Tuesday, October 30, 2007

A Wild Ride


20071026_Eskimos_0007
Originally uploaded by Morpheus_uk.
When I supervise a duty, everyone is comfortable, safe, and in a learning environment. When we have down time, we go over scenarios. We practice vitals. We try doing speed blood pressures. When a patients comes to us, people quickly either assign themselves to assist or leave the post. it is clear who is dealing with the patient, and it runs like a well oiled machine.

But we also have fun.

Friday was the last Eskimos home game for the season, and I was with a stalwart set of volunteers who have been there for just about every game. I honestly feel they made it more easy and fun for me that I ever could for them.

Thank you all. I laughed so hard on Friday night that my sides hurt when I woke up on Saturday morning.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Home Network Configuration


Home Network Configuration
Originally uploaded by Morpheus_uk.
I love my new home set up now.

I recently got a new PC. It has a small form factor and is about the same size as the sub woofer in my sound system.

Before I got the new PC, I also got a sweet 32" Samsung HDTV. For a while I had my laptop connected, running it as the biggest monitor I ever had and playing DVDs on it. A little later the XBOX 360 Elite came out, so I got one and took advantage of the HDMI connection. Now I play DVDs using that.

I had a nice PC that I could play WoW on, browse the net, play music, watch movies and downloaded TV. I had an XBOX that I could play games on. I had a nice TV that I could watch basic cable on. Everything seemed pretty sweet. The only downside was that if I wasn't actually home, I couldn't watch shows.


I realised something. I wanted to share files from the PC to the XBOX. I found TVersity which streams any content to any device capable of viewing it.

Then I realised something else. The new PC, with Vista Home Premium, has a Media Center. I did some research into things like personal video recorders and Windows Media Center and wondered what I could do to get all this to work. I realised I needed a TV Tuner.

After opening up my PC, I found that my super stonky graphics card took up both PCI slots available. Whoops. No big deal.

I went out and got a new monitor (just... because!), and a WinTV-PVR-USB2 thingy. I plugged them all in and installed the drivers and software.

I fired up Media Center. It told me it found a new TV Tuner. It asked for my postcode. It downloaded a 14 day TV Program Guide. It let me schedule things to be recorded. It was, frankly, utterly amazing.

Then I connected the XBOX to the PC as a Media Center Extender. I can watch live TV from my front room. I can schedule recordings from the front room. I can even, using the "MSN Remote Record Service", schedule recordings from work.

This is the first time in the years I've been using PCs that everything has just come together smoothly in one seamless package. The on screen interface is awesome. I didn't have a video recorded, or any other gadgets. I believe I can even set my laptop up as a Media Center Extender and watch TV from anywhere in the apartment.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Extremes

Tonight was the season opener for the Oilers. We only had three volunteers there, which made it a little hard to provide coverage, but the two extra I had are stalwarts who try to make it for every single Oilers game.

The game was going well, we were 2-1 up. I went over to the Game Day office and managed to get some Oilers bandannas for the other volunteers and we got a call on the radio for someone collapsed. I sent one member over, got the other to watch for pucks in the crowd on both sides, and... kinda sorta ran to the other side of the arena.

When I found my first responder, they were dealing with someone who had actually fallen down some stairs. They were over 90 and had a bump on the knee and a slight bump on the head. I tell yah, they don't make 'em like they used to.

I went to the post to get some ice for the bumps and met them on the other side, as they were heading out to go home. I popped into the Game Day office and thanked them for the bandannas - in all the rush I took them and just ran off.

The game went into overtime, just when we thought we'd have an early night. Power Plays, shots on goal, it all looked so close. Then BOOM, Shoot Outs! Rolly saved the right ones! Stolly scored the rights ones! A season opener win for the Oilers!

Then the phone went, and a medic we work with called in from the City EMS to give us the heads up that someone with an internal defibrillator had called in because it had fired twice. We hadn't been contacted about this, so we notified security and then searched around the area.

An EMS crew turned up and joined the search. We eventually found our patient, who was the shy side of 50. After requesting a specific hospital and being told he couldn't be guaranteed to be taken there, he wanted to go with his friends. We explained to him that if he died on the way there with his friends, he'd stay dead, but if he went with the EMS crew, they'd get him back no problem. He was convinced. Hehe.

So we had someone over 90 who was doing stunt tumbles down stairs, and another who was under 50 with a cardiac history and a fitted defibrillator. Just goes to show that you never know.