BBQ with apartment residents

August 31st, 2005

The beginning of the school year brings BBQ’s by dining services to the campus apartment complexes. The shift on duty will go there with the fire engine and rescue. We get to eat and then we show the kids around the rigs. I don’t know if I should say this, but these kids were highly obnoxious. More so than normal.

After we were done dealing with the kids we went to Safeway and Lowery had to buy ice cream for missing a call. He picked up the ice cream and then we got back to the station. We were going to have the ice cream but we were invited to help with a fire drill at Regents hall. We got up there only to find it was cancelled.

We got back to the station with the guy who were on Rescue. Bolton had to buy ice cream as well for going code in Rescue. So we have four half gallons of ice cream. After eating the ice cream I headed back to the office and worked on stuff for NetUpdate. I am trying to figure something out with Dexma but my box is not helping so I am having to do things the really, really, really hard way.

More hose testing in Colfax

August 30th, 2005

Ryan and I met up for lunch and then he came to my office and we looked at his laptop. He has had it for about two years and I did not know. There was a problem with it two years ago I was not able to fix back then. So we decided I would take another look at it. His master boot record is bad and I cannot find anything that will fix it. Even an FDISK /MBR will not do it. But the system sees the HD and when I boot to a floppy I can see the data that is on there. So I am not sure what to do from here.

I headed to Colfax for fire training. We pulled out Engine Three and pulled hose from there and did a couple things with it, then did hose testing with it. Afterwards we reloaded previously tested hose on to it.

I went in and watched the end of NCIS with Ken. Then I went to the SO. I ran about two miles and lifted some weights. I went up to the report writing room after that and worked on the coroners office ID card. I got one created and a sample printed out to show Pete and Patti for our next meeting.

Call at the SRC

August 29th, 2005

I went to the Student Rec Center to get some paperwork for the softball team. While I was there I saw the Mariners game was on. So I sat down and watched a couple innings. Then I left and came back to my office. As soon as I got here a call came out from the Rec Center. It looks like I missed being up there by a couple of minutes.

It was an alpha response, and we do not go on those anymore. So I did not have to run up there again. I was tired and bored. I played a couple games of poker on ESPN. Then I went to sleep. Around two in the morning we got a call for someone with abdominal pains. We did not do anything. It turned out to be a no transport. We went back to the station and I went off to bed.

Not a fun case

August 28th, 2005

I started the day by getting ready for softball practice at one o’clock pm in Pullman. I went to the field early and waited around for people to show up. We had eleven people show up today. It was really nice, we were able to have a full practice. We had warmed up our arms. Then we started some fielding practice. I was hitting the ball around to people. Then my phone rang. I answered it.

It was Jaime from Whitcom. I said I did not want to hear from her. She said that I probably did not. She asked if I have been listening to the radio traffic. I told her I had not. It turned out a premature baby was delivered and being worked on, but it looked like it was going to die. I had to try to find out if I needed to respond. I was told by the deputy on scene to hurry because the father was close to being arrested over his behavior. I could not get ahold of Pete or Patti and I tried a ton of times. So finally I decided to start to head that way. I called and talked to Rick at the SO about it. Then I talked to Whitcom. They helped me locate Pete.

It turns out that twenty weeks along and farther are deaths we would need to investigate. Possibly even do an autopsy. That was not good news. When I told the deputy that, he had a few other deputies come to the scene because we were worried about what the dad would do when we told him that. I got out of cell coverage for a bit. I was very worried about the whole situation let alone it was a baby I was dealing with.

As it turns out when I got on scene I found that Pete and the MedStar flight nurse determined the baby was only nineteen weeks old and we would not have to do anything other than a small investigation. That made the situation a lot better. I am glad I did not have to take the baby and do what I thought I was going to have to do. I took some information and then they were able to go.

I headed back to Pullman. I had the FFL draft to get to. Because I was going to be late they found someone else to be my teammate and I am going to coach by team this year. I got to Zeppoz and we did our draft. I was there in the sixth round. It lasted until seven o’clock pm. Eddy, Jonathan, Ron, and I played Golden Tee golf. Then I met up with Ryan. We went to Applebees for dinner. While I was there I was told there was possibly another case coming our way.

As it turned out the person was saved and sent to Spokane on the bird. So I did not get a second case. After dinner I went to the SO and did my paperwork on the case I had. I faxed the paperwork to Pete and then I went to the controlroom.

I hung out there for about an hour and I decided that I would go home. On my way down stairs I heard a lot of yelling coming from booking. I stopped in and listened. Then the door was given to me. I went in and acted as a back up for the officer. He was dealing with an inmate who was upset. As it turns out the inmate was not getting aggressive with the officer which was good.

Then when the situation was handled I made it home.

Boating at the Dunes

August 27th, 2005

Nik, Russell, Ben, Bino, Nik’s friend and I met up at Safeway to go to the river. We decided to go to the dunes. We cruised to the river and launched the boat. We had a lot of beer and we were ready to have some fun.

We drove down to the dunes and then slightly beached the boat because I don’t have an anchor. We use my softball bat and a tennis ball and played some ball. We were pitching overhand. It was a lot of fun. While we were playing Chris from Pullman fire was there. I went over and talked to him for a while. Then the others finished playing ball and we went to the boat and did some boating. We first took Nik’s friend, John, to the boat launch because he had to leave.

We had to get some more beer. We went out and a few people went out and did some tubing. We got some video of the people tubing. When Nik was going to go pee once he was standing on my ski deck. I snuck up to push him in. He knew something was up and looked back. He then started to try to throw me in the water. We were wrestling and I was holding my own until Ben came up and helped Nik. I was in the water.

After that we did a little more tubing and drove around for a little while more. It was starting to get to be around six o’clock and Russell had to get home. So we packed up and left. When we got back I dropped everyone off and went to Niks. He cooked some chicken fajitas for us. We watched the video of us tubing.

