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Morning Lineup – February 9

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Saturday Morning – Making Summer Plans?

This is the time of year that vacation schedules are being made and leave slips submitted in the hopes that you have enough seniority to get the dates you are looking for.  If you live in the central Atlantic coastal region, we've just received our first fire apparatus muster announcement for this year.

The Cradle of Liberty Antique Fire Apparatus Association has sent us their poster for this year's annual muster that will be held in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, from July 31 – August 3.  This year's event will be a special one because they are also hosting the SPAAMFAA National Summer Convention, a very big deal.

We have been gladly plugging the Cradle of Liberty SPAAMFAA Chapter's musters for the past 3 or 4 years now and they have been steadily growing and getting better each year.  This one will put them over the top, I'm sure.  This year's theme will be a focus on fire appartus builders who are/were located in the greater Philadelphia area, such as Hale, Hahn, Mack and others.

We'll have more details on  the full program which includes several interesting  tours shortly, along with an internet link to the web page, so I'll be getting back to you on that.

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Before we head over to the apparatus for the morning check, I want to express our support and best wishes for our friends and colleagues in the New England area who are just now coming out from that unusual blizzard that just swept through their towns.  Fortunately the storm was very fast-moving and did not linger.  But during the few hours that it was battering the area, it dropped up to 3 feet of snow in some areas, and had some hurricane-strength wind gusts of 75 mph and more.

All of that has brought on a massive power outage for the entire region with still-impassable roads.  You know without me telling you what job that creates for the fire and EMS folks who are working that challenge today.  Send some good vibes and coffee their way this morning, will you?  Thanks.

Now let's get the equipment checked out and I'll make some extra coffee in the Bunn-O-Matic.  See you back in the day room shortly.

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Posted by on February 9, 2013 • Filed under: antique apparatus, morning lineup • Tagged: ,

Morning Lineup – February 8

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Friday Morning Travel Plans

Are you acquainted with the CBS television show The Amazing Race?  Personally, I have never watched it but I have certainly heard about it over the years.  It has been on the air since 2001, so it is obviously a very popular show to have that long a run.  It airs weekly for about 11 or 12 weeks and most years they have two "seasons" broadcast several months apart, so this next batch that begins next week is dubbed Season 22.

The Wikipedia entry for the show describes it:

The Amazing Race is an American reality game show in which typically eleven teams of two race around the world. The race is split into roughly twelve legs interspersed with physical and mental challenges, and require teams to deduce clues, navigate themselves in foreign areas, interact with locals, perform physical and mental challenges, and vie for airplane, boat, taxi, and other public transportation options on a limited budget provided by the show. Teams are progressively eliminated at the end of each leg; the first of the last three remaining teams to cross the final leg's finish line win one million dollars (US).

I'm talking about this today because FG reader Ron Y. passed along the information that one of the teams in this upcoming series is a pair of firefighters from Gaffney, South Carolina.  Matthew Davis and Daniel Moss work together, presumably at the Gaffney FD, and will be one of the eleven pairs of contestants that will be at the starting line on Sunday night, February 17.  You can read the program's online cast bio of Davis and Moss HERE.  So if you're looking for some escapism to get you through the final weeks of winter, here's a good diversion.

The guys from Gaffney  (CBS)

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Also I have been asked to pass along a reminder that SPAAMFAA, the national antique firetruck club will be holding its Winter Convention beginning next week in Jacksonville, Florida.  It gets underway on Wednesday the 13th and there will probably be a couple of well-restored antiques out there for you to look at.  SPAAMFAA's website is HERE.  Click on the Calendar button for convention details.

SPAAMFAA photo

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And, one more item that has been sent to us to share comes from Mark D. who was reading up on a 5-alarm fire in Boston the other night.  He spotted this interesting photo from the Boston Globe that captures the artisitic placement of the six aerial ladders.  He sub-titled it "Five Bells, Six Sticks."

Boston Globe photo

Thanks, Mark.

Now let's get our own fire equipment, old and new, ready for the day and get the morning check started while I fire up the Bunn-O-Matic.  See you back in the day room.

