Happy Halloween

October 31st, 2006

Michael asked me to cover for him for a couple hours tonight so he could take his kids trick-or-treating. We had one call during that time. I also got a chance to watch House. As always a fun episode.

Following being on duty I met up with someone from Montana who is going to rent my apartment. That makes me feel good that that loose end is tied up. Now I just need to worry about getting the moving party set up and figure out how I am going to do my free-roll tournament.

I got my costume on and went to ValHalla to meet up with Ben. But by the time I got inside and looked around I could not find him anywhere. Finally I got him on the phone and he had gone home. I had been inside for about an hour. I then left myself. But I saw a few people I knew in there including Garrett’s little brother Grant. As well as Seiler.

Almost missed one

October 30th, 2006

This evening I was playing some poker for a couple hours with my normal Monday night crew of players. I was up and down most of the night. But as we were getting ready to call it a night I was only down a couple bucks. They called last hand and I had pocket Jacks. I raised the pot two bucks. Someone else raised me, and I went all in. The other two guys who were still in called. Someone flipped over KJ off-suit and one guy flipped over pocket Aces. I was behind. The flop turned up a King. It was down hill from there. I ended up losing the rest of my money. What luck to get a good hand only to lose to someone who got pocket Aces on his final hand.

I went home and tried to get some sleep. It was after two in the morning. I was sleeping soundly when I hear dispatch give the patient update to one of the units going en route. I quickly got up and went to the station. I was still within the seven minutes, but I got a slow start. In fact we still made it on scene with the other units. Luckily I was close to the station.

Victorious in Dodgeball

October 29th, 2006

In my time playing dodgeball at WSU I have never had a team to win a match. It is a best of seven series. We always lose out with one win at best, until last week when we got two wins. This week we went four and oh! It was so much fun to win finally.

Ben was there with his camera and he shot this final game victory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f0I8UOLn0k It cracks me up to watch it.

I spent parts of the day doing some stuff on the computer trying to figure out personalizations using ASP.NET 2.0. I am getting closer to what I am trying to figure out, but I have a way to go. If I can get it figured out I will be able to start to build my new reserve calendar online. The one I have right now is fine for my shift, but I don’t have the ability to be as flexible as I would like, plus I am not able to allow the other crews to work with it. I want all the shifts to be able to use it in the future.

Another Victory!

October 28th, 2006

My plan for the day was to play poker with Mike and watch the Cougs on TV. Plus I was going to be on call in the evening. The game started at two in the afternoon. The Cougar game started at four. I was doing really well on my table. I was up and winning some nice pots. But as the two hour mark came people were doing their add-ons and rebuys. I was finding my self to be out of the chip lead. Plus I had to leave in less that two more hours. So I started to play more loose. I got to the point where about twenty minutes before I had to leave I found a reasonable hand to push all-in on. I ended up losing out, but that was fine. I had to leave.

I got to the station and we did some training up at the training tower. It was more pump and roll training with the recruits. They just went through the training and I wanted to give them some more hands on time with it. The more you do it the more you know it is what I figured. They did pretty well at everything.

Following that I was down at the station for quite a while. We had a couple calls. One was a structure fire, but that did not really turn out to be much more than some fire under a deck. But we did some overhaul on it to make sure it was out. We also had some medical calls dealing with substance abuse. I hung out at the station for a fair amount of the night watching the final episodes from this season’s Rescue Me. I finally got to see the final two episodes.

I decided it was time to go home and get to bed. I was not there very long when we got called out to another medical call. When leaving the hospital we got yet another call. We were running most of the night after about two in the morning. I did get to bed around five in the morning.

Back to P-Town

October 27th, 2006

I got some more bugs taken care of at work today and spent some time in the office waiting until it got late enough for me to head out. I hit the road about four in the afternoon.

When I rolled into Colfax I stopped at the fire station for a while. Jim was working. I talked to him for a bit and watched the final out of the World Series. St. Louis won it.

I got to my office and played on the computer for a while before making my way to bed around midnight.

Pounding away at bugs

October 26th, 2006

I was in the office until after eight pounding away at the bugs. At lunch Jon and I met up with mom at Applebees. My mom and I went to Puetz to get some golf shoes for me. It was part of last years Christmas. I got some golf shes but they were too tight so I had to return them. We have been trying to get some new shoes for me for a while. I also picked up two new golf gloves.

