Just a normal day

November 30th, 2006

Without boat patrol training, I just went to work in the morning. It was a good day at work because I was kicking butt on getting bugs closed out. I stayed at work until around six in the evening.

When I got home my mom made a Thanksgiving style dinner. So I did get a Thanksgiving dinner, but it was a week late. It was good!

Whoops! Chief’s Interview

November 29th, 2006

I got to Mercer Island around seven-forty this morning, but I had to wait to meet up with McDonough before we could get out on the boat. When I got back to his office I found out that I had to have a chief’s interview before I was officially hired on. I was a little nervous about that.

We went out to the boat and got going. He explained several things about the boat to me and how to drive it a little bit. I got a chance to drive it around for a little bit. It is bigger than my boat by eleven feet. I am a little nervous driving it. We went through a couple of the bays that we serve.

At around ten-thirty I had my chief’s interview. One thing about the Mercer Island chief is that he seems really young. I also had a high ranking captain or some other type of person in there. I think I did well on the interview. I went back to McDonoughs desk to wait for him. I was so nervous because it was taking a while for him to get back to me. But I found out he was also talking about other stuff with them. So I am now officially hired. We set up a couple more dates for me to do some boat patrol and training. I am going to work a couple events coming up as well as do some training on Saturday morning.

After that I went to work where I was until around six o’clock in the afternoon. I went home and got on my computer. It has been a long time since I spent a fair amount of time posting on the Shack. It was neat to post a whole bunch. That was about it for my day.

First Day on Marine Patrol

November 28th, 2006

It was seemingly a long road to get to this point. After all was said and done, I got up nice and early this morning and made the drive across the state, which had snow covering more than half of the roads. It was a longer drive than normal, where even roads without snow still had ice.

I got to Mercer Island around nine o’clock am. I was listening to the radio as I was getting closer. It was clear some snow fell and it crippled the area. Sure enough people are staying home from work and everything due to the snow.

Greg and I spent most of my time this morning going over the location of equipment. We did not really go over many of the details on usage. That took a while to get through everything. We also dealt with a guy who went speeding into the no-wake zone. We had him come over to the dock and we dealt with him. He got a ticket for expired registration tabs.

When I was done there I went to work and found only four people there. So I hung out for about two hours and then went home because I was so tired. My commute went quick. My quad still needs to go to the Honda dealer. I was going to see about doing that last night only to find that I could not get it out of the shop because of the truck parked in there.

I pretty much spent the rest of the night watching TV and going to bed early so I could get to work early as well tomorrow.

The Office is Gone

November 27th, 2006

After years of renting office space on Nye Street in Pullman, I have closed the office and turned in the key. I will take the money I was spending on the office and put it towards my new house payments. I also will cancel my phone and DSL service. It is cheaper for me to use cable and it will work out okay, as far as I can tell at this point.

I got my cable installed today. Because of the savings of not having the telephone bill, and the offer that cable has at this point, it is going to be the same price to have cable TV and internet service. So I will have both for six months. Who knows I may keep cable TV, with just the basic channels, but then again, I am so unproductive when I have TV calling my name. I will decide soon. It probably was a bad idea to get TV.

I would like to hook up a computer to the cable system so I can record shows and watch them when the time is good for me rather than being locked down to watching the show when it comes on the air.

I went to my OTEP training tonight, but then I got a call about a CISD about the car accident from the other night, so I opted to go to that instead. That went about four hours. I got home as it was snowing and ugly. I only have three hours until I have to get up again.

Quiet Night

November 26th, 2006

Tonight on duty was a quiet one. We were on duty starting at six o’clock pm. It was quiet pretty much all night long. We did have to take care of a few things for the rescue.

We got one call that we took Engine Thirty-One to. It was a fire that was out in Stephenson East. It was in a microwave. We were there for about and hour taking care of things. On the way back to the station the rig was having problems with the batteries. They were getting dim. The signals and the overhead emergency lights did not work at all. The rig was put out of service.

Incident Commander

November 25th, 2006

When I woke up this morning, if you had told me what I would have been doing today I would not have believed it. I started out as expected. John came over and helped me load up all my trash from the boxes that I have been going through the last few nights. I have been getting rid of a lot of things that I don’t need, but I have held onto over the years. Anyway, John and I went to the dump and threw everything away. Then we went to my office and he helped me get a couple more items from there and dropped them off at the house.

