In the air again

Well, it's been three years and here we go again: back to the pole. This trip will be shorter than the last (~ 3 weeks instead of 6), and more importantly, will not be in November so I miss my daughter's birthday. Much more manageable.

There was a chance that this trip would not happen for me. In March, my boss left IceCube and I became my boss (interim) while a search was conducted for his replacement. For now, I am responsible for the IceCube project's computing facilities. We have several of them, and one of them is located a kilometer from the South Pole.

The skill set they are looking for in my boss is rather unique, so I knew it could well be a while before his replacement was found.  With that in mind, when I made the schedule for the pole season (we hash this out in the April-May time frame), I put myself on the schedule for January. If a replacement was hired by the end of October or November, that person could take my slot and get familiar with how things operate at the pole. They have hired my replacement, but he will
start on March 1st 2013, so away we go.

The trip starts pretty much the same way all the time. First you have to physically qualify (PQ). Standard physical, with a side of extra blood work. Apparently, I'm TB clear, which is always good to know. And they can only pull your wisdom teeth once, which is even better to know.

A few weeks before you go, they book your airline tickets and you're on your way. For McMurdo and South Pole stations, the point of departure is Christchurch NZ. The long flight (15 hours) is LA to Sydney. There are a couple shorter (four hour) legs from Chicago to LA and from Sydney to Christchurch. It's a long day and half of flying. There are worse; one guy on our flight came from Italy (something like 47 hours of travel).

The time shift is a little weird, but not too bad. New Zealand time is five hours behind Central time, but you cross the date line, so you're a day ahead. So I left on the 4th of January and arrived at Christchurch on the 6th. My baggage was not so lucky. Some of the layovers can be pretty tight. In particular, the Sydney change is problematic. It's at best two hours, and the Airbus 380 is a large plane which takes a while to unload. Here experience pays: I anticipated that problem and had enough stuff for a few days in my carry on.

So after too much time in either planes or airports, I finally ended up in my hotel in Christchurch.
First things first: get some food. Less than a block from my hotel is Burger Wisconsin. The kiwis have apparently go to great lengths to make me feel at home. Of course, with a name like that, there is no choice, it's burgers tonight!