Posts Tagged: Clean The Litterbox
Train Your Replacement. Bob did. Paul does.
It's been 5 years since I wrote "Missing a Mentor: What about Bob?" -- a tribute to someone who I admittedly under-appreciated until it was too late.
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Thanks and Giving!
While a lot of folks are counting out the days before Thanksgiving by sharing day-by-day what they’re thankful for, I’ve decided to summarize the past few weeks here as they have been some of the most challenging and rewarding times I’v…
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32 Years in the 15032
[caption id="attachment_2184" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Lt. John Mitchell of FirefighterNetcast.com fame and Snyder Fire Chief (Ret.) Tom Merrill are just two of the countless friends I have been blessed to gain in my 32 years in the fire s…
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A December to Forget?
Given recent events and all the heartache they've brought, I'm not sure that December is a month to remember but instead, it's one we'd like to forget.
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It’s that time of year.
Once our organizations realize that volunteers who are happy at home will be happier, more productive firefighters at the firehouse -- we all win.
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Every Firefighter Has a Story.
It should be no secret by now that I'm big on this whole concept of storytelling in the fire service.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that storytelling has never been more imporant than it is now as a way of sharing our experiences, perpetuating our values…
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Get Fit. Get Safe. Make It Personal.
[caption id="attachment_1745" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="My Three-Part Risk Management Plan: Alex, Laurie and Kathleen"][/caption]
Despite the fact that I wrote this piece for Fire-Rescue Magazine last year, I'm pretty sure its content is …
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Raising a flag about lowering THE FLAG!
It's after Memorial Day-2010 and I've been working on this blog for about a week, in hopes of having it finished prior to the start of the holiday weekend but life got in the way and that didn't happen.
In retrospect, I'm glad I procrastinated. I'm gl…
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Run-to-the-Curb is Top Story
[caption id="attachment_1811" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="That's me with Past Chief John Latimore, one of my best friends in the fire service and the neighborhood I grew up in."][/caption]
It's been more than a month since my presentati…
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Tis’ the Season
One student was D.O.A. and the other seriously injured, requiring extrication and transport to the trauma center by helicopter; while the teenage driver was put through a full set of field sobriety tests, arrested and hand-cuffed in front of his peers.
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Live, from Indianapolis, it’s Saturday Morning!
[caption id="attachment_1732" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="ChiefReasonArt, Chris Naum and some other guy at FDIC 2009"][/caption]
Join Snyder NY Chief Tom Merrill and I for a live broadcast from the show floor of FDIC on Saturday-April 24 fr…
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Going to the Show! See You in Indy.
I hope to see all of my loyal followers (both of them) at FDIC in a few short weeks. I'll be presenting "From the X-Box to the Box Alarm" on Thursday-April 22, 2010 at 10:30am in Room 127-128. There's room for 308 of my closest, most personal friend…
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It was in the cards.
The Evans Center Fire Hall (as we called it) was just down Bennett Road and around the corner on Route 5, maybe a few hundred yards away from my house, as the crow flies. Closer than that was the rear entrance to the sixteen acres of fire company property, directly across the street from our driveway.
Growing up so close to the firehall, it was an obvious choice as a place to hang out with my friends. We played baseball on the ball fields the fire company leased to the Little League for a dollar a year. We helped out at and patronized the carnivals and other fundraising events. When the fire company added on a large banquet hall in 1971, we helped the contractors move supplies and materials. My initials are carved in the concrete sidewalk they poured. I was eight.
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Two years gone by now
There's a lot of talk these days about what we're missing in the fire service. And with all this discussion of leadership, of mentorship, sharing, caring and passing down values, traditions and the rich heritage of firefighters, Ithought it appropri…
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Flight 3407 Responders Recognized for Recovery Efforts
My kids will verify that we rarely swear in front of them. Foul language is unacceptable in our house. My involuntary response to the pager message was: "Holy S***!" Alex immediately sensed something and asked me "What's wrong Dad?"
