Pressure Ridge Tour

As We started to get settled in, one of the first things we did was head out of town to the Pressure Ridges. A pressure ridge is when the the sea ice freezes and starts pushing up against the permanent ice shelf. The ice shelf runs into the land and has nowhere to go. The pressure starts to build and the ice starts to move upward having no other option. These sharp ridges are created and slowly grow over the course of a month or 2. Erin and I went about half way through the first month, and were told that there were kind of tiny right now but if we come back in a few weeks they will look completely different.

I got a little cold in the end because I didn't wear enough layers on my bottom half, but other than that I had a lot of fun. I hope to go back and visit again in a couple weeks to see the difference.

Til next time!

Autumn :)

New Zealand Day 6....kind of.

On day 6, the clouds parted and, wait for it......we actually loaded the shuttle at 6:15am and headed to the CDC to put our extreme cold weather gear on for our departure from Christchurch. Its actually happening!!!!

We got dressed and headed over to a different building for some breakfast. After we ate we had a quick safety briefing and started to board the plane. We were so excited we took lots of pictures.

Once we were in the air, they allowed us to go up into the cockpit and look out the front windows and take some pictures. There were 4 pilots total and they were all really nice about letting everyone take pictures. They even had this secret window that look out into the cargo area to make sure everything was going safely.

About 4 into the flight, they made an announcement that we were officially over Antarctica, so Erin and I took an adventure to the door windows to have a looksie. It was amazing to look out and see all white.

Once we landed, everyone cheered and we slid to a stop. No really, we landed on the permanent ice shelf and slid into place, it was the plan all along.  We all bundled up and headed off the plane and into some waiting vans and deltas (more pictures of the vehicles to come.)

We then had an hour drive into town where we had dinner and another briefing before getting our room assignments. After getting our linen packs, we all walked up to the cargo building and grabbed our luggage. At this point exhaustion kicked in and I was done for the day.

This has been a long time coming, but I am finally here!!!! Yeah!!!!!

Autumn :)

New Zealand Day 5

Day 5 was the same as the rest, so we ended up with another free day. At this point, we were totally over the free days and running out of money. We were getting a per diem for food everyday, but anything else we did came out of own pocket.  So the idea of another big activity didn't sound so appealing.

So we decided to walk around town and see the city.

On February 22, 2011 the Town of Christchurch, New Zealand suffered from a 6.1 magnitude Earthquake at the city's center. This earthquake ended in 181 deaths making it the 2nd deadliest natural disaster on record for New Zealand. In the 5 months to follow, the town felt over 8000 aftershocks making the rebuilding phase nearly impossible. Some of the aftershocks were at a 7.2 magnitude. And the buildings that made it through the first earthquake soon began to fall. Even in our short time in Christchurch, we felt 2 separate earthquakes.
The most damage happened in their downtown area and the city literally shut down. The core of the city was declared unsafe and fenced up. The entire downtown area is deserted and behind fences. And when I say the entire downtown area, I mean a 2 mile (?) radius of  fence blocking off downtown. Seeing the damage up close was devastating.
Just 2 weeks later, Japan suffered their massive earthquake and New Zealand was left in the media's dust. And the locals aren't afraid to voice their anger in not getting help from other countries because everyone was helping Japan instead.
Here are some of the pictures I captured as we walked around the Red Zone that once was downtown Christchurch. Warning, some of the photos are very sad to look at.

Autumn :)

New Zealand day 3 & 4

Day 3 started just as early as the day before. We got up at 2:30am for a 3:15am Shuttle pickup. We then got another phone call saying that we had been delayed by 24 hours. So back to bed we went with another free day ahead of us. On Day 3 Erin and jason decided to have a quiet day and I was invited to go with some new friends to a place called Adrenaline Forrest. This is a huge ropes/zip line course that takes about 3 hours. There are 6 different courses, each of them getting higher and harder as you continue on.

I made it through 4 courses before swinging on a rope and getting sideways body slammed into a padded tree. I thought I felt my brain shake a little. Imediately following I started getting a headach and decided to be done for the day.
While the others were continuing on the ropes, I found a neighboring park and animal farm with the biggest ducks I have ever seen. These ducks were roughly the size of turkeys.....no lie.

And I kept hearing this static white noise and was wondering what it was. I found this random lifted dock across the parking lot and discovered we were right by the river as it was feeding into the ocean, the scenery was beautiful.

After heading back to town and having some pizza with some new friends, I headed to be early expecting a 2:30am wake up call once again.

Day 4 satrted the same as day 2 and 3. Up at 2:30am, phone call at 2:45, 24 delay, back to bed. Another free day! What are we going to do with so many free days?
Erin had picked up some brochures in her hotel "just in case" we stayed another day. And we decided we wanted to go to the wildlife open zoo. Jason wanted another quiet day, so Erin and I were off to explore!
The park was a lot of fun. We even got the chance to mingle with the natioal bird, the Kiwi. Not so cute in real life.

