Off light duty!

I got a note from my doctor saying I am now off "light duty". I took it to the fire station to show them. Within moments of getting there the tones go off for a grass fire. The chief asked if I wanted to go. I said I did. So away we went. North out of Colfax at the speed of about forty miles per hour. We never found the fire. So we went back and I went back to work.

I had spent a fair amount of the day working on trying to recover files that just disappeared. They were not deleted (supposedly). They are just gone. I was not able to find them.

I went to work at the jail at six o'clock pm. Not a lot went on. It was quiet and uneventful. I got a can of chew because that is the time I like to have a dip. But I am going to leave it at home tomorrow and only have it once in a while. The rest of the time I will stick to my toothpicks or straws for something to chew on.

WSU or UW?

Today was the big day. Today was the day my group turned in the completion report. We worked on it all weekend to get caught up. I am not sure how we will do, but it should be okay. The teacher today talked about résumé’s. We have to work on one for our next assignment.

After class I went to my office and got some boxes. I delivered them to Pat to send off. They have parts from the jobs we have done. Then I went back to Colfax to work on changing someone's computer out with a new one. Today the user had a problem. Her files for QuickBooks were missing. They were gone from the machine. So I looked for an undelete program. I found one at another department in the county. I started to run it, but I could tell it would take a while. It has been. It is not done at five o'clock. I give up for the day and plan on coming back tomorrow.

I finish off my day in IS and then I go to the fire station for training. Because I don't have a doctor's note I cannot go on calls yet. I could not train either. So I stood around in the cold watching the whole time.

I went home cooked up some dinner and headed off to bed.

I went this message to someone today who is choosing between U-Dub and Wazzu.

The choice of UW versus WSU will be a tough one, but attending WSU for many, many, many years I think I have some positive input.

First off this choice is about you and your future. It is only going to be four to five years of your life. It *WILL* go by quickly.

There are several things to look at.

First off, in what field would you like to major? Look at the program in that major that is offered by WSU and UW. See what it takes to get accepted into the program. Just because you get into the University does not mean you will get accepted into your chosen major. At WSU, for instance, the people trying to get in the pharmacy program work their butts off. Many of them don’t make it, and they have good grades, but competition is very tough.

See what the major requires. Maybe one school standards are higher than you think you can achieve. Also, look at the comparisons. Among others, WSU is known to have a good communications program. If you want to major in communications choose to attend WSU. UW has its strengths in different fields.

The bottom line, however, is that you only get out of an education what you put into it. If you don’t study and don’t do homework then you will not get much out of it. The university at that point does not mean anything. Once you have a piece of paper that says you have a BA or BS you would be hard pressed for an employer to discount you because it was from one university over the other.

My brother got a BS in Computer Science at WSU. He is making hard-core bank. It not because of the school, it is because that man can code in his sleep. He knows his stuff. He studied and took advantage of his opportunity.

Your first priority is getting a college education. Getting a degree in a field you would like to work the rest of your life. Everything else must come after that.

Your friends are important. You need to be happy. If you have a lot of friends at WSU or UW you should be happy. I can say that I have a handful of friends that went to WSU from my high school. I never hung out with them because I made new friends from my residence hall. The city you live in is also important. You want to have fun on the weekends and some week nights. What city has the things that you want to do? There is a lot to do in both cities. Sports? Cougar Football is exciting. WSU intramural program is vast and very good.

If I had to do it all over again, what would I choose? I would take WSU. You will find that is true among Cougars. Once a Coug, always a Coug.

Roman Numbers are fun.

Today I am not going to wear my ankle brace. I decided I will start the journey of being normal again. I start it one painful step after another. It does get better through out the day and I am able to run up and down stairs on it. So, I guess I cannot say I am a gimp anymore.

I brought my new truck to work and everyone wanted to go see it, so I showed it to everyone.

I went on a EMS call this morning. It was someone who had an injured hip. We got on scene and I said to one of the guys I was working with that we would use the scoop stretcher to pick "her" up. He said "how do you know it is a woman?" I said it is a hip injury and I have never been to one where it was a man.

I went inside and sure enough, it was a woman. It was not the hip however, she had a broken femur. The leg was twisted and did not look like it was in a natural position. We got here transported to the hospital. That injury is a very painful one and she took the pain pretty well.

Following that I worked my stuff as normal. I got off work at five-thirty. I raced home to get dinner then off to class at WSU for the fire department. It was a class on Wildland/Urban interface fires.

We had a meeting afterwards with the crew. At nine-thirty I said that I had another meeting to get to and I had to get going. John, my crewleader jokingly said, "so"? So I retorted to anyone listened "John doesn't care about anything unless it involves himself." He said "You have a meeting at Station Thirty-Four?" I said I do, but it is not for gambling, it was because I had some guys coming over. John and Chuck both gave me a funny look. I realized what they were thinking and I laughed and said, not that! They are employees. Actually they are sub-contractors, but it is sometimes easy to describe their relationship as employees to people who don't understand that stuff. I went down to the office and met up with the others.

Phillip was there to sign a contract and we talked about a few of the jobs. Mike came in to get a part to work on a job. Phillip saw an e-mail and asked me what IAAFAIANH stands for. I laughed it off. Later on I explained about an Evergreen article where I had a quotation about the lack of gay magazines in the Bookie.

Then I told him about the acronym. I said it stands for "I am a fag and I am not happy." He laughed and mentioned that now he understands the inside joke.

I have been thinking about getting a personalized license plate for my truck. I think I will get a number that is significant to me in Roman numerals. Me list is below.

38 - XXXVIII - Jail Paul number
55 - LV - Softball number
59 - LIX - Football number
64c - LXIV-C - Coroner Paul number
73 - LXXIII - Year of birth
151 - CLI - Colfax Fire number
173 - CLXXIII - Pullman Fire number

One and One.

Today is the first day I got to drive my truck any great distance. I drove back to Colfax. I had to vary my speed a little to help with the break in process. That made for some slower going. I was passed by people which is unusual.

I unload my truck and got ready for my softball game. Then I was off to Pullman. I met with Joe to work on the paper. We were at the Honor's hall computer lab. We got quite a bit taken care of.

I left for my softball games. Everyone showed up, so we had four extra people. That was not good for the play time, but it was good to see people.

I pitched the first game sans problems. I did not get a lot basehits. I made it on base, but then I would get a courtesy runner. The first game we did well hitting. The second game we sucked pretty bad at hitting. The first game we pretty much destroyed the other team. They were not familiar with the commitment line rule. We got one extra run because of it, and we had one out on them because of it. That was fun. I pitched well.

The second game everyone seemed to lose interest about the third inning. We lost four to three. That was ugly. After the games I gave Ryan a ride home. He was surprised to see my new truck. He was my very first passenger in it.

I e-mailed Garrett on Thursday about getting together. I have not heard back from him yet.

Good-bye my Dodge Dakota.

I woke up in the morning and decided that I was not going to go to Bellingham. I was going to go on a ride-along with Joe but I had not heard back from him. I had one thing I had to work on. It was a paper for my English class. I either had to do that in the morning or evening.

