Who Has Influenced You?

We are who we are and become who we are by those that have influenced us throughout our lifes.

For me, my biggest influence in life was my Father who always stood tall, in my eyes, like John Wayne on the big movie screen in the 1949 movie classic Sands of Iwo Jima. Always did like that movie along with the other movies the Duke was in. Would have to say the military movies the Duke stared in were my favorite. That’s probably one of the influences of why I entered the military after high school. Of course I was soon to find out that the movie military life and real life military were two different things. Go figure lol. All and all though it wasn’t a bad gig serving in the US Air Force. The time I served, I came across a lot of great influences that molded me into the person I am today.

Oh did I tell you also that my Dad was a volunteer fireman or what you would call now a volunteer fire fighter when I was growing up? Yup, he was. I use to hang around the local fire station with my Dad when he was busy doing something around the station after I got out of school with the other volunteer fireman like cleaning up the fire house, the fire trucks, or I was waiting till they returned from a fire call. Watching and learning even though I didn’t realize it. I soon enough joined the local volunteer fire department when I was of age. My Dad being an influence to me in joining because I saw it was all about helping people that were in need when the call came in. Always sort of neat when your doing the help people thing. : )

Since starting this blog I can say I’ve learned a lot, with a lot more to learn, and that I’ve also been influenced by people that are online. Some of these individual are what I would say are “heavy hitters” in that they know what their doing. You could say they’ve influenced me in a big way on how I should be as an online presence too. Be it reading others online that have blogs, or on twitter, or who I met on facebook there’s an influence with each and everyone that is online these days.

I came across a YouTube of a person name Micah Baldwin @micah on “Building Influence Online” who talked about such at Gnomedex 9. What’s a Gnomedex? Well, I soon found out by watching a few of the YouTubes about it with the various guest speakers. Gnomedex is a conference that has a lot of influence with all the great information presented.

Here Micah’s YouTube presentation at Gnomedex 9…

“Write like no one is reading. Write when you want to write. The moment you think “that would be a good blog post” you become a blogger.”

Those three sentences in Micah’s Gnomedex 9 presentation about blew me out of my chair. Wow I said, Wow again I said! Why? I found with those 3 statements, in it’s simplest form, is what it was all about to be doing this blog thing. Micah’s influence in this YouTube has made me begin to think and hopefully become a blogger of some sorts. I blog so I am a blogger.

Didn’t know that Micah Baldwin was the founder of “FollowFriday” on Twitter? Yeah he is, which is pretty neat knowing how it all got stared. “Tweet On Twitter & Have Fun” is my twitter motto and Micah has just made it more fun to do the twitter thing on followfriday. Thank-you Micah!

Some of those online “heavy hitter” influences that I follow either from their online web/blog page and via twitter are:

Joel Comm @joelcomm, Chris Pirillo @chrispirill, James Holmes @AskJamesHolmes, Lisa Irby @2createawebsite, Jim Stround @jimstroud, Jake Press @jakepress

I would recommend these individuals to anyone new to the online scene, blogging scene, or who ever is doing the twitter thing.

Want to thank Chris Pirillo @chrispirill for the Gnomedex-9 YouTubes. GREAT FRICKEN STUFF DUDE! I know Chris I know, no shouting in the live chat room but here on TFPFP I allow myself alittle shout out to those that are pretty cool. Thank-you. : )

Now I’ve come across a lot of very polished and very good content bloggers too since starting the TFPFP blog from the many people I follow online and on twitter. All have an influence on me or I wouldn’t be reading their blogs or following them on twitter. They have an online presence of influence.

So my early influence of my view of the military and the volunteer fire department made me travel down the path as a United States Air Force Fire Protection Specialist, which is actually a fancy name that basically means “Fireman.” LoL I know you have to say fire fighter now. Guess I’m still old school. : )

I’ve been out of the USAF for awhile now but I still belong to the local volunteer fire department in my community and my current job has me in some cases having a second opportunity of doing what I did in the USAF, that being an Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighter (ARFF). They say second opportunities are rare but the opportunity of people having an influence on your life that is positive in nature is even more rare.

