Randomness of Spring

I figure I can't be a huge fan of Groundhog Day and not post on the official first day of Spring. One of my favorite lines from Groundhog Day is when the guy stops Phil Connors in the hall of the bed and breakfast on the first morning and asks him, "You think it will be an early Spring?"

Phil replies, "I am betting March 21st."

The guy then says, "You know, I think that actually is the first day of Spring." Classic. My other favorite line (out of so many to choose from) "Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!"

Groundhog Day. Best movie ever.

So it is the first day of Spring today, despite the fact that I think it snows more in the Spring than it does in the Winter anymore. I don't remember ever craving the warmth of Spring and Summer before like I do this year. I really badly want to be sitting on a beach and swimming in the Ocean.

Can anyone tell me the point of twitter? I signed up out of curiosity. I sent emails to a few celebrities inviting them to follow me, but they aren't. I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

Back to Spring. I am not sure what happens in people's heads when the weather turns warmer. Speaking from a work perspective, they get stupid (er). Don't get me wrong, for the most part stupidity keeps us in business, so it's not all bad, but it is comical. Many people, by my guess, would say that Winter and snowy roads is responsible for an increase in car accidents. I have learned that is wrong. Seriously. Its true there are wrecks when the snow covers the roads, but for the most part they are minor slide offs and such. When the weather warms up, drivers are anxious to get out on drives and see the country. They put the top down and "cruise." Well, they also crash. It happens every year. The first couple weeks of warmer weather we always respond on an increase of car accidents. Bad ones too. People are more confident on the dry roads. The drive faster. They drive more carelessly.

A few years ago, on a nice spring day at work, we were in Spring fever mode as well. So much so that we had a huge water fight using the fire hoses on the fire truck...one of the perks of our job. It started with one of the guys splashing a cup of water at someone who was sleeping. That led to a filled up bucket, which led to a bucket of water being thrown on one of the guys that was studying from the books, and before we knew it it was a full fledged everyone-versus-everyone water fight. Like I said, fire trucks and hoses were used. This went on for about 30 minutes. We were all soaked to the bone as they say. I would have been more dry if I were wading in a shoulder deep swimming pool. The only reason it ended was because we got a medical call. So we respond to a house for a call to a choking child. We didn't have time to dry off. We just hopped in our trucks and went. When we arrived, dripping wet, the caller met us at the front door and said that the kid was okay, he had choked the hot dog out a few seconds before we got there. I asked the mother to bring the kid out to us so we could avoid soaking her home with our dripping wet clothes. The looks we got when we arrived were priceless. We could tell the family wanted to hear a story, but we kept it mysterious. I should go start a water fight right now.

Groundhog Day

I absolutely love Groundhog Day. My deep infatuation stems from the movie for sure. Loved that movie. Still love that movie. It ranks on my all time top 5 with Gross Point Blank, Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, and Encino Man. I have made every analyzation possible of each of the above movies, but more so with Groundhog Day.

There are so many creative moments of genius shown in this movie, yet so many things they could have also done. I have always hoped for a sequel or a full length deleted scenes release.

Have you ever thought about the things you would do, if you had your own personal Groundhog Day? Well, I have. Quick synopsis for those that have been deprived of seeing this film: A weatherman wakes up each morning and it is groundhog day, again and again and again, for years presumably. Only he doesn’t start over, he remembers each day, knows that he is stuck on the same day. So what would you do with your own Groundhog Day? Number 1 Groundhog Day activity for me? Dominoes. As in long trains of dominoes that you knock down and they make cool pictures and so on. Not the pizza. Yep, I would spend day after day learning how to make really long trains of dominoes to knock down. I guess it wouldn’t be day after day because its my Groundhog Day right? I would also learn the piano, the yukalaylee, and the guitar.
If only Groundhog Day were during baseball season. I could get half the stadiums done in one day! Did I mention that is the major item on my bucket list? To see a baseball game in every major league stadium. Bill Murray (the star of Groundhog Day) used to own the Salt Lake Trappers. Funny how so many things revolve around baseball.

Did you hear about how PETA wants to sue the Punxatawny Phil
caretakers for poor living arrangements? Seriously? He probably has it better than most of Kearns. (Trust me on this one, I have been in a lot of the houses there.) Seriously, that’s ridiculous.

