David Konig

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Hermine Who?

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Hermine_Track_09_01_16For those of you in the northeast you may have had Labor Day plans that a few days ago were altered or cancelled altogether. The reason for this was because the Tropical Storm/Hurricane Hermine (yes, that is the correct spelling contrary to what all the Potterheads out there are trying to say) was tracking to be over the area with high sustained winds and potentially damaging rains.

hurricane-hermine-2016-we-wil-rebuild-we-shall-overcome-3562920Yeah… not so much.

The storm fortunately turned early and headed out to see. There may be some coastal action, as storm surge and tides battle it out, but otherwise it was a pretty nice weekend.

My big concern about this is the fact this kind of alarm raised and the result reminds me very much of Hurricane Irene back in 2011. The warnings for that storm were very dire and included these graphics of lower Manhattan being flooded with water. In the end… it was a lot about nothing for the city, although other areas did experience severe flooding.

The following year when Superstorm Sandy hit… well they didn’t use those graphics of lower Manhattan flooding… but they sure as heck should have. For that matter, the damage was worse than what was predicted for Irene.

This is one of the dangers of getting a weather forecast wrong. It gives people a false sense that the next big storm to come through is also going to be a great day for a barbecue. It’s a tough thing to contend with, especially on the preparation side for the next storm, when a storm falls short of expectations.

6 Things You Need For #Jonas

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In case you haven’t heard, the northeast is expecting the arrival of their first significant snowfall this year. As soon as it’s done shutting down the southeast with an inch or two of snow, Winter Storm #Jonas is set to move up the coast with significant accumulations beginning Saturday morning. In preparation for the arrival of Jonas, here are the six (6) essential items you will need to “weather” the storm…

Bread

You will need bread. You need to run out and stock up on all the bread you can. You should get white bread, rye bread, wheat bread, pita bread, and, of course, don’t forget the pumpernickel. Bread is key in snow storm survival.

Milk

You will need milk. You need to stock up on as much milk as you can. You should get whole milk, 2% milk, 1% milk, and, of course, don’t forget the fat-free milk. What about skim milk you ask? If you’re going to drink skim milk then you may as well be drinking water, so don’t bother with skim milk.

Eggs

Oh. My. Gawd. You NEED eggs!!! You need to stock up on as many eggs as you can. You should get white eggs, brown eggs, large eggs, and, of course, the extra large eggs. You’re allergic to eggs?!?! Yeah, so was I once. Then after a week of eating cold Chef Boyardee the first hot meal I had an opportunity to eat was eggs. Guess what? Yup, I ate them AND I lived. Of course, I had two paramedics standing on either side of me with epinephrine as I did so. Chances are they’ll be busy saving the people who didn’t get to the store in time to get eggs, so you may want to have some Benadryl on hand.

A Frying Pan

Yes, you will need a frying pan. If you don’t have one, then you need to get one. Of course, this is a snow storm so you actually need like twenty. Add those to your list to get at the supermarket that you’re about to run to.

Butter

Yes, you will also need some butter.

A Book

You will need a book. Any book that you find interesting will do. Here are six (6) of my recommendations:

What To Do With What You Bought

french_toast_1

  1. Whisk together milk and eggs
  2. In your frying pan melt the butter over medium heat
  3. Pour the milk and eggs mixture into a shallow container like a pie plate
  4. Dip the bread slices into the milk and egg mixture
  5. Drop the dipped bread slices into the pan
  6. Fry the bread slices until golden brown, then flip to cook the other side
  7. Eat the Jonas Toast while you read your book in the warm safety of your home

DO NOT NETFLIX AND “CHILL“

This will result in either another Jonas or Joan being brought into the world in about nine months, and we’re pretty much overpopulated already. Need proof? See how much of the items above you can actually get at the supermarket by the time you read this post. Hopefully it won’t look like this…

empty-grocery...-508

Be safe.

Be strong.

Get literate.

Be well.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Trailer Has Been Released

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bebop and rocksteady

Surprise surprise… the trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is live online tonight. Take a look because it’s pretty amazing…

Did you see the most important part of the movie? Yes, I know, Bebop and Rocksteady are there in all their warthogging rhino glory. Yes, Tyler Perry as Baxter Stockman shows up for a few seconds (still not sure if we’ll see the cyborg Stockman or the fly Stockman) indicating we may get some Mousers. Most importantly there is…

Stephen Amell as Casey Jones
Stephen Amell as Casey Jones

CASEY JONES!!!

One of the issues I had with the original reboot was that there was NO Casey Jones in sight. Since I love Stephen Amell as Arrow, you can believe I am very happy with him as Casey Jones.

June 3, 2016… mark the date…

It’s 4:37 AM… Do You Know Where This Blog Post Is?

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It’s 4:37am… and obviously I’m not sleeping. Instead of counting sheep I’m pondering a few things I saw on the internet today and so I figured I’d share in a bullet list and of course I threw in a poll for some self-gratifying feedback…

  • Amazon Advertising of The Man In The High Castle – To advertise their original series The Man In The High Castle, the MTA took Amazon‘s money and redid some subway cars in the decorum of the Pacific States of America and the Greater Nazi Reich. People were upset by seeing the symbolism, specifically the Nazi symbols in their mass transit system. Who are they blaming? Amazon, of course. I think that blame is misplaced. I think that if you’re upset about the way the subway looks, blame the MTA who took the money and carried out the advertising order. I also find the timing somewhat poignant based on the seemingly out of control debate going on about Syrian refugees who are fleeing genocide. Maybe the symbolism fits more than we’d care to admit….

