When your hero last checked in he had nothing but good news to report. This installment has some more good news sprinkled all around it but that of course comes with bad news. You’ll read plenty of both in this week’s installment of…The Triple F. For starters with the good news though…I’ll be home 7 weeks from today!
Indian Run Wednesday
As you all know, I spent about 3 weeks fighting with this bronchitis bitch but have been feeling much better since Sunday but I had mixed feelings when I saw on the PT syllabus that we’d be doing an Indian run for a mile and a half. For those you that don’t know, an Indian run is a group or team run in which the group jogs in a straight line and the guy in the back sprints to the front, when he gets there he yells “go” and the next guy sprints to front, etc.. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know about this little exercise, only 4 of us in the class did and I got to help demonstrate. Go me!
This is some younger kids Indian Running in a parking lot.
I used to love this drill when we did it in the basketball off season in high school. This would be the first time I ran at any great distance and the first time I ran outside since before getting sick so I was determined to make this happen and had we ran on the track I would have. Occasionally, we run the streets around campus so we encounter a lot of hills. I’d only run this course once and I crapped out VERY early when we ran it as a class. I guess I’m much more acclimated now because I made it ¾ of the way without having to stop, despite my group forgetting it wasn’t a race and refused to keep a steady pace; the thing that killed me was the steep hill that we came to when it was my turn to sprint. We were running in groups of 5, which meant more sprinting but less distances. I felt great doing it but when 1 of our teammates dropped out due to the rigorous pace, the running intensified with the now smaller group and I was no match for the hill. We’re never supposed to run alone out in the streets so I joined my teammate and we just jogged the rest of the way and made the running maniacs that refused to slow the pace Indian run their way to the end. We were the first group done, waited for everybody else at the finish as we cheered them on and then had a few minutes to lift. It was the first time Stan & I did squats all semester and the first time I’ve done them since high school. They were tough but I feel they helped out on our little test we’d be taking on Friday.
Class was okay but the Indian run in the cold brought back some of those bitchy bronchitis symptoms. They went away over night. I predicted we would be having a uniform inspection today and I was right…good thing I shined my boots real fast between PT & class. After our inspection, our director informed us about the test we had coming up which would also be the day we turn in our flashdrive notebooks for a test grade; mine needed to be updated BIG TIME.
After class I got bummer news, Laura most likely won’t be able to come out here at all during spring break. That sucks! I spent the night updating my notebook, which included downloading every single PowerPoint presentation the instructors had used in their presentations, and I skimmed through the latest episode of Glee. I then made sure I had everything in order to prepare myself for our first crack at scenarios where we had to put everything together that we’ve learned so far. This exercise would mark the halfway mark of our class time. YAY!
I had a hard time sleeping, surprise surprise, so I looked up a bunch of different videos on Youtube and I gotta say…I wish I could workout with Dr. Dre’s personal trainer. He looks amazing for somebody his age.
Not So Nice Guy
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| Along the Entrance Road into Sunset Crater for Scenarios |
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| This one too. |
Today’s another big day that I’ve been nervous about ever since orientation day, scenario day. We were told on the first day of class that we’d be visiting a local national park for a full day of scenarios and that we’d be questioned in court about one of the scenarios the following week. I immediately pictured tackling role playing suspects on the edge of a cliff, handcuffing them, searching them, reading them their Miranda rights, and escorting them to a patrol vehicle. I found out today that this was not the case.
The park was very close to our house which was pretty cool. It was a very cold morning and I felt like I couldn’t get warm out there at all. There are mountains around the park but we were in a forest…so no tackling suspects on cliff edges today. The class all gathered together & I started singing Happy Birthday to Owen, what a way to celebrate right? We were waiting for everybody to meet up in the parking lot but were distracted by the ranger that was yelling at the FedEx driver as he was driving away…we soon saw why. The truck passed us and we could see that the back of the truck was full of boxes…we could see that because the driver FORGOT TO SHUT THE DOOR! We joined in with the shouting to get the driver’s attention, Travis took it one step further. He gave chase to the truck, waving his arms in a jumping jack motion, and actually caught up to the truck..he looked like T1000 straight out of Terminator 2. The driver saw him and stopped, and Travis shut the door for him. That’s why he’s the president.
