While recovering today, I happened upon the old show 'Junkyard Wars' on the Science Channel. Hold the sarcastic comments, there are cool shows on the Science Channel and I consider it a cheap way of furthering my education. Stop it...I mean it....quite laughing.

Anyway, you might remember 'Junkyard Wars' as the show with two teams plopped in the middle of a junkyard and tasked with building a vehicle to perform an assigned task using only what they can find in the…

So, I go to the doctor's office on Friday because my knees sound like a rice crispy bomb going off whenever I change elevation. I've always had bad knees and I finally was convinced to go see someone (this was after the attempt to self medicate with glucosamine, etc.)

The doctor took four x-rays in the office and talked to me for about five minutes. The conversation went something like, "Holy crap, you have really bad knees. Which one hurts the worst? The left one? Ok, we'll scope you…

We started off our day with the usual routine- check the truck, make fun of the new guy, drink about ten cups of coffee (ok, I'm not that bad about it- maybe only three). So we had a public education program at one of the local pre-schools.

No big deal; make the new guy dress up, teach the kids some fire safety, show them the truck, and let them 'flow' a small forestry line. One of my firefighters stayed with me outside and we proceded to show off our tools and cool stuff to…

My Honor Guard just helped out with a funeral for a firefighter from a neighboring agency. It really affected me, I think that I'm just starting to get old and emotional. A few of my guys knew the fallen firefighter. I felt like I needed to do something more, so I put fingers to keyboard and I wrote a little synapsis of what a firefighter funeral is like. Just something that civilians might be able to read and relate to.

I wanted to share it with my brothers and sisters…

So, I will be the first to admit that I am spoiled. I am on the ladder truck, which is the promary Special Ops truck in the city. My station also has the only rescue truck based out of it. Translation- rescue runs most of the medical calls and I roll over and go back to sleep. Life is GOOD.

Last shift, I knew things were going to get bad when the rescue crew returned from a call with an old duffer who couldn't breath and refused to go to the hospital. Sure enough, rescue got banged…

Just a quickie post to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday!!

Happy Thanksgiving

A friend of mine posted this on MySpace. Its kind of a health warning, I suppose.

BUTTER VS. MARGARINE...



Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do to with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it…

I am so easy to amuse. And, I am sad that I will be missing Halloween at home because I'll be in a class. Oh well!

A while ago, I posted a short story about an old fire lieutenant and his death in a flashover. Just yesterday, I entered that story in a contest on Helium.com in the short story section. Wish me luck.

I've had some real ups and downs over the last week or so, the least of which is my own frustration with not being able to resolve a problem that vexes me greatly. On…