Can it be worse?

I was at work at a tiny bit after nine am. I was pretty proud of that fact. I was given a new project to start. I am just getting familiar with it and trying to figure out what the issue is and what it is that needs to be fixed.

I watched the presidential debate. I thought there were many issues not covered. But one point I thought was interesting is where Kerry said Bush was bad because he relied on Afghan soldiers to get Osama instead of the highly trained US troops. Then later one Kerry said Bush is bad because he is using US troops when he should be using Iraq soldiers. Sounds like Bush is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

I got messaged by the person I spoke of yesterday. He never said he was sorry for what he said. He even claimed today that those pics he was making fun of were not pics of me. He has no clue how hurtful it was to hear him say what he said.

I talked to Jeph for quite a while tonight. I told him about what had happened to me. He said he felt bad about it. I think we got closer tonight because of what he had been going through. I am so happy to have someone like him to chat with.

I was also talking to Richard. I said something that went over the line. He called me on it. I felt so bad. I was really embarrassed. I just wanted to slink away. Which is pretty much what I did.

What people really think

I spent my day at work reading some ADO.NET information from books. I am trying to learn how to connect to a database.

Today I had the ability to do something that not many people get to do. Let say you are talking to someone and you are getting to be closer friends with the person. You really don't know a ton about the person but you want a chance to learn more.

Most people will not say their real thoughts to you, however, if they think they are talking to you about someone else you can find out the truth. It happened today. When it happened tonight I did not confront the person about it. I am not sure how I am going to deal with it.

But now I know what this person really thinks about me. They say knowledge is power. I can say him calling me a friend is a joke. I don't believe it.

I just wish I could find out that kind of information about other people. Maybe I can in the same way I did today. Sometimes you don't want to know things. It is better to be in ignorant bliss. But in this situation I think knowing is for the best.

Done with the first big one

It would appear that I am done with my first big project. I have it all coded. I made some tweaks to it. I also got the UI looking a lot closer to the rest of the OP site. I have it all checked into our source safe program. I met with Jon and Jim for lunch at the Three Pigs. At the end of the day I took off with no work in the pool for tomorrow.

I got a call from Ryan about a letter he received. It looks like he will have to go to court over the bogus assault forth charge. I feel bad for him but in many ways it is his fault for being lazy. I told him he needed to get out of there. I did what I could to help make it possible. He chose not to go. He knew how far his ex-roommate was willing to go. He should have known this was not far off.

We also got word the our playoff hopes in IM softball are all but over with. Ryan is going to try to do a few things, but it appears that we will lose out. That really sucks.

I stopped at Safeway on my way home to get my mom's prescription from there. When I got home I watched the M's play baseball and we ate dinner. I spent the rest of the evening working on the Gail Rowland for Senate website. I was setting up a place to gather data so people could donate money to her campaign online.

I also chatted with Kale and AJ a little bit off and on while I was trying to get my work done.

Driving straight to work.

Argh. I had to get up early. It was about five-forty-five am and my alarm clock was waking me up. I had to get on the road and get to Bellevue. It is a nice little four hour ride.

I had my project to finish up. After doing some I found out the problem existed on someone else's side. That was good to know. Then I started to tweak the UI of the project to make it look a little more uniform with the rest of the site.

I went home and learned that our neighbor was starting to pull some crap again. We put some crushed rock out to smooth out he back driveway he has messed up. Today he was out there trying to mess it up. So Bill was taking pictures.

The neighbor said that Bill was harassing him and call the cops. About twenty minutes later a cop showed up at our back door. I chatted with him about the problem. I told him what we were doing. He agreed that we were doing nothing wrong. But I have a feeling that the neighbor will try to get a restraining order against Bill because Bill has one on them.

We ate dinner and I watched the M's game. They tied it in the seventh inning off a homerun by Willie. That was awesome.

I also talked to Ben via E-mail. We are going to get a round of golf setup soon.

Dayshift in the jail

I wanted to take advantage of the dump offering good rates this week, so I went through my house and found everything I could think of that needed to be thrown away. I got it loaded into my truck and was off to the dump. I was a little behind the schedule I wanted to be on. I wanted to get into the jail at noon. I did not get in until twelve-thirty.

While at the jail I manned control for a while. Then some warrants got brought up stairs. I got the paper work going. A form needed to be filled out per warrant and the person need to have a criminal history ran through NCIC III and his license ran through Washington and any other state where he may have a current license. Once that is done then the actual entry can be completed. It take a while to get all the data entered. Then if there is additional information a supplemental entry has to take place. I got all the paperwork and one warrant entered. Then Brian came into control. The district court called and said that someone needed to come over from district court to jail. I went to get him. I got to the district court room and I was told that I was not needed. I went into the Auditor's office. Everyone was excited to see me. They came over and we talked a tiny bit.

Then I was off to the jail to do finger prints for two people who needed to have them done for being a school teacher. One lady said she went to WSU to get it done two times, and both times it was messed up. So she came down to the county to get it done by us.

I got both of those taken care of. I let them go and I heard that Lauren who had a few inmates doing some work outside had lost track of them. The lawn equipment was next to some lawn they had mowed and they were nowhere to be found. I went out and talked to Lauren. He told me the areas they should be. I started to head towards the public service building when they came walking out of the court house. Lauren radioed that he had them. I walked back to where they were. You could see on their faces they were worried about seeing me there.

I asked where they had gone. They said the bathroom. I asked them how long. They said about fifteen minutes. I told them in the future they need to let someone know when they are leaving their assigned area. Eunice came out from the Auditor's office and saw me. She gave me a hug. I went back into the jail and into control. I worked for another two hours or so before calling it a day.

I went home and changed into street clothes. I drove to Pullman and met up with Ryan. We watched Third Watch. Nick and Russell came over. After Third Watch we talked about my mom finding out about me. I also talked to Russell about my friend Dave. Nick showed me a new book he got full of gay quotes. One of them was about gay people knowing how to dress and that they should because they spend a lot of their life in the closet. I was at Ryan's until about midnight and then I went home because I was supposed to meet up with the guy who will be renting a room from me.

Deputy Coroners Meeting

I had my first scheduled deputy coroners meeting for the first time since moving to Seattle. I took Friday off of work to go over today. Before I hit the road I came in to work on the problem of not sending all the prices information with my project. I tried to use known good data to send it to one of the products that was not working. The only person who could tell me if it was working or not was at lunch. I sent an E-mail to her and then headed to lunch and the Colfax.

