Things have been going well for me lately.

I love my new job and my partner is a pretty cool dude. Today marks my fourth day working on my own without trainers and it's gone well. I'm lucky to have a partner i get along with, but there are some things we are going to have to iron out for it to be smooth sailing all the way.

Firstly, I am going to put a stop to his insistance that we fake our vitals. I may be a rookie and he may not think it's important but I want to do everything by the book.

Second, I have to explain to him that the back of the bus is my domain and I will run it as I please. He actually got annoyed that I wanted to keep pillows and fresh blankets in stock for my patients. LOL. He said it didn't matter, but I disagree. Every patient should at least have the option to have a pillow. I felt so bad when he refused to give one of my patients a pillow when we put her on the stretcher, and there were none on the bus, so I had to use several blankets.

For the most part we get along though. He's a good driver, and we joke around and we don't fight. We talk about crap, and check out girls while we drive around. It's pretty funny actually, pointing the spotlight at chicks while they walk by.

We went to this chinese food spot in Washington Heights called "U" Like. So now if we think a girl is hot, we'll ask each other, "Chinese Food?" if we wanna point out a girl without our patients knowing what we're talking about. It just sounds like we're contemplating what to eat. Ha ha.

Today I'm here at Economy for a few hours doing a few updates, and then I'm off to AMR, for another day on the Chinese Food Patrol. Hahaha.

Kush is finally opening next friday again, so I want to round up the troops and go out there next weekend. Karsh Kale will be spinning so it's gonna be a sick night over there. I know Cindy, Rene, Monique and Melissa will def be down. I can't wait to go relax in my favorite lounge.

I met this really cute Phillipino girl at the bus stop on my way home on Tuesday night. We talked all the way home about all kinds of crap. I've been out of the game for so long though that after she got off the bus I realized I hadn't even gotten her name! I felt like such a dork. However, we made plans to meet up again on the bustop soon, since we both take the same bus home. I'll rememebr to ask her name next time.

Tomorrow is Boozers again, and Saturday is gonna be my first Yankee Game ever. That's gonna be madd fun. And they're playing the Texas Rangers! Sweet, dude.

Anyways, I better wrap this one up, I'll post again soon.

Doc out.

It's been my second day at AMR, and I have to say that my "training" is going extremely well so far.

Yesterday, on my first day, I was assigned my trainers, Nicki and Charlie, who are really great teachers. It's been a very hands-on experience and I'm glad that it has been, after I've heard from other trainees that they have only been observing and not doing any work.

Nicki hurt her foot over the weekend so Charlie and I were basically working together as partners without Nicki.

Today Charlie did not come in, so we ran the shift with Ynoh Gomez, which is pronounced John. He's Colombian and I have no idea where he got a name like Ynoh. Ynoh and I did all of our calls without any assistance from Nicki today, and she tells me I'm basically clear to work on my own now, but she wants to keep me till Friday because of her foot. That's cool with me, I appreciate her honesty.

Many of the other ambulance comapnies have been giving us the look because of what happened on the other day in Manhattan with the doctor getting run over by the AMR ambulance. I have to admit it was weird going to work on my first day and finding out that my company had just killed someone a day before. But it was an accident. However, others see it as a chance to take a stab at us. Oh well.

Anyways, I'm very sleepy and I gotta get to bed now. I actually should have been sleeping half an hour ago, since I've been getting up at 4:15 AM. I'm also experiencing some dizziness right now, and I'm not sure if it's teh computer screen or lack of sleep. Either way, I'm heading out now.

I'll post more details about my week at a later time; It's sleepy time now.

Doc Out.

It's absolutely beautiful outisde. And there's nothing to do! It's such a beautiful day, I just want to be out and about.... but where... and with who. Sometimes it really sucks to be out so far in Long Island when everyone I know is in Queens or Brooklyn. Or maybe it's that I still haven't registered my car so I can't go anywhere.

I keep having dreams about a girl in particular. It's weird cuz I have no idea who she is. I can never remember her face, except that she not exceptionally beautiful but pretty. I also remember that her name is Gladys and she's Colombian. The dreams are never sexual in nature... just us walking around and shit. I can't remember anything else though. And I don't know any Colombian girls named Glady's.

The real weird part is that I miss her for a few seconds when I wake up. LOL. Mad freakin weird. Hahaha.

LOL. I'm thinking of starting a seperate blog that's just a dream log. So I can keep track of all the whacky dreams I have. LOL. I just have to figure out how I'm going to do it as soon as I wake up... because I'm such a lazy bum in the morning.

OK, I need to do something, or I'm going to feel like I wasted a perfectly beautiful sunny day. Maybe I'll take the railroad into the city... I dunno. We'll see.

Doc out.

Ok, so like I said; I'd be over it by the time they got here.

I know Cindy's gonna read the entry before this one... but as long as it remains an uncommon occurence I can't forsee me and her actually having to have a talk about it. It was just twice that's she's bullshitted me in the past few days. Not an everyday thing. So no big deal. It shouldn't happen at all, but whatever.

I'm not angry anymore... but that doesn't mean I wasn't before. It irked me and that remains true, but it wasn't serious enough to get all pissy about it and ruin the night.

We cooked and played poker all night. It was alot of fun. It got a bit chilly and we took it downstairs and finished our poker game in the basement.

I love it when Cindy gets drunk though, she's so funny. Tommy on the other hand... he's a tough one to control... but we managed. Armando suprisingly was problem-free tonight.

So that's the story. I'm going to bed.

Doc out.

I'm extremely disappointed right now.

We're supposed to be having a barbeque at my house tonight and my friends are pissing me off.

Oh, they're still coming. They're late, but that was expected since Fernando is the one driving everyone. He's always late. He said he's be here around 7:00 - 7:30 PM... no late than 8:00. However, it's 9:44 now. But that was expected.

The shit that royally fucking pisses me off is the following. I hadn't heard from them since 7:45, which was when Fernando called to say he was on his way. So I called them 10 minutes ago. First Cindy... no answer. Then Tommy. No Answer.

I wait 5 minutes and I call Cindy's phone again and she picks up saying, "We'll be there in 10 minutes, wait for us in front of the supermarket."

I replied, "The Supermarket?"

Then she realized I wasn't Armando and froze up for a second and says... "Oh, Oh, this is David. Uhh... uhh...we're on our way."

I was so pissed. They had been hanging up on me because they hadn't wanted to tell me that they hadn't even left Queens yet. I expected as much from Fern. I expected as much from Tommy. But for someone who bitches so much about Fernando and his inability to tell the truth or call someone... I certainly did not expect that shit from Cindy.

She didn't even tell me the whole truth after she got caught. Everything she gave me as an explanation sounded like the kinda crap the authorities give the media when they are lying. She told me there had been a "miscommunication." That Armando had been left behind and they had to go back and get him. How do you just leave someone behind. No. They waited for him. They waited because he had called me a little bit before 8:00 PM telling me to get in touch with Fern because he needed to go to do something and he wanted them to wait for him.

Right. Left Behind. Miscommunication. Apparetnly there was. But not with Mando. With me. Not miscommunication, but non-communication.

Also, it pisses me off because I wanted them here before my parents get home, so they couldn't bitch about all these people being over and what not. Now they are going to walk in with a 24-case of Coronas, and I'm going to hear it later about how we're "all a bunch drunks".

Not even that, but the laws in my town here don't allow barbequing past a certain hour, because of the the stupid people who live here. They complain about everything. So this means, we may not even get to cook, with them getting here after 10:30 and all.

Maybe it bothered me so much because she had bullshitted me on thursday and said she didn't feel well and that's why she wasn't coming to The Patriot. Then she had gone on to claim she had called me. Maybe she did, but then she should have left a message saying she wasn't coming. Especially since the reason she wasn't feeling well was because she had gotten drunk with Tommy. She thought I hadn't known though.

Fuck it. I'm pissed. I'm venting. And I rather vent onto this journal before they get here so I don't vent in their faces. It's not that serious, but it irks the shit out of me to see someone do something that they supposedly hate so much from someone else.

I'll be fine by when they get here. I'm done now.

Doc out.

Yesterday afternoon, I left work early to go finish up some loose ends that needed some tying before I could officially start working for AMR.

I met with René downtown on Canal so I could pick up a copy of my birth certificate from the Department of Health. Monique works across the street at the DA's office, so we met up with her real quick and got some coffee at the Starbucks she used to work at.

I headed uptown to Harlem to the DMV, because it was the only easily accessible DMV that had a licensing office and a traffic violations bureau. I got the suspension lifted off of my Florida driver's license and now have a valid NYS license. It took me almost four hours to get out of the DMV.

Afterwards, I met with Monique at the Patriot, which is rapidly becoming our new hangout. We finally decided to explore the second floor of the place and found that it is actually a fully-stocked clone of the downstairs. Sure, some of the things are arranged a bit differently, but it could very well be a whole bar unto itself.

