“Back to Basics, Beaten Up”…
Monday, March 30th, 2009“Back to Basics, Beaten Up”
By PJ Johnson
It seems today many of our younger and complacent firefighters have a very difficult problem revisiting and reassessing our basic firefighting skills. They think that back to basics is a waste of their time and below them to even warrant their attention. We have all seen it, any drill [...]
“Love Thy Neighbor”…
Sunday, March 29th, 2009By Ray McCormack, FDNY
Love thy Neighbor – Not
There is a new type of firefighting coming into prominence in the fire service. I cannot call it fire attack because of what it lacks (pride) and how it is accomplished (neighbor style). Neighbor style firefighting consists of shooting water from the exterior through windows. What was [...]
“Sout’side…Redux”…
Sunday, March 29th, 2009And you thought the recession was bad news….here’s why I have been breathing into a paper bag for the last week…
“40 Years and One Day”…
Sunday, March 29th, 2009My buddies often accuse me of being gloom and doom. I don’t think I’m too gloom and doom, I prefer to consider myself a realist and pragmatist. In this day and age however, and with our uncertain future, the latter two are often synonomous with the former two. However, I will take a little break [...]
“Colum-BUS”…
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Hat tip STATter 911:
Columbus, OH is looking at dumping ALS service to its citizens due to this recession that hopefully will end before there’s nothing left.
I can’t blame the pols in Columbus, when cities cry poor nowadays, they actually mean it. Nonetheless, It sucks that fire departments’ budgets are becoming the wishing wells of financial [...]
“Pounding Couplings”…
Thursday, March 26th, 2009I work with the senior man in the company; he is our driver too, a good one. He knows a lot about the neighborhood and I never have to ask him if he knows how to get there. Unfortunately, we are going to lose him this year, not to budget cuts, but to retirement.
We were [...]
“Wanting”…
Monday, March 23rd, 2009There are a lot of fires we go to where there’s little left for us to do when we get there. It’s all about first due and some are always left wanting. It seems as of late though, what we read and where we seem to be headed is leaving us wanting as well. Is [...]
“Watered-Down Budgeting”…
Monday, March 23rd, 2009V.P. Biden recently sent a stern warning to the Country’s Mayors: Not to spend stimulus dollars foolishly, or else he’ll show up in your town and say ‘it was a stupid idea.’ I won’t hold my breath. Spending money on anything but necessities (public safety, health, food, etc.) sounds foolish anyway. In fact, it will [...]
“High-Rise Symposium”
Monday, March 23rd, 2009I was in NYC last week to take in the FDNY’s High-Rise Symposium. Good symposium with good speakers; and the FDNY is always a class-act job. I was also able to visit my friends and hang out with some other greats that came to town. This was the second stop on thehousewatch.com’s spring tour. Next stop, [...]
“Sout’side”…
Monday, March 16th, 2009On Saturday, I made my yearly pilgrimage to the Southside of Chicago for the annual Southside Irish Parade debauchery. I was unable to officially make it to the parade route due to family obligations on Sunday, however, we did make it to downtown Chicago on Saturday for the ‘other’ St. Pat.’s gig.
A great time was [...]