I happened to be posing for this photo (see the earlier entry about red suspenders) when a call came over my pager. Emmett ran outside to tell me about it, but we didn't know what it was about. Since I had just bought my blue light the day before, I was psyched to use it. I arrived at SUNY's Esopus dorm, the scene of yet another false alarm. The difference was that this one involved a carbon monoxide detector that had erroneously signaled a possible emergency. Because of the holiday break, none of the students was there, but a couple campus security cops helped us out. We were back at the station house in no time.
What starts with F, and ends with U-C-K and involves a lot of screaming? That's right: FIRETRUCK!
Later in the day, I was having the oil changed in my car (the one with the blue light) when another call came over the pager. This one, too, sounded serious. I happened to be riding around town on my unicycle, so I zoomed over to the station house, announcing to the guys that there was no need to fear: "Unicycle Ladder #1 is has arrived!" I stowed the uni and hopped onto a departing truck, changing into some handy fireman clothes en route. Here is a photo I took from inside the truck on my first-ever ride in a pumper.
What lots of people don't know is that there are many different kinds of fire-fighting vehicles. Some have ladders ("ladder trucks"), others have special pumps that can suck up H2O from a nearby pond or lake and deliver it to the scene of the fire ("pumpers"), while still others serve different roles, like "engines." Today I wound up on a pumper, one of three trucks to show up. We rushed to the scene, but before arriving at the would-be fire, the driver stopped us by a lake. We waited for further instructions. It turned out that there was no fire. It was a three-(false)-alarm fire. Still, it was exciting.
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