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Posted by on February 8, 2013 • Filed under: antique apparatus, morning lineup • Tagged: ,

Morning Lineup – August 29

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Wednesday Morning – What'll You Bid?

For those of you who are either collectors of fire memorabilia, or just like to go and look at them,  I want to pass along a heads-up that I caught on the Facebook Seagrave Firetruck Owners and Fans page recently.  There is an auction scheduled in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in October that will be offering the 50-yr. collection of noted fire antique fans, Robert and Harriet Potter.  Robert was one of the earliest presidents of SPAAMFAA (according to the FBer who posted this) and apparently has a remarkable collection.

The auction will be conducted by Showtime Auctions at the Farm Council fairground on October 5, 6, and 7.  I have to check my extensive archives, but I vaguely recall posting an auction notice from this same company a couple of years ago.  I just now checked Showtime's website and they don't have the catalogue-preview for the Potter collection posted yet, but they say it will be online by Sept. 6.  There will be other memorabilia collections of advertising and vintage store implements in the auction which explains the 3 days of selling activity.

(Mike Brandly)

I will try and remember to check back after the 6th and give you the fresh link on the auction listing.  Showtime is one of those modern auction companies that has internet connections allowing you to be at home and still bid "live" on items, so give it a thought.  If you want to keep an eye out for the auction posting yourself, here is the home page for Showtime where you can check back next week:  http://www.showtimeauctions.com/index.php .

If you live within a reasonable driving distance, I think it would be a "fun day" just to drive over and watch.  Who knows?  You just might find something that your wallet can handle to bring back home with you.

Right now, we need to check out our own vintage equipment and get ready for the day.  I'll head for the Bunn-O-Matic and get some more java going before we meet back in the day room in a little while.

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Posted by on August 29, 2012 • Filed under: morning lineup • Tagged: , ,

Morning Lineup – May 1

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From the “How Times Change” department comes a cute video that Dave Statter just posted on STATter911 this morning.  It’s a home-movie (it’s what they called them back then) taken by an imaginative group of volunteer FF’s in Laurel Springs, New Jersey, in 1959.  It appears that they had a Saturday drill scheduled for a house burning exercise and made a film re-creation of what they do when an alarm comes in, complete with a bay door accident.

A couple of things that I got a kick out of were the front-ramp dispatcher who ensured a safe and orderly response to the “emergency,” and the department’s Radio Car that responded to the call, too.  These days you barely have enough people to get one pumper out when the house siren blows, so there’s no need for the ramp dispatcher anymore.  But why don’t we have the Radio Car these days?  Those loud-speakers could sure come in handy on the fireground and perhaps an electric sign could be added to the roof that lights up the radio channel number that’s being used at the incident.  That way, all those people who are standing across the yard watching the house burn down would know what frequency to set their pocket scanners on.

radio car a

Seriously though, I think the Radio Car would be a great project for somebody who wants to sign up with SPAAMFAA and start going to the antique firetruck parades.  There are people who just don’t have the scratch to purchase and restore a pumper, but for them this would be an ideal project.  Just find yourself a 1955 Chevrolet panel delivery truck, paint it and add the speakers….voila! …. you’re in the club.  And probably the only Radio Car in the parade.  Everybody will want to take your picture.  Just a thought.  View STATter911′s vintage video HERE and then think about it.

While we’re on the subject of videos this morning, I just read (HERE) that the quirky tv series Trauma has been decisively canceled.  It began its run last September with an opening episode that was so preposterous that they drove away a lot of potential regular viewers.  While they did start to get the plot lines a bit more believable, the ratings never picked up and the series was dropped after just a few weeks.  After that, there was apparently an unusually strong viewer feedback asking for the series to be reinstated.  So, since the network still had some completed episodes that hadn’t been shown yet, they put it back on the schedule.

After a couple of weeks it started to look a little promising, so they ordered an additional four episodes to be made.  This past Monday they ran the final episode that they made and the ratings were still very weak, so they have put the show to rest for good.

We’d better get to work before we get cancelled though, so let’s get this equipment checked out.  I’ll go get the coffee started and then go over the Radio Car’s checksheet.  See you back in the day room in a little while.

Posted by on May 1, 2010 • Filed under: morning lineup • Tagged: , , ,