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A day off
I don't want
to hint at how late
I got up this morning for fear of releasing valuable information about
my potential laziness. But to say the least, it was really nice
having a day in town to rest. For the most part, my day was
pretty uneventful. I spent quite a bit of time in the Crary Lab,
monitoring TIGER during its longest continuous run since its 32 day
flight in 2001 - 2002. I also worked some more on our analysis
software. At about 3:00 PM, I decided to head over to the fire
station for their annual open house.
This was a fantastic diversion for the day. The firefighters
opened up the firehouse to the public, had a raffle for free t-shirts,
had a chili cook-off and organized some obstacle courses designed to
give people a taste of what it's like to be a firefighter on the job [WMV (1.1 MB)] .
The way the law works down here is
interesting. There is technically no form of law enforcement at
McMurdo. If anyone were to commit what would be considered a
crime anywhere else, it is more or less up to the citizens of McMurdo
to decide how to treat the situation. During the winter, when
it's impossible to enter or leave Antarctica, the situation would be
even more sticky. Apparently a few years ago, during the winter
season at McMurdo, someone checked a hammer out of a tool closet and
tried to hurt someone with it. He was unsuccessful, but after
leaving the scene, proceeded to sign the hammer back in. As the
story goes, people were able to "arrest" him and incarcerate him in a
room for the rest of the winter until a plane could come in to take him
away.
This season, McMurdo has already seen its first bit
of such drama. A big fight broke out at the Mammoth Mountain Inn
(a dorm on the opposite side of town). One person apparently lost
control and attacked three other people. The National Science
Foundation put a quick end to all of that and he was gone on the next
plane out of town. As some of the people who live over in the
Mammoth Mountain Inn said, "He was a nice guy. I never thought
that he would have been the first to be voted off the island."
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