Almost Done

Well the firefighter interview is complete, the final web page draft is turned in...now all thats left is the final paper. It is due tomorrow and I am still unsure which side to take and how to back it up with the evidence provided (i have the Heidi and Spencer assignment). Now all I need is to sit back and write it. I had a great semester!

Done!

Our project is finally done! At times, I was a little nervous how it would turn out. However, after a lot of hard work, the paper came out pretty good! I am happy I was able to do this project. It was frustrating at times especially trying to get in contact with a retired firefighter. Overall, though, it was a great learning experience and I learned much about the Winter Park Fire Department. I'm excited to see the final project as web page for others to see it.

Final Paper

Well the final paper was turned in and after doing it all, I'm kind of glad that i got to learn about the fire department. It could have been something a lot more boring. I'm also glad I learned about the history and changes that have been made to the department over the years.

Final Touches

Just putting the finishing touches on my groups web page (pictures and such). After going to the archives again i was able to find some good pictures. I had some trouble with load them at first but I got through it and they fit in with the words alright now.

Done!!

Rachael and I have finished our web page, so I'm pretty excited to be done! :) It went well and I think the final paper looks pretty good. Personally, I think I had more fun writing up the interview, but this was ok too...I've definitely learned more than I ever knew about firefighting and the local fire departments even tho I grew up here! Well all that's left now is the final! :/ :)

Final Paper

My partner and I went to the archives yesterday to get some pictures for our paper. We found some good ones of the campus back then and some other of the buildings that burnt down. Hopefully our paper will turn out well.

Interview

I was reall fasinated by the stories that John had to tell me. I brought my friend along that wants to be a firefighter and this interview only confirmed that he wanted to be one. After writing the biography, it kind of made me want to be one too.

This Past week

After completing my interview of Mr. Donald T. Youngs a few weeks ago, I wrote my paper about his life. Although, I stayed up quite late to type it and then had to take it to the Writing Center, I finally completed it and handed it in. Tomorrow, Billy and I are finishing up the web page portion of the firefighter project. All in all, I have had a very pleasant experience with the entire firefighter affiliation. Though it was frustrating at times, it was nice to see that even small town communities and their civic institutions have some tremendously interesting history.

I finally interviewed my retired firefighter's wife. She was very nice. I went to visit her at the Health Center at Winter Park Towers which is a retirement home in Winter Park. She was really funny, and her stories were really interesting. It was a little hard to get all the details out. I had to ask really specific questions, and I had to keep asking to get the whole story. I did forget to ask a few things, which I noticed when I began to write my paper. Other than that, I enjoyed learning about old Winter Park.

how many blog entries do we need?

okay...I admit I've been slacking on blog entries, but hey, I can blog three times in a row just like this~!lol (never mind...)
I'm just wondering how many blog entries do we need to have for the semester. I counted mine to be 11, well, plus this one, 12. hopefully I'm not far from done.

today we talked about the middle east (yeah?). I somethimes wonder when Israel declared themseleves independent state, how the surrounding countries and the other people who used to live there felt about it. I support democracy too, and the Jewish people really deserve a country. Just hope peace will come to that region soon. If history makes the judgement of whether a group of people should belong to where...how about the Tibet issue that's going on these days? I really shouldn't bring politics to this place..but well, I was only being sentimental.

One of my close friends was from Kuwait, and they became refugees during the gulf war. She showed me a picture of she and her family sitting on their luggages at a refugee camp in the desert. It makes me wonder about wars in contemporary times.

all right, way over than 5 sentences again. I'm even suprised by myself that I can talk so much when I'm writing 3 entries in a roll. I guess it's a compensation not talking much in class

one more blog

thinking about it, the reason why I tend to put off the blogging assignment, is that I often speak toooooo much (even though most are worthless babbling)
looking at others people who end their blogging with 4-5 sentences, I really need to study from them.

anyways, the biography paper is finally done. I was lucky that my subject was realy nice and enthusiastice about being a firefighter, and very willing to share his experiences with me.

