"Fire Fighting Coastie" Article in the Juneau Empire

File this under the title, 'Yea For Me:'

http://juneauempire.com/stories/010911/nei_768156715.shtml

Getting good things done is rarely ever a solitary accomplishment... and this is the case here. I gotta thank my beautiful and patient Julie first, for her generous support allowing me to pursue what I love. Second, my Brothers and Sisters at CCF/R... you know why we do what we do.

KML

Scared Straight !!

One of the cool things about being a firefighter is that there are alot of things that you get to see behind-the-scenes, that you wouldn't otherwise. This was certainly the case last night...

Fourth Mondays are the night for the Officers Drill, and we usually go out to tour a location or facility in the community that represents some particular hazard to either the firefighters or the community, or both. Shopping malls, oil terminals, electrical generation stations... they offer a great opportunity to discuss beforehand what we will have to do if we must respond there. After all, those in charge should have a better understanding of the uncommon hazards we face, and so will not be so quick to throw people into harm's way without appreciating all the dangers.

Lemon Creek Correctional Center has such an innocuous name for a prison.

Out of sight, outta mind, for me until last night. Nestled in the trees at the edge of town, between Lemon Creek and the foot of Heintzlemann Ridge, where you can just see it from the Home Depot parking lot... if you pay attention.

I probably shouldn't get too specific about the arrangements and what goes on there, but suffice to say that there are lots of guards, lots of metal bars, razor wire, cameras, heavy sliding doors, locks, rules, and specific procedures for all kinds of activities. Turns out, Alaska has some 5000 inmates housed in the state, and they take great pride in their status of being the safest penal system in the country (in terms of guards being killed... which would be none in like 50 years).

I still felt really uneasy going in thru the front gate... I guess I have watched too much TV. It was not what I expected: it was worse. There are no gangs, no drugs, no tobacco, and little violence. There is no privacy. No weights in the yard. The guards are very proactive watching inmate behavior, and problems are anticipated and folks dealt with before they become an issue. There are no beatings, no firehose showers, no secret torture chambers... but if you violate the minor rules, you quickly lose what little perks are available. First time, no warnings...

Control is established by the unemotional, completely predictable and open process of granting priveleges solely based on behavior. If you don't work at the Prison Industry, you get to stay in the open dorms where you probably won't get any sleep. If you don't have a HS diploma, you are required to work on getting it... and if you don't, you find yourself in 'punitive segregation,' which means a small concrete room with a toilet, a sleeping pad, and your religious materials. If you follow the rules and work hard, an inmate can expect to be left alone in as respectful a manner as is possible, and can fill his or her days doing whatever makes the time pass for them.

There are few problems because everyone knows that if you don't play well with others, there is every expectation that your life will be made worse than it already was.

On a very positive note, there are some truly astonishingly talented artists at work... native carvings, scrimshaw, drawings and quilting. Some of it is available for sale at the admin office in front, at probably a quarter of the price of art sold downtown (and just as high quality).

Anyway, I have rambled. I learned two things:

I never want to fight a fire in the LCCC.

I never want to stay at the LCCC.

I think tours of prisons for adolescents is a great idea (OK, that's actually three things...).

Whatever problems you might have 'on the outside' cannot ever start to compare to what it is to live on the 'inside.' Have yourself a great, law-abiding day.

KL

Winter's Grip Slipping Quickly

I look forward, like most of us in Juneau, for the Spring.

It is no longer freezing when I get up and walk the dogs at 6:30... which is a very good thing.

I have managed to go out in the afternoon sun in a short sleeved shirt, only to remember when the chill returns as the sun starts to set behind the hills that I forgot to bring along a jacket.

And when the sun does come out, so does the entire city...

This weekend was a sunny surprise, when the weather guys called for rain (which never came). When the skies are blue, Juneau is one of the most beautiful places on the planet: a statement I have made here before, but remain convinced of.

The snow's still up in the hills... as we discovered yesterday during a hike up to the John Muir cabin with Julie & Jessica. Julie was not ready for the climb, Jessica was wearing 'hiking sandals,' and the snow after about two miles up was soft and slushy, but packed hard and slick on the boardwalk of the Auke Nu trail. The guide book calls the trail "difficult," when in fact the only "easy"trail in the book is the (nearly handicap accessible) airport dike, so I figured it was all the same. After an hour and a half going up, your humble author was getting punched for leading the ladies on a death march... so we turned around close to the top. Got close enuf to smell the cabin, but not to see it. Crap. I have been told in no uncertain terms that if I want to see the cabin, I will have to find another hiking partner...

Still and all, it was a gorgeous day to be out for a walk in the springtime.

On the topic of previous blog follow-up: I passed my engineer's "stress test," meaning that other than some paperwork, I am qualified to drive and operate Engine 45 at my station. It was close: I almost failed because when I parked the rig, my parking put me 8-inches short of being able to connect to the hydrant with a single 25-ft roll of 5" firehose. The gap meant that I had to connect another roll, all while the preconnects were flowing water from the rig's 1000 gallon tank at over 300 gallon per minute. Like the grains of sand through the glass, they are gone and the clock is ticking until the hydrant connection is made. The tank ran out as I opened the intake valve at the pump panel, meaning the pump started to cavitate and the water supply was lost for about half a second as the hydrant water rushed to the pump. Had I taken any longer, the pressure to the hoses would have been lost and I would have had to take the exercise over again.

