Final Co-ed softball game

July 31st, 2005

This morning I got up and got ready to head out of town. I had some softball games in Renton to get to. I went to Rosauers and got some lunch and then hit the road. The trip was pretty laid back. I spent most of the time listening to the Mariners pre-game show and game.

Because I was running late I went straight to the field. I figured a quicker route to take would be SR-eighteen to the Maple Valley highway. I got to the field about thirty minutes before game time. I got into my cleats and warmed up. I was told I was going to play third base. I was a little nervous about it, because I haven’t played there much and I did not have a cup on.

When the game started I took the field and went to third base. When I would get ready for the play I was thinking about how to field the ball so I would not get hit in the family jewels. As it turned out I only had one ball hit towards my area. I went running for it to my left. I got a mitt on it, but I could not field it cleanly.

The story of the game was us giving up outs. We gave them about six outs in each of the first two innings. They got a pretty good lead on us. At the same time we could not score any runs. Finally in one inning Josh hit a Texas leaguer just down the right field line. He has a stand up triple, but he went through the stop sign at third base and was thrown out at home by about ten feet. It was bad.

Finally in what would be the last inning we had to score one run to keep the game going. We had two outs and then some how loaded the bases. My first at bat I walked on five pitches. This was my second at bat. I watched the first two pitches come in. The third pitch I swung at. I got good contact and pushed it to right field, but I left it up a little too long and the right field had enough time to catch it. That was the game. I felt bad about making the last out, but the whole game we had chances and blew them.

I went home after the game and got on my computer. I set up the ESPN poker game on my laptop and played that a little bit. I also played with Amber. I missed her towards the end of the week. I watched some TV shows, including Rescue Me from last Tuesday that I missed.

I went to bed at about one o’clock am. I did play in two poker tournaments and won the first one. So I have nine more to go before this weekend.

Want some dope?

July 30th, 2005

I woke up at the crack of three o’clock pm this afternoon. I went to Rosauers to get some lunch then to the fire department. I was going to hang out for a while. When I got there Jeff was working for Ken. Jeff told me that a girl had called looking for me. I asked who it was he did not know. I thought he was joking at first, then it became clear he was serious.

I started to ask some more questions. From what I found out she called looking for Scott. Jeff thought she meant the other Scott. She said no it was Twinkie. Bill made that nickname for me years ago when we both worked at the Sheriff’s office. Only they and the people at Colfax Fire know about it, well as far as I know. She said that someone was planning on growing pot on my seven acres because I am always out of town. The call was handed to the police who took information. They are going to pass it along to the QCDTF. I was pretty shocked to hear that was going to happen. I talked to the city PD who would not tell me anything about the call.

I was trying to figure out who would have called the fire department looking for me and who would know my nickname. I cannot think of anyone, but I am happy that someone out there was looking out for me.

I left around five o’clock to move my boat and get it out of the way. I got the quad started and pumped the tire in the lawnmower then moved my boat into its normal spot. It is nice to have that out of the way. Then I went to Ingalls’ house. I was going to do some computer work for them.

We had dinner. It was steak and potatoes. Then we went to the basement and I got the computer taken apart and put in the new CD Burner and the new RAM. Then we burnt a could CD’s. But there is a problem when the DVD played and the CD burner are both hooked up at the same time, so I had to unhook the CD burner. I am going to go back another day and get that working.

Following the fixing of the computer was had some strawberry shortcake and then I went home. I watched TV for a while. A little after midnight a call came in for a car accident with the car on fire. I got the station quickly. The call was way out past Endicott. We raced out there. As it turned out the car started on fire because the car’s muffler started a grass fire which burnt the car. So the accident was not all that bad, but the patient had lost consciousness and would come back and go out. So we had him birded to Spokane.

On the way to the LZ he would go out, but he would come back quickly. The last time he went out on us we were yelling his name and finally he came back. That one gave me a slight scare. When he came back his body shook for a second and I was thinking “uh oh, he is having a seizure”. It turned out he wasn’t, because the shake only lasted a second.

We was lifted off in the helicopter and we went back to Colfax. I got home and watched TV for a tiny bit longer. Then I got my stuff packed and went to sleep.

Getting qualified for the tournament

July 29th, 2005

Today, other than talking to Chris about what I have done and what is going on with my work and getting some of the VIs taken care of, I spent time with Ryan playing ESPN poker.

I was trying to get my tenth tournament victory so I could qualify for the Sunday tournament. We played for a while, then we went to Cougar Country for some dinner. Then we went back to my office and played more. Ryan left around midnight.

I stayed and played. We were going to watch the ESPN’s fifty states in fifty days. It was about Washington tonight. But I stayed and played poker until about four in the morning. Then I went home and watched ESPN to see the reports from Washington.

I went to Jackpot and got some breakfast. I ate that and then headed off to bed around six in the morning.

Bike Rodeo

July 28th, 2005

After waking up a little later than I had hoped, I knew I would not get my boat turned around in the driveway, so I just got ready and headed into work.

I got a call from Nick and he said there is going to be a bike rodeo tonight at five-o’clock if I wanted to go help with it. I told him that I did. I got some stuff squared away at work. I figured out the problems of purpose of refi not working. After getting my temp box rebuilt I did some testing and quickly found the dll that was being used was the wrong one. My new one was not getting used. Because of this the purpose of refi would not flow through.

I wrote up an E-mail about it and then spent the rest of the evening off and on sending E-mails back and forth to the other devs about it.

At five o’clock pm I went to the fire station and got ready to go to the Steptoe Village apartments where kids were going to get a chance to ride in a bike rodeo with us helping them learn hand signals and giving out stuff. While at Steptoe, there was a small fire on campus. It was about two feet in diameter and was put out before we got there.

We went back to Steptoe and helped to take down all the cones used for the bike rodeo. I was in the engine and we went to Dissmores to get some ice cream that Nick owed for going code in Utility the other night. We went to the station and ate that. Nick and Dearth went out to do some drivers training and I stayed at the station and watched some TV with the others.

I was there until about ten o’clock pm when I finally went to the office. I stayed up playing poker and sending more E-mails and doing some testing on the dll in question until about three in the morning.

