Day Two, June 30, 1992 Fifty Six, Arkansas

Set out from Birmingham this morning. It was good to see the grandparents. On the way out of the state we saw the Bama Snake Farm (too late to take a picture). Storm clouds threatened everywhere but never really got bad except for once in Mississippi. Mississippi really wasn't ugly, it just wasn't that appealing on such a proportionaly large trip to a person with such high expectations. Rich drove for the first time. I was a bit nervous but he did fine overall. I lost the gas cap in Memphis but we didn't find out until an hour later on our way to the Ozarks and Buffalo River State Park. One of the roads we were supposed to take didn't appear in the flesh and was only on one of the maps. (?) It got dark on us but we managed. This, being 4th of July week(end), the camping spots are nearly full but we found a lot with a patch of grass and now we only have to contend with a tent full of bloodsucking grasshoppers. We saw an armadillo on the way into the campgrounds.

Rich is fine. He seems a little fixed on "perfect navigation." My philosophy is: if we miss it I'm sure there are other roads. Besides, the steering wheel does turn.

We also saw in Newport, Arkansas a "Discount Monument" tombstone store. We found a town with two spellings: Gu-win or Guin. (?)

Took pictures of crossing the Mississippi, crossing the White River, landscapes and clouds in Arkansas.

Day One, June 29, 1992 Birmingham

Today was a really good start to the trip. Short. Fun. The jeep is packed well and tomorrow we start for Arkansas. Dallas might not be as bad as I had thought. Still, I'm anxious to get on to the west.

California has got the shakes. I wouldn't be disappointed to live through my first earthquake.

It Was A Trip

In an attempt to make my life seem slightly important I will be posting the journal entries from my trip across the country in 1992. They will be accompianied by pictures and commentary when appropriate. However, I can not locate the majority of the pictures at present. This presents a problem, not only for my blog, but for the fact that I have misplaced about 800 photos of a truly life changing two months of my life.

Happy Father's Day

Watch Me

Check It Out

So here is some stuff that most of you have seen on e-mails recently. But in case you haven't here goes.

There is a group called Angry Alien Productions that does animated 30 second versions of famous movies starring bunnies. The most recent is one for Superman. You can see all of the rest here. Without a doubt my favorite is The Shining (that's young Danny Bunny at the right). The Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall bunnies captured the subtleties of the actors' performances. The last frame of Jack frozen in the snow should be on a shirt.

The Starlight Mints are the rage at my house. We got to see them last week at Smith's Olde Bar and they were awesome. Their latest record is Drowaton and a few tracks are available for your listening pleasure on their myspace site. Ben's favorite is Rhino Stomp.

A treasure of a recent find is The Ditty Bops who were featured in a very small article in Newsweek. Their summer tour is making its way around the country on bicycles instead of the tour bus. They are a female (no that's not Roger Manning on the right) vaudeville duo (produced by none other than Mitchell Froom of Crowded House/Suzanne Vega/Elvis Costello fame) and you can listen to both of their albums in their entirety on their site here. Don't pass up the videos.

Yet another thing going around is the Red VS. Blue website. Some people with too much time on their hands have taken the soldiers from the video game HALO and written scripts for their movements on screen. Watch the public service announcement they made here.

We're Leaving Home

We're going to the beach in a little bit. Here are a couple of pictures from last year.

The Magician and The Parrot

A sorry magician got a job on a ratty cruise ship doing a nightly show for the guests. One night the captain's parrot came down to watch. In the middle of making a woman's watch disappear the parrot squawked, "up his sleeve, CRAAAA!, up his sleeve." The magician was furious and stormed off the stage.

The next night the parrot was again in the audience. To the magician's surprise the parrot said nothing during his famous watch trick, but when the magician started to make a rabbit disappear the parrot chimed in again, "under the table, CRAAAA!, under the table." Once again the magician was furious and stormed off the stage.

The next night the parrot was again in the audience. To the magician's surprise the parrot said nothing during his watch trick or rabbit trick. The magician was about to perform his next trick when the cruise ship struck an iceberg.

The ship was lost and all aboard killed except for the magician and the parrot who found themselves sharing a life raft. Still angry, the magician refused to acknowledge the parrot. For four days they floated in silence.

On the fifth day the parrot had had enough. He looked at the magician and said, "I give up...what'd you do with the f***ing boat?!!"

Proof That God Invented Legos

The Brick Testament

This might take the cake for oddest. It's stories from the bible acted out in scenes constructed out of Legos. Be warned, however, there is some adult content on the site as the Bible sometimes dealt with these matters. Anyhow, Legos are the duct tape of the toy world. There isn't anything you can't do with them it seems.

