30 March 2009
Friend's Advice and Escape to Find Answers
Tonight I spent a couple hours talking to a friend of mine from Boise. She did most of the talking and I thank her for that. She gave me insight on a lot of issues in my life (especially from a woman's perspective which I won't dare claim to understand) and help me understand my emotions more. I'm still trying to figure out how to process what she told me. I understood it all. I just don't know what to do with it. I don't think I've ever claimed to be fully over everything that has happened in my life since 20 April 2006. As a friend and mentor of mine told me, "You never get over it. My father died over 20 years ago and I still ache inside." He's right. But I do know how to think about it now. I can differentiate between the healthy outlets of griveing and stress and the unhealthy ones. I climb...I climb a lot. I'm obsessed and I love it. I ski, I surf, I kayak, I fish. I travel sometimes absurd distances to pursue these interests. I've only explained why to one person who asked me, "Why [I'm] so obsessed with nature?" It took me about 5 minutes to fish for (no pun intended) the answer. I told him I was a religious person. I told him, deep inside my soul, I thank God, for the mountains here for me to explore, the rivers to navigate, the waves to surf, the slopes to ski, and the animals to connect with. Most improtantly, I thank Him for the moments of solitude that these majestic places on this planet provide. I spend time during these sports relecting internally in ways I wouldn't be able within day-to-day society. Far from the indignities and expectations of said society, far from the self-righteousness and pettyness of those that try to shove their ideas and beliefs into your head, far from the bustling chaos of people to and fro within their concrete and asphault prisons lie places of wonder and awe, places spiritual and pure where one can think freely; where one can feel freely. It's these places where my emotions don't assault me. It's these places where they don't pop out and say surprise! They hover in check, allowing me to think undisturbed producing results from my thinking. It's in the natural places where I do my best healing. Sometime before I leave, I'm going to take my friend's information from tonight's conversation into the Shenandoah or Potomac Rivers. I'll take it to the Monongahela National Forest. I'll take it to the Chesapeake or Assateague Island. I'll take it to one of the places I've ranted about tonight and disseminate it. Hopefully, I'll be able to do something with it...like find answers to my life questions...
29 March 2009
The Devil's Beating His Wife!
The Weekend
I spent today cleaning my car and some of my room. I also, for some reason, spent a lot of the day trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life when I get back from Utah. My schedule is looking anything but orderly...or fun. I'm doing 17 credits worth of classes all on Mondays and Wednesdays...from 0900 to 2140 with a few breaks in between. Since I'll be living in the DC area for more than a month for once, I'm planning on joining Shenandoah Mountain Rescue Group (SMRG), a non-for-profit Search and Rescue organization based out of Vienna, VA. New Member training for them runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My normal duty crews with the Ashburn Volunteer Fire & Rescue Dept. are Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1800-0600 the following respective days. Throw in plans to be a little bit more active with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) as well as the mountaineering chapter of the club and my weeks are looking absolutely crazy. Saturdays should be fun as to they're never going to be same be it fire & rescue classes, SAR classes, PATC outings, hanging out with friends, or climbing, backpacking, skiing, etc. But all of that is 5 months away and I've barely thought about life in Utah yet...
23 March 2009
New York and Boston Trip
Luckily, my cousin lives right off the George Washington Bridge for I really didn't want to be driving around in the middle of Upper Manhattan at the 0130 in the morning I had showed up. One thing I really didn't take into account for both NYC and Boston was the parking situation. I ended up parking in a garage a few blocks away from my cousin's apartment: further than I really wanted to be from my car, but secure enough to put my mind at ease. The 18 hours I spent with my cousin were probably some of the best I've had in a while. My cousin and I are pretty close so it was good to spend some time with her and talk about the family and our lives. I left her place and headed down the FDR to my friend Betty's (Yes! Antarctica Betty!) apartment in Lower Manhattan. Hoping to spend a good deal of time with her, my wish was granted only because it took us nearly an hour and a half to find a parking spot. Granted, it was my fault thinking I'd find a parking spot in Lower Manhattan at 2100 on a Saturday. We walked around, ate dinner (Pizza of course), and talked. After a few hours with her, I went to my friend's birthday party a few blocks away only to hang out there with her for a few hours and crash at one of her friends' apartment so I could get up decently early and drive to Boston.
Driving to Boston the following morning was great...driving in Boston trying to find my friend's dorm was not. I've been lost before in big cities but not so much to the point where it took me almost two hours to back track and find a street remotely close to Boston University. It was this defining moment, however, where I broke down and made the decision to sometime buy a GPS unit to be used only in dire emergencies such as being stuck across a river with no way to get back on the bridge to get to where you need to go. With my friend, I got a long tour of Boston University (the campus is pretty damn big), a sushi dinner in the cafeteria, and a night of watching movies and reading emails. Since she wakes up to go running at 0530 (crazy, I know...) I took advantage of that early wake up and decided to hit the road at the same time which put me at home shortly before 1400 Monday afternoon.
