Just Call Me J.F.

A sad excuse for a father

2012-01-17T12:24:00.000-08:00

Quite a few years ago, I was working in a different Division when we went to a fairly distressing call. We were called out to a 5 or 6 year old female that wasn’t breathing. She had a congenital illness that ultimately would take her life.

The weather that day was bad, pouring rain that had for the most part flooded all of the local streets. With the flooded streets, came a much slower response than normal.

When we are dispatched to calls like this, everyone has a greater sense of urgency. Not that all emergencies aren’t important, but when it involves a kid, you just want to get there sooner. I hate to say it, but many times your anxiety is greatly heightened for these types of calls.

Anyway, we wasted no time in getting out of the station, but with the streets flooded, it slowed us considerably. The ambulance coming with us was slowed a bit too, but since they have a smaller unit, they can go a bit faster. We both arrived on scene at the same time. I usually try to go in last to make sure all of my guys get in and then I can assess the scene a bit better once I know everyone is there. As I walked in, I was confronted by the Dad of the house. First thing he does is get in my face, after he had questioned my crew as they were walking in. My guys referred him to me and he hit me up just as I was walking in the door. He demanded why it took us so long to get there. I went over with him the weather conditions and the fact that their home was right on the edge of two different areas for our division. It was barely in our first in response area. This area was fairly large too. So, with the combo of the weather and where they were located, our response time was a bit slow. I tried explaining to this jerk, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Instead of being concerned about his young daughters condition, he wanted to pick a fight with the very people that came there to try and save her. Even though he was hostile towards my crew, I managed to separate him from them while they were trying to help his daughter.

I basically herded him to another part of the house so we would not bother his wife who was extremely distraught or my guys. We basically had an argument over the response time. I told him that I would check on our response times with dispatch, which I did. I reported back to him the times I was given and he basically called me a liar, at which part I called him an “Ass”. I asked him why he didn’t show much concern about his daughter, when what he was doing at the time could have been handled after the emergency was over. He didn’t like that too much and basically threatened to beat me up. At that time I called for Law Enforcement and then told him to leave his own home. He told me I couldn’t do that and I told him, “Yes, I can”. He then calmed down a bit and moved off to a different area and just leered at us for the rest of the time. Law Enforcement arrived, I informed them of the situation and told them just to hang around. I didn’t want him arrested, just controlled. I know that people react weird when under stress and didn’t want this guy to pay for anything he would be sorry for later.

This time, we were able to get the child back breathing and she did OK for a while, but ended up dying from her condition about a year later.

This however is not the end of the story. A few days later, I get a call from my Boss saying that the people involved with this call wanted to have a sit down with us. He said they just wanted to chat. I told my Boss what had transpired the day it happened and told him it might be better if he came along, but he told me I could handle it. So, we went to their home again at the time we were told.

When we walked in, there were all sorts of people there, not just the Mom and Dad. The pastor of their Church (the Dad was a youth pastor there), and some of the Grandparents and some other people. I can’t remember exactly, but I’d say about 6+ adults and the couples older daughter.

I explained what had happened all over again, and then had to justify what we had done. They threatened my job and couldn’t get off the fact that I had called the Dad an Ass. I basically told them that I call it as I see it and that he was acting like an Ass. I told them again that in my opinion, he should have been more concerned about his daughters condition than excoriating us over a perceived slow response time.

I surprisingly kept my cool for this whole ordeal. My guys told me they couldn’t believe that I was able to hold it together so well. I totally expected to be brought in for disciplinary action over this. I knew they were the type of people that could make up stuff that never happened. Other than me calling him an Ass, I was totally professional in my actions. I guess in the end, they knew that they had no case against me and let it drop.

Another Good Mormon Message

2012-01-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

Athletes and Prayer

2012-01-06T12:50:00.000-08:00

I found this article while surfing around today and thought it hit the nail on the head!

Link

When Liberals Ruled America

2011-11-24T11:42:00.001-08:00

I've been following Kevin Jackson's blog (The Black Sphere) for a while now. I really enjoy how he is able to point out the Hypocrisy on the left in such an entertaining way.

This post is particularly good:

When Liberals Ruled America

Enjoy!

Solar Power

2011-11-16T11:53:00.001-08:00

Back in the early part of summer, we were looking for a way to lower our income tax liability for this year. I heard that we could gain some tax advantages and credits by installing Solar Power at our home.

After researching it a bit we found that the tax benefits really weren't that great considering that you would have a large cash outlay to buy the system anyway. But we did find that we could get a complete system installed on our home for nothing down and no other costs, except for the power that was generated by the system.

There are several companies out there vying for business in Southern California. The two main ones that I found were Verengo Solar and Sungevity. I spent quite a bit of time reading about both companies. We ended up going with Verengo, because of their PPA instead of lease. A PPA or Power Purchase Agreement was a bit more friendly than a Lease in my opinion.

I called and set up an appointment with a Sales Rep. It took a few days to get them out here, but he showed on time and was very professional in his presentation. One issue that I had later on in the process I will talk about later in the post.

After the presentation, we decided to go ahead and get the process started. They gave us a timeline of when things would occur and as far as Verengo was concerned, they met or exceeded all of their commitments. The only step in the process that took longer than the estimates, was SCE's approval process. They took nine weeks from the time the system was signed off on inspections. The estimate was from 4 to 8 weeks. So they only went a week over.

Once we signed the paperwork, we waited for about two weeks for a site engineer to come and check out the house. Once he was done, the plans were drawn up and submitted to our Building Department for the issue of a permit. They called me within a couple of weeks and said they wanted to schedule installation of the system. We set up a date just a couple of days later. They arrived on time, worked quickly and cleanly. They made everything look proper and professional. They finished in one day, even though they originally told me it may take up to three days. Three days after the completion of the installation, the system was inspected and passed. Then the wait came for Edison's OK to operate. Like I said, it took nine weeks for the OK.

We have been generating power for about two weeks now. You can see how much power your system generates by logging on to the website. So far, on good sunny days we are generating more than is projected.

The way the system was designed is to keep our power purchases from Edison in the first two tiers of consumption. By law they have to charge a lower rate in the first two tiers. Once you get into the third tier and beyond, the price jumps considerably. Since we haven't had our system in operation that long, I can't give a good estimate on how much we may be saving. It looks like it may be around 15 to 20%.

Now to explain about the issue I had with our sales rep. He told us during the presentation that we would be able to log on to our account and see in "Real Time" our energy production from our system. That is not correct, at best you see 24 hours previous, and mostly 48 hour previous. Not that big of a deal, but I thought it would be cool to see it as it was happening.

Also, just so you know, with the PPA, Verengo takes care of all system maintenance and repairs. Our agreement is for 20 years. Once we hit that 20 year mark, the company will come and remove the system, or just leave it in place and we then own it.

A Miracle!

2011-10-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

When we returned home last night from picking up Brig from his mission, there was a check from Verizon for the full refund amount. It only took eight months to get it, but it did come. Verizon still SUX, but not as bad now!

An Interesting Image

2011-10-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

My brother sent me this yesterday. It was taken at a Structure Fire in the city where he works. I thought with Halloween coming up it was appropriate. No, it hasn't been touched up either!

Verizon SUX... REDUX

2011-10-19T17:03:00.001-07:00

Just about six months ago I made a post about the terrible customer service I was getting from Verizon concerning the account I managed while working at the Fire Department. About three weeks after I sent the letter that I put up in the post, I received a call from a nice young woman claiming to be a customer service person from Verizon. She told me that she had my letter in her hand and that she would make sure that I received my refund as soon as it was available to be released by the company. She told me that she would make sure that our home address would be the one that they sent the refund check to. I told her that I would believe it when I saw it in my hands, but she was adamant that they would not fail me.

I should have received that check around August 15th or so. Never came. I sent off a letter similar to the first one I sent thinking that I would get a response from them like I did the last time. No such luck, I’d waited for over a month and still no contact from Verizon.

Yesterday, I decided to give it one last try and called Verizon Customer service. I got through to them after waiting for just a short time, maybe two minutes. I knew it would take some explaining and tried my best to keep it short. Long story short, I found out that they sent the refund out on May 31st to the physical address of the Fire Station I had worked at. Every time I had contacted Verizon, I made sure they knew that the refund was to be sent to our home address, not the Fire Station since they don’t get mail there. When I talked with the Customer Service person that called the house because of the letter I sent, I made sure that they knew that the refund was to come to our home address. Now this guy was telling me that it was sent to a place that doesn’t get mail.

I told the gentleman I was speaking with yesterday that I never received the refund. I asked how long it would take to get it sent to me “Another six months?” He actually told me that they would send a new one out right away. He took my address down and made sure he got it right. He said that I should have it within seven to ten working days which is two weeks. I asked what I should do if I didn’t get it in the seven to ten working days, and he said call them back. I don’t know if it will be worth it or not.

I’ll let you know if I finally get the refund.

Red Air: America’s Medevac Failure

2011-10-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

Red Air: America’s Medevac Failure

Sanctify Yourselves

2011-09-20T12:08:00.001-07:00

This one made me cry.

Why did the man cross the road?

2011-09-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

When I was working at our temporary (14 years) Fire Station in the north end of our Division we were called out to an Auto vs. Pedestrian accident on the major north / south freeway that runs through our area. This call came in after midnight some time.

When we arrive on scene, CHP was there already and had shut down a few lanes of the south bound traffic. We parked out of traffic and talked with the CHP officer. The vehicle involved was parked on the right shoulder. He asked us to check out the guy in the back of his cruiser. We walked to his car and there is this guy sitting in the back seat, white as a ghost. He is very agitated, but not in a bad way (does that make sense?). We talk to him a bit, he isn't too helpful, but we figure he is OK. We then find out what happened.

This poor guy was driving to LA from (if I remember right) Wyoming. He was nearly there when all of a sudden this guy comes out of no where and he hits him at freeway speed. The vicitm goes head first through the drivers windshield and his head comes to rest on the floor of the passenger side front seat. The force of the impact pretty much rips off all of the victim's lower body. His torso from the waist up and a bit of his digestive tract (intestines) are all that's left. As we were walking up to the car to check it out, it smelled like sewer.

I know it's hard to see anything funny in this, but a couple of funny things happened none the less, at least to those of us there. I'll get to that in a bit.

First, when the guy went through the windshield, his face ended up breaking open a box of Cheerios that were laying on the floor of the car. It looked exactly like the guy was eating the Cheerios when we first saw him.

The poor vicitm's lower body parts had been spread all over the south bound lanes of the freeway for a couple of hundred yards. The CHP had coned off the lane where most of it was spread. All of us there were asked to pick up the parts we could pick up. There were several large chunks and many small pieces. One in particular was a shoe with a foot in it and part of a leg. As we were doing our “recovery” one of the guys I worked with was the one who picked up the foot. The traffic that was still going through the area was doing so at a snail's pace, “looky loo slowing”. Just before the foot was found, the guy who found it was nearly hit by someone gawking at what we were doing. Just as he picked up the foot, this car with some young people in it was right next to him and they almost stopped. As they got right next to him, he picked up the boot with the foot in it and yells “Is this what you want to see?” and nearly shoves it in the car with them. The person sitting in the passenger seat nearly tossed his cookies when he did that, we all laughed about that afterwards.

Like I said, it may not sound funny to you, but we laughed about it for weeks.

One of the guys on the call from one of our other stations had been out the night before at a Bachelor Party and wasn't really feeling very well. Everyone there would make comments about stuff we were finding to try and get a “reaction”, if you know what I mean, from the Bachelor party guy. He really wasn't feeling good when we all left the scene. What can I say, most Firemen are pretty morbid. If you don't joke around about this kind of stuff, it can get to you... Well, not me, but there are some who have difficulty dealing with these types of calls.

We found quite a bit of parts on the freeway, but never found the large bones of the legs. We figure that when the guys pants came off, a good part of the leg probably stayed in them and then hooked on a car that drove through the area just after it happened.

I spoke with one of the guys that was on the call with me recently and asked him if he knew if they found that stuff and he said he remembers a car coming back to the scene while we were there and the guys pants were hung up under the car. I don't doubt his word, but I don't remember that at all.

The CHP did some checking and found out from witnesses that the victim had stopped in the center median of the freeway for an unknown reason. I believe that we found out that the guy was Diabetic by looking in his wallet that the CHP had found. We figured that the guy had a diabetic reaction and became disoriented. After stopping the car in the median (he must have been traveling north bound), he exited his car. He probably didn't put the car in park or set the parking brake because it started rolling backwards. The car made a turn and went across the south bound lanes and he chased it. The car made it to the other side and he didn't. His vehicle was found tangled in the fencing along the right shoulder of the south bound lanes.

Modesty

2011-09-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

While surfing the net today, I ran across a blog post by a woman who claims to be a member of the Church.

Here is the LINK

I find it quite curious and a bit disturbing that this kind of thinking actually goes on among so called strong members of the Church. The comments on this blog scare me even more in the fact that there are so many who readily agree with this misguided woman.

It's not hard to find information on the Church's standards if you really want to know. A simple search of the Church's web site lead me to this article: LINK

I am truly worried about what the future will bring.

Obstacles in our Path

2011-08-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a

roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if

anyone would remove the huge rock.

Some of the King’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by

and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the

King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did

anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of

vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the

peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the

stone to the side of the road. After much pushing

and straining, he finally succeeded.

After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed

a purse lying in the road where the boulder had

been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note

from the King indicating that the gold was for the

person who removed the boulder from the roadway.

The peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve

our condition.

A few months ago, I had to give a spiritual thought at a Church meeting. I found this thought on the web and thought it was excellent.

The Book of Mormon

2011-08-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

I Just Don't Get it, 2

2011-08-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

I never thought that I'd read what I just read. Apparently the CEO of Government Motors thinks that there needs to be an additional $1 per gallon tax added to gasoline sales. This is so it could help them sell their higher mileage cars easier. There is a reason no one wants to buy GM cars, they stink. Adding a $1/gallon tax to gas sales isn't going to help them.

I also understand that their flagship electric car, the "Volt" hasn't had much of a charge. Sales of the Volt have been pathetically weak, selling hundreds, if not thousands below what they had hoped for. It is pretty much an abject failure.

So, now since the CEO of Government Motors is an appointment of the POTUS, he has to tow the "Company" line. Which basically screws the rest of us over.

Every day its a different foray into our rights and our pocketbooks with this stupid administration. I hope the citizens of this great country can see the POTUS for what he is, a liar and a socialist/communist hell bent on destroying the US.

2012 can't come quick enough.

Captain

2011-07-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

When I was promoted to Engineer, I felt lost around the Fire Station. I kept wandering around wondering what the Firemen were doing. I quickly found out that what I had worked so hard for I didn’t really like that much. Don’t get me wrong, driving around in a big, shiny Fire Truck with the red lights and siren going was enjoyable. I was also glad that I didn’t have to do janitorial work any longer. But the regular day to day routine of an Engineer in our Department was quite monotonous. Even though I had always enjoyed working on vehicles, it was a bit different actually having to do it as my job. Prior to getting promoted to Engineer I thought that I would want to be in that position for a very long time.

I guess that I longed for the excitement of Firefighting again. As an Engineer, you didn’t get to do much other than pump and stay outside on fires... at least in those days. After several months as an Engineer, I decided to work towards becoming a Captain which is the next step up. A Captain is a Firefighter with supervisory responsibilities. He runs the station and shift he is on, directs activities at all incidents, makes sure everything runs smoothly.

Back in the days I was preparing to become a Captain, our Department had just started to talk about making all candidates for Captain have a CFO (Certified Fire Officer) certificate. It wasn’t a requirement, but the talk was it would be soon. So, luckily for me, I was able to get into the system just when they were starting up for the year. There were eight one week classes that you had to take and pass to get your certificate. I think I finished them all up over about a 16 week period. For the most part they were boring, but I actually learned some good stuff too. Stuff that I used often in my duties as a Captain.

Several months after finishing up my classes and obtaining my CFO, they announced the next Captains test. Since I had enough time on and had the classes required (CFO still wasn’t a requirement), I decided to apply and take the test. Didn’t know if I was ready yet to be a Captain, but figured I was as prepared as any of the other guys I knew that were taking the test.

The day comes for the test and all of us show up together for a group exercise. We walk in to the room and there are a bunch of chairs lined up in a semi circle. There are a couple of Chief Officers in the room who tell us to take a seat. Once we are seated they tell us what this phase of the test is about. They tell us that underneath each chair is an envelope with a piece of paper in it. On the paper is written a statement or a word that we will have to give a short presentation on. They then start calling on us randomly. I remember what my subject was, and one other guy, the rest I don’t remember now. The other one that I remember was the abbreviation “PSAP”. When the guy said that, I had no idea what a “PSAP” was. The guy that got that subject was a friend of mine who never really took stuff like this seriously. He was more interested in partying than working. I figured that he would just bomb it, but he knew quite a bit about it. By the way, a “PSAP” is a Public Safety Answering Point, part of the 911 system that had just been implemented in our area, I learned something that day.

I think I ended up being called on about half way through the exercise. I peeled the envelope from under my seat and opened it. As I read what I was to speak about, I was overjoyed. They asked me to speak on how “CFIRS” or the California Fire Incident Reporting System helped the fire service to plan. At the time, I had the job of checking all of the CFIRS that were turned in by our personnel for errors and making sure that they were filled out properly so they would not be kicked back to us by the state once they were turned in. Unfortunately for me, I never had thought of those reports in that aspect. I stumbled around, hemmed and hawed back and forth and spit out a few statements that probably made no sense at all. I finally just stopped talking and felt like a fool. I was then schooled by one of the Chiefs on the matter. It was quite humbling.

Lucky for me that this one little section of the test was not the only thing they based our test scores on. For the rest of the day, we were sitting at tables with several different tasks we had to do. We had written fire problems, personnel issues, public appearance problems that all had to be written by hand. They gave us a sheet of all the things we had to do for our “Typical” day in the life of a Fire Captain, then we had to prioritize all of these things, write down what we would do, provide any paperwork we needed to do. I can’t remember all of the stuff we did, but I do remember that we had a Fire Scenario that we had to write about, then fill out a CFIRS concerning the fire. I know I did quite well on that, because of my work in checking the CFIRS. I had the opportunity to speak on numerous occasions to the people at the State Fire Marshall’s Office concerning issues or incorrectly filled out reports. I had a good grasp of how they were to be filled out. I even had quite a few Captains ask me questions about the correct way to fill them out.

That was a long day, I think all told we spent a good six hours at our tables working on our test. Once we were done, they thanked us all and told us that they would be scoring our tests and would soon be contacting us for our Oral Board Interview.

About a week went by and we all got our times for our Orals. I went into mine not having a clue what to expect. I had spent a lot of time going over everything I could think of that they may ask. You never know what way they were going to go. I know that I had a pretty good reputation around the Department. I was dependable and honest and volunteered for stuff all the time. I wasn’t one who just came to work, and hid hoping I could stay in the background.

When I walked into the oral, I was happy to see the same guys who were there for the first part of the test there for the orals. I liked them and I’m sure they all liked me. I wish I could remember more than I do about the oral, but I can’t. The only thing I remember is that they had a word association exercise. They would say something and we were supposed to say the first thing that came into our head. I talked about the guy that talked about the “PSAP” earlier. He told me what he said to one of the things they said during the word association. They said “ICBO” or phonetically as ickbow. This guy said “I don’t know what it is, but if you put some Ketchup on it, I’ll eat it”. He said they laughed, but doubted that he got any points for his answer. I knew exactly what it was, ICBO stands for International Conference of Building Officials. They are the ones who produce the UBC or Uniform Building Code and the UFC or Uniform Fire Code. I think they were impressed with my whole interview, at least it seemed that way.

About a week later we all were summoned to Headquarters again to get the results of our test. As we walked in they handed us each an envelope with our name on it. We were told to wait to open the envelope until they told us. When I opened mine all it had in it was a piece of paper with a number two on it. They then told us that the number written on the paper was where we finished on the list. Everyone was talking to each other about where they finished, and I was just sitting there dumbfounded. I had no idea that I would finish that high on the list. They all chattered for a good five minutes as I sat there still stunned. Then someone starts asking, “Who is number 2?”. Once I got myself together, I said I was and they were sort of shocked. Most of the guys I tested against had several more years on than me. I think there was only one other guy who took the test that had less time on than me and only by a few months. All told, I think there were nine or ten guys that took this test.

I Just Don't Get It!

2011-07-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

I just read something on a message board that I read on a fairly regular basis that has me scratching my head.

Apparently, the US Congress let a deadline go by funding certain parts of the FAA. Well, this one member of the board wrote a post concerning it. They apparently are part of the FAA that will not have funding until the Congress acts.

This message board will not let you post new threads if you are not a paid member. So this brain surgeon who is now out of work, stated that they went into Paypal, fixed their account, so they could pay their membership fee to be able to post on the board again. I know that the minimum cost to be a paying member with thread starting privileges is $25. Now, $25 isn't that much money if you are gainfully employed, but someone who is now out of work blowing that much just so they can post on a message board makes no sense to me.

They had let their membership lapse while they were working, but as soon as they are out of work they blow $25 so they can post???? I just don't get it.

A Fine Talk by Joe Galloway

2011-07-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

I thought some of you may enjoy this... I did. Just click on the link below.

A Fine Talk by Joe Galloway

Farewell to Facebook

2011-07-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Just a short note to those who I am friends with on Facebook. I will be de-activating my Facebook account in about a week. I know that many of you use Facebook and I completely understand why you do. It can be a place to keep up with what's going on.

