To all those griping "where has Stipe been the last two years, sitting on his ass..." understand that last year in February he got a new full-time firefighter job at a different station than he worked at before, where he had to go through a probationary period for quite some time. Managing to put together a training camp during that span would have been almost impossible.
Of course your follow-up complaint will be "well he shouldn't have taken on a full-time job at that time!" But those jobs aren't handed out whenever you want it. Full-time firefighting slots with all the perks and bennies that come with them are hotly prized, and openings don't come up too often in Ohio apparently. In fact Stipe's been trying for some years to go full time. Back in 2018 he was up for a chance, but then the whole TUF thing happened and he wasn't going to abandon the house in order to take the tests he needed to continue with the application process. It just so happened that three people retired about the same time from a station within a decent commute from his place last year. It was an opportunity too good to pass up.