Couldn't find the Youtube video of T1000 chasing down the car so you'll just have to trust me.
We were broken up into 6 groups for the 6 scenarios; it was Nick, Turiya, Texas, & me in my group, the 6th group. For the first portion of the day, the class was split in half to learn about criminalistics. One half had to measure & sketch a crime scene while the other half learned how to dust for, extract, and store fingerprints…then we switched. Pretty cool stuff, despite it being in the 20s and windy outside. Then it was go time. Bring on the scenarios. Without going into too much detail, these scenarios are designed for us to mess up and learn from our mistakes. It’s the first time we’ve done anything like any of this. Our scenario that’s going to court was a vandalism case. Nick & Turiya drew the role of officers and Texas & I handled the evidence/ CSI stuff. As previously mentioned, we messed up and were stopped midway through the time slot for the scenario which cut into our interviewing & evidence gathering. When it was time to rotate from our first scenario we had to run all the way across the grounds to get to the first scenario, our PT for the day. We did half of the scenarios before lunch and finished up afterwards. In our scenario right before lunch, our instructor role player basically said I came across as a dick when I was interviewing him when all was said & done. ME!?!?! A DICK!?!?! I never thought I’d hear those words. He said it wasn’t bad but we’re supposed to be nice to everybody, especially since he was the victim that called in the break-in we were responding to. There was another player in the scenario that I was actually very nice to and he was the drunken suspect. He complimented me on my small talk with him at the end of the scenario, about 2 minutes after the other guy called me a dick….hmmmmmmmm.
Lunch was good; some of us ordered some pizzas which was a great idea on such a chilly day. Despite the crappy cell service I got an e-mail from my dad saying HE GOT A JOB!!!! WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOO. He’d been plugging away for a long time so it’s great to see that it finally paid off. We got to talk to some of our role players during lunch and some of them actually went through this program recently, so it was cool to pick their brains.
Our next scenario was our loudest one so I was curious to see what it was all about. It was a tricky one because we don’t know all the rules & laws yet and this instructor also told me I had to be nicer during the initial contact but he liked how I carried myself throughout the rest of it. Next we had our intimidating instructor overseeing us work our way through the one situation I’m most nervous about in a law enforcement setting…a vehicle stop. We were split into 2s and I thought Texas & I handled things fairly well…not bad for a couple of first timers. Of course our actions got picked apart and I actually fought to defend them but whatever. Our last scenario was our best one as far as developing a rapport & interviewing goes. Way to finish the day!
We got home & I was beat….and beet red. Apparently you still get sunburn in freezing temperatures. I knew that, I just didn’t plan for it. The night was met with turmoil. More than 1 student posted on their Facebook pages that national parks may be shut down if this Federal Government budget bill thing isn’t passed. I read one of the articles they shared and saw that this sort of thing has happened before and that if this budget deal isn’t passed then national parks are among the first to be shut down. GREAT! I put a lot at risk to come out here & do this and it looks like I might be screwed! This could explain why I haven’t heard back from anymore of these parks. I vented about this to Laura but I remained positive. There’s a chance I could go the NJ State Park route while this all gets figured out and there other Federal Law Enforcement agencies that won’t be affected by this whole thing so I could look to do that with this training. There’s some bad news in there but I’m putting a positive spin on it.
We got some good news tonight as well. The park that we’ve been trying to track down for our group project for weeks finally got back to us and said we could visit them on Saturday. Good News. It’s nearly a 5 hour drive…Bad News. It’s close to Vegas and I got a comp’d room for Friday Night. Good News. We’re supposed to get snow dumped on us again so we can’t go back to Vegas afterwards for fear that we’ll get stuck there. Bad News (or is it?)
T.G.I.V.F.
