Blech

Back when I was a dispatcher I had a habit of chewing on plastic pens. They were my pens, I didn't share them with anyone, no one else had to deal with my chewed up pens and I didn't have to deal with anyone handling pens that would eventually end up in my mouth. I know it is a gross habit but it was my habit and it didn't affect anyone else. When I started working in EMS I started carrying metal pens in the nifty little pen pocket of my uniform shirt. I think it just looks more professional than having an el-cheapo pen sticking out of my shirt pocket. Well, today I came in to work and forgot to grab a couple of pens on my way out the door so when I got here I snatched up a couple of the freebie pens from one of the local air medical transport companies. I was taking some notes a few minutes ago and caught myself chewing on a plastic pen. A plastic pen that someone most likely used on a call at some point. A plastic pen that could have possibly come in contact with nastiness from a patient. I'm done gagging and I want to know, can I gargle with a 1:10 mix of bleach & water, because honestly, after swigging Listerine I still have that unclean feeling. *shudder*

F*ck. Me. Running

So, the New York Times reports that Exxon Mobile has once again earned record breaking profits in the second quarter of this year. Profits are up 14%, up to $11.68 billion, thus topping their own record of $11.66 billion achieved in the fourth quarter of last year.

With such an increase in profits you would think they could at least buy you dinner before f*cking you over at the pump each time you fuel up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other, non-hypertension inducing news, after being completely unable to find the installation CD for MS Office after buying a new laptop I found a heckuva deal on the Small Business Edition of MS Office 2007 which makes it super easy to subscribe to RSS feeds in Outlook to have all the bloggy goodness delivered right to me every day so I don't have to go out and check blogs and find out who has put up new posts. Yay me.

The Flying Egg

Some people buy boats, some buy RVs, as for me, well I can see one of these in my possession sometime in the future when I have a few bills paid off.

An Introduction

Let me introduce you all to someone interesting. When I was a child my mom had a friend named Ginny. Ginny had two children, Jon & Miranda. Miranda was a year younger than I and though we really didn't associated much through our school years we shared a few common interests. Years after graduating high school in the small town that I grew up in I slowly began to find that there were several other LGBT folks that I went to school with, though none of us were out at the time. Here is where "Miranda" enters the stage again. Out of the blue I got a message on Myspace from a guy named Kyle, turns out that Kyle is an FTM (female to male transgender), who was born into the body of the kid I knew when I was young- Miranda. Translation- Kyle is a guy, was born with girl parts yet identifies as male and as such is living as a guy. Don't question it, don't leave ignorant comments about trans issues because they won't be tolerated here.

Anyhow, Kyle is currently living in Hollywood making his living as an English teacher, however he has decided that teaching really isn't his gig and has decided to pursue his MFA in poetry at a school back in Boston where he received his undergraduate degree. Now, when you live in a major city on the west coast with mass transit and don't own a car and you need to move yourself, your four dogs, and all of your stuff to the east coast how do you do it? Well, you buy a 1973 Dodge RV and pack all your stuff inside it and drive it across the country! This should be an interesting tale and definitely one that I'm going to keep track of and you too can read about it on Kyle's blog.

Randy Pausch

I just finished watching the Randy Paush 'Last Lecture' video once again and after doing so I came across another video. This is the speech he gave at this year's Carnegie Mellon University commencement.

This one is only six and a half minutes long.

Randy Pausch

Thank you, Randy Pausch, for showing us what is truly important in life. Be at peace, sir.

A Lesser Known Side of MedicMatthew

I sit here in my apartment in Pittsburgh listening to songs that I haven't heard in years yet when I hear the music and the lyrics I'm immediately brought back to where I was almost fifteen years ago. Sitting with the rest of the choir at St. Rose of Lima Church, Ted's fingers dancing effortlessly and flawlessly across the piano, Debby at the lectern, Marcel & Dave to my right, Marty and Chris to my left, Mary, Chrystal, Sherry, Emily, Debbie & Don in front of me. Our voices blending together in harmony, the lyrics flowing from our mouths, rising up and leading the congregation in song. If I close my eyes I can still feel myself there; I can feel the love and peace from my friends; I can feel the warmth rising within me; I can feel God.

