It's all about money

Let me set the scene for you:

A child is involved in a four-wheeler accident. First Responders and EMS are dispatched to the location, with the First Responders going on location several minutes before EMS. With the First Responders is a thirteen-year veteran Paramedic, who assesses the child's injuries and decides the child needs to be flown by helicopter.

The fire department sets up a landing zone less than 1 1/2 miles away from the accident scene and the helicopter is less than five minutes away. At this point, an EMS paramedic, who is not on the frackin' scene and hasn't even assessed the patient, decides to cancel the helicopter and transport the child by ambulance to the local hospital (which, BTW, isn't trauma certified), over eight miles away.

Does anybody besides me see the problem here?

Patient care my ass....

A quick refresher on the rules of driving...

IF an emergency vehicle (be it FD, EMS, or LEO) is approaching you, either from the front or rear, with its lights and sirens on, you are to pull to the side of the road and stop. THIS IS THE LAW!!!!!

The law does not say continue driving as you already were. It does not say flip off the driver of said vehicle. It does not say to go ahead and make that left turn you were going to make. And it certainly does not say to pull into the path of the emergency vehicle.

And if someone much more intelligent than you, who understands the law, begins to pull over for the emergency vehicle, this IS NOT your cue to pass the other vehicle. They are pulling over for a frackin' reason and you should be also. There's a good possibility that over fifteen tons of bright red and white fire engine, traveling at a moderately high rate of speed, is quickly filling the rearview mirror you've failed to look at in over twenty years. I don't care how tough you think your Expedition or Hummer or Suburban is, it is no match for a fire engine. Don't make me hurt you....

Merry Frackin' Xmas!!!

Hope everyone's Xmas went well!!! Mine did until just before 3:00PM. That's when the tards came out in full force. Eight stinkin' calls between then and 1:00AM this morning. EIGHT!!!!

Hey moron, if the fire department has already been called out to your place because your trash fire got out of control, DO NOT re-ignite said trash fire after they leave. And especially don't complain when the fire department extinguishes your trash fire. Firefighters get kind of pissy when dealing with morons, especially more than once a day. And we have tools that would make a medieval dungeon master cringe.

And I sure wish someone would figure out what's causing all the explosions. Over the last couple of days we've been dispatched twice to reports of multiple explosions. Now these reports are from people over five miles apart, and the reportees are talking about it shaking their house. There's got to be something going on, but we've yet to figure it out. No gas or oil wells are on fire, no demolished houses, etc, etc.

Of course, it would be too much to ask, if these explosions are intentional, for the person causing the explosions to self-nominate for a Darwin Award...

The problem with designing something completely foolproof...

... is underestimating the ingenuity of complete fools.

Another blogger who is a near-and-dear friend quoted (actually slightly misquoted me) on his blog. And while I'd love to take credit for such an eloquent colloquialism, but that is actually a paraphrase from the late, great Douglass Adams (RIP).

Yesterday was a beautiful day. There was a slight breeze, though there were gusts up to 20 or so mph. The sky was virtually cloudless and Mother Nature was adorned in her best Fall finery, displaying colors from brown to amber to straw.

And tards (not retards, that would be TOO good for them) ruin it by deciding today of all frackin' days would be a great day to burn trash. Did I mention the 20 or so mph gusts? How many of you have ever seen a grass fire, not a brush fire or forest fire -- a grass fire, produce head-high flames?

And not once, but twice....

Tards....

I got a compliment from someone I've known for ages and to whom I've always looked up to as one tough SOB. The first fire was started by his neighbor and headed towards his house when I got there. I pull the pre-connect off of the tanker (the brush truck was already there and engaged elsewhere) and tried to head the fire off at the pass. I'm by myself and this person (a civilian) helps me pull hose. As he tells it later, at one point the smoke got so thick that he said screw it and took off. He turned around and I'm still out in the middle of it holding my ground. Thanks CW, those words meant more than you'll ever know...

And they said it couldn't be done...

... and by f'ing God, we went out a did it!!!

The school I work at is moving into a brand-new building once we get back from the holidays. This means that we had to pack everything but the furniture up, including books, computers, supplies, etc., and move it to the new school in the space of less than a month. There were a lot of naysayers that said we were nuts, that there was no way we could pull it off.

Well guess what? We did it!!

My room is ready to go, with everything back on the walls, all my papers filed, my computer hooked up to the network and going, and the first week's assignments already written on the board.

Damn we're good!!!

Though the days are cold...

... they are still nice and sunny. Even if there are clouds in the sky, nothing can erase the smile from face. When things are going right, nothing can go wrong.

Sometimes life just goes in your favor. All I can say is that it's about damn time things turned around...

Give a man a fish...

...and you feed him for a day. Teach a man....

OK, that's the problem today, actually teaching someone anything. Students today don't want to be taught, they want to be given the answers. Not the information, no... they want the EXACT answers to the EXACT questions. That's not teaching and it's certainly not learning.

And please don't ask students to even consider taking notes. They won't, that's below them. Besides, that's actually asking them to take the initiative and learn instead of just spoonfeeding them.

Of course, when the students fail the test, it couldn't possibly be that they didn't take notes, or they didn't do the work, or they didn't study. No, it's obvious the test is simply too hard.

But I won't back down. These students need to learn the subject matter. Thanks to a certain test called the TAKS, they've got to...

Fire - 1, FD - 0

How would you like to play a game? A game for which you are expertly trained and beautifully equipped? But wait, your opponent gets to chose the field of play. And better yet, he gets to start anywhere from five to thirty minutes before you even arrive at the field. Such is the life of a firefighter.

