Internet Assisted Wandering

Wanna have some fun?
Go to www.skyauction.com and just start bidding. A plane ticket from Kansas City to Managua, Nicaragua? Sure that's worth $3 easy! A 3 night stay at the Hilton in New Orleans? You bet I'll pay $12!
But be careful, you may get caught up in bidding $1 for a plane ticket from Miami to San Jose, Costa Rica and forget you already put a bid in for $3 to Liberia, Costa Rica!
Don't worry, odds are you won't win most (any) of them, but there is always the chance you could end up with a ticket from Mrytle Beach, South Carolina to Nassau Bahamas on Hooter's Air for $45. Of course with taxes and fees it is more like $180, but seriously, the Bahamas!
It really is theraputic, and it will get you thinking about all the cool places you really need to go, right......NOW!

Hazard Pay

$2.60 per hour. That is what the federal government has decided it is worth for me to engage in "hazardous" activities. Things like helicopters, uncontrolled fire lines, and slopes greater than 50% constitute the threat that earns me an extra 260 cents per hour.

The funny part is, actually fighting the fire is one of the least hazardous things we do, although every year at least a few of us manage to cash it in. No, the things we do that are most likley to result in catastrophic accident, or more likley yet, long term damage, are frequently overlooked.

I used to think H-pay was supposed to make up for the fact we were risking our lives, but upon much reflection it occurs to me how useles that small premium is if one is dead. Instead I realized, it is to compensate not for the risk of grave damage, but the certainty of cumulative damage.

Just like an accountant, the most dangerous thing we do, is drive. But unlike accountants, we also cut down large trees with chainsaws, hike and dig line in steep rocky terrain for hours on end, and breathe smoke and disel fumes while walking through fire and heat hot enough to melt a credit card inside the pockets of your nomex pants.

Hazard pay is not given because you might die, it is given because you will have a bad back, sore knees, tendonitis, black lungs, sprained ankles, and may, on occasion be required to sleep on top of a municipal landfill. Yep, on our last assignment, at the north rim of the Grand Canyon we were in a fire camp with several hundred other firefighters and overhead personel. Right by the trail which led to the tent area was a red sign that said something to the effect: Former site of a municipal solid waste landfill. Hazardous methane discharges may be possible. Please stay out. So of course I took a picture of the sign. With several hundred tents in the background.

The suburban homestead

I took in the garden the other day, on the last day of "summer" no less, right before a hard freeze. Let's look at the season's bountiful yield, shall we: lettuce, more lettuce than I or my roomates could ever eat. Unless we were vegitarians who ate salad at, like every meal. Tomatoes: dozens of tiny red tomatoes, these things did better than expected and would have done better yet with only a few more weeks. Peas: they actually came up, and then sort of fell over, but this in spite of the malicious mulching/shading efforts of a former roomate. I actually got several tasty pods from 'em. Misc: We got one beet, a few tiny radishes, an onion, a bell pepper, and a whole lotta lessons learned.

1: Don't plant your garden and then leave the country for 2 months. No matter how well your roomates say they will take care of things, it is just not good policy.
2: Plant earlier, they say corn should be knee high by the 4th of July, I had knee high by 4th of September.
3: Tell the other assistant gardeners what you planted and where, so they don't plant tomatoes on top of your cabbage, or build elaborate shade mechanisms on top of the rutabegas.
And so on and so forth... So the garden is all but done for now, on to the next adventure in suburban homesteading: Livestock!

Last year I noticed the grass in the back yard was a bit on the shaggy side and it was suggested I get a lawn mower. Now my back yard is no 18th green here, we're talking more like mini-golf size acreage. So, rather than waste the money on a lawnmower, someone suggested jokingly that I get a goat to eat the grass. Well I thought that was brilliant and proceeded to try and convince my roomates of the practicality of a lawnmower that, after eating the grass, we could eat ourselves. And maybe get some milk too, why that is a great deal! Unfortunatly, no one had goats for sale at that precise moment, and a series of distractions and whatnot delayed the goat aquisition, but now I am reading up on backyard livestock, in a book by the same name (thank you Mel!) and have settled on rabbitts. And geese. And maybe some pigs. The rabbitts will live in hutches in the garage and will be bred for meat, the geese get along well in cold and snow so will live in the backyard and supply us with eggs until such time as we descide to eat tham, and the pigs will be raised up from piglets to market weight being fed on resturant and grocery store surplus. It is a win-win situation. As long as the home owners association doesn't get wind of this. If anyone from the neighborhood nazi's shows up asking questions about the strange noises coming from the back yard, the roomates have been instructed to refer to them as Fido, Rex, Fluffy, and so on. No livestock here, only the family pets...

A boat measured in cubits...

And two of every animal. And enough beer to last 40 days and 40 nights. This is what was on my mind this afternoon as the rains kept beating down, a gift from former hurricane Javier. By a funny twist of government engineering, the entire Happy Jack watershed drains directly into our fire shop, so we spent a good portion of the afternoon engaged in makeshift hydro engineering.
And speaking of hurricanes, several folks from our forest got assigned to go help with the reovery and disaster relief efforts on the Gulf Coast. I tried to pimp myself out as an EMT, but apparently we are in high supply. Too bad I'm not a dozer opperator or incident commander.
So we had a lazy day here, a saftey meeting at the cafe involving blueberry pancakes and coffee, cutting a down tree that had fallen across a road, and much time in the shop. Some cleaned chainsaws, I sharpened tools. Most were already in pretty good shape, so I set out to see how sharp I could get my pulaski. For those who don't know, a pulaski is a fire tool with an axe head on one side and a hoe, used for scraping on the other. By the time I was done with it, you could have shaved with it, provided you had small pine trees growing out of your face that you wanted trimmed.
And before I forget, it is not to late to creap out the bartender by ordering "rum me hearty, and step lively. Yarrgh!" Yes, today is national Talk Like a Pirate Day.

