Stitches

In the tradistion of everything that is me, I managed to start of the first houer of the firdt day of my tourr at work with a scrench (paert scewtdriver and paert wrench used on chainsaws) almost a 1/2 inch into my finger. Thinking I was ok, I managed to go 5 minutes beforw realizing the gravity of my situation and driving myself to the ER for stitches and a lovely workman's comp claim.




As minor as the injury was, I went back to work on what my doctor called "modified" duty not necessarily "light" duty. At first I didn't think it was a big of a problem than it turned out to be by the end of the day until I realized how much of a pain in the ass it was to type with a bandage that doubles the width of your finger. You'd be amazed how much you take advantage of having two index fingers...

3 weeks

Today marks exactly 3 weeks till I drive back home to DC. It's been a very long season with a lot of ups and a lot of downs. Some of the roommates I've gained and met over the past week have become very good friends of mine and I'm pretty thankful for that. Work has been very slow. We're beyond the point where we try to use busy work to keep us occupied. Our afternoons at the air center are spent talking with each other, miscellaneous tasks around the base, and the occasional impromptu nap. Friday we participated in a rather fun prescribed fire...other than that that's the only flame I've seen for a few weeks.




I should be getting my tickets for my flight to the ice any day now (after I fax in my Terms of Agreements which I've already done so twice this summer). I haven't started counting down till my deployment date yet because looking at that number would just depress me. For now, I'm just going to count down to the 15th when I drive back to Virginia. I wish I had something more exciting for you but, sadly, thats it...

Back to Work

So I now have 28 days and counting till I drive home from Utah. After a bout of food poisoning, I started working again only to leave Utah for Arizona to do a project just outside of the Grand Canyon. Although it wasn't fire, it was nice to have an easy task of building loads of fencing materials and hiking 4 miles into to receive them while our helicopter long-lined them into us. Near the (normal) end of our shift, we got dispatcehd to a fire in the Fishlake National Forest right outside of the town of Circleville, UT where we worked until 2100 hrs and made it back to the airbase around midnight only to leave again at 0600 to go back to the same fire. At least we're not sitting around doing nothing...

Tomorrow starts the beginning of my 3 day break. Because of some issues with my landlord and him possibly screwing me over, I'm going to spend most of that time talking with a lawyer(s). I'm definitely going to try to get into the park if I can. I definitely feel I'm starting to come out of the funk I was in because of the Line of Duty Deaths from the Iron Complex. I have 4 weeks left here so hopefully they'll be good ones.

A Better Day with Things to Do

Today I'm sick. Deathly sick. Sometime within the past 48 hours I contracted food poisoning (for the second time this year) and I've been paying for ever since I woke up this morning (I have been literally paying for it as well...$500 for an ER visit...). I called out from work sick today, went to the hospital, got some anti-biotics and here I sit in front of my computer. I feel I've been pretty hard on myself the past couple of weeks and its been seriously affecting my performance as a firefighter (both wildland and structural as I found) as well as my normal ability to think decisively, quickly, and clearly. I decided to take my mind off my mental and current social problems and focus on things that I need to worry about as well as the things that usually bring joy to me.

Being in Salt Lake really got me excited for the up-coming main body season at McMurdo Station as it did last year. It was cool meeting up with those I spent 5 months with last season as well as meeting the new folks coming down in September and October. The one thing that sucked about SLC was the fact that I may have failed my IFSAC test for Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting but I'll deal with that when I find out for sure.

Now that I'm back home I have other things to keep me busy when I'm not at work. My landlord is (at least I think so) trying to screw me out of my room so he can move 7 girls into the house. He tried getting me to move out by tomorrow without even looking at my lease. His assistant came over to tell me that I had to leave until I told her that my lease was not up. Considering I had asked my landlord over 5 times for a copy of my lease, she went to their office to get it only to find out that my lease is up on the 30th and he still has 7 girls he promised to house in this house. So now they're trying to move me across the street into a room I have to be out of by the 25th. They're solution for the other 5 days? Pay me $100 for "my troubles". I don't know what I'm going to do yet but at least I still have more time.

Asides from that, not much else is going on. I took a small trip to Brian Head, UT to get a pair of bindings installed on my skiis. Now I'm back at the house and resting.

I'm trying to get ready for McMurdo the best I can without being at home (DC-home). I'm planning (or at least trying) to go to Morocco shortly after my redeployment in Late February/Early March which means I may need to get a visa and a few other things to facilitate a climbing trip be it alpine/mountaineering or rock climbing. There have been a lot of changes for the United States Antarctic Program this year...one of them being the Hold-In-Christchurch option for people deploying to the ice. It use to be that you could mail something from the states directly to the CDC so that it could be held there throughout your deployment awaiting you when you arrived. Now that they've done away with that, you have to have things shipped directly to McMurdo and then you can ship it to Christchurch to be held...crazy, I know.

All in all, I'm glad to be back and I can't wait to get down to the ice. Hopefully we'll see some more fire before I drive back to the East Coast...

Depressed - Back in Cedar City

I arrived back into Cedar City at around 2200 hrs this evening only to become overwhelmed with guilt and depression. The past 10 days in SLC have been hard but fun. Hearing word of the S-61 that crashed in California on the fire my crew was on hit me pretty hard. I've kept it in the back of my mind since I first heard of the news last week. Now that I'm home, it's hit me harder than ever. I feel guilty for leaving my crew right before they had to endure such a horrible event. While I was away from California where they had been stuck for 2 weeks they were having to deal with one of the most devastating fire aviation accidents in several decades. I heartfully feel for my boss, Michael Reid. He was the first person on the scene of the crash and he had to deal with the coordination of aircraft be used for fire suppression of the crashed S-61 and medivacs. He's going through a really hard time right now and I pray for him and my crew everyday. A lot has happened since I left. All 5 of my roommates have moved out leaving me in the house alone (which is actually a good thing). My crew had to attend a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing to deal with the crash. Like I said, I feel guilty and horribly depressed for not being their to support my crew, my brothers and sisters, in their time of woe and need. I feel like I left them, bailed on them, abandoned them. What I feel bad about the most is the fact that I left to learn how to fight aircraft fires and how to rescue victims of aviation accidents only to not be there for my crew when they needed me to help them deal with the lost of a fiery crash with 9 dead. All I know is that I have 4-5 weeks left in the season and I can't wait for it to be over....

Helicopter Crash

Today was the 2nd day of our Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting training here in Salt Lake City. So far its pretty good and, as I expected, we (the firefighters of the 2008-2009 austral summer season) are bonding pretty well. Yet I can't help but think about my crew and wildland firefighting. A friend of mine and a fellow crewmember sent me a text message about a helicopter crash that occurred a couple days ago on the Iron Complex. She didn't give me many details but I checked them out that night and they definitely weren't good. According to a news statement released that night, the pilot was dead and 13 were injured. Today, reading the news, I found out that 9 were dead and 4 in critical conditions due to burns after the Sikorsky S-61 they were flying crashed and burned. It's pretty sobering to me since that could have been the very Sikorsky I could have been flying in let a lone the one which I had toured and whose crew I interacted with. I can't imagine what my crew is going through right now considering they're still on that fire. With these deaths, everything seems trivial. Everything that makes it in the news seems petty compared to that of 13 people that put their lives on the line for the sake of others without thinking twice. What can piss me off sometimes is knowing that some people skip over those articles and stories they see in the papers for something far less meaningless. Right now, I'm praying: I'm praying for the families of the 9 missing and feared dead. I praying for the 4 struggling to stay alive. I'm praying for all of the other firefighters in Northern California and especially the Iron Complex and the helibase that they are able to cope with the loss of our brothers and/or sisters. I'm praying for my crew. I'm praying that they're able to pull together and help get through this terrible ordeal and these trying times. I'm praying that their spirits are high and that they remain safe for the rest of this season. I'm praying that there are no more Line of Duty Deaths this season...wildland or structural. I pray for myself that I can return home safely to my mother and continue on with my quest in life. Please everyone stay safe...

Overcome by Live

I'm still trying to understand the significance of this song. It's a beautiful song to listen to....

Overcome
by Live

even now the world is bleedin' but feelin' just fine all numb
in our castle where we're always free to choose never free enough
to find i wish somethin' would break cuz we're runnin' out of time

and i am overcome i am overcome holy water in my lungs i am overcome

these women in the street pullin' out their hair my master's
in the yard givin' light to the unaware this plastic little place
is just a step amongst the stairs

and i am overcome i am overcome baby holy water in my lungs i am overcome

so drive me out out to that open field turn the ignition off
and spin around your help is here but i'm parked in this open space
blockin' the gates of love

i am overcome i am overcome holy water in my lungs i am overcomed

beautiful drowning this beautiful drowning this holy water
this holy water is in my lungs

and i am overcome i am overcome i am overcome i am overcome

White Ladder by David Gray

As I contemplate the balance of my current lifestyle in regards to family and even romantic relationships I can't help but think about this song and how great (or how shitty) love can sometimes feel...

