Fun Night of Poker

This evening I was in Colfax for training. It was EVAP refresher. With being on two departments many times I get the same training from both departments. That is just the way it is. I have considered reducing my weekly requirements by leaving Colfax Fire. But as of right now I am not going to do that.

After training we had a great night playing poker. We had a full table and a ton of laughs. We had some new blood as well as the regulars. I was only able to stay until around nine-thirty because I had to be back in Pullman because I was on call tonight as well. I am only on engine and we didn't have any calls for the engine.

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.

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.

Poker Party

Today I went to Moscow to get an order placed for a plaque for the Sheriff for this years reserve academy. I have the wording on it say "With great respect and sincere appreciation, the 2009 reserve class recognizes Sheriff Myers and the Whitman County Sheriff's Office for the generosity and opportunity to serve and to protect the citizens of Whitman County."

I got called by Pete about an autopsy happening today. I went to that and was able to see what a major brain bleed looks like. I was surprised how it damages the brain. It is like using a hose to spray into the dirt. It just digs away. There was a large hole in the brain. It was very interesting to see.

Following that I went to the sheriff's office to drop off some announcements for the graduation and then went back home for the poker tournament we have tonight. Brandon and Matt were making dinner ahead of time. Heidi, Steven, Dan, BKoe, Michael, Matt, and I all played for several hours. The game finally broke down around two in the morning. I ended up losing about one dollar on the night.

Late Night Poker Party

I went down to the station after I got off work in order to meet with the sub-committee for the new facility committee. We outlined out a plan of action for the upcoming meeting. We are going to put together a Powerpoint presentation to help us get through all the items we need to cover.

During the meeting Gollnick called and asked if I wanted to play poker. I told him that I did. So we set up a game for the evening hours. Because of when John would be done going to the school fair with the kids he wanted to start around eight-thirty.

I invited others to come over as well. We had a little game that lasted for several hours. It was about two-thirty in the morning when the game finally broke. Chiavaras came over. Over the last year John, Chia, and I are always bantering about him playing poker with us. Every time we would have a game we was unavailable to play with us. Tonight was the first time he was able to play.

I ended up losing a couple bucks along the way, but John brought some beer and Chia brought pizza. I was able to chow on pizza and have a couple beers in place of the money I lost.

Yearly Superbowl Party

Today was the Superbowl. I did some shopping for some pizza and M&M's and then went down to the fire station in Colfax for the poker party. We get together every year to play poker and watch the game. I made the pizza and put out the M&M's with we like to call crack. Because once you start you cannot stop eating them.

The poker went well. I was losing pretty bad for a fair amount of the day, but I made a pretty good comeback towards the end of the night and I think I ended up doing pretty good with the game.

The whole time I was there I got skunked on calls. But that is pretty normal for me to get hosed on calls when I hang out at Colfax Fire. I will listen to them get toned out all the time, but when I am around, there is nothing.

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.

Last Day on C Shift

Today was my final day on C-Shift. I am looking forward to being on a new shift, but I am going to miss working on C-Shift. Like everything having changes allows you to appreciate what you have. It is like the way I look at it with the seasons. If it was hot year round, you wouldn't always enjoy it and take advantage of what you have when you have it. By having winter you can enjoy the snow, but also have the summer months to look forward to. Same can be said for the summer heat. You enjoy relaxing in the sun, but it also allows you to enjoy the snow when it does finally come.

Today we had a shift brunch. We did french toast and sausage. For dinner we did chicken and rice. I watched some football on TV and we played some poker into the evening hours. Paul, Jay, Young, Blake, and I had a little tournament. I busted out pretty early, but I because the all time dealer.

Young and I were on the ambulance one last time as shift-mates and we ended up getting skunked on calls for the night.

Ten OT Hours

The plans of the day were simple. Go to the Cougar Basketball game. But I did more than just that. I got home from the fire department. I kept my uniform because I was going to have to go to the Deuce to head to the basketball game and I didn't want to drive all the way down town just for the uniform later on.

When I got home I did some plowing of the driveway and sidewalk. It was pretty cold outside while I was doing that. A neighbor asked if I could do a portion of her driveway where the road plow had deposited some heavy snow chunks.

I went to the Dodge dealer to get my new antenna for my rig. The old one was slightly damaged. I also found out how I could fix it from being unpluged. The coax cable that goes from the radio to the antenna was unplugged and I had to plug it in, but the area where it was unplugged was too tight to get most tools, let alone my hands in. I also found out the traction control that my ought-seven Durango had was also in the ought-five and ought-six, but not the ought-four. So I am thinking about upgrading to an ought-five. But I just don't know if I want to take on the new debt load. I may wait it out a little bit until the prices get a little better.

I went home and got the antenna on my rig fixed and now I have a radio that gets more than ZFun. I started to get ready for the basketball game. I wanted to get to the station early and get the van started, warmed up, and the snow taken care of.

I met up with Turpin, Robinson, Walker, and Pauly down at the Deuce and we headed to Beasley. The first half of the game between the Cougs and Huskies was good. We lead most of the way, but went into half down two points. That is as close as it would get. Coming out of the first half we couldn't score and they couldn't miss. The Cougs really let it get out of hand and we ended up losing by around twenty points.

After the game we were heading back and the tones went out for a backfill of the station. I called in on that. I went to station one and worked there for five hours while the guys did a transfer to Spokane.

John was doing an OT shift so he made dinner for everyone and invited me to have some. It was homemade lasagna, his wife made it. It was good. We also had garlic bread. After dinner I helped to clean up and I did the hand dishes, but there wasn't much to do.

John, Chia, and I played some poker for about four hours. We had a lot of fun making fun of each other and pushing money around. At the end of the night John was even, I was up six bucks and Chia was down six.

Car Shopping

I was doing some car shopping today. I was looking for a ought-four Durango Limited. I found one in Auburn I was going to look at if the prices were right. After talking with the dealer on the phone I found the price was way lower than I expected. I thought the vehicle should cost about twelve thousand, but I head him say fifty-nine. So I figured something was wrong with it. I asked him, and he said it was in great shape. So I drove to Auburn.

The vehicle was nice. We took it for a ride and it drove well. We went in to talk numbers. But I found that I heard fifty-nine. He said Fifteen-nine. So we were way off on the numbers. I told them what I was willing to do. We didn't get close. In fact we were off by about six thousand bucks when it was done.

So I walked away from that deal. I was mad that I went the whole way to do it only to find we were so far off.

Later Jon and I went to play some poker down at the Silver Dollar casino. We played four-eight Texas Hold'em. Jon did well and I ended up losing money. We were there for a couple hours playing. It was fun to get out to the casino and play some cards even though I ended up losing. I played a little blackjack but lost money there too.

The Big Thirty-Five

Today is my thirty-fifth birthday. I wasn't planning on doing a lot of celebration. Pretty much at the coroner's meeting we were going to have some cake. But before it got too late that meeting was cancelled. Then the sheriff's office cancelled the reserve class. This was all due to the massive amount of snow we were receiving. I was loving the snow.

With those things cancelled I didn't really have any backup plans. Gollnick called and asked if I wanted to play poker. I said I would. He came over and we played cards for several hours.

During the game I found a sly way to let him know it was my birthday. Once I did, he remembered that it was. We played poker and at the end I was up about ten bucks on the night. It was fun to play cards.

I got a lot of birthday wishes from people on Facebook today. It was great to see my friends and acquaintances. It make me feel good to be remembered by so many people.

Poker Night

I was spending a part of the day to myself just relaxing. A while later I got a text from John about playing some poker.

We got together at Keetons house. Denise and Dan both played as well as John and BKoe. We played dealers choice. I did pretty well winning about eighteen bucks total.

Garage Cleaned for Poker

I spent some time today cleaning up my garage for the poker game tonight. I got my table as well as work bench all cleaned up. It makes me feel good that it is done. I got the table set up for poker. I also got my chips ready and counted the cards. Now it was just waiting for everyone to show up.

It was scheduled to start at six o'clock. We had a full table pretty much the whole night. That was nice. A couple people came and busted out pretty quick then left. The whole thing broke around ten o'clock.

There was one hand where Travis went all in, on a bluff, against Matt. Matt had been calling all the way down. Matt had a high pair, but there was a lot of stuff out there that could have beat him. There was no way he put Travis on the bluff. But he called an all-in by Travis and won.

Everyone at the table was amazed that he made that call. Travis didn't know what to say. There were other hands like that, that it became clear it was going to be hard to buy a pot.

Learning to Forge

While at work this morning I was working hard to get the roster completed. But due to the number of pick ups we would need I had to get one of them on the roster from the city of Moscow. So I needed to work a while doing photo copies several times in figuring out how to get the original photocopy which was signed to include one more name. So a photocopy of the original signature would not work. I needed to use the sheet with the photocopy. But I couldn't just write in the name because it would be obvious that we had written in the name after the photocopy. So I had to write in the name and information on a blank sheet. And then photocopy that one line onto the form that was already filled out, but to get the right kind of ink so the photocopy would look like the other ones was a challenge, and then working to make sure it lined up was very difficult. When it was all said and done the time was wasted because they never even looked at my roster.

I went to Federal Way for the managers meetings. That is where we were drawing for game times. We also got information about the rules. The Hooter's girls were there with wings and other food items for us. I sat next to McCoy. He was telling me that they were thinking about asking me to play on their team at the beginning of last season, but didn't because they found out I had the My Office team. But he made it sound that if I ever want to change teams I would have a place on his.

Following the meeting I went to Seahawks Stadium for the game. It was Oakland that was in town. We went to the events center to start off. Justin was with us and he went through some of the things they had set up for the kids to do.

Once it was closer to game time we made our way to the seats. The Seahawks played pretty well and beat up on Oakland pretty good. We left a little early because I parked in the parking garage. It takes about an hour to get out of it once the game is done and we needed to be at the poker game.

At the poker game I was not playing it very well. I had a decent hand and went up against a girl who only played the nuts pretty much. I didn't know that to start with. So I was dominated as I was throwing a bunch of money into the pat. That hurt. I never really recovered. I lost about sixty bucks through out the night. I just was not seeing any cards.

Poker Night at Dan's

Tonight there was some poker at Dan's house because my softball game was cancelled for the night. John came over and Denise and Ben joined us. We played for several hours, and as the night went on I was getting all the cards. I built my stack higher and higher. We played until around eleven o'clock. I wanted to get home sort of early so I wouldn't be too tired for work in the morning.

The New Temp

I went to the fire station this morning to update a couple photos on the photoboard. I was asked by Wilkins if I would be there after I was done. I told him I needed to go to the rec center but I could come back later on. I had a feeling that he wanted to talk to me about the temp job.

I went to the rec center and did the LE physical agility test. I am still not there on situps. I also made the mile and a half in about the same about of time. I need to shave about one minute off that time in order to get forty points.

I came home and cleaned up. I called the station and I set up an appointment to meet with the Chiefs at three o'clock PM. In the mean time I talked with Jon a little about the upcoming decision that I have to make. I guess I am sort of in the drivers seat, because I don't need to take the position. I sort of feel like I need to take it however.

I went to the fire station and I met up with the chiefs. I was offered the temp positions. It was said that I would not be guaranteed a job due to this, but it could help if I do a good job while working as a temp. I was given some time to think about it. They said they would work with me due to my other job. I told them I couldn't give up my other job knowing that there may not be a position when this is all done because they want to change it to a paramedic position. They said they would work with me in reference to my other job.

I left and called Jon. We talked about it some more. He pointed out that this temp period is a good thing for a couple reasons. One is that if I don't work out, then I still have a job to go it. If I don't take this, and wait until a fulltime position comes open. Then I take it and don't work out, I am out two jobs. Plus with them working with me I should be able to do both for a while. I am very nervous about saying yes, but I went back to the station to take it.

I went to Heston's office and said I that I am going to take it. He shook my hand and we scheduled my first day to be Monday of next week. I am going to only have three more shifts as a reserve. I am sad about that. I am going to miss working with those guys. I am now in a little bit of a haze as this is a big event in my life and I have a lot to think about now.

I got a call from Gollnick. I thought he already knew. He was calling about playing poker. I figured I would tell him in person.

I asked Heston to hold off on the e-mail until as late as he can so I can tell my guys in person. It was going to work out because everyone was coming down for rig checks early, and A. Wilcox and I had to be there to clean the bay. As I got to the station I got another call from Gollnick. He had been at the station and heard some rumors. He called me to ask me about it. I told him what was going on. I told him that I was going to tell him while playing poker. For my guys, I waited until everyone was there.

I told them that I was offered and accepted the temporary position. They congratulated me. But I am sad. The E-mail had gone out and by the end of my softball game I had a couple texts from people congratulating me.

We played against Tubbs. My head was not fully in the game as I was thinking about the change in my life. I had a good night. I pitched the whole game and didn't walk anyone on accident. One guy we walked on purpose a couple times. I also hit the ball pretty well. We won the game in the bottom of the seventh. It was great to win that one. We let up eight runs in the first, but came back to win.

After the game I went home and Gollnick came over. We played poker at my place until almost two in the morning. We spent a lot of time talking about the things I should do while I am at the fire station. What I should do on my first couple days. I had a pretty good idea having been around the fire services as long as I had been. The one I didn't know is to make sure there is coffee always ready.

I lost some money playing poker, but it could have been worse. I was only down nine bucks on the night, but at one point I was down to two bucks left.

Today is one of those days, I was expecting the offer for the temp position, but I am still not mentally prepared to leave the reserves. Though I have spent a lot of time thinking about that in the last couple months. I also realize my dreams of getting back on the sheriff's reserves will probably not be fulfilled. I am disappointed about that because I was really starting to think about how nice it would be to get that under my belt. It seems like everything went so fast.

I am Looking at Houses Again

The houses slump hasn't really hit Pullman so much, but I have seen some houses come down in price a little bit. One place I looked at before I wanted to see again. It is cheaper in price, also I wanted to see it again so I can remember why I didn't like it over all. After seeing it, I do remember what it was about the place I didn't like all that much.

I was at home doing some stuff on the computer waiting for the time to head to Dan's to play poker. It was John, Dan, and I. We did ten dollar buy-ins. I wasn't doing too well. I wasn't going to stay really late because of the test for the fire department. But I lost my money and bought in one more time.

It didn't take as long for me to lose all that money too. So I dropped about twenty bucks playing cards with them.

I got home and Brandon was here. He was here because he was going camping tomorrow by the Snake River and he was in town doing some laundry and waiting to go off. I talked with him really briefly because he has a girl with him.

I called it a night shortly after I got home.

Camping at Central Ferry

After sleeping in a little bit due to my late night I was still up around eight in the morning. I got the final things into the motorhome and headed to the store. I got some food for the meals we were going to have and headed out. I got some fuel in Colfax and made my way to the park.

I got my motorhome set up pretty quickly and joined the others sitting around talking and joking. After a couple hours I went back to the motorhome to get some sleep. Everyone else went off to walk their dogs or do something like that.

I was sleeping for about two hours when Carl got me up and we started to play cards. I was on fire. I was winning stacks of coins from the other guys. We played until it was time to start dinner. We had brauts and hamburgers. Dinner took a couple hours in total between starting it, cooking, eating and cleaning up.

