Christmas Day

So our Christmas party was pretty fun. The spaghetti and meatballs were really good, and there was real garlic bread and salad and all kinds of other stuff. The gift exchange was funny, and we had some awards (like the youngest member of the dept who got the Spiderman Under-roos award, given by our LT who said "One bad night my senior year of high school, and I'd be your father." It brought much laughter and applause.)

Some pictures of people opening their gifts.





We headed back to the firehouse after that, and I played some Worms. They sent me home not long after that, and I changed into street clothes and headed back to the party. A lot of people had left, and most of the remainder were fairly drunk. I stayed long enough to have one drink, and help one of the dispatchers (who had drunk too much) back to her dorm. After that it was back to my room to sleep.

My roommate and one of the A-shift paramedics.

Poodles, the youngest person in the dept.


Yesterday I called a bunch of people for Christmas, and then just basically hung out in my room playing on the computer. The past couple of days have been cold, windy weather, so I haven't wanted to go hiking at all. The clouds are clearing out though, so we may be in for some better weather. My roommate leaves for the South Pole next Wednesday, so I'll have the room all to myself, pretty much until just before I leave.

The ice breaker is due to be at the ice edge by the 5th of January. They are estimating 4 days to break through to the station, so they should be here by the 9th or 10th. I have no idea what happens then. In years past, the ice breakers have been from the Coast Guard, so they would take people for rides, but this year it's just the Swedish ice breaker, and they are much smaller, so that boondoggle is slim. But I should get some cool pictures, and once the ice is broken up, we should get whales in near town.