Life in the lookout tower just got a little easier.

[DemoTex]

I bought a $59 Emerson microwave (700 watt) at Target. It seems to work very well on generator power. I cooked a potato in it tonight .. 7 minutes. I have been eating leftovers cold. Now I can zap them in the microwave.

I also got a set of Pentax 20X60 binoculars. They are the perfect complement to my Nikon 8X40s and the USFS-issue Bausch&Lombs (probably 8X40 too). I ordered a tripod adapter for the big Pentax. The small binoculars will still be used for the basic section scans (which are becoming more frequent as the wind from the desert dries out the forest). The big Pentax will be used for a closer view to fine-tune the position. Then I'll go to the Osborne Fire-Finder and Bushnell vertical angle scope to get the township/range/section/quarter-of-the-quarter section. Finally, I'll use the big Pentax binoculars on a tripod to watch and feed info to the responding USFS firefighters.

East Butte has become the most high-tech lookout tower in the Deschutes NF, even lacking DragonPlot.


The new Emerson microwave oven (with my old trusty Sirius Orbiter sitting on top).


The new microwave with my new Pentax 20X60 binoculars to the left.


A new addition to the lookout kitchen .. a fairly realistic fake bamboo from World Market.

[BlooInBloo]

1. :)))) You able to keep in contact with people? Must get lonely.

[DemoTex]

5. I'm in contact with DU and you. Eh?

I've got wireless broadband, weak personal cell phone, strong cell phone on the USFS bag phone, Skype (talking to Dr. DemoTex in Tokyo on Skype .. perfect connection), HF/VHF/UHF ham radio (I have all privileges on all bands .. Amateur Extra Class license), and lots of visitors (USFS, OHVers, hikers) .. I am not lonely!

Seriously, the best things are the Skype so that I can connect face-to-face with my family and friends, and the DU Admin/Moderators indulgence in my making all my posts about this great adventure here in GD.

BTW: I try to put everything I post here in my journal. Check it out.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/DemoTex

[BlooInBloo]

6. :))) Awesome - keep on keepin on!

[RandomThoughts]

2. That looks like a beautiful deck!

The view, the wood texture and color, Utility stuff, flowers, wow it looks really cool.

I might have to save the picture and put it on a wall so I can pretend like I got a deck like that :P

Really looks fantastic.

I just reread post, its a lookout tower, how fabulous, you got a great job. Do you get to work alone in the tower, or is it pairs of people? Do you get paid to just sit and look out over the trees! Wow how fabulous, sounds like a great job!

[DemoTex]

14. Actually, we call the "deck" part a catwalk.

Nick calls it a kitty-cat walk. In case you have not seen it, here is the lookout (in the Deschutes National Forest wilderness in central Oregon):


I live in the 15x15 structure at the top.


I get paid your basic volunteer wage to look at the forest .. and protect it.


Nick-Nick watches me watch the Deschutes NF.

[RandomThoughts]

26. Thanks for protecting the forest for the rest of us.

:toast:

Nice tower you got their, how old is it? It has an old look to it, or is that just the way they build them?

Nick looks great to, real serious look.

[DemoTex]

31. It is a 1995 rebuild of the 1930 tower

Sorry .. too dark to add more

[konnichi wa]

3. You could cook a potato faster with your 2 meter rig. Can you program the VCR?

Talk about Xanadu...sheesh

:D :rofl: :D

[DemoTex]

17. At home I could cook that sucker quick with HF RF ..

I can, but seldom do, put 1000 watts of "fire-in-the-wire!" At home .. not here. I run QRP (low power) on PSK-31 here .. usually 10 watts. I can do 100 watts max HF output with the generator.

[konnichi wa]

19. I know, I was just raggin' on ya.

hi hi

[DemoTex]

23. hi hi

73s

[MUAD_DIB]

4. How are you connecting to DU?

[DemoTex]

7. Verizon Air Card (broadband 95% of the time)

I had to go very high in Verizon tech support to get it working. The guy (obviously an engineer) even got out a topo map and found my lat/lon location and the nearest tower lat/lon. He tweaked, I tweaked, and it finally worked. I invited him to send a film crew down to do a commercial (like the AT&T ads). He loved the idea. Said he would kick it up.

