Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
Blog 4
March 7, 2010
We finally have snow!
Seriously, did you know Antarctica was a desert? The reason there is snow here at all is because when it does snow, it sticks around for eons. Literally. The wind blows a lot, and that looks like snow, but I’ve been here for almost a month, and about three hours ago, it JUST started snowing, for real, for the first time.
I have a procedure for what I do if I have to go out to check on the equipment when it’s snowing. I take a rope, tie it around my waist, tie the other end to the door handle, and that way, if I can’t find my way back, I can always follow the rope back. When Cody and Omar told me about that, I laughed at them.
“Seriously? It’s like twenty feet away. How could I not find my way back from twenty feet away?”
Well, I found out this morning. It started snowing, and wouldn’t you know, today is one of the days I need to go download data. No big deal; I can do it in my sleep. It literally involves nothing more than going out, uncovering the data port, plugging in a USB drive, waiting about ten seconds, and walking back in. Yes, it would be nice if it had a wireless set up so I never had to leave, but that would require battery power and make it more vulnerable to the elements, blah blah blah.
I should have gone the second I got up, but I had a “dream” as I was waking this morning, and my porn-channel-stumbler took me straight to the movie “Riding Miss Daisy,” (don’t worry – Miss Daisy is a twenty-something hot black chick – it’s not old people porn), and I ended up taking care of matters before I started work. Twice. Whatever. Don’t judge me.
So by the time I was ready to get to work (real work, not… y’know, that work), it was snowing harder and a little windstorm was whipping the snow around pretty good. Granted, the sun still hasn’t set, and I’ve got about two weeks or so left, but there was a cloud cover, and everything just looked weirdly gray.
But work had to be done, so I bundled up, tied the rope around myself and to the door handle as I was told to do, and I trekked out to the post. Holy crap. By the time I made it, and remember, this is about twenty feet away, I could barely see. If I hadn’t taken a flashlight with me, I don’t think I would have been able to transfer the data at all. I managed to get the case opened, I plugged my flash drive in, and as soon as it stopped flashing, I pulled it out, re-secured the cover, made sure it was operational, and turned to go back.
Honest to God, I could not see the building. In the two minutes I had been outside, if even that long, the wind and snow had picked up so quickly I could not see the building. I don’t think I would have died without the rope, because after about five feet, I was able to see it, but it was a little scary. It also showed me how the rope will definitely be useful, because if it was pitch black, which it will be in just a few months (the sun sets, but it isn’t total dark for a while after that), then it would have been much tougher. Ropes are our friends.
Exercise is going pretty well. I’m still following Cody’s plan, which for a while still, only involves cardio. However, this week, I get to up my exercise from 15 minutes a day to 20 minutes a day, which honestly, I’m looking forward to. I think I’m actually feeling my lungs and heart get stronger, which is a good thing.
I’ve found that if I put a movie on that I’ve seen a lot and turn the sound up, I can hear it throughout the entire base (remember – it’s pretty tiny, but there are walls), and if I know it really well, it’s like I’m watching the movie in my head as I workout. Today, I walked to A Nightmare on Elm Street.
I know I’m a dork.
* * *
March 9, 2010
Starting next week, I can begin “lifting” weights. Lifting weights is really a misnomer, here, because there are no weight sets. It costs a fortune to bring anything down to Antarctica, and the heavier it is, the more it costs. (The cost of bringing me here is almost equal to the US National Debt. Sorry, bad joke.) But I have tons of canned food, chairs, and various other things that I can heft around to get my muscles stimulated.
I officially started my hydroponic garden today. It needs to be kept at a decently warm temperature, and the hydroponics bay is right next to my room, so we share heat. I keep those two rooms “warmer” than the rest of the base. Don’t get me wrong. Warm here is not warm back home. Warm here is in the sixties. But you know what? I stay surprisingly comfortable here. I guess it’s what you get used to.
There are a lot of laws about what you can grow in Antarctica. Everything must be grown in controlled conditions, which is why I have a hydroponic bay and not just a pot on my desk. I am not allowed to grow flowers. Not a big deal – you can’t eat a flower. Well, I guess you could, but I’m not going to, so why should I waste my time?
There are sodium mercury lights that are on constantly, and they make it considerably warmer in the hydroponic bay. Basically, it’s an alien looking set up of tubes and pipes. I planted the seeds in these weird little bags made of netting, and they pretty much float in nutrient-dense water.