Another Boring Work Story

As part of our training for paramedic school we are required to spend 16 hours in the Labor and Delivery unit at a couple different hospitals. Depending on the day, you could literally see nearly 50 deliveries. The staff runs you from room to room to observe and assist with as many as they can “squeeze” you into. This was my experience. Two separate 8 hour days rushing room to room after room, watching baby after baby after baby “pop” out. It really is the best description because I was rarely in the room for all of the pre-delivery stuff. I would get to the room as the baby was on the move and would get in there just in time for it to “pop” out. Once it was out, I would do a quick assessment with the nurse and then they would rush me to the next one. Towards the end of the day, some of the Doctors let you be the one to actually deliver the baby. We receive this extensive training because it is rare that we are called to an emergency scene to deliver a child, but it does happen once in a while. I have had two “emergency” deliveries in ten years. Both of them have been “textbook” deliveries with no complications other than the child showed up a lot faster than the mothers were planning on. My first was on the freeway on Christmas Day 7 or 8 years ago-which is probably a story all by itself, but it’s the second one I want to tell you about. This goes down as one of the top five memories from this past decade of work.

So I am working at a station with a good friend. The two of us got hired together, went to paramedic school together, and became good friends and hang out often on days off. When we actually worked together on the Rescue–it was rare–we had great times.

So we are working together, at a pretty busy station. We had already been on 3 or 4 calls when another call came in for an “immanent delivery.” We responded to a home to find a woman, 39 weeks pregnant, lying on her floor. Her husband was near her, placing cold rags on her forehead. As soon as we walk through the door she tells us the baby was coming (When a mother says this, its usually true.) We went into delivery mode right away, creating a sterile environment, preparing to do all the things you have to do to deliver a child. We find out that this will be their 6th child, and that they did not learn the sex during the ultrasound. They were wanting to be surprised. The delivery goes smooth as can be. No complications. Textbook. As the baby is delivered my partner tells them congratulations, it is a baby boy. My job at this point is to document everything and make a call to the hospital to inform them that we will be bringing a mother and newborn to their facility. The father starts making phone calls to friends and family, and mini celebrations are going on all around us about the birth of the new baby boy.

At this point, I glance down towards the baby to do a quick second assessment that we do on newborns. A score is assessed based on several things: breathing, appearance, muscle tone, etc. As I do my quick check, I noticed that a very important “boy part” is missing. I do the obligatory “eh-hum” to notify my partner that the baby is actually female. This is the point that, had we been a cartoon, the automatic sound bite of screeching brakes would automatically cue. My partner gets the family’s attention and solemnly tells them the update. As you can probably imagine, this causes sheer confusion. Almost a little panic. The father rushes over in disbelief, like it was a poorly timed April Fools joke, to see for himself as my partner tries his best to restore the initial excitement. “Its a baby girl, hooray?” It took a few minutes, but everything cleared up and turned out to be okay, except for the career long razzing that continues to be dished out in true firefighter fashion.

A Decade of Firefighting (sort of)

As promised, I am taking a look back over the past 10 years of work. Bringing back the crazy stories. If not crazy, then memorable. If not memorable, then at least made up just to entertain.

So what are the top 5 moments of the past decade from my sole perspective of working as a firefighter? I will write them one post at a time, in no specific order, starting with this one:

2004: We get paged out to a person complaining of a headache. This is a common call for us, and headaches can be serious. (signs of stroke, concussion, meningitis, etc). As we arrive, we see a 25 year old man with both hand on his head, holding it. As we approach him he tells us “my head is going to explode!” So picture a man who thinks his head is about to explode, who is holding his head to prevent that.... that is what we have so far. So my partner and I ask him to calm down and put his hands down so we can get him checked out. He adamantly refuses to remove his hands telling us he doesn’t want his brains to splatter all over us when his head explodes. Nice of him, right? So we ask,”Why do you think your head is going to explode?”

“Because there is an android in there.”

“An Android?”

“Yes,” he says, accompanied with a look that says, “DUH!” Like we are the dumb ones.

“How did the android get in your head?”

Again, a glare that makes us feel like we just asked the dumbest question in the world, but this time accompanied with a sigh, like he realizes we are absolute idiots when it comes to androids and heads. “The Mexican Mafia put it in there.”

So now, imagine this guy, 25 years old, who appears to one-hundred-percent believe what he is telling us. Also imagine us, having a sense of duty, and trying our absolute hardest not to laugh out loud (LOL) at this. Even though we have to remain professional, I still had to ask, and I know you would have asked too, “Why did the Mexican Mafia put an android in your head?”