For me, it was just a place to waste time. I rarely post anything and know if something important happens that I need to know about, I will be contacted in some other form. Plus, I have some other issues with certain aspects of Facebook that is helping my decision along.

So, most of you have my email address and our phone number, you can always leave me a comment on one of my blog posts and I will see that too.

After all he went through, all he got was a new pair of shoes.

2011-07-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

I guess it's been a while since I posted anything. I wrote this one up a couple of years ago, enjoy.

Several years ago, I was working in the South end of our area. We received a report of a TC (traffic collision) involving a big rig. This was on a major freeway that runs east to west through our Division. As we pull up, we see several cars and the Tractor only part of a Big Rig involved, traffic is stopped. We go about checking all of the vehicles. As we walk up to the Tractor all we've found so far is just minor injuries of those involved. The tractor is upside down. As I come around to the front of the Tractor, I notice this kid standing in the front windshield of the truck leaning against the “A Pillar” (front support of the cab). I’m wondering “what is that kid doing standing there”. I yell over to him to get out of there, but he says he can’t. I get closer and see that the heel of his foot is pinched between the crumpled metal of the cab roof. He has a couple of very minor scratches, but is otherwise unscathed. I try to pull the foot out, but it won’t budge. So we tell the kid that we’re going to have to cut his shoe off to get his foot out. He starts crying (he’s about 9 or 10) and begs us not to cut his shoe. We told him that it is the only way to get him out without a big hassle. The shoes were fairly new, so we told him that we would buy him a new pair if he agreed to let us cut them. That calmed him down and we got him out.

While we were working on getting his foot out he told us that he had been riding with his Dad in the Truck when all of a sudden they were upside down. He really couldn't tell us much else.

A couple of weeks later, we made arrangements to meet this Kid and his Dad at a local Vann’s Shoe Store to get him the new pair of shoes we had promised him. Somehow the Press got wind of the story and were there to see us present him with the new shoes. Myself and the other Captain on the call were going to buy the shoes for him, but when we went to pay for them, the shoe store gave the shoes to him which was a very nice thing to do.

UT to NM to TX

2011-06-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

For those of you that may be interested to hear about my recent adventure moving Chase and Jenn's furniture from Utah to Texas, I thought that I would write up a short post about it.

On July 11th, I flew up to Salt Lake and was picked up by my niece Rachel and her husband Peter. I got in at about 9:15pm local time. They drove me down to Jenn's parents home in Spanish Fork. Jenn's Dad, brothers and some others had picked up the Rental Truck and loaded it with all of the stuff they had left in their storage locker in Lehi and whatever they had left at Jenn's parents home.

Rachel and Peter got me to Spanish Fork around 10:30. I talked with Jenn's parents Terry and Eileen for a short time, got situated and then went to bed about 11pm. I woke up a little before 5am and quietly got dressed, used the facilities and then went outside to the truck. I guess I wasn't quiet enough, because Terry came out shortly after I got in the truck. He helped me get the truck turned around in the Cul de Sac, I thanked him for all they did, and was on my way.

I headed east on US 6/89 out of Spanish Fork. I had never been on this road before and compound that with never driving the rental truck before, I kept my speed fairly slow, plus it was really dark for about the first hour. It was a lot of uphill/downhill driving on mostly a two lane mountain road. There were quite a few passing lanes, California could learn from Utah. About 20 miles into the trip, I came around a blind corner and just about nailed a horse. Luckily I was driving slow and paying attention and the horse was actually just out of the traffic lane on the shoulder. It looked like it had been hit by another vehicle, but was still standing. It definitely caught me by surprise and woke me up.

The Utah part of the trip was probably the most scenic until I was almost to Chase and Jenn's house. I was on a bunch of different highways and freeways. The 191, I-70, I-40, US 285, I-10, just to name a few. It took me about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to get out of Utah, I passed into Colorado for a short time and then into New Mexico.

The first time I stopped for fuel, I was in Cortez, CO. I was sort of surprised that most of the town was closed up. There was no employees at the Gas station I stopped at to get diesel fuel. The reason I stopped was because there was someone there getting fuel. Luckily, the fuel pumps were working, so I fueled up and continued on. I drove straight through for another four or five hours. I stopped along the highway where I found a Home Depot. I needed to use the restroom and I wanted to get a larger, more sturdy lock for the back of the truck to make it more secure. I used the restroom, found the lock that I wanted and continued on with the journey.

I had made reservations at a Motel 6 in Moriarty, NM for that night. According to the maps I was looking at, Moriarty was just a little shy of half way through the trip. I got into Moriarty about 4pm or about 11 hours after I left Utah. First I went and filled up the truck with fuel. Then I went to the Motel and got checked in. Then I went and ate and picked up some food at a little grocery store to bring with me on the trip the next day. I got back to the room around 5:30pm, called home and then messed around on my laptop for a while. I took a shower and got into bed about 8:15. My plan was to get on my way by 4am which was actually 5am Texas time. I slept lousy, I know I didn't fall to sleep until after 10pm some time. I woke up numerous times during the night. I finally woke up for good about 2:15 local time. I ate some breakfast, brushed my teeth, got everything ready to go, left the room, turned in my key at the desk, checked the truck out, got in started it up and left right about 2:45am.

I started out on the east I-40 for about 25 miles and then got on the south US 285. I would be on this road for a good portion of my trip on Monday. It was a nice divided four lane highway for most of the trip. Occasionally you would come into a small town and have to slow down to 45 or 35 MPH, but most of the road was, 75 MPH. I kept the speed of the truck around 65 MPH. The first 2 1/2 hours I was on the 285, I probably only saw about ten vehicles, all coming north bound, no one came up behind me. It was really dark so most of the time I had the brights on. I also was able to use the GPS to show me when I was coming up to large curves in the roadway. With the slight up and downs of the road and being so dark it was hard to see what exactly was up ahead, the GPS really helped with that.

About daybreak, I was getting into Roswell, NM. Made it through town and back out to the open highway. Next big town I got to was Carlsbad, NM. I made a slight blunder getting out of Carlsbad. The roads weren't marked really well because they were doing some road construction. I took what I thought was the main road (285) but it turned out the 285 actually had veered left. It took me about 7 or 8 miles before I realized what had happened. I turned around and went back to the junction and got back on track. I then made it into Texas and decided that I would get fuel in Pecos. I made it to the end of town and found a Gas Station that was easy to get in and out of. I pulled up to the pump and tried to take the fuel cap off of the saddle tank. It wouldn't come off. I tried to get it off for nearly 10 minutes, in the entire time I probably only moved the cap a quarter of a turn. I went into the office of the station and asked if they had a pipe wrench or large pair of pliers. They looked at me with a blank stare and said that they didn't. Luckily, there was a Walmart about 1/4 mile from the Gas Station. I drove over there and went in to see if I could buy a pipe wrench. I have never seen such a small Walmart before. It was about 1/3 the size of our local Walmart at home which isn't even a Super Walmart. Needless to say, they didn't have what I needed or wanted. When I came out, I noticed that there was an Autozone right next door to the Walmart. I drove the truck to the Autozone and went inside. They didn't have any pipe wrenches, but they had a nice large set of slip joint or water pump pliers. Not having any other options, I bought the pliers. I went out to the truck and was able to move the fuel cap a bit easier, but it still wasn't coming off. I went back in the Autozone and bought a can of WD-40 so I could try and lubricate the threads of the tank filler and the cap. That finally did the trick. After about 15 minutes of messing with the pliers, I was able to get the cap off of the filler neck. I have no idea what happened, but the threads were all galled. I cleaned debris out of the threads as best I could, put the cap back on loosely and went and got fuel. It took me nearly an hour to fix this problem and I got back on the road about 10:30am Texas time.

I stayed on the 285 south until I came to the I-10 near Fort Stockton. I transitioned to the east bound I-10 and stayed on that until I got to Boerne, TX. I got fuel in Junction, TX which was about 80 miles before Boerne. The GPS routed me through Boerne, the Mapquest route I had with me suggested I go through San Antonio, so I decided to avoid San Antonio and take Boerne. It was mostly a two lane hilly road. It moved fairly well though. I traveled about 60 miles and arrived at Chase and Jenn's around 5:15pm.

The Boerne area is near the Hill Country of Texas. It was a nice area, very pretty. A nice change to all of the brown Desert I'd been seeing for most of the trip.

I took a few pictures on the drive, most of them in Utah and just as I got into New Mexico. Also a couple of Chase and Jenn's place from the outside after I arrived.

This one is just as I was getting in to Moab, Utah:

This one is just after I went through Moab:

This is just after I entered New Mexico:

These are the day after I got to Chase and Jenn's house:

Engineer

2011-05-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lag between posts, that paver project kept me pretty busy and pretty tired.

As I said before, I really wanted to promote to the position of Engineer. It was very fascinating to me, making sure that the Fire Engine was ready to go every day and being able to get the proper amount of water and pressure out of it on a Fire. Also, driving safely with the Red Lights and Siren going was fun.

From the time I passed my probation, I started working diligently on getting prepared to take the Engineer Exam. I was lucky enough to work with an Engineer who was very good at teaching the job of Engineer. He worked hard to make the training interesting and fun. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all fun and games, but I enjoyed most of it. During this time, the other Fireman on my shift was working hard to prepare for the Engineer’s Exam too. He was the Fireman who had been hired just before me (about a year before). We really didn’t have a rivalry going, we just worked together to help each other.

I made mention in my last post that the whole process of testing for Engineer tore me up for a short time. I still get a bit mad when I think about it, but in the end, I had the last laugh. I can’t remember the exact dates, so I’m going to leave them out. All I know is that this all happened about a month before I should have been eligible to take the Engineer Test.

The announcement for the Test came out on an interoffice memo form. I read it and knowing I was short the required time on the job, didn’t think about it again... until this one guy came up to me. This guy that came up to me was the only person sitting on the last Engineer’s list that was just about to expire. When these lists get down to only one person left on them, they are supposed to be voided (more on this later).

Back in those days I was very naive. This guy came up to me and asked if I’d be interested in taking the Engineer’s Exam. I told him I would be, but that I didn’t have enough time on the job. He said that he’d been talking to our Union Leadership who had talked to our Chief. They had decided since I’d been a Cadet for almost a year, that if I wrote a letter to the Chief requesting the opportunity to take the test, the Chief would approve the request. I was stoked. I knew the only competition I had going into the test would be the Fireman on my shift, and I knew I was better than him. So, I wrote the letter and the Chief approved my participation in the test.

I honestly don’t know the actual reason I was made a pawn in this whole game. I heard that somehow they (the Union Leadership) used the leverage of this whole charade to force the Chief to go ahead and promote the guy that was sitting on the expiring list.

The morning the test is supposed to go off, I show up to HQ and I’m the only one there. I know that there are about 5 to 7 guys scheduled to take the test. I walk into the kitchen (where everyone hangs out) and sit down. A few seconds later, one of the Station Captains walk in (he’s also the guy putting on the test, and one of our Union leaders). He comes right to the point and tells me that since I don’t have the required time on the job, that I can’t take the test. I explain about all of what had happened and he tells me that if I insist on taking the test, he will cancel the test for everyone. I had no idea that this was coming, talk about a blindside. He then tells me that everyone who was taking the test registered a protest because I didn’t have enough time. I knew what he was telling me was a lie, the Fireman on my shift knew about it and was looking forward to the competition. After sitting there silent for what seemed like hours, with tears in my eyes I told him I wouldn’t take the test. I still regret that decision, I didn’t want to make waves, but they didn’t care if they upended my life at that particular time.

So, the test went off and guess what, the Fireman on my shift came out first and got promoted. Oh, by the way, that little charade worked for the guy sitting on the list about to expire. He was promoted without having to retest.

Those two promotions are all that happened until the list expired the next year. This time, they couldn’t keep me out of the testing process, I had all of the requirements. I took the test with 5 or 6 other people, all of which took the previous test and had died on the list. After the test, I was first on the list, as a matter of fact, I was the only one who passed this test. All of the other guys had failed. For a short time they tried to tell me that since I was the only one on the list, that the list would not be valid. Someone stepped up for me and made the point that they had promoted that guy who sat on that expiring list by himself. So in the end, I was promoted shortly after.

The End

2011-05-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

No, not that end... The end of the paver project. At the end of this post are pics of the final result. It came out very good if I do say so myself. I actually drove a car on it today and it seemed to work just fine. At least the driveway didn't fall apart on me.

I'd like to thank Grant again for all of his help. He made things go much faster. I also want to thank Molly and Ceri. They both helped me move all of the left over pavers (602 of them) to the back yard yesterday. Ceri helped me get all of the pallets ready for pick up yesterday too. Then she helped me spread sand over the pavers after the load was delivered in the afternoon. It was too wet to actually vibrate it into the joints. I let it dry over night and it was dry as a bone this morning.

It took me about half an hour to get the sand spread where I needed it this morning and then I used the vibrating plate compactor to vibrate the sand into the joints. I made one pass, spread the sand around again then made another pass with the compactor. You can tell when you're done when the compactor starts bouncing around, not wanting to travel forward. It did that while I was doing the second pass. Once I finished with the compactor, I had to sweep up all of the left over sand. That took me almost two hours and about seven wheel barrows full of sand to complete. I couldn't use my tractor because it broke yesterday as I was putting it away from dumping the sand on the pavers. Luckily I think it won't take too much to fix it, a drift pin in the gear shift broke causing the shift lever to spin around instead of staying in place. I can still drive it, but shifting is a bit tough. I already ordered the parts I need to fix it.

I also found that the plate compactor is broken too. There is a sort of safety cage over the motor that broke at a weld. Might be a good project for me to learn how to weld.

My dear wife requested that I make a walkway in the backyard area out of the left over pavers, so hopefully I can use up most of what I have left. Probably won't start that project until I get home from Texas near the end of June, unless of course I get the tractor fixed quick.

Anyway, here are the pictures of the finished project:

Paver Progress as of 5/21/11

2011-05-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

Made significant progress since the last update. Here are some pics of where we're at. I'm only putting a few pics here, but I uploaded a bunch. If you want to see all of them, just click on one of the pics and then you can go through what I've uploaded.

As long as the weather holds OK, I'm hoping to be done by this coming Wednesday with all of the cutting and by Friday with the whole project. It's turning out better than I expected. I'll be glad when it's done so I can get a bit more rest!

Another big Thanks to Grant for helping me get so much more done yesterday!

Paver Progress

2011-05-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics of the progress on the Pavers.

These are after I had finished installing the base and the edge restraints. I had just laid out the first bed of sand when I remembered I hadn't taken any pictures:

This is how far I got on the first day of installation:

These pics are after the second day of installation (Grant helped me on this day, so we were able to get a lot more done):

After two days of installing I figure we've got about 435 square feet down on the ground. Only about 700 square feet left to go.

This and That

2011-05-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

In my time as a Fireman, I ended up doing much of my time suitcasing. Suitcasing, for those of you that don’t know what it is, is the practice of taking personnel from one station and shipping them off to another station for the day, or cycle, or maybe longer. Like I said in an earlier post, San Bernardino County was sort of poor and our little Special Fire District wasn’t much better. In the early years of my career, there wasn’t much OT to be had, but people were still off work on Vacations, Sick Leave, Occupational Injuries, etc. Since there wasn’t much money in the budget to pay OT, most of the time a guy from a station with four people would be told to go cover a station that normally had three, but was down one due to some type of leave. So being the low man on my shift, I had to pack my bag (or suitcase) and go cover where I was needed.

It’s not a lot of fun living out of a suitcase, but I didn’t really mind that much because I got to go work at all of our different stations and meet guys I hadn’t met yet. We also had sort of acting positions. You weren’t really assigned as an Engineer, but got to drive quite often. That only happened though once you went through the proper training and certification process. It wasn’t as involved as what guys have to go through currently, but they made you know what you were doing.

Many of my suitcase moves would be semi long term, like a month or longer. It wasn’t just the Firemen that moved around. There were many days when I would come into work and find out that my Captain or Engineer was working at another station for the day. I can remember going to many structure fires with only me and the Engineer or me and the Captain on our Engine. Sometimes during the summer months, you might get three Engines to a fire and only have seven people total at the fire. Even though it sometimes seemed overwhelming, things seemed to work out and I always had a blast. I’m sure I got to do way more way faster than most new Firemen just because I had to do more. I really didn’t mind, but I also didn’t know any better.

I’ve tried to remember when I was assigned to what stations, but it’s all sort of a blur now. I know I worked at our HQ the most, which for me was just fine. That station got the most calls and fires. One other benefit to working there was that you could pick up OT easier there. Back then, when we got our staffing down to certain levels, they would have to assign some OT. The Captain’s at HQ were tasked with filling the OT on short notice like sick leave, and for the most part if you worked there, you would be given first choice. It wasn’t really fair, but for me it worked out OK. All of the other scheduled OT was done by a Captain at our Station 2, but in those days there really wasn’t much of that type of OT going around. Your best chance for OT was short notice. Not a lot of guys wanted OT back then, because it wasn’t like it is now where you get time and a half. We got what was called “Premium Time” or PT. PT was your normal pay rate per hour plus one dollar per hour. At least it was more money than your regular salary. Back then, I would have worked for free, well almost. An extra $200 dollars was great as far as I was concerned. Over the years as the economy started roaring along and more money was in our budgets, our PT went to an extra $2/hour then $3/hour until finally we got to what everyone else's OT rate was which was time and a half. Once we got to time and a half, OT became a very hot commodity and most of the guys wanted to get some. That is when they started rotational lists for the distribution of the OT.

I worked with some really good guys that helped me out a lot. They took the time to get me trained so I could promote up as soon as I was ready. They would help me do whatever I needed to do well on my tests. I was really fascinated with the prospect of becoming an Engineer and worked really hard at getting it right. In our Department you had to have three years full time experience as a Central Valley Fireman to take the Engineer test. Next post I will tell you about how that whole process brought me to tears and tore me up for a while.

More Pavers

2011-04-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

Started the last phase of the paver projects I began last year.

Right now I'm excavating the driveway area where I'm going to put the pavers. Mostly it's gone OK. Except for the fact that I broke my Tractor with a couple of days left of work to do to get the excavation done. I can't really complain though, that little tractor has done a lot of work for me. I got a pinhole leak in an exterior oil line that rapidly lowered the oil level in the motor. Luckily, I noticed it before I seized up or even damaged the motor. I'm just waiting for the part to arrive so I can fix it. I had to almost completely disassemble the whole dashboard area of the tractor so I could get to the oil line, but it wasn't too bad. At least it's all apart now, waiting for the part to arrive.

Here are some pictures I took of the excavation (Oh wow, I really like to look at holes in the ground). If you look, you can see in a couple of shots where I leaked oil on the ground from the bad oil line.

This part I dug out by hand, I couldn't get in there with the tractor anyway:

The little pool of water is to help soften up the ground right there, the dirt was like concrete (and it worked like a champ, I dug a bunch more after taking these pics:

This is about 1/3 of the dirt I've dug out of the excavation, I've already spread most of the other dirt around. Since this area is going to be driven on, the excavation needs to be 10" deep then filled with 7" road base, 1" sand and the pavers on top:

These two pictures shows where I leaked some of the oil:

The main part of the excavation. The overall size is about 100' X 8.5' plus the extra on the ends. By my estimate, the project is about 1125 square feet:

This is the other end that I had to dig out by hand:

As I make progress, I will post updates. Just thought you'd like to see how I've been keeping myself busy in retirement.

VERIZON SUX

2011-04-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

I've been having a bit of a problem with Verizon. The letter below is what I sent them. I doubt that it will help much, but at least it made me feel better.

To Whom it may concern;

Sorry in advance for the length of this letter, if I could say what I wanted in less words, I would do it.

Let me tell you of a relationship that started out very well with Verizon. Back in 2008, I was a Captain with the San Bernardino County Fire Department. We had just opened a new Fire Station and I was assigned there. During the construction, we were told that the local cable company would provide TV and Internet services to the Station. Once we occupied the Station, we were informed that if we wanted their service it would cost us over $30,000 to get the line run, and yes that is thirty thousand, not three thousand. Unfortunately for us Firemen, we couldn’t afford that amount, so we were just going to have to do without.

We were able to get Satellite TV at the station and set that up, but Internet is what most guys wanted. As Firemen, we quite often need to stay at the station for several days in a row. Everyone was used to using the Internet to stay in contact with friends and loved ones.

I had seen some FIOS trucks around the area the station was located, but due to the location of the station, there wasn’t any service close by. Through several different phone calls and in talking to several different people at the City and at Verizon, we were able to get Verizon to help us out by providing Internet service to the station. This was by no means a short process, it took several months. But at least we were able to get on the web when we finished. Forward about 18 Months or so. FIOS TV became available to us and we jumped on it.

I’ve been a fan of Verizon since that time. I even had the Triple Package at my home since it became available to us. You guys were extremely helpful when we needed you.

Now, for the bad part...

In February of this year, I retired as a Fire Captain.

Since I was the one who had set up the Internet and then the TV, I was the logical one to collect the funds from our personnel and make sure the bill was paid on time every month, which it always was. When it came time for me to pass on the responsibility of the Verizon bill to someone else at the station, I made several phone calls prior to make sure I knew how to do it as painless as possible. On February 24th, I went to the Fire Station and spoke to a representative of Verizon along with the gentleman that was going to take care of paying the bill from now on.

