Getting back home

March 31st, 2006

I had to get packed and ready to go. I also had to get some of Amber’s stuff packed up and ready for her to go to Janet’s house for the weekend. It took a little bit of time but I had gotten up early.

I contacted a doctors office about my sleeping and what Jon at said about my snoring. So maybe there is something that can be done. I wont know for another two weeks however.

We had lunch at the office today. It was pizza. Noah ordered one pizza with meat, one with just vegies and one with meat and vegies. The one with the meat was gone right away. The other two had a couple slices from each taken. It is so stupid people order so many pizzas with vegies on them and you see them left over as everyone goes for the meat. I wish people would get a clue about pizza ordering.

After lunch we had our meeting. It was pretty short. By this time I was really tired. I just wanted to leave and go to Pullman. But I decided to stay until at least five. When I took off I went to AMPM for my pop refill. The guy said “On the house” and away I went. The traffic was light for five o’clock pm, but it still slowed the overall trip down. Plus I was getting stuck by a lot of cars along the way, taking up both lanes doing nearly the same speed.

Once on twenty-six the traffic was lighter, but there were a lot of cops between Royal City and Othello. I just kept my cruise control set at about seven over the speed limit and kept trucking.

When I got to Colfax I stopped at the fire department to take care of my coveralls. They had not gotten put back together since I washed them two weeks ago. I also went to the jail. The new plans for the camera system are there. So I looked them over. I made some notes and hope to talk to the captain about them.

It was dead around the jail so I did not do anything to really help out. I took off around eleven in the evening to go home and make some dinner. I decided that I was going to just relax for the rest of the evening and listen to the pager in case there was a call.

Getting a little nervous

March 30th, 2006

For the past few days on the May Valley Road I would see a memorial set up and people were there at nights. I would sometimes see candles still burning. It is clear there was a car accident, but I am trying to figure out more about it. I have been checking in the newspaper everyday, but nothing. It is really starting to make me wonder.

At work other than checking the paper for the car accident on May Valley road I worked on my Sollen stuff. I have been getting no answers about anything this week. I think it is because a lot of people are out of town for a big mortgage industry show.

I spend my time trying to get what I can done with what little information I have. I am getting a little nervous about the upcoming date of code complete.

A short day of bugs

March 29th, 2006

After sleeping until I woke up naturally I went into work and spent part of the day doing “things.” Finally I got going on some bugs. I was able to polish off several of them.

I played Roger some ping-pong and ended the night watching a webcast about vehicle extrication.

I watched some TV, including South Park at home. I played some online poker, but that did not turn out too well.

House is in the House

March 28th, 2006

I was planning on a trip to Fry’s today to pick up a new thumb drive. The one I have is having some troubles. But I also want to get a video camera. I am thinking about one with night vision. So I was looking those up online. Jon was telling me that the MiniDV are old technology and there is some really cool ones coming out. But they are really new and really spendy. So I am not sure what I am going to do about that now.

Instead of going to Fry’s I decided to get home in time to watch House. It is finally back on the air. Of all the TV shows on, that is one I really like to watch. QaF has been getting shown on ShowToo. I decided to watch that at eleven o’clock. It is sort of fun to watch it again. I remember in the first run I always made sure to see it. But now I remember most of the things so it is not quite the same. It still has it moments.

Making my way late

March 27th, 2006

Went I finally woke up and got going today it was almost eight in the morning. I got to Colfax and got packed. Then I got going. I did not get to Bellevue until nearly one-thirty. I wanted to be there a lot earlier.

I spent the time working on the Sollen integration. I am sort of to the point where I am waiting on other people. So I am getting a little done here and there, but I am not making strides like I would like to make.

Tonight I was going to play cards at David’s house in Seattle. Noah was there and we had about eleven people play in total. I made it to the final table but I ended up in about fifth place. So I did not get any money. We were there until about ten-thirty playing cards.

Following cards I went home and played online for a little while before going to bed.

Nadirs open the season with wins!

March 26th, 2006

Whenever I have a softball game I always get nervous. There is the worry about people not showing up and me having everything ready. Trying to make sure the stats are done correctly. As the day wore on it came close to game time. I realized I did not have my uniform and cup. I hate pitching without wearing one.

We were playing Ben’s team tonight. We have been bantering back and forth for quite a few days. I told Ben I would walk him if the bases were loaded and the winning run was on third. I am not going to give him a pitch to hit. We started with Dave pitching. Then when Ben walked to the plate I called time out and pulled Dave.