Yesterday morning came the call that every firefighter dreads, that of a fellow firefighter's house on fire. I normally don't run calls after 6:00AM since I'm a school teacher and must be in class not later that 8:00AM. But this was a definite exception. Dispatch informed us almost immediately that it was at the home of one of our own, so minutes later I'm calling the school secretary from the front seat of the engine letting her know why I'll be late.

From five miles away we can see the smoke, from a mile away flames are visible over the treetops. $h!t...

Arrive on location to find the whole back side of the house fully involved, but a couple of front rooms possibly salvagable. Another firefighter and I make the initial attack through the front door, trying to push the fire away from the two rooms. We hit the fire above our heads and tried to push farther into the house, but within two steps the fire is rolling back over us. A few minutes of this and we retreat, hoping to find another way in. But there's not, so it's back to the front door. It seems hopeless, as we're barely making a dent. Second arriving companies pull a second hose and join the attack and we start to make progress.

But by this time my alarm bell on my SCBA is going off, I'm low on air. And I'm spent, exhausted. Outside I go for re-hab. Several minutes later I'm back at it, but by now the fire has done its damage... nothing is left.

I never make it to work, ended up taking the whole day off. I was just too drained, both physically and emotionally.

They had no insurance and they lost everything. The FD has set up a fund at a local bank and is accepting donations. If you'd like to help, go to www.tarkingtonvfd.com for more info.

Well, it sure is Monday....

Oh, my head!!! Ugh, my stomach!!! Slightly too much to drink and staying up long past what should have been my bedtime do not make for a wonderful Monday morning. Which is why I'm posting Monday afternoon...

I nursed a Pepsi all morning trying to keep my recalcitrant stomach in line. It threatened to rebel all morning, but by lunchtime peace negotiations had produced an acceptable truce. I'm still yawning like I was in church on Sunday, but the head no longer feels like an over-pressurized tire, threatening to explode at any time.

I'll never do that again....

Yeah, right.

Of Tragedy and Laughter

Responded to a house fire yesterday evening. The fire had been started by the three-year old grandson of the owners. He had been playing with a lighter in a closet. Sadly, this wasn't the first time they'd caught him playing with lighters.

The fire department went on location and made an excellent stop on the fire, confining the fire damage to the area in and around the master bedroom. The rest of the home sustained smoke and water damage, but with work it could be habitable.

There are two holes in the roof above the master bedroom which we cut to ventilate the house. Civilians often don't understand the reason firefighters are purposely cutting a hole in a roof. It often seems like we are causing more damage than we're preventing. The reason for the hole is to cause the toxic gases to vent out of the roof at a point of our choosing, generally nearest the fire. If we didn't do this, the fire would race along the attic until it found a vent point. This could cause the fire to spread to other areas of the structure.

Anyway, we almost had to have the homeowner arrested for trying to get back into his own home before we had declared the fire out and the structure safe. Twice we had to remove him from inside the house while we were still conducting firefightering operations. He was finally told not to enter again until we gave him permission or he would be arrested. He tried to argue that we couldn't do that since it was his own house. Ummm.... yes we can. Until the FD releases it, it is their fire scene and they have ultimate control.

I can understand this man's frustration, and we're not trying to be @$$holes, but it only hinders our operations to have him going inside while we are still trying to extinguish the fire. Plus, we do this for his safety.

After the fire, the man's sons became upset with some of the firefighters who they felt were laughing about the loss of the home. While there was laughter, it was in no way related to the fire.

Some may ask why we were laughing. Firefighting is a very dangerous job. There are nearly as many firefighters killed in the line of duty every year as there are law enforcement officers. Fighting fire places a person in a very tense situation, one where they must act in a manner that goes against natural instinct. After all, firefighters are rushing into a burning building when everyone else, including the rats and roaches, is rushing out.

After the fire this tension needs to be released. And we release it with laughter. We laugh about someone's hunting mis-adventures. We laugh about getting the firetruck stuck in the yard. We laught about a lot of things. But we don't laught about the tragedy at hand. We see these day in and day out and know the heartbreak involved.

So we laugh. We laugh trying to remember the good times, because we see so much of the bad....

It's been a long time, it's been a long time....

... it's been a lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

OK, so I've been slacking lately, not posting for several days. But I do have a somewhat decent excuse, my computer at school has been unable to access this site. I know what you're thinking, I could be posting from home, but my home computer is dedicated to more important tasks. Like downloading porn... ;-)

Anyway, what's on my mind today. Not much really, just the same old, same old. Like wondering why someone's promises of future actions often mean more to people than a person's past actions. Especially when someone hasn't done anything of substance in the past and then people are surprised when the promises are left unfulfilled. I just don't get that...

Maybe I was raised different or I just have a different outlook on life. I mean, if someone hasn't done $#!^ in the past, what makes you think they'll do anything in future. I don't care what they say they're going to do; a leapord can't change it's spots.

But the real problem is that we belong to an ADD society. Everyone has it. We can't remember what happened in the past, what a person did or did not do. So we believe the lies and promises. Over and over and over....

The philosopher Georges Santayana once said, "Those who do not understand the past are doomed to repeat its failures." Hell, we can't remember the past, so why are we so surprised when we repeat its failures.

Another philosopher (whose name I can't seem to remember at the moment) once said, "A fool is someone who fails to learn from his mistakes." Seems I'm surrounded by fools and I'm the court jester.