We thought we had taken care of the whole situation.... Not so fast.

On March 4, I was at home enjoying my retirement when I received two emails and a Robo call from Verizon telling me that if I didn’t return the equipment from the Fire Station that I would be billed for all of it. When we spoke with the representative from Verizon on February 24 (his Name was Dan) I specifically asked about this type of thing and he told me that we shouldn’t have any problem with it. Well, I guess that was just lie number one.

So as soon as I got the Robo Call I contacted 1-800-VERIZON to find out the deal. I spoke with a young lady named Sarah who I explained the whole situation to. She put me on hold and tried to find out what was going on. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally told me that those Robo Calls and emails were generated automatically and that I should ignore them. She said that she would make a note on my account stating that.

So, I thought all was well when I received no more calls or emails about the equipment. I happened to check into my Credit Card on line to check my charges. Lo and behold, I see a charge for the full amount of the service for the Fire Station. I called on March 23 and spoke with a lady named Gina. I again explained the whole situation to her and this conversation ended up with her putting in a “Trouble Ticket”. She said that it could be up to 10 working days before I heard anything from Verizon about the problem. I never received a call concerning the Trouble Ticket.

Around April 2, I received an email about a bill from Verizon. I logged on to the account and found that I was going to receive a partial credit on the full charge that hit me on March 9th.

I called Verizon on April 4th in order to clear up an issue of where to have them send the refund. The address on the account was the physical address of the Fire Station where the service is at. Since I’m retired and since they don’t receive mail at that address, I wanted to change my address with Verizon so I could get the refund sent to me.

I called the 800-Verizon number and spoke with a young lady named Melissa at about 8:43 am PDT. She couldn’t really help me, but did tell me that I would not get a refund for at least 60 days. She suggested that I speak with someone in the billing department and transferred my call there. I then spoke with a gentleman named Chris. I told him the whole story over again and he told me that to get my address changed in the system I would have to speak with the “Financial Services and Billing” department. He also told me that I should be able to get my refund sooner than 60 days just by asking for it. I said I’d ask when I talked to them. He gave me a phone number of 888-338-3339. I called it and spoke with a young lady name Tavon at about 9:05 am.

Tavon listened to my whole situation again and told me that she could change my address so the refund would be sent to my home. I asked her about getting my refund sooner than 60 days and she said all I had to do was ask, so I asked. She then told me I would get the refund in 5 to 7 working days.

That leads us up to the grand finale. Today (4/18/11) marked the 10th business day since I talked with Tavon. Still no refund, I waited to call until my mail came today just to make sure it didn’t show up. I called the 888-338-3339 number and spoke with a gentleman named Ralph at about 3:45 pm. I briefly explained why I was calling and he put me on hold for quite a while as he checked my account. He came back on and told me something I’d never heard before. That the reason my refund had not been sent is because my bill had not been finalized. Now there was something I’d never heard in all of my interaction with your company. I knew I would get nowhere with Ralph, so I asked to speak with a Supervisor.

At about 4:05 pm a person who identified themself as Terry and as a Supervisor came on the phone. Terry’s Employee ID or number is 729841.

Terry basically told me the same thing as Ralph. I guess I didn’t expect anything different. I knew from the conversations I have had with Verizon over the past two months that you really don’t have Customer Service unless someone is about to spend some money with you.

I feel like I’ve been used and abused by your company and your people. It really is a shame that through all of those calls, no one could give me any straight information.

I expect that I will never see the money that Verizon owes me and have resigned myself to that fact. I am in the process of researching who I will get to replace Verizon as my TV, Internet and Phone company at my own home.

You guys went from good to bad in the matter of several phone calls. It truly is a shame that the customer is the one who suffers when Corporations like Verizon take advantage of them.

The only recourse I have is word of mouth. I doubt that anyone at Verizon cares about this considering the way I’ve been treated.

Regular Full Time

2011-04-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

When I first was hired as a Cadet Firefighter, I knew that we wouldn’t be able to live on only $300/month. So I decided to keep working at the job I had working the night crew at Alpha Beta, stocking shelves. Unfortunately, a Fireman’s schedule doesn’t really lend itself to working a regular extra job. I was able to do it for a couple of months, but in the end I had to quit. Going in to work at one or two in the morning, stocking shelves and then leaving at about 6 am to get to the Fire station on time wasn’t working too well. Like I said earlier, we were kept pretty busy training and learning the job so there wasn’t any time during the day I could rest. I don’t think they were going to put up with me much longer at Alpha Beta, as it was I could only work a couple of days a week. They needed someone who could put in more time. I appreciated the fact that they worked with me for as long as they did.

Barb’s parents were great during this period of under employment for us. They helped us out tremendously in so many ways. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what they did for us.

I didn’t want to just be a mooch though. I wanted to contribute more than the measly $300/month that I was getting paid. Our house payment alone was $184/month. Yeah, I know, that wasn’t much, but back then it was quite a bit. Anyway, I went to this Temp Agency and signed up for work, any work. I did some weird things, but at least it gave us a bit more money to live on. And they worked around my Fireman schedule and my school schedule. I was still going to school pretty much full time through all of this too.

Working at this Temp agency, I moved used (nasty) toilets out of the Youth Correctional facility in Chino. Not just a few of them either. Moved Refrigerator/freezers into a new apartments that were just opening up, this complex had at least 100 units and it had three stories to it. Just me and one other guy did the moving. Took down a bunch of heavy steel shelving in a warehouse with no air conditioning on a few blistering hot days. I worked at many different types of jobs through this agency. Didn’t get rich, but like I said every little bit helped. At the Fire Department, after a few months, they bumped our pay up to $350/month, better than a sharp stick in the eye, but still not a livable wage.

Somehow through it all we were able to survive and keep our heads above water. Shortly after getting hired as a Cadet, Barb and I discussed how long we could afford to stay in the job. We came up with one year. From what I was hearing at work from other guys, one year’s worth of experience was very helpful when it came to getting a job in the Fire Service.

During my time as a Cadet, I kept testing to get a regular full time job anywhere a test was given that I heard about. I took tests in La Habra, Fullerton, LA County and Mesa, AZ. I know there were others, but I can’t remember where they were. When I took the Mesa test, we took the whole family there and stayed with Barb’s sister Liz in Gilbert. It was sort of a working vacation. Even though Central Valley Fire was basically using us a slave labor, they at least were kind enough to us to give us time to go and test for real jobs. The BC that was running the program was great in that respect. The test in Mesa was set up real good for out of state people to participate. It was done over two days. The first day we took the written test. Later that day they posted results at the City Hall and you found out if you passed and the time you would take the physical agility test the next day. I passed the written and had a time assigned for the agility test. I passed the agility test and they gave me a time for the oral board later in the afternoon. I was pretty sure I had done well on all phases of the testing and we were very hopeful that we would get a job offer from Mesa as we traveled home from our short vacation.

I’m not sure of the correct time line, but either before or shortly after the testing I did in Mesa, my Department, Central Valley Fire decided they needed to hire another Regular Full Time Fireman. The list that they were using was still the one that I initially took in 1977. They called in all of the Cadet Firemen who were still working and I think several people left on the list that weren’t working as Cadets. We only had to take an Oral Board. I remember the guys who sat on the Oral Board, I think. I know one for sure, because he said something to me after I got the job that I will never forget.

I thought the interview went excellent. It helps to sort of know the people you are being interviewed by. When I went back to work after my interview, my Captain volunteered some information to me. He told me that he had been asked by the Oral Board members what he thought of me. He told me that he told them that “They should hire you”. I was pleasantly surprised that he thought that much of me.

When the list for Fireman with Central Valley was established, they only hired one person Full Time. They then used the list to hire all of the Cadets too. It seemed like forever to hear from them, but I’m sure it was only a few days. I got a letter in the mail informing me that I was the one they wanted to fill the position. I couldn’t believe it. Since I had already gone throught the hiring process, I didn’t have to do any of it again. I was given a date I would start and a station assignment. In the end, I worked about eleven months and 10 days as a Cadet.

Not too long after getting the notification from Central Valley, I received a letter from Mesa, AZ. They wanted to hire me too. I had been truly blessed. I called them and thanked them for the offer, but declined since I had already accepted the offer from Central Valley. Even though I had a few bumps in the road in my 33 + years, I couldn’t have asked for a better place to work.

After I had been working Full Time for a while, I had an opportunity to work with one of the guys who sat on my final oral board. He told me the reason I had been hired ahead of all of the other Cadets was because I was married and seemed a bit more mature than the other guys. Over the years as I sat on Fireman Hiring Oral Boards, I thought about that a lot and gave more consideration to guys who were in similar situations.

A Few Firsts

2011-04-04T18:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if every new Fireman feels the same way I did, but I'm betting for the most part they do. Like I said earlier, I wanted to be out fighting fires all the time I was at work. For me, I was going to have to be patient, it would not come for several months.

What I'm going to do in this post is write about some of the "Firsts" I went on while working as a Cadet. I already wrote about my very First call, the downed power line that turned out to be just a telephone line.

My First CPR happened well before my First Fire. We were dispatched to a man down type of call sometime after midnight. When we got there this guy was pulseless and apneic, so we started CPR. Back in those days, we didn't have Paramedics on our Engines, so we had to wait for the local Ambulance to arrive because they provided the Paramedic service. We performed CPR for what I remember as quite a while, at least 20 minutes before the Ambulance arrived. The only thing that we could do as EMT's was to drop an OPA (oral pharyngeal airway) and use the O2 we had through our demand valve. At least we didn't have to do mouth to mouth. So we had done all of that prior to the ambulance arrival, and had gone through one whole bottle of O2. When they arrived, they did what they needed to do and actually had a shockable rhythm, so the lubed up their paddles, said "Clear" and shocked the guy. Can't really remember how many times they shocked him, but I do remember this guy got a rhythm back. I remember feeling really good about that. Unfortunately, that feeling only lasted for about 30 seconds, the guy went back to no rhythm. We continued CPR while the Medic did his thing as directed by the BSH (Base Station Hospital). I was having a hard time understanding why this guy wasn't reacting better, Johnny and Roy always brought back the people they were working on. In the end this guy didn't make it, I had such high hopes when he got that rhythm back.

Over the years, I was involved in hundreds of CPR's. I know of only one that actually survived to draw another breath. Don't get me wrong, there may be more that we saved, I just don't know about them. The one that I do know about was a woman probably in her late 40's to early 50's. We brought her back and got her to the hospital. She was still alive several weeks later, I know this because I actually ran on her again for a different reason, so I know she lived for at least a little while.

My First GSW was an interesting one too. Normally when you go on GSW's, it is due to someone being mad at someone else and a gun then comes into play. Whether its gang activity or just people upset with each other, it is usually pretty ugly. This First GSW I went on was none of these. It was a woman in her late 20's that tried unsucessfully (at least while we were there) to end her life. Funny thing about women and suicide by GSW, they don't really like to shoot themselves in the head. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that for the rest of my career, I never ran on a female that tried to commit suicide that did it by using a gun. So, this was one of a kind for me and it was my First GSW and suicide attempt. I got two Firsts for the price of one. Most of the time, when someone decides to use a gun to end it all, they pick a large enough gun to do the job. Either that or they place the shot in a spot that will ensure the outcome they had desired. This poor woman did neither of those things. This happened at night, just up the block from the Fire Station. When we got there she was laying on the side of the road. She was in a lot of pain, you could tell because she was rolling back and forth and moaning a lot. To make a long story short, she used a .22 Pistol and shot herself in the abdomen. I suppose a .22 can do the job if you place the shot exactly where it needs to be. In the abdomen is not where it needed to be. We figure she was not serious about killing herself, or just ignorant of the abilities of a .22 round. If she was just trying to gain attention, she didn't take into account that shooting a .22 into your abdomen would do a lot of bouncing around inside before it came to rest. Pretty sure she messed up a bunch of her insides. She may have even died later on from the infection that may have set in from her internal organs being torn up by that .22 slug bouncing around inside of her. Don't really know for sure, we never followed up on her. I know that she was going into shock while we were there, because she was begging us to give her some water to drink. We can't administer any water by protocol, so we just had to tell her "no" whenever she asked. We got her packaged up and sent off to the hospital.

When I first started as a Cadet, I had this little Composition Notebook that I wrote down all of the calls I went on. I did it for several months, but got bored with it and stopped doing it. Don't know what happened to it, I probably threw it away, wish I still had it now. I also wish we had Computers back then, I know I would have been better at remembering what I did back then. I know that I had a bunch more Firsts that were important, but for now I'm having a bit of trouble remembering them.

I do however remember my First Fires. Like I said before I started on the floor as a Cadet just before Christmas of 1977. My First Fire didn't come until May of 1978. I came close one time before, we were dispatched to a Structure Fire in the City of San Bernardino just on the outskirts of our First Due area. When we got there, we stood by the hydrant, but did nothing. Someone had tried to torch a vacant building using gasoline or some other type of flammable liquid. They had poured the liquid on the concrete floor and lit it. It burned off quickly, but the fire didn't get established because there was no other fire load in the building. It just flashed and went out. Didn't even get to go inside and get the smell of smoke on my turnouts.

I can't remember the exact date in May, I think it was the mid part of the month when I had my baptism by fire. Sometime in the evening, about an hour after dark, we were dispatched to a Garage Fire about three blocks from the station. Being real new, I got a bit amped up, but tried to tell myself that it was probably nothing. When we opened the bay door so we could get the Engine out, we could see a large dark column of smoke and a big orange glow in the sky. Back in my Cadet days, we took turns being the Hydrant Man and Nozzle Man. Unfortunately for me it was my day to be the Hydrant Man. Our only help came from San Bernardino City in those days since they were the closest. Back then, they seemed to get out of their stations pretty slow. Wouldn't have mattered much anyway since the fire was just a few short blocks from our Station. The fire was in a detached garage on the south side of an east/west street one house down from the intersection. On the corner of the intersection was the hydrant we were going to use for our supply. I did what I was supposed to do hit the hydrant, then waited for the signal for water from the Captain. The other Cadet had pulled our pre-connected hose line and was attacking the fire where he was told to by the Captain. Once my duties at the hydrant were completed, I brought back the equipment I had used to open the hydrant and made sure our supply line wasn't kinked and then went and helped the other Cadet fight the fire. We kept the fire confined to the garage, but it was a total loss. Not much you can do when the fire is through the roof when you get there. We were there for about three hours mopping up and waiting while the investigation was done. We got back into quarters around 2300 hours or so.

But wait, there's more. Shortly after getting to bed and to sleep, we were sent to a vehicle fire. When we got there, it was totally involved. I got to do a bit of fire attack on this one since we didn't need a hydrant. When we had the fire knocked down, we started to overhaul the inside of the car. In the back seat there appeared to be a body. Oh, did I mention that it was really foggy when all of this went down. With all of the steam from the fire and the fog, I thought that what I was seeing was a burned up body, when all it turned out to be was some clothing and foam and other junk. I put a scare into my Captain for a few short moments, he was even seeing what I saw for a little bit. I'm guessing that we got back into quarters sometime after 0200. We got back into bed and went to sleep.

But wait, there's more. Just at daybreak, we were sent to another structure fire. It was still pretty foggy, so it took us a while to find the fire. Once we did, we discovered that it wasn't a structure fire, but a large pile of wood on fire. It was really hot and for me a lot of fun. My Captain canceled the other units responding, so we got to do all of the work. I'm guessing we were there for close to two hours mopping up all of the hot spots.

It took me nearly five months to get my First Fire. In one night we ended up having more fires than any of the other Cadets put together. I had a blast.

OJT

2011-03-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

I have to say, that getting thrown into a job like Firefighting without very much training was interesting. I really didn't know that much to be afraid and was too excited to be there to be worried. Being young has it's advantages I guess. I was pretty oblivious to the whole situation, just extremely happy to be there. Even though we didn't have a lot of action, it probably was for the best. I wanted to be fighting fires all day, every day, but it wasn't to be. As the years flew by in my career, I learned that it was more of a Marathon than a Sprint. If it didn't happen right then, wait a while and it would. I learned not to yearn for action because even though sometimes it came later, it always would, and not in the form that you might expect it.

My first Captain had been on the job for about 10 years when I got hired. It may have been longer, but right around that long. He was a no nonsense guy, not much of a sense of humor and very rigid. I originally thought that he was just that way with us Cadets, but found out over the years that was just the way he was. For us VERY Green Cadets though, he was just what the doctor ordered. He didn't have much of an imagination, but he was very good at the basic Firefighting Skills we needed to become decent Firemen.

Sometimes the job can become quite monotonous. That sounds sort of strange since most people thinks its all danger all the time. Not really so. Your day is pretty much laid out for you most of the time. Here is a typical day I had back when I started. Start work at 0800, talk to the off going crew and get the passdown (the passdown is what they did before and any information you might need to know for the upcoming day that changed from your last shift). Make sure your PPE's (Personal Protective Equipment... Turnouts) are ready to go and on the Engine. If needed you may have a shift meeting to go over the days activities. Then you get started on cleaning the house and maintaining your equipment. Usually about 1000 or so, we would take a break and probably figure out who was going to cook for the day by playing cards. I ended up being a decent card player, knew the game well, but my luck was not very good, so I cooked more than my fair share of the time over the years. Then, we would do one of several things, do training, do Fire Inspections, check Fire Hydrants (my Captain was in charge of checking Fire Hydrants in the area), or some type of project around the Fire Station. We were supposed to do Training for at least two hours a day, one or two Fire Inspections a day during the week days and Fire Hydrants we did when they needed to be done. Keep in mind that we were always available to respond to Emergencies since that was why we were there. Doesn't sound like much, but I remember our days always being filled with not much down time. We would get an hour for lunch around noon and then our work day usually ended somewhere between 1600 and 1700 hours. Usually closer to 1700. I said that we were supposed to do training for two hours a day. It was rare when we only did two hours, at least in the early months of my career. Sometimes we would do several hours a day on several different topics. I enjoyed that time since I was like a sponge and wanted to soak up as much knowledge as I could, but as you will see below, some of the time it was not that enjoyable.

I remember pulling hose for hours on end it seemed like. We didn't get to do it just in our Class "B" uniform, we always had to be in Full Turnouts with our SCBA's on and sometimes with our Facemask on. We had these types of drills on a very regular basis... at least once a month, usually more. Even in cool weather, wearing your full turnouts for two to three hours can get mighty uncomfortable. In the summer it was borderline abusive, especially since you could be called out at any time. I remember many times going back to the station and having to take a shower to get cooled down and get my clothes changed. Back then, they didn't have Ice Chests full of Ice Water or Gatorade, all we had were some surplus WW2 canteens that were stuffed into one of the Campbell compartments on the Engine. The water was always warm and tasted like mildew, but being as hot as it was, it still felt good to have something wet going down your throat.

We tied knots until it seemed like our fingers would bleed, threw ladders on all sorts of buildings, used ropes to pull up equipment to the roof after climbing the ladders we had put into place. We walked with hose lines out in fields of grass and weeds that was up to our chests, practicing putting out vegetation fires. I remember one time, I hit a bunch of Foxtail weeds just right and about 20 to 30 of them went through my pants into my crotch area and stuck in my underwear. Talk about an uncomfortable situation. I didn't want to stop, but I felt like a pin cushion. I toughed it out until the Captain told us to stop, then spent about 15 minutes pulling those pesky little Foxtails out of my underwear. Couldn't get them all, so I suffered with them until I got back to the station and could change out my undies.

My fellow Cadet on Shift with me and I would spend hours learning the streets of Muscoy. In the front office area was a very large map of the area. Before 1973, Muscoy was it's own Fire District with two Stations, Station 4 and Station 5 of the current Central Valley Fire. Station 5 back then was Muscoy Station 1 and was the HQ for the District. That being said, the dispatching for Muscoy was done at Station 5, so they had this nice big wall map still there from those days. It made it nice for us to learn the streets. There really wasn't too much to learn in the way of streets, but overall, the area had many little quirks. Streets that were diagonal, little short streets that only lasted half a block, dirt streets that had no names to them, access points to a major wash that ran along the west side of the area, things like that. We worked at learning the area any time we had some spare time, which really wasn't all that often.

As Cadets, we weren't supposed to be able to do many of the things that the "Real" Full Time guys could do. My Captain was pretty much by the book and didn't bend the rules at all as far as I know. The other Cadets on other shifts were doing stuff that we never got to do, like drive the Fire Trucks. I would have loved to have been able to do that, but I know that we were getting the training we really needed to keep ourselves as safe as possible. I really didn't need to know how to drive or operate a Fire Truck at this point in my career, that would come not too far off in the future.

My partner and I kept telling each other that we were the best trained crew in the whole Department. Don't know if it was true or not, but it made us feel like we were ready to do anything. I don't really think I should have said anything, but we were very well trained in most of the stuff we would do on a regular basis. I said early in this post that my Captain didn't have much of an imagination, he didn't. Most of the training that we did was the same everytime we did it. No variations, the exact same. In that respect, it got a bit boring, but at least we could do a lot of what we were learning in our sleep, it became second nature.

Recently Discovered Video

2011-03-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

If you would like to see this video, the password is the name of the street we lived on in Rialto, all lower case.

Mad singing and dancing skills. from Humberto Frankie on Vimeo.

