Well, my week down the shore was quite the treat. The last few days got cloudy before I could get any sun, but that's okay. At least I was on the beach. We cut the vacation a day short and left Friday evening after hitting the boardwalk and getting some Mack's pizza in Ocean City.
I spent Saturday watching a Katharine Hepburn marathon on TCM with my mom. Other than that, I didn't do much. My dad made steaks for dinner. This morning I woke up late and went for a bike ride with my dad. It quickly became obvious that I hadn't been on my bike in a year, my elbows hurt and I am tiiiired. After that, I showered and packed up. My mom surprised me with a Roxy hoody that I saw in Ocean City. It's lined with faux sheepskin, so it will definitely keep me warm as things get colder Nederland (well, it's already cold as it is up there).
When I get back tonight I get to look forward to taking the DIA bus to Denver and then getting my suitcase onto the Light Rail and hopefully getting a taxi for the two miles up to campus. I won't be in the mood to climb that hill at 9:30 at night.
That's really all. It was good to be home. I love being there, I can't wait to get back. I really can't imagine living anywhere else, despite all the places I have now lived (and by "all" I mean ... ooooh ... three or four other places, temporarily). I miss a lot about PA ... the crickets at night in the summer, the way everything smells, being right in the middle of rural and urban Greater Philly. Well, I've got two months left of AmeriCorps and then I get to spend plenty of time appreciating home while trying to find a job.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
"Bury my heart on the Jersey Shore..."
Well, I've been down the shore and on my break for a few days. My flight home was almost unbearable, thank goodness it was shorter than anticipated. I'm already sunburned and I've run out of ways to lie on the beach where said sunburn won't get more exposure. Ah, well.
Transition week ended well. Everything was done and relatively on time. I feel like I earned my break.
I haven't been doing much. My typical vacation routine is to sleep in, get on the beach by noon and sit/lie around for about for hours, just reading. My evenings have been spent watching coverage of the DNC back in Denver. I was in Denver during the Pennsylvania Primary, and now I'm back to Philly while the DNC is in Denver. I can't really win.
I added a few links to the blog, things to provide more information on wildfires in the country, as well as a blog I found tonight from a guy who is on a California Hotshot crew.
I also found a really funny shirt which I just ordered from Threadless.com: "Don't Play with Matches".
Additionally, my dad showed me a really cool picture of a tanker plane that he found:
I don't have any information from the photo, but based soley on the way the ground just drops off and the bush in the left hand corner, I swear I was there. I'm probably full of crap, though =)
Saturday, August 23, 2008
This flight tonight ...
Okay, so things got pretty interesting yesterday. Our new team, composite Earth 45, had our briefing in the morning. It went pretty smoothly, so that's good. In the afternoon, I went to the team leader meeting with Kevin. During the meeting, he got a call from Chad saying that Paul was definitely getting called up to go out with the Alpine Hot Shots and that he needed to leave for Ned that evening so he could head out the next day. After Kevin droned on and on, I left the meeting and went to inform Paul. It was decided that Joanna, Scott and I would drive Paul up in one of our trucks and then return after dropping him off. I called the work center and left a message for Chad to call me back and give me more info for Paul -- when he had to be up the next morning, what he needed in addition to his gear, etc.
So we loaded up the truck with some stuff we wanted to take up to Ned before we go back in a week (though Jo and Scott would be working as of Monday because they've got the other break). Room inspections took a while, so we decided to get dinner before leaving. Around dinner, I got a call back from Chad. He said that he managed to get Scott called out with Alpine as well, so now Scott also needed to pack up. I called Kevin to let him know and he decided that Joanna would have to move up to Ned with them because she had no other way of getting there over the weekend to go back to work on Monday (don't authorize her to drive the truck by herself or anything ... *rolls eyes*).
Needless to say, Jo was upset. She's going to be up there all weekend and all week by herself (unless Ervin returns from his dispatch some time next week). I called the other bunkhouse and talked to some of our Forest Service compatriots and asked them to look out for her and make sure she wasn't feeling lonely. So she left Thursday evening and then I had nothing to do. I had no team left, pretty much.
