"Every day is a boondoggle"

Life is slowly approaching something close to normal here at McMurdo. Shuttles has begun making the switch to a 24 hour schedule, so I guess in a way the summer season for 2011-2012 has officially begun.  My last Saturday off for the forseable future was spent at the ATO party, playing poker with firefighters, and stumbling around drunk looking for someplace that wasn't occupied by approximately 500 other people.

I've spent the past two weeks screwing around, but for now I wanted to post some pictures of what I am doing down here in regards to my job. I've been training on lots of different vehicles, but the only ones that really matter are Ivan and the Deltas. When I told people that I was coming down to Antarctica to drive busses, I wasn't that far off. Let me present to you Ivan the Terra Bus:

You might be able to get some of the scale of this thing from the van sitting behind it, but this picture does no justice to Ivan. This thing is a damned monstrosity. The tires alone are 5 1/2 feet tall. It weighs 55,000 lbs without passengers, and in order to turn this thing I need to draft riders to stand by me and help pull the wheel. That's right, this thing has galley slaves.  I've been told that honking the horn plays Kalinka whenever you press it, but who the hell uses the horn in this thing? You just get this thing into sixth gear, crank this baby up to 7 mph, and make whatever is front of you move. For real though, this thing is hard thing to drive, and I'm fortunate that I crashed into anything yet. 

The other large vehicle that we use down here is the Delta.

This is Dawn. She's not as pretty or comfortable as Tina Marie, but everyone loves Tina Marie, so Dawn got some lovin' from me.







There's not much to say about driving these things. The fact that it is articulated means that it has an awesome turning radius. Still, it can get up to a max speed of maybe 20 mph, and the struggle with driving it is in staying awake and not driving off a cliff. Passengers have a different experience though. I think you can simulate the Delta experience by hopping inside a barrel and rolling down the hill near the Comcast Center then promptly getting hit by a NITE Ride van. 

Oh, sweet, it's 1715. I'm gonna go eat dinner, and then watch New Zealand and France play the final match of the Rugby World Cup. I'll write about something else later, after drinking.