I find I am counting the days/meals/hours to my leaving Bleak Island more so than any countdown to departing McMurdo last October. What has happened to this place which I used to love so much? What has happened to me? Have I had enough of this splendid isolation? No, I think it is more the nature of the company I am keeping, or that is keeping me. Last week's company was better than this weeks company but then this week we are three; three is two too many but last week's two was Ok.
What does that mean? I don't know if I can really explain it. Now more than a week has passed. It is Tuesday, April 2, 1996, and I have been back in town since Tuesday last. There is not so much to write about from this perspective. The sea was still open water all the way south to the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf and all across the view from my window it has been like a boiling cauldron, smokes drifting up from the relatively warm water of an ocean that would like to freeze into the very much colder air whipping the surface into such a state of agitation that ice cannot hope to form. Today the air is still and the surface of the water skims over quickly, then snow comes.
This just in from the Weekly Report...
>The third traverse to Black Island to rescue the second traverse >which was trying to rescue the first traverse left town this >afternoon. The third traverse will replace a second traverse delta >with one from the third traverse which will then continue on to >rescue the first traverse. The third traverse will then return to >MCM while the second traverse continues with the second phase of the >second traverse. A fourth traverse will then be staged to rescue the >second traverse delta that the third traverse failed to bring back in >their attempt to rescue the second traverse while it was rescuing the >first traverse. By the time this paragraph was completed the second >traverse had rescued the first traverse and the fourth traverse was >attempting to collect the delta left by the earlier third traverse >rescue of the second traverse as it rescued the first traverse.
All I can say is --I'm very happy I slept through all of that.
And of course AirDrop has been cancelled but the bright side of that is that there may not be any mid-winter flu or cold making the rounds, could be an interesting study to keep track of.
Worst however is that there are no cookies and other munchies available
from the galley for hut breakout. Another budget cut there. No money for
cookies. We have been told to buy what we want from the store. You know
where that is going... next we will be told to buy what we want for the
rest of our meals.
Easter greetings. Are we to be afraid to mention "Easter" and "Resurrection"
and replace them with the euphemisms "Bunny Day" and "Hopping Good Bunny
Day". The galley here is decorated as if for a halloween party except the
crepe streamers are yellow and white (for chickies and bunnies?) and there
are all manner of secular posters and designs. I suppose I feel put upon
in some respects in much the same manner as those who would object if there
were any religious overtones to the decor but of course there is no room
for protest when one objects to secular overtones. Interesting how society
works- -It is ok for one faction to object when another faction decorates
with an image of Christ, the faction with the objection will always win;
but when one objects that the image of the bunny is found offensive the
communities response opposite in nature. 
I skipped Easter dinner. I find my society's attempt to debase the traditional
aspects of the holiday vile and disingenuous. Not that I am any sort of
Christian any more than I am any sort of Hindu or Jew; (I am Human, specialisation
is for insects) what bothers me is that all holidays are being reduced
to the same crepe and plastic and all moved to Mondays. I think it does
not bode well for us as a community that we endeavour to reduce everything
to the lowest common denominator, towards reducing all holi-days to colour
coded Mondays; no matter what the traditional intent of this day or that,
the new morality is simply to give the masses another excuse for a three
day weekend. I see that Passover and Purim and July 4th are holding on
but its only a matter of time for Independence Day. Easter and Christmas
are about the only two Christian holi-days which have yet to succumb to
the Monday part but the Christian roots of these two days have been weakened,
both have been colour coded and iconised. 
From the weekly report: gallons produced-234,000; consumed-242,000; on hand-230,000.
Here in the cold and dark (almost dark anyhow, there is still some noon-sun,
albeit pale and cold and of less duration each day) I am actually getting
a few things accomplished. Once in a while even a new thing learnt, and
I try for a new thing every day. 
Recently I learnt, theoretically at least, one can open a bottle of wine,
(not one of those with a twist-off cork, they do not count) sans corkscrew
by repeatedly slamming the bottom of the horizontally held bottle against
a large firm stationary object, like a wooden door jamb or the leg of a
substantial table. This magic is probly something in the same realm as
tooth faeries and lighting farts--I have heard about them from enough sources
to have some faith in their veracity but never directly experienced the
phenomena. (Actually in the matter of lighting farts I did see a suppose'ed
dramatic scene where a rather portly uncle was showing off to a bunch of
children in a movie--can't remember the title--and he had one of the younger
kids hold a candle in the right place but when he lowered his pantaloons
and broke wind he blew the candle out!) (And in the matter of tooth faeries
I once found a dime under my pillow in place of the tooth there when I
went to sleep, but I recognised it as being the very same one my father
pulled from my ear only the day before.) 
It seems reasonable that banging the bottom of the bottle onto a door frame might cause the cork to work out but I don't know as I will risk anything older than 1993 on the experiment. I can see it working with champagne, agitating a bottle of that stuff might make quite a mess and the resulting acceleration of the bottle caused by the forceful expulsion of the froth and liquid could well damage nearby spectators, not to mention the door jamb.
