Chapter 3, part 3

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Out in the bay, the two men collapsed the stretcher and loaded it into the ambulance. Frank pulled a waterproof jacket from his bag, grabbed the empty oxygen cylinder and the half-empty IV kit and started walking back to the station, obviously intending to restock. Ian circled back to the driver's seat, happy to be free of his partner for even a few minutes. If Frank and Richards' had been good friends, he could understand Frank's unhappiness at Richards' leaving. "But that doesn't mean he should take it out on me," he said aloud, and as he did, he heard a tap at the window.

A man stood there, a tall, thin man in the city medic uniform that sported twin bars on each collar tab. Several pieces of fruit cocktail clustered above his name plate: Ian noticed two red and white save awards and a blue and pink baby delivery award, plus several others he couldn't identify. Pullings read his nameplate. Ian rolled down his window.

The captain held up a radio by its belt and holster. "You dropped this when you got back in," he said.

Ian shook his head "wasn't me."

The captain continued to hold up the radio. "Mr. Steele, all EMTs and medics are required to have a radio on them at all times. Do you have a portable radio?"

Ian flushed. He did not, and admitted it. He went on to apologize, but the captain cut him off. "You dropped this getting into the bus. I don't know if you picked up this morning from the tour one driver, or if she left it for you in the office, but you dropped it. They're fragile things. Please take more care in the future."

Ian took the radio that opened his door and climbed out of the ambulance to strapped belt on. As he finished he heard the passenger-side door open and close, and, turning, he saw Frank and his seat. "Lunch," said Frank, "now." Ian turned back to the captain to think him, but the captain was gone, so he started the ambulance and set his thoughts on lunch.

Frank gave Ian directions to a deli, where he ordered sandwich: "Turkey on rye; lettuce, tomato, mayo, and mustard," and bought a bottle of iced tea. As he watched the assembly of his sandwich, he pulled out his cell phone to call Sara, but the thought of talking to his girlfriend in front of Frank dissuaded him. Of talking to anyone, really, he thought as he paid the counterman.

Ian followed Frank back to the ambulance with his sandwich in one hand and his drink in the other. Frank said something indistinct into his shoulder mic, and he climbed back into the ambulance. Ian turned the ignition key, waited for the wait-to-start light to go out, and started the engine. Using only his developing sense of the neighborhood he brought them back to their post, but Frank said nothing.

* * *
An hour a half later they returned to the station, handed the keys and radios off to tour III and signed over their narcotics. Frank vanished without a word. Ian shouldered his bag, signed out (his timecard didn't exist yet) and trudged back to his car. There, he found, stuck to the windshield, a bright orange gift from the City of New Gotham: a parking ticket, in celebration of his first day of work.


[END OF CHAPTER]

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Chapter 3, part 2

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At the ambulance they used the stair chair to lift the patient in, then shifted her over to the stretcher. Three Two Boy folded the stair chair put away and said goodbye, and left. Frank listened to Mrs. Freed's lungs again and turned to Ian. "Turn around and take us back down to Flushing street, then left. Hospital is just after the el."

Ian had spun the steering wheel around for the second leg of his K-turn, but had not yet shifted her to reverse when he heard Frank's growl from the window from the patient compartment: "what the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm turning around."

"Go to the end of the block, make a right, and right, and go."

"Tell me what to do and I’ll do it," Ian said, but quietly, and to himself. He backed the ambulance away from the curb and pulled down to the street at the end of the block, where he made a right. "Just don't be an asshole about it. How am I supposed to know?"

Five minutes later they rolled under the elevated subway and made the left into the common driveway. He made another left from the driveway, pulled into the Gantry's ER bay, and parked next to a commercial ambulance. Around back he helped Frank unload the stretcher.

Inside the hospital Frank gave his report to one of the nurses, then he and Ian shifted the patient over to an ER stretcher. Frank completed his written report, while Ian remade their stretcher with clean linen.

Another city medic joined him, and Ian recognized the man who had opened the door for him that morning. "How's Richter treating you?" He asked as they tucked the linen under the mattress.

Ian held his reply until he was standing beside the man, whose name plate read Harvey. "He's a schmuck," he said quietly.

Harvey laughed. "He knows his shit, though. You've taken Richards' place, so he's upset."

Ian opened his mouth to ask about Richards, but another medic came up on tap Harvey on the shoulder. "CPR in progress, let's go."
“Hang in there,” Harvey said.

"Thanks," said Ian, but Harvey disappeared through the sliding doors to the ambulance bay, and Ian doubted that he heard. Frank appeared in Harvey's place. He looked Ian over, but only said "let's go" as he grabbed one end of the stretcher and pulled it out to the ambulance.

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Fifty percent of people use algebra at least a few times a week

According to this survey, fifty percent of people out there use algebra at least a few times a week. So all of that algebra I'm teaching these kids in class does have use in the real world.

Chapter 3

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Apartment 19G lived behind a flimsy, badly painted door, almost immediately across the hall from the elevator. Frank's radio crackled as he reached to push open the unlocked door: "Three-Five X., Three Two Boy confirms A and O."

Alert and Oriented, Ian thought. Was he more disappointed or more relieved? He followed Frank to the living room, where Three Two Boy had already placed the patient on oxygen and moved her to a stair chair.

The story, gleaned from Three Two Boy and the patient, was that Mrs. Freed, the patient, was a longtime CHFer who had neglected to take her medication. "Did you not have the money for it?" asked Three Two Boy.

Mrs. Freed shook her head. "I just, forgot," she said.

Frank listened to her lungs, and told Ian to start an IV with a saline lock.

As Ian rifled through their bag for the equipment, Three Two Boy pulled a preassembled kit from one of the side pockets. "First day?" she asked.

Ian nodded.

"It gets better."

Ian dumped out the kit, zeroed in on the 18 gauge catheter (it was wrapped in green) and laid out his equipment. He took the patient's left arm, "you mind if I borrow this?" and tied a tourniquet around its, forcing the blood to back up and dilate the veins. While this was happening he tore open an alcohol prep and wiped down the inside corner of the patient's elbow, and donned a pair of gloves.

The plexus of dilating veins appeared. Ian selected a relatively straight one and uncapped his catheter-needle. "You feel a pinch," he said, as, stabilizing the vein with his left thumb, he slipped the needle in -- except that it skipped along the skin's surface.

Bevel up, he reminded himself, during the needle over so that it pointed into the patient’s vein – it fit more naturally in his hand once it was properly positioned -- and trying again.

The tiny popping sensation and the flash of blood in the chamber told that he was in. Lay it down and advance it slightly, he told himself, now slide off the catheter and thread it into the vein. Blood began to well up in the catheter's hub as he withdrew the needle and dropped into the red sharps container. The blood dripped onto the patient's arm, and he remembered that he should have placed gauze to prevent that. So far, he was batting a thousand.

More importantly, he forgot the prep the saline lock. Doing so would take only 15 or 30 seconds, during which the patient would spill blood out through the catheter, because Ian doubted that he could set up the lock with only one hand.

But just as he recognized his error, he realized that he had been delivered from it. Three Two Boy handed him a prepped saline lock, having made it herself as Ian had concentrated on the needle and catheter. He smiled at her, thoroughly relieved, and attached the lock. A transparent occlusive dressing covered the IV site, and strips of tape, which he had remembered to set up beforehand and had left dangling from the top of a nearby table, secured the lock. And there it was: his first IV, albeit with some help.

He balled up his trash, held it in one hand, and inverted his gloves around it, leaving him with bare hands and is trash wrapped in his gloves. He pulled the tourniquet free and shoved it and the unused equipment back into the cardboard tube from which they had come. Frank gave Lasix through Ian’s saline lock and Three Two Boy wheeled the patient to the front door.

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Car - repair or trade

I put $500 worth of labor and parts into my car today. It's a 2001 Saturn L200 with 80400 miles on it. Then I learned that it needs over $3000 more of labor and parts to keep it on the road. Do I fix it? Or trade it. The book value of the car is $4500 on a good day, and in its present condition (needing all of that work) it's perhaps worth 2500.

Thoughts, anyone?

Chapter 2, part 4

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Twenty minutes later Ian had put his bag on the upper shelf(carefully avoiding the brown bag on the lower shelf) and collected his keys. A stack of sheets in the main office labeled Daily Ambulance Check -- ALS gave him a place to write down the numbers of the drug bags' tags, and a list by which he made a cursory check of all their equipment. Richter had neglected to mention the two bags (one a large, fold-open box-shaped thing, the other a small duffel) and the Lifepack, but Ian checked them, too. "Where to?" He asked Richter as he buckled his seatbelt and adjusted his mirrors.

"Make a right onto the street and go to the end of the block."

"And then?"

"And then stick it somewhere, we’re getting coffee."

Ian pulled out, merged into traffic and parked at the end of the block. "Lock it and leave it running," his partner said, and the two of them walked into the diner.

"Hiya, Frank" said the counter woman as they walked in. "You guys have a call?" She picked up a cup in the counter, said, "Oh, that's too cold," and poured a fresh cup of coffee with milk Sweet & Low.

"Thanks, Angel," Richter said as he paid her.

"Who's your partner?" Angel asked. "What happened to Richards?"

"He retired. He had his twenty years in."

"I wish I could do that. Who's your partner?" She asked again.

Frank turned to Ian, and Ian watched Frank's eyes go to the nameplate on Ian's chest. "Steele," Frank said, "his name's Steele."

"Well, hello, Mr. Steele," the woman said, "what can I get you?"

"I'm Ian. I'll have a small coffee, please, black."

"Sugar? Equal?"

"No, thank you."

Frank had returned to the ambulance by the time Ian paid. Ian grabbed a few napkins and followed, stuffing the napkins into a map pocket that was already overflowing with wrinkled, though generally clean napkins and paper towels. "Post is two blocks further down," Frank said, "then make a right onto Hill Street. Go to the police station, then make a left on Maxwell Street. Go two or three blocks and park."

Ian's coffee, lacking the benefit of milk, was still too hot to consider holding it in his crotch, and the design of the console, with the switches and computer display, was such that it blocked a any cup holder that the ambulance might have had. Ian looked over to Frank, and saw that he had wedged his between the dashboard and the windshield prior to picking up his newspaper. It seemed precarious arrangement to Ian, guaranteed to cause a spill. There was no other place for the cup, though, so Ian balanced his cup in the same way, taking inadequate comfort in the fact the slope of the dashboard would drain any spilled coffee forward, away from him. He shifted into drive and pulled out into traffic.

* * *
Surprisingly, the coffee cup stayed in place, never spilling in spite of two monstrous, water-filled potholes that Ian was unable to avoid. He parked the ambulance at the corner and shut it off.

"Leave it running." Frank said from behind his newspaper.

Ian mastered an involuntary frown; he was not the most long-suffering of men. He started the engine, which labored unevenly for minute, then settled down to a normal rhythm. Somewhere church clock struck for a half hour: 10:30 a.m. Two minutes later, several other churches began to strike, one of them with a cracked bell. A quarter of an hour later, the churches struck again, then again for the hour. By 11:30, Ian had decided that the church with a cracked bell was probably the red brick one that he could see two or three blocks down. He also read the legend to every switch an indicator light on the dashboard and console no less than five times, determined that while the FM stereo worked well enough, the AM radio only pulled stations in from the upper two thirds of the dial, plus TV channel 6 at the extreme bottom.

Frank had fallen asleep sometime ago. He lay slumped against the window, the sections of his newspaper spread over his lap and spilling onto the floor. His cigarette, burnt to the filter, had gone out. Ian cracked his window open to clear the air of the stale smoke, then lay his head back to try to sleep.

He was not immediately successful. The steady, unfamiliar mumbling of the ambulance's motor and the intermittent whine and click of the windshield wipers distracted him. The construction of the ambulance was such that the seatback could not be reclined more than a few degrees; he found a cramped position to be an even worse distraction. Nevertheless, he must have fallen asleep at some point, because a cold, wet sensation on his shoulder woke him. Water had seeped in through the small opening at the top of his window, forming a small rivulet and spilling onto his uniform. Ian dabbed ineffectually at himself with a napkin for a minute or two before deciding that he was now stuck with a damp uniform. He shivered once convulsively, closed his window and turned on the heater.

Some minutes later Frank awoke with us in a yawn, made an awkward stretch within the confines of the ambulance and blinked two or three times. "Coffee," he said.

"Coffee?" Ian asked.

Frank sniffed again. "Coffee," he confirmed, then opened his door and stepped out into the drizzle. Ian checked his mirror against passing traffic, then did the same.

Outside, Frank completed a much more luxurious stretch than the ambulance allowed. He reached up to the radio extender on his epaulet spoke into it. "Three-five X-ray on radio."

"10 - 4 Three-five X, " the extender replied. Frank began to cross the street. Ian followed.

Almost across the street stood a bodega. Frank gave his order at the counter, and Ian was doing the same when the radio spoke up again. "-ree Five X-ray."

Frank cursed, then reach up to his shoulder to reply. "Five X."

"Three-five X, take it down to 721 East 203rd, meet Three Two Boy."

"Ten - 4."

Ian walked quickly to the door. He pushed it open, stepped out into the street and crossed to the ambulance. In the driver seat, he buckled his seatbelt and looked down at the console to turn on the emergency master, then dropped the transmission down to drive.

But Frank wasn't there yet. He looked out his window: his partner was just emerging from a bodega, with a cup of coffee in each hand. He crossed the street, circled around the front of the ambulance, and climbed in. "You forgot your coffee, you owe me eighty-five cents," he growled, handing Ian the steaming cup over the console.

Ian took the cup and placed it in the corner of the windshield. Of all the times to worry about coffee and 85 cents, Frank picked now? "Where do I go?" He asked.
"Take it down to 202 and make a right." Frank said, punching up the dispatch info on the computer as he did so. "721 East 203rd apartment 19G," he read, "difficulty breathing. Also dispatched, Three-two Boy." He pulled a pad of paper from the map pocket in his door and copied some of the information from the computer.

Ian glanced into his mirror and pulled out into the nearly empty street, then rolled down to the red light at the end of the block. Frank glanced out his window. "You're clear," he said.

Ian was busy checking the intersection and didn't reply for a moment. "Clear for what?" He asked finally.

"Clear of traffic to the right." Frank said, still busy copying information into his pad. "What's your numbers?"

"Numbers?"

"Your numbers. Your medic number. And you feel like turning on the siren, maybe?" Frank asked.

Ian blushed. He had forgotten about the siren. He reached out for the knob and twisted. "Two four six oh one"

"Damn, that's a high number. You're clear on the right."

Ian slowed for the red light and flipped the siren over to the next higher frequency.
"I said you're clear on the right -- go." Frank said.

201st Street was one way to the left -- as Frank had said there were no cars approaching from the right, and Ian took the ambulance through the intersection. The next cross street was 202nd St, a major thoroughfare, and Ian had to creep into it one lane at a time, tapping his air horn and watching the oncoming cars until their front bumpers dipped in submission. Frank directed him around the block to approach the scene of the call from the right direction. "721 is this block probably on the left," he said.

Down the block they saw Three Two Boy unloading their equipment. They pulled up to the row of parked cars and double-parked on the left one space back. "Get the defib," Frank said as he punched a button on the computer and opened his door.

By the time Ian had shouldered the defibrillator, Frank had taken the bag and was halfway to the building. Ian followed, catching up as they mounted the steps.


[END OF CHAPTER]

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Chapter 2, part 3

Ian hurried back down the hall to the garage and out to the parking lot. Ambulance 006 sat just outside the door; Ian had passed it in his earlier dash across the parking lot. 006 was an old ambulance, with rumpled fenders and a front bumper that some prior collision and twisted into a frown. A heavy pool of exhaust lay at its rear, and as Ian walked toward the cab he felt himself stepping from one world into another. What with all of the hurry that morning to not arrive late, he had lacked the time to notice his uniform, to feel self-conscious and proud of it. Now, the months of training, the months of waiting, the certainty of failure, everything collapsed into this short walk through the rain, and although Ian didn't feel particularly proud, he certainly felt self-conscious. Looking through the ambulance's windshield he saw an indistinct figure in the passenger seat, so he stepped around to the driver side. He grabbed the door handle, breathed, and opened the door. Cigarette smoke immediately enveloped him.

The smoke filled the ambulance's cab, obscuring the hazy figure in the far seat. A cigarette glowed briefly. "What do you want?"

Ian took a deep breath of the smoky air. "I'm Ian," he said, "Ian Steele? I'm your new partner?"

The figure considered this information. "Where were you last?" He asked eventually.
"Last?"

"What station were you at?"

Ian felt the rain soaking through his uniform. "I wasn't," he said, "I finished at the Academy back in -- with the last class."

Silence, again, except for the rain. "Make sure we’re DACed," the figure said, picking up a newspaper and ending the conversation.

“I’m working with a schmuk,” Ian said to himself. He cleared his throat. "I don't know where anything is," he said aloud.

More silence from the smoke-shrouded figure. Another bright glow from the cigarette. "Your name is Steele?"

"Ian Steele."

"Well, get in the back," said the man, and when they were both sitting in the patient care module: "the airway stuff is over there by the airway seat, at the head of the stretcher. The onboard O2 is the green knob -- don't ever use it."

"Never?"

"Never. Next to the O2 is the switches for the lights, the suction, that shit. Above the CPR seat is the locked cabinet for drugs. There should be two --"

"Locked?"

"The key is on your ring. There should be two yellow bags in there with --"

"Ring?"

"Your key ring? You got a key ring? From Green?"

"No. Should I have?"

The man's hand strayed to a shirt pocket that clearly held a package of cigarette, then pulled away, disappointed. Clearly, the man – Richter, according to the nametag on his chest – at least recognized the inappropriateness of smoking in the patient care area. “F--N--G,” he said, "it'll be in the office. There should be two yellow bags in there with number tags, holding the zippers shut -- just right the numbers down. If there aren't number tags, change them out."

"Change them where?" Ian asked. He did not ask where the numbers were to be written.

"The station. Any station, but if it's not this one you have to leave your station and unit number. Between the airway stuff and the drug box is trauma stuff -- gauze, tape, that shit. Between the drug box in the back door is linen and OB. Bed pans are in there somewhere, too. And the urinal.

"Below the bench is the main O2, Reeves, a scoop, and a splint pack -- two of everything. Stairchair is on the side door.

"On the back in the bus," he closed the doors behind them and pulled out a cigarette, first fishing the pack from the shirt pocket, and Ian took another opportunity to look at him: thick, but not fat; shorter than Ian; a face that Ian would later describe to Sara as weatherbeaten -- but probably no more than a few years older than Ian. A drooping mustache clung to the man's upper lip, and his uniform, though neither stained nor wrinkled, somehow gave the impression of being disheveled. “Perhaps part of this is due to his boots,” Ian thought. “They can't have ever seen a can of polish.” He had lit his cigarette with a 99¢ Bic lighter and was talking again.
"On the back of the bus is the spineboards, the KED, in that cabinet on the driver side. Passenger-side is the door to get the O2 tank out."

He pointed along the driver’s side of the module. "Back compartment is head blocks. In front of the wheel is flares, flashlights, that shit."

They walked around to the passenger-side. Here both compartments were stacked in front of the wheel well and the side door. "This is where you can put your stuff," Richter said as he unlocked and opened the larger, upper cabinet. "The brown bag on the lower shelf is mine. Don't touch it. Your shit goes on the upper shelf. The upper shelf." He closed the compartment and flapped his jacket. "The doors and compartments are always locked. Put your bag in the compartment, get your keys, DAC us, and let's go."

"What's the bottom cabinet?" Ian asked.

Richter took a drag from his cigarette as he stared at the compartment, and exhaled tendrils of smoke from the corners of his mouth. "Battery box," he said finally, and climbed into the cab.

**************************

AUTHOR'S COMMENT: I'm not sure on the list of equipment - if it's too confusing and therefor off-putting. Thoughts, anyone?

Chapter 2, part 2

New Gotham Fire's EMS station number 57 shared its driveway with the ambulance bay of the Gantry and Ship-workers’ Medical and Mental Health Center, better known simply as The Gantry. The steel and glass hospital tower overlooked the station house, blocking out its morning sun and giving the low, crumbling building a particularly dreary look in the rain. Ian stepped around a collection of tightly parked ambulances and personal cars and several large puddles to reach the single normal door among a series of oversized garage doors. He reached out to push the painted-over doorbell, saw the cut wires running from it, and knocked on the steel door instead.

The door opened after only a short pause, and Ian stepped in. While one part of his mind registered the generally run down, comfortable look of the garage, most of it considered the man who it let him in.

The man wore the city's medic uniform. He stood just about as tall as Ian. “About my age, too,” reflected Ian, meaning no more than a year or two to ether side of 25. Further observation stopped as the man spoke: "who are you?"

"I'm Ian -- Ian Steele. I was just assigned here?"

"Oh," said the man, "you're Richards' replacement." He pointed further into the garage, in the direction taken by several sets of wet footprints. "Office is through the doorway and to the left, then the second door on the left. I've got a call or I'd show you." A siren chirped outside, as if on cue, and the man ducked out the door and into the rain.

Left alone, Ian looked about the garage. Though there were only three garage doors behind him (the door through which he entered stood between the right-most two) the garage was some four or five vehicles wide. Two garage doors in the opposite wall provided access to those parking spots not served by the doors behind him. Three ambulances sat at the far side.

To Ian's right stood a collection of variously sized oxygen cylinders: big M cylinders, even bigger H cylinders, and a lot of the portable E cylinders. A clock above the cylinders reminded him of his purpose for being there, and he followed the trail of wet footprints.

The footprints approached a glassed-in supply room, then made a right to pass through a doorway. Empty fittings on the doorway's pillars showed were the door had been removed, and as he passed through the doorway Ian found the door itself leaning against the wall. He walked down the short hallway, which threw a passage off to the left before quickly turning right. Most of the footprints took the left passage, but then the trail split, with some of the footprints heading to a break room on the right, while the rest continued for another yard or so before turning into an office. Ian glanced into the empty break room: several chairs, a table, a kitchenette, and the TV was on. He continued to the office.

Two lieutenants stood over one of the desks in the office. They looked up as he entered. "Can I help you?" One of them asked.

"I'm Ian -- Ian Steele? I was just assigned here?"

"Uh-huh," said the first lieutenant.

"Really," said the second. Perhaps Ian was in the wrong place. "Are we supposed to get a new medic?" The second lieutenant asked the first.

"John didn't say nothing about it. What unit are you on?"

"Three-five X-ray." Ian said. He dug through his bag for the photocopy of his letter and held it out.

"Well," said the first lieutenant, ignoring the proffered letter. "Don't that just beat the band. I guess Richards retired this week. And come to think of it, I haven't seen him today. You?" He asked the other lieutenant, who shook his head. The first lieutenant looked up at a clock on the wall, then at a dry erase board on which Ian saw names, unit IDs, and other information scrawled. "No time to give you the tour," he said to Ian, "make sure to come in at the end of shift. You'll be in bus 006."

The other lieutenant finished consulting one of several computers scattered about the office and looked up. "3-5 X is in from tour one, so it should be waiting in the lot. Or just beyond the gate. Take your bag with you. We’ll deal with a locker tomorrow."

And you thought they were just toys

Lego bricks are manufactured to tolerances of 2 micrometers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

Chapter Two

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The next two weeks dragged, but were otherwise unremarkable. Ian painted. Sara did whatever a paralegal did. John spoke with Mr. Bradley and replaced the hot water heater. Ritchie complained about anything and everything, and did so frequently as possible.

Even the longest eternity has an end, though, and today Ian sprang from the bed in anticipation of the first day of his new job. He showered and shaved, as he dressed he reflected on his uniform: he had worn this uniform privately, cherishing it, but today he was putting it on for real. For a moment, the tangle of pride, anticipation, trepidation and other feelings that he couldn't name almost overwhelmed him. It seemed a miracle he didn't laugh or cry out loud and wake Sara, but he mastered the impulses and slipped into the kitchen to join Mynx for breakfast.

As he ate, he glanced at the microwave oven' s clock: 7:14. Ian was right on schedule to arrive at his old job at five minutes to eight. His new job began at quarter to ten. He lingered over his coffee.

When he was still there at 20 minutes to eight, Mynx crept from her perch on Ian's feet to sit beside him and look up at him. "Different job today," Ian told her she balanced on her rear paws and stretched her fore paws up to his thigh. “Yow," she said, "Yowwryow.”

Ian shook his head, but Mynx ran off to the front door to sit there and yowl. Ian followed her. "You're going to wake up Sara," he said, picking the cat up and sitting down on the couch with her. Mynx worked her way free of his grasp and returned to the door, spent several more minutes reminding Ian of schedule, and finally resigned herself to glaring at him from atop the television set. Eventually she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Half an hour later Ian heard the water run in the shower. He moved back to the kitchen and ran the coffee maker again. Soon he heard Mynx's greeting and Sara's familiar step, and then Sara herself appeared.

"Good morning," he said, handing her a mug of coffee across the table.

"Good morning," she said, putting down her empty coffee mug some minutes later. Sara did not excel at mornings, particularly before coffee. Now, with a mug of coffee inside her, she noticed Ian's uniform. "Today's the day," she observed.

Ian nodded. "Yeah. To-today," he said. "Today's the day," he repeated, "today's the day. It'll be fun."
Sara looked at him several times as she ate, but said nothing. "Have a good day," she said, when she had washed the dishes. She kissed him, then left the kitchen, and soon after Ian heard her leave the apartment.

After a time, Ian stood to do his own dishes, saw that Sara had done them, and returned to the bedroom. Today his skills would be evaluated not by instructors or exam proctors, but by his partner and his patients. He searched through the bag he had carefully packed last night to see if everything was still there, but the confines of the bag hampered him, and finally he jumped everything out onto the bed. Every screwup, every blown IV or missed question on an exam haunted him as he repacked the bag: stethoscope; the folded photocopy of his assignment letter (the original was for too valuable to carry); directions to the station house, also folded; his copies of the state and city EMS protocols; two ballpoint pens and small notepad. He felt his pockets for his wallet and keys. His cell phone went into its holster at his hip. A folded map of the neighborhoods he'd be working in went into a side pocket of the bag. No, he decided, the neighborhood map lacked the immediate importance of the directions. He swapped the two, moving the directions to the side pocket and placing the neighborhood map in with everything else.

What else? His watch: he checked that it was still running (it was, of course), and strapped it onto his wrist. What else? He stared at the pile of belongings that remained on the bed. Trauma shears: into the bag. Discman with headphones and CDs: what were the chances that he'd use them? He left them sitting in the bed. Penlight: into the bag. Mini-Mag? Did he need both? He could always just leave it in the bag: he tossed it in. What else? What else, he asked himself. Nothing else. He zipped the bag closed, moved the items that remained on the bed over to his dresser, and carried the bag to the front door, using it to block the door shut so he wouldn't forget it as he left.

Now he was ready. He looked his watch: 8:20, sat down the couch, and turned on the TV. Every 10 minutes he checked his watch: 8:22, 8:25, 8:27, 8:30.

The program on the television changed, but Ian didn't notice. Mynx awoke from her nap on top of the television, saw him still there in spite of the late hour, and stalked off to the bedroom.

8:33. Ian realized that he was not watching the television programs so much as he was staring through the television set, and he turned it off. He checked the contents of his bag. He checked his bag again, dumping it out on the floor and repacking it. He brewed a cup of coffee in the kitchen, realized he didn't want it, and poured it down the drain. 8:39.

In the living room again, he turned the television on, flipped through perhaps five channels, and turned it off. He pulled the directions from his bag and read them twice. Yes, he decided, in agreement with his calculations of last night, to arrive at 9:45 he needed to lead by 8:55. Thirteen minutes to go.

“Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps I should bring the Discman.” Various arguments for and against presented themselves. Would he have the time? Would the Discman get damaged? Would blood spill or spatter onto it? On the other hand, the music would relax him. Certainly he needed to relax.

8:45. Having reached no solution for his Discman problem. Ian abandoned the issue and left the Discman where it was. In the kitchen he washed his coffee mug from earlier, tripped over Mynx and emptied the still warm grounds and to the trash. Mynx crossed to her water bowl, drank, and left. Ian sighed.

8:49, and as he checked his watch, Ian heard what he thought sounded like thunder. He crossed to the window. Clouds covered most of the sky; they were high, white, and innocent, but he noticed that they were blowing from the part of the sky that was blind to the apartment.

Several pedestrians walked down the sidewalks, one or two cut across the street. No one carried an umbrella or looked up at the sky. In the building across from him an old woman watered her flowers. Probably just a truck.

"Time to go," Ian said aloud. He looked at his watch:8:53. In the front closet he found his uniform jacket and put it on. He collected his bag and, after making sure that Mynx was not poised to escape, left the apartment.

He had hardly turned his key to lock the door when he turned it again to reenter the apartment. He crossed to the bedroom, shoved the Discman and CDs into his bag, and was leaving for real when he heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder. Just as he reached the living room window, the first drops of rain fell against the glass: big, wet, heavy. “If I were superstitious person,” he thought, “this would definitely be a bad omen.”

With the usual cat precautions he opened and closed the door and left for work, rushing to get there on time (the irony of rushing after waking up so early was not lost to him,) and parking under a "Fire Department Personnel ONLY" sign just as the dashboard clock read 9:45.

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Chapter One, part 3

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He took the envelope. One part of his mind saw Sara's expression fade, but mostly he focused on the letter. Until he opened the it, it still might contain a notice that his name had been transferred to the new list. He held the letter up to the light, hoping to get a clue as to its contents. No luck.

Beyond the letter he saw Sara's face, which now wore expression of concern and sadness. "Would you like me to open it for you?" she asked gently.

"No," Ian said, "no, thank you." He continued to hold the envelope by its corner, until finally he forced himself to open it. All of the waiting of the last nine months collapsed into this single moment. His hearing warped. His vision swam. His head ached. His heart pounded. Eventually he went so far as to unfold the page, and read:

Office of Crew Assignment, ALS
Division of Emergency Medical Services
New Gotham Fire Department.
9 MetroTech Center.

April 2, 1998.

Greeting.

We are pleased to inform IAN STEELE that the ranking chief EMS, New Gotham Fire Department," he began to read aloud with growing excitement, "has found you to be worthy of assignment to one of our city's ALS EMS units. We are therefore pleased to be in the position of offering you an assignment to New Gotham Fire Department's EMS UNIT 35 X-RAY...

He turned to Sara and gave her a kiss. "I got it!" He said, "I got it!" their celebrations jerked Mynx from her nap atop the television. She glared at the two humans, saying nothing but nevertheless cowing them not into silence, but down to a more respectable volume. Mynx closed her eyes and lay down again, only her ears now wake to monitor the situation.

"Where will you be?" Sara quietly asked.

"Where?" Ian asked. He continued to read:

... EMS unit 35 X-RAY, operating out of EMS STATION 57, in the neighborhood of COLDWATER, during the hours of 1000 HRS to 1800 HRS, starting on TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1998.
Should you desire this position, please contact us as soon as possible, but no later than 6 p.m. on WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 1998.

Their level of excitement fell. "Coldwater?" Sara asked.

Ian checked again to be sure. "Well, yeah. It's Coldwater. But I'm in, right -- I can always apply for transfer later."

Sara nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes. That's true." She him a hug and he reread the letter, noting the peculiar greeting and the bold capitalization of all of the parts of the letter that were specific to him (obviously a form letter, used with a mail-merge program), and noticing that the signature had been made with a rubber stamp, the corner of which had also marked the page. Then his eyes returned to the respond-by date: today's date. His eyes flicked to the clock on the VCR: 6:03 p.m.

Ian grabbed for the phone, knocking it off the table in his haste and desperation. As he scrambled to pick it up, one half of his mind cursed the mail service for being so cavalier, so irresponsible as to delay the letter. The other half hoped that 6 p.m. might not be an absolute deadline. He forced himself to slow down as he punched the members into the phone. The envelope was postmarked on the 2nd and must have been lost for over a week, he thought as the phone began to ring.

Six rings later Ian's blood froze further, if such a thing were possible. Seven rings. Eight rings. Nine. He would have to find a job with one of the private companies. Was he more angry, or more sad? He turned to hang up the phone --
"New Gotham Fire Department."

The phone was so far from his ear that he barely heard the voice answer at the other end. "You're still there," Ian said.

"We are," said the voice, brisk and efficient. "ALS or BLS?"

Several minutes later he replaced the phone and beamed upon Sara. "You are looking," he said, "at the newest member of the City of New Gotham's Fire Department, Division of EMS.


[END OF CHAPTER]

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Edit: 12 Jan 2009: Changed Bed-Stuy to Coldwater.

World's worst website?

http://www.eatthainyc.com/

Try to find a location in your area.

Try to find useful information of any type.

Impeach the President?

Say it ain't so: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/11/kucinich.impeach/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

I was led to that link by Mighty Cthulu, from whom I will now be getting my political news.

Chapter One, continued

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Ian's thoughts of failure carried him to his car, and carried him home. Twice his preoccupation almost led him to blow a red light. Once he ran a stop sign. He parked five blocks from his building and trudged home. In the lobby he opened and emptied his mailbox, but as he reached the fifth floor -- his floor -- he remembered what he had forgotten: orange juice. He had forgotten orange juice the day before, too, and there was none in the apartment.

He dropped the mail off at the apartment, letting it fall with a sullen 'thump' onto the coffee table.

