I was gone and busier than ever last week. I was in Pueblo CO for some training for the next time a big railroad derailment occurs. Generally we got about 12hrs per day of training, and the days seemed to drag on. Almost everyone in the training were firefighters from all over the country. At the end of every day the Railroad gave us dinner and all the drinks you wanted...needless to say, firefighters tend to drink a lot. I tried to take it easy since we had to be on the be us for training every day at 7am, but some of these guys were out till 4-5am and then training all day. Not sure how they do it, but they did. It got a bit crazy at some points, but the cops were only called one, so it was an improvement over the last group that came for training. I felt like the old guy there turning it at 11pm at the latest and if you can believe it, I was about the most mature person there. It was like being with a bunch a freshman frat guys, except they were 40+yrs of age...seriously tiring.
Training in progress
what is that black smoke coming from the rail car....I am sure it is nothing.
Here is the night exercise of flaring material from inside the rail car.
Before I left we had a friend give us this electric train. It seemed to be out of batteries, but after a replacement, I found out the motor was broken. No big deal, because James does not know any better and he is happy with anything.
Jim and Sandra came over the other weekend because it was Sandra's birthday. A good time was had by all.
James likes hats sometimes, and apparently he likes my 25yr old Oakland A's stocking cap...who would have thought.
We also got to go to a backyard harvest party the other weekend. Brenda saw this pumpkin idea on TV and wanted me to figure out how to make it work...standard.
I ended up contrasting a picture and getting it into black and white, printing it off, laminating the back and then slapping it onto a pumpkin where I skinned the front. Bam...done.
The back is the family on a TV set. It looks great now that I got a light bulb in it, but it was not very bright with the candle.
Hard to tell, but these were the other pumpkins in the competition. We did not win, but I had a happy wife and that is better than any old first prize you can win (I got my "first prize" all the same).
1 comment:
Can't wait to see you all again. I'm impressed with the pumpkin art. I hope those firemen are sober enough to remember what they need to do in an emergency.
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