I'm getting better!

I slept most of the day away yesterday. As a result, I'm feeling much better today, physically. I feel pretty bad otherwise, since my roomie came in from work saying her throat had been bothering her since yesterday, and that she gets strep really easily. She's going to the doc this afternoon, but I still feel bad that I may have gotten her sick, especially since I didn't go to medical right away, thinking it was just from the allergy attack Saturday night. I cleaned the room today with antibacterial stuff, and am doing laundry, but still, I feel badly.

I'm on my kelly day (day off) today, so I figured it would be a good day to get stuff done. I've done 2 loads of laundry, including putting my suitcase in the wash to clean out the shampoo that spilled. I only have to my lights and the sheets now.

My throat is still a little sore, but nothing like it was yesterday.

As promised, here is a run down of the weather conditions here, and what they mean. I also threw in some of the things there are to do down here after work, just for the heck of it.

Condition 3: Winds less than 48 knots, wind chills warmer than -75F, and visibility greater than .25 miles. This is the normal weather condition around here. You can go hiking and you don’t have to check out with the firehouse when you are driving a vehicle.

Condition 2: One or more of the following conditions. Winds of 48-55 knots, wind chills -75 to -100F or visibility less than .25 miles. You have to check out with the firehouse when you leave town and when you get back.

Condition 1: One or more of the following conditions: winds greater than 55 knots, wind chills colder than -100F, or visibility less than 100 ft. Only ‘mission critical’ travel is permitted and only with approval of the station manager. In a Condition 1, we aren’t allowed out of whatever building we’re in.

We have a lot to do in town when we’re not working. There are 2 bars, Gallagher’s, the non-smoking bar, and Southern Exposure, the smoking bar. Two or three times a week at Gallagher’s, they have what’s called Burger Bar, which is a made-to-order burger joint. Some of the firefighters work there part time. It’s minimum wage, but I hear the tips are pretty good. There’s also the coffee bar, the bowling alley, which is manual and you can get a job as a pinsetter, and the climbing wall, the big gym which has nightly basketball, volleyball, or dodge ball games, the bouldering cave, and there are other activities that the rec center puts on. The weight room is pretty decent, as is the cardio gym. There is also a ceramics room, and a sewing room, which I hear is a hot commodity come Halloween time when people want to make their costumes. There’s also a greenhouse, which I hear has hammocks for napping in.

Here's a picture of my dorm room. Mine is the bed on the right.



And some pics from the fire house (the bunkroom, the sign outside, and the old badge on the door of the engine, respectively).




We have to sort all our trash out so that it can be disposed of properly. Nothing gets left here. Instead, all the trash gets sorted, and then the waste people sort it again, to make sure it's in the right spot. Then it gets packaged up and stored till the ships come in during the January thaw. Then it gets shipped out to New Zealand or Chile for disposal. Skua (which are a kind of bird that are scavengers and will eat anything) is a building where you can go to get quality used stuff. Someone found a pair of boots, some sweatpants, sweatshirts, and all kinds of stuff in there. You can even get old dry food goods that people have sent down, and don't eat. Now is a good time to go to Skua Central, since all of the winter-overs are leaving on today's flight, and they are dumping off the stuff they don't want to take home.



Time to go back and finish my laundry.