psyanide

Please refer to the district/commissioner's website for publicly available information on the project as well as their public feedback. The website contains contact information and how to reach them if you have questions or comments for them. Here is a list of the public information release on the expansion: http://www.ncfd1.org/Expansion.php

I found some pics of Chappaqua's old Ladder 3. I am using links rather than raw pics. The links are very light-weight, no ads, and IF you're interested, you can use it to go "up" to a gallery of CFD's 2002 Open House. officer side front officer side rear officer side front corner, arial front driver side front corner

Much better than 8, about as nice as 7 was. Laptop form factor is key, also. you can always change the software, you can't make your machine larger or smaller. A lot of recent 15.6" laptops "feature" numeric key pads on the right, however the keys themselves are narrower than a normal keyboard, which takes getting used to. The surface is a 10.6 or 12.3 screen, I think.

Chappaqua FD Ladder 3 as a 1983 Hahn. It found a nice second life though!! One of our ex-chiefs (Pasquale) retired to Raton N.M. in the early 1990's and became a chief out there. He or his department outright bought Ladder 3 and shipped it themselves. They used it for a few years, though not sure it is still in service. From 1999 - 2002 it had some increasingly expensive maintenance issues. We had to have some of the parts custom-made for it, which cost an arm and a leg.

Haha! That's a great idea Foreman. If you can invent -anything- that can literally knock common sense into people, patent it immediately and produce asn many units as possible. I'll take two (one to knock common sense into me at times).

Just this morning I saw a Class4-sized pickup truck towing a 2 axle trailer northbound on the saw mill parkway between Thornwood and Pleasantville. The gear on the trailer was roughly 7 feet high and covered in tarps. It was clearly low enough to fit under the Grant St Bridge, but it was far too wide, long, and illegal to be there. New within the past few months (in both directions) the saw mill has huge on-pavement signage stating no trucks/low bridge that lead up to the two bridges in Pleasantville. Based on where he was, the driver clearly drive right over the signage, and didn't exit. GPS is partly to blame, but only partly. When signs are clear, where does the rest of the problem lie? I'd agree that part of the problem is people being too-reliant on GPS. GPS eliminates the absolute requirement to look at a map and have "the way" sketched in your mind prior to leaving. It promotes lazy navigation, last minute lane changes, ignorance of road rules. Do Thornwood/Pleasantville have to put up one of those over-the-road signs w/ dangling chains that says "if you hit these chains, you'll hit that bridge"? (I know that would never happen).

The shutdown is on hold: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/national/hostess-bankruptcy-update-twinkies-wonder-bread-ding-dong-makers-shutdown-on-hold They are are trying mediation: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hostess-options-20121120,0,4332341.story

"Rolling meat-outs"... I hear the Soylet Corporation backs that idea, too.

My above answer was not meant to sound crass, simply realistic. I have no issues paying for a ticket, nor feel like I should get a free one.

I debated going the "not publicized" route, but I think its worth mentioning since people don't know until they try it. Besides, you can only see the responses if you're a member of the forums. I also don't want someone having a bad experience if they aren't expecting it. Personally, I've not attempted it for many years but every now and then I see others try it. I no longer try it because I haven't found the risk of confrontation worth it. I've witnessed a full range of conductor's reactions over the years both. By full range I mean anything from a happy "thank you for your service have a nice day!" to getting an angry "just WHO-do-you-think-you-are?!" 5 minute insulting lecture (I was the recipient of said lecture). The best answer to this is "results are entirely random". I should point out the same goes for armed forces members. I've seen a full gambit of results from the very pleasant to not so pleasant. For example I once saw a conductor demand a ticket to Kisco from a soldier who clearly just stepped off a plane on his way back from Iraq. In summary, tjd1012 had the best answer.

PFDRes47cue, people (not) thinking is an increasing issue. Consequences for actions in general (not just fire related) is something fewer people have any time for. Friday on my 14 mile commute home from work I witnessed an accident due to texting-and-driving, someone acciddently flick their cigarette into another person's car while stopped at a light, a pedestrian step in front of a biker (on the sidewalk, brilliant), and a car in front of me floored the gas when the RR lights started flashing. Before I run the risk of going on a tangent, I'll jump back on topic - One thing that I think should at least slightly reduce brush fire risk is the new smoking ban on outdoor MTA property (effective 02/15). Although its rare to have a track fire in our town, it is not totally unheard of. Eliminating the risk of someone flicking a cigarette into the dry weeds beside the tracks will do some good at least. I cannot tell you the last time I saw a Smokey The Bear ad. What is a good method of broadly and easily making sure people pay more attention? Does your town do anything specific?