Thank God It’s Vegas Friday
What was supposed to be 12 straight days on is finally at its conclusion. We got PT this morning and the syllabus doesn’t have us doing anything too crazy, then class, then the hike down to Vegas. PT wasn’t too bad, minus Nick showing the same symptoms I had before getting crazy sick. He couldn’t make it through warm-ups without terrible breathing difficulties and another girl said she was feeling the same way I did when it all started with me…shivering and hot & cold sweats. Stay away from me you two. I was actually pumped for today’s PT class because we were doing vertical jump testing. I used to be able to leap like a gazelle and at times I show I still got some of it, so I was excited to see where I stood after all of this weight gain I’ve amassed through the years. Remember earlier when I said that the squats would help Stan & I? Well this was the test.
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| Saw this heading into PT. NAU Parking Services doesn't play around! |
Stan, if you remember, is super skinny, super flexible, super fast, and can run for super long. I’ve said a few times that if you morphed us together you would probably have the most dominant student in the class. Any poo, Stan can apparently jump a little bit too. He cleared a 20” vertical. I think 1 other student hit that mark and one a little bit higher than it. I fell JUST below it but I think I put my little tape sticker on the wall on my way down, not at the height of my jump. It was sort of depressing to see because I was in the 30s when I was younger but it was awesome to see that I was among the highest considering I’m the heaviest in the class. Some of the class cheers & comments made me feel good as well as some of them seemed impressed. After we jumped we were told to go lift but to come back when there was 20 minutes left in the class…CRAP! That could only mean bad things…more ass kicking was in store for us.
My strength has definitely gone up, I was repp’n out the most weight I ever have on the bench and I felt like I could do more…until I did more and could only pump out 3 reps. It’s strange what a difference lifting with a spotter makes. We did a few more exercises and then met up with the class on the tennis courts for some dynamic workouts. Five 5 second hold squat jumps, 30 plank butt kickers, pushups where you go down to about 2 inches from the ground hold for 5 seconds and then push up, 30 more plank butt kickers, V sit-ups (legs up in the air at like a 45 degree angle then u crunch up), then 30 more plank butt kickers. That’s 1 round, we did 3. I was hurting, sweating my ass off, and we didn’t even run. All of that was harder to do after benching the most I ever have, but I made sure I went over and gave Mike a pound and told him that that was awesome. My core muscles suck and that sort of crap helped them out.
When we were home I scrambled to pack a bag for Vegas, showered, got dressed for class, and ate…all in like 20 minutes. This transition sucks so bad. Today’s instructor was the same one we had for our vandalism scenario. He’s mad cool. We expanded our fingerprinting knowledge by learning how to do them as if we were booking a suspect...it was fairly cool. We learned another way to get fingerprints off of evidence but I don’t think we’ll ever use it as park rangers…but I could be wrong. During one of the breaks one of the students said he just got his first referral for a park. When we came back after the break I saw his neighbor left his e-mail opened and saw that he heard back from a park as well, even though it wasn’t good news. My faithful followers know that this is what I’ve been looking for every day for the past 6 weeks. Some people have been getting interviews, these two got letters, one got a referral which meant he’d be getting an interview and I’ve still yet to hear anything. I turned my phone on during the next break and told Laura what I discovered. Two more students heard back from a park. Immediately after I sent that to her I checked my e-mail on the phone; apparently e-mail notifications don’t come up when you turn your phone back on. I opened my account and saw that I received letters from 2 parks. I immediately wrote right back to Laura. One of them was from the Flagstaff park I applied to and the other one was about 2 hours from home, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. This whole process is hard to understand and even harder to explain but I was ruled ineligible for my self-assessment for the Flagstaff park, the other students that got letters said they got the same thing, but for the Delaware Water Gap I scored a 94 on my assessment…it’s the same assessment and these fine folks wanted to interview me. The other guy that got referred to another park scored an 85 on his assessment and he landed an interview. I don’t get it but I was certainly pumped for the rest of class and it was hard to pay attention.
