Monday, November 27, 2006
Idiot or No Idiot
Okay, so I've seen two episodes of NBC's new show, Deal or No Deal, and I will probably never watch another. Each episode has only convinced me of the stupidity of people, something I need very little encouragement to believe in.
Tonight's episode had this big guy from Arkansas and his family. Now admittedly, the guy was charismatic, but his choices in when to accept the "banker's offer" and when to ignore it were beyond poor. At one point, he had a chance to take home more than $200,000, or he could risk the money in hope of about a 1/20 chance of getting a million. Later in the episode, he was down to an offer of only $147,000. His brother-in-law said - no, really get this! - he said: "A hundred and forty-seven is nothing. No deal."
Oh come on. $147,000 is nothing? To some yokel from Arkansas, who - by his own admission - lives with his sister?
Bottom line, this group of Arkansas brainiacs no-dealed their way through the game, and ended up taking home - ready for this? - ended up taking home $10. Yeah, ten big ones. Ten buckaroos.
"$147,000 is nothing." Heh. Idiot.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Knackered
Been up since 0700 yesterday, with about 45 minutes sleep around 5 am this morning. We had a lazy morning, watched some football, ate junk food. But around 1 pm things started to get busy, and they just didn't stop until I got off shift this morning. Started with a mild car accident, ended with a nasty car accident; bunch of medical calls in-between. I'm beat. Going to take a nap; more later.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Back on the Fitness Wagon
As most of you know, I put out some major effort a couple years ago to lose weight and get in shape. End result then was a loss of 43 lbs and 4" around my waist. Much of that has held on since, but I've been laying around a lot lately between calls, and eating way too much fast food and Pepsi.
Today at the station, one of our FF/Paramedics, Stu Hodnot (that's him in the kayak in the pics below) showed me a web site called Fit Day. It's an online fitness journal and tracker that you can use to monitor your workouts and fitness routines. It can be set private, if you just want to keep track yourself, or public if you're willing to put yourself out there for all the world to see.
Well, as you know I'm not one to hide what I'm doing, so I started a fitness journal today, entered what I've eaten so far (bad breakfast, good lunch!) and made it public. You can view the journal by clicking through this link. I'll try to keep the link handy as the days go by, so it's not hard to find. I may even link to it from the main page of my domain (or perhaps at the top of this blog, if I can figure that out). I'd really appreciate everyone clicking through and watching my progress regularly, so you can all harass me when I eat badly or don't workout like I should!
They say when you commit to a new workout program, diet, goal, whatever, that you should tell as many people as you can, since it puts you on the spot to stick to it. So by posting here, that's about as public as I can manage!
So consider this an open invitation to monitor my workout at Fitday, and comment on it to your hearts' contents. I could use the encouragement - or criticism, as the case may be - to keep me on track to my fitness goals for 2007. What goals? Climbing Mt. Hood, climbing Mt. Adams, doing the Firefighter Stair Climb, and some specific weight and workout goals.
Wish me luck!
Monday, November 13, 2006
Tired, but Good
I haven't slept well the last couple nights in a row, so I'm dragging a bit today. But despite that, I'm in a pretty good mood this morning. Working twelve hour shifts all week until Thursday, then a 24, then off Friday, then 24 Saturday, so I'm hoping to find some time to catch up on my sleep when I can. We'll see how that goes.
In other news, I'm getting the writing bug again. I don't have any contracts at the moment, and frankly I'm not sure I want to tackle a big gaming book with nursing school and paramedic school on the horizon, so I may just return to my writing love - fiction.
As many of you know, I'm in the midst of a 1930s pulp novel that I've just never had time to really finish. Unfortunately, after it sitting for five years, I've kinda lost momentum and interest. Thinking it may be time to start a new fiction project. No real idea what it might be, but I've wanted to write an alien invasion / military novel for a long time, and working in Fire/EMS means - like all firefighters - I wanna write a book about it. :)
Will keep everyone posted here, and I'm always open to comments via email if you've read any of my work or have suggestions about any of it!
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A Few Pictures
Took these over the last couple days. I have more, but don't have them with me on the laptop at the station. So here's a peek at what's been going on in District 6 lately. You can click the pics to get a bigger image.
The first shows Stu, one of our captains and leader of the Technical Rescue Team (TRT), kayaking to an isolated house to check on the welfare of a stranded 81-year-old man.
The second is the front yard/driveway of his neighbor's house, with their delivery van still parked where they left it the night before.
The bottom left pic is the TRT walking up a flooded roadway, towing two kayaks, after a deployment.
The final pic is an oil release from several 55-gallon drums stored at a shop that began to leak into the floodwaters and then into the Cowlitz River, creating a hazmat incident.
I gave several of these to the chief last night, for use in press releases and the like, and he told me today they ended up on television last night, on KGW (Channel 8). He said he gave me credit for the photos, and perhaps they were up on their website still, but I didn't see them. Still, 15 minutes of fame as a photographer, I guess. :)
The Waters Subside
It's Wednesday morning, around 11 a.m., and things are clearing up nicely. I went home yesterday about 3 p.m., soaked in the hot tub, ate rib eye stakes with Shannon, and managed to stay awake for most of the evening. I was pretty beat by the time I got home and hit the sack, and was out for a solid 8 hours (which, for me, is amazing!)
Today's been uneventful, other than reading up on road closures and other data from our Incident Action Plan (IAP), fifth revision. In line with that, I'd like to say that things really did go smoothly around here. Everyone was wet, tired, busy, wet, packed in the station at times (one of our captains even slept on the couch in the dayroom) but in good spirits, wet, and pretty much just generally soaked to the bone.