I've noticed that no matter how many times I fly somewhere or drive somewhere, I always learn something new. This trip was fun yet was sort of a bummer at the same time. It was fun being able to visit 4 different people none of whom are connected in any way, shape, or form all over the course of a weekend. At the same time, it sort of sucked trying to cram the 4 said people into a single weekend. In the long end, though, it was good seeing them. I try to value the friendships I've forged over the years so anytime I can spend with people regardless of how short is well spent. Anyways, more short trips to be had before I head out west...
17 March 2009
Being Back with Something Missing
And what can I say about the Ashburn Volunteer Fire & Rescue Department? I've been a member there since December of 2002. Everything I do in life right now I owe to that place. I wouldn't be a firefighter or EMT if it weren't for that place. I wouldn't have met the people I know now if it wasn't for that place. It felt incredible to be back with my family there. My first night back landed me an oven fire in the souther part of Ashburn. The next night brought on a two-alarm townhouse fire. Subsequent nights after that brought us various types of calls ranging from several inside gas leaks to multi-patient auto accidents to brush fires. Usually I was a black cloud for my crews where I could show up to the station and not run a single call in a 12 hour shift. Saturday night alone Truck 6 (on which I was the officer) ran 6 calls asides from the 3 or 4 more the medic and ambulance ran that night. Since I'm planning to come back for a while in August, I decided now to start working for the Virginia Department of Forestry again as an on-call wildland firefighter. I'm hoping with the certifications I have now and whatever other certifications I'm planning on getting this season (PLDO, FFT1, ICT5 [hopefully], FALB) I'll have a better chance of getting called out than I would have just being a lowly Firefighter Type 2 (FFT2). The complexities of my jobs sometimes make them more fun than the jobs themselves...
It's great to be back with my friends, family, and career but something else is missing. I don't know what but then again, most of the fun in my life comes from trying to answer those types of questions. When I do find them...I don't know what I'm going to do.
08 March 2009
Back at Home
Tonight was spent with two of my best friends from as far back as elementary school. We spent a few hours at a bar in Reston Town Center reminiscing the days of high school and middle school. We talked about our current jobs, love affairs, and life in general. It felt real good to be talking to them again. I'm constantly meeting new people and bonding new friendships but it's the old friendships from days of innocence and youth that make you feel at home and, sometimes, at ease. Tomorrow I begin tackling the errands I need to take care of in order to get ready for the fire season (pre-employment tasks, unemployment for the time being, school issues, etc). I'm deciding to work for Virginia Department of Forestry again as a firefighter. It'd only be for a month now but when I get back in the fall, I'll at least be able to deploy somewhere throughout the semester(s) I'm back. Now that I'm done vacationing, it's time to get busy again...
05 March 2009
Home
03 March 2009
Auckland....Again
While walking around, I ran into a really good friend of mine, Kelly Jacques, with whom I started to converse about the past week or so. Considering we hadn't seen each other since probably the first Saturday after we got off the ice, we spent a lot of time filling each other in on our adventures. Apparently, she had a worse bout of bad luck than I had. Her rental car had been broken in and she had a lot of stuff stolen from her. It was great to see her smile through it but I still felt bad for her. I can't imagine having all of my stuff stolen out of my car...especially my climbing equipment...I'd probably cry! While talking to her, it did dawn on my how lucky I was to have missed my original flight otherwise I wouldn't be flying with her. At the gate, we noticed about 16 other people from Antarctica scattered about the crowds. We talked with one woman from the fuels department and reminisced of an interesting season. After a couple hours at the gate and one last look across the land past the airport, we boarded our plane, we grabbed our seats, and we said good-bye to New Zealand.
02 March 2009
Rarotonga Day 2
The fire station was right next to the Air Traffic Control tower. The station at the airport is actually the sole station for the entire island. Amazingly, they had some pretty new and nice apparatus.
From Rarotonga 2009 |
The station held, one engine, one heavy aircraft crash-truck, one medium aircraft crash-truck, a 26-foot boat, and a few different trailers. The guys there were absolutely great! I introduced myself and we all hit off right away. One of their driver/operators, a Cook Island Maori by the name of Ray, put me to work right away helping him inspect one of the vehicles. We then hopped in and drove across and to the end of the runway.
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I got some hero shots in front of their front-line engine at the end of the runway by the sea, a small tour of their small station, and an agreement that I would come back with an Antarctic Fire Department T-Shirt for a Cook Islands Fire Department T-Shirt. Easy peasy. As I started to walk back towards town, Ray and the guys took pity upon me, picked me up in their utility vehicle, and gave me a ride back to Vara's some 20 km away. That's brotherhood right there!