We learned about another means of getting evidence called casting. We got to go outside and practice which again was cool but it was very cold. I couldn’t wait to get out of class and tell my family the news. I sent them a mass text but I had no answers to their follow up questions until I was able to break out my computer and look everything up. I reached out to them while I waited for Nick & Arkansas in my car so we could get a jump on our trip. Nick advised Arkansas that she should bring her car home so she doesn’t get stuck at campus, which meant that we had to drive all the way back across town at the worst time of day to pick her up and then come all the way back to pick up the highway. That kind of blew but it’s the safest thing to do I guess.
Vegas Bound
Wendy’s should hire this dude in my class, Alex, because he was drinking from a Wendy’s cup in class & it made all 3 of us want to stop there for dinner before hitting the road. I ate like a champ. The Wendy’s shared a space with the little C-store at the gas station we were at. After I ordered my food, I stopped in there for an Amp because who knew what this night would bring. They were priced higher than I remember them being in NJ. I guess the pin cushioned face goth girl like me because it rang up as $1.50. As I exited the store I saw that Amps were 2 for $3.00, but I only got 1. Go Me! I tried shoveling my food down my gullet before the other two got outside. I wanted to get to Vegas with the quickness and I was starving. Got most of it down & we were on our way.
The sunset over this scenery was indescribably beautiful. Before long, my co-pilots were sleeping and I was left with just my music & a long dark road. Laura called me and began the conversation with “I messed up my back at work.” I was surprisingly calm when she told me this…what else could I do? She has a minor case of sciatica which she said was bearable…so that’s good. Great, my roommate has the illness I just got over and my girlfriend has the same condition that jacked me up for weeks a couple years ago and still lingers around to this day. It’s a good thing we got food in Flagstaff because there was nothing but mountains between there & Kingman. I was getting nervous because the gas gauge was dwindling and there was nothing that resembled a gas station in sight. We made it to Kingman when the gas light was about to come on. $3.41 per gallon, not bad, that’s about where it was in Flagstaff. We filled up, the kids hit toilet, and we were back on the road.
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| Me dramatically singing "Hungry Eyes" from Dirty Dancing to help pass the time haha |
There was a high wind advisory at the Hoover Dam bypass bridge, that sucker moved us all over the road. My GPS was possessed. The screen had us off the road and driving through water. We failed to get a picture of it. Not too long after the Dam we began to see civilization but we still had a half hour or so until we got into town. Then the mountains cleared and we saw one the coolest sights around, Las Vegas all lit up. It was still hard to pick out certain places but the Stratosphere is very easily identifiable. Arkansas seemed to appreciate the sight, I don’t remember if Nick was sleeping or not. They both told me that this was farthest west they’d ever been. I’ve been to Vegas before so I’d already been further than them at that point of the trip hahahahahaha.
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| Arkansas' poor attempt to capture the Vegas lights when we saw them haha. |
We stuck to the highway parallel to “The Strip”. We passed the first In & Out Burger I’d ever seen but have heard nothing but good things about, and we eventually made our way to the parking garage of the Rio. Things are different in Vegas than they are in the AC casinos. In this particular case, we had to go up in the elevator to get to the walkway for the casino, usually I travel down. We came in on the crazy party side of the casino and it was awesome! They have this show every hour of every night of the weekend called Party in the Sky or Show in the Sky or something. I was too set on finding the check-in to pay attention to what was going on but there were half naked men & women dancing in these “parade floats” that run around a track on the ceiling and they throw beaded necklaces out to everybody. Somebody failed to catch a set and they fell right behind me on the ground. That could’ve hurt.
