Body for Life

I have been planning for a while to make my way to the swimming pool to start to get ready for the testing that I am going to have to do soon, but I haven’t done it yet. I also had my first Town Crier column. That started the challenge for me to count down the pounds. I have a goal that I archaically stated in my column. No one really knows what it means except for me. I am going to write down what the next value is. It will keep counting down until my last Town Crier, which should be two years from now. I hope by that time I will have make major strides into what I am doing.

I was paying a great deal of attention to eating smaller, lighter meals. So I was trying to figure out how many calories are in a Cougar Super Basket. I really don’t know if I want to know. But I would guess somewhere around a Big Mac meal at McDonald’s.

While I was researching that I hit upon (I should say hit BACK upon) the Body for Life site. I am going to give their twelve week program a try that combines weight training, cardio, and nutrition into a program that lasts twelve week. That is eighty-four days. What is nice about this program is that Sunday’s are rest days. You get to eat what you want. But I am sure that as you work hard for six straight days, people don’t tend to go nuts. But to know there is a day of the week you can have a bowl of ice cream or a candy bar is nice. Rather than not allowing for the occasional candy, you can have it.

I would say that is my biggest downfall. I don’t think I eat more than many other people. It is just the choices I make when I do eat. When I am hungry, rather than filling up on something more healthy, I tend to get less than healthy things to fill up on. For instance in the past, I was hungry and ate Oreo’s. I just kept chowing as I was hungry. What I needed to do was eat something else to satisfy the hunger and than have a couple Oreo’s as a treat. It is about access and taste. I think the biggest thing the could help me is if there was a way for me to all of a sudden like lots of foods I don’t like. Such as vegetables. That would make life a whole bunch easier.

It is going to be hard to stay on this strictly when I am back at my mom’s in Seattle, but I will do what I can during that time. Maybe the local gym would be willing to see a one week pass or something like that.

Other than that, how are things? They are well. I worked the women’s basketball game with Bien. I spent most of my time in the first aid room watching TV and working on new phone. Getting contacts set up. I was trying to get the recordings created so I could use my voice activated dialing. So far that has not worked out too well. Many times I tell it to dial one thing, and it really dials something else.

There is more work to be done on that.

Playing with the New Phone

I got my HTC Sixty-Eight-hundred yesterday. I started to set it up. Today I got the phone on the Sprint network. That was pretty quick to do. Once on the network I was able to make some phone calls. I tested my headset and the headset that came with the phone. Both worked. I was able to get the mini-sd card filled with music. I am going to sync my new eight gig card I bought today when it comes in. I will probably leave a couple hundred meg free for other purposes.

I went down to the Deuce around six to start rig checks. Bien and Williams were working with me. We got to talking. Pretty soon it has been nearly two hours. The Bumblebee was running the whole time in the parking lot. We got called out to a fire alarm. That didn’t amount to very much. So we cleared pretty quickly.

Beer Pong

I got my new cell phone today. I unpackaged it and started to work on getting it set up with my settings and figuring out how it works.

Nick and I decided we would decide to go on Rescue calls today. But when we got one. It was a fire alarm. We responded on that one. That was all we got for the rest of the night. I went to the station around five to meet up with Nick to wash Rescue. Michael was down there so we started to chat about a couple things.

I got a text message from Peter about beer pong at his place. It was starting at one in the morning. When I got there several people were there. A group of people would play beer pong as the others sat on the coach playing video games or watching TV. I never played beer pong, but I enjoyed watching the others play.

I was there until around three in the morning. I got home and worked on my computer, but the network was running poorly. I finally went to bed at four in the morning.

Looking Back on the Last Year

Jan – Joining the CISD Team – I started the evening off going to Colfax for a CISD team meeting. They were looking for new members, so I thought I would see what it is about. Now it seems that I am on the team and they are looking at having a training class come in soon to get the new people trained.

