Additions:
{9-22-5}
Hello all,
This is a link given to me by a meteorologist friend. It is a recent loop of the Infra Red Sat. imagery of Hurricane Rita.
Just thought you might like to see.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/home/gadomski/public_html/SAT_GULF/anim16ir.html∞
Penn State’s Meteorology Dept runs it.
You can click through it t o get IR Sat imagery of most of the US.
The time clock at the bottom is in Greenwich Mean Time.
{9-21-5}
Along the lines of what SheElff was bloging about, sort of, and the story in ∞bellow the fold.
DON’T mess with the fire safety stuff!!!
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2005/04/04-25-05tdc/04-25-05dnews-12b.jpg∞
The Digital Collegian {4-25-05}, PHOTO: Matt Sowers∞
It DID happen here.
I am just behind the brick wall, half way down the stairs caring Christopher Raspanti’s body. He was a 21 year old Penn State student that was to have graduated last spring.
Because of failing stairs and debris, we had to return to the still burning 3 rd floor where I handed the stokes basket, that carried his body, out of a window to a crew in the bucket. You don’t wont to know what he looked like. It was a closed casket funeral.
So:
don’t take the batteries out of your smoke detector,
don’t damage fire alarms,
don’t pull false alarms, and get out if you hear an alarm!
You have to put up with seeing my sorry face in class, you don’t need to see it all smoke stained and sweaty!
OK, I'm off my soap box now…
{9-20-5}
A single tracked mind if a mind at all.
I am in Telecom and I have a programming class that requires us to pick a new show for the season and watch it all semester and then write a paper at the end of the semester about it. Why is it, what audience is it targeting, who are the advertisers . . . So YES my homework was to watch TV tonight !!!! I even found my show:
You may have guessed it. . . . I picked a new show about firefighting.
∞ "FIREHOUSE USA; Boston"∞
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/firehouseusa/gallery/top_banner.jpg∞
The return of a true reality TV show, not the oxymoronic fair that the networks have been producing over the past few years.
{9-18-5}
Well I made it to my friend’s weeding. It was prity good. My mind was running the hole time I was driving Friday night. I swear that I came up with a dozen if not more good ideas for BLOGing about. But . . . BUT I FORGOT THEM! AHHHHHHH
What was I to do? Jot them down while traveling 75 up U.S 220? That would have looked good. Me sitting on the crumpled hood of my car feverishly writing as a State Trooper walks up to me while looking for the nonexistent skid marks.
“Hay mister, you OK?!”
Looking up from my clip board, “What??” Dazed and confused.
Oh man, it would just go down hill from there!
HAY LOOK THIS BLOGs SHORT!!!
May be I should write some more . . . NA!
{9-16-5}
First Kiss
Its Friday night as I drive around State College getting ready for a trip back home. An old school friend is getting married. Elmira was once a small industrial city in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. Now its nether a true city nor and industrial center.
Nickelback’s song Photograph∞comes on the radio.
“And this is where I grew up,
I think the present owner fixed it up,
I never knew we'd ever went without,
The second floor is hard for sneaking out, . . .
Kim’s the first girl I kissed,
I was so nervous that I nearly missed”
The lyrics take me back to Elmira, and Ernie Davis Junior High. A three story city school of classical roman design . . .
It was after school the Wednesday before our fall dance. To save money, I hadn’t eaten lunch all week. The clerk at the West Side Florist though it was a little strange that I wonted just one rose delivered to Trisha. At 13, with the delivery charge, one rose was all that I could afford. I wrote a note on the card, “ . . . hope to see you at the dance.” in my dyslectic scribbling. My stomach was full of butterflies as I left the florist and ran the four blocks home. I wouldn’t eat dinner that night either.
Trish had been a crush of mine since sixth grade but she had always been in the other class, or on the other bus. She has a smile that could light the school, a cute little nose, brown hair cut just off the shoulders and a sweater that was just starting to show something that I didn’t know.
The light in the large gym dimmed at 7:30 as a D.J. started plying music. A wall of flashing red, blue, and yellow dance lights illuminated my autumn hopes. I was one of the first kids in the gym and stood along the long wall opposite the entrance. The first song has passed. The beat of Joan Jet is now punctuating my pulse, “I LOVE ROCK AND ROLE, PUT ANOTHER DIME IN THE JUKE BOX BABY . . .” A cold sweat collects on my palms.