I ended up hanging out with Jane from Earth 7. We went for a run together, then went out for a little bit. It was fun, nothing big, but it was nice to spend time with her and Nicole because I don't normally hang out with them. So yay to new friends.
Today the entire corps went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. We used their obstacle courses for leadership and team building activities. Originally I was dreading it, having gone over stuff like this multiple times in college for my major. But it was surprisingly fun. I enjoyed both parts of the obstacle course. I have to say, though, that my fingers are killing me. I have so many splinters in my hands, I can't even count them all. So they're really tender right now.
Okay, that's all for now. I should shut down because we should be boarding soon. I'm taking a red-eye home tonight. A little nap, a little repacking and then it's down the shore! Yay! I'm going to sit on the beach every day and read for hours.
So we loaded up the truck with some stuff we wanted to take up to Ned before we go back in a week (though Jo and Scott would be working as of Monday because they've got the other break). Room inspections took a while, so we decided to get dinner before leaving. Around dinner, I got a call back from Chad. He said that he managed to get Scott called out with Alpine as well, so now Scott also needed to pack up. I called Kevin to let him know and he decided that Joanna would have to move up to Ned with them because she had no other way of getting there over the weekend to go back to work on Monday (don't authorize her to drive the truck by herself or anything ... *rolls eyes*).
Needless to say, Jo was upset. She's going to be up there all weekend and all week by herself (unless Ervin returns from his dispatch some time next week). I called the other bunkhouse and talked to some of our Forest Service compatriots and asked them to look out for her and make sure she wasn't feeling lonely. So she left Thursday evening and then I had nothing to do. I had no team left, pretty much.
I ended up hanging out with Jane from Earth 7. We went for a run together, then went out for a little bit. It was fun, nothing big, but it was nice to spend time with her and Nicole because I don't normally hang out with them. So yay to new friends.
Today the entire corps went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. We used their obstacle courses for leadership and team building activities. Originally I was dreading it, having gone over stuff like this multiple times in college for my major. But it was surprisingly fun. I enjoyed both parts of the obstacle course. I have to say, though, that my fingers are killing me. I have so many splinters in my hands, I can't even count them all. So they're really tender right now.
Okay, that's all for now. I should shut down because we should be boarding soon. I'm taking a red-eye home tonight. A little nap, a little repacking and then it's down the shore! Yay! I'm going to sit on the beach every day and read for hours.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Okay, let's see if you can stay with me here
Well ...
We got out early on Friday, as you know. Earth 5 went home and did some packing. After dinner, I headed out in the rain to UC Boulder's outdoor theater to watch a Shakespeare play, Love's Labour's Lost. Yes. I sat in the rain and watched Shakespeare. I had tickets to it, someone else was supposed to go with me but they went on dispatch. So I went to get my money's worth. It was quite good, actually. Around the third act I noticed that the rain had stopped. It was a little cold, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the actors actually reminded me of a friend who, coincidentally, is a stage actor and really into Shakespeare.
The next morning, we loaded our truck up with things that we wanted to move to Nederland so we wouldn't have to bring them back to Denver. We also put all of our nonperishable food in there. A few people ran that up to the bunkhouse in Nederland while the rest of us cleaned. Once we were finished all of that, we were off. We stopped at Panera for a team dinner on the fly. No one really wanted to drag out the round any longer and three team members were missing, so we didn't really have much desire to do a full-on team dinner.
We got back Saturday night. I was exhausted after running around with all of this new ATL stuff that I have to do for Ervin. So I just went to bed.
On Sunday, I put my free day to good use -- I went into the city to the Denver Art Museum. That was also quite fun. There wasn't much (Philly is actually bigger, surprisingly), but there were a lot of interactive features to the museum. http://www.denverartmuseum.org
And then Monday began. I had a lot to do: Balance the budget, getting Media, CAPper and Service Learning paperwork from the teammates responsible for those tasks, the Project Completion Report with its list of Quantifiables, Project Evaluations from members ... Basically, I spent my entire day in the office, getting help from someone, printing something, copying something, emailing something. Yeesh. It carried over into today. We had our briefing this afternoon, but beforehand I was running around to everyones' rooms to get their Reflections for the portfolio, doing their "room inspections" (whatever), talking to Kevin (Earth Unit Leader) about the vehicle predicament, talking to Bobby (Supply Manager) about the vehicle predicament ...
