Funranium Labs

Station Closing – Settling Down For A Long Winter’s Nap

Ten years and eighteen days ago, Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station closed for the winter, with the last LC-130 ski cargo plane departing the skiway on Valentine’s Day 2003. I watched it disappear from a mostly abandoned experiment in the Dark Sector (AKA the pie wedge extending from pole with all the telescopes in it). With the rapidly vanishing dot in the sky, I don’t know if anyone else felt it but the weight of 8-9 cold dark months finally settled down on me.

If this all was a terrible mistake, it had officially been made. There would be no escape. The last planes leave Antarctica when the temperatures start dipping below -50F and won’t return until the temperatures are reliably above that. Below -50F, we’re no longer entirely confident that we can keep the engines running (possibly freezing solid, ne’er to move again, should they stop), keep the skis from welding themselves to the ice, or that the JP-8 fuel won’t start to gel in the lines thus leading to tragic explosions. I list these things as they’re all incidents that have occurred in Antarctica or near Thule AFB in Greenland. It is also worth noting that the very first LC-130 is buried roughly 30′ under the snow where it crashed at the end of the skiway. Shit happens when things that would normally be a minor error can easily turn fatal at the hairy edge of safe operation. One of my favorite sayings when trying to teach radiation safety to recalcitrant undergrads, grad student, and postdocs is “Every safety regulation is written in someone’s blood. Try not make any new rules, okay?” My other favorite is “Stupidity is a harsh teacher and pain is Her lesson plan; not everyone is lucky enough or survives to get a second lesson.” but that one’s somewhat more insulting.

Antarctica, however, is the most unforgiving classroom. Every year, at least one person dies on the continent for failure to appreciate that Antarctica Does Not Care About You. Humans are only the apex predator at South Pole Station because absolutely nothing else except, maybe, bacteria can live there. On the coasts, you can get your ass handed to you by the goddamn penguins; the little bastards fly through water so don’t think for a moment that they aren’t a hell of a lot stronger than they look. The bruises I got on my shins from a 18″ tall adelie lasted for weeks; I’ve been told of the 4′ tall emperors breaking bones. The lack of fear of humans in all the animals of the Antarctic isn’t necessarily just because they have no experience of us, but rather that the average human isn’t much of a threat down there. We are a frail and feeble ape that is a few hours away from death in the environment that they happily live.

Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station - Last Flight Out, Valentine's Day 2003 — Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station – Last Flight Out, Valentine’s Day 2003

All that and more went running through my head as I watched this through the viewfinder of my camera before the battery froze up.

I invite you to look long and hard at this picture. The VAST white expanse with a bunch of footprints I made. You can see something that looks like buildings in the background beyond the skiway that my last escape to civilization is leaving on. They aren’t buildings, they’re pallets of supplies on raised berms that can survive the average -85F temperatures that are coming in the winter. Almost enough equipment to rebuild the entire station. There’s enough food on those berms to survive three to five winters without rescue, depending on the size of the winter population (fifty eight questionably damned souls when I was there). Mind you, there isn’t enough fuel to keep the lights on, buildings warm, and water liquid for more than about 18 months…maybe.

So, it is vitally necessary to keep in your mind that YES, a plane is coming back for you to maintain sanity. Actually, that’s not true. Most of my compatriots weren’t thinking more than a day or two into the future, focused on the task at hand and whatever hobby they’d chosen. If there was ever a moment of existential crisis where someone started losing it because they were afraid they were going to be stuck at Pole forever, I never saw it. Maybe I did and that was one of the nights as Station Bartender that I served alcohol until someone reached sweet oblivion and killed one more day of winter which they didn’t have to remember on the way to Station Opening. It’s hard to say.

But what helps most people through hard times are customs. The Antarctic traditions run back to the early explorers with a strong naval slant, which means many of them are dumb, most of them involve alcohol, and some corporal punishment. After the last flight leaves, everyone goes back to their rooms to get ready for the Station Closing Dinner, something that’s happened every year since South Pole Station was established in 1957. I want you to all understand that the desire for adventure that brings people to the bottom of the Earth also brings some truly fantastic cooks. The man in charge of the food for the continent as whole while I was there was a Michelin starred chef from New Orleans, Cookie John. Despite the limitations of being at Pole, Closing Dinner may have been one of the finest meals I’ve eaten in my life. People bring tuxedos for this dinner despite the limited weight allowance. It is, in a word, a soiree.

After that, a more modern custom that dates to the early-1980s happened: the full station viewing of John Carpenter’s The Thing. This movie is grossly inaccurate about how an Antarctic station looks like and is run, but let me tell you the mindsets are spot on. You want to know how are things are a few months deeper into winter, you need only watch this MacReady’s thousand yard stare as he fumbles with the bottle of whiskey. At the end of the movie, I turned to the station manager and pointed out that we were woefully under armed, particularly with respect to flamethrowers, for an American station. I’ll treasure the look he gave me for life as he realized he was trapped with me for nine more months.

You might have thought we’d watch The Shining. Goodness no. We saved that for Midwinter, along with Dark Star (not surprisingly, also by John Carpenter).

NEXT TIME: Winterizing the station, because you’re still not quite ready for it to get really cold.

State of the BBotE Address

As the Feb 3rd pre-order slot window draws to a close, almost all the shipments are already out, so I’ve opened slots for the Feb 17th window which you are welcome to jump on. And there’s a new Ambassador for local pick up in Sydney!

On January 28th, the US Postal Service rolled out yet another postage increase. Playing with the postage calculator a bit, it appears that priority mail inside the US has gone up roughly $1-3 per item, depending on how far you are from the Golden Gate. For international mail, however, it’s another story entirely. For the lightest item I send, the BBotE vial sampler pack, international express postage went up by between $5-8. On a positive note, USPS priority mail now includes delivery confirmation as part of the service. So, you win some you lose some.

All that said, despite the some nasty droughts AND floods hitting the major coffee growing regions, the actual price of BBotE will stay the same. However, the availability of certain varieties may become iffy because of the weather. Both the Guatemalan Mundo Nuvo and Nueva Vinas, along with the Rwanda Abakundakawa, all went out of circulation last year because of the small crops and, to be honest, we drank most of it. I have high hopes they’ll be back with this year’s harvest. So far, the Panama and Peru Salkanty are holding strong but every time I go to get more I worry. The Panama was the first of the coffees to run out on me back in 2011 and it took eight months for it to return, and having to tell people “No, you can’t have any” is something that still haunts my soul.

I strongly suspect the fine folks at Death Wish Coffee are sampling their own wares heavily in order to meet demand. In addition to silly bastards like me that order coffee from them 20lbs at a time, the rest of the world has noticed them too. Good job guys!

For Christmas, the wife of the BBotE Ambassador of Chicago asked if I could make something special for Bill. You see, much as he adores BBotE, he felt bad about it detracting from the coffee he consumed from his favorite local roaster, Ipsento (they dwell on Facebook much more though if you want to know more). She wanted to know if I could make a special run of Bill’s favorite, Ipsento’s Panamanian, thus combining both his favorite things. Feeling festive and all, I said sure.

Ipsento’s Panamanian is light roast that upon open opening the bag filled my nose with the smell of blueberries. (FACT: If you want me to eat something, the surest way to to make that happen is to put blueberry sludge on it). While grinding and putting it the coffee into process, the room was filled with blueberries. And, I’m happy to report, as a BBotE it was still blueberries and spice. I have high hopes to make this available to all of you by and by. Announcements will be made when that happens.

EDIT: Test Subject Not A Whale Biologist reminds me that the Ipsento Panamanian coffee, as both BBotE and a hot brew, pairs well with cherry pie, Twin Peaks music, and zombies.

Lastly, but not least, I am pleased to announce that Australia has an BBotE Ambassador again, but this time for Greater Sydney. Robert is a several time victim of BBotE that tends to skip about the harbour fairly often on caffeinated wings, but dwells most of the time in Hornsby. Because Oz Post seems to be staffed with people with noodle arms incapable of lifting weights in excess of 20kg, he is stocked with 750ml bottles which go for US$60 each. You may drop Robert a line by email at BBoTE [at] fumbari [dot].com. Canberra service, hopefully, will be reestablished by and by.

Resupply for Austin went out last week. Resupply for London & Santa Barbara are slated be in their hands by next week. Seattle & Chicago still have decent supplies so I’m told.

I have received a variety of requests asking for new local Ambassadors to be established, or re-established, particularly in the New York/Philadelphia area. At some level, this is a function of my able to produce for them versus everyone who comes to me directly. I don’t want to leave them high and dry in a time of need and more that I want to introduce delay to those direct orders. When new ones go online, rest assured I will tell you here.

Shark Teeth & Whale Tale – Helping the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History

This is a not-at-all-paid endorsement of the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History’s Kickstarter project to make a very neat interactive exhibit, one I would have loved as a kid. I say not-at-all-paid because I tend to be the one who buys the drinks when my sister visits.

Wherever you went to school as a kid, there were field trips in elementary school. Now that I’m an adult, I suspect this was so there was time to fumigate the classrooms and disinfect every surface covered in the toxic biofilm of Cooties. Of course, the quality of your field trips was directly proportional to the level of funding your school had. Growing up in the immediate aftermath of post-Prop 13 California, this meant these trips got a lot more local with parents driving since we couldn’t afford to run the buses.

Before the Monterey Bay Aquarium opened, the most popular science field trip destinations for the kids of Santa Cruz County were Shark Tooth Hill (now known as the Randal Morgan Sandhills Preserve) and the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, AKA THE PLACE WITH THE WHALE SCULPTURE YOU CAN PLAY ON!!!!! It was, of course, forbidden to climb all over the concrete gray whale model outside the museum but somehow it seemed to attract dozens of second graders just the same. We got yelled at to get off of it, but were back on again within seconds of the Museum Lady turning her back. (NOTE: my sister now holds the role of Museum Lady for today’s kids)

The Museum is small but somehow manages to be a focal point for scientific inquiry for the whole county. Strange rock? People call the museum. Found a skull you think is a dinosaur’s despite the fact that the geology of Santa Cruz didn’t exist in the Mesozoic Era, a fact I totally learned in first grade there? People call the museum. Weird fungus on that tree over there, recording of a bird call you don’t recognize, etc.? I think you get the idea. The answer to your question may be “Umm, please don’t bring roadkill into the museum, unless it’s Bigfoot, TOTALLY BRING THAT IN” but it’s at least somewhere to start asking.

Now, having mentioned the geology of Santa Cruz, most all of what you see is uplifted marine sediments. The drier parts of the county tend to have a lot of exposed sandstone which is why there’s several quarries around. And as any student of paleontology, or sufficiently dinosaur obsessed six year old (e.g. Li’l Phil), can tell you quarries tend to find fossils as they’re doing the most digging. Being marine sediments, the fossils you get reflect that.

Near Scotts Valley, there was an exposed hill face of sandstone that science field trips and cub scouts went to regularly to go play in the sand, particularly after good storms. What were we looking for? Shark teeth. They washed out of the hill with astounding regularity which captivated my imagination as a kid. Even six year old Phil had some grasp of statistics, populations, and the geologic time scale. My first grader math quickly put together a picture of submerged Santa Cruz as a place that was a thronging sea of almost nothing but great white sharks, HUGE sharks, to have caused that many teeth to be in that hill.

Really, it only takes one Megaladon tooth side by side with one from a modern great white to make you stare at the calm ocean surface and never want to get near a boat again.

But other fossils and than shark teeth get found in those hills. There’s plenty of whale skeletons and massive loads of sand dollars, but one of the more interesting ones is the long extinct Dusisiren jordani sea cow (same family as the Steller’s Sea Cow, which fur hunters in the North Pacific hunted to extinction to keep sailors fed). They would like to make a replica of this skeleton for students to practice exhuming this from a sandbox. If you’ve gotten the opportunity to play in an archaeology/paleontology grid, this is precisely what they’d like start teaching kids about in elementary school, except with a sea cow to discover and assemble.

As much fun as I had sliding down those sand hills to the point I abraded holes in the seat of my pants as I kid, I’m not sure I can express what kind of dark pacts I would have made to have a skeleton to assemble. So, go on over to Kickstarter and toss a few bucks at them. Do it for Li’l Phil. Do it for some unnamed mischevious child that’s out there now with a healthy sense of the morbid that has future in forensics.

The Antarctic Musical Tradition (AKA: NYE 2002)

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 have a quick word from the Warden of BEAUTIFUL Rura Penthe!

