I Smell A Class-Action Lawsuit...

I forgot the most important thing to tell all of you wonderful kitchen folk. We now dilute the Sterbac twice as much as we did last season... it's not even blue anymore. It was unhealthy at concentrations of yesteryear.

Look Who's Back

I'm sitting in the Highway One computer kiosk with Evan and Dave. I'm flipping freezing as Evan just dragged me on the Ob Hill Loop and it's cold and windy. The kitchen is pretty much the same as ever. The DAs haven't come close to cracking yet, it's sort of unnerving. They are all quite happy.

As for the DAs of last summer, it's a pretty sweet time. Ethan, Dave, Evan and myself rocked pots last sunday. Ethan has moved on to colder pastures down south, so it looks like Emily Wempler will fill in this sunday. Upon Evan's arrival, a hastey trip to Gallagher's was made, and after a few drinks and shots of tequila, I made one of the greatest decisions of my life. The only problem is, now every drunk guy on station rubs my head... I have to wear hats to the bars.

Evan opted for the tri-hawk. As you can see by the photo, Dave's cut wasn't as nice as ours (he was the master with the beard trimmer), the battery died and Evan did his best with scissors. Happily, Katie Leum fixed him up the next day.

I have gossip, but you have to contact me for the really good stuff.

Hope to hear from you all.

--katie

Sally Ayotte Devouring Her Children, OR, How To Hang Yourself With A Sweatervest

A final political cartoon for your edification.



Welcome home.

Love, Devin.

Update

Yahooo!

Evan Brost comin at ya from San Francisco, California - the endpoint of my 1350 mile cycle ride down the westcoast. I've been entrenched in a 36 hour vegetative state in front of the TV and computer since I finished my trip - hence my responsibilty in giving all my lovers an update.

Along the way I visited such Antarctic allstars as Elizabeth Orange, Marnie Valenta, GA Joe (who taught me how to kite surf - absolutely wicked . . . makes surfing look like a stroll in the park) and the one and only Dave Massie.

Elizabeth operated as our cycling guide from Bellingham down to Seattle, and then as our sailing guide to Port Townsend.

The Cycle tour quickly evolved into a brewery tour . . . Rogue in Newport, OR was the highlight!

Goddamn! the Redwoods are cool . . . Goddamn!

Even a bear with antlers looks warm and fuzzy after enough time on the road

I think i've been here too long!!!!

Hi guys!!!
I know its been ages.... its dark and i have no motivation...z.z.z.z..z.z.... but i seen alot of blue sky today!!! yipeeee..... the end is near :-)

Really great to read all your cool stories, looks like your all making up for lost time! ha

Well......... my latest and most important news of the year..... Clive and I got ENGAGED!!!!!! Sat night he proposed while we were taking a short walk outside Scott Base. Man was i surprised, i had no idea. He made a ring!!! what a guy.... oooohhhh..... I'll try to grab some pics from scott base and post them, now that i know how to work this blog thing!

I'll be here till Mainbody if anyone is coming back. It would be sooooo great to see you all again!
Missing all the laughs and good times when you guys were here, its just not the same without you all :-( ..but i'm surviving! plenty of wine and beer and root beer schnapps to keep me going!

gonna sign off, will be back soon!
Lots of love,
ruthie xxxx
PS: YAY!!!!!!!

Reunion Deux!

This weekend was a joyous reunion between McMurdo's favorite pseudo couple Adam & Mel or for true fans, Madam. Much fun was had, including:
A carefree day at the local farmers market where delicious pizza was consumed!
An equally carefree day at the beach!

Now we will have a carefree dinner!
Bye!
Adam
&
mel

Wait, what's this about ice and traveling and stuff. Man, you all a bunch of crazy people, err, oh wait, this is the blog for recovering Raytheon employees isn't it. Oh okay, I'm in the right place.

Well I've been pleased to have heard from some of you, but from the looks of those already posting it sounds like everyone is enjoying themselves. And as we all should be! But we already know that.

