Realization

While administering to my blog in Blogger a few minutes ago, I realized I have been a dedicated watcher of NEWSMAX for almost 5 years. In the beginning it was on cable at the firehouse and part of my subscription with my Dish Network satellite package. It got yanked from the FD cable and I lost it on Dish when I cut back my subscription. I have been paying $49.99/year for a few years for an online subscription so I can watch it live any time I want, or stream shows I missed. It is back on the firehouse cable, but I usually have it streaming on my laptop in the bunk room office in a little pop out panel on the screen over everything else. I also get to watch it on my phone using the NEWSMAX app. So every time I happen to be somewhere garbage like CNN or MSNBC is on, I will not be part of their captive audience. And now that I have moved our cell service from Verizon to Pure Talk, I have all the data I could ever possibly use so they cannot restrict me from watching over their Wi-Fi. Although I do also have PCMatic's VPN service so I could watch or lookup whatever I want bypassing their restrictions.

A word about Pure Talk; with Verizon, I was paying $163.14 per month for 10GB of shared data, and my phone was well past end of life where my wife's was close to it. I was losing apps due to security issues with the long gone Android 8. Replacement phones were stupid expensive. We are now paying $95.47 per month for 25GB per line and we both got brand new Samsung A26 phones on Android 15 for $99.99 each. The phones each got an additional installed 512GB SD card and do everything we want them to do. The network coverage is so much better since we are no longer locked to Verizon and we can connect to 5G (not at my house, we just use 5G Wi-Fi anyway) when available.

So far so good.

Back to Normal

And just like that as of October 1st..... my blog traffic has dropped back to normal with only 38 views on my previous post since publish date of 10-1-25, and no additional comments on any of my posts.

The nerd in me is curious as to why the sudden but short duration spike in traffic. My normal self doesn't really give a flyin' fuck.

Plans For Cooler Weather

And more layers of clothing to easily conceal a handgun and spare mags. I am planning on carrying my full size Glock G-17 loaded with Hornady Critical Defense 115gr JHP rounds and two spare mags. In anticipation of this, I ordered and received yet another kydex OWB holster and mag carrier in black from OnYour6Designs.com to fit it. An initial test fit showed another well made product, that held my gun and mags securely, and when I have time I will figure out whether or not to cant the holster. All of this easily hides under a loose fitting flannel, fleece pullover, zippered hoodie, or when necessary a suit jacket. For normal times I will stick with the Kommiecticut legal 10 rounders, which I also have a half dozen always loaded up with Federal HST 147 gr JHP for the PCC-9. If things start getting spicier the carbine goes in the truck in a soft sided case that accommodates the mags. The pistol ammo will be changed over to the Federal so the mags can go in either weapon since the PCC-9 sports the Glock mag well.

But if things continue to go sideways I may break out the super deadly 17 rounders I have squirreled away for SHTF. The problem is getting "caught" with magazines over 10 rounds and making my "paper felonies" real ones. 

Blog Stats

More evidence of whatever is going on with the traffic to my blog. 16,800 views last month, with almost 68,000 and this month isn't over. Comment traffic is up too and I appreciate the engagement. At this rate I will hit the milestone of 1,000,000 "All Time" visitors before the end of the year. I know, peanuts compared to some well established blogs, but I'll take it. Even with all the traffic I refuse to monetize and clog my content with ads. IMHO that will be the excuse for Goolag to shut me down.

FD Service Call Today

I am on duty with the FD today. FYI... we do not rescue cats stuck in trees. That is a big city FD type call because they usually have a ladder truck that can reach the heights and retrieve the cat safely. We only have ground ladders that make that type of rescue extremely hazardous for us and require quite a bit of manpower. When they call the station for that circumstance I recommend people put food at the base of the tree and wait until they are so hungry they come down themselves. 

Mid-morning there was a knock at the front door. It was a elderly female resident that lives a couple of miles up the road and she told me she was a damsel in distress. She was on her way back from a veterinarian office in Hartford and had her cat in a pet carrier in her car. Because she is unable to manipulate the latch mechanism, she had the door tied shut. When the vet brought that cat out in the carrier, the string was gone and the door was latched but she didn't notice until she got home. She thought the latch was broken and stuck, but it just has a really stiff spring and she couldn't open it. I went outside to her car to look at the situation and check out the cat carrier for myself. I then called dispatch to log a service call incident and responded with our service truck. When I arrived at her house she was already inside with the cat. I showed her how to hook her fingers as leverage on the door and pull the latch with her thumb, but she still couldn't do it. I opened the door and stepped back and the cat scooted out. She sat on the rug several feet away looking at me, eyes as wide as dinner plates... and then she beat it up the stairs. I conversed with the resident for a few minutes before clearing the call and returning to quarters. So this is as close as I ever got to the cat rescue scenario.

 

Here is the official narrative from our NFIRS (National Fire Incident Reporting System)

"Resident stopped by Station XX looking for assistance with a cat stuck in a cat carrier. She had been to the vet and they locked the carrier. The resident could not open it due to the heavy spring on the latch. If the door was left loose in the vehicle the cat would escape. She requested assistance at her home to release the cat inside the house. Service-XXX responded to the resident's home and the cat was released safely."