Thursday, August 31, 2006
Bring On the Questions
I'm having a really hard time focusing on quality blog writing right now. I apologize for the lack in concentration. There is so much going on all the time. Right now it would just be easier for me to answer your questions so PLEASE feel free to email me or post questions in the comments at the end of the entries. More than likely, someone else has the same questions, and I'm just too overwhelmed right now to think of topics on my own.My Aunt Retta from Texas emailed me some questions so I thought I would include them and my answers here:
"Questions ~~ what's in the other buildings you visit ? and what are all the people doing down there ? about how many people ??? It's a government job ?"
There are all kinds of buildings down here. Some are offices and some are work centers. I'll list a few that I've been cleaning in:
Southern Exposure (the smoking bar)
Gallagher's (the non-smoking bar)
the CoffeeHouse (serves coffees, wine, and limited liquors)
Berg Field Center (where the scientists are issued their gear for when they leave base and go to work at a field camp away from base and where us workers can get field gear to out and do things like cross country ski and snowshoe)
VMF (Vehicle Maintenance Facility - they are responsible for the maintenance and distribution of all vehicles on base)
the Chapel of the Snows (the non-denominational church which also doubles as a yoga classroom 3 nights a week)
Crary Lab (the most important building on base probably - this is where the scientists are based out of... doing research, collecting data... there's a seismograph measuring the volcano just behind us called Mt. Erebus)
Supply (which also includes the post office and the mailroom)
the Carp Shop (Carpenter Shop)
Waste Water Treatment Plant
MacOps (radio communications)
The scientists/artists/writers that are all here on grant money are who we call Grantees. They are gold here at McMurdo. They can do no wrong in the eyes of our company. But we're lucky in that the few grantees we have here now are really really great. We have a group of 4 grantees releasing weather balloons to learn about the atmosphere. There is a group of 3 people here working on a film about the work of the grantees. And they might be putting together a movie about us grunt workers too which wasn't in the plans until they came down with us. Then there's one grantee who came down much earlier than the rest of her colleagues to scope out a place to do seal research. In the summer, we'll be crawling with Grantees so we're really lucky that the few that are around are really easy to get along with and not very demanding. The rest of us are Raytheon contract employees. We're all here to support the scientists and keep the biggest base in Antarctica running. There are about 400 of us right now, and in the summer (October-February), we could have as many as 1300 people on base. We work for Raytheon Polar Services which is a branch of Raytheon, a company with many government contracts all over the world, who is contracted by the National Science Foundation to provide the support staff for the base. So it's kind of like working for the government. Sort of. It's definitely like working for corporate America... even being in Antarctica.
GIVE ME MORE QUESTIONS, PLEASE!!!
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