Which brings me to the explanation. Now, follow carefully and I'll do my best to be concise. Between Earth 4 and 5 there are four trucks. As I mentioned in a previous post, a few team members are joining other wildfire teams and the remaining members of Earth 4 and 5 will merge into a team. On Friday, the last day of Round 3, Travis, John and Adrienne, were driving downtown to get haircuts in Boulder when some guy rear ended them. They're fine, Travis was not at fault and the truck is still driveable. But the fender is bent and the tailgate, while it still functions, is difficult to open and close to the point that it needs to be fixed. So that truck is being signed back to Bobby and we'll keep Earth 4's trucks for our use, as well as Earth 5's other truck when it returns from dispatch.
But that's not the predicament. Right now, the team consists of Joanna, Scott, Paul, John, Adrienne, Travis and myself. Nikki, Blake and Chris are on a dispatch, as is Ervin. John, Adrienne, Travis and I will be taking the scheduled AmeriCorps Fall Break next week. Joanna, Scott and Paul are taking the other break later in September. As such, they'll be heading up to Nederland to work next week. However, in discussing the truck situation with Kevin, he called Chad to find out the work situation. Scott and Paul were put on the call list for the Alpine Hot Shots and they apparently have a pretty good chance of getting called as soon as Friday. If this is the case, Joanna will be the only one at the work center next week. According to Kevin, this violates AmeriCorps's "Buddy System" policy, so he has to run it by our director to see if Joanna being by herself is kosher. If she's going to be allowed to spend next week up in Ned by herself, she'll need to sign out the budget with me because Ervin isn't here. The rest of us will have to return here to Denver after our breaks because we have a community meeting on Tuesday after Labor Day and we'll sign out the other two trucks then. However, there will only be four of us and, technically, three people are supposed to be in a government vehicle if it is being driven somewhere. And I honestly have no idea when Ervin's getting back from dispatch. Got that? Yeah.
But somehow I've managed to keep my head above water thus far. I think the worst is over. The rest of the week expands a little and it looks like I'll have more time to myself or to get things done without having to be somewhere, so that's nice. Boy, oh, boy. It's funny. I never thought I would actually do anything as an ATL ...
We got out early on Friday, as you know. Earth 5 went home and did some packing. After dinner, I headed out in the rain to UC Boulder's outdoor theater to watch a Shakespeare play, Love's Labour's Lost. Yes. I sat in the rain and watched Shakespeare. I had tickets to it, someone else was supposed to go with me but they went on dispatch. So I went to get my money's worth. It was quite good, actually. Around the third act I noticed that the rain had stopped. It was a little cold, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the actors actually reminded me of a friend who, coincidentally, is a stage actor and really into Shakespeare.
The next morning, we loaded our truck up with things that we wanted to move to Nederland so we wouldn't have to bring them back to Denver. We also put all of our nonperishable food in there. A few people ran that up to the bunkhouse in Nederland while the rest of us cleaned. Once we were finished all of that, we were off. We stopped at Panera for a team dinner on the fly. No one really wanted to drag out the round any longer and three team members were missing, so we didn't really have much desire to do a full-on team dinner.
We got back Saturday night. I was exhausted after running around with all of this new ATL stuff that I have to do for Ervin. So I just went to bed.
On Sunday, I put my free day to good use -- I went into the city to the Denver Art Museum. That was also quite fun. There wasn't much (Philly is actually bigger, surprisingly), but there were a lot of interactive features to the museum. http://www.denverartmuseum.org
And then Monday began. I had a lot to do: Balance the budget, getting Media, CAPper and Service Learning paperwork from the teammates responsible for those tasks, the Project Completion Report with its list of Quantifiables, Project Evaluations from members ... Basically, I spent my entire day in the office, getting help from someone, printing something, copying something, emailing something. Yeesh. It carried over into today. We had our briefing this afternoon, but beforehand I was running around to everyones' rooms to get their Reflections for the portfolio, doing their "room inspections" (whatever), talking to Kevin (Earth Unit Leader) about the vehicle predicament, talking to Bobby (Supply Manager) about the vehicle predicament ...