White Ladder
by David Gray


White ladder
Water and wine
Forever crying
Oh time
Don't wanna feel tonight
There's no rhyme or reason to life
This sweet life

White river
Thunder and war
Forever crying
Oh no
Don't wanna feel tonight
There's no rhyme or reason to life
This sweet life

To the night another body
To the night another name
To the night another valentine
A burning flame
To the night another body
To the night another name
To the night another valentine
A burning flame

White ladder
Water and wine
Don't wanna feel tonight

California and SLC

I finally made it back from California Wednesday night. I had mixed feelings about being there. It was great to get away from Southern Utah for a little bit but there were somethings that sucked about California.

For one, we didn't do much flying because of the smoke which, by the way, was surreal. I flew from Reno, NV to Redding, CA on our second day of traveling. As we crossed over the Nevada/California border, it was like hitting a wall flying towards and through the smoke. Eventually we flew over the smoke for a while until we had to descend into Redding. As we flew, the smoke made a distinct straight line across the horizon with brown on the bottom and blue on top. Eventually we descended into Redding's airspace and landed at Redding's airport where we sat for 2 days because both our helibase and the airport were socked in with smoke. We made it to the helibase only to get sent to another airport where, again, we got socked in...this time for 6 days.

Here's where it started to get shitty. The first day it started to clear up myself, another firefighter and EMT, and one of our lead firefighters where sent to a helispot closer to the fireline to perform a medivac. Again because of the smoke trying to get us up in the air was pretty iffy. The injury, we eventually found out turned to be a pretty serious compound fracture of a femur due to a snag falling on this firefighter. Because of the trees involved and the position this firefighter was on the slope of the mountain, a US Coast Guard helicopter was called in to perform a hoist. Sadly, Andrew Palmer died while en route to a trauma center in Redding, CA. There where a lot of decisions made in regards how to evacuate Andrew out which, I believe (and this remains solely my opinion and not factual events that took place in this particular incident) lost him valuable time all the while myself and another EMT ready to go up there to help the only Paramedic working on Andrew with little equipment sat at the helispot listening to the Coast Guard ship perform the hoist only a mere 2 miles or so away. I'm not going to lie, that affected me a lot. Not so much Andrew's death but the fact that we sat their helplessly and uselessly as we listened to plan after plan get hatched and turned down. Thankfully the Coast Guard took matters upon themselves and decided to transport him anyways even though he died shortly after their departure from the area. I'm still slightly affected even though this happened last week. I guess its something I have to get use to. Being called to help someone in need and being separated from them by such a distance knowing that I won't be able to reach them or them to me is really hard to deal with. I've dealt with some incredible auto accidents with entrapments, technical rescues, and industrial rescues where the patient (or sometimes victim)was entrapped for a period of time but I've always been able to at least seeor touch the patient. As I stood there at our helispot, flight helmet on, gear in hand, staring off at the ridge I had just witnessed the Coast Guard ship disappear behind, I couldn't feel anything but anctiousness to help Andrew and the medic who was reading off his deteriorating vital signs over the radio. Somehow, throughout all of that, I felt helpless...

Within 48 hours of Andrews death the fire service experienced 3 more fatalities of wildland firefighters working on fires in California. We also experienced another medivac which, again, our helicopter never made it off the ground to. The weather, however, cleared up significantly (at least till I left) and we stayed relatively busy doing troop shuttles, recons, and cargo missions. I was hoping to make it out to the fireline once but unfortunately helibase duties called.


I now sit here in Cedar City while the rest of my crew is still working on the Iron Complex. I fly to Salt Lake City on Monday for our annual ARFF (Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting) training held at Salt Lake City Fire Department's ARFF training (ironically, SLC's ARFF training center sits on the SLC International Airport grounds where a mock crashed Boeing 737 sits right in the middle of the normal runways...this is funny because I can only imagine the look on the faces of the passengers of planes taking off and flying by this "crashed plane" putting off 40 foot flames for our training). I'm excited about this because not only do I get to reunite with friends I made on the ice last season, I get to meet some of the new firefighters coming down this year. Anyways, while my crew is still working in Cali, I'm working on the BLM engines at the fire center considering Thursday through Sunday are my normal work days. Hopefully it won't be too boring here in town...