[hootinholler]

45. I can see that commercial with ties to the current dart boy CEO commercial series.

A dart lands on the map...
Can you hear me now boy on a trail...
Huge dart stuck in ground next to the tower...

It would work. Did you have to resort to a pringles can? 'm not sure how it would work for cell, but it's the bomb to hit open routers.

-Hoot

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Beautiful those scopes are so basic to eval situations

here is a story, for many years I didn't have them, but had a 35 mm SLR that we carried in the rig, to ahem take photos fer ahem the memories.

Well more than once the zoom lens was pressed into service to evaluate a scene before we set up the usual crap (rescue lines and the rest of the fun)

In fact, we did that often enough that I don't have photos. We didn't have time, really.

Finally, after many of those, I finally found a second hand Baush and lumb 8X 40 at the swap meet for ten bucks. They quickly joined my rescue gear... and the SLR staid home.

Why carry it anymore? We never really took photos with it, just used it do what we now could do with honest to goodness binocs.

Yes I got a second pair, a Pentax, that were more powerful a few months later. They went to way too many fires, vertical rescue and yes a few riots...

I have no clue where the baush are at. The other, I gave to my partner when I left that line of work, together with the handy dandy hand held radio... never, ever leave home (station) without it.

Take care, and you got a beautiful look of the country side

[DemoTex]

16. My priorities are:

1. Take care of my firefighters. They have promised (and indeed do) take care of me.

2. Take care of our forest.

You of all people know what I mean.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Yes I do, why I left much of my gear behind when I left that line of work behind

Hugs...

Oh and give nick a bone for me.

I remember one dog that adopted us... and we adopted him

[Suich]

9. It's looking really homey, what with the new plant and all!

I can't believe you can get a decent microwave for $59! I figure you're pretty high-tech there because I don't know what half the stuff is you talk about.

Here's hoping for a fire season without the fires!



:hi:

[DemoTex]

21. I remembered the Latino guys who did some painting in my SC home ..

At lunchtime I would smell the wonderful aromas of Mexican cooking. They had a small paint-splattered microwave in my basement, heating up the best of lunches.

:hi:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. But, but, but

what about the lock???

[DemoTex]

25. The Lock. Thanks for reminding me.

BTW: I am typing in the dark with a "headlight" on.. please do not expect perfection.

The young woman who is my relief (and she is a great, dedicated USFS fire fighter). Let's call her Margie.

Margie is not mechanically inclined. When I got back out to the lookout early this morning, she had hung the lock on the lower side of the trap door such that I had a hard time removing it. I took a pry-bar to the garage lock and was able to get the key in and unlock it. Boss-man was estactic that I did not have to cut a USFS lock.

Margie also opened the propane refrigerator .. but did not "snap" it closed. Things seemed OK. I guess I will know tomorrow (the Deschutes Revenge?).

[TahitiNut]

11. Bamboo? Now you need the elephant grass, razor wire, and some claymores.

:evilgrin:

Hug Nick for me. :hug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Point towards enemy

:evilgrin:

LOL

[TahitiNut]

15. Yes. We always read that with a wry smile. Sorta like "Green Side Up" on sod.

:silly:

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Well you also know the other thing about those years

it was a game. It was really a deadly game.

One that we all grow up to have nightmares about.

One of my guys, don't ask how, still trying to figure out after this many years, ended up in the USMC in the Nam.

He ended up as a medic under me to work over those demons.

Lets just say that he told hard cold stories... some that even my young kids went no, not really, could not be real.

He passed a few years back from Cancer...

RIP

[DemoTex]

28. I got razor wire!

Trap door side. Protected!

