1-15-25 Mike Post Returns to The ROCK 108 Morning Show

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It's the latest from the autumn king sleep when I'm dead on rock 108 forecast for today mostly sunny with a high of 24 Then 44 tomorrow with mostly sunny skies morning

Russ yesterday 24 is welcome

Yeah, it's definitely welcome and something that our guest Mike post was not experiencing as much of at the South Pole which right now the real feel is 40 degrees below zero or 26 actual below zero at the South Pole today Russ

Minus 26 with

a

windshield.

Yeah.

No, the windshield is 40

below.

So, Mike Post, I introduced Brian yesterday to Mike Post, the famous composer, do you know of this Mike?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's on a law and

order.

Yeah.

Every great

TV theme of the 70s and 80s was done by Mike Post.

Yeah.

I believe Ian Mash.

Yep.

He was on Mash, too.

Yeah.

Well,

he did the theme.

Well, sure.

Yeah.

No, he wasn't on there.

You know acting he was one of the it wasn't

Hawkeye

Well Mike here's the thing let's do a quick reset because it's been a while since you've been with us since you've been you know out of country Mike I found out about you I believe you were listening to the station and started posting pictures from the South Pole And I just reached out and thought that it was amazing that you as an Iowan were stationed at the South Pole.

Yeah, how did you get involved?

and getting down there to the bottom of the planet.

Well, when I was in the National Guard out of Waterloo, my last military deployment took me to Iraq.

So I was there in 2017, 2018.

And I dealt with shipping, supply, logistics kind of work.

And there was contractors, you know, PAE were coming in and dropping off cargo and want to ship to somewhere else.

So I'm like, okay, when I got out and four years later, I was like, okay, this is, this is tiring sitting here in Iowa.

I didn't go do something else.

So I was looking for jobs again.

And sure enough, I came across PAE and couldn't find anything for Iraq, but I saw Antarctica.

I'm like, what are we doing in Antarctica?

There's a lot of jobs.

Explain PAE.

PAE is, sorry, it's now a mentum.

Companies change hands.

It's a company?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, government contracting company.

PAE became a mentum.

And so I was looking through there, couldn't find anything for Iraq, saw a laundry list of Antarctica.

So I'm like, what are we doing?

Looked it up and was just like Google.

I used to be searching, saw awesome clips from McMurdo, which looks like a cool college, like Mining Town is the best way to describe it.

It's dirty, but it's cool.

It's

right at the base of a volcano, Mount Airbus.

And so I was looking at stuff for that.

And sure enough, I'm like, okay, a month later, I apply.

Didn't hear anything, didn't hear anything.

Then I actually hear out from a recruiter, which is like, yeah, you should check out this position for the South Pole.

And so I'm like, okay, I looked at it, my age.

Sure enough, I did.

I applied.

Hey, balls in your court.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Radio science for for another month.

While I was driving a little little car, I'm like, I'm tired of this thing.

So I went out and bought a new Explorer.

So like this is clearly isn't happening because I researched enough.

I know there's seasons work seasons like, well, I'm not clearly not going this year.

Wow.

They three days later after I bought a new car.

I get a job offer to go to South Pole.

What happens?

What are the work seasons?

What does that mean?

Work seasons kind of correlates with the sunshine.

So we got warmth down there right now.

I mean, I know you just said negative 25 for warmth.

But that is the case at the South Pole.

I mean, you got one sunrise, one sunset a year.

And so from when the sun comes up at the end of September, it doesn't go back down again until March.

So you got to get a lot of work done.

Really, you're only there working from end of October, though.

So the people aren't there during the dark months?

Oh, no, there's there's about 40 people there.

Wow.

And you there's 43 people.

They're my first winner.

And so you you both times that you went to Antarctica to the South Pole, you were there during the winter months or the dark time, right?

That's correct.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

We have to know more about this.

And

Russ has

got some questions.

