Eight Hours on QCThunder

December 30th, 2005

I spent the day working on my work. I was able to discover there were a few more bug I could not fix as of right now. I got those removed from my list of things to do. I also wrote up my report on bug. I am up to nearly sixty completed for this release.

After I got done working on those bugs I started to work on the QCThunder website. I started to get some stuff done and I just kept trucking along. I am really digging ASP.NET Two.Oh. I kept getting ready to leave, but I wanted to do one more thing. I was having problems along the way. For a while the CSS did not want to work, but then it just started working. Soon I was telling myself I would grab some dinner then I would head back and work. Finally at about twelve-thirty in the morning I decided to call it a night. I forced myself to leave. I could have kept working but I wanted to get home.

I got some dinner at home and watched some TV then I got a call from Colfax. It was about two in the morning. I went on it and went back to my house. I watched a TV show called Stripe Search. It was about getting a group of guys to perform in Las Vegas. And they were eliminating people as time went on. I was going to go to bed after the episode, but another one would come on. I ended up watching it until six in the morning when I went to bed.

A big coroners meeting

December 29th, 2005

I slept until noon today. I was that tired. When I got up I had no will to work. But I sat down and looked at some stuff anyway and got a couple things done. But I decided to head to Colfax early so I could print my report and pictures from the call from yesterday.

While I was there I stopped by some offices and said hi to people at the county. I also went to the jail and talked to the Sgt for a bit. Then I had to run to the meeting at Eddy’s. We discussed several cases we have had over the last month. Plus the double murder-suicide. We talked about the other suicide, but we did not go over the photos from that one.

We were there for about three hours. Then I headed to Pullman. I was on call. It was quiet all night though so I did not go out on a call. I did get my computer put together and removed the noisy fan. I also got a new one ordered. I got Visual Studio.NET and SQL Server Ought-Five installed on it.

I imported my Quad-City Thunder application on it. I also got my data backup set up on it. I am happy with the new setup and how it is working.

Long day with a Coroners call included

December 28th, 2005

Having been up all night long, I got to Colfax and got my new hard drive for my computer to bring back to Colfax. I also hung out in town for most of the morning. Having worked all night I figured I could do that.

While I was in Colfax I thought I would get some sleep before I had to be back in Pullman to be on call. I got a call from Pete just two hours after my nap started. I ended up having to go out on a death. So I was dealing with that for a couple hours. I got back to Colfax and got ready to come to Pullman.

I spent time getting a the new hard drive formatted and Windows Two-Thousand-Three Server installed on it. Then I put in my external hard drive enclosure. But the fan was so loud that I decided to stop using it.

I actually stayed up until about midnight when I finally decided to get some sleep.

Up all night

December 27th, 2005

Through out the day I did not get a lot done but as the evening wore on I was moving on getting my computer working nicely with my video capture card and trying to get the video for Jon made. So at about three in the morning I got going and closed out about five or six bugs working to the wee morning hours. Ending with a call for service about three minutes after six o’clock in the morning.

I also had to make a trip to Radio Shack to get an audio cable and I stopped at Shopko to get a VCR as my old one was eating tapes. I got those hooked to my computer.

After it was done I helped to wash Rescue and headed to Colfax.

A holiday from work

December 26th, 2005

Today is the official holiday for Christmas from NetUpdate. I took the opportunity to relax for the most part. I slept in. Then I went down to the Colfax Fire station to hang out for a little bit.

It was a very lazy day until I got to Pullman. I spent most of the afternoon trying to get the football game my brother played in that was televised back in the eighties recorded on to the computer. It went well. I think in two hours of footage I dropped about six frames. That is good compared to what I was dropping before.

As I was playing the stuff back I found the audio was off pretty badly at some points. I worked on it for a while trying to figure out how to make it better. Around seven I went to do vehicle maintenance, but Dearth said he had already done it.

I went to the station to hang out for a while. Then I decided to come back and work on my DVD project for a few more hours. I spent many hours into the night trying to get it working but I was unable to get it perfect, but I came pretty close to getting the audio to match up with the video.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

December 25th, 2005

I got up this morning and grabbed my DVD and headed home. I watched some TV and got something to eat. Then I decided to head to the jail. I dropped off the paper and picture paper for the coroners office then I went to the control room. I helped out up there with visiting and when an inmate eat some mushrooms that he was allergic to. I also ran control for a while during the time a guy was brought in for booking.

I was there for about four hours and had some lunch with them. It was a nice Christmas Dinner. I went home a little after four and just hung out there all day. I tried to call my mom but they were getting ready to eat so I was told she would call me back.