I heard someone on the next field over say something about “That was a quick hook.” Then my first pitch was way over Bens head. The same guy on the next field said “Put in the other guy.” No one really knew what we were doing. Ben knew. Finally I gave him something. It was a little too good and he hit it far enough for a homerun, but it was foul. Then next pitch was inside and he hit it foul causing him to strike out. The team loved it.

For the rest of the of the game I pitched with Dave doing some as well. But I always pitched to Ben. I gave him another chance and he hit it deep to left field but it was an out. We ended up beating them by one run. It was a lot of fun.

Following the game I went to the fire station because I was on call. I got some dinner at the station. Then I started on the rigs. The checks went off without much of a hitch. Following the checks I watched some TV before heading off to bed.

Almost Two Cases

March 25th, 2006

I am pretty tired. In fact I stayed up all night long and finally got to bed around nine this morning. I get a phone call from Pete about someone who had died in Tekoa. So I got ready and headed out that way. Dan and Bryson were on scene. A guy had died sometime in the morning. I did my investigation. Afterwards I was on my way to Colfax.

We were going to play cards down at Jim’s. Just as I got on the highway I got a call from Whitcom about another death. So I called the hospital and got some information. From there I called Pete. Turns out we were not going to take jurisdiction. That was good for me. I did not have to worry about a second case in a row.

I went to my house and got changed and then to Jim’s. More people started to arrive. We played a Texas Hold’em tournament. I ended up winning it. We decided to play a second one which I also won. So I took home around ninety bucks for the night.

First on scene… Twice!

March 24th, 2006

I had my meeting with the Sollen guy today on the phone. I don’t think I learned too much, but he is sending me a copy of some of the stuff other people have done for logging in automatically. So that should speed some stuff up for me.

I was on call tonight and it was a good night. Reed and I went to Cougar Country for some ice cream following the vehicle checks. Then we were at the station just watching some TV. We were talking about crew leaders and the different personalities of the different people on the fire department. When we got dispatched to a t-bone car accident at the Albion Road. We got out the door right away and were first on scene. I did a size-up and took command. James got there and we did a face-to-face and he took over command.

I worked on one patient. The one who had been t-boned. We transported the patient to the hospital. It went without much incident. It was a pretty tame scene over all. Luckily no one had any major injuries.

After that call we got another one where I was at home and I heard the cops ask for an ambulance. I got almost all the way to the station before it was toned out. We got on scene first and I took patient care until the medic arrived.

At the hospital John told me about Rob having had a chance to come here but because of wanting to be close to his kid he stayed in the Seattle area.

We had one more call and I decided to just stay up all night long and go to bed sometime when I got back to Colfax.

Finger Prints

March 23rd, 2006

Today at the coroners meeting we discussed using our fingerprint kits. We also went over the shooting in Oakesdale from last month. We looked at the autopsy findings. We played around with the fingerprint kits and I give some things to think about when doing fingerprints.

The meeting started pretty early. We also broke out some of the decorations. I got the wall setup with the coroners logo and outlined. Now it just needs to get painted. We also put up some pictured and a skull and crossbones flag. It is looking good down there.

South Park Ranking on Chef

March 22nd, 2006

I went to Ryan’s apartment to watch SouthPark tonight. They were sort of making fun of Chef for leaving the show after they made fun of Chef’s religion. Matt and Trey said that Isaac Hayes had no problem cashing checks when Christianity was made fun of. They made some points about how he is getting brainwashed by the religion.

Skipping Fire Training

March 21st, 2006

There is one thing about fire training I don’t like. In some ways they try to throw so many monkey wrenches into things that the basic skills never get practiced very much as you are forced to always do weird things. There was supposed to be fire training tonight, but I ran to the jail to chat with Mark and Jeremy. When I was up there Mark asked for my help on a file. He wanted the file to be a form he could fill out on the computer and print it off. So I spent nearly two hours perfecting the form. There were a ton of fields that needed to be added. Once I was done with that training was already started. I got much truck and just headed home.

The History of the Fire Department

March 20th, 2006

I spent a fair amount of time today typing in the names and years of service for all the Pullman Fire Reserves and hundreds of people who have served with WSU Fire since the forties. It was interesting to see all the names. I want to start a project to go through old Chinook’s at WSU and find all the people I can who were with the fire department.

I did find some pictures on a site at WSU with old pictures. I got permission to post them on the Website for the city. So I am pretty stoked about that.

In the evening we had OTEP training. It was short and mainly covered documentation. After that training was done I went back to the office and continued to get the names entered. It took until nearly midnight to finish them off. But I am done with them all. I have a spreadsheet that I hope to turn into a Webpage in the next few weeks.

Dinner with the crew

March 19th, 2006

I was woken up by an early morning phone call from Pete. He just wanted to return my message from a few days ago. I could not get back to sleep. Ron and I were not going to golf today because he was hurting from last night. He did something to himself while bowling. So I just watched TV for several hours. It was nice not to do anything at all. I was going to work in the jail, but I decided to stay at home.

Around three I got ready and headed to Pullman. I got my uniform on and went to the fire station. I forgot about our dinner planned. But Walker was down there already preparing it. So I went to the store and got some ice cream for after dinner.

At five-thirty a call came in at Bishop Place. Dearth and I went code to it. Dearth went to the hospital with the ambulance. After we made up the cot we went back to the station for the dinner. It was already served. I had a couple ribs and some chili. Then we had the ice cream and started the vehicle maintenance.

After the maintenance was done we watched Jarhead with the full-timers. Following Jarhead I watched Family Guy and started to watch another show when we got a call for someone with a hurt knee. We transported the person to the hospital. It is cool we are now running three on Rescue again. I am pretty happy about that.

Once the call was done I recorded it into the book. I headed to bed shortly afterwards because I was pretty tired.

Final Palouse Thunder Pre-Season Game

March 18th, 2006

I spent most of the morning looking around the Internet just finding stuff to do. The team was meeting in Lewiston around one-thirty in the afternoon for a lunch. I got down there around two o’clock. I went to the Super China buffet and met with everyone. I talked to the coach for a while and listened to some of the players chatting.

Around three o’clock we headed to the field. We got there around three-thirty and the lockerroom and press box was all closed. It took a while to find someone to open them up. It was almost four-thirty when they were opened.

I talked with the Sabercats’ coach about the pronunciation of some of the players’ names. Then I went into the press box and got the music and countdown clock running. I went down on the field and hung out with some of the players. I helped the kicker by giving him the ball after his kicks for the field goal attempts.

With about twenty minutes until game time I went into the press box and got my final preparations completed for the start of the game.

The Thunder played pretty well. There were some penalties they should not have gotten. The coach got kicked out at half-time because he came on the field and grabbed a Sabercat player and told him that he would kill him if he ever tried to take out our quarterback again. That was a pretty ugly display.

The Thunder won thirty to six. After the game I talked to Jerrid who was one of the refs and is also the commissioner of the Evergreen Football League. He told me what had happened with the coach at half-time.

Then I headed back to Colfax. Juan was going to come over and watch a movie but he ended up working late so he needed to go to bed when he got done. I spent the evening unwinding and watching some TV.

Some clarity needed with Sollen

March 17th, 2006

My work on the new Sollen component will need some clarity. I have it a lot of the things that are needed for it built. There is still one part on our side I need to put together, but I need more information to do it. On top of that there are a few other issues with sending the login information and how to save the fannie mae files. I set up a time to talk to Miki on Monday to try to resolve these issues.

Around six o’clock pm I went to the fire station. I helped with the vehicle checks and talked with Walker and Chuck about general stuff. We ended up getting about two calls through out the night. Being spring break has caused this week to be really slow.

Movie night

March 16th, 2006

I got a fair more amount of things done with Sollen. I also got the main project checked it. That was a pain in the rear. But it is there now. I hope it all works correctly. I still need to figure out how to send the username and password to Sollen to make that part work right.

I spent until around six o’clock getting that done and doing some work on the Thunder website. I am running into a problem there where something is not building correctly, but I can tell it to forget about the error and load anyway. It works fine. So I am not sure why I am getting the error.

I went home and called Juan. He came over and we watched Minority Report. That is a pretty good movie. It was the first time I watched it since it was in the theatre. He was sitting on the couch with me and over time we kept getting closer and closer. By the end of the movie both of our arms were touching each other. He never pulled away. Nor did I.

