So, I never finished the guide. I got through one book and the descriptor was so long I got demoralized a little bit.

In other news, it's been an odd week. I've tried to study a lot, with what feels like very little success. I got some done, but not as much as I've wanted.

So. Last Saturday, I passed my fire attack practical.

Sunday. Went to church. I...don't really remember what happened after that.

Monday. Work.

Tuesday. Work in the morning, then I got sent home early due to labor cuts. Barbarian meeting in the evening. Got me pretty excited about God!

Wednesday. Day off. Slept longer than intended. It threw me off.

Thursday. Thanksgiving. I played the turkey bowl, and my team one! I scored the winning touchdown too...not that I want to brag.

Friday. Black Friday. A long, very interesting 11.5 hours it was.

Today. Day off. Not a whole lot accomplished. Kind of annoying.

Now. Studying...I am a week away from the beginning of finals. Starting to panic a little about all the studying I have to do.

Updates, fire academy and writing!

Terribly sorry for the lack of updates lately. I'm on break now from fire academy for the rest of this week, so I will hopefully have a little time to write. To hold you over till I can get something finished, I'm working on a little bit of a guide. I'm going to create a little compendium of all the various books I'm writing, with a description of some sort. I tend to move back and forth at times, so I think having a point of reference for people will be handy. Also, I'm going to try to start tagging my fiction under the title of that particular story rather than just the general "fiction" label, although I'll still use that as well.

I was going to post the first one, but it wound a little long...the plot of the fantasy novel I'm working on "Sovereign Night" is a little complex, and trying to write a "brief" description proved difficult.

Anyways...writing has been on hold but I hope to return to it briefly this week, and then more thoroughly next week once school is out.

In other news, I passed my fire attack practical on Saturday!! It is official. I can put out a fire. Now I just have to get all the other skills down. What is fire attack, you ask?! I basically had to advance a hose-line to the door of our burn building, and lead a team in to safely extinguish the fire. This I did. The steps:

-Pull hose to point of entry
-Call for water
-Check door for heat with back of hand
-Bleed the line, keeping control of the nozzle.
-RIGHT TO FIGHT!!
-Mask up and go on air!
-Try before you pry!
-Open the door slowly
-Look for signs of:
---flashover
---flameover
---Backdraft conditions
---Victims
---Obstructions
-SOUND THE FLOOR!
-Advance to fire room
-Tell your people to BUMP UP.
-Right to fight!
-Put out the fire, darn it.
---Ventilation? Use a combination attack
---No ventilation? Use a direct attack.
-Overhaul, while protecting signs of cause, origin and arson.
-Booya. Fire's out. Get the heck out of there.

Also keep in mind, ventilation is an important consideration for below grade fires. Standpipes and secondary means of egress are handy for above grade. That is all.