Long Day for One Case

Melcher and I started our shift with a plan to do follow up on a case he is working. But instead we got into a call for a man with a gun in Colfax. We were about one block away and watched the scene from a distance. When we saw another police car there we went in. We helped with back up until the scene was cleared. Then I got a case that started out as something that it wasn't. When I talked to the RP it was something a lot more than someone getting beat up.

So I contacted our supervisor and he helped Melcher and I with interviews, collecting evidence, and writing a search warrant. I learned a ton doing this case. Many of these things were newer to me in a larger case. The supervisor took the lead but he included us in all the steps along the way.

We worked the case until two in the morning and then we were to come back at ten o'clock the next day to continue the investigation. Melcher and I both were thankful for all the instruction we received from the supervisor. In all we spend nine hours on the case today.

No Oral Board

This afternoon I went to the fire station and met with the new station committee about getting some plans created for a new fire station. We talked about the things we needed and sizes they need to be. There is a student from WSU who is going to help us with the plan.

I went home and got my uniform on. I went to the SO. I was going to work with Ross tonight. I also had a coroner's meeting and the plan was to have an oral board to go to first class. The coroner's meeting was shorter than normal. We covered our on call schedule. We also covered some stuff with the chaplain.

I went to the report writing room and waited for Cooper to show up for the oral board. But he was dealing with other issues on the road. While waiting a call for service came in. I was told to go handle it by the sergeant. It was a transport from the hospital to the person's home. I took care of that.

When I got back to the station Cooper asked if I was done for the night. I said no. He said then get Ross and go get him an arrested. He said if I had to go to Pullman to get an MIP to do it. We headed into Pullman and ran around looking for something. We were not able to find anything. We made a lot of stops, but there was not a lot of people moving around.

We ended the night with a stop. I could smell intoxicants. We ended up doing SFST's and the person did fine. I cut the person loose and we left Pullman. We tried hard, but were not able to find anything.

Melcher and I on the Road Again

Melcher and I hit the road again tonight. I really like working with him. He will make a very good full-time cop when he gets hired on.

We did some traffic and he got a couple stops and tickets. Plus he got an arrest for a suspended driver. I took over driving. We went to Hooper and Hay. Then back towards Uniontown. We were working on serving papers. We had one down there and one in Pullman. Then we went to dinner. I called Lambley to invite her. We also had the other full-time guys join us. When dinner was done we worked a juvenile problem.

Then we went to a possible violation of a no-contact order. We were not able to get enough information while investigating that. We also couldn't find the suspect. So that was left open.

That was the end of our night. We went back to the SO and then I gave him a ride home.

Getting Caught Up!

I went to bed, then I got up only a few short hours later to be an BLS evaluator for the First Responder class that just got done. I got my pop along the way. I got to the station and my area was bleeding and shock control. Everyone did an okay job over all. I didn't see any real issues. But the bleeding and shock is pretty easy. Cover the blood. Use pressure and elevation. Put on more bandages of needed and finally use pressure points. Then for shock. Lay down, elevate the lags, regulate body temperature with a blanket, and throw on some oxygen. That is the thing about trauma. If it bleeds cover it, if it is broken splint it. It is pretty straight forward.

I went home and started to work on my case report for the theft. I got about two and a half pages typed up and I have some way to go. But I have a lot done. This is my biggest case so far.

I worked on my computer programming job as well. I was doing the evaluations when I got a call from Tim. I didn't have my phone so I missed the call. A little bit later there was an E-mail from Tim that CCed several others about getting a hold of me. I was mad. He was complaining that he couldn't get a hold of me very easily after hours. I didn't take kindly to it. I fired back pretty much saying that I am free Monday through Friday and that I am busy on the nights and weekends. I said if it would be a problem that we should re-evaluate my contract.

I called him and left a message. He called me later and said in reference to my E-mail that it wasn't necessary that I was free all the time in the evenings, but we should try to find one night a week we can work together. We went through some of the code samples he sent to me to work with his web services. I tied all the fields together and put on some client side Javascript to make sure the data we are getting is correct. Everything pretty much fell into place. There is still some work to go, but I got a lot of it done.

I also got the photos of the new reserves edited and the photos for the board at The Deuce created for all the career guys and reserves. I was pretty busy on the computer getting things caught up.

I also responded to an e-mail from the editor of the Daily Evergreen. He wrote a piece saying that he wanted to work on focusing on more international issues in order to make those who are comfortable less so. He also made multiple references to race. I wrote a letter to the editor. He responded to it in an E-mail to me. I finally got a chance to read it and respond to him. I think he is off base on several things. I said so in my E-mail to him. It felt good to get some of these things completed.

Another Friday Night with Melcher

I have been going to bed really late and as a consequence I have been getting up late. I contacted Melcher about hitting the road. He was up to doing it. I was happy because it had been a week since I was last out.

We started by working Albion for an hour. I sent a text to the other guys about getting dinner around six thirty at Subway. They came and so did the troopers. This time I put together a dinner I was able to make it to, unlike the last time I did that and I missed it because we were dealing with a call in Endicott.

Melcher didn't want to drive so I drove the whole night. We patrolled the North part of Whitman County. We went to St. John and Lamont. We also hit Rosalia and Tekoa. We made several stops along the way. One of the stops was on Rock Lake Road. The guy who we stopped said "What are you guys doing out here?" I don't think he expected to see a cop out there.

At the end of the night we stood by a car in the ditch for Cooper who arrested the driver for drunk driving. I went back to the office and wrote up my ticket before heading home. It was a little after four when I got to bed.

LETS Training

This afternoon I was scheduled to use the law enforcement training simulator. It is where I am presented with videos and I react how I would. I am recorded and I can see how I did in reference to shooting or not quickly. I did okay. I learned to recognize threats faster. It was a good training.

I got home and got my column for the Daily News completed and turned in. Then I spent several hours working on installing software onto my computer trying to get it completed. I finally quit doing that around four in the morning and went to bed. I still have about ten things to install tomorrow.

New Computer Purchased

Jon went to Frys today to get my HPE-170f model computer. It should be pretty cool. He is going to ship it out tomorrow. I am excited about getting it.

I went to the SO to write up my ticket I wrote the other day. I also got the hours for the reserves for ought-nine updated. I talked to Cooper about setting up a board for moving to first class. He at first said that until the gas prices go down he isn't going to do it. I said that I would like to get first class so I am eligible for some of the paid things. I think he was messing with me. Then he said "we will get it done".

Later he said that I probably wont pass my first time through. I said I understood that, but I figured that if I had one I would know what I need to work on to improve.

I left the SO and went to the rig checks. We went to station one to get some tarps that were missing from Rescue from when we were having the pipe breaks. We ran a couple calls tonight. It was another night where we had some calls in the wee-hours in the morning. I decided to stay up late after we got back from the last call. I was up until six in the morning. I got into an E-mail conversation with Kuhrt during this time.

Follow Up in the Valley

Because my computer crashed on me I didn't have work to do and I wanted to do some follow up. I contacted Melcher about going out and doing the follow up. I went to the SO and made some phone calls and set up one interview.

We went down and did some interviews. We looked up information while we were down there trying to find evidence. We also hit Panda Express for dinner again. This case has been interesting because it our first we have been able to investigate with people to interview and leads to run down.

On the way back I saw a car going pretty fast. Turned out it was fifteen over in a forty-five. I stopped and had a chat with the driver. Then we got back to the station and I headed home because it was nearly eleven and I had to get up early for the first aid class tomorrow.

Solo Patrol

I got up this morning to deal with my computer problem. I went to get a new IDE hard drive. But those are not as easy to find as they use to be. I had to go to Cactus Computer to get one. I put it into the computer. But the machine wouldn't go. The fans fired up, but the green light showing the computer is on wouldn't light up. I worked on it for a while, but it wouldn't work. I finally unplugged everything and started with pretty much just the base computer but that still wasn't working.

After talking to Cactus Computer I found it that the socket nine-three-nine motherboards were made when there were bad capacitors. It turned out nearly all them were bowed out. I was told that was the reason it was bad. So I went to R-Tech because he had some new motherboards that would work for my computer, but they didn't have the right video card slot. So I didn't get one. I speced out a computer there. But it would run about five hundred and I am not sure that is the best way to go. So I thought I would look at some new quad cores.

I went home and started to look up new computers. But it was information overload. There are so many different models and I don't want to get a no-name computer.

I left to go to the SO for our meeting. When it was done we did our training. Then I went out on the road with M. Brown. We went north on one-ninety-five then south on twenty-seven. He was feeling bad. He got permission for me to continue the night by myself. I was so stoked to be in my own car. I did an hour in Albion then hit two-seventy. I made a stop and wrote a ticket. On the way to the station I got one more. Both were double-digits over.

I wrote up my tickets and it was nearly three in the morning. I called the Nez Perce jail about listening to some phone calls that the jail records. I was told to see a specific person on dayshift. So my plan it to go tomorrow.

Starting a Theft Case

Because I didn't have the direction I needed to get work done today I called Melcher about hitting the road. He said he was good to do it. I picked him up and we went to the county. We went north and west in the county. While in St. John we got a call for a theft in the Port of Wilma. We responded and got a signed report. Then we started the investigation. It was pretty neat. We worked with a cop down in Lewiston. We did a couple interviews of people.

On the way back Melcher and I spent time chatting with each other. We both enjoyed the day and where the investigation was going. We spent nearly six hours doing that in the valley. It was a great time. I have more work to do on it, but I am looking forward to the challenge.

SO then FD

So there I was. Working the road with Rich. We worked a dog complaint first thing. Then we went north to help take a runaway case. After that was done we started to run traffic on SR Twenty-Six.

We didn't have a lot of luck early on. It was pretty slow going. There was a lot of traffic of people coming back from Christmas Break. But they were not flying so much.

After it got dark we went worked the fifty-five mile per hour area. We got a few stops through that area. Rich had to be gone at six o'clock for something else. That was okay because I had to go to the fire station for weekly rig checks.

I helped finish up the check on rescue and then put the rigs back after the bays were washed out. We got a call before we left. Then we had one more in the wee-hours of the morning. It was a pretty tame night over all. But Christmas Break is over and I suppose we are going to get a lot of calls again.

A Crazy Busy Day

It turned out my trip to Seattle today was delayed until tomorrow. I was going to get going in the morning, but due to the fact I really didn't get my day started until after the noon hour I was behind the eight-ball. I started with a phone call for my new contract web job. It was clear that I should have read the e-mails. But from the ones I had read I was under a different impression. There are still issues with exactly what I need to get done. I guess I will get the UI work underway and work on hooking stuff up later on.

I went to Sprint to have my phone looked at. The year of some of my texts are coming back as twenty-sixteen. That was fixed by doing an update that was sent to my phone. I also considered updating my phone plan which will reduce my overall cost by about twenty bucks a month.

I went to the fire station to get some parts for a manikin for training tonight. I also talked to Ryan about getting the new maps made up for the map tests. I spoke with the chief about getting the career timesheets set up to work like the reserve timesheets I did. While I was showing the chief how it worked I found an error in a formula. The cells that I was looking for only covered about an eighth of what they should have covered. That meant I had a couple hours of work to update all the timesheets. That sucked. So when I got home I worked on that. It took me until nearly six to get done. But it is complete and I was able to update the server with the new timesheets.

I went to Colfax for fire training. We went over the King Airway. After practicing that I went to the SO to work on my supplemental report from the DUI from the other day. I also got my ticket written up and turned in.

When I got home I got a hold of Keegan on the computer. We went to Rico's and sat there talking for about two hours. It was good to chat with him. He is a good looking guy. But he is just looking for friends, so I am not going to cross any lines. After we were done I went to shake his hand and he preferred to hug. So I gave him a hug.

Happy Birthday Partner.

Melcher and I went out to work the road today. We went to Albion to try to arrest someone on a warrant. We were not able to get the person, but we thought the person was there, just we couldn't get him. We did an hour of time in Albion. Then we went to serve some papers. I was starting to feel horrible. I got some pain killers and my headache was not going away.

