Pizza Day

February 28th, 2009

This morning I was tried due to staying up late for playing poker. But I got up in time for class. I got cleaned up and then went to Dissmore’s and got some donuts for the class. Today was the final day for Radar. Plus we had CPR and first aid training.

We did the first-aid training in the morning. It was what I expected. At lunch Jessie, Michael, and I went Subway. Then back to class for doing the radar estimation training. We went to One-Ninety-Five. We watched cars and estimated their speeds. Then we would use the radar to see what the speed was. We spent about thirty total minutes on that.

We went back to class and did the CPR portion of the class. That went pretty quick. We did some practice and called it a day.

I went home to change and then to Papa Murphy’s for some pizza. I was buying for everyone on the shift. I got pepperoni and a cinnamon wheel.

I cooked it up and shared with everyone. I helped to do the clean up as well. It was a pretty slow day overall. I got some projects finished that I had been working on. Including updating the phone list and speed dials. Plus I also got some Powerpoints completed for the upcoming meeting for the new facility.

Late Night Poker Party

February 27th, 2009

I went down to the station after I got off work in order to meet with the sub-committee for the new facility committee. We outlined out a plan of action for the upcoming meeting. We are going to put together a Powerpoint presentation to help us get through all the items we need to cover.

During the meeting Gollnick called and asked if I wanted to play poker. I told him that I did. So we set up a game for the evening hours. Because of when John would be done going to the school fair with the kids he wanted to start around eight-thirty.

I invited others to come over as well. We had a little game that lasted for several hours. It was about two-thirty in the morning when the game finally broke. Chiavaras came over. Over the last year John, Chia, and I are always bantering about him playing poker with us. Every time we would have a game we was unavailable to play with us. Tonight was the first time he was able to play.

I ended up losing a couple bucks along the way, but John brought some beer and Chia brought pizza. I was able to chow on pizza and have a couple beers in place of the money I lost.

Radar Class Day Two

February 26th, 2009

Most of the day we were running on fire alarms. Outside of that I was working on a couple projects as assigned by the chief. Actually it was just updating the phonelist with the latest reserves.

Following that I went to Colfax for Radar class for the reserves. We are almost done. It has been a long road. We are down to about six classes. We are so close to getting out on the road, I am very excited.

At the end of the class we had our written test and now all we have left for tests is EVOC and the final.

Nothing at Colfax Fire

February 25th, 2009

I went to the county today to look up information on the land that Pat has for sale. I am trying to find out what it would take to build on the land to include crossing the seasonal creek, flattening the land, and putting in an engineered sewer system.

It sounds like it may cost a fair amount of money to start, but it sounds doable. I had to see people in several different departments.

I went to the fire station and hung out there for several hours. I chatted with Carl, Scott, and Tim while I was there. Tim and I were talking about him and Jim’s project for monitoring live fires with equipment to watch the fire growth, heat production and more. It is pretty interesting.

He did some work at the live fire we had in Pullman a couple weeks ago.

Conclusion of Video Editing

February 22nd, 2009

I spent the majority of the day going through the video, tweaking things, editing the swear words, and more. It is a very slow going process. I suppose it would be quicker if I was more advanced in doing it. I am self-taught, so it is very slow going. I did figure out something today on Premiere. It is a way to take an image and have one color disappear to make the words display on the screen and the to do the opposite and make video only appear where the words are.

I am mostly done with the video. I need to re-do the photos. I think I am going to just make it a more simple video. Instead of changing photos on the beat of the music, which looks awesome when it works, but horrible when it doesn’t work, I am just going to have the photos change every half second or so. I am now just trying to figure out what music I would like to play.

I went to Rico’s and had beer with Davolt. He was in town this weekend. He is currently working in Vegas for his company from Montana. He said he will be there for at least a year. He invited me to come down in June for the World Series of Poker. I wouldn’t mind doing that assuming I had the money and time.

Video Editing

February 21st, 2009

I went to the fire station today to talk with Reiber about Pat’s land I looked at yesterday. He pointed out a couple things to me about the property and what it is worth and some other information about living out in those parts.

Before I left we had some call-back. I stuck around for that. Then I went to Safeway to do some shopping. I got a lot of groceries. I took some ice cream back to the station because of my photo being in the newspaper for the Town Crier.

