Emergency Services

PART I
I spent many years as a volunteer fire fighter. When I first joined the department we had a very old International Harvester pumper and a not so old Dodge brush truck. We were very basic and very cash poor. So cash poor that we only had 2 sets of SCBA's. These were reserved for the officers who would proudly don their equipment and lead a team of very brave and/or very dumb, un protected firemen into the smoke filled building.
As our community grew so did the Fire Department. It now has 2 stations, 4 state of the art pumpers, a ladder truck (squirt) various rescue trucks and a couple of ambulances.
The volunteer has changed also. From of bunch of dedicated men and women doing their best to fight fire in blue jeans and hard hats to fully protected, well trained FIRE/RESCUE responders. One thing that hasn't changed. Fire Fighters the world over are 100% dedicated to helping People in need. As the world grows more populated there are so many more ways to get hurt. Fires involving Multiple structures or 1,000's of acres, traffic accidents involving dozens of cars and victims and more hazardous materials than you can shake a stick at.
Fire departments all over the world regularly train for these incidents. Thousand of lives have been saved over the years by these dedicated people. Often a store clerk or farmer who stepped up and volunteered. Or a highly trained professional who shares the same dedication to helping people in need. In the immortal words of the world famous Cable Guy...They "Get ER Done"

PART II

How did the Katrina disaster get so screwed up? Because the Department of Homeland Security has handling it. The Department of Homeland Security is a great idea as a security service. Homeland Security should not be used as a disaster team. FEMA should be completely separated from Homeland Security. FEMA has the knowledge and resources to mitigate any disaster. Using the fire services "INCIDENT COMMAND STRUCTURE" they can respond and systematically and methodically take an out of control situation and bring it under control saving lives and reducing property damage or loss. Then incident command structure has worked for years. Why? Because it is simple. The only thing that changes is the size of the incident. As the incident grows resources are simply added. The one thing that should never ever be added to this tried and true system............POLITICIANS.
Where do we get these resources you ask?...Go back and read PART I

It Knows Where You've Been

Have you seen the commercial on TV where your car sends you an E-mail to let you know it needs attention?

I wonder what your car is doing when it's not e-mailing you. Perhaps it's surfing the web. What if it's in a chat room telling every one where it went today. Or checking out some X rated web site. Who's monitoring your cars on-line activities?

ONSTAR

ONSTAR monitors your vehicle. It can tell where you are, where you're going and where you've been. It knows when your airbags have been deployed and can even call 911 for you. How does it do all of this? It uses satellite signals. Very high tech. Satellite signals that can be monitored.

What if Homeland Security decided to monitor ONSTAR? Wow! They could track the bad guys. They could tell where they are, where they're going, where they've been and when their getaway car needs service.

Cell Phones

The other day while sitting at a stop sign I came within a foot of being run under by a big Chevy Suburban. This big SUV was driven by a woman who was more interested in her conversation on her cell phone than where her tank was going. I honked my horn and she actually looked out the window and swerved to avoid contact. I received a dirty look from her for interrupting her important conversation to call her attention to the fact that she was driving a car. You have to ask...Is talking to someone who you just left or are just about to meet so important that you risk reeking havoc on the population with a ton and a half projectile.

A few days earlier as I was driving around town I had to stop for a pedestrian. This pedestrian hand in her right hand a shopping bag. Under her right arm she was carrying some books and notebooks. Her left hand had a cell phone. Pressed firmly to her left ear. She was wearing the standard college uniform, Sweat shirt, funny wooden shoes and baggy warm up pants. What made this all stand out to me was that with every step she took her baggy warm up pants slipped further and further down. But she was not, by god, going to interrupt her conversation to fix the falling trousers. By the time she got to the other side of the street she decided that discretion was more important than the grocery bag. She set the bag down, hiked up the errant warm ups and continued on her way, still carrying on her conversation. But not before showing all of 12th Avenue that she was also wearing a pair of red, butt floss undies. Now you have to ask....Never mind.

I guess keeping in touch is a big deal.

Don't call me...I'll call you

Saving The World

When I was young and growing up in a small, very small town in southern Utah, I would go into the general store to get something and I would see all these old men setting around just talking, smoking pipes or cigars. I wondered what they were talking about. What would a bunch of old farts have to say that was so important that it would occupy their whole day?

Now I know. It was the 1950 version of blogging. We don't have general stores anymore. Someplace to sit, smoke and generally save the world. WalMart would go into orbit if a bunch of old codgers lit up, put their feet up on a plastic McDonald's table and started discussing politics or what their neighbors were doing last night. Now every where you go it's "NO SMOKING", "NO LOITERING" "SHOES AND SHIRT REQUIRED" . Political correctness wasn't even heard of. God forbid if anyone is ever offended. I wanted to grow old and be one of those old codgers that were fixing things. Making things right. But, alas, this is the 21st century. So now I am a blogger (Not to be confused with people who dance in those wooden shoes) and I want to create a blog page that will give old codgers and curmudgeons an opportunity to lean back, put their feet up, light up and help me save the world