Meeting with a Lawyer

I have never had to meet with a lawyer for the fire department in the past. This is my first time in a decade. We are being questioned for something involving the police. We are just witnesses. The problem it was a year ago and I don't remember the incident very well, so I was careful only to say things that I remember happening for sure. I didn't want to say anything I wasn't sure about. But that being the case there wasn't much I really remembered about the whole thing. I did the best I could.

When that meeting was done I went to Keegan's house and hung out until two in the morning. We watched a couple episodes of Being Human. Then we chatted about unemployment as well as living in Pullman.

I got home and stayed up until around four in the morning getting some stuff done on the computer. I have been working hard to getting my computer going and set up just the way I like it. So far I found I am not a fan of this keyboard because of the way it is set up and the feel of the buttons. My scanner doesn't work either. I would like to get that taken care of as well.

Game Night

I sat around my house waiting for my computer to show up. Around noon it came. I unpacked it and imaged it with Windows Home Server. Then I started the process of reinstalling Windows Seven Ultimate. Then I worked on installing software. I did that until near six o'clock.

Then people started to come over and we played games. We played Apples to Apples and some Mexican Train. Victor, Keegan, Matt, Melissa, BKoe, and Eric all came over. We played games until after midnight. Then some people left and that is when Mexican Training was broken out. We had some very good laughs with Apples to Apples.

When they left I worked a little more on my computer. It is really fast. I love it so far. The keyboard is disappointing. I can't use my old one, and the new one doesn't have the set up that I like. It is more compact than I like.

Teaching First Aid

This morning I worked with Darren from the WSU PD to teach first aid to the police interns. We started at seven in the morning. I went with Darren to get him some coffee. Then we were getting the room ready. I moved the table and knocked his coffee onto the ground. That sucked. I didn't mean to do that and I felt really bad.

The first part of the class was bad because everyone was so tired they were not really into it and they all had blank looks. But as we got closer to lunch and after lunch they were really getting into it. Darren and I traded off with some of the sections giving examples and talking about some of the key points. As the class was coming to an end an echo response came out on the radio.

I helped Darren clean up the classroom. We went to the WSU PD station where I got a copy of the class roster. I went home and started to look up information about a new computer. I've spent the last couple days trying to find a new computer and I'm having a hard time because of all the information I'm finding on the Internet.

I got a call from Richards. He wanted to know if I wanted to go see a movie with him. I said that I would. We went to see the Book of Eli. It was interesting. I didn't know what to expect with it. It was an interesting movie. I was thinking in some ways it reminded me of Mad Max. But it had a different plot. It kept me entertained through out.

I went home and spent some more time looking for the computer. I decided that I would get the Gateway model I found on their site, but I couldn't find it anywhere online. I finally called Fry's and I learned it was discontinued. But Fry's had a brand new HP with the nearly identical specs. It was an Intel Core i7 with nine gig of RAM. It has a one-TB HD with Windows Seven. It has one-point-eight gig of video memory with two DVI plugs. It has a DVD burner with LightScribe. It is a pretty sweet system. I asked Jon if he would get it for me and send it to me. He is going to get it tomorrow for me.

John came over and we started to play cards. We tried to get a game going but only Richards was able to come over. We played until three in the morning. We played Acey-Deucy. Blake got hose four times when he said "Pot It". I was laughing so hard.

At the end of the night I was up about two or three bucks. It had been a while since we last played cards.

A Busy Night on Call

I went to Keegan's and we both filled out the application for Whitcom. We turned it in and then went to Winco together. He was doing some grocery shopping for dinner. I had to be on call tonight so I had to leave, but we were talking and I just didn't want to get out of there. Finally it was close to six and I had to run. He gave me a hug and I was on my way.

This evening we were supposed to have HazMat training. But instead we ran out on some calls. It turned out to be a busy night where we got a call. Then we had to wash the rig. We got home for about an hour and a half and then we were back out on the road. It happened until nearly four in the morning that way.

Keegan the Dispatcher?

I was doing work on the maps for Pullman Fire for while and I also got the photos edited and ready to print. But I need a couple more photos.

Then I went to Whitcom for about an hour with Keegan to show him around the dispatch center. When we parted ways and I headed home.

I went to the fire station to put the maps and some photos from the badge pinning on the computer. I didn't stay up too late because I was working the road tomorrow with Rich.

Watching the Championship with the Guys

I got up and went to the doctor for my follow up for my ankle surgery. I went to the Three Pigs to have lunch with Jon, Terry, and Jim. After that was done I hit the road to get back to Pullman. It wasn't a bad trip. I made pretty good time. When I got to Pullman I went to TBAG to meet up with Blake, Blake, Chia, Chris, and their wives for the BCS championship game. We had some beer while watching the game. I have Keegan come down and hang out. It was nice to get him there. He fit in well with them and they told me they likes him. I just wish he was more than just a friend.

When it was done Pitch and I went to Zeppoz to play some cards. Chia came along as well. We played poker until nearly one in the morning. I was up and down most of the evening, but I ended up losing it all in the end.

Keegan and I spent more time texting back and forth for a while as I was getting ready to go to bed.

Movie with Peterman

I got my column completed and turned in for the newspaper. Then I hit the road I had to be in Renton by five for an online meeting. But as I was en route I got an E-mail saying it was cancelled. So I ended up going to the Eagles for dinner instead. First I got my mom's new TV set up. Then I drove her to the Eagles. We had dinner.

I then it the road and went to the movie theatre to watch Law Abiding Citizen with Peter. I invited him down and I wasn't sure if we would have our talk or not. We ended up not having it and he didn't bring it up. I told him I wanted to talk to him about something, but I am having a hard time bring it up. One of these days I just need to bring it up.

The movie itself was very good. It had a lot of twists and turns I didn't expect. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect and I was not disappointed.

When it was done I went home and chatting with Keegan online for a short time before going to bed.

Ought-Nine in Review

Jan - Mr. President - I wanted to be the class president. There were two possible candidates that most likely would have been voted for. Myself and one other guy who works in the jail right now. He also would have been a very fine pic. But it is something I want to do. The vote was held by Ross putting out the ballots. When the counting was done it was nearly unanimous. I am now the Ought-Eight Reserve class President.

Feb - Final Mock Scenes - Today was going to be a long day. I was expecting to be done around three or four in the afternoon, but today was the day I was going to prove I could do the job, or I would prove I need more work, or that I am just not cut out for being a cop. I have spent sixteen hours a week for nearly the last five months

Mar - First Day on Patrol - Following the swearing, Jimmy was doing a couple things at the SO before we left to hit the road. We went north on One-Ninety-Five looking for speeders. We pulled over one car, my first as a reserve deputy. I was the cover officer. I went to the car and the passenger was talking with me. The person was given a warning.

Apr - My Latest Oil Change - I have lifetime powertrain and bumper-to-bumper warranties. It has a DVD player built into the radio. I have a rearview camera and backup sensors. It has the Hemi with MDS so it shuts down some of the cylinders when they are not needed to help save fuel. It seems to have some get-up and go. It feel great to drive it. Plus it has the newer traction control system so I feel better about driving it on the bad roadways.

May - First Code Run - we got to the first address we needed to go to Endicott for a call to back up the others there. We were going code and just passed some cars on SR One-Ninety-Five. After we got past the Albion road a burglary in progress was put out in Albion. So I had to turn around and go back to Albion. So I went code past the cars I had just passed.

Jun - Contract with MH Terminated - Since April of Ought-Four I have been working as a software engineer for NetUpdate and then I was moved to MostHome when they bought out NU. I worked with them until I got notice today that my contract was going be terminated. The application that I worked on since I started with NU was a mortgage application. That was then sold to a competitor a couple months ago. I told MH that I wanted to remain on with them. But as it turned out the project I was put on just got sold off. So they are cutting their ties with me.

Jul - Second Class Reserve - I was told I was moved up to second class. They shook my hand and said they had great expectations for me. They all believe that I will do a fine job. That was great. Now, I just need to start to set up times to ride so I can work my way to first class.

Aug - Final Shift as a PFD Temp - We got on scene in the ambulance and were made into the backup team. We went to the attic where the seat of the fire was. Eric, who was on his first day back, was on the nozzle and put the fire out. It was still pretty small, but growing. It was lucky that we got there when we did and that the fire was not in the wee hours of the morning when it could have really taken off. I ended up putting in an hour and a half of overtime. So my full-time tally was one year, one month, four days and one and a half hours. It has been a good run.

Sept - Bushwood Golfs Again - I was hot on my short game. The problem is that we would use after we all hit a drive we would pick one. From that point each person hit his own ball to the hole. I didn't do too poorly. I was able to keep up in score. In fact my putting made me lead some of the holes. I had some very nice putts including two there were around thirty footers for birdies. It felt great.

Oct - IM Championship Bound - I hit the ball well, as did the team. Our defense was very good. We went on to win and go to the Semi-finals. We were playing a team that had been using an illegal bat. Once they were called on it, in the previous game, they couldn't hardly score. It turned out we shut them out. We scored nine runs. We didn't hit the ball as well as I would have hoped, but we won. Ryan said it best, this is the most worried I have felt in a shut out. We never had a big enough lead that put me at ease. Not until we scored the ninth run and the other team no longer had a chance to win because of the eight-run limit.

Nov - Gay Firefighter - Then I was asked a question about how I feel I am treated being a gay in the fire department. I said since I have been outed to everyone I don't feel that I have ever been treated poorly due to being gay. Chris let me know that he has known for years. He said that pretty much everyone on the fire department on the career side knows. He said there are probably only a couple people who don't really know. He said that they probably have been told, but think that people are screwing with them. It is without a doubt that the information is told to everyone. I am not sure who actually tells the others but the information is freely available. But once again no one treats me differently.

Dec - Search for Missing Hunter - I was teamed up with three young men. It turned out it was the son of the missing man and his friends. They wanted to put a member of the SO with each team going out searching. We were sent down the road a ways to start our search. The son was leading the way as he knew the area well. We made our way along some level ground. There was about four inches of new snow. It was covering rocks on the ground so we had to be careful where we stepped.

This years review shows many things that were related to being a reserve Deputy. I guess that is the major thing that has happened to me over this last year. I am now a sworn reserve law enforcement officer. Many of the writings I had through out the year dealt with the class or going out to patrol. I also had an unusual suicide where I was able to trace the night leading up to the death of a young man. It was very unusual and probably affected me more than any other death I investigated. It didn't make the list this year because the fact that I am a gay man who is a firefighter is something I am always thinking about. When it was finally brought up with some people I have never talked to about it before it was a big conversation to me. It was nice to hear his perspective. Ought-Nine was a good year overall. I had some frustrations at the fire department, but they were overall small in the grand scheme of life. I am jobless, but I do have a new contract where I will finally start to bring in some money again. It has been a year that I am happy with.

Final Day of the Decade

I went to the fire station and met with Brenda about the reserve timesheets. I also met up with Ryan about the map tests and the upcoming fire academy. I am going to be making the timesheets for the reserves this year. I also was integrating the timelog into the timesheet Excel workbook. But more importantly something I have been working on is the ability to fill out the timelog and have it automatically fill in the timesheet. That is now completed. I also let Ryan know about some of the things I didn't like about the academy in the past. I also let him know the map tests are worthless for proving guys know the roads. So often they pass the test with one-hundred percent, but still are clueless when they get on the street.

I went home and started to work on the new spreadsheet. I had the basic stuff done for the timecard. I just did some tweaking on it to make it closer to the ones we currently use. The timelog has some updates to it. Then I started to put the two together.

I was trying to create a master workbook that would have every one's name and employee number. It would also include the pay. Then if information needed to be updated on any reserve it would only have to be updated in one spot and the workbooks would get that information by linking to the master. But I was running into problems. That is because I didn't want to hard code each firefighters workbook, I wanted to be able to have one spot where I put the firefighter number in their workbook and Excel would then take that number and concatenate it with the column number in order to get the correct data. But that is not nearly as easy as it sounds. I found a function called INDIRECT, but it only works when the master spreadsheet is also open. That is not going to work for what I want to do.

Finally I had to give up on that idea for this year. I just made a master in the workbook and the data would be updated there. So it is still only one place to update the pay information for people. But if four people need their pay information updated it will require opening up four spreadsheets rather than one. But I got the whole set done. I hope the guys like it. I know several thought it was cool with mine, because I was testing out the process. Now that I know it works I asked Heston about doing it for everyone. He said go ahead. Several of the guys who saw me using it this last year wanted me to do that for them. So I am sure for the most part guys will like it. But as with all change there are some guys who hate change and will complain about it no matter what.

I went to the Deuce and met up with Suggy for working the WSU Men's Basketball game. They were playing Oregon in the Pac-Ten opener. The first half was not very solid for the Cougs. But in the second half they started to come alive. They had an eight-zero and a ten-zero run. Soon it was tied up. With about thirty seconds to go the Cougs had the ball. But they ended up wasting too much time on the clock. That caused them to have to take a poor shot and it was missed. That put the game into OT. In the first OT the Cougs had a five point lead, but it came down to a dunk by Casto in the final second of the game. The Cougs were up by two and the crowd went crazy. There was three-tenths of a second left on the clock. But the Cougs were assessed a technical foul for celebration. They gave the Ducks to free-throws. The guy made both and they tied it up and went to a second OT. The second one was closer. But the game ended when the Cougs had the ball with less than ten seconds to go. It was tied. The Cougs missed the shot. The Ducks got it and drove hard to the bucket. They made it and got fouled. They celebrated without penalty. They made the freethrow going up by three with, again, three-tenths of a second. But the Cougs couldn't come back and lost. I was so mad. It was crushed. It felt the highest of highs only to be crushed.

During the game I talked to Kuhrt and he was seeing what I was doing for New Years. I told him that I had no plans. He said I should come over. He said he would get in touch with me after the game. I went home and completed my project to work on the timesheets. I got a text from Kuhrt to come over. I headed that way. When I got to his place we watched some TV and talked shop. I asked him questions about the way he learns and remembers traffic laws. We had a couple drinks. At midnight we toasted the new year. It was a nice evening with the Kuhrt's and their pets.

Seeing Mr. T.

I went to Issaquah to return my extra set of router bits. I bought some blades for my saws and a couple various tools. Then I met up with Mr. Thuot in Issaquah at Starbucks. We were there for several hours talking about life and health. We talked a little bit about ICS systems and his speaking tour that he did where he went to several cities to talk about dealing with major events at a school setting.

I hung out with Dave this evening. Tomorrow is his birthday. We went to Shari's for dinner. I had pizza with my mom so I just had some pop. We sat there talking about life and work. Then we went to see the movie The Hangover. The Regal Thirteen theatre is now a second run theatre. They had lots of older movies there. When the movie was done Dave and I said our goodbyes and I headed home for the night.

Seeing Pond After Ten Years

I went to Burien to meet up with Chris. He was taking me on another ride along. It is so a great pleasure to be out there with Chris. I love to see him working. He has found his calling by being a cop.

It was pretty quiet over all. We responded on some minor calls, nothing too major. A call for harassment, a truck that hit a fence when it rolled after it popped out of gear, there were a couple warrant checks on people, and we looked for a car that flew by us. We found it parked next to a house. The guy lied about the car. He said it didn't run, but it was warm. Then he said it runs, but he doesn't drive it because the tabs are expired.

After riding with Chris, I drove South near Spanaway to see an old roommate. I had not seen him for about ten years. It had been a long time. We had been roommates at one time while I was staying in Pullman for the summer when I was first staying in Pullman for the summer. He is a mo. He always was interested in me, but I wasn't so interested in him because back then I was not a big fan of being gay. Not that a lot has changed, but I am a little more comfortable. But I still have issue with being with another gay guy. I would love to find someone who I would love to be with, but I have yet to find that guy.

Softball in the Winter

I thought my softball stuff was put away for the winter, but there was a softball pick-up game in Seattle that I was able to play in. It was put on by a guy who plays softball in the ECSA. Several others who played also are in the ECSA. Two of the guys really caught my eye. One was an athletic guy. He play shortstop for my team. He had the couple-day facial hair growth going for himself. I would have placed him in the cute category. The other guy was a little more of my kind of guy. He was blonde hair and blue eyes. He had a nice smile and also was athletic. He wasn't over weight, but he had some bulk about him. He wore a baseball hat with a well rounded bill. He was ten-six-seven.

We played about an hour and a half of softball total. I was hitting the ball well. I had a fielding error. I let a ball go under my glove. But I had a great time.

I headed up to Bellingham to see Joe and Doug. I was also doing a ride along with Joe. I got to their place and we chatted about their house and about their cats. Then Joe and I hit the road. It was a pretty quiet night over all. I got a chance to see him do a DRE evaluation for someone suspected of being on drugs. I headed home at three in the morning.

Merry Christmas!!!

When I got up this morning my stepdad was making brunch. We had bacon and crapes. I helped to clean up then we opened gifts. I made out pretty well. I got cold weather underarmour, patrol gloves, router bits, patrol boots, tennis shoes, US Mint proof set, Apples to Apples, Trivial Pursuit, and a new shower head. It was pretty much every thing I asked for on my list. I have two pair of patrol gloves and two router bit sets. I am going to return one router bit set. I may return the patrol gloves for a different pair or get something totally different.

I sent and received lots of Christmas wishes. I also received an invite to play softball tomorrow. I am looking forward to that!

I went to my room and watched TV. Billy was coming over for dinner. He got here just before five. I was watching Quincy so I waited until that was done before I went down stairs. We were having fatback with gravy and potatoes. It was a good meal.

We all watched some TV together. Around nine o'clock I went to my room and started to watch some more TV as I was falling asleep. I wanted to stay up later than I did so I could be more ready for my ride along tomorrow.