I want to go back there and I wonder what it would take to bring us there. Ted is gone now, passed away just a couple of short years after he stopped playing for the church. Don & Sherry left long ago, ousted by a priest who didn't see eye to eye with them, Dave & Debby moved out of the area. Mary went off to college, Chrystal left the next year, Marty & Deb divorced a few years back, Marcel has been sick off & on for the past few years, Emily is just recently married and living in Germany now. Our lives have taken us all in very different directions yet I know that if they each were to hear the music they would be brought back to the same place that I am and I wonder if it would even be possible to get the choir back together again to catch up, to sing together and to let our voices blend.

Mary and I keep in touch, and I hear from Chrystal every now and then, Emily just left for Germany, I know Don is the superintendent of a Catholic school back in Maine and Sherry is still an OR nurse, Chris still cuts my hair every now & then but I have no idea what the rest are up to. Maybe I'll try to find out.

Gather Us In – Marty Haugen

On Eagles Wings – Michael Joncas

You Are Mine – David Haas

Gluttony & New Computers

The time came recently to replace my laptop. The trusted, reliable Gateway CX-2618 Convertible (notebook/tablet) PC was having some issues. Basically the outlet on the laptop itself where the power cord plugs in was getting a bit squiffy and it would lose power if I didn't hold it in just the right position whilst standing on my head with the planets properly aligned.

I contacted the fine folks at Best Buy as it is still under the extended warranty but I would have to send it out to their repair center and be without a computer for six weeks. Six weeks during which time I would surely lose my mind so I've decided that I'm going to essentially use the old one as a desktop computer and buy myself a spankin' new laptop. I like it. Its red and pretty and sweet mother of jeebus it is so much faster than the old one.

Every now and then I like to go to a restaurant by myself and sit and people watch and enjoy the meal. So after picking up the new laptop I decided to do just this. There were three tables around me in the little section that I was in and each table played host to a different pair of people. Table 1 was a pair of older women, probably in their mid sixties that sat and ate rather quietly. Table 2 was a married couple in their forties who proclaimed that they had too much food and were stuffed and made casual conversation while dining.

Table three is where things were interesting. This was a couple in their late twenties that appeared to be on a first date. Quite possibly a blind date. The woman was sitting in a booth so that she was facing me and her companion had his back to me. She was well dressed and spoke clearly and enunciated properly when she ordered her simple meal with a salad with an iced tea. Then it came time for the gentleman to order.

"How many motzuhrelluhs come to an owduh?"

"I believe there are six to an order."

"Whut? You mean you don' know? I'll take an owduh of duh motzuhrelluhs and tha fried calamaras. How many ravolis come wit an owduh?"

"Sir, there are eight to an order."

"Ok, I'll have two owduhs of the ravoli and a chicken parmezan wit no sketti and can I gits some fettuhchinis alfreedos as well?"

"Would you like a side of the fettuccine alfredo in place of your spaghetti with the chicken parm or do you mean a full order?"

"Bettuh make it a full owduh, the one wit da shrimps & scallops in it."

"Will that be all?"

"Yeah, can I have a bowl of dat 'talian weddin' soup? Oh and can you brang me a full pitchuh of the Mount Dew, a couple glasses ain't gon' be 'nuf."

Shortly after her salad and his appetizers and salad were delivered to the table He announced "I'll be right back baby, I gots to go piss" and he got up and walked off.

