An exploration of ultracoffee, radiation safety, and more often than not a beer or two.
What do people do when they are trapped with no possibility of escape or parole? An Antarctica station is not all that different from an old gulag in this respect; you’re welcome to try to flee, but the surrounding environment will kill you more surely than any guard will. To keep this properly nerdy, let’s …
Continue reading “The Antarctic Musical Tradition (AKA: NYE 2002)”
This is my holiday gift to you as I put together some other thoughts about Antarctica. A lot of things happened around New Years 2003, so they will take some collating. In the meantime, I have a YouTube playlist for you. While I was bartender at Club 90 South at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, I …
Before our slice of Antarctic life for the day, I should let you know that most of the “Complete by December 16th” pre-order slots are already gone. The next pre-order slots to go up will be set to complete by January 6th. I am going to do my damn best to crank out some of …
Tomorrow, November 2nd, is Dia de los Muertos and my birthday. It also roughly marks ten years since I arrived at South Pole Station one glaringly bright and cold Antarctica day. I bring this up because it’s already my birthday in Antarctica and I have a story to share. For those that don’t care about …
This rant had it’s genesis chatting outside the Burger King, around 2pm on a Sunday, in Terminal C of Las Vegas’ McCarran “Sad Bro” International Airport. Let me tell you, early afternoon on Sunday in McCarran is a sea of desolate, hungover, broke, exhausted, and, above all, chica-less bros. It earned my new name for …
Continue reading “Horrible People Dragging The World Forward”
My old wonderful curmudgeon of a boss from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the man who gave me a not so gentle kick and made it possible to be a health physicist, has just moved into hospice care. He said, and I quote, “You’re too damn smart to spend the rest of your life swinging a …
I have returned from Adventures in Radiation in eastern Washington and a fresh round of pre-order slots have gone up in the store as I finish up the last of the previous lots. I have discovered that I have quite a few emails with questions that aren’t related to enhancing my maxxxximum manprow. Sorry for …
If you’ve been poking at the store side of things lately, you may have noticed that the inventories of most everything has dwindled down to zero. This is intentional as I want to clear everything out before I put up the next round of pre-orders. “Why?” you ask. Because I am off to beautiful, scenic …
Continue reading “Where’s Phil Now & How To Get To Antarctica”
Alright, as of tomorrow, resupply cases for all your local BBotE Ambassadors (except for College Station, TX and Dublin, Ireland) are either there or on their way. In fact, Portland may be out of stock again and in need of another. I am to understand the case for Delta City (AKA Detroit) has disappeared into …
Continue reading “BBotE Ambassador Supplies and Approaching Science”
In the interest of sharing important slices of life from my time as Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station’s bartender, I give you the recipe for “Enhanced” Sangria, AKA Mechanics’ Juice. Accidentally freeze an entire airdrop pallet of wine so that you have enough broken bottles that need to be consumed NOW so that this recipe’s portions make sense. …
It’s been quiet here for a bit, so I figured it’s time to tell you about my super power. Some people know the fire and electrical codes inside and out. I swear to booze that there’s this one guy at LLNL who is the goddamn Cement Listener and can tell where subsidence is going to occur …
In my continuing efforts to make sure that world becomes a More Awesome place, always remain aware that you don’t know everything. When someone says, “Pffft, no…[sotto voce] dumbass” to one of your proclamations, remain humble and take a moment to consider if everything you’ve ever known is wrong. My favorite exemplar of this is …
Continue reading “Lest Ye Become Arrogant In Your Knowledge”
In an ongoing effort to share helpful things in life about topics other than delicious coffee & beer, I want to take a moment to discuss something that effects all of us, every day. First, let us review the two fundamental pieces of wisdom that can so easily be forgotten in a moment of blinding …
Continue reading “Hard Life Lessons from the Land of Q Clearances”
You walk up to the door and this NFPA diamond is posted prominently on the wall above it so that approaching first responders can know to hit the brakes from a very, very long way away. I love my job. I now return you to your regularly scheduled Twinkie eating, porn surfing, and LOLcats.
Adventure is the gift that keeps on giving. And in this case is still giving, because I get to share this story with you. Yes, I have more coffee related things to share later, but I want to take this moment to discuss the importance of Adventure as a gift. I have a friend named …