Sexually Frustrated Antarcticans

Even the animals are sexually frustrated in Antarctica!

'Sex pest' seal attacks penguin - BBC NEWS/SCIENCE

Obsession

Today, I didn't have much to do. I woke up at 11 (on purpose) at the firehouse, went home, checked my mail, went to the post office, Five Guys for lunch, then came back to prime my furnace with my landlord/friend. After that, well, I did very little productive work. One thing I did that has been on my mind the past couple of weeks was lay out my climbing gear and check out the equipment I'd use for ice climbing. After sitting like a child Indian-style around wall-to-wall climbing gear spread out over my carpet, I decided to some ice-climbing related "things" to pass the time. I pulled out all the clothing I'd wear for a 10-15 degree day sans strong winds. I got dressed, then I practiced knot-craft with my gloves, clipping and unclipping carabiners with my gloves, ice-axe handling, hooking, I did ice-axe pull-ups on a tree branch with everything on including a backpack, I went crazy. It's a good thing not many people can see me in my yard unless they try hard enough because I looked ridiculous. But I was having a blast. Said ridiculousness, however, led me to ask myself the question as to whether or not I was obsessed with climbing or not. Sure, I've been saying it for years but have I reached a level where that healthy obsession has become something obnoxious for others to deal with or something that has consumed my life? Haha, is their such a thing as an unhealthy obsession with climbing? I'm sure a lot of dirt-bag climbers out there would beg to differ. I guess until 12-step programs are advertised for climbers I'm pretty safe. Anyways, who's up for some New Hampshire ice climbing this month?

Down to Earth by Peter Gabriel

The hippie in me fell in love with this song instantly after watching Disney's Wall-E.


Down to Earth
by Peter Gabriel

Did you think that your feet had been bound
By what gravity brings to the ground?
Did you feel you were tricked
By the future you picked?
Well come on down

All these rules don't apply
When you're high in the sky
So come on down
Come on down

We're coming down to the ground
There's no better place to go
We've got snow upon the mountains
We've got rivers down below
We're coming down to the ground
To hear the birds sing in the trees
And the land will be looked after
We send the seeds out in the breeze

Did you think you'd escaped from routine
By changing the script and the scene?
Despite all you made of it
you're always afraid of the change

You've got a lot on your chest
Well you can come as my guest
So come on down
Come on down

We're coming down to the ground
There's no better place to go
We've got snow upon the mountains
We've got rivers down below
We're coming down to the ground
We'll hear the birds sing in the trees
And the land will be looked after
We send the seeds out in the breeze

Like the fish in the ocean
We felt at home in the sea
We learned to live off the good land
We learned to climb up a tree
then we got up on two legs
But we wanted to fly
When we messed up our homeland
and set sail for the sky

We're coming down to the ground
There's no better place to go
We've got snow upon the mountains
We got rivers down below
We're coming down to the ground
We'll hear the birds sing in the trees
And the land will be looked after
We send the seeds out in the breeze

We're coming down
Comin' down to earth
Like babies at birth
Comin' down to earth

Redefine your priorities
These are extraordinary qualities

We're coming down to the ground
There's no better place to go
We've got snow upon the mountains
We've got rivers down below
We're coming down to the ground
We'll hear the birds sing in the trees
And the land will be looked after
We send the seeds out in the breeze

We're coming down to the ground
There's no better place to go
We've got snow upon the mountains
We've got rivers down below
We're coming down to the ground
We'll hear the birds sing in the trees
And the land will be looked after
We send the seeds out in the breeze

An Accident Within the First 18 Hours of Owning A Vehicle: The Beginning of the Era of the White Whale (Summer 2009)

One of the best (and worst) decisions I made last summer was trading in my 2004 Nissan Xterra for a 1993 Ford F250. The X, surprisingly, was on it's last leg. Having blown a rear main seal twice in a year and not to mention the fact that I put well over 110,000 miles on the thing within 5 years, I was having some major doubts it would make back to the DC area at the end (well my end) of the 2009's fire season. So I decided to trade it in for whatever 4wd vehicle I could find that would match it's value. Now, Xterra's depreciate pretty easily after you buy them. Maybe it was just how hard I had ridden the poor vehicle over the decade...either way it wasn't worth shit when came time to trade it in. I was looking for other Xterra's or diesel pick-up trucks withing an 8 hour radius of Cedar City, UT. After a little over a month of searching I found the perfect truck for me: an all white 1993 Ford F250. The truck itself was located on a used car lot in Twin Falls, ID 6 hours away. Since I had been planning on visiting my daughter that week I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I took all the essentials out of the X and started making my way up I-15 for Twin Falls.

