Life Through the Eyes of an Ambulance Driver

Merry Christmas!

Wow, what a year. Last year left off with Wendy and I going to visit each other’s families for Christmas. Now we are married! Lots of good changes have happened.

I proposed to Wendy in May of 2009. We got married Sept 27, 2009 in Evergreen, CO. The wedding was perfect. It was an outdoor wedding with great weather and we had lots of family and friends come to celebrate our day with us. Afterwards we went to Hawaii for 10 days for our honeymoon. We had a great time. The highlight for me was the helicopter tour. For my bachelor’s party, my brother Chris, and a good friend from college, Ramsey, came out to CO with me to do a backpacking trip. The weather didn’t cooperate, so we had to alter our plans, but we had a great time.

I had to resign from my EMT job at the ambulance company, Pridemark, when I moved. It has been an adjustment for me not having a job. I’m in the process of trying to get my EMT certification here in UT so I an get another job. So far, not going so well, but I’ll keep trying at it. I still am pursuing my dream of being a firefighter.

I had the privilege to work with some more great partners this last year at Pridemark. There are some great people who are in the business of EMS and Fire. I rotated through three full time paramedic partners this year, two of them who had just finished paramedic school. Bryan and I had started working together last year, and he found a job with another agency earlier this year. He too was a Boy Scout and a computer geek. We had a good time talking about common interests. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of good calls together. My second partner was just out of paramedic school, but had been a long time EMT at Pridemark. Pierre was a black cloud of death (we call people who attract lots of calls black clouds and those who don’t attract them white clouds). I got to see a lot of great stuff working with him. It was also nice to have some one who had an almost identical mindset on work, politics, etc. Deb was my third partner, and we unfortunately didn’t get to work very long but she was also a great partner. She had a very sweet personality and was also a very smart medic. She made some schedule changes for me so that I could have a good partner to finish off my time at Pridemark. Unfortunately, she got really sick my last week at work and had to go into the hospital. She’s better now, but she had us all scared there for a while. The most impressive thing about it was watching how the Pridemark family stepped up to help out during this time. I can only hope that I will ever be able to work with a group of people like that again. Definitely good people. It was actually a good way to go out as it helped reinforce to me how great the people were that I had been working with the last few years.

It was sad to leave behind friends and everything that I loved about CO, but I believe it was well worth it to finally be married and living in the same town with Wendy (we had known each other for 12 years). I will be returning to Denver for a few days in late January for the Children’s Hospital EMS conference. It will be good to get to see friends then.

Wendy is still working for Kidscare as an urgent care pediatrician. She really loves her job and the people she works with.

We bought a house in Sandy, UT which is a suburb of Salt Lake City. We really like the house. It has a great backyard, and lots of space inside too. I’m excited about have a home to take care of. The neighbors seem friendly, and the street is very quiet. One of the neighbors told me he can be at the ski resort in 13 minutes from his house. Wow, guess I better learn how to ski. I didn’t get much biking in before the weather got cold. I guess its part of getting old that I don’t like to bike when it gets below 40F. There seems to be good places to bike. About a mile from our house, one of the canyons starts winding its way up into the mountains. I’m excited about exploring new rides around here. There seems to be a lot of people who bike here in the warmer weather too.

This week, I got to check another thing off my list. As many of you know, I’ve been wanting another dog since I left MS. Monday, we drove up to Idaho to an animal shelter and adopted Maddie. Maddie is a 4 year old black and tan German Shepherd dog. We were lucky to find a full blooded GSD in a shelter. The family who owned her said she was chasing the neighbor’s cows and was afraid she would get shot. She is a fantastic dog. Really smart and sweet. Wendy and I are really happy to add her to our family. Benjamin, the cat, isn’t quite as excited about it as we are, but we are working on it.

This year, Wendy and I decided to stay at home or the holidays. Between her work schedule and us getting settled into our new home as newlyweds, we thought it would just be best to stay here for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have to admit, I don’t miss the hustle and bustle of the airport around this time. We decorated the house and are planning to cook a big dinner tonight. We are excited to be celebrating the holidays in our new home and starting our own family traditions.

As always, our home is open to visitors who want to make their way to the land of Utah.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Jason and Wendy Cotting

Photos:
http://anvilgear.com/gallery/

The 2009 Cotting Family Portrait

This is kinda late getting written, but I have a great excuse. On the day I left Denver, half of the keyboard on my laptop began to only work intermittently. I discovered that banging harder on the keys don’t make them respond any better.

