Zoomed in and labeled map to help identify things
OK, this will be a quick post about the rest of the B pod. Perhaps the most important and worst thing about B pod is that there is only a single toilet for B2, B3, B4. That bathroom doubles as a janitor's closet. However, it is the only private bathroom on station. Some folks definitely make the trip for some privacy. You can head into the B1 berthing pod to use the bathrooms too. It is just a longer walk.
When you first get to South Pole Station, you walk from the runway to the B3 entrance. You head up some stairs and the first thing you usually see is the coat room. Nothing special there except you see it first and there is a heavily used popcorn maker. We just ran out of the fake butter to flavor the popcorn. Folks are wondering if real butter will work.
The coat room with our all important popcorn maker.
Just past the coat room in the hall way are three glass cases. Two are filled with previous pole markers. They used to be replaced at infrequent intervals, but now they are replaced every year. We are currently planning our own marker and our two machinists will spend the next few months making it. The last glass case is filled with fun South Pole memorabilia.
Previous geographic South Pole markers
South Pole artifacts.
Just beside the coat room on the lower level when you walk in the door to South Pole station is a closed door. That door leads to the B3 gaming/TV lounge. The bookshelves on the left are filled with games that were bought by the defunct recreation department or donated by past employees. To the right, is a shelving unit filled with 6-7 game systems. Out of site on the back wall are three enormous bookshelves filled with DVDs of TV series from the last 20-30 years. Every Monday, I watch the sci-fi series the Expanse. We are about to start season 4 after being here for ~4 months. Right after, Trashy TV takes over. This week, I think they were watching MILF Manor. This lounge is particularly nice because it is not near any berthing rooms so you don't have to worry about waking folks up.
The B3 Lounge
On the upper level, on the way to the B1 berthing is the B1 pool, dart, and movie lounges. The first room only seems to get used for pool this winter, but during the summer it is a major hang out spot. I've been playing a little pool, but prefer the movie lounge adjacent to it. They have some 1-2 year old theater quality chairs and we have a huge DVD selection in addition to the movies folks brought down on hard drives. At the start of the season, I led a small group in the miserable task of inventorying and labeling all the movies alphabetically so they could be easily sorted and located.
B1 pool and dart lounge. On the back right is a small kitchen. The photo on the back left is of Pennsylvania's Falling Water. I printed it on our plotter in honor of the 6.5 folks with Pennsylvania roots on station.
B1 movie lounge. The left bookshelf is filled with Betamax tapes.
B1 movie lounge DVD movie selection. All those yellow labels you see are part of the inventory project that I led at the start of the season. The board games on top of the shelves are duplicates or unlikely to be played.
On the lower level in B2, there is a craft room. I don't spend much time there, but some folks have been creating some amazing stuff. I think my only time there has been on the sewing machines to patch up my $5 pants from Taiwan. They are one of three pairs of pants I have for the year. The pockets were starting to tear and I lost a nail clipper through the hole. Unfortunately, they don't sell clippers in the store, but a kind soul gave me their extra pair.
Craft room. I have only used that first sewing machine.
The one big piece of B pod that I did not mention is that the B1 is our 'lifeboat'. The lifeboat is meant to ensure that there is a separate,
protected space that we could use in case of a catastrophic loss of use
of the rest of the station. It’s protected behind fireproof, insulated
doors. In addition to redundant power, the lifeboat contains redundant
heating, water, wastewater, communications, cooking, and berthing space.
It certainly wouldn’t be comfortable, but the entire winterover crew
could survive in the Lifeboat if necessary. During
normal operations, the Lifeboat is just a normal wing of the station,
hooked into standard station infrastructure. But in the event of an
emergency, we could isolate all the systems mentioned above.
Generators in our Emergency Power Plant (EPP).
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