Once we were all cleaned up we started to play a Texas Hold'em tournament. I went all in on the first hand with pocket eights. I won against Connie who called me with pocket threes. I had a big chip lead, but that went away over time as I wasn't able to get much going. I did hit on one four-outer. But that was about the best of what I could do.

I went out third and watched the rest of the game. It only took about thirty more minutes then it was done. It was not terribly late, but everyone made their way to bed.

Good Poker Night

This evening my poker game was starting around seven. I got the garage swept and set up the table. Then I counted the cards, counted the chips, and got everything ready to play cards.

People started to show up and we had a full table. I was doing pretty good, building up my own little stack of chips. Loren showed up and he was a little more aggressive than many of the other people there. In one hand a pair of sixes where on the board and I have a six in my hand. The other card on the flop was a queen. I had a two. I felt Loren had a six with an Ace so he would out kick me. We bet back and forth and he finally went all in for thirty some-odd bucks. I called and I beat him.

By the end of the night I was up fifty bucks, plus the use of the pop and candy machine was taking place. That is good. I just got to start to hold some more games at my place.

Poker Night at My Place

With yet another rainout this softball season we played another night of poker at my place. I was disappointed that we were rained out with the small amount of rain that had fallen.

John and Peter came over for cards. We played with the three of us for a couple hours. Peter had to leave around ten, then John and I did a twenty dollar Texas Hold'em heads up tournament. John won again. At the end I wasn't getting anything to play with.

One thing I need to do is start to be more aggressive and try to read John a little more. I think with him I have been so predictable that when I bet he knows I have something and he runs away, unless he has something. So I need to get the reputation with him that I could be bluffing so he doesn't know what I am trying to do.

I also need to stop being timid about winning a lot of money on the pots. For some reason I feel bad when I start winning a lot of money, so I don't play as I should be playing. I need to get over that.

More Rainouts

The weather forecast for today is for rain. It started to rain early in the day and it went downhill from there. It rained harder and harder. It was pretty clear the games were going to get cancelled. Gollnick called about playing poker. So he will be coming over tonight. I invited many others to come over as well.

There were several calls that came out including a rollover car accident with injuries. But no other reserves showed up. I didn't get to roll on it. I just stood by the station. Rich and I played some Ghost Recon as I was standing by.

I got home and started to work on my garage. I was going to set everything up out there for poker tonight. I got signs made for prices of stuff. I also lowered the prices in my pop machine. Gollnick got here and helped me move my poker table to the garage. That got set up and people started to show up. We has Kevin and Peter with us for a while. Then Dan and Denise showed up and we played until around eleven o'clock.

After everyone else left John and I played for a couple more hours. We did a twenty dollar winner takes all Texas Hold'Em game. It went both ways, but then I lost a lot on a hand that I should have gotten out of. Soon I was gone. I was down a little for the night. But it could have been worse.

More Poker at Loren's

I decided to get my haircut today. I stopped in and got it cut nice and short. I feels good to get it taken care of. This evening we had training for extrication of people from cars. Not using tools, but just backboards and the such. I was in a group and we did a couple run throughs.

After training I was got to get to bed early, but I found a text message on my phone from Loren about a game tonight. So I made my way there and played cards until the game broke. I ended up winning some money. It was not a big night, but I won some more money. There is a plan for another game on Wednesday.

Lost at Poker

This morning I hit the rec center got a workout and swimming in, but I was running late to the CPR class I was teaching this morning. I wasn't late to the class, just late getting things set up. The class lasted until shortly before noon. I went home and changed.

I picked up Tom at SEL and went to the Hilltop for our monthly lunch. We were up there our about an hour eating and talking about local politics and other issues.

This evening Loren had his poker game. I went to it. But I didn't last all that long. In the first hand I got A-K suited. I raised and then I was re-raised by Bryan. I was worried he had pocket Aces. But I threw that idea away and called him down. I was going to fold away my hand but there flop didn't totally miss me. I called it to the river where he showed pocket-Aces. That crippled me for the rest of the evening.

I won a little pot here and there until I got a pocket pair. I raised it pretty good, but I was called and the flop hit a Queen. The guy who called me had a queen and crushed my pocket pair. I lost a lot of money there. I was down to four bucks and in the big blind. I got pocket-fives. The pot was raised to four bucks. I called and lost on the river. That was the end of my night.

Over the last three games at Loren's I am up over all, but I lost money tonight.

A Rain Out

I decided to go to the doctor and have my finger looked at that I hurt while doing some BO last month. I took a softball off the tip of my right-ring finger. Ever since there has been some pain and it is slightly crooked. It took awhile for me to see the doctor. Finally he starts looking at my finger and hand. He was feeling parts of my hand then asks what I do for a living.

I told him I have about eight jobs. He then looked at me and said "lots of them must be hand jobs". I started to laugh. He thought out it and said "that came out wrong". I said that several of my jobs are labor intensive. He said that I have big hands. I got an Xray but it is not clear what I will be able to do about the injury.

As the day wore on it started to rain. I was worried that softball would be cancelled. As it got close to six o'clock an e-mail came out saying the games were cancelled. So I decided to head to Colfax for training. Actually tonight is board and business. The meeting was pretty short.

Tim, Jim, Carl, Laura, Steve, and I played poker for a couple hours. I won a pretty big pot at the end of the night to put me up on the night.

Coroner Training Meeting

I took some time before the coroner meeting to work on typing up information to share with everyone else at the meeting tonight. We were going to cover the things that I learned in the week long class. It took some time to type it up and get it ready for everyone.

It took a little over an hour to give everyone the information. We also touched on the double fatal car accident.

After the meeting I went to Loren's again for another game. This time we had about six or seven people there. We played for a couple hours and I ended up winning around twenty bucks.

Game Number Two Not So Good

This evenings game was against Charles from my IM team. He plays for the Bomb Squad. I started myself at pitcher. But it wasn't very good. I was having a lot of problems getting the ball across the plate. After the first inning I put Dave out there and only did the EH roll. I had an okay day at the plate. It was a slugfest between the two teams, but we ended up losing. During the game Greg came up to me and asked me what the "number" was. I didn't know what he meant, but he noticed that I have been losing weight.

Later on I went to Loren's place in CCS. He was having a one-hundred dollar buy-in cash game. I ended up winning one-hundred and fifteen bucks in the game.

I had a hand with pocket-Aces. I raised and then I was re-raised. We went to the flop and there were a pair of Two's on the board. That scared me a little but there was a bet. I re-raised and then the guy who bet went all in. I thought about it and called. He has a ten-five. I crushed him with my Aces. That was a big part of my winnings for the night.

Teaching CPR

This morning there was a meeting of the facility committee. I am part of the committee. We are exploring what is needed in a new fire station. Including location and more. I am part of the subcommittee that is deciding what is going to be included in the station. I am the only reserve on the committee.

This evening it was time for CPR class. I went to the station to set up the classroom. As people started to make their way in Pete tried to call me. He had called me earlier. But I didn't answer it the second time. I listened to the message later on during a break and found out he was telling me that he was on his way to a double fatal car accident. This is the second time we have had a double fatal on a day I choose to teach a class. The other time John actually covered the class for me.

John came over to my place and we played poker for a couple hours. I wasn't doing all that great and lost some money. I think was down around ten bucks when it was over with.

I talked to him about the idea of working as a career fireman. I asked him about the softball question. I don't want to miss softball. I told him I noticed that others who played softball tended to miss a lot of games. I asked if this was because they chose not to take the time off, or if it was because too hard to get the time off.

He told me in the first year I would probably miss games. But in the following years that I should just put in for vacation about six months in advance in order to make sure I get the time off. Because softball season is always the same time, it shouldn't be hard to figure out what days to take off.

Working at Colfax Fire

I went to Colfax Fire today and I was planning on working at the jail, but I ended up staying at the fire station. While I was there we got called out on a fire alarm at the school. It turned out to be burnt food.

Later on Tim and I got a pizza while waiting for the meeting to start. We learned about the plans for the new radio system and the fact that once everything is in scanner-land will die as they will not be able to scan us. That is sucky in my book.

After the training we played poker for a couple hours. Jim and I got into a laughing fit again. We seem to feed off each other. Something will happen that will crack us up. Then we start to feed off each other laughing harder and harder. That usually will go on for a couple minutes.

Fantasy Baseball Draft

I made my way to Phil's house for the baseball draft. I wasn't sure how it all worked as Ryan did this last season. This year it is me running the team because Ryan didn't want to do it. After getting my computer set up and on a wireless network the draft started.

It took almost six hours in all. We stopped for some pizza from Pipeline during the event. We ordered six pizza's in all. I ended up making this my free day as I had both pizza and some cookies. I used some guidelines I downloaded from a website showing what each player should go for assuming it was an auction style draft. I payed around what the site said the players were worth for the most part. I got some of them cheaper.

Overall my team was made fun of for being a ninety-eight all-star team. More or less they are saying my team is old and out of the prime. I don't know how it will do.

After that I called mom to talk to her for a while. It was her birthday today. I bought her a GPS for her birthday and gave it to her the last time I was in town. She really likes it.

I went to the Keeton's and played poker with them until around midnight. Denise was doing well and she ended up being the big winner on the night. I think I ended up down about ten bucks.

We had a good time playing cards and laughing at the stories we were telling.

Bad Beating in Poker

I decided today that I was going to play poker before I had to go to my softball meeting. Then I got a call about the autopsy that was going to happen today as well.

I went to Zeppoz and Loren was there. We were sending some texts earlier about playing. As it turned out we were on the same table. He was betting big pretty often trying to build a stack of money. I realized I would have to play fast in order to make it to the autopsy.

While waiting for the game to start I was talking about the poker hand I saw on TV on Friday night while working at the jail. Someone had pocket Aces. The other person had Ace-King. He pretty much had a five-percent chance of winning. The flop was Q-J-10. To give him a straight and the victory. That was amazing.

I found myself with pocket Aces. I raised a small amount. Loren went all-in. I called him. Everyone else folded out. Loren shows K-Q suited. I was a big favorite. The flop was J-10-9. Giving him the straight and the win. People remembered what we had talked about and thought it was strange to see it actually happen to me. I joked with Loren about popping his car tires. I wasn't mad at all. I was just amazed that it happened just like I saw on TV.

I went a little longer. I got my money in on a good hand and someone who was at a lesser odds of beating me, in fact beat me. So I left, but the timing was good.

I went to the funeral home for the autopsy. As always that was very interesting and it showed us what caused the death in this case.

I got out of there just before I had to be at Cougar Country for the softball team signups. No one else was there when I got there. I ate slowly and just as I was getting ready to go I saw Heidi show up. So I got a pop and hung out while she ate her dinner. She signed the form and we spent time talking about various things with Rhonda at the table with us.

Final Day in Wildland Class

Today was the final day in Wildland training. I have been doing it all week in Colfax. We did our final sections, then did our written test and shelter deployment test.

After the class I went to help C-Shift with their weekly rig checks. While at rig checks I got a call about going bowling. I had not been bowling in years. Due to my ankle I have not been able to bowl very well.

Kevin, BKoe, and I went to Zeppoz. I was able to bowl pain free. We ended up bowling four games. My first game was around a one-fifty-two. Pretty good for not having bowled in a long time. Brandon is a good bowler and I was only able to beat him once.

After bowling we went to Brandon's place and we played poker. We were there until nearly four in the morning. We were playing dealers choice. That was fun. It was all low stakes.

Out on the Bubble

This morning I worked a WSU Women's basketball game with Wilcox. We didn't really talk to each other much. But it has been like that forever. We really only have small talk conversations. The Cougs lost the game and ended up tenth place in the Pac-Ten.

When I got home I spent time working on cleaning my driveway and sidewalk of rocks and other debris. I had a ton of stuff on the driveway and it looks very nice now. I also got my laundry taken care of as well. It was a good day as far as that goes. But now I need to work on finishing up the garage. I have some clutter that is being built. With a nice day I could get out there and pound it out.

Later on I went to Zeppoz for the poker tournament. It was a new tournament structure. They made us do a ten dollar buy-in. A lot less people were there. I am sure it will build back up, but I was doing pretty good. I wasn't really losing too much. I was maintaining for a long time. I did an add-on during that period and it was off to the eliminations.

I made it a long way. I finally started to get some hands and I was winning the hands I got. Then the dealers changed. My first hand was pocket-Kings. I didn't get anyone to call my raise on the blinds. My next hand was pocket-Sevens. There was a raise pre-flop with four people going to the flop. The flop was Seven-Seven-Ten. I had quads. I was last to act. There were two checks. A minimum bet of one-thousand. I called. The other two folded. The turn came with a check from the person who bet. I bet one thousand and I got a call. Finally the river. Another check, I bet three-thousand. No call. So I didn't have to show my hand. I threw it away.

But I started to get bled away as the blinds were so big. Pretty soon it was down to three. I was on the bubble with enough for the big blind. One caller. I have two-three. I was hosed. The other guy had King-Two. I was out of the tournament.

I had a good time. On the way home I treated myself to a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. I watched some TV and completed my laundry before going to bed.

EMT Class Help

Started the day driving to Steptoe for the EMT class. I was doing more medical assessments. My roll was mainly to help people with doing a medical incident. I made up some scenarios and run the groups through it. I did that for most of the time there. I also helped with some check-offs on using the long bone splint for a femur fracture.

For lunch a group of us went to Colfax fire for some pizza and watched the Cougar game. Well we watched the tip-off and the first points scored by the Cougs. We were back at the school until around four in the afternoon.

When I returned I went to the Dodge dealership to look at their trucks. I found one fifteen hundred. But with what I would get for my truck and what they wanted on that truck I would not be making a good switch. I want to reduce the overall amount owed on the truck. I would have only reduced what I owe by about two grand and I would have added about forty-five thousand miles to the rig. Not a good trade off.

I will keep looking until I find the perfect truck and the perfect deal for me.

I went to the Rec center and did a cardio workout. Then I swam five laps. My legs were tired and I was really not swimming super well. But I chalked that up to having just done twenty minutes of cardio.

After the Rec center I went to the casino and played with about forty bucks. That didn't last forever. Russell was there. He was looking at getting off pretty soon. I was going to give him a ride. But I got a call from Avalon about transporting a person from the hospital. When I was done it was after three in the morning. I went back to the casino wearing a polo shirt and slacks. At first Russell glanced at me thinking I was someone else.

He got off and I gave him a ride to Nick's apartment. I went home and called it a night.

Bought a Pop Machine

I did some shopping at Safeway and stopped by Al's Auto Body to look at the pop machines. I found one that I liked. It was branded as a Coke machine, but I figured the features it had it was worth dealing with that. It has up to nine selections. It holds a lot of pop. Plus I can vary the prices depending on whether I have pop, beer, or some other beverage in the machine.

I had to run home for a bit then I went back to pick it up. I helped to do some cleaning on it and replaced the locking mechanism on it. Then the guy delivered it to my house.

I set it up in the garage. Next to the other vending machine.

I went to Colfax for fire training. We were doing our Confined Space refresher course. That went pretty quick. Carl, Jim, Tim, and I play poker. I had to get some cash from the store. While I was there I saw they had a good deal on some kinds of candy. So I bought thirty bars for the vending machine.

I didn't do great at cards, but I ended winning a couple hands late and walked away with about fifty cents.

