South Pole, North Pole, and Mount Everest: Interview with Erling Kagge
Aug 19th, 2008 by Nick
The scariest moments of my life have not been in the wilderness, but in the cities.
Budget Cuts Lead to Footwear Auditing
Aug 10th, 2008 by Nick
Fuel prices are crippling the USAP. Budget cuts are rampant, affecting every aspect of The Program, even on the smallest levels.
For example, take the new workboot reimbursement policy. Due to budget cuts, workboot reimbursement will be limited to select departments, and will only be reimbursed every other year.
That the company is cutting back on reimbursements for workboots is of little concern. However, there is one line in the new reimbursement policy that warrants attention:
It is important to mention that workers/positions who are provided boots will be required to wear the boots. It is the supervisors responsibility to ensure this happens. EHS is planning on randomly auditing PPE usage (including foot protection) throughout the season.
That’s right: footwear audits.
Though I burned over $2500 of diesel at work last week, and though my boots were amortized at a rate of $2 for that same week, it is important to recognize that every penny counts.
In this capacity, Big Dead Place presents a FAQ sheet for supervisors who will be responsible for monitoring their crew’s footwear.
One of my employees wore his company boots for two weeks, thereafter arriving to work in a different, more dubious, pair of boots. Upon interrogation, he replied that he had found the boots in skua and he liked them better. What should I do?
Per policy, the employee must wear the boots that the company paid for.
I told the employee that he must wear the company boots instead of the skua boots. The next day he wore the skua boots, then winked at me and said these were the company boots. I know that is not correct, but I can’t prove it. What should I do?
We will soon be implementing a workboot identification program (WIP) involving tracking chips implanted in the workboots under satellite surveillance. The program will cost $100,000 to implement, and will certainly reduce, if not eliminate, employee workboot fraud.
One of my employees has been wearing his bunny boots to work every day. Upon interrogation, he replied that the temperature is -45F and that these conditions warrant the wearing of bunny boots rather than leather workboots. What should I do?
Per policy, the employee should be instructed to change into the appropriate footwear, which are the boots the company reimbursed him for. If desired, the employee may wear bunny boots in his off time or on the weekends.
My employees come to work barefoot. They like to keep their workboots at home and drink champagne from them. How can I rectify the situation?
This sort of behavior is precisely what the company was afraid would happen regarding the new workboot reimbursement program, and the policy is written expressly to curb such deviance. Drinking champagne from workboots will not be tolerated.
10% Discount on Distillery Equipment for Antarcticans
Aug 6th, 2008 by Nick
New Zealand is one of those rare countries where home distilling equipment is legal.
If one were to find oneself in New Zealand territory with nary a store nearby that sold liquor, one might consider purchasing a still.
Accordingly, Big Dead Place has arranged a 10% discount off home distillery equipment for Antarcticans (Scott Base too!) traveling in New Zealand.
The proprietor’s website is here: Your Shout on Papanui, including their phone and location on Papanui.
Tell them Big Dead Place sent you, and perhaps we can arrange a better discount in the future.
Essencia Express Still - The fastest still producing the highest quality. Achieves 90% ABV at over 2 litres per hour. 28 Litre stainless steel boiler. Includes a digital thermometer for accurate and easy temperature monitoring.
Update 09 Aug:
An ex-Iraq contractor has suggested another still from Nutriteam.com. It is less than $300.
Antarctic Conservation Blog
Aug 2nd, 2008 by Nick
This blog describes what it’s like to spend time in Antarctica conserving artefacts from the explorer’s hut left behind by Ernest Shackleton in 1908.
Update:
What does this thing do?
Polar Programs
Aug 1st, 2008 by Nick
Scurvy Awareness Program
In an effort to understand these complex influences and to promote a Safer Antarctica, Big Dead Place announces the Scurvy Awareness Program: we offer an ounce of gold and a romp with a prostitute in Christchurch to the first Antarctic participant who is diagnosed with scurvy.
Cubee the Aggregate
Here we stumble upon a frightening uncertainty. We have assumed this entire time that Cubee is the smiling aggregate featured in the picture. Is Cubee actually one of the decapitated aggregates being pulled in the wagon? If this is the case, then who are the aggregates waving at us, why are they smiling, and what have they done to Cubee?
The Fuck-a-Winterover Program
The Fuck-a-Winterover Program is designed to restore the magic dignity of old-fashioned conquest to those who wish to engage in the horrifying act of coupling with one of these unhinged winter mutants.