“To stop me from doing my job!” Remember, the looks of impatience from our new troubled friend continue–and worsen–with each answer.

Still we press on, “What job is it that the Mexican Mafia wants to prevent you from doing?”

Sigh, “Filtering spirits.”

“Filtering spirits?” We exchange glances, because we thought we were confused when he mentioned the android, now this.

“Yes.” At this point we see the build up in his eyes, as if he just realized that he needs to tell us the whole story without our asking. During his long version, we manage a few questions of clarification, but keep it to a minimum. So he recaps–briefly–the above, and says, “My job is to filter spirits because I am the son of god. Not the actual son of god, but one of them, and I help him out by filtering the good spirits from the bad that he sends me. That way his job easier. But the Mexican Mafia got word of my job, and want it to stop. That’s why they put the android in my head. The android stops me from doing my job, but the spirits keep coming. There are almost too many of them. My head is going to explode any minute and I am going to cover you guys with lots of brains and blood.”

After his story we tell him that we need to take him to the hospital because our android-removal tool was broken earlier in the day when we removed another android, and the only working one left in the state was at the hospital. He accepts this story and happily gets transported.

Moral of the story. Don’t do drugs, especially not METH. The hospital gave us a follow up call and informed us the guy had so much meth in his system we could have scratched his arm and sniffed him to get high.

I have already written on here about a couple of others, but I link them here for easy indexing. Remember the one about almost doing CPR on the wrong lady? Thats here: http://chadsaysrebeccasays.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-title-chad-says-rebecca-listens-and.html

And finally the girlfriend passing gas at her boyfriends house: http://chadsaysrebeccasays.blogspot.com/2009/10/best-job-in-world.html

More in a few days.

Another Year in Review that is Really A Decade in Review according to me.

I am jumping on the bandwagon and thinking back over the decade to rate the best and worst, as far as I remember it. I can’t believe it is already 2010. It seems like just yesterday I was digging out the bunker in the backyard and stalking up on ammunition, gasoline, and water waiting for the computers to crash. Time flies huh?

The “2k’s” were probably the years of biggest life changes for me: started a career, graduated from USU, graduated paramedic school, got married, had kids, bought a house, beat every Call of Duty so far, and made the switch from a PC user to strictly MAC. I still have the same truck though. I should have changed that too.

My favorite movie of the decade? Hard to say. My first inkling was to say Star Wars Episode 3. This was a culmination of so many ideas and ideologies. So many bad metaphors, so many good metaphors, (Yes, I have used Star Wars in many gospel lessons) and the single most anticipated movie I can recall. Many “die-hard” Star Wars nerds (also referred to as star wars virgins by Triumph the Insult Dog) were not happy with the prequels. Other than Jar-Jar Binx , the Star Wars sequels perfectly cemented the entire Star Wars movie set as one of the most defining of all time–for me. Some other movies that I can not live without from the ‘K’s’: Pirates Of the Caribbean, Remember the Titans, Band Of Brothers, Secondhand Lions, and Open Range. Okay, some of those are nowhere close to movies of the decade, but I got carried away listing the movies I like. In contrast, the worst movie of this decade, that I have seen: either Kazaam or Superbad. All I got out of this movie was that it’s title fits. The downside to working as a firefighter, downtime to watch bad movies.

My favorite album of the decade? Another hard choice. I really think my musical tastes are stuck in the 90’s and earlier. Wait, I just remembered Jack Johnson. Hands down. I listen to Jack Johnson daily. Awesome musician. Coveted life. Seriously. He drives his wife to work every day (she’s a school teacher in Hawaii), goes to the beach to surf and write songs. Goes on tour almost every summer. Least favorite musician: That kid from American Idol that sang the bang song and got a record deal out of it. Ridiculous commentary on pop culture.

Favorite popular event from this decade: Britney Spears shaving her head and me subsequently talking several co-workers down from jumping off of the church office building because of it. Seriously though, I loved this because it was the absolute most shocking event I can recall. More shocking than Nipple Gate from Super Bowl 38. More shocking than when Kevin and Winnie didn’t hook up at the end of Wonder Years. Least favorite event of this decade: Britney shaving her head and going psycho. Such a sad time for a pop star that had such potential! Yes, it fits in both categories!

Wow, this post is getting so long. Maybe I will break it up into future posts. Yeah that is what I will do. More to come in future weeks. Unless I forget or get bored of it. Next reviews: Best Sports Moment, Best TV series, best moment at work, and best internet creation.