I opened my presents. I got a three-hundred-gig hard drive, I got several shirts, I got a new bat bag, and I got golf shoes and golf balls. I spend the rest of the evening watching Dodgeball and some other TV shows including a made for TV movie called John Christmas. I headed off to bed at one-thirty.

My new capture card

December 24th, 2005

I woke up after a series of strange dreams. Including seeing some buildings at the water front and seeing one being dismantled. When it was being worked on it fell over onto the roadway. Where the space shuttle and an airplane were tripped up on it. Then Carl was driving the Pullman fire engine around trying to run over people who had Cougar stuff. I was working on keeping them safe. o

I went to Colfax fire and hung out with Carl. I told him about the dreams I was having. I hung out there for several hours before I had to get to Pullman for being on call.

When I got to Pullman I hooked up my video capture card in my video editing computer. I was able to capture high resolution video without dropping frames. I was pretty happy about that.

I met up with Chuck at the fire station. We were going to go to station one for a big dinner with those guys. There was turkey, ham, potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and more. It was a very good meal. I was full when we were done eating. Chuck and I hung out some more while we were chatting with the guys from station one. Chuck and I helped to clean up and then we went to the Deuce to drop of the Rescue and go home.

I worked on my video editing stuff some more. I wanted to make a DVD with my Boating on the Snake video and a few other things to see how it would work. I am excited to try it ou. We got called out around one-thirty in the morning. It was at Bishop Place. We were there and packaged the patient. When we got outside we found out we were getting called on another call. So the PL went back to the station. The Rescue guys stayed and the medic went to the hospital with the first patient. The medic from the Deuce went to this call. I was the primary EMT and dealt with the patient until Medic Thirty-Two got to the scene.

We helped transport the patient to the hospital. Then I went back to my office to finish working on the DVD that I was making.

Short Work Day

December 23rd, 2005

Today was a day the office planned on going off duty early. I showed up around eleven in the morning. They planned on shutting down around two in the afternoon. I was working on the LP import problem. I was able to finally figure out what the problem was. We were sending in some null values when we sent all the information necessary to send a request. So I had to code for that and figure out how to find the null value and get rid of it. It comes in XML. So I just look for that node and if it is there, then I see if a value is null, if it is I remove that node. Otherwise I can leave it because life is good. That fix did the trick. We don’t lose the data anymore.

After I got that completed. It was about three. I locked up the office and headed to Colfax. I got into town around seven-thirty pm. I stopped by Colfax fire and hung out with Carl. We were chatting and I was getting hungry. I was about to leave when Bulldog Pizza called with an extra pizza if we wanted it. I went to Bulldog and got the pizza. I got back to the station. I set down the pizza and was ready to eat when the tones went out. So I went on the call and we transported to the hospital. I got back and the pizza was sort of cool. I did have one hot slice however.

We stayed there until around ten o’clock when I headed home. I stayed up until around three in the morning.

Birthday Celebration

December 22nd, 2005

I spent the whole day at work trying to figure out the problem of us sending off data to LP and having it come back to us and wipe out data from our database. I have been checking on the returns and they don’t look different, between good ones and bad ones. But I narrowed down the reason for getting the good and the bad returns. It is a strange problem where if I send it an application with all the required data, then I get a bad return. If I send in an application where I need to add some data before submitting in their application then I get a good return. I also discovered that if I send them all the data they need, and simply “view” the application before submitting it, and not change anything I will get a good return back. It is very strange indeed.

I went to dinner with some of the family for my birthday. I got some gifts. Then I went to Jon’s house to work on some ASP.NET stuff for the Thunder Football website. I am making it with the latest and greatest technology. It should be pretty cool. We worked on that until around midnight. I also got a pointer from him. After talking him through the above stuff he asked me what data was being sent to FNMA. I had only been looking at what we get back. But our stuff will parse through the data for a bit and then sent something to FNMA. That is where the error happens. So I need to compare what we send to our FNMA component and see what is being sent in.

Spinning my wheels

December 21st, 2005

I spent the day spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to fix the LP problem. I think I am finally on the right track. So it will be a matter zeroing in on the problem. But at least I am playing in the right playfield.

I talked to Jon about helping me with the ASP.NET application, but we decided to work on it tomorrow so when I went home I just watched some TV and played with Amber and petted Jen.

Nice drive over the pass

December 20th, 2005

I slept in to about noon today. Then I decided that it would be best if I got on the road and over the pass before it got really late. So I jumped on the computer and got just a few things done, mainly e-mail related. Then I hit the road. I got my stuff packed from Colfax and I was off to the races.