Welcome to Canada

Got up this morning and started my trip to Canada. It started with picking up three of my co-workers along the way. In Renton, Bellevue, and Kirkland. Then we hit the road and made our way to the border. At the border I was being questioned. But I was answering the questions with brief information that should have been a little more descriptive. For instance when asked what we were doing, I said "going to a meeting." So after getting the information he wanted we continued along the way.

But we didn't go the exact way the directions we had included. So it took us some extra time to get to our final destination. About an extra hour or so. When we got to the office we got a tour of it.

Then it was to a meeting room. We went over their product. Showed our product. Had some pizza for lunch. Then ended the day with talking about the work they are going to have us do on their product.

We hit the road and it was a long haul back to Seattle. We talked about the people we met and the product we were going to have to work on. I dropped the people off in the reserve order that I picked them up. It had been a long day.

Later I got a call from Jon. I was meeting up with him to play poker down in his neighborhood. I got there it was very bad. I couldn't do much to win anything. We were playing two-four dollar limit. That made it hard to push people out. But we finally upped it to ten dollar limit. I had my last buyin in front of me and I went to work. When it was done about forty minutes later I won back all my lost money plus about twenty bucks more. So it turned out to be a good day. It just took a while.

It wasn't like the last time I was there when I took a couple hundred bucks and didn't lose more than two hands all night long.

Super Bowl Party

Today's Super Bowl party was held at Bryce's house in Colfax. I purchased some peanut butter cups, chips, and dip. I brought that down with my pop. I got there around the same time Carl did. He brought his beans stuff. Jim and Connie brought their taquito's. Everyone had their thing there.

We started by playing some poker. But I was not doing very well. I sort of just bled out money most of the night. We were rooting for the Giants to beat Patriots to ruin their attempt at a perfect season. We stopped playing cards at the start of the game. We were not very impressed with the commercials this year. They were not very funny nor ground breaking.

At half time we played cards until there was about five minutes left in the game. After that we went back to watch the final part of the game. That was probably the best part of the game as well.

We played a tiny bit more cards before calling it a night. I went home and watched the end of House.

Poker in Moscow

I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Ricky today trying to figure out the estimates of working of Kroll again. I am not looking forward to this in the slightest.

Later I went to Moscow to play poker at Jeremy's apartment. It was a little difficult to find it because there was a lack of street signs and house numbers in the area. Finally I narrowed down to the fact I was at the correct spot and went to find his apartment. There was no indication of apartment numbers from the parking area. So I went to the first opening I found. In the hallway I entered, I immediately found his apartment. What luck.

I knocked and was let in. No one else was there and it was almost exactly the start time. I was thinking I was at the wrong place until the guy asked if I was there for poker. I said I was.

Other showed up. One guy was a ten-six-seven with dirty blond hair. That gave me some good eye candy. He was also a big fan of Omaha. He spent some time teaching others how to play it. I helped it with some of the rules and how things worked. He said he was still new to it himself.

We played a simple ten dollar buy in. I wasn't getting much of anything along the way and I just ended up giving money away on the night. I stuck around until the tournament was done. There were only six people anyway. We threw some darts and watched the action until Jeremy ended up winning the whole thing.

We played some Omaha for the fun of it, teaching everyone else how to play. We gave everyone a stack of chips and played for about twenty minutes. Those guys were going to go to the bar. I decided to head home.

Poker Night at Dan's

The plan was to get together earlier than normal to play poker at Dan's. John and Denise played as well. Denise did well with it. I also left up around ten bucks. We played dealer choice like normal. It was pretty amazing that we saw two hands with quads and one hand that was a straight flush in Texas Hold'em or Omaha. John and Dan didn't do too well however.

I got my battery for the quad. I installed it and used it to plow what was left on my driveway. I also hit the sidewalk down my side of the road to the mailboxes. I need to do the other way as well. We are supposed to get snow soon. I will do it after it snows next.

Ken is Senior Pastor

Being as tired as I was I hard a hard time getting out of bed for getting to Colfax for Church. I got cleaned up, dressed up, and drove to Colfax. When I got to the church I shook the hands of the greeters and found my place near the back.

Joy saw me and gave me a hug. I also saw Tim, both chiefs, and Milt. Ken also saw me and came over. The church service was nice. They played a couple modern Christian songs. During that time everyone stood up. Some people sang along. They would raise their hands. Some of the songs were good ones. I guess I should say they were all good. But a couple got me tapping along with it.

Then they did a ceremony for accepting Ken as the pastor of the church. Following that Ken did a sermon on Time. There were some good points that he brought up. What is interesting to me is that this blog is called "Shorter of Breath". Which is part of a line from the Pink Floyd song "Time". I have included the whole verse in my blog description. It is big to me.

There was a period of time where I feel like I wasted my life. I spent my early twenties working every evening. I missed out on a bunch of things that my other college friends did. Maybe it was all for the best, but I still had the feeling of lost time. But I look back over my life and I feel like there is more that I could do.

I don't know if that is really the case. Maybe I can work harder and filling my day with less down time. But I don't think it is about quantity of things done, but the quality of the time I spent doing it. I have a blog from several years ago when I was with the old softball group. We ended at Lester's house. While there it just felt like we were having a high class party.

I find many times I have the best and most memorable time when I am out of my element. When I leave my comfort zone. But many time I have a lot of fun while in my comfort zone as well. I should sit in a corner and dwell on what makes it so I have a good time and work on trying to fulfill that.

When church was done it was back home. I went with Russell to pick up Nick from the Flag lane. He was coming in on the bus. We drove down to Cougar Country for lunch. Then I took Russell and Nick to Russell's place. We looked at some photos from a party they were at.

After I got home, I worked on the photo board project for the fire station. I got my list ready of things I needed to buy at the store. I went to play poker at Zeppoz. I came in ninth place. That is a drop of two places from times past.

I stopped at Safeway and did my big shopping. I purchased a lot of fruit and vegetables. Plus many other things I was going to need to start my Body for Life twelve week program. This is something I can continue to do, over and over. To me each start and ending point will be a nice goal period. I get my weekly goals. With each Sunday is a "free" day. One were I can relax and not stay so regimented with the food I eat. Can you say Pizza?!

Also at the end of the twelve week period I will hopefully see a change in my health, weight, stamina, strength, and softball power hitting abilities. My first twelve weeks will be done at the end of March. I will be nearing the end when Softball season is going. I hope that I will see some positive improvement by then.

I started to work on my meal plan for tomorrow. They have the first week plotted out for you. I am going with that, and making minor changes along the one.

Tomorrow is the start of a new path. Since moving into my house I have done things to be cleaner. I have always been bad at leaving things laying where I last used them. I always had a clean kitchen, but my bedroom is always covered in clothes and other things that just never found a home. I have worked hard to keep the house clean. I wash my truck weekly. With the snow and ice I haven't washed it lately. But keeping a clean truck is important.

I have kept that up longer than anyone in my family thought I could. Longer than I thought I could. I also have kept my budget tracking going the whole time too. I think I am ready for anther change in my life where this is not a fly-by-night one time work out. This is going to be a change in my life. I am trying to ease into it rather and shocking the system too much. So for the last week I have been eating less and more healthy on my own.

I thought about going to bed a little earlier. Then I will take a power nap after my work out to get a little more sleep before starting my day.

National Treasure Part two

I went to see National Treasure down in Renton on the East Valley Highway. I have been going to that theatre since it opened. For a while I have had some really rude experiences at the hands of other customers. Many times I would hear people talking through out the movie. I would hear cell phones ring. On top of the ring, the person would answer the phone and talk on it. When did people become so self-centered that they could careless about anyone around them. Now movies have to play reminders on the screen to turn off the cell phones.

The movie itself pretty much was the same as the first one. Using tricks and high-tech gadgets to get information to find the treasure. In this movie like the last one, the bad guy would get there at the end demanding to have the treasure, and then something would happen where he would not get the treasure. But it was still a fun journey to get the treasure.

After the movie I went to the Silver Dollar casino. I didn't do very well at all. I pretty much raked one pot, and it was only the blinds after everyone else folded. I tried some four card poker, Paigow, and Spanish Twenty-One. Nothing worked for me tonight.

I couldn't get a hand while playing Texas. I did get pocket Queens. I raised, and I kept betting. The big blind played along. He had four-five off suit. He called six bucks to see a flop and kept calling to get his straight. I lost a lot of money there on someone who was just calling and calling. That is how my night went.

This same guy when I sat at the table really caused me to be confused about his background. He was a white guy around twenty-four years old. He had a well groomed beard. He wore a baseball hat with a very curved bill and it was on straight. He had well manicured fingernails. He had on a designer-looking denium coat. He voice sounded like he thought he was a G. Sort of like Eminem. But as the night wore on, I was starting to think it was more of a gay voice that gangsta. Soon that drifted into thinking he sounded southern. Maybe a gay southern. I was not sure.

Big Night at Poker

After work I met up with Jon to play some poker at Mike's. He is one of the guys who puts on the games at Newport Shores. We got there around nine o'clock PM. There were six others already there. I was getting some good cards, but my community cards were really doing well.

As time went on I just kept winning. While I was there I only went to the showdown once and lost. I had a couple split pots. I had one situation that really burned me up.

I had a three-four offsuit. I was in an early position. I was only in due to being in the blind. A three-five-six rainbow came on the flop. So now I am one card from the straight and I have a pair. So I stick around for a little bit. A ten was on the turn. It was checked around. A three on the river. I had trips, but when the seven dollar bet was quickly raised to twenty-seven bucks. I felt that he had trips with a better kicker. So I threw it down. He let me know he had a ten. I told him that he made a good bed.

We played until one in the morning. When the card game was done I was up three-hundred and thirty-five bucks. Jon found some dice. We played some four-five-six. We only rolled a couple times. The first round Jon won with boxcars (trip sixes). Then I played again. He got a point of two. I rolled a four-five-six. I took bank. I got some bets and rolled a four-five-six again. I had sixty bucks now. Jon played sixty. I rolled trip-fives. I won again. I was on fire. Because of four-five-six, I ended up leaving with four hundred bucks.

While at work today we had our company Christmas Party. We were told we were being bought by a Canadian company. It was sort of a shock. Our future is known. My future is unknown. They want to be closed by the end of the year. So that means that by the second of January I will have a new boss. I spoke with my CEO to find out some more. She said that I have a great skill set. I can do all parts of the new code set, plus I can work on all of the old code. I am a valuable person.

Plus I proved to her that working from home is a viable thing. I proved to her that I do a good job without coming into the office. She said that our potential buyers has a president who works from home. So the new bosses are all for it. She pretty much told me I don't have anything to worry about. I told Jon about that tonight while we were playing poker. He told me about a job opportunity at his company. I also told him I have yet to hear anything back from SEL. I don't know how I am doing there. He told me that I could possibly get a job working for his company. I might look into that one way or another.

A Grand time at the Casino

The plan today was going to be going to some RV places and look at campers for my truck. The problem is that I didn't make it out and about like I had planned to do.

I got together with Jon and Jim around nine o'clock PM. We ended up going to the Silver Dollar Casino on the West Valley Highway. It turned out to be a good move.

I have a bad head ache and I drank a lot of pop and took some Motrin to try to make it feel better. It wasn't until nearly four in the morning that the pain was pretty much gone.

We started playing at a poker table with two others. I started out winning the first two hands. After that I did okay. I never really was down all night. Jon and Jim were also doing really well. Between the three of us we ended up almost a grand. I was only around one-hundred and fifty of that. Jon had the most. We were just winning a lot of hands. I really couldn't lose.

We were there until nearly four in the morning. On the way out we got some of the free cards that they give away.

More Zeppoz poker

After only about two hours of sleep I was woken up by a phone call from Pete. There was a call waiting in the wing. I had guessed it had to do with the call we had this morning. Later on in the morning I called Pete and it turned out to be what I was thinking it was. As it turned out I had transported the same person to Spokane about ten days prior. So I was familiar with him.

In the rest of the day Wilcox, Dearth, and I responded on EMS and fire calls. The first one was a pretty bad looking accident. Turned out it wasn't much of anything when it was done. A lot of people stopped to help. I was talking to one person who was there. I got the vibes and the gaydar was going off. I found him on Facebook and sure enough he is family.

I was running really late for poker. Sign ups were at five-thirty, and it was almost that time when we got back to the station after our fourth call of the afternoon. With the heavy snow covering the road we had a long day. But now it is raining and the roads are getting all slushy.

I got to Zeppoz in time to get a seat at the table. Due to the weather, I believe, there was a limited number of players. We ended up having three full tables, but it took almost until six o'clock to get there.

A ten-six-seven who has been in all the tournaments since I started to play was there. He is not the normal blonde/blue but, he is still ten-six-seven.

Towards the end of the night I was knocked out in seventh place again. The ten-six-seven was in the final four. All of a sudden there was a small uproar at the table. I was playing a table game right next to the poker table. I turned around and saw the ten-six-seven with tears in his eyes. Someone said he would chop the pot with him. I didn't know what had happened.

Later on I found out his dad had died and he was called about it during the game.

Got my Shopping Done

I got up this morning and there was a response from the cop I knew on gay.com. He answered my question and pondered who I was. I didn't tell him straight up, but I responded to his question of me.

I went to Safeway and did my shopping. I had been needing to go there for quite a while. While there I saw Bruce. We stopped and chatted for a while. Later I saw C-Bass. Coach Doba was there shopping. I also saw the Pullman Fire ambulance crew buying some stuff for dinner.

I got home and put everything away. I had some time before I had to go back to Zeppoz. I got the IM address of the guy who I know that is gay. I also responded to the cops' message back to me.

Then it was off to Zeppoz for the tournament. There was a ten-six-seven there again. I have seen him the last three weeks that I was there. I finally found out who it was. He is a local. I always want to play on his table, but we get different tables.

In today's game I decided that I would not do more than one re-buy. That is all I ended up needing. I made it longer that I had in previous tournament. I was out in the seventh place. They paid the top four, with more than two-hundred going to first place. I was the second lowest in chips on the final table. But I won a big hand. Only to lose it later on. Then I had only enough for one big blind. I only had three hands to get something to play. I got K-9 suited. I went all in. I got two-pair, but I lose to someone with trips. That was my night.

I played a table game. I lost nearly twenty bucks, but I changed tables. I won back my money and walked out of there even.

Another Day in Jail

Another shift working in jail. I worked with a new person today. I helped him book someone in and did a round with him. I worked there until around six o'clock pm. It was pretty uneventful for the most part.

I went to training in Colfax. It was a pretty short one. We went over the cascade system in the rescue and in the station. We learned how to hook up bottles and how to hook the rescue to the in-house system to refill it.

When that was done Carl, Scott, Chris, and I played poker for a couple hours. I won the first hand of the night and couldn't do anything after that.

Zeppoz Poker Tournament

This morning started out with breakfast. Then I spent time working on the application for work. Jon, Logan, and Justin were still here. They ate breakfast with me. Jon helped me with a problem that I had with something. It worked so I was able to get it checked in.

They decided to take off around noon. I spent time doing the dishes. Then I made some cookies.

It was off to Zeppoz's for the poker tournament. I was doing okay at first, then I lost. I went to the three-six table. I went up pretty well and built a stack for a long time. Then I hit a wall. I was getting people sucking out on me. We you cannot chase someone off, they catch cards on you. That is why I hate playing low stakes poker. It is all about the cards you have and not how you play the game and how you bet.

