Here you go, Tim.

I was just called out for not updating my blog. I think I'm doing pretty well though. For anyone else that thinks I'm slacking in keeping this thing up to date, please refer to my very first post. For those too lazy to do that, I'll quote the important part here: "I guarantee I'm going to be bad at updating this thing..."

There you go. Anyway, not much going on here. I've had opportunities to go to Florida, Georgia and just yesterday got a call to go to Arkansas, but unfortunately this whole having a full time job thing means that I can't go and play at my every whim. With our fire season here in Texas just around the corner I have too much prep work going on at home to be able to go on an out of town detail. When going out on a detail it essentially just means taking 16 days of unpaid vacation from the daily job and going out as a temporary hire with the federal govt.

I feel for all the folks in Georgia and Florida getting smoked out full time. Those swampy muck fires are certainly no fun. Just hope for a tropical storm soon, because that's pretty much the only thing that is going to make a difference. At this point all the crews on the ground are really doing is trying to keep it from destroying additional private property. Actually extingushing the various fires is going to be up to mother nature.

If you are still inclined to think that fire is kind of cool, check out this video. This video is part of the curriculum for a wildland fire behavior class I took last week. The shear power and intensity involved is just mind blowing.



Now that you've watched it, did you notice that the whole thing happens in just under two minutes? Check out the gasses escaping the trees and how the trees catch fire before any flames even touch them, and all of the embers dropping and starting spot fires ahead of the main fire. I was told that the camera used is incased in a steel box that is filled with sand.

Just awesome if you ask me. Sure would suck if it was tearing through the forest behind your house, but I guess that's a good reason not to build a house in the forest.

The new seasonal members of my crew will be starting in a couple weeks and I'm probably going to be renting out the second bedroom in my apartment to one of them. I really have no interest in having a roommate, especially one that I work with, but it will be nice to have someone else helping with the power bill when the a/c is running nonstop this summer. They'll only be around for a few months, so thankfully just as I really get tired of having a roommate again I should go back to having the place to myself.

That's about all I've got for now. See Tim, I really didn't have anything to write anyway!