Spokane Trip

November 30th, 2007

Got woken up by the pager asking for reserves to call the station about the transfer to Spokane. I said I could do it. It was not an emergency transfer so I was able to get a couple things done at work before leaving.

I went to the station and got Richards who was going with me. We picked up the patient and went to Spokane. As I was cleaning the cot in Spokane Richards started to ask what was wrong. He said he could tell something was wrong. I denied anything was wrong. He asked if he did something. I wasn’t telling him what the problem was.

I think it goes back to my last trip to Spokane I was making a joke about him and the other Blake having the same name but being different. I said how the other Blake’s wrist is as big as Richards’ bicep. I was not dogging on Richards, it is just the other Blake is a body builder.

Then he said well at least the other Blake and I have something in common, we can see our dicks when we go pee. It is funny I say that you have to choose to be offended. I wasn’t offended, but the comment cut deep. That seems to be one thing I don’t take well — fat jokes directed at me.

So I think I was feeling off because of the lingering effects of the joke, but I shouldn’t have let it bother me. The whole trip I was dead quiet. At a restaurant we stopped to eat at I was quiet there. The waitress even said something about me looking sad. I wanted to tell him, but I wasn’t sure how to say it. I figured it would be better to say nothing than open the can of worms.

When we got back to the station we washed the ambulance and I turned in my time card. Heston asked me to take the Santa suit to the Deuce. I dropped those off and went home.

I started to work hard on the work I missed out on today. I stopped for dinner and then went back to work. I was able to get the database issue fixed as well as one bug in my pipeline. I also got close on another one, but for some reason I am not sure why it doesn’t work. I got the example of how to do it directly from the source.

Chatting with Brandon

November 29th, 2007

I started the morning out getting an oil change for my truck. I was at home making lunch when I got a call from Brandon. He is looking at buying a gun and he was out looking at some.

Later on when I was making dinner he called again. But I was on my way to Colfax for the coroner’s training. We talked about the guns he looked at. He is looking to getting a revolver.

When I was getting to Colfax the ambulance was getting ready to leave and a lot of people were showing up. I turned on my radio and heard it was a car wreck. I went to the station and watched the rescue leave. I was there for a little bit when a second ambulance was requested. I called Pete and told him what was going on. He said I could go.

It turned out that the second ambulance was needed. We were turned around, but we set up flares because we were nearly on the scene.

I got back for training in plenty of time. The training was good, we covered some recent cases. After the training was over with I went to Colfax Fire and hung out watching some TV shows with Ralph.

When CSI was over with I went home.

Training with D-Twelve

November 28th, 2007

I was invited by Parrish to come out the extrication training with D-Twelve. It was out at station three. I got out there at seven o’clock. They went over some stuff outside with the tools and how they work.

Then we went to the cars and started to cut on them. I ended up having a group of people that I was working with. We spent time on one car. Then went to a Saturn. That was an all plastic car. It was interesting to see how to work on one of those cars. We don’t get them very often for extrication.

After the training was done Parrish and I spent some time chatting about the two fire department.

That was a big oops!

November 27th, 2007

This morning I was woken up to an EMS call. I didn’t hear a lot of the traffic, but I heard Bien talk on the radio. I sent him a text to see if he was standing by. He was. So I went down to go on it with him. We helped to get the patient on the cot and went back to the station.

We washed the rig and planned on going on some more calls. I had just gotten home, but I didn’t have my pager on. I heard one of the medic units talking on the scanner when I walked in the house. I also got a call from Bien. I went back to the station to go on the call.

But Bien didn’t shut the overhead engineer side door. He started to pull out. I heard the noise that a door was open, but I was thinking it was that we were going code. Then I looked down and saw we were not. It was about that time the door was ripped off. Thankfully it was only a hinge that was damaged, but it still sucked.

We stopped our response and called up Heston to let him know what happened. He said that we needed to take the rig to the city shops to let them see it. We also had to fill out a form about the accident. It was not a fun time.

When the career guys got back to the station we let them know what happened. They gave Bien a hard time.

Later on in the day another call came out for a car accident. Tyson and I went on it. We got some crap from the people on scene about the door. It was not really much a wreck, but we were asked to set up some flares to shut down the road until the car was pulled out.

When the was done we washed the rig and headed home. OTEP was tonight instead of last night. Because of that I skipped Colfax training tonight. OTEP lasted less than an hour in total.

