Happy St. Patrick's Day

It was great to see, every last one of my coworkers was wearing green today!  There were a few jokes about it, we wear green everyday.  It was another very full day for me.  I am starting to feel more comfortable with the duties that I have learned so far.  I really want to get out and learn the operations in the park a little better though.  I realized that since I have started, I have not even set foot in the main visitor use areas of the park.  Today was another office day.


After the morning meeting with the park staff, the other APM and I opened the Ranger Station.  I am feeling pretty good about that process now, but I do still require the use of my cheat sheet.  We had a planning meeting scheduled for 10am, so I took some time to make up a flyer for park staff and volunteers inviting everyone to a gathering at a local restraunt.  Its nice to see that the staff at this park regularly gets together to enjoy each others' company outside of work.  The planning meeting took the majority of the day.  We met with several people from the Bureau of Design and Construction, local city and county utilities, contractors and other people involved to discuss an upcoming upgrade to the campground.  The park is adding the remaining areas on septic systems to the municipal wastewater line.  This will lessen our impact on the local watershed and possibly lighten the maintenance load on the park staff.  We discussed the plan for construction, the timeline, and specific concerns about the project.
When the meeting was over, I checked in at my office and then headed out for a much overdue lunch... I didn't quite get the car door closed when I was called back into the office for a conference call.  My Park Manager and I listened to some information about a new service that will be offered in the campground.  I took lots of notes and discussed it all with my Manager after the call and then FINALLY headed home for lunch.  When I got back, I distributed the flyers that I had made in the morning and then went back to the office.  I spent the rest of the day working on making documents that related to the conference call.  I also got a lesson on answering the phone.  Now, I am looking forward to heading home for some Corned Beef and Cabbage.
Thought of the Day # 99
As an Assistant Park Manager, I wear the same uniform that I did as a Park Ranger.  I'm sure that I will wear long pants instead of shorts much more often as I am usually in a more formal setting than I was as a Ranger.  My badge and name tag will be changing color as well.  As a Ranger, my badge and name tag was silver.  My new badges have been ordered, they will be gold.