The big one is done

October 25th, 2006

I had a big enhancement that I have been working on the last couple days. It touches a lot of different areas and I needed to figure out how to make everything work with it. There were some gotcha’s along the way, but I finally won. It felt good to check in all the parts and pages that I created and updated to make this enhancement finished.

I also got a call from the Sgt of the boat patrol. He said he wants to move forward with me and he is going to have me meet up with the polygraph people and do a background on me.

Just a Normal Day at the Office

October 24th, 2006

I left the office at my normal time. I got home and played with the dog like normal. I watched TV like normal. I went to bed like normal.

That is why I love being in Pullman. Nothing is normal.

Mercer Island Boat Patrol

October 23rd, 2006

I got into town this morning and called the Sgt about the boat patrol. He had me come in today to meet up with him to talk about the boat patrol. Before I did that I called Peter and we did The PES. We ended up having to have him on his cell phone and do a three-way call. I called the studio line to get on the air, and I called Peter to hear what he was saying. What a pain in the neck. But we had a good show. We mainly talked about property rights and the death tax.

Following the show I went to Mercer Island and talked to the Sgt and his main EMT about the boat patrol, what he was looking for, etc. It seems like it could be pretty cool. It is not just a summer job like Heston was thinking, this is more of a long term part-time employment. Several Reserves had called him about doing this, but I think once they find out what he wants, they may not do it.

I told him about my experience at the fire department. I think I impressed him when I was able to mention some things I learned about the program by reading the Mercer Island Website ahead of time.

At the end of the interview I also let me know that I was a full-time corrections officer. He said academy trained? He seemed excited when I told him that. I think I nailed a good one when I added that piece of information.

Golf Tournament

October 22nd, 2006

I was very tired this morning when I got up for the Golf Tournament in Colfax. I was playing with Ben, Ashton, and Ben’s Dad, Louis. We had carts for the rounds today so that made it very nice. We teed off in this eighteen-hole, best-ball, scramble tournament. Ben was one of the organizers.

We did not show very well. I had a very good time hanging out with Ben and the others. I had a couple good shots, but more or less my day was ugly. Upon completing the golf I went home and went to sleep for a couple hours. I had to get up for dodgeball.

I made my way to Smith Gym. We played and actually won a game again. We are getting better. But in the end we lost. I went back home quickly and went to bed because I have to get up early in the morning to get back to Seattle.

Back to the Winning Ways

October 21st, 2006

The Cougar game vs. Oregon was today. I was working Rescue today. Keith and Brian were on with me. We had a couple issues to deal with in the stands, but for the most part I was able to stay at the game and watch it. It was awesome. The Cougs were working on beating number sixteen Oregon. In fact they did beat Oregon pretty easily. The Cougs looked like the team that faced USC. They played really well and just kept scoring against the Ducks. They put Ryan Leaf’s brother in the game for Oregon. He drove the ball a couple times and got some scores, but we ended up beating the ducks.

Brian went to Beasley for the Monster Truck show and Keith worked Rescue with me for a couple hours while we did not have Brian. We got called out to an injured person at Daggy Hall. When we left there the Ambulance and Rescue went to Beasley for the Monster Truck show. We were there only a little bit when we got called to a small leaf fire. When we arrived Capt had us use the foam and water on Rescue to cover the ground and hot spots so it did not reignite. As we were leaving that scene we get toned back to nearly the same place for someone who was needing detox. The ambulance had left Beasley and was rolling through Greek Row on their way back to the station. I was behind them. We were only a couple blocks away so we went to the scene.

The guy was really drunk and needed to be retrained. Ofc. Bell and I rode back to the hospital in the ambulance. I helped keep the guy on the cot when he would try to get up.

Following that call Keith and I got the rescue filled with water. It was quiet for while. Brian and I were at the station watching some TV after he got back from the Monster Truck show when we got toned to go north of Pullman. We were the first rig on scene for someone who fell. A guy who was a nurse was on scene. He was being a huge pain in the rear. He was yelling that we were not doing things right. When the call was done he came up and said that our first thing that we need to worry about when we get on scene is that the patient and the people around the patient are comfortable. I was so mad but I did not say anything. I guess that is the difference between a hospital and the scene. Our first thing is ABC’s. This guy has no clue. Following that call I was fuming. I let it out on the way to the hospital.