We went inside and just hung out for a while we were talking about Pullman fire and the divide between the reserves and career guys. We talked about the union and their position on things as well as how Moscow Ambulance covers Pullman when there are no career guys left to cover the city. I told John that I thought it is strange the union would argue that a reserve cannot run the ambulance but at the same time allow a volunteer from a different state cover the city. John argued that the volunteers have experience running the ambulance but the reserves don’t. That I would be one of the only reserves who would be able to do what is necessary to run the ambulance and only because of my experience from Colfax. John said he felt I was experienced.

After John left I headed to Colfax to work on my coroner’s report and printing the photos from the case I had on Thanksgiving night. I was in the Coroner’s Office printing the photos and typing up the report for about an hour and a half. I got everything completed and was starting to gather up all the case files for this case and organize it when Pete showed up. I went through the photos with him and he agreed with me about my findings. I took off and went to Rosauers to get some pop and my plan was to go to Colfax Fire and hang out for a few hours because I wanted to relax from all the moving stuff I have been doing over the last two weeks.

Jim was working and we just were talking about the weather, with the snow coming, plus the case I had on Thanksgiving, as he was a responder to that case. It had been a little over an hour when a call came in for a roll-over accident. I was shotgun with Carl driving. We got on scene and pretty much were cancelled by Squad Eleven-Thirty-Five who was first on scene. We went back to the station.

Carl left, David, Craig, and I hung out with Jim. We were there for about twenty minutes or more. We were watching some TV and talking about the call. Plus we were listening in to WSP and Colfax PD going to slide off after slide off in the S-Curves outside of Colfax. The snow was not falling too much, but it was cold and things were getting slick. Then Craig mentioned that we should get some food before we get too busy. I said that if you eat, go to the bathroom and are totally ready for the call they will not happen.

I said that as I sat on the couch thinking about how bad I needed to go to the bathroom. But no sooner than that we hear tones. A two car injury accident the S-Curves south of Colfax. David jumped in the drivers seat, I took shotgun and Craig got in the back. I was going to wait for Carl to show up, but then I hear someone was unconscious so we hit the road.

As we were en route I thought about the number of patients and what we would see. I told Whitcom to make sure Rescue Eleven was going to be responding, so they toned out Rescue Eleven. When we were getting closer we were told it was near Huber. We could see the car accident as we rounded the last corner. I had been thinking about my size up and what to do when we got close to the scene. Dispatch advised us that we had something and one code black. I cannot even remember what the “something” was because when the words code black were thrown at me I did not have time to think about it more than someone died. I had to get on the air and give a size up. I could see a big suburban and a small car. I Suburban had eating the small car. I could see the deceased in the front seat of the small car. I saw people gathered around the backseat of the small car. I saw someone in the front seat of the Suburban. I gave my size up, but I lost my train of thought with all the things I was thinking about at once. I cannot even remember my whole size up. I had a nearly impossible time saying who I was and what I was naming command.

I went to the car at first and tried to open the door of the back seat. It was jammed. I wanted to make sure it was unlocked. David could not get to it from the front because of the deceased. The EMT who happened on the scene was not able to get the door unlocked. We needed extrication.

The small car was handled by the people there so I went to the suburban and started to talk to the people there. Seeing they were not really badly injured I knew they were green. I went back to the small car briefly. In that time the people had moved around in the Suburban. I went to the passenger side where the driver was now sitting. I spoke with him briefly. I told him that someone would be coming to do patient care. Ambulance Eleven-Two was coming on scene. I took Milt with me to a truck where the others from the Suburban were sitting. I had the others go to the guy in the Suburban.

With my nerves jumping and the cold weather I has shivering really badly. My teeth were chattering and I was trying to see what was wrong with the patient, if anything. I talked to them and they seemed okay for the most part. I went back to the Suburban. The guy agreed to go to the hospital, but he did not want to go by ambulance. The driver of the Suburban agreed to go to the hospital. When I was explaining that to the driver of the Suburban, Jenny, who was holding C-Spine was shaking her head “no” because of the mechanism of injury she felt they had to go by ambulance. I went back towards the truck. During this part I was not really thinking I was command even though I initiated command. Then Milt sort of inadvertently got me into command-mode. He started to ask me about what resources we had and what I should call for. I knew that if all the patients were to be transported we would have two red, and three green. Which would mean four ambulances. One red would have a prolonged extrication and the green were ready to go if we could convince them to go.

