I went shopping today. I bought a whole new wardrobe for my new job. Dress pants, dress shirts, dress socks, the works. I also bought Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Captain America shirts because I’m a nerd, and I wanted to add some fun to my rather bland wardrobe. I want to buy a new pair of shoes, too, but I didn’t today because I wanted to look online for those. There’s a certain style I like, and I want to see what’s out there. I also finally bought myself a good car charger for my new iPhone, so I don’t have to worry about my battery when I’m driving. Eventually I’ll buy more stuff for my car, but at the moment, it’s not a priority. All in all, I think I’m going to look pretty good at work and casual Friday’s will be fun with my new tee’s.

I’m not a big shopper. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a minimalist by heart. I don’t dislike the idea of shopping, especially when there’s stuff I actually need; I dislike the idea of adding unnecessary items to my life. Stuff I don’t need or want makes me feel constricted. I’ve certainly relaxed my views on my minimalist philosophy over the past few years, and there’s definitely things I want, but at the end of the day, I use most everything I own. That is my definition of minimalism. I learned this from the Minimalists: pack everything you own in boxes, and over the next thirty days, unpack those things you actually use. Whatever is still boxed up, pack it in your car and donate it. You don’t need any of it.

I went a year and a half without a car. For the most part, I turned out okay. There were times during winter when I walked to work in sub-zero temperatures, but I didn’t die. A car would’ve been nice, though. I bought my second car last month, and my life has definitely been nicer because of it. It also made my new job possible. I don’t need a car charger. I could always pack an extra charger to charge my phone wherever there’s a power outlet, or better yet, I could always bring my MacBook and charge it from there if I was ever out. But a car charger has made charging my phone a nicer experience, and it’s for sure going to be used a lot. I bought my MacBook Air to replace my very old Dell desktop computer; I bought my iPhone because I needed a phone; I don’t have a TV because I don’t need a TV, even though I may buy one soon because it’ll make watching TV from my laptop a little nicer; and I just recently started hanging posters and pictures on my wall because living with empty white walls was getting to me. I mention my tech because they’re expensive. My iPad was my last real unnecessary purchase, but for what I use it for, it’s made my life nicer.

Instead of buying cheap things and replacing them very often, I try to buy things that’ll last me a long time, so I can win out financially in the long run. I could buy a $100 knife that’ll last me a lifetime or buy a $10 knife that I’ll have to replace once every year or two. Which brings me back to the new pair of shoes I want to buy. My $220 firefighting boots are the only footwear I’ve ever purchased over $110. They’ve been through three years of stepping on hot ash and hiking for miles on Montana’s steep mountains, and they’re still in great shape. I want to recreate that with my next pair of nice, dress shoes. Of course I have to budget for this, but I try to budget for everything. And yes, I do use an application for that: YNAB.

I believe a nice life is about priorities and filling it with only the essentials, whatever those may be for you. Simplify as much as you can, and what that may be will become clear.

My second day of school was way better than my first. Nothing felt overwhelming, yet it seems like I got more done. A big reason for that is that I brought my laptop and iPad to work and used those tools to help me organize my life. How cool is it that I can use my own laptop and iPad at work and no one bats an eye? That’s going to take me some time to get used to. Not only that, but on Monday I’ll be able to bring in my new iPhone 6. Everybody better watch out because I’ll be some sort of productivity ninja.

Here’s what I did: I used my MacBook Air to establish a remote connection to the computer in the server room. I blew away one of the teachers by doing this. This means I don’t have to be tied down to a clunky old windows desktop and instead can move around freely with my MacBook and check in on the status of the server wherever and whenever I’d like. The next thing I did was organize my OmniFocus application. I created a work folder with a few projects underneath them. I have just two, a troubleshooting teacher’s questions and issues one and a miscellaneous one. I’m sure I’ll add more later. I then emailed the staff, introducing myself, giving them some of my contact info, and most importantly, giving them my special OmniFocus email address. They can email any and all requests there and it’ll go straight into my OmniFocus inbox. With this program, I can focus on what needs to be done around the school and not feel so overwhelmed. To top that off, I created people contexts. I only have a few right now — those that have talked to me already with their issues — but eventually I’m going to add everyone. So I have two views of organization. I have a project view, where I can see all the tasks that have yet to be done for the whole school. Then I have the contexts view, where I can break it down to individual teachers. So if I’m near Mr. X’s room, I can pull up my OmniFocus context perspective, see if he has any items, and if he does, check in on him and see if I can help him. It’s efficient, powerful, and so much fun. I then transferred all of yesterday’s notes and todo’s from my paper notebook into my trusted system, removing one more area of friction in my head. On Monday I’m going to bring my portable Doxie One scanner so I can scan any papers that may enter my life. That’s what I have my iPad and my Dropbox Pro account for, to help me go completely paperless. Finally, for the last few hours at work, I signed up for a Lynda.com subscription and watched some videos. The first seven days are free, but I’m already sure I’m going to be a member for a few months. They have so many courses that I know will help me learn and better understand the tech this school has. I’m going to be busy for a while.