Getting Started

2011-03-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Once I finally was offered the position of "Cadet" Fireman, I didn't have much time to get everything together before I was scheduled to start. I was scheduled right away to go to the FD HQ to pick up my Firefighting gear. At that time, there wasn't much to it. A Helmet, Turnout Coat, Turnout pants (or bunkers), Turnout Boots and Structure Fire Gloves. They also issued me two sets of sheets as my bedding. All of the gear I received except for the gloves were used. The bedding was new too.

I remember bringing all of this stuff home and like a kid at Christmas putting it all on and being so happy to have all of this cool stuff. I was supposed to start on December 10th, 1977. On December 9th, I still didn't have any of my uniforms or other stuff I needed to show up and start work. The afternoon of the 9th, I drove into San Bernardino with everyone along to get the stuff I needed to start my new career. Nowadays, the Department supplies you with all you need to get started. Back then, all they gave you was your Turnouts and bedding. So, I had to buy everything else I needed to do the job. There weren't too many Uniform Shops around, so San Bernardino was the closest place to get them, and at the time the only authorized place to buy what I needed. I bought the minimum required since we had very little money to spare, and it wasn't going to get much better considering that I was only making $300/month.

The big day of December 10th arrives, and we are all there to start what they called a "Mini" Academy. It was going to be about 10 days of very condensed and specific training to get us all ready to be Firemen. I sort of remember that there was supposed to be 21 "Cadets" hired. I'm pretty sure we only ended up with about 10-14 initially. There was an issue with the infamous County Doctor not being able to read the Back xrays of many of the Candidates correctly. Over the next several months, a bunch of the guys who were disqualified for having bad backs were able to get hired because the Doctor didn't know what he was doing and was over ruled when these guys challenged him. One of the guys that is retiring in the next few days owes his job to me because I told him about the mess up at a class we were attending together. He had been disqualified because of his back xray. I told him to get an opinion from another doctor, he did and shortly after, he was working with us.

Back to the Academy. They put us through all sorts of stuff... equipment nomenclature and uses... pulling, using and reloading hose, over and over and over... throwing and climbing ladders... donning and doffing SCBA's... ropes and knots... extrication equipment (which was rather primitive)... power saws... and I'm sure many other things I can't remember. These days, a decent fire Academy lasts for about 12 weeks. My initial one was crammed into 10 days, so we were exposed to lots of stuff, but our depth of knowledge was not too deep.

I'm sure they had the best of intentions for us back then. After all, this was supposed to be a training position. We were supposed to work beside an Experienced Fireman, not be "The" Fireman. All I know is that shortly after we started "On the floor", we were it.

My first shift was on December 23rd. We finished up our Academy around the 20th of December. The shift I was assigned to was, I'm pretty sure, "A" Shift. The Captain I was assigned to always worked "A" shift until he retired. That year, "A" shift was on days off from the 20th when our Academy ended until the 23rd, so I had a few days off. Even though I was going to have to work on Christmas Day too, I couldn't wait to go to my first day. When our Academy ended and they gave us our assignments, we were able to drive out to our Stations and see where we were going to work. My Assignment was Station 5 in Muscoy. Never heard of it, so I had no expectations. Actually all of the Cadets were assigned to either Station 5 or Station 4 (Rancho Verde). I'm racking my brain now trying to remember exactly how many Cadets there were supposed to be. It could have been four assigned to Station 5 per shift and three assigned to Station 4 per shift. I know we never had that many though. My assignment was with one other Cadet. Just so you know, I'm not going to use anyone's name in these posts other than family. If you need to know who I'm talking about, email me and maybe I will tell you.

I thought that Fontana was out in the Boondocks. Muscoy was way more boondocky. For those of you not familiar with "Muscoy", it is an unincorporated community located on the Northwest border of the City of San Bernardino. Over the years, I worked many memorable incidents while stationed in Muscoy. When I got to the station, I was sort of surprised to see what looked like a house with an oversized garage. It was in pretty bad repair. I didn't really know it at the time, but San Bernardino County was pretty poor, at least in those days. All of the Fire Stations in our District and even in the surrounding areas were not the typical type of Fire Station you think of when someone mentions "Fire Station". I think I may have some pictures somewhere, if I can locate them I will add them to this post at a later date.

When we arrived at Station 5, I walked in with all of the other Cadets assigned to the station. I don't remember who was on duty that day for sure, but I think it was a Captain who ended up living next door to us when we lived in Rialto. He and his crew gave us a tour of the station. It may have been a bit run down, but at least it was clean and orderly. I found out where we were going to sleep and where our lockers would be located. They showed us the equipment assigned there. There was a 1960 open cab Crown Fire engine and an old Military 6 X 6 deuce and a half that had been converted into a Water Tender. The Engine was Red (or I guess I should say sort of a dark Pink) and the Water Tender was White. The equipment bays were very small. The Water Tender bay just barely had enough room for you to walk around the truck, if you wanted to open any compartments it was better to pull the unit outside. The tour took about 20 minutes and then we all left.

On my first shift on December 23rd I arrived about 0730. Our shifts started at 0800. Nowadays, Probie Firemen are encouraged to arrive at least an hour early. I was essentially a Probie, but never knew that I was required or expected to arrive that early. No one told us, and no one seemed upset that I only arrived half an hour early. It was a cold and wet day. When the shift started, my Captain took us around and showed us what he expected us to do everyday. Told us how things should run, where we should be and how we should act. He was all business.

Starting at the end of the year like we were, the Department was just finishing up it's current Bid cycle. Every year all of the personnel bid for their pick of shift and station. That way the senior guys can pick the most advantageous shift so they can have most of the days off that they want. They can also pick the station they like to work at the most. The bid serves another purpose too. If a crew does not get along, you only have to put in a year until you can change it up. Having only six stations to pick from isn't much, but better than only one or two. Us coming on as Cadets at this time, we actually got to work with an Engineer and a Captain for a short time. The Engineer is the person who drives and operates the Engine and Water Tender. Having the Engineer there for at least a short period of time gave the Captain the opportunity to focus on us Cadets more intensely for the short time the Engineer was there. By the middle of January my crew consisted of the Captain and us two very green Cadets. I have to tip my hat to the Captains that were stuck in those positions, I would not have wanted to be in their shoes.

The only thing those Captains had going their way was that both of these Stations were pretty slow. Station 4 was way slower than 5, but at 5 we only averaged maybe two calls a day. On my first shift, we only had one call. I will always remember it because it was pouring down rain and we were riding around in an open cab (convertible... no top) fire engine. By the time we got to the call we were all soaked. The only thing that saved us a bit was that since we were in an open cab, policy dictated that we respond to calls with our helmets and turnout coats on. So I guess our lower halves got pretty soaked and our uppers just a little. The call we were responding to was for a downed power line that turned out to be a telephone line (that is actually quite a common occurance, I speak from years of experience).

Also on my first shift, we were introduced on how a cook for the day was picked. In our Department, if you didn't rotate cooking duties, you had to figure out who would be responsible for cooking. The way they did this was to play a poker game called "Spit". I'm not going to go into the details on how it's played, but suffice it to say I had no idea what I was doing playing the game. I failed miserably, so I was the Chef for the day. In between rain showers, we headed out in the Engine to the local Mom and Pop grocery store not very far from the Station. I got what I thought was plenty of supplies for a hearty dinner of Sheppard's Pie. Boy, was I wrong. I barely made enough for two guys to eat let alone four. We were all hungry that night, but at least it tasted OK.

I ended up being a decent cook. I enjoy the cooking part of being the cook, I just hated always trying to come up with a good menu. It did get easier over the years though.

Jumping through hoops

2011-03-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

When I picked up the application for Central Valley Fire, I was surprised how far out this place was. Even though it was just a bit over 30 minutes from where we were living at the time, it seemed like it was out in the boondocks. The Headquarters for this little Department was in this really old Fire Station that looked like it was ready to fall down (and yes it's still in operation today, built in 1928, added on to several times before I started there and about to be replaced by a brand new station as I write this post). Don't remember much more than what I've written about picking up the application, other than I did get one and fill it out and turn it back in.

Back in those days, and I suppose still nowadays, smaller Fire Departments would band together when testing time came about to lower the costs of the testing. So in reality, I was testing for Central Valley Fire and Rialto Fire. I took the written and passed it, then was scheduled for the physical agility test and passed it. Similar to the other tests I had taken, but different at the same time. The other tests I had taken were usually given at the individual Departments training center. Neither of these two small departments had a training center, so we took the test at one of the local Junior High Schools. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just different. I took the agility test and passed it.

I was then notified that I had passed high enough to go to their Oral Board. An Oral Board is where you sit in front of a bunch of people and answer questions they throw at you. They are usually Fire Department people, but it can be City people or others too. In this board, there were about seven people if I remember correctly. It didn't appear to me that any of them were Fire Department people, but I later found out that at least one of them were. I actually ended up working with him quite a bit over the years too. Once the Oral Board was complete, I received a letter telling me that I had passed all phases of the test and was on a hiring list. So, I just went back to working towards my goal of getting the education I needed for my new career choice, applying for whatever Fireman jobs I heard about and working to support my young family. I think I finished up the testing process for Central Valley sometime in late May of 1977.

Several months later, I'm thinking mid to late October, I received another letter from Central Valley Fire Protection District. I got my hopes up thinking that maybe they were going to offer me a job. Not so fast... It was an opportunity to become a "Cadet" Fireman. This was a training position that worked the same schedule as the Regular Full Time Firemen, but got about 1/5th of the pay they did. All I had to do was go in for another Oral Board interview. So I figured even if I didn't get the job, it was good practice for future tests. I called and made the appointment and was given a day and time. I showed up and took the Oral Board, this time there were real Firemen on the panel. I wish I could remember who sat on that panel, but I can't. I felt it went OK, but had no idea if I had done well enough to be offered a job. I didn't know how many they were going to hire or how many were invited to the Oral Board either.

Not too long after the Interview, I received a phone call from the Battalion Chief in charge of this new "Cadet" program. He was offering me a position... I couldn't believe it. I was actually going to become a Fireman. In talking to many people while waiting in many lines to get applications, I was hearing from them that it could take years, not months to get a job as a Fireman. Here it was not quite a year from when I decided to pursue this career path and I was already a Fireman. Hold on Jack...

During the phone call from the Battalion Chief (BC), he gave me all the information I needed to get started with the process of actually getting hired. One of the things I had to do was get a complete, and I mean complete physical exam. I called the number the BC gave me and set up all of my appointments. The earliest appointment I could get was almost two weeks away. I couldn't believe how long it took for those two weeks to go by.

A few days before my physical appointment, I came down with some type of flu like symptoms again and was pretty sick. The day before I felt terrible and asked my wife to call our Home Teachers to come over and give me a blessing. They did and when I woke up in the morning, I was feeling much better, but not well. I went to the appointment praying for the best. I was poked, prodded, gave all sorts of "samples" and xrayed. Filled out so many forms my hands ached from writing. When I was all done, the last thing I had to do was make one more appointment for a Cardiac Treadmill test. I made the appointment which was just a couple of days away.

I was feeling back to normal from the flu when I went to the Treadmill test. I was in pretty good shape and wasn't afraid to take the test. They hooked me up to their EKG machine, put a blood pressure cuff on me and put me on a Treadmill and started the test. I don't remember much about it, other than at the end the Doctor looked a bit worried or maybe perplexed. I had no idea why though. I felt fine. What the worried/perplexed look was for was that I had an arrhythmia, something he called PVC's. Premature Ventricular Contractions. Never heard of it before. Simply, a PVC is when the ventricle in your heart contracts before it is completely filled with the blood coming from the atrium. It can be quite dangerous in some cases. I didn't even know I had it, so obviously it wasn't something that was dangerous... at least that's what I told myself. The doctor explained what it was and how you could tell you had it. He said that it felt like your heart was jumping around in your chest. I knew what he was talking about, it happened to me all the time. I thought everyone's heart did that, didn't know I was special. He also then told me that mine was probably not a bad case since mine disappeared when the heart was under a load, meaning that when I exercised or my heart rate got a bit elevated, it would beat normally. He said that he thought that I would be OK, but that he had to send my results to the County Doctor to be approved for the job I was up for. I walked out of there heartbroken, no pun intended. I had spent a year out of my life pursuing a dream that there was a decent chance was not attainable in my case.

So, I went home figuring that I should probably start thinking about another line of work. I couldn't even be a Policeman since they took the same type of physical that Firemen did. I don't remember how long the time was between going home from the Treadmill test and getting the phone call I was waiting for but dreading at the same time, but it was probably only a few days. If I would have known then what I know now, I probably had nothing to worry about. I figured when they had to send my results to the "County Doctor" that this person was all knowing and all powerful, not so at least in those days. Our County Doctor was probably the lowest in his class and probably didn't know a Premature Ventricular Contraction from Poly Vinyl Chloride. So all of that worrying was for naught. I was officially offered a job as a "Cadet" Fireman at a whopping $300 a month. And I was beyond happy to get it!

A Career is Born!

2011-03-07T20:27:00.001-08:00

Back in the 70's (it really doesn't sound like that long ago, but I know it is) I was working as a Meat Cutter for Alpha Beta (hereafter known as AB). For those of you too young to know what an AB is or was, it was a medium sized Grocery Chain in California. I had started there in the early 70's as a Box Boy or more correctly, a Clerk's Helper. It was a decent job for the time and gave me a bit of spending money and the ability to buy my first car. Also at this time is when I met my future wife. I never thought that I would forget some of the details of that time in my life, but it is a bit hazy now. I know I worked as a Box Boy for over a year, probably closer to two years. In the early part of my Senior Year in High School (1973) is when I met my wife Barbara. I had finished up most of what I needed to complete for me to Graduate with my class, so my school day was finished up about 11 am every day. Getting off that early gave me the opportunity to get to work way before any of the other Box Boys were out of school, so I got to work more than most. When I met Barb, she thought that I was in College and didn't know I was just a High School boy. I'm telling you this because it sort of explains why I ended up as a Meat Cutter.

As Barb and I started dating, I became a bit more noticeable in the eyes of our store manager. You see, Barb's Dad was a Senior Vice President of AB at the time. I think that my manager thought that promoting me to a real "Clerk" would make him look good, so they offered me a position as a probationary Clerk. That sort of ticked off a couple of guys who thought that they should have been promoted. To be honest, back then I didn't realize that this stuff was going on. I thought that I was just a better worker than those other guys. I continued to work as a Clerk and then Barb and I got married. I transferred to a brand new store that was opening. I went there because I was promised full time. I was for a while (fulltime that is), but when the store didn't do as well as they thought it would, my hours were cut way back. It was hard to get by. The first manager of that store was a creepy little Guy that I really didn't like. I think he knew that too, I have a pretty hard time hiding my feelings about people. So, I just kept plugging along with my 16 to 20 hours a week. Then there was a change in the Manager of the store. I can't remember what happened, I think the little creepy Guy actually got promoted. The next manager in was almost as big a jerk, but after a while, he offered me a position as an "Apprentice Meat Cutter". Again, I doubt if it was because of my prowess as a Clerk as much as this guy was trying to get some points by sucking up to my Father in Law. Whatever the case it was a good move for me. Meat Cutting was Full time. Not too many part time Meat Cutters. Due to the training program AB had in place, their "Apprenticeship" only lasted one year. Most others had a two year Apprenticeship. So, I would go regularly to the Main Office for training and twice a month I would have to drive into Los Angeles to sit through one of the most boring lectures I had ever attended put on by the Meat Cutters Union. The Meat Cutters Union were the ones who administered the "Apprenticeship" program for Meat Cutters. Since AB had their own program in place there was an Agreement in place between them and AB that shortened the two years down to one for AB employees.

All of the information up to this point is just background information that lets you know how I got involved in the Fire Service. I was probably about nine month into my Apprenticeship when I got pretty sick with the Flu. This happened at just about the worst time at least in the Grocery business. I don't want you to think that I ended up losing a job that I loved. It was steady and the pay was good, but pretty boring. Back to the Flu. I came down with it just before Thanksgiving of 1976. I was sick over the whole week and was still very sick when I drug myself into work the Monday after Thanksgiving. I wasn't thinking clearly and really didn't want to be there, but I couldn't afford to take off any more time. If you took time off, you didn't get paid. My shift started at 7 am. The store Manager arrived at 8 am. I was on my way home without a job at about 8:30. I learned a valuable lesson that day, don't engage your mouth if your mind doesn't know what it's saying.

As I was in the cutting room working that morning, the Manager walked in and made a bee line straight for me. Apparently he had taken exception to me calling off sick for one whole week. All he said to me was "If you ever call off sick again, I better be reading your name in the Obituaries". I stood there dumbfounded for several seconds and responded something like "I don't have to take this from you, I quit, get my termination papers ready". He left, prepared the papers, I signed them and left. Probably not the best move I've ever made, or was it?

So, I was out of a job, had a wife, a new house and a one year old daughter. I was stunned to say the least. Why on earth had I said those stupid words? Looking back on it now, it was probably the best thing that could ever have happened to me. I was in a job I hated, no room for advancement, unless I wanted to become like the other people I had worked with over the years in the Grocery business. When I got home, I cried with my wife and then got down to figuring out what I needed to do to support my family. I tried to think of what I might like to do. I knew that Public Service was a pretty secure job, but was hard to get into. I thought about Police and Fire. That is what I finally decided to focus on. I started calling around to local Cities finding out how to go about getting a job as a Fireman or Policeman. I kept getting told I would have to fill out an "Interest Card". The first one I actually filled out was for the City of Anaheim. Not too long afterward I actually got one from them in the mail, luckily for me it was for the Fire Department.

The card was an announcement of them handing out applications for Fire Fighter. They were only handing out 500 applications, and I think there was projected to be three openings. I was completely new to this whole thing. Didn't know of the long lines, waiting for days just to get an application for Firefighter. For some reason, I decided to show up about four hours before they started handing out applications at 8 am. When I got there, I was shocked to see so many people already in line. There were guys in line that were wearing all sorts of Fire Department clothing. It's a good thing I didn't know then what I knew just a few months later, or I probably wouldn't have stayed that morning. There were City people cruising through the crowd making sure there was no cutting or cheating or fights. About an hour before they started handing out the applications, rumors started flying about how many people were there. Guys in line before me were scared that they might be too far back, which left me out of luck too. As the line started moving at 8 am, I wondered if I'd get an application or not. I think it took well over an hour for me to get in sight of where they were handing out the applications. I did end up getting one, but wasn't very far from not getting one too. So, I filled out the application, turned it in and was notified of the time and date for the written test. They gave no instruction on what to study, so I took the test cold. A few short weeks later, I received notification that I had passed and was scheduled for the Physical Agility test. For this phase of the test, they sent a sheet explaining what we would be doing and also gave us the opportunity to stop by one of their Fire Stations and check out the equipment that would be used during the test. This one thing, going to the Station and seeing the guys and the station and the equipment they used really got me excited about the Fire Service. I decided right then and there that I wanted to be a Fireman and not a Policeman.

I studied and trained as much as I could for the test, and was able to pass it. Unfortunately, I didn't get a high enough score to move on in the testing process. But, the Hook was set, I was excited and extremely motivated to become a Fireman.

I signed up for Fire Science classes at a local Community College. After several months of being out of work, a good friend of mine from AB was able to get me some part time work on a night crew at a store in Pomona, and I know that my Father in Law put in a good word for me. I started looking all over for Fire Department job announcements. There was a bulletin board near the Fire Science class area at the Community College. There were a lot of jobs posted there, then I came across this one for the Central Valley Fire Protection District that was headquartered in Fontana. I had no idea where Fontana even was, but I found out and went and applied. I took my friend that helped me get back with AB out to Fontana to get an application. I almost talked him into applying too, but he ended up staying with AB and did quite well as a store Manager, he was the type of person who could play the game that needed to be played to get that type of promotion.

Little did I know at that time that Fontana would play such a big part in my life over the next 33+ years.

Cheeseburger Soup

2011-03-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

Not long ago we were at home watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. They did a story on some Diner somewhere and they made Cheeseburger Soup. It looked really good. So, off to the internet to see if there was a recipe out there for it. After looking for a short time I found one from someone who had seen the same show we did. I guess the show we saw was a repeat because their recipe had been posted several months before.

I immediately decided we needed to try it out. So off to the store to get what was needed.

I followed the recipe pretty much verbatim. It turned out OK, but it was kind of bland. Plus, when I added the Half and Half, it curdled making it look not as appetizing as it could have. Even though it was a bit bland, it definitely had potential.

I went to work and told the guys there about it and they all said they wanted to try it, so we made it the next shift.

I didn't change much about it, other than actually making patties and grilling them on the BBQ and adding some Montreal Steak Seasoning. When making it this time I managed to keep the Half and Half from curdling. It turned out a bit more tasty, but still was lacking.

About a month and a half went by and we decided to try it out again. This time I changed it up a little bit more. This batch was excellent.

So for those of you who would like to give it a try, here is the recipe and how to put it together.

Ingredients (this makes a fairly large batch, so feel free to cut it down to whatever size you want)

2 pounds ground beef, I used 15%, but you can use whatever you like, just make sure you drain it well.

1 large onion, chopped

4 medium sized tomatoes, chopped

4 cups of iceberg lettuce, chopped

1 quart of chicken broth

1 quart of Half and Half

about 1/3 pound of Sharp Cheddar Cheese, cut up into cubes

1 32oz block of Velveeta Cheese, cut up into cubes

1 stick real butter

1/2 cup flour

Steak Seasoning (I used Montreal Steak seasoning, but use what you like)

How you make it:

Take the hamburger and make several patties and season them. I then add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a very hot cast iron skillet (you can use whatever type of skillet you have). Fry the burgers until they are nice and brown on the outside, but still sort of rare inside (the only way to do this is to have the pan really hot). Once the burgers are done, remove them from the pan and let them drain on a plate covered with paper towels.

