Burn baby burn

It's been a long time since i posted anything here. that's largely because i haven't had that much going on. just working and going to fire school.

the fire classes are nearly done - final exam is two weeks from tonight. eeek.

now we're in the fun stuff. we're taking all of what we've done and actually crawling around burning buildings and such.



My team: Me,"Lightduty" and Becca

So last night we did some search and rescue in the burn building with live fire. we did it on the house and on the aparment building sides.




Searching the room for 'victims'. Me and Lightduty

It was pretty neat. The fires in some of the rooms were big enough that the flames were rolling over our heads on the ceiling. Not always a good thing. It was done on purpose of course so that a) we could experience it and b) put it out.

This is the fun stuff. it's made the class worthwhile. Of course I'll see more fire in the next two weeks than i likely will at the next two years at my station. (we don't have a lot of burning)..


photos courtesy Firefighter Tim Duckworth - thanks ducky

me so tired

so last night around 220am we got punched out for a house fire on route 50. it's the abandoned home just west of 28 right near the fairfax / loudoun county lines. we were the second due in engine (19 was first). Cool thing was it was actually in fairfax. oops! ;)


oh - it's hard to tell in this pic, but i'm on the crew on the front (side able) of the house with the hoseline.

wheeee





all i can say is this is some fun stuff.

great email quote

So apparently i'm on the membership committee at my firestation. I learned this via email today.

this, however, isn't the point to this brief post. there was a statement in the email that cracked me up.

Please note that it is with regret that we inform you that [name withheld], an approved candidate and prospective member suffered a cardiac arrest in our parking lot while attempting to attend a duty crew. He survived but to my knowledge is no longer considering membership with Arcola.

Ungrateful bastard. :P

Dammit Jim!

So the last few months i've been even more of a social hermit than normal. why? well a) my schedule from class takes up most of my time, and b) i'm terrified of going out doing something (riding 211, snowboarding (yeah i know - no snow... yet)) that dramatically increases my chance of injury.

Sounds silly, but recently i was called the most accident prone person on the planet by Andy.

Well his words were prophetic.

bastard.

Last night - while playing tag with my kitties, i ran up the stairs and heard (well mostly felt) a loud 'popping' sound from my lower left extremity. Basically i somehow tore the hell out of my achillies tendon right below my calf. ouch.

fortuntely, despite the perpetucal muscle cramping and the 'mild discomfort' I don't think it will prevent me from doing all my stuff in fireschool - just make me a little bit slower.

So much for playing it safe - who know playtime with cats had such risks?

You better watch out...

So last night I learned the value of attending the monthly membership meetings at my firestation. I was in class (which is going well - and keeps me too busy to post stuff here), and subsequently was unable to be at the meeting.

So now I'm going to be Santa Claus at our upcoming xmas parades.

Oh, the vote was unanimous.

Baldgit's Tip of the Day

Formerly known as Bingbong's Tip of the Day.

Brake rotors have sharp edges

Never use wet fingers to do 'detailing' inside your vehicle's rims lest you almost circumsize your finger.

fire!

this pic was from firehouse.com. it's from a fire up in canada. It's just really cool looking. great shot.

photo by Sarah McGoldrick

ooOOooOOoo

I just found my next car.

Now there's a footprint on my ass...

because my butt was totally kicked yesterday.

As I mentioned earlier, I went to Canada a couple weeks ago for a wedding, and subsequently missed one of my HAZMAT classes.

So yesterday I made up the class at my station courtesy the cunning machinations of our career captain Kevin Stiles.

Bascially we went to the schoolyard next door to their climbers and swing set things. The objective was to start on a picnic table, cross the swingsets over a large gap to some climber things, go up the slide, traverse the kid friendly climber obstacle course to the far end of the structure where there was a 45lb plate that had to be transported to the picnic table.

The minor details were we were in full PPE (personal protective equipment - the banana suit), masks/air packs on, could touch the ground and couldn't talk. We did however have a 14 foot roof ladder. Oh, it was also about 90 outside and sunny.

Well it kicked my ass, I got about 1/2way (up the slides and a little further) before the world went dark and I nearly passed out.

It was very educational. Got to see just how entirely out of shape I am. Capt Stiles went on the retrieve the weight and I helped him get it back after I cooled down and rested a bit. But still - my ass was thouroughly kicked.

Very educational. I think I'll be working out and such in my gear for the next while. Sounds silly, but I need to get more comfortable in it and make it a part of me.

I'm still knackered.

WTF? Microsoft is trying to patent 'emoticons'

Now this is fking ridiculous. At first I thought Amazon's 1 click patent was insane. Now this takes the cake.

My favourite company on the planet, Microsoft, is trying to patent the emoticon.

Thank god europe has the sense to disallow software patents.

It's a matter of time before someone tries to patent the chair to keyboard interface.

17 years later, he finally married the girl.

Well it finally happened.

This past Saturday, the (mostly) Reverend Wil Stonehill got married.

What more can I say?

The weekend was awesome!

