what are you/did you do for new years eve?

Well, since New Year's Eve is also my wife's birthday, we had most of the family and some friends at the house. I got an outdoor fireplace for my birthday earlier in the week so the guys sat out on the patio and I grilled chicken, built a fire in the fireplace, and we smoked cigars. We enjoyed a dinner of grilled chicken, baked potatos, salad, rolls, and birthday cake for dessert. The kids treated us to a fireworks show at midnight and we toasted in the New Year.

I enjoyed a Montecristo Platinum Robusto, a Cusano C18, and an Anejo Shark.

Bikeman, I'll trade places with you. I really don't think you're missing anything, and in 9-11 years, I'd like to be in a place a lot like where you're at.

Not that I observe New Year's, because I don't, and I wouldn't be caught within 70 miles of Times Square last night, or any other December 31st. Did the Times Square thingy with my mother and little sister for 1971-2. You're not missing anything.

Let me start off by wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous New Year.

It's not often that I use worked and firehouse in the same sentence. It's so enjoyable most days that it doesn't feel like work. I hope Capt had a better day than I did.

I was at the firehouse yesterday. I showed up around 6:30 and by 7AM I was crawling around a burning building. Well, what better way to start off your day?! Kind of get it out of your system and let's concentrate on enjoying the rest of the day. A handfull of other silly runs kept us busy most of the day, but we were able to watch a good amount of football. I got in a nice early workout. I was kind of amazed that I had so much energy after having the fire in the morning. Guess the adrenaline was still pumping. Had a nice lunch of Corned Beef...it's a Saturday tradition in Chicago and the house I'm at is very old fashioned so we stick with most of the old traditions.

Then just before dinner we went out for what shoudl've been a small garbage room fire that turned into a huge cluster. High Rise! Ever since 9/11 we've taken them more seriously. Personally I don't like them. Seems the extra 20-30 pounds around the middle want to be carried up and down the stairs. Not to mention they are big, it's easy to get lost...blah, blah, blah! We make it to 10 and find fire...ok, let's go to work. We seem to have it under control. We open some windows, stay close to the floor and the smokes not much of an issue for long. You can feel the crap floating around in your lungs. I know I should've put my mask on, but it wasn't too bad at first. Then, my Capt pulls me out of the fire room and asks me if "Wino" is on Eng 54 today. I tell him he should be. He looks me direct in the eyes and tells me 54 is trapped on 19 or 20. Wino and I worked together on Eng 61 for 5 years before they put us out of service. I look back at my pipeman. My Capt, tells me not to worry about him, he'll back him up and I should go find Wino. My Capt understands...he came from 61 as well. Needless to say I have NEVER made it up nine or ten floors any faster. I get up there and find 54 huddled in a corner of a fire room. They aren't really trapped, they are just out of air and not in a good spot to make any moves. A few other guys get up there with the same urgency. We let the guys get a few breaths, and it's time to reposition. By the time we're done moving to a better spot more companies are getting there with extra air bottles and some quick changes and 54 is back in action. Then I find out Wino is off. DAMN! But, still good to know I helped those guys, they would've done the same thing for me. I hook up with my Capt somewhere around 11 or 12 and he tells me we gotta search for any victims. Man, my foot still hurts from kicking down doors. I couldn't believe it when we started finding kids all by themselves in the apartments. Luckily in a 20 plus floor building there was only about two or three kids that seemed to be in any real danger. I saw one of the guys from my hook and ladder walking down the stairs carrying two kids. He looked more shot than I was. I was a very happy guy when my Capt told me it was time to go pick up our hose and head back to the rig. We got our stuff all wrapped up and hung around for a while making sure everything was out and no more searches were needed. We got this fire just before dinner was ready. The pizzas were pushed back until after the fire. Thankfully. We probably would've just puked up dinner if we had ate. Besides, the cook never had guys so happy to eat. Then to top things off I had the watch and ended up being up most of the night sending the ambulance out and letting them back in besides a good hanfull of runs throughout the night for us on the Engine. Like the girl who had been stabbed in the neck with a piece of glass by her boyfriend. Thankfully her drunkeness made it a bit easier. Had she been sober she might've realized how bad off she was. You got guys stabbing their girls in the neck with a piece of glass and I can't find a girlfriend? I gotta start stabbing or shooting them...let them know I really care. When I finally fell asleep around 4AM I was beat. Then we got woke up for a fire at 5AM! All the way there I was praying for a false alarm, I just didn't know if I had anything else in the tank. It was, seems someone came home and put some food on the stove and passed out. Cool, back to sleep. 5:30 another fire run and same thing. What's the point of going back to sleep at this point! I haven't been that happy to leave the firehouse in a long time. Reminds me of my days on the ambulance. I came home and took a nice nap. Make up a bit for last night. I'm sure tonight will be pretty early as well.

As far as cigars, I had a Hoyo DC and a custom rolled Salamon that Hamlet gave me on my last trip to Cuba. I started it after we finished dinner and cleaning up around 11PM and finished it around 12:30.

What a way to start off the new year!
You gotta stay in the mix in 2006!

Be safe everyone.

I thank The Lord Jesus for the REAL heroes in life. Thank you RingMaster, for all you are and what you do. And all those like you, here and everywhere.

Hey Bloof, I ain't no hero. Just a dude doing his job. It's what I've wanted to do all my life and I wouldn't have it any other way. Besides...nobody becomes a hero until you're put in a position where you have to do something that makes you a hero.

Ringmaster, I am tired just reading that. Good job man!! I love the firehouse stories!

Right, you're no hero. And I'm the second coming of John Holmes. :cryinlaugh:

Damn Bloof...use that log! Don't let it go to waste.

