Tonight was a hard night, on Saturday the 15th of May the world lost a good man. Who devoted his most recent years to the community by being a member of the Canadochly Valley Ambulance Club. His name was Kevin Craley. It was through this devotion that I came to know him. No matter what situation we were in be it a call that the fire company was on, or a training, he always put a smile on your face and if it was not on your face for all to see then you worked your ass of to keep it from bursting into public. Tonight the memorial for Kevin was held. During this the York County Dispatch Center held a last call for Kevin. This was the first time I have ever been at a memorial for a member of the emergency services. And had the opportunity to experience the “last call.” This last call is not like the one you hear at a bar. This is something of the upmost respect, and of high honor in the emergency services. Everything in the emergency services returns from duty and is placed available. That includes each tool that is used, each price of apparatus, each department, and each of its members. When one of the apparatus is in need of repair we call it “Out of Service,” and this is called out over the air. When an apparatus is retired from service it is placed out of service. In the emergency services a last call is performed when a responder passes away. This is done by placing that individual available. And is completed by taking the individual out of service. Tonight Kevin, received his last call.

To many this may not mean much, or sound like much. But to a responder let me tell you it hits you and it hits you hard when you experience someones last call. Especially someone involved in many of the emergencies you respond on.

Kevin will be missed by many and has touched many. And anyone who knew him were lucky to have known him. Those who did not have no idea what they missed out on.

Thank you kevin for making the times interesting and enjoyable.

I’ve made a clone of the York County Emergency Radio Comm. app, by request of Lancaster County responders who saw the York County App.

Currently this app does not do as much as the York app.

It only streams Lancaster County Fire/EMS communications

Police communications is planned. I need a stream in order to add them.

And Paging, is in the works also.

Keep an eye out for updates and if you have any resources let me know.

The Future Change logs will be under the Android Apps page.

As will the York County App, and any future apps. I will still post an article when i release an update, and release new apps. But everything will be centralized on the Android Apps page

Change log:

1.1.1:

Added notification so that you know its running, will be switching this to an on going notification while streams are active. Took app out of Beta.

1.1 Beta:
Switched both streams for fire and police to services to make streams compatible with multi-tasking.
The ability to stream both at the same time is also now possible.

V1.03Beta:
Added refresh button to paging.

V1.02BETA:
FIXED caching issue on paging. Now reloads when opened.

V1.01Beta:
Fixed force close on switching to police.

Its official I have just published my first android application. The apparently does three specific things.

*Streams York County fire dispatch and ops channels with a click of a button.

*Streams York County police zones with the click of a button.

And

*Displays an up to date display of York’s fire paging system. Due to privacy this does not display medical calls unless a fire dept. Is dispatched.

Future plans
Currently apparently only streams while apparently is open. Will fix to allow multitasking.

Onclick access to York’s live cad system/ live incidents.

Service to run in the background to bring the digital paging directly to your phone. So that you can receive pages for your department without the need of a pager.

So I hope everyone enjoys.
Search the market for pub:”Matthew Flinchbaugh”

So, this week has had its set backs, and it’s progress.

Tuesday I talked to Josh (the best man), well He is in Montana (Air Force), and so Becky wrecked the car, earlier this week. So they are unsure as to whether they will be making it home for the wedding. Which sucks not only for us, but also for their families, This was going to be their only time to come home this year, since last year when they had their wedding. So, now Jennifer and my brains are scrambling trying to figure out what to do, how to deal with it.  All along we have had the chance that Josh couldn’t make it home because of the Air Force. I’ve been pondering how to handle it if he cannot make it.

My solution is to send him a web cam, Yes Josh your not getting out of a speech that easy, And having Josh Skype in at the reception, to deliver his speech. We already will have the Projector, so That takes care of how to deal with it. And Jen and I were down at the Ambulance Club Saturday, well while there I found out they had Comcast Cable Internet. Great!!!!  Then I found out they also have 3 wifi access points. Excellent…. So I dont even need to figure that part out.  So Josh, Your taken care of… We will be Video Conferencing him, and he will be on the big screen.  So get ready for your close up Old Buddy Old Pal!!

So Next on the list, The wedding invites are just about completely handed out. We hand delivered most of them Saturday, The out of State/Area ones are the only ones we need to mail. Everyone else we drove around Saturday to hand deliver. Dont forget you can RSVP by visiting http://www.koontzflinchbaughweddding.com/RSVP If you did not get one please do not bug us… That will not get you one. We have invited alot of people, and though we would like to invite everyone we know. Money is definitely a factor. And it does not mean we like you any more or less. We invited those who we spend most of our time with.

So lastly, I’ve finally gotten a few Engagement Pictures on the wedding site. I’ve been playing with Lucis Art Plugin for Photoshop, And i’m impressed with the advantages it has given me with developing/processing my pictures. And I am very impressed with how the pictures look when printed. I need more ink though The photos on the site will be downloadable in the full resolution. So for those of you who want prints please feel free to download them. However they are copyright to myself and my mother(Beverly Flinchbaugh) so do not missues them. No posting them on your Facebook or Blogs or anything else online. You may link to them. If you do not have the ability to Print them, Contact Me and I can set you up. But i do suggest SnapFish for ordering prints online. And may consider implementing that into the site.

So thankfully the wedding is arriving faster and faster, and sooner and sooner as the days go by things get hectic at times, But in the end this is all worth the time, money, and aggravation. In the end Jen and I get to spend the rest of our lives with the ones we love. And we cannot thank our Families enough for the help, and support they have given us. And of course our Friends, Which We know we do not get to see as much as we would like to, But we want everyone Family or Friend to know we do appreciate each one of you and what you do. We both feel that the friends and family we have are our greatest Strength. Thank You.