So I left Denver on Sunday 12/21. Of course, the day after  the crash at DIA. I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it on time. I planned to go to the Park and Ride that RTD offers, but the lot was full. I was bummed because my roommate had given me free tickets to ride the bus. It was going to be sweet. Free parking, but it didn’t work out. So I proceeded to the economy lot. Upon arrival there, I discovered that it was full, and I had to go to the overflow lot. By this time, I had exceeded the cushion I had built in to my leaving from the house time. I rushed my way to the overflow and took the shuttle to DIA. Let’s see $5 a day for 10 days, great, I’ve gone from free parking for Christmas to $50 parking for Christmas. Now that’s a deal!

I got to the kiosk right about the edge of the check in time for having checked baggage. I had already done the online check in, and I just had to check my baggage. Now, off to fight the security gates and try to make it to the gate in time. Security wasn’t too bad and I made it in time to the gate…. to find out that the flight was delayed. I spent 2 hours in DIA delayed, meanwhile I had a connection flight in Houston, TX to get to my destination in San Antonio, TX. Most of the country was delayed that day because of some bad weather. So the reason they gave me that we were delayed leaving DIA is because of bad weather in Houston. I checked the weather radar (because I discovered that DIA has free Internet, its slow and not very good, but its free). Low and behold, there wasn’t a single cloud over Houston. I don’t know what this mysterious weather was that was over Houston, but apparently we couldn’t leave.

Thank goodness I had exit row seats though. When we finally boarded the plane, they wanted volunteers to give up their exit row seats. Maybe I’m just a cold hearted jerk, but I am not giving up my exit row seats. I have long legs, and what ever reason someone else has can’t be much worse than mine. Some nice person gave up their seats and a lady with her leg and arm in cast came back to take his seat next to me. I asked her “Let me guess, skiing accident?” She said some snow boarder on the slopes had run into her without even stopping to see if she was OK. The guy with her chased him down. Then the flight attendants realized they couldn’t allow this woman in the exit row as it was against regulations to have someone disabled to sit there. Seeing as how they crashed one of their planes yesterday, they needed to make sure they played by the rules.

When I got to Houston, I got off the plane about 10 minutes before my connecting flight left. I ran down to find the gate only to find, that once again, my flight was delayed. I was a bit thankful for this as I doubt I would have made it. So, I went off to get a bite to eat. I got a salad at Wendy’s which according to the person working there was the last one. Lucky me, but no free Internet at Busch International Airport.

I got to Houston a little later than had planned. Wendy, came to pick me up and bring me to her parent’s house. Her mom was up waiting for us. It was around midnight when we got there, so we all went to bed. I had a great time visiting with Wendy’s parents. They fed us well and kept us entertained. We went to a swanky restaurant called Tower of the Americas. The food was good. It was like the space needle in Seattle. It rotated and we were able to see a full view of San Antonio. Pretty cool, and my steak was great. We then went down to the Riverwalk and did a boat tour. The lights were pretty and it was fun. We also went to Nixon, TX where Wendy’s dad is from. I got to meet several of Wendy’s Aunt’s, Uncles, cousins, and her grandmother. Its a tradition for them to have a big family party on Christmas Eve at her grandmother’s house. I had a great time meeting her family.

On Christmas day, we opened presents. Wendy gave me an iPod Touch. I couldn’t believe it. That was something I had been really wanting, and  its expensive. I had no idea she would spend that much on me. I guess she’s serious about this  Well, it was a wonderful gift and I have been enjoying it very much, especially at work. Wendy’s dad smoked a turkey that we ate for lunch. It was a really tasty turkey. Late that afternoon, Wendy and I flew to Jackson, MS where my family is.

My mom, brother, and his wife came to pick us up at the airport. We got in late so we got home and all went to bed. My dad was working, but he was going to have the next few days off. This was the first time Wendy had met my family. On Dec 26th, we did our 2nd Christmas, this time with my family. We sprung my grandmother out of her retirement home so she could be with us. The neighbors fried us a turkey for Christmas dinner #2. It was pretty good too. Mom cooked way too much food as usual. My aunt, uncle, and two cousins came up from Louisiana to vist late that afternoon. I hadn’t seen all of them at one time in a long time. It was great seeing them. The next day Wendy and I went to go visit my friend Ramsey from college. He told me he didn’t believe Wendy existed so I had to prove it to him. We also went by and visited a couple of my other friends from school. I had been wanting to introduce her to my friends. She’s a great catch and I want to show her off. One night we at at Cock of the Walk in Ridgeland. They serve southern fried catfish. A home meal I always look forward to. It was really tasty.

Of course we were rushed to try to see everyone and do everything. There’s never enough time to spend at home as you would like to have, but I was glad to get to spend the time that I did have. And I was really glad that Wendy and I got to spend time with each other’s family.

