Another Photo

Hey folks, sorry I've been slackin posting this week. Here's another original photo from my archive. This is of Small's Falls in Township E, just south of Rangeley, Maine. I can't tell you how many times I've been to these falls, on wandering drives with my parents as a kid, or on photo excursions as an adult. The drop isn't huge, just 54 feet, but the pools it carves out provide for some great swimming and cool things to photograph, when the water in the pools is still you can photograph the rocks below the surface and create some pretty cool images.

Blogroll Addition

There's a new addition to my blogroll folks. Savage Love, written by Dan Savage the author of a sex advice column of the same name at Seattle, Washington based newspaper The Stranger. Dan also is the host of a weekly sex advice podcast which he refers to as the "out loud version" of his weekly column. I'm a huge fan of his column and podcast. In the podcast people call in over the course of the week and during the show he answers their questions and occasionally calls them back with questions if he wants/needs more info before answering to their situation. If you do listen to the podcast be warned that he can be pretty blunt, I wouldn't say its vulgar, but he does like to use the word f*ck a lot and he and his callers do not use medical terminology for various sex acts and bodily functions, instead they use common slang so it may not be something to listen to around the kids.

I am actually going to post a quote from his podcast because I think it is absolutely hilarious, this is in response to a 25 year old woman who had sex with the married concierge of her building. She called whining about how he's still acknowledging her existence and talking to her after they had sex.
~~warning, strong language ahead~~

So how guilty should you feel? You didn't feel guilty much, you fucked a married guy that happens all the time. you should feel stupid that you handled it so poorly. You handled the fall out from this ill advised fuck that you should feel a little guilty about. You handled the fallout really poorly and that you should feel just fucking stupid about. But you shouldn't feel guilty about it. You know, and I'm glad you had the decency to feel like a whore for five minutes, but that's not like penance, its not like you do something sleazy and stupid and you feel like a whore for five minutes then God is satisfied that you're not actually a whore. You know you ARE actually a whore! You should feel like a whore all the time, I feel like a whore all the time. Nothing wrong with feeling like a whore! Some other whores are some of the nicest fucking people I've ever met in my fucking life! What you are is a stupid whore; which is the wrong kind of whore to be!

Anyhow, go give a listen or read to Dan, he writes some really great stuff.

New Photo

Here's another original photo of mine. This one was shot as a still photo during the filming of a promotional film for an ambulance service I used to work for in Maine. Every year one of the paramedics there, who happens to be a skilled filmmaker, puts together a short piece for the annual holiday party. In addition to the annual piece he also does other films as needed, such as this promotion film intended to give an overview of the service. I've worked as his gaffer on several of these projects and when we're not working on scene set-up I've shot still photos of the action. Several of my photos have been used in these films and I hope to get the chance to work with the company again when I'm back in Maine visiting.

'Cuz sometimes toilet humor just makes me giggle.

Sitemeter

Ok, so I am addicted to Sitemeter, I'm a whore for page hits. Apparently when I changed to color of my page header from blue to green I lost the javascript for Sitemeter which explains why I have no stats for April 9th & 10th. How am i going to live not knowing who visited my page for two days?

Anyhow, as of right now there have been 896 recorded hits to this blog. I've decided to start posting some of my original photos. So as a treat we'll start out with one I took of the Roberto Clemente Bridge here in Pittsburgh. I was at dinner with a couple of friends at Atria's at PNC Park when my cell phone rang. I absolutely hate it when people answer their cell phones in public places such as restaurants, so when I saw that it was my mother calling I stepped outside to answer the phone, as I was talking to her I turned and saw this view. I didn't have my camera with me so I returned the following night to take this photo.

Depressed

Just when I thought things could be turning around, just when I thought that maybe, just maybe I’ve met someone with values in-line with mine, just when I thought that for once I had a chance at happiness- he moves away.

I am seriously starting to think that I will end up spending my life alone, never again to have the companionship of a partner, never to have someone to come home to at the end of the day.

It is hard enough being gay. It is even harder to be gay and to be alone.

Dr. Bledsoe on NREMT Changes

First a bit of back story, there's an article written by Dr. Brian Bledsoe on jems.com about a proposed change to NREMT policy regarding who may and may not sit for the paramedic exam, many comments were left on the article web page and rather than list mine with everyone else's I've decided to post my comments to my blog.

Dr. Brian Bledsoe always manages to stir the pot and piss people off and as usual a discussion on the advancement of EMS stating that we need to raise the bar is bound to be offend someone. And as per usual the discussion devolves into a an argument of urban vs. rural and paid vs. volunteer. Now, as for my experience, I am a graduate of an accredited paramedic education program and I have taught and mentored students from non-accredited programs. Is there a difference in the education one can obtain? Absolutely. If we are ever to become a profession then we need to take a lesson from the history of nursing education and push towards degree-based programs for paramedics. Regional/local paramedic education programs cannot match the education received in an academic setting, there is no arguing this point. Now, I'm not saying that non-accredited programs do not produce good paramedics, I've known several great paramedics that are the product of non-accredited programs and they are excellent practitioners, but we also must ask, what if those providers had access to everything that an academic setting had to offer- could they be something more than what they are now? I received my paramedic education in a university level program, now I realize that this option is not available to a lot of people, but there are plenty of really great community college based paramedic programs out there that are available to the masses and there is no reason why people can't get themselves to them. I have a colleague back in Maine who despite having several "local" medic programs available to him drove 120 miles one way to obtain his paramedic education from a community college. We need to start making EMS as a degree program, there is no getting around it, we need grassroots involvement in EMS organizations so we can gain the lobbying power needed to bring about change. We need people to get off their collective asses and give a damn rather than continue to sit around and bitch and whine about how we aren't respected.

Now, while I’m on my rant of respect we as EMS providers need to understand how other allied health care professionals work. How many times have we walked in to a nursing home only to treat the staff like they don't know anything? You *know* you're guilty of it, what many EMS folk don't understand is that they do not operate in the same manner that we do. Standing orders in a nursing home have nothing to do with emergency medicine. Even something as simple as oxygen administration often times requires an order. How many times have you gone in to the ER and rolled your eyes at something that an ER nurse does? How many times have your actions caused us all to lose respect in the eyes of that veteran ER nurse who has forgotten more than you'll ever know about emergency medicine? The fact of the matter is we are not a respected part of the health care team. We as EMS providers know what we are and what we are capable of, but we are not professionals, we are tradesmen, and for us to become professionals we need to enact change and I believe this shift in policy on the part of the NREMT is a step in the right direction