Its been a long time since I rock and rolled

Its been a long time since I did the stroll.

Its been a long time since I blogged too!

Not much new to report here, things are pretty much maintaining the status quo. It's been cold but not nearly as cold as that one day. We've almost managed to avoid most of the bad weather, it's been way to the north of us. I almost would rather have the snow and ice though, right now it looks like it should be about 75 degrees outside and it is closer to 35 or 40. We did get some good rain though, so that helps after the long dry summer we had.

The most exciting thing to happen lately is that I got a new tool for work. Well, more appropriately, the City bought a new tool, but I had the idea to get it, and I'm the first one to get to play with it. I've spent my morning playing with it and teaching April to use it.

I don't remember if I blogged about this before or not (ok, I just checked, and it appears I have not) so here' s a quick background story for you.

Sometime around the holiday season, BPD got a call out to do a welfare check on a Sweet Little Old Lady (SLOL) that lived alone. See, her kids lived pretty far away, and she had not been answering her phone when they called, she wasn't returning email, she wasn't mailing letters. So naturally they got worried, and asked the PD to swing by and check on her.

They go to the house, knock on the doors, the windows, ring the bell, call the house, and nothing. No answer, no 'go away', not even a dog barking. They aren't exactly equipped to get into a house (I mean, they can kick the door down I suppose, but that isn't a generally accepted practice, it's harder than the movies would have you believe and you could end up hurting yourself), and their procedures say to call us if they need in.

The local engine company responds to the house to force entry. I was not there. I have not spoken with anyone that was. I am just related the story as told to me. They opt to force the front door open (there has been debate as to whether this was the best method, but it is the one they went with, and I am not going to second guess them).

So with a bang and a crash, they use their tools to bust open the front door. I'll give you 3 guesses as to what they saw on the other side. Being that it was the holiday season, I guess Santa Claus would be a good first guess, but that wasn't it. Shucks, maybe they would have visions of sugar plum faeries dancing in the entryway, but no, wrong again.

Naturally, after breaking down the door (figuratively) they see said SLOL standing there asking the most natural question in the world; 'Why did you break down my door?'. I can only assume that they had some questions in return, but again, that would be speculation on my part.

So here's the end of the story. SLOL said that her kids not treating her right, so she decided to ignore them and have a nice holiday to herself. She also decided to send the city a $2600 bill for the damages of forcing entry.

Here's the part where I join the story (with how much I write, can we call it an 'Epic Story?'). Several emails come out from the powers that be about how things are going to work, and how to avoid this in the future. I remembered reading about a tool in a book called an 'Auto Pick'. Essentially it is a mechanical lockpick, helping negate some of the skill needed to pick a lock. I did some research and found out that we could get one for less than $50. I did a little more research, and sent two proposals to the Assistant Chief about alternatives to breaking down SLOL's doors. In the end the Auto Pick was the option that was chosen. It came in the mail today, and I spent my morning learning how to use it, and then I was able to teach April how to use it. She actually picked up on it much more quickly than I did. Hopefully this will mean that I will be able to teach the guys at the department how to use it.

My idea is to leave it on the shift commander's vehicle. That way the most senior guy on duty will have control of it, and since he is also the most mobile, if anyone needs it he can bring it to them. This won't be used at fires and such, but when time is not of the essence and we need to gain entry to a house with minimal damage, this will hopefully fit the bill.

The hard part now will be making a training document that will show everyone how to use it. I am also hoping to train one person per shift to show the others, since it isn't really something that lends itself to reading about and then easily picking up (it took me about an hour the first time to pick a lock, but it has gotten steadily easier ever since). The real trick (and the part that I think will be the hardest to teach) is that you do not want to use force. If you try to force it, it will not work and you will likely break it. It is definitely a finesse tool, and I think that is part of why April was able to pick it up so easily.

If you were wondering what it looks like, well, this is it:


Not much to it, but it is pretty cool. Sorry for the long blog. Hopefully April will blog about her cool new kitchen knife, but if not I'll post it up for her. See you guys later.

I'm looking like a genius about now...

I mentioned yesterday about the Nielson thing... I said our TV had gone out on us once in the month we've had it. What I meant by that was that the picture on the TV disappeared. Nothing works except to turn it off, and when you do that it makes a loud pop. When you turn it back on, it works just fine. It has done it twice.

Today it did it for the third time! I called Toshiba and they gave me the number for a local place that is supposed to do in home repair on TV's this size. It should all be under warranty, so no problem there. I'll give them a call Monday (I may be working my part time job today or tomorrow, so I don't want to try and set an appointment just yet).

But yeah, I'm pretty glad I didn't let them open the TV up yesterday!

Hey, a short blog for once... you're welcome!

Nielson Ratings

So today April and I both had a vacation day at work. She's been busily working around the house, I've been trying to reach the end of the internet. So far she is winning.