So, now that you have the proper vision of Antarctica as a frozen prison in your head, the leisure activities of choice are just what you’d expect in modern prison, e.g. weightlifting, art, reading, gambling, and music. As I recall from my tour of Alcatraz, one of the greatest privileges a prisoner could be granted was a musical instrument. Per the Institution Rules & Regulations of Alcatraz (1955):

46. MUSIC RULES: Musical instruments may be purchased if approved by the Associate Warden. Guitars and other stringed instruments may be played in the cellhouse in a QUIET manner only between the hours of 5:30 P.M. and 7:00 P.M. No singing or whistling accompaniments will be tolerated. Any instrument which is played in an unauthorized place, manner, or time will be confiscated and the inmate placed on a disciplinary report. Wind instruments, drums and pianos will be played in the band or Orchestra Rooms on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays. At no time will you play any wind instrument in the cellhouse. Permission to play instruments in the Band, Orchestra or bathrooms may be granted by the Associate Warden to inmates in good standing. The Band room is a privilege and permission to play there must be requested from the Associate Warden. A limited number of inmates may be allowed to take musical instruments to and from the recreation yard. Permission must first be obtained from the Associate Warden. No inmate on “idle” status or on “report” or restricted will be allowed to use the Band Room, Orchestra Room or to take instruments to the yard. An inmate whose musical privileges have been restricted or revoked shall be removed from all musical lists, and his instrument stored in “A” Block until otherwise authorized by the Associate Warden. No inmate is allowed to give, sell, trade, exchange, gamble, loan or otherwise dispose of his personal or institutional instrument or to receive such from another inmate. Institutional instruments may be loaned to inmates in good standing upon the approval of the Associate Warden. All instruments will be listed on personal property cards. Institutional instruments shall be listed as “On Loan” from the institution, together with the date of the loan and the identification number of the instrument. Surplus parts for musical instruments together with and including extra sets of guitar strings shall be kept in “A” Block. Guitar strings shall be purchased in the regular manner and stored in “A” Block until needed. An old set of strings must be turned in to the cellhouse Officer to draw a new set.

South Pole Station’s rule was a little simpler: “Play it in the Music Room, or play it outside.” Given the choice, most people chose to stick to the small room in the Skylab tower of the Dome. I do know for a fact that at least one person decided that the Ceremonial Pole needed some mindblowing riffs with the Stratocaster and portable amp. Because if you can ROCK at the bottom of the Earth, you can ROCK anywhere.

But every year, people come to Antarctica with disparate musical abilities, some with their instruments. The IT guy from the previous post, arrived at Pole with his banjo and mixing turntable, presciently predicting the musical future eight years later. When you put more than two people and musical instruments together someone decides it’s a good idea to form a band. And, as we all know, the very first thing you do when you form a band is name it. Generally, the bands have US Antarctic Program topical names. A few samplings: NPX (the airport designator for Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station), Clear and Copious (what the urine of a well-hydrated Polie should be), NPQ (“Not Physically Qualified”, justification from the screening period to not go south and/or stay the winter).

These bands were were ephemeral creatures of the Ice, disintegrating as people left the continent. While they were there though, they were an invaluable part of station festivities. Heck, this is been the case since the dawn of exploration when the harmonica quartet was an important part of sanity for Shackleton’s crew. The Scots cannae help but bring the pipes.

But what of the people with no instruments or particular musical talent, which included yours truly?

Such begins our tale on fateful day in early December 2002. Having finished my work in the Cryo Barn, I walked next door to bother my neighbors in the Balloon Shack (Meteorology launched at least two weather balloons a day using the reclaimed helium vent gas from my giant LHe dewars). Nobody was there. Still craving people to bother, I went to the next closest building, the Cargo Shed.

In the Cargo Shed, I found Tony, my favorite meteorologist, shooting the shit with the cargo handlers and eating their stash of cookies. One of the cargo guys, Forrest, had already been messing with his guitar in the Cargo Shed, somewhat to the annoyance of the ladies that were wrangling the manifests. The woman who set the chain of events to come in progress had been listening to her guilty musical pleasure on headphones from her computer as she did data entry. Forrest was lamenting that he didn’t have anyone to play with. We all stated, pretty emphatically, that there were dead penguins in McMurdo with more musical skill than us. It was about then that she got up, Patient Zero forgot she had headphones on and pulled it out of the jack, letting us hear the N Sync she’d been listening to the whole time.

In that moment it was revealed to us what we could do with our complete lack of musical talent: we could form Antarctica’s first lip synching boy band. There was some resistance, at first, to the idea:

Dan: I can’t sing.

Tony: You don’t need to! That the joy of lip synching.

Dan: I don’t think we have enough people.

Me: What are talking about? Five is the scientifically proven ideal boy band size. We even have all the requisite members?

Forrest: What do you mean?

Me: Look, you’re the All American Aryan. He’s the cute one. Dan, you’re the rugged one. Tony…

Tony: Go ahead, say it. I’m gonna hit you anyway.

Me: Tony’s the token minority.

Forrest: Well what are you?

Me: Isn’t it obvious? I’m the bad one. I have the goatee and everything.

And thus it began. First things first, we chose our name, the Antarcticly relevant -98 Degrees (my sister still groans at this name). N Sync’s “Bye, Bye, Bye” was chosen as it was the song that had brought us together. We had a couple weeks of dance practice as even more important than lip synching is your choreography. I’m not gonna say we’d have impressed Paula Abdul, but we managed to not injure each other. But then we had to work one the important bits, like fan base. As proven by the Beatles, New Kids on the Block, One Direction and the immortal Fingerbang, the crowd of screaming ladies for the Garmlich Effect is vital. Luckily, we had plenty of willing accomplices for this, not the least of which being Patient Zero who thought this was the funniest thing ever.

For the grand New Year’s Eve party, the heavy shop garage was cleaned within an inch ofit’s life and turned into a stage, dance floor, and buffet. If I recall correctly, there were two different band and the mixmaster skills of DJ Banjo-IT between. Ending the evening, before the countdown, was -98 Degrees.

As we all gathered in the gym for our final preparations, along with our half dozen screaming fan accomplices, the Rugged and the Cute Ones were getting cold feet. I, wisely, had brought a bottle of Captain Morgan to provide the necessary liquid courage. Between us all, that bottle went away along with and everyone was ready to kick ass. Our accomplices left, our parkas went on, and the light in the garage we brought down.

Emerging from the light of the corridor came five completely parkabound men.

-98 Degrees: Their First & Only Performance of "Bye Bye Bye" — -98 Degrees: Their First & Only Performance of “Bye Bye Bye”

The crowd erupted into shrieks of delight and anticipation. As we walked forward, we hugged the throng on either side of the path to the stage, gave high fives, and signed autographs on body parts. We walked on stage, stood in a line, with hands crossed and heads down. It was dark and quiet, the music began. With the “Hey Heyyyyyy”, we stripped our parkas, threw them to the floor and it was ON.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is one of best displays of how little shame I have. Good luck trying to embarrass me, because I did this and rocked the shit out of it. Thank you and good night!

The South Pole Bar Albums, Volumes I-V

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 was not it’s DJ. Two weeks into summer I walked into the bar, looked around, and saw the only available seat was behind the bar. So, I sat down and put my feet up on the beer case.

Random Polie: “Hey, get me a beer.”

Me: “Do I look like a fucking bartender?”

Random Polie: “You’re behind the bar…”

Me: *tosses him a beer from the case* “Whatever.”

Random Polie: “Hey, can you mix anything?”