I then played some high/low poker. It is a new card game. I did good at first, then I started to lose like crazy. It wasn't very long before I lost all my money. I went from being up to losing it all in about an hour. I was there for almost five hours in all. Over all it was a good time. I am going to have to tighten up the poker playing for a bit though.

Lots of Fires Today

I heard a faint knocking at my door. It made me more aware but didn't totally wake me up. Soon I heard another knock on my door. I got up. My pager had not gone off, but I only had it on the second alarm tones. I opened the door. Tyson asked if I was going to go. I asked him what was going on. He said there was a structure fire with a couple cars involved.

I got up and went to the station. I didn't make a first out rig because I wanted to go pee. When I got back to the bay they second alarmed it. I was going to call Bien, but I saw him roll into the station. Chapman also showed up. We took off in the ambulance.

On our arrival to the scene I could see a five inch across Spring Street. We parked in such a way to protect the hose. We walked up to the scene. While walking up the road a man asked us if the smoke coming from his garage was a normal amount. Because he was a neighbor of the fire, he figured some of the smoke was from the fire. But it was pouring out, and I could tell it was not from the other fire. I looked inside the door but could not see flames.

We went to command and let Thompson know we had a second fire a couple houses away. He sent some of us to staging to wait assignment. Van Ness was in charge of staging. We got called down to work overhaul on the first fire. While doing that another fire came out on Nye Street. A building was fully involved. A bunch of units broke free from our fires as they were out.

We also called in for Colfax, Moscow, and District Twelve. We stayed on the overhaul detail as the others fought the other fire. I listened to the radio traffic. It seemed like a bad fire. We all wanted to go to that one, but we had our assignments and worked it and got the overhaul done.

I could see the column of the smoke from across town. I could tell the fire was big. After we were done with our scene, we cleaned up the hose and went to the station to wash it and get the PL back in service. That took a while to do. We also had to fill out arrival reports. We sat at the station filling out our paper work and having some food. I was able to see the photos from the Nye street fire. It was really big.

After we helped to get Engine Thirty-Three back in service as well.

I went home and made my phonecall to the meeting that we have daily. I let them know what I was working on. I was pretty tired. I got up around four-thirty in the morning and had only three hours of sleep.

I also had the poker game at six o'clock tonight. I had about ten people in total show up. We only had about six people at any given time however. I had to rebuy once. But then I started to really kick some butt. I was winning some good hands including one where I had two people call an all-in. I had pocket aces. I had about eighteen bucks into the pot. Two people called it.

I was up fifty bucks when it was all said and done. I went to bed after I got the house put back together. I had to be at the Nye street fire location and work it from three in the morning until eight in the morning. It was going to be a long day.

The Poker Tournament

After bumming around this morning without a poker game at Jason's I decided I would play in the Zeppoz tournament. I thought it started at four. It started at six. So I took the opportunity to go to Moscow and look for swimming trunks. I did not find any that I like so I went back to Zeppoz. I played some Texas Shootout. Loren was there as well. We played for a while and talked about playing poker.

We got in line for the tournament. I ended up sitting on a different table. During Texas Shootout I won about twenty bucks. I used that and some more in the tournament. I raked a couple pots, but I couldn't catch cards when it mattered. I ended up going out shortly after the final buy in round.

I talked to Russell for a little bit while I plays some cards on his table.

I went home and watched some Sunday night TV shows and got a couple new things done with the duty calendar application.

Poker at Dan's

Tonight Dan, John, Denise, and Denise's' brother, Adam were playing poker at their place. We started around eight o'clock. But I had to do some parking lot patrols around nine o'clock. That lasted an hour so I missed some poker.

After getting back we played until around two o'clock in the morning. I won on the night but I gave Dan money to pay for all the snacks they have had for us the last couple times playing there.

Russell got drunk

I started off trying to get some things done on the fire application that I started to develop last night. Before long I needed to head to the Moose to watch some football with Ron, Heather, Dan, Michele, and CBass. I watched about a quarter before Russell called to get a ride from the airport. We were going to go to Jason's and play some poker when he got back.

I picked him up from the airport and he had a couple glasses of wine while on the plane. Then we were off to Jason's. When I got there Peter was there playing. It was six handed poker for a while. Then one guy finally lost his money and left. Russell was drinking more while we were there.

The game broke up because everyone wanted to go to Zeppoz for the free roll. I had to be on call and do weekly rig checks so I couldn't go.

I went home and got ready for the rig checks. Then it was off to the station. The rig checks went pretty quick over all. The Rescue kept getting called out. We were done around nine o'clock. I went home and watched Shark and had some dinner.

I worked on my application for a little while before going to bed. But before morning would hit we got dispatched for a structure fire. I ended up standing by the engine for the whole incident. It turned out to be more of a situation where we spent most of the time getting people in and out of the retirement community as well as clearing the smoke from the hallways.

We got done around six-thirty in the morning. I went back home and went to sleep for a while.

Mike D Homecoming Poker Tournament

I set up a poker tournament for Mike D's return to Pullman. It was scheduled to start after the bon fire on campus. We were taking the engine up there to man it. I got everything set up before going up there. It was a good thing because the bon fire went late. I ended up calling Mike to have him run it until my return.

The bon fire was pretty cool. They had many people from the sports teams. Elson Floyd was there. He thanked us for coming up there. I recognized him and then when he was done shaking our hands I looked at Bien and asked if he knew who that guy was. He said no. I told him who it was and he got a look on his face like he was surprised as to who it was.

We hung around until it was over. The heat from the fire was pretty hot. At one point you could see the whole crowed move away from the fire. We used the water from the engine to put out the fire.

When I got home the game was already underway with ten guys playing. Soon one more person showed up and we made two six man tables. One was a Omaha table and one was Texas. We play for a while, but I could not win an Omaha hand. I switched tables. That is when I started to make a comeback. I was up a little bit of money. Then I started to lose it again.

A couple more people showed up as some left. Pretty soon we went back to one table. It appeared that everyone was going to break up at midnight. But at eleven-thirty I got a fire alarm call. I was hoping it would go fast. But instead I spent the next three and a half hours running from call to call. Some medical and some fire. One was actually a fire in a dumpster. We were at the station. I asked if we could come along. Turpin said we could.

We got to the scene and a dumpster at CCN was on fire. We got it put out and the rig put back together I got home around three in the morning. I put my house back together and went to bed.

Got a New Truck

Got up early and got my stuff put into the truck and picked up the boat trailer. I went to Jon's and picked him up. We went to pull his boat out of the water. I took it back to his place and backed it into his driveway. He followed me to the Dodge dealership. The guy wanted to know if I wanted it. I went back to the whole issue about not having the radio controls on the steering wheel.

The guy asked why don't I look at a new truck. He had me write down some of the things that are important and did some searching. He found one or two trucks with a gas engine and the steering wheel controls but did not find the color I liked. He had me go to the lot and see the other colors. I wanted a blue truck. Plus we were adding nearly ten grand. I didn't want to do that. I made it clear if I were to get a new vehicle it would be one-hundred percent of what I want. The junior car dealer was trying to tell me I could not get one-hundred percent. I told him that I could. I said that if I were to get a new truck it would not be today. I realized that this deal was either the used truck or no truck.

The sales manager came over to assist. I made it clear that I was apprehensive over getting this vehicle because of the missing audio controls. Plus the additional debt load. The sales manage asked if I would do it for twenty-one-five. I thought about it, sort of waiting for a reaction from Jon. Jon finally spoke up saying that if I was taking so long to accept the deal then obviously it was not exactly right.

We left and Jon said to me outside he thought he was going to have to grab me by the back of the coat to get me out of there. I told him I was waiting for his reaction. I made a plan for what I was going to do.

I told the dealer I was going to look into a couple of things and then get back to him. After lunch I called him and said I would do the deal for twenty-three-five with a one-hundred-thousand mile warranty included. He called me back and said he could not do that. The warranties were out of his hands. I asked to speak to the finance division to find out what a warranty would cost. He called me back later and said twenty-four out the door with a lifetime drivetrain warranty. I told him I would think about it.

I told Jon and Jon thought the drivetrain warranty was not enough. I agreed. I called BECU to find out what their warranties would cost. I got a price of eighteen-hundred-and fifty. I called the dealer back and said I would do the deal for twenty-one-five out the door. He said that offer was not on the table. I said it was earlier. He said the sales manager was trying to see if I was worried about debt or the audio controls. That was not a real offer. I said to find out if it was and call me back.

By this time in the day I realized that I did want to get the truck, but only if I got it for twenty-one-five. A while later the sales manager called back and said I could get it for twenty-one-seven, plus a full tank of fuel. I said I would do it.

I went to the dealer and moved all the stuff from my truck to the new one. I then started to sign all the paperwork. I thought I was almost done, but I had more negotiating to do for the warranty. They wanted twenty-four hundred. I said I could get the one through BECU for eighteen-five. He trying to tell me that the dealer warranty is better. I did want to get the dealer warranty, but I did not want to pay twenty-four hundred.

After some negotiations I got it for twenty-two hundred and a fifty dollar deductible rather than a one-hundred dollar deductible. I left in my new truck.

I went back to the office and got my stuff. By this time it was nearly nine at night. Because it was so late I decided to go to Jon's neighborhood poker game for a while. I told Jon about the latest dealings. Then a tournament was being organized from the cash game that was going on. I got in on the tournament. There were sixteen players. They were paying the top four. I was on the bubble, but I was way behind. I ended up going out on the bubble.

I then hit the road at about eleven o'clock at night.

Poker Night at Dan's

I spent much of the day working on my shelf project. I was actually assembling the wood framing and getting everything screwed together. Towards the end of the night of my work I got a phone call from John. He asked if I wanted to play some poker tonight. I told him that I would like to play cards.

Around eight o'clock I went to Dan's house and we started to play. Dan had a bunch of Diet Pepsi for me and he got some M&Ms for everyone. He paid us our money from last time and we started to play.

I was hot again like the other night. I was winning and winning money. When someone would buy more chips I would take three black chips (one dollar chips) and exchange them out of my stack because my stacks were so big. We were doing five dollar buyins. I was up twelve bucks alone in black chips. Plus all my winnings in the other chips. I ended up walking out about twenty bucks richer. Dan also won back some of his money that he had lost before.

I think my biggest loss all night was a buck-ninety-five.

Poker Night at Peter's

I was supposed to go to Colfax for fire training, but I just couldn't get up the energy to go. I was too into my garage and the building I had going on out there. I was building away when I got a call from Peter about playing poker over at his place.

I went there and just won hand after hand. I slowly built up my stacks. I only lost a couple big hands. But I won way more than I lost. I left up about fifteen bucks. That is good for Peter's place because buy-ins are only five bucks.

FFL Live Draft

This morning I scheduled to work with James on driving the engine and pumping on it. We planned to put in a total of four hours including one hour pumping. We first went to the tower to pump on the engine. We talked about how the pump works and how to run it for various hose lines. Then we went driving. I started on the bigger less crowded streets.

As the time flew by we went all over town. I also got him to think about roads and go onto road he didn't know very well. We got a couple fire alarms. We responded to both of them. But both times we pretty much got called off for one reason or another.

Around one o'clock I spoke to Chapman about keeping the engine one extra hour. That caused us to get two more calls. One of them was weird. The guy was running away from us even though he should have been seen. I explained to him that it wouldn't cost anything to take a look. He still ran off. Then a few minutes later it became clear there were other issues. There was also a verbal domestic going on at the same time with him and someone else.

I got the police down there and we clear as a no patient found. While on that a second call for a guy who fell from an apartment building came out. We went along on that. We did the transport. So, it was after three and I was a little worried that Chapman was going to be upset about us still having the engine out and about.

I also had my FFL draft at four o'clock. The last two years the coroners office has had calls right at draft time. I was hoping that would not happen this year. Turns out it didn't, but the EMS call almost made me miss part of it.

After the hospital we had to fuel up the rig. Then it was off to the FFL draft. That took about four hours. I got Farve like I do every year.

Following the draft I went to Dan and Denise's to play poker. John was over there as well. We played nickle, dime, quarter stuff until the three o'clock in the morning. It was a long day at the end of a long weekend for me. I couldn't wait to get to bed.

Infectious Disease Training

I was asked to cover for Chapman for a while tonight because he was going to go play with D-Twelve on their fire.

I went to the fire station to do our daily rig checks. Then down to Station one for training. It was infectious diseases.

When it was done Chapman called to have me cover the rest of the night. I went to my place. John came over and we played poker. It was small stakes dealer's choice. I was up and could not lose for a while. It was bad for John. They we started to play the silly games, like Acey-Deucy etc. He won back some of his losses and when he called it a night at two in the morning he was up about two bucks.

Winning again

It has been a little bit since I was winning at poker. The last couple cash games I was at, I have lost. But today would be different. After getting permission to leave early tomorrow so I could make it back for softball, I got some work done on our product.

Then it was off to Eric's condo in Bellevue for a tournament. Eight people played in it. It was a twenty dollar buy-in with rebuys for the first three rounds. I did one rebuy, but no add-on. I was in fourty bucks.

I wasn't catching hands, and I was the short stack all night long. Even as people were going out before me, I was short stacked and the guy who would go out would bet all-in, only to lose to someone with more money so the bet could be coverd.

Over time people were starting to go out, but it took a while to see people starting to drop out. Once that happened however, it started to go pretty quick.

I was short stack, as I was all night, and I only had about three times the big blind. I was nearing my exit when the number two chip leader went all-in. I could not believe my eyes. I was hoping the chip leader would call and win allowing me to get second place. But the chip leader did not call.

I ended up going out shortly thereafter winning third place and taking home an extra twenty-two bucks on the night.

Renton Old Timers Picnic

Some of them will be up this morning around ten o'clock in the morning. I decided text Jon to see if we were going to go to the Renton old timers' picnic. He had not gone yet so him and I run a ride together. We met up at Ron Regis park and carpooled to Lions park from there.

Cost twenty five dollars for the entry fee. I covered the cost of food and drinks. They had hot dogs, barbecued spareribs, salmon, corn on the cob, a couple kegs of beer, and a case of whiskey. There was a horseshoe tournament that Terry and Jon were participating in. They only made it one round before they were knocked out by another team.

At noon everyone gathered around the main area where the American flag was presented. We were led by the oldest member of the Renton old timers' and saying the pledge of allegiance. After the pledge, the president of the Renton old timers' club and other executives members started draw ticket stubs for winners for the whiskey.

Anybody who won a bottle of whiskey would be cheered on to open up the bottle take a swig and pass it around. There were people of all ages people as young as in their twenties all way to people in their eighties. They went through twelve bottles of whiskey. I did not end up winning a bottle of whiskey although my number was one off. After the whisky was given out we went to get some food. I had a couple spareribs and I had already had a couple of hot dogs.

As soon as most people were done eating we all started lining up around the four-five-six table. I only had brought out sixty dollars with me. I did okay for a couple rounds and then it was my turn to be the banker. I risked all the money I had which was sixty dollars. I rolled a three. The first guy to my left had tapped me. He rolled a natural and beat me.