The drive up to Canada was great – nice and relaxing with perfect weather (I took the back roads and avoided the interstates). I arrived nice and relaxed after only 9 hours of driving.
I got to see some old friends, and generally have a great time.
The Stag party was even fun – despite the groom not being a drinker and an Anglican minister. I won't go into any details in order to protect the guilty and their marriages. :) All I can say in this respect it that it was good to be back in Canada.

Anyway, I'm thrilled that Wil and Susan, years later, are finally together.

Yay!

It's worse than that, he's dead Jim.

Today, Canadian actor James Doohan aka Scotty, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise from the original series of Star Trek died today at 85.

Dammit Jim.

Doohan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, youngest of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, and his wife Sarah; his family later moved to Sarnia, Ontario where he attended high school at "SCITS", Sarnia Collegiate Institute and Technical School and excelled in math and science.

During World War II, he participated in the invasion of Juno Beach on D-Day as a captain with the Royal Canadian Artillery. At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. The chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case. Returning from the war, Doohan started his acting career with a CBC radio show appearance on January 12, 1946. He also enrolled in a drama class in Toronto, later he won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone.

[edit]

whoda thunk it...

so last night Andy and I decided to go for a bit of nostalgia and pop onto our old mud to see who was still around and goof off.

i looked at the message board in my old room and found a message dated tuesday may 5 1998 from andy in response to my looking at getting a bmw motorcycle...

"that motorbike is as hot at my pants.

theyre scary things though - one nudge and youre
pavement peanut butter. I'd go with the convertible
myself. I just think cars are more useful :)

_-//Andy"

Now that's funny on so many levels.

the _ultimate_ ipod accessory for women

Yes, that's right, someone's created a wearable vibrator that works in harmony with your music player. Strap the silicone butterfly in place, plug it into your favourite music player and get jiggy with the musical beat. It will also work in rhythm with external noises from stereos or club sound systems, so you'll be able to get into the... er... groove and get off on it all at the same time. Ah, the joys of modern living... If that's not an example of technology making life better, we don't know what is. Get yours from the excellently-named Grand Opening for $70.

Almost makes me wish i was a chick.

Paint it black

i'm a nerd.

no - really i am.

i'm sure this comes as a shock to you.

why (today) am i a nerd?

because i'm all excited about this keyboard I bought from Thinkgeek.com. the action on the keyboard is actually pretty nice - and i do enjoy the liberating feeling of not looking down to type. my typing speed is getting quicker. i love it.

Black is beautiful.

IKEA Phu><0rz!

Okay, you'd think i would learn from Andy's wonderful experiences at IKEA, but hey- i'm a dumbass.

So sunday i get up nice and early, call IKEA to see if they have the bit i need (i'm not that much of a dumbass), and upon receiving comfirmation - i'm off!

I get there, and of course they're out of stock. I just wanted a nice leather ottoman thing to be an ottoman/coffee table for my living room.

no joy.

so i made that 45 min drive each way, fought my way through birkenstock wearing lesbian couples, gnarly old men and their wives griping about prices as they (presumably) were shopping for their college freshmen daughters, and a small army of smelly foreign people who were looking get some good american/swedish deals to take back home(?) with them.

ikea blows monkeys.

Your secret is safe with us - promise!

this is a repost from the fine folks over at Attrition

If you get a phone call from your credit card company, do you give them your social security number? Your mother's maiden name? The soul of your first-born child? Do you think that the company that holds your personal information cares more about you than their own bottom line? Of course you don't. And of course they don't.

In a one month period, an estimated 40 million credit card numbers could have possibly been compromised. What do the companies in charge of your personal information have to say about it? Better yet... what is the media reporting? You won't get the same story on both sides, will you?

What is becoming a near weekly occurance, large companies are collecting your personal information (sometimes without your knowledge or consent), and subsequently letting it fall into the hands of the bad guys. This is your personal information; name, address, social security number, credit card number, and more sometimes. All of this information is invaluable to criminals who carry out identity theft crime every day.

---

Ten Most Recent

University of Southern California - [2005-07-09]
(270,000 people to be contacted regarding security breach) [update] [mirror]

Michigan State University - [2005-07-07]
(27,000 accounts possibly compromised) [mirror]

Iron Mountain - [2005-07-06]
(physical loss of backup tapes - 600,000 exposed) [update] [mirror] [mirror 2]

DSW Shoes - [2005-06-30]
(Unspecified customer information, FTC Chief is victim - 1.4 million card numbers exposed) [mirror]

Medica Health Plans - [2005-06-29]
(System administrators may have had access to 1.2 million member records) [mirror]

CVS Corp. - [2005-06-21]
(Information on millions of transactions possibly revealed) [mirror]

CardSystems (MasterCard, Visa, American Express) - [2005-06-19]
(13.9 million compromised, but "only" 68,000 at high risk?) [update] [mirror] [mirror 2]

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) - [2005-06-17]
(personal data of nearly 6,000 current and former employees stolen) [mirror]

Equifax Canada Inc. - [2005-06-17]
(605 consumer files breached - second breach in the last year) [mirror]

Motorola - [2005-06-13]
(Theft of computers containing names and Social Security numbers) [mirror]

********

And you people call me paranoid.