We hit up the mini ropes course, fed the Giraffes, ate with the Rinos, and got up close with the Leopards. The Leopards were both our favorite, they reminded us of our own cats. There were purring, and letting the zoo keepeer pet them and rub them down, and just playing with eachother.

The park was very spacious and there were even times that we found ourselves just walking through a beautiful landscape.

Then back to the hotels we went for another early night and the the 2:30am wake up call.
Will we ever get to Antarctica?

Autumn :)

Day 1 & 2 in New Zealand

Once we arrived in Christchurch, NZ we were all exhausted and pretty much just headed to bed to get some decent sleep. The next day we were off to the CDC (Clothing Distribution Center) to try on our ECW Gear (Extreme Cold Weather Gear.) Dan, Dawn and Myself had our fittings at 9am and Erin and Jason had theirs later on at 1pm.

Once we done trying everything on and getting our Flu shots, Dan and Dawn invited me to come with them to Southshore Beach. So we hopped on the bus and headed out to the ocean. It was a beautiful day but a bit chilly. Since it is winter time in New Zealand, pretty much everything was closed for the season. So we got some coffee, took some pictures, and caught the next bus back into town.

Later we met up with Erin and Jason for some drinks and Dinner.

Day 2 started early, we were scheduled to be picked up at the hotel at 3:15am. Well, the weather was really bad on the Ice so they delayed us until 7:15am. We then were further delayed until the next day so we ended up with a free day. So we (Erin, Jason, Dan, Dawn, and myself) took the bus out to Sumner beach to check it out. And as the days before, it was a little cold so we grabbed some coffee and a snack before heading back into town for some dinner and getting to bed early for another attempt to get up at 3:15am.

This is Erin making me feel loved by writing my name in the sand

Sumner Beach

My Vanilla Latte and Lemon Pistachio Bar....yummy!

If you think you know what happens next, you might be surprised.

Autumn :)

Travel Day!

So now the adventure begins! Out first day of travel started out at 7:30am at Raytheon for one last 4 hour safety meeting.....sounds fun doesn't it?....and then on to the airport for a 4:20 flight to Los Angeles. Here is Erin and me still excited and full of energy.

Once we hit Los Angeles we had a 6 hour layover before we took off for our next stop in Auckland NZ. Well, our flight was delayed and out 6 hour wait turned into a 10 hour wait.

Once we knew the plane was close we started stretching and getting ready for our 14 hour flight across the ocean. We were told to move and walk every now and then so we didn't get Deep Vein Thrombosis (http://www.medicinenet.com/deep_vein_thrombosis/article.htm) Once we were taking off I fell asleep and had Zero energy to take pictures, sorry.

We arrived in Auckland and went through customs, The cute little security Beagle sniffed my bag and signaled that I needed to be searched, I had a banana in my backpack during the overnight  and ate it for breakfast, but the smell still lingered so they searched my stuff. Everything was fine and they let me continue on my way.
Our last flight into Christchurch NZ was only 2 hours and then we were taken to our hotels to finally get some sleep.

After 2-ish days of travel, we made it safely and all of my luggage arrived fully intact.

Next Stop? Cold Weather Gear issue and a little bit of sight seeing.


 Autumn :)

The Stats

Alright People! Hear. We. Go!

Its been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. I am going to throw some updates out there and get everyone caught up.
- I am officially going! Yeah!
- My work title will be the Housing Assistant! (with a possible promotion)
- My last day at Tangoe is Friday, August 12th
- I'm leaving for the Ice on Friday, August 19th
- I start working down there on Monday August 22nd

Here is a picture of my future work site!

Ok, whew! Thats as far as I am right now. I have 2 weeks before I leave and I have a ton of stuff to get done. As these steps come and go I will take pictures and keep everyone informed along the way. The next task on my list is to ship some of the bulkier items down there so 'I have enough room in my suitcase for everything else.

I hope everyone is having a good Friday so far!

Autumn :)

A little off the Subject

Right now I am finishing up my medical qualifications and that's not very exciting. But while I am getting all of this done, I am still living a normal life.......for the most part.

I wanted to share a story with you that happened to me over the weekend and it made me feel really good. So here it is:

On Sunday, my Mom and I drove through the back of our neighborhood to get to the gas station. To get there, we pass by a little pond that's sits in the middle of our neighborhood. I pointed out a female duck to my mom that was across the street from the pond and she mentioned that she had seen a female duck just the other day with 9 little ducklings. We then noticed at the same time that this female duck was circling a storm drain and seemed kind of panicked. Our first thought was: What if she was the momma duck from the other day and her ducklings were in the drain? We decided to get gas and come back the same way to see if she was still there.

