Catching up

Stop me if you heard this before.
1 Its been a while since I posted
2 I have been mudding the walls
3 I have been sanding the walls
4 I have been working on the yard
5 Yea you have probably heard all of that information already.

To be honest with you this is the main reason why I haven't posted anything lately. I have, and haven't, been doing a fair amount of work on the house.

The haven'ts is because it got kindof hot here for a couple weeks so I limited my work so I didn't pass out and fall off a ladder or something. That would be interesting. Grace coming home from work to find me laid out on the stairs.

But the work that has been completed has been varied. (In no particular order)

We had the electrician come out and upgrade our service coming into the house and upgrade the panel box. This was necessary because the airconditioner needs more slots in the breaker box than we had. The old box was a 60 amp box and we upgraded to the 200 amp box which I think would be more than we would ever need in a house our size.

I tried calling the air guy to have him come out and start on the air conditioner but he needs to get back to me when he is at a point where he can come in and install the system.

I finished mudding the walls in the hallway. Now I need to egt the sheetrock and put that on the ceiling. Then we will be ready to paint.

In the back we started working on all the roots along the fence line. I had Casey come in the other day to help me with that. He was a tremendous help cleaning out the webwork of vines that crisscross the yard. We also started prying up the sidewalk in the back. We then took everything to the dump in the new to us, yet old, truck.

Also during this whole month we have gone to the beach twice and Busch Gardens about 3 times. We have also been working some overtime and taking LifeNet calls.

As most of y'all know Grace left 10,000 Villages this month also. She has started at VCU for her PHD and is getting all of that stuff straight. I am really happy for her that she is doing what she wants to do and will be happy doing.

As far as me and work it has been going well. I have pretty much finished all of my ladder operator training and am waiting for the ominous dominous from my Capt and then I will be totally cleared, which will be good. I have trying to put together all of my ODP (officer development program) certifications together to see what else I need to complete that. I know as of now all I need for Firefighter Specialist is 2 more classes and another year or so of acting officer time and then I can apply for that position with a pay increase of 5%.
I have also been helping teach some classes with the recruit schools lately. That has been pretty fun. I am usually one of the auxiliary helpers with the classes, but it is good to watch the recruits learn how to work things out and all. The last class that I was at was a lost firefighter class. This whole concept is actually only several years old. The fire service started to realize that we had firefighters dieing in situations that could have been avoided, so they started taking such incidents and learning from them to find out how it could have worked out better. With the class the other day we had situations of firefighter that had left the hoseline and had basically gotten lost. They then ran out of air and collapsed and the recruits would have to go in and find them, give them more air, and pull them out. Pretty simple sounding but, if you include the fact that there is zero visibility, your in a warehouse which is several thousand square feet, and they have left the hose you have to use other techniques to find them. So that was pretty cool.
The funniest part was a scenario called the "Rat Trap". Basically it goes as such: There is one firefighter that runs out of the building telling the recruit crew that his crew is lost and that they need to help him find them. He's like follow me I know where they are. So they start to follow him and he is like running ahead of them yelling at them to hurry up. when they catch up they follow them into this box which is maybe 10x10 feet. The kicker is that, that is the trap. the other instructors lower a wall from the top of the box down on top of the firefighters in the box. And so the trap has been sprung. The wall that is lowered simulates a sort of lean to collapse so it forms a triangle that is smaller and that blocks the exit. The firefighter whos crew was lost (and is one of the instructors) then starts to totally freak out (which is actually possible)as the other instructors are hitting the sides of the box with wood to make a bunch of noise and add to the madness. Sadly I didn't get a chance to run this event but Graham did. When he freaked out he was hilarious. He started yelling and crying Mommy and saying I need to get the f@#k out of here and such. He would then start to try to climb over the other crew and tear at there gear. He said at one point he was like, give me the radio I need help and the person gave him the radio and he threw it out the box. The whole scenario is designed to produce a high stress situation, but to also expose the recruits to this and see how they handle it. The ideal situation is for the crew to keep their wits and control the firefighter that is freaking out while identifying that they are in a collapse and calling for help. You see, that even with veteran firefighters they have the mentality that they can get out of this on their own and that they don't need help and then they end up running out of air and dieing. So it is an excellent tool that can't be explained and only experienced.

Anyways, that is the long and short of it. I will try to take some picture today of the work that we have been doing so the blog will have some decoration and pretty stuff to see. Now it's time to get back to work on the house.