Deputy Coroner training

It is 0600 hours on Wednesday morning, though I keep thinking it is Thursday. I am waking up at the fire station again. Yet another night without a call. I head off to Colfax. I am pretty excited because tonight I am meeting with Pete , the county Coroner. I am training to become a Deputy Coroner. We are getting together to discuss the ins and outs of the job. We are just getting underway with the training.

I get to work pretty much on time for once! My boss got into work early. I spent most of the day working on small problems. I did some touring around the county. I went to the Auditors office and Juvenile. I chatted with Chad about juvenile justice, law and detention. I was up there to touch base with them about their computers. It has been a while since I have heard anything from them.

At lunch I went to pick up a computer for my computer business Lobo Computer Services. The customer was located in Colfax. She has a computer that is dead and wants it to work again. I chatted with her for a short period, dropped it off at my home so it would be out of the heat. It has been getting to 100 plus for the last week and a half or two weeks. Which we usually get to the 90's-100's every year. And now is the time. Sadly, I am not out in my boat on the river enjoying it.

I was working late to make up for missed time. Around 18:15 hours I was feeling shaky and queasy. I knew something was not right. Being medically trained I had an idea of what it could be. I was thinking my Blood Sugar level was too low. I did not have breakfast this morning, which includes a 44 ounce pop. At lunch I only have a very small lunch, rather than the medium sized lunches. Which again include a 44 ounce pop. I did get a 12 oz can of pop though. In the middle of the afternoon I had another 12 ounce can of pop. I had some chips, but that was it. Nothing like normal. So, I went to the medical room in the jail and check my blood sugar. Sure enough it was 70. That is low. After I used the needle to poke myself I was trying to move the machine to the blood and I was shaking real bad. So I called the control room of the jail and requested a meal with them. Luckily the cooks were just about to serve control, so I got in on it. After drinking some juice and eating I could feel the shakes going away and everything was better.

I met up with Pete at 1900 hours. We talked about some basic coroner stuff. We watched a video of a pathologist doing a basic exam, getting fluids from the heart, eyeball, and bladder. I was given a book with pictures of what bodies look like after different periods of time have passed.

I stopped by the fire station on my way home and Ken was there we were chatting about religion. Ken is a Christian. He was telling me about the Bible and some stories from it. We were talking about the word of God versus Science. I am interested in learning, at the same time my science background causes me to have a hard time believing everything. It was about 2300 hours when I went home.

So, the question is, how can Carbon dating show something is 10,000 years old, when the claim is that the earth is only 6,000 years old? What about the dinosaur bones? I don't totally like the big bang theory either. Saying everything in the universe was in a small mass less than the size of someone's fist is unbelievable. There is always the question if God created the oceans, man, land, earth, etc. Where did God come from? The answer is one that does not answer the question. The bottom line is "faith". You just have to have faith in the fact God exists. For me, I have a hard time believing things unless I can see, feel, look at it. The Bible speaks of a lot of things. Some people would tell you that not everything in the Bible is "law", many of the things in there are stories that are meant to be examples for people to learn by. I want to believe, but I am not going to go through the motions, I want to believe and do it, or not waste everyone's time. I will continue to explore.

Oblivious to the World

I woke up Tuesday in a unfamiliar place. I was at the fire station. I quickly realize I once again got no calls. I grabbed my alarm clock and head to Colfax to get ready for work. I drive the Albion road to Colfax since I am on the North side of Pullman when I leave town. As I was ready to leave for work from my home in Colfax my pager went off. There was an accident on the Albion road. A roll over with a person who was trapped, and unconscious. I headed to Colfax Fire to see if Rescue 11 would go on the call. Albion ambulance and Pullman Ambulance were dispatched to it. We did get toned to it, however we were cancelled before going en route.

I called Dell customer support about my Axim. I turned it on on Monday. The screen had a reminder on, and would not let me acknowledge it. I tried to do a soft reset several times. But it would go back to the reminder screen and freeze up. Since I had everything backed up I thought I would try a hard reset. It got to the Align Screen in the setup process. It would not get past that screen. As soon as I would hit all the points I had to, it would start over. They are shipping me a new one. That is pretty cool.

Tom Pfeifer called and asked if I wanted to do lunch. I did, so we met at Top Notch, like normal and had a burger. We chatted for a while, and then we left to take care of our dogs.

I was on call at the fire station in Pullman, so I left work at about forty-five minutes after five o'clock. I hurried to Pullman. I contacted Brandt to watch the tape of use tubing from two weeks ago. I met up with him and a few of his friends. He said Garrett was going to be there. I debated on not going, but I went. I just ignored Garrett for the most part. He would talk to me and I would half ass answer his questions. Everyone enjoyed the video.

I went back to the station and went to bed shortly before eleven o'clock.

You know, it is funny that Garrett hasn't figured anything out yet. Well, I guess he wants to work for the federal government. So, being oblivious to the real world around him is necessary.

It's cool to Vent.

Monday came early for me today. I got to work just after seven thirty in the morning. Brandon was already here. I set down the Krispy Kream donuts for all to enjoy. And all my co-workers did enjoy them. The day went as slowly as can be. I was called by John about covering for someone on his shift at the fire department. I was on Rescue for the evening.

I got invited to Rob's BBQ. So I stopped there for a few minutes. We chatted. I was surprised to see Rob once had a subscription to Instinct Magazine. He had a lot of the early issues.

I headed to the fire department. We were doing ventilation training. Learning about cutting holes in roofs, using doors and windows to get rid of the super heated gasses and replacing them with cooler gasses.

Then I went to my office read some of my e-mail and back to the fire station to stay the night. I was on call for the rest of the evening. Nothing happened as usual.

Is there a Choice in the Matter?

Well, Sunday morning came as quickly as all the others come. Which seems to be quicker and quicker all the time. So I got up and took Amber outside to go potty and play with the ball. She was having a lot of fun. I left her to roam the yard. I got a shovel to clean up the yard from her "deposits". I am glad it was not all soft and mushy. That is gross. So, I am sure it is good I put it in here.

Russell was running a little bit late. He did not get to my mom's house around eleven o'clock a.m. So we were already under the gun. I got to Issaquah and stopped at Krispe Kream. We got some donuts and we were off to the beautiful Palouse.

Russell asked me to drive. I fulfilled his request. I drove. I think we got to Colfax fast since I drive faster than Russell. I was doing anywhere from ten to thirty over the speed limit depending on where I was. We made okay time back to Colfax. Along the way we stopped at Burger King in Othello to get a late lunch.

Russell and I got into a conversation about homosexuality. That is an interesting topic, as I have seen myself change positions and move from here to there. I have not changed one hundred percent, but I have made some movement. This conversation started with a question of whether or not someone is born gay, if a pill is created that if taken the person would no longer be gay and no longer be attracted to people of the same sex. This opened a long conversation which went beyond being about homosexuality and headed to the realm of personality and life in general.

But back to the conversation. I posed this question to Russell. He said that if such a pill existed, and then paused and thought about it for a while and then said, if he was in that position he would not take such a pill. He said that someone who is gay is identified and their life experiences that have happened due in part to their sexuality. The people he meets, the activities he participates in, the feelings he has, the relationships with others, and the list can go on. All have something to do, either directly or indirectly to his sexuality. It is not like you can take sexuality away and have the exact same person. I then spoke up and said it would be like a computer. Being gay is an intrinsic part of the computer and its workings. Should you take away being gay, that computer no longer has the essence of being a computer. On the other hand, to think that someone can take a pill and change just one part of his life would be dreaming. A computer with a printer attached was the second part of my analogy. If that is what being gay was like, a peripheral to life, then it would be no problem to just unplug the printer and the computer would remain intact. But that is not the case. Being gay is internal, not some outside object easily disassembled from the rest of the person.

As a gay person grows up, he usually goes through many stages in life. He will not know what it means to be gay, but will have some feelings he can not understand. Then he will start to learn about what a homosexual is and usually how homo's are not normal, how they are hated, and how they are perverse. The budding homosexual will realize that he is a homosexual but he will start to have issues. He will realize that he can not let other know since he will be outcast and possible abused physically and or mentally. He then begins a life in the closet. He will know that he is attracted to other boy's but he will hide that. He will pretend to be not-gay by dating girls, and he will "check them out" like the other boy's will. During this process he will learn more about being gay, and learn that it is not quite like it was presented to him. He will see that even though he has heard some many things about being gay, they are not all correct. He might use the internet these days to read about other gay guys. He will spent time reading other gay guys' coming out stories and learn from their positive and negative experiences. During this whole time he has sheltered himself from things that would make him happy, from things that to the gay guy, feel natural, even though he is told it is unnatural.

Soon, he is willing to "come out" to himself. Meaning he will come to terms with his homosexuality. He finally stopped trying to be straight. He finally decides that he is ready for the next stage in his life. This process usually includes a weigh being lifted off his back. He feels a little more free and he feels a little better about life. He may not be ready to let others know, but he has finally decided that he is not lying to himself anymore. He might start to reach out to the gay community and start to make gay friends. He will start to participate in life choices that are more compatible with his feelings. What makes him "come out" to others is hard to say. Maybe he decides to not lie if someone were to ask him, and maybe someone asks him. He might decide that his friendship is hollow in some ways, and feels that it will be strengthened by his admission of his sexuality. He might feel like unless he tells other people he is actually lying to people. There could be other things. As you tell people and you are open about it, you feel more free to express yourself fully.

Not everything is all good with being gay. Some gay people are not happy being gay. The question one must ask is how come they are not happy. Is it because society is said that the lifestyle is wrong? Maybe the homosexual feels cheated by not having a wife and kids like "normal" people do. It could be the fact that the Bible says homosexuality is wrong. There are probably many other reason's why they are unhappy. Could be that the gay guys' parents threw him out of the house. Could be that the family turns their collective back on the gay man. There is a reason why a lot of gay teen commit suicide. They don't see past their parents disapproval. They don't see past the bad that comes. They don't see past their next birthday. A gun or some pills and all their problems are a thing of the past. Too often and too sad.

If you talk to a gay person, sometimes you will hear him say "that was before I was gay" or "that was when I was straight". That is not to say he chose to turn gay. It is sort of thumbing their nose that their undercover life, also known as closeted life. It is a time when they pretended to be straight. It is a time in their life when they felt all the things they do today, but at that time it was being repressed from their outward life.

So, this does not say whether you are born gay or if you choose to be gay. Because even if it is a choice I would argue that you can have the same feelings and path in life. We chatted about being born gay or choosing to be gay. I relayed what my friend Matt claims. He said the choice is there, but is not like a choice that someone makes when he is deciding what to have for lunch. It is a choice in the matter that subconsciously, somewhere along your life, your brain made the decision to be attracted to the same sex. So, the choice comes in with the fact that with some work you can chance to not-gay. But why would the brain make this choice? His argument, simply put, is that someone "chooses" to be gay due to early life physical or sexual abuse. This is not to say everyone who is abused is gay, but that is a catalyst for someone to "choose" to be gay. And it is while dealing with this abuse issues that one "chooses" not to be gay anymore.

That is a theory. I am not saying it is wrong, since I can not prove it, but then again, who can say it is correct. One other thought is that a gay man is born gay. But what would make you "born" gay? Well, if it is a trait, that would explain it. It could be a recessive trait that if you get it from both parents, then it will display itself as homosexuality. But if that is true, then it would follow that all identical twins where one twin is gay, would mean the other twin is gay. I don't believe this to be the case. So, then if it is not a genetic trait that is passed on, is it possible a genetic defect? This might better explain why someone is born gay. Many problems that man has from birth are from genetic defects. This could be on that list.

Maybe there is a third dimension to the whole argument. Maybe you have to be born with a gay trait gene. Maybe you also have to be abused. The abuse is what could turn on the gene's trait. Your guess is as good as mine. But the bottom line is that anyone who conclusively says what cause someone to be gay is a dumbass. He is not on any good scientific nor logical ground.

So, getting back to the point from earlier, my friend says that by taking the pill he will destroy what he has become to this day. His life experiences which has defined him as an adult would be thrown out. He acknowledges he could be better off, or he could be worse off. But he is content, nay happy, with his situation in life and does not want to change.

So, I asked myself, to understand that kind of point of view, if I could make it so my dad did not die of cancer back in 1981, would I? That would drastically change my life. I would have known who my dad is. I might have focused my life on being a carpenter, electrician, and or sheet metal worker. The kinds of things he did, and I always wanted to do. Maybe my first vehicle would not have been the "Bumblebee", a 1980 Toyota 4x4. I had a CB in that truck where I met many, many people and my life's direction has been changed because of who I met through the CB. I had a step-dad who I definitely see some of him in me and my attitude and my likes and dislikes. So many things in my life would be different. Would I make the change? I feel it is selfish to say, but I have a hard time saying Yes. I am pretty content in my life, and I am afraid to give up what I have. But at the same time I could be better off, much better off if my dad was here. I am sad that I did not know him. But some of my up bringing was not normal due to not having a dad and that has made me what I am today. I like who I am, so I would hate to change it.

Just as my upbringing was not normal, neither if a gay man's upbringing. So, if you are a gay man, would you want to take the pill?

That is the quick and dirty of the kind of stuff we were talking about. One day I will spend some time editing it for grammar errors, but I was more concerned with getting the words written at this time.

I got into Colfax pretty late, about one and one half hours late. I went into work and help the officer who was staying over to cover me write up an infraction report on a couple of inmates who had broken the rules.

Seeing Grandma Anderson

Even though I am on vacation I have found it is hard for me to sleep in these days. Something always will wake me up early. Saturday morning, I guess, was nothing special, however I was up early. My softball nagging injuries are causing me grief as I try to descend the stair of my parents' house. Amber was happy to see me this morning I took her outside and we play catch with her tennis ball. She loves that ball.

I went in to the house where it was air conditioned and watch a little of the boob tube. What is interesting is that I don't have cable at my new house. That was an expense I decided not to have. I don't miss it. It is nice. I am not spending hours a day watching TV. Maybe I will be more productive for now on. Well, I doubt that, but it will not get me distracted from what I should do. Right now I should be unpacking my stuff from the move. Yeah, tell me about it. I still have all my stuff in boxes from my move that happened earlier this month. I have been a busy guy. I have noticed that I spend only a few hours at the house and it is usually sleeping. I am working at one job or another or traveling from job to job. I should just sell the house and move in to the basement of the jail. That would be cheaper. But that wont happen, I suppose there will be a time when I do slow down.

My sister was coming to get me at two o'clock p.m. to go to my Aunt Karen's house to see my grandma Anderson. She is in from North Dakota with her sister Mildred. My Uncle's Larry and Dale were there. It was nice to see them. Dale is up from Arizona and Larry from Kent, Washington. We sat around and chatted, then moved outside where we hung out some more, took family photos, and then had a small meal. My Uncle Larry is a conservative guy as am I. We talked some politics. Many people on the Anderson side of the family are religious and pretty much straight and narrow. I think I take after the Dalen side of my family more often.

My cousin Ricky was there. He is Karen's son. He is about two years older than I am. He was talking about the young boys that were there. They were in the front yard playing king of the hill. He mentioned how there was a game our generation played that probably does not get played anymore. He asked if me and the other cousin of our generation remembers playing "Smear the Queer". I laughed. I said I remember playing that a lot. It is like pig pile, tackle football and a few other things together. One person would have a ball, and everyone would try to tackle him and pig pile on him. The guy would run around until tackled or if he was a wimp just before he was tackled he would throw the ball into the air and someone else would become the queer. I said, "Being the queer is something you did not want to be." Ricky said, "You still don't". Everyone started laughing.

We ended the evening play a few games and left to go home. We were planning on being there for about two hours and we ended up being there for about six and one half hours. But it was so nice to see everyone.

I got home and called my friend Dave. I left him a voice mail. He called back a little while later. We decided to meet at Shari's in Spring Glen. He was hungry. We got up there and chatted about life and what was going on for each of us. I asked him if he wanted to go for a drink. So he suggested we head to the Spot Tavern. We got inside and ordered a pitcher of beer. We ran into some old friends. Ron and Steve (guys I talked about in a post early in my Blog from a flashback) were in the bar. We sat with them and chatted about the old times and new times. We closed out the bar. I headed home since I had to get up early to get back to Whitman County.

It's all about Joey.

I woke up to Amber coming in my room. Softly thereafter Russell called. We are heading to Seattle for the weekend. He is going to the Torchlight Parade for the kickoff of Seafair Weekend. He is in the Cougar Marching Band. I was heading over to see my Grandma. She was here from North Dakota. We got on the road at about 10 am. Amber was coming along for the ride. She was very good in the car. She is very quiet and just slept.

The drive was nice Russell and I spoke of many topics and issues. Including music tastes, band, college, homosexuality, and friendship with our mutual friends. He is more liberal and I am more conservative. So, we usually have decent conversations. We are both graduates in Philosophy, so we know how to debate properly.

When I got to my mom's house I got Amber out of the car. She came in and my mom was impressed with Amber. Amber is so well behaved. She did not cause problems. She was very active and happy. I took Amber outside, and we played with a tennis ball. She loves her tennis ball.

After awhile I went into the den to check my e-mail. There was an e-mail from Joey. Let me tell you about Joey. I met him in a Bar last Winter. A lot of us were there from Ron and Heather's pre-wedding party. Joey was joking around with someone who was at the party. I over heard what Joey was saying and started up a conversation. We were talking about some stuff, and then it turned to softball. I mentioned that I had a summer team and we are looking for some players. He said he is on a IM team. I told him that I have one. It turned out that we played against each other in IM's. I gave him my number and said to call if he wanted to play. About two days later he called. He joined my summer team, and made a huge and immediate impact. Joey is considered very attractive. He looks tanned, he has brown hair and brown eyes. Very nice smile and good looking face. He is very smart. He is a graduate student in physics. He doing research on softball bats, pretty ironic. So he is good looking and smart. The final thing about Joey is that he is upbeat, friendly to all, and a team player. You never hear Joey say "I won the game". Or "It was all me." Joey is about the team. He is ready to defend a team mate when needed. But when it is all said and done, Joey is good looking, smart, a team player, and friendly. He is a great guy. In one particular instance one of our players, Chief, was just getting to second base when the second baseman pushes Chief off the base and he fell over. It happened to be Joey's at bat. Joey yelled at the second baseman asking him why he just did that. Then Joey stroked the next pitch about 400 feet. It was awesome. It is all about the team. One last thing about Joey, he is a great hitter and a great fielder, but you would not know it unless you were watching him because he does not talk smack. Joey is good looking, smart, a team player, friendly, and humble.

I sat around and watched TV most of the rest of the afternoon. My brother called me and asked if I wanted to go tent shopping with him. We went to Issaquah, Redmond, and Bellevue looking for a specific tent. Could not find it. I went to his new house in New Port Shores. Nice upscale neighborhood. He has a great house and a nice yard. We watched the movie the Badge.

One day until Seattle!

Thursday like another day started out with me waking up late. I swear it is not good that I do that all the time. I start work late, so I end up having to work later into the evening. It sucks because I could have gotten off on time and went to work at the jail early and make extra money. It cost me $30.00 to sleep in. I suppose if I look at the opportunity cost of the extra sleep in the morning I would work harder to get up. I did my normal stuff. Sometimes I hate the fact that I am not really learning anything new. I am coming upon new problems at times, but I am not really becoming a better person. My brother talked about all the jobs he has had, and the only one he was really unhappy at was the one where he made no gain in knowledge. I feel that way here sometimes. Finally I was out of here and on my way to my house to change into my jail uniform to work there. It was highly uneventful. The time oozed. At the end of the shift we held a hearing on an inmate who had been messing around with an electrical outlet. He claimed to be washing it with one sheet of toilet paper and toothpaste. For some reason we did not believe him. It is a sad day when you can't trust a criminal. Due to the hearing I worked an extra hour and a half. I chose to head home and go to bed as tomorrow was the day Russell and I head to Seattle.

The Offspring

I really like this band. I have been a fan of their music since around 1996 or 1997. I bought their CD because there was a song that I had heard and I like. Then I listened to the whole album over and over and I began to like all the song. The album was Smash. Then I started to listen to the older stuff. I found their energy and the music itself was very additive. Many times I have no idea what the lyrics are saying, but I visualize the voice as another instrument rather than what the words themselves are saying. I know some of the words of some of the songs but for the most part, the speed and energy gets the juice flowing. So far I have all their albums and there is not a song that I don't like. I listen to all of them.

What is interesting is that I was on offspring.com today, looking for an e-mail address to talk to someone about getting permission to use a song. I made a "Pullman Fire Commercial" using part of the song Mota. While I was there I saw they had lyrics to their songs. I typically don't like to look at the lyrics, sort of weird really. It is like I prefer to imagine what is being said rather than knowing. Remember that commercial when someone calls a helpline to find out what the words Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me"? It is fun to sort of imagine what you are hearing rather than knowing. In my mind I have an idea of what Paul Harvey looks like, so I was devastated when I saw a photo of him. When I listen to his show, I still imagine him looking like what I thought he looked like rather than what he does look like. In a messed up round about way, lyrics are the same for me.

So, I was a little surprised how Mota is about smoking pot and buying pot. And the song "I'll Be Waiting". But when you read the lyrics of the song as you listen, many time you get a more powerful message, and sometimes it will just totally ruin a song for you. I am worried that by knowing the lyrics of my favorite songs will ruin the song and I won't like it as much. But I was listening to I'll be Waiting, and reading the lyrics as I went along. That song has some power to it. Talking about thinking you have a faithful friend and in fact you don't at all. This made me think about one guy specifically and one other guy in general. One who I thought was my best friend, who I did everything with one day more or less dropped my like a bad habit. I still don't know why for sure. He claims we are still friends, but he has been too busy to hang out with me for the last 11 months. That is no joke. I think there is something more to it than being too busy. The other guy I was thinking of, well other guys, was Bryan, the fireman, and Garrett the softball guy.

Part of the lyrics to I'll Be Waiting:

Once I had a friend that I could count on
So I thought
Well so it seemed
But times of need are not enough
To prove your friendship to me now
Once I saw a face that I believed in
But a mask was all there was
So who wears the masks and who wears the faces
Well I guess I'll never know

But as I stand here alone in a room full of people
With nothing to say
Beer on their minds, and smoke in the air
Call them friends but they just don't care

Friend for life
Such shallow words for broken minds
Show me a friend for life
Cause I'll be waiting for that day to arrive
When I'll feel alive
I'll be waiting for that day

I really like this part
Once I saw a face that I believed in
But a mask was all there was

I feel that way about the guy who I thought was my best friend. I will have to update my blog one day with a tale about my best friend.

Shhh, Quiet! I'm trying to sleep.

Wednesday was pretty quiet. I was so tired I did not get up on time, in fact I was 2 1/2 hours late to work, so I ended up having to work until 7:30 pm. When I allowed the day to ooze away, I had to work in the jail from 8 to midnight. Saddly, we had about 7 people to book into jail, so I worked until 2 am.

There is really nothing to report as thoughts, I think I spent most of the day pretty braindead. I guess I was able to get it set up where I can go to Seattle this weekend. That makes me happy. Wow. I think I am still brain dead.

We are the Champions.

Yesterday sucked in many ways. First off I found out my mom's store is closing. She will be reassigned to a different store, however, we don't know where as of yet. That is not good. Then my financial situation is at an all time low. I am more broke than I have ever been. I went to the bank where I have my truck loan. There was some money floating in that account. So I took it to my other two banks to get money in those accounts. I got to US Bank and I was told I was over drafted $80.00. I asked how that happened since I have not touched the account in about two weeks. She said there was an automatic withdrawal. The withdrawal happened the day before, so had I made the deposit on Monday all would have been good. But I did not even know that was about to happen. So it was a $63.00 withdrawal plus $32.00 for over drafting. AAAAAAAH! I am so mad. Hopefully I can get one of the refinance loans for my house. That would make life great.

Last night could have been my last game playing for My Office. I was the catcher. I did not ride the pine, but I also did not pitch. Confidence level in my pitching ability from the rest of the team must be low. We won the game, and I did not hit for squat. After the game I headed to My Office Bar and Grill with the trophy. We were there until around one o'clock in the morning, drinking and having fun. Michele and I were checking out the scenery at the bar. There were these two guys who were playing dart, and they were being a little friendlier than most friends. They were touching each other in a different way than normal. I told Michele that I thought they are gay. She wasn't sure. So, I went up to one of the guys who was wearing a grey shirt with "Washington State Athletics" writing on the front in crimson. He was about six feet tall. Short brown hair with well kept sideburns. He seemed like he works out and is pretty well built. I asked him if he was "family". He looked and me and said "what?". I said, are you "family". He said "what do you mean?". It seemed as though I was striking out. Then he said, "Are you asking if I am gay?". I said "Yeah." He said that he is gay. He knew what I was asking, but he wanted to see if I knew what I was asking before he answered. The guy he is with is his boyfriend. I told him that I thought that was the case. He said his name is Nick. We chatted briefly. He mentioned that there is a Show in Moscow (Idaho) on Saturday. The Show is a drag show. It is where all the gay guys and a lot of straight guys go to hang out, have some fun. He asked if I would go. I told him I was going to be in Seattle with a friend.

While at the bar and during the game I was making it pretty clear to Garrett that I am not pleased with him. When I was at the bar and had beer to top off beer glasses I would skip over Garrett's. I more or less ignored him when we talked or asked me questions. He was getting ready to leave he was shaking everyone's hands. He got to me, and I made a pretty weak effort, and I did not look at him, I kept looking at the TV. When he walked away, Michele asked what I was pissed at Garrett for. She said it was pretty clear through out the day that something was going on, but ignoring him during the handshake made he realize something was up. I asked her what she meant. She said that I am pissed at him for some reason. But if I did not want to tell her that was fine. As everyone was leaving the bar I was walking out with Garrett and some of the others. I asked Garrett if he was giving Joey's bats back. He said he was. I asked if he want to win this IM season. He said that he did and that we going to win the shirts. I said in that case, you should talk to Joey and see if his team needs a short stop.

I headed back to Colfax. I was pretty tired when I got home, I pealed off my uniform, I played with Amber and then went to bed.

Hey Hoser.

This morning came early. As always it comes early. In this case I had to drive back to Colfax and get ready for work. Give Amber a potty break and get to work all before 7 o'clock am. I did it. I was so bored at work today. I sent off two monitors, and worked on the self-paced training course in QuickBooks. Most of the day melted away like an ice cube on the polar ice cap... V.e.r.y. S.l.o.w.l.y. So I sit there waiting for 5:30 to roll around. There was a new Strong Bad email at least. I got a call from Brandon. He is not feeling well, and needed someone to cover him. I offered to do so.

In the early afternoon I e-mail a guy about softball. Sounds like his is interested in playing some ball with the IM team, and should I put together a city league team he wants to play. That is good, all I need to do now it find about 10 more guys.

