My last 48 hours on the ice...

Well, I hate to say it but according to my penguin timer, I have 99% of my time completed. I have to say that I have enjoyed my adventure this season, and I hope that you have as well. This blog hopefully kept most of you up to date on my adventure. I will be doing entries in my blog when I am in Christchurch, hopefully. And I'll let you all know when I land in Boston.
I was originally scheduled to leave the 23rd down here, but the Australian government has bumped up my day to the 22nd. Why the Australian you ask? Well I'm glad you picked up on that, the NSF has had its last C-17 fly yesterday. Due to an impressive medi-vac earlier in the season, preformed by the USAF and NYANG...the Australian government has lent its private jet, the Airbus, to assist with the exodus of the rest of the base personnel here. I don't mind that I am leaving a day early, I guess the Aussies wanted their jet back sooner. Unfortunately they decided this after my flights back home were booked, so guess who has an extra day in New Zealand payed for by Raytheon? Yea, I am kind of lucky in that department. I wish I could have gone home sooner, but I don't mind.

Yesterday was my last shift at the firehouse. It went by fairly uneventful. I had a face to face meeting with the new chief. He and I discussed the future of this program and about the year in review down here. I wanted to have this face to face so that I could discuss some things that bothered me. One of which, that I will now speak more openly about is the uniform situation. Every firefighter is promised two pairs of pants, 3 tee shirts and 1 hat. When I came down, I was given 1 tee shirt as my uniform, and told that my shipment would be coming down shortly. But, it never came. The management of the Fire Department dropped the ball, and my uniform shipment was held and given to the winter-over firefighters instead. This happened to 11 of our fire fighters who came after me, but before the Winter-over crew came. We were never given an answer about why we were not getting our uniforms. And to be honest I was never happy about the half ass-ed explanation that I was given about the uniforms. Essentially it was an insulting gesture given by the management of the Fire Department..and I have yet to receive a formal apology or any form of compensation.

I know that when reading that, it sounds stern...and it is. But, I do not hate the Department. I appreciate what they have given me; in terms of experience and adventure. I hope that next year, people will not have to go through the same ordeal. The new chief though does look like he wants to make some changes, which is what the Department really needs. Only time will tell, how effective or if any changes go through.
At the last C-17 flight, I was able to say bye to several of my fellow B shift firefighters, and my Captain. I enjoyed working under Captain Shields a great deal. He had lots of interesting stories, and he knew how to handle things within the firehouse. My only regret is that I won't work with him again...but if I do, I would very much look forward to it. The pegasus detail yesterday was long, because there was not only the C-17 flight, but also the Airbus landing. I can hardly wait till I leave on the airbus...I have some plans with that in story for this blog.
All and All I would recommend this experience to anyone interested in the Fire Service. The ARFF training and the other drills/trainings that we did will hopefully help me towards my goal of becoming a career firefighter. Granted the pay is low, the hours are long, but the location is amazing. Antarctica is truly unspoiled and beautiful. One can tell its becoming close to winter here. Today's high temperature is 3 degrees Fahrenheit. And the other night it got down to -24 degrees with a very heavy wind. It was so cold the open water is slowly closing in.
So the only thing left to do within the next 24 hours is to turn in my fire gear, my pager and get my room inspected. So next time I talk to you guys, I'll be in New Zealand hopefully. Take care everyone!

Also I would like to upload more photos, but the network is being silly again. Sorry y'all