As of this evening, I completed a non-hostile takeover of Todd’s Blog. It’s been absorbed into mine and we’ll be posting both to my blog. It should go to both of our sites when either of us posts anything…
So that remains to be seen.
In the meantime…make sure to get onto both me and todd if we’re not posting enough…like I say…you’re comments are like a drug to me.
Test post from todds iPhone.
We’ve all had this conversation in our life. The ‘if I had it to do over again’ one. Those of us in EMS seem to have this conversation a lot, partially because its an unintended field. What I mean by that is if you were to ask those people who you know in the EMS field very few of them will have truly planned to be an emt or paramedic. But I digress…
Virginia and I were having this discussion and I had mentioned going to medical school, which triggered that one. If I had buckled down beforehand I would have got everything done and would probably be entering med school this fall…but as they say, life is what happens when your busy making other plans.
So I was thinking back farther than that to when I first started college. My first plan was to go into psychology, eventually winding up with a PhD or PsyD in forensic psychology. I’d wanted to work for the FBI…a little cliché I know but still its where I felt I’d have been able to do something memorable.
So I had all these lofty aspirations for myself. Then had a series of downward spiral semesters, and ended up transferring back to Marshall and getting into an emt class and then paramedic school. A pretty far cry from either medical school or forensic psychology.
But the more I thought about it I had to ask myself, were my failures really failures? If I hadn’t left Marshall then I wouldn’t have met my brothers in my fraternity who helped bring me out of my shell and deal with people, I wouldn’t have moved to Huntington, or gotten into ems, or met the friends I have from the emergency services who served to further bring me out of my shell and turned me into what I am today…though the jury is still out on what that is haha.
In my 27 years I’ve been party to many different experiences and life lessons; how many of these would I still have had if I hadn’t failed in the past. I may have been doing my dream job so to speak, but what about the rest of my life. I don’t think I would have been as nearly an interesting person or had as many good stories to tell.
Do you think that your life would be any better than it is now if you hadn’t failed earlier in life?
So a 911 center in the basement of a jail in Iowa is on the cutting edge ahead of everyone else. I read this and two things come to mind:
1. Way to go Iowa!
and 2. What the fuck rest of America.
This is a good system because a number of teens and kids nowadays already think they can text 911 if they need help now they really will be able to. The downside is right now only T-mobile customers in the geographic area of that center will be able to use it. And unfortunately there’s another step in this, because, unlike when you call, the 911 center can not get your general location so they send you a text asking for your city or zip code. But once this is all done the dispatcher can also send texts back to you for a conversation.
I think is a good idea but it needs some work with it, hopefully with time they’ll get location information and the like built into it somehow. In the meantime its better than nothing…but seriously…Iowa first?
And on to the other thing that caught my eye today.
Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on with this gravestone? It’s from Walla Walla, Washington which, on a side note, no matter what this could have been I probably would have written about it because I like saying Walla Walla, Washington.
I also like saying Lake Titicaca…but thats a different blog for a different day.
I looked on findagrave.com and it has dates of death but since they weren’t originally on there that means he had to have designed this one. There’s additional pictures here there are more etchings on the top and the back side as well.
Anyone have any ideas?
By the way you can see the other pictures here
There are few times that I’ve found something that describes my current mood. This morning I was just getting back to the house and I look across to the other mountain and I saw something that I had to record.
This photo fit what had been going on in my head to a T today. I had been thinking about the future, plans with school, what to do about some other things, and the like. It seemed like what was in front of me was clear, but the farther I looked the harder it got to see. I’ve got the thought that what was beyond me had great splendor and was truly something to behold, if only I could get through the damned fog.
One day soon I hope things to clear up and personal fog will lift, and when it does, I hope things will be as clear and pretty as this scene was about 30 minutes later that day.
How are things for all of you? Have you found a photo somewhere, even if you didn’t take it, that fits your situation or mood? If so post it here and include a link to the photo.
And thanks for reading, like I have said before your comments are my driving force…Hey what can I say I’m an applause whore.
I had had a funny conversation with some people on facebook the other day and I’ve decided I need to try to keep track of some of the strange words I and those around me come up with, so that we can use them later and save them for posterity.
Thus, the Franktionary is born!
Well…it will be….so thus the idea of the Frantionary is born!….and the thing itself will be once I decide how I’m going to do it.
In the meantime feel free to add anything that comes to mind to the bottom here and I’ll try to remember them for later.
Been a rough couple weeks so this is late coming…Kim’s Birthday was this past weekend, I seem to have driven off the girl I had a thing for(sophomoric to say it like that I know…don’t judge me,) and the ever-present drama at work has made it a long week. But bouncing back as I always do…I’m here again with my new thoughts!
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on here. In fact, I may have only put one or two things down since I moved to WordPress…so much for the turning over a new leaf thing. I would say I will do better and promise my readers that they will have more material, but most of you know me and know that I can’t stick to that. So itll just suffice to say keep coming back, once in a while there will be something new. I can’t say if it’ll be any good or not but at least it will be authentic.
