Week 1 comes to an end

Since everyone always wants to know these things, I'll start my blog posts with:

Current Temp:  9 F
Wind speed:     15 knots
Sunrise:            0911
Sunset:             1638

So finally it's Saturday, our Friday, and it's a short day because we have an all-hands meeting, which means we will stand around and listen to the station manager or the area directorate (I don't know what the difference is honestly, redundancy maybe?) tell us what our supervisors have already told us.  This is what I predict we'll hear:

1.  Ice breaker is a go but still no official word on whether or not we will have a full season (you can ask why but nobody can answer that)
2.  The building that used to house the bowling alley, ceramics studio, weight lifting gym and climbing wall had to be demolished a few years back, but plans are rolling to get the aforementioned recreational items back up and running, which is FANTASTIC!
3.  We are not supposed to do illegal things even though there is no police force or any laws up in here.
4.  We are supposed to be safe at all times, and now that I don't just sit on my ass in an office all day, I understand why all this talk about safety!  There are heaps of huge machines driving around town plowing snow, which we have had a ton of lately, lifting things (like tons of snow), dozing (yes, snow), etc...
5.  I'm making a list of things that are better down here, my "McProvements" list, and it's actually pretty long, surprisingly.  If you care, the list is as follows:
     a.  New staircase replacing a slippery hill up to the building where we get our mail from was built from wood from the bowling alley building (way to repurpose!)
     b.  MUCH faster internet and computers in general, and a much friendly IT department that actually wants people's computers to work properly even if they are used by 70 year old plumbers who hate computers
     d.  A groovy map of town that folds up into a business card sized case (this is coming in VERY handy for me as I'm constantly trying to find buildings I've never even heard of before)
     e.  We have new beds!  They used to be those jail-house type striped mattresses, but now I have like 18 inches of pillow top, and the comforters are fantastic!  Had I known, I would not have sent myself $200 worth of 780 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. OK, that's a lie, but still, the beds are AWESOME!
     f.  We have a wind-farm now that provides us with about 20% of our power, and growing.  I never understood why we didn't have it before, but I'm glad we have it now

The rest of the list probably won't make any sense to anyone who hasn't been here before, but it's growing.  I know we have a lot of new hiking trails, one of which I will check out tomorrow, so stay posted for some pics.

Speaking of pics, the new blog pic is from a place called Fortress Rock, it's town with Mt. Discovery on the left, the super rounded mountain, and then the Royal Society range on the right, in the background.  I can't remember the names of the islands in front of Mt. Discovery, ice people, feel free to jump in!

Also, here is the link to the webcam again  http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmWebCam.cfm
If you go left from the big blue building in the middle, my work center is in the lower of the twin green buildings right next to each other.  If you want, shoot me an email and I'll go outside and wave if the timing is right!

That's it for now, peace and zisman out