Me: “As a matter of fact, I can.”

And there I stayed for the next 11 months after mixing that first manhattan.

Me, Club 90 South, Amundsen-Scott Station, 2003: Performing "The Dragon" by exhaling a mouthful of liquid nitrogen — Me, Club 90 South, Amundsen-Scott Station, 2003: Performing “The Dragon” by exhaling a mouthful of liquid nitrogen

I got to see and hear a lot behind that bar. I also became the unofficial barometer of mood for the station manager. As an honor bar, Club 90 South didn’t have a bartender like the bars in McMurdo, so mixed drinks didn’t usually happen before my tenure there; typically just whiskey and beer. Unfortunately, this also really cemented the barfly vs. teetotaler factions for that winter. Mixing between the groups was somewhat limited in the first place and got no better as the year wore on. Over the coming few Antarctica posts, we’ll discuss that a bit more.

The link to the playlist above is five CDs worth of music that I culled from our Winamp player for our most listened to songs over that year. I would like to reiterate that I was not in control of the music. I suggested many songs and as the person most likely to be in the bar at any given moment that winter, I have some honorable mention in presence of songs like Oingo Boingo’s “Insanity”, Royal Crown Revue’s take on “Beyond The Sea” and Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”. Ultimately, control of the music was in the hands of the person sitting next to the keyboard for the computer installed in the wall of the bar connected to the, in 2003, 2TB jukebox of the X Drive on the server. This was typically the IT guy or the belligerent heavy equipment operator that liked tequila.

NOTE: Dear MPAA auditors searching for the X Drive, you will never find it. It is normally buried in the snow. Antarctica is big and mostly made of snow. Please accept that people at the ends of the Earth would like some music and that we collectively share what we’ve all brought down.

Some of these songs may be tied to specific people. Fore example, Tenacious D’s “Fuck Her Gently” became the 2002-2003 Winterover Anthem thanks to one amazon Alaskan equipment operator/boat captain/pilot that demanded it be played for her during the summer. By the time winter hit, we had an entire drink in hand dance routine worked out for that song we loved it so. The song “Tribute” kind of came along for the ride.

David Allen Coe’s “You Never Even Call Me By Name” is the Australian telescope mechanic and former New South Wales rugby prop that could drop a sheep dead with his flatulence at 20 yards. He was also fond of the Lee Kernaghan’s “Goondiwini Moon” but that’s not included on the albums.

The Geto Boy’s “Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster” may be squarely laid at the feet of the very meek meteorologist who went a bit off the rails early. She loved that song.

The Dropkick Murphy’s “Spicy McHaggis” is my favorite electrician, Mark. He comes up prominently in many of my stories. In many respects, Mark and I were the same person that lived completely different lives. We got along like a house on fire, without actually committing any arson.

Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is Drew, the other IT guy. When not in Antarctica, Drew wrangled his family’s marina in Logan Harbor, ME. He brought this nautical disaster gem to us near midwinter and we adored it. Along with the construction manager’s love for Led Zepplin’s “No Quarter”, these two songs combined were for relaxed, leaned back in the chair, contemplation of the glass of whiskey.

As you look at the song list, you might notice some trends. I can’t help but see the repetition of the topics of madness, alcohol, and murder. Of course, I’ve been listening to these songs for the last decade and the music of Antarctica never leaves me. I can only hope you enjoy them, despite the ads that YouTube inserts.

The Noble Sport of Volleybag

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 these before Christmas, but anything that ships after December 20th has no guarantee to make it by Christmas Eve. If there is something you desperately need to get under the tree and have been procrastinating, drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do.

And now we set the Wayback Machine to December 2002 at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to discuss physical fitness and the Noble Sport of Volleybag…

Leak From The South Pole Station Sewer Line - The architect wouldn't like this either. — Leak From The South Pole Station Sewer Line – The architect wouldn’t lick this either.

Prior to the construction of the elevated station, South Pole had three gyms: a weight room under the Dome, a laminate wood floor gym that was the back half of the old building in the Garage Arch, and an exercise room full of stationary cycles, rowing machines, etc. out in the Summer Camp which shut down every winter. I believe the weight room was the oldest continually used gym there. It wasn’t the best weatherproofed of buildings but decades of sweaty grunting had caused all the cracks to seal up with ice on the inside nicely. One time, I offered to pay a guy $20 to lick the ice on the weight room wall. I did so over dinner, ruining yet another meal for our architect. For a man with such a delicate constitution, I don’t know why he kept insisting on sitting with me and Mark.

The gym was a mutant. The limited space at the station combined with the varied athletic pursuits people need to keep sane and the fact that this space used to be part of the garage meant it didn’t quite do anything right.

First, ventilation. The gym was created when the old garage was partitioned into a smaller garage, a parts room/paint shop, and gym. Obviously, the first two need good ventilation or people asphyxiate, so the systems that used kept the air clear for the entire building were dedicated to just these two. This meant that after enough time in the gym, you had to prop open the door as it overheated so badly just due to your physical exertion (remember, Antarctic buildings are generally very well insulated). Air that was over 80F went rushing out the top of the doorway as -80F swept across the transom. A cloud instantly formed that began roiling in the middle of the doorway, caught between the convection currents.

Second, you have to take into account thirty years of shifting athletic pursuits. The gym’s original purpose was to provide a half court basketball game that could double for volleyball for the Navy personnel of Operation Deep Freeze. Of course, that was just silly because the ceiling was so low that you couldn’t make a shot from any farther back than the foul line and any volleyball set or bump was likely to come right back down on your head from the ricochet. Later, the adventure tourist faction of Antarctic workers (which make up a high percentage these days) got climbing wall holds installed on two of the four walls. Finally, the gym was also an emergency refuge, so it had all kinds of speakers and alarm systems in the corners of the ceiling. Basically, the two of the four walls and the ceiling were covered in junk, including a basketball hoop.

It was room meant for all sports and thus it was good for none. The solution, of course, was to make a game that required these things.Volleybag was the product of these physical constraints. The game didn’t just work around these obstacles, it depended on them. At heart, it was volleyball, but instead of a volleyball it used a basketball-sized hacky sack made of Carhartt’s heavy duty #5 duck cloth, stitched together like a baseball, and filled with the stuffing from a dearly departed sofa. The only out of bounds was the back wall and your serve had to be a perfectly clean shot, but other than that the game was like racketball with knobby walls. You actively aimed for the obstruction to change the direction of your shot or to drop it dead to the floor. Players had to be willing to make abrupt changes in direction and sudden stops when playing for this reason.