Which brings me to the explanation. Now, follow carefully and I'll do my best to be concise. Between Earth 4 and 5 there are four trucks. As I mentioned in a previous post, a few team members are joining other wildfire teams and the remaining members of Earth 4 and 5 will merge into a team. On Friday, the last day of Round 3, Travis, John and Adrienne, were driving downtown to get haircuts in Boulder when some guy rear ended them. They're fine, Travis was not at fault and the truck is still driveable. But the fender is bent and the tailgate, while it still functions, is difficult to open and close to the point that it needs to be fixed. So that truck is being signed back to Bobby and we'll keep Earth 4's trucks for our use, as well as Earth 5's other truck when it returns from dispatch.
But that's not the predicament. Right now, the team consists of Joanna, Scott, Paul, John, Adrienne, Travis and myself. Nikki, Blake and Chris are on a dispatch, as is Ervin. John, Adrienne, Travis and I will be taking the scheduled AmeriCorps Fall Break next week. Joanna, Scott and Paul are taking the other break later in September. As such, they'll be heading up to Nederland to work next week. However, in discussing the truck situation with Kevin, he called Chad to find out the work situation. Scott and Paul were put on the call list for the Alpine Hot Shots and they apparently have a pretty good chance of getting called as soon as Friday. If this is the case, Joanna will be the only one at the work center next week. According to Kevin, this violates AmeriCorps's "Buddy System" policy, so he has to run it by our director to see if Joanna being by herself is kosher. If she's going to be allowed to spend next week up in Ned by herself, she'll need to sign out the budget with me because Ervin isn't here. The rest of us will have to return here to Denver after our breaks because we have a community meeting on Tuesday after Labor Day and we'll sign out the other two trucks then. However, there will only be four of us and, technically, three people are supposed to be in a government vehicle if it is being driven somewhere. And I honestly have no idea when Ervin's getting back from dispatch. Got that? Yeah.
But somehow I've managed to keep my head above water thus far. I think the worst is over. The rest of the week expands a little and it looks like I'll have more time to myself or to get things done without having to be somewhere, so that's nice. Boy, oh, boy. It's funny. I never thought I would actually do anything as an ATL ...
Friday, August 15, 2008
Transitioning ...
I forgot to mention! Yesterday, Travis and Coby returned from their dispatch to California! It's nice to have him back. And he's oak free, thankfully for him.
Well, it's been raining since yesterday's smoke report. But that didn't stop PT today. When we got to the work center this morning, we ran 1.5 miles, did sit ups, push ups and chin ups to qualify for a position with the Alpine Hot Shots. Alas, my mile and a half was not fast enough. Oh well. I think I'll be fine enough with normal dispatches.
Other than that, today was just a full saw rehab day. Joanna and I gave FSU a thorough cleaning and then I sharpened the hell out of the teeth. I threw my first chain yesterday which may have bent a raker, but using it seems to have bent it back into alignment.
Toward the end of the day (while I was still sharpening), Chad finally gave the word that a dispatch was going out. Nikki, Blake and Chris had been on stand by since before Travis got back. So Chad told them that they had a 14:00 departure time and they started getting busy. They took one of Earth 5's trucks and loaded up their gear. Meanwhile, Chad let the rest of us go early to give us more time cleaning our houses and packing up for the move back to Denver tomorrow. So we said our goodbyes to Nikki and headed back to Boulder around 1:30. I'm going to miss Nikki terribly. It's already painfully obvious that she's not around.
Well, it's been raining since yesterday's smoke report. But that didn't stop PT today. When we got to the work center this morning, we ran 1.5 miles, did sit ups, push ups and chin ups to qualify for a position with the Alpine Hot Shots. Alas, my mile and a half was not fast enough. Oh well. I think I'll be fine enough with normal dispatches.
Other than that, today was just a full saw rehab day. Joanna and I gave FSU a thorough cleaning and then I sharpened the hell out of the teeth. I threw my first chain yesterday which may have bent a raker, but using it seems to have bent it back into alignment.