Now, add the chopped onions to the pan you just used and saute them until they are just getting translucent. Then remove them from the pan. Now you start a roux with the butter and flour in the same pan. Drop the cube of butter in the pan and melt it. Add the flour to the butter and mix thoroughly. Once it just starts to bubble a bit, turn off the heat.

While you are working on the roux, put the chicken broth in a large pot and start heating it. Once the roux is done, add it to the broth. Slowly bring the broth and roux to a boil and the broth will start to thicken.

After you put the roux into the broth, let that pan sit off the fire for a few minutes then add the Half and Half to the pan. It will slowly warm up (you may have to turn the heat on under the pan), once it's good and warm, you can then add it to the broth and roux without having to worry about it curdling. Once you have added the Half and Half, do not let it boil again, you could have a curdling problem

Once all of the liquid ingredients are mixed together, you can add the Velveeta and Sharp Cheddar cheeses. Keep the heat on medium low and stir often until all of the cheese has melted. Now take the hamburgers and chop them up into whatever size chunks you would like to have in your soup. Add the burger and onion to the soup and stir in. Once it's mixed up, put your burner on simmer and let it heat for about an hour. You should check on it frequently, you don't want to have the cheese stick to the bottom of the pan.

While the soup is simmering for the hour, you can cut up the Tomatoes and Lettuce. The show we watched showed them adding all of the Lettuce and Tomatoes just before you serve it. That's how I've served it the times I've made it. I think when I make it in the future I will have it on the side so I can add it to just a bowl. If you don't eat the entire batch in one sitting, the Lettuce and Tomatoes get real soggy.

If you try it let me know.

Last Call

2011-02-24T20:23:00.000-08:00

Well, all good things have to come to an end. I really enjoyed my career for the 33+ years I was able to do it. Attached below are a picture of the CAD printout they sent and a Video (actually a mp3 file that I made into a movie) of the sendoff the Department did for me just before my final shift ended on the morning of Feb. 23.

I'm planning on making a much more in depth post about my career, maybe even several posts, but I'm still trying to formulate it in my head, so keep reading and before too long I'll have something up.

Click on the picture to enlarge. If you want to view/hear the video, the password is the same I've used all along. If you don't know what it is, leave a comment or email me and I will send it to you.

Retirement Dispatch from Humberto Frankie on Vimeo.

Adventures in Car Selling

2011-01-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

Most of my regular readers know that back at Thanksgiving, Chase and Jenn traded vehicles with us. They needed a bit bigger vehicle, so they took our Expedition and we got their Mazda MPV van.

My plan had been to sell the Expedition sometime this year so instead I sold the Van. Shortly after the first of the year, I cleaned up the Van, took some pictures and posted an ad on Craigs List. It wasn't too long until I started getting some hits on it. I knew I had offered it for a very fair price, so I wasn't going to haggle much on the price and I stated that in the ad.

So, I get a contact from this guy who lives in Northern California. He seems to be very interested in the Van. We talked a bit and he tells me that he wants to fly down to see it in person. I initially told him that I wasn't going to hold it for him and left it at that. A few more days go by and he texts me that he bought a plane ticket to come down to see the van. Now I'm feeling sort of bad, so (dumb move on my part) I tell him that I will hold it for him until he gets here. His arrival date was over a week away. Prior to him telling me he was coming, I placed a different ad in Craigs List in a different area. Right after I tell the guy I'd hold it for him, I get a bunch of interest in the Van. People sounding like they would have no problem giving me the full price I listed it for.

I tell all of these other people that I sort of committed to this guy coming down from Nor Cal. Most of them said they would like to know if he doesn't buy it. I tell them I will let them know one way or another.

I told the guy coming down that he should fly in to Ontario, but he decides to fly in to LAX. He was supposed to show up at the house between 11am and Noon. He calls me a little after 11 and says he just landed and that he still had to rent a car. To make a long story short he finally shows up a little before 2pm.

I haven't bought too many cars, but enough to know how it's done. When he shows up, he asks for the key. Doesn't really want to talk much, takes the key opens the door and starts the car. Then he proceeds to do all of his checks while the van is running. Not what I would do, but whatever. After giving it the white glove treatment for about 10 to 15 minutes, he comes over to me and asks me what is my final price on the van. Since I knew I had several people willing to give me full price I told him that I would take full price. When I said that, you'd have thought I shot his Mother. He then says "I flew down here to buy the van, that should have some value" or something to that effect. I told him that I didn't ask him to come down or suggest that he do so. I also told him that I had several people willing to pay full price if he didn't want it, so full price or no van. He couldn't get over the fact that I would not budge on the price. So I finally told him, "Look, you put what I'm asking in my hand and it's yours, otherwise we have nothing to discuss". He then told me that he had not brought enough cash with him. I told him if you want to take it home, I suggest you go get what you are short. Being that this was a Saturday afternoon, I didn't think there were too many banks open, so I suggested he go to an ATM. He told me he doesn't use ATM's. I then said, I don't know what to tell you.

He then agreed to give me the full price for the van, but I would have to follow him back to the airport and he would get the money there. I didn't agree to this and wondered how he was going to get the rest of the money at the airport and how was I going to get home.

He then asked to see my "paperwork". I wasn't sure what he wanted at first then figured out he wanted to see the Title and Registration for the van.

I invited him in the house and got what he wanted. Since I knew we were going to sell the Van at some point in time, I only put my name on the Title and Registration when I transferred Title on it. He looked at the Title and asks if my name was on the Title. I was getting a bit frustrated at this point in time. I tried to be a nice as possible, so I said "Why would they send a Title to me at my address if my name wasn't on it and why would I have it in my possession?" I then said flippantly that I would get my ID so he could check it for accuracy or something like that. He then said that would be a good idea. I went and got my wallet and opened it up to my Drivers License.

What happened next sent me over the top. He took my License held it next to the Title and checked each and every letter to make sure I was who I said I was. As he was doing so, I blew a gasket, not outwardly, but inwardly. I told him, "That's it, we're done. I'm not selling you the car! Please leave my house!" He sort of stood there with a Deer in the Headlights kind of look, so I told him again. I walked towards the front door and opened it. He stood in the doorway, dumbfounded staring at me. He wouldn't move, so I told him to "Get out!" he didn't move, so I said it again only a bit louder. This time he walked out.

Shortly after leaving, he called my Cell phone a few times and left a Voice mail, but I deleted it without listening to it. There is no way I would have sold him the van now even if he offered more than what I was asking.

Once I calmed down a bit, I started contacting the people who had inquired about the van after I had told the other guy I'd hold it for him. Unbelievably, another one of them was from Northern California. I spoke with him for about 15 or 20 minutes and seemed to hit it off well with him. He pretty much told me that by the pictures I posted and in talking with me that he would purchase it, so being a softy, I told him I'd hold it for him until Monday. He told me he could be here first thing Monday morning. I asked where he would fly in to and he said Ontario. I offered to pick him up there since I was getting off of work in the morning. His flight arrived at about 7:35 and I got to the Airport at just before 8. He drove me home after checking the van out. When we got to Apple Valley we stopped by Chase Bank, he got a Cashiers Check for the amount we agreed on. We drove to the house, signed the paperwork that needed to be done, he got in the van and drove home to Nor Cal. Very easy transaction.

So, there you have it. I'm glad things turned out the way it did. I think that in the grand scheme of things, the guy I sold it to was supposed to get it and not the first guy.

Chuckie D and his Magic Food!

2011-01-18T13:47:00.000-08:00

For the past five months I've had the opportunity of working with a truly interesting individual. In keeping with my practice of only using first names, we'll leave it at that.

Chuck likes food, probably as much as anyone I've worked with in my entire career. He always says that he is addicted to food. Well, I guess everyone of us are, some more than others. Chuck is also a very good cook.

This post is mainly to show a couple of meals we had. One where he didn't cook, but showed his burrito and the other is the meal he made our crew before leaving to go on to bigger and better things.

A while back, another member of my crew made us some homemade Chili. He always makes a huge batch, which is good because it is really good. So, a year or two ago we started making burritos out of his leftover Chili. Then we started adding French Fries to the Burritos. The picture below is made of the Homemade Chili, Homemade French Fries, Grated Cheese and Sour Cream. Chuck put this one together for himself, there is even a picture there of Chuck devouring it (you can see the homemade fries sitting on the table).

This picture is of the meal he made us all on our last shift together. It is a Barbequed Bone-in Rib Eye Steak with a Fried Egg on top, with Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Applewood Smoked Bacon wrapped around Asparagus. It was very delicious.

Thanks for the Memories Chuck, good luck in your new assignment!

Foul Mouth

2010-12-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

During the recent storms we've had, we went to many different traffic collisions on the freeway due to stupid people driving stupidly (I guess that's a word, our current president used it). Anyway, on Tuesday evening we were sent to another accident on the freeway around 1930. Due to several road closures, our normal route to the freeway was altered causing us to take a different route.

As we were turning on to the road that the on-ramp is located, we came across another three vehicle accident at the stop light. Since the accident we were originally responding to was quite a run for us and due to the fact that it was reported as a single vehicle spin out, I decided to stop at the accident we happened upon and re-routed one of the Engines responding to this call to the freeway call.

What happened was a vehicle came in at a high rate of speed and rear ended the car ahead of her and that car hit the car ahead of it. The two hit cars received minor to moderate damage, the offending car received major front end damage.

We went to check on the occupants of the cars and found that no one had received any serious injuries, even the offending car.

The driver of the car that started the whole thing was a female about in her mid 40's. She was quite drunk and had one of the foulest mouths I've heard in a long time. She verbally and physically abused one of my Firefighters right from the start. Her favorite four letter word was the "F" bomb, which seemed like it escaped from her mouth about every other word. I wasn't around for most of her tirade, but later on I got a full dose of it.

She is what you would call a mean drunk. Probably mimics her regular personality, in my experience that is usually the case.

She kept aggressively grabbing at our guys the entire time, and calling us every thing she could think of. Usually, this kind of stuff is funny for a bit, then it gets old. This time though, it was never really funny, mainly because it was pouring rain on all of us and we were all soaked.

Once I got done doing the stuff I needed to do, I walked over to where her car was. She was very loud and obnoxious, I know this because I could hear her from far away, over the traffic noise and rain. I listened to her tirade for a very short time. My guys were trying, very politely, to get her to consent to going to the hospital by Ambulance. As I listened to her berate them, threaten them, warn them, I finally had had enough. I stepped in and took over. I got right in her face and told her in no uncertain terms that she had two choices, go to the hospital in the Ambulance, or go to jail. I think it sort of shocked her for a second, because she finally shut up for a few seconds. I told her to get out of her car and walk over to the gurney. Surprisingly, she started that way. Then I think her drunkenness took over and she started to take out her fury on me. She called me several choice names, the one I remember was "You're a F--- idiot", to which I replied, "Well, I'd rather be that than a Drunk Idiot like you". I think my guys chuckled a bit over that one.

Once we got her to the gurney, she refused to get on it. So, we put her on it. There was a bit of mis-communication, mostly on my part. I thought when we grabbed her that her head was going opposite of where I was standing. So, she got twisted up a bit like a pretzel, oops, my bad.

As we were securing her on the gurney, she punched me just above my groin. I grabbed her hand and told her not to do it again.

When we just about had her secured to the gurney, this guy walks up and says he is her husband. The cops talked to him a bit, then we asked him if she was on any medications or allergic to any. He told us that she was on several anti-depression meds and he thinks she may have OD'd on them. That may have been the case, but she washed it down with lots and lots of alcohol, she smelled like a brewery when I was toe to toe with her.

Prior to us leaving the call, I heard the cops say there were going to a blood draw on her to be tested for alcohol content. We did check her blood sugar, it was within normal limits, so more that likely a diabetic reaction was not the cause of the accident.

Road Rage Roll Over

2010-11-25T07:36:00.000-08:00

On November 23rd, we went on this TC:

This is what happened according to the driver of the rolled over Honda Element in the pictures...

She was driving along when someone in another car started honking and trying to force her out of her lane, apparently she freaked out a bit and lost control, hitting the Ice Plant sideways causing her to roll over several times. Luckily, her and her 8 month old baby survived with very minor injuries. The last picture I posted is two other cars that were involved somehow, but no one in those cars claimed any injuries.

The Element was totaled, but it protected them very well. It was a good thing Mom and the baby were securely strapped in the way they should have been.

Blunt Force Trauma

2010-11-21T07:39:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning (Nov. 20) I was laying in bed at work, awake trying to will myself to get up and get ready to go home. I was just finishing up 48 hours there and was ready to go home. It had been raining since about midnight. On the outside wall of my Dorm is the rain gutter downspout, and it sounds like a drum beating with no rhythm, so it keeps me awake. I opened my window so the noise from the freeway would drown out the downspout noise somewhat.

What does all this have to do with the topic of this post, nothing, just thought you'd want to hear me whine a bit.

Anyway, as I was just about to get out of bed, our alert went off. We were being dispatched to a rollover TC on the interstate that runs behind our station. We were going with another Station. If those of you who are loyal followers of my blog remember a TC we went to involving a Military Truck and Red sedan a while back, we were going to about the same area. As we were responding, the First Due Engine had arrived on scene and reported a single vehicle on its side, with no injuries. Our dispatch was just getting a report of another TC, closer to our current location on the freeway. So we diverted to the second call. Since we were already on the road, we got there in just a couple of minutes.

As we were pulling up, this is what I saw. A single small pick up that appeared to have hit a light standard broadside on the passenger side. There was a person laying in the roadway (we were on an off ramp) with someone doing CPR. It was raining steady, not real hard, but enough to get you quite wet in a couple of minutes.

I reported what I saw to the other incoming units, and my crew got to work. I got out of the Engine and did a quick walk around to see if there was something I had missed. Once I did that I went back and got my clipboard so I could get a PCR (Patient Care Record) started. It's hard to write in the rain, your pen does not want to write very well.

My crew had relieved the person that was doing CPR when we arrived and started Advanced Life Saving measures. Like dropping a breathing tube, defibrillation, cardiac monitoring, IV, etc. I spoke with the person who had been doing the CPR. She was the driver of the Truck. She told me that she was traveling with her "Partner" when someone cut her off. She tried to avoid the car, but the rear end of her truck fishtailed sending her sliding off of the freeway onto the off ramp. She couldn't get it under control, striking the light standard directly in the middle of the passenger door where her Partner was sitting. Apparently the Blunt Force Trauma to her head hitting the light standard sent her into cardiac arrest.

We did what we could for her at the scene and then two of my guys went with the ambulance to the hospital. They worked her the entire way there, and the Hospital personnel was still working on her when we arrived in the Engine to pick up our crew members.

Don't know if she made it or not. I will try and find out when I return to work in a few days. I will leave a comment for this post if I find anything out.

The Master Cleanser

2010-11-14T12:20:00.000-08:00

BEFORE READING THIS POST, IF YOU DON'T LIKE REFERENCES TO MY BATHROOM EXPLOITS, I WOULD SUGGEST THAT YOU NOT READ THIS ENTRY!

For those of you interested, I'm writing down my experience in doing "The Master Cleanser" Detoxification program, or Lemonade Diet.

Several days ago, Barb came home with her walking buddy who had this little booklet called "The Master Cleanser".

It is a Detoxification program that the author came up with over 50 years ago. The book was published in the late 70's. I looked through the book and got enough information out of it to do some research on the internet about it. I didn't find any negatives about the program in my research.

The program claims to help with all sorts of medical problems. The ones I was most interested in were helping to clear up Rashes and helping with Arthritis symptoms. A couple of side benefits for me would be sleeping better and weight loss. I've been having an ongoing problem with what I think is Hives over the past year. Also, I have joint pain in my wrists, hands and fingers that I'm sure is due to Arthritis.

After doing some quick research, it looked like a good thing to try. With my work schedule, it would be difficult to do without some moral support from the guys at work. My two Firemen have recently been talking about doing diets, so I thought I'd present them with this program. I was surprised when they both enthusiastically jumped in. So, we all started together yesterday (Nov. 4). The program lasts 10 days (up to 40 if you want) with a three day period after the end to get you acclimated to eating food again.

I also wanted to add that Grant is on the program with me too. His schedule is even tougher to carry out the program since he is working graveyard right now. You have to be dedicated to follow through in those circumstances.

Here is the program in a nutshell...

You make up the lemonade with the following ingredients (single serving):

8 oz. purified, distilled or spring water

1 oz. (2 Tablespoons) Fresh squeezed Lemon (or Lime) Juice, preferably Organic.

1 oz. Genuine Maple Syrup, Grade B... organic if at all possible

1/10th of a teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper

You drink 6 to 12 servings a day. I'm going with 6 servings for now.

You drink only the lemonade for food. At night you take an Herbal Laxative Tea. In the morning, you do a Salt Water Flush of 32 oz. of warm water and 2 teaspoons of non-iodized sea salt.

Anyway, I made it through Day 1 without any issues. I didn't really feel hungry at all other than a short time in the evening. The Lemonade, to me, is quite tasty. I'll see how the rest of it goes and update as I progress.

Day 2... November 5, 2010

Got up early (4am) so I could get the Salt Water Flush over before I left for work. Drank the water at about 4:10. About 4:55 it started working on me. About 45 minutes later I was done. Didn't get any cramps, but when I got the urge, I needed to get to the bathroom quickly. Made up enough Lemonade for the day and left for work about 6:30 am.

I've been peeing quite a bit this morning. Haven't had a BM since my last one before I left for work. Don't really feel hungry. I've downed about 20 oz of the Lemonade so far.

Never got real hungry during the day, when I did, I drank the Lemonade and it took care of it. My guys were having a bit more cravings than I was. We were pretty slow at work yesterday, so we had a lot of down time which lent itself to talking about food. One of my guys is a Food-a-holic. He thinks about it all of the time. I kept telling him yesterday that he needed to stop or he'd never get through the program. Funny thing about it is he's the one losing the most weight.

I took the Herbal Laxative last night about half an hour before I went to bed. I fell asleep fairly quick and was sleeping soundly until someone toned out our pagers and woke us up at 2 am. Still don't know who did it. I figured that while I was up, I'd go to the bathroom. I'm amazed how much I've been peeing. So I went back to bed and then the Laxative started kicking in. My stomach was churning, but not cramping. It bugged me for about an hour, then I fell back to sleep. About 4 am, I woke up with a definite urge to have a BM, good thing I went, because it was quite explosive. I went back to bed, slept until about 6:30 and got out of bed at 7 am and had another BM.

That ended Day 2

Day 3... November 6, 2010

Drove home from work, drank the SWF (Salt Water Flush) and waited. About 45 minutes later I had several BM's over the next hour. Made up some Lemonade and drank it. While I'm home for the next six days, I'm only going to make up what I need since the potentcy of the Lemonade degrades rapidly once it's mixed up.

Walked the dogs for a little over an hour with Barb yesterday, left around 12:30 pm. Weighed myself when I got home and I've dropped 7 pounds so far. Also noticed that the pain in my wrists has disappeared. For the past couple of years, it was painful for me to make a fist, and I couldn't get my fingers all the way down to my palms because they were swollen. Now, I can nearly close my hand completely, with only a little bit of pain. I also noticed that the skin around my nose and eyebrows is clearing up and becoming more smooth. I've has problems with psoriasis there for years. Now, if the rough skin on the tops of both ears clears up, that would be great.

Didn't feel hungry until the evening hours again. I drank some Peppermint Tea and then the Herbal Laxative Tea. We started using Limes in addition to the Lemons. That is allowable with the program. It just changes it up a bit and they are good too. I drank 7 servings of the Lemon/Lime Ade during the day.

Went to bed at 9:30 pm. Around 2 am, the Laxative kicked in. No cramping, just the urge to go. Back in bed by 2:10. Slept well until 2 am, then didn't do as well. Got out of Bed about 6:45.

Day 4... November 7, 2010

Today is the first Sunday of the Month, so it's Fast Sunday. I'm not going to do the SWF today, and I'm going to try and do a full Fast until after we get home from Church at 4 pm. It's about 8:30 am as I'm writing this part, and I am not hungry at all. Will update later.

This was the easiest Fast Sunday I've had in a long time. I never really got hungry. I did the SWF after getting home from Church and then I ate, or drank, my Lemonade. I got a bit cranky for a short time today, probably more because I'm tired than because I'm not eating.

Only took 4 servings of the Lemonade between 5:30 and 7 pm, wasn't really hungry at all. Got just a bit hungry around 7:30pm and made some Peppermint Tea, that took care of the hunger.

Took the Laxative about 8:30 pm. Went to bed a little after 9 pm. Woke up at 1 am with the urge to have a BM and got rid of some more solid stuff, don't have any idea where it is coming from since I haven't eaten anything solid for four days now. Must be some of the built up plaque in my digestive tract. It is really dark in color and has a very strong, putrid odor to it. Actually got up twice to have BM's.

Day 5... November 8, 2010

Woke up a little after 6 am and did the SWF. Started having BM's about 7:15 am. First one had a lot of solid material in it again, same color and same smell.

Went out and moved the chord of firewood I had delivered on the 6th. It was blocking our easement, so I needed to get it in the backyard. Also went on a three mile walk with Barb and the dogs. We would have gone farther, but the wind was blowing 20+ mph.