That was a long paragraph. I wanted to illustrate the fact that to some people, being this nerdy is hilarious or they think I should get a life and go outside more often or something condescending like that. To those people, all I have to say is go fuck yourselves. This is who I am, and this is what I love to do. I want to organize my life, get everything out of my head and into a trusted system that technology is so good at helping me with. I can then focus on the work, on getting shit done, providing me time and energy to do what I’m passionate about. Every morning for the past twelve days, I’ve been writing the second draft of my novel. I finished the first chapter a few days ago, and I’m in the middle of my second. What’s helping me the most is technology. I’m using Scrivener to organize and write my novel, MindNode Pro to brainstorm it on my iPad (and my iPhone and Mac if I feel like it), OmniOutliner Pro on my iPad and Mac to help me structure the story, and Byword in combination with Dropbox to write down any notes or ideas I have on my iPhone and have it sync up to my MacBook. To top it off, I’m using OmniFocus to organize my todo’s for this project to ensure I get this beast done. Every morning at 5 AM the program tells me to get my ass up and write. And I do.

My entries are getting longer. We’re getting two entries in one here, people. All to tell everyone reading this to not be afraid of who we are. Embrace your personality, your likes and dislikes, and live the type of life that you control and that no one else dictates for you. That, I think, is true freedom, and it’s something I’m striving for every day. I’m not there yet, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be, but as long as I try, I’m happy. And I’m happy.

My first day on the job was overwhelming. I arrived to work half an hour early because I totally miscalculated the time I thought it would’ve taken me to get there. I thought I’d be at least fifteen minutes early, not a full half hour. I waited in my car and saw all the high school kids drive into the parking lot and park. I immediately felt old. And this is a kindergarten through 12th grade school. It’s strange seeing five year old kids and grown teenagers on the same campus at the same time. The campus is broken up into three distinct buildings: elementary school, middle school, and high school. The class of 2015 is like fifteen people. It’s incredibly small. I was given a tour by the superintendent of the school (and my boss), and he introduced me to many of the teachers there. Some were super relieved to finally have a tech guy, so they immediately bombarded me with issues and questions involving all the tech they have. The tech this school has is impressive. They have a desktop computer and laptop for pretty much every student, as well as an iPad and iPod touch. They have smart boards in most classrooms. Look it up, I didn’t know what they were either. I learned the layout, met most of the teachers, and wrote down a long todo lists of things to get to eventually. All very overwhelming.

I’m scared. I feel like I may not do as good a job as I thought I might. There’s a lot to learn, a lot to do, and a lot I don’t even know I have to worry about yet. The staff there told me that I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ll learn everything in due time. That’s a big thing many people repeated: they’re not expecting me to learn all this quickly. They’re giving me a three month probationary period for a reason. I don’t have to learn all this now, and that is comforting. But damn. I want to be perfect. I want to know all this already. But apparently the school signed the last tech guy to a contract, and he wasn’t very good, so all he did was play video games in his office and the school could do nothing about it. Or something like that. I at least won’t be anything like that at all.

After work, I went to my brother-in-law’s house because he wanted to celebrate my newly employed status. I treated him, my sister, and my two nieces to food at the Outwest Grill restaurant in St. Ignatius. I had the Montana Jack burger, a cheeseburger with jalapeño ranch sauce and sweet potato fries as the side. I washed it down with strawberry lemonade. It was delicious, but I felt fat afterwards. When I started this blog, I wanted to live as perfect a life as I could. That meant exercising, writing, reading, eating well, not drinking, not pining over some stupid girl, working, making money, improving myself in every way — in short, to be perfect. I didn’t want to eat out and eat unhealthily. But there’s no such thing as perfection. The more I try to think there is, the crazier and unhappy I get. Today I didn’t eat well. Tomorrow I will. One day isn’t going to kill me.

But I don’t want to lose focus and let this be the start of the end for me. I don’t want to feel the weight of that stone feel heavier where I can’t hold on anymore and watch it roll down the hill for me to push up again later. I don’t want that.

