The Blow-a-way is up and due to receive power and heat tomorrow. Pulling the blanket over it always brings satisfaction even though the job is far from done. Flaps need to be battened down, the lights hung, and shelves assembled. The blanket is the fun part though. Five or six guys haul on lines to raise it up and over the frame. Feels good.
I will try and remember it while I am back inside tomorrow.

After interior confinement for many months the time came today to work outside. The pre-fab shop, affectionately referred to as the Blow-a-way, is a aluminum framed tent 18ft high and shaped like a half pipe. During Winfly it provides a home for the Polies who are prepping for projects two months and nearly 800 miles away.
The morning hike to the shop always reminds me how bitter the wind can be. An extra layer is added to defend against it and soon tossed to the side as my body heats up from shoveling. The first half of the day is spent teetering between these two temperatures as my activity level and the windspeed fluctuates. After a massive mexican lunch all my blood has abandoned my skin for my stomach and the fingertips begin to chill.
As the first end wall goes up the mood of the group drops a notch. It is blowing hard and we are too close to a cup of hot chocolate to think about anything else. The last bar goes up and without direction everyone wraps up, grabs tools and heads inside.
Halfway through its assembly, it seems like whale ribs washed up behind the shop.
I remember why I like working outside.

Two hundred new faces. You can't help but run into one. They are in the hallways and between buildings. In front and behind you at the juice machine. Scraping their plates at the food waste barrels. In the room across the way. At your workcenter. They outnumber us now.
Some of us panic and shy away. Others have excited reunions with friends. A few of us have all but disappeared, choosing to avoid the congestion. When choosing a table in the galley we all seem to gravitate toward other winter-overs in hope of avoiding the question, "How was your winter?"
FNG or seasoned vet, none of us really know what to do with each other. The new ones have been warned to be kind to us. As a result they will step aside and make apologies for being wherever they think you want to be.
Most are tan, even if only by our standards. Many wore shorts outside last week. They talk fast and don't forget where they put things. They still remember an agenda that included something other than waking up in time for work.
Having a new crew restores energy while helping to confirm the notion that there is somewhere else than here.

24 hour delay for flight. Pink highlighter tells all you need to know. The reasons are not complicated. The same high winds that kept Fleet Ops. at the runway deposited a lot of snow on the runway. Fleet Ops. needs 24 hours to clear it off.
A delay means, two of, many things in the Antarctic community.
1. There is a group of people who should be in Christchurch, NZ right now.
2. There is a group of people who are in Christchurch, NZ right now.
The first group is likely to be sitting in a dorm room, bags packed and palletized with a hand carry and ECW trying to fall asleep without thinking of being in CHCH.
Either that or they are in a bar. The second group is likely to be in a bar, bags packed and palletized, persuading themselves to go to sleep so they can wake up early before putting on ECW before flying to McMurdo.
Those of us staying go on about our days much as normal. For us it means that the subject of conversation is generally about the upcoming flights or some derivative of. How many pounds of freshies we are getting? 400 or thereabouts. Will the delay mean later flights will be consolidated? Yes or no depending on who you ask. Do you think it will fly tomorrow? Around here? Who knows.
The pink highlighter.

Sunrise. After wetting our appetite for nearly three weeks with progressively longer, yet still small, doses of light the sun will rise again today. With it come 200 tan and healthy (aside from the few with just enough sickness to cripple all our weak immune systems) folk who are ramping up for Mainbody.
Many will get off the plane and cough upon their first inhalation, the air so dry and so cold. Others will raise a glove to block the biting wind on the runway. All of them will talk faster, ask more questions and make contact quicker than those of us who have spent the last eight months gradually grinding down.
Yep. We are all pretty tired. The most tired will be leaving on the planes the new arrive on. And those of us who are staying will either absorb the energy of the arrivals or hide and seek energy from the familiar friends of winter.
At the same time there is much talk of travel and what we all will be doing when we actually leave the ice nearly two months from now. Some straight home. Others living in NZ for awhile. Australia will receive much attention from the likes of us. Thailand too. And still others are talking of trips around the world.
The talk today, however, is of the sun.

Satisfaction comes after much struggle with password agreements.

begin

a constant process of beginning