In order to control my Self I keep this bar, what's left of it actually, out at Black Island so the only time I get to nibble on it is the several times a year when I am out there instead of in town. This is a nice dark chocolate that stands freezing very well and requires a hammer and chisel to break up. I like to take a chunk and melt it slowly in a saucepan and add just the right amount of sugar and milk to make *REAL* hot chocolate; not that patsy chocolate *flavoured* artificially coloured hot drink kid stuff mix.
My taste runs toward the semi-sweet. And the more semi the better since that is generally not liked by too many of the horde here so my stash has a better chance of surviving the winter. Last year we had Cadbury's dark chocolate with mint and a few Lindt mocha bars but this year, with the budget cuts and all, not only is there no cookies for coffee break but we have been resupplied with Hershey bars and M&M's. Some people feel that cheap chocolate is better than no chocolate. De gustibus non disputandum est.
I have been carefully rationing my last three Cadbury mint bars, mostly
by hiding them behind the clean sheets and under my underwear. Each bar
comprises eighteen barely bite-sized squares and I have at least seven
months to go. Just writing this letter has driven me into a frenzy of chocolate
debauchery and I have eaten three squares! Fortunately there is a backup
emergency stash of semi-sweet chocolate chips close to hand which purport
to be "real chocolate", they will at least keep from being reduced to M&M's. 
So this one particular item is a long storey and I don't have all the
facts straight so I'll not belabour the issue but to say that at long last
any and every dorm phone in McMurdo is now accessible from the outside
world. The long storey part has to do with how the Kiwis accomplished this.
From the McMurdo switch there is a wire to the new T1-E1 interface (this
is were the U.S. telephone standard of McMurdo converts to the European
standard of Scott Base) and thence over the pass to Scott Base, to the
switch there, round and round the multiplex and modem and up the hill by
fiber-optic to Arrival Heights 
and the New Zealand Telecom satellite earth station. From there its one
hop to Christchurch and then one more to North America. So now from anywhere
in the world you can dial the New Zealand country code and a number that
will connect with Ross Island. From U.S.A. you dial 011 64 24 09 nnnn where
nnnn is the McMurdo extension. Long distance rates to New Zealand apply.
Music on hold is available.
>...but isn't that spelled dislexercised? ...that's when you're spell
brings *in* more evil spirits (especially of low proof) than it casts out.
No ... wait... that's dislexorcised. Dislexercised must be when your stair
climber or treadmill goes backwards and you don't notice until your heart
rate is almost stopped and you've gained three pounds. 
One of the *other* rumors circulating is that I went to see Barbara
the Barber today. Some people are hailing it as a major event in my life
since the last time it is known I went to a barber shop was in April or
May of 1991. The interesting thing about this shop is the way the mirrors
create that effect of peering through a tunnel to infinity. Every snip
echos fore and aft and it seems to take forever to get a trim. The mirrors
are subtly arranged to enhance that effect and twisted ever so slightly
to give the appearance of your hair being longer than it really is. This
is an effect covered more fully in the Navy's _Manual of Tonsure_, probly
in the chapter on doing recruits. There was not enough time in my appointment
so I need to return next monday. 
Oso con Migo meets The Skua. Skua: any of several large, brown, gull-
like predatory birds of the genus Catharacta, related to jaegers, esp.
C. skua (great skua), of colder waters of both northern and southern seas.
Skuas migrate and they are scavengers; like sea gulls who seek offal, skuas
crowd the tips behind the galley. There are not as many around in these
summers now that the tips are covered and there are none about the station
now, they have all flown north for the winter. This one must have been
looking for a last minute snack, perhaps attracted by the fragrance that
emanates from the bakery on bread day. During some recent roof repaneling
on that end of Building 155 this skua was recovered from an exhaust vent.
Once inside the bird could not get turned around so there, in the bliss
of all those warm odours of sustanance, it perished. Good thing it was
not an intake fan. The extreme low humidity here dessicated the skua leaving
it light as a feather by the time the roofers recovered it a few weeks
ago. 
We didn't get it off from work either but I was able to work in a toast to the old dragon slayer and saver of maidens at the April Birthday Dinner tonight. --You can't call them maidens anymore, my dinner guest reminded me as I sat down, saving maidens is not PC.
Wednesday was the Navy's Official Sunset Flag Lowering ceremony (but
they still leave Old Glory flying, just now there is a big flood light
on all the time.) Saturday will be the SunSet Swim (a.k.a. Polar Plunge--this
is when hole is chain-saw'd in the sea-ice and the crazies take turns jumping
in for a few seconds each. To qualify for honours you must keep your head,
and the rest of you, under water for ten seconds.) followed by barbie at
Scott Base, Thursday was ANZAC Day in Oz and NZ, so all in all this will
be a really good time to go to the pub for a piss-up. 
Inchoately yours, Friar Tech, B.I.M.B.O.S (retired)
(Made Merry on, eh... I will use that line somehow...)
Tourists don't know where they've been.
Travellers don't know where they're going. --Paul Theroux
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