Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I mailed in all my Medical stuff today to become PQ'd. There was a bunch of arcane information to gather. It took a couple of weeks to get it all. It appears a lot of it would be good for research statistics not much else. For example, there is a very strange prevelance of gall bladder problems for people who winter over in Antarctica. No one knows why. Gathering additional data can help figure things out. There has been a lot to do. I have have had as many injections as trips to medical buildings. I have to thank Chris at Parkway dental and the folks over at Dr. Kennedy's for helping me get all this done when everyone else is waiting months for appointments. I am off to San Diego Sunday for a couple of days for a conference. Thursday when I get back I have my last Dentist appt. before submitting my dental work (and xrays) for getting PQ'd. I don't think the Resses cat is going to make it until I deploy. She is very sick. She has been taking water but nothing else. ...

I should be physically qualified (PQ'd) next week. I recovered from my teeth extraction quite fast. My bite has changed and that has given me a bit of discomfort. I have one more doctor visit (I think) and one more dentist visit. The next step after being PQ'd is receiving plane tickets to the ice. My POD (point of departure) is Binghamton NY. I will fly commercial to LA and then to Auckland and then to Christchurch NZ. I will be in Christchuch for a couple of days with orientation and we have to wait for weather, logistics and get my ECW gear (Extreme Cold Weather). From Christchuch I wil get on a Air Force C-141 (most likely) and fly to Mactown. Mentally I have moved from extreme excitement to a more subdued cautiousness. It will be a very different experience. You just cannot mentally prepare for the unknown. The humdrum boring issues are the ones to be cautious of, missed flights, lodging problems etc. This is a flower arrangement the grandkids made a couple of weeks back...

Well, I am sans 6 teeth today. I had 4 wisdom teeth and 2 molars pulled over the course of 45 minutes yesterday morning. It is the first time I have had a tooth pulled. If I had my wisdom teeth pulled a few years ago I wouldn't have had to get the molars removed. Now I am on the track for perfect dental care. I have been at the fringes for years. The extraction wasn't too bad I guess as far as they go. There were no infections and most of them pretty much popped out. Only one of them hurt as it got yanked on and only one of them got really crunchy. It was also the first time I have had nitrous oxide. I find it to be very similar to beer without the nasty headache. It is over now and I can relax. I still have a lot of paper work to get through to be physically qualified. There are a lot of things to do in a very short amount of time in my case. The really good thing is that when I ask these professionals for expediency and explain that I am going to Antarctica, they really wor...

I am having issues with my computer at home. I am reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling the system. It is very time consuming to go through and fix these things but what else can you do? I have no net access at home for the next few days. The good thing is that this will give me more confidence of the computer for Bonnie while I am gone so we can email each other easily. McMurdo now has 2 T1 lines this year. That will be a big help compared to how it has been there. There are a lot of folks (with lives off the ice). Bandwidth would be a requirement. I don't expect gobs of bandwidth but hopefully I can buzz through some emails as the opportunity presents itself. It appears I am getting some teeth pulled to go to Antarctica. Today I find out how many. So... I am giving some teeth up to have the opportunity on top of all the other sacrifices. I have never had a tooth pulled up to this point so I am a bit nervous. I hope this will be the last on the list of sacrifices. It is...

We are working through mounds of paper work to be able to deploy. Most of it is pretty clear but it is voluminous. I am still unsure at this point if I can keep my wisdom teeth. The dentist will set my fate. There is just a lot to do in a short time to get PQ'd to get to work in Antarctica. The following photo is from an accident about 2 1/2 hours plane ride from McMurdo in 1998. The c-130 hit a crevasse and twisted the craft into the chasm. I don't think anyone was hurt. Used without permission from http://www.gmra.org/n0nhj/ice99/p14.htm

Bonnie and I ran down to Washington DC for the Toastmasters International World Championship of Public Speaking. We had a good time. We caught up with Jim Thompson for the event. We both noticed the overall quality of the speeches was even higher than last year. One of the rules is to have 2 minutes of silence in between speakers. This year I noticed that two minutes is not enough to get the last speaker out of your head. The speeches are all that good. Everyone of them moves you. Often times the speaker has you taking an emotional roller coaster with some unexpected twists. The guy who won second place has been trying to win, I think he said, for 28 years. This is as close as he got so far. After that we got right back to Berkshire. There is a lot to be done before winter. As part of the trip I had some more good conversation with someone that has been to the ice. I also got a book that was published this month on "How to Survive Antarctica". It was a super quick read. Thi...

During the course of a day I often think of things that are blog worthy. It is tough to remember them just like it is tough to remember a dream. I remember when I was kid being labeled a day dreamer by my Mom. Actually, I like to consider it "thinking." I am excited about the adventure to be sure. I am looking at a stack of paperwork. It will take *US* a couple of hours to figure it out. I have a new laptop computer and a new camera ideally suited for terra incognita. I noticed the other day in my travels that a European geologist used some photos from one of the folks that had done my job a couple of years ago. I expect to be doing the same and getting some really good photos of stuff that matters. This is a more traditional representation of Antarctica. We even go as far as saying left is West Antarctica and the right is East Antarctica. I have purchased a few maps for the walls in Berkshire, NY. This map is used without permission from www.geographicguide.com I ...