Mornin’ everyone.
It’s Monday. Ewwww.
Great OP! I don’t have a whole lotta pics m’self. Me and cameras, we’ve had our differences. Here is one of me from about 10 years ago, and MindWife and I from around the same time. I have more recent pics somewhere, they just seem to have disappeared from cyberspace. Not that I look a whole lot different. 
Anyway, just a quasi-drive-by this morning as I start gettin’ a edumacashun on small engines and stuff, which will be going on over the next 4 days from 9 'til 4-ish, so I’ll have some time to pop back in before I head home. Wee! I get to tear apart engines and put them back together again! And just think, before I started this job, the sum total of my knowledge of engines was almost entirely encompassed by “Gas goes in, torque comes out, wheels go round.”
At the end of the week I’ll even get to take a test if I so choose. (It’s optional for me since only dealers have to take it, but it might be interesting to take just to see what kind of score I get given that all the other dealers there have already been working in the field fixing engines and I haven’t.)
My first MMP!
I don’t have a recent picture of me yet (that’ll have to wait until tomorrow) but here’s some Olde Picturese:
As a SpazKitten in 1980
With my sisters in 1982
19 years later with a picture it took all three of us to finish (Oldest sister started embroidery, I finished it, Middle sister framed it)
Gonna be a crazy day. I have work, a doctor’s appointment, a grocery trip for the rest of the Thanksgiving fixin’s, and my weekly Bad Movie Group meeting. We’re watching Black Sheep this week. It’s about weresheep in New Zealand. Should be a blast.
Sorry to be a n00b but what is a “MMP”?
MMP is the monday morning post.
Argent Tower, welcome to the MMP! And how you doing. 
SpazCat, welcome to the MMP!
Lunch, how you doing.
Mindfield, how you doing.
Everyone else, great pictures!!! I love seeing them. Rosie, do you mind if I play with that first you posted in Photoshop? I’d like to play with the colors and such.
I just got up, it’s been a long night, I didn’t sleep that well. I work today from 1-5. Other than that I think I’m just going to try to get some stuff done around the house.
VBob, tell us about the Big Fire.
Morning Mumpers. I am up and caffeinating. I’m off on Thanksgiving for the first time in four years, I’ll have to figure out something to eat. Here is my high school yearbook photo. Here is a picture of me from last year, and here is one of me chugging a beer at a hockey tailgate 2 weeks ago.\
tonedef it’s short for Monday Morning Post. It’s a little place for things that are too mundane for MPSIMS. Speaking of which:
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Happy Birthday MMP!!!
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6 years keeping MPSIMP tidy.
Spaz, that looks like a good movie to watch.
Am I wrong or are you flirting with everything possessed of both a Y chromosome and a digitized picture? :dubious: 
My mom recently took a lot of old slides and had them put on CD. I found one if my favorite old pictures of myself and used it on my Muscular Dystrophy Lock Up website.
Last Thursday was the event, but the website will be up a few more weeks, and I thought WHAT a wonderful chance this would be to:
A) Show the picture
and…
- Shamelessly beg for more money.
I think I was about 4 in this one.
Usually when I write these tales, I do it because there’s either a bit of humor I found in the situation, or simply a good yarn to tell. This episode, however, has nothing funny to it. Quite frankly, I’m still pissed off.
Saturday, VWife and I did a road trip to Hampton (VA), the first place we lived in when we came east. The railroad club I used to belong to had an open house I wanted to see, and she was looking for a small shopping safari. I figured it was a Good Thing overall, because she was out of the house and forced to exercise her knees. Nothing exciting happened, except to say we were both tired from the long day and had turned in by nine o’clock. Envy us; we’re such party animals…
It was about 11:30 when my pager went off for a structure fire relatively close to the VunderLair, but in Pixley’s fire district. Mayberry was also called on the first alarm for mutual assist. As is normal for me, I woke up completely while stuffing my pockets; I don’t actually remember the page itself. I was 2 miles down the road to the station when one of the rescue squad members who lived nearby reported that the house was fully involved, and all people were accounted for. That was good, but I remember thinking that it was going to be a long night. How right I was…
I got to the station, donned my gear, and rode on the first engine out the door. Our first run tanker was a quarter mile behind. I know the area well; we were going to need water because there were no hydrants nearby. The glow was readily visible from 3 miles, and visible flames through the roof could be seen from a mile away. The house was already lost, and no hoses were yet pulled.
I was picked to man a two and a half for a rear exterior attack. Two and a halfs are the big mofo hoses, 2.5’ in diameter, usually run at 100 PSI, and damned hard to handle. The biggest guys around man these, and usually with a crew of 3. We pulled it into our first position, to spray water into the open apex of the attic. We did that for about 20 minutes, and I put my heart and soul into the job, because the flames would not quit. Just as we got to the end of that 20 minute frame, our end of the attic settled down and the engine we were attached to ran out of water. We took the opportunity while the line was slack to rag the hose to the back side, where the roof was gone and we had better access.
