Fire fire, pants a liar.

Much of the same with a little bit of the different just to keep things interesting.

With the whole town melting all around it is funny to see it suddenly really start snowing quite heavily as it did the other day, though all that fresh snow is melted by now.

I recently got sent back to the UT Shop to help with boiler cleaning.  Another messy job once the soot is in the air, but luckily I got moved around enough to where I managed to avoid getting too filthy.

Yesterday I got assigned to Fire Watch in the Crary lab.  While the fire suppression system is down for inspection and repair I get to go from room to room every hour and look for fire.  It isn't a bad job, but I wish I had wider boots as they have been causing problems for my feet since I got here.  The other problem is every Grantee in Crary likes to think they're funny.  I walk into an occupied room, announce that I am Fire Watch, and I get mixed replies.

"Back again?"

"Is this all you do?"

"No fire yet."

"You just missed it!"

"We put it out already"

"I'll start a fire for you next time."

"Fssssssshfssssshfshfshhfshhfsssssshfsh."

I think that last one is supposed to be the sound of fire, but I am not certain.

I have a key to every room in Crary except for one: the office of the two UT shop members.  Odd.

Why doesn't the Firehouse itself run the Fire Watch?  Good question.  Everyone keeps asking it.  Myself included, as I am everyone too.

I heard that the Firehouse first wanted to run a watch every 15 minutes, but did not have the staff to pull it off and it was deemed rather silly.  Second, they wanted to install an Auto-Dialer to keep them informed of the status, but I think I heard they decided against it since it would mean lots of calls.  So they settled on having someone in Crary do it.  And Crary decided it would be the UT Shop, and the UT Shop decided to relocate one of their GAs to Crary for the task.  So I set about inspecting the building every hour and phoning the Firehouse with the results until they came in later in the day, handed me a clipboard and told me not to call every hour anymore and just to keep the log myself.  I guess Helen in the Firehouse got tired of talking to me.

Working in Crary isn't bad.  I get to see some interesting things, like the one underwater camera that looks like a small torpedo, or the touch tank which is filled with some creepy looking things, like the large aquatic pillbug thing that looks dead but is always in a different place when I check the tank.

I also joined a volleyball team down here.  Two of my teammates work in Crary so I see them daily (for my duration of working in there).  My first game was last night and I apparently did quite well for not having played since High School PE.  Several times I would dive for the ball, bump it back into the air, only to have someone else bump it back to me while I was on the ground and thus have to preform a kind of breakdance spin-in-place to propel the ball airborne again.  I think I got a decent workout and there is now less skin on my knees as a result.  Good times.

I have been sending some packages out to friends and family.  Postage OUT is actually not too bad, since it only gets calculated as leaving San Francisco.  An entire box of Christmas presents wound up only being like $12 and some change.

Laundry has become a problem.  There are only 6 or washers and dryers in the laundry room in this building and they're quite often in use.  Like right now, I would like to do laundry.  I have become quite fond of my REI wool hiking socks and tend to wear the same two pairs every day.  This is bad, as I think the wool has gone flat.  I'll start trying to rotate my other socks tomorrow and we'll see how long I can get until my next load of laundry.

Note for next year: pack more REI wool hiking socks.