Yellow Blog Journalism

My EMS Day in 90 Seconds

I've been playing with my flip video in legally acceptable ways while at work lately and a couple of weeks ago I put together a 90 second no frills glimpse of my day.  I'll probably be doing a few more of these no frills videos. Work days, travel days, days spent playing with Jack when I should be responsible and take him to his pre-k class, but I keep him home to play trains and hotwheels instead...

So, expect this to become a random feature of this blog.

 

 

Also here is an older video from August with a great interview at the end.

 

I am under the weather at the moment. I think I may send the kid out for some General Tso's Chicken

Sorry, Wrong Number

I usually try and be polite.  It happens to everyone. Reverse a digit or three, enter the last four of your social security number and divide by four and you wind up talking to a complete stranger. But sometimes people just won't let you be polite. Sometimes they are so insistent on their infallibility that you must have put someone else's phone on the bedside table. Sometimes...

I got a call today as I was pulling into my driveway, and keep in mind that I just got off a 24 hour shift where I got killed by calls all night long (don't you people ever sleep?!?!) and on a good day my social graces suffer significantly after being on duty for 24 hours.

It gets worse on the bad days.

So, I got a call this morining as I was pulling into my driveway on my cell phone. Tyrone's aunt was very upset and wanted to speak to him. I don't know Tyrone or his aunt, but I bet he wanted to talk to her even less than I did.

"Just put him on the phone", she said.  I explained that Tyrone must have changed his number because I bought my phone and changed numbers back a few months ago.

"No, you don't understand, this is his number and I need to talk to him." 

I explained that his number must have changed once again, but his aunt was convinced, "No, this is his number and I don't know why you have it."

"Ma'am (see? polite.), this is my number. He must have changed his, or not payed his bills and had it turned off (less polite). If he hasn't given you his new number, it must either be because he doesn't have one or because he doesn't want you to have it (rude, I know)."

*Click*

Once, just after I had gotten my first cellphone, back in the mid to early 2000's, I was sitting in traffic on Barrett Parkway near the mall in Kennesaw. I had my windows down, and was be-boping along to whatever was playing on the radio (this was also my first car with a radio) when I got a call from another wrong number.

I sat there for a minute or so arguing with him over a) whether or not his girlfriend was home, b) whether or not he called a house and eventually c) whether or not I was at his girlfriends house. Finally I gave in. "Okay, fine. You got me. Let me go upstairs and get her.

*Wham wham wham wham* I hit the roof a few times with my palm to roughly imitate climbing stairs.

"(Girl's name) Are you up here? Some guy wants to talk to you and says he is your boyfriend. I didn't know you had a boyfriend." 

Back to the phone: "Hey, she isn't up here. Let me check down stairs"

*Wham wham wham wham* again with the roof. 

"(Girl's name) Are you down here? Some guy wants to know why you have other guys over. You need to talk to him."

Back to the phone: "Hey, man, she isn't here. Can I take a message?"

The woebegone caller wasn't amused, and I got quite an earful before I was hung up on. It seems that I wasn't the only one interested in the call because as the call ended and the light changed I got applause from the jeep next to me.

Performance art. 

An Introduction to Prayer and Schedules

Tomorrow moringing I am going to begin something that I have never yet succeeded at, but I hope that my third try will yeild better results. Years ago, while living in my "monastery" in Louisiana, I tried the Total Consecration (which when shortened like that sounds like a fad diet or P90X-like workout) by St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort. I made it ... a week. I tried again a couple years later in 2007 when my circumstances had changed and I was living by a more intentionally spiritual basis. Again, I made it a week. So this will be my third try, but my first with backup. I've got a good friend on speed dial for accountability and I have invested in both a hard and electronic copy of "da book" so that it should be handy no matter what happens.

Truth be told, I am planning on doing it twice this year, now and again in November, and then I'll consider making this a yearly thing. Why? Because I need habits. I need cycles and I need rhythm (yeah, that kind too) in my life. I don't really have any of that right now, living in a purely reactive mode. But to truely thrive you need to get beyond a reactive posture and begin to be proactive. Schedules are important, and maybe the first step, because to be proactive, you need discipline.

Discipline 101: Live on a schedule.

On one of my favorite Cistercian blogs, an OCist novice talked about learning latin, and how much easier it became as he spent more and more time in the abbey. Why? It certainly wasn't just attributed to waking up at 4am to  sing and eating veggies. It was the discipline imparted by a schedule.

I've started working on small rituals to build up to a full blown schedule. When I get to work in the morning, I grab a cup of coffee, batteries for my monitor and check off my narcotics and drug bag. Its small, but starting small is effective. Also it helps to not get 3 calls into the day and realize that there is no more Narcan. (Hasn't happened, actually, but it would be a bad thing)

Soon I will begin working on a 3 day schedule, one that follows my work pattern. I wish that there was a watch that would let me imput each item on my schedule and let me know when the next appointment came up. a wrist version of the monastic bells. 

