Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
This Wednesday was the first meeting of the McMurdo Biggest Loser Club. The name is based on the TV show of the same name. Essentially the person who loses the biggest percentage of their body weight wins a prize which down here will be nearly $1000. I'm not competing but have started working out more.
The food here is similar to Olin's dining hall: for the most part it's good but they find ways to put fat and calories into things that shouldn't have them. The desserts are also quite good. The average person working outside will burn 30% more calories than someone in the States because the body has to work harder to stay warm.
A lot of the station, however, does not work outside. For them the high calorie meals mean weight gain. The guy running the club has four more inches on his waist and 50 more pounds on him than when he started coming down. The club is his way of making sure he will stay health conscious and lose weight over the season.
So you may be wondering: "Isn't Adam working outside shoveling snow? Shouldn't he be getting plenty of exercise?" Well it turns out one of the electricians at work (who is also from VT) found out about my degree and robotics experience so he has me installing digital controls in the new power plant. This has gotten me inside more which is more comfortable and interesting but it also means I'm getting less exercise at work. This week I started working out in the gerbil gym each night.
It's Sunday now which means it's the day off for most of us on station. I took advantage of being able to sleep in today before Sunday Brunch. I'm probably not going to hike today since the weather was bad last night and isn't looking great right now. So I'll probably hang around and read before heading to the library to volunteer tonight.
The library here is a sizable 50'X75' room with a big collection of Antarctic books. There is a shelf of rare Antarctic books, some of them first edition publications written by the early 20th century explorers themselves. The library is in the process of filing the non-fiction books on the Dewey Decimal System and there is a big collection of fiction books for pleasure reading along with a couple of shelves of travel books to help people decide where they will go after their time on the ice. The 10'X10' entryway to the library also has its walls lined by shelves filled with paperbacks. It has a good collection of comfortable furniture and fake plants which make it a cozy place to read.
Thanks for all the comments and e-mails that have been coming my way. I'm glad to hear people are having fun reading this. I'm not going to post my e-mail address here because it's too easy for computers to pick it up and start sending SPAM but if you do want to hear more about something specific you can click on "comments" at the bottom of this post and leave a post anonymously. (though I do prefer if you at lest sign with a first name)
The food here is similar to Olin's dining hall: for the most part it's good but they find ways to put fat and calories into things that shouldn't have them. The desserts are also quite good. The average person working outside will burn 30% more calories than someone in the States because the body has to work harder to stay warm.
A lot of the station, however, does not work outside. For them the high calorie meals mean weight gain. The guy running the club has four more inches on his waist and 50 more pounds on him than when he started coming down. The club is his way of making sure he will stay health conscious and lose weight over the season.
So you may be wondering: "Isn't Adam working outside shoveling snow? Shouldn't he be getting plenty of exercise?" Well it turns out one of the electricians at work (who is also from VT) found out about my degree and robotics experience so he has me installing digital controls in the new power plant. This has gotten me inside more which is more comfortable and interesting but it also means I'm getting less exercise at work. This week I started working out in the gerbil gym each night.
It's Sunday now which means it's the day off for most of us on station. I took advantage of being able to sleep in today before Sunday Brunch. I'm probably not going to hike today since the weather was bad last night and isn't looking great right now. So I'll probably hang around and read before heading to the library to volunteer tonight.
The library here is a sizable 50'X75' room with a big collection of Antarctic books. There is a shelf of rare Antarctic books, some of them first edition publications written by the early 20th century explorers themselves. The library is in the process of filing the non-fiction books on the Dewey Decimal System and there is a big collection of fiction books for pleasure reading along with a couple of shelves of travel books to help people decide where they will go after their time on the ice. The 10'X10' entryway to the library also has its walls lined by shelves filled with paperbacks. It has a good collection of comfortable furniture and fake plants which make it a cozy place to read.
Thanks for all the comments and e-mails that have been coming my way. I'm glad to hear people are having fun reading this. I'm not going to post my e-mail address here because it's too easy for computers to pick it up and start sending SPAM but if you do want to hear more about something specific you can click on "comments" at the bottom of this post and leave a post anonymously. (though I do prefer if you at lest sign with a first name)
posted by Adam at 6:31 PM
3 Comments:
Hey Adam, what time zone do you use down there? UTC?
Hey Adam,
Now that you finally disabled Blogger ID only people, I can comment on your blog. I enjoy the updates and am glad to hear that things seem to be going pretty well down there. Is Etosha with you yet?
Short answer: New Zealand time GMT -12 hours.
Long Answer: Supplies come in from New Zealand so we use New Zealand Time. We are about 1.5 timezones east of New Zealand, however, so local noon is around 1:30pm by the clock. Of course at 79 degrees of lattitude, there are only a few weeks out of the year when there is one sunrise and one sunset daily.
Dan,
Glad to get the comments. Sorry it took me so long to realize it was blocking non-bloggers. Etosha should be getting here in early October.
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