Karaoke, Fire, and Shout Outs

Well, its been awhile since my last post. Been pretty busy with various things. So I had my first experience with Karaoke the other night at our local watering hole. What I learned is that the drunker people get... the better they think they sound. While I had a few drinks, I did not have enough to motivate me to get on stage.. I think I had a little Simon Cowell on my shoulder. However, two others that were with us got up the courage and got on stage. AJ for some reason decided Abba's Dancing Queen would be a great selection.I have some video of it which I will try to post. We were there celebrating David's last day of work at Ida Lee and Monday marked the beginning of his new career as a firefighter for Arlington County. If you want to know his business hours of operation.. just call his voice mail, its pretty detailed. Somehow, all that translates into David getting on Stage and singing Piano Man. Although, I will say he did a little better than AJ did. All in all, pretty amusing I must say.

We had a training burn on Sunday morning. It was a relatively cool day compared to what we have been getting. I can tell that me running every day is building up my endurance, however I was still "Balls Tired" as one of the other FF's put it at the end of the drill. Im sure most firefighters can attest to the fact that sometimes, the second that wave of heat hits you from a fire it can instantly zap the energy out of you. We did 4 scenarios and they all went relatively well. Despite some minor burns on my knees and ears, it was a great drill and I learned alot. Looking forward to the next one.

In other news, it would seem there has been a spike in violent crime in our county. Starting with the kids who got their asses kicked I mentioned in a previous entry, since then, we had an officer here in Leesburg get run over by a vehicle, a driveby in Sterling and various other stabbings, shootings etc.. Ahhh, reminds of Tucson. LOL.

There was some music awards show on the other night, and some guy who was up there must have thanked about 50 people.. except none of the people he named had actual names, they were all abbreviations or nicknames. It was pretty damn funny, Im gonna try to find a clip of it. I think I'll close out this entry with my "Shout Outs". But he did thanks Jesus.. Even used his whole name.

Well, Im off to the airport to pick up Maki. Higgins is still doing OK. He seems to be eating normally now. Hopefully he will put some weight on.

Thanks to J.B Anderson from JBA2.com for the Non Cam phone pics of the burn.

Werd, I wanna thank all the peeps that help me get this Journal published up in here.. K.Dud, B.Dud, J.Dud, J,Mak, C,Mac, Shawk,Drob,TFred,CMul,Jhol,ADur,J,Arn, A to the Online, C,afe,K,asey.. and Spoonie Luv from up above. Peace. :)



B

Guns, Hazmat suits and A Wreck and Stewie Griffin

Higgins is still with us, weve been giving him his medicine and letting him eat whatever he wants. Hes been acting fairly normal although a little weaker than usual. But hes hangin in there. Thanks for all the nice comments about him.

Had duty Wed night and had to work Thursday as usual. I think we ran 4 or 5 calls. Most of them after 11pm or so. I only remember two of them, first one was dispatched a shooting. We arrived on scene with the medic unit right behind us. We were told to stage which simply means, stay away from the actual scene because its not secured by the police yet for whatever reason. We parked a few streets down and tuned into the PD channel to hear what was going on. All we heard was something about a kid running down the street with a shotgun in his hand ( News article here Attack ) chief decided at that point we werent far enough away and we all agreed and fell back to one of the local shopping center parking lots. Probably 20 mins or so before PD told us we could head to the scene. Anyway, arrived on scene, nobody was shot. Just some kids that got beat up with a pipe. I dont know all the details on that one which is why its still under investigation.

2nd call I remember came in at like 4:30 am for an investigation of odor of smoke. We get on scene and first thing we smell is a skunk. Went inside the house... skunk. So that took about 30 seconds. But either way, I called in late to work since I had about 3 hours of sleep and had a 12 hour shift coming up.

Had duty last night, ran 1 call for an auto accident. Pretty bad one but nobody was trapped or anything like that. So wasnt really much for us to do. Im heading to bed here so Im gonna post my pictures and sign off. Oh yeah, dont forget you can click on the "View Larger" button on the pictures so you can see them full size. Someone said the pics were to small. Have a great rest of the weekend.

Hi Kim... Meister!

