Brownie’s takes over the news and reports on a field expedition and heated poker game.

Brownie’s Casey news

Brought to you this week by Neil B, the good looking half of the ‘C&N Plumbing’ team.

I would like to start off with a couple of happy birthdays. First of all our esteemed leader Pete — his birthday started off our working week. Then we have Robert ‘The Godfather’ M, to finish off the working week with a birthday bash. Being Friday, and his birthday, we gave Rob the day off to relax. As you can see from the picture below, I think the rest of the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) team are having the day off too.

A couple of weeks ago a team of four expert expeditioners went deep field travelling to Haupt Nunatak, about three hours from station. The group included Tim ‘the Big Deal’ K who is our DSL (deputy station leader), BSS (building services supervisor), SAR (search and rescue) leader, FTL (field trip leader), librarian, assistant hair dresser and all round good guy. (Phew!) Then we had Emry T our BOM tech, whose job it was to repair the automatic weather station (AWS), that provides information on local weather conditions and makes forecasting a little more accurate. The third expeditioner we had along with us was our senior comms tech, Doug M.  Doug was there to repair the radio in the field hut at Brownings Peninsula. The fourth and final member was myself, Neil. I was out there to check the fire extinguishers and plumbing at Brownings field hut.(Is he serious ? The only plumbing in the hut is a sink that empties directly into a bin beneath it, and a toilet bucket lined with a garbage bag! — Ed)

Our BOM tech got technical with the AWS at Haupt Nunatak. The solar panels had about 19mm of ice build-up on the front of the panels: not ideal, apparently.

After all the work was done at Haupt Nunatak and at Brownings hut, we ventured off to have a look around and do the tourist thing by taking a lot of photos (apparently only of himself — Ed) and exploring.

Enough about work though (Is he joking?! — see hut plumbing reference above — Ed), here is the real story of what has been happening at Casey station throughout the week. It was all about the poker match with the main man Scott ‘High Tower’ N taking all the winnings.  As you can see from the photo below, a very confident hand was played with Scott using his poker face to his advantage.

The final hand played out with Tim ‘The Big Deal’ K being the last of Scott’s feeble opponents. Tim went all in, and was full of confidence until Scott flipped his cards with a smirk on his face — Tim knew he was done.

Scott then took his winnings to the bar where he shouted no one. What a champ.

That’s about it from Casey this week. As you can see there hasn’t been a great deal happening (What about the SL’s birthday?!- Ed).  Everyone is working hard around station and with plenty of snow laying about the place, everyone is starting to get to know how to use a shovel and are grateful for the work the plant operators are doing.

WELCOME TO WINTER! (Almost. — Ed)

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