Christmas Eve with the Family

This morning the plan was to go shopping for some stuff for my mom and stepdad. I decided to brave the mall and go to Southcenter. I posted that on facebook and people were sending messages about me wearing kevlar and to R.I.P. Southcenter is a little more rough than when I was younger, but it didn't seem bad at all yesterday.

As I navigated through out the mall and some of the stores I found myself face to face with ten-six-sevens. There was one that had a perfect face with perfect skin. I was in awe. Maybe that helped to make the trip there so nice.

But as I walked around from store to store looking for ideas I was coming up blank. I couldn't find anything that I wanted to buy. It sucked. So I texted Jon who said I should get mom a gift card. I ended up getting one for Bill as well.

I got home and watched the Rockford Files then headed to Jon's for dinner and the gift exchange. We had Chinese food and everyone sat around talking. We talked about guns and computer programming.

I got router bits and patrol gloves for Christmas. I also got a birthday present of Office Two-Thousand-Seven from Jon and his family.

I headed out around ten o'clock to head home. It was a nice time with the family.

Movie Night: The Hangover

I was supposed to be on my way to Renton today, but due to the coroner's case last night I stayed in town an extra day. I worked the coroner's case for part of the day. I went to Moscow and got a Christmas gift for BKoe. I also got myself a copy of the movie the Hangover.

I was asked by Reed to cover him on the fire department. So I invited Melcher, Rose, and Gecas over to watch the movie with me at my place. So it was an impromptu movie night. The guys came over and we watched the movie.

The only calls we got were all for a fire alarm at the Village Centre Theatres. We were dispatched there three times tonight. We only ended up responding once, but we kept getting toned out and waking me up.

Hanging with B-Shift

This morning I was going to bed at seven o'clock in the morning. I got up just before one o'clock PM. I went to the fire station and gave them some fudge to try. When I was there Chia asked if I wanted to stay for a movie. I did. We watched Inglorius Basterds. That is a pretty good movie. I watched it a while back in the movie theatre as well.

When the movie was done I went home and put in a couple loads of laundry. I wanted to get that done before my trip to Renton on Tuesday.

I had planned on watching my Sunday night shows, but that didn't happen because they were re-runs.

Happy Thirty-Sixth Scotty

This morning I had a critique for a car accident. It was the one where the guy hit the two pedestrians. When the critique was over I stuck around for a little while talking to some of the people there. A couple people wished me a happy birthday. I was also getting a lot of birthday wishes on facebook as well.

Ryan met up with me at my house right about eleven. We took my truck to get the alternator worked on. Then it was off to my place. We made some fudge. But the first batch was not right. I cooked the base ingredients too long. It was dry. I tried a second one and more or less did the same thing. So I messed up back-to-back batches. We went to Moscow to Hastings to look at some movies. I wanted to buy the Hangover. We then went to Walmart. But they didn't have the unrated version available.

We went to my place and I tried a third batch of fudge. But because I was scared to cook it too long, I think I went too short and it was a little too creamy for what I like. But overall it is going to work out.

We then got ready to go bowling at Zeppoz. I met up with the Young's, Richards, Gollnick, Keeton, BKoe, the Caessens'. Ron and Heather came down as well as Dan and Michele. Jessie also came by. She brought me some crack for my birthday. We bowled several games. I wasn't bowling very well. But BKoe did awesome. He had two games over two hundred. He also got a game with no open frames. After bowling for several hours we called it a night at Zeppoz. Ryan had to leave to drive back to Spokane. Richards, Gollnick, and I went to Sports Page. We played several games of pool over the next couple hours. In the first game I played I nearly ran the table on John. I was sinking all my shots. But as the night went on I got worse and worse, without the help of alcohol to get worse.

It was a good birthday. I was happy to get a chance to be with friends. They make it special.

Happy Twenty-Fifth Pritch

This morning we had a critique for one of the two recent fires at Terrace Estates. It really didn't bring out a lot other than some communication issues and dealing with the cold.

Later on I had a transfer in the city with Chuck. I got a rescue crew to come along to help us with lifting. It was a round trip to the hospital and back to her residence.

After the transfer I had some time before I had to head off to the Rimrock Search critique. On the way down I called Chia to see what he was doing on Friday. He then said they were out with Pritch at Zeppoz for his birthday. They said I needed to come. But because I am going to the critique and on call I didn't think I would make it out.

I was near Zeppoz when that conversation took place. I popped into Zeppoz and wished Blake a happy birthday. I said hello to the other guys who were there before hitting the road for Colton.

This critique was a lot more involved than the one from this morning. We started with a slide show the Sheriff put together. Then they talked about how the search was started. Then on to things that went well. That was pretty brief. Then we talked about things that didn't go well. There was a bit of a longer list.

Several of the things they came out with were valid. One was communication problems. One was not having an ambulance or a visible designated EMS team for the searchers. Then there were a couple things that caused some grief that I was involved in. One was the use of the Spokane mountain rescue team to help with the recovery. I spoke up as to what my thoughts were. Pretty much when we are in recovery mode, there is no hurry and safety is of the utmost importance. Then there was one issue I brought up where I blocked the only pathway to get people out of the area where they searched. I got committed and I couldn't move. That caused some people to get upset because they wanted to get out of there and they were forced to wait. I explained what my mistake was and how I intended to correct it in the future. Pretty much, it was, me being the last unit out of an area like that.

When the critique was over with I think people were overall happy with the command and the decisions made. We learned a little.

I came back to Pullman. I called up another guy on the fire department to see if he would cover for me so I could go out with the guys. I was able to get coverage. I went to the hill. I met up with the two Blakes, Chia, Chuck, Timmy, and Mully at the Coug. I had two beers while there.

Later we went to ValHalla for some more action. I didn't drink anything there. Ross was working and we talked for a while before I made my way to the other guys. Chuck and I were talking about his upcoming promotion to Senior Firefighter. Chia was getting ready to go so we said goodbye to him.

After we left there we went to Mike's. While at Mike's a guy who Ben introduced me to a couple weekends ago was there. He saw me and came over to say hello and wish me a happy birthday. He is ten-six-seven and a very nice person. I enjoyed playing pool with him when we were at Mike's before. He told me to remember him when it came to softball season this Spring. I told him I would for sure.

Blake, Chuck, and I went to TLD after we left Mike's. We got a burrito to go. I went home and went to bed.

Christmas Party at Chucks

What a day, I got up to go get the photos of the guys from the new recruit class, but they were dismissed from class at noon, just about when I showed up. So I didn't get the photos of anyone. I went into the kitchen and talked with Tractor and VanNess about both my article in today's Daily News as well as some history about Pullman Fire and the opening of the downtown fire station.

I was at home for a while waiting until it was time for me to head down to the fire station for daily rig checks. I got down there and worked on the rescue and engine. It was starting to snow and the roads has some snow on them.

The plan was to head to Chucks after rig checks. I got to Turner and I was dispatched to a call. So I turned around and went back to the station to run the call. After that call I went to Chuck's. It was going well until I got a call. I had to head from Chuck's place and it was an Echo. But it didn't take long to find out it was a nothing call. When that call was done Turpin said he wanted to see Togs and I. He gave us each a Christmas Gift. It was a very surprised by the gift.

We went to the call and got cleared when we got there. We then went towards a second call for a gas leak, but we were cancelled. So we went to the station and I went back to Chuck's. I was able to stay there for a couple hours before being called away. I left the house with no intentions of coming back. It was getting late.

I got a call from the Sheriff asking if I could help with a search for a missing hunter. He said I would need to head there around six-thirty in the morning. I thought it would be necessary for some sleep. But the calls would not cooperate.

I was getting called to service in a very steady fashion. There wasn't anything that was kicking our butt, but it was just a constant stream of calls.

I finally found my bed at three-thirty in the morning only to get called one hour later.

Gun Cleaning Party

This morning I worked on my column for the Daily News. It is about how people substitute the word Holiday for Christmas and pretend nothing has changed.

I got a transfer to Lewiston around three. I went down with Pritch. When it was done I went to Papa John's to get some pizza. The profits are going to be donated to the Lakewood police officers' families.

I got home in time for the gun cleaning party. Only one person showed up to clean his gun. That was perfect because just after cleaning our guns the tones went out for reserve callback. I went to the station. I was there for several hours chatting with one of the new guys. We joked about lots of different things. He talked about his oral board and how the room was set up. He said it was pretty intimidating.

After I left the station I went to Kuhrt's house. We played video games until around one-thirty in the morning.

Mr. Lightweight

I got a phone call this morning to go over a couple work related things with the company that is looking to give me a contract. That was only a five minute phone call.

I got cleaned up and put on my Class-B uniform for the fire department. I got my boots and headed to the Deuce. I needed to show two new guys around Beasley because we had no one else to work the events with the badge pinning ceremony going on.

I spent the time when I got there shining my boots and watching TV. I waited around watching TV until the guys got to the station to start the training. I showed them what equipment they needed and headed to Beasley with them. I helped them get the beds set up and walked around some of the places they needed to know about. As it got close to two I had to run out to the badge pinning ceremony.

When I got to the Pioneer Center I gave my camera to Ryan who was shooting the pics. We started to get our seats and the ceremony started. It was one career and about twelve reserves getting their badges. I had asked Gollnick to pin me but he wasn't able to. I also asked Chia, and he wasn't available. I then asked Turpin. He did it. The whole ceremony took just over thirty minutes.

I went home and Victor gave me a ride up to the WSU police station. We were doing the Wet Lab drinking in the old WSU Fire station. We played some cards and ate a little bit while drinking drinks as Matt made them for us.

I was supposed to be the most drunk. After a double-shot, I was blowing a just under a point-zero-two. I was going to have a long way to go to get where Matt wanted me. His plan was to have me at a point-one-two. But as I was getting towards the point-zero-eight, the legal limit in Washington, I was really feeling the effects. I am a bit of a light weight.

We made our way to the CUE. I was feeling pretty good, but Matt also had me get a couple more shots. While there I had a point-seven-three reading near the start and a point-seven-eight at the end. I wasn't legally intoxicated, but people would argue I was under the influence. I hardly could stay in the starting position.

I knew my eyes were not doing well, I could feel them spazzing out at max. dev. I figured I would not do too well when they decided whether to arrest or not.

Sure enough at the end they saw I had six clues in my eyes. That is the most possible. I also had about two to four clues in the other tests on average. Most people put me at a point-one-three or so. I was nearly half that. When they heard what level I was they burst out in laughter. It was a good time.

When we were done I got a ride to ValHalla to meet up with Ben. He was in town for a turf club Open To Close event yesterday at the Coug. I got to ValHalla and start to drink water. That was my drink of choice for the rest of the evening. We at ValHalla with a couple others guys Ben knows. Brandon, was one of the guys with Ben. He plays softball with Barge's IM team. Ben is telling me I should try to steal him.

Brandon was very nice. He was easy to chat with. Ben said he is competitive and a good player. We walked to Mike's and played some pool there. I could see Brandon's competitive edge come out. We stayed at Mike's until just before two o'clock.

I walked back to ValHalla with the group but I broke off with them. Ben gave me a hug and said good bye. I went downstairs and waited for my taxi to show up. I ran into Mully and Pritch. We all shared a taxi to get home.

Engineer Training with Victor

This morning I got ready for a trip to Pullman a day early. I was going to work with Victor. I went to Three Pigs to have lunch with Jon and the other guys.

Then I hit the road. It was a typical trip there. Nothing of note happened.

I got to Pullman and got ready for Victor's training. I got some engineer calculations ready for him to do. Then I waited for him to get there. First we worked on the calculations. I helped him go through them.

We hit the road and drove around. We did about an hour and a half of city drive time.

Happy Birthday Wendy!

This morning I woke up to my scanner on the Pullman Fire frequency. I heard "Delta response for a structure fire." I got up and started to collect my things. Then I heard BKoe on the radio and running. I didn't totally hear what he was saying, but I knew by the fact he was running and talking on the radio that the fire was real. So I expedited my response to the station.

I was joined by two other reserves and we went to the scene. We got there and got assigned to a back-up line. Soon we were sent in to help with the overhaul. We pulled ceiling and put water on the hot spots. We were asked to help with the investigation. There were some interesting findings.

I went home and cleaned up. There was about two hours before training. I went to the station early. It was ICS training. It lasted about two hours.

Following the training I went to Zeppoz. Wendy was celebrating her fiftieth birthday. I was invited to have some cake. When I got there the Uskoski's and Peterson's were the only ones left. I stayed and had some pop with them as well as some cake. I wished Wendy a happy birthday.

Apple Cup at the Moose

I was invited to go to the Moose and watch the Apple Cup with the gang. I got there just before kick off. I was invited to help myself to some food they had there. I ate and had some pop. I am on call tonight so I cannot have anything more than pop.

As the game was going on I thought the Cougs had a chance. They were down by thirteen after half, but I was mad they didn't try to score when they had the ball and some time on the clock to at least try something.

The second half things went down hill. We ended up losing by a shutout. I cannot believe how horrible things are right now. But I believe we will see things look up in the next two years.

I had to leave before the game was done to get my uniform and do the daily rig checks at the station.

I went home. Brandon, Kevin, and I played some games. We played for a couple hours before Brandon had to go to bed. I went to bed myself around midnight. I need to get up and patrol tomorrow.

Before I got to sleep, I tossed and turned in bed for a while. Finally I was drifting off to sleep when a call came in for a Delta Response for a Structure Fire at the Elmhurst apartments. Pretty much every firefighter in Pullman knows that is a bad news place. It is very old building and it would be a big fire should one happen.

This time it was only an overcooked pizza.

Feels like the Weekend

I received several responses from people about the messages I sent out to everyone. Several people responded thanking me for the messages and letting me know they felt the same way. I had stopped by the Deuce and John was there. He called me over and shook my hand. He thought what I said to him was very nice.

This afternoon I had a meeting with the other coroner's to discuss cases that we have done recently as well as covering our schedule. Both cases were mine with the help of Anna.

The meeting lasted a couple hours in all covering the cases and a couple other procedural issues that Pete wanted to cover. When it was done I went into the SO and talked with Jordan for a little while before going home.

I am the on-call coroner for half of today, so I didn't get into anything that would keep me too busy.

I was totally confused about the day of the week. It felt like a weekend day, but instead it was a Friday.

I went to the store and got some stuff to make Fanny Farmer Fudge as well as some of the orange dessert. I made up both of those things.

Not Spending Thanksgiving Alone

After being up until nearly five in the morning I figured I would sleep in until noon or later. But at nine-thirty I got a call from the VanNess. He said that he wasn't sure if I was clear that I had been invited to Thanksgiving dinner. I wasn't clear about that at all. I sort of got the feeling otherwise. But I was very happy to hear that. So now I am going to get a Thanksgiving dinner. My alternate plan was for pizza.

I went back to sleep for another couple hours. My mom called and she wished me a happy Thanksgiving. I spent time on the computer and watched football to burn time. Around four I went to the fire station to do daily rig checks. I was meeting with my partner on Rescue at four-thirty to head to station one.

When we got there I jumped in and helped out. I was assigned the gravy making detail. I was doing strong work. I was joking with Drew about getting toned out while making dinner. He said, no, the tones will go out when we are dishing up.

I put the gravy on the table and the youngens started to get served. We got toned out on a structure fire. It turned out to be someone who had a fire in the fireplace with the flue closed. We opened the flue. Put out the fire and removed the smoke from the building.

We finally got back and started dinner. It was very good. I was very happy to have been included in the meal. After it was done we were sort of talking and telling stories when a second call came in. We ran that one and went to the hospital. I got the back of the ambulance cleaned up. Then went back to the station and helped to do the dishes.

When everything was cleaned up we left and went back to the Deuce. I went home and started to write to my friends. I was writing a letter of thanks to many people who I feel I need to recognize for positive things they have done for me. They were heartfelt and I said things that I felt, but I usually cannot tell people. I ended my final one just before one in the morning.

Getting Sick

It sucks but I am getting a little sick. I have a cough and a running nose. I don't like to be sick. It doesn't stop me, just makes me a little miserable.

I completed my coroner's report for the suicide I worked. It was the longest report I have done to date. In total it was five pages. I think it would have been preventable if one person had the whole picture. It was tragic.

I went to My Office this evening and hung out with CBass and BKoe. Richards from the FD came down as well. We watched MNF. Jeff, the owner of My Office, was there and we all talked. Jeff shared some funny stories about somethings that happened with in here in Pullman.

Richards and I played pool. We played about five games. I won three of them. I shot pool very sharp when we started, but I got worse as the night went on. I am not sure why.

Patrolling with Melcher

I was excited because this evening I was going to patrol with Melcher. I got up and went downstairs. The boys were up. We watched some football on TV. It was snowing outside pretty good. There was about an inch on the ground and more was expected.

We had breakfast and then they started to load up and got ready to head out of town. I was at home and watched some more football as the snow was piling up. At one point the tones went off for a bus rollover on Davis Way just outside of the city limits. They called for four ambulances. I went to the station. But it turned out there was only a bus driver on the bus and it never rolled. So everyone was cancelled. But that put me behind the eight-ball. I had planned on going to get some long johns.

I drove to Shopko and picked up two pair of long johns and got home. I got my uniform on and headed to pick up Melcher. This is his first patrol as a second class reserve. I was excited to patrol with him.

The weather was bad and I thought we would deal with a lot of car accidents. We ended up dealing with none. We got dinner with BKoe in Pullman. We traded driving after a while. The snow had stopped and the roads were starting to get better. We worked twenty-six for a while. Then we went north on One-Ninety-Five. But it was dead. We made it all the way to Pullman. I took Two-Seventy to the state line with no luck. As we were leaving Pullman I head a PPD officer getting ready to transport someone to Colfax. I offered to bring the prisioner to the jail. He happily took me up on the offer.

That was the final thing we did on the night. It was near two in the morning. We fueled the car and called it a night.

