A day to rest

I spent some time yesterday figuring out why something was not working. I had turned it in a couple times, but each time it was sent back to me with additional questions. It was a simple “Investigation” issue. I finally was able to get on the Test DB. On that DB I was able to see what was happening. That is what allowed me to finally get a reasonable answer to why things were not working right. I sent it over to Miki once and for all, I hope.

Today I got a whole bunch of new bugs assigned to me. I also have some DU bugs that I am not able to do here in Pullman because I need to do some debugging I can only do on my local box, and I cannot for some reason do while I am using a TS session.

So for the next couple days I will try to knock out one or two of the bugs that I can do from here. But they all seem to be involved bugs. I don’t know if I will get any of them figured out.

I went to station one and tried to pick up the WSU map tests. While talking to George about them I helped him write the way the test is being done to group building by type of use, whether it is academic, admin services, etc. I think it is a better way than the old way which was to have them randomly put on to study sheets.

On call at the fire department I went to the station and helped with Rig Checks. I also got some notes written for the meeting I am going to have with everyone on Thursday. I spoke with Ben about some of the changes that are going to happen with the responses of the different rigs and calls. We are no longer going to do EMS Alpha calls. We are also having some fire call changes. Overall I think we are going to be used more heavily as a back-up unit. They are going to rely on us to get to the scene and help out rather than being the third unit on scene, we will now be the second unit.

Report Writing Training

Today’s The PES show included Eunice Coker who is running a campaign to be re-elected to her position of Whitman County Auditor. We spent about fifty minutes talking to her about her work and why she should be re-elected.

Peter and I also talked about his taking of the LSAT test. I spent some time going over lawyer jokes.

I signed the paperwork for my house. The other people came back with an offer of five hundred buck in lieu of the repairs needed. But I know those will cost over a grand. So I sent back a proposal for the amount it will take to fix the problems outlined in the home inspection report.

Our training tonight was about doing reports. Specifically the EMS field reports. What is needed in the various fields on the report.

Fire Department Open House

There was an open house for the fire department today. Because of all the rigs we had on display we held it out of the old Safeway building. We did not get a lot of people to come through, but we did set up a lot of things for people to look at and some things they were able to do.

The smoke house was there for kids to see what it was like in a smoky room and how to get out of one safely.

We were going to run it until four o’clock pm. But it was starting to rain so we called it a day around three. We broke everything down and took it all back to the station.

It was the first night of dodgeball tonight. Most of the people on the team from last year played as well as some new comers. We are playing co-ed this year because that was the only way I could get Sunday nights.

A Night at the Station

I spent the night at the station with the Anthony and Tyson. We went to rent a movie from Blockbuster. While we were getting ready to leave we got a call for a fire alarm. We went to the scene and I got command on it. It turned out to be nothing. I wrote the report on that one.

We had two more calls on the night. One was after the movie was done. We had watched Brick. It was a good flick. The call was nothing. No patient was located. I helped Tyson do the report on that one.

We slept through most of the night until just before five in the morning. It was a detox call that we ended up not having to send to the hospital. I wrote that report as well.

It was near six in the morning. I hung out at the station until Clint got up so I could get him to review my reports before turning them in.

Redefining the Look of the Calendar

On top of getting a couple bugs settled with my work. As well as getting to the real estate office to tell the realtor what I would like included on the statement back to the homeowners based on what I saw in the home inspection report. I was on call for the day. We had an interesting night where for the first half of the shift we got a call every two hours. Our final call come in around one-thirty in the morning.

While I was sitting around the fire station I was speaking with Keith about the Duty Calendar and I was listening to what I was saying. I realized that I need to start the thing over from scratch… again… and build it right. While sitting at the station I was brainstorming ideas for what it should do and look like. I am trying to get all the functionality thought out. Then I can take these ideas and see if I can do them and how to do them. I will have a way of checking to see what I am building has an over all plan and a pathway for getting there.

I am going to attempt to build this and make it robust, usable, and friendly.

I also got to put in my first nasal airway tonight. I have waited a long time and this evening when I was on a call we were going to put on in. And I said that I had never done one and I would like to do it. I got my chance. It was a lot different that in training.

The Critiques

This has been a long wait for this day to come. I could not wait to talk about the issues out on the car accident that Friday night so many weeks ago.’

I had the home inspection and pest inspection scheduled for today. The home inspection guy did not show up. Finally after twenty minutes past the time he was supposed to be there I called him. He said that Pam, my realtor, cancelled him. I was upset about that, then I asked if he could still do it. He said he would come up.

I was only able to be around for part of the home inspection because I had to leave just before six to get to the critiques. In one night a few weeks ago we had a car accident and a structure fire. Rescue played a pretty big role in both. We were on scene with the first arriving engine. We got the dwelling lay and the fire knocked down before the others arrived.