I left and went home. I took a shower and then went back to Pullman to meet up with Ryan. We went to see the Dukes of Hazzard then we went to Taco Bell for dinner. The Dukes was a pretty good movie. I did not like the Roscoe and Boss Hogg characters. They were too far off what the ones on TV were like.

After eating I went home and watched some TV before going to sleep.

Left my laptop at home

August 26th, 2005

I got most of the way to work when I realized I left my laptop at home. This would not work because I need it in Pullman. So I had to go back home before leaving to Pullman. That was okay though because that gave me a chance to have dinner at home.

I met with someone at work today over an issue I have to work on. It is a pretty involved problem and it will take some time to figure it out.

I was at work until around five-thirty doing some real work and some work on my FFL draft picks before I left. I had dinner at home and then hit the road for Pullman.

We got a couple calls for Colfax. One was an unknown injury accident. It turned out to be a tow truck. We asked Whitcom to ask the tow truck company if they knew where their truck was. It turned out that it was at the house of an employee and it rolled all the way down the driveway. It crashed through two parts of a fence and then down a ten foot embankment. It was stuck there. We helped the guy get it unstuck.

After that call I went home and watched TV. I was about ready to go to bed when we got another call. It was a person having breathing difficulties. We took her to the hospital. I went home and set my alarm to get me up for boating in the morning.

Man I am tired

August 25th, 2005

I stayed up late working on setting up stuff for my FFL draft on Sunday. So I got up and got going pretty late. I stopped at the Colfax fire station and talked with Carl for a little while before I actually left town.

I drove to Bellevue and did not get to work until around noon. I spent the day trying to get a few things with my computer done and I spent some time doing stuff with the FFL draft.

I went home for dinner around six-thirty. After dinner I just watched some TV. But I was tired so I went to bed pretty early for me.

On call, my butt!

August 24th, 2005

Wow, with as many calls as we had today you would thought I would have made it on one of them. No such luck. The first call came out at about five-fifty pm. I was not at the station so I did not go on that. I did get to the station at about six o’clock for our meeting, but by then people were already gone. So I waited around and another call came out. Some of the reserves were split up with the full time staff for the next calls. I was told to wait with Engine-thirty-three for a call. While waiting Nick came back in Rescue and sent me and Reed to get Brian from the hospital. While we were doing that another call comes out for the others to go on.

Following all those calls it was quiet. We had our meeting. I was hanging out at the station for a while and talking to one of the new WSU guys who came to be a reserve. Then Nick took the new reserve and another reserve who had been gone all summer on a drive around the city in Rescue. As they left, I said “Enjoy my calls.” Nick laughed because he knows thing are quiet when I am around. So while they were gone there were two calls. I did not get to go on either of them.

Following their drive around the city, when Rescue would be available for me to respond on, there were no more calls.

Training with Colfax

August 23rd, 2005

I got a few things taken care of at work. I had the copy loan app to do, and that is completed. I also had to work on fixing a few of the problems Brian pointed out to me on Monday. I got all the issues Brian found, plus I got the copy loan app working, but there are some tweaks I need to do to make it work as requested. But it is most of the way there now.

I had a doctors appointment to go over my MRI from two months ago. The doctor said that my cartilage was in good shape and there was not really anything that is probably causing the problem, expect for maybe a very small cyst that he could see. He said they could scope it, but it is so small it is not something they would normally do.

After I got off work I went to Colfax for fire training. We took the trucks down to the high school and hooked to a hydrant. We flowed some water and pulled some lines. After the training we went back and loaded the hose.

A couple of us went to Subway for dinner. We sat around and talked about injuries that we had seen other people have.

Afterwards I went home and watched some TV. At about one in the morning I was getting ready to go to bed when a call came out. It was a lady with breathing difficulties. We transported her to the hospital and then I went home and went to bed.

Back in the grind

August 22nd, 2005

Things are back to normal. I am back in Washington and driving across the state again. I started off by going to work in Bellevue and meeting with Brian about the problems he found in the searching of the Pricing work I completed. He showed me the fields that seem to be dropping and not working correctly.

After we met I got my three quart-and-a-half bottles of water filled and headed to Pullman. I stopped in Colfax to get my fire department uniform and then I was off to the big city. When I got to Pullman I dropped off my paperwork for Beasley.

I made my way to my office. I logged into the NetUpdate VPN and did some E-mailing. I did not have a bunch of time between when I got here and when I was going to be on call, so I did not want to get in the middle of something that would be complicated. I just did light things for the next bit.

I got my uniform on near six o’clock pm and went to get some dinner. I followed that with a trip to the Rec Center to get information about a membership. I found out today that according to the handbook as an alumni member and a rec center member I can play IM’s. So I am pretty stoked about that. So while I am waiting in line to get to talk to the worker a delta-response call came out.

I ran to my truck and to the station. As it turned out it went to CPR in progress. They did CPR all the way to the hospital and in the hospital as well. I am not sure if she made it or not. At seven o’clock we did a tour at Martin Stadium and at Beasley for the EMS stuff we will be doing.

We had several calls, but never got to respond on any of them, because I was on the engine. After the training I made some new name tags for the pass system. Now I have ones that say S. Anderson. We went back to Station thirty-two. I watched the first episode of Band of Brothers on DVD. It was getting late so I headed to the office and tried to get to sleep.

Goodbye San Diego

August 21st, 2005

Today was the last day in San Diego. It was a fun week. I wish I could have played softball the whole time, but at least I was able to play as much as I did. I had a good time while playing.

I started by getting packed and meeting Grandpa and Robert at the car. We went to the Hash House for breakfast. They serve large meals. We had to wait almost an hour to get our seat. Grandpa and Robert like to go there when they are in San Diego.