Feb – How Many Really Know? – When I got home I wrote back and forth with Matt and Monte about the call from yesterday. I told Matt that I was not offended and that he could not offend me. I asked both to keep the information secret. I also asked Monte how Tom knew about it. It was Tom who told Monte. Monte said he heard about it several years about and it was a non-issue to him. I was surprised to hear that Tom has known about it for three or four years. Monte said “remember it is a small world”.

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

Apr – My First Shift Patrolling with the Marine Patrol – Then we went to the boat. We went through some things about the boat and then we were underway. We made a couple stops of people who were breaking the wake zones. I saw him do an inspection. Then on the next stop I did the inspection. We spent some time driving along the shore line of Medina, Hunts Point, and we were working our way to Yarrow Point.

May – A Police Officers’ Funeral – At about 10:00 AM the procession started. It was long enough that as my vehicle was pulling into the parking of the Kibbie Dome the last cars were leaving Tidyman’s. Along the route people were standing on the sides of the streets and police officers on Motorcycles where blocking intersections. There were people who had their hand over their heart, American Flags, signs of support, and cub scout troops along the way.

Jun – An Incredibly Fun Softball Tournament in Waitsburg – But we had an eight run lead going into the seventh inning. They were the home team because they were undefeated. In the bottom of the seventh all we had to do was to get three outs and go to the second game. But they started to hit the ball. I knew our team was hurting when after the inning the jumping back slaps that Kelly and some of the other would do turned into just back slaps. The jumping was over with. In my second to last at bat, there were two outs and I was on first base. My quads were sore and I did not want to run. But I brought up my positive mental attitude by thinking about the fact that I want this. That I had gone this far and I just have to do it.

Jul – Final Men’s Game is a FFT – Tonight the records were supposed to fall, however, when the other team could not come up with enough players to fill the team, we would end up getting a FFT. That sucked because Michael B, Bill, and I were all up for records to be broken. I needed one walk to tie Skyler. That was my goal. I did not want to beat the record because it has been around for so long.

Aug – Ryan Gamble Get Married – Once that was done we were back at the hotel, the time was counting down for the wedding to start. People started to file into the Davenport hotel. The wedding started and it lasted around thirty minutes total. I was the best man and stood next to Ryan. It was neat to see the whole thing.

Sept – Bought a Lightly Used Truck – By this time in the day I realized that I did want to get the truck, but only if I got it for twenty-one-five. A while later the sales manager called back and said I could get it for twenty-one-seven, plus a full tank of fuel. I said I would do it.

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

Nov – A Night of Arson’s in Pullman – 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.

Dec – Ankle Operation Part Two – I walked into a room with a table for me to lay on. I got up there and the anaesthesiologist started to prepare me to go under. Before I knew it I was asleep. Later I woke up not feeling well. I was being wheeled out to the recovery room. I heard one of the nurses talking to someone else, saying “you’ll have to break it to him.” I still don’t know what they meant by that.

It is always hard to put this list together. There was the day at the jail when I found out that Poff and Capt, as well as everyone else, has known about me for years. Or November when the boys made their first trip to Pullman to see Cougar Football and Basketball. There are many other examples. As usual. If I were to do this another day I am sure some of these choices would be different, but some of them would be the same for sure.

Most of today I responded on calls at the station. But most of the time no one was showing up to go with me. So I stood by on most of them. One of the calls Gecas showed up and we went on the call.

We also got a couple calls during the evening hours. I couldn’t find my pager. I looked around the house for it, I looked around the station, I checked my truck as well. I couldn’t find it. I am a little worried that I lost it on the call I went on with Gecas.

I worked on getting my E-mail inbox cleaned out. It took a while to go through all the messages. I really should go through everything again and reorganize it some more. But I am probably not going to.

Coroner Christmas Party

This afternoon we had our Coroner’s Christmas Party. We had a normal meeting but Pete brought in food for us to chow on during the meeting. I brought in the large car crash collage that I was putting together some time ago. While it sat in my room I got so use to it, that when I took it out of here coming into my office, there was a huge missing item. The wall looks so white in that area now.