The truck itself was not for the faint of heart. The diamond plate running boards had seen better days. At one point the bed had been lined (very cheaply). Then, it was peeling and flaking like it was going out of style. The cab had a funk of chewing tobacco and body odor. To me, however, it was perfect. The bench seat in the front fit me comfortably. With an inch to spare on either end of me, I was able to lay completely stretched out across the bench. Fabulous! No more reclining my driver's seat to sleep at rest stops. It had a back bench seat that was accessible only by reclining the front bench seat. The truck came with 31" tires and a hell of a V8 diesel engine with an aftermarket turbo. I was sold. After some paperwork and a test drive, I transferred everything from the X to the truck and took a moment to say good-bye to the X-Terra. I still miss it to this day but I don't know if I'll buy another Xterra...but that's for another post all together. After a few hours at the dealership, I pulled out with my new [by ownership] truck and hit the road for Boise.The truck was pretty damn big...easily the biggest vehicle I've ever owned. Right away I dubbed it the White Whale.

I spent a day and a half in Boise. Things were going great with the truck. My first purchase was a truck box I got from a Home Depot in Twin Falls, ID. After that I bought a head unit in Boise which installed in the Best Buy parking lot on Franklin Ave. I left directly from Maleigha's mother's house to head back to Cedar City which is about a 7 to 8 hour drive [Note: many a woman I have come across has turned their nose up at the White Whale. Maleigha on the other hand fell in love with it when I let her crawl in and around on it...or at least that's how I interpreted her...]. I was making good timing as far as how early I left in the afternoon. I had expected to be in Cedar City late in the evening. Everything was going great until I got to Ogden, UT.

In the tail end of rush hour, I hit Ogden, UT on I-15. The truck was handling beautifully. Traffic was heavy but everyone was moving briskly at about 70-75 mph. As I was making my way through traffic I started coming up on the driver side of a tractor-trailer. Now, my dad had always taught me to be weary of traveling along side a semi at anytime. You never know if he's going to have a blow out or if he's going to lose control of the trailer. This lesson has always been stuck in my head since I was 16 so I waited for the car in front of me to gain a little distance so I could zip straight pass the trucker. I was about 20 feet behind the tractor-trailer in the lane next to him when all of a sudden I saw a puff of white smoke and a black object shoot sideways off the trailer of the semi into my lane directly in front of me. When it fell within range of my headlights I recognized what it was right away: his tire. "Fuck me!" was the first though that came across my mind when I realized that there was no way in hell I was going to dodge this shredded tire 20 feet in front of me all the while driving 75 mph with traffic all around me. The only thing I could do was put a death grip on my steering wheel and pray for the best. I remember feeling the front end of the truck launch into the air followed by the rear end. My hood buckled as if something hit it from the inside but other than that the truck kept rolling as if nothing happened to it. As I looked in my rear view mirror I saw several cars swerve to miss the 3 foot tall piece of rubber that I had shredded even more. I thought to myself, "Hell yeah! This is one tough vehicle!" High off of my new found confidence I started to regain my speed to catch up with traffic. After a few seconds of acceleration, I started to lose power and my accelerator was getting spongy. I took my foot off of it for a couple seconds and hit it again. My pedal was even spongier the second time around. Eventually, I felt a snap and the pedal went straight to the floor. At the same time, I noticed the needle on my tachometer start climbing as my engine started racing. Slowly I started to uncontrollably gain speed in the rush hour traffic. 75. 80. 85. 90. 95. Pegged out. The speedometer's needle stopped at 95 but I could feel myself still steadily accelerating. At this point, I had to take evasive action to not hit other motorists on Interstate 15. Never before up until this point in my life had I been more scared shit less. For a brief moment I started panicking. Once I remembered I had a horn and that I grew up driving on metropolitan Washington DC highways, I dealt with the speed temporarily as I started troubleshooting ways to slow down. I jumped on my brakes which helped only till about 40 mph at which point they started smoking and being overrun by the engine. I knew if I threw it into neutral at whatever absurd number of thousands of RPMs it was running, I'd probably blow up the transmission. My only other option was to turn the truck off and pray to God that I could main control without power steering. At that same time as if God was listening to the aforementioned prayer, I noticed a off ramp for UT 134 or W 2700 N St in the northern part of town. I cut off a few cars and another semi at a speed of over 100 mph and aimed myself to barrel down the off ramp. Once on the off ramp and straight I killed my engine. I soon realized how horrendous the manual steering was on a truck that size at which point I started the engine again to aim for a field near the intersection of the road below and the Southbound off-ramp. Once I had the field in my sight, I killed the engine and rode the breaks until I came to a stop on top of a Juniper bush near the intersection. Now I have no shame explaining to yall how badly I was shaking. I took a minute to gather myself and breathe. When I got, popped my hood, and cleared out the smoke, I found a piece of tire the size of a college text book sitting where an oil tube going into my turbo should have been and a snapped accelerator cable. For some God awful reason, the springs on Ford throttle assemblies will rotate the throttle 1.5 times backwards leaving it open without any tension being applied to it (i.e. a throttle cable attached to an accelerator). I gave AAA a call and had the tow truck driver tow it to the nearest Advanced Auto Parts. Now, this is why I believe in karma (again, for another post): after dropping my truck off in the parking lot of Advanced Auto Parts, I decided to sleep for the night and deal with everything in the morning. The tow truck driver, now off duty after having dealt with me took it upon himself to make sure I got to whatever motel I wanted to go to within Ogden. All I have to say is pay it forward people and it will come back to you! I made it to a Motel 6, went to a bar nearby for a much needed drink, and slept for several hours.