So after all is said and done, back to Colorado it was for me. My folks have been kind enough to allow me to be a bum for a little while whilst I'm gathering my belongings for the bike trip across the U.S. I keep putting it off day-to-day, but it's just 'cause this state keeps distracting me with its mountains and blue skies. Damn Colorado being all beautiful and, but yeah if some of you have spent much time here (other than, shudder, orientation) a visit is a must. Must must must! Had to emphasize.

After cycling around New Zealand, and catching up with Evan and Leslie after strange chance encounters, I found myself strangely in New York city. I remember falling asleep watching The Muppets on the plane, and the next thing I knew I was laying in a curb with rats checking my pockets for change. Seriously, them some damn dirty rats!

I got a job at a messenging company in Manhattan and worked as a bike courier for a few weeks while I was pursuing my crazy obsession with obtaining a New York state driver's license, which for the record I now proudly display when asked for an id. I mean damn if I didn't have to work my ass off, and spend way too many hours (it should be illegal) at the DMV. And the benches weren't even comfortable, but I suppose it wouldn't be the same if they were.

Well alright, I'm up late and still all worked up from a hike earlier, and if I keep going who know's what the hell'll come out of my mouth. So with that, perhaps more from me later if the great Sun god doesn't consume me when I'm on the road, and hopefully I'll see many - or quite possibly all at some point - of you in the coming months.

word

p.s. this was dave (i was the one in the corner scrubbing pots)

p.p.s. oh, and holy damn crap i almost forgot. i have lots and lots of pictures, and the internet sez they don't want em, too many, so i will have cds of them with me while i'm out-and-about, handing em out to children and stuff (Adam, just wait until they see you cowered in the shower corner), but when i sees yous guys this summer i'll have some for you too.

word

Yellowstone and Beyond

I am working in Yellowstone right now. I had a fun trip through Canada and Waterton on the way over here. If anyone finds themselves in the Montana/Wyoming area, give me a shout! I'm always looking for a reason to get out of town and I love visitors. There are lots of bars and beer over here, in addition to the liberal speed limit and mountains and critters.

Dana, you are in Wyoming, right? Give me a call! My cell is 406-640-1493. I'm taking a Wilderness EMT class in Lander, WY starting Sept 17, so I might be quite close to you (though you never know, its a big state).

I miss you all!!!! Keep posting please!
Nu-NU

Greetings

fellow DA's and other former and continuing employees of Raytheon from the bountiful verdant bosom that is Eugene's Willamette Valley.
It seems like we might start getting a few more people posting on here. People seem like they are beginning to get settled on what the next direction their life will take - so maybe they will be feeling like reflecting on whatever that is for the benefit of all of us.

Anyway, I hope you all are having a good summer so far where ever you are.

Here is the Adam update:
After leaving the ice, I traveled around NZ for about 3 or 4 weeks, saw lots of both the north island and the south, if you go back for what ever reason, I reccomend that you spend alot of time on the south island near the cook range. It is definitly the most beautiful area. Huge epic mountains coming down to meet these golden plains. Here is a photo taken maybe 50 miles south of Mt.Cook on a cool misty autumn morning.

After NZ I flew back to Seattle, and eventually down to Eugene, by way of Devin in Portland, where I currently am in week 3 of being a spectacularly earnest organic farmer. If you wish, you may picture me in overalls. Brown. OshKoshB'Gosh. And of course the resulting distinctive tan lines. These earthy traits are a form of street cred in a city braced with dreadlocks and an almost universal aspiration to be a farmer of some kind.
In addition to the many different fruits berries and vegetables we grow, we also raise cattle. Wintergreen Farm is fair sized with about a dozen employees during the summer, all of whom are role models for developing unbelievable levels of pure earnestness in one's self.
Here is photo of a silo at the farm on a recent summer morning.
To Dale- My robot brother, good luck in Africa, may you go as long as possible avoiding dysentery, and when you do get it, may it be spectacular.
To Katie- Have fun with SalPal next year. Please communicate gossip to Erin or to me directly. Jabs will be back I hear, in her same position. I will be volunteering at the local fire dept. this year, so if I come back in following years, I will most definitely do it as a firefighter as the perks seemed endless.

