Wordsmith

The video in this post is very graphic in nature. It is not recommended for those with heart conditions or weak stomachs. It definitely is NOT a video for children, and probably is not safe for work… although I think that some work places should require its viewing like taxi companies, UPS, FedEx, and Public Safety Agencies

Today starts the beginning of another holiday weekend. I’m sure some of you will be traveling, if you haven’t started to already, and there are others of you who will be working to ensure the safety of those who are traveling. I saw this video first on Facebook, and I felt the imagery was so powerful that I want to share it here as a reminder that your life can change in an instant because of impatience or inattention…

So now that you’ve seen the trainwreck… have a happy and safe holiday weekend!

I was lucky enough to spend the previous three days in the green mountain state of Vermont. While there, I went to McDonald’s for an ice coffee because in Vermont Dunkin’ Donuts closes at 8:00pm. While drinking my ice coffee and perusing Twitter and the web from my Droid these are the things that I pondered:

• Mark Glencourse has retired his blog.

  Prematurely.

  Technically against his will.

  Yet, I can find no fault in his decisions because he is doing it for the right reasons.

  As Mark describes, there are those in his service who are waiting for him to “trip up” in his blogging so that they can negatively impact his ability to provide for his family. Mark cannot, and for that matter should not, continue blogging if it causes him to live in fear.

  I’m not going to sugar coat it… I was (and to a large degree still am) downright pissed that this is still going on, and said so in the comment I left. Bloggers have been persecuted from the get go by the established status quo and it is still going on. There are of course a number of reasons this happens:

  For some it is jealousy because they buy into the myth that if one blogger can live off their blog, then all bloggers can. Now I know that while Mark may have had ads on his blog, I also happen to know that any payments to him would have been in US dollars which has about a 0.66 exchange rate with the GBP… so I highly doubt he was able to make much, if any, money off of it.

  For some it is the dark twisted sense of satisfaction by being able to destroy what someone else has created. Usually jealousy plays a role in this as well but that’s really neither here nor there.

  And for some it is fear that has grown out of ignorance about Social Media as a whole. This is the exact kind of ignorance that Greg Friese and I have attempted to combat at PIOSocialMediaTraining.com. Unfortunately, we obviously haven’t been able to reach those most in need.

  While it has become a recurring theme for administrators and officers to point to the video from the South Carolina Firefighter and the Facebook photos from the NYC EMT, I think it’s important to note that Mark adhered to the Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics, and I have never read anything that in the slightest may have been inappropriate or violated that code.

  A quick glance at the comments shows that Mark has undoubtedly served as an inspiration to those who are EMS providers and those who are not. To those who are in his native England and to those who are not. The ability to inspire, empower, and to affect someone else’s life for the better is the true pure goal of Social Media.

  Mark has definitely achieved that goal.

  I for one will be leaving the light on in the feedreader for him… and I encourage you to do the same.

• McDonald’s ice coffee really is a sad substitute for Dunkin’ Donuts

That’s really all I had time for this week. I hope you enjoy your weekend.

Here are some things I noticed/pondered/thought about while drinking my some home brewed ice coffee last night:

• How loud is too loud? An ambulance siren is 120 decibels and the Vuvuzela is 130+ decibels. So obviously I need to get those installed ASAP
• So this oil spill in the Gulf is still going on now that we’re in what, Day 60? I know that as a first responder there is a certain amount of my time spent on live practices for “the big one”. Of course, over the years these types of practices have been cut back in favor of more economically viable table top exercises. Apparently BP did the same thing…

… which of course makes me wonder about the whole effectiveness of those tabletops because ours always seems to end with the good guys winning



• After today I actually have two weeks off from my full time job. Of course, it’s not like I’m really going anywhere, and I’m still technically working during that time but in a different division. One of the things that is on my to do list is to visit some of the city parks with my camera because I really have just not had the time to take the photographs I’ve wanted to and so I may as well take this opportunity to go some places and try to do that so I can have some new things for my photoblog
• Wordpress 3.0 was finally released yesterday! I had been playing around with an RC3 on a separate installation for awhile, but there’s just nothing like the real thing. So now I’ve had this idea bouncing around in my head for awhile, and I pretty much told myself after EMS Week that I was going to make a run at it but needed certain features , and now that WP 3.0 is out it’s time to put some work into turning the idea into a reality. Of course I haven’t updated this site yet, but if it happens to wink out for a bit don’t worry… it’ll be back… eventually

Have a great weekend!

Here are some things I noticed/pondered/thought about while drinking my Goji Berry Cherry Slurpee last night:

• Rogue Medic was interviewed over at The Tactical Pants Blog and in the interview he was kind enough to give me a nod regarding how This Job Is Not About Helping People, while at the same time saying that is why he does what he does. Which makes me wonder… what is blogging actually about? Do we blog to help others, to pontificate our viewpoints, to share and exchange ideas, or is it all of the above?



