Greetings and Updates

Nov. 11, 2007

Greetings from the bottom of the world! We have just completed our first full week of work. When we come in for break, I feel like we are walking into a space station, partially because of the boots I’m wearing. My FDX boots consist of two insoles and a bootie insert. The top of the toe of the boot sit about four inches off the ground. Just a big boot. We are working 54 hour weeks and have Sundays off. Today is Sunday and I feel like doing little more than nothing. The food has been pretty good, and I’ve been eating a ton of food. I did an altitude study and they estimated that I was taking in around 4500 calories a day. I have no idea what my calorie intake was back home, but I know 4500 calories a day is still a lot. I hear that Ann Curry from the Today show finally made it down to the South Pole. We had a flight in on Thursday night that she was on. I guess she walked around, did some filming, slapped an NBC sticker on the South Pole, and left. I was already asleep when she landed, and then when she left on the same plane a couple of hours later, they woke me up. There were only a couple of flights that made it last week, so the grand total for the last two weeks is five flights in two and half weeks. Usually there are anywhere from 2-5 flights in a day. So they are behind, but we have plenty of food. I kind of took a wrong turn and made it into the Dome. They no longer use the dome, but it looks like they were using it to freeze our food in. It was cool to see that part of history here at the South Pole. The Today show reported that only around 7,000 people have made it to the South Pole, and I am one of them! God has really blessed me with a supporting family, friends, girlfriend and church to support me on this adventure.I have been feeling a little ill the past three days. I have had headaches every morning when waking up and my stomach feels goofy most of the day. I’m feeling better today, but it’s hit and miss. I’ve still been able to work, so it’s been nothing major, just no fun. My skin can feel the extreme dry climate. Maybe being from Colorado has helped me adapt to the dry climate, but I’ve been using more lotion than I’ve ever expected. Bloody noses are pretty easy to get. I’ve had traces of that, but if you don’t have some bloody nose problems, you might have bigger problems. So I think it’s a good thing. It’s funny to me that we are in the most pristine and cleanest air environment and people have to smoke. Each to his own I suppose. The amount of money spent on this place is just something I can’t even comprehend. They are always pushing snow around. I will wake up in the morning to walk to the station for breakfast and they will have piled a new mountain of snow. Probably 40’tall and 150’long or so. All this snow comes from drifts and such, but never melts, so they just keep pushing it out and around the station. I guess around Christmas they start making the mounds of snow larger so we can go sledding. The only problem is when you crash, there is nothing soft about it. I must remind you, the snow never melts, just eventually turns into ice.After the first three days of being here the weather finally settled down and the clouds cleared out. You can see for about 28 miles to the horizon. Just flat, small snow drifts. Beautiful nothingness. It is so flat you can kind of trick yourself into seeing the curvature of the Earth. I will try to set up a place to view pictures in the next week or so. Micah is going to help me with this. It’s a bit harder to do everything because we only have access to the internet from 5am to about noon. The window of internet/phone access changes by a few minutes everyday.The weather warmed up to about -40 yesterday with very little wind, and we could defiantly tell the difference. Just a few days back the temp. was -57 and windchill was cold. I imagine it is hard for most of you to even comprehend those temperatures seeing how at home it is around 70 degrees. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving because we get two days off. We will celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday, and they have crab legs and wine for all. The beakers (science guys) buy the wine I guess. I’m looking forward to two days off. I am very glad to be here! When I’m an old guy sitting on my front porch I’ll be able to talk about how crazy this whole thing is.Email me your questions and what you’re up to!

Andrew