Capt, we got a saying...I feel like a bag of broke dicks! After dinner, my cigar, watching the new years countdown shows, especially the one on Telemundo, it was around 1AM everyone went to bed and I was ready to get some sleep, but the Ambulance kept going in and out and that meant I had to be awake to open or close the door for them. It was around 3AM when I thought...screw it, I'm up for the night. I was so tired, trying to sleep on the couch that I couldn't get comfortable and fall asleep. Then at 3 or so, the Alarm Terminal went down and the Alarm Office couldn't get it back in service, now they were going to dispatch us over the alpliphier system or phone as last resort. Now, I had to sleep closer to the control panel so I could wake up to a voice and not the computer tones. I came straight home this morning and cuddled up in my bed with a hot pad on my back, it was all jacked up. Probably from working out and the fires, but sleeping on an uncomfortable couch and in a chair didn't make matters any better. At least I won't have the watch for a few months.

Yo Bloof, as I was typing this I was thinking...I WISH I WAS the second coming of John Holmes...a single guy like me needs all the help I can get. I wish we could switch it up...you could be a fireman . Some guys have all the luck.

Are you KIDDING!!! I WASN'T being for real. I WISH. :mrgreen:

I'd be posting somewhere else, not here. :sm_angel:

Anyway, as The Moderator Most Likely To Be Reprimanded, any further references to certain subject materials will have to be relegated to PM's, as we have pushed the envelope of what's discussable here to the sidelines. We run a PG-13 establishment here. :wink: :mrgreen:

Reading stories like yours makes me wish I had been a firefighter like I wanted. But alas, I'm destined to remain a log-taking machine for the next few years.

Once again, seriously, and I'm saying this as someone whose life WASN'T changed by 911, because mentally I was already there. I TRULY thank The Lord Jesus for folks like RingMaster, Capt, and some others I know, like some cop friends of mine, because there are guys hitting .260 making 50-75 times more than you, without anywhere near a fingernail's worth to society, compared to yours.

Bloofington said:

there are guys hitting .260 making 50-75 times more than you

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you gotta rub it in. My Grandfather always said an outfielder who wasn't hitting .350 should have to pay his way into the ballpark. Now, he was one of the luckiest guys who got to watch Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Williams, Musial, et al.

I can't speak for Capt but I'd guess he's agree. We don't do it for the money. But, I wouldn't mind Steinbrenner paying my salary. I always say I get paid on potential. Meaning, I get paid to sit around and wait...I go to the fires for free. I've also always compared fighting fires to playing professional sports. When you hear a fire going on, you get excited, you want them to call for your company. It's no fun riding the pine. Put me in the game coach.

I guess that's about all I have to say about that.

Bloof, I think I know what comment of mine you are talking about as far as the PG-13 rule. Just give me the word and I'll edit it. I figured there might be a problem with that, but it was neccessary to get the point across.

Happy New Year!

I'm the one who started it, I'm the Moderator on duty here, and I think we both flew under the radar. If someone superceding me in authority feels otherwise, they can step in, edit, and reprimand accordingly. I was trying to help loosen things up a bit here, after pulling my Tom DeLay act over the weekend. I just wanted everyone to know this is still a place for fun and informative, free flowing discussion.

As far as kids who grow up wanting to run into 2,000 degree heat, and floors that are about to crumble under them, or those who put on blue uniforms which make them an object of society's pre-conceived hatreds, all for $15-35,000 a year, and maybe $50-75,000 if you make it 20-30 years, my hat's always been off to all of you. You are on the front lines of society's true heroes.

I like the idea of being paid for the possibility of fire. My mom has been a firefighter/paramedic for 28 years now so I grew up in the firehouse. These guys and gals get so charged up about going out to a fire its unbelievable to anybody who hasn't known the life.

All of the members here I've ever asked or have overheard talking about the subject dislike being considered heroes. I'm not sure if its because the actual danger is rarely high or if they feel like its an undeserved title or both. But like it or not they are.


***Interesting story: The members on the department here think nothing of running into a smoke filled building without a mask, giving CPR without a shield, or working in pools of blood should the need arise. But run a rig in front of them with the exaust spewing and apparently they freak out because the department just used a federal grant to put in a new ventilation system with hoses that hook up to the tailpipes of the rigs. Just a little incongruous to me anyway.

iminaquagmire said:

***Interesting story: The members on the department here think nothing of running into a smoke filled building without a mask, giving CPR without a shield, or working in pools of blood should the need arise. But run a rig in front of them with the exaust spewing and apparently they freak out because the department just used a federal grant to put in a new ventilation system with hoses that hook up to the tailpipes of the rigs. Just a little incongruous to me anyway.

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that's what we do, but if there's someway of keeping the exhaust out of our lungs shouldn't we do that? we've been fighting this one for a long time in Chicago and my new house has an exhaust system in place, but most of the guys don't use it yet. there's so many carcinogens in diesel exhaust. at my old firehouse the walls on the second floor had diesel exhaust dirt on the walls and ceiling. if it's doing that to the firehouse what is it doing to my lungs?

It beats drinking Old Whiskey River. :angel: :bolt:

These are all stations built fairly recently (late 80's or later) and all had good ventilation systems. Plus the bay is completely separate from the dayroom and bunk rooms. Unless you were in the bay you weren't exposed in the least.

Now that I think about it though, if you got the money you might as well spend it. They got everything else they had been wanting already (new dive truck, new ambulances, new tone system, new offroad vehicle, and new bunker gear), so I can see this being the last thing left.

BTW, that offroad vehicle is a 6x6 Polaris--the thing is freakin' sweet! You should have seen the trials they put that thing through! :lol: