Never Quit Learning!

by Donna MacMeans

I was on the University of Cincinnati campus this weekend to see my two star general (retired) brother receive an award from his alma mater for achieving the highest rank of any UC ROTC graduate. That's him in black accepting a plaque (below) ...guess I needed a zoom attachment on my ipad (grin - you should see the one of him officiating the coin toss at the football game that followed this presentation - talk about tiny!)

Classes start midweek on campus so besides the football game, there was an excitement in the air of moving in, new beginnings, and new challenges.

I loved my college years for the new experiences. A lot of growing up occurred in that environment. One of the reasons I chose

journalism as a major at Ohio State University, was that the program encouraged their students to take a wide variety of courses. After all, you never knew what sort of story you'd be asked to report about. Good to have a broad base of knowledge to draw upon.

Alas, I didn't graduate in journalism, though. Life interfered...and marriage...and moving - you know how it goes...so I ended up graduating in Accounting. However, the need to keep learning, to maintain a broad base of knowledge, never went away. Life seems to continually teach us new lessons - especially once children come along (grin) - but even if they don't, we travel, we learn to exist in new environments, we make new friends that challenge us with new skills.

Writing is especially challenging in this regard. Not only do we learn alot about ourselves in terms of sacrifice to create and write a story, but we have to learn about other things in the name of "worldbuilding" as well. It's called research. Such a dry academic name for an exciting challenging passion (grin). I once told a reader that I'd be able to generate books much faster if just once I actually knew what I was writing about. Maybe that's part of the joy of writing, doing the research and learning new things.

For Redeeming the Rogue (sorry, love that cover and so had to post it again - grin), I had to learn about the politics and specifics behind the assassination of President Garfield, the layout of Washington DC in 1881 when it was comprised of a great deal of swampland, the process and utensils of an eleven course meal, something about tramp steamers of the nineteen century, coffins, and the Irish movement for Home Rule.

For Casanova Code, my next book which I believe is to be released June 2012, I studied secret codes and how to break them, Victorian personal ads, Victorian pubs, rifles used by the army in 1890, rifle scopes, and Japanese erotica. (Y'all know I like a sexy book - grin).

I'm currently learning about Scotch whisky, the Highlands, and the temperance movement. I'm still early in the book so I'm sure that list will grow.

What about you? Do you find the process of learning exciting, or a chore? What life lessons have you learned? What research would you like to do (wink, wink). Let's all go back to school for the day to explore learning. I'll give away a copy of Redeeming the Rogue to someone who leaves a comment so they can experience the benefit of my research. (If you already have Redeeming the Rogue - just let me know and I'll send you one of my research books that I no longer use).

Odds and Sods

by Anna Campbell

As most of you know (because so many of you very generously popped over to support me on my blog tour and various other promo efforts - thank you!), I've recently had a book out. MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION hit the stands on 26th April and I've been talking to readers all over via interviews, blogs and in person.

One question that often comes up is where do I get my ideas. And I always answer (because it's true) that I get ideas everywhere.

To give you an example, a couple of days ago I was reading the English National Trust magazine - I have a friend who very kindly sends them to me and they're a goldmine of quirky social history - and I came across the sort of thing that might well spark a story idea.

The National Trust has recently bought a wonderful early 18th century (well, I say wonderful but it sounds a bit creepy, frankly!) house in Northumberland in the north of England called Seaton Delaval Hall. It was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh who designed the cold but very impressive Blenheim Palace which formed the inspiration for much of Cranston Abbey in MY RECKLESS SURRENDER. By the way, Vanbrugh combined successful careers as architect and playwright - not a double that immediately comes to mind! He was also a spy and spent time in the Bastille.

Hmm, I can see a blog coming up on him too! See what I mean about ideas being everywhere? Anyway, back to my piece on Seaton Delaval Hall!

When I read about it, Seaton Delaval Hall struck me as an unlucky house. They had a huge fire in 1822 because jackdaws nested in the chimney shafts (bit more dramatic than "I went to bed with the bar heater on," huh?). The family line died out as a series of heirs fell off the perch (for example, the original builder, Admiral Delaval had no living son and his nephew inherited) much like jackdaws in a lit chimney. After the fire, the house wasn't inhabited until the 1980s. There's even a ghost - a white lady who apparently pines for a Delaval heir who couldn't marry her.