I wanted to go to Bellevue Dodge and look at the trucks. I have wanted to trade mine in on a new one. Mine is out of warranty and needed to have some work done on it. I got to the dealership. There were about five guys standing on the front steps. They looked like they were vultures ready to tear into whatever walked in front of them. I went to the side of the building. I found a lady who was working a desk. She got a salesman to work with me.

I told him what I was looking for and what my situation was. We went to look at the Dodge Fifteen-Hundreds. After checking the out for a little while we took one on a test drive. It drove pretty darn well. It has a Hemi. Then we looked at just about every other Fifteen-hundred on the lot. I was going to go for one truck when my eye was caught by one I had not looked at. It had everything my Dakota had sans the leather seats. It was blue as well. It was a dark blue however.

We worked some deals with money. I got more than blue book on the Dakota. I pulled the trigger and made the trade. I went to clean out the old truck and move it to my new one.

When I was at the dealership looking at the trucks I called Bill a few times to get some opinions on things. Then I called Lee's cell phone number. It was answered by someone who sounded like Jodi. I said can I talk to your dad. He hesitated and then said okay. Then a guy with a gravely voice like Lees got on the phone. I said hey Lee. He said this is not Lee. I said "this is not Lee?" He said who are you looking for? I said Lee Johnson. Lee is the kind of guy that jokes around like that. I sort of laughed and then said, well, can I ask you a question. He said sure. I asked if he knew anything about campers. He said no. I said, well thanks for your time. I hung up.

After I left the lot with my truck I drove to Jon's house. He was impressed by the truck but thought it was bad that I got it. I expected nothing else from him. I went to Janet and Lee's. I asked Lee about our conversation. He said we never talked. I read off the phone number I called and it was Janet's old cell phone. It now belongs to someone else. So I had been talking to someone else. Lee really liked the truck.

I went home and Mom and Bill checked it out. They really liked the truck. We headed down to the Eagles for dinner. Following dinner I went to mom's house to work on my paper. I got a few pages completed and sent off to my paper partner.

I watched the end of Almost Live! and then went to bed.

Happy Birthday Mom

All I had to do today is go to Seattle. I had to be there by six o'clock pm. I went to my IS office and spent some time on the computer sending e-mail to people about the softball game and looking to see if anyone was not going to be there.

I went home and emptied my mom's car out. I put Amber in and got ready to head out. The trip was pretty uneventful. I made good time. When I drove up the driveway I saw the back end of my Royal Blue truck. It was so nice to see. I am a big fan of a stick shift. I was ready to get into my truck with its guts and all. My mom's car is nice but it is slower than my truck.

It was weird to get into it. I did not drive it anywhere. We had to head to Renton Eagles for dinner. We got down there. Janet, Lee, and Jodi were already there. Jon, Lisa, Justin, and Logan showed up after us. We gave Mom and Jodi birthday presents.

at one point we head a siren. I was wondering where it was going. They came to the Eagles. Someone thought he was having a heart attack. It turned out to be noting. He was not transported.

I got back to my mom's and worked on her computer a little bit. She got a brand new Dell. I was installing some stuff on it for her. I checked my e-mail.

I went out and watched some TV before going to bed.

SOFTBALL SEASON!!!!!!!!

I am really excited for today! It is the start of softball season. We have the softball scramble tonight and then on Sunday it is game time. I am a gimp and I do not get out of my walking boot until Sunday. So I was not going to get to play tonight, but I was feeling like maybe I would. So I took my cleats and ankle brace just in case.

I headed to Pullman at about ten o'clock to get to class. I stopped by the office to drop off the Laser Jet III printers and the monitor. I went to my class. It was terrible. Our completion reports were due today. My partner and I did not know there were due today. We looked at each other in disbelief. The completion report is a fifteen to twenty page paper. Nate, a guy in our class, said that there were due, but the teacher is letting his group turn it in on Tuesday of next week. When the teacher got back to us, she said, that she had given us until Tuesday as well. We looked at each other wide-eyed. We did not even ask for an extension. It was a lucky break. But now we need to get the whole thing done by Tuesday. That will be tough because I am heading to Seattle on Friday and will be gone until Sunday.

After we got out of class I got a call about a problem with the DSL at the health department in Pullman. So instead of going back to Colfax I went to their office. I worked on stuff for a little while and nothing was working to fix the problem. I talked to Dan at the IS office. We worked through a few things. We needed some tools. I went to my office in Pullman and got some tools. I also needed to meet up with Phillip who was looking at working with Lobo doing contract work.

We met at Pizza Pipeline. I had some pizza and we chatted. Sounds like he could be my new right-hand man replacing Dan who is moving to Spokane. Only time will tell. Phillip is excited to do work with us and he is ready to start now.

After we met I got back to the health department and did some more testing. Nothing was working. Dan said he would come over and try to help. When Dan got there I was on the phone with Verizon. They guy said that a work order came through to shut down the DSL at the health department. Dan got there about that time so I let him to Verizon. We then had to deal with First Step Internet. With about an hour worth of phone calls we got it fixed.
It was less than an hour before I got off work so I stayed the health department. I worked on a machine there to finish out the day.

I went to the CUB to meet up with a couple guys who wanted to learn about the Lobo opportunity. We talked about two hours. They both want on board.

When I walked out of the CUB I noticed the walking boot broke. I walked to my car like that. It did not give me a lot of support. I drove to Stimpson to pick up Bryce who was going to be playing on the team. When I got there I decided that my ankle brace would do more than the walking boot. So put that on with my cleats. I decided I would play softball tonight. I really could not see myself missing a game, even if it was a scrimmage.

It felt weird to not have the walking boot on, something I wore twenty-four-seven for two months. My left leg was weak and I noticed it when I walked. I will have to work on that a little bit, but the ankle appears to be strong.

I got to the field. Bryce and I threw the ball around a little while before more people started to arrive. We were assigned to play on the field facing the apartments and the pond. I was rusty pitching. We only had eight guys there. So the other team gave us a catcher. It was Garrett's team. Garrett and I have some history. So, I wanted to win this game. It did not start out well. I was pitching poorly and these are great hitters. They teed off hitting three homeruns scoring seven runs.

After about two innings I got into a grove. I was pitching the ball well. People started to hit the ball. We made a come back. We ended up winning by six runs. We pretty much shut them down in the last four innings. We have a few new players who hit the ball well. One guy was playing the outfield outstandingly. At the end of the game Ryan and I were really happy to beat Garrett's team. I know Garrett wanted to beat us badly. So, he had to have been disappointed.

I headed home after that. I did elevate my ankle and ice it for a while to make sure it was going to be okay.

It was a good day.

I used the word choad for the first time in my blog.

Today I got my LCD display for my laptop. I bought one on E-bay. It is in great shape. It was less than two hundred. A new one would have cost me eight hundred. I installed it on my laptop when I got to my office after work.

I had a meeting set up with a couple SCSers. They were going to come in and we were going to chat about working for Lobo. One guy is on board and already has a job to do, the other said he wants to learn more to make sure he feels he could handle the job.

