Kristen

Facebook

Look for me on Facebook. I'm a whole lot better at keeping that updated with photos and such. Find me using e-mail address kristenco@yahoo.com.

House Purge

House Purge is in full swing. I can't wait to purge 75% of the stuff in my house! And, I can't wait to see how much our lives change as a result! Follow the project here:

http://www.housepurge.com

Yahoo! Answers

Have you ever played around on Yahoo Answers? If not, I highly recommend it. Go to http://answers.yahoo.com . Essentially, you can ask questions - about ANYTHING - and it costs you five points. Then, people - ANYONE - can answer your question. You EARN points for answering questions. Then, if the person selects your answer as the best one, you get an extra 10 points. (It's a good incentive to answer the question well and thoroughly.)

I use Yahoo! Answers for everything. Here's a small sampling of what I've learned from Y!A in the last year:

• How to get more blooms on my lilac bush.

• How to seal Aaron's pastel drawings.

• How to turn the "Weeds" theme song into a free ringtone.

• How to move my family to New Zealand.

• Which cell phone company has the best pay-as-you-go plan.

• How to fix my sewing machine when it's looping during embroidery.

• What the hottest toy for 4-year-olds was going to be this last holiday season.

• Where to find an MP3 of the awesome, acoustic version of the Eagle's "Hotel California". (No, iTunes didn't have it.)

• Awesome ideas of what to do with empty babyfood jars.

• How to eliminate mold in my bathroom.

• Cute ideas for a rustic shower curtain for my bathroom.

• Whether it was ok to wear black to a wedding.

• The name of "that one opera song the fountains at the Bellagio danced to around 1999." (and, YES, I got the right answer!)

• Unique Christmas gift ideas I could make.

• What different color ear waxes in the family could mean.

See what I mean? There is no end to the great things you can learn on Answers!

Ode to Lost

After waiting for seven LONG months, the best TV show in the world starts its 4th season tonight. I can barely contain myself.

"Lost" is like having your first baby. Everyone always says how great it is and how much you'll love it. If you're someone who decides to go without, you think, "No big deal... I don't need that in my life." But, in both cases, you don't know what you don't know. Until you've experienced either, you can't POSSIBLY understand how great, wonderful, and unique the experience is. You can't possibly know the emotions that are tapped into and that you are capable of without experiencing it. The people who haven't experienced one or the other are missing out on a life experience that is beyond words.

Now, let me hear a "Hallelujah" from the choir.

Wildland Firefighting

As of a week ago, I am now a certified, red-carded wildland firefighter! I had a week of classes, one field day, and then a prescribed, 5-acre fire.

I had been warned that wildland firefighting is a vicious circle of not being able to wait for a fire to go out on, and then the whole time you're out there, thinking, "Why am I doing this? This sucks. I'm never doing this again." Then, after a few days, the bruises blisters and muscles healing, you can't wait to do it again.


This was all very true for me. During the fire, I was definitely thinking, "Why am I out here doing this??" They had us holding the line that would be in the "head" of the fire (if it weren't prescribed) for an hour, inhaling more smoke than I thought humanly possible to inhale and still be alive. We would have to drop to the ground (one time I dropped into a cactus), and dig a little hole in the dirt to put our noses in for some "fresh" air when it got even worse... And as I worked on mop-up for six hours on a crazy steep slope, I was honestly wondering why people find wildland firefighting fun. I left Calwood thinking that I would go out on a line crew in our district, because I feel a duty to do so since I'm trained and able, and I would work hard on that crew.... but I'm not going to be one of those people actively looking for crew positions on other people's fires, unless they were desperately shorthanded.


Perhaps one of the reason those "top dogs" love firefighting so much is because they get the excitement of being involved with the initial attack, and then get to sit back and take a nap while the crews mop up. Ha!
 

We had a great fire, though. We did 5 acres, and they said it was the hottest fire in Calwood history.  We had RH's around 13, and winds gusting up to 25-35 mph, and temps close to 80 - great conditions for extreme fire behaviour. We had three slop-overs (where the fire crosses the control line), one of good size, giving us actual suppression experience. We even had several fire whirls at one point. (A tornado made of fire.) I told my crew boss, "Wow! That's spectacular! I feel like we should be clapping!" And he said, "No, we don't clap at firewhirls... if there were any more vegetation on the ground between us and the whirl, we'd be RUNNING!"

 
When we first got into the head of the fire to hold the line, watching the green for spot fires, a group torch of three trees when up right behind me, 30 feet away. The smoke was so thick, I couldn't see the person next to me who was 10 feet away, and wasn't sure whether or not we were supposed to bail. I started moving in until I could see my crew boss, and he was relaxed as could be, so I knew, "Ok - don't panic." I would have had no idea that we could "safely" be so close to a group torch like that. That was one of those things I felt so lucky to get to experience at Calwood, and not have to experience for the first time on a real fire. It also seemed crazy to me that you could have fire in the crowns of three trees like that, but not have it turn into a crown fire, when all the trees were so close together. It was also nice to know that a torched out tree doesn't fall over. That was my initial concern. Now I know better. Once we started burning our second section, and had similar fire behavior, it wasn't scary like it was the first time. (Like I said, I felt like I should be clapping.)
 

I came home from Calwood thinking I was glad I went, and glad I had an experience and stories to tell. But, I was thinking wildfire is not for me. Now 10 days have gone by, and I am looking forward to going back out. I think about it all the time. What an adventure!

Surface Ice Rescue

On Saturday I got certified as an Ice Rescue Specialist for the Fire Department. So, if you fall through a hole in the ice, I can save you. Provided I have all of the proper, expensive equipment with me, of course. So, do my a favor and don't fall into the ice too far from the fire station.

Training was a blast. We had to play victims in the water, we had to perform rescues, we had to experience falling through the ice, and we had to learn to self-rescue. Preceded by four hours of classroom stuff.

Here's a picture of me in an ice rescue suit - My Chief's camera wasn't working and got all "impressionistic" on him, but you get the idea:

JC Superstar

My mom took me to see Jesus Christ Superstar yesterday. It's one of my favorite musicals. I've seen both movies hundreds of times and I've seen the National Tour five times. In fact, Superstar was the first Broadway show I ever saw, when I was about 11 years old. I still remember getting choked up and wanting to cry when the Overture started, as my family sat in the third row.

Of all the times I've seen Superstar, most of them have been with Ted Neely as Jesus. Ted played Jesus in the movie-version that came out in the 70s. Then he toured with the show for about 4 years in the 90s, never missing a show. My boyfriend and I got to go backstage and meet him my senior year of high school. I'm pretty sure Ted thinks he is Jesus, he's been playing the role for so long. He spoke to us for an hour that time, speaking softly, gesturing Jesusly.


Well, 10 years later, Ted Neely is playing Jesus again. And he's 67 years old! The oldest Jesus ever. Incredible. He was still pretty good though, and it was a great show. And his hair wasn't half as thick as it was in the photo above.