Second man in the jail

July 27th, 2005

I got up around noon and started to do some work. I also played some poker. I was going back and forth all day. Ryan messaged around two in the afternoon and we planned for him to come down to my office and play poker too. He stopped at Little C’s for some pizza and then got us each a pop and came to the office.

We played in a couple tournament together and then played against other people a lot. He was here until about five-thirty when I had to go to Colfax to work in the jail. They had called and said they needed me to cover a shift because they had training without only one person to cover. I started working at six-thirty, but everything that could go wrong was going wrong as I was trying to get there on time.

I went to the store and realized I left my belt at home. So after waiting my turn to get something from the deli I went home. The battery in my radio was dead so I had to get another one. I checked all the batteries I had only one was charged. I put that in the radio and got ready to leave, but I could not find the case for the radio. I tore a few things apart looking for it. Finally I found it and put my radio in it and started to rush for the door. When I tried to put my radio on my belt the radio clip was missing, so it was back to my room to search for that. It took longer to find that than the holder. But I did finally find it. I ended up getting to the jail about two minutes late.

I did the first two rounds and dealt with a medical problem. I spent the next two hours in control. It was sort of fun being the second man on. Being the one in charge. After working at the jail I went home and watched some TV. The was a show on the History channel about “Modern Marvels”. The episode I watched was Bathroom Tech. The changes to bathroom technology through the years. Pretty interesting. And at the same time to learn many people still use their hand to wipe was pretty darn gross too.

A car accident at each end of the day

July 26th, 2005

I was woken this morning with the tones going off for an Delta response for an injury accident, car vs semi on twenty-six by the fairgrounds. I got up and went to the station. The ambulance was leaving as I got there, but I figured I would take Rescue if it was a bad one. Soon after the ambulance left someone was on scene and radioed that it was non-injury. I took off shortly after that and headed to Pullman.

Today was another day with LPX down so I spent a large amount of the time on ESPN’s online poker game. I played in some more tournaments. One of the last ones I played in I was down to about three hundred bucks. The others had a thousand or more. I battled my way back and ended up winning the tournament. It was neat.

I headed out at about five-thirty to go to Colfax for the fire department BBQ. I spent time talking to Glen from the PD, Zach, and Mike. I also talked to David and Scott while we were sitting together eating.

Around seven-fifty I left to go to Pullman. I called Nick and told him I would be in service from eight-thirty on. I was on engine for the evening, so I was not in my uniform like I would normally wear. I was at the office when the tones went out for a Delta response for an injury accident at Deadman’s curve on two-seventy. I was not going to go on it, and I had driven by the station so I knew no one was there, so I did not rush out the door. I got to Stadium Way and Grand when Nick called and asked where I was at.

I told him I was about three minutes out. He said they would pick me up at the station. I went there with a little more enthusiasm and then got on the engine. We went to station thirty-one to stand by there because the crew on the scene requested a second ambulance. When we got there we started to fill air bottles and waited to hear if we were needed at all.

The incident command requested that someone take utility thirty-one to station two and get the second power unit for the extrication tools. The one on scene was not working. So Nick and Dearth went code to station two and then to the scene. Travis and I were left to finish filling the air bottles.

As the units started to come back we helped to clean up and wash the tarps and other items. That took a fair amount of time. Then we went to station two and parked the engine. I went to my office and called Kristine. I went up to Camron’s place and we watched the Thomas Crown Affair. It really is Kristines last day in town. I was there until about two in the morning. Then I went back to the office and tried to get some work done. I E-mailed a few people and got some things with LPX underway.

I played in a few more poker tournaments. At about five-thirty in the morning I went to Jack in the Box and got some breakfast. Then I went back to the office and took a couple hour nap.

Extrication Training

July 25th, 2005

With LPX down all day today I did not have a lot that I could do on the development side, so I spent most of the day just hanging out at the office. I found ESPN had a Texas Hold’em application. I downloaded that and played some poker as well.

I went to station thirty-one and talked to Heston about getting my computer accounts set up so I could login to the computer and do Spillman stuff. Then I drove to station thirty-two. That is when the call came out I spoke about earlier today.

After the call was over I went back to my office and spent more time playing poker until it was time to go to training.

We flipped over a car and worked on cutting our way through the back of the car to get to the patient. I was the safety officer so I spent my time just watching for safety problems.

Then we went to one of the firefighters’ houses where he helped his wife put his kids to sleep. Following that we all went to get some dinner at the Emerald. We got there just before they closed. We were there for around an hour. We were talking about some of the things that happened recently that caused ice cream to be purchased.

After the training was over with I headed to Colfax. I was not on call tonight so I went home and got some sleep.

Whitcom, Rescue Thirty-Two!

July 25th, 2005

I finally got my wish and got to go on a call in Rescue Thirty-Two before it got replaced. In only my second day being able to respond on calls, I got to go at about one-twenty-eight this afternoon.

I was on my lunch break and stopped in at the station to see when the training was scheduled for tonight. When I got there I saw that the Engine is back in service. I am happy about that.

I was in the computer/radio area when Dearth came in and asked if I was going to go on the call. I asked “What call?” He said there is a car accident on Highway one-ninety-four. He said it was a head-on.

I went out with him and we got into our gear. He asked if he could drive and I said yes. We hopped in and took off. I radioed Whitcom that we were in route. We went through town at code-three because this was a delta response. We got on scene just as medic thirty-one said it was non-injury. So we called on scene and clear at the same time.

We did not get to do anything, but I was able to run a call and do radio traffic on Rescue.

Back on duty with Pullman

July 24th, 2005

The day started off with my alarm clock going off getting me out of bed to go to Pullman for vehicle maintenance at eight o’clock am. I went to Colfax and grabbed my turn-outs. Then I headed to Pullman. As the other did maintenance on the Engine, Nick and I went on a drive in Rescue thirty-two to get my checked off on that. We spent about twenty minutes driving around.

We went back to the station and knocked out the maintenance on Rescue thirty-two. We also cleaned the floor in the bay. Then we went to station one to fill the cascade system. Following that we headed to the training tower. I worked with the Junk Yard Dawgs to get some training on those. I had seen them the other night but I did not have hands on training on those.

