February 20, 2010
Cody and Omar have just left. Twilight is slowly approaching, and we have a few good weeks left before total darkness sets in. They’ll be well inside Amundsen-Scott before that happens. The pole is going to get darkness a little quicker than the perimeter of the Antarctica. Myself, I can’t wait. I’ve got about three and a half weeks before I have blackout conditions. Honestly, I’m kinda looking forward to it, although I suspect it will get old before six months have passed.
The past few days have actually been pretty enjoyable. I guess you can’t help but bond with someone when you have spent two days in a small cab trekking the ice and then another week in a dorm, sharking a tiny bathroom. We’re a pretty diverse group. Omar is an older black gentleman, and he has spent the last twenty years on tech support at Amundsen-Scott. Except for a few very short trips back, he hasn’t even “left the ice,” as he put it. He says he’ll probably be here until he retires at seventy, and then he is moving to Barrow, Alaska. I guess he likes the cold.
Cody is everything that I want to be. We’re about the same age, and that’s about it. He’s probably the most fit person I have ever met. He’s spending the year in Antarctica for the adventure. As soon as winter is over, he’ll probably be on to his next adventure, like climbing Mt. Everest or kayaking the Amazon. In his own words, “It’s awesome down here, bro. Only problem is you can’t get laid here because there aren’t enough women. Hope you like your hand, ‘cause that’s the only reliable date you’re gonna find.” Well, and I didn’t share this with him, but that’s pretty much the only date I ever got back home, too. Antarctica won’t be much different for me.
Still, Cody is a good guy. I’ve never had many jocks for friends. Acquaintances, maybe, but not friends. And I don’t know that Cody and I would have become friends if we had met elsewhere, but we kinda bonded, and we’ve agreed to stay in touch thru email. I’ll be honest. I’ve got a little bit of a man crush on Cody. He’s who I want to be.
He’s not afraid of life. He’ll try anything. I’m mostly in Antarctica to be alone for two years.
He gets laid. Often. I can count on both hands the numbers of times for me. I can count on one hand the number of girls. He’s apparently honry, because they top of sex came up between us A LOT. “So how many women have you been with?” I asked him at one point.
“Dude, I dunno… Ballpark… maybe 80 or so?”
Holy shit. He’s nailed so many girls he doesn’t even have an exact number. I expressed shock and awe at this number. I think I may have called him my idol at that point.
He laughed it off and said what he really wants is a steady girlfriend, but until he finds her, he’ll happily be a man whore. “Always safe, though,” he said. “I had to get a Chlamydia test when I was 17. Nothing will teach you to wrap your junk quicker than a Q-tip shoved up your dick.”
He’s also insanely fit. I saw him without his shirt one night when he was changing for bed. I’m not even gonna lie. I stared. The dude had a six pack. Hell, I think he had a twelve pack.
I don’t know what compelled me to do it, but I told him that I planned to try and lose weight while I was down here. As soon as I said it, I regretted it. How many four hundred pound people haven’t said they were going on a diet?
Cody, though, was amazingly supportive. He didn’t just say, “Good for you,” and change the subject. He got excited like I had just told him the most amazing secret, and he then proceeded to give me tons of advice.
“You’ll need to do more than just watch your diet,” he said. “If you work out while you lose weight, you’ll develop bigger muscles that will help you burn fat faster, you’ll have less loose skin than if you don’t, and you’ll just simply feel better.”
I told him how I had planned to get my exercise in by walking around inside Embry Base. He said that was certainly a good idea, but he actually wrote out some weight lifting routines that I could do with what I had on hand. He also said he would send me more advanced routines through email as I got stronger. Cody is going to be my personal trainer, in a way.
While it isn’t like the place was crawling with people when there were three of us here, it’s even more strangely empty now. I can’t help but wonder when I’ll get used to it. Will I even get used to it? Let’s hope so.
Works beckons. I’ll write more soon.
* * *
February 23, 2010
The past three days have actually been pretty busy. It took me about two days to get the equipment running properly. I’m pleased; they told me it would probably take about a week. I did it in two days, and I’ve already got my first batch of data. Heck yeah.
The diet is going okay. I don’t have my hydroponic station set up yet, but the pantry is still more than adequate. Now that the project is officially running, I’m going to concentrate on getting my fruits and veggies growing.
The exercise is… going. I haven’t done more than walk so far. This has shown me how horribly out of shape I am. I did forty-five minutes of walking, back and forth from the pantry to the kitchen to the living quarters and back. Pretty boring walk, but the music pumping out of my laptop made it easier.
The next morning, I was sore everywhere below my waist. I should have listened to Cody. He told me to limit it to fifteen minutes a day for the first few weeks. I really didn’t think a walk would do that to me, but I guess I’m more out of shape than even I realized.
I realize I am only three days into this, but I think I’ll be okay with this isolation. Granted, I have been very busy and have been working fourteen hour days, but eve with the extra free time I’ll have now, I’ll just make sure to keep it full. Thank goodness for Ebooks, TV, movies, and porn.
I’ll weigh in officially on Friday the 26th. I hope it’s lower!
* * *
February 26, 2010
I did it! I weighed in this morning at 394! I have lost nine pounds in a week. I am so excited! Part of me was expecting a bigger loss, but considering that I really only exercised like twice during the past week, I’m pleased. I know I won’t lose nine pounds every week, but even if I could lose two pounds a week, that would still be over 200 pounds before this Antarctica job is over.
It still isn’t boring yet, here. Honestly, I’m probably having the most fun I’ve ever had. Does it make me weird that I like being alone? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be alone forever, but I’ve had such a bucket list of things I want to do and accomplish, and I can actually do some of them here (and with the money I’ll make, I can do the others when I get home), that this is truly a dream come true.
I’ve also got a lot of fat-guy-couch-potato down time, and I’m enjoying that, too. As I’ve already expressed, I am a huge dork. I like science fiction and fantasy and horror movies and pretty much anything. Really, you could probably call me a movie buff. I have tons of movies here to watch. All are in digital format and saved on numerous hard drives, but still… there isn’t a television here, anyway, but I have a computer monitor that’s 27 inches wide. It works pretty well.
I’ve decided to watch Star Trek from beginning to end, including all movies. Right now, of course, I am still in the original series. After this comes the animated series, which I actually haven’t watched before. I’ve been mixing it up with some comedies, currently watching South Park, which I love, and I even watched a horror movie the other day.
I wanted to see if a horror movie would freak me out down here. After all, I am completely alone. I am utterly isolated. Would the idea of being stalked by a serial killer here be as scary?
It isn’t. No more scary than it would have been at home. Maybe even less. After all, I’m alone. There isn’t even a serial killer here to keep me company, and the place is so small, there’s nowhere a human could hide. I need to watch Alien vs. Predator soon. That’s set in Antartica, right? Maybe it would be scary.
I need to finish this blog post so I can get it sent via email so it can be put on my blog. I’ll write more next week. Talk to you guys later.
Live long and prosper,
Mason