Some choad sent the e-mail I sent to the SCS staff list to someone at WSU. That person's job is to give opinions on whether someone is breaking a law in Washington by using state computers to do business. I said I am not doing business. I am telling people about open jobs. I don't see how telling people about open jobs is the same as doing business, but they don't see a distinction. I just wonder who has a stick so far up his ass that he would complain about a job announcement. As his punishment, once he graduates, I hope he can never find jobs posted. He can stay unemployed his whole life. What a loser! Anyway, that rant is coming to an end before I tell you what I really think.

When I got off work at IS I went to my house and got my laptop. I went to Pullman and grabbed dinner at Dissmores. I went to my office. Dan was there working on a laptop. I went to work on mine and ate dinner. At about seven o'clock the first person, Doug, showed up. He is a nice guy, but unsure if he would be able to do the job. He wants to learn. We chatted about many things for a couple hours. He is the HRC for SCS. We laughed about some stuff that has happened in SCS.

Around nine o'clock Mike showed up. Doug left. Mike and I talked about the job and the things that it entails. He was interested in doing it. I signed him to a contract. I gave him his first job. It was one that had come in earlier today. He took the job.

I went back to Colfax a little after eleven. I watched the Rockford Files. I then searched my house for a little while looking for my ankle brace. I am seriously thinking about using the ankle brace and playing some softball this evening. I will see how things go. But I have the brace now and I can at least make a game time determination.

A thinly veiled life is easily shattered.

Spring break is over but I did not have class today. It was cancelled in favor of one-on-one meetings with the teacher. I was able to work a full ten hours today. I am also scheduled in the jail this evening until midnight. When five-thirty rolled around I got to my house and changed into my jail shirt and hat.

I got to the jail about six o'clock to start working. I had to work control for the whole shift because once again, I am a gimp. I am out of my walking boot in four days. I am very happy about that.

When I was done working for the evening I went to help a deputy with some computer questions he had. I was helping computer issues until one am. I headed home.

When I was there I was reading an article from my Instinct Magazine. There was an article about "Mom of the Month". It featured a gay guy who said he mom is so awesome because she accepted him, and actually helps to find him boyfriends. They showed a picture of the mom and son out at a bar somewhere.

While looking at the picture I realized why gay people are so defensive about anything that is said. In the picture, the mom and son were smiling; however it seemed like a very "thin" smile. Meaning that it would not take much to break the happiness. This also goes back to the gay-man syndrome I was talking about a few days ago with the guy from the show High School Reunion. Gay people are trying to make their fantasy world a reality. They are trying to pretend that they are normal and that the world is just fine with that.

When someone says something that the gay guy does not like, he is thrust into the reality that he is not normal and in fact what is does is not right. The gay guy is crushed and his perfect little world crashes in on him. He has to rebuild. That is why the gays like to have their own community. Gays help make other gays worlds feel more normal and perfect. But they still are a fantasy.

When someone comes along and ruins the fantasy world, the gay guy gets defensive. The smile I saw on the mom and son drove that point home. At any moment someone who call the son a queer or fag and he would be upset, and mom would get upset, they both would yell at the "homophobe" because he crushed their perfect little dream world.

I am not trying to say that it is wrong to pretend you live in a perfect little dream world, nor am I saying that being gay is a choice and they deserve rude treatment. I am saying that whether it occurs at birth or after-birth, being gay is not normal. I am also saying that living in the dream world is okay, but join the real world in progress and you will not have to worry about homophobes because you would be one.

New Scott Air Packs.

I am going to play cards this evening but we are going to have training on the new Scott air packs and I need to get fit tested. I also have Bryce and his friend, Brett, coming over to play. Bryce is from my IM football team. He will also be playing softball on my team. I figured if I went to the early class I could get to play cards earlier. I asked my boss if I could go. She let me. So I left work at two-thirty to head to Pullman. When the class was done I was going to go back to Colfax. I had to get the SCBA fit test done however. That sucked because it looked like I still might have to wait until eight-thirty to do that. Then I found out that Terry would be doing it earlier. He said he was heading to the WSU fire station. I went up there right away to get first in line so I could get back to work. I waited and waited. After an hour I called the Pullman station. They said Terry had "just left". So I waited some more. After about a half hour he still was not there. I thought about getting dinner then I decided not to. I waited some more. I am a pretty patient guy really. The problem is that now I was not going to get back to Colfax to work. I am going to have to make those hours up. I did not want to do that.

Terry finally showed up at about six-thirty. I got my fit test done and was at my office by seven-thirty. I had to pick up Ryan on the way. I also stopped to get some pizza and pop.

Bryce and Brett showed up shortly thereafter. Meredith also came. Dan showed up when he was done with the training. John was at WSU fire. I went to pick him up. We have seven people around a table just big enough to fit four. It worked out okay. I was the change man. I cashed out fifteen dollars worth of change. I still have a tone of change in my bag. That was nice to get the cash. We played until eleven o'clock. I won money tonight. It was nice.

I gave John a ride home and then I went home myself. I watched the end of Dream House on A&E. There is one guy named Mike. He is a ten-six-seven. He has really nice blue eyes and a great smile. I am rooting for him to win.

A day of work and play.

I planned on getting up and having breakfast, then going to the store for some pop. Instead I got up seven minutes before I was supposed to be at work. I got there with no time to spare.

I spent the whole day in control. I worked with Jeremy. He had to do all the rounds, the bookings, and visiting. He was pretty busy. On the other hand I sat there doing hardly anything. I did answer several phone calls and got a bunch of doors.

At about one-thirty pm a calls goes out for a possible death then they said it was a suicide death. I was mad. I am the on-call coroner this weekend. It turned out that I had to work in the jail so for eight hours I was not on call and that is when the death happened. I tried to find coverage for me at the jail. I was not able to get a hold of anyone. So I was not able to go. This would have been a good learning opportunity for me. It would have been my first hanging death.

After I got off at the jail, I went to the store to get some groceries. I wanted to cook hamburgers for dinner. I got hamburger, sauces, tater-tots, and a few other items from the store. I went home and unpacked the car. I got the groceries put away.

I started to cook. It was good. I deep fried the tater-tots and grilled the hamburgers. I don't have a vent over my stove. So the house filled with smoke. I had to open the door to help it air out.

After dinner I rode in the Back Seven. When I got up there I saw six or seven deer in the middle of the field and then there were four or five pheasants that I found as well. Hunters would have drooled.

I went to get my car and drove to my office. I checked my e-mail and checked out the basketball brackets that I am in. I am number twelve out of more than two-hundred. I still have a chance to get top three.

Then I went home did the dishes and watched TV. King of the Hill, The Simpsons, and Malcolm in the Middle were on. I watched those before heading to bed.

After getting to sleep for about thirty minutes I got a call from Joe. He said that when I come out to Bellingham I can go on a ride with him. So I will be doing that this weekend.

Dishwashers rule.

I wanted to sleep in, but because I stayed up working on the plumbing and I was going to help Ryan with some stuff plus I had football practice, I could not sleep in. I got to Ryan's apartment to pick him up. We were going to get medicine from the vet for the cats' worms. The vet said to be there at eleven. It turned out that the vet was not ready. So we drove to Taco Bell and got some lunch. Then we went back to the vet. The medicine was done.

