My mind is not unique. It's constantly racing with random introspective thoughts and musings about the world I'm struggling to pay attention to. There's SO MUCH going on at any given moment that's its hard to absorb even the limited information I take in on a daily basis. Again, this is not unique.
Given my penchant for being a little on the ghost side of things, I feel I should fill you in. 2014 has been filled with events big as small. As you know from earlier postings I've already turned down a promotion this year. I was deployed within the state as support for the response team to a serious natural disaster. Had pretty much NO summer to speak of save for the precious few hours I spent after work trying to have some semblance of fun, (Kayaking, hiking, dancing, etc.)
AT took place at the worst possible time, in the worst possible place, (in the state anyway), where we were supposed to finally be able to flex our collective trigger finger might and use the weapons we've been preparing for all year. Turns out, that in itself was a big ass disaster owing to the seasonally dry period we chose to be in the hottest driest place in Washington to shoot rounds that when fired, burn at temps in excess of 500 degrees! (Genius!!) Thankfully, we only had to put out a fire once every single iteration so... we had that going for us! Then the rest of the state realized it was on fire, so we got the call.
Chiwakum, Washington. I don't blame you for not having heard of it before. Its not small, but it is an obscure and almost unpopulated location in the middle of the state. It also had the distinction of being a 230,000 acre wildfire. (You think that's big, Oregon had one almost twice the size!) So about a hundred of us in the squadron got called to go dig some ditches and lay some hose (not a euphemism lulz.) That was serious triumph though since every federal employee had almost no expectations for us and we ended up beating the shit out of their condescension. Didn't get us the cool missions out there, like being on the front line of the 100' flames, BUT they knew better than to bullshit us. Three weeks and some long smelly days later we all arrived safe and sound home awaiting the call for some future fires since it this one wasn't put out by the time we left.
Two weeks of civilian work really quick and now I'm gearing up to head over to Germany for a pretty cool sounding mission over there. All in all, an exciting and emotional roller coaster of a year (notice the lack of social life updates!) And we're only in August! Plenty of time left to say, "More to follow!"
See ya in a few,
G.
Given my penchant for being a little on the ghost side of things, I feel I should fill you in. 2014 has been filled with events big as small. As you know from earlier postings I've already turned down a promotion this year. I was deployed within the state as support for the response team to a serious natural disaster. Had pretty much NO summer to speak of save for the precious few hours I spent after work trying to have some semblance of fun, (Kayaking, hiking, dancing, etc.)
AT took place at the worst possible time, in the worst possible place, (in the state anyway), where we were supposed to finally be able to flex our collective trigger finger might and use the weapons we've been preparing for all year. Turns out, that in itself was a big ass disaster owing to the seasonally dry period we chose to be in the hottest driest place in Washington to shoot rounds that when fired, burn at temps in excess of 500 degrees! (Genius!!) Thankfully, we only had to put out a fire once every single iteration so... we had that going for us! Then the rest of the state realized it was on fire, so we got the call.
Chiwakum, Washington. I don't blame you for not having heard of it before. Its not small, but it is an obscure and almost unpopulated location in the middle of the state. It also had the distinction of being a 230,000 acre wildfire. (You think that's big, Oregon had one almost twice the size!) So about a hundred of us in the squadron got called to go dig some ditches and lay some hose (not a euphemism lulz.) That was serious triumph though since every federal employee had almost no expectations for us and we ended up beating the shit out of their condescension. Didn't get us the cool missions out there, like being on the front line of the 100' flames, BUT they knew better than to bullshit us. Three weeks and some long smelly days later we all arrived safe and sound home awaiting the call for some future fires since it this one wasn't put out by the time we left.
Two weeks of civilian work really quick and now I'm gearing up to head over to Germany for a pretty cool sounding mission over there. All in all, an exciting and emotional roller coaster of a year (notice the lack of social life updates!) And we're only in August! Plenty of time left to say, "More to follow!"
See ya in a few,
G.
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