It was chaotic bliss, a sport I could truly get behind almost as much as Calvinball. One of the IT guys played with us, so he wired up the stereo to run through the emergency announcement speakers. We played at least twice a week for a couple hours each time. The memory of lying prone on the floor exhausted and overheating, door open, ice crust of sweat forming on me, and listening to the Lords of Acid blasting on the PA is vivid. I regularly went home bruised and battered from running into the climbing wall at speed. One time I ended up kicking the wall so hard that I broke my toenail off and discovered that many orthopedic implements haven’t changed much in appearance since the Inquisition’s “presentation of the tools”.

And, oh yes, the cold and lack of maintenance had taken their toll on the floor. The slats of the hardwood were gapping ever so slightly, exposing blade-like edges to lay your knees or whatever open if you dove for a save. I bled for that sport often and it shows in the scars.The obstacles that made the game so fun took their toll on the volleybag. Despite being made of the same heavy canvas as our insulated Carhartts, it still tore. The guardian of the volleybag, Johan, one of the South Pole’s denizens of longest duration, kept it in his room with him and had a sewing kit dedicated to mending it. By the end of our winter, it looked as stitched together as Frankenstein’s face. Since I had never worn them, preferring my shorts and Hawaiian print, I volunteered my Carhartts to provide replacement material for the volleybag for the next season (not a new one, much like Grandfather’s Axe). I have no idea how old the volleybag actually was but rumor has it that the game dated back to the seventies.

The Dome and old buildings are gone now. To the best of my knowledge, the sport of Antarctic Kings went with it. Last I heard, the metal skin of the Dome was going to be reconstructed in a quad somewhere at the University of Wisconsin, Madison since they bought it originally back in 1975. I will have to make pilgrimage when that day comes, but there will be no volleybag under that Dome.

THE DECEMBERING: 2012 Edition

The end is upon us. ‘Tis the season for staring concerningly at calendar and realizing all the things you need to do before it is 1/1/2013. It’s enough to make one hope the Mayans are right and that you should just sit down and enjoy a leftover turkey sandwich in the meantime. Perhaps a beer. In fact, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll be right back…

MUCH BETTER.

The December 16th production slots have gone up, as a few of you have already noticed, but there’s a few things you should probably think about when placing an order for a gift from Funranium Labs:

BBotE Is Perishable: When refrigerated, it has a shelf-life of about three months (possibly longer, but I’m only going to quote three). If you’re going to wrap it up and put it under the tree, this a present to put out on Christmas Eve and the promptly put back in the fridge after unwrapping.
The December 16th date is “Ship By”, not “Ships On”. I get your orders out as soon as I can, but even in the furthest flung corner of the US with the slowest mail carrier, this means you should have your order in hand by the 21st.
Yes, I will probably add a few more slots as I get a handle on how much I can make at the last minute but shipping gets dicey in those last days before Christmas.
International Shipments Of BBotE Go Out Express Mail: Because I don’t want BBotE to get stuck in postal facilities or customs, express is the only way to ship to minimize their time in bureaucratic hell. Expect it to take 3-5 business days to get to you, so time your orders accordingly to make sure things get to you in time.
APO/FPO: If you wish to send something out to someone with an Armed Forces address, there’s good news and bad news. Good news – it’s no more expensive than priority mail. Bad news – I can’t guarantee any date as to when things will arrive. Outside of active war zones, things move somewhat normally; inside war zones and ships at sea, things get iffy. Also, depending on routing, some nations (I’m looking at you, Turkey) have bounced BBotE on the basis that it is, and I quote, “Morally Questionable Material” because, obviously, any liquid from the West must be alcoholic in nature. In short, I’ll do my best but you’ve been warned.
Local Pick Up: Resupply shipments are going out to all the BBotE Ambassadors as fast as I can crank them out, so be sure to drop them a line if grabbing a bottle that way is convenient for you. I’m sure they’d like clean and empty refrigerators as their Christmas present.
Italy: It breaks my heart to say this, but I absolutely do not trust your postal system. The level of theft shipping things anywhere south of Rome is, frankly, appalling. If you ask me to ship to Naples, I make absolutely zero guarantee of it arriving.
Steins of Science Have Lead Time Too: The steins are built to order and it sometimes takes a while to get parts in. Generally, things move much faster and ship within a week but you have now been warned of the possibility of delays. For some insight into which stein is the best fit for you, I rambled on that a while back. Dewars that are on hand for me to build steins with RIGHT NOW can be found here.
BBotE Production Is First Come, First Served: My maximum daily production output is 12L per day. Thus, people who request 12pk cases will lock up production for an entire day.
There’s No Kosher Or Halal Certification: While Robert Anton Wilson did confer the papacy upon me, and all the other people in the Porter College Dining Hall, this does not permit me to sanctify food. Sorry.
The 4300mL Stein of Science Is Ridiculously Large: Seriously, BIG. It will should take an entire pre-game, Super Bowl, and wrap up to go through this much beer. Or one cricket match. You may think you are a super drankin’ badass, but consider that you may want to drink more often than once a year, so think about a smaller size. I’m just sayin’…

Xmas Lights 2002 — Christmas Lights 2002 in my room in Upper Berthing of the old dome (the madness in the eyes and smile is actually always there)

I have high hopes to actually share a tale of Antarctica or two between now and New Years. There’s some fun 10th anniversaries I’m hitting here in the summer, some of which I’ve already rambled on about. Yesterday, in fact, marked 10 years since the unintentional Twin Peaks marathon described here. But, for festiveness, here is the picture I sent home to my folks showing that, yes, I did indeed but up the Christmas lights in my room in the Dome. You may also see the first signs of Shining-esque madness creeping in.

My Birthday, Resupply, and Antarctica

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 my birthday blithering, you’d probably like to know the BBotE status report. Madison, Dublin (Ireland), Santa Barbara, and soon Portland’s Ambassadors were all resupplied this week. This week also sees the inauguration of regular BBotE service to Boston courtesy of your new Ambassador, Talena! She is a recent transplant from Portland and acolyte of the Caffeinatrix. You may drop her a line for 750ml bottles by email at bahstun [dot] bbote [at] gmail [dot] com. I somehow suspect they may go quickly.

Now for the Way Back Machine, but first a glossary…

“The Ice” (n) – Colloquial name for the continent of Antarctica.

“The Dome” (n) – Colloquial name of the part of Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station covered by the geodesic dome weather skin to help keep buildings from getting buried by snow. Commissioned in 1975, demolished in 2005. Replaced by the new Elevated Station.

Club 90 South (n) – Bar at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Built by the Navy and beloved by me.

Polie (n) – A person who is/has been at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Polie (adj.) – 1. Pertaining to the actions, people, or places at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. 2. Patently crazy, primary evidence being the willing agreement to spend a year at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Winter-Over (n) – A person who has stayed at one of the Antarctic stations through an Austral winter.