Ben Toddles and Judy Parties in Slow Motion

Originally Posted March 4, 2002

So here's what's going on as we get this web site off of the ground; Ben had his second ever serving of corn on the cob tonight. He hasn't really learned to pick it up yet. Instead, he holds it down on the plate and takes his mouth to the cob. It's pretty amusing and he seems to really enjoy himself. We have pictures of it that will be in the gallery soon, so check back.

Ben also joined the National Bi-ped Association last week. He's totters, falls down, and then gets back up and continues on his way.

Paula hosted a gala event last Saturday evening as we celebrated her mother's birthday. We had about forty or so of Judy's friends and extended family over for drinks and hors d'vors. The award for the most interesting moment of the party went to a five minute Tai Chi exercise led by Judy's boss that resembled a line dance as brave party guests joined in. I'm not sure but I think that if Judy's boss was coming at me with those moves, hands and arms flying, I could get out of the way in time. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves except Ben who did not want to go to sleep and felt that the whole house should know about it. Special thanks go to Kristi Burnham who helped keep the silver platters stocked and the glasses full.

Dekalb EMS is once again a part of the Fire Department. This may seem pretty inconsequential on the surface but it in fact has far reaching ramifications to those of us that intend to make a career of fighting fire. The problem is that for a paramedic to become certified as a firefighter only takes fourteen weeks. For a firefighter like myself to become a paramedic would take a minimum of nine months. I and others like myself who are not within five years of retiring are faced with the decision of whether or not they think that not having paramedic certification will hurt their chances when promotions next come up. I think I need all the help I can get when competing for promotion so I am reluctantly currently in EMT orientation, which is a prelude to paramedic classes. EMT orientation is a class that is three weeks long (this is the second week now) and it will prepare me, I am afraid, to ride an ambulance instead of a fire truck. I won't have to ride an ambulance all of the time, but any amount of time is more than before.

Ben and the Zoo

Originally Posted March 10, 2002

Ben went to the zoo for the first time today. It was fun. He went with his mommy and daddy and with both of his godparents, Nate and Casey. He seemed stunned most of the time but was a real trooper and didn't cry once. Some of the animals were out but they must have realized before we did that the forecasted 58 degrees was going to be a much colder 58 degrees than normal.

Yesterday, during a ride around the neighborhood in the wagon, Ben pointed at me, his father, and said "Da Da." Now he has been making the "Da Da" sound for some time but this was the first time that he has directly associated me with the sound. Pretty cool.

A Dog Seizing and Bobby McFerrin Drunk

Originally Posted March 18, 2002

Gallery 2 has been operational in part all weekend. In the future the size (file size) of each photograph will be smaller so that those of you, like myself, still using dial up service will be able to access the pictures quicker. I don't know about anyone else but the icon for my internet connection is two cans joined by a string.

Keith Greenstein is in Los Angeles for a month. He is checking his e-mail so send him a hello and beg him not to stay on my behalf: kgreenstein@westwayne.com

Ben has learned to kick a soccer ball and seems to have a pretty good time doing so. He also enjoys making raspberry sounds with his hands and loves to have someone do it with him. He will trade licks with you. Think of Bobby McFerrin drunk. Scratch that. Never mind.

Atticus has an appointment with a doggy dermatologist. His skin problem has grown out of control and we have not been able to control it with diet. Paula believes that the irritation might be contributing to his seizures of which he has had at least four stacked sets since the weekend before Christmas 2001. Hopefully the dermatologist will find out what he is allergic to an we will be able to remove it from his environment. More likely is the possibility that he will require medication.

Now for those of you who have not experienced a dog seizing I will try to describe the event as accurately as possible. As the seizure approaches, Atticus seems to want to sit down but before he can he starts to back up until his legs propel him up and over onto his back. He then makes an absolutely horrendous sound that if heard in the woods at night would chill the blood of the most seasoned serial killer. His mouth opens wider than would be thought possible and begins to foam. His legs begin to run but in slow motion. Every muscle in his body seems to pull in a different direction. Sometimes he loses control of his bowels. And after about a minute of all of this he pants and pants and pants. This is called the post-ictal state. He is no longer actively seizing and is once again oxygenating but is in an almost catatonic state. He doesn't have the energy to stand at first and once he does he lacks the coordination to walk. He gets a five minute break and then he does it all over again at least two more times. A pre-requisite for the seizures seems to be that I am at the station since I have only seen one of the attacks. It just so happens that I should have been at the station the one night I witnessed what I just described but had taken the shift off. Perhaps Atticus' schedule is too inflexible to accommodate my sudden change of plans.

He has been on phenobarbital for a month and hasn't had a seizure that we have known about since beginning the medicine. The only lasting side effect seems to be an enormous increase in his appetite, a side effect not foreseen by the vet or any of the literature on phenobarbital.

So there it is. That's what's been going on with us. What's been going on with you. E-mail us and share. We would like to hear all about it (please be sure to cc K. Burnham if you do.)