But in spite of it all, the IAP worked well, we saved lives and property, and everyone went home safely. Kudos to those involved in the operations from the fire and medic crews to the chief. I'm proud to be a part of this department.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Flood Watch 2006 (cont)
A month ago or so, one of the EMTs here (Hi Britt!) declared "Taco Thursday" and made tacos. We ended up with a lot of meat and beans leftover, so I stuffed the remains into a large tortilla shell and froze it. I figured some day, when I was starving and needed food badly, I'd eat it.
Today was that day. Thanks for the taco, Brittany. :)
In other news, the river hasn't reached a plateau yet, but we're hopeful. The 911 dispatch center is on "Level 2" which means they no longer deal with calls that aren't true emergencies; they're currently staffed with 5 dispatchers out of a possible 6. They were at 6 last night, I believe.
Looked through some of the pictures I took of a couple scenes this morning and they look good. Wish I had an SD card reader with me, I'd post one or two right now. I think the station has an SD card reader, and the chief wanted some of the pics to include in a press release, so if that goes out I'll try to link to it at least.
Gonna try and grab a short nap, or at least rest. Will probably knock off in a few hours, I think, and try to get refreshed this evening or overnight. I'm scheduled for a 0900-2100 shift tomorrow anyway, but I'm not sure they'll need me overnight tonight. I'm running close to a 36-hour shift as it is and getting a little run down. Could use some sleep in my own bed.
Flood Watch 2006 (cont)
Lots of flooding in town. Been on two calls this morning with the Technical Rescue Team (TRT), deployed kayaks, got pictures. Break at the moment, as I'm on the backup medic unit, and the primary got called to a "fall from a tree stand" call. Trying to find some dry clothes, and then back into the trenches shortly.
I'm hoping to take a break this afternoon, get a shower, a meal, get dry, maybe nap a little. Not sure how long things will stay this bad. Weather service says we're about at the worst of it right now. Here's hoping.
Flood Watch 2006 (cont)
Well, the river has broken through flood stage, but thus far it's been a quiet morning. Got about 5 hours sleep, which is great, and the morning commute hasn't presented any problems yet. I haven't been outside to see how hard it's raining, nor have I spoken to our incident command (IC) about what the situation is like today.
I'm trying to decide if I should grab a shower, or if I'm just going to end up wet and cold and sweaty enough to just tough it out until the morning passes and the rain subsides a little. More later when I know more.
Flood Watch 2006
Severe weather in southwest Washington today, including 4-10" of rain, depending on where you live. The governor has declared a state of emergency in Cowlitz County, and the Cowlitz River is schedule to pass flood stage at about 0400 - roughly 2.5 hours from now. After working a very busy shift today (8 MVAs on I-5, 11 calls total), I got called back into the station to man a second medic unit (M-62) because we may need to relocate and stage at the High School, which is on the other side of the river, if the main thoroughfare floods.
Earlier, while standing in the bay, we heard a deep booming in a generally vague direction of the river. I swear it's trees striking the bridge across the main road. The river's really racing, and taking large debris - trees, vehicles, pieces of house - with it.
Anyway, I'm going to try to get a couple hours sleep before the flood stage hits full on, and the morning commute clogs up I-5 with more idiot drivers hydroplaning out of control. I'll try to blog again when I can, and keep everyone posted. The rain is supposed to continue through tomorrow, then break for a day, then start up again. Who knows what's coming later this week.
Some additional reading:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15945174.htm
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2006/11/07/top_story/news01.txt
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Spoke too Soon
There's a lot of superstition in the fire service. In some houses and around some firefighters, if you say something congenial as you leave shift - like "I hope you have a quiet, pleasant day" - sure enough someone will chew you out for jinxing the crew and will rant about how it's going to be a very busy day because of you.
I've never taken any of that seriously.
But after posting a blog entry about having a quiet night, it ended up being a pretty busy shift. It started with a medical call (possible stroke) late in the evening, which led to me taking an overnighter instead of going home to sleep. The next morning around 0430 or so, I got woke up for another medical call (chest pains). During that call, we got toned out for smoke in a residence. It wasn't far from where we were, so our paramedic and my EMT partner took the patient to the hospital, while I responded to the fire call in our utility vehicle - a Chevy Blazer commonly called the PRV (Paramedic Response Vehicle) or Utility-61. (I'll try to get some pics up of our apparatus, but I'm on my laptop at the station and don't have any handy; pics coming up in a future post, I promise).
Anyway, when I pulled up on scene, there was smoke pouring out of the roof around the chimney of a two-story wood residence. Smoke was coming from several other places along the roof as well, but no flames were visible. I set up command, made sure the place was evacuated, did a walk-around, then Engine-61 pulled up. Our assistant chief and I pulled an attack line and entered the building, climbing a VERY narrow staircase (my shoulders rubbed both walls of the stairwell), and entered the second story. It was thick with smoke, but still no fire. We searched the floor, found a room with substantial heat, but no flames. The fire was in the attic and the attic was completely inaccessible. When we recieved a radio report that flames had broken through the roof, we pulled out and set up attack lines outside the building.
A couple hours later, the fire was contained but much of the second floor was lost. The roof burned through and collapsed, and water damage was rampant on both floors. It took about 6 hours of salvage and overhaul to finally clear out the fires burning in the walls and attic. The building had been built in 1902 and remodeled MANY times, leaving layer upon layer of wall and ceiling board (including plywood, tongue-and-groove, sheetrock, plaster, and more), which meant we had to cut through the walls with a chainsaw to open them up enough to get to the fires.
In the end, the property owner was very grateful - we saved large portions of his house and many of his belongings. It was about a 7-hour scene and I was beat by the end of it. I slept like a rock last night, though, and I learned my lesson. I'm going to be very careful about blogging for an uneventful shift... :)