We then dropped off our car at the rental place and went to the airport. We hung out outside for a little while but I was getting hot and it was really bright so I went inside and relaxed on a chair for a while. Then we went through security and to our gate. I pulled out my laptop and watched the Fast and the Furious while we were waiting to board the plane.

Some of the other guys from the team were also coming with us on the flight. They showed up and we all boarded the plane. It was not that long of a flight. When we touched down in Seattle we went to the baggage claim. My mom came in and we hugged then I told her about being thrown out of the tournament for running too fast.

Once I got my stuff we got in the car and headed home. I took my stuff up stairs and made some dinner. I headed to the shop and got my photos from my camera downloaded. I did not take nearly as many as I was hoping to take.

I started to look through another video tape I made a long time ago. I found a part with Ryan on it. I recorded it and I am going to send it to him and see what he thinks about it.

A day to mess around.

August 20th, 2005

Today is my last full day in San Diego. Some people were thinking about going to Six Flags but I think the four hours of driving was a turn off and no one ended up going. But we all went to the championship game for the Blue Sox. They are a Seattle team which was playing for the C division championship.

It was really hot outside and there was not a lot of seating in the shade. In fact on the Blue Sox side there was none. I spent the first game going between the bleachers and the covered area behind home plate. The problem was that it was crowded under the shade. The first game was not going well for the Blue Sox. They were in the driver seat. They only had to beat the San Francisco team once where the San Fran team would have to beat the Blue Sox twice because the San Fran team was coming from the losers bracket.

The Blue Sox lost the first game by a pretty good margin. So after about a half hour break they played game two. The Blue Sox went on top and never looked back. They lead the game from wire to wire and won the championship. There were a lot of people cheering for them.

After the game we stopped at Carl’s Jr for some lunch and then went back to the hotel. We were going to go out to Baja Betty’s as a team for dinner at eight o’clock. I just watched some TV for a while waiting for eight to roll around. Grandpa called at about seven-thirty to head out.

We met at the car and drove to Baja Betty’s. We had about fifteen people there. I had a couple shots of tequila and two beers. So I let Robert drive from that point on. From Baja Betty’s we went to Bourbon Street. It is a bar in the Hillcrest area of San Diego.

I did not have any more alcohol there. I mainly hung out and people-watched. One guy from another team in our league was getting really friendly with me. His Ex came over and saved me one time. Later on the guy found me again. This time Robert came to the rescue. I was able to get away and I went upstairs. They had a pool table up there. I played some pool against Gerry and Grandpa. Grandpa also played against a guy from the South. That guy beat Grandpa.

We decided to head about a little after midnight. It was a long day and I was ready to go back to the hotel. Gerry and I watched Ghost Ship before turning off the TV and going to sleep.

Ending up in Seventh Place

August 19th, 2005

Today is another big day on the fields. We were going to be playing a lot of softball today if we win. I started the day by getting up and heading to the breakfast area to chow on some waffles. Shortly thereafter we loaded up and headed to the softball fields for yet another day of softball fun.

We got to the field and did not have a ton of time before our first game. I was the first base coach for the team. The first game was against a team that was an “okay” team. But they played us tough and made it close in the final inning. We still won it by one run. So we moved on to the next game. The next game was against the team that the commissioner who protested me played for. Our team wanted to beat her team badly.

What was more frustrating is they challenged me on the running question and they had four people on their team who did not have the running question and they were just as fast as me or faster.

We lead pretty much the whole game and they had a little rally in the last part of their inning. Then we came up two runs down and could not score. It was very disappointing. We wrote up paperwork on doing a protest of their team for the running questions. But as a team we voted not to go through with it.

So after the game Don, our manager, told the commissioner from that team that we felt it was pretty hypocritical of her to protest me and have people on her team who don’t have the question they protested us on. Then he walked away.

We went out to On the Border, a Mexican restaurant for lunch. We were happy that we did okay in the tournament, but wished we could have placed better than we had. After lunch we headed back to the hotel. I spent time watching TV and relaxing.

A few of us went to a fancy steak place on the water in the evening. It was a nice dinner for us to chat about softball and other issues. After that dinner some people planned on going out. I just wanted to go back to the room and relax. I was not in the mood for going out.

Revenge is best served cold

August 18th, 2005

This morning I got up still sort of hoping for an appeal to reinstate me. I went to breakfast and ate with some of the guys on the team. I went back to my room and watched some TV before getting ready to head to the field. I did not want to wear my uniform shirt because I did not want to be seen as the guy who was cheating. Even though I don’t feel I was. I think my best friend, Ryan would agree.
[08/18/2005 – 16:15] coug1973: I got kicked out of the tournament.
[08/18/2005 – 16:15] three_ster: awww 🙁
[08/18/2005 – 16:15] three_ster: how come?
[08/18/2005 – 16:15] coug1973: I am too fast
[08/18/2005 – 16:16] three_ster: lol
[08/18/2005 – 16:16] three_ster: is that really why?
[08/18/2005 – 16:16] coug1973: yep
[08/18/2005 – 16:17] three_ster: was it a plea deal of something?
[08/18/2005 – 16:17] coug1973: LMAO!!!!
[08/18/2005 – 16:17] coug1973: no.
[08/18/2005 – 16:17] coug1973: http://blog.scottyanderson.com/2005/08/my-last-day-as-mauler.html
[08/18/2005 – 16:17] three_ster: well that sucks
[08/18/2005 – 16:18] three_ster: did your team win?
[08/18/2005 – 16:18] coug1973: The team that challenged me was knocked out of the tournament today…
[08/18/2005 – 16:18] coug1973: BY US!!!!
[08/18/2005 – 16:18] three_ster: nice!

I found out when I got to the field that we could not appeal the decision, only a proceedure that was done wrong. They did everything correct, so we had no options. So we started the game against the team that knocked my out of the tournament. We started by scoring some runs. Then they scored two. It was four to two. We actually never lost the lead once we had it. But they kept fighting back. We could never get a comfortable lead. Leif got hurt sliding into home and he was out for the game. We only had two normal outfielders playing for us.

In the last inning they scored two runs to come within one run. But we were able to make and out at home. With the tying run on first and the go ahead run at the plate, a ball was hit to right-center field. When I saw it hit, I was thinking for sure it would be a basehit. But Kevin ran over to make the catch and we won the game.

So a few of us as a team started to chat “Na na na na, Na na na na, Hey, Hey, Hey, Goodbye!” It was not normal for us to do, but they were the team that caused me to be thrown from the tournament. So it was sweat to get our revenge on the playing field to send them packing. I did not go out and shake their hands after the game.

After the game we went to On The Border as a team and got lunch then headed back to the hotel. I spent time sort of going in and out of sleep while watching TV. Around nine I went to Pizza Hut for dinner. After I ate I went to the pool and hottub and hung out with the Rockets. I asked if they had won. One guy said “Nope, we are out like you.” I said that the Maulers were still playing. Then he said “You’re not!” I started to laugh and everyone else did too.

We were out there until we were kicked out by the hotel people, because the pool closes at ten o’clock PM each day. I went back to my room to watch TV before making an early exit to sleep land.

My Last Day as a Mauler

August 17th, 2005

So the day started as they have all week. Getting up in time for breakfast before the hotel closes the breakfast room down. Following breakfast I went back to my room and watched some TV then the movie Paparazzi. Following the movie I went to the local sport store to get a new jock and some new cleats for my shoes and some shoelaces. I got back to the hotel about twenty minutes before we were to leave for the fields.

We got there and they were discussing the protest situation. They were thinking they may keep me from playing so I do not get protested. But it was decided that we would protest me and we would get my rating would be made correct and no one would then protest me. Well as it turned out in the game we were playing today, the only game we played today, the team that did not get to protest me yesterday had their commissioner protest me. They did the kitchen sink approach where they did it on three items. One item was the one we protested on. The other two were my speed and my hitting ability.

We first finished up the game. We were losing. We could not hit the ball and it soon turned out that we would lose the game. It was our first loss of the tournament. Now we are in the double elim losers bracket. Before the game we were doing batting practice. One of our guys had a fly ball get over his glove and hit in on the face. He had to go to a urgent care center for stitches. The fire department came, but they did not transport.

So we lost the game and then went to the protest committee. I was able to go so I was happy about that. The first protest went quickly and we got what we wanted so my rating raised. Then the next protest was with the other team. One of their points was thrown out because it was what we protested on. The other two points were talked about. The running one was not really talked about. It was the hitting they were really fighting.

The committee discussed it for about ten minutes then we went back to the vote. I could see the people writing on their secret ballots. Some of them were writing yes to the running question. That means that the protest would be upheld and I would get another point. If I got another point I would be off the team for good. The second vote I could see one guy write no. I had a feeling that the hitting question would be voted down and the running question would be upheld. That is what happened. That means I am no longer a Mauler. My rating is too high for the team. That really sucks for me. Here I am in San Diego to play a lot of softball only to be thrown out of the whole thing.

It is funny to think that they consider me an average speed runner when other people who are faster than me are not. So we are going to appeal that question to the commissioner and maybe, just maybe, I will get it over turned. But I am bummed over it.

We stopped at Denny’s on the way home for dinner. Then I went to talk to Don and pointed out a few things we can use in the appeal.

Protest’s are acommin!

August 16th, 2005

I was able to sleep in until nine o’clock this morning. I got a call about getting some breakfast. So I took the opportunity to eat and Grandpa said I could come to his room to chow because the breakfast room was full. That is what I did.

Afterwards I went back to my room and just sat around for while. I watched some TV and read the newspaper. We decided we would leave at noon to get to the field and watch the Rockets play. I turned out that we did not watch them. Robert and I found some shade. I talked to a lady who was a mitt repairer. She fixed my broken lacing and tightened up the ones in the fingers. It cost ten bucks.

I waited around in the shade until people started to show up. We were going to get our team photo done today. So once everyone got there we got the photo taken. Then we took a practice field and warmed up our arms. Then we did some defensive drills and then I pitched batting practice. We went to the field where we were supposed to play. The games were about thirty minutes behind schedule. So we had to wait until the game that was playing was done, plus there was another game between us and the current game.

We sat around watching that game. Then it was our turn. We had the first at bat. My first hit was a good one. It got over the head of the outfielder and rolled a way. I made it an inside the park homerun. I was pitching. I only walked one. I was pitching well today. I felt like I was in a grove.

My next two at bats were not all that good. I made it on base both times, but they were not good hits. I was not happy with them. They were more or less pop-ups. Then my last at bat the bases were loaded. I was looking for a good base hit. The team we were playing against were watching us yesterday and knew I could go to right field so they were playing that line pretty tight. So I was looking to go to left field. I just swung away. I was not trying to crush it, but I did. It burnt the outfielder. Then with the short grass it rolled and rolled. It went to the next field over. The field we are playing at have four fields and they share the same outfield. So when you hit one long enough it would go to the next field. Up to that time I had not seen someone do that. But mind kept going all the way to the infield of one of the other fields. I was running hard until I got to second base. I saw they were still running for my ball so I slowed down and jogged the rest of the way home. It was an inside the park grand slam.

But it was not long after that when they protested my player ratings. If it is found that I have the wrong rating, they will ban me from the rest of the tournament. But as it turns out they did not do the protest correctly and we won it on a technicality. The problem is now I have a target on my back and all the teams will be looking at me for a protest.

For the second game, because at that time we did not know the protest would go through, I was benched by my team to make sure that something did not happen and a second protest was lodged against me. So I was the first base coach and rooted for the team. We won the next game as well. So we went three and oh in the round-robin portion of the tournament.

