Wednesday, January 18, 2006
posted 1/18/2006 12:16:00 AM UTC+12, McMurdo Local Time

Fun day today despite working 12 solid hours. Genevieve (sp?,) volunteered to work with Matt and I today, which helped make things a lot more fun. She was really jazzed to be working out at Willy, which I think rubbed off on Matt and I a bit. It was also really nice to have a third set of hands since we ended up fueling a bunch of airplanes. There were at least 6 skiers and 4 twin otters, but might have forgotten one or two. Good conversations, fun projects, no mishaps, good communication, excellent weather.

Here in McMurdo, one of the best ways to get a job in a different department is to go volunteer with them on your (itty bitty little bit) of free time. It's also good because you get a taste of what the other job is like, so you won't spend a lot of time and effort trying to get a job that isn't your thing. One of the nice bits about being in fuels is that a whole lot of other people want to be in fuels as well, so we get a lot of fun volunteers that help make things more interesting.

Hopefully, over the next couple days I'll get some time volunteering with the cargo department. Not so much because I want a job in cargo (I don't,) but because I'll get some time in operating a loader, which seems like it's a good opportunity to learn a useful skill. Plus, I like running big machines in case that hasn't come through here ;)

Sounds like the Polar Star has been deployed from Seattle, and I've heard some rumors that there's a dive team being assembled to come down and try cutting off a blade on the broken propeller to balance it out. Apparently, that's not something that's been done before, but the hope is that by balancing the propeller, they'll be able to spin it along with the other ones and get at least a little thrust out of it. At this point, the damaged prop can't be used at all, so it's stationary and causes a bunch of drag, so the ship is practically disabled. We'll see what happens!

Anyways, it's time for me to grab some food and head towards bed.

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