Denver Part II

Out of Order/Late post...Sorry, skip this to read about New Zealand...or you can read about day two of orientation:

So Day two of Orientation wasn't too bad. It was interesting. I got to sort of see how Raytheon got the Antarctica contract, and what they plan on doing with it. And then I got a trained in how to recycle (They recycle almost all of their trash) and how to work in the Antarctic environment safely. What is really neat is that basically everyone has to sort their own garbage, then the waste treament plant on the ice sorts it some more, eventually it gets put in a storage container and is sent to California to be recycled, and the proceeds go to fund the station. Raytheon brags that they are the most "green" station and that their recycling record is better than any other "green" city that exists in the U.S.
But thats about it for the training. After that, the whole group of us went back to the hotel, and went out for dinner. All the people are pretty decent and I can't complain. After dinner one of the other Firefighters who lived in Denver a while ago invited a couple of us to get drinks in the "downtown Denver". Denver's "Light Rail" system is no where near the Boston MBTA system, the only advantage is that it runs an hour or two later. Otherwise its fairly poor attempt at public transportation. But for a system that is only 2 years old, I'll give it a break. "Downtown" Denver is not too bad. Its not what I would consider "Downtown" as far as a city is concerned, since it was small and only had a couple of skyscrapers. The bar we went to was the "Pour House", which is strangely affiliated with the Boston's "Pour House". Apparently they have a "free shot" everytime the Red Sox hit a home run during the finals. The drink specials were quite good during that time too to my understanding..oh well next time. I couldn't complain though that night, because they had a "firefighter/EMT" rate, half off all drinks. I got to meet a bunch of wicked nice Denver Medics and firefighters, and we all talked shop and talked about McMurdo. Lots of Colorado firefighters do the Raytheon program, so for now I think I'm the only New Englander on the force. We'll see when I get down on the ice. So basically day two of the orientation wasn't too bad. I didn't stay out too late in "downtown" Denver, due to the fact that I was still a little jet lagged and I wanted to repack my bags before the hellish day of traveling was going to transpire.