HazMat Training

I had to choose whether I was going to go to HazMat training or Colfax Fire training. I decided on HazMat training because I had not been there for several trainings and this time we were doing training and not just a work-party.

We went over some ICS stuff followed by looking at the suits and looking up what chemical the suit is good for. We also played with some kits that would tell us if the pH and whether an unknown substance contains protein, two things that need to be known if a substance can support a biological agent.

After the training I drove to Colfax to watch House. While watching House I did a work out. I walked one and a half miles plus did some lifting.

Jackass Two

With Walker needing to go to the CPR class tonight that meant I would have to be down at station one for that time. Tyson and I went to the station and worked on the daily rig checks. Walker called and asked if he had to go to the training. I told him that he did. He was mad that he was going to have to miss the national championship game.

We got to the station. Tyson and I were in the kitchen area when a call came out. We ended up getting back-to-back calls. When we got back to the station we started to watch Jackass Two with Wehrung. It was very funny. We were laughing so hard at parts of the movie. It was a good movie to watch.

After the training we went back to The Deuce. I went home leaving my stuff on the rig. As it turned out we got another call. When that call was done we washed and fueled the rig. But we were not done we got called out on one more call. This time when we got back to the station we quickly scrubbed down the rescue. That was it for our night.

Peter is Back

After getting to sleep for a couple hours we got a couple calls at the fire station. Starting out with a car accident. Then we had a fire alarm. I stood by for both. Then I went home and went back to sleep for a couple hours.

I got up and thought about calling Peter to see what he was doing tonight. I did not call him, but within a couple minutes he called me. We made plans to hang out when he got to town.

I worked on getting the last of my boxes gone through. That is now done and I am going to start the process of going through those items and putting them away.

Peter came and he brought some pop. I got a pizza put into the oven and we had dinner while chatting about Christmas break. Then we decided to watch a movie. We watch Hostel. That was the first time he had watched it.

Following the movie he was going to have to get going, but we started to talk about Peter’s future plans. We also talked about RHA and ASWSU government. We were talking about things that happened in ASWSU while he was here for his first degree. I knew bits and pieces but I did not know the whole story.

Then we talked about his future goals of being a lawyer. It sounds like he is moving away from that and is planning on something else, but he does not know what as of yet. He is thinking real estate. It was pretty interesting because as long as I have known him, his goal was to be a lawyer.

We started to talk about trading stocks and planning for the future. He told me about his trading in the Foreign Exchange market. That is a really complicated thing that can be pretty risky, but you can also make money if you know what you’re doing. He had planned on leaving around ten, but he ended up leaving after one in the morning.

Busy Saturday Evening

The day started out late as I stayed up pretty late myself. Then as the evening got closer I got ready for the fire department early. I wanted to go there and watch the football game. The Seahawks were playing the Cowboys in the first round of the playoffs. There was also a Cougar basketball game tonight versus Arizona.

I had linen and other items that I had to deliver up there. I dropped off Anthony and then drove around the block as he dropped off the linen because the place was so full for parking. When I was coming back to Beasley we had a call so I drove past Anthony and we was looking at me wondering what I was doing. I knew he didn’t know there was a call because he did not have a radio.

We went inside. Because I was there I got the linen changed out and then we worked on fixing up the cabinet and getting rid of the blue jump bag. We were also getting glimpses of the basketball game.

We took off and went back to the station. We started to get calls and between the calls we would watch the Seahawks game. It came down to the final snap by the Cowboys where Romo bobbled the ball and the Seahawks stopped them from scoring. That allowed the Seahawks to move on to round two of the playoffs.

Then we watched the Cougar basketball game. That was very close through out. The Cougs lead most of the way, and then it went to overtime. The Cougs took a lead and kept it the whole way. I got a call in the finally minute of overtime so I had to listen to the last few seconds on the radio. The Cougs won! They beat number seven Arizona.

The call we got took us up to Palouse. We got on scene and were almost immediately turned around for a delta in the city. We got on scene of the delta call as they started the transport. So we cleared and went back to the station.

Following three nearly back-to-back-to-back calls we went on one last one where a couch was on fire. We were not first on location, but due to the difficulty of finding it we drove around the block and ended up getting to the scene first. We cleared the engine, put out the fire, mopped up, and did the report for the call.

I got home around three-thirty in the morning.