I have questions about the conspiracy theories on the South Pole, which I'm fascinated with.

Let's go.

More

with Mike Post coming up here shortly.

ACDC and Incubus as well.

Incubus with Drive on Rock 108.

On January the 15th, got a friend of the show in here, Mike Post, who's spent two

Two tours at the South Pole, and we were kind of talking with him.

And Russ, you didn't get the chance to talk with him the last time

he was here.

No.

He listens to Rock 108 while he's on the South Pole.

And I wonder if it's the summer up here, and we're talking about 80 degree weather.

How jealous that makes

you.

It's fantastic, actually.

Really?

Yeah.

Being here, I mean, at the temperature we're at right now, I only carry a coat just for being nice if I ever get in a car accident or something.

But I'm not wearing a coat.

Really?

Most times,

no.

You're that desensitized

out of the coat?

I am that desensitized, 100%.

Walking under the ice to my office down there, I mean, I could tell the difference between like a negative 60 and negative 90 day.

You can tell the difference?

Yeah.

And you just blown out the ice plumes and it's like, oh, this was, you know, a little thicker and heavier today.

So it's probably a negative

90.

You have a beard, so do you get the beard circles?

Oh, for sure.

For sure.

And when you say walking under the ice, there's some that don't understand.

The place where you worked was actually in a enclosure underneath the actualize itself.

Yeah.

Yeah, we call them arches because I mean they're arches strongest strongest shape, but it's there They're dwindling in strength now with a bunch of snow up on top of them I mean, there's no real easy way to clear them off.

But yeah, they're about 40 feet under ice So has what has

earth's warming

showed

up there in any meaningful way?

It's up all not a whole lot.

I mean

the whole ozone layer thing.

That's healing, but back in the day, it was more of an issue, but... Interesting.

No, they're not.

Temperature-wise, there's no real difference.

So I have some conspiracy theories.

There's a ton

that

I've been following

from the

South Pole that I wanted to ask you about.

And I'm sure if you could talk about them in detail, you would.

So we'll have to read into your answers.

I think

my limiting factor here might be lack of knowledge.

I think I didn't look into a whole lot of them, but I

guess we'll see what happens.

And I'm sure that's what they train you to say.

Yeah.

Yes.

Is there a forbidden sector?

No one knows what happens there.

No one has ever been there that has come back.

At first I've heard of it.

I mean, at the South Pole, there's the clean air sector where you can't like drive or do anything else because that's the cleanest air on earth.

So they're sampling the crap out of it.

Really?

Yeah.

Well,

I mean, there's no real forbidden.

So nobody has wandered from camp and not come back.

I mean.

That would suck.

But I don't think anybody has.

OK, we'll call that one probable.

Is there a hole in the pole that connects the hole at the other pole and the hollow earth?

Hey, I'm a fan of Kong and Godzilla 2.

But no, there's not a giant hole.

There's no

hollow earth people coming up.

No, I mean, because the ice is shifting.

So like, you'd have to constantly be boring it out.

And that wouldn't make any sense.

The hole would be moving.

Yeah,

exactly.

The almost South Pole station because there's a big hole where the actual poles should be you can't build a research station There you can't build a research station there This means that it's easy to keep an eye on UFOs and alien technologies that are coming out of the holes on the cell

phone.

Hmm No flying overhead.

No, I mean you can

It's the night sky, obviously six months of darkness.

It's amazing.

But so you can see all the kinds of satellites and everything else up there and media, meteor showers that come through and it's beautiful.

Yeah.

What does the sky look like with absolutely no light pollution?

Amazing.

Amazing.

And as I was talking about the moon earlier, it's, you know, it's the southern hemisphere.

So there's a whole constellation stuff I've never seen before.

So if being down there, you can see the southern cross and it's really cool to spot.

It's pretty easy to spot once you know where to look.

But there's a actually in the station, there's a constellation map.

So you can see

what you're looking

at.

That's cool.

There is a UFO base at the South Pole.