Final Cougar Football Saturday of the Year

I had breakfast with the boys and Jon before heading to the fire station. I went to The Deuce and picked up the minivan and some EMS equipment. I went to station one. I hung out there having some lunch and talking with some of the guys as we waited for the briefing. After which we headed to the stadium. I was working as the runner.

I spent the whole day in the South Aid Room, aside from the times when I walked to the top of the seats to see some game action in person. The Cougs looked good for the first half, considering all other factors. We were only eleven points out. But the second half belonged totally to Oregon State. The number of people at the game is horrible. I heard there were about eight thousand total. I am not sure if it was that few for sure, but it surely was empty.

We got some free pizza from Pizza Hut. They gave away all their remaining pizzas to people around the concourse level.

After the game I went home. We ordered some Pizza Pipeline. We also got Tricky Sticks. The boys love it. We ate the pizza and watched some TV. Before it got too late I went to my den and worked more on my suicide report. It is a very long report. It took a while to write it up and I still have some more I need to do.

When I was done I was looking at the Seattle Times website. There was an article about suicide awareness. I read it. There was one person talked about in the article. I soon realized it was a case that happened here in Whitman County.

I stayed up reading some suicide resources before heading off to bed around one in the morning.

Long Term Soluntion, Short Term Problem

Here it is again. This morning the pager goes off for a Bravo response, for a possible suicide in Pullman. I went to the station. It was pretty clear early on that it was done with a gun and the person was probably not going to be alive when people got there. I waited around the station until the ambulance crew returned. I found that it was a young male who ended it all.

I was tapped to investigate the death. Due to the circumstances surrounding the death. I went to the scene. It was not pleasant. The reason for the death, the method of the death, and the outcome all are frustrating to me. I didn't know this person and I probably never would have. But due to the event, now I do know who he is. I have learned a little about it. I have to shake my head at the waste of a perfectly good life. I suppose one could argue with me about this being a perfectly good life. One who is perfectly good probably wouldn't kill himself.

This bring me back to a suicide that I wrote about some time ago. It was another young male in Pullman who decided to end it all. The effects that it has on the survivors are not very good. I have heard many people talk about the people who commit suicide as being weak. They are selfish. Those comments are from people who don't fully understand the ins and outs of the situation. It is a simplistic and sarcastic answer to something that is causing someone a great deal of pain.

Unlike people who make such comments, they don't investigate those deaths. They don't get to know what is going on in that person's life. They don't really understand the situation. They cannot feel what that person is feeling and they could not ever really get into the mindset of the person who is at the point where they feel like killing themselves is the only option they have. That is utter loss of all hope. The tough thing about suicide is many times with the proper help and counseling those lives could be saved.

Jon and the boys were coming to town today. I had planned on getting some stuff done around the house before they came, but due to the suicide I spent the whole day doing the investigation. Jon got to town. I had a chance to see him for a couple minutes and then I had to leave again to complete the investigation.

When I was done I went to Cougar Country to meet with Jon and the boys. We then went to see the movie Twenty-Twelve. Logan wanted to see it. It was alright. I hadn't planned on seeing it myself, but because Jon and the boys were going, I decided to go along.

When we got back I started to work on the write up for the suicide. It is going to be a really long write up.

SWAT Training Helper

Today is BKunz's Thirty-Second birthday. I met Brandon when he was eighteen. He was a freshman at WSU. I have had such a pleasure being Brandon's friend. He is a sincere and honest guy. He went to school to be an engineer which he did for some years, and now he has become a fireman. It is great to talk to him. I also love playing softball with him. I had the opportunity last summer. It was incredible!

I worked with the SWAT team to play a bad guy for their scenarios. I was slightly uncooperative. I was able to get beat by these guys a little. They only went as far as I did. If I cooperated they didn't have to work to keep me in line. I had a lot of fun. We did it most of the day and ended with one last scenario after it got dark.

It was a good day out doing the training.

Video Game Night

I started the day with my doctor's appointment with my eyes. He found the pressure in my eyes were higher than normal. He wanted to check my eyes to see if there was something wrong. The eye test included dilation of my eyes. The left eye was left seeing blurry for a couple hours. It was crazy to close my right eye and see the world as someone who needs to use glasses. There was nothing I could do to see clearly through it. That sucked. The good news was there is nothing wrong and life goes on.

I went to Loco Grinz with BKoe for lunch. Then I went home and did some work on the computer. While at home I heard them call for reserves to call for a transfer. But I had a meeting with Heston and the other crew leaders. I was called directly by the captain to see if I could do it. I let him know that I was supposed to do the meeting. I said he would need to clear it through Heston.

I was cleared to do the transfer. I was supposed to do it to Lewiston. I was told the meeting would be moved back. But when I got to the station I was told that transfer was cancelled and we were going to Spokane instead. I went with Tony.

Following getting to Spokane we hit dinner at Chili's. We got back and I went to Kuhrt's house. CBass' birthday was today and they were out celebrating. People went back to Kuhrt's place. When I got there CBass wasn't there, but BKoe and some others were.

We played Wii bowling and Scene It on the Xbox. It was fun times. I was there playing Scene It until nearly two in the morning. Kuhrt and I played two games after everyone else left. He won the first one. I won the second one. I won on the final question. I was down by about two-thousand points, and got the final question correct.

Pool Playing Fun

This morning started with a meeting to discuss streamlining the response to calls to better utilize the resources we have. Ideas we brought up to use all our resources, to include the reserves before calling help from our local partners. Many of the things brought up universally accepted by the task force. It is good to see we have some positive ideas that can help make Pullman Fire more streamlined.

After the meeting I started to type up the notes from the meeting but the career guys started to go over reports on the Zoll's. I decided I should participate in the training, just to get better at reports and because a couple examples had my name on them.

When the training was done I went to the Deuce to meet up with John to go to Jefferson Elementary school to show off the fire engine to the second graders who were going through a book on firefighters. They kids had a good time looking at the fire engine and its tools. They all had a chance to get into the drivers seat and take a look around from there.

Tonight's OTEP training was infectious diseases. It was a short training. Chia did the training for it.

When it was done Chia, Blake, a couple other reserves and I went to Val Halla. We played some pool and had a couple drinks. I only had a couple because I planned on driving home. After my couple I didn't have anything more for four hours so it had plenty of time to go through the system. I was mainly out to hang out with the guys and have a good time.

As we were leaving to head to Mike's I checked my phone. There was a missed call from the fire department. They had tried everyone else on the career side. They needed someone to come in and cover for someone who needed to go home sick. They called to see if I would finish out his shift. I was so stoked. This would have been a big step to have a reserve work a shift. I wanted to do it, but I had drank a couple beers. I had to turn it down. It killed me.

At Mike's we played some more pool and shut the place down.

Another Cougar Loss

This morning with only four hours of sleep I was up and getting ready for Cougar Football. I got my uniform on and drove to The Deuce to give the van keys to Michael. I had forgotten to put them in the keybox when I left the station last night.

I was going to the station when I got a call from the developer lead of the contract I was interviewing for. It went about thirty minutes total. Kittelson and I went to station one together in my rig. We went down for lunch and the game briefing. I had a couple hamburgers and enjoyed the company of everyone until the briefing started.

I am working North One with Kittelson. Bien is going to be coming to the game to meet up with us and hang out. We stopped at Safeway to get some pop and supplies for the game. I found that Safeway switched from Pepsi to Coke. I was very annoyed by this. I am going to write some letters about this.

We got to the stadium and made our way to our place over the tunnel. It wasn't too bad on the weather side of things to start. I was wondering how my ankle would deal with the standing around. I was a hurting unit by the end of the game. Without a doubt. I hope things will get better. Kittelson and I talked about being a reserve sheriff. Keith showed up and we watched the game together. Bien made is way around a little bit going to see Reed and a couple others. For the most part he stayed with us the whole time.

The Cougs were not doing too well. They threw three INT's in the first quarter along. UCLA scored on their first possession because of the first INT the Cougs gave up. UCLA had a short field for a lot of the first quarter. The Cougs were only able to score one touchdown the whole game. The Cougs were having such a hard time they fans cheered for firstdowns. By half time many of the fans had left this extremely cold game. Near the end of the game one could almost count the number of people left. The Cougs went on to lose.

When it was done we went back to the station and turned in our equipment. I went home and took some medicine for my ankle and had some dinner. I was meeting up with Victor for working Jeff Duhman at Beasley. I was looking forward to working that event. We made our way to Beasley. The doors were open and people were pouring in. It looked like a lot of people were going to be coming. I hung out in the first aid room for the opening act. Once it came time for Dunham to come on I went to the place where we stage on the concourse level. He came up on stage to a lot of cheers. There were a couple bits it was doing that was cracking me up. I was laughing really hard. He did a couple things on the local area and poked a little bit of fun at the football game.

It was a good show and people were having a good time. Once it was done I went home. It was nearly eleven-thirty at night. I got a hold of Keith who was over at Reed's. He had me come over and bring some batteries. I went to Dissmores to get the batteries. They only had two lines open so it took a while to get through the line.

I got to Reed's and we played some Rock Band. It was my first time playing. I had a good time playing that. I had a couple beers while I was there. Keith was crunk in a big way. He was starting to go down hill while I was there. I think he is going to be hating life. Before I left it wasn't liking life too much as it was. I went home around two-thirty in the morning. I didn't stay up too late before going to bed. I was really tired because I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

Winning at Z's

I got a call from Gribbon about some stuff that happened last night while they responded on calls on the fire department. When we were done talking he asked if I want to go see the Fourth Kind with him and Gecas. I said I would. I wasn't planning on seeing the movie, but I wanted to hang out with the guys.

The movie reminded me of the Blair Witch Project. It was a let down to me. When I started to look up some information I found out the setting of the movie and the real Nome, Alaska were very different. So some of the "actual" footage were fakes. It included it being light outside when it should have been dark based on the time of day and the time of year. There were tons of very tall trees in the movie where Nome doesn't have that.

While looking that information up I thought about what it would be like to live in Alaska and maybe thinking about getting a job around there doing programming. I started to look for places looking for people. I found one that sounds like they pay well and it would be based in Anchorage. I e-mailed the contact to ask about softball. I wouldn't go anyplace were there is no softball. I was thinking about moving south were softball can be played all year long as well.

I got a call from Richards about going to Zeppoz. I decided to go and play some cards. It has been a while and I had some money that I could spend on gambling. I grabbed that and went up there. I sat down at a blackjack table. I was close to being busted out then the dealer changed. All of a sudden I went on a win streak that brought me way back from the bring. I ended up winning cashing in one hundred bucks for a winning amount of sixty bucks, including fifteen bucks I gave away as a tip.

We went to the Sports Page to play some pool. The Vandals were on TV as well. I watched the game and we played a lot of pool. I won a couple of the game. But I wasn't doing too great. Blake was on pager for the fire department. He got called in. I went with him. We sat around for about thirty minutes and watched a fight on UFC.

I went home and worked on my map book. I got the final pages colorized before heading to bed.

Boys at Girls Night

This morning I was a little on the tired side. I was up late with Blake and Young. We had a good time, but now I had to be at resume and cover letter training. It was just like the class for filling out the application. It is set up for someone who hasn't really finished college. It is for the person who may or may not even have a GED. I showed my resume when it came time for us to write resumes. After looking at it, I was asked a couple questions, then I was excused for the class.

When I got home I was looking at posts on Facebook I saw one from Casi. She said she something about girls night. I joked about bring me along. She said tonight they are going to Wehrungs at six o'clock. She said I should come along. I wasn't for sure I should just show up to Wehrungs place, so I texted him.

I realized the funeral for Officer Brenton might be played live on TV. So I checked NWCN and sure enough they had it. I sat down and watched the funeral. Seeing the people who came and showed support was great.

When the funeral was over, some two and a half hours later I turned off the TV for a few minutes. When I turned it back on they were showing an aerial view of some people on the ground near a police car. They had a heading showing there was a shooting. At first I was thinking that it could have been a cop shot. They showed about fourteen cops cars filling up a nearby street. More and more were coming. I started to think that maybe this had something to do with the guy who killed Officer Brenton. As the coverage continued more cops were showing up. Cops from at least eight different agencies were all showing up in Tukwila. I continued to watch the coverage as the time went by more information was coming out. Sure enough they were getting the cop killer. He pulled a gun on the cops and got shot. He was down, but taken to the hospital.

What a turn of events. To spend two and a half hours watching the funeral and learning about the life of the officer killed, to almost right away watching the cops arrest the guy responsible.

I got a text back from Chris about his party. I headed over to his house around six o'clock. I was the first there. But soon everyone else started to show up. We spent a lot of time chatting and laughing about various subjects as we mingled. The guys usually grouped up and the girls usually grouped up. Then we would co-mingle. It was a good time. They were fondue party. It ended with chocolate fondue.

While I was there I got a call about a job I had sent in my resume for. It would be a six to eight week contract to do web work. I got a little background on the job and I was asked some questions about my experience and availability. I was told I would get a call in the next couple days to let me know one way or another about this job.

As the night was coming to an end we were talking some politics-like stuff in reference to department and fire services in general. It was interesting to talk about how some other fire departments do things.

Then I was asked a question about how I feel I am treated being a gay in the fire department. I said since I have been outed to everyone I don't feel that I have ever been treated poorly due to being gay. Chris let me know that he has known for years. He said that pretty much everyone on the fire department on the career side knows. He said there are probably only a couple people who don't really know. He said that they probably have been told, but think that people are screwing with them. It is without a doubt that the information is told to everyone. I am not sure who actually tells the others but the information is freely available. But once again no one treats me differently.

Chris said when I lost all the weight I gained a lot of respect from a lot of people on the department.

Perfecting Applications

This morning I got up with enough time to get my Toyota to my mechanic. Not that I should be spending any money right now on the Toyota, I want to be able to drive it around this winter. It might save me some money in the long run. But I doubt it.

Anyway, I had to be at the Mechanic at eleven-thirty. I know... Call me lazy. But it has only been real recent that I have been going to bed so late so I want up so late. I am not doing anything important. Just screwing around. Last night it was listening to old recording of Paul Harvey on YouTube. I really miss listening to Paul Harvey. Every now and again I see it is noon and quickly look for a radio to tune him in, only to realize that he won't be on. I learned about Paul Harvey when I was a freshman at college. He was on the radio station the Roto had playing on their speaker system at lunch time. One girl in the group I use to chow with pointed him out. I started to listen and fell in love with his story telling and his comments. So I wanted to make recordings of those so I could listen to them in the rig from time to time. So I was doing that plus colorizing my county map and that kept me up until nearly four in the morning, which is why I got up so late.

A fuel line that was leaking was fixed plus a vacuum line was fixed. I was able to get the noise happen for him. He listened with a mechanics stethoscope and he was able to determine that it was my alternator. It sounded like some bearings were going out. I am not sure if I have replaced it since high school. So it has had a long life. Anyway, I might have to put out a couple hundred more.

From there I had to go to the WorkSource office for a perfecting applications class. It is part of my unemployment training I have to take to be eligible for benefits. The classes are setup to help people learn how to market themselves. But I think the classes are geared towards people who have no college education. Many of the topics we dealt with were very basic. I think it was good training for some of the people, but for others I think it was probably just telling them something they already do and already know.

After that class I buzzed down to Colfax for a meeting with the prosecutor to discuss search incident to arrest of a car. It is a new topic that affects those in law enforcement. So he met with the SO to tell everyone his opinion of the case law out of the Washington State Supreme Court.

Following the meeting I went home and had some dinner and watched TV. Richards from the fire department called and invited me out to have a beer. I took him up on his invitation. We met at My Office. I had a couple beers and played some pool. Young also showed up. It was a good time. We were out until about one in the morning. I really like spending the time with the guys. I am happy that they haven't stopped doing stuff with me. Every since I left being a full-time guy I have tried to keep the relationships going with those guys. I don't want to be forgotten.

DUI Crash Demo

Parrish woke me up this morning with a phone call to let me know the guys are coming over to start work on the installation of my new heater. It is a gas forced air furnace. It is made by Carrier. I went ahead and went with the upgraded model because with rebates it turned out to only be five hundred more than the lowest model. In the long run it could be the best option for me.

I left the house around ten-thirty to head up to the CUB mall for the DUI demonstration. The reserves are going to work on extricating some people out of a car as part of an example of what could happen in a car accident.

When I got up there WSU PD had booth and they had drunk goggles. I tried on a couple pair. I was amazed how those made it hard to walk.

I was talking to Garner who was up there as well. He said he is going to stick around Pullman for a while. He got a job working at Les Schwab. That is great for him.

I was thinking that Les Schwab seems to hire a lot of ten-six-sevens. Including the one I had written about several years ago who worked in Clarkston. They should do a men of Les Schwab calendar.

As it got close to the event the guys from the fire department came up. They were looking over the scene to make plans on how to do the work they needed to do. I got my video camera ready and started to video tape the whole thing. I got them coming to the scene with the sirens. Then the whole job of the extrication.

When they were done we went into the CUB and had lunch together. I went home afterwards and got the video downloaded to my computer and working on putting the video to some music.

I went to Colfax Fire for training tonight. We were doing OTEP. It was spinal injuries. The guy did a good job with the presentation.

Good Start, Bad Ending

Today is Halloween and I am looking forward to having a good time. I am going to one party and then I will probably go to a second one with a guy I work with, finally I am going to hopefully go to a bar.

Last night the fire department was very busy running from call to call. I listened to a lot of it last night, and I was up this morning. It was a nice day. It is a Saturday. I was thinking about going to Moscow Fire for a pancake feed, but it was late enough in the morning and with the Vandal Homecoming parade gearing up I didn't want to get stuck in tons of traffic.

Chia called me and we talked for a little while. I am happy he called me. I was getting concerned that he was mad at me for some reason. In the early afternoon I went to the store to get some M&Ms for the party tonight. They were packed so I figured the guys would be busy tonight.

