633

I have retired from the field of custodial engineering. This wet mop operator, push broom technician, janitorial artist's season is over, with the total of 633 toilets cleaned. I only wish I had a handy figure for the number of square miles vacumed and mopped. Actually that isn't the only thing I wish for; I wish for cold beer and hot women and temperatures above the freezing point of all life on earth. Lucky for me all these things exsist in a much higher concentration only a few (about 31 and counting) hours from now. I have passed room inspection, collected my travel funds, and in a few minuntes bag drag and weigh in for the flight tommorow. It is good to be leaving.

Winter-over personell are all here, waiting for us to leave. It is a slightly awkward situation, as we are toasty to the point of near madness and they are fresh from their sojurns in warm climates. We are training them in the ways we have done our jobs all year and they are dutifully trying to play a long, knowing that when the last C-17 northbound waggles its' wings in farewell, they will find their own ways of getting the job done and getting by for the next 6-8 months without support. We think we are toasty, a summer in McMurdo ain't nothin' compared to a winter, especially for those hardy (raving mad) souls wintering at Pole. The last summer flight left there yesterday afternoon, barely escaping the -50 degree flight limit at -47 degrees C.

So the winter over people. They are obstensibly like us, but more so, damaged beyond repair by too many summer seasons on the ice, they then choose to winter. But arriving in Feb, near the time I am leaving, I feel no desire to get to know them, can't share banter about upcoming off ice travel plans, and really want nothing more from them than not taking my table at lunch or otherwise screwing with my routine. Thus one of the symptoms of toastiness previously mentioned: a fanatical abhorance of change in any form to the fragile little world we create for ourselves here.

New Zealand here I come!