When I got to the pass it was bare and wet with slush in places. It was a quick drive. I went to Jiffy Lube in Renton when I got here to put oil in the truck. I had been needed an oil change.

I went home and played with Amber and Jen for a while before we ate dinner. Then I watched TV for the evening.

Eddie’s Birthday

December 19th, 2005

I called up Eddie to wish him a happy birthday. He is one day younger than I am. I did not get him only an answering machine. I left a message.

I was on call tonight, but it was so dead. There was nothing at all for us to go on. We went to Sella’s for Nicks last night. Then Brian and I had to go to station one to fill the cascade system. It was low on a couple tanks. After we were done we went to the Deuce and watched some TV. I headed to the office and stayed up pretty late online.

Eleven Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty Days of Greatness

December 18th, 2005

Today is my thirty-second birthday. I got up to a text message from Mirenda saying happy birthday. I jumped in the shower and while I was there Brandon called and left a happy birthday message. I was so happy he called.

The plan was to go to My Office to watch some football games. I went to my office and read my e-mail. Matty from G-Shack started a thread and wished me a happy birthday and told me to drink a shot of whiskey for him. I went to my collection of booze and grabbed some Jack Daniels. I poured what was probably two shots. I downed it.

I went to My Office and got a pitcher of beer and pop. Ryan got there when I did. Ron was there as well. Heather and C-Bass showed up as well. We watched the Seahawks and some of the other football games that were in progress. The Hawks won as I worked on my beer and Ron also got me a shot of whiskey to toast my birthday.

We were there for a couple hours when everyone decided to head out. I went to Ryans apartment. He got some ice cream and cheese cake for us to have. We watched the TV shows from last Sunday that he recorded for me.

When they were done I went to my office and got online and chatted with a couple people before I headed back to my place. I planned on watching the Sunday night TV shows. After Family Guy was over I went to Subway and got some dinner and then headed to the jail to eat it. I hung out there talking with everyone. I went back home around eleven-thirty because I still had some laundry to get finished that I started earlier.

Mom and Jon had also called me today to wish me a happy birthday. On my facebook account I also got these messages:

Bryce Cuello wrote
Hey Scotty, Hope you had a great Birthday and that you didn’t drink too much. Have a great Holiday.

Nick Anderson wrote
Happy Birthday Scotty, did your present come yet? I paid him double to make it extra special. I hope you like whip cream!

Leif Kvalheim wrote
Happy Bday!

Josh Olson wrote
Happy B-Day big Scotty. Hope everything goes well. Best wishes.

Matty Hendrix (FSU) wrote
HAPPY BDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chris’ Big Christmas Party

December 17th, 2005

I got up around eleven o’clock am with a phone call from Pete. He was just checking on my status for being on call. He also wished me a happy birthday. Reed is covering me tonight so I can got to the party and drink at midnight when I get off call and my birthday starts.

I called Ryan up and we planned on going to Moscow for lunch and I needed to get a couple things for the coroners office. I went to the fire station and cleaned the Rescue from last night. It had gotten dirty and was not cleaned. I hung around the station until I got a call from Ryan that he was ready. I picked him up at Beasley and then we went to Taco Bell. I stopped at Staples to get some paper and photo paper as well.

Then we went to Beasley for the mens basketball game. I only had seven bucks and Ryan did not have any. We tried to get tickets and the lady at the booth said she could not take plastic. So she was saying we would probably have to go to the main ticket office inside. Then I asked if we would be able to sit together if he bought a ticket there. Then she just gave us a free ticket with mine. So we got to sit together and got in cheap.

We sat a few rows up from the court. It was a good game. It was close in the first half, but then the Cougs lit it up. I sat on the side where Drew, one of the cheerleaders, always stands. He is a ten-six-seven.

After the game Ryan was going to go see a movie. I went to my office to hand out for a while. The party did not start until about six o’clock pm. So I got online and chatted with some people as well as checked my E-mail.

As it got close to six I went to Dissmores and got some cookies and some corn dogs. I went to the liquor store and got some mini-bottles of tequila for a birthday shot with people. I also picked up a few things I was low on.

I went to the party and there were a handfull of people there. As the night went on more and more people showed up. Pretty soon it was packed and people were having a good time eating and drinking.

Then later in the evening people started to take off. But there were some plans to play some games. We played Dirty Mind followed by Wheel of Intoxication. Midnight hit close to the time we were playing wheel of intoxication. I passed out the shots to people who wanted them. Tref, Chuck, Susan, and I all had one. I actually had two. Tref toasted to my birthday. I also had a couple glasses of beer.