After that game we went to watch the Rockets play their last game. The commissioner of the ECSA league (The Seattle League) was talking to my and my coach. He was saying that the Rockets were at the field diagonal to the one we were playing on when I hit the ball to the other field. The people on the team saw the ball going and they were all making a big deal about it. Then the commissioner saw I hit it. So he was trying to get the people on the Rockets to not talk about it so we would not bring extra scrutiny to me.

After the Rockets finished their game we went to watch another game that the boyfriend of a guy on our team plays for. After their game the people from my team and the other team we went to watch all went to Apple Bees for dinner.

It was a good day. I had a lot of fun. But now I have to watch my hitting for the rest of the tournament to make sure I do not get protested out of it.

One day down, six to go

August 15th, 2005

I am minding my own business sleeping when the phone rings. It becomes a part of my dream for a minute. I incorporate it to being a fax machine that is ringing and someone asks about the ring, because it was waking them up. I said it is a fax machine and soon it will stop ringing. Then I realize it was the phone and I answer it. Grandpa was talking to me, and I really cannot remember the conversation until the part where I look at the alarm clock and it said seven-fifty-eight am. I was like “It is eight o’clock in the morning!” Grandpa laughed. So he said he would call me back around nine for breakfast. I went back to sleep for a little bit when my cell phone rang. It was Nick from PFD. He wanted to see if I was going to be in town working tonight. I told him I was in San Diego. I tried to sleep some more and finally Grandpa called back because it was nine o’clock am.

I walked across the parking lot to get some breakfast. I had some waffles and juice. Several guys from the team was there and we chatted for a while. Our first and only game was at two o’clock pm. But we wanted to see the Rockets, another Seattle team play. They played at noon. So we left around eleven in the morning. I got my uniform on and we drove to the field. We walked to where the Rockets were playing. I sat there watching their games as over the next thirty minutes the others from our team showed up.

At one o’clock we started to warm up, stretch, throw the ball, and do some batting practice. I pitched most of it. Then we went to the field to wait for our game to start. The game before us was running really late and we sat around for almost thirty minutes waiting our turn. Finally we took the field. We were hitting first. We, as a team, were hitting the ball well. Our fielding was sucking hind-titty though. They hit around on us in the first inning but only ended up with four runs out of the deal. We went on to beat them twenty-four to seven. So it was not really that close. I had five at bats. I made no outs. I had only one hit that was a good hit to the outfield. I had a couple find a whole in the infield and make it out there. It was not a great day at the plate for me.

After the game we went to the hotel and cleaned up. Then Grandpa, Robert, and I went to Hamburger Mary’s for lunch. It is a large bar and grill. It is located in the “Hillcrest” area of San Diego which would be the same as Capitol Hill in Seattle. And for those our side of both those areas, it is the gay district. There were a lot of rainbow flags everywhere.

From there we walked to this local clothing store. Very expensive stuff. Jean’s that cost two hundred plus. Not for me, thank you. I will stick to my Levi’s. From there we walked up to a coffee house. They got coffee and I got myself a hot chocolate, as I am not a coffee drinking.

We had about an hour and a half before we were going to go out as a team. So we came back to the hotel. I took the car and Kyle and Rich to the store to get some hard-a. I picked up some pain killers for my ankle. Then I stopped at AM/PM for some pop. We came back to the hotel and I met up with Grandpa and Robert to go to Martini’s for meeting up with the team. We hung out there for about an hour and a half. There were not a lot of people there from the tournament. So we went to a place called Flicks. It was packed in there. It was like a meat market. It was like everyone there was looking for a guy to take home for the night.

They did a version of the Dating Game. They had one guy who got to choose from three other guys dating game style. He asked them questions. What was funny is that one of the guys from my team was up there. At the end of the question/answer period the audience was asked who he should pick. Most people thought number three should have been picked. But the guys from my team and from his team were all holding up two fingers as he was getting to choose. And he went with them, so the guy from my team was chosen. They got to see each other. They hugged and won a date to some fancy place.

We left a little bit after that Dating Game and went to Jack in the Box from some night ending chow before heading back to the hotel. It was a full day. I am really tired from being in the hot sun without much shade for a lot of the day. I am ready to hit the hay.

Made it to San Diego

August 14th, 2005

So I went to SeaTac today an hour before the flight. It took about twenty minutes to get checked in. While I was there I had to check my softball bat in on its own. I did not have my softball bag and it would not fit in my suitcase. I asked if I could take it on board. The guy said it is a weapon. I said “You have never seen me swing it”. He chuckled.

It took about forty minutes to get through the security check. Well it took about ninety seconds to get through security and about thirty-eight and a half minutes to get to the security point. There were so many people in line.

I got on the plane about five minutes after the schedule take off time. We sat on the plane waiting to take off. It was about fifty minutes late. Finally we took off. We got to San Diego about thirty minutes late. The pilot said he would try to make up some time on the flight. They did.

I watched Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle on the way. Then I listened to some music. Once we landed it took forever for me to get my bags. After all the bags were done coming through the belt, I did not see my bat. I was worried that it was lost. Then as I was going to let them know it was missing I saw someone walking over with the package with my bat. I was very happy about that.

We took a shuttle bus to Dollar Rent-a-car. It took about forty minutes to get through that line to get the car. Today was a day of waiting in lines. We took off to find our hotel. But the guy who was driving the car got off the freeway to early so we spend about an extra twenty minutes getting to the hotel.

I was looking through all the stuff they gave me and I saw they have free high speed Internet. I was stoked! I did not get to hook it up before we left to go to the opening ceremonies. It was down on the waterfront. We drove there and walk to the park. It was at a huge stage and there were teams from all over the states: Teaxs, Kansas, Minnesota, New England, New York, Washington DC, California, Oregon, Washington, and more. I am looking forward to talking to people from some of the other states and listen to their accents. It should be good time.