Didn't feel hungry at all, except for that short time in the evening before going to bed. Took the laxative tea about 8:30 pm and went to bed at 9 pm. Woke up about 1 am and had two BM's. Slept off and on and got out of bed about 6:15 am.

Day 6... November 9, 2010

Did the SWF after getting out of bed, had two BM's about 30 minutes later, mostly solid stuff, still amazes me that I'm getting rid of solid material after not eating for five days. Thought I was done, then about 45 minutes later had three more BM's, mostly water. Was going to walk the dogs with Barb, but was afraid to get too far from the bathroom. She walked them by herself and when I was sure I was done, went out and stacked the chord of wood I moved to the backyard yesterday.

Finally made and drank some lemonade about 9:45 am. Wasn't even hungry yet. Will weigh myself later in the day, once I stop getting rid of all the water from the flush.

Still no headaches, my skin seems to have cleared up mostly from the eczema/psoriasis around my nose and eyebrows. Thought that all of the pain had gone from my wrists, but came back after moving the wood yesterday. They still don't ache like they used to. My hands and fingers still seem to have improved, but still have some pain in them. My Hives flared up big time on Sunday night, got a bit better yesterday, but still worse than when I started the program. I also had some pain in my left flank last night right where your kidney is. When I woke up this morning, both flanks were tender. Don't know if it's from toxins releasing from my body, or being tight from moving the wood. Doesn't really feel like sore muscle pain though, it's more deep.

Weighed myself about noon, still haven't lost any more weight.

This afternoon was the roughest I've had on the program. Felt very tired and tried to take a nap, slept for about 20 minutes, then woke up. Feel sort of hungry, and want food, no particular type, just something besides Lemonade.

Made it to bed without eating. Took the Laxative Tea, and actually made it through the night without having to use the bathroom, still not sleeping like I was hoping.

Day 7... November 10, 2010

Got up a little after 5:30 am. Didn't do the SWF because Barb and I were going to the Temple today. Left about 6:45 to make the 8:15 session. Drank a 16 oz bottle of water on the way to the Temple.

Weighed myself before leaving for the Temple, our scale is hard to read, so I think I'm down about another one to two pounds. Making it eight or nine pounds lost now.

After getting home from the Temple, did the SWF, had several BM's with not as much solid material in it today. Didn't feel real hungry most of the day. Only drank four servings of the lemonade, one cup of peppermint tea and the laxative tea just before going to bed at 9 pm. Evenings for me are the worst, that is when I seem to get hungry. Doesn't help much seeing all of the food advertised on TV watching shows at night. Although, tonight was the easiest I've had in a few days.

Had to get up at 1:30 am for a BM. Went back to bed and made it until 5:30. Got up to get the trash out for pick up and the movement made me head for the bathroom by the time I got downstairs.

Day 8... November 11, 2010

Had one more BM while drinking the SWF this morning. Thought it was weird that the SWF was working so quickly, but I'm pretty sure it was still the Laxative from last night. Grant came home from work this morning with two big jugs of orange juice. Orange juice is what you drink when you are transitioning from the lemonade back to a regular diet, so he is done. Can't blame him, it wouldn't be very easy to work graveyards on this program. I've been tempted a couple of times to eat real food. Anyway, Grant lost 10 pounds on the diet and looks like he's lost most of his gut.

Went out with Barb this morning and walked the dogs. It's finally turned cold, everything was frosted over when I went to put out the trash this morning. By the time we left for the walk, the frost was gone, but the wind had picked up. It was a bit chilly, but good exercise, we did 3.5 miles.

I weighed myself around 10:30 this morning and was still at about 8 to 9 pounds down.

The day went fairly well, never felt really hungry. The lemonade is getting old though, not bad, just tired of it. I started putting the cayenne pepper in empty gel caps to try and change the taste of the lemonade up. We'll see how that works.

Barb made up some Cabbage soup today, and it smelled really good. I wasn't that hungry, but ate about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of it just to chew on something. I was surprised at how good it tasted. She said it would probably be pretty bland, so I added a small amount of Chili Paste to it, definitely spiced it up. Even though I technically broke from the program, I'm sure I ate less calories in the soup than one serving of lemonade. I'm still on the program.

Didn't take the laxative tea tonight, wanted to see if I'd sleep better without it.

Day 9... November 12, 2010

Woke up around 5:30am. Felt more rested since I slept better. No hunger. Took a shower and got ready for work. Took the laxative tea just before leaving for work at 6:30. Did not do the SWF. It's too unpredictable on how long it will take to get it out of my system. Probably will do it tomorrow when I get home from work though.

When I got to work, found out the one of my guys stopped the program yesterday, the one who ate pizza. He lost 15 pounds already and was afraid if we got a fire he might be too weak to do much. He told me he was feeling a bit tired most of the time during the eight days he did it. So, I'm on my own today at work. My other Fire Medic took the day off, so I won't see him until Sunday. I hear he's doing well on it, lost 13 pounds.

Was never really hungry the entire day. Only drank two servings of the Lemonade and only did so because I knew I needed the energy.

Later in the day, got a call from the Medic who took the day off. He said he was breaking his fast, so I decided to go ahead and call it quits too. Ate a little bit of potato salad that they had made for dinner, maybe about a cup. I had bought some juice oranges earlier in the day at the store, so I juiced them up and had some fresh squeezed orange juice for dinner too. Later in the evening, I ate a couple of graham cracker with peanut butter and Nutella on them and also made a small bowl of pasta with a little bit of spaghetti sauce on it.

Didn't have any issues with my stomach other than it made some weird noises with the food being in it and I had a little bit of gas.

Went to bed about 1030 pm.

Day 10... November 13, 2010

Woke up around 4:10 am. Needed to use the bathroom for #1. Couldn't fall back asleep, had to get up early and shower because I had a meeting I had to attend at 8 am back home for church. I had my relief come in early at 7 am so I could get there. So, about 5 am, I went and took my shower, then went and juiced the rest of the oranges I bought the day before.

My relief got there a bit early so I left the station around 6:50 am, drove home and dropped of my stuff then went to the meeting. I was home about 10:30 and made a bowl of oatmeal, coconut oil, hemp seed, dried cherries, frozen blueberries and rice milk. It tasted very good. About 20 minutes later, I was off to the grocery store with Barb and Molly. By the time we got there, I was cramping big time. It hurt quite a bit. I had huge amounts of gas that relieved the cramps for a short time. This only lasted about 20 minutes though, luckily. I see now why they tell you to ease back into eating a regular diet. I think all of the fiber in the oatmeal I ate was the cause of it.

The rest of the day I ate small portions and not as much fiber and didn't have any other issues. Finally had a BM in the early afternoon. Hadn't had one since the morning of Day 8.

Overall, I think the Program was a success. I lost right at 9 pounds and have improved some of my physical issues.

As the time goes on, I may add updates if I notice any other benefits from doing this program.

Two Deaths

2010-10-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm working an OT at one of the other stations in our Division. We were quiet for most of the day, just one call in the early afternoon at a local grocery store for a CPR in progress. Ended up being a mistaken ID, the person just felt a little faint and due to a language barrier, 911 was called. The person refused our assistance, so we returned.

The next two calls we were dispatched to were a little more serious. Just after we sat down for dinner tonight, we were sent to a Vehicle vs. Pedestrian. As we were responding, we were informed that the pedestrian was a small child and that CPR was being performed. We hoped that someone had become a little over zealous which happens sometimes and did things they didn't need to do. Unfortunately, this time it was called for, but didn't help.

We responded with one of our other Engines to the call into their area, so they beat us there by a couple of minutes. When we arrived, they were in the front yard of the reported location working on the toddler. This was one of those sad cases where no one was watching the one year old girl. A family member got in a vehicle not knowing the toddler was behind her and she backed over her crushing her.

It's tough sometimes to deal with the family members when they are so distraught and try and do your job. You know that there is little chance the child will survive, but you hope that a miracle can happen. This time no miracle came and a family will have to deal with a loss that could have been avoided.

After picking up our personnel from the hospital, we got back to the station just long enough to finish eating our dinner. Then we were dispatched to another CPR in progress in a 67 year old male. Our division was busy tonight, this call was for an area that would normally be our third due area, so we were a bit tardy getting there. When we pulled up, LEO's were there. There were two people outside and they seemed agitated, rightfully so I guess.

We went into the house and found the pt. laying supine on the kitchen floor. He was pulseless and apneic. CPR was started and since I normally don't do much CPR anymore with a four man crew, I take information and get stuff for the crew. I was asked by our medic to go get our portable suction unit. Once I got back inside with the suction unit, there is an argument going on between the two people (a man and a woman) outside when we got there and the LEO's. The Cops apparently were wandering through the house looking for medications that the pt. took. The man took exception to the Cops looking through the house and got into it with them all while we are trying to save the old man. It's interesting the way people react to things when they're under stress.

We worked the old man all the way to the hospital, but he didn't make it either. When we were enroute to the hospital, we received a page telling us to stop by our HQ station on the way back, so we could be debriefed over the toddler incident.

We stopped and talked with one of our CISD team members. I had no concerns, like I've said before, my belief in the Plan of Salvation helps me to deal with this kind of thing better than a lot of people.

I'm hoping the rest of the night isn't as eventful.

Voice of the Spirit

2010-09-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed this short video, take a few minutes and watch it.

Wrecking a Fire Truck stinks!

2010-08-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

Back in the early 1980's, when I was still a Firefighter, I was assigned to a Task Force (several units of different types put together to do a specific job). We were running out of a neighboring FD's station due to some of our famous North Winds that we were having in the area. The unit I was in and driving was an old, I mean really old Fire Engine, it was a 1956 Van Pelt. There was only room for two people in the cab, everyone else had to ride Tail Board. Here is a picture of a 1956 Van Pelt Fire Engine, not the one I was driving but like it:

So, here is what happened. On a Task Force you are assigned strategically to various points in the area. We were running out of the Fire Station that was closest to our home when we lived down the hill. I think it was in late summer/early fall, but honestly I'm not sure. Sometime in the early afternoon, our Task Force was dispatched to a reported vegetation fire less than two miles from the station. We all go out to our units and as we walk outside, we all see a large column of smoke coming from the area we were sent to. The wind was blowing 25+ MPH with gusts over 40. The route we took was straight down the main street of the City (N/S direction) and then right on another large street (E/W direction). When we turned down the E/W street, you could see the smoke blowing across the street ahead of us. The smoke was thick and dark, but there were people still driving through it. We were traveling west and saw several cars come through heading east. As we approached the fire, we were behind a water tender from a neighboring city. Back then we called them Tankers. This one was an old military 6 X 6 that was converted into a large water truck. They were notoriously slow, but would pretty much go anywhere. As we approached the smoke that was blowing across the street, all of the units in the Task Force slowed down and pulled over as far as they could to the right to try and avoid the oncoming traffic. As we entered the smoke, you couldn't see more that a few feet in front of you.

That's when it happened. I was about a couple of hundred feet behind the WT when we first got into the smoke, but once we got all the way in the smoke, I slowed way down. I hit the Water Tender before I could step on the brake. The only thing I saw was one of the people on the Water Tender jump out of the way just before we hit the truck. What he was doing there, I'm not sure. I think that the pump to the unit was on a skid in the back of the truck, but I'm not sure. Luckily the guy saw us and got out of the way. Our Engine was pretty much dead in the water, the fan was pushed into the radiator and we were leaking water all over the place. I shut it down. The other Firefighter we had with us was riding tailboard, and we went to check on him. Other than having a difficult time breathing due to the smoke, he was OK. The Water Tender we hit only received minor damage and was able to drive off and help fight the fire. The guy in charge of our unit radioed the Task Force leader and told him we were out of service, they asked if we could still pump, but without the motor running we couldn't.

I never got to talk to the guys on the water tender. What I heard is that while driving through the smoke, their drive motor stalled due to lack of Oxygen. Don't know for sure if that is what really happened, doesn't really matter, but they did stall.

Shortly after we ran into the water tender, the smoke cleared where we were at. There was about a ten acre parcel of land with a home on it that was burning. The fire also jumped the road and took off south of our location. The fire went to a second alarm and was under control in about an hour. Since we were out of service, our assignment on the fire wasn't filled on time, so the house I talked about caught fire and burned to the ground. I still feel bad about it, but there really was nothing any of us could do about it. While we were trying to figure out what we were going to do, you could hear this really loud screaming. We thought that someone was caught in the fire. It turned out to be a large hog that was in a pen that burned behind the house. It pretty much burned alive. It really sounded like a human screaming.

Once the second alarm units started arriving, we hooked up with one of the Engines from our District and helped them fight the House fire and then mop up everything. We were there for about six hours if I remember correctly. It was a lousy day.

Believe it or not, they took that old Van Pelt and found body parts for it and fixed it. It was in service for about another five years.

Pavers - Done....for now

2010-08-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a long three months, but we finally got the pavers installed that we wanted to get done. We have one more project that we'll tackle either later this year or early next year.

Not much to write about, so I'll just add some pictures that we took while doing the project so you can see how it came out.

I told you I'd add a picture of me using the plate compactor, so here it is:

Here is a picture of Chase screeding the paver base to the string lines I set up. We used a screed board that is 2.5 inches high and screed the base so it is 2.5 inches below the string lines (eventual top of the pavers). When you are at that point, you compact the base and then lay down the sand.

These next two pictures show the base installed and the paver edge in place to retain the pavers. The next step once this is done is to lay down 1" sand bed and install the pavers on the sand bed.

These next few pictures show the various areas we worked on with the pavers installed.

Last but not least, I wanted to say thanks again to Grant and Chase, their help made it possible to get these projects done in three months. I would still be working on them into November if it weren't for them.

Another Fire Response

2010-07-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

On July 6th, we were dispatched to a commercial structure fire that is about a 12 minute response for us. As we were responding, the size up stated that the fiberglass roof of the building was on fire.

With the overcast that day, it took us a while to be able to see the smoke. Once we could, I started filming with my helmet camera. I held the camera until we arrived on scene and got our assignment. As I was putting the camera on my helmet, somehow it turned off. Too bad to, I had some pretty good actions shots, at least I thought I did.

The business we went to took raw metal (mostly aluminum) and made it into usable stuff for whatever reason. What happened was that they were adding some raw aluminum to their furnace and there must have been some type of material mixed in that shouldn't have been there. When the bad stuff hit the heat, it exploded, sending a big fireball up to the roof that caught fire because it was made of fiberglass. The area where the furnace was located wasn't really in a building, but a large shed type roof area that was about two hundred by two hundred feet covered with the corrugated fiberglass panels. As you will see burning fiberglass puts out lots of thick black smoke. We figure about 1/4 to 1/3 of the roof burned off before we got the fire out.

I guess when I say we, I mean our Department. My Engine got there a bit late to the party and didn't see a bunch of fire. The first units there said it was quite impressive though.

Anyway, here is the video. Same password as before.

Commercial Structure Fire from Humberto Frankie on Vimeo.

Fire Response

2010-06-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

I worked an overtime on the 28th at one of the other stations in our Division. It was pretty uneventful, except for a fire we went to in the afternoon. I took some video of us responding and a bit of what we did when we got there. I edited the video down to a little over 3 minutes from the 28 minutes that I took.

The video is password protected. Again, I'm using the same one I've used in the past. If you would like to see the video and don't know the password, leave a comment, email me or call me and I'll tell you what it is.

Here is the video:

Refuse Fire from Humberto Frankie on Vimeo.

Confined Space

2010-06-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, we had some mandatory annual training that we went to. Every year we have to have a Multi-Company Confined Space drill to satisfy our Certification with the State.

We went to a local Cement/Rock/Sand plant to do this year's training.

Our scenario was to rescue a person that had fallen into one of the gravel/sand hopper/silos on the site.

We had several different elements to the drill. First was the main reason, confined space. We had to make sure that the area we would be going into did not have a hazardous atmosphere. We did this by using our Four Gas monitor that most of our Engines carry. Along with the air monitoring, we have to have what is called a "Confined Space Entry Permit". Basically, it's a piece of paper that we fill out, outlining our actions, who is in charge, who will be the rescuers, equipment used, etc. Once that is ready to go the Incident Commander signs off on it and we go to work.

Once the air was deemed safe and the permit was done, we were able to figure out just how we were going to remove the victim. There really is no right or wrong to this phase. We chose to use a "High angle rope rescue pick off". At least that is what I'm told we did. I'm not much of a rescue guy, so I took their word for it.

We had to set up a main hauling line with a mechanical advantage hauling system. We also set up a belay line. Our system ended up working quite well.

Our safety is our main concern, so we take our time and make sure everything has a back up.

In this scenario, this ended up being more of a body recovery than an actual rescue since we were dealing with a rescue dummy.

I've included some pictures I took of the Training.

This first pic shows the silo we were working in:

This pic shows the inside of the silo with the dummy at the bottom:

This pic shows some of the rigging being set up for the rope rescue:

This pic shows the rescuer down getting the dummy ready for lifting out of the silo. He's one of my crew members:

This last pic shows the top of the silo and the area we had to work in:

Overall, the training went well and we all learned from it, and no one got hurt.

Pavers, Phase Two

2010-06-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

As I was digging the dirt out of the area for the second part of the front yard project, I discovered that there just wasn't enough dirt on the north side of the yard to get the project completed properly. The slope of the yard was such that when I dug out the dirt, there was no dirt to retain the pavers/sand/base.

I came up with the solution to use some of those do it yourself retaining wall blocks. I went down to my local DIY Center and picked up what I needed. It took me two trips in my Expedition to get what the job required, 64 blocks.

I lined out the project and dug the footing and added 1" of sand to the footing. The wall is two blocks high. That will make the top of the wall flush with the tops of the pavers when it's all done.

Here are some pics:

This shows the blocks laid out and the string lines up and the shallow footing.

This pic shows the blocks laid and ready for the pavers. The job took me about six hours to complete once I had the materials at the house.

The side that will be showing will be backfilled with dirt and probably decorative rock to make sure it doesn't move once the pavers are installed.

When the retaining wall was done, my next step was to compact the native earth prior to adding the road base. As I was doing that, I had a little issue to deal with. See the picture.

See that hole in the dirt. It's right above our septic tank. As I was compacting the soil, that hole opened up. I stopped running the compactor immediately fearing that the whole area might cave in. Luckily, when we were building the house, I took several pictures of the septic system as it was being installed. I looked at them and figured there was no way we would have had a catastrophic failure. I went out and compacted around the hole to see if it got bigger and it didn't. Must have just been a void that collapsed when I ran the compactor over it.

I filled in the hole with road base and compacted it. Then Chase and I laid down the geotextile fabric and first layer of road base yesterday and compacted it. Everything seems to have held up OK.

Have some pics of the compacting process, just don't have them on my computer yet. Will add them on the next project update.

Pavers, Phase One... Done--Start of Phase Two

2010-05-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

During my break from work last week, I was able to complete the first phase of my front yard Paver project. I was surprised at how it came out, much better than I expected. I did this area first out of the several projects I want to do because I thought that since it isn't as visible from the street, I could make mistakes and not be too concerned about it. I definitely made mistakes, but they still don't look bad. In hindsight, if I would have done one of the other projects first, I most likely would have learned a few things that would have helped me move a bit more efficiently and quicker through all of the steps it takes to do the job.

The last pictures I posted showed most of the pavers laid and cut, except for the last little square I needed to do. Once that was done, I got the "plate compactor" out and compacted the pavers into the bed sand. I was happy that for the most part they ended up at the correct level. You go over them twice to bed them.

Once the bedding is done, you spread sand over the surface of the job so you can get the sand into the joints. Once the sand is spread, you run the compactor over it again and the sand vibrates into all of the joints. You go over it twice to make sure the sand gets to where it needs to be.

Once the sand is in the joints, you remove the remaining sand from the top of the pavers. Sweeping sand is not as easy as you would think. It took me a couple of hours to get most of it off, and then I used a blower to remove the rest. Out of all of the steps to installing pavers, my back hurt the most after the sweeping part.

Here are a few pics of the finished product:

Once the first phase was done, I got started on phase two. Removing the dirt from the other front area in preparation for the pavers.

As you can see by the pictures below, I have some string lines laid out. Those show where the top of the pavers will be once the installation is complete. In this instance, there needs to be 7 inches from the string line to the native earth for the proper depth. On top of that, you add 4 inches of compacted road base, 1 inch of bedding sand and the depth or thickness of the pavers which is 60mm or about 2 1/4 inches.

I was able to do a lot more with my tractor in this area than in phase one. So, the digging is going a lot faster. I figure I have a few more hours of digging and fine tuning before it will be ready for the road base.

Another Fire

2010-05-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at about 1530 hours, we were dispatched to a reported structure fire not too far from the area we responded to in my last post about the power lines down.

The response for us from our station to that area is about 12 to 15 minutes if we don't hit any bad traffic, which we usually don't. The area is in a fairly narrow canyon with a small population of people that reside there year around. The fire was in the neighborhood with the largest congregation of homes in the canyon.

Many times, the US Forrest Service will respond with us to fires like this because of the threat to the wildland. They responded this time and actually had a unit on scene before we got there. The station that is responsible for the area from our Department was out of position and consequently, we beat them in.

As we were driving up the canyon, still about five miles out, we could see a large column of smoke starting to become visible over one of the several peaks in the area. I could hear radio traffic from the USFS (we monitor their radio traffic) saying that the had three structures involved. I figured we would be in for a good fire, we were still about 7 to 8 minutes out.