Three Kinds of Value

Originally Posted April 7, 2002

Well, in the last few days I have learned a few things about the world and myself. Last week, the thought entered my mind that I should quit firefighting, if not completely, for Dekalb. I wrote a letter up the chain of command requesting a listing of all items that I have been issued that they will require me to return if I "resign my position." Now in reality, the idea of quitting was only something that popped into my head in a moment of despair. Why despair? That's a good question.

Let me first, however, address my views on value. Your job, just like all things in life, is assigned a value. Now this may be the monetary value that the world assigns it or it can be an emotional or transitory value or a combination of any of the three.

Emotional value is something like the value we assign to pictures of family. The world recognizes these pictures as universally having a value based solely on the value of the materials used to create the image. The image itself has no value. With emotional value, we often hold something to be more valuable to ourselves for the obvious reason that it means something to us that others perhaps do not comprehend at the same level. For example, a picture of Paula holding Ben just after he was born is something that most people in the world would empathize an approximated emotional value based on having similar pictures of their own which they value more than the material costs inherent in producing them. Empathy, however, is not an accurate barometer as to the value which I assign the picture but merely the approximated value.

Transitory value is something that means a lot to someone else, but has no worth to you, outside of its monetary value. In this instance, a relationship to a person places value on the object. For example, I know that Paula likes her pink rag rug, I hate the pink rag rug. The pink rag rug does not for myself even hold the monetary value which the market placed on it. However, Paula's attachment to it does hold value for me. As in algebra, if A=B, and B=C, then A=C. I emotionally value Paula (I am unaware of her present monetary value), Paula emotionally and perhaps monetarily values the pink rag rug, therefore, I value the pink rag rug by the Transitory Property of Equality.

Now, having briefly explained my views on value, let's now discuss the value I place on my job as a firefighter. It certainly has monetary value, as I am paid to do the job. Some have argued that the monetary value assigned this position is not congruent with it's worth to those we serve and I sometimes believe they are correct. And even though the monetary value of my job has not risen, the monetary value of employment in itself has risen recently as is evident in the rising unemployment rate. Most importantly I value the few times that I have been able to directly affect someone in need of help, the so-called times that I can say I think I "made a difference". In short I value my job as a firefighter more than I do the possibility of making a better living doing something else.

Because I have made this choice regarding my primary career, I feel I have no right to complain in any capacity about my job. After all, if I truly don't like it I should just quit. While this sounds drastic, and as Paula would describe it "absurdly black and white", it is the truth of the matter. While I am almost entirely unable to change any of the unpleasant political aspects of working "for the people" I have total control over whether I continue to subject myself to the unpleasantness.

Now for some real news. Ben can say all sorts of things like "DaDa", "Shhhh" which means shoe, "Burrr" which means bird, and "Adadoo" which Paula says is "I love you." Not only that but he has four molars now. He also has a cackle of a laugh that is infectious.

A Haircut

Originally Posted April 8, 2002

I forgot to mention in yesterday's update that Ben received his first haircut last week on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. We unfortunately did not record the event since we went to the barbershop with only the intention of letting Ben see me get my haircut. We thought that if he saw me get my haircut and live, he might not be so scared. But once I was in the chair the chair next to me opened up and the owner of the barbershop, Charles, offered to Paula to cut Ben's hair. So Paula took a seat in the chair and held Ben on her lap. As soon as the clippers came out he started to scream, tears rolling down his cheeks. So Charles reached into a glass jar and pulled out a lollipop and presented it to Ben. He seemed pleased enough with the colored paper on the end of the stick but when Mom took off the wrapper and stuck it in his mouth his eyes widened in silent surprise. So the morning that saw Ben's first haircut also saw his first experience with a lollipop.

It was somewhat of a mess as Charles continued to cut hair as Ben sucked on the lollipop. Blond hair stuck to his cheeks which were still wet from his earlier crying. Once enough hair collected he would wipe it away with the hand he was holding the sucker in. Of course the sucker came away covered in hair and was promptly placed back in his mouth by Ben. Paula said she must have washed the sucker off four times during the haircut.

Afterwards, whether it was the sugar or the haircut, Ben was very happy with himself. We took some pictures of him in front of the barbershop. Somehow he now looked years older with his new haircut. Paula almost got emotional at losing her little boy but she held it all together. He's still cute as he can be.

Benjamin V. and the Abstract Thought

Originally Posted April 19, 2002

There have been a few developments in Ben's life in the last few days.

Firstly, Ben now has four molar teeth. Total count that makes four molars, four front top, and four front bottom teeth. Twelve total teeth.

Secondly, Ben had his first boo-boo about a week ago out back on the patio. He was trying to go up the brick steps (with mommy and daddy watching and ready to catch him). However, we were not ready for him to miss placing his foot on the step and then run his shin across the edge. He had a small bruise and some scabbing from the light abrasion. Pictures of the boo-boo will be in the next gallery and Ben will be glad to show you were his boo-boo is next time you see him.

