Flat-Iron Steak

OMFG!!! I have found steak heaven. Yesterday, I walk into the local Kroger because they had ribeye steaks on sale. I notice that they have something called a "flat-iron steak" also on sale. The SIL asks me what exactly was a flat-iron steak, and I had to confess that I, the veritable human encyclopedia, had no clue. But I decide to take a chance and buy a few anyway.

Today I throw them on the grill along with a couple of ribeyes. Grilled over mesquite to a perfect medium rare and... OMG... the best steak I've EVER had.

Incredibly tender with amazing flavor. Better than any ribeye, filet, or sirloin.

Now I've just got to get back to Kroger and purchase the rest of their stock.

Remember the Name

Anyone that knows me, knows I can't stand rap music. My theory is that they simply took the "C" off the front when they named it. Anyway, I recently heard a rap song with a chorus that summed up the life of a firefighter better than I've ever heard. So I decided to put it on a photo and create a t-shirt. The t-shirts can be found at Cafe Press.

When you have nothing to say...

I know, imagine me without anything to say. Hear that ringing, it's Baelzebub calling and his teeth are chattering.

Like a train wreck

Amazing, even though there are those that will complain about content, there are others that will visit to see the carnage.

The FD website normally averages 150 or so page views a day. This Wednesday, it had nearly 1500 page hits, with another 850 or so on Thursday, followed by over 400 on both Friday and Saturday.

As someone so graciously pointed out, if there's only one complaint and that many visitors, I guess I'm doing more right than wrong.

Some people all of the time...

.. and all people some of the time.

P.T. Barnum is quoted as saying that about fooling people. I believe that it applies to pleasing people as well. I've gotten a lot of grief from several different parties about photos I've posted on the FDs website from several incidents in the past several weeks.

I don't know if people realize that I agonize over each and every photo that is posted, trying to balance showing the jobs the guys do with respect for the feelings of those involved. Somehow, no matter what I do, I can't seem to please anyone.

I'm almost to the point that I feel the easiest solution would be to just pull the website entirely...

Information Overload

Modern communication devices have made our lives both easier... and more annoying.

In emergency services, the advent of the cellphone has allowed incidents to be reported faster, allowing necessary care to arrive critical minutes earlier. But it has also meant an increase in what we in the emergency services field have termed "BS calls." Those are calls that really aren't an emergency, but were reported by someone with a cellphone who couldn't be bothered to take several minutes of their precious time to investigate before calling in something.

Like being called to a report of a fire, often dispatched as "seeing flames" or "a glow in the sky", only to discover it's some farmer burning his field or a brush pile. A few minutes investigation would save an emergency response by a quarter-of-a-million-dollar engine and volunteers that have been roused from their beds for nothing. We do have jobs we have to go to in the morning, remember?

The sister-in-law advocates "cube technology", as in a small cube of C4 explosive placed in every cellphone headset. When someone called in a "BS call", dispatch could dial back and eliminate this annoying problem.

But it's not just that. Sometimes you simply can't get away from the annoying ring of a phone. I mean, $h!t, it's got to where if I don't answer my cellphone, people will try calling the house phone, then text message me. This is especially annoying when you're trying to take a nap because you didn't get enough sleep the night before because you were up making "BS calls".

April Fools... or not

Well, yesterday I was going to write this nice long post, somehow related to April Fool's Day, but before I knew it, the day had passed. It was an absolute whirlwind, with two MVAs, fun at the station while we cooked burgers, and a trip to buy supplies for the FD as well as pick up my son.

Fatality MVAs are never fun, but sometimes you just get the sense that the man upstairs or karma or whatever is indeed paying attention and occassionally gently nudges things to try and bring this crazy world back into balance.

I do know that not eating breakfast or lunch and then responding to a MVA with extrication in the hot Texas sun is a guaranteed way to produce sub-optimal results.