I woke to have my truck towed to a AAA approved shop nearby where I was told the only thing I needed to have done was get a replacement throttle cable installed. Perfect. $35 part, $85 of labor and I was back on the road. We found the breather tube for the oil behind the turbo. A hose clamp or two later and I had it back on within a couple minutes. Now this shop had no cables in stock so I had to wait till 1600 in the afternoon for the cable to get there and for them to take the 10 minutes to install it. So the entire day I spent walking around downtown Ogden on top of a couple rounds of pool with a Jazz guitarist named Jimmy I had met in a bar where I ate lunch. At 1700 I was back on the road. 2000 I was back in Cedar. I moved some things into the truck, checked under the hood to make sure everything was still OK, and went to bed early considering I had to work in the morning. Little did I know that this was only a preview as to what was to come with my ownership/partnership with the White Whale.

A New Approach

It's been a couple months since I last posted. Laziness can be an evil snare. During my hiatus I was discussing my blog with a friend of mine who's a poly sci major at Catholic University and an intern at a pretty reputable online media source. My friend is an avid writer both due to her course load and her recreational writing. She suggested that I write sometimes just for the sake of writing and not necessarily just because something major or interesting happened in my life. I had start to do that a little but I definitely don't write as much as I should considering how much I enjoy it which is the important thing. Another thing I kick myself for is not writing about a lot of the adventures I've manage to land myself in. So here's what I'm going to do. I'll write about my feelings and my interpretations one the events to which I'm exposed through out my day to day (or more realistically week to week) life. I'm going to write about the dumb things I do on a regular basis. I'll write about some of the more interesting adventures I wind up on as well. I'll even fill readers in on stories from the past few years that I've neglected to post here once or twice a week. I use the word readers as if I have scores of people jonesing for a hit on an RSS feed from tmbevans.blogspot.com. To be honest, I'm happy to share my experiences with those that wish to listen to me or actually care and want to hear about what I do throughout my day to day life but in all honesty I write this blog for myself. This is my digital diary. If someone doesn't like my blog google is only a few keystrokes away. Anyways, I digress. I hope to transform my blog into a more fluid one. Feel free to give me feedback on my writing.

Simple rules that can make your travels through life a little more enjoyable

I often take inspiration from other peoples experiences and, after doing so, I try to change the way I live my life in order to live it better. As a traveler and someone who not only meets hundreds of new people a year but often has the opportunity to touch or change their lives I am always trying to find better ways to not only treat them but treat myself. While talking to a friend who was upset about a glitch in her travel plans, I recalled 2 websites I had stumbled across that I often reference to keep my outlook on life positive and make the most of the everyday experiences I gain. I want to share them with anyone that reads this blog. Enjoy.

http://www.nomad4ever.com/2006/11/25/50-life-lessons/

http://www.vagabondinglife.com/rules-of-vagabonding/

MWAA

Somehow, I managed to get hired on to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's fire department. I completed my first week of orientation to the Airports Authority and it's fire department and I started my first regular shift yesterday. I'm ecstatic to be working there. Great people, experienced firefighters, experiences I won't have anywhere else my career takes me, my current job (next to the Antarctic Fire Department of course) probably takes the award for being the best one I've ever worked. I will explain more about the MWAA Fire Department as well as what working there entails in time but for now I wanted to share my excitement with this new job.