For this first batch, I’ll be growing buttercrunch lettuce, arugula, Swiss chard, various herbs, tomatoes, bell peppers, and radishes. I can’t wait to see how they come up. I’m not tired of the food I’ve got here yet (good thing, ‘cause I’ve got 23 months to go), but fresh food will be nice.
* * *
March 10, 2010
I was debating writing about this post, because when I started this blog, I had planned to just update on my health status and very generally about what work is like. But I’m finding myself sharing more and more, and well… why not? I’m going to share this, too. I would say sorry if this is TMI, but the fact is, I’m already telling you all about how much I masturbate and the porn I watch, so really, do we have any secrets left? I’m not shy, anyway, so why not?
I had a lucid dream last night. If you don’t know, a lucid dream is a dream where you know the dream is going on and you can influence it. Pretty cool, right? I’ve never had one before, so this was a new experience.
So far, what’s the big deal?
Well, I had a lucid sex dream. Seriously, if there was a woman on base, I would be more likely to accuse her of coming in to my room and having sex with me last night than I would be to think this was a lucid dream. The only thing that let me know it was a dream is that I am completely alone here.
In my dream, I woke up at around 3:00 a.m. I have a screensaver on my computer that always tells the time, which is why I know when it was. I woke up to a very soft hand stroking my face. It startled me awake, and because of my blackout curtains, I could only dimly see the person standing above me.
“Shh,” she whispered, which is also when I realized it was a woman.
“Who are you?” I asked, still bewildered.
She pulled the covers back from the bed, and she began to undress me. She pulled off my shirt and began tugging at my pajama pants. At this point, I actually said, “Okay, I get it. I’m dreaming.”
She giggled and kissed me. As soon as I was nude, and there’s no delicate way to say this, so I’ll just say it, she climbed on top of me and we had sex.
It felt real. I’ve had sex dreams before, but this one felt the most vivid ever. I don’t want to be too salacious, because while I’ll write about porn, I don’t want to start writing porn, but I’ll just say that every aspect of her and the encounter felt real. I’ve already admitted I don’t have a ton of experience to draw from, but it seemed pretty amazingly real.
In sex dreams I’ve had before, it never really “finished,” if you know what I mean. This one did. In fact, as soon as I came, the dream just ended. She was gone, and I was suddenly aware that I was no longer having sex.
But here’s the real kicker – apparently, I did this to myself in my sleep. When she “vanished,” I was uncovered, naked, and… uh, well, sticky.
Best sex dream ever. I’m going to email Donovan and ask him to do some research for me on lucid dreaming to send to me. If I can make a dream like that happen again, you better believe I’m going to.
* * *
March 12, 2010
I am very pleased, yet again. I have been walking for 20 minutes a day, and very soon, as in tomorrow, I get to start “lifting” weights.
So how did my weigh-in do this week?
389 pounds.
That’s three pounds down from last week! That means I have lost 14 pounds since I started. If I had lost that before I came down here, I could have brought fourteen more pounds of equipment with me. Oh well. It’s all good.
If I can keep up a rate of two or three pounds a week, I can truly be at goal weight in February 2012 when I come home. That’s amazingly exciting!
You know what else is exciting? New porn!
Donovan’s email last week promised eight new movies. Given what I brought with me, I truly have more porn than I could probably watch. But that’s okay, because porn involves a lot of fast forwarding.
I did try to watch Sex Trek for its plot the other day. It was a pretty thin plot, really.
As I finish this week’s post, I’ll share a thought that occurred to me this week. I do a lot of work here, but I also have a lot of spare time. I take tons of naps, I watch a lot of “television,” and I exercise. I still have lots of time left over. I watch more television. I nap even more.
Frankly, I have NEVER been so well rested in my entire life. I’m barely sticking to any sort of sleep schedule at all. I just make sure I’m awake when I know that I need to collect data, I make sure I’m awake during that painfully short four hour period of satellite internet that I get once a week, and beyond that, I sleep when I feel like it. There are no days or nights here, and without dealing with people I must interact with, there’s no need to be awake or asleep at certain times. I sleep when I feel like it, and it’s working pretty good for me.
But despite all of that, I have tons of free time. And I watch a lot of porn.
Seriously, not even joking, I have far more porn here than I ever did at home. I may need to look into a pornography addiction program when I get back home in two years. But I’m finding myself ridiculously horny all the time.
Since I’ve already decided I’ll just share whatever, I’ll just keep sharing. Sorry if this is too much information. But I also masturbate constantly. It’s a form of exercise, right?
Anyway, it occurred to me, since I am alone and don’t have to worry about anyone walking in, that I may become a compulsive masturbator while I am here. I hope I don’t so completely forget society’s norms that I end up masturbating in Wal-Mart or something when I get home.
