What a Day!

Well today was a very long day for all of us FEMA TL's.  Our day began with waking up before 5 am for our a little over 3 hour drive to Baton Rouge, LA.  At 5:30 sharp-ish we departed for the FEMA Recovery Office to receive our 1-1-1 assignments.  In other words we received our Blackberry Bold FEMA phones, our FEMA issued laptop (what a brick this thing is), and our encrypted key to access the FEMA DHS network for when we are working in the field. 

Overall I think things went relatively smoothly especially for this being the first time this office has handled our issuance of equipment.  There will be some things to learn from it however I'm sure the kinks will all be worked out for when we come back in a month to do the CM equipment issuing and ID card issuing.  Today was the day I also got my official .gov email address! Movin' on up!

Today was the first of many long trips we'll be taking in the 15P vans.  It was a lot of fun getting to chat with everyone and listen to some jams on our way down and back.  I was also able to chat with Justin one of the awesome UL's we have on the way back.  I was able to get a much better idea of what the different teams will be.  I'm starting to hope that I am able to work hard and prove myself enough to be on one of the Fast Action teams that will go into disasters right away and provide Rapid Intervention.  That would be awesome!

Today starts an interesting series of about seven days as the Traditional NCCC Corps began to arrive back to campus for their transition week (the week they have between SPIKES[deployments]).  Campus is going to be packed!  Also because we arrived back so late in the evening, the planned PT was cancelled and the UL's asked all of us to do some sort of PT between tonight and Thursday night to make up for it.  A good crowd of us played basketball for a good hour to hour and 45 mins.  Its great getting back to playing again and it's even better to be around a group of motivating people that get me back into the grove of things.  Motivation is all many people need and this great group of people is what gives it to me! 

The rest of the week should prove to be crucial training, as we're going to be receiving some training on supervisory skills and other skills that we'll have to apply on a daily basis.  I'll update y'all when I have more time.  I think it's time for early bed for me.