Future Job Prospects

To keep yall up to date with my future job prospects, here's what I have going on:

1) Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Fire Department/Crash Fire & Rescue. Well,after a few months of work the MWAA police finally finished my background check which moved me onward to the next phase of the hiring process, the physical exam. I took it and came to find out that I need to take one more test, a stress echocardiogram before I can move on with the process. I normally have a minor arrhythmia called ST depression which can sometimes signify various cardiac problems. So in order to prove to MWAA that I do not indeed have some sort of cardiac deficit, I have to complete this last medical test...on their dime thank God. If all goes well, I could be starting there as soon as June 7th.

2)Raytheon Polar Services Company - Antarctic Fire Department. I applied to go down as a Winfly and Summer Primary (early August 2010 till February 2011) and a Winter alternate (February 2011 till October 2011). Considering this will be my 3rd season down there, having only skipped one season, and having a decent track record as far as my evals go, I'm hoping I'll be considered to go back down this time around. Who knows, I may even winter down there and pull a full 14 months in Antarctica...

3) Warren County Fire & Rescue. I applied to work part-time for this county in Northwestern VA. If I end up staying here in VA whether I work for MWAA or continue working for PTS I'll try to pick up shifts here and there in Warren County.

4) Yellowstone National Park - Structural Firefighter. I applied for a permanent position at Yellowstone National Park as a structural firefighter. I figure I may be able to weasel my way onto some wildland fires if I get hired and take the job which will allow me to keep my qualifications current on my red card. Having surpass the requirements for the position which included Firefighter I, Firefighter II, and Driver-Pump Operator pro board certificates, I'm hoping I'll at least get a phone call or an email regarding this position. I fell in love with the place driving through it on my way to Boise in 2007 so I'm sure working at the fire department there would be a hell of an experience.


As of right now, nothing's for certain. But having many options can't hurt. I'd much rather have make one hard decision picking out one option out of several versus not having any at all...

A Pale Blue Dot

I had a profound, somewhat life changing even occur tonight for me. While surfing the internet, I came across a blog posting signifying the 20th anniversary of the Voyager 1 spacecraft's photo of the earth while at the edge of our solar system. Also known by the famous title, "Pale Blue Dot", American Astronomer Carl Sagan wrote on this photo:

"Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known."

Now, I've always considered myself a humble, humane, and sincerely nice person but looking at that picture of our home and reading Sagan's words truly changed me tonight. They have changed how I will forever look at our world and the people in it. They have changed how I will treat people from now on. I'll let Sagan's words speak for itself. I challenge any one that reads this to look at that photo and read what Sagan has to say regarding the planet we live on.

April Thoughts and Excitements

The snow is long gone here in DC. It's been beautiful out the past few weeks. Even seasonal allergies couldn't keep me at bay. This time of year is usually a tense and exciting time. For the past couple of years, April has been a month spent getting ready to drive out west for the summer. It's usually a month where I spend a lot of time hanging out with the special people in my life and saying "see ya in a few months". April is also the time I usually get my employment offers with Raytheon and when I start getting ready to head back to Antarctica. As much as I started kicking myself for not choosing to go out west this summer, I'm glad I had the foresight to apply to go back down to McMurdo this Austral summer. While I await word as to whether or not I will be hired to go back down this upcoming season, the feeling of unhappiness still lingers within. I do, however, embrace this melancholic feeling. My unhappiness with living back in the DC area as led me to a profound moment in my life. It has only been during these past 8 months that I've come up with all kinds of wild thoughts about what to do with the rest of my life from this point forward. For one, I need to move out west...the sooner the better. I've also toyed with the idea of wintering in Antarctica next year which has lead me to wonder as to whether I'd like it and want to do several cycles of 14 months down in McMurdo followed by 2 months off or if I'd hate it after I survived a winter and would never want to go back. I'm really hoping to work a couple seasons of fire in both California and Alaska then perhaps moving over into the law enforcement realm and become a park ranger. Wishful dreaming right now but first I have to survive a summer here in DC then find a way out west and, well, maybe stay out there for good...