Toward the end of the day (while I was still sharpening), Chad finally gave the word that a dispatch was going out. Nikki, Blake and Chris had been on stand by since before Travis got back. So Chad told them that they had a 14:00 departure time and they started getting busy. They took one of Earth 5's trucks and loaded up their gear. Meanwhile, Chad let the rest of us go early to give us more time cleaning our houses and packing up for the move back to Denver tomorrow. So we said our goodbyes to Nikki and headed back to Boulder around 1:30. I'm going to miss Nikki terribly. It's already painfully obvious that she's not around.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Another week down ...
Well, this was been our last week in the Boulder house. We’re heading back to Denver Saturday evening and Transition Week begins on Monday. This last week was pretty nice.
In my last entry I mentioned that my friend Sean passed through Denver this weekend. It was really nice to spend time with him, I haven’t seen him in a long time. On Thursday, we ended up working for Open Space, so we finished work early. I had my team drop me off at the bus stop and I took a bus down to Denver. When I got off, I called Sean and he told me to head up to the ballpark and buy a ticket because the Rockies game was apparently pretty deserted. I guess it was the make up game for the one that was rained out the day before, but not too many people rescheduled their plans to use their tickets or something. Anyway, I bought a $20 ticket for an upper level seat behind home plate but I ended up sitting with Sean and his girlfriend about ten rows behind the visitor’s dugout. It was a great way to start the weekend and I had a lot of fun. Taking a day off was totally worth it.
This past week, we’ve still been cutting at Unit 1. Things were arranged a little differently this week: we partnered up with someone and signed out a saw and that has been our responsibility for the whole week. Joanna was my partner, I’ve really enjoyed cutting with her. Our saw has been pretty cooperative, which is unusual for me because I always feel like every saw I touch, I destroy. Not really; it’s just that usually I can’t get any saw to stay on without throttling it. It’s a little frustrating when you’re trying to make a back cut to drop a tree and your saw keeps dying.
Anyway, on Monday, M Squared and I woke up two hours earlier to drive Ervin up to Estes Park’s fire cache. He was dispatched with a fire use crew – one that sets prescribed burns and such – to Idaho. As a result, I’ve been in charge of the team stuff all week. Ervin went over it with me the night before. I’m pretty much just keeping track of all the logistics – hours, paperwork and so forth. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, but this is what I signed up for. It makes colorguard captain for Surf feel like a walk in the park and it actually makes me nostalgic for it, haha.
We had our last day of Open Space work on Wednesday. All we did was haul bags of dirt left over from the trail we had built in previous weeks using these crawler machines, which were basically motorized wheel barrows. It took a team of us about 45 minutes to make one full trip. Craig and Kristen got us pizzas for lunch, which was really sweet of them. They let us out early and we gave Craig a gigantic bucket of sunflower seeds; he’s trying to quit smoking so we always see him with sunflowers. I thought he would just be amused by the gift but he actually really loved it, it was great to see. We’ll miss Craig, he always made even the most mundane work fun. He was a little like Rory in that respect.
Yesterday, Joanna cut for about an hour before she had to run Blake to Denver to get a new ID. So once she left, I paired up with our supervisor, Chad, and cut for him. The last time that I cut for Chad, I felt like a total failure. Okay, not really. But I had been really confident for a while regarding the progress with my cutting skills. And then I come to find from his critiques of my cuts that I’ve got a lot of work to do and I was no longer confident about getting my A Faller Certification. Well, yesterday was a change because he wasn’t looming over my shoulder and it was much more relaxed. I threw my first chain yesterday, which is when the chain is pulled off the saw. When I went to put it back on, I found out that I had a bent driver (the part of the chain that slides into the bar and around it). Saw rehab will be interesting today.
Around 3:00, Chad had us all shut down and get back to the trucks because he got a smoke report over the radio. We hopped in quick and drove out to Lyons before we heard that the fire was 10 ft x 10 ft and they had “adequate” support. So we were cancelled. Bah. Oh well.
