Outlet or Cabin Fever Ramblings

Jonny has been released from the hospital at Balad. Army doctors are insisting that he live in a tent next to the hospital itself as they want to be able to monitor him for the next seven to ten days. He will need to have fairly regular MRIs.
I haven't had the chance to talk with him yet. He called his father and they spoke for a little while about how he feels upset that he wasn't able to help his buddy. JD called shortly after and the conversation touched on how they want to get out there and find the insurgents who did it and take care of them.
But for at least a week, Jonny is in the relative safety of the Balad area.
JD called my father in law as well. Apparently the mood in their area is that they want to get out and "take care of" the insurgents responsible for the attacks. When asked if it was "a revenge thing" JD stated that it was a safety thing. This group of guys has been lauching little commando raids on American troops for a while. Unfournately the death of Jonny's buddy is just one of the many lives they have taken. So for the safety of everyone in that area, they do need to be dealt with.
I'll try not to get all intellectual about the whole thing, this really isn't a political blog.
Instead I could talk about how excited I am to be using the crock pot to make BBQ pulled beef. (In case you can't tell the FD has been exceedingly slow lately) or about how I interviewed for a side job this morning at a certain Catholic run hospital in the city I live in.
The God is Great and You are Not Hospital staffs paramedics to work in their emergency department. Medics work side by side with the nurses and doctors at close to the level of field work. The only differences being that medics are not allowed to intubate or start EJ (external jugular) IVs in the emergency room itself. Since the program is in its infancy, there are still some pretty large loopholes. The medic functions as a member of the in house crtical response team, basically 911 for the hospital. When the medic leaves the ED, he or she is allowed to perform those skills not allowed on the ED floor. In addition to that, there is some more in depth training involving psychological emergencies and a few new medications and procedures to learn.
I'm not really sure if I'll get the job. Its rumored to be very competive, but we'll see. Its right down the street from where I live and the pay is supposed to be really good. Certainly would be nice to suppliment my meager public servant wages.
But thats not the real purpose of this post, I've come to realize that I need this blog, probably more than any of my readers do. In high school and well into college I wanted to be a writer. My family seemed convinced I had a talent for it but I never really thought it would go anywhere. When I started college I was a journalism major but I sooned realized that all that degree would really get me was four years of debt. Unfournately a degree in English/Education produced the same result.
I started this blog because I needed an outlet for what was going on in my life. My girlfriend of the time was not someone I could talk to about what I did for a living, she was convinced that I was going to be safely behind a desk teaching Acne incrusted youths about a dead homosexual who may or may not have written plays in the 16th century. She had thought that being a firefighter was a "phase" and that I would grow out of it.
If any of you have followed this blog or at least leafed back through the entries, you'll see that I'm not really one to grow up so things with the first girl didn't work out all that well. But I had this blog as an outlet for my feelings on what I do at work. Occasionally some of my insanely left wing political views will creep in, some times I'll discuss my work out routines or my undying love of Kettlebells. But its the one place I can put all of my ideas and thoughts and people can either take them or leave them.
I met a girl off the internet when I was doing my ride time for medic school. At the time she worked as a vet tech in an emergency center down on the Cape. We had dinner at a TexMex place in Plymouth and ended up walking along the jetty and out onto the breakwall in Plymouth Harbor. A week later I was at work at Fallon in Quincy, actually sitting on post outside the Faulkner when my cellphone rang. It was Mandy inviting me over for dinner.
When I drove down to her parents house I found her outside, barefoot, in the garden picking grapes off of a vine in order to make jam. I wasn't really even out my Jeep when this thing in my head made me aware that she was the girl I was going to marry.
And now we live together in Manchester, she commutes to a vet clinic in northern Mass and I go north to my fire department.
This blog has been a part of my life through the uncertain years of college when I was finding my way and realizing that maybe the easy path isn't the best one. It was there when I graduated college and realized I had to find something to do with my life that I wanted to do. I've always had the outlet of being able to put all of my conflicting ideas and desired out there. And occasionally my readers will give me comments that make me stop and think. Sometimes all I get is porno ads but hey, the little "1 Comment" makes me feel pretty good.
I was watching some reality TV thing the other day and it showed a San Diego Fire helicopter plucking some guy from the beach. They zoomed in on the flight medic and it was a guy who comented on my blog. He's the author of http://flyingvan.blogspot.com/ So I got a kick out of being able to recognize someone on the other side of the country I've never met.
This blog has cronicled my reinventing of myself from teacher to EMT to firefighter to fire medic. Its watched me work in Holden and Providence, Worcester, and Boston. Manchester was briefly touched on. Come spring time it will document my quest for a spot on the New Hampshire or Massachussetts Wildland Fire Crew. (The class starts in April).
The point is that this blog has become a part of my life. If nothing else its a record of what I've done and whats to come.
Maybe I'm getting melodramatic but this blog has been one of the few constants in my life until just recently.
I am at the early twenties, well lets be honest its mid twenties now, phase where I am trying to find where I'm going to spend the rest of my life. One things for sure its not going to be in this city, probably a nice out of the way cabin in Vermont. Hell of a commute but it'll be worth it. I found my wife, a hell of a feat because I'm sure if I didn't someone else would have.
When it hit, the realization that I crossed into adulthood, it hit hard. I have a wife, we're talking about trying to get her a new car, and a house where we can start a family. I've got a little under a year (when the lease runs out) to figgure out how to get all of our stuff to a house in Vermont, a house that will see some serious renovations this summer (her family owns it, so we'll be moving there barring some unmentionable tragedy, like her realizing that I am in fact a big kid and will always be)
And the blog will be there to capture it all. For those of you that read it, keep up the comments and tell your friends, the more the merrier.