Jon asked me if I wanted to make a withdrawal from the bank of Jon. I told him know I did not and I watched him roll the dice for a while. Finally I did get some money and I played on the same table as Jon. I was winning money pretty well at this table. After a few minutes of playing I was able to pay back Jon the loan I had taken. We were at the party until about five-thirty.

We had consolidated the two different tables on to one. Jon was on fire, he could not lose a roll. As I watched join at the end of the night his stack of money was growing and growing and growing.

There was one younger guy there. He had blue eyes, and was a ten-six-seven. He seemed very nice and dressed well. Maybe next year I will get a chance to chat with him.

After we got back to Jon's vehicle we spent some time counting his winnings. He had won over eighteen hundred dollars. A stack of dollars was almost an inch and a half thick.

I was very tired from not having a lot of sleep between last night and today. I still stayed up for several hours watching the Simpsons marathon before I went to bed.

Staying up Late for Joe

I am doing a ride along with Joe tomorrow so I wanted to stay up really late tonight so I can be prepared for staying up late tomorrow. The last few days I have been going to bed pretty early by my normal standards.

After waiting around for hours of waiting around the house I finally went out the door and headed down to Diamond Lil's. I was going to play poker to the wee hours of the morning in order to not be tired tomorrow for my ride along.

It took awhile before I got to sit at a table. There were a lot of people there. Finally I found a table to sit at. I was playing very conservative. Finally I found a hand and I moved. I made bets and raises. One guy said that I had been quiet for a long time and now that I was betting he knew I was playing a good hand. he was giving me respect. Two other stayed in. I had the nut straight, ace-high on the flop. As it turned out one other guy got the same one.

So I ended up splitting the pot with him and only taking some money from one guy. I guess that is better than what could have happened.

I came close to busting out totally, but I caught some all-in moments and crawled back. I did walk out down about forty, but I had been down a lot more for a while. I made it home around four in the morning which was the goal, anyway.

A lucky day?

With the date being seven/seven/seven people thought it was going to be a lucky day. I wouldn't say it was a lucky day for me, but it was a good day and I didn't get struck by lightning, so it couldn't have been that bad.

Starting out this morning with golf was fun. I was running late getting down to Colfax. I was pulling into the parking lot as the group was heading out to the first tee. But we had two groups and I was able to get part of the second group. I was playing with Carl, Brian, and Diane. My first tee off was very nice. But the day was about normal for my kind of golf. I got a one-thirteen on the eighteen holes. I actually did worse my second time through.

I won a prize for hitting the most trees during my round. I didn't realize how many times I hit trees, but I counted and I hit about seven per round. That is nearly one per hole on average.

After the golfing it was off to Colfax Fire. I hung out with Ken for a while watching some TV and having lunch. We were watching Mythbusters. Around four I had to leave to get back to Pullman to be on call here. I told Ken that I was done keeping it quiet for him. I was going to be heading out.

When I got home I heard Colfax get dispatched out to a car vs motorcycle accident. That had to have been dispatched shortly after I left. I really was keeping it quiet.

I got cleaned up and went to the station for rig checks. We were talking about Rescue and being a driver. A. Wilcox asked if he could ever go on the ambulance and not be the drive all the time. I told him that because of the fact he doesn't have all the Rescue training he shouldn't be the driver at all.

We then went out and did some training at the tower with setting up the rig, putting water on the fire, doing pump and roll attacks and other such scenarios. We did a good two hours of training.

Afterwards Bien bought the ice cream he owed for getting into the newspaper. We went to Dissmores to get that. Back at the station we had some cake and ice cream. I went to Peter's afterwards for poker. I was not doing too well. I had one big win, then I had a big loss where I tried to push someone off a hand when mine was weaker. But he did not get off his hand and ended up beating me. I re-bought a couple times. I was sort of up and down on my third buy-in.

When the tones went off for a call. I quickly went all-in and Kevin called me. I ended up winning that all in and left. I was only down two bucks on the night after that point. I had the best hand after the flop and took it to the river as the winner.

I went on the call followed by a second call just as the movie Desperado was starting. I was hoping to watch to the scene where the bar is shot up. But I got called out to a second call at the very beginning of the movie. That was it for calls. I went to bed around three in the morning.

No Poker Game

I spent time working on getting the CardSpace to do a password and CardSpace without typing in the user name. What I am finding is my Vista box is running really, really slow via Remote Desktop. I have not found anything about fixing that. It is to the point I cannot work very well. I think I will have to bring it here to work locally on it. I am not sure what I can do, but I cannot get real work done with how slow it is going.

I went shopping today and got a bunch of stuff. I have needed to get out there for a long time but I have been putting it off. Finally today I made my way to Safeway. I got everything unloaded and put away.

Andy showed up for poker but it did not turn into a game because no one showed up. We sat around talking for about an hour and a half. He left and I made some hamburgers on the grill. It is so nice to have the grill.

This is a pretty laid back day, without a lot of things going on. I am going to go golfing in the morning. So I will get to bed early tonight.

Big night at poker

Tonight we had a poker game down at Newport Shores. They were playing two dollar/four dollar limit. That was killing me because I could not get anyone bluffed out of a hand, not that I bluff, but that a weak hand couldn't push off a slightly stronger hand. I kept bleeding away my money. I was doing twenty dollar buy ins one by one. After eighty bucks I had no more cash. Then I got a small loan from Jon.

That is when my fortunes turned. The limit was raised to twenty bucks. So I could push some people at times. That was big for my game. Now I could play without the necessity of having the best hand, but being able to play cards.

I started to win back money. Soon I paid Jon back and just kept winning. One hand I got a ton of money when I had Ace/Nothing spades. The flop was three spades. I checked and Jon bet. Myself and one other person called. The turn did nothing to change the board. I bet about nine bucks. There was a call, then Jon raised. I called. The other person folded.

The river did nothing to change the board. I had the nuts. I bet a little bigger. Jon raised twenty bucks. I re-raised him his final eleven bucks. He called. I showed my nuts. After we were done playing for the night he told me I did a great job on that hand, he didn't think I had nuts.

When the night was done around two in the morning I was up nearly a hundred bucks. I played one hand of four-five-six with Jon to give him a chance to win some money back from me. We got a natural and took the twenty bucks. But I went home with a lot of money.

Near Car Accident

I started out this morning waking up without an alarm clock. I forgot to set it before going to bed. I was supposed to be in Colfax at eight o'clock AM to have breakfast with Jim and Jerrid. I got up a quarter of eight. So I had to hustle. I got to Well's in Colfax around eight-fifteen. I had breakfast with the other guys. Carl happened to be at the booth next to us when I got there. Today we are playing softball and golf.

After breakfast it was off to Steptoe for the softball game. It was Colfax fire against Steptoe fire. On the way there I was just outside of Colfax going up Buck Canyon. I saw a truck pulling over to the shoulder, then it kept going off the road into the ditch. All of a sudden the driver corrected and was coming back on the highway aimed straight at my truck. We were on a collision course. I hit my brakes and moved over a little bit. I was getting prepared for the collision. I was not sure where my truck was going to get hit, but I was very scared.

Then the driver re-corrected his path and started to spin out, He did a one-eighty. He was facing the wrong way going across his original lane of travel. Then he hit the soft shoulder and his truck rolled. I pulled over and grabbed my radio. I was shaking pretty bad.

I got out and the man in the car behind me said he thought I was going to get hit. I said "so did I". I got ahold of Whitcom on the radio to let them know what I was out on. Jim and Jerrid were behind me and did not see the accident happen. They stopped as well.

I walked across the highway to the truck. The man was already out and getting things from his truck. It landed on its wheels and he was okay. He said he had fallen asleep. Once Colfax Police got on scene I cleared and we continued to Steptoe. The game had just started. We were on offense. Our hitters were not able to hit the ball very well, and the other teams' pitcher could not get the ball across the plate. But we swung anyway. I did not hit the ball well at all. One time I did get patient and ended up walking.

On defense I played right field most of the game and I played at first base for two innings. We ended up losing to Steptoe. After the game Jerrid, Jim, and I stuck around and hit the ball around. We were hitting the ball well at that time. Ralph asked why we couldn't hit like that during the game.

After we hit around for a while we went to the Steptoe fire station for a community barbecue. Jim and I were sitting inside the office area of the fire station when a mom with a six year old came in and said he got a couple slivers. Jim got an alcohol pad and a needle so we could help the kid. He was whimpering about the slivers. I used the alcohol pad to clean the hand, and then pulled out the needle. the kid wanted to see it before I used it. I handed it to him with the cap still on.

He pulled it out the cap and tried to recap it when he missed the cap and hit his finger with the needle. He screamed bloody-murder and cried like crazy. Then he would not go near me so I could clean the blood. It was pretty much a finger prick like when someone does a blood sugar check. It was nothing major, but he was going to have nothing to do with me after that. His mom took him to the bathroom to clean the blood.

The food was getting served so Jim and I got in line for the food and sat down with Jeff and Ralph. We ate and talked about fire department stuff for a while. This was also the day the big ball was going to get rolled down Steptoe Butte. We were planning on going to watch that. I went to get some gas. When I got back I found they were not going to go do that for a couple more hours. Jim and I decided to just go back to Colfax. I dropped Jim off at home and then I went to the jail.

I went to the Coroners office to drop off my case report from the death yesterday and then went to control and hung out until just after four o'clock. I updated a couple forms we use. The incident and infraction report has a margin on the left side that when it gets holes punched into it, the words are punched out. So I got that fixed by making the margin wider.

I went to Rosauers on the way to the golf course to get some pop and water. I went to the golf course and practiced some golf putting. I put on my new golf shoes and went into the clubhouse to pay for the tournament stop.

We got golf carts which was nice to have because I did not want to have to walk the whole course. We played a shotgun start, best ball tournament. We started on hole number six. We played nine holes and then went to the clubhouse for dinner. Once all the teams were back we ate and held the raffle for a lot of items that were donated. The golf tournament is put on by the Colfax police department for raising money for the Special Olympics.

After dinner and the raffle we went back out for the second round. We played with glow balls and had glow sticks on the flags and markers around the course. It was my first time playing in a glow ball tournament. It was fun to do. We had to watch the ball go because it was harder to see the ball when it went into the grass. I ended up losing one ball on the ninth hole, hitting it onto the road way. I had to use a second ball for the next five holes. I was doing very well today on my drives because I was not trying to crush the ball. In fact if I tried to over swing my ankle would hurt, so I had to ease back and that made a big difference in my game.

When I was done on the golf course it was almost eleven-thirty. I went to Pullman and waited until just after midnight for a poker game at Peter's. We started playing near one in the morning. We played until four in the morning. I did very bad. I was calling on a lot of things and ended up losing about twenty bucks. That sucked, but it was a good day over all.

I got home and went to bed shortly after I got home. I was very tired.

Big Shake Up at Work

Today there was a lot of stuff going on today. I had several meetings plus a poker game scheduled for today. I got a message from Chris saying that we were all called to a company meeting for two o'clock pm today. When I called in the CEO said there was good and bad news. The bad news was there a couple people were let go. The good news was a lot of positive things were around the corner. But the CEO made it clear that we were all going to have to pull out weight and that if it appeared someone was not up to the task they would be let go.

Let me tell you that was a scary thought for me. As I have learned, you get job security and low pay working for the government, and you get high pay and no job security working for private companies. It makes you realize how fragile your job and financial situation is. I was meeting with a loan officer today to discuss what it would take to buy a piece of property and then build on it down the road.

But with the whole situation at work it made me realize that I should not be doing anything with big purchases which would include buying the house next to mine, even though I do want to get it. The CEO also asked that I get over to Seattle a little bit more. She said that I have been very good about working from home and that I was pretty much the poster boy for people working from home. I also talked to my boss, Chris, who was one of the ones let go. He said that same thing. He was kept on as a dev though. But it is pretty much a contact position.

I had a poker game scheduled for my place. Philip, Brandon, JT, Peter, and I were playing here today. I didn't do very well and lost about ten bucks on the night. It wasn't too bad for me, but I could not get a hand to save my bacon for most of the night.

Washington Poker Tour

After work I went to Jon's and Jim came over. We went to play in the Washington Poker Tour's latest tournament. It is an eighty dollar buy-in. That covers the beer, food, pop, and equipment. It was pretty neat.

I started out okay and kept growing my stack through the first four rounds of play. After the fourth round of play we got to do an add-on. I did that. I was sitting near the lead on the table, but really, most of us were pretty even.

Once the fourth round was done people started to fall out of the tournament pretty quick. I hung around for a while, but I finally got knocked out. I went in with the best hand, but got busted on the river.

I went to a cash table. I did pretty well there. I was on the table for a couple hours playing and winning some money. At one point I was up one hundred bucks. That would have meant that I was even for the night. But in one hand, I lost everything. I had top pair, Aces, with a ten for a kicker. But the other guy was betting and I figured he may have had me out kicked.

Then on the river there was a nine. Turned out he had an Ace-Nine. That gave him two pair to my one pair. He beat me on the river. I had about thirty bucks more. I played some more. Once again I lost on a hand where I was doing the best, but someone caught up to me. We left around two in the morning.

It was fun, and I hope one of these days I can do it again.

Three Hours Later

I went to bed and only three hours later my cell phone was ringing. It was six-thirty in the morning. I was being called to an unattended death near Hooper. That is in the western-most part of Whitman County. In fact while driving there typically you drive into Adams county then South back into Whitman County. I was on scene for just under an hour. Then I went back to the funeral home and did my work there. I went to the coroner's office following that to do my report and print everything off. By the time I was done it was after the noon hour. I went to Colfax fire and hung out for a few minutes.

David, Craig, and I were there. I was pointing out the last time it was just us and the guy on duty we got... then Craig said "don't say it." David and him both remembered that we got that fatal accident that I was IC of.

I went back to Pullman and down to the fire station for daily rig checks. We got those knocked off in a couple hours of time. It was very hot outside and inside the bay. We had a total of four people helping. For about a half hour of the shift neither Brian nor I could be on duty. That is why we did the rig checks early.

I went to my softball game and Brian was finishing his up. Brian left to be on duty and we took the dug out. We were playing our first regular season game after nearly three weeks off duty to a rain out and a week off for Memorial Day.

We started sort of slow, but then picked it up and hit the ball well. We went on to twelve run the other team and currently, with pre-season included we are undefeated.

I went home and got ready to be on call for the fire department. Then I went to Brandon and Peter's to play some poker with them. At one point I lost a lot of money on one hand where I had the same hand and someone else by I got out-kicked.

I went down to under a dollar and sat around that level for quiet a while. Some people thought I would just go all-in on nothing. But I waited for my hand then I would play it. I ended up winning each time I did end up going all-in. Finally it was nearing the end of the night. I walked out only down four dollars. Not too bad for having been sitting at thirty-five cents for a little bit.

Years of Being Crafty for Nothing

My day on Mercer Island Boat Patrol was cancelled for today so that meant I had a day off and I could do what I wanted. I decided I would work the jail. But I had some things to take care of in Pullman before I left to go to Colfax.

When I got to Colfax I went into Control. I ran control for about an hour before going to the Auditors office to get the tabs for my boat and trailer, but because I did not license them last year, if I were to do it today, I would have to pay for all of last year, plus this coming year. If I wait until the end of the month, then I will only have to pay for the next year. That made it a no-brainer.

I sold a phone card to a guy in Orange. Sgt Poffenroth came with me to make sure I could log into Swanson. She didn't think I would be able to, but I was able to login just fine. So I got the phone card sold. We were heading up stairs to the staff office when she asked if I was the one who always put the backgrounds of the military aircraft. I laughed. I said I don't even know what that one was. She said, you would probably put pictures of naked men. It because pretty clear she knew that I am gay. She could see me blushing, I could feel my face go flush.

Later I went to her office and asked how she knew. She said he has known for years. She figured it out on her own. She said pretty much every officer knows. I was shocked for sure. I knew that Tom knew, so that would increase the chances of others knowing. Captain came in and he confirmed they had known for years. Poff also was shocked that I didn't know that they knew. Which is a sign that no one really cares at all. I told her how careful I always was with that information because I didn't want people there to know.

Poff said a while back when Donna was trying to set me up with a girl over in the Treasurers office, that she had to tell Captain to let Donna know it would be a moot point trying to get me hooked up. Then Captain said that they knew I was dating the guy who worked at JTI. I knew they were talking about Thomas. That surprised me because he didn't know who Thomas was, just that I was dating someone from JTI. But Thomas and I were only friends, we never dated. Then he said that we are in a small town. Just like Monte said to me a long time ago.

I let Captain know that Thomas and I were just friends. But we use to joke about living in SGC "South Gay Colfax". He laughed. Poffenroth was cracking up over the fact that I was in the dark about them knowing about me for this whole time. One of my biggest fears was that they would treat me differently or that the inmates would find out. None of that has been the case.

Now I wonder who all actually knows and who doesn't know. If they all know in the jail, do the people over at Colfax Fire know. No one at Colfax Fire has ever said anything to me. But it would be interesting if they have known for a long time too.

While working at the jail I got a text message about playing some poker tonight around eleven-thirty pm. I went to Peter's to play. He had people who work with him at SEL over to play. Kevin, a ten-six-seven, from Dissmore's was also there. Blue eyes and blonde hair and tall. Plus very nice. He was a good sight for the night. While there another ten-six-seven showed up. He was someone who was stopping by with some over people.

We played for hours and hours. In fact it was getting light out. Pretty soon the light coming in the window was actually casting shadows on the poker table. The game broke up around seven o'clock in the morning. When it was done I had lost a total of six bucks, and that was good considering I was all-in a couple times.

One of them I knew I was being beat. There were two Queens on the board. I had a King. There was one King on the board, so I had two pair and I knew Kevin had trips. We went to the river and I knew I needed a King, and a King hit giving Kevin and I a full-house, but mine was better. As it turned out one other guy who was in also had a King, so it turned out we had a one-outer. It came through.

Another time I was playing and had pocket-eights. All night long eights have been hitting. So I played them aggressively. I ended up going all in. Kevin again was playing against me. He had over-cards and got two of them on the flop. He was leading. The turn had nothing to help either of us. I was all-in and I needed to have an eight. I was dealing. I burned a card. Then I held the card over the spot where I needed to turn it over. I held on to it for a while because I did not want to see it. Then rapidly I flipped it over. It was an eight. I had won. Everyone was laughing. Someone said the way I did it reminded them of the movie Maverick.

Big Call Comes Through

After staying out at the bar and sleeping in today, I did not get working on the garage like I had hoped I would do. Instead I did my shopping trip that I have been putting off for the last couple weeks. I decided that I would get it done today. That was a two hundred dollar trip.

When I was done putting everything away I made myself some dinner. I was planning on getting something from the Emerald, but after spending all that money and getting all the stuff I got I decided that I eat at home.

Around seven o'clock pm I went to get some pop and then to Peter and Brandon's from some poker. Brandon was out of town. It was Peter and some other guys who work at Dissmores. I maintained and grew mu chip stack only losing one pretty big chunk on a hand I figured I was behind, but I tried to push the other guy around.

I built back from that loss to maintain a reasonable stack compared to everyone else. At one point near the middle of the tournament, Peter and I were in with one other person. The big blind was one buck. I raised two bucks. Peter raised it to eight. I went all-in. Peter called. He quickly flipped bullets. I had the exact same hand. So the flop was academic. There was a chance for a four card flush to his the board and help the guy who was that Ace, but they did not happen. So we ended up splitting other peoples' blinds.

Soon it was down to three of us. I was sitting in the the second best position. One guy was really starting to get a lead. But Peter went all in and won. So Peter's stack was starting to compare to mine.

I got a King and Jack of Diamonds. It was a time when I had to think long and hard about playing that hand, knowing with the other have played and knowing my chip stack. I saw in one of the blinds. Peter ended up going all-in. The other guy called Peter's all-in.

So I had an all-in and a call. How good could my hand be. But I looked at the stack, which was more than twenty four buck. I could call it and not be all-in. But it would cripple me if I lose. If Peter won he would be in the chip lead. If the other guy won, Peter would be out, and the other guy would dominate me.

I realized I was pretty much putting my tournament life in that hand. I was already in the money at five bucks. But the buy-in was ten bucks. So I would end up losing. I could just wait it out and get to second place and I would end up winning fifteen for a net of five bucks.

I thought about it some more. I thought that if I don't get in on it and Peter wins he will be solid back into this. Finally I made the call. Then on the flop there was a KxXxXx. I now had a pair of kings, but the diamond flush was not going to hit because none of the cards on the table were diamonds. The other guy pushes all-in and I call.

We all show our hands. Peter had bullets. The other guy had pocket Jacks. I had a KJ. So the pocket Jacks had one out. I needed to have a King hit. I had a pair of kings to the bullets.

Just as I said that the turn was a King. Now I had trips knocking Peter nearly out. He had two outs and the guy with Jacks was done. The river was nothing and I won that hand. It put me in first place for chip count and sent Peter packing.

The other guy and I went back and forth with blinds for a while. Finally I got him all-in. I had a decent hand and the cards hit just right giving me a straight on the river.

I left with sixty bucks, up fifty bucks for the night.

Two Hours of Sleep and then...

So after getting to sleep my phone rings. Patti is waking me up. She told me there was an unattended death in Steptoe. That is the last thing I wanted to hear. I was so tired. I did not want to get out of bed.

Finally I did get up and headed out the door. I stopped to get some pop and made my way to the scene. When I got there I went inside where the power was out through out the town. I had to have people holding flashlights to see. By the time I was done with the scene it was light outside.

From there it was off to the funeral home. I spent some time there doing more investigation. I was stuck on the phone with Pete for about half an hour. Then I went to Colfax Fire to show them the photos from the funeral from yesterday.

I headed home. I was in Harlow's dip when Vinny turned on me. He was on a motorcycle. I heard him radio to Whitcom that he was stopping me. I was pulled over near the North Bypass. He came walking up. When he got close enough to see me in the mirror he started to smile from ear to ear. He walked to the window saying "I thought I had my first of the day!" He then sent me on my way.

I got home and pretty much went straight to bed. I was very tired. I slept for a couple hours until my phone rang. It was Chapman telling me about Rescue getting a door ripped off the officer side that folds up. So I went to the station to take a look. Our old Rescue was put into service until that is fixed.

I got ahold of Blank's, who did the deed to the door, on IM. We talked about it. Sounded like that was the cherry on top of a very bad day for him. We chatted for a few minutes.

I was invited by Phil to play poker at his place. He owns a condo at Wheatridge condos. He lives in Brian Turner's old place. It is a nice place with the wood laminate flooring, natural counter tops, and a lifesized stuffed Cougar. Several friends of Phil showed up and we played cards for about two hours. I would say for most of them they are novices at best. It was slow going as the conversation and other action too precedence over the game itself.

We finished up when they all wanted to go to the bar around midnight. I left up a couple bucks. Not as good as I show have done considering who was there.

The Funeral and After

My other post talks about the funeral itself, so I will not go into that here. But I started out the day at six in the morning with a phone call to WSU PD. I found out I would be able to get a ride. I got dressed in my uniform from the coroners office. I went to Tidyman's and waited for the precession.

Following the funeral I went home and worked on a problem with the events signup that Heston had found. I figured out the problem and fixed it. I went to the house that I have been looking at buying. I did some measurements of the area. I see it will fit in the room that is downstairs. I looked around the other rooms that are out there as well. I was told today that someone else is putting in an offer, possibly. I hate it when people do that. I am going to take the stance that if the real estate agent says that to me I will have the attitude that I lost all interest in the house. One of the things about the house today is that I could smell some signs of the dogs that lived there.

I also noticed that outside of the big rec room and the great room, there was not a lot of options for how to set up my furniture. Plus being only four bedrooms I would only be able to have at most two roommates as I would have to use one room as an office.

The house on Thomas street has made me realize some of the shortcomings of this house over all. I also don't like the appliances that are at this house. Thomas street has four bedrooms plus an office. Plus a rec room, game room, and living room. Plus two dining areas. It is a nicer house over all in my view. It is the house I would like to have. The one thing that it doesn't have is the larger driveway that Brandon street has.

Then it was time to head to the fire department for rig checks. I got to the station and talked to Pete on the phone about the funeral and the house search. I went into the station and I was talking to Morgan about some stuff while Peter and I were texting back and forth about playing some poker at my place tonight.

Morgan said he would play. I went to get some pop and got some dinner then I went home. I was going to call Phil about coming over. Just as I was calling him he sent me a text message about play at his place. When it was all said and done he ended up coming over to my place. I also got JT and his friend. Plus Brandon. So I had a seven handed table going. I was on call with Morgan. We got called out on two calls through out the night of playing cards.

When the night was over with I had won almost thirty bucks. It was a good night for me to play some cards. I went upstairs and did some stuff in my den before going to be at two in the morning.

An Officer Died

I woke up this morning and I found out that the SWAT had, just an hour before, made a raid on the church. They found the shooter had committed suicide and he also killed a guy who lived there.

I went to Moscow for the game. I got to the field and no one was there yet. I hung out for about fifteen minutes and people started to show up. At one point during the game Jon called and asked me about it. I had just finished getting hit in from second base. I told him what I knew in about twenty seconds. He said an officer was dead. I hadn't heard about that until he told me. That sucked to hear.

I had to get out on defense so I hung up with him and took the field. That team had hit around three times on us in the first inning. We didn't score much. I hit the ball well, getting some doubles and a homerun. We stood no real chance against these guys. We ended up losing by about twenty-two runs. We scored six runs in the final inning, but it was not nearly enough.

After the game I took Michael B home and went home myself. I got online and watched as much as I could about the shooting and read what I could find. I got cleaned up and planned on responding to fire calls.

I took a small nap, but kept getting woken up by phone calls and the pager. Finally I went to look at a house up on Thomas. I like it over-all better than the house on Brandon, but it was more money. After the house viewing I went to Brandon's to play poker.

We played for about five hours. I won seventeen bucks with five dollar buy-ins. When I was done at Brandon's I went home and watched TV as well as started on my laundry. I was so tired I was dozing off while watching TV. I finally went off to bed around two in the morning.

Nice Poker Game

I was really starting to get going on my events sign up website for the fire department. Time was ticking away. I called Ross and talked to him about the prospects of what would happen if I lost my job. Trying to get some worst case scenarios going.

I got my room ready for poker. I got the chip sets changed around so all the black and green chips are in one case with some white and reds. I got the cards counted and then people started to show up.

We had about six or seven people at the high point of the game. I bought in for ten, but other bought in for more. It was pretty clear I was doing okay. I kept winning and growing my stack. One guy who came with Brandon would get into pots against me. I would always split it with him as we would have the same hand. It was pretty funny.

We ended up playing until around midnight. I spent some more time working on the application after I was done cleaning up the living room and done eating dinner.

Second Place in the Tournament

I spoke with Pam about her house last night. We had to figure out how to come up with ten percent of the price of the house plus closing costs. I don't think I am going to be able to do that, so it may not happen. I may just wait a couple years with my place, once I get the truck paid off, then I will sell the house and roll it into something that is larger. That may be my best bet.

After work I went to Eric's for the poker tournament. I got to his house and backed into a parking spot. As I got out of my truck some lady was yelling me about my truck needing to be turned around. I told her no. She said "Are you going to make me come out there?" She was probably in her late sixties or early seventies. I just walked away.

I played some cards. It was rebuys for the first four rounds. I did not rebuy. I was doing okay. After the fourth round I was only down five from the original one-thousand. But after changing up I got that five with the rounding, so I was exactly even.

The rest of the night was going well. I went on a run of a couple hands and took a couple people down. I went up pretty good. Pretty soon I was in the money. Then it was me and one guy left. We battled for a while, but then I stopped getting hands and I was bleeding out my chips. It did not take long before I would get a reasonable hand, but the other guy got some nice hands and he would beat me, or the flop would totally miss me.

Finally I had less than a big blind. I went all in with a King-X. The other guy had Queen-Two. He ended up getting a Queen on the flop. A queen on the turn. A two on the river. He won it all. I still got nearly four times my buy in. It was a good night of poker.

Small Fire at NU

Today I was planning on cutting out early and heading to the jail to put in some time when I got a call about a major problem with one of our biggest customers. We had one week to fix it or they would have to shut down the site which would mean we would lose them. Because of that I stayed at work. I also got a call from Pete about someone found at the river.

I worked until I got the problem solved. I was unable to get away to even help Pete by going to the river. But I did make plans to meet him at the funeral home. I then had to find someone who could come over and run my poker game until I got back. I called Andy, and he said he would do it.

I went to Kimball Funeral Home and waited for Pete to arrive. There was an odor from the garage when the person was, but Craig had sprayed some pleasant smelling stuff all around.

I put some Vics under my nose. Actually, I put a lot there. Then we opened the body bag. The sight was bad. The person had been dead for about forty days in the water. This is my first "floater", as they say. It was pretty graphic. Pete and I checked everything over to see if we could find any markings or damage that would make us believe that there was some perimortem trauma involved. But we did not find any.

I left there and went to my house to find a full table of poker players. They had been there for about two hours. I got in on the action. It took a while but I finally started to win a little bit. I ended the night winning a little bit of money. *knock on wood* I have been doing pretty well at poker lately. I am playing a little more aggressive, but I am still playing smart. I am not making bad plays. I am making some good plays, and I am getting to know people and how they play.

Last Poker Night at Mikes

I did my last radio show of the semester. Ted, the guy who has the show after me also came in early because I had to get out of there for the meeting for work. I spent a while talking to Jerid from the Evergreen Football League. Then I spent a while talking to Ted about Springfest and getting his point of view on the music and the Everclear who performed out there. I left around thirty minutes early.

I got home in time for the meeting. I called in and it lasted a while. During the meeting I got a call from Pete. So I called him back after the meeting and he told me of a possible case getting ready to happen in Pullman. A possible overdose. It never ended up happening.

I went to the fire station to return some of the tests that I had corrected for the guys. I found one person did not do a very good job on his correction of the test. The correction was open book and there was no reason to not do well on it, other than not caring. I stayed there for about an hour. Then it was time to head to Mike's house for the poker tournament.

I got some pizza and then went to his house. I played on the main table then more people showed up. I went to the low limit table for a while but I could not win a hand. I was losing more and more money. I had to rebuy for another ten bucks.

I went to the higher stakes table to hope to see some new cards. As I sat there I started to win more and more. Pretty soon I had won back all my money plus more. Towards the end of the night I lost a couple hands that cost me some of the winnings, but I still left with fifteen bucks.