When I came back, I met up with the group again only to hang out and get dinner one last time before I flew to Auckland later on that night. We each bought a couple 6-packs and ushered in the night out by the beach on our porch. I only knew them for 48 hours but I had already began to miss them as time came to pack and eventually depart for the airport at 2330 hrs. I checked in (only to have to be escorted back into the check-in office so I could print my itinerary out that proved that I had a flight leaving New Zealand), swapped my T-Shirt at the firehouse and said goodbye to those guys, then waited for 2 hours in the courtyard for our plane to land. While waiting, I got a little present dropped on my head form a roosting bird well above my head. Little did I know that the bird crap on my head would bring anything but luck over the next couple of days....
01 March 2009
Rarotonga!
I touched down in Rarotonga shortly after midnight this morning (-10 GMT [Hawaii] on Sunday mind you). Considering that I didn't do much research on the Cook Islands and this was a very impromptu trip, I figured whatever I was in for was going to be a surprise…pleasant or not. I sometimes feel embarrassed by the fact that I had never seen a palm tree up until August of 2007 when I drove to Fresno, CA at a failed attempt to buy an Airstream trailer. There were definitely no shortages of palm trees in this place however. One of the first things I noticed as we stepped out into the dead of a South Pacific night was the humidity and the trees. Having only been off the ice for going on 10 days, I'm still easily amused and excited by the simple things a lot of people take for granted. I thought New Zealand was green when stepping off our northbound flight from McMurdo. Well, I hadn't been to the Cook Islands then. Even amidst the low amber-hued light I could make out the colors that the trees and flowers blessed this little island with. Anyways, we stepped out into the night onto the tarmac and walked towards the terminal. Now Rarotonga International Airport isn't exactly Dulles. Our terminal was simply a large room probably 15 by 18 meters. As we walked through the doors, some old guy hidden behind a bunch of fake palm trees played us welcoming island songs as we gathered around the baggage carousel. He sounded and looked like an expat of some sort. By the look of his sun aged skin, it seems like he's been leading a healthy relaxing life here in Raro. My Osprey travel backpack was one of the first bags out on the carousel which was a first. My surfboard, however, took almost 30 agonizing minutes to come out to us. Travelling with that thing has been a pain in the ass. I constantly pray that it actually makes its destination…let alone in one piece. I grab my baggage and make my way to the "lobby" which is another large room that is open to the sidewalk outside. As I was told the night before when I made my reservations for Vara's, I searched around for a lady by the name of Lilly who would take me to my room. Lilly was an older Cook Island Maori (note: there are New Zealand Maoris and Cook Island Maoris…the Cook Island variety will make sure you know that if you were to make the mistake to call them Cook Islanders or Rarotongan) who happened to be the only person standing around waiting for someone not knowing exactly who she was waiting for. I asked her if she was Lilly and reply was simply, "Where are you staying?" I knew I was in good hands.
Two other people, a couple, were waiting in the van-looking mini-van used to ferry guests back and forth from Vara's to the airport. As I've found out several times so far, most shuttles are setup for the immediate loading of an 8 foot surfboard. So with a little ingenuity, some enlisted help from the couple I was riding with, and a few apologies here and there, I managed to fanangle the board on the ground next to the seats. After ramming the board into the bench seat in the back like some 17th century cannoneer, Lilly introduced us to her granddaughter that was sleeping on the bench. Great, now I feel like an ass, I though. Her granddaughter raised her head to smile then rolled over and quickly went back to sleep. We took off for the lodge which was said to be on the other side of the island. For a small, south pacific island, there were a hell of a lot of vehicles on the road at nearly 0100 Sunday morning. Most of them being scooters, every vehicle was almost certainly full. 2 or 3 on a scooter, 3 or 5 in a car, 5 in the beds of pick-ups a lone, it seemed like everyone had a place to go; where to on such a small island, I had no idea. About 10 or 15 minutes in our drive, Lilly pulled over at a 24 hour convenience store. "Does anyone want anything?" she asked. I was dying for a proper meal as I'm sure the couple was too. Out of courtesy the three of us declined. She shut the van down and disappeared into the store for about 20 minutes. Throughout that time, her granddaughter woke up, stretched, stumbled over my surfboard, and climbed up in the front seat of the van to play on her cell phone and send a text message or two. This informality sorta stuck with me. I had only been on the ground for a little over an hour and I'm already deep into the "Island Way of Life" as was described to me by a few veteran Pacific Island travelers I met in the airport the night before. Lilly came back to van with a few groceries and continued driving us to Vara's. Vara's was a series of dorms, rooms, and bungalows situated on the beach as well as on the hillside on the opposite side of the road around the island. Excited to set my feet in warm sand and water for the first time in months, I quickly dropped my bags in my room, changed into board shorts and flip-flops (or "thongs" as the kiwis like to call them) and head to the beach somewhere beyond the rows of palm trees on the backside of the lodge. I walked around the outside of the lodge taking in the smell of the flowers around and the palm trees above. I walked onto the porch which separated me from the sound of waves washing ashore somewhere close when I heard a woman's voice from the shadows say "Hi!" A few people my age sat on a picnic table a few meters away in the dark talking about the day's events. Helen, a British girl introduced me to Edwin from Holland, and Ragan, an "Australian" with a peculiar European accent which I've yet to identify. I sat down told them my ridiculous story about how I was only there for a couple days, as well as why I was travelling and where I had been. Sure enough, on several occasions throughout the night, they continued to tell me I should have been there the night before. Well, fuck…
The next day, the morning wasn't exactly the sunniest but it was still beautiful enough.
