Bullets

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)