[madokie]

12. I envy what you're doing

looks like the ideal way to spend some time at the age we're getting too, 61, if one is inclined too time to mull over the decision one has made and the roads traveled. All the while providing a much needed service to our country that a strong mind and a steady demeanor can give.
Thank you for taking the time to do this and thanks for keeping us up to date on whats happening and whats life like up there in the tower. I remember the times years ago that I spent in a tower I was looking for a lot more than just fires, but you know all about that too. Come to think about it I'd bet you're looking out for a lot more than just fires now too.
peace,
Have a great summer
:hi:

[DemoTex]

29. Thanks Madokie

IIRC your birthday is close to mine (3/30/1948)

[madokie]

32. 3/28/48

[Gold Metal Flake]

20. So cool.

But I think you need a vintage Zenith Transoceanic for a little classical atmosphere.

[DemoTex]

33. Oooh!

Cool boat-anchor!

[jmowreader]

46. He needs one of these too

Unlike the mighty Watkins-Johnsons I often post about, I actually own one of these radios. Needs a hell of a lot of metal in the air to make it do anything, but it's an HF set so that's to be expected.

[BlooInBloo]

24. BTW - what's your lat/long? Be cool to look at your area on Google Earth.

[DemoTex]

30. Try this ..

4340.034 N
12059.749 W

[Subdivisions]

35. Google does not recognize that format. Do you have the location in

degrees, minutes, seconds?

I've been following your adventures. I'm green with envy.

[DemoTex]

37. i'll try to pick it off google tomorrow

too dark here now

[Vickers]

41. Put "43.6672,-120.9958" in the search area of Google Maps.

Without the quotes.

:thumbsup:

[BlooInBloo]

44. This page is useful for converting between various formats....

http://www.tranzoa.net/~alex/cgi-bin/latlon_cgi.py?latlon=4340.034%2CN%2C12059.749%2CW

[BlooInBloo]

43. Top of the hill in a cul-de-sac?

[havocmom]

50. Possibly the best phrased question on DU for the whole month!

:rofl:

Hey, and dig DemoTex's yard! Poor Nick. Decisions, decisions.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

27. I really am jealous. Thanks for the pics.

[symbolman]

34. Okay, now you're blowing my mind

Not that you haven't before :) talk about a life well lived..

Had no idea you were doing this, total unexpected pleasure & I feel safer for some reason already, thanks!

[DemoTex]

36. Hey bud .. good hearing from you.

I wish the new DUers could see you 9/11 work .. with the Lacrimosa. We have been here a long time! Sorry, it's too dark to type.

[symbolman]

40. If only you had a fire..

Then you could See :)

people are still watching some of my old work, it functions as historical firewalls against vicious revisionism :)

meanwhile, I'm inches away from releasing/publishing my Symbolman Book, 70+ pages of a stor "written" entirely in International Symbols, Joseph Campbell would have loved it.. Can be read & understood most anywhere on the planet..

Then final edit on my The Jesus Bolt book, Eco-adventure Zen tale memoir about my crashing in Alaska's ANWR back in the 70's while prospecting for Uranium for the Dept of Energy..

You might like them, tho I don't want to send you a Good book, have you get engrossed in it and Miss a Fire! :)

hey type when it's light, & keep dry, okay? You're a damned interesting person, and truth be told there are few of them left in some ways :)

[lunatica]

38. I'm glad you dropped in to update us

But dangit! I don't understand all your high techi lingo!

Hugs to Nick

[CrownPrinceBandar]

39. I want your job..............

I think spending the summer fire-watching would be a slice of heaven.

[shireen]

42. wish you could turn it into a bed & breakfast

wouldn't it be fun ... guests bring their own sleeping bags. A little cramped but what a view! :)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

47. OK, I think I am developing a crush on you!

I think it's the sunflowers in a lookout tower thing that is doing it. :loveya:

What a very interesting life you are leading, DemoTex. Thanks for all the updates and pix. :hi:

[Born_A_Truman]

49. I love how he is making the tower homey...

At this rate, he'll have to rent a u-haul to bring everything back home.

[roguevalley]

48. I love the woods in that part of the state. the smell of the trees when

its hot is like perfume. take care.

Roguevalley

[Blue_Tires]

51. ttt

[spanone]

52. the upgrades look fabulous....enjoy and keep warm