Antarctic Sun
I saw my first skua today. They are a large (huge!) bird that scavenge on seal afterbirth, penguin eggs, and McMurdo garbage. I've heard stories of skuas swooping down and plucking the unguarded sandwhich from a persons hand walking from building to building. Some unscrupulous persons have even been known to duck tape a piece of bread unto the back of the hood of a friends parka, only to be dive bombed by a squadron of fierce, 4 foot wingspanned, hooked beak menaces when that person flps up their hood when going outside.
The scavenging nature of the skua has lent itself to popular usage among McMurdites as both a noun and a verb, as well as an adjective. I was always hazy on adverbs, but it may well find use there as well. To skua somethig is to find it in a community area designated for skua, that is unwanted items such as alarm clocks, shoes, bath robes, shampoo, books, silly costumes, outdated travel magazines, half consumed bottles of wine, etc. Most ofter things are left be residents leaving for another station or redeployment back to the World who are over their weight limit or other wise have no need for a giant paper mache palm tree back home. Lucky for me, as a janitor I have early access to most in coming skua and often get oick of the litter. Really it would be possible to come down with little more than a carry on bag and outfit oneself completly in skua. More than one person has done it anyway.
We are in the middle of a warm spell, 23 degrees above this afternoon and the heat was oppressive. Snow is sublimating off the roads at a disturbing rate, yeilding mud where a week ago was snow and ice. Unlike snow and ice, mud does not evaporate when tracked indoors on a freshly mopped floor.
The building I live in has holes in the roof. Counter intuitivly, this is not a problem in the winter when fine particles of snow blow in the holes and sit undisturbed in the crawl space. The problem comes round mid november when it warms up and this snow melts, through the roof tiles and onto my bed, as it is now. I have an elaborate hammock of garbage bags and paper towels in place now, and an even more elaborate plan to reroute the leak in mind.
Oh, and this friday I'll start my first full radio show as a DJ for 104.5 ICE Radio. I play every other friday from 8-10 pm and my show is "Coconut Telegraph: Music from those little lattitudes, for a warmer state of mind" I'll play salsa, merenge, tango, and of course lots of Jimmy Buffett.
Lastly, an interesting artical ran in the Antarctic Sun, the newspaper here on station that is also circulated in class rooms around the world. Check out the news paper here, with an interesting artical on page 12 here.
The scavenging nature of the skua has lent itself to popular usage among McMurdites as both a noun and a verb, as well as an adjective. I was always hazy on adverbs, but it may well find use there as well. To skua somethig is to find it in a community area designated for skua, that is unwanted items such as alarm clocks, shoes, bath robes, shampoo, books, silly costumes, outdated travel magazines, half consumed bottles of wine, etc. Most ofter things are left be residents leaving for another station or redeployment back to the World who are over their weight limit or other wise have no need for a giant paper mache palm tree back home. Lucky for me, as a janitor I have early access to most in coming skua and often get oick of the litter. Really it would be possible to come down with little more than a carry on bag and outfit oneself completly in skua. More than one person has done it anyway.
We are in the middle of a warm spell, 23 degrees above this afternoon and the heat was oppressive. Snow is sublimating off the roads at a disturbing rate, yeilding mud where a week ago was snow and ice. Unlike snow and ice, mud does not evaporate when tracked indoors on a freshly mopped floor.
The building I live in has holes in the roof. Counter intuitivly, this is not a problem in the winter when fine particles of snow blow in the holes and sit undisturbed in the crawl space. The problem comes round mid november when it warms up and this snow melts, through the roof tiles and onto my bed, as it is now. I have an elaborate hammock of garbage bags and paper towels in place now, and an even more elaborate plan to reroute the leak in mind.
Oh, and this friday I'll start my first full radio show as a DJ for 104.5 ICE Radio. I play every other friday from 8-10 pm and my show is "Coconut Telegraph: Music from those little lattitudes, for a warmer state of mind" I'll play salsa, merenge, tango, and of course lots of Jimmy Buffett.
Lastly, an interesting artical ran in the Antarctic Sun, the newspaper here on station that is also circulated in class rooms around the world. Check out the news paper here, with an interesting artical on page 12 here.
posted by Jared | 1:24 AM
3 Comments:
I'm not one to make demands of my friends, particularly when they're cold and wet in the middle of the frozen tundra, but I think your audience is going to demand a podcast or two of your radio show. I've been running low on Buffet.
Unrelatedly, I feel a strong kinship with these skua. I've been know to snag the occasional unwary sandwich.
Hey, your famous!
I have to concur with Gurg, we definitly need a sampling of 'Coconut Telegraph'. There is not nearly enough Buffett in my life.
Skua(the location) reminds me or Treasure Island in Fairbanks. You know, I really LOVED that toaster.
Actually it is exactly like the Island in AK. I don't know why it is that extremely cold places inspire good recycling.
And I'm working on the pod cast bit.
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