Yes, I resort to still photography on my days off… here are some photos of Middleton Township, Troy Township and Pemberville-Freedom firefighters trying to knock down a house fire in Dowling.

I felt like I was in some sort of Twilight Zone tonight –  a night that was originally meant to last just a few hours, but felt like it lasted forever.

In chronological order, here’s what I did:

• Realized I wore black shoes with a brown belt. Oops.

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This Twitter conversation caught my eye, and figured it’d be worth a bit more than a 140-characted explanation…

(referring to this week’s freighter accident on the Maumee River…)

BBQGUIDE @FOXToledo At least ONE crew member has gone to the hospital so far on the freighter -

FOXToledo [web producer Tim Andrassy] @BBQGuide thanks for the tweet. We are hearing conflicting reports that there was an injured crew member, but will be sorted out Fri morn

BBQGUIDE @FOXToledo Nothing to “conflict” as I heard the radio traffic of the first responder talking to the hospital taking the crew member in

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I kicked off my weekend Friday, shooting a bit of extrication training for my hometown fire department…

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View the entire “On Patrol – November 2008″ playlist at YouTube.com/BarrettFTN

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fonso18 @BarrettFTN has there been any tension btw the family of the guy killed on the west end & the media 4 not giving as much coverage as sumner?

Alfonso Narvaez posed this question to me shortly after we learned the female body found in a North Toledo Thursday morning was, in fact, Cindy Sumner.

Having covered two disappearance/murder cases this summer (Cindy and Nevaeh Buchanan – I was the original reporter on both stories), I never really thought about it from that point of view.

Disappearances are not inherently more important than murders – the circumstances always determine the situation.

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I’ve seen two bodies in the past four days. Three fatal scenes total.

But it’s not generally the bodies that I’m worried about when I show up at scenes like these.
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Every reporter aspires to be an anchor, right?

It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot in the past few weeks, filling in for Tiffany Tarpley on the weekends on several occasions.

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Being first on the scene isn’t just something we can toot our own horn about come newscast time. When it comes to gathering information, being first on the scene can give you the best perspective on a story – the more you see, the more you know first-hand.

But getting to a shooting at the exact same time as police? Not really a good thing.

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