Softball with strangers

I got an e-mail from Gabe from my ECSA softball team he was looking for a few people to fill in for his CPA's softball team. I was going to be playing softball later on tonight that is always a good thing.

I found out that the project I have been working on is shelved for a while. So I did not have to deal with that anymore. That left me with nothing to do from about two pm and on.

I went home and we had hamburgers for dinner. I was getting ready to play softball right after the dinner was over. It was weird not going to Brian's today. He is in class.

I headed out for the Rainier Valley. We played against other CPA's. There is no umpire. One of the team members from the hitting team calls balls and strikes. It is an honour system type thing. I did not do well. I had two pop-ups and a walk.

I went home listening to the Mariner's play baseball. They tried to stage a rally but came up short. So we lost and I had a bad night. Oh well. I went home and listened to the Mariner's try to stage a rally only to come up short. I got home and watched some TV before hitting the hay.

The day after

Well getting to bed late causes one to go to work late too. I got in at about ten-thirty. That was not too bad.

I went directly to work on my project. I got all the pages changed and then moved it over to the Delta server for testing. It broke something. So I did a few things for a while. No help. I was told we may put this project on the shelf for a while.

I left about four pm to go home. I could not do anything further and everyone else was gone. I sat around and watched some TV and talked on the computer. I e-mailed Brian about coming over tonight.

We had fatback for dinner. It is one of my favorite meals. If I were to be executed, that is what I would want. Following dinner I watched Jeopardy. Ken won again. He is up to Twenty days in a row. A big win tomorrow and he will reach seven-hundred-thousand.

I took off for Brian's house. We decided to play a board game and then watch Strangers With Candy. We played two really quick games of Monopoly. I won both in about thirty minutes. Then we went in and sat on the couch. He was leaning on me and we held onto each other while the show was on. That show is so funny. We laughed a whole bunch. At about midnight I had to get going, but I could not get up. I wanted to just keep holding on. We kissed a bunch of times and he walked me to the door. We kissed a bunch more before I finally left to go home. I really like him. He is a really nice guy.

Great first step

This is the week sometime that Brian and I are going to get together. I got an e-mail from him later in the work days asking if I was going to call. I said I would at about six pm.

I got a few things done with my Reissue Credit problem at work with the help of a co-worker. At about eleven o'clock I went to get my truck from the autobody shop. They said it would not be ready until five pm. I went back to work for a while before getting lunch and making a trip to the bank to make a deposit.

As the evening was coming around I saw my clock said it was five o'clock pm. I rolled out to get my truck. It looked nice. I moved my stuff from the rental vehicle over to it. Then I went to Enterprise and returned the car. They game me a ride back to get my truck. I headed home from that.

I listened to the end of the John Carlson show and then Paul Harvey. When Paul Harvey was over it was six o'clock on the nose. I called Brian. We talked for the rest of my trip home. We made a plan to meet up tonight and hang out.

Dinner was ready shortly after I got home so I ate and then watched Ken Jennings on Jeopardy. He won again and will be on his twentieth show tomorrow. He again had so much money that no one had a chance to win. I took off and headed to Brian's house.

I called him up after I left my house and talked to him until I got into his driveway about a mile from Bellevue Square. I got out of my truck and he met me at the door. He was cuter in real life than his pictures. He has short brown hair. I like his haircut. It is less than an inch on the top and shorter on the sides. He had a goatee that is full and thick but not long. He has really nice eyes and a good smile.

I came in and went to his piano room. He played me a song and then sat down on an "L" shaped couch. I sat at one end and he on the other. We looked at each other and talked about friends, family, coming out to people, best friends, friendship in general and other stuff. The light outside was going down and it was getting harder to see inside so he turned on the overhead lights. He offered my something to drink.

Then we played Trivia Pursuit for about an hour and a half. I had a hard time getting some of the questions. No, I had a hard time with most of the questions outside of sports and science. At about midnight I was going to have to get going so we called it a night of playing the game.

He came over and sat next to me. We looked at each other a little bit. His arm was extended along the couch on the top behind my head. I left my head relax on the couch and touched his hand. I then moved it off his hand. He said it was okay. So I put it back. He touched my hair. Then he rubbed it for a while. I touched his hair. It was so nice. I could not get enough of it.

I told him a few times how much I like his hair and he kept saying how cute I was. I kept telling him I had to go, but I could not get up. I wanted to stay. We talked a little bit more. Then I said I had to go again. We talked some more. I moved closer to him and he held me a little bit. We talked some more and I said I had to go. He said I could stay, but I needed to get home so I said I had to go.

I can see myself spending more time with him. He is nice and fun to talk to. He is caring and fun to hold on to. He kissed me and I told him I am not much of a kisser. He said it was okay. I told him that I would love for things to progress in our relationship so someday I might be able to bring him to The Show in Moscow and show him off to people. I would love to be able to tell them that he is my boyfriend.

Finally I got up. He walked me towards the door. We stopped again and talked some more. I asked him if he could dance. I said I am not good at it. He said he was not. I said can you slow dance. He said he could. So we slow danced for a second and then I laughed at the thought of us slow dancing while everyone else was dancing differently. He laughed. Then we kissed again and headed to my truck.

He said he wanted me to come over again tomorrow and I said I would. He gave me another kiss before I headed home. I drove home and got there a little before two am. I let Amber outside and e-mail Brian thanking him for the night and telling him that I liked to be with him. I headed off to bed and quickly fell asleep.

Softball Sunday!

My alarm clock woke me up at nine o'clock am so I could get a nice and early start to get back to Renton. I went to Rosauer's and got some lunch, I fueled up and I was gone. When I got off of highway twenty-six I tried to call Brian. It was a little bit after noon. I figured he had gone to Seattle for Pride. I was right, he was already gone. So I continued on.

At about one o'clock the Mariner's game came on so I listened to that the rest of the way to Seattle. I got home about one-thirty. I got online and chatted with Justin before I had to go to my softball games. He said he got really drunk and bought fireworks. Sounds like a good weekend to me.

I got ready and headed down for the softball games. I pitched the first game. I only gave up two runs. We won by a huge margin. Then the second game the other pitcher pitched and gave up nine runs in the first inning with about five walks and what not. In the third inning I was sent back out to pitch. The scored only two more runs.

One guy I pitched to hit one foul down the right field line, the next one was foul down the left field line. I said, now you need to keep it between the lines. He did, the ball was hit right at my face. I put my mit up and blocked it. I picked up the ball and got the out. Everyone was laughing about that one.

I hit one ball it was a huge pop-up! It was going down the right field line. It was about thirty feet behind first base and it had a HUGE right spin. It hit the ground three feet in fair territory. It rolled away from the fielders another twenty feet... I was running my fastest and made a triple out of it. It was cool. I scored on the next hit.

We caught up to the other team only to lose by two runs. That sucked. After the game most of the team went to Doofers for some post game drinking and food eating. I had a few beers and then went home for dinner. We were having BBQ spare ribs. They were quiet good. Jon came up with the boys and his boat trailer. He parked it in the back yard. He said he likes my goatee. I may keep it for a while. I will see what Brian says about it.

After that I wanted Six Feet Under and QaF. I chatted with Justin, AJ, and Red online for a while. I hope Red feels little better after our chat. I went to my room to go to sleep.

Pastor Casey Treat was on and was talking about healing the heart. He was talking about not holding on to the bad things. To forgive people who have hurt you. By doing so God will reward you as you move on. Holding on to those things can cause further harm. It is like an anchor holding you back. I thought about it, and I decided that I need to apologize to Chris for treating him poorly and forgive him. I will do that the next time I am in Pullman. I will do what is right. I was a mean guy, and I need to make things right with him.

