countdown to the end.

it's gotten colder in the last few days. in antarctica, this means the difference between lightweight long underwear and expedition-weight long underwear, and the difference between no-gloves and two-pairs-of-gloves-with-handwarmer-inside. neck gaiters are again de rigueur. today is clear and sunny, but -20F with the wind chill.

here's a photo of me at pegasus field, on a day I spent volunteering with the fuels department. a fuelie named Lisa and I were tasked with emptying a 5,000-gallon tank of diesel fuel using a pump-equipped delta and ferrying it, load by load, to another empty tank. it was SO Condition Fun out there. the wind was a-gustin' and the snow was a-flyin', and I was completely chilled through. made for a good photo, though -- very nanook-of-the-northish.

if the firefighters are the football team of McMurdo High, the fuelies are sort of the tough cool kids on campus. you know, the ones that listened to heavy metal and always wore black clothing held together with oversized safety pins. their battered carhartts smell like fuel, they're always weighed down with various hand tools sticking out of their pockets, and they're all completely ripped because they have a very physically taxing job. aside from having to haul heavy two-inch hoses, metal couplings and 55-gallon steel drums around, a lot of their work takes place outdoors, where they are exposed to the elements. after a relatively cushy season as a shuttle driver, I wasn't quite prepared for the level of grunting, lifting, crawling and hauling I would encounter that day. a good experience, though -- even if my gloves smell like airplane fuel now.

one of the best things about mcmurdo is the fact that, owing to the number of talented and generous people on station, you can learn how to do any of a bazillion things -- pretty much anything you'd be interested in -- for absolutely free. interested in learning how to weld? use a bandsaw? fix leaky pipes? refine your downward dog? bake elaborate pies and tarts? rock climb? throw a pot on the wheel? I've heard of people doing all of those things, and a lot more, just by asking around and acting interested. all I did was e-mail the fuels department scheduler and ask him if I could come in on my day off for a bit of volunteering, and *wham* I was in.

having always wanted to know how to drive a forklift, I was pretty thrilled to find out that I could also spend a half day volunteering with the cargo people and learn how to do just that. here's a photo of me with a Caterpillar 950G, one of the largest loaders used on station -- it can lift 12,500 pounds without breaking a sweat. among its more genteel charms is the fact that it has a CD player and is painted a cheery yellow. these behemoths are used to magically whisk pallets of cargo, giant spools of hose and cable, or dumpsters of waste around the station and onto the planes.

here's the Cat again, doing its monstrous thing on the airfield. the plane (in this case, a C-130) lets down its cargo door and the Cat pulls right up to the back of it with a pallet o' stuff. the loadmaster (one of the flight crew) deftly guides the driver into place, using a set of precise hand signals to mean stop, go, turn left or right, forks up or down, and boom up or down. like Jack Handey says, it's like a little ballet between the loadmaster and the driver and the plane and the Cat, except there's no music and the dancers are wearing insulated boots. then they roll the pallet onto the plane, put the door back up, and fly away. I wasn't ready to put stuff on a plane, but they let me drive some pallets around (picture, if you will, tiny me at the wheel, pieces of cargo being flung around, and people fleeing in fright). supa dupa rad. the Cat, which is articulated in the middle and blessed with great visibility because of the high seat and wraparound windows, is actually pretty easy to drive once you get the hang of the gear shift sticking out of the left-hand side of the steering column. I wonder if cargo handlers get into regular cars and accidentally turn on the windshield wipers every time they try to change gears.

sad news about the seahawks losing the superbowl. pretending to be a football fan for a few minutes got me in the seattle post-intelligencer, though -- see right. jay johnson (the guy in the middle), an aircraft ground equipment tech from kingston, made up the cardboard sign while working out at willy field. alan shaw (far right), a heavy-equipment operator, and I -- also both seattleites -- happened to be nearby, so the three of us drove out onto the ramp and hurriedly snapped some photos before a C-130 could come roaring by and grind us into little bits. jay e-mailed the photo to the P-I and they stuck it in the sports section. it was there for a few days, under the heading 'this just in from antarctica.' fifteen minutes of online fame.

and now for something completely different, here's a photo of me and my co-worker mike all dolled up for a 'white trash' party. some co-workers found me the shirt in the skua bins, which I think we can all agree is pretty tawdry. I painted my toenails a lurid hot pink and wore high-heeled silver sandals. and I tried for the visibly-lined-lip look, but the lipliner wasn't dark enough. so I piled on the blue eye shadow and ended up looking like a mafia wife. final verdict? trashy: yes. white: not so much. mike, on the other hand, was greasily resplendent in a wife-beater tank top, high-waisted jeans with a homemade belt buckle, aviator glasses, and the ol' bandanna-and-wig combo.

sorry for the long radio silence. I'll write more soon, I promise!