Driving the Tender

This morning while getting ready for work I heard the pager go off looking for someone from Albion, Diamond, Steptoe, or Colfax that could drive a rig to the grain bin that burnt in the fire last month. I called and asked if I could help. I asked what rig I would be driving. I was told Eleven-Zero-Three. With is the big twenty-seven hundred gallon water tender. I have not driven that one before. Ralph asked if I have had EVAP. I told him I had. I also said I have driven some larger rigs as well, just not that one.

I went to the station. He gave me a quick tour and I went to work. I drove out to the grain bin. They were using a backhoe to stir up the grain and get it cooled to the point where it could be transported away. We got to work spraying water and the grain was moved. When the railroad track, that had been covered by about one foot of grain over the last few weeks, was exposed it was so hot that when putting water on it, it would boil off and dry immediately. I reapplied water for a little bit until it did not do that anymore. That was a good indication of what we would find through out the rest of the morning.

I was talking to the guy running the backhoe and he had mentioned that he was a volunteer in Pullman for twenty something years. I ask him his name and he told me it was Jim Gelespie. I have heard of him. I told him I work there as well.

After that tank of water was done we took the rig back to the station and filled it up. I had to get going after that so I zoomed back to Pullman. I had some new bugs assigned to me and I wanted to work on some of them. I got underway with one that was opened to undo something we did in this current release. Then I lost a lot of steam to get going on the bug. I actually did a build on my box and got the new Capella build going.

I went home and got into my Pullman fire uniform and make my way to the station around four in the afternoon. I started to read my ICS stuff that I missed due to the calls on Monday. I also had some dinner and shined my boots.

My crew arrived a little before six. We got loaded in the rigs, did some quick rig checks and went to station one for training. Just like last week we got sent out on a call. It was a pretty short one. While at the hospital I was going to put both rigs in service. While I was talking on the radio John came up behind me and grabbed me. It made me jump and mess up while I was talking on the radio. Everyone got a huge laugh out of that.

The second day of ICS class was fun. At least the scenarios were more fun. My eye was really starting to hurt. It was causing me enough discomfort I was not able to get back into class from a break at one point. So when I did get back in Chris saw me and gave me some Visine and an egg to roll around the eye to help it feel better. Within about fifteen minutes I was able to get back into class and finish it from there.

When we went back to the Deuce following the class we washed Rescue because it got dirty in the rain. But then I remember the air bottles that needed to be filled. We went to station one, again, and started to fill there. We have ten bottles below four-thousand PSI. Some of them were below three-thousand PSI.