It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Greeting from the Green House. It's been awhile since my last post and I apologize to all two of our readers ( sorry Mom). We've been pretty busy here lately with several house projects and ARRF training. For all those who don't know, Scott Bailey is finally back from his light doody...I mean duty tour. I know he's glad to be back and I speak from experience, spending a whopping six months on it a couple years back after breaking my ankle. Welcome back Scott!! Now our leftovers have a purpose once more.

Last day we worked, we have a structure fire in the county. The call came out at around 8:45 p.m. which didn't make Capt. Firebaugh all to happy since his favorite show "Deadliest Catch" was about to come on. Upon arrival to the Brookside North townhouse Complex, we had a fully involved structure.....

What you are looking at is a street light with a bird nest fully ablaze...lol. The clever little critter decided to build his home inside the fixture, which indeed protected him from the elements, but putting dried twigs next to a hot light bulb has disastrous effects. After quickly knocking down the flames, we called the Red Cross for a family of displaced birds. A.E.P. came soon after and performed some overhaul for us....thank God or bucket trucks.


Here at #3, being on a major cruise strip in the city, we've found it being nice sitting outside on weekend nights. Some have compared it to being at the beach....the heavy traffic, bright lights and the smell of fresh fried fish(thanks to Long John silvers being right beside us) so sitting outside is nice...just ask the guys from Medic 2. We had one problem...no where to sit. Luckily, the Fast Cash Loan shop beside us (formerly a Ralley's buger joint) donated an old fiberglass picnic table. After a bit of sanding, painting and reinforcing, the table looks good as new and looks awesome on our patio.Love that green color!!!

Another project we are working on is an assignment board. We are trying are best to "Firehouse" up this place and we thought it would be a pretty cool and traditional thing to have. I know Station 1 has one and #7 is working on one as well. We'll post some pics of that as well when we are finished.

That's about it for now. It's been a pretty easy day here so far. Did a little ARRF training this morning and ran a couple alarms. M-3 has done the normal too. And a final note....for all those of you who are collecting Station Challenge Coins, 3's is being minted as I type this. I think it's gonna be pretty cool. It has the same Department logo on the front and our Station logo in a maltese cross on the back. We will be selling them for $10. Plus we have Station decals for $3. Hit me up if you are interested. I hope you all have a good night, stay safe and keep it in the house.

Broadway

Don't drink and drive....

First, we apologize for the lack of posts last cycle, luckily for the citizens we were somewhat slow. Though while being a little slow we made up for it in training. We were able to train with the boys from the "pebble" doing a little pump training. We even let them pump our "aerial", if that's what you want to call it....Now back to today, there was a lesson to be learned - Don't drink and drive(or ride your bicycle). While the engine was sitting idle, the medic truck was out picking up Roanoke's finest. This afternoon we ran with E13 to Cove for a MVC, we arrived to find a small convertable carefully placed up the a$$ of a 4-door sedan.....whooops! No skid marks at all, guess when you blow a .23 things like that sorta happen. One down, cuffed and stuffed. Next one brought us down to BWW for someone who got a little mace in the face.....poor guy was just trying to do some illegal activites when mall security gave him matching black eyes.....yeah you heard that right....MALL SECURITY! Two down, cuffed and soon to be stuffed. Around 10:00pm the medic truck went out again for a possible bike vs. vehicle. Come to find out the poor guy was so innocently riding down the road when he fell off his bike......alcohol may have had something to do with it, but everyones "sober" until proven otherwise. After we hauled him off to RMH we went out again around 1:30am. We meet up with E13 yet again, but this time on the Hershberger Rd off ramp for a rollover. You'll never guess what we found when we got there.....you guessed it, another drunk guy stumbling through the field sobriety test(i think the cuffed and stuffed part indicated that he may have got an "F"). We finally made it to bed to rest up for another day, if this is how a Thursday went I can only imagine what Saturday will bring! Til next day......keep it in the house! Oh I almost forgot, last cycle we had a guest from #5 so we decided to show him how to rock.....with Guitar Hero(Weaver set a fine example). Don't believe it? Check out the pics! A big thanks goes to Gish and Brady for fillin' in at the Hippie Hotel.

RW

Last Day of A Shift's Tour

Hey everyone...it's your old Hippie pal Broadway. Sorry i haven't posted anything in awhile, I guess I've just got a case of the lazys and have enjoyed sitting out front of the Green House at night enjoying some good comeradery here with the other hippies. We had Dewayne "Christmas" Noell here filling in on the first day. He really enjoyed working here and i believe he is gonna put a letter to come here any day now...lol. He compared sitting out front with being at the beach. The neon lights, heavy Williamson Road traffic and the smell of fish from the Long John's Silver next door cooking is as close as it gets. Man...love them buttered lobster bites.

We got a few projects going on here at the Hippie Hyatt. For one, we are making an assignment board. Trying to firehouse up this new station. We are using an old chaulk board we aquired form Historic Station1 and yes....it's green. We think it's gonna turn out nice and we'll post pictures of it in its completion.

We are also refurbing an old fiberglass round picnic table that the nice people from the Quick Auto Loans next door so graciously donated. Remember, it use to be a Ralley's burger joint years ago. A bit of paint, some reinforcing of the benches and it sure be a nice fixture here. We are all about recycling you know. Pictures of it to come too.

The Green House Station 3 challenge coin is close to being minted. We are having 50 made up at first to see how they sell. Let me know if you are interested in buying one for the low low price of $10. It will make a nice addition if you are collected them.

