Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
This years FDIC was just as great as the past many years. Being able to surround myself with so many great firefighters at a venue which hosts the newest technologies is very rewarding. I wasn’t able to attend any classes this year, but next year looks promising as I plan on attending both HOT classes and classroom events as well.
I heard from a lot of firefighters who attended both classroom discussions and HOT classes and they were very happy with the selection and caliber of classes.
This year Willie, Andrew, and I hosted INDY on Fire on Friday night as well. This event takes months to plan and ended up being a very rewarding experience once again. The event was sponsored by Fire Cam, Black Diamond Footwear, Viking Life Safety Equipment, AWOGS, WATERAX, and Holmatro. These companies are the ones which enable us to throw the party. Special thanks to Andrew Stevens who was our Emcee for the evening. Pictures from INDY on Fire can be viewed here.
The whole reason we throw INDY on Fire is to provide an event for firefighters to have fun. It has always been free to get into and this year we raised money for 24/7 Commitment.
However, even with the sponsors and Crane Bay staff, we couldn’t have the party without the help of many great friends. Most of these guys have traveled with us for several years. Preston, Jarod, Michael, Andy, Chris, Ryan, Matt, Kevin, Bill, TJ, Jed, Andrew, and many more. This year, we made it easy on us by borrowing a tour bus. Driven by Willie’s dad (Willie Wines Sr.), the bus actually belongs to the Bluegrass band Nothin’ Fancy. Their name actually fits with our mantra, because we aren’t all that fancy at all either! However, if you are a Bluegrass fan…these guys can play!
On the way to FDIC, just a couple of hours out, I realized I had fudged our hotel reservations. Luckily, after a couple of stressful hours, I found a house for rent just blocks from the convention center. The house ended up being a great venue for us to all hang out together instead of being stuck at several different hotel rooms.
We also helped out with several companies in their booths this year as we have in the past. I have to admit, we really enjoy being able to learn about these products, and what better way then to be right there with developers, sales directors, and even CEO’s telling us about their products. In turn, we are able to get people in the booths to check out the products for themselves. This years list of companies we assisted were MSA, FLIR, Black Diamond Footwear, Viking Life Safety Equipment, AWOGS, WATERAX, and Holmatro.
Wednesday night we also enjoyed the FOOLS Bash as always. Check out pictures from the bash here.
I will get caught up and publish more on FDIC in the next couple of days.
You can view more pictures from FDIC here: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday, INDY on Fire.