I headed back to Pullman because football practice starts at noon. The location was changed from Taylor Field in Moscow to the Rugby Field behind the French Ad on WSU's campus. It was a much nicer field. Practice lasted about two hours. I watched it. I was surprised that some of the people know me by name because I have not practiced at all.

When we were done Ryan and I drove to the plumbing store so I could get more parts. We were also listening to Gonzaga lose to Nevada. That was sucky. We drove from the plumbing store to my office. We watched some videos I had and looked at the basketball brackets. We were talking about going to a movie, then we decided not to go to one at all. We went to get some pop from Dissmores and some pizza.

We got to Ryan's apartment. We played cards. Meredith showed up and she played cards with us. We played until about ten o'clock. I wanted to get back to my house and get the dishwasher running plus I had to work at the jail, so I needed to get to bed sort of early.

I got the parts put together. There was still some leakage, but not like before. I was able to get my dishes washed. I watched a movie while that was going on.

Dinner and a movie. Hold the worms please.

I thought it would be a good idea to sleep in today because I was really tired when I went to bed. Staying awake for twenty-seven hours is tiring. But I had been drinking last night so I had to get up during the night to go to the bathroom. I went back to bed only to wake up two hours later. It was time to start my day. I did not have to work at all today so I was relaxing. I started by going to the office and checking my e-mail. I wanted to see if a few guys from the softball team were going to meet up and throw the ball around. It turned out I never got an e-mail back from them.

I was online posting to the G-Shack message board. I spent a few hours doing that. I also got into an online conversation with a few people. One of them was a fifteen year old girl from England. We mainly just had small talk the whole time. I finally left at about two-thirty to head to Pullman. I went to a plumbing store to try to get parts I need for hooking up my dish washer to my facet. I was unable to get the exact parts, but we thought we could rig something up. I got about thirty dollars worth of parts. I headed over to Ryan's apartment. I was going to see if he wanted to throw the ball around. When I got there he came walking out of his apartment with his mitt. So I guess he wanted to.

We drove to the Valley Road Playfield to throw the ball around. We warmed up for a little while. It felt okay to throw the ball. Then we played the distance game. It starts with both people about four feet apart. Then each person throws the ball to the other. Once each person has thrown and caught the ball both people take a step back. Repeat those steps until someone cannot make a good throw or catch. Once the ball hits the ground everyone comes back to the starting point and starts over. The other rule is the person catching can only pivot like in basketball. So the thrower must make a good throw. Our first try was really good; from there it went down hill.

After we were done we went to Ryan's apartment. We were going to watch some Strong Bad E-mail's for a while. During the watching of the e-mails one of the cats threw up. Ryan was mad because the cat puked on the rug that Ryan had just washed. Ryan went to clean it when he found a two inch long white thing. He looked at it closely. He came to show it to me. It was a white color and slightly transparent in some places. You could see a red color in some of it. It was sort of curled up. It was about 1/16th of an inch in diameter. A second one was found. We watched them a little bit and they did move. It was worms! Yuck! About that time Kristine wanted to meet up with Ryan. She was going out of town and they were going to do a few things together.

I decided to go to my office and clean it up. I got there and emptied about four bags of pizza boxes and containers of pop and junk mail. I shredded a lot of the stuff up. I have a few things to sort out, but it is really clean unlike before. I also looked up information about the worms we found. From what I could find that variety was call a Round Worm. I talked to a vet who said that medicine was necessary and that if one cat had it they probably all have it.

Ryan showed up at my office. We headed for his house. We decided to go see a movie and get dinner before hand. I asked where he wanted to go, he did not care so I went to the Coeur D’Alene Brewing Company in Moscow. We had dinner and watched some basketball. When we were done with dinner we drove back to Pullman to see the movie. We went to see Taking Lives. When I got there Tom was in line right in front of us. He went to see the same movie. We talked a little bit in the theatre before the movie started.

After the movie was over I drove Ryan home and went home myself. I wanted to work on the plumbing stuff. Plus I wanted to get to bed early enough to help Ryan with the cats in the morning. I got to my house and worked on the plumbing for about two hours. I could not get everything to work very well. It was leaking everywhere. I finally headed to bed.

Movie night at my house.

It has been a while since I have stayed up for more than twenty-four straight hours but that was my day today. I started by actually getting up at eleven-thirty pm last night. I had to work in the jail. I am still a gimp so I worked Control the whole time. I found a website called stupidvideos.com. There is some really funny stuff there. My partner and I spent a while viewing the video's there. At seven o'clock I was relieved and I went to IS. I had to work ten hours there. That made for a total of seventeen hours of work for the day. It was a slow day for the most part.

I took an hour long lunch to work on a laptop computer. Dan came from Pullman to help me with it. We replaced a motherboard. It took a little under an hour to do it. It was pretty cool. One thing I have found is that laptops have a lot of really small parts.

I spent much of the day helping people in the sheriff's office getting computer problems solved. After six o'clock I left the office and headed to the store. I got some beer and food. I went home and cleaned the house a little bit. I got a piece from my furniture collection into my TV room so Russell would have a place to sit.

He was going to come over and we were going to watch some movies. I invited Tom to come over as well. He said he had some other stuff going on but he would call when he was done to see if we were still doing stuff. Russell showed up at about seven. I noticed he did not have a pizza like we talked about. So we ordered one from Bulldog. We went to pick it up. We had pizza and beer.

I let him choose what movie to watch. He wanted to watch Beautiful Thing. It is about two boys coming of age. One lives with his mom and other lives with his abusive dad and brother. They start to get romantically involved. It ends with them dancing together in front of the whole apartment complex they live in. It is a very sweet movie. Russell liked it. Then we watched LA Confidential. During that movie Tom called. We were still watching the movie. So he came over and watched it with us. LA Confidential was nearly over. Tom got to my house. I offered him some beer. We watched one more movie. We spent most of the time making fun of it.

By this time I was really starting to get tired. It was about one-thirty in the morning. Russell and Tom both took off and I watched the Family Guy at two o'clock am. I finally was ready to sleep. It had been twenty-seven hours that I was up. I went in and went to sleep.

Work and then sleep.

This was destine to be a short day. I have to work at the jail at midnight. I kept thinking today was Thursday, so I thought I would be able to watch the Zag's play basketball. However it is Wednesday. No Zag's, no basketball at all.

I met up with Thomas for lunch today. It was good to see him. We chatted and caught up on some stuff because it has been a while since we last met. We ate at the Top Notch cafe. Afterwards I went back to work. I got a few tasks taken care of. One of the biggest was getting my office in order. I got my shelves cleaned up and arranged. I also set up DOSMAN. My old Four-Eighty-Six with DOS Six-point-two-two with Windows Three-point-one-one. Everything in my office is cleaned up except for my desk. That will have to wait.

When I got off work I headed home, ate dinner and I was in bed by six o'clock pm.

Little man disease.

I got the computer for my boss ready to install. I got a few other computer issues around the county taken care of. I also helped a few computer users with Excel spreadsheets.

After work I headed home for dinner then to the fire station for training. We were working on the new rescue rig. We were playing with the Hurst tool, the lighting system and the foam system. We spent about two hours total with the training. We working with the foam system I was draining out a hose that had some water in it. It as a ten foot section of hose that is used to drain extra air pressure and water from the system. I was getting the final little bit of water out of it when Greg pointed the hose at me. Water started spraying out of it and it got me all wet. Everyone was laughing about it. He said he heard me say "turn on the water". He thought I was trying to get him. I said, let me drain the rest of the water from the hose. I said that I did not know how he got "turn on the water" out of what I said. Everyone laughed some more.

I went home and I watched some TV. There was a show on called "High School Reunion". It had people from the class of Ninety-Three. They had them labeled from what they were in high school. There was "the jock", "the redneck", "the nerd", and others. One guy showed up all flaming out. He was gay and in high school no one knew, but he wanted to make sure everyone knew now. He had an umbrella that a woman would carry. He had pants on that was nothing more than netting. He looked like a fag. He was being in-your-face gay. The "redneck" did not like that. He said something about it. Then they would interview the gay guy. He was a big guy. He looked like he was pretty strong. He also looked like he had a huge chip on his shoulder. He reminded me of a guy with "little-man" disease. He would strut around and he was trying to pick a fight with the redneck. The redneck guy was just trying to avoid the gay guy, but the gay guy was being in-your-face with him. He was trying to be confrontation. If his goal was to have acceptance, he was failing. I don't have respect for people like that. The redneck and the gay guy were supposed to be roommates. The redneck moved out. People were giving him a hard time over that. I was on the side of the redneck. He does not like it when gay people are in-your-face. I would not have liked the way the gay guy was acting.

So that is what it looks like.

This morning at work I spent a lot of the morning getting caught up with things that I got behind on. I started to work on another computer to deliver to someone. I got it mostly ready to go. I also started to work on a laptop for my boss that came in.

I spent some time going around the county helping people with little computer problems here and there. One person said her CD drive does not work. I used it less than a week ago. I went and checked it. It works fine. I am not sure what the problem was.

It has been three days since I have gone out to eat. This is good for me. Usually being someone on the run all the time I am stopping to eat while enroute from one place to another. That is not healthy, nor is it good for my pocket book.

The EMS training van was the fire training I had. We talked about medical emergencies. We watched a video where it showed an abdomen opened up. It showed all the organs. It was a pretty cool video.

I headed home afterwards to watch CSI-Miami.

Playing on the back-seven.

I let myself sleep in today. It was nice. I did not have anything to do. So I just sat around the house for a little while. But I knew I had to get some stuff done. I got some laundry put together and started a load of laundry. I cleaned the basement a little bit. I also vacuumed my bedroom.

I wanted to get my four wheeler started. So I went out and jumped it with my mom's car. I took it to my back-seven (the seven acres behind my house). I rode it around a little while. I drove around places I have never driven before. It was fun.

I went to the Colfax fire station and chatted with Ken for a while. He showed me some pictures from an arson he was working on. I went to my office and bid on a new screen for my laptop. The old one broke a few weeks ago. I have found several on e-bay. Most were going for three-hundred dollars without all the parts needed to hook it to my laptop. I was bidding on one that would hook right up. I got it for less than two-hundred dollars. That was nice.

I went home and started to cook dinner. I also watched the Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Malcolm in the Middle. I finally went to bed a little after ten o'clock pm. Because this week is spring break I don't have class, so if I don't miss any work I will get Friday off. I want to do that, so I am making sure I get to bed on time.

Little guy wrestling.

I got up and started looking for my fire department uniform. It had been a while since I last wore it and now I could not find my belt. I had to use my old one. I has ready and headed to Pullman. I had to meet Dan at the fire station at nine o'clock am. We were going to do first-aid at the wrestling tournament at Pullman High school.

I met up with Dan and we grabbed the trauma kit from the fire engine at Station thirty-two. We drove to the high school. It did not take long to discover we were not doing a high school wrestling meet, it was a wrestling meet for kids five to fifteen years of age. It did not dawn on me however that I should have the pediatric trauma bag as well.

About ten minutes after we got there a call came was toned out for a man having a seizure. When they said it was the high school parking lot, Dan and I headed out there. We got to the car, and there was a guy in the back seat and a kid on the phone with Whitcom. I took patient care until the ambulance arrived. Dan and I helped get things started in the ambulance and then went back in to the high school gym.

It was pretty uneventful. There were some minor things that happened where we would look at someone, but nothing more would be done. At the end of the day, however, we were standing near the main announcer's podium. Actually I was sitting next to it and Dan was standing next to me.

Someone walked past us and handed and told the announcer to ask for the "paramedics" to respond to the main office. He announced it over the microphone. Dan and I looked at each other then headed for the main office. We were surprised that the person needing the help did not stop at us rather than walking past us to the announcer. Then the announcer did not say anything to us directly. We were right next to him for crying out loud!

Oh well, there was someone who needed help. We got into the office and ended up calling for an ambulance to respond. A seven year-old was driven to the ground breaking his collarbone. We treated him, but I realized that because these are young kids that we would need the pediatric bag for doing a blood pressure. If we needed to use an airway adjunct or a bag-valve-mask we would not be able to do so.

It turned out that the kid was transported to the hospital by his parents. I had to go to the main station to do a computer report on the refusal on the transport.

Afterward I was supposed to throw the ball with a couple people on the softball team. I got there at about thirty-five after four. They were already gone. So I missed out on that.

I went back to Colfax. I was going to change and go back to Pullman for a party. It started at six o'clock pm. I ended up not going after all. I spent most of the evening at home watching some movies on TV. Then I went shopping for some stuff at the store for dinner.

Yawn! Still a gimp.

Today I was not going to get to do too much other than work. I had to get about six hours made up at Information Services before I headed out. I got a few computer issues tied up. Then I was gone. I had to go to Pullman to meet with my group for the project for the English class.

We met in the Streit computer lab. We spent about an hour talking about the project and surfing some web sites. After that was done I had to head back to Colfax because I had to work at the jail.

I was going to work a full day from four o'clock pm on. Working in the jail was not fun tonight. Because I am still a gimp I was stuck in control. There were a lot of bookings and other things to do; I could not help on those. I sat all night long. It was slow. I had one warrant to enter and I confirmed one for another agency.

The rest of the time I just watched the minutes slowly melt off the clock until it was time to finally head home. I wanted to get to bed pretty early because I had to be up early on Saturday.

Yet another Combitube and defib class.

I worked on getting some more computers set up. Class was cancelled however we needed to meet with the teacher. The teacher had each group do a one-on-one meeting with her. My partner and I decided to meet at the computer lab before class then meet with the teacher at what would be the end of the class hour. My partner went to the wrong lab so we never met up. I did get a good two page outline completed for this project we are doing. We are working on a paper that will propose a new policy for virus protection in the residence halls at WSU.