Next year, who knows what is going to happen.

For those that may have never seen it, Google changes their logo once a day during the Christmas week. It is kinda cool. See it here. They do it every year for Christmas and also at different holidays throughout the year.

This is a copy of the Christmas email I sent to the people I know who’s email addresses I have

I hope this finds you all doing well.

The last two years have been a big growing experience for me. During this time I have discovered that for most of my life, I have been taking things way too seriously. I’ve been way too concerned with what people think about me. Some may argue that that makes me more compassionate, but I see it as making me too hesitant. I think it’s a fine line. So I am learning to be more relaxed in how I approach things.

I was unable to keep my firefighter job because I had a problem with anxiety. I have since cured my anxiety problem. Anxiety was something that reached into several areas of my life, unbeknownst to me. Life is much more enjoyable without that monkey on my back.

I’m still, unfortunately, working on an ambulance as an EMT Basic. I’m sure most people won’t be able to believe this, but I am incredibly bored with my job.  Last year I had a wonderful Paramedic that taught me how to become a great EMT. She and I have since parted ways to work with other people, but I am indebted to her for all I learned. That by no way means that I am done learning. This is a job that you never know everything. If I were really interested in medicine, I’d go on to get my paramedic, but that is way more responsibility than I want.

In the mean time I am still trying to get hired with a fire department. I haven’t found anyone yet that seems to think that they can’t function without me, but I’m working on it. The only department I have anything going with is West Metro, here in the Lakewood area where I live. I’m #75 on their list. The list is good for 2 years, but with the economy in the tank, I can’t see there being too much hiring going on. I can only hope that there will be a bunch of people retiring from there in the near future.

Wendy and I are still dating. Don’t ask how long we’ve been dating, because I doubt either one of us could tell you when we started. She has been done with her residency for about a year and a half now. She is a pediatrician at an urgent care clinic in Salt Lake City, UT and really loves her job. I’m really glad that she is happy with what she is doing.

We see each other once a month. Our schedules tend to work better with me flying out there. People sometimes tell me I should just move out to Salt Lake. It’s not that easy for either of us. The distance is what is limiting us now. One of these days, someone will move somewhere. We’ll have to see what happens.

We have had some cool adventures during the past year. Earlier this year we went to Grand County, CO where we went to a hot spring, did some snowshoeing, and also went on a snow mobile tour. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to get up in the mountains for a few days. This summer we went to Moab, UT where we did some white water rafting and some sight seeing. Our favorite trip this year was when we went to Grand Teton National Park. We spent 6 days and 5 nights backpacking in the park. On our last day there, I had to chase a bear out of camp. It was a really beautiful place. Pointing the camera in any direction gave you pretty pictures. It was great to get away for a while. I often forget how great the simple life is. Since Wendy and I first met at a backpacking camp, we were both in our element out there. We’ve already decided that next year we are going to Glacier National Park.

If you want to see pictures from our adventures this year, you can go to this link:

http://anvilgear.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2204

This Christmas is going to be cool. I am flying to San Antonio, TX to spend the first half of the week with Wendy and her family. On Christmas day, we are flying to Jackson, MS to spend the rest of the week with my family. It will be nice to be around family for a change.

I’m still living at the Phat Pad with PJ and Bill “Italian Stallion” Sassani. They are friends of mine that I’ve known since I started working at Philmont. It’s hard to believe its been 5 years since I worked there.

I’m sorry for not being much of a communicator the last couple of years. I plan to be better at it this year. New Year’s resolution maybe?

I’ve become a fan of using Facebook. If you’ve never used it, it’s a social networking site that lets you keep up with people you know. It’s great for seeing what the people you know are up to. I’ve also decided to start writing a blog. Now everyone can keep up with my uneventful life. Yeah!!

Well, thanks for listening to me. May you all have a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

Calvin and Hobbes has always been one of my favorite cartoon strips of all times. Its a shame Bill Watterson only did it for 10 years. The official site is now at gocomics.com. I use Google Reader so I can see a new strip every day.

My mom has always said that she thinks the author of Calvin and Hobbes is really a friend of mine named Ford. It is kind of scarry how similar Ford’s childhood was to Calvin’s, I must admit.

A few years ago, someone sent me a seires of Calvin cartoons depicting Calivn and Hobbes making snow people. I always find it really funny and like to recirculate it around Christmas time (yes that’s right I say Christmas, not holiday). So I’m inclucing that series here. Hope you laugh as much as I do everytime I see it.

Buy Calvin and Hobbes Books at Amazon.com