I found out that I was working on the Rescue with the guy (Bryan) I was talking about in the last post. That made for an interesting day. I found he did not go out of his way to talk to me, which was okay. Everywhere we drove it was dead quite since he was not talking to me as usual, and I made no attempt to have a conversation with him.

We were doing hose testing today. That is where we take all the hose from the engine, and put it under about 400 PSI to see if it will break. This process usually takes about 3 to 4 hours. With that done Bryan and I went back to the station, once again in complete silence.

A Call While I am on Duty??? There is a First for Everything!

I got into jail at a reasonable time. I pulled out my new crockpot and started to cook up some Philly-Chili. I did the first four hours on the floor. Two people were arrested for DUI, but that was about it. Both were released, so I did not have to book anyone. When 8 o'clock rolled around I was out the door. It is nice when you are tired as hell to only have to go three quarters of a mile to get home from work. So I was in bed sleeping within ten minutes of getting off work. I slept until about 1 pm when Michele called me to let me know Jason and Suz had their baby at 6:35 in the morning. She said that everyone was hanging out at Zeppoz before the game. I met up with everyone there, and found out Zeppoz is putting in a card room. That should be kick ass.

Game time rolled around and once again, as with every game this tournament I was sitting on the bench. I was one of the guys who were going in as replacements. In the fourth inning I got into the game to play some ball. I played the one inning, and then batted. We ended up 20 running the other team so the game was over, and I spent all of 5 minutes playing in the game. That was just adding the icing to the cake. I am still pissed in general and Garrett was in the wrong place at the wrong time and said the wrong thing, so the focus of my disgust is on Garrett. I have not spoken with him since he said what he did. I also did not give him high-fives when he hit his homeruns. I went to Zeppoz with everyone and hung out there until it was time to get ready to be on call for Pullman.

I changed into the Pullman Fire department stuff and headed to the station. There is a guy who lives there that I have no interest in being outgoing to. There is a long story behind it, but it all boils down to this. For the last few years he was on the department, he never has been all the friendly nor outgoing when I was around. He never invites me places that he invites the other people to. I was told by someone close to him that he has a problem with me, and does not want me moving into the station. Several people live at the fire station, and I wanted to get a room there as well, but he told the chief of the fire department that he did not want me there. I was never told why. I can only speculate on why. So, one day I confront him and point out that when others are around and I walk into the room he is usually joking around and all happy. When it is just me around he is very subdued and not happy at all. I asked if there was a problem. He claimed there was no problem. He said he was not doing that on purpose and he was sorry it seemed that way to me. I don't totally believe him. I tried for years to be outgoing towards him, and chat with him if I saw him. I have given up on that. On the fire ground, I would never let anything happen to him, I would risk my life to save him, but once off the fire ground, I could care less about him. But I think that was his feelings towards me for years.

I started in on the weekly vehicle maintenance. I was working on Rescue when Michael showed up. He started to work on the Engine. On the scanner I heard a rescue rig from a different department trying to call dispatch. The Dispatcher asked the rescue unit to stand by as the dispatchers were going to be dispatching a call. I mentioned this to Michael and said we would only be so lucky if it was us dispatched. Then all of a sudden, our tones ring out. We were being dispatched. The call was a motorcycle accident one mile East of the airport on Airport Road. We were first on scene. We were told the person had an ankle injury. And sure enough that was the case. We transported the patient to Pullman Memorial. I was able to do the blood sugar so I am only one away from being certified.

After the call we headed back to the station to finish the vehicle maintenance. One of the guys on our crew is leaving the reserves to be a full time fire fighter. This was his last shift, so he brought in some pizza from everyone. We ate the pizza, finished the maintenance, and then headed out to do some hydrant maintenance. We got two hydrants completed and headed to the station to call it a night.

I got to my office to sleep there since I don't have an apartment in Pullman anymore. I stayed up for about an hour chatting online. I talked to a guy named Robbie for a fair amount of time before signing off for the night.

The Begining of the End?

I woke up Saturday morning around 6 am and drove to Colfax where I went back to bed for a few more hours. I allowed Amber to share my bed to see how good she will sleep with people. She did really well. My alarm woke me up and I got ready for the softball tournament.

The writing may be on the wall for me and my days with My Office Softball may be numbered. I do not want to go back to being a bench player. I have been with the team long enough to have earned a routine starting position. This year I really wasn't a full time starter. We picked up one guy named Chris. He pitched a bunch of games where I would either catch or sit on the bench those games. Last year I was very frustrated with the lack of play time. I was at every single game last year yet, I had half the at bats that some of the other people had. I love this game too much to not get to play that often.

Dan has been playing on the team for a few years and was always the starting 1st baseman. I love to play first as well as pitch. I had a chance to play first base. But I think that is because that was the only place to put me and Heather or Jason would pitch. Jason has been on the side lines all season injured. He was the main pitcher from last season.

After the game against Tax Dodgers, I think that sealed my fate. I think that Jason is planning on pitching on Tuesday, which would mean I will either catch, or sit the bench. Either of which are not very good options for me. I need to go out there and pitch to the Tax Dodgers and prove I can do it. I don't think that I will have that opportunity however. There is a chance I will pitch, if Jason is spending time with his baby daughter who was born on Sunday morning. If he is not there at all, and I am the only option for pitching, then that wont prove anything to me. I need to see Jason there, and I need to be pitching. But I don't think that will happen. If it does not happen that way, I see myself shopping for a new team, or maybe trying to build one.

This weekend's Co-Ed end of the season tournament has been going well for me, however. Playing first base I have been making plays and my bat is on fire right now. It took all season, but it is looking good.

One thing that happened this Saturday which pissed me off royally was when I had finished making a force out at first base. There was a runner at 3rd who was starting to move off the base. I lift the ball up, so the runner could see it, and started to cock my arm, to make them head back to 3rd base. While doing so, Garrett yell "DON'T THROW IT!" I could not believe he did that. At what point did he believe that I was so stupid that he would have to say that to me? The runner was on his way back to 3rd and I underhand tossed the ball to Jason who was pitching. I turned back to head to my base saying out loud that I wasn't going to throw it, and I told Garrett to relax. Right now I am so pissed I can't see myself having someone on the Intramural team who do that. Part of me wants to invite him to find a new team for this season.

After the game, I headed back to my house to sleep. I had to be up for working graveyard at the jail. 11:30 pm rolls around fast when you seem to see every hour on the clock from the time you go to bed to the time you have to get up. I do recall seeing it being 7, 8, 9, and 10 o'clock. Grrr. Not a good way to start the night.

The Dog Days of Summer.

Friday morning I wake up and get ready for the trip to the river. Garrett, Brandt, Russell, and a few others are joining me at the river. Around 8 am I get Amber and we head to work. I had to work for a few hours before heading to the river. Amber quietly puts up with sitting at work as I do some medial tasks waiting for the hours to melt off the clock. Finally 10 am rolls around and I am out the door, I gas up the boat and then I am off to Safeway to meet the others. Brandt and Garrett show up about the same time as Russell, everyone gets supplies from the store and then we head to Boyer Park to launch. Launching went quickly and away we went to the dunes. There were only about 4 or 5 people there, so we set up our area with chairs, a grill, coolers and other important items, like Amber's food. This was my first trip to the river with Amber. I coxed her to get into the water and when that failed I helped her in. She started swimming. We all went to shore. She looked like a wet muskrat. Then I played with the tennis ball with her. She, I was told, loves to play with a tennis ball. So I threw it in the water, and she would get it, and bring it back. This went on through out the day. We would hide the tennis ball from time to time since we were getting tired of throwing the ball, and she had no sign of slowing down.

At about 1:20 Brandt and I went to the Boyer Park Marina to pick up some people who said they would be down at 1:30. My friend Kristine was one of them. While going through the dike I saw a nice boat, and it looked like Chief was in it. I yelled "Steve". He looked over and waved back. How cool was that. Steve was there with his brand new boat. I went up and talked to him. I told him we were at the Dunes. He said he was headed that way too. I got back to the boat and waited for Kristine for about 30 minutes. When she did not show up, we all left and went back to the Dunes. We hung out on the shore for a while playing with Amber, chatting with each other, and talking with Chief.

Then I broke out the video camera. The battery was bad. I had been charging it for two days and it did not hold the charge. So, I brought along the AC adapter and an inverter for the boat. I was hoping it would work, and sure enough it did! So, we were able to video tape the boating experience. Brandt was the first one on the tube. He rolled right away, but managed to stay on the tube. That happened twice. Then he sat in it backwards. That made it harder to throw him out. But on one corner I threw him hard core. He rolled, cart wheeled, and thrashed on the water. It was pretty spectacular.

Chief took Garrett, Brandt, Russell and I out on his boat. He has a 3 man tube. We got in that. What a heck of a trip that was. Holy smokes! On one corner we were going pretty good. Garrett to my right and Brandt to my left. Garrett had on red swimming trunks and a red life jacket. All of a sudden he was there and then we was gone. I followed suit and Brandt followed me. Chief had knocked us all off. We got back on and went at it some more. It was a blast. Then we would switch out trading locations on the tube and people. We were out there for about one hour. I then invited Chief to go on my tube. So, I took him for a ride. I was pretty easy on him, and we had him get air on a few jumps. We packed up and left around 7:30. While loading the boat at the docks, I was listening to the Mariner's game. They were playing against Kansas City. In the top of the 9th, trailing 3 to 1, then Mariner's staged a comeback with Ichiro hitting a game winning grand slam. That was great.