While playing Wheel of Intoxication there is a space called CHUG OR DARE. Chuck got it and thought it said HUG OR DARE. So he got up quickly and turned to Vinnie who was right next to Chuck. He gave Vinnie a big hug. Then we realized Chuck thought it said hug. We were laughing so hard. It was the funniest thing. We played a little while longer and soon people were pretty much gone. We finished off the game with one more round then the party was breaking up around one-thirty in the morning.

T-minus Seven Hours

December 17th, 2005

It is seven hours from my birthday. Yesterday Wenis messaged me and said Happy Birthday. He knew he would not be around much on the weekend so he wanted to let me know ahead of time.

Turning thirty-two is not a huge thing, not like turning thirty. Thirty was a big change, because you were no longer able to say you were twenty-something. Turning thirty-two will get me no more ignored than being thirty-one, except that I am just getting closer to the big-four-oh.

I will talk a bunch more when I have my birthday post, I just wanted to make one more post while I am not thirty-two.

Busy day of calls

December 16th, 2005

This morning I was woken up at around six-twenty for a car accident. Reed showed up and we went en route. We got to the one-ninety-four and Wawawai turn off when we were cancelled. So we turned around and headed back to the station. As we were getting ready to back the rig into the station the tones went off for a sick person on Bishop Blvd. We went code to that and helped transport the patient to the hospital. We had to get gas on our way back to the station. We washed the rig because it was really dirty.

I got to work and went to work on my bugs. I was able to clear a couple of them off the table for myself. So I felt like I made some accomplishments. I still have more bugs to take care of.

I am covering for Josh, who I found out the other day has tendered his resignation. He wants to focus on coaching high school basketball. So he does not have enough time to do both the fire department and basketball. Four years ago he would have, but today, reserves are a lot more busy than in the past so I could understand that.

I am on Rescue with Erik. We were going to go to station one for photos and then get back to the deuce so we could go home and do our thing. I was planning on hanging out with Ryan because we missed it yesterday. But before leaving station one when we were done with the pictures we got a call for a fire alarm. We got on scene and were released at nearly the same time. So we went back and parked. I filled in my time card and the tones go off for a drunk person at State and McKenzie. I was the driver, but it was a bravo so we came in non-code. Going up McKenzie was so slow it looked like we were going it on purpose. But it was floored and barely made it up the hill.

I walked down and there was a guy sitting on the ground. He did not want to cooperate too well. But I made a connection with him. I got him to work with me. I ended up doing most of the medical things I needed to in order to get him kicked loose. He was all over the board. Some times being very easy to deal with, other times being nearly impossible. But I was able to do enough and work with him enough to get our job done. When it was over with Erik told me he was very impressed with what I did with him and he told me he thought I had done a very good job. I thanked him for the compliments.

After that was done I got ahold of Ryan and discussed what we were going to have for dinner. It was decided that we would get Cougar Country. I stopped there and got the dinner. I went with it to Ryan’s place. We were getting ready to watch the Bad News Bears, the new version of it. That was when another call came out. Someone hurt himself and we had to go pick him up and take him to the hospital. It sounded pretty serious when we were given updates. I was thinking broken neck. It turned out when we got there he had feeling and was getting better, but he was still worried about everything.

Following the transport I went to Ryans and we finally watched the Bad News Bears. It was a pretty good movie. I was worth watching once.

I got online and got into a conversation with someone from the UI. We talked for about two and a half hours. It was past four in the morning when I finally got to bed. I was pretty tired by that time. But it was fun talking to this guy. I hope we talk again soon. He seemed very nice.

Last Radio show of the year

December 15th, 2005

The day started out with meeting up with Jeff from Motley and Motley. He took a look at my property to let me know what his thoughts were about building a road. It does not look very good. So I am going to have to find some other avenue, no pun intended.

I went from there to get some breakfast and look at one of the other possible entry points. Following that I made my way to Pullman for my final radio show of the semester. Tom was meeting me there and we were going to talk sports and politics. I let Tom lead the way with the discussions. We had a couple callers to the show today and I ended up putting one guy on the air to chat with. The other caller did not want to go on the air. It was a fun show and to top it off I got a full recording of it.

I went to the office to work on some bugs I had in my pipeline. I did that until it was time to go to the fire station. We were going to work on the yearly maintenance of the generators and fan from the reserve rigs. That took a lot longer than we had hoped it would. Then as I was walking the generator to rescue I slipped and hurt my right knee. It is pretty sore. I hope it is nothing but a pull and I will not get laid up or anything.