Sollen is off the ground

March 15th, 2006

I got up and cooked myself breakfast. My mom is heading back to Seattle today. I got a chance to say goodbye on my way out the door. I really started to pump out the Sollen stuff. I am making a lot of head way. These are the times I like. I am creating rather than trying to fix what is broken. What is also nice is I have templates for things already done. This is the kind of stuff multitasking is made for. You are trying to remember everything as you are branching out in a couple different directions. It is like for everyone one thing you do, you have to remember to do two more. Then those two you have to remember four things. Then you go down one path until you reach the end. Then you hope you remember where to find the start of the next path.

It is fun stuff. I got a lot of stored procs done as well as a lot of new code done. I found a good breaking point and hit lunch. I went to Dairy Queen. Then I came back and worked on it some more.

I was on call for the fire department tonight so I had to leave for a while and do maintenance. I did not want to leave because I was trying to figure out how to get my new asp.net application to work the way I wanted it to.

As I was working through out the day I was also getting side tracked with other things. I updated the Thunder and Pullman Fire websites while I was at it today.

After maintenance I got some dinner and worked on the computer some more. I checked in a ton of my files.

We got a call right about ten o’clock. It took more than an hour for that. When I got back I decided to play some poker. I wanted to not do anything work related for a while. I got enough done today.

I also played some online poker. I keep getting close, but then I fizzle out. I gotta figure out how to finish strong. I have a good chance of doing well at this and making a good supplemental income. But I gotta learn to finish.

Playing poker and catching on my blog entries was the store of the late evening. I have been having a hard time logging in lately, but I closed that window and started a new one and the problem was solved. I don’t know what the problem with the other window was, but once I used this new one all was well.

I just called on a KJs. I hope something comes of it. Q-5-9 hit the board. I have one of the cards that match my suit, hearts. I call 15 bucks but end up folding to the four-hundred dollar raise.

Spending the day with Mom

March 14th, 2006

I got up and went to work pretty early today. I spent time working on the new Sollen stuff. I finally got the specs for it. So today was getting under-way-day. It is the ramp up period before I get heavily involved where it takes all my time.

Around two I was to meet up with my mom and the real estate agent who was going to show us some houses. The original idea was to show my mom the house on Larry. But little did we know someone put an offer in on it. So we ended up looking at several other houses, included Jason’s old house and the one across from the fire station.

We were looking at houses until around five. We looked on one on Fisk street. It was a cool house. I really liked it. I loved the lay out and the feeling I had walking around the house. The problem is that there were several things wrong with the house. If it was closer to the fire station I would love to have that house. It had great character.

Afterwards we drove around looking at houses and seeing the neighborhoods. There are really no houses left for sale under two-hundred-thousand bucks. I went back to work at about five and my mom went back to my house. She was fixing dinner.

I went home around six. I was going to go to fire training, but I decided to stay at home with my mom because she had come from out of town to be here. So we talked about the different houses as we watched TV through the night. I went to bed around eleven because my mom was starting to fall asleep and I wanted to get off the couch so she could lay down there.

Playing Pool with Dearth

March 13th, 2006

I went and looked at the house on Larry street again. I like it. I am going to make an offer on it. My mom is coming over to take a look at it as well. When I went to my office after looking at the house and measuring the room I got a call from the real estate lady who said the house had an accepted offer as of this morning. That is sort of a bummer. The house was in a nice location with a flat yard, a big garage, and ninety seconds from the fire station.

Today was the chief’s meeting and I was looking forward to it. I typed up all my comments and concerns. I was ready to go for the meeting. I was also covering for Tadema. It turned out to be a dead night while I was on.

Dearth had invited me to go to the bar and play some pool. We met at the Sports Page around ten o’clock, after the meeting and our Monday training. We played several games of pool. Reed also showed up.

I went home around midnight and got myself some dinner then hit the hay.

Looking at Houses

March 12th, 2006

I got up at two and I was supposed to be looking at a house at two. I rushed to the house and the real estate agent was not there. After waiting for a few minutes I went to the house and knocked on the door. The renter answered it. He was getting ready for work. He is a cop in Idaho. He let me look around the house for a little bit. It is pretty much just as I remember with minus the kitchen. They tore out the downstairs kitchen. In my estimation, it was the better of the two kitchens at the house.

After that I called the real estate agent that is selling Jason’s house. We were going to meet at five to look at the house. I went to Zeppoz in the meantime to see Ron and Heather. I had some lunch/dinner and we talked about various things. I found out Ron will play on the Don’t Care team. I said he now has something in common with Matt. Heather laughed.