Pete and the others really liked it. I was happy about that. Everyone looked at it, and we talked about all the cases involved with each one.

We just spent time talking about random stuff and make our schedules. It was a good time there. When it was over with I went back to Pullman. I was on call tonight, but turned out to be dead again tonight. It has been really quiet during the evenings here.

Calls Getting in the Way of Driving

I just couldn’t get out of town today. It started in Pullman. I was up and getting cleaned up. I was thinking about the things I needed to pack to take with me. While doing that a call came in for someone who had fallen at Kamiak Park. I had never been there before so I was actually looking forward to heading there. I got a call from Dearth who also wanted to go, with some of the same feelings that I had about going to the park.

While en route it sounded like they didn’t know exactly where we needed to go. The call was a relay from Latah County Sheriff. We were one of the last units to get on scene. We helped to get the equipment loaded onto a John Deere Gator that was being taken up a trail. The first units on scene split up on the trail where it forked. One crew found the person and we were sending the Gator in. We were told to get the ambulance ready by turning it around and heating up the back.

We went into the hospital with the person and then Dearth and I went back to the station. I had said that I am not responding on any additional calls. It was around noon when that one came in. It was nearly a two hour call. So I was getting behind the eight-ball in terms of getting home during the daylight hours.

I started to pack my stuff. I got everything prepared for me to be gone for almost three weeks. I loaded my truck. Dearth had asked me if I had chains for my truck. I am glad he said something. That helped me remember there were not in the truck. I put them in the truck and took out my Coroner’s stuff.

I hit the road. There was a bit of snow on the roadway and it was snowing. It was slow going to Colfax. One truck decided to take his sweet time driving down there. But like I say, there is a reason for everything. I drove past Island street and looked down the road to the fire station. I thought that a call would have to pretty much come out right now for me to be able to go. Colfax had actually been out on a couple car accidents already.

Just as I was going to turn into the Rosauers parking lot we got dispatched to a roll-over car accident on Airport Road. The car was fully engulfed in flames. I went through the parking lot and got to the station. I put on my turn outs and hopped on Engine One.

We went to the scene. As we were getting to Airport road I didn’t see a column of smoke. I said that outloud to Carl and Jenny. Shortly thereafter Carl said “Hey Scotty, there is your column.” I could see a big column of brown-black smoke. We got on scene. I was packed up and ready to go. I grabbed a blitz line and went into the field where the car was burning.

It was about one hundred feet into the field. I called for water. Approached the car from a corner and started to spray the water. I got the fire on the ground put out. Then worked my way up. One thing I had to be aware of was that we had no hydrant. Only tank water, so I couldn’t be wasteful. I got the passenger compartment of the car put out. Carl opened the hood of the car so I could put all that fire out as well.

I was able to get the whole thing extinguished on tank water. That was a good thing. Really this was my first real car fire that I started, attacked, and put out without anyone else doing anything.

After we got back to the station I helped to clean up everything. I went to Rosauers. I got some stuff for dinner. I hit the road. The Cougs were playing basketball. I was able to listen to the game on the way back. The roads had snow on them causing some slow going at times. Actually the pass and into Issaquah were the best parts of the drive. I was able to cruise along at a good clip most of the way anyhow. The Cougs won and I got home safely.

The PFD Christmas Party

This was put on for year by Chris and Nancy. But recently Dan and Denise have taken it over. The plan was to get to their place around six-thirty.

But with the time I had during the day I worked on finding some stuff for my project at home. I am working on a photoboard for the Deuce. It will be better than the one at station one for a couple reasons. One will be that it is easier to maintain. The one at station one is a pain in the rear to maintain. I started to get things layed out for it on the poster board. Got it lettered. Worked on resizing the photos and adding the person’s name and rank. I also printed them all out and cut them out. The only problem was the missing plastic sleeves to put them in. I found some online, after my search around town turned up nothing. I went to several stores in both Pullman and Moscow.

It was just after six-thirty. I went to the Keeton’s. I was the second one there. I grabbed my camera and spent much of the night taking photos of everyone.

This years’ party had a lot of people drinking and having a good time, but we didn’t have the token drunk that provided hours of entertainment like in years past. Really I was thinking that it is clear everyone is getting older here because the amount and length of drinking that was going on was greatly reduced. It was a good time. Chuck had come to the party. It was Blanks’ last night out on the town with a couple of the B-shift guys. They also stopped by. I was disappointed no other reserves showed up except for Parrish.

When it was done I went to my house and got the photos downloaded and posted on facebook.

Last Duty Night of the Month… Almost

I was responding on some daytime calls with Dearth. I also had to run over to Moscow to try to find some items for my photoboard project. I needed posterboard, plastic sleeves to store the photos, letters, and a glue stick. I went to Crimson and Grey. I found some of what I was looking for, but not everything. I was thinking Michael’s in Moscow would be my best bet.

I went to Moscow to go to Michael’s. I found a couple of the things I needed, but not the plastic sleeves. I was also going to try to find some dice for my boardgame. I went to the mall to go to the hobby store. But that was no longer there.

I was on my way to downtown Moscow when I heard the tones. They were looking for a reserve to do a transfer to Lewiston. I called in and said I could do it, but I had to be on duty at six. Heston said that would be fine. But as it turned out the timing was not working out perfectly. I did the transfer with Pritchett. The length of time it was taking to drive to Lewiston, plus the in hospital time was throwing off my time getting back to Pullman. I ended up getting back after seven. I wanted to be back by six.

I had a training down at the Deuce at seven o’clock. I was able to make it down, however, to the bulk of the training so that went well for me.

When that training was done I went home and worked on the board game. I was getting all the board pieces cut out and glued together. Then I put it on to a larger piece of poster board and glued it down. It is starting to take shape. I still need to the dice and the rest of the rules written up. I also need to get it mounted on a harder piece of board, like my poster board.

We did get a call for a fire alarm, but that was about it for the night for those of us on the engine.

First Aid Class Day Two

Spent a couple hours on the phone with Ricky about some bugs. We ended up trading a couple bugs.

Then I got to the station to meet up with Bien for day two of the first aid class at Pullman Heating and Electric. They invited us in for dinner. Last night was Pizza Hut, today it was Subway. We chowed down and then started in with the class.

We did the CPR and worked our way through the video tapes. It finally ended with me going over a lot of the topics we covered through the two days of videos.

During the class one guy asked me about protecting the scene with the vehicles. I told him that we would park in such a way to use the vehicle to keep other cars from hitting us. We would rather fix a damaged engine that get someone hurt or killed.

I said it easy to pull out dents or replace a door that got tore off… then I looked at Bien and smiled. He gave me a look back. And I continued to talk. It was a little inside joke with Bien.

First Aid Class

I talked to Bien about last night. Sounds like him and Megan were up dealing with his aftermath. He was pretty sick through out the night and all day today. We were teaching a first aid class together. He was sick going to the class.

It was up at Pullman Heating. They had pizza and invited us to have some with them. We went through a bunch of the stuff covering a lot of topics. Tomorrow we will be going back to cover the other topics.

I was also on duty tonight. I wanted to get to bed early because I was pretty tired. I went to bed around midnight, only to get woken up around two-thirty for a call. I stayed up until four in the morning.

Last Show of the year

Today was my last show of the semester. I had Tom on the show, as a follow up to his appearance last week. We talked about the Republican debate. He had to leave at one. I had Forbes on the phone as well. We talked for nearly an hour about local politics.

I finished off my pop. I made a big noise crushing it and I was going to throw it in a garbage can that I saw just inside the door of a gym across from hall from the KZUU studio. But as I made all the noise and stepped inside the door, I had about twenty women looking at me. I was sort of self-conscious when I threw away the pop can and went down the stairs quickly.

I was going to have to walk a way to my truck parked out by Beasley. As I was heading out the door. There was a young lady standing there looking out the window at the snow and ice on the ground. I figured she was waiting for a ride. I thought I would be outgoing and I said “horrible time of year to be on crutches.” She then said, into the cell phone that I didn’t see that she had “I couldn’t hear what you just said, can you repeat it.” I just went out the door and chuckled to myself about those two events that took me by surprise.

Following the show I got home to get some of my work done before making my way to the station. We had the fire critiques from the night of the arson’s. It was a pretty tame night as far as critiques have gone in the past.

When it was done Irving and I sat at the station talking about the critique followed by looking over the fire engine hose lays. I was there until around two in the morning chatting with Irving.

More Zeppoz poker

After only about two hours of sleep I was woken up by a phone call from Pete. There was a call waiting in the wing. I had guessed it had to do with the call we had this morning. Later on in the morning I called Pete and it turned out to be what I was thinking it was. As it turned out I had transported the same person to Spokane about ten days prior. So I was familiar with him.

In the rest of the day Wilcox, Dearth, and I responded on EMS and fire calls. The first one was a pretty bad looking accident. Turned out it wasn’t much of anything when it was done. A lot of people stopped to help. I was talking to one person who was there. I got the vibes and the gaydar was going off. I found him on Facebook and sure enough he is family.

I was running really late for poker. Sign ups were at five-thirty, and it was almost that time when we got back to the station after our fourth call of the afternoon. With the heavy snow covering the road we had a long day. But now it is raining and the roads are getting all slushy.

I got to Zeppoz in time to get a seat at the table. Due to the weather, I believe, there was a limited number of players. We ended up having three full tables, but it took almost until six o’clock to get there.

A ten-six-seven who has been in all the tournaments since I started to play was there. He is not the normal blonde/blue but, he is still ten-six-seven.

Towards the end of the night I was knocked out in seventh place again. The ten-six-seven was in the final four. All of a sudden there was a small uproar at the table. I was playing a table game right next to the poker table. I turned around and saw the ten-six-seven with tears in his eyes. Someone said he would chop the pot with him. I didn’t know what had happened.

Later on I found out his dad had died and he was called about it during the game.

Busy day and night

Spent most of the day responding on fire and EMS calls during the daytime hours. We also took engine thirty-one to the High Street Mall to bring Santa to the Christmas tree lighting. I brought a camera to take some photos. We were there for about an hour before heading out.

It was covering for Chapman tonight. It was great. At first the night started out slow. I bought a couple movies including Death Wish and Transformers. I went to the station where we watched Death Wish. Then Irving and I started to play Ghost Recon. But soon we started to get some calls.

Before long we were running from call to call without making it back to the station. We were slammed for a while. I got Rescue first on scene on two different calls. That was pretty cool. I ended up taking one patient. It turned out to be a refusal, so I spent time doing the necessary paperwork.

I had said before the end of the night we would get a five-forty-five in the morning call. I was close. It was five-forty in the morning. While at the hospital I knew things were going to go bad.

By the time I got home and in bed it was around seven in the morning.

Spokane Trip

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.

Training with D-Twelve

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!

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.

Spending the Day with Ken

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.

Spokane Transfer with Suggs

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.

Got Pulled Over

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.

The Boys are in Town

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

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.

A Cougar Football Victory

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

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.

Callers on the Show

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

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

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.

Forgot to Sign Timesheet

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.

I got an “A”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phone Interview Complete

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Fire Critiques

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

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

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

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

A Cougar Football Win

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poker at Dan’s

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

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

Saw Three

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

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

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

A Day Off

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

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

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

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

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

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

Extrication Training

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

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

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

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

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

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