And still more to come...

I am behind in my postings...I just posted 3 tonight with more to come. THere is no special order - I just posts em as I sees em...

So make sure you scroll to the next one - and the next one and the next one...

Fire HOT extra pics COOL - Catch up Part III

Here are just a few more fire pictures that I took that I thought were pretty cool….

I witnessed a burning bush…Actually the tree is not on fire – only the house…After the heat of the fire I am sure the tree is dead.

Connor and fellow cadet Jones

This is one of Connor's friends Nate. The two of them would come to the house each day for lunch and then head to the fire station together.

This is another one of the Captains. At the start of the day his jacket was yellow and his helmet was bright RED

Origami? Origam-you...Catching up Part II

 

DINOSAUR

Connor was taking Japanese…One day the class spent time learning origami. They learned how to create the crane. The next day Connor had made 30+ cranes and put them all over the house and cars. He then taught himself to make other items and creatures – the teacher was so impressed with his new skill, she asked him to make an origami chess set with pieces. When Jessica was home for break, the two of them sat and made various creatures – Jessica had caught the fever. Here are a few of their creations…

LOTUS FLOWER

WIZARD

 

DRAGON WITH OPEN MOUTH

GREEN CRANE


UPSIDE DOWN ORANGE CRANE

Taming of the Shrew...Catching up Part I

I was trying to put finishing touches on my lesson I was teaching this morning at church. I noticed Steve (our third cat) was staring at a blanket on the floor. That usually means we have an uninvited visitor. I moved the blanket to see this furry little shrew scurry off underneath the TV stand. I moved the TV stand only to have him zoom over to the stairs and behind the carpet and into a hole. I sat back down and no more than 3 minutes later he is back out running across floor. I grab Connor's firefighting gloves and go chasing after him again…to the blanket, then the TV stand, then the stairs, and the hole…OH RATS. Steve is sitting on the stairs watching me. When the little stinker shot out of their again – I said Steve – have at him…

Steve failed and I had to go after him on my hands and knees across the floor finally nabbing him.

I went to throw him out the back door but Steve was sitting in the window where we put the air conditioner… So I should him what he could have had if he would have been a little quicker

And it's burn burn...the house of fire...the house of fire

Here is the line of trucks on their way in. The gentleman walking in front is Captain Leavitt. He is the lead instructor for the cadet program.

The group of cadets learning on this controlled burn were first year and second year cadets (Connor is a first year). There are 4 different training stations in area. This was just 16 from the Battle Ground station

Portland and Cowlitz County had firefighters there to see a demonstration of a specific piece of firefighting equipment that I will mention later. I loved the bell on the front of the Portand pumper

The Fire Chief (and Battle Ground Mayor) is giving instruction of lead Cadet Miller.

Connor and Cadet Jones were in Company 6. Each company had 2-3 cadets and firefighter. Connor and Cadet Jones were one of two companies with only 2 cadets. Their firefighters nickname was Rooster.

Connor turned around cause he felt the presence of his father's watchful eye.

When the cadets are in full gear with masks on it is hard to identify who's who. The best and sometimes only way is their name on the back of their helmet. The firefighters have their names on the bottom of their jackets.

Here lie the spare tanks and packs…which ironically were never touched. The cadets got to lay the tarp and unload the truck of all the spare tanks. Then after the fire was they put them all back into the truck.



This is Connor up on the roof with Rooster. He was teaching/showing them about roof vents and allowing the smoke to leave the attics. Connor's company was the only cadets that went on the roof.

These little contraptions are a early fire fighting pieces. If the Captain arrives at a burn before the trucks he can throw one of these exhaust emitters to help minimize the flames prior to the firefighters arriving. This is what the Portland and Cowlitz County firefighters came to see. You pull the pin, throw it in a sealed house and it spins emitting a retardant. They learned in the demo that day that the flame reduces, but the heat increases. The Portland group was happy because worked mostly at the docks and shipyards with barges that were easily sealed. The Cowlitz people said that it would benefit outlying areas. COST - $1000 each.



Each Company had 5-6 different stations that they trained at. Connor was happy because he got to spend the most time in the burning house



This is last minute instruction before going in the burning house.

In they GO!




(out of order). This is Connor with a drywall hook – to expose the flame in the wall.


