

We're fortunate to have a 'soft' opening - up to seven flights (weather dependent) of the Basler over ten days, only seventeen people per flight. It gives us a chance to acclimate to the new people and the summer pace without such a shock to our system - a little bit at a time.

Previous to last year, the first day of station opening held three flights of the LC-130 aircraft. Isolated winterovers suddenly had to deal with the station population tripling - 120 new people thrown at them in a rush.

The altitude plays hell with newly arrived folk. As winterovers seek quiet from the hubub we've coined our altitude-affected replacements the, "hypoxic avengers".

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Many of the other winter-overs are keeping up a good run on our lives here as well. Give them a read. Also, I've added Keith, our Canadian cosmologist to the mix.

Posted by noblehobo at 12:57 PM | Permalink

The first plane to land came through just a few minutes past - the Basler (a modified DC-3) stopped to fuel on its way to McMurdo station. We stood on the deck, laughing in the sun (-60 F), counting the new pairs of legs on the ground in the fuel pit.

In two hours one of the Twin Otters (another small plane used in deep field access) will land. The pilots will spend the night. They will be the first new faces we will have seen in our home since February fifteenth.

The orange people are coming.

(that would be the tan people, as opposed to our near-translucent skin)

Posted by noblehobo at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Regarding the long winter's effects on our short-term memory, a quote from a friend:

"I left work to go to the bathroom and walked right by it. About a hundred feet down the hall I remembered...I forgot that I had to pee."

Posted by noblehobo at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You encounter, over winter, a tremendous range of the human condition. Few places outside of warfare bring about the close-quarter mess and encounter that emotion and reason go through in a South Pole winter. I came expecting to encounter tests and challenges in droves, in large dramatic moments. Instead, I've found subtlety and self.

Time and the steadiness of the long dark lead to interactions that last over days and weeks, the drama spread as thin. Encounters are not so alien to those of the outside world but we cannot leave or escape at the end of the day. There is an ebb and flow to our patience, our anger, our satisfaction, our resentment.

In the rush of station opening, the long ebb and flow is building. Tempers and patience are short, arguments quick and hot, and reason requires a great deal more mental effort than usual.

I find my own patience tested regularly, find my own depth of calm far more shallow than I would like. I am tired, worn-down from a year of mental drain. I do not listen well right now, I am far less likely to compromise, and my anger rises quickly. We retreat to those friends who know us well enough to shrug off our quirks, to those whose patience is rarely tested by our actions.

I do count myself fortunate, however, that I still retain the ability to step back and look at how I am reacting. While not always the perfect response, it offers a chance to step away from a reaction that would be permanently damaging and to rectify my actions in the future.

My perspective is clear, even if my ability to control it is not.

How I change as I recover from the winter will be enlightening.

Posted by noblehobo at 12:30 PM | Permalink

The first flight that we'll have seen since February fifteenth is scheduled to arrive next Tuesday (this is, of course, as weather dependent as everything here). The planes will be the Twin Otters and Basler coming through from South America on their way to McMurdo Station. They won't be here long (the first flight with summer crew will be next Thursday) but they'll bring fresh faces and fresh fruit.

It'll be intriguing to see how we all react, especially considering how strange its been just to see one of our members who shaved off a year-old beard...

We're in the midst of station opening - the rush of tasking to get the place ready for incoming flights and for the pile of people that populate the summer. I'll have a couple of weeks of turnover with my replacements in IT and on the emergency response teams, a couple of days in McMurdo with friends, and then off to New Zealand on November tenth.

The thought of walking barefoot in grass in the middle of a rainstorm is very, very heavy on my mind.

In other news regarding life here, one of the three satellites that we use to connect to the outside world had another component fail. In response, before they lose control entirely, Intelsat will be de-orbiting the bird on November 30th. It won't affect me (I'll be on a beach some where) but it does point out the fragility of communications here.

All of the satellites that we rely on were built before I was born - all are on their last legs. There are backup options and plans but with every change comes some sacrifice. With this one, the available window for satellite communications (internet, phones, email) will shrink from eleven hours a day to nine. Of those, only about six will be decent enough for web browsing and phone calls during the summer.

It will alter things in small ways but then that's life. The constant ebb and flow of action and response, of maneuvering with the unknown that unfolds daily.

Posted by noblehobo at 1:22 PM | Permalink

The first of two articles was published in the Mankato Free Press today - here is the link:

Blue Earth man finds job, home at South Pole

It's a trip getting published - a combination of thrill and wariness. They are my words that you read but my words as altered by a final round with an editor I don't know. There's much to learn in this process and a great deal of ownership to let go of in order to be satisfied.

As an editor friend of mine put it - I decide what words to put my name to but the editor decides what words to put in the publication.

Posted by noblehobo at 9:28 AM | Permalink

On a note that finally contains a decent excuse for not writing here, I've just been published. If you're in the mood to peruse a few words on Antarctica, go visit inthefray.org. It's an online magazine with bent toward sharing unique experiences and acting in the mind of social change. You can find the article here. In companion to the article is a series of incredible photographs by Calee.

Also, barring any unforeseen issues in the editing process, I'll have two articles published in the Mankato Free Press newspaper on October 12, and 19 - both Sundays.

Posted by noblehobo at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"The course of wisdom consists of learning to trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones."

- Marcus Aurelius

Posted by noblehobo at 4:07 PM | Permalink