A Friday Away from People

The day started out with a page for all available reserves to call the station for a transfer. I called, but the transfer was cancelled. So I did not have to go. I spent the next part of the day doing some work at home and making a trip around town. One of my stops was Station One. I talked to Tony and then I was in the kitchen. That is when I was asked if I could do a transfer. I said that I could. I went home and got changed.

Wil, Kris, and I got in the ambulance and headed towards Lewiston. En route the patient started to go downhill so we went code the rest of the way in to the hospital. I was a little nervous because I had not been there before. After the transfer we went back to Pullman and put the ambulance back in service. Wil and Kris are brother-in-laws so they are always giving each other grief.

After I got done working for the day I spent a lot of it just hanging around the house. I was pretty tired and came close to sleeping for a bit on the recliner. But after about fifteen minutes I woke up and hit the second wind.

I had to get some stuff from the store but I did not want to go really. I was sitting around the house and thought about going to Blockbuster and buying a video. I drove there at just after eleven. I looked at the movies they had and after a while left because I was not finding anything that was screaming that I needed to buy it.

I went to Dissmore’s and bought myself some groceries that I needed. I ended up getting a bunch of pizzas and other food items for the next few weeks to eat up.

The rest of the night was spent at home going through my boxes and watching some TV.

First Coroners Case of the year

I started out the morning out with a meeting in the jail in Colfax. It was time for the Sheriff to just open the floor to discussion and to talk about some plans and goals on the year. I was at the meeting until around nine-thirty in the morning.

I got back to Pullman and had some lunch. Just then my neighbor came over with some food for me. It was a soup-type item. I had eaten so I took it and put it into my fridge for later.

The Culligan guy showed up to look at my system and determine what kind of water softener I need. I am going to get away with the cheaper one because I have the smaller pipes. That is scheduled to be installed next week.

I was working on spotting my gas meter. I am having an odor of natural gas around the stove from time to time. Parrish told me how to spot the meter. So I went around the house and shut down all the gas stops and checked where the meter was at.

I went to my office and got some work done for about fifteen minutes. I did not see any movement so that meant that the leak was not between my meter and the stops. So I had to turn on one appliance at a time and see which one would make the meter move. I turned on the stove and waited for about fifteen minutes. I went out and there was no movement.

I was going to turn on the other stops when Pete gave me a call about a case in Albion. I told him I wanted to go along with him. I left only the oven on and kept everything else shut down. The case took several hours. We had to call for Albion Fire to come help us move the deceased out of the bedroom. It has also started to snow like crazy around the time of the call.

The snow was piling up really fast. We had about six or seven inches in a matter of hours. The highways were getting closed due to the slide-offs and problems. We cleared the scene and made our way back to Pullman. We waited at the funeral home only to find the lady driving the body went the long way back to Pullman. She got stuck in the traffic and ended up turning around and going to Colfax instead.

I left Pete around five o’clock to go back home. I was working the Men’s Basketball game tonight. I got to my place and checked my E-mail. Then I got ready and went to The Deuce for the game. I got some Little Caesars on the way.

The game was good, I was able to go in and out of the first aid room to watch parts of the game. We had a patient near the end of the first half and ended up dealing with her for the rest of the game. So I missed the rest of the game, but the Cougs won it.

Getting the lead out

I made it to EMS rounds this month. It was pretty short. I also got photos of Heston for the paper. They wanted a photo of him for an article they are doing on him. Following those photos I got the number of calls that Pullman Fire has responded to since about eighty-three. I am going to work on a webpage with that information.

I made myself a promise, as I do all the time, but rarely keep them. In my spare bedroom I have had several boxes that need to get sorted. I need to do a general sort and separate computer stuff from the office stuff from tool from music and movies etc. There are fourteen boxes. I need to get those boxes emptied and those items put into like-categories. Then I can sort through the like-categories and decide was to keep and get rid of. It will help me store the stuff as well. But everytime I walk into the room I don’t know where to start. So my promise to myself is to do one box a day. Only one box. If more get done, then cool, but one box minimum a day. Within two weeks I am done with the first sort, which will make the second sort faster and easier.

Today I went into the room and knocked out about five boxes. Tomorrow I hope to get one more done. I will just keep on with it until I am through all the boxes. I will have an idea of what I am keeping and getting rid of. That will also allow me to totally empty out the spare bedroom.