The rest of the night we kept getting called out to places. I did not actually make it to bed until after five in the morning. With golf in the morning I know I will be very tired.

Monster Truck Show

October 20th, 2006

Today was the first time there has every been a Monster Truck Show in Beasley. We were told a few hours before we were supposed to be there that we needed to be there at four instead of six. So Travis and I got there at four. We talked to someone to find out where we needed to be. Someone asked why we were there. We said we were told to be there at four. Then they said that we would be at the field level. The other two guys would go to the first aid room. Travis and I said “the other two?”. So we called Dearth to let him know. Dearth and Blanks came to work the first aid room.

It was a pretty cool show. Bigfoot was even there. It was so loud inside. We had the trucks coming down the ramp and were barely able to make it in. There were also some guys on motorcycles and quads. It was pretty cool for the small area they had to work with. One of the trucks rolled over. They needed our help getting the guy out. We had a small hose there too. Just in case of fire. Blanks and I manned that while Dearth and Travis went to help the guy in the truck.

It was a fun time over all. I am glad I got a chance to work it.

Pump and Roll Training

October 19th, 2006

While at work today I got an E-mail from Heston reguarding employment on a Mercer Island boat patrol. I jokingly asked Heston if he would miss me this summer. He sent me contact information for the Sgt in charge of the boat patrol.

I called him up and he wants me to meet with him when I got to Seattle next week.

I got Drew to come in and do the Pump and Roll training with everyone on my shift. Now we are one step closer to being finished with the necessary items in order to get Tyson and Keith checked off on the Rescue and get them to be the second guys on the rig.

We were planning on staying the night down at the station tonight but Anthony backed out so Tyson and I decided not to stay there. Really it was a pretty quiet night anyway.

Flag Football

October 18th, 2006

Tonight is our first night of flag football. I did not plan on playing at all. I got to the field and it was vert cold out. I put on several layers of coats and went to the field. I waited for our guys to show up. We only had five guys show up, but that was enough to play the game. As it turned out the other team did not show up at all. So we had a free win.

The guys hung around for a while. We threw the ball around and ran some passing routes to get ready for the game next week.

A day to rest

October 17th, 2006

I spent some time yesterday figuring out why something was not working. I had turned it in a couple times, but each time it was sent back to me with additional questions. It was a simple “Investigation” issue. I finally was able to get on the Test DB. On that DB I was able to see what was happening. That is what allowed me to finally get a reasonable answer to why things were not working right. I sent it over to Miki once and for all, I hope.

Today I got a whole bunch of new bugs assigned to me. I also have some DU bugs that I am not able to do here in Pullman because I need to do some debugging I can only do on my local box, and I cannot for some reason do while I am using a TS session.

So for the next couple days I will try to knock out one or two of the bugs that I can do from here. But they all seem to be involved bugs. I don’t know if I will get any of them figured out.

I went to station one and tried to pick up the WSU map tests. While talking to George about them I helped him write the way the test is being done to group building by type of use, whether it is academic, admin services, etc. I think it is a better way than the old way which was to have them randomly put on to study sheets.

On call at the fire department I went to the station and helped with Rig Checks. I also got some notes written for the meeting I am going to have with everyone on Thursday. I spoke with Ben about some of the changes that are going to happen with the responses of the different rigs and calls. We are no longer going to do EMS Alpha calls. We are also having some fire call changes. Overall I think we are going to be used more heavily as a back-up unit. They are going to rely on us to get to the scene and help out rather than being the third unit on scene, we will now be the second unit.

Report Writing Training

October 16th, 2006

Today’s The PES show included Eunice Coker who is running a campaign to be re-elected to her position of Whitman County Auditor. We spent about fifty minutes talking to her about her work and why she should be re-elected.

Peter and I also talked about his taking of the LSAT test. I spent some time going over lawyer jokes.

