Sorry about not posting yesterday.  It was a long ass day for me and I didn’t have time to stop and use my computer, or even my blackberry.  So the day started with a simple registration process.  After that I did a hearing test.  That was kinda hard because you never know if you are actually hearing the beep.  I then had to have my eyes checked and thankfully they are still 20/15, better than perfect.  After a shuttle ride we did our CPAT test.  This is a timed obstacle course that you must complete in 10 minutes and 20 seconds.  During the thing you have to wear a 50 pound vest.  It was tiring as hell but I killed it.  The most distressing thing about it was wearing the vest, gloves and a construction helmet that other people had been using all day.  It was all sweaty and smelled like ass!  I then got back to the main building and did my sit-up test.  I managed to bang out 55 sit-ups in 60 seconds.  We then got checked for body fat and they measured our hips and waist to get the ratio.  My body fat was 15.5%, which is down 1% from the last time I reported it.  Had I been able to get down just half a percent then I would have scored a little higher.  Oh well, next time.  I also had my flexibility tested with a reach test.  I knew I would have trouble on this test as I have notoriously tight hamstrings.  I managed to score 3 out of 5 but I missed getting 4 out of 5 by only 1 cm!  Then it was time for the beast.  The VO2 max test.  This was definitely an ass kicker.  They plug your nose and hook up these tubes to your mouth and get you to run on the treadmill.  Every 45 seconds they crank up the speed and incline.  At the end the incline is 9 and the speed is 9.  Anyone who runs can tell you that is a very tough situation to maintain.  I lasted 8 minutes.  Lucky for me I was able to max out my VO2 score so I got perfect on that one.  This is such a funny test.  Some people can max out in 5 minutes.  Some people can be on there for 12 minutes and not max out.  I really can’t tell you how to beat the thing.  All I can say is that you just need to breathe as deeply as possible and run until you are ready to die.  All those tests result in a score out of 30.  You need 18 to pass.  I managed to get 26 and am very happy with that score.  So, I celebrated by getting drunk and eating everything I could find!  I continued that into today and I think I gained 5 pounds.  I can’t slip too much though, I need to be able to at least maintain my current fitness level.  My goal is to actually improve.  I would like to score 28 the next time I do this.  I will let you know how that goes.  I would have loved to have taken some pics or video but the situation just didn’t allow it.  I always feel bad when I don’t have some media for you.  So here is a comic that has nothing to do with anything I just talked about.  But I think you will enjoy it.

Well, I got my first recruitment test to be a firefighter under my belt.  I wrote for the city of Hamilton earlier today.  My god was it a long day.  The first test was over 2 hours long and had some math problems but was mostly situational stuff.  They would give you a scenario and you would have to list the order in which you would do things.  Then you would have to answer questions based on how confident you felt and whether you agreed with shit or not.  This test is only tough because you have no damn idea what they want to see.  It is pass/fail so if I fail I guess it will tell me that I am not human?  We then had a two hour break, which I used to go to a bar and get a nice beef dip sandwich.  Then it was back to writing another 2 hour test.  The second one was tough as well.  They read a passage for about 10 minutes and then you had to answer questions based on the specifics of the passage, but you couldn’t take notes or anything.  It was all memory.  Then we had a ton of math, geometry and mechanical type questions.  The cut off for that one is 85%.  I honestly felt pretty good about the test but I really can’t say whether I hit the cutoff or not.  I guess I will have to wait for a couple of weeks to find out.  One interesting thing was looking at the makeup of the people who are writing these tests.  Honestly, it is all a bunch of white guys!  There were about 500 people writing this test today (testing is over 3 days) and out of that I only saw 4 women and 3 visual minorities!  I wonder what it is about this career that keeps us darkies away?  If anyone has any opinions I would love to hear them.  Since my day was all about tests I thought I would give you some examples of answers I wish I could put down.  These are courtesy of Kontraband.  Enjoy!