The doorbell rang, the dog went bonkers (as is her usual routine) and the little lady standing there promptly thrust an ID badge into my face and proclaimed that the Nielson people wanted to put a box in our house and monitor what we watched. Apparently we fit the demographic they were looking for, which is why she came to our house first. Naturally after telling me that we fit the profile, she asked a few questions. I guess maybe they weren't sure.

Turns out we were what they were looking for, and she gave me the little speech. Every time she moved, the dog lost her mind again, and finally was banished to a bedroom where she loudly snuffled at the bottom of the door, bewildered as to what was going on.

The Nielson thing sounded good, they were going to monitor what we watched, give us $150 the first month, $50 every 6 months, and $100 at the end of the 2 year program. Admittedly, not a king's ransom, but hey, it was money for watching TV, isn't that the American dream? I was left standing there thinking, this must be too good to be true.

Of course it was. She was telling me how the whole process worked, and offhandedly mentioned that they would remove the back of the TV, wire the box directly to it, and replace the back of the TV. I'm not sure why that is necessary, since she said they would be splicing into the audio plugs of the TV, but hey, it's their box, I guess they can hook it up however they like.

Unfortunately for all involved, I was not about to let them void the warranty on my brand new TV. She said that Nileson was aware of the fact that the warranty would be no good, and would gladly pay for any repairs their box caused, and split any repairs with me that were not their fault. Seeing as how our TV has already gone out on us once since we got it, I didn't think that sounded like the best idea.

So in a nutshell, while it would have been cool to be one of only 10,000 households in the US providing those Nielson ratings (think about that next time your favorite show gets cancelled because no one is watching!) I wasn't about to gamble on having to buy another TV (oh, and should you need a new TV during this program, Nielson would happily chip in $25 towards the cost!). Talk to you later!

So very, very cold

Well folks, those that have been screaming global warming seem to have missed it again. It's been cold here, real cold, especially for a poor kid raised in Mississippi. Last shift we had single digit temperatures, with a wind chill that I don't care to remember. And of course yours trully was out in the best of it.

In fact, it was so cold, that my engine crew had a gentleman's agreement that, should we make a structure fire, we weren't going to put it out until we had confirmed from 2 different sources that A) rehab had been set up and B) there was some sort of warming source at it. Hot Chocolate would be acceptible.

Honestly though, what we were dreading the most were busted water lines. See, not only does it make a mess, it freezes, and we get to splash around in it to get the water cut off, then drained or squeegied away. Wet gear is no fun on a night that far south of freezing, and your boots can only do so much to keep the cold out.

Modern turnout gear is a wonderous thing; it has 2 properties that you look for when speccing it: how much heat you can keep out and how much heat you can let out. Sounds similar, but it is really different. And they function inversely. The more heat you keep out, the more you trap in. That's great in a house fire, but standing on the side of the road in July cutting up a car, that's no fun at all. Our gear kinda meets in the middle, a good mix of the two.

How does that effect you on a cold night? Well, turnout gear can tend to not be quite as warm as you'd think it would be (or like it to be for that matter!). As long as I was moving around, I was ok, but if I ever stopped for long, a chill would set in that ran bone deep and was tough to shake. The worst part is that you are pretty limited in what you wear under your gear, you hate to dress too warmly under it because then you'll wind up overheated on a serious call. But hey, that's why you keep spare clothes on the rig, get cold, add a layer, get hot, take one off.

Shucks though, it wouldn't matter if we didn't run any calls, right? So naturally we were busy. Luckily for us though, there were no busted water lines for us. We ran some medical calls, and a few fire alarms. We got to bed about 11pm, up at 12, back to bed at 4, and up again at 5:30 for a structure fire, which turned out to be nothing. Except we had to walk around the building making sure everything was cool. At that temperature, after 2 minutes outside, my fingers felt like someone had been smashing them with a hammer. My ears were so cold they didn't even hurt anymore. I've never been so happy to get back on the truck in my life. We wound up running 14 calls as a shift, and my crew went on 8 of them. I had fun though, I always prefer a busy shift to a slow one. Time goes by so much faster that way, and I love what I do.

As for the police, let's just say it was a good day to be a speeder in our little city!

But it has warmed up again now, realatively. The wind still cuts right through you. Yup. Global warming at it's finest.

Happy Newyear!!!

Hey all, I'm not sure where the time has gone lately, but this is my first shift of the new year, so I figure I'll try to get back on track.

Not much to report, we've been busy but not with anything exciting.

We worked New Year's eve, but it was pretty quiet.

So far today we've done a bunch of projects around the station (installed some hose reels for garden hoses and air hoses in the bay to de-clutter) and worked out. Hopefully that will pretty much cover our day!

I think tomorrow we are going to go back out to the Bluffs and hike again, weather permitting.

Hope everyone is having a great New Year so far. Talk to you later!

Chris