Just felt like jotting down a few words. Yesterday was an average Sunday, which is a good thing in my estimation. Woke up a little later than most days. My wife made breakfast for me, my kids, and my son's overnight guest. Gotta love the guest, if for no other reason, it is a good time for a special breakfast. I love my wife's french toast.
The day leads on, and it is mostly a lazy day, which I'm all about. I had a youth group meeting in the afternoon. At 3pm on most Sundays, until 5pm, I'm an adult leader with The Explorers, which is (in our case anyway) a junior fire fighter/EMT program. It allows teen 14 and older a chance to try on the rescuer hat (as it were). I myself am only in training, but it is sort of a give and take thing. I get to be a part of the training, and learn, while helping be a leader. As time goes on, I will be a certified fire fighter and EMT, but for now I'm really just a helper, and sometimes victim.
Before the meeting I decided it was a good day to take my son for a lengthy hike through the local wilderness trails. We have a great loop of trails about half a mile from my house. With the walk there, and around the back trails, it is a good 3 or 4 mile loop. I had to down play the length of the walk, or he would have bowed out. He is an athlete of sorts, but he is also 12, and prefers the lazy path himself. I try to give him a shove from time to time. I've gotten better at giving myself a shove too, so I try to share the wealth. During the end part of the walk there is a huge stairway that comes out of the woods. I got to the top with him and decided to take a second trip down and up, but he didn't join me. He told me I was showing off, as the woods had a lot of people around at the time. Maybe a little. I'm proud at 42 I can keep myself going. I have a long way to go, but I'm ahead of the game in some ways too. I'm somewhat proud.
We go home, and I was short on time. My wife and the kids were going to hit the road and run to Target for some supplies and summer clothing. We have a trip coming up shortly, and the kids need some summer clothes. As I got home I saw I had 20 minutes to clean up and get in some clean clothes for the station. I like to wear a fire department shirt at least, and look fresh. Although sometimes we get sweaty practicing fire related drills, it is a good example to look professional for the Explorers. I also took the opportunity to take my motorcycle out for the short ride to the department. It is a very short ride, but it is hard to avoid a chance to start her up.
So I arrive at 1500, and realize that no one is there accept me, and one of the Explorers. What is up? Well, upon talking to him I discovered we were starting about a half-hour later this day, and an e-mail was sent. Now I recall the e-mail, so I'm here early. Would have been nice to take my time though. Shortly the full-time guy from the department, who is the Explorers post commander showed up, as well as one of the department lieutenants. I stood around and chatted with them for a bit, discussing today's topic, and upcoming events with the department. Good way to kill a few minutes.
At 1530 all that were going to be there were there. Today was going to be EMS topics, and we had about 4 of the 6 Explorers show up. We were discussing bleeding control and shock. I have been reading the EMT basic text book for a few weeks now. These training sessions with the Explorers, the fire department drills, and being able to go on live calls as a driver have been very helpful. I feel like when I start the EMT basic class I'll have some great head starts. During today's meeting we walked through the practial's sheet from the EMT testing. Each Explorer, and I had a chance to walk through the sheet, and then we did a drill with a dummy, walking through the steps with a first-in bag, and a backboard to get use to the motions. Good stuff.
The second part of the meeting was to go over the inside of the medics. Reviewing how to use the cot, load and unload it, and what was in all the compartments. I was reminded how familiar I already am with this hands on part of the EMT job. I think I was able to help quite a bit with some of knowledge transfer, based upon real call experience.
For the rest of the day, from 1700 on, I was on daddy duty. My wife has to work on Sunday nights, doing work outside of the fire department. She runs the projector at a local theatre once a week. She has done that for several years now, even before the joining the department. She love the work and the people at the theatre. Anyway, while she was out it was a great day, so we went out back and played catch, and cleaned up the back yard a bit. It was our first trip into the backyard really since spring sprung. My son has quite a pitching arm on him. He can throw a ball much faster than I. I'm hoping he can get on a team this summer.
The rest of the night was working on financial paperwork once my wife returned from work. We are trying to get money together to get light and sirens installed on our car. We have been running to the station without those things, and we have a traffic light to cross that is very painful. It is not a cheap affair. I know we are easily in for almost a grand, equipment and installation costs. But hopefully a long term solution too.
That's it for now. I'm getting into the swing of doing this now, so maybe I'll keep it up. Stay tuned for more.
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