I rolled into Colfax around five PM. I went to the sheriff's office. I checked my E-mail and talked with the Chaplain. We talked a little about the newspaper articles about the car chase from last week. He also mentioned that it was almost one year to the day of his major injuries when he was hit by a car during a high speed chase. (http://coug1973.blogspot.com/2003/09/pray-for-deputy-ron.html)

Pete, the coroner was in the office too. I talked to him. He asked me to pick up the pizza from Bulldog pizza about five minutes of six pm. I headed off to do that. I grabbed a couple pops and then came back to the coroners office which is located in the basement of the jail. We sat in the break room and ate the pizza while talking to the Sheriff. The Sheriff left and the other deputy coroner showed up. We chowed more on the pizza and chatted more. We made out the schedule for next month's coverage.

When we were done eating we went into the office and covered two recent cases. We looked at evidence and photographs. We went over the reports. We then discussed getting another bag to carry our extra equipment. I got another body bag, some needles, and aprons.

I went home and watched CSI. I had plans on doing some work at the jail and work around the yard so I wanted to get to sleep. I did stay up getting a lot of my junk mail sorted. I got the parts with personal information removed and set into a shred pile and the rest went into a garbage bag. I ended up filling nearly had a big black garbage bag with it.

It's working! ummm. No it's not.

I was going to get the final part of my project going. It is the send button. It will take all the entry information, form it into XML and send it off. It seemed to be working. I was pumped. Then as time went on we realized it was not working perfectly. It would upload data, but some time it wouldn't. I have not figured out exactly why. I worked on that problem for the rest of the day.

I left around six to go to Jon's for dinner. I called Scotty back. He called to see how life was going and see how the talk with my mom went. I told him we never had the talk. Then we talked about him being up at EWU and a trip to Spokane for me one of these days.

I got to Jon's house. We ate dinner. It was pizza from Pizza Hut. It was grub. Then we were going to get a Halloween costume for Logan and Justin. On our way to the show I got a call from a guy named Chris. He is looking at renting a room from me. I hope he does. We are going to meet on Saturday.

After we got the costumes we went back to Jon's and the boys tried on the costumes. We also had some cupcakes for Jon's birthday. It is his thirty-seventh birthday.

I was also watching the M's. The torn apart the Angels today. They were awesome. They tied a club record with twenty-four hits. Also before the game they honored Edgar in Angel Stadium. I thought that was really cool of them.

The pain was really bad.

I spent last night getting Scottyland back up. But I changed it around. I got rid of some stuff as well. So when my alarm clock goes off I turn it off and keep sleeping. Finally I wake up enough to get the day started.

I was at work, working on the pricing tool. All was fine. I met up with Jon and Jim at the Pigs for lunch. After lunch I was back at the office. I started to have a hard time sitting as time went on it got worse and worse. Finally at about two pm I decided I was going to go home.

I got home and took some medicine and went to lay down on my bed. It was the only position of comfort I could find. I spent most of the day doing that. For dinner I went down stairs and it still hurt to sit, but it was not quite as bad.

Then I went back up to my room. I laid down a little more before finally going back downstairs at nine. I was able to sit down without a ton of pain. Today was pretty much a waste of a day. I was going to go to Jon's and work on the pricing tool but I decided I was in too much pain to leave.

I got my softball teams' stats completed. As a team we look pretty good, but we still went one and one on Sunday.

I seem to have found a bit of free time in the last week. I am going to have to choose something for me to do to be productive. I can work on the engineer book for the fire station, I can work on the web-stats program that would use SQL Server, ASP.NET, and C#. I can also start to work on a project for my former boss from California.

I am sooo tired!

So I got to bed about five am. I slept for about four and a half hours before crawling out of bed to drag myself into work.

I spent the day working on tweeking the pricing tool and looking up news on the murder and the two students who died in the motorcycle accident.

I left around six pm. I listened to Paul Harvey's Rest of the Story on the way home. I spent the rest of the evening relaxing. I watched the M's and the season premier of CSI: Miami.

More death to report.

While looking up information online about the death of the Idaho football player I found someone reference something else that happened at UI. I had not seen any official news about it up to that point. But the story went that two students were killed with a mo-ped or motorcycle they were riding on hit a tree on greek row. Alcohol is thought to have been involved.

A short time later I was on the University of Idaho Website and I found a press release by the president of the university. In it he made reference to the two students who had died in the accident as well as the shooting.

I found more information that one student was killed instantly and one died in Spokane at the hospital later on.

A sad day for the University of Idaho.

Murder in Moscow

Last night while on my way back to Seattle from Pullman I stopped by Rosauers in Colfax. I was chatting with a store clerk to told me of a shooting in Moscow. She said the person was in surgery. She said that they were involved in a high speed pursuit. They went through Colfax at about eighty miles per hour.

Colfax PD, Whitman County SO, and WSP were all involved in the chase which lasted about two hours covering more than one hundred and fifty hours. It was ended on the Vantage bridge near state-route-twenty-six and interstate-ninety. The people were taken to the Whitman County jail.

I found out this afternoon the person who was shot, Eric McMillan, was a University of Idaho starting football player. He ended up dying at about four am this morning. The people involved were two brothers a twenty-seven and a twenty-five year old from Seattle. They were charged with first degree murder and are currently being held in the Whitman County Jail.

I have a partner!

I planned on sleeping in today because I was going to drive back to Seattle at the midnight hours. I did not sleep in like hoped. I was in great pain due to my ankle. I also got several phone calls, the first one at eight-thirty am. I was trying to sleep and someone woke me up before ten am on a weekend. It always happens to me when I want to sleep in. But I could not turn off the phone because I was on call for the coroner's office.

Finally I crawl out of bed half past eleven am. I barely could walk. I went and watched some TV and elevated my ankle. I had to walk around a little bit. As I did more and more my ankle loosened up. It was starting to feel a little better.

I decided to do something around the house. I had some glasses with some hard water stains from leaving water in it and having the water evaporate out. I had some CLR. I put that in the glasses with the hard-water stains. I swished that around and then rinsed the glass. Unlike the TV commercials the stain was still there. So I used some soap and water with a scrub pad. The stains came off. So I think the CLR loosened up the stains. I put them in the dishwasher with the other items and got the dishwasher going.

I was going back and forth with myself over whether I was going to sleep at the house until five am and then go to Seattle or leave right after the softball games. By the time I left I had decided that I was going to come back to the house and sleep until five am.

I called Kristine and asked if she would be my partner so I could play IM Softball. She said she would. Ryan was going to do it for me but I thought it would not be too comfortable for him to do. I was happy he was willing but I did not want him to essentially announce to the IM people that he is gay.

