Freak Yeah!

On Wednesday I found out that I passed the PRAXIS test in science that was required for me to be "Highly Qualified" in teaching 6th grade science all day long at a middle school. With the opening of a new high school in town, the 6th grade will be moving up and making the junior highs into middle schools. With the school district planning on cutting 26-30 teaching positions in the 6th-12th grades, this news makes me much more marketable than some of my colleagues.

As if guided by the fates, Wednesday was also the day that I got to visit a secure facility and shoot the water cannons attached to a super sweet fire truck.

First I had to goof off in homage to the MythBusters

Then Tennille and I hopped in the truck

After a short drive, I got to shoot the water cannons

The joystick to the left of the one that I am holding is the one that controls the big gun on the top. The big gun will go through the 15,000 gallons of water in 4 minutes, as long as it's set to low. On high, the tank will be empty in 2 minutes. As big as the beastly truck is, the whole thing shudders when the gun gets charged up. Due to the confined space, the photo shows a limited view of the water stream from the smaller gun that rests on the bumper. The little one can be set to automatically sweep side to side, or to be controlled by the joystick.


Some rough calculations show that the top gun on high shoots 125 gallons of water every second. Since I shot around 750 gallons on 2 guns on different settings, I really don't know how long I was blasting the field with water jets. It was longer than I ever dreamed, but shorter than I had hoped :D