Blog . Eli Duke . Com

of all the things i could have been nervous about (regarding this crazy adventure), i was worried most about the food. the first time i went to the job fair in denver, the cook that interviewed me for the DA position said that it was really easy to be vegetarian and really hard to be vegan. but despite the fact that i’m vegan, i just prefer fresh greens, whole wheat bread, and horkin’ fiber chunks.

what would the food be like? would i be able maintain my vegan-ness?

some of my worries subsided the first time i walked into the galley and saw the largest bowl of fresh salad greens i’d ever seen. i couldn’t believe how much salad was available and laughed at the fools who said i couldn’t do it. soon followed fresh baked breads, vegan cookies, and non-dairy whipped cream! but the mother load truly arrived on Thanksgiving.

Jeff, the vegetarian cook, is an awesome guy. he cooks amazing food and about 90% of it is vegan. it’s great. he went above and beyond for Thanksgiving and it really meant a lot to me and the other vegetarians/vegans on station.

sure, i still might eat the occasional bit of “milk solids” found in the chocolate chips or some honey in the granola, but for the most part i’m doing a damn good job.

• 1,200 lbs. of Turkey
• 400 lbs. of Roast Beast
• 2,000 dinner rolls
• 60 pumpkin pies
• 40 pecan pies
• 40 apple pies
• 1,000 pieces pumpkin cheesecake
• 1,000 pieces chocolate cake
• 4 gals. of real whipped cream
• 500 lbs. of mashed potatoes
• 350 lbs. of root vegetables
• 300 lbs. of Asparagus
• 75 lbs. of lettuce
• 80 lbs. of cucumbers
• 50 lbs. of cherry tomatoes
• 16 gals. of salad dressing
• 100 lbs. of cheese
• 350 lbs. of shrimp for cocktail

last week, at the exact moment that i happened to scheduled a Campfire chatting session, 37signals’ servers went down. some of you might think that’s not such a big deal, but 37signals serves up tens of thousands (if not millions) of pages a day and they were completely offline for about 3 hours. it was their first major downtime in about 8 years, and it just so happened to occur for the 3 hours i scheduled for chatting.

anyhoo, i thought it was such an amazing coincidence that i decided to leave a comment on their blog, Signal vs. Noise (SVN), describing what happened:

get this. i’m living (and working) in antarctica right now, and i’ve been using campfire to chat with my friends and family back home. i set up a time and people just show up and come and go and we have a great time with it. this crazy downtime just happened to occur at the exact moment i schedule. what are the chances?

the next day i got an email from Matt Linderman at 37signals!!!

hey eli-

just saw your message at signal vs. noise. first off, sorry for the downtime. second off, your use of campfire sounds interesting. would you be up for a mini-case study? (just means answering a few questions.) we’d publish it at our blog. let me know.

-matt

i almost couldn’t believe what was happening. some of you may remember the first time i was featured on SVN and my post about that, but this time it was a much bigger deal. i wrote back, he sent me the questions, and i wrote back with my answers (along with a few screen shots and some links to flickr pics).

the post went live a few days later. enjoy!

Campfire keeps Eli Duke in touch with friends/family while in Antarctica