The Flood

This past winter has been a generous one with regards to snowfall. Just weeks before Spring, she was kind enough to drop 36 inches of the white stuff over the weekend. So much so, that New York declared a state of emergency.

It was to be the last hurrah because 2 weeks later, came the rains. The rain started on the Friday after 3 days of beautiful 60 degree plus weather. It continued through the night into the Saturday. Around 10am in the morning I received a text from our Fire Chief, saying that the water was 3 feet below the towns’ bridge and rising fast. He was calling on our towns’ swift water rescue team to be ready to go. With all the snow starting to melt and the relentless rain we were going to have a “fun” weekend.

I had a birthday party that Saturday evening which we headed out to. We arrived at the party and were welcomed by my pager going off. This was to be the first of many that evening. On the third incident, I decided that we had to leave and that I was going to try get through to the fire house to stand by. I swung onto Route 17, to head down to the fire house and was greeted by a police car pulled across both lanes. When I asked why he was there, he said that the road was closed due to flooding.

I took a detour over the mountain and after fording three really deep pools I made it Sterling Forest Fire Company. On walking in I received the usual torrent of banter about my not making the last calls and thanks for “finally” showing up. All in good fun of course. Within 30 minutes of my arrival the tones rang out – 2 vehicles trapped in the water on 17. We were on the road in minutes and on scene five minutes later. This was the first time I realized how bad the flooding was.

Route 17 was under a torrent of water that was flowing across in front of the police station into the Ramapo River. Huge logs, trash cans, and all manner of flotsam were being swept across the road like toys. Sure enough, right in the middle of this torrent, were two vehicles. Two of our guys donned the ice rescue suits*, connected rescue ropes and waded out to the cars. Thankfully the occupants had already escaped and reached dry ground, well… ground that had only been rained on… wasn’t underwater… you get the picture. We returned to the fire house and repacked the ropes.

Not long after, the tones sounded once more – vehicle in the water, potential water rescue! We were out on the road within a minute. This time, I donned the ice rescue suit whilst we hurried to the scene. When we got there, we saw a woman trapped in what was to become the deepest pool of water in the area over the next few hours, inside her Hyundai. Our fire truck had at least 4 foot of clearance before water would hit the air intakes so we drove straight into the puddle right up to her partially submerged vehicle. With ropes connected to our ice-rescue suits we jumped onto the roof of her car, ready to pull her out through the window. Within 40 seconds we had the poor lady out of her car, into the truck, where she was now warm and safe. We were all happy with a very slick rescue.

In the early morning on the Sunday we responded to another water rescue – a vehicle with two passengers. On arriving at the scene we saw a white Lexus with a woman hanging out the passenger window. Like a well oiled machine we went into action again. We reached the car and started preparing to remove her to safety. She seemed to be on her own. We asked if she was the only passenger, she said no, it was herself and him. We looked inside again and couldn’t see anyone. “Who?” we asked. A deep voice responded from the rear of the car, “Me”. It turned out to be a huge 6’5” 225lb man that was sitting in the trunk. We weren’t going to be able to carry this guy. Once we had everyone to shore, her carried, him walking, we were about to get everyone onto the fire truck when another water rescue call came in.

This time it was for a silver, Mercedes Benz. As we approached the car, we noticed headlights of yet another car in the middle of the “puddle”, only the lights were moving… sideways. It was a blue pick-up truck, and it was floating off the road into the swamp. We left the Merc driver where he was and moved to the truck. As we laid hands on it, it floated away. Not a single wheel was touching the ground and the driver was still inside. I held the vehicle in place, whilst my partner pulled the occupant out through the passenger window. We carried him back to the fire truck, and turned around just in time to see the truck sink under the water like a stricken ship. Gone!

The strangest thing is that many of the folks we rescued, said they saw a car make it through coming the other way. Either these were phantom cars or the head lights of the other cars that were stuck in the puddle coming the other direction. Even more interesting is that most of them were afraid to leave their windows open because of the rain … ummm … don’t know if they noticed the foot wells full of water or perhaps the lake the car was floating in the middle of.

In all we made 9 rescues that evening, and responded to 3 accidents. Throughout the night we had call after call, mostly for people who had circumnavigated the police barricades and tried to cross the “puddles”. From Mazda Miata’s to Dodge Ram’s they all succumbed to the freezing water.

* Ice rescue suits are puffy water proof dry-suits with fitted gloves and boots that make the wearer look like a mixture of the Michelin man and a Gummi Bear.

Fire Fighter 1: The Campfire

In the last third of our course we started our much anticipated live burns. The first was car fires which I will get into at some other time, second was "the campfire".

On the fire ground of the Orange County Fire Training Center there is a burn building called "the Taxpayer". It's a three story house built out of fire resistive concrete and able to withstand extreme temperatures. Our campfire was to be held in the first floor. Everyone was excited and you tell there was a little apprehension in the air.

The entire class including instructors, were dress in full turnout gear and masked up. This was going to be our first introduction to what fire fighters call "the beast". Our instructor asked to us to file into the first floor of the Taxpayer and form a semi circle from one corner of the room to the other. In the middle of the semi circle, 10 ft away against the far wall was a massive pile of hay and wooden pallets. Once everyone was in all the windows and doors were closed tight.

