Category Archives: Work Life

12 of 12, Geocaching, Scott at Work, Work Life

January 2011 – 12 of 12

January 13, 2011 Scott Leave a comment

What was going to be a normal day at work after having a couple of weeks off on vacation on the West Coast, it certainly didn’t finish off that way.

First thing this morning started with a pager test as it is the first day of my 7 days on call as Safety Officer for the Metropolitan Fire Service. A quick check of the lights and siren on the Camry then through the car wash to rinse off a couple of weeks of grime from sitting in the driveway.

There were a couple of packages at the Post Office to pick up. They came from the US. One was a box of travel bugs from Reno and the other was an Every Trail T-shirt. I got the T-shirt for tagging photos on the Every Trail website a few weeks ago.

Getting into work and it was a little hard as the builders next door had blocked our back driveway to put the sign up on the new Police HQ building.

I was asked to trial a few speed apps for the iPhone but there doesn’t seem to be any decent ones around.

Spent the day doing the paperwork it takes to run a Fire Service, before heading home for the day.

Wednesday night is “Night Owls” Lawn Bowls at the Blackwood Bowling Club. I was heading up to the Club when I got my first callout for the night – to a Shop Fire at Gawler (58 kms away). I was turned back quickly and went back to the Bowling Club.

I was about to take my first bowl when the pager went again – this time for a Hospital Fire at Victor Harbor (88 kms away).

I thought I would have got turned back on this call but I was requested to attend the scene and report back to the On-Call Commander and the Deputy Chief.

After attending the fire at Victor, I managed a few geocache finds on the way home.

Again, another very different 12 of 12.

$TB\'s from Reno$

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12 of 12, Family Life, Scott at Work, Scouts, Work Life

November 12 of 12 …

November 12, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

Another month down and another 12 of 12. This month a bit of work and a bit of play.

I woke up this morning at the State Training Centre at Brukunga as I was taking part in the first Senior Officer Bushfire / Emergency Management Forum. This involved the Chiefs, Deputy Chiefs and Assistant Chiefs of the Emergency Services (MFS / CFS / SES) and the Police Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners of SAPOL. The high level forum discussed the Victorian Royal Commission for the 2009 Bushfires and came up with some resolution on how South Australia will tackle bushfires in the fire season to come.

The forum concluded at lunchtime and it was time to head back down to work for a few more hours before heading out with the family and 500 other scouts to the Distinctive Home Dome to watch the Adelaide 36er’s take on the NZ Breakers in basketball. The Scouts had a promotion on tonight including a half time show with abseiling, tent pitching and sand buggies. The tickets for the game were free as part of the promotion.

The game was an exciting one with the 36er’s being down by points early in the game before levelling in the 3rd quarter but ending up losing by 3 points. Not bad considering the NZ Breakers are leading the NBL competition at the moment.

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12 of 12, Firefighting, Geocaching, Scott at Work, Work, Work Life

12 of 12 August 2010 – Breathing Apparatus ……

August 12, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

The day didn’t start well with a couple of Geocaching Events I was planning being knocked back for approval. After doing a little research and a letter to the Ump, I hope that he will reconsider the Events and have them listed.

Today was my annual Breathing Apparatus Re-accreditation. It involves some theory, then some drills in the Training Tower where the house prop and cage prop are darkened, filled with smoke and “heavy” dummies, we suit up in our Fire-fighting PPE, Breathing Apparatus, take in hoselines and drag out all the dummies.

Even though today was cool and drizzly, it was still warm enough to work up a sweat.

The day finished on a high though with a FTF on a cache at Upper Sturt on the way home, GC2D8VT – Beagles Boyfriend 🙂

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Geocaching, Scott at Work, Work Life

Home through Brachina Gorge …

June 20, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

This morning was spent with more workshop sessions and after lunch it was time to head home. I decided to take an alternative route through the Brachina Gorge.

The Brachina Gorge is a step back through geological time with a number of different features that are Earthcaches.

An Earthcache site is a place that people can visit to learn about a unique geoscience feature or aspect of our Earth. Visitors to EarthCache sites can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes, how we manage the resources and how scientists gather evidence to learn about the Earth.