I signed the paperwork for my house. The other people came back with an offer of five hundred buck in lieu of the repairs needed. But I know those will cost over a grand. So I sent back a proposal for the amount it will take to fix the problems outlined in the home inspection report.

Our training tonight was about doing reports. Specifically the EMS field reports. What is needed in the various fields on the report.

Fire Department Open House

October 15th, 2006

There was an open house for the fire department today. Because of all the rigs we had on display we held it out of the old Safeway building. We did not get a lot of people to come through, but we did set up a lot of things for people to look at and some things they were able to do.

The smoke house was there for kids to see what it was like in a smoky room and how to get out of one safely.

We were going to run it until four o’clock pm. But it was starting to rain so we called it a day around three. We broke everything down and took it all back to the station.

It was the first night of dodgeball tonight. Most of the people on the team from last year played as well as some new comers. We are playing co-ed this year because that was the only way I could get Sunday nights.

Loss to Cal

October 14th, 2006

Today’s football game was going to be a highlight for me. I was expecting a lot out of the Cougs. After how well they played USC I figured they would play well today. But that was not the case as they had a hard time once in the red-zone. We scored only a field goal. Cal scored a couple times early on, but then the Cougs held them really well, but the damage was done. We could not get the running game going at all.

I was stationed at North Two. I hated being there but we were sort of busy. I had a couple EMS things to deal with. So that helped out a little bit, but it is so bad to be there if you want to see the game due to the people who always get in front of you.

A while after the game I went to Zeppoz. I met up with JT and Suz who were still in town. We played some table games in the casino for a while. Then I got into a poker game there. I was up for a little bit, then I went down hill. I was not getting anything to play. And when I did I would bet it hard, but someone would call to the end and suck-out on me.

Friday the Thirteenth

October 13th, 2006

Today was a day that one would expect things to go strange, but it was a normal day. I worked at the jail until four in the afternoon. I took it off from NU. I had been called to see if I could work it earlier in the week. I was able to get the day off so I went to the jail.

I booked one person and spent a lot of time in control. I did my normal thing. It was a good day working. We also had the documentary “Into the Fire” tonight. We watched that at the fire station in Colfax. We had some pizza and pop.

After watching the show with a couple people there I went to Zeppoz. JT and Suz are in town. We hung out with the others from the group. JT and I played some table games for a while. I won about twenty bucks from Russell in about ten minutes. I also won nineteen more that I gave to Russell as a tip.

A Night at the Station

October 12th, 2006

I spent the night at the station with the Anthony and Tyson. We went to rent a movie from Blockbuster. While we were getting ready to leave we got a call for a fire alarm. We went to the scene and I got command on it. It turned out to be nothing. I wrote the report on that one.

We had two more calls on the night. One was after the movie was done. We had watched Brick. It was a good flick. The call was nothing. No patient was located. I helped Tyson do the report on that one.

We slept through most of the night until just before five in the morning. It was a detox call that we ended up not having to send to the hospital. I wrote that report as well.

It was near six in the morning. I hung out at the station until Clint got up so I could get him to review my reports before turning them in.

IM Sign ups

October 11th, 2006

I signed up for both IM Football and IM Dodgeball teams for playing this semester. I was going to do Rec for football, but there were no Wednesday night time slots, so I had to go competitive. I hope we can hang with these other guys. I have not have a team for a couple years. I think some of the guys on the team will kick some butt so we have a good chance. Only time will tell if we are the easy team to beat out there or not.

Tonight was our Coroners meeting. We spent a couple hours discussing some of the other cases we did not go over on Saturday. We are also closer to getting a new printer so we don’t have bad picture quality with the ink always running out on us.

Redefining the Look of the Calendar

October 10th, 2006

On top of getting a couple bugs settled with my work. As well as getting to the real estate office to tell the realtor what I would like included on the statement back to the homeowners based on what I saw in the home inspection report. I was on call for the day. We had an interesting night where for the first half of the shift we got a call every two hours. Our final call come in around one-thirty in the morning.

While I was sitting around the fire station I was speaking with Keith about the Duty Calendar and I was listening to what I was saying. I realized that I need to start the thing over from scratch… again… and build it right. While sitting at the station I was brainstorming ideas for what it should do and look like. I am trying to get all the functionality thought out. Then I can take these ideas and see if I can do them and how to do them. I will have a way of checking to see what I am building has an over all plan and a pathway for getting there.

I am going to attempt to build this and make it robust, usable, and friendly.

I also got to put in my first nasal airway tonight. I have waited a long time and this evening when I was on a call we were going to put on in. And I said that I had never done one and I would like to do it. I got my chance. It was a lot different that in training.

The Critiques

October 9th, 2006

This has been a long wait for this day to come. I could not wait to talk about the issues out on the car accident that Friday night so many weeks ago.’

I had the home inspection and pest inspection scheduled for today. The home inspection guy did not show up. Finally after twenty minutes past the time he was supposed to be there I called him. He said that Pam, my realtor, cancelled him. I was upset about that, then I asked if he could still do it. He said he would come up.

I was only able to be around for part of the home inspection because I had to leave just before six to get to the critiques. In one night a few weeks ago we had a car accident and a structure fire. Rescue played a pretty big role in both. We were on scene with the first arriving engine. We got the dwelling lay and the fire knocked down before the others arrived.

Later at the car accident we were the ones who started extrication. I was upset over the choice of tool on rescue. We had switched to the new rescue and no matter how much I argued to keep the old tools on the new rescue people kept saying there wasn’t room. That we only had room for the combitool. I got caught on the scene of a car accident with better tools miles away in the city. I did what I could with the tools in hand, but I was unable to make the quick cuts that I would have liked to make. As a result of something happening to the Engine that had the tools on it, they were recently put on rescue and replaced the combitool. I was told this will be permanent.

I think the main critique that was made of me is that I should have take a role of a group leader and directed the extrication instead of doing it myself. They said as a crew leader I need to start to take up leadership positions.

The Rodeo

October 8th, 2006

The highschool rodeo was being held at the fairgrounds in Colfax. I went with Colfax Ambulance to stand by out there in case someone got hurt. It was pretty uneventful over all. No real injuries. I wish there had been more of the bronco and bull riding and a lot less of the barrels and poles. Those seemed to drag on and on and on. But over all I had a good time out there.

I left from there to go straight to Pullman for rig checks. I got some dinner on the way and then to the station. Brian was already there. We took Engine Thirty-One up to the tower and gave him some time on the pump. I went over the relief value with him and explained how it worked. We sprayed water for a while, but he has pumped before so a lot of this is not new to him. We were there until nearly seven o’clock. We got back to the station and worked on rig checks and going on calls in the middle of the rig checks.

It was turning out to be quiet most of the night, then we got the three in the morning and five-thirty-in the morning calls. That sucked.

Cougs back on track

October 7th, 2006

We scheduled a coroners meeting for next Wednesday, but after it was discovered we were all free on Saturday morning we decided to also get together for a while and discuss the most recent two cases. We covered the case that I had on Thursday of the car crash/suicide. As well as Friday’s suicide case. The meeting went along fine. We also talked about getting a new printer. I stayed after the meeting for a while getting information about different printers to present to Pete.

After the meeting I went back to Colfax and checked out the new layout of Rescue. The good extrication tools were put on the rig. I am very stoked about that. I hung around the station talking to Ben for a while. The Cougar game was on TV so I just stayed there to watch the game. The Cougs won! They are back on track.

I got a call about a poker game that was going to be happening. I went to that game. It was in the Statesman Condos. That is right behind my place, so I walked over there. I was third one out. There were six people playing. I hung out to see how it went for all those involved.

Following the poker game I went home to get to bed because I need to get up early for the Colfax High School Rodeo.

Back to Back Suicides

October 6th, 2006

This morning I got a call from Patti, about twenty-five hours after the other suicide call. This time it was a hanging in Colfax. It was just outside of Colfax really. When I saw the name I remember hearing it. I asked if the cops were running his name the night before. They said he was a missing person out of Pullman. Then I remembered that Whitcom called for PPD to see if my suicide from yesterday was their guy.

So we figured out where the missing guy went. We seemed to have walked to Colfax and then hung himself. His mom had come in from South-Eastern Washington to look for him. So we had to let her know it was her son.

We went to the funeral home and checked the body and did more photographs. Patti was on call for the rest of the day, but it turned out to be uneventful. For me there was not a whole lot.

