Wholly crap! It’s Spring Break and the work load is really starting to pile on so I’ll TRY to be brief with what you’ve missed the past few days then I gotta hit the sack. Fun fact, in the last 30 days or so…I’ve had 1 day off and I still got 2 more days on….I never want to hear any of you punks bitch about how much you work ever again…at least you’re getting paid. I’m going through all of this and have no idea if, where, or when I’ll be working again. MOUNT UP!!!
“What Is It” Wednesday Wrap-up
Sprint ladders suck. I was very happy to be back running with my classmates again. You all know about the pain in the ass back issues I’ve had for the past 3 years now and the recent case of bronchitis I had out here in Flagstaff, so I missed some PT time. I prefer sprinting to longer distance running but that may change after today. After warm-ups we went outside to this big wet field to do our first ever sprint ladder. We broke off into groups of 5 and you start the run in the push-up position with your chest and stomach completely on the ground. The instructor yells go and you take off. The ladder is broken up into 3 distances; 300 yards, 200 yards, & 100 yards. After the group in front of you goes, you run the distance of the current segment, walk around the outside of the field back to the start, wait your turn and go to the next distance…after you do the 100 yards you go back to 200 & then 300.
This would’ve been fine if almost half the class didn’t combine into 1 giant group thus eliminating any chance at taking a break before sprinting again. I was the 2nd 1 done in the first 300 & 200 yard segments but I was definitely gassed after that. I wanted to quit after our 100yd run but I kept hearing the song that got me through the toughest part of my workout the night before…Throwdown’s “Never Back Down.” I’ve missed so much and I wanted to push myself to keep going. I did keep going but sitting out would’ve been good for the fact that it would be the only time I’d get to see a team in uniform run 100 yards across a field, as we found out would be the case Friday night….stupid NFL! I was quite proud of myself for getting through the ladder, then some of the more energetic turds pointed out that we still had 15 minutes left…so Mike had us do another 200yds & 100yds. We damn near sprinted a mile! Funny thing about it; the leader of the charge for extra reps ended up getting sick hahahahaha.
Never Back Down - funny video, naughty language, awesome song...I was shaking doing these crazy push-ups in the gym that Mike showed us in PT. I probably would've stopped a long time before I finally did but the mantra of this song pulled me through
Other Wednesday Highlights: Aunt Pam sent me some banging brownies…they were AMAZING!
I once again had some errands to run so off I went. Hit Best Buy to return something, and then I wandered around the mall. I took 1 of my ranger hats into Lids and got Ward engraved on the back…meet my new range hat. Now the nametag tape can’t fall off the back all day anymore.
No Morning Off For You
Normally we have Thursday mornings off, that hasn’t happened in about a month. At least our class locations were cut in half today. I was heading over to class when I got a phone call from one of my classmates…asking for a ride. She had a flat tire so the taxi was back in service. I had no idea where the girl lived or how to get there and she had to call our Kathy (our director) to give her the heads up that we might be late. We walked in the classroom at 7:58, just in time for our surprise weekly inspection that I foresaw coming and was relieved that I shaved last night.
We continued our week long quest to figure out automobile accident investigations; today we learned mathematical formulas to figure out speed just by measuring skid marks! I hate math. We worked until about 12, had a lunch break, and then had to go to the Flagstaff airport (of WFR helicopter day fame) for an accident scenario. The officer (the same one who was teaching this topic for the first time ever) used his squad car for our scenario and hypothetically rear ended Travis’ truck. The officer went so far as to speed down a stretch of road and slam on his breaks, living measurable skid marks.
We were broken up into 2 groups, 1 group measured just about everything at the scene and the other group got the fake drivers licenses, plate numbers, and passenger information…then we switched. It was pretty funny having everybody driving on the road next to us stop and stare at what we were doing. We flew through the exercise and were let out of class super early; which was super awesome since it was easily the nicest day out in Flagstaff so far!
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| Future Rangers in Training |
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| Doesn't this look like that Beatles cover or something? |
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| Nick, Jake, Me, Stan, Eric, & Turiya |
I got home and wasted little time in getting over to The Plex. I didn’t get much of a workout in but I did stumble across a rare beauty that should have my 4Runner shaking in its boots; the new Dodge Durango that I saw in a commercial for 2 seconds.
2011 Dodge Durango - It's Green!
I had to hurry up and get out of the gym because my group was meeting at the library at 7 to work on our Lake Mead project. I even skipped dinner to make sure I was there on time. Nick was already on campus because he’s organizing a ranger team for a softball tournament, and no I’m not playing, but the other 2 members of our group…Arkansas & John…must’ve missed the memo regarding our start time and we had to wait for them. We waited for almost an hour! God this group crap is getting old. We did make good progress though and so far our project is looking verrryyyy niiicccceeee.
