Independence Day

The past week in pole contained a celebration of America's independence. The VMF (Vehicle Maintenance Facility) threw a July 4th party. 

The main attraction was of course food and beer, but some winter-overs put together some special games. 

This included a pinata of King George III and Noodling.

For the unfamiliar, Noodling involves diving into a box of noodles to retrieve prizes. In this case our Noodling host (wearing the King George III crown) hid fish in the noodles, and participants had 30 seconds to retrieve a fish. Different fish allowed one to pick a prize from various boxes. Apparently, the noodles we were using had to be trashed because they were so old that they dissolved in water (something I've never heard of a pasta). In addition, we also had horseshoes. 

All of these games of course, were complimented by plenty of food and beer. 

Of course, not everything about the station is strictly american. There are three foreigners here - a german, canadian, and norwegian. Why only three? In the past, Raytheon had hired international contractors, but every since Lockheed Martin took over, only US citizens have been hired for the contractor positions (which are the majority). If you don't work directly under Lockheed's Antarctica Support Contract, you are considered a Grantee. Most grantees (like myself) work for the individual science instruments and are hired directly by the institutions that operate the science equipment (University of Chicago for the South Pole Telescope, University of Wisconsin-Madison for Ice Cube, and I believe Harvard for the SPUD/Keck telescope). 

More america:

• Don't hesitate to say 'MERica as often as possible in the vicinity of our resident Canadian, he really enjoys it
• No, no fireworks
• Patriotic movies were also shown all week on station, including Top Gun, Beer Fest, Independence Day, Rocky IV, and The Patriot
• Yes, we still have to pay Federal and State taxes while working here - the complexities involved in defining antarctic soil are a mystery to us all

Next Week in Pole: How much better would life be if we could have some pets on station