JBE

Thanx Andy, usually I have this stuff up right after I take it. This was a few weeks in between so my memory isn't too good sometimes.

Rassum Frassum picture limits.. I had seen Mike Martinellis shots of this rig, and I wanted a few of my own. So Adam and I headed over to 63, we lucked out as they were just coming in from another Unified Call Taker CF. I like the black over white on the numbers. Big thanx to Yonkers, the guys in 63/39/and the 15, and to Adam for driving me around this time. I am on vacation a big chunk of July, so if anyone wants me to come up and shoot rigs for them, PM me. I'll bring Adam if he isn't working.

Hats off to the Yonkers guys for putting the Q on the Chiefs Car.. Next stop, the Orient Express, a trip back in time, and Da Top of Da Bronx!!! Station 13 was the first Yonkers house I had ever visited when I was a kid. My Aunt and Uncle lived a few blocks away and I remember my uncle bringing me over there in the early 80's. I remember Ladder 73 having a Lime Green ALF Tiller with the bubble windows on the tiller seat. And E-313 was one of those Continental thingies. Not the same now with the Smeal/HME Rearmount, but it's still cool going back after nearly 30 years. Last stop...Wakefield..

So after picking up some of the Tenessee Sour Mash, a couple of weddings, and travelling around Orange and Ulster Counties, and just saying to myself, I am so getting back up here with the camera. I decided to hit my neighbor to the north with Adam. I've been living in the city 12 years after leaving Lake Carmel and had never shot Yonkers. First Stop, Squad 11(311). Then the Collapse Rescue, 2008 Mack/Hackney...NICE!!!!! We tried to hit Rescue 1/TL-71, but there was the Puerto Rican Day festival right across the street. No Way we were getting shots of them. But, I got this. I considered an assume the position shot, but I don't know if the Yonkers cops would have been keen on it. Maybe next time. We did spy this beast leaving the festival, and followed it up Nepperhan Avenue. It was pretty interesting watching them try to back this thing into the building. 2007 Freightliner/Hackney?? Next stop after some grub. E-312/TL-75/Bn-2.

They've called the Bronx CO a couple of times asking for info and have politely been told to pack sand on numerous occasions. Back to the subject at hand, there was something I read about one of the FP buildings being sought after to be bought and renovated into a restaurant or something like that.

RIP Chief, Condolences to Steve, Jen and the boys.

Nope, not gonna happen, this is Mayor Mikes baby..Not gonna change until someone dies.

Nice going..

Crash, are you referring to that Bronx Fire Patrol #4?? I've heard of them, seen them out around the chateau de Blue Eyes once or twice, but this is something totally different.

A couple of guys came over to my job, the rest went on to wherever they went. Just to clarify, they were not firefighters. They were Fire Patrolmen.

Got one this morning. First came over as a building fire, turned out to be a burglary in progress.

The numbers on the rigs match the numbers on the Yankee Uniforms. PS I think I see Nate DeMarse in one of those shots.

How come it's not Ladder 18??

Yeah according to some faceless dope at the Mayors office, my people are "unnecessary middlemen". Never mind the fact we have had to call PD HUNDREDS of times over the past 2 and a half weeks to get WTF's or corrected information out of them. I had one of these undertrained folks tell one of my guys last night, "Why you going, Y'all don't go to stuck elevators???" Our union president showed up on TV Last night. Too little Too late..

OK, so I've been working with this new system for the past week, and I have seen a ton of errors. Be it wrong incident codes, wrong responses, misspelled words. Like I said the other day the BS filter has been removed. I must have sent Haz Mat 1 and a Squad out at least 5 times last night alone for unknown Haz Mat conditions. The only good thing to come out of this is that runs will be up for units, and productivity on the Fire Alarm Dispatchers side is going to go up.

It's already at that point.

Unfortunately, that's what it's going to take to get this madness stopped. You're flying blind to a box and it turns out to be something relatively minor, and God forbid your company wraps up and takes out a church van from the local storefront house of worship.

There's going to be more companies getting shut down, just wait. And, if I were a SFAD in the Bronx, and the 7th Division calls me to put a Truck on City Island during the summer, I would tell them, no. You should have fought harder for 53. Not to mention the fact that more than likely an edict will come down saying that no Truck should be put on City Island regardless of day or time.

And to make things worse, we find out we're having our staffing cut as well. We're losing at least one person from our staffing starting in the next few months.

As much as I hate to say it, it's probably a done deal. Should make for an interesting summer on City Island.

OK, back from my first night with this fiasco. Had a Haz Mat condition on East 72 and Park Avenue for an unkown metal container on the corner. Nitrogen Tank used to cool off the phone lines. Had a couple of large outside fires, turned out to be religious celebrations. Read the text for one in Brooklyn for Ocean Parkway and Avenue P, next to Holey Place, probably because the call taker couldn't spell synagogue. Had another one in Battery Park, fire on the grass, turned out to be the Eternal Flame at one of the monuments there. It's only going to get worse.

I just hope the nail in the coffin of this idea is the TV Crew and a pi$$ed off project dweller screaming how it took the FD 10 minutes plus to get there when in reality it only took 4 or 5.

It's going to keep going until a catastrophic failure, meaning SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE!!!!!