“Farewell PT for a Week” Friday
Looking at the syllabus, I was getting mentally prepared for today’s PT class all week. We have a timed 1.5 mile run, which is the distance we need to run in order to pass the PEB, and I haven’t ran that long since our PEB pre-test…which means I’ve yet to see the course we run in order to qualify for the PEB…that was a mouthful. I have all kinds of reasons for dragging ass in the run today: I haven’t ran this distance in a long time, my back is still jacked up, my legs are sore and feel like they each weigh 100lbs after our sprint exercise the other day, and I stayed back with my slower classmates as we’re supposed to stick together. Bad news – my time was very very crappy…the worst it’s been out here. Good news – I ran the entire time without stopping or walking. I had to stop going forward & jog in place a couple times in order to motivate some of the slower runners…but I never stopped. The time will get better; it was my first time back. I hope I can get myself to think as positive about my bench press as I do about being able to qualify for the 1.5 run.
The class was split in half so while I was running, the other half of the class was working on their bench press…an area I recently discovered I need a lot of work on. While waiting for a bench, my instructor came over and asked, “how much weight have you lost?” I was shocked to see him make the effort to come talk to me but I responded, “27 pounds”. He went ballistic and was very happy. “You’re killing it!” he threw in there. I immediately cut him off, “Yeah. But if I don’t get this bench press up and pass this mile & a half it won’t mean anything.” His face sunk. “Follow me.” We walked away from the rest of the class and headed toward the dumbbells. He picked up a 25lb dumbbell and said “hold this”, I took it
from him, “this is no longer on your body…give yourself some credit. You came here at a disadvantage.”
Although this was probably the nicest conversation we’ve ever had, I know I still have a loooong way to go.
I explained that it was dejecting to still have so much “flub” visible even though I’ve been toning up…I described it as having fall off the bone rib meat or something…my muscles are getting sexy but they’re still covered. He related it to what you see on the Biggest Loser…they don’t look they are losing weight early on but they are…and then he offered to send me some nutritional stuff. The rest of PT only got worse from there. We couldn’t get on a bench so Stan & I went heavy with some dumbbell benching. We finally got a chance to get on the barbell bench and I loaded up my necessary PEB weight…I couldn’t even get the bar halfway up; I may as well have been trying to bench press a car. Some of my more knowledgeable classmates offered up some tips but it just wasn’t happening today….which I was very pissed about. I did a set of my normal rep weight, and when I was finished, I football spiked the blue foam pad (we were using to help us work on our form), ripped my gloves off, and walked away from everybody. I could see the concern on their faces. They’ve never seen me do anything but smile or laugh but they saw the serious pissed off side of J~DuB and knew it was best to the stay the hell away from me until I calmed down…which I did in about a minute hahahahaha. I got an e-mail at the end of PT, another referral letter. I was not referred for a job in the Everglades despite scoring a 95 on the assessment. A 95!!! I’ve just about given up on this whole process.
Today’s class tied everything we’ve done all week together and we had to complete a report packet for the accident scenario we had yesterday. I hope, if I get a job at a park, that nobody ever gets into a car accident while I’m on duty. The paperwork was endless. We had 4 hours to complete the assignment and I was one of the many that have to turn it in after Spring Break. Photo logs, crime scene sketches, witness statements, citations, actual reports, etc.. I might’ve been done if I didn’t start with the photo log. I put 27 pictures in the log and then Kathy announced that it was just a practice report and we only needed 2 pictures just to show that we know what we’re doing. Are you kidding me!?!?! Everybody loved my pictures so much that I had to keep passing around my flashdrive because not everybody brought their cameras to scenario. Oh me.
Taco Time: Jake invited some people over his place for a Spring Break kickoff taco night. I stopped & picked up some ingredients after picking up my taxi fares for the evening and headed over to Jake’s. The cool thing about his place is that it looks almost brand new; the only furniture he had in his apartment were 2 folding tables, a lawn chair, and his king size bed. That may sound sarcastic but it was awesome. He had so much more room for activities. Nick & I were the only ones that brought chairs but nobody seemed to mind sitting on the floor. The tacos were great and then it was time for me to provide some entertainment. Jake left his guitar out, I have no idea how to play (I usually just play the case), but I didn’t let that stop me. I began making up a song about our class..my usual every line rhymes but is still pretty funny style, and I would stroke all of the strings on the guitar as I delivered the punch line. I grew tired of making stuff up for about 20 minutes so I pulled out my phone and played the class theme song that I found…Rascal Flatts – Unstoppable (Olympic Mix). The chorus is perfect for what we’re going through but when it came on, I recited it as if I was a dramatic Shakespearian actor. My mates liked what they heard so much that they requested me to sing at our graduation….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. If I had the voice…maybe. One of my buds said that he’s going to follow me to whatever job I end up working if I end up not making it with the National Park Service…such an ego booster. All of this love they were giving me inspired me to start writing down the random blurbs I put out for them…but it all still needs a lot of work. We watched half of Jackass 3 and then bounced.
