ice

On Oct. 27th, I flew down to Denver from Cheyenne to work on the Monitor and Control project for the new antenna we’re putting in at the pole. After spending the previous week feverishly packing my Cheyenne apartment into storage, I left my Jeep with a friend and caught my plane to Denver, a total flight time of 35 minutes. I then spent the next 3 hours waiting for the shuttle that was to drive me to my hotel. Indeed, in the time I spent waiting at the airport for the bus, I could have driven down from where I had flown from, turned around, and driven back again!

I eventually made it to my hotel, a pleasant suite in Littleton, Colorado. The place ran its own buses to my company headquarters. In any event, for the next 3 days I went in for the M&C training along with several other satellite engineers for the company.

It was mostly training on how to use and administer the system and since I’ve worked with it before, I easily picked up on the administration and design functions of the program - how to write and control panels and macros and instruct equipment to perform different operations in different orders according to specific events that would trigger them. The course was informative and consisted of myself and several other people in a conference room in front of laptops drinking coffee. In any event, I’m now a certified admin on this system, huzzah!

Following my three day temporary assignment, the other contract employees began to arrive at the hotel to prepare for deployment - first a jovial botanist with a recent PHD in either plant sciences or World of Warcraft (I’m still not sure which); then a number of carpenters and general labourers - an ex-Navy seal who is now an antenna rigger, etc. etc. The first day of orientation was spent as you’d expect, filling out paperwork and disclaimers, sitting through lectures, and ensuring all of the requirements for deployment were being met. Passports were copied and rechecked, vaccinations were given and boots were issued. I was issued $200 in travel cash to keep me fed and entertained between that point in time, and Antarctica. Later that I evening I walked from my hotel to a Circuit City and purchased a game for my DS, and continued to Sports Authority looking for a Nalgene water bottle (which I was unable to locate).