We DID start the fire.

Don't worry, I got it covered. Spot fire? No problem. Got some smoldering? I'll put it out. Worried about running or flare-ups? I'll start a control line.

No, I'm not doing a public service announcement. Today I am back at the point after an incredible week of firefighter training and certification. Somehow I've been deemed safe and qualified enough to control forest fires, and I'll be receiving my Red Card (Wildland Firefighter Type 2 certification: FFT2 for short).

After a long month of Firefighters' PT and a pack test, we deployed out to Sheppardstown, West Virginia to train and lodge at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service facilities last week. Great classes, hands-on experience in the fields, lodging, delicious (and filling) food, and a whole lot of POPC (ask an FFT2 about that one). Not to mention hours of volleyball throughout the week. There was a great gym that we made good use of, and I may consider taking up this new hobby on a regular basis... And once the weather gets better, I hear there's a net here at the point.

And there I go again. Back to the point. This past week was incredible. Not only was I able to learn about fire behavior, terminology, and more and more and more, but a good chunk of our classes involved going out for and stopping prescribed fires, using the hand tools, creating control lines, and on our final days, going out on a squad for a simulated wildland fire.



This week only gives more proof to the fact that the best way to learn is by doing. I feel 10 times more confident if the situation were to arise now that I've already done it. I'm all fired up for the approaching fire season!

We're going to New Orleans!

So everything was hush hush until last night, when our TL surprised us with our first project of the year. We went out for pizza at a nearby restaurant. Underneath the pie was a card with an audio message: Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that your first project is going to be in New Orleans!

We were excited to find out our first round would be in the Gulf Coast. We'll be working on the St. Bernard Project, doing construction, for about 1-2 months. From what I hear, we'll be nearby the French Quarter and working with a woman who was named "Hero of the Year" on CNN this past year. We'll be stationed at Camp Hope.

Badger 6 is beyond excited, as we're one of 9 teams heading down there first round. Black and Decker University training will be helpful beginning in two weeks. March 5th! We're off!

Corps Training Institute

Currently it is Saturday. We had a team physical training session this morning and I huffed and puffed through it thanks to my congested cold. Currently the entire house is sick, as well as a good portion of the village, but we're trucking on through. My housemates and I have been going through oranges like there's no tomorrow.

Anyway, I wanted to blog about CTI, since it's been the major part of this entire month. CTI stands for Corps Training Institute, and it is a month-long program that includes various types of training (CPR/First Aid/Disaster Services/Diversity/Van-driver's Ed/active citizenship/tool training/ and more). Below find us learning about using tools at Black and Decker University. Yes, you heard me right.


And of course, there's me, using the buzz saw, or circle saw, as I like to call it.

Anyway, this was just one day of training. There's a lot more to CTI than just that. A big part of this entire month is PT. Physical training, 5 times a week since I'll be firefighting (and more since I've been doing it on Saturday and Sunday as well). We take up the entire gym where it all begins at 5:45am. It's an intense work-out, and it's paid off.


Of course, not all of it is physical training. We've been taking courses as well on campus. In the image below we're in the theater located across from the gym.It all concludes in two weeks. I'm excited for this upcoming week. The firefighters will be leaving tomorrow for West Virginia where we will be staying for a week for training. Busy week coming up! More to come!

Sometimes it's all about perspective.

I did a search for this clip on YouTube after seeing it last week during one of our sessions. Click or copy and paste the link below to your browser. You've gotta watch the entire thing to fully appreciate it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

That's all I have for now. Watch it, feel inspired, do great things, because you can.

A Badger Badger Badger Badger...

So the untold scoop: Earlier last week everything changed. Originally, I was in the Raven Unit. Below is a picture of us during our scavenger hunt. Aren't we cute?



On Monday, when we received our permanent teams, I found out I'd be becoming a firefighter! I didn't realize until later that this would have a huge effect on a lot of things from that point forward. I'd realized they had announced every Raven team. I was the only one left. The last unit was Badger... They called my name for Badger 6.

At this point, I couldn't figure out why I was in badger, but I went along and met with my team anyway. There are 8 Corps members on the team, and one team leader. At the end of our meeting, the team leader (TL) mentioned to me: By the way, Jay. You're moving.

What?

Turns out I was moving to a new house, and leaving the old one. Since I became a fire fighter, they needed to make some changes so that there would be two fire fighters on each team. Apparently, Raven had enough of them, and they needed a fire fighter in the badger unit, is how it was interpreted.