Then we did some stuff with the hoses and flowing water. We did a few different things, such as using a two and a half in line and did the method where you would sit on it and one person could use it to flow water. Mainly it would be used in a surround and drown operation.

Then we cleaned up the hoses and reloaded one of the cross lays. Then we headed back to the station. I went to my office and grabbed my engineer packet. I was going to go out with Brian and get some time driving and pumping.

Shane was driving the engine and he forgot a tire chalk. So we went and got ice cream for us. We all had that at the station. Most everyone left and Brian and I went out in the engine. I was doing really well. I was not hitting curbs or anything. We went down to the end of Illinois street where there is a tight area. I went to take the road with a wide left hand turn around because going the right hand way had a vehicle parked in the way and I thought a left hand turn would have been better. As it turned out I rubbed against a large jagged rock and punctured the outside tire on the engine. I was horrified. Air was leaking like crazy. We stopped the engine and looked at the damage. It was bad.

We called Rudy who was the acting on duty. He came up in the other engine to look. After failing to get a hold of Les Schwab we emptied the water tank and limped it on the remaining tire to ERD. They followed along in the other engine to pick us up there. On the way there I heard the second alarm tone go off. I was thinking some big MCI was going to be called out. It turns out they were toning out that our engine was going to be out of service. I was again horrified. Now everyone knew there was a problem and people knew I was out driving it in. So I knew they would think I did something to it.

When we got back to the station I filled out the paperwork that needed to be filled out. Rudy was pretty cool about it. He said stuff happens. I watched TV for a while. Then I got a call from Nick. He asked what happened to the engine. I told him it got a flat time. It was not the whole story, but it was the bottom line.

I stayed at the station until about eight-thirty. Then I went to Ryans. Joanne was there. We watched a couple episodes of SouthPark that Ryan rented. I had some dinner there. Then I went to my office. I was so tired. I checked my E-mail then I headed to sleep.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

July 23rd, 2005

After waking up around one in the afternoon I got ready and headed to Pullman to meet up with Ryan. It is his twenty-seventh birthday. I met him in August after his seventeenth birthday. So I have known him for just about ten years now.

I talked to Ben on my way to Ryan’s place in Pullman. I got there and Ryan was not at home. So I was going to call Zeppoz and see when they have open bowling. They said until midnight. Ryan showed up while I was doing that.

We went into his apartment and I checked my E-mail for anything from Ron. I did not see anything from him. I talked to Joanne. She was going to come out with us to celebrate.

We started by going to Rancho Viejo for lunch. Then we went to the The Island. It was a pretty good movie. Following the movie we went to Zeppoz to do some bowling. We bowled two game. Ryan beat my the first game and I beat him the second game. We then drove to Moscow and went to the Bon to see Tom. They were closing and he was not there. So we went to Hastings. I got into a conversation with a guy who was there. We were talking for about a half hour and it ended on politics. He was a conservative guy. It was nice to talk to him.

We then headed back to Pullman and got some ice cream at Licks. It is a new place next to the Daily Grind on Main street. We sat outside and ate the ice cream. Then we were walking towards Grand. We were debating on going to My Office or seeing Mr and Mrs Smith. Ryan wanted to see the movie. So we went to the Cordova and watched it. It was a pretty good movie. They had some scenes that were sort of unbelievable, but it was still a fun movie.

After the movie it was almost eleven o’clock. We called it a night. I dropped off Joanne and then I dropped off Ryan and I headed home myself. I was going to have a long day tomorrow and I wanted to get some sleep before I had to be up and at the fire station.

Nine days in Pullman

July 22nd, 2005

I went to bed early last night hoping to get up early today, but that did not work as planned. I still got to work at my normal time. I got the code from Jon and put it into my .cs file. My box was rebuilt so I spent today trying to figure out why I could not communicate with LPX. It took a little bit of time and I spent time reviewing E-mails until I remembered what the problem was before. It was the same problem this time. I took care of that.

We had the interview of the guy for the dev position. I am not sure if we are going to hire him, but I think we are leaning towards picking him up. I went into the Interview with Ricky. We did not really ask him many technical questions at all. Mostly just got a feel for his thoughts on working situations.

Jon’s code was working the way the multiple margins should work so that was taken care of. Now I need to figure out why the purpose of refinance is not flowing through the way it is supposed to. I got my computer to debug into ASP and VB components. But when I would step through the debugging the purpose of refinance was working fine. I cannot figure out why. Before I would step through the code it would not work. So this is quite strange. I did not spend a ton of time trying to figure it out. I was there only until about four-thirty pm.

I am going to spend about the next nine days in Pullman. I went to get gas and some food then I left. There was a fair amount of traffic all the way through Ellensburg. After that it was broken up enough it would not slow you down getting around the slower cars.

I got to Colfax around nine. I put my luggage away. Then I went to Colfax fire and put my turn-outs together. I would need them on Sunday. I went to the jail and talked to the people there. I was at the jail until about two o’clock in the morning.

I went home and watched some TV. I also had my pager on so I could go on a call should there be one. There was not any calls. I fell asleep on the couch. Around six am a call for Albion came out. I got up. I turned off my pager then I went to my bed to sleep some more.

Keeping my head straight

July 21st, 2005

It is hard to stop thinking about the possibility of not working at the coroners office in the next six months. I am looking forward to trying to get Pete to change his mind and allow me to stay on in such a way it would not impact the department at all.

So anytime I slow down it seems that all I can dwell on is that stuff with the coroners office. I am trying to keep myself going at a high rate of speed to keep that from happening.

I spent today trying to get some stuff polished off with the LPX changes. I am going to work with Jon and the multiple margins stuff, because I have tried many different way and none of the ways I try seem to work correctly.

I got some information ready for the interview I have tomorrow with a person who is applying for the developer position. Julia came and she was telling us about what it is like at her new place and what she does there.