Although I had everything recorded, interviewing someone is really not as easy as I thought it would be. Cleaning up the recording to write a paper was even harder. My subject talked about a lot of things, and after 6 hours of writing, my attention span was finally completely annihilated by 7:30 am. We really talked about so many things, trying to put everything in the biography was impossible......
I don't know if anyone had the same problem, but although my person talked a lot about his career, I still end up lacking specific examples and stories of personal experiences. I would like my biography to have more personal stories, rather than just talking about his profession in general. But whenever I ask his to tell me some specific experiences he had, we get stuck on the interview.....

and this blog is now way passed 5 sentences. End now.

interview

even though it has been a week since my interview, I'm gonna talk about it to make up for the number of blogs I missed ~:P
It was a great experience, talking to a firefighter face to face. I was anxious at first, but the gentlemen treated us really friendly. He talked a lot about his career, helping me as best as he could.
I was really impressed of his firefighting souvenir collection. he has an entire wall of signs and plates about firefighting, and a corner of his living room filled with fire truck models, souvenir mugs, plaques for acheivements, firefighter hats, firefighter action figures...which can be summerized as "a huge collection of cool stuff". I see he really enjoyed being a firefighter.

and he was much richer than I thought TAT... OTL

well, considering he is such an energetic person, and after retired from the firefighting profession, he now still has three other jobs.

The interview was really interesting -- that's why I had 7 pages of biography...

Blog 4/25

Aside from the pictures, everything seems to be going pretty well. Calvin Hancock still has not called back and if he doesn't do so by Sunday, it doesn't look like we're going to have a picture of him for the bio. I'm going to try the fire station for the last time this weekend and I guess we can hope that they will have a picture of him there. The same goes for the people mentioned in our paper. The Orlando Sentinel website has not been helpful at all and I hope we will be able to get some photos from the Florida Memories site that was suggested.

Project and finals

This past week has been eventful to say the least. I have been working on papers for the last three weeks. Luckily Drew and I are going to complete the rest of the project this weekend. As for the project it has been fun but i am ready to be done with it. Im looking forward to getting finals out of the way.

Finished!!!!

Shea and I are finished  with our final web page!!! We are looking for a few more pictures, but other than that we are done! I am very excited for the end of the semester! Yay!

I finished my interview with Larry Niren and since he lived over 2 hours away I did my interview over the phone. I went to the fire station and went through their archives and then went to the Winter Park library and went through their archives and I could not find one picture of him. I found one article at the library that mentioned him but there were not any pictures.

this week i became pretty stressed and frustrated with the project. i had very little luck or cooperation with the retired firefighters on the list. So, i called chief mccabe; he was very helpful and invited me over to the station at dinnertime. Sydney and i went together and chatted with shift b and interviewed some of the firefighters who had been there awhile and had alot of experience. Im really glad it went well so not to end this project on a bitter note. But im extremely relieved it is almost over!!!!!!!!

Another Friday! :)

Well I'm through with my interview paper and it ended up going better than I had originally thought. The interview itself was enjoyable and I learned alot of interesting stuff and heard some fun stories. I'm glad there are only 2 more days of class...I'm ready to be done! (everyone else too I'm sure!) Hopefully the final will go well...I was initially excited that it's a take home, but I'm a little nervous - don't know what to expect.

Well...TGIF! :) haha

bloggggggg

The semester is FINALLY coming to an end. After many obstacles, I finally conducted the interview Tuesday and am finished with the biography. My interviewee provided a lot of helpful information, so I'm excited to turn in the paper. Hopefully the web page will end up going as well. Nick and I are almost finished with the web page, but we're still struggling with a few things. Hopefully everything will magically come together before Monday. I guess it has to.
To finally have this project almost finished is SUCH a relief. Only two more days of class!

Project

So I finally found a firefighter who was willing to meet. I completed my interview on Tuesday, which was a relief. Even though I had to drive quite far to meet Mr. Garner, the interview went very well. He was more interested in talking about his life after firefighting for the most part. He did though give me some interesting information regarding his career. I also got the photo of him as well as a couple shots of his awards. I have almost completed the biography and have a writing consultant meeting tonight for it.

End of the semester!

I am making great progress. I am nearly done with both the bio and the final web-site paper. I think that both of the projects are coming along really well. All that is left are the finishing touches. I only have one little problem, I cannot get a hold of my firefighter to get the photos of him that I forgot to take at the meeting. I have left two messages and he has not called me back. Hopefully I will hear from him soon.

Paper

I called and set up an appointment to meet my retired firefighter. I called him last week but he never returned my call so I called him back and was reluctent to find him in. Hopefully everything goes well.

Blogg

My interviewee and I have talked several times over the phone and are still planning out with our schedules to meet. He has asked me why we can't do it over the phone, I think he doesn't want to meet with me.

Shannon and my rough draft is completed...it took foreeevvver. However, I am pleased with the outcome. Interested in getting it back and making revisions.