After that class I headed back to Colfax to finish out my working day there. I went to different offices trying fix that problem I have been working on for the last few days. It looks like some people are being helped by getting their Windows Updates up-to-date. I am trying to think back to the people who have had problems. It seems to me only those with Windows XP has been having the problem, but not everyone with Windows XP only some of them. The problem is that someone who is having the problem has Windows XP and all the services packs are up-to-date.

Anyway, I ran them on a Juvenile department computer and on the Auditor's computer. I hope this will help them. It was reported to me that someone who was having those problems ran Windows Updates yesterday and today has been fine. No reboots.

I headed out of here at five-thirty so I could get to Leo's Shoe Repair shop. He was resoling my Pullman Fire Boots. Now they have a nice soul on them. I got those then headed to campus for my fire training tonight. This is my third straight night of fire training and my fourth out of five. When you are on two departments and a Haz-mat team you seem to train a lot. Tonight was Mega-Codes. I went to the WSU fire department to find out what class it was in. The guys up there told me. Then I went in and talked with one of the Captains, Terry. We were working on the new SCBA's that we got from a grant. These new ones are awesome. They smaller and lighter than the old ones. That is nice when you are crawling around. I chatted with him for a little bit before leaving to go to class.

Our instructor Tony was talking about what we needed to do. We all chatted about some of our drinking exploits before starting in with class. We did four scenario's. Sometimes the person lived. Sometimes he died. We had to Combitube him, do CPR, and defib him. After the class I headed off to Colfax. CSI was on, I wanted to watch that before heading off to la-la land.

EMS and Computer work are similar.

Today I sent a lot of time working on hardware issues on computers. It is interesting when I had a class for Sick/Not Sick last week at Colfax Fire the paramedic teaching the class was talking about Trauma Cases versus Medical Cases. He said though Trauma get the blood pumping on newer EMT's and Paramedics. When they have done a lot of them trauma cases are sort of boring. It is usually discovering the problem, then fix it. Discover the next problem and fix it. There is not a lot of work. You usually can see the problem. Trauma cases after a while get old hat. They are the same thing. I am not saying it loses its challenge, but it gets old. Medical calls are much harder because you have to uncover the signs and symptoms then you have to treat for what you have discovered. Many times each case is different and challenging.

In some ways that is the same with hardware versus software problems. The hardware is pretty simple. Bad harddrive. Install a new one. Bad monitor, install a new one. Software is much harder because you cannot always tell what the problem is, you have to do a lot more work to fix it and it can be challenging. Yesterday all the hardware I worked on was not challenging, just more or less busy work. The software problem we have been having with the server and client computers has been hard to figure out and we are still trying to figure out the problem.

So yesterday was I busy doing busy work. But it had been a while since I have done so much hardware stuff. It was nice in some ways.

When I was done working here I went to Pullman for Haz-Mat training. We went over the Old Post Office call we had last month. We covered some stuff about decontamination. That was about it.

I headed home and I watched Van Wilder. I watched the ending the other day, but now I have seen the whole thing. That is a pretty good movie. A lot of thing made me laugh. I finally got to bed before midnight. It was the first time this week.

Last night of poker for a few days.

I headed to class this afternoon not wanting to be there. But it turned out to be okay. We covered introductions to completion reports. Then she said class is cancelled on Thursday and Tuesday after Spring Break. I talked with Joe a little bit. We have decided to whittle down our subject area and focus on just one area. This will help getting us focused and working in the right direction.

After class I got back to work. I talked to people about the problem of the computer freezing when getting stuff off the server. There are still a handful of people with the problem. I am not sure what the cause is yet, but it is a tricky one to tack down. We have tried many different angles. There does not seem to be a common thread except for the fact that is happens on one server. The network administrator is not certain it is the server.

After work I headed over to the fire department for training. We had a normal board meeting. That lasted about fifty minutes. We watched some video footage of confined spaces in Colfax for safety training. Then Carl, Greg, Jeff, Jim, and I stayed and played cards. I was having a rough night early on. I think I finally started to make a come back. I had a ton of quarters at the end. The problem that I have been having is winning the first hand. I did that again playing poker tonight. It was Seven-Card-Stud-Chicago. That is where the person with the lowest spade in the hole gets half the pot. I ended up being a hogger and got both the best hand and low spade.

Carl left first and we were going to play another twenty minutes. But before Carl got out the door the phone rang. We got a call for a medical transfer. Greg and Jim said they would go. So we ended up calling it a night.

Another night of poker.

I got the laptop for the sheriff's office completed and delivered. We are still getting a lot of problems with a small handful of people. It seems to be involved with the server not their computer. We cannot see the problem with the server and not everyone has the problem. It is a hard one to figure out.

I had a doctor's appointment to look at my ankle. He said things are coming around. He wants me to wear the boot for another three weeks. I was hoping to get out of it earlier than that. Even after I am out of the boot I will still be on light duty for a short period of time. This IM season will be interesting. I should be ready for summer ball however.

After work I headed to Pullman to play poker with Dan and Ryan. I was losing pretty badly for a little while, but I went on a winning streak at the end of the night to end up winning over all on the night. That was nice. I got a pizza and some pop. I went to the gas station to get pop because the pizza place only has Coke. While I was there I waiting in line behind a guy who was paying more than thirty-seven dollars for gas using change. The checker had to count it all out.

I went home and watch CSI and then flipped around to watch a few other shows before finally going to bed.

More poker.

I tried to sleep in but I could not. I got a call at ten-thirty am. That woke me up and I could not sleep after that. So I got up and watched some TV. I got ready for the day and got some of my coroner's equipment put together. I headed to my IS office and checked my e-mail. I also got my camera.

I drove to Moscow for the meeting with the team. We watched some of the video from the scrimmage and went over a couple new plays.

When that was done I called John. He said we were going to go to the tower and do some training up there. He said that I should come so I can do some pump training. I went to the station. I got my coat, helmet, and gloves. We headed to the training tower. We did a couple hose evolutions. We got the hose reloaded and then I went to the main station to get my new coat.

I got back to our station and helped with the vehicle maintenance. After maintenance John and I went to my office to play cards. We played until eleven pm. We broke even on the night.

Seeing Devin.

I got up, tired, crawling from bed. I got ready for the day. It was my first day on call for the coroner's office in more than month. Nothing would end up happening, but it was nice to start getting back to normal. Well, however normal being a coroner can be. Page 2. (obscure Paul Harvey reference about changing the subject).

I got to the field at about nine-fifty am. I had checked out a few other fields. I was afraid that the Valley Road Playfields would be covered by water and snow. Sure enough they were. At ten am I called Ryan because he was not there. He said he was just leaving. I said that practice started at ten am, not that it was time to leave the house at ten am. He showed up about fifteen minutes later. No one else showed up at all. I was so mad. People who said they would be there never showed up. I waited twenty minutes. No one showed up. I was ready e-mail everyone, giving them a piece of my mind and letting them know I would not schedule another practice. But I know cooler head prevail. So, I did not say anything. Ryan on the other hand sent an e-mail out. I have not seen a single response to it yet.

