Blah Day

Well the weather has ended its strange spring-like conditions and we're back to winter. It's Saturday and I had planned to do so many things around the house, but it's too cold. What I was most excited about was finishing up the paint in the jacuzzi room, which I needed a taller ladder for. I went into town, and after getting my eyebrows mowed, went to Walmart and got a ladder and some curtains for the sliding glass door. The thing about most paints is that there's a temperature and humidity range that you need to paint them in. I'm not sure what happens if you don't, but the directions on the can state not to paint if the temperature will drop below 50 degrees within four hours of painting. My kind of paint.

The jacuzzi room is enclosed, but in no way heated or insulated, so it's probably 40 degrees in there at best. Last weekend it was about 80 in there. So scratch that idea. I suppose I could be putting together the step for the jacuzzi but I haven't had the nerve to go back to it after it got the best of me a few weeks ago.

I also decided that I would feel more at home if I got some pictures put up on my walls, since they're completely bare. I got as far as looking at them.

I tried buying blinds for the jacuzzi room online but didn't see anything I liked in all the discount places. Money will be a little tight for awhile so that may have to wait. I did get my furniture delivered, so I'm very excited about that. So here's some pics around the house of furniture and other rooms you couldn't see very well without the furniture in them (like the guest bedroom).

So here's a head-on view of the guest bedroom. Those of you who come visit me will be staying in here unless there's a mob of people, and in that case you'll have to place bids and put down a deposit. It's really hard to get the feel of this room by looking at the picture. It's small enough that you can't get a good picture of it in one shot, and it's beyond my technical expertise to put them all together for a panorama. Sorry.


Oh, and here's a pic of my backyard since I hadn't posted one before. It's between storms, so it isn't the best shot but you get the gist. It's a good size. This is in the way back of it, looking back at my house. I previously took a pic from the other direction but the fence and sheds make the place look atrocious, so you don't get to see those.


Here's my dining room, complete with dining table and buffet table (my favorite piece). Still a little bland, but my whole house is in the works right now so it'll eventually be bright and colorful.


This is my room as you walk into it from the back family room. That's my new bed. Overstock.com, $180. Still needs a bed skirt, apparently I got rid of mine after having a platform bed too long.


As you turn the corner of my bedroom, here's my new dresser and that's the door that leads to my bathroom.

Living Dangerously

During my very short stint in Redding, one of my captains relayed a story to us about trying to stretch his gas tank on long road trips. He said sometimes he'll drive past a gas station when he knows very well there's a long stretch of road in front of him before the next one, just to live on the edge a little, to live dangerously and get that rush from not knowing whether he's going to make it to the next station or be stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

I decided to give that a shot today, thinking what the heck, it's Tuesday. I mean if it were a Monday it would be highly unnacceptable, but it wasn't. It was Tuesday. As I passed the last gas station in town before heading down river, I checked my gas gauge. Very low. But I figured it was morning and the gas was cold and when it warmed up later, the vapors would expand and I'd get a couple extra miles out of it. My station is a good 35 miles from a gas station. Well that's not entirely true, there's some sort of gas set up 20 miles further downriver but that would be in the wrong direction and I'm not even sure how that place works. I think it's some sort of co-op.

A voice in my head told me that with the week I had already had, it would be wise to fill up, but I kept going. I had to get to work. And there was no question on whether or not the tank would get me to work, it just might not get me back.

Today we had our lights and sirens driving class. When I got there I had a message from the tech support lady (if you don't know what I'm talking about, stop now and read the previous post) that I need to send her the file and she would fix it. Unfortunately that would not be happening until I finished my class and made it back upriver to my station. I got back to my station around 3 and immediately emailed her the file. Three of course is six on the other side of this landmass, so she was probably already gone. So it'll get fixed tomorrow. My hopes of no one noticing my mistake was completely shattered by the two emails that the public affairs officer (the guy who was supposed to be helping me with the webpage) forwarded to me by irrate employees of timber and weeds and whatever else who not so kindly implied that my information was not quite "critical" enough to be posted on the Forest's webpage. Well who cares about their stupid weeds?! Anyway, it was an accident. I'm not sure what the PAO hoped to accomplish by forwarding these messages with his "FYI" attached. Did he think I was unaware there was a problem with the webpage? Did I not confront him about it the day before and ask if he could fix it? Did he not direct me to tech support? And did I not immediately contact tech support? Do these people even think for a second that some taxpayer is out there, scavenging through pages of cyber forests wondering what on earth we are doing to minimize the population of noxious weeds that seem to crop up in the least wanted places? Do any of you even know what a noxious weed is? No it is not a smelly weed like I originally thought.

So anyway, the point is, people noticed. Apparently several people noticed. And freaked out about it. I think the public would much rather see pictures of my crew and the fires they've been on (and their contact information in case some one might want to work for us) than pictures of a weed that is noxious. So I kindly replied to him that it was an accident and I was sorry and if he could just relay that to all the freaks who are spazing out because their beloved timber stands are not receiving the fame and fortune they so rightly deserve, I would really appreciate it.