OK, the UCT was brought up in a Department Order last week. Of course you're going to have problems reading the tickets because we're not the ones talking to the caller anymore. You may see 59R, that's the PD radio code for a residential fire. Person states they smell smoke in bldg, blah blah blah. Whereas we would put odor of smoke, clr Apt 3B. You have to translate PD lingo. CM, I share your pain. I really do. And, like I said, it's either going to be multiple 10-45's or one of you guys buying it. It's going to get worse. I just hope it doesn't get to a point where we're calling out over the radio, "Any Engine available South of 42 Street??" and hearing silence. Dillon, ever wonder why you don't go to car wrecks, or go 15 minutes after EMS and PD are on the way?? It's all in how 911 or EMS puts it in the system. If PD puts in 53I, or EMS puts in MVAINJ, FD is not getting a ticket. If they put it Trauma, or 53X, you're getting a ticket. They may upgrade it along the way. They put something like Trauma in, for the injuries you stated?? I honestly have to say, that's probably one of my guys not paying attention to what EMS has in the incident and just seeing TRAUMA and sending out a 5-7 signal.

Aahhhh my friend, it is just the tip of the iceberg. These PSACs(Public Service Answering Centers) you speak of, are another Charlie Foxtrot waiting to happen. Here's the grand plan folks. EMS and PD will be shifted to two buildings, one at 11 Metrotech, and one on Waters Place up in the Bronx. Nevermind the fact it hasn't been built yet. Never mind the fact that over $100 million has been spent in renovations to the Bronx and Queens Dispatchers Offices, with money being spent on the Brooklyn Office, which may or may not become EMS communications. It may remain vacant as a fallback point. For FDNY Fire Communications it's going to pan out like this. The Queens office presently houses Queens and Brooklyn Fire Dispatch, and is set up for SI, if the need arises. The Bronx Office has the Bronx, and is set up for Manhattan, if the need arises. Staten Island and Manhattan are presently in their respective offices, awaiting eventual shift to 11 Metrotech. You guessed it, right next to PD with EMS in the middle. ALL ON THE SAME FLOOR!!!! So let's diagram this. Manhattan, Brooklyn, and SI, along with EMS and PD. Same Building, Same Floor. All of this is hingeing on the new Verizon phone system to be debugged. So all of it is on hold right now. I went for training on this system about a month and a half ago, and have completely forgotten half of what I saw. Could have also been I was just too tired to care. It's the same system Putnam-911 has. Lucky me, since I am now a boss in Manhattan, I get to be one of the first bosses to work in this Charlie Foxtrot known as PSAC, and will probably lose my identity as a Supervising Fire Alarm Dispatcher, and become a part of DOITT(Department of Information Technology and some other T). Don't laugh, this was brought up by DOITT and I pray that my union and my department fight that tooth and nail. I will also be schelpping from Chateau De Blue Eyes or points north to a building on Flatbush Avenue that is unsafe, in my opinion, and should just have a big a$$ bullseye painted on the Flatbush Avenue side. I'm not going to get into the lack of amenities, and lack of parking for the Rock Box. Now, remember how I said, the Bronx and Queens offices were renovated?? Well if Mayor Bloomberg gets his way, the Bronx Office will be left vacant, and operations will move to Waters Place, after all that money was used to spruce the joint up. Two and a half years for the Bronx, over two and a half years for Queens. $100 million plus of taxpayer money spent, only to see both offices left vacant after a couple of years of use. Queens is also slated to move to Waters Place, and the office on Woodhaven Boulevard goes vacant. I don't want to sound like I am whining. I'm really not. I don't mind the inconvenience of paying a toll and adding a half hour to my commute one way every day. I can deal with searching for parking, or just calling in to HQ and parking there. I don't like the idea of working in a building that could be a terrorist target, a la Oklahoma City. If something happens, the Mayor and a lot of his cronies are going to have a lot of blood on their hands, and I would rather my blood was not part of it. I also anticipate ridiculous amounts of lawsuits if an attack, or natural disaster should occur. 10570 brings up a very good point. The computer systems aren't compatible. While I have only seen fleeting glimpses of the EMS CAD, and never really gotten a look at the NYPD CAD, I am going to go out on a limb and say from my experience, they can't hold a candle to Starfire. I cannot understand how a 30 plus year old CAD system can be more efficient than more modern systems in many respects. I could go into numerous examples, mostly with highways and subways. I don't see how 600 East 125 Street in Manhattan can be an enveloping location for Wards Island, Randalls Island, and the Triboro Bridge. Whereas in Starfire, all are seperate locations. 1 Wards Island, Randalls Island, Triboro Bridge, with what part of the bridge having its own specific Box number. 116 BX IRT?? Token Booth number. Why not just say, IRT 2 Gun Hill Road?? That's how it goes into Starfire. Works just fine. Once again, I don't want this to seem like I am whining or complaining. I am a firm believer in the philosophy that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. As far as consolidation goes, I'm against it. When the plans were being drawn up for these renovations, I wasn't against moving EMS in with us. If anything, I saw that as a benefit. The only consolidation I support is Manhattan and the Bronx in one office on 180th Street. Brooklyn and Queens over on Woodhaven. Staten Island stays on Slosson Avenue, in trailers, while the office is renovated. EMS can have Empire Boulevard, it will be a step up from what they have now, or move Brooklyn back in and make it joint Fire/EMS once the renovations are done. PD can have Waters Place, and 11 MT. It all comes down to money folks. The city seems to think it is more cost effective to protect one building, as opposed to 4 or 5. Dollars and cents over people and livelihoods. Soap Box is now AQ, I'm going to bed. I got a long weekend of fun ahead of me and would rather focus on that right now. Hope to see some of you guys at Villa Barone on Sunday for Joe's wedding.