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| The best pic I could get of the Show in the Sky. That boat is full of pretty half naked people...see it flying over the slot machines? Pretty cool concept |
Nick & I checked into our room, every room there is a suite. Arkansas had a thing about sharing a room with guys so she had to see if they had anything available for her. $150! Given the short amount of time we’d be there she should’ve saved her money & slept on our couch…Nick brought a bunch of extra blankets & pillows for her. She said she didn’t want to deal with the farting, snoring, and toilet seat issues…I thought it was just because she was old fashioned. Ah well, no skin off my back. If it was me, I would’ve slept in the bathtub if it meant I'd save $150. We had to walk a long hallway to our room and Nick informed me that he was running out of gas. I wanted to show him the strip but I understood he was sick and probably very tired. I couldn’t imagine going out in the state I was in a few weeks ago.
We got in and I got changed. Arkansas met us in our room and I asked Nick if he was coming. He got changed…yay! We made our way downstairs and roamed around for a bit. Arkansas got herself a pretzel and she ate while Nick & I watched the beginning of the next Show in the Sky. These were some of the best looking people I’ve ever seen, guys and girls. They reminded me the way professional wrestlers used to look at local shows I’d seen at high schools and grammar school gymnasiums. Not their builds necessarily but the way their skin looked. Kind of weird. One of the dudes threw beads Arkansas’ way…she ducked hahahahahahaha. Dude was like “what was that?”
We wandered around the casino, they had an Irish Pub that had only 2 flags outside of it, the Giants & Notre Dame. I took a picture & sent it to Sharkey as these are his two favorite teams. The Rio is apparently home to the Chippendale dancers. My goofball partner from Holmdel Park used to always say “What are you doing this weekend? Working your normal shift at Chippendales?” So he got a picture of the theater with the message “Do you need a ride home after you get out?” Ahhh its fun to still be able to joke with him & the rest of that crew, I miss them.
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| Outside the Irish Pub I nicknamed "Sharkey's" |
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| hahahahahaha |
We headed out of the casino to see that there was tornado like winds blowing around so Arkansas retreated to get her jacket. I asked the bellhop dude how far the walk to the strip was, he said it takes about a half hour but they had free shuttles that ran every half hour…we just missed the shuttle. We made the walk in about 15 minutes. Working out at high elevation really paid off. This classroom training has made me almost hypo-vigilant or something. I’ve done this ever since my days of security work began but I was assessing every possible threatening situation as we were walking. Out of nowhere this dude caught up to us so I made sure to keep my eyes on him, he kept his distance. After we saw some chick get pulled over by a cop on motor cycle there were 3 bums on the side of Caesar’s and I could hear 2 of them starting to fight over who was the biggest bad ass because they spent more time in prison. A buddy I went to high school with said he’d be in town tonight too. I took a picture of his hotel & sent it to him, just saying hi…he’s yet to respond.
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| The pic I sent my buddy of where I thought he was staying. |
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| Walking over to The Strip |
As we made our way up the strip, we passed a lot more half naked girls inside casinos dancing behind the dealers at various table games. At one point Laura texted me to see how it was going, I responded “It’s all just loud machines & half naked people without you here.” That’s pretty sweet right? LoL. Half naked people, drunks, and Mexican nationals handing out fliers for hookers….The Strip is GLORIOUS! There were a few things I wanted the Vegas rookies to see but we only caught the tail end of the Mirage’s volcano show and then Nick wanted to call it a night.
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| Awesome..and it's outdoors & it's free! |
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| Volcano boom boom |
We made our way into Harrah’s where I tracked down a security guard to ask about the shuttle back to the Rio. He personally escorted us almost the entire way, what a guy! There was an ornery looking couple waiting at the stop on a bench. We sat at the next bench. Then a group of obviously intoxicated elder folk came out to join us, acting like it was somebody’s 21st birthday. They jumped on line in the chute, I followed suit. The ornery couple didn’t compute. They felt that since they were the first ones out there that they should walk around the outside of the chute to the front of the line and cut everybody else. Nobody said anything, I think I was the only one that noticed, but it was funny as they had very snobby looks on their faces when they did it. The ride back was an adventure. The drunk group was very loud, the lone lady mostly. It was some guy’s BDay, Bob. He looked like he just turned 60 or so and he was hugging everybody, even the driver. His friends told him to go to the front of the bus and hug this group of ladies who looked like they were in their late 30s-early 40s and were probably a little less drunk than the other group. Bob’s friends wanted to take a picture of him with them but they had trouble standing up. I saw the male side of the ornery couple put his hand up to keep Bob & Co. from falling on them as the female (aka bitch) yelled at the group, “can you act like humans?!?” Who says that? Bob returned to his seat and the bitch continued to yell at the group of women up front. They announced her displeasure and the obnoxious drunk lady condescendingly said “oooohhhhhh we’re soooorrrrrryyyyyy.” I just slapped my forehead and hoped the trip would be over soon.