As we pulled into the main part of the community, we caught up with two USFS Engines, and were delayed since our Engine is much faster than theirs. The road in is only two lanes and there is nowhere to pass, so we had to fall in behind them. Once we got to the area, there is only one street into the neighborhood and all of the streets in the area are only wide enough for one vehicle in one direction. There are several spots where our Engine scraped trees and bushes, that's how tight it is.

Our inability to get around the USFS units cost us a good three minutes. We caught a break when they turned the wrong way on the last street and we were able to squeak by them. As we were working our way back to the fire, my BC was asking me if we were there yet and I told him we were stuck behind the USFS units.

Just before my Engine made the turn to get to the fire, we had to stop because the USFS units sort of blocked the intersection. I got out of my Engine and ran down to the fire so I could direct my Engine where I wanted once they got past the jam up.

I didn't get any pictures of the initial stages of the fire, so I will try to explain. There was a large sort of "biltmore" type of house that was totally involved in fire. The house was located on sort of a corner. There was a small house directly to the south of the main fire that was just starting to catch when I walked up. I directed my Engine to come in and pull our preconnected hose line and protect the house getting ready to burn. As soon as they got there I showed them where I wanted them to pull the line. Once that was completed, I assumed command of the fire. I knew my BC was almost there, so I just got things started for him. He arrived about three minutes later and assumed command from me and made me the "Fire Attack" group leader. That just meant I was in charge of the fire operations.

Concerning the USFS unit I mentioned that beat us to the scene and reported three structures involved (not the two we got stuck behind). They pulled down the same road we did in the same direction, only pulled past the main fire. Where they stopped was a bit northeast of the main fire, there was a vacant lot. They drove right past the exposure fire we stopped at and started attacking the main fire without considering saving the place we saved. I wasn't there when they made the decision to attack from that location, so I won't pass judgment, it just seemed a bit weird to me.

Back to our actions. We carry 500 gallons of water which for many fires is enough, not today. The remote location of the area lends to services not being quite as good as more populated areas. There were no municipal fire hydrants in the area. There were several private owned small hydrants that ran off of gravity from small private tanks... not nearly enough to get the amount of water we needed to make quick work of the fire. In the end, we came up with a system of water tenders and small floatable pumps we put into the stream running through the area to get the job done. You make due with the hand that dealt to you.

Our objective was to make sure the fire was kept out of our little exposure. I'm guessing that the house wasn't much more than 500 square feet, but it was somebody's home so we did our best. We had to force entry to get in, because we feared that the fire had extended into the attic even though we were able to knock down the fire in the eaves. We had to use our chain saw to cut through the ceiling to get access to the attic. It was made out of 1" X 6" tongue in groove wood. Not what you normally see in today's new homes. We cut a small hole and found fire in the attic. We opened it up a bit more and were able to put out the fire with not much damage. These older homes are built to last.

We had downed power lines all around us which hampered our efforts a bit. It prevented us from going after the main fire more aggressively. One of the things I did before turning over command of the fire was to request Edison to the scene because I saw a lot of arcing and sparking going on. We also had several compressed gas bottles venting when we arrived. I made sure everyone was aware of all of the hazards.

It took us about 90 minutes to get the fire knocked down to where we could start doing some real overhaul. That's when I started taking pictures. Here's some of them:

This is the only picture I took of the little house we were protecting, it came out blurred, but not too bad. You can see the edge of the roof a bit charred from the fire.

This picture is the side of the house looking up at the eaves. You can see the attic gable vent where the fire got in through.

This picture is looking from the house out towards our Engine. On the right you can see part of the main fire.

The rest are pics of the main building that was burning with some action shots of us doing mop-up. The guy who lived there was a pack rat.

After we were pretty much done, I spoke to one of our investigators that was on scene. I didn't know it at the time, but we had a burn victim. We were never told about him. He was the owner of the main fire building. Apparently he is the one who started the fire.

The story goes like this. The man is 78 years old, a tough but nice old guy. He is missing part of one arm from the elbow down. He decides that he is going to work on his gasoline generator in the living room of his house. It's not a real big one, but when you only have one and a half arms, it's not easy to pick up. So he does the best he can to get it on a cart that's about two feet high or so. While he's moving it, he loses his grip and drops the generator. Apparently it had a pretty full tank of gas in it. The gas immediately spills all over the floor and catches fire instantly because he has a heater operating right next to where he's working. He sees the fire, turns and runs, but not quite fast enough. He ends up with a couple of first degree burns to his arms and back as he is running from the fire. From there the fire grew quickly.

We were finally released from the fire about 1930 hours. We had used much of our equipment to do our job and had about an hour of cleanup to get back into service completely. We made it home got some fuel and before we could even breath, got sent to a medical aid. We cleared that call and were sent to another medical aid. By this time, we were all starving. I decided we all could use some energy, so we went out to eat. One of my crew had his helmet fall apart on the fire and it was pretty much useless as it sat. Once we were done eating, we went to one of our other stations so one of the guys I know could give us the parts to fix the helmet. We finally got back to our station about 2200 hours. I stayed out and helped them get most everything back in service. Once it was, I went in and started writing my reports. I had to write one for the main fire, the exposure we worked on and two cars that were damaged in the fire. I finally finished up about 2315 and got in the shower. I climbed into bed about five minutes to midnight.

Lines Down

2010-05-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at work, we were sent to a report of power lines down due to a traffic collision in an area we are second due to. The area is in a small mountain community that has only one way in and out that is paved.

When we arrived on scene, this is what we found:

This ended up not being caused by a traffic collision. The pole for whatever reason just fell on it's own.

This type of pole carries a bunch of power lines, cable TV and Telephone.

Luckily for us, the Station responsible for the area became available and they responded to relieve us. I'm just guessing, but I would bet the road was closed for several hours before they would let traffic through. Have no idea how long it would take to get the power back on to the people in the area.

More progress...

2010-05-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of what I finished up today. Just have that little piece in the last picture to do, then I can set the pavers in place and add the sand to lock them in.

Progress

2010-05-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more pictures of the paver project that I took today after I finished working.

Slowly but surely.

Work

2010-05-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

We decided it was time for a change around the house. We painted, or I should say had painted the exterior of the house. You'll see in the following pictures I'm posting.

Once the painting was done, we started on moving around our landscaping. We did this for a few reasons, one being that the cost to water our grass was getting out of control. We let the lawns go last year and they pretty much died off. We moved around the different rock landscaping to different areas as you will also see in the pictures.

We completely removed all the rock from the planter areas right near the house to make way for Pavers. I've always wanted to try my hand at doing that type of project and we went for it.

This picture shows the house being prepped for painting and some of the rock that was moved:

As you can see in the pic, we are moving the rock near the house to the area where we used to have our front lawn:

Once the rocks were removed from the planters, we needed to dig out about another 4" of dirt to make it possible to do the installation of the pavers. This pic shows the dirt removed to the final depth and the house painting complete:

The next step was to add some road base to the planters to give the pavers a good solid foundation. Here we are using my compact tractor to add the first layer of base to the planter. For our type of soil, it is recommended to place a fabric barrier down to lessen the chance of infiltration of the subsoil, that is the cloth in the bottom.

Once the base is in, you compact it. I used a vibrating plate compactor for the job. Sorry, no pictures of that process, but I will try and take some the next time I use it. Once the base is compacted, you next prepare for the pavers by adding a 1" layer of sand.

This next pic shows the first pavers I laid, along with the way you lay the sand. I used 3/4" Schedule 40 PVC pipe (you can see it in the picture) as a screed guide. You dump sand in and then use a screed, in my case a nice straight 2 X 4 to scrape across the PVC pipe leaving a nice flat bed of 1" deep sand to place the pavers on.

The next few pics are just the progression of the project. I used a Tile Cutting Wet Saw to cut the pavers that needed to be cut.

The last picture is where I'm at right now. It's been hard work, but very satisfying. I'm very happy with the way it's turning out so far, much better than I expected. I wanted to also say thanks to Grant for helping out so much.

Be careful where you point a gun...

2010-04-09T05:54:00.000-07:00

The station that I was working at when this incident occurred happened to be the station that covers the County Sheriff’s Department Academy and Shooting Range.

This happened several years ago. One evening while cleaning up from dinner, we were dispatched to a GSW (gun shot wound) at the Sheriff’s shooting range. It involved a Police Officer. As we were enroute, our dispatch informs us that an Air Rescue (Sheriff) is already responding. We arrive just a few minutes before the Helicopter along with the local Ambulance Company. At this time our Department was BLS only, no Paramedics. As we pull up, there is a lot of people running around. We finally get directions on where to go and see a large crowd of people surrounding the victim. What we saw shocked me for a second. There was a female officer from a small local community laying supine with a bullet hole in her forehead. We knew this was a load and go criteria, so with the Air Rescue arriving it was our responsibility to get her packaged and try and get some ALS (by the ambulance Paramedic) measures started. The Sheriff Staff members assigned to the shooting range took responsibility for landing the Air Rescue (something I normally have to do), so I assisted in packaging the patient for transport. This was a very serious brain injury, she was already posturing upon our arrival. We had her loaded in the Helicopter in a few minutes and on her way to the local Trauma Center.

I tried to find out what had happened, but everyone there was pretty shaken up, so I dropped it. A few days later, one of the guys on our department who was an ex-Cop told me what happened. He spoke to friends of his who knew the story. The Sheriff’s shooting range is used by lots of Police agencies in Southern California. This small community had scheduled some training for that night. Apparently they were doing some type of quick draw firing technique when the accident happened. The injured officer was doing her training and pulled out her pistol, the pistol slipped and spun around her trigger finger. She went to grab for it and it went off with the barrel of the pistol pointing at her forehead.

She was alive for several months afterward, and still could be as far as I know. She was moved to some type of Convalescent Home where she could receive 24 hour care.

Lack of Regular Maintenance can Kill You!

2010-03-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

Or... Sunday, Bloody Sunday-

Our Sabbath didn't start out the best today. Right at 0800 we were dispatched to a CPR in progress on a 90 year old woman. We get there and the Ambulance was already on scene. Their station is about 1/2 a mile from the house.

The woman is in bed, been down for an unknown amount of time, possibly up to 45 minutes. My crew and the Ambulance crew went to work on her while I gathered information. Prior to leaving the house for the hospital, they had a pulse a couple of times. Two of my crew rode with the Ambulance to the hospital to assist with treatment.

When my Engineer and I got to the hospital, we expected her to be gone. We were wrong. While enroute to the hospital, they got her pulse back and she started breathing on her own. She was still kicking when we got done what we had to do before leaving the hospital.

We got back into quarters about 0930.

At a little after 1100 hours, we were dispatched to a TC with extrication on the Freeway. The dispatched location was not real good, so it took us a while to get there. When we got there, we found this:

Short and sweet. Vehicle rolled. Four people in the car. One person ejected, DOA. Three minor injuries transported to the hospital.

Look at this picture and tell me if you can figure out why the car rolled:

Performing Regular Maintenance can save your life!

Video Driving

2010-03-12T20:29:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, my crew and I had a chance to go and do some driver training with our new, state of the art, driving simulator. I've attached a video that I took of some of our exploits during the training. You will need the password to view the video (it's the same as the one I used for the TC video). If you don't have the password and want it, either leave a comment or email me.

This new simulator was purchased with a grant and is VERY expensive. It was a lot of fun and actually gave us some good training. It takes some getting used to and can lead to motion sickness. I know of three guys that I saw get upset stomach and headaches after doing it.

Here is the video, enjoy:

Driving on the Simulator from Humberto Frankie on Vimeo.

TFF

2010-03-08T21:06:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, we were dispatched to a traffic collision with fire on the interstate that runs through our first in area. We were dispatched with another station and a Battalion Chief. The location they gave us was one direction at time of dispatch. As we were just leaving the station, dispatch notified us that they were getting conflicting reports and that the new location was in a totally different direction and area than originally given. Since this was "updated" information, I decided to go to that location.

Unfortunately, the "updated" location was wrong. The original location ended up being more correct. As a matter of fact, one of my guys could see the column of smoke right behind us as we left the station. I asked him why he didn't say anything, but he said he had and thought that I just ignored him or didn't hear him. I was busy on the radio and more than likely didn't hear as I was talking to dispatch.

The delay due to the wrong location really didn't make much difference. The guy in the car that burned would have died even if we would have got there five minutes earlier. I'm guessing that we ended up being delayed about 2 to 3 minutes.

I took some video of the scene with my helmet cam. It's not the best quality since the camera was pointed up to the sky more than I would have liked. I thought I had it pointed correctly, but I didn't. I took about 22 minutes of video and ended up with a little over 5 minutes of usable video since there were a bunch of sky shots. I embedded the video at the end of this post. If you want to view it, you're going to have to leave a comment letting me know and I will email you a password that you can use to see it. I'm using a new video hosting service that is a bit more secure than Youtube as an experiment.

Here is what we think happened on the call. The guy driving the burning vehicle either fell asleep or had a medical emergency while driving. The Highway Patrol estimated that he hit the broken down truck at about 65 mph. The impact caused the SUV he was driving to flip on it's roof and catch fire. The crash broke the rear axle of the truck's trailer. I've seen a bunch of similar type of wrecks over the years and can't remember that happening before. It must have been a spectacular crash to witness.

The vehicle burst into flames after it came to rest on it's roof. The truck driver was sitting inside the cab of the truck when the crash occured. He ran to the back to see what happened and found the SUV already burning. He tried to get the driver out, but couldn't. He was pretty shook up when we arrived. The BC had our Department Chaplain respond to talk to the Truck Driver.

It took us about five minutes to get the fire out. We mopped up the fire as we were waiting for the Coroner to arrive. Once the Coroner got there, they did their investigation and then we cut the driver out. It took us about 45 minutes to get him out of the car. Once he was out, the Coroner took over.

That's pretty much it without going into more of the gruesome details.

Here is the video, leave me a comment if you want me to send you the password to view it.

TFF on Freeway from Humberto Frankie on Vimeo.

Deathly Sorrow

2010-02-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

This morning around 0200, we were sent to a medical aid, possible suicide attempt at a nearby home.

We were to stage for the arrival of Law Enforcement due to the nature of the call. The PD arrived before we got there, so we went right to the scene. When we got to the house, we walked up to the door and found quite a bit of blood all over the entry way and down the hallway leading towards the kitchen. I didn't go and look at it all, one of my guys checked it out and estimated about 1000 cc's of blood on the ground which is a decent amount.

The suicide attemptee (is that a word?) was standing just inside the front door on arrival. He had a large towel wrapped around his left forearm that was nearly soaked through in blood. I was trying to get information while my guys worked on treating the pt. They put a pressure bandage on the wounds. Yes, I said wounds, four very deep lacerations across the forearm, all down to the bone. This guy was serious about offing himself. As I was gathering information, the guys wife handed me his wallet, actually, she set it on my clipboard. I didn't realize it, but when I opened it, it was all wet with his blood, and I didn't have any gloves on. Luckily, I only got a slight amount on my hands. In the old days before all of the auto-immune diseases, I had blood up to my elbows several times. Now though, it's a bit more scary.

Once we had the guy all bandaged up and loaded in the ambulance, my crew told me that the guy tried to kill himself because his grandmother had died.

This guy had two kids and his wife to take care of and he tries to end it all because his grandma died? Doesn't make much sense to me.

A Daring Rescue

2010-02-11T14:12:00.000-08:00

While in between rain storms, we thought we'd take a break from all of the Freeway Traffic Collisions and squeeze in a challenging Structure Fire. Monday evening February 8th, I was just settling down and watching "Castle" on TV. I had just finished brushing my teeth and making my bed so I could climb in right after the show was over. About 20 after 10pm or 2220 hours, we were dispatched to a reported Structure fire with explosions. The call was just out of our first due area.

We get enough of these types of calls that end up being nothing that you get a little amp'd up, but not too bad. Our route to the fire took us on a freeway overpass that gave us a good view of the area that we were going to. I looked as good as I could and didn't see anything that looked like smoke or flames, so we figured it was just another mistaken ID call. When we're about half way there, our dispatch notifies us that they are receiving multiple reports of fire and explosions. When they do that, it normally indicates that there is definitely some type of problem. As we keep getting closer, we are all straining our eyes trying to get a glimpse of anything that might give us a clue of what was going on. When we are about half a mile from the location, we meet up with the First Due unit and the Battalion Chief and actually beat them to the turn, so we will be first in. We turn off the last main street and finally we see something that didn't look right hanging in the air. It looked like a weird fog, but it turned out to be smoke. We still had a couple of more quick turns to make before we were there. We didn't see any flames until we actually turned down the final street, it must have just flared up as we were pulling up.

As we're pulling up, we can see what's burning. A two story, single family dwelling, with the second floor well involved with fire. The house sits on a corner. We pull up and spot on the "B" side of the fire. Since I'm first on scene, I give the size up. I really didn't need to say much since most of the first alarm assignment is right behind me. I tell them what we had going and then went into attack mode. My main concern at this time was to keep it out of the surrounding homes. I direct my Firefighters to pull our 1 3/4" preconnected hose line and try to knock down the fire coming from the "C" side that was exposing the home to the west or behind the fire house. I got out of my Engine and did a quick lap to look at what was going on the other side of the house. I found that the house on the north side of the fire house was in much more danger than the one on the west side, so I moved my guys over to the north to protect that house. Once that was done, I made contact with the BC and was tasked with putting our Master Stream in service to get more water on the fire faster. I assisted my Engineer with getting the supply line hooked up and told her what I needed done. I then climbed up on top of the Engine and got our "Deck Gun" ready to flow water. About 30 seconds later, I had water, flowing about 750 GPM. I was able to get a pretty good knock down on the fire, but not able to put it out.

Our Ladder truck put up the "Stick" (ladder) and then they started flowing water from the Ladder Pipe (nozzle). Several other lines were put into service around the fire.

Once things were set up, I had the opportunity to see what was happening around the fire scene. I got to be part of the decision making process concerning Strategy and Tactics. I'm lucky to have the trust of my Supervisor who values my opinion, at least it seems like he does.

Since this fire started due to an explosion, there was some structural damage to the home that weakened it above and beyond what the fire was doing to it. We were told to stay out of the collapse zone which is one and a half times the height of the building. We were "Defensive" in our attack, as opposed to "Offensive". Defensive means we stay out of the structure and keep ourselves as safe as possible. Offensive means we aggressively attack the fire using any techniques we can to put out the fire and affect a rescue if possible. Since everyone was out of the house, we weren't very concerned about rescuing anyone. There was a report that there were two Family Dogs in the house, but we didn't know for sure if they were actually in there so we chose not to send personnel in to check. I know it sounds harsh, but those decisions have to be made sometimes. As the fire progressed, I was able to survey the building and found the North and South walls of the house bowing out. As I was walking around, I shot some pictures. They didn't turn out that good, but they show some of what was happening.

This First Image is one I took of the "A" side of the fire while there was still some active fire on the second floor, probably about 25 - 30 minutes into the fire:

This next one shows a bunch of our equipment in operation and a bunch of hose on the ground:

This picture shows my Firefighters working to protect the home on the north side from catching fire:

This picture is from the backyard of the home on the north side. They are also trying to knock down the fire:

This last picture shows the ladder pipe in operation, I know it's blurry, but you can still see:

Once we had most of the fire knocked down, about 45 minutes into the incident, we started discussing options. One of the concerns of the Homeowner was about her animals. She had two small dogs with her in the house when it exploded. She was asleep in bed when the explosion occurred and one of the dogs was with her. The other stayed downstairs in one of the other bedrooms. The owner was able to get out quickly and the dog with her, a small black poodle mix had followed her downstairs, but got lost in the confusion. The owner thought that it had gone back into the house. By the time she knew it was gone, it was too dangerous to go back inside the house. The other dog, a Dachshund had not been seen by the owner at any time after the fire started. Much of the roof had collapsed onto the second floor and partially onto the first floor.

We decided that two of us, myself and another Captain would go inside for a quick look to see if we could find the dogs. Since the walls had not collapsed yet, we figured they would be OK for a quick look. We got all suited up and went in through the front door, which was raised a bit above grade. You had to either walk up the stairs to go to the second floor or down to get to the ground floor. Since the upstairs was still burning a bit we went down to the first floor. The entry was covered in roof debris and burned framing members. It took us a short while to navigate over it, but made it safely to the rooms on the first floor. We started checking for the dogs. I went into the farthest back room and found a queen sized bed there. I picked up the bed and there standing under the head of the bed in about 4 - 6 inches of water was the Dachshund... Alive. The bed was really waterlogged and extremely heavy so I couldn't hold it. I called for my partner, but with all of the noise, he couldn't hear me. I repositioned myself and lifted from the side in the middle and was able to push the bed up enough to where I could talk to the dog. I called it and it moved towards me, but wouldn't come all the way. I guess I don't blame it, I probably looked pretty intimidating. I had all of my gear on and had debris from head to toe. I coaxed it a bit closer and made a grab for it and got it. Then it got me, it bit me about five times before I could control it. It was hard to hold on to the dog and keep the mattress from falling on me. It's a good thing I had my gloves and Turnout Coat on or I would have been going to the hospital for some stitches. I only felt a bit of pressure from the bites. Once I got the dog under control, I stood up and started out of the room. I met my partner and we both exited the house out of the back sliding door that was open. We made our way around to the front of the house and I gave the dog off to one of the guys from another Engine. Then the dog proceeded to bite me again as I handed it over. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

As the incident progressed we were able to start looking for the other dog. We thought there were two scenarios that could have happened. The dog ran back inside and was buried in tons of burning roof debris, or that it ran outside and was still hiding somewhere in the neighborhood. The crews on scene looked all through the debris and couldn't find the other dog. We're hoping that it was hiding somewhere.