I decided it was time to take the plunge and place an Earthcache myself at the Slippery Dip or Brachina Formation. The process for an earthcache is more involved than hiding a normal cache and the process takes more than a month. My listing is GC2B2R0 – Slippery Dip anyone ….

Another big day of caches on the way home with 26 finds but no FTF’s this time.

And now for the kangaroo story. Just after leaving Carrieton, I spotted a kangaroo on the side of the road in the distance. Unsure of which way it was going to jump, I started slowing down and of course as I came up on it it jumped my way. Quickly on the brakes but the roo went under the front of the car. Once I stopped, it picked itself up and jumped off. The only damage I could see was a dented number plate.

I later found that I had a oil leak as well which was easily fixed at the next car service 🙂

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Scott at Work, Work Life

Bonding on Sky Trek ….

June 19, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

The first activity for Saturday Morning was to drive part of the famous 4WD route called “Sky Trek“.

The Sky Trek took us through the Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby Preservation Association Bunkers Conservation Reserve, culminating in reaching the summit of Mt Caernarvon ( 921 metres above sea level ), the highest point of vehicle access in the Flinders Ranges with spectacular views towards Wilpena Pound.

It wasn’t all about enjoying the views, but there were also a number of activities undertaken along the way to bond the crews in each vehicle as well as stops along the way for group strategic activities.

After the mornings activities, it was back to Willow Springs for more Strategic workshops until late in the night ……

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Geocaching, Scott at Work, Work Life

Caching my way to the Flinders …

June 18, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

I had the opportunity to attend the CFS “Operation Compass” Strategic weekend as the MFS Representative. This was held at Willow Springs Station (NE of Wilpena Pound). It is a trip of 477km from home and it allowed the finding a few Geocaches along the way.

A couple of days ago there were a number of caches hidden around Hawker that hadn’t been found yet so there was a chance of some “First to Finds” (FTF’s).

It was a productive trip with 27 finds and 4 FTF’s.

I arrived at dusk with a number of kangaroos on the side of the road making driving interesting but didn’t hit any (yet …)

First to Finds:

GC2A9JN – Alone or Lonely (Gordon)

GC2A9J3 – Alone or Lonely (Kanyaka Hotel)

GC2A9HZ – Alone or Lonely (Yappla Waters Station / McDill )

GC2A9JE – Garden Gate

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12 of 12, Geocaching, Work Life

12 of 12 May 2010 …

May 12, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

Another month down and time for another 12 of 12.

Today was nothing exciting but there were a few things that were out of the normal.

The day started as normal dropping the kids at school which allowed some cache maintenance at my Eden Hills CFS cache (spoiler photo). A stop at the Post Office but the postbox was bare today. The usual drive down to Adelaide and grabbed a photo of the city near Scotch College and apart from the traffic at the roundabout there, it was a good drive in.

A couple of photos of the SA Police HQ going up at the back of the Fire Station and the car park going up in the front.

A visit from Ivar with the proof print for the Competitors Map for this years Scouts Rally SA – good to go. 🙂

Today was the start of the second round of Lung Function Testing for our firefighters. The University of Adelaide researchers brought in their equipment today and we set it up ready for the 6 month study as a follow on study from 2 years ago.

There a few photos of work life with the line up of “fire cars”, coffee time and some reading material.

This afternoon, I caught up with Flipper & Co to give some Travel Bugs which they are going to take to Melbourne on the weekend.

Through the carwash on the way back to the Fire Station and then final photo is “Time to Go Home” as the sun sets with the night shift crews about to begin for the night ………

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12 of 12, Home Life, Work Life

April 12 of 12 ….

April 12, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

What to do for this months 12 of 12. A work day and not one that was to be all that exciting – spending the day in Court as an assessor on an Appeals Tribunal. Taking a leaf out of DarrylW4’s book, I decided that I would take photos of anything that happened on my iPhone.

The 12 photos I grabbed for the day are:

Main Road of Blackwood while I checked the post box;
The new Police Station construction at the back of the Fire Station;
The new Car Park being built at the front of the Fire Station;
Walking to the Court Building at Victoria Square;
The Court Building;
Looking out the window towards Victoria Square;
Lunch at the Central Market Arcade;
Driving home on King William Street;
A quick stop at the Thompson Playground (named after my parents);
Looking towards Adelaide from Windy Point Lookout;
Sunset over Glenelg.

