Richard B the EMT

Col. Robert Gould Shaw of the 54th Mass. Reg? Wasn't that the character played by Mathew Broderick in the "War Between The States" movie, "Glory"?

I am embarrassed to say I know this quote! Jim Nabors as Gomer Pyle, in "Gomer Pyle, U, S. M. C."!

Mechanical means the heart acting properly as the "pump" that it is.

Dat is da most redic-olas ting I've ever hoid!

Historical note: Between the War of 1812 and the War Between the States, the US Army and Militia "elected" it's officers by simply lining up behind the men who they felt was the best qualified to lead, as a vote.

Exactly!

Nice thoughts, Kls, but then, go after one, the others photograph YOU going after that one. I have no clear answer on how society should address this one. Anybody?

Think of it this way, and please bear with me on this one: Some "experts" think that the way around quick interagency radio incompatibility, without purchase of admittedly expensive new radio networks, is to use "FRS/GMRS" radios (Family Radio Service/General Mobile Radio Service). Reasonings that I have heard include the fact that they are so easily available, can be reset in seconds to any of the 22 channels available, and that you can buy some models for under $50.00 (USD) for 2 on the blister display card. Good concept, but... Comes the Multiple Casualty Incident (MCI) one summer Saturday afternoon, and you're a 12 year old neighborhood kid on bicycle, with all your friends, talking on your FRS/GMRS radios purchased by your parents, overlooking the MCI, and commenting on it over the radios. A disembodied, official voice comes over the radio, "ordering" you and your posse/gang/clique to get off the air. The voice is not that of any parent of anyone in your group. Of course you're going to listen. NOT! I know this, as, like most of us here, used to be (without the FRS/GMRS radios, which hadn't yet been set up back then) a 12 year old. Now, just because it is reasonable to tell the toddler to keep their shoes on, you're trying to reason with a toddler, who doesn't like shoes anyway. The shoes are coming off, and the parent is going to be chasing the toddler down to put the shoes back on. The toddler removes the shoes again, and bbeforethe parent notices this (Again!), the toddler toddles across one of those mats, and doesn't understand why their feet hurt, and starts screaming, and the "Urban Park Ranger" pulls out their ticket book to write up the parents. I won't say it is right or wrong, but it does seem to be the way things work.

A videographer was shooting thru the door of my ambulance, which had to remain open due to nessesary patient treatment. I walked up to him, and said, "You're trying to do your job, but part of mine is to try maintaining the patient's privacy. Any chance we could acomplish both?" He continued shooting, but from further back.

I have to stop going into this area when I am tired. I know it says "SIX" but my tired eyes see "SEX".

All that, without the noise of an angry car horn? Spent a week there a bit over 10 years ago. Air fair too steep, probably getting a "stay-cation" this year.

Actually, it wasn't until the news item appeared on the 6 PM local news, here in New York City area, this week, and newspaper articles, that I even knew that there was a problem due to the safety mats. As for wetting them down to cool them off, wouldn't that create the other problem of potential slipperiness causing falls? Just thinking out loud, here.

Then, again, to quote the T-Shirt and wall poster:

Make it my first job interview for the NYC EMS, and a late job besides, making me over an hour late for the interview. I got the phone call at 1500 hours, telling me to come in at 0800 hours the next morning. This was too late to call my company to get that night off, as I started at 1630. I was really tired, probably looked it, and after not getting the job, heard unsubstantiated rumor mill scuttlebutt that I supposedly was on drugs when I did get to that interview! How is someone supposed to look, when they are already up for over 24 hours, disheveled from working 17 hours nonstop, and rushing via public transportation (HA!) ? They refused to reschedule the interview when I first got the phone call.

Everyone does realize that this is the same mat type being used at most parks in the city, and beyond? I don't have a number, but there are quite a few of them.

Several years apart, the FDNY gives promotional tests for advancement, for me most recently, for Lieutenant. These tests are "civil service" type.

Me? Negative? If you are refering to the mention of transporting across sand, remember I live at a beach. We've had a series of drownings and "sudden disappearances" on the beaches here in Rockaway, at Coney Island, on nearby Long Island, and Sandy Hook, NJ, due to "Rip" curents. At one of them, at the Jacob Riis Park unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, FDNY Tactical Rescue #2, equipped with 4 wheel drive, bogged down in the sand so badly, as in the chassis down on the sand, that the 4 Wheel Drive engine company connected with Engine 329 snapped it's winch cable trying to free it. Staying on the pavement, and using chains, the regular Engine #329 succeeded in freeing the "Tac-2" truck. The only negativism I have is:

Anyone else remember (advantage of being older) an "Adam 12" episode, where a woman insisted they issue her a ticket for her bald tires, so she could get them (new tires) out of her cheap husband?

With my background, or my education, I should be able to speak, in no particular order, Hebrew, German, Russian, Yiddish, Polish, Morse code, and Spanish. I cannot. Considering my extensive book of guitar music, the fact that I play by ear and cannot read music is interesting, too.