Part of my horniness is also a realization that I am going to be coming home a brand new person. I’ve shared how pitiful my sex life was before I came here. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve slept with exactly two women. I really thought one of them was going to be my girlfriend, but… well, it didn’t exactly happen that way.
Does it make me a horrible, shallow person that before I try to find a girlfriend, I want to live as a whore for a while? I want to have meaningless sex with hot women, just because I’ll also be hot.
Well, I don’t care if it makes me shallow. As soon as I’m hot, I’m doing it.
‘Til then, I’ll keep practicing with porn.
That may be the saddest sentence I’ve ever written.
Pornfully yours,
Mason
March 1, 2010
I finally woke up without feeling so ridiculously sore! I can’t believe how out of shape I was! I guess it really shouldn’t be such a surprise; how many people as big as me aren’t horribly out of shape?
For breakfast this morning, I had canned peaches, a protein bar, and a Pop Tart. Yes, I know this isn’t the most nutritious breakfast I could have had, but I am limited in what I can eat here. Don’t get me wrong; I have tons of food. There’s probably enough food her to feed three people for a year. However, I don’t have certain foods at all. I have no milk or eggs. That means I can’t have cereal. I was craving Cap’n Crunch in a BIG way this morning. Oh well. It ain’t here and I can’t have it.
There is an excellent variety of foods, though. I have meats and cheeses, various sweets and junk food… During my post-acceptance interview, they asked me what some of my favorite foods were. Unfortunately, I told them LOTS of junk food. I have pizza, popcorn, Pop Tarts, and more. (I have junk food that doesn’t start with the letter P, too.) I have healthy standard foods, too, but I’m pretty well set. I just have to watch my calories.
I have to admit, it is really nice having privacy. Granted, I lived alone, but it’s different here. The walls in my apartment were paper thin. I was woken up on more than one occasion when the douchebag in 4G would bring some random skank home and they would have noisy headboard-against-the-wall sex. That was hardly ever something I had to worry about him hearing, but I did have to keep the TV down. Not here! Jenna Jameson can moan as loud as she wants, and I’m not bothering anybody.
I wonder how long it will take me to get bored of porn? I’m betting a LONG time. Not only do I already have hundreds of hours of movies, my buddy Donovan just emailed me six more movies – Paranormal Sextivity, A Wet Dream on Elm Street, Eat-a-puss Rex, Sex Trek, Slutter Bi-land, and Horny and Michelle’s High School Orgy. I love funny porn names! (I also love all-girl porn, which is what Slutter Bi-land is, just so you don’t think I’m into sausage or anything.) Anyhow, keep ‘em coming, Donovan! I owe you!
I am continuing to make my way through Star Trek. It’s the version that has the updated graphic, and I absolutely love it! I’m really looking forward to the Animated Series which I’ve never seen.
There is one thing that I miss that never occurred to me, and that is mindlessly surfing the TV channels. I have tons of things to watch here. I literally have thousands of hours of TV shows, movies, documentaries, and behinds the scenes specials to watch. However, I don’t stumble across anything. I have to plan to watch everything.
I decided there had to be some way to recreate channel surfing. I created a random number generator, and I tied that in with my movie database. With just a few keystrokes, I’m able to have a random movie or show start playing. Last night, I ended up watching Howard the Duck. I love that movie. I remember how freaked out I was by the monster tentacle coming out of Jennings’ mouth when I was a kid.
I’ll write more soon. I just “surfed” to Friday the 13th Part Four, scariest entry in the entire series.
* * *
March 2, 2010
I had the weirdest thing happen this morning. I must have the most overactive mind in the world, and I am definitely blaming this one on Jason Voorhees last night. I’ve seen so many horror movies that nothing really scares me. It might make me jump a little if the music gets loud, but that’s about it. It’s really not scary here, because the sun hasn’t set yet, so there is no night time. I have to completely block out what light there is just so I can sleep. (I will be so happy when the sun is gone for good!)
Anyway, I had just woken up, maybe fifteen minutes before, and I would have SWORN I heard a little girl cry, “Daddy!”
Not even gonna lie – I screamed. Out loud. It was SO clear. And I went to look to see if there was someone else here. I know that’s stupid. There has never been a kid at Embry; heck, I don’t know if there has ever been a kid anywhere in Antarctica. Still, it occurred to me that MAYBE someone had shown up. I mean, the sun hasn’t’ set yet, but… okay, I’m lying. I knew no one was here. I would have heard on long-range if someone from Dome Fuji or Amundsen-Scott were coming here. It just freaked me out because it sounded so real.