Thirdly, Ben did something which might, perhaps, be seen as out of the ordinary only to his parents but it must bear the telling and judgment of you, the reader, before I dismiss it as "just something else Ben did". Ben, as of late, has become very attached to his mother. This is in part due to an illness last weekend which kept me horizontal and not really actively taking care of Ben. So now he doesn't like to be put to sleep at night by me if he knows that mommy is around. However, if he forgets about mommy he will let me rock him to sleep.

So a few nights ago I was rocking him and things were looking like they were going to go well when Ben heard his mother's voice in another room. He instantly began to scream, arch his back, and reach for the door. I struggled with him thinking, "Oh yeah! Well I'm stronger than you are and I can wait out your cries. I am a rock!"

Five minutes later he was screaming to the point that he began to cough. He would eventually, as only experience will teach you, vomit. So to calm him I put him in his crib and left the room. He kept up the pace for five more minutes until I came back in the room and picked him up to sit back in the rocking chair for another go. At this point he became even more angered, which I didn't think was possible, and we did the whole cycle again. It ended, as before, with me leaving him in his crib.

Another five minutes passed and I returned to try again. He still could not be calmed. So I placed him in the crib and, having been beaten down, was going to go get his mother. Just as I opened the door he reached out once again for his mother and I quickly surprised him with a stern "NO!" and a finger in his direction. He continued to scream and threw his arm to the door again as if to say, "Go Get Her!" Once again I said, "NO!" but to my surprise he seemed to calm somewhat. I asked him in a gentler tone, "Do you want to sit in the rocking chair with daddy and go to sleep?" To my amazement he stopped crying immediately and pointed to the rocking chair. Ten minutes later he was sound asleep.

The next night I was at the station and Paula called me to relate what had just taken place in the den. She said that she had smelled Ben's diaper from a few feet away and knew he needed changing. Now, Ben fights every second he is having his diaper changed unless mommy or daddy can trick him into thinking about something else. Knowing she was going to have to change him (and therefore battle him) she half jokingly asked Ben, "Do you want your diaper changed?" She was not prepared for his answer.

Paula says that Ben simply laid down on the floor. He laid still throughout the entire changing.

Now these two events might not seem special to anyone else but Paula and I have talked and we are in agreement. Ben has for quite a while demonstrated an ability to recognize a large vocabulary as is expected of a child his age. These events, however, demonstrate an ability on his part to make abstract decisions. Not a decision of "do I want the cookie or not?" but a decision between two things that he does not want. He didn't want to go to sleep but he also recognized that he didn't want to be left to cry in his crib. He chose to be rocked by daddy. The same proposition was made with the diaper and he must have recognized that it was inevitable that he would have his diaper changed. "This can go hard or it can go easy."

So that's the big development. I think it's almost as big as the first time he picked up my keys off of the table and tried to put them in the door lock. He hadn't been directly shown but had observed, stored the information, and recalled it without being prompted.

If it doesn't show outwardly let me say at this point that I am very proud of Ben and I love him very much.

And I'll bet that goes double for his mommy.

President Carter's Mother

Originally Posted May 13, 2002

Saturday night on the history channel was a special compilation biography of the mothers of recent Presidents of the United States. I thought I might relate a portion of the program which was dedicated to Jimmy Carter's mother. I am paraphrasing from memory so please forgive any inconsistencies if you happened to have viewed the same program.

Mr. Carter was recounting the walk to the White House after being sworn in as the 39th President of the United States. His mother was part of the procession as she had been a large part of his campaign. Carter's press secretary instructed those in the procession not to talk to the press along the route, all of whom were trying to get a quick word from the now President. Mr. Carter's mother told the press secretary that she could tell her son what to do but not her and to "go to hell." The elder Carter then made her way over to where the reporter's were. One reporter asked, "what do you think of your son?" She replied, "Which one?"

Happy Mother's Day.

Critical Incidents

Originally Posted June 5, 2002

Today I attended a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. "What's that?" you might ask. Well a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing is an organized counseling session led by firefighters, police officers, and other public safety professionals trained to deal with participants of extremely stressfull incidents encountered in the daily performance of our duties. We experienced the aforementioned extremely stressful incident last thursday night at about 2:30 in the morning. By the time we were done we had extinguished a car fire, put a sheet over the ejected and broken body of the driver, found a second badly burned body in the vehicle, and removed the body from the vehicle.

Now, as I stated in the debriefing, none of it really bothered me. Sure, given the chance to be somewhere else I would have jumped at the opportunity. But there is something about focusing on getting the job done that allows me to see past the gore. I often think of a line in the movie Zulu when a very young soldier asks his Sergeant, "Why us?" in reference to why were they about to be massacred by 10,000 zulu warriors. The sergeant's reply is simple and something that I have never forgotten. He says matter of factly, "Because we're here lad. Because we're here."