As it was getting close to time to go to Mike's place for the beer tasting Halloween party, I got a call from BKoe. Some of the guys were at My Office. I came down and had some water with them. CBass and Kuhrt were there as well.

I left as it was getting close to six. I went home and got my costume put on. I go to Mike's and Heidi was there. Kuhrt showed up later. I got some food and gave them my M&Ms. I sat at the table and everyone was talking and we were also watching the Cougs play Notre Dame. The Cougs lost.

I was there until around nine o'clock. Then I drove to Dan's house. I did some trick or treating there. I looked around at Dan's set up and we talked for about half an hour.

I texted Togs and then went over to meet up with him. We talked by the road for a while and got a couple photos. I went into the backyard of the house party when I overheard a guy calling me a faggot. Sort of caught me off guard. He knows I am gay, but I would not have thought that you felt that way about me.

This is why I hate it when I know that people know. Because I think about what they think about me. When I don't know, then I don't have those thoughts and I don't get preoccupied. It is just so much easier to be in the dark.

So, after that I just wanted to leave. I wanted to confront him a little bit as well, but with him having been drinking and being at the party, I didn't want to get into it. The wind had been taken out of my sails for the night. I decided not to hit the bar and just drove home.

Movie Night

I got a call today from one of the people I applied with for a computer programming job. I talked to him on the phone for a while. It seems like this would be a pretty good job to have. The pay is good and it is totally work from home. It would be a forty hour a week kind of job. Let's hope this turns out well.

This evening I had was showing the movie Red Dawn. I invited several people over, but only a couple were able to make it.

I made some chili-phily to serve during the movie. Victor and Richards both came over. Blake wasn't able to get here until late into the movie. Brandon came down and watched the movie as well.

It had been a while since I last watched the movie. It is a pretty decent movie over all.

Movie Night with C-Shift

Brandon and I met up for lunch today at the Mongolian Fire. He was going to go to Moscow to looking for a hat for his costume. I tagged along. We went to Goodwill and WalMart. Finally we found it at Tri-State. After dinner we went to Loco Grinz for dinner.

I pulled a newspaper out of the Bumblebee when I noticed it had a front page article that showed Turpin, Christensen, and Wedam on it. I wanted to scan it in to the computer so I went to the fire station and got it scanned. Turpin was covering for someone at station one so I showed him. I went to the kitchen and the guys were

The guys there wanted to get a movie and asked if I would go to the store to get one. I picked one up from Safeway. Richards, Young, and Caessens all watched the movie. They wanted me to get a scary movie. After the movie the Young and Richards went on an EMS call. Caessens and I stuck around chatting about fires and the differences between Pullman and Shelton. I left around midnight.

Bowling Alley Bill

I was going to play poker with Eric today. It has been a very long time since I have been over at his place to play cards. But he ended up cancelling the game. That ended any plans I had on the night.

But my mom wanted me to go to watch Bill bowl tonight. We went to the Eagles for dinner. I gave my mom a ride home and then drove up to Skyway to the bowling alley.

I watched Bill's games. Both last week and this week he has been bowling better than his average by a lot of pins. He did very well.

An Day of Movies

Watching TV all day long during recovery can get old, but I kept looking for movies I had not seen. There was one that had started about ten minutes before I turned it on. The movie is called Backdraft. I know, don't say it, how can a fireman take seventeen years to watch that movie? But I don't know. I never got around to it. Finally it was on cable and I was going to see it uncut and unedited.

Of course being Hollywood there were some inaccuracies with how we really do things, but at the same time the message of the movie was pretty strong. I really had no idea what the movie was about. I didn't know it was about a couple brothers who are firemen and they are dealing with an arsonist. I am happy that I watched it. It actually had some pretty powerful scenes.

Ryan and I chatted online about Ref Seventy-One. He is posting a couple articles online. One was supposed to be unbiased. He asked me to read it to see if I thought it was free of any slants. He said he was going to write one that will show his support of gay civil unions. I told him he was a hater of all gays. I told him that it was not nice to support that. Right now the guys can tell their boyfriend "you know I would love to marry you, but we can't". Really he doesn't want to get married, but he has the law to fall back on to be able to pretend that he wants to get married. With R-Seventy-One, now he will not have that protection. Now gays will all get as miserable as married couples. What a big jerk. He was laughing.

I watched a second movie at the end of the night that was based on a true story. It was called Bully. It is about a high school guy who abuses his best friend making him do homosexual acts. he also was raping some women. One girl wanted to kill the bully. Then others got in on it. Finally they lured him to a rock pit. One guy stabbed him. Then his best friend slashed him and stabbed him multiple times. Other guys helped out beating him, stabbing him, and finally one guy bashed in his head with a bat. They threw his body in a pond. It wasn't long before they were discovered and all arrested. Several are serving life sentences in jail. The movie took the side of the killers. They did make the guy out to be bad and almost deserving of death. The movie itself was very graphic with its sex scenes. It seemed like half of the movie was spent surrounded with sexual images including the guys in the movie being shirtless all the time.

Double Win for the Boys

Today is the first day I really got out and about. I went to Skyline High School to watch one of the boys play in his football game. They ended up winning the game. There is one thing that I found to be pretty gay. They have rules in the football where if a team is up by twenty-five points the kick off doesn't happen anymore. The team that is losing gets the ball on the fifty-yard-line and the winning team gets the ball on the twenty-yard-line after every turn over. If a team wins by thirty-two points the head coach is suspended for the following game. They also go to a running clock in the fourth quarter. How does that help the kids learn how to win and lose with respect? Another sign of the wussification of America's men.

I went home and watched some TV. Then I went to Matt's new house. He lives near my mom's place. I got a chance to chat with him for about twenty minutes. I am going to have to go over for a longer visit. It was great to see Matt. He is one of my oldest friends. He lives a good life with his family. He is a very good man. He is the only person from my high school class who I have come out to. I came out to him back on the trip to the second Cougar Rose Bowl this decade.

I went to the other football game back at Skyline. He won his game too. We all went out to dinner after the game. Then to Jon's where the boys, one of their friends, and I played some Madden Ought-Seven. We did a mini-tournament. I was knocked out in the first round.

It was a nice afternoon and evening with family and friends.

Recovering Day Two

The day was filled with laying on my back watching TV and making sure my column for the Daily News was completed. I talked to Ryan for a while about the softball game from Sunday. I have taken less meds and I hope to cut them out all together in the next day or so.

In the IM Championships!!!

Victor and I were going to respond to calls today. There really wasn't a lot going on. I was getting some things taken care of on the computer and around the house. I had to get my shirts folded and put away. I also had to take the motorhome to the storage place and bring the Bumblebee back. Before that got going we got a call for EMS. Victor and I went to the station but we were cancelled. So I went home and got the motorhome. I drove it to get the Bumblebee. Then I got some lunch and deposited a couple checks. I went to the worksource office but they were closed for the lunch hour.

I saw a sign while I was there. It said that you were not to leave your kids unattended in the car. I thought that it was strange such a sign was needed there, but then again... Anyway, I went to the fire station for training at one.

It was on the air cart. We pulled it out and took a look at it and the air lines that went with it. It was a short training, but it was good to go over it again.

I went home and started to think about playoffs. We had two games tonight. I also had a telephone job interview. That started at four. I got the phone call and spent about thirty minutes answering some questions. If I am good enough I will come in for another interview.

I went to the field and met up with the others from the team. People started to show up and I was getting the line up set. We had fourteen guys there. One was hurt so I didn't worry about playing him. But we needed to win so I only batted eleven. I hit the ball well, as did the team. Our defense was very good. We went on to win and go to the Semi-finals. We were playing a team that had been using an illegal bat. Once they were called on it, in the previous game, they couldn't hardly score. It turned out we shut them out. We scored nine runs. We didn't hit the ball as well as I would have hoped, but we won. Ryan said it best, this is the most worried I have felt in a shut out. We never had a big enough lead that put me at ease. Not until we scored the ninth run and the other team no longer had a chance to win because of the eight-run limit. They were done. We had a couple guys on with no outs. So we were poised to score some more.

Ryan and I went to Rancho Viejo for dinner. We ate and talked softball. We set the line up for the championship game on Sunday. We also talked about finances. Ryan told me he advised his bosses that we was planning on resigning in November.

With us playing in the championship game on Sunday, I will miss it. I am going to be in San Diego playing softball in a tournament down there. We are also playing Kelly's team. It was a game we have been wanting to have for a long time. Our team, defensively, is as good as his team, but hitting, we need to bring our sticks. We have a lot of pretty-good hitters. We need them to do their really good hitting on Sunday.

I got home and started to pack for my trip to San Diego. I was going to have to be out the door around eight in the morning. I wanted to wash my uniform so it was clean for the start of the tournament. I didn't get to bed until nearly midnight.

I Hate the Waiting

I was down at station one. Turpin saw me and walked up to me and said "we need to talk." I always hate that kind of thing, because you don't know what it is. So the rest of the day I had to stew on what he wanted to talk about.

Chia and I went to Tam's Place for some breakfast. It was nice to get out and chat with him for a while. We left and I took my motorhome to Moscow to get a new vent for it. They were out. I did get some food at WinCo as I wanted to.

I went to the station a while later and Victor and I went painting a couple hydrants and cleaning up some shrubbery around them. We got the rescue back and washed up before being done with it.

I went in to talk with Turpin. I was nervous about the conversation because it is never a good thing when someone says "we need to talk."

The gist of the conversation is some of the reserves think that I am not playing well with them and I need to work on that, but I wasn't told what the exact problem was or examples of things I have done wrong. I am being asked to change but not being told what to change.

There is a perception that I am on an ivory tower. Also that I micro-manage. I don't like being thought of as someone who does either of those things. I hate the idea of being a micro-manager. Turpin gave me some ideas, in general, of what I can do. More or less he said that I will have to let some guys fail at their attempt to complete a task so they can see that it doesn't work. I wouldn't let someone fail in a critical situation, but in the daily routine things. It is the way they learn. I am taking from that point that people think that I am giving out tasks and telling them how to fulfill the task rather then letting them do it their way. Point taken.

That is also what might make people feel that I am believe that I am better than them. I have seen some people have a chip on their shoulder over me. The sounds conceded, but it is true. I am not sure where that is coming from. I never have pretended to be better than the other guys or to hate them, but for some reason, that is the feeling some guys have. It is possible that a couple people have fed it to others. But the issue is one I have to deal with. I have to make sure people don't feel that one. I really don't want people to feel that way about me. I would like to get along with my co-workers. I just hope that can be done.

Parts of me though feels like if someone has a problem with me that should deal with me man to man. They shouldn't go to the chief and tell him. That is not using the chain-of-command. That is not dealing with the issue. That is causing more problems and drama. Well, there is nothing I can do about that. I just need to be who I am and keep doing a good job. Maybe over time people will get to know me and they will be willing to accept me for who I am.

Job Interview

I had a job interview today in Moscow. It was for the same place I have interviewed for in the past as well.

I spent some time reading up on T-SQL and normalization of databases to be ready. I knew they would ask those questions. When they asked about normalization I threw in something that I had just read. Which included the fact that normalization helps to eliminate insert and deletion anomalies. They guys said that was the best answer he has had on that question. He said no one ever bring up that important point. I was happy about that.

The interview took about an hour and a half total. I thought I did okay in some areas and I was weak in other areas. I am not sure if I will be called back for a second interview. I am hopeful though.

When that was done I met up with BKoe to have dinner at AppleBees. We were there for a little over an hour talking about law enforcement.

Bushwood Plays Again

This afternoon I was playing golf with Ben and his Dad. Dustin, a friend of Ben's was also playing. It was in the Turf Club tournament at the Palouse Ridge Golf Course. It was only my second time to play there. I showed up about two o'clock meeting up with Ben, and Lewis, his Dad. Dustin was also there. I hit more than two-hundred and fifty practice balls.

A little while after the practice we hit the course. I was in the cart with Dustin. He is a ten-six-seven. I was surprised to see that he is now married. He hits the ball pretty well. I wasn't good on the drives. But we had to use three drives from each person. My drives were not always that great, but we picked ones that would not hurt the team to much.

I was hot on my short game. The problem is that we would use after we all hit a drive we would pick one. From that point each person hit his own ball to the hole. I didn't do too poorly. I was able to keep up in score. In fact my putting made me lead some of the holes. I had some very nice putts including two there were around thirty footers for birdies. It felt great.

The wind was incredible. It was blowing pretty good all day. It kept everybody's game in check. We had to battle the wind from every direction.

Hanging out with Ben was so much fun. Ben is a super great guy. Always a very nice person, plus he is ten-six-seven. He is in great shape and plays gold very well. I wish he still lived around here because he is great in softball too. I could use him on my team.

Two Losses in IM's tonight

The day started with working on my report for the coroner's office. While there I saw Ron updated his station on facebook to say he had some chili on the stove and invited people over to watch football. I went over to his place and had some chili and watched football until just after one. Then I went to the SO to work on my case reports for my arrests this weekend as well as the tickets.

I got the reports done first and started to get the tickets written up. When Cooper got there he reviewed one of my reports and he had some suggestions and things that I left out that needed to be added in. But because it was close to game time I went home and got my softball uniform on.

Ryan came down from Spokane to play softball. We had about thirteen people show up, but we were missing a key outfielder. So I have to put our right-fielder into left field. We played a team that was hitting the ball well and was killing the outfield. At first they played deep and the balls dropped in. Later we were playing in and they started to hit some bombs. We were not hitting the ball well and quickly got way behind.

Bruce let me know they were using a USSSA bat which was illegal in ASA play. We brought it up, but it was very late in the game and the damage was done. They were mad at us and started to chip at us.

When the game was done they had one. We shook hands, but three guys from their team wouldn't come out and shake our hands. They were still mad at us from last season when we knocked them out of the playoffs.

The second game the team was using an illegal bat. We brought it up, but the IM office was using an old list of illegal bats. They said the bat was okay to use. We let them know they were using an old list, but there wasn't anything we could do about it.

We lost that game too. When the day was done I was disappointed that we lost both games. I also felt like we were being a bunch of whiners about the bats too. I thought the bat shouldn't matter because we should have been hitting better than we had been anyway.

After the game Ryan and I went to Cougar Country to get some dinner and ate it at my place. We watched some TV and hung out talking about Ryan's future job prospects.

At about midnight I went to the SO to complete my reports. After the re-write Cooper looked over it and said it was better. I got both completed and turned in. It was a little after two in the morning when I got home.

Potlatch Softball Tournament

I played in a co-ed softball tournament in Potlatch with Zeppoz. I got up there around eight-thirty in the morning. The first game was at nine. It was a fun little tournament. It was not sanctioned so we were able to use whatever bats we wanted. But the fields was so small we really didn't want to be hitting the ball out all the time.

I played firstbase and was the EH for the majority of the day. Between games we had some breaks where we hung out chatting and we played some cribbage. It was having a good time hanging out with the team.

We played a total of four games including the championship game that we ended up losing. So we were second place in that tournament. But I had a good time playing ball and it was a nice way to spend the afternoon.

There were no umpires so I got to be the umpire in a couple games as well. I did a good job, but one person was unhappy about my strikezone when she was hitting. Oh well.

After the games I listened to the end of the Cougar Football game. The Cougs ended up losing the game. That pretty much sucked.

I went home had some pizza and watched TV before getting to bed early enough to be up early for EVOC tomorrow morning.

Pick Up Softball Player

I have been in contact with Art about playing softball in San Diego later next month. I am a pick up player for their team. We e-mailed back and forth for a while, and then we scheduled a time to meet up. He was in Factoria so meeting with him was going to be very easy.

I stopped in Factoria on my way to Jon's house. I talked with Art for about an half hour, first talking about my softball experience. Then he told me about his team and how they were formed. He said they are going to do some fund raisers to try to pay for the hotel room while we are down there.

I got to Jon's and helped him hang a new TV in his bedroom. Then we headed to the Sprint store to look at some phones for the boys. We went next door to Quizno's for dinner and then it was off to Marymoor park for softball. We were playing a double header with a team Jon played with last year. They needed some players for their final game two games. We had ten total guys with Jon and I. So we were sorely needed tonight.

In the first game we were playing it very close with the other team which was supposed to be a much better team than us. But we took it to extra innings after an incredible seventh inning. They were the home team. They tied up the game and had the winning run on third base with no outs. All they had to do was get a good flyball. The first guy popped up. The second guy had a short fly out. The third got also got an easy out stranding the game winning run. We went to extra innings, but lost when they scored one run because we couldn't score that inning.

The second game was closer to reality. The other team mopped up against us. The scored a ton of runs and we only scored about three runs for the night. I played catcher the first game and second base the second game. I had a couple plays come my way and I made all the plays that came towards me. That made me feel good. You always want to do well when playing as a pick up player.

Riding with Dearth

The big plan for the day was to hit the roads with Dearth with the King County SO. We worked together as fire reserves. He got the job last year and this is my first ride with him.

I met up with him just before ten o'clock pm. I helped him move his equipment from his car to a backup car because his car was going into the shop for a while. He also introduced me to some of the other guys working that night with us.

We hit the road and got sent to a civil standby, but when we got to the place where we were going to meet with the RP, no one was there so we cleared and got directed to another civil situation where a renter was locked out of his place by the landlord. It took a little bit of time to deal with that problem. But it was resolved for the night.

We hit the road and did some patrol. He took me around to the places where he likes to patrol. While we were patrolling we made a couple stops on the way. He said if I find anything to let him know.

Then we got called to a person trying to break into an apartment. We got there and the guy was gone, but we had a description. They called for the dog. The dog found the person and he was arrested. We took him to the jail in Seattle. We left the jail and did a quick code run to backup the others on a suicidal person with a gun. I waited in the car. Dearth came back after they got the person out transported by ambulance for help.