Oh well. I still love horror movies and I’m going to keep watching them.
* * *
March 5, 2010
Another successful week! I didn’t write anything for the past few days because I got a little carried away with work. I had to venture out into the bitter cold to work on the equipment yesterday. It was 48 degrees below zero yesterday Fahrenheit. That’s ridiculous! And it’s going to get even colder after the sun sets. Almost there, but not yet. We still have daylight.
Anyway, I was only outside for fifteen minutes. It’s amazing how cold it is here. I was ridiculously bundled up; they gave all Antarctica workers these awesome Polar fleece jackets, and honestly, it really helps, but still… frickin’ cold!
But after that adventure, I ended up playing around with the data for a while, and between that, Star Trek, some awful-bad-fun horror movies, porn, and wonderful naps in the middle of the day because day and night are meaningless here, a few days got away from me.
I got on the scale when I woke up a little while ago, and it registered my weight as 392. I lost two pounds in the past week! I’m frickin’ pleased. I didn’t exercise every day, and I still managed to pull this off. I think as I got stronger and can exercise more often and for longer, the weight will keep falling off.
I’ve been alone for over a week now, and so far, I’m doing okay. I’ll admit – the little girl thing from yesterday freaked me out a little, but clearly, it was just an overactive imagination or something. All is good on the ice.
Keep those little kids off the ice,
Mason
February 19, 2010
I debated on how I should start this blog. Should I wax poetic about the ice? Should I even bother saying anything since no one other than my dad and a few friends are even reading this?
Ice – beautiful and sharp
Hi Dad! Hey guys!
I’ll do both.
In the off chance that you’ve found this blog by searching google for a term like “data mining” (which is some of what I’m doing here) or “hot naughty nymphos” (which I am NOT doing here as there are no females at all within many, many miles, and in one day, there will be NO ONE at all but me), then I should probably introduce myself.
My name is Mason. I’m a huge nerd. Seriously. I have two degrees in computer science, specializing in the fields of data mining, automata theory, and math algorithm analysis. And believe it or not, I LOVE what I do. (Told you I was a nerd.) I’m probably not going to talk a great deal about what I do here on this blog, because my dad could care less and my buddies will be getting the data back in the states so they’ll know first hand.
I am currently, and until February 2012, in Antarctica. Jealous? Yeah, a lot of people want to work here. Far more than I imagined. Of course, most people want to be at McMurdo Station where there are hundreds of people during the summer months. Well, I am at the literally unheard of Embry Base, about three days away from Amundsen-Scott in summer and four months away during winter. (Closer for air travel, but we’re pretty much stuck with crawlers.) I’m almost as close to Dome Fuji, a Japanese base, and in the event of a crisis, I would contact them as well as Amundsen-Scott for assistance. (God willing, there will be no crisis, because NO one is getting here for several days in the best conditions and weeks or months in the worst.)
Embry Base currently has a population of three – me, Omar, and Cody. Omar and Cody brought me here from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station two days ago, along with my food and emergency supplies for the next year. They leave tomorrow on the 20th, and I will not physically see another human being for 12 months when I get “refueled.”
While I am here, I will be collecting data and maintaining equipment that resides about eight feet out my “front door.” I just have to make sure that it doesn’t get buried by snow drifts, the battery is live, and other things are operating as desired. I will be going outside to collect data about twice a week and to keep things running. That is the only reason I will be going outside. It’s frickin’cold here!
I saw this job posted on a dirty scrap of paper on an obscure bulletin board at the University lab. There wasn’t a great amount of information, but what was there got me thinking. “Willing to live alone for 2 years and make tons of money?”
Yes to both.
A few phone calls and a plane trip to Denver later, and I found myself taking part in the strangest job interview ever. They wanted to see my work, which definitely made sense to me, but that was over in the first hour.
The next two days consistent of a physical and mental assessment. They wanted to make sure that I could live by myself for two years without turning into Jack Nicholson from “The Shining.” Mentally, I was found to be a suitable candidate. Physically, I was sure I would fail. After all, I weigh 400 pounds.
However, they said I passed on all counts, and the only penalty of my weight was that my weight would not allow me to bring as many things with me as a thinner person could. Oh well. I still have plenty to last me for a year. Thank goodness for my ultra light weight hard drives. I may not have TV, but I couldn’t live without movies and books (God bless you, e-Books) of any sort. (And my buddies back home have promised to email me videos of the latest episodes of The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy, since my satellite internet connection will only be open for about four hours per week. Thank goodness it’s fast during those four hours.)