It is going to be a long series of small steps.  Hopefully without too many deviations from the path, I'll become more disciplined over time.

 

Sometimes Zombies Attack

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/marie_curie.png

Goodbye Atlanta

It's official.  I have (once again) moved out of Atlanta. It is a city that boasts my "home teams"--well, one fewer than before-- and a skyline that has for many years been my favorite in the world. I love the restaurants, the music venues, the sporting arenas and Churches... well at least the older ones.

I moved to Atlanta many years ago, with a few trips beyond it's borders with my truck packed full of my belongings, and then back again to always start over. It is a city full of memories. My grandfather used to take me to the Original Pancake House on Lavista Road, before he died. I was about my son's age then.  With the amount of Varsity that I ate growing up, it is amazing that I didn't sweat grease. We even had a varsity on campus at my college, and no, I didn't go to UGA or Tech.

In the seasons before the braves became the 'Team of the 90's' I remember going to watch them at Atlanta-Fulton County stadium. Sometimes we would get good seats along the first base line. Sometimes we had great seats four rows back from home plate. I remember watching Dale Murphy at bat.  Last year, I went out to Turner field and ran the bases with Jack on my shoulders. Not the bases of turner field, but the bases of Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, still marked in the pavement of the parking lot, just outside the gates.

I saw teams come and go, the Flames had come and gone before I was born,  but the Attack came and went, and so did the Knights. I used to watch them play on channel 69,  after I should have been asleep in bed. I would pull my black and white 14" TV up to my top bunk and watch them play through the static inherent in a UHF signal with my blankets pulled up over my head and the TV. If I recall correctly, we even had a roller derby team long before the Atlanta Roller-Girls.

I had fieldtrips to Fernbank and the Fabulous Fox. I spent the night at Zoo Atlanta in Grant Park, getting to taste the primate chow when taking a tour of their facilities. I got up close and personal with Willie B. and I got bombed at the Olympics, an incident that was later brought up during a security clearance interview at MEPS at Ft. Gillam. 

I was stitched up and poked and prodded at most of the hospitals. My son was born at Crawford Long back when it was still Crawford Long. And inside of a week, both my wife and my son were admitted to the hospital across the street from eachother, one at Egleston and the other at Emory University hospital.

Speaking of Emory. I worked in their ER for a few years. I also spent more than a few nights in the ER over at "The Grady", one of them a very memorable Halloween in 2006. I became an EMT in Atlanta, and worked everyend of the metro area over the last ten years.

Much of my family has lived and died in Atlanta, and a few of them are still burried there. 

But now things are changing. I have a son whom I love very much, and need to raise as best I can. I have left my twenties and want a quiet place to do that. I want to own my own home, and pay taxes low enough that it isn't a second rent check. I want to simplify life as much as possible. And 'Don't you want to go where everybody knows your name'?

There are places in this world that I love.  Atlanta tops the list. It is still home, I just don't live there anymore.

Sometimes I have these conversations...

Alternate Endings, Alternate Beginnings.

First the Alternate ending to Superman II. I find this to be pretty satisfying on a gut level. Better than the mind-gutting kiss.

 

Ha!

Now an alternate beginning: The third and fourth audition tapes from the Superman Radio Show.

 

Superman 39xxxx The Shark (Audition Part 1) 1

 

Superman 39xxxx The Shark (Audition Part 2) 1

 

 

Decisions

9 years. I've been in EMS for longer than I feel like I have really been an adult. Yeah, I had some growing up to do along the way. Life is a process, but if you acquiesce, it works. You grow into things and eventually, you grow out of them.

I don't have to decide today, or even in the next couple of years, but I do need to begin to think about whether medicine is where I need to spend the rest of my career. The hours are brutal, the personalities and environments are extreme and not conducive to living a long and healthy life. I do find EMS fulfilling, there is no doubt about that, but in the long game, I think I am meant for something far different.

Now I don't think that I will ever get off the truck. I can see myself off picking up hours, taking classes, keeping my certifications all up to date and even moving into a place where I try and organize studies with local providers as well as being an active provider of training on some level. But I doubt in 5 years that I will be a full time paramedic.

Much to consider.

Do Over!

Sometimes we all need a reset button in life, I guess. In these two episodes, remakes of the audition tapes for public consumption, a few changes are made along the way. Fortunately minor tweaks early on can have a big impact in the end.

Superman 400212 e0001 BabyFromKrypton

Superman 400214 e0002 ClarkKentReporter