Nothing New

Whatever I write today I really can't exaggerate. The past 4 days have been pretty uneventful. I'm going damn near broke but the season is definitely picking up so hopefully that will change within a week or two. Nevada's been burning up, Utah is picking up, and Idaho's slowly starting to get bigger fires. I've been looking for more temporary jobs but every place I've been to that I've wanted to work at was "not hiring at the time." Coming from D.C. part of me thinks that's a load of shit but whatever. The one other place I've managed to luck out somewhat was a "Gentleman's Club" called the Torch where I'd be working as a bouncer. I'm on an "on-call" basis as of now but hopefully I'll be able to get some work next week. I applied to Oregon State University to try to get into their online Natural Resources program. I'm going to try for their B.S. in Natural Resources but I still really don't know what I should study. I don't know. It will all come to me I guess.

Table Rock

Today I woke up rather early for no reason what so ever...which I really enjoy by the way. I drove around, came back, drove around again and then I made the decision to head up to Table Rock to do some bouldering. For those of you not familiar with the area, Table rock is a small plateau about 3 or 4 miles northeast of Downtown Boise. Compared to the rest of the foot hills behind it, when you're a good distance away from it, it looks pretty small. Also northeast of downtown Boise is the old Idaho State Penetentiary which also serves as a trail head for one of the trails leading to Table Rock. Now, I timed it the last time I hiked it and from the parking lot to Table Rock is roughly a 40 to 45 minute walk and a good 12-1300 ft elevation gain. A moderate slope that will give you a good workout...especially when you're carrying a load as I found out the first time when I hit the trail with my fireline pack. The top offers amazing views of Boise as well as the rest of the Great Basin. It still amazes me to see mountains that still have snow on them at this time of year. Anyways, while I was up there I spotted two active fires: one in the city of Boise it self, the other way off in the horizon. I also saw the remnants of a fire that started last week pretty close to where I was at. Needless to say the season has definitely started....now all we need is to get called to a fire.

Another Boise Day

I hate waking up later than I plan the night before. I wanted to get up at like 6 or so but instead, I woke up at like 1130. Booo. As usual, I checked my email the second I woke up only to find an email from Raytheon. I don't know if I've said it or not but I have to go to Salt Lake City in July for 10 days for some ARFF (Airport Rescue and Firefighting) training before I head down to the ICE. The email pretty much stated that my plane ticket and lodging had already been arranged and I just had to confirm it which was a relief because even after yesterday's exciting news the fact that I got a job in Antarctica was still pretty unbelievable to me, haha. After a few phone calls and breakfast, I went out to lunch with a few guys from my fire crew for about an hour or so. Came back, wasted about a few hours, then decided to head off to the Boise River to do some fishing with hopes of returning on time to go play mini-golf with my roommates: a leisurely evening. After about an hour of casting into a fish-less abyss, I decided to return to my car to get my kayak out so I could paddle over to an island so I could fish in the eddy it created. Well, when I put my fishing vest in my boat, I forgot I left my phone in the vest which was floating in a few inches of water for over half an hour (I wasn't wearing my spray-skirt). So by the time I got back to my car, my phone had water in every crack and crevice possible. Trust me people when I say that if you use your cell phone as much as I do, you definitely come to terms with how much you take having a cell phone for granted when you don't have it for an evening. So to sum up the evening, no cell, no mini-golf, no going to the local "PG-13 strip club" to try to get a job as a bouncer. Damn if I don't feel naked without it. On a more somber note, a girl I met here in Boise whom I befriended sorta cut ties with me because of how she felt about me and knowing that I'd never be able to pursue a healthy relationship (or at least for several years). I feel sorta bad because I normally communicate well with other girls and I should've talked to her about this earlier. I'm not going to go too in depth about it because I really don't like putting other people's personal business or feelings out in the street but it still put a downer on the night...

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!

Season's getting closer....

Now this is what I'd like to see more often...

