Today at the firehouse, we played kickball for about two hours in a park. Talk about 10 kinds of AWESOME. Kickball is definitely one of those games that I cherished, back in the day. I have nothing but good memories involving kickball, and today just reinforced the awesomeness that is kickball. We split up into two teams...the truck crew and half of the ambulance and medic crew vs. the engine crew and the other half of the ambulance and medic crew. It was a really high scoring games, with several home runs, grand slams, stolen bases, missed catches of fly balls and all other types of craziness! In the end my team lost, but I didn't care. It was so much fun!
Back at the firehouse, the rest of the day was spent eating leftover Thanksgiving dinner, watching football and taking naps. I also got to look up a bunch of recipes I want to try, as well as other things I'm going to try...WAY in the future. :)
I love my job.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
"Mo' Hotta, Mo' Betta!"
That's the motto of the firehouse that I'm working at today...Station 18, on the corner of Georgia Ave and Randolph Rd. And so far, despite the cold weather, it's definitely been a "hot" day!
Our first call of the day was for a basement fire. It turned out to be not much of a fire at all (an electrical outlet was just shorting out), but it was exciting! The next call was for a car accident with a person trapped inside their car. When we got there, this little car had lost control, ran off the road and banged into a tree. The guy inside was pretty beat up, with a probably broken leg and serious trauma to the chest. The rescue squad had to cut his car open to get him out. I got to pull a hoseline off our fire engine and stand by with it, in order to protect the other firefighters in case the car caught fire or exploded. They ended up getting him out just fine and whisking him away to the hospital. I hope he turned out ok.
In the afternoon, we went over to a neighboring fire station for some administrative business. While we were there, we got to run another call for a fire, but that was a false alarm. Excitement all around! The rest of the day has been fairly uneventful. When the truck company gets back from the call they're on, we're gonna watch "Nacho Libre." If anything cool happens from then until tomorrow, I'll be sure to update.
Our first call of the day was for a basement fire. It turned out to be not much of a fire at all (an electrical outlet was just shorting out), but it was exciting! The next call was for a car accident with a person trapped inside their car. When we got there, this little car had lost control, ran off the road and banged into a tree. The guy inside was pretty beat up, with a probably broken leg and serious trauma to the chest. The rescue squad had to cut his car open to get him out. I got to pull a hoseline off our fire engine and stand by with it, in order to protect the other firefighters in case the car caught fire or exploded. They ended up getting him out just fine and whisking him away to the hospital. I hope he turned out ok.
In the afternoon, we went over to a neighboring fire station for some administrative business. While we were there, we got to run another call for a fire, but that was a false alarm. Excitement all around! The rest of the day has been fairly uneventful. When the truck company gets back from the call they're on, we're gonna watch "Nacho Libre." If anything cool happens from then until tomorrow, I'll be sure to update.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
A Fireman's Turkey Day
Today is Thanksgiving! Being thankful, eating turkey, watching football, relaxing...will any of those things happen today? That remains to be seen...
My day started WAY early...3am to be exact. I woke up around then and couldn't get back to sleep. I tossed...nothing. I turned...nothing. I flipped and flopped...NOTHING. What a heck of a way to start the day, especially when I needed to wake up at 5am to get ready for work.
I got to work around 6a and started loading up for the 10k I'd be running later on. Every Thanksgiving, Montgomery County hosts its annual 10k Turkey Trot, a little 6.2 jaunt around Bethesda. It is routinely the biggest race in the county, with last year drawing around 5000 people. The weather was beautiful this morning, so it was looking like today would draw even more people, if not to run than definitely to cheer.
After line up, Melvin dropped me off at station 1 so I could ride with Chad Rogers down to the race on A701. We got there and saw what we usually see on race days: lots of people milling about, warming up, jogging, talking and stretching. We parked over by a large group of people wearing red shirts and blue sweatpants and shorts. Those people turned out to be the most recent fire department recruit class; they had all showed up to run! I don't think they had much choice in the matter, but it was great to see them showing support as a class. There were also various other fire department people there, including Dave Kennedy, who had been off for a while, recovering from being injured at a fire. It was good to see him up and about and he seemed in good spirits.
At 8:30a, the gun went off and we started running! The weather continued to stay beautiful, with a nice breeze hitting us every now and then. I felt good the entire race, and ended up finishing in 54 minutes, which wasn't too bad as far as I was concerned. When I finished, I saw Larocco and Price, which was cool because I had no idea they were there. We chatted for a bit, then headed our own separate ways. I met back up with Chad and, after dropping off a couple girls at Suburban Hospital (their friend hurt her ankle and got transported there), we headed back to 12. He dropped me off and I did the most important thing I could do at that time: EAT BREAKFAST!
Now I've eaten, showered, and am just chillin'. The recruits, after going back to the academy and showering, have been assigned to stations around the county to ride along for the rest of their day (5p). We've got three recruits...the one riding the ambulance with me has got a tattoo on the back of his head! But he's a pretty cool guy. To each his own, right?
My day started WAY early...3am to be exact. I woke up around then and couldn't get back to sleep. I tossed...nothing. I turned...nothing. I flipped and flopped...NOTHING. What a heck of a way to start the day, especially when I needed to wake up at 5am to get ready for work.
I got to work around 6a and started loading up for the 10k I'd be running later on. Every Thanksgiving, Montgomery County hosts its annual 10k Turkey Trot, a little 6.2 jaunt around Bethesda. It is routinely the biggest race in the county, with last year drawing around 5000 people. The weather was beautiful this morning, so it was looking like today would draw even more people, if not to run than definitely to cheer.
After line up, Melvin dropped me off at station 1 so I could ride with Chad Rogers down to the race on A701. We got there and saw what we usually see on race days: lots of people milling about, warming up, jogging, talking and stretching. We parked over by a large group of people wearing red shirts and blue sweatpants and shorts. Those people turned out to be the most recent fire department recruit class; they had all showed up to run! I don't think they had much choice in the matter, but it was great to see them showing support as a class. There were also various other fire department people there, including Dave Kennedy, who had been off for a while, recovering from being injured at a fire. It was good to see him up and about and he seemed in good spirits.
At 8:30a, the gun went off and we started running! The weather continued to stay beautiful, with a nice breeze hitting us every now and then. I felt good the entire race, and ended up finishing in 54 minutes, which wasn't too bad as far as I was concerned. When I finished, I saw Larocco and Price, which was cool because I had no idea they were there. We chatted for a bit, then headed our own separate ways. I met back up with Chad and, after dropping off a couple girls at Suburban Hospital (their friend hurt her ankle and got transported there), we headed back to 12. He dropped me off and I did the most important thing I could do at that time: EAT BREAKFAST!
Now I've eaten, showered, and am just chillin'. The recruits, after going back to the academy and showering, have been assigned to stations around the county to ride along for the rest of their day (5p). We've got three recruits...the one riding the ambulance with me has got a tattoo on the back of his head! But he's a pretty cool guy. To each his own, right?
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