Like life, you can't give up... just take a deep breath and work through the problem.

My weight loss efforts are teaching me patience, as well. The weekdays are great, with lots of hard exercise and calorie control, but the weekends take almost all the gains back. I am realizing how strongly social events emphasize food and how weak I still am with my food-resolve, and it is hard to follow the path of restraint. In 5 weeks, I have lost 12 pounds... in my mind I expected a lot more, but I will perservere.

When I think of the advice I'd give a youngin' these days, there would be three pieces: first, take care of your back, cause once you screw it up there is no getting it back (no pun intended!); second, take care of your hearing, cause once you screw it up there is no getting it back; and third, master your food intake before your metabolism changes and then you get old and fat, cause once you screw up and get heavy, it's the shits to take it off.

Well, I guess I can think of some other good advice, too, but those three are a good start...

Oh, and the state flags are flying along Egan Highway downtown, which means that the tourons and the cruise ships are on their way... another sure sign that Winter is over.

KL

Boring Blog Entry

No spectacular glacier ice photos, or cute dogs, or wilderness adventures today. My gentle readers will try to curb their disappointment...

Julie spent the past three days in pain with a bladder and/or urinary tract infection, so she camped the better part of the weekend on the couch in pain. She was able to get the on-call doc to get her some antibiotics and pain meds on Saturday, now hopefully she is on the mend. Even so, she did a ton of stuff around the house. I am such a pussy when I am sick, compared to her...

I have been fighting a bronchitis for at least a week. Whatever cold I had two weeks ago morphed into a lung problem, and my co-workers got the full aural concert of coughing and hacking from my cubicle last week. Funny, hardly anyone stopped by to chat...

I actually awoke this morning being able to breathe thru both nostrils and have had nary a cough for a few days now.

Julie has been working hard to lose weight before her June deadline, when the reconstruction surgeon will decide if the donor site will be her gut or her trapezius muscle on her back. If she can lose enuf, they'll take from the tummy area. That way, the surgeon can throw in a tummy-tuck at the same time as she gets the new boobs. She continues to lose, but wishes it was faster. She lost another 3 lbs the last week, and she wears more and more clothes that I've never seen before... She is doing a great job.

My Julie is also doing an inspiring job of getting us to the gym. Three or 4 days a week, working out a good hard hour each time. I am there with her, when not sick or firefighting, but she is the driving force.

Julie also wishes that her husband, who apparently is addicted to food, would support her better. Given the density of the situation, I decided last Monday that it was time for me to start a systematic approach to my own weight loss. Once I started counting the calories and watching the carb to protien ratios of what I was eating, I am starting to see a way forward now. I calculated my base metabolic rate, subtracted out the calories needed to lose 2 lbs of fat per week, and am now limiting myself to 1950 cals a day. There's a pretty useful iPhone app called LoseIt! that we are both using now to track exercise and food.

Nothing like the brutal honesty of a bar graph to let ya know what's going on...

A week into this and I have lost 5 lbs, albeit the "easy" 5. The 'clean' math of calories-in and calories-expended appeals to my engineering brain. And I hafta admit it now, I did eat too much. Crap, I love food... I can still eat the things I love, just less now, and I have to pay for it. I reckon everyone has to grow up sometime and eat like an adult. Now is my time.

Spent Saturday morning at the Fire Training Center again, still learning to pump (operate) the apparatus. The Chief admitted that our 'engineering' class was too big, there's like 10 of us, and it is obvious that there is a bit wider spectrum of learning achievement across the class than anticipated. We have been going Saturdays for more than two months now, and we seem to progress at the pace of the slowest. I get impatient because I am doing the expected calculations in my head, on the fly, and the kids can't seem to keep up. I am having fun, regardless, but the weather is getting ever nicer and very soon it will be time to play outdoors on Saturdays instead, and then this class really needs to be over!!

When I was promoted to Fire Lieutenant last year, I was given three expectations from the Chief: certify as an Emergency Trauma Technician (ETT, or about three-quarters of a basic EMT); certify as a Fire Fighter, Level II; and qualify as an Engineer. The engineering class is the last of these goals for me to finish up. Soon I will be able to pick and choose how I want to get 'smarter, ' and what training commitments I can fit into my busy schedule of work, wife and wild...

Lastly, I enjoyed changing 2 gallons of lube oil on Sunday. No vehicle maintenance is easy anymore... cut my left thumb and two fingers struggling against confined spaces. Well, OK, the fore finger was actually cut trying to remove an oil filter wrench socket from the manufacturer's packaging... as I said, nothing is easy anymore. And then there was the mess on the garage floor... sorry, Babe, I'll sweep up the kitty litter tonight.

Like I said in the title... boring.

KML

Does Where Ya Live Determine How Happy You Are??

I have been thinking alot lately about life here in Juneau and how 'being' here influences how I feel...

