PeterbiltTrucks and My Dad's Briefcase

Went with the wife and the nina to see the movie "Pan's Labrynth." It is a great movie. I forgot how much world history I have forgotten. The movie was set in 1944 Franco Spain. Go see the movie. When we got home I watched a show on the national geographic channel about the Peterbilt truck factory in Denton, Texas. I have always liked Denton. I did business with a company out of Denton for years. My dad was a trucker (among other things that would rhyme with the word trucker.) He always liked Peterbilt trucks or "Petes" as he called them. He would always tell me stories of driving a "big ol' Pete" passing other trucks like "Macks" and "KWs". Dad worked for a lot of different companies but is best job was with a trucking company called "DQ Wise." As a young boy he would take me to the "shop" and let me set in the big trucks. We would rabbit hunt in the field behind the lot and shoot turtles in the pond. I never really liked shooting the turtles but I liked being with him. I would miss on purpose, looking back now I think hid did too. He was the person that fosterd my ability to draw, especially mechanical drawings. When I would spend the night with him and one of my stepmoms he would always say "Son there is some drawing paper in my briefcase." We would set at the table or on the living room floor drawing on the coffee table. We drew "Big ol' Petes passing Macks and KWs."

Hairy Triceps

No this blog is not named after a used car saleman (but it would be a good name). I was at the gym yesterday, minding my own business, doing tricep extensions. I have been really strict on myself this last four weeks to meet some new fitness goals. The last fire I made I got a little more tired than I wanted too. Anyway, back to the triceps. Doing tricep extensions, with 140 lbs ( i've got my chest stuck out during this part of the blog)I notice that I have grown quite a substantial amount of hair on the back of my arms. Why? My arms have never been cold. I was pondering a waxing. But where would I start and and where would I stop? How about I have it french-braided. That would be awesome! Keep warm and have a good day.

Employee Evaluations Do Not Work.

I have come to the realization that employee evaluations do not work or do not give an accurate picture of the employees's performance. This week I had my annual employee evaluation completed by my supervisor. Though overall the evaluation was good, it was full of what my wife calls a "compli-cut." That is a compliment that also doubles as a cut down. One quote from the evaluation read "Kris is very knowledgeabe and confident in his abiltiy, how ever this keeps him from being a better officer." What the hell did that mean. I got no explanation from him on that. There were other areas that were also like that. I signed the evaluation and checked the box marked "I disagree with this evaluation." When I turned the evaluation back into him he read over it and asked "are you sure you want to turn this in?" I replied "yes sir." The next day I was at work and the Fire Chief asked to talk to me about my evaluation. He said that the comments that I wrote were fine and that the evaluation was less than accurate. He then quoted Albert Einstein "Great spirits often face violent opposition from mediocre men."

A Good Way to Tell What is on Her mind.

Okay, I think that I might have a clue about this one. I found out the best way to figure out what kind of mood your wife/girlfriend is in and what has been on her mind lately. Recently my little bride has been out of town so I have been driving her car. I turned on the cd player and found that she had made a cd of her recent, favorite songs. We started out with Christina Aguilera singing "nasty boy." Then we went into a Fergie song, mix in some Shinedown's "Lady so divine." Add a bit of Kiss' "Hotter than Hell." Then just top it of with some "dont you wish your girlfreind was hot like me."

Cigars and Fake Breasts

I was reviewing several of my last blogs and have come to the realization that all I have been writing about is fire stuff. I guess that I have been working too hard on this academy. So sorry for the FD overload. I always tell new firefighters "let the fire department be what you do, not who you are." As I was unwinding last evening and reading the latest edition of Cigar Aficionado. I really like a good cigar, hell I'll even smoke a bad one. David Coruso was on the cover, I guess he smokes cigars also. My sweet wife and I like to go to our favorite cigar store, buy a couple of nice smokes and retire to the smoking room. They have a huge leather couch that you can sit back and puff your troubles away. Anyway, as I was reading I turned the page to an advertisement that featured a guy sitting on a couch smoking a nice cigar with two hot chicas besides him. The caption was about something like "enjoy yourself or so something for yourself, yada yada yada." These ladies were right shiny. Now early in may days I would not have noticed the cigar, I would have zoomed in on the fake breast. Now I just kind of wondered what type of cigar that was.

Push Starting A K-12 Saw

This is a rookie Firefighter's attempt to push start a gasoline powered circular saw used for cutting roofs, doors, and cars. It was a joke. You can not push start one of these no matter how hard you try.