So Jen, and I failed miserably at the 365…

We’ve decided to amend our new years resolution to just take more pictures instead of taking 1 picture for each day.

So yea we failed. Things are too busy right now with the wedding, and finding houses.

Ok as stated when I began my site I would divide the website for the wedding and other things well the other things have not come. However the wedding did. So it is under development, but the domain is koontzflinchbaughwedding.com

You can click here to see the posts, and info related to the wedding here…

http://www.koontzflinchbaughwedding.com

I’m currently in the works of designing our site for the wedding that will be on the invitations.  This is just a template so there are no posts or anything but there will be things changing on the site rapidly. Take a look and leave comments to let me know how it looks.

I’m using wordpress as the back end. And designing my own theme for it.

http://flinchbaugh.getmyip.com

This is not the permanent address this is just my testing site.

Thanks in advance for responses.

As I posted before I stumbled across this, there is a company called Canvas People. They are offering one free Canvas Photo to each address. The print on canvas is free, then you pay for a frame, or effects. This is a great offer from them.

Well as my last post said when I received my canvas photo I would review it. I am very pleased with the quality. I used the photo that was taken of Jen and I right after I asked her to marry me. The photo that we sent my mom to tell her. This photo was taken with a 1.3mp camera phone. The quality is not the greatest. And I expected was more or less mixed results due to the low quality.

What I received was awesome. I have no complaints and the quality of the photo is better then I would have expected. Now I did not get all of the bells and whistles. I got just the photo no frame or image enhancements.

I was expecting it to come as a peice of canvas that I later would have to stretch on a frame. Well I was wrong. For the 15 dollars shipping fees they stretched the photo on a wooden frame. Sweet…

So I am throughly impressed. If you are looking to have someone do this service for you use www.canvaspeople.com they have my vote.

In the past, oh probably… six months.  I have been tossing up the idea of deleting my Facebook account, and the ever so dead Myspace accounts.  More for the reason that I do not use them.  However the only reason I keep them is to keep my self in touch with the people who may be looking for me.  The more places your name is, the easier it is to find you.

The other issue with these services that frustrates me, is the things people post to them.  This post is a long time comming and I finally have to write it.  So here goes…

Everyone who is old enough to get a job, What is the one thing you can count on filling out on an application besides your name, contact info, and social security number? References! Every employer / potential employer asks for references.  And when I am talking employer I mean the company doing the hiring, down to the clients that you may serve in that term of employment.

However this is so everly fast changing.  Yeah they still ask for you to give references, but the internet is a big reference now and days. And that is increasing more and more.  My brother created a website for John Flinchbaugh Photography,  This is a marketing effort, however whether he knows it or not, It is a referencing effort also. When you search google for “John Flinchbaugh Photography” you return the following results

The #1 result is his photography site, so that when people are looking for information on his photography they can find it.  They don’t find a comment he has on his facebook account about the latest beer that he tried. (This is just an example my brother does not have a facebook)

I did a number of searches for peoples first name, last name with quotes around it. So say “Matthew Flinchbaugh” for example, looks for links that have Matthew Flinchbaugh together, not Matthew on one part of the page, and Flinchbaugh somewhere else on the page. This gives you exact results you are looking for.  So a Google search for “Matthew Flinchbaugh” returns

My question is what comes up when someone searches your name?  Does it link to your networking sources that show what you are capable of, and certificates you have.  Or, is it that wild facebook comment that you left about the party you were at the night before and how drunk you got, and it made you late for work in the morning.  Because you were hung over.

Which would you rather have your future employer/partner/client see? How bout your parents/family/kids? Yes kids, I don’t care if you are 40 or if your 8, what people need to start realizing is, what you post on the internet may be there for a very very long time. If not forever. For example back when alot of us started on the internet there was a place many website were maintained and hosted called Geocities.com alot of pages had been abandoned and long forgotten, how ever what if that was your site, with your name plastered all over it.  Well you say “Hell its gone now, created, forgotten, and now deleted.” Wrong!!!!!! Welcome ReoCities.com! ReoCities.com along with other companies archived everything they could before Yahoo! turned out the lights to Geocities. So now the first personal pages, club pages and what not still have a home on the net. They may have been forgotten but they are not lost.

What I am getting at is what you post on the internet be it a form of website, or a blog/tweet/wall message, or comment may be forgotten, but can come back to bite you in the rear.

Schools have banned teachers & staff from having the popular social accounts, and the biggest reason is people do not comprehend what they are putting out there for everyone’s eyes to see.  And by everyone I mean everyone and anyone with access to the net. People who are not even born yet may find these posts, down the road and when you are trying to teach your kid to not drink under age or smoke under age, who knows if they say mommy you did it when you were my age…. See!!!! Just because it is marked private does not mean its private.

Don’t post what you don’t want everyone to know. If you get mad because some one responds to your post about what you did while you were away from your husband/wife, or you make a comment and someone confronts you about it. Would you get mad? Then don’t put it out there. I’m not gonna say don’t voice your opinion that is the great thing about the net. Everyones opinion is voiced. But if you work for a company are family members don’t dish out an insult about your work or family if you can take what comes of it.

If what you say causes you to loose a friend, a family member, or lose a job, Don’t complain to me I’ve voiced my opinion, and my recommendation.

Ultimately don’t say what you later will regret saying. No matter when that regret may come.