Best Wishes,
Adam Lucke

Africa

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become

Pure poetry. Those of you unfamiliar with the music and lyrics of 1980s-era supergroup Toto may find the above lines to be thoroughly incomprehensible. Those of you who know Toto well may still feel the same way. What I am trying to say, my friends, is that I, Dale Kiefer, am heading to Africa.

I have accepted a 27 month assignment with the Peace Corps in Zambia where I will be working on an aquaculture project in a small rural village. I know not what else awaits me, in large part, but I do know that my future home will be made of earth and that I will have no electricity or running water, (who's the harshest continent now, Raytheon?) for most of the time that I am there.

I am leaving Ohio in two weeks, but should have access to the Internet occasionally over the next two years. So everyone should start using and reading this blog (I realize now that I am preaching to the born-agains), so that every now and then we can all have some idea about what at least some of us are doing.

And just to let you know, in reference to Katie's post, I have been to many different kinds of bars. Normally the dives I frequent are full of working-class people in their forties and fifties--the parents of those rowdy John Cougar Mellencamp wannabees. They are usually too burdened by their money troubles and alcoholism to sing, scream, and pound their fists on the bar. That's why Katie made reference to my reaction. I don't want any of you to think that I only go to hipster bars with Belle and/or Sebastian.

Stay Real.

my favorite type of schnapps

Hello.

This past weekend, Dale (Honeybear) Kiefer made a trip to upstate New York. I readily scooped him up and took him to a redneck bar. Surprisingly, he had never drank at such an establishment, and it was enjoyable watching him react to the myriad of drunks sing along to John Mellencamp and such. Anyway, to the punchline of the story. I realized that this bar had a wide selection of Schnapps, and insisted on buying shots of rootbeer. Those not part of the McMurdo Summer 2006 declined shots, leaving me and Dale to drink alone.

Two shots of Rootbeer Schnapps in a crappy bar- $6.50

It is great that I not only gave myself an upset stomach, but I did it for the price of three and a quarter bottles of schnapps. Mmmmm.

In other news, I am returning to McMurdo, working in the Salad room again. I was wondering who else is going back. For those not returning, I would love to see you. Come to Saranac Lake, NY- I won't make you drink anything gross! Or, I will try to meet up with you this fall, before I go.

cheers!

Reunion!

Cats are humping dogs . . . and the dog is actually enjoying it; the president is humping Laura . . . and Laura's actually enjoying it; Raytheon is giving money to charity; the DA's at McMurdo are getting a raise; and Leslie Ham, Evan Brost, Krista Eastman, and Jude Larkin converge in Madison, WI in the exact same space-time continuum.
You can rate for yourself the likeliness of any of these events taking place, but I can assure you that the ladder event DID actually occur.
Thats correct, merriment and only slightly bitter reminiscence took place this week amid the large, hard-hitting beers of the Ale Asylum in Madison, WI. Twas a glorious reunion of DA's and electricians, with many more to come! Raise your hats, and perhaps a glass, to McMurdo solidarity in the northern hemisphere!
I send my love my lost sheep,
posted by . . .
The basement dweller

