Bob Roller

Different day, same plan. Gotta stick with what works.

Room-temperature off-brand canned spaghetti.

Midway through my first of two consecutive 18 hour shifts in a medical tent.

I brought food, but I eat it private so I don’t scare people.

Update: I posted this exact picture in a Patrick O’Brian fan FB group, and it’s the closet thing to going viral I’ve ever experienced.

Me on the firehouse treadmill. Max incline with a weight vest

Tones dropped five minutes after I took this selfie, and I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to complete the lifting portion of my workout.

Aaannnddd….then we had to carry an adult patient from his second floor bedroom to the cot outside with the Reeves Stretcher, so it all worked out in the end.

I’m from Iowa. Maj. O’Brien was raised on a farm not far from mine in another town, and his aunt Mary was one of my sixth-grade teachers. She posted this tribute to him this morning

#Iowa

For diehard Aubrey/Maturin and Hornblower fans out there: Two captured French naval cannons are posted on FB Marketplace in Alexandria, VA

Also, kudos to the algorithm for knowing exactly what I like.

#BookSky

Finished Kevin Fedarko’s “A Walk in the Park” about his trek through the Grand Canyon and caught this comment at the end about how we long for trails b/c they promise to deliver us to where we need to be. As a hiker/backpacker and former USFS trail dog, I understand this.

#backpacking #BookSky

They served in a reserve unit from Iowa. I am an Iowan. It’s a small state.

These are my people.

Had to zoom in to see for sure, and Yikes. No good!

Reading “Where There is no Doctor,” and the section describing traditional healing practices that need to be addressed and overcome is pretty wild.

Curing pediatric diarrhea by giving the infant a snake-fang neckless is pretty based even though it doesn’t work.

80% of the mission assignments issued during a major disaster go to the military. “What happens when the military is doing other stuff?” is the question nobody wants to talk about.

Longform version of this argument here: www.hsaj.org/resources/up...

The Future of Emergency Management: Managing Scarcity - Domestic Preparedness The increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters coupled with the reemergence of military threats from peer and near-peer adversaries overseas will greatly reduce the ability of emergency ma...

Sorta. I spent nights and weekends for five years publishing peer-reviewed research trying to educate and/or shame people into acknowledging that large-scale war “there” will have catastrophically bad outcomes “here.”

One example: www.domesticpreparedness.com/articles/the...

These kids are tough. Just trying to put laundry away, and I get caught in an ambush they sprung on me.

Taught my 5yo my Dad’s cornbread muffin recipe. Feels good to pass this along.

The celebration afterwards was glorious

Cleaning the grill

The deck is free of snow for the first time in weeks, and I know exactly what needed done.

Without an end for sure. I hate it.

I agree. It’s only going to get worse, and I hate it.

I lost another friend and brother firefighter to cancer this week. He was 48.

I’m tired of this shit.

BAD KNEES FAST SKIS. Let’s Go!

Victory Comics in Falls Church, VA straddles a creek, and I think that’s pretty cool.

Caps/Flyers game last night was pretty rad.

RAISE HELL PRAISE DALE.

Hand-drawn illustration from a book about the 1665 Great London Plague and 1666 Great Fire of London

Illustrations are not just for kids books.

I’m still bummed I missed you on that trip. Let me know when you are back in town.

Orders for the postal worker who died on the Titanic

Stagecoach!

Location of the museum, next to Union Station

2001 Anthrax exhibit.

Interviewed and go an offer for a part-time position as an EMT instructor this morning (exciting, right!?!) and celebrated by visiting the National Postal Museum. One of the most underrated if not unknown Smithsonian museums.

More info: www.miemss.org/home/departm...

There are so many HEMS helos flying around the DC metro that the State of Maryland follows all of them in real-time through SYSCOM in Baltimore. But only Maryland State Police and the Park Police will land pre-hospital or are hoist capable as far as I know.

100%

lol, no. Park Service. But they might use the Park Police acronym for the Eagle. They fly the Potomac River and help with search and will airlift patients via hoist from either (MD or VA) side of the river.