I was also somewhat comforted by the fact that these guys were dead before we even got the call (police reported clocking them at 130 mph just seconds prior to them hitting the tree.) Nothing we could have done would have saved them.

Others who were there were a little more shaken by what they saw and smelled. For some it was a cummulative effect of years of seeing burned bodies. For others it was the exact opposite; they had never seen anything like this before. I somehow remained in the middle and by my own addmission probably seem cold and insensitive. I don't know what to say of that. Can I still see the body? Yes. Do I remember that smell? Yes. Am I having trouble sleeping at night? No.

It was suggested that my denial of any symptoms like fatigue, insomnia, aggressive behavior, etc. was a symptom in itself. But how can this be? Sure denial is a symptom, but not by itself.

So later this night, we (Paula, Ben, and myself) went to dinner with Nate and Casey, Kristi Burnham, and the guest of honor Keith Greenstein. This was Keith's last night in Atlanta. He is moving to Raleigh, North Carolina tommorow.

I had to leave dinner early, just as the food arrived, because Ben had reached his limit and was screaming bloody murder. So I didn't get to talk to Keith at dinner. Everyone came back to our house afterwards and Ben stayed up to play with them. So still nothing was said about Keith leaving. It got late and everyone stood up at once and said that they must be on their way. Goodbyes were said in the driveway. I hugged Keith and told him we would see him soon.

It now occurs to me, that I am in denial about Keith leaving. I have ignored all of the feelings that I have about this whole thing. We almost made an effort not to speak of it to each other. This should count as a critical incident shouldn't it?

Keith is my closest friend and has been for a long time now. I miss him already. Good luck Keith. We know you will do well.

"The Gatekeeper," Atticus, and Oxycotin

Originally Posted November 15, 2002

First I must apologize for the length of time that has passed since I last updated this website. Time seems to be slipping away at an alarming rate and a lot has happened.

Sadly my paternal grandmother, Alyne Porteous Voorhies, passed away on September 26, 2002. The memorial service was very nice and I was a pallbearer. I also had the honor of reading a small composition about her maiden name during the service; how the name meant "gatekeeper" and how she fit the name so well. I miss her very much.

We also recently had to put Atticus down. He had a seizure one friday morning while I was home which lasted for over an hour. The veterinarian was able to break the seizure on the verge of lethal doses of anti-seizure medication but this monthly pattern was only getting worse. It's not an easy thing to get an 85lb. seizing dog into a crate and transport him to the hospital. Paula at home with Ben, while I played fireman, would not have been capable to deal with him in this state. The seizures were most likely the result of Cushings Disease which is usually caused by a tumor in the pituitary or adrenal glands. We had begun the testing to confirm and his symptoms were almost a perfect match. I was with him in the end. He enjoyed an entire bag of Pecan Sandies that morning. He was a good dog.

News in the world of the fire department, there's a new drug on the street: Oxycotin. It's synthetic morphine which is prescribed for heavy pain treatment. It is in pill form which means that there is a time release of the drug into the user's system. However, if you crush, dissolve, and inject the drug into your blood the effect can be sleepy sleep sleep sleepity sleepiness. Just ask the jack-ass around the corner from my station who overdosed one Sunday night not too long ago. Note to family and friends of users: Don't forget to tell the rescue personnel that the patient just shot enough sedative to induce a full respiratory arrest and lying about it only makes us mad. Anyway jack-ass made it. I'm sure after his close call he has mended his ways and now walks the straight and narrow.

I also have been reassigned to Station 2 in Brookhaven; The Brookhaven Express. We are just down Dresden Drive behind the MARTA station. Stop in if you're in the area.

Keith and Helen visited us two weekends ago. Helen, if you hadn't already heard, is a very smart, attractive, and funny woman that Keith has been seen with lately. Paula and I met the two of them at the Roadhouse Grill in the North Highlands for lunch. The food was worse than I remembered and I am sorry I suggested it. I hope they come back soon.

Tonight all of the Brunswick group got together for Tony Tiberia's and Lisa Smith's birthdays. It was fun and Paula and I really enjoyed being around all of those people. Happy Birthday to you both.

Christmas 2002

Originally Posted December 22, 2002

You know, when I was a kid Christmas meant something very different than it does now. I'm sure that most adults would concur that it is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of trying to get things done around the holiday season. There's shopping and all of the hassles that come with a trip to the mall. There's the pressures of trying to get Christmas cards (or cd's) out to friends and family in time. There's the cleaning of houses and cooking of sweets and meals in preparation for a visit from family. And all of this without the two weeks off that we used to get. So it can be easy to lose sight of the holidays.