At the Korean grocery, he bought a loaf of bread along with the juice. He watched the sky turn threatening as he walked the block and a half back to building. Thunder rumbled. By the time he mounted his stoop, he walked through not quite rain, but through a general gathering wetness.

He returned to the fifth floor, tripped over Sara’s cat, Mynx, put the orange juice in the fridge and the bread on the counter, and in the bathroom he toweled his face dry. His clothes were no more than damp. They would dry quickly, he decided. His hair he ignored.
* * *
His second bottle was almost empty, and his clothes and hair were quite dry, when he heard a key in the front door lock. He walked to the door and swung it open to reveal a half-drowned Sara standing in a small but growing pool. Water trailed back down the hall to the stairway.

Ian stepped aside and Sara stepped in. "I guess it's raining," Ian said as he closed the door and helped Sara remove her coat. Sara nodded -- she shivered as she stood, and together peeled off layer after layer of wet clothes. Ian toweled her try, and wrapped her in a terrycloth robe. Over on the couch he wrapped her in his arms, and soon she was warm.

As she warmed, she took more notice of her surroundings, and soon her eyes fell on the still unsorted pile of mail. "Did anything come?" she asked.

"I don't know," Ian said. "I had to go back down for orange juice and I forgot."
Sara picked up the pile and began to leaf through it. Ian collected her wet clothes from the entry and hung them in the bathroom. He found an old towel in the hall closet and used it with his feet to mop up the water at the door. Then he hung the towel over the bathroom door and returned to the living room. Sara leaned forward as she sorted the mail, causing the front of aher robe to fall open and reveal the curve of one of her breasts. Every time Ian saw that curve, he marveled at its perfection.

He crossed back to the couch, warmth rising within him, and sat down, placing one leg to either side of her. He wrapped one arm around her. With his other hand he began to trace her perfect curve, and she leaned into him. "A letter came," she said. "From the fire department."

Both of her legs now curled around his thigh. She held up the envelope -- the thin envelope, Ian noted ruefully -- and he plainly saw the fire scramble beside the return address: New Gotham Fire Department, 9 Metrotech Center. Happiness, certainty and pride radiated from Sara's face; she watched the life fall out of his. Suddenly, he felt very cold.

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Yellow

20080614 0149-24hrs Urgences Sante, Montreal, Quebec. Photo by John Jantak
Originally uploaded by johnjan99ca

Chapter One: And Here His Troubles Began

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The smell of latex paint filled the air, but Ian didn't notice. He had graduated from the city's paramedic academy nine months ago, but he had not received a unit assignment, so he worked as a painter for Sara's uncle. Unit assignments had reached some of his classmates even before the gray, wet, unseasonably cold July day of graduation. Others received assignments after graduation. Still others received no assignment. This last group included Ian.

Painting for Sara's uncle lacked glory, but it pulled in something of wage -- nothing to approach what Sara made, of course, but something. The job also got him out of bed, out of the house. Everyone understood at the job was temporary, just until he got his unit assignment; everyone wondered if temporary had become permanent. Ian tried not to think about it. He thought about it often.

The sudden collapse of his paint roller cover's cardboard core brought him back to present. "Damn," he said, flinging the dripping, ruined mess into an empty paint can. Cleaning the roller had been his goal, not crushing it. He rinsed his hands clean and dried them on his jeans. "I'll buy new one on the way back to the office," he said. "No," he said, after moments thought, "that'll just his him off," him being Ritchie, his partner all this week. “I’ll buy one on the way home, along with the orange juice.”

Ritchie finished laying his brushes and roller cover out to try and switched off the radio. Ian collected the five or six empty paint cans that lay scattered about the rooms they had painted and headed for their van. Ritchie followed, carrying nothing. The two men rode the service elevator to the street in silence. Ian braced himself for what Ritchie’s “you hear from the fire department, yet?” Ritchie enjoyed bringing up Ian’s failure. Ian suspected that Ritchie felt threatened by him; Ian had a college degree – from Brown University, no less – and was not dumb; Ritchie hadn’t finished high school and, I and had to admit, Ritchie was dumb. He was also irritating.

"Hear from the FD yet?" Ritchie asked as the elevator doors slid open and they walked out to their van.

"No," Ian said. He detoured to a dumpster and dropped off their paint cans and trash.
Ritchie, waiting in the van for him to return, wasted no time in getting annoyed. "Man, you coming or not?" he called. "You have to be the slowest person I ever worked with," he said as Ian finally started the van. "If I drove, I’d leave your sorry ass behind."

Ian checked his side mirror and pulled out into the street before replying. "Good thing, you can't drive then, isn't it?" he asked.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

“I think my meaning is abundantly clear.”

"Fuck you --"

"That’s original."

"-- you think you're all special and shit, going to an Ivy League college, going to paramedic school? I don't see you in an ambulance. Go in and save the world? Bullshit -- you can't even paint a fucking wall, for Christ's sake." Ritchie continued in this vein, but the observations were not new and Ian quickly turned out. What was he supposed to buy on the way home? A roller cover and - ? He told Sara he would pick it up, so she wouldn’t have to. Milk? Coffee? Picking up groceries was a simple task, and for the second day in a row, he was failing at it.

From here, his thoughts moved on to his lack of a crew assignment., the final step that actually put a paramedic in the field.

Not only did Ian remain unassigned, but as rich was no doubt reminding him, the next ‘medic class would graduate from the academy any day now, seeing the end of the list from Ian's class in favor of that of the new class. With connections, he might be moved from the old list to the new, but the city rarely bothered to choose such a course; the applicants outnumbered the available positions, and it had no need to.

In an effort to change the current of his thoughts, he deliberately considered his state assigned ‘medic number: 24601. The state assigned numbers serially (probably by a computer), alphabetically by last name as each group passed its exams, but he and Sara joked about it when the notice arrived from the Department of Health, informing him that he had passed his paramedic exam and been assigned Jean ValJean’s number. “They must have recognized your superhuman strengths,” Sara said.

A subtle check in the flow of Ritchie's speech brought him back to the present. Ritchie had abandoned his evaluation of Ian to complain about his wife. The change occurred several minutes back, Ian observed; Ritchie's development of this new theme was quite advanced: "another thing -- another thing that bitch does his fucking burn dinner every night..."

Ian soon tuned Ritchie out again, and sooner than he might have hoped, he was parking the van, handing in the keys, and punching out. He left the building without saying goodbye to Ritchie or anyone else.

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Davenport, and flooding (reprise)

The Mississippi river is busy flooding again, and this time Davenport hasn't been as lucky as last time. A lot of basements are flooded, and a lot of people are upset (understandably). But this doesn't mean that the city's strategy is a failure, as some commentators suggest (consider the 6th comment down). Heavy rain will cause flooding. Simply put, there is a limit to how much water a river, or the ground, can accept in a limited amount of time.

