Midnight Sun

This weekend was the summer solstice which is a pretty big deal here in AK......in a way it is sad to me because that means that the days are only going to get shorter now....just when I was used to it being light all day.

Any way there was a big softball tournament here on Friday and Saturday. I went over with a couple of people and watched some games on friday night....the last game being at midnight.....there were two girls that I know playing on that team so it was fun to watch.

Afterwards we went to the bar for a little while nothing to to exciting

I found out that there was a race on saturday. It was a race around the dike, which is the road that I run almost everyday so I figured why not go and do it.....so it started at 11:00 and I wake up and was trying to decide if I wanted to go....I had stayed up late the night before and had had a couple of beers so I wasn't sure if I wanted to race or not.....well I couldn't fall back asleep so I decided to ride over there and do it.....

I ended up getting second in the woman's divsion.....and the prize for that was $50.00

So I was excited about getting 50 bucks for doing something I do everyday anyway.....I think I could have gotten 1st if I hadn't been up till the wee hours the night before

Later in the afternoon I got ropped into playing on a softball team...it was ok...I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been with more people that I knew. We lost miserably but it oh well. It was a beautiful day out so it was nice to be outside.

today I am work, hopefully we get a fire today...there was lots of lightning so we will see

Fire

I got my first fire here in Alaska.

on Friday I went out and flew a detection flight, which is where someone goes up in the airplane looking for fires. we had a report from a comercial airplane that they had seen a fire. so I go up and fly around looking for fires and we found 2 of them.

the airplane then dropped me off at a village's airport and then the helicopter came and picked me up and we went to the fire.

it wasn't to much of a fire but I got to experience having wet feet in alaksa...the minute I stepped off the helicopter I was up to my knees in water. it looked like a solid place to land but it was a floating bog..

I was on the fire for 3 days and then back here to Galena

the best part was that I got to work my weekend and that is always a good thing.

It is back to being cold and rainy here well today is a little bit nicer.

The best thing is that I was one of only a few firefighters here who have actually been on a fire this summer. The other fire that we had a bunch of jumpers jumped it. I wish I could have seen them jumping that would have been pretty cool.

I will try to post some pictures later of the fire... I just have to download them from my camera first

Town

I got to go to town last night

it was only for one night but it was nice to hang out with some other people

and for those of you wondering no I have not been hanging out with anyone in particular (if only that was the case) just not much computer access time here

Please

Make the rain go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need there to be fires!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If there aren't any soon I will have to go the extreme and think about having to work in the winter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


ok that is the extreme extreme scenario....but we need dry weather so that we can get some fires and I can be less bored

I know I have been slacking on posting these days but I don't have much time to be on the computer...ok I have tons of time but I am not really supposed to sit around the office and mess around on the computer but today it is raining so I am updating both sites!!

whats up

so what have I been doing you ask?

a whole lot of nothing....just trying to stay busy at work until we get some fires, whenever that may be...who knows. it was super nice over the weekend and I thought we might be on our way to having a fire season...well today it is cloudy and cooler again.

at least we got our garden planted yesterday....ok not our garden...it is more one of our dispatcher hilary's garden but it is in front of my house and I helped her plant it. She will be here most of the summer so she will be able to care for it more than me. I hopefully will be off fighting fires and not here.


here are a few things that I have been doing since I have been here in Galena

working out...I work out 2 sometimes 3 times a day....a run in the morning, lifting weights in the afternoons and sometimes after work when I have nothing to do I go over to the old airforce gym with a couple of people and workout somemore. I figure in order to avoid going insane from having nothing to do I might as well be in shape..right

I have not had any carbonated beverages...ok I take that back I have had beer....but no soda since I have been here....I am trying to see how long I can go without soda

Fast food...it does not exist here in galena so I do not eat it

My bed time is much later now than it has been in the past.....being that it doesn't get dark anymore..the sunsets but it doesn't get dark. you forget what time it is and if you aren't paying attention to the time you end up staying up later than you had planned.

The mosquitoes are out now and so are the leaves on the trees..it is super pretty with the leaves and the river here, but the I can tell that the bugs could get bad fast and then I will be retreating indoors

I thought about more for this post on my run this morning but now I just can't seem to remember what that was.