4/18 Project

The project is going pretty well. My partner and I have completed our interviews and are preparing to complete the rest of our project. I am pumped about my test grade. Hopefully I will not be pulling all nighters till the end of the semester to finish all the work I have.

Blog 4/18

I have been calling and emailing Captain Mells for the past three days and he has yet to respond. So today I went down to the fire station hoping they would let me look at the archives anyway but no such luck. If he doesn't get back to me sometime next week it doesn't look like we'll be getting any more sources for our final draft. We also haven't been able to get back in touch with Mr. Hancock to take the picture we forgot on the first interview.
I have a lot of issues with the most recent secondary reading exercise. The style of the book doesn't really lend itself to this type of writing assignment. The outcome was definitely repetitive and maybe a little overly critical.

Blogging

So, the interview with my first retired firefighter fell through. I tried setting up a time for the interview several times, but never got a response. I then contacted Chief McCabe and he gave me the name of Battalion Chief Bob Ferrell. I called twice and left a message the other day. Still, no response. I'm a little nervous about this part of the project now. I am going to try Chief Ferrell again. If that doesn't work, I am going to contact Chief McCabe for further assistance. Hopefully it works out!

this project is going nowhere.

Okay, after having called 5 people, you would think one of them, just one, would be able to do an interview. I actually had a meeting set up at one point, but the day of the interview, the man was sent to te hospital. So, I'm back to square one. I've called a couple other people, but I can't seem to find someone who is willing to participate. Hopefully the last woman I just called will want to be involved and this mess can be over. I'm sure Chief McCabe is annoyed with the absurd amount of emails I've been sending him...the madness has GOT to end. I just want to finish this project, and right now it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. For now, I'll keep my fingers crossed that something will work out!

This week i mainly worked on the secondary text and i was frustrated because tjs had No appointments left when i finished. i guess with the end of the semester, its getting really busy so ill have to make one sooner! As far as my biography, im getting nervous becasue my person doesnt return my calls. I guess if she doesnt return them by the weekend ill have to get another lady!!!!

This week i mainly worked on the secondary text and i was frustrated because tjs had No appointments left when i finished. i guess with the end of the semester, its getting really busy so ill have to make one sooner! As far as my biography, im getting nervous becasue my person doesnt return my calls. I guess if she doesnt return them by the weekend ill have to get another lady!!!!

This week i mainly worked on the secondary text and i was frustrated because tjs had No appointments left when i finished. i guess with the end of the semester, its getting really busy so ill have to make one sooner! As far as my biography, im getting nervous becasue my person doesnt return my calls. I guess if she doesnt return them by the weekend ill have to get another lady!!!!

YES!!!

I was able to interview the individual (retired Firefighter) yesterday and was thoroughly intrigued with his stories. Mr. Youngs was a very thoughtful man and what I consider to be an all american or at least stereotypical. Although he only spent ten years in the WPFD, he has had a lifetime of service and is phenominally interesting.

After the first person who I was suppose to interview's phone number was not inservice I emailed Chief McCabe and he gave me another name and number. I called my new person and he did not know anything about the project and was a little confused. He lives north of Gainseville and he decided he wanted to do the interview right then over the phone. At first he did not give a lot of information but as the conversation continued he opened up and told me some interesting facts about when he was a firefighter. I have written a little of my paper but still have a lot left to finish.

I think I finally found someone who will be willing to do an interview. I think I called around 3 or 4 unassigned firefighters, but they were already interviewed or being interviewed. I called the contact for Alice Kummer named Calvin Hancock. (If anyone has interviewed her already please tell me!) He was very nice, and he was talking a lot about the Kummer family's relationship with the WPFD. He told me where to find her, and he said that she's a story person...so, I guess that is good. Maybe I can get the interview done this weekend.

I have my interview today with the former fire chief of Winter Park. Currently, my subject is the fire chief for the city of Leesburg, Florida, located about an hour north of Winter Park. I plan on following the basic questions listed on the syllabus for the interview while including follow up questions depending on what kind of information my subject shares with me. Based on the previous phone conversations I have had with my subject, Dennis Sargent, he appears to be a very kind and willing to share his life story with me. I feel his story will be very interesting because he will have most likely been involved quite extensively in fire operations throughout most of his life due to the fact that he is a fire chief.

blog

I interviewed my retired firefighter today, and it went really well. I enjoyed getting to talk to him, and he really opened up after a few minutes. We met at station 62...the one by the W.P. hospital. Turns out he's a history buff, and was able to talk about some past WP events... we eventually got into talking about 9-11, where all we have travelled, and even the bird flu lol, so before i knew it, it had been over an hour and I hadn't even asked everything I wanted to yet. Anywho, the interview went well, and now I'm just trying to get everything done for friday...this is a crazy week! :P

I interviewed my firefighter on Thursday and that went very well. He was very nice and very helpful. He also knew everyone that walked by... I got introduced to the old mayor of Winter Park and pretty much every other patron at Starbucks that I didn't already know. I got a lot of good info for my biography, however, I definitely had a blonde moment and completely forgot to take a picture of him, so I am going to have to fix that this week... Other than that things are going well...