Driving home I was a bit on edge due to the stupid webpage thing (my boss leans over me and says "Do you even know what you're doing?" and I say "Does it look like I know what I'm doing?" and he says "No." and I say "No, I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing!"). It was funny to note though, that I figured out how I could make it so that when you click on the Klamath National Forest, the only thing that pops up is our crew. Wouldn't that be cool?

I was also on edge due to the fact that my gas light went on when I pulled into the station that morning. I know once my gas light goes on, I've got at least 20 miles to go before I run out of gas. I forget how I figured this out. And no, I don't think it warmed up enough to expand the vapors in my tank. Well I had 35 miles to get to a gas station. No wait, maybe it's 25 miles. Yeah, I think it's 25. Regardless, it was further than I had ever taken my empty tank. And it had been pouring rain all day. So if I was walking 5 miles to the gas station, it was going to be 5 very wet miles. I thought about my captain from Redding while my heart pumped away like mad in my chest. It occured to me that yes I was feeling some sort of thrill from it all, but I didn't find it to be a pleasant feeling whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I think it was something close to the thrill people get as they plummet to their death after driving off the side of the road into the river...only slightly less drastic. As I got within walking distance to the gas station (I suppose everything is technically within walking distance, but I mean comfortable walking distance) I began to relax a little. It wasn't until I pulled into the gas station that I felt fully relieved. I had made it! And swore never to do it again...until next week.

Undo, undo!!

These days I'm wishing there was an undo button in life. Or at least an "edit", "insert", "delete". Actually all of those would be great to have. I might "undo" tearing apart my walls...or maybe I wouldn't. I guess it depends on what the contractor has to say about how much it will cost to drywall them. Errr....

What I'm really wishing is that I could access the "undo" button on the public government website that I just edited and then got kicked out of. Yes, it just so happens that I was given access privileges to our Forest's public website...and yes I messed it up. And now it's public. And something went very wrong when I was trying to undo it, so I was kicked out of that option and now cannot undo the disaster that I've created. I put in a call to tech support who is of course on the east coast and wouldn't you know, it was after hours on their side of the world by then. So now it's out there for all the world to see. I suppose it could be worse, it wasn't anything obscene or otherwise job-ending. I've just managed to overwrite an entire (major) section of our website with an intro to the Klamath Hotshot crew webpage. So now when you'd like to view the Forest's resources, the homepage to the Klamath Hotshots pops up. Which I suppose is something of a compliment to our crew, but those in timber, noxious weeds, biology, fisheries and fire management might have something to say now that all of their info has disappeared and is no longer accessible to the public. Goodness. UNDO!!!!!

I attempted to paint the jacuzzi room and got halfway done before I couldn't reach the rest of it. I went to Walmart today to get a taller ladder and was so completely stupified by the whole website ordeal that I was unable to make a decision and purchase a ladder even though there really only was one option for my situation. Maybe if it didn't cost $65 the decision would've been easier. EDIT!!! However, at that time I was also quite miffed since I had scoured the home decor section for a curtain for the jacuzzi room and came up empty handed. As for the curtain rod, I found the perfect one...and then decided against purchasing it since I had no curtain to go on it. Argh.

After painting the ceiling in the kitchen yesterday, it didn't appear different at all (I went from white to off-white) but for some reason I was still able to tell that I missed a bunch of spots and would have to do a second coat. All this after finding out the hard way that I was missing a very important piece in my "Paint Mate" that injects paint onto a roller so you don't have to keep dipping it in a pan. A couple ounces of off-white paint ended up on my floor, which fortunately is a good quality wood laminate and it washed right off. To top it all off, I don't have nearly enough paint to finish the job.

Not only that, but the awesome, amazing, fantastic, beautiful job I did on rewiring the front porch lantern may very well be a major fire hazard. Chalk it up to having no clue what I was doing and doing it anyway. Who knew you couldn't mix aluminum and copper wires? Well, for that matter I'm not even sure that's what happened. They very well could have been copper and copper and not a problem at all, but I'm too exhausted from all my other incomplete/failed projects to tear it apart to check. So it remains a possible fire hazard. Can we say edit/delete/undo?

I would have a glass of wine and hop in the jacuzzi but my jacuzzi room is a disaster and the contractor is coming over to tell me how many thousands of dollars it's going to cost to fix my wall mishap...oh wait, did I cover the walls? My personal favorite. I removed the wallpaper in the living room and dining room, only to find a second layer of wallpaper. I removed the second layer to find wood paneling. In a fit of curiosity and at the encouragement of a friend, I removed a section of wood paneling only to find...wood. Tongue and groove? Or lathe whatever? I don't know what it is, but it's not drywall. And you can't just paint over it. I would say undo, but then there would still be wallpaper on my walls and I would still be itching to tear it off. That one is inevitable.


Oh, and wood. Since we're on the subject. Wood has been sitting around here in trailers for sale, but since I don't have a woodstove yet, I haven't purchased any. There's thinking ahead for you. So my woodstove will be installed next week...and suddenly all the trailers of wood have disappeared. Nice.

Needless to say I'm not feeling very accomplished. I downed so much chocolate and candy and cupcakes at the Supervisory Office today every time something went wrong with the website and now I'm craving Rocky Road ice cream. Just delightful. Fortunately I do not have chocolate in the house. But I do have wine...