I’ve been quite introspective these last few weeks, thinking about my past, my present, my potential future, and any variations thereof. I have reached an impasse with some things, for one I’m uncertain about respiratory therapy school. This is complicated by the fact that I got so caught up in everything else that I forgot to check on the paperwork for entry into the program, and may have to wait another year. I will still work to get in the program this fall but it begs the thought that I’m still not sure about respiratory therapy. I’ve no doubt it would be a job I would be good at (at least until I go deaf,) the money isn’t bad for what you do, and neither are the hours. However I’m not sure if it would be a job I would find rewarding.
My current job has its ups and downs, the ups can be high up, and the downs can be very….very….low but for the most part it isn’t a bad gig. But the nature of the job is hard on a person, not to mention the constant stresses of the people involved with that job, both coworkers and bystanders. But I digress.
For now I will continue the plan of rrt school, and hopefully I do get in and get along with that. For until I find my proper course, at least I’ll be making my way somewhere instead of adrift at sea.
Wow that turned melancholy in a hurry…ok back to normal…
I got a new camera last week. Before this one I’d always had little compact point and shoot models, that did ok for what I wanted to do with them. Then Joe got one and it seemed interesting, then mike and Todd. Well since Todd got one, who is called Goader btw…and for good reason (btw Todd when you read this…you’re an asshole!) I was playing around with it one day, and we were talking about different aspects of photography and the mathematics of it. So once I did that it interested me and I began looking at things in terms of a shot I could get, and from that point I was hooked. It was both artistic and scientific…I finally came up with a way to reckon the two worlds and it intrigues me.
The other feature is now I can let the world see things through my eyes. I’ve always had a strange way of looking at the world around me and it gives me great joy to see everyday things in new ways. I have allowed others to see everything from a good picture of my dog that looks like he posed for, to a bird just taking flight with a worm, to the rain sitting on a flower after a storm, to the rainbow just this afternoon I stumbled across.
And though its entirely likely very few people even give a damn about any of the pictures, I know that somewhere out there is a person who appreciates it, and maybe it causes them to stop and look around their own environment.
And then I will have been successful.
I have the iPhone set up this is the test post.
So what so do you all think about the iPhone? So far I like it
I was reading different spots of the news today and came across two separate stories that surprised me to hear. It’s a new take on old ideas and, given some thought, seems like it makes sense.
The first is a study in Britain by neuroscientists at Keele University that found swearing essentially eases physical pain. They had subjects hold their hands in icy water and either say whatever swear word they choose or something less strong. It was found that by cursing they could hold their hands under longer and withstand more. It triggered the flight or fight response(or as I call it…”Holy Shit! response) as well as an endorphine release.
So for all of you who like to curse as much as I do, I’ve now given to you the reasoning if anyone says its inappropriate. You’re not being foul mouthed, you’re doing this for your health!
The other thing is a new use of a video game. No I’m not talking about interactive sex dolls(I’m sure they already have those out there and if not I think I’ve stumbled across a new market….I almost put that I came across it but it was so punny as to be painful)
The american heart association, or as those of us in the medical field know them as, the group that changes CPR and ACLS to something confusing every 2 years has begun funding a program to come up with a system that allows people at home to get their cpr certification using the Nintendo Wii. I’d assume this uses the accelerometer in the controllers.
I’m not sure what I think about this yet. I’ve always had the thought that certain things should be taught in a classroom atmosphere, especially with practical skills and most things medical. Students will have questions and unless there is someone looking at them they may not as them, as well as the extra learning they get from other people having questions. The AHA may also say that this program could be used for people who would be nervous to take it in a classroom with other students or who don’t like crowds. But I think that for one if you get too nervous to take the class with a group how could you do it outside of that…and two it may be a good thing to take the class as a group because it would help you get some confidence completing it.
But in the end I guess it’s better to know CPR than not so whatever gets the knowledge out there.
What do you all think about it?
I’m using the new blog space to turn over a new leaf for writing. I’ll try to keep up with my old pattern, and since wordpress has an iphone app I’ll pretty much have no excuse whatsoever when it comes in. So I ask all of you to keep on task, if you like reading my blogs and i start to slack be sure to give me shit about it and keep me on target.
Anyway, this was something I’d read about the other day and never took the time to write about. The former world’s oldest man died the other day in Japan. Tomoji Tanabe was 113 years old and attributed his long life to clean living, never having taken a drink in his entire life, and drinking a glass of milk every day. But I’m not here to write about a man who never seemed to have any vices and as such I think that although he did live 113 years I wonder how many of them he truly lived or how many he was simply existing.
Who I am writing about, however, is the new world’s oldest man, Henry Allingham. He is also 113, is the last founding member of the RAF as well as the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland. He’s the receiver of a number of military honors, and even now will go visit the graveyards of the allied soldeirs. After the war Henry, with no engineering training, joined the design team of Ford and retired in 1961.
The man has lived the live of 4 men and all of them astounding. He’s seen and done amazing things that I can only dream of, and I hope one day that I can look back on my life and have that memory memories as well.
I’m sure you’ve all read through this and I applaud you for that I tend to ramble lately but you’re probably thinking Frank, what is it that has made this man so amazing? Well here it is….
When asked what he attributes to his longevity, he responded that it was due to, “Cigarettes, whiskey, and wild wild women”
I have a new personal hero.