Blogging again

considering it is 3:00 a.m in the morning and I am still awake doing schoolwork, and considering the amount of blogging I missed out when I forgot to blog...(?) I decide to compensate my misdeeds by blogging a second time!! (yay~~)
Speaking of the test on friday...increasing one essay question was a pretty big deal time-wise, even though the test was not much more difficult then the ones before. But since I 've never really finished any of the tests...it could be the blue book manufacturer's fault: they should search for a new technology to decrease the friction coeficient of their paper so that pens/pencils can run over the pages more smoothly to decrease the time spent...(forgive me.)

Maybe it is a little too late to ask, but I wonder if there should be a specific format to the essay questions. It's really a great thing that the points needed to answer an essay question is given. I'm just wondering, should the essay follow a "statement-example-statement-example" route to get more points?

I can't believe the semester's almost over, and we're already in the 70's (well...class-wise)! Don't people always say happy times always go by too fast? lol

Blogginginginging

argh..I always forget to blog over here (not like I keep up with my own blog...) sorry..= =
Anyways~the 2nd draft of our paper is fixed and turned in, whew...it was a busy week, test + paper = I don't know what's going on with life anymore. Guess the next step is to choose what picture to add to the final draft of the web page then~ We called the fire station and is prepared for a visit to their archives to find more stuff.

another thing I accomplished was that I finally reached my retired firefighter and set up an interview schedule. It was supposed to be last friday, but my person called thursday night and canceled, and we reset it to this friday. Life's really good this way, considering that I had 3 tests and 2 papers and 1 foxday which I will be condemned for not going to the beach.

Looking forward to everything!

This week i just contnued to work on my second draft with syd and really try and improve our web page. Also, i attempted to make contact with my interviewee and hope she calls me back soon.

blogggg

So this post is a couple days late, but better late than never.
I FINALLY called my interviewee and we have a meeting set up for Wednesday! yay! I'm excited to just get this project FINISHED. ASAP.
The test Friday wasn't too bad, it was fair... Except, I feel like I study too much for his tests...He never includes as much information as I think...I feel like those hours I spent in the library preparing were kind of a waste
These last two weeks of class need to go by really fast.

Project

I realize this is a late post but better than not having one. My partner and I are making good headway with the project we will have both interviews by next wednesday. I thought that the test today was straight forward and easy to understand !

Blog 4/11

We didn't make it to the fire station this week and so our paper is only moderately different from the last draft. But modifications to the introduction and conclusion have definitely made it stronger. Now there is a clear purpose and direction to the report. Instead of just a list of events and dates it's now more of a call to involvement and awareness. The test today was pretty manageable. Starting with the last question and working your way backwards is a much better approach. I wish I had added more details regarding the souther manifesto though. I couldn't remember the supposed author's name.

I went to the WPFD archives this week, and I found some great pictures and a great report about the Mall Fire. It seems like the authors of the report were sort of comical. It talked about the loads of equipment they used to extinguish the fire, then it said the firefighters consumed 350 hamburgers and some firefighters tried to protect some parakeets from the fumes. The archives had tons of pictures we can use for our webpage. I just took a picture of some good ones with my camera. For my interview, my retired firefighter declined to be interviewed. I called the fire cheif to ask for another person I can interview.

Well Rachael and I are feeling good about our second draft on the web page...it's defitnely sounding better now that it's a little more organized. We still need to get everything properly cited, but other than that it's looking good. As for the test today, I'm glad it's over with and I'm hoping I did better than the last one! :) I've also already called my person to interview, and we are planning to meet early next week. ...I'm ready for this semester to be over! :)

Hey Hey, after learning that the original person I was supposed to interview was fighting severe cancer, I decided to find another person. I did and gave this man a call. I set up an appointment to meet with him next Wednesday and am looking forward to it. On top of that, Billy and I are making significant headway on our group project. However, we still need to put pictures in our text and find out how to cite the sources we used. A lot of our information came from newspapers or rather newspaper clippings with just the title and year attached. No volume, day, section etc was ever present. In any case, I am sure we will find a way to at least be able to cite what limited information we have. All in all, everything is great.