The Ron Paul Show

November 26th, 2007

On today’s radio show I had a couple guests who were talking about Ron Paul as a candidate for president. One of the two guests was ten-six-seven. I didn’t know that he was going to be that way until he got to the show. I tried to do some research on the guys before they came on the show, but his facebook account was set up so you had to be a friend to see his photos.

Got my Shopping Done

November 25th, 2007

I got up this morning and there was a response from the cop I knew on gay.com. He answered my question and pondered who I was. I didn’t tell him straight up, but I responded to his question of me.

I went to Safeway and did my shopping. I had been needing to go there for quite a while. While there I saw Bruce. We stopped and chatted for a while. Later I saw C-Bass. Coach Doba was there shopping. I also saw the Pullman Fire ambulance crew buying some stuff for dinner.

I got home and put everything away. I had some time before I had to go back to Zeppoz. I got the IM address of the guy who I know that is gay. I also responded to the cops’ message back to me.

Then it was off to Zeppoz for the tournament. There was a ten-six-seven there again. I have seen him the last three weeks that I was there. I finally found out who it was. He is a local. I always want to play on his table, but we get different tables.

In today’s game I decided that I would not do more than one re-buy. That is all I ended up needing. I made it longer that I had in previous tournament. I was out in the seventh place. They paid the top four, with more than two-hundred going to first place. I was the second lowest in chips on the final table. But I won a big hand. Only to lose it later on. Then I had only enough for one big blind. I only had three hands to get something to play. I got K-9 suited. I went all in. I got two-pair, but I lose to someone with trips. That was my night.

I played a table game. I lost nearly twenty bucks, but I changed tables. I won back my money and walked out of there even.

The One-Hundredth Apple Cup

November 24th, 2007

Today was the one-hundredth Apple Cup. Ron invited me down to watch it at the Moose Lodge. I was excited about going down there. I put on my Cougar hat and shirt and made my way there just before kick off.

The Huskies ran it back for a quick score. Ron made a big deal about it. All the Cougs were thinking this was going to be a long day. The Huskies got a fieldgoal. Finally the Cougs were able to get on the board with a touchdown.

After a while everyone in the Moose was yellow “Woooooo” every time the Cougs did something well like Ron had been doing earlier.

We went into half time up by one point – twenty-one to twenty. Michele had a big spread of food there for a fundraiser. I had my fill of food.

The second half added to the excitement. The game was a sea-saw battle back and forth. The Cougs finally scored the tying touchdown. With only thirty seconds to go they scored the winning touchdown! The Cougs went on to win the game.

I went home fulfilled with the victory.

I went to gay.com and looked around on there to chat. While I was there I did a search of local people. I found someone that I recognized and I had no idea was gay. I finally purchased a premium account. I was able to look further at his profile. I was shocked to see he was gay. I want to talk with him because I also found out he use to be in the college Republicans.

I also found a former cop that I knew. I contacted him via a message. I finally went to bed in the wee-hours of the morning.

Spending the Day with Ken

November 23rd, 2007

I went to Colfax fire today because I had the day off of work and because I wanted to help Ken with his report and follow up from yesterday’s case. I advised Ken on things to write in his narrative and checked it when he was done writing it.

I was also hanging out waiting for a call to come in. Before I had to leave we did have a call come in. It was a low level call. We didn’t do a lot, but we did transport.

I had to head back to Pullman to work the WSU Volleyball game. It was the last game of the season. They were playing Oregon State. When we got to D street and Colorado I saw lights flashing inside Bohler Gym. I said it looked like a fire alarm. Reed said “they haven’t dispatched one.” Then it was dispatched. We investigated it. It was burnt popcorn. We helped to get everything reset and watched the matches.

The Cougs went on to win in five games. It was need to see.

Thanksgiving with Friends

November 22nd, 2007

This afternoon I met up with Russell, Denise, Beren, Sauce, and Mireum for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a great meal fixed by Denise. I was also on call for the coroner.

As it turned out I got a case around nine-thirty. I called up Ken and picked him up on my way to Endicott for the case. It was natural. This is my second case on a Thanksgiving. Last year I got one as well. Last years’ was a natural crash that turned into a car running off the road.

Tonights case took Ken and I into the wee hours of the morning to investigate the whole thing. This was Ken’s first real case where he was taking the lead. I had to help him out with certain parts along the way. But he did good overall.

