These dogs won't hunt anymore tonight

Question, when one has the choice between wearing steel-toe boots and cowboy boots for an assignment where they will be on their feet and walking all day, which one do they choose?


I chose the latter.


My decision SUCKED.



I see you out there wondering "why didn't she wear tennies like a normal person would do?"

Well, I would be just too happy to enlighten you to that. When I was pregnant, tennies hurt my feet. Made them cramp something awful. Really made the arches hurt, even though they were arch support shoes. Ever since then, I have not been able to wear tennies with any degree of comfort for extended periods of time. I would rather wear my steel-toes, than tennies. In fact, my steel-toes are more comfortable than any tennis shoe I've ever tried on. That being said...yes, I know what you are thinking. "If that's the case why didn't she wear the steel-toes?" Well, think about it. Doing security for a festival that is held in a park that is several acres big for several hours, you kind of want a lighter shoe than a steel-toe. Since sandals, mules or heels aren't acceptable for this kind of duty, it fell to the cowboy boots.

No, I'm not in security, however, I am a member of the City of Austin Travis County Office of Emergency Management Community Emergency Response Team. COATCOEMCERT. Yeah...um, no. That's kind of a mouthful. It's just CERT for short. We volunteer for community events to help get our faces out there in the community and to help with crowd control for large community events.



So, what does this shirt mean? It means that I am a licensed, trained volunteer with the City of Austin's Office of Emergency Management (COA OEM). In case of a natural or manmade disaster, search and rescue mission or, God forbid, a terrorist attack I am one of the only non-official emergency workers who are allowed to be out and interacting with emergency services to keep things under control, answer questions, perform first-aid, keep a perimiter to prevent curious, hysterical or downright stupid people from getting in the way and getting themselves or other people hurt. In otherwords, I am one of the few people given permission by the COA PTB (Powers That Be) to save your ass in the most extreme of circumstances.

My name is Nicole and I wear a green shirt of Power. Ok, not really, but that was really fun to type!

My feet are damn tired and so am I.