A Good End to the Night

I know I'm weird. I've excepted that. But something about filling up at a gas station at a near-deserted 4-way intersection with nothing but farmland and stars beyond you in the middle of the night is relaxing to me. This is what I look for. This is what I live for: moments like this as I travel about, as I go about my life. Moments where I can enjoy and live in them. Where I don't have to worry about what needs to be done or how much much money I have or what friends do I or do I not have? No, its moments like tonight where I can listen to the hum of flourescent lights. Where I can listen to the soft sound of a light breeze slipping through hay and trees. Where I can look up into an infinite abyss glittered with more stars than I could ever imagine to count. Its moments like tonight where I feel truly alive.

Tonights little moment helped some but I'm still feeling that bought of depression I had started to feel yesterday or the day before. I don't know what it is. Hopefully, its temporary. Hopefully it will go away whenever we get our first fire. I've scored Jason and Myself jobs as bouncers at a few clubs in Downtown Boise. To be honest, I'm not looking forward to it but its a paycheck so I can't complain...

Worries

Normally I don't feel this way but today I had (having) a bought of depression. I really don't know why. Maybe its because of the way I been eating. I have been eating like shit for the past week, mind you. I don't know. Maybe its something else. I received an email today from Raytheon Polar Services that had a link which took me to a more detailed employment application they wanted me to fill out. I always hate filling out applications like that. For one, I'm only 22 and I worked pretty much meaningless jobs up until the last year or so while I went to school. I've always been worried that employers are going to be turned off from that. A couple jobs that I've been fired from , I got fired for bullshit reasons (one employer never even let me know why I got fired, the other fired me because I had to leave town for a family emergency at the last minute). Luckily both of those were before I turned 19 but I still have been pretty paranoid about them. I've told a lot of you that I don't think I'm going to get the job in Antarctica (tentative offer or not) just because that's the way I think and it keeps me from getting my hopes up. After all, when its all said and done, what's going to make them choose me over a bunch of people who are probably far more qualified than I ever will be?

Anyways, my friend Jason dragged me out to play a version of beer pong called Battleship Pong: think of the game battleship...played on a specially designed beer pong table. I had a blast. The best part of it all was the first team we played consisted of some random guy we didn't know, and the manager and owner of the bar and 3 others on the street. We started talking and I asked him if he was hiring any bouncers or security guys for his bars (considering we haven't been on any fires yet and we're starting to need money to live off). To make a long story short, he told us how much he liked us and he scheduled us to have an interview tomorrow night with of his other managers. Thank god I have a decent job lined up now. At least this job, I truly do not have to put up with anyone's shit. Tomorrow I also take my CDL road test for my Class B license. I don't know why, but that will be an accomplishment for me as well. I've been trying to get it for over a year now but I've been slacking ass trying to get a road test scheduled. Hopefully when I come back to VA it will transfer right over without any fuss.

Hopefully, the night will go better once I go out with Jason and the rest of my crew again. Till then, I don't know.

3 nights of fun.