I also got my garbage can today. I don’t have enough for a dump run, but too much to keep storing around the house. Now I have a big garbage can I will use for the next couple weeks until I am done with my major trash throwing away of stuff. Then I will downsize to the smallest can they have. But I got a lot of trash taken out with the can. Plus I found out they will let me take my boxes up to their place and throw them to recycling there. That will get rid of another big area of mess in my garage.

When I finally get the cardboard boxes out of there, I will need to work on taking furniture to Goodwill and getting rid of it there. Or maybe I can run a couple ads on Craigslist first. Then get rid of it, if it does not sell.

A Year in Review

Jan – I Have Problems with Vomit – I was dealing with the patient when the patient fell over and started to puke. I was doing well until about the third time puke came flowing. Then I started to dry heave hard core. My second one was so bad. I was facing a cop who jump and got out of the way because he thought I was going to puke. After having my dry heaves keep going, Chris got there and saw me. He asked if I was okay. At first he thought I had gotten hit or something. Shane told him what was going on. Chris said I should just go downstairs. My pride was hurt hardcore. I did not feel really bad, it just sucked going downstairs with people watching.

Feb – Grandma Dalen Died – After about thirty minutes of trying to sleep the pager went off for a call. But it was about seven in the morning so I decided not to go. I was way too tired. About fifteen minutes later I got a phone call from Mom. I had a feeling what it would be. I was correct. My grandma had died over-night. So now I had to figure out how to get to North Dakota.

Mar – Mariners Spring Training – You can get really close seats at Spring Training. We got to see a lot of the Mariners players. It is a pretty neat experience. Everyone is very laid back. We were always sitting close to the field. Close enough to hear the umpires and players speak. Very strange in deed.

Apr – Championship Game – We got to the South Fairway fields into for our game. Don’t Care is our opponent. They are a very good team who have not lost a game yet. We had to be on our A-game. We started off well. And early on had a small two-run lead. But as soon as we got it, they went to work, coupled with several errors, cost us eight-runs. So we were down by six. After that it is like the team gave up a little bit. We could not hit the ball and ended up losing the game. We are the number two team in the competitive league this year! So we are happy about that.

May – I Have Sleep Apnea – Dave and I left around midnight. We had chatted through out the day about the CPAP machine and his situation. He also has a CPAP machine. I got some distilled water for the humidifier. I went home and had it all set up.

Jun – Tory and Brandt Died – I thought about Tory. He fit all the descriptors. He lived on Merman, he had past medical problems and he is about twenty-nine. So I got this sinking feeling in my gut…I met Brandt through Garrett a couple years ago out boating. I have written about him in my blog before. He loved to go balls to the wall on the tube. He was fun to have around boating. I have been trying to find out when he is coming back to the area to get him out boating again.

Jul – Becoming an Engineer – We went to the tower and pumped water for about an hour and a half. I took a hydrant. I flowed water and simulated the foam. I set up the relief valve and calculated friction loss and the whole works. I passed the test so now I am an engineer.

Aug – Sold My Colfax House – I got a call today from my real estate agent. He said the paperwork is signed and I can start to move my stuff from the house. I have set the plans in motion with renting a new storage place that is larger. I also sent out an E-mail to a lot of people looking for help. I am willing to throw a kegger with a free-roll Texas Hold’em tournament for those who help.

Sept – Crew Leader Anderson – I will forever remember the day I became crew leader. It is “the day.” September Eleventh. Five years after the terrorist attacks on America.

Oct – Mercer Island Boat Patrol – While at work today I got an E-mail from Heston regarding employment on a Mercer Island boat patrol. I jokingly asked Heston if he would miss me this summer. He sent me contact information for the Sgt in charge of the boat patrol. I called him up and he wants me to meet with him when I got to Seattle next week.

Nov – Buying a House – Following the show Peter and I went to Moscow to get my boat. We took it to my place and put it into the garage. It fits in there. I was happy about that. Peter and I went around the house. He thought it was a nice looking place. I think over all I am going to be happy with it.

Dec – Thirteen Deaths on the Roads – I got on scene of a truck that had rolled pinning the victim. I did my photos and investigation. Following that I went to the funeral home to complete the investigation. I also went to the coroners office to do my paperwork and print the photos. Pete showed up there and we went over the case and the photos.

This was pretty hard there were about four different things I wanted to post about in September, but I think the longest lasting is my promotion to Crew Leader at Pullman Fire. Over all one thing that has been big the final three and a half months is the high number of traffic fatalities in Whitman County. We were averaging about one death a week. I also had my chance to be the IC on a major call for Colfax Fire.

It has been an interesting year that has allowed me another job with Mercer Island. I also got a lot of experience with the coroner’s office on two suicide hangings and many car accidents as well as other deaths.

Today, to start off the new year Brian and I were on Rescue running some calls today. We started with three calls for the night. We broke the ought-seven ice for both EMS and fire calls. But they were all pretty minor calls.

Paying my Mortgage

Volk and I were working the women’s basketball game against UCLA today. We were up at Beasley. We spent most of the time watching the TV coverage of Saddam’s execution. It was finally hung near the seven o’clock hour our time. Not a lot of a change in my life, but it is an interesting thing.

The women lost to UCLA in the same way the men lost to UCLA. It was a close game up to the end, but then the Cougs had to foul UCLA when UCLA was up by one point. The scored two more on the free throws. The Cougs had a chance to tie it up, but missed the three pointer. The game ended just like the mens’ game.

This was my first time that I had to pay my mortgage. I will have another three-hundred-fifty-nine times to do that. Well I hope in thirty years I am not still living here. I will want a bigger house some day. But I do like my house as it is right now. I wish it was a little larger at times, but over all it is great place.

Final On Call Shift of the Year

Today was my last time being on duty at Pullman Fire for the year. Brian and I met up at the station and did our rig checks. Then we spoke about the career vs reserve issues for a period of time.

We were called out while we were at the station, but we were cancelled en route to the scene. That was about it for the evening of being on call.

We did have one additional call. I was just getting ready to kick off my boots when that call came in. But over all it was dead.

High School Basketball

I worked the high school basketball game at Beasley with a career guy because we are short on reserves over Christmas Break. We talked a lot of about where Tractor came from and how he made his way to Pullman.

Then we talked about the fire department and the mix of career and reserves. There is a thing between career and volunteers. Unions can be good but many guys who are union have this belief that all firefighters should be union and that reserves should not exist. That we need to just hire career guys. So even if the city cannot afford to have more career guys to fulfil the needs of the people of the city, that is just too bad. You can’t have a reserve. You just have to find money and hire only career guys.

It is a silly notion that you can’t have some balance between the need for having the manpower and the ability to pay. Anyway, I have written about this in the past as well. I am not going to beat a dead horse here, but it is very clear that some people need to get off the hard-line that only the city should only have career guys.

Goodbye Coach Akey

I am saddened by the news that Coach Akey is leaving WSU for the Idaho Vandals. I hope nothing but the best for him and hope that someday he will come back as the Washington State Head coach.

We had the Colfax Fire Christmas party tonight. I went down to that. I bought one raffle ticket and ended up winning the main prize which was a quilt that Angela made. It is pretty neat and I was hoping to win that. People were giving me a hard time that I had only bought one ticket, then when I won they could not believe it.

We are still without power at work so I have been unable to get any work done. I hope that I can kick some butt on bugs when the power does come back on, I feel like I am getting way behind.

I went to the fire station in Pullman earlier in the day for fire training. We were doing stuff on setting up staging and rehab.

Happy Thirty-Third Scotty!

That is correct as the year marches on I always get closer to my birthday. This year it came on December Eighteenth, just like every year before it. I had planned on a Monday Night Football party with a celebration on my birth.

I went out and bought some supplies. I made Chili-Phily and nachos. Ryan came from Spokane. It was so good to have him come down! Russell came over and Ryan asked him to be a groomsmen at Ryan’s wedding. Dan came over with two of the boys and we hung out eating and talking about stuff while watching the end of the Monday Night football game. Russell and I joked about making Ryan perform in a drag show for his bachelor party. We also said it would be a “fabulous” party with us doing it.

Russell and Dan left as the guys from the fire training come over. Aaron and his girlfriend, Jen, came over. As did Tyson, George, and the Uskoski’s made it over as well. I showed them around the house. We all hung out in the kitchen drinking and laughing. It was so great to have the Dan and Michele make it over.

When everyone left Dan and Michele hung around a while longer drinking some more beer. We were talking about homsexuality and what is it like to be gay and trying to hide it for the most part. They left around one in the morning and I went to my den. I was pretty tipsy and I drank a ton of water and chatted with a couple people online for a while before making my way to bed. I was talking to Joe about being gay a little bit. I was hoping he would tell me something, but he is still not saying anything at all.

Working for Chapman

I made some Fanny Farmer Fudge today. My plan was to get a few things done today including the fudge. I did get started on the fudge, but I also got a call from Michael about covering for him as he was not able to work.

It was rig checks, so I went down to the station at six for the weekly rig checks. At one point Chelsey showed up and talked with Reed and I for about fifteen minutes. She is paramedic school and was in town for a ballet for the girls she use to babysit.

The call volume for the night was one. It was nothing real major and we did not even go to the hospital for it.

PFD Christmas Party

I spent the day working on taking apart the bed I built years ago for the apartment. It took some time to un-screw each screw. I had a ton of screws all over it. I was finishing up as the sun was going down.

I then got ready for the Christmas party. It was being held at Keeton’s place. I showed up around six-thirty. I was the first one from the fire department there. Soon others started to show up. Dan made a punch with four different kinds of alcohol.

I had some punch and ate food over the next two hours and talked to many of the people there. Nothing of substance was discussed, just lots of chatter.

Peter and I met up at my place. We watched some TV and talked about the idea of being able to store files using labels, like Gmail does for Email messages. We spent time in my office watching videos. He is flying to Colorado early in the morning so he left around three in the morning.

And the Wind Cried Mary

The evening started off slowly. We did our rigs checks and hung out at the station for a little while. I was at home when the tones went out for a tree that crashed into a power pole knocking it to the ground. We were on Spring Street for a while making sure people did not get close to it. Before too long it became clear that we were just starting.

The wind was blowing very hard. It was getting worse and worse. Trees were falling all over town. Power poles and power lines were getting damaged and we were getting called to places all over the place. We went to Campus Street followed by B Street, and it did not stop there. Soon the power was out all over town. Only the campus had power. We had no way to open the bay doors. We did not have the radio system as the repeaters were down. For a while we had to use phones for dispatching purposes.

We were out on the road until nearly four in the morning. I was just getting to bed and pulling up the covers when the tones went off for another problem. That one was up on Center Street we were on scene for nearly an hour waiting for Avista to cut the power so we could put water on the little fire in the tree that was trying to start. When the power was cut the fire went out. We were cleared and ended up doing nothing.

I was so tired. I was ready to get home and go to bed.

Lots of Responding

I responded to a lot of calls today only to actually go out the door on two of them. And of those Tyson and I did not really do anything at all. We pretty much drove the scene from one to another.

When we got to the station after the final call Reed was there and we spent time chatting about the fire department.

I also made plans to go to the fire training tonight for the recruits. It was day two of EVAP training. I hung out and listened in. Following the training I talked with the guys for a little while. It was fun to be at the training.

Wednesday Night Goodness

Wednesday nights are always spent at Russell’s apartment. Many of the dealers from Zeppoz go over. We have a dinner and do something whether it is watching a movie or playing a game. I was there until around one in the morning when I came back to the house and worked on getting my den set up and my computer set up the way I wanted it.

The day was mainly spent with the fire department. I talked to George about the audio tapes that I had from the car accident. I also went to the station for five calls. We actually went out the door on a couple of them with Tyson coming down for them.

The Office is Gone

After years of renting office space on Nye Street in Pullman, I have closed the office and turned in the key. I will take the money I was spending on the office and put it towards my new house payments. I also will cancel my phone and DSL service. It is cheaper for me to use cable and it will work out okay, as far as I can tell at this point.

I got my cable installed today. Because of the savings of not having the telephone bill, and the offer that cable has at this point, it is going to be the same price to have cable TV and internet service. So I will have both for six months. Who knows I may keep cable TV, with just the basic channels, but then again, I am so unproductive when I have TV calling my name. I will decide soon. It probably was a bad idea to get TV.

I would like to hook up a computer to the cable system so I can record shows and watch them when the time is good for me rather than being locked down to watching the show when it comes on the air.

I went to my OTEP training tonight, but then I got a call about a CISD about the car accident from the other night, so I opted to go to that instead. That went about four hours. I got home as it was snowing and ugly. I only have three hours until I have to get up again.

Quiet Night

Tonight on duty was a quiet one. We were on duty starting at six o’clock pm. It was quiet pretty much all night long. We did have to take care of a few things for the rescue.