Does this mean that Davenport's strategy is perfect? No, it doesn't. No doubt there are storm drains that should be cleaned out, realigned, or installed. No doubt, too, there are many changes that private property owners can make to make their properties more flood resilient, such as grading, decreasing the amount of ground that is paved over (dirt absorbs water, pavement repels it), or placing flood-incompatible property in elevated locations (several businesses in Davenport's flood plain have reserved their ground floor for parking and pedestrian space, placing offices in upper floors. When the waters come in, the ground level is free of flood-damage prone property.) Note how these strategies acknowledge the inevitability of a flood, and seek to work with nature, rather than to contain it.

For those who are not convinced, who still think that Davenport should hide behind a floodwall, I'll point out the plight of those who did. For instance:
* "'We had so much faith in those levees'"
* "The mighty Mississippi overflowed 90 percent of the levees in eastern Lincoln County"

And, remember that when a levee fails, it tends to do so catastrophically, with little warning and with devastating results. If your strategy is to anticipate the flood, you'll have cleared out long before the river threatens your life.

Ambulance 319

Only Drew could drive bus 319, but in his hands it was indestructible. The ambulance was 14 years old, well into what Motor Pool considered two lifetimes, but as long as Drew was driving it, it hadn't missed a day of work in seven years.

Nobody else could start it. Other drivers tried and failed. Equipment Defect Reports were generated. Motor Pool took the bus and they couldn't start it either, so after a brief diagnostic check they replaced the starter with one from a wreck. The last screw was tightening as Drew walked in for shift; he took the keys from the board and drove it out of the garage with Motor Pool running behind him. They needed the odometer mileage to put the bus back in service.

Drew gave it to them over the radio: 140,236. Impossible, Motor Pool replied, that's what it was at the beginning of the month. And come to think of it, that's what last month's statement said, too. Was Drew sure he was reading the odometer when he filled out his reports?

Motor Pool was right, because Drew hadn't been reading the odometer before he filled out his reports, but Drew was right, too, because the odometer hadn't worked since the day That Kid, in spite of Protocol 0, had died in the back of the bus. 140,236. Drew didn't mind a non-functional odometer as long as everything else worked, so he never filed an EDR for it, and as no one else could ever drive the bus, they didn't, either.

"Besides," Drew confided in Ian as they wandered down Bleeker street one afternoon after work, "I think if they fixed the odometer the bus would start breaking down again. It would be putting on miles."

Ian couldn't but agree, since in the seven years since the odometer had stopped Drew had never had to file an EDR on bus 319.

Billing, however, was furious. If the odometer never changed they couldn't charge patients for miles transported. They memoed Motor Pool and demanded that the odometer be fixed for the financial well-being of the system.

Did Billing know what it costed to replace an odometer, Motor Pool asked. Minimum two and a half hours labor because the entire dashboard had to be disassembled, plus the cost of the odometer, the cable, and the sensor. And with a bus that old, they'd have to special order the part. Besides, if the odometer was broken, there'd be an EDR on file. Was Billing sure they were reading their records before filling out their memos?

Actually, an EDR had been filed. For the sake of professional conscience, Drew had filed one. He had taken the form from the pile of blanks, dutifully filled in all of the boxes, walked down to Motor Pool and hand delivered it to their office wastebasket.

Halfway down the hall he had suddenly felt guilty. "Do you have a shredder?" he asked Motor Pool's secretary as he fished his EDR from the trash. The secretary held out her hand and Drew handed her the report. As the sound of electric motor followed Drew back down the hall he smiled to himself. If Motor Pool had misfiled his paperwork, he couldn't be held responsible.

Prologue

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InIt was an uncommonly difficult intubation. Ian's left arm burned and ached from fighting with the laryngoscope; the only time he had thought he'd seen the vocal cords, his only landmark in this red, slippery mess, they had immediately dropped from sight; and when had he passed the tube anyway, it had not gone into the trachea; it had gone into the esophagus. Twice he had had to go back to using the BVM, the Bag-Valve Mask to ventilate his patient, to force air into her unbreathing lungs, and into her stomach as well, for the mask could not discriminate between the two. And here was Death, standing over his shoulder again, impatient with him to be done with it already.
In"Okay," Ian nodded to the firefighter working the BVM, and as the firefighter lifted the mask from the patient, as the EMT stopped her chest compressions, Ian went back to the soft, cramped, wet tunnel of his patient's throat. He had changed his straight, thin Miller blade - supposedly designed for this type of patient but for some reason useless here - for a wider, curved Macintosh blade, and with this he swept the patient's tongue to the left, lifted her jaw open and her head up as he resumed his search for the vocal cords. The cords guarded the entrance to the trachea - the windpipe - and unless he saw them he couldn't be sure that he wasn't in the esophagus again. Indeed, he was more likely to be in the esophagus, as that was where the anatomy naturally led.
In"Crichoid pressure," he said, and the EMT - Karen, for that was her name - leaned over and pressed softly down on the hard cartilage of their patient's Adams Apple, forcing the trachea down toward the searching laryngoscope and at the same time squashing the esophagus closed. Still, the cords refused to appear. He struggled with the anatomy for another moment, then shook his head and withdrew.
In"Screw it," he said, tossing the laryngoscope aside and twisting himself around to kneel beside the patient's head. He stuck his gloved middle and index fingers into her mouth. In his mind, he watched his fingers creep along the patient's tongue and beyond, slipping on the floppy half-rigid form of her epiglottis (kind of like a wet ear, thought the part of his mind that wasn’t taken up with the dire nature of the situation), and lifting it open to reveal her trachea. With his other hand, Ian threaded the tube into her mouth and between his fingers, against the epiglotis and down. Holding the tube still, he removed his hand from her mouth.
InAn umbilical cord ran from the tube to a small blue pilot balloon, about the size of a dime. Earlier, Ian had stuck an air-filled syringe into a port on the balloon; now, as the firefighter fumbled to disconnect the BVM’s bag from the mask in order to connect it to Ian’s tube, Ian squeezed the plunger into the syringe, inflating the pilot balloon and inflating the cuff around the far end of the endotracheal tube, deep in the patient’s throat, and sealing the tube in place.
InThe firefighter was already squeezing his bag. Ian pulled the syringe free from the balloon and glanced at the index numbers printed along the side of the tube: number 21 rested against the patient's lower lip. The tube was size seven; three times seven was 21; the tube was probably in as far as it should be. Nevertheless, he leaned over the patient with his stethoscope, listening at her stomach for the gurgling that would mean the tube was in the esophagus: the abdomen was silent; then over each lung for the movement of air.
InHer lungs sounded clear and equal, and Ian taped the tube in place. He glanced at the heart monitor, which still showed the angry picket-fence pattern of ventricular tachycardia; checked his IV; and felt again at the patient's neck for a pulse: nothing.
InThe defibrillator was already set to 360 Joules (its highest setting) from his earlier attempts at defibrillating the patient. He charged it and pressed the paddles against the patient's chest and began his chant: "shocking. I'm clear," he glanced down to see if he was touching the patient. "You're clear," the firefighter had disconnected his bag and squatted safely away. Karen stopped her compressions and backed off. "All clear," he checked himself again, then "shock 360," and he pressed each of the ‘shock’ buttons, one on each paddle, discharging the defibrillator into the patient's chest. No change on the heart monitor. Even as she arched her back and lay flat again he was pressing the charge button and recharging the defibrillator. "Shocking," Ian said again, "I'm clear, you're clear, all clear, shock 360."
InDeath had started to pace between the far corners of the bedroom; this was taking far too long. But Ian was not ready to give up. "Shocking," he said for a third time. "I'm clear, you're clear, all clear, shock."
InAnd the third shock did it: the tracing on the EKG monitor changed, and suddenly everyone heard the loud, incredibly loud "beepbeep, beepbeep, beepbeep," of bigeminy – not a normal rhythm, but ten times better than the pulseless v-tach he had started with.
In"Is there a pulse with that?" Ian shouted over the beeping, not waiting for an answer before pressing his fingers against the patient’s throat. Her carotid artery throbbed against his fingers, two beats at a time, in time to the beeps of the monitor. It was not strong, but it was definitely there. Was she breathing? He watched her chest for motion; turned his cheek, held low over her mouth and nose for the soft movement of her breath, and listened for the sound of moving air: nothing.
InIan shook his head and sat up. The firefighter reconnected his bag to the ET tube. "One out of two isn't bad," Ian said, turning to the monitor to reduce its volume and finally sitting up in bed, fumbling for the alarm clock, and turning it off. The sound was reclassified: it was the clock, of course; and Ian dropped his feet down to the floor, rubbed his eyes, and held his head in his hands. It was time for a new day. It was time to go to work.