I'm not going to lie. The past 3 nights have been a drunken blur. Wednesday night, piss drunk. Thursday night, not too drunk but drunk enough. Friday...wow. I can't even begin to tell you how incomprehensibly fucked up I was last night. One of the guys on my crew whom I befriended, Jason, ended up playing pool with this incredibly sketchy (and incredibly crazy) drunk. At one point in time, I was at the bar drinking a Beam and Coke when I looked over...and Jason is in a choke hold administered by Tucker...crazy, sketchy, incredibly drunk Tucker. Needless to say, the glass from which I was drinking was about 10 seconds away from being broken into a device to persuade our good friend Tucker to release innocent Jason from his grip of death. I quickly realized that Tucker was just showing Jason different choke holds and "18 ways to kill a man". Without questioning the insanity of it all (random white dude choking people in a bar) I returned to my drink at hand. Well, the rest of the guys on our crew that were out (Dennis and Jed) and I went to a bar a block down the street leaving Jason to play pool with his newly found friend, Tucker. Another Jim Beam and Coke and 45 minutes later, we started pondering whether or not Jason was still alive, let alone playing pool back where we left him. What did I do? I volunteered to go check on him. So here I am, stumbling down the street in downtown Nampa, ID wondering which bar we left him. After a brief process of elimination (there was only one other bar on the side of the block we left) I made my way up the 30 some steps to the entrance of the bar. These assholes are still on the same game of pool that they were when we left! Haha, when Jason saw me when I came in, he gave me a look that just screamed "Help!" Now, this entire time, I've yet to talk to or even hear anything that Tucker has talked about so I know nothing about this cat. When I walked up to Jason, and incredibly inebriated Tucker introduces himself to me and as I to him. Well, we started talking and it turned out that he was a Navy S.E.A.L. that was stationed in Norfolk for 8 years. A fellow Virginian! Needless to say, I've made a new friend. Now do keep in mind that I'm plenty drunk myself. Well after about 15 or 20 minutes of talking Tucker buys me a shot called the Dirty Sanchez. I know what you're thinking and I probably should have never agreed to drink something with a name like "The Dirty Sanchez" but hey, that'd be rude of me. I did forget to mention however that for about 5 minutes or so before he bought me the shot I was talking to a rather beautiful woman at the bar. I really don't remember her name or what we were talking about but I just remember talking to her. Anyways, the shot comes and damn if it didn't go down smooth (I'm assuming its smooth. At this point, I can't see straight nor think logically).

Comment: As I tell you this tale, I can't help but wish I had started writing in this blog before the time that John Wall procured a bottle of Absynth from which I drank 4 shots. I'm not going to tell the entire story behind that night but it was confirmed by 3 different people that I had a full-on 2-way conversation with one of the resident cats in my friend Julie's apartment. Anyways, the moral of that story which I learned the hard way the next morning was be weary of anything that goes down "smooth" after you're already drunk.

Now, thinking back to the Absynth incident, flags start going up after I drank this smooth and somewhat delicious shot so naturally, curiosity ensues and I ask my newly found friend Tucker what makes up a Dirty Sanchez. I don't remember the exact words but I did hear:

1)Everclear
2)Wild Turkey 101
3)Jose Cuervo

Haha, when I thought about that particular moment in time this morning, I could only imagine the scene in the movie Friday when Craig is given a "blunt" thinking its marijuana when in fact it was PCP. However, I don't do drugs and that was probably a bad and somewhat inappropriate analogy so I'll get back to the story. Another 20 or 30 minutes go by and I'm off and on talking to the ravishing girl I had been on my right and a still heavily intoxicated Tucker on my left. At this point in time (and my own intoxication) time has no relevance or meaning to me as I lost track of it like an hour before. With that being said, Dennis and Jed walk in and drag us out. Whoops, I forgot I had left them well over an hour before to "check on Jason". I woke up this morning in one of our other crew mate's, Sherri, bed. No Sherri was not in it beside me. Luckily, she was out of town. Needless to say, a few lessons were learned last night primarily, be weary of any drink with the words "Dirty" and "Sanchez" in them as well as any drink that goes down rather smooth when you're drunk.

Today is a beautiful day. I don't know what we're going to do but we had wanted to do something today...possibly rafting or tubing. Who knows. All I know its another beautiful day where I'm alive to experience everything the good Lord has provided us. I'm going to take a shower and head on out. Be safe all of you....even you Tucker.

What a day. Woke up around 9, took a shower, ate breakfast, etc after which I decided to head out and do some errands. While I was out getting my passport photos taken, I received a call from the guy I talked about from Raytheon for my interview. Now, I'm not going to lie I was a little nervous doing an interview over the phone I like to being able to see the reactions of the person asking the questions. All in all, I think it went pretty well considering he was talking to me on a more personal level since we had spoken before...on myspace of all places. Even with the tentative offer of employment he gave me a lot of things he asked me made me feel good about the interview:

1) He asked me if I had a passport...when I told him I didn't have one yet he asked me:

2) How soon would I be applying for one

3) If I'd be available to leave in early October to be gone until February

4) If I'd be able to attend an ARFF (Airport Rescue & Firefighting) course from either the 8th to 18th or 18th to 28th of July

Hopefully, all goes well and I get the position. As usual I have mixed doubts as to whether or not I'll get it.