Later at the car accident we were the ones who started extrication. I was upset over the choice of tool on rescue. We had switched to the new rescue and no matter how much I argued to keep the old tools on the new rescue people kept saying there wasn’t room. That we only had room for the combitool. I got caught on the scene of a car accident with better tools miles away in the city. I did what I could with the tools in hand, but I was unable to make the quick cuts that I would have liked to make. As a result of something happening to the Engine that had the tools on it, they were recently put on rescue and replaced the combitool. I was told this will be permanent.

I think the main critique that was made of me is that I should have take a role of a group leader and directed the extrication instead of doing it myself. They said as a crew leader I need to start to take up leadership positions.

The Rodeo

The highschool rodeo was being held at the fairgrounds in Colfax. I went with Colfax Ambulance to stand by out there in case someone got hurt. It was pretty uneventful over all. No real injuries. I wish there had been more of the bronco and bull riding and a lot less of the barrels and poles. Those seemed to drag on and on and on. But over all I had a good time out there.

I left from there to go straight to Pullman for rig checks. I got some dinner on the way and then to the station. Brian was already there. We took Engine Thirty-One up to the tower and gave him some time on the pump. I went over the relief value with him and explained how it worked. We sprayed water for a while, but he has pumped before so a lot of this is not new to him. We were there until nearly seven o’clock. We got back to the station and worked on rig checks and going on calls in the middle of the rig checks.

It was turning out to be quiet most of the night, then we got the three in the morning and five-thirty-in the morning calls. That sucked.

Cougs back on track

We scheduled a coroners meeting for next Wednesday, but after it was discovered we were all free on Saturday morning we decided to also get together for a while and discuss the most recent two cases. We covered the case that I had on Thursday of the car crash/suicide. As well as Friday’s suicide case. The meeting went along fine. We also talked about getting a new printer. I stayed after the meeting for a while getting information about different printers to present to Pete.

After the meeting I went back to Colfax and checked out the new layout of Rescue. The good extrication tools were put on the rig. I am very stoked about that. I hung around the station talking to Ben for a while. The Cougar game was on TV so I just stayed there to watch the game. The Cougs won! They are back on track.

I got a call about a poker game that was going to be happening. I went to that game. It was in the Statesman Condos. That is right behind my place, so I walked over there. I was third one out. There were six people playing. I hung out to see how it went for all those involved.

Following the poker game I went home to get to bed because I need to get up early for the Colfax High School Rodeo.

First Round of the Playoffs

Today was the first round of the IM softball playoffs. We got a first round bye, so this is technically the second round, but our first round. We were playing the winner of the first round game and ended up playing against a team from the Wednesday night division. We beat them pretty easily. We scored eight runs in the first inning and only recorded one out. After that we coasted to a victory.

Following the game I went to Extrication Training at station one. While there I was talking to Chapman about a couple things. He said he wanted to talk to me about a few small things. I then mentioned that I would like to get the inventory for Engine Thirty-Three. He said not to worry about it. I asked why, and he said it was totaled. I was taken aback. He went on to say it was moved out of the bay with some of the doors open, it ripped off the doors and put it out of service for a couple months. So now we have the old green engine back. That is cool by me because I am an engineer on the old green one.

After the training I went to ERD to talk to Chapman about a couple other things, while there I got a change to see the engine. It was missing the last three doors of the passenger side as well as some damage to the body and the ladder rack.

Busy from Start to End

The start of the day was a phone call at five-thirty in the morning. I knew it was Whitcom calling me out on a case. Turns out there was yet another fatal car accident, this time however, it was not on SR One-Ninety-Five. This one was near St. John. I went to the scene and did my investigation. It was a single occupant who had crashed and was throw from the car. It does not appear a seatbelt was used and that aided the person with being thrown from the car. There is a high likelihood that had the person been wearing a seatbelt he would not have died. My message is to wear a seatbelt.

Between being on scene and photographing the scene and then going to the funeral home and doing an exam there, I was not done until nearly nine-thirty. Then I had to zoom to Pullman for Reserve Testing. I was helping with the physical agility test. That took a couple hours between running everyone through it as well as set up and break down.

Following the testing I went to the station and watched some TV and waited around for six o’clock to roll around. We had rig checks and map tests tonight. One of the guys did not study so he planned on memorizing the numbers and then writing them on the answer key. So I made a new answer sheet and changed the order of the roads. He of course did not pass that. I was disappointed that he wanted to do such a thing.

After that was done we started to do the rig checks. In the middle of the rig checks we got toned out to a call outside of town. We were more than half way there and a second call came out in town. They had been discussing canceling us, so we asked if they would like us to go to the other one. They did so we turned around and went to the one in town. After transporting to the hospital we went back and worked on the rig checks some more. Because of all the things that we had to check it was taking a long time.

We also had an out-of-date inventory on the Engine. So I had the guys go through and write up a new inventory form. That took some time to do, but it would make our checks go better next week.