So now on my thirty-second Christmas I feel almost like a child again. And it's the weirdest thing. It's strange and new, as if I hadn't experienced any of those previous Christmas' of my youth, yet warm, comfortable, and familar like a grandparent's house. This year I seem to be enjoying the season through my son's eyes. We didn't teach him to say "Christmas tree" he just picked it up. And he loves to look at it all lit up. He'll grab you by the hand and lead you into the room repeating "Kismas Dee! Kismas Dee!" So I find myself standing in front of the tree that took me an hour to get up the stairs from the basement and another two hours to get all the lights working at once. The same tree that I have walked past ten times today without really noticing. And now I'm standing in front of it with him. And I can see it with his eyes. And it is a wonderful thing.

And as I was standing there with my son looking at this beautiful thing all aglow, I started remembering what Christmas is supposed to be about. This story of a child's birth now became something completely different. I was now seeing that night in the manger from a father's perspective. Joseph was faced with a long journey, a pregnant wife, and no place to stay. And after all of these hardships I believe I know exactly what he felt to see that child for the first time. Suddenly all of the hassles of the holidays I had bemoaned seemed not so difficult.

How amazing it is to be able to experience Christmas as a child for the second time, and this time I'm old enough to appreciate what a great gift it is. Because Christmas isn't about the tree. It's about the fact that my son want's to look at the tree with me.

Tragedy Is Missed Opportunity On Fire

Origianally Posted January 5, 2003

Well a Happy New Year to everyone. Sorry to those of you that we might have said we were going to spend it with at one time or another. We have, in the last few days developed quite a significant leak in the basement. Anytime it rains we seem to get water in the basement. Christmas Eve, for instance, I came home after working all night on Engine 2 hoping to get a little sleep that morning before going over to Paula's father's house for Christmas celebration #1. Instead I found water in the basement and by five o'clock that afternoon had vacuumed over 200 gallons out with a wet/dry vac. It was coming so fast at one point the vacuum couldn't keep up. As irony would have it New Year's Eve was spent in a similar manner only with not quite so much water.

We hope everyone's holiday was a good one. We enjoyed all of ours including Christmas #'s 1, 2, 3, and 4.

The quote on the first page is my own. That makes two in a row and I am sorry for that but the current one was something that hit me in the last few days while I was pondering a call we went on New Year's Day. A man, a father, died in the house with his three grown children. There we were the night of New Year's Day doing CPR and all of the time the children seemed disturbingly calm considering the situation. And as I'm doing compressions on this man, who I think was somewhere around fifty years old, I'm thinking, "1...2...3...4...5...they don't know...1...2...3." And I was right. After it was over and the doctor on the phone gave us the okay to stop CPR it finally hit the children and they got it; he wasn't coming back.

And that's when the bomb went off. Not a real bomb but you would swear you heard it ticking had you been there. And once this bomb goes off there isn't any way to undo it. There's nothing you can say or do, so you do what you would with any bomb; you run away.

Now we're standing outside the apartment at the ambulance waiting for the police to show up, as is required by law, and I'm thinking, "What a damn tragedy. This sucks." The word "tragedy" kept going through my head and I started to think about how we use words all of the time that we don't mean or don't really apply to situations, but "tragedy" was appropriate in this instance. Still, I couldn't help examining why this was a tragedy. What makes this tragic? Sure it's sad but why tragic? And as I was writing the report back at the station it hit me: Tragedy is missed opportunity on fire.

The children had told us that their father had been feeling chest pain for about a week but hadn't seen a doctor. That's the missed opportunity. But unlike some missed opportunities that may come around again this one wouldn't. That's the "on fire." I say "on fire" for two reasons. First the opportunity to have seen a doctor in this instance is like a building that is lost in a fire, there is the obvious loss of building and contents just as the opportunity is lost. But there is something else that comes with fires; spectators. People watch when things burn. People see the missed opportunity or "tragedy" in all of its blazing glory. These children not only had to deal with their father's ill-fated decision not to see a doctor but people, like us, will know he might still be alive if he had seen a doctor and some might say, "what did you expect?" And that's the tragedy because I don't think this man expected to die.

Anyway be thankful in the New Year for what you have. Count your blessings. The most you can hope for this year is to not repeat some of the mistakes of last year.

Let's Talk CPR

Originally posted January 7, 2003

I feel that I must explain a few things regarding some of the things in the last entry. Let's talk CPR.

There are things about CPR that they don't teach you when you get certified by the Red Cross. No matter how many times you've seen it work on television, "it don't make it so." For instance, the television show CSI Miami recently had an episode that began with a plane crash in a swamp. I'm not sure how but the CSI investigators were on scene within minutes of the crash and found a person in the grass. One of them leaps to the injured man's side (who was moments earlier moaning loud enough for them to find him) and says, "He's not breathing." Up to now everything is perfectly plausible. But at the statement, "he's not breathing," the rescuer immediately begins chest compressions. Now there are many reasons someone might stop breathing but still have a pulse: blocked airway, respiratory alkalosis, and respiratory arrest to name a few. And while cardiac arrest can accompany any of these conditions it doesn't have to. You can stop breathing and still have a pulse. You do it every time you duck your head under water. That's why you check for a pulse before you start pounding away on someone's chest, which is a step that the rescuer on television skipped for some reason. He probably didn't feel like giving mouth to mouth to another man and the producers figured chest compressions looked more dramatic on television anyway. So where was I?....