I drove to Pullman and straight to the rec center. I got signed up for softball. Then I went to my office. I checked my mail. Got a check for my sub-contractor. Got a check made out for the rent. I also got the deposits ready for the bank. Then I got dinner and headed over to Ryan's apartment. We hung out until game time. I had a chance to watch the end of the movie Radio. We had started to watch it Friday night. I did not see the end. This time I did.

I got my softball uniform on and we went to the field. It was raining and cold. But we finally started to throw the ball around and warm up. We had ten guys exactly. That was nice. We played the first game against some guy Asian guys. They were not very good. But they were having an awesome time out there. They were laughing and enjoying themselves. As a team we liked to play against them because of their wonderful attitude. We ended up beating them sixteen to three.

The second game was not very good. We did not hit nor did we have great fielding efforts. We ended up losing by nine runs. It sucked. We also has a dispute over something that happened. I looked up the rules afterwards. Our field manager and the other arguing the point were wrong.

I went back to Colfax and decided that I was not tired and I decided to head to Renton to night. I stopped by Rosauers. I talked to Stacy for a few minutes. She told me about a high speed chase through Whitman County. It went all the way to Vantage. They were chasing two guys in a car who were involved in the shooting of someone in Moscow.

I was driving along and I was fine for the most part. I was not tired. I was listening to Art Bell. He had people on there talking about Near Death Experiences. That got me thinking about a lot of things.

The first line of thought brought me back to high school. We use to play full tackle football at a near by park on the weekends. One of the guys who showed up was about two years older that me. He played with us from time to time. He did not go to Liberty, however. One day a show came on TV about NDE's. Then I saw him on the show! I was shocked. I don't remember anything about his story.

Then as I listened longer a lady from Seattle was on the show talking about her NDE. She talked about meeting Jesus. She spoke of seeing for the first time. She has been blind since birth and has not seen a single thing in her life. She spoke about having a chance to see people she had known and had a chance to experience their thoughts. She essentially saw the other side of the fence with all these people.

After going through what she did she became a lot more religious. A doctor was on the show talking about medical issues with NDE's. He said about ten seconds after the blood stops going to the brain it loses activity to the point where no activity is recordable by even the most sensitive equipment.

As I listened to her story I thought about me. I thought about where I will be going. If I will be meeting my maker or going to hell like some in the religious world think I will go to. She talked about the love and forgiveness she has learned.

As I listened to her I reflected on a lot of things that have happened to me lately. I can't say there is forgiveness, for no one has really hurt me. It was me choosing to push others away. It is me who should be asking for forgiveness.

I have been thinking about some things and about my conversation with AJ the other night. I am a control freak. I like to be in control at all times. I reverse into parking spaces so I can leave quickly if I need to. I hate the feeling of being drunk. You know you are impaired. You mentally know it. But you cannot physically do what you want, yet you know you can't. That is like being trapped in a body with no arms, no legs, no eyes, no voice, etc. You cannot do anything, but you are mentally fine. It is like being trapped in a hellish prison. That is a messed up thought.

I think about those people who are in jail, who are going to be executed. They have no control over their life. No matter what they try to do what happens is not up to them. I get totally freaked out by the idea that I lose control.

That control is what happened to me. I lost control with my mom knowing that I was gay. I lost control with people knowing at G-Shack. I lost control over what was happening with my softball team. I was losing control of everything. The only thing I had control over was whether I continued to communicate with the shack. You can say that maybe the reason why I chose to leave has a little to do with being forced out and a little to do with exercising some control to know that I have it.

AJ and I talked about whether I had to come out or not, but like I told him I was in a bad situation. I had a few choices. I could ignore the question and let it fester out there and see where it goes. I could lie about it, but I decided a long time ago I will not lie about it. I will only dodge the question if possible if I am in a situation where I don't want to answer it. The other option was to exercise what control I could have and be the one to come out rather than someone else pushing me out.

Speaking of coming out on my own terms rather than being rushed. Richard, a man who I do respect, said that I should take what happened to me and come out to the rest of my family now versus waiting for my mom to accidentaly out me. That of course would keep the control in my hands. Not telling anyone keeps the control in my hands, because I choose not to say, but should my mom say something, then the control is gone and I then have to deal with it on their schedule versus them dealing with it on my schedule. Though that is a good idea, I am very much for keeping it hidden and pretending that I lead a normal life.

Beating up Vandals

It is Cougar Football Saturday and I am happy. I am not quiet excited, but I am happy about it. I love Cougar football. It is what got me through my first semester at WSU. I was here by myself and I did not know many people. My high school classmates were here, but the ones who did come were not really my friends. So I was alone. Which I spend most of my life being alone. I always went to the games alone. I wanted to get there early and be near the fifty yard line on the very front row. That is just what I did. None of the people who lived with me wanted to do that. I ate alone. I was pretty much by myself with other people. It reminds me of the Offspring song "as I sit here alone in a room full of people." It is like I was surrounded by people but none of them were close with me.

We did things together but it was because when you throw a bunch of humans together and lock the door they will tend to associate. But once the door is opened they will go on their separate ways.

I had to get up and get to Pullman by ten am for softball practice. That is just what I did. We were there for about two hours. Mainly did some BP and a little fielding. Then Ryan and I went to Moscow to get him some cleats. It am happy that he finally got some. I dropped him off at his place and went to Colfax to get ready for the game.

I went to the fire station because Carl said he was going to have a few students down and they were going to do some training. I thought I would come in and see what was going on. They were on the street spraying water. They were having fun. Then Bryce came over. We talked about the football game that the Cougs will be playing later on.

I went to the gas station. I got a phone call. It was AJ from G-Shack. He wanted to know what was going on and wanted to talk to me about it. We chatted for quiet a while. I talked to him all the way to Pullman and then I parked my truck and went to Peter's room. That is when AJ and I hung up.

He said that he felt like one of those people I was talking about where we do not really chat anymore. At best it is a few lines and the conversation dies. He said he wanted to have the good conversations with me again.

I head in to Peter's room. There are a few people playing Mario Cart on the game cube. I watch them for about twenty minutes. Then they leave to go to the game. Peter and I sat around and talked for a little bit before we headed to dinner. We went to the Roto. I have a sloppy joe and some curly fries.

We walked up to the tailgate party. My ankle was already hurting from the softball practice. It was not getting any better. In fact it was starting to hurt more. We first went to see John. He was there with the dealership. We talked for a few minutes and then went to the main tailgate party. I had some snack food and a beer. I talked with Jim and a few other people.