The South Pole Morale Committee
It might seem creepy that people would deliberately get together, judge others’ off-hours behavior, and then affix monetary consequences to that judgment. It is creepy, but managers do it every day, and thus they served as perfect models for implementing the South Pole Morale Committee.
King Haakon VII Review
Aug 1st, 2008 by Nick
Here are some previous reviews from the King Haakon VII1 Review section of this website. These and future reviews will be posted in this category on the sidebar.
Reviews:
Being Werner Herzog: a review of Werner Herzog’s Antarctic documentary “Encounters at the End of the World”
Bill Jirsa (2008)
“Working in Antarctica, we witness documentary film teams at work around us just about every season. The differences in Herzog´s style were easily witnessed in 2006, especially to those of us who became part of the film.”
The Pegasus Cookbook: Culinary Innovation at an Antarctic Outpost
Pegasus Culinary Institute (2008)
The Proliferation of Cute: A Review of March of the Penguins and Happy Feet
Nicholas Johnson (2007)
“March of the Penguins was the atom-bomb of penguin cuteness that changed the world as we know it today.”
Keeping the Ugly Out in the Open: A Review of McMurdo from Scott Base
A. Hobbit (2007)
“Meals for Americans in the Scott Base canteen are by invite only. Such invites can be used by unscrupulous Kiwis to garner all manner of favours.”
Alcohol in Antarctica: A Foreigner’s View
Guillaume Dargaud (2005)
“‘A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine, except that on a day without sunshine you can still get drunk’, and it applies particularly well to the long winterover sunless nights.”
A Winterover Appreciates Jello
Steely Daniella (2004)
“Mattresses and pillows were arranged on the floor and encased in heavy plastic in such a way to contain the 600 pounds of red Jello in a sort of kiddie pool.”
In Defense of Management
Lazarus B. Danzig (2004)
“…hands-on participation from a manager is an affront to God’s order and it blurs the lines of nature.”
The McMurdo Galley
Benny Arnold (2003)
“Recruits who tested ‘too dumb to kill’ could be made into cooks.”
Fuel Offload Vest
F. Scott Robert (2003)
“No doubt some cynics, now accustomed to working for years under dubious labor-contracts in the guise of Human Progress, will merely see the vest as yet another example of a stingy bone left over from distant feasts.”
C.A.R.E. — The Elements of a Spirited Workplace
F. Scott Robert (2003)
“When an ironworker with his dick hanging out of his pants in the bar is later brought to the HR office, it is unlikely that the memo urging employees to spice up their day with spontaneous behavior will be considered in his favor.”
Icebound (made-for-TV movie about Jerri Nielsen)
Lisa Beal, who was at Pole the winter Jerri Nielsen was medevac’d. (2003)
“Bathrooms at Pole are co-ed, for the most part, but have enclosed stalls. The doctor never would have seen Big John’s (or anyone else’s) private parts outside of the context of a medical exam.”
Antarctic Taxation
F. Scott Robert (2003)
“Antarctica is America sometimes, and sometimes it’s not, depending on who’s asking.”
The Winter Psych Eval
F. Scott Robert (2002)
“Often I feel as if there were a tight band about my head.”
South Pole Christmas Bear
F. Scott Robert (2002)
“To do otherwise would be unnecessarily risky, and the bear would most likely end up wedged in a colossal crevasse, his body to be retrieved with meathooks the following summer.”
“Solaris” by Stanislaw Lem
F. Scott Robert (2002)
“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors.”
“The Grotto Berg” by Charles Neider
F. Scott Robert (2002)
“…which brings the narrator to the many perplexing legal questions that Antarctic territory offers the curious mind, before the story resumes and the bureaucrat reminisces about his wife’s ass, and is fascinated by one of the crew’s fat asses, and maybe there are other asses, but by now I am skipping swiftly through the book looking for any trace of mercy.”
Grilled Cheese Tijuana
F. Scott Robert (2001)
“We heaved boneless breasts of chicken into our collective maw and lie face down on mounds of pasta.”
The Contract Changeover
F. Scott Robert (2000)
“NSF is a science outfit attempting to oversee what is essentially an industrial operation.”
A Visit to Palmer Station
Paul Dudley Hart (1988)
“The conditions of the visit made it quite clear that we were not really welcome. Almost to a person the passengers left feeling they had been an unwelcome imposition. Quarantine was a word commonly used.”
- When Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, he named the vast mound of ice he stood upon the “King Haakon VII Plateau” after the Norwegian King at the time. The name never stuck, as this beefy chunk of ice is presently called “The Polar Plateau”. ↩
Stories and Interviews
Jul 31st, 2008 by Nick
Recently Big Dead Place has become more blog-centric1
This is because it is winter, I am tired, and blogging on short timely topics of the day is easier than writing reviews, inventing proper satires, or transcribing interviews.
