Reality and Hose Testing

Regardless of how "relative" one can characterize the temperature down here, every once in a while, mother nature reminds you of the stark, bitter reality that you are, in fact, in Antarctica. It's obvious that the temps are on the decline as we move into fall and, eventually, winter. Today my legs got pretty cold for being outside only for a few hours. Insignificant to you, yes. To me, I know it's pretty damn cold out when my legs are getting cold. As of right now, the temps are probably in the high teens (nothing compared to the states right now) yet after a few weeks of summer and "warm" temps, the teens feel like that initial slap fall gives you to remind you of the inevitable cold of winter.

Today we worked on the annual chore and pain-in-the-ass that is hose testing. Every fire department that adheres to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)is required to pressure test all of the hose they posses in their department. Luckily, we only have a couple miles of hose here to test. Ashburn, on the other hand, has several miles of hose to test which usually takes a month or so to complete. I can tell you all now that there is no bigger bane to a firefighter's existence than testing hose. Thank God this shit is almost over.

I now work towards packing up some stuff to send back home and to send to Christchurch to await for my arrival. I recently booked a flight from Christchurch to Sydney, Australia for less than $130 which I'm pretty stoked about. I've never been to Australia. Even though I'm only looking to spend a week there, it still should be a lot of fun....