Winter-Over (adj.) – Crazy

Skua (n) – 1. A large, evil minded, dust mop of a Southern Ocean gull that has no fear of Man and has, in fact, learned that things in Man’s hands are often tasty and will steal them. 2. A central location in the station for excess/junk items to be stockpiled for general use by anyone rather than just throw them away.

Toast (n) – The state of diminished faculties associated with a winter spent at one of the Antarctic stations, likely related to thyroid hormone imbalance due to extended darkness and cold.

Toasty (adj.) – A descriptor of foolish acts or person who is likely suffering thyroid hormone imbalances due to a winter-over conditions.

Taking from these definitions, you may note that a Polie is double crazy.

On Halloween 2002, after almost two weeks of weather delays and mechanical failures in Christchurch, NZ before getting to McMurdo Station and then a cold snap that made it impossible to fly into Pole, the first flight of the summer season, P001, arrived at South Pole Station and I was on it. We then dropped off our gear and tromped to the not yet complete galley of the new elevated station. The NSF representative welcomed us new folks (note: he flew in with us), congratulated the previous winter’s crew for making it and handed out the Antarctic Service Medal to them, and then the station opening party began. I was the only new person that got out there on the dance floor and danced the Time Warp with the old winterover crew, thus earning me another nickname and access to Club 90 South while the winterovers were still hiding in it from the new people. This should have been a sign to everyone when people who’d already been stuck at Pole for a year considered me to be alright and normal.

There are two parties not particularly set on the calendar in Antarctica because they are dictated by weather: Station Opening and Station Closing. Roughly speaking for Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the first flight in is some time around Halloween and the last flight out is Valentine’s Day-ish. However, these are not the big parties. The big two are Halloween and Midwinter (AKA the austral winter solstice, every day from there is a day closer to light). Halloween, in particular, is big because it is the fleeting moment when the previous year’s winterovers are there and the first planeload of new people has showed up. Not without coincidence, the first cargo pallet to come off the first plane of the season is not medicine, or mail, but beer. However, parties happen on Sundays because that’s the day off. Halloween fell on a Friday that year, so the party was delayed until the 2nd. My birthday.

Halloween, of course, demands costumes. To this end, the nice folks back at HQ in Centennial, CO had loaded several large, palletized, tri-wall boxes full thrift store clothes and generic accessory crap from the Goodwill Bargain Barn (motto: “VALUES BY THE POUND”) and sent them to Antarctica. Pole had them lined up to the skua bins. McMurdo had a goddamn Costume Closet for special events, which tended to cause a lot of men dressing in drag for some reason (ACTUAL REASON: Navy tradition).

PROTIP: DO NOT dress in drag around the Russians freshly released from a two year stint at Vostok. They. Do. Not. Care. Anymore.

CHICKENHEAD and his faithful, but inebriated, sidekick General Assistant!

I did my best under the trying circumstances to find something that fit. I had no other clothes than the expedition grade stuff I had arrived with in the go-bag I was carrying; the rest of my possessions were still stuck in McMurdo and wouldn’t arrive for another two weeks. The resulting horror was a hybrid of snowpants and boots, brass toned expedition thermal underwear, a blue seersucker jacket, and a chicken hat. When I eventually find the picture of this, I’ll put it up.

EDIT: Picture found!

In the ship store, I discovered they sold both Maker’s Mark and sweet vermouth. I’d brought my own bitters with me, so I bought one of the travel mugs to use as a shaker, chipped some ice off the side of the Dome and made a manhattan. We were warned that we who weren’t accustomed to altitude and probably shouldn’t do any drinking. I made a second one to go out to the Summer Camp huts for the party.

On my arrival at the hut, I was greeted by my friend Mark, with a bottle of Glenfiddich in hand. “PHIL!” he bellowed. “YOU NEED DRINK AND BLOOD!” I then was ordered to take a swig from the bottle and fake blood was poured all over my face and chicken hat. Mark had already had great fun with the fake blood and his head looked like he’d just recently pulled it out of the carcass of a freshly killed pig.

The night gets a bit hazy after that. Pinatas happened. We summoned Mark, a gifted mountain climber, down from the ceiling with the promise of shots of whiskey. There was also a chainsaw. A chainsaw happened to a pinata.

As this kicks off the ten year anniversary of Phil’s Antarctic Adventures, there’ll probably be a few more of these posts popping up between now and next Halloween as we hit more milestones. I hope you’ll enjoy.

Vacation Reminder and OKTOBERCAST

Alright, the next round of pre-order slots have gone up and, as you may have noticed, they say “Expected Release Date is by November 30th”. This is because, as stated in this previous post, vacation associated with a string of weddings begins next weekend. Production will resume on the 17th, but I wanted to make sure people had a chance to grab their place in line as we had toward the grim meathook reality of December. Some orders, particularly steins, may go out before I jump on a plane at the end of next week; big BBotE order aren’t likely to do so until after I return but I’ll be cranking as much as I can before I hit the road.

Hello, everyone that just joined us from Oktobercast! If you are reading this post due to another pointer, please go check out the Oktobercast. They’re a fine crew doing a 24hr webcast marathon to raise money for Child’s Play and happy to have given them a couple things to help them make it the distance. There might, perhaps, be something shiny auctioned off…

#401?!? Is it Yours? — Stein #401 – WILL IT BE YOURS?

In other news, the current stein count is solidly in the 390s. As a reminder, whoever orders Stein #400 is going to be getting #401, a 665ml FMJ, FOR FREE.

[EDIT: Stein #400 & #401 have gone to a good home. We’ll try this again in another hundred or two steins.]

Restocking and ComBots Cup 2012

In the last couple of days Ambassador restock shipments have gone out to a variety to Baltimore/DC, Austin, London (UK), Los Angeles, and Houston. In particular, the Ambassador of Houston wanted me to let you local folks know that he’s got 375ml bottles available to grab here made with the beans of his favorite local roaster. Come ‘n’ get ’em while you can.

Robots FIGHT! — “Last Rites” delivers a lethal hit against “VD6” for a knockout in a heavyweight combat prelim round. – photo by Dave Schumaker, courtesy of RoboGames

Meanwhile, on October 21st I will be attending the ComBots Cup VII in San Mateo. Why? Pfft, do you really need to ask that because, c’mon, robots! In the interest of greater glory, I have volunteered to make a respectable amount of BBotE available to the staff that make the magic of Fightin’ Robots possible over two days. I’m to understand from the organizers that there’s a distinct lack of sleep around this event and that I can help with that. Because robots.

My suggestion for the aerobot combat may need to be done elsewhere BUT I LIKE THE IDEA. I suspect the FAA won’t though.