The first slow song starts. Trish is across the room . . . I start to walk over, but she is standing in a group of other girls. AC-DC is fallowed by Van-Halen‘s, “Jamie’s Cryin‘” and then some early rap, Run DMC. As 9:00 comes and passes, I walk closer to the other wall. I can see Trish looking around the room as the music continues. . .
The D.J. announces that the last song, a slow song is next. As the first beats of the song bounce across the gym floor, I tap Trish on the shoulder. She turns with that smile on her face and we start to dance. Half way through the song our eyes meat. Our heads tilt and we bump our noses. A quick adjustment and . . . “JAMIE! It’s time to get up for school. You can’t miss the bus again.” My mom’s voice brings me from my sleep. IT'S Monday. When will I ever get the nerve!! . . .
“I miss that town,
I miss the faces,
You can't erase,
You can't replace it,
I miss it now,
I can't believe it,
So hard to stay,
So hard to leave it,
If I could I relive those days,
I know the one thing that would never change . . .
Look at this photograph,
Everytime I do it makes me laugh,
Everytime I do it makes me.”
Nickleback end as I pull in to the gas station.
Edited on 2005-09-21 23:41:58 by Squad514
Additions:
{9/13/5}
Did any one get to Pattee to day?
Man as someone who has been here a while, They have really changed the library around.
Periodicals use to be all in one room on second floor west. And as for the stuff I’ll need for my major. It’s all over the place. But boy does it look good . . .
Hay Teach. Did you manage to make it to the open house? Did you get your mug?
How the He098 do you open them? OOPS! I broke that one. Oh well, I got three more.
I still cant get it to open right!
{9/12/5}
Methanfedomin Labs, and clandestine labs
The following is a brief overview of materials presented to the Alpha Fire Company buy P.S.U. Police Services Training officer Bittner
Methamphetamine, Meth or Crank. Information for the first responder
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse web page:∞
“Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant drug that strongly activates certain systems in the brain. Methamphetamine is chemically related to amphetamine, but the central nervous system effects of methamphetamine are greater. Both drugs have some limited therapeutic uses, primarily in the treatment of obesity.”
Meth is a stimulant that is becoming more and more popular in rural America. The number of Meth labs reported to the PA State Police has doubles each year since 2000. IN 2004, the total was about 500 labs in Pennsylvania alone. Since 1975, the DEA has closed down 13,931 meth labs.
The main concern for the First Responder is the meth Lab. The chemicals used in production of meth include rock salt, road flares, match heads, paint thinner {toluene}, muriatic acid, anhydrous ammonia, and/or red phosphorus. These chemicals make the meth lab an unstable environment prone to flash fires and catastrophic explosions.
Even after a fire, the site of a meth lad is deemed a HAZ-MAT site. Personnel cleaning up the left over waist must ware level “A” fully encapsulating HAZ-MAT gear, and the cost of the cleanup can run millions of dollars. This is paid for by you and I, the tax payer. 1 pound of meth produced by a lab will generate 10 to 12 pounds of waste.
A few key characteristics of a meth lab are: They can be anywhere, even in a car trunk. The first thing you may notice is an overwhelming smell of cat urine. There will be an orange stain around drain openings in the home from draining the cook waste. Cylinders used to holed some of the chemicals will have a blue green oxidation on exposed metal parts.
Just a few things you may wont to look out for when partying in unknown apartments in State College. . . You may wont to leave if you see any of these indicators. Just breathing some of the raw materials used in the cook or the waste may cause terminal injuries. If we’re concerned about going into this environment . . . You should be terrified!
Edited on 2005-09-21 23:40:26 by Squad514
Additions:
{9/6/5}
How can it be?
I just saw today that Penn State has dropped out of the rankings. Is it possible? I mean this place use to be the benchmark to measure all other schools by. A reputable magazine once said that they refused to rank all those armatures against US, Penn State.
Is it really true? Did we drop out of the top ten?
No, NOT football . . . PARTY SCHOOLS!!!!
I think the poll in the Daily Collegian∞must be wrong. According to the article not only are we now 13th, but THAT is an increase over last years 19th.
I’m not sure if that’s right. Look at HimErosBlog∞. In his Narrative, he seems to be a party animal. Is he the only one?
Oh, and by the way. The reputable magazine was Playboy∞. They KNOW parties.
OK maybe I’m not doing my part either.