It was a tough evening, having to pack up, move out and set up with a set of roommates from an entirely different unit, after getting to know so many of the Ravens the previous week. Especially after getting to know the guys from my old house.

Anyway, that was an adjustment, and a fair dose of what to expect in terms of remaining flexible this year. Currently, it's a week later, and it's all good. The new house-mates are awesome, I've become a true Badger, and the Ravens and Wolves have got nothing on us! Not to mention, one of my house-mates is vegan -- which makes shopping a tad bit easier. So all in all, it all worked out for the best.

"Who's in the house? BADGERS in the house! We ready, we steady, you know we lead the way... ooooooh." You've got to be here to fully appreciate that out loud.

NCCC faces

Meeting new people every day, sometimes more than once. Being in such close proximity to 136 other Corps members has made meeting people a major part of every day the first week. I took a picture of a chunk of us on our way to our houses after in-processing. I told everyone this was going to be a candid picture, but everyone's far too photogenic.



After a couple of days, everyone's already made good use of the computer lab. With only four computers with working internet-access, its slim picking. Fortunately, if you brought a laptop, you're all set... The lab's got Wi-Fi.

On our way to our van-pick up, my roommates and I are preparing for a day of training.


f
PODS! So as I mentioned before, we were placed on temporary teams for the week, known as Pods. The first day entailed a short training, some in-processing, and an city-wide scavenger hunt where the 8 of us on my pod traveled with our team leader to grab some pictures and get to know the city. Here are a few of us below. The other three pod mates are next to me and in the passenger seat. Note Keith giving me the bunny ears that I'm just noticing now for the first time.Here we are in the Perryville library, where we did our research for the scavenger hunt. there is Nate, our Pod leader. We spent about 30 minutes here using the library wi-fi to use google-maps to map out our locations and plan our course.

It was a great scavenger hunt. Somehow we got in the habit of sprinting in-line every time we arrived at a check-point. Maybe I'll upload that video here if I can figure it out.

When I look outside my window...

Living at the Point has been an experience the past 11 days. Living in the village has allowed me to get some great pictures of the surroundings, and I took all of these right where we live. My favorite is the first one here, which is a picture of the Susquehanna River. This was a little after 5pm last week, and we see this every day as long as it's a clear day. You can see a bit of the computer lab to the right.
Below is a picture of the field in between third and second streets. The village is set up 1st street, second st. etc.. up until around 6th street. The Corps members live between 1st and 5th streets. A good amount of tossing the frisbee happens here, and another game called "Everybody's It" tag. You can imagine how much space on the field we utilize for that.

This picture is from last week after the small snowfall. My house is on this street, the end of this street looking out to the river.
A picture from inside our window... Looked festive, so I took a picture.
I'm looking forward to the warmer Spring and Summer temperatures when the trees are finally green! Expect those in April or May. :)

Wildland Firefighting

It's been exactly one week since I arrived. More has happened than I can really convey accurately through this blog but I'll give you the abbeviated time limit. Unfortunately, my power cord is busted on my laptop, and I am limited to this computer lab computer that are in high demand.

First off, I applied and tested to become certified as a wildland firefighter. There were 34 spots, and in order to begin training and make it to the training team, one had to pass the pack test.

The pack test: involves wearing a 45 lb. pack vest and doing 3 miles of powerwalking in under 45 minutes. This was by far one of the hardest workouts I've had to date, and it was one of the most physically challenging tests I've ever attempted. FORTUNATELY, I passed, making a time of 41:39. Needless to say, I've found aide in the railings and walls in making it up and downstairs and into the vans, and moving in general the past couple of days since the workout. I'm feeling it big time.

The good news: The AmeriCorps firefighters were announced yesterday... and I made the cut! So my shoe size was given and I was given a schedule of two more days a week of PT, which stands for Physical Training. Before this, PT was going to be three days a week (MWF). I will now be training with the FireFighters-to-be Tuesdays and Thursdays additionally. 5 days a week of intense PT in the morning. My alarm is set to 4:45am on weekdays. Tomorrow is day 3 -- my exhaustion has sort of turned into numbness. My guess is that by the end of the week I'll be in the routine, and probably won't be able to get enough. I'm looking forward to being in pretty good shape by the end of month when I deploy on spike.

It has been hilarious, as I'm not the only one. Everywhere you'll hear "oooh" and "ouch" and "eek" from Corps members. There's nothing better than FEELING THE BURN together.

There's been a significant change of events as well, in regards to my living situation and team -- they weren't kidding about being flexible once again. But my time in the computer lab has come to an end. So until next time...