Vive la France (or not)

I have found the really and truly stupidest lawsuit of all time. Actually, someone from Groklaw found it and and i'm blatantly doing some cut 'n pasting.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald [sub req'd], a transit company is suing a group of ten cleaning women in France, because they are car pooling instead of continuing to use their service. The Guardian has the story too. The number comes from this French account. The transit company lawyers call that "unfair and parasitical competition." They are asking for damages, including fines and -- believe it or not -- confiscation of the women's cars.

I love this quote from the Guardian:

"Using our cars is quicker and at least twice as cheap. And on the bus we didn't have the right to eat or even to speak," said Martine Bourguignon.

Wow, you dont' have the right to speak? No wonder the women are carpooling. ;)

Wtf is going on with our society? Monopolies are using to courts to maintain their monopolies... Kinda like Microsoft using SCO to go after the GPL....

Real Life Tron...

I've seen a lot of weird game/reality crossovers ( i.e. real life monopoly in London), but this one is the coolest.

Remember the movie Tron? the first big CG movie?

Turns out some geeks managed to re-create the light-cycles game from Tron, but for real life.

That's really cool.

With some minor mods, one could do it with motorcycles....

Hmmmm

Arcola's Angels

So yesterday a couple of us from my station, along with a whole slew of 1st responders from DC and Maryland got together in downtown DC for a photoshoot.

We were part of what will be a poster campaign for the Emergency Preparedness Initiative

The Emergency Preparedness Initiative will be launching a national awareness campaign in September as part of National Preparedness Month. Part of this campaign will include a poster that will include first responders and people with disabilities photographed together, as "partners".
There will be approx 100,000 posters sent across the country. Pretty cool!

The photographer was a guy called Earl Dotter who is apparently a rather famous photographer. I’ll post some pics when I get copies from the shoot. It was pretty damned fun then.

Special thanks to Jessica and Kymber who came with me – we needed more 1st responder chicks in uniforms.

Gang 9

it seems that a bunch of us from my firestation have bikes. So our chief thought that we should pose for a picture. So we did. Unfortunately not everyone showed us with their bikes. But this is what we have - oh - click on the pic for a bigger copy.

and yes, i know there are more people than bikes, but the other guys we kind enough to help us clean the engine and such, and we're all on the same team etc etc - we took the pic together.

Notional Identity

The 4th of July just passed – a big celebration of freedom and independence. As a dual citizen of Canada and the UK, living in the US during their Independence Day is always interesting. But hey, I live here, I love it, and as they say in those tacky Louis Lamour westerns, “I ride for the brand."

From what i remember about history, the American Revolution was about freedom. So I got to thinking – what is freedom to an American?

Well in the US – there are 3 basic documents that hold the tenets of freedom:

United States Constitution
Declaration of Independence
Bill of Rights

There is a deeper question here though – Freedom to do what? Or Freedom from whom?

I personally believe that a person should be free to do as they desire, so long as their actions don't impede the freedoms of another. In other words – what I do in my own home is my business. Most Americans would agree with this philosophy I think (despite the legislation on drugs and such – but that's a topic for another time).

So if what I do in my home is my own business, this begs the question then Freedom from Whom?

The obvious answer is freedom from government intervention. The American Revolution was also based on the Great Awakening and ironically the Enlightenment. In many ways, these were mutually exclusive belief systems, but then this is the idea of freedom right?

Either way, the concept was one of freedom from Tyranny.

So what's Tyranny?

In the original Greek meaning "tyrant" carried no ethical censure, a tyrant was anyone who overturned the established government of a city-state, usually through the use of popular support, to establish himself as dictator, or the heir of such a person.

But today it seems to mean:

The term now carries connotations of a cruel despot who places their own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population of the state over which they govern.
Upon reading that definition – it got me to thinking about some of the issues that are going on right now that deal with freedom.

For example, back in the UK, there's a lot of debate going on about the UK's National Identity Card programme. (More information is available here, and opposition information here)

Aside from the huge cost (according to the LSE it will cost approx $500USD per ID card – and each person pays for their card.

Why is a National ID Card a good idea?

ID Cards don't prevent terrorism
ID Cards don't prevent Identity Theft
ID Cards aren't cheap
ID Cards can be forged
ID Cards make us less secure

Here is some some funny flash animation that also helps explain the issues.

What does this have to do with those us of living the US? Tons actually.

A US National ID card was recently slipped into a “must pass" appropriations bill. This means that soon a US National ID card is coming to you.

So looking at the big picture...

National ID Cards
warrant-free 'sneak and peek' law enforcement investigations
road surveillance cameras being installed everywhere
clandestine biometric surveillance
Patriot Act II – who needs judicial overview anyway?
Echelon
Carnivore
RFID Tags in passports
No Fly Lists
RFID Tags in consumer goods


Hmm... There's a pattern here, but I can't seem to find it.