• I’ve really gotten into the whole 7-11/Zynga promotion… in fact I’ve already unlocked their “Uber Gifts“. So yeah, 200 Farmville Cash and 50 Mafia War Skill Points are mine… and I’m still trying to figure out what this whole YoVille thing is. My actual point in this ponderance is that for years the real world has been crossing into the virtual space, and finally now the virtual space is crossing into the real world. Of course this is either a sign of a bright future, or the end of times…



Image by nycwatchdog via Flickr

• Mondays aren’t my best days, but next week The Hard Rock Cafe is celebrating their birthday by offering Police, Fire, AND EMS their Legendary Burgers for $.71 in honor of their birth year. It’s not often that big corporations go out of their way to include EMS in these types of promotions, but when they do we should really show them our appreciation by participating. I’ll be showing my appreciation at this Hard Rock… I sure hope their one of the participating locations or I may have to wash some dishes to pay the bill



• One of the tools I use for blogging is called Zemanta. It’s a related content search service that automatically searches for related content and links based on the text that you write. It’s really easy to use for photos and links that you may not otherwise know about. Today I happened to see this little box where I would normally see Content Recommendations. Do you know why I’m seeing this box? Because I write all my blog posts in HTML mode and not with the visual WYSIWYG editor built into WordPress. So now that Zemanta is no longer supporting we dinosaurs of ye old HTML view, I can no longer support Zemanta and recommend them to people who are blogging or are going to be blogging. Why such a hard stance? Because as much as people might like to deny it… without HTML coding there would be no such thing as the World Wide Web which is what 99% of users actually utilize the Internet for. Considering this is a recent change because Zemanta was usable in HTML before, it’s a classic example of forgetting where you come from and I can’t support something like that.
• Speaking of WordPress, where’s WordPress 3.0? It’s past May and halfway into June and it still isn’t out yet! It’s enough to give me a sad

Have a good and safe weekend!

Here are some things I noticed/pondered/thought about while drinking my Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo’d yesterday:

§ This week is Hurricane Preparedness Week, and in its honor I’m using the Section ASCII code to accentuate the bullet points (again). Do you live in a Hurricane prone zone? If so, be sure to be prepared!



Image by nycwatchdog via Flickr

§ I don’t understand why people check into cabs on Foursquare. It’s not like those cabs are going to be where you hailed them day after day. It makes me wonder what’s next? Will people start checking into ambulances the same way? That might actually be useful information to see who the frequent fliers are as opposed to the rest of the population

§ Last weekend I went to a hibachi grill with some friends and saw the same knife and spatula spin act, grill on fire, egg in the air, and onion volcano put out by a peeing fireman as every other time I’ve gone to a hibachi grill. Even though the soup is good, the act is kind of old. Hibachi grill chefs need an innovator to change the dynamic up… and they need it soon

§ I think that if Brett Michaels had been up against Betty White on Celebrity Apprentice instead of Holly Robinson, Betty would have won. Just sayin’

§ The iPad became the dream device for aspiring authors and at the same time lost alot of its appeal for heavy duty users. I really hope Verizon or T-Mobile realize the mistake AT&T has made and will offer an affordable unlimited data plan alternative with the coming Android based tablets… and I really really hope they have a viable option for authors who want to e-publish independently

Have a safe weekend…

Here are some things I noticed/pondered/thought about while drinking my ice coffee this morning:

§ Next week is Hurricane Preparedness Week, and in its honor I’m using the Section ASCII code to accentuate the bullet points. If a hurricane does hit the southern region this year, is it going to make the Gulf of Mexico into an Oil Shake? That would be really really really bad

§ I don’t understand why people today think they can just take “time off without pay” and remain employed. It seems like a basic concept that you are employed because there is a need for your services. It’s frustrating when they don’t seem to understand the concept that they were hired to fulfill a need and just taking time off that has NOT been earned is NOT fulfilling that need and therefore is NOT acceptable, because otherwise why not just hire someone else? There’s a whole lot of NOTs in that sentence, but do you think I’ve made my point?

§ It appears that Farmville has infiltrated the real world from the digital one in the form of a 7-Eleven advertising campaign. Along with Zynga’s Mafia Wars and YoVille, the purchase of a Super Big Gulp will earn you both a souvenir cup and a special code for the game. 7-Eleven advertising campaigns don’t come cheap, so they must be making a truck ton of money

§ I think tonight I am going to celebrate my election as Captain of the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps, and my partner’s election as 2nd Lieutenant, like it’s 1991 with a bacon and pineapple Domino’s pizza. I bet you didn’t know that I had invented the “Hawaiian Pizza” before Hawaii… but I did

§ I hate Mondays. I hate Tuesdays after a holiday weekend even more because it’s like Monday squared

