It’s been a while since I’ve sat here last. It feels good and right to have rejoined old fire department. It’s got nothing to do with one being better than the other. Anyone who doesn’t have a “home” as such probably will appreciate the importance of a pivotal point in life. For me, it matters more than I originally thought. Anyway, here I am today, again driving this fire engine. It felt really good.

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Waiting for a good friend to show up. We’d arranged to meet at a Starbucks, but through some misunderstanding, we both ended up at the wrong place. The situation was easily remedied through use of a mobile phone. By the time he showed up I’d finished my first cup of coffee (picture with cup and arriving friend in the distance).

I wondered: what would we have done 20 years ago? I suppose I’d have waited for about half an hour, tried to find a public telephone and – provided I had coins- tried to call him at home. And would then have moved on. Times have changed indeed.

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This morning I went to Veendam to collect our trailer. I called ahead and spoke to one of the guys. What he had to say: “There’s a cup of coffee waitong for you”. Sometimes, it’s the small things that mean a lot.

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First and foremost, I was deployed to Haiti as a member of @fire, following the earthquake. We went there as a USAR team. This will problably qualify as the most extreme experience of my life, in many respects. Im am glad and thankful I could be part of the relief effort.

This is our team ready to go at Munich airport.

Going to Haiti was like going to a black  hole. We did not know what to expect. It was like a movie unfolding. This is the building where I finally realised we were there:

There are about 15 dead people in this picture, just only out of sight. It was smelly and hot. We were there for three intense days. The most stressful thing? Not the dead, or the destruction. Rather, for 10 days, not knowing what was about to happen for the next hour. We finally got home courtesy of the Belgian Air Force. (Picture Set)

Haiti was plus 30+ degrees Celsius. The week after that, I was in Warsaw, Poland. Minus 25 °C in the daytime, that is a temperature difference of almost 60 °C. We spent most of those two days indoors. It’s a shame, because I was really glad to finally be in that city – I’ll have to take a closer look another time.

Station 1, Warsaw.

Last week was all Heavy Rescue: first, three days with “grand master” Jimmy, of raddning.se, in Knivsta, north of Stockholm. Two days Bus Lift, and one day Truck extrication using a deformed, brand spanking new Scania truck. It was outside, cold, but it sure as hell beats any office job.

Finally, my very own Big Lift. This time, a situation to strike fear in the hearts of the participants :)

..and these are only the facts. Emotionally, it’s been a roller coaster ride, but that is boring. On with it.

Sets on Flickr: Haiti,  Warsaw, Heavy Rescue Sweden,   Big Lift

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Since everyone has got an opinion about the iPad, I’ll pitch in with mine. Following the above App video by Wired, which  – at least the US version – happens to be my favourite mag, I am absolutely convinced that it is a game changer. As for the reasoning, I’ll follow Stephen Fry’s thoughts – it’s not really for advanced social medialites, whoever they are, but rather for everyone. Everyone is where the money is. It’s easy to use, and to judge by the above video, it’s amazing. I am more than willing to pay for a subscription.

Also, I think this will work for any kind of publication, whether daily, weekly or monthly (or less), if understood and well done. It’s about the experience and value. I’d be glad to see the saved distribution costs re-routed to the production of interactive, social and what more content, in other words an allround excellent experience. Perhaps we will at last see a major paradigm shift in the next few years.

Ideally, it’d be platform independent, whether Apple or any other, but somehow i have my doubts about this. We’ll see what happens, but it sure looks promising. And that’s regardless of how much of a flash-free mockup this video is.

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This one’s a little bit hard to describe, but there are moments in life that bear a lot of weight, in whichever way. Yesterday was one such moment. I’d been preparing for a “lift” workshop where the goal ist to free a car trapped underneath a truck. Everything until then had been paperwork, phone calls, e-mails and the like. The moment the trailer was delivered, everything suddenly unwound. It was real.

There’s more depth to this story, but this is not the time and place to dwell on it. I am glad it is over, and I am glad it worked out OK. Today was a huge relief. Oh, and there aren’t many things in life that beat chucking big things onto small things. Here’s a link to the pictures.

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Here’s one to never growing up. I was really lucky to secure five toy trucks at the supermarket last week, as well as some simple building blocks. Both to be used as practical props during the workshop next week. Man, did this make me happy :) Nice side effect: does your job involve any toys?

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Ultimately I’d like to do these with my Kiev 66, but it’s definitely cheaper and easier to do the groundwork digitally. Here’s an idea for a project, and with a lot of luck it should be possible to use the same settings in both environments. Guess it’s just a matter of trying it out.

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