Horrible-Sad day for me

July 20th, 2005

I am totally in the dumps right now. I finally got a call from Pete. He has been so busy with the budget crisis at the county. He said the coroners office is going to lose about ten-thousand dollars. That means he is cutting my position. He is only going to keep one deputy coroner. I am heartbroken. I talked to him a little bit about this. I told him money is not an object. I will do it for free.

He is not totally set on the idea of cutting the position yet, and I hope to talk him out of it, but I don’t hold a ton of hope. I just feel lethargic because of this. I don’t feel like having fun or doing anything right now. It really sucks that it may come down to this. I am hoping beyond hope that we can work something out. I do not want to lose my position. I waited for years to get it and I don’t want it lost so soon after getting it.

I ran into a problem with my LPX upgrade today. I thought I had everything working just right, but there is a problem with the multiple margins. I asked Jon if he could help.

I planned on going to the going away party for Carlton from PPD. But I did not feel like doing much today now. So I went to Colfax and got my stuff. I planned on going home. I need to be there Friday for an interview with a new developer. So I figured I would go in Thursday and then maybe get Jon’s help Thursday night.

I went to the fire station to ask Carl about my turn outs. I was going to see if I could use them in Pullman. He said he does not like it, but he will let me do it. That is a small piece of good news.

I hit the road and cruised on back to Seattle. I made it to Issaquah in about three and a half hours. I guess I was making some good time. I went home and took care of the Internet not working problem my mom asked me to take care of.

I then spent time on the computer and watched some TV before going to sleep.

Vehicle Stabilization training

July 19th, 2005

I got the last part of the LPX conversation working. There is more to do. I have stuff with Margins to work on yet, but I have the hardest part (I think) out of the way. If I can get the margins done tomorrow I will be in a phase of some testing and then on to the life is good, and moving on to the next bugs.

I called Pete at the Tekoa clinic to talk to him. I was told he would be at the phone in a second, then I was told that he was busy with a patient and he would call me back. I never got a call back. I would seem he is very mad. This is causing me a great deal of stress. I want to hear that he is mad but like will go on. I am very worried he is going to replace me. That will crush me if he does so. It is weighing heavily on me.

After work I went to the fire station we were going to do some training. When I found out that I could observe but not participate I figured I would go to it rather than Colfax training tonight. I am waiting to hear if I can use the Colfax turnouts for responding on Pullman calls still.

I got some dinner then we went to the training tower. We used a new tool called Junk Yard Dawgs. They are really cool in their speed of use and their ability to stabilize a car. We also used some of the new step blocks that we have now. Those are quicker than the old way have building a cribbing box.

We were there for a couple hours working on different scenarios then we cleaned up and went to the station. I hung out there and we watched Rescue Me. Then I headed home. I read some more of my Sexual Homicide book then retired to bed around midnight.

Setting up for training

July 18th, 2005

At work today I had a meeting about the LPX stuff. We were making an extra pricing call we did not need to make. It was great timing on the meeting as that was right were I was in the rebuilding process. So it made the change very easy to make.

I made the change that was requested. I also tried to make one other requested change, but that one is not working the way we were hoping that it would. I need to do some more work on that one before I can get that one figured out.

I was at work until about six o’clock pm. I had also called Carl about getting my turn-outs for training with Pullman. I told him the other day when we talked about using them for duty nights I was not clear on whether I could use them or not. He said he needed to talk to Larry about it, to see if he still uses them as well. Then he would tell me.

I went home and had dinner and got some clothes packed. I planned on going to Pullman and working from there tomorrow because of training tomorrow night. I called Pete and left him a message to call me. He did not call me again. I am really worried about my job right now.

I went to a gas station in Issaquah and got some pop and chew. Then I hit the road. It was a pretty quick trip. There was one car that traded off passing me and me passing him several times between Othello and Colfax.

When I got home I went I wanted to watch some TV before going to bed. I should have just gone to bed, but I did not feel like going to sleep so early. I set up my scanner so I would hear if we got dispatched to a call. My pager battery had died, so I could not use that like I normally do.

A wedding and Softball

July 17th, 2005

After sleeping in a little bit, I decided to get up and start my day. I had a wedding to go to and then softball. I got the gift from my truck and wrapped it. I had breakfast and then headed off to the wedding.

I got there with about ten minutes to spare. I saw Haymon outside in his dress blues. He looked very good. Peter was out there with him greeting people.


Peter and Haymon

I went into the church and sat with Brandon, an old Pullman Fire Reserve. I was right behind Russell. I got a funny picture of him. The wedding was good.


Tara and Kevin at the Alter


Tara and Kevin Moe, Husband and Wife

Then we drove to the reception. I followed Russell. We stopped at Costco to get gas and then to the Lynnwood convention center.

When we got there we sat down at a table. I was waiting for Haymon to get there. I wanted to get a picture of him and Russell and then the three of us together. Right after getting those pictures I had to go.


Russell, Haymon, and I

I did not even have time to go home and get into my uniform before I had to be at the softball field. So I went straight there. Luckily I had my shorts and a sweatshirt from the burn on Wednesday.

I put those on, but I had no cup, so I was a little worried about getting hit. As it turned out the other team did not show. I was mad because I left the reception just as Moe and Tara got there. I did not get to do much there at all. We did a little batting practice. Then we called it a day. I was sweating a lot because it was above eighty-degrees and I was wearing the sweatshirt.

I went home and showered because I felt so scuzzy because of all the sweating I did out there. We had dinner and then I called Pete and left a message for him to call. He never called me back. I hope he is not avoiding me now.

I watched Family Guy. Then I went to the computer in the shop and downloaded my pictures to the computer there. I also decided to spray weedkiller on the grass that the next door neighbor is planting on our driveway. He is doing it to be a jerk. I am not happy about that.

I missed my shift.

July 16th, 2005

I was woken up by a call from Pete. He was asking where I was. I told him in Seattle. He said I was supposed to be on call. I was mad at myself for messing up my on call schedule. But there was nothing I could do about it now. It was a little after noon when he called. It is weird, most days he never calls when I am on call. It would have gone unnoticed, except he called. He sounded pretty upset with me about that. I am a little worried that he will can me over this. I really hope he doesn’t. I would be really upset by it.