Here's a link to the National Trust site for the house: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-seaton-delaval-hall

When I was reading this NT magazine, I came across a fascinating bit of history that really set my synapses firing. In the grounds there's an impressive mausoleum (pictured below) containing the remains of John Seaton who died at the age of twenty. Here's the quote:

"John, the heir of the Seatons, perished in 1775, having been kicked in a vital organ by a laundry maid to whom he was paying addresses. Thus died the last of the Delavals by the foot of a buxom slut. Over the broken remains of so much hope...his father raised a temple."

Oh, dear! Ouch!

Not the way you want your aristocratic line to come to an end (I'd say 'sticky end' but that might be gilding the lily!).

Now these few lines are interesting for a whole stack of reasons.

Did she kick him where we think she did? I suspect she might have!

What happened to the maid? I haven't been able to find out - I hope she wasn't charged although given the power structure of 18th century England, she probably was.

Then there's the very revealing language. Surely calling a lower-class girl defending herself against a predatory sprig of the aristocracy a 'slut' is a bit of a misnomer! Again, a sad indication of the position of women although I love the descriptive detail of 'buxom' - it gives you a vivid picture of her! More power to her left foot!

Was this action the tragic end of a long and loving relationship? Cue chance to put in a very nice picture of Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees in the POLDARK series.

Or was our heroic laundry maid like Verity/Soraya in CLAIMING THE COURTESAN before the start of her career as a courtesan? Preyed upon rather than preying upon?

More importantly, could our feisty washerwoman be the heroine of a romance novel?

You know, I think she's got potential!

Or could our wincing would-be rake be the hero? He'd need to be a bit more robust but I could definitely imagine a bit of sparky dialogue over the washing line if we wrote him as a sexy beast.

Could our laundry maid be a runaway aristocrat? Charis without having enlisted Gideon's help? Grace trying to make a living after they repossessed the farm? The laundry maid isn't that far away from previous heroines I've written and she shares the strength of character which I like to give my girls.

At this stage, I have no intention of writing MY RECKLESS WASHING MACHINE or CLAIMING THE CLOTHES PEGS but you can see how a quirky incident like this sparks ideas that go on to spark other ideas and so on until you've got the basis for a book.

So while I'm digging around looking for inspiration, I'm turning to you! Do you have any quirky bits of family history - hopefully not a randy great-uncle who was done in by one of his squeezes! - that strike you as funny or strange or romantic or scandalous? Any ghosts in the family? Any skeletons? Any feisty laundry maids? Come clean, as they say in the best laundry romances!

Historical Research and Twelfth Night

posted by Nancy

Today we welcome Lair regular and debut author Barbara Monajem! Barbara's novella, Notorious Eliza, is out from Harlequin Undone, and her single title debut, Sunrise in a Garden of Love and Evil, will be out from Dorchester this spring. Barbara's here to chat about her love of history.

When I was a kid, we stayed up late on New Year’s Eve, and at the stroke of midnight, the whole family went onto the front porch and banged pots and pans. While staying up late was in itself a real treat, getting to make a huge racket in the middle of the night was FABULOUS. I never questioned why. It was fun, and therefore good.

It turns out we were driving away evil spirits. Whoa! How cool is that?

I never would have known if it weren’t for historical research. I love doing research,
because it leads me down so many unexpected paths, most of which have nothing to do with what I’m writing at the time. It’s like being in a maze, but instead of meeting a lot of frustrating dead ends, I meander happily from one path to another, wandering in ever-widening circles, far, far from where I began.

Then reality sets in and I go back to what I was researching, but the trip was fun. And productive! A few weeks ago, I researched wassailing in connection with a recipe blog on the Harlequin community. My goal was to find a few recipes to compare with the one I already had. Instead, I got a great history lesson and pots of fun ideas.

What sprang to my mind (before tripping in research world) was carolers in Victorian garb going door-to-door, rosy-cheeked from the nippy winter air (and perhaps the frequent imbibing of wassail to keep warm). But there’s much, much more. Wassailing has pagan origins (no surprise -- don’t all fun celebrations?) and it’s been going on in one form or another for a long, long time. Door-to-door wassailing was a way of cleansing houses of evil spirits so as to start the year out right. Householders would deck their doorways with greenery. (Hence, here we go a-wassailing, among the leaves so green… Think holly and other evergreens, like we use for Christmas decorations now.) There was an exchange of sung verses at the doorway, and the wassailers would parade through the house, GOING INTO EVERY ROOM (what a cleaning nightmare for the house-proud, before and after) making a huge hullabaloo with pots, pans, musical instruments, and so on, to drive the evil spirits away.