The woman looked mortified and as soon as he was out of earshot I asked her if this was a blind date and she said that it was, they met through an online dating service and had just exchanged a few emails. I asked her if she wanted to get out of the date and had her give me her cell phone number. As soon as her date got back to the table I got up and went to the rest room and called her cell. As I was walking back to my table she set 15 dollars on the table to cover her order and as she was walking away from hers while her date was bitching "Where you goin' baby? I thought we was splittin' tha check fity-fity." She looked at him, told him to get bent and walked out. I'll be damned but the guy sat there and ate his entire order and hers then ordered two pieces of cheesecake for dessert.
This guy ate
1 order fried mozzarella sticks
1 order fried calamari
2 salads (his & hers) with a total of five sides of blue cheese dressing
1 piece lasagna (the woman's entree)
2 orders of ravioli (16 total served in an alfredo looking sauce)
2 pieces of chicken parmesan
1 full order of seafood alfredo
1 bowl of Italian wedding soup
2 pieces of cheesecake
2.5 full pitchers of Mt. Dew!

Surprisingly this dude wasn't a blimp. He was about 6'7" and big, but not fat. I shudder to think of how many calories he had in that one sitting

Litigation

Back in Maine I worked in a rural EMS system that relied heavily upon the dedication of its employees to deliver the best emergency care available. There were employees who lived throughout the 3000+ square miles that we covered and if a truck had to come from another district to answer a call then on occasion an employee would first respond if in the area and had the resources to do so. One particular evening had the system somewhat taxed and units spread thin when the call came in for a man down not breathing. Since there was only one unit available for this call and I was on my way home and about a mile up ahead was one of our bases so I figured I’d pop in, grab a jump kit & head over to meet the truck that was about 15 miles out from the scene.

I pull up in my vehicle, get out and walk in to the apartment building to find two of the towns newest police officers doing CPR on an elderly gentleman half in the bathroom and half in the entry way of his apartment. We pulled the man into the room to have some more space to work and I had one of them continue compressions while the other was applying the AED. A quick analysis of the rhythm by the machine advised that the patient was in a shockable rhythm and a stack of three shocks were administered. I proceeded to intubate the patient as the ambulance crew came in with the rest of their gear. We proceeded to work up this patient and while doing so the other paramedic informed us that he saw the patient two days prior when he was in the early stages of heart failure and refused treatment and transport despite being told by said paramedic that he would certainly die if left untreated. Despite our best efforts and our box full of ACLS tricks I can safely say with 100% certainty that the patient today has the most stable of cardiac rhythms- asystole.

Shortly after we terminated our efforts with the blessing of our medical control physician his daughter arrived on the scene. We went through our usual routine of explaining what happened to her father and she reported to us that her father told her that the medic informed him that he would most certainly die if left untreated. While we waited for the funeral home to retrieve the body and for more of her family to come to be with her she asked a handful of questions and as I was turning to leave her in the company of the on-duty crew so that I could go back to the ambulance base and write my run sheet she turned to them and asked with complete sincerity “Well, is there anybody I can sue?”

I know this woman was grieving and that people tend to say things that they normally wouldn’t mean in such situations but seriously folks, wtf?

Cantankerous Old Goat

I’m a nice guy. I really am. I may be foul mouthed but absolutely never with patients and even in the face of verbal assault and an insult to my mamma I remain the epitome of composure. When a patient gets mean with me I have a tendency to be so sickeningly sweet and nice to them that it makes my partner want to vomit while if the patient could hear the voice in my head they would hear a string of cuss words that would make a sailor cringe.