Bottle Caps as WMD

So Friday I was at RFK Stations watching the Nationals beat the Blue Jays. (bastards)

While at the game, I of course ordered the traditional hotdogs ($4 each) and some water bottles ($3 each).

They handed me the dogs and the water bottles, but only after taking off their caps.

"Can I have the caps please, I don't want to spill the water as my hands are full."

"Sorry sir, we have to take them for security reasons.

WTF!?

The threat from bottle caps is real my friends. At the Republican convention in NYC last year, they also banned water bottles at the Republican convention last September.

So next time you see someone in a public place drinking water, and smugly putting the cap back on the bottle - be even more alert because you never know - they might be a terrorist.

Speed anyone?

and I'm not talking about the kind on my bike...


Seems on monday at the firehouse we had a special agent from the Drug Enforcement Agency Clandestine Lab team come and give us a presentation.

It was pretty sweet. Seems that meth labs are more and more commend, and a few hundred first responders are killed everyyear because of them. This is why they came to teach us what the indicators are and who to call when we find one.

I also learned a couple neat things....
1)apparently the term for meth heads are "Tweekers"
2) how to do a one pot cook of speed in a 2 litre bottle in only an hour.

Neat stuff...

Exam Update

Last week I mentioned that I had an exam that i didn't want to take. Well i got the results back the other day.

Apparently i got the 2nd highest mark in the class.

wtf!

must have been a dumb class. Glad i won't be fighting fires side-by-side w/ those people.

Another great American Icon fades...

Looks like the company that makes Hostess Twinkies is going bankrupt.

What a sad ending to an American Icon that began in the 1930s will soon fade away.

And no, stocking up on them won't work. Apparently they really don't last forever.

Bummer. I remember when a Pepsi and a pack of Twinkies was the breakfast of champions.

98% done

Moving sucks.

Almost done.

Special thanks to Lara and Mark for your help this weekend. You guys rock.

Today after work - I'll grab the last couple things...

then the art of unpacking-fu will be needed.

bleh.

Moving sucks.

Ouch! Medic!

So last night I was asked to go to the Loudoun County Fire Academy” to help out the EMT B class with their County EMT exam by being a 'trauma patient.' It was pretty fun.

They gave me some old clothes (to be cut up) and gave me a mock 'flailed chest' injury. Most of the teams that 'treated' me were pretty decent. One team from 6 were very good.

The sucky part of course is that the pressure bandage used to treat the 'wound' is taped to my bare chest.

My bare, moderately furry chest.

Ouch.

So now I have a partial wax job courtesy Loudoun County.

Ouch indeed.

Exam Day!

so tonight i have an exam.

At least i think i do.

it's for this class that my fire chief wanted me to go to. it's been fun - but with my having been ill (bronchitis a couple weeks back), new job (i actually have to do things at this one), and moving (my house is sold next monday), i missed a couple classes.

fortunately i already an very solid in the material (fire behaviour etc).

unfortunately, i don't know if i can actually take the exam because i might not have the hours.

the saturday before last was 'a make up class' - i went and no one showed. i probably went to the wrong station.

this class has gone horribly awry, but hopefully i'll be able to sit the exam and even more hopefull i'll know enough to pass it.

bleh.

My hovercraft is full of eels

حَوّامتي مُمْتِلئة بِأَنْقَلَيْسون

Tacky, but funny

I just read this post from Andy's Blog. I agree, it's pretty damned funny.

Farewell "Old Man"

it is with much sadness that I was notified that one of my fellow firefighters from my station passed away at 0345 this morning at Arlington Hospital. Perry "Old Man" Clark succumbed to an unknown brain tumor. He had been suffering from migraines lately and still helped out at our open house last weekend before going home to rest.

Farewell Old Man, may the gods reward you for your years of selflessness in serving others with the fire service.

I'm in heaven.

Can i just say that i already love my new job? the people are cool, and finally i'm with a project that has some of the same techno/religious beliefs that i do. I.e. one of the mandates is to use 'open source solutions such as linux' wherever feasible.

wow.

no more meetings where 'yes we agree that this linux. solution that you're proposing will in fact save us a few million dollars, is much easier to manage remotely and yes the NSA believe that it far more secure, but we're going to go with WinXP because of look and feel. The irony is that the smegheads i worked for have "information and technology for better decision making" on their homepage.

Since when Department of Defense care more about look and feel than National Security? Too funny. This was why i left and went to the treasury project from hell. The only good thing about the treas gig was the commute. MUCH shorter than going towards the pentagon.

Yeah, it's a year later and i'm still bitter about that. wankers.

Point is, i think i might finally be happy with my new job.

(and yes, it really is 5am - i couldn't sleep - sick as a dog with a cold/flu thing)

/rant

Come join the Dark Side

So I'm going back to the Dark Side. Treasury sucked big time. I really really really didn't like my job there. I didn't do anything.

Ya know Bob, I'd say that in a giv en week I only do about 15 minutes of real work.