In my last entry I mentioned that my friend Sean passed through Denver this weekend. It was really nice to spend time with him, I haven’t seen him in a long time. On Thursday, we ended up working for Open Space, so we finished work early. I had my team drop me off at the bus stop and I took a bus down to Denver. When I got off, I called Sean and he told me to head up to the ballpark and buy a ticket because the Rockies game was apparently pretty deserted. I guess it was the make up game for the one that was rained out the day before, but not too many people rescheduled their plans to use their tickets or something. Anyway, I bought a $20 ticket for an upper level seat behind home plate but I ended up sitting with Sean and his girlfriend about ten rows behind the visitor’s dugout. It was a great way to start the weekend and I had a lot of fun. Taking a day off was totally worth it.
This past week, we’ve still been cutting at Unit 1. Things were arranged a little differently this week: we partnered up with someone and signed out a saw and that has been our responsibility for the whole week. Joanna was my partner, I’ve really enjoyed cutting with her. Our saw has been pretty cooperative, which is unusual for me because I always feel like every saw I touch, I destroy. Not really; it’s just that usually I can’t get any saw to stay on without throttling it. It’s a little frustrating when you’re trying to make a back cut to drop a tree and your saw keeps dying.
Anyway, on Monday, M Squared and I woke up two hours earlier to drive Ervin up to Estes Park’s fire cache. He was dispatched with a fire use crew – one that sets prescribed burns and such – to Idaho. As a result, I’ve been in charge of the team stuff all week. Ervin went over it with me the night before. I’m pretty much just keeping track of all the logistics – hours, paperwork and so forth. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, but this is what I signed up for. It makes colorguard captain for Surf feel like a walk in the park and it actually makes me nostalgic for it, haha.
We had our last day of Open Space work on Wednesday. All we did was haul bags of dirt left over from the trail we had built in previous weeks using these crawler machines, which were basically motorized wheel barrows. It took a team of us about 45 minutes to make one full trip. Craig and Kristen got us pizzas for lunch, which was really sweet of them. They let us out early and we gave Craig a gigantic bucket of sunflower seeds; he’s trying to quit smoking so we always see him with sunflowers. I thought he would just be amused by the gift but he actually really loved it, it was great to see. We’ll miss Craig, he always made even the most mundane work fun. He was a little like Rory in that respect.
Yesterday, Joanna cut for about an hour before she had to run Blake to Denver to get a new ID. So once she left, I paired up with our supervisor, Chad, and cut for him. The last time that I cut for Chad, I felt like a total failure. Okay, not really. But I had been really confident for a while regarding the progress with my cutting skills. And then I come to find from his critiques of my cuts that I’ve got a lot of work to do and I was no longer confident about getting my A Faller Certification. Well, yesterday was a change because he wasn’t looming over my shoulder and it was much more relaxed. I threw my first chain yesterday, which is when the chain is pulled off the saw. When I went to put it back on, I found out that I had a bent driver (the part of the chain that slides into the bar and around it). Saw rehab will be interesting today.
Around 3:00, Chad had us all shut down and get back to the trucks because he got a smoke report over the radio. We hopped in quick and drove out to Lyons before we heard that the fire was 10 ft x 10 ft and they had “adequate” support. So we were cancelled. Bah. Oh well.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Aw, shucks!
I was doing so well getting all caught up and then I fell behind again! Okay, here we go ...
Friday night was a lot of fun. After work, I met up with Jenna, Jamie and Ana and got to catch up with them. They were staying with Jenna's cousin, who lives in Longmont (right next to Boulder). We went out to dinner for sushi because Jenna's cousin gave them a gift certificate. We all thought it was $50 but found out when we went to pay that it was actually $100! So that was quite the treat. Then we walked around Pearl and Broadway for the loooongest time trying to find a place to go dancing. Eventually we found a place off the main mall on Pearl Street and had ourselves a good time. It was actually the only time I got the chance to hang out with them because their cousin ended up having a bunch of stuff planned for the for the rest of the weekend. Still, it was good to see people from home.
The Miners Days festival turned out to be quite the let down. It paled in comparison to Frozen Dead Guy Days.