We watched some of the Husky game before heading into the stadium. We were planning on standing against the very top of the stadium. And that was a good thing because that is what we had to do. We stood next to two groups of girls. The group to our left were really drunk. One of the girls was hanging off of Peter. She kept touching him and flirting with him. I could see he was not interested. I was laughing about it. I made a few jokes. The Cougs came out and made an interception on the first play of the game.

They dominated the Vandals. We ended up winning with a score of forty-nine to eight. They scored their only points with seconds to go. Our whole defense was second stringers. They had made a long pass and run to get to our twelve. We had a player on the defense who made a diving stop and tackled the guy. But in the process he broke his wrist. So he got carted off.

My ankle was in so much pain. I was in agony. I could not stand very well. But I always stand at Cougar games so during the TV time outs I would sit to rest the ankle and stand up again. My section was almost clear by the end of the game. But Peter and I kept cheering.

After the game we went down to the field level and did the fight song with the team and headed out. We walked to Peter's room. It was a long painful walk. I got into his room and sat down on his couch. I sat there for about two hours. We talked a little bit and watched some TV. His neighbor Ben came into the room. I introduced myself to him.

When I finally went to leave I barely could stand. My ankle was not stiff and sore as all heck. I hobbled very slowly to my truck. I was in great pain. I went home and wanted to ice it and elevate it. I put in a Simpson's DVD. I took some pain medicine. I iced it and elevated it.

Bosco on Third Watch almost died.

I got several things on the pricing tool polished up today. It is taking shape and I am getting close to the specs of the project. I have one or two more major things and then the rest should be cosmetic.

I left at about two pm and stopped by the Safeway where my mom works. We talked for a little bit. I got some pizza from her and then I was off to the races. Coming over this weekend was painful at times as the traffic moved slowly. It took a while to get into clear roadway.

I got to Dusty and the rest of the way in it was following someone else. I can't complain too much because they were going pretty fast.

When I got home I shaved the two plus weeks of growth of hair from my face and got my coroner's stuff into my truck. I went to the fire station and Carl was down there. We talked for a little while about the test they had today for the fire fighting position that will open up soon.

Then I raced off to Pullman to meet with Ryan we were going to watch the season premier for Third Watch. It was pretty good. It picked up with the cliff hanger left off last season. After the was done we watched CSI and a few other shows. I worked on his computer.

He had a ton of spyware, viruses, and trojan horses on it. I got the stuff cleaned off. We got some pizza and ate while watching TV. It was pretty fun to just hang out with Ryan and play with his kitties.

Something helped.

I was feeling a little better today. I think that Ryan saying he loved me has helped that. I am still freeked out by my mom knowing what she does. I am still upset about IM softball. It seems funny about that to most people I am sure, but to me softball is my number one priority in my life. Sad, hey? Well that is the case.

I don't know when things will be totally back to normal for me though. My life may get another major change. If I get this job at WSU that I applied for. Now I am feeling the same way that I did before I left there. I don't really want to leave here. It is not that I like it here. I think the money and the potential for much more money! I need that money. I am swimming in problems. I seems that they may really want me at WSU. Their pay may cause a five thousand dollar pay cut for me. I don't know if I can handle that. I really don't know what way I will go if I get the offer. I love getting into work when I get in. I don't like the whole rigid be here at eight am. Being a programmer is like being a college student in many ways. You have a job to do, a deadline. Then it is up to you to get it done. Whether you work at eight in the morning or ten in the morning like I currently do.

I got my recommendation letters turned in. I am not going to get dropped from the running for this job.

I went home after I got off work. I have been working on a laptop I got. It shuts down randomly and then when it does that it loses its system time and date. I am not sure what is causing it yet. I did manager to get Windows XP, Visual Studio, and SQL Server on it. It has a DVD and a burner in it. That is nice for sure.

I spent the evening watching the Mariners game. Boone has having problems in the eighth inning. A throw to home hit a bat that was laying there and bounced far away from Wilson. This allowed two runs to score. Then he let a ball right between his legs under his glove. And then to top it off on a steal attempt he went to make the tag and the ball again went under his legs and glove into center field.

I read a couple comments left in a blog entry from a few days ago. Matt was one of those guys who I never really chatted with anymore. Our last few ones were filled with small talk and very brief in nature. As are the ones with Jephren and Kale. Richard and I have actually had better talks more recently than we did early on. The same with Steve. Early on it seemed hard to talk to those guys but now they have opened up a lot more to me and I like talking to them.

This may be selfish on my part but I sort of felt that Richard doesn't want anything more than just some chatting. Early on I talked to him about playing some ping pong. Sort of jokingly but being serious too. He said that would be cool. But now it seems like when I talked to him about it I mentioned I would be in town. He made mention that maybe he would see me in the CUB and we could play then. I doubt I will hang out in the CUB for hours on end waiting for Richard to walk through the doors.

Other than having posted on G-Shack and being a Coug I don't really think that we have too much in common, at least not enough to sustain any sort of anything past being chat buddies.

I have a habit of pushing people away from me when I feel like I do right now. It tends to ruin budding friendships. I just hate talking to people online and it is only small talk. Most of the people on my IM list before the G-Shack days are mainly people I communicate with when there is something specific to talk about. All of them were friends first and then they were put on my IM list. I don't have the same connection with those on G-Shack.

The G-Shack people have been people I would just talk to about anything -- but they were nothing more than chat buddies. It was fun and we talked about a lot of stuff and it was a real conversation. I am just tired of the ones now where there is so much lag time. Maybe they have several other conversations going at once, but that to me is a problem. I don't like to talk to people where I am a sidelight to other things. I feel like I am bothering them. I don't want to be a pest nor someone who is bothersome.

I tend to only get into one conversation at a time. I want to focus on the person I am talking to and talk to them. It seems like some people just IM to chat to a lot of people. It is not fulfilling to have twenty conversations full of small talk. Once again maybe I am being selfish, but that is the way I feel. It is that I am not looking to have a lot of chat buddies.

Cougar Football - only different

Victory!!! I got that padding issue solved today. I finally decided that I was going to have to step through thousands of lines of code. I saw something happen that did not happen in another section. I found the problem. Then I lost it. I was so mad. It took a little less time to come up with it again. It was a single line of code about twenty-five characters long.

I added it in and then complied the DLL's. But due to the way our product was I had to recompile about five different projects in the correct order to get it to work. I tested it and bingo! It was working. I passed it along to testing.

I chatted with Ryan for a little bit. He asked me why I was feeling down. I told him it was an array of things. All starting with my mom finding out. He asked if she wasn't being supportive. I said that was not the case. She is fine. It is just that I feel weird now. Plus the other things. I feel drained and I don't want to deal with things. I told him that if I am offered the job working in Pullman I had some question over whether I would take it or not.

I am also worried about playing IM softball this season. I am afraid that a team with two former players could protest should be beat them. It would put us in the spotlight and depending on how the ruling goes we could have to forfeit the games. I would feel horrible if that happened.

Ryan wants me to be there because he feels the team needs my leadership because of the disarray from last week. It showed that there were problems. He asked me some questions about the person involved in the situation from Sunday. He never told me what exactly happened. Now he was asking me for information. I feel like I don't want to deal with it. I told him that and I told him that it was mainly because I am not feeling well mentally. I am feeling down about a lot of things. He said he still loves me. That was so nice to hear from him. He is my best friend and I think it helped to hear that -- A lot!

On the way home I decided that I would stop by Apollo and see Alec in football practice. He plays for Five-Star Cougars. The same club I played for at his age. It was fun to watch the practice. After words I talked to the coach from the team. He was a player for Five-Star back in the day. I found out he actually played with my brother Jon. That was cool. So I called Jon and told him about that.

I got home and ate dinner. There was fried chicken and potato salad. It was good. I like those foods. I watched some TV including Rescue Me. I spent some time online posting on my new message board.

I fell asleep in the recliner. I got up at about three am and went to my bed. But I could not get back to sleep. It was a little after five am when I finally looked at the alarm clock for the last time and drifted off to sleep.

Moving on

I went to bed earlier than normal last night and I got up earlier than normal. I got ready for work but ended up getting there at my normal time.

I worked on the problem that I was given the other day where a string tat is being sent to Fannie Mae does not have the right number of spaces. I got going on that again. I had to rebuild a few projects to get the debugging to work correctly.

Then I was called into a meeting with the rest of the Dev team. We are going from Source Safe to a new source system. We were learning about that and helping to set up the new system. After the meeting we had a company lunch. We had pizza and cake.

I got working on my problem again and I also worked on the new source system. I got all the files that I was assigned moved into the new system. I also figured out what the problem with the missing space is. Now I have to figure out how to fix it.

Dave called me up with tickets to the Mariner's game. I went to Renton Honda to get them and I gave Terry a ride to Renton. I could not find someone to go to the game with me so I did not go. I watched the game on TV.

I spent part of the evening looking for a different forum to start to post on. I found one out of Spokane. It seems like many of the members are conservative and there is a much larger age range. I signed up and started to post. I think I will move from G-Shack to the new place. I also shut down my board. It is pretty much just G-Shack people.

I want to distance myself from them. I removed all the G-Shack people from my IM list and I am moving on with life. I don't know how much of a presence I will have on my new board.

I still feel very down. I want to change my life into something more that I like. I have not made all the changes, but I think maybe this is a step in the right direction. I spent too much time on G-Shack and the fun I was having there has diminished over the last month or so.

Many of the people that I use to be able to chat with for long periods of time are all gone or we just don't chat like we use to. It seems they have moved on.

In the dumps

I have been down in the dumps. I seem to have my up moments and down moments lately. Normally I don't suffer swings like that, but right now I am. I think I can look at several things that are important to me that are weight me down.

First there was what my mom found out. Then the conversation with Dave from Friday night. Add that with what happened to the Cougs, what happened with my softball team yesterday, what has been happening on G-Shack and then today someone has to go and bring up the idea that I am gay for all to see.

I made a topic and told everyone that I am indeed gay. People came back and said they are all good with me. The one person who pushed the issue said she felt bad. But if you say it didn't matter whether or not I was gay, then why would you even bother asking. And if she really cared why did not she not ask me. She posted a message about it.

Kale posted this message:
It disappoints me that people found a need to have to stick their nose in a place they didn't need to go. It's not anyone's real business. If scotty (lobo) wanted to come out and say it, he would have. You should be ashamed.

Now, Im not pointing any fingers, but my god, let this be a lesson to you. Don't mess with people's personal affairs, its not your deal. If they wanted you to know or be involved in it, they will take the initiative. Now, Scotty and I have talked about a lot of things, and it doesn't matter to me about his sexuality, what matters is that he is a kick ass guy, and you all (who poke your nose, aloud, in other's businesses) should respect that.

I'm not here to preach, just voicing my opinion on what needed to be said.

I like what Kale said there. I think of all the comments his was the best. We chatted a little bit. But there is something strange. The first few times we chatted we have a good conversation. But the last few times he is distracted at best. I will type stuff and ask questions. He responds to the question but it is not like there is a real conversation. I feel like I am the only one keeping it going.

I understand he is popular and has a lot of people who want to talk to him, so I don't hold it against him. It is just something that is tough for me to deal with. I sort of expect a certain level of commitment with the person I am chatting with, otherwise it is worthless to talk. If I wanted to watch myself type something I would write more blogs.

I sent Kale my thoughts on that. He said he was sorry. I hope I don't make him feel bad. It is just that I would love to have the kind of conversations that him and Jephren have. Or the kind of conversations that we had the first few times. Then again, if it doesn't happen it is not like it is a huge loss. It is not like I really know him all that well anyhow. LOL... I guess I can't get to know him until we can talk.

I was lazy

I woke up this morning after trying to sleep in. I went down stairs and got online. I spent the whole day watching football and chatting online.

I helped do the laundry. Yeah. I spent the whole day doing that. Yeah. I am lazy.

I did get in a debate with Jughez online. He said:
When I said "get over it," I was just inferring about how tired I am of people sneaking on some quick comment or jab about what happened on that day 3 years ago.

"omg...today is that day...that those omg terrorists attacked us..." Guess what? Get over it. It happened, it was a horrible tragedy. Stop making FUCKING threads about it. There's enough controvesial CRAP flying around this damn forum now, and all we need is someone to start a thread for it only to end up in some pointless fight that's going to stir up a load of fighting and bickering and anguish, only for everyone in the end to look stupid. Because we all know there's nothing more embarassing than arguing on the internet. So, again, get over it.

I pray for those lost, but keep it out of here.

I responded by saying:
Good point! We should stop thinking about it. It happened three friggen years ago.

I can't believe we still celebrate independence day too! What a crock. That was like what 228 years ago?!?! No one is alive today who was that so why should we think about that anymore?

I mean seriously each was only life altering event. Why should we think about that crap anymore?

His follow up was:
lobo... you're an asshole

I cannot believe his personal attack on me. I did attack his dumb comments but not him. I also got into it a little bit with another guy. He said a long time ago he hated the forum and hated us. But he never left. So I take every opportunity to rub his face in it. He got mad and went off on me. I put him back in his place and then Jephren spoke up and back me up on what I said.