The water was a big problem, generating two more alarms and a response from the next county to the south. All told, we ran out of water three times trying to put the fire out, and at the third downtime, I was finally relieved from the line. I was tired from the exertion, cold from the temperatures and water, and grouchy as hell from being wakened. What came next still bothers me.
The house was lost before we ever got there. The roof was swaybacked because there were no longer any rafters and joists to hold it up, and the whole frame was leaning to the south. It was unsafe to enter to mop up, and I fully understand why. Yet, when we ran out that last time, the Pixley chief decided to let it burn.
WTF? I manhandled that hose for an hour, trying to save a house that was admittedly a lost cause, to the point of muscle cramps and exhaustion just to pull back and have a wienie roast? Jeebus Hashimoto Crispus, I know we can’t go in without getting ourselves killed, but two more inch and a halfs besides the ones already pulled will mop it up from the outside in about 15 minutes.
I was pissed, and I showed it. I also let it go, because I was not an officer, nor a member of the department calling the shots. My job was to do what I was told, and I did that very well.
In the downtime, I got the back story. The homeowner is a guy born to hard working well-to-do parents, and from day one, was their problem child. He grew up into a ne’er do well drug addict and alcoholic, married a nice woman and turned her into a user, too. She went to prison for a rap related to using, got out, divorced him, and cleaned her life up. He didn’t. His parents died, left him this house which used to be one of the nicest ones in the county, and he ran it into the ground. The fire started when some kerosene spilled and ignited. He tried to beat it out with a blanket, but overturned his heater in the process and lit off the whole place.
The decision (heard second-third hand, not directly from the chief) was based on the following criteria:
• We can’t enter to mop it up without great personal risk
• The house in uninsured and paid off
• The resident would suffer relatively little economic loss
I’ll buy #1. I have no great desire to have a burning house collapse on my head or under my ass, but the other reasons smell. If this was the place was owned by one of the county commissioners, would he have been so cavalier about the financial reasoning to justify the first?
To end this tale, Mayberry was released from the scene about 0330, and I left the station for home at 0400. Loki got me up at 0630 to go out, and I heard at that time Pixley units calling in that they were back in the station.
I slept until 0930. VWife and I went to brekkie, drove by the scene (still smoldering, BTW), and there was nothing left except sheet metal from the roof and one column from the front porch.
This still bothers me, but I know I’ll get over it eventually. BTW, this was my biggest fire to date.
I learned from the best Lunch. You do that with all of the women who post pics. :eek:
Me and Rozee ‘Camping’ about 3 years ago.
My Wife and I own 40 acres about 40 minutes south of our home. We don’t spend enough time there though.
And in case anyone wonders. I’m doing fine.
She hasn’t flirted with me yet. 
I missed you Dog. How *you * doing.
Happy Birthday MMP!
Hello MMPers!
I just happen to have some old pics, so here ya go:
About four years old - I’m on the lower right, in the blue shirt;
Senior portrait (circa 1977) (dig those glasses, dude! I also had on a long bluejean skirt and some EarthShoes boots );
More recently, dubious.
Thank. You’re not bad looking yourelf.
Hello everyone! Y’all looked so cute as kids. dogbutler and Mindy, I’m sorry I didn’t know you guys back in the day - both of you were hawt.
My mom just emailed me a bunch of pics from my childhood. I’ll put them up in a minute.
Here’s a pic of me and my brother, he’s going to his first day of kindergarten, I’m going to 1st grade. It was…hmm…about 1966?
This is a picture my husband took of me - in this very computer chair! - from over my head looking down on me. I love it - you can’t see my double chin! It was taken Dec 2006.
Gotta run - I’m being taken to lunch!
You’re quite easy on the eyes, if you don’t mind me saying. Your username fits you really well.
Let’s see if I can remember how to do this…
me, age 3 or so
me, last week before work at 0400
me, doing cataloging homework
I have the startings of a head cold. Blah. Also have parent/teacher conferences with #2 son. Teacher wants all her kids to come with each parent–this should be odd.
I think we are all good looking dopers. Mindfield–let me catch my breath. (and I don’t even like blonde men!). No One–I like the one of you with your daughter(wife?). You look very happy. HazelNut–you are the world’s cutest person. As it is said, so shall it be written.
But my favorite one is still anyrose’s demented wearing of the antlers. I love the zaniness in that pic. Hello to all the newbies here–come on in, just give FCM some chocolate and you’re good to go…