She and René were having some problems and once he got there I gave them some time alone and hung out by the bar. The bartender upstairs wore only a bra. And she was hot. And funny. She was really wilding out, but she knew how to keep her customers happy. She got up on the bar and pranced up and down the length of it, pouring shots into peoples open mouths.

She gave me a pitcher of Coors and two shots of Jim Beam and I went back to sit with Moe & Mo. Monique left early, and Rene got extremely drunk. On the way home he threw up all over Penn Station. I found out today that he missed his stop on the train and ended up in Lynbrook of all places, where he spent the night outside on the street and then went home in the morning.

Today was bright and early off to good ol' Carteret. There was extreme flooding on the Grand Central so I missed the ride in with PJ, so I took the NJ Transit bus from the Port Authority. It wasn't a difficult trip at all, and it made me wonder about the effort put in by some a certain ex-employee of Economy. The bus literally dropped me off ONE block away from ther job.

After work I took the Q59 from Williamsburg to the doctor's office in Maspeth to have my PPD shot read. I got some fried wontons from Apollo's and some of that world famous Iced Tea. Mmm.

Took a walk from the doctor to the subway on Queens Boulevard, and off to Cindy's house. Tommy was dead asleep and Cindy and Armando were playing Street Fighter II Turbo on the SNES.

Now were just relaxing and waiting around for Fernando to come by and take us to Boozers since my car is trapped in my driveway by a non-working Bonneville, and an Explorer that has no battery. So now it will sit there until it's legal to drive it. I guess in the long run it's the better thing.

TOnight will be more pitchers of beer and whisky for me. I'm letting Cindy work solo today, but as usual I'll be around for backup. Electronics tend to obey me when they wanna act funky. One good whack on the amp usually resuurects it... kinda like a precordial thump.

Louis is coming to the bar tonight. It's his birthday next week. But he plans to get fucked up tonight. And he has to drive an ambulance on the overnight shift. It kinda worries me. I'll try to make sure he doesn't get too bad before work.

Well... that's all for now.

Doc out.

I am so exhausted. It's close to 11 PM and i just got home from the new employee orientation at AMR. However, I have to say that after the long and mostly boring orientation, I am finally a working EMT. I'm finally putting my $1000 investment to some use.

I arrived bright and early at ten minutes to 9 AM for the orientation. The program started promtly and they started us off with a overview of the company and it's goals.

Things took a turn toward Boringsville after that.

We watched a lengthy video on sexual harrassment in the workplace. Then another long vieo on violence in the workplace. Then a video on road saftey, which centered on the story of an AMR EMT working in Massachussetts that died needlessly back in 2001 because he was not driving with due regard or wearing his seatbelt. That was actually a touching story.

Then on to fill out paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork.

After lunch, we were fitted for our uniforms, and given a temporary uniform to use during our field training. They didn't have a shirt that fit me just right, so the only option was to use a 5XL. Yes. A 5XL. As in Five. Cinco. Cinq. One, two, three, four, five. How big is a person who wears 5XL? Lord Almighty. It looks like a burka on me. And I'm a big motherfucker, but not 5XL-type big. I'm going to have it altered so it fits better.

The EMT trousers fit perfect, and the OPS supervisor was kind enough to give me an AMR jacket to wear over my excessively large shirt. So this way I can maintain some semblance of professionalism.

I can't wait until my own fitted uniform arrives.

Well after all this there was just one more step to complete. The lifting exercise involving the dreaded Stryker that Priscilla had so warned us about.

It was cake. After learning how to position my center of gravity and using only lower body strength to life the stretcher, I breezed through the exercise.

It was the stairchair that turned out to be a real bitch.

Now that bad boy is all upper body strength. One the way down it's no problem, but on the way up, get ready to use that arm strength. I broke a sweat, but I passed the exercise to the supervisor's satisfaction.

The EMT girl that we used as our "patient" gave me a hug for not dropping her down the steps and for doing a good job. She was cute... and that made it all worth it. LOL.

I need to get my NY driver's license and turn it into the Director of Operations. Then I can begin field training for a week, after which I'll be assigned an ambulance and a permanent partner and given a schedule.

So I am now officially an AMR employee... but tomorrow I still must return to the hellhole of Economy. It reminds me of a quote that one of our speakers told us today...

"Life is a shit sandwich, and everyday you take another bite."