RUN SHEET
Well so far it's been an eventful new year.
Usually I start a new year off wondering what's in store, wondering how I'll look back on it this time next January. This year has already started off pretty busy, so either it'll slow down or speed up, who knows.
Last year was pretty intense. A lot of discoveries took place, a lot of things changed both inside and outside me. There were hopes and dreams, joy and sadness, gain and loss, birth and death, stagnation and renewal.
I'm looking back on the last year, and I'm thankful that my children are healthy, as well-adjusted as can be hoped with a lunatic for a father. My mother is healthy, the people that I love are all doing reasonably well, my job is going okay. All in all it was a pretty good year.
So to whoever is in charge of the cosmos, whoever moves the chess pieces, whoever is the manager of my case as far as the fates go, Thank you, It's been a good year on many levels, There is love in my life, there has been a lot happen, and near as i can tell, I've learned a lot of lessons. Some of them hard, some of them easy, some of them have filled my heart fuller than i could ever have imagined. All of them were worthwhile, no matter what.
Back to the year so far.
We're three days into it, so far I've responded to a fatal MVA, a major structure fire, and a car fire. It's been pretty busy.
The MVA was pretty tragic, I guess you could say they all are, but some are more tragic than others. An fatal MVA that kills a drunk driver is not tragic, by my way of thinking. Sure, it makes the surviving family suffer, but what the hell, the driver is no loss, they make a stupid decision and die. No loss. The tragic ones are the innocent victims. This MVA was a relatively minor one, but the person that died wore no seat belt. The other occupants of the vehicle were wearing theirs and none of them were seriously injured. The one without the belt was ejected and killed. It could be said that they made the same stupid decision that the drunk did, but it just seems different to me. Maybe because they only took a chance with their own lives, the drunk takes the chance with my life and those of my loved ones. Yours too, all of them, every single one.
The major structure fire was a restaurant we got called in on as third alarm out of four. i got the rare privilege for a Captain of riding the pumper. I usually respond direct to the call to set up command, this time there was a command already set up because we were a later alarm assignment, so I rode the rig. Big fun:)
A big fire like that can go a couple of ways. Sometimes everyone is working hard to save the structure, in a case like that there is something to save. In this case, unfortunately, the fire was already through the roof of the building before the FD was called. When the fire is through the roof of a wooden structure, the building is essentially lost. All that can be done is to try to save any connected or nearby buildings. In this case there were none of those, so all we did was stand back and keep the fire as controlled as we could. No reason to risk FFs for no potential gain. A call like that allows members of different halls to work together and meet each other. It's almost a social event. lots of handshaking and backslapping. A good time is had by all. unfortunately a building is lost. We do what we can, but not all buildings or lives get saved in this game. This one put some people out of work, but no one died. Count your blessings.
The Car fire was a non-event really, a guy was working on his car in his garage. The vehicle caught fire and the fire spread very rapidly. He pushed the vehicle out of the garage and when we arrived there was the vehicle blazing heavily in the driveway with the fellow standing there. Lines were pulled, the fire was put out, we went home. There ya go, a day at the office.
That's it, my new year so far.