After we got back with Rescue I went to get some pizza and went to my office. Ryan and I had planned on watching a movie but after being as late as we were with everything we decided to postpone everything until tomorrow.

Company Christmas Party

December 14th, 2005

Today is the company Christmas Party. I went to work a little earlier than I would normally because I got up early. I got ready and packed my stuff and then headed out.

At around one in the afternoon lunch was served. By that time I had one of my bus completed and out of the way. We had lasagna, pasta, garlic bread and some chicken wings. It was good food. I was full after my meal.

Roger and I went to play some Ping Pong while everyone finished eats. Then we had a Christmas Present exchange. All the gifts were purchased by the company and a number was drawn for who got to go first. But what would happen is that if someone wanted your gift they could take it or get one from under the tree.

On my turn I picked out a gift that had three flashlights. It was pretty cool considering some people got candles and book ends. So I was pretty happy. But Andrew was after me. He was going to take my gift and everyone started to laugh because earlier I talked about how I would cry if someone took my gift.

He ended up not taking it and he got some gift he did not really want. Some people were able to trade with the gifts that were left under the tree if they got a gift that did not fit with the person. So Andrew had two choices I told him about one gift I almost took because it had the “feel” of a tool, some sort of manly-gift. He took my advise and took it. He tore a big part out of it and the expression on his face of defeat and disbelief was priceless. He turned to the rest of the people and showed a cat calendar and appointment book. Everyone started to laugh so hard. It was great. I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard.

After we were done with the exchange I had some cheesecake then went back to my cube and got ready to head to Colfax. It was going to be a bit of a trip and I was starting out later than I had wanted to.

When I got to Colfax I went to the Sheriff’s Office to work on printing out my pictures from my last two cases and writing up reports on them. It took a long to print all the pictures and to write up what I needed to write up. I left everything for Pete and went to my house. I watched some TV for a bit before I went off to bed.

Ordering a present

December 13th, 2005

I helped Bill order a present for my mom when I got home from work. It was an average day at work. I got some bugs done and Roger and I played some ping pong.

After ordering the present for my mom I decided to just sit around and surf the web and watch some TV.

Birthday Week

December 12th, 2005

The end of the week is my birthday and I know my mom plans on giving me my birthday present before I head back this time.

I left to go to Seattle but after a sleeping delay. I made it to the office around noon. So it was not really bad time with the road conditions the way they were.

We went out to QDoba for lunch when I got here. It was a good lunch.

I went back to the office and got some of the bugs I had assigned to me done. By this time I had four bugs in the pipeline. I got two of them done leaving the one I am dreading until tomorrow. They are not going to be hard, just busy work. I really don’t like to do the busy work bugs.

I went home around six in the afternoon after checking out some of the latest news on the murders. It was released that it was murder-suicide but they did not say much more than that. I saw myself on TV as well.

At home I hooked up my computer and had dinner with the family. I told them about my plans to develop my land and where I am in the process. A lot of it is going to rely on building the road and figuring out what the utilities will cost to include.

Murder in Pullman

December 11th, 2005

The day started off with me going to the command post to report for duty. The plan was to look at the scene and photo it. Then come back after the crime lab is done doing their initial stuff and then go back and do what we had to do. Then the crime lab with finish up what they had to do.

That changed as the day went on. The place where these murders took place was the same place where a lady was murdered nine years ago. That also happened to be the last murder in Pullman.

We waited around for nearly an hour and a half before getting inside. It was getting cold, finally they let us in. We went around the house and looked at items and then finally to the room where the bodies were. It was not as bad as the suicide was from the other day that I looked at. It was not nearly as bad. In fact, I think that really prepared me for violent things like this.

After doing some initial crime scene photos we went to the living room and talked with and got more information from the police for the next few hours. We were getting hungry so we went to get some lunch. We were in our coroners office stuff so we got some looks for sure. I told Pete it was because they were so impressed with our new clothing items.

We got back to the scene and the crime scene investigators left for lunch. We stayed and got some more information. They came back and it was time for us to do our thing. We went back and examined the bodies and photoed the scene some more. Then we called the funeral home for removal. There had been media all day long outside the apartment. They had been snapping photos and gathering video. They also taped us removing the bodies.

We left the scene and went to the funeral home to do our final examination and make plans for autopsies. Once the plan was set into action I left to go home. I was still planning on heading back to Seattle today. Patti also went home.

On my way to Colfax I heard the Colfax EMT’s get called to a possible unattended death. So I knew we were going to get called to that. Patti and I met up at the scene. It was a guy who went to bed and did not wake up. It was a pretty straight forward case. We were only there for about forty minutes investigating the scene and then after the funeral home removed the body Patti went there to further examine the body. I went home and watched my Sunday night TV shows. I decided to not head back to Seattle tonight. I was really tired from working and staying up so many hours this weekend.

