Various and Sundries

Now that I've offered practical solutions to a few of the world's most pressing problems, I can move on to lighter, happier topics. This blog is supposed to be the metaphoric equivalent to ice cream, after all.

(Side Note 1: If that last sentence mystifies you, check out my profile.)

We're hanging out in the fair town of Emo, Ontario this weekend, teaching the finer points of pumper operations. As always, fellowship with volunteer firefighters, who are the salt of the earth by the way, is one of my favourite occupations. Next to being home with my family, there are fewer things I'd rather do.

(Side Note 2: You can read my further thoughts on the salt of the earth here.)

Here are a few pics of today's events. Thanks to Dan from Fort Frances for the last one. It's proof that I actually did something today.

As you can see from the hints of orange leaves, autumn is creeping in on us.

I'm falling down on my blogger duties. I promised the Red Lake crew weeks ago that I would post pictures of their melted entry control tags . . . which were supposed to be handed over to an officer before entering the burn chamber. Here they are, for the record.

Speaking of fires, here's a video clip of a fire blowing the roof off of an ambulance. I know from personal experience that oxygen tanks hide in vehicles that aren't ambulances as well. One more reason to wear your gear and not assume that vehicle fires are routine.

Speaking of Meaford (and I was speaking of Meaford yesterday . . . weren't you paying attention?), Andrew from Toronto encountered two Meaford firefighters in courses he taught at Gravenhurst this year. Part way through he found out that one was on the RIT crew that rescued the two downed firefighters . . . and the other was one of the downed firefighters he rescued. They are both still active in the fire service and continuing on with their training.

Here is where I should jump onto my self propelled bandwagon and talk about how a volunteer firefighter that nearly died has chosen to continue training so he can continue helping others . . . and how we should support these people, not hammer them. I won't though, because I am likely preaching to the choir. And this post is supposed to be ice cream.

Speaking of Andrew, he's coming to Thunder Bay in a couple weeks to help teach a firefighter recruit course. Graham the Shark and Frank the Killer Whale will be there too, as well as Jason and DJ who don't have nicknames yet. Should be fun, especially since Aime the Rainman will still be in Europe, which guarantees that we'll have nice weather (btw, that's why the sun is shining so brightly this weekend. . . Aime is in Europe, where it's probably raining cats and dogs).

I bumped into an interesting link over at Fire Engineering today. It's a free training video for first responders who have experienced the death of a child while on a call. It was helpful to me and may be helpful to others, so pass the word.

To finish off this hodgepodge ice cream post, here is a shot of the Northern Lights, taken by my brother Paul a few nights ago.




You can see more of Paul's Northern Lights pics at his Facebook album (scroll to the bottom).

The Ontario provincial election campaign is drawing to a close, but since this is an ice cream post, I will refrain from commenting . . . for now.