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| Waiting for our ride |
It was nearly midnight when we returned and we walked in right next to the poker room. Evil Mini J~DuB and Good Mini J~DuB had a bit of a spat and I walked away from the room. Nick & Arkansas went to bed and I walked around for a little bit. I needed a Rio $1 chip to add to my collection so I sat at Let It Ride for about 10 minutes. I think I only lost like 2 hands; I won $20, tipped the dealer $5, and cashed out. I no longer have the urge to gamble…what happened to me? Let’s chalk it up to my maturity and the fact that we had to leave at 8am tomorrow. I stopped by the little gift shop, I was hungry. I got a turkey sandwich, strawberry Quick, and cocoa sorbet in one of those coconut shells…only thing is…they didn’t charge me for the sorbet. I didn’t realize this until I looked at the receipt before bed. Free stuff is cool…that’s two things I got hooked up with tonight.
I watched some of this rectangular-squarish thing…I think some people call it a television. Don’t you hate when you’re watching something then it goes to commercial and the commercial is so much louder than the program? Me too! It happened and it woke up Nick, even though he said he wasn’t sleeping. I crashed on top of all the sheets and pillows sideways...it was pretty funny.
Rain in the Desert
Woke up, accidentally called Laura while turning off my alarm, showered, got back into my uniform and waited for Nick to do the same. Arkansas was waiting downstairs for us and we made our way out of the casino. It sucked a big one that we had to leave after such a short stay but Lake Mead was calling. We had some excitement upon departure. There was a pretty bad car accident just across from Rio’s entrance and the cops were giving one of the drivers a field sobriety test. COOL!
The turn we had to make for our group project was a little over an hour away from Vegas and was just off the main highway we took into town. However, once making the turn we had to drive about 30 miles to get to the ranger station for out little interview. The road went on forever but we did see something cool along the way. There are wild cattle everywhere outside of town, they’re like Arizona’s deer…even though they have deer & elk as well. Well I could see there was a cow just next to the road, only a few feet away from us. Unfortunately there was a pickup truck coming from the other direction and they slowed down dramatically next to the cow. The cow frolicked away like a puppy just learning to run. The truck passed and we stopped where the cow was; two of them were staring back at us but I failed to take a picture since we were running late already.
Our 4th group member met up with us and we proceeded in to talk with the only person at Lake Mead that would answer our calls & e-mails; Ranger E. Roper. She graduated NAU’s program in 2009 so I guess that’s why she made the effort to meet with us. She was a petite thing so I think that made Arkansas feel better about her chances at landing a job after all is said and done. I don’t know if it’s her height, the fact that she’s a woman wearing a similar uniform to what I used to wear, or a combination of the two but Ranger Roper reminded me of the female ranger I used to work with. Even more so when she had to be driven around by her partner, a guy my size; the only difference is she had to be driven around because she was on light duty; my old partner had to be because she needed to play with her phone while we were working/driving. Here’s a fun fact. Ranger Roper is from just outside Chicago and her partner is from Summit, NJ. Lake Mead has their very own version of Jerzinois!