While I was thinking about resources I knew I needed another ambulance. I asked Whitcom in Albion Ambulance was en route. They told me it was. One red was already en route to the hospital. I soon got word Whitman Community was putting us on divert. So all additional patients needed to go to Pullman. I contacted the people with the car and tried to find out about the patient who was still in the car. I was told the patient appeared to be in bad shape. I knew we needed MedStar but I was not sure if it could fly. I contacted Whitcom and asked them MedStar’s status. I was told they could fly. I said to launch them and have them go to Whitman Community hospital for the LZ. I told Albion Ambulance when they arrived where to park. We got two patients with Albion and one in Ambulance Eleven-Two. Now I only had one patient. I also had Paul-Sixty-Five put on alert. About two minutes later I got a call from Whitcom. I saw the number and knew what they were doing. I answered the phone and they were putting me on stand by. I informed them I was IC and that they needed to put Patti on stand by.

Rescue Eleven’s crew and some of the others who were on scene were working on getting the Suburban lifted and the patient extricated. I got called on the radio by Scott to see if we needed him up at the scene. I told him we needed ILS and had him come. He came POV. He started an IV and did patient care. We were trying to find out where MedStar was and they were getting close, but extrication was taking a long time. The Suburban had T-boned the car at a slight angle. The drivers wheel was on top of the patient in the back seat. It was ge
tting dark and we were still working on everything. I was not cold anymore. I was quite comfortable in an odd way because it was cold outside, but I still needed to go to the bathroom really bad.

Ambulance Eleven-One was back and Ambulance Eleven-Three out of Steptoe had been called to assist on another accident that happened. It turned out to be non-injury so they asked if we needed them at the scene. We had all the people we needed and had no ambulance in the city. I told them to go to Colfax Fire and stand by for additional calls.

We had the Suburban cribbed and using airbags to get it lifted high enough, but we were starting to run out of cribbing. Carl asked me if we could remove the deceased. That is not something that is done unless there is a good reason. I asked if it was necessary for the rescue operation. He said it was. I told him the living that priority. So I said that we could remove the deceased. I took a bunch of photos for the coroner as the deceased was removed. All of a sudden a loud noise happened and I saw the Suburban break some cibbing and the airbags came out and the Suburban fall back into its original position. We called for a tow truck to help. When it got on scene we had it lift the Suburban.

MedStar then wanted to know if we were nearly ready for them because they wanted to transport the first red patient. I contact the people doing the extrication and they said they were close. I was then told they wanted to know in minutes how long. I asked Scott and he said if they need to leave send a second bird. I told that to Whitcom. Within about seven or eight minutes the second patient was free and I told Whitcom we were transporting the patient to hold the bird if it had not left.

We were finally in clean up mode. We were done. Chief Krause pulled me aside for a moment. He said that he did not take command from me because he thought I was doing a good job. He let me know I had done a good job. I had been asked by State Patrol how long the coroner would take. I said she was coming from Garfield. They asked if we could have the coroner coming. That was a while back and I had the coroner en route. She arrived just after we got the last patient free. I told her what happened and she started her investigation. We cleared the scene and I terminated command. It had been nearly an hour and a half since the incident started that we had the final patient freed.

I went to Colfax fire and took the camera to the coroners office to download the photos for Patti. I went back to Colfax fire and spoke with the people there for a few minutes. Scott said that I had done a good job. Then I went to the funeral home to work with Patti there. The deceased had massive injuries. Following the time at the funeral home Patti and I went to the coroners office to print photos and she wrote her report.

I finally left the coroners office around nine-thirty at night. I took a body bag to the ambulance to replace the one we had used from there. Then I went to Pullman. But as I got to Colfax Body I saw the cars and state patrol there. I stopped in and spoke to the trooper. I got a copy of the drivers license and looked at the car some more. It was amazing, a miracle that the patient in the back passenger side even lived.

I went to Pullman and then to Whitcom. I showed Jamie the photos from the wreck. We talked about it and how the whole scene went. I spoke to the other dispatchers who were also there for part of the wreck. I stayed at Whitcom for a couple hours unwinding and talking with them about various calls and learning more about how they dispatch things.

That was my first time being command through out a major incident. Normally I can stay command on Pullman calls if it turns out to be a small call, like a fire alarm. Many times I initiate command but it is taken from me as soon as someone else arrives. I have been thinking about all the things I did not do that I probably should have done. Nothing affected the outcome that I did “wrong”. It wasn’t necessarily bad, it would have been better form if I had done certain things. When Scott got there I should have put him incharge of a patient care group. And I should have put Carl or Krause in charge of the extrication group. That is pretty much what had happened anyway, but I did not verbalize those things. I just wish I had verbalized them. I should have had someone on safety detail as well. I was doing that job myself. I made sure that I mitigated the things that I saw that needed to be done for safety. It was a great experience. I had five patients, two car, extrication, cops, the coroner, and multiple agencies and rigs that I was dealing with. Everything happened that needed to happen and things went pretty smooth considering what we were working with.

Just two of us

November 24th, 2006

Being on call for the fire department today was a non-issue. We had two calls and they were both within minutes of the “six o’clocks”. One near the evening and one near the morning of our shift. We did not do anything on either of them really.

Brian and I were the only ones on because it was nearing the end of Thanksgiving break. We hung out at the station for a while. We watched one of my new movies Running Scared with Paul Walker. It was a pretty cool flick.

When we were done with the movie I went home. I was so tired I fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

Happy Thanksgiving

November 23rd, 2006

Today is Thanksgiving. I spent most of it working on my stuff. I have many items that needs to be thrown away because I just shouldn’t hold on to it anymore. I also stopped at Blockbuster to buy a couple movies. I ended up buying twenty-two of them. I watched one and I started on a second one when I got a call for service.

There was a car crash with a dead person right outside of Colfax. As it turned out the person had a heart attack before the crash. So the person was dead before the crash even happened. It was down a thirty foot embankment so Colfax Fire was there using ropes to help get up and down the hill side. It was cold, rainy, and muddy out there. I did not get home until after two in the morning.

A Forgettable Night

November 22nd, 2006

I finally got the computer up and running the way I like it. Being down the last few days and it sucked. We are now running on all cylinders. Other than working on my computer I was on call for the fire department. We only had one real call and we were cancelled and did not even need to go to the hospital. I was working with Ben for the first time since he joined the fire department.

Root Canal.

November 21st, 2006

I got my tooth taken care of today. It was in so much pain. I had to have a root canal. But anyone who says they suck, whimps! It is not that bad. But I feel so much better now that it is done.

I spent most of the day working on my computer outside of the dentist appointment. I got some pizza for the coroners meeting today as well. The meeting actually was pretty short compared to normal.

When that was done I watch House before going home.

Mom’s Last Day in Town

November 20th, 2006

Mom was spending her last full day in town. She did a good job helping to get my kitchen set up. She also worked on a couple other things around the house.

I found my computer was dead at work. After spending more than an hour trying to get it to work, I gave up and decided to go buy a new hard drive and install it. I got the installation started and the OS installed. But then I was running low on time. I went home and my mom and I had dinner.

We did not get a lot done tonight around the house. I did some relaxing for once. I still have a lot of work ahead of me and I wanted to do some relaxing.

Wrong Day at Work

November 19th, 2006

I was supposed to be on call tonight, so I thought. But as it turned out I wasn’t. With my mom in town I have been getting things done around the house that does not include going through the boxes. I think that I need to get my areas that I am going to store things all set up. Then I will unpack the boxes. In some ways I just want to have a computer next to me. That way when I open it up I can search to see if something has any value to anyone. If it does I can sell it. I also want to scan any papers I would like to keep and throw away everything else. Right now my house is pretty empty of junk. It is nice. Just the necessities. I would like to keep it that way.

I went to the fire department only to find that it was B-shift tonight even though I thought it was A-shift. I also still have a tooth-ache in my mouth. It is so painful. I have been taking Motrin to try to ease the pain. I cannot wait to see the dentist.

Horrible Day as a Coug

November 18th, 2006

The Apple Cup today was supposed to be a victory over the Huskies. Instead I watched them celebrate on our field. It sucked really bad. I could not stand watching so many of the Huskie fans walking into the stadium as smug as they looked. It was like we were below them. I had one Huskie fan demand that I do something about the crowd. I was a “fire marshall” and I should do something about the crowd. I hate the dawgs!

Besides the crushing defeat of the Cougs I spent some of the evening at home with my mom. She came into town today to help around the house. She has been cleaning stuff up and putting away my kitchen stuff. She also brought over some baseboard and flatbar for the floor.

Final Day of Mini Vacation

November 17th, 2006

This is the final day of my vacation from NU. I have been working on moving all week long with yesterday being the big day where most of the stuff was moved to the house. Today I moved a couple small things. Peter met up with me and helped me get some adjustable shelves purchased and put up. It looks really nice. I was happy he was here to help.

I actually was surprised that he showed up. He has been sort of there and not there as a friend since he came back to Pullman. We have hung out on an average of about once a month since he return. But that is more than it was after he just stopped being my friend for so long. I still don’t know what caused the blackout from ought-two to ought-six. Someday I want to know.

But we went to see Casino Royale and worked on the shelf like I has already said. It was a good night with him. I was also on call for the fire department. We were pretty busy for much of the night. We were getting called all over the place for fights and drunks. Tyson got to drive code for the first time now that he is checked off to be second on Rescue.

The Big Move… Again!

November 16th, 2006

This is my second big move this year. I hope it will be the last one for a couple years. I had a lot of stuff in storage, my office, and my apartment. I had been working on getting everything ready to go for today’s move.

I started by getting a U-Haul truck. I went to my storage at noon. Andrew and James were there to meet up with me. Keeton showed up a few minutes later. We got my storage done in no time. I also had Richie coming from Montana to put his stuff in the apartment. Now I had to get a hustle on the apartment clear out. We went there and had the couch fun. That is where my couch is too big to fit out the door. The guys joked that the building was built around the couch.

At the apartment some guys had to leave, but Peter and Davolt showed up to help. So I had three guys helping at any given time. Tyson also came to help too. It was a nice moving day. I bought some pizza for the guys and we were able to get everything from the storage, my office, and my apartment sans a few small items in a matter of six hours. I was shocked at how well things went.

Final Moving Prep

November 15th, 2006

I was working my rear off trying to get everything ready for tomorrow’s move. I was packing up as much stuff as I could in boxes. I also moved a bunch of things myself just to help out tomorrow’s move. I spent most of the day getting items packed up and taken into the living room so they were ready to go for the move. My back was starting to hurt a little bit. I worked until the wee hours of the morning to be ready.

Actually doing some moving

November 14th, 2006

This is day two and I hoped to get some moving done. I went to my house and got my boat out of the garage. I then unloaded my truck cab as Brian from Hillards worked on my heater. I am thinking about upgrading to a programmable thermostat. That will be about eighty bucks.

I went to the office and started to clean out some of the thing and shred stuff. I also started to pack things for a while. But around five I decided to head to Colfax for fire training and hope for a call while I was there. It was board and business tonight. We had nearly a two hour meeting.

I went to the SO and watched House before heading back to Pullman. I got a full load into my truck of many of the boxes and things that had not been unpacked since moving to the apartment. I had four laundry baskets full of clothes as well as a huge duffel bag. I sorted the items. I have a huge pile of stuff I was getting rid of because it was either way to used or too small. I also set aside nice stuff to donate. Finally of the stuff I was keeping I sorted it so I could wash it. Some of the things were covered in cat hair.

I ended my night by putting the washing machine through an empty load to get everyone cleaned before I start to use it.

I was Hired!!!

November 13th, 2006

The PES today was great. Peter and I were on fire. We were talking about a lot of the big issues that have happened over the last week. We really fed off each other well and it was great.

Following the show Peter and I went to Moscow to get my boat. We took it to my place and put it into the garage. It fits in there. I was happy about that. Peter and I went around the house. He thought it was a nice looking place. I think over all I am going to be happy with it.

As I was dropping off Peter I got a call from the Sgt from Mercer Island. I was not sure how my polygraph came back. So I had been nervous all weekend. He asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said that I would in a few minutes. I wanted Peter out of earshot when we talked in case I had to explain anything or whatever.

I went to the office and took care of some stuff online while I waited for the phone call. He called up and said the polygraph and my background came back good so I was being offered a position! I set up some times in late November and early December to do some training and even work a couple shifts. That is pretty neat.

I had fire training tonight with Pullman. We are doing more extrication training. That was taking place at the Deuce. Before the training I asked E. Dearth how his hiring process went with Mercer Island. They were interested in hiring him. It turned out they did hire him, so I will be working with him over there too. I don’t know why, but he is going to have forty hours of different kinds of training before he is going to be able to work, where all they are doing with me is some boat drive time and equipment familiarization. It could be my background that is moving me along faster. When the Sgt. heard I was a corrections officer and whatnot he was very excited about getting me hired.

So far I have not told anyone that I have been hired by Mercer Island. I think I will leave that unspoken. Not that I am trying to hide it or anything, it will just be a fun little thing that no one will know about.

Training went until nine o’clock in the evening. Then we had to fill some air bottles and get Rescue back in service with the things we used. By the time we were done it was after ten-thirty. I got some pizza from Pipeline and then went to Mike’s to play some poker.

I was going to play for about an hour and leave, but it turned out to be a couple hours before I left. It was nearly two in the morning went I finally got to sleep.

Quiet On Call Day

November 12th, 2006

With all the car accidents killing people it was nice to have a quiet day being on call for the coroner. With my upcoming move I started to think about what items I needed to get moved and making plans for the actual move.

Cougs Go Down Again

November 11th, 2006

Being on call and without cable TV I decided that I would hang out at the station and watch the game there. But I was disappointed to see it was not on TV at all even though the game had such a late start time. I was able to listen to it on the radio as I was doing my other tasks, but it was not a pretty sounding game. The cougs were spanked by Arizona State. That really sucked. The bowl hopes are fading with these latest losses.

One last day in Seattle

November 10th, 2006

Because I have to cover for Reed tomorrow at the fire department I don’t have to be there until Saturday I decided to stay the night in Renton one extra night. I do not feel like doing a whole lot though because I am worried about the polygraph test and I want to know how things went with it.

All the Marbles

November 9th, 2006

I went to my Polygraph appointment this afternoon. I was very nervous about doing so. I knew that I would now be telling the whole truth and KNOW that it is the truth, but being that it was so new, I did not BELIEVE it was the truth.

I went to his office which was way up North in Seattle. I sat in the office and started to fill out my first form. Then we went into a room and he started with questioning me about a ton of things, including drugs, misc crimes, etc. When it was all said and done I told him that I feel like I live a good life until I do something like that.

One thing he asked me was if there was anything I was worried about in the test. I told him briefly about the whole Michelle thing. We went into the exam room. He hooked me to the instrument and gave me some final instructions and then started with the questions. I was trying to keep a breathing rate that was constant and clam. But when he asked me the question about sex I was not able to keep the rhythm that I had going. After the first set of questions he said he was going to ask me the questions again this time in a different order. Then he asked me one about stealing as well as the sex one. He had not asked me all the questions then he deflated my BP cuff and that was it.

I was sort of confused and then he asked me what I was thinking about when I answered the question. I told him that I had answered everything honestly. He said that he was not asking that, he said “what were you THINKING about?” I drew a blank. Then he asked me about another question and I told him that I was worried about that question just as I told him in the pre-test interview.

He wished me luck and I left. I was worried about it all the way back to work. I went over what I was thinking when the theft question was asked. Finally I realized that the beginning of the question is worded the same as the sex one and that is what caused me to answer it weirdly.

I am very nervous about how this will all end up. The bad thing about me being nervous is that I was honest and truthful, yet I believe that I did not come across that way in the test.

Years of Worry over Nothing

November 8th, 2006

I have worried about something Michelle and I did way back in the day. I remember Lisa once saying “BUMBLEBEE, SHE’S ONLY FIFTEEN!!!” That of course has weighed on me over the years. I always thought I had technically, maybe did something wrong. Rather than know for sure I decided to bury my head in the sand and figure to have some deniability is always a good thing.

But coming into this upcoming polygraph I have to make a decision. I need to either find out the truth and tell it, or try to cover up what, in my heart, I felt was a lie. That is a tough choice. On one hand I realized that I could put all my jobs in jeopardy if I lied. On the other hand if I told the truth I could be looked down upon and it could still be bad. But I made up my mind that I needed to be honest. I am disappointed in myself that I even questioned the idea of not being “truthful” with what was in my heart.

So I looked up the laws. From everything I found if She was more than sixteen then I was okay. If she was less that sixteen but more than twelve we needed to be less than forty-eight months apart. Now I had to find out how old she was. I made a phone call and got her finally. We chatted for a little bit, then I asked when she was born.

She wanted to know why I wanted to know. I told her about the job. She asked if I was using her as a reference. I sort of skirted that issue. I got her date of birth and did some quick math. Not only are we less than forty-eight months apart, she was SIXTEEN and a HALF!!! I was worried over all these years for nothing. But the problem is that you cannot take years worth of doubt and wash it out of the mind and heart in a matter of hours.

I felt better about now telling the real truth, and not some made up version where I thought I did nothing wrong, but did not know for sure.

Only Days to Back out

November 7th, 2006

I am debating on backing out of the polygraph which would make it so I could not get hired. Part of me is thinking that the marine patrol would make me too busy and too dependant on being in Seattle more often. The other part of me thinks that is just an excuse because I am running from the unknown. That unknown being Michelle of course.

Staying for Training

November 6th, 2006

I was planning on heading out to Seattle tonight because of the Polygraph test coming up, but I decided that if I require the other to be at Monday night training I too should be there. So I will be making my way to Seattle early in the morning.

The Blues

November 5th, 2006

It sucks when the Cougs lose, it sucks more when they should have won to begin with.

Cougar Football Disappointment

November 4th, 2006

It is Dad’s weekend and I am on call for the evening. Arizona is in town to play the Cougs. Brian and I get Rescue ready and make our way to Station one for the meal followed by going to the stadium for the game.

We took our place on the East pad and went into our spot. It was a pretty tame game for calls for us, however, the Cougs were not playing well against Arizona. They were running circles around the Cougs. We could not hold our own against them and ended up losing. It is never fun to lose.

Following the game we went back to the station. I hung around the station watching some TV and waiting for a call to time in. It was a pretty tame night around town as well.

Day Two on Jeopardy

November 3rd, 2006

Dave was on Jeopardy for day two. He is the returning champion and Ben and I have gotten together to watch and root Dave on.

As the game moves along Dave builds a big lead and goes into final Jeopardy with a victory sealed up. Unless he pulled a Cliff Claven he could not lose. He indeed won and will move on to day three.

Dave Meddish on Jeopardy

November 2nd, 2006

I saw an article in the Daily Evergreen about a WSU employee being on Jeopardy. I started to read it and I saw it was Dave! I e-mailed everyone on the softball team and some other people that I knew. It was pretty exciting that he was on the show.

I had fire training tonight for the new guys on the department. I went to the station around five o’clock and helped George get everything ready. As people showed up I made it a point to introduce myself. While Jeopardy was on I watched the episode in the next room. I was getting so excited as he was moving towards a victory. Ben called me during a commercial and said it was more fun than a football game.

Dave ended up winning twenty-thousand and one dollars and is going to play tomorrow to defend his championship.

Peter was planning on coming over to watch Saw with me. I got some pizza and Tricky Stix. We watched Saw and then he hung out with me for another couple hours. He did not take off until nearly four in the morning.

A Near Victory

November 1st, 2006

Tonight’s Flag Football game had a couple new guys on the team including KC who will be playing for the Thunder come this Spring. He is a good player. We started the game by having the other team drive down the field for a touchdown but they missed the extra point. Following that we went three-and-out. But after that it was downhill for us!

We started to click and score some points. Soon we had a lead. But on an extra point attempt we were intercepted for a loss of three points. But we ran an interception back for a touchdown. When it was nearly done we had about one minute to go and they needed to go the length of the field for a score. Plus they would need a two-point conversion for the victory.

As it turned out they got a really long pass play for the touchdown and ended up making the two point conversion. We had only thirteen seconds on the clock. We took a shot for then endzone but the ball was intercepted and we lost the game.

It was a fun game. Afterwards Richard and I stood in the parking lot for about twenty minutes talking about random things. I found out Erin will be in town to play dodgeball on Sunday. That is good news for the team.