Doing what needed to be done

I planned on sleeping in, but at six o'clock my alarm clock went off. I quickly turned it off and tried to get to sleep. Then I heard my scanner dispatch a roll over car accident outside of Pullman. Some time later I heard dispatch talking about a car accident. I thought it was the same one until I heard Colfax Ambulance blah, blah, blah. So I got up and headed to the station. Only to find the person who was in the accident was in the middle of the road about three hundred feet from my driveway. Then Carl showed up in the engine and blocked the road. I ended up getting to the station after the Ambulance went by. I hung out and waited for Carl to return. We talked briefly. He was heading home to get some work done. He invited me to come help if I wasn't going to do anything. I was planning on making my way down there.

I went home and instead of going back to bed I watched a movie on TV. At about eleven in the morning I started to clean my house. I had a bunch of mail to go through. I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen. I cleaned up the basement a little bit. I was busy for a while. Then I got a call from Ryan. He wanted to know if I wanted to go see Dodgeball. I said that it was a good idea.

I had to go to the IS office and do something there. I was there for a little while when Ryan called back to see when I would be up at his place because we were also going to get lunch and he was hungry. I told him I would be there at about three thirty.

I left and headed to Ryan's place. We headed out with his roommate and went to Cougar Country from lunch. His roommate paid for my lunch to make up for the movie I paid for her a few weeks ago. Ryan was joke about her and I being on a date. He kept making jokes about it. He thought it was funny because he knows I am gay. I asked him if his roommate Tracey knew. He said she would have no reason to know. We decided to see Shrek Two instead of Dodgeball because Tracey wanted to see that.

After the movie we went back to Ryan's apartment and watched the Skull's and the Skull's Two. We talked about the Mariner's after that. We talked about living in Pullman and living in Seattle. I headed out before midnight and went to my office and got on the computer there. I checked my e-mail and did a few other things before heading off home. I had to get to bed sort of early so I could get an early start for tomorrow.

He sounds great

Before I woke up I had a dream. It wasn't really a pleasant one, but it was not a nightmare either. I was at a foreign place. I was looking at four people about to be executed by firing squad. There were going to be three shooters. Those getting executed could choose to take a bullet between the eyes and have a instant painless death, but they would not be able to have a open casket funeral. The other option was a chest shot that would have a quick death, but there would be some pain before death occurred. I looked at one guy who had his shirt off. He had three quarters taped to his chest above his breast line. They were in a horizontal row. That was an indication where he wanted to be shot. I remember hearing the people talk about the choices of what way to die. They were debating on the quick and painless death of the slightly slower more painful death. They talked about how it would feel like having a heart attack for a brief period of time as your heart beated its last few beats. For a while in the dream I was an observer then I was one of the people who was going to be executed. Then I was an observer again. I was away from where the people were going to be shot. I found out that Justin was one of the people killed. I dropped to my knees and started to feel great sorrow because I did not get to tell him goodbye. I wish there had been something I could do to shave his life. I did not want to see him get killed. I was mad he was gone at the same time I wanted to cry. I could not cry any tears for him though. I wanted to know if it was quick and painless for him. The head badguy was in a room below me. The room had about a twenty foot ceiling. I was on top of it. I opened a vent and yelled down to the guy and asked if Justin's death was quick. He answered me and he then knew he was going to have to get me as well.

All of a sudden I was in a race for my life. I felt in control however. I was in a place that I knew really well. It was like I was in a large school or some other building with huge hallways and a lot of doors. It was dark but I knew the area really well. I was able to run fast and I knew were obstacles where and I used some of them to my advantage to get out of the building. Shortly after getting out of the building the dream was over. When ever I have a dream like that I hate it because I feel like I lost a friend even though it was only a dream.

I got into work earlier than normal. I got some of the stuff documented for the problem I have been having at work. On Monday I will go over it with the other developers and we will develop a plan of action. I took off about eleven to get to Colfax.

When I got to the Pass I called Brian. I had the correct number for him. We chatted from Snoqulamie Pass all the way to the Vantage turn off for highway Twenty-Six. He was great to talk to. He has a nice voice and he seemed interested in talking with me. We talked about a lot of different things. We talked about his music for a while. At the end we talked about what we were each looking for. It sounds like he is looking for some sort of relationship. The question as always is whether I will be the one. I hope something will work out. Only time will tell. He said he was really excited to talk to me. I can't wait to see where the path will take us. I am really excited for the idea that I may have a boyfriend. I don't want to rush anything but I really would love someone to share things in my life with. I would love someone I could go places with. I would love someone who I could hold on to and feel like I have that missing part filled in. He said he would love to have a boyfriend who he could show off and tell people "Hey look at my boyfriend."

I called Pete and asked if he needed Coroner coverage for the weekend. He said Patti will be covering. I kept on trucking to Colfax. When I got there I went straight to the IS building and then turned in some paperwork for the coroner's office. I chatted with Dan and Brandon for a while about computer related stuff. At about five o'clock I went to my house and got ready to work at the jail. I hadn't shaved in about a week. So I had a lot of growth. I needed to shave. I went ahead and left a goatee. Brian said he likes guys with goatee's so I will leave it on for him.

I went to the jail and helped out a little bit. Mainly I ran control until Pullman brought in a booking for us. I helped the intern book the lady and release her on bail. Then a second guy came in. It was too late to get going with that booking so I left it for the next shift. I got the original warrant for the second booking and took it to the front office. I talked with Paul in the front office for a while before heading out to the IS office again.

I worked on a few files that I needed to update. I got that taken care of and then I headed out to my house and watched some TV before heading off to bed.

Wrong number?

Today I planned on meeting with Brian and seeing how life goes from that point. I called him a few times and did not get ahold of anyone. I e-mailed him and said I tried to call. He responded a few hours later and asked when I tried to call. I gave him the times and then I gave him the number I was trying. I checked the log file from our chat. It showed the same number I had so I knew I was using the one he gave me. And I know he wants me to call so he must have had a typo.

Well the problem I am working on at work took a turn for the worse. I made changes that it looked like would be necessary to fix one of the issues. However when I went to one of the changed ASP pages it would give me an Internal Service Error Five Hundred. So I am back at square one. I am going to go through and document everything I found and try again.

I chatted with Justin and AJ. G-Shack is down right now so we cannot post online. We just chatted about our normal stuff. AJ speaks English as a second language. I did not know that. He seems very fluent in English. I was pretty surprised that he speaks Dutch as his first language. I would like to learn some stuff from him. I hope he can teach me a few things.

I left work listing to the Mariner's game. They were in the eighteenth inning against Texas. Jamie Moyer was pitching because the bullpen was empty. Moyer gave up a line drive homerun in the bottom of the eighteenth inning for the loss.

I drove to Jon's house and took care of the plants, frog, and cats. I sat down on the couch and watched a TV show while petting Ali. She is a big time snuggler. Then I headed home because dinner was going to be at seven. I tried to call Brian again with no luck.

At home we watched Jeopardy, Ken Jennings did it again. We won in convincing fashion. He had almost thirty-four thousand going into final Jeopardy. The next closest person had seventy-two hundred. He has a way to go to reach a million, but I think it would be cool to reach it and the "retire". Leave the show on the top. Undefeated. Who knows though.

After that I watched some TV while hanging out online. I was looking for Brian to sign on. I did not see him sign on while I was online. I went to AJ's ftp server and I started to download some files from there. I retired to bed because I wanted to get into work early tomorrow.

Meeting someone... special?

I got some more stuff done on my project at work. It sucks. It is slow going and the code is not well commented. In fact in most places there are no comments at all.

While at work AJ hit me up online. He said that he didn't know I was gay. I asked him how he did know. He has read one of my blog entries. I guess he read the right one. It said straight up that I was gay. So now he knows. He is all good with that. We talked for a while through out the day. I found out that his timezone difference from me is nine hours! So while I am thinking about lunch he has already eaten dinner. When I am going home from work he should be fast asleep. Pretty weird talking to someone that is so far away.

