Have you read, and do you understand the course of fire?

I'm bouncing off the walls wanting to go out and play with my new toy. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a new OD Green Glock 17, and I haven't been to the range to shoot it. I used to shoot USPSA, but it's been about 8 years since I did that, and I need to start up again. I used to be pretty good, but I don't know how good I am because it's been so long. I need to at least punch holes in paper at the indoor range for a couple of hours one day, to get the feel of this gun. I'm also going to start the CCW paperwork, too. Luckily, I live in a county where the Sheriff will issue a permit to anyone with a pulse and a good reason, which helps keep the crime rate way down.

I'll give a report after I get to the range, which should be Sunday, since Saturday I'll be out with the guys watching trains in the morning, and at the Sean Hannity "Hannitized for your Protection" Tour stop in Fresno at the Saroyan Theater. I've got front row seats, so I should be able to get some good pictures, which I'll share with everyone.

At least they wipe (most of the time)

My office is downtown, so invariably there the usual assortment of urban campers (homeless) people running around scavenging cans, bottles, and cardboard. They also set up camp in any semi-secluded spot they can.

One of the major problems is that there is a lack of public restrooms in the area. This leads to the bums dropping trou and relieving themselves wherever they can. Most of the time this is in an alcoveoff the alley that contains the back door to one of the businesses. This leads to the "bumstripe" of runny s**t where they have balanced their ass against the wall and let fly. Needless to say, this is rather disgusting, and rarely gets cleaned up, leaving a fly attractant and general disgusting smell. It's bad enough that there's the stench of rotting food coming from the dumpsters, but the added aroma of feces and urine jus makes it that much worse.

All this standing by is making my feet hurt

Well, nothing materialized out of the Katrina stand-by, but now we're waiting for the call on Rita. FEMA and NIFC have mobilized a half-dozen incident command teams for Rita, in addition to the nearly 2 dozen teams mobilized for Katrina. You'd think that they would need as much comm support as possible staged, since the comms pretty much turned to shit after the levees broke in N.O.

Two strike teams of ambulances (that's 10 ambulances for you non-fire types) including 3 supervisory vehicles went blazing through town going Code 3 (lights and siren) headed from Sacramento to Houston. As I put it on one of the Yahoo!Groups, they've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there. I heard that Riverside County and L.A. County are assembling their USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) teams for deployment. Everything from the West is most likely staging in San Antonio, since that's far enough out of the major winds to be safe.

I found out that I can get vacation time donated to me if I get deployed, instead of burning up my own time, so I'll probably put Susan to work on that in case I get the call. Being a courier for the county is nice, because I've made so many friends that I could get a couple months worth of donations from all the people willing to donate a day here and a day there.

Heads Up

Among many of the things that I do, besides everything you see below, I volunteer with the California Office of Emergency Services in their Auxiliary Communications Service. I got an email in my box when I got home from work about a possible deployment to the Hurricane Katrina disaster area as a Communications Tech. If this happens, I'll be posting pictures, and whatever else I can think of here.

Get in, Sit down, Shut up, and Hold on.

I thought that it would be important to put a few of my rants somewhere instead of just having them rattle around in my head. In this space you'll see me rant about the people that I see or meet or deal with throughout the day.

First a little background about me:
I'm a 36-year old white guy living in Central California. I split my living time between my parent's house and my girlfriend's condo. I'm a computer geek, a firefighter, a Starbucks Barista, and a messenger for the County of Fresno (now you know why I'll have a lot of things to talk about).

I have my own internet radio station that I run with some friends. I have the hardware end of it, which makes me the Chief Engineer and Assistant Program Director, and soon to be On-Air Talent. If you want to listen to it, just go to http://www.radionosferatu.com and click "jack in".

I'm a paid-call firefighter, which means that I get paid for the calls that I go out on when my pager goes off, even at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Yes, I work for Starbucks, which is the Evil Coffee Corporation to most people. It's a fun job, and the partner benefits are a really good thing. I'll go into those later.

Last, but not least, I'm one of the Messengers for the County of Fresno. This is where a LOT of my rants will come from, because of what I see every day.

"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night"