I headed to Zeppoz because I knew Ron and Dan were both going to be up there. I told them what had happened. I watch Jonathon bowl a couple frames of his last game. Then I headed over to Moscow for football practice. It was horrible field conditions. We practiced for only one and half hours. People were getting hurt and they decided to stop practice so no one else would get hurt. The coaches called a team meeting instead of a practice for Sunday.

I headed back to Pullman. I listened to the Cougar basketball game. If they won they would make it into the Pac-ten tournament. I went to my office and chatted with people online while listening to the game. They Cougs won. I was happy about that.

At about four pm I went to Meredith's apartment to gamble. Ryan, Kendan, Eddie, and Meredith all played. Little by little people stopped. Ryan and I played until about ten pm. Nick showed up at the apartment. We were talking about closet-cases and making a ton of jokes about stuff. We all decided to go out and have a beer. So we headed to Rico's and drank a tiny bit. Devin was there. He was a freshman when Ryan was. He and Ryan were roommates for a while.

I sat with Devin for about two hours we talked about the old times and people that we both know. It was nice to chat with him like that. Everyone else left so I was there with Devin. Ryan and Kristine were not getting along too well so Ryan walked back to the bar and met up with me.

We headed out after another fifteen minutes. Ryan and I talked a little bit and I dropped him off at home. I needed to get to my house I was really tired.

I got home and vegetated on my couch while playing ball with Amber.

Postcards from Hell circa 1910.

I have to put in about six and a half hours today. I hoped to be done at one-thirty pm. Only to get into work late, so I was here until two-thirty pm. I did quite a few little tasks in the sheriff's office. It seems like whenever I go there everyone wants to ask me questions. Most other departments don't do it quite like that. I guess it is nice to know I am wanted. ummm. Yeah.

I was off to Pullman to get my new walking boot because mine was broken. When I got to the place in Pullman it was closed, however someone was there and helped me. But as I left so did she. Therefore had I been any later I would have been screwed.

After that I went to see Pat. We were going to talk about future arraignments with him helping Lobo Computer Services. I need a place in Pullman when I can ship stuff. He will be the place in Pullman. Also, he wants to come and watch the hardware stuff. He is interested learning about computers. We chatted about computer stuff for several hours.

I headed out and then met up with Ryan for dinner. We went to Cougar Country. He was telling me about a website he found with a lot of old pictures of Pullman and WSU. I was interested in see those pictures. I went to his place and we looked at the pictures online for about an hour or two. Then we started to play poker. I did not do all that well. He won a lot of pots. I lost a lot of pots. At ten pm we stopped playing poker to watch Third Watch.

We played a little while longer after watching Third Watch. I headed home around midnight. I had to get up early for softball practice. When I got home I brought Amber in. We played ball for a while before I finally retired to bed.

Bad day and bad week.

Just keep stacking on the bad days. This has not been a very good week. I had a meeting with the fire chief about the reason for keeping me out of the station as a resident. I asked him to tell me if there was no chance that I would get it to just let me know so I did not waste anymore time trying to get it. He said that is the case. He said with some of the current residents, he feels I would not be a good fit down there. He did not rule out that in the future when the current residents are gone that I could not be there. But for now he said I will not get a space down there. That sort of makes me mad. I wonder what it is. I have a suspicion it is due to who I am. I know some of those guys are sort of freaked out by it.

Then I went to class that was not bad. We had an open book quiz. This is a double edged sword. It is nice because you can get the answers, but usually they are harder than normal quizzes. After class was done I returned my crutches in Moscow.

I stopped at the bank to get cash to pay for my tuition at WSU. I put it into a different bank only to find I was over drawn. I was charged more than three hundred dollars in fees. What a bummer. Now I don't have enough for my tuition. That sucks.

I got back to work and did my thing. I am working on getting a laptop running. I ended up having to rebuild the whole thing. I also worked on one of the new desktops we got in from Gateway, so I have two machines I am trying to get done at once.

After work I watched the Simpson's and had some pizza. Then I went to Colfax fire. I watched CSI and chatted with Carl for a few hours. Bryce, Robert, and Vince got pizza and brought it down. I had one small slice of the meat lovers. There were a ton of accidents on the road because of the icy weather. Vince had to leave to go on one. The ambulance got toned out to a couple calls as well.

I went home and I watched Third Watch. It was the episode where Sully killed the man who killed his wife. It was a great one. He was wearing a wire. He went in. No one could see what was going on inside. Then Sully said "What are you doing?" "Hey, drop the gun!" He said a few other things before shooting the man about six times. It was justice!

What will come?

I sent an e-mail to the chief of the fire department outlining my displeasure with the way the fire department hands out rooms at Station Thirty-Two. It has changed several times over the last four years and each time it changes it seems that I am assed out. After a while when things continue to happen like that you start to think it is something more than just bad luck.

I got an e-mail requesting that I meet with him tomorrow to discuss the e-mail and the situation. I don't know exactly what he wants to meet about. I did say at the end, if I am not getting a room because of other forces outside of the Human Resources excuse to let me know. I don't want to waste my time in an interview if I will not get a room anyway. I have no idea what he is going to talk about, but I am a little nervous about it.

Today I shed my crutches about two hours into the day. I am now walking with just my two feet. It has been almost one month since I have done that. It is wild. My left leg is adjusting to the sensations of walking again. When I step on it just right, I get a tingly feeling shoot up my leg. It is fun.

I worked on some computer problems at the sheriff's office. One laptop that belonged to a deputy is now dead. I am trying to fix that.

I went to a customer’s house to attempt to recover a missing password. The password was not stored locally in a DLL. So, we are back at square one. I told the customer what to say to .NET customer support. Then I headed off to Moscow. I was supposed to pick up my helmet. Turns out the wrong size was there.

I headed over to Ryan's apartment. We were watching ASWSU on Cable-Eight. Chris and Kevin went on trying to start a fire for the recall of the ASWSU president. They are in support of Peter and Neil who were taken from office early last month. Kristine got up and made a good argument while also hurting the motives for Chris and Kevin. It was fun to watch.

Afterwards we watched SouthPark. I headed home after SouthPark was over and I took Kristine to campus from Ryan's apartment. We were talking about Peter. She said that he has a major conduct hearing where he risks being thrown out of school. I started to think about that. He has gone so far in the wrong directions since the beginning of his sophomore year. He needs to sit down and think about his path at school and what his goals are. I wonder what he hopes to get out of WSU. Sounds like he behavior is not helping him achieve much.

It is rare for me to have a sucky day

Today was sort of a bummer. After writing my blog about the government and their power they have over our lives, I got an e-mail from my chief at the Pullman fire department. There is a room at one of the stations that I was going to be able to move in to. We talked about it last week. Then I got an e-mail saying that the plans have changed and I will not be moving in. I have been in e-mail communication with him over this. Well needless to say I am a little on the upset side over this.

