This is one of those days where we are starting out with nothing on the clipboard. No new standing orders from above; no special announcements; and nothing passed on from last night’s shift. I’m also glad to see that there isn’t a pile of dirty hose stacked next to the hydrant waiting for us to run through the washer. So let’s take advantage of this temporary cease-fire and review our suggested web-reading practices.
By now, I hope that you are acquainted with the FireEMS Blogs homepage where we are parked between calls. It is the portal that leads to a fine selection of – you guessed it – fire and ems blogs. But there is a little more to it than that, so let’s take a moment to look over the home page and review how best to use it.
First, I want to point out that there are some affiliated website that are not blogs, but are still quality sites that we all recommend and watch ourselves. Look over on the left sidebar and scroll down a short ways. Directly beneath the alphabetical listing of blogs you will see another box titled The Fire & EMS Web. These are primarily news sites and some of them specialize in a locality or state. You don’t have to live anywhere near North Carolina to enjoy FireNews.net, for example.
Directly beneath that box is another titled Featured Topics. A lot of you enjoy viewing the wide variety of videos that are posted every day. Click on the Video tab and you’ll get the links to the ten most recent postings that have videos in them.
Heading up the right sidebar is a box that features a different blog each day, perhaps introducing you to some that you haven’t sampled yet. A little farther down the right side is a box that says Hot Discussions. These are links that take you directly to Firefighter Nation forum pages that are currently getting the most activity. You can jump right in and see what’s currently hot and join in.
My first stop on the homepage is in the center column under Latest Posts and Still More Posts. It’s a dynamic box that is constantly updated as fresh articles are posted and you can skim along and go directly to any that look interesting to you. So when you set time aside to browse the fire and ems websites, start out by reading Firegeezer and then click over to the FireEMS Blogs homepage to make your webtime more fulfilling and efficient.
But right now we have to efficiently check out this equipment. I need to get some more coffee started. See you back in the day room.
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