I left Zeppoz and went to Beasley Reality. We went to Jason’s house together. Followed by seeing a house on Larry street. I like the house on Larry Street. I told my mom about it and she said that she would come over and look at it if I wanted. I told her I did. So she said she would call me tomorrow and make sure everything is a go, then she would come over.

I went home in time to watch my Sunday night shows.

Palouse Thunder on the Prowl

March 11th, 2006

I headed down to Lewiston nice and early this morning to meet up with the team at Old Country Buffet. We were having a team breakfast. I talked to some of the guys and worked on getting their name pronunciation down.

We were there for about an hour and a half before we headed to Lapwai. Once there I went to the pressbox. It is a ladder to get up to the pressbox. It is a tight fix with my laptop.

I got up and set up. I had to type in the roster for the other team. That took some time. The sun was bright and it was hard to see the laptop screen. Abraham was there to help me do the stats. He brought a few people along to help. So we were able to do the stats really well.

The announcing went well, it was a pre-season for me too. There is a new system of getting the team on the field. In the past we would play the song and they would run on the field. This year they will be on the field and do the Thunder Huddle. Then I am supposed to announce them.

The Thunder looked really good today. They dominated the team from the Columbia Basin. After the game was done I went to my office for a little bit. Then I got a pizza from Little Caesars. I went to the fire station in Colfax with it and hung out with Carl for a while.

We got a call. So I got my stuff and we went on it. It was a guy who fell near Arby’s. It was pretty messy. Then while at the hospital we got dispatched to a guy hit by a car. It turned out the guy lied because he wanted a free bed for the night.

I went to the jail and hung out there for a few hours and got my paperwork for the loan scanned in to the computer and sent off to BECU.

I am pre-approved!

March 10th, 2006

On my way into work today I was on four-oh-five talking to BECU about the home loan I applied for last week. I am interested in buying a house I looked at a few years ago that went back on the market. I was told I was approved for the loan. And that is without selling my current house! I could rent out my other house and keep both, but I don’t think I will be able to afford that for ever. I think what I will do is stage the house and sell it as soon as I can.

I got to work and did my work from Bellevue today. I spent a lot of the morning getting caught up from being away from the Internet for the last few days. A few of us went to Q-Doba for lunch and brought back lunch for everyone else. I got some stuff done before our Dev meeting. The meeting was short. I am going to be working on bugs until I am handing the Sollen stuff to start to work on the new interface.

I went back to my desk and worked on getting some sheets set up for taking stats at the game for the Thunder tomorrow. That took me longer than I had hoped and I did not leave until nearly four. I wanted to be out of there around two. Erik was covering for me until I got to town.

I drove over and there was a lot of traffic. It was because Spring Break started at WSU today. There were a lot of cops pulling people over. I did not do anything to get myself pulled over. I finally got into Pullman about eight-thirty to take over being on duty.

The night was quiet both on the police scanner and the fire pager. I spent most of the evening getting more stuff caught up online. It is amazing how far behind the times I get being away from the net for four days.

My Spring Training is Over

March 9th, 2006

The day started off with me waking up before the alarm clock went off so I got ready and had some breakfast before we were to go out golfing. We were playing south of the area we were staying. It was the Aguila Golf Course. It was sort of links style. There was a lot of rough. But as it turned out it wasn’t too hard to find the ball out there. And I know because I spent time looking for my ball.

We rented our carts and hit the course. I set my alarm clock on my phone to go off around the time of the radio show. I called up from the course to talk to Tom a little bit and to give an update on the golfing. I was playing my normal game. Some times I would have a great shot and other times it was horrible. I shot one-thirty. I had sixty-five on each half of the course. I was on a shot where water came into play. I put it into the drink. So I did a drop and the length was that of about a five-iron. I figured I could make it. I was three feet short. In the drink again! So I tried it again. This time I made it right on the green. Then I three putted. That was the story of my day.

I was having fun though. No anger. It was pretty warm out, unlike yesterday. I think the cold helped my back get stiff. It was not the case today so I was able to play all the holes.

When the game was done we went to Whataburger. Got some chow and we were off to the airport. We had a short wait to get on the plane, nothing too bad.

I called my realtor while at the airport when I found out he was in the hospital with an injured neck. So I am going to be looking at houses with someone else on Sunday.