Radio Cure by Wilco

While working on my car and listening to Wilco, this song came on and stopped me in the midst of what I was doing. Last year I was in a relationship that shortly turned into a long distance relationship after a week or so of dating. This song reminds me of making the choice to leave a loved one behind all the while being driven by some unseen force. It reminds me of being across the country from someone you love, all the while feeling the hopelessness and pain of the distance between them, searching the radio or your own music collection for songs that remind you of the person and that can ease your pain.

Radio Cure
by Wilco

Cheer up, honey I hope you can
There is something wrong with me
My mind is filled with silvery stuff
Honey kisses clouds of fluff
Shoulders shrugging off

Cheer up, honey I hope you can
There is something wrong with me
My mind is filled with radio cures
Electronic surgical words

Picking apples for the kings and queens of things I've never seen

Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable

Cheer up, honey I hope you can
There is something wrong with me
My mind is filled with silvery stars
Honey kisses clouds of love

Picking apples for the kings and queens of things I've never seen

Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable

Cheer up, honey I hope you can

Breaking Point

I feel I've reached a breaking point in my life. I've tried hard over the past 7 months to justify as to why I didn't go back to McMurdo and why I'm not getting ready to head out west for another fire season. Hindsight, I look back and realize that they were just that: excuses. Now I will say being back has made me realize how much I love the friends I have here between friends from the fire department and friends from high school. I have, however, fallen into a mild depression from being away from everything that the DC area does not have: snow-capped mountains, endless deserts, fresh air, laid back outdoorsy people, etc. I also miss the adventures that come with those experiences whether one likes them or not. I feel people are probably getting tired of hearing about driving to Vegas on a regular basis from Cedar City, getting drunk with good people in Antarctica, losing my luggage on some international flight, watching sunsets in Rarotonga, exploring the Boise Night Life with fellow wildland firefighters, or living up dozens of other experiences I'll never forget. The past week or so, I have come to realize that these stories are masking my true feelings about being back home. I know what I need to do but it's hard to take that giant committing leap. I have applied for a Lieutenant's position with the Antarctic Fire Department again. This time I'd be heading down for the winfly season (early August). Who knows, I may even do something as crazy as staying for the winter as well! Don't get me wrong, I do love what the DC area has to offer...but there is more to life than the metro area...and when you get a taste of it, well, that addiction is hard to shake...

The Importance of Pondering and Memories

Prior to me being born and my subsequent adoption, my parents moved into a quiet little neighborhood in Great Falls, VA right around 1980. Our house sat at the beginning of a pipe stem nestled into the surrounding woods. A single level house with a loft, a basement, and a deck envied by most in our neighborhood, it was all that we needed and we never complained. When it was built, a row of conifers, a mix of black spruce and eastern white pine, were planted on the southern edge of our property separating our yard from the main road. A large, blue-stemmed goldenrod on the same side of the house as the conifers grabbed your attention with it's bright yellow flowers especially in the spring as you drive down our street. Probably the most dominating feature of our property was the large, rounded willow tree in our front yard whose sheer volume engulfed the northwest corner of our house for nearly two decades. The same willow robbed a smaller white pine of it's equally deserved attention as they shared the same corner of our house. Our house had a very small courtyard one would have to walk through as they came to our front door. On one side of the courtyard was a rather robust and prickly holly bush frequented by the neighborhood robins, warblers, and chickadees. The other side boasted a small oak that for some reason never reached full maturity.

Slowly over time, our house has seen some changes. The exterior color went from a very drab collage of browns to subtle blues that manage to contrast perfectly with the green of our surrounding yard. A sunroom was added onto our house on top of most of the deck leaving a small 2 meter by 2 meter sitting area outside accessible only from the sunroom. My bedroom over looks this remnant of our deck. I built a garden for my mom next to our drive way which boasted a variety of perennials and shrubs she would change up every other year or so. We eventually planted a Rose bush next to the Goldenrod bushes. A heart-leafed aster went in between them later. I have a lot of fond memories in and around our house: helping my dad with the yard, building a garden pond for my mother, trips to the nursery, building forts in the the pines, etc. Even at a young age, I knew life would go on and change but I never thought our house would. My childhood home, to me, was infallible.

