So just a couple of things that have happened to me recently. I was finally able to get into an EMT-Basic class and tonight was the start of the third week. I have been waiting for this class for a year and a half. I am hoping that I am able to learn all that I need in class. The lady that is teaching the class isn’t the best teacher in the world. She tends to skip words that are too long or too hard to say. Then there are some people that are in the class that insist on bringing their three kids to class with them. Their excuse is that they cannot find a babysitter. The kids are constantly making noise and disrupting class. Whenever anyone in the class tries to reprimand the kids for being noisy the parents seem to be offended that we are offended. Finally tonight the instructor made them mad enough that the kids stayed out in the truck. Am I wrong for being upset? I am there to better myself and to learn not to listen to kids make rude comments. Plus there are some things that are discussed in an EMT class that are not meant for a fifth grader. Well only another 154 hours of class time left. Maybe it will get better.

Second thing is that we finally got to pump some water with our “new” aerial last night. It is a 1989 E-One 95’ Rear-mount Platform. It is in great shape for its age because the city that had it before didn’t run it very often because it was too big for them to maneuver downtown. We picked it up in July and it was tied up because of not having all the paperwork getting through all the right channels. It became ours officially just before Christmas and it has been too cold on meeting nights to go over it. We have started to gather all of the required equipment to go on the truck to make it qualify as both a truck company and a service company. There is still a bunch of things to order and it will still be a while before it goes completely into service. But if it is needed it can be used as it sits. We took everyone through the controls and learned how to engage the pto for the ladder and how the put it into pump gear. Everyone got to ride in the bucket and feel what it felt like when the waterway was being charged. We also found out who was smooth with the hydraulics and who you don’t want standing at the controls if you are the one in the bucket. It was not the first time that I had been up in it but it is still a lot of fun to go up in it. For our small town it is one of those pieces of equipment that you hope that you don’t ever have to use but if it is there we will have it. In the last month we have had two structure fires that we have had to work on the roof so we figured that we have been warned. So for now it will only be run if it is really needed but hopefully soon it will see service all the time. Well that’s all that is happening in this small town right now.

Gopher