It's official. I just received a call this morning that October 18th is a go for my start date in Arcadia. If you guys don't know, I've worked for the Downey Fire Department this past year as a full-time firefighter. Recently I've decided to take a job with Arcadia to move back closer to home. It's an exciting opportunity for me because I get to work for the city I grew up in. Better pay, more incentives, and bilingual opportunity... just gave me more reason to. Come by for a tour, and don't forget the dessert. (firehouse tradition)

These last two months have flown by.  For work, things are good.  I decided to pursue the Arcadia position and am in my last steps in that process.  Wish me good luck.  As far as Downey, we had a pretty large fire and a traffic collision on the 5 freeway where a car went down an embankment and nailed a tree.  It wrapped the car around the tree and we had to extricate the patients out.

Wedding plans are coming along.  NOT!  haha.  We decided to put a halt on the process until after the Maui trip.  Speaking of the Maui trip... IT WAS AWESOME!!!  Here's the details.  Here a link to the photo album.   Click the second box. ">  The password is Maui.

Day One: It was a mess.  Our flight was suppose to be at 6:20pm, but we were stuck in that whole communications shutdown at LAX.  Our flight ended up being delayed two hours.  At least our flight didn't get canceled like some people.  Anyway, Susie, my coworker Sergio, his fiance Veronica and I arrived at Maui around 10:30pm their time. (they are 3 hours behind)  We checked in at the Hyatt Regency at Kaanapali.  We ended up going to sleep because it was so late.

Day Two:  We cruised the beach.  The Hyatt has their own private beach so it was cool.  We took some pictures and rented a cabana.  We pretty much took the whole day to swim in the pool and the beach.  It was sooo relaxing. The pool was awesome.  It had a grotto, waterfalls, and a large water slide.  The beach was cool too.  The water was so clear, blue, and warm.  In the afternoon, we went parasailing.  Susie, and I did it tandem.  We went 800ft out for 10 minutes.  It was so beautiful.  I think they said we were about 50 stories above water.  That was a cool experience.  We went walking around Lahaina.  This is one of the historic sites at Maui.  It's a street full of stores, vendors, and landmarks.  They have this store in Hawaii called the ABC store.  It is seriously as common as 7-11.  You can buy everything there from food, snacks, souvenirs, T-Shirts.  It's seriously your one-stop shopping.  That night, a bunch of us went to the Feast at LeLe.  That Luau is awesome.  We were served 4 different courses from 4 different regions. They also performed dances from those regions.  I was so FULL.  It was also unlimited drinks too!  We then decided to head over to Lahaina to walk around a little bit.  There was some drama so most of us went back to the hotel.  Anyway, we went back and everyone called it a night except Susie and I.  We decided to go swimming since the pools were 24 hrs.  It's so nice to swim at night.

Day Three: This day began the same day as before.   We chilled most of the day at the beach and pool.  Most of the remaining guests were arriving today.  I went boogie boarding with the groom for a little bit.  Once the remaining Downey guys arrived we drank at the pavilion.  We all had a about 3 151 Mai Tai's.  That was intense.  It surprised me that I could handle my alcohol better than those guys.  haha.  Anyway, that night all the guests that were in Hawaii met and ate at the Hula Grill.  This was a pretty good place.  It's located at Whaler's Village.  Anyway, we went swimming again after dinner.

Day Four: We woke up early to go jet skiing.  It was pretty fun.  We also went snorkeling at Black Rock in front of the Sheraton.  This was soo awesome.  It was cool feeding the fish and having them swarm me.  I also got to pet a sea turtle.  After that we went over to Lahaina to shop a little.  That night we had the dinner rehearsal.  It was at a restaurant called the Cheeseburger.  We rented out the whole second floor.  There was some confusion and they accidentally forgot to save the space for the bride and groom.  They ended up slowly kicking people out around sunset.  The food there was excellent.  It was one of the best burgers I've had.  Anyway, there was live music and lots of dancing.  We then headed to Moose Mc Gillicuddy's for a little after party.

Day Five: The day of the wedding.  It was held at a private plantation Olawalu.  I was one of the groomsman.  That was pretty cool since I've never been one.  We were all dressed in Tommy Bahamas.  It started with a Hawaiian priest blessing the marriage, continued with a song from the bride's brother, and ended with the vows from the bride's grandfather who is a priest.  The reception was pretty cool, and was tons of fun.  After the wedding, a bunch of us went to Spats.  It's a nightclub located in the Hyatt.  That was pretty cool.

Day Six:  Recovery mode.  We spent most of the day just shopping at Wailea, Lahaina, and Whaler's.  It was pretty relaxing.  In the afternoon, Susie had an idea to rent scooters.  So the both of us went down to check it out.  It turns out that only single riders could do it.  We were kind of bummed, but them... BAM!!  The store owner suggest a 2004 Harley Davidson Fatboy!!!!  Since I have a motorcycle license we went for it.  He gave it to us for the same price.  The scary part was no helmet law.  He laughed when we suggest a helmet.  We rolled to eat tacos with the rest of the group in style.  I LOVE THAT BIKE.  If i could I think I'd trade my sport bike in for a Harley.  They are sooo comfortable.  Anyway, Susie and I went for a cruise for a little bit. 

Day Seven:  LAST DAY!!!  We woke up early to cruise for 2 hours.  We cruised up the Highway up towards Kapalua, and Napilii.  We kept going up through this windy road.  It was so beautiful and lush.  Riding the Harley was incredible.  The cool breeze, bright sun, incredible scenery.... it was unbelievable.  Anyway, we turned in the motorcycle and began to wind up the trip.  We did some last minute shopping and headed towards the airport.  We stopped by a Maui fire station and picked up some T-shirts.  We chatted with the guys for a little bit and headed out.  That was it!!!  I can't wait to go back soon.  It was seriously incredible!  Anyway that's it for now.  I'll write more later.