Arrival, In-processing, Housemates, Acclimation

Alright, so as I expected, I won't be able to update daily. My guess is I'll be doing this once a week or so.

So I'll start with the arrival. Tuesday morning I was up and ready to go. Once at the airport, I met up with three other Corps members also scheduled for the same flight. Our nerves and excitement were evident in the fact that we already started taking pictures.We caught our flight (hour and 1/2), and arrived in Baltimore Washington Airport where we met up with some AmeriCorps Team leaders and a few other folks who were also arriving around that time. Two van-loads took about 15 of us to the campus.

The campus, Perry Point, is located within Perryville, Maryland. It is essentially its own community on a peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay. Needless to say, its a beautiful view.



The above is a view from the field in between housing units. About 5 minutes from here is the VA Medical Care Center, where "in-processing" occurred. Since our group arrived relatively late we didn't go through it until the following day, which is when that picture was taken.

There are about 130 of us, known as Corps members, and we make up what is called Class XV (for its 15th year). We live in houses in the village and have generally 6-8 housemates. I havce 7 other roommates, a great group of guys, all very different, and all from different states in the U.S.: Missouri, Kansas, Rhode Island, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and there may be one other that I can't remember right now. We each share a room with one other on the second floor, and on the first floor we've got a living room, kitchen, dining area, and the basement underneath where our laundry is.

So in-processing went well, took a while, but was worth it. Filled out mounds of paperwork regarding the Red Cross, banking, and more, and soon received my uniform! I've yet to take a picture of it all yet, but on my next entry I'll be sure to include it. It includes the gray t-shirts, long t-shirts, khaki pants, khaki shorts, fleece vest, sweatshirt, hat, and polo. There are about 2 or 3 of each of these that we keep in a red pack. We also picked out a sleeping bag, which will be used on our "spike" projects (projects not in the area where we'll stay for weeks at a time, in most cases the Gulf Coast).

The following day we received our welcome, learned some of the ins-and-outs of what's to come, the big of it being CTI, which stands for Corps Training Institute. For the next month, starting Monday, we will be training 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, which will consist of PT (physical training), team development, CPR/Red Cross Training, and classes. Yes, I will once again be a student. This should be interesting..

In addition to that, there are some additional trainings I'll be taking part in, which include the test and training to become a Wildland Firefighter (which I have tomorrow: an endurance test where I'll be doing 3 miles in under 45 minutes with a 45 pound pack on). More on that to come..

On Monday, we will all be finding out our Teams. These are teams of 8 people who will be traveling, working, and training, and living together on spikes for the entirety of the year. In the meantime, we've been in Pods, which has been our temporary team for the first week. So far we've been traveling together in our van and with our team leader for our scavenger hunt (which was a blast!). And today we traveled as a team to Delaware, where we we had our physicals. There we had our drug tests, hearing tests, etc, etc... to make sure we're fit and healthy for the upcoming year. No need to go into the details of that, except that was an all morning activity, and we were all glad to be finished at the end. :-)

As far as food, each of us is given $5 a day for food as a budget. The way it works: Each house pools their money, two Corps members van out to the grocery store, and we shop for the week. Doesn't sound like much, but if you shop smart and buy in bulk, you end up with plenty. Tonight's taco soup, and funnily enough, my housemate just called me to tell me dinner is just about ready! (I'm currently across the street at another member's house (they are located near the computer lab, which has Wi-Fi, and they receive a signal. (Computer lab doesn't open until 7pm each night.)

In short, life is good. I'll update more later.

To the Point!

Tomorrow is my flight. So naturally, I can't sleep, and I'm blogging instead. I was proud of myself this week... I managed to pack everything and place everything else in storage about 5 days ago. I've come to realize I really do enjoy living out of a suitcase. It's nice knowing where everything you need is; the minimalist in me enjoys having everything compact. Speaking of compact, you should see my suitcase. I managed to fit all of my clothing, bedding, sneakers, and more (Thank you Space-Saver bags! And a special thanks to my relentless squishing to just barely get that zipper closed.) I actually weighed my bag on a bathroom scale. Is that strange? You can imagine the visual.

Anyway, off I go to the Point, as they call it down in Perry Point, MD. More to come at some point soon. Maybe tomorrow? I'm not sure. All I know is that we'll be going through something called "in-processing", which is mostly a lot of paperwork and apparently takes about 3 days. Byebye for now -- hopefully next entry I'll have some pictures!