Home

I'm in this place, unmoving. I'm being in my friend's basement in Madison, WI. The floor crumbles with the eroding mortar of the wall; the air is cooler down here; the floor is grey and so are the walls; the windows are slits, covered in red cloth; surrounding me are a washer and dryer, boxes stacked to the ceiling, a weed wacker, paint cans, a fan, old computers, a lamp, a hot water heater, various musical instruments and amps. My bed is crusted with a years worth of storage crud and lies incongruently on the floor, below various pipes and pieces of insulation. My clothes: five shirts, three pants, thermals, fleece, socks, underwear, are dumped on the floor in a long pile, wrinkled and sucking in musty basement smell. Next to my bed: a table with my computer, camera, wallet, phone, CD player, diary, and all my food (over-ripened bananna, jar of strawberry jelly, mostly empty jar of peanut butter). That is what I own and that is how I own it. Here I am being.
First thing I did when I got back into town: break up with the girlfriend whom had been waiting 7 months for me in Madison. Second thing thing I did when I got back into town: run to my cabin for a week of solitude and joyful homelyness. Third thing I did when I got back into town: humor my father with a short visit. Fourth thing I did when I got back into town: set up my digs in this open, cool, grey, foster home basement.
Here I am being. Its 2 am, I 'm in my boxers. My 'roommates' are all graduating and becoming solid, unmovable things. I'm in my boxers, listening to the shins. My face is bearded and gnarled, my armpits stink, but my boxers are clean and my nails are clipped. A cockroach looking bug crawls up my leg and tickles my thigh hair.
I have no job. I have no home. I left my lover.
In the last two weeks since I've returned from the most joyful traveling I ever done, I've found home to be a most peculiar place. In my last month of travel, I made a strong and confident and important resolution to to BE at home, in my parents and in my lover. It took me 36 hrs to abandon the ladder, 48 hours to abandon the former. Here I am being, in my boxers, in an adopted basement.
Home was always foreign to me, but I never knew it to be so suffocating. Maybe the ice has changed me, maybe New Zealand has changed me, maybe I'm simply more aware of my emotions, my habits, my hang-ups.
Either way, here I am, and I'm learning that home is a VERY difficult place to be. I'm learning how McMurdo becomes the only place that you know.
I sleep in, I drink, I party, party, party, and MOVE VERY LITTLE.
So here I am being, compulsively dreaming of the road . . . hmmmmmm . . . my god . . . the road. I'll see you this summer, in all my bearded and smelly glory, cycling down the west coast, loving lovers that I don't have to love (shout out conor), pressing my body against beautiful, light bodies, and being moving through beauty.
Thank you lovers, for making McMurdo, for at least a brief time, become home.

Hey Y'all

Yeah, it was pretty awesome of Evan to set this thing up. Looks like it's not getting too much use so far. Maybe for most of us the pain of corporate micro-management is all too recent and the scars of repression ad injustice levied against us DAs are all too fresh to rehash at this point.

Anyway, I had a great trip through New Zealand and then southeast Asia. I'm back at my parent's farm in Connecticut now but just for a few days before I head out to train horse and herding cattle on a ranch in Wyoming. From one low-paying 10 hour day/6 day a week job in an isolated area to another, but at least I won't be working for the man!

NuNu I'm glad your knee is OK! I'm going to be working just a couple of hours from Yellowstone. In fact I will probably be driving through Yellowstone on my way out to the ranch so you should let me know where in the park you'll be working and I'll track ya down!

Everyone else keep in touch, I'm never in one place for long but come visit me or maybe I'll come visit you!

Here's a picture of me getting kissed by a baby elephant in Thailand!


Later!

help

Hello DAs and other fun friends, I miss you all so much. Not really the ridiculous work schedule or the weather, but you individuals who made the harshest continent on earth so much, you are missed. Now, for the favor.

For those of you who were GAs, who would I contact if I wanted a job? I have a friend who is interested, and surprisingly, not enchanted by all the wonderful stories I have of DAdom. So, if you can help me, please e-mail me at katie.folts@gmail.com

Thanks!

PS- for all the Galley folk keeping it real on the stateside, please e-mail me and chat about life post-ice. It's incredible how so much of you seemed like family, and now I have no idea where you are. I'm in New York, or New England depending if I'm traveling, so if you would want to meet up, let me know. And if you don't want to meet up, I want to know what you are doing that is so much more interesting.

Miss you. And here's to NuNu's successful knee surgery

Hi, it's meeeeeeeeee. I second Nunu, where is everyone???? I'm in California for now... I don't know what I'll be doing or what's next. I guess I should have something to say before I post in here. More deep thoughts later.
Mel

Where is everyone?