Our instructors fired up a red road flare and touched it to the piles of hay. The fire started licking up the side of the pile and pretty soon we had a good fire going. As we all watched the smoke started spreading out across the ceiling and we were given the command to go on air. Pretty soon all we could hear was the familiar Darth Vader clicking of the low pressure regulators and the roar of the growing inferno in front of us.

As we were kneeling it took a minute for the smoke strata to reach our head height and pretty soon we could see nothing. We were told to lie prone on the floor. Ahhh, I could see again but not for long. Within minutes I could see nothing. I couldn't even see the fire, just an vague orange glow through the smoke. We were told to get to our knees once more and suddenly I could see how big the fire had become!

The flames were spreading out 10 feet in every direction across the concrete ceiling. I could now feel the heat prickling through my turnouts. The air in our SCBA's (air packs) was getting hot and I could smell burning rubber. This was coming from the hoses on our packs starting to deprecate in the heat. At this point one of the instructors shouted that it was getting pretty hot where he was. The heat was like an impenetrable wall that was all around you. With huge relief we were given the order to clear out. We crawled out of the oven and unclipped our masks. All the metal clips and parts of my gear were untouchable they were so hot.

On asking what the temperature was in the room, our instructor casually says "About 1000 degrees"... wait, WHAT?! That's in Fahrenheit, so it's about 537 in Celsius. Considering that I usually cook stuff at 350 degrees F in my oven, I was absolutely amazed we didn't get cooked. It was an incredible experience and one that I hope we can do again one day.

Fire Fighter 1: The Maze

I've been in class to get my Fire Fighter 1 certification for the past 2 and half months. Life has been crazy because it's been after work from 7pm to 10pm, even 11pm sometimes. So far it's been an absolute blast with mostly great but some downright “scary as hell” experiences.

The maze was was one of the "scary as hell" experiences and was the only time I've felt real fear on this course. The first night we traversed it, we were on air through our SCBA's (Self Contained breathing Apparatus, our air pack). The maze is dark and enclosed but we could still see vague shapes in the darkness. We had to climb through windows with chains hanging in them, crawl through tires, up stairs, down stairs and finally through a 15 ft piece of ventilation ducting. My partner and I (you always navigate in pairs in a burning building) did it in about 10 minutes and with plenty of air left in our cylinders. Lot's of fun. The second time we went in, 2 nights later, not so much...

On the second evolution we did what we thought was the same exact maze, except we were blindfolded this time. The first half of the maze remained unchanged and my partner and I successfully navigated the various tires and windows easily. We then came to a raised section that used to have a floor but now was just beams...ummm, guys, where's the floor? Not there, just a 6 foot drop into a hole - I think. Remember we're blind at the moment. For some reason I am now down to 25% of my air from the stress. Finally after getting through all that we come to the ventilation ducting.

Thank God, nearly done.

Boy, was I wrong. I go through first, and half way through the shaft I get stuck. I can't move forward, so I back out a little and try again. No dice, there is something in the way and I can't figure out what. My partner can't hear me shouting that I am stuck so he is trying to move into the vent behind me. I try to move back again and this time my face piece gets ripped off my face by the obstacle. Air escaping all over the place. Panic sets in as I try to rapidly recover my face piece.

I finally get my face piece untangled from what I now know is a rope strung across the shaft to ensnare would be fire fighters. Once my mask is on I take 2 deep breathes and my low air alert stops making noise. This only happens when you have about 1 minute of air left. I go into the shaft again and this time I get under the rope and out the other side. Now my partners turn...

He gets his air pack stuck and can't get it free of the rope. My face piece is now sucking to my face because I have no air at all now. He starts to panic a bit so now I crawl back down the vent shaft to unhook him and finally I get him free and we get out of the maze. I couldn't rip the damn face piece off my face fast enough, sucking down the night air like it was going out of fashion. As we were the first to go through, we got hear the shouts of “I'm stuck! I'm out of air!” coming from the vent shaft. I was so glad this wasn't a real fire...

Once all of us had made it through, I felt for the first time, since starting this course, that I'd taken a big step to becoming a real fire fighter. After this class we lost a couple of members, realizing fire fighting maybe wasn't for them.

E*TRADE, a Lesson in Stupidity: Episode 1

Although I've had an E*TRADE account for some time now, I have decided to close it down. The reason I am shutting it down is because they have quite possibly the second worst service I have ever experienced. The worst was a waitress in a restaurant in San Jose, CA.

Let me back track a few months to where this all started. Our story begins in sunny June of this year when I decided to make a small deposit of $20 per month into my account as an initiative to save money. For a variety of reasons, when E*TRADE's system tried to pull the funds there were insufficient funds available and the transfer failed. This happened for 2 recurring months and E*TRADE notified me that the auto-transfer was being discontinued. No biggie, it's what I expected.