We went to McDonald's for dinner. As we sat there for about an hour I started to feel much better. We ran some traffic on Twenty-Six. We found a guy doing twenty-five over and was failing to yield at first. Finally he stopped. Melcher wrote him.

When we were done we went to My Office. I bought Melcher a couple beers for his birthday. As we sat there I saw this guy shooting pool. Looking at him I was thinking he was barely twenty-one. After a while of shooting he came over and asked me if I had a dip. He didn't see me having any, I think it was just an off chance that I would have one. I gave him a dip and then he sat down with his friend. Both were ten-six-seven. The guy who got a dip from me was blonde and looked like he was muscular. We were talking about what they were studying at WSU and what not. When they asked what we did, I told them I am a computer programmer. Melcher said he worked for a local company as an advisor.

All four of us stayed talking until the bar closed.

I am a WSU Cop... For the day-ish

This afternoon I patrolled with Melcher. The only plans we had were to have break with Matt and Shane in Pullman around nine-thirty PM. Melcher started out as the driver. We went West a little bit, then we went North. There was a lot of traffic coming from Pullman because of the basketball game, but they were all doing a little under the speed limit over all. I started to drive after about two and a half hours. I took us on the Oakesdale Road. Then we went on Hume Road. My plan was to hit Dry Creek and sort of zigzag between One-Ninety-Five and Twenty-Seven on our way to Pullman for break.

But before we got off Hume road a traffic offense came out in Endicott. Jimmy answered up for us. So we started to head off that way. It was about someone who was drunk and driving. When we got to Endicott saw the car and stopped it. Melcher took the lead and did his first SFST's in the field. He made the arrest. So when it was all said and done it was too late to have break with everyone else and we headed to Pullman to get ourselves some food.

Due to the fact it was after eleven o'clock and it is Christmas Break nothing was open but the grocery stores. We grabbed a sandwich. I drove out Two-Seventy and then back in on Airport Road. The frost was getting really bad on the roadways. It was so thick it looked like it had snowed. The roads were getting pretty slick. The major roads were not as bad because they were getting driven on.

I was getting ready to leave Pullman by driving up Davis way when we heard the Pullman cops asking for help looking for a vehicle involved in a burglary that just occurred. We stuck around and went out to the places they told us to look. We spent about an hour and a half looking.

It was getting late and everyone else was starting to do other things so we headed out and back to Colfax. It was getting close to three when we had to check-out of service. En route the radio traffic from Pullman was pretty broken but we heard some references to the deputies and then reserves. But nothing more. We fueled the car and got to the county shop to put it away. We opened the gate as the dispatchers requested all the county units to landline dispatch.

Melcher and I were asked to work WSU while all the local police were dealing with the burglary. So we returned to Pullman and went to the campus. We drove around looking at parking lots and various buildings. We hit pretty much every part of campus and their apartment buildings. We spent about two hours driving around checking stuff out. Then we were asked to do a transport of someone to jail. We completed that and returned to campus. Within a few minutes we were told we could clear as the others have been cleared as well. So then we went back to Colfax... again. And this time we were able to check out of service.

I went to the SO and did my paperwork for the evening. I was able to crawl into bed at seven o'clock in the morning.

Ought-Nine in Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another Day Patrolling in the Snow

Melcher and I met up at seven in the morning to patrol. It was pretty quiet. We were stopping a lot of cars. It was sort of a ticket day as we wrote a total of five tickets. When the day started it was snowing lightly and the roads were snowy and icy. When I was up on One-Ninety-Five I had a car go by me at seventy-five. I turned on it. With how icy it was we had a hard time doing the turn quickly. We were slipping and sliding. I told Melcher if the car kept going that fast we would not get caught up to it because I wasn't going to go that fast to get it. But we did catch up to it. I wrote the driver for that one.

Later had lunch with BKoe and KStew. It was a pretty nice day over all. We didn't have any calls to deal with. I am pretty much a call killer.

I'm an Eagle

I went to the SO today to drop off my stuff from my last two coroner's cases. Then I went to report writing to write up a ticket that I wrote on Monday. After that I went into the jail and made the calendar for late night requests. I have been making that calendar since ninety-nine. I also updated the photoboard with for the year of two-thousand-ten. The board had years that ended in ninety-nine. I have been fixing it since the turn of the century.

Then it was off to Renton. I got home and then went to the Eagles. I was getting initiated today. I had dinner then waited to be initiated. After the initiation I went to Fry's Electronics to get a radio for Jon for Christmas. I looked at some computers while I was there as well. I have been thinking about getting one, but the one I currently have really is just fine. The fan is loud, but I can fix that for a few bucks and I would save myself from spending a ton of money on a computer right now.

Three Hats Today

This morning Melcher and I hit the road. I was working out there until five o'clock. I am on call for the fire department starting at six. We hit the road and ran some traffic on twenty-six. We met up with BKoe, KStew, and Monte for lunch at Cougar Country. We ran a fresh arrest to Colfax for BKoe. Then we went north and ran more traffic. We made a couple stops along the way. We got back to the station and I was out of there around five. I got to the station and rig checks were done.

Robinson and I hung out at the station for a couple hours. But we didn't have any calls while we were there. I went home and I was online chatting with someone on facebook when a call came in for an injured person with blood. As I got to the station I heard the person wasn't breathing and was cold. We got cancelled quickly as it turned out the person was dead.

It wasn't very long before I went to the scene as a coroner. I told Pete that I was on call for the fire department and I might need to leave if a call came in. I worked the case for a couple hours on scene and then at the funeral home. After I was done with the funeral home the tones went out for a fire alarm. I went to the station and we headed out on it. We were cancelled nearly right away. That was all we had for calls, but because of the coroner's case I didn't get to bed until late.

A Cop on a Car Accident

I went out on Patrol with Melcher today. It was sort of a last minute thing. I wanted to go out and I made the call. He was up for it. We met up and hit the road. Today was "ticket day". We were going to hit it hard. Turns out we wrote one ticket on about six stops. That is pretty par for the course. I was really getting hungry, to the point where it felt like I was getting some reflux going on. We went to Subway and had some dinner. Just after I completed my last bite a call came in for a rollover car accident with road blockage. We were the closet cops there. We got on scene first and started to check stuff out. I went to run the plate on the vehicle. I said "Idaho plate, through... [I started to realize I was going to say something stupid] Idaho. Well duh! I already said it was through Idaho. The Colfax Rescue guys got there and poked some fun at me after the call.

Melcher and did traffic control around the accident for about two hours following the ambulance's leaving. Then we were on our way in to town. We heard one of the deputies asking for a couple more units. He asked them to expedite. We made our way there after asking if they wanted us. That was our final task. We spent the rest of the evening at the hospital dealing with a person who had been transported there from the jail. We were mostly just standing by. I was there until six-thirty in the morning when I things were finally winding down for the most part. I was tired. I wasn't expecting to be out that late for sure!

Daytime on the Road

I worked the road today with Melcher. We met up at ten o'clock and hit the road. We took a nine-one-one hang up. That was about the extent of our major responses. We hit lunch in Pullman. I drove for a while. We drove south towards the state line. I also drove us by the search area on Rimrock Road.

I was going to make a stop. But the driver stopped just after I got turned around and we were in a dead spot. I was able to get out as I was making the stop, but nothing more. So soon they were sending units to check on us. The Sheriff, the chaplain, Colfax Police Chief, and a trooper were all coming. Melcher took the stop and wrote a ticket as fast as possible. Then we got into radio communication where we were able to let them know we were okay.

I was supposed to have a meeting on the phone with the company I am doing the contract work for. But before the meeting time I got notified that it was cancelled. So Melcher and I stayed on the road longer. I got back in time for board and business at Colfax Fire. We covered the end of the year things such as the Fireman's Toybox and the yearly elections.

After the meeting I went to the SO and worked on some reports that I had to complete from previous nights out on patrol.

Rimrock Search Day Two

I came because of what Trevor said... See you tomorrow. After he said that I felt I had to be there. I got up and put on my stuff. I was bundled up well. I got to the command post at seven-thirty. There were more then one hundred people there. They were getting set up in groups to search specific areas. There was a morning briefing then the group leaders got a briefing and were sent out. There were a couple helicopters there as well.

It wasn't very long after the teams started to go out that a hit had been made. There was a ton of radio traffic. I knew they were on to something. Then the Sheriff called me into the command vehicle. I heard him talking to someone on the phone as he was giving them instructions to find Pete. That is when I knew they found the hunter. That was not good news, because if they are looking for Pete that meant he had died.

I went sent in as the coroner. I got to the area where he was found. He was about two-hundred-and-fifty yards below the hillside from me. The teams worked to get him back up. It was a long process. After we got to the top the searchers got into two lines and we drove between them as they paid their respects.

There was a lot happening around the basecamp. People were asking how I was doing. They got me some food. I went to Adam. We shook hands and did a hug. I thanked him for helping me out. I said my condolences to Trevor. We also shook hands and hugged. I was stopped by a family member who gave me a hug and thanked me for the work I had done.

Then it was off to the funeral home for me. I worked with Pete for a couple hours to figure out what happened. I left around four to go home and get cleaned up before I was on call for the fire department. I got some dinner and went to the station to eat it before doing our daily rig checks and Monday night training.

It was a long couple days for me with the fire department and the searching. It was a sad outcome. It was the first time I had been part of something like that. It was a huge incident and it was great to see everyone who came out to volunteer their time to help search.

I started out the day as a sheriff, then changed to a coroner, and I ended the day as a firefighter.

Rimrock Search

After my brief sleep and the long night of running calls with Pullman Fire I was up and getting dressed to head to Colton for the search for the hunter. I met up with Rich and Craig in Pullman and we had a caravan down there. When I got to the basecamp there were only a dozen people down there or so. It was early on. I was teamed up with three young men. It turned out it was the son of the missing man and his friends. They wanted to put a member of the SO with each team going out searching. We were sent down the road a ways to start our search. The son was leading the way as he knew the area well. We made our way along some level ground. There was about four inches of new snow. It was covering rocks on the ground so we had to be careful where we stepped.

As we went along we got to the hillside and started to work our way down. We split up into two groups to cover two sides of a large draw. I was teamed up with a friend of the son who is in the military with him. We made our way slowly down some steep hillsides. There was brush that was hard to see through so we sometimes had to go lower on the hill to look around it. The hillside was steep enough that we had to slowly make our way down it sliding. Then we found a point where a creek made its way down the draw. It was frozen over so we were walking on the ice trying to get down in a safe way. We had to slide down parts of that. At one point we got to a place where there was a twenty foot drop. We couldn't go up nor down. So we had to go up this side hill. There were no good hand and foot holds. It was steep and we needed to make sure we didn't slip or we would go off the twenty foot cliff. I was really scared. At one point I didn't have any good hand holds. I was laying on this hillside that I thought I could be a hurting unit if I messed up. There was large clumps of grass to hold on to. But those were higher up than I was. So I had me to get up to them. I was with a young man named Adam. He helped me get past that point. Then we worked our way down some more, but it was very steep still. I was thinking that we would have to make our way back up this hill side after we got to the very bottom. But the other group had already been there so we started to work our way up the hill. It took another hour or so to get up to the top. It was a relief to be up top.

We got back to basecamp and I worked on what help they needed there. I didn't get sent out on another mission after that point that day. We had been gone for four hours as it was. Adam and I spent some time talking. I also got his facebook profile up and added him as a friend.

I was at the command post until four-thirty. I wasn't sure if I was going to come back on Monday so I went to the son and to Adam and said goodbye to them. The son said "See you tomorrow". I think that really help me decide that I would need to come back tomorrow.

I went home and stayed up until ten. I had to fight going to sleep, but I didn't want to go to sleep at five in the afternoon and be up and sitting around at three in the morning.

Making the County Safer

Tonight I met up with Rich to patrol the county. We cruised around for a while. Then we were asked to go on a detail with Cooper and some other deputies. They were going to check on a trespassing complaint. The information said the person wasn't supposed to be there and there could be some drugs in the place. We went there but no one was around. Rich started off the night driving.

Later on I was driving. I was on the Pine City-Malden Road when I went by Boozer Road. I saw a car on it. I turned around to get a twenty-eight. But I didn't pass the vehicle and it also wasn't on Boozer road. So I hurried up to catch up with it. But after about a mile I hadn't seen it. I turned back again and went to Boozer road. As I was going down Boozer road I found some dust in the air.

I went around a corner and saw it was darkened out in the road. I stopped and it moved off the roadway. I came behind it and debated whether I had a social contact or a stop. I decided a stop. So I turned on my lights. I made contact. Both people had glassy looking eyes. I asked about drinking. They denied it. I did a modified HGN. I saw one sign of lack of smooth pursuit, but it wasn't very obvious. I asked him to do the PBT. He did and it was zero's. I asked some more questions before letting them go.

I then talked to the other guys to find out if what we did was right or what we could have done differently. It sounds like everyone had a different idea of what they would have. No one said what we did was wrong.

Coming in Early for the Meeting

I went into the SO early to meet with Cooper to cover the things that were going on in tonight's association meeting. I have a CISD to go to so I cannot be at the meeting. I showed him my gun was clean. Then I gave him my idea for training for this upcoming year. Cooper was asking everyone if we had any complaints so we could air them out one on one. I didn't have any to speak of.

I went back to Pullman and to the CISD. It was for the suicide in Pullman from a couple weeks ago.

Almost Wrecked a Patrol Car... Darn Deer

I stopped in at Pullman Fire for a while and chatted with Reiber and the guys for a little while. Southern came in with some goodies that he got from an event the city of Garfield put on.

This afternoon Melcher and I had planned on hitting the road. I got to the SO around four-thirty. We got our car ready and hit the road. We first tried to do some paper service. A car went by us at ten over. I turned on it, but it disappeared. We think it made a quick turn on a side road and darkened out. We drove some side roads but didn't find anything.

We went to the SO and then to Subway with the others for dinner. Then we hit the road again. We went up north and worked Tekoa. Then we worked a bunch of county roads. It was very dead on some of them. We didn't see any cars for several hours.

We were finally heading into Colfax. I was driving down Buck Canyon when all of a sudden Melcher said something. I see the deer running right in front of the car. It is bigger than life. I thought for sure we were going to hit it. We missed it, but as the deer kept running it got tagged by a box van. It was laying in the middle of the road bleeding and kicking. It didn't take long for it to die.

The box van sustained minor damage, but not enough for it to meet the damage threshold for being reportable.

It was pretty much the end of the night. We drove to the Albion road and then back. I rinsed the car because it got pretty dirty on the county roads before going home.

Cops Executed in Lakewood

This morning my alarm clock goes off then I decide to sleep a little more. I got woken up by a call from Melcher. So I was now running late. I rushed around to get all my stuff on and meet up with Melcher.

We got to the SO and started to get a car set up. We are planning on working part of day shift and some of night shift. Just before we were going to get going Rob came out and told us there was a police shooting over in Seattle and we should come in to the SO and watch the news. We went inside and saw that four Lakewood cops had been ambushed and executed in a coffee shop. They were in uniform and getting close to going on duty. There was now a big manhunt for the killer.

We hit the road. The goal was to hit a bunch of small towns looking for banks and schools. We hit Palouse, Garfield, Farmington, and while we were en route to Tekoa we got called for a civil standby in Rosalia. We handled that. Then looked around the town.

Melcher took over as the driver shortly after that. He made a stop and it turned out to be a suspended driver. Lucky for Melcher. He got an arrest out of the deal. We cleared the arrest and started to head out SR Twenty-Three. We were getting a lot of high speeds. We made some stops on our way to Lamont. We looked at the school and drove a couple streets in town before I took over driving again. I headed to the county line on Twenty-Three to see where it was. As we were coming back I got a guy at twenty-one over. I stopped him and gave him a ticket.

I hit Twenty-Three for a while and then switched back to Melcher. He made a couple stops as well on our way to One-Ninety-Five. We made our way to the SO for a short period of time.

We got some tape and put it over our badge. It is my first time I have done that as a cop. It was a powerful statement to me.

While there a suspicious call came out in Tekoa. We had one deputy in the area. Melcher and I left from the SO and headed that way. En route we were told the call was unfounded and we cleared. We drove down SR Twenty-Seven to Pullman to get some lunch. We went to New Garden. On the way back towards Colfax we ran into a couple more speeders. We made a couple stops and I got one guy at eighteen over. He got a ticket too.

We headed out SR Twenty-Six and worked it for a while. Melcher found a spot on the side of the road and we stopped people. Melcher got one ticket and I also got one. Both were for seventeen over. By this time we had worked more than ten hours and Cooper sort of was calling us back without ordering us to come back over the radio.

When we got to the SO he said that we can only work ten hours unless on a case. He said it in a very nice way. I would like to have the option to work a few extra hours and not be limited to ten hours every time.

When we got back we got the equipment out of the car. We worked on our paperwork before heading home.

Patrolling with Kramdaddy

I went to the SO around four to get a car set up for patrolling tonight with Rich. I had grabbed a bunch of civil papers to serve. We were able to get two of them served out of six. We did a Cougar Country run for dispatch. Then it was dinner for us. We went to AppleBees with Phil. We were there for about an hour having dinner before we hit the road. We worked SR Twenty-Six for most of the evening. We were getting some good speeds.

One thing I have found is when someone is pulled over and they have five expired registrations and four expired insurance cards inside his glovebox which is full of other crap, I get annoyed. I would suggest to throw away the old items. Have your paperwork readily accessible and quick to get to.

I wrote some tickets and gave some warning through out the night. When we got done patrolling, we went to the SO. I worked on my paperwork and got it turned in. I got the meeting minutes from last meeting written up and e-mailed out. I got home and in bed around five in the morning.

Patrolling with Melcher

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

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

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

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

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

SWAT Training Helper

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

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

It was a good day out doing the training.

Perfecting Applications

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oral Board Interviews

Today the big plan was to run the oral boards for the reserves who are applying to be firefighters. We have around eleven people to interview. Each one was given a half hour time slot.

It is helpful to sit in on the oral boards because I get to see things from the other side. I can see how different people interview and how the panel looks at them. I can see what things are good and bad. I can see how I should work to answer the questions. It was a great experience.

I think when it was done, my position was the voice of the weak. I looked for the positives in what they said and their possible future for the department. I tried to bring up the positives in order to make those points shine and hope that I could convince the other, including myself, the candidate would be a good fit. I think when it was done the panel did a good job in the decisions we made.

When that was done I went home and watched some TV before going to the sheriff's office to write up my MIP arrest on Friday. I was pretty tired and when I got home I went to bed.

Hitting the Road with Cooper

This afternoon I was responding on fire calls with Victor. We went to do some work of cleaning up around an hydrant on Derby street. As we were finishing up we got called to an EMS call. En route to that we got diverted to a HazMat call on Campus. We set up command and then passed it along to the ambulance that came in. We made entry and assessed the problem. It was minor. EH&S from WSU came to clean it up. We cleared and went back to the station.

I was going to go to a Pre-Law get together on campus, but I then got brought back on a car accident. By the time that was done it was so late I decided to start to get ready for working tonight with Cooper at the SO.

I met up with Cooper around five-thirty pm. We went to Clarkston on follow-up. After Clarkston we went to Pullman and met up with some of the other local cops. We had some dinner and talked shop. We left and hit the road.

I really liked working with Cooper. It was great to see him in action. Sometimes we would stop someone and he would ask me why we were stopping them. I told him what the reason was. It was good to have him quiz me along the way. I was doing good with his questions.

We made contact with a couple really drunk students. After I worked with one of them we were concerned for the safety of the person and called for EMS evaluation. Later we saw two students walking in the middle of the road. We made contact with them as well.

I didn't write any tickets tonight. I did get one criminal cite. I worked until about three in the morning. I was on my way home when he got called to a rollover accident. I missed out on that by fifteen minutes. But it was okay, because I had to be up early in the morning.

Last Day Working for NU/MH

Today was my final day at MH. I have been with them since they acquired NU nineteen months ago. There is not enough work for me and they needed to downsize. I made it through several downsizings at NU over the years. I didn't do much today because there were no projects for me to get done.

I ran a couple calls for Pullman Fire. We started with an echo call. Unfortunately things didn't turn out well. The coroner was called. I went back to the scene to help with the removal. We had a couple car wrecks and a medical call. When I was done with the fire calls I went home and sent a final E-mail to the people at MH. Many of them didn't know me, so it is lost on them I am sure.

I worked the sheriff's office today. I was out with Keller. I drove the whole night. We didn't have a lot go on. I did take two cases that I have to do the reports on. I also got a couple speeders while I was out there. It was a pretty quiet night over all. But it usually is when I am on duty. The night ended with helping Colfax with a deer that had been hit by a car. It was still alive but in the city, so we had to get it out of town to put it down.

Three Hats Today

I ran a call with Pullman fire early this afternoon. We took it all the way to the hospital. When I got home I heard a call go out in Albion. So I went out there for that call. Due to manpower needs we called for D-Twelve to come and help. When they got there we got things taken care of. Parrish made a comment about my hat changing.

This evening I worked the sheriff's office. I went out with Zehm. We had a call for some goats on the road near Palouse. We took care of it, it turned out they were not located. After some looking we found a neighbor who said he chased them back where they went.

I ran some traffic on some county roads. I got a couple tickets out of it. I also learned some more from Zehm. It seems like I learn things from Zehm. This time it wasn't in reference to something where I messed up. He told me about asking people if they looked at their speedometer.

The night was pretty uneventful again. It seems to be uneventful whenever I go out on patrol. I seem to have the white cloud around me.

Two Losses in IM's tonight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Working with Jordan

Today I went on a couple EMS calls with Pullman. After the calls were done I went to lunch with Victor. We ended with a trip to Pizza Pipeline for lunch.

Tonight I was working the road with Jordan. I was having a good time. We first went on a call to Albion. Then we went to Pullman where we were going to have dinner, but we had to run back to Colfax instead. We ran some traffic on SR Twenty-Six waiting for our fellow officers to get to Colfax to have some dinner at Zips.

When dinner was on we worked the road some more. I had one car that refused to pull over for nearly two miles. Finally we got the car pulled over.

We worked our way to Pullman. We worked by the gyms on foot. I was able to get a couple MIP's. We were there about about two hours. Then we went back to the SO and I dropped off Jordan and went home myself. I had to be up for the football game tomorrow.

SWAT Training

I was helping with the with SWAT training today. I was a bad guy guarding my marijuana grow operation. My job was to walk around the front of a barn in the middle of nowhere waiting for the SWAT team to try to get me. I had a gun and I was told if I chose to use it during the exercise I would probably be shot, so it was up to me.

It took a while for the to get where I was due to the amount of ground they had to cover to get to where I was. They got to me and made the arrest with no one getting hurt.

I left to get back to Pullman for being on call for the fire department. We had a meeting that I was going to hold I wanted to cover several topics to make sure everyone was on the same page now that I am back as a reserve. The meeting took just under two hours because we discussed a couple of the topics.

When the training was done I went home. I was on the engine tonight. It was a quiet night until about five in the morning when we had a fire alarm to respond to.

EVOC Slow Course

This morning I started with the slow EVOC course. Melcher and I were trading off with the one county car. The others had their own car. It was taking a long time between each of my runs. After my second run Melcher went a second time. Then it was decided that he would continue to do it until he was able to pass it. There was a lot of backing and it was pretty involved. As it was getting close to the time that the class was supposed to be over I was able to get into a WSU police car in order to get some practice because the other cars were still being used.

I did the course once in the WSU car and my time was good, but I hit a couple cones. I did it a second time and passed it seventeen seconds over the minimum time needed. I was the second guy to pass and I did it in the least number of runs. It was pretty cool.

We left and went to McDonald's for lunch. We watched some football and talked war stories while there. When the training was done I went home and got my stuff ready for softball practice. I was meeting a couple of the new and old guys at the city playfields for some practice and BP. The two new infielders are both nice guys and good players. Both hit the ball well and throw it well. We are going to be a lot more solid. We were there for a couple hours total.

I went home and got ready for our first softball games. One of the infielders wasn't sure if he was going to play with us or a different team who was trying to recruit him. He decided to play with us. That was great news for the team.

I pitched the first game and did just fine. We won the first game by one run, but we were not hitting too well. The second game was a lot more of a slaughtering. We ten-runned the other team. We started off the season two and oh.

Working the Palouse Fair

This morning I was up by six o'clock in the morning to head to Colfax. I got some maple bars from Chuck's and topped off my fuel. I hit the road and made reasonable time. I got to the fairground just after eleven o'clock. I gave out the maple bars to the people there. I got my shirt and stood by at the first aid booth. We pretty much did about the same as normal when I am there. Minor things like bee stings was about all we had happen. I was there for about five hours. It was nice to hang out with the others there.

I left to go into Colfax around four in the afternoon. I got on the computer and I saw a bunch of E-mails that had been flying around all day. One was from my manage who was getting frantic about things not saving. But that wasn't on my end. Everything I had done was fine, but for some reason he thought it was. Later in the e-mails I saw there had been a network issue that actually caused the data to not get saved. Part of me is sort of looking forward to being done there because of stuff like that.

After doing the e-mails and taking care of some of the photos in the coroner's office I went upstairs to the SO. We have our monthly meeting tonight.

I got some paper and went to the meeting room. I took the meeting minutes. I was also the highest ranking officer there so I was in charge of running the meeting. We had one vote come before us, so I had to run the vote.

After the meeting our training was building searches. I did a with Macy. The last time we searched together I ended up getting us killed. This time I found the guy but I didn't do it the best way possible. We also learned some tactical things about moving around the building. It was a good training.

When the training was done I typed up the meeting minutes and sent them out. I also got the hours for August typed up and put into the Excel spread sheet.

I headed home and picked up Gunner. He came over and we watched some TV together. He was here for a couple hours. It was getting close to one in the morning and I was getting tired so I took him home and I went back to the house.

Paperwork is the Hangover of Police Work

This afternoon I went to the SO to work on my paperwork for the tickets I wrote and my DUI that I got. I was down at the SO for a couple hours getting all the paperwork filled out for the DUI. The tickets didn't take as long, but I had several that I had to write up.

I left there around ten o'clock to head home. It was a pretty lax day overall.

Rosalia Motorcycle Show

This morning I headed up to Rosalia to work the motorcycle show. I was working it with one other reserve. I started by getting a patrol car from the office and getting some equipment loaded into it. I got to Rosalia and met up with the guy I was working with. He had come out of Spokane and just wanted to meet there. We staged at the fire station. We got the Rhino and drove down to the park.

I parked the car there in a visible location. Then we rode around the park in the Rhino. We chatted with some people along the way. We would wave and smile at everyone as we passed. It was very friendly policing.

We spent time going from the rodeo grounds through the camping area. Down to the fire station and then to the park. We would walk around the park and check in the beer garden. Some Goldwings were part of a drill team. The performed first on the main drag through town.

We watched that show from across from the fire station. The next thing was the motorcycle rodeo. When we got there we found our self a spot for parking. There were a lot of big burly motorcycle riders. Men of all sorts of different ages. At a distance I saw a potential ten-six-seven. He was a younger blond and he caught my attention. Unlike everyone else there he stuck out both because of the fact he was ten-six-seven, but also because he didn't look like the others. He didn't wear blue jeans and leather chaps. He was free of obvious tattoos. He was like the guy next door. He also did very well at handling his motorcycle. So for the rodeo I had something worth watching, other than the show itself. The rodeo lasted several hours. When it was done we went back to the main park.

We continued to make our rounds and talk with people and interface with people. While at the main park there was one more show of people on crotchrockets were doing stunts. They lasted a while. It was done inside of a small basketball court that was fenced. I guess the helped make those watching the show stay safe.

While sitting there I was surprised with another ten-six-seven. He came over in a group of other guys to watch the stunt show. He was a short haired blond with blue eyes. I wasn't able to enjoy the scenery as long, but it was just as good as the first one.

The rest of the evening was pretty much the same. We did get called to a motorcycle accident, but it turned out to be minor. We cleared it and went back to the park. I was there until just after nine o'clock. It was pretty quiet most of the day. We didn't have any problems the whole night. We had lots questions about wearing helmets, alcohol laws, and whatnot.

I went to the SO after clearing Rosalia. I got my tickets from two days ago written up and turned in. Then I went home and got ready for bed.

Slow Night on the Road

The big thing today was to do a ride with Brown, a fellow reserve, and the reserve meeting. I got my uniform on around three and headed to Colfax. I had to get a new battery for my motorcycle. I stopped in at Napa down in Colfax.

I went to the SO following that. I got the meeting minutes from the last meeting typed up and sent out. I also got the reserve hours printed out and turned in to Cooper.

We had our meeting. It was short. The training was going over the accident report forms. We all had to fill them out for a fake accident that we "investigated".

Then I hit the road with Brown. The first stop I had was for fifteen over. I was going to write then I saw it was his birthday. So I gave him a huge break. I made one more stop before it was time for lunch. We went to Zips with the other guys.

We then went to help two guys with a case in Oakesdale. We interviewed everyone involved. There was no crime so we cleared. I ran traffic until midnight then we called it a night. It was a pretty slow night. I am pretty much a call killer like I am when I am at Colfax Fire.

I got home and worked on my battery. I had to pour in the acid. Then I hooked it to the battery charger and went to bed.

A Real "Vacation"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Night Out with Another Second Class Reserve

I was very excited about going out to work this evening with the County. It is the first time that I will be on the road with one other second class reserve. After I got off work I went to Reaney park with the fire department for a wellness fair. Various groups had booths. As people went to each booth they had to do something to earn a sticker. Once they got their "passport" filled with stars they would get a prize. I was helping to run the PFD booth. We had a two and a half inch hose for the young kids to roll. We also had a high rise bundle for people who were a little older. Our booth went over really well. It was the first wellness fair and it wasn’t too well advertised, but I hope that as time goes on it will be more popular.

After that I went home with the hope of getting some sleep before I had to get ready to hit the road. But I was not able to get a great amount of sleep. I only had a couple hours last night due to the EMS calls that we had. So I had hoped to get a good nap in. During the time I was laying down, it felt like I had a thousand things running through my mind all at one time. I was so excited about going out tonight and I had random thoughts running through my mind.

Before I knew it I had no sleep to speak of and I was getting ready for my time on the road. I cranked up some tunes and got my uniform on. I headed down to Colfax for my shift with Rich.

We started by getting a car ready. I had planned on going to Lamont as well as work down towards the river. I was told to stay up top because there were very few people on duty.

We were heading towards Wawawai road when we got a report of a dog that was running around. It looked like a stray dog with its fur all matted down and it looked like it had not been eating. We started to head towards Pullman where the dog was seen. At first we were going to take Staley road into Johnson road where the RP said the dog was, but those roads don't even cross. As we were getting to Staley road a second RP said the dog was at Sand road and Johnson Road. We turned around and went to Pullman and drove out Johnson road to Sand Road. The second RP was waiting there. He showed us where the dog was located and and worked to get it to come out from his hiding spot in a huge bunch of bushes. We were not able to. I spoke with the OIC who said there was nothing we could do about the dog anyway. There is no ordinance in the county about dogs running loose.

We also had a call for a car that was erratically driving. I found the car as soon as it was put out and stopped it. We spoke to the driver and cleared it.

We had dinner with the OIC and one other Reserve at Quizno's and talked about the two calls for service we had. We learned a lot from each of them about how to handle them. Those kinds of calls we really don't talk about in the academy. We get on the job training for those. That is exactly what I received tonight.

After that we were running some traffic on Airport road. We stopped some fast cars and wrote a couple tickets. Then we went out Twenty-Seven towards Palouse. We went through Palouse and Garfield then we took Dry Creek to One-Ninety-Five. There was no traffic on Twenty-Seven to speak of. We went all the way to Rosalia and back. I was going to call it a night sort of early because I had to be at the FD in the morning. But a good song was on the radio and I thought I would drive until it was done. We were nearly in Pullman. So we continued in. I went through town and I was going to head to Airport road again via Valley Road. The OIC was at McDonald's. He asked or us to come back and road side him.

Just as we were pulling in to McDonald's he left going code. So did the other reserve. We were going to follow. As I was pulling out a Pullman Cop came down going code. We got in behind him. It was a burglar alarm at Rite Aid. We stood by for a while watching one side then we got cleared. I drove around Pullman until after two in the morning and then we headed back to Colfax via Albion. I didn't get home until four in the morning.

Co-Ed Mush Ball Tournament

Today was a second tournament in Lewiston in as many days. We were playing a mush ball tournament. Today it was co-ed. We were able to scrape a team together. It was several guys from yesterday and a couple women that we play with.

I was able to play first base all day. I liked that. I also figured out how to hit the ball yesterday and I was hitting the ball with some power and I was getting basehits.

After winning the first game we had a game break. As it turned out we had a one game break between every game. After winning the first game we lost the next two. Both games were a one run loss. So we went on to a consolation game against the team we played in the first round. The second time through we crushed them. I hit a homerun. Bill had offered anyone who got a homerun a ring-pop. I was the first one to step up and get it.

When the game was done I hurried back to Pullman to drop of Faber and then down to the county to write up my DUI that I got the other night. Jordan was there to help me. It wasn't as much paperwork as I thought it would be, but my stop was straight forward. It took more than an hour and a half to do it it all.

First Two DUIs

I worked some overtime this morning at the fire department because some of the guys were getting their yearly physicals done. I helped to unload and re-load all the five inch hose on Engine Thirty-Three and Engine Thirty-Two. That was a lot of work. That is big and heavy hose. It takes several people to do it all. So I earned my money today.

I wanted to go patrolling tonight. I called Keller and Cox. Both had a rider, but Cox told me that Jordan was coming out tonight. I called him and got set up to ride with him.

I went to the SO and got a car all ready to go out in. I waited for Jordan and then we hit the road. We started towards Lamont. Before we got all the way out there we were told everyone was meeting up for dinner in Colfax. So we headed back to meet with everyone. After dinner we went to the SO for a couple minutes. Shortly after we left we made a traffic stop. As we were clearing a call went out in Garfield. We were going code to the call, but got cancelled en route. We lowered code and drove into town. We drove around the town for a little while then headed south on Twenty-Seven.

We came across a car driving poorly. Stopped the person and talked to the driver. We found it was DUI after some tests. We we went to the PPD and did the rest of the work there.

When we left we drove around Pullman for a bit. I was getting ready to leave town. We were on the edge of town when I got a speeder. I talked to the guy and I could smell alcohol. We did the tests with him. It was my first time doing them. I did it like I was trained. We had a second DUI. We took him to the PPD and did the rest of the stuff there.

When that was done it was so late we just went back to the SO and called it a night. It was after four in the morning when I finally got off duty.

Second Class Reserve

Today is the first day Captain Thompson was back on the job in the last sixteen months or so. I had been working for him. Now I am working for a different firefighter. So I am continuing working as a temp full-timer. It was pretty quiet, but all of a sudden all heck broke loose and we ran several calls back-to-back. But that was it for the day.

I left to go to the reserve meeting. It was pretty short. Following the meeting I had my review board for moving to second class. I was nervous about it at first. But for this step it is a little less formal than moving to first class. I was asked why I thought I should get moved up. The situation where I made some errors was brought up. I explained what I learned during that call.

I was given advise from the deputies. The biggest thing they brought up was when I have questions and am not sure what to do, to call someone. That was a big point they emphasised.

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

FTO Book Turned In

I went to the SO to get the final sponsor signature for my FTO book. Then I turned it into Cooper. I will have to go through a board review in order to pass along to second class. Once in second class I will be able to ride with any other second class or any first class reserve. I am looking forward to that step. I have worked hard to get there. I am sort of holding off on riding anymore until I get my new status so I can apply my hours towards the needed check offs to move to first class.

I hung out at the fire station for a while. Whimpy was out and I played with its siren a little bit. It has a growler-like siren on it.

Tomorrow is the softball tournament in Othello so I am going to go to bed early.

Got the FTO Book Done

I had a goal to complete my FTO book today at the SO. I was with Zehm. We spent several hours going through the final couple pages getting the final check-offs completed. With that done I can apply to go to second class status. I will be the first in my class to do that. In second class status I will get a chance to work with another second class reserve and the other first class guys. Then I can work my way to being first class. It is at that level I will be able to take my own car out and be on my own. I think that I can get there in the next three months or so.

After we were done with the book we hit the road. He said I could do what I wanted. So I went out twenty-six. I saw someone walking down the road. I stopped and spoke to the person. They were not doing anything wrong, but I barely could see them due to the darkness. So I tried to talk them into taking a ride with me to someplace to get them off the road. It took a while but I was able to do it. I gave the person a ride to Dusty. But I made a couple mistakes along the way. I didn't search the bags for weapons as well as I should have. I didn't get the ID as quickly as I should have. I should have run the person right away rather than waiting to run it after I dropped the person off. Then at Dusty I opened the trunk to let the person get their things but I turned my back and they could have gotten to a weapon case I had in the trunk.

We talked about all those things on the way from the call. I knew about some of my mistakes, but I wasn't sure about what I was able to do in some other ones, like running the person right away. At the end of the night Zehm said that I really didn't do bad. He said I did fine, but he still had to put that down on my evaluation. Even though I have a lot of ride time in, I had not dealt with something like that before so I didn't know all the things I should and could do. This was a great learning experience, because I still went home that night.

D-Twelve Golf Tournament

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

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

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

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

Put in Offer on Colfax Property

I met up with Craig today at ReMax and put in a bid to buy some property in Colfax. It is two parcels right next to each other. My plan is to build a big shop and office plus maybe had some storage units included to help with the cost.

They want twenty-five grand for the the two parcels. I offered fourteen grand. They sold a couple other plots for seventy-five hundred in the last two years. They got it for around that amount too. I figured with the economy that they have gone down in value. I don't know if they will take it until Monday.

I went to Colfax and met up with Jesse Two and Rich. We cleaned the two AR's from our training recently. I also went to dinner with the guys who were working. We went to Zips. After dinner I went back to Pullman for the night. I have to work in the morning and then it is off to go camping.

Hi Scotty!

I was riding with the County tonight. We started with a car accident in Tekoa. It was a non-injury fender-bender. It was really straight forward. I had a chance to ask questions about how to handle it and what I needed to do for it.

Following that we ran traffic on SR Twenty-Seven on my way south. I was going to loop around on Albion Road. But instead we took Two-Seventy-Two so the deputy could get his coat. I made a couple stops along the way. Just gave warnings.

After getting the coat we went out on Twenty-Six. I saw a car doing twelve over. I turned on the car and followed it for a bit. Then I pulled it over on Colfax Airport road. I went up to the car. I got near the driver window and started to say "Deputy Anders..." A voice from inside the car fired back "Hi Scotty!" The deputy with me heard that and saw my reaction. He knew I knew who the person was. It was my roommate. I couldn't believe it. I never thought that would happen in a thousand years. I am going to have to give him some crap about that when I get home.

We went back to the office after running some more traffic. I did my accident report and wrote it up. I got home a little after three in the morning.

Patroling the County

I was riding with Cox tonight. We went out to Lamont to serve some papers. But the person wasn't home. So we cruised along the Pine City Malden Road. Didn't find anything there. I hit SR Two-Seventy-One. We made a couple stops on that. Then we went back to Colfax to have lunch with the other guys. After that we hit Twenty-Six. I drove to the border of Whitman County and then back. It was pretty quiet out there over all. We went up to Rosalia to work that area again, but it also was quiet. There really wasn't a lot going on around the county.

Big Photo Shoot

I have been wanting to do this for a long time, and finally I got my fire department uniform to my house so I could set it up. I wanted to take a photo of myself in each of my uniforms. Then I would put it all into one photo to make it look like I posed for the photos all at one time.

I spent some time trying to get the lighting and other set up things just right. Then I put on one uniform after another. It took a long time to go through all the uniforms. One by one I had to put it on and use the ten second delay to take three photos. Then sometimes I had to change out the badges and other brass to other uniform parts for another photos. It was a long process. But the photos all turned out well.

I then started to go through the photos and chose what post to use for what side of the photo the pic would be on. It took a lot of time to cut out the background even though I was using a solid colored background. The whole process to make the photo took about six hours.

I then had to run off to the softball game. We were playing against Spellman's team. It was crappy because we couldn't hit the ball. Some of our best hitters didn't have a hit on the night. We ended up losing after only scoring five runs. Spellman's team scored twelve in the first inning alone.

I ended the night by watching Rescue Me. It is the first episode I was able to catch in the last three weeks.

I Have Qualified!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Riding with Reavis

I rode with Reavis this evening. We didn't do as much as we have in the past. We have been known to be pretty busy running on all sorts of calls. But tonight he had to get working on some of his paperwork so we only went out for a while. We cruised around on SR Twenty-Three. We did get a call to run up to Tekoa for the sighting of someone with a warrant. But we didn't find the person. We ran some traffic one-ninety-five. We got back to the office around ten o'clock. I got some paperwork done and then we called it a night. It was about midnight.

Short Day on the Road

This morning I was scheduled to work for the county on the road. I decided I wanted a donut today, because it is Sunday. It is a free day for me. I went to Dissmores. They had maple bars with a strip of bacon on it. I use to joke everything is better with bacon. I had to try it.

I think it was maple flavored bacon too because it had a maple flavor as well. The first bite was interesting, but as I went on I liked it. It added a bit of a sweet flavor as well as a bit of another flavor that I could not put my finger on.

I got to the SO around eight in the morning. I waited for Brown to get there. He got called to an non-injury accident before he got to the SO. So I sat and waited until almost eleven. But that was okay because I was able to do some work on my FTO book. I had to get through the P&Ps for the SO. So I pounded through the rest of them.

We hit lunch and then were called to a problem in Farmington. En route a second call came in about it. So we had two RPs to talk to and get the situation. I was able to use some interviewing skills as well as watched Dan do his thing and see how he talked to people. It was good learning.

We made a couple car stops. He asked me about the way I did my first one. He asked if I was doing it the way I was trained. I said that I was. He then told me the way the academy trained people. It was more along the lines of the way I did my first couple traffic stops which included introducing myself. So the second stop I did the way he described.

We went back to the SO and I wrote up my case from Farmington. Then I went home and got my laundry completed. I had four loads because I had some extra stuff that I was washing that didn't have to be washed, but I wanted to. I also started to work on cleaning my closet. I haven't done that since November because I had my old mattresses in there and it took up most of the room. With them gone now I am reclaiming my closet.

One of the things is I have too many shirts than will fit in my drawers. I am going to rearrange my set up to put some of the shirts on my built in shelves. I also spent some time watching some TV and relaxing.

First Code Run with the SO

I had a small project for MH. I was doing a change to the E-mail parser. I had to look for E-mails from a specific account with a specific subject line. If that E-mail was found I needed to change the subject to something else. I got the code written and then tested. I sent off the DLL file to them to get installed.

Later I was working for the county on the road. I was working with Anderson. I was driving in a reserve car. We went to Tekoa to return a cooler. Following that we got called back to Tekoa just after we left for a violent person at a medical call. Turned out we were not needed.

We went to Rosalia to serve some papers. And then down to Pullman to have some dinner with Heidi and Matt. Just after dinner we were going to serve some papers in Pullman. But before we got to the first address we needed to go to Endicott for a call to back up the others there. We were going code and just passed some cars on SR One-Ninety-Five. After we got past the Albion road a burglary in progress was put out in Albion. So I had to turn around and go back to Albion. So I went code past the cars I had just passed. Turned out the call in Albion was not much of a call. I was getting ready to find someone and put my training into action. But all I was able to do was use my observation skills to come up with what had happened.

We tried to pull over some cars on One-Ninety-Five, but everyone was going slow. In many cases eight miles-per-hour under the speed limit. We went back to the office and I worked on my paperwork. I didn't get out of the office until nearly four in the morning.

EMS Week at Sunnyside

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

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

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

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

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

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

Completing the Paperwork

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

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

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

From Morning to Night

This morning the pager went off at just before four-thirty in the morning for a transfer to Spokane. I took the call and came in. As it turned out it was a hurry-up-and-wait thing. We were told to be at the hospital at five in the morning only to leave just after six. The trip up to Spokane went without a problem. I was working with Bob. We went to Frank's Diner for breakfast.

The ride home always seems to take longer than the trip up to Spokane. When we got home I got the ambulance taken care of and back in service. I went home and did a couple things before taking a nap. I had only four hours of sleep between last night and this morning.

I was able to squeeze in another four hours before getting ready to work the road. I went to the SO and started to get my things ready. I was working on my FTO book when a call for service came in. The other deputies who were there told me to take it. It was a fraud call.

I was waiting for Jimmy to get to the SO. When he got there we worked on the fraud case. It turned out to be something from many years ago, and the guy was pretty much looking for some information because something else has come up. We really have nothing to do with it. We are pretty much just giving him some information.

Following the phone calls for that case we went to lunch at Subway with a couple other deputies. We were there for just over an hour eating and chatting. I was excited to get out and patrol. We started by taking a trip out to Endicott to look at a building that is for sale. It is a large shop building. After driving out there I realized it was much too far from Pullman. I saw where it was. The property looked more rough than the photos.

We went through several other small towns working our way up to Rosalia. We were going to work that part of the county. We didn't find anything big. I did make a couple stops for poor driving and speeding. It was after one in the morning and we were driving south on One-Ninety-Five. We followed one car that turned off on rarely used road. Then we went back out to One-Ninety-Five and went North. I passed a car speeding. I turned on it and pulled the car over. Found the driver had a felony warrant. I ended up making an arrest. Due to the arrest I didn't get out of the SO until after four-thirty in the morning. I got home and went to bed nearly six in the morning. I wasn't going to get a lot of sleep before I would have to get up to work at the fire department.

Second Reserve Association Meeting

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

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

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

Forwarding to the PA

I went to Colfax to pick up my newest gun. I had to pick it up from Greyman Guns. Due to the timeline I was getting on the edge of running late for EMS rounds. We were going to discuss the EMS call from last month where we ended up doing a "transfer" to Spokane where we never left the hospital. We were there for about five hours.

I rode with Zehm tonight. I started with being the "uniform" on a warrant service. My role was to be the officer presence when we did a knock and announce. I pretty much watched the people while the search was done.

We went to serve some papers in Palouse and then drove around the city for a while because we though the person we were serving were going to break the order. We were not able to find anything.

Following that we did a report in Tekoa of an assault. I went and got witness statements and went to talk to the suspect. At the end of the call I went to the station to write it up and forward it off to the prosecutor.

Most WCSO Work with Paul

It seems like when I ride with Paul we get into stuff. I have been at an accident investigation, burglary, prisoner transport, dog bite investigation, and more. Tonight would be no different. We started with a burglary. It was crazy. We are having a hard time trying to understand what happened due to the evidence not making a lot of sense.

We then went to an airplane crash. It was cold, but we still did follow up and wrote a report. Before we were done we went to a nine-one-one hangup. We ended up going code twice last night. It was a pretty busy night. We were pretty much working calls the whole night.

We did make one stop for someone who ran a stoplight. It was the first time I was involved in a traffic stop with Paul.

An Evening with Anderson

This evening I was leaving the night open, but I decided that I wanted to ride with WCSO. I called up Sgt. Anderson. He said I could ride with him. I started the ride around six o'clock PM. I washed his rig and then we went to dinner at SubWay. I was the one in charge of where we went.

