Playing the stock market in Antarctica... Bottom of the earth, periods of 24 hr darkness, temperatures down to -100, limited internet connectivity and phone communications that are... as I understand it so far... transmitted across McMurdo Sound by microwave to a communications outpost at Black Island, beamed up to a satellite, received in Australia, and sent via underwater cable to the States.
Sounds like a good idea, right?
So far anyway(knock on wood)... oh well dont bet what you cant afford to lose.
Feeling a little fuzzy today after a week of The Cold from Hell. Not sure what it was but an acquaintance got so wiped by it he sat down outside his work building to rest and decided it was a good idea to take a nap there (-30 that day). Fortunately a coworker came along. Been up for 3 days coughing, station store's closed... the doc took a look at me and offered me my first taste of Schedule IIIs. Vicodin woohoo! Turned it down though, jeez all i wanted was some Nyquil! Hope they add this strain to the flu shot brew for next year.
Feeling better now. My Kelly day's tomorrow so I get three days off. Did a P90X cardio workout today followed by Abs. Thinking about a hike to Castle Rock this week. Explanation: We work 24 on 24 off and each of us has an assigned Kelly day that we get off. Mine is Thursday so I'm always off on Thursdays. The way it works out this month is that I work this Tuesday, off Thursday, work Sat, Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun, Tues, then get my Thursday off again and so forth.
Shift change is at 0800 every day, so we're expected to be at the station by 0745 to get our gear on the truck we're assigned to for the day, tag in, and check our MSA pack over, relieve the offgoing person assigned to that seat and get a briefing from them. Our first shift was Tuesday. We spent the morning cleaning the station and fixing equipment (it breaks down fast and frequently here). We have a 1 hour workout then lunch. We spent the afternoon doing Driver/Operator and Dispatch training. The remainder of the shift, 1700-0800, is our own time to spend as we see fit. At 0800 the second day we do shift swap including a group briefing with the oncoming crew, then we have the day to ourselves.
After working an ungodly number of hours/wk the past 18 months, it's really, really great to have Time to do simple things like read, workout, and hang out with people.
Jeez girl, told you to take care of yourself. Oh well, hope you're feeling better soon. I'm doing well, 'bout to start up with good old AMR again. Moving down to RI end of the month, should be interesting to say the least. Assuming that is I can stay off my roomate's nerves. Looks like I'll have the most flexible schedule so my down time might not exactly coincide with theirs. I'll keep you updated as to how life goes as things tick along. Get some rest and for the love of all that's holy get better.
ReplyDeleteI like to hit the Vitamin C pretty hard on cold/flus, ever since reading Linus Pauling's research and this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.doctoryourself.com/cathcart_thirdface.html
I figure we must have lost something useful when we lost that gene.