We got one call that we took Engine Thirty-One to. It was a fire that was out in Stephenson East. It was in a microwave. We were there for about and hour taking care of things. On the way back to the station the rig was having problems with the batteries. They were getting dim. The signals and the overhead emergency lights did not work at all. The rig was put out of service.

Just two of us

Being on call for the fire department today was a non-issue. We had two calls and they were both within minutes of the “six o’clocks”. One near the evening and one near the morning of our shift. We did not do anything on either of them really.

Brian and I were the only ones on because it was nearing the end of Thanksgiving break. We hung out at the station for a while. We watched one of my new movies Running Scared with Paul Walker. It was a pretty cool flick.

When we were done with the movie I went home. I was so tired I fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

A Forgettable Night

I finally got the computer up and running the way I like it. Being down the last few days and it sucked. We are now running on all cylinders. Other than working on my computer I was on call for the fire department. We only had one real call and we were cancelled and did not even need to go to the hospital. I was working with Ben for the first time since he joined the fire department.

Horrible Day as a Coug

The Apple Cup today was supposed to be a victory over the Huskies. Instead I watched them celebrate on our field. It sucked really bad. I could not stand watching so many of the Huskie fans walking into the stadium as smug as they looked. It was like we were below them. I had one Huskie fan demand that I do something about the crowd. I was a “fire marshall” and I should do something about the crowd. I hate the dawgs!

Besides the crushing defeat of the Cougs I spent some of the evening at home with my mom. She came into town today to help around the house. She has been cleaning stuff up and putting away my kitchen stuff. She also brought over some baseboard and flatbar for the floor.

Final Day of Mini Vacation

This is the final day of my vacation from NU. I have been working on moving all week long with yesterday being the big day where most of the stuff was moved to the house. Today I moved a couple small things. Peter met up with me and helped me get some adjustable shelves purchased and put up. It looks really nice. I was happy he was here to help.

I actually was surprised that he showed up. He has been sort of there and not there as a friend since he came back to Pullman. We have hung out on an average of about once a month since he return. But that is more than it was after he just stopped being my friend for so long. I still don’t know what caused the blackout from ought-two to ought-six. Someday I want to know.

But we went to see Casino Royale and worked on the shelf like I has already said. It was a good night with him. I was also on call for the fire department. We were pretty busy for much of the night. We were getting called all over the place for fights and drunks. Tyson got to drive code for the first time now that he is checked off to be second on Rescue.

I was Hired!!!

The PES today was great. Peter and I were on fire. We were talking about a lot of the big issues that have happened over the last week. We really fed off each other well and it was great.

Following the show Peter and I went to Moscow to get my boat. We took it to my place and put it into the garage. It fits in there. I was happy about that. Peter and I went around the house. He thought it was a nice looking place. I think over all I am going to be happy with it.

As I was dropping off Peter I got a call from the Sgt from Mercer Island. I was not sure how my polygraph came back. So I had been nervous all weekend. He asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said that I would in a few minutes. I wanted Peter out of earshot when we talked in case I had to explain anything or whatever.

I went to the office and took care of some stuff online while I waited for the phone call. He called up and said the polygraph and my background came back good so I was being offered a position! I set up some times in late November and early December to do some training and even work a couple shifts. That is pretty neat.

I had fire training tonight with Pullman. We are doing more extrication training. That was taking place at the Deuce. Before the training I asked E. Dearth how his hiring process went with Mercer Island. They were interested in hiring him. It turned out they did hire him, so I will be working with him over there too. I don’t know why, but he is going to have forty hours of different kinds of training before he is going to be able to work, where all they are doing with me is some boat drive time and equipment familiarization. It could be my background that is moving me along faster. When the Sgt. heard I was a corrections officer and whatnot he was very excited about getting me hired.

So far I have not told anyone that I have been hired by Mercer Island. I think I will leave that unspoken. Not that I am trying to hide it or anything, it will just be a fun little thing that no one will know about.

Training went until nine o’clock in the evening. Then we had to fill some air bottles and get Rescue back in service with the things we used. By the time we were done it was after ten-thirty. I got some pizza from Pipeline and then went to Mike’s to play some poker.

I was going to play for about an hour and leave, but it turned out to be a couple hours before I left. It was nearly two in the morning went I finally got to sleep.

