AD (pulling his daughter’s shirt over her head): “So, Stinkerbell, who are we pretending to be this morning – Cinderella? Hammy? Queen Narissa?”

KatyBeth: “No, Daddy! You’re Gibbs, and I’m – “

AD (confused): “Wait a minute, who is Gibbs?”

KatyBeth (rolling her eyes in exasperation): “You know…Agent Gibbs? From NCIS?”

AD (skeptically) : “Oh, that Agent Gibbs. You think I’m handsome enough to sub for Mark Harmon, honey?”

KatyBeth (firmly): “You’re more handsome than he is.”

AD: “Uh huh. I appreciate the compliment, Stinkerbell. And who are you – the cute Goth chick that’s so perky? What’s her name again?”

KatyBeth (sighing dramatically): “No, Daddy, not her. I’m rather apprehensive about telling you…”

AD: “Did you just say ‘rather apprehensive’?”

KatyBeth: “It means nervous, Daddy.”

AD: “I know what it means. I just didn’t think you knew what it means.”

KatyBeth: “I’m apprehensive about telling you, because I’m…Dr. House.”

AD (guffawing): “Dr. House? Yeah, I can see that. Both of you are smartasses who walk with a limp!”

KatyBeth: “Ooooh, snap! Good one, Daddy!”

*Pretty much. Her parts were verbatim, while mine were embellished to make myself seem wittier. Don’t know how I feel about having my six-year-old hooked on NCIS and House, MD, though. Between that and her fascination with Smilin’ Bob of the Enzyte commercails, I may have to start using the V-chip on her television.

…you can watch me get my Nostradamus on in my newest column on EMS1.com.

Enjoy.

Visit a restaurant in the Inner Harbor and have some crab cakes and Guinness. Dare your buddies to pinch your waitress on the ass, and then practice your wound management techniques on them.

Attend EMS Today and hear lots of entertaining and informative lectures on EMS topics.

Harangue the folks who organized the conference because they didn’t pick me this year.

Get really drunk with TOTWTYTR and pass out in the same gutter Edgar Allen Poe died in! Now how cool would that be?

Visit Shock Trauma Center. No, not that way. I mean as a tourist, silly. Listen to the tour guide’s version of the history of the place and it’s founder, R. Adams Cowley, widely acknowledged as the father of trauma care in the U.S….

…and then go visit the National EMS Museum booth at EMS Today, and hear what it was really like in the early days of EMS and trauma care, back when Maryland Shock Trauma was known by other surgeons as “Cowley’s Death Ward.” Get the grizzled old coot there to tell you the real story of the Golden Hour.

And while you’re there, buy on of these tee shirts. It would be the perfect ensemble to wear while you’re searching for a clean gutter in which to do your Poe imitation. Plus, TOTWTYTR could buy another Sam Adams with the proceeds.

Visit the Emergency Training Associates booth and get your signed copy of En Route. And buy some for your friends! It’s the perfect EMS stocking stuffer! And while you’re there, you can share with me any reconnaissance you may have gathered on the best places to find Guinness, crab cakes and hot waitresses.

Attend Bryan Bledsoe’s lecture entitled “Can Oxygen Really Be Bad?” and prepare to have your assumptions challenged. I’ll be the guy in the front row squealing like a fanboy.

Oh, did I mention the books and tee shirts? And the Guinness?

…when you live barricaded behind burglar bars and numerous deadbolts because you fear for your safety in your particular neighborhood, please have a viable plan for allowing the police and EMTs access to your home should you ever need their help.

Because without a key, the good guys are kept out, too. Even if your neighbors have the phone number of whichever relative holds your extra deadbolt key, there is always the chance that neither the neighbor nor the relative will be home during your time of need.

Like tonight.

And when that happens, the police and the EMTs will stand on your stoop and watch you sprawled on the floor dying, powerless to help you until it’s too late.

Like tonight.

Please think about installing one of these in an inconspicuous location and letting the local ambulance and police know the combination. Also make sure your house numbers are easily visible from the street or painted in reflective paint on the curb. Better yet, get one of these.

It could literally save your life.

Mule Breath puts his own twist on the Bacon Explosion.

I’ve eaten Mule Breath’s cooking, and the man is an artiste.