Russell rode with me to the river, so we went to Colfax to drop off my boat and then on to Pullman to Russell's for dinner. He fixed chicken and spaghetti. It was good. I was so tired afterwards that I just drove to my office and slept there for most of the night.

FLASHBACK!

060295 (June 2nd 1995) -- Well I woke up, in pain, and then ate some food and took some pills. I watched TV all day long. [it sounds like I could have been a drugy here... taking pills, watching TV all day. In fact, I had just injured my back and I was unable to stand for about 3 days. This was day one of three.]

Boat Seat Complete

My friends Dan and Russell came over and to help me work on my boat. The driver seat has been in bad shape and as of late it was totally broken. The base was actually the broken part. So, we started at 6 pm right after I left work. I stopped on the way to my house at Ace Hardware for some nails and bolts. The people there said you have two minutes. I took about three. I showed them, hey? I got to my house just as Dan was getting there. We set up and started to get the things rocking. We got the old stuff out of there. At first I was thinking of rebuilding the whole base, but I found the boards were in decent shape. What it needed was just to be rebuilt. We added a few 2x4's for support purposes. We added support to the rail system that the seat rides on. Once we screwed everything together, and got the seat top on, it was pretty clear that is was strong. We put it into the boat and secured it to the floor. Afterwards Russell and I went to Subway and ate; and we started to talk about politics.

Interestingly enough, I am a rarity among a group I belong to. Most are liberal, or at least left leaning. I am a conservative. Russell follows suit with the majority of the people in the group. He tends to be more left leaning. So, we disagree politically on most issues, however we are both Philosophy graduates. I think this is why we have such a strong relationship with such opposingly (is that a word? I guess it is now. I mean it bling-bling is a word, mine has to be one as well.) different views on issues. We understand what it means to "argue" in a philosophical sense. We don't get mad and heated at each other. We make statements and back them up. He is one of the only people I can do that with. Most of my other friends are non-Philosophy. They do not understand how to reason and argue. Many times they are emotional and irrational. You truly can not argue with someone's emotions. Irrational arguing is impossible as well. So, I tend to stay away from the debates/arguments with my friends as I have found it is fruitless. When Russell and I argue, it is enjoyable since we do it on a philosophical level.

Partying with Joey

I had a couple things going on Wednesday. I was going to get my new dog. I was covering for Dan at the fire department, and I was going to go to Joey's party. So at noon I leave for lunch and head to Ken's house to get the dog. It is a purebred Golden Retriever. Her name is Amber, and she is 3 years old. I picked her up, grabbed lunch and then headed to work. She came down stairs to my office in the basement of the jail. I showed her to everyone. After lunch I took her home and get her set up. She seems like a good dog. When I got off work I headed to Pullman. I was covering Dan at the fire department. When I got to Pullman, since I was on call, I could go places, I just have to be able to get to the station in 7 minutes. I can drink either, of course. So, I picked up Garrett from his apartment and we headed over to Joey's house. He was having a BBQ and he had a keg. I had some meat, but no beer, until 11 pm. That is when I got a call from Dan saying that he did not need me to be on call for him anymore. So, I changed out of the fire department stuff and started to drink. I only had two or three beers total. I had to get up early. I have not been getting a lot of sleep, so I wanted to get to bed before 1 am. But that is indeed when I got to bed.

Joey were talking. I can't remember how the subject came up, but he mentioned that he wanted to have kids. I told him I will not be able to have them, at least very easily. He did not know what I meant, and I did not continue to explain. He is a nice guy and he was trying to say nice things.

Holy Cow Batman, Softball is a hitters game.

What kind of fun could I find myself in today? Plenty. First off I our B league championship softball game was to be played at 8:30 and should be lose follow it up with a 9:45 game. But I had to make it through the day before that would happen.

I have this guy who is having a huge problem with his computer when it comes to Microsoft Office applications. They will throw off errors randomly. Sometimes he can go 30 minutes without one, then he will get no stop errors. I have tried Office Updates. I tried to reinstall Office on top of the old one. I tried uninstalling the old and installing it fresh. I have been unable to make the error messages stop. So I got the computer and I plan on reimaging that computer with an old image. It seems that it is better. I also downloaded service pack 4 for Windows 2000.

The Colfax Fire Department had its picnic last night starting at 6 pm. I got there about 5:45 and hung out with everyone. Once the burgers were done I grabbed one and was on my way to Pullman for softball.

I picked up Garrett at his apartment and we headed to My Office to meet up with the others from the team who were down there. I told them about his weekend with Courtney, and everyone was having a good time with that. At game time, Jason Romanik won the toss and we took home. I was pitching and for some reason the Tax Dodgers will not swing the bat in softball! How annoying is that. They will watch good, hittable pitches go by and take a walk. I guess they don't think they can beat us, since our defense is so solid. After the first inning I got in a good pitching groove. I was throwing strike after strike. Then in one late inning I lost something, and I could not hit the tube. The umpire also was not helping with his ultra tight strike zone. So, these guys took a few walks, and low and behold when I got some pitches across the plate, and they were put into play, one of our guys would make en error. I think we make about 5 or 6 errors on the night. Not normal for us.

The lightening and thunder were rolling across the sky as the game was coming to a close. We knew we would not get our second game in. That is a good thing, we may get a different umpire for the next game. That would be a good thing for me, as I have never really been able to work with John's strike zone.

Afterwards we went to My Office and drank most of the evening, actually into the night. It was about 1 am when we finally left the bar and headed home. I took Garrett home, and we were talking about him and Courtney, and then I mentioned one of the girls from our softball team, and how at Brush Prairie he found out that she had a girlfriend. He was surprised. He said he is totally cool with that, and does not have a problem with it. Then we talked about having a gay guy on the IM softball team and how a few players seemed to have strong antigay views. I told him I was worried about team chemistry should that information become more open. He wanted to know who it was. I told him I could not say. I said, just pay attention, you will figure it out. He asked if it was David. I laughed and said that I could not say.

I'll stick you.

Monday morning started like all others. I was tired as heck and my alarm clock was letting me know it was time to go. So, I listened to it. I headed into work. My computer was acting weird. It was running really slow. So, I checked the task manager. Everything in there looked fine. I have Windows XP, and the machine has 512 MB RAM. It had about 520 MB between Virtual memory and physical memory in use. That was not all that bad for what I normally do. So I rebooted anyhow to refresh the resources. Upon reboot it was running really slowly. There is a screen that will appear when booting Windows XP. It has about 3/8 inch white bars standing vertically. They are spaced about 1/4 of an inch across the bottom of the screen. As the OS loads the space between the bars is filled with white. This process takes a matter of seconds. On my machine it was taking a matter of minutes and then it froze up and said it could not boot. So, I knew there was some major problem. The nice thing is that I am the computer guy, so I was able to work on my problem without having to wait for someone else to help me fix it. So I tried to use the recovery console. I found that the winnt/system32/drivers directory was bad. So, I ran a check disk which helped the problem, but there was still a problem. So, I re-loaded Windows XP on top of it. That fixed most of the problems but made a few more. Now several of my applications did not work correctly. So I spent some time reinstalling some of them, and getting IIS up and running again. But it is mostly back to normal. With a few problems to be sure. But happily, it is mostly working fine. The question is what caused the problem to begin with.

After work I had fire training at Pullman Station 31. We were going to learn about doing blood sugar checks on people. The state of Washington decided to allow EMT-B's to be able to do the finger sticks. This is a neat step for us, as before we were unable to do any poking on someone like that. So, I need to do two more and then I will be certified to do them on people. Pretty cool, hey?

On of my customers at Lobo Computer Services had his computer at my office being worked on. I picked it up and delivered it to him after training. He works for a company that does heating and air conditioning stuff. So, he talked me through how to set up my gas dryer at my house.

My Weekend at Brush Prairie.

===-Friday-===
I got up early to do my laundry at the laundry mat. I had to get my uniform clean for the trip to Brush Prairie. Soon I was finished, but the time was ticking and I had 15 minutes to get to the Colfax City Hall for the interviews for my IT Manager job I am leaving at the end of summer. We had five people to interview. It was good to be on the interview board, I saw the wide range of how people are and how they act. I saw the things that impressed me, and the things that made me raise an eyebrow. First off, clothing... It ranged from someone wearing shorts, tee-shirt, and sandals to someone wearing a suit, minus the suit jacket. Secondly attitude... It was sort of clear that some people were eager and enthusiastic and some were confident, almost like, they felt there were a sure thing. Clothing did not make a huge difference in the end, not nearly like I was expecting. I guess that might have come into play had other issues not been more critical. Third thing was their talkativity. I was surprised how much or how little someone spoke made a difference in my impression of them. Most so than their attire. One guy would answer the question, and the ramble on. One guy was so short with his answers it made him appear to have no personality. Lastly, was their ability to answer questions, especially technical questions. It was clear that number of years of "computer" experience does not equate to ability to do networking and server administration. The people who have been doing it in the past answered the questions clearly, and to the point, those who did not know tended to ramble on a little bit, and add fluff that sounded good. A side light to all of this is longevity. We wanted and looked for someone who was going to be around for a while.