One of my life’s great mysteries solved, all because of historical research.

In return for driving out the poor, beleaguered spirits (I can’t help but see a paranormal in this), you would feed the wassailers snacks and, of course, your home-made wassail. I won’t even start on all the bizarre ingredients your wassail might contain. Regardless, a house-wassailing scene, with all its comic possibilities, definitely belongs in a story. Or a not-so-comic situation involving thieves or smugglers, or a search for missing documents, or secret rooms where the evil spirits – or maybe irritable but well-intentioned ghosts – lurk until the foolishness is over.

Then there was the not-so-nice version, where groups of men would come a-wassailing and wreak vengeance (think curses -- more paranormal stuff! -- or vandalism) on anyone who didn’t give them enough to eat and drink.

Then there’s apple tree wassailing, which took place on Twelfth Night. (And still does in some locations – how fabulous is that? I would be in Somerset or Devon right now, begging to come along, if I had the time and money and guts.) It’s a night known for turning life topsy-turvy, for being the opposite of what you usually are, and for doing what you wouldn’t at any other time (which is of course ideal story fodder). Villagers selected a wassail king and queen, who would lead a procession from one orchard to another. The oldest tree in each orchard was given a taste of the wassail made from its fruit, to encourage it to produce abundantly the next year. A huge racket was made to drive the evil spirits from the trees. People got to kick back and have a grand old time before settling down to the business of the New Year. (And it was nighttime… perfect for illicit romance, as long as you could find someplace warm. :)

I don’t have an apple tree, but this year I’m paying homage to my antiquated pear tree, which deigns to produce now and then, and to the oaks and pecans which provide so well for our squirrels.

As for Notorious Eliza, the idea came partly from research (sort of) and partly from real life. A friend, who does fabulous trompe l’oeil work, painted scenes with a classical feel to them on his dining room walls. The same friend suggested I read William Manchester’s A World Lit Only By Fire, which contains, among other things, much mind-boggling info about the Borgias and their orgies. Put those together, and I had a ballroom with obscene murals on its walls. Add a heroine who paints nudes for a living, and a hero insisting on covering up the murals so he can marry and bring home a respectable wife, and… whee! A story which practically wrote itself.

Happy Twelfth Night and Day to you!

Barbara is giving away a $10 gift certificate at Barnes and Noble to one commenter today, so tell us: What's your favorite obscure fact? Your favorite holiday custom, the one you can't wait to celebrate? Or a bit of historical trivia that you were surprised to learn was true?

Chasing Grandmama....

By Jeanne Adams

I've been chasing my husband's Swedish grandmother. Now doesn't that sound exciting?

Relax, people, she's been dead since the 1960s. I mean that "chase" thing metaphorically. You know. Genealogical chasing. I know, I know, it's one of those crazy things I do when I'm supposed to be doing important things like laundry, or paying bills, or taxes.

Hunting the dead. Pretty serious. The Internet has made this brain-frying pasttime a lot easier, but it's still frequently a puzzle. Take Grandma Adams, for instance. She imigrated from Sweden. Her name was Linda Carlson.

Yeah, you guessed it there were hundreds of Carlsons that came to the USA. Literally, hundreds. They came from all over Sweden. Lots and lots and lots of Carlsons. And Andersons. And Dahlstroms. And Olsons. And they named their children Gustave and Olaf and Linda and Emma.

Guess what? Those names I listed? They're all kin in some way to Gramma Carlson Adams. And did any of them leave any trace of who they were or where they were from? Ohhhhhh, no. They came here and got jobs and got married, but they changed their names to Roy, and John, and Elle.

So, it's kind of a puzzle. Truth be told, I actually like puzzles, which is why I do genealogy research. Of course, it's also why I frequently tear my hair out over the aformentioned research.

Ironically, when you get to the whole Adams side of thing? Pretty easy. Just head north on I-95 to Boston. Hang a left, go to Quincy, Massachusetts and pick a graveyard. Can't swing a dead...ancestor...without hitting an Adams relative. Lots of documentation. We genealogy buffs love that documentaiton stuff.

Of course, we have to give a nod of thanks to the Mormons too. They are wicked crazy about preserving genealogical data. They've almost single handedly worked to save all the Ellis Island records.

Problem is, they just store it. They don't authenticate it or check it. There are no genealogy police, at least I don't THINK there are.... (Of course, there supposedly are no fashion police either, but given my atavistic inability to wear white shoes after Labor Day, I believe they do exist.)