Not long after I started blogging, I got a regular reader and frequent commenter from across the pond, named Emma.

Emma blogged, as The Mad Asthmatic. She was charming, and sunny, even though afflicted with asthma so vicious it let her housebound most of the time. I enjoyed seeing her frequent comments, and clicked through to her blog every now and then to see how she was doing.

Well, I learned today through the comments on Random Acts of Reality, that Emma died on January 17th at her home. She dialed 999, apparently suffering from yet another asthma attack, but by the time the EMTs arrived, she was already gone. Gone too, is her blog.

Not quite sure how I feel about that, other than to believe that the skies are a bit dimmer over London after her passing.

Rest well, Emma. Breathe deeply of the clean air, now that you can.

Who among you cannot see the Zazzle panel at the bottom of my blog?

If you can’t see it, tell me what OS and browser you’re using, please.

…I’ve got a new column up on EMS1.com.

Enjoy.

I’ve got a shotgun, rifle and a four-wheel drive, and a country boy can survive.

Throw in some decent cutting implements, some rope, and a means to make fire, and I pretty much agree with old Bocephus.

I live in hurricane country, where between August and November of each year, I may be forced to bug out ahead of nature’s wrath, or hunker down for a week or more to ride out the storm and its aftermath.

Aside from the generator, batteries, cases of water and non-perishable foodstuffs I keep laid by year-round, I’ve got a money cache, gasoline cans set by, 500+ rounds of ammo for all my handguns, 100+ rounds for all my long guns, a case each of 20 gauge and 12 gauge field loads, and a few thousand .22 LR.

My toolbox in my truck is effectively my bug-out bag. I carry in it a full ALS medic kit, complete with medications and a cardiac monitor, if need be. There’s a sleeping bag, truck tent, come-along, rope, saw and machete, toolkit, battery charger and inverter, and a couple of truck guns. And rain gear. And a weather radio. And extra batteries. Sunscreen and mosquito repellent, a dozen MREs, a change of clothes for me and KatyBeth in a waterproof bag, flashlights and cyalume sticks, and…

…well hell, I can go on ad nauseum about the stuff I carry.

Point is, being prepared isn’t just something you do, it’s a state of mind.

And I’m pretty well sure that, whether it be a hurricane or a zombie apocalypse, I can be on the road in ten minutes and capable of surviving at least a week wherever I wind up, be it a motel room or the backwoods.

And if I could round up a few more claymores and remove a tree or two in my front yard, I’m reasonably sure I could keep the zombies at bay for a comparable period.

But hey, I’m just an amateur at this stuff. The professionals will be talking about it Friday, 11:00 pm CST on Texas Fellowship Blog Talk Radio.

Y’all give it a listen, and call in and offer your comments!

…intrepid superhero by night, prowling the dark underbelly of the city, in search of meat…and meat byproducts.

Be it bacon, filet mignon, or Spam, no cut is safe from my Unobtainium Spork of Doom.

Vegans tremble at the mere mention of my name.

H/T to Sabra.

Former Paramedic ER Doc: “I can’t believe y’all managed to get this guy intubated. Good job, AD!

Ambulance Driver: “Wasn’t me, Doc. Grizzled Medic did it. Standing on the left side of the bed, with the head of the bed elevated 45 degrees, no less.”

FPERD [whistling]: “On a four hundred pound snowman with no neck. That’s some serious airway kung fu, Grizz.”

Grizzled Medic [shrugging]: “Meh, I’ve had tougher tubes.”

AD: “His mantis style is strong, Doc. Perhaps…even stronger than my monkey style.”

ER Nurse [pointedly]: “Would you like me to administer some atropine, doctor?”

FPERD: “Maybe, if you promise to ask me in your kung fu theater voice. Come on, just this once.”

ER Nurse: “…”

FPERD: “Just say, ‘doctor, would you like me to give some atropine?’ but your lips have to keep moving for about five seconds after you say it. And you have to put your fists on your hips.”

ER Nurse [rolling eyes]: “You guys are freakin’ weird, you know that?”

FPERD [shrugging at me and Grizz]: “Meh, must be a Y chromosome thing.”

…but today the World’s Most Dangerous Librarian joins the list of blogs I read every day.

Welcome, Breda!