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Vara's was situated on a lagoon about ½ or ¾ a kilometer across. An uninhabited island sat off the coast about a kilometer or so away. Beyond both sat the reef circumventing the island that created the waves certain parts of the island was known for. I thought the place would be packed. Surprisingly, even on the couple of resorts I could see further down the beach, there weren't that many people on the beaches. There were people, yes, but it wasn't crowed like, say, Tahiti or Fiji would be. Shortly after I got up, Helen and Edwin came out. We sat around and talked and they took me over to see Matt. Matt, was an Australian expat who had been living and working on the island for the past couple of years. His entire job was to staff the "shack" from which you could book trips around the island as well as rent or hire snorkels, fins, etc.
The "shack" that he worked out of was a 6 meter cargo container someone (maybe even him) built a tin roof hanging over a deck around the entire thing. He/they then cut holes out of the side of the container to fit a window in, nailed some shelves on the inside and, voila! You have a beach side tourism agent. His job was pretty easy: play music and hang out 5 meters from the sea's edge until someone came up to book a snorkeling trip or something. I hung with Matt a lot throughout my trip. For one we had a lot to talk about between the two of us: island life, travelling, Australia, the States, etc. Another reason was we had nearly the exact same taste in music. I mean the man knew regional bands (like Dispatch for example) or sometimes even underground bands from the states that I've grown up on. Anyways, our morning was spent playing cards and enjoying each other's company and the sound of the sea. For some reason, card games in the tropics almost always involve throwing something small at something bigger. We played over 5 different card games that involved the loser trying to toss a small rock at a coconut some 10 meters away. Hours later we went for lunch and came back to figure out what to do with the rest of the afternoon.
As I learned in Christchurch, I have some time to spend on my board to figure out its performance.
From Rarotonga 2009 |
When I first took it out, I looked like a drunkard trying to ride a unicycle for the first time. It was this reason that I decided to wait for a future return to Rarotonga before hitting the waves over razor sharp reefs. However, I felt now was a perfect time to get in a small cardio workout by paddling across the lagoon to see the waves up close and personal. I grabbed my rash guard, put a little more wax on my board and hit the water. The water was warm; very warm as a matter of fact and it felt pretty good. On top of that, the water was a light opaque green and very clear. The lagoon itself, at least the part I paddled around in, wasn't any deeper than 4 or 5 feet at it's deepest point. As a matter of fact, halfway across I noticed a few people walking back and forth across to where I was headed. I stopped to take a break a few hundred meters across and to also let a few friendly windsurfers cross my path. I continued on only to get out and walk when my strokes would bottom out into the sand. It felt like I was in some Robinson Crusoe story when I made it across as I was the only person on this part of the island at the time. I walked through the bushes and the stands of palm trees to come out to another white sandy beach littered with pieces of coral spit up from the ocean. I ditched my board into the bushes behind me, sat down on the beach, and just absorbed the sound of the waves crashing and the sight of the Pacific Ocean. I've had many tranquil moments over the past couple months but nothing like this moment. It was refreshing. It was peaceful and just what I needed. As I sat there, I started to notice the wildlife around me. The snails clinging to the rocks as the tide went out. The hermit crabs dragging their homes through the sand. The fish in the shallows safely out of the reach of larger predators they share the waters with. Hopefully, the next time I come back, I'll have the forsight to bring a dry bag or a waterproof camera so I can share photos of that part of the island. After an hour of just sitting and thinking I walked and paddled back to a point further up the beach from Vara's so I could walk back and see what the other hotels and resorts are like. A lot of them were pretty luxurious: a complete turn-off to me. I hurried back to my low-end singles friendly lodge.
The rest of the evening was relaxing. More cards, more hanging out, more getting to know each other. We had dinner together, we drank beers, and we enjoyed ourselves well into the morning. Life is good in Rarotonga…