Fires

Dear People,

It's definitely field fire season.  That means that there are going to be a lot of afternoon calls from now on.

And field fires are often hard work.

I think they're more work than house fires.  Because with a house fire, I'm a lot of external support.

I change air packs.

I get chain saws, pike poles, axes, and other equipment for the guys working on ventilation.  Which is what these guys are doing.

I fill air tanks with breathing air so they can go back into the smoke.

 I get water and Gatorade so they stay hydrated.






And basically just get anything else they might need.

On a field fire, though, it's a bunch of quick hard work.
  This is our Wildfire.  It was made by 1st Attack Engineering, and is specially designed to aid in fighting field fires.  Just behind the cab are two jump seats (they're made out of race car seats) that the two firefighters buckle in to.  They each have a nozzle attached to a hose that only extends about 3 feet from the truck.  There's also a hose reel on each side that will stretch about 50 feet from the truck.

  This is Jeff.  He's the guy that builds them.  He looks scary, but he's kinda like another dad to me.  He's a really neat guy.

  This is just a little fire.  Looks nasty, but it's not too bad.  With our truck, putting out this little guy isn't bad at all.

  Even this one still isn't too bad.

But when you come up on this, it's a little frightening.  At least Mr. Tractor still has some time to get moving before the fire gets to him.  Because if not, he'd be a crispy critter.

So: basically, use your heads.  Don't be stupid.  Burn stuff when it's not windy.  Don't burn 80 bajillion piles at once.  And don't leave while stuff's still on fire.

Be cautious and warn your parents to do the same.

Sincerely,
Me. =)

Food!

I hate days when I'm really hungry.  I feel like I go through spells.  There will be one week when all I'll do is eat.  Then the next week, I'll eat a few bites and not be able to finish the rest.  It's really annoying because the weeks where we have good food or go out somewhere really good to eat are the weeks that I don't want food.

And I like good food.

One of my favorite foods is macaroni & cheese made from scratch.  It's pretty much a two person job to make.  Mom always works on the white sauce; I tend to grate cheese and cook pasta.  The white sauce was kind of difficult to make the first time.  You melt 2T of Butter for every cup of sauce you want to make.  Once the butter is melted you take it off the heat and add 2T of flour for every cup you want.  Once you have a thick paste you start adding in 1C of milk for every 2T of butter & flour.  You add a little at a time to ensure it mixes smoothly.  Once you put the mixture back on the heat, you have to stir constantly.  If you don't you ruin the entire thing.  If you try to make it by yourself you have to have everything prepared right next to the stove so you don't have to leave it alone.  It feels like you need about 6 hands to get everything accomplished.  Once it's done, though, it's worth all the hard work.

Another of my favorites is lasagna, but I hate how long regular lasagna takes to bake.  I tend to just take all the ingredients of lasagna and just throw them on top of pasta because it's better in my opinion and is a ton quicker.

Food is awesome.  I love to eat good food because it makes you feel better than if you were to eat fast food all the time.  Homemade stuff is the best, but there's a lot out there to make it a lot easier to cook.

What are some of your favorite foods?  Leave them in the comments. =)

Oklahoma

I recently spent a weekend in Oklahoma.  My parents and I left last Thursday after the Scholastic Bowl meet in Milford and headed southwest.  Our destination: Edumund, a suburb of Oklahoma City.  Our purpose: The USA Archery and Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) Indoor Nationals.

We left home at about 9 PM expecting to travel about 5 to 7 hours and find a place to stop for the night.  It was smooth sailing from here to Springfield, IL.  We pulled into a gas station for some fuel and snacks.  We were probably inside for only 5 minutes.  By the time we came out, it was a blizzard.  We got back in the car and continued.  We lost about 4 hours of time because we were forced to travel about 35 miles an hour on the interstate.  Once we hit St. Louis, it was all good again and we kept working our way towards Edmund.

We finally rolled into OK City at about noon on Friday.  We checked into our hotel and crashed until I had to get to the venue to shoot.  Once we got onto the University of Central OK campus and into the shooting venue, we realized just what type of place we were in.  It was a huge gym/fitness center.

Where a ton of Olympic/Paralympic athletes trained every day.   Yeah, like Olympics, like the big show.  These athletes were primarily archers and sitting volleyball players, but how cool is it to say I met a bunch of Oly/Para athletes?  It definitely was a highlight of my week.

Between the actual shooting and other tournament activities, we had time to visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  It was in this spot where Timothy McVeigh parked a rental van filled with explosives in front of the Federal Murrah Building.  The explosion killed 168 people and ripped the front of the building off.  It was the biggest act of terrorism against American citizens up until 9/11/2001.

In this memorial, there are several parts.  One is a museum highlighting those who lost their lives, the event itself, and ways to prevent it.  Another part is a reflecting pool flanked by 2 'gates' with the time 9:01 on one and 9:03 on the other.  This is to represent the moment of destruction.  At 9:01, the city was still innocent; at 9:03 it was changed forever.  Still another part is the "survivor tree".  It's a tree that survived the blast.  It is surrounded by fruit and nut bearing trees as an homage to the volunteers who came to help.  The final part is the field of chairs.  The south and east walls of the Murrah Building are still standing.  Inside them, where the building once stood, sits 168 chairs, one for each person that lost their life.  They are there as a reminder that this was a senseless act of violence and that, if this hadn't happened, these people would still be there with their families and they wouldn't have left empty chairs behind.

This was a really emotional tour for me.  It really made me sad, thinking of not only the people that were lost, but the people who were lost during 9/11.  Sure, they'll get a monument, but in New York, they're not going to set aside the entire spot where the building stood for a memorial.  This monument was real.  It was a place where people can truly reflect on this event and learn from it.  It's a constant reminder to the people of OKC of exactly what used to stand there and just how quickly things can change.  I know it's a simple thing, but it really touched me.  I'm sad that we live in a world where things like this happen, but glad there are memorials like this one to remind us of these acts so we can learn from them.

If you want more info about the memorial follow this link.