I decided to go to bed around nine because Family Guy was a rerun.

Three Deaths in Pullman

December 10th, 2005

Quite a morning. I woke up and I was still tired, but I got moving and went to Pullman to get my uniform and some breakfast. I met up with Dearth at the fire station. We drove up to Beasley and parked. I brought my laptop to watch some movies. We ended up watching Anchorman. We were going to watch Harold and Kumar go to WhiteCastle but it kept freezing up.

While we were in the first aid room a guy walked by and asked why we were there so early. It turned out that the ceremony did not start until ten and we were there at seven. We told he we did not know why, expect that was the time on the E-mail.

Finally people started to show up closer to ten. We were both really tired. We watched TV and watched parts of the ceremony off and on through out the day. It ended around noon but there were people there taking pictures and whatnot for another half hour plus.

We were finally able to leave and got back to the station around one in the afternoon. I hung out there watching some TV. No calls came in. But around seven in the evening a call came in for us to stand by at Stadium and Richie. We were waiting and listening to the police band. That is when I heard a cop says “two DOA?” The other responded “yes.” Then after listening some more I found out that once they entered they found one more person. I was really freaked out because it is odd to have that many people die in Pullman at once. I figured I would be doing a coroners case soon.

I went back to the station where we got another call for someone at Orton hall. When they was done I went back to the office. I was thinking I should get some sleep because it was going to be a long day. But the more I listened the more I realized we would not be called for many hours. I finally went to sleep after I got a call from Pete about it. Because I was in Pullman he was going to have me interface with command.

I went to the scene and talked with Dornes at the scene. He told me what was going to happen. I relayed that information to Pete and went back to my office to get some sleep. I was very tired and I was going to be getting up sometime before seven o’clock in the morning.

Free Day Off

December 9th, 2005

I stayed up all night long working on the last of my bugs. I got them closed out and the build completed around six thirty in the morning. I loaded my truck with all my pop containers and other trash from around the office as I had plans to go to the dump. I drove to Colfax and got my new battery into my four wheeler and plowed my driveway. It took about an hour total to get it take care of. I also got the snow off the stairs.

I then loaded my trash cans from the house and went to city hall. I wanted to talk to them about developing my property. I got word they could not help build the road or anything, but they are willing to help out in other ways as they can. Then I went to the county and got information about the properties around mine so I could get ahold of the property owners.

I went to the dump and emptied the trash. Then it was off to the car wash to spray out my truck to get the pop and other liquids that had leaked from the bags out of the back of my truck.

I went to get some work done or at least be in the office. That is when I found my internet connection was done. I could not get anything done. I called Chris and told him that. He said that it was a sign I was supposed to go out and do other stuff. He told me he assigned two new bugs to me today.

I left my office and got some lunch then returned. I worked on doing some rough plans to see what kind of houses and how many houses I could fit on the land to get an idea of what kind of money we could get back. It looks good so far, but I have a lot of information to gather and put together before I can present it to anyone for funding.

I headed home sort of early because I was going to have to be back in Pullman at six-thirty tomorrow morning for graduation. I was really tired because I haven’t slept in quite a while. I stopped at Colfax fire for a while and watched a movie with Ken. Then I went home and watched some TV before going to bed. I was going to get about nine hours of sleep.

Two fun interviews

December 8th, 2005

I got up and had to run straight to the radio station for my interviews. I had Chris Warren from the Brickwall Comedy Club in Spokane coming on to talk about his trips to Iraq to entertain the troops. It was interesting to hear it from him. We pretty much covered what was in his journal entries from the trip. It was very cool. He is a right-leaning comic and he had some good news out of Iraq to share that is not heard on the news.

Following him I had Bob Wollan from the Pullman High Greyhounds to talk about their championship football season. We spoke for about a half hour about football.

Then I headed to the office and got one of the bugs knocked out before heading back to the CUB for the meeting for KZUU. My talk show got an award for the Best Talk Show Fall Ought-Five. It was fun to get.

As soon as the meeting was over right at six o’clock pm I turned on my pager to hear them page out a fire alarm. It took forever to get to the fire station. Reed and I went en route and made it really close before we were cancelled. We went back to the station and I started on my vehicle checks. I was also watching the WSU-Gonzaga basketball game. The Zags pretty much owned the game. After the game was done Drew took us out in medic-thirty-one to get checked off. The last check off was not valid because it was not Drew or Eric who checked us off.