{9/5/05}
Narrative: First Fire
pg1} I could see nothing as I crawled into the hot, smoke filled garage. My heart was running a mile a minute yet we’ve gone just three feet into the dark abyss. I clenched the fire hose with my gloved right hand. An over whelming sound of fire consuming something I can not yet see, but who’s heat has already made my shirt sticky with perspiration. My heart has now run two miles. I have only crawled four feet. . .pg2} The spring break after my probationary year as a fireman had been a quiet one. Sure we had responded to a couple of automatic fire alarms and one small accident, but there had been no calls of importance. Saturday night was shaping up to be more or less the same. I was in the fire station’s T.V. lounge. Saturday Night Live was on. All evening, I had seen only one other firefighter at the station. Devon had just finished his probationary year a month or two after mine but he had five years experience as a volunteer fireman in New Jersey. I, on the other hand, had never been a fireman until I joined the Alpha Fire Company∞and I was still waiting for MY first fire.
pg3} I was drifting in and out of a light sleep while sitting in one of the overstuffed TV lounge chairs when, “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…”, it happened. The loud, staccato alert beeps of my fire company pager startled me. The station’s radio came to life. “Company 5 fire, ambulance 5 . . . Reported Structure Fire in the Borough of State College.” Barely out of my slumber, I was running for the door to get my fire gear as the 911 dispatcher repeated her call. It was my call!
pg4} I jumped into my fire pants and boots, a red suspender over each shoulder, then the ten pound coat and helmet. The clothes that will protect me are fastened as I run for the fire engine. In mere moments I had climbed aboard and was seated in the nozzle seat. This fire will be mine. Devon was next. He joined me on the rear facing jump seats. Lieutenant Chris Kline, ‘CK’, got in the front passenger seat. We call it the “Officer’s Seat.” He’ll be the boss until a chief gets on scene. I didn’t even notice that driver/operator Lutz not only had gotten in the drivers seat, but had the engine running and was pulling out of the station.
pg5} As we sped down Easterly Parkway, Devon and I look at each other. The open cab of the fire engine allowed us a whiff of an odor I have since come to know . . . the smell of burning processed wood and paint. The smell of a house fire. The radio crackles and a Chief gives his on scene report, “Centre County, 502 on scene of a working fire in a one story single family. The fire is in an attached garage.” But the radio and siren are just background noise as my mind races;
“Do I have my gear on right?”
“Is my air mask going to work?” I tighten the straps of my air pack.
“What hose line will I take?” CK will let me know.
“Will I do all right?”
pg6} Devon and I tightened the straps of our air packs as Lutz swung the engine onto south Garner Street. In two blocks, we’d be there. The chief ordered over the radio, “ Engine 510, take a 1 3/4 line in the front.” That is a fire hose that is one and three fourths inches in diameter. It can safely deliver up to 175 gallons of water a minute. “The fire hasn’t spread to the house yet.” “Is my air mask going to work?” I tighten the straps of my air pack.
“What hose line will I take?” CK will let me know.
“Will I do all right?”
pg7} The engine stops. I follow Devon off the back of the engine. He takes some hand tools and goes with CK. I grab 75 feet of hose with a nozzle (the working end) and drape it over my left shoulder. With my right hand, I take the last 75 feet and flake it out as I walk over the snow covered front yard, away from the house. This will keep the hose from getting kinked when the driver gives us water. I turn and move quickly to the front door, the hose falling off my left shoulder, one fold at a time.
pg8} The home is an ordinary ranch house with the garage attached to the right side. Shrubs line the walkway to the front door. Because of the weather, a light cloud of smoke fills the air and darkens the once bright snow.
pg9} I enter the front door and meet up with CK. There is a light haze of smoke throughout the home but no sign of fire in the house proper. CK tells me, “Mask up, the door to the garage is in the kitchen. We’ll open it after we get water.” I drop the last fifteen feet of hose in the living room, the nozzle at my knee. I put the air pack mask on as I feel the hose stretch and expand with 140 pounds of pressure. Our driver, Lutz, has sent us water. I pull the straps on my mask tight around my face. Picking up the nozzle, I follow CK to the kitchen, with Devon right behind me. Breathing heavily through our masks, CK’s muffled voice asks, “You guys ready?” The noise from the garage is now coming through the wall like a rock concert. We both yell back through our masks “YES!”
pg10} CK opens the metal fire door between the kitchen and the garage. Instantly the temperature starts to climb. I can no longer see CK or Devon as the pressurized smoke pours into the home’s living space. CK nudges me from behind, “Lets go ‘Beech.’ Through the door and to the right.” I start to crawl through the door. The hose in my right hand, my heart starts to race a mile a minute with adrenalin. Sweat across my brow, I’ve only made it four feet when I run into what I would later learn to be a car. I can feel a terrific heat coming from my left but I can’t see anything. I start to turn toward the source of heat as I yell to CK, “The fire’s to the left. I can feel it!”
