Yesterdays Fire Calls

It was a busy day for many fire departments in Hancock County yesterday. Around 6:00pm Lamoine was toned out for mutual aid on a working fire in a large industrial building just outside of the Ellsworth city center. A half dozen Lamoine personnel and our rescue truck went directly to the scene and myself and a few others along with the tanker went to the Ellsworth station on stand-by. A few minutes after I arrived at the Ellsworth station another neighboring town (Trenton) was toned for a working fire. Also in an industrial building. Lamoine's reserve crews and our tanker at the Ellsworth station were re-tasked to assist Trenton.

















I was on scene in Trenton from 7:15pm to about 12:15am. Initially I worked an attack line on a crew of three from the front of the building but during this time the fire had fully involved the attic space. Smoke was pouring out all along the eves and half of the interior floor space was burning.

Our crew pulled out to swap bottles and I was asked to assist moving some hose lines to an engine that had just arrived. The driver of Mount Desert Engine 6 wasn't comfortable running the truck so for the next two and a half hours I ran that engine supplying a 2.5" and 1.5" line. Engine 6 pumped somewhere between 12,000 and 14,000 gals of water while I ran it.















Also on scene was Trenton's primary Engine and a ladder truck from Bar Harbor (Possible from Mount Desert). Lamoine Engine 401 was setup at a water source filling tankers for the water shuttle (no hydrants in the area of the fire). Stu (the person running 401) estimated over 100,000 gals of water was used throughout the night.

At some point Lamoine crews and equipment at the Ellsworth fire were released and came to Trenton to work that fire. All mutual aid departments were released from the Trenton scene about 12:30am. After clean up and restocking of the trucks we left the Lamoine station around 2:00.

The Ellsworth fire caused a lot of damage, but the building is still standing. The Trenton fire was a complete loss. The building fell in on itself and an excavator was called in to open up the debris pile to get at hot spots. Both places lost an enormous amount of machine tools, welding equipment and specialty machinery.

Here is a link to a local papers coverage of the fires:
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/106085.html

Hudson is trying to murder us in our sleep.

This morning Hudson succumb to his baser instincts and managed to pull a 8oz tub of butter off the counter and some meat scraps out of a pan that was on the stove top. While going after the meat the little bastard turned on one of the gas burners. He didn't manage to ignite it though. Patty was assaulted by the pungent odor of LP gas as she came down the stairs. I don't think it had been on that long, but long enough to make the first floor an explosive hazard. Thankfully the gas didn't leak into the basement. Fifteen minutes with the doors and windows open flushed the gas out of the house. It would have been a very exciting way to wake up if the compressor motor under the fridge had lit it off though.

To his credit he did manage to get to the meat without pulling the Pyrex dish off the stove top, and the butter tub was licked clean. He leaves no mess when he steals food. This is the second tub of butter in about three weeks. His cholesterol numbers must be off the chart.

The face of a killer?

White powered fun stuff... (Not Coke)

We had a huge snow storm this weekend. Total snow fall was around 2 feet, maybe a bit less. When I plow out the drive way I try and push a bunch of snow next to the garage so the kids have a "mountain" of snow to play on.

Here's a bunch of photos of the little monsters playing.

Towering over the world.


That pile of snow is almost six feet tall.


I'm growling at Matthew to get him to smile.


A perspective shot. That car under all that snow is the green Jeep.


Madi and Hudson.


Matthew traumatized by the snow on his cheek.


The radio weather man said something about another system moving across the country that should hit us in ten days or so. If it hits as predicted we should see another large snow fall.

Long time no postie. First week of winter edition.

After three weeks of weather that would swing from 0° overnight to 45° mid day a day or two later, it looks like the cold and snow has finally settled in. We had temps around 20° last night with a steady 15 mph wind and I'd guess 14" - 16" of snow.

I plowed twice between 3:00 and 9:00 but by midnight you never would have known. When patty left this morning the snow was deep enough that the undercarriage of her Jeep was dragging in the snow. The road crews left a snow drift 3' - 4' tall that she had to break through.


It took a little work to get the plow truck moving on the driveway (those dual rear wheel are a pain in deep snow), but once we were moving it made quick work of clearing the driveway. After our driveway I went to do the subdivision road and Katie's driveway. Katie's was no problem and things were going great on the Walker Farm road until the last pass. I was to close to the edge and was pulled off into the ditch getting good and stuck. I shut if off, then tried to start it later and it seems the starter has died. Add to that a failure of the pump on the plow and I've had a pretty great day.