After the case I went to Russells’ to get a piece of pie. I missed the rest of the night. They thought they would still be there. But as it turned out they all left about forty minutes before I got there. I ate the pie quickly and then went home.

Spokane Transfer with Suggs

November 21st, 2007

I got up with a page for a transfer. In a little bit they asked for reserves. I called down and said I would do the transfer. I was doing it with Suggs. The transfer went off without a problem. It was my first trip to Sacred Heart on a transfer.

We stopped at A&W; on the way out of town. On the way back he was talking about playing hockey. He was talking about hockey skates. He said this one style looked faggy. Then he looked at me and said “no offense”. I am not sure if that is because he also knows or if he just thought I was offended. Which I wasn’t of course.

Later after we got back I was going to be on Rescue tonight. But I also needed to go to Dan and Michele’s anniversary. I went to the Moose at six o’clock pm. I saw Michael B there as well as some of the others. I got some chow and then went home. It was a pretty quiet night for a while.

Then about thirty until midnight an EMS call came out. We transported. We sat at the station chatting about the previous arson’s in Pullman. More specifically about the issues while on the fire ground.

Parrish said he was going to call it a night. He was already scheduled to get off early. But within about ten minutes of Parrish leaving we got a structure fire. I was out the door with Williams on Rescue. We got to the scene and were the second ones there. We pulled a crosslay and started to fight the fire.

It had already gotten through the roof and we put some water on it for a while. But soon we ran out and had to wait until the PL got us hooked up with the hydrant. We then had the blitz line, the masterstream, and our handline fighting the fire. Water was all over the place freezing. My turnouts were getting frozen solid.

We finally started to beat the fire back. It was in a twenty by thirty-five out building at Cougar Crest. Soon we were sent in closer with the blitz line with the other guys from ambulance. We got the remainder of the fire put out. Then we worked on a full bottle worth of overhaul.

We helped to clean up the hose. Rescue stayed to monitor the fire until some reserves got there with the utility. We ended up having to put some water on some fire that got going again. I was able to look around the structure for evidence of what caused the fire. I then spent time asking Rich if he agreed with my assessment of what I had found. He confirmed the things I was finding. I have to say this one was pretty easy. It is not like I am some incredible fire investigator, but it felt good to have an idea of what I was figuring out.

I went home and worked on the fire department application until six in the morning before I went to sleep.

Another Day in Jail

November 20th, 2007

Another shift working in jail. I worked with a new person today. I helped him book someone in and did a round with him. I worked there until around six o’clock pm. It was pretty uneventful for the most part.

I went to training in Colfax. It was a pretty short one. We went over the cascade system in the rescue and in the station. We learned how to hook up bottles and how to hook the rescue to the in-house system to refill it.

When that was done Carl, Scott, Chris, and I played poker for a couple hours. I won the first hand of the night and couldn’t do anything after that.

Got Pulled Over

November 19th, 2007

Today is Thanksgiving break at WSU so I did not have to do my radio show. But I was busy doing many other things. Today is Brandon’s birthday. I have known him for twelve years. He has always been such a good guy. I sent an e-mail message to him and attached a couple photos from his freshman year.

We didn’t have training tonight. Because of that I asked Bien if he wanted to do engine drive time. He said he did. We got the engine and went driving around. When we were on Greek Row it dead, as expected. We were in front of a Pullman cop. After about two blocks I see the blue lights. We were getting pulled over. We stopped and the cop came up. I was wondering what was going on. I knew it wasn’t for doing something wrong. He let us know our brake light was not working on our left side. But when I went back there it was. It is an intermittent problem.

When we got back to the station we washed the engine and I went to tell the captain about the brake light. That is when he said something about us getting pulled over. I asked how he knew. He said he was talking to the Lt at our station. Dragoo heard the police stopping a Pullman Engine. He said something to the Lt and the Lt said something to the Captain. It got around fast.

When we got to The Deuce the other reserves were giving us a hard time. The Lt asked what happened. It was all good. We just got a lot of ribbing.

Zeppoz Poker Tournament

November 18th, 2007

This morning started out with breakfast. Then I spent time working on the application for work. Jon, Logan, and Justin were still here. They ate breakfast with me. Jon helped me with a problem that I had with something. It worked so I was able to get it checked in.

They decided to take off around noon. I spent time doing the dishes. Then I made some cookies.

It was off to Zeppoz’s for the poker tournament. I was doing okay at first, then I lost. I went to the three-six table. I went up pretty well and built a stack for a long time. Then I hit a wall. I was getting people sucking out on me. We you cannot chase someone off, they catch cards on you. That is why I hate playing low stakes poker. It is all about the cards you have and not how you play the game and how you bet.

I then played some high/low poker. It is a new card game. I did good at first, then I started to lose like crazy. It wasn’t very long before I lost all my money. I went from being up to losing it all in about an hour. I was there for almost five hours in all. Over all it was a good time. I am going to have to tighten up the poker playing for a bit though.

The Boys see Cougar Football in Pullman

November 17th, 2007

Today is the first time that Justin and Logan got to see a Cougar Football game in Martin Stadium. I woke up in the morning, but I was still a little tire. Jon took the boys out to find some ponchos. I stayed at home.

Later on I got up and worked on stuff for NU. I had breakfast with the guys when they got back. We started to get ready for the game. We stopped at McDonald’s for lunch. We planned on parking in the old Sigma Chi parking lot. There was room so we did park there. We walked down to the fieldhouse. John called me and let me know Rob was in town.

I went to the ambulance that they were on. Rob was doing a ride along. I sat in the ambulance for a while talking and listening in on the stories. This is the first time I have seen Rob since he left the reserves to become a trooper. It was neat to see him. In someway it was just like the old days with him and John. Laughing and joking and having fun.

I went back to the fieldhouse to meet up with Jon, Logan, and Justin. We watched some of the UW vs Cal game. Cal was getting beat. It was close to time to head to our seats.

We made our way there. We were at the twenty-yard line, five rows back. While there I noticed a ten-six-seven. Blonde hair, blue eyes, with well defined arms. Number Thirty for OSU. He was on their special teams. He looked very ripped.

The game started with heavy rain. We all wore our ponchos to keep dry. The Beavers went out to a quick lead and never looked back. We turned over the ball so many times, seven interceptions and one fumble. It gave the Beavers short field all day long. The Cougs scored two touchdowns, but each time we scored the Beavers would quickly score. It was a horrible day for the Cougs.

After the game was done we left. The stadium was just over half full when the game started. It had maybe one-tenth the seating capacity filled when the game was done. With the poor showing and the bad weather a lot of people left early. But not us.

We went to Pizza Pipeline and got some dinner. Then back to my place to eat it. I went to my office after dinner to work on the NU Application some more. John, Rob, and I were going to go out, but they ended up bumming out.

I stayed at home doing work into the early morning hours.

The Boys are in Town

November 16th, 2007

I volunteered to work a security shift at the burnt out building on True street. I was working it with Blanks. I brought my laptop and a couple movies to watch as the night went on. I was tired and was Blanks. We watched my movies which took us through the night. Blanks also went to Dissmore’s and got me some pop and himself some drink. We started our shift at three in the morning and worked until eight. I went to bed when I got home.

In less than three hours I was up talking on the phone call meeting. It was short. I then started to work on some bugs I had to complete. I didn’t have much time to do that because I was covering someone elses shift on KZUU. It was a noon to two o’clock shift. I talked a little bit about the fires, only things that were in the newspapers. I also played music. I had a couple callers who challenged some of the things I was saying about WalMart and building in Pullman.

I was working on stuff for work when Jon got here with the boys. I showed him around the house. The boys and I played some video games before going to Cougar Country to get some dinner. This is the boys’ first time to Pullman.

After dinner we went to watch Cougar Basketball. They were playing UI. The Cougs went on to an easy victory.

We went back to Cougar Country to get the boys some ice cream. Then it was back to my place. They watched Shrek III. I went to my office to get some work done that I needed to do during the day, but I had to put off because of the radio show and Jon getting to town.

Lots of Fires Today

November 15th, 2007

I heard a faint knocking at my door. It made me more aware but didn’t totally wake me up. Soon I heard another knock on my door. I got up. My pager had not gone off, but I only had it on the second alarm tones. I opened the door. Tyson asked if I was going to go. I asked him what was going on. He said there was a structure fire with a couple cars involved.

I got up and went to the station. I didn’t make a first out rig because I wanted to go pee. When I got back to the bay they second alarmed it. I was going to call Bien, but I saw him roll into the station. Chapman also showed up. We took off in the ambulance.

On our arrival to the scene I could see a five inch across Spring Street. We parked in such a way to protect the hose. We walked up to the scene. While walking up the road a man asked us if the smoke coming from his garage was a normal amount. Because he was a neighbor of the fire, he figured some of the smoke was from the fire. But it was pouring out, and I could tell it was not from the other fire. I looked inside the door but could not see flames.

We went to command and let Thompson know we had a second fire a couple houses away. He sent some of us to staging to wait assignment. Van Ness was in charge of staging. We got called down to work overhaul on the first fire. While doing that another fire came out on Nye Street. A building was fully involved. A bunch of units broke free from our fires as they were out.

We also called in for Colfax, Moscow, and District Twelve. We stayed on the overhaul detail as the others fought the other fire. I listened to the radio traffic. It seemed like a bad fire. We all wanted to go to that one, but we had our assignments and worked it and got the overhaul done.

I could see the column of the smoke from across town. I could tell the fire was big. After we were done with our scene, we cleaned up the hose and went to the station to wash it and get the PL back in service. That took a while to do. We also had to fill out arrival reports. We sat at the station filling out our paper work and having some food. I was able to see the photos from the Nye street fire. It was really big.

After we helped to get Engine Thirty-Three back in service as well.

I went home and made my phonecall to the meeting that we have daily. I let them know what I was working on. I was pretty tired. I got up around four-thirty in the morning and had only three hours of sleep.

I also had the poker game at six o’clock tonight. I had about ten people in total show up. We only had about six people at any given time however. I had to rebuy once. But then I started to really kick some butt. I was winning some good hands including one where I had two people call an all-in. I had pocket aces. I had about eighteen bucks into the pot. Two people called it.

I was up fifty bucks when it was all said and done. I went to bed after I got the house put back together. I had to be at the Nye street fire location and work it from three in the morning until eight in the morning. It was going to be a long day.

Surgery Appointment Remake

November 14th, 2007

I had to reset my appointment for my surgery. I called the people up, but I left a message. I heard back from them later on. We couldn’t come up with a day. But the lady said he would contact another group and see about getting me in during December before the twenty-first. With work for the marine patrol I have to be done and ready to work by the twenty-first. Plus in January I have to pay the full deductible again. That is five hundred extra dollars.

I stayed up until around one-thirty in the morning getting some stuff done on the computer. I was starting to get tired, so I decided to make my way to bed. I thought about setting up the house for tomorrows poker game, but I figured I would have enough time tomorrow to do it.

My Interview

November 13th, 2007

I was scheduled for an interview at SEL today. It was for eight in the morning. I got up and dressed. I had to scrap my window. Then I got to SEL. I was taken to the interview room which was in a different building. I had three people asking me questions.

I think I did well with the questions that they asked. It took about two hours in total. They did not ask any specific coding questions, just things in general about my previous work. It sounds like there are two others who would be working in the same area as I would work. I would be working to get data from Access databases and move them to SQL server. Then I would build front ends for them in ASP.NET. I am not sure if they job will be a good fit, because I get the feeling they have the normal eight-to-five work schedule rather than the mentality of a development company that gives more flexibility to developers. They may worry about that too, because the main guy did ask me a question about the flexibility that I have.

When I was done with the Interview I got my jail uniform on and went to work in the jail. I had lunch first at the fire station in Colfax and then worked for the next six hours in the jail. I did a partial round, mainly worked as help on the floor doing fingerprints and some stuff with getting inmates to see the nurse.

When it was close to time to go to Colfax Fire a call came in looking for help to package a patient for sending on the helicopter. I went to help out. It was the patient that Colfax fire had transported earlier in the day. I hope everything turns out well for the patient.

I got some dinner and ate at the fire station in preparation for our board and business meeting. When the meeting was over Tim and I watched House before I came back to Pullman.

No Fire Training

November 12th, 2007

Today was a holiday for most people, but not for us as we had to work as normal. I put in some work on a couple bugs and got them closed out.

When I was done working for the day I did some more on the duty calendar. Then I worked on cleaning up my room. I got the final boxes taken care of. So my room is finally done. It is nice to walk in there without having a lot of boxes laying around.

Now I need to clean up the den a little bit, and put a couple items on the shelves I built in the garage. I would like to have some of that done before Jon gets here.

The Poker Tournament

November 11th, 2007

After bumming around this morning without a poker game at Jason’s I decided I would play in the Zeppoz tournament. I thought it started at four. It started at six. So I took the opportunity to go to Moscow and look for swimming trunks. I did not find any that I like so I went back to Zeppoz. I played some Texas Shootout. Loren was there as well. We played for a while and talked about playing poker.

We got in line for the tournament. I ended up sitting on a different table. During Texas Shootout I won about twenty bucks. I used that and some more in the tournament. I raked a couple pots, but I couldn’t catch cards when it mattered. I ended up going out shortly after the final buy in round.

I talked to Russell for a little bit while I plays some cards on his table.

I went home and watched some Sunday night TV shows and got a couple new things done with the duty calendar application.

A Cougar Football Victory

November 10th, 2007

In the morning I made my way to the fire station for rig checks. When that was done we went to station one for brunch. It was pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, and hashbrowns. It was very good.

We took the rescue to the stadium. Williams and I worked together. We stood in the corner we normally stand. I made my way to the first aid room to get some hot cocoa. It was pretty windy and it was getting my nose to start to run.

Once the game got going the Cougs seemed to hold their own very well. We were playing Stanford. We were taking the lead and moving towards and easy victory when all of a sudden, they scored a TD. The following kick off lead to a turn over on the four yard-line. But the Cougar defense put up a good stand, keeping Stanford out of the endzone.

When the game was completed the engine crew was working the Doobie Brothers concert. I got Heston to send us there because no one else had signed up for it. We ordered a pizza and enjoyed the show. They were a lot of fun. The music was really good. A lot of songs that people knew. It was neat to look around the place and see people with grey hair and young students all singing along to the same stuff.

It was dead as far as engine calls went. We ended up getting nothing at all to run on, but that was okay with me.

Took the Day Off

November 9th, 2007

Because of the basketball double-header I wanted to work it in Pullman. I decided to see if I could take the day off and head this way. It was okay with work. This morning I got up sort of early and got ready to head out.

As it turned out I was running later than I wanted to. I needed to be in Pullman by two-thirty in the afternoon. I got on the road, but I wasn’t able to do some of the things I wanted to do before I left.

I got home in time to get my uniform on and get the things ready to work the basketball game. Wilcox and I went to the station and got the equipment necessary to work the game.

We got in with a couple career guys and went to Beasley. The women’s game was pretty bad. They were getting crushed. Wilcox and I traded places from time to time working out on the concourse level.

After the women’s game the men played. That game was a lot better. The men went on to win pretty darn easily.

When we were done working I went home did some stuff around the house to get caught up on the things I needed to do while I was gone.

Hanging with Peterman Day Two

November 8th, 2007

Today Peter called to see if I wanted to hang out again tonight. I told him that I would. We decided we would go see Saw IV. I went to his place to pick him up. We drove to the theatre and I paid for him to get in because he bought dinner last night and has a pizza for tonight.

It was my second time seeing Saw IV. I finally realized that it was not taking place in the future (after the end of Saw III), but instead at the exactly same time as Saw III is taking place. That helped explain a couple things I didn’t understand the first time through.

When it was done I went to Peter’s. He put in the pizza. We spent time talking, watching TV, and eating pizza. I still find I have a hard time looking him in the eye a lot of times. I am not sure why, but I am still uncomfortable around him.

Hanging with Peterman

November 7th, 2007

The plan was to meet up with Peter when I got off work today. Jon and I went to lunch this afternoon. We talked about interviewing for jobs. I have one coming up next Wednesday. I am not sure how that will turn out. But I am not sure if I will like what I see in the company over all. I like working for NU and I like what I do, so I have no reason to leave. The only thing that this job would get me would be not needing to drive to Seattle every month.

After work I met up with Peter. We went to see American Gangster. It was a good movie over all. Not a ton of action, but it was entertaining. When that was done we went to Peter’s. He got a new gun he wanted to take some photos of so he could send them to his dad.

We stopped by Jack in the Box afterwards for some dinner before I went home for the night.

Strolling To Bellevue

November 6th, 2007

I needed to head out to Renton today, but I didn’t have to hurry. So I took my sweet time this morning. I got my stuff packed and gathered everything I needed before I left to go to Colfax.

I started by going to the Auditors office to turn in my ballot. But Debbie was working out of the commissioners chambers. I walked down there. I turned in my ballot. Debbie and I talked about little about my radio show from yesterday talking about places to register to vote.

After I was done I went to the fire department. I decided to hang out there for a while and go on a call should one come out. But as I sat there it was quiet. We had nothing for the time that I was there.

I wanted to be back in time to see House, so I left Colfax around four in the afternoon. I got some dinner from Rosauser and drove to my mom’s place. Amber was happy to see me.

Callers on the Show

November 5th, 2007

The radio show included the topics of NBC’s green week. Where they are sending crews around the world on jets, but they are doing the right thing and buying “Carbon Offsets”. Also the usage of a gas-powered mower and what it does to the environment. When checking with various websites I found that no one agreed on the amount of damage.

I ended the show talking about the upcoming election and voting. That lead to the topic of whether students who do not register to vote in Pullman should have a say in the city government. A couple people called up and gave their opinions on the subject. It was a good show.

I ended up getting out of training tonight because I needed to work the WSU Women’s Basketball game. I worked it with Bien. While there we talked about him becoming a crew leader. I asked him what he would do differently as a crew leader. He had a hard time answering the question. I was thinking there was something he wanted to say, but was afraid of saying it to me. He did say there was very little he would change about the way I do things.

Doing a Transfer

November 4th, 2007

Shortly after I got up this morning I was in my den when I heard the tones for a transfer. I was waiting for the reserve tones when I got a phone call asking if I could do the transfer. I said I would.

I went to the station and we went to Spokane for the transfer. When it was done we went to Outback Steak House for lunch. On my way back I was in Colfax when I got a call about the men’s basketball game at Beasley. I said I could work it.

Heston was up there manning the first-aid room until I was able to get there. I called a lot of people and I was finally able to get Parrish to work it with me. We went to Beasly and signed in.

Heston stuck around until the game was over with. Parrish and I went back to the station and dropped off our stuff. The men’s team was playing LC State. They had no problem beating them.

After having been gone almost all day. I went home to watch Shark and Cold Case.

Work a small wildland fire

November 3rd, 2007

This morning Bien said he could not do the drive time so I decided that I would go to Colfax and hang out. I was hoping that I would get to go on a call. after a couple hours of watching movies with Ralph a call went out for Steptoe for a wildland fire. It was close to the Colfax/Steptoe line so we went out with one rig.

When we got there we got the pump started. I got into the catwalk and started to spray out the fire as Clark drove. I was getting the head of the fire extinguished as we drove up the field. I got a lot of fire put out.

Then we were sent to the barn that was starting to burn. I was able to get some water on it pretty quickly. We were able to stop the barn from burning. I helped to build a fire line around the barn and we put out some hot spots before leaving.

I did not have a lot of time before I had to be in Pullman to be on call. The Cougars are also on TV so I wanted to watch it. Bien, Dearth, and I were going to watch it at the station. We got some pizza and watched the game against Cal.

The Cougs did not look very good through out the first half. Then in the second half we started to do some scoring. The TV showed a stat that the Cougs have the fifth longest non-shut out streak in college football. It dates back to eight-four against Ohio State. After the Cal game it is at two-hundred and seventy games.

We went to the final seconds to of the game. We were within a field goal after a late touchdown, but we needed to get an onsides kick. But it was a poor attempt at the kick.

I went home and started to work on my web application. I was able to figure out how to get the calendar to display correctly. It felt good to get it done. Now I need to work on a portion of the web site where I need to add a couple of new tables. But I need to think through how that will work to make sure that I design things to work nicely. I am working on the training and check off reporting. I am not sure exactly how I want it to work, so I decided not to continue working on it until I think it through a bit more.

Saw IV

November 2nd, 2007

Russell and I got together this afternoon to watch Saw IV and have dinner. Saw IV was pretty good, but I was confused with one of the characters. I am not sure if it was the same character at the beginning and the end, or if it was a different person. It is clear Saw V will have to be made.

We went to Basillo’s for dinner. It was a nice change. I don’t go there often so it was a nice change of pace.

After dinner I took him home. Then I went home and started in on my web application. I was able to get the calendar part to get reworked. But I was unable to get it totally figured out. I asked Jon for some help, but it was getting late and he had to go to bed. I also needed to get up early, so I went to bed and I would continue work on the site once I hear back from Jon.

Forgot to Sign Timesheet

November 1st, 2007

I went to the fire department because I forgot to sign my timesheet. While I was down there I was talking with Brenda about my night out on the town. I told her what I said in our conversation is a secret. Not a tightly guarded one, but one that I would like to keep.

Later that night while on the engine with Andrew we talked about what he did the night before. As it turned out he didn’t know what Russell was talking about when Russell told Andrew what my costume was. So I think that I am going to be able to go out next year with the same thing and no one will know who I am.