They discovered it in World War II.

The Nazis actually discovered it.

What do you have

to do with the UFO base?

Are you supplying them as well?

No, they haven't paid their bills in a while.

They're not keeping up.

So I mean, US government aside, you gotta be paid to

play.

You are not there to learn about the superhumans.

You can absolutely guarantee that the scientific exploration is not a cover to learn about the superhumans.

What are the superhumans?

So he's like the lizard guys that come out and ask

them.

They're lizard people.

They're really huge.

They're much bigger than we are.

I mean,

they live on the pole.

I mean, if they're kind of like lizard people, maybe they're cold-blooded and they couldn't survive.

So that makes no sense.

debunked.

All kidding aside, there's nothing strange to you going on down there.

To you, everything there is scientific.

There's nothing that's ever made you say, hmm, this is weird.

I mean, I think it's weird to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to drill, you know, to make create the ice cube neutrino detector.

I mean, that's not a thing I understand.

I mean, it just detects neutrinos, which are really small, like smaller than atoms.

And there's trillions of us passing through us.

They go right through our body.

Yeah.

There the point of the neutrino detector is to catch the one the one very few one that actually smashes into an atom and creates like a Ballistics effect and you can kind of see where it came from So you see where it came from so you look that direction You can maybe see a supernova or something that would have maybe caused that particular neutrino to go flying through there and

So that sounds like boring actual science.

Yeah, pretty much so

I don't understand it.

I'm not paying $300 million for it.

So they got to figure it out.

Is it militaristic?

I mean, is it really regimented?

Do you have to be up at a certain time and you can't call it sick?

No.

I mean, you call it sick, but I'll come find you.

There's no reason to be that strict down there.

People were taking stuff way too seriously.

I mean, yes, we're there for a job.

We're getting paid to do a job.

Do your job, but I mean, chill.

Do people actually get sick because there's not a whole lot of people down there?

No,

I actually got a cold shortly after coming back.

And I realized, wow, this is the first time in two years that I've actually gotten sick.

And that cold about floored me.

Yeah.

That's not just a man cold thing.

And that about floored me.

That's crazy.

Well, it's because you haven't

had one in a

while.

Exactly.

You had it

around the germs.

Yeah.

I mean, when people were coming in my first year, they all wore masks.

Yeah.

The newcomers, this year, they didn't make them do that.

They just kind of came in and we just.

Was it

COVID that

year?

COVID had effects, but this year, going like this current summer season, 24, 25 is the first season there.

They dropped all the COVID restrictions.

There's no more masking precautions.

I mean, you still got to give acts and everything else because it's government operations.

So you got to do that.

But the

they must quarantine you for a few days before you actually go in, don't they?

Not anymore.

Well,

not anymore.

I'm going to show up and

go.

It's like, what are you bringing in here?

We're clean.

Well, my first year, I had to sit five, five days in my room.

So I watched five seasons of Vikings.

What's the food like?

Amazing, actually.

Really?

Yeah, they hire chefs.

When I say chefs, they hire chefs.

But

all the food's frozen, obviously.

It's frozen, but they do their best to make wonderful food.

Like, if you're just sitting there just grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, you're good for two days.

But OK, day three, let's do something else.

They make amazing, amazing food.

Like, what are some of the best dishes you enjoyed?

on the South Pole.

Oh, wow.

My

first year, you

would look forward to it's like, oh, they're making that

today.

Well, my first year, we had a guy from Texas.

So, you know, the food is going to be good.

And he made this amazing, basically like hamburger helper, but had bacon chunks in it.

And it was just amazing.

So great.

But I mean, we had lobster this year, crab legs, you know, Wellington, just a duck even.

That's not it.

That's not for me.

It's a little too fatty.

But

yeah,

I'm there.

I'm going to get

a duck fan.

How about snack foods?

Oh, there's tri-walls, you know, large boxes of packs of snacks all the time.

