abaduck

Often I do. Olympus Stylus770SW. Shockproof, waterproof to 60'+ - I take it scuba diving. Fireproof? Not tested yet! Firegound-proof? We'll see, seems to be doing ok so far.

Sometimes less is more... Left pants pocket: wire cutter, multi-head screwdriver, 15' webbing sling (water knot), on top of which I have my structural gloves (until it's time to put them on). Right pants pocket: 50' bailout line in bag with krab attached, ready to deploy. Small emergency maglite. Couple of chocks. Inside jacket pocket: camera (sometimes), medical gloves (always) That's it.

That was a game of football and no mistake. Almost (but not quite) made up for Scotland getting thrashed by France at rugby this afternoon...

You must be joking... General Electric, nasty boring things, very efficient but no soul to them, unlike the EMD FL... oh wait, you mean the band?! I thought we were talking trains! Oh they're not bad. Phil can sing, Peter can write. I'll stick to Runrig. Great Scottish band, wrap your ears around this... http://www.corestore.org/maymorning.mp3 Mike

Steady on, that's a bit harsh (ok, it's bloody harsh and out of order IMHO) - McSorleys in particular made some polite and constructive suggestions, with which I would tend to agree as it happens. If I'd known this was how you react to helpful advice I'd have had second thoughts about making a donation! :angry: By the way, emtbravo.com is down again, in case you didn't know. Mike

Done... but what's with the $8.99 shipping charge added to the amount I wanted to pay when I used paypal? You gonna send me something Seth?

What was that, and how did it get splatted ***? Mike

Hah. Years and years ago I was chatting on IRC under the handle 'abaddon'. A friend suggested this was far too 'sinister' a nickname for someone like me (it was taken after a character in a book, but apparently also has biblical connotations) so, purely for laughs, I changed it to 'abaduck'... which caused much hilarity, and it stuck! Mike

Hmmmm. Generally I would agree with you. But about 5 or 6 years ago I had the 'upset stomach' from hell. After over a week of being able to keep pretty much *nothing* down (or 'up' - anything that did stay down ran straight through me), I decided it was time to drag myself to doc. Only to discover I was so weak I was basically incapable of walking. Alone in apartment (wife was away on business), I called an ambulance and I'm not ashamed of it. Spent quite a while in ER - was pretty dangerously dehydrated, naturally. Never found out exactly what bit me. Mike

OK, you've pushed a button. I respectfully beg to differ - as a Brit by birth, American by choice, I've had the chance to sample both systems fairly extensively and I have to say the US system *sucks*. There are good doctors and good hospitals, entirely screwed by the insurance companies. They are a bunch of scamming thieves (I have that on good authority from an insider) - deliberately losing paperwork, denying claims on preposterous invented reasons (recently had a bunch of claims for my son turned down because our only insurers had invented the notion that there was somehow some other primary insurance) - at least some companies deliberately deny a certain percentage of claims for no reason as general policy, in the sure knowledge that a fair proportion of these denials will not be successfully contested. Dammit, the vast overhead costs incurred by all these paper-pushers could pretty much pay for free healthcare for everyone! When I was being treated for cancer, the insurance company wouldn't pay the *actual* cost for the drugs used, only a notional 'wholesale' cost which bore no relation to the price they could actually be bought for - my doc would have been thousands out of pocket if I hadn't volunteered to stump up the difference. My kids just had to get blood drawn for a lead test. Trival - lancet in the finger, took one minute during their annual physical. But I had to pay for it; the insurance company wouldn't. Well... they *would*, but not if it was done during their physical. They would only pay if I made another appointment, put the kids back in the car, drove to another town, and took them to an insurance-approved lab. Complete and utter BS rules. Moronic. Ever seen a movie called 'John Q'? I don't think that was ever released in the UK; Brits would just not comprehend it at all, it would have been 'What? That just can't happen... this is nonsense' Both systems *are* flawed, but the US one is verging on 3rd world, barbaric, and run by robber barons to boot. The EMS system is pretty much entirely seperate from the rest of the healthcare system - don't draw any conclusions from what was, I admit, a pretty shoddy experience. As for ERs... well I haven't noticed US ERs being exactly quiet as the grave, come on... Mike

Same here, it tends to load fast, or not load at all - blank page - or occasionally I think I've seen 'error 500'... Sometimes takes two or three retries before it loads. And this is only the .com - the .net is fine. Mike

RAW always, for any scene. The amount of rescue work you can do (correcting under/over exposure, colour etc.) when you have RAW data to work with is amazing, vs. JPEG. The only reason to shoot JPEG is if you are seriously constrained on memory capacity, and with memory as cheap as it is now that excuse should seldom or never arise. The files do get big tho - RAW files from my Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n are 14-15MB per image. My tip of the week: run, don't walk, to these people and buy a copy of Noiseware Pro: http://www.imagenomic.com/ You won't believe how useful it is until you try it. Mike

Or the hose bed...!!!!! And it's obviously not a jaunt, it's driver training Mike

Amen to that. I'm not above criticising my adopted nation when it's warranted (I'm a Brit by birth, American by choice) and I have to say I'm less than impressed with the standard of driving over here. I drive around using what I call the 'seven minute rule'; I remember at all times that those drivers around me have passed a test which lasts around seven minutes and has a... what?... 98% pass rate? Back in the UK, driving tests last around 45 minutes and I think less than 50% pass first time... My current pet peeve is drivers in left-turn lanes at traffic signals... you're going straight through the intersection with a green light, morons coming the opposite way and turning left will turn left just in front of you, forcing you to brake and/or swerve, as if you weren't there. Or as if they had a green left-turn arrow, which they don't... The number of times I've nearly been clobbered when heading up Weaver St., across Palmer, heading for the firehouse in Mamaroneck is downright scary. Mike

Well no more jokes, it's here....