For those who are coming to this website for the first time through this blog, here are some links to some pieces that will be referred to in the “Stories and Interviews” category on the sidebar. Future interviews will also be categorized there.
I will try to make as much content as is entertaining easy to find through this blog, but the website is a sprawling mess and there are still nooks and crannies that won’t easily fit into categories, such as the All-John-Carpenter’s-”The Thing”-Review Section and the initial piece for this website, an introduction for new personnel called Welcome to The Program.
Basically, I will organize as much of the website as I can through this blog, but if you want the whole shebang, then visit the BigDeadPlace.com main page.
Interviews:
How to Climb Mount Erebus on Your Day Off: An Interview with “Douglas Moeson”
You’ve got to keep your engine speed up. You have to route find, and look for crevasses, at speed. You can’t go slowly and reconnoiter, because you have to keep the engine power up just to keep going. But I just kept it up, and gradually it began to get steeper and steeper, and it finally got to the point with the snowmobile where you can keep climbing, but you can also come straight down.
Stepford Station: Interview with a Palmer Station Contractor
It was January, I was walking around in a t-shirt, I had a suntan, nothing else on but a t-shirt and jeans, I wore little booty socks running around working. Whales, seals, baby penguins, great food, but I couldn’t stand it. I hated Palmer.
Antarctica vs. Iraq: Interview with a Contractor
Antarctica prepared me for the War Zones, a stepping stone which made the transition to Iraq a little bit easier.
Soused at the South Pole: Modern Drunkard Magazine’s Interview with Big Dead Place
For some reason, people can’t get enough of disco clothes here. They are a source of infinite delight.
Burying the Finn’s Tooth
Last year, two of my “teeth of wisdom” were removed by a dental surgeon and those teeth were after that disinfected and sealed in a bag.
Embracing the Experiment: Interview with Abigail Alling of Biosphere 2
Everyone had a theory for what we were doing, and a lot of people felt threatened for sure.
At the Mercy of the Good Samaritan: Interview with Polar Aviator Jon Johanson
If you do not know how to pray before you become a pilot, you tend to learn quickly.
Crazed Norwegian from Troll Base: Interview with Trans-Antarctic Expeditioner Eirik Sønneland
American employees told us later that they had been told to stay away from us and not to talk to us.
…And Maybe Killing a Seal: Interview with an Equipment Operator
One of them had snagged the penguin down by the water intake pipe. He threw it in a pillowcase and brought it up there.
Exploring Antarctica by Bathroom
You can’t just go into every building. You have to actually do something there. What can you do? Shit in it.
The Clock: Interview with Clockmaker Ian Macartney
Acknowledging the Metaphysical Pole: Interview with The Shadow
We could only contact home by shortwave radio, so we were allowed 50 words in the summer and 100 in the winter.
- To examine why this is very hypocritical of me, read my blog: “Why Blogs Blow”. ↩
Antarctic Anonymous Suggestion Box
Jul 23rd, 2008 by Nick
Top-level managers are on the prowl to discontinue any information that may actually mean anything to anybody, whether locally, or on the Internet.
Useless information that means nothing to anybody, of course, remains abundant. Emails and meetings pulverize the populace.
The Denver Anonymous Suggestion Box has evaporated.
So I present the Antarctic Anonymous Suggestion Box. All stations are invited to participate. As are Denver, Christchurch, Port Hueneme, NASA, and anyone else involved in The Program.
Use this page as an anonymous suggestion box to ask questions of RPSC management, NSF, or decision-makers locally.
Though questions probably won’t be answered here, they might be read, so management could address these questions in memos or at meetings, if they choose. Perhaps this will allow more discourse than is presently occurring among levels of The Program.
A more likely scenario is that many NSF and contractor managers will not even know what you’re referring to when you ask about something. Perhaps this will help them learn about Antarctica. After all, Antarctica is about science and learning.
To be anonymous, simply comment with a pseudonym and make up an email address.
If you want me to respond to you, you can give your real email address. Only I will have it, it will not be posted.
Link to Antarctic Anonymous Suggestion Box (or use the tab at the top of the page)
Tides of Marching Penguins
Jul 22nd, 2008 by Nick
[from Fox News]
Hundreds of Dying Baby Penguins Wash Up on Brazilian Beaches
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro’s tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday.
[...]
Every year, Brazil airlifts dozens of penguins back to Antarctica or Patagonia.
Condition 1 in McMurdo
Jul 21st, 2008 by Nick
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