When I grow up, I'm going to be a clown

Or more likley a street performer. Like someone you might see in the French Quarter of New Orleans working for change and small bills. It seems to me that if you have some simple skill in a thing like juggling, you are never without bus fare or a meal, just spend a few hours in a busy park or street corner, and you have a ticket to the next time. Just the thing for a vagrant like me.

The circus is in town, and boy, was it something else! Contortionist, motorcycles in the globe of death, trapeze, jugglers, pretty girls doing acrobatics, clowns, peanuts, cotton candy, hot dogs, the whole nine yards. I was like a little kid (was?) bouncing up and down in my seat eating cotton candy and gasping at the neato stuff going on in center ring.

After the show dropped off the friend I went with and ran by Basha's for some supper. After spending entirly too long evaluating the differant varities of frozen pizza, I made my way to the checkout lines, but alas the cute checker wasn't working that day. Paid. No, no need for a bag, just my frozen pizza and a 32oz Miller High Life. (the Chanpagne of Beers) Dinner in hand, I spot her at the customer service counter and absently get in line, trying to figure out what reason I could have; no don't have money for a lotto ticket, not getting a money order... And then I was standing there next in line, dinner in hand and no reason for being there. I would like to say I asked her when she got off and that we went to dinner and had a lovely evening. Instead I grunted something incoherant and gave a dorky smile and sort of shuffled off. And am now eating frozen pizza and looking at clown colleges on the net. Seems there is a clown seminar in vegas in a few months. Hmm...

Beer for lunch

The problem (among others) of living in the 'Jack is that when I return home on days off, there is no food in the house. Wait, slightly inaccurate, there is some tea, corn meal, pudding mix, stale chips, a jar of pickled okra, and a few bottles of beer. So naturally meal time is an adventure. I have learned however that when not too terribly hungry, beer can be substituted for up to two meals a day, with little ill effect.

Had the annual neighborhood garage sale this morning, had to take a day off work for it. I figure I've worked for the government for three seasons now and never called in sick or taken a day off, I deserve one. Much of the fodder for the sale was made up of remnants of roomates past. It was kind of an adventure trying to track the ancestry of various pieces of clothing or furniture. Of course the best seller remains Nick's pottery, honestly he could make better money selling his pottery than working as a janitor as he does. Couldn't sell the damn ancient tv Mel bought last year and left in the garage. Tried selling it for $1 but no takers, so upped it to $2 and threw in a pair of goggles, gloves, and a 2x4 or cinder block. Still no takers. So by noon the free sign went up and the garage door went down; if any remain by this afternoon it goes to Goodwill.

Been thinking what I will do once I get laid off in two weeks, after the long nap on the couch, and another on the deck, I was thinking about becoming a substitue teacher. In AZ you need only a college degree and a set of finger prints to take over anyones class room for a day, and it is sporadic and infrequent enough to appeal to my vagabond nature. Only concern is a fear of the karma I may have accrued in my years as a student in my behavior towards teachers and subs. It may yet come back to bite me in the ass, but I hope to be the "cool" "hip" "young" teacher that the kids like. Judging by my flagrant use of quotations in that last sentance, the prospects aren't good. And let's hope they don't have me teach english or spelling! "Ok students, today, we are going to learn about punctuation; I like to think of commas and semicolons as a spice, sprinkle them around liberally!" Oh, the carnage I could wreak on their impressinable little minds!

A brave new world, or How I stopped worrying and learned to love the Blog

OK, time to get something off my chest: I am not a fireman. I am a fire fighter. A wildland fire fighter. There is a differance:
Firemen (or structure monkeys/ ladder dorks as we refer to them) save cats from trees.

We spend our days cutting burning trees down, thinning forests, hauling slash.

They polish the chrome on thier engines and ride in parades.

We wash the truck when it gets slow; nothing like a clean rig to insure a fire call at the end of some rutted, muddy dirt road.

They run into a burning building when everyone else is running out.

We run into a burning 100,000 acre forest fire when everyone else is running out.

They arrive on a fire scene, pull a few hundred feet of hose and dump thousands of gallons of water on it until it goes out.

We arrive at the end of a dusty dirt road, pull on our fire packs, grab chainsaws, gas cans, hose packs, hand tools, and 5 gallon bladder bags and hike into our fires.

Not that I don't appreciate what they do, everyone in emergency services knows they do alot more medical response than fire, and are good at it. And if my house ever catches fire, I wouldn't turn 'em away. But I am a fire fighter, and I am proud of the differance.

This tirade was brought on by a certain lady friend who was telling how she described me to her friend. I did not fly off the handle at her, as she was nibbling my ear at the time, but the distinction has been gnawing at me since.

For those who have been following the saga (as if you could really call it that), I went out with Renee again last weekend. We had dinner, went dancing, saw a movie, generally had a good time. So why have I been so hmm, how do you say, disquieted by the whole state of affairs?

Looking at it from this perscpective (by that I mean staring at a computer screen) it occurs to me one reason: she is the first girl since Mel the Shorter I have had more that 1 or two dates with. But more than that, it may be because we have had a good time together and I fear that if we continue on this road we may end up develping feelings for one another. The kicker is that while we have a good time, I see no real chance of an actual relationship with this girl, thereby neccesitating a painful breakup at some point.

Sheesh, this was the sort of stuff I used to critisise Mel for, being to analytical, thinking to much. Now look at me. Who knew this whole dating thing was so difficult? And I still live in the woods for crying out loud! What the hell is going to happen when I move back into civilizaton in 2 weeks I shudder to think.

Sorry about the spelling mistakes, my first post on Blogger and I can't figure out the damn spell checker.