That's one possible answer. If she's hot and you're single, the other answer that can work is "there's only one way you find that out... dinner, a movie, a few drinks..." Seriously... if you haven't tried it, a kilt is a real chick magnet. Mike

Well said ALS... man enough and to spare here. Utilikilt... and yeah I have worn it for construction, but not for calls... yet! And the real thing too... wore this to last inspection dinner:

No surprise at all Tom... MORE rights? I too wondered about that, the 'sense' of the question was not always easily determined. For instance, gun control... yes it's important to me, but not, I suspect, in the same sense that it's important to, for instance, Hillary <shudder> Precisely the opposite sense would be nearer the mark, but the quiz didn't attempt to discern in WHICH sense issues were important to the voter. Mike

Bill Richardson, Christopher Dodd, and Barack Obama all 73% Which is @$%&* wierd... I'd never think of myself as a Democrat, I think they asked a rather odd and rather stilted range of questions. If they'd asked on different issues I'd probably have come up with a bunch of Republicans... At least Hillary wasn't on my list <shudder> Mike

Date: 11/2/07 Time: 18:45 GMT Location: Atherstone, UK Departments: Warwickshire, Hereford and Worcester, and West Midlands Fire and Rescue Services Description: Large vegetable warehouse fire, suspected arson Links: Firefighter 'dies tackling blaze' Writer: abaduck From the BBC: "A firefighter is reported to have died and three others are believed to be missing after a suspected arson attack at a warehouse in Warwickshire. Up to 100 firefighters and five ambulance crews were called to the vegetable warehouse in Atherstone on Stour, near Stratford upon Avon. Police said they were treating the blaze as suspicious. West Midlands Ambulance spokesman Murray McGregor said he understood "large parts" of the roof had collapsed and said the three firefighters who were unaccounted for had not been seen for several hours. Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said it "could be the worst night for the fire service in decades"." From Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service: "One fire fighter is in hospital with serious injuries and three fire fighters are officially missing following a serious fire at industrial premises on the Atherstone Industrial Estate, Atherstone on Stour, near Stratford upon Avon this evening, 2 November. The fire service expect the fire to be brought under control shortly. It has been a cross border operation between Warwickshire and Hereford and Worcester and West Midlands Fire and Rescue Services involving: sixteen fire appliances; two hydraulic platforms, one from Coventry and one from Leamington Spa; one high volume pumping unit delivering large capacities of water; three water carriers from Leamington Spa, Evesham and Coleshill; one breathing apparatus unit from Atherstone."

Few pointers from a guy who did FF1 back in June: 1. Speak up in class! Instructors hate standing in a roomful of students all playing dumb. 2. Don't get behind on your reading - I read the whole book about three times before my class and it DID help. 3. Don't sweat the written tests: if you pay attention and do 2. above, you'll be fine. 4. Don't sweat the 'practical tests' - if your course is anything like mine, there won't be any - you're being continually assessed as you learn and perform skills. 5. Bill said 'hydrate or die'. He might have been exaggerating but he wasn't joking. Stay off the booze the night before and drink often starting at least 24hrs before a practical day. You won't have it so hard as we did in the summer but you're still going to sweat pints. 6. You WILL (probably) be yelled at. It's not personal, you have to learn to cope with the stress of the fireground, and if you can't handle a little yelling... 7. If you don't know knots, don't try to teach yourself - Even if you know knots... well I thought I knew some knots but learned far better ways to do things. Once you've been taught knots, practice practice practice - this needs to assume the status of 'muscle memory'. 8. Communicate communicate communicate. With your buddy backing you up on the line, with the guy doing the search beside you, with the 'officer' supervising the operation. I'd say this is my #1 point. 9. This is probably the most important class you'll ever take. Sure you'll do other classes, you'll get a lot more experience in service, but under real stress you WILL revert to basic training, and that needs to be right. 10. Have fun! Hope this helps - guys, shoot me down in flames if I've said anything out of place. Mike

Let's pick a nice easy non-controversial topic for my first post I think Seth and ALSFirefighter (ALS... is that you Tom?) have it about right. Driving licenses are not the issue. You want to drive? Get a license! Legal, illegal, or citizen, it doesn't matter. What I object to in the present debate is the notion of some kind of amnesty, or mechanism for illegals to become legal easily. I'm a legal immigrant, Scottish-born - I got my US citizenship a couple of months ago. Without going into the gory details, it took the best part of ten years; I don't know if you guys have any conception of just how hard and long a process it is. The notion of giving citizenship to people who said 'f**k you' to that process and just got themselves across the border is repugnant, and a slap in the face - no, a kick in the balls - to guys like me who did it the hard way. Mike