Today has probably been the nicest day so far this year. With bright skies, robust colors, and a warm breeze, I lazily strolled to our mailbox out on the main street. As I turned around and stood in a spot I frequented to frame the house for photographs, I looked at our yard and marveled at the change it has gone through over the years. The Willow has long lost its volume to pruning, wind, and snow/ice storms. The black spruce has aged into some twisted Dr. Seussian dwarf of a tree. The pine in front of our house fell victim to the first storm of the winter when it toppled over at the roots (it took me 3 days to finish felling and bucking that damn tree). While looking at this changed landscape I couldn't help but relive the changes I've experienced in my life. I thought about my dog, Corolla, long gone and how he loved to run through leaves. I thought about my neighbors (who have long since moved away to the town of Leesburg), the Linton's, and how they mowed their lawns religiously in a clockwise fashion every Friday or Saturday (the husband has since passed away). I remember climbing most of the trees around that have fallen into some state of decrepitude (the willow, the spruce, and the pine(s)). Most vividly, I remember my father. I remember how happy he looked working on our cars or mowing the yard with me. I remember pruning the trees with him every spring. My favorite memory was as I laid in bed almost every summer night, while trying to fall asleep, I would quietly open my window when I heard him open the door leading to our shrunken deck. I remember listening to him sit silently in the tranquility of our summer nights. I had always wondered what he was thinking when he sat out there: was he looking at the starts reminiscing of working for NASA during the Gemini and Apollo programs? Was he reflecting on Vietnam? Was he reflecting on life in general? Out of the many hundreds of times he would spend the last several minutes of his night out on our deck, I never learned what he was thinking. Today, after standing by our mailbox for a few minutes, I finally understood the importance of such pondering...

From Home - D.C

A Spiritual and Personal 180

Life.....is a journey. That maybe a super trite and cliche sentence but it's the best I got as an intro into

Valentines and a Muzzle of Bees

I really hate Valentines day. The idea of professing one's love for another person on a single day out of the entire year through gifts and other monetary displays of affections sickens me. I guess that's why I'm still single. Never the less, the romantic side of me is still forced to think more about love on this day than any other thanks to 14 February's commercialization. Usually when I think about love it's in the form of favorite "love songs" of mine and what they mean to me. One of my all time favorites is Muzzle of Bees by Wilco. I'm not going to go into what the song means to me because it's hard for me to put it into words. I'll let you figure out what it means to you.

Muzzle of Bees
by Wilco

There's a random painted highway
And a muzzle of bees
My sleeves have come unstitched
From climbing your tree

And dogs laugh, some say they're barking
I don't think they're mean
Some people get so frightened
Of the fences in between

And the sun gets passed from tree to tree
Silently, and back to me
With the breeze blown through
Pushed up against the sea
Finally back to me

I'm assuming you got my message
On your machine
I'm assuming you love me
And you know what that means

Sun gets passed, sea to sea
Silently, and back to me
With the breeze blown through
Pushed up above the leaves

With the breeze blown through
My head upon your knee
Half of it's you, half is me
Half of it's you, half is me

Captain Hickory - A Short Story of a Ski Down Memory Lane

In defiance of the incessant bitching from DC and Metro area residents in regards to the recent snow storms that have graced our presences, I set off into the local woods with my skis adorned with climbing skins to relax for a bit. There's a trail all to familiar with my childhood in my neighborhood I set off for. It starts on Harriman St across from Shesue street. The trail meanders along a chain-link fence line riddled with vines and small pine saplings. This fence line soon turns into a tree line where the property contained within ends. The trail follows the treeline at the edge of a 2 acre field favored by herds of local deer. Following the field as it dog legs around the backside of a hill dominated by a few houses, I come to a large pond partially circumnavigated by the trail. The trail itself disappears into the woods for about a half a kilometer till you reach a stream about 3 meters across.

During the summers when I was a lot younger, I used this path to reach the home of one of my best friends, Jeff Burke. Taking the 45 minutes to walk to the beginning of this trail and complete it (the trail conveniently contoured the base of a large hill the top of which was the Cul-De-Sac where Jeff's pipe stem originated) was a lot easier than pestering my parents to pinball through our neighborhood, onto Walker Rd, then onto Minburn St only to work all the way to the back of Jeff's neighborhood. When I first discovered this trail at 8 years old, it took the better half of an afternoon to muster up the courage to jump over the stream in order to complete my expedition into this newly found land. After that, Jeff and I took upon many projects to remedy the stream crossing...some seemingly gargantuan feats of engineering. We laid logs, built bridges, rope swings, etc. I look back now and think how proud my dad would have been calling the Army Corps of Engineers trying to get me a job based on my determination to cross Captain Hickory Creek. The longest lasting solution to our fording problem was a simple bride made out of a bunch of 2x4's we found lying around the woods. To this day, that bridge still hangs on, weathered by feet both young and old of those who enjoy exploring the backwoods of Great Falls.