We went to get some dinner and back to the station. We were sitting at the station eating when a bunch of calls in Skyway were coming out. There were only two guys working up there at the time so we went to take a call. We headed to one of the calls code. We got there with one other deputy. They dealt with the person and got him on his way.

We had one final call around four in the morning for a disturbance at an apartment complex at four in the morning. It was just some people talking very loud, but nothing more. They were told they need to keep it down.

One thing I noticed through out the night was most of the people there were contacted all had an attitude like they were being pick on by the police. They were very accusatory and claiming the police were harassing them. It was quite a difference from our county where people don't tend to do that. I haven't had anyone yet tell me I was harassing them or say I was picking on them.

Are We Born That Way?

I made plans to see Russell and Nick today. I got a call before I went down letting me know Russell was going to have to work, so Nick and I were going to get together.

I drove to Seattle to Nick's condo. We walked up the street to the Honey Hole for some dinner. We ended up ordering the same sandwich. We had dinner and talked about health care and socialized government services. When we got back to Nick's he showed me a video on YouTube that was made about health care. It compared health care to that of firefighting and other government services. I disagreed with what they said. Health care is something where taxes go to pay for one specific person where as the water system is made to serve the community as a whole.

If you say that the government should supply individuals health care, then you should argue that they should supply housing and food. Those are needed by everyone as well.

Then we spent a lot of time talking about being gay and homosexual relationships. We talked about whether someone is born gay or becomes gay. Whether that is a choice that is made the makes someone gay or the way things happen. What we both know is that we find men attractive and we find a sexual attraction to them. We can see beauty in women, but we do not have any sexual feelings for them. That is the part that doesn't make it a choice. We don't choose to have the sexual attraction, it is just there. But why? Was it something that was molded into us as young people or was it there from the time of birth?

Just before midnight we went to go bowling at the place where Russell works. We bowled two games. My second game I was very close to breaking two-hundred. It was great. We also sat in the casino for a while talking to Russell. He was glad we stopped by to say hello. It was great to see Russell. He is looking great.

I Was Too Whimpy

Today is the Cougars' season opener for football. This is the first year I have not been eager about the football season. That dates back to the loss of the no-shutout streak the Cougs had. It had dated back to eighty-four. I am bitter over that being lost, so I haven't been able to get overly excited about this season. We did better against Stanford than last season, but I didn't care.

I watched the Cougar game on TV until I had to leave to go to Bothell for Justin's football game. I put in Ballard High School in the GPS. I hit the road. I got on to the five-twenty bridge. Just after the last exit I realized that I had put in Ballard instead of Bothell. So I had to go across the bridge and back to get on the correct route. Justin's team won. Jon is the first year coach. This is the first win for the team. They were winless last season.

On the way back from Bothell I had texted back and forth with Peter. I was thinking I could meet up with him. I went to his place and we sat down and talked. Just like the times before. We talked politics. We agree on things, but we always find a way to argue our points and make fun of the other person.

I wanted to ask him point blank what happened to us back in the day. But I wasn't able to muster up the courage to bring up the subject. I was mad at myself for being a whimp about it. I want to know the answer, but I am not sure the best way to bring it up. A couple times I wanted to ask, but I never did.

When I left I was on the way home and I was mad at myself thinking about how I could have brought it up. I think the way I can do it is to ask him, "What happened at the beginning of your sophomore year?" That will start off the conversation. I need to know how I went from someone who hung out with him daily to someone he acted like didn't exist. We went from best friends to people who never saw each other. It was all on him though, because I still tried. He even admitted on his twenty-first birthday that he was being an "ass" to me.

How do you Say Taco in Spanish?

I arranged to hang out with Joe and Doug today. I haven't seen Joe in a long time. I first had to run to the doctor to have him look at my MRI and give me the results. Pretty much I am going to be going in for a surgery something in November or December.

I went from there straight to Bellingham. I put in Joe's address to the GPS and it lead me directly to his house. There was some bad traffic near Everett and it was able to get me on some surface streets and got me around all the traffic.

When I got to Joe's place he gave me the tour of the place. It is a great house. They had it built for them. They also own several acres around it. It had lots of trees and makes you feel like you don't have any neighbors.

Doug got home from work a little bit after I got there. We went to a Mexican place for dinner. We met up with another family couple. We had dinner and conversation. Joe was going to order another chicken taco. They were talking in Spanish a little bit. One guy said what the order would sound like in Spanish, something like "dos tacos con pollo por favor". When that is said the word tacos stands out because it is so Americanized. So I jokingly said "What is the Spanish work for taco?" One guy at the table said that is the Spanish word. Taco is a Spanish word. He was tyring to explain that. Then everyone started to laugh and someone explained I was making a joke. They told me later on that guy is pretty much always like that.

After dinner we went to a bowling alley and bowled a couple games. I was bowling mainly in the mid one forties. It wasn't too bad for having not any bowling practice in the last couple months. Doug beat me on two of the games. It was a fun time at the bowling alley.

When we were walking outside. While out there Joe asked if I had to get running. I said I am not in any hurry. So we walked to a bar. It was a place called Rumors. It had rainbow flags and other such decorations around the place. It was a gay bar. I had some pop and the others were having beer. We sat around a table talking about various subjects. Joe and I talked about stuff from when we were back at college including a mutual friend. I asked Joe how he know about me so long ago. Back when I was heavily closeted. He said he has great gaydar. Then he said one day when we were at the mutual friends' house something happened that solidified it. The friend came into the kitchen shirtless. He was ten-six-seven in every way. I guess I couldn't take my eyes off him. Joe noticed that. He said that was the thing that made him realize that he was correct about him thoughts.

After the bar closed I gave them a ride home and drove myself home.

Hanging with Keith

I went to the Three Pigs for lunch with Jon and Terry. We sat there and ate as well as talked about sports. One guy sitting in the booth next to us looked familiar. He was a younger man dressed nicely in formal work clothing. I think I have seen him at WSU in the past.

Today I was going to meet up with Keith and have dinner and watch the season finale of Rescue Me. I went to his place in Woodinville. We then went to the Redhook Brewery. We went on the tour. We got a glass and were able to have some beer as they explained about the history of the brewery and showed us around. The tour guide was energetic and good looking. One guy in the group was ten-six-seven. He looked like someone I have seen at WSU in the past, but he was from Chicago, so I doubt I had seen him before. I couldn't stop checking him out.

Following the tour we had dinner and then went to Keith's house. We watched Rescue Me. It was a good episode. It was left as a cliff hanger, or course. When that was done I took off. Keith gave me a hug and we made plans to have him come out to Pullman soon.

Golfing

The evening I went golfing with my brother and one of his college buddies. It has been a little while since I last swung my clubs. I could tell because I was not getting any solid hits through out the night. Some of my normally good areas were pretty poor this evening. I wasn't able to find anything that I was able to do well.

I ended up getting par on the eighth hole, but that was pretty lucky. It was a par four and my hits were decent. I also sunk a fifteen foot putt to get the par. Other than that I shot a sixty-seven on nine. After golfing we went to dinner with the guys. They way it works is the loser pitches in the most money. The winner doesn't have to pay anything. It cost me about forty bucks for the meal tonight.

I got home and spent the rest of the evening watching TV and surfing the web.

Seeing AC/DC in Concert

I took the opportunity to allow myself to sleep in a little bit today. I didn't actually get out of bed until almost ten o'clock this morning. That was when I was planning on leaving town. So I was behind schedule out the door. I got my stuff packed trying not to forget anything that I was going to need for my time away from Pullman.

Then I had to get some stuff out of my rig. But finally I had unpacked old stuff and packed my traveling stuff and was on my way to Seattle. On the way I found a group of two other cars. We were cruising along very nicely along twenty-six on our way to Vantage. We were making good time because the traffic was light. When I got to the top of Vantage hill I made a pitstop and they kept moving.

I made it to Bellevue just under four hours after I left. I went to my brothers house only to find he was still golfing. So I didn't need to bother being in that big of a hurry. I went home and to my surprise my step-brother was there. I have not seen him in years. Him and I took different paths. I was college-bound and believe in law and order. He went the other way, high-school drop out and doing drugs. He were are years later and he is not looking great. He has gained a ton of weight and lost lots of teeth as well as has spent a lot of time in jail. Now I have spent time in jail as well, but we were on the opposite side of the bars. I was free to leave.

I put my stuff in my bedroom and waited for Jon to call me. We were going to see AC/DC tonight. I had mixed feelings about going. I wasn't sure how much pot smoking would be going on, but I really didn't feel like breathing in other peoples' smoke. But I thought it would be fun to see the concert.

My two nephews were also going. There were a lot of younger kids there as well as older adults. It had a pretty good mix. There were people who looked like rockers and some who looked very run of the mill. One young man sitting two seats over from mine appeared to be have come with his father. The son looked all of eighteen. As the show went on he sang along to some of the songs, but from his outward appearance you would not have guessed he was a big rocker.

There was also several college-aged guys behind me. They were really getting into the show. One guy in particular was huge into the show. He seemed to know the words to all the songs. He was loving the show.

They band came out and had a good mix of both old and newer stuff. There was good audience participation. We even had an exposure of someone on the big screen. She was waiting for her chance because as soon as she saw they put her on the big screen, down came her top. It showed everything. The crowd went wild.

They ended the night with For Those About To Rock, We Salute You. Was a great ending song. My ears were ringing after the show. I had forgotten my earplugs like I had planned on using.

Monthly Coroner Meeting

This evening was the monthly Coroner's meeting. I was going to the fire extinguisher class, but I ended up doing a transfer to Spokane. We went to pizza at Rocky Racoco's. Ryan and Anna met us there. I got a chance to hold Zoey for a while. They asked me to be the godfather. That was great!

After we ate we went back to Pullman. I cleaned the ambulance and got ready to head to Colfax. We had pizza for dinner and talked about some cases. After everyone left Pete and I talked about my future with the Coroner's office and the chances of me being the next Coroner.

Fall Co-ed Season is Under Way

After the second straight night of going to bed late I woke up around ten o’clock. The big plan of the day was to go a movie with BKoe. I got the photos for the photo board at the Deuce cropped and ready to go. I took a motorcycle and drove down to the Deuce. I updated the photo board at the station and then went to station one. I met up with Heston and showed him I printouts for the possible reserve recruitment sign.

I was at station one for while talking with Heston and Brown. I let Brown know that I would not be able to be at training tonight because something going on over Moscow. He asked what I was going to be doing, but I didn’t tell him because I did not think he would understand that I want to play softball.

After I left the station I went to the bank to deposit my coroner’s check. I got ten dollars cash back. I went to the Man Shop to get my hair cut. I got my normal short haircut and I was able to get a razor shave on the back of my neck. I wish it was a standard at most barbershops but it’s not.

On the way out of the barbershop I saw Joseph from the Thunder football team. He asked me if I would be the announcer for next year’s team. I told him that I would do it. I told him that I was too busy this year to make any games.

I got ready to go see the movie with BKoe. I took my motorcycle to Safeway to get some pop and pretzels for the movie and then I drove to the theater. BKoe got to the movie theater just as I was getting there we walked in together and went into the theater. Matt and CBass were supposed to go to the movie with us but they were not able to make it.

After the movie was over I got home and got my uniform for the softball game. I headed over to Moscow and met up with the rest of the team. While at the field I could see some smoke in the distance coming from a grain bin. I watched it for a while and it did appear that there could have been a fire in the grain bin. I finally called Whitcom and talked to a dispatcher. Moscow fire was advised but they found it was actually dust from farming operations and not a fire.

The game started and I was an extra hitter but I got to play first base after the second inning. The shortstop for the other team was a ten-six-seven. I spent part of the game watching him play his position. The one thing I noticed is his throws to first always seem to loft over there. In the sixth inning he was coaching first base and grabbed a bag of Redman chew and took a plug of dip.

The final out of the sixth inning was a ball hit up the first baseline. I charged the ball and hit off my mitt but it stayed on the ground right below me. I picked up the ball and tossed it to Joe who was covering first base from pitcher and we make the out. In the seventh inning I wrote the pine. We won the game and a group of us headed to the Sports Page tavern in Pullman. I got something to read and we sat around talking sports. I left the bar around ten o’clock. I got home and started working on the speech recognition on my laptop. It seems right down to take the longer to write anything however as soon as I learn how to use speech recognition better this should really be cool.

Going Out with a Structure Fire

As I was waking up this morning I wasn't sure how my final couple hours would end. I was thinking that I should have ended the night of the Staley fire so I could end on a fire. Before seven o'clock rolled around the tones go off for a structure fire. We could see the smoke from the station.

We got on scene in the ambulance and were made into the backup team. We went to the attic where the seat of the fire was. Eric, who was on his first day back, was on the nozzle and put the fire out. It was still pretty small, but growing. It was lucky that we got there when we did and that the fire was not in the wee hours of the morning when it could have really taken off. I ended up putting in an hour and a half of overtime. So my full-time tally was one year, one month, four days and one and a half hours. It has been a good run.

I got back to the station and got the last remaining items from the station cleared out and headed to Tam's Place for breakfast with Chia, Keeton, Young, and Pritchett. I left after I was done eating so I could get a couple things done before meeting up with the guys to go to the river. I dropped off my turn outs at the station and went home. I got a couple things taken care of at home and packed my stuff to go to the river.

I went to Pritchett's place. We were meeting up there. From there Keeton, Pritchett, and I rode together to the river. We got there and made our way to the beach. It is a long haul from the parking lot. I didn't know how long it was because I had never gone there without being on a boat.

We set up our area. I put on some suntan lotion and we went into the water. We played fetch with Chia's and Pritchett's dogs. We were there for hours watching as more and more people showed up. As the college students started to arrive the scenery was great. You couldn't look somewhere without finding a couple ten-six-sevens. I really enjoyed the scenery while playing with the dogs.

Brown showed up with his boat. We hung out for a while near his boat and then went for some tubing. I hit the water and the rope on the tube was really long, so I was getting whipped around pretty good. I had a couple good wrecks along the way. Including one where I went about twenty feet sliding on the water before rolling.

It was getting close to five so we started to pack up and make our way back home. It was a good afternoon on the water.

I got cleaned up. I waited from BKoe to show up but as seven o'clock was rolling around he was no where to be found. I texted him and he was in Moscow. He forgot he was going to give me a ride to the bar. So I called Pritchett and he gave me a ride down to the bar.

We got there just after seven o'clock. Guys filtered in over the next two hours. It was a going away party for me from the career ranks. It was very nice to see some of these people stop by and wish me well and let me know they enjoyed working with me.

I had a couple guys over the last few months let me know that at first they were not sure what to think about me coming on at first. But they said that I have been a great addition. They really have enjoyed working with me and think that I am a pretty darn good guy.

One guy and I talked for a while about stuff. I remember when we would go on calls together I didn't know what to think. We talked and all was good. But when we were on shift together at first I think there was the feeling that we didn't know each other. And as time went on he warmed up to me and got to know me and the same of me towards him. I really think he a good person and I really enjoy talking with him.

As the night rolled on I got some beer purchased for me and we sat around talking, playing pool and darts. When it was nearly eleven o'clock we made our way to TBag. Pritchett was already there. I was given a couple shots of hard-A. I wasn't really wanting to have them, but I cowboyed up and drank them. We played pool and sat around talking.

Then one guy came up and said the words that I know will lead us to a specific conversation. It was, something along the lines of "It doesn't matter to me, you're a good guy, so it really will not make a difference, but..." That is the start of someone wanting to know if I am gay.

With the guy who was asking, I wasn't sure if he knew or not. But he has been around for a long time so I had to assume that he had heard through the grapevine. He said he had heard some stuff, but he didn't believe it until he heard for himself. I told him that I hit for the other team. I told him that I don't really tell people because I don't want them to act differently around me. I told him I like the fact that when I have been around him for all this time he wasn't afraid to say things and not worry about offending me. I told him I wanted him to remain feeling that way. He is one of those guys who always says "That is gay" or things like that. He said he sort of knew that something was probably up because I am not interested in the hot girls as everyone else is. He could tell so he figured something was up. I am glad that he asked and now I know that he knows.

I had asked Chia a while back if others on the shift knew. He said he didn't know. He said that no one would care. I believe that is true, but I wanted to know. I would like to think they all knew and still were the way they were around me. Which would show they are comfortable with me. I just feel like if I walk into a room and people feel like they have to watch what they say, that it would be a strain to be around me and they would just choose not to be around me. I don't want that. I really don't care what people say, because I believe you have to choose to be offended. I choose not to be offended by that kind of stuff.

The other Blake came up to me and started to say the same thing. I thought it would all be coming out that night. But before I confirmed anything I had to know exactly what he was asking. As it turned out with him he was talking about something totally different. So I don't know if he knows. I guess thinking about it now, I am not sure if I just want to come out to those guys and that way I know that they know and I can just get on with things, or continue to play the game I have been playing. I am not sure if I want the reserves to know. I know that some do know, but I always hate it when the new reserves find out about me because it is always something that someone else brings up. Over the years I have had a couple guys ask me straight up. I always will confirm it if they ask. I like it when they ask, because if they are willing to ask they will typically not make a big deal about it at all.

A Real "Vacation"

After getting off work this morning I went home and dealt with what was waiting for me at the computer job. There wasn't much. I had wanted to go patrolling tonight, but I decided to skip it and just enjoy the day.

I went to Chris' house to meet up with him. I had hopped to catch a ride down with him to the river. Blake and Blake were also meeting us there. We loaded up our stuff and headed down to the river. It was a nice trip down to Boyer Park. Once there it was pretty warm. We got the boat launched and headed to the Dunes. Once we anchored we got out and enjoyed the warm thigh-level water. I had some pop and the others had their drink of choice. We just hung out in the water talking. It was a nice time. It was relaxing. John and his boys showed up. Jon also came down for a while. The Chia's and their dog made it down.

We had a football and threw it around for a while. I was taking photos during some of the action. I was able to get some very nice shots of everyone having fun.

We hung out most of the afternoon in the water throwing the ball around, playing with Chia's dog and then finally we did some tubing when the wind died down a little bit. Blake went on it first. He took several strolls around the river. Then him and I went for a ride. Finally I did a couple rides myself. But before we were done we looked up at the shore and the other Blake had been escorted away. It turns out they frown upon glass bottles being used at the river. So he got scolded for using one.

We went back to shore and made fun of him. Then we started to say our goodbyes. Chia, the Blakes, and I were going to have some dinner together in Pullman. At first we were going to go to Cougar Country. Chris was going to Rancho for his son's twenty-first birthday. We joked about crashing the party.

On the way home I drove. Chris asked if I would drive so he could have a couple beers. I had no problem with that. Before we got home we saw John and Chia's rigs pulled over. John's hood was open. They were having a problem with the hose on the radiator. It came off spraying a lot of fluid around. We worked on it for a while before finally getting it put back into place. They we used some of our water to refill the radiator. We were finally back on our way.

When we got to Pullman it was decided that we would go to Rancho with Chris. We met up with Denise and some of Chris' family plus the guys who went to the river. It was a good time. We had cake and bought Chris' son all sorts of drinks.

When the night was done Chris picked up the whole tab. That was certainly unexpected. I hit the road and went to the Sheriff's Office. I had to complete a report and two tickets that I had issued while patrolling. I got those completed and turned in. Then I came home and watched some TV before making my way to bed.

Today was so fun. It was like back when I went to the river all the time. It was relaxing. It was the first time I really had a real vacation day all summer. It was great!

Two Bigs Wins

Today is Ryan's birthday. I called him up on the phone and we talked for a while. I wished him a happy birthday. He told me he got an iPhone for his birthday.

In the evening we had a couple softball games. We are in the losers bracket. We had to win both games to move on. We were playing Sports Page first. They beat us in all but one game this season. We went out and hit the ball very well. We ended up scoring twenty-two runs against the four they scored. It wasn't really ever close. We just played very well.

Then it was to play the Bomb Squad. They beat us every game this season except for the first playoff game. They beat us by one run. It was a much closer game. We did go on to win, but it was only by three runs. We played good defense in both games.

It was great to win and now we have the semi-finals next Tuesday.

Undefeated in Softball Day One

The plan for today was to have some fun playing softball. I was hurting for men, which is unusual. I am normally trying to find extra women. But today I had to get the men. We had one pick up that Jessie got and Joe played with us too.

In the games I was hitting the ball very well. I had two inside-the-park-homeruns plus some other strong hits through out the day.

I also helped with the score keeping, but as I was doing that someone went down on the next field over, and I was asked to come over an help. There were already two EMT's there. That is the second time the fire department had to get called to the field today.

It was a nice afternoon at the park. In the first game we were playing we won it pretty easily. The second game was not so easy. We had brought in Kelly, but we lost an outfielder so we were playing with only nine players. That really hurt. But we were scoring runs and we went on to win the game.

In the end we won both games. After the game Sheila and I went to Cougar Country for some dinner. We sat there talking for a while. I have a hard time around her. I am very nervous. I feel bad because as much as I would like to get be a straight guy and lead a straight life, I kept on checking out the guys that would walk by. I guess at some point I need to tell her, but I guess that would be before we get to the point where it would be clear she is interested in me.

Back to Back Wins!

A little bit after I got up the tones went off for a transfer to Spokane. I called in to take it. I worked with Chelsea. In Spokane we went to Red Lobster for lunch. It was very good. We talked about my position as a reserve deputy on the way back, then we talked about the fire department and ways to make it better within the budget that we have with the city.

This evening brought on the final two softball games of the season. It didn't mean a lot in terms of standings because we are about half way down, but we wanted to beat these teams because we are a competitive team. We were playing the A-League champion who hasn't lost a game all season. We were also playing the number two team in the league.

In the first game we were playing Coors Light. They were unbeaten. We came close the first time we faced them going into extra innings. This time we put nine runs in the first inning and lead the whole way. We let them get back into the game, but we kept the lead the whole time and the time limit of the game hit in the bottom of the sixth inning with us up to bat. I had three balls pitched to me when the umpire called the time limit.

In the next game we were playing the number two team. We took a big lead but let the other team work their way back into it. But we were home. We had given up the lead in the top of the seventh inning. We were down by three runs. We scored a couple runs. Then with the bases loaded Jered hit a double scoring two more runs for the win.

After the game Brady broke out a couple beers to celebrate our win. Brady, Cole, Faber, and I shared the beer.

Melcher, Jessie, Faber, and I went to My Office. We shared a couple pitcher of beer. Then we went to Sports Page to hang out until a little after one in the morning. It was a good end to the season.

I was thinking that I would be going to McCoy's team next season, but I am not sure if he is still interested in adding me. I will see in the off-season. If he wants me I think I will go, I am tired of running the team with guys that seem to be undercutting me all the time. I just want to go and play. Plus McCoy is good about getting his team into the tournaments.

Fairwell Peterman Two

BKoe, Timmy, and I went to see Transformers at the theatre this afternoon. BKoe had already seen it. It was a good movie.

Later on I saw a message on Facebook from Peter about going to see the Hangover. I had just seen it, but it was a good movie. Peter is leaving Pullman tomorrow so this was his last day in town. I wanted to hang out with him.

Peter was laughing so hard. I was laughing hard watching his reaction plus to the movie itself.

When it was done we went outside and said our goodbye. He gave me a hug and we parted ways.

I met Peter through Brandon a couple years ago playing poker. Since then we played more poker together and we also played softball together. We hung out and played games. Peter is a good guy and I will miss him.

The Hangover

I met up with BKoe for lunch. We grabbed something at Subway and then went to the PD to eat it. We were in the briefing room. Jake came in and gave me some grief over the ambulance mishap a couple weeks ago at the hospital.

I went to see the Hangover with Jessie and Melcher this evening. First Melcher and I went to the city playfields to watch Jessie play some softball. Their team was winning the game, but it was close to the start of the movie so we left to go to the movie.

Jessie joined Melcher and I a few minutes into the movie. It was incredibly funny. I was laughing through a lot of the movie. It was worth watching.

Othello Softball Tournament

This morning I was up and ready to go around six thirty in the morning to have a nice day of softball. I went to Jessie's house to pick her up on the way to Othello. I was playing softball with the Sports Page team. We pulled into Othello around nine o'clock in the morning. I had an idea where the field was and then in the direction I thought I needed to go. I ran into the field and found Erik and Faber as soon as I got there. I parked next to their rig and walked over to the camp that was set up.

I grabbed a chair and my softball stuff. We sat around just talking about the night before. As it was getting closer to ten o'clock we made our way to the first field of play. This was a five game round-robin tournament with the top two teams going to a championship game.

In the first game I wasn't hitting nor seeing the ball too well. We are playing in a USSSA tournament. So the count was one and one. I am not a big fan of that count because I can't watch a ball and get into a rhythm with the pitches. But the rest of the team played well enough for us to win the game.

After the first game we had some time before the next game. We went back to our camping site and grilled up some hamburgers and had some beverages. I was just trying to stay in the shade.

We made our way to the field for the second game about twenty minutes early to warm up. I was playing catcher for the whole tournament. So I didn't need to throw the ball too much. My arm is pretty loose because I throw a lot during a game.

In the second game I was starting to hit the ball better and watch it better. I was able to draw a walk and got a good solid hit. We won the second game with a come-from-behind victory. It was pretty close, but we were down a couple runs. Then our sticks all came together in one inning. We took a small lead.

The defense was playing nearly perfect. We were making all the plays and making the outs we needed to make. We were not missing the cut-offs and kept the other team from advancing on us a lot.

Directly following that game we were supposed to play a second game, but we flew through our game, playing seven innings in about thirty-five minutes. There were several one-two-three innings on both side. During one of the early inning Chris, who was playing second base for us, got into a rundown as a runner. When he slid back into the base his thumb got dislocated. He was in a lot of pain. It got back into place and he kept playing. He was having a hard time gripping the bat, and as the day went on I think it was getting worse for him because he was able to hit the ball better earlier in the night.

We had to wait a little while for our third game. We hung out at the field that we had just completed our previous game on. In the third game we were playing against a "rec" team so they got a three-run lead at the start of the game. The were a bunch of younger guys, all of them looked like they got out of high school recently and all had playing baseball for their high school.

They were not very good at softball. They were not bad either, just not that good. They scored one run in the first inning, but with the three-run lead given to them they were up four to nothing. We went out and tied up the game in our half of the inning. I am seeing the ball a lot better and I am hitting it better.

We took a bit more of a lead, but our defense was still playing incredible. We held on to the lead thanks to great plays and our infield turning double plays. After that victory we had the fourth game. We were playing against a team that has lost to everyone.

We had to spot them three runs as well. But they were really a bad team. They had a couple good players, but it did not make up for the bad ones. We took a quick lead on them and didn't give it up. It looked more like a couple larger families put together a team. There were people in the forties and kids as young as fourteen on the team. We beat them soundly.

We had about an hour break. We went back out to our camp site and sat around. By now people were getting a little tired. People were moderating their alcohol intake very well so we were not getting players who were playing poorly. That was an important key.

Before the next game we made our way to the field. The team we were going to play was waiting around and a couple of their players were playing in a co-ed game. The field we were going to use was filled, so our game was moved to an empty field. We were given the option whether we wanted to play the game or not. We were already in the championship game, so this was just for fun.

We decided we wanted to play. The other team took it to us. We had some poor defense. We didn't hit the ball very well. We actually played really bad. They also hit the ball very well. We ended up losing the game. They were supposedly a "rec" team, but they didn't seem like it. They played very well.

After that loss we had a break for the homerun derby. We were going to play Venom in the championship. We beat them this morning already. The homerun derby featured about half of the Venom team. That was something I was thinking about. For an "E" team that is allowed only one homerun, they sure have a lot of sluggers.

When the game started the sun had pretty much gone down and the ball which had been pretty squishy was starting to get more firm. The team they put out the second time seemed like a different team from the first one. It seems like they picked up a couple crushers. It was a really close game. We were not scoring nor hitting great, but we were playing defense well enough to keep the game close.

But they had a break out inning scoring around eight or nine runs. That game them a lead we couldn't overcome. I had a couple strong hits in the game. We lost the game and came in second place for the tournament.

Over all the day was so much fun. An afternoon of six softball games is a lot of fun to me. I love playing and to get a chance to play so much is great fun. I was hitting the ball well and seeing the ball well. I was able to obtain a couple walks along the way.

After the game I went to dinner with Brandon and his girlfriend as well as Jessie. The whole team ended up coming with us to dinner. We went to a little Mexican place near the fields where we played softball.

When dinner was done I got some pop and headed home. Jessie was telling me about her and Ben. She gave me the whole story. We listened to some music along the way as well.

I dropped her off in Albion. Then I went to my place. I was getting the photos from the tournament downloaded from my camera when the second alarm tones came out. It was for a transfer to Spokane. I was going to do it, then I decided not to. I was going to wait about five minutes before calling in. Finally when I did call in I found I was the only caller.

I was told that I would get a call back to let me know if I was going or not. After about ten minutes I had not heard anything. Then the second alarm tones went off again. It said "FF Scotty Anderson landline station One". I picked up my phone and found it was frozen. So I got that resolved and found I was getting the transfer.

We went to the hospital and picked up the patient. We headed for Spokane. It was pretty uneventful. After dropping off the patient we went to breakfast at Perkins and then headed back to Pullman.

By now I was getting tired. I tried to talk to Blake to keep me going. We talked about several political issues. When we got back to Pullman we went to the hospital to drop off some equipment. I cleaned the back of the ambulance. Then we got back to the station. I was ready to go home. I completed what I needed to get done and headed home. I found my bed to be very nice. I turned off my pager, cell phone, scanner, and radio. I wanted nothing to wake me up.

No Longer a Software Engineer

Since April of Ought-Four I have been working as a software engineer for NetUpdate and then I was moved to MostHome when they bought out NU. I worked with them until I got notice today that my contract was going be terminated. The application that I worked on since I started with NU was a mortgage application. That was then sold to a competitor a couple months ago. I told MH that I wanted to remain on with them. But as it turned out the project I was put on just got sold off. So they are cutting their ties with me. Things could be a lot worse. I have saved up a lot of money over the last six months or so and I have a bit of a saving that can help hold me over. Now I have to get the fire department job to sustain myself. As of right now I have the fire department for about one more month. Then I am done with them full-time.

I will have to work odds and ends until something comes up where I can make a good amount of money. In the mean time I will have the fire department and my savings to hold me over.

I figured this day was going to come. I just didn't know when. When I got a call from my company's CTO and he started to tell me that my product was sold off, I figured that I was going to be out of a job. I had been saving for this day and it is a good thing I did.

I guess I will have to figure out how to apply for unemployment so I can collect some benefits from that as well as working some to make ends meet, without chipping into my savings, if at all possible.

So that is how my mid-morning started. I also had a CPR class that I taught this afternoon. I am going to have to work every overtime shift I can get my hands on for the next month.

When I got home Brandon, Peter, and Kevin came over and we played some games and hung out for a while.

D-Twelve Golf Tournament

I met up with Chuck, Chia, and Carter for an afternoon of golfing. The problem with our team is that I actually carried our team. I am not a great golfer, so for me to carry the team, you know we were in trouble from the get-go.

We played eighteen holes. It took nearly six hours for the whole things. The first round we were waiting around a lot of people got bottled up. But on the turn we had a quick lunch and went back out to the course. The bottleneck wasn't there and we were able to move along a lot more rapidly. Chuck and Carter were drinking, and all the beer was part of the fees so they drank a lot. Chia and I were not drinking. I had to work tonight so I had an excuse to not drink.

When it was done I rushed to the SO. I got my uniform on and got a car ready to go out on patrol. Anderson and I were working together. He asked me what I needed to do to get to second class. I told him that I needed my FTO book signed off. He said I am ready for second class so he wanted to help me get there. We started by spending several hours going through my FTO book. I got almost the whole thing signed off. I only have a couple pages to go. That is great.

We hit the road for several hours. We didn't not get into too much. We made a couple traffic stops, but there was not a lot going on where we were. A fight in progress went out in Tekoa. We had three reserves working in town up there. Anderson and I started to head that way, but when the reserves got on scene there was no fight so we turned around and started to make our way back to the SO.

Jersey Night Ought-Nine

Today is the last scheduled Thursday softball game. With the re-alignment of the league we lost the rest of our Thursday night games and pretty much only play on Tuesdays. We played the Whammers. I thought it was going to be close, but it wasn't. We pretty much controlled the whole game and won it. We have been on a nice win streak.

After the game I hung around the fields to watch Sports Page play. They have several guys who I know on the team and it was Jersey Night. Joe is the leader of it and I was going to be participating in it again. I have gone to almost every Jersey Night since its inception a couple years back when Joe was with My Office still.

We started by going to Sports Page. Things were pretty tame there. Then it was off to My Office. I got myself some dinner. I wasn't drinking tonight because I was the on-call coroner. We went to Thai Ginger following My Office.

Then we loaded up in Jessie's truck and my rig and headed up to Val Halla. While there I was talking to a guy named Chris. He plays with Sports Page now, but use to play on Palouse Tavern. He said that Kelly wanted to put him on our team, but I wouldn't allow it. So now he does what he can to get me out every time he can. He also said that I never wave at him when I see him and he only lives a couple houses away from me.

I finally understood why he never seemed to like me. I don't remember the situation where Kelly wanted him on the team. I think that Kelly made up the story so he had a "reason" why Chris couldn't play with us. I am not sure what happened. But Chris had a chip on his shoulder. I tried to let him know I don't remember it happening that way. But now that I know what the problem is, it is in the open.

We moved on to Mike's bar at the end of the night. By the time we got there several people were really drunk. We started to break up there. Some people went along on their own. I had Hanna and Ryan with me. I took them to their car downtown. I also took Chris home. He thanked me for the ride. I think that we might be good now.

Command of Albion Call

After getting a call at seven-thirty in the morning, I was running late for my dentist appointment. So I rushed there and got my teeth cleaning. It only took about fifteen minutes. Probably my quickest appointment ever.

I was on my way home when I heard about a structure fire in Albion. I wasn't going to go until I heard Scott from Colfax request that D-Twelve and D-Eleven Colfax and Steptoe stations get dispatched. I called Colfax to have my turnouts brought in.

I drove to the scene and I knew no one was there, so I thought I might be first on scene. So I upped my response a little bit. An Albion unit with one person got to the scene the same time I did. I went to the rig and gave a size up of the scene and took command. D-Twelve got there. I sent two in to check for signs of fire or smoke. There was nothing. When an assistant chief from Albion got there I handed over command.

We spent the next twenty minutes going through the two apartments with a TIC and checking for a source of the smoke that was witnessed by the residents. We were not able to come up with anything. So everyone was cleared.

Tonight was Heather's birthday at the Moose. I went down there after taking a nap. I made her a birthday card after I went to buy one. It was a big hit at the Moose. Her dad was there so were Dan and Michele. We sat around joking and laughing for several hours. I finally left around ten o'clock at night to go home.

Interesting Turn of Events

This morning i got up and I left pretty well rested. I made some bacon for breakfast and hung out outside of my camper. They were playing a game that the players toss two golf balls that are attached to a string. They wrap around one of three bars. They get points based on what bar it is wrapped around. Each team has three of the ball sets. Someone accidentally got one stuck in a tree. We spent some time trying to hit it was a basketball to get it out of the tree. We came close, but the one hit of the basketball got it higher in the tree. We worked on it longer and finally got it out of the tree when someone climbed up the tree. We took some group photos and then I got my campsite cleaned up and left.