Happily this is about to change. Tomorrow morning I report to a facility near Fair Lakes where I begin what at all accounts appears to be a dream job. I can't wait. Rumour has it I might actually get an office!

I'll update tomorrow (maybe)....

For Sale By Owner

Well i'm finally getting around to updating this. I put my townhome for sale. I'm leaving the overly un-stimulating South Riding for an equally exciting suburban hell called Stoneridge here fun Loudoun County.

Good news is that I'm asking $75k more than I paid last year.

I'm selling it myself because the realtors would eat $27k of my profits (leeches!) It's cheaper for me to pay the mortgage for a year than to use one of those blood suckers.

So the new place is a nice 2 bedroom condo. 2 levels, and a 1 car garage (nice place to park the bike). It's a model unit so it has a nice kitchen, hardwood floors, fireplace, etc etc. It's loaded. I really need to paint though - the model designer had a neat idea in what they were trying to do with colours, but they... well they missed. So time to paint before I move in (hopefully next weekend)...

Other good news is that despite the loss of the tax benefits of home ownership, I'm still saving like 40% on my montly expenses.

Other other good news is it's closer to my firestation.

Bad news is it's slightly further commute to my new job (more on that soon)...

Perchance to dream...

Okay, I found the bike of my dreams. While she isn't as fast as the R1, 1000rr or the ducs, she just looks hot and menacing. I want one.

Shame they're like $43k. Oh well, I'll just ride one in my dreams, kinda like i do with Ziyi Zhang

Protective Hearing Equipment Required

So last week I went for some Pho with Smith. We were both on our bikes - him on his new R1, and my on my lil 'ol blackbird. We fired up our rides, his roared into life, and then smoothed down into a meanacing soft grumble, whereas mine just whimpered softly.

Well not anymore.

I managed to find some D&D slip-ons for my bike. OMG.

L O U D

I went for a small spin down the road, and wow - my bike sounds super loud. I like the sound though. While i don't think i'll ever ride without earplugs or my ipod with my awesome headphones for fear that i'll damage my hearing. Seriously.

But hey - they're still fun.

Anyway, but to the pre-open house cleaning obsession....

I'm too sexy for my hose

A recent survey showed that being a firefighter is the sexiest job in the U.S. While I can understand the romantic view, it's not all that sexy.

Consider the hoses pictured above. Now imagine rolling them up after a big fire, loading them onto the fire engine, and taking them back to the station. Then you get to unroll them, pressure wash them (BOTH sides) and then pressure test them and put them back on the apparatus. (And yes, I did this last night)

Nothing sexy about that.

However, Some things are fun. Last night (in between hose washings), we did an extrication drill. We had a donated car that we got to cut up.



So we had the car on it's side with an imaginary victim inside it. Then the fun began...



And Voila - insta-Audi convertible. All in all it took about 15 minutes to stabilize the vehicle, and 5 mins to cut through the windshield, and cut the roof off. It was pretty fun.

The other neat thing is we had a couple people drop by because they were interested in joining, talk about giving the wrong impression. They might actually think we do cool things all the time.

brief update...

a couple of quick things....

got a new fairing piece for my bike. it's installed and the bike almost looks new. just need new bolts and i'm a happy camper. Pics to come.

also decided to put my townhome on the market. Even with capital gains tax i should come out well ahead. looks like i will get that CBR1000RR or a Ducati 999s after all....

did some gardening for the first time. planted some yellow, purple and orange things. the purple things are growing, an orange thing bloomed and well the yellow ones... who knows. I have some pics, i'll post those when i'm not so lazy.

a sad day for canadians

Canada's 'Sad' Beer Calamity

Thursday, April 07, 2005

A beer truck flipped over on a roadway overpass in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Monday, prompting local officials to comment on the tragedy.

"It is sad," Capt. Scott Logan of the Halifax Regional Fire Service told Halifax's Daily News. "Chances are they won't recover any of the beer."

The truck, hauling 46,368 bottles of Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale, skidded to a stop against the overpass's guardrail, luckily avoiding a 50-foot plunge down to another road.

The female driver was pulled out of the cab uninjured — "more frazzled than hurt," according to Logan — letting rescuers focus on the calamitous aspects of the disaster.

"I had a tear in my eye, actually, when I was watching it," said police Constable Mark Hobeck. "It was full of beer. We were hoping a Hostess truck full of pretzels would come by, but no such luck."

**

gotta love canadians.

DAMMIT!

Track Event Registration

Summit Point Motorsports Park, Main Course

Monday, April 25, 2005

Choose an option.

	Level:	Introductory - Try out NESBA by riding in the first 2 sessions of the day at no cost to you.
	Price:	Free
	Availability:	This level is full. If you choose to register for this level, you will be placed on a waiting list. If space becomes available, NESBA will contact you in the order in which you were placed on the list.

	Level:	Beginner
	Price:	$160.00
	Availability:	This level is full. If you choose to register for this level, you will be placed on a waiting list. If space becomes available, NESBA will contact you in the order in which you were placed on the list.

	Level:	Intermediate

WARNING:

A school in Australia has recently banned iPods because they cause children to be antisocial.

