The New Year, Ice Sculpture, Card Games

New Years eve was a blast! I had so much fun kicking off the night with our eight member "Bluegrass Band" I can't remember if we came up with a name or not. We played for about an hour and fifteen minutes, and then "Dawgs on Speed" came on to play for a couple more hours and rock us polies into the new year!

There have been several people spending hours outside working on their Ice Sculptures the past couple weeks, the judging was on Sunday but no results yet. Gus and I made a dog out of our chunk of snow and ice. It was a pretty fun time! The first day we worked on it I went and got all the tools gathered up which included and electric chainsaw, generator, and a hammer. While Gus was working at the 'store' I was outside sawing and hacking away at our block hoping it wouldn't all fall apart and end up looking like a big pile of ice blocks! Turns out I was able to get a rough shape down and by the time Gus arrived it was ready for more details like the legs, head, and tail. He is a real life dog musher and has ran the Iditarod a couple times so his knowledge of doggie proportions and anatomy helped a lot! We worked for several hours through frozen beers and parts falling off, at one point we had to 'glue' the jaw and a paw back on with slush! We managed to get everything put back together and after one more day spent fine tuning, I thought he was a fine pup! They outlawed dogs here at the Pole in 1994 because of water supply contamination issues, so it's nice to have a four legged friend here, even if you have to use your imagination a bit!

There is also a cribbage tournament going on right now with around 20 people playing! I lost my first match and won the second, now only about 5 games left! There is also a good amount of time spent playing rummy and hearts. I have a season long bet going with Darren on a rummy game, our scores are well on their way to 10,000 points. The lead has been back and fourth. Last night I played Apples to Apples with a group of dayshift friends (Travis, Grace, Brian, Mark, Phil, and Wayne) until 2am! Late night for them, but so much fun!

Everyone has started talking about what they are going to do when they get off the ice. I am excited to go Fly Fishing and Backpacking in New Zealand! I hope my fishing rod and reel gets here in time!

On The Dusk of 2008

New Year's Eve is tommorrow already! Whew I can hardly believe it! I am excited for the festivities tommorow night! I have playing in a bluegrass band and practicing for the opening act of tommorows New Years Eve show! There will also be a band playing rock music for the main entertainment! It will be great to hear some live music and see everyones talents come alive!

It has been a good day today! Started off with the usual stretching led by Don Potter for all the FEMC folks on swing shift. At the weekley Fire Crew meeting we practiced getting all our gear on as fast as we could. You are supposed to be dressed and on air in under 2 minutes. I almost beat Monty but I had trouble with my pack straps and he beat me. On our last trial 'Kiwi' Mark beat us all in about 1min 30 sec! Work was more time spent taking an inventory of the cargo berms and shoveling.

There has been a lot of precipitation in the air in the form of ice crystals, it creates amazing halos and arcs around the sun and bands of colour through the sky! It is one of the most unusual and beautiful things I have seen.

There was also a round of pub trivia tonight hosted by Dan. My team came in second winning two out of four rounds. Gus and I will be hosting next weeks trivia!
Time to sleep before tommorrows festivities!!!!

After Grey Skies

The past few days have been wonderfully sunny and bright! This morning I was a bit dissapointed when I walked out into a landscape drifting and howling in white. Where the earth and sky were the same color throughout.
I went for a run this morning before work, it felt great! With fire season just a few months away, it's time to start focusing again!
At work we spent half the day recycling DOM boxes (digital optical modules) for the Ice Cube project. After lunch we dug buried equipment out from under the snow piles of the cargo berms. I don't think I have ever shoveled so much snow! Even when it's dumping in Idaho! Jeremy and Dan are fun to work with though and there never seems to be a shortage of shenannigans (antics, as Jeremy would say) and we usually have at least one big laugh each day!
Sometime after dinner the sky began to clear up and turn blue again, it was a welcome sight after grey skies.

Long Way From Home

It's Christmastime these days. My first ever without an immense midnight sky lit by a hundred thousand, maybe a hundred million stars. I miss the northern stars, the big dipper, polaris, all my life they have guided me home. There is a certain comfort knowing that those people I love and miss just might be wishing on the same star even though separated by hundreds of miles. Here I am just far away. Mountains and the prairie, fire in the woodstove, baking pies, doggies, family.