Now, I've only been a firefighter for a little bit over five years but I have yet to save someone with CPR. More often than not that has to do more with our response time to the scene and the amount of time that the patient has gone without CPR than with the actual mechanics of the procedure. Don't get me wrong, CPR is a great thing and everyone should know it. It has saved lives. I just haven't seen any of them and the longest I've gone without doing CPR is about three weeks. CPR is great if you happen to be standing next to the patient when the go down and you can immediately initiate it. But after about the first five minutes someone is down you can pretty much forget it. Considering our average response time from the moment you call to when we arrive is seven minutes, the patient is beyond our saving when we arrive. But we put on one hell of a good show.

CPR is a very nasty business. As air is forced into the patient most of it, due to human anatomy, ends up in the stomach instead of the lungs. As air builds up in the stomach it forces stomach contents up the esophagus, past the epiglottis (which is not unlike the little white stick that guides bowling balls onto either of the two sides of the rack when they return from the underworld. Your epiglottis does this for your stomach and lungs directing food or air into the correct tube.) into the back of the throat. Each breath displaces more and more.

Chest compressions can break ribs at the point that they connect to the sternum which is a feeling you won't soon forget should you have the opportunity. With each downward thrust you are literally squeezing the heart in between the sternum and the spine to force blood to circulate. This downward motion also expels air from the lungs and the patient will begin to gurgle if the aforementioned vomit is present in the back of the throat.

Most of the times the patient's eyes are fixed and open. You don't shut them as this might be misconstrued by friends or family of the patient as though you have given up. There is also sometimes the smell of fecal material as the body loses control of the bowels.

Now just as there are rules and certainties about CPR the same would seem to be true about the people needing CPR. For one thing they always seem to fall out in a hole, closet, bathroom, under a table, etc. Anywhere that it's hard as hell to get around them and work. So you have to move them before you can begin. And most CPR candidates are overweight and thus very difficult to move. See how this progresses?

I don't paint so pretty of a picture. But guess what! It only gets worse if the patient is revived because the first thing they will do is vomit. Also, if the patient is brought back from the brink there is now the added threat of developing pneumonia due to aspirating vomit into the lungs.

Enough about CPR! Let's talk paddles. As in defibrillator paddles. Now contrary to popular opinion these are not soul injectors. They cannot restore life. Think of them as a reset button on the ball return at the bowling alley (again with the bowling analogies!). If the patient's heart is contracting but not effectively than the paddles stand a chance of knocking some sense back into it and resetting it to a normal rhythm. However, if the patient has no cardiac activity or is "flatline" the paddles don't do a damn thing. As I said before they can't miraculously restore life to dead tissue. I know Gage and DeSoto looked cool using them but they aren't the duct tape of the paramedic toolbox. (It should be noted that I still consider Emergency! to be the most accurate portrayal of what I do at work. There's a lot of kidding, a lot of B.S. calls and occasionally you get the chance to help someone.)

Well that's enough rambling for a while. Talk to you soon. Squad 51 OUT, KMG-365.

Why Two Paramedics

Originally Posted April 30, 2003

So once again I have gone an inexcusable length of time without updating this website. A large part of that was due to the amount of time that I devoted on the computer from the first of the year until early april on redoing our Station 2 map books. You see we have individual maps of each apartment complex so that we can get around and find the building we need more quickly. Station 2 happens to have over 100 apartment complexes in its territory. Needless to say the job of scanning, correcting, titling, redrawing, and adding hydrants was time consuming. But its done now and what did I get? I'll tell you. I got my yearly evaluation sent back three times so far for lack of documentation as to why I received a higher than average rating.

Dekalb County in an effort to save money has made a few changes as of recent. The cost cutting measures of last year positioned me on the ambulance at Station 2 about once every seven shifts that I worked. I didn't sign up to work on the ambulance but everyone was being forced to so I have to go along or quit. It's a cost cutting measure because the county has changed the level of care that a person is getting on the ambulance since it is no longer staffed with two paramedics, but one paramedic and an EMT. EMT's don't cost near what the paramedic does and in most cases you probably only need one paramedic on the truck because most of our calls aren't real emergencies. Take for instance the 36 year old man who dialed 911 two shifts ago at 4:30 a.m. because he, "wasn't feeling well." No specific complaint. He just wanted to go to the hospital. When we asked him how long he "hadn't been feeling well," he told us it had been about a week. Now the next obvious question is so what happened that you decided to call us now, at 4:30 in the morning. Again he replied he just wasn't feeling well but, he added, "I have HIV." Now, whether he knows it or not he now qualifies for a ride in an ambulance, even if nothing is wrong with him, because he is immune compromised and that meets our transport criteria for who goes and who doesn't.

