I went snowshoeing by myself today. I think that I went about 2 miles and cut the trail the whole way. Very tiring! Anyway, if you couldn't tell this is me in the snow (Left) and this is the trail I cut with some animal tracks next to mine (Right).




This marks the farthest I have ever gone before.

This is this years fire season slide show that I made. I didn't do the music but I did everything else. My boss didn't like the music from last years video so he wanted me to use his picks which I think sucked for the purpose of making this kind of video, but whatever. It was nice last year because me and another guy making the video had complete creative control. Anyway, to start out we did some tree falling videos to show some of the project work we did and this years video goes in some chronological order. First project, then Nor Cal, then goes on to Washington. It briefly goes into our Utah and Idaho runs which were not long ones. Most of our time was spent in Cali and then Washington so we devoted most of the time to those two places. So thats the video, shorter than last years as well. I noticed when I showed people the 07 one, around 5 min they lost interest so that is why I made this one that short. I would love to get your feed back on this and any suggestions for next year. Oh and be warned there is swearing in the music. The only one that I noticed is during the Washington portion (it has a digerydoo at the beginning of the song with helicopter and plane videos). Its durring the second slide after the close up of a guys face who is smiling and has red retardent running down his helmet. Now you are warned. 

(For a larger version its also on youtube under UFRA 2008)

The fire season is almost over. I thought it was done but today they (lone peak) called me and asked if I wanted to stay on call for the next 30 days in case Cali could use us and I agreed. I don't think that we will be going and in like a week or two they are going to call us and tell us that they aren't going to need us. Well now that things are done for the most part what's next for old Geoff? Hopefully some traveling. I haven't really gone anywhere in a while and it would be nice to see something new. I hope as well to do some backpacking. Get away from it all for a few days. That would be nice. Well thats my update.

It's been a really long time since I last updated this thing and a lot of things have happened. For those who aren't always around me but read this blog strap in and hang in there while I try to summarize the past several months in this entry. Well its really not that bad and not as interesting as I made it seem. Well in June we went to a fire in southern Utah where I developed an extremely intense headache that never went away. Although the fire was ok, and I got to use some of my long line training, the benefits were greatly overshadowed by this pain in my head. We were released from that fire to go to Nor Cal for a fire there. I went to the ER when we got there to find out what was wrong with me since the headache had only gotten worse. There they diagnosed me with pink eye and ignored the extreme headache and released me after the nurse made some unsympathetic remarks about me and my so called "condition". Well then next day we went to a staging area and waited while the unorganized and unprepared california forestry guys figured out what to do with us. Finally they sent us to a fire near... well nothing of significance and we arrived that evening, and again I went to the ER in some small town because my head was killing me. There the told me it wasn't pink eye, thank goodness, but is was migraines. I have never had migraines but your the doctor so ok. At least the didn't overlook the pain in my head, which is what I was seeing the doctor about, and they gave me vicodine for the pain. The next day we finally got on the line and started to put some line around a particular piece of the fire, but because of the lethargic attitude of the california forestry personnel in developing a game plan in a timely fashion they chose to let us sit for an hour before putting us on the line. Not long after we got out there the fire activity became too intense that we had to pull out and sit in our safety zone. Later a new plan was developed and ended up doing a night burn and pulling a 24 hour shift. which was pretty cool.

The down side to the whole night but is that my head still hurt, not as much, and the vicodine was making me sick to my stomach. Well I'm getting sick of telling this part of the story, so to make a long story short I went to the doctors 2 more time before they found that I had shingles, and because of the vicodine I couldn't eat and whatever I did eat I threw back up. so the sent me home from california. The last doctor gave me some better pain killers that didn't make me sick, so the rest of the experience was much more pleasant. Though the pain was better, things ended up getting worse. I got into LAX on alaska air and was leaving on united which are on opposite ends of the airport and to make things worse, none of the terminals connect after you pass though security. So you have to leave one and go to the other and my flights were like 45 min apart. Needless to say, I missed my flight and had to catch the next flight in the morning. So I slept in the airport on the floor because they wouldn't give me a ticket till the morning. What a horrible experience. But I now am better and am back fighting fires again, and I only have a little scarring on my nose to remember this whole thing.