  • Calorie Burn Subway MapBurning Calories – There is a very cool map that shows how many calories you can burn by walking in between subway stops. I’ve rocked a Fitbit (currently I have a Surge strapped on) for quite awhile and honestly I find this to be a real eye opener… sort of how the calories on the menus is an eye opening experience as to how much you’re actually sucking down. When you look and see how far you have to go to burn off calories, suddenly that 2,400 calorie Whopper isn’t looking like such a good idea.

  • Scientific Study Proves What I Already Knew – Gizmodo has this great article about how Self-Proclaimed Experts Often Claim To Know More Than They Actually Do. This is coming from a study by Emily Rosenzweig and David Dunning. To me this is very fascinating, especially since you can still call yourself a Social Media Expert just by having a Twitter account. It proves to me that the more you know about something, the more you have to learn. You may recognize Dunning because he is the same Dunning from the study identifying the Dunning-Kruger effect. That showed how incompetent people often overestimated their ability while the highly skilled person underestimates their performance. I see this effect in action all the time, specifically when people think that law enforcement, fire service, or non-EMS based medical personnel can do a better job designing, staffing, and running an actual EMS operation than those who actually do it… the EMTs and Paramedics who are rendering the service.

And finally…

  • DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Has It’s First Trailer – Two of my “must” watch shows are The Flash and Arrow, both based on DC Comics and shown on the CW Network. Coming this January the newest DC based show that hits the CWwill be Legends of Tomorrow featuring Firestorm, The Atom, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Captain Cold and Heatwave, and White Canary. Honestly, it looks pretty amazing. But don’t take my word for it… see for yourself…


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Yesterday Was My First Day At First Response Ambulance

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So after 21 days of unemployment after my last day at TransCare… yesterday was my first day working for First Response Ambulance.

Most people, upon learning that I made this decision, would ask two questions that I actually found pretty easy to answer. Nevertheless, I’m a creature of habit as everyone at MY Dunkin’ Donuts knows… all THREE of them (Dunkin’ Donuts stores that is)… so I figured I’d do what I love and blog about it here.

Question One

The first question was, “Why?” and there is an easy way to answer that.

I got bored.

When you go from working 100+ hour weeks to working none it’s a bit of a shock to the system. The first week, when I was in Pittsburgh, was great! When I got home… well I wasn’t feeling great because of a whole abscessed tooth thing but once I took care of that I could enjoy myself… which I did.

My Unemployment

It isn’t hard for boredom to set in though. I was doubling my word count goals in preparation of NaNoWriMo this year, drank Dunkin’ Donuts, reading books, drank Dunkin’ Donuts, catching up on television shows I hadn’t watched in nearly a year, drank Dunkin’ Donuts, saw movies I had wanted to see in the theaters but never had the chance, drank Dunkin’ Donuts, took things personally while obsessing over things beyond my control, drank Dunkin’ Donuts, tweaked some websites (including going retro colors circa 2006 on this one in case you didn’t know), drank Dunkin’ Donuts, and fought off some Socialist-Communist Pig hackers from beyond the Great Firewall who have some sort of vendetta against cereal. I was pretty productive for someone unemployed.

I also ran up quite a tab at Dunkin’ Donuts… which is the price I paid for boredom.

The bad thing about unemployment is the lack of new funds coming in on a regular basis. I have been employed and paid regularly for 99.999999999% of the time over the last 30 years… so this was a new experience for me. Since apparently no one took me seriously when I asked to buy my books to support me, well I had to find something. The fact I chose First Response Ambulance should be obvious, but it’s unlikely for anyone to understand why unless you were actually there 20+ years ago.

I am someone who will never forget where I come from. If you cut me, for all analogical purposes, I bleed aqua… green for Forest Hills VAC and baby blue for Metropolitan Ambulance & First Aid Corp. Up until two weeks ago (yes, do the math, I wasn’t THE last but they followed soon after) if you looked at the 3 largest private ambulance companies in New York City they all shared one thing in common… in their leadership ranks there was at least 1 person who had been at Metropolitan Ambulance. Considering I had been at one of them, that only left two choices for me to take into consideration… and that was actually one of the easiest choices to make because not only does First Response Ambulance have my preferred blue in it, but it also has my preferred green in it too.

More importantly, they understand what this type of work is all about. They understand that this is about people, and not just the ones we fill the run sheets/charts/ACRs out on. They have a sense of team, they know where they want to go, their leadership is behind them, and that’s something I found refreshing. As someone who is all about opportunities, well, when the opportunity presented itself this time I took it.

Oh… and yeah… they’re hiring.

Question Two

The second question was “What are you going to do?” which is easy to answer too… or maybe it isn’t depending on how you want to look at it and just how well you know me. My position on what EMS actually does is no secret so I won’t rehash it here (but if you’ve lived under a rock the last 5 years and want to know you can buy the book). It’s hard to pin me down to just one thing because I, like everyone else, am more than just one thing.

So I’m going to do the same thing I do everywhere else I work.

There’s going to be a need. There’s going to be a challenge. There’s going to be something to be fixed. There’s going to be some sort of magic to be crafted. There are going to be lives that need to be changed.

I’m going to make IT happen.

Whatever IT may be.

But don’t worry. Chances are you’ll hear about it… one way (as in reading this blog) or another (Facebook… Twitter… Instagram… the five o’clock news…).

Stay tuned….

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