At work I had my normal call-in meeting. There was not a lot to report on my side. I have been working on bugs and getting some completed as I go.

Yet Another Fatal Car Accident

October 5th, 2006

I was thinking that we were done with car accidents when I got a call from the State Patrol. A car accident took place down by Red Wolf Bridge. A guy in a Dodge Neon went into the cliff side at about eighty miles per hour. He car would normally have a wheel base of one-hundred and four inches. His car was about fifty-eight inches. He pretty much died nearly instantly. The car also burst into flames.

I got on scene and took photos there. Then we took it down the road so Lewiston Fire could extricate the guy from the car. I had the body taken to Kimballs where I did more investigation. I spent some time on the phone talking to family and witnesses. It turned out that the call was a suicide. This call had a lot of firsts for me. My first burn victim. My first suicide by myself. My first time dealing with another coroners office. It was interesting over all to see how back the crash was. The cops and firefighters all agreed it was the worst one they had ever seen.

Playoff Game Two

October 4th, 2006

We were playing against the old Don’t Care team now known as a Bunch of Old Guys. We beat them in the regular season, but it was not to be tonight. We could not get a hit to save our lives. It seemed like we spent most of the night hitting right to people. We just could not get anything strung together. They were hitting the ball well against us. So we made an exit from this softball season with yet another early exit from the playoffs.

OTEP

October 3rd, 2006

Today’s OTEP training was about doing trauma assessments. It was a good training and it was pretty short overall. We also got the new fire engine in at Colfax. I spent some time looking around the rig. It was a nice rig! It will replace the first out city engine.

First Round of the Playoffs

October 2nd, 2006

Today was the first round of the IM softball playoffs. We got a first round bye, so this is technically the second round, but our first round. We were playing the winner of the first round game and ended up playing against a team from the Wednesday night division. We beat them pretty easily. We scored eight runs in the first inning and only recorded one out. After that we coasted to a victory.

Following the game I went to Extrication Training at station one. While there I was talking to Chapman about a couple things. He said he wanted to talk to me about a few small things. I then mentioned that I would like to get the inventory for Engine Thirty-Three. He said not to worry about it. I asked why, and he said it was totaled. I was taken aback. He went on to say it was moved out of the bay with some of the doors open, it ripped off the doors and put it out of service for a couple months. So now we have the old green engine back. That is cool by me because I am an engineer on the old green one.

After the training I went to ERD to talk to Chapman about a couple other things, while there I got a change to see the engine. It was missing the last three doors of the passenger side as well as some damage to the body and the ladder rack.

Busy from Start to End

October 1st, 2006

The start of the day was a phone call at five-thirty in the morning. I knew it was Whitcom calling me out on a case. Turns out there was yet another fatal car accident, this time however, it was not on SR One-Ninety-Five. This one was near St. John. I went to the scene and did my investigation. It was a single occupant who had crashed and was throw from the car. It does not appear a seatbelt was used and that aided the person with being thrown from the car. There is a high likelihood that had the person been wearing a seatbelt he would not have died. My message is to wear a seatbelt.

Between being on scene and photographing the scene and then going to the funeral home and doing an exam there, I was not done until nearly nine-thirty. Then I had to zoom to Pullman for Reserve Testing. I was helping with the physical agility test. That took a couple hours between running everyone through it as well as set up and break down.

Following the testing I went to the station and watched some TV and waited around for six o’clock to roll around. We had rig checks and map tests tonight. One of the guys did not study so he planned on memorizing the numbers and then writing them on the answer key. So I made a new answer sheet and changed the order of the roads. He of course did not pass that. I was disappointed that he wanted to do such a thing.

After that was done we started to do the rig checks. In the middle of the rig checks we got toned out to a call outside of town. We were more than half way there and a second call came out in town. They had been discussing canceling us, so we asked if they would like us to go to the other one. They did so we turned around and went to the one in town. After transporting to the hospital we went back and worked on the rig checks some more. Because of all the things that we had to check it was taking a long time.

We also had an out-of-date inventory on the Engine. So I had the guys go through and write up a new inventory form. That took some time to do, but it would make our checks go better next week.