I got up and made some breakfast. Then I got my clothes that I wear when I do ride alongs. I was getting ready to leave for Bellingham when Joe called. He said he is calling in sick again. I left anyway. I decided I would go get a wedding gift for Moe and Tara for their wedding tomorrow.

I drove to SouthCenter and went to Target, one of the places they were registered. I got them an iron they wanted. I also talked to Dave. We are going to hang out tonight. I decided to go look at some Dakota’s and see if there are any I like. I went to the Dodge dealer in Renton. I did not see any that were a stick shift. So I drove to Bellevue Dodge. I looked at all those Dakota’s. There were none there either. I talked to a salesman for a few hours between driving one of the automatic’s, talking funding, and trade-in on my truck. We got it so my payments would go down a little bit and I would owe a little more, but I would have a brand new truck that did not have nearly fifty-thousand miles on it.

I did not get a truck. I called Jon and we are going to go over some stuff and look at trucks for a while and see if we can find one that would work and make a good deal on it. I am use to having a lot of head room in my truck. The Dakota does not have as much room. So I am not sure I am going to do it, but only time will tell.

I talked to Dave when I was done. We were going to meet up in a while. I drove out to four-corners and waited around for Dave to get ready. He was doing his laundry. We decided to meet at McDonald’s off of Benson in Spring Glen. So I drove there. We went to a casino to play cards for a while. Dave was dropping a lot of money so we decided to go down to a bar he likes to go to in Kent. It is called Andy’s. It is a dive, as Dave said. But the do Karaoke there. He planned on singing there.

When it was announced there would be no more Karaoke tonight Dave got mad about it, because the owner was doing it due to one person complaining. So we drove to Auburn to another place that does it. A girl Dave knows came along. Dave and her did a song together. We were there until closing time. Dave’s friend was saying when the Samoans go to Andy’s there is almost always a fight that breaks out. They were there when we were there. I am glad we left. Then Dave and I went back to the casino and played cards a little while longer. I ended up losing my money for the night. Dave also lost for the night.

We left around three am and went home.

A long time in the office

July 15th, 2005

I got rocking on the LPX change over today. I was making headway. I love when things start to work. It is nice to feel like things are moving along nicely. It seems like it is a lot of up hill and only a little coasting for the most part. But I keep working on it.

I spent a lot of the day in the office. I went out to get lunch with Chris and Ricky. I did not say too much. Then I went to my desk to eat.

As seven o’clock was rolling around I was starting to lose steam and I started to do a few other things on the computer. I spent from around seven to nearly eleven o’clock pm in the office doing stuff online and chatting with some people.

I left and called up Peter. We talked for about a half hour. We talked about how his business is going and what steps they are working on for funding and other things for his business. Then I went home and worked on Joe’s website. There was a change he wanted to make with the shipping pricing. Before he use to figure shipping in to the price. Now he wants to list the price of the item sans shipping so it looks lower on the screen. I needed to update a bulk-price update form that I created a while back. This one would now include shipping with the other items.

I watched some tv and stayed up until about five in the morning because I wanted to be ready for the ride along for tomorrow that I was going to go on with Joe.

Working my life away

July 14th, 2005

This morning I went to Colfax Fire to check on my turn outs as they were drying. The stuff was still a little wet. So I turned them over and talked to Carl about using the turn outs for training and duty nights until Pullman gets my stuff. I was not sure if Carl was joking around or not, but I left not knowing for sure.

I went to Safeway and got myself some lunch then to my office. I ate and started my day of work. There was not really a whole bunch that I could do today, but I did what I could.

Ryan came to the office a little after six pm. We talked for a tiny bit. He was stopping to say hello. But I planned on heading to Seattle tonight. I went to Colfax fire and told Carl my stuff was not dry but I would be back in a few days to take care of them.

Then I got some food and hit the road. It was a nice fast drive. Along the way I saw a white cloud and half of it had a rainbow of colors in it. It was strange. I had not seen that before. I tried to get a picture of it as I was driving down the road.


Turning Dusk in Whitman County


Sun Set over Whitman County

Live Fire Training

July 13th, 2005

There was live fire training tonight, but I did not think I was going to go to it because of the lack of turnouts. I got a message from VanNess about using Colfax turnouts. So I called Heston and he said it would be okay, but he wanted to look at them first. I talked to Carl and he said it would be okay to use them as well. It is eleven-thirty and I needed to be in Pullman by five to show Heston the turnouts. So I took the rest of the day off and headed out. I went to fill my gas tank only to find the gas station I normally go to was being worked on. So I headed out. I got gas outside of Ellensburg. Then I got going again. I was making good time. Near Three-ninety-Five this truck passed me and I started to follow it. He was doing about seventy-five to eighty. We got to the Whitman county border when we got behind a state patrol vehicle. We followed him the rest of the way doing the speed limit. Then as we got to the fairgrounds I got behind an eighteen wheel doing less that the speed limit. I was getting antsy. It was like something would get in front of me to slow me down the closer I got to Colfax. I stopped in at the fire station and got my turn outs than I cruised to Pullman. I showed Heston the turnouts. I got a new helmet from VanNess as well as some boots. Heston did a mask fit test with me because the instructors were worried about me doing the fire training without being tested. I was cleared to go to training.

I put my name on the back of my helmet and headed off to the fire training tower. I brought sweat pants and a sweat shirt to wear. I was told the sweat shirt would wick the sweat away from the body making it more comfortable in the fire. But I found that was not the case. I sweated so much more that the heat was getting to me. The sweat shirt was totally wet. It did not make for a good time. I was so wet it was like I was in the water at the river. My turn outs were filled full of sweat too. Pretty nasty to take them off then put it back on, that is for sure.

We did one scenario where we had to do an abandon building. We had to go head first out a window. At first I did not know people would be there to catch me and I was worried about my left arm which has been week in the elbow joint, but I had to get out and I saw the guy before me go. So I just jumped up there and I saw people there. That was nice.

Then we did a few more attacks. Followed by an attack from the top, like it was a basement fire. That was what really got me feeling weird.

When we were done I helped to clean everything up and load the hose. I looked at my knees and of course I have two large blisters that have popped and they are inch diameter redspots on my knees where skin was once at.

