Garage Fire Close To Home...

Wow! it really has been a long time since my last post. I want to thank those of you that posted supportive comments on my last post and that went out and signed our petition. Soon I will make a new post on what has happened in the last 25 days in Harrisburg. Lets just say it has been a crazy and busy time period.

An incident that occurred yesterday morning (12-30-10) prompted me to make a post today as I planned nothing more for today except for hockey, football and beer. Did I say beer?, I meant good old Porter beer and winter ale. After getting home a little late from work yesterday morning I was making breakfast when at 9:16 a.m. Cumberland County 911 toned out area companies for a reported garage fire at 160 Texaco Road in Silver Springs Township, Cumberland County. With Texaco Road being just behind the house I though I would get the camera out dust it off and see if it still worked. Looking out the back window at the header gave me all the incentive I needed and off I went. I arrived the same time as the incident commander and ahead of the fire apparatus. The photos go on a time line in order and as you can see the garage was well involved upon my arrival. It was a one and a half story block and frame two car unattached garage with one car inside. In photo two you can see when the springs left loose that held the door up allowing it to come down. This is just one of many dangers a firefighter faces on these types of calls along with flammable liquids, floor pits, pesticides and other items stored in the building. Photo three shows the lines man on the first in engine stretching an attack line to extinguish the blaze. I must say he did a very good job in deploying the line. In the last two photos he and his partner begin attacking the fire.

Within the next few days I will make another post on this fire with a few more photos and some video. And hopefully next week I will post about what has been going on in the city recently. With any luck I will be back to posting regularly again in another week or so.

For now I hope everyone out there had a safe and joyous Christmas and an equally safe and Happy New Year.

Help My Brothers Out..

I need to be very careful what I type in here to insure that I am not in the unemployment line also. For those of you that live in my area you already know what is going on since it has been the main attraction in the papers and news for the last 11 plus months. For those of you that do not live in my area then I will tell you that I have been a Harrisburg Pa fireman for more than 20 years know. Because of decisions NOT MADE BY THE FIREMEN the city finds itself in debt by almost $300 million dollars. It was decided that it would be fixed on the backs of the hard working firemen so effective January 1, 2011, 10 of my brothers will be laid off. These guys worked hard to get this job, passing numerous tests waiting long periods of time, completing a fire academy and most of all uprooting their families from their homes and moving them into the city as a condition of employment. Our work schedule will also be changed to 24 hours on and 48 hours off raising our work week an additional 14 hours per week. Along with the downsizing to three platoons nine officers will be demoted. I would like to point out that this is all in violation of our contract.

Please if you live in my area work, play, live or visit Harrisburg please sign our petition to attempt to stop this. Someone is in the Union Hall 2048 Derry Street every evening from 4 to 7 p.m. and firefighters are out walking door to door in all neighborhoods, one can also be found online at http://www.saveharrisburg.com/. Feel free to write city hall and the local rag we call a news paper. Our men did not create this problem, in fact you will see none of our names on the documents to borrow all the money that put us here. I really do not see why we need to be the only ones to feel the pain when the FOP, ASCME, and managers in city hall do not miss a beat this holiday season.

Please do not believe everything you see and hear on the television, for some reason they all appear to be on the take. We have presented cold hard facts about just who did create this mess and why our overtime is so high along with many other items to channels 43, 27, 8, 21 and the bathroom wipe my ass with it Harrisburg Patriot but for some reason the never air or print any of it. Yet just this morning (SAT.) channel ABC 27 Dennis Owens was quick to point out that we (HFD) were given a four year contract extension by Mayor Steven Reed before he left office tying the hands of Thompson and creating her more heartache. Why do they never mention that the other two unions were also given extensions or even that ours does not go into effect until January 1, 2013, so how is that effecting us now. I will not even go into the differences between the contracts and what the police get compared to us. But if you visit the cities web site the contracts are on there.

Because of my work schedule and other commitments and the lack of anyone looking at my site anymore with the exception of Sparky this will be my last post for some time. I will start posting again sometime in the future so please stop back from time to time to check.

Thanks
Tired, pissed off, confused and just plain fed up, Brad

10 Point Close Up...

Not much to say again today other that WOW!, can you believe it is December already. At this time when everyone is to be happy and thinking of pleasant things I find myself only worrying about my future and the jobs of my fellow brothers in the HFD. I wish I could get it out of my head just for one day but I can't even get it out of my head for five minutes. This photo was taken during the whitetail rut in SNP in early November this year. He crossed the road in front of me and went down a hill into a thick area leaving me to photograph nothing but a close up.

Back To The Elk Rut...

Away from the whitetails today and back to the Pennsylvania Elk. My brain has not been working right these days leaving me at a loss of anything to type so I will just leave you with these photos taken along Dewey Road during the rut in September.

Pre-Rut Whitetail Sparring...

Sorry I missed an extra day of posting on the site, I have been a little preoccupied lately. For those of you that live in my area and watch the news you will understand. Depending on my schedule with helping the union and trying to save jobs this may happen more frequently in the near future. I would like to elaborate more but I am scared my anger will take over and I will type something in that I regret.

Today's whitetail photo and video are from my pre-rut trip to SNP during the second week of October. I think I posted a video from this encounter earlier and I know I mentioned it. This was early morning when it was not light enough to capture good still of the action without raising the ISO higher than I like, but it was a good time for shooting video. The video is the first one I recorded from this experience, you will see four nice bucks in the group. There was one other buck and a number of doe's and first year deer in the herd. The still photo was one of the few that I captured that was worth posting.