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| Jake making taco meat |
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| I think this was to show that we were all sitting on the floor...this hurt after about 3 seconds haha |
Fire training in the morning.
I know I've posted it before but I love it
Fire! Fire! Fire!
When does it end? Where’s the light at the end of the tunnel? Damn we’ve been going for a long time. It was very hard to get up so early this morning but it was time to start my next chapter in my Flagstaff Journey; Wildland Fire Training. I knew before I came out here that I should take advantage of the time out here and get this certification locked up but I only signed up for it when I saw that the park in NJ that brought me out here required the training to gain employment. You already know that I didn’t get referred for an interview with that park but the park I did get referred to also requires this training, so it’s not a total loss. Did you notice that I switched from “certification” to “training”? That’s because we won’t actually be certified at the end of these 4 days. Jeez when it rains it pours! We will receive some sort of certificate that states were are eligible to complete the next portion of training that will get us our certification but we can’t complete it here at NAU due to “liability issues” or something.
The final portion before certification is what’s known as the “pack test”. You have to walk 3 miles with a 45lb pack of gear on your back in a certain amount of time…and you can’t run. Apparently this is a common practice that you only complete once you get hired and arrive at your park or whatever agency that requires such a thing. So many people were ticked to find this out and they said they wouldn’t have paid for the program if they knew they weren’t going to get certified at the end of it. I’d like to say I agree but I’m not that catty. I will point out, however, that it does seem like we’re being sold a lot of empty promises out here…but that’s just my opinion.
There are 42 students in this program, 15 of us are currently in the ranger program, an additional 1 of us is a volunteer instructor, 3 of us were in the ranger program in the fall, and 2 more will be taking the ranger program next fall. That’s nearly half the class that is getting set toward pursuing a career in law enforcement and are only taking this course as a resume builder. The other half of the class actually want to be firemen or are looking to get into any career and are also looking to build their resumes with this. Most of the instructors so far have geared the program toward those looking to get into the fire field and they use a lot of jargon (which they aren’t supposed to use) that only the fire people understand. The guy that runs the whole show brings the law enforcement back into the loop here there, however, so that’s cool…I guess.
The class lasts about 8 hours a day and mostly PowerPoint driven with some videos. For the last hour or so of these first 2 days, we’ve gone outside and practiced some things. The first day we practiced using the radios to call different groups. When it was my turn, I saw a group that had a bunch of rangers in it so I radioed them. A non ranger answered the call but I asked them “are you guys feeling Unstoppable over there?” anyway. The rangers laughed, the receiver looked clueless but he jumped right back into it, “Group 3, Unstoppable.” It was epic.
Today we broke up into groups again, half of the class practiced using different instruments to gauge temperature, wind patterns and to use a signal mirror while the other half practiced getting in and out of their personal fire shelters, and then we switched. Fire shelters are nuts! They’re part of your equipment that you take into the field (when you’re a wildland fire fighter) with you and when it looks like a fire is spreading your way, you get as far away as you can (with your crew), dump your gear, grab your shelter and find a safe place to deploy said shelter…as determined by your crew boss.
A fire shelter is designed for one person and it essentially looks like an aluminum foil tarp that has an opening for you to climb in, pull the opening snug around you, and you put your face near the ground and try to breathe in oxygen as the fire roars over and all around you. You basically sit there and either wait to be saved, run out of oxygen and die, or wait until you can’t take it anymore and try to run for it…but ultimately die after a few steps. Our practice shelters are a little different but I hope I never run into a situation where I need 1 of these. It was super hot, very hard to breathe, and I was sweating my ass off in just jeans & a t-shirt after only a minute under the shelter.
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| Some of us getting into PRACTICE fire shelters |
With so much going on lately it was great to unwind a little bit these past 2 nights. I talked to my dad, for the first time in weeks, for nearly an hour. As soon as I got off the phone with him my younger sister Maureen called and we talked for way over an hour. We can talk for hours. We used to talk forever when I was home, lose track of time, and end up staying up all kinds of late when we had work early in the morning. A few minutes later my other sister called me and we talked for over a half hour. I had so much to vent to all 3 of them about and it was nice to hear what they had to report…since I’m the only 1 blogging about things these days so I have no idea what’s going on at home. Family time came at the expense of missing a movie date with some Unstoppables. We were pumped to see Battle: LA but the movie sucked since I wasn’t there. HA!