Well many other things have happened but this took longer than I thought and I'll have to fill in the rest in other posts.

Long Line Training

Last week I did a long line training class for firefighting. It teaches the proper way to hook things up to a helicopter. On monday we got to perform the skill by hooking things up to the helicopter. Actually it was a two part thing, one person talked to the pilot and guided him in and the other person hooked up the load, and everyone had to do both things. It always fun dealing with the helicopters.

Out of gas...

This morning as I was getting ready to go to school I decided to take my motorcycle because I knew that it was going to be a nice day. I knew that I was low on gas because my odometer was a 115 and thats about the time that I need fill up so I checked the gas tank and saw that it was pretty low but I thought that I shouldn't have a problem getting to school, and I would fill up after school. Well all was going well. I was happy in my little world singing songs to myself on the freeway. Just at the peak of my contentment thats when it hit... A sudden loss of power and immediately I knew what that meant (from a previous experience that I had). I quickly got over to the shoulder and slowly came to a stop. After many failed attempts to revive my starving motorcycle I was forced to push my bike the 1/2 mile to the next exit. Between the half and 3/4 mark to the exit some one stopped to offer a ride to the gas station but since I was so close I opted to just push, but I thanked him for the offer and he went on his way. Well to make a short story shorter the end result was a very tired Geoff. But it wasn't all bad, I did learn pretty much when my bike is out of gas, and I was a little cold on the ride. As well, when I got to school they did have a free BBQ. So it wasn't all bad, besides I needed the exercise.

UFRA plaque.

This is the plaque that a few of the members of the UFRA crew made this year to commemorate the 07 fire season. The whole project was spearheaded by Aaron Gee (a rookie crew member), the computer mock up of the bar was done by Jasen Kennington (an LCM on the crew) who also provided a print of the crew photo, and I (LCM/Squad boss on the crew)  provided some creative input and some financial support for the project. The top is a 28" chainsaw bar with pieces of aluminum glued on. On the aluminum is printed some pictures from the season (I'm in 2) and beside them are the letters UFRA, each letter made up of the names of the fires we were on some other stats. The bottom is the actual plaque with a crew photo and the names of the crew members and detailers to the crew. The picture doesn't do it justice since I took it with my phone but it looks good, the best one made yet (total 6 or 7 plaques).  

This is our plaque from last year. Not too bad. Just a drip torch with the crew members on it and the crew photo underneath it. I didn't have anything to do with this one. One guy (Ryan Prestwich) from our crew took the initiative and did it all himself. So I can't complain because I didn't do anything with that one. 

Global warming proven

I found this on Digg today  and thought that it was funny.

I was in Logan today and we had some extra time to kill while we were out, so we stopped by Best Buy. As I was walking in I saw this sign. Kinder Parking, a parking space reserved for expecting mothers and parents with toddlers. Ok first of all, how many expecting mothers do they get in this store to actually merit a parking spot designated specifically for them? Also this is an electronics store in Logan, UT not freakin'  Walmart, is two spaces closer going to really make a difference? A mother is starting to have labor pains so she runs to her car and is not going to be thinking "damn I wish I had a spot reserved two spots closer." Along with that, woman if you are going into labor the last thing you need to be doing is recklessly driving to the hospital. Just stay there and call 911. You don't know how fast that baby is going to come, better to call the EMT's who are trained to deliver babies in an emergency than to have some stranger on the side of the road who watched a baby delivery in health class. Do your baby a favor and stay put. Parents with toddlers, its not like you're going to need to whip out a stroller to walk into the store. You don't need a spot two spaces closer at Best Buy. But since you already have them why not have spots for people with a history of heart attacks or strokes. Makes just as much sense to me as having them for expecting women.