The other day I was called out for a male in his 60s with abdominal pain, after a five minute response we roll up to the house and see a man, wearing no shirt, standing by a car in the driveway. I grab some gloves and make my way to him to find the man is not wearing pants either. He is just standing there in his once-white tighey-whities, diaphoretic and looking like crap. My partner retrieves the stretcher and we place the patient on it and lay a sheet over him up to his chest to offer him some level of decency while we move him to the ambulance. I’m assessing the patient while my partner gets a set of vitals and I start an IV. This is when the fun begins. The patient lets out a disgusted sigh and says “.let’s just go already” and I explain that we aren’t going to spend more than 10 minutes on scene and that as soon as my partner gets up front that we will start moving toward the hospital. I had already asked the patient for his permission to start an IV and he granted it but when the needle penetrated his skin and he yanked his arm back while barking at me “Ow, that f*cking hurt!” I decided that given his rock solid level of stability and that my assessment leans toward thinking that this is more a case of lonely old man than an acute illness I again ask him if he would like me to start the IV or if he would like to defer it. He opts to defer by saying “well you obviously don’t know what the f*ck you’re doing.” I took a deep breath and thought of shiny, happy things and continued my assessment. When I got down to asking about recent bowel activity and dietary changes he looked up at me and informed me that I ask too many questions and that I should just do my job and drive him to the hospital. That blew it.

“Pull over and hand me the phone” I said to my partner.

“What are you doing? Why are we stopping?”

“Well sir, you’ve obviously made a mistake. It seems to me that you want a taxi and not an ambulance and given the great cost difference between the two and for the level of service that you demand I would think that a taxicab would be much more economical.”

“You’d better fucking learn to treat people with some respect young man! I’m the patient, you do what I say!”

“You sir, are the one who needs to learn some respect and understand that I have a job to do and that if you call 911 seeking my services I am going to do my job and that includes a whole hell of a lot more than just driving your miserable ass to the hospital. Now do you want my services or not?”

“Fine.” He grudgingly says as he thrusts his arm at me to start an IV.

Upon arrival at the ED I meet his daughter who asks me if he was difficult and proceeds to explain to me that he’s been a “cantankerous old goat” for the past few months.

Blogroll Addition

Meta_Rev, the husband of my very good friend Marian has taken to writing a blog. I haven't really had much opportunity to hang out with & get to know Meta_Rev but what I do know of him he is a pretty interesting guy. At least Marian seems to think so ;)

Meta_Rev describes himself as a 35-ish year old man who doesn't sit still. He is an ordained Minister, a supervisor in a machine shop, and a Registered Maine Guide. He is currently working on his PhD, and he's a down to earth and funny guy. As he says "In other words, a one-of-a-kind enigma!"

So, go on now, give him a read.




http://thereikireverend.blogspot.com/

Humor, the great stress reliever

H/T to WhiteCoat for providing the muse for writing this post.

It is no secret that to work in EMS you’ve got to have a great sense of humor and a somewhat thick skin. In addition to the people that make our jobs worthwhile, we are often subjected to the worst that humanity has to offer- death, despair and stupid drivers who somehow manage to not see the flashing lights reflecting off of the street signs ahead of them but also fail to manage to hear the siren of the approaching ambulance despite being in a convertible with the top down. Perhaps my road rage will be the subject of a future post.

Anyone who is going to be in EMS for more than 10 minutes must learn to adapt and cope to almost any situation. It takes a lot to shake me, it really does and I tribute that to the fact that I have an excellent support system of coworkers, colleagues, family and friends. Just as every school room has its prankster and class clown, every ambulance base has at least three and I will admit to at times being one of those three. AD put up a list quite some time ago of EMS pranks and I must thank him for his inspiration and for perking up an otherwise dull day at work on occasion. At my current place of work we mess with each other and embarrass one another and it is all in good fun. I can honestly say that despite the nicknames, colorful language and occasional name calling that flies around the base that I have never been offended or insulted by these guys. They really are great and I will miss them terribly when I move back to Maine in a few short weeks.

