A couple of overnight updates were waiting this morning that are worth mentioning.  Longtime reader Dal90, who stays up a little later than I do, sent along a develoment in the Boston underground trolley accident that occurred last night (scroll down to the next posting for the story).  It was disclosed that the driver of the second train was “texting” while he was propelling his passengers through the tunnel.

Are there any words that can express the outrage or astonishment at this action?  Just how irresponsible can somebody be?  The MBTA had a similar incident just about a year ago when a train driver was suspected of using her cell phone on an above-ground segment and caused a similar, but more devastating, accident.  They never did find out for certain if she was indeed doing that because the driver became one of the fatalities.  But one of the outcomes of that investigation was the implementation of a zero-tolerance policy that prohibits the train operators from using any electronic device at all while on the job.  Zero.

And yet this lunkhead goes right ahead and does it anyway.  What is with these people who think that rules don’t need to be followed?  That gets back to one of our favorite themes here, character.  Surely there must be some sort of screening available that will indicate somebody’s willingness to work within the confines of the company’s rules and regulations.  I wonder, too, if his age and maturity have any bearing on his sense of responsibility.  The driver at fault in yesterday’s wreck is but 24 yrs. old.  While there are many young men of that age that are perfectly capable of operating heavy machinery,  I have to believe that it is a “gray zone” of growth and maturity and his behavior points toward a lack of both.  They hired him when he was age 22.  What do you think?

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The other development was disclosed by Dave Statter (who never sleeps) at STATter911 when he reported during the witching hour that Omaha’s randy (former) fire captain Darren Bates was acquited at his trial yesterday from charges arising out of a prostitution sting operation.  STATter911 first reported the story HERE and we had a couple of follow-ups HERE and HERE.  Follow those links if you want to review the background of this strange case because there are several side stories that emerged from the mess including the Fire Chief’s handling of expense accounts when he was the union president.  Bates was fired from the department back in March, but they insist that his dismissal had nothing to do with his motel room peccadillo.  “I wanted it to be sexy, but I didn’t want sex,”  Bates said yesterday following the acquittal.

But in the spirit of the muck that has been created in all this, still another side effect has arisen from this sporting adventure that we didn’t know about previously.  KETV Ch. 7 is reporting:

Bates said that he was sorry that prosecutors made him name other firefighters who have sought out massages on Craigslist.

 

“I do regret my brother firefighters have been dragged into this. They were brought in by the attorneys as part of the defense and prosecution,” he said. “I love all of my brothers on the fire department and I’m sorry if any kind of black eye has been given because of this case.”

“If looks could kill…”
photo taken during yesterday’s trial

Wow!  How’d you like to be a fly on the wall the next time the wives have a “girl’s night out”?  Stay tuned, folks.  There’s bound to be more.

But now we have to tune in to the equipment check sheet and get ready for today and the usual Saturday shoppers’ mishaps.  I’ll get some coffee going.

One of our sharp-eyed readers, John S. has tentatively identified the make of steam fire engine that is being demonstrated in the video that we’ve been running over on the right for a few days now.  It appears to be nearly identical to this steamer that recently sold at auction in London for just under $55,000.

Bonham’s

The engine pictured here is a Metropolitan model built c. 1898 by the William Rose & Co. Engineers of Manchester.  The auction house description tells us that these small steamers were purchased and used by large country estates as a form of private fire protection.  Several of the estate workers would be trained in its use and it was usually the only fire defense available for a county manor house.

This particular engine is further described as having “twin high pressure cylinders with external valve chests, a pushrod-operated feed pump and twin nozzle double acting pump with pressure dome in series.”    John also sent us a photo of a typical nozzle that was used at the time:

This was made by Shand Mason, a manufacturer of both fire engines and appliances such as this nozzle.   John tells us, The couplings were secured by a compression ring rather than threads and the name Shand Mason was hand stamped in the couplings. The body of the larger playpipes is a piece of copper formed into a tube and edge soldered and the butted seam. The coupling and tip are hand worked brass.  Thanks for all the info., John.  I’ll leave the video up for another day.

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The makers of 5-Hour Energy drink are running a contest that they’d like you to know about.  It’s called the “Hardest Working Fire Station” contest and it’s free to enter.  All you have to do is go to this web page HERE and fill out the form where you explain in 250 words or less why your station is the Hardest Working Fire Station in America.  The contest rules define that as the U. S. only.