The IM office screwed over my softball team. I spent about an hour off and on the phone with Ryan trying to figure out what to do. I had talked to them day after day about postponing the games from today. They said they would and then they didn't. To top it off they said if we don't play tonight we will get two forfeits. I was so mad about the situation.

The team played with only eight people. Got ten runned in the first game and it was not much better in the second game.

Other than that today was pretty un-noteworthy.

A day to remember.

As the morning rolls around I struggle to get out of bed only five hours after I went there. But I managed and got myself ready for a big day of sports.

I drove to Seattle to find myself a spot to park for free or cheap. Unfortunately I got off later than I wanted. I got to Seattle and there were a lot of people there. All the nearby free spots were long gone. So I went to my back up spot. It was reserved for a Kappa Sigma party. I ended up paying through the nose to park across the street from the North parking lot at Seahawk Stadium.

I called Jim H. and let him know I was coming down. He told me where to find him. I walked to where he explained he would be which was the second row of cars near the stadium. There were a lot of people. Lots of food. I brought some cookies and put them where people could get to them.

I saw Jim and Tom. I said hi to them. Jim got me something to drink. I hung out and talked to TJ. He was telling about being at WSU and his classes. He is a nice guy and a ten-six-seven. He went to the same high school I did.

As game time came I made my way to my seat. It was on the West side of the stadium at about the forty yard like. It was in the three hundred level about thirty-five rows up. Before the game they had a huge American Flag. They talked about the attacks on September eleventh in ought-one. They Cougar marching band play the Star Spangled Banner. As always my eyes got watery, but today it was more than normal. It was very moving.

Speaking of the band it was neat to see how large the band is this year. There is about two hundred-twenty-five members. It is the biggest band ever. And it shows. It is much easier to hear. In fact is was easy to hear. It was so cool.

Sadly the Cougar offense had problems. Early on Swogger was right on the mark. The receivers were dropping the ball left and right. After a while Swogger was missing the receivers. The kicking game was horrible. This is the worst I have ever seen on a Cougar team. We missed two field goals. We had a bad snap on one. The punting was bad. Abnormally bad. Our punter is good. He had a bad day. He had a blocked punt that was recovered for a touchdown for Colorado.

Brink went in at QB. He did not do much better at first, but he started to get on fire. He did telegraph one of passes, a Freshman mistake, it was run back for a touchdown. The bad punt and the bad pass cost us the game. Well, so did the missed field goal opportunities.

On the bright side we had the defense. They were great. They had tons of three and outs. They have forced fumbles. They held Colorado to one-hundred-seventeen yards total offense. That is how good the defense was. The WSU offense had four-hundred-sixteen total yards of offense and could not muster up a win.

After the game I went back to the tailgate party. I talked to Jim H. I said what can you say about that game? They have something to work on this week. I was going to meet up with Peter and we were going to go the Mariner's game.

He called me and he said he was on his way to Safeco Field. I walked that way and met him there. We walked up to our seats. We were there early. We talked for a while. Then the game started. The Mariners took the field and quickly the Boston Red Sox took a lead and spread that lead through out the night ending it with a nine to nothing win. There were so many Boston fans it sounded like that it was a Boston home game.

Peter and I talked about some politics. I was telling him about some of the fun I have had on G-Shack debating with a communist and a left-ist democrat.

So after a day where the Cougs and the Mariners lost I was going to go home. I am tired and ready to go to bed, but I cannot get myself to go to bed before midnight. So I stayed online and I chatted with Kale and Jephren for a bit. It was mainly small talk nothing in depth. It is hard to get in a deep conversation with Kale because he seems to be a popular man. He is always getting hit up for conversations.

I finally decided it was time for me to get to bed. I signed off the conversations. I let Amber out to go to the bathroom. She saw one of the wild rabbits and went chasing it. So I had to go out and find her because she was having fun.

Politics and Money with Dave

Dave gave me a call to see if I wanted to go out to see a movie with him. We planned on seeing Michael Moores movie. Only so we could poke holes in peoples' arguments they get from that movie. I did not want to pay to see it. I planned on getting a ticket for something else and going into that movie. We met in Renton but the movie was not playing so I got in with Dave and we drove down to Auburn to the old Freddie's club casino. I believe it is now the Iron Horse. We played some cards down there for a while before leaving and heading back to Renton.

Dave and I were talking about gays. He said he does not have a problem with gays. He said he didn't care if I was gay at all. I said that he sounded different than he was speaking that day out on the boat. He clarified his position. I did not tell him anything, but I don't think it would be an issue between us.

When we got back to Renton we were talking about money and buying houses and cars and how our credit is hurt by certain things. At the time I was hurting for money so. I wanted to really get rid of my truck at that time. We talked about ways to sell it. But it would be a net loss for me to do. After spending about an hour in his car talking about money and being wasteful he had to get going. So I got in my truck and drove home.

Back to normalcy

I went into work expecting to finish up some stuff Jon and I did last night. However I was given a new task. There is something that is being created with twenty-eight spaces. It needs to be one hundred and forty spaces.

I spent pretty much my whole day trying to figure out where it is getting made. I have gone through a ton of code and have yet to find it. I would think once I come up with it, it will be easy to fix. I hope.

I did do a tiny bit on what Jon and I worked on. I main put some comments in and cleaned up some code.

I came home and help Bill do some mowing on the yard. I have to do the weed eating tomorrow.

I was watching the news and learned that Bob Mars was murdered by a fourteen year old as part of a gang initiation. That makes me sick to my stomach. I cannot believe someone would do that. It is wrong. They kid deserves to swing over it, but he wont.

I talked with Jephren for a while. We were talking about him being away from his friends. I offered him suggestions and told him one good thing to do at the university is to get involved. I also talked to Kale. We talked a little bit about him. We did not get a chance to talk to much because he was pretty busy.

Typical Humpday

Work was not extraodition. I did get a couple things coded and working for me on my project at work. I was planning on meeting with Jon so we could go over it.

I was to go to his house Wednesday night. I came home from work and cooked a pizza for dinner.

I headed out to Jon's. We worked on the things that I had done. We fixed a few things that did not work and he helped me to streamline the code. I have a few things I need to work on at work tomorrow, but I am getting close to the point of being done.

Lack of concentration.

I could not concentrate very well at work today. I kept thinking about what my mom found last night. I was totally freaking out. We were going to talk when I got home. I am not sure what I am going to say. I am so nervous. That was all I could think of.

I didn't get a lot of work done today because of that. I had called Scotty H. last night. He called me back while I was at work. I went out and talked to him for a while. He is going to be going to Eastern when it starts. He was the man who helped me come out to myself for the most part. He is the guy I was at the picnic with when I met Peter.