Camaraderie with your coworkers makes it easier to survive the day and that camaraderie is often what leads to the jokes and pranks played on one another. We have frequent fliers who tend to use certain expressions all the time like “I have a fever, you need to take me downtown, cuz that’s where my fever doctor is” said in a gravelly, cranky, old lady voice. When you work in a region with specialists in every field imaginable it seems like the patients come up with any reason to see the specialist of their choice at any of the 26 hospitals that we routinely transport to. And, yes, there actually are 26 hospitals in the greater Pittsburgh region that we deliver patients to. Then there’s the phrase from a middle aged gentleman who sustained a head injury years ago and resides in a local nursing home, he will often say “You’re/He/She/That’s/They’re f*cking gaaaaay” so of course this phrase gets picked up by the EMS providers that transport him. My coworkers who used to say “That’s gay” all the time have curbed its usage since my arrival, but when I mention going out to a specific club or going on a date one will jokingly say “Dude, you’re f*ckin gaaaaay!” And I usually reply with “Thanks for pointing out what I’ve known for years, asshat.” Its just another typical day at the base that turns into a competition of farting & dick jokes, but I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now, despite then fun & games that go on around the base I do feel it necessary to add one little caveat to what I’ve written here. The joking can be misinterpreted and there are times when a joke gets taken to heart and someone is offended or hurt but may not say so and there’s a great article about this very subject over at emsresponder.com.

Wednesday Weigh In

I'm not posting the WWI every week, but I decided to weigh myself today and was pleased with what I found. So, without further affair here are the latest figures.

Starting Weight - 317.0lbs
Current Weight - 291.8lbs
Difference - 25.2lbs
Weight Lost - 7.9%

Who wants to touch me?

I said who wants to f*cking touch me?!? :-)

Urban Wildlife Interzone

I live in the city and work in the suburbs, so as I’m on my way to work driving outbound the rest of the world is driving inbound. So while driving to work this morning I noticed a few things about my fellow commuters. I witnessed some dipshit multitasking on his way in to the city. He was shaving, reading the newspaper and talking on his cell phone all while “driving.”

The other day I also realized that I hate the fact that I have to go to a park to find green space. I live in an apartment building- the back yard consists of the concrete pad where the dumpster rests and where the Port Authority light rail commuter train cuts through my neighborhood. The front yard consists of a sidewalk. The other day I saw a wild rabbit hopping down the sidewalk and I wondered “where the hell does it live?”

Dearly beloved, we gather here to say our goodbyes...*

In the past couple of weeks three bloggers have decide to take a break.

First it was ERNursey, then MonkeyGirlRN, and now Marko the Munchkin Wrangler. That makes me sad. May they all find the energy to revitalize their personal lives to make up for what blogging has taken away from them. Here's to hoping that maybe someday we'll see them back.

On a happier note, White Coat linked to me in a recent post!


*Sung as the character Mark Cohen from "La Vie Boheme" in RENT


I've said it before and I'll say it again- I'm a whore for site hits!

Back to Work

Today was my first day back to work following my back injury a week and a half ago. I'm quite sure that if I had another day off I would have lost my mind. I have been so damned bored since I've been out of work.

So, a couple of months ago I had a call that just irritated the crap out of me. This dude in his 50s has his wife call 911 at 0630hrs with a complaint of "unable to sleep." We roll up to his house, and I'm doing my assessment and the patient reports "I can't sleep, I ache all over, my doctor put me on Prozac and I took it for 12 days but it didn't work so i stopped."
So, naturally, I asked, "Did your doctor explain to you that it can take up to four to six weeks for the Prozac to start working?" And of course the patient uttered back "Yeah, he told me that, but its been 12 days already, I should feel better right?" At this point my EMT-B partner decides that this one will go BLS "Sir, where are your shoes? Lets go."

Ya know...

I fueled up on the way home this morning and I thought to myself- if they're not going to hand out lube at the gas pumps then they should at least give you a reach around. Mother. Fucker.

Tamalanche Update

Since Tam linked to me in one of her posts my Sitemeter jumped significantly. In the 24 hours following the link I received a 4400% increase in hits. In those 24 hours I received 528 hits.

Thanks Tam!

Think someone needs a vacation?

You know your coworkers are a bit touched in the head when one of them explains that "Once, just once, I'd like to get a body bag out of the ambulance, secure a heroin OD inside with just the arm sticking out, start the line and push the Narcan then stuff their arm in and zip it up and when they start thrashing around I'll open it up and say 'Holy shit dude! We thought you were dead!' Just once..."

