Happy New Year!

I hope your holidays were happy and your New Year is filled with hope and opportunity.

No resolutions here--I'm going to continue my efforts to be more active in blogging.

A few bits and pieces for the New Year:

The New York Times agrees with my thought on California's recent interpretation of the Good Samaritan Laws:

I'll have to call my lawyer

There have been some changes to the NIMS. Nothing I would call sweeping but it might be helpful to take a look:

NIMS Changes 2008 (PDF download)

2008 was the big EMS social networking year with several sites popping up including two by the EMS magazines:

JEMS Connect
EMS United

And you can now find almost everyone (including me) on Facebook

Bryan Bledsoe posted his Top 10 EMS research papers on jems.com recently. These are definitely worth a look:
Bledsoe's Top Ten

Now, for those of you that know me, I have not only been in EMS for 31 years, I also spent quite a bit of time in police work. I am including this photo of yours truly as a rookie police officer in 1984 for the obvious laugh factor, to point out the benefit of Explorer Posts (I was a member of a police and fire post prior to getting on both jobs) and to remember the close friends and wonderful experiences I had as a police officer in Colonie, NY. Here I am with Neil Leach, a great friend for over 30 years.



I sincerely hope that your experiences in the emergency services are as rich and wonderful as mine have been over the past 31 years.

Happy New Year!