2011, Here Comes billy blaze

As the New Year of 2011 begins to settle over us I always tend to look back at my accomplishments and failures over the past year.  During these difficult financial times stretching across America I feel very fortunate to have a stable, secure feeling job, even if it is working with pooh.  I always grin when my little west coast granddaughter chides in that grandpa works at the stinky pooh plant and holds her nose with her fingers.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting older and slowing down a bit or if I'm getting lazy.  I never climbed to the top of any mountain peak this past summer which is a new non-adventure for me.  I always have climbed at least one per summer before.  Maybe it's because I was too darn busy building a tree house for the kids and enjoying when Erica and Van brought Ka'mya to visit Oregon.  In actuality it's probably the fact that my knees hurt so bad for a week after I climb one of those Cascade mountain peaks that it's getting harder to motivate myself too feel the pain (wuss).  I didn't go snowshoeing at Crater Lake either, which is really odd being that Crater Lake is my favorite place to tromp around summer or winter.  It's hard to get there in the winter time since we no longer have the 4 wheel drive jeep to dash through the snow in.

Larrieann and I did go out and purchase a travel trailer the day after we spent a very uncomfortable night sleeping in the bed of my pickup, with Styker laying on top of us, when we went on our annual waterfall weekend hike this last summer.  I have enjoyed pulling it over to the coast where we were amazed watching the bull elk fight during their rutting / mating season. Having the west coast grand kids join us on beach combing weekends has been an adventure.  I never thought a kid could carry so much sand on their little body before coming inside a trailer.  I had a great time when we invited my son and his family, Larrieann's son and his family to the coast for a weekend stay.  I think Larrieann and I are going to make that outing an annual event.  It was enjoyable watching all the kids play on the beach, flying kites and building sand castles together.  It was a interesting adventure breaking into Micheal's car when he locked his only set of keys in it too.  Normally I have a big red truck with the Jaws of Life in it, to help me when I'm braking into cars.  Using a crudely fashioned device made of wire marshmallow skewers to gain access is tough on a rip and tear fireman.

Failures;  I failed to go to fire training as often as I know I should have.  Because even after all the years in the fire service I still don't know it all and I know training is the key to performing well on scene.  I failed to go to Search and Rescue training as often as I should have.  Because I play fireman on the weekends when the SAR trainings are happening.  I failed to loose any weight or eat any better this past year.  Though I was able to loose some more hair from my balding head but not enough to show any weight lose.

The thing that plagued me most about this past year was not getting to spend more time with my east coast granddaughter, Ka'mya.  I got to spend almost a week with her when Erica came west but that wasn't enough time for me.  Here I am suppose to be this macho fireman that can look at any crushed and mangled car and immediately figure a way to free a trapped family from the carnage, and here I can't even figure out how to spend more time with my own granddaughter.  I can't move east because I'm way too rooted out west.  They can't move here because they have family there that would miss them if they moved west.  I can't afford to fly to Maryland much more then once a year so here I sit brooding.  I can't wait till Ka'mya is old enough to have her own tree house.  Because I know a fire guy who is going to travel east and build one just for her someday.

I have a few more stories to tell this coming year before I run out of them and have to start making up real lies.  I hope everyone who is following along on the mis-adventures of billy blaze has a safe and profitable new year.