I’m no longer fighting the Pistol Creek fire. I demobilized a few hours ago, effectively ending my 2014 fire season. I fought seven fires this season, my most ever. I could’ve fought more since it looks like Seepay — Seepay! — caught fire again today. We’ve fought the Seepay fire three times already this summer, and she just won’t die. There were reports of 100 foot flame lengths coming from this fire today and that’s exciting. I won’t be there to fight it, but I hope my crew does.

More of the same today, except the heat felt unbearable. We performed better today, I think, too. All of our rookies finally knew what they were doing, so a few of us veterans trusted them to work well and with minimal supervision. We still had to teach them some things that seem very basic to us, but to a rookie, it’s not. It’s like learning how to walk. We just do it, but when you try to explain it to someone who’s never walked before, we’re kind of at a loss. They’ll be fine. I’ll be honest: since I knew today was going to be my last day, I slowed down a bit. I took pleasure in commanding others in what to do. I love teaching, but I like telling people what to do more. I’m going to be a squad boss next year, so I should be getting used to this. I can’t wait.

On our way to dinner, my new boss called me and told me the board had approved me, pending a background check, so I’m all good to come in tomorrow. He just said to come in, meet up with him, and we’ll take it from there. Out of curiosity, I asked him if there was a dress code. Business casual, he said, but Friday’s are casual, except you have to wear purple. Purple is the school’s colors. I don’t have anything business casual, or purple for that matter. So after I turned in all my gear at the Division of Fire, I rushed toward Walmart, bought the first nicest pair of black slacks I found, and a grey, collared, button-up long-sleeve shirt. I tried them both on and thought I looked sexy. In fact, I liked the long mirror they had in the dressing room, so I bought one for myself. I leaned it against my wall in my bathroom and took my clothes off to shower. Before I stepped in, though, I had to admire the view for a bit.

I’m damn sexy, ladies. Just thought I’d let you know.

The Pistol Creek fire is on the Mission Mountains outside of Arlee on an elevation of about 4,500 feet. I found this little seashell up there buried underneath inches of hot duff and roots. This little guy is so unbelievable old that imagining how truly old it is boggles my mind. The whole world used to be underwater, and I think we sometimes lose sight of that and our place in the universe. Anyways…

We went back up to the northern flank of the fire. Actually, we started from the bottom and moved a chain from the line and gridded up. A chain is 66 feet. Usually our squads are split up into three groups of six, but since we were a little shorthanded this time around, we split up into just two squads of about eight. If we were just six people, then we would spread apart ten feet from the person to our left. Six people times ten feet is 66 feet. Gridding just means taking care of the area in front of us and destroying any hot spots we find. We found a ton very early on, so we quickly abandoned this plan. We were pretty much seeking and destroying for the rest of the day. Later in the afternoon, a short rain shower hit us, providing us a brief respite from the heat. It also helped us uncover dozens more hot spots that we missed by heating the rain drops into steam and smoke. There’s a lot more work to do before we fully fight this fire, but unfortunately, I won’t be around for the end. Tomorrow will be my last day on the Pistol Creek fire.

I start my new job on Thursday. I’m nervous and excited and relieved and a range of other emotions. I’ve never had a full-time job that provided me with benefits, but I will on Thursday. I’ve never had a full-time job that has paid me an hourly wage as high as I’ll be paid on my new job, but I will on Thursday. For the first three months, I’ll be on a probationary period, and if I perform well — which I plan to do — then my hourly wage will increase. I’ll be making just as much as I do firefighting but with more consistent hours and with benefits. I can finally attack my student loans with more vigilance than I have been. I can finally invest my money without it hurting my day-to-day finances. I’m a minimalist at heart, and this new job can help me finally not worry about money for a while. Once I find a wife and have kids, then I’ll have to seriously reconsider my life. But that won’t be for a while.

I wonder how much land costs around here. I’ve always wanted to build a house…

Montana is beautiful. One of the big reasons why I moved up here from Southern California was because I always thought this. Firefighting for the past three years has only made me appreciate how truly lovely this state is. Being a firefighter has given me the opportunity to explore Montana’s beautiful and majestic forests, and whenever I encounter a view like this, my jaw drops. I wish I could show you all the vast beauty that’s up there in the mountains. The beauty will blow you all away.