Staying for Training

I was planning on heading out to Seattle tonight because of the Polygraph test coming up, but I decided that if I require the other to be at Monday night training I too should be there. So I will be making my way to Seattle early in the morning.

Cougar Football Disappointment

It is Dad’s weekend and I am on call for the evening. Arizona is in town to play the Cougs. Brian and I get Rescue ready and make our way to Station one for the meal followed by going to the stadium for the game.

We took our place on the East pad and went into our spot. It was a pretty tame game for calls for us, however, the Cougs were not playing well against Arizona. They were running circles around the Cougs. We could not hold our own against them and ended up losing. It is never fun to lose.

Following the game we went back to the station. I hung around the station watching some TV and waiting for a call to time in. It was a pretty tame night around town as well.

Dave Meddish on Jeopardy

I saw an article in the Daily Evergreen about a WSU employee being on Jeopardy. I started to read it and I saw it was Dave! I e-mailed everyone on the softball team and some other people that I knew. It was pretty exciting that he was on the show.

I had fire training tonight for the new guys on the department. I went to the station around five o’clock and helped George get everything ready. As people showed up I made it a point to introduce myself. While Jeopardy was on I watched the episode in the next room. I was getting so excited as he was moving towards a victory. Ben called me during a commercial and said it was more fun than a football game.

Dave ended up winning twenty-thousand and one dollars and is going to play tomorrow to defend his championship.

Peter was planning on coming over to watch Saw with me. I got some pizza and Tricky Stix. We watched Saw and then he hung out with me for another couple hours. He did not take off until nearly four in the morning.

Happy Halloween

Michael asked me to cover for him for a couple hours tonight so he could take his kids trick-or-treating. We had one call during that time. I also got a chance to watch House. As always a fun episode.

Following being on duty I met up with someone from Montana who is going to rent my apartment. That makes me feel good that that loose end is tied up. Now I just need to worry about getting the moving party set up and figure out how I am going to do my free-roll tournament.

I got my costume on and went to ValHalla to meet up with Ben. But by the time I got inside and looked around I could not find him anywhere. Finally I got him on the phone and he had gone home. I had been inside for about an hour. I then left myself. But I saw a few people I knew in there including Garrett’s little brother Grant. As well as Seiler.

Almost missed one

This evening I was playing some poker for a couple hours with my normal Monday night crew of players. I was up and down most of the night. But as we were getting ready to call it a night I was only down a couple bucks. They called last hand and I had pocket Jacks. I raised the pot two bucks. Someone else raised me, and I went all in. The other two guys who were still in called. Someone flipped over KJ off-suit and one guy flipped over pocket Aces. I was behind. The flop turned up a King. It was down hill from there. I ended up losing the rest of my money. What luck to get a good hand only to lose to someone who got pocket Aces on his final hand.

I went home and tried to get some sleep. It was after two in the morning. I was sleeping soundly when I hear dispatch give the patient update to one of the units going en route. I quickly got up and went to the station. I was still within the seven minutes, but I got a slow start. In fact we still made it on scene with the other units. Luckily I was close to the station.

Victorious in Dodgeball

In my time playing dodgeball at WSU I have never had a team to win a match. It is a best of seven series. We always lose out with one win at best, until last week when we got two wins. This week we went four and oh! It was so much fun to win finally.

Ben was there with his camera and he shot this final game victory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f0I8UOLn0k It cracks me up to watch it.

I spent parts of the day doing some stuff on the computer trying to figure out personalizations using ASP.NET 2.0. I am getting closer to what I am trying to figure out, but I have a way to go. If I can get it figured out I will be able to start to build my new reserve calendar online. The one I have right now is fine for my shift, but I don’t have the ability to be as flexible as I would like, plus I am not able to allow the other crews to work with it. I want all the shifts to be able to use it in the future.

Another Victory!

My plan for the day was to play poker with Mike and watch the Cougs on TV. Plus I was going to be on call in the evening. The game started at two in the afternoon. The Cougar game started at four. I was doing really well on my table. I was up and winning some nice pots. But as the two hour mark came people were doing their add-ons and rebuys. I was finding my self to be out of the chip lead. Plus I had to leave in less that two more hours. So I started to play more loose. I got to the point where about twenty minutes before I had to leave I found a reasonable hand to push all-in on. I ended up losing out, but that was fine. I had to leave.