Updated to add: And Brigid officially moves up to the Blogs I Read Every Day. Damn, I have been lax.

…books, tee shirts and the like.


Well, it’s less than a month away from the release of En Route.

Regular readers of this blog have seen some, but not all, of the stories before. But there’s just something about turning 316 pages of hardcover goodness in your hands that reading on a phosphorescent screen can’t touch, you know?

Plus, I can’t sign your computer monitor. And if you pre-order the book now, I can sign it at the Connecticut EMS Conference on March 19-20, or at the great Northeast Shooters Blogmeet on March 21.

TOTWTYTR will be with us at the blogmeet, and we’ll both be at EMS Today on March 24-28. If you were gullible discerning enough to buy one of my tee shirts on Zazzle or one of TOTWTYTR’s nationalized healthcare tee shirts, we’d be happy to sign ‘em for you.

Especially if said tee shirts were stretched over an impressive pair of hooters.

Or not. Mrs. TOTWTYTR might have something to say about that.

It’s a bit surprising to find this in a major EMS publication, especially when I didn’t know about it.

And no, before anyone asks, I don’t think there was any malicious intent on the part of JEMS or Dr. Wesley. I’m kind of flattered, actually.

Still, it would have been nice to know so I could at least brag about it.

…or maybe it’s just to settle a bet.

Chromed Curses has a poll for my female readers.

I’ll not tell anyone how to vote, lest I skew the results. Let’s just say I’m skeptical.

…I will post a LOLdog for you.

H/T for the image to Recovering Grady Medic.

…I give you Verizon.

You’d think that with all the folks following the Verizon dude around, there’d be at least one that could do basic arithmetic.

H/T to Bob at The Eagle’s Nest.

…and lines in the sand. At what point do you draw yours?

My buddy Mule Breath posts a musing on the meaning and application of the Second Amendment. In it, he opines:

There are wing nuts on both ends of the gun issue, who make it difficult to conduct a reasonable debate on the subject; but I would like to try. I’ll start by posting the following. A friend sent this little ditty this morning by email, and I wanted to see if anyone is interested in commenting.

Go RTWT. You’ve probably seen the story in your e-mail inbox in recent days, anyway.

My comment was as follows:

Yet another example of the place where Great Britain used to be.

For me, the 2nd Amendment is the citizen’s defense against government tyranny, and should be defended vigorously.

And while you say that you are not totally opposed to gun control legislation, what legislation in your eyes would be reasonable?

Keep in mind, now, that many citizens (or is it subjects?) of Great Britain probably felt as you do, that some reasonable control of weapons was a good thing. Only now, they’re seeing, much to their dismay, how much incrementalism has eroded their rights.

It starts with registration. Then it expands to outright bans. They target the weapons the Average Joe or Nigel neither owns nor understands. “That sounds reasonable,” they’ll muse. “Why would any normal person want one of those weapons?”

And they support the ban.

And then comes the expanded registration. Then the ban is expanded to include guns that aren’t so unfamiliar or scary.

Only now, the government has legal precedent behind them, and a generation of children has been raised without handguns, and hence even granddaddy’s fowling piece or stag rifle looks scary to them. So naturally, they support the banning of those weapons. “After all,” they muse, “what would any reasonable person want with those weapons?”

And so it goes, on and on, until one day they wake up and discover that not only aren’t they allowed to possess any weapons, but they aren’t even allowed to defend themselves, period.

That’s the place where (formerly) Great Britain finds itself today. And I’ll die before I see the same thing happen in the United States – probably at the hand of my government.

That’s what the politicians do, Mule Breath. When the original assault weapons ban was proposed, it would have outlawed such guns as my daddy’s Browning A5 or a Remington 1100. Whether you believe such lunacy was intentional on the part of those who drafted the legislation or you believe it was an accident resulting from people too stupid to understand what they’re trying to legislate, doesn’t matter. Your rights are stripped, just the same.

I’ve heard you say before that the only difference between liberals and conservatives is what part of the Constitution they’re willing to piss on, and I agree.

But the reason I largely vote Republican and not Democrat is because the Republicans seem less likely to deny me the one Constitutional right I can use to defend all the others.