I may have found another job to work at in downtown Boise so I should get cracking on a resume for it. Other than that, not much else has happened to day.

What a day

An ok beginning to a week if I must say so. I woke up (technically was woken up by a crew mate's text message) around 0730 to head to the DMV so I could obtain my Idaho driver's license and CDL. After my experience with a Virginia DMV in May I was really dreading spending a couple hours and $60+ at the DMV today but surprisingly it wasn't too bad. Even though I failed my passenger bus, school bus, and motorcycle endorsement exams and I have to go back Thursday to take them again, It really wasn't too bad. The one thing I'm really surprised at is the fact that my employer scheduled me to get my CDL road test out of the way today and he managed to land a test time next week (For those of you that don't understand the significance of that to me, I know I vented to a few people of how I tried to schedule a road test in Virginia in April and the earliest test date I could get was July 15th). Anyways, 2 hours later I said good bye to my Virginia License and CDL Learner's and said hello to my ugly Idaho License and CDL Learner's. I came home and, typically, took a nap. I woke up to take care of some online errands only to get a call from this guy I met through Myspace that works for Raytheon Polar Services as, you guessed it, a firefighter. Apparently he just started out working with the hiring process and he wanted to schedule me for a phone interview tomorrow. Needless to say, I felt like a little school girl I was so excited when I got off the phone. At least I know that that ball is somewhat rolling.

Now, before I go into the rant I've been pondering for the past hour or so, I'm going to break down my thought process to better facilitate your understanding my rambling about the issue I started reading about a little while ago. At this point in my life, more than in the years before post-graduation (high school), I really want to experience new things. I love this country. Don't get me wrong. I'd like to say I'm pretty patriotic. But there's more on this planet than good ole U.S. of A. I've always thought of wildland firefighting in the summer and working in Antarctica in the winter as a gateway of meeting new people and traveling away from the states while working jobs that a) I like and b) will allow me to experience new things. In this time in our lives where our Government appears to be plagued with corruption I've been toying with the idea of living in another country for a few years (Iceland after research of a failed trip to Reykjavik with John Wall). It's sad when its hard for a country's citizens to trust the politicians it elects.

Now with that being said, let the ranting begin: For those of you that don't follow up on your current events, Congressional Representative William Jefferson (Note: when describing politicians, you will never see me use the system of identifying a politician's party and representative state [in William's case D-La]. I'm against political parties as they can sometimes stray from the true needs of the people and the land whom they govern)has been indicted with over 16 counts of different charges from bribery to money laundering to racketeering. I'm really not going to go in depth into this issue because you can read the article yourself but I will say this that asides from the overall atrociousness of what he did, 2 things really bothered me about this issue:

1) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is quoted as saying, "If these charges are proven true, they constitute an egregious and unacceptable abuse of public trust and power [...] Democrats are committed to upholding a high ethical standard and eliminating corruption and unethical behavior from the Congress." This is one of the main reasons I hate the concept of political parties. The fact that Pelosi identifies that Democrats are the sole providers of moral fiber in our Government is sickening. A government exists for the good of its people. Everyone in it should hold the people's interest in their highest regard...regardless of an affiliation to a "party" who thinks they're better than anyone that doesn't carry their name.

2) The man (a recumbent) was voted into office...again! While being investigated for the charges he's now being indicted for! I don't know why nor can I possibly speculate why he got voted back in but that bothered me as well. What the hell were the people of Louisiana thinking?

It almost seems that every other week, another politician is either resinging over something or is being indicted over something. I don't know. The one last thing I'm going to bitch about is the fact that our society treats politicians, high-level execs, and stars in society better than average citizens. The fact that an ugly hotel heiress who's coveted more by the media than most movie stars guilty of probation violation gets to "check in" to jail only after conveniently attending the MTV Movie Awards is appalling too. Are we really saying that if you have status in society you can go to jail when its convenient for you after committing a crime rather than being taken to jail when you're suppose to go? Haha, whatever. The day is to great to get upset over all the bullshit floating around these days...