3 Day Break and California

I took a full 3 days off after Sunday. I spent most of them hiking, working on my car, and watching movies. With the exception of almost dying in an electrical storm as I hiked through a canyon, my break went pretty well. Today the day started out pretty normal at work...until about 10 when we got orders to head to California. We're heading to the Iron Complex near Weaverville, CA. The last I checked on the National Situation Report the Iron Complex was at 47,000 acres and is being managed by a Type I Incident Management Team. That's all for now, I'll try to post again sometime soon...

Jack Shit

Today we did jack shit. Everyone thought we'd be busy as hell with the lightening that hit Cedar City yesterday but we didn't go anywhere. The Boise Smokejumpers and a few Single Engine Air Tankers (SEATs) ended up on a fire south of town that turned out to be approximately 30 acres or so. Asides from that, we didn't do much of anything. We pulled weeds, refurbished our gear, and played horseshoes for a while. For the first time in almost a couple weeks, I came home without any overtime. Instead of going out like everyone else in the fire service is doing tonight, I'm sitting at home drinking a beer and studying up on my Wilderness Medical Society protocols and a few other fire and rescue topics I need to brush up on. A slow night but a relaxing one...

Camp Creek Fire

Yesterday was my first day of my current tour at work. Because of only getting a few hours sleep I woke up pretty out of it and very forgetful for I forgot my backpack and my camera. Thinking that it was too early in the morning to get a fire worthy of taking pictures of, I didn't think too much of it. Running by the house and picking it up during my lunch break seemed like a feasible option at the time. Around 0900 or 1000 we got sent to a fire near Kolob Canyon in the far northwest corner of Zion National Park. Between this fire being my first within the park's jurisdiction and the fact that I was flying that day, I was beginning to kick myself hard for forgetting my camera. The exit for Kolob is about 15-20 miles away from Cedar City giving us a 10 minute flight to the fire. The second we lifted off the ground at the air center we could see the smoke from the fire. The fire sat on a mesa top right up against a canyon wall. The canyon itself was absolutely goregeous. The canyon itself must have been at the very least 700-800 feet tall with sheer Navajo Sandstone walls. Myself and one of our lead firefighters were dropped off on an adjacent mesa top with a view that looked over the fire and down to the canyon bottom to see if there was any spotting to the canyon floor. The Camp Creek Fire, as it was called, was about 2 acres covering the entire mesa top which made it impossible (at the time) to land and put firefighters on it safely. Our job was to monitor the fire while the helicopters worked. While our lead firefighter watched and directed the helicopters, I went to work with our chainsaw clearing out a 90' diameter spot for our helicopter. This is where I began to get pissed that I forgot my camera. The entire time I was cutting helitanker 718, a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane, was doing water drops on the mesa. The impressive thing about it all was his flight path was eye level with us as he descended below our mesa to reach the mesa in question. It was quite an impressive aerial show with a gorgeous backdrop. We spent the better half of the afternoon and evening on that mesa top until we flew in the park's Fire Effect's crew to watch the fire for the night and the next day. By the time we made it home it was near 2200. Today we spent the day at the helibase below the fire doing more bucket work on the spots the pilot missed the day before. We came home in the midst of a pretty big storm that dropped rain and a shit load of lightening all over the Cedar City area...primarily on the Dixie National Forest which currently has a lot of beetle kill sporadically spread across the ranger district just outside of town. We had been joking all this season about how the Dixie would go up in flames this year with the proper ignition. Tomorrow will tell us how much work we'll have on our hands for the next few days or so to come...

3 days off....