After receiving our first draft of our digital history project back, it is clear that there is much room for improvement. The research my partner and myself did not yield many results in terms of the amount of fire arson cases that have occurred in the Winter Park area. For our second draft I feel it will be necessary to possibly broaden our topic somewhat and include other sources of information relevant to our topic. I feel that the test on Friday will be pretty comprehensive because I feel like its been a long time since we were last tested. The biography aspect of the digital history project I feel will not be as difficult as the project we are currently working on.

I was driving down Lakemont and the firefighters were standing on the medians with the boots collecting money. I mentioned to them that I was interviewing Calvin Hancock and I got a very interesting reaction. They laughed and said good luck and that I would get some crazy stories from him. I could tell from the time I talked to him on the phone that he was a character, but now I am even more excited to meet him. The firefighters told me to bring him a pack of Marlboros and I would be fine...

blogggggggg

So, since I was feeling like death last week, I forgot to post my oh so interesting blog. After an eventful week of numerous trips to the health center and a fun visit to the hospital, it is safe to say I have not gotten far on the project. Hopefully I will be able to reach the 3rd interviewee I've been given so I can get the awkwardness over with!

This week was a little hectic for me with all my other classes but i did start working on my second draft because next week we have both an exam AND a secondary text.  Also, i hope to meet with my member of the fire dept soon to get my interview finished!!!

Into the Future

These past couple of weeks have been quite dull in terms of the Firefighter project and the Interview. However, that is all about to change. After repeated calls to Mr. David Young's house, I receive no answer. I believe that his listed phone number is actually a fax machine or an internet connection. I followed up by tracking him on the internet to find if he had another phone number, but had little to no luck with that. I guess the phone number I received really is his listed phone number. In any case, I am going to go to Mr. Young's house on Monday to bypass the whole phone thing and maybe get an interview then or at least set up an appointment. The second draft of the fireman project is also due this week so Billy and I plan on fixing our first draft and make it appealing to read. Lastly, my laptop refuses to let me get onto the blog website and that is why this one is a little late. But the library's computers allow me to log on so that is what I am going to do in the future.

Blog 4/4

I'm a little worried about missing class today because of that article. Usually secondary readings that don't require a paper call for a class discussion or activity and missing out on that is probably not so beneficial. But now there's very little to be done about that. I need to focus instead on the rough draft that's due next Friday. Our paper is well within the required length and loaded with information but we need to add a more general aspect to keep it from turning out like a 1000 word newspaper article. Hopefully our trip to the fire station archives next week will help us to that end.

Week 12 (March 31st-April 4th)

So, I'm still in the process of trying to set up a time that will be convenient for the fireman and me. I'm hoping it will take place next week. I am excited to learn about his life and career with the fire department. Hopefully, it will run smoothly and he will be excited for the interview. My partner and I are working on the second draft. Our outline is helping us along, but it is still hard work. We have good information and pictures, so I'm confident it will be good.

I'm hoping to reach my firefighter this afternoon, and hopefully he will be enthusiastic about the interview. He lives close by, so that helps with a meeting place. I've been trying to think of some additional questions and others that might naturally flow in the course of the interview, and Rachael and I are also making changes on our web page draft, but still need to schedule our meeting with TJs for next week. I'm glad its friday :)

I haven't actually talked to my firewomen yet but I am going to try and call her again tomorrow to set up a meeting to talk to her about her firefighting story. I just finished reading the journal for tomorrow and I thought it was interesting and there were many things that I was not aware of that caught my attention. I think it will be interesting to talk about in class. Brittiany and I still have some changes to make on our paper but I think we are headed in the right direction and have a lot of good information.

Interview

 I just got off the phone with the firefighter I was assigned to interview, Mr Calvin Hancock.From my first impressions he seems like a very nice old man with a sense of humor and I hope that he will have many interesting stories to share with me. We have set up a meeting next Thursday at Starbucks. I am looking forward to meeting him and getting his perspective on firefighting.

I contacted my fireman on Sunday, and he seemed interested in doing the interview. I had to call him back to set up a time when to meet because I wasn't sure when my partner and I could get together. When I called him back, he didn't answer. I just left a message. Hopefully, he's still interested! If we do meet, it should be this Friday. I'm a little nervous, but I think it will be ok.