So apparently no one at all has made any posts on this here thing. I had some knee surgery and it is healing up nicely. I hit the road again next week for Yellowstone where I have a job. I got into Americorps, so I'll be heading to Sacramento, CA in October for 10 months. I hope everyone had (or are having) great travels. Wish people were using this stupid thing...

Best wishes,
NuNu

To the Beautiful McMurdonites of 2006

For some of us, its already over. For others, its almost over. Its not sure how we'll remember McMurdo; We do not know whether we're glad we came, we do not know whether we'll come back, we can't remember who we were before we came down, and we don't know who we'll be when we leave. What is sure, however, are two things: 1) We'll never, ever, ever, ever be a DA again 2) the thing we'll never forget about Antarctica is not the scenery, but the people.

I've made a blog so that we can share pictures (the ones unsuitable for the I:drive) and keep in touch while scatter to all ends of the earth.

Below is a list of our emails!

Addie Smith - aes518@students.jwu.edu
Andrea Dogen - acd262@yahoo.com
Avi Edelson - aviedelson@hotmail.com
Brenda Metzger - bjm_montana@hotmail.com
Brian Birkenston - travelbribirk@yahoo.com
Dale Kiefer - dale.kiefer@yahoo.com
Dana Grant - danacorbingrant@yahoo.com
Dave Barud - dbarud@hotmail.com
Devbo Kenny - mckpax@gmail.com
Donna Clarke - dlclarke1@sbcglobal.net
Emily Keifer - eakeifer@yahoo.com
Eric Cooper - chef@chef-errant.com
Ethan Good - ethangood@hotmail.com
Evan Brost - ebrost@yahoo.com
Evangeline Mosley - evangel58@gmail.com
Ezra Roan - Roanez@hotmail.com
Heather Morrow - heathermo@earthlink.net
Jude Larkin - judelarkin@yahoo.com
Julia Berg & Mike DeLuicia - delucnberg@netscape.net
Katie Folts - katie.folts@gmail.com
Leslie Ham - hamleslie@gmail.com
Mindy Chaffin - mindychaffin@yahoo.com
Monica Piergrossi - skimonica@gmail.com
Rachel Edie - racheledie@gmail.com
Rob Jones - dragonchef@gmail.com
Ron Bushbaum - lacroizmn@yahoo.com
Ruth Joly (and Clive Davis) - littleruth@wildmail.com
Stacy Blattner - snowfox207@yahoo.com
Susan Munroe - susanmunroe@gmail.com
John Mayo - J_mayo69@yahoo.com
Todd Adams - rtoddadams@hotmail.com
Tommy Paul - mrtpaul@excite.com
Travis Senor - tlsenor@gmail.com
Sant mukh khasa - santmukh@hotmail.com
Skews, Jeff and Arnita - arnita8@juno.com
Shane Buchaus -Iloveanimals.com
Bonnie Bzdok - bbzdok@hotmail.com
Emily Wampler - joysong63@hotmail.com
NuNu - Kmglenne@yahoo.com
Adam Lucke - ada312b@yahoo.com
Rob Hodge - rchodge09@aol.com
Mel - Melissafield@bluebottle.com
wes - weshenderson311@yahoo.com
seth turner - sethtrnr@yahoo.com , ninerdedhed@yahoo.com
nicholas Hoffman - nickthebaker@yahoo.com
Katsu Okuma - kokuma@excite.com
Tracy Goldsmith - tracy.goldsmith@gmail.com
bamma mellott - bmellott@hotmail.com
Michelle Ott - michelleott@hotmail.com
Krista Eastman - kristaeast@yahoo.com
Elizabeth MacDonald elizaorange@gmail.com
David Olson - dco8@hotmail.com
GA Joe - hoodriverjoe@gmail.com
Sharona Thompson - sharona_t@hotmail.com
Ben Bachelder - bassdrumben@gmail.com
taryn 'em up, taryn 'em down -
Eddie Quinn - sleddiequinn@yahoo.com