They Passed Firefighter One

Owasso Fire Department Fire Academy 2007-01

"Hey Man, I Found a Leg"

The academy is going well and we are almost done with the first half. Yesterday the recruits learned and practiced search and rescue inside a building. After the lecture we did the practical part of the module. We set-up the bunkroom at station 1 as an apartment. We used an old rescue manikin as our "victim", we call him Manny. The bunkroom makes a great search and rescue area because we can completely black it out. No light at all. As we were posing the manikin he lost a leg. The manikin is in bad shape (much like Buster from Mythbusters) and I guess the wingnut that held his left leg in place came loose. (That is so wrong on so many levels.) We had the recruits work in teams of 2, wearing full bunkergear and SCBA. The first crew ent in for a search. I was using our thermal imaging camera to monitor thier progress. The camera allows me to see in the dark. The crew went into the and started to search the room. The first thing that they found was Manny's loose leg. They shouted out "Hey......I found......uh, uh,......a leg." What about Barak Obama running for president?.....What if either him or Condi jumped ship and they teamed up? Sweet.

Week Two is Complete, Three More to Go.

Well it is a little after 0500 and there is an inch of ice on the ground outside. The furnace has not shut off in hours and there is a fire in the fireplace. I went to "take a nap" around 6:00 pm last night and apparently "napped" until four this morning. I do not like winter. We have just finished up a the second week of the fire academy. I had to change several things around due to the pending (now upon us) bad weather. In the pictures included with this blog your will see an exercise that we did for dealing with sprinkler systems. The students had to use wooden wedges to block an open sprinkler head. It was great fun to watch. The other pics are just of the training trailer and of me giving a quick review of the candidates performances. I will spend this weekend writing a 50 question test for the candidates to take on Monday. I hope to write on a few more papers that I have going. My article on the FE website is getting a lot of hits. Keep warm. Kris

MUD Knows History, Kris Knows Fire

After a thurough historical ass-whipping by MUD I will yeild the floor on history. I was trying to use a bad example to prove and irrelevant point. My wife (Mrs. Beautiful) says I should write what I know. I have included a link to an article of mine that got published on Fire Engineering's web site http://fe.pennnet.com/display_article/281427/25/ARTCL/none/BRNIS/Self-directed-training-teams/ . Day 5 went well in the academy. See ya'll later.

Day Four at the Academy, oh yeah the Nazi thing.

The first week is over and we all survived. Friday was the hazardous materials awareness level training and certification. I am for sure not a hazmat guy. I was surprised to find, along with my 10 recruits, 18 other students that I had no idea were going to be there. OSU had not sent enough student manuals, ERG's, or test. But we got through. I guess I should have prefaced that whole "success of the Nazi party thing" with this; how the Nazi party was able to be successful in becoming powerful in government. Some would say it was a charismatic leader. Okay if a college drop-out, wannabe artist, closet homosexual, meth addict is a definition of a charismatic leader. And by the way, Hitler was not part Jewish. The Nazi party was so successful at taking over a country (Germany) that only a few years before had been defeated in war was because they were involved. Involved in everything. The Nazi party grew because they infiltrated every level of German society. My Pappy was a tanker in WWII in Normandy. He seldom talked of his experiences in specific detail. For the most part he kept it all inside. He did not hate any of the opponents he fought, he was doing his job. He did dislike the French. He felt like they just rolled over for Germany and waited for the Allies to bail them out.

Fire Academy: Day Three

The lads are TV stars. The local Fox affiliate came by and shot video of the recruits. They did a great job pretending to be very interested in my lecture. We finally finished up the ICS and NIMS modules required by the Department of Homeland Security. Today is hazardous matrials awareness. For the last 20 minutes of the day I have them shut their books and we have a talk about any issue they want. Yesterday we talked about initiative. As recruits, once they get out to thier assignment, it will be critical to thier success that they take some initiative to do things around the station. Enough of this feel good stuff. The next blog will be on why the Nazi party was so successful.

Fire Academy: Day Two

It was like Christmas for the recruits. At the end of day one, after sitting through lectures and filling out tons of paperwork from human resources, they all got to open and put together thier bunkger gear. This is the protective clothing that they wear while fighting a fire. There was boxes and plastic bags and paper everywhere. It reminded me of when the kids were little and they dove into their Christmas presents. It was funny to hear 10 grown (that is such a loose term) giggle like boys as they put the gear together. Jan 3 was their second day. The academy covered ICS or Incident Command System. It is rather dry to teach and to take. The fun spot in the day was when the recruits ot to take their group picture. Also it was the first day that we took them to the gym. I have them scheduled for PT on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Fire Academy: Day One

The fire academy started yesterday. We have 10 new fire recruits, the most that we have ever hired at one time. I would have to say that this is one of the most exciting times in my career. The group is a mixture of guys with no experience, volunteer experience, and one guy who left a larger department to come and work for us. I will keep everybody up -to - date on thier progress.