I know most of my readers are 2A supporters, but there are also a fair number of the medical readers who favor some level of gun control legislation. Some read from overseas, and don’t understand the American gun culture. What they don’t understand is that it’s not necessarily a gun culture. It’s a rights culture, and they’re used to not having any.

So go over there, read, and leave your comments, pro or con. Keep in mind now that Mule Breath is a friend of mine, and owner of a sizable arsenal of his own. Moreover, he’s a Texas gentleman, and I’d ask that you keep your comments/arguments civil and courteous when you visit his blog.

It would piss me off if Mule Breath welcomed my readers into his home, only to discover that they shit on the carpet while they were there.

I work. Pretty much all the time. When I’m not on the streets thwarting natural selection saving lives and stamping out disease, I’m either writing, or lecturing, or teaching a class somewhere.

When I’m not doing that, I have KatyBeth. I try to do things with her like camping, or father-daughter dates at the movies, or playing on the water. And God help me, sometimes I work when I should be playing with my daughter.

I don’t socialize much. Before I started this blog, I moved to the other end of the state in order to be closer to KatyBeth. The people I used to call friends live three hours away now. With some of them, we drifted apart. Others, I discovered just how tenuous their loyalty was, and I ended the friendship.

That isn’t to say I have no friends, however. Far from it. They just live in cities and small towns far away, too far away to, say, grab a beer with after work or pop over to their house to watch a football game.

Nonetheless, we manage to keep in touch through this wonderful invention called the Internet, and occasionally we manage to get together in person. Like last weekend, for example.

Phlegm Fatale was gracious enough to host a party for a select group of bloggers, and several of us were able to get together the next day for a little shooting. I met a ton of people who read my blog, and whose writing I admire in return. Most of us share common beliefs. In between hilarious stories, passionate arguments, great food and better fellowship, and more than a few rounds flung downrange, I came to realize a few things:

It’s a satisfying thing, finding your tribe. I know I found mine, and it was immensely pleasurable spending time with them.

I can still shoot. Once upon a time, that was a pastime that brought me no small amount of peace and pleasure, and was a source of more than a little pride. I was good at it. After close to eight years spent without firing a shot, I had forgotten just how much fun it was to hear the clang of a round hitting the backplate. I’m not the pistol shot Johnny or Matt is, but I acquitted myself well nonetheless. With a rifle, I more than held my own. And any golf ball within 100 yards is in serious danger.

I need to laugh more. I chuckle a lot at work, because if you can’t laugh, you won’t last. And God knows EMS provides me with more than enough absurdity to laugh at. But to share a good, old-fashioned rollicking belly laugh with good friends… I need to do more of that. It’s healing.

Everything is better wrapped in bacon. I don’t care if it’s filet mignon or fudge brownies, bacon makes it better. Heck, I put a few rounds through my old Hi Point 9mm truck gun, and it even shot better because I still had bacon grease on my hands. One day I’m going to meet my dream girl, and she’ll be wearing a teddy made entirely of bacon, with a little bacon grease dabbed behind each ear, and maybe a dab between her sweet, bacon-flavored breasteses, and together we will raise my serum cholesterol to obscene levels.

And I will love her all the more for it.

Over there on my left sidebar, you will see a new link list of Bloggers I’ve Met. Give ‘em all a read, and see if they’re not worthy members of your tribe, as well.

Here’s to adding more to the list very soon.

…goes to I Was Told There Would Be Bacon.

Previously, the title belonged to Fire Mission: Hippies In The Open!, but Jess’ tag line put her over the top:

Hot and Sweaty Panda-on-Panda Action.

*gigglesnort*

Don’t know if the rest of the blog is as good as the title, but I’m gonna go read…

…having to stand on a chair and use wide angle to get all the guns in the picture.


And that ain’t all the guns.

We had the ATF Trifecta early on:

That’s alcohol, tobacco and firearms, all in one picture, with extra points for the 1911 shaped tequila decanter. We even had explosives, generously supplied by those of us who had partaken of the Brazilian sausage at Texas de Brazil the night before. Unfortunately, Phlegmmy had kenneled her dogs so there was no one convenient to blame it on, so we had to do our detonations outside.

Going to go out shooting today – squeee! – so the detailed after-action report with all the bloggers in attendance will have to wait until this afternoon.