Friday, January 11, 2008

For a few dollars more...

So the ship's left and I'm still here, working in my new, extended contract as "Base General Assistant". It's a general Gofer job which depending on who I'm talking to, can either be described as "waste export manager", or bin-man. I took this offer as it means I leave in March, which is more convenient for meeting my family and lining up my next job.

Dave S is now capably handling the Met role single-handedly, although I popped back in the other morning to help troubleshoot the Automated Weather Station, which was having issues. Luckily Ryan speaks Perl and re-jigged the code, so all's well. There's talk of some more field work in a few weeks, but for the time being I just take on whatever odd jobs need doing. Working with Andy and James, I've compressed waste, tidied the garage, re-marked the route to Halley VI, unblocked the melt-tank shaft and recorded a radio-diary for Radio 4. It's been physical and varied, to say the least!


Nicolla unblocks the melt-tank shaft

The new buildings are slowly taking shape, but the weather's Halleyed-out again, so there's no photos to see. To the south, the skyline has changed dramatically, with the tall masts and wide radar antenna gone allowing an open view of the polar plateau. More accommodation buildings have sprung up to house the South African contractors who are causing the waste team enormous grief as they slowly learn the concept of material separation. Did Spitting Image get it right, we ask at times.

But smiles were back on faces for Dean's 30th. After a good evening's boarding, we sat in the bar as he opened his present - 2008's latest ride:


Dean's new ride - 30 today!

Can't wait to see how that goes behind a skidoo.

1 Comments:

Blogger Paul Capewell said...

recorded a radio-diary for Radio 4

Sorry to focus on just one thing, but can you tell us any more about this? Sounds interesting!

10:44 pm GMT  

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