Have a safe holiday weekend and be sure to remember why the holiday exists…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Zynga And 7-Eleven Strike Branding Deal, 10% Of The U.S. Now Playing FarmVille (techcrunch.com)
• Hurricane plus oil equals more problems (cnn.com)
• Hurricane Season: US Predicts Up To 7 Major Atlantic Hurricanes (huffingtonpost.com)

I just received this AMBER Alert from Notify NYC:

Alert issued 04/30/10 at 2:25 PM. The NYS Police have issued an AMBER Alert for the abduction of a child, Shaylenn Brunson from Trinity Avenue in The Bronx at 4:30 AM. Shaylenn is a 4 year old black girl with black hair, blond streaks and brown eyes, 3 feet tall and 48 lbs. She was last seen wearing a white jacket, blue jeans, and pink sneakers. The suspect is Shyuana Brunson, 12 years old and 140 lbs last seen wearing a burgundy plaid shirt, blue jeans, and white Nike sneakers. If the children are seen, please contact 1-800-CRIMESTOPPER.

I added the italics.

Children abducting children at 4:30am on a school night.

It’s things like that which make me just want to go home and become a hermit instead of hearing about such a sad state of affairs. I hope in the end both Shaylenn and Shyuana find their way to someplace safe…

It’s pretty hard to believe that this site/blog has “officially” been up for a year. Sure there was two months of development before that, but no real content was created or posted until April 1, 2009 when I injected a little social horror with omage to the great Kevin Smith in 72 Time But Not In A Row.

Over the past 365 days here are the most popular posts as rated by the Popularity Contest Plugin:

1. The Assassination of Pittsburgh EMS by the Coward Michael Huss: Surprsingly this very recent post took the top spot pretty quickly
2. The Truth About FDNY’s Removal of NYC Vollies From “The System”: Not so surprising since I got some backlash for it on both Facebook and in person
3. NBC Calls Time Of Death On Trauma – No New Episodes: Here’s a classic example of a post proven false after the fact
4. On HIPAA And Photography: Not surprised since I rarely see things out there that combine the two
5. Brookdale Hospital Hosts Fight Club In Their Emergency Waiting Room: I’m a little surprised this didn’t rank higher because ultimately everyone loves a trainwreck… and it doesn’t get more trainwreckier than that

Looking at that list makes me ponder where I should spend time focusing the next 365 days raising my (trademark pending) eyebrow considering that controversial topics took the top 3 slots, informational topics took the 4th, and a trainwreck took the 5th. While I’m no stranger to controversy, or trainwrecks, it can be a bit disheartening that the informational posts ( such as Becoming An Informational Source In A Crisis and If Gordon Ramsay Was An EMS Chief )don’t garner as much attention. Such is the life of a blogger I suppose.

Out of sheer curiosity, what would you want to see more of?

I love technology.

Yet as much as I love technology, there are times when it just goes wonky.

Like with Feedburner’s E-Mail Subscription that has failed to send out e-mails for a few days now.

Like FireFTP that just can’t seem to get past the 12.1mb mark of a 13mb file.

Like Callburner that seems to have decided to record one side of a two sided conversation.

Somedays I think I may just need to go old school…

I think there’s a trend there with all the burning and the fire themed technology going wonky on the same day.

Just sayin’.

Photo Credit: I Will Find The Droids I’m Looking For by Stefan on Flickr

According to a story in the Huffington Post, the self-proclaimed pitbull with lipstick known more commonly as Sarah Palin has referred to the social networking site Twitter as “that twittering little thing” on Tuesday at a speech in Arkansas. The quote was actually reported towards the end of a story by CBS News about Palin’s speech to Tea Party members:

When she was asked what she believed was the number one threat to America today, several audience members shouted, “Obama!”

Arkansas Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb, who moderated the Q&A session, responded by adding, “Besides Obama.”

Palin then chimed in as many in the crowd laughed.

“See, they said that, I didn’t,” she said. “Just you watch now, too, because somebody will be here with their little Twittering thing, and it’s going to be on the Internet any minute now.“

The Huffington Post considers the knock as a surprise since the ex-governor is heavily involved in Social Media, including on Twitter @SarahPalinUSA and on Facebook which she has previously used to bypass the media.

Personally, I don’t find it surprising at all. I think she is a fraudulent Twitter user, using a staff member or volunteer to actually update her account. A quick glance at her Twitter updates show some oddities that are indicative of her accounts being handled by others:

• Her TweetStats show December as being her most prolific month with 76 Tweets that month… and then a whopping 18 for the month of January, as I’m sure book sales flatlined
• She is averaging 2.6 Tweets per day across her roughly two month career on that Twitter acount
• The VAST majority of updates are coming “from web” as opposed to one of the large number of third party clients or mobile applications

So while Sarah Palin knocks Twitter, it has exposed her as a fraud in its use… and that puts her right back with the politicians of the establishment who are more interested in lining their own pockets then doing the work of the people for the people.