After the opening ceremonies we went to the hotel near by to check in. Each player had to sign a release. Then we got a package with different samples of things and other freebies. We went to Denny’s for dinner and I got back to the hotel to get on the Internet. And it is working! YES!

I found out our first game is at two o’clock pm tomorrow and four o’clock pm on Tuesday. That means we can sleep in and go out and party each night.

I walked to AM/PM to get some food and water and spent the evening on the Internet and watched some TV.

Digitizing my videos

August 13th, 2005

Today when I got up I decided that I would work on digitizing some of my video collection. After doing some work I figured out a way to do it where I can make the videos pretty small. I had been using Premiere but I have had a lot of problems with it. It has been a thorn in my side. So I finally decided to use Windows Movie Maker. That has been working a whole lot better.

I got several episodes of Undressed copied. Plus I got an episode of Unsolved Mysteries involving someone from Moscow, Idaho. A gay student who turned up missing. He was found recently. He was murdered and his bones were in the woods, found by a hunter. I know the guys boyfriend. He was pretty upset by the whole thing, but happy to finally have closure.

I worked on that until about eight o’clock pm before I went to house. I fried up some hamburgers from my mom and me. I watched some TV for a while and played some online poker. I did not stay up too late because I had to get up around eight-thirty in the morning for my flight to San Diego. I got all my stuff packed. I was mad to find out my softball bat would not fit in the suitcase. I am going to have to figure out something to do with that tomorrow.

The Surgery

August 12th, 2005

When I got to work I met with the person who needed to talk to me about the comparisons bug. I was told it was going to be an easy fix. It turned out to be a hard one. It will probably take a little bit of time to fix it. I was briefed on that. Then I started on the copy an app enhancement.

There is some .net stuff I need to do on that. I had to build the application and then I have to connect it to some sprocs that someone else had worked on. We had our normal three o’clock meeting and we talked about the remaining items in the meeting.

I got as much as I could completed before I left to go home for the night. Bill was still at the hospital with my mom. I found out the operation did not work out so he was bummed about that. I thought he would be home tonight, but it turns out he had to stay in the hospital for a few days.

I got some pizza on the way home and ate that. I playing in another online poker tournament. Jon came over with some salmon he caught today out fishing. I showed him the poker I was playing and he asked me to send him a link to it.

I was up to about four in the morning between that and watching QaF. I think it was their final episode. I am sad to see it is over, but it was a good run. I liked that show. It was interesting to see how the people started and how they morphed through the last few years.

App Export is completed

August 11th, 2005

After getting the FNMA import to work it caused the export to stop working. I spent time trying to figure out was with it. After doing some testing I was able to narrow it down and actually fix it. It felt good to get that out of the way.

So with that taken care of I only had one bug to work on. But I needed to get a lot of information about it, so I was not able to work on that. I got another one assigned to me. It is to be able to copy an application. But I am not going to get a start on that today.

I headed home around six-thirty pm and we had dinner. Bill is going in for a surgery tomorrow so there is some worries around the house about that. I stayed up late playing a poker tournament. It started with fifteen hundred people. I came in second place. I was hoping for first place. But oh well. I have something to work towards.

Yawn… I am lazy

August 10th, 2005

I got up at eleven o’clock this morning. I was so tired. I got into work at noon when where they just finished the benefits meeting. But I got here in time for the all-hands meeting and lunch. I was working on getting my bugs finished. I got a little closer to solving one, but I did not get any done. I asked Chris if I could leave around two o’clock to go to Joe’s. He said he did not care. So I was out the door at two-thirty-ish. I headed to Joe’s for a BBQ he was going to have. Ed was also going to be there.

I was excited about seeing Ed. I have not seen him for a few years. He is a ten-six-seven. And he is a very nice guy. I got to Joe’s and we went to Costco and got some steaks and fries. Then we went to his house. Ed and his wife were there. We talked about some of the old times. It was great to see him, he looks like he always has.

Joe cooked the steaks as we sat around the table talking about different subjects. Including me calling Ed by Joe and Joe by Ed, back when I first met them. I was always getting their names backwards. So today, I ended up calling Ed, Joe, a few times.

After dinner was cleaned up we went to the living room and watched a movie. When the movie was over Ed and his wife left. Joe and I started to talk about the website. I went over some of the things I needed from him. We spent almost four hours talking about it, and me getting across what I need from him. I think he sees the work ahead of him, but I think he understands why we need to do it.

I headed out around two in the morning. I drove from near Joe’s house to the Renton Highlands non-stop. That is a long way, it was close with one stop light, but I made them all. I stopped at Chucks and got a maple bar on the way home.

When I got home I petted Amber, Max, and Jen before I headed to bed.

Last softball practice.

August 9th, 2005

Getting to work at four-forty-five in the morning, I was awake but getting a little tired. I did a few things on my box and then took a small nap. I tried to keep myself awake, but I had to wait around until Ricky got to work. So I sat in my comfy chair, put on my head phones and listened to music and I slept a little bit.

When Ricky got here with his help I was able to figure out why I was not able to debug into a process. Once that was figured out I was able to see the process of what was happening and fix it. Brian also started to do some testing on my LPX changes.

It turns out he found a small problem where all sorts of data would appear when we only wanted a subset of it. So I am going to have to figure out what code to use to fix that. It is actually a small problem and I understand why it is happening. I just have to spend the time to fix it now.

After I put in about twelve hours between working and sleeping today, I went to Lower Woodland park and went to softball practice. It was about two hours away from starting. So I sat in my truck listening to the radio and enjoying the A/C. Around seven o’clock John from the team got there. We went to the field together and watched some people playing kickball while we were waiting for our turn to get on the field.

We scrimmaged the Rockets. We beat them again. Actually we beat them pretty easily today. That was nice. After the practice I headed home and watched some TV and played ESPN poker until around three in the morning. I was in a multi-table tournament and ended up in second place over all.