Thank-you Dad, and thank-you all out there in that vast internet world.

(The usual disclaimers: I am not a journalist; This is a blog that expresses an outlook and is not conclusive in any shape or manner.)

Tweet on Twitter and Have Fun

There are so called “Bench Marks” that we use as landmarks to give us an idea of measuring items, things, or stuff in our lives on where they lay in our individual timeline. Take today for instance. Being part of the United States Air Force (USAF) for a number of years I know that today is the USAF’s 62 birthday. Yesterday, some thirty-two years ago is when I began serving in the US Air Force as a USAF Fire Protection Specialist. That’s sort of a fancy way of saying Fireman or Fire Fighter. : ) It began though, a journey that has shaped me into the person I am today. Hopefully all those who know me, that being my family and friends, view and see me as a good person, though I know there are times I can be a real bonehead. lol So, at these “Bench Marks” along my so called live timeline, I take little peeks back at the path I’ve traveled. Reflecting on but not reliving, and always moving forward because that is the path of travel for each one of us on this Big Blue Marble.

On a smaller, much lighter scale of my “Bench Mark” outlook, I feel it holds true for me with Twitter. It was on June 16th, 2009, a little over a month after I started tweeting on Twitter that I first mentioned my tweet quote of “Tweet on Twitter & Have Fun! : )” and I use it as part of my daily good morning/good night tweets. A so call daily “bench mark” of such if you will. It’s also in my bio too. I came up with this Twitter quote from a version of a quote that I used for a particular online game I use to play for a number of years way back when. It worked for me than as it is working for me now. Ever time I say it, it makes me smile. You could say my Twitter quote brands me as to what type Twitter person I want to be and what you can expect. Though it’s only been a short time since starting on the Twitter, I’ve already see landmarks along my Twitter timeline of moving forward with the followers I’ve come acquainted with and the things I learn from those I follow.

So here it is just over four months since starting my tweeting I find a great Twitter “Bench Mark” that a Twitter nOOb like myself can really appreciates! That so called landmark coming from the good graces of the @FireCritic, who wrote on its blog and compiled a list published this past week entitled…

Top 100+ Fire/EMS Twitter Users – Are you included?

On this list I find, with great surprised, my twitter username @FiremanRich listed as one of the top 100. WOW! To the @FireCritic I say Think You for the work in gathering and compiling this list of very informative Fire/EMS Twitter Users. I’m humbled and it’s a really honor for me to be listed along with some really good Fire/EMS people. They all provide really good Fire Safety cross feeds. Making this list tells me that my Twitter timeline has substance on the tweets I make concerning Fire Protection & Fire Prevention news, information and various Fire Safety topics.

I’m sure this Top 100 Fire/EMS Twitter Users list from @FireCritic will grow and I could find myself, @FiremanRich , either moving up or down the list. Either way, I will continue to maintain a level of tweeting on a subject area that I feel is very important and hopefully provides information that helps someone to be more Fire Safe.

Follow @FireCritic on Twitter and also check out the Fire Critics Blog .

If you are not on Twitter I would suggest and encourage you to sign up for an account to take a test drive. No harm in doing that. What ever your interests are there’s someone tweeting about it. Take in some views from YouTube about Twitter to see what it’s all about, there is a lot of great videos out there. Check out the vast amount of blog articles also on the internet covering Twitter that can give you more understanding. Twitter in my opinion is not just a funny word, and when people joke about it that haven’t tweeted…well…I think their just missing out on something that is a GREAT window of vast information, along with a bunch of great Twitter people to meet as well as follow.

So as I started this blog article I will end with the same….

Tweet on Twitter & Have Fun!


(The usual disclaimers: I am not a journalist; This is a blog that expresses an outlook and is not conclusive in any shape or manner.)