chasing ann.

this morning I called ann curry and woke her up so she could take a phone call from the states. she had been out late with the crew and sounded very groggy, but was nonetheless cheery and professional.

later this morning I went over to the coffeehouse, where she was hanging out waiting for word on whether they would fly to the pole today (ultimate answer: still TBD). I had been charged with two small boxes containing gifts from a couple of guys in FEMC -- an erebus crystal from bobby the sheet metal worker, and a silver pendant made by harry the pipefitter, containing a smaller crystal. I gave her the boxes and explained the significance of the erebus crystals -- they are produced by only two volcanoes in the world -- mt. erebus here in antarctica, and mt. kenya in africa -- and their proper nomenclature is anorthoclase crystals. she was very touched and exclaimed over how pretty they were.

I also gave her one of my crocheted flower corsages and she said she would wear it on TV. here's a picture of her in her new finery.

ann and the rest of her crew are stuck here until at least tomorrow, when the first C-17 of the week is scheduled to launch. we don't mind much having them around. her crew is a bunch of cool, laid-back guys that give us little NBC and Today Show gifts and marvel over what a fun, unique place mcmurdo is. check out this GREAT article, written by their sound engineer bobby:

Where'd all the Ph.D's go? Antarctica

Posted: Monday, November 05, 2007 7:39 AM by Jen Brown
Filed Under: Ends of the Earth
(From Bob Lapp, TODAY engineer/audio operator)

We have a saying in the freelance world, “stupid people make us money” and “the dumber they are, the more money we make”. The examples are endless; athletes and dog fighting, racist disc jockeys, the majority of Hollywood under 25 and OJ. You also find that most people you meet want to be famous, by talent or by sheer ignorance, it does not matter, whatever gives them their 15mins of fame. Just take a look at the explosion of “Reality TV”, You Tube, or any of the web based “video garbage cans”, somehow peoples lives will never be complete if they are not part of some massive download, or talked about on cable news.

Michael Jackson paid for my master bathroom remodel and The Enron trial paid my mortgage for 6 months…(tragic yes, but they still make the stupid list for thinking they could get away with it!), and the everyday criminal puts food on my table…..yes it is the moron money train.

Don’t get me wrong, Idiots have been keeping me busy for 20 years and I got two kids to put through college. But I often wonder what happened to all those people who actually paid attention in college? Where are all those selfless folks who wanted to save the world, not own it?

I only had to travel to the bottom of the earth to find them.

The brain drain went to Antarctica. You can’t swing a drunken celebrity and not hit a Ph.D at McMurdo Station. It is not just the folks who are doing the science that have a pedigree, but people with Master degrees are driving the vans, cooking the food and doing the dishes.

These are all the people who ruined the curve for me in science class. When I hoped they would all “drop off the face of the earth”….who knew it would happen? I think the only marginally educated people at McMurdo are on our TV crew. (I speak for myself as only a BA degree holder.) Yes, I think the collective IQ dropped when my feet hit the ice. When these guys name drop, it isn’t “Brangelina”, Speilberg or Streisand, but rather MIT, Harvard and Air Force Academy. I think you have every top 20 university that threw out my application, represented here. These are incredible educated people working on enormously important projects in some really tough conditions. I don’t know what these guys are pulling down a year but I haven’t seen much Prada at the dinner table. I actually think these men and women do this for the betterment of mankind?

I hate to tell them but you’re never getting on “Inside Edition” with that kind of attitude!

All kidding aside, get down to Antarctica and recharge your faith in what mankind can do. This is the place where the frontier spirit is alive and well, and you see the type of drive, determination and grit that once made all of us proud to be an American. (Please insert, Kiwi, Aussie, Brit, Italian and other where applicable)

There are three undeniable truths about my trip to Antarctica:
1. These are some of the finest people I have had the privilege to work around.
2. None of these people will make it on TMZ.COM
3. I couldn’t make a dime in TV at McMurdo.

here's the link to the article on the Today Show's blog:

http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/05/447798.aspx

and this, from their wrangler and POC, a guy named peter, who is obviously impressed with the treatment and reception they got from the mcmurdo community this week:

Not to trivialize, but as I said last night (actually early this morning) it's a heck of a world we live in when someone in Greenland or Ecuador can dance in real time on national TV to a band playing on the Chalet deck in McMurdo.

Much more importantly, in the context of public awareness of the International Polar Year and NSF's / Raytheon's mission in Antarctica, this is a "slam-dunk", "a home-run," choose your metaphor for excellence.

I never, at any time, encountered a single moment's hesitation on anyone's part to do what I asked them to do (no matter how seemingly absurd the task) from the creating a breakfast plate in the galley to enduring blasting cold in the Chalet offices to make the Nightly News live shot a success, to the folks in Crary who cobbled together a weather station -- and this goes without saying in the television business -- on short notice.

And without the support of Joe and his team on phones and networking, this could have easily been as big a PR bust as a boon.

Speaking from personal experience, it is easy to say in an office at NSF: "Wouldn't it be great to be part of a global broadcast." It's quite another to actually make it work.

I will not take a chance and name names too many names for fear of accidentally forgetting someone who played a key role; but I will say that it is not possible to thank the community enough.

I was also very personally satisfied--and I strongly hope that this was a result of a bug or two dropped in key ears--that in addition to focusing on the science that drives the mission, the producers and "talent" saw fit to include the community in the broadcast as so many expected...and surely deserved.

Words fail me. I am proud and exceedingly fortunate to be a small part of something--and I don't limit this to this broadcast specifically--so very, very fine.

peter and his group had pretty much taken over our offices for a couple of days, since the filming you saw on the Today Show and the Nightly News took place on our deck. the chalet was full of cables, boxes of sound and video equipment, fancy monitors and mics. they were very apologetic about all the stuff they'd strewn everywhere, which was nice of them, and we in turn made an effort to make them feel at home too. the reference to the 'blasting cold in the Chalet offices' in his e-mail was because the doorway to the deck was so full of cables being run through it it wouldn't close properly and cold air was coming into the room where myrna and I sit. I was there, eating a tuna-fish sandwich I'd picked up from the galley, and peter (knowing I'd just gotten over the flu) told me to go into his temporary office in the back of the chalet to eat so I wouldn't have a relapse.

the weather has been absolute crap this week. hardly any flights north- or southbound. a herc containing 39 pax took off for pole this past monday, circled and attempted several landings, and ultimately had to boomerang back to mcmurdo -- but not before fully half of the passengers had gotten airsick. people were puking in their GoPicnic box lunches and in their hats. there were jokes about cleaning the aircraft out with a fire hose.

but I'm influenza-free, and everything's pretty great!
more soon.

low visibility love,
cindy