Station Closing Party - I missed it...

Sorry for the absence but it has been a difficult couple of weeks here. Last week David Benson took his R&R week, which made me the system administrator. Not to mention traffic is at its peak now, with scientists scrambling for time with their projects. Everyone is very transient right now including our staffers going on R&R and replacements coming in and getting a taste of the pole. Dave’s replacement was Chuck Watkins, a full time tech out of Denver who I met briefly in my time training at Raytheon. He did a great job handling the help desk and repair aspects of the job. I was left with email; DOS based AREV systems and general administration of network. It worked out pretty good although I am glad to have Dave back; last night was my first good night sleep in two weeks.

The last day for shipping was on Sunday so I got my boxes out. We can still send letter mail for another week or so. The line was about the length of the main hallway and took over three hours to get through. I used my influence and got to the front of the line.

I have not done much besides work for the last couple of weeks. They had the station closing party on Saturday but I was working as I could not get all the sys admin stuff done during the morning and ended up working until 3:30a.

If anyone is interested Raytheon posted all the jobs for next years austral summer on the www.rayjobs.com site. If you want a trip Antarctica this is a good place to look. I am sure there will be a rush.

I depart Amundsen-Scott a week from Wednesday, the 9^th. At least that is the plan. If all goes well I’ll leave Christchurch on the 16^th and Tim will be on the same flight. Of course one day of bad weather or another break down of the C-141 and that can change. Speaking of Tim, he leaves McMurdo today for two week of vacation in NZ. Must be nice.

I'll try to stay active even if it means staying up til midnight to get my avid readers their South Pole updates.