The flight seemed sort of long, but Jon and I wanted Animal House. When we landed and got our stuff we took the shuttle back to the parking lot and Jon drove everyone home. When I got home I made some dinner and watched TV.

Spring Training Day Three

March 8th, 2006

Again we got up early to go play golf. Today we were playing at the third oldest golf course in Arizona. It was cold and my back started to hurt so I only played the first fourteen holes or so. Then rest of the time I drove the cart. Early on when I was playing I lost several balls in the water. I seemed to always be able to find the water.

After golf it was off to more baseball games. The weather was getting warmer. I was feeling really bad and I started to feel really sick after a while. So I walked around for a while and stayed in the shade. The Mariners lost again. We had some time before the evening game against the Japan National Team. Ichiro is playing for it. It was weird to see him play against the M’s.

I stayed in the car and slept for most of the time between the game. Finally it was close to game time and the others who were at Hooters came and got me. We went to our seats. Dan Wilson was in the dugout for the game. It was neat to see him.

The M’s lost that game. They were in it for early on. Then Japan took a big lead. Only for the M’s to come within one in the last inning. But they could not do it.

We went to a Bar-B-Q place near the stadium. It was good food and huge portions. I could not eat everything.

After eating we went back to the hotel and relaxed for the evening rather than going out like the nights before.

Spring Training Day Two

March 7th, 2006

Today was a long day starting out by getting up early to go golfing. It was my first time out since playing in Pullman last fall. We rented carts which was nice. We played eighteen holes. It cost about fifty bucks for the green fees and the cart. A lot more than I am use to paying at Pullman. I did okay. I shot my normal one-thirty-ish on the holes.

I liked the course. Jon, Jim, and Terry did some skins and other bets on the course. I stayed away from the betting. I would have won one hole with my par. But for the most part I cannot keep up with them very well.

After golfing we had to hurry to get to the baseball game. It was being played at a different park. We had been in the sun all day yesterday and today. Jon was starting to get sunburnt pretty good.


Jon is really red

You can get really close seats at Spring Training. We got to see a lot of the Mariners players. It is a pretty neat experience. Everyone is very laid back. We were always sitting close to the field. Close enough to hear the umpires and players speak. Very strange in deed.

The Mariners lost again. It is becoming a pattern this spring training. But it is fun to be there all the same. I found number Sixty-Five, Rob Johnson, is a ten-six-seven. At least that what I can see from the stands.

After the game we went to a casino for a few hours and then we went to some gentleman’s clubs. We got in for free with our baseball game ticket stubs.

Spring Training Day One

March 6th, 2006

It was weird to not go to work today. I was up early and I got ready to go to the airport. We are playing to Arizona for Spring Training for the next four day. Jon and I went from my place to get Jim then terry. Both live in the highlands. We got to SeaTac and waited for the flight.

It was not too bad of a flight down. When we got to Arizona Terry and I went to get the rental car. Jon and Jim got the luggage. We were running late and went straight to the stadium for the baseball games. We pulled into the stadium as they opened the parking for anyone to take. So we parked for free and we were in the front spot. It was nice. We got to our seats.

We were so close you could hear the players and see the action well.


Close to the action

The Mariners actually won this game. It was fun to see them win one. You could see all the young guys who were trying to make the team as they ran back and forth around the infield area. There were a lot of ten-six-sevens. I wish I could have taken a lot more photos. I want to get a press pass should I go back. I need to work with KZUU about getting me one.

After the game we went out on the town. We drove to a casino and everyone played table games. I only watched. I was not going to play. I was watching at one table. There was a ten-six-seven. I could not get enough. I just stayed there for ever.

Then we went to a strip club. It was not my idea, but I was the designated driver for the whole thing. So I had to drive everyone there. I was trying to stay entertained as well as I could until my brother bought me a lap dance. Wow. That is not my cup of tea on so many levels. The girl was nice and we were able to talk and I felt sort of normal. My brother was laughing.

We headed back and got to bed around three in the morning. We have to be up around seven. I am going to be tired tomorrow I would guess.

Softball Practice in Seattle

March 5th, 2006

After making it to Seattle on only a small amount of sleep. Like about an hour and a half I went straight to the softball field. It was the first time I was going to see everyone since last season. I was looking forward to the practice. I spent a lot of the time hitting to people and pitching the ball. It was about a two hour practice. I let Don know I would not be able to be at the games like I was last year because of my new work schedule.