I got done in time to watch CSI. Then I went back to my office and surfed the web for a couple hours until a call came out. We went en route and were cancelled right away. So I washed the engine waiting for the other engine to get back from the call. I logged my time in the book and then went back to my office.

I decided that it was late enough that I would just stay up and finish the last bug on my plate. I got it done right around five in the morning. Then I was updating my boss with my bug output. But I found that my build failed. I looked into it and it turned out the build was being done while a second build was going and that made it fail. So while I wanted for the build to get complete I figured I would clean up my office. I had about sixty pop containers all over the place. It feels so empty in here without them. I actually have space to work now.

I loaded my truck with them and I am going to make a dump run. I need to get the stuff from my house and then I will go to the dump. I have been needing to do it for a while. I finally got a new battery for my quad. So I will get my drive way plowed before I come back to Pullman for the day of work tomorrow.

The Brass Rings

December 7th, 2005

I had stayed up until nearly six in the morning so I slept until about eleven o’clock this morning. I got up and working a little bit on some more bugs. But I got some knocked out through out the night, that is why I stayed up.

Ryan and I met up for lunch and we went to Pizza Pipeline for some grub. We sat in my truck and talked about the suicide from yesterday, no details just generalities about suicide and I gave him my idea on how to avoid suicide.

I decided to play some poker. I played for about an hour or so. I lost. It was not a bunch of fun for me, but oh well. I will just have to win next time I play.

At about seven o’clock I went to the fire station to get the van and go to Bryan for the Brass Rings concert. I had to be up there because they were going to light some candles and I had to be available in case a fire broke out. It was a great concert. It was five people playing brass instruments. They played a lot of Christmas Songs. It was a total Christmas Experience. I really enjoyed it. They had some songs where they had the people sing along with the song. They played for two hours and played a couple of my favorites. Including Little Drummer Boy and Carol of the Bells.

Once the show was over I took the van back and headed to my office. I got some stuff ready for my interview with Chris, the Politically Incorrect Comic. I wanted to have enough material for an hour long show.

When I got home I heard on my pager Colfax fire department was out on a fire. So I went to the station but it was under control. Randy came in from Albion. So we sat around and talked for about an hour. Then the people on the fire ground returned. We helped them reload the hose they used. Then I went home and went to sleep.

Suicide should not be an option

December 6th, 2005

Today was a long day as I did a lot of things. I started by going to the funeral home to look at the wounds of the person who committed suicide. It was devastating destruction. I think that is the worst thing I have seen in person in my life. Not something that is fun. I think that is someone is willing to kill themselves because life is so bad, they should instead just leave everything behind. Get on a plane and go to some far off place and totally start over. Leave everything behind. That is what they do when they kill themselves. So leaving everything behind would be no different if they just dropped their life and left to start new.

The difference would be that the short-term problems that the person is running away from would not turn into a long-term solution that is final (dying).

After that was done I went to the office to get some work started. I got a call from Whitcom about someone who died in Pine City. So I met Pete up there and did an investigation on the body. So that is two deaths in two days. And two bodies I examined in one day. Pretty usual.

After that was done I met with Steve to look at a couple mobile homes on the Albion road. I was looking at buying one when it looked like my house was going to be sold.

I went to the office and tried to get some work done when I was finished looking at the mobile homes. Around five I had to get ready to go to the fire department. There was ropes training tonight and I was going to participate in it.

We met up at the deuce first. Then Reed and I went to station one for a meeting then off to the Grime Way Steam Plant. I worked with a group that was about thirty feet off the floor getting someone down. It took a long time to get everything set up and get the person down. When we finally did it, I went to the other group and watched them. They were doing a confined space drill. Once they were done I helped to clean everything up.

We were doing the post meeting when a delta call came out. Reed and I jumped in rescue and went in route. We got on scene first, beating the ambulance by about ten seconds. I helped to get the patient into the ambulance. We were on scene for about one minute.

After that call Reed and I hit Cougar Country for some dinner and went back to the station to eat it. It was about negative two degrees outside. Very cold. It was so cold the engine pumps froze on all the fire engines. So we worked on getting them thawed so we could fight a fire if one happened. They took another hour or so. When it was all said and done I had been working for six hours.

After I got back to the office I wanted to get some work done, but I was surfing the net instead. I did that until a call came out. Reed did not show up so we did not go enroute, but the ambulance got the person and went in route to the hospital so fast I don’t know if we would have made it to the scene or not.

I did finally start to work on some stuff. I got two bugs knocked out by six o’clock in the morning when I finally went to sleep.