In the end the panel was looking at 2 people. And the issues involved technology abilities versus their outgoingness or niceness. I argued that technical ability is more important. In the end the guy I wanted was hired. I think the city of Colfax will benefit from it. The other guy would have given some benefits as well, but I think the bigger benefits would come from the guy hired.

After the interviews we had to evacuate the City Hall since a bomb was outside and the Spokane Bomb squad was there to deal with it. So, that was a little bit of excitement. I got my truck from the parking lot, even though it was supposed to be off limits. I headed to my house to get ready for my trip to Brush Prairie. Jason and Garrett was going to ride down with me. They got to my place we loaded my truck and away we went.

We headed down there taking the gorge in to Portland. Then we went across the river to Vancouver into Brush Prairie. Along the way we stopped at Bugerville in The Dalles. That was a nice little stop along the way. Chatting with Jason along the way, I was impressed. He talked about things and sort of a history of certain areas, or information about areas. I was surprised to see someone that age, about 26, to have those cares.

We arrived around 7 o'clock at night and settled in. I went to Fred Myer's with Garrett and I bought some beer, food, and a lawn chair. We headed back to the camp site and sat down and drank and partied most of the evening away.


===-Saturday-===
Our first game was at 9:15 in the morning. We had 4 games to play. Three are seeding games, then onto the double elimination tournament. I was up and getting ready by 8:30 in the morning. It was game time and we were not ready. People were flat. No one was chattering nor really having a good time. It showed in our game play. We scored 1 run. Needless to say we lost. We had an hour break before our next game and most everyone went back to the camp to drink a little and wake up. We had a ceremony where all the bats and gloves were exercised of the back spirits so we could have a chance to win a little bit. So after tossing some beer on the stuff we were ready for some action. And we scored a few more runs, once again however, we did not win. In fact as the day wore on, we did not win a single game. Talking about disappointing. We played better and had a chance at winning some of them, but we did not play well enough.

After our last game Garrett and I went to get some pizza. We ordered for about 7 or 8 people. We brought the pizza back, ate the pizza, drank some beer. Afterwards I was a little restless so I asked if Garrett wanted to throw the ball around. He said he did. Then I mentioned we should play pepper if we could get enough people. And about 7 people wanted to play, so we played pepper for about one hour or so. At one point Ron and Lisa were going for a ball, and neither was looking at the other one, they ran into each other at a running speed and Lisa bounced off Ron and fell straight back. We all laughed our asses off. It was quite humourous. As it got too dark to play we went back to sitting around and drinking beer. I had three shots of tequila in the middle of the beer consumption.

We played a game were each person around the circle would say one word and then the next person would have to say a word that would have to make sense with the previous people's words. It would string the words together for a story. It was fun. We of course use the opportunity to make our fellow teammates the butts of most of the jokes. Garrett and a girl who was on the team were getting a lot of crap from everyone. The girl seemed to be latching on to Garrett. She is 18 and Garrett is 22. So the age difference is not a big deal, but it seemed like she was hitting on him harder and harder through out the tournament. She would carry his bat bag, she would also sit with him and be close to him. Everyone else saw it too, so everyone was teasing them about it. A few people there know me better than some of the others. And I was able to make certain jokes that the others did not pick up on but made those who are closer to me laugh their assess off.

Around midnight I went to my truck to get it ready for bed. I was using the cab of my truck as my "tent". I sat down and was so tired it was no time that I fell asleep. I woke up about 3 am and I was so hot, that I was sweating really bad. I got out to cool down, and then went to be my bat bag which was left unattended outside. I hit the bathroom and then came back to camp. There was Garrett and his little girl, I asked where they came from, and he said they were out in center field talking. Hmmm... makes you wonder what they were talking about.

I got into my truck and started up the air conditioner. That helped a lot, but as the night wore on, once again I started to get really hot and sweaty. Since we had lost all our games our first game on Sunday was at 8 am.

===-Sunday-===
The morning came early and I was sweaty even with my truck door open most of the evening. I am not sure why, but that was the case. So, I am getting ready to play some softball. This was a must win game for us. I was pitching and having some troubles with my accuracy. After the 3rd inning Heather went into pitch for me. I was catching. One guy, who we decided was a "tool", would stand less than 6 inches from the plate and wave his bat around like he was going to be bunting the ball. He was getting mad at the umpire calling ball's when he team was pitching, say that he needed to call more of them strikes, yet he seemed very content that the umpire call all our pitches balls. He was a tool.

Anyhow, in the last inning with us trailing, we were up to bat, and we had two out, down by one run. The last person in the batting order, Dukie, was up. She got a walk, so we one person on base. Garrett was up next and the Tool came in from 3rd base to pitch. He pitch 3 straight balls to Garrett, and then Garrett did what the Tool had been doing to us. He acted like he was going to bunt. The ball came in, Garrett pulled the bat back and it was ball four. Garrett went to 2nd base, and since there were two outs the next girl also got a free walk. So, the bases are juiced for Dan. Mr. Clutch himself steps to the plate with the bases loaded, in the bottom of the 7th inning (last inning), two out, and down by one run. A solid base hit would score at least one, and maybe two for the victory. He see his pitch and parks it over the second baseman and in front of the right-center fielder. Dukie and Garrett score, My Office wins the game. The team cheered, and we were off to the next game. In the loser's bracket, where we were, we would have played eight straight games if we were to win the whole thing. That would have been the best day I have lived through in a long time if that were the case. What better than playing softball for 8 plus straight hours?!?!

Unfortunately, we went out against the very next team and came up one run short. We were upset about the early exit, however I found it to be an opportunity to get back to Whitman County. If I worked on Monday, I could go boating on Friday, and that is what I wanted. So, I left. Most people wanted to stay the extra night to party and camp out. I had to leave, so I did. I went to Seattle and saw my mom and step dad Bill. I picked up some wood deck furniture for my house and then headed to Colfax. I arrived about 9:30 at night. I got some dinner and headed to the fire department. I chatted to Carl for a little while. We talked about the hiring of the IT guy and the bomb. Then I told him that I would come down for calls should there be any. I went home, and I was tired as all get out. So, I went to bed.

Around 2:32 in the morning a call comes out for a guy with heart problems. But I was so tired I could not force myself out of bed. A few minutes later the pager goes off again asking for crew members to respond to the station, so I got up then and drove to the station. I got there just as the ambulance was ready to leave. We went to the Arm's Apartments and gave a guy a ride to the hospital. When we got back to the station I assisted in refilling the supplies on the ambulance. I left to go home still wearing my coveralls. Once home, I took off the coveralls, I had to take a leak really bad. I took care of business and went into my room and emptied my pockets. I was about to lay down to sleep when the pager hit again. This time there was a female laying on the sidewalk downtown. So, away I went. I got everything back into my pockets, donned the coveralls and away I went. I got on the ambulance. We go to the patient who was said she had been hit by a car two hours earlier. She could not find a phone to call anyone, because she was being chased by people, 6 girls to be exact, who wanted to beat her up. In fact, they had found her and they all beat her up, and hit her head into the ground. My EMS side said, that I am here to help you, no matter how you got into this problem. My Law Enforcement side said that she was only tell half of the story and they there was something more than meets the eye with her. We gave her a ride to the hospital and dropped her off too. I helped to get the cot and ambulance back in service. I finally got home and managed to get some sleep.

Look what the cat dragged in.

Victor is still having troubles being outside. Thursday morning as I was leaving for work I found him outside breathing really hard and having a hard time walking. I thought there was a problem. There in fact was a problem, however it was not so much medical. He was not adjusting to being outside. However at first I thought it was a medical problem, so I put him in his kitty carrier and set him in my truck. We went to work. Once in the truck, his breathing slowed down and he seemed much better. After a while I set him in one of the bathrooms and let him out of the kitty carrier. I gave him some water. I decided that it was more urgent that I get half of the garage partitioned off. I called Dan Carpenter about helping build something. We met at lunch time and told him what I was thinking. So, he worked on it while I was at work. I got home and he needed help handing the door, which is about 8 feet by 8 feet. I also helped with a few other things. But as the time marched on, I had to get ready for my softball game. We were playing against Green's Cleaners. If we won this game we would be in the finals. Green's and Tax Dodgers are playing at 7:15 on Tuesday for the loser bracket. The winner of that game will play us at 8:30 for the champion. Should we lose that game, there will be a second game at 9:45 against that same team. This is a double elimination tournament. We won by only a few points and now are in the driver seat for Tuesday. Afterwards Garrett and I went to the bar to have some drinks with the team. Around midnight everyone was leaving so I gave Garrett a ride home and went home myself.

Friday I had to leave for Brush Prairie for a softball tournament. So, I thought I would get some laundry done before the morning. The laundry mat was closed and locked at 10 pm. So, I reviewed the applications for the position at the City of Colfax, in the IT department.

Flashback Pop Quiz.