I took care of my brothers house on the way home from work. My parents were going to the Eagles for dinner. They invited me but I was not going to be able to make it for such a long period of time I told them to eat without me. I grabbed some Dairy Queen on the way home and watched Jeopardy. Ken won again. He did it in impressive fashion. By final Jeopardy he was double plus what the next player way so there was no way he would lose. He now has sixteen wins and over half a million dollars under his belt.

I chatted with Justin and posted messaged on G-Shack. I was also on g.com and chatted with a guy named Brian. He is a musician from Bellevue. We talked about some stuff for a while. He is looking for a relationship not a one nighter. That is appealing to me. I am looking for something that could be long term. I watched SouthPark as were we chatting. Brian said he would like to meet me. I hope that things work out when we meet up. He gave me his phone number and asked me to call him tomorrow and see if we can set something up.

Like I said I ultimately am looking for a long term relationship. I know it is something that is built and not just started after a twenty minute conversation. I will call him and see what can be done. I know one thing for sure is that I love to listen to people play music. When I was at WSU I would sit in someone's room and he would play guitar or the piano. It was neat to listen to it. I felt like it was a personal concert.

So after we meet up, if it seems like there could be some chemistry, I will invite him to a movie and keep going with it. Of course if things go real well I will invite him to come to Colfax with me. We can go boating and just hang out without outside distractions. I am cautiously optimistic about how things will go.

He is back

Today is the day I came back to G-Shack.com. I started to post again. I got almost two hundred posts.

I got more information on the problem I am working on at work. It is still a long way out before I will have it solved, but I am either closer or I am further than before. I am not sure which.

I chatted with Justin and AJ for a bit. AJ is from the Netherlands. He seems pretty friendly. He does seem to have a low self image. The society over there seems more accepting of homosexuality. He is not afraid of saying a guy is good looking or cute. I guess that could mean he is gay himself, but he says he isn't and he claims to like women. I have no reason to doubt him. I had heard that in the Netherlands that straight guys will do gay porn films because it does not have the stigma that it has in the US.

while AJ and I were talking one thing that was brought us was post-puberty hair. Why is it that some guys shave chest hair? There was a time when a lot of chest hair was considered to be hot. Now it seems to be to opposite. Many guys now shave their chest hair aside from their happy trail. Why is that? What is it that makes that attractive for people? It could be that society likes the younger body. Most eighteen year olds have very little hair, so it could be said that shaving brings people closer to that. But that does not explain shaving pubic hair. Guys do that, but why? It is said that it is because it makes it appear that you are bigger. That makes sense. Without the hair hiding a portion of your manhood you see more of it, however, what does it say about a guy who does such a thing? Shaving chest hair is one thing, but shaving pubic hair seems to reveal so much more about that person. I could spend an hour writing about why someone might do such things. Instead I will leave it at that and see what reasons other people have for such things.

The big project

I got up at my normal time. Actually I was up a little bit earlier. I got a phone call from someone who needed some computer work done by Lobo Computer Services. I don't know what it is about people calling before nine am. I had one person call before eight am. Let me sleep people! Anyway, she was in such a hurry to get the problem solved she will probably use someone else because Phil is not available today. I will call her tomorrow as see what kind of help she got from him.

I took my truck to Precision Collision to get the door fixed. Enterprise Rent A Car came to pick me up. I got a Ford Expedition. It is pretty nice. It can pull my boat. I went into work and started in on the big project. I did spend the rest of the day reading code and trying to figure out how to fix the problem of re-issuing credit reports.

I got an e-mail about Ryan getting a new job and moving on. Really I am happy about it. Ryan has really been getting on my nerves a lot. He seems to be a know it all who is a smart ass all the time. Anything you say is wrong. He is always right. He knows where all the best places are, and if your favorite place isn't one of his, then it is worthless to go there. It was just tiresome to hear him talk. I knew he thought about leaving, but I did not know he was this serious. So it should be interesting to see who we get in to replace him.

After work I went to Jon's house to take care of the plants and pets. I watered all the plants around the house. Fed the frog and cats. I brought in the mail and newspaper. Then I went home and got online and chatted on g.com. I talked to one guy but things seemed to fizzle out.

My parents made dinner. I ate while watching Jeopardy. This guy who has been on has now won fourteen straight nights. He has winnings of four-hundred-and-seventy-thousand dollars. He is on fire. I am rooting for him now. I think now there is a count down to a million dollars.

After eating Justin and I chatted online a little bit. I was pretty shocked when I found out he is nowhere near eighteen years old. It turns out that he just turned seventeen about three months ago. Age really does not bother me at all. I have no problem being friends with someone younger than me. In fact hanging out with young people keeps me young because I have to keep up with them. I like it. The problem is that I was unaware how young he was.

My concern is that as a gay man I don't ever want someone to think I was trying to do something that is inappropriate. Justin really seems a lot older than seventeen as far as his maturity level goes. He also could hold his own in a fight, so even if I did try something he would kick my ass. That is not what I am interested in with Justin however. I think it is so cool to have someone who is from the South. He has a cool accent. He is just a nice person to chat with and makes me comfortable with who I am. He has morals and standards. He does not agree with homosexuality but he does not preach to me. As much as I hate being gay, he is very accepting of me and he does make me feel better about who I am.

Last day of ECSA Softball.

I was woken up at nine am. I started to get ready to play softball. I had my last Emerald City league softball game. We have been playing the C league teams for the last few games. We went out there and I was on first base. It was really warm. Actually I would say it was hot and slightly muggy. The game was pretty tight. We were down four to six near the end of the game. They other team only had nine players. In this league the tenth player, because he is missing, is recorded as an out. We had two outs on them. The batter was ninth in their order. Someone on their team yelled out, the next guy is an out, so just keep running.

I then told the pitcher to give him a walk. The next batter would be an out and the inning is over. Just like that. The other team was mad at us. They said it was "chicken-shit". I am out there to win the game. If they can't take the heat then stay out of the kitchen. When you use someone's weakness for your advantage that is not a bad thing, I would say it is good. When a right handed batter pushes the ball to right field because the rightfielder is too slow to play any other position and doesn't have an arm strong enough to throw the ball to the pitcher from the catcher, is that "chicken-shit"? You are exploiting a weakness in the other team. I say it is part of the game. The funny thing is before the game we gave them an option of playing the game for fun and getting a tenth player. They refused and said they wanted to play to win. So, they chose to play under-manned. They opened a weakness for us to exploit.

After the game I came home and hung out for a while and ate some lunch. I left to go to Jon's house and take care of the cats and frog. I brought in the newspaper. Then I left to the Tom Teasdale fields for my Renton City League Co-ed game. I was going to be really early, but I figured I would watch the teams before us play. One team was awful, the other team was better. One of the guys playing was wearing sandals. As an umpire I would have said that he had to change out of those. In the rules you must wear shoes.

After those games were done we took the field and started to get ready for our game. Sadly, the other team did not have enough girls. So we played one practice game. We still ended up beating them even though it was seven guys and three girls, to a five and five mix of guys and girls. We all played in different positions that normal. I did an inning in right field. My last at bat I hit left handed. I did a pretty good hit. It went to mid-shallow right field.

After the game I went home. We were going to have tacos for dinner. I love taco night. My step dad cooks flour and corn tortillas and then we pile on the toppings. I had a couple of those. I chatted online for a little while with Justin and Meredith before both signed off. I watched Six Feet Under and QaF before retiring to bed.

What a nice sleep.

I did not sleep solid straight through, but I did sleep until eleven am. That was nice. I came down stairs and watched two episodes of Deadwood. Bill asked if I would help him with the lawn. I told him I would. I figure because I am living at home for free and they are feeding me I should help out where I can. I went out and used the weedeater. We have about an acre and a half of property. There is a lot of ground to weedeat. I grabbed a dip and went outside. It was so hot. I was sweating bullets. After I was done with that I came in and got some water before getting the push mower to do the parts of the lawn that the riding mower cannot get to. I pushed it from the far end of the property to the near side. The thing would not start. I look. It is totally bone dry. I had no gas. I had gas in there last time I used it, so I assume there is a leak. I pushed it back to the shop and filled it up. Then I mowed the parts I needed to get done. When I put the mower back I got out my old motorcycle.

It is a nineteen-eight Suzuki DS-Eighty. It is about three feet tall. I got the thing when I was eight years old. I have had it since it was brand new. I took it out and rode on the streets like I use to when I first moved to this house in nineteen-eighty-seven. It is fun to get out there and ride the streets. After riding it for a while Bill asked if I would use the leaf blower and blow off the driveway. We have a long driveway. So it took quite a while to get it taken care of. It really looked nice when I was done.

I went up to my room and got online. Justin IM'ed me and said "Busted". He has seen a photo that I posted and did some sleuthing. He figured me out. So we chatted about it for a little while. I told him that Lobo would be coming back to G-Shack. I also told him Instinct is taking a trip to Florida. So he is going to be cool about everything.

I took off for my game. I had to get to the Fairwood area to play. I also had to go to the Renton Rec Center and get the scorebook. While en route there I got a phone call from Justin. It was so fun talking to him. He is from Alabama. I can say he is the only guy that I know from there. He sounded older than seventeen. Had that been the only time I had talk to him and I didn't know his age I would have put him in his twenties at least. He has a deeper voice, but it sounds very soothing to talk to. You can tell he a "manly man". There is nothing feminine about him in the slightest. He smokes, he looks like he could kick your ass, and he actually can. He has a bit of a southern accent. It is not all that bad really. But it so fun to hear him talk because of the accent, plus like I said it was soothing to hear him speak.

We talked for almost a half hour. He said he was drinking some girly drink. I flipped him crap about that. But I as just giving him crap. I got the field an we talked a bit longer. Finally I had to let him go because I had to warm up for the game. I hope I can talk to him again. Hopefully with more time to chat.

We got underway with the game. I started pitching. I was doing well. I got the ball across the plate nicely. We ended up beating the team in the first game pretty well. The wind was blowing so hard during the game we would have to stop playing because the infield dirt made it so no one could see at all. Everyone had to turn their back to the wind while that was happening. I used the wind to help me out. I would pitch the ball inside and it would blow the ball across the plate.

Then we play them again a second game against them. They realized that we have six guys and four girls. They pointed out we can't do that. So we played with only nine in the second game. It was a rough outing in the second inning. The pitcher couldn't get the ball across the plate. The guy playing left field. He could not play the position with the sun. He let three to four balls land in front of him because he was not shielding the sun from his eyes. We left them get up on use fourteen to four. In the middle of that inning the pitcher had me come out and pitch. We also switched up the outfielders. We started to make out. Then we went out and scored runs. We started to hold them from scoring runs from that point on. We kept hitting the ball and getting closer. I got my last at bat and I hit it over the outfielders head and made it to second base.

We went up fifteen to fourteen going in to the last inning. They got a couple of good hits. Then after a few runs scored I walked a girl. A guy came up to the plate and hit it over the outfielders head. The outfielder ran it down quick and threw it to the short stop who went home with it. As the guy and girl were coming around I was watching them cross the plate. The girl missed the plate and the guy stepped on it. I looked and the catcher and said "appeal that! She did not step on home before he did". She appealed and the umpire called him out for passing her up. Neither run counts. They were up on us by three runs. We went out there and batted. It was looking good. We were getting close. We had the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on at second. I was on deck and a girl came to the plate. I had a bad feeling. I was the on-deck batter when the last game ended. There were two outs. The girl hit the ball up the middle, but one of the outfielders got to it and made the third out. We lost by one run. So we were disappointed that we lost, but happy about he gutsy performance.

I went home chatted with Justin for a tiny bit before taking a shower. I had to go to my brothers house and take care of his pets and other things. I was going to go to Seattle to a bar called Changes for Rob's birthday. It was really late so I did not make it. I got some food from Jack in the Box and got to Jon's house. I watered the plants and played with the cats. I watched Deadwood. It was the season finale. I went home and watched some TV. Die Hard was on. They had the letterbox version, but once in a while it would get skewed. So Bruce Willis would look short and fat. I watched Almost Live! before finally going to bed.

Sticking around this weekend.

Not going to Pullman is going to be nice this weekend. I will save the mileage on my truck. I have nearly ten thousand miles already. That is not a good thing. I need to slow down on the miles I put on it. Because I am sticking around I can stay at work all day. I got in about ten o'clock. We have a breakfast every Friday on the company. This week it was cereal and milk. The carpet by the kitchen as all wet. The storm was so bad last night that water backed up and flooded the kitchen. I worked on a problem that I have been working on all week. I got some clarification on it. It looks like for the rest of the week next week I will be working hard on finishing this problem. It looks like it can be pretty deeply rooted in the code. This will be the first time I am going to have to work so hard at fixing bad code. Once it was discovered what I was going to have to do I decided not to work on it. I wanted to wait until Monday and get a whole day rather than an hour or two to get underway. So I went home and got ready for softball practice.

I ran up to Albertson's and got fried chicken for dinner. I had a couple pieces and ran off for practice. The traffic in Seattle is so bad. It was almost seven o'clock on Friday night. I got to the Four-oh-five and one-sixty-nine interchange. The traffic was hardly moving going South. So I got on Northbound four-oh-five. It was great. I cruised. I took the I-Ninety floating bridge across Mercer Island. When I went to merge on I-Five I found the traffic was stop and go. I only have about fifteen minutes to get where I needed to go. So I took the first off ramp I could and took surface streets. I go to the field with no time to spare.

We were playing a scrimmage against another team. They were going to have me pitch but I didn't wear a cup. So I was not going to go out there and bust anything valuable. I played first base for a while. I could not get any hits going until the last inning. I hit one right up the middle for a double. After that game I went home.

I was going to watch some more Deadwood. I am up through the first six episodes. It is pretty cool. It sucks Wild Bill died, but that is what happened in real life. I watched an episode. Then I got on g.com and got into a long conversation with a guy from Burien. He was pretty cool. We talked for more than an hour. We had quite a few things in common. Camping, Mariners, sports, and a few other hobbies. We final signed off and I went to watch one more episode of Deadwood, but I was too tired and wanted to go to bed, so I did just that.

Well La De Da

Why La De Da? I was watching the Family Guy when I was thinking of a title for this post. That was what Peter's dad said.

I worked a little longer on the problem with the application at work. I am not a whole bunch closer. A whole bunch of us went to Basking and Robins for some ice cream. It was about eighty plus degrees today. On the way home from work it was over ninety.

I went home and let Amber out. I threw the ball to her for a while. Then I was off to Issaquah for dinner. We were getting at Round House Pizza. Mr. Thuot was buying all the people who help with the survival outing pizza for dinner. We sat around and talked for about two hours.

I got home and watched two more episodes of Deadwood.

While at Round Table I was talking to a guy about a militia that he is part of. He said there are two militias in Washington. He said one is super right-wing that is very religious. The other is more middle of the round as far as religion goes. It just believes in protecting our rights and not advocating the spread of religion.

I chatted with Justin a little bit tonight. He seemed a bit more talkative tonight. We talked about online relationships a little bit, before he headed off to bed. I also downloaded some videos from my server back in Pullman.

What makes you straight

I did my work today like normal. I got a good jump on what I needed to get done today. I went to a meeting for an hour and a half where I thought I was going to learn something. Turns out I lost an hour and a half of my life I will never get back.

I left work about four pm to come home. I was meeting with some guys trying to sell insurance. I did not get any. They were both names Travis. One of the guys was twenty-four. I would say he was near ten-six-seven status. He had a wedding ring on. I wish that I could be married.

Alex messaged me today. I think he is mad at me. I was also talking to one other person online. He asked me if I am unhappy being gay, why don't I stop being gay. I responded with the following:

What is the difference between a gay man and a straight man?
Think about your friends who are guys and your friends who are girls. I mean you closest friends. Whether guy or girl you have a relationship with them. When a friend is really close to you, when you have a special relationship with your friend you could say on some levels you have a love for your friend. That is not to say that because you have a love for your friend who is a guy, that does not make you gay. The love you have for a girl does not mean she is your "girlfriend". So being gay is not simply loving someone of the same sex.

I can look at a girl and I can see beauty. I can look at a guy and I can see beauty. You as a straight man, can look at a man and see that he is a good looking guy. Just because you can see the beauty or the handsomeness in a guy does not make you gay. Because I can see the beauty in a girl does not make me straight.

As a gay man I have had sex with a girl. Who knows maybe at some point in your life you have done some stuff with a friend of yours who is a guy. Having sex with a girl does not make me straight. Having "experimented" with a guy does not make you gay. So simply having sex does not define ones sexual orientation.

If the person who you love also gives you a spark - that feeling deep inside that is indescribable - that a love that goes beyond simple friendship. If that feeling is what you have for a girl, then you could say you are straight. If you get that spark from a guy it would be fair to say you are gay. As a gay man you show love in many ways. You show it with your actions towards the man you love. You show your love with sex.

That is how I will define the difference between being gay and being straight. The question is what makes it so that deep-down spark happens. What is it that is in your brain or spirit that creates this spark? Do you choose to have this spark?

I did not want to allow this spark to happen with guys. It is just the way it is. If I could make that spark happen with a women I would. In a heartbeat I would. When you see a girl and you feel that spark, do you choose to feel it? Do you make yourself tinkle and want to know more about that person? I would guess that it is a feeling that "just happens." I get the same feeling. It just happens that when it happens to me it is when a guy is involved.

I look at other guys and I am jealous that I will not be normal. I am jealous that I will not be married and have kids. That is not to say that I can't marry a girl.

I don't know if that makes sense to you, but that is why I can't just change into being a straight guy.

After I was done with the insurance people I went to my brothers house and he showed me the things I needed to know for watching his house over then next week. Then I went home and watched two more episodes of Deadwood. The fourth episode Wild Bill was killed. I was upset he was killed so early. I can't wait to see what will happen in the next episode.

Deadwood

I hate early morning meetings. I had to be in a meeting at work at nine o'clock am. I had to get up early because of that. Normally I am getting up at nine.

After the meeting I worked on a hotfix that was assigned to me yesterday. Today we found out it was a work-around of a work-around. It turns out we were going to fix the main problem rather than make a work-around for the work-around. So I ended up not getting anything of significance.

I went to lunch with Jon and Brian. We went to the Three Pigs. It was grub. We usually go there once every two weeks.

I got back to work and Justin had messaged me. We talked a tiny bit. He said he is now working on a blog. I went to read it. He has three posts in it right now. One post talked about me and our conversation. He wrote "I was talking to Lobo last night from there [G-Shack], he was asking me some questions and it was late, and I was tired so I just told him g'night and hopped off to try and keep myself from getting pissy." I wasn't sure how to take this. It sounded like that my questions were making him pissy. I don't know.

I headed home at five o'clock. That is a mistake. The traffic is terrible. It took an hour to get home. That is not a good thing. I am either going to have to leave earlier that five or well after five. I was thinking about going to Fry's Electronics and getting a new alarm clock. I want one with a digital radio tuner. All clock radios seem to still have analog tuners. That is crazy.

I was chatting with Justin for a tiny bit. We did not seem to have much to say to each other. The longer I am away from G-Shack the less we seem to chat and the less we seem to have to talk about. We use to talk for a while, now it is like pulling teeth to hold any kind of conversation at all. It feels like nothing I say holds his interest. It just feels like he doesn't like to chat with me. The more I think about chatting with Alex the more I realize that I have nothing at all to talk to him about. Zach is in Montana right now, so he has not been online for the last few days. He is fun to chat with. We have great conversations. We chat about sports, living in Alaska, the military, and life in general.

I told Justin that I was done chatting and started to watch TV. I started to watch the series Deadwood on HBO. We have OnDemand. I was able to start to watch it with the premiere. It is a pretty cool series. I watched the second episode as well. I am interested in how it will turn out. I am going to watch the next few episodes through out the week. The episodes for series one are only going to be available for two more weeks. So I have to make sure I see them all before then.

What in the heck is going on?

Tired again because I did not go to bed when I should have I did not want to get up. But finally I crawled out of bed at nine am. I rolled in to work a little after ten. The traffic was great. The roads were pretty open with few cars compared to normal.

I worked a little on a hot fix. I am not sure what to do to fix it. I am going to have to work with Brian to get it solved tomorrow. I went to the ECSA website and found my player of the week blurb.
"Scotty Anderson, Maulers: Although Scotty was out all night helping out at a community function, he was a key contributor to the Mauler wins on Sunday. He pitched in 2 games and also played 1st base in 1 game. He hit 6 for 7 and drove in at least 5 runs. He is always upbeat and encouraging to his team mates and the other team."

I thought that was cool. I got a call from a collections agency about the bill from the hospital. I am mad about that. It was supposed to be covered by my insurance, but it wasn't. So now I have to take care of that. That really brought me down. Money problems suck. It can really cause me great grief. I would like to be done with money problems. It seems like they are just getting worse.

I scheduled an appointment to get my truck fixed. It will suck being without the truck for a whole week and using some gutless rental car.

I got an e-mail about the make up softball games for my co-ed team. It is scheduled for Saturday. So I guess I will stay in town this weekend afterall. I had planned on going to Pullman. Jon asked me to watch his house and cat. So I will be doing that next week.

I went home a little before five pm. I spent some time chatting with Alex and Justin. Both seemed very distant with me. It is like something is going on and I don't understand what it is. Both of them abruptly stopped talking to me because they had to go to bed. It was late out where they were, but it was weird that they both just jumped offline from talking to me. I wonder if I did something that made them mad. When I tried to talk to Alex he would only answer in one word answers. I could not communicate with him. I told him that it was hard to talk to him. Then he said he was tired and went to bed.

Justin was chatting with me. Then within a few seconds he said he is tired and going to bed. Within a second he signed off and that was it. Oh well, screw it, I am done with them. I am done with g-shack.

I watched the season premier of Six Feet Under before getting to bed at a reasonable hour for once. I had to because I have a meeting at nine am tomorrow.

Softball tournament day two.

I shouldn't have stayed up and watch TV. I was so tired this morning. I had a hard time getting up and going. It was going to be a long day. I finally did crawl out of bed and got moving. I went and picked up Ryan.

We headed off to Uniontown to play our first game. We only had eight guys show up. The other team had nine. John and I switched off pitching and catching. Our bats were alive. We only had three infielders and three outfielders. We ended up winning twenty-seven to eight. It was pretty lopsided. They team we played had two ten-six-seven's on the team. After that game we went to McDonald's and ate breakfast. I found a replacement for me. We had ten guys who were going to make it to the game. I called John G. and he said he would play.

I left to Colfax and got my stuff and headed to Seattle. I had a softball game with the Maulers. I was worried about making it on time because I was getting a later start than I wanted. It turned out I made it with about fifteen minutes to spare. That was nice. I pitched one inning and was EH for the rest of the game. I found out that I was the player of the week for last week. We got our butts kicked. A guy named Nick was going to say hi to me after the game but he was not there. I am glad about that, because I had a hard time pitching and I did not hit well. It was a bad game for me.

My two co-ed games were cancelled because of the field conditions. So I went to Tacoma to deliver Rob's stuff. I helped him unload the truck and then I took off. I got home and rested for a little while. My mom was cooking dinner. Dinner was good. I chatted online for a while before I finally went to bed. I was very tired because it was a long weekend and I did not get much sleep.

Softball tournament day one.

Darn alarm clock, it did what it was paid for. Woke me up to go play softball. We had three games today nicely spread out. Eight in the morning, one pm, and five pm. The game at eight in the morning meant I had to be there at seven-thirty. I had to get Ryan along the way. So I was getting up at six-thirty. After getting ready I was en route to get Ryan.

We stopped at Dissmore's and got some food and water. Then off to Colton. The first game we only got nine guys to show up. Luckily the other team only had nine guys so it was an even match. We said we would be Away to give our guy more time to get to the field. As it turns out the tenth guy had to work so he was not going to show up anyhow. I pitched the whole game. It seemed like they hit a lot of balls where we weren't. We were hitting the ball well too. In the seventh inning the score was tied. They got a guy to second base, but we were able to make the outs to end the game on a tie, but they had extra innings. So in the first inning we scored a quick three runs. They scored only one in their half. We won the game twenty-one to nineteen. It was a great game for us. We battled back from being down. Everyone hit the ball well. One guy on their team was Lanny. He was the running back for the Palouse Thunder.

After the game Ryan and I stayed there with Mark and talked about softball and watched the other teams play. Mark mentioned the "old-man" IM team. The bringing back of the Chickenheads. If they build the team they want it would gut the Nadirs. It makes me upset thinking about it. I have spent a lot of time building that team to what it is. Only to have someone break it up to have an all old-man team. I was getting upset about it.

Ryan and I went to Pullman. I was sort of ranting about the conversation with Mark. I stopped at my office e-mailed Phil from the IM team. I checked my e-mail and found the e-mail from the guy who could not make it to the first game.

On driving back to the field we were talking about the IM team and its the outlook should all the old guys leave. We decided it might not be all that bad. We could bring in a few people with fresh legs and better bats. We might be more competitive that way. We both want to keep Phil if the other guys go. We like Phil's attitude and his bat. But it is up to Phil. I did remind him about loyalty to the team that brought him from the free agent list. I guess the thing that makes me the most made is that I invited Mark on the team and now he wants to gut the team. If he wants an old-man team that is fine, but he should find his own players.

We played game two. It was not pretty. They hit the balls out of the parks and to every deep corner of the park. We could not keep up. The beat up pretty badly. I pitched and caught. While catching I would talk to Chance and Buck. They both played football with the Palouse Thunder with me.

Dan and Michele showed up to watch the game. Everyone left after the game. Ryan and I stuck around and hung out with Dan and Michele. I had a beer and a hamburger. We talked about softball, my job and other stuff as well as cheered on Zeppoz.

Finally it close to time for our last game. It was against the Sports Page. We played that game in Uniontown. I pitched and caught every other inning. The other pitcher, John, almost got hit in the face on two consecutive batters. We ended up beating the Sports Page by two runs. After that game Ryan and I went to Rancho Viejo to meet up with Rob and Jerry. We had dinner and talked about "family" stuff. We had fun times. Then Ryan and I went to Rob's house to get some of his stuff loaded in my truck. While we were there Francie and Kyle from Pullman Fire came over. Francie is going to rent Rob's old place. They helped us load my truck. We all talked about more family stuff. Kyle was telling me that there is one WSU firefighter who is gay. But he is so closeted it is not funny.

After loading my truck I drove Ryan home and went home myself. I watched some TV even though I should have gone straight to bed.

Poker party!!!

I got up and into the office to have our meeting with the dev group. We are figuring out our new development roles for the new service pack. After the meeting I left for Colfax. I was going to do some work for the county. I got my contract extended.

I was cruising along. And like a typical man I hate to stop for anything. I want to just go. About one hundred miles from Colfax I knew I was going to need to go to the bathroom pretty soon. As time went on it got worse and worse. I passed up two rest areas because I wanted to make good time. Plus I did not want to have pass up all the cars that I had already passed once. So I finally arrived at the office doubled-over in pain and needing to make it to the bathroom. Ahhh... relief, plus I didn't have to stop along the way.

I worked on a database that was not working properly. I looked at some of the coding for it. I couldn't see the problem. What is more weird is that it just started to have problems all of a sudden. So after doing some testing, I grabbed the original Access database that worked and imported the data from the old DB and life was good. I called Pete and took on call status for the Coroners office for the weekend.

I took off from there and went to my house. I got my mail and went through it. There were a couple checks. I like to get money. I went to my friends house who as been collecting my mail. He called and said he would be home. I told him I would be there in a few minutes. When I got to his house I heard the music playing and I rang the doorbell. Within a few seconds my phone rang and it was him. I figured he was going to say that he was upstairs and that I could just come in. It turns he had to leave and he was calling to tell me. I thought the timing was perfect. I decided to leave and head to Pullman. I went to my office and got a few checks processed and ready for deposit. I also wrote a few checks to people who I owe money. I delivered the boxes from the Dell service jobs to Pat so he could send them back. I went and got some pizza and pop then headed to John's house.

We were going to have a poker party. Dan, Twiggy, Lister, John, and I were going to play. I got there about thirty minutes before anyone else. I had some pizza then John and I played some heads up Texas hold'em. Dan showed up and then we all played some cards until Twiggy and Lister showed up in Rescue. They were on call and responding from there.

We played a tournament style game. Each person anted five dollars and then we got forty chips. Winner takes all. The first game lasted quiet a while. It came down to Twiggy and me. I only had a few chips compared to that huge stack Twiggy had. I lost pretty quickly.

We started a second tournament. In the middle of that one the Rescue boys had to go so Dan, John, and I played poker on the side waiting for them. We play just our normal games with coins. During play I got a call from Gabe. It was great to hear from him. I had left him a message a while back. He is still working for loss prevention and the Fire Department. He was telling about some of the calls he was on recently. He said that we should get together and have a beer. He is a cool guy.

We first met in ninety-nine while I was working at the jail with Joe. Gabe came in with his roommate Dave. There were out bounty-hunting and had a prisoner. It was a little while after that when we went to Denny's. Joe and Gabe were in the reserve academy together at the same time I was in the reserve academy for the fire department. Gabe threw a lot of parties. We started to become friends as I would hang out with him more.

One night Gabe, Dave, and I were at Valhalla. We went there for the comedy show but we got there late. We were sitting at a table chatting. Gabe went to the bar to get something and Dave and I were talking about the women in the room. Dave said he doesn’t have a chance with them. I was shocked to hear that from him. Dave and Gabe are both ten-six-seven. So I told Dave that he was a good-looking guy and he should have no trouble bagging a woman in the room.

He looked at me and said “Are you gay?” At this time I was not out to people. I would sometimes gauge reaction by joking about it and seeing how people treated the joke. So I was doing the same with Dave, but I wanted to push it further than a joke. So I said “yes”. And quickly walked away. I knew if I had waited in the area I would have laughed and brushed it off. But I wanted to see how he would react to it. I was using the telephone. When I returned to my chair I was sitting next to Gabe.

He put his arm around my back and put his hand on my shoulder. He said he is my friend and always will be and that he is cool with everything. I was very surprised by his gesture. I should say I was happily surprised. At the time the song Fly Away was being played. I still hold a special place in my heart for that song.

After Gabe and I were done with the call I told John and Dan the above story while we played more cards. Finally the rescue boys showed up and we continued the tournament where we left off. Lister was out pretty quickly and Twiggy was out quicker. So they left and Dan, John, and I played for the final win. John took Dan out. I had less than forty chips. John had about one hundred and seventy chips. So I was highly out numbers. I knew if I were to grind with John long enough I would beat him.

That is exactly what I did. I started to grind with him. The problem I would run into is the blinds would double every half hour. We were at an eight-sixteen blind. I had twenty-four dollars. That made it rough on me. I would call all in from time to time and I would pull one out of the fire. I won every time I went all in. After about thirty minutes I was finally even with John. From that point he was upset and I started to play better. Finally I ended up beating him. I won all the money from that pool.