Actually, as the composite language of Yiddish seems to have a terminology for almost everything, I was hoping for a word that means all that, up to the father of the olympian. I wanted that word to describe who he was to me.

I guess you've never had a vehicle crash at the start of an exit ramp off the highway, with all otherwise exiting traffic being directed not to go there, and some idiot arguing with the rescuers that we had to move out of his way, that he might exit anyway? Add that it was an overturned car, and he couldn't have gotten by anyway. I figure his reason that he thought he could just tell pre-merger EMS, the FDNY, and the NYPD's Highway Patrol to get out of his way was because he was in a 2 seater red convertible sports car.

From the New York Daily News, link at http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/0...ith_summ-1.html Hot Feet? You want a ticket with that? Parks workers threaten parents with summons over kids going barefoot BY MATT LYSIAK, ANNAIS MORALES, ERIN DURKIN AND RACHEL MONAHAN DAILY NEWS WRITERS Tuesday, July 29th 2008, 10:24 PM The city has found a creative way to deal with complaints that superhot playground mats are burning children's feet: Punish the parents. Parents at parks around the city told the Daily News they've been threatened with fines for allowing their tykes to run barefoot among the slides and swings. "This is no joke. Too many kids are burning their feet off," said one worker at Owls Head Park in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. "If you take your shoes off, you will get a ticket." Parks Department officials insisted the aggressive approach came from misinformed workers trying to keep kids from getting hurt on the often blistering safety mats. Parks spokeswoman Jama Adams admitted parkgoers are required to follow posted rules instructing that shoes be worn - and that a summons could be written if kids don't take heed. "People were giving out wrong information," said Adams. "It would be possible to write a summons, but no summonses have been issued." But workers at St. Catherine's Park on the upper East Side and the Boxcar Playground in the Bronx's Crotona Park warned that tickets would be written to those going barefoot. "Parents [are] trying to sue," said a worker at St. Catherine's, who also said she is now required to water down the mats two or three times a day to keep them cool. A mother at Russell Pederson Playground in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, said a parks worker told a group of mothers, "If you don't get shoes on your kids, you are going to get a ticket. We are instituting a zero-tolerance policy and you will be fined." A Daily News investigation found scorching hot temperatures on surfaces at city parks, where artificial turf fields and the black mats under jungle gyms and slides can top 160 degrees. Advocates and parents of toddlers burned on playground mats said ticketing was misguided approach. "That would be absurd," said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates. "Are they going to have the kids sign their names in crayon?" Parents and advocates again called on the city to replace the safety mats yesterday and to make sure parks warn parents of the danger. "Options are available that can eliminate this danger," said state Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn), who suggested that there are cool safety surfaces on the market. "This is a wakeup call to the mayor."

Stay with me, this is, admittedly, confusing. The daughter of the brother of my brother in law's brothers first wife is going to the Olympics, as a part of the Israeli Olympic Team.

Now I have to do a music history? Oh, well... In the late 1960s, the Beatles released a song called "I am the Eggman, I am the Walrus". An egg and the aquatic beast the walrus are symbols of death in some Welsh traditions, I have been told over the years. If not, someone from Wales please correct me. Album "Abbey Lane", shows all 4 Beatles crossing the street in the black and white stripes of a UK crosswalk. Paul was the only one barefoot, and with a foot on a black stripe. As they appear to be marching, the other 3 have one foot forward, but Paul has the other foot forward. Album "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" shows the Fab Four in old time military style band uniforms. Paul is the only one with his arms up, approaching the pose of most people when in a casket, AND, an unidentified man has his hand in a totally relaxed, as in death, pose, directly behind Paul. The unidentified man also is alleged to appear on several Beatles albums, always with the "dead hand" posed behind Paul. I am unclear on this one: In one song, which I cannot remember, John Lennon is heard to intone "Here's a word for us all, the Walrus was Paul". Refer back to "I am the Walrus", it infers that Paul had died. In the album version of the song "Strawberry Fields Forever", you hear an audio Psychedelic section, which just as it fades, you hear something spoken in the last 3 or 4 seconds. The alleged experts tell you to play that few seconds backwards, as some of them allege that a lot of hard rock music have subliminal satanic and/or demonic messages, that you hear John saying "Paul Is Dead". As I almost destroyed my phonograph needle trying, what I heard sounded kind of like those words, but I admit I may have bought into the hype, and heard what "they" wanted me to hear. The nay-sayers indicate that it was hype to sell Beatles albums. The believers say the winner of a Paul McCartney Lookalike contest, a Billy Shears, is the permanent replacement for Paul McCartney, alleging it is told in the words of Sargent Pepper, before he segways into "I get by with a little help from my friends", they do sing If this is accurate, Billy Shears, still impersonating Paul McCartney, has been Knighted by Queen Elizabeth, been married to the late Linda Eastman, sold the "Beatles Lennon/McCartney Songbook" rights to Michael Jackson, and just went through that nasty divorce from Heather Mills.

Last I checked, New York City was not missing a zoo. However, reportedly, some of the carnivores got out of their cages, but when the TV stations called, they couldn't get a spokesman, as, per the telephone operators,