Ahem. But I digress.

Here's the problem. People go to Ancestry DOT com, they find their family tree and voila! they import hundreds of years of data, stuff other people have posted.

Geeee, isn't it great?

Not so much.

You see, they don't check the facts. (Remember Joe Friday? Just the Facts?) Well, there are a ton of entries in one of my family trees where people have added "facts." Problem is, those facts - usually extra children no one had ever found before! Wow! - aren't cross-checked. Like, did that kid's birthday fall before the mother turned sixty? What about the four kids on one family tree I just ran across that were born...(drum roll...wait for it...)after the mother was dead!

Miracle birth indeed.

Fact checking is important. Source documents are important. Really. Really. Important.

So, despite the temptation to accept that Lovisa Carlson who came on the ship Chrisitana out of Stockholm is Gramma, as several people have tried to suggest, I've resisted. I know better. I checked the dates. I checked the parents names (which, miraculously, I know!) So, nope. She's not the one.

Its hard to reisist in writing sometimes too. You know, they show stuff on TV - surely THOSE folks did their research right? They got the science right, surely? - or someone writes something in a book and other writers copy it because, well, surely THAT author did his research, right?

Seriously, now. You don't believe that, do you? When I was researching stuff for Dark and Deadly, I had to call my local arson investigator. After I convinced him I wasn't a psycho - hey, it wasn't easy, I was calling to ask him about bombs! - or a firebug, he gave me some interesting info. You can start a fire with a molotov cocktail, but you can't really blow something up. Not really.

Hmmmmm. Not at ALL what I expected. I mean, I'd seen the shots on the movies where someone throws the lit bottle full of gasoline and BLAMMO! Turns out, you get a big whammo, but its all show. Fire. No blammo.

And that bit where someone shoots at a car and it blows up? It so doesn't work that way. Really. You actually have to hit the battery to get that effect. Guess what? That means you actually have to know where the battery IS. I had to go look under the hood of my car to remember where it is on my car. Got another "guess what" for you. It isn't the same on every car.

So, if you wanna shoot one? You gotta know where the battery is on that make and model. Same thing with the gas tank, which, I've been told is just as hard or harder to hit than the battery.

So no blammo with a bullet unless you're really, really, really good and you have to know your cars.

Who knew?

But like the kids that get added to the Family Tree Maker and AncestryDOTcom lists after the poor woman's dead, if you don't check your sources, you get it wrong.

Of course, there's also the issue of getting it totally right, but no one believes it - ask me sometime about the helicopter in the beginning of Dark and Dangerous sometime! - which is a whole different blog. Snork.

One of these days come soon, I'm going to figure out the whole Gramma Adams riddle. The information, as the X-Files likes to say, is out there. I'm pretty good at research. I'm gonna find her. And her brothers and sisters. Allllll fifteen of them. Yep. And hey, they're dead, it's not like they're going anywhere! Haha! (Sorry, genealogical humor there. Oh, the other one is the bumper sticker: I brake for Graveyards, which I do)

So, what about you? Where do your people hail from?

Are they long time Americans (1600's for my family)?

Are they Swedish? Grins.

Or, are they Irish, Scotch, Indian, Latvian or Persian? Or something entirely different?

And have you ever caught a writer in a research mistake?

Grins....c'mon...spill!

I Love My Job

By Kate

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been immersing myself in research for my new Bibliophile Mystery series. Last week, I spent two days at the annual Antiquarian Book Fair in Los Angeles, where booksellers from all over the world meet to buy, sell and trade their treasures.

I attended two workshops on book collecting and restoration, then wandered through the hundreds of stalls and kiosks perusing exquisitely bound editions of William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman and Jane Austen. There were books on display that were so ancient, they looked like petrified forest mushrooms, as well as a collection of clever, three-dimensional, accordion-style books designed by a contemporary Parisian artist. First editions of mysteries by Raymond Chandler and Earl Stanley Garner sat alongside a nicely preserved, full set of Agatha Christie’s mysteries.

Then this weekend, my research brought me to San Francisco where I spent the last two days wandering around my heroine’s neighborhood, getting the lay of the land, soaking up the local color, searching out the perfect location for a murder—or two, and driving up to Sonoma County where my heroine was raised.

Oh, and the wine tasting I attended was a necessary part of my character development. ;-)

I’m also taking a two-day class on bookbinding at the San Francisco Center for the Book. That’s right, I’m not just writing a book, I’m making a book!

