it's been quite a while. life has been exceptionally busy right now. never in my wildest dream that i could've thought of the amount of work that comes with rota commandeering duty. my OC bugs the RCs and DRCs a hell of a lot but i suppose he means well. deep inside the frantically authoritative man is a small, soft carebear-ish sofa spot for all his men in the fire station.

for a guy who has eluded work for most of his life, this new experience is pretty overwhelming. not that i'm truly dreading it. the first official turnout without supervision for a generator fire with the basic task force, firebikes and pump ladder out together, was wicked. imagine yourself sitting inside the pumper (or fire engine as most people would've called it), already out from the station on your way to the incident site and your firebikers, your station mates, speeding up from behind you also trying to get to the incident site. of course, with the need to get to the incident site by the stipulated response time of eight minutes, these hell riders are good men who will save you from the spanking you'd get if you don't get to the site within eight minutes with the traffic and what not. still, with all the requirements and procedures and protocols in mind, just seeing them go, you'd expect a pumper to follow them from behind and there's a lag, a realization, amidst the semi-chaotic noises from the sirens and matra sets and the blinker lights that you are actually one of the firemen in the pumper. the first thought that came to my mind was:

this is so. fucken. COOL.

and to top it all off, the fire control that you'd relay your messages to using your communication sets, matras and MDTs (aka walkie-talkies), is actually your father.

"PL 151 to fire control, responding to location, over."

"PL 151, you're responding to location, roger, roger."

priceless, man. totally priceless.