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| Lake Mead's version of Jerzinois |
It was extremely gray and windy. It started raining when we arrived at the ranger station so I was more than happy to conduct the interview indoors. Lake Mead has a no ride-a-long policy, so that blows. We did get to go down to the marina and walk around their boats so that was cool. Both rangers were very helpful, easy to talk to, and encouraging in pursuing this as a career. None of us had eaten yet so we stopped at the little diner they had along the water. It was different to say the least. Turkey Club for J~DuB, some wings & zucchini sticks for the table and we were out. I dropped John off at his car and we headed home to beat this snow but not before taking some pictures. John stayed and he called us later to tell us that he got a boat ride out of the deal. Lucky!
We made it back to Kingman but this time we were in a town part, not a rest stop. I should’ve kept going a few miles. I passed the expensive Chevron station that boasted gas prices of $3.69 a gallon and opted for the Shell station right next to it. They didn’t have a big sign with their prices but on top of the pump it said $3.59. Deal. That was until I said I was paying with my debit card and I was charged $3.69 anyway. FML. To make matters worse, I was out pumping the gas and the awning/roof was providing no cover from the pouring rain. The kids went to the bathroom but this time I went too. I was exhausted, didn’t want to drive anymore, and we had something like 2 hours left to go. We started back on our way and passed the $3.41per gallon gas station at the rest stop from last night about a mile down the road. DAMN IT!
En route to Flagstaff we hit patches of snow fall. We passed several big semi-trucks with their hazards on and got passed by about 7-8 Dodge Chargers both to and from Vegas. I could pick them out by their headlights on the way down. Hmmm…maybe this is a sign that I should get a Charger instead of the 4Runner…naaaahhhh. The kids fell asleep again but this time I took pictures hahaha. We made it back to town, dropped Arkansas off at which point I ran to the fence and played with her barking dogs Benjamin & Katie, and we were finally on our way home. It was roughly 5 hours each way, a little bit longer on the way home thanks to the long as entrance to Lake Mead. I was pooped and ready for sleep.
When I woke up I researched Delaware Water Gap some more and found out they have one of my favorite things in nature…a waterfall!!! Dingman Falls to be exact. This is one of the better paying seasonal jobs, I’d make more than I was at Holmdel, and the park borders NJ & PA. It’s about a 2hour drive and there may be housing available so I hope I’m able to land this bad boy. I spent the rest of the night tending to some business on the home front and caught some shut eye as I watched more of this snow fall on Flagstaff.
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| Dingman Falls...gee I hope I get it, I hope I get it. |
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| So cool looking |
Maintenance Day Sunday
I haven’t done much today except fill you guys in on my last couple of days. We got maybe a foot of snow, as the word on Facebook goes, but it doesn’t look to be that bad. It has since stopped snowing and it looks beautiful out. What better way to celebrate my 8 week anniversary?
Laura & I Skype'd for the first time today. It was the first time we've seen each other in 8 weeks! Gosh she looked more beautiful than ever. :)
I opted to attend our optional D-Tac practice...nobody goes to them anymore...I wish I didn't. While fighting off Travis I re-injured my back. It's so painful. The other 7 of us that were there stopped everything they were doing and watched me writhe in pain. I kept telling them to take advantage of the time we had but they wanted to make sure I was ok. Two of my classmates were EMTs so they were able to help me out as best as they could. They held heat & ice packs on my back while everybody sat around and watched. Using my brain, I had one of the girls interview Travis about what happened. We got some interviewing work in.
Back hurts, need bed
Stay classy Triple F fans.
Goodnight
Flagstaff Observations
Can you hear me now? I’ve been to 3 national parks since coming out here and I haven’t had reliable cell phone service at a single one of them. This is where I want to work?
Shaken Confidence We've heard from all kinds of rangers that are in the places I want to be, some of them say this is the best job out there but more often than that I hear the same gripes and grumblings that drove me away from the Monmouth County Park System. I guess you'll find this at any job you'll work...but it's almost the same exact gripes. Sheesh.