Scotty and I had a class together and we studied for tests a few years ago. I really like Scotty. He is so nice to everyone. I asked him what he said to him mom when they talked about it. He said at first they did not say much. But his mom got a lot of books about it and she read about homosexuality. He said they have a great relationship.

When I got off work I came home expecting to talk. My mom and I never had the conversation I was expecting to have. In some ways I was happy that we didn't. I was actually sort of comfortable around her. But I am so uncomfortable now that she knows. The ability to pretend it does not exist can not happen anymore.

Then night went on and we still didn't talk. Everyone went to bed without speaking of it. Maybe with some time things will get smoother and I will not have it on my mind the whole time I am around her.

Someone I know got murdered and an unplanned outing

So the day started out like any other I have had. I woke up and came down stairs at about eleven am. I spent most of the day on the computer. It was a holiday so I did not have to go into work. I watched some TV and just wasted the day by kicking back.

Playing football for the Palouse Thunder I had a chance to meet a man named Bob Mars. He is from the Tri-Cities and taught in Benton City. I talked to him for a moment during out game against the Tri-Cityies Rattlers. He was one of their coaches. I noticed he looked very similiar to someone I knew in Pullman. I asked him what his name was. He told me. I then asked him if he was related to _________. He said he was not. I was shocked how similiar they are.

Well today on the news there was a story about a high school football coach that had been murdered. They flashed his picture and name. I skipped a heart beat. It was the same guy I knew. I could not believe it. A person I had talked to a matter of a few months ago was now dead.

He was at the school to drop off a video tape of the high school football game. He was not found until the next morning laying in the hallway of the school. Video tape still in hand. His truck was in the parking lot with the driver window smashed out.

They said he died hours before, but the man did not die instantly it sounds like. He was stabbed once in the abdomin. He bled to death. A man with no reason to be dead today is dead. Sometimes early this morning his life blood bled from his body and he died. I can't believe it.

This is the only person I have known to be killed by murder.

Then it happened. I was getting ready for dinner. I was getting the butter and honey to set the table. My mom was on her computer in the den. She called for me to come in there. I walked in expecting to see some sort of spyware thing on the computer. Instead I saw my blog. I heart sank and I got quiet. I am sure my blood pressure and heart rate went through the roof. I could feel my heart beating and I could feel myself starting to shake.

After 30 plus years of hiding from my parents and family it has come to reality. My life has changed! It can never go back to what it was like this morning or yesterday. This is a new life. This is my new life where my mom knows that I am gay. She read some of my blog and there it was. Undeniable. It was me. I can't tell you how much I did not want to this day to come.

I certainly was not ready for that day to be today. Thankfully she told me she loved me and did not care about my choices. She wants to be part of my life. She also told me she would not tell anyone else in the family. I know she will try but someday it will slip out. Someday the homophobic part of my family will find out about me.

Wow... This is messed up. I wish I wasn't gay.

A little bit later I was cleaning up after dinner and getting the left-overs ready for the dog. My mom was going up stairs. Then she came back. She said she loves me no matter what and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

ECC classic day two

I was able to sleep in a little bit today. By about one hour. I had to get to Kent for day two of softball. We went out and played our first game against the Rockets. It was a close game compared to the others. We only won by a run or two. I played first base. I did not have a great bat today, but I was able to get something going.

We had a little break until our next game. I found some shade and chatted with Gabe and Jeffrey. Then we went to watch another D-League game. We were watching the team from Arizona play a local team. I was rooting for the Arizona team, but the others wanted the local team.

The Arizona team ended up coming back and winning. We went to play Diamonds. We had crushed them on Saturday. No one was hitting and we were flat. We lost the game by three runs. So now we were in the losers bracket.

The next game was right after the first one. We played an all women's team. There were some girls on the team that up until we played them I thought were guys. I was quiet surprised. We beat them by a six to nothing shut out.

We had a few minutes off until our next game. I was going to pitch. For some reason I have a problem in my head. I cannot pitch my best out there. I actually did pretty well. My hitting was okay. I had a three run inside the park homerun. That was the best part for me. I was looking down the right field line. I hit a screamer down the line. It went deep.

I was rounding second on my way to third. I was watching for the basecoach. He final sent me. I made it home without a problem. I was pumped! We were winning. Then they had a good inning. Soon we lost the lead and the game.

We ended up losing the game. We were disappointed. We got second place in the tournament. I went home after that and changed. I showered up because I was all sweaty and dirty.

I spent the rest of the night relaxing. I did not have anything I had to do. I just chatted online for quiet a while. I was talking with a guy named Kale from Arizona. He was very nice. He is a hard-core Republican. We were talking about church. Being gay. As well as a few other issues. It was great to talk with him. I like that guy a lot. He is very open.

ECC classic day one.

I got up and I was tired. I got ready and headed to Kent for softball. I had to be there at eight am. I met up with a few others on the team. My back was sort of tight at first and I was worried how it would hold up.

Our first game was at nine pm. I played first base. I batted fifth. We won the first game pretty easily. Then we quickly had a second game. We again won. I was at first and batting fifth.

After that we had about an hour and a half break. Several of us went to Subway. Eric rode with me. It was great to chat with him. I had never really talked to him. I was pretty surprised to hear that he was not big into the whole flamer thing. He actually does not like it. He does not come off as a gay guy very much. I found he is very nice. Up until then we never really talked too much.

The third game I pitched. We won by a pretty good margin. That was it for the round robin. We waited to see when our next game would be. It was going to be at around five-thirty. So we went to a place next the field and ate. Then we went back to the field and watched some of the games. We were waiting for our game.

We played and beat the first team pretty easily. Our bats were on and we had no problem beating people today. I hit some doubles through out the day but that was the best I could do.

I went home and had dinner. Following that I watched TV and chatted online. I was keeping up with the football game between De La Salle and Bellevue High School. De La Salle has a one hundred and fifty-one game win streak on the line. Bellevue High School beat them. Breaking a win streak that dated back to ninety-one. I had to get up early again for day two of the tournament.

Plugging along

I spent the first part of my day upgrading my Visual Studio to the newest version. While that was going on several of us went to get lunch. We went back and ate in Terry's office. Then I went back to the install of my Visual Studio.

Once I was done with that something was not working so I had to use the MSDN to get that problem fixed. I started to work on my project. I got some of those things done that I needed to get done.

I went home at about five-thirty pm. I watched the Cougar Game at six pm. The Cougs were flat in the first half. They could not get anything going. Finally in the second half they scored. Then New Mexico scored several times. It was in the forth quarter. The Cougs needed to get to work. But the way they had been playing would be hard to overcome. With around twelve minutes to play in the forth quarter they had a forth and nine. They went for it and got a huge gain.

