Here We Go...

I have to admit. I never thought I'd be writing a blog. But after seeing Mike Lee's inspired entry into the blogosphere with Brasil Dreams, I decided to follow suit. (Though since I was the one that gave him the idea in the first place, I don't feel like too much of a follower...).

So here I am stuck in lovely Christchurch, New Zealand (more on that later...), writing my first ever post. I'll try to cram in all of the stuff that's happened since I left Chicago a few days ago.

December 30, 2006 to January 1, 2006
It was a miserable morning of packing, but I had finally done it-shoved a few months of clothing and books into my backpack along with some military issue (hopefully clean) long underwear that Will Bain was kind enough to let me borrow. I attached the handy U.S. Antarctic Program baggage tag with that cute little penguin on it and headed to O'Hare. There I met my co-worker Justin, and after a little re-packing to skirt our gear under the Qantas weight limit, we were off to LAX. As you can see below, Justin was particularly concerned about packing for the long, cold Antarctic nights (the TSA woman who hand-searched our gear at O'Hare didn't even bat an eyelash.) [Note: Justin made me self-censor this photo out of the blog...]

The twelve-and-a-half hour flight from Aukland to LA was pretty uneventful. Since we were travelling over New Year's, the flight was empty. I had a whole row to myself, and managed to sleep for most of the flight (thank God...) Qantas has amazing in-flight entertainment though. They have twenty or thirty movies and a bunch of TV shows that you can start, stop, pause, rewind, all on demand. Plus video games.

Before our flight from Auckland to Christchurch, we spent quite awhile having one of those ridiculous arguments that only physicists have: given the flight time and the time zones, did we actually experience New Year's eve at all? After some arguing, some pencil and paper, and some help from passers-by, we concluded that we experienced an hour or so of December 31st ( from midnight to 1:15 AM). At that point, we crossed the international dateline and vaulted ahead a day to 1:15 AM on January 1st. So we never got our midnight toast or kiss with the stewardess. In fact, I think I slept through the whole thing. If we had taken off a little earlier though, we would have been some of the first people in the world to experience 2007. Oh well.

Anyway, most of New Year's Day was spent in Christchurch relaxing, eating, and having some beers. We were to report on January 3rd to the CDC (the Clothing Distribution Center) to get issued our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear. Why the hell does the military use so many acronyms anyway? Will? Departure for McMurdo Station on Antarctica was scheduled for the 4th, and for the South Pole on the 5th.

January 3

Getting the ECW is a pretty interesting experience. You're shoved in a warehouse with 50 other people. You're each issued two bright orange duffel bags with your clothing in them. You try everything on, because, as they repeatedly remind you, your very survival depends on all your clothes fitting properly. As you can see, I had a few problems with my carhart coveralls. Ten pairs later, I found out that it is indeed still possible to dance wearing long underwear pants and shirt, fleece jumpsuit (think the footy-pajamas you wore as a kid...), another fleece jacket, and coveralls.

And on top of it all, the distinctive, bright red USAP parka. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the photo where I'm wearing the face mask and goggles. I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of those when I get down there.



After getting our gear, we found out we wouldn't be flying down to Antarctica on schedule. We fly down on military C-17's (and to the Pole on smaller LC-130's). Apparently the one we were supposed to go down on has been having some mechanical problems (which, everyone assures me, is quite common.) So we were told that we would be flying on Friday. Now that latest word is Sunday, but nobody really knows. I guess they're waiting for a spare part or something. So stay tuned.

What is there to do in lovely Christchurch while you're waiting, you might be wondering? Well, there's really only one answer:































I think that's about enough for my very first post. More soon, I promise...