So, I am down because I am thinking about the future of my freedoms and liberties, and then I am told I don't get to move into the station. Things were going from bad to worse. Plus I have been dealing with a computer company. I am sub-contracting for them. I am very upset at their lack of communication. I have only been with them for about one week, but they do not respond to my e-mails. However, they will send me e-mails all the time telling me to update the ETA of the job and close the job. What is worse is many times they send out the e-mail AFTER I already did what they were requesting, so it is a waste of e-mail. It is beginning to really anger me, that I can not get them to answer my questions and then they are always sending these pointless e-mails. Just answer my damn questions and life will be good. It feels good to vent sometimes.

So other than that, how is life going? The day did get better. We had fire training tonight. We were discussing Sick/Not Sick. It is a pretty simple idea. It is a quick way to categorize someone as needed quick help or someone who you have a little extra time to work with.

After training I went to my house and watched some TV. There was not a lot on until Third Watch came on. It was an episode I had seen before, but it was good to watch. I really like that show.

An easy life is not always the best thing for you.

Today was a good day for poker. After I got off work I headed to Station-Thirty-Four, my office in Pullman, and we had a poker game with five people. I took about ten dollars play nickel-dime-quarter poker. I was on fire, unlike last night were I could not get a hand to save my life. Last night I got lucky at the end and ended up with a gain of twenty-five dollars, but tonight was my night.

I got to my office and Dan was there working on a computer. I set up for poker. Ryan, Dan (different Dan), and Kristine all showed up. Dan who was working on the computer also joined us. Meredith also showed up. We had a five hand game with Kristine doing homework on one of my computers. We finished shortly before ten pm so we could watch CSI.

I have been listening to my old recordings of the Peter Eichman Show. There was a show on the national ID card. In the wake of the September Eleventh attacks many people were calling for a national ID card. The theory being that we would all be safer with one. It would store personal, possibly biometric information, about the card holder. It could be swiped by readers that would confirm the identity of the person with the card.

I am against this idea. I believe that you should fear a government that fears your identity. I am looking at the US government and I wonder why they care so much about knowing as much as they do about me. As it is, there are hundreds of databases around the world with some piece of information about me. That in of itself is not necessarily scary, but with a concerted effort those databases can come together and it would tell people my life story. You can see what I buy at Safeway. You can see my spending habits with my debit card. You can see purchases I have made on E-bay, you can see my drivers record. You can see tons of pieces of information that when put together can put my anonymity in jeopardy.

There was an article I was reading about the new concept car from Toyota. It has been making news because it can tell the government that I was the driver of a car when a photo-speeding-ticket was issued, not only that it is possible for the fine then to be deducted directly from my credit card before I get home. I am against the photo-speeding-tickets and other forms of photo-law-enforcement. If you are not caught in the act by a law enforcement officer then you should not be prosecuted. Truly the government has no proof who was driving the car when the violation took place. They can just say it was a particular car. Then the registered owner gets the ticket. That is wrong. People who do not see that as wrong need to think hard about the future implications of it.

Think about the GPS systems that are put into cars. They can tell where you drive, when you drove there, and how fast you drove. There was a car rental company that would charge the renters of their vehicles extra fees if they sped too much. There is also an idea to track your driving habits and charge you for the mileage you put on certain roads. It would be like a toll bridge, but it could be tracked on the other roads.

Toyota said that the smart card that you would use in their cars, the same one that would rat you out as a speeder, are coming whether we like it or not. The idea being that when you put the card into the car, it will allow you to start it. Then the car would adjust the seats, mirror, telephone numbers, and radio station to your favorite settings. This are neat features, however, these feature can be used to track more of your life.

Card readers that let you swipe an ID card to open a door to get into a room track when you went into the room. WSU wants these card readers on all the residence halls. Someone could then go in and see your patterns. They can see when you come and go. Parents can possible get this information to see when their kids are coming home at night. The university can review those records and compare those to your grades. They can then call you in for meetings to say your personal life habits are interfering with schooling. Think that is a stretch? WSU already tracks what students do off-campus and those thing done off-campus can get them in trouble with the school.

What you do is not all that private anymore. Someone knows what you are doing, not only that, proof of what you are doing is stored in some database somewhere. The only way around that is using cash and good-old-fashioned keys. It is hard to track cash purchases. Video surveillance cameras in store's can still show you doing cash transactions.

Each new piece of technology meant to make you safer or make your life easier also makes your life traceable. Why should the government care? What is the role and the purpose of government in a "free" society? Shouldn't the government be there to enforce the constitution and make sure that there is a economic system? Shouldn't it make sure we are safe from outside forces? Shouldn't a good government do its role and be not seen in nearly every aspect of a free man’s life?

Today I read about Senator Lamar Alexander and a group of former state governors in the Senate proposing an Internet use tax. Not a tax when you buy stuff, but simply a tax to use the Internet. Why does the government feel the need to tax everything? Didn't the Founding Fathers have a problem of England taxing everything? Why does the government tax things? That is the government’s way of getting money to spend on its programs.

The government only should tax what is necessary to provide those services. Adding an Internet tax is the same as adding a percentage point to your income tax. It is raising your taxes. The government needs to look at its role in a free society. It needs to look at what services are necessary to maintain a free and anonymous society. It needs to tax at a level to provide those services and no more. The government does not need to tax the Internet. The government does not need to have that extra money.

About thirty percent of your income is spent before you even see it. Why does the government need more than one third of the money I make? The government needs to build roads, maintain a free-market place, protect our borders, and uphold the constitution. It should not take one third of all the money that people earn plus more to do those things.

The government is bad at managing money and it spends way more on programs that are not things the government should even be doing.

With smart cards and national ID cards the government has one more method to tax the things we do. They have one more method to track the things I do. Think about the movie Minority Report. The government had those little robots that went through out the building checking everyone's biometric information (retinal scans) to see if one of the people in the building was a "bad guy" that they were looking for. Speed camera's and other law enforcement cameras take away from your freedom.

The argument most often heard is why should someone be afraid if he has nothing to hide. But they mean that in a criminal sense. If you are not breaking the law, what do you have to hide? What about the skeleton’s in your closet? What about those things that you do not tell other people due to embarrassment? What about your past? You are not always proud of the things you did at one time. Without anonymity those things that you do will no longer be something you can hide. It is no one else’s businesses where you go, who you hang out with, what you read, what you watch on TV, and what you do with your free time. Bring together databases and video surveillance of private American citizens will be the last stitches of your anonymity.

That is not far into the future --- that is now. England has video cameras all over the streets with government workers watching your every move. You cannot pick your nose in public without some camera seeing you and recording the event.

Technology is here to stay. How we choose to use it is up to us. How the government uses it needs to be something we are vigilant over. We need to make sure the government does not control our lives even more than it is already controlled.

Don't think your life is overly controlled by the government? Open a business. If it is "your" business then you should be able to make policies that you choose. You can't. The government controls that. Open your own airline. Guess what? The government has people in place to screen your passengers. Think about that. The government chooses what your passengers can and cannot do, not you as the business owner. Try using your constitutional rights. If you chose to use them in a way the government does not like, you will be arrested. Granted most of the time you will get away with doing your own thing, even if it is against the law, but once you add in the video monitoring, the databases, the smart cards, and the biometrics you will be caught even if no one is around when you do the things that you do.

We are turning into puppets whose strings are controlled by the government.