We made some traffic stops. We drove out to Lamont. I also went down to Penawawa where a frat was having a party. We contacted them and all was peaceful. Then we ran some traffic on Twenty-Six. I stopped several cars and gave warnings. One car however was speeding. When I turned on him most people slow down. He kept moving along and actually sped up.

I paced him for a little bit and then stopped him. He already had one recent ticket from ought-nine. So I added to that and gave him another one.

Accident Investigation

I worked the county tonight with Paul. This is my third time with Paul, and I have yet to stop a car. It is not the lack of trying tonight. There was just no one speeding.

We started the shift with a transport of a juvenile to Martin Hall. It my first trip up there. I also got a chance to see where we go when we hit Eastern State Hospital. We stopped at Franks Diner for dinner.

As we were coming into the County we heard a car accident get toned out for the Pullman area. Then they asked for a deputy to back a Pullman officer on a call for two intoxicated people. We were out of position for both of those calls. But we also found out at that time that Pullman Fire was at a structure fire.

We made our way down to Pullman to see if we could help at the car accident. We went to the scene out on SR Two-Seventy. I got a chance to help the State Patrol with measuring the scene and the car in the crash. It really didn't appear to be a really bad crash, but it was bad enough.

I got back to the office and completed my paperwork for the transport and assisting the state patrol on the accident investigation before going home to get to bed. I was going to get about four hours of sleep before heading to the FD in the morning.

Second Arrest

We got called for a fire alarm just before shift change. So I ended up getting a little bit of overtime out of it. I was also going to be going to the ropes training. We were removing a guy from a crane that is at the WSU Olympia residence hall. I was doing photos and photos during the training. It took about two hours from the time I got there until I got back.

I hurried home to get into my uniform for working the county. I went to the office. I gave Paul a ride from the county shop back to the office. Then Tim and I headed up to Tekoa for a report of an attempt car prowl. We took a report and some photos.

When we went to serve some papers. One was on a house that was going to be repoed. The place was trashed. It will probably cost a lot of money just to throw away the trash from around the place. Then we served papers to someone in Pullman. I also pulled about six warrants from around Pullman that I wanted to try to serve. Most of them were bad addresses. We were striking out on that.

Then we drove south on SR One-Ninety-Five. We stopped several people and I wrote some tickets. We started to head North. We stopped some more cars along the way. Tim said that he wanted to head to the gas pumps in Colfax to get fuel. It was on the way there through Colfax when we stopped a car for not dimming its headlights. The driver was suspended. I arrested him and brought him into jail. I spent the next hour and a half writing the report on that plus all the tickets that I wrote through out the night. I didn't leave the SO until after four in the morning.

Final Day of SFST

We had six at the fire department so that meant I was on an ambulance all day. I was working with Tony. I really like working with him. We ended up working the South part of town. As it turned out every call save one was on the South side of town.

It was a pretty typical day around the station. We did our normal morning chores and rig checks. I had to get my EMS OTEP bookwork done today. That was what I was doing in the afternoon. But just as I got done and before I could print it off we got called out on an EMS call.

We got back to the station in time to have dinner. Then I had to run off to training at the CUE. We were doing the final day of the standardize field sobriety testing. We were doing the wet lab.

I have been doing some practice of the things I am going to say if I do the field sobriety tests. I did my practice on three of the subjects. Then I did my final test on the fourth person. I passed it. Now I am certified in doing SFST's.

After I got back to the station I sat in on the end of the new reserve class. I got some dishes done. I got to the bedroom and I was going to start to get ready for bed. Before I even got my boots off we were called out to the CUB. I actually got to bed following that call only to get another call an hour later. After that call I was able to actually go to bed for the rest of the night.

Looking at Property

This afternoon I met up with Craig at ReMax to look at a piece of property on banner Road. I am not impressed with the dirt road. Plus the house sites there would leave me close to two other house. Having ten acres you should be able to have a lot of distance between houses. Plus I would have no place to shoot a gun. We went to lunch at The Emerald.

In the afternoon I went on a ride with Zehm. It turned out he had a call before I got there. I got the reserve call fueled and washed. But I never ended up going out on the road because by the time get got to the office he had to write it up. I spent the time doing my FTO book. I got several things signed off. It sucked I didn't get on the road, but I got a lot done in the FTO book.

SFST

We hit the floor running at the fire department today. Within five minutes of the start of the shift we were out running on a call. Then we went from that one directly to a second call. We had some time but ran a couple more back-to-back calls in the afternoon. None of them were very big.

We were having sloppy joe's for dinner. Tony and I bought the food for it and I started to cook it when I got back. I had to leave around five-forty-five for training class on campus. We are learning standardize field sobriety tests.

The class lasted about four hours. Matt is teaching it. All the recruits from my academy are in the class on top of a couple older reserves.

When class was done I hurried back to the station to go back on duty. I also watched Rescue Me after I returned.

The Graduation Ceremony

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Secretary, I Am

We had our monthly reserve association meeting down at the SO. I was going to be riding with Reavis after the meeting.

I went to the SO around five in the afternoon. I was going to spend time working on my speech for the graduation ceremony. But I never got to that. I was doing a couple other things along the way to the start of the meeting.

We met up at six o'clock in the basement. We had some pizza and went over some things. One of the first things said was by Jordan. He was that we need to have a new secretary. He said that we should nominate a new reserve for it. He looked right at me and nominated me. Then they voted and it was unanimous.

So I was handed the yellow notebook to start to take notes. We covered the topics of the meeting which was pretty brief.

Following the meeting I typed up the meeting minutes and sent them out to everyone. I was riding with Reavis. We didn't hit the road right away, but we finally went out. We were heading to Pullman watching traffic and chatting along the way.

When in Pullman they were getting sent to a person who possibly was involved in a robbery earlier today. But before we got there they decided the person was not involved. But we then heard about people breaking into the Armory. We were at the other end of the viaduct from the building.

We pulled into the gas station parking lot and waited for the Pullman cop to pass us. He was just up the road. We followed him in. We then learned the suspects were around the corner. We ran around the building and stopped them. I pretty much acted in the role of a cover officer.

After they were taken in I went to the Police station and got my handcuffs that were used to cuff one guy. We cleared the PD after hanging out for a little while and went back to Colfax.

Five Hour Airport Transfer

I got about four hours of sleep and I made my way for my ride along this morning. I was told to get the reserve car ready and fill it with fuel. I was ready to go but told that due to the fact I worked last night and only got four hours of sleep I couldn’t work this morning due to safety reasons. I was disappointed. But I went home and went to sleep for a while.

I was sitting at home when a call for a transfer went out. I came to the station to go on it. We ended up never leaving the hospital. I did some CPR while at the hospital and instead of driving to Spokane I drove to the airport with a the Medstar crew. It was almost six hours of being there when it was all said and done, never making it to Spokane. But the nurses were very happy with the work we did there and wanted to give us an atta boy to the Chief.

I then spent about an hour talking to Nathan on the phone and chatting with Jon on IM.

Fifteen Year Old Video

I worked on finishing off my Town Crier column. I got that sent in to the Daily News. I went to the rec center to work out. It has been a while and I could feel it. I was weaker, but I have to get going with it. I am going to start to do my Body for Life program again. With the academy completed I would like to get back on a good sleeping routine so I can get my workouts in.

I got a hold of Rick and I arranged to work with him. We met up at six at the SO and I went out with him. We got asked to help PPD with a case they were working. On the way we stopped at Rick’s house for dinner and I also saw some of the video for the academy that we were in together back in Ninety-Four. He son is going to get a copy created for me tonight.

We went to Albion to talk to someone involved with a case in Pullman. After that we went into Pullman. We were heading South one One-Ninety-Five. We made a stop there. Then Rick had me start driving. It was my first chance to drive.

I made my first stop out on Two-Seventy. I walked up to talk to the guy. I got his license and I thought I recognized the name, but it wasn’t until I started to talk to him. I asked where he was going. He said he was on his way home. Then I asked where he was coming from. He said work. I asked where he worked. He said the City of Pullman. I asked what he does, then he said he is a cop. That is when I realized why I knew who it was. I cleared that stop.

On the way out Two-Seventy Rick was telling me a story about what happened with him over in the academy while he was there. The point of it was that he was family. I got some fuel and we worked Two-Seventy for a while. I made several stops. I wrote one ticket for speeding. The driver was doing fourteen over.

We started to make our way back to Colfax. I got one car doing ten over. We stopped him. I radioed in saying the license plate and instead of saying Xray I said Xword twice. The dispatcher confirmed I meant Xray. I talked with the driver. He was in a newer Mustang. When we were getting back in our patrol car after clearing the call he started the car. It sounded great. I mentioned that to Rick and he agreed. I cleared the call by saying “clear of the scene.” Cooper got on the radio and said “was there an incident that I am not aware of?” He was making fun of me saying clear of the scene.

We went to Ricks house to get my video and then back to the office. I got my ticket wrote up and I went home.

Mike Knows My Mo Friend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long Tiring Day

I was pretty tired a lot of the day today at the fire department. Having stayed up pretty late last night was keeping up with me. I was trying to keep myself active. That wasn't too hard. We one had one call during the day. It was for a fire alarm. We cleared that just as it was turning into lunch time.

I spent most of the day getting work done on the computer. I wanted to make a web application where I could enter data that I have to type up for tickets. That would be saved into a database. This could be done while in the car or at the station. Then it will take that data and print off all the reports without having to type them up later on. It would take the few pieces of data I wrote up and it would merge it into a Word template. The nice thing is that I would have to save separate Word docs. It would all be in the database so if I did need a copy of it, I could have it reprint it.

It took some time to write it up and find the necessary resources on the web, but I was able to find it. I don't have it polished, but I have proof that it will work like I hope. So now I just have to do the work to make it nice and save the data to the database, etc.

I had to stay up until midnight to sign my softball team up for this coming IM season. For the first time in, probably a decade, my team will be playing on a night other than a Sunday night. We are going to do Thursday night so I can make all the games.

Patroling Twenty-Three

When I got back to Whitman County from being in Renton I went straight to the SO. I hung out for a little bit. Then I decided to go get some food for a late lunch. I was working the road tonight.

I was working with Jimmy. We started by taking Jessie to do her shooting qualifications. We went to the county range and set it up. She passed, so officially we all have passed the academy. We took her back to the SO and Jimmy and I hit the road.

We headed out SR Twenty-Three. We were stopping cars for speeding mainly. I did all the contacts. Jimmy and I switched off on the tickets. We wrote a total of eight tickets, having stopped thirteen cars for anything from poor lane travel, no use of turn signals, and mostly for speeding. We only wrote people who were doing twelve MPH or more over the speed limit. The fastest we got was someone doing twenty-one over the limit.

We worked that road until almost ten-thirty. We were going to head out Twenty-Six for a little bit. When we go to Colfax we stopped for something to eat and drink at the food mart. As we were leaving we got a call for an open nine-one-one line. We went to the scene. I talked with Jimmy about how we would handle the situation. It turned out to be nothing.

When we got back to the SO I spent the next hour doing paperwork for the tickets as well as typing up a report for the nine-one-one open line.

Training at Colfax Fire Again

With fire training tonight I decided that I would see if I could set up a ride with Paul. We started by going to meet up with Vinny. We did a walk of one mile to see how long it would take us. This was to help with an accident investigation Vinny was doing.

Then we went to deal with a dog bite problem near Tekoa. It was a pretty quiet day with Paul. But he had some good information for me. One was that he uses the odometer. He resets it every time he passes a mile marker that ends with zero or when he starts on a new road so he can easily tell someone exactly how far he is from a known point to have people more easily be able to find him.

Fire training in Colfax was building construction.

First Arrest Made

I set myself up to ride with Bogenreif this evening. I got down to the department around four in the afternoon. We had the swearing in of the other new guys as well. I helped to hand out their BDU uniforms. Then they got their swearing in. I took photos of that going on.