Meeting with the Coroner

August 8th, 2005

I stayed in Pullman today to meet with the coroner. I was able to go to the Pullman Fire meeting to talk about doing our sports events at WSU. I was able to sign up for a good place at the stadium for the first game on September first. It looks like I may not be able to go see many games in my seat that I paid for. But I was a little worried about the status of my seniority. When we went down the list Phil started with the crew leaders then he went to me. So, I hope people remember that.

After that meeting I went to Colfax and met with Pete. We talked about the coroners office and the upcoming changes. I made my case talking about it will not cost more for training and equipping me. It will only cost him for me what it would cost for him to have Patti. There will be no additional cost of having me. I reminding him how important this job is to me. I reminding him my dedication of driving back and forth week after week for fourteen months. I told him some ways we could save money. It is sounding more that I will not lose my job. He was sort of testing me to see how I would react when he told me that. To see if I would say, fine, I will not work for less money. Or if I would come up with ways to cut costs.

I also told him to include me when him or Patti get calls. I would go out unpaid for a while to get more experience with those who have more experience. I want to be better.

After the meeting I went to Colfax fire for a few minutes at talked to Rick who was filling in for Carl again. I was only there for about fifteen minutes. It was getting late and I figured I would go home and get some sleep before I had to be up at six o’clock in the morning to get to work.

I got home and actually just sat around for a while. I cleaned up some of the trash that was dumped over by a dog. Then I watched TV. I just did not feel like going to bed. Finally, at midnight I went to bed. I was in bed for about forty minutes tossing and turning. It was too warm and I was not tired. So I packed my truck and headed to Seattle.

I ended up going straight to work. I got there at about four-forty-five in the morning.

Continuation of thirty hours in a row

August 7th, 2005

… and playing and playing. Finally at about eight in the morning I stopped playing poker. I went outside to the bright sun covered in the smoke from the fire down south. It made the sun appear to be blood red. It was really neat looking.

I went to Colfax and got some breakfast and stopped by the fire station there. I talked to Rick for a while about the fire and about new things going on at Pullman Fire.

I went home and broke out the lawn mower and worked on mowing the back yard. I got almost all of it mowed. Then I sprayed off the deck and the siding. Getting rid of the dirt and cob-web build ups. It looks very nice now. Then I spent the next couple hours watching the Mariners and other ESPN shows.

Around five o’clock I went to the jail with dinner. I hung out there until about seven o’clock pm. I helped by manning control from time to time so Curtis and Perry could both do stuff on the floor at the same time.

I went home and watched Malcolm in the Middle and King of the Hill. Both were re-runs. I started to watch the Simpsons. But that was a re-run so I set my alarm to go off in one hour so I could watch Family Guy. It went off and the Family Guy was getting ready to start. As it turned out the Family Guy was a re-run. So I went back to sleep. I got up at midnight and went to my bed. It had been thirty hours from the time I woke up yesterday to eight o’clock pm tonight when I went to bed.

What is amazing about that is when I was working full time at the jail, I did that every week. I would get up around ten o’clock pm on Thursday night. I would work from Midnight to eight o’clock am on Friday. I would go home and I would stay up all day Friday and finally go to bed anywhere from two to four am on Saturday morning.

A short day that went forever.

August 6th, 2005

I got out of bed around two in the afternoon after sleeping pretty well. I had a little bit of time to kill before I had to be in Pullman for being on duty. I got my left over pizza from last night and went to the fire station in Colfax. I heated it up there and talked with Scott and Matt. We were watching the World Poker Tour and getting reports about a fire starting down in Garfield county. It was dumping a lot of smoke over Pullman. Nothing was hitting Colfax however.

When it came close to six o’clock I headed to Pullman. I got my uniform on and went to the fire station. We did our daily vehicle checks. Then Nick and I did some more drive time following that we went and did some pumping. We talked about setting up the pump and how to deal with certain situation when they arise.

Then I went to Ryan’s. We went and got some dinner and then went to my office and we played poker all night long. Ryan left around four in the morning and I was still playing and playing and playing …

Poker all night long

August 5th, 2005

My plans were to actually not do anything today after work but to go home and vegetate. But as it turns out Dearth needed some coverage at the fire station for a bit so he asked if I would cover. I told him I would. I was on from six to nine pm. Nothing came in. But I was in my office with Ryan until about two in the morning playing ESPN poker.

I headed home a little after he left and sat up watching TV to around five in the morning.

Engineer training

August 4th, 2005

Today I was supposed to meet with Pete about the coroners office and talk about ways of keeping me aboard. I want to get this conversation out of the way and know what is happening. The not knowing really sucks. I got a call that Pete is not going to be able to do it tonight. So we postpone it until next week.

I was able to go to the fire department for our vehicle checks. After the vehicle checks Nick, Reed, and I went to Pizza Hut for dinner then I drove the engine around for training. We were looking at the FDC’s on the different buildings around town. It was a chance to get to know where they are and where is the best place to hook up to them with a hydrant near by.

After we got back, within a couple minutes a call for a structure fire came out at Palouse Medical. We were asked to stand by for the next call. That call turned out to be nothing. So soon a second call comes out. We get ready to go only for one of the rigs at the structure fire call to go to it. So we did not get to go on any of the calls.

I hung out at the station for a while watching Rescue Me on DVD. After the final episode was over I went to get some pizza and met Ryan at my office. We played poker for a couple hours trying to win some tournaments.

Wrong way!

August 3rd, 2005

I was covering on B-shift today. I was on Rescue. LPX was still down so I just did what I could today. At about five-thirty I had been playing in a multi-table poker tournament and I was doing really well. Then a call came out for a structure fire. I went to the station leaving my game on auto-fold.

I got in my turnouts and put on my SCBA and we went enroute. When we got on scene the fire was out and they were using fans to clean out the building. We were told to go to station one and stand by for additional calls. As we were at the stop sign at Rocky way the tones go out for a fire on a deck that was extinguished. It was on State street near Blaine street. When were we on our way to the first call I saw smoke coming from a house in the area, but it looks like it was a BBQ that was smoking. We got on scene and it turns out it was the fires’ smoke I was seeing.