From that point on it was all Cougars. We got an interception. We got a blocked punt. We went ahead and won the game. It was awesome.

I spent the rest of the night chatting with people online before going to bed. I had a softball tournament in the morning in Kent.

Watching the Boys

Jon asked if I could watch his kids for a little bit. I told him I could. So after work I went to his house. I gave Logan his birthday present. It was a rubic cube. He wanted one of those. So he was excited about it.

Jon and Lisa left and the boys and I played some games. I watched the end of the M's game at the same time. Then I watched Bush's speech at the Republican Convention. It was cool to listen to him speak.

Jon came home and we watched some TV. I watched Forty-Eight Hours with Eddie Murphy. I had never seen that. Then Jon and I worked on the UI stuff I got working at work today. He liked what he saw.

He told me a few things I needed to work on while I was at work on Friday. I took mental note and then I left to go home.

Seeing the doc

I decided to make my way into work today. My back was still hurting and it was hard to sit. I didn't get to my work very quickly. Everyone asked how the back was doing. I told them it was getting better. I then decided that I would go to the doctor and see about getting some medicine to help it heal so I can play softball this weekend.

I got some prescription strength Aleve. I will start to take that. I told the doc hat I had softball this weekend I needed to play. She laughed and said, you have your priorities. I smiled and said that I did.

I went over to Jon's house and we worked on my project for a while and got a few things working on it. That was nice. I am getting closer to having a UI that will work nicely.

Going to California

It was September of Two-Thousand. It was a major turning point in my life. I only had three jobs. I was a firefighter/EMT with Pullman Fire. I was a worker in a computer lab on WSU's campus. I was a full time corrections officer for Whitman County. I also decided to go back to college and finish my degree in Biology/Education. I was taking a three hundred level biology class.

I had just seen my first dead person while working EMS. It was cluster of a call but in the end we were not meant to go. The person died in her sleep. We were dispatched on accident. We got on scene and I walked through the door and saw a dead person. She was blue in the face and clearly dead. All of a sudden a lady in the jumped out in front of us and said "You can't touch her." Then, as Paul Harvey would say, we learned the Rest of the Story. She was a hospice patient. She died, so the family called her funeral home of choice in the Seattle-area. That was about three-hundred miles from Pullman. So they called a Pullman funeral home. They called the police and in the confusion of everything the dispatchers sent us instead of the police.

So it was a weird situation and I was not totally ready to see what I did. The body was actually peaceful and it was not gross, it was just shocking to see the blue-grey face and have someone jump out at me. This had an effect on me for a few days there after.

At the jail I was working graveyard. That shift started at midnight and went to eight o'clock am. It was starting to be a drag to work those hours. I slept each day from about three pm to eleven pm. It was hard to get good sleep. I had actually worked that shift for eight months. I was off of it for four months while I was working swing shift. Then I was back on it. I was doing another eight month stint on it. Each Friday I would get up at eleven pm. I would work, then go home, but I did not want to miss any of my day off so I would stay up usually for anywhere from twenty-six to thirty hours straight. I did that every week.

While at work I would be up at four am doing a round checking on a jail full of criminals that were in locked cells sleeping. I was really getting into a rut. I wanted a change. I did not want to be up at four am unless I was having fun. I hated what I was doing. I wanted a new job. I wanted to work normal hours.

I had gone to bed to get ready for work the next day when my phone rang. It was a guy named Jim. He owned a company called SolidPartners. It was a computer company based in Livermore, California. He said he was interested in hiring me to be a web developer. He sent me a contract and asked me to fly down there and meet the board of directors.

I had a flight to California two days later. I met people and looked around. I was told that I would have to be there for at least three months and then I could possible work from home in Pullman. I was offered forty thousand buck. That was a big raise over what I was making in the jail. Plus it was doing web work and normal hours. I liked that idea a lot.

The problem was that I would have to leave the fire department. That is something I did not want to do. I love being a fireman and I knew I would not be able to do that in California. For the next week I was in a zone. Each call I knew could be my last. I hated parking the truck because I did not know if I would ever get to ride in it again.

I did a lot of thinking. I debated really hard. Stay in Pullman, work a job I hate but do the things I love. Or I could move to California, make more money, and not be a fireman anymore. After thinking about it I finally decided to take the job. So I packed my truck up and drove to California.

My best friend was seeing me off. He is not one to get physical with other guys. A hand shake is rare from him. I was saying good bye and he reached out for me as I was walking away and he said “here”. He opened his arms and we hugged. I did not know if I would see him again. It was great to know I was going to be missed that much.

I drove to Seattle and then the next morning I was off to California for a new job and a new life. I drove straight through to Livermore. I had a hotel room that the company was putting me in. There was a guy who was hired the same time I was. He came down from Ohio. He was the same age as me. We shared the room.

We stayed there for two weeks while trying to find some housing. He ended up meeting a guy who owned a house down there. I was paying about six hundred a month in rent. It was steep but that was about par for the course down there. The nice thing was it was a great house and it was only about ten minutes from work.

We were going to open a new office. We were moving from a small office to a huge one. I had my own room. Everyone else was going to get a cube and I got an office. Because the owner felt as a programmer I should be able to shut the door and keep it quite. I spent the first month or so in the large building by myself. Everyone worked at the other office.

The other guy from Ohio, Joe, and I hung out a lot. We did not know anyone else. So we went to the bars together and our roommate threw some parties at the house we had. I was starting to have a good time. I met one person. We went out on a small date. I did not find exactly what I was looking for so that did not work out.

As the time went on I worked from about ten am to about midnight on most nights. I did not have a lot of other things going on. I had an intranet project that I was learning how to do it as I was working on it. The company still uses what I built to this day.

It was getting close to my three months. I was debating whether I would stay there or go back to Pullman. I actually had thoughts about staying down there. But in the end I wanted to get back to the fire department and my friends. So I left.

I would not trade that time in California. I had many great times. It was neat being anonymous to everyone. I was able to be someone that was able to go places without knowing people and that was interesting. I also had a chance to see how people in a different part of the country lives. I went to a nightclub that had dress codes because of gang activity. I went to a rich area and to a bar there where everyone probably had been born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

I took a trip into San Francisco and rode on the cable car and hung out on the water front. I saw an old friend in San Jose who was a dispatcher for the fire department down there. I had real freedom in my work. No hours, no dress code. I could come and go as I chose. It was really a great time.

When I went to college I was on my own, but not like when I was in California. I was really on my own there. No friends, no family -- only work.