 |
The word for January 2, 1999 is: Tiempo (tea-m-poe)
Good morning one and all and a happy new year.
Well 1998 came and went. Here at Mctown New Year's Day saw people here enjoy the annual Ice Stock Music Festival combined with the ever popular Chili Cook-Off. This year's event was the best one ever held as far as most old timer's can remember although that's not saying much since we now know through studies done here of people staying for the winter that the cold temperatures effect of the brain can result in temporary memory loss. There were other finding but I don't remember them. The LC-130 stuck in the crevasse in Upstream Delta has been pulled out and we be back in Mctown soon. The crevasse was filled in with snow close to the level of the plane where large airbags where than inflated underneath it to lift up, and then dragged by a heavy loader to a safe area to be worked on. The prop has been fixed, the plane repaired and is now just waiting for fuel and a flight crew to fly it out of their. Also today there is a "Stiffed-legged Flight" going to ChristChurch from Mctown. The plane has problems that put it's landing at risk and needs to be flown to ChristChurch to be repaired. It has to fly at a lower altitude, is carrying no cargo or passengers and is expected to take 11 hours to get to New Zealand where fire-engines and other disaster vehicles will be waiting in case of a worse case scenario landing. The good news so far this new year is that there have been no medivacs. The bad news is that so far the 98'-99' summer season medivacs is now at 28. The Polar Sea icebreaker is now within helicopter range and should be entering the ice edge very soon. Let's just hope it has a pier to tie to as the ice-pier now looks as though it has a large olympic size swimming pool installed in it. The weather in town is still pleasant and warm with the current ambient temperature at 34 degrees farenheit while the windchill is at -2 Celsius. At South Pole Station the temperature is -32 Celsius.
With that the first Spanish Word of the Day for 1999 is: "Tiempo (tea-m-poe)." Which means: "Time." It's the new year and it's that time again. It's time to reflect on our lives and to see where we've been, where we're at and where we're going. The beginning of the new year is the time to take a good hard look in the mirror and see ourselves for who we really are. It's time to get let go of all the grudges and irks that take up a lot of our time and energy. These are those things that are insignificant to our lives and that keep us from growing in the right direction. The new year is also a good time to look at why things are the way they are in our everyday lives and wether we are comfirtable with the direction they have taken us. It's time to quit blaming others for those responsibilities that we know that are or should be ours alone. This year start of the right note and get away from pronisticating your resolutions. Make this year "The Year." If your like most of us you will probably make a list of resolutions in your mind that you hope to accomplish this year and then find a million and one reasons later why you didn't. This year make it stick. Write it down. Stamp it on your forehead so you can see it when you look in the mirror. Be truthful to yourself. That doesn't mean give up eating mutton when you know your a vegetarian. Coming to Antarctica should have already proven to you that you are different than most people. That you're independent and focused and believe in yourself because you know that when you decided to come here you took a chance not knowing what you were getting yourself into. So you see, believe in yourself, look at yourself and start the new year by being smart with your "teimpo."
The Spanish phrase of the day is by someone in the audience at Ice Stock as they saw "Baby Time" run through the crowd with nothing on but a diaper, bunny boots, a Cat-in-the-Hat seared-like hat, and a torch: "Parece que 1999 va a ser otro ano interesante." " Looks like 1999 is going to be another interesting year." We're half way throught the summer Antarctic season and if it's anything like the end of 1998, the guy who said that is a prophet.
ciao.
Chico.Over
1/2/1999 
|
Back to
Virtual North Woods
Copyright