Thanksgiving '08

Thanksgiving day was accompanied by a condition 2 snow storm. In the morning it was okay weather walking to work, spent the entire day eating and putting out food, then when it came time to leave it was bloody cold and windy outside. The wind about blew my plate of pumpkin pie out of my hands.

155 Dining Facility. For Thanksgiving, 300 people were registered per meal, 1 dinner meal every 1.5 hours starting at 2:30 PM.

Last minute rush to get the live flowers out on display.

Setting up the line.

Volunteers came in to help us slice the beef and do dishes.

Right at 2:30 the doors open and they flock in.

My addition to this sea of goodness... a pumpkin-sweet potato souffle with marshmellows and cinnamon on top, in the far back ;)

Just another brick in the wall; a serial number with a face and paycheck wearing a white coat and black bandana with dreams that one else has dreamt before.

I parked myself at the end of the table.

And ate this.

After each meal the crowd gave us a big thank you. Don't thank us, please thank the turkeys.

The Rough Sketches for ANITA

This has to be the fastest I've ever drawn. Deadline = 5 days.

After the Snow Storm

Photo Grab #4 - DK's Boondoggle

Thanks DK!

The Prep for Thanksgiving

3 days ago I started seeing guys and girls in the back dock unloading more boxes of food than I have ever seen before. Right away the frozen turkeys and beef tenderloins were brought to the steam kettles to be thawed out under running water.

The bakers have been having a blast making art with dough. I can't wait until they get started on making the 50 pumpkin pies, I have already put my order in for 3 of them :)




The cooks having been having a blast (not) cutting, priming, and organizing 1,000 lbs. of turkey... the last turkey was cut today, now all we have to do is bake them one last time and get them into hotel pans for serving.



My task this morning was to get a sear on 500 lbs. of beef tenderloins in 4 hours. People kept wandering by during lunch asking if they could have some. The vegetarians kept their distance.

My kitchen motto, "Looks good, but tastes better."

Here's Chef Mark, the Head Chef, checking out the turkey assembly line.

Man where's the duck at?

Here's the freeze box where we keep all of our meats, poulty, and fish. We will go through all of what you see within a week.

Work still in Progress

So you be wondering what I'm working on, well the ANITA Project offered an art contest this year for folks to paint a 2' x 2' panel for their balloon battery casing. ANITA is a project funded through NASA, in partnership with University of Hawaii, and is in search of neutrinos. Neutrinos appear per every square kilometre about once a centry. The ANITA scientists don't have a centry to run the tests, so they opt to scan the entire Antartica landscape for radio waves created by the particles showers that neutrinos create when they collide with other molecules. Pictures over the balloon/computer can be seen in one of the recent posts.

They gave me first prize for the drawing a did which is in the post 'Work in Progress... to be continued', and being the 110% kid I am I told them I could do two. HAHAHA. I'm not laughing I'm just thinking to myself, OH GEEZ. My deadline is next Wed. I haven't even made the second sketch yet, spent 3 hours trying as seen in the picture about at 11 PM in the vacant dining room, but after chatting with Lara and joking about how as a kid in gradeschool we used to scribble funny pictures of the teachers on the blackboard... a thought came to me in my dreams last night. A kid doodling e=mc2 on the blackboard, the blackboard morphs into a world of energy, which then connects with the other picture. Better drawn than said.

Ontop of all of this I have 8 straight days of work and Thanksgiving is pounding the kitchen. I don't get a break until next Tuesday and that entire day will be spent putting all the drawings to an aluminum panel using some funky black paint. Bare with me if my posts are as frequent, I gotta get into this groove... starting now.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORA!!!

Photo Grab #3 - Prom Photo Booth

I remember Keith telling me the first day I arrived in New Zealand that all is well at McMurdo until the wishbone breaks (Thanksgiving). After Thanksgiving the screws come loose, but hey at least it's collective. It's only 5 days away and I think things have already... how to say this... have spiced up a bit? become more interesting? stepped beyond the bounds of sanity? Now I see the 'type' of people RPSC and NANA hire, the outsiders, folks like myself who are in search of something totally different... something utterly freezing... something you won't find anywhere else on this planet. It's been a month on the ice, but man everyday it feels like something new is just beginning.

A cute couple.

I guess I better say the same for this one.

Oh Geez.

Behind prom walls.

A few more girls at McMurdo could help some.

Poor guys.

There you go, that'll make it all better.

Cookies too.

Megan was my Runway sidekick.

Karen and her dude. She takes care of the plants in the Greenhouse. There's green stuff here.. what?

"Let's rock, let's roll, let's rock n' roll... all day, and all night, live like there's no tomorrow." - lyrics to one of my songs I wrote at Aylmer St.

The Prom Queen.