On the way home I stopped at two properties that are for sale. One seemed to have someone at it, so I didn't stop. The other one I stopped and walked around the house and looked inside. They also had a big shop that I looked around. The shop needs a lot of work to clean up due to the birds that have been in it. The house is nice, but it is pretty far out there. I am not sure I would want to be so far from Pullman.

Brandon, Kevin, and I were playing some games this afternoon and we decided we would put together a poker game in the evening. Peter was going to play as well. I called the Peter from my softball team and he was going to come over and play.

I had a softball game. In my first at bat I had an inside-the-park-homerun. Heston was on first base. I was trying to catch up to him so I was running very hard. I ended up hurting my back in the process. That pretty much sucked. I also had a triple on the night.

During the game I noticed the third baseman for the other team. Then I heard someone say her name. I thought I recognized her and her name. I had been in an e-mail conversation with her for a length of time. I started to worry that the idea of me getting a girlfriend might cause a lot of pain if I wasn't able to keep my eyes of the guys. So it was interesting to see her in real life. As we were congratulating each other she high-fived me but also grabbed my hand. I am not sure if she did that to everyone, or if she recognized me. I think she recognized me.

We won the game and I was on my way home to play some poker. We stayed up until nearly two in the morning playing cards. I played on my one five dollar buy-in for the night. I was up a fair amount of money for the night. I was one of the three winners of the night. It was a good day over all.

Camping at Central Ferry

When I got off work I went to get my motorhome packed and headed down to Central Ferry park. I was going to be camping for the night. I got my motorhome set up and then cracked open the beer. I had eight beers and I was starting to feel it. I stopped there and enjoyed the rest of the day.

We spent a lot of time sitting around in a circle and talking. This is the second annual trip with a lot of the Colfax Firefighters. It is a chance for us to get away and kick back. No cell phones, pagers, nor radios.

In the evening we played a lot of poker. I lost most of the games, after winning the first one. It seems to be a tradition that if you went the first pot of the night you will not do well for the rest of the night.

At around midnight I went to the motorhome because we were done playing. I was going to go back out, but I was so tired I just went to sleep instead.

Black Out Shades

It has been a long time in the coming, but I have been needing to get some blackout shades for my bedroom. This morning was the final straw. I have been telling myself that I had to do it, but I wouldn't go do it. Today I told myself that it would be okay to spend the money on them.

Many times the bright light is coming into my room. I am always getting woken up by something around eight in the morning. Some alarm or something else is going off to wake me up. Today it was a phone call. But even though I tried to go right back to sleep I had to cover my eyes with my pillow so I could sleep.

The blackout curtains that Brandon got for his room make a huge difference. I decided to do the same thing. I went to ShopKo first. I couldn't find any of them there. So I went to WalMart where Brandon got his. It cost me about fifty bucks for two of them plus the rods. But once I get to sleep without the light of day interrupting me I believe it will all be worth it.

I got a call from Chia. He asked if I wanted to hang out for a while. I met up with him downtown. He had his dog with him. We walked from downtown to the city playfields and threw the ball for his dog for a while. He took off around noon.

One Star Day

I started the morning off by going on a call shortly after the work day started. We had to have a police officer accompany us to the hospital in the back of the ambulance. He joked with me about my driving. When we got to the hospital I stopped. Put the ambulance in neutral and then looked down to grab a pair of gloves. Chia said "We're moving". I hit the brakes, but we hit the curb with the front tire and went up on it. I felt so embarrassed and like total crap.

In the hospital I got some ribbing over it. But was killed me was the was going to be written up. Not necessarily a punishment thing, but to document it. I really started to feel down. I don't want something like that in my file. I don't know if that is where it will go, but I just don't see anything good coming out of them.

The rest of the day I really didn't want to be around anyone. I did the work I needed to do and then hid away in my bedroom. I had some softball games tonight but I didn't really feel like going to start with.

I ended up going and it was a good thing because we were playing short handed as it was. I was going to have to pitch. It was not a good start. I was pitching as bad as I did when I tried to pitch a couple weeks ago. But I fought through it and started to get my ability and confidence back. By the second game I felt like I had command of my pitching.

The first game I started to come out of my bad feeling. By the second game I was feeling better. I was hitting the ball well. We won the first game by a run after being down by a lot. The second game we lost by a run, but we had a good come back. It wasn't a bad day on the field overall.

Then I went back to the station. I was starting to get my bad feeling back. After I got changed I was in my bedroom when a knock on the door came. It was the captain. It was time to write up what had happened. I sat in his office as he talked to me. Then he gave me a form I had to fill out. That really sucked.

After I got it done I went back to the bedroom. I needed the day over with.

Nice Summer Eve

Working at the FD today was pretty quiet for the most part. We had a fire alarm at Stephenson... again. They are doing construction and it seems to be something we get weekly.

We shot some hoops just before dinner. We were playing Tips. I actually won this time. It is rare for me to win at basketball because I am not very good at it.

In the evening as the sun was setting I went outside. The air was calm, the night was calm. I took in a deep breath and it was great. The smell was wonderful. The ambient air temperature was great. It reminded me summers of years past. It was very relaxing.

I spoke to Bien on the phone. Today is his birthday and I wished him a happy birthday. Then he told me a story about a fire he went to recently. It included the fact the house was rocking and the smoke was to the floor. He said that was the first real big fire he has been in on. While with Pullman was had some fires but he never got to battle a big beast, just the small ones.

I Have Qualified!

Working the fire department and dealing with the call that we did in the wee hours of the morning was tiring. I first had to give a statement to the police about what had happened. That took a little bit of time. Plus we had all the normal morning details to take care of around the station.

I went to the range for AR training. I got there as we were going over the parts of the rifle. Then we started to do some shooting from about twenty-five yards out to one-hundred yards. My ankle was hurting pretty bad so it was hard to walk around, but I did what I had to do. I first tried to qualify with the rifle. I was the first to go so I didn't know exactly how fast we had to be moving. I did well, but I went over the time limit by about fifteen seconds. So I had to do it a second time. But this time I went faster and did fine.

We also did the same course with the pistol. The only difference is some of the targets were moved a little closer. I passed that one the first time through. I hurried off from there to the City Playfields for softball.

We were playing in a softball tournament. We lost the first game when the other team took a huge lead over us. But we scored fourteen runs in the final inning and came up two runs short of tying up the game.

We had a long break before the next game. I went home and watched some TV and rested my eyes. Matt was having a BBQ at his place and I was invited. I gave Brandon a ride so he could partake in some adult beverages.

I was able to get a hamburger before going to the softball game. We played two more. I was going to go back to Matt's when it was done. But with as late as the last game went I never made it back to Matt's. Brandon walked down to meet up with me at the field.

The first game we didn't even come close. We had a fifteen run deficit after the first inning. We lost that game and went to the final game. That was one heck of a game. We lost it, but we had a lot of fun for the whole thing. Both teams were scoring and hitting the ball well. A total of sixty-two runs were scored with twelve total homeruns. I had a triple, double, then single. I wanted to go for the homerun, but I was more worried about getting a basehit because we needed to scored runs. It was more than likely the case that I would fly out and we didn't need that to happen.

EMS Week at Sunnyside

After leaving the fire station Chia and I went to Tam's Place for breakfast. We hung out for a while talking. We were going to work EMS Week at Sunnyside Elementary school. We were burning some time before we had to be back at the station.

We got back around nine-thirty and got our uniforms on. We took Ambulance Thirty-Two up to the school. I did my normal task of showing the outside of the ambulance. I felt really comfortable doing it and ran the kids through it.

After showing the ambulance to four groups we went to lunch with them. Then out to the playground. We played some wall ball and tag. The kids are full of energy and I was having a fun time as I always do.

This evening was fire training at Colfax. We are doing the red card refresher class. We watched the same material I got a couple weeks ago with Pullman so this was a review of the refresher stuff for me.

Following that I went to the SO to put the meeting minutes in the folder and send them out to everyone. I also saw Jordan. He was telling updating me about my Friday arrest. Like I said I am excited to see the process that happens as it goes through the justice system.

I went home and went to bed early so I could get up and go work out. I am in real need to do something as I am getting into some bad habits. I am not eating as well as I should. I need to get back into a routine. The fire department really hurts my routine, so I have to work extra hard to combat it. I have allowed the fire department and the SO to be excuses, but I cannot continue to use those excuses.

Completing the Paperwork

This afternoon I met up with Macy and Jessie at Applebees for lunch. It was a nice afternoon meal to spend with some friends. I enthralled them with the story of my big arrest from Friday night.

Following lunch I was able to go down to the county to work on my paperwork from the big arrest. Jimmy was there to help out. It took nearly four hours total to run through all the items I needed to get typed up and the supplemental reports from Jimmy and Cooper that were needed. I put everything together and signed everything. Finally I was able to turn it in.

I don't know what the future of this one holds. Maybe a trial. Maybe a guilty plea. Who knows. It will be interesting to see what happens as this case moves through the legal system.

Second Reserve Association Meeting

This afternoon I worked on setting up a meeting at Bell Square with Ricky and Chris for a lunch. We haven't seen each other for a while. We had dinner at the "gay sandwich" shop in the mall. That is what Ricky calls it. We talked shop and I told them about the latest at NU.

After lunch we parted ways and I worked my way back to Whitman County. We have reserve association meetings the second Thursday of the month. Tonight was the night. It is my second meeting with the association. I am the secretary. I was ready to take notes. I was at the SO about an hour early. I prepared for the meeting by getting my gun belt and changing from shorts to pants.

I went to the meeting room and took notes. It was a short meeting. We have a new coordinator. So he was going over some things with everyone. I was writing down the notes. One of the things is to do a training each month. It was taking a long time to get through the training. It was a traffic stop and we had to react to what we found. Plus there was a report that we had to write based on what we found on the stop.

The Graduation Ceremony

Today was a stressful day. It reminded me of the days when I lived in Stephenson. I was the hall president or some other elected position. I usually was in charge of the Mom's Weekend Talent Show, as well as being a big player in the Mom's Weekend Comedy Show. Saturday during Mom's Weekend was always a stressful day for me. I was always worried about the various things that could go wrong, whether it was the audio, performers showing up, the set up, people actually showing up, and more.

Today was a flashback. I spent the morning working on my speech and getting my laptop set up with the class video. But after I copied it to the laptop I came to realize that it wasn't a complete video. I had made some changes to it, but I never had it completely exported. So I had to start the export of the video from the video project, then I had to copy it over to my laptop. But it takes a couple hours to export such a large movie.

In the process of doing that I decided that I needed to figure out how to make the sound loud enough to be heard by a room full of people. I plugged in the old speakers that I bought about twelve years ago. They didn't work, but I figured it was because they were not plugged into power. I had to look hard for a power cable, but I had a hard time finding one. I gave up for a while and tried a different pair of computer speakers. But I found that was a problem as well.

I looked more for the power cable for the other speakers. Finally I tried the power cord from my old Zip drive. I found it fit. So I power the speakers only to find they still didn't work.

I then realized that I could use my old stereo and speakers that were in the living room. So I went to look into that working while at the same time looking for a microphone to use. But the only real mic I had was an small mono mic. It only had a two foot cord. I thought I could couple it with a longer cable to make it longer. But I needed to go from a eighth inch jack to RCA jacks. I went to Radio Shack and found a coupler, but then I wanted to look at their microphones. I decided to get a new one all together.

I went back home and plugged it in. At first it wasn't working. Then I tried to plug it into a different input and found it was working. That was something going my way. Now I had a way to use a microphone and play audio from the video I made. I was also trying to create eight DVD's with the photos and video from the academy class for all my classmates.

The clock was still ticking. My mom and Bill were on their way over to watch the graduation. I contacted my Mom to get an idea where they were. I had to be at the Pioneer Center at three to work with Macy and Malakowsky to get the room setup.

It was about one in the afternoon and I talked to Jessie. She was in charge of the cake and food supplies. I went to Colfax with her to get the cake and also so I could pick up the video projector.

We got back to my house just in time for me to pick up my rig and head up to the Pioneer Center. Once there Macy was waiting and Matt was right behind him. I opened the door to find the room empty of chairs. That caused me some concern, but I quickly found they guys were able to get everything set up quickly.

I worked on getting the computer, screen, speakers, microphone, and other A/V equipment set up and tested. The guys really wanted to watch the video. I finally relented and let them watch it. When it was done we left to get ready. We were supposed to meet up again at the old school building, the Pioneer Center, by five o'clock.

I got home and cleaned up. I got my uniform put on. Then I made my way back to the Pioneer Center. I stopped at station one to let Foster know about the graduation. He said he would see if they could come up. I didn't think they would be coming.

People started to roll up and I got everyone their ties. Soon McNannay and Myers showed up. We had our meeting to cover the items that McNannay wanted to cover. We also took the class photos. As people started to file in, I was a little nervous, but I had everything ready, so I felt a lot better about how every thing was working. While taking the photos the fire engine and ambulance showed up. I was very happy to see them come.

We made a plan that we would start at six and as Sheriff and McNannay walked up I would call the class to attention one last time. They made their way to the front of the room and I called everyone to attention. The ceremony started with Myers doing his speech followed by Reavis. When Reavis was up front he called me to the front of the room. I was presented with a plaque for my work as class president. I wasn't expecting that at all. It was billed as being from the class for me.

Then it was my turn for a speech. I did my speech without a hitch. I thought it went well and it was recited without me tripping up over my tongue. After my speech we did the badge pinning. I had my mom pin my badge on. Then we were sworn in.

After the swearing in we did the class awards. Pelissier gave away a knife to the best shooter, who was Jesse. Melcher got a nice flashlight for being best overall academy. The Sheriff got up front and called me up again. He recognized me for having been in the academy when I was twenty. And for working hard to lose weight. He said that I came to him a year ago about doing the academy the next time he had one. For that he gave me a challenge coin. I am going to carry that coin with me everyday I patrol. After those awards were given I did the awards we voted on.

I showed the class video. That went over very well and it got a lot of laughs along the way. Then Chaplain did the benediction. It was over. It went off awesome. After that Dean from the Daily News, who was there taking photos, got us outside for a class photo. We got several of those taken.

I got some cake and we did a lot of hand shaking and getting a lot of congratulations from a lot of people. My Mom and Bill went back to the hotel while I worked on getting the room cleaned up. I went home to change. I went to the hotel to pick them up and then we went to Cougar Country for dinner. Rhonda gave us the meal on the house. We sat around and talked for a while before I took them back to the hotel.

I went out to Hans' place on Wheelen road for our after party. Macy, Melcher, and McCleary were all there. Dan and Michele were also there. I said hello to them. Tory came up to me and shook my hand and said hello. I was a little surprised by that because I have seen him many times in the last few years and it seemed like he never acknowledged me.

i was there until midnight talking with everyone and hanging out around the fire. I had plans to meet up with the parents for breakfast so I went home to get some sleep before breakfast and work for tomorrow.

Opening of the Ought-Nine Softball Season

This afternoon I spent some time on a telephone conference meeting. We were discussing some of the new code that I will be in charge of and what I am going to need in order to get my computer set up for the dev environment.

Tonight was the opening of softball season. Ryan was coming down from Spokane. I started to make sure my equipment was all together and ready to go. I got my cleats traded out with some new plastic ones. The old ones had rubbed way down. I made sure my uniform was all together and then I started to change into my uniform.

I got the score sheets, the schedule, and drove to the field. I walked down to the field we were first going to play on. I had three new players who were going to meet up with me there.

Our first wasn't the greatest. We scored two runs per inning as they were. Then one inning we only scored one. But in the final inning we took a nice one run lead. But we were not able to hold on to it and lost in the bottom half of the inning. That did suck as they had their bottom three batters coming to the plate. The first two got out quickly. Plus they only had nine fielders.

The second game was worse. The team was good and crushing the ball and our outfield struggled to make all the outs that we were able to make. We had one guy with no cleats. He did some good slipping and sliding.

We ended up losing both games. Ryan and I went to my place and talked about life in general. We were going to go see the Fast and Furious around ten o'clock.

We headed to the theatre around nine-thirty. We got to our seats and the movie previews started within a minute of us walking in. The movie was good. It was great to see Paul Walker on the screen. He is looking great still.

BBQ and Game Night at Matt's

I worked on moving the Bumblebee from the street to the driveway so I can take a look at the waterpump. I was having a hard time doing it because the truck will not start.

I used the quad and winch to move it around for the most part, but being by myself posed challenges to not run it into other cars and the house. I worked that for a while and finally got it in a funny position on the driveway.

When BKoe got home he helped me get it better situated. He steered while I used the quad.

BKoe also said that he was going to Matt's house for a BBQ and game night. He invited me over to it. I decided that I would go. We went to Safeway first to get some meat and then to Matt's. At Matt's we got there as the food was getting ready to come off the grill.

He said that he had enough food so we didn't need to cook our stuff. We had dinner and conversation before going inside and playing a game. It was one where you had a word to get people to say. But you had to do it without using the word nor acting it out. The other part is that there is a timer that keeps counting down. If it was in your hands when the timer went off you would lose.

We played that for several hours while having a great time laughing. The first three rounds I was the first person out. Everyone was laughing really hard about that. It seemed to tickle their funny bone when I got out.

We left just before eleven. I hurried home to watch Rescue Me. It was the season premiere.

Mom's Sixty-Seventh Birthday

I slept in a little bit, but not too much. I got a call from Russell and Nick. We planned on getting breakfast together. We ate at the Old European. I have only been there a couple times. It is good food. We also spent a while checking out the ten-six-sevens all over the place.

When breakfast was done we said our goodbyes and I went to the fire station to get a file that has information for me to get files from the YouTube website for Chuck.

I went home and started to do some stuff around the house. Nathan and I are getting together this evening. Before we met up I called my Mom to wish her a happy birthday. She was out to dinner with everyone over in the Seattle area.

