7 hours ago, John Morris said:

So the question begs, who's making my retirement post

We're just waiting on you to give us the date.

As has already been noted, these are awesome recognition's for the retiree. I suspect even a little more special since one of their co-workers puts in the time & effort to make them.

56 minutes ago, Grandpadave52 said:

I would have complained to the H-R Department.

I did. She took me for a pizza. 

2 hours ago, John Morris said:

So that explains your avatar!

That was taken by myself in June 1994, during mid-winter airdrop. It was about -35F that day. We were outside for about 3 hours. Brrr. 

 

Taken in with a little point and shoot film camera. I had to wait until late October to get the film developed. 

9 hours ago, DAB said:

That was taken by myself in June 1994, during mid-winter airdrop. It was about -35F that day. We were outside for about 3 hours. Brrr.

Taken in with a little point and shoot film camera. I had to wait until late October to get the film developed. 

Ok, I'll bite, what the heck ya doing on an air drop! Military? Science? Extreme tour? Thanks Dab.

3 hours ago, John Morris said:

Ok, I'll bite, what the heck ya doing on an air drop! Military? Science? Extreme tour? Thanks Dab.

back then, the navy still ran about 1/2 the operations, the others being run by a private contractor, and the navy was slowing turning things over.  in mid-winter, McMurdo got 2 air drops of supplies, needed machinery, parts, mail, fresh food (the last supply ship had left in February), so station staff (me) had to go out to the air field to observe and recover all the pallets of stuff.  fresh food pallets got recovered first, stuff that could freeze was last on the priority (all done in one day, but it takes time to drive over with the fork lift, and load the pallet onto a truck).

 

i worked for a contractor and was assigned to help the NSF (national science foundation, they ran the whole place for the govt) with construction inspection.  so that day i was assigned to help the surveyors mark and map the locations of the pallets, so the national guard folks would have some feed back on where their loads ended up compared to where they were aiming.

 

several years after this, they stopped the mid-winter airdrops for cost reasons.

 

one parachute didn't deploy.  that pallet sunk about 4 feet into the ice.  lots of digging ensued.

 

spent a year down there, including going to South Pole for a weekend.

And here all this time I thought that what you wore in the shop while wood working.

 

That must have been quite an experience, I salute you guys that work under such adverse conditions.  The coldest I ever worked was  -35F degrees in Montana building the Big Sky Ski Resort, and that was too cold for me.

 

Herb

17 minutes ago, Dadio said:

And here all this time I thought that what you wore in the shop while wood working.

 

That must have been quite an experience, I salute you guys that work under such adverse conditions.  The coldest I ever worked was  -35F degrees in Montana building the Big Sky Ski Resort, and that was too cold for me.

 

Herb

-35F was a pretty typical winter day.  but what got you was the wind chill.

 

they had a few TV stations down there, and one was the weather scroll.  gave current conditions as well as expected conditions going forward.  and you'd get the ambient temp and also the matching windchill.

 

more than once, in the morning before hiking to work, i'd check out the weather scroll channel.  -40F/-85F WC.  ok, better wear the warm hat.  a few times the WC was below -100F.

 

oddly, if the wind picked up, the windchill of course would go down, but the ambient would go up.  coldest ambient i saw was about -56F, and it was dead still.  got that in July during the trip to Black Island (we drove over the sea ice, about 7 hours to go 60 miles as the crow flies).  pitch black, we had to follow the flags that marked out the safe route.  we lost the route a few times.  "ok, everyone out, look for the next flag, and don't get lost".  fun times.

You are right about the wind, it seemed warmer when it snowed. I remember the guys stripping their clothes off down to their T shirts and running around when it was sunny and -10F.

Herb

Jet engines don't start at -52. I know 6 college edumacated guys (one was a Lt. Colonel) that tried...with predictable results. The fires died down when they quit pumping fuel into the engines. 

We had gasoline engines driving fans that blew warm air from a kerosene fired furnace. Two per airplane. The oil in the gas engines froze and the engines seized. But the furnaces kept burning. Mell of a hess. Fun, fun fun.

 

8 hours ago, DAB said:

back then, the navy still ran about 1/2 the operations, the others being run by a private contractor, and the navy was slowing turning things over.  in mid-winter, McMurdo got 2 air drops of supplies, needed machinery, parts, mail, fresh food (the last supply ship had left in February), so station staff (me) had to go out to the air field to observe and recover all the pallets of stuff.  fresh food pallets got recovered first, stuff that could freeze was last on the priority (all done in one day, but it takes time to drive over with the fork lift, and load the pallet onto a truck).

 

i worked for a contractor and was assigned to help the NSF (national science foundation, they ran the whole place for the govt) with construction inspection.  so that day i was assigned to help the surveyors mark and map the locations of the pallets, so the national guard folks would have some feed back on where their loads ended up compared to where they were aiming.

 

several years after this, they stopped the mid-winter airdrops for cost reasons.

 

one parachute didn't deploy.  that pallet sunk about 4 feet into the ice.  lots of digging ensued.

 

spent a year down there, including going to South Pole for a weekend.

That has to be the end of the world.

 

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mcmurdo+station+antarctica&t=ffnt&atb=v80-5&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.defense.gov%2F2016%2FMar%2F30%2F2001507773%2F-1%2F-1%2F0%2F160323-F-ZZ999-458.JPG

 

Herb

A few changes. Lots has not changed. 

 

Building 155 used to be green. 

south pole, Jan. 1994:

 

 

I thought you would be upside down.

 

Joking aside, that is an accomplishment to be proud of, thanks for posting.

 

Herb

i'm holding onto the 1994 south pole marker, as placed by the USGS on new years day (this is mid January when the pic was taken).  this was the first year that they used GPS to locate it.  about 6 feet behind is the 1994 marker that was placed by the old method.  about 10 years prior to this, they had to spend several days with sextants and clocks to locate the pole location.  and then they knew the ice moved  in a certain direction at a certain rate (about 10 meters per year), so each successive year, they'd measure out 10 meters in the correct direction (very close to the shadow direction in the pic, so 12 hours later the marker's shadow would accurately point the way), place the new marker and go home.

 

so over about 10 years, the accumulated error was about the 6 feet you see.

 

those guys with sextants were pretty talented!

 

 

4 hours ago, DAB said:

i'm holding onto the 1994 south pole marker, as placed by the USGS on new years day (this is mid January when the pic was taken).  this was the first year that they used GPS to locate it.  about 6 feet behind is the 1994 marker that was placed by the old method.  about 10 years prior to this, they had to spend several days with sextants and clocks to locate the pole location.  and then they knew the ice moved  in a certain direction at a certain rate (about 10 meters per year), so each successive year, they'd measure out 10 meters in the correct direction (very close to the shadow direction in the pic, so 12 hours later the marker's shadow would accurately point the way), place the new marker and go home.

 

so over about 10 years, the accumulated error was about the 6 feet you see.

 

those guys with sextants were pretty talented!

 

 

Is there land beneath the ice?

Herb

44 minutes ago, Dadio said:

Is there land beneath the ice?

Herb

yes.

 

South Pole is about 9301 feet above sea level, so the air is thin too.  the ice is about 2 miles thick, with about 12" of fresh snow added each year (it doesn't melt, it just gets more dense as you go down).

Done. Ready for tomorrow's retirement event. 

Wipe on finish, Liberon Bison wax. And smooth, very smooth.