I'm still kind of baffled how the started and the pump could die at the same time, right after I get it stuck. It's almost like someone is trying to tell me something.

Presently I'm home waiting for the wrecker to drop off the truck at my shop. They've no doubt had a busy day so I'm not expecting it until late.


I'm going to close on a warm and sunny note. This is us getting ready to take the boat out for a spin sometime in August. Doesn't a warm sunny day and a sea breeze sound great. Not even a week into winter and I'm already longing for summer.

Losing my child

Like most peoples kids, mine wake up earlier than I do. Thankfully both of mine are independent and I trust them enough to let them watch TV for a while until I get up and showered. This morning after Patty had left for work, Matthew woke me to let me know he was going to go back to sleep (they get up with Patty).

I dozed off for another hour and when I woke up the TV was on so I called for him. I got no response so I went into his room and saw that he was not in his bed. Next I went downstairs and saw that his pillow and blanket was on the floor but he was not. I started calling out for him with no response. I stepped out front and call for him, then out back. I then started checking every room in the house. He was nowhere to be found.

At this point I'm growing more and more nervous. He doesn't wander off and there is not any one place close to home he's always asking to go to. I have no idea where he may have wandered off to, the shop maybe. I try calling our Neighbor Leah to see if he's gone over there, but she's not home. I grab my fire radio and start to gather my thoughts as to how I'm going to call this in when I decide to make one more pass through the house and look in every possible space he could be in.

I look behind and under everything on the first floor and run upstairs. I open all the closets, look behind the big chair in their room and under the bed. In the guest room I open the closet and call out his name. Nothing. I turn around and pull a sleeping bag off the bed and there he is. Dead asleep.

I call out his named, shouting really, and he barely wakes. I shake him and one eye opens, then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

I'm completely drained and so very happy I didn't make the call starting a missing child search on our road. The last call like that in our Town brought out police, fire and the warden service. I'm also pretty happy that I didn't actually lose Matthew.

Today is almost my birthday

In roughly 23 hours I'll be 39 years old. Wow! 39 years old. I think I'm suppose to go out and by a Corvette and start sleeping with my secretary.

Note to self: Hire Secretary.

More pictures

Boone, the black lab, is begrudgingly being used as a pillow.



Let the cooing begin.

Meet Hudson, or maybe Griffin. Possibly Turner.

As some of you know one of our dogs had gotten to the point where we had to put him down. Cole was a great dog and we miss him very much. Our other dog Boone was starting to act a bit lonely and we wanted the kids to enjoy having a puppy so after a little searching we found a breeder and now have a new canine addition to the family. The dog is an eight week old male Chocolate Lab that should max out around 80lbs. A bit smaller than Boone and Cole but a good sized dog.

The puppy has warmed up to Boone more than Boone has to the puppy, but I'm sure they'll become fast friends.

His name is undecided at this point. Matthew want's Beach Dog and Madi is lobbying for Sunset Sparkle Jones.

I'm assuming there will be tens of thousands of pictures to follow.

Hey look another political post

I'm not going to bore anyone with my yapping about the conventions or any of that.

I do want to pass this article along.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/661828.html

I enjoy the contrast of this Punk sticking his thumb in the eye of the political establishment of Cuba compared to the American hating knuckleheads that pass for Punk in the States. The modern American Punk likes to pretend that they're taking a huge risk by telling George Bush to fuck off when in truth it's about the safest thing one can do.

This guy and his band though, they are really sticking their necks out. Standing up against a true tyranny.

Watch the youtube video embedded in the page. Good stuff.

WARNING: Political post

I don't want to post political stuff here. There's enough of that available online and I really can't add to it. I am making this post today because I'm really floored by this article about Obama. The part that blows me over is not even about Obama, it's the creative use of language supposedly objective reporters are using, I assume, to lessen the effect of the truth on Obama.

Here is the article:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92PL7400&show_article=1

Here is the offending passage:

"Obama's target is an ad by the conservative American Issues Project, a nonprofit group that questions Obama's ties to Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that took credit for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago. "

So when sixties radicals, Terrorists, bomb Federal buildings we call them "explosions" and we point out that they were "nonfatal", as if that makes the bombing OK. Ayers is a vile man and the Weather Underground crowd are/were as well. It kills me that these people were even allowed to integrate in normal society, let alone become University Professors after the horrible acts they committed. Nowadays Ayers claims he's proud of his actions as a Radical and wishes he'd done more.

In politics a persons associations are a valid way for a voter to determine the judgment of the candidate. You're known by the company you keep, and Obama has associated with some bad characters.