So what wrong with this? Us geeks like to have a place to hide from time to time - and the iPod allows us a social construct whereby we can escape from the real world, but still be a part of it.

There is the downside though... consider two people on the Metro... They sit down beside each other, their eyes meet, they smile. She shyly says, 'hi.' He is blissfully unware because he's wearing an iPod.

Okay - so she just wants her students to get laid. Fair enough. Maybe if they introduce bluetooth so ipod wearers can go toothing while they groove.

Snow more boarding this year....

So this weekend, Andy, Dallas, and Chris (aka Cleon) and I went to celebrate Andy's Stag party. One year later.

Anyway, happily iIsurvived my novice attempts at riding my face down the mountain while strapped onto a snowboard. I think the only casualties over the weekend were livers.

More importantly, it was an awesome time. Andy talks about it in his blog and did a most excellent and humourous photo blog.

So someone else needs to get married so we can do this again... Dallas? you're closer than the rest of us...

oh yeah, i passed

btw, i forgot to mention that last saturday i passed EVOC II and III.

Seems i'm now legally allowed to drive class 2 (ambulances and such) and 3 (fire engines) emergency vehicles in the state of virginia with lights and sirens and such.

class one is included - so i can drive cop cars too. not legally though, cause i'd have to steal one first.

This time for sure... maybe.

While eating a good nutritious breakfast and checking email in my cube... I come across a long awaited email.

It would appear that Andy's Snowboard Bonanza Weekend is a go. This will be the 3rd attempt. The first one (April 2004?) was cancelled because it was 70 outside and raining. The last time we checked mudboarding isn't an official sport yet (though with bikinis it might work), so we rescheduled for sometime around the 1st weekend in December. It's always cold and snows in December right?

bollox.

3^rd time is a charm. Unfortunately the numbers dwindle with each attempt. I think that there will only be 4 or 5 of us now. I have to thank the other guys who prepaid as well for keeping my costs down.

So this weekend, 7 Springs will phear the wrath of bald boarders! iPods on standby!

this offer void where prohibited by shite weather

Ted...

When I was young (around 9) I was arrested for shoplifting at a store called Simpson's. Shame on me! Turned out that my brief and unsuccessful run of kleptomania had a good benefit.

I was paired up with a Big Brother. This is one of those stories where the Big Brothers / Big Sisters organizations truly made a huge difference in a kid.

My Big Brother's name is Ted. Ted is a professional Stained Glass Artist. He rocks.

I've known Ted now for over 25 years. He was probably the single most influencial adult male in my life. Through Ted I learned to appreciate the innate beauty (or "glory") that is found in what sometimes appears to be the most obvious yet overlooked places in life.

One of the things I respected Ted for was his willingness to put his own adulthood aside, and run around in the woods playing 'guns' or 'swords' with toy guns and swords he helped me make that morning in his woodshop (we did have a pretty fine sword design made out of quarter round). From him I learned to make stained glass windows, 'cheese dreams', wine from grapes we picked at his brothers (nasty stuff, but hey - it was good cause we made it).

Ted would also discuss life, the universe and everything with me as though I were an adult. Subsequently my little mind started to ask questions and think about life in a more profound way.

One of my favourite memories was taking Ted up to the Computer Science Deparment at the University where my Mum worked. We would spend hours arguing about the meaning of life on an old PDP 11 and the ultimate Dr. Phil predecessor - Eliza.

I guess I'm writing this because I'm not sure Ted knows just how much of an impact he had in my life.

Ted, in a word, thanks.

I owe you more than you'll ever truly know, and I am so very thankful.

WI hunter wants open season on feral cats

The original link for this story is here.

An enterprising hunter in Wisconsin, in his infinite wisdom, has come up with the bright idea to have the state legislature delcare cates an unprotected species which would allow them to be hunted down and shot by anyone with a small game license.

Firefighter and hunter Mark Smith says that free-roaming cats are an invasive species that attack wild birds.

As you can imagine, cat-lovers everywhere are horrified, to the point of putting together a website, DontShootTheCat.com.

"I would hate to think that tame, owned cats who happen to slip out would be at risk of being deemed a wild, unprotected species," said Sheri Carr, senior humane officer at the Dane County Humane Society. "It's a delicate (ecological) balance out there, but does that mean people should be able to shoot their neighbor's cat? Probably not."

Okay...

a) this law is ridiculous
b) the guy proposing is a firefighter? WTF?! I guess his real motive is based on his being too lazy to get the ladder trucks out to rescue the poor kitties, he'd rather just shoot them out of the trees instead.

RIP old friend

so it's official. My centre channel on my primary recevier is DOA. My lovely little Harman Kardon AVR 7000 that I've had since 1999. It's lived a good life - almost 6 years of endless DVDs, PS2 and Xbox gaming...



Farewell dear friend.

Now - just what do i replace it with? I need something with at least 4 fibre inputs, 4 component inputs, i'm all for a nice 7.1 sound and a 'night-time' option.

even better if the universal remote is actually universal.