I said, "I can't believe I'm saying this but... I'm going to a plane crash." I grabbed my laptop backpack and my go-bag for extended deployments and headed out the door.
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If you’re worried about getting cancer — you probably shouldn’t be a firefighter!
"You have a mass in your throat," he said after examining me, "It looks malignant. And aggressive." He looked me right in the eye as he spoke, making sure I understood the gravity of his comments. My wife Mary Ann and I sat in stunned silence as he informed us of what needed to be done to complete his diagnosis. As he talked on, my mind took me back to all of those times when I entered burning buildings without breathing protection, and all of the times I worked for hours, unprotected, doing salvage and overhaul in the smoldering remains of fires over the past three decades. Like my peers, I had felt bullet-proof in those days. I had always thought that cancer was something that happened to other people. Not me. Now, for the first time, I was actually afraid for my life.
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Change, for Safety’s Sake.
If you are a Fire/Rescue Chief, Commissioner, President, Fire Officer or in a leadership role of a Fire Department or Fire Company, you have the responsibility of ensuring firefighter safety.
With the holidays right around the corner, here's a coo…
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Fifteen years ago; in a land far, far away…
I stumbled across this post from FireCritic (Fire-EMS Blog Network) and was dumbstruck. I haven't thought of John Jordan in a long, long time.
In May of 1994, as Managing Editor of The Fire Fighter Newspaper and as a guest of VFIS, I and three other …
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A December to Remember
I'm not big on forwarding for the sake of forwarding; or just regurgitating information in an effort to build traffic to a web site.
However, my good friend Billy Goldfeder sent out a broadcast yesterday that deserves sharing. His efforts were follow…
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Make It Personal
The following article is a reprint from the June-2009 edition of Fire-Rescue magazine. It is also a companion piece to my blog titled: Clean the Litterbox.
I recently attended a seminar on preparation for line-of-duty deaths and firefighter funerals. If you've ever read one of my blogs here or at FirefighterNation.com, you know that I have very strong feelings about firefighter deaths.
But, for the first time, the subject really hit home with me. While it's important to plan that stuff, if we really think about it, doesn't the need for proper funeral planning only further acknowledge our acceptance of failure in protecting our own from the risks we face?
Too often we focus more time, energy and attention on those types of activities instead of the things
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Dig In.
Dig in.
“Early on in my fire service career, we responded to a report of a tractor-trailer rolled over on a nearby state highway. We arrived on scene and found a truck lying on its passenger side. The wheels were facing the roadway and the top of the cab was on the shoulder of the road. The truck driver was being treated as walking wounded. It seemed like a relatively benign accident.
As we approached the curb side we realized that this was no ordinary call. It
Read More »Albion FD Says: You Have to Want It!
"You Have to Want It!" is the message that Albion Volunteer Firefighters and EMTs are sending to their community in a new effort to challenge more citizens to become part of their local volunteer emergency response team.
Thanks to a four-year $134,500 grant from the US Department of Homeland Security specifically for the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters, the all-volunteer fire department will have the funding to develop recruitment efforts and marketing materials with the help of Tiger Schmittendorf, who also helped them write and secure the grant.
"The reality is that firefighting isn't for everyone, but volunteering can be. We offer flexible memberships for non-emergency personnel to join our Support Team," says Rocky Sidari, the fire department's deputy chief.
"Volunteering
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Clean the Litterbox
This blog is a companion piece to my article titled "Make it Personal" in the June edition of Fire-Rescue Magazine.
I was reading a not so tongue-in-cheek blog on FirefighterNation.com written by my good friend Art Goodrich titled: “Ordering From the Risk Menu” and it reminded me of a Saturday I spent recently, full of fire service activities.
I started the day by attending a heavy dose of an 8-hour seminar focusing on preparation for a Line of Duty Death. If you’ve ever read one of my blogs, you know I’m very passionate
