Been a long time

It has been a long time since I posted anything, not because I didn't have anything to say, but rather not sure it needed to be said.  Department is running as in the past, have 19 members, of which I can count on about 15.  One member's work schedule changed and she is making almost all of the calls, but lost another to a job promotion, and now she can't make as many as before so we are stuck on 7-8 members making the calls.Welcomed grandchild number 15 in late January and sent my wife to stay with her family for 5 weeks.  Must say I did okay, not great but okay.  Didn't get the two grants I tried for, but did make some changes in that we moved up the replacement of our air packs by about 4 years.  It will cost the district about $107,000 for the new Scott Air Packs, but will save us over $15,000 by buying now with another department instead of going it on our own.   Have a lot of work to do on getting the department compliant with Haz-Mat stuff, up dating our SOP/SOG's and some other stuff.  Have pushed the ISO survey to the rear for a while.  Deputy Chief did get the building done, new lights and wall covering. It make the station look 1000% better.  Now if I could get him to work on the stuff he needs to due and my training officer to get his stuff in order, I would be a happy man.  But, in the real world, that's not likely to happen any time soon.  Had a birthday party for my wife, and all the childern and grandchildren execpt for one daughter and grand daughter there,  If I had know the one child was coming instead of him semi-suprising us, I would have flown the missing child and grandchild home for the weekend.   So, it is now almost 8 years since we have all been together.  Had a great time, and NO fights.    Thursday this week I head for Indianapolis for FDIC and then hopefully the time commitments will lessen a little.   Finished the fire academy earlier this month, and had just one student who didn't pass his practicals.  Should know about the written portion any time now.   Well that is about it for now,  mostly just same old same old.