Early Fire Season

As I leisurely ate dinner this evening I received a text message from a friend asking me if I was on the fire that was burning at the time. Not having been informed of this fire, I was pretty worried that my crew had been called but I either missed the call or no one got a hold of me. Naturally I called my employer to see what the deal was. Thankfully, he had never called me and our crew wasn't dispatched for the fire. I checked the news and it turned out to be a substantial fire instead of the "small grass fire" one of the guys on my crew said it to be. Obviously, the season has begun and it's time for everyone to get their asses in gear...

KTVB News Coverage of the Fire

Adventures in Walmart

Shortly after my Amateur Radio license test, I decided to go to Walmart to do some much needed shopping. If there's one thing I've learned after living in Winchester for 6 months and working in Fauquier County for a year its knowing that Walmart will always be a source of entertainment no matter what time of the day or year it is. No more than 20 minutes after walking through the door, I got to witness a fight (a domestic dispute if you will) between a man and his wife. When I say fight, I mean just that: profanity and fists flying left and right. Sad, I know....albeit funny. After watching that for about 30 seconds I continued shopping. I made it to the check-out line only to watch yet another verbal altercation take place....this time it was between an irate mother and this poor unsuspecting soul behind the customer service desk. She was complaining that she bought a movie thinking that it was a kids movie when in fact it was a "farce" of that movie....an incredibly raucous farce directed by Bob Saget and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson...needless to say you can already tell this wasn't a movie made for kids. And let me tell you this folks that this woman was highly offended by the content of the movie. Naturally, I had to find this movie and investigate. After reading the cover, I had to buy the movie. If one thing's for sure, I've never laughed my ass off soo hard at a movie before. I should worn you, however, that this movie can elicit one of three opinions: one of sheer stupidity, one of sheer hilarity, or one of sheer offense. Needless to say, I highly recommend you at least rent this movie.

The Dork In Me

Well, the dork in me has been glued to weather.gov checking the fire weather forecasts the past 3 days for the next 10 and let me tell you my friends that its getting better and better every day (for me/us at least). R.H. is going down, temperature is going up, Haines Index is going up, LAL is getting worse, oh its looking like its going to be fun this summer. Anyways, I woke up this morning from my friends house to come back to mine only to take a shower, and head out again to take my amateur radio license test. My test taking approach is simple. Study till I get it (unless I took a class then I'll just pay attention and do the assignd homework) and simply...take the test. Now granted, I'm not going to lie: I only studied one chapter out of 12 in my book so I knew that it was probably going to be ugly walking in to the place to take the test. Another thing I do when I take tests is that if I don't know the answer, I don't dick around trying to figure it out. I either know it or I don't. If I don't, I pick the most reasonable answer. If that doesn't work, then I guess. Needless to say I was the first person to be done. About 10 minutes into grading the tests one of the other people that was taking test got word that he failed. Haha, something about watching grown men whine and complain is funny. My friends, this man caused the biggest scene over a $14 test. I mean, he was utterly flabbergasted at the idea that he didn't pass his test. Haha, while this was going on, I chuckled at the idea that he probably studied his ass off and he overheard me talking to the guy sitting next to me about how the only thing I studied was the frequency bands and allowances for our tests. Just as the test session couldn't get any better (with the hilarity and my mood going up and the other guys mood going down) the exam coordinator walked straight up to me (while everyone else was still taking the test mind you) extended his hand and said, "Congratulations Todd, you passed your exam." My friends, I could here that other man's blood boil. With that being said, I signed my application and took that as my cue to get out before that poor man killed me or whoever else was in his reach.

So to recap, nothing really important is going on now. Hung out with a friend yesterday, ham radio license test and irate man this morning, and who knows what else will go down to day.