27 December 2007

Screwy Life

It's funny how screwy life can be down here. This week has been very snowy….with the exception of Christmas of course. As a matter of fact, this entire season has been pretty snowy. For the driest continent on the planet, it has sure snowed its ass off on many an occasion. Tonight is no different. I think it's pretty safe to say that I lose absolutely all concept of time when I'm sleeping…especially in my dorm room. Since I don't have windows or any other source of natural or ambient light, when the lights are off, they're off which I actually prefer when I'm sleeping. It's pretty nice to have a completely pitch black room when I'm trying to sleep. The only problem is that I don't sleep with my watch and I have absolutely no way of telling what time it is when I'm underneath the covers. A couple weeks ago I woke up thinking it was 1100 on one of my days off when it in fact turned out to be 0430. The same thing goes with the firehouse. What's even crazier about the firehouse is the fact that even though the windows are covered, they still let enough light in to fill the entire room. With very little change in the rise and setting of the sun, the light places tricks with your mind as easily as the dark. It's not necessarily a bad thing this lack of time perception, but it's something I'm finding really hard to get use to. Gossip down here spreads as fast as a wildfire. I've ran calls where people in no way, shape, or form affiliated with the fire department or the affected have either asked me some off the wall question regarding the call or given me some crazy detail that was assumed to be secret….sometimes as soon as 5 minutes after we've completed the call.

With talks of re-deployment, mail deadlines, Christchurch, and contract renewals, the end of the season is drawing near. I plan on signing my contract for next year at the next opportunity. With all that is happening with my life at home and in Boise, I'd be a fool not to work a job where I managed to go 6 weeks without spending a single dime. I get to travel to New Zealand and Antarctica; I get free room and board, free food, and a decent paycheck without having to pay for a whole lot. One thing I've found myself doing after my pops died was learning from the examples he had set for me; one of them being how to plan for my financial future. Now I'm not one whose life revolves around money but it definitely couldn't hurt to have as much money saved up as humanly possible. It sounds weird to plan for my retirement at 22 but to be honest I can't think of a better time to do so. Despite ups, downs, and drastic changes in my life, I still manage to dream and so far I've managed to act out some of the most far-fetched dreams I've conjured up and I definitely don't think I'm done either.

23 December 2007

Craziness and Christmas to Come

Craziness has erupted around town. The shift after the 17th (my last post), we tested over 2,000 feet of hose, racked at least 1,000, and dealt with a few other things before having to deal with a pain in the ass medevac I had to manage for a few hours. Just like when I became a lieutenant back in Ashburn, I got to deal with a bunch of crazy things within my first week or so of office. We had a medevac where we had to transfer a patient from the hospital to the helicopter pad so that he could be taken to Pegasus Airfield. What I thought would be a simple task turned out to be a logistical nightmare trying to communicate between medical, the National Science Foundation (from whom I had to get approval to fly the patient), and Helo Ops (who controls all helicopter missions and operations). Back home (Loudoun County), if we wanted to medevac a patient to a more advanced hospital, all we had to do was call dispatch, have them start a helicopter our way, then call the hospital to get permission to transfer patient care to the helicopter crew. Down here, the complexity of medevacing a patient is damn near 3 fold. The request for Medevacs comes from the hospital. They call us to pick up the patient and a flight nurse and we transfer the patient from the hospital to the airfield. If they leave on a C-130, we transfer them to Willy Field which is about 10 miles away. If they leave on a C-17, we transfer them out to Pegasus Field which is about 17 miles away. Either of which is not an easy transport because of road conditions. If the patient is really emergent (as was our patient from the 19th), then they can be flown via helicopter to one of the airfields. When that happens, we have to coordinate between Medical, Helo Ops, and the NSF….all of which I had to deal with by myself since I was the sole lieutenant working Friday. Thank god that was the last call we had to deal with. Including today, the past 4 or 5 shifts have been pretty busy. It's weird because we've been so using to trying to find something to stay busy with.

    With Christmas being in a few days, I've found myself thinking more and more about Jesus and trying to disassociate myself from things proclaimed as festive and Christmas. Now, I haven't preached to people about the true meaning (or at least in my opinion) of Christmas because I don't feel it's my right to tell people how to celebrate their holidays. I've found myself listening to a lot of music that reminds me of our Lord as well as Christian faith in general. I've been listening to a lot of folk and old-time bluegrass. I've been praying more. I more at ease and a lot more peaceful. This time of year, I'm truly happy. We had our town Christmas party today. Normally, I don't like being in large crowds like tonight. Seeing a certain someone however helped change my mood a bit. As I sit here though, 2 AM on Christmas Eve, I've retreated to my newly found peaceful state of mind. The years been good and bad. I quit working for Fauquier County (good thing), I started working for Virginia Department of Forestry, I moved away from home for the first time and worked a wildland season out west, I managed to land a job working in Antarctica, and I even got promoted within said job. This year however, I lost one of the closest relatives I've ever had in my life at what couldn't have been a more seemingly worst time. But that hasn't brought me down. I gain people in my life, I lose people in my life. I've met hundreds of people this year. I bridged new connections , new relationships in life. I've rekindled old ones. My relationship with my mother is a lot better since we realize how much we miss each other. Everything that has happened to me, every where I've been, where I'm at now, and where I will be in the new year to come, I owe it all to Jesus. Such an epiphany couldn't have come at a better time of the year.