Winter Wonderland

This winter we have seen more snow than any winter that I have seen in several years. This is a photo that I took from my front window today. Just today I think it snowed like 4". Not bad and I have been trying to keep up with all the ski resorts on the snow base and most are at 100+". Most people think of how inconvenient snow is but I welcome it. This stuff comes only one season a year so you might as well enjoy it. Besides complaining isn't going to make it go away. As well for the guys that read my blog, there are endless free date or fun things to do with girls ideas from snow. You have sledding/tubing, making a snow man, snowball fights, snow sports (like football, ultimate, or soccer. I played snow soccer last year with some girls, and guys too but nobody cares about them, and it was really fun.), snow angels, snow shoeing and many other things. You just have to change the way you think about it. If the world gives lemons make lemonade. Personally I think snow is one of the greatest things God has given us. It helps me to slow down and take a look at everything and realize how pretty things look covered in snow. Another thing too, people are all concerned with droughts in the summer, well the more snow we get now the more water we'll have in the summer. Funny how that works. People don't really care about anything they just don't want to be inconvenienced. I'm curious as well, how does all this snow play into that global warming stuff?

More school frustration

When we are going through grade school and especially high school most of the stuff that we learn we learn in class and and are given reasonable amounts of time in class to do the work that we need to do, but then you come to college and find out that its quite the reverse. Why is it that most of the learning and work must be done on our own, especially when a college students time is much more valuable than a high school student? You would think that we would want our students to be prepared for college so we would structure the learning more closely to how colleges do it. That way we don't develop bad study habits and perhaps more people might go and be successful in college. I mean if that how colleges are going to do it. Or maybe we can change the way colleges teach. One or the other, something has got to change. Hmmm... i wasn't going this direction with this entry but it has wandered this way, but maybe thats one reason why we need those waivers from the government on private school tuition. If we aren't getting the necessary skills and education from public schools why should we be forced to continue to go there just because we don't have the money to pay for anything better. This way it will force a reaction from public schools to restructure in order to stay alive. In my opinion, it will raise the standard of learning all around. But who's asking for my opinion...

Orney Awards 07

Every year for the past 5 years a lot of the guys in this picture put on an awards ceremony for Christmas ornaments. Every year the popularity grows bigger therefore making the competition harder. Each person who goes makes a Christmas ornament and submits it to be judged, and then they hold this awards ceremony to give out trophies to the winners. Well me and my roommate Jasen decided that we were going to submit one. And well....
consequently we took 1st place. This is us with the first place trophy. As well as Maloni and my other roommate Eric. Eric is one of the people in charge of the awards and well... Maloni didn't win. Also me and Jasen were the first men to have actually won 1st place, that was pretty cool.







This is the ornament that we made. The theme of the ornament is A Christmas Story. Thats right there is an iPod in there playing the movie and a clay re-creation of the leg lamp with a working light in it. There are some other additions to it to give these people some culture, Starry Night by Van Gogh and on the other wall behind them (not seen in the picture) is the Three Musicians by Picasso. I painted Starry Night and Jasen did Three Musicians. Needless to say, a lot of effort went in to this as it paid off as can be seen above.

Another one bites the dust

Well its official, Maloni is now married and another friend lost. He might turn up again in like a year or so but i don't really expect to see him except major events and in passing. Oh well. The reception was a pretty good one. He being polynesian and she being mexican/ native american you know there was a lot of dancing. It was pretty much a living legends show but for free and lots of good food. I don't have any pictures or anything but i'll try to get a hold of some. Oh and another reception that i caught the garter. Lets see if it pays off this time. My money is in no. All around though it was a good time. got to see lots of people that i haven't seen in a while. But now though, with the dynamic duo broken up all eyes are on me now to get married. We'll see...

School frustration

So in school, i guess that it is customary for teachers to assign reading assignments that would be use or tested on in the following classes. I have a problem with this, or else i wouldn't be writing on it. So they are telling me that i need to go take time out of my busy schedule to read on some subject and use it in the class. Well my question is WHAT THE HELL AM I PAYING FOR THEN? If you aren't teaching the necessary stuff and i have to read it myself what am i doing there? The amount of info that some one gets out of reading the book only takes like 5 mins to cover and most of the time they have to go over it again because everyone forgot it. In addition teachers were in the same place i am in, they know that a student's time is over taxed and they don't have time to read 70 chapters. Professors y'all need to do your job because i'm there to learn from you and not the book on my own time.

UFRA 07