My own poker party

I had my poker party today. Mike came over around ten in the morning to deliver my table. He helped me get it set up. My back was hurting pretty good. It was not so bad last night, but today it sucked.

I called Pete and let him know about the camera. He wasn't mad or anything. He also told me that he planned on talking to Pullman PD about some cases like we had the other day where there probably did not need to be the big dog and pony show that we had. Sounds like I am going to get the new camera that he bought recently. I am really excited to get it. It had a big zoom on it.

People started to arrive for the game. I had six people play in the tournament. I did not do so hot. I had to rebuy, and by the time we got to the fourth round I did an add-on to get some more chips in hopes of playing with everyone else. As it turned out it did not help. I was not finding any hands that I could play. It sucked.

I went out of the tournament just as a car accident happened. I went to the station but it turned out to be non-injury. I just did my timecard and went back home. When I got there only two people were in the tournament. They were playing about another thirty minutes and then it was over. I got some help putting the table away and I cleaned up the area.

The rest of the day I worked on my asp.net applications to try to learn a few things. I am having some problems using the new way of keeping the controls lined up. The videos I watched talked about using absolute positioning. That was working but Will at work said that I should use relative positioning. Also that I should make use of the style sheets to line up everything. That is the part I am having some troubles with.

Big Poker Party at Mikes

When I got up this morning, I decided that I would get into my den and start to work on the ASP.NET stuff I have been trying to learn. I also had planned on getting the photoboard down at Station Thirty-One updated. I had the photos sent to Rite Aid. I picked them up and went to the station. I cut them out, got the photoboard, printed off the new names and posted them. It took a while to get done because there were a lot of changes to make.

When I was done I went to my place to work more of the ASP.NET application I started. I am making a For Sale By Owner website where someone could post information about a house they are selling. It would be a way to have a web presence. Mike came over and picked up my poker table.

I went to Mike's close to seven o'clock. I got my seat on the table. I was doing okay for a little while. In fact I was up a fair amount for a while. I was making all the right plays. Then all of a sudden it started to go down hill. I lost a couple hands in a row. I was starting to bleed my chips out. I got a hand with an open ended straight. I also had myself a middle pair for the flop. Only to find the other guy decided to put me all in.

I made the call and lost. I sat down and played some cards and dice with some other people as we were waiting for the cash game. We played until two in the morning. When I left Mike's I had won back all the money I had lost and went home with an extra seventeen bucks on the night.

When I got home I watched a TV show about the scarries movies. One as a Clockwork Orange. There was a scene they showed in the movie. It was a part of a movie I remember seeing a young kid. I never knew the name of the movie nor much about the movie. But when I saw the part in the TV show I finally realized what movie it was that I has seen and now I can attempt to see it again.

CISD Team Meeting

We had out CISD meeting this afternoon in Pullman. That made it nice not having to drive to Colfax. We discussed the upcoming training the new members need as well as some organizational things.

I also had my softball playoffs tonight. It sucked because we could not get hits strung together. Defensively we made a lot of errors that we don't normally make. Kelly's team beat us and now they are going to play for the championship. Joe, Ryan, and I went to Cougar Country for some dinner.

While there I got a call about playing poker at Jason's house. Russell was not going to be there. I hope this summer he starts he get-togethers again. I miss those. I went to Jason's and we played cards for a couple hours. It was a dealers choice day.

I was doing well, but then started to lose at the end on some silly games. I ended up losing about two bucks on the night. I can't complain for the fun I had. One hand we were playing a game like Indian Poker. I had a Six and Nine. But with that game you don't know what you have, only what everyone else has. A six-six-nine came on the flop. Beren bet two bucks. I called. Then a nine hit the board. I bet four bucks. Everyone folded really fast. They started to laugh and told me to look at my hand. I bet four bucks because I was trying to get Beren out. He had an Ace. I figured if I could get him out I could split the pot. Instead I crushed everyone. It was funny.

Training All Day Long

Starting with teaching first aid at the WSU Recycling Center. I wasn't sure I was going to like to teach it. After doing it with John recently it seemed like first air training was all about saying "Stay calm, I am going to call for EMS." But through out the class I really realized it was a lot more than that. It was actually a good time teaching it. I had some good students in the class who asked some very good questions.

After that class I went to the Deuce to return the van. Rich got me to play some X-Box for a little while. Then I went home and got my stuff for the Recruit Class. I have spent two days working on it. I was not happy with the results. I felt that I did as good as I could, but the material sucked. The Powerpoint went on and on and on. But finally it was over and we went to the tower.

I worked on teaching positive pressure ventilation. We were up there for a couple hours. I got a call from Mike about a poker game at his place while I was there.

I went to Mike's and played poker until almost three in the morning. I was kicking some butt. I ended up winning nearly eighty bucks on the night. I was happy about that for sure.

Cutting it Close with Poker

My poker game started at one in the afternoon. I was scrambling to get players. I was nearly ready to cancel when I found I was going to have a fifth player. So I kept it on.

We started to play at one. I was doing alright for myself. I was holding my own not having to rebuy. A couple others had rebought before the final rebuy round. A few people also did add-ons at that point. I went from the chip leader, to someone in the middle of the pack. I did not do a rebuy nor an add-on.

As the day went on we were getting closer and closer to softball time. I gave Ryan some money to go get some pizza because we wanted to eat before the game. He had been busted out by this time and was bored watching golf on TV anyway.

He went off and was gone for a while, I was starting to wonder where he went. Then he came back with some pizza from Pizza Pipeline. At it turned out Little Caesars was closed today. So he had to order and wait for the pizza from Pipeline.

I was eating and trying to play cards at the same time. It was working out okay. But the others started to bleed me a little bit. I wasn't getting anything to work with and soon my stack started to go fast. The clock was getting close to time to go to softball. As it turned out Dave, Ty, and I were the only ones left. But we all had to be at the field by six for the softball games. Ty played for a different team but he also had the same game times as Dave and I. I started to push on some bad hands because I still needed to get my uniform on.

I finally got busted out. Dave and Ty decided to split the pot between them with some extra going to the person in the chip lead.

We actually got to play two softball games today. Normally we only get one at the most. The first game we kept up with the other team just fine and started to get a lead on them. They would have some innings where they would score some runs, but they were not a great team. We went into the final inning. I got a clutch basehit and I was standing on first. Nick came to the plate and hit a walk-off three-run homerun for the win.

The second game was against a team that had a very bad pitcher. But the guys would not be patient and allow for some walks. No one was getting any hits. In fact when the game was done, as a team, we had four hits. There is no way to win a softball game on four hits. I was pretty mad about the whole thing. Some of the guys were saying softball is a hitters game.

I don't disagree, you have to be liberal with what you choose to swing at, but when guys are swinging at pitches over their head and popping up all the time, we have to do something. We lost that game because really no one cared to win it.

When that game was done I was heading home so I could get my uniform off and head to the station for rig checks. As I was coming down Terre View from the fields I could see people were leaving the station. I figured that rig checks were done. I called Bien and talked to him. He told me what had transpired on the telephone with Jacob so I could get the full story.

Because rig checks were done I went into the house and got my uniform off. I was sitting at my computer when I head Pullman and D-Twelve get dispatched for a car accident. It went out as Bravo-Injury. But I listened in and I could tell it was worse as time went on. There was one person trapped and barely breathing. As I listened in more, Tyson and Reed were both on IM chatting with me. I heard a call for two more ambulances.

It was fourteen minutes into everything when I got a call from Pete. I knew then what was going on. I was given the message to call Whitcom. I then went in service and went to the scene. As it turned out an elderly lady had been involved and killed by the car accident. When I got on scene I also found out the people in the accident were related to some firefighters. That caused many people at the scene to be more stressed than normal.

I got on scene before the first person was even transported to the hospital. I started to look at the scene and make my impressions of what happened. I photographed the scene and then spoke with Vinny about removal. I was given the greenlight by him. He needed to do his investigation and I did not want to mess up anything he was doing.

I got Kimballs to come out and got the removal done. I spoke with IC and a few of the cops there. Pete had also called me a couple times while I was out there wanting to know what was going on. He decided to come out. He met me at the funeral home. After I had a chance to make my determination of the cause of death, Pete went over it on his own and did the same thing. When it was done he concurred with what I had found and what I said was the cause of death.

By the time that scene was done and the funeral home part was done it was pretty late. I still had to get back and write my report about the rest of the incident and what I had found.

Back in the Clubhouse

Tonight there was the poker game in Newport Shores, and it was in the clubhouse after getting renovated. When I got there a new table was started. Through out the night I was winning. These people are pretty easy to beat. I kept getting decent cards and working on making money.

We played in a tournament later on. I didn't do great in that. I came in fifth place and they only paid the top four. I sat back at the first table and played some more. I was doing well again. I won back my entry fee from the tournament and continued to expand my money. One guy at the table was really drunk and he is like that every time we play. He gets very annoying when he is like that. But I walked away up around sixty bucks. Pretty good for the night.

Softball Season has Started!

We first had a poker tournament. There were nine people who showed up for it. It lasted a couple hours. I was doing pretty well through out the tournament. Dan had to rebuy one time, and he kept getting sucked out on. When we were getting to the end of the tournament Andy had to leave so he was playing very loose. He was going all in on several hands. There were only three of us left. Andy called all-in and I called him. The flop was his cards. I had him dominated up until the flop. Once he took me out he had to go, so he got second place. Richie got first place.

I ran over to Moscow to get some softball pants. I left mine in Renton. But when I got to Moscow I went to four places and did not find them anywhere. Tri-state and WalMart did not have any at all. Big-Five had some, but they were all small. Sport Shack in the mall did not have anything but basketball shorts. It was terrible. I ended up using the old Cougar Men's Baseball pants I bought to play on Kelly's team with.

I got to the field with Ryan. We ended up having the first team not show up. So we sat around for an hour. We did some BP which was good. I was playing first base and Ryan was at second. With Bryce gone there was a shake up of the infield. In the second game I had to make some plays. One was a dive as the ball was getting ready to go out of play. I had to dive right on the first baseline's out of bounds marker. I saved it from going out.

Then there was another play where I had to go hard to my right, more or less a dive and scoop a ball. When I came up with it I looked down at home where someone was running, but I did not think I would be able to make the play, so I held on it the ball. We were playing A Bunch of Old Guys, which use to be Don't Care. We lost to them by three runs. It sucked.

After the game was done I went home to work on the radio show as well as getting the Website updated for the Nadirs. It was a pretty good day over all.

Poker with Langely

Everything was going well until I got a message asking me if I had heard about what was going on with the ASP.NET applications. For some reason something was discovered and it was causing the GFE and all ASP.NET applications to stop working. That was bad. I spent a lot of time with Brian today trying to figure out what was happening and how to fix it. In fact I spent most of my day doing that. But I had to get to the fire station to do rig checks and get ready for being on shift.

I was at the station for a while. We were hanging out down there chatting about random things, like normal, until around eight o'clock pm. I was at home with Loren got a hold of me to invite me to come over and play some poker. Several other guys from the football team came over. They were not great players, it looks like they just played for the fun of it, but they threw around money. I ended up winning about twenty-five bucks on the night.

It was midnight when I got to Russell's for our Wednesday night get together. I got dished up some chicken and rice. The tones went off for a call. I was able to eat the food and I was heading to the station. By the time we were done with that call I went back to Russells. This time I was there some time longer, but before I was able to really get relaxed we got toned out for something else. I was off to the races again, but it was getting near two in the morning, and by the time the call would be done it was going to be late. Top that with the problems with the stuff at work I told them I would not be able to make it back.

Bummer of a day

I went to Moscow for the Palouse Thunder practice. I was getting photos for all the players and the team photo for the website. That took about an hour overall, plus I hung out for a while watching the practice. Mike D. and I were going to go to the Sports Page to watch the Cougs play Vanderbuilt in the second round of the NCAA tournament. We got a pitcher of green beer for St. Patrick's Day. The Page also had a couple large pizzas for everyone to chow on.

It was looking good for the Cougs for the most part, but as the game was getting towards the end, I could see things were getting bad. We were not scoring points. We were missing a lot of baskets. After a bit we were down to nail-biting time. We kept the game close and ended up with the last shot of regulation for the win, but missed sending the game into OT. That is why I knew things would not be good. We could not obatin a lead and could not get on a run. We kept it close however. Then we went to a second OT. That is when I got worried. We did end up losing in the second OT. The bar was quiet afterwords. The fight song played, but no one felt like singing a long to it. Losing this game was an upset, but it is funny to think that at the begining of the season if you said that Cougs would be a number three seed in the tournament, no one would have beleived it.

I went home and started to get my house ready for the poker game. It was a cash game. No one was showing up. I could not get a hold of some of the people who said they would be there. In fact, other than Mike, no one who said they would be there showed up. But several people came after phone calls were made by Mike and Morgan.

We ended up having five people at the biggest point of the game. I was doing very well. Wolf was knocked out. John showed up after he had some time with his family for his Birthday. After John got there Morgan stay around for a little while. But he busted out. Mike busted out. Michael busted out. Pretty soon with just John and I. I could not win a hand to save my life. Everytime we had a game were some real betting was going on John would pull it out. The last hand of the night summed up the night. I had two pair. John had an inside-straight draw. I went all-in. John called. He put his hand down saying he needed an eight. He had four outs on the river. He found an eight. He beat me. So that was that.

I went to my den and worked on getting the photos cropped for the Thunder Website. It was getting late and I had to get up early. I called it a night after a lot of losses.

Poker at Zeppoz

I went to Staples to get the stuff the was missing from when I was there yesterday. I got home and worked on cutting those items from the foam board. I also got the photos glued to the foam board.

I decided to go to Zeppoz for a while. That was a mistake however. I could not find a hand to win. I got a couple, but even on hands that I had that were good people were sucking out on me. It is hard to chase someone away when you can only bet a certain limit. I was there for several hours, but I ended up losing pretty bad. Finally I gave up. I still had some money, but I was not about to drop any more money at the table.

A Day of Poker

The day was started with a structure fire. I got to the fire station but no one else showed up. After standing by, and seeing it was nothing major, I made my way to Dissmore's to get some food for breakfast.

I got home to set up for the poker tournament. I had several people coming from Colfax Fire to come and play. Anthony, Jim, and Carl came down from Colfax. Dave also came to play. I ended up getting first place. It was a fun time.

I was in the office working on some random stuff when John called about playing some poker. I told him I was already done. But we got a second cash game going. Dan and Richard came to play. We played for several hours. Dan and Richard has left. John and I stayed playing for an hour or two.

After John and I were done we sat around talking about various things that we use to do including playing video games on Nintendo. John asked to stay the night at my place.

Two times on the Radio

Today I spent a lot of time not at home. I first had to get a thumb drive to replace the one that died on me the other day. I started with my radio show for my normal time. I went up the studio and knocked that out. I wasn't feeling super while I was on the air. For a while I was jittery. Then I calmed down. It was not due to nerves. It was because I was feeling sick. Once that show was done I had time to go home and do a couple things before it was time to head back to the studio for my next show.

This one was an interview of the ASWSU presidents and vice presidents. I spent a couple hours preparing questions and going over them last night. I think the show went over very well. I did not really stumble too much and I think I looked pretty good while questioning the candidates.

