Antarctica and the past few days...

Wow, I really don't even know where to begin. I'll probably start off with the best news: yesterday I got a phone call from one of the guys from the Human Resources side of Raytheon Polar Services and was given a job offer with them as a structural firefighter for their "Summer-Over" season which (for me at least) runs from October 6th till February 28th. Damn if I couldn't explain to you how excited I was. I honestly almost drove off the road when I got the news. So with that being said, the next steps I have to take are a drug test, medical examination, dental examination, and some Airport Rescue and Firefighting training in SLC, Utah. After all that and after I get home, I leave Dulles in October for Christchurch, NZ...and then from there to the ice. All in all between fighting fire here and just traveling to Antarctica...let alone working down there, this year is going to be very exciting.

Monday, I received my fly fishing stuff finally. Now, I've fly fished before and I truly enjoy it. But when I got my gear on Monday...for the first time out here, out of nowhere was this new found infinity for fly-fishing. I went out to the Boise River on Monday (which is pretty awesome considering it runs straight through the city and its relatively clean) and decided to fish in a pretty small spot by a bridge over the river and a bike trail. Now, there's a brewery and pub right next to the bike trail and river (about 20 feet or so) so I just parked my car there and got ready to fish in the parking lot. I fished the spot for about 45 minutes....nothing. I finally gave up 5 inches of tippett and 3 flies later and decided to move further downstream on the river. As I was packing up, a random guy walked up and asked me about my fishing gear. Well, I come to find out that this "guy" I'm talking to use to work as a fly-fishing guide in Seven Springs, PA and managed to know every fishing spot in the entire city. He pointed me out to the best spot the city had to offer which is on the outskirts of the city on the other side of a hill from ID-21. On top of that, he gave me two flies (one of which I lost in said river), and wished me luck as well as hoped that I would come back to that spot so he could buy me a beer. So 10 minutes later I arrived at the spot he pointed me to, and managed to catch at least 2 decent sized trout in an hour's worth of fishing. Not bad at all. What's interesting about this week is in the course of two days, I've managed to meet 3 people out of chance that happen to be hardcore fly fishers...2 of them being pretty attractive girls. It's things like that that make me want to live in this area even more. Today, finally, after a 2 year epic battle, I received my CDL. Haha, its stupid I know but dammit, my week is going so well!