Shortly after I return home, I’ll be descending into the deadline cave where I’ll stay for the next month in order to finish my book. But for now, I’m writing this post while sitting at the restaurant bar, sipping a lovely cabernet and nibbling on bread dipped in olive oil as I wait for my steak and potato. Sigh. The things we do for our craft!

If you could choose the perfect spot to do research, where would you go? Are there books you choose simply because you love the setting? Do you find yourself drawn to a particular occupation of the main character? And how do you like your steak prepared? Or would you prefer the vegetarian selections? :-)

P.S. Vote for Trish!!!

Gerri Russell on Building a Career

interview by Nancy Northcott


Your first book, The Warrior Trainer, was a January release. Now you have your second, Warrior's Bride, on the shelves. Yet your success was a long time in coming, as you told our own Anna Campbell in the September issue of The Romance Writer's Report. How did you persevere to reach this point?

Partly it was having faith in what I wanted, partly it was being too stubborn to give up. I had to ask myself every day if I wanted to be published. If I wanted to publish, then I had to do what it took to get there—and that was to write every day regardless of the rejections, regardless of the self-doubt that crept in every so often!

What advice would you give the new writer just starting his or her first manuscript?

This will probably sound strange coming from someone who took twelve years to sell, but don’t be in a hurry. Learn your craft, write the best book you can, and take a deep breath. Nothing happens fast in this business, so it is important to send out the very best product you can to the right publisher or the right agent. Don’t waste your opportunities by sending out a product that isn’t ready.

Both of your published novels are set in medieval Scotland. What draws you to that time and place?

The mystery, simplicity, and opulence of the Medieval and Renaissance times have always fascinated me, as have knights and heroes of old who fought for and defended what they believed in.

My family and I are all so captivated by the time period that we have worked as living history re-enactors at the Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire in King’s Valley, Oregon, for the past eight years. It’s a wonderful learning as well as bonding experience for us all.

Why Scotland? I love that the woman are not as restrained as their English counterparts. And who doesn’t love a man in a kilt, armed to defend, with a soft burr in his speech?

Both books also have mystical overtones related to stones. How did you settle upon that as a connecting thread?

That’s the funny thing about research. Once you start down a certain path, interesting things happen. I started The Warrior Trainer with no idea it would have any companion books. And as I started to research more about Scottish stones, the more stones I read about. That’s when I decided to do the Stones of Destiny Series. I chose three wonderful stones that each had remarkable histories associated with them. You’ll be reading about the Stone of Scone, the Seer’s Stone, and the Charm Stone in each of the three books.

Tell us a little about the hero of Warrior's Bride.

Douglas Stewart is the bastard son of Robert II, Scotland’s king. His father has forced him from childhood to do his bidding, and he’s earned the name the Black Wolf of Scotland as a result. His latest demand—marriage to a woman of little consequence. Wolf would refuse his father this last demand, except that he’s holding Wolf’s brother hostage, threatening to hang him for treason is Wolf doesn’t obey.

The heroine of Warrior's Bride is Isobel. How do she and the hero clash?

Warrior’s Bride is a traditional marriage of convenience story. Wolf and Isobel clash over their forced union. Isobel wants nothing to do with marriage, watched how marriage drove her own mother to insanity. Fearing the same end, she fights Wolf at every turn. But sometimes the heart leads even the resistant places they don’t want to go. . . .

Your route to publication was a little unusual, with your first book winning the American Title II contest. What advice would you give authors who're thinking of entering a national internet contest?

Advice . . . or more warning . . . Be ready for the contest to totally consume your life—writing and otherwise. In order to succeed in this online venue, you need to be a master at promotion. You’ll need to be creative, willing to work harder than you’ve ever worked before, push past your comfort zone in ways you never knew you could, all while being an ultimate professional.

You're also a two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart competition for unpublished writers, a contest that's now open to entries. What do you think authors who are entering should know or consider?

The Golden Heart is a wonderful opportunity that gives you lots of exposure if you final. But it is critical to remember that the Golden Heart is just that, an opportunity, one that does not guarantee you will sell. Selling a manuscript is part talent, part perseverance, and part luck!

Your launch party for Warrior's Bride benefited the Early Childhood Programs for the Bellevue School District. How did you decide to do that?

I received so much support from my community while in the American Title contest and I wanted to give something back. Literacy, at all levels, has always been a cause near and dear to my heart, so together with Barnes and Noble we arranged it so that proceeds from sales would benefit Early Childhood Programs in the local school district—programs that supported literacy.