I got done just in time to run back to the station. I am on call as well as it was a training night. I got there a couple minutes late. We were going to do some quarterly SCBA stuff. Just as we were going to leave we got toned out to a call. But we were not there long and got back to the tower before the training up there started.

Several of us were given a group of people to lead around on various activities. We were on air and we got to see how well we would do with our air consumption. It was not the same as the work rate test we have done in the past. Because we were in groups the weakest link caused the whole team to have to be done.

After the class we went to the station to fill air bottles. That took some time to do. We took some time to teach some of the new guys how to use the cascade system. When we were finally done with that I made my way to Mike's for poker.

I got dealt a hand and as we were playing it I got called out on a EMS call. I was able to finish it out. I did a raise from four to five bucks. The guy thought I meant five more bucks. So he folded only to find I meant one dollar more. I got a good laugh out of that.

Another Poker Night at My Place

I started out earlier in the day with going to the fire station and getting some photos of Tyson and the new paramedics for the photoboard and the website. It was after that that I had to go to the dentist for a teeth cleaning.

But after work I was going to have some fun. I am having a poker party at my house. Dave was the first one over. Then Mike and Andy came over. I also had some other guys, Loren and Dan made it over. It was a good night. At one point I hit a run where I couldn't lose. I kept gaining money and doing very well. Soon I was up a couple of tens. Loren finally busted out as did Dan. Dave left while he still had money. I took what I could from Mike and Andy and had myself a half-a-C-note night.

Purchasing a Poker Table

Tyson and I were supposed to work an event at Beasley. When we got up there I was starting to think there was a mistake. Sure enough someone saw us and said she thought the event was in Bryan Aud. We loaded our equipment in the mini-van and drove over to Bryan. When we got inside we talked to the performers. They directed us to the person in charge of everything. That is when we found out they we were not even needed at the event. Tyson and I fueled the rig and called it a night.

Mike brought over the poker table and the folding chairs. I decided that I was going to buy it from him. He has a nice table and with the folding chairs I will have enough chair to fit more than ten people for poker games.

Mike invited me to go out to Rico's with them. It was a good night out on the town. Andy and Mike were there. We played a lot of pool. There was a ten-six-seven who had a perfect square for a soul patch. It was well trimmed and the dark hair make it stand out. I spent some time looking that way. Then another ten-six-seven came in and was a friend of Mike's. He played some pool with us.

We left around midnight and I went to Russells. A group of people were there and we played Apples to Apples and had some pie. I won the first game of Apples to Apples when we could argue for our decisions. Then one girl who I had not met before was complaining that it was no fun to debate whose card was the best. She just wanted people to lay the cards down and have it chosen without any reasoning.

It was fun to play that way, but I thought it was funny that she seemed mad that we had to debate points.

Bad Night at the Table

The fire training scheduled for today lasted all of thirty minutes so that meant that I was going to get to Mike's house quick tonight for poker. I was excited to get there early and have more time to play. The problem is that also gave me more time to have a bad night. I had a run of cards that I could not win with. Even when they looked decent I was losing, and after a while I started to play dumb hands because I was not seeing anything at all.

But then after I did things like that other guys would play crap hands. That did not help the situation. Other guys on the other hand were playing bad hands and beating me or others. It sucked, but I had fun. I got the word out a little bit about my upcoming game. I hope to get some of the people there.

Poker at Diamond Lil's

Today would have been my Dad's Sixty-Eighth birthday.

I have been wanting to get back to Diamond Lil's for a while. I finally decided tonight I would head down there. When I arrived it was pretty busy. I had to wait for a while to get a seat. Finally when I did I was playing my game. Very tight. I was doing well, infact I had more than doubled my buy-in.

Then my name was called to move up to the higher limit tables. That table was not as nice to me. I called a couple hands and I was not doing very well. I was down to my last forty bucks. I got pocket nines. The flop was an Ace-Four-Four. The turn was a Four. Someone got me all in. I went ahead and called. I realized my only hope was a nine hitting, because the others were playing with an Ace. A nine hit on the river giving me a better full-house than everyone else at the table. That put me back into the game, but I was down from my starting point of coming to that table.

While I was sitting there a ten-six-seven was seated at the table. When I first saw him I was thinking he was younger and dressed a little like he was a G. Then when he sat at our table I was able to get a better look. I loved his haircut. It is very short. I don't know what it is about guys and long hair. It looks horrible. I have seen some guys who I thought were butt-ugly get a good haircut and all of a sudden they were actually very good looking.

So after seeing his widows peak and his hands and arms I could see he was a little older than I thought. Now I put him around his mid-to upper-twenties. His fingernails were very nicely trimmed, almost look manicured. He didn't have the blonde hair that makes everything so much better, but it was a nice light brown. Gave me something to stare at when I was not playing a hand.

Finally a little after midnight I decided to cut my losses and leave. I walked out of there only down fourteen bucks on the night. Not too back for going all-in at one point.

Poker at a New Place

With today being President's Day I did not have to work. I started by making me way to Fife to get sized for my shirts for the Boat Patrol. Then it was off to Seattle for the shorts and pants. But when I got they were closed. I guess I will be going there tomorrow.

I got home and just hung out until dinner time. I was just waiting until it was time to head out for the poker game. I was playing with a bunch of people I have never played with before. After reading the house rules I realized that it was going to be a lower level of players. When I got there that is what I found.

I was about even for the whole night. Then on the final hand I was in a couple bucks and then I ended up going all in for another eight bucks. I won with a flush. I took down about thirty bucks from that pot and walked away up a little over ten bucks. Not a bad night for playing with new people.

Good night at Diamons Lil's

I worked on my bugs and got a lot of them retired. Ricky, Noah, and I went to QDoba for lunch. After we were done I had some time to get my database updated. Then we had our meeting. I was telling them about my problem with the GFE and Shawn told me that he made some changes and that I needed to update some stuff and I would be good to go. I did those updates and got the remaining bugs fixed. Then I worked on finishing off Shawn's bugs. I got those done as well.

I went home after spending some time talking to Ricky about the future of the company as well as the upcoming product we are going to start to build soon.

After dinner I spent time watching TV with the family. I had planned on staying up late because I am getting ready for the ride along with Joe. Joe was online and we chatted for a while. He said that he wants me to start to work for his company again. He wants to pay me five bucks a month now. I went to Diamond Lil's a little bit after midnight.

I got some cash and found a seat at a four-eight table. My name was on the list for a eight-sixteen table. I had lost some money at four-eight early on. But I won a couple good pots and I was back near even.

Then when I went to the eight-sixteen table I bought in for more money because I wanted to be able to compete. I was playing tight after the flop but loose before the flop. One guy at the table was kicking butt. He was playing really loose and always betting. He won pot after pot after pot. He was up around eight-hundred bucks at one point.

A couple ten-six-sevens came in. I recognized one of them from playing there before. He was ripped and very fit. He started by playing at a different table. Then he moved to my table. When he was coming to my table I could not take my eyes off him. Then I looked down and realized that everyone was watching for me to do my action. Oops! Oh well I spent the rest of the time playing cards and watching his arms flex and show off his muscle as he moved.

I won a couple nice pots after being on the ropes at one point. I was getting some good start cards but the flop was bad. But sometimes it would be a good flop for me. At one point I had pocket fives. I was going to fold. I ended up staying. The flop was all cards under nine. With how loose people were I played. And on the river I caught a five and busted a guy who had jacks.

I finally left after three-thirty. I was up two-hundred-twenty-two bucks. It was a good night for me.

Incredibly Tired

After getting to bed and sleeping for about four hours I was up again. I was very tired and I got the last few things done with the HazMat CD's. Shortly thereafter I had to get to the radio show. I went to the studio and I forgot my cell phone at home.

I was dragging as I started the show and I did not have my "A" game going. So I was just being loopy but I got through the show. I did not think it was all that good. I had a little bit of time at home before I had to get to the fire station to work on the Rescue and where to put the new tools. When I got home there was a message from Pete about a suicide down at the river. He ended up going on it.

I met up with Erik at the fire station and we put the new tools and Rescue and rearranged the tools that existed on it. It is cool that we are running the new tools now. With OTEP training coming up at seven o'clock I just decided to hang out at the station.

Pete called me and told me that if I had some time to go to the funeral home and investigate the wounds to get an idea of what happened on this case. It was interesting because now I have seen shotgun, handgun, and rifle damage to the human head. There is a lot of differences between each one.

The OTEP training was pretty short over all. We covered burns. Once we were done with the training I went to Mike's house for poker. I was there until midnight. I ended up walking away with an extra thirty-one bucks.

When I got home I wrote back and forth with Matt and Monte about the call from yesterday. I told Matt that I was not offended and that he could not offend me. I asked both to keep the information secret. I also asked Monte how Tom knew about it. It was Tom who told Monte. Monte said he heard about it several years about and it was a non-issue to him. I was surprised to hear that Tom has known about it for three or four years. Monte said "remember it is a small world". I wonder if the Evergreen article is how Tom found out.

Ryan Came to Town

Ryan came down today to see the Cougs play the Bears. We met up at Cougar Country for lunch to start the day. Then it was off to the game. The Cougs went out and pretty much dominated the whole game. They lead the whole way and really played well on defense. It wasn't until late that the Bears got some points going, but for a while the Bears were averaging seven points every ten minutes.

After the game we went to my truck and off to Safeway. I got some groceries for the poker game for tonight plus I thought I would get some other items that I needed around the house. I ended up spending about one hundred bucks. I got the stuff put away and started to set up for the game. I had Kelly coming over with a bunch of other guys. I also has some of my friends coming over including Ben and Dave from the softball team.

I gave Ben a hard time when he told me he got a job working over in Tacoma starting in March. He may come over and play one week with us or maybe two. I hope. I will miss having him around.

We had enough people that we broke into two different tables. I moved the furniture around in the living room to make room for the second table. We had about six people per table. I was doing well to start with but things started to go down hill after that.

Kelly brought over some guys from his softball team. But after winning some hands early on I started to lose, and pretty much spent the evening losing money. The game finally broke around midnight. Ryan helped me clean up a little bit and get my house back in order. Ryan left a little bit after midnight to go home. What is funny is I asked if he would play cards, at first he said no. Then later on he decided that maybe he would play for a little while. Then he ended up playing all night.

I had a good time having everyone over. I hope to do another game in the near future.

Time at the Jail

I was going to work the jail on Saturday morning, but with the basketball game coming up I decided to work the jail today instead. I did my work at the office and had the meeting like normal on Fridays. Then I got dressed and headed into the jail. It was a pretty quiet night over all. I had a couple commits around seven. I got them knocked out real quick. The rest of the night was spent just doing rounds and running the control room.

After the shift Dale and I hung out in the control room for about an hour watching TV and chatting with the guys coming on. I played a joke on Brett who was working control. I called the jail from the cell phone and hung up when he answered it. After two times he realized it was me.

After the jail I went to Zeppoz to play some poker. I was not having a good night. I was not catching very good hands and I was getting impatient. I was playing some bad hands and losing my money. I was there for about an hour or so and then that was it for the night.

I told Russell about Ryan coming in to town tomorrow and invited him to come out to lunch with us at noon tomorrow.

Superbowl Party

Today was the final day of our class for Firefight I. I was not quiet as tired today and I made my way to Colfax. I have my new presentation. I had print outs that I made at The Deuce. I was ready to nail my presentation.

We started with a review and then the test. It was a pretty big test and unlike many of the tests we take, this is one you actually had to study to do it really well. I was ready for it and I finished the test before anyone else in the class. I was done a bit before the next person.

I waited in the dayroom at the fire station for everyone else to finish. When everyone was done we went back to the presentations. I wanted Ralph to grade mine. I knew he would grade me hard but I would get good feedback. After my presentation I realized I nailed it hard core.

Ralph talked to me about it. He said I am a natural. He said I did something he has never seen anyone else do when doing the particular presentation that I did. We all have seven choices to choose from. I was teaching the tying of the bowline knot. Ralph wants to get me involved in teaching. He said he liked my presentation and how I did not just read off the slides but talked and explained things. I think I nailed the test and the presentation.

It was time to get home and prepare for my Superbowl Party. I have all the people from the Colfax Fire poker players. Each year we play a poker game and watch the Superbowl. I was about to grab a beer with the others when a call went out for Pullman. I wanted to know who was on for my crew so I checked the schedule and found I was on call. So it was a good thing I did not have one.

We started a tournament. I was in the chip lead when a call came out for a structure fire at the hospital. We went code down Grand to get to that. We got on scene to find it was nothing. We were there for a little bit when another call came out on Clay Ct. We went code back down Grand to that one. But we got cancelled.

I was on my way home when we got called out to yet another call at Zeppoz. We went code down Grand once more. I was joking about how the people would think we were lost with us going back and forth a couple times in a matter of thirty minutes.

I got back to my place to find my chip stack was gone and I was out in third place. Tim and Connie were playing for first place. Connie ended up winning it. We all decided to have a poker game each month on the fourth weekend. The next one will be the end of Feb at Connie and Jims. The winner of the tournament will host the next one at the winners' house.

We were cleaning up when I got another call downtown Pullman. The guys cleaned up my house the rest of the way when I left. I got back and did the final touches. It was a long weekend and I was ready to relax a little bit.

Mid-day Coroners Case

I tried to get to the show early to get my laptop working for the interview with Jerrid of the Evergreen Football League. I could not get the wireless to work on my laptop then I thought that I could just hook the laptop to the headphone jack and have it record directly. I did that and it worked out well, but I was running up against the clock because I started it so late. I was able to get on the air and the computer recording.

I tried to get Jerrid on the air, but we were having a problem with him hearing me. So we did the three-way call method that Peter and I have used. That was able to work but it gave off a slight echo through out the interview.

I also got a call from Pete about a coroners case in Pullman. He asked if I could go. I told him I could get out early if I could get a replacement. I was not able to find one, but I still ended up going after my show was over with.

I got the scene, it was a natural death. What was interesting is that unlike many of my cases I had to look for evidence all over the place to try to determine what happened and when it happened. I was able to come up with a timeline that Pete agreed with, that the cops agreed with, and that fit all the evidence. It was interested to get to use those kind of skills.

Following the coroners case I went to Mike's for poker. It was a full house with Loren, the kicker from the football team as well as Robbie and a couple other guys from the basketball game. I was doing well for most of the night, but then I lost a close hand where I got trip aces and someone else got the straight. That cost me some of my winnings. But I ended the night up almost twenty bucks.

Back on Sunday Rotation

After playing some poker last night I wanted to try the tournament at Zeppoz today. I went up there around four and got into it. I bought in and did my one rebuy at the beginning. I was not the first out, but I found myself a pocket tens. I tried to push and I went all in. Someone called me with pocket aces. I ended up losing and I was done. I went to play some of the table games. I was playing Paigow. I was doing well.

I won back all the money I lost playing the tournament, plus I tipped the dealer five buck and walked away with about twenty-five. Not too bad of a day.

I pretty much went straight to the fire station for rig checks. It is our Sunday. On the way there a call came out. We started to go on it, but they cancelled us just as we went en route. Tyson and I worked on the engine together. He did the pump test and we got it cleaned and put away.

The rig checks went pretty quick for the most part. Tyson and I ended with him doing a one-minute drill. He was able to nail it the second time through.