Later on I went home and started to work on my video. I went through a lot of the videos decided what clips I wanted to use. Then I started clip the videos and started to get them put together.

Land for Sale

February 20th, 2009

I went to a place out on SR One-Ninety-Four to look at twenty-eight acres of land. There is an eight acre parcel of land where I could put the home. Some of the roadway to it is already completed. The land would cost a little over four grand per acre.

It has some pasture land. There is a seasonal stream that runs through it. It sounds like through out the winter it has water running in a part of it. There is a one-hundred yard shooting range already set up. There is some good areas to build a house. So it is a possibility for purchase. The owner may be willing to do owner financing. That would be huge. We may not be able to get close enough on price though. That is yet to be seen however.

I am going to have to start to research what it would cost to do some excavation work on the home site, the road way, the crossing of the stream, and more. If it is going to cost a ton of money to get it usable I may have to look elsewhere.

While I was on the property I was walking it when I heard Pullman get dispatched on a call. That also meant I could hear the pager at the top of the hill. That made me feel better about that part.

After I heard a second call go out I figured they would do a call-back. They did. So I cut my visit a little short as I made my way back to my rig to get to the station.

But before the night was done I ended up getting in on a transfer to Spokane. I was the attendant for the trip up to Spokane. We got pizza for dinner. Then made our way back. I worked with Paul. He is a very nice person. We have been on the same shift for a while. I think we got along fine, but I don’t know if he actually liked me or not.

On the way back we talked a fair amount, but there was some silence along the way as well. It sometimes seemed strained to chat. When the night was done, I still got called in for call-back. So I ended up doing just over ten hours of overtime today.

Close to Being an Engineer… Again

February 19th, 2009

I spent some of the day doing some engine driving on Engine Thirty-Two. On top of that I got cleared to become an engineer without having to finish off the PL drive time first. That is something important to me. I was in a situation that I couldn’t get the drive time as easy as I would have liked because of my temp status. With the the recent development I can become an engineer on my own schedule and then work on the PL as I have been. This will stop holding me back.

I went to the county and had the coroner’s meeting to start with. But I didn’t get a chance to talk to Pete about the things I was hoping to speak to him about. Specifically about the fact that I want to be the next Whitman County Coroner. But I want to make sure things are still on track for that. I want to keep the actual conversation on the down low so I didn’t want other around for what we talked about.

Today’s class was radar. It is day one of three for radar. Today it was just background and lecture. Next time we will cover more on the radar itself, and then in two Saturday’s we will do some practical stuff.

NRC Tour

February 18th, 2009

I went on a tour of the NRC with the fire department today. They have the reaction going. It is so cool looking. The color that it produces is incredible. I have said that before and I was excited to see it again.

In the evening I did a transfer to Spokane with Chelsey. It was a simple transfer. We went to Outback for dinner when we were up there.

Done with Mock Scenes

February 17th, 2009

Today was the final day of Mock Scenes. We had traffic stops and high=risk traffic stops. I went first for the regular traffic stop. I forgot to use the spotlight, but overall I got a good grade. I was told that I was a bit quick to break the contact when I was being asked if I had ever made a mistake. I didn’t know what to say so I cut it off by saying “have a better day” and then walking away.

I did my high risk stop very last. It was nearly ten o’clock when we started. I knew I would be late getting back to the fire station today. But I did well on the high risk stop. I didn’t have any negative notes added about what I did during the stop.

Holiday

February 16th, 2009

Today was a holiday from work. It was President’s day. I spent most of it just doing random things on the computer. I didn’t have to work any of my jobs, so I didn’t do any of that stuff.

I did spend most of the day building a shelf for the back of the Durango. It is pretty sweet, if I don’t say so myself. I have been thinking about it for a long time, and finally decided to build it. It was big enough to let my golf clubs and softball bats plus some of the coroner’s stuff rest under it plus have the room on the top for more items. This will allow me to organize things better and not have to stack things on top of other things. I want to be able to get to my things without having to dig. I also didn’t want things to get damaged by just sitting on the floor of the rig.

When it was done I put it in and organized the rest of the things. I also washed the vehicle. It was in need of a good washing. Lastly I hooked up my flashlight charger in the back and screwed it into my new shelf. My flashlight is always on the charger and will be ready to go when ever I go out to patrol.

Final Mock Scenes

February 15th, 2009

Today was going to be a long day. I was expecting to be done around three or four in the afternoon, but today was the day I was going to prove I could do the job, or I would prove I need more work, or that I am just not cut out for being a cop. I have spent sixteen hours a week for nearly the last five months. In the morning we were going to work on DV’s, FI’s, and building searches. In the afternoon the schedule was going to be traffic stops and high-risk stops.

As it turned out we never made it to the final two things. With the scenes lasting as long as they did and some of the fails that were happening we spent pretty much the whole day working on the first three items.

In my first scene I was getting dispatched to a domestic violence scene. I was called in as a backup officer. We started at Rosauers in Colfax. We drove down Mill street to the scene. It was at the Fire Station in Colfax. I got down the road to about one block from the scene. We parked our patrol cars there and walked in.

I thought about the staging of my patrol car. I have been going on police ride alongs for nearly seventeen years. One thing I have noticed is whenever the car is left somewhere typically it is left running, but the door is locked when they leave it. We were only given one key to the car so I couldn’t do that. We never went over this stuff in the class, so I left the car running, but wasn’t able to lock the door.

I went to the scene. We dealt with a husband and wife who had been in an argument. I dealt with the male half and found out that he had been slapped by his wife. I passed along that information to my partner. She asked the wife about the slap. When it was confirmed we arrested the wife. The husband was not too happy about that and started to get mad and started towards my partner. I told him that he needed to sit down and I would explain what was going on. I finally got him to sit down. He no longer was my “buddy” and didn’t want to talk to me.

We took the wife to the patrol car, gave the husband the domestic violence paperwork and went to clear. When I went to my patrol car it was not where I parked it. I knew right away that it was “stolen”. I was mad because I thought we nailed the scene and that I would now fail it. Cooper asked what I was looking for. But I knew he knew what was going on. I said the car. He asked if I locked it and I said no. He then said that wasn’t good. I then saw him get on the phone and I knew we was going to tell the grader for my scene to fail me. I was not a happy camper. I was hoping I would be wrong about that, but I didn’t have good feeling.

A little while later I went out to the field interview. The problem was that I still didn’t know if I passed or failed the DV. I know the scene I did well, it was just the issue with the patrol car.

On the field interview I watched the suspect from a distance for a bit to see what he was doing. The call was for a suspicious person in a parking lot doing something to a truck. While I was watching the truck hood was open and he was standing near the front of the truck. I made my approach and ran the license plate. We were not allowed to wear ear pieces, so I didn’t want the return to come back over the radio so the suspect could hear who the truck belonged to incase he was trying to steal it.

When the dispatcher came back I said hold the return unless there was criminal information I needed to know. There wasn’t so I contacted the suspect. I got him away from the truck where he had a hammer, pliers, and a couple other tools laying out on the truck. I asked him if he has any weapons. He said he had a knife and started to go for it. I told him to not touch the knife. I put his arms behind his back and got the knife and patted him down for other weapons. I found a screw driver in his pocket as well. I removed the weapons and then continued to contact him. At first he gave me some information that was not correct because I ran it and it came back no record found.

I talked to him some more and found out he gave me his first name and middle name backwards. I still didn’t know what the problem was with the situation. It came back that he was clear. I made my way closer to his truck making sure he kept away from the front of it because of the tools that could be used as weapons. I looked in the back and then in the windows of the truck. I couldn’t see anything that concerned me. When I got to the front I found a small gun. I took it and ran it to see if it was stolen. I then tried to see if he had a history of DV’s, which would make it so he could not possess the firearm. Nothing.

I was still lost. But then I thought about the ID again. I thought he could have been lying about it. I asked for physicals. It turned out it matched the suspect. So now I was really confused. I started to go down the road that he was near the jail with a gun. I was thinking that maybe it was something down that path, but that was also a dead end.

I though maybe I should get a tow truck to have it towed away because it was blocking a driveway, but that was a dumb move as soon as I made it. The tow truck driver was there and he wasn’t helping the situation. I got him to leave but he wanted me to sign his paperwork saying the sheriff’s office would pay for his response. Then the suspect said if I was not going to arrest him he was going to leave. I didn’t have anything to arrest him on. So I let him walk away.

I was standing in the parking lot holding onto a gun with a truck with the hood open and tools laying around trying to figure out what to do. The grader came up to me and said that the guy was now in a car on his way to Spokane. He then said the RO of the truck called in saying it was stolen. I was thinking that I totally blew it. He asked what I was going to do now. I said that I would be writing an arrest warrant. He concurred. Then he asked if I thought I passed. I said no. He walked through what I did and said that I really did the big things good. I was safe in my approach and dealing with the guy. I found the weapons. I got his name and confirmed his information. I got the bad guy away from the scene and stopped the problem from happening. I also knew who it was so I could get a warrant for him. He said that I did pass it. I felt good that I passed, but I felt so silly for not getting it while I was on scene with the bad guy.

I then talked to Cooper about the car being “stolen” from my DV scene. I explained what I did and he said why I was wrong. I went back to the staging room to wait for my next scene. When the grader from the DV scene came down he pulled me out to explain the grading.

He said we did excellent. He said that we passed everything and did it right, but due to my patrol car being “stolen” I failed. I was mad because my partner left her vehicle the same way and passed. I felt that if they checked one car they should check everyone. It wasn’t fair only to check some people on things and not others. So I tried to tell that to the grader, but he said I needed to talk to Cooper.

A little later Cooper came down and talked to me. I pleaded my case. He explained what I did wrong and why I deserved to be failed. I understood where he was coming from, but I still didn’t agree with the whole assessment for the failure.

Just before lunch he came back and called me out one more time. He said that he felt I understood my mistake and that if I wanted, instead of redoing the scene, he would pass me on the condition that I write a fifteen-hundred word paper on why it is important to always lock the door of the patrol cars. I took the paper for the pass. I felt a little better. I think that is a decent compromise.

I went to do a building search with Rich. We went to the area of the building and spoke to the RP. I was the lead on this call. We went to the building itself and I knocked and announced. After doing it twice we made entry. Rich went down an area between two old fi
re engines and a wall. It was so small I stayed near the door to offer cover from there. I had moved away from the doorway. I never cleared behind the door. When Rich came back he saw someone in the small space behind the door. He yelled at the guy. I turned around and I guess I turned white. I didn’t realize that someone was even there and he could have shot me easily. We got him arrested and taken outside.

I stayed near the door on the outside to watch Rich and to monitor the building as well as I could. I could hear some noise, so I looked inside and I saw the suspect getting off the top of a fire truck from across the building. I started to yell at him to come to me. He didn’t. I got down to see where he went but I couldn’t see him after he went to the far side of the patrol car at the far side of the building.

I had to decide whether I would wait for my back up to complete the search or to go for the bad guy before he got into a barricaded situation. I decided to go for the bad guy and I made my way to his position carefully, but when I got to a place where he was I would put myself in pure danger getting to him. I decided to stop there and retreat until my partner caught up. Once he was there we ordered the guy out of the room and arrested him. I searched him and found all the things hidden on him.

We went back into the building and did a complete search and found no one else. We radioed dispatch that we were clear and complete. That was my final scene and we passed it. So I was done, but we had to wait for others to finish their scenes as well as their re-dos. When it was done it was after six in the evening. We are going to have to do the traffic stuff on Tuesday.

We completed the day by doing two hundred push-ups because someone forgot to give some of the props back after a scene and that was the punishment for the class.

It was a long day and I headed home. I stopped at Cougar Country for a treat for myself.

The Cougs Couged-It

February 14th, 2009

This morning I got working on my laundry and I was going to wash my car, but due to doing a repair on my hose I couldn’t do it. I swept the garage out and made the measurements to build a shelf for the back of the rig to make better use of storage for my rig.

I went to Rich’s house to help him with his computer. There was a problem with the DVD drives not being recognized. I spent some time doing some troubleshooting to find the problem. With some searching online I did find a possible solution. We had some lunch and then I did the solution I found. It worked and I was on my way to the station.

I was working the basketball game. I was excited to both work it and get to see the game. The Cougs unfortunately had a nice lead, but lost it towards the end of the game to lose it. That really sucked. We should have won the game.

Following it the game we went back to the station. I fueled up the rig and went home. It wasn’t long before we were called out for a call-back due to multiple calls going on at once. I went to the station and I was there for almost two hours until enough workers were back in service to bring the numbers up to the minimum staffing levels.

Day Long Hanging Out

February 13th, 2009

I took my rig into the Dodge dealer to get the weather striping replaced on the front doors. I thought it would take an hour or two. It might have if I were waiting there, but just a second alarm was called. I walked to the station and hung out.

The time on the second alarm turned into another hour, and then another. Soon I was having lunch there. Before I knew it, we were only two hours from dinner. I was starting to get antsy. I finally got a phone call from them. I went to get my rig, and I saw that some people have “Wait” next to their name. I think those people get faster service because they are sitting in the waiting room.

NU Meeting with MB

February 12th, 2009

I had to be in Seattle for the meeting with the company that is thinking about buying the NU part of the company. I was there for about four hours. I was there to help answer questions. It turned out my part of the four hour meeting lasted about fifteen total minutes. I went a long way to get there from Pullman for such a short need, but I think it showed well with the guys from the company that I am going to stay with. It shows that I am willing to do what I need to in order to show them that I am willing to do what I need to in order to make things work.

What was weird was to sit in the same room with the company that had been our biggest competitor over the last four and half years I was working for the company. So to have them sitting with us and talking with them felt really weird.

When the meeting was done I made a trip back to Colfax for the reserve training this evening. It was a long day for me.

Meeting in Seattle

February 11th, 2009

I had to make my way to Seattle for a meeting that is happening tomorrow morning. Due to the snowy conditions the going was slower than normal. But I had to get over there. It wasn’t bad, but it was a long trip.

The nice thing was that I didn’t have to be in a big hurry because I was going a day early. So I took my time and got packed and made a nice relaxed drive.

Feeling Horrible Still

February 8th, 2009

I am feeling absolutely horrible right now. I am down in the dumps. There would be a good chance that I would quit being a fulltime firefighter right now.

I don’t feel like I fit in on B-Shift at all. I am an outsider for sure. I felt like I was welcomed in on C-shift. That is not really the issue though, it just doesn’t help things.

What really sucks is the fact that I have served this city for nearly ten years as a reserve firefighter and it means squat to everyone. I am treated like I just joined Pullman Fire for the first time ever.

I was an engineer, but when I became a temp all of a sudden I am no longer an engineer. I have to do more things. But I bet if I were to go back to being a reserve they would say I am an engineer again. It is just stupid. They want to do things a certain way, but then they make exceptions for some, but not for others. I would have to point out the asinine nature of saying I am good enough to be an engineer on July first, but not July second.

I need only a little bit of drive time on some of the rigs, but it is hard to get being the temp. Captains usually want to focus on their full-time guys, not me. So I will be set aside in favor of the career guys. So I am lingering not being an engineer.

After yesterday I was hoping today would be different. I started off okay. I was getting my work done and all was well. I asked the engineer for today about doing some of the practical stuff with the ladder truck for the time I need in order to get checked off. As I was in the process of doing it, the captain came out and said he wanted a different guy to do it. That just totally angered me and made me feel like I am done with this.

So many things seem to be piling up on me right now. In some ways I just want to tell the chief thanks for the chance, I enjoyed many aspects of being fulltime, but there were some issues I was just unable to deal with. I have been doing this for nearly seven months. If I was only five months from being off probation that would be nice, but I would still have twelve months from the time of hire to be on probation. Seven months has been too much, another year is just horrible.

It makes me feel like I have two options at this point, just say “screw it.” Do my own thing and just don’t give a rip about anything else and do my job as required, but not play with other peoples’ games. Or play the games and have a better chance of “fitting in” with everyone should I get hired and make it off probation.

I want to just get my engineer stuff done under their nose. They are not going to help me do it. I have to go out and do it on my own. I am going to have to find time with Brown to get it done while on duty that way I can be done with it and not have to try to rely on the captains who have priorities that are different from mine.

Feeling Horrible at Times

February 7th, 2009

Today started out like most other days. I woke up at the fire station. I got ready to start the day. I went to the dayroom and did the dishes, made coffee, and got the newspaper. I was watching some TV. While watching a TV show, Tom and Jerry, a young guy who has been on the department about a year and a half walked out and said “we are not watching cartoons.” He then took the changer from me and turned it to the news.

It just makes me so mad being in the situation where I have been on the fire department for nearly 10 years, but because I was a reserve it means nothing to anyone. So as far as they are concerned I am a lowly, lowly, worthless guy. I just want to say something but I have to play the game. But it is a game I think is stupid. It is like high school all over again. I like the job, but I don’t always like the side effects of having it. There are some ways I would rather be a reserve. At least there I meant something to the guys I worked with there. I actually felt like I sometimes had a voice and could speak up.

I have found some of the guys I work with are so anti-reserve it is sad to me. I have seen one guy who refused to shake the hand of any of the new reserves who were trying to introduce themselves. I think that is a bunch of crap. Most of the full-timers do not count reserves when talking about responses and number of firefighters who will be coming to the scene during a response. It makes me feel like they have zero appreciation for the reserves and the work they do. I make it a point to thank the reserves for their help after every call. I want them to know I appreciate them.

So I am a little bit in a bad mood to start off with, as can be seen above. Then I got to the Sheriff’s Office. They had decided to start the class at eight o’clock today instead of nine, but it was never totally understood by everyone. So many of the guys got there around eight-thirty. I got there at eight-thirty because of work. I lead the group to the basement of the jail. I then went to the report writing room to see if our instructor was there. He started to chew me out for being late. It was in front of some of the other cops and my classmates who were there at eight. I told him I worked until eight and I got there when I could. He then said that he knew. That also didn’t help how I was feeling.

We went to the basement and he torn into the others a little bit. When they left the room one guy said that someone should have found out for sure if we were supposed to be there at eight. Someone else said “the president”. I knew I should have. Everyone else knew I should have. I failed. That also made me feel worse.

I did my first scene and I worked with a guy who is a very nice guy, but he tends to be very naive. His performance in the scene wasn’t the greatest and it hindered us overall. We ended up doing what we needed to, in other words we made the arrest, but it took way too long and there were some officer safety issues that he had.

I went back into the room with everyone else and I was not happy. I sat there without talking for a little while. Finally I started to feel a little better and then moved along.

But when we went to lunch I had no desire to eat with everyone else. Jessie and I went to Rosauers. As it turned out everyone else had gone there. I put my cup of pop on a table by itself. One of the guys in the class said I could sit at the table with him and one other guy. I thought about it for a second and then I went and got my pop and joined them.

After lunch I went to do my next scene. I did okay, but there was some miscommunication about where we were. It was outside the jail, but they didn’t mean to have the scene to have a jail near it. I wasn’t told that. So in my mind we were near the jail and I acted as such. That caused me to go down a path they didn’t think we should be going down.

I then did my next scene and I didn’t do that great, but I didn’t get killed either so it could have gone worse.

While in the room after my two scene’s I was starting to get my partner from the first scene a hard time. I have been doing that since two Saturday’s ago. I have been unhappy with him since two weeks ago. He called me by my first name, which I had never introduced myself to him as. I have always been Scotty to him, but for some reason he didn’t call me that. It just set me off. So he has been going through my wrath.

It is very unfair of me. He is a very nice guy, and I shouldn’t be doing that. After today I felt pretty bad. I really was laying into him. I was jokingly, but not nicely jokingly, telling him he shouldn’t be a cop. That he should quit. That he shouldn’t be there. I was very horrible to him, really.

I think today’s bad mood really set me down a path with him I shouldn’t have gone. When we were done for the day I was thinking I shouldn’t have said what I did. It really made me look like a big jerk. I don’t think he knows for sure. I believe he thinks I am totally joking with him, but it wasn’t even close to being nice. I need to pull him aside and let him know it was not a nice thing and that I am sorry.

I just need to head to bed and get this day over with. I am working at the fire station again tomorrow and I hope things will be different.

Structure Fire at the Training House

February 6th, 2009

Around one in the morning we got toned out for a structure fire. I was woken up by the second alarm tones. I looked at the digital pager and found it said the fire was at the training house. I went to the station. I missed an ambulance that left with people going to the fire. No one else showed up. So I sat around the station for about two hours. Engine Thirty-One showed up. I went to the scene with them. I was with Chapman standing by near the scene and ready to take a call in the city should another one come in. Nothing else came.

After the fire was out we helped to clean up the scene. I went back to the station and help clean hose and reload the vehicles with clean hose. I went home at seven in the morning and then right back to the station.

We started by doing rig checks and then cleaned about seven hundred feet of hose the was used for the actual training. After getting it hung up I was able to take a nap for about two hours. I didn’t get two hours of sleep because I tossed and turned a lot and I also got a couple phone calls. At one I got back up and started the afternoon.

We didn’t get any calls during the day. I got some computer work completed and I did some stuff on the spreadsheets for the department and for Rudy.

We had dinner as a group at station one. I watched some TV and worked on some blog entries before going to bed just before ten o’clock PM. I was tired and I figured it was a good time to go to sleep.

This is my Rifle

February 5th, 2009

This morning I went to the burn house from my time to go through the training. We were going inside the house to see fire behavior. We were also learning how to tell if the flames were overhead even if you could not see through the smoke.

After we were in the house we waited for our next lesson which was door ops. We were learning a different way to think about and make entry on a fire. It was interesting to listen to and try out.

After the training I went home. I was going to go to Colfax early and pick up my AR-Fifteen. I am excited about getting it. I bought it late last month. I called up the FFL dealer and make a plan to meet up with him. I got to his place and did the paperwork. I opened it up to inspect it. It is a nice looking gun. I can’t wait to get a chance to use it for target practice.

After getting the gun I went to get dinner and then to the SO for training. We are doing mock scenes. It was a lot of fun today. I was a little nervous, but the first one was a good ice breaker and I learned several things. I was able to apply those lessons to my other mock scenes.

On my last scenario I was dealing with someone who was not very compliant. I had to push him against the wall to cuff him. Then as I actually placed him under arrest he was pulling away from me. I had to put him against the car hood so he wouldn’t keep pulling away so I could keep control.

Overall the instructors thought I did a good job on my mock scenes. I made mistakes but I am learning from them. I was told I did the best search of any of the students on the last guy. The one thing I need to work on is being so trusting and willing to believe what people tell me. I need to be more along the lines of not believing anyone until they prove themselves as being honest instead of waiting to catch them in a lie.

All Day Class

February 4th, 2009

I had a class today where we were learning tactics and strategies for firefighting and reading what the fire is doing. There was a lot of science behind what we were learning and we were exploring how it applies to structure fire. It was an eight hour class.

After the class I went home. Brandon asked what I was doing in the evening. He invited me to see Taken at the movie theatre. We went to the late showing. Peter and Kevin were also there. It was a good movie.

Following the movie I worked on some stuff on the computer before I went off to bed.

Starting Mock Scenes

February 3rd, 2009

This afternoon I went to shoot hoops at the rec center with Connor. We played some two on two with a couple other guys. The game went down to the final point. We were tied. I had the game winning shot and it didn’t go down. The other guy shot one and they won.

I hurried home and got in my uniform for the academy. I picked up Melcher and Ross. We went to Colfax for training. Today was the first day of mock scenes. We did a traffic stop. I did well at that, but there are some things I need to work on when contacting the driver. Mainly the things I say when I am explaining the ticket.

Then during the building search I went too fast around the room and missed the guy I was looking for. He came up behind me and shot me. That meant I failed that mock scene. But right now we are in the learning stage. As the instructors said, now is the time to make mistakes.

Yearly Superbowl Party

February 1st, 2009

Today was the Superbowl. I did some shopping for some pizza and M&M;’s and then went down to the fire station in Colfax for the poker party. We get together every year to play poker and watch the game. I made the pizza and put out the M&M;’s with we like to call crack. Because once you start you cannot stop eating them.

The poker went well. I was losing pretty bad for a fair amount of the day, but I made a pretty good comeback towards the end of the night and I think I ended up doing pretty good with the game.

The whole time I was there I got skunked on calls. But that is pretty normal for me to get hosed on calls when I hang out at Colfax Fire. I will listen to them get toned out all the time, but when I am around, there is nothing.