Another Day, another dollar

Or at least that's what they tell me.

Here's some pictures from the other day, when we were practicing pumping. The first one is the LT and one of the other guys doing a 'Hero Shot.' The other one is of Tanker, which is what I was riding.



I got sent home after Scott Base, and yesterday I worked out for a while after lunch after a nice, leisurely sleep in till 0900. I didn't do much the rest of the afternoon except work on some pictures, and my roomie and I went to Burger Bar as dinner was not all that appetizing. After that, we both headed in, and went to bed, her cause she's still fighting the Crud, and me cause I had to work today.

Today was a training day. After truck checks, we had to sit through the chief's ARFF class, which was basically an overview of what we did in Salt Lake City. It was good though, to get a refresher, and for the guys who weren't actually in Salt Lake, it was their first real exposure to ARFF tactics beyond what they've been told by those of us who were there. That took us to lunch. After that, we headed back and did EMS training all afternoon...backboarding, KED, scoop, all kinds of spinal immobilization stuff. That took us almost to dinner, and half the shift went to the gym for a bit to work out while the rest of us stayed. I was going to go to the gym, but I forgot gym clothes, plus my legs were still really sore from yesterday's workout. So I stayed.

Because we STILL aren't staffing Station 2 24/7, we sent more people home today. I was supposed to, but I would really like to get into some kind of routine around here, and that's hard when I'm always getting sent home after 5pm. Plus, I got sent home last Sunday, and then again on Thursday. Three times in one week is ubsurd, so I switched with one of the other guys. There was a volleyball game, fire dept vs the Air Force, so he wanted to play. The rest of us ended up going down to watch a bit, and I took some pictures. It ended up being all jumbled, since we had so many people, and AF only had enough for one sub. Still, it was fun to watch, and seemed to be fun for all involved.

Tomorrow is the long morning...From what I hear, we get to sleep in, but I don't know about that. We are on till noon, and I don't know what the drill is for Sundays. From what I hear, they gave a lot of people a Kelly day, and are taking away their K day this week because we will have so many planes coming in. The weather has been bad down at the South Pole lately, so a lot of the flights haven't gone out. I guess they're going to try to cram them all in this week to try to catch up. The firefighters who were supposed to be going down today have to wait till Monday, and hope the weather improves. It sucks, cause they already did their 'bag drag' which is when you take all your luggage to the staging site, and they package it up for transport. It also means that they have to live out of whatever carry-on bag they have here until they leave.

Tomorrow after shift, I'm planning on working out for a bit before I get back online to meet Chris on IM. After dinner, I'm planning on volunteering in the galley for a bit to help out. They are always short-handed, and from what I hear, a bunch of DA's went down with the flu, so now they're even more short-handed.

As for responses to the comments from my last post...It wasn't too cold when the wind wasn't blowing, but the reason my coat was partially open was because my camera had been in the inside pocket (the batteries freeze up if you don't keep them warm) and I had unzipped my coat to get to it. The zipper tends to be sticky so I didn't want to fight with it to get it up, and then have to unzip again to put the camera away.

It was mostly my fault I froze outside that time, because I was wearing only a little knit beanie and my polar fleece jacket and gloves. I hadn't expected to be outside that long, but I didn't realize how hard the wind was blowing, and how tight the parking spot was that the tracked vehicle (which doesn't turn well, and you can't make minor adjustments with it) was in. Normally I'd be wearing big red with the hood up on something like that.