I got an “A”

October 31st, 2007

This morning started with teaching two fire extinguisher classes up on campus. Each class takes about thirty minutes. Tim, one of the new reserves, and I took rescue up to the motorpool. The classes went off without a problem. It was the first time I had taught the class.

When we were done I had to hustle home in order to get changed and down to the dentist for my bi-yearly cleaning. Dr. Fairbanks gave me an A for having done a good job on my teeth since my last visit. I got a new toothbrush and floss following my visit.

I went to work and got one of my bugs completed and Will helped me with a problem with the javascript I had on another bug. So tomorrow will be time to start a new bug in the works.

At four I went to the station to get the minivan and Chris and I went to the Halloween event at Pioneer Center. We gave out a bunch of balloons to the kids who came. I saw Bruce and Taj from the softball team up there.

Following that I went home and changed into street clothes and went to Jason’s place for a movie. We watched “1408”. It is a horror movie about a writer who reviews places that are supposedly haunted. It was quite a trippy movie.

When it was done Russell and I went to Mike’s bar. I got my costume on and away we went. There were so many ten-six-sevens up there it wasn’t funny. A couple guys were dressed up as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That consisted of long johns and green paint on their shirtless chest. They had a shell that was made out of some wood and paint on their back. Russell and I both enjoyed the view as they were both very well ripped. A couple others were dressed as Spartans. Those guys also were very good looking.

We were up there for several hours. I had some girls who were very afraid of my costume. I also messed with Jonno from the FD. He was dressed up as one of the American Gladiators. He had no idea it was me. Russell told Andrew from the FD that I was the one in the costume. I was upset about that because I had used the costume for a couple years and I wouldn’t tell anyone it was me, even after the time. It was my little secret.

When I was on the dance floor a couple girls started to grind on me. It was pretty strange to have that happen. I wasn’t sure how to grind totally and I didn’t want to do it wrong, so I sort of went along with what the girl was doing.

We left a little before two in the morning. I went out a door and sort of busted through it. When I got outside a couple cops were there. I put my hands up and tried to make it out that I was not a bad guy. I let them know my “knife” was only a prop. Which was obvious. I was just sort of having fun.

Phone Interview Complete

October 30th, 2007

I had the phone interview for SEL. It lasted about twenty-five minutes. It pretty much was one that covered things in general about my experience with developing and supervising projects. It was all straight forward. I don’t know if I nailed it or not. I was told I should hear something in a week or two. So I have a while to wait.

I had gotten up at almost five this morning. I don’t know why I woke up so early, unless it was my mind racing about the interview. I did spend some time working on some of the work for my job in Bellevue even though today is a day off for me.

I went to the station for a call around nine-thirty. It turned out my time with Brown was moved around and changed. The guys from station two and I went to the tower with Engine Thirty-three. We worked on doing some pump stuff and covered a lot of the items on the engine. Then we got Brown up there.

I did my test and I aced it. I am now an engineer on Engine Thirty-Three. I drove it back to Station one and got a ride back to the Deuce with the ambulance.

I went home and worked on cleaning up my stuff from washing my truck on Sunday. The hose and washing stuff was still out. I put it all away.

I went to the station again around six o’clock. I helped with the rig checks. I spent the evening at home relaxing. Because I got up so early I was tired. I went to bed sort of early and almost slept through a call. I was woken up by a phone call for it and went to the station. It turned out we didn’t do anything on the call.

Two Fire Critiques

October 29th, 2007

This afternoon I had my radio show. I spent the whole time playing heavy metal. I wasn’t broadcasting again, so I did not want to waste my material with a web-only broadcast.

In the evening we had two fire critiques where we talked about the grain elevator fire and the Spring street fire. They went pretty well, but the problem was those things happened so long ago, there wasn’t a ton that I got out of it.

Pretty much everything had been talked about so much that there wasn’t a lot of new information.

With my telephone interview tomorrow morning at eight in the morning I decided to go to bed early tonight.

Buying the Car Washing Stuff

October 28th, 2007

With the new truck and my determination to keep it clean, unlike the old truck, I went to Schucks and bought some stuff for washing the truck, like a chamie, California Water Blade, and car washing soap.

I went home and got it washed. While I was washing it Jason called about getting together. He called Russell. I got my truck washed and dried. I picked up Russell and then we went to Jason’s. He got some pizza. We had pizza and watched Transformers.

That was a good movie. I really enjoyed it. I also found the main star of the movie was a ten-six-seven. I spent a lot of time watching him in the movie.

A Cougar Football Win

October 27th, 2007

The day started by going to the fire station. It is Cougar Football Saturday. I took Heston to get the Chief’s car. I got some gas then went back to the fire station. We had some food and went over the job duties for the day. I was working North One. That is where I wanted to work.

It was pretty quiet for most of the day. We had one call where someone was sick due to alcohol. We only dealt with that for a little bit. The Cougs went on to beat UCLA. It was a close game so people stuck around until the very end of the game.

When it was done I went to get my coat out of the First Aid room. But it was locked. Khurt was there. He said he would get the keys for me and meet up with me later on to get me inside.

I talked to Pete in the morning about being on call. I was supposed to be on call so I told him I couldn’t cover for a while during the game. He got Patty to cover for me. And as it turned out we ended up having a CPR call in Pullman. The coroner got called.

I called Patti up and sarcastically ask “have things been quiet?” She laughed. I talked to Pete about something else when he called me. I told him he must have known something was going to happen. He didn’t know something was going on. So I filled him in with what I knew about it.

I called up Khurt and met up with him at the stadium. He let me inside to get my coat and then game me a ride back to my truck.

Poker at Dan’s

October 26th, 2007

Tonight Dan, John, Denise, and Denise’s’ brother, Adam were playing poker at their place. We started around eight o’clock. But I had to do some parking lot patrols around nine o’clock. That lasted an hour so I missed some poker.

After getting back we played until around two o’clock in the morning. I won on the night but I gave Dan money to pay for all the snacks they have had for us the last couple times playing there.

Town Crier III

October 25th, 2007

I got the position of Town Crier III. I went to the Daily News offices and got my photo taken as we went through a briefing of what we had to do. I found out the managing editor Steve plays for the Tax Dodgers. When I walked in he knew who I was and said it was nice to see me while not on the softball field. When we were nearly done I asked him what team he plays for. That is when I found out he is a Tax Dodger.

After the meeting I got my boat from Dale’s boat service. I was able to get it to the house and into the garage. Now I need to see about getting a space heater for the garage to help keep it warm in there plus to have the boat kept warmer and make it more comfortable to work in there. Now that I have the boat in there, I don’t have room from the quad and still have a partially functional garage.

The rest of the night I worked on some stuff for NU and on the website for the FD as well. I am getting very close to having it complete enough to post my first deliverable.

Saw Three

October 24th, 2007

I took the boat over to Moscow to get it winterized. I now need to get the garage completed and put in order so I have usable space.

Russell and I got together to have dinner and a movie. We decided to watch Saw III. I bought some pizza from Pizza Pipeline.

Russell and I watch South Park as well. We spent some time talking about the presidential race and how Hillary will be bad for the Democrat party.

A Day Off

October 23rd, 2007

I was supposed to go out with George and do some stuff on Engine Thirty-Three. But it turned out that I over-slept and he was more busy than planned, so we pushed it to next week.

I did need to work on the photoboard. So I made my way there and got the photoboard fixed up. I also saved my extrication photos from last night to the O-Drive.

I responded on some day-time calls, but no one else showed up. Finally around five-thirty a call came in for a motorcycle accident. But we got some bad information. It turned out the guy was not hurt too bad, but the way it was described was not what happened.

After the call Wilcox and I went to the station with the rig. I decided to skip Colfax training. I called them and let them know. I went to Greek Row where we did a fire drill and fire extinguisher presentation for the girls in one house.

When that was done I went home and started to work on my application. I had changed course. I have gone through three different ideas about how to make the data display on the page. But I think I finally figured out the way I want it to work. I also got everyone set up on the new calendar for November. Now it is up to me to get it put onto the website as soon as I have a couple more things done. I could actually put it up now for display purposed and work on the rest of it later on.

I worked on that until around three in the morning. Once I get going on something like that I hate to stop.

Extrication Training

October 22nd, 2007

I went go on a call, and stood by, as normal for the day time. Rich and I were playing some Ghost Recon Two when a call came in for me. George wanted me to take the Rescue to the training tower and help them set up for the extrication training for tonight.

I went roll a car to its side. I showed them how our Junkyard Dogs worked. It took a couple hours for us to get everything set up.

I went home and got ready for the training. I went to the station where we started with signing up for football positions. I wanted North One. But Heston wanted us to sign up for a different position than we had before. The others positions suck other than East endzone, which Rescue goes to. I was going to work the North First Aid room. But no one had taken North One. So I “reluctantly” took it.

Then we went to the tower to start with the extrication training. We putted out the tools and started by cutting one car apart. A different group worked on stabilization. I used the combitools on a couple different car parts to see how they worked instead of the cutters. After cutting through the C-post in multiple cuts, the cutters went through the other C-post in five cuts. Thompson looked at what I had done, after I said I cut it through. He said it looks like I chewed through it. In reality that is pretty much what happened.

Later we did a final scenario. We had a car on its side. We had to stabilize it, then cut some people out. It was a pretty good scenario over all.

I helped get Rescue back in service and went home. I was going to work on the application tonight, but when I sat down at my computer I was so tired, I just wanted to get to sleep.

Russell got drunk

October 21st, 2007

I started off trying to get some things done on the fire application that I started to develop last night. Before long I needed to head to the Moose to watch some football with Ron, Heather, Dan, Michele, and CBass. I watched about a quarter before Russell called to get a ride from the airport. We were going to go to Jason’s and play some poker when he got back.

I picked him up from the airport and he had a couple glasses of wine while on the plane. Then we were off to Jason’s. When I got there Peter was there playing. It was six handed poker for a while. Then one guy finally lost his money and left. Russell was drinking more while we were there.

The game broke up because everyone wanted to go to Zeppoz for the free roll. I had to be on call and do weekly rig checks so I couldn’t go.

I went home and got ready for the rig checks. Then it was off to the station. The rig checks went pretty quick over all. The Rescue kept getting called out. We were done around nine o’clock. I went home and watched Shark and had some dinner.

I worked on my application for a little while before going to bed. But before morning would hit we got dispatched for a structure fire. I ended up standing by the engine for the whole incident. It turned out to be more of a situation where we spent most of the time getting people in and out of the retirement community as well as clearing the smoke from the hallways.

We got done around six-thirty in the morning. I went back home and went to sleep for a while.

Jumping in with both feet

October 20th, 2007

I finally decided it was time to jump into my new web site with both feet. I was not getting anything done because I was afraid to go in a direction that I could not recover from. I decided that I would work one part at a time and it the thing completed. That is exactly what I decided to do today. In some ways I was worried that I was going to waste the day and not get outside. That pretty much happened, but I did enjoy getting a big start on my project.

It is the Pullman Fire Reserve Portal. Soon it will house the calendar for the reserves for duty nights and the events. My goal is to make it something that guys could post requests for coverage as well.

But right now I am focusing on being able to add and update firefighters, add and update rigs, add and update what rig someone is working on, add and update the specific events for the crew for the night. I think that will be my first deliverable.

Ride Along with Heidi

October 19th, 2007

I got an e-mail this afternoon from SEL. I thought it was going to be an actual test. I called Jon up to make sure if there was a question I was unsure of that he would be available to help me. As it turned out it was merely just making sure I agreed with the drug and smoking policy. Plus that I am a legal citizen. Then it asked if I had experience with SQL server and what not. I got it done and that was it.

It has been a long time in coming, but I finally got my ride along with Heidi. I got into my coroner’s office stuff. I met up with her around eight o’clock. We hit the road. It was a pretty slow night over all. We had a chance to talk about the fire services and work. We stopped one person from a possible DUI, but the driver did well enough on the tests that she was let go.

Around one in the morning Heidi was leaving and I was handed off to Heroff for the rest of the evening. We did a couple things, but it was a quiet night over all. The fire department did not get dispatched anywhere either.

When the ride was done BKoe was on a ride too. We were in the briefing room and we chatted for a while before I went home for the night.

New Job on the Horizon?

October 18th, 2007

I had the normal Scrum meeting today then we had a company meeting and finally another meeting. Following the last meeting an e-mail went out to everyone to discuss what we had talked about in the meeting. Sounds like the Scrums are still on the scope. Ricky is in charge of technical issues, and Wil is more or less the project manager. I am not doing anything because of my work from home schedule.

I responded to a couple calls at the fire station but no one else showed up as normal. It is so frustrating that people don’t want to go on daytime calls. So many of the guys are adrenaline junkies and if the call is not high level they will not go. Some guys don’t even listen to the pager during the day at all.

I spent part of the day working on getting my ThePES.com site updated with all the audio from all my past shows that I have available. That took a while as many times I had to listen to parts of the show to give a couple topics in the post with the audio file.

I was cruising the WSU HR website and I also looked at the SEL website. I found a job opening with SEL. Tom works in the same department. It doesn’t have a lot of information about the position, pay scale, and whatnot. But the requirements are right down my alley. Tom said he would push my resume to the hiring manager. I don’t think SEL will pay nearly enough nor offer the kind of freedoms that a normal coding job has. But you should always be willing to listen to what people have to offer.

It has nothing to do with me being dissatisfied with my pay right now. I am being paid fairly. It is the new system we are using, the Agile process with the daily scrums, the sprints, and whatnot. I really preferred that we get work handed to us and I get to code on it. I guess that would be something that I would need to know about at SEL. If they are big into Agile, then I don’t know if it would be a good fit for me.

The Next Whitman County Coroner?

October 17th, 2007

Russell needed a ride to the airport today so I had planned on giving him around there around eleven in the morning. We stopped by Sam Dial to get his watch then I dropped him off. He was thankful for the ride.

In the evening I headed to Colfax for the Coroners meeting. The softball game was cancelled tonight due to the rain, so I was able to get there on time. I was early so I was reading a book on forensics.

Everyone else showed up soon thereafter. The meeting got going. We reviewed a case that Pete is going to be going to court over. We also got our coverage set up for the next two months. I also went over the case I had on Monday.

After the meeting was over I was told Pete that I wanted to be the next coroner. I told him that I thought Patti would be the next one, but with her moving to Spokane soon and her leaving the office I figured I would like to get in to it.

Pete said he was happy to hear that I would like to do it. He said he plans on not running in twenty-twelve. So that would be when I would need to run. By then some of the other guys would be a lot more trained and may want to run as well. So I figured I would talk to Pete right away and have him start to groom me to be the next coroner.

SCBA Quarterlies in Colfax

October 16th, 2007

Today was the first of my string of Tuesday’s off. I am burning my vacation days one at a time rather than taking a week off. Around ten-thirty I got a phone call for the daily scrum. When I told them it was my day off they were going to have me get off the line, but I told them I wanted to hear what Lance had to say.

When Lance was done with his stuff it was nearly eleven o’clock. I had a meeting with George. I went to that, but the other guys did not show up. So I did the stuff George wanted all of us to do. I went home and worked on going through all the SOP’s and I gave him a list that I thought all the reserves should know.

It was around four that I went to Colfax for training and to hang out. While there we got a call. I went on it. I was the ambulance driver. It was a minor call. When I got back to the station I watched some TV until it was time for training. Due to the rain we decided to do something inside. That was our SCBA quarterlies. I got my first attempt in one minute exactly. That is the target time. So I passed the first time through.

After that I went to the SO to get my photo taken for the new Colfax Fire ID cards. I dropped off some photos from a previous case. As I was leaving Russell called and we decided to get together, have some pizza, and watch a movie. But he was a little tired, so we got a DVD of House TV show episodes. We watched a couple of them. He enjoyed that.

Full Circle

October 15th, 2007

This morning my pager was going off for a echo response for a CPR in progress outside of Pullman. Bien and I went to the scene. I assisted in doing chest compressions for a while on scene plus in the back of the ambulance to the hospital. I did more chest compressions at the hospital. After more than an hour since the incident starting the doctor called it in the hospital. This is the second time in Pullman since I started when I have been there in the hospital when it was called. I had the same reaction. Sadness. I was hopping we could keep fighting until we won. But we didn’t.

I went back to the station when Pete called me about it. I started to do the investigation with the help of one of the new deputy coroners, Bill. We did a full investigation. When I went back to the hospital the respirator therapist gave me a look like he was surprised to see me back. I looked at him and said, matter of factly, “My brother works for the fire department.” Later on when I was in the nurses area he was looking real hard at me. Later a nurse told me the respirator therapist was amazed how much me and my “brother” looked. He couldn’t tell us apart.

When the case was done I went to the radio station to do my show. I had a guest coming in to talk with me about an article he wrote for the Evergreen where he supported Thompson for president. I spent nearly the whole time talking to him on the radio. At two o’clock PM the guy who was supposed to replace me never showed up. I stayed for a little bit, but I finally had to leave.

While at home I responded on more calls. One was a fire alarm. One was a car accident. One was a motorcycle accident, and finally someone who fell. I got back in time to get ready for training for tonight.

We were doing airway for OTEP tonight. It was the same class I had last month in Colfax. When the lecture was done I was able to do some evaluations on people doing their skills. It was my first time to do that since taking the EMS Evaluator class.

George thanked me for taking the role seriously and doing a good job evaluating people. When we went over the test I knew two answers we had from the Colfax class was different from what everyone agreed to in Pullman. So I looked up the answers and pointed them out to George. He said he would update everyone on the correct answers.

Sunday Rig Checks

October 14th, 2007

It was my day to just relax. I was able to watch some football and I did do some unpacking of a box with some stuff in it. I only have two boxes with stuff that needs to be unpacked and put away. I also got the wood from outside put into the garage. I have to figure out a place for the four-five-six table. After that the garage will be done. I will be able to put my boat inside.

Around six I went to the fire station. We worked on getting the rig checks completed. We had to fuel the engine. When I got home Tyson was back. I asked if he wanted to work Rescue for the rest of the night. He said he would.

The night was quiet over all.

The Ankle Doesn’t Hurt

October 13th, 2007

Ever since I got my shot in my ankle the pain has been gone. My ankle appears to have full range of motion again. After standing up for a couple hours last night at the football game, this morning I woke up pain free.

I spoke to Heston and I am going to help out with the Physical Agility test for the paramedic list. Turns out it was a good thing I helped out because several other guys ended up not coming because they ended up going to the PHTLS class. The test went well even though we were down on the number of helpers. We only had four people to test.

I washed my truck and listened into the Cougar football game. Jon asked that I send him updates, but Oregon was scoring left and right. I was a little worried that the Cougs were going to get shut out, but we got one touchdown.

Russell and I met up. I took him and his bike to the bike store downtown Pullman. We went to Safeway where I picked up some groceries. I also got a pizza for us to have later on.

I took Russell home for him to get a nap before we watched the movie and had dinner. I put in the pizza. We ate pizza and watched Thank You for Smoking. After dinner I gave Russell a ride to work.

Huge Feeling of Accomplishment

October 12th, 2007

Because I came home last night I knew I had to work on the garage today. I did just that. I went out there and started to take everything out of the garage and put it into the driveway. I tried to sort it a little bit as I took it outside. Then I started to put away my tools first.

I swept the floor and then worked to bring more things in. I had to find a place to put things that made sense and did not waste the space I had. I also had a ton of stuff that I had to throw away. I knew that I had some big boxes taking up a lot of room and making my garage look more cluttered that it really was. I ended up filling the back of my truck with trash and made my way to the dump.

When I got done I sat looking around my garage with a feeling of accomplishment. I could see I have more to go, but to see how much I have done.

I was getting close to going to take a shower before working Pullman fire. But at five-fifteen we got a call. Bien and I went on that. When we got back it was time to go to the Pullman High football game. Pullman went on to beat Riverside.

After the game Bien and I played Ghost Recon for a little bit. He decided to leave. Within three minutes of him leaving we got our one and only call of the night. It was a nothing call.

Heading Back Early

October 11th, 2007

Mom called and said she would be getting back from her trip around eleven o’clock PM. After getting my work done today I spent time just hanging around work trying to get in my hours. I played some ping pong with Vijay.

When I finally went home I realized that it would be a good idea to go home early because I could spend more time working on the garage. I figured otherwise I would waste tomorrow between driving and messing around the house.

I went to a muffler shop today to talk to them about getting a new muffler on my truck. I was thinking about getting a Flowmaster. It is going to run around half a grand.

The trip over was uneventful. I stopped in Ellensburg for some pop.

Cancelled Poker Game

October 10th, 2007

I was looking forward to a poker game tonight when I got done working, but instead, the host cancelled the game. That was a bummer on the day. So instead of having something to look forward to and something to do, I had nothing.

Later when I was home I spent some time sending text messages back for forth with Gary. It has been a long time since I last contacted him. I haven’t talked to him since his mom died. I told him I would like to see him.

Needing a hair cut

October 9th, 2007

I had planned on getting a hair cut today, but I didn’t leave work to do it. Diane saw me and said I look different. For one I was not wearing a hat and secondly my hair is about an inch long. Which for me is really long. When I comb it forward it hides my widows peak.

I was reading about a plane full of skydivers that crashed this weekend. Everyone on board died. While looking at on of the MySpace profiles I saw this message left by one person to one who died. But the message was left before the plane crash.

“i’ve already informed landon that you guys all suck for going on the boogie while i’m stuck in b’ham. let me know how horriable it was when you get back (it’ll probably suck almost as much as when you were walking to class the other day looking, well how can I say it… a bit damp) :)”

This person wanted to go, and was giving someone who went on the trip a hard time. Looks like the guy who left the message is probably happy he didn’t make the flight.

Getting Amber from the Vet

October 8th, 2007

After work today I stopped by the vet to get Amber from her bording. I saw Greg from the marine patrol. He was dropping off his dog. I said hello to him then went in to get Amber.

I took her home. I partially rolled down her window. Then she stopped using it. I was close to home. But when I rolled it up she started to whine. It was like a little kid, when you take something they don’t want, they all of a sudden want it again.

Champions!!!

October 7th, 2007

Started out this morning going to Pete’s Bar and Grill with Ryan to meet up with Moe and Russell. But only Moe was there. Russell was going to come after half time. We had some chow and watched the Seahawks. They were struggling against the Steelers. At half time Moe got Russell and came back to watch the game with us.

After the game was done, we went to the Emerald to get some lunch. Moe and the girl with him had to head back to the West side so they left from there. Ryan and I took Russell back to his place.

Ryan and I watched some more football before getting ready to play some softball. We had our championship game in both Co-ed and Men’s. The first game was co-ed. We had a good turn out with some of our best women. We went out there and easily went on to a victory. After scoring runs and playing good defense we just did not have to look back. When the game was done we were champions. We did not scream and yell with lots of cheering because it wasn’t even a close game.

We went to Smith Gym to get our t-shirts and a photo for the website. We had less than an hour to get there and back in time for the men’s game. We had twelve guys, but I batted ten. It was a hard fought game. A see-saw battle back and forth with the scored going back and forth. In the final inning we were down by a couple runs. We started to get a rally going. We had one guy on, Bruce at the plate, and Phil on deck. We were down by three. Bruce hit a hard linedrive going over the second baseman, but he made a leap and came down with it for the third out. What could have been.

But those guys hit the crud out of the ball. The bat they had was hot, even the bad hitters were crushing it to the fence or over it. The final score was twenty-two to twenty-five. It sucked to not win the game. We had a very good chance to do it, but came up short. Number two again. Waiting for our first number one with Mens.

When the game was done Ryan and I went to Cougar Country before he had to head back to Spokane. I went home and started to do my packing for my trip to Bellevue tomorrow. I am watching the pets all week.

All of us hangiong out with Russell

October 6th, 2007

The Cougar game was a one o’clock PM starting time. I got to the station early for lunch with the other guys. I was working North One for today’s game. We got up to the stadium. I went into the North booking room. BKoe was in there. I said hello to him.

We went to our spot over the tunnel. Arizona State was ranked number eighteen and the Cougs looked good today. But as the game wore on ASU started to work towards taking a lead on us. We had a chance to tie it up with a field goal, but missed it with only seconds on the clock.

We waited around for thirty minutes after the game. When I got back to the station I helped to take the chief’s car back to his house. I ordered some Cougar Country. I took it home and ate it while getting ready to meet up with Russell, Ryan, and Moe.

Ryan and I took Moe on a drive around Pullman to see some of the changes that have happened since he was last here. We went all over town in a span of about thirty minutes.

We went back and picked up Russell to take him to Zeppoz for work. We hung out there for a while. Ryan was in town on Saturday because Moe came to town to be with Russell to show support to him.

Ryan and I sat down at a table Russell was dealing on. I was going down at first. But then I started to win some. By the time Russell left the table everyone at the table had almost cleaned him out of one dollar chips. But the next dealer won many of them back. Ryan lost his twenty bucks, but I started to win money back.

Finally when I decided to quit I was up twenty bucks and I had given some tips away to the dealers. So it was a good night at Mr. Z’s for me. Moe, Ryan, and I went out to the bar area. They ordered some dinner. I was getting late and I was getting tired so Ryan and I called it a night and Ryan came over to my place. He was spending the night here.

Mike D Homecoming Poker Tournament

October 5th, 2007

I set up a poker tournament for Mike D’s return to Pullman. It was scheduled to start after the bon fire on campus. We were taking the engine up there to man it. I got everything set up before going up there. It was a good thing because the bon fire went late. I ended up calling Mike to have him run it until my return.

The bon fire was pretty cool. They had many people from the sports teams. Elson Floyd was there. He thanked us for coming up there. I recognized him and then when he was done shaking our hands I looked at Bien and asked if he knew who that guy was. He said no. I told him who it was and he got a look on his face like he was surprised as to who it was.

We hung around until it was over. The heat from the fire was pretty hot. At one point you could see the whole crowed move away from the fire. We used the water from the engine to put out the fire.

When I got home the game was already underway with ten guys playing. Soon one more person showed up and we made two six man tables. One was a Omaha table and one was Texas. We play for a while, but I could not win an Omaha hand. I switched tables. That is when I started to make a comeback. I was up a little bit of money. Then I started to lose it again.

A couple more people showed up as some left. Pretty soon we went back to one table. It appeared that everyone was going to break up at midnight. But at eleven-thirty I got a fire alarm call. I was hoping it would go fast. But instead I spent the next three and a half hours running from call to call. Some medical and some fire. One was actually a fire in a dumpster. We were at the station. I asked if we could come along. Turpin said we could.

We got to the scene and a dumpster at CCN was on fire. We got it put out and the rig put back together I got home around three in the morning. I put my house back together and went to bed.

A Bunch of Do or Die Softball

October 4th, 2007

I got Heston to come out and play with us for softball tonight because I knew we were going to be short of guys. We had a double header for men’s, assuming we won the first game. Plus we had a co-ed game.

It started off with the men’s game. Mike pitched well and we all hit really well. We were building a lead each inning and we were not looking back. On defense we were killing them as well.

The game was supposed to go six innings no matter what, however after four innings the other team gave up. They honestly did not have a chance, but it was possible assuming we had a collapse and they went to town. But we walked away with a victory and only one more game to play before the finals.

In that game, it was on the same field. We again had no difficulty beating the other team. We went out there we good defense and good hitting. It was simple to beat them.

We went to the co-ed game and it was the semi-finals. We won this game we were in the championship. But we had one of the worst teams we fielded all season. We were playing against a bad team, but it was going to be a game. We only had one real outfielder. I was going to rely on Peter a lot for the game. We ended up using on girl who was wearing designer boots to play.

Dan and Denise had been there since the start of the men’s games. They also bailed me out every game this season, so I felt like we had to play them. We put Dan at first, Ryan at short, and Bruce in the outfield, with Erik pitching.

We scored a couple runs, but then the batting went to hell. They had a couple good innings and we up on us by four runs. We got one back in the fourth inning. We had to take Dan out of the game because we had to move our positions around. We got Ryan at first and Bruce in the infield. We put Taj in the outfield. That helped the defense and that did not allow them any more runs.

We went out in the fifth inning and got a rally started, but it fizzled without any runs scoring. Even one run would have helped. So it was into the sixth inning. Ryan put me in for him. We started to hit and make things happen. I was on first. Peter hit a pop-up that the shortstop camped under for the third out. But he dropped the ball. That allowed Peter to get on base. He was the tying run. Jackie got a big hit scoring Peter and I. Now we were tied. We tacked on three runs. Up by three we went into the bottom of the sixth inning. They were not in their best spot in their line up.

We were able to make good plays and ended up coming from behind to beat them. It felt so good, but after the win we did not celebrate because we knew how lucky we were to win the game.

Ryan and I picked up Russell and took him to the casino. We hung out with Russell for a little bit, but he had to work, so Ryan and I got some pizza and went to my place to eat it.

Another Co-ed Victory

October 3rd, 2007

Tonight we were playing against Kevin’s softball team. I was excited to play them. We were going to have an extra woman, but only five guys. I had to call Nick to be there because we were short on guys.

I played shortstop again. I had one fun play where I had to go right, make a back handed stop, then fire the ball across to first base for the out. It was fun. We went on to beat Kevin’s team by eight runs, but we only got three innings to hit.

One of my hits was right now the right field line and Kevin missed it, he was playing first base. I also had a play where people were running. The runner on second was going to third. I was going to second. But turns out the guy on third did not go. So the runner from second went back. Then I saw that and started to go back to first. The throw was made. I slid in and was safe. Kevin said I was out, but that is the way Kevin saw it. I knew I was safe.

After the game I was on call. We got a couple calls for fire alarms around the midnight hour. Andrew is the only one who has noticed that I have a new truck so far, but when he said something I sort of played dumb for a minute. Then someone said something to Andrew and the topic never went back to my truck.

Typical Tuesday

October 2nd, 2007

I made my way to Colfax around the same time on Tuesday evening for fire training. Today it was OTEP in Steptoe. While up there I found out Zach was going to be leaving and heading to the South. That got me thinking about Kentucky Fried Chicken. So I messaged Peter about going to Taco Bell in Moscow. He said he was up for it.

I had to get done with training. It was geriatrics. Not a fun subject unless you want to hear about how you will slowly die over the next thirty years. The scenario was good and I thought I did okay. I could have done better in my interviewing techniques. I should have dug deeper into his history. But I did recognize the need for the BLS things I was able to do.

I got back to Pullman where I got Peter and Danny. We went to Taco Bell, but they were closed so we had to go through the drive thru. We took the food back to Peters and started to watch Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.

I left before the movie was up to get back home and take care of stuff here.

Spokane Transfer

October 1st, 2007

I got a call this morning from Reiber asking if I want to do a transfer to Spokane. I got ready to go to Spokane and went to the station. Then it was off to Spokane. Because of when we needed to get the patient there we ended up having to go code for part of it. We dropped of the patient and then had lunch at Shari’s.

We got a call about a second transfer. But I had softball so I could not do it. We got the ambulance fueled and back in service. I went home and got some computer work completed.

I also was working on getting people set up for softball. I had to work hard to find people for playing. It was less than thirty minutes before the game and I wasn’t sure about having enough women. I went to the field and waited for people to show up.

Denise called someone she worked with two minutes before game time. I also found someone on the free agent list. The other team gave us ten minutes. I wasn’t expecting that. But just as the ten minutes were up we were going to have to forfeit when we saw the person we were waiting for. We were going to get started when some of the women had nose rings they would not take out.

But two women did take them out. That allowed us to have four women. We played with five guys, so we were going to have an automatic out each time at the end of the order.

I was playing first base and Eric pitched. They were no match for us. We quickly started to score runs and did not look back. Even with some women who didn’t really know how to play we were scoring runs. We also were holding them to no runs.

It was the final inning they got one run on an over throw at third base. We went on to win that game.

I went straight to the fire station to do the hose testing we had to do. We were supposed to get through everything except for the five inch hose. But we got everything else done so quickly we went on to the five inch. We were still done by nine-thirty.

We had one length of five inch hose fully charged and could not get the cap off. So we ended up having to put a hole in the hose to get the pressure out. Then we recoupled the hose and it was retested and put back in service.