Oreos, pop tarts, ramen, all the ramen you could ever imagine.

Yeah, it's that.

And is there a currency down there or is everything just free?

We have a little shop at a little store.

Cash only because

if you want to buy stuff for your room or whatever.

No, like decorations, anything like that.

You know, snacks.

Right.

Other snacks, quote, unquote.

Right.

Then, you know, merchandise, stickers and stuff like I brought.

And then hats.

That's about it.

I got one.

Does anyone smoke cigarettes down there?

Yeah.

Crazy people.

They go outside and stand in the cold, you know, negative 70 just to smoke a freaking cigarette.

Wow.

They should let them smoke inside.

Well, so so mean.

I believe one of the lounges, the B3 lounge, if you remember from those video tours you watched, it's the first one inside the door.

I believe I actually learned this year there is a vent in it because it was supposed to be the Smokers Lounge.

Oh, when the station was designed in their late 90s and being built through the early 2000s, you could smoke in buildings.

But they

don't let them anymore.

But no, they don't.

The government facility, they can't do that anymore.

Going to have to pay.

It would make sense to me if they actually had a smoker's lounge.

How about

weed?

Somebody must smuggle weed into when they come there.

They

must.

Oh, people have definitely.

I've smelt a bottle.

I'm like, oh, there's like this pill bottle in a Ziploc bag.

And I'm like, this is suspicious.

Open it up and smelt it.

Oh, OK.

Yeah, there's somebody.

Somebody got it down here.

Somebody got high at the South Pole.

Probably

the people that do the radio station down there.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Latest from pop evil.

What remains and more with Mike post coming up next pop evils.

Latest what remains with the Rockaway morning show P1 nation has somebody that's been to the South Pole twice and he's sitting with us now.

Mike post Meg Brink in El Cater on the text line says this interview is awesome.

Get them Russ.

Sean in Stanley has a question for you.

Ready, Mike?

Have you seen the wall of ice that is at the end of the flat

earth?

don't have a wall of ice at the end of the earth, but we do have a thing called the end of the world, which is where we take all the snow that accumulates around the station over time.

They constantly have to lower the grade of the station so it doesn't get swallowed up.

So we take all the snow and haul it, maybe about a quarter mile, half mile at best, and they just dump it into a wall, and it has gotten pretty huge.

So we call it the end of the world, because after that, you're just walking off into

to the sunset so i'm confused because a few minutes ago off air you said you don't get snow there uh so it's blowing across the across the continent it's not falling from the sky it's blowing across the oh how

interesting yeah

wow and no penguins no penguins there nothing survives there there's no wildlife at all no not the south pole wow

further up towards McMurdo station you said that you have seen penguins there

yeah McMurdo station you'll see some seals and penguins

Different kinds of penguins even not just the a deli penguins like I saw you see some emperor and king penguins.

That's the

far northern

point No, but it's the it's the closest jumping off point from like New Zealand.

Okay, that's where we come from.

Okay.

Wow Yeah,

and you've only been twice only twice so far.

You're gonna go back I'm not shut in the door, but I'm ready for some tropical weather

So what's next you'd mentioned Honduras to me off air.

Yep head to Honduras next leaving here shortly and we'll be getting

be doing the kind of stuff I did in the military, logistics, aviation supplied.

But this time, instead of being a green suitor, I'll actually be the contractors that roll my eyes like, OK, these guys.

So this is your

choice?

This is my choice.

OK.

No, this is not.

So you're done with the South Pole.

It's like I want some warm weather now.

Yeah.

But you didn't pick warm weather.

You picked tropical, oh my god, weather.

We'll see how this first summer goes.

It's probably going to suck.

I would love to know at the end of

which, you know, which extreme is better.

It's a great testing point.

I haven't experienced Kuwait in Iraq.

Yeah.

Summertime.

I'll take that over the cold.

Really?

For some things, for some things, I guess, technically, I built a lot of Air Force pilots of cargo and everything else in both both situations.