Yes folks, these are the people I work with.

Holy Sh*t!!

Mad props, yo, to Tam over at View from the Porch for linking to me!
Because of her my Sitemeter stats are gonna be all skewed. In the approximately seven hours since she linked to me, my blog has seen the same volume of traffic that it normally sees in four months. FOUR MONTHS!

Damn!

Finding Matthew

When I moved to Pittsburgh I had grand intentions of going to work in the suburbs, getting my PA EMS teaching certification, going back to school and living the city life. While I have gone to work in the suburbs, I have also spent most of my time outside of the city and well, I haven’t been teaching and I haven’t gone back to school. What I have done, though, is accomplish what I truly set out to do, and that is to prove to myself that I could move back here and make it. I have been here for eight months and in that time I have learned that I am a country boy, not a city boy. I have discovered what is most important to me and that is the love of my family and friends and that I do not like being hundreds of miles away from them.

Since moving from Maine to the city I have exercised my Second Amendment rights, I have gone off-roading for the first time- as my sister puts it, I’m doing things backwards, most people move to the country to do those things. But in doing these things and exploring a new region and learning what I have learned about myself I can now say that for the first time ever I actually feel like an adult. My mindset for the past few years has been as though I were trapped in my early 20s while here I am just six months away from my 30th birthday.

For a long time I have believed that love is never lost and time is never wasted so long as you learn something about yourself in the process. It is this philosophy that has allowed me to live a life without regret. Surely there are things I would have done different, but I don’t regret the choices I have made because they have caused me to grow as a person. So while I may not have gone back to school and I may not have started teaching EMS here in Pennsylvania and I haven’t exactly been living the city life, I have accomplished something greater, something that I truly needed to do without even realizing it- I have found myself.

Odd Dream

This morning I awoke from an interesting dream. I dreamed that I was driving along and passed an empty parking lot and saw an ambulance, its doors all open and in the parking lot was a lone EMT tending to a patient. I went about doing the things I needed to do and on my way back through later the lone EMT and patient were still there and I stopped. As I approached I saw the patient lying supine on the asphalt being tended to by this hot pregnant EMT who explains that she is working alone due to short staffing. I nod as I do a quick assessment of the situation and turn to look at the EMT and say "EE? What are you doing here?" and she replies "OMG, dude, MedicMatthew?!?"

Then I woke up. So yeah, I dreamed that EmergencyEmm was working in Pittsburgh by herself.

Linkalicious

Holy Catfish, Batman! Scalpel links to me. I'm speechless.
Dr. Scalpel, I bow unto you. < /genuflect>

Now, I think if Nurse K linked to me as well I might get so excited that I'd probably pee myself a little bit.

Queerin' It Up

Normally I don't post "gay" things here. This isn't an LGBT blog, this isn't an activist blog, my queerness doesn't have a whole lot to do with what I post here. But I love William Sledd of the Ask A Gay Man series.

Ivy League?

According to my sitemeter stats for this blog I've had regular visitors from the following ISPs -

www.harvard.edu
www.princeton.edu
www.cornell.edu
www.yale.edu

If my blog is among the regular reading of any Ivy League student or faculty there is something to be said about the quality of higher education in this nation and that is that it is going to sh*t.

Oh, I Almost Forgot....

While leaving the pharmacy after picking up my prescriptions on the way home from work I noticed next to the usual handicap parking spaces and the "expectant mother" parking spaces, which, by the way I think are a crock of shit, just because you're pregnant doesn't mean you can't walk to the store from a regular parking space. EE, your thoughts? I noticed "Hybrid Car Parking Only" spaces. Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break. Even if I drove a hybrid I would refuse to use these spaces, in fact I want to borrow someone's ginormous, jacked up, pickup or SUV and park it right in one of these spaces and leave it there for the day. If you're a holier-than-thou douchebag who is actually going to use this space don't you think you should really be parking at the far end of the parking lot where the entrances and exits are so you don't have to worry about burning any more fossil fuel by driving down the length of the parking lot? For this one little bit of ass-hattery Giant Eagle can suck it!