The winners get 555 bottles of 5-Hour Energy drinks and some related publicity.  So if you like to enter contests, check this one out.

Let’s get the equipment checked out now.  I’ll start a pot of my own energy drink that’s made out of ground coffee beans.  We’ll meet back in the day room in a little while.

I’m thinking about just putting my gray matter on R & R this morning.  Over the past couple of days I seem to have become innundated with “things to do” and cleaning up some odds and ends.  A sort of cranial overload, and I’m supposed to be retired.  Hah!

Thankfully, Dave Statter has relieved me of part of the backlog.  I was going to post an article on a 4-alarm fire in Las Vegas yesterday that finished off one of the oldest casino/hotel buildings in the city, but “He Who Stays Up All Night” put up a fine story about the former Moulin Rouge theater/hotel.

Back in 1955 when it opened, there were very few casinos outside the downtown area along Fremont St.  The famed Strip was just starting to fill in beyond the Desert Inn and The Sands.  At that time all of the gambling businesses in Las Vegas were tightly controlled by the Mafia and the tabloid press had full-time reporters there doing nothing but covering the shenannigans of the gangsters and entertainers.  The Moulin Rouge wasn’t in the area that would become The Strip, but they had good connections, at first anyway.

When it opened it was heralded as the first major casino/hotel that was racially integrated.  Frank Sinatra and his gang made a big show of “hanging out” there and publicized it.  But the owners failed to get along with somebody influential for reasons never discovered, (Firegeezer speculates that it was the unions) and only five months after opening, the place closed and filed for bankruptcy.  It never recovered, only occasionally being reopened as apartments or futile tries at restoring the casino, but by and large it sat unused for most of the 55 years since.  Six years ago an arson gutted the casino building (a vagrant set it deliberately and spent 4 yrs. in prison for it) and then yesterday another major fire wiped it out, only hours after it failed to sell at a foreclosure auction.

STATter911 has some more along with a couple of videos of yesterday’s fire HERE.

Now we’d better make sure our license stays valid and get this equipment checked out.  I need to get some more coffee going, too.  See you later in the day room.

Amazon.com’s Kindle is back in the news today.  Most of you know already that I’m fascinated with the gadget, even though I don’t have one and don’t plan on buying one anytime soon.  But I’m always interested in anything connected with the transfer of information.  Couple that with my lifelong enjoyment of books and Kindle just naturally draws my attention, as evidenced by my writing about it a couple of months ago (HERE).

Today Amazon has a 10:30 am Eastern press conference scheduled where they are expected to introduce a new wide-screen model that is supposedly designed to accommodate newspaper and magazine pages in a more traditional format.  This upgraded screen will be 9.7 inches as opposed to the current 6-inch screen that’s available now.  The expectation is that the downloaded versions of the periodicals will now allow them to display the traditional mix of editorial content and advertising in the same view, thus increasing their effectiveness.  Sounds good on (digital) paper, doesn’t it?

If there’s anybody who could use a lifeline these days, it’s the print periodicals.  The newpapers have their unique problems that we’ve talked about before, and the magazines have taken a double blow from the costs of printing now and the terrible treatment by the post office which is the primary delivery source of them.  Not only are magazines slow in getting delivered – and often in shabby shape when they get there – but the postal service has raised the cost of mailing for them so high that it makes subscription prices more of a luxury than they should be.

Supposedly, with this new Kindle coupled with your electronic subscriptions, you will automatically be sent the current issues of the papers and mags as soon as they’re released.  With this wide-screen format you will be able to see the illustrations and photos (and ads!) better.  And look for a rapidly-growing textbook download program, too.  Starting with college students, they’ll be able to download their required texts onto the Kindle and I don’t need to point out the size and weight savings alone that that will bring.

For me, the big drawback is the retail price of the device.  Amazon is still peddling it for $359.  When you buy a book to download, at least that price includes the mili-second of time on the cellphone network to send the data burst your way.  But there’s a bright spot rising …. News Corp. and Apple are both rumored to be working on competing devices that do the same thing as the Kindle.  With a bit of competition, the price will start dropping noticeably, I’m sure.  When it gets down to $99, I’m in!

Let’s get back to the old-fashioned style of checklists now and get this equipment checked out.  I need to get the coffee started.