Like I mentioned yesterday, we mopped up the northern flank of the fire today. Now that the perimeter of the fire is contained, mopping up means taking out all the open flames and smokes we see in the interior. This is where the fire burned, and fire likes to go where there’s fuel. Roots usually live underground, and guess what? That’s where the heat likes to stay and cause us trouble. A little puff of smoke could mean a tree’s entire root structure is burning, and if it wasn’t for that little puff, we would have no idea that heat is under there. If we missed it, that heat could turn to open flames. Those open flames could grow big enough to be blown across the line by the wind. You know what’s across the line? Fuel. And that fuel will burn, and then we’ll be back to where we started. Our objective was to grid the interior twenty feet from the line. Anything past that is too far in for it to cause us any trouble. Temperatures reached into the 90s, but it felt hotter since the ground was burnt to ash, burning our feet and making all of us miserable. The glue from one of my buddy’s boots melted, destroying his boots. We completed our objective today, and I think we did a fantastic job. We’ll be back out there again tomorrow.

And I think that wraps it up for today…

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I got the IT job. I have a job now. Like someone is going to pay me money for me to do something I love. Is this real life? It pays double what I earned at my last job. I start Thursday. My only concern now is taking out this fire before then. I think we will, but if we don’t, I’ll have to demobilize early because I’m not screwing this opportunity up.

I have a job, and I’m happy.

My hands hurt. They hurt all day for some reason. I used the same tools that I’ve been using to fight fires for the past few years, and yet my hands still hurt. It hurts to grip anything. I blame Montana’s treacherous terrain. The mountainside today was hard, and the fire was smokey and hot. One thing I hate about digging line is when the path we’re creating around the perimeter of the fire is predominantly rocky. Why can’t the fire burn near soft dirt? And we were given crappy lunches again today: two tiny cans of apple juice, two peanut butter and jelly “jamwhiches”, an orange, a salted nut roll candy bar, a bag of Cheetos, a pizza pocket, and two more sandwiches, this time ham, bologna, and cheese. I gave away everything but the orange, cans of juice, and pizza pocket. And I performed great, I think. I was not hungry all day. I don’t need as many calories as they think we should be consuming.

Now that my bitching is out of the way: I had so much fun today. It’s always great coming back out into mother nature and helping do my part in taking care of her. Fires need to burn, regardless if we think they’re dangerous and thus need to take them out quickly. Fire burns away the old to make way for the new, and this has been happening for millennia. It’s the way of life. The fire was located near Pistol Creek in the Arlee area. It was about 20 acres or so, and it might’ve grown bigger as the day went on. Not too sure on that. A bunch of my friends that I’ve fought fires with all summer — many of them I’ve fought all seven of my fires this summer with — were on this fire, so it seemed like the last two and a half weeks since our last fire was really only yesterday. We go back out there again tomorrow. It looks like we’ll be mopping up for maybe two or three more days, then I’m pretty sure we’ll be calling it done. I’m not a boss (but I’ll be a squad boss trainee next year!), so they’ll tell us what’s going on sooner or later.

For some reason, I haven’t been taking too many pictures while I’ve been out firefighting this summer. I took a few today. I’ll try to take more tomorrow. We don’t really get a chance to whip out our phones and take pictures of what’s exciting around us. If there were big flames roaring near us, the last thing I want to do is take a picture. I’ll be running for my life, possibly searching for a good deployment site, most likely heading into the black.

Tomorrow I should be finding out if I got the IT job or not. If I don’t get it, then I’m going to have to seriously evaluate my life and decide on what direction I want to take it in. That’s always fun.

I’m going to one more fire tomorrow morning. I got the call earlier today, and my immediate reaction after I agreed to go and hung up was fear. Firefighting always — always — disrupts my life, and it’s a big reason why I’m restarting many of my past habits. I’m not fed well there at all, so I know my weight will fluctuate again once the fire’s over. I won’t be working out as much, and depending on the fire, I may not even work all that much. I don’t want to say I won’t, but it’ll be really difficult to write not only my novel but also my blog entries. I can write in both projects with my iPhone, but that’s obviously not ideal. I’m not sure what to do. To top it off, I find out on Monday whether I got the IT job or not, and I’m afraid I won’t be within cellphone range if they do call me. What if I get the job? Do I have to walk away from the fire? What if I don’t get the job? Then the fire will be a good influx of money that I really need.

I have to be at the division by 7 AM. I haven’t even packed yet. The last fire I was on, we were allowed to go home every night. I’m thinking that the bosses will be offering this option again since the fire’s local, and the weather isn’t hot enough to cause the fire to spread any bigger than it already is. Regardless, I have to pack my bag and be ready. I love firefighting, and I’d love to hang out with my buds again. The fire could last a few days or even a week. I just hope that everything I’ve built up in the last 13 days don’t go to waste. Maybe I can keep my blog updated, but they won’t be at least 400 words long, which has been my unofficial word count since day one.