On How My Weekend Sucked.

Not too long after leaving the party Saturday night I was at the base and we were contacted by the shift sergeant from the PD requesting us to check out a prisoner in custody. It had been a pretty routine night for us, we hadn't gone on any calls yet and hadn't exerted ourselves so it came as quite a shock when as I was walking across the parking lot I felt a sudden, sharp, incapacitating pain in my low back. I was unable to move. I managed to shuffle myself in to the PD and upon getting a refusal signature from the patient managed to shuffle myself back out to the ambulance. My partner drove us back to the garage at which point I got out of the passenger seat and into a chair. The pain would not let up and as I was unable to move I decided to go to the ER for treatment.

While being triaged and my nurse (also and EMT and married to one of our paramedics) asked me about my pain all I could think about was Scalpel's pain scale which I couldn't exactly recall from memory but now that I review it I was correct in assigning it to 7/10 though there was no groaning as in 6/10 but there was heavy breathing through clenched teeth and there were also slight nuances of 8/10 (trembling). I requested to be conservative with pain management but when the IV Toradol didn't work the doc, who is also one of our medical command physicians, came in and said "the Toradol isn't going to be enough, how about some Dilaudid?" And with that he ordered 1mg of Dilaudid and after about 30 minutes of being in the hospital I didn't care any more about the pain in my back, well, as long as I was laying still I didn't care. When I had to go from the ER bed to the x-ray table I cared. I cared a whole hell of a lot.

So now, a day and a half later, I'm sitting in my apartment on my bed in the only position I can get comfortable in waiting so I can call occupational health to get an appointment. Needless to say my weekend has sucked.

Tonight I Got a Lesson In How the Other Half Lives

Now, I’ve known since I started working here that there is big money in the township; as evidenced by the number of multimillion dollar homes. I don’t know what the average annual salary is in this town but I do know that it is far more than what this paramedic makes. Tonight I’m working a short shift- just 16 hours. When I came in I was informed that in one of the townships that we cover we had a standby event due to a fireworks display.

Apparently there is this gentleman who lives in the township who owns a rather successful local company and every year he puts on a party for his employees and this year I just happened to be on duty for it. The owner of the company lives on this big estate here in the township; we pulled up, parked the ambulance and were immediately directed by the gentleman and his wife to the tent where there was quite a spread. There were people milling about, eating, drinking and generally being merry. We were happily dining at the well catered event when the lights in the field were turned out and the firework started. Last night I drove up to Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh in the hopes of finding a decent vantage point to both watch and photograph the fireworks, but after realizing how long it would take me to get down off Mt. Washington and back to my apartment I decided to pack it in and just head home for the night (besides the weather was overcast and wouldn’t have made for good photos). After seeing this show I don’t feel so bad about not seeing the fireworks in the city last night.

I grew up in a small town in Maine where the annual Fourth of July festivities were pulled off on a relatively small budget; this private party had a fireworks show that surpassed any that my hometown had ever been able to pull off. The price tag for this little shindig had to be well in to the six figure range and there had to have been at least three to four hundred people in attendance. I’m moving back to Maine in a few months and was thinking that I might take a trip back here next year with some friends over the Independence Day weekend- maybe instead of fighting traffic I’ll just crash the party.

FF vs. EMTP

Since its been a couple of weeks since I've stirred any sh*t I thought I'd direct yinz over to AD's article on ems1.com regarding the FF/Medic clusterf*ck The latest installment is part two in a series. Also, while we're on it RogueMedic also had a post on the same topic not too long ago.

I'm sorry for the lack of original posts here folks, i've just been too busy with work and preparations for moving back to Maine.