We looked for ignition sources and could not find one. So we called for the fire investigator. When he got there he saw some items that he recognized and was able to determine it was spontaneous combustion. We cleared the scene and went to station two. We did our daily vehicle checks and I polished my boots.

When I was done with that I was going to wipe the floor where I was polishing them when I heard we were going to be dispatched to a roll-over accident. We got in our turnouts and I was driving. It was my first code response in Rescue since coming back. I was happy about that.

We were going down Grand near UPS in the construction zone. A car in front of us was taking its time pulling over. When it did it was still blocking my lane partially. So I did a quick lane change and avoided hitting any cones. Then I found a spot to quickly get back over. The guys in Rescue were commenting on my swift maneuvering.

The call was at about mile-post thirteen on SR-One-Ninety-Four. It was a long code run. Just was we were pulling into the driveway where the accident was we were cancelled. So we turned around and went back to the station.

I watched the rest of an episode of CSI and then I got some pizza, and went to my office. I invited Ryan over. He came over and had some pizza and we played poker for a few hours. He took off a little after midnight and I played a few more games before going to bed.

At about three in the morning there was a transfer from PRH to Eastern. That woke me up. It was about an hour after that when I was drifting off to sleep we got called to Wadleigh for a possible stroke.

We were going code and it was in the wee hours of the morning. For some reason I was thinking that I should go over Stadium Way and down to Bishop Blvd like when we go to Bishop Place. When we turned onto Stadium Way I asked the guys in the Rescue if they go that way to Bishop Place. Travis said he does, but we were going to “SOUTHWEST”. I thought for half a second and realized that I was going the long way to the call. So we turned up B-Street to come back around to Grand and keep going. I figured at four in the morning no one would see us.

But all of a sudden the dispatcher got on the radio and said “Rescue-thirty-Two did you just turn up B-Street?” We were all shocked they knew. Travis got on the radio and stumbled over his words trying to answer that question. We were trying to save whatever face we could. The dispatcher asked if we were going the right way now. Travis responded that we were on course.

We came down Whitman and there was a cop sitting at the red light at Whitman and Grand. I knew he was the one who let dispatch know where we were. I just smiled because I knew that he knew we went the wrong way.

We got on scene and packaged the patient and transported her to PRH. We got the cot made up and then headed back to the station. We were laughing and I was horrified by going up Stadium. When we got to the station Phil was there and poked some fun at us about it.

I called Whitcom and talked to Terry about it. She was the one dispatching us. She said they had a good laugh about it. Then I called PPD and talked to the cop who had seen us going the wrong way. It was Scott. After talking to him I tried to get some sleep but I tossed and turned for the next hour because that wrong turn kept replaying in my mind.

EMS calls in P-town

August 2nd, 2005

I went into work around nine-thirty this morning and with LPX still down there really wasn’t anything for me to do. So I just spent time trying to do other things. But there isn’t really much I could do.

So at one-thirty I headed to Pullman. I stopped at Colfax to get my turn-outs then I drove to station two. When I got there we pulled the engine outside and unloaded the eight-hundred feet of the two-and-a-half inch hose. We were going to make more room for the high-rise packs by moving the divider bar over a little bit then reloaded all the hose.

I was on Rescue. We were moving the divider over when a call came out for a diabetic emergency. So we went to the scene. It took a while on scene getting the patient to agree to go to the hospital and getting the patient ready to go. We transported the patient to the hospital. When we were going enroute the ambulance said it was enroute to PRH with one patient. I said Rescue-thirty-two same traffic with no patient. I told Brian to say that and he said he was afraid to. I did it and he said that made his day.

When we got back to the station the hose was reloaded. Nick, Erik, and I drove the engine to the training tower to top off the tank. I was doing the engineering to get more items checked off my training sheet.

We were going to go to the Nuclear Radiation Center for training. It was a very fun training we first had some classroom stuff. In the middle of that we were called for a bravo response to the Elmhurst apartments. I drove to that one. We were on scene for about fifteen minutes and then we asked if we could get back to our training. We were allowed to go back.

We got there when they were in the reactor core. We went inside and saw a reaction taking place. It was awesome looking. The glow from the reaction was the coolest thing. It gave off a light source like I had never seen. Pictures do not do it justice. We spent about thirty minutes looking at it and asking questions about it. Only about twenty-five feet of water separated us from the actual reaction.


Glow from nuclear reaction

After we were finished in the core we got a tour through the rest of the building. They had some liquid nitrogen and we learned a little bit about that and got to play with it a little bit by putting a rubber glove into it and turning it so cold it shattered. We also got some poured on our hand it did just rolled off. At first people were a little nervous about doing it, but it was nothing to worry about.

Following the tour we got some gas and got back to the station a little after midnight.

Can’t do much when the system is down.

August 1st, 2005

With LPX down today I did not get a chance to do very much. In fact I sat around the whole day waiting for LPX to come up so I could do some testing, but that was not to be.

I left to go home at about six o’clock and I talked to Brian on the way home. It has almost been a year since I last talked to him, aside from the other night when he called out of the blue.

He wanted me to come up to hang out with him. I was not sure I wanted to because of the amount of time I had before I wanted to be in bed. But dinner was sooner than normal, so I decided to head up to his place around eight o’clock pm.

It did not take as long as I would have thought it would take to drive to Everett, but it still took a bit. I went inside and we sat on the couch and talked for a while. Then he took me downstairs where his room is. He actually has the whole basement to himself.

We hung out down there and talked for quite a while. I actually left way later than I had hoped to. So I did not get home until almost one in the morning. I wanted to be up at seven in the morning, so it is going to be a night of less sleep than I would like.