Washing my Hands

So everyday we have to checkout the apparatus and today it is my turn to check our primary fire rig but not just the normal daily check the much coveted weekly check. Not a huge deal I have done 1 a week since I have been here in McMurdo. Not that I could do them in my sleep but they are pretty mundane and considering there are only 4 firefighters per shift I am doing 1 of the 2 fire rigs every week, or at least it seems that way. So there I am checking the airbrake system under the rig and I say to myself “self what does this remind you of?”

Well it reminds me of when I was younger (15 years ago pfft!) I used to help my dad work on cars, van, trucks or whatever he was getting paid to “wrench” on. I am sitting on a red creeper, with similarly placed duct tape patches, under a vehicle on a concrete floor looking up at the rear axles when I slid my head into something. Dang drive shaft! You would thing that I already know that the drive shaft would win in a battle with my flamboyantly styled hair and my hard as brink head but I forgot and the drive shaft let me know it again. As I sit there draining the air from the airbrake tanks, to get the moisture out, I think of how many afternoons I have spend under, in or working on cars with my dad. After I get done under the rig I get up to wash my hands and as I reach for the soap one of the guys asks why I do not use water to help the soap? Well I explain to them that the “Gojo” soap that we are using is pumice based and it is designed to help get the grease out of your pours and from under your finger nails and what not. And by using water it dilutes the soap and it will not work as well. He proceeded to thank me for my explanation. So this goes out to you Dad. Thanks for taking the time to explain how the soap work to me, among other things.
About this picture:

This picture is half of our winter fire department staff. We had just got done with a confined space practical exercise a couple hundred feet from the sign and the wind died down. So in the pictures are (left to right) Scott “Scotty Beu-Beu-Beu” Beu, Corey “Yup the writer of this Blog” Walsh, Peter “Prusik Pete” McHargue, Lt. Shayne “D-Ski” Dombrowski, Station Captain John “Oh Captain My Captain” Cassidy, and Virginia “I’m going to rule the world… someday” Price. With the exception of Capt. Cassidy that is the A-shift that is protecting McMurdo Station Antarctica on the Ross Ice Shelf in the Ross Sea with in the confines of the continent of Antarctica for the winter of 2010, or until Winfly at least. Behind up is McMurdo Sound which 2 months ago had open water and seals everywhere. But now the temperatures are colder and the wind windier so it is only the few 200+ crazy people from the USA, New Zealand and everywhere else. I was going to “photoshop” out the power lines but than I realized that it is how it is down here so why should I try to hide anything.

Stay Frost
-C