Ended up not being too bad of a 12 of 12. See what next month brings. 🙂

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USA 2010, Work Life

Lets start the Strike Team class work …

March 28, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

I think my head hit the pillow and the alarm went off straight away – well it seemed like it. Up at 7:00am, showered then headed downstairs to grab a coffee and muffin then to the Registration Desk and off to Day 1 of the S-330 Strike Team Leaders course.

The course is being run by Chief Michael Brown, Captain Steve Alcorn and Isaac Powning all from North Lake Tahoe Fire District. The mix of the class is a lot of Nevada and Californian personnel with some from other States and myself and another from Australia.

The course is a lot different from the S-215 I did a couple of years ago. This is more on the administrative role of a Strike Team Leader rather than operational firefighting role. It certainly shows the different approach to wildfires between the US and Australia.

Once the day had finished it was time to explore the local area, to find a store for supplies and of course some caches.

At the southern end of the hotel carpark is Reno Fire Department Station #21 which has a interesting engine room design to allow for the snow to fall off.

Headed south finding one store which ended up being an Indian store (of the sub continent variety) so they didn’t have the usual staples, so kept walking and found a Sak n’ Save which is similar to a supermarket back home.

A couple of bags of stuff later and it was the long walk back, when a woman stopped and asked directions to the Grand Sierra, which was lucky as it was about the only place I knew so I got a ride back to the hotel.

Managed to grab 7 caches today including a couple of the LPC’s (Lamp Post Caches) and find number 2400. Total distance for the walk was 6 km today.

Caches found:

GC1X93A – light it up

GC12DN4 – Movie Title Series #5

GC1Y40R – Cache Challenge

GC12Y5E – Let’s all Learn to Geocache

GC17DDDX – Airport Square

GC1QM09 – WWJEat6

GC18TDK – Another Fast Find

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USA 2010, Work Life

Flying to the US again ….

March 27, 2010 Scott Leave a comment

I have been given the opportunity to get back to the US to attend the 2010 Wildland Urban Interface Conference in Reno Nevada.

The trip from home to hotel was to be 31 hours with 17.5 hours of that in the air. The biggest wait was to be in LAX for around 6 hours.

Friday night and I got a call from Qantas saying that my Sydney leg was delayed and that I had been placed on a domestic flight at a later time. This suited me as I got to have an extra hours sleep. 🙂 I later found out that the flight had been cancelled and not delayed.

The leg to Sydney was uneventful and it was off the plane, through Customs and Immigration and nearly straight on the plane for the LA leg. We were delayed from takeoff as they were still refuelling. No problems with that – dont want to run out of fuel over the Pacific anywhere.

The flight was like riding a train in the A380 until 4 hours in when we started flying over tropical storms and it was roller coaster for about 45 minutes.

Needless to say it was hard to get any sleep after that with a few more bumps along the way. I probably got about 2 hours in total. And besides I was travelling cattle class this time. 🙁

Even though leaving late, we managed to get in early to LAX – not really what I wanted because of the wait I had before my next flight. The plane had a skycam on the TV which brought in images from a camera on the tail. I took photos of the takeoff, landing and sunrise – Cool.

The Customs and Immigration queue only took about 1/2 an hour and both my bags were there. I then rechecked my bags for the Reno leg wondering if I would see them again.

It was out into the real world to kill some time. First stop was Radioshack to get a pre-paid phone and datacard. No nasty data surprises this trip. 😉

Some lunch at Starbucks and then time for some caches in the local area before heading back to the airport.

Caches found were:

GCGDTF – Pushing Tin LAX

GC1DJJR – One Hour Pancakes

While waiting for the plane, I tried the datacard but was having no luck – thats OK the netbook was going flat anyway, I will sort it in Reno.

We were late getting away from LAX due to them trying to fill the small plane then putting too many on then taking people off. As long as my luggage made it on.

The flight was spectactular with flying over large mountains of snow – cant wait to have a chance on them.

Arrived in Reno to find my luggage there – what a surprise.

A shuttle ride to the Grand Sierra Resort, got my room , settled in and headed to bed – I was feeling a little tired by now and I had a 7:00 am start ing the morning.