Hi, and welcome to our seminar, which is brought to you by the makers of NASA "Smarter than you since the Kennedy era".  Today we're going to teach you how to deliver a baby in a haunted house with no electricity and no running water. 

First things first...The mother will likely begin freaking out about having to be in labor in a haunted house with no electricity and no running water. Reassure her that everything is okay. You have taken a seminar called "How to deliver a baby in a haunted house with no electricity and no running water".

Next, have the mother lie down on an old dusty sheet that you found covering the furniture. This is a very important step as this will help keep blood off the floors and help prevent shark attacks. This will also help when you need to move said mother from the environment later.

Also, it is very important to make the father feel like he is a very important part of this process. Tell him to call 911. If he is unable to do so since he is in a haunted house with no electricity and no running water, then advise him to go out and create smoke signals. Also, send him to get some boiling water. If he unable to produce boiling water, then be sure to yell obscenities at him until he tries harder. If this doesn't work, be sure to throw things at him as well. Nine out of ten new fathers say that this technique was enough to make them try harder to find boiling water.

Contrary to popular believe, ghosts are not very helpful when delivering babies.

Okay, now lets get ready for the action. First, you should put on some rubber gloves. If you do not have any, as many people do not pack around rubber gloves then a good old pair of oven mittens will work just fine. Also, you will need a super soaker water gun to help clean the baby afterwards.

If the mother is screaming in pain, you should tell her "SHHHHHHHH I'm trying to listen to the ghosts."  Also, if you are selling Avon this is a great time to ask her to buy some. No new mother wants to go to the hospital without a fresh face.

Once the baby is born you will have to get the father to chew through the cord. Be sure to take a picture of this, as this will likely be his first act of cannibalism. It is also a good idea to take many pictures of the entire event to prepare as a scrap book for later.

Now its time to move the mother. The ambulance probably hasn't arrived yet, as smoke signals are not universally recognized. Now you need to pick up the sheet she is on and drag it through the forest. Warning, bleeding mothers have been known to attract sharks. It is a good idea to move as fast as possible and avoid going in circles. If the mother is cursing and screaming at you, this means it is working. It is also a good idea to cover up the blood as you leave. You should get an Indian guide to help you with this task. It is a good idea after the husband has failed to produce boiling water to get him to conjure up an Indian guide spirit. 11 out of 10 ghosts in haunted houses with no electricity and no running water were once real life Indians. A good way to conjure up an Indian spirit is to ask "How about them Red Skins?  Do you like them for the superbowl this season?"

At this point its a good idea to make sure you still have the baby. If you find that you do not, then you probably left it in the haunted house with no electricity and no running water, which is very irresponsible, how is that baby supposed to get a drink? But before dwelling in your own self pity and shame, you need to go back and get the baby. Grab the sheet that the mother is on and turn around and go back. If she is cursing and screaming at you, that means its working. Just a reminder, ghosts have been known to put babies in drawers, so be sure to check all the drawers. Also, ghosts that have died from consumption still carry the disease, so hold your breath as you grab the baby. The best way to carry a baby out of a haunted house with no electricity and no running water, is by the foot. If the baby cries and screams that means its working. Also, you can opt to carry the baby like a football and scream "Woo, go Red Skins!" while running out of the house.

If the mother hasn't died yet from hemorrhaging, then you should give the baby to her.

This would be a good time to stop and have some toast. There is a lovely toaster you can buy that makes the face of hello kitty. It comes as part of the deluxe edition how to deliver a baby in a haunted house with no electricity and no running water kit. (Hello kitty brand batteries sold separately.) (It only takes 10 batteries to power this toaster for 10 minutes.) (Hello kitty dildo sold separately.) (Hello kitty hemorrhaging plugs, aka diva cups, are only sold with our super deluxe how to deliver a baby in a haunted house with no electricity and no running water kit.)

After you have had a nice piece of toast and you have made it back to civilization, you need to call 911. Be sure to ask them why they did not get your smoke signals earlier. If they seem confused just assure them that they are stupid and they can't read. Then be sure to request an ambulance and ghost busters. This is a good time to send back the Indian spirit guide. A good way to do this is by saying "Woo I'm on the Dallas Cowboys."

