Thursday, July 16, 2009

No fire news is good fire news

Well, there's not much news on the fire. Since the fire is off the road system, I can't get to it, so I don't have any cool fire pictures. Two days ago, the fire made a big run and spawned a thunderstorm, which was pretty cool. I should have captured the satellite image, but I think Lisa would be the only regular reader who would appreciate that. :)

We get some down time during the day if there's no active weather, when the model runs aren't updating and it's not time to write the evening forecast yet. My trainer has been running, and I've been doing other things. Yesterday, we launched a couple of weather balloons (Pibals) and that was pretty cool. They don't have an instrument tied to them or anything, we just track them using a theodolite. It's kind of fun. We'll launch them again this afternoon. No point in not launching them, since we have the equipment available!

One interesting thing is that my trainer nearly got run over yesterday! He was sitting outside on the flower bed, having lunch, when this truck ran up over the flower bed and hit the post holding up the over hang for the roof. Mike jumped and ran, but he didn't stop eating his lunch (he's a man after my own heart). The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel! Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the flower beds were easily reconstructed. The whole thing was kind of funny, since there were no injuries. Of course the safety guys were all over that like white on rice.

In other news, I think I have found a new hobby I would like to try. I have been trying to think of a new craft to do. My friend hosts craft nights at her house (actually beading nights, since most of them make jewelry) and I don't really have a portable craft I could bring. I mean, I'm not going to be baking bread or lugging over those mosaic table tops. So the other day, I saw some ladies doing bead work. Not jewelry, but making beaded purses and such. And I thought, this is something I could get into. The most expensive part would be the stuff to sew on (leather is very expensive, but I could use felt), and I wouldn't need all those clampy things. So I'm going to check into beading classes around Anchorage. I think the Native Cultural Center has some.

So that's it for now. I will keep you updated on all the fire excitment!

5 comments:

Lynn said...

I am a closet meteorologist, so feel free to post pictures of weather or give me interesting facts that I can pull out on my husband anytime. He always tells me "not to interpret the radar" because I am not trained to do so. Ha, I think I missed my calling.

Lisa said...

Wow, what an experience with Mike and the asleep driver! Good to hear he's ok. Glad you're having a good experience and not too hectic. And yes, I WOULD have appreciated some satellite pics, but sometimes we do need to try to hide our weather geekness :) And wow! Can't believe youre up there still, apparently Bob's 4-day rule isn't there anymore? :) Thanks for posting!

Anonymous said...

Hey--you are having an exciting time!

As for crafts, I can recommend crocheting/knitting. It's easy and fast to pick up, requires very little in materials (ie, small initial investment to see if you like it!) and it super portable. And no little parts to get lost. ;)

L said...

Yeah, Lisa, I have avoided calling Bob so that he couldn't call me back without a large effort. ;)

mommysquared, I tried both knitting and crocheting when I was younger and couldn't get into them. I've considered crocheting again, but I think knitting is not really for me -- I don't like sweaters all that much.

sfw4514 said...

Post those satellite pics! We may be geeks but our geekiness knows no bounds!