060595 [June 5th 1995] -- Today I called Toyota about an ignition switch for my truck [My old one was in such bad shape the key would not trun anymore]. They had one, so Bill [my stepdad] went to get it. He came back and we put it in my truck. I went to the bank and got some money. On the way there I stoped by BP to get some gas. When I was there I saw Mr. Eldenberg [high school Geometry teacher. One of the best teachers I have ever had]. It was nice to talk with him for a while. I came back and watched the Mariner game. Randy Johnson pitched a great game. It was a complete game, a three hit shut out, and he had over 10 strike outs. I have been laying around because my back is hurting again [tweeked it playing hide and go seek. Posted a falskback about it about 1 week ago]. I called up the Tukwilla police department and talked to Jon Moser and set up a ride along for next Thursday. I can’t wait for this, but I hope my back wont hurt too much. I went up to Shari’s restaurant and met up with Andy Chase. We talked for a little while and he said that he has moved out of his house. Then I headed to Chucks Donut shop got a few donuts and then came home. I was trying to get on the network and fell asleep in my bed.

Midweek blah's.

Wednesday morning I wake up and I was really tired since I was up late drinking last night after our wins. So, I went back to sleep. I called into work and let them know I would be late. I was about 2 hours late. Oops.

My cat Victor De La Hoya has been acting strange since moving to Colfax. He seems to breathe really deep and is very defensive. He hisses, and wants to attack, even me. So, I am a little bit worried about him.

I got in and worked on ISMan. That is short for Information Services Manager. It is a web application that I built. It uses ASP and SQL Server to track all the computers, software, peripherals, users, and issues with in the county. Before this there was on old out of date access database in use. But it did not track the users, nor the software. We used Tasks from Outlook to track the issues. There was no way of going back easily and looking up an old issue to see how it was dealt with. Problem computers could not be tracked. Now every issue is tracked for a specific computer is listed when the computer details are brought up. This is handy, so I can see the history of problem computers. I can also see at a glance what computers have as software and OS's. I can make sure the computers do have pirated software. The nice thing is that I have been able to build this from the ground up. At first I felt a little resistance from my counterpart, Dan. He seemed a little dubious about the whole idea. I still don't think he is a big fan of it, but I think he is warming up to some of it. It works pretty sweetly. The UI is pretty easy to use, however there are a few things I would not mind changing. It is just sitting down and spending the time to do so. It has been a work in progress for the last year to year and a half. This has also helped to keep some of my ASP skills sharper, since my job is more of computer tech rather than programmer. The other thing that I did with ISMan is add an Virtual In/Out Board. Right now all the workers in IS work in a large room in the basement of the Whitman County Jail. There are five of us who share the office. A building was purchased and is being remodeled for us as we speak, so we will soon have our own offices. It will be so nice in many ways. They also set up zones so we can each keep our room temperature as cool as we want it. Back to the In/Out board. The office workers, when we leave, we write on a white board near the door the location we can be found. And since we share one large office we can quickly look up and see where the others are. However in the new building that will be hard. So, I built the Virtual In/Out Board to take care of that. It lists the employee and his status. Whether he is in his office, or out and about. It is a small window that updates itself every 6 minutes. It can be updated from anywhere in the county. It is pretty sweet if I do say so myself.

I did my other normal work things. Towards the end of the work day I get a call from someone in the health department. She said the printer cable that is on Jackie's computer seems to have a bent pin and will not hook up correctly. This was odd since there is no reason it was off her computer. This is also odd since I just hooked it up and everything was working just fine. Then there is the second issue of a printer we are putting in the front office. I have no pity for people who have to get up from their desk and walk to get a print. All of us in IS have to. So, when someone else whines about it, it falls on deaf ears. In this case the person whining has been under my skin since she started working her about 2 months ago. First she got a deskjet, and it needed TLC when it would print. It did not work perfectly, but it would print. This was too much, so she wanted a different one. We brought a different one to the desk, however, the computer she is using is running Windows NT 4.0. I had to get a different printer cable for it. And I have to say it is not a top priority for me. But to her it is, because she doesn't like to get her fat ass off her chair and walk to a printer. So, yesterday when I go to the health department for a real problem she sees me and asks if I was there to fix her printer. I said No. She said, well, I would like to print on it SOME DAY. With emphases on some day. I more or less blew a seal. I had never done that before with other people in front of them at least. I curtly said "I know!" and walked away. That was about as animated as I get in front of the people I deal with. I try to remain professional most of the time, but she put me over the edge.

5:30 was fast rolling around by this time and I had to be in Pullman at 6:00 for HazMat Training. I made it there at about 5:55. We have training for familiarization of a leak stopping kit we have. We watched a short video on Anhydrous Ammonia and that was about it. I stopped at my office and checked my e-mail, then headed to Colfax to work in IS for a little bit to make up some time I missed out on this morning. After I was done here I moved over to the city of Colfax City Hall. The Police Department's new color laser printer came in and I set it up. It is pretty damn cool. If I had an extra grand I might get one.

SOFTBALL!!!!

I love softball. If I haven't said it before, my life priorities are:
1) Softball
2) Fire
3) Friends/Family

Tonight we had our end of the year tournament in Pullman. Several of us met at My Office Bar and Grill for some pre-game drinking. At about 6:45, the same time we were going to leave the bar and head to the fields, I get a call from Garrett. He needed a ride to the field. So I had to go to his place and get him, then head to the field. We played our first game at 7:15. I was pitching. We only had 9 guys. Our sticks were on fire. Holy cow, it was awesome. We scored 17 runs in the first inning alone. I had a handful of hits through out the night. Defensively, we were playing great as well. We won the first game, which put us into a second game immediately afterwards. That game was a little bit closer; they had a few people who could hit the ball. One guy hit a powerful shot. It was a homerun. But that does not compare to the power and hitting ability we showed out there. We won that game pretty easily. After the games, we headed to My Office again for more beer. We were there for about 2 1/2 hours. Dan C. came to watch some of the game. That was really nice of him, it is fun having friends come to watch.

Colfax Resident

Well, I am not a Pullman resident. I don't have my apartment anymore. I have moved everything out of it. With a little help of my friends that is. After all the moving was complete, I took Dan C and Russell to dinner for all their help.

But before all that fun started I got up at about 11:30 pm to work from midnight to 7 am in the jail, and 7 am to 3:30 pm in Information Services. Actually I took off two hours early so I could get the stuff in my apartment taken care of. I did not think I would have as much work left as I had.

I have not seen my cat since last night. I think he is more or less lost. He was pretty upset by the way his fur was standing on edge, and he was hissing all the time.

No Rest for the Weary.

I slept in to about noon today, starting my day late. There was a bar-b-que at Craig and Wendy's house. It was a "set up Cameron's swing set and have a Bar-B-Que" party. I got there around 1:30 and helped to set up the swing set. Then I chowed on chicken and braughtworsts. After lunch, I played horse shoes with Jason, Dan, and one other guy named Brian. I headed home, got my stuff and went to the jail to sleep since I had to be at work starting on midnight.

Saturday Night's alright for fighting.

This weekend was too short. I had to work at the jail on Saturday morning, so I was up and on my way to Colfax during the 7 o'clock hour. It worked a highly uneventful day, and that was followed by being on call in Pullman at the fire department. That too was uneventful. I went to my office and worked on a web site for the Pullman Film Festival. That helped to pass the time. Soon I was bored looking for more. When Joe called to see what I was doing. I told him, that I did not have anything going on, and he invited me over to watch the Green Mile. That was fun. I had to leave shortly after the movie because of a call. The call was a guy who had been in a fight and needed some medical attention.

A side note, to live to be 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) seconds old, is that same as being 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 49 minutes and 40 seconds old.

I love America. Happy Birthday.

Some would say I have "flag waving patriotism" and mean it is an insult. How is that in insult? To me is a great compliment. I had in mind that I was going to be going to the fireworks show at Sunnyside Park in Pullman. I always go with the fire department. We do public relations stuff there. We give out fire hats, take pictures of people in the fire engine and with bunker gear on. We give them tours around the rigs. It is always a big hit for people. We were meeting at station 32 at 3:45 pm to head to the park. So, I had some time to burn. I went to my office and checked my e-mail. I found a message from Jason telling me about a deal I may be able to do with Bill, a Pullman Police Officer. He is one of the people who help to put on the "Pullman Film Festival". It is a chance for young kids in Pullman to express themselves. It is a great experience for those who participate. I was offered the chance at re-doing the website, and in exchange for doing the website, I would get to advertise my business on it. It is a pretty simple site without a whole bunch work to do, so I figured it would be worth it. If nothing else, it will help the cause.

