*** Quoting Bj”rn Forsstr”m from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***

BF>> Well, the difference between day air and night air is rather big here,
BF>> especially now in August, not at all what it's like in Thailand for ex so
BF>> I can actually understand him, but 80 F, that's 26.5 C and that is warm.

 CS> We are in long sleeves here.  It's dropped to 90F.

BF> Jeezzz....

;-)

 CS> station they use is inland on a mountain.  Normally they read 10F or so
 CS> cooler than we do. I just checked the thermometer and it's warming up
 CS> nicely to a decent 94F (34C looks like).

BF> Decent 94F.... then we're sweating our guts out.

Well, remember also I dont deal with cold like you do.  I'm not used to it
like ¨you are.  My acclimation for that stops at 30F (-1C?  Might be called
0C though ¨it's just a touch under freezing water at 32F).  Anything under
40F, and I dont ¨walk anywhere unless I have no choice (such as going to
work).

BTW, most of the time when I get to Thailand, it's high summer. 
Unfortunately, ¨normally when I get to Darwin, it's summer too.

For me, anything up to 42C is quite workable.  The summer months in the
gulf ¨back in 2004 were pretty rough though as we were often over 50C and
that sucks. ¨(for the C challanged out there, 50C is 120F). 50C on a steel
ship is no fun.  ¨The worst was when I had to climb the aft mast to do a
maintenance check.  The ¨'goop' we use on the antennas was melting at all
the connectors and we had to ¨scrape it off and reapply it several times. 
We used a belaying rope to haul ¨water up and i'd stop the guys every 15
mins and make'em drink then send them ¨down to swap out with others every
hour but I had to stay up there once for ¨almost 3 hours.  At that point, I
said screw it and took us all down because I ¨was at my end limit and
getting dizzy and my boots were getting soft all along ¨the bottom from the
heat of the metal I was standing on.

It was about as much fun as having to do the HF's on the stack on another
ship ¨I was on, when underway.  You have to wear an SCBA because of the
stack gases. ¨(Firefighters breathing stuff=SCBA).  3 man job and all but 2
others were just ¨flat out too scared to even try it so I was the 3rd 'man'
(actually, one of the ¨others was also a woman.  Funny thing is, women
generally have a better head ¨for heights on average).  We had to keep
comming down to change out bottles so ¨the job took longer than it would
have in port, but we got it down.

Lowering the fan-wires isnt alot of fun either but hooking them back up
again ¨is a bear and you end up some 100ft (30M?) above the nearest
'ground' suspended ¨from a rope with half your body upseide down and just
pray you dont drop any ¨tools on the heads of the folks below (you actually
tie the tools to your ¨harness and hope the leads hold if you drop one).

BTW, in addition to being able to handle heat, I am one of the better ones
with ¨heights.  I've seen grown men bust out in tears at the mere idea of
having to ¨do some of these checks, so I learned how to do them because I
just cant assign ¨one of my men to do something I wont, and I would rather
not assign someone to ¨do something they are really scared to do when I can
do it and it doesnt scare ¨me.  (Ok, long sentance there but you got the
idea).  Anyways, my guys loved me ¨because they knew this although I think
it shocked them the first time to have ¨this itty bitty female Senior Chief
up on the mast with them, learning from ¨them how to do antenna maintenance
.  Small shop on that ship and 2 of the 6 ¨were terrified of
heights.  I didnt have the upper body strength of the men but ¨that was
seldom needed.  Even with the fan-wires, we rigged ropes and the ¨'muscle'
was from guys standing on the deck 100ft or so below me (yes, I was ¨the
upside down critter swinging in the breeze and cussing the Officer Of the
¨Deck (OOD) when he shifted direction to put the sun right in my eyes).  

It was funny though the second time I did that.  I was swearing and
sweating ¨and then they moved the ship just wrong and my glasses fell off. 
I'd forgotten ¨to loop the tie to my harness and they smashed to itty bitty
bits below me. The ¨CO had come out to watch and saw it all and yelled up
'now what ya gonna do ¨Senior?' to which my reply was unprintable for this
echo but in translation as ¨I swung around on my lead was 'dunno, got any
ideas?'.  My guys hauled me back ¨up to the yard-arm where I perched for a
bit til they could run my spare ¨glasses up then (chuckles) duct-taped them
to my face and sent me back down ¨(rotten ^{at}%&{at}%& {at}#%$%^ with
delusions of ^#&#& the &#&#&).  I gather my ¨comments
to the CO were fairly amusing and he didnt mind me talking about his
¨ancestry at all under the circumstances .

Life in the Navy can be quite interesting at times.  I'm glad I chose it,
but ¨it's not for everyone.
                                       xxcarol

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