B

From bad to Worse

This day is quickly "Going to hell in a handbasket" as my mom used to say. First off, I had dreams about getting laid off all night. So I already woke up in a bad mood. Kathleen is out of town on business, so there was nobody for me to share my bad mood with other than myself. I made it out to the car to head to work and the car stalled twice as soon as I started it. Hopefully it will get me home. Kathleens car is currently in the shop for the same reason, stalling etc. I get to work and the Vet calls me and says she got the tests back on our cat Higgins who has been losing weight and throwing up alot. Turns out his kidneys are failing possibly due to a virus or some other type of illness. So, the vet wants me to bring him in as soon as possible so they can run some tests and get him hooked up to an IV etc. She told me worse case scenario would be $1000 bucks. But.. hes my buddy and a member of our family so I told her whatever we need to do to help him get better. I'll try to bring him to the vet tonight when I get out of work.

On a lighter note, the 4th was fun but busy. I ended up at a house fire in Ashburn about 6am that was way back down a dirt road. Since the road was so rough, there was no way to get a engine back there, so only brush trucks would make it back there. A brush truck only carries around 250 gallons of water which isnt very much when you consider our engines carry 1250 gallons. Anyway, the house was abandoned and there wasnt really much to save.

We had the Parade here in Leesburg in the morning, then when that was over we went straight to the parade in Purcellville. Kathleen and I were riding in the rescue engine for the parade, I was riding in the front seat where unfortunately, it was hot as hell because the A/C was broken.There was some A/C in the back but it was still pretty hot. We had our engine, reserve engine," The Antqique", the new jeep, the brush truck and the command in the parade. Then we spent the rest of the day at the Park with the department doing the 4th of July fireworks standby and selling raffle tickets for the truck. It was a long day but we had a good time. Hope everyone had a good 4th of July.

B

Strong enough for a man.. but not PH balanced for a Firefighter

Well, its been awhile since my last entry. Its pretty much been raining non stop for the last week or so. We were spared for the most part in Leesburg as far as flooding goes. We did end up with a 12 foot deep sinkhole on Rt. 15 but thats about it. So, Kathleen and I did end up spending pretty good amount of time at the firehouse during the storms but nothing to exciting.

I havent heard anything back yet about the test I took last weekend. Hopefully I will hear next week sometime. Our air conditioning died on Sunday last week. It wasnt that bad since we werent home very much, but when we were it was about 85 or so upstairs. We have a home warranty so we had to go through them to get someone to come out and fix the A/C. The first people they reffered us to never answered the phone, then the second company couldnt seem to figure out the scheduling. Anyway, it finally got fixed yesterday. Bad fan motor and numerous other things. Luckily with the home warranty it only ended up costing $100 which was the deductible. Im sure it would have been several hundred without the warranty. In the course of being with no A/C in the house, I bought a window unit at Wal Mart. It was so hot upstairs I didnt have the patience to put all the screws in, mount it properly etc. So.. .its currently just in the window with the top part of the window holding it in place. Hopefully it will stay that way and not fall out the window onto our deck.

Last Wednesday I did a day shift at the firehouse covering for the career guys on the truck who were covering another part of the county. On my way out the house, I realized I was out of deodorant. (Yeah I know.. Too much information) I ended up using some of Kathleens "Secret" deodorant who always says " Strong enough for a man". Well, if I learned anything this week, its that Secret, in fact is NOT strong enough for a man.We did a drill for a group of kids who were going through a police department summer camp. They learn about police procedures, physical fitness etc. Anyway, we did an extrication demonstration where we cut a dummy out of a wrecked car using the Jaws of Life and the cutters. It was hot as hell outside, which wasnt very much fun with "Girlie" deodorant on. OK, thats the point of that whole story. LOL.

Kathleen is pretty excited, she has been pretty much obsessed with anything that is pink over the last year or so. Our friend David ( Yeah, the Mcdonalds car crasher) found a pink nomex hood for Kathleen to wear with her turnout gear. Im sure she'll get some looks the first time she wears that into a fire. hehe. Dont forget.. England VS. Portugal today in the world cup. I was born in England.. so since I cant support the U.S. team because they got their asses kicked. I'll stay with England.Well, I cant really think of anything else for this entry. I hope everyone has a safe 4th of July.



B