I made it to this bridge only to relive the memory of building up the courage to cross the untamed Captain Hickory. I wondered, "How well will climbing skins grip snow on wet wood?" as I stood precariously at the banks of the Cap' 6 feet above the water. The bridge leaned to one side as a result of erosion of the clay supporting it. I scowled in discontent as I muttered, "Fuck it..." and started to make my way across the bridge. I stopped to think about the fact that I'm skinning across a bridge: a thought that made me giggle and stare at the water below. Between the canopy of the trees surrounding me and the overcast sky, the water was dark and the Captain's creek bed barren. During the summer, crayfish live a pretty-carefree life this far up the Difficult Run and Captain Hickory Creek drainage with their only predators being Raccoons and similar sized animals who usually do not brave the steep banks and deep water. During the annual droughts of late July and August when the water level drops to a few inches, it's free game for all of the wild inhabitants of Great Falls as they flock to the nearest creek, run, or tributary. I continue across the bridge only to slip my ski off the side at the last few feet of the bridge (thankfully onto solid ground). I continue my way along the creek towards the Cul-De-Sac of Minburn St. Gliding along Captain Hickory reminds me of the book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard and her love of the Appalachian creek that bears the books title, it's wildlife, and the land around it all of which which ran through her back yard. As the creek doglegged about, I started to glance up with hopes to get a look at Jeff's parents house. I continue until Captain Hickory turns into a drainage which eventually ends on the norther side of Georgetown Pike. I turned around to head back to my truck reliving memories of scrambling up the muddy hill to the Cul-De-Sac, jumping my bike (and failing) across the Captain, and GI Joe battles in the water. Canadian Geese and Lesser Scaup gossip in the pond as I leave the tree line. I follow my skin tracks back to my truck, put my skis back in my rack, trade my boots for sandals, and drive back home. Jeff now lives in Winchester, VA and everyone else I can think of with whom I've enjoyed the Cap' live elsewhere. All of them, however, were with me as I took a stroll (or a ski I guess) down memory lane for a couple hours. This weekend's forecast is predicting up to 45 cm of snow. Bring it on.

Pick-Up Follies

Sometime after Thanksgiving, I was out in the parking lot at work my supervisor and a bunch of co-workers around trying to replace a serpentine belt in my truck. As the seemingly simple task of replacing the belt was becoming more daunting and difficult it started to dawn on us that maybe the auto parts store made a mistake and gave me the wrong sized belt. Before that concept could sink into my head, my supervisor who at the time was giving it a try sheared off the bolt to the tensioner pulley (note: in order to remove the belt you have to relieve the tension on it by applying leverage to a bolt that moves the pulley away from the belt). "Fuck" was the first word that came to mind and my mouth. Step 2 at this point was easy and all to familiar when it came to problems with this truck: I got a ride to my house (in our ambulance in this case), picked up my other car, and had the truck towed at a later day. The 7 weeks following that day were spent swearing and sweating as I attempted with all of my might to remove the pulley bolt and eventually the entire pulley tensioner assembly off my engine block with the intention of replacing it. Two things proved my downfall in a speedy repair of my truck: the first was the lack of the appropriate tools to do the job and the second being my reluctance to pay someone to do what I at first thought would be a simple job. It being a new year and 6 months since I've been able to drive the old girl, I finally swallowed my pride and had the truck towed to a diesel mechanic who had the entire tensioner assembly replaced in a few hours. Since she was in there I had him take care of a few other minor problems. Hopefully I'll be swinging by Monday to pick it up. As much as I love that truck, my new year's resolution for 2010 is to again own a car newer than 2000...

Happy Birthday...

This past week leading up today has been very distracting for me. Today, my father would have been 71. His birthday has held a somber tone with me ever since he died. I keep forgetting that mine is in 8 days but I always know within a few weeks that his is upcoming. I still miss him terribly and every once in a while it really affects the way I think/concentrate as well as my performance at work and in life. Yesterday while at work, my partner and I were called to INOVA's Heart and Vascular Institute (a facility from which we're bound to do 2-5 transports a day but for the sake of this post it's the part of Fairfax Hospital in which my father died) to pick up a patient and take them back to their residence. Upon arriving at the ambulance entrance, as we were getting out, a funeral home van pulled into their designated parking spot, pulled out a gurney, and proceeded inside the building. Seeing that this was a normal part of our (and his) job we continued doing what we were doing. However, what proved to be creepy was the large Raven that was hanging around the black van on that cloudy and particularly gloomy day. We proceeded inside up to the 2nd floor to pick up our patient. As we got to the nurses station, I looked around and my eyes fell upon the room in which my father died: 259. Flashbacks from that early morning came to me fast. I fought them back in order to focus on my job but that dull feeling I first started experiencing outside stayed with me for the rest of the day.