pg11} After crawling another five or six feet I begin to see what looks like a distant flame. Dark red in color, it looks to be far off in the heavy smoke. Unable to see anything else, I open the bail on the nozzle. 150 gallons of water rush out toward the not so distant flame as it pushes back with an equal force. Over the jet like noise, I can hear someone breaking open the garage door. With that, a rush of air feeds the fire that had banked down. Just as suddenly, the fresh oxygen blasts the fire and I am enveloped in oranges and reds. The wall I was crawling along erupts into flame. My jeans sticking to my legs, my shirt to my arms, sweat dripping from my eyelids; I swing the nozzle along the wall to my left, whipping the stream of water back and forth like a mad man.
pg12} Most house fires can be extinguished with only a few hundred gallons of well-placed water. This one was no different. After a few minutes of exhilarating fury, the smoke started to clear and the heat dissipated. With no visible fire, I closed the nozzle.
pg13} As I strolled out the garage door, a feeling of accomplishment and confidence came over me. I sat down on the front bumper of Engine 510 to cool off. My air pack was at my feet, my coat halfway down my arms, the sweat in my clothes started to freeze. My first fire fight was won
pg14} Across the street sat a young new mother holding an infant child. Her husband, a young masters student from Europe, held a blanket around his family. At one in the morning, who else was going to have been there for them?
Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2005-09-21 01:45:50 by Squad514 []
Page view:
{9-3-05}
Hello ALL!!!
I have to work Saturday, so I’ll miss the opening of what I hope will be a wonderful football season. BUT there has always been one thing that bugs me. When the Blue Band plays the Alma Mater, the student section sings “WE DON’T KNOW THE GOD DAM WORD“, instead of the proper lyrics. You don’t know how DUM that makes you look…. THE WORDS ARE ON THE BIG SCREEN BEHIND YOU!!!!
An old family friend graduated from Penn State many years ago. Before his death, he told me that in his day, all freshman had to learn the lyrics to the Alma Mater. Maybe we should do that again. And every time I saw Mr. Zurenda, he wouldn’t let me go till we sang it.
Just in case you’d like to know, hear are the words:
Penn State Alma Mater∞
For the glory of old State,
For her founders strong and great,
For the future that we wait,
Raise the song, raise the song.
Sing our love and loyalty,
Sing our hopes that, bright and free,
Rest, O Mother dear, with thee,
All with thee, all with thee.
(P)
When we stood at childhood's gate,
Shapeless in the hands of fate,
Thou didst mold us, dear old State,
Dear old State, dear old State.
(F)
May no act of ours bring shame
To one heart that loves thy name,
May our lives but swell thy fame,
Dear old State, dear old State.
by Fred Lewis Pattee, 1901
104 years ago…
Hear is a link to hear it sung by the Penn State Glee Club. The official curators of all Penn State school songs. Depending on the year this was recorded, my voice may be among the BASS section.
Hello All,
I guess this is the beginning of my BLOG {Blind Loud Obnoxious Gabbing} Hopefully I wont be to blind or obnoxious but I can’t help the loud thing. No mater what I do I seam to be a bit to LOUD. And once my mouth starts moving . . . it just doesn’t seam to stop. No mater how much trouble it gets me into.
As for me, I am a returning adult student. I’m willing to bet I’m even older than our teacher. But I wont tell you how old. You’ll have to guess that for your self over the next few blogs.
I am originally from Elmira, NY and came to Penn State at the height of Jo-Pa’s career {86}. This is my first semester on campus since I left school so many years ago, so I am a little nerves about going to class, working and doing what I love… I am majoring in Telecommunications, with a Business Liberal Arts Minor. I also plan on adding a Real Estate Minor.
As a returning adult student, after taking more than five years off, the university removes all of your old bad grades. Those under a “C” and you start off with a clean slate. You may have guessed it, as a freshman, specializing in cheap bear, I blew off my first English 15. With a “D”, you can go on to the rest of your English classes so who cares. Well you never know what is around the corner until you go around it.
As for my screen name, Squad514, it has something to do with my favorite vocation. I will write about that in future blogs. Why give it all away now. We each have some 70+ more blogs to create….
Keep Safe,
James
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.