People and Events

Ninety-two firefighters from around the state, including representatives from the Los Angeles city and county fire departments, are in Australia to show their colleagues down under how to douse fires the old-fashioned way--with buckets.

The firefighters, who represent the California Firemen’s Muster Assn., will give a demonstration of last century’s firefighting bucket brigade techniques at the Victorian Urban Fire Brigade’s bicentennial celebration in Melbourne.

“It’s fun and good training,” Los Angeles City Fire Inspector Howard Kaplan said, explaining that the group also will compete with the Australians in a variety of other contests involving old-time firefighting techniques. In one race, the firefighters will pull water carts to the scene of a pretend fire, then use their fire hoses to shoot down targets. Other competition includes seeing who can hook up hoses and put up ladders the fastest.

The Cinders, a group of county firemen’s wives, set a state record in bucket brigade competition (last year they relayed 50 gallons of water hand to hand for 25 feet in 38 seconds), will also demonstrate their winning techniques to the Aussies.

The competitors, who pay their own way, will bring back Australian arts and crafts items that will be given to patients in local hospital burn units, Kaplan said.

Apparently Sarah and Andrew’s flair for humor hasn’t rubbed off on city officials who have to pave the way for the royal pair.

A group of Chinatown businessmen had a sign made up for the Duke and Duchess of York, who visited in their neck of the woods Saturday. The sign read: “Welcome Fergie and What’s His Name.” But the banner had been unfurled less than an hour when what was apparently an official security advance team asked that it be taken down, according to Don Haley, owner of the Kei Mei Shop.

“They sort of felt it was not proper for the royals,” Haley said. “I said, ‘you want it down?’ There was a slight nod of the head. We had it down in three minutes. We meant no offense.”

A 10-year-old Vietnamese boy used his knowledge of the U.S. Constitution to win $100 and a YMCA membership over the weekend. Chinh Tran, who came to this country eight years ago, beat out 20 other fifth- and six-graders who were participating in the civics contest sponsored by the La Habra Committee on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution.

Tran captured the contest when he correctly identified the fifth article of the Constitution as being the one that calls for a convention to draft constitutional amendments.

Lan Tran, the boy’s mother, said her son is a straight-A student who loves computers and wants to be a doctor.

“I would’ve flunked out in the first round,” said La Habra City Councilwoman Dorothy Wedel, one of the quiz masters for the contest.

Los Angeles City College this month is offering a class in futures, but it has nothing to do with the financial markets. It’s a class for all those fanatics who play fantasy league baseball.

Fantasy baseball is just what the name implies. Thousands of fans nationwide own make-believe teams in leagues where their teams’ performances are determined by statistics generated by real baseball players and games.

The fate of these pretend teams, on which hefty wagers are often made, hinge on how well the game players can project the future trends of the real teams.

Mark Cramer, who is going to teach how to make those projections in a public workshop this Saturday at the college, notes: “Predicting future trends in not an exact science like chemistry. It’s more of a non-deterministic science, meaning you can assign probabilities to the performance cycles of the players and teams.”

Cramer, who has a Ph.D. in Romance languages, has written a book on fantasy baseball and two others on horse race handicapping.