After a big roll on Sunday the 6th (5 fires in 7 hours and not getting home till 1 AM) my normal 3 days off were a welcome break from work. Monday I spent the entire day doing absolutely shit. Asides from a few minuscule errands I had to run, I sat around the house and watched a few movies. Tuesday, I went into the park for some backpacking on the La Verkin Creek Trail in Kolob Canyon. I left around noon to hike the 6.5+ miles into my campsite. The hike in was superb. The temperature was about 100 with very little humidity making the trek very pleasant. The views were spectacular:





The best part about the entire trip was that I didn't see a single person. I did how ever see several rattlesnakes in my campground:



As usual, I did this trip alone. Some people think it's foolish to backpack alone...especially miles in to a desert canyon bottom but I prefer the solitude. I like the time I get to think to myself....or not think at all and revel in the silence and the experience of nature and the land around me. I made it to my campsite around 1900 after 4 hours of hiking.


View Larger Map

I sat in the shade and listened to the creek and the falls next to my campsite, set up my tent and started cooking my dinner. I went to bed rather early with the intention of waking up at 5 to make it to my car before 1100 to beat the heat and to salvage the latter half of the day. I cooked breakfast in the dark (which was somehow pretty soothing and relaxing), packed up and hit the trail by 0700.






The rest of the day was spent lazing around the house. I did some laundry, red a few books, and really didn't do much else. Since September is getting closer I've been thinking and planning more and more for my post-Antarctic plans...primarily traveling to Africa before I come home. The logistics of packing and having my climbing stuff with me will be interesting. I still have a lot of planning to do. The rest of my Wednesday night was spent on the internet and reading Dr Seuss to Anna over the phone. All in all, a pretty good break.

Fire, fire, and more fire....

Thursday the 26th, we headed for a fire west of Escalante in the town of Boulder. What was initially reported to be 10 acres or so turned out to be a couple hundred acres by the time our helicopter arrived.




This was my first fire where I was on the initial attack load on our helicopter. Unfortunately I didn't get my new camera until I got back damn near two weeks later so I don't have many photos of the fire which was called the Bear Creek Fire. We left the Bear Creek fire to stage at the Escalante Airport for the lightening storms coming through. Between Monday and Wednesday, we ran 7 fires because of the lightening. Thursday I made it back home for the first time in a week to pick up my new camera. The next day (the 4th) we went back to Bryce Canyon Airport where we had been since Wednesday for reasons that escape even our management. Saturday and Sunday were 'normal' workdays for us at the air center back in Cedar City. With dry lightening finally plaguing the area, we ran 7 fires between the two days. Needless to say, the fire season is here....

It's gonna get worse...

Today is day 3 of my normal 3 days off before I go back to work. We ran a small fire near the end of our shift on Sunday which gave us a few hours of overtime. I spent the past 3 days trying to tie up some loose ends with my Physical Qualification (PQ) process for Antarctica. Thinking that I only had to get a dental exam, I walked out of the dentist's office yesterday with two cavities filled and -$375 in my pocket. The most exciting part of the past few days...

Today my roommate informed me that her girlfriend (my co-worker and other roommate) had told her that two of our co-workers have been sent to Northern California to help with fires out that way. Curious as to why 2 Helicopter Crewmembers from Utah were being sent to Cali so early in the season I decided to check up on some news and do some research on the fire activity in the country. I checked the National Situation Report, a daily report on fire activity across the country, and discovered how bad the situation is for Northern California. Over the past 24 hours there have been over 500 new fires that have started in the country....over 400 of which started in California. I also came across this article in firehouse.com. After reading the sit report, I counted Nor Cal had 18 complex fires already. A complex fire is a fire that composes of two or more fires that have burned together or 2 or more fires managed by the same Incident Management Team. Usually complexes don't start popping up until later on in the season. It being June only means the season's gonna get worse...

Today was a brighter day in my life. No particular reason. I woke up and went to work with a smile on my face. And, for the first time in my life, I ran 4 miles without breaking a sweat. It's amazing what you can pull off when you put your mind to it. Today was an "out of sight, out of mind" day. I spent the morning reading and buying a new camera. After lunch I worked on a small project and played a game of horseshoes. Around 5 o'clock, we got dispatched to a fire just south of Cedar City only to be canceled and turned around 5 minutes later. And here I am talking to you all. The fire season is definitely here. We just need ignition sources...

First Fire and Ups and Downs

On Sunday, halfway through our shift, we got dispatched to our first fire of the season. The Corn Creek Fire, as it was called, is located near Escalante, UT and is still burning as I write. We spent from Sunday till last night [Thursday] on the fire doing work out on the line and running the helibase. It felt good to get out on a fire but it couldn't have come at a worse time. Between things I need to get done for Antarctica and dealing from personal trouble that brewed while I was gone, Thursday night and today were pretty shitty. I'm still pretty down right now but such is life.

