On The Dusk of 2008

New Year's Eve is tommorrow already! Whew I can hardly believe it! I am excited for the festivities tommorow night! I have playing in a bluegrass band and practicing for the opening act of tommorows New Years Eve show! There will also be a band playing rock music for the main entertainment! It will be great to hear some live music and see everyones talents come alive!

It has been a good day today! Started off with the usual stretching led by Don Potter for all the FEMC folks on swing shift. At the weekley Fire Crew meeting we practiced getting all our gear on as fast as we could. You are supposed to be dressed and on air in under 2 minutes. I almost beat Monty but I had trouble with my pack straps and he beat me. On our last trial 'Kiwi' Mark beat us all in about 1min 30 sec! Work was more time spent taking an inventory of the cargo berms and shoveling.

There has been a lot of precipitation in the air in the form of ice crystals, it creates amazing halos and arcs around the sun and bands of colour through the sky! It is one of the most unusual and beautiful things I have seen.

There was also a round of pub trivia tonight hosted by Dan. My team came in second winning two out of four rounds. Gus and I will be hosting next weeks trivia!
Time to sleep before tommorrows festivities!!!!

After Grey Skies

The past few days have been wonderfully sunny and bright! This morning I was a bit dissapointed when I walked out into a landscape drifting and howling in white. Where the earth and sky were the same color throughout.
I went for a run this morning before work, it felt great! With fire season just a few months away, it's time to start focusing again!
At work we spent half the day recycling DOM boxes (digital optical modules) for the Ice Cube project. After lunch we dug buried equipment out from under the snow piles of the cargo berms. I don't think I have ever shoveled so much snow! Even when it's dumping in Idaho! Jeremy and Dan are fun to work with though and there never seems to be a shortage of shenannigans (antics, as Jeremy would say) and we usually have at least one big laugh each day!
Sometime after dinner the sky began to clear up and turn blue again, it was a welcome sight after grey skies.

Long Way From Home

It's Christmastime these days. My first ever without an immense midnight sky lit by a hundred thousand, maybe a hundred million stars. I miss the northern stars, the big dipper, polaris, all my life they have guided me home. There is a certain comfort knowing that those people I love and miss just might be wishing on the same star even though separated by hundreds of miles. Here I am just far away. Mountains and the prairie, fire in the woodstove, baking pies, doggies, family.