Much better to do when it's 120 degrees than negative 80.

Because you can't do anything with your hands when you have, you know, three layers of gloves on.

That's a good point.

Dexterity is not there.

So I'll definitely take, definitely take the heat for working in like that.

But I mean, at the South Pole, like under the ice, I go outside and I'm like, well, I'm not going to throw this big on, big old coat on there.

So I just got to go check a shelf.

Oh man.

And like, I'm just tired of being cold to just be cold.

So the South Pole, you have to go out for a quick one.

You'll just throw a hoodie on and go out in minus 20.

Yeah.

You are wired differently my friend.

Oh

Midwest

I know what

I'm about.

So you got to bring the radio station to Honduras with you?

Yeah, now I actually have constant internet instead of an internet window of 10 hours.

Now I should be able to listen on the app.

Got to turn the

Honduras

into Iowa rockers here.

I got a couple of stickers, which are right there by your water bottle

that you can bring with you.

Yeah, I'll tag that place up too.

There we go.

I like hearing it.

Anything else that you want to tell somebody if if they want to be a part of going to the South Pole.

Where's the best way to apply?

What should they have as far as experience, that kind of thing?

You can get to the South Pole with no job experience.

Really?

Believe it or not, you can get down there.

The best way is going to be as a Stewie Jano, you know, the cook or the cook's aide, you know, working the galley, doing dishes, cleaning floors.

But that, no, no barrier to entry there.

What's the

pay

like?

Dog.

It's bad.

It's bad.

Oh, it's bad.

It's bad.

For those positions, you're not going to make money.

But you're not spending money.

You're not spending money.

So

it's all money coming in.

It's

not going to be a rent.

Yeah.

You're a fresh graduate out of high school and you want to, you'll make money, probably more money than you made in high school.

But.

Or if you wanted to retire from a medium paying radio job.

There are a handful of people that.

in their sixties that retire quote unquote right and then they go down there because like well hey this is it was always something i thought about you know i've seen clips here here in there so i shot it went for it and a lot of them start as as the juizandos the what i don't know what that was

What did you say?

Well, I don't know if I should say it now.

No, but I was like, I was like, what are you talking about?

Geno stewies.

There we go.

Okay.

That's the right order for those words.

That's the correct order.

Anyways, so they go and retire down there doing that, which is totally fine and cool.

You know, they have a lot of life experience to get a talk to and then they run into smaller younger people.

All right.

And it's like, okay, just two different worlds colliding down there.

It's really cool.

I am

so fascinated.

I mean I need to sleep with fresh air in a cool bedroom

Don't open your

window.

Don't open your window.

I always have my window open a crack.

You can't do it down there

No, I mean you can other windows.

Yes, but for the winner you have to cover them up So there's no light pollution going outside.

Oh, geez.

Yeah.

Oh science.

Yeah UFOs

You

haven't paid their bill Sean wanted to chime in one more time.

Please make sure it's known

That statement was a joke.

I'm not a flat earther.

Oh, no, there's a lot of people that come down there and are asking questions, but like it.

Come on, guys, it's not.

That's not how it is.

There's no weather modification.

Are there weather scientists down there?

Yeah.

Yeah, we actually had a meteorologist this year.

OK.

Like last year, where we had our RAs doing it.

Right.

And they were just being overworked for sure.

This

year, there's actually a dedicated meteorologist and.

Doing weather observations and all that stuff.

Launching balloons, weather balloons.

Really?

Scattering across the continent.

Wow.

This is fantastic.

Mike, I can't thank you enough for coming on in here.

And I'm glad that Russ got the chance to ask you a few questions because he missed out on the last time.

So safe travels to Honduras and we'll

keep in contact.

I still think he's holding out on us.

He knows more than he's telling us.

Well, just let me turn off

the mics and he'll let you know.

10 years, and hell yeah, coming on the way with Russ next.

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