Big Friday night.

Unless something happens I am starting the last day at Whitman County Information Services. I was holding out hope. I got in to work and planned on doing what needed to get done and ignoring the small requests from people. I ended up getting woken up by a call from Brandon. I was almost two hours late to work. Not a good day to do that. I got into work and found two fires I had to put out. One user’s computer was dead and another user’s files were all gone.

The first problem was not a hard drive problem like others thought it was. It was a problem of a dead monitor. The second problem dealt with using the tape backups and restoring the files. The best I could do was last Friday’s tapes.

I then started to get the other things that I had to get done. I did not have a lot of time because I was meeting Thomas for lunch. We ate at Top Notch. I told him of my plans of moving and asked if he could get my mail. He said he would. He asked if I would be going to the show. I told him I was on call and could not leave Pullman.

I went back to the office and got ready for my going away party. We were having a celebration from two to four pm. I wish it would have been only thirty minutes so I could get more work done.

Many people from around the county showed up and said good-bye. They had cake and talked with me. I got some cards from people and I got a nice mirror with the Mariner’s logo on it from the IS department. I got a trophy of an apple with the words “Good to the Core” on it. I also got some books. It was nice to see people stop by.

Eunice was there and she snuck up and gave me a hug. But I did not know it was her and thought it was Scott who did it. Scott is a ten-six-seven. I pointed at him and said “I didn’t know who was hugging me... the scary this is that I thought it was you.” He said “What is so scary about that?” He then came over and gave me a hug.

After the party I went back and got to work. I had to also get to Pullman to do my last shift at Pullman Fire. I tried to finish up the day as good as I could. But it is pretty obvious that I was not going to be able to do everything I needed to do.

After failing to do what I was hoping to get done I was off to my house to change into my fire department uniform and then over to Pullman. I met up with Ryan and we went to rent a movie and picked up some dinner at Burger King. We got American Wedding then headed to the fire station.

I talked to Russell. He asked if I was going to go to the show in Moscow. I told him that I was not planning on it. I had to stay in Pullman because I was on call.

Ryan and I started to watch American Wedding on TV and were waiting for Third Watch to start. We ended up watching American Wedding to the end and only saw the last twenty minutes of Third Watch. After Third Watch was over we were talking with some of the other people down there. We had a call come in, but we did not leave the building on that one.

Mirenda, Brian, and I were talking about stuff. Then Brian asked him straight-up if I was gay. I looked him directly in the eye and told him the truth. We then talked about it for a little while. I told him about the article in the Daily Evergreen. He said he could tell. I asked him how. He said it was nothing big, but a bunch of little things. He said he lived and worked in an area where everyone was gay. He said he has finely tuned gay-dar and can see that stuff very well.

He said he did not have a problem with it at all. He said that he wanted to know the truth from me rather than listening to the rumor mill. That is why he came directly to me. Brian is a really cool guy. When I was having a bad week a few weeks ago and was in a bad mood, he was the only one who saw it and asked if everything was okay. I think he is the kind of guy who can be friends with anyone.

I took Ryan home after that. I called up Russell and he said he was going to the after-party at Nik’s apartment. I decided that I would go to that. It was going to start at two-thirty in the morning. I went to get some pop from the gas station and the drove to Nik’s apartment. Russell said that he and Nick were going to go to it.

I found a place to park about one block away. I walked up to the apartment and there were many people coming that direction. I went to his apartment and went inside. I saw Nik. He came over and shook my hand. He invited me outside with him to have a smoke. We went to the main level and he had a smoke and I chatted with him. There were about five or six other gay guys standing around. Some of them were very obvious when they talked, a few others were less obvious. I chatted with them and listened for a little bit, then a call came out. It was at Stadium Way near Monroe. That was bad, because that is the way I needed to go. I ended up going to B street and then to Stadium way.

I went past the scene of the accident. I could see there were a lot of cop cars there and one of the cop cars was involved in the wreck. We got into Rescue and headed to the scene. I helped to get the guy out of the back of the patrol car where he had been placed by the police after the accident. He had tried to run from the cops and ran his truck into a county deputy. The deputy was unhurt.

We took the kid to the hospital. He did not have a lot to say to us at the time. We dropped him off and then cleaned the cot. When I was going into the hospital there was a state trooper who needed into the hospital. I unlocked the door for him to get in.

We cleared the scene and went back to the station. I got my truck and headed back to Nik’s apartment. I had a voicemail from Russell, he said that he and Nick left about ten minutes prior to me getting the voicemail. So I diverted to Russell’s. I pulled in to Russell’s apartment complex and I could see the car in front of me was Russell. I thought I would play with them. So I got right up on their bumper and the backed off and did the same thing again. Russell figured out it was me. We got out of our rigs and talked for a few minutes. I said goodbye to Russell and Nick. I gave a nice firm handshake to Nick. I got a small hug from Russell.

I then got to Nik’s apartment. I went inside and there was loud music blasting through out the apartment. I could not believe how loud it was. Some people were still drinking and being loud. It was about four-thirty in the morning by this time. I sat on the couch and watched the guys dance. Nik said he was getting ready to pull the plug on the party at about five o’clock am. It was good because I was getting tired, but I did not want to go back and sleep for an hour in the uncomfortable chair I use to sleep on while in Pullman.

I gave Nik a big hug and he said he wants to hang out and do something later this summer. He also said he was real happy for me with my new job. I went to Jack in the Box to get some breakfast. It was about five-thirty in the morning. I decided to head to Colfax and call it a night.