Then Bogenreif and I hit the road. We talked about law enforcement. I worked to see how he did things and asked questions. We were told to do things the way the deputy we are with tells us to do things. So I spent most of the time listening to him and taking advice on how I should make contacts, say things, sell things, and more.

On the first stop he took the contact. Then I took the next one. We sort of switched back and forth on the contacts. I only wrote two tickets. One was for running a stop sign. When we went to pull the vehicle over the driver threw a lit cigarette out the window. I warned for the thousand dollar ticket and gave the stop sign one. The driver was thanking me for the ticket.

I also had one person who had expired registration for twelve months. I wrote for that and forgave the running of the stop sign. On the way back to the station we found someone speeding through Uniontown. We stopped him. He was suspended. I arrested him and searched him. I ended up doing a cite and release rather than taking him into the jail.

I got back to the sheriff's office and did my reports before heading home for the night.

First Day on Patrol

I was excited today because I passed my written test yesterday and I very well could be out on patrol today. I started by heading to the sheriff's office to see who was working today. I made a phone call and got myself a deputy to work with. Then it was a matter of waiting. I was very excited to get out on the road. It had been a long journey to get where I am today.

I had my uniform with me and as it was getting closer to time get sworn in I put my uniform on. A couple other guys were also getting sworn in. Craig was riding tonight with Jordan. We started with getting sworn in by the Sheriff.

Getting Sworn In

After getting sworn in I got my badge and put it on. I was getting some crap from people because I was wearing the Class A uniform. Many people prefer the BDU style or the jumpsuit uniforms. I think the Class A looks sharp. Plus I wear a leather basket weave duty belt instead of the nylon. I think that also looks nicer.

In uniform after being Sworn In

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

Then we got someone else speeding along. I ran that person's name through the dispatch center. From that point on I pretty much did all the radio traffic.

We headed back to Colfax and met up with a couple troopers and some other deputies for dinner at Subway. We hung out for a while and talked shop. We were going to go to Whitcom and give Jamie a paper with the names and phone numbers of the new reserves. It took nearly two hours to get there because we kept getting side tracked.

The first thing that happened was someone was doing forty-eight in a twenty-five in Colfax. We pulled over the van and I took the lead. After running him I was going to ticket him for speeding, but the ticket book was at the SO. I ended up giving him a written warning. He got lucky, but it is in the system so if he gets stopped again the fact he has been warned will be known.

When we got into Pullman we witnessed someone outright run the stoplight at Davis and Grand. We pulled over that driver and I ticketed him for failure to stop at a stop sign and for no proof of insurance.

We got to Whitcom and I gave Jamie the paper and we hung out at dispatch for a bit talking with Jamie. When we left we went up Terre View to Merman and down to Valley. We stopped someone for having an obstructed window due to the snow that was not removed. That guy got a warning.

We headed out to SR Two-Seventy for some traffic. We stopped one car for speeding. forty-eight in a thirty-five. I was going to do a warning, but when I ran the ADR I found lots of tickets. So I wrote the driver for speeding. Later we stopped someone else for doing thirteen over. I also cited the driver because I wanted to be consistent. If I ticket one, I should ticket the other person for the same speed today.

We stopped another car for no brake light and speeding, but gave that person a warning. When we were done I ended up ticketing three people and giving one warning. We had a total of ten stops. I did the contacting on most of the stops and all the radio traffic. Jimmy said if we had finished the driving course in EVOC he would let me drive because he felt I was ready for that already.

We went to the SO and I did the paperwork that goes along with writing tickets. It includes writing a short narrative and getting the tickets turned into the sergeants. I went home after having worked a successful first day.

I am Bacon!

This morning I was called by Pete about a death in Colfax. I was asked to take it, but I was working at the fire department until eight o'clock in the morning. But when I got done I would go to it. In the mean time he got Annie to go take it. I called her up later on in the morning and we made an arrangement to meet up at ten at the funeral home in Colfax.

I helped her do the exam and take lab samples. She did a fine job with what she needed to do. We both went to the coroner's office. She was working on her report. I worked on my final sections of the bookwork for the academy. I have been going through all the notes and rewriting all sorts of things into a notebook if I think that I was to be able to reference it in the future. Plus it was helping me study.

I was really tired due to the day at the fire department yesterday. I was yawning a whole bunch as I was waiting for the test time. This was the final test, either we would be reserve deputies or we would have to retake the test.

I was pretty confident, but I wanted to score well. That was the part that made me nervous. The Sheriff came over to give us some final words before the test started.

I was going through it slow at first, but then I started to bust through it. At one point when I was done I needed to get clarification. It was on question ninety-five. Macy said later on he was only on question number forty at the time.

Melcher and I turned in our tests at the same time. Then we went out and had a piece of cake from McNannay's birthday cake that the Sheriff's wife made. We talked about the test while waiting for everyone to complete their tests. Finally the last guy, Jesse Two, was done and turned in.

Before long we started to correct them. I was doing a little better than I thought. There were several questions I was not positive about. But it turned out many of them I was correct on.

In the end I scored a ninety-two. I was the highest scored tied with Melcher. As of now I am bacon! It has not quite sunk in yet. I think I will have to do my first ride to really understand this feeling, but as of right now I have passed my final test. I am going to get sworn in tomorrow and then I will be able to ride. I am going to try to set up my first ride for Thursday. Then again on Sunday.

After the test we went to the Zuu. Melcher and I bought the first round of beer and tacos. We hung out for a couple hours talking and celebrating. I finished off a pitcher of Blue Dolphins by myself.

I cannot wait to get out there on the road. It just doesn't seem real yet though.

Studying All Day

I took the day to spend studying for the test coming up for the reserves. I went through my notes and re-wrote all the information I wanted to be able to review from time to time without having to go through all the slides.

It was a lot of work, but it was a great chance to study things along the way. Through out the day, as I studied, I would take some breaks to watch some TV to relax for a while.

Study Group

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

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

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

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

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.

Final Day of Academy Classroom

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

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

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

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

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

Pizza Day

This morning I was tried due to staying up late for playing poker. But I got up in time for class. I got cleaned up and then went to Dissmore's and got some donuts for the class. Today was the final day for Radar. Plus we had CPR and first aid training.

We did the first-aid training in the morning. It was what I expected. At lunch Jessie, Michael, and I went Subway. Then back to class for doing the radar estimation training. We went to One-Ninety-Five. We watched cars and estimated their speeds. Then we would use the radar to see what the speed was. We spent about thirty total minutes on that.

We went back to class and did the CPR portion of the class. That went pretty quick. We did some practice and called it a day.

I went home to change and then to Papa Murphy's for some pizza. I was buying for everyone on the shift. I got pepperoni and a cinnamon wheel.

I cooked it up and shared with everyone. I helped to do the clean up as well. It was a pretty slow day overall. I got some projects finished that I had been working on. Including updating the phone list and speed dials. Plus I also got some Powerpoints completed for the upcoming meeting for the new facility.

Radar Class Day Two

Most of the day we were running on fire alarms. Outside of that I was working on a couple projects as assigned by the chief. Actually it was just updating the phonelist with the latest reserves.

Following that I went to Colfax for Radar class for the reserves. We are almost done. It has been a long road. We are down to about six classes. We are so close to getting out on the road, I am very excited.

At the end of the class we had our written test and now all we have left for tests is EVOC and the final.

Conclusion of Video Editing

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

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

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

Video Editing

I went to the fire station today to talk with Reiber about Pat's land I looked at yesterday. He pointed out a couple things to me about the property and what it is worth and some other information about living out in those parts.

Before I left we had some call-back. I stuck around for that. Then I went to Safeway to do some shopping. I got a lot of groceries. I took some ice cream back to the station because of my photo being in the newspaper for the Town Crier.

Later on I went home and started to work on my video. I went through a lot of the videos decided what clips I wanted to use. Then I started clip the videos and started to get them put together.

Close to Being an Engineer... Again

I spent some of the day doing some engine driving on Engine Thirty-Two. On top of that I got cleared to become an engineer without having to finish off the PL drive time first. That is something important to me. I was in a situation that I couldn't get the drive time as easy as I would have liked because of my temp status. With the the recent development I can become an engineer on my own schedule and then work on the PL as I have been. This will stop holding me back.

I went to the county and had the coroner's meeting to start with. But I didn't get a chance to talk to Pete about the things I was hoping to speak to him about. Specifically about the fact that I want to be the next Whitman County Coroner. But I want to make sure things are still on track for that. I want to keep the actual conversation on the down low so I didn't want other around for what we talked about.

Today's class was radar. It is day one of three for radar. Today it was just background and lecture. Next time we will cover more on the radar itself, and then in two Saturday's we will do some practical stuff.

Done with Mock Scenes

Today was the final day of Mock Scenes. We had traffic stops and high=risk traffic stops. I went first for the regular traffic stop. I forgot to use the spotlight, but overall I got a good grade. I was told that I was a bit quick to break the contact when I was being asked if I had ever made a mistake. I didn't know what to say so I cut it off by saying "have a better day" and then walking away.

I did my high risk stop very last. It was nearly ten o'clock when we started. I knew I would be late getting back to the fire station today. But I did well on the high risk stop. I didn't have any negative notes added about what I did during the stop.

Final Mock Scenes

Today was going to be a long day. I was expecting to be done around three or four in the afternoon, but today was the day I was going to prove I could do the job, or I would prove I need more work, or that I am just not cut out for being a cop. I have spent sixteen hours a week for nearly the last five months. In the morning we were going to work on DV's, FI's, and building searches. In the afternoon the schedule was going to be traffic stops and high-risk stops.

As it turned out we never made it to the final two things. With the scenes lasting as long as they did and some of the fails that were happening we spent pretty much the whole day working on the first three items.

In my first scene I was getting dispatched to a domestic violence scene. I was called in as a backup officer. We started at Rosauers in Colfax. We drove down Mill street to the scene. It was at the Fire Station in Colfax. I got down the road to about one block from the scene. We parked our patrol cars there and walked in.

I thought about the staging of my patrol car. I have been going on police ride alongs for nearly seventeen years. One thing I have noticed is whenever the car is left somewhere typically it is left running, but the door is locked when they leave it. We were only given one key to the car so I couldn't do that. We never went over this stuff in the class, so I left the car running, but wasn't able to lock the door.

I went to the scene. We dealt with a husband and wife who had been in an argument. I dealt with the male half and found out that he had been slapped by his wife. I passed along that information to my partner. She asked the wife about the slap. When it was confirmed we arrested the wife. The husband was not too happy about that and started to get mad and started towards my partner. I told him that he needed to sit down and I would explain what was going on. I finally got him to sit down. He no longer was my "buddy" and didn't want to talk to me.

We took the wife to the patrol car, gave the husband the domestic violence paperwork and went to clear. When I went to my patrol car it was not where I parked it. I knew right away that it was "stolen". I was mad because I thought we nailed the scene and that I would now fail it. Cooper asked what I was looking for. But I knew he knew what was going on. I said the car. He asked if I locked it and I said no. He then said that wasn't good. I then saw him get on the phone and I knew we was going to tell the grader for my scene to fail me. I was not a happy camper. I was hoping I would be wrong about that, but I didn't have good feeling.

A little while later I went out to the field interview. The problem was that I still didn't know if I passed or failed the DV. I know the scene I did well, it was just the issue with the patrol car.

On the field interview I watched the suspect from a distance for a bit to see what he was doing. The call was for a suspicious person in a parking lot doing something to a truck. While I was watching the truck hood was open and he was standing near the front of the truck. I made my approach and ran the license plate. We were not allowed to wear ear pieces, so I didn't want the return to come back over the radio so the suspect could hear who the truck belonged to incase he was trying to steal it.

When the dispatcher came back I said hold the return unless there was criminal information I needed to know. There wasn't so I contacted the suspect. I got him away from the truck where he had a hammer, pliers, and a couple other tools laying out on the truck. I asked him if he has any weapons. He said he had a knife and started to go for it. I told him to not touch the knife. I put his arms behind his back and got the knife and patted him down for other weapons. I found a screw driver in his pocket as well. I removed the weapons and then continued to contact him. At first he gave me some information that was not correct because I ran it and it came back no record found.

