Safety and Wilderness

Found a new show on National Geographic channel - Life Below Zero.  Various families/people making a home in the Alaska wilderness.  These are hard core survivalists - skilled in hunting, surviving in dangerous, harsh conditions.  It's fun to see the challenges they face and how they handle it.  My only complaint is that there are so many sets of people to follow, the episodes feel truncated - little snips of each instead of more detail on a few.  There was a marathon on all day yesterday and I didn't remember that I had taped episodes until the day was almost over.  Nice way to wind down the evening.

One of the unique Christmas presents exchanged on Friday was B.'s gift to H - a CAT.  Combat Application Tourniquet.  B.'s explanation was 'you are out in the middle of nowhere shooting with your friends - you should have this in case an accident occurs.'  We all marveled at his thinking - and his intent was to protect his brother and his friends.  And we all had a good laugh at 'the most unusual gift ever'.  'What did you get for Christmas, H.?'  'A tourniquet'.  We all laughed a lot -

Here's what it looks like.  (Colors may vary - there is no red on H.'s).

B.'s friends stayed for quite awhile - watched movies.  After those friends left, he headed over to another friends house to spend time with him.  His departure is less than 24 hours away and I know he's struggling with the briefness of the stay this time.

Goodbyes are always hard.  Always have been and always will be.  He heads to Louisiana for training and then he's making arrangements to move to a base in Kentucky - not sure when that's happening but could be before Spring.  Hopefully, he'll like Kentucky more than El Paso.

Feels good to still have nine days ahead - we have Monday, 1/4, off also - which is really great!  I'm trying not to revel in it too much 'cuz B. is back at work early Monday morning - and he won't get into El Paso until after midnight - so it's going to be a hard morning/day no matter what.