As far as work as been concerned, things have pretty much been routine. We're still cutting and piling at "Unit 1" near Sugarloaf road. For Open Space last week, we did more trail building but with Earth 4 along side, so work went a little faster. We got out extra early that day because of the heat and both teams decided to hit Boulder Creek along Canyon to go swimming. That was a nice change, there was a rope swing and such. I mostly sat on rocks and tried to get as much sun as I could. I'm so pale! Ordinarily at this point in the summer, I've got a nice tan going.
On Friday, I had quite the mission to ship my dad's birthday gift. I'd go into it, but I think I'll wait until I'm certain it arrived at its destination. On Saturday, we had an ISP removing invasive species (a certain kind of daisy) from a meadow along a creek up near Nederland. I'm officially officially done with ISP. Originally, I was done but I wanted to do more hours to have a bit of a buffer and I'm thankful I did because apparently our ISP sheet for the MS walk that we did back in May has gone missing. We can only imagine that it got lost en route to being sent to campus. That was 5.5 hours! I'm trying to track someone down whom we worked with that day, a volunteer coordinator or something, so we can get it confirmed that we worked. But our ISP this past Saturday was 6.5 hours so I know I at least made up for the loss.
That evening, we all gathered down at Outback Saloon in Boulder to celebrate a Forest Service birthday with a little karaoke. That was a lot of fun, especially seeing our boss sing! On Sunday, I baked a pie (raspberry peach) for Harrison's birthday. I also managed to have money in the food budget to get ice cream to go with it.
It's Harrison's last week, unfortunately. He'll be taking fall break next week and then moving to another wildfire team. Things have developed in this way: as a result of losing Brittany at the beginning of the wildfire season, losing Laura during last transition and now losing Coby for fourth round due to Team Leader trainings, Earth 4 is now down to eight members on their team. As a result, our Unit Leader decided to dismantle the team and use them to fill holes on other wildfire teams that will be created when members leave in fourth round for Team Leader training. To make things fair, some of our teammates volunteered to leave our team. So Harrison is taking his break with his new team now and then will head to his new location after transition week, which is the week after next. M Squared will also be leaving, but after transition week. The remaining members of Earth 4 will be merged with our team and we'll have eleven living at the bunkhouse in Nederland for fourth round.
I'm conflicted with the whole situation. A part of me is not happy with how they went about deconstructing a team and just scattering them. I look forward to living with the remainder of Earth 4, but I'm going to miss my teammates and the Earth 4 members who will no longer be working out of Nederland with us.
In other news, I'm taking Friday off because I have another friend in town. My friend Sean is moving from Boston to LA to start his career as a lawyer after three years of law school. He's driving the whole way and will be arriving in Denver tomorrow. So I'll be taking off right after work to head to Denver and spend some time with him.
Today we had a break. Adrienne, John and I went up to the work center an hour early to do optional PT. The rest of the crew arrived around the usual time, but after briefing we loaded up to go to the FS's seasonal picnic celebration. They had it in Rollinsville at the old work center. A bunch of people whom I don't recognize made some speeches and recognized some people. Some of the FS members from our work center were recognized for being excellent employees in one way or another. Then there were games and food. It was nice to just be able to hang out with everyone.
Last night, I bought my plane tickets for fall break. I'll be heading home late on Friday, August 22 (actually, I'm taking a red-eye that's past midnight, so it's technically the 23). My dad is going to pick me up and we're heading down the shore for the week with my mom. I'm scheduled to fly back on the 31 and I go back to work after Labor Day. I can't believe it's almost September already! I'll only have about two and a half months of NCCC when I get back from break. Even more, I can't believe next week is the last week of third round! It feels like it just flew by. I feel like we were just dreading moving down to Boulder, and now we love the place and it ended up being a fun experience.
Friday night was a lot of fun. After work, I met up with Jenna, Jamie and Ana and got to catch up with them. They were staying with Jenna's cousin, who lives in Longmont (right next to Boulder). We went out to dinner for sushi because Jenna's cousin gave them a gift certificate. We all thought it was $50 but found out when we went to pay that it was actually $100! So that was quite the treat. Then we walked around Pearl and Broadway for the loooongest time trying to find a place to go dancing. Eventually we found a place off the main mall on Pearl Street and had ourselves a good time. It was actually the only time I got the chance to hang out with them because their cousin ended up having a bunch of stuff planned for the for the rest of the weekend. Still, it was good to see people from home.