It appears to be the same exact rock wall as where they filmed the chase scene in Die Hard 3. That is one tightly confined piece of road. Item #3 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112864/trivia

Thanks again to anyone on Eng 91 at the fire BTW. Shortly after opening up my line (BC corner), my mask split apart. They quickly offered me their spare. Grumpyff - Agreed, P'ville does have a very good water supply system there. It definitely made things easier. Note that for all three TLs to operate, two of the three could only operate 1 nozzle to maintain enough pressure - so I was told after the fact. Pics 11 & 12 on the lohud site depicts this (Not complaining, just noting). PFDRes47cue & ac316scu - The B side (near A-corner) of D.A.B. is directly adjacent to Mavis' C/D corner for roughly 10-15 feet of Mavis' D side. If that makes sense...? I cannot say for certain, but it appeared the (d-side) roof was already partly collapsed before the 1st hand line was opened up. The hand lines were open prior to the towers being up and flowing. After a short while the hand lines were ordered to clear out while 2 of the TLs deluged the the melted tractor trailer, the store room just beyond the c-side, and a portion of the roof. Due to angle issues, the TLs could not quite reach everything so the hand lines mopped up. I have a head/helmet cam, but sadly the batteries were dead. Maybe next time.

When I began reading this story, I thought weelllll, the city might have made a simple mistake like when a cashier gives you too much change?. No, no way. Then I read "...the pension fund discovered that for 13 years it had overpaid pension benefits...". It took them 13 YEARS to catch this? Then shame on them! All sort of incompetency and auditing arguments come to mind (to which we don't know the back story). These aside... 13 years is a pathetically long time. If I were one of these retirees, I'd be angry too.

I know some people think EMS bikes are a strange thing to buy. However they can be quite useful in woods/rural situations and are not useless to have if/when you need them. One example - Someone should take these and do BIKE NY each year. People fall and get injured during the event every year. A few years back a guy even went into cardiac arrest on the Queensboro Br. Imagine how great it would be to have EMT's cycling through the event just in case things like this happen again... Articles: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2008-05-05/local/17897486_1_fdny-james-hamilton-emergency-medical-service-technicians http://www.mountsinai.org/patient-care/service-areas/heart/patient-stories/cyclist-overcomes-cardiac-arrest-thanks-to-good-samaritans-and-mount-sinai-heart passerby's video: (note: this is not my video. Skip to 2:37 mark to see good Samaritans giving CPR to Jim)

One other piece of information we do not have is was the HomeownerFF in contact with anyone in his department off radio - not just a chief or officer. In my department thechiefs and officers make common use of their nextel PTT. If a fellow member contacted the homeownerFF and said something like "hey, we're not out of the bays yet", that could be one reason the homeownerFF got back on the radio and called for another M/A. Plus, like someone else pointed out... it was his house. He knows what is inside and what kind of fire load is present. I really hope homeownerFF has the knowledge to know what is needed or not. All FFs must be able to do size up, do it properly, and do it without without panicking. If I was on the truck responding TO the call, I would want my fellow FF to give the department as much relevant info as possible - 1 or more cars inside? Have they used it as storage and have boxes piled to the ceiling? We have a few construction members in my department who use their garages for work and have large power tools stored there w/ 240v lines. I guess it boils down to details none of us (including O/P) are privy to without being there to witness it. To me it sounds like a you-had-to-be-there-to-judge type scenario.

A very good example for this thread is yesterday's Queens fire in Rego Park where 17 FF were injured and "were mostly heat exhaustion-related." "These last couple days have been a tough stretch for the FDNY. We've had several multiple-alarm fires where firefighters are put under extremely punishing conditions," said Sudnik. "What we try to do with these situations is try to relieve, rotate our personnel as quickly as possible, to try to relieve some of the heat stress placed upon them. These are very, very difficult conditions to work under." - Deputy Assistant Chief John Sudnik http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/121696/queens-apartment-blaze-injures-17-firefighters Be safe.