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The Great Eastern, and risk

My friend Ethan today reminded me of the Great Eastern, an iron steam/sailing ship from the mid-19th Century. The Great Eastern is something of a peculiarity, in that historians seem unable to agree if she was an outstanding failure or an outstanding success.

On the one hand she clearly had difficulties. She apparently bankrupted the company that built and launched her, then lay in an unfinished state for a year before being purchased and completed. Rumors persist that one or more workers were accidentally imprisoned between the layers of her double hull during their construction. Two workers were killed when she was launched, and she suffered several significant accidents during her service life, one of which involved her first funnel shooting off like a rocket when a steam valve was accidentally left closed. Six people were killed in this incident. After five and a half years of service she suffered a broken rudder shaft while at sea, which left her unmanageable. According to some sources, it was only the intervention of a passenger that saved the ship. The Great Eastern then scraped a rock off of Montauk the following August, ripping into her hull. Great Eastern was also a failure as a passenger liner, both at the beginning of her career, and at its end, when she was returned to passenger service after spending some years laying submarine telegraph cables.

Yet the Great Eastern was also quite successful. She was the largest and heaviest vessel in the world at the time of her construction, and for some decades after. Perhaps more significant, the damage she received in her collision with a rock off or Montauk was on a scale with the damage which later sank RMS Titanic, but Great Eastern sailed back to New York harbor unassisted. Also, through her submarine telegraph cable laying activities, she provided the first means of swift communication between Europe and North America. During her career as a cable layer, she laid approximately 30,000 miles of cable. And although I don't see mention of it in the Wikipedia article, I do remember reading elsewhere that the Great Eastern sent the world's first wireless signal, placing her in two major events in communications technology.

I first learned of Great Eastern when I was in high school, during a period in which I was fascinated with the Titanic disaster. Great Eastern's construction included not only the transverse bulkheads that Titanic would be equipped with, but also a pair of longitudinal watertight bulkheads, dividing her into a grid of watertight compartments. Great Eastern also featured a double hull, in which two nested hulls separated the ship's interior from the sea. Titanic only had a double bottom: when she struck her iceberg, the ice only had to breach one layer of her side to enable the sea to pour in.

This being the case, why was Titanic labeled unsinkable? The answer is tricky. Titanic's bulkheads contained watertight doors, several of which could be closed remotely. Whether Great Eastern featured doors in her bulkheads or not I don't know ( I suspect not), but she certainly didn't have remotely operated doors. What was probably more important, however, was the general sense in Europe and the United States that mankind had advanced its technology so far that it could meet any challenge posed by nature (or God, depending on who you asked). Speaking 13 years before he commanded Titanic on her first and only voyage (and went down wth her), Captain Smith said that "modern shipbuilding has come beyond [shipwreck]". Simply put, it was inconceiveable that major disaster could occur, not just because of the nature of Titanic's design, but because really, we were all so beyond that type of thing. And there is one more piece to the "unsinkable" label applied to Titanic and her sister ships (of the three ships, 2 sank; Britanic was lost to a mine in the first World War). Neither the ships owners nor the yard that built them ever claimed that they were unsinkable. The term seems to have arisen in an article in the professional journal, Shipbuilder, which stated that because of their watertight bulkheads, with their automatic doors, the Titanic and her sisters were "practically unsinkable."

What does this have to do with risk? It appears that overbearing confidence led to the safety devices of the Great Eastern being stripped away. A double hull added more weight to a ship, reducing her speed and increasing her fuel demands. Watertight bulkheads also added weight, and they made it difficult for passengers and crew to move about the ship. Hubris led to risk-taking, as it so often does, because it prevented people from seeing that there was any risk at all.

Day 109 - Where is your inspiration?

Day 109 - Where is your inspiration?
Originally uploaded by like_shipwrecks

Ever feel like this? I know I do.

Christian chews cardboard

Christian has a habit of biting into cardboard boxes. Initially I though this was becasue he wanted to eat the cardboard, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Once he's managed to pull off a piece of cardboard, he shakes his head to send the cardboard flying, then takes another bite of the cardboard. Through careful application he has reduced what used to be a prime shoe box into a shabby mess.

I'm not really sure what the thinking behind this is - that is, I'm not sure why he does this. My guess is that he sometimes had to pull his food apart to divide it into bite sized portions, and he misses doing that, or has some instinct to do that, but I admit that this is nothing more than a guess.

Welding class final project

I've been meaning to photograph this since I made it as my final project in welding class last year. I finally got around to it last week, and here it is.

Communicate telepathically with bacon

From the "Push button, receive bacon" genre.

It looks like a blackberry

Following fertilization, the egg cell undergoes several rounds of cell division, eventually forming a solid ball of cells that looks something like a blackberry, and this is the comparison that I make in class when discussing embryology for the DAT and MCAT. Yesterday, when I made this comment, one of the students look very confused, so I continued, "or a raspberry".

"Oh," she said. "That makes more sense. I was thinking the PDA."