I talked to him some more and found out he gave me his first name and middle name backwards. I still didn't know what the problem was with the situation. It came back that he was clear. I made my way closer to his truck making sure he kept away from the front of it because of the tools that could be used as weapons. I looked in the back and then in the windows of the truck. I couldn't see anything that concerned me. When I got to the front I found a small gun. I took it and ran it to see if it was stolen. I then tried to see if he had a history of DV's, which would make it so he could not possess the firearm. Nothing.

I was still lost. But then I thought about the ID again. I thought he could have been lying about it. I asked for physicals. It turned out it matched the suspect. So now I was really confused. I started to go down the road that he was near the jail with a gun. I was thinking that maybe it was something down that path, but that was also a dead end.

I though maybe I should get a tow truck to have it towed away because it was blocking a driveway, but that was a dumb move as soon as I made it. The tow truck driver was there and he wasn't helping the situation. I got him to leave but he wanted me to sign his paperwork saying the sheriff's office would pay for his response. Then the suspect said if I was not going to arrest him he was going to leave. I didn't have anything to arrest him on. So I let him walk away.

I was standing in the parking lot holding onto a gun with a truck with the hood open and tools laying around trying to figure out what to do. The grader came up to me and said that the guy was now in a car on his way to Spokane. He then said the RO of the truck called in saying it was stolen. I was thinking that I totally blew it. He asked what I was going to do now. I said that I would be writing an arrest warrant. He concurred. Then he asked if I thought I passed. I said no. He walked through what I did and said that I really did the big things good. I was safe in my approach and dealing with the guy. I found the weapons. I got his name and confirmed his information. I got the bad guy away from the scene and stopped the problem from happening. I also knew who it was so I could get a warrant for him. He said that I did pass it. I felt good that I passed, but I felt so silly for not getting it while I was on scene with the bad guy.

I then talked to Cooper about the car being "stolen" from my DV scene. I explained what I did and he said why I was wrong. I went back to the staging room to wait for my next scene. When the grader from the DV scene came down he pulled me out to explain the grading.

He said we did excellent. He said that we passed everything and did it right, but due to my patrol car being "stolen" I failed. I was mad because my partner left her vehicle the same way and passed. I felt that if they checked one car they should check everyone. It wasn't fair only to check some people on things and not others. So I tried to tell that to the grader, but he said I needed to talk to Cooper.

A little later Cooper came down and talked to me. I pleaded my case. He explained what I did wrong and why I deserved to be failed. I understood where he was coming from, but I still didn't agree with the whole assessment for the failure.

Just before lunch he came back and called me out one more time. He said that he felt I understood my mistake and that if I wanted, instead of redoing the scene, he would pass me on the condition that I write a fifteen-hundred word paper on why it is important to always lock the door of the patrol cars. I took the paper for the pass. I felt a little better. I think that is a decent compromise.

I went to do a building search with Rich. We went to the area of the building and spoke to the RP. I was the lead on this call. We went to the building itself and I knocked and announced. After doing it twice we made entry. Rich went down an area between two old fire engines and a wall. It was so small I stayed near the door to offer cover from there. I had moved away from the doorway. I never cleared behind the door. When Rich came back he saw someone in the small space behind the door. He yelled at the guy. I turned around and I guess I turned white. I didn't realize that someone was even there and he could have shot me easily. We got him arrested and taken outside.

I stayed near the door on the outside to watch Rich and to monitor the building as well as I could. I could hear some noise, so I looked inside and I saw the suspect getting off the top of a fire truck from across the building. I started to yell at him to come to me. He didn't. I got down to see where he went but I couldn't see him after he went to the far side of the patrol car at the far side of the building.

I had to decide whether I would wait for my back up to complete the search or to go for the bad guy before he got into a barricaded situation. I decided to go for the bad guy and I made my way to his position carefully, but when I got to a place where he was I would put myself in pure danger getting to him. I decided to stop there and retreat until my partner caught up. Once he was there we ordered the guy out of the room and arrested him. I searched him and found all the things hidden on him.

We went back into the building and did a complete search and found no one else. We radioed dispatch that we were clear and complete. That was my final scene and we passed it. So I was done, but we had to wait for others to finish their scenes as well as their re-dos. When it was done it was after six in the evening. We are going to have to do the traffic stuff on Tuesday.

We completed the day by doing two hundred push-ups because someone forgot to give some of the props back after a scene and that was the punishment for the class.

It was a long day and I headed home. I stopped at Cougar Country for a treat for myself.

NU Meeting with MB

I had to be in Seattle for the meeting with the company that is thinking about buying the NU part of the company. I was there for about four hours. I was there to help answer questions. It turned out my part of the four hour meeting lasted about fifteen total minutes. I went a long way to get there from Pullman for such a short need, but I think it showed well with the guys from the company that I am going to stay with. It shows that I am willing to do what I need to in order to show them that I am willing to do what I need to in order to make things work.

What was weird was to sit in the same room with the company that had been our biggest competitor over the last four and half years I was working for the company. So to have them sitting with us and talking with them felt really weird.

When the meeting was done I made a trip back to Colfax for the reserve training this evening. It was a long day for me.

Feeling Horrible at Times

Today started out like most other days. I woke up at the fire station. I got ready to start the day. I went to the dayroom and did the dishes, made coffee, and got the newspaper. I was watching some TV. While watching a TV show, Tom and Jerry, a young guy who has been on the department about a year and a half walked out and said "we are not watching cartoons." He then took the changer from me and turned it to the news.

It just makes me so mad being in the situation where I have been on the fire department for nearly 10 years, but because I was a reserve it means nothing to anyone. So as far as they are concerned I am a lowly, lowly, worthless guy. I just want to say something but I have to play the game. But it is a game I think is stupid. It is like high school all over again. I like the job, but I don't always like the side effects of having it. There are some ways I would rather be a reserve. At least there I meant something to the guys I worked with there. I actually felt like I sometimes had a voice and could speak up.

I have found some of the guys I work with are so anti-reserve it is sad to me. I have seen one guy who refused to shake the hand of any of the new reserves who were trying to introduce themselves. I think that is a bunch of crap. Most of the full-timers do not count reserves when talking about responses and number of firefighters who will be coming to the scene during a response. It makes me feel like they have zero appreciation for the reserves and the work they do. I make it a point to thank the reserves for their help after every call. I want them to know I appreciate them.

So I am a little bit in a bad mood to start off with, as can be seen above. Then I got to the Sheriff's Office. They had decided to start the class at eight o'clock today instead of nine, but it was never totally understood by everyone. So many of the guys got there around eight-thirty. I got there at eight-thirty because of work. I lead the group to the basement of the jail. I then went to the report writing room to see if our instructor was there. He started to chew me out for being late. It was in front of some of the other cops and my classmates who were there at eight. I told him I worked until eight and I got there when I could. He then said that he knew. That also didn't help how I was feeling.

We went to the basement and he torn into the others a little bit. When they left the room one guy said that someone should have found out for sure if we were supposed to be there at eight. Someone else said "the president". I knew I should have. Everyone else knew I should have. I failed. That also made me feel worse.

I did my first scene and I worked with a guy who is a very nice guy, but he tends to be very naive. His performance in the scene wasn't the greatest and it hindered us overall. We ended up doing what we needed to, in other words we made the arrest, but it took way too long and there were some officer safety issues that he had.

I went back into the room with everyone else and I was not happy. I sat there without talking for a little while. Finally I started to feel a little better and then moved along.

But when we went to lunch I had no desire to eat with everyone else. Jessie and I went to Rosauers. As it turned out everyone else had gone there. I put my cup of pop on a table by itself. One of the guys in the class said I could sit at the table with him and one other guy. I thought about it for a second and then I went and got my pop and joined them.

After lunch I went to do my next scene. I did okay, but there was some miscommunication about where we were. It was outside the jail, but they didn't mean to have the scene to have a jail near it. I wasn't told that. So in my mind we were near the jail and I acted as such. That caused me to go down a path they didn't think we should be going down.

I then did my next scene and I didn't do that great, but I didn't get killed either so it could have gone worse.

While in the room after my two scene's I was starting to get my partner from the first scene a hard time. I have been doing that since two Saturday's ago. I have been unhappy with him since two weeks ago. He called me by my first name, which I had never introduced myself to him as. I have always been Scotty to him, but for some reason he didn't call me that. It just set me off. So he has been going through my wrath.

It is very unfair of me. He is a very nice guy, and I shouldn't be doing that. After today I felt pretty bad. I really was laying into him. I was jokingly, but not nicely jokingly, telling him he shouldn't be a cop. That he should quit. That he shouldn't be there. I was very horrible to him, really.

I think today's bad mood really set me down a path with him I shouldn't have gone. When we were done for the day I was thinking I shouldn't have said what I did. It really made me look like a big jerk. I don't think he knows for sure. I believe he thinks I am totally joking with him, but it wasn't even close to being nice. I need to pull him aside and let him know it was not a nice thing and that I am sorry.

I just need to head to bed and get this day over with. I am working at the fire station again tomorrow and I hope things will be different.

This is my Rifle

This morning I went to the burn house from my time to go through the training. We were going inside the house to see fire behavior. We were also learning how to tell if the flames were overhead even if you could not see through the smoke.

After we were in the house we waited for our next lesson which was door ops. We were learning a different way to think about and make entry on a fire. It was interesting to listen to and try out.

After the training I went home. I was going to go to Colfax early and pick up my AR-Fifteen. I am excited about getting it. I bought it late last month. I called up the FFL dealer and make a plan to meet up with him. I got to his place and did the paperwork. I opened it up to inspect it. It is a nice looking gun. I can't wait to get a chance to use it for target practice.

After getting the gun I went to get dinner and then to the SO for training. We are doing mock scenes. It was a lot of fun today. I was a little nervous, but the first one was a good ice breaker and I learned several things. I was able to apply those lessons to my other mock scenes.

On my last scenario I was dealing with someone who was not very compliant. I had to push him against the wall to cuff him. Then as I actually placed him under arrest he was pulling away from me. I had to put him against the car hood so he wouldn't keep pulling away so I could keep control.

Overall the instructors thought I did a good job on my mock scenes. I made mistakes but I am learning from them. I was told I did the best search of any of the students on the last guy. The one thing I need to work on is being so trusting and willing to believe what people tell me. I need to be more along the lines of not believing anyone until they prove themselves as being honest instead of waiting to catch them in a lie.

Starting Mock Scenes

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

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

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

Helping in the Jail

I went to work in the jail today before the class today because they were having an all staff meeting. So I ran control for about two hours while they were meeting. Then I went off to my reserve academy class.

Thompson Is Back

I got an E-mail from Parrish asking me "What Now?" He mentioned that there was room on A-Shift. It turned out that Thompson is back at work. I am working for him. But he is not on shiftwork yet. I figured if I was going to get pushed aside I would be told. The fact that I haven't been told means that I will probably continue to work on shiftwork while Thompson goes through some training to get caught up to us.

The idea of going back to being a reserve is good and bad. I like the money that I am bring in right now. But I would love to work with my crew again. I was really looking forward to all the training I would get to do with everyone. I could always quit the full time thing and go back to being a reserve, but the problem there is I would probably burn the bridge of being a full-timer someday down the road.

I went to the bank to deposit a check. I was going to stop by the station and ask what was going on, but I decided against it. I went home only to find I got another check in the mail today. That always happens. the day I go to deposit, it seems like a new check comes in the mail. Not that I am complaining.

I went to class tonight with Ross and Melcher. We had the final test for the Crisis Intervention class. We also made up the ethics class that was missed last December due to the snow. We are supposed to do the pepper spray on Thursday. I don't want to get sprayed again. I have had it happen. It doesn't need to happen again. Everyone is joking about doing it, but I have already been trained by Whitman County. So I shouldn't need to do it again.

Better Shot Left Handed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gun Not So Clean

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

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

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

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

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

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