I went to Colfax and washed my turn outs. I talked to the guys at Colfax Fire. They were on calls from six to almost eleven o’clock tonight. They had a total of four calls, one of which had a guy flown out to Spokane.

I got my turn outs washed and set up for drying over night.

Mid-week softball

July 12th, 2005

I spent the day trying to figure out how to debug into classic ASP using Windows-Oh-Three Server. Not as easy and one would thing. I looked around at all the settings and it appears that it should step into debugging but it does not. That really sucks. So with the final touches on the borrower lock request and the debugging I did not do much else at work.

I took a lunch from home today, so I have now saved between seven and nine bucks times two. I am pretty happy about that. Anytime money is saved that is good.

I left around four-thirty to get home so I could change into my softball uniform and get to Ron Regis field for softball. With Jones Road still closed I have to drive an extra five miles or so with a ton of stop lights rather than the back way with about three stop signs the whole way. It makes the trip go from being a ten minute to thirty minute drive. That really sucks.

Anyway, I played firstbase the whole game. That was fun to do that. I did not have the problems I was having Sunday with handling the ball. Hittingwise I did better too. I got some nice hits. They only have three outfielders. By my third at bat they played with a shift that left left-field wide open. But I did not put anything over there. I was mad about that.

We ten runned them in both games. I was hoping for one more at bat, so I jokingly said I would drop a lot of balls at first so they could score enough to keep the game going. On the first play to me, I caught the ball then acted like I was going to drop it. I could hear Gary’s parents laugh. The other team did get something going. But with the run on third base, that would have put the game into the next inning, the next batter could not get the ball out of the infield and we made the final out. I was disappointed. They came so close, but they were not able to give me one more at bat.

I went home and watched the new episode of Rescue Me and a few other shows before heading off to bed.

Lunch change

July 11th, 2005

Normally I got out to eat, but when I was in Pullman last week I looked at my lunch time spending. On average it is seven to nine bucks a day depending on the month. That is a lot of money each month on lunches that are not always good for me anyway.

I decided to bring my own lunch a little more often. That is what I did today. We had meatloaf and scalloped potatoes for dinner. I made myself some left overs. It was very good, just like last night when it was new.

I worked on a problem with the lock request from the borrowers. Ever since adding the PnP stuff in to the product, when a borrower would request a lock it would mess things up. So I talked to the lady who wrote up the issue and I devised a way and fixing it.

After work I did not have too much to do. I did take my camera to the shop and pulled all the pictures off of it. I edited some of them for the blog so I could post them.

Playing softball again!

July 10th, 2005

Because the softball tournament was rained out I decided to head to Renton early to play softball with the co-ed team. It was a good thing I did. The other pitcher did not show up. It rained a little bit so we got all wet, then it stopped. We were able to play both games. I was a little rusty pitching, but I warmed up as we went along.

Hitting was ugly was well. I could not hit the ball very well. Having not played in a month probably hurt my play, pitching, and hitting. I made a few errors and it was trying at times. But I was playing softball so I could not be too upset with anything.

The first game we lost four to three. Then we went into game two. It was a higher scoring game. We were up by a few runs and then they caught up. We came to the last inning and we were tied going into the top of the inning. We were hitting with two outs and me on deck, I knew what that mean. We would get the third out. For some years, when I am on deck with two outs, the person before me tends to get the final out. I don’t know why, but it happens a lot. It happened already today, and I expected it again. Sure enough it did.

We had to get three up and three down to go to extra innings, however, they got two hits in a row. With out being able to walk the next guy, my first pitch was crushed to deep right-center. It was caught for the first out, but there was no way we were going to get the ball in for the out at home in time. They won, again, by one run.

I went home and dinner was served. I ate then took a shower because I was dirty from a play I was making where I lost my balance and fell down.

I caught up on QaF and I also watched the new Family Guy tonight. I was cracking up at the scene where Peter had a contest to see who would throw up last after drinking syrup of ipecac.

I found my way to bed at almost three in the morning.

Mark’s Last Night in Town

July 9th, 2005

This weekend was supposed to be softball and football. The softball tournament, however, was rained out. I was already up nice and early because we were supposed to have a nine o’clock in the morning game in Moscow. Rather than going to bed I went to Rosauers to get breakfast and then to the fire station.

Carl and I talked for a while and then a few people came down to get the rigs ready for the Concrete River Days Parade. I did not have plans on attending it. I need to be in Spokane at two o’clock pm for the All-Star Football game.

As we were getting close to noon Carl came out and said there was a call down at the track. I got in the passenger seat and we went to the scene. Someone had a seizure and we transported the patient to the hospital. Then when we got back Scott asked me if I would drive the ambulance in the parade. I said that I would.

We got almost all the rigs from the station and drove them in the parade. We would play our sirens from time to time. The parade went down Mill street. It was fun to drive it.

When I dropped it off, I went to the SO to do my final preparations for the All-Star game then I headed to Spokane. I was going to need to make some stops to get some adapters so I could play music from my computer to the speaker system.

The game was being held at the Mead High School practice field. There was no press box, so I sat on the top row with a system that was put together just for this game. It started to rain close to the time I had to read off the players’ names. My sheet was getting wet and the one I was using was printed by an inkjet printer do it sort of ran a little bit.

I was able to read everyone’s name off without many problems. That was nice. I, of course, gave a little bit more emphases to the Thunder players. During the game people around me would say some things between plays. One lady said she could tell I was pulling for the East to win because I was more excited sounding when they did something good.

The West crushed the East. There was not much to cheer for in the way they played in the first half. The second half was not that bad. Over all, through the rain and the other technical issues it went off pretty well on the budget we had to do it.

On one play the West scored, or so I thought. I said “TOUCHDOOOOOOWN WEST!”. Then I heard several people in the stands say “not yet.” So I said, “Let me try that again ‘FIRSTDOOOOOWN WEST'”.

