Washtunca’s Interesting Announcing Location

March 31st, 2007

When I arrived in Washtunca I found my way to the school pretty quickly. It was worse than I expected. There were only a small number of bleacher seating. Less than what is at the city playfields in Pullman. Because of the way the system is set up, I could not use my laptop and do my job very well. If I hooked my computer to the system, I would have to stay in the concession stand and I would not be able to see the field.

They had a wireless mic that I would use to announce the game. I spent some time trying to figure out where I should go to get a good view of the game and to be able to see what player was involved in the play. Finally after thinking about it for a while I was able to take my truck to the far side of the field and drive it up this grass hillside. Where I was able to sit over the field to a point. I could not really see yard markings, but I could see the players reasonably well. I was still having a hard time seeing them really well.

I sat in the front seat of my truck with the laptop in my lap and my papers all across my dash board of the truck. It made of an interesting day. To play music I would put the mic next to the speaker of the truck and play the CD.

The Thunder ended up losing by less than a touchdown. It sucked because after the first drive or two they could not get anything going. They had bad field position the whole day. The final Thunder drive gave me some hope, but they came up thirteen yards short.

I got back to Pullman and Ryan was in town for the draft for Phil’s fantasy baseball league we are in. Him and I are playing in a team together. Ryan got some pizza and came to my place where he was staying the night. We ate the pizza, watched some House and then the movie Shooting Gallery.

Back in the Clubhouse

March 30th, 2007

Tonight there was the poker game in Newport Shores, and it was in the clubhouse after getting renovated. When I got there a new table was started. Through out the night I was winning. These people are pretty easy to beat. I kept getting decent cards and working on making money.

We played in a tournament later on. I didn’t do great in that. I came in fifth place and they only paid the top four. I sat back at the first table and played some more. I was doing well again. I won back my entry fee from the tournament and continued to expand my money. One guy at the table was really drunk and he is like that every time we play. He gets very annoying when he is like that. But I walked away up around sixty bucks. Pretty good for the night.

My Mom’s Birthday

March 29th, 2007

Today is my mom’s birthday. I got her a card and looked around for something to buy for her but I was not sure what she would want. Jon came over with the boys. They hung out and we played for a while and Jon went to a meeting for their baseball league that is getting started up.

I gave them a ride home after we played some games for a while. Jon got there a little while after I got to the house. I sent the boys to bed and then Jon and I talked softball for a while. He is thinking about playing again. He bought himself a softball bat. He is looking forward to playing.

Firearms and OC Training

March 28th, 2007

The morning started when we went to the Renton Fish and Game Club for firearms training. We used the AR-Fifteen and the Glock Model Twenty-Two. We got a run down of how the guns works and got a chance to put a couple magazines through them both. It was good training. I was doing pretty well with the shooting.

When we were done we went to the PD and did some OC training. I only had to do a refresher course. I helped the one guy who had to get sprayed. He did not like it at all. He took a while to decontaminate.

When he was done I went to work at NU. There is not a lot going on right now because our product is getting ready to be shipped.

Seattle Time

March 27th, 2007

I got up this morning and made my way to Bellevue. When I got to the office I got working on some stuff on my computer when someone asked if I wanted to go get lunch. We went off to lunch. I was at the office until around five. I went home and got a chance to see my family when I got home.

Magic Show in Todd Aud

March 26th, 2007

This morning was my radio show. Daniel from the College Republicans. They did a demonstration on the CUB Mall about having English as the official language of America. We talked about it for over an hour. I finally figured out what was going on with the telephone not working correctly. I figured out that there is a button on the Mic slider where I have to turn on the Tel button. It was a good conversation.

After the radio show I went home and waited until it was time to go to the Magic Show in Todd Aud. It was Brian Bushwood. He is a younger guy and he had an assistant who was a big time ten-six-seven. After the show was done I went up and talked to both of them. I also got them added to MySpace.

During the radio show Bushwood showed some tricks about how you can win at different events. He was doing one for Simon Says. When I was one of the guys who was still in play, he said for everyone to come to the stage to continue the game. I didn’t want to go to the stage so I just stood there. Everyone else went walking up there. Then he said “Simon did not say”. I sort of laughed because the only reason I did not go up there was because I didn’t want to go up there at all.

Softball Season has Started!

March 25th, 2007

We first had a poker tournament. There were nine people who showed up for it. It lasted a couple hours. I was doing pretty well through out the tournament. Dan had to rebuy one time, and he kept getting sucked out on. When we were getting to the end of the tournament Andy had to leave so he was playing very loose. He was going all in on several hands. There were only three of us left. Andy called all-in and I called him. The flop was his cards. I had him dominated up until the flop. Once he took me out he had to go, so he got second place. Richie got first place.

I ran over to Moscow to get some softball pants. I left mine in Renton. But when I got to Moscow I went to four places and did not find them anywhere. Tri-state and WalMart did not have any at all. Big-Five had some, but they were all small. Sport Shack in the mall did not have anything but basketball shorts. It was terrible. I ended up using the old Cougar Men’s Baseball pants I bought to play on Kelly’s team with.

I got to the field with Ryan. We ended up having the first team not show up. So we sat around for an hour. We did some BP which was good. I was playing first base and Ryan was at second. With Bryce gone there was a shake up of the infield. In the second game I had to make some plays. One was a dive as the ball was getting ready to go out of play. I had to dive right on the first baseline’s out of bounds marker. I saved it from going out.

Then there was another play where I had to go hard to my right, more or less a dive and scoop a ball. When I came up with it I looked down at home where someone was running, but I did not think I would be able to make the play, so I held on it the ball. We were playing A Bunch of Old Guys, which use to be Don’t Care. We lost to them by three runs. It sucked.

After the game was done I went home to work on the radio show as well as getting the Website updated for the Nadirs. It was a pretty good day over all.

Just Some Drive Time

March 24th, 2007

I got a phone call from Pete to start my day. Instead of going to back to sleep I got up and went to the training tower. No one was there. So I went to the fire station and talked to Chapman. He was doing a rig check on the ambulance. I got some drive time set up with my guys.

I got some lunch and then went back to the station. I helped finish the rig check while waiting for Morgan and Jake to get there. I got a phone call from the family of the deceased I worked with yesterday. I told him what we were doing and what the latest information that I had.

We went out for a couple hours. Morgan is new at driving and he is still getting use to driving. Jake did really well. He doesn’t really know the city very well so he needs to learn the city. But he drove the rig well.

When we were done I went to the store to get some shopping done. I have been needing to do it for a few days. While shopping Volk called and told me the ambulance was dirty and I should have washed it. I told him I could wash it if he would like. He said he would. I was sort of pissed because they have left our rigs dirty.

When I got home I made some dinner and watched TV for a couple hours. I made my way to the station around eleven at night. I washed the ambulance. Just as I was finishing up the tones went off. But only the PL had to go. I don’t know if the ambulance had to go out on a call or not.

Incredibly Busy Day

March 23rd, 2007

Today started out with a Delta and Echo response at the same time. I went down and I went on Rescue. It was about seven-thirty in the morning. We were going to go to the Echo, but we were told to go to the Delta. The Echo was cleared quickly, so I knew what that meant.

After the Delta we got an Alpha. We were first on scene and it really was just a public assist. When I was leaving I had a call from Pete about the death in Pullman. He was going to take it, but I told him I was the one on call. So I went home and got into my coroners uniform and went to the scene. I was on scene for a couple hours getting information and then I went to the funeral home and got more information. Due to the information I got from the family it was not clear whether it was an accidental or a natural event. I spent some time talking to Pete. We were going to meet up later on and go over everything.

I got back to my place and worked on the paperwork. It took some time to write the stuff up, count the meds, and contact the doctors. I got done with that and went back to the funeral home to meet Pete. We went over my findings and talked about what I found. He said that he agreed an autopsy was going to be needed. He scheduled that.

I had just enough time to get home, change, and get to the fire station. Erik called and said we needed to take Rescue to work the WSU Baseball game. It was against the Huskies. There were more than three-thousand people. It was one of the ten biggest crowds ever. We were there working that for a couple hours when we got a call for a power line down. Tyson and I went on that leaving Brian at the game, in the tenth inning. It turned out the Cougs lost in the eleventh.

On the power line down call I took command. I cleared the other units. We stood by incase a fire broke out because the live wire. A couple WSU cops were there and we spent the next couple hours talking and making jokes. We were on scene for four hours waiting for Avista and to be cleared. I got my report written.

I got my report done. I got home and made a sandwich. Then we got a call. The next couple hours we got a couple more calls. It was so tiring. I finally got to go to bed about four in the morning. It was nearly a twenty hour day on the clock. I was so tired by the end of the day.

A Full Schedule

March 22nd, 2007

After getting to bed so late I was not awake until just after ten o’clock. I was supposed to have a flooring estimate. But either the guy did not show up, or he rang the doorbell and left. Either way he did not leave a card nor call me up.

I spoke to Nick about softball. It turns out his team did not get created so he will be playing on my team and bring a guy along with him. That is good news for us. Neither of the two guys from the free agent I e-mailed about playing on the team got back to me.

I was supposed to have a managers meeting today for the team I also had plans to do drive time with the guys. So I got someone else to do the managers meeting. I got together with Tyson, Andrew, and Morgan. We did a lot of stuff with driving around the cones and practiced doing some of the things they would have to do in the cone course.

I also hit the WSU Surplus auction today. I saw Kelly and Matt there. Matt is the one who reminds me of Brandon. He is a ten-six-seven and a very nice guy. He plays shortstop and does a very good job at it. They were getting pants for the softball team. They had a lot of old WSU baseball pants. They all got some and Kelly told me to get some if I was going to play in some of their tournaments. I picked up some pants and socks. There were some file cabinets but I did not get one. They are going to be expensive, but they are better and cheaper than those at Office Depot and Staples.

Poker with Langely

March 21st, 2007

Everything was going well until I got a message asking me if I had heard about what was going on with the ASP.NET applications. For some reason something was discovered and it was causing the GFE and all ASP.NET applications to stop working. That was bad. I spent a lot of time with Brian today trying to figure out what was happening and how to fix it. In fact I spent most of my day doing that. But I had to get to the fire station to do rig checks and get ready for being on shift.

I was at the station for a while. We were hanging out down there chatting about random things, like normal, until around eight o’clock pm. I was at home with Loren got a hold of me to invite me to come over and play some poker. Several other guys from the football team came over. They were not great players, it looks like they just played for the fun of it, but they threw around money. I ended up winning about twenty-five bucks on the night.

It was midnight when I got to Russell’s for our Wednesday night get together. I got dished up some chicken and rice. The tones went off for a call. I was able to eat the food and I was heading to the station. By the time we were done with that call I went back to Russells. This time I was there some time longer, but before I was able to really get relaxed we got toned out for something else. I was off to the races again, but it was getting near two in the morning, and by the time the call would be done it was going to be late. Top that with the problems with the stuff at work I told them I would not be able to make it back.

Softball Signups!

March 20th, 2007

Getting up this early, I had to get to the rec center to sign up for the softball team. I was the first one in the Men’s Comp on Sunday nights. It is not like it use to be when there was a line down the hall of the CUB with people waiting to get a team. Now you can show up hours after the sign ups start and still get your team.

My schedule showed a Coroner’s meeting as well as a meeting to get signed up for teaching recruit classes. That meeting started at one o’clock pm. I got to the station just in time for the meeting to start. It lasted about an hour talking about the schedule of the academy as well as getting people signed up for it.

I was at home working on some stuff there before heading to Colfax for the Coroner’s training. I stopped by the fire department in Colfax to let them know I would not be there for training because I was going to the coroners meeting. I also had Ken’s pocket knife and returned it to him. He gave me a lot of crap, in jest, but it was fun.

I went to the coroners meeting and no one show up. After a while I called Pete and there was no meeting tonight. So I went to the Colfax Fire training. I was a little late but I was able to be there for most of the training. We were doing stuff with setting up Command.

Pushed back a week

March 19th, 2007

I started with a bug on my plate this morning. I got it quickly fixed and turned in. Then it was time to head to my radio show.

My radio show went really well today. I did some good stuff. I had several topics that I touched on and when I was listening to the audio I thought I sounded good. Better than normal.

I got back to the house in time for the meeting. When I got there I found a second bug. I worked my rear off trying to get it completed today. As it was they moved back release to web by one week for testing purposes. So if it took me extra time to finish my bug we might have to push it back even more. I finally ran down the problem to something I was told to do earlier. I got permission to revert my changes and got it checked in.

We had the Reserve Association meeting today. Things went pretty well, but there were a couple people doing some scare tactics about the career guys getting us fired over it. I thought that was crap that it was even brought up because that is so far from the truth.

But over all people do want to have it, so I am going to do more work to get it figured out and have something.

We had our OTEP training as well as a couple calls, but it was quiet after around eleven o’clock. In fact we never even got out of the vehicle on either call, both of which were fire alarms.

Batting Practice

March 18th, 2007

I was tired this morning, but I got up and made a call to schedule the ambulance for drive time. I set it up to happen after I had batting practice.

I went to the bat lab where Joe works. I got a chance to hit about one-hundred-thirty-five balls. It was a good times. My first swing was a whiff. But after that I had some nice pokes. But not as many I may have liked.

When that was done a couple of us went out in the medic for drive time. We spent about two hours on the road. When I was done with the drive time I went home. I pretty much hung out there for the evening. I worked on the foam board project some more.

I was able to sell one of my items that I have on craigslist. I have a couple more things for sale. I am selling it all cheap, but it is more than if I had given it away like I did some of the other stuff.

Bummer of a day

March 17th, 2007

I went to Moscow for the Palouse Thunder practice. I was getting photos for all the players and the team photo for the website. That took about an hour overall, plus I hung out for a while watching the practice. Mike D. and I were going to go to the Sports Page to watch the Cougs play Vanderbuilt in the second round of the NCAA tournament. We got a pitcher of green beer for St. Patrick’s Day. The Page also had a couple large pizzas for everyone to chow on.

It was looking good for the Cougs for the most part, but as the game was getting towards the end, I could see things were getting bad. We were not scoring points. We were missing a lot of baskets. After a bit we were down to nail-biting time. We kept the game close and ended up with the last shot of regulation for the win, but missed sending the game into OT. That is why I knew things would not be good. We could not obatin a lead and could not get on a run. We kept it close however. Then we went to a second OT. That is when I got worried. We did end up losing in the second OT. The bar was quiet afterwords. The fight song played, but no one felt like singing a long to it. Losing this game was an upset, but it is funny to think that at the begining of the season if you said that Cougs would be a number three seed in the tournament, no one would have beleived it.

I went home and started to get my house ready for the poker game. It was a cash game. No one was showing up. I could not get a hold of some of the people who said they would be there. In fact, other than Mike, no one who said they would be there showed up. But several people came after phone calls were made by Mike and Morgan.

We ended up having five people at the biggest point of the game. I was doing very well. Wolf was knocked out. John showed up after he had some time with his family for his Birthday. After John got there Morgan stay around for a little while. But he busted out. Mike busted out. Michael busted out. Pretty soon with just John and I. I could not win a hand to save my life. Everytime we had a game were some real betting was going on John would pull it out. The last hand of the night summed up the night. I had two pair. John had an inside-straight draw. I went all-in. John called. He put his hand down saying he needed an eight. He had four outs on the river. He found an eight. He beat me. So that was that.

I went to my den and worked on getting the photos cropped for the Thunder Website. It was getting late and I had to get up early. I called it a night after a lot of losses.

Poker at Zeppoz

March 16th, 2007

I went to Staples to get the stuff the was missing from when I was there yesterday. I got home and worked on cutting those items from the foam board. I also got the photos glued to the foam board.

I decided to go to Zeppoz for a while. That was a mistake however. I could not find a hand to win. I got a couple, but even on hands that I had that were good people were sucking out on me. It is hard to chase someone away when you can only bet a certain limit. I was there for several hours, but I ended up losing pretty bad. Finally I gave up. I still had some money, but I was not about to drop any more money at the table.

Coroner’s Supplies

March 15th, 2007

I made my way to Moscow to look at cameras. I was seeing the prices they had on them over there. I found WalMart and Office Depot were the same price. I also stopped by Staples. I ended up buying several things that I have wanted to get including a papercutter, an exacto knife, a scale ruler, as well as supplies to start working on the foam board for my project.

I got home and realized that some of the items were left at Staples and they were closed. So I spent the time making measurements and getting everything ready to start making the cuts. It took a couple hours to get things measured and the lines drawn. I am excited about how this project will turn out.

Engineer Pump Time with Keith

March 14th, 2007

Because I had all my bugs done and out of the way I decided that I could spend some time doing Engineer training with Bien. We were going to do pump training. We started by going to the tower and practicing taking hydrants. Once we got that down we went to the tower itself and set up the engine. We got a hydrant hooked up. We pumped to a FDC for a standpipe as well as a sprinkler. We got a hand line out and pumped to that. We also set up a street gun.

When we were practicing changing from tank water to hydrant water we blew an old rubber hose that lead from the discharge port to the drain valve. It was not a big deal, but we cannot use that discharge port until it gets fixed.

By the time we got everything cleaned up and put back in service it was just after six o’clock pm. We went to the station to help do rig checks with Williams. This was his first duty shift. We spent about two hours doing some Rescue drive time. Williams was getting his chance to get some time under his belt on Rescue. We started with dinner at Dairy Queen. We drove around the South West hill mostly, but we went elsewhere as well.

We did not get any calls for Williams. So just like my first time being on call, he didn’t get a chance to go on a call.

Got My Letter Finally

March 13th, 2007

I got the letter that shows my OC training was completed. I am going to send that off to Mercer Island so I don’t have to get sprayed with OC again.

I delivered the laptop computer to Poffenroth today as well. At Colfax Fire we had our Board and Business training.

I did some more research on the camera for the coroners office. I am hoping that we can get them. It is a Kodak camera with a twelve-x zoom.

Real Engine Pump Time

March 12th, 2007

The plan for today was pretty simple. We were going to do some drive time with Tyson and Keith. Plus we are on call tonight. We were going to do some training where we were taking things out of the tower and then spraying water.

This is because OC was used inside and caused everything to get contaminated. But before the training started we got a call for a fire alarm. Then we got to the scene. I wanted to be the engineer. I got my chance.

I had to make sure people got the water they needed. I was able to set up the FDC’s, set up other lines, and pump. That was my first chance to do those kind of things. It was nice to get that chance. When the training was over I directed a group of people to get the engine back in service. Tyson, Keith, and I went to the station to start to fill all the air bottles. That took a couple hours when it was done.

A Day of Poker

March 11th, 2007

The day was started with a structure fire. I got to the fire station but no one else showed up. After standing by, and seeing it was nothing major, I made my way to Dissmore’s to get some food for breakfast.

I got home to set up for the poker tournament. I had several people coming from Colfax Fire to come and play. Anthony, Jim, and Carl came down from Colfax. Dave also came to play. I ended up getting first place. It was a fun time.

I was in the office working on some random stuff when John called about playing some poker. I told him I was already done. But we got a second cash game going. Dan and Richard came to play. We played for several hours. Dan and Richard has left. John and I stayed playing for an hour or two.

After John and I were done we sat around talking about various things that we use to do including playing video games on Nintendo. John asked to stay the night at my place.

Little Tykes Wrestling

March 10th, 2007

Keith and I got to Beasley this morning thinking that we were working until noon. That is when we found out this was an all day event. Because of that I called Dearth about my guys’ ambulance drive time. Dearth got the ambulance and the guys and brought them to Beasley. I took them out for a while. We got some good time done. One of the guys was new to air brakes. We spent some time around the training tower to get him time to learn how to use the brakes.

We went back to relieve Dearth. While we were gone they had a couple people to help. While I was there earlier there was nothing. Then as I was watching the kids wrestle I heard the announcer say we need medics to one of the mats. I got our stuff and Keith. We went down to the mat. A kid got hurt. We gave him a sling and sent him to the hospital with his mom.

After the wrestling we had to be on duty. Today is the first day of Spring Break so there was not a lot go stuff going on around town. We were able to be a little busy, but nothing major through out the night. Actually all our calls pretty much all came nearly at the same time.

Nintendo

March 9th, 2007

Now that I got the new Nintendo games from eBay, I decided that it was about time to set up the Nintendo system. I got it installed on my TV in the den. I played several games including Donkey Kong, Tecmo Bowl, Baseball Stars and more. It was fun to get a chance to play those games.

Fantasy Baseball Owners Meeting

March 8th, 2007

Ryan and I joined a fantasy baseball league that Phil is putting together. I am the team owner and Ryan is the manager. Tonight is our meeting to talk about the league rules.

When I woke up today, however, I was going to “get my day in court”. I was going to get my meeting with Heston. After last night and my conversation with Chapman I was not all that excited about it, not like I was before the Chapman talk. Instead of getting up and calling Heston right away, I worked on a bug for a while.

I was finally able to get to a breaking point where I was getting stuck. I called Heston and he sounded really nice on the phone and wanted to meet with me. I arrived at the station. He started by apologising to me for the what he said to me in the E-mail. Then we talked about some of the things that Chapman and I talked about. He said it was not like the career guys were “telling” on me, but Heston said he in some way pried information out of them. So when the meeting was done things were all better.

I got home and was able to get the bug completed and checked it in. It was after that where I got ready to go to My Office for the baseball meeting and Cougar Basketball game. I got a good seat and ate a hamburger while watching the Cal Bears and UCLA game. Cal held on to win in OT.

Our meeting started and two guys who work at KZUU were playing. Shier from the Philosophy department is also playing. We went over some ground rules for the league during the meeting.

Once that was done a couple of us hung out for the Cougar game. The Cougs started out scoring a couple, but by half-time the Huskies were scoring in the paint all the time. It was hard to watch. The second half started and the Cougs went on a big run and took the lead. From there is was a battle, but the Cougs controlled it most of the way. By around the five minute mark it looked like if everything kept going the way it was, the Cougs would win.

Sure enough the Cougs pulled it out. Joe started singing the fight song and he was next to me to get me going. I was singing with him. Soon the whole bar was in on it. It was way cool.

Cooling Off

March 7th, 2007

I woke up early in hopes of getting my meeting with Heston. It turned out he said today was no good. I was stewing on everything and it made it hard to concentrate at times. I really wanted to talk to Michael about who told him what in relation to me being “mad” at him. I finally got a hold of Michael on my way to Colfax for the coroners meeting. We talked for about thirty minutes. I got a chance to better understand the issue with Heston as Michael.

It seems that people who were subbing on his shift recently were saying things that lead him to believe I was mad about things. That, of course, is not true. I also found out it was not a situation where a reserve said something around a group of full-timers who talked to Heston. It was more of a situation where different people were getting certain perceptions of me.

I also had realized my demeanor has been pretty poor lately. Around the guys and on calls it has been good, but there have been times were I was less that happy about stuff happening. I think I need to reevaluate what I have given up to be here and why I chose to do so. The overall picture is that I want to be here. I desire to be here. I would hate to not be on the department. But up some of the day to day politics are very troubling. I wish I could distance myself from the politics and just enjoy responding on calls and being part of the team.

When we were off the phone I felt better. I went into the SO to get my letter that said I have been through OC training, but it was not there. Darn it!

I went to the Coroner’s office. Patti forgot about the meeting and did not show up. So it was just Pete and I. We went over some of the stuff he did at the conference in general, but we did not spend much time on it. We spent most of the time BSing.

Following the meeting I got home and started to work on one of my bugs. When I got stuck and when Russell called I went to his house. We played Apples to Apples. I hung out there for a couple hours and had a great time. By the time I had left I had forgotten about the stuff going on at the fire department. I was finally feeling relaxed. I love having friends.

I am feeling pretty mad

March 6th, 2007

The day started off well. I got a couple things around the house done, including the dishes. I went to Colfax to help Ingalls with his computer. I made a ton of stops in Pullman to get my checks deposited, got a new garbage can, and got my turn outs from station thirty-one. They were on Rescue when it was taken down to the station for work.

I got to Colfax and talked to Parks about my letter about OC training. He said he is going to write something up. I should have it tomorrow. I am stoked about that. I really don’t want to get sprayed with pepper spray again. I talked to Poffenroth about her computer and got the check as repayment for the parts I bought for her. I also got my license tabs renewed. I was on a roll.

I went to Ingalls’ house and worked on getting his new computer set up and all the data from his old computer to his new one. That took a couple hours in all. He only has a dial up connection so it took us a while to download anything.

We were finished as dinner was being served. I had some babyback ribs, potatoes, and corn. That was good stuff. I had to run because of the EMS training in Steptoe. I got up there just in time for training to start. The training was part of the training van. It was OTEP trauma training.

When that was done I was thinking about whether I should stop to see if House is on or not. It turns out it was, but I didn’t stop. Ryan hit me up online and let me know that House was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. That should be interesting to see where they go with that.

I also saw an e-mail from Heston. He wrote:

I am getting some negative feedback again that the reserves (specifically you) are not happy with the progress of the rescue equipment placement. I have heard it from three different career people this week. Before we started this project I asked for your input and help and got some but did not hear any further. I assumed that you were good with the direction we were going with it. I am confused as to why I am hearing this from other people and not through your liaison person Michael. The equipment on the unit will be in limbo for a little bit while brackets are made and attachments are ordered. I would appreciate you to squelch any negative issues in open discussions with other members of the department. Just like the officers and as a crew leader I expect and demand you to control these issues and discuss them in the appropriate arenas. I cannot allow these types of negative discussions to continue from any department member especially from a crew leader. It is not productive or healthy to the department and if it continues any further, I will be forced to make a change in your status with this department. I hope you are hearing me on this.

You can imagine my surprise on this. I was mad when I read it. The first time through I missed the part about him threatening to fire me. Then I saw it and was even more mad. I was going to write an e-mail to explain things, but I wanted a face to face so I asked for a meeting.

He said that three career guys came to him with the same message that I was mad about the changes. First off that is not true. When three people come to you, what makes you think they did not hear it from the same source or at the same time. I have not talked to the career guys about Rescue. I don’t talk to them about that kind of stuff. So I know that is not coming from me. Therefore someone is taking what I did say out of context.

He uses that as a basis to say that my negative comments are not welcome especially from a crew leader. Then when I read the part about the change in my status, I was not sure if that was to demote me or fire me. I would think it would be to fire me.

As you can imagine I am not happy. I also had Chapman come up to me and say I was mad at him over it. I said nothing was further from the truth. So it is clear someone is putting words in my mouth and they are making their way around the department and it is getting people mad at me and making me look bad.

The only thing I did say was “I wish someone would have let us know.” I don’t think that is anywhere near being mad at Chapman and complaining about the movement of things around Rescue. That comment was made in relation to the fact that the new tools were getting new brackets build. But when they were unable to finish it all the old shelves were gone. Therefore all the equipment had to be put on the bottom of the cabinet and it was just stacked on each other. Letting us know ahead of time would have just been keeping us in the loop. I think that is a reasonable comment. I am not sure how it is getting so stretched from what I said.

When I meet with Heston I want to let him know that, plus I want to track down the source of the comments. Because everyone is hearing it from one source. Once we get to the source we can re-educate him as to what I said and that is not not right for him to spread information that is false. You can see I am mad.

Two times on the Radio

March 5th, 2007

Today I spent a lot of time not at home. I first had to get a thumb drive to replace the one that died on me the other day. I started with my radio show for my normal time. I went up the studio and knocked that out. I wasn’t feeling super while I was on the air. For a while I was jittery. Then I calmed down. It was not due to nerves. It was because I was feeling sick. Once that show was done I had time to go home and do a couple things before it was time to head back to the studio for my next show.

This one was an interview of the ASWSU presidents and vice presidents. I spent a couple hours preparing questions and going over them last night. I think the show went over very well. I did not really stumble too much and I think I looked pretty good while questioning the candidates.

I got done just in time to run back to the station. I am on call as well as it was a training night. I got there a couple minutes late. We were going to do some quarterly SCBA stuff. Just as we were going to leave we got toned out to a call. But we were not there long and got back to the tower before the training up there started.

Several of us were given a group of people to lead around on various activities. We were on air and we got to see how well we would do with our air consumption. It was not the same as the work rate test we have done in the past. Because we were in groups the weakest link caused the whole team to have to be done.

After the class we went to the station to fill air bottles. That took some time to do. We took some time to teach some of the new guys how to use the cascade system. When we were finally done with that I made my way to Mike’s for poker.

I got dealt a hand and as we were playing it I got called out on a EMS call. I was able to finish it out. I did a raise from four to five bucks. The guy thought I meant five more bucks. So he folded only to find I meant one dollar more. I got a good laugh out of that.

Structure Fire? I think not

March 4th, 2007

I woke up this morning feeling sick. I went back to sleep for a while and then I got up again. I went back to bed a third time. It was then that I heard a call go out for a gas leak with possible patients at Sella’s. Within a minute or so another call for a structure fire goes out at Eastlick.

I got up and went to the station. I was there and then Chapman show up. I went to check the map for the location of hydrants. When I got back to the bay there were about six people in the bay.

I got into the Engine as the officer and we went en route. Upon our arrival we heard a call go out for a fire alarm in Heald hall. We were asked to check the building for smoke. After checking each floor we were not able to find anything that was a concern. We waited outside until the scene was done. There was a fan belt that over heated causing all the problems between these two buildings that are connected with each other.

The rest of my day was spent hanging out at home and trying to not upset my feeling of sickness too much.

Working Most the Day with the PFD

March 3rd, 2007

I was woken up by a phone call around seven-thirty in the morning asking if I could help with the first responder class testing. I said I would, and I was told to be there at ten in the morning. I was tire so I was happy about the extra sleep. I showed up to city hall. My task was to help Michael with one of the stations. My role was to do CPR and assist with what the testee was asking me to do.

After the testing Keith and I went to Cougar Country for lunch. We were planning on going out doing Engineer training. When we were getting the Engine ready we were called to an EMS call. We went on that. It turned out we both got dirty on it, so we washed out clothes at the fire station and went home to shower. When we finally got back to the station we were only going to have about one and a half hours to do some drive time. But we made the most of it. We drove a lot of the more narrow roads around the city.

We also made our way by Beasley a couple times to see the score board in the walkways. The Cougs were playing USC. When we went by the couple times the Cougs were losing. It was getting near time for us to start our rig checks. Keith and I got the rig back to the station.

Anthony was already there and the Cougar game was in its final moments. We watched the game get tied up. It went into overtime, and then a second overtime. The Cougs finally pulled it out and won.

Keith, Anthony, and I went out and washed Rescue and Engine. The rest of the evening we were on call. It was a slower night, but we were getting calls most of the night. We would get them about every two hours. In some ways I hate nights like that more than just getting slammed and then nothing.

Another Poker Night at My Place

March 2nd, 2007

I started out earlier in the day with going to the fire station and getting some photos of Tyson and the new paramedics for the photoboard and the website. It was after that that I had to go to the dentist for a teeth cleaning.

But after work I was going to have some fun. I am having a poker party at my house. Dave was the first one over. Then Mike and Andy came over. I also had some other guys, Loren and Dan made it over. It was a good night. At one point I hit a run where I couldn’t lose. I kept gaining money and doing very well. Soon I was up a couple of tens. Loren finally busted out as did Dan. Dave left while he still had money. I took what I could from Mike and Andy and had myself a half-a-C-note night.

UCLA and WSU Playing For First

March 1st, 2007

Ryan came down from Spokane to meet up with me to go see the Cougs take on UCLA at Beasley. With a win by WSU and UCLA losing against the Huskies the Cougs could be in a tie for first place in the Pac-Ten. It was nice Ryan was able to come down. We met up at the Valley Road Playfields and walked to the game.

It was not to be, the Cougs got beaten pretty well in the second half. The Cougs could not score on a fast break and they could never get a sustained run. So UCLA kept a few points up on the Cougs the whole second half.

I had Anthony cover for me on Rescue until the game was done. Once it was over I got my uniform on and worked the rest of the night. It wasn’t super busy for us. There was not a lot of partying out of the students after the game. I think a lot of the were tired after waiting outside for seats for up to nearly fifteen to twenty hours.