I Googled Antarctica and Got Pictures of Frostbite. Just Saying.
It’s probably obvious by now that my blog updates are 1-2 months behind. I’m working to catch up, and doing the blog posts is a great motivator for me to sort through my photos. I returned to Austin the first week of September, and during my last week in Colombia I got an interesting call from Raytheon Polar Services, who I had submitted an application to a few months earlier.
They had a contract employee back out at the last minute due to a medical problem and offered me a job working from October to February at McMurdo Station. I’ve only barely spoken with the manager who hired me about the job, but it sounds like what I’ll be doing is field work for the on-ice portion of a research project an Army lab is working on. The base has 3 airfields they’re trying to combine into one, but there are a number of engineering problems due to varying ice conditions throughout the . The Army lab is collecting and analyzing data to see if they can engineer one airfield that will work for all types of aircraft, during all times of the year.
At this point I’ve filled out and submitted mountains of paperwork and had tons of medical and dental tests. I’m amazed there’s any blood left in my veins after all the tubes they collected for tests, and I discovered there is a definite limit to how many cups I can pee in before running dry. My doctor also carefully noted all my unusual traits, like a slight pectus excavatum, which looks completely normal to me and nothing at all like the photo on wikipedia. The EKG machine decided I had Pericarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart lining…the doctor walked into the room, grabbed the printout from the machine and said “That can’t be right. You’re not experiencing extreme chest pain are you?” Since the only pain I had experienced was when the nurse ripped the EKG contact pads off my legs (taking a patch of hair with it) he consulted a cardiologist and they decided I have a variation in my heart’s electrical pattern called early repolarization. About 5% of the population have this kind of heart, especially young people, males, african americans, and athletes.
Despite my numerous deformities and birth defects, the medical department at Raytheon Polar Services has signed off on me. I’m leaving tomorrow morning for 2 days of company orientation in Denver, followed by 2 days of travel to Christchurch New Zealand, a day there to get my extreme cold weather gear, and my ice flight is scheduled for October 8th.
The title of this post is how my friend Leslie reacted when I mentioned all of this on Facebook. Thanks for the support Leslie! I’ll have you know I checked the weather the other day and the windchill was only –68F, if I just take the absolute value it’s practically shorts and t-shirt weather!