After the game I went to Phils house. It was the going away party for Mark. Mark’s friend Keith was there. While Mark, Keith, and I were out in the backyard talking politics Keith asked if I was gay. He said he thought I was, but the last two times we hung out he started to thing I wasn’t. So I told him I was. He said he had never really met gay people except for on TV and that is never flattering. I told him my feelings on being gay. He said he was very cool with everything.

I took time to take some photos of everyone with Mark before some of the people left.


Phil and Mark


Scotty and Mark

After the photo ops Mark, Phil, and I went into his living room where we sat around and talked about politics and ethics for a few hours. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning before Mark and I left.

What was funny is we talked about staying up late and how it is not bad, unless you’re going to bed when it is getting light outside, because they you know that you really did stay up late.

Getting ready for the All Star Game

July 8th, 2005

I figured when I got done working today I would get ready for the All Star game. Then Ryan came over. We decided to go to dinner and get a movie. We went to Dominos and got some pizza in Moscow. Then we went to his place and watched the Mariners and ate pizza. It was looking like rain. I needed to get home and cover the boat, but I could not get myself up to leave. Finally, when I did after the Mariners finished the inning they were in, it started to rain.

I went down to the jail to get the coroner’s association logo and scan it into the computer. I went to the control room to scan it there. Then I sat around and chatted with everyone for a while in the jail. We watched some videos on the computer and had a good time talking to everyone.

On the way out I went to the Report Writing room and worked on the rosters for the All Star game tomorrow. I needed to have them printed out and have the files ready to be used by the computer tomorrow so I call do the PA Announcing.

I wanted to get to bed sort of early because of the softball tournament that I had to be up and play in early tomorrow, but I did my normal thing and stay up way later than I really wanted to.

My Office Softball

July 7th, 2005

I did some work on the LPX stuff today. But I was unable to get it resolved why I would not send the request in. I worked with Dawn from LPX to figure it out. I E-mailed Noah about setting up a second box so I could have the old and new LPX versions running so I could fix some bugs that do not deal with the new LPX problems while I am working with LPX on those. It would keep me moving along.

I met up with Mark at My Office and then we went to the softball game. At first it looked like I may get to play with them, but the Phil made it to town, so I was the first base coach and not much else. My Office lost and ended the season with a seven and seven record.

We went back to the bar. Two new guys who may be playing with the Nadirs this fall also came down. They are on the My Office team. Their names are Eric and Drew. It would be great to get their power on our team. We need it.

Mark, Brian, and I out-lasted the others at the bar and we polished off a couple pitchers of beer. I went home around midnight an watched some TV before going to bed.

Thirty-Six Hours Later…

July 6th, 2005

I am back in Colfax this evening. I headed over around six o’clock pm. I went home to pack, so I left work around four-thirty. There was not much I could get done. I had some leftover pizza from last night.

While at work we had an all company meeting and they had some lunch for us. Curt has noticed that I am not a happy camper, but no one else picked up on it. I got what little I was able to get done, which included fixing the LPX stuff so it would actually build correctly.

The trip over was quite speedily. There were not major slowdowns and no stops along the way. I got home and Chris was there. We talked about the housing market in Colfax and Pullman. He talked about his work and we watched some TV.

I started to read a huge book about sexual-related homicides. It is a book I was given to look at from the coroners office. It is about eight-hundred pages. I am on page twenty or so. I did not read too late because I was pretty tired.

Working with Jon again

July 5th, 2005

This morning the alarm clock goes off for a while before I get up and turn it off. It is in the next room so it requires getting out of bed. But it makes it so hard to sleep when it is going off. So I got it turned off and got my stuff packed and ready to head to Bellevue.

I had to unhook my boat and open it up to let the stuff dry out. It is going to be in the way for a few days, but that is okay by me. I did that in a hurry and left. I stopped at Rosauers for breakfast and then got gas. I was off and heading to work.

I got in around eleven o’clock because of how late I left Colfax. That was okay because Chris is gone and I don’t care anymore. I went to work on the stuff I had to work on. It was the LPX stuff mainly. I needed to meet with Jon to figure out why it was not working the way I wanted it to.

After work I went home and we had pizza for dinner. I watched TV waiting for Jon to call. I went to his place and watched the rest of Godzilla then we worked on my stuff. It was not too hard for Jon to see the little errors I had to fix it. With his help I was able to get over the hump of two problems and I was set. That was great.

I went home and thought it would be a good idea to go to bed before midnight. I almost did it too!

Happy Birthday America – 2005

July 4th, 2005

My alarm clock was going off but I did not want to get up. But I had to because I was going to the river today. I got my boat hooked up to my truck and headed to get Loren. We went to the gas station and filled up my truck and the boat with gas. I was worried that there would be problems with the boat still. But I was holding out hope.

We went to Safeway and got some food and supplies. Then we waited from Russell to show up. Nik was going to meet us down there around two pm. Russell was on Russell time, meaning he was late. But that is what we expect from Russell.

We got down to the launch and readied the boat for launch. Once in the water it fired up right away. I was very pleased. We got out into the open water and I let it idle as I cleaned off some dirt that gathers as it sits outside between times out boating. Then we started to cruise around. It was running nicely. I was very pleased.

We went to Granite Point and Russell jumped off the cliff. After that we cruised around for a while sort of sticking around by Granite Point looking for Nik from time to time.

Russell wanted to waterski. So we got the skis out and the tow rope hooked up. Russell got up on his first attempt and skied very well as we cruised down the river. Loren video taped it. Russell finally crashed one time over the wake. Then we broke out the tube. Russell went on it first. Then I showed Russell how to drive the boat with someone on the tube. I let him drive around for a little while to get use to driving the boat and making turns and using the throttle.

I went out tubing for a little while. It was nice. I rode it backwards and had a great time doing it. It felt good to get into the water and have some fun out there. I have not done it very often over the last two year because most of the people who go out with me are not experienced boaters.

We looked for Nik a few more times over the next couple hours. It was clear after a while Nik was not going to make it. So around five o’clock we called it a day and headed to the boat launch. We were waiting for the people in front of us to go in. Then a boat cut in front of us and took the launch. They looked right at us and took it. We were mad about that. While they were cutting in front of us another boat drove into the docking area. They it left. He dropped off someone who got a truck and backed it down, so we got cut in front of again. Loren flipped off the guy in the truck.


