The Fire Within Goes To FDIC!! Day 4

Day 4:

So FDIC has begun. The opening ceremonies were amazing. The Indianapolis Bagpipe Band led the morning with the national anthem sung by the IFD.

There was a heart warming commemoration of the 2007

line-of-duty deaths.It puts this job in perspective when you see the many men and women that sacrificed their lives to protect others.

Bobby Halton, Education Director and FDIC editor of Fire Engineering gave an awe inspiring speech about what it means to be a ff. He paid tribute to the men of the USS Indianapolis:

At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes. Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters with no lifeboats and most with no food or water. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men were still alive.

Go to www.ussindianapolis.org for the history.

The guys then went their separate ways to attend a few of the many informative classes. Chad went to a Reading Smoke class where he said he learned that ‘where there's smoke, there’s fire’, he feels he’s a better ff for it! But seriously, he learned that smoke is a bigger indicator of the extension of a fire than the flames and you always see the smoke.

While the ffs were busy getting an education, Jodi and I were working hard at doing nothing. We realized we are very good at it. Jodi said the only problem is you don’t know when you’re done doing nothing. We put in a hard 4 hours by the pool, catching some rays and sawing a few logs (we can’t keep up with these ffs).

We then had the driver of the hotel (pretty cool to have a driver at your disposal) take us to the store. The chauffeur Jake is a great guy. He proceeded to tell us that there are a lot of Canadian ffs in the hotel (he didn’t know they were our guys). He said that he had to take one guy to 3 different stores so he could buy his brand of chewing tobacco. It wasn’t a hard guess for Jodi and I that it was Brady from Red Deer County.

He then said that he also took 3 guys to the liquor store and they took forever to select a bottle of wine. We had to laugh at that one because it was Ron from Morinville who we asked to get us a bottle of wine. I imagine he was concerned about picking the right one!

The Fire Within staff went to the hotel lobby lounge to sample the world famous pineapple martini (very nice). Ed and Tammy from 150 Mile House stopped by to say hi. They had put on a lot of miles and were enjoying exploring all the classes being offered. Other ffs joined the group and we had a few drinks.

Brad from Morinville was giddy with excitement at his new iPhone. We also found out that if you scare Brad, he screams like a girl. He’ll deny it, but it’s true. He calls it a deep male bellow but it’s totally a valley girl shriek….like, totally.

The evening continued at Ike and Jonesy’s where the Bagpipers showed up and played some great sets for all the ff’s. Kevin (Strathmore) and Andrew (Irricana) busted out the dance moves. And first prize for the most impressive variety of dance moves goes to Brad from Morinville. I hear he’s giving lessons in the art of interpretive dance.

By 3 AM everyone was off in dreamland waiting for Day 5 at FDIC. Oh, except for Rob from Priddis who has made a reservation with the couch in our suite, as his roommate Doug (Priddis) has an amazing talent for generating shockwave tremors.