There were three big reasons I wanted to come to Embry Base after I found out what the job entailed. One, it sounds cool. How many people get to go to Antarctica? Two, the salary is kind of low, $28,000, but I have ALL living expenses paid. Granted, here, that consists of room and board, heat, sundries, and food, but there are no stores here, so I’ll be spending NO money. In the two years of this project, I will make $56,000, completely saved and in the bank. That is definitely nice and something I could not do at home.
But three is my biggest reason – I am obese. I weigh 403 pounds. (There’s an industrial scale here, and I weighed myself as soon as I got here. 403. That’s morbidly obese. That’s gonna-die fat.) I don’t like being morbidly obese. I don’t like having low self-esteem. I want to be thin.
And when I return to society in 2012, I will be thin. I will step off that plane in Louisville, Kentucky at 180 pounds and healthy. This two year hiatus is the perfect way for me to come home to a new life.
But for now, this is my home. For a small base that NO one has heard of (there isn’t even a Wikipedia entry), the set up is definitely nice. I brought a camera, but I stupidly forgot to bring a cord, and I don’t have a card reader, so you’ll get no photos. Sorry. Not that it probably matters that much anyway. The landscape here at Embry is surprisingly dull. It’s beautiful, but google any image of Antarctica and you’ll get the gist. That picture in the header of my blog is pretty typical of most bases, except this one, which only has one exterior light and I only turn it on in the winter in case of an emergency if someone is coming to evac me out. I don’t plan on that being an issue.
Anyway, back on the subject of the camera, I would take a picture, but I’ll just have to give you a description.
I have more room here than I did in my old apartment. There is a kitchen, a huge pantry (that holds enough food for me for more than an entire year), a storage room that is big enough for six caterpillars (due to arrive in winter 2014) but is currently almost empty (save for one caterpillar with GPS in case something major does happen and I need to make the three day crawl to another station in the dead of winter), a series of generators the size of a small village that sips JP-8 jet fuel(seriously, this thing is huge!), the computer room that’s the size of a small non-walk-in closet (basically holds the computer equipment and one chair for me), a small hydroponics bay so I can grow some fresh fruits and veggies (honestly – not making this up), and three small living quarters that are pretty nicely furnished. Oh, and the tiniest bathroom in the entire world that all three quarters share, but pretty soon, I’ll be here solo, and it won’t matter at all. The entire thing is partially underground (well, under glacier, anyway) to help with heating. It’s all enclosed in a geodesic dome designed in such a way to keep snow from drifting over the top of it, and I can guarantee you, I will spend the majority of my time in ANY room except for the storage room. There is so much open space in there, it is almost as cold as outside. I’ll stick to my room with the comfy temperature of 58 degrees, thank you. And yes, while that would be cold at home, here, it’s like a heat wave.
I was fully trained in a LOT of different areas before I even got to Antarctica. I know how to keep the generators running and fueled up, which is good, because if those ever go out, I’ll freeze to death within hours. I now know how to hydroponically raise vegetables, so when I get tired of eating dehydrated, tinned, canned, and otherwise preserved food, I’ll still have some fresh produce. I was given the most comprehensive lesson on first aid. Literally, I could do anything at this point except for remove my appendix. After all, I’m going to be alone for a LONG time. If I sprain my ankle or even break a limb (neither of which is likely, but still… it could happen), I have to take care of it myself, because I am days away from everyone. I feel pretty good about it. I don’t expect anything to happen, but if it does, I’m prepared.
One major downside? Unreliable internet. I can expect to have internet for approximately four hours per day, and that’s limited to email. Fortunately, my buddy Austin back home is going to take care of everything for me via email, and I’ll just send my blog posts to him and he’ll post them and email the comments to me. So if you do find this blog, yes, I’d love to read your comments, but expect about a two week delay in responses. He’ll email them to me, and I’ll make sure to address them in my next weekly blog post.
Anyhow, my name is Mason, please feel free to leave me a comment, and I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures here. They’ll probably consist mostly of “hey, I lost this much weight this week” and “I saw an awesome movie on my hard drive” because, really, what else is there to share? You’re probably going to learn a lot about me by reading this blog, because I’m not holding anything back. You’ll probably hear me ramble on and on about Star Trek or muse enthusiastic about something porn-related. (I’m going to be alone for two years – are you kidding? I have 2 terabytes of porn with me.)
Anyway, I’ll be back on again in a week, and by the time you read this, I may be completely alone on the bottom of the world.
Stay warm,
Mason