I have a dillemma... what would you do?

When I went to those strike teams last week, I bumped into some Arcadia fire guys.  I don't know if I mentioned it, but I grew up in Arcadia.  I've been there for 15 years.  I was also an auxiliary firefighter there for 4 months.  Anyway, it happened to be four guys I knew when I worked there.  We had some small chat and then it happened.  Some of them were telling me how they felt that they should have hired me a long time ago, and that when Downey did they missed their opportunity.  To make a long story short, they made me feel real important and wanted.  There's some openings coming up really soon and they wanted me to reconsider it.  I was actually offered a position two months ago only to decline it.  I actually sat down yesterday and discussed the contract details of both cities... here's a short breakdown...

MORE pay (earlier I wrote marginally less but arcadia actually pays more but it takes a little longer to move to top step) ... more vacation... more overtime opportunity... two guys I went to academy with work there now... the city I grew up in... lump sum to pay for medical and dental (Downey pays full medical and HMO dental)... the city I grew up in... they pay per year 2,500 in tuition reimbursement for any type of education.. while Downey only work related... made some friends at Downey... one more station in Downey...  what do you think?

Work:  I finally got sent out to my first strike team... and it was interesting.  I worked my usual 3 days.. and at 4 in the morning on Thursday we received a request to form a strike team.  Along with Santa Fe Springs, Montebello, Compton, and Vernon, we all sent one engine each to the Pine fire located by Lake Hughes.  We made our way up there early in the morning and ate breakfast at base camp.  It was like how I saw it on the news.. portable kitchens, sinks, bathrooms, trailers with showers, tents with beds, and lots of firefighters.  Unfortunately for us, none of the beds were assigned for us.  We went to staging only to find out we were unassigned.. so we went back to base camp to nap.  We were assigned night ops to structural protection.  We set up cots and rotated through the night on fire watch.  I saw fire here and there, but nothing really intense.  By Saturday morning, they sent us home because they didn't need us.  However on the way back, we saw another wildfire, the Foothill Fire where the 5 and 14 meet.  We were requested in.  This fire was definitely intense.  We were one of the first group of engines there for structural protection.  The fire burned close and we were able to save the structure.  We cleared the brush around it and set up water hoses strategically in case anything started to burn.  Anyway, we were moved around alot that day to protect several structures.  Sunday morning we were relieved by a different crew because Downey only allows us to work 72 hour shifts on wildfires.

I MISSED SUSIE'S BDAY ON SAT!!!  SOOO SORRY!!!  Happy 26th Bday!!  I guess that comes with the job...

Anyway, I went to Catalina on Monday with Susie and her cousins and sister.  Definitely a nice, affordable place to spend a day and relax.  We ate good food, went kayaking, snorkeled, and golf carted around the town. 

Engagement:  I think we've booked a place.  It's the Westin Pasadena.  It's the same place that owns the Bonaventure.  It's a classy place, but not too overdone.  Within our budget and number of guests, it's an ideal place.  I think it'll turn out to be good.  Anyway the ball is finally rolling so we'll see how things go.  Write more later...

Work:  Work is going well.  It feels like probation is starting to wind down... luckily for me.  I have 9 more months to go, but supposedly the last 6 are more for formality.  The aerial truck has been back, and I was able to tiller or drive the rear for a shift.  What else... I impressed a Captain one shift while doing an assessment.  He's one of those really intense guys so when he asked me to do it I was a little bit nervous.  It was for chest pain so I ran down the assessment like I was trained to do.  PQRST - What Provoked the pain, Quality of Pain, Radiation/ Region of Pain, Severity (1-10), and Length of Pain  I went down this list and it worked perfectly.  July 4th weekend was calm and nothing really significant except confiscating illegal fireworks .  There was this huge one that was worth like 200 bucks.  It looked like a huge bomb.  I guess when you light it, it shoots multiple fireworks in the air.  Anyway, call-wise there hasn't been anything intense.  Last night, we had a call to shut off a fire alarm at a local high school.  I guess the bell rang every so often all day long.  The neighbors were getting mad so we were sent out at 11:30 pm to shut it off.  When we got there, the fire engineer tried to mess with the fire alarm panel.  Instead of shutting it off, he set off the fire drill alarm.  (like when we have earthquake, or fire drills in school)  It rang like that for 5 minutes.  The other firefighter and I laughed, but we stopped because we didn't want to piss off the captain.  Anyway, we found the power switch to the whole thing, and notified the person in charge. 

July 4th BBQ:  It was pretty fun.  I went over to Johnny's house, one of my Arcadia buddies.  We had a barbeque.  There was plenty of food and alcohol.  It was pretty mellow.  The highlight of the bbq was that we played dodgeball!!  Who would have known, but it was pretty fun.  Anyway you can find pictures and more about it at  http://www.arcaholics.com  We also went to Level 3 afterwards.  I left early because I had work the next day.

Wedding Plans:  We are still looking for places.  This Thursday, I think we're looking at 5 different places.  We're going to decide on where pretty soon, hopefully by next week.  Anyway, the date will most likely be the 9th of July, 2005 although that is still tentative.  When we get these two things going, that's when the ball will begin to roll.  (or at least faster)  That's it for now.  If anyone wants to buy an old glass fish tank with a stand, and a light hood, email me.  I'm selling it for 90 bucks.  Until next time....