I went in to Starbucks and met up with Nathan. We sat there talking for about two hours. We were hitting it off pretty well. He has some effeminate features and he definitely has his fruit flies aka fag hags.

We went to dinner together. We hit Quiznos. We sat there for about an hour talking some more. He is into sports and likes guns. He is not overly politically correct and he seems more along the lines of what I am looking for in a guy.

We went back to Starbucks because he rode with me to Quiznos. We sat in my rig for about forty more minutes talking. As we were talking he took my hand and we held hands. Then he reached across towards my seat and gave me a peck on the lips. He did that several more times as we sat there. We are planning on getting together again.

Mike Knows My Mo Friend

With the transfer to Spokane I started in the wee hours of the morning I was running later than I wanted to be. We had dinner at Frank’s on the way out of Spokane. Then it was back to the fire station. I cleaned up and went to my house to change into my street clothes.

I went to Phil’s house for the draft. That lasted nearly five and a half hours for me. I ordered pizza for the whole group. We got five large pizzas. I was drafting my team. As always I was working on getting players I hadn’t heard of. But I also picked up some of the players who I knew, but are not great for fantasy baseball. Players like Griffey are fun to have, but they will not get me a lot of points.

I had to leave with enough time to run to my house and put my fire department uniform back on to go to the Deuce. I was taking Engine Thirty-One to Smith Gym for the Family Fun Fair. We were there to show some of the equipment to the kids. We also got dinner out of the deal. I had a couple reserves go up with me.

When we completed that I had to rush back and wash the vehicle. Then I went home to change into my county uniform. I was working with Mike. I called him up as I was leaving because I was running late getting to the SO because of the previous event.

We got on the road after he finished up some of his DUI videos. Then we hit the road. The weather sucked. We got called to Endicott for a person who said that a friend was going to hurt himself. After clearing that call as unfounded we went to dinner at Zips.

We then headed over to Pullman. We ran some traffic out on the Pullman-Moscow Highway. While out there I heard EMS get dispatched to the same address we were at earlier in Endicott. We didn’t respond because the snow was really bad and there were people closer than us.

We made our way to Colfax as we were called out on a Nine-One-One hang up. En Route we talked to the residents and got information that there wasn’t a problem. We stayed in Colfax for a while running traffic. We made a lot of stops. One stop was of a couple guys who use to have a radio show after my show.

Mike and I talked about how it seems in some ways that things are not as busy as they use to be. I talked about how Pullman PD would be dispatched on at least one beeper call each weekend night. Now it seems much more rare. They have tons of noise complaints and whatnot though. I was talking to Mike about a friend of mine who is a deputy that I met while in Stephenson together. We worked in the jail and he was at one time a reserve.

Mike told me about how that guy probably doesn’t like Mike at all because when they were in the academy together Mike outed my friend to many of his co-workers one night while in a bar together. He said he feels really bad about it and wanted him to know he is sorry.

I asked how he knew, and he said that he has a good friend who is gay. He said that he can tell based on “gay radar”.

At the end of the night I got my paperwork completed and went home. It was about four in the morning when I went to sleep and that capped off my twenty-four hours without sleeping.

My Gay Day

I made my way to the Red Dragon casino for a poker tournament that my old softball teams was putting on to raise money for the team. I got to the casino about an hour early. I got signed up for the tournament and then waited around for it to start. I was disappointed that none of the older players from the team were there.

The tournament was set up that you had to qualify to move to the next round. Any money you won didn't matter, because you would restart at three-thousand chips during the next round. I didn't qualify the first time through, so they had one rebuy round. I was bleeding my money away. I was getting a lot of Queen-scrub hands. I threw a lot away. I was down to my last six hundred.

The big blind was coming at me. It was four hundred. I put it in. I had a four-eight off-suit. I had to decide if I wanted to throw in my last two-hundred and hope of the best, or wait with the two-hundred for the next round. I decided to throw it in.

The cards were coming and I ended up going head up against someone who had me dominated. The flop didn't help. But the turn gave me a small glimmer of hope. I had to have a seven hit on the river to win the hand. It had to be a seven. It was a seven! I won enough chips to allow me to survive.

I made it through that round and went onto the next round. The next round I had to make it to the top three on my table to go to the final table. But on the third hand I had a K-J off-suit. I ended up getting trip-kings. But I lost to a guy who had an ace-high straight. My tournament was done.

I stopped at Nordstroms on my way south. I was up in Mountlake for the tournament. I was on my way to downtown Seattle for Nick's birthday. I got him a gift certificate. Then I called Russell. I was invited over to hang out until the party started. Nick had many of him extended family members over at their apartment.

While there another friend of theirs came over. He was a younger guy who was very skinny. That was the story of the night. All the guys who came over were all Mo's. They were all skinny as a rail too. I recognized several of the people from their MySpace profiles. I have seen through Nick's MySpace. A lot of them were ten-six-seven.

I got to Russell's around four in the afternoon. I was there until after eleven o'clock PM. It was a huge gay fest.

Friday Night Poker at Jon's

I spent most of the day at Mom's getting some stuff set up for my insurance. I was told by my company last night via E-mail they want me to get my own medical insurance and then they would reimburse me. I had already completed the leg work, so it was mainly a matter of signing up for it.

But when I called my insurance agent I found out that I had to have the money and the paperwork turned in today. So I had to drive to downtown Seattle to turn it in directly to the office of Group Health. I had to print off the forms and get them filled out. It had to be turned in today if I wanted to have coverage starting the first of April.

When I completed that I went home and waited until it was time to head to Jon's for the poker game. It was their normal monthly game at the clubhouse. I didn't do too hot at all. I couldn't get a hand to save my life. I won about three small hands on the night. Other than that I threw my money away.

Traveling to Renton

Brandon and I met up at Tam's Place for breakfast. We both had the same thing and talked shop including about the recent shooting that happened in Pullman.

When we were done I went home and got ready to head to Seattle. I got my rig loaded and headed out. The roads were clear and the traveling was nice a fast. I found that my speedometer was off by three miles per hour. I found this out by using a GPS to watch my speed. Now I know why it seemed like I would get passed more often than I use to. Normally on any given trip I am the one passing others.

On the way I got detoured by a semi truck fire near LaCrosse. There was a road construction related detour near Othello.

When I got home I got my rig unloaded and hung out. We had pizza for dinner and I watched TV most of the night.

Study Group

I invited the class over to my place to study for the test that we have coming up. Due to the snow our EVOC was cancelled. I thought getting together to study would be a great idea.

I have several people come over and we spent several hours getting the studying done. It was a very helpful session to ask questions and discuss some of the answers.

During the studying I opened a bag of M&Ms that Jessie gave me. Macy had several in front of him. I grabbed one. He looked down and said "Hey! I was saving that one! It was a double M&M!" Everyone at the table started to laugh so hard.

After they left I started to do some more studying. I also spent time going through my slides and choosing what information I wanted to record into my notebook for easy reference later on.

Final Day of Academy Classroom

After nearly five and a half months of training tonight was the final class for the academy. We had a video for EVOC and the final test. I scored the highest on the test so I was happy about that.

Earlier I came down to Colfax. I was able to go on a call to Spokane on the ambulance. It was a pretty straight forward transfer. I spent a lot of my time talking with the patient on the way up.

After the class was done I was going to the Zuu for a celebration of the end of class. I invited everyone else to come with me. All the Pullman people ended up showing up for the celebration. We had beer and tacos. I also sang a couple songs. I got one with Peter and one with Jesse Two.

I was at the Zuu until nearly one-thirty in the morning. While we were there a lot of homoerotic joking was going on. One thing happened with Jessie. I jokingly said that I would switch for her. One of the D-Twelve guys, Neils, was there and heard me say that. He made mention that there have been rumors around D-Twelve and Eleven about me being gay, but he didn't know it was true. I sort of laughed it off. I am not too surprised that they know, but I guess I am also a little surprised.

I think that at least some of the people at Colfax have to know because I heard about one person there saying that during the wildfires last year that she found my blog and they were reading it while sitting on the fireline trying to pass the time. If they have read it, then they had to have found some of my posts that point out my gayness.

Conclusion of Video Editing

I spent the majority of the day going through the video, tweaking things, editing the swear words, and more. It is a very slow going process. I suppose it would be quicker if I was more advanced in doing it. I am self-taught, so it is very slow going. I did figure out something today on Premiere. It is a way to take an image and have one color disappear to make the words display on the screen and the to do the opposite and make video only appear where the words are.

I am mostly done with the video. I need to re-do the photos. I think I am going to just make it a more simple video. Instead of changing photos on the beat of the music, which looks awesome when it works, but horrible when it doesn't work, I am just going to have the photos change every half second or so. I am now just trying to figure out what music I would like to play.

I went to Rico's and had beer with Davolt. He was in town this weekend. He is currently working in Vegas for his company from Montana. He said he will be there for at least a year. He invited me to come down in June for the World Series of Poker. I wouldn't mind doing that assuming I had the money and time.

All Day Class

I had a class today where we were learning tactics and strategies for firefighting and reading what the fire is doing. There was a lot of science behind what we were learning and we were exploring how it applies to structure fire. It was an eight hour class.

After the class I went home. Brandon asked what I was doing in the evening. He invited me to see Taken at the movie theatre. We went to the late showing. Peter and Kevin were also there. It was a good movie.

Following the movie I worked on some stuff on the computer before I went off to bed.

Starting Mock Scenes

This afternoon I went to shoot hoops at the rec center with Connor. We played some two on two with a couple other guys. The game went down to the final point. We were tied. I had the game winning shot and it didn't go down. The other guy shot one and they won.

I hurried home and got in my uniform for the academy. I picked up Melcher and Ross. We went to Colfax for training. Today was the first day of mock scenes. We did a traffic stop. I did well at that, but there are some things I need to work on when contacting the driver. Mainly the things I say when I am explaining the ticket.

Then during the building search I went too fast around the room and missed the guy I was looking for. He came up behind me and shot me. That meant I failed that mock scene. But right now we are in the learning stage. As the instructors said, now is the time to make mistakes.

Better Shot Left Handed

After going to bed last night around eleven o'clock PM. I was woken up at one-thirty in the morning for a call at the police station. That would be the official start of my day. I would not get back to bed due to calls and training and friends.

First I dealt with two calls at the police station tonight. After dealing with the first person, I more or less was the lead on patient care and I got the refusal. As I was leaving the PD, Khurt said that BKoe was in a foot pursuit. I am going to have to hear more about that when I can.

When we got back to the station we were not even backing into the bay when a call went out for a fire alarm at a frat. We got up there first and started command. I ended up running the call and worked as command. When we got back to the station the Captain said he would write the report on the call so I could do my EMS report.

Just like Chia and I talked about while we were getting dinner food yesterday, I had just got into bed. I put my head on the pillow. Then I readjusted the pillow for maximum comfort when the tones went off for another call. It was in our part of town so away we went. We transported on that one. Before we left the hospital we called back to the PD.

I helped do some of the patient care. The guy didn't want to work with us, but I talked to him and got him to consent to working with us. During that time I found out BKoe got a small abrasion on his knee from the foot pursuit. I gave him a bandaid and an alcohol wipe to clean it up. We transported from the PD to the hospital.

After getting back to the station I was started to restock the ambulance. But I had to go to the bathroom pretty bad. It was a good thing I did because I got back into the stock room when the tones went off for another fire alarm on campus. I grabbed the stock supplies and got them on the ambulance.

The fire alarm was a bit of a cluster because we did not have the key to get into the room where the problem was. So we waited around for a while until we were finally cleared by fac-ops.

We got back to the station in time for me to wash the ambulance and change into my uniform for the academy. I went to Ace to meet up with Melcher to carpool down to Clarkston. Today we were going to qualify on our handguns. We spent the morning doing more practice.

After lunch we did the qualification. I shot number four in the class. I passed on my first time through. Two people didn't so we had to give them a second chance. I did a qualification again, but I shot it left handed instead of right handed. After shooting it I found I scored higher left handed. Plus I held up both targets and showed them to people. I asked what target overall was better. I didn't tell people which one was which until they said what one was better. It turned out everyone thought my left handed target was better. One of the instructors said I should think about getting a left handed holster and practice drawing from it so I can switch over to the left handed holster. I think I should do that. I feel most natural when I hold the gun left handed.

After we qualified we did some other shooting practice with different scenarios. One included holding onto the slide and frame of the gun while shooting it. That didn't seem like a good idea because I figured we would hurt our hands. But it doesn't do the pain that I thought it would. It does cause some very minor pain, but for the purpose we do it for, it is worth the pain.

After the shooting was over I got home and I wasn't all that tired. They did a career callback to the fire station. I went down on it and got some overtime. While I was there I got a message about several people meeting up to celebrate the two D-Twelve guys passing their First Responder test. I said when they head to the Zuu to call me. I was tired by that time because I had been up for nearly thirty-four hours with only one and a half hours of sleep.

But I have a rule that friends are important and when you have a chance to hang out with them you should. I know that if I want to keep getting invited to things I need to show up. If I never show up to anything people will stop sending invitations. I went to the Zuu and spent a couple hours up there. I had some pop and water. I also sang a song with Larry. It was a good time over all. I finally went home around eleven o'clock pm to go to bed.

Gun Not So Clean

At the class this evening all guns were checked for being clean. I had cleaned my gun, but it was still a little dirty and it was discovered. I was made to do twenty-five push ups. That sucked. I was mad that it was dirty. The class got out a little early today. We talked about suicide and para-suicide. Then we went over the test.

Today was Peter's birthday. It always brings me up to a dilemma. I have a situation that has been going on for years. I am too much of a wuss to actually ask Peter point-blank what happened.

I met Peter when he was a freshman at WSU. We became friends then best friends. We were always together. Going to football games, playing basketball, watching TV, playing on the computer, talking politics, and even doing the radio show together. I actually came out to him towards the end of the school year. That was tough because he was a Southern Baptist and very conservative. But he said he didn't care and had actually figured out I was gay long before I told him. He said "you don't become as good of friends as we are without figuring out that kind of stuff."

The following school year things started out okay, but then one day he stopped calling, responding to e-mails and voice mails. He just stopped communicating with me. Once in a blue moon I would get a hold of him, but he would blow me off. That went on for a long time. I didn't know what was going on and I was very sad about it.

To this day I still don't know what happened. Why he did that to me. Since that time we have hung out more after he moved to Bellevue. It is sort of like it never happened, but I still am very self conscious about it when I am around him. I have a hard time looking him in the eye. I need to know why he did it. During his twenty-one run several years ago he invited me out on it. After the end of the night he was very drunk and he said that he was sorry for being such an "asshole" to me. I wanted to ask him more at that time, but I never did.

I wished him a happy birthday and he said that when I am in town next time we need to hang out. He said it has been too long since we last hung out. I want to get with him, but I have to get the courage to ask him what happened. Why he just stopped being my friend and dropped me like a dirty whore.

Poker Party

It was decided at work today that I would go to Zeppoz this evening with Blake and Young. I am looking forward to that. When I got home I was tired. I went to bed and fell asleep for about two hours. It was a nice nap.

I got ahold of Jessie. Her, Ross, and I got together to watch some video's from the defensive tactics day. We worked on that until around four o'clock. I also got some of my guns cleaned. Brandon came home and suggested a poker night tonight. Ross said he would come over. I was planning on contacting others.

I went to Zeppoz and met up with Young and Blake. We played Spanish Twenty-One. I was winning at that pretty good. Then I played in the tournament they have. I didn't do to hot there. But I wasn't planning on going well. I wanted to just screw around in it. I talked with Loren for a while. I invited him to come over and play cards.

I was at Zeppoz until a little after nine o'clock. Then I went back home and got my house ready for the poker game. Before long people started to show up. Weese, Ross, Loren, Blake, BKoe, and Kevin all played. It was a great time. We played a dealers choice game. We ended the night around four in the morning. By then it was Loren, BKoe, and me.

Qualified... For Now

Started this morning at fifteen of five o'clock in the morning due to an EMS call. Due to the fact we transported I didn't get a chance to go back to sleep. I knew I would be tired during training today because I had only slept for about three hours.

I picked up Ross and Melcher at Ace and we headed down to the shooting range in Clarkston. Today is the first day we are doing any shooting. We started with some shorter distances. My very first shot was at five yards. I hit the small "X" in the middle of the target. I thought I should call it a day because it couldn't get better than that. But I still had to keep shooting.

As the day went along the targets were moved back more and more. Finally ended up at twenty-five yards. My first ten shots at twenty-five yards were bad. I was all over the place only hitting the target four times. Jimmy worked with me and had me work on my trigger pull. That made a big difference.

We spent some time doing some weak-handed shooting. I was doing very well left handed leaving a decent grouping at seven yards.

The last thing we did was shoot a practice qualification round. It involved fifty round at distances between three and twenty-five yards. I was doing really well. I ended up shooting the third best in the class. I got four hundred and six points out of five hundred. That was good.

When we were done shooting we headed home. I was tired but I stayed up for a while watching some TV to include COPS. I talked to Ryan for a while on the phone. He was in Seattle and had seen Russell. He heard about the boyfriend. But I told him the whole story to include the fact we are not together anymore.

Transfer Rather than Training

I was going to be going to training this afternoon with the fire department. Just before training I was going to get some lunch at Dairy Queen. It was while I was there that the tones went out for a transfer.

I called in and was assigned the transfer. Keeton ended up going with me. He made me do the patient care. I really didn't mind it so much, it is just the way he uses his seniority to make me do the things he doesn't want to do. It makes me made because no everyone is like that.

We had lunch at Rocky's. I called Ryan and he met up with us there. The pizza was good as always.

When I got back I went home and watched some TV. I just enjoyed my night. I have class in the morning so I didn't stay up too late.