Hoopie World Night is Wednesday, October 7th

I would like to invite everyone to the online Hoopie World night at 8pm eastern on Wednesday, October 7th.  “Hoopie Night” was the idea of one of our regular visitors to have an online meet-n-greet and just hang out for a while.  We are also going to try to break the record for most users online at one time on our forums.

The main meeting place will be in the forums at http://hoopieworld.com/boards.  You don’t have to register to come, however you do need to be registered and login to use the shoutbox/chat feature.  The plan is just to have some running threads and chat about current events, the site, or whatever we feel like it at the moment.  I know the Pens are on, so I’ll be sure to have that on in the background.

I hope to see everyone online there, also there may be some giveaways (Hoopie Tshirts) so spread the word.

Upcoming Fire Scene Photography Article

Hi all, I just wanted to give a heads up for everyone to be on the lookout for an upcoming article we’ll be publishing about taking photos on a fire scene.

I have secured an interview with an Allegheny County Fire Marshal this week and will be going over the do’s and dont’s of taking pictures on scene regarding interfering with arson investigations and similar concerns.

If there are any specific questions that any of the visitors have, be sure to email me at support@hoopieworld.com and I will do my best to get them included in the article.

In Response to FireGeezer . . . The Meaning of Hoopie?

First off, I want to thank FireGeezer from FireGeezer.com for the article about Hoopie World in his Morning Lineup yesterday.  You can read that Hoopie World announcement here.  For those that haven’t visited FireGeezer.com before, I highly recommend his blog as a great source of Fire Rescue news.

Since FireGeezer was asking where the name Hoopie World came from, and others have asked the question as well, I want to try to clarify and explain the origin.  I am not the original owner of the site, I took over in 2006 from Mike Krysik, so Mike is the one that actually came up with the name.  Since the site already had a pretty loyal visitor base, and the site name was unique, I decided not to change the name.

In these parts of the country, the words Hoopie and Whacker are often interchangeable and used to describe a person that is too wrapped up in the fire service.  To the worst extreme, when used in derogatory terms, these are the guys that have the full-size light bar on a little Yugo where the light bar costs more than the actual car.

To the lesser extreme, Hoopies are just guys that enjoy firefighting, enjoy taking pictures on scene and reporting on incidents, and enjoy discussing the incidents both past and present.

Our HoopieWorld.com Tshirts even feature a Top 10 “You know you are a whacker when . . .”  as a funny way to kind of laugh at some of the funny things firefighters do.  Here is the back of the shirt, see how many apply to you

New Site Layout Launched!!

I’m very pleased to announce the new HoopieWorld.com. This new layout not only is a new way of displaying the news and information, it also allows for faster updating of articles and some other added perks.

The new site allows for more user interaction, so I am inviting anyone that has an interest in posting articles or editorials/blogs to email me. I also encourage everyone to post comments to the articles to help keep the site fresh. If we get enough comments on the articles we will move the discussion over to the discussion boards. Read more