Loren’s Middle Finger

The guy got out of his truck and started to yell at Loren for flipping him off. Loren said he was waving not flipping him off. The guy told Loren he would “bust your nose.” We got our boat out of the way and let the second set of cutters in front of us. Then we got our turn finally.

We pulled the boat out. We put the covers on it and unloaded everything. Then we headed back to Safeway to drop Russell off. He fell asleep on the way back. He had not slept at all since he went to work last night.

Loren and I went to his place. We cooked up some hamburgers. I was very tired, but I wanted to go to the fireworks show in the park. Loren and I decided to take the bus up there. We drove to Safeway. I got some pop and snacks to have up there and then we waited at the bus stop. We took the bus to the park and found a good spot. I laid out my beach towel to mark our spot.

I talked to Glenn about my announcing for the football games. Then I went down to the fire engines and talked to the people down there for a while. Then I went back to our spot. I took a couple pics of Loren when we were standing around. Sort of artistic type shots.


Ansel Adams Shot of Loren

More Adams’ work with Loren

Once the fireworks started a little after ten o’clock PM I took some pictures of the fireworks.


Fireworks over Pullman

Fireworks over Pullman

Fireworks over Pullman

Fireworks over Pullman

Fireworks over Pullman

Following the show we got on a bus, but it was slow going. It took about twenty minutes to get back to Safeway. I took Loren home and then I headed home myself, because I had to go to Seattle in the morning.

Recordings for Ryan

July 3rd, 2005

Ryan and I were going to get together today and record some stuff for Ryley. I knew my microphone was not here, so I went to Moscow and bought one. Then I went to Taco Bell/KFC and got Ryan some mashed potatoes and gravy. I got myself some food and went to his place.

We went to my office and he recorded his voice mail messages that were from Ryley. It took some time to get them recorded and then edited down. Once that was done we went to his place and watched a movie.

We went to Blockbuster to get another movie. At the same time Ryan wanted to record his eulogy for Ryley and send it for the funeral. I set him up on my computer and then left to give him space. I knew he was going to have a hard time recording it. I knew me being around would be harder. So I went outside.

I watched some fireworks being lit off at the end of the street. Then the fire department came and investigated a fire alarm at Kenwood Square. That was when Ryan came out to get me that he was done. We got that file moved to the web server and then I dropped him off at his place.

I headed out to Mr. Z’s casino. I played some money and talked with Russell about the boating trip planned for tomorrow. I lost the twenty bucks I came in with and did not stay around too late before heading out. I wanted to get some sleep tonight because tomorrow was going to be a long busy day.

Being there for Ryan

July 2nd, 2005

I woke up pretty later this morning, almost around noon because I went to bed so late. I got some lunch and went to the fire station. Carl was working on some computer application problem on a computer in the PD. I went in to help him with it. Finally we got it figured out and the application started to work.

As I ate we talked about the CPR call from last week. It has been bothering me about the little things that happened in it. I talked to James about it and looked up what to do in the Whitman County EMS protocols. It says on asystole (flatline) to confirm ‘no shock advised’ twice and then package and transport the patient.

Carl talked about always grabbing a backboard when going to a CPR call because it is helpful to move the person as well as do CPR on. We talked about the way the call went and what I was thinking about it, but after talking to James I realized once someone gets to the stage our patient was at, even ACLS drugs will not help.

I was there for a while when Ryan called. We made plans to get together. I went to his place. We were there for a tiny bit before we went to my office. We listened to a bunch of songs online to see what ones he would want to use in Ryley’s funeral. After he selected them we put together a package for Ryley’s family to get and be able to use at the funeral.

It was getting late and I wanted to get some food. Ryan was not much into eating. I got some pizza from Pizza Hut then we went to his place. We watched a movie and I ate on the pizza. I gave Ryan the remaining slices and he ate one of them.

When I left his place I went to the casino. It was dead in there. I did not play cards. Russell and I talked. Then on one of Russell’s breaks we ran to Safeway to get some allergy medicine for Russell.

I was there for several hours. We started to talk politics with everyone there and the supreme courts decision to allow private entities to take property from other private entities. It is a bad decision for private property ownership.

Mixed Emotions

July 1st, 2005

July came on us in a hurry. I am finishing up my last day of the first week of my work from home trial. I set out to get a couple things accomplished. I would like to have a few VIs completed in time for going back to Bellevue. I spent most of my time doing just that.

At noon I met Kristine, Camron, and a few other people at The Coug for lunch. I had never gone there before for a lunch. It is different in there during the day than it is at night. It is looking like Kristine will not get her job at the University back, so she is in transition and that is what the lunch was for. A goodbye lunch. We made plans to hangout tonight and watch some movies.

Dan called about his poker chips at the office. I got them and then took them to station one for Dan. I hung out there for more than an hour hoping to get the rest of my gear. I showed Dan my Boating on the Snake video. I also talked with John a little bit. When it got close to seven I went to Subway for dinner. I went to the one on Bishop, hoping that the other Subway’s that changed to Coke would not include the one on Bishop. However, it was as well. I asked the worker about that. He said it was indeed a system wide change.

I got a sandwich and went to Blockbuster to rent Saw. Then I went to Camron’s place. I didn’t know they were cooking pizza for everyone. But they had stuff on the pizza I don’t really like anyway, so it was all good.

Hitch was on when I got there. It was about one-third the way into it. I ate and watched that. Then when Hitch was over we started to watch Saw. That is when my phone rang. It was Peyton, Ryley’s sister. She was crying and saying that Ryley had died. Earlier in the day Ryan was telling me that she lost her kidneys and was in a coma, but it sounded like she may pull out. Peyton asked that I look after Ryan.

I took Kristine aside and told her I had to leave. I told her why. She felt really bad for Ryan. Then I went to Ryan’s place. I was expecting him to have a really hard time. He was doing a lot better than I expected. But I also think he was really trying to Cowboy up around me and other people. Ryan is pretty private about his emotions. I just sat there with him for about three or four hours. We just talked and watched TV. I know he is torn up over everything.