The news

One of the cool things about working in a big city is that a lot of the major fires and traffic accidents that we see make the news. I've already seen the back of my head on TV (I'm one of the taller guys on most calls, and I've got distinguishing orange probie stickers on my helmet) The other night we made a fire at an abandoned home that was fully involved when we got there and ended up being a total loss. My friend happened to be working on the ladder truck at the same station where I was on the engine, and he ended up getting on the news as they were cleaning up the mess and waiting for arson (we were put back in service, so I never saw the news crews). We were 2nd in to that fire, but since it was decided that we were going defensive from the start, I got to pull one of our preconnects and actually help put out the fire.

We're hoping to have found our home, a 6 bedroom home out in the country. It's an older home that is going to require some work, but it's nice and appears to be clean. The people selling it are asking a bit much for it, and they aren't budging much on the price, but we think we may have found a compromise. The property that is for sale is a 1.5 acre lot with the home on it, and 4.7 acres of excess land that's currently being rented out for farming. They wanted 215,000 and we offered 180. They said they would sell us the land that the home is on only for that price, but we'd like to get some land to grow some fruit trees and a big garden. We're trying to get them to redraw the property lines and give us 2 acres, and sell the other 4.25 acres to someone else. Here's hoping it works out, there aren't a whole lot of 6 bedroom houses for sale in that area, but we want to make sure we're getting a fair deal. When we hear anything we'll post it.