Tonight, Sunday, the fire instructors invited the class to Brews & Cues for a little get to know each other session with them & our classmates. It’s funny how tight us rangers have become. We went out to meet some of our new classmates but most of us just stuck together in a corner playing pool. I didn’t, naturally, but there weren’t many students from the fire program out there…I think there were more instructors than (solely fire) students. I BS’d with some of the instructors, got the scoop on the things we’ve yet to do in the ranger program from a girl who did the program last fall, and I passed my knowledge on to a guy who will be taking the course in the fall. We were spread out all over the bar/pool hall so those of you who’ve seen me action at our BlueClaws games know how I got down tonight.
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| Me, Josh, & his friend Emily...I may have scared her away from him for awhile :/ |
Flagstaff Observations
Application is Key Some of us got a great opportunity to apply some of the things we’ve learned out here in Flagstaff on Saturday; both in our WFR course and in this past week with investigating accidents. Nick, John, Nick $, & I were sitting in traffic on our lunch break when we saw a car motoring up the right turn only lane as they were trying to pull into the Target parking lot. At the same time, a break in the traffic allowed another car to turn left, at a pretty incredible speed. The 2 didn’t see each other and KABLAMO! They collided. Nick & I saw the whole thing. Other Nick & John heard it. The light turned green, we weaved through traffic a little bit, and pulled into the parking lot to do whatever we could.
One car was smoking initially but it ended up being smoke/powder from the deployed airbags. The left turning vehicle’s front passenger tire was still attached but turned nearly completely sideways under the engine block. John responded to a 12 y/o girl in the right turn only lane car, the front seat passenger, and she looked dazed, completely out of it. I ran around to the other car to check on the occupants. Everybody said they were okay but they couldn’t get out of the passenger side. I ran around the driver side & jumped out into the highway to hold up traffic so they could all get out of the car and Nick called 9-1-1. When I came back around to the other car, I could see John was doing his EMT thing and I checked on everybody else involved once again. The first police officer responded and Nick & I got out of his way while Nick $ & John were still tending to the little girl. I directed traffic away from us inside the parking lot and tried comforting the mother of the little girl who was obviously upset at this point. Paramedics arrived and swapped places with John, the girl was taken to the hospital…John said all he could see was a swollen/bloody upper lip and the girl kept asking him what happened and if she was going to die. That’s some scary shit. Some more officers responded, 1 began taking pictures….my usual role haha. That same officer gave us witness statements to fill out…I could’ve sworn I’ve just seen this somewhere before. We did what we could and then hunted down lunch.
When we got back to class, a couple of students who don’t really know us were asking if we were okay after our car accident. They recognized me in my bright yellow NAU hoodie and thought that we got in the accident. Considering everybody was okay and we were happy that we got to apply what we learned AND help out at the same time, we added more crazy outlandish factors to the story every time somebody else asked us about it. I think the last time we told it we saved 50 babies from the trunk of a burning car that a dragon set on fire…or something like that.
Matt, our WFR instructor, is teaching a river WFR course right down the hall from us. When we left for the day, John, Nick, & I stopped in the classroom to tell him our story. He said a bunch of his students told him about the accident and said it was great that we responded. OH YEAH!
Sun of a Bitch The Arizona sun is absolutely F’n annoying! I feel like I can’t drive to class in the morning or home at sunset without being completely blinded by it. It’s brutal. I don’t know if it’s because I’m 7,000 feet closer to it than I am in NJ but it makes driving around very difficult.
Save This I have no calendar & no TV. I get most of my intel from Facebook these days so I immediately got very concerned when I saw New York Giant Steve Smith’s status saying something about Saturday Night being Daylight Savings Time. Somebody else on FB mentioned something about losing an hour of sleep as well so I brought it up to Nick. Nobody said anything about it class. Well Nick looked it up and Arizona doesn’t recognize Daylight Savings Time. Some other people supported that on Facebook as well but it’s not ENTIRELY true. The Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona, aka close to where I am, DOES honor Daylight Savings Time.
I don’t remember if I changed my alarm just to be safe before bed or if it did it automatically but I woke up an hour earlier than I wanted to, checked the current AZ time online, and went back to sleep. It’s cool that I didn’t lose an hour of sleep but it sucks that I am now 3 hours behind everybody back home! YIKES!!!
It’s not NJ…enough said. This place is full of freaks. I passed a hippie VW van that had no back seats and was transporting 4 hippies in the back of the van, 1 riding shotgun, and 2 dogs running around the seemingly open area of the van. They were totally hippied out. Wierdos.
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| Couldn't get a side shot but this be the van I speak about. |
Week Back from Spring Break
Not sure how much posting I’ll be doing because we start getting hammered with stuff the week we come back from Spring Break. Saturday – gun range then camping in Sedona, Sunday – night shooting at the range, Monday – hand in accident packet, Tuesday – group presentation & test, Thursday - OC day, Friday – test, and that long ass 10 years background investigation form. Nice knowing ya’ll folks.
6 weeks til NJ, 5 more weeks of ranger training, 2 more days of fire training
MOUNT UP!!!
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