After we were done playing card we talked about Cougar football and then I headed home to get to bed. I had to be up nice and early for a softball tournament.

Squirming out

My mom woke me up as I was sleeping in sort of late. I got to work a little after ten am. I hit lunch and found out my checking account was over drawn. Turns out WSECU was still taking money for my old truck loan. But I don't have to make payments for that truck anymore. So I called the bank to have them stop that from happening in the future. Then I had to drive to BECU and withdraw money from WSECU and deposit it in the BECU to pay for new truck.

I got home at about four pm. I was talking to Justin and Alex from G-Shack. I was wasting time with them before I went to Jodi's baseball game. While I was talking online to them and I wanted to tell them the same thing that I tol Zach the night before. Alex already knew I was older. Justin had an idea. I sent them both the same clip from my blog. Alex was surprised and happy that I told him.

Justin was sort of guess that either me or Peter were gay. But that was before he read the part from my blog. I told him Peter and I were really good friends. He hinted to something and then backed away. I made him continue his question. He asked if Peter or I were gay. I told him I thought Peter was heavily closeted and that is what caused our relationship to break.

Then I sent him my blog. He said he thought I could be gay because I was so open minded and so accepting. After reading the blog section this is what he said:
my thoughts are whoa,
thats why hes so awesome,
and whys he afriad of it?
You being gay isnt a problem

So both Zach and Justin don't think being gay is okay - they are against it, but they still have no problem with me. Justin said he doesn't have a problem with gays as long as they understand he is straight and is not interested. If a gay guy will continue to confront him, that is when he will get mad. He seems to be cool with it.

After that I went to Jodi's baseball game. It was a forefeit because the other team did not have enough guys. I came home and sat around watching TV and chatting online.

Hump day madness.

Not a lot of new stuff on Wednesday in my physical life. Things did go interesting in my online life. I talked to the state gambling commission to find out what the deal was with gambling at home and the laws. As long as there is no cover to get in and no rake we can gamble for us much as we wont. There are no restrictions. You can use real money for chips. You can gamble in the residence halls and anyplace that is considered a "home". So the fire station is not out either. However gambling at a business, even after hours is a no-no.

I dealt with BECU some more on my truck loan. They have reversed the late fee. That was nice. I am getting more paperwork sent out because the old stuff is lost somewhere.

I watched the Mariner's and South Park last night while chatting online. I talked with Justin for a while online and then I chatted with Zach for a while. I told him that Lobo was dead and would not be on G-Shack anymore. He asked why.

I told him I felt that I was too old to be on it. Most of the people are high schoolers and young. I don't have a problem with that, but I feel like I am misrepresenting myself. I wanted to be clear with everyone. Then I told Zach that I graduated from high school in ninety-two. He was cool with that. He said he had no problem chatting with me still. I was happy about that. Zach is a cool guy. He then asked me if I was gay. I side stepped that question for a while. Then I found a story about Peter and I on my blog from back in August of ought-three. I sent that to him. It was the story about me coming out to Peter. So that was how I came out to Zach. He said he was cool with me being gay, but he did not agree with it.

I told him we would have to talk on that point for a while. I also chatted on g.com for a while. I talked to two people in Pullman. One guy was born eight days before I was. The other guy I have chatted with many times in the past, he is AirJer. AirJer and I will be getting a drink or two together this Saturday night. The other guy may join us. That is up in the air.

I met AirJer in real life when he came to the jail one day while I was working. He was working for Unsolved Mysteries shooting a story about Fred Russell. They were interviewing a guy in our jail. So I was there to assist them with getting what they needed.

I am making a comeback

In the voting for Mr. G-Shack I am making one heck of a come back. I am now tied going into the final hours of the voting. I will see if I hold on. I did not plan on getting this far. The voting will stop at seven pm tonight and the winners will go head-to-head.

I have been working with Mark to find people to play softball in the tournament in Uniontown. I have found one so far. Ryan will be playing with us. I am excited to hear that. I asked Mike from the fire department. He said he could not. Then I asked if I could come back for the month of July and work on the weekend of the Forth or July. He said I could not. That sucks. I have been doing that for the last five years. This is the first year I will not get to do that. I am pretty disappointed about that. I wanted to do it.

I chatted with Rob online for a while. He is a friend of mine from back in Pullman. He is family. Him and I have gotten together for karaoke, BBQ's, and some other stuff. He is the one who wrote the article about me and the lack of gay magazines in Pullman. It was the one that outed me to the Pullman and WSU fire departments.

I was asking him how things were going with dating. He said he is dating some people but nothing serious yet. I asked him what it would take to get a date. He asked if I was asking him out on one. I said that I wasn't really asking him out. I was trying to find out if he would even be interested in dating me.

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[06/08/2004 - 13:25] Glock40ish: So... what does it take to get *NAME DELETD* on a date?
[06/08/2004 - 13:25] CENSORED: LOL
[06/08/2004 - 13:26] CENSORED: Depends ...
[06/08/2004 - 13:26] CENSORED: What are you proposing
[06/08/2004 - 13:27] Glock40ish: I havent proposed anything yet... I am seeing if there is anything more than friendship from your point of view... :)
[06/08/2004 - 13:29] CENSORED: I'm not sure ... I think I'm not really ready for a relationship right now, being unemployed and living in Tacoma as it is
[06/08/2004 - 13:29] CENSORED: At the same time you're a sweet guy and I know you'd be good to me. I'm just not sure I'm wanting to jump into something I don't know I can commit to, you know?
[06/08/2004 - 13:30] CENSORED: Going out and having fun would be fine, though, depending on what we were doing
[06/08/2004 - 13:30] Glock40ish: Fair enough.
[06/08/2004 - 13:30] CENSORED: LOL
[06/08/2004 - 13:31] Glock40ish: I was just never sure if there was a possibility for something more or not... I have always sort of hoped, but I don't know where you stand...
[06/08/2004 - 13:31] CENSORED: I won't say no, but I can't say yes.
[06/08/2004 - 13:31] CENSORED: Does that make sense?
[06/08/2004 - 13:32] Glock40ish: If there is no interest on yourside, I don't want to push anything and make you uncomfortable... and if there was I don't want to pass it up.
[06/08/2004 - 13:32] CENSORED: I don't want to lead you on, but I'm not sure I'm in a position to promise anything more than one step at a time, you know?
[06/08/2004 - 13:32] Glock40ish: Yes I understand that.
[06/08/2004 - 13:33] Glock40ish: I am not looking to lock you and and snatch you from the dating pool... that is something that everyone needs to work into. At least that is the way I see it...
[06/08/2004 - 13:34] Glock40ish: My only concern is not making you feel uncomfortable or push you away...
[06/08/2004 - 13:34] CENSORED: I know what you mean.
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I don't necessarily think that I ever had a chance with him. But he does like me as a friend. We are really politically opposite. A few years ago that was an issue to him but now it does not seem to be as big of a deal as it was before.

I got home around six pm. I watched the Mariner's on TV. They ended up losing. I also got the new voting polls for Mr. and Mrs. G-Shack going. I did not make the final cut. The voting is underway however. I chatted with Justin online for a while. I also chatted with Rob some more.

On G-Shack Justin staged a fake mugging of me where he attacked me. So I showed that I was bleeding from the nose and mount. Blood also coming out the ear. I was close to death. Justin asked to get some help. Help arrived by I was DOA. So I changed my avatar to an image of the letters DOA. I also changed my signature to saying I am dead. I also blocked Justin from my AOL so he cannot contact me anymore. Lobo will no longer be seen on G-Shack.

Mr. and Mrs. G-Shack

I set up the Mr. and Mrs. G-Shack post polls on G-Shack.com yesterday. People are voting on who should be Mr. and Mrs. G-Shack. I see the polls are going well. The people I want to win right now are winning so that is also good.