Please note - there was one set of mugs we deemed "off limits". Kisco has a wall of mugs where each mug is dedicated to a specific past member of the department. We specifically left those untouched out of respect (you can see them in the background of one of the pics).

Yes to the goldfish question. short version: During a standby, Chappaqua pranked Kisco by purchasing 200+ goldfish. Most goldfish were distributed into individual glasses, bowl TROPHIES, containers, etc, ALL OVER their fire house. The original emtbravo pics & posting is here -> http://www.emtbravo.com/Spec2/MKFish.html Longer version + story: The night before their open house, Kisco asked us for a standby. We thought it was a prime opportunity to prank them BACK because the week prior, Kisco had "stolen" the license plate off out ladder truck and still had it. We searched high & low for our plate but never found it, so instead we opted to prank them back as creatively as we could. We knew Kisco's Open House in in the next day or two, so we tried to think of a prank that would be both funny and interesting. So we called the pet store down the street and bought every single goldfish in the store... "As a present for the open house". We decided we would also help decorate for the open house by using every glass, cup, mug, bowl, some trophies... toilet bowls, etc and filling them with water & fish. We placed them on almost every flat surface in the house in each room and the steps of the trucks. It was done in good spirit and we knew Kisco would put them to good use by giving them away to kids during the Open House (which they did). It was hilarious to see the looks on their faces when they walked through their house and had to organize 200+ goldfish. Kisco responded by making a new license plate for our ladder truck... a red plate with a large yellow goldfish emblem instead of the number. We eventually got our real plate back, but the "creative" plate was used on our ladder for a long time. The whole prank took us only a couple hours to lay out & execute. It was not preplanned, all spur of the moment. edit: grammer

You've all heard of the Detroit ladder getting struck by the Amtrak train a couple weeks back. Here are some videos relating to it. Video from the train's perspective: http://www.break.com/index/detroit-fire-truck-hit-by-train.html Video of aftermath from a chopper: http://statter911.com/2010/03/01/breaking-news-detroit-tv-station-reports-fire-truck-hit-by-amtrak-train/

At first I thought the positive and negative rating systems were great, and in principal they are but not always in practice. Of course, everyone has different opinions on which they judge other people's posts. For the most part, the system appears to work well for those who post often and they are informative. For those of us who post infrequently and/or rarely throw in a controversial thought, perhaps the system doesn't work as well? Just a thought. This is not a complaint, only an observance, I can only cite one small example: I posted two videos of the Detroit ladder truck being struck by a train. The videos speak for themselves, so I said as little as needed, merely a raw two-sentence explanation of what they were. I got 1 positive and 1 negative point. I didn't expect anyone to give me any "points" on it actually, as it was merely some raw video. After reading this thread I find it interesting that I got two differing points on the topic. In such a case, does that mean 1 or more people think I should have not bothered posting anything at all and kept the videos to myself. Neither point bother me, this is just an example. I would have made the post either way.

First things first, all recommendations here are assuming you have unplugged the laptop and taken the battery out. If you have not done that yet, do so now. That said, each solution posted here WILL help. In regards to vinegar leaving a residue, ordinary white distilled vinegar does not leave a residue. If you want to test it, test-wipe a glass. Or, if you still do not believe the vinegar part google it and see for yourself. The rubbing alcohol will works equally well, in fact the rubbing alcohol will remove the soot and stains better than windex on the plastic shielding. However, it cannot remove the smell as well as vinegar. Try researching the sites ehow, howstuffworks, and other self help sites for more robust recommendations. As for legitimacy, I build servers and repair laptops as well. I've also made my comments based on the assumption you are not cracking open this laptop screw by screw and washing the motherboard by hand.

use windex to clean up the soot smears. Afterwards, wet a paper towel with vinegar to get (most of the) the smell out. The keyboard will continue to smell. If possible, remove the keyboard and clean with Qtips and vinegar or lemon solution.

- Although I do not know the details beyond this post - IF the rig was positioned to protect a crew working an accident - good for the B.C. I am all for setting up large red cones to protect me while on an MVA call. As for the handcuffing itself, really? Isn't that a BIT much CHP??

Mike, The pump old E144 was... a bit below par. It ended up in the hands of a company out west, I believe Wisconsin. The old E144 is being sold in the used trucks section of Firehouse magazine as a 1994 cab/chassis rebuild. Dave EDIT: The company who is selling it has overhauled and re-certified the pump.