Am I happy because Juneau (as a place to live) has qualities that make me happy?? Certainly.

Would I be as happy living somewhere else?? I would hope so.

Am I just a happy person?? Geez, I hope so.

People speak and write frequently about their negative experiences of Juneau. We hear it from folks here now, folks who used to be from here and are now somewhere else, and folks whose history with the city probably isn't longer than 12 hours...

A blog I follow (http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/), written by Jill Homer, a talented writer and long-distance winter bike enthusiast here in Juneau, has given some insight into this young woman's decision to leave Juneau for Anchorage. Why should I care about her decision to move?? Why did I take her deliberation personally??

I care because a well-thought out decision that runs contrary to mine should provoke me to make an equally thoughtful re-evaluation of my own reasons and motivations. Julie and I moved up here in 2006: we did so for some profound and positive reasons. Part certainly involved a promotion and job transfer to a secure and financially comfortable posting. To Julie's immense credit, she left her job, friends and daughter in Portland and moved here with me sight-unseen. It was a change in our lives that we spent weeks discussing and weighing the choices. We gambled on the unknown and got on a ferry in Bellingham to start a new chapter together.

The negatives we are used to hearing about Juneau are pretty much these: isolation, crappy rainy weather, lack of growth, high cost of living, lack of good jobs for the younger folks, substandard medical care, a downtown whose soul has been sold out to the cruise industry, and a suburban valley whose conservative residents advocate development but never get it. Certainly Juneau lives under the Damocles sword of a threatened Capitol move, which should it ever come to pass, would truly cripple this place. And there are no roads out. This roadless isolation can start to chafe, like a small stone in the shoes of your soul... in my case after about 3 or 4 months from my last trip outside.

On the positive side: we have great jobs, and even better coworkers. Wonderful, caring neighbors. Significant and meaningful volunteer work (me with the Fire Dept, and Julie with her cancer and service organizations). Lots of friends and friends-of-friends. Stunning scenery and an abundant natural environment.

The isolation has some good consequences: greater self-reliance and pride in doing for ourselves; greater sense of ownership of what we have; a chance to live a bit more simply. I have never produced less household garbage and recycled more. Most of the seafood we eat is locally caught by someone whose name I know. I have to cook my own Indian food because there's no restaurant in town to meet my need. I don't have to tolerate billboards on the highway, or endless tracts of strip malls and fastfood. When you want something fancy or uncommon, it takes deliberation and forethought to procure, rather than just an impulse purchase. I want to think that I am more thankful for what I have.

Isolation removes distraction. I can spend my non-work time doing a few things I enjoy and value, rather than trying to do it all (just because the outside has 'everything'). I concentrate on being a safe and effective fire officer. I enjoy my outdoor toys. I walk 2 or 3 miles everyday outside with my dogs, rain or sun. I also can ignore the media hype and materialism we get from outside, because I have figured out that I can survive pretty well without 4th meal at Taco Bell, the wood fired grill at Red Lobster, the BOGO at Payless Shoes and saving at Kohl's. Come to think of it, we must be hopelessly out of step with mainstream America... and that is definitely OK with me.

I know that I turned away from the darkness when I met my Julie. Regardless of where we might have ended up, I know with every fiber of my being, that having this woman in my life makes me happy. The fight with her cancer drove home the need to celebrate everyday and never take life for granted. So, maybe Juneau itself isn't the key to my happiness. Perhaps it is just one more reason to enjoy this life. Juneau doesn't work for everyone: it didn't work for Jill. I want to think she'd agree that it works for me.

KML

Winter Not Quite Done, Yet

Snow, ice, coughs and colds.

When I lived in New Orleans, the general rule was that if you forgot your umbrella, then you were gauranteed to get caught out in a torrent. Well, it seems the universe laughs again... after a remarkably mild and minimally snowy winter, I decided a weekend ago that it was time to take the studded tires off the Honda so that we could keep the wear down. Of course, the following weekend we get near blizard conditions. The roads are icy and as slick as I have seen them here in Juneau, and it took nearly an hour this morning to get Julie to her work and then me to the Fed Bldg...

Add the hacking cold / crud that has been going around town this winter, that I (again, foolishly) thought I had dodged this season, but have now had for almost a week... Winter is not going down without a struggle.

Forecast says 1 to 3 more inches today... and I feel like crap, but not so bad that I need to stay home. Oh, happy day!!

KL

Finished Treatment One Year Ago

A tremendous accomplishment for Julie, seen here with Sean Parnell, the Governor of Alaska.

Last Friday was the one year mark from her last round of chemo. Surviving stage 4 Inflammatory Breast Cancer... two surgeries, three rounds of chemotherapy, nearly two months of radiation, and a year living in Seattle under the TLC of dear family and friends, and she is now disease-free.

We can't believe that it's been a year already. The port in her chest finally comes out this Thursday. One less reminder...

Julie will start the reconstruction process in September, just about two years since she lost both of the girls. Taking their place will be the "boobies of a 20-year old!!" She can't wait to not have to wear a bra anymore...

Yet another reason never to waste a minute. Life is too short.

KL