Fan Mail?

November 17th, 2010

I woke up at six o’clock in the morning.  Rather than tossing and turning for the next two hours I decided to head into work.  I got there a little before eight in the morning.  It was fun.  I was on four-oh-five and at one point I was doing seventy miles-per-hour!  Holy smokes, it felt good.

I worked on perfecting some of my data verification scripts.  I did some more automation on the scripts.  I am pretty excited about it.  As I write this I just realized something more I can do to make it even more automated.  I will do that tomorrow.  I will use the Replace() function to get rid of some of the data that needs to be deleted.

I got an E-mail from the Daily News saying they needed my address so they can sent me a piece of “fan” mail I received from someone.  I am not sure what it is going to say, but I am excited about reading it.  I should get it on Friday, I suppose.

Still Working on SQL

November 16th, 2010

Spent a lot of hours at work today.  There was nothing exciting of note.  Just continued working on the same problems I have been working on all week and last week.  Mainly migration stuff.

Went I got off work I made my way home to watch NCIS and spent time on the computer surfing the web.

Breakfast for Dinner

November 15th, 2010

It was a typical Monday at work.  I am working on my SQL scripts.  Now that they have been run I am working on data verification.  I am also building a toolset to automate the data verification later when we roll out for other zones.

I hit Fred Meyer’s for lunch.  They have a pretty good deli there. 

I kept was at work until just after seven o’clock PM when I went home.  My mom was just finishing dinner.  We were having breakfast for dinner.  It was very good.  I always like breakfast for dinner.  But I guess the choice was between that or pizza.  I love pizza, but I am okay with the decision that was made.

I watched House and then an interview with George W. Bush.  It was a very nice interview.  It is interesting to hear his thoughts and perspectives on why certain decisions were made during his presidency.  I am sure the hard c0re “open minded” liberals will never take Bush at face value.  They have their mind made up and there is nothing that can change the “open mind”.

Bruce’s Goodbye Party

November 14th, 2010

After getting up I worked on getting my stuff together so I could get back to Renton this evening.  I fueled up and ran a couple other errands before hitting Bruce’s house.  He invited a handful of people over for a steak and baked potato meal and football.  We watched the Seahawks and Cowboy’s game.  The Seahawks took it to Arizona and with St. Louis going down the Seahawks have sole possession of the NFC West.  JoeJoe, Web, and Pentico also were there.  The steak was good and we had a lot of good laughs.

Bruce is leaving with his family to New Mexico.  It is too bad we didn’t get to play softball this last IM season (due to fields being upgraded).  We ripped on each other and talked about the upcoming season of softball.

After being at Bruce’s I went to the fire station for our weekly rig checks.  We tore through the engine and rescue fixing problems and cleaning the bay.  I headed from the fire station to the sheriff’s office.  I needed to go through the October hours and get the spreadsheet updated.  While I was there I helped Sgt. Anderson with his presentation that he has coming up for the reserve academy.

I hit the road around nine in the evening and cruised on to Renton.  The drive over was pretty smooth.  A little fog in Whitman County and some rain as I got towards the pass and Issaquah.  I got in around one in the morning and got to bed.  I didn’t sleep well over the weekend and I am not going to get much sleep going into tomorrow either.

I am a Bad Guy

November 13th, 2010

I couldn’t sleep very well this morning.  I sort of tossed and turned and I was up about five hours after going to bed.  I sent a text to KStew to find out if I would be inside or outside doing the mock scenes for the interns.  He said I would probably be inside most of the time.  I decided to wear shorts.  KStew asked me to wear a long sleeve shirt. 

I was supposed to be there at noon, but I got called in early.  I grabbed some pop and went to the WSU PD.  I was paired up with Brock.  My first role was that of a really drunk guy who was going to need detox.  I was supposed to have very little interaction with the interns.  I was just supposed to lay there and make noises.

One intern was asking me questions.  I didn’t really answer.  Once in a while I would give a one word answer.  In once case he asked when I was born.  I was February.  Then he asked what year.  I said two-thousand-and-ten.  He then said “you’re pretty big for nine months old.”  I started to laugh.  He was the only one who made me break character.

Then I was in the role of a drug dealer.  When I get contacted by the police I am supposed to drop a baggie and walk away.  I am supposed to keep walking until they stop me.  Something I made it a couple steps.  Other times I was able to get outside of the building.

It was fun to somewhat mess around with the interns.  I would try to lay down some clues and see if anyone would pick up on them.  I also had props hidden on my person to see if the interns would do a good pat down to find them.

While I was doing that Ryan was texting me with updates about the Cougs.  The Cougs were beating Oregon State when I left WSU.  It wasn’t until I started to listen to the game that the Cougs stumbled for the first time in the game.  There was a fumble followed by a touchdown for Oregon State.  I got home and watched the rest of the game on TV.  The Cougs won.  It was the first Pac-Ten game since Apple Cup ought–eight.  That was a span of sixteen Pac-Ten games.

I got my uniform on and went to the SO.  I got a car ready and was going to hit the road.  I was with Jordan for a while outside chatting when a Colfax cop was going to a call.  We went to back him up.  A couple others came as well.  We ended up staying with our cars because two Colfax cops covered the call.

I went back to the SO and I ended up helping Sgt. Anderson with a presentation for the Reserves.  I helped him create some PowerPoint slides based off some of my notes from my Reserve Academy.  By the time I left it was almost ten o’clock.  I went to Pullman for dinner with Matt.  Boyd and Harris were also there.  I was later than them so I ordered and ate my food quickly.

We talked about the random stuff that we always seem to chat about in some sort of way.  We joked and ripped on each other.

After dinner I worked the road for several hours.  It was a pretty slow night.  I got one guy for a big speed and he had several other problems.  When it was done I could have tagged him for almost fifteen hundred bucks.  But I only wrote him for speeding.  So he was very thankful to get a two hundred dollar ticket.

I went north and hit some roads up there.  But I didn’t see much of anything.  I called it a night and wrote up my ticket around three in the morning.  When I got home I watched some of my recorded TV shows before I went to bed.

Slow Friday Night

November 12th, 2010

I worked most of the day on getting some fixes to the SQL script.  I also went to Les Schwab to look at tires.  It was going to be real spendy for me, but once I get them then I will be set for the next forty thousand miles.  They have been ordered and they will be in on my next trip to Pullman. 

When I got home I was getting work done only to realize that it was close to six.  I was going to hurry to the station only to find out I was on engine tonight.  So I didn’t have to do rig checks.  I kept working on my computer. 

I went to Martin Stadium where Colfax High was playing a football game.  Colfax Ambulance was there.  I went down to the field and said hello to the guys.  Nebe, Hickman, and I got into a discussion about WSU Football and Coach Wulff.  I stayed through the first quarter and part of the second quarter. 

I went to get dinner later on and then got back to my house and made dinner and watched some TV. 

I got an e-mail saying some help was needed on some data that had gotten into the wrong zone.   There were only eight records, so I ran down all the data and made the scripts necessary to move the data.  I got that sent off.

We got one call tonight for a fire alarm.  We stood by at the station for about hour.  I went home and stayed up until around five in the morning.  Finally I went to bed after only getting one call this whole night.

Learning Something

November 8th, 2010

Another typical Monday.  I learned sometime new today.  I guess when a bug is opened and there is five names that it is assigned to and I am one of them, it is important that I respond to it and say whether I can do anything about it or not.  I got more of the SQL Scripting done for a computer application that will do bulk inserts.  That may make the system doing work fast than doing it via a SQL script.

I texted with Melcher.  We are going to hang out on Wednesday.  I have decided that I am going to make Wednesday nights my night out.  I don’t want to spend so many nights just sitting around the house.  So I figured I would go out of my way to make sure I get out and do something on Wednesday nights.

First Pullman WalMart Shopping Trip

November 7th, 2010

Today was a day of relaxation mainly.  I slept until eleven.  But that doesn’t really make up for much sleep loss because I did go to bed around five.  It was the end of daylight savings time, but I found to experience the “fall back” goodness of an extra hour of sleep, you have to be sleeping during that time.

I did my first Pullman WalMart shopping trip.  I got some basic necessities.  I don’t know if I saved tons of not, but I wanted to check out the store.  I found there was no bakery with fresh donuts.  I was curious to see how that would taste. 

I went home had some lunch and watched some TV before making the trip back to Renton.  The trip back was a little but slow in areas as people seemed to be on Sunday drives.  I left earlier on Sunday than I normally would so I could get back to Renton in time to watch the Simpson’s and Family Guy.

Cougs Lose a Winnable Game

November 6th, 2010

I worked the Cougar Football game.  I was working the Fieldhouse with Jensen then we went to processing.  I would go out to the concourse from time to time to watch the game.  But it seems like when I went out there the Cougs would have a downturn, so I spent most of my time inside of processing.  It was a pretty slow game.  In fact the stadium was about half full.  It was ugly to see.  While in processing every joked around and watched football. 

This was a game the Cougs should have won.  The last two drive the Cougs had plenty of time to do some rushes mixed in with the passes, but we went with three straight passes followed by a punt.  That was our final two possessions.  I was mad that we didn’t try to run on first down and get some yardage so the passes wouldn’t have to be long ones.

Following the game I got my rig and went home and changed into my deputy uniform to go out and patrol the mean streets of the County.  I was working with Knox.  He hadn’t been out much because of harvest.  But we had been working on finding a day we could go out together.  It was so dead out there.  We had no calls for service and we only stopped about ten cars the whole night.  It was the opposite of last Saturday when I didn’t stop running.

Poor Turn Out

November 5th, 2010

I spent the day time working on SQL migration scripts for a database move.  Outside of doing that I took the opportunity to get my haircut.  It was getting long and I needed to get it looking better.

Around six I started working with the fire department.  We did our daily rig checks and then we ran a couple calls.  Then we had to do parking lot patrols for fires by the campers.  We need to make sure they are following the rules around having the fire.  It was pretty dead.  Many of the parking lots were sparsely filled with RVs.  It was just pure ugly.

After doing the patrols I went home and watched som TV and worked some more on the SQL Scripts.  We got one last call around two in the morning, but even campus was pretty quiet tonight.  It was vastly different than last weekend.

Back to Pullman

November 4th, 2010

Another week in Seattle out of the way.  I made my way to Pullman after I got done with work.  I went to Three Pigs for lunch with Jon and the normal Pig crew.

The trip over went pretty smoothly.  When I got home it was latish.  I watched Becker before heading off to bed.

Work and Sleep

November 3rd, 2010

Each and every week seems to run by so fast.  Going to Pullman is a four and a half hour trip.  When I am out there it seems like I am on the go most of the time.  I now do things in a matter of three days that I use to spend doing over seven days. 

Then I come back to Renton.  I work and go home.  It seems like by the time I get home I have dinner and it is eight o’clock at night.  Before I know it I am ready to go to bed and go to work again in the morning.

I need to start my gym membership.  That will get me out of the cycle of work-sleep-work.  It will give me something to do as well as get me into better shape.

No State Income Tax!

November 2nd, 2010

I got into work just before ten o’clock AM.  I started working on my migration scripts.  I went to get lunch.  I didn’t know what I wanted, but I ended up deciding on Wendy’s, but due to its location I had to drive around the block to come to an entrance.  I must have been smoking crack because I drove past the driveway I needed to get into the parking lot.  I figured that was a sign I should not go there.  I had seen a pizza place along the way.  I ended up going for pizza instead.  It was pretty good pizza. 

After work I was at home having dinner and watching the election returns.  I was so happy that the state income tax initiative went down in flames!  That is all we need is an income tax to go along with our other taxes.

The people who wrote the tax initiatives were down in the dumps over it not passing.  They claimed, more or less, the voters were duped into believing that the state would extend the tax to the middle class.  They said there was no way the state would raise taxes on anyone.  No way, ever.  It would be political suicide.  Yet, Obama admits many democrats fell on the sword for his health care plan and other agenda items.  So, I don’t believe for one minute that the income tax would never ever be extended to the middle class.  I would like to point out to all the supporters of the income tax; they should point their checkbook where their vote was.  They should send in their money.  After all they are willing to make others send in money.

Back to the Touch Pro

November 1st, 2010

It was a very busy weekend and I got back to a busy work.  I was already running low on sleep and I had to cut it short again this morning because of getting in late and needing to be at work this morning.  The traffic was bad so I bypassed most of it by taking surface streets. 

Work was work today.   Nothing really to write home about.  But I did get my Touch Pro taken care of.  Josh, a guy I work with, said he could switch over the hardware in my phone to the one that had the good screen.  It took about fifteen minutes in all.  Then I had my Touch Pro working again!  I now have a battery that will last more than about ten minutes.  I have a nice phone again.  I am stoked about that.

I was at work until almost seven thirty.  The traffic was pretty light and I was getting almost every green light on the way home.  It wasn’t like that when I started the day.  It started as a bad Monday.  It seemed like there were all sorts of problems and little fires I was dealing with.  It was sucking.

At home I had a quick bit for dinner and watched the Rockford Files.  It was weird while I was making dinner I almost dropped it, due to my cat-like reflexes I caught it before it hit the floor.  Sometime after that and starting to eat I got this blinding sensation in my eyes.  It was like I looked at a super bright light.  But this was not going away.  It was so back I couldn’t see what was in the middle of teh TV screen.  I had to look somewhere else to see what was in the middle.  This slowly went away over the next thirty minutes.  It was weird to look at my computer monitor and not be able to see what was in the middle of it.

Then after that, I don’t know if this was related, I had a slight headache that would only show itself if I coughed.  And then it was only in one small area near the front left above the eye.  It was a sharp pain that would go away as quickly as it would come on due to a cough.  It was weird.