I finished up working on the page, and I saw it was about time to head to the station to meet up with the others. I got to the station and helped to wash the rigs so they looked nicer before we headed to the park. We got into our parking spot and enjoyed the time. I saw Glenn Johnson there and we chatted about his running for Mayor. Many people in Pullman are rooting him on. It will be nice to get him into office, he is very pro-police and pro-fire, unlike the current administration. When we were getting set up for putting on the bunker gear we saw the suspenders were missing, so Michael and I took the Rescue and went back to the station to get some suspenders. Then a call came out for a grass fire. We were on scene right away and pulled the hose from the engine and put out the fire. It was good times. One apartment was full of smoke so we ventilated it. Following that we made our way back to the park and hung out, interfacing with the people. Just before dark, we had a city worker come up to us and say that someone in the parking lot needed an ambulance. We has in a John Deere Gator. We loaded up our equipment and jumped in. He drove us to the scene, and we also called for an ambulance for the station to come to the scene. The patient was transported to the hospital. Following that, it was back to the engine. It was dark by then, so we started to clean up the equipment out for the public to see. I climbed on to the engine to watch the fireworks show. I love fireworks and I love my Country. I tear up every time the national anthem is played. I think about what people have done so I can enjoy those things I enjoy. The fireworks show symbolizes the wars that America has fought in the name of freedom. When I hear the reports from the fireworks and see the sparks I think about how that is more than entertainment. It symbolizes something more to me. It symbolizes someone else's sacrifice. They played music to the fireworks, and one of the songs they played was God Bless the U.S.A. That is a very good song, that in conjunction of the fireworks was enough for me to tear up for a moment. I love my Country. I support Bush, I support the war, and I love my Country.

Almost Done Moving.

Yesterday morning started out early for me, as it should have been a day off. I got up and started to get more moving taken care of. I had a few friends coming over to help out. Dan C. was coming over to help me get a few heavy objects out, and then we loaded the U-Haul I rented with my couch, loveseat, and coffee table, plus boxes of stuff and computer stuff. We stopped by the Lobo Computer Services to drop off the computer stuff. We then headed to Colfax from Pullman, which is about a 15-mile trip. When we got to my house Dan asked me if I opened the back door to the U-Haul. I said that I had not. I asked if it was open. He said yes. I asked if he was serious, and he said yes. I got out of the U-Haul and it was wide open. I saw that most everything was still in there. A box and a drawer had fallen out. I got on my 4 wheeler and drove to the end of my driveway, and sure enough that is where my items were. I picked them up and brought them back to the house. We unloaded the rest of the items. Then we loaded all the construction debris from the remodel of the bathroom and electrical wiring. We went to the dump and dropped off 1600 pounds of stuff. Then back to Pullman to load some more stuff. Russell came over to help, and Dan had to leave. Following that Dan U showed up to help. We got the rest of the stuff in the U-Haul and got it to my house. We left and headed back to Pullman to go to My Office Bar and have a few cold ones. Russell and I then walked to Ryan’s apartment and hung out there for a tiny bit and finished the night with a short 8 mile trip to Moscow for a Jack in the Box run.

Flashback! Flashback! Flashback!

060895 [June 8th, 1995]-- Today I got up and went to Kims' dad's appliance shop in Kent [Washington] to talk to Kim. She wanted me to check out the computer system they have to tell her if the [computer has] E-mail or not. They do not. Then I went to the doctor for a check up on my back. They [What the hell?!?! "They"??? The PC people got to me back then... I am okay now though.] said it looks good, and gave me some stretches to do for it. I then went to Pennzoil to get my front and rear differential oil changed. I also got the transfer case oil changed too. Joe and Shannon work there so they gave me a great deal. About 50% off. Then I went to watch Jon's [my brother] softball game and when I got there was not sight of Jon. I saw one of his teammates and asked about the game. He said they play the late game. So I came home and changed into pants and got ready for the [police] ride along. I went back down to Jon's game because it had started. I watch Jon play, their team SUCKS this year. Then I left the game early to go to the ride along. It was cool [look through all these old entry's, I think my favorite word is cool]. We went on a rape/assult call, pulled some people over.

Today is My Friday

So, I was worked my butt off for the last two days. Now it is my Friday since the 4th is a Holiday, and I get Thursday off. Pretty sweet, hey? Anyhow, yesterday I did not get to work on time, I was a bit on the late size, about an hour or so. I did not go to bed until 2 am. Not a good idea. So, I get to work and at 2:30 I had an appointment to have my day in court. More on that later. So, I need to fix a printer in the Health Department. So, I get a new printer cable, and hook it to the computer and it works. One of the employees in that area, were the printer is, asked if I could set up sharing on the printer so she could get to it as well. She said it was not a hurry. So, I planned on doing it when the owner of the computer where the printer is located is not in the middle of doing her work. I head back to my desk and I get an e-mail from someone else in the office. An e-mail written IN ALL CAPS. That said in part, "COULD YOU SCHEDULE TIME TO HOOK POLLY UP TO JACKIES NEW PRITNER"? First off, in the words of Strong Bad; Do you know how many rules you broke by writing in all caps? It is highly annoying to me when people do it. I work with a lady who does it quite often. We have an old mainframe system, and she uses all caps when typing into it. However, in my problem tracking database, she will not turn off the caps, and she types in all caps in there too. It is one of my big pet peeves. So, back to the story. Stay the heck out of it. I am dealing with the person with the request, why in the hell are you wasting bandwidth with that e-mail, and why are you typing in all caps. The days of the TeleType are long gone, unless you work in the Jail. So, after fuming over that for a little while, I get some stuff done on the new computers for the sheriff's office. I will be ready to install those tomorrow.

I am leaving my job at the City of Colfax as the IT Manager. I don't have the time and I feel my performance in suffering due to that. So, I am in the process of hiring a new guy to replace me. The interviews were set up for Friday the 11th of July. The applications from the people interested in the job are in, and the deadline has passed for turning in any more. As 2 pm rolls around I go to the city hall in Colfax to get a copy of all of them so I can review them. Then I head off to Pullman for court. I sat in the court room for about 1 1/2 hours waiting for my turn. As I sat there, there was an Asian lady testifying about an accident she had had. She had a black guy with her explaining what had happened. The judge believed their story and threw out the ticket. She was very thankful and she treated the court with respect. Then another black guy, who is a former WSU football player was there. He was dealing with multiple tickets. He came with a tee-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and with a baseball hat on. Wearing it backwards. He was disrespectful in his appearance and his attitude towards the judge. The judge pretty much threw everything out, but I can't believe this guy. The world was out to get him, in his eyes. I think that he has been told that his whole life, therefore as a self-fulfilling prophecy, it happens. Actually, he perceives the world is holding him down, whenever anything bad happens to him. When the same situation happens to me, it is not the world holding me down. In the case of the law, it is a case where I have been caught for doing something wrong. And in reality that is the case with him. The world is not holding him down. He was caught for doing something wrong, on several occasions. The next case was of a guy who had been driving on a gravel road. He lost control of his vehicle, and started to go off the roadway. He did not hit the brakes. He did let off the gas. He then fish tailed from one side of the road to the other for 421 feet, and then he hit the brakes, 40 feet after hitting the brakes he ended up with his vehicle upside down in the river. So, in total he went 461 feet after he no longer was giving the vehicle gas. In your head, think of a speed someone might have gone to coast on a gravel road 461 feet. The driver claims he was doing 35 miles an hour. I don't think so. And neither did the judge. He was found guilty. Then it was finally my turn. I was charged with parking in a no parking zone, however, there are no signs visible, and the curb is not painted. So, I had no reason to believe I was parking illegally. It was not the money on this ticket. It was only a $20.00 ticket. For me it was the principle of the issue. I was ticketed in a zone that is not marked in anyway. The judge agreed and threw it out. What burns my chops the most if the parking officer had included photos of no parking signs there were marking other areas, but he included no photos of the actual area where I was cited. So he was making it look like it was marked when it was not marked at all. Luckily I had a photo to show the judge. After winning that case I came back to work and stayed until my Colfax Fire Training. We were dealing with Infectious Diseases. That was fun. Then we went and played with the new foam system we got for the rescue rig. That is a cool thing. It has a 50 gallon water tank that is run by air pressure, not a pump.

I got home finally at about 11:30 pm. I watched the Family Guy. That is one funny ass show. It is too bad they still down make them.

Tuesday Tension

I am not listening to myself. Monday, I was planning on making up some lost time, but instead I was invited to play some pool when I got off work. I was not off however until 8 pm since I went in late. I started the day by interviewing an inmate about possible wrong-doing going on in the jail. This was a follow up interview from the day before. The inmate told me some startling things, that if they prove to be true will make some heads roll. That is all I will say, because I don't want none of you criminals telling your friends about it. Just kidding. But seriously, after the interview I finished the day working on computers around the county. Installing a printer on one, and trying to figure out why one computer is throwing off errors like it is no body's business. Finally 8 pm rolls around and I am off to the races. I have to get my timecard turned in for the fire department. So I stop and do that. Then I get to Pullman, and I meet up with Dan to go and play some pool at the Sports Page Tavern. I was wearing my "the Cheat" tee-shirt from Homestar Runner. It was cool, my friend Dan likes the Cheat. We played 5 games of pool and each time I won. Then we went to My Office Bar and Grill for some beer. Some of the people from my softball team were there and I was going to meet them. We had some beer, and then some more beer, and finally some more beer. I did not leave until 2 am. A little later than I was planning on leaving. But that is okay. I met a guy names Steve. We chatted about computer stuff. He was there with Aaron who is an umpire and a city of Pullman employee. We all hung out for a while and drank some beer. Oh yeah, did I mention we drank beer tonight?