November 7, 2005

Here is another acronym you don�t see every day. DNF which stands for "Do Not Freeze". You put this BOLDLY on anything, obviously, you don't want frozen. This includes packages, luggage, cargo, etc with anything temperature sensitive. This could include computers, office furniture. Office furniture???? Yeah, the South Pole is a an ergonomic nightmare, all the office chairs that utilize pneumatic or hydraulics to raise and lower are permanently bottomed out and you feel like a midget reaching up to type at the keyboard. It seems that DNF sometimes needs to be a little bolder on some of that cargo.

After spending the entire day in front of a computer, I needed to get out for a while. So this evening, I ventured outside to get a breath of fresh air, so to speak. At -75 F with the wind chill, it was a rather brisk walk. It seems like we may as well be on Mars for how difficult it is to suit up for a simple walk outside the station, and clearly, I did not choose my gear wisely. I was only able to withstand a few minutes outside at a time. However, I did manage to capture a few shots of an incoming C-130, so I think. It is hard to tell because my goggles kept icing up and I could barely see through the viewfinder. After about 5 minutes, my right hand started to ice up with frost nip and I had to go back inside to warm up again. Undaunted, I headed back outside to get a few more pictures of the station, the pole and the old station dome as the sun had circled 180 degrees from the last time I was out there and would be at my back this time. I did manage to take some pictures without removing my outer gloves; I hope I didn't freeze my video camera too much.

While walking back to the station, there were a couple of guys outside building scaffolding so they could start putting the siding on the new station. I must say that I am simply amazed how these guys are able to work in that temperature. It seems pretty pathetic that it is such a huge ordeal for me to just walk out to the geographic pole and back inside the station while these guys are working out there for, I don't know, 15 to 20 minutes at a time, maybe more. Now that is hard core.