*sigh* yet something else that gets in the way of the hardwood flooring projects....

mmMMmmMMmm Bacon.....

What guy doesn't love bacon? I know I do. I know my 688|< friends do. So much so that we even named our Defcon team bac0n. The other day, someone posted to pantsfactory (a site run by some bac0n guys) a link to here:



The link says it all.

more fun at the firehouse

so last night was drill night. most fun i've had in ages. We did some "RIT" (rapid intervention team) training. More commonly known as 'firefighter down' drills. Ironic since on Sunday at a structure fire 4 firefighters were injured (all have been discharged from hospital since).

So we moved all the apparatus out of the bays, rearranged the insides a bit (made a maze/obstacle course), filled it with smoke and then did a few drills.

it was pretty sweet. No visibility, lots of crap to get in your way - pretty realistic.

the first drill was the disorentation drill. basically we were brought in with our hoods over our masks so we couldn't see, then we were randomly placed in the room, spun around and told to find the door.

the next one was the firefighter down drill. the scenario was a firefighter was lost, injured and out of air. we had to find him quickly, give him a new airpack and drag his butt out. of course our team got on the heavier guys in the station. talk about heavy lifting - ouch. Though when you think about it, it is likely to be the heavier guys that have these types of incidents.

All i can say is this stuff is damned fun.

When boyhood dreams come true

So last night I saw a boyhood dream come true. I finally drove a fire engine.

I'm currently training for my "Emergency Vehicle Operator Course - Levels II and III" (EVOC) so I can legally drive ambulances and fire apparatus with the lights and sirens and such in response to the fire and rescue dispatches.

Our Fire Chief took a couple of us out last night so we could drive some courses and such before our test this week. On the way to the training area (a large school parking lot where it's hard to hit things) we had a call for a structure fire. Figures. Normally that's the sort of thing we live for (otherwise why be a firefighter?) but last night I was pissed (the american definition - not the british one) because the class is next week and I need some practice time behind the wheel. Fortunately we weren't on scene for too long and we were able to get the training done.

I'm all excited. I drove a fire engine. Scary thing is - I did a decent job of it.

The tricky bit was the Chief setup a small course. Basically 3 traffic cones in a straight line just over one fire engine length apart. The object was the navigate forward through it, and then back up through it.

I got it in one! *flex* Wtf!?

So let's see if I pass the state tests this week. Classes are tuesday, thurs, sat and sun at the Loundon County Fire and Rescue Training facility.

My old friends....

and when i mean old - egad - they are old now. A good friend of mine (we've been friends for approx 18 yrs) just turned 40. He's the second one to do that.

When i went up to Canada last summer to see some of these old friends i started to feel really old. granted i'm only 35, but some of the old gang had kids that were nearly the same age we were when we all me.

It's pretty interesting to see the cycle of life like that. A whole new generation. Wow.

Anyway, happy birthday My Mother's Other Son Chris...

They're heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere

Yesterday my gran and her hubby arrived all safe and sound. Yay.

She was even sweet and brought me some home made scottish short bread (being scottish it was a natural thing for her to do). Some reisling from my favourite canadian vinyard, and some cool photos (more on those later this week.

Then, surprise of all surprises, she brings out a small bottle of Jaeger. "I thought maybe we could do some shots of this later," she said. I was then instructed to place it in the freezer for later.

So tonight, i'll be doing jaeger shots with my gran.


*boggle*

My poor bike is a little tire-d

yesterday, while enjoying the lovely weather on my bike - I noticed my rear tire was slipping a little bit. This morning i remembered to have a look at it (i forgot to check it out when i got home yesterday).

Seems my tires has a bald strip down the middle - much like my head.

So I think i found the tires i want.

My bike needs 120/70 ZR17 in the front and 180/55 ZR17 in the back. The front tire has some life left in it, but i might as well replace them both at the same time.



I was going to do a spring tune up on it, but if i'm having new tires put on, i might as well just have the boyz do it.

Considering I don't think i'm going to buy that repsol this year, I'm thinking it might be time to put in a jet kit, new pipes, filter and such on mine... Time to change the purr into a roar.

Hey Smith / D - any suggestions? you guys are the mod fanatics. Unfortunately, the tobefast.com guys don't deal with my blackbird. :(

Hell's Grannies

The clock is ticking and my impending doom is nigh.

Yes, it's true. My Grandmother will be in town next week.



And so the panic of finishing the little projects i haven't done on my home begins. I still have some shelves to put up in the bathroom, a power problem to solve in my garage, carpets to shampoo... the list goes on.

Actually she's not that bad. She is unintentionally pretty cool. She sent an email to the family last year announcing that she was now married. How often do you hear of 70something year old grans eloping, and then sending the announcement via email? i love it.

Time to ride to work, the weather is far too nice to be driving in a cage.

American Dad...

okay, I was skeptial that Seth McFarlane would be able to repeat his Family Guy magic with his new show - American Dad. OMG, i was completely wrong. It is an excellent parody of the current local (US and DC) politik, paranoia and such.