17 December 2007

Christmas and Crazyness

Christmas is around the corner. 8 days to be exact. Which means I'm in a good mood. Next Tuesday is Jesus Christ' birthday which means more to me than presents or shitty music. The 25th is about celebrating his life and everything he's done for those who believe in him. Part of me, however, isn't all that thrilled about the time period between Thanksgiving and the 25th. In America (and probably pre-dominantly Christian countries across the globe) those 30-some days are jammed packed with commercialism as far as you can hear or see and I absolutely hate that about our country. The great thing about being down here is that you're so cut off from the outside world that you get a much needed break from the commercialism of an American Christmas. Nothing but a lot of red and green, Christmas lights, fake reeves and trees (actual ones would be a violation of the Antarctic Treaty my friends), and some good ol fashion holiday cheer. Another thing that slightly annoys me about the holidays is the political correctness with a lot of people. A neighbor of mine wanted to put up a Merry Christmas sign above her door. Her roommate wanted her to put up a Happy Holiday sign up instead because she was afriad that she would offend someone who didn't celebrate Christmas. Maybe that's just a pet peeve of mine. I celebrate Christmas. People will know it. Anyways, I deviated from the mood of this post. Christmas is near. 2007 years ago, Christ was born to save us all. I'm happy, I'm enlighted. All I want to hear is music celebrating his life. Christmas music...not holiday music.

Today was probably one of the busiest days I've had to deal with here within the AFD. With Monday comes weekly truck checks which are incredibly thorough and usually take a couple hours. On top of checking out several vehicles, checking out a hydrant and driving around for a bit. We managed to stay pretty busy. Lunch went by fast and before we knew it, we were outside testing 1'000 feet of 3" hose, something that I thought I'd be able to skip out of by coming down here. I can't complain too much though. Ashburn had almost 8 miles of hose to test versus the less than 2 here at the Antarctic Fire Department. Our hose testing was interrupted by an in-flight emergency involving a C-130 with stuck flaps landing at Pegasus runways. After mobilizing people for that we went back to hose testing only to run into problems with our water supply. Finally we finished testing the hose we wanted to even thought we were 10 minutes late for our blasting/demolition stand-by. 1630 came around and told everyone to chillax before dinner. As we're walking out the door for dinner, Station 2 gets a call for a man with a severe emergency medical issue. Because of the condition of the road going from Willy Field to McMurdo (the road is closed to light vehicles), our ambulance here had to rendezvous with the ambulance from station 2 on the transition. Shortly after the patient transfer between the two ambulances, ambulance 1's tranny crapped out on the crew only to have the other ambulance switch the equipment and patient back into their original ambulance where they managed to make it through the treacherous melt pools of the transition. I'm tired....but I'm happy. I love my job and the people I work with. I love this unique environment. I love it all. Hopefully I'll love where ever I work in the summer as much as I do down here...

12 December 2007

Lieutenant and Life at McMurdo

Well, to my suprise, out of 4 candidates, I was picked to be our next Lieutenant. Call me humble but I don't think I ever got excited as some of my friends...especially Betty. It is sorta cool though that I can say I am a Lieutenant with the Antarctic Fire Department. I've started overhauling my resume for the wildland positions I've been applying for. The best part is that I'm surrounded by people that have been working for the Park Service for years so I have input coming out the woodworks as to what my Resume should say and look like. Other than that, life is pretty simple right now. For some reason, I'm still up. I don't know why but I just felt I should share that. Maybe I'm excited for my first day back at work as a Lieutenant...

09 December 2007

Lt Position, Wildland Firefighting, and Connections

I interviewed for the Lieutenant's position within our department on Friday. To be honest, I really have no idea how the interview went despite how many people have asked me. I think it went well, but then again, I don't know if my Chief or Captain who conducted the interview thought the same way. For some reason, we're waiting until tomorrow to find out who the two new lieutenants' will be. At this point, I've sorta lost focus on the entire thing. A week ago, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management began posting job announcements for positions within their respective organizations. So far I've applied to:


 

Zion National Park

Glacier National Park

Grand Tetons National Park

Mesa Verde National Park

Yosemite National Park

Redwood National Park

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

Point Reyes National Seashore

Mt Ranier Natonal Park

Denali National Park

Yukon-Charley Rivers National Park

Colorado BLM

Utah BLM

Idaho BLM

Wyoming BLM


 

It's weird how some supervisors have responded to the emails I've sent out. Some were pretty happy that I emailed them. Others were complete assholes. While applying for these jobs and attempting to contact the supervisors, I've come to find out how many people I work with and know that have worked out west…especially for the Park Service. There are two guys within the fire department alone that have worked for the park service as firefighters. I've met a few other people outside of the fire department that have worked as wildland firefighters. Just today, I was talking to one of the new firefighters that just came in last week who worked for the forest service as well as for SAR organizations in Colorado and California. On top of that he's a pretty experienced climber. If there's one thing I love about this place it's the connections you make with the people you work and party with.

02 December 2007

Change in the Firehouse

Another day at the firehouse. During our morning shift change meeting, we came to find out that our (B-Shift) Captain landed a job working for the City of Omaha, NE as a firefighter and that he's leaving tomorrow. We're actually really excited for him but sad to see him go…especially so suddenly. With him leaving, however, that leaves a captain's position open for the taking. With that being said, it was announced that interviews for the lieutenant's position will take place on Thursday and that they'll now be hiring two lieutenants instead of just one on account of the department will be looking to promote one of the current lieutenants to captain. For now, the captain on A-Shift will go to a day schedule and over see both the shifts during normal business hours. So a lot of change will be happening within the fire department here very shortly.