Dreams.... As you all know I have been an iron worker most of my life, and while this career has brought me travel, adventure, and joy in more ways than my brain can sount, there will always be a hole in my life... You see, as a child I often dreamed of being a dancer. my earliest wish was to be a ballerina and dance in pretty pink slippers, an idea that brought tears of laughter to my friends and family. I never forgot that dream and over the years it has grown and broadened to include other forms of dance and self expression. I have secretly persued my passion, enrolling in classes of all types of dance, african, jazz, free form, you name it I have moved to it. But I am digressing....the reason for this little e-mail is to invite you all, and any frineds who I might have missed, to a little performance I am putting together to be held this saturday night in the newly enclosed SSC building. it is a one man show by yours truely, the visual story of my life as an iron worker/private dancer set to the music of Zam Phir, master of the pan flute. All are welcome to attend though it does get a tad bit racey in parts and there is some nudity (I was quite the cassinova in my youth). Please join me for the final climactic merging of my two greatest passions.....graceful movement of the human form, and lifting heavy, cold steel. Sincerely, Charles 11/24/01 I always wanted to be dancer.... 11/24/01 nearly open I've decided it's time to head back to Minnesota from Louisannia, maybe the snow season is over. Is anyone wondering what this string of mild winters and strong summers storms means? I don't know if Polaris has an inside track but they are adding more wetbikes and motorcycles to their line. Snowmobiles may have some tough sledding so to speak.Now we just have to keep enough water around.Cajun Country has had a dry winter also if you can imagine that, the price of crawfish is way up. Maybe we will have to import them from Minnesota. But the Gulf area shouldn't have to worry about low water levels much longer what with the big ice shelves breaking off Antactica, as the ice cap melts the sea level will come up.Scientests have been pretty busy all over Antarctica drilling cores and radar sounding trying to figure out how stable the ice cover is, looks like it has swung back and forth several times.It's been exciting to watch the research in actionbut scary too. And the Arctic ocean has more open water and thinner ice than before, sailboats to the north pole anyone? You heard it here first. Enough of this pondering, it's time to open Der Lake Charlie's. We will still have a taste of the old milleniumfor those who can remember it. The coolers and water are way back in the last century. We are lucky to be outside the frantic pace, we will still have the same feel when the dot coms get thinned out. IR's been awhile since there's been a decent bear market, have a cool one here and save your place before the rush to find something real gets out of hand. If you have old photos of this place I would like to make a collage for the wall, keep some history alive. We should be open in early May for local gossip, if this warming keeps up how knows how much of next winter we can stay open. See you here. 4-19-2000 Off the ice I got off the ice in early Feburary and have been laying low in Baton Rouge waiting for it to get warm up north. It's been slow to warm up but expect to open Deer Lake Charlie's in early May, see you there for a cool beer and a reminder of the old millenium! 4-15-2000 December 22..... A MOON SPECIAL!!! The moon's orbit around the Earth is not perfectly circular so it has near and far points and thus appears slightly larger or smaller. On Dec 22 it is at a near point at the same time as full moon so it will be as large as possible. This isn't immediatly noticeable to the eye but but you can sort of see it if you are observant. The orbit of the Earth around the sun is also elliptical and the closest point is very early January so on Dec 22 we wil be closer to the sun than the rest of the year. So the sunlight on the moon will be stronger and the moon will be bigger combining to make the full moon as bright as possible. The full moon also falls on the solistice which adds nothing to this except symbolism. It has been 130 some years since this combination of events has been as exact although it would be approximatly the same every 20 years. Tidal effects also depend on distance between bodies (wish ours were closer) so the sun and moon tides will be the largest and since they will be in the same line on the full moon the total tidal force will be at a maximum which some experts say can trigger earthquakes. The big one in Turkey was five days after the eclipse of the sun which passed through there. So go figure. A strong quake on the last Christmas of the millenium would get people to talking, maybe take their mind off Y2K or maybe make it worse. Think you are safe where you are at but it makes interesting thoughts. Stop by Deer Lake Charlie's page on December 22 for a special commentary on THIS event. Be there or be square!! 12/17/1999 Raising Hell!! 12/14/1999 OFF TO THE SOUTH POLE After two amusing weeks in Mactown I climbed on a C-130 for the three hour trip to the pole. Endless flat white snowfields broken in the middle by the trans-Antarctic mountains. Amazing sights, huge vertical cliffs with massize snow overhangs at the top, glaciers flowing down the valleys with miles of cravasses that could eat houses, hard to imagine how the explorers could have ever crossed on foot. Then it flattens again with tiny points of rock that are the tops of mountains poking through the miles of ice. The pole itself is a flat snow plane atop two miles of ice, so the pressure is 11,000 feet above sea level. You get tired in a hurry. A delightful minus 40 for the summer. It will get as warm as -10 around Christmas. There are about 200 people at the pole, way more than normal because a new station is being built. The present one was built in 1975 but is getting old and is losing the battle to snow drifting, over 40 feet deep despite massive plowing over the years. The new station will be on stilts and sort of wing shaped to combat drifting. With the constant sun three work shifts are run, so there is always equiptment running, meals being served, crowded bathromms, etc. Anythig inside is like being on a ship, always getting out of the way of other people. You do get to know everybody more than you really want. With that it's time for work again, pile on the cloths. Any comments or questions contact me at blackmch@mcmurdo.gov I'll try to respond if I can find an open terminal. Later 12/2/1999 South for the Winter Well maybe a little too far south. After leaving kiwiland arrived at McMurdo station, a cross between a mining camp and a college campus. It helps if you like living in a construction zone and have a high ability to ignore rumors and rediculus working conditions. But we have phone to the outside world, TV with one channel of almost live events, and internet if you are willing to wait in line. Not much worse than living in a shack in the woods.For a more amusing look at life in McMurdo check out "Spanish Word of the Day" by Chick Perales on the home page. McMurdo is also a departure point for folks going to field camps, the dry valleys, and the South Pole. In that vein-- 12/2/1999 DLC Visits MOON!! This picture of Deer Lake Charlie and an unidentified woman. believed to be taken on the rocky surface of the (honey) MOON, was captured by alien papparazzis some time last summer. Is it TRUE, Deer Lake Charlie, that your scariest adventure yet has NOT been in Antarctica??!! 10/31/1999 On the road First comes 24 hours in airports or in the air. Got to sit between a sumo wreasler and a screaming kid. Just kidding. But getting to New Zealand is wonderful. A fine place, you should see it. First order of business is to water the whistle so we go to Bailies, an Irish pub about a hundred feet from where Prez Clinton stayed when he was here in Sept. What does it mean when the bartender on the other side of the world says "hi Charlie, about time you showed up." Was going to fly to the ice this morning but plane is busted, 48 hour delay. so guess will have to amuse myself somehow. More tomorrow, Kiwi beer calls. Oct 27, 1999 I'm HERE!! Just arrived….check the temperature at Vostok, just down the road, and if you think it's cold where YOU are, well, tough! 10/23/1999
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