The Miners Days festival turned out to be quite the let down. It paled in comparison to Frozen Dead Guy Days.
As far as work as been concerned, things have pretty much been routine. We're still cutting and piling at "Unit 1" near Sugarloaf road. For Open Space last week, we did more trail building but with Earth 4 along side, so work went a little faster. We got out extra early that day because of the heat and both teams decided to hit Boulder Creek along Canyon to go swimming. That was a nice change, there was a rope swing and such. I mostly sat on rocks and tried to get as much sun as I could. I'm so pale! Ordinarily at this point in the summer, I've got a nice tan going.
On Friday, I had quite the mission to ship my dad's birthday gift. I'd go into it, but I think I'll wait until I'm certain it arrived at its destination. On Saturday, we had an ISP removing invasive species (a certain kind of daisy) from a meadow along a creek up near Nederland. I'm officially officially done with ISP. Originally, I was done but I wanted to do more hours to have a bit of a buffer and I'm thankful I did because apparently our ISP sheet for the MS walk that we did back in May has gone missing. We can only imagine that it got lost en route to being sent to campus. That was 5.5 hours! I'm trying to track someone down whom we worked with that day, a volunteer coordinator or something, so we can get it confirmed that we worked. But our ISP this past Saturday was 6.5 hours so I know I at least made up for the loss.
That evening, we all gathered down at Outback Saloon in Boulder to celebrate a Forest Service birthday with a little karaoke. That was a lot of fun, especially seeing our boss sing! On Sunday, I baked a pie (raspberry peach) for Harrison's birthday. I also managed to have money in the food budget to get ice cream to go with it.
It's Harrison's last week, unfortunately. He'll be taking fall break next week and then moving to another wildfire team. Things have developed in this way: as a result of losing Brittany at the beginning of the wildfire season, losing Laura during last transition and now losing Coby for fourth round due to Team Leader trainings, Earth 4 is now down to eight members on their team. As a result, our Unit Leader decided to dismantle the team and use them to fill holes on other wildfire teams that will be created when members leave in fourth round for Team Leader training. To make things fair, some of our teammates volunteered to leave our team. So Harrison is taking his break with his new team now and then will head to his new location after transition week, which is the week after next. M Squared will also be leaving, but after transition week. The remaining members of Earth 4 will be merged with our team and we'll have eleven living at the bunkhouse in Nederland for fourth round.
I'm conflicted with the whole situation. A part of me is not happy with how they went about deconstructing a team and just scattering them. I look forward to living with the remainder of Earth 4, but I'm going to miss my teammates and the Earth 4 members who will no longer be working out of Nederland with us.
In other news, I'm taking Friday off because I have another friend in town. My friend Sean is moving from Boston to LA to start his career as a lawyer after three years of law school. He's driving the whole way and will be arriving in Denver tomorrow. So I'll be taking off right after work to head to Denver and spend some time with him.
Today we had a break. Adrienne, John and I went up to the work center an hour early to do optional PT. The rest of the crew arrived around the usual time, but after briefing we loaded up to go to the FS's seasonal picnic celebration. They had it in Rollinsville at the old work center. A bunch of people whom I don't recognize made some speeches and recognized some people. Some of the FS members from our work center were recognized for being excellent employees in one way or another. Then there were games and food. It was nice to just be able to hang out with everyone.
Last night, I bought my plane tickets for fall break. I'll be heading home late on Friday, August 22 (actually, I'm taking a red-eye that's past midnight, so it's technically the 23). My dad is going to pick me up and we're heading down the shore for the week with my mom. I'm scheduled to fly back on the 31 and I go back to work after Labor Day. I can't believe it's almost September already! I'll only have about two and a half months of NCCC when I get back from break. Even more, I can't believe next week is the last week of third round! It feels like it just flew by. I feel like we were just dreading moving down to Boulder, and now we love the place and it ended up being a fun experience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