Today wasn't bad though. My partner has become a good friend of mine and he helps keep a sometimes mundane day interesting. I managed to stay focus and happy. I use my father's birthday as a day to embrace his life and life in general. The years fleeting away from 2006 are getting better and better. Now, I have my own birthday to contend with...



Happy Birthday
Nathan E. Bevans
23 January 1939 - 20 April 2006

Disconnected from Maleigha

I'm trying to covertly establish myself as an unofficial live-in member at the firehouse. It's been working very well. So well that a) not many people have realized I've been doing it the past week or so and b) I see my house about once a week. Between living at the firehouse, being sick, and work, I haven't been able to talk/see my daughter in a couple weeks which has worn me down a bit. Her mother and I have been attempting to arrange to get a hold of each other at least once a week which worked for a bit but now it's been hard. With my new laptop, I'm hoping to find time in the evenings no matter where I am to give them a few minute call...even at work that has proved pretty hard.

Maleigha has definitely grown! Her vocabulary, still very limited, is definitely more extensive since I last saw her in August. Kim has told me that it has grown even since I last spoke to her so I'm hoping for a surprise when I talk to her/them in a couple of days...

Mid-Atlantic Winter Recreating...

It's been pretty cold here in the DC area the past couple weeks. The nights have been getting down into the high negative teens (that's Celsius...so the positive teens Fahrenheit). With a near constant wind over the past few weeks, the windchill has been getting into the low negative teens if not pushing -20 C. I'm very use to this. For my friends and family who have yet to venture beyond either of the polar circles the weather has proved merciless and frigid. We've already had one major snowstorm that dumped about 55 cm on the DC area and more are predicted well into late February. I'm longing for the wind and snowdrifts of Antarctica right now...

The cold does not stop me from heading into the wilds. The problem with a lot of DC climbers is the fact that the second the temperature drops below 10 C they run for the comfortable confines of a gym until there's enough fake snow strewn about the few ski resorts we have in the region. Finding climbing partners who are willing to venture out in the cold and snow in the middle of January to climb a few pitches of trad is definitely a feat. Trying to coordinate schedules is even worse! There is always skiing though. The nearest resort to the DC area is Ski Liberty near Gettysburg, PA. Albeit a small resort...it's something. The closest place where I'd have to wear a transceiver would be 9 hours away in New Hampshire. So here I am, stuck in this hole called the Mid-Atlantic. I should come up with a paypal donation account to raise money to fly me somewhere snow laden and mountainous...

A New Year

Well it's a brand new year as well as a new decade (unless you're Roman in which case your new decade starts next year...). A year ago, I was hoping to be spending this recent New Year's back in McMurdo. After dealing with several issues regarding my school, distant learning, and the sheer fact that I was attending Virginia classes online in Antarctica, I felt it necessary to put McMurdo on hold for a while until I'm done with school. It was incredibly painful then while I was down on the ice knowing that I wouldn't be coming back the following year. It was especially painful throughout the entire fall reading blogs and facebook status updates of friends who were heading back down there. Such is life though. I figure I can dream and research cool things to do here, around this country, and around the globe but for now I'll definitely live one day at a time.

I've been told that I've been offered a job with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) Fire Department by a chief there who retired on the 31st. My being hired then was in preparation of the subsequent promotions to fill his spots and the spots that would open up underneath him. This, my friends, came as bittersweet excitement: I am totally stoked that I am working for MWAA's fire department. I really am. They have everything I look for in a fire department sans a wildland program: Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting (ARFF), a haz-mat team, a technical rescue program, a marine program, etc. At the same time, the prospect of settling down for however long in a permanent job scares the shit out of me. Fear aside, I really can't complain. I'll be working in a fire department job with benefits, I'll be receiving a decent paycheck, and I'll be receiving some excellent training and experience. I'm hoping to continue working for PTS on a part-time basis as well as picking up a part-time job with Patagonia in Georgetown (outdoor clothing and climbing equipment is expensive!). So for now, I'll be living in the DC area for a lot longer than I expected...