We drove back by about 10 minutes later and she was still there. We parked the car and went over to look in the drain. And sure enough, all 9 ducklings were in the drain squawking away. We tried to call the Animal Control and apparently they don't work on Sundays? This did not seem right, but there wasn't really anything we could do but leave a message.

About this time a couple had come walking out of a side street  and saw us standing there looking into the drain and came over to see what was going on. The man tried to lift the grate and it came loose. We decided to try and take it off and get the ducks ourselves. This was more of a task than we had anticipated. The average storm grate weighs 175lbs (or so I'm told.) Did I mention the woman helping was pregnant? So after the initial lift she had to let go for safety reasons. That left me and the man to lift this thing....success!! Not without a few scrapes but totally worth it.

Once we got the grate off, a man who was fishing in the pond lent us his net and we got the ducklings out! I have to give a shout out to the man who helped me with the grate because he was the one who willingly went into the sewer water in his flip flops to get the ducks. We set the ducklings into the grass and the momma duck came over right away and led them to safety.

I was so glad that we were able to help out. It made me feel really good knowing that we probably saved their lives. It rained pretty hard that night and I don't know that they would have been able to handle the water flowing in.

I hope this story has made you feel as good as helping them made me feel.

 Next Stop? Saving Penguins from the freezing water?......I don't think so.

Autumn :)

Dental Qualifications

As a follow up to my stress and frustration I was dealing with as I headed to the dentist last Thursday. I went in prepared to lay my money down and walk away feeling numb and broke, and decided to talk to the dentist about possible options in only getting one tooth done or maybe putting a temporary back on the area that needed work.
After taking a look and seeing how well it was holding out, he said that I could still be Qualified for the Ice without having to get my crowns replaced.
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!
This is by far the most exciting news I had all week. He told me that I needed to schedule an appointment to come back in and get PQed and that was it. So I scheduled a time to come in the following day. I returned to the Dental office on Friday and everything went great. It sounds like I am qualified, but they have to send it to this retired Dentist  who looks everything over, and upon his approval, I will be qualified.
In other qualifying news, I had my TB Skin test done on Friday as well and it was examined and approved this last monday.
The last thing on my list to be fully PQed is a trip to the Obgyn. That will be in about 2 weeks and then i can move on to the other list of things that I need to get done, including getting my computer laptop approved for use and travel.

Til Next Time!
Autumn :)

I hate Health Insurance

As I attempt to finish up my medical qualifications, I have run into a few snags with my insurance. After reading a current post from my friend Mattie's Blog (theadventuresofmatilda.blogspot.com) there was talk about how much Health Insurance in the States really does suck. I am currently witnessing a portion of this first hand.

It all started back in November when I started working through a temp agency and signed up for insurance on my first day......yes First Day! I was only working little jobs for them and never saw any medical dues coming out of my paycheck so I assumed you had to be working so many hours a week before you could qualify. Well I didn't start working full time with them until March, at which point I started investigating my benefits....(which I had signed up for 5 months prior on my first day.....yes First Day) The temp agency gave me the insurance companies number and I gave them a call, only to find out that I was never enrolled. Upon asking to be enrolled, I was told I missed the annual open-enrollment in January and would have to wait until 2012 before I could sign up.

Ahhhhhhh! How Frustrating!!!!!

So I went back to the temp agency totally confused and wanted to know why I was never enrolled back in November and if there was a valid reason, why I was never offered open-enrollment in January. I was never told who's fault it was, but they did their best and got me enrolled with the insurance company effective May 9th. Better late than never right?......Wrong.

The point of getting insurance for me was for the dental. I had chipped off one my front crowns and needed to have them replaced before Raytheon would PQ (Physically Qualify) me. I had been putting this off until I had insurance because it costs over $2000 for the procedure and I needed all the discounts I could get.

Long story short.....The insurance company wont cover procedures like these until you have been with them for 6 months. So lets do the math here. If I had been covered on the day that I signed up for this insurance (November 2010) I WOULD have  hit my six month mark in......yup you guessed it May 2011...Ding Ding Ding!!!!! I would have been covered for this procedure! But since someone screwed up, I am just about to hit my one month mark instead. And I cant wait until I hit my new 6 month mark in Oct because you have to be PQed 6 weeks before you leave, and I am guesstimated to leave in August, meaning that I need to have this taken care of by the beginning of July.

So 2 Days from now, I will be headed into the Dentists office with what money I have saved up and 2 credit cards.
In an attempt to stay positive, I will be getting brand new front teeth that will look 10x better than the ones I have now.

Until next time,
Autumn