After the practice was done I went home and relaxed. I was pretty tired from the lack of sleep but I had planned on being up until around nine or so.

We had dinner. Mom had gotten the Blue Collar Comedy Tour DVD. We watched one of them for a while before ten o’clock was rolling around. I decided that I should go to bed while I have the chance. I packed as much as I could. I still have to put the golf clubs in the travel bag, but I should have time to do that tomorrow before Jon comes to get me.

EMT Extrication Training

March 4th, 2006

Today was the EMT extrication training class. I always like to help out with it. So I got up and went to Colfax fire to get my turn outs. I was running late, but it was okay because they were not started yet.

The day started with Zach and I getting into a small smashed up Ford Ranger. Zach is really tall. And the two of use barely fit into the truck. It was fun to get inside. I was playing someone unconscious. They had to get me out to get to Zach. It took some time, but they got me out without cutting the roof off the truck.


Inside a Small Red Truck with Zach


Inside a Small Red Truck with Zach

Later on I was going to be part of a group of people in a car on its side. I was in the trunk of the car to see how they would deal with that. People kept yelling “Where is Scotty?!” None of the rescuers picked up on it though. After a while my back was starting to hurt so I started to play with them. I pounded on the trunk yelling to let me out.


Getting into the Trunk

They finally are getting into the trunk to free me from my tomb. It took them a while to get the trunk open. Then longer yet to figure out how to get me out of there.


Getting Rescued from the Trunk

When the extrication class was done we all went back to Colfax fire and cleaned up the equipment. I downloaded my pictures and got copies from someone else’s’ camera.

I headed to Pullman to help with Heston’s computer. I was planning on just going straight to Seattle after the training, but that did not happen. So while I was in Pullman I found out Mike was having a poker game. I went to it thinking it was a tournament. Turned out to be a cash game. I ended up being there until three in the morning. A lot longer than I had planned on being there.

It was fun. I played wit guys I had never played with before. It also turns out I knew Mike from softball. He is one of the umps there.

While I was on my way home I was listening to my police radio. It sounded like Pullman had two ambulances out and the police were directing traffic. I thought something big was happening. Then I heard Paul-Twenty-two. When you hear him at three in the morning it is never good. A little bit later I heard Pete on the radio. That is when I called the jail to see what was going on. It turns out what was happening in Pullman had nothing to do with the coroners call.

Someone had been shot. I called Pete and let him know I was still in the area. So I met him and Patti at the funeral home. I helped with the investigation there. I saw and experienced some medical conditions I had not seen before. So it was interesting to see those things in real life.

After that I went home and got my stuff to head to Seattle, finally. I started to drive, but I was fading quickly. I stopped in Washtuncna for a nap.

Web training with James

March 3rd, 2006

I got up late, but I made it to the web training in time. I was working with James to teach him how to update the Pullman Fire Website. He is catching on pretty quick. He wrote notes on everything. I also took Rich’s van down to the city shops so it could get worked on. He gave me a ride back to the station. James and I were close to being done by then.

I had a couple things that Jerry from the city wanted me to change around about the site in the way I was doing the E-mail addresses. After I was done with his training I went back to work.

I went to Colfax after work and hung out at the fire station for a few hours. Ken and I watched a movie. I was supposed to go out and watch a movie with Juan but he was sick and could not make it.

Coroners Meeting

March 2nd, 2006

At the coroners meeting we went over the double-murder-suicide from last year as well as a suicide from last year. We talked about blood spatter patterns and other information to help us do our job better.

We also decided to paint the Coroner logo for Whitman County that I did. We are going to make it about three or four feet in size on one of the walls. I think that is pretty cool.

Touring Adams Mall

March 1st, 2006

Today’s training involved going to Adams Mall and learning where the reset switch is for the smoke detector. It is up on the roof. So if we get called there we have to ladder the building to reset it. After laddering the roof and everyone going up to see the reset points we went inside the building to walk through it.

We saw where the alarm panel is and went through the two bars. While we were down stairs we got toned out to a structure fire at Rogers hall that had already been put out. We went with two Engines, the Quint, Rescue, and Ambulance. Pretty much everyone who was on the tour. Most units were getting put back into service quickly.

I was on Rescue and we were asked to go to the floor where the fire was with the TIC and the camera to get pictures. I took all the photos. We left the scene and I went to station one to get the photos downloaded to the computer at the station.