I have the tools to keep the most important parts of my routines going: I can write with my iPhone (and I can even bring my iPad with me, just in case); firefighting by definition is physical, so I’ll be moving around no matter what; and I can try my best to give away all the junk they give us and subsist on the healthier options, if there are any.

This is not the end of the world, man. You’ll be making money doing something you really enjoy. If you get the job, explain it to your bosses what’s going on. They know you’re a firefighter, I’m sure they’ll understand. And your habits? Just try.

I’ll try to roll with the punches and hope for the best… I’m going on another fire!

The excitement and necessity that came from starting and writing this blog has waned, and now I’m facing resistance. My body wants to go back to how things use to be. It doesn’t want to work out, it doesn’t want to write, and it doesn’t want to eat well, as well as a handful of other things it doesn’t want to do. This is the moment when things start getting really difficult for me. Judging from past experiences, this is the time when I start to relax on a few things, and thus head down the same destructive path I seem to always find myself in.

Maybe it’s good that I work out, but maybe I shouldn’t do workouts from Insanity and Insanity: the Asylum Vol. 1 and instead do something easier and shorter. Maybe I shouldn’t write my journal entries on my blog on a daily basis, but instead a couple times a week. Maybe I could start writing in my private journal again, where I can write shorter entries and no one will be the wiser. Do I really have to write my novel every morning? Can’t I just skip one day? I’m hungry, and I really don’t feel like making dinner. Can’t I just eat out once? I know where she lives, and I know where she works. Can’t I just maybe visit her in one of these places and say hi? God no! That’s stalker material, and we can’t be having that. Move on already!

These thoughts have been running around my head a ton this week, and there have been times where I’ve almost succumbed to my weaknesses, and other times where I’ve eased the pedal off a bit. Those are usually little things that in the grand scheme of things don’t matter that much, but if I add them up over a long period of time could start becoming a problem. I have my alarm set at 5 AM; I turned it off and slept in till 6 today. My cardio seems to have been severely hampered by my laziness the past few months, so I’m not pushing myself as hard during my workouts as I know I could be. I usually don’t go grocery shopping without a shopping list; I’ve been buying extra things when I buy food, and that’s not looking good for my budget. These little things are the trouble spots that on the surface should be easier to fix, but sometimes tend to fall through the cracks.

My personal philosophy for a long time has been to focus on three pillars of what I consider a complete human being: mind, body, and spirit. I try to structure my days with tasks that hit on these three areas at least once. Anything less than that makes me feel like I failed myself on that day. I didn’t fail today, and I haven’t since I begun this journey 12 days ago, but this journey isn’t easy. The man I want to be isn’t making this easy.

Isn’t that the point, though? Nothing worth celebrating comes easy, I think. That’s what makes victory that much sweeter.

I just came back from my job interview, and I have to say, I’m excited. I applied for an IT job at a local K-12 school, a job I have no professional experience in but tons of personal experience in. The interview lasted for over an hour and a half, which I think is a good sign. I met with the vice principal and two other members of the board. I tended to ramble in my answers, but I felt I was honest and sincere and hopefully even confident. The job requirements seem easy enough to do, so I’m not too worried that I’m under-qualified for the job, even though I feel like I am. It should be fine, I hope. They will tell me of their decision by Monday, and I’m so excited right now that that seems like a long ways away.

Other than that? There’s nothing much else to report. I worked out, got my haircut for free (his Square credit card reader wasn’t working), and wrote another 300+ words in my novel. I like what I’m doing so far in this rewrite, like I’ve mentioned before, but I don’t really want to talk about it while I’m still writing it. I updated my iPhone and iPad to iOS 8 yesterday, and I really love the changes Apple made. I love the extensions, and I really think I can use my iPad more as my workhorse machine and use my MacBook Air for writing and as my TV replacement. I like that set-up, but it’s definitely a work in progress.

I was afraid I was going to write an entry like this on my blog, but here it is. I’m not really saying anything. I’m just relaying what happened; I’m keeping a record of my day’s events for posterity’s sake, not because I have something to say but because I want to write something. Am I being hard on myself? Am I trying to create something here that is so out of my reach that I shouldn’t even try? Or that it doesn’t even exist? I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t make time to focus on tonight’s entry. I had my interview, which took lots of precious time today. I had my routine tasks I need and want to do every day, and that takes time. And now? Now I’m tired, and I want to watch a movie, and I’m looking at the word count to make sure I hit at least 400 words. And I have.

If I don’t make time for the things I think or want to value, then I have to reevaluate my priorities. I want this blog to be a big priority in my life, and to be successful, I have to make time for it every day.