Life around the air center is pretty hectic. I'm choosing to talk about this because I realized that my problems with my personal life (primarily depression and some personal issues with a few people) have really been affecting my work. Considering I have other people's lives in my hands, I take my mind off my problems a lot and focus on work....even at home. Anyways, we have a few tankers hanging around the base which is pretty cool considering how fucking huge they are. I've seen them in the sky and knew that they were big but damn. All of the Air Attack platform planes are stationed at the base now. We have another helitack crew from Boise hanging out for a few weeks as well. When the fire season truly kicks off, we'll have a bunch of BLM Smokejumpers from Boise as well as a shit load of heavy air tankers and a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane. Hopefully I'll stay busy enough to keep my mind off of my personal life for a while...

Zion Helitack, Utah Phillips, and the Days to Come

Had I the tenacity to post an entry on Thursday, it would have been pretty shitty. I was in a bad mood all Thursday. What compounded matters even more was the fact that my mood was affecting my work which in turn led me to make mistakes left and right and piss me off even more. By the time my bed time came around I had calmed down. Hearing my friend's voice on the phone and visiting her in the beginning of the week really help bring a smile back to my face which in turn made the following day a whole lot better. Friday and today was spent doing project work....all damn day. Southern Utah is ready for fire. A shit-ton of fire when it comes....the only thing we need now are ignition sources (i.e. dry lighting). My mind has been wrapped around fire and aviation policies for the past couple of days. I managed to get out and do some climbing yesterday only to come back home and read the Interagency Helicopter Operations Guide and the Interagnecy Aerial Ignition Guide till I fell asleep. I need either a life, fires, or to spend more time with my girlfriend that lives 10 hours away....

I normally do not talk about my political views with many people (well, my real political views) and I won't start now. I will say, however, that I'm really passionate towards the poor, the battered down, and the working class. I favor hobos, hippies, ramblers, folk singers, activists, writers, poets, musicians, and any free-living spirit over your average joe any day. I came across a man who fits into a lot of those categories, Utah Phillips, listening to a newly acquired Ani Difranco album entitled fellow workers. Utah's music and stories opened my eyes even more to those classes of society that are looked down upon or taken for granted by the majority of the population. It'd be a little wishy-washy to say that he sorta changed my life and my perception of such but he did something to me rather permanent. I found out a few days ago on a blog his son keeps about him that he had passed away on May 23rd. I had never got the chance to experience, not just see, him in person. I'm pretty bummed out about that. I'm glad to have found him before he died though. Hopefully I can find some bootlegged concerts of his to try to create an experience for me. Until then, I'm sticking with folk music to carry me for a little while.

Tomorrow is my last day of work for a few days. I'm not looking forward to it. We're suppose to be having some sort of "Physical Training Test" which includes an audacious run and possibly a pack hike. I'm sore as it is from climbing and an ass-kicking workout in the gym today. Monday through Wednesday will be the first time I'm not doing anything or driving anywhere for several weeks which will be nice. I have a pack of Miller Light and a bunch of magazines and books to catch up with. Maybe even more journal entries too...

Bozeman

It seems I can't escape snowfall no matter where I go. As I sit here in Bozeman peering out of the window of my friend's house, I can't help but wonder when it will warm up. This morning started out amazingly sunny...I feel sorta bad now that I rolled over and went back to sleep. By noon, the sun went away and a pretty ferocious thunderstorm visited the area for about an hour. Now being 1345 I staring at snow; big, honking flakes of snow. I don't know what today will hold. I'm waiting for my friend to get back from work. We have today together before I drive the 10 hours back to Cedar City so hopefully it will be something good. It's sorta frustrating being on a time crunch. I wish I had more than a day to spend up here. I wish I had more time to drive back home (I passed soo many places to fly fish right of the road) but, alas, duty calls. This week (at least today), all of Southern Utah is under a Red Flag Warning for extreme fire weather behavior. Hopefully we'll get some storm systems to come through and give us some work....

"Kill All Niggers"

A lot of people ask me why I'm sometimes pretty paranoid about certain areas I travel to or through being a person of color. Sometimes I wonder myself. Seeing "Kill All Niggers" sprawled across a bathroom wall in Idaho sort of reinforces my worries...