The preliminary cause talked about by the investigators on scene was that the Gas Furnace developed a gas leak. The furnace in this home was located in the attic of the home, second story. As the leak progressed, it filled the attic with gas and ignited when it found an ignition source, possibly when the furnace kicked on to heat the home. Next thing, a big Kaboom. By the looks of it, the entire roof lifted off the walls and came crashing down on the second floor ceiling. It held up good enough for the owner to get out, but burned quickly since it had a good supply of fresh oxygen to supply it. Not only did the roof blow off, but all of the second floor windows and several first floor windows were blown out. When we arrived, there was glass all over the streets and in the neighboring homes yards.

After working on getting everything mopped up, we were finally released at about 0230 hours. As we were driving back to quarters, we had a little issue with our Engine. We were about a mile from home when this really loud grinding noise started, followed by the smell of smoke. We pulled over and shut down the Engine. On our Engine, you have to lift the Cab to get to the motor. Here is what it looks like:

We looked around and found some smoke coming from the Alternator. We were extremely lucky that it didn't break while we were pumping on the fire. At one time we were supplying our Engine, the Ladder Truck and another Engine with water.

I contacted our Dispatch and had our Duty Mechanic respond. It took him over two hours just to get to us. While we were waiting, one of my guys tried to sleep laying on the ground next to the Engine:

One of the other Stations heard our dilemma and brought us up a reserve Engine. We sat in it while waiting for the Mechanic to arrive. It was nice to sit inside, but the heat didn't work. We were all soaked and by the time the Mechanic showed up, we were all shivering. The mechanic told us to go back to the station to get into some warm clothes and he would call us when he finished. About 30 minutes later he called and we went and picked up the Engine.

We got back in quarters about 0515 and had to load some hose back on the Engine. All of my crew went back to bed, but I had to take care of some paperwork. When I was done, I sat in a recliner and fell asleep for about 45 minutes and got up a little before 7am. It was a really long night.

Here is a short video shot by a local resident of the fire just after we arrived on scene. If you watch closely, you can see a stream of water come from the right side of the video that shoots on to the house, I was operating that line.

House Explosion and Fire from Humberto Frankie on Vimeo.

A Long Wet Night

2010-02-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

Last night, I went in and worked a partial overtime shift at my regular station. I got to work at 1700 to relieve the guy going off. They only ran one call all day. They were returning from an Elevator training class that I attended a couple of days ago, so they got back to the station around 1730 hours. They had stopped and picked up some food since it was too late to cook anything. They ate their food, I brought some stuff to eat with me and had already finished up before they got back in quarters.

We went on one call around 2000 hours and since we were out so much, I can't remember what it was for right now. About 2140 hours we were dispatched to a Traffic Collision with fire on the Interstate that runs through our First Due area. Normally these types of calls turn out to be just TC's, no fire. As we are making our way to the on ramp we need to access to get on the freeway, we can see from the Street we're on that this is indeed a TC with Fire, well involved at that.

The location of the call was about 3/4 mile from our station as the crow flies, but over three miles due to the route we have to take to get there. The other station responding with us is farther away than we are, but has a straighter shot, so they beat us there by about 30 seconds. This call ended up being a two vehicle TC. The car on fire in the center divider and the other involved vehicle on the right shoulder. The person driving the one on fire was pulled out of her car before the fire could get her by a couple of Good Samaritans. She had a pretty serious injury to one of her legs (compound fracture to both lower legs bones and a closed fracture to the femur on the same leg). According to the guys working on her she screamed the entire time they were with her until they dropped her off at the hospital. The other Engine company took the car on fire, my crew and I took the vehicle on the right shoulder. Since the other Engine was pretty busy, I took the incident command and ran the call until our Battalion Chief arrived. I had everything set up when he got there, so he didn't have to do much. There were two occupants in the vehicle we were assigned to. Here is a picture of it:

I know it's hard to tell by the picture, but this was a 5 Series BMW. It took a pretty good hit on the drivers door, but the two guys inside had only very minor injuries. I guess those BMW's are pretty well built. We had to wait for a while to get these guys out of the car, the second ambulance was delayed. We left them in the car because it was raining really hard at the time. Once the ambulance got there, we loaded the patients in the ambulance and they were off to the hospital, more for precautionary measures.

We stayed on scene until the tow trucks had removed both vehicles. By the time we got back in quarters, it was about 2345 hours. I knew it was going to be a long night, so I wanted to keep up on my log book and reports. As soon as I finished my paperwork, I climbed into bed.

Just after 0200 we were dispatched to a Medical aid not too far from our station. This woman was having abdominal pain, and has had it for several days now. Why she decided to call at 2am is just one of those mysteries I don't think I'll ever find the answer to. It happens very often.

We got back in quarters about 0240 and climbed back in bed. I just made a log entry, my Paramedic was going to have to do the report on this one.

At about 0450 we were dispatched to another TC on the same freeway only a few miles south of the first one. This area is in another Fire Department's jurisdiction, so we were responding on an "Automatic Aid" call. Due to the reported location of the call, all of the other FD's units came from a direction that ended up putting us first on scene. It wasn't quite where they said it would be, but about a mile south of the dispatched location. It was flat out raining, still.

When we arrived, there were cars all over the place. Being dark and raining made it difficult to see all that happened. The involved vehicles were spread out over a good 200 yards. There ended up being three cars involved. The farthest north vehicle was up against the center divider with major damage to the front end. The middle vehicle was on the right shoulder with major damage (we call it intrusion) at the drivers door. The farthest south vehicle had stopped in the middle of the freeway and was at risk of being hit again. We pulled up and blocked the south vehicle with our Engine so no one would run into it again. The occupant was already out of the car on our arrival. She ended up signing AMA (Against Medical Advice) and did not go to the hospital.

Once we had parked, I needed to do a size up of what we had. I mentioned that there were cars all over the place. By the time we stopped and got out of the Engine, all but the three involved cars and one guy in a Box Truck had left. I didn't know it at the time, but our help was still over five minutes out. I started surveying the scene to find all involved, at this time I still hadn't seen the north and middle vehicles. We made our way back to the north vehicle and made contact with the occupant. He was having some back pain, we told him we'd have help for him shortly.

I then was made aware of the middle vehicle. The guy in the Box Truck was over on that side of the freeway. At this point, the cars were still zipping through our accident scene and they really didn't care if we were trying to get across to help this guy. After waiting quite a while for a break in the traffic, we were able to get across to the middle car. I had assumed the IC again and was still trying to get a good size up report for all incoming units, I still didn't know for sure how many cars were involved. So, as we're walking up to the middle car, the Box Truck guy is screaming "They're Dead" as he's looking into the car. I finally get to his location and see what he's yelling about. This car was hit really hard, so hard in fact that the drivers side of the car was pushed all the way to the passenger side. BTW, this car was a high end vehicle (not a BMW). The guy inside looks like a hot dog mashed into a bun. Unfortunately, he is dead. The Box Truck guy was sure there were two people inside, but we assured him there wasn't. Just as we're finishing up our assessment of the middle car, the first unit from the neighboring FD arrives. It's their Truck Company. I talk with the CO and assign them to cut the car away from the dead guy so the coroner can collect him.

Just as the Truck Company arrived an Engine from the other FD arrives and I assign them to work on the guy in the north vehicle. We still have no Highway Patrol on scene, so traffic is still zipping by us like crazy. My Engineer was nearly hit twice as he was trying to direct traffic around us.

Once we had everything covered, the Battalion Chief from the neighboring agency shows up and takes command. He really had nothing to do, it was all done. Once all of the shouting was over, the Highway Patrol finally showed up. We stayed around for a few minutes and were then released.

We got back in quarters about 0600. I went and made my bed and then started on my paperwork. We were then sent to another TC at about 0610 on the Freeway about 5 miles north of the last one. This ended up being a four car collision. Two people were transported with minor injuries. I didn't think it could rain any harder, but it was.

We were back in quarters about 0650. I was talking to the one of the guys coming on duty that had just showed up. Just before my relief got there, we were sent to another TC (about 0725), this time it was farther north on the Freeway, about a 20 minute ride for us. It was reported as an Extrication TC. We were added to the call after the original units were dispatched. We arrived on scene which was a surprise to me, I figured we'd get canceled before we arrived. When we got on scene I understood why we didn't get canceled. Here's some pictures:

As you can see, this was quite a nasty wreck. We're not really sure what happened. We think the Tow Truck was parked in the center divider and the van hit it, but that is just a guess on our part. There was a fatality on this call too. The driver did not make it. You can't see very well, but on the last picture, the driver is still in the driver seat. We couldn't get the two vehicles apart because they were really tangled up. They were probably going to have to pull the two apart using other tow trucks. The passenger in the van received some pretty serious injuries too. It took about half an hour after we arrived to get him out. Once that was accomplished, we were released from the call.

We were a couple of miles from our cutoff to get back to the station when they turned us around for another TC located a few miles south of the one we had just left. By the time we turned around and started back up, the people involved in the latest accident must have decided that they would take care of the problem themselves and left before we arrived.

It was a long night, two people dead and several more injured. I'm tired.

If you click on the pictures, it will take you to my hosting site. There are some other pics from these calls posted there that I didn't add to this entry.

A Lover Scorned

2010-01-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

Early this morning, we were called to a report of a Traffic Collision (TC) not too far from our station. Luckily for me I was already awake, but trying to get back to sleep, from an unwelcomed bathroom call.

As we are responding, two PD units go screaming by us. That's sort of weird for that time of the day.

We get on scene and find a single vehicle that had significant damage to the front end sitting on the lawn of the house that sat on the corner of the intersection we responded to. PD was looking it over, so we got out of our Engine and went over to look also. As we walked up PD told us that the driver had fled the scene. We couldn't see what the car had hit.

Off to the side was a young lady who was talking with the PD. I walked over and caught part of the conversation. She was telling them that her boyfriend and her were sitting in his car when they got into an argument. She ended up getting out of the car and he sped off.

She didn't see what happened next, but we saw the aftermath. He sped around a corner from where they were sitting and lost control. He rear ended a car parked on the street causing the damage to his car. He then backed up and sped of finally losing control and crashing over the curb ending up on his final resting place.

He then got out of his car and ran. When we left, they still didn't have him in custody, but it is only a matter of time. He left his car and his girlfriend there. I guess he thought that no one would notice.

I keep on saying that I should be thankful for stupid people. I would never have had such an enjoyable career without them.

A truly disgusting person...

2010-01-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

This evening we were dispatched to a medical aid, a 35 year old having a miscarriage.

Normally when we go on these types of calls, you expect the woman to be pretty upset over the circumstances. Not with this woman. When we got on scene, we started our primary survey, trying to find out exactly what was going on. She matter of factly explained to us in quite vivid detail how she came to the conclusion that she was having a miscarriage. Her explanation was given with no negative emotion whatsoever, in fact she almost appeared to enjoy telling us what had happened.

She was in no distress that we could tell. We finished up the assessment and loaded her for transport in the ambulance. In my opinion, she did not need an ambulance ride.

Once she was on her way to the ambulance from the house, I went and sat in the Engine while the Paramedic finished up his duties and signed the patient over to the ambulance personnel.

When he finished up, he got in the Engine and told us that this lowlife of a human being had 10 previous abortions in her short lifetime. No wonder she has no emotions about losing another child. I see a lot of bad things happen, this ranks right up there with some of the worst.

Cleanliness is important

2010-01-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

This morning, not even an hour ago, we were called to a structure fire at a nearby home. We were told it was a fire in an oven.

Normally theses types of fires don't add up to much, this one wasn't much different other than I had my camera and the housekeeping ability of the homeowner.

When we arrived on scene, there was just a bit of light smoke coming from the front door of the house. I gave my report on conditions and had the balance of the assignment continue until we could get a better idea of what was happening.

We went into the kitchen and there was still active smoke coming from the top of the stove. We opened the door to the oven and flames shot out at us. All ovens are made to contain the heat and flames within the unit. This one was doing it's job, except for the fact that something inside of it was still burning.

I updated the conditions and canceled the balance of the assignment except for the Truck Company. I kept them coming so they could help us ventilate the building once we took care of the fire.

We pulled the 1" hard line from our Engine into the house and used it to put out the fire. One of my Firefighters operated the nozzle while I opened the door to the oven. Flames shot out again and we hit it with a quick burst of water and shut the door. About 15 seconds later, we did the same thing. Fire out, mainly because we cooled down what was burning. We shut down the gas and the electricity as we checked for any extension of the fire to the structure, there was no extension, the oven did it's job of keeping the heat inside of it.

We turned our attention to getting the smoke out of the house. We did that by using Positive Pressure Ventilation or PPV. We use a large blower to blow air into the house usually through an open door, the front door in this case. Then we systematically open and close windows throughout the house to evacuate the smoke from the structure. It took us about 15 minutes to get the smoke out.

Once all of that stuff was in progress, I spoke with the lady of the house. She told me that she had just finished cooking breakfast for her kids about 1/2 an hour before she discovered the fire. She told me that she must have bumped one of the touch buttons on the stove top for the oven, you can see by the picture below that it would be possible to do that and not know you did it.

Here is a picture of the back of the stove, you can see the black mark where smoke was escaping from the fire in the oven:

This picture shows the front of the stove with the oven door open. You can see that they were storing extra cooking utensils inside of the oven. If they wouldn't have been there, there would not have been a fire. There was no food in the oven. The touch buttons for the oven were located between the knobs for the stove top burners.

This last picture is where the stove came from. Look at the amount of junk under where the stove sat. The rest of the house looked the same way. In this instance, the dirty conditions didn't contribute to the fire, but it is lack of pride in my opinion.

Pay attention to what you're doing!

2010-01-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago, we were sent to a TC on the freeway that was reported as a car into a pickup that was parked on the shoulder. These types of calls are usually not good.

We get there right behind the first due unit. There are two vehicles involved. Here are a couple of pictures:

There were people standing all over the place, so it took us some time to figure who was involved in the crash. There were three people in the pickup and only one suffered any injury, not serious, but was transported as a precaution.

There were four people in the car, one adult and her three children all under the age of 4. Luckily none of these people were injured badly. Three of them, the Mom and the two youngest kids(8 months and 3 years) were transported as a precaution too.

After talking with the people involved, the story became clearer. The pickup wasn't parked on the shoulder. The female driving the car was not paying attention to what was going on around her and came up way too fast on the pickup and hit her.

We figure she was talking or texting on her Cell Phone and plowed right into the truck. If it wasn't for stupid people, many of us public servants would be out of a job. I guess I should thank them.

Another Reason for Preventative Maintenance

2010-01-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

This morning, we were dispatched to a vehicle fire in our first due area. Upon arrival, we found a well involved engine compartment fire in a Nissan Maxima. Normally fires like this are easy to put out.

This one took us a bit longer due to the hood release cable burning through before our arrival. Trying to get the hood to release is extremely difficult once the cable burns through. We ended up using prying tools to open a few spots to spray our water through. Once we knocked the fire down a bit, we pried the area near the hinges of the hood and used our bolt cutters to cut the hinges so we could fold the hood forward. You can see in one of the pictures I've posted what I'm talking about. Since it took us so long to get the hood opened, the fire was able to get through the firewall and started under the dash on the passenger side of the car.

After the fire was out and we were mopping up the fire, I spoke with the car owner. She told me that she had stopped to drop her kids off at her babysitter. She had walked up to the door and then heard a loud "POP" and walked back towards the car and found the fire in the engine compartment. They called 911 and waited for our arrival, while we were responding, the people at the house used a dry chemical extinguisher on the fire, but it didn't put the fire out (mainly because they didn't get any of the chemical on the fire). I asked the car owner if she had been having any problems with the car. She told me no, only that her power steering lines were leaking. Normally that doesn't create a problem except for fluid dripping on your garage floor or driveway. With this car, it is most likely the cause of the fire. I got the impression that the power steering leak had been there for a while. We even saw empty power steering fluid bottles in the car leading me to believe that the leak was pretty significant.

The location of the PS pump was near the back of the motor, near the exhaust pipes. I figure that there was a good build up of dripped fluid on or near the exhaust system which finally caught fire. The origin of the fire was consistent with the location of the PS pump and leak.

These two pictures show how we opened the hood:

This pic shows where the fire burned behind the dash:

This last pic shows where the fire started. The yellow arrow points to the location of the PS pump. You can't see it, but it is right below the arrow:

A little bit of care for this car and this fire would not have happened. Not all cars will catch fire if they get a power steering leak, but it is usually prudent to take care of a leak if you have one.

One last bit of advice to you all. If you ever develop a fire in the engine compartment of your vehicle, do yourself and the Firemen a favor. Pull your cable release to your hood before you vacate the area. Don't open the hood, just pop it so we can get to the fire easier and faster.

Pin Ball

2009-12-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve, we were called out to a TC on the Interstate that runs through our First Due area.

When we arrive on scene, we find this:

Luckily the two people in this car were only slightly injured. After talking to the other two drivers involved, it sounds like this car got caught between the other two and bounced back and forth between them before finally getting stuck under one of the others...a big rig.

Have no confirmation why they wrecked, but we have our suspicions. Merry Christmas!

And yet another Roll Over

2009-12-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy day today due to something we haven't had much of in a while...RAIN. I think people have forgotten how to drive in it. We've been sent to several vehicles over the side today, but have only made it to one so far. Luckily for those riding in the vehicle (four people in one family), they only received minor injuries. They were all transported to the Hospital for further observation and possible treatment. Look at the rear tires on the car, they're pretty worn.... about as worn out as one of our kids who I convinced to get new tires recently.

The last picture is a makeshift memorial to someone that died there a while back, which I think I was on about a year and a half ago. The car landed about 50 feet from the cross.

Another Roll Over

2009-11-23T13:45:00.000-08:00

A few shifts ago, we had yet another roll over TC. This time it was caused by the left rear wheel of the vehicle coming off. The most common cause for this problem is that the lug nuts aren't tightened down properly.

The pictures show the SUV on it's side and where we were. I thought I had taken a picture of the axle area where the wheel and tire should have been, but I didn't.

There were three people in the SUV at the time of the accident and all three were out when we arrived. It was a Mom, Dad and their 17 year old daughter. The daughter had been asleep in the rear seat when the accident occured. They all received some painful injuries (mainly broken bones), but all should recover. The other units on scene tended to the Mom and Dad. We took the daughter.

She was complaining of back, neck and leg pain. Since the mechanism was a roll over, we placed her in full c-spine precautions. She had a pretty bad dislocation of her left ankle too. When we started to prep her to place her on the spine board, we had to remove her jacket so we could complete our secondary survey which we do to make sure there are no other serious injury. To get her jacket off without moving her very much, we had to cut it off. As we were doing so apparently her hair was in the way and we started cutting it (by mistake). She sure let us know about it, she let go with a profanity laced tongue lashing on us that lasted only a few seconds, but was unforgettable. She didn't even whimper when we moved her injured right ankle. Other than that little outburst she was really a good patient and tough.

It took us about 15 minutes to package and transport all three patients once we arrived on scene.

This picture sort of shows where they came from. They hit the guard rail right where the red arrow is. The yellow arrow shows where the SUV landed.

This is a closer shot of the SUV.

Here is a pic of the units on the call.

One last thing, there was poison oak all over the place where the SUV ended up. The patients were laying in it and we were kneeling in it. As far as I know, none of our personnel had issues with it.

Just Call Me J.F.

A sad excuse for a father

Another Good Mormon Message

Athletes and Prayer

When Liberals Ruled America

Solar Power

A Miracle!

An Interesting Image

Verizon SUX... REDUX

Red Air: America’s Medevac Failure

Sanctify Yourselves

Why did the man cross the road?

Modesty

Obstacles in our Path

The Book of Mormon

I Just Don't Get it, 2

Captain

I Just Don't Get It!

A Fine Talk by Joe Galloway

Farewell to Facebook

After all he went through, all he got was a new pair of shoes.

UT to NM to TX

Engineer

The End

Paver Progress as of 5/21/11

Paver Progress

This and That

More Pavers

VERIZON SUX

Regular Full Time

A Few Firsts

OJT

More Recently Discovered Video

Recently Discovered Video

Getting Started

Jumping through hoops

A Career is Born!

Cheeseburger Soup

Last Call

Adventures in Car Selling

Chuckie D and his Magic Food!

Foul Mouth

Road Rage Roll Over

Blunt Force Trauma

The Master Cleanser

Two Deaths

Voice of the Spirit

Wrecking a Fire Truck stinks!

Pavers - Done....for now

Another Fire Response

Fire Response

Confined Space

Pavers, Phase Two

Pavers, Phase One... Done--Start of Phase Two

Another Fire

Lines Down

More progress...

Progress

Work

Be careful where you point a gun...

Lack of Regular Maintenance can Kill You!

Video Driving

TFF

Deathly Sorrow

A Daring Rescue

A Long Wet Night

A Lover Scorned

A truly disgusting person...

Cleanliness is important

Pay attention to what you're doing!

Another Reason for Preventative Maintenance

Pin Ball

And yet another Roll Over

Another Roll Over