A month or so later, I needed to pay of some hefty credit card debts to avoid finance charges and decided to sell everything in my portfolio which I was able to do successfully. Now the fun begins. E*TRADE happens to have this service called BillPay which you have to enable to use. I apply for BillPay to be enabled and after a couple of days I get a response saying everything is hunky dory. Go pay your bills to your hearts content which I proceed to do. I send out a couple of payments which will take about 5 days to send. I wait for 7 and go into the system only to find that the payments were unsuccessful. Why? Well, I got this message telling me what the issue was...

Your online request to pay $xxxx.xx to CHASE MASTERCARD & VISA from xxxx-xxxx could not be completed. This could be due to technical difficulties, incorrect bill pay setup, insufficient funds, or other reasons.

Ummmm, so what was the reason? Basically, E*TRADE has no idea why this failed, so I call them. After sitting on hold for what seems and age (15 minutes), I get a customer service rep. Let's call her Wanda. Wanda tells me she has no idea why the BillPay failed and that she will need to put this in for investigation. I get a 20 digit reference number and I'm told that E*TRADE will call me back within 2 days. So I wait... no phone call.

Whilst I was on hold previously I was bombarded with ads saying that I should try E*TRADE's online help center if I want a speedy resolution to my problems. After day 3 of radio silence I decided that I would try out this amazing answer to all my problems.I jump online and proceed to explain my problem in detail. With lightning speed I get ... no, sorry ... I get nothing.

So I call back and get a new customer service rep. Let's call this guy Dave. Dave, tells me that the reason my BillPay failed is because my account is locked. "This can't be" I cry out in disbelief, "I've been selling stock as if the stock market was crashing around me in flames without a problem!". Dave confirms that it is definitely not enabled. "Why is it disabled?" I ask curiously. Dave, tells me it's because I owe them $40. Assuming this is a finance charge for the 2 failed transactions, I ask Dave to take the fee from my brokerage account which has more than enough cash in it to cover this nominal fee. "No, this won't do", says Dave, I have to wire in the funds before he can unlock the account. Now here is the clincher, the funds are not for finance charges, this is the two, $20 amounts E*TRADE tried to unsuccessfully withdraw from my bank account. wtf? To make this even more ridiculous Dave says that E*TRADE will pay for the wire transfer fee - $25 to be exact.

Let me get this straight, E*TRADE is going to pay $25 for me to transfer $40 into my account so I can take it out again to pay bills? Hmmmm, I wonder why their share price is sitting at just over a buck?

I finally get the wire sorted out and my account unlocked, all the while I have been sending a message each day through the "amazing" online help center asking if anyone is actually working there. No response. I am now picturing tumbleweeds and desert sands in the support desk offices. I pay my bills. Tantantantaraaaa! Big fanfare, drum rolls.

No, this is not over...

Vegas Vampires

On many occasions I try and hunt down the worst movies I can find on television. I have found some pretty bad movies but "Vegas Vampires" takes the cake.

Some movies go out of their way to capture a spectacular event using one camera without a cut. Take "Children of Men" for example. They have an entire 5 minute scene with 100's of extras orchestrated to produce one of the most impressive "One Take" scenes I've ever scene (ha ha get it... phew). Vegas Vampires is impressive in the way that EVERY scene is a "One Take".

Clearly it's a monster pic, so you're expecting something disturbing and scary. VV (as it's friends like to call it) delivers disturbing... but not in the way you think. I'm not sure if it was the dopey vampire dance or the incredibly crap script that I found scarier.

Another plus was the horrible* acting. Lines like "I'm your wife now" and "what the f**k" delivered with the passion of a socially inept wine cork with a bad lisp on Prozak. The good thing is that the plot was brilliant...wait...what? Unfortunately this too, had the consistency of a wet blanket. Just in case you were confused lines like "He must be a creature of the night" are repeated multiple times. Awesome, thanks!

Attention to detail is fantastic. It seems that Vampires can be killed using bullets, unless they are on the street. In which case you need to use a form of Karate with a lot of yelping and whooping.

One has to commend the set design. One scene included a binder and a pot plant; the plant being possibly the best actor in the entire production. Another notable feature of this film is the fake teeth. Apparently vampires have a serious overbite problem, so much so that only a couple of them can actually talk (the others are dancing around triangles). An orthodontists dream species.

What was the saving grace of the entire movie, you may ask? Well that depends. If you like boobs then I guess those. If not, then when the movie ends. Watch out for Navy SEAL Ninja Nun and the riot police.

* Did I say horrible? I meant awful, dreadful ... more synonyms here.

911 Emergency

Ethan wanted to call 911 the other day. Had he been allowed to, the call would have gone something like this...

911 Operator: "Hello?"
Ethan: "I have an emergency!"
911 Operator: "What is your emergency?"
Ethan: "I have no-one to play with"

As you can imagine this would have gone down well, so we decided not to let him call.

Ethan Logic

As many know, my son Ethan has a rather unique outlook on things so I thought I'd share a couple of gems regarding life according to him:

Apparently

you have a nose to store boogers in it.

He can't drive because he doesn't have a drivers license. When asked why not he said

I have to go to boating school to get a license

not because he is only 3 feet tall and can't even see over the wheel, let alone reach the pedals.

Why boating school you may ask? Well, that's where SpongeBob Squarepants goes for his driving lessons.