More seriously, the crew at RoboGames sponsors a variety of events for the robotically inclined to test a variety of applications. The BarBot Challenge is particularly near and dear to my heart. Around the world, they’ve been helping teach kids the joy of tinkering and I can get behind that. For those wondering if they can jump into robotics, I’m to understand that there are workshops and often parts o’ plenty to tinker with at their events.

I also hear tell that Lagunitas Brewing will be there, therefore my stein will be as well. I won’t have a vendor booth because I expect to be far too busy watching the combatants and looking at the wonders on display, but if you happen to catch me there be sure to say hello. I might bring a few extra steins in the car, but no guarantees.

Seriously, come on out. Robots. How many times to have to say it, people?

Robots.

Vacation Announcement and The Decembering

Because we’re heading into that time of year when everyone has a sudden realization that they’d been meaning to grab some BBotE or a Stein of Science for someone, it seems like the ideal moment for me to go on vacation for several weeks!

When this current pre-order window for October 14th closes, the next one will be set to end on October 28th. After that, I will then be off enjoying the ~~weddings~~ celebrations of legally binding co-existence of several friends scattered around the country who have all decided to conveniently schedule events within a two week window. One might think their love for me and my production calendar was almost as great as what they have for each other. Almost.

Production will resume on November 17th, with the first orders after my return likely to ship on the 21st. Except, oh dear, November 22nd is the Thanksgiving holiday which will make shipping screwy that week. Then we’re into December and I think we know what that means…dooooooooomed.

What I’m trying to get at here is production is going to get cramped here very soon. For the steins in particular, the earlier you jump on them the better. I have taken the liberty of stocking up a bit so that supply chain problems don’t end up being a problem, just my available time. More are in the pipeline to arrive later this month, so there’s that. Once we hit November, supplies lines get a bit tricky for steins.

In other news, the production number count of the Steins of Science is getting frighteningly close to Stein #400. Just like I did when we hit Stein #200, whoever grabs that one is getting Stein #401, a 665ml FMJ, for free. The count is currently in the high 380s, so the time is nigh!

And with that, I need to go see a city about some whiskey.

Horrible People Dragging The World Forward

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 it that day. However, this rant is a blither across academic organizational theory, prions, not offending Germans, and the Most Important Man at the University of California, Berkeley (hint: not me, nor the Chancellor).

A friend who is a writer in the tech press related to me that he’d like to go back to school, get a new degree, and do actual science rather than report about the toys of others. No, I won’t tell you who or where, but I have renamed the company he works for to “Techcrotch”. Then he said something that I’ve heard from a lot of prospective grad students:

“I want to work in a new field, NEW SCIENCE. A field where there’s a chance to do something without all the hierarchy and the weight of your predecessors on you.”

I gave a sad smile and said, “Oh, it’s different, but definitely not nicer.”

DISCLAIMER: While I am scientifically trained, I am not exactly a participant, nor am I quite an observer. To the point of view of the most of the research community, I am a small, petty bureaucrat. A simple obstacle to be overcome/ignored at best or, and this is a quote, “an active impediment to THE PROGRESS OF ALL HUMANITY” at worst. On rare beautiful occasions, I’ve been a collaborator to help make their experiment the best that it can be. This may have colored my worldview a titch.

At some level, it comes down to a fight for scarce resources. The hierarchies of the old hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology and Teh Engineeringz) are inherited structures from medieval clerics needed to keep an abbey or cloister running. The purpose is to translate knowledge, but also to insure that there is a safe future for those clerics to grow old in. To assure the new novices that they too could safely become emeritus if they take care of their seniors and teach their juniors properly.

Except good science doesn’t work like good religion. Good science questions assumptions and grows the body of knowledge. Sadly, people in academia today aren’t much different than they were in the monasteries 1000 years ago. Uppity undergrads that appear to have stumbled on something which refutes their adviser’s old adviser, they are not rewarded with an immediate pope hat and made full professor on the spot. Goodness no, they get told they’re an idiot and did it wrong (to be honest, there’s a very good chance they did). This preserves the institution but may hinder science. Hopefully, things will get to the right answer by and by. Eventually.

Worse comes to worse, it makes fun internet research for future people looking for how many times the radio was invented and by whom.

But it takes a very special kind of person to stand up to their adviser and grand-adviser. To, in fact, stand up to the entire world and say “I am right, you are all wrong, and I am going to prove it.” And then argue for enough money, space, time and support to prove it and change What We Know. To build an entirely new field of study!

With rare exception, the personality that can do this is a magnificent, utterly unrepentant, abyssally cavernous, asshole.

This is not the cute social awkwardness of the average first year physics or EE grads. This is malignant. It is self-centered to the point of ego singularity and it accretes people to feed it. If the old discipline is a medieval fossil serving the monolithic Church of Science, the new one they’ve created, at first, is a cult of personality, handling dangerous snakes out in the shed around back of the old gas station…I think I lost hold of my metaphor there and wandered into a Call of Cthulhu module.

When you actively seek the shiny new field of research to do New and Exciting things, you are actively engaging a small coterie of people that founded it, their students, and their collective egos. You are free of the stultifying hierarchy of the big ol’ department, but are now beholden to the vicissitudes of your founders (SEE ALSO: any number of 19th century American sects).

The book that particularly comes to mind is “The Family That Couldn’t Sleep” by D.T. Max and the tale of discovering prion diseases. In the course of doing so, we come to know the two major personalities who both garnered Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, Dr. Stanley Pruisner and Dr. Daniel Gajdusek. It should come as no surprise that they aren’t entirely wonderful people, and hooooo nelly Dr. Gajdusek should come with a trigger warning for some folks, but they certainly advanced…hell…created the field of prion research.

But, sometimes, that personality backfires in the wrong setting. I recall the tale of certain astrophysicist visiting the Max Planck Institute for a discussion of the brand new, at the time, theory of dark matter. The chair of the physics department of the Institute was giving a plenary talk where he likened dark matter to a Tenth Planet, AKA no basis for this being THE explanation, but it makes the math work. Many things could make the math work and the point the chair was trying to make was that some more rigorous testing of the theory was in order before advancing it.

An institutionalized researcher would’ve gone back, chastised, and tried to bring something better, more supported back. Not the founder personality, oh goodness no. A perceived attack on their theory is an attack on them. Said astrophysicist resorted to ad hominem attacks on the chair from the crowd. The chair asked him to leave the room. He was met by the bursars who were there with his luggage, who then escorted him off the grounds and told him to get a hotel because he no longer had access to the grounds of the Institute. Oh, and he’d best a arrange a flight out first thing in the morning because his visa had been revoked by the sponsor, the department chair.

PROTIP: In America, a departmental chair gets a nice office but no particular power. In Germany, they have utter rule over everything their influence touches. Don’t piss them off.