I got some stuff to work on today. It is doing a write up on the fix I did last week. I also finished the data map and turned it in.

I got an e-mail from Diana say she got my application and it was turned in to the right people. Now I have to wait and hold my breathe to see if I get called or an interview. I sure hope that I do. It is a job doing IT tech support for WSU. It would be more money than my job here and I would be back in Whitman County. That is a big win-win for me.

I went home at about six-thirty after spending time talking to a few guys online. My parents had some pizza. We cooked that and watched the Mariner's play the Astro's. The Mariner's are doing very well.

I was chatting online with a few people and then I got on g.com. I was chatting with a guy in the Seattle area who is from the Tri-Cities. He is pretty nice. He has a friend who plays softball in the same softball league I am in. In fact I am playing his friends team this weekend. So, I told him to say hi to me. He said he would. His name is Nick.

After chatting and watching TV until midnight I took Amber outside to throw the ball around a little bit before retiring to bed.

Surival Outing day Two

I slept to about five-thirty am. Then I got up and went back to the fire. There were several students sitting around it. They did not look too happy. I think their Positive Mental Attitude’s were really low at that point.

I had to go by seven so I could get to softball. Because of the weather and the area starting to flood slightly Mr. Thuot wanted to use my four by four to get the equipment out of the area. So he moved up the schedule of some of the things. He still had to do signal craft and stop at a few areas on the way back to Ken’s Truck Town. So he did the walk through of all the shelters with all the students to critique them. The other instructors did some cleaning of the instructor’s area and got everything taken down.

I got their stuff out of there and then I headed to Seattle so I could play softball all day long. I had to get home and change in to my softball uniform. I checked to make sure the games were not rained out. While on the internet I saw the President Reagan has died. That was sad. I liked him as the president.

I got to the field about twenty minutes before the game. I got some BP and then we played. We had two final D-league games before playing C-league teams.

The first game we were winning but the other team was coming back and our pitcher was struggling. So I took over. We did well. I used my new bat. I hit the ball pretty well. We won both games and finished first place in our league.

Then we all went out to Red Robin to have a lunch. We had a few hours before our next game. After lunch we went back to the field and watched some of the other games. I went and got some rest by lying on the grass for a while. Then the others got me so we could do some BP.

Just before the game started it was raining like crazy. It stopped just before the game started. My first him almost hit the pitcher and went up the middle for a base hit. Then my next hit was almost the same place. I felt bad because I was not trying to hit the pitcher. I went to pitch in the second inning and finished out the game. We got killed. We gave up so many outs we should have had. We also hit the ball poorly.

After the game I hustled to my truck because I had co-ed games for the City of Renton league. En-route to the field I was told the games were forfeited by the other team because they did not have enough girls. So I did not need to go there.

I went home and watched some TV until dinner was ready. Then I watch the M’s game with my parents and chatted online. The Mariner’s came back in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the game. It was so cool.

I watched some more TV and chatted a while longer online before QaF finally came on. I watched that and then headed off to bed.

Survival Outing

This morning I was really tired because I stayed up so late. I had to be at Ken's Truck Town at eleven in the morning to meet up with the others for the survival outing. I have been going along from year to year to help out. Mr. Thuot has been teaching a class at Liberty High School teaching people about survival and how to do things to help you survive in many types of situations.

This outing takes us into the woods where students build their own shelter and they have to sleep in it and spend time in it. They do not get sleeping bags and pillows. They sleep on the ground or on a bed if they make one. They have their watch taken from them and they get no food. They do get water.

We met up at Ken's Truck Town. A kid in the class is TJ. I know him from the tailgate parties before the Cougar Football games. He plays football for Liberty as well. He is a cool guy. He saw me and we shook hands. We talked about what each other have been up to. TJ will be going to WSU this fall. He is excited about doing that. I told him about the Palouse Thunder and he is pretty interested in playing for them this coming season.

Anyway, we head off to the Bandara Airfield. This is where we set up our basecamp. Then we walk on a short trail into the woods where they will set up camp. The first thing we do is unload the vehicles and do a walk through of the area. Mr. Thuot points out the bad areas to set up camp and then reminds them of what a good place would look like. Then he tells them they have some time to search for a spot and get it approved.

Once the approval is complete the students can start to build on their shelter. As they are doing that, the other chaperons and I worked on our camp. Because we are not working on the outing we do get some creature comforts such as a fire and sleeping bags. We got the area ready to go. Then we had the students come back to the main area.

Mr. Thuot worked on fire craft for a while describing and demonstrating how to use different method of starting fires. He told the story of Gary Anderson and his amazing survival situation back in the early seventies in Alaska. After that was complete he sent them back to finish up their shelter.

We got a fire going during that time to start to warm up. The weather was bad. It was raining really hard and we were all getting wet. But we put up a tarp over the fire are to keep us both dry and warm. That was nice. We waited until about eight thirty to get everyone back to the instructor area. We gave them some final words of wisdom before sending them back to their shelter. They would have to spend the next four hours in it.

After they go into their shelter we will make rounds about every ninety minutes to check up on them. I did my round with Ben. Ben has been coming along for a while. Mr. Thuot knows him from working with him. I always thought Ben was younger than me, but it turns out that he is almost three years older. He looks young. I would say he is close to being a ten-six-seven.

After that we sat around the fire with the others talking about various things. Someone brought some food. We ate. There were some potatoes that we put on the fire to heat up. One student came up to us. We all hide our food like a teenager would hide beer when a cop comes walking up. After his question was answered we sent him away can continued to eat.

At about midnight Ben and I went to our respective vehicles to get some sleep.

Get got the order

Bill went to court today and got the anti-harrassment order in short order. He was happy that he got it. He thanked me for getting all the stuff ready for him. He said it made a big difference.

I met up with Jon for lunch at Three Pigs BBQ. I saw two people I knew from Pullman. One is David Wyatt and the other is Chad Harding. It was cool to see them. I did someputer work with David and I went through the reserve deputy academy with Chad

When I got off from work I went home. My new softball bat had arrived. It was going to get a chance to use it finally. I had to zoom off to softball practice in the Raineer Valley in Seattle.

We did a lot of fielding practice. I played secondbase for most of the time and then I did some pitching for batting practice. I hit the ball a bunch of times with my new bat. The ball fired off of it many times even on lighter hits.

After practice I went home. I should have gone to bed at a good hour but instead I stayed up watching movies and chatting with Zach from G-Shack. He is going to be a medic in the military.

Last day of class

Today was the last day of my C# class. It was nice to get that over with. I got the oil changed on my truck. I was more than one thousand miles over. Last Thursday I still have two-hundred and fifty miles until I needed to get it done. I had a lot of driving this last week.

I pretty much didn't do anything today. I helped Bill get his documents ready for court. I got some ice cream at Baskin and Robins. That was yummy.

Second co-ed softball practice

I went into work a little earlier than normal. I got assigned to taking care of a task where the ad rotator was not working correctly. I left at about three forty-five and went home. I had softball practice at six-thirty.

Before practice I helped my parents mow the lawn. Then I went to get an Ethernet cable for my mom's computer to hook it to my new router. I hit McDonald's for dinner then to Hazen for practice.

We did batting practice for the most part. After everyone got through with BP we were done. There were some guys who were not trying to hard. They would not back up the other people.

I got home and called Mr. Thout about the survival outing coming up this weekend. I watched some TV before finally hitting the hay.

Start of a new month

Today is the second to last day of my C# class. We worked more on the win forms using C#. I got my wireless router and wireless card hooked up on my laptop. Now I can use my laptop in my room and around the house to access the net. That is nice. I played with that for a while.

One of the things I was looking up was information about suicide. Mainly dealing with stories from the family of suicide victims. It is wild to hear their stories. It is amazing how many people would rather kill themselves than live gay.