Oh Matrix I've had the J~DuB Mobile for almost 9 years now. We've had a lot of fun together. You were responsible for bringing home the apple of my eye, Indy, when she was just 9 weeks old. We've now seen 3 national parks together, including the Grand Canyon. We've ventured around the Hoover Dam & you even got to see Vegas. We've had countless trips to Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore, concerts, and multiple commutes to & from college together. You were the one responsible for making sure I made it to multiple job interviews and weddings on time and you didn't laugh as I practiced my "unique New York"s or "how now brown cows" in your mirror prior to presenting myself to these potential employers. I'll never forget our trips to the Baltimore Harbor, Great Adventure, or Giants and Yankee Stadiums. I have no idea all of the wonderful places you got to see while being shipped out here to Flagstaff but somewhere along the way you lost your front license plate and cracked one of your fog lights. (D-Bags). I bet murdering that giant deer 2 weeks before you left for that journey probably wasn't fun.
You were broken into and robbed of almost all of your wonderful toys and still have the scars to prove it. You were damaged the first night I owned you before I even got to take you for a spin because somebody didn't realize how low your ground clearance really was. You had a booming sound system and some tricked out taillights, now I have to punch you to make the passenger headlight come on and some of the interior lights as well. Who knows if I'll ever get that parking sticker from my sophomore year at Stockton off of your backside. I had no choice but to replace all 4 of your tires in a 3 week span due to some crazy road conditions and who could forget the infamous being pulled over and towed away for no real reason incident. I rag on you a lot J~DuB Mobile but you've truly been a hell of a sidekick. You were the first car I ever owned on my own and I'll never forget you. Now please find some way to get the folks at Toyota to love you as much as I did so they'll give me a buttload of a trade in value for you so I can purchase your much bigger brother, the 4Runner. Thank you.
Oh Matrix I've had the J~DuB Mobile for almost 9 years now. We've had a lot of fun together. You were responsible for bringing home the apple of my eye, Indy, when she was just 9 weeks old. We've now seen 3 national parks together, including the Grand Canyon. We've ventured around the Hoover Dam & you even got to see Vegas. We've had countless trips to Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore, concerts, and multiple commutes to & from college together. You were the one responsible for making sure I made it to multiple job interviews and weddings on time and you didn't laugh as I practiced my "unique New York"s or "how now brown cows" in your mirror prior to presenting myself to these potential employers. I'll never forget our trips to the Baltimore Harbor, Great Adventure, or Giants and Yankee Stadiums. I have no idea all of the wonderful places you got to see while being shipped out here to Flagstaff but somewhere along the way you lost your front license plate and cracked one of your fog lights. (D-Bags). I bet murdering that giant deer 2 weeks before you left for that journey probably wasn't fun.
You were broken into and robbed of almost all of your wonderful toys and still have the scars to prove it. You were damaged the first night I owned you before I even got to take you for a spin because somebody didn't realize how low your ground clearance really was. You had a booming sound system and some tricked out taillights, now I have to punch you to make the passenger headlight come on and some of the interior lights as well. Who knows if I'll ever get that parking sticker from my sophomore year at Stockton off of your backside. I had no choice but to replace all 4 of your tires in a 3 week span due to some crazy road conditions and who could forget the infamous being pulled over and towed away for no real reason incident. I rag on you a lot J~DuB Mobile but you've truly been a hell of a sidekick. You were the first car I ever owned on my own and I'll never forget you. Now please find some way to get the folks at Toyota to love you as much as I did so they'll give me a buttload of a trade in value for you so I can purchase your much bigger brother, the 4Runner. Thank you.
Vegas is Better Than AC It’s true people. AC doesn’t really have a lot going for it anymore except that I can drive down there and back 2.5 times in the time it takes me to drive to Vegas from here. I’ve never gotten a free, or even a steeply discounted room, on a weekend in AC before. I had 4 reasonable offers for a room at some elite casinos out here for this brief stay, of course I opted for the free one. Self parking in every Vegas casino is free. For all of you drinkers, you can walk around the streets and drink…hell they even have frozen margarita vendors on the sidewalk. Sports betters, yep they got that here. The climate is typically better too. Vegas is better than NJ period in the fact that there’s no taxes out there. Okay I’m done.
MOUNT UP!!!
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