Don't worry if ghost busters arrive before the ambulance. With the economy being down, most people opt to live with their ghosts, no matter how annoying they are and therefore, business is slow for these guys. When the EMTs arrive, be sure to tell them all the things you did to help the mother. If they look at you like you're stupid, explain to them that you've taken the "how to deliver a baby in a haunted house with no electricity and no running water" seminar. Now is a good time to show him your business card that reads www.howtodelieverababyinahauntedhousewithnoelectricityandnorunningwater.com/yourname/ref#23487.

You will get $5 for every sale and $2 for everyone that buys from them.

11 out of 10 people have been kicked out of the ambulance for this.

11 out of 10 people have been born in a haunted house with electricity or running water.  Some famous people include:  President Obama, 50 cent, Tom Cruise (Hollywood actor and inventor of the Hoove Around), Marilyn Manson, Bill Gates, Sigmund Freud (the inventor of incest), Phil Spector, Lil John and...the East Side Boys, Siegfried (but not Roy), and Carrot Top just to name a few.

We hope you have enjoyed our seminar and please take the time to check out our other titles such as "So you got sued because of the first seminar" seminar, "How to deliver a baby in apocalyptic conditions" seminar, "How to get away with not feeding your child and other cost effective solutions" seminar and "So this seminar pretty much makes me a doctor?" Seminar.

The other day I had a non emergent call to take a woman from the hospital to a nursing home.  That's pretty typical...but this poor lady was in such bad shape she literally could barely move.  She couldn't...or wouldn't...say anything to me other than "help me".

Before leaving the hospital I specifically asked if she had any family with her.  They told me no.  (I always ask in case the family member needs to ride with us.)  As we were loading her into the ambulance a man and woman ran up to us from the parking lot.  "Hey where you taking her?!"  I just looked at him because I was a bit stunned... and then he said "That's so and so right?"  I told him yes.  He said she was his mother.  I asked him if the hospital told him they were moving her.  He said no. 

He walked off and a nurse overheard the conversation and said to me "You know, I work up on that floor and sometimes people aren't allowed to know things...it's not like we just forget to tell family members when patients are being sent somewhere..."

We pulled out and the couple followed us...

I read the doctor's report on the patient.  It didn't say anything about how or why she was taken to the hospital, but to make a really long story short...  She's dying.  She also can't swallow anything so she is suffering horribly from hunger and thirst.  Everytime they try to give her something to drink, she either aspirates it or spits it out.  Now, this is what I don't understand.  She has some dementia, but according to the report, she is still capable of making her own medical decisions at this point.  They asked her if she wanted a feeding tube.  At first she said no, but after getting worse and worse she finally begged (yes, the report said begged) them to do it. 

But apparently she is taken care of by the state and they don't want her to have it done. 

So here I am with this patient and she is begging me to help her.  But there isn't a damn thing I can do.  The state could allow her to have the feeding tube, which would at least help relieve the horrible thirst, but no...I guess they prefer to make people suffer.  I understand that perhaps since she is dying they just don't want to prolong her suffering...but that still isn't right!  One of the things I'm known for saying frequently is "I hope I die before I get old." and I really do.  I hope I die before I'm so helpless that I end up being taken care of by the state and no one will respect my wishes.

This lady doesn't have long to live anyway.  I hope she dies as peacefully as possible...

And as for the son...they followed us to the nursing home.  I told the staff about what the hospital nurse said and they didn't seem to care so I never figured out what that was all about.

A lot of people don't realize the things EMS professionals deal with on a regular basis.  Depending on where you work and who you work for...it varies from people being extremely rude...or threatening you...or calling 911 for things such as "my toe hurts" or "I just feel bad (but I'm lying and really just plan on walking down the street when we get to the hospital cause I just need a ride)"....and if you work for a privately owned service you get to wait hours and hours at doctors offices, go on really long out of state transports in the middle of the night when you've only had about 2 hours of sleep (and that's if you were lucky lol)...

And the truth is no matter how much we love our jobs, from time to time we all get a little burnt out, tired, frustrated, annoyed, whatever you want to call it.

I remember a few months ago my company sent a crew to take a patient from a local hospital to one in Pittsburgh.  Thats an extremely long trip and only one of the crew members was allowed to drive under our insurance...so they decided to send me with them so the driver and I could take turns driving...

I was frustrated as hell.  We had been busy all day.  It was 1:00 am and I hadn't slept yet.  I was supposed to get off duty at 7:30 am...but I knew on a trip like this that wasn't going to happen.  (We actually didn't get back to our station till about 4:00 pm.)

Now don't get me wrong.  I love my job...and I care about my patients.  I would never be mean to my patients or take my frustrations out on them.  I understand that they're sick.  It's not their fault.  But despite how I looked and acted on the outside, I was really annoyed about having to go to freakin' Pittsburgh...but this was a cancer patient and from what the doctor had told us, they were still fighting it, but she didn't have much longer.  But of course, I wasn't thinking about that...

But then we stopped to get some fuel...so our patient's daughter who was driving in her car behind us came over to talk to her mom.  I wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying.  But I could tell the daughter was trying really hard to stay upbeat...but then she suddenly turned her face to the side and kind of stood halfway behind the ambulance door.  It was dark but I could still see that she was trying not to cry.  That's when it hit me.

Needless to say, I felt like crap about how I had been feeling earlier.  I mean, boo hoo, poor, healthy little me...having to be up all night....with a cancer patient that is dying.  Poor little me, right??

The truth is that no one gets into EMS to take people to the doctor or go on really long interfacility transports...we get into it for the excitement, the challenge...the opportunity to give it all we've got and save someone's life.  But no matter what you're doing, regardless of whether it's the exciting gun shot wound or taking someone to dialysis...we are helping people.  And if you've been in EMS for a while (even after dealing with all the long hours, lack of sleep, rude people, being threatened, breaking your back, lack of food, etc., etc.) then chances are there is a reason for it.  And that reason is probably because you have an inherent desire and ability to help people in their time of need...

So my EMS wish for the New Year is that whenever everyone is feeling frustrated, burnt out, etc. there won't be any shortage of these moments that make you snap back to reality and realize that this isn't "just a patient".  This is someone's mother, daughter, friend, lover, coworker...this is a person that for whatever reason, needs your help.

So, I have a couple of profiles on dating sites.  I'm not looking for a soul mate, in fact, I don't think you can really take online dating all that seriously anyway...if I find the man of my dreams, great.  If not, oh well...I will have hopefully had fun getting to know another human being.

But anyway, in the spirit of me being....well, me...I'm going to mention some really annoying things people tend to do both in the online and offline worlds lol...

Annoying things people do on dating sites...

#1.  The picture that is about the size of my thumb.  I mean, come on.  I tend to over analyze things so that makes me wonder are you stupid and really think I can actually see what you look like?  Or are you just really unattractive and you think physical chemistry doesn't count for anything and you're hoping to "win me over" with your heart?  (Which doesn't work by the way.  I'm not being shallow, I'm being realistic...you have to actually feel attracted to the person no matter how great their personality is.)  Or even worse....you're one of those people that thinks they're horribly ugly even if they're not.  In my experience people like that are complete nut cases.  That is why I will not talk to someone that doesn't have a picture on their profile.  Not because I'm shallow, but because I've dated guys that have done that.  Know what I've learned from it?  That most people that do that are horribly insecure (which is just plain annoying), jealous, and controlling.

#2.  When someone e-mails you....and e-mails you again before you even get a chance to respond.  (And especially if they're an ass about it the second time).  It's true I spend a lot of time online.  I do however have a life.  I have a job that takes up at least 72 hours of my week.  I read.  I have friends.  I have family.  I'm in college.  I draw.  Sometimes I even go to the Gym.  What's my point?  If someone like me has a life...then surely, there must be others like me as well! lol  If someone doesn't e-mail you back there are two possible reasons.  She is busy or she just isn't interested.  So when you e-mail again without a response from the first e-mail it's not only annoying...it screams "Hi, pleaaaaassssseeeee talk to me!!!!  I've been sitting here all day waiting to hear from you!!!"  It makes you come across as desperate.

#3.  Bad spelling and run on sentences that never stop do u lik tatooz im 24 male gawd ur hot giv me a holla yll lik 2 party.  I honestly don't know what to say about this lol...but it's ANNOYING!  I feel sorry for anyone with dyslexia that tries this online dating crap lol...  Yes we all make mistakes.  But I have to be able to understand what you're saying.  Unfortunately, I don't have the attention span to spend the amount of time it would take to figure out.

#4.  The person on a mission!  Okay, this isn't really that bad I guess, but I'm going to mention it because it freaks me out, personally.  We've all seen them.  The person that has an "about me" or "what I'm looking for" that if you printed it out it would take up 5 pages.  They're on a mission by gawd, to find their soul mate.  They go on and on about how great they would treat their significant other and they really hope they find their soul mate soon and blah blah blah.  This just annoys me because whats so bad about being single?  Am I missing something?  Yeah, sometimes being single sucks.  That's actually why I'm on these freakin' sites lol...I'd like to find someone to hang out with, cuddle, make out, all that fun stuff.  But on the other hand...whatever happens, happens.  Why do people have to try to force things to happen?  Why can't people just chill out and have fun?

#5.  The person that has almost no information on their profile.  I need to know something about you.  Come on.

Annoying things people do in the real world..

#1.  Call and call and call/text and text and text...before getting any actual responses.  Your voicemail or text will be there even if I don't check my phone for 12 hours.  I promise.  It's not going to go anywhere.  Don't worry about it...I'll get back with you.  I might be busy.  I might have absolutely nothing to say.  But eventually I'll get back to you.

#2.  When you meet a guy at a club and exchange phone numbers and he calls within 5-30 minutes of you leaving.  Now, I'm really not into the whole club thing.  In fact, I've probably only been to a club maybe 5 times and thats only when my friends drag me out to one.  But there have been a few times that I ended up talking to a guy, exchanging numbers, and then we go our separate ways at the end of the night.  And every time they called anywhere between 5-30 minutes later.  I don't understand lol....  I mean, if they're trying to get in my pants then they probably should have thought of that before I left, don't ya think? lol  It could be cause they're drunk but no matter how drunk I've ever been, my sense of time was never that distorted.  And even if it was just cause they really, really liked me...thats still annoying.  Don't call before I get out of the parking lot lol...

#3.  Texting me when I'm probably asleep.  I'm an EMT.  Sleep is to me what finding a million dollars would be to you.  Unless it's really important, it can wait.

#4.  Being a huge pervert.  This is one I haven't really had a problem with until pretty recently.  Yes, guys are pervs...and its usually okay to say stuff in a playful way...but recently I encountered a guy that clearly has no respect for the female sex in any way.  Everything I say, no matter what it is, even if its something really important...he somehow has something sexual to say about it (or at the very least he manages to imply something sexual).  I called him on it, and he apologized...but he really hasn't stopped doing it at all and insists that "thats just the way he is..and he's happy with himself".  I told him he comes across as someone horribly desperate for sex and unless he changes his attitude, he'll probably never get a girlfriend (at least one that isn't crazy).  But oh well...you can't help everyone lol

#5.  The person that has clearly googled you/looked up your MySpace/etc. without mentioning it to you at all...and then they let it slip.  The information age...yay!  Yeah, pretty much all of us have googled someone or looked at their blog.  We generally don't memorize every single piece of information we come across though.  So when someone starts mentioning lots of minor details that they know about you...that they could have only found by looking you up online...that's kind of creepy.  If you see something about me online, thats okay...but if you're going to mention it in conversation...tell me you seen it, then tell me what it was you seen.  Otherwise, it goes kind of like this...

Guy:  "So you're really into *insert whatever here*"

Me:  "yeah...blah blah blah"

Guy:  "blah blah blah...."

Me:  "...We'll I'll talk to ya later..."

Me *walking off* ...."Heyyyyy, wait a minute!  I didn't tell anyone about that!!!..."

Creeeeeeeepy.

So, there you have it.  This is stuff I find annoying (in case you missed the word annoying every eleventy hundered times I used it lol).

So today I attempted to eat a salad.  I've had salad before...once.  Seriously, I f**king hate salad.  But regardless, I'm supposed to eat them on this diet I'm on, so I made one.  Since I have pretty much no experience with salad I also have no experience with their lovely accessory, dressing.  So the other day I just grabbed a Ranch dressing.  It looked good.  And today when I opened it up it even smelled good.

Let me cut to the chase.  It was not good.

I'm sitting there eating this salad and I want to puke.  Why I wonder?  It can't be the bacon bits because I freakin' love bacon bits.  It can't be the lettuce because oddly enough, lettuce seems to have no taste.  Hmmm...must be the dressing.  Yep...it's the damn dressing. 

So if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Other than that, nothing else has really been going on in my life except that I'm trying really hard to find a workout buddy.  I've even signed up on a bunch of websites that are supposed to let you do just that.  So far no luck.  I can't seem to find anyone around here.