SuperBowl in Antarctica

OKAY, so the server isn't letting me upload photos...AGAIN! So I will add some later, sorry.

Happy Post Superbowl Everyone. Unfortunately, it was Superbowl Monday down here, since we are a day ahead of y'all. I had to work that day, and Mondays are our busiest days at Station 1. On Mondays we have to go through all the apparatus and check each individual tool and cabinet and clean them. It is usually a very time consuming task, and along with fire inspections and hydrant inspections it makes a very long day. We also had a pegasis flight, so that means that 7 of our guys had to leave the Station to do the flight detail. But, we did our best to plow through the work and surprisingly we finished before noon, just before the game started. It is kind of crazy to watch the Superbowl mid-day, shout out to the time difference!

So as you can guess we don't get NBC down here, so we had to watch AFN's version of the superbowl. If you are now just joining us, AFN is the Armed Forces Network. Military channels are most likely one of the worst television channels I have seen. It has curbed my desire to watch any television, down here at least. Why is that you ask? AFN does not run normal commercials. Instead they run really bad PSA's all the time. Thanks to Youtube, you too can watch PSA's that I have to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mghxZzWVO7A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjzSFxriirw

I love PSA's as much as the next guy, but when they run basically 24/7 and repeat themselves several times within an hour...it gets old. I am starting to think about re-enlisting and that I have a drinking/shaking baby/credit/smoking problem. And all of the PSA's look like they are from the early to mid 90's. The picture quality is of that era as well. I guess the military hasn't picked up on the digital channels yet.

The whole reason why I bring this up is because, due to this I wasn't going to be able to watch any of the Superbowl commercials. Now don't kid yourself, you love the commercials too. Instead of those fun ones, we have to watch PSAs...and when you have a game like the Superbowl which is prone to commercial breaks, the PSAs are really annoying.
So for the Superbowl, our Fire Department rented out the Coffee house, which has a big screen tv. But since the reception is similar to stolen cable in the mid 90's, it really doesn't matter how big the TV is. But, is better than nothing. Since the entire town is dry now, thanks to the NAVCHAPS being in, look for a blog entry about those fools to come...the Superbowl party had to be dry and strictly enforced to be dry as well. The past week Raytheon has been on a firing frenzy, and have taken almost any opportunity to fire people. I won't post the incidents up here, but when I get back to the states maybe I'll tell a couple of you the stories I have heard.

BACK to the SUPERBOWL Story: Luckily one of our lieutenants has TIVO at his house in Denver. I know what you are saying, "Phil, why does that matter?" Well, I am glad you asked...because he has been rebroadcasting his TIVO online. So thanks to this wonderful invention and the Internet, we were able to watch the game just like you back home on real TV. Granted there was a time delay, and sometimes it would slow down...but all and all it was great. It was on an laptop, in the other room at the Coffee house, so some people would sit in the big Television room and run over to the laptop room just for the commercials. There was one guy, who I never saw him move so fast down here. If only he put that much effort when he was working, ZING! But back to the laptop....we were able to watch normal commercials for the first time in 4 months, which was great. It really is the small things down here, that make you happy.

I missed the last 5 minutes of the Game, THANK GOD it was also being taped, due to a couple fire calls. Nothing major was happened. But, it was really a classic fire call in terms that it comes at the most inopportune time. Just after we cleared the scene, there was 45 seconds left on the game. So we walked back into the Station, got a quick glimpse on the television, only to go back out for another call. All and All it was a pretty fun day at the Station 1. I hope you all had a great Superbowl Weekend. Take care!