Leaving early to go to Colfax

December 5th, 2005

When I got up this morning I got my clothes down stairs so they could be washed and then made my way to work. I got a call from Pete about a suicide in Pullman. He wanted to know if I would work it with him. But I was in Seattle so that was not possible. He suggested that I go see the body when I get into town to investigate the wounds.

I went to work and got some bugs done and got some assigned to me. Noah, Chris, and I went to Qdoba for lunch. We also spent time in Chris’ office talking about playing poker. Chris is building an app that is used to tell you what you should do on certain hands depending on where you are sitting. It is pretty cool.

I decided I would leave around four to get home and get packed so I could get on the road to Colfax. It was going to be a long drive no doubt. When I got home I got some food and my clothes. I talked to my mom and played with Amber and Jen a little bit then I took off.

My power steering fluid was low so I added some at the gas station when I was topping off my gas tank.

The drive over was pretty easy, but it was slow going at points. The roads looked icy from time to time. I got to Colfax and stopped by the SO. I found out the guy who committed suicide used a shotgun. That is not going to be pretty to see. I am a little nervous about looking at the wounds tomorrow.

I went home and worked on getting files off my laptop and moving them to my external hard drive so they can be backed up. I wanted to go to bed sort of early because I planned on getting to the funeral home early enough to get to work and get stuff done.

Of course however I stayed up a lot later than I should have, finally finding my way to be around one in the morning.

Braving the commercial world

December 4th, 2005

It is Christmas Season and I braved the shopping world. I started by going to Costco and parking in the farthest place I could from the door while still being in their parking lot. I sat in my truck and debated on going inside. I wanted to get some chew and I wanted to look at a few things, but I decided the waits would not be worth it to me so I left and drove to Fry’s.

I needed to look at some VCR/DVD combo units. But I took time to look at many other things trying to get ideas of things I want for Christmas and my birthday. There is always at least one ten-six-seven I see while there. In this case I saw this guy who was about six foot six with awesome blue eyes and well maintained soul-patch. I tried to watch him as long as I could, and it just was not long enough.

After checking out the items I was supposed to be there for, I left to go home. I gave my report to Bill. He is the one who wants to buy one.

When I got home I had dinner and helped to clean up. Then I wanted TV. It was the normal Sunday night shows, but tonight they were re-runs. So I mainly watched the shows off and on while surfing the net.

Hanging with Dave

December 2nd, 2005

Today I woke up with a sore neck. It hurt to move it at all. It made it hard to drive and do head checks before changing lanes. It also made it hard to do my work. But I got my stuff done and finished off my last bug. It was a hard one two. It took me hours to run down what was going on with it and then come up with a solution to fix it. I did and closed out my final bug.

Then I went home and got a hold of Dave. We headed out to hang out. We went to Cascade Casino. We played cards until about three in the morning. I was playing with the money I had with me. Once I lost it all I had no desire to get more. At one point Dave was up a lot of money so we went into the bowling alley section of the building and chatted about politics. Dave and I like to talk politics. I also told him about my idea for building on my property.

After we talked we went back into the casino. I lost my money and Dave lost some of his. Like I said we were there until about three in the morning when we finally left to go home. I wanted to get to bed a lot earlier than I had because I was planning on going to see the Pullman Greyhounds play in the State Championship game tomorrow.

SNOW!

December 1st, 2005

I love the snow and it decided to snow once I got to work today. It pretty much snowed all day long, however, it did not start to stick in Bellevue until near four in the afternoon. More on that later.

I called up Lief at the radio show and I did the show with him on the phone. We talked about the way people are taking Santa, Christmas Trees, and other Christmas icons and turning them into “holiday” icons. I spoke about how people use the word “holiday” in place of Christmas, and pretend like it is the same thing.

We talked sports and some technology news. Then a guy messaged the show and was questioning me on my view that business owner rights are being taking away with minimum wage laws and the smoking law, but I am saying people should boycott businesses because of their views on Christmas. I explained to him that the difference is the government forcing the business to do something, whereas I am just a person who is telling the business owner that I will vote with my feet and wallet. If you don’t do things like I like, I will not go there. It is still a choice the business owner has.

After the show I was in the office and got one final bug taken care of. I left around five to go home. When I got there, snow covered the ground. There was about an inch at my mom’s house. It just kept snowing all night.

I went to Jon’s and he helped me with a bug I had. We got that knocked out in about an hour or so. Then I left. When I went to his place from my mom’s. By the time I was a mile from my mom’s the snow was rain. It was raining at Jon’s.

When I got home, there was even more snow covering the ground. I stayed up watching some TV and getting updated on some of my favorite Websites.