Are you still following? Point is that's how most calls go. Lights and siren to the scene to find out someone needs a band-aid and is insisting on going to the hospital in an ambulance which they have no intention of paying for.

But some calls are for real. Like the one that came in the last saturday I worked at about 6:30 in the morning. It was dispatched as a motor vehicle accident with entrapment on Interstate 85 northbound at Clairmont Road. When we got there we saw one pickup against the median wall and one in the middle of the interstate. Both were hard to recogize as pickup trucks at first. The police had completely shut down the interstate in both directions and for good reason. Now I'm not going to go into the gory details but two people died instantly and two were entrapped in the wreckage and dying. Out came the extrication tools and the vehicles were dissected around the patients. The short of it is that one of the pickup trucks was earlier travelling on I-85 northbound and missed the exit for 285-westbound so he turned around and started heading back the wrong direction. PD tried to stop him but he made it about five miles until he hit the pickup (that ended up against the wall) head on killing two of the three guys on their way to lay some brick. The entire bed of their truck, which was packed with tools, flew over the median wall and into oncoming traffic.

I had the pleasure of working on freeing the wrongway driver who reeked of alcohol and later on the way to the hospital in the back of the ambulance asked for another drink. The jackass had an open hip fracture, both legs broken so many times they made one big letter "S" on the stretcher, and an arm almost as bad off. Not to mention general trauma on the body and internal organs resulting from two vehicles both travelling at around 65 mph hitting head on. Did I mention there weren't any skid marks.

And that's why each ambulance should have two paramedics on it. For situations just like this. But they don't happen enough to justify spending the money. So that's where we were up until about two weeks ago when it came down that only three firefighters at a station would be in rotation to ride "the box" as we call it. Sh*t rolls down hill I have heard said and I happen to be one of the three with the least seniority at my station. So guess who's riding an ambulance every third shift now.

Now that I'm done complaining, let me make it perfectly clear that I am glad to have a job. I still like my job. Complaining is just a release. I would also like to apologize at this time for the rambling nature of the above since I didn't think it out beforehand but pretty much just typed it as it popped into my head.

In other news, Ben is doing great. He's almost completely potty trained as he will tell you and just about any stranger in a store or whomever is willing to listen. Paula's doing good.

What's For Dinner?

Baked Grouper with Chunky Tomato Sauce

The grouper is seared to give it a slightly crisp crust that can hold up to the moisture from the tomato topping. Use a heavy oven-proof skillet that can go from stovetop to oven. To seed a tomato, cut it in half, hold each half in the palm of your hand, and squeeze gently.


3 1/2 cups chopped seeded tomato (about 4 medium ones)
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup dry white wine (I used cooking sherry)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 6 oz Grouper fillets (I used salmon fillets)

1. Preheat oven to 425
2. Combine first 10 ingredients in a medium bowl
3. Heat oil in a large skillet (I used an iron skillet) over high heat. Place fish, skin side up, in a pan; cook 2 minutes. Turn fish over; top with tomato mixture. Bring to a boil. Place pan in oven; bake at 425 for 8 minutes (my salmon required almost twice as much time in the oven) or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Makes 4 servings.

That's it and it was pretty good. The boys didn't really go for it but that is becoming increasingly difficult to forecast. It came out of a Cooking Light magazine so it's pretty healthy for you. The magazine actually listed all of the calories and fat grams but I don't like typing irregular characters so....

Fashion Wins Again

I'm pretty sure that a few of these were used in Anchorman. Once again the commentary is perfect.

The Dorcus Collection

Celery + Gravity = Art

This is one of the first interesting sites I found on the internet and it's still one of my favorites.

Art Frahm

Take the time to check it out. The comments for the paintings are pretty funny and dead on. There's a lot more going on here than just a little leg.

The Wedding Last night

We went to the wedding of a friend's son last night. I never thought I would hear this at a wedding but the preacher said, "Sin is a repugnant stench in the nostril's of God." Pretty sweet weddin' talk.

Where I'm finding my music

So I was talking to Michael and Jeremy about where we were finding music and I promised them to get them the list. Here it is:

Sixeyes
3 Hive
Stereogum
The House of Leaf and Lime

I think Sixeyes is my favorite. Dave Hermanas also hit me up to Pandora which is like a radio station on your computer except that it caters what it plays to your taste. It learns as you listen. Pretty cool and free.

Pandora

What's all this then....

Ever vigilent, I will keep up with the Greensteins of the world. I too, now have a blog.