We just got our Station 3 decals in. They feature out Company mascot...The Hulk in front of the station holding a halligan and a 2 1/2" hose. We are selling them for $3. They look very cool on your beer cooler. I'll save one for you Good O.

We've had a few calls today. One being an alarm at the mall. The good old Best Western. 9 Engine did happen to beat us in. Due to HAZMAT training, we were responding from Station 2. I'm sure we'll get some ribbing from the boys at the Slum House, Station 9, for beating us in. Guys, don't eat the paint on the walls no matter how sweet it tastes.

We got us a structure fire earlier today. A split foyer with the back fully envoled. E3 was first in since being at 2 for the HAZMAT drill. We initially went defensive because of the amout of fire there. The guys from Engine 6 said you could see the flames from S.E. It was a good one. I'm not the kind of guy who sits around and hopes for fires, but it's nice to keep your skills up. I'll post pics next day we work.
About an hour ago, we ran a possible suicidal person running down Hershberger Road. Some dude drunk and high threatening to kill himself with a razor knife. Now I know how them 9 guys feel....lol. Of course after spotting the guy who was on foot, he apparently hopped the airport fence and vanished into the night. After waiting around for awhile for PD and Airport Security to try and locate. The search came up a bust and we came back home.

Thats about it for us here. Sorry no pics to go along with the blog. A shifters...have a great break. Keep it in the house and have a good night. B-way

Lobster in a Can

It's that time of year again.....the ARFF simulator. The past two days have been full of ARFF goodness. Tuesday we played with pit fires, for those who aren't familiar the pit fires simulate a fuel fire with "mats" that are fed with propane. They require you to approach it with the truck and extinguish the "blaze" with either the bumper nozzle or the "snozzle". Next lesson was what I like to call the "lobster in a can" drill. They simulate a fire in the passenger compartment of an aircraft, but the simulator is more like a big can(you can assume which part we played in the drill). Today we got our "learn on" with brake fires and engine fires....yay. One added bonus to the day is that we got to check out the big UPS cargo plane.....being sneaky as I am I was able to snap some pics of the top secret stuff we saw. We would also like to thank Brady and Gish(our fill-ins) for being such good sports about our training. For a final thought.......always remember your PPE!

Pit Fires
Captain Wallace and Schrader making "entry" into the can.


Lt. Weaver and Gish fighting the big one.
Future ARFF CaptainGathering outside the UPS plane.Engine FireUPS Cargo Plane


RW

Happy Easter from your friends at the "Hippie Hotel"

As many of the citizens are celebrating Easter, it seems as though someone from a neighboring station has taken the day to do some Easter egg hunting. It nice to see he's brought some festiveness into today's training.....now I know what your thinking, "training on a Sunday?"....let's not forget who we're talking about. Enjoy the "training" video of today's events.....until next time....http://www.faceinhole.com/show.asp?id=b3d487d94ce25537a

The one that walked away....

Sunday, a warm sunny Sunday. Would have been a great day to be anywhere but work, but as dedicated as we are, we stuck it out(flip-flops and all). The day started with a great breakfast cooked by our guest from #13, Todd Harris. The engine was ready and waiting, soaking up some of the days awesome sunshine. Up until 01:45a.m. it was a "typical" Sunday, a few EMS calls here and there but nothing major. Most of you have seen the "World's Most Amazing Videos", you know...the one with the corny announcer guy....."Death was averted after this horrific crash, you will never believe they walked away!" Here's ours(minus the video footage, use your imagination). E3, M3, E5, and RS1 were sent to Trinkle Ave NE for a motorcycle vs. house(E3 and M3 handled). We arrived to find a heavily damaged motorcycle and a person lying in the front yard of someones house. That never creates that warm and fuzzy feeling when you first approach a scene like that. As we got closer to the bike, we noticed that what was once one bike was now two. Our rider who was laying in the front lawn was easily arroused and was ambulatory within moments, and was actually going to refuse transport until we sold him on the ER. One might think that if the front of your bike is lying a few feet away from the rear half that maybe it would be a good idea to take a ride to the ER......here's a few shots of the wreckage, enjoy!
The ruts in the right hand side of the pic are where our friend traveled across the lawn.
Scattered parts in the lawn......and of course our flashy medic truck
Wonder if duct tape will fix this one.....any MacGyvers out there?After some "all in good fun" smack talking to some of the boys from #9 about our night of un-iterrupted sleep last day....it came back to bite us, sorry Weev! Medic truck ran 3 after midnight including our motocycle wreck.......karma always come back to ya......til next day!

RW

Lights....camera......action!

Today started out just like any other....check the trucks, clean the house, and go to the store. Poor Joe, Lenny, and Joe's students left the house at 0800 and hardly ever came back! I think it might have been the return of a certain RS1 that has caused all this EMS mayhem.
At around noon we had a person from the Roanoke Times come for the latter part of the "360" story we had mentioned in a previous blog. Ourselves and our friends over in the ghetto were accompanied by a photographer for a better part of the day. Chris came in and started filming right away! Everywhere we went there he was......and with all the hard work we do here at the "green house" it may have been hard to keep up, but he did well. So far today he had been able to run a couple calls and see historic #1 while swapping out trucks. There he is hard at work, I thought it was only fair to take a pic of him after all the footage he got of us!Before our new friend Chris came over, we were serenaded by one of our neighbors. The capt. went outside and heard the sweet sounds of a guitar from across the street, I attempted to get a pic of the mystery musician but he was very elusive as you can see.....Til the next one.....

RW