When people pull the I-am-more-important-than-you card, which has happened often lately playing with biochem folks, I am quick to reply, “That may be, fellow staff member, but do you think you are the most important person at this University?” This usually gets met with a confused blink and declarations that they suppose that would be the Chancellor. Only once has an aspiring Nobel laureate declared that, indeed, he was the most important person on campus, which is a sure sign that he isn’t.

The correct answer is that the most important person at UC Berkeley is Juan, the bartender at the Faculty Club. When protestations start, I ask them to consider that Juan has the pleasure of taking the time (and he does take his time) to make fine cocktails in a stately old bar filled with brilliant people, people untangling the knots of the universe and human condition at his tables. But more than that, he is UC Berkeley staff, not a food service contractor. He, too, is Professor Egopants’ colleague. He is a bartender with the same benefits as a full professor. This generally causes people to consider their place in the world and the importance of their role in it. If said researcher is still up for it, I then invite them to join me for a joyous, but humble, drink from Juan as we discuss their work.

In summation, I wish my friend luck in his endeavors, that he will successfully navigate the founder personalities, and that I will smack him upside the head if he starts behaving like an ass. But a cocktail from Juan will set him right as rain.

A Very Special Thank You

Someone once asked me what the high falutin’ Stein Baron/Coffee Mogul lifestyle was like. Honest answer: not much different than it was as a grad student, but with slightly better quality booze and meat. All fiddling my Funranium Labs has mainly been a labor of love, a hobby that occupies that hands and clears the mind, plus gives me a place to spin a fine yarn from time to time. What profits I make tends to get squirreled away in hopes of acquiring new, dead sexy, laboratory glassware. I can’t resist a fine piece o’ borosilcate glass, nosirreebob.

But sometimes bad things happen. A little while back, Laurie Penny’s tools of the trade were stolen from her in Bloomsbury. You folks pitched in for a small tidal wave of BBotE that turned into fresh gear for her, much to her surprise. I tried to tell her people like her work and want more of it, with ultracoffee being a very meager excuse to her help out.

Yesterday, my parents were heading east on a grand retirement camping trip, driving through Amarillo, TX pulling their tiny camper behind them when someone decided the best way to merge onto the freeway was through their trailer hitch. My mom successfully swerved to avoid a wreck, which is good because a sideswipe at 65mph is Bad News, but this flipped the camper trailer, destroying it and their stuff inside.

Within less than 24 hours of the accident I have, literally, bought my parents the demonstration unit camper from the Casita showroom in Rice, TX (they normally only build to order). I have moved them with my parents plight, they wish to show good Texas hospitality and, coincidentally, steal a customer from their primary competitor. I’m not sure they could’ve have asked for a better PR opportunity, so here it is being shared with you.

But really, I want to thank all of you for giving me the opportunity to be a good son by keeping my folks on the road. I couldn’t have done this without a couple years of people partaking of my bizarre coffee and sharing my desire for cold beer.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Oktoberfest Prep Work

In case you haven’t been watching the calendar, Beer & Pork Product Christmas (Beerporkmas?) is rapidly approaching. I will be assuming my usual table at the Tyrolean Inn with the occasional polka, stein holding competitions, and tackling of the pretzel girls so I can get salty deliciousness in the scant seconds before they usually run out and have to go fetch more.

But every year I get messages from people with a quandary, a worry my own family had when I handed them the first set of 1000ml FMJ steins: “I need a stein that can hold a maB worth of beer at Oktoberfest, but this one seems awfully tall and easy to tip over. Especially once I’m drunk.” I can’t deny, they’ve got a point there. The aspect of this stein definitely puts it in the tall and prone to being knocked over, much like a Paulaner glass. I’ve had no reports from bereft Steinwielders saying this has actually happened, but I can definitely see the worry.

Last month, Steinwielder Tyler, who had such concerns, asked me a simple question, “Could you make a 1000ml in the rugged style?” In the crunch to meet BBotE demand in the last year, I’d sort of stopped experimenting with the steins for a bit, save confirming that mine continued to work when filled with beer, cider, and rather large cocktails. I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t, I just hadn’t. So, here it is:

Yes, that is a big stein. — 1000ml “Textured Rugged” FMJ Stein of Science

The base is a good inch or so wider than the normal 1000ml FMJ and it is almost twice the weight, coming in at 5lbs thanks to the heavy silicone sheath. This makes it considerably less tipsy but more of a workout to drink with. Not even remotely in the same neighborhood of crippling weight that the 4.3L FMJ is, but still substantial once full. The first one has headed north to Washington state and I hear tell it may grace PAX Prime in the coming days.

Of course, following the fine example of Mr. Hadden in Contact, why build one when you can make two for twice the price? In addition to Steinweilder Tyler’s new toy, I made one extra that I tossed in the Prototypes & Clearance section.

In general, I’ve stocked up on most all the steins prior to Oktoberfest just in case you people to a run on me again. You can go check what I have kicking around the bench here. Oh, and the September 16th pre-order slots for BBotE are mostly open now. To answer a question I get a lot, the pre-order slot dates are “production will be completed and ship by”, not “will not ship until”. I know clarifying this makes me seem like less of a miracle worker, but it thought it was important.

And as a final note, I’d like to thank everyone that grabbed 1000ml bottles of BBotE with the Ineffable Mustachio’d Goat of SCIENCE! in the last two weeks. Thanks to your support, we were able to deck Ms. Penny out with some new gear in fairly short order, causing things like this to be written and making some Greek neo-Nazis rather cranky. All in day’s work.

Helping Ms. Penny

You may recall a little while back that I did a special run of dedicated Ineffable Mustachio’d Goat of SCIENCE! labeled bottles to slap together a few bucks to help send Molly Crabapple and Laurie Penny to Greece for a project. Thank you again for making it possible for me to help them.

Unfortunately, the world is not filled entirely with pleasant people. Yesterday, Laurie’s backpack was stolen be some complete and utter bastard while she was out in Bloomsbury. In and of itself that’s not cool, but Laurie’s backpack was more or less her life and livelihood as she is a journalist/gypsy, wandering wherever the stories may be. The laptop and phone are a modern journalist’s stock and trade, in addition to all the notebooks that were in there.

The computer, phone, and notebooks are expensive but replaceable; the notes and writing in progress that they contained are not. While Laurie tries to put her head back together for the projects that were in progress, I would like to help replace her gear. So, I’m going to do another run of twenty 1000ml bottles that will have Goat labels to put together a chunk of change to throw at her so she may return to her usual role of astute socio-economic observation and drunklympics coverage*.

*: Yes, I know the Olympics are over. But when you have cold medicine and soothing whiskey in your system, the world is a more beautiful place with a Big Rock Candy Mountain and the drunklympics never end.