The Fire Chief let me and a couple of the other parents actually step just inside the house and see what was happening. This picture TOTALLY captures what I could see, a big glow and silhouettes of the cadets and fireman.

After Connor and Cadet Jones had 4 trips in the house, they were pooped. When you see Connor you will have to ask him to tell you exactly what took place in the house. How the flame acted and looked, what he had to do spraying the house, and how things worked



The recovery



After all the 'training' was over – it was time to let the house go. FYI - house on fire, no burning bush.


Connor and I about 25 feet in front of the house. It was HOT. It hurt to have any exposed directly to the heat. I had to tuck my hand between Connor and I for the picture. He said the turnouts that he wears protect them from the dry heat, but not a wet heat (like steam) he didn't feel the heat.

A couple of pics of the burning house…yes, this is wood.

The house is almost gone…






The tail end….



There was some cool colored flames – various wire created different colors. The blue flame is from copper wire

Three pictures from across the way with heat distortions…I thought they looked pretty cool

At the end was clean up …back at the station they have to take out all the hose and clean it up and scrub it down.

It was cool to be there and Connor had a ball.

Simple Gorge-eous

Each year our management group goes off-site to set goals for the coming year. For the past 7-8 years, those trips have been to the coast (Lincoln City where he spent a couple of Taylor family reunion days). This year was a little different – we went up the gorge and stayed in Cascade Locks just by Bridge of the Gods.

We arrived earlier than when we could check into our hotel. We spent the first few hours "working in a van down by the river".

This was a display of arrow heads they had in one of the restaurants called Char-burger. After examining them with my masterful expert arrow head eye I realized a majority of their arrow heads were fake. This was one of about 25-30 display cases of arrow heads in the two Char-burger joints were visited

Two of the three people here were carved out of wood and one is my boss and his bark is worse than his bite, he is well rooted. He's a little sappy and easy to stump. Really, he's knot a bad boss. Shoot, he lets me leaf when I want and branch out doing the things I want to do. If you think he's pretty neat you should see his family tree...

Above and below is the view from my bosses window. Up the river above and down river with a picture of the Bridge of the Gods below.

The food was fantastic – some of the best ‘sushi’ I have eaten anywhere. I had sashimi (raw fish no rice). The tuna was very tasty and I could cut it by just pinching it with my chopsticks.

Above is a piece of squid and below is shrimp, two types of tuna and a fish I can't remember.

This is from the other guys plate - some mighty fine looking and tasting sushi.

This was inside the Char-Burger restaurant. They had some great old west decor on their walls. the covered wagon is the fixins bar.

Below is the view from the restaurant - Bridge of the Gods again. The name come from...well, there used to be an actual dirt/earth bridge that crossed the river there many many many years ago. Erosion washed it away and they thought it would be a good place to put a metal one.

The pictures above and below give you a scenic view from my room...much nicer that seeing a river and a bridge - price difference on the room - my room was 33% cheaper. Who needs a view when your eyes are closed. We spent most of our waking hours in my bosses room with meetings.

OK creepy place. One the neat things about this area is that there are many mineral springs in the area and a few Resorts and Spas. The popular thing to do at these spas is soak in a hot mineral bath, get out and then wrapped in linen, the a wrapping of wool...One of the "Resorts" was just across the river and up the road - so we thought we would check it out. We first went into the bathhouse area. It was scary - I saw flashbacks of Almo Primary dungeons at the old Almo Chapel on Sundays. It was old, it stunk and there were creepy looking old men wrapped in blankets. I thought I had time warped to the 1920's. It was dark (2 bare light bulbs) and most of the tubs and pipes were all rusted. NO THANKS...

The picture below is the 'fancy' lobby for the hotel. You need to click on it to enlarge it -to get the full effect.

Later that day we went to another hot springs resort - Bonneville. It was beautiful and looked just like a resort/spa should. The two were about a 20 minute drive from each other. Cost for a good soaking - 50 minutes - $35

We spent some time at the Bonneville dam. The neat thing about this place was the fish ladders. They had to make a way for the salmon to be able to spawn each year – thus the fish ladders. In the process they created a educational facility to help educate everyone on the importance of nature and the need to ‘not mess things up’ too much. They had windows so you could see the fish swim by. We were there in the lowest of all lows as far as fish runs were concerned. We were lucky to see the few fish that we saw.