2 Quick Pictures

here's a couple pictures from just yesterday.

picture 1 is Mt. Discovery with the moon just after noon.

turning 180 degrees from the Mt Discovery view, picture 2 is looking up out of the divot in which the town of McMurdo sits. you can't see the 14,000-foot volcano of Erebus, but you can see its shadow projected onto the clouds. that was a gorgeous site, and i wish i was able to quickly get higher out of town to see it better. sadly, it was already the end of my lunch hour.

the days look like that fantasy stationary people had when i was in junior-high; pastelly pinks and purples with unicorns and planets floating around mountains on some distant planet. no, i didn't personally own any of this stationary, i swear- i just secretly envied the girls who did. the sun has set and is gone until mid-august. we still have twilight for a couple hours on each side of noon, but that window of time is closing.

things are settling nicely into a winter routine. everyone has their schedule and patterns to everyday life- our bodies have become synched-up with the ruling entity in our lives... our jobs. you can set your watch to my bowel movements.

it's a constant battle to keep my mind from completely sinking and drowning in the company-life sometimes. because your job and even your life outside of work is so controlled by Raytheon's policies (down to what and when you eat), it is so easy to talk talk talk about the company and its effects on EVERY part of life here ALL the time. too often, it's very hard to think about something other than the company and its rule in your life 24 hours a day. a friend was telling me a story last night as we were hanging out having a social time- like too many times before, conversation drifted to "what happened at
work today". she told me about how their wooden holders for covax auger-bits had been lost on station sometime between 1995 and now, and the machinist (who we happened to see, sparking this story in the first place) who made them way back when offered to do it again- yeah, he's a great guy, no kidding. fast forward to a few hours later: i'm sleeping and dreaming- i'm a superhero, and after a harrowing adventure, i have found and rescued the missing wooden-covax-auger-bit-holders. the young lady gives me a kiss on my cheek, and the machinist heartily shakes my hand thanking me for saving the long-lost fruits of his labor. jeez, aside from your small circle of friends, your main relationship with everyone here is on a work-related basis. you run into somebody somewhere or you see someone walk into a bar, and immediately you're thinking/talking/complaining about something work-related. i feel myself sinking into this a little more everyday. the bright side to this will be when i leave in October- i will revel in such simple pleasures such as an unscheduled poo.

but we do make our own fun. please don't think i'm down on life here. hell, no- quite the opposite. i wrote about this to another friend recently: last saturday, i celebrated Passover with a group of friends- there were only two genuine jews in the whole bunch, and they're not known for their devout ways. so it was more eating the traditional foods, reading from the book (i forget what it was called) and following the directions in the book while drinking and toasting with a lot of wine. Elijah never showed, but after a few glasses of wine, we cut up a dreadlock wig and glued curly locks to our temples to dress-up like Hassidic jews- in their honor, of course. everything after that became 100 times funnier (for example, Shannon eating kugel is not so funny... Shannon eating kugel with two big locks of hair hanging from the side of her head is VERY funny... as it is said). throw a folded napkin on your head for a yarmulke, and you've got yourself a grand saturday night.

nights like these and amazing sites like the ones in the pictures are the perfect things to take my mind out of everyday life in this little town. it's nice here.

-Phil