Not only did we raise over $500 in donations from sales, but attendees also purchased books donated straight to the district exceeding the donated amount. It was an incredible evening—a memory I will treasure forever.


Thanks for being here, Gerri! Gerri is giving away one copy of each of her books. To enter the drawing, simply leave a comment on the blog. To learn more about Gerri, visit her website, www.gerrirussell.net.

What times and places do you love, and why? Has your reading ever led you down an unexpected road?

RESEARCH CAN BE FUN!

by Suzanne Welsh
As any of the Banditas or any romance author will tell you, we try to use facts to keep our books authentic. This requires research. Sometimes that is as simple as looking up a word in the dictionary. Sometimes it is as complicated as interpreting a doctor's long-winded explanation of a disease process so that the author, and therefore the reader, can understand this over the course of a scene or a manuscript. Sometimes it's just plain fun!

Recently another of my critique partners, Jo Davis, asked me to accompany her to a fire station in Irving to meet and take pictures (I was the photographer!) with the team of firefighters she previously interviewed for her series coming from NAL Signet next year about a team of? you guessed it, firefighters.

What was a girl to do? Say "no" to spending an entire afternoon with real life heroes? My mama did NOT raise a stupid daughter. I of course said, "sure!"

Here we two mild-mannered romance authors are walking up to the fire station, greeted by Captain Steve Deutsch, when suddenly the guys get a call to an accident out on the highway. They usher us into the station to wait for them while they climb onto the fire engine, (which we learned is not a ladder truck) and off they go.

Now when you leave two writers alone in a strange place what do they do? Well they behave for all of five minutes. We peeked into the pantry, which was loaded with things like can after can of Campbell's soup, Gatorade, popcorn, a giant box of Oreos and the most massive canister of TUMS we'd ever seen!

Next we wander out into the engine bay where they have a second vehicle they use for chemical fires and two pontoon boats ready for hauling to the nearby lake if a call should require it. There was a treadmill out there along with a weight lifting station, with more weights than I've ever seen.

Our curiosity a bit satisfied, we wander back into the meeting room/kitchen and await they guys' return. Luckily it was a minor accident and they were back fairly quickly.

Let me introduce you to the guys of A shift. Captain Steve, is a handsome, whip-cord lean man with a deep voice and a keen intellect behind wire-rimmed glasses. Wally Harris, the driver, is a good-looking man, tall and broad of shoulder. He not only drives the truck, but mans the controls for the truck's water pumps, a job which requires skill and a knowledge of physics. Nick Franco is a firefighter, cute and happy to tell the lady writers some great stories. Not a beta man among them, ladies!

One of the things Jo wanted to learn more about was the thermal imagining camera. A fancy gizmo the firefighters use to help them distinguish different objects or bodies in dark smoky rooms or raging infernos. So once the guys returned, Wally made himself a steaming bowl of Spaghetti-O's. (Yes the lunch of heroes!) Captain Steve pointed the thermal camera at him and showed us how it gives them the temperature of Wally's body vs. the bowl of hot food vs. the cold bottle of water on the table. Way cool!

Another thing Jo, the ever-curious, wanted to know was what all equipment they'd take into a house fire. So the guys let her try on some of the equipment. The heavy jacket and the air-tank. (We learned it's a tank with room-air equivalent oxygen, or about 21% oxygen, not pure oxygen. Room-air is what you and I usually breathe. As a nurse I already knew what room-air was.) Jo also had to put on the mask, and attached to all this was the thermal imaging camera, a flashlight and the radio mic. Geesh, how do these guys walk, much less crawl into and out of fires or rescue people?

Then the piece-de-resistance. Wally hooked up one of the large hoses to the engine and Captain Steve had Jo hold onto the hose. They started with 50 lbs of pressure and water came gushing out of the hose. Then the captain had Wally crank the pressure up to 100 lbs of pressure. Jo nearly flew off the concrete drive! (The captain and Nick got a kick out of that when we returned inside for another Q&A session!)

I got to ask a few questions about Meth labs for my own work in progress (WIP), and the guys gave me some stories that would frighten most of us if we knew what was really out there. Then they explained that an engine pumps water while a ladder truck has one of those big ladders with the buckets on them.

So a big thank you to the guys and Jo. I haven't had that much fun doing research ever!
Have any of you had a great day or experience doing new research?