I wish I had a corset on for my sides had split.


The pilot episode of American Dad was on Adult Swim last night at 11.30pm. Then Fox is showing it again on March 6th at 9.30pm. So now there is no excuse for you to not have seen this episode at least once. Make sure you see it so it doesn't die an untimely death like Family Guy did.

Just be warned, it's pretty sick, twisted, and inappropriate.

How awesome is that?

Btw, happy valentine's day

In South Riding, no one can hear you scream

So what is it with South Riding. It's an incredibly unusual place. It's a cross between Pleasantville and the Stepford Wives town. I've enjoyed it as my neighbours are pretty decent ( some are smokin hotties as well!), and my property values have already gone up 10% since july.

Problem is, it's dreadfully dull. And i guess this is a good thing. There is almost no crime, and there are only 25% of the normal EMS / Firefighter calls that is 'normal' based on our population, density and general demographics.

More importantly, I have a neighbour who has offered to help me build a custom motorcycle from the ground up. _this_ i am looking forward to. It's time to pull my head out and start working on the design so i know what i need to order and start ordering it. springtime is coming soon.

Anyway, time to sleep.

Lazy or boring?

Here's my dilemma – either I'm a lazy blogger, or I'm a really boring mofo. Neither one is particularly appealing. I would like to think that I'm neither lazy nor boring, but I won't say anything one way or another as I think my friends would have a field day with that one.

So let's analyze my week...

Work – well – nothing ever happens there. I sit in a cube. I spend time on conference calls with my phone on mute while doing an MST3K style commentary.

On the other hand, this week at the fire station, I was running on the EMS side instead of firefighting. I'm going to be the driver on Thursdays so I need to spend some more time with that side of the house.

I got to help transport a 1 yr old boy to the hospital who had a 103.4 fever and had had some pretty nasty seizures. And on Friday night I was working with a 22 yr old Indian woman who swallowed approx 26 prescription sleeping pills on purpose after a 'minor tiff' with her husband. That call was pretty freaky. Not only that, she of course vomited en masse. However, being the good EMS low ranking peon that I am, I turned her towards me instead of the Rescue Department's Chief. Fortunately it was 99% water (imagine regurgitated mango lassi!!) so it didn't smell too bad. Plus I managed to dodge the flow while keeping her pulse-ox and the ABP on her and more importantly, dry.

Not bad for a n00b.

Know I know I was told to keep a spare uniform in my car when I run EMS. Gotta admit, it feels good being right there to really help someone, no matter how messed up the situation is.

So back to the original question...

Lazy? sure. Boring, probably. But at least's I'm a boring lazy guy who works his non-existent ass off doing some really cool stuff.

Time for some ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Yes it's true, cats do prefer Linux

In a completely unscientific study, i have determined that cats do prefer Linux over Microsoft operating systems

With two laptops sitting side by side, one running Linux (my personal one) and one running XP (my work machine), my cat Baal chose the Linux one.



Not only is he 0ld 5kul3 (that's "old school" in "leet speak" for you llamas) enough that he rebooted into single user mode, because he's too l33t for a gui.



That's my boy.

Regret has finally passed (well, for now)

With the pseudo-winter we've had here the last fortnight, i've pretty much overcome the regret from one of the harder decisions i've had in the last while. That decision was to trade my old (well almost spanking new) car for my new SUV. Yes, in many ways it was a transition to 'yuppiedom,' but i had to do it. Owning a home and having only a motorcycle and a nice two seater isn't really productive. So i pulled the trigger and got the SUV.



I have to give props to BMW for the X5. It actually handles really well, has mucho room in the rear seats (which, incidentally are heated with their own climate control), it really handles well on ince/snow. This is something I _know_ the SL500 doesn't do.

Sometimes i still dream about the red machine, but i have to admit, right now - with snow and ice everywhere, 4 wheel drive, heated steering wheel/seats and amazing traction is a nice soothing balm.

of course, when summer comes i'm sure it'll be a whole other story.

An ode to manliness

Despite the technological and politically correct tendencies of our society today, I feel that some manly rituals need to be preserved. Specifically a ritual all post pubescent males do almost everyday day.

Single, married or otherwise entangled, it's something we all do and it's nothing we need to be ashamed of. It's time to get it out in to the open - no need to be ashamed any longer.



And yes, i'm talking about shaving. Say no to the hightech-tripled-blades-vibrating-techno razors. Get back to basics. Use a real razor.

Shaving shouldn't be about scraping fuzz off your face as quickly as you can - it should be a celebration of manhood. A time of contemplation, of reflection and meditation. It's one of the few times where a man can truly indulge himself, and still be considered manly.

All you need is a good razor, badger hair brush, shaving oil, thick shaving cream, mirror and most of all, an alum block for those inevitable lacerations when you're learning.

The history of shaving dates back to 30,000 BC when men were real men and shaved with flint blades. Say no to the triple blades jezebels, the 4 bladed floozies (isn't Quattro Italian slang for expensive?) and become one with your manly roots.

Be a man again. Shave like one.