So life at MCM. Today the Ob Tube opened. It is a literally a steel tube no wider than an average person that has been placed into a drilled hole in the ice. It is 30 feet long with a steel ladder inside. It opens up into a very small area of Plexiglas just off the ocean bottom where 1 person can stand and view the marine life under the ice. Below are the rules and a photo of the Ob Tube. In case you were wondering, no I'm NOT going to go in it. I have sent my camera with a couple of people and will post pictures later of what they saw. I take down the participant's information, issue them a key and a radio, and the groups go out to the ice.
Ob Tube Entrance
More about life here. The other day while I was at dinner, I saw a girl sit down by herself and she had a nice avocado. An avocado!!! She was clearly a "Beaker". That is what us worker types call the scientists down here. I said to the people at my table, "I didn't see any avocados." They said Beaker probably brought it down from Christchurch. So there she sat, carefully cutting open that beautiful, green fruit. She methodically cut it in half. As I stared at her and the green goodness, I secretly hoped that it was rotten inside. Soon all of us were staring at her and the fruit. As she cut pieces out of it and put them on a piece of bread, I said to my table mates, "One of you hold her down, the other one choke her and I will grab the avocado!" We all laughed but I was only half-joking! If I could've shivved her right there I would've! I've got a connection with a guy who has a connection with a Loadmaster in the Air National Guard. I'm going to trade one of my tee shirts for some avocados from NZ. I can already taste it...
Speaking of Beakers, 2 of them got kicked off the island and sent home this week early. I got a call at 0530 am reporting 2 women passed out and a male puking in one of the lounges. They were all super drunk. I sent the fire crew out there and one of the Beakers got very belligerent with my crew. She F-Bombed them up one side and down the other and at one point said, "You guys don't have F-ing nothing on me! I have a PhD!" She was the head professor from University of Arizona working on a project for NASA studying the surface of the Jupiter moon, IO. The landscape here is the same as IO. Well, she is no longer studying it here. She was sent out, along with the guy who was puking, on a plane less than 8 hours later. He was a student researcher of hers. I don't have a PhD but geez I know better than not to get stinking drunk and pass out and then be belligerent. PhD or not, she was a dumb Ass!
