rcmedic

you lucky bastard. I like the AR-15 a lot, but they're illegal for us lowly civlilans in this damn state. :-P I suppose I could get a fab-10.. at 3x the price and half the function.

I have nothing but seething hatred for people that are in Catagory 1. *growls* I remember a couple years back some idiot 'camgirl' dragged her webcam into the bathroom and then ate a bunch of pills while her webcam captured every moment. Then when the university EMS folks showed up, she claimed that it wasn't a suicide attempt at all. (Like we're all idiots.) I wanted to stuff her webcam in her nose.

"Cry."

You know, I dunno about that one. It might be a geographical thing. In my class, I'd say that nearly 1/2 of the class are women of various ages. The youngest one I know of is 19, another is 36, and there are a couple that I believe are in their early 50s.

Several of the women in my current EMT-B course are way older than 33. I'm 30 myself, actually. I've found that at this age, the information sinks in a bit better, and I've gotten over the "I know it all" stage. (Nobody knows it all, and nobody has seen it all.) I took some EMT-B courses 11 years ago, and feel that I'm much more mature now. (heh) So, no, I don't think that your age will be a problem.

Then again, this is the Bay Area. We have enough problems getting idiots to use turn signals and turn off cell phones inside movie theatres *and* classrooms. Respect is something that I was brought up with, but it certainly does seem to be missing for many others.

As Internet Explorer is nothing but a huge security hole, has no tabbed browsing, and is generally slower than Firefox. The fact that ActiveX stuff will happily run & install in the background is a bad thing. Oh, and I don't see popups, or annoying Flash ads. Firefox = rocks.

Dude, that was great information. Thanks! :-)

I've seen a few other posts regarding podcasts, and figured that I'd kill some time and do a quick howto for podcasts. Lots of podcast software exists (since podcasts are just plain ol' mp3 files anyway) but it is my belief that iTunes is the easiest way to go. :-) You'll need: * A working computer and hopefully a broadband connection. * iTunes! If you have a machine with Mac OS X (you smart human, you!) then you're well ahead of the game. Just run Software Update (from the Apple Menu) and make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes. Then follow along from step 4. 1)Go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ and download the current version of iTunes. As of today, the current system requirements are as follows: Windows Requirements * Windows XP or 2000 (latest service packs recommended) * 500 MHz Pentium class processor or better * QuickTime 7.0.3 (included) * 256MB RAM * Supported CD-R or DVD-R drive to burn CDs * Broadband Internet connection (DSL/Cable/LAN) for buying and streaming music If your computer doesn't meet those requirements, for the love of God, please buy a newer computer. I bought a 533mhz Pentium III back in 2001. RAM is also very cheap these days. Buy more RAM. Most of you probably oughta buy some more RAM anyway as often computers ship with an inadequate amount of RAM. 2)Install iTunes and reboot your machine. I should also point out that running Windows Update is a good idea. You should be grabbing the critical security updates anyway. To run Windows Update, open Internet Explorer, go to Tools and then choose Windows Update. It's pretty self explanatory from there. 3)Once iTunes is installed and you've rebooted, launch iTunes. 4)Click "Advanced" and then choose "Subscribe to Podcast." 5)Enter the following - http://www.emslive.com/xml/podcast.xml and click "OK." iTunes will automatically download the latest episode. The previous episodes will show up with a button that says "Get" next to it. That's basically it. Click on the episode you want to listen to and click the "Play" button. If you have an iPod (which you should!) then you can set iTunes to copy the latest podcasts to your iPod. If any of you have questions or run into problems, let me know via a PM or catch me in chat and I'll be happy to help you out.

Did you buy one of the new iMacs or pirate the software online somewhere? Yeah, it's pretty cool. The new iMacs are quite nice as well. The biggest drawback to offering movies is the sheer size of them. The way the TV shows are encoded keeps the file sizes fairly small. Oh, and there's the overly greedy movie studio execs. People are already pissed at Disney because they're claiming that offering TV shows on the iTunes Music Store will cut into their rerun/syndication profits. Nice, eh? Studios are angry because people might not sit there and watch syndicated reruns but will buy them from Disney & Apple as an ad-free video. Personally, I cannot stand watching TV unless there are no ads. I gather my TV shows (in HDTV quality!) from places other than my television, and it's much better. Advertisement free TV = MUCH better experience, especially with the current crop of TV shows. I love "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica" quite a bit. :-D

And for those on a budget, the iPod Shuffle is the way to go. Actually the Nano is pretty cool too. iTunes 6 = useful for podcasts. You can subscribe to podcasts, and it'll automatically update the playlist for you.

Hey, thanks for the information. Like I said, it will be a couple of years before we move out there (I'd move tomorrow if I could, though) so maybe the area will have grown a bit and more openings will exist. Having a stable crew is a good thing - means that they're happy with the job. Right? My soon to be fiancee works in clinical research at the Stanford Hospital.. if you know of any research jobs there, drop me a note! If at all possible, I'm going to try to get my EMT-P while I'm still out here.. but that'll be a while after I finish my -B and start working.. I didn't think about Fargo either. How bad is the drive up Hwy 29? I could happily live somewhere in the middle. Last time we were out there, it took a little over an hour from Grand Forks to Fargo, but the roads were clean & dry. I don't know how it is during bad weather. Oh, and if you happen to have any random photos of the area, feel free to send them my way. /me is painfully sick & tired of living in California.

Oh, great.. thanks! Yeah, even seemingly random information would be great to me. I'm hopng to move there in a year or so although the exact time frame might depend on the ol' significant other & her job. We've both visited the area and absolutely LOVED it. Might even go back and spend New Years there as well.

I'm looking to relocate to Eastern North Dakota area, most likely Grand Forks or East Grand Forks, MN. I was wondering if anyone on here is familiar with the EMS structure out there. I'm going to guess that a lot of it is volunteer/rural EMS. How are things? Interesting? Busy? Slow? Anything. I'd like to hear anything at all about it. :-) Oh, another question is this.. do rural EMS providers participate in search & rescue operations or are there other organizations there that specialize in that? (Out here, there's a few specialized S&R operations) Basically, I want to hear from people that are familiar with it. Sorry if I'm bad at composing lucid questions today. (Yes, I know that it snows there. I'm looking forward to it.)

Holy cow, you guys are insane! When I worked at the airport in Seattle, we'd send newbies out to other airlines to borrow equipment. "flight line" and "prop wash" were some of our favourites.. untill we sent a n00b over to Alaska Airlines and he actually came back with something. One of their mechanics was on to us and decided to answer the 'prop wash' one with some really nasty stuff he drained out of the lavatory system on a Boeing 737. We quit sending people over to Alaska Airlines after that one.