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Monday, 11 August 2008

Updating soon...

Wednesday, 21 November 2007

Dont Jump Again!

Well there seems to be a reoccurring theme whereas I seem to be always blogging while I am waiting for my plane to leave, again this is the case. This time I am heading home for Thanksgiving, back to Iowa from Fargo. The planes leaves at 7, so I have a little while yet.

So after I passed through security I put my laptop on top of my laptop bag which was on top of a table while I was grabbing other things. I turned around to grab some things and heard a Thump. I spun around to see my laptop sprawled out on the floor, in an apparent suicide attempt.

While the laptop made the plunge nothing appeared to be oddly sticking out of it. I opened the lid and was relieved to see that the screen was not broken. Then I was like oh crap, I hope it still turns on. I put the laptop safely in the bag on the table, but I pushed it back far enough that another plunge would not be a feasible option for the laptop. Oh was I mistaken; the laptop proceeded to jump off of the table again... No I was just kidding on the second jump, but the first one was real.

After grabbing all my stuff I proceed to a desk at the airport and popped open the lid of my laptop and hit the on button .... .... I know you are waiting to know what happened .... It turned on and booted correctly. The laptop's fall roughly 4ft onto carpeted concrete did not even chip off any paint... good ole Gateway. We all know a Dell would have exploded or something crazy like that if it fell a few inches.

So with that I am using the laptop to type this. Lets hope that never happens again.

Friday, 15 June 2007

Its So Early

Wow it is early, who decides to get up this early anyway... well I suppose I do when I pick crazy flight times. My plane is leaving for Chicago at 6am then to the Quad Cities. While this is quite early for me I couldnt beat the price. I flew from the QC to Fargo and back for around $200; thank you studentuniverse.com (This flight easily beats the 5:10am Minneapolis flight.)

So I had a lot do to last night and this morning so I simply took a half hour nap; I am already approaching 22 hours of being "awake", I anticipate that I will be up for another 18 hours... 40 hours of being awake, I am excited
Anyway, I am not sure if what I am typing is that coherent or not, but oh well.

A few things to do, then onto the plane

Tuesday, 12 June 2007

Disaster Exercise

Well I am back up in Fargo running a disaster exercise. We are running a modified full-scale/functional exercise. That means that we have people working in the "field" in specific positions and we have the emergency operations center activated. The disaster exercise is supplemented by messages via phone, email, and other means. The exercise is actually quite complicated with over 150 participants. The exercise is facilitated by NDSU students and faculty in the Emergency Management program as well as Emergency Managers from across the state and other professionals.

On an unrelated note, I will likely be back in Iowa most of the summer. Hopefully I can find a job. Will be doing some kayaking and studying for the Graduate Record Exam, and hopefully finalizing my graduate school plans; of course I will be working on the fire department.

For those that asked: Facebook profile: http://ndsu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=33802900
and for those not on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/p/Brian_Fier/33802900
BTW I have noticed no one leaves comments anymore.. maybe if I blogged consistantly I wouldnt have this problem... great observation I know .

Thursday, 31 May 2007

Rolled Semi

Well I am finally getting to do some work on the fire department again. Sunday night at about 7pm there was a call out to respond to a semi that rolled over on the interstate and was on fire.

Immediately upon stepping outside I could see a huge plume of black smoke about 5 miles away. I drove to the fire station and hopped in the ladder truck. As we approached the interstate it was decided that the best approach to the scene was by driving the wrong way on the interstate... so thats what we did. You would be surprised how strange it seems driving up an off ramp, going the opposite direction you are suppose to. Luckily the interstate was closed down because we had to drive about 2 miles eastbound in the westbound lane.

Of course the fire was quickly put under control and extinguished. Luckily the quick response by some of the guys up at station 4 prevented multiple diesel explosions, as the driver said the tank was almost full.

Apparently the semi blew out a tire, ran into a railing on a bridge, then rolled onto its side. The cab was fully engulfed (on fire), but luckily the driver got out without serious injury... there was nothing left of the cab. The trailer suffered fire and smoke damage, but oddly enough the huge rolls of paper he was hauling we mostly intact, just rolled onto their side as the semi rolled over.

All lanes of the interstate were shut down for quite a while and westbound lanes were closed for 3 hours... that causes some major traffic issues on an interstate as busy as I-80

Lets just say the whole thing could have been a lot worse...

Some photos can be seen at:
http://ndsu.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31471804&id=33802900 and below