I got to the station and we did some training up at the training tower. It was more pump and roll training with the recruits. They just went through the training and I wanted to give them some more hands on time with it. The more you do it the more you know it is what I figured. They did pretty well at everything.

Following that I was down at the station for quite a while. We had a couple calls. One was a structure fire, but that did not really turn out to be much more than some fire under a deck. But we did some overhaul on it to make sure it was out. We also had some medical calls dealing with substance abuse. I hung out at the station for a fair amount of the night watching the final episodes from this season’s Rescue Me. I finally got to see the final two episodes.

I decided it was time to go home and get to bed. I was not there very long when we got called out to another medical call. When leaving the hospital we got yet another call. We were running most of the night after about two in the morning. I did get to bed around five in the morning.

Back to the Winning Ways

The Cougar game vs. Oregon was today. I was working Rescue today. Keith and Brian were on with me. We had a couple issues to deal with in the stands, but for the most part I was able to stay at the game and watch it. It was awesome. The Cougs were working on beating number sixteen Oregon. In fact they did beat Oregon pretty easily. The Cougs looked like the team that faced USC. They played really well and just kept scoring against the Ducks. They put Ryan Leaf’s brother in the game for Oregon. He drove the ball a couple times and got some scores, but we ended up beating the ducks.

Brian went to Beasley for the Monster Truck show and Keith worked Rescue with me for a couple hours while we did not have Brian. We got called out to an injured person at Daggy Hall. When we left there the Ambulance and Rescue went to Beasley for the Monster Truck show. We were there only a little bit when we got called to a small leaf fire. When we arrived Capt had us use the foam and water on Rescue to cover the ground and hot spots so it did not reignite. As we were leaving that scene we get toned back to nearly the same place for someone who was needing detox. The ambulance had left Beasley and was rolling through Greek Row on their way back to the station. I was behind them. We were only a couple blocks away so we went to the scene.

The guy was really drunk and needed to be retrained. Ofc. Bell and I rode back to the hospital in the ambulance. I helped keep the guy on the cot when he would try to get up.

Following that call Keith and I got the rescue filled with water. It was quiet for while. Brian and I were at the station watching some TV after he got back from the Monster Truck show when we got toned to go north of Pullman. We were the first rig on scene for someone who fell. A guy who was a nurse was on scene. He was being a huge pain in the rear. He was yelling that we were not doing things right. When the call was done he came up and said that our first thing that we need to worry about when we get on scene is that the patient and the people around the patient are comfortable. I was so mad but I did not say anything. I guess that is the difference between a hospital and the scene. Our first thing is ABC’s. This guy has no clue. Following that call I was fuming. I let it out on the way to the hospital.

The rest of the night we kept getting called out to places. I did not actually make it to bed until after five in the morning. With golf in the morning I know I will be very tired.

Monster Truck Show

Today was the first time there has every been a Monster Truck Show in Beasley. We were told a few hours before we were supposed to be there that we needed to be there at four instead of six. So Travis and I got there at four. We talked to someone to find out where we needed to be. Someone asked why we were there. We said we were told to be there at four. Then they said that we would be at the field level. The other two guys would go to the first aid room. Travis and I said “the other two?”. So we called Dearth to let him know. Dearth and Blanks came to work the first aid room.

It was a pretty cool show. Bigfoot was even there. It was so loud inside. We had the trucks coming down the ramp and were barely able to make it in. There were also some guys on motorcycles and quads. It was pretty cool for the small area they had to work with. One of the trucks rolled over. They needed our help getting the guy out. We had a small hose there too. Just in case of fire. Blanks and I manned that while Dearth and Travis went to help the guy in the truck.

It was a fun time over all. I am glad I got a chance to work it.

Pump and Roll Training

While at work today I got an E-mail from Heston reguarding employment on a Mercer Island boat patrol. I jokingly asked Heston if he would miss me this summer. He sent me contact information for the Sgt in charge of the boat patrol.

I called him up and he wants me to meet with him when I got to Seattle next week.

I got Drew to come in and do the Pump and Roll training with everyone on my shift. Now we are one step closer to being finished with the necessary items in order to get Tyson and Keith checked off on the Rescue and get them to be the second guys on the rig.

We were planning on staying the night down at the station tonight but Anthony backed out so Tyson and I decided not to stay there. Really it was a pretty quiet night anyway.