Looking at Pam’s House

I spent some of the morning on the phone with Ross about the house I am thinking about buying. I have not seen Pam’s place, but I hear it is nice. I went to lunch with the guys from the office. When I got back I got ready to leave to get to Pullman. I was covering someone elses shift tonight.

While en route I spoke with Ross for about half an hour about buying a house and working to make myself richer. He talked about buying Pam’s and renting mine. Then a few months later rent out Pam’s and buy another house. Continue to do that for a while as I build up a number of rentals.

He said I could also afford a more expensive house. But the problem there would be once I get it, I would not very easily be able to save a lot of money, nor buy something else to build a small number of houses that I can rent and have someone help me earn some equity. But then there is the whole idea that I will have to pay to keep up the houses once people move out. It is a lot to think about.

I got to Pullman just in time for my duty shift. I went to the station and put my Crew Leader crests on my helmet replacing the old Engineer crests. I did rig checks with the other guys. We pulled both rigs out to wash them because they were a little on the dirty side.

When we were putting the Rescue back the emergency lights went on and we could not get them to turn off. I am not sure what the problem was, but we could not get them to stop. We tried a lot of things. So we ended up having Rescue out of service and had the engine as our primary response rig for the night.

As it turned out there was nothing to speak of, in fact we did not get to go on any calls last night.

When I looked at Pam’s place I realized mine is actually nicer than hers. My cabinets, the tile, and other things in the house made me feel like mine was nicer. But there was still a lot of stuff from the renters so it could have been some of that which was twisting my perception. If I do buy it I will have to move into it.

Then I would rent mine, and I could probably rent it near to what I am paying for it. So it would not be a big hit to my pocket book. Then I would be on my way to owning two places.

After checking out Pam’s place I thought mine was nicer over all. The cabinets that I have, the tile, and other features I like mine more. Including the fact I have shower doors and not curtains.

We went to my place and talked for a little bit when a call came out. It was a utility problem. I went to the station, but we did not go on the call. So I sent the other guys home. Over other parts of the evening we got some more calls, but none of them were for us.

The Thunder Back in Lapwai

I went to station thirty-one to get things ready for the physical agility test for the paramedic list. Jerrid was going to be testing. It turned out only three people took the test, so the chances of him getting a job here is good assuming they look at the things he has to offer.

Then it was off to Lapwai for the Palouse Thunder football game. It was against the Columbia Basin Riverhawks. They have not won a game all season. Today would be no different as the Thunder went on to win. The Riverhawks kept it close.

Printer Shopping on Accident

I went to the training tower to see the people doing the physical agility test. I got some photos of the people doing it. It looks interesting. I am going to try it for myself and see how I would do at it.

My new hard drives came in today. I got those to my room and started to work on them. I got two five-hundred GB, and one eighty GB hard drive. One of the big ones was SATA. But I didn’t have an SATA cable handy. I had to go buy one. I went to Office Depot. When I was there I looked into getting a couple things for my new coroner’s camera.

When I was looking at printers again, I found a small inexpensive black and white laser printer. It was fifty bucks off. But when I asked Ryan to look some up online to give me an idea of the cost, I found that they where about thirty bucks cheaper elsewhere. But the guy there was telling me about the OKI printers. So I looked into it. I was pretty happy with the quality of them. I got some information about them plus some info about an HP color laser.

I went to Staples looking for the SATA cable because Office Depot did not have one. Turned out Staples had the higher model OKI printer on sale for two hundred bucks off. So it was only fifty bucks more expensive that the one I was thinking about getting. So I decided I would look into my options and make a decision tomorrow.

I went to Kit’s camera to look at batteries and camera bags as well as filters and lenses. They did not have the battery for my camera and I am going to wait until I get the proper attachments before I got new filters. I did get a new camera bag.

I went home and Beren called me about coming over to Russell’s for dinner and hanging out. I got there and brought out my camera. I took a bunch of photos as we were eating and hanging out.

We started to play with the long shutter time making some images that appeared to make people invisible. We took about two hundred photos of different things playing around. I got some that looked like one person was interacting with someone else who appeared to be a ghost.

Denise is the girl from the Shining

Denise is getting kissed by a ghost (Beren)

Ghost hand trying to grab a bar

Last Poker Night at Mikes

I did my last radio show of the semester. Ted, the guy who has the show after me also came in early because I had to get out of there for the meeting for work. I spent a while talking to Jerid from the Evergreen Football League. Then I spent a while talking to Ted about Springfest and getting his point of view on the music and the Everclear who performed out there. I left around thirty minutes early.

I got home in time for the meeting. I called in and it lasted a while. During the meeting I got a call from Pete. So I called him back after the meeting and he told me of a possible case getting ready to happen in Pullman. A possible overdose. It never ended up happening.

I went to the fire station to return some of the tests that I had corrected for the guys. I found one person did not do a very good job on his correction of the test. The correction was open book and there was no reason to not do well on it, other than not caring. I stayed there for about an hour. Then it was time to head to Mike’s house for the poker tournament.

I got some pizza and then went to his house. I played on the main table then more people showed up. I went to the low limit table for a while but I could not win a hand. I was losing more and more money. I had to rebuy for another ten bucks.

I went to the higher stakes table to hope to see some new cards. As I sat there I started to win more and more. Pretty soon I had won back all my money plus more. Towards the end of the night I lost a couple hands that cost me some of the winnings, but I still left with fifteen bucks.

Ouch, I hurt my back

First I went to the city playfields to do some softball practice. I had invited Brandon to come along as it appears he is going to joining out team after two of Kelly’s teammates decided to return for the season. Brandon came and we mainly did BP. I pitched some and the rest of the time I worked on some fielding as people hit.

One play I was going back for ball and Brandon was running in. He went into a slide and sort of ran in to me. I fell over and used my arms to keep me from crashing down on him. I knew I tweaked my back in the process. As it would turn out, as the night went on, it would get worse.

I then went to Springfest at WSU. There were four of us there. It was a good time. Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell was there. He was taking photos with people and signing autographs. He had a long line of people. I was standing near the front waiting for my turn. He had to leave early in the event because of somewhere else he had to be. As the last people were getting their photos I showed interest. He said “I gotta take a photo for the firemen.” Bien and I got a photo with him. Before he left he also signed some photos for us. It was pretty cool.

We spent most of the time watching the events as they were happening. They had some skiers and snowboarders doing some tricks. They had Mad Chad doing his chainsaw juggling. They also had Kyle Cease from Comedy Central doing stand up comedy. The capper of the night was the band Everclear. They did about an hour and a half long performance. It was pretty cool. I only knew a couple of the songs they did.

I got a chance to do one of those strongman games where you hit a sledge hammer down on a board that would send a weighted slider up to a bell. I got it to go on my first try. I also got some photos of some of the reserves who were off duty. They got into a human bowling ball and we had some fun with them.

When we got back to the station my camera fell out of my pocket. I had run it over with the car. It was broken. That really sucked.

Big Poker Party at Mikes

When I got up this morning, I decided that I would get into my den and start to work on the ASP.NET stuff I have been trying to learn. I also had planned on getting the photoboard down at Station Thirty-One updated. I had the photos sent to Rite Aid. I picked them up and went to the station. I cut them out, got the photoboard, printed off the new names and posted them. It took a while to get done because there were a lot of changes to make.

When I was done I went to my place to work more of the ASP.NET application I started. I am making a For Sale By Owner website where someone could post information about a house they are selling. It would be a way to have a web presence. Mike came over and picked up my poker table.

I went to Mike’s close to seven o’clock. I got my seat on the table. I was doing okay for a little while. In fact I was up a fair amount for a while. I was making all the right plays. Then all of a sudden it started to go down hill. I lost a couple hands in a row. I was starting to bleed my chips out. I got a hand with an open ended straight. I also had myself a middle pair for the flop. Only to find the other guy decided to put me all in.

I made the call and lost. I sat down and played some cards and dice with some other people as we were waiting for the cash game. We played until two in the morning. When I left Mike’s I had won back all the money I had lost and went home with an extra seventeen bucks on the night.

When I got home I watched a TV show about the scarries movies. One as a Clockwork Orange. There was a scene they showed in the movie. It was a part of a movie I remember seeing a young kid. I never knew the name of the movie nor much about the movie. But when I saw the part in the TV show I finally realized what movie it was that I has seen and now I can attempt to see it again.

Web Dev Videos

I spent part of the day working through the videos for web development with the new ASP.NET two point oh stuff. I also got the photos for the photoboard sent off to RiteAid via their website.

I went to Ace to get some new wall anchors for my shelving system. The middle bar was coming out of the wall. I tried to use some mollys the other day, but they did not work as expected. I got a different system to try, I think it will work this time.

I went to the fire station to help with the recruit class. I started by printing the quiz that they are going to get tonight. I also went to the tower to set up the engine and other items for the class tonight. Then I met up with Parrish. We went to station one and helped out with the class.

The class was on water sources and supplies. They had a chance to work on turning off sprinklers, taking hydrants, and setting up stand pipes. But the training went to almost eleven o’clock pm. When it was done Parrish and I went to get some fuel for the Engine.

I went home and watched some more of the videos for ASP.NET.

Second Seven In the Morning in a Row

After waking up around one-thirty in the afternoon, I went to my computer to start to write the case report on the coroners case I worked last night. It took a little bit of time to work on the paperwork, answer some incoming phone calls, and keep up with various online conversations, but I finally completed it and E-mailed it to Pete.

When that was finally done I was just doing some stuff around the house until it was time to go to the fire station for the daily rig checks. One of the new guys was there so I made sure he knew how to do the rig checks and let him do most of the work so he knew what to look for.

Brian and I had been talking about CISD’s and the need for them and when one is needed. We also discussed going to Wesson’s retirement party. We made our way up there a little after seven o’clock pm, because dinner should have been done by then. We listened to the funny stories where Wesson was involved.

Finally I got a camera to take some pictures for Dragoo. I went around and snapped about one hundred pics in the next twenty minutes or so. We went back to the station and I had mentioned that it had been quiet. I figured that a call would come out and make people have to leave the retirement party.

When we got the rig back to the station I did my timecard and went home. I was trying to find some information online when we got dispatched to a lady who was assaulted. When we got onscene the ambulance cancelled us. We went back to the station. I went back home and worked some more to find the hoses and connectors I was looking for to use around the house.

That is when another call came in for a car accident. It was one Two-Seventy near mile post eight. A car had read-ended some of the construction rigs. When we pulled up on scene the car was about thirty feet off the road way. I was curious how this happened. Then after looking at the front of the car we could see there were two impact points. The driver had hit the plow blade of this big tractor. The car hit it and it made a deep narrow dent in the car. Then there was a second dent nearly identical to it about eighteen inches away.

From standing at the front of the car you could see where the gravel and dirt mixture had a slight disruption of the color, where the tires had driven across the gravel. You could actually see two sets of tire tracks about eighteen inches apart. It became clear that the car hit the tractor plow blade, then backed up and hit it again.

We went to the hospital to get Zettler who went with the ambulance. As we were leaving the hospital we got called out to a fire alarm at Terrel library, which is the new library next to Holland. They finally named it after about ten years of being called the new library.

When we got on scene we were first there, aside from the WSU cops. We could not see nor smell anything. I thought to myself, that even though on calls like this most of the people go in without SCBA and whatnot, that we should for good measure, but instead we went in like everyone else always does when appears to be a false call.

We talked to the cops and then Engine-thirty-two got onscene, we invited Clint to come in and play. He had the alarm key that allowed us to work the system. We found where the alarm was coming from. It was stairwell “C” on the first floor. We made our way there. When we went into the main room of the library on the first floor across the room I could see some hazy smoke in the air. We got closer and found that indeed it was smoke. Brian checked the door for heat.

Feeling none he opened it up staying low. There was a lot of smoke in the stairwell. We did not want to go into the environment without SCBA. And of course we left it in the rig. So we had to go out and get on air. When we made entry into the stairwell we made notification that we went on air. We went up and down the stairs and could not find the source of the smoke. The stairwell had a door that also lead to the CUB. That door was cracked open because of an extension cord that caused the door to not shut fully. After we made entry I noticed the smoke was not as bad. We allowed the building to naturally vent.

After a few minutes the stairwell was clear enough to reset the alarm. The main library area still had a good haze, but that would go away over some time of the HVAC system running. We had to fill our air bottles. Then went back to the Deuce as the sun was starting to rise. I went home and waited until seven o’clock to go to bed, just like yesterday.

Walker’s Last Day

I had been needing to make a trip to the store for a while now, and I finally made it there. I went to Safeway and spent well over a hundred bucks on the things I needed. Sometimes it is hard to make the time that I need to go to the store, but I finally made sure I got there because I was really getting low on items. Upon my return I made sure that I had time to get to the fire station well before the meal time.

With this being Anthony’s last day, I wanted to have a meal for him that everyone could come to. I had invited the guys from Station one and the Deuce to participate in this. I also had the reserves bring along something to contribute. I got down there early to make sure that everything got set up and it went off smoothly. I helped to get tables set up and we got the chairs out of the shed. I wiped everything down to make sure it was clean.

People started to show up around five and we sat down to eat. It was good to have everyone around. We had BBQ hamburgers and hotdogs with all the fixings. When the meal was done we had some pie then did a quick introduction of everyone at the party.

We went to the bay and started to do our rig checks. They went pretty quick overall. We also spent some time training Williams on Rescue and filling it up with water. We had to go to the city shops to fuel the gas can from Engine. That was pretty much it for the night. We did not get any calls for Walker’s last night.

Training All Day Long

Starting with teaching first aid at the WSU Recycling Center. I wasn’t sure I was going to like to teach it. After doing it with John recently it seemed like first air training was all about saying “Stay calm, I am going to call for EMS.” But through out the class I really realized it was a lot more than that. It was actually a good time teaching it. I had some good students in the class who asked some very good questions.

After that class I went to the Deuce to return the van. Rich got me to play some X-Box for a little while. Then I went home and got my stuff for the Recruit Class. I have spent two days working on it. I was not happy with the results. I felt that I did as good as I could, but the material sucked. The Powerpoint went on and on and on. But finally it was over and we went to the tower.

I worked on teaching positive pressure ventilation. We were up there for a couple hours. I got a call from Mike about a poker game at his place while I was there.

I went to Mike’s and played poker until almost three in the morning. I was kicking some butt. I ended up winning nearly eighty bucks on the night. I was happy about that for sure.

CPR Class at Station One

It has been a little while since I did a class at the station. I had only eight people show up because of cancellations and sicknesses. It turned out to be a good group of students. One guy was ten-six-seven. We talked after the class for a tiny bit. Turns out he is going to become an Eastside Fire and Rescue volunteer. He said that he had been on ride-alongs with Pullman. But he is leaving school so he did not try to sign up for the reserve program, though he had thought about it.

When the class was done and I got everything cleaned up I had to get home pretty quickly because I had to be up early for my first-aid class tomorrow morning, but I also had to get some more work on the class for ventilation that I am doing in the evening.

I have been very busy most of today working on the class material for ventilation or doing the teaching of CPR.

Late for Training

After talking with Brown on Monday my understanding is that training for ventilation would be on Wednesday. But at around one o’clock I got a call asking if I was coming down. I told Howell I would be right down. I was not as ready as I would have liked to have been, but I was able to do an okay job with everything.

After that was done I went home and continued to work on getting the presentation put together with the readings from the book as well as other sources. I also found a couple videos that I was thinking about showing.

Then it was time to go to the CISD in reference to the fatal car accident from Sunday night. That is my third one in less than one year. Honestly I have not had to go to them for myself, but I feel like by being there I am showing support to the others.

When it was over I spoke with Pete for a little bit before heading home. One thing I don’t like about it is when people talk about physical reactions, such as feeling ill, not eating, not sleeping, nightmares, etc, I don’t have those things. But I don’t want to say “it has not affected me at all. In fact, as soon as the call was over, I was done with it.” That just seems cold. I asked him about it. He said something that is important for us as a Coroner is to be able to compartmentalize our calls so we do not get eaten alive by them. People who cannot do that do not last long in this line of work.

When I got home it was late I has some cereal and watched some TV, but I was pretty tired and I got to bed around one in the morning.

More Reserve Training

After the longer than expected night I did not have the time to get my prep work done for the recruit academy class. That meant I was going to have to spend the time after my radio show working on that. And speaking of the radio show, I did not have time to do that last night, so I had to get up early in order to have time to get through that.

When I got to the radio station I was not sure what I was going to talk about, but I was able to go on nearly an hour long talk about the WASL, school teaching, WSU’s education department, and more. Then the second hour I talked about the WSU Police Chief stepping down and the fact he is a scapegoat. Following the talk on that I was starting to discuss the Seattle School District claiming that future time orientation and summer break are racist. How laughable. Tom called in and I did a quick recap.

I went home and started in on the reading assignment for class for today. We are going over hose loads and fire streams. I was not doing a PowerPoint presentation, so I was able to sit back and just watch what people were doing. I also had been assigned to respond on Rescue if there was a call. We got one for a roll-over accident, that turned out to be nothing. But when we got to the scene, in the South part of Pullman, there was about two inches of hail on the roadway. It was like it was covered with snow. The hail coming down was a little smaller than a marble.

I did help out with some of the hands on stuff. I also did some talking, but it was mainly just adding on a point here or there.

The class lasted until almost ten-thirty. When it was over with I went home and started to look at the Ventilation PowerPoint slide show. I am going to be teaching that one on Thursday.

Early Morning Class

Having to wake up early to teach the recruit class was tough after last nights call volume. I also had to do some of the powerpoint. It turned out that I was woken up early for a car accident. I went to the station and no one was around to go on it. So I ended up not going. I got some stand by hours though.

I went home and did some final preps for the class, then it was off to the fire station. I had a quiz that I gave to all the guys. It covered the last few chapters that we had gone over in the book. It was a pretty long, but it only included a couple questions from each chapter. Many of the questions were multiple-parters. It was a great chance to see how people were doing.

Many of them did not do great on the test, but I set it up so they had to do what Grimes use to have people do when they failed a test. They would have to look up the answers in the book and cite the source of the correct answer as well as answering it.

We went to the tower and started to work on all the practical things which was mainly ladders for my guys. It took a while to get people through the stations. It was a good training session.

After training Peter and I got together to watch some movies. We watched Saw Three then Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. It was a great night hanging out with Peter.

No sleep for the tired

This evening I went to My Office to start the night off. It was to get people signed up for the softball team. I was there to help Dave find Brian when he got there. Then I had to head to Colfax for our Coroners meeting. We had been trying to schedule one for several weeks and finally got this one going. We talked about my case earlier last month. We also got the on-call schedule set for the next two months.

After the meeting I got back to Pullman to be on call for the fire department. It was one of those nights where we ran calls most of the night getting very little sleep. I have the recruit class in the morning so I had to make sure I was up in time for that and I knew I would be dragging due to my lack of sleep.

Doing the Second Training Class

I finally got everything in order and I had to sit down and relax for a while. I was wound up and needed to release some of the pent up energy. I watched some Married… With Children. Then I made my way to Station one. I got a call from Blankenstein to cover for him while he is taking a test.

We started the class off and we were in the middle of the PT portion when a call went out. I told Drew to do his Powerpoint first and I would get to my Powerpoint when I got back from the call.

When I got back I was able to do my teaching. I started the video I created from the video clips. A second call came out so I had to leave again. When we got back the video was done and they were doing some of the hands on stuff. I got the training room cleaned up. Then I went out and just mainly hung out while they were doing the hands on stuff.

Following that training I went home and watched Shark before going up and working on the Powerpoints for the Ground Ladders. I spent a couple hours getting data and information for that presentation that I have to do in the morning for the career guys.

Training Class Prep

I went to the fire station around eleven o’clock for getting some training equipment and talking to the training officer. By the time I left it was after three in the afternoon.

Finally I got home and started to work on the videos. I got a lot of videos about forcible entry. I had to boil it all down to just some of the main parts. It took several hours to get all the videos copied onto the computer. Then I spent time getting those videos made into a DVD.

Finally I worked on going through the Powerpoint. I was working on going through all the tools that we have on the rigs and putting the information into the presentation. That way I can let the class know where the items are located on the rigs. It turned out on Monday that the Powerpoints were so close with the book no new information was given out. So I had to add some to talk about.

I pretty much have spent ten hours working on everything over all. When it is all said and done I am going to do actually about twenty to thirty minutes of teaching. But the digitizing of the tapes took a lot of time. If all I had to do was digitize the whole tape rather than bits and pieces it would have been quicker.

First Aid Class

Today I spent working with John to see how he teaches the first aid class. I have not done one in ages so I was getting a refresher. It was a good group of people but as the class went on I got the feeling that all first aid teaches them in this class is to say “I know first aid, relax, I am going to call nine-one-one”. There was some stuff that they did to help, like stopping bleeding, but for the most part it seemed like everything was based on calling EMS.

After the class I went to the meeting for softball. When I got there I learned that I did not need to be there for Co-ed until later this month. But as it turned out no one from My Office went so I registered as being there for My Office.

After that was done I was hanging out at the Deuce so I could talk with Howell about the training class on Thursday. I am going to help with teaching it and I wanted to get to know what items I needed to teach.

Andy Savage in the Morning

For a long time I listened to Andy Savage while I was spending my days in Seattle. He would get me to work every morning. Then there was Jack-FM. A crappy radio station that killed K-Rock and with it Andy Savage. After being off the air for a couple years he is back with an Internet based radio show. It is called bigbuttradio.com. It is a show dedicated to getting people in shape. He worked with a personal trainer and started to get into shape. He was feeling better and decided to work on this show.

I had him on my show today. It was a fun experience. When I was in the studio waiting for my show time, the girl who is on the show in front of mine had never received a caller. I even asked if someone had called in. She said “no”. A few minutes later the phone rang. She lit up, and I was very happy for her. Then after talking for a few seconds it was clear it was not for her. She looked all sad and then handed the phone to me saying “it’s for you.” The other person in the studio and I both had a good laugh over that one. It was Andy Savage on the phone. I was so stoked.

We did the interview on the air. I had him about twenty minutes. It was a lot of fun. Following him I had Jared from the Evergreen Football League on the show. Then I spent time talking about some of the issues that are floating around including the murder over in Moscow.

When the show was done I called the station to find out what the plan was for training. I was told that I was going to do the PPE slides and assist on other parts. I went to the station to get the slides and a book. Then it was off to go home and work on my teaching notes.

I got to the station about fifteen minutes before the training and all my A-Shift guys were there. That made me happy in the face of the E-mail I sent out letting them know my expectation that they were on-time. In fact I said “If you’re on time, you’re late”.

The class took about four and a half hours to do. We spent about half the class working on tying knots. I like to do that and it was a great refresher for me. In a lot of ways I am looking at these classes as refresher for me. I am able to practice some of the basics again.

A Day with Ryno

With Ryan staying the night he was around all day. We started with playing some video games. We played a couple games of Baseball Stars and Tecmo Bowl. I blew him out on Tecmo Bowl and we beat me a couple times in Baseball stars, but I did get him on one game of Baseball Stars.

We had some breakfast and hung out until it was time to get ready to play softball. We had week two scheduled for tonight. Like last week we only got nine players. That sort of made me mad. We ended up only playing one game because a different team did not show up tonight. But there is a chance that the team that had the forfeit with us last week will show up the final week of the season because they were there today.

We won the game by ten-running the other team. That was fun to do. I only got one basehit. Kurt and Jake both had at least one home run, and after two games they both have three homeruns, which is the team record in the current era.

After the game was done Ryan and I went to Cougar Country to get some dinner and I tried to relax but I felt like I had so many things that I had to get accomplished in the next few days I was sort of stressed.

I went to the fire station after dinner for rig checks. Rescue had gone to station one to get some air bottles filled and I helped get the bay washed out and went through the engine with one of the new guys as well as Bien. We were there until a little before eleven o’clock.

I then went home and started work on the stuff for my radio show for tomorrow. I am going to have Andy Savage on the show and I wanted to sound like I knew what I was doing.

Magic Show in Todd Aud

This morning was my radio show. Daniel from the College Republicans. They did a demonstration on the CUB Mall about having English as the official language of America. We talked about it for over an hour. I finally figured out what was going on with the telephone not working correctly. I figured out that there is a button on the Mic slider where I have to turn on the Tel button. It was a good conversation.

After the radio show I went home and waited until it was time to go to the Magic Show in Todd Aud. It was Brian Bushwood. He is a younger guy and he had an assistant who was a big time ten-six-seven. After the show was done I went up and talked to both of them. I also got them added to MySpace.

During the radio show Bushwood showed some tricks about how you can win at different events. He was doing one for Simon Says. When I was one of the guys who was still in play, he said for everyone to come to the stage to continue the game. I didn’t want to go to the stage so I just stood there. Everyone else went walking up there. Then he said “Simon did not say”. I sort of laughed because the only reason I did not go up there was because I didn’t want to go up there at all.

Just Some Drive Time

I got a phone call from Pete to start my day. Instead of going to back to sleep I got up and went to the training tower. No one was there. So I went to the fire station and talked to Chapman. He was doing a rig check on the ambulance. I got some drive time set up with my guys.

I got some lunch and then went back to the station. I helped finish the rig check while waiting for Morgan and Jake to get there. I got a phone call from the family of the deceased I worked with yesterday. I told him what we were doing and what the latest information that I had.

We went out for a couple hours. Morgan is new at driving and he is still getting use to driving. Jake did really well. He doesn’t really know the city very well so he needs to learn the city. But he drove the rig well.

When we were done I went to the store to get some shopping done. I have been needing to do it for a few days. While shopping Volk called and told me the ambulance was dirty and I should have washed it. I told him I could wash it if he would like. He said he would. I was sort of pissed because they have left our rigs dirty.

When I got home I made some dinner and watched TV for a couple hours. I made my way to the station around eleven at night. I washed the ambulance. Just as I was finishing up the tones went off. But only the PL had to go. I don’t know if the ambulance had to go out on a call or not.

Incredibly Busy Day

Today started out with a Delta and Echo response at the same time. I went down and I went on Rescue. It was about seven-thirty in the morning. We were going to go to the Echo, but we were told to go to the Delta. The Echo was cleared quickly, so I knew what that meant.

After the Delta we got an Alpha. We were first on scene and it really was just a public assist. When I was leaving I had a call from Pete about the death in Pullman. He was going to take it, but I told him I was the one on call. So I went home and got into my coroners uniform and went to the scene. I was on scene for a couple hours getting information and then I went to the funeral home and got more information. Due to the information I got from the family it was not clear whether it was an accidental or a natural event. I spent some time talking to Pete. We were going to meet up later on and go over everything.

I got back to my place and worked on the paperwork. It took some time to write the stuff up, count the meds, and contact the doctors. I got done with that and went back to the funeral home to meet Pete. We went over my findings and talked about what I found. He said that he agreed an autopsy was going to be needed. He scheduled that.

I had just enough time to get home, change, and get to the fire station. Erik called and said we needed to take Rescue to work the WSU Baseball game. It was against the Huskies. There were more than three-thousand people. It was one of the ten biggest crowds ever. We were there working that for a couple hours when we got a call for a power line down. Tyson and I went on that leaving Brian at the game, in the tenth inning. It turned out the Cougs lost in the eleventh.

On the power line down call I took command. I cleared the other units. We stood by incase a fire broke out because the live wire. A couple WSU cops were there and we spent the next couple hours talking and making jokes. We were on scene for four hours waiting for Avista and to be cleared. I got my report written.

I got my report done. I got home and made a sandwich. Then we got a call. The next couple hours we got a couple more calls. It was so tiring. I finally got to go to bed about four in the morning. It was nearly a twenty hour day on the clock. I was so tired by the end of the day.

A Full Schedule

After getting to bed so late I was not awake until just after ten o’clock. I was supposed to have a flooring estimate. But either the guy did not show up, or he rang the doorbell and left. Either way he did not leave a card nor call me up.

I spoke to Nick about softball. It turns out his team did not get created so he will be playing on my team and bring a guy along with him. That is good news for us. Neither of the two guys from the free agent I e-mailed about playing on the team got back to me.

I was supposed to have a managers meeting today for the team I also had plans to do drive time with the guys. So I got someone else to do the managers meeting. I got together with Tyson, Andrew, and Morgan. We did a lot of stuff with driving around the cones and practiced doing some of the things they would have to do in the cone course.

I also hit the WSU Surplus auction today. I saw Kelly and Matt there. Matt is the one who reminds me of Brandon. He is a ten-six-seven and a very nice guy. He plays shortstop and does a very good job at it. They were getting pants for the softball team. They had a lot of old WSU baseball pants. They all got some and Kelly told me to get some if I was going to play in some of their tournaments. I picked up some pants and socks. There were some file cabinets but I did not get one. They are going to be expensive, but they are better and cheaper than those at Office Depot and Staples.

Poker with Langely

Everything was going well until I got a message asking me if I had heard about what was going on with the ASP.NET applications. For some reason something was discovered and it was causing the GFE and all ASP.NET applications to stop working. That was bad. I spent a lot of time with Brian today trying to figure out what was happening and how to fix it. In fact I spent most of my day doing that. But I had to get to the fire station to do rig checks and get ready for being on shift.

I was at the station for a while. We were hanging out down there chatting about random things, like normal, until around eight o’clock pm. I was at home with Loren got a hold of me to invite me to come over and play some poker. Several other guys from the football team came over. They were not great players, it looks like they just played for the fun of it, but they threw around money. I ended up winning about twenty-five bucks on the night.

It was midnight when I got to Russell’s for our Wednesday night get together. I got dished up some chicken and rice. The tones went off for a call. I was able to eat the food and I was heading to the station. By the time we were done with that call I went back to Russells. This time I was there some time longer, but before I was able to really get relaxed we got toned out for something else. I was off to the races again, but it was getting near two in the morning, and by the time the call would be done it was going to be late. Top that with the problems with the stuff at work I told them I would not be able to make it back.

Softball Signups!

Getting up this early, I had to get to the rec center to sign up for the softball team. I was the first one in the Men’s Comp on Sunday nights. It is not like it use to be when there was a line down the hall of the CUB with people waiting to get a team. Now you can show up hours after the sign ups start and still get your team.

My schedule showed a Coroner’s meeting as well as a meeting to get signed up for teaching recruit classes. That meeting started at one o’clock pm. I got to the station just in time for the meeting to start. It lasted about an hour talking about the schedule of the academy as well as getting people signed up for it.

I was at home working on some stuff there before heading to Colfax for the Coroner’s training. I stopped by the fire department in Colfax to let them know I would not be there for training because I was going to the coroners meeting. I also had Ken’s pocket knife and returned it to him. He gave me a lot of crap, in jest, but it was fun.

I went to the coroners meeting and no one show up. After a while I called Pete and there was no meeting tonight. So I went to the Colfax Fire training. I was a little late but I was able to be there for most of the training. We were doing stuff with setting up Command.

Pushed back a week

I started with a bug on my plate this morning. I got it quickly fixed and turned in. Then it was time to head to my radio show.

My radio show went really well today. I did some good stuff. I had several topics that I touched on and when I was listening to the audio I thought I sounded good. Better than normal.

I got back to the house in time for the meeting. When I got there I found a second bug. I worked my rear off trying to get it completed today. As it was they moved back release to web by one week for testing purposes. So if it took me extra time to finish my bug we might have to push it back even more. I finally ran down the problem to something I was told to do earlier. I got permission to revert my changes and got it checked in.

We had the Reserve Association meeting today. Things went pretty well, but there were a couple people doing some scare tactics about the career guys getting us fired over it. I thought that was crap that it was even brought up because that is so far from the truth.

But over all people do want to have it, so I am going to do more work to get it figured out and have something.

We had our OTEP training as well as a couple calls, but it was quiet after around eleven o’clock. In fact we never even got out of the vehicle on either call, both of which were fire alarms.

Batting Practice

I was tired this morning, but I got up and made a call to schedule the ambulance for drive time. I set it up to happen after I had batting practice.

I went to the bat lab where Joe works. I got a chance to hit about one-hundred-thirty-five balls. It was a good times. My first swing was a whiff. But after that I had some nice pokes. But not as many I may have liked.

When that was done a couple of us went out in the medic for drive time. We spent about two hours on the road. When I was done with the drive time I went home. I pretty much hung out there for the evening. I worked on the foam board project some more.

I was able to sell one of my items that I have on craigslist. I have a couple more things for sale. I am selling it all cheap, but it is more than if I had given it away like I did some of the other stuff.

Engineer Pump Time with Keith

Because I had all my bugs done and out of the way I decided that I could spend some time doing Engineer training with Bien. We were going to do pump training. We started by going to the tower and practicing taking hydrants. Once we got that down we went to the tower itself and set up the engine. We got a hydrant hooked up. We pumped to a FDC for a standpipe as well as a sprinkler. We got a hand line out and pumped to that. We also set up a street gun.

When we were practicing changing from tank water to hydrant water we blew an old rubber hose that lead from the discharge port to the drain valve. It was not a big deal, but we cannot use that discharge port until it gets fixed.

By the time we got everything cleaned up and put back in service it was just after six o’clock pm. We went to the station to help do rig checks with Williams. This was his first duty shift. We spent about two hours doing some Rescue drive time. Williams was getting his chance to get some time under his belt on Rescue. We started with dinner at Dairy Queen. We drove around the South West hill mostly, but we went elsewhere as well.

We did not get any calls for Williams. So just like my first time being on call, he didn’t get a chance to go on a call.

Real Engine Pump Time

The plan for today was pretty simple. We were going to do some drive time with Tyson and Keith. Plus we are on call tonight. We were going to do some training where we were taking things out of the tower and then spraying water.

This is because OC was used inside and caused everything to get contaminated. But before the training started we got a call for a fire alarm. Then we got to the scene. I wanted to be the engineer. I got my chance.

I had to make sure people got the water they needed. I was able to set up the FDC’s, set up other lines, and pump. That was my first chance to do those kind of things. It was nice to get that chance. When the training was over I directed a group of people to get the engine back in service. Tyson, Keith, and I went to the station to start to fill all the air bottles. That took a couple hours when it was done.

A Day of Poker

The day was started with a structure fire. I got to the fire station but no one else showed up. After standing by, and seeing it was nothing major, I made my way to Dissmore’s to get some food for breakfast.

I got home to set up for the poker tournament. I had several people coming from Colfax Fire to come and play. Anthony, Jim, and Carl came down from Colfax. Dave also came to play. I ended up getting first place. It was a fun time.

I was in the office working on some random stuff when John called about playing some poker. I told him I was already done. But we got a second cash game going. Dan and Richard came to play. We played for several hours. Dan and Richard has left. John and I stayed playing for an hour or two.

After John and I were done we sat around talking about various things that we use to do including playing video games on Nintendo. John asked to stay the night at my place.

Little Tykes Wrestling

Keith and I got to Beasley this morning thinking that we were working until noon. That is when we found out this was an all day event. Because of that I called Dearth about my guys’ ambulance drive time. Dearth got the ambulance and the guys and brought them to Beasley. I took them out for a while. We got some good time done. One of the guys was new to air brakes. We spent some time around the training tower to get him time to learn how to use the brakes.

We went back to relieve Dearth. While we were gone they had a couple people to help. While I was there earlier there was nothing. Then as I was watching the kids wrestle I heard the announcer say we need medics to one of the mats. I got our stuff and Keith. We went down to the mat. A kid got hurt. We gave him a sling and sent him to the hospital with his mom.

After the wrestling we had to be on duty. Today is the first day of Spring Break so there was not a lot go stuff going on around town. We were able to be a little busy, but nothing major through out the night. Actually all our calls pretty much all came nearly at the same time.

Fantasy Baseball Owners Meeting

Ryan and I joined a fantasy baseball league that Phil is putting together. I am the team owner and Ryan is the manager. Tonight is our meeting to talk about the league rules.

When I woke up today, however, I was going to “get my day in court”. I was going to get my meeting with Heston. After last night and my conversation with Chapman I was not all that excited about it, not like I was before the Chapman talk. Instead of getting up and calling Heston right away, I worked on a bug for a while.

I was finally able to get to a breaking point where I was getting stuck. I called Heston and he sounded really nice on the phone and wanted to meet with me. I arrived at the station. He started by apologising to me for the what he said to me in the E-mail. Then we talked about some of the things that Chapman and I talked about. He said it was not like the career guys were “telling” on me, but Heston said he in some way pried information out of them. So when the meeting was done things were all better.

I got home and was able to get the bug completed and checked it in. It was after that where I got ready to go to My Office for the baseball meeting and Cougar Basketball game. I got a good seat and ate a hamburger while watching the Cal Bears and UCLA game. Cal held on to win in OT.

Our meeting started and two guys who work at KZUU were playing. Shier from the Philosophy department is also playing. We went over some ground rules for the league during the meeting.

Once that was done a couple of us hung out for the Cougar game. The Cougs started out scoring a couple, but by half-time the Huskies were scoring in the paint all the time. It was hard to watch. The second half started and the Cougs went on a big run and took the lead. From there is was a battle, but the Cougs controlled it most of the way. By around the five minute mark it looked like if everything kept going the way it was, the Cougs would win.

Sure enough the Cougs pulled it out. Joe started singing the fight song and he was next to me to get me going. I was singing with him. Soon the whole bar was in on it. It was way cool.

Cooling Off

I woke up early in hopes of getting my meeting with Heston. It turned out he said today was no good. I was stewing on everything and it made it hard to concentrate at times. I really wanted to talk to Michael about who told him what in relation to me being “mad” at him. I finally got a hold of Michael on my way to Colfax for the coroners meeting. We talked for about thirty minutes. I got a chance to better understand the issue with Heston as Michael.

It seems that people who were subbing on his shift recently were saying things that lead him to believe I was mad about things. That, of course, is not true. I also found out it was not a situation where a reserve said something around a group of full-timers who talked to Heston. It was more of a situation where different people were getting certain perceptions of me.

I also had realized my demeanor has been pretty poor lately. Around the guys and on calls it has been good, but there have been times were I was less that happy about stuff happening. I think I need to reevaluate what I have given up to be here and why I chose to do so. The overall picture is that I want to be here. I desire to be here. I would hate to not be on the department. But up some of the day to day politics are very troubling. I wish I could distance myself from the politics and just enjoy responding on calls and being part of the team.

When we were off the phone I felt better. I went into the SO to get my letter that said I have been through OC training, but it was not there. Darn it!

I went to the Coroner’s office. Patti forgot about the meeting and did not show up. So it was just Pete and I. We went over some of the stuff he did at the conference in general, but we did not spend much time on it. We spent most of the time BSing.

Following the meeting I got home and started to work on one of my bugs. When I got stuck and when Russell called I went to his house. We played Apples to Apples. I hung out there for a couple hours and had a great time. By the time I had left I had forgotten about the stuff going on at the fire department. I was finally feeling relaxed. I love having friends.

I am feeling pretty mad

The day started off well. I got a couple things around the house done, including the dishes. I went to Colfax to help Ingalls with his computer. I made a ton of stops in Pullman to get my checks deposited, got a new garbage can, and got my turn outs from station thirty-one. They were on Rescue when it was taken down to the station for work.

I got to Colfax and talked to Parks about my letter about OC training. He said he is going to write something up. I should have it tomorrow. I am stoked about that. I really don’t want to get sprayed with pepper spray again. I talked to Poffenroth about her computer and got the check as repayment for the parts I bought for her. I also got my license tabs renewed. I was on a roll.

I went to Ingalls’ house and worked on getting his new computer set up and all the data from his old computer to his new one. That took a couple hours in all. He only has a dial up connection so it took us a while to download anything.

We were finished as dinner was being served. I had some babyback ribs, potatoes, and corn. That was good stuff. I had to run because of the EMS training in Steptoe. I got up there just in time for training to start. The training was part of the training van. It was OTEP trauma training.

When that was done I was thinking about whether I should stop to see if House is on or not. It turns out it was, but I didn’t stop. Ryan hit me up online and let me know that House was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. That should be interesting to see where they go with that.

I also saw an e-mail from Heston. He wrote:

I am getting some negative feedback again that the reserves (specifically you) are not happy with the progress of the rescue equipment placement. I have heard it from three different career people this week. Before we started this project I asked for your input and help and got some but did not hear any further. I assumed that you were good with the direction we were going with it. I am confused as to why I am hearing this from other people and not through your liaison person Michael. The equipment on the unit will be in limbo for a little bit while brackets are made and attachments are ordered. I would appreciate you to squelch any negative issues in open discussions with other members of the department. Just like the officers and as a crew leader I expect and demand you to control these issues and discuss them in the appropriate arenas. I cannot allow these types of negative discussions to continue from any department member especially from a crew leader. It is not productive or healthy to the department and if it continues any further, I will be forced to make a change in your status with this department. I hope you are hearing me on this.

You can imagine my surprise on this. I was mad when I read it. The first time through I missed the part about him threatening to fire me. Then I saw it and was even more mad. I was going to write an e-mail to explain things, but I wanted a face to face so I asked for a meeting.

He said that three career guys came to him with the same message that I was mad about the changes. First off that is not true. When three people come to you, what makes you think they did not hear it from the same source or at the same time. I have not talked to the career guys about Rescue. I don’t talk to them about that kind of stuff. So I know that is not coming from me. Therefore someone is taking what I did say out of context.

He uses that as a basis to say that my negative comments are not welcome especially from a crew leader. Then when I read the part about the change in my status, I was not sure if that was to demote me or fire me. I would think it would be to fire me.

As you can imagine I am not happy. I also had Chapman come up to me and say I was mad at him over it. I said nothing was further from the truth. So it is clear someone is putting words in my mouth and they are making their way around the department and it is getting people mad at me and making me look bad.

The only thing I did say was “I wish someone would have let us know.” I don’t think that is anywhere near being mad at Chapman and complaining about the movement of things around Rescue. That comment was made in relation to the fact that the new tools were getting new brackets build. But when they were unable to finish it all the old shelves were gone. Therefore all the equipment had to be put on the bottom of the cabinet and it was just stacked on each other. Letting us know ahead of time would have just been keeping us in the loop. I think that is a reasonable comment. I am not sure how it is getting so stretched from what I said.

When I meet with Heston I want to let him know that, plus I want to track down the source of the comments. Because everyone is hearing it from one source. Once we get to the source we can re-educate him as to what I said and that is not not right for him to spread information that is false. You can see I am mad.