Checking in

 I had thought with having the week off I would have had a bunch of time to put some posts up. Guess not. Although I have had the time, nothing is coming through, and I am keeping myself busy getting stuff ready to turn over to my new Captain at the end of the week, finishing up the end of the year stats for the Department, battling storms, and running calls.
 Christmas day was fairly quiet. We had an impalement call while I was in the middle of dinner, but we had plenty of folks out to handle it. At around 8:30pm local that evening, just as I had gotten home and settled on the couch with my bloated belly, the tones dropped for a structure fire in the next town over.  We caught some work on that job. Fortunately, it was an occupied unoccupied SFD undergoing renovation. The heat on the second floor drove our guys back out on the first attempt, but with some venting they could re-enter and finish it off. We still don't know what started it because there was no power to the structure. It was a cold night, and ice was beginning to be a problem when we were picking up.
 The day after Christmas, the storm came in and I prayed there would be no calls. SO we went out for a medical job just when the storm was beginning to really lay it down. Syncope secondary to some pot brownies. he patient was hypovolemic and he kept passing out with minor convulsions. I got to work with a Medic I know well who is also and Assistant Chief in a neighboring Department. So we had a nice run in. It's great having a good partner. On the way back from town two morons in little cars flew past us hell bent for leather. The wind is whipping at about 30 MPH, the snow is horizontal, and the road is covered with about 4 inches of the slippery stuff. These jerks both wig-wagged their way up the hill without ever touching their brakes. My driver slowed down to give them crashing room, glanced at me and said "We'll have real good response time to this job!" "No", I said, "It doesn't count if you call it in." We both laughed as we watched the one car get sucked off on the shoulder, bring it back on the road and cross two lanes, winding up in the oncoming lane, before he finally got control. Morons.
 Yesterday we ran 'wires down' calls, the last one keeping me out on the road for 3 hours last night in a wicked wind babysitting live wires laying squarely across the road. I couldn't leave it, and the Utility could not spare anyone to come mitigate it as they were handling thousands of outages around the county. Finally we called Town Highway to bring barricades to block the road completely on both sides of the wires. Hopefully no idiot will come along and move them and drive across. (I figure the first idiot came along in about 20 minutes.) I got home around 11:30pm.
 Which brings us to today. Cold, cloudy, with a 20 MPH wind that sounds like a freight train going over the house. They say it's gonna clear today. Maybe I'll get some new pictures of snow and ice.
 So I just wanted to let you know I'm still here. Today I'm hoping to get out and do some 'stuff for me' for a change. I have a bunch of holiday money burning a hole in my pocket.
 Stay warm, stay safe.
UU
Here's a local shot from last year around this time: