Running Some Calls

This morning I went to the gun range and worked on a combat course. I did pretty good. I shot well with the rifle. When it was done the top four reserves were going to get to go to a competition in Lewiston next weekend. I was invited, but because of the softball tournament in Spokane I am not going to be able to go. I had to turn down the invite, but I was happy I did well enough to get to go.

I went to the SO and worked on some paperwork for a while. I had to get caught up as I had added some cases over the last day. I got several closed out. I went home and tried to nap, but that didn’t work I was getting a lot of texts and phone calls.

I went to the fire station and did the rig checks. Then I hung out there and had some dinner. I also worked on a report in Spillman. While I was hanging out there we ran several calls. Then we started to hit the Event Center for multiple calls due to people being drunk. It was getting pretty busy for a while.

First Citizen Rider

This evening I was going to have my first citizen rider. I am very excited about that. I went out on the road around three in the afternoon. I did an hour in Albion. Then I picked up my rider. We went to McDonald’s for dinner with Matt K. and Shane. After dinner we went through Albion again. We talked to K. Stew about a couple Intern related things and K. Stew encouraged me to apply for the WSU police job. I had put in my application already. I spent a couple hours working on that.

We went to the SO and I washed my car. Then we headed out SR Twenty-Six. I got someone doing nineteen over just outside of town. I stopped the car and smelled drugs. So I ended up getting an arrest. We then hit a lot of county roads going through some smaller town. I got a call for service around midnight for a welfare check.

When I was headed to drop Eric off at his house we saw Rick. He asked us to come and help bring the Peace Keeper to Pullman. Some stuff happened up there that caused the cops some concern that it could get out of hand. So they figured having it close to Pullman would be a good thing. I got to bed around four in the morning.

It Has Been A While

I got a text from Chia asking if I was going to the pancake breakfast. I told him no. I don’t like some of the politics behind it and choose not to participate in it. I have not done it since it has been done by the guys at the PFD. He then asked how things have been going because it has been a long time. I didn’t respond. Partly because I kept getting busy and just never returned a text. At the time I got it I was in a really bad mood. I don’t know what I would have said if I responded when he first got a hold of me. But as the night went along I started to get in a much better mood.

I worked at the jail. I was there for a while before heading for the reserve meeting. It was a short one because we were doing our monthly training on Saturday at the gun range.

I went back to the jail and finished out the shift there. Then I went down stairs and started on the road. Broadfoot was out there too. We were stopping cars for six over doing an emphasis on speeding. We were letting people know that even six or seven over is still speeding and they need to watch their speed.

It is interesting, it seems like I would send messages to Chia and it was like I always got a lukewarm reception. Ever since leaving my full-time gig at the PFD many of the full-time guys have drifted away from me. I use to get invited to lots of things now I don’t get invited anymore. One guy, Tim, who I wasn’t all that close to before doing full-time is one of the ones who I seem to talk to the most. The last few times I did anything with them it was because I would send a text to someone and I would get a response that they were out somewhere I should come by. But they were already there and I was an afterthought.

There is a divide between the career and reserves and now that I am on the other side I am not one of them anymore. I am probably being a big of a whiner and being passive aggressive about things. But up until Chia asked if I was going to the pancake feed I haven’t gotten a text from in a month.

Got it Done

I was supposed to work the Palouse Thunder football game but it got cancelled. So I was free to hit the road. I told Matt I would be working again tonight and asked if he wanted to try to get his arrest again tonight.

I picked him up at his place and we hit the road. Yesterday he drove and today I drove. We hit dinner at North Arches with Matt K. I was telling Matt how Matt K. always is joking around about stuff including tons of gay innuendo. I am happy Matt K. is comfortable around me to be able to do that. While eating something came up and a stream of jokes ensued. Including something about Brokeback.

We work on getting some of Matt’s cases closed and then did some traffic. We were going to work Albion for an hour when we were asked by Keith to do a roadside. We went to Pullman and I helped him with some computer stuff.

Then he said to go get Matt’s final arrest. I had an idea of what we could do. We went to Howard street. We saw a group of underaged people drinking and found one with a beer in hand.

Matt and I spent the rest of the evening in Pullman backing up Keith on calls and looking for some of our own stuff. Matt told me I was able to do something that none of the other full-time deputies were able to do — get him his final arrest.

I Guess They Know

I had Matt from my reserve class riding with me tonight. I had a case that we went to investigate in Lamont. It turned out that nothing was going to come of it. We were working to get him an arrest so he could get up to the next level.

As we were driving he mentioned that he found my blog. I asked him how much of it he had read. He said that he read a number of entries and he didn’t read anything that surprised him.

I guess I am more obvious than I thought I was in the past. He said he thought most of the people in the reserve class knew. He mentioned that he was with a full-timer and they talked about it a little bit as well. It was the same guy who told me about what he did during the academy when he was in it with Joe.

I have to say that everyone has treated me very well and it seems that I had no idea they knew which shows that they have all been very cool about it. It has never been an issue. I told him that I keep the advise that Carter gave me years ago. If I don’t make an issue out of it, no one else will. So I told Matt more about things and how I feel about being gay. For all the jokes I make about Mike being gay, I wonder if he actually knows about me being the gay one.

It felt good to talk with Matt about it. It was fun to work with Matt. I have worked tons of hours with two other guys, so it was neat to see how someone else does their cop work.

We ended the night standing in the freezing cold waiting to get that final arrest. It never came.

Something About the Fauxhawk

I drove up to Liberty Lake for a job interview. This was a follow-up to the test they had me drive up to do a couple weeks ago. I got a late start and I had to push it to get there on time. I pulled into the parking lot right at the time for the appointment. I interviewed with one guy. The nice thing is he was ten-six-seven. Something about the fauxhawk and the barley visible goatee, but the obvious soul patch. I had something worth looking at. But the interview itself went about twenty minutes. I pretty much told him what was on my resume, which was sitting in front of him, and he told me the same stuff I was told on a previous phone call. The point is it was pointless. Also based on the rate of pay, I am not going to be able to take the job. The pay rate is just too low.

After the interview I got some pizza from Rocky Racoco’s and went to Ryan’s house. We watched the Simpson’s and Family Guy. I played with Zoey a little bit.

I hit the road and make my way back to Colfax to hit the road. I got a call to St. John early on for a vandalism call. I went and took care of that. Then it was out to Endicott. I was there for a couple hours in total. I got a chance to learn the streets of the town a lot better and I drove around on them multiple times. I went off duty around midnight because I was going to have to get up early again to take my rig to Kendall Dodge. I am getting bored of bring it down all the time.

Taxi’s are Cheaper

This morning when I woke up I got my patrol car and hit the road. I was only able to work until five because of the fire department. I got my biggest speeder to date, eighty-one in a fifty-five. That is twenty-six over. The person claimed to not know what the speed limit was. I said I didn’t know of any places in Washington where the speed limit is eighty miles per hour.

I worked with Paul-Nine on a couple calls. He stopped a car and I backed him on it as things seemed sort of fishy. He got an arrest. Then he helped me on a call with juveniles fighting.

I went home and got ready to work the fire department. We had daily rig checks. Only three of us were there for it. We had a new guy, but I don’t count him because one of the regular’s have to work with the new guy to train him.

We ended up running two calls. One was around midnight. The other one was at four-thirty in the morning. Let me just say, a taxi is much cheaper than an ambulance.

Back in the PA Booth

I spent the morning preparing for my return to the PA booth for the Palouse Thunder. Today’s game was pre-season against Spokane Wolfpack. I got to the field and got my stuff ready and set up. Then I helped get the field ready by putting out the yard markers and end-zone markers.

Then it was time to announce. I was rusty today. It took some time to get into a groove. Even then I still make my normal errors, mispronouncing names. It is any wonder I was asked to come back. But I do like to do it and watch the team. The Thunder won the game today. It was sort of sloppy at times but the Thunder was able to pull out a rare win.

Following the game, I had thought I would go to bed early and work the road tomorrow. But I was done a little earlier than I thought I would be, and I went ahead and hit the road. I was able to get six hours in.

No Trip To Renton Today

The plan is to drive out to Renton today. But before I got going I wanted to get some M&Ms and Diet Pepsi for Foster. He is back at The Deuce. I also got Reiber a custard filled donut. I delivered the stuff for Foster to the Deuce and got into a conversation with Dragoo while I was there. That lasted a while. By the time I was getting ready to leave it was nearly four o’clock, so I decided to stay in Pullman tonight and hit the road.

I went home and got my uniform on and then went to the SO to get a car. I wrote up my reports to get caught up and then hit the road. I went out twenty-six. I hit two-seventy. I stopped by station one to drop off Reiber’s donut. I wrote a couple tickets tonight.

When I was coming back to Colfax I saw a car that looked like it was driving poorly. I followed it and pulled it over. I was wasn’t sure about the alcohol usage and the driver admitted to drinking a couple beers. I called Brown who came up and helped me out. With his help it was determined the guy was okay. As we were clearing that we heard something happening in Colfax.

We went back to provide back up and search for a suspect. We were there for about an hour working that when the suspect was found and taken to jail. I called it a night and went home. It was a good night for me.

Another Night on the Road

I got my bi-weekly column created and sent in to the Daily News. This week was about the death of the police officers and the shooting of them in the Puget Sound region since last October.

After I was doing getting that completed and sent it, I headed to Colfax to work the road. I got a message from BKunz who said he was going to be coming through Pullman today and wanted to see if I wanted to meet up. Of course I did.

I got some papers and started to serve those. I had one in Colfax, one in Endicott, one in Colton, and finally one in Pullman. I got them all attempted or served until the Pullman one. I met up with Brandon before I attempted to serve it.

He came in the area to help a cousin move to Lewiston. So we had dinner together. He looks as good as he always has. He is such a genuine and nice person. I met him about sixteen years ago when he was a freshman at WSU. He was my next door neighbor. We played softball together as well as other things. As it turned out, later in life we shared the passion for firefighting. He is now a full-time firefighter.

It was very nice to see him in person and hang out with him for a while. I hope this softball season we will get a chance to play together at least once.

Following dinner with Brandon I did my final paper service. Then I hit the road going various places. It was pretty relaxing.

When I was done for the night I went to the SO to complete my paperwork. Dan and Bryce were there. We talked about the Cougs for a while. I headed out after getting most of my paperwork done.

Computer Test in Liberty Lake

This morning started off with a trip to Liberty Lake for an initial screening for a job. It was a written test that covered several topics I had no idea about. I talked to Jon about it afterwards and he pretty much said some of the things they were asking was pointless and worthless. It took about three hours of total drive time and about forty minutes when I was there.

After the interview I went to Colfax for patrolling. I went North via Endicott and St. John. I was burning some time before fire training in Colfax. I showed up a little late because I stopped by the funeral home where Pete was going over a case that had taken place a few hours earlier. He went over the findings with me.

I went to Colfax Fire and we did some stuff on ropes, knotts, and rigging set ups. When that was done I hit the road again and worked until two o’clock AM. It was a pretty quiet day. I wrote everyone warnings rather than tickets today.

Summer Softball Meeting

I had a meeting with some of the guys for this upcoming seasons’ summer softball team. We met at Zeppoz at noon for that. We talked about the players we would have and that we want to play in a lot of tournaments.

After the meeting Christopher and I stayed up there and bowled two games. It was fun to hang out with him. He plays on my IM team and will be on the team is summer as well. I am excited to get out there and play some ball. The bowling went well for Christopher. I did my normal thing. I had some good frames and a lot of missed opportunities.

After bowling I went home and got my uniform on for working the road. I went to the SO and wrote a supplemental report for the search warrant. I hung out in the office for a couple hours helping out there. Then I went to the hospital for an Inmate who was taken there. I was at the hospital for just under two hours.

I went to Subway and got dinner and then I hit the road. I really only had just over two hours to go play. I hit the county roads near Pullman and worked SR two-seventy. I made a couple stops. I wrote one ticket on the night. As always it was pretty quiet when I was out there.

Happy Twenty-Fifth KB

At five I was going over to Kevin’s for a surprise birthday for him. I got him a card and gift certificate. I went to his place. BKoe was already there. There were about nine others there. We had some cake and hung out for about an hour. They left to go to a casino and I went to work at the County.

I was working with Larson tonight. I hit the road and got some dinner with the others and I was waiting for Larson to get to the SO. We got a chance to serve a search warrant.

I was the first one in the door. I did the roll I was assigned to do. After we were done Larson and I went to the SO to process all the evidence. It took several hours for us to do the computer and paperwork. I didn’t get out of the SO until five in the morning. That sucks because I have to teach first aid tomorrow morning. I wasn’t planning on being out that late.

When I was done I went to the fire station to get my class set up in case I wake up late.

Meeting and Patrolling

I met up with Larson to go out patrolling with him. We met up around one thirty at the SO. I planned on having him drive. Today was his first shift as a second class officer so he said he would prefer if I drove to start. We worked our way North on one-ninety-five. Then we went out the Pine City-Malden road. We hit Pine City and Malden along the way. I ran him through my incident from the night before. We then hit SR twenty-three out to the County line. Then back into Lamont and explored out there. When we got back to the Pine City-Malden road Ross started driving. He went into St. John to explore and off to Endicott. We ran some traffic on the way back towards Colfax.

At five-thirty we got back to the station and chatted with the others before our meeting. I got my notepad and made my way to the conderence room. The meeting was pretty short. Then it was DT training. We went to the workout room and practiced some defensive tactics for about two hours.

I hit the road again making my way to Tekoa. I patrolled up there for about an hour and made a couple stops before heading back to Colfax. It was a pretty quiet night. I am still getting use to being first class. It is strange to be out on my own and making my own decisions about where to go and what to do.

Another Night on Patrol

Since becoming first class I have spent a lot of time patrolling the county. I am sort of a white cloud. Things do not happen when I am on duty. But I patrol around areas that I don’t think get covered all the time. I usually get an hour served in Albion or Tekoa. I also try to hit several county roads while I am out.

Tonight was no different. It was quiet without any major calls. But if something does come out I try to pick it up and do it.

I had a call for a nine-0ne-one hang up. I went to that. Later there was a domestic that went out. I responded, but it turned out to be verbal and I cleared that pretty quick.

Super Party for the Bowl

After sleeping in until the noon hour I finally started my day, but I was running late. I was suppose to be at the Morgan’s by this time. So I hurried up and got ready. I got my uniform loaded into the Bumblebee. I headed off to the store to get some M&Ms. As I was getting to Dissmores I saw it was packed. The parking lot had people driving around and there was no obvious spaces available. I thought Safeway might not be as bad. But I was wrong. It was packed too. I got my stuff and headed to Ron and Heather’s place.

There were a lot of people already there. I had some food and talked for a small period of time. Because I was running late I decided that I wasn’t going to stay very long.

I got down to the station around two in the afternoon. I sat down for a game of seven-card-no-peak-baseball. I lost, but I bet a lot of quarters along the way. I ended up knocking some other people out of the game.

We stopped after that game for a while and had some food as it was getting close to game time. We watched the game for a little bit as everyone was eating. Then it back to playing. I won a couple pots, but I was draining money. The thing about poker there is pretty much everyone plays to the end of many of the games. There are very few tight people.

As it was getting towards the end of the poker night and the game there was a large amount of money in the pot. We were playing R.F. and there was a fair amount of money in the pot. I would guess around ten bucks. With the two dollar limit, it was five to one odds more or less. So I stayed in with three hearts and no wilds. That is sort of crazy to do. But I got a heart and a wild for a flush. That was enough to win. That win put me up on the night.

Once that was done I went to the SO and completed the last couple paragraphs of my report for last Sunday’s case. Then I hit the road. I went North and made a stop. I saw four cars go by me at between eighty-two and seventy-nine. But with all the traffic around me I wasn’t able to get to them before I lost sight of them. So I continued through Colfax hoping they would continue their speeding ways and I would pace them. But that wasn’t to be. I did get one for expired tabs on the South side of Colfax. Then I went to Albion and worked there for a while. It was very dead so I went to some other county roads outside of Pullman.

While out there I was dispatched to a Nine-One-One hang up near Palouse. Everything was okay there. I went to Palouse-Cove road. But I only saw two cars the whole time on the road. I sat and ran stationary radar and read some RCW’s while I waited.

I went South to Airport road and Two-Seventy. I was out on Two-Seventy when I heard a domestic get put out in Palouse. I started to head that way. I took it easy going through Pullman and then hit Twenty-Seven. I got on scene shortly after the Town Marshall.

The night was drawing to a close, so I worked my way back to the SO because I had paperwork to complete before going home for the night.

I am First Class!!!

This morning it was an early morning for me. I have switched backing to being a late night guy, but I have to change that at some point in the future. But for now I guess I will let it remain.

I went to Colfax for the EMT class. I was helping Jeff with the class. He did pretty much all the teaching. I pretty much just watched and helped with the skills portion of the class. Several of us went to Subway for lunch.

After class I was off to the SO for the daylight and nighttime check off’s. I need two daytime and two nighttime traffic stops to complete my transition to first class. But no one was around. I was worried about that. Jordan showed up and Jimmy had called me back. I asked if Jordan would be able to check me off. Jimmy said that was okay.

Jordan and I hit the road. I made three stops really quickly. The final stop took me a while to find, but I got it. With those four complete I went to the SO to work on my report from last Sunday’s case. Cooper said that I can now go out on my own. It feels so great.

One of the first things I did was get the report nearly completed. That needed to be done before I went out to play. We all went to Subway for dinner. That was my second trip there.

Following that I went up North. I worked the Pine City-Malden road. I also worked in Tekoa for over an hour before calling it a night. I got several tickets tonight and while working stationary radar on the Pine City-Malden road I was able to get a lot of RCW’s read.

One Huge Step to First Class

This afternoon Melcher and I were hitting the road again. Any time now I was going to be called in for my oral board for first class. McNannay was there and got me some of the forms I needed to have filled out. I worked on getting signatures from people between the time Melcher and I were on the road.

We made a trip to Martin Hall with a juvenile who was trying to blame his problems on other people. At one point he said that his mom told him if he got in trouble at school she would turn him in to the juvenile department and he would spend his weekened at Martin Hall. He then said he thought she was bluffing. This kid needs to grow up some more. He is old enough to know better.

Following that transport we went to serve some papers in Colfax and Pullman. We got dinner and then worked Albion time. As we were there we got called into the SO. When we were there we were both given the test to move to first class.

We both passed it. The only thing left to do is two nighttime and two daylight traffic stops. I spent the next couple hours working on my report for last Sunday’s case.

Transfer with Colfax

I spent a lot of the day reading through my notes from the reserve academy. Before I was going to go to Colfax I got a call to see if I could help with a transfer. I said I could. So I went down early and did a transfer to Spokane.

When I got back I went to the SO and hoped to get my first class board. But it didn’t happen. Cooper looked over my arrests, hours, and whatnot. He said as far as he was concerned I could go up, but we needed to make it official. So one weekend when I was working they would do my board, but in the mean time I could go out on my own if I wanted. I was pretty stoked, but I still wasn’t done with the board. So I had to get that out of the way.

I went back to Pullman a lot earlier than I thought I would be back. I was on call, but I didn’t get any calls to roll on. I contacted Melcher about hitting the road tomorrow. We are going to go out around four and hit it. I am excited to get out on my own, but I also like working with the other guys. So I figured if I want to work and others don’t I will work, otherwise I will go out with the others. It is just the ability to choose that I like.

Switched to WordPress

After being with blogger since the beginning of the existence of my blog, I have made the switch. I didn’t want to, but Blogger said they were going to stop doing the FTP posts. That is the method in which I would put up my entries. So I first had to research the multiple blog systems out there and choose one. I was going to go with an ASP.Net version, but after finding WordPress and seeing the layout, I went with it. I want to have a similar look to my old blog as far as the right-hand sidebar goes.

I spent some time working on getting my blog backed up and moved into WordPress. That took some time and I had to fight through some issues. But it is done now and I think I am okay with it. One thing is I already received one spam comment. But I am going to keep them from being posted to my blog, I hope.

I also quit the web development stuff I had going. I pretty much submitted my first and last invoice for the sign up process. I then said I was giving my notice. I haven’t heard back from them. That surprises me. I figured they would at least try to find out what the deal was. I wrote some of my thoughts down about why I wanted to quit.

Specs from the company that are nothing more than screen shots. No direction about expected behaviour.

We are in a development period that I believe to be fundamentally detrimental to the overall final product. We are being told to develop the site, only to have a consultant group change some foundations to the site, which requires changes in multiple locations. These are such things that should have been done well before starting the site. In fact I asked about the free userlevel months ago and I was told it wouldn’t happen.

What I saw with the signup process worries me that people are not going to be willing to listen to ideas. Some of my suggestions have never been been considered and returned to me.

I had some initial concerns in this area. I spoke with several people who are elsewhere in the industry about my concerns and I got many opinions. Most of which I agreed with.

So I have been on edge over the above, but frankly Tim’s e-mail to me and multiple others about his inability to reach me after hours was the final thing. I tried to speak to David about it, but he has yet to return my phone call placed on Jan twenty-third.

I felt leaving while the sign up process was being completed was not the right thing to do. It is now complete (except for two images). I sent an e-mail to David on jan 30th about getting these two images. I have not received the images, nor an e-mail back. As of this time, I do not want to continue to wait for a response from David, I am sending all the code back, and someone else can insert the two images which will complete the sign up process… outside of the integration with the shopping cart (Page 5)….

Maybe they will ask, but I don’t know. I was disappointed by the way things were going. The money just wasn’t there. The payrate was good, but I was not seeing enough work and the work I was getting was being hurried and there was a lot of un-needed stress about getting things done on some random deadline.

I then spent time dinking around on the computer this evening. I also had training in Colfax today. It was actually in Steptoe for Colfax fire. I went down early and worked on some stuff at the SO, getting tickets written up and updating the hours for the month of January for everyone.

It is sort of a big day, I left a job, but it wasn’t like I quit because I really wasn’t doing a whole lot.

Continuing the Case

This morning I got up late, but it wasn’t too bad. I threw my uniform on and ran downstairs. Melcher came to pick me up for our second day working the big case.

We completed the search warrant and went before a judge to get it signed. Then we executed the search warrant. We found the things we were looking for.

Then the fun part. We had to go to the SO and spent the next couple hours working on some more paperwork. This time we had to enter everything into evidence. That means lots of computer and paperwork.

It was about four o’clock PM when we were done. We started to work the road waiting to get into contact with more people who were involved in the case.

We ran some traffic on SR one-ninety-five while waiting for that. Finally around nine o’clock they came home. We made contact with them. We were able to chat with them and sent them along their way.

I also got a warrant arrest this evening. I wrote two tickets. I also got a notice about a ticket I previously wrote is being contested in court. So I will finally get to go to court! I am looking forward to seeing the process that I will have to go through.

When I got home I went to Safeway and picked up some pop and water. I didn’t have money, but a guy who works at Safeway, Todd, knew me and he paid for my stuff as long as I would pay him back tomorrow.

Long Day for One Case

Melcher and I started our shift with a plan to do follow up on a case he is working. But instead we got into a call for a man with a gun in Colfax. We were about one block away and watched the scene from a distance. When we saw another police car there we went in. We helped with back up until the scene was cleared. Then I got a case that started out as something that it wasn’t. When I talked to the RP it was something a lot more than someone getting beat up.

So I contacted our supervisor and he helped Melcher and I with interviews, collecting evidence, and writing a search warrant. I learned a ton doing this case. Many of these things were newer to me in a larger case. The supervisor took the lead but he included us in all the steps along the way.

We worked the case until two in the morning and then we were to come back at ten o’clock the next day to continue the investigation. Melcher and I both were thankful for all the instruction we received from the supervisor. In all we spend nine hours on the case today.

No First Class Board

This afternoon I went to the fire station and met with the new station committee about getting some plans created for a new fire station. We talked about the things we needed and sizes they need to be. There is a student from WSU who is going to help us with the plan.

I went home and got my uniform on. I went to the SO. I was going to work with Ross tonight. I also had a coroner’s meeting and the plan was to have the first class board. The coroner’s meeting was shorter than normal. We covered our on call schedule. We also covered some stuff with the chaplain.

I went to the report writing room and waited for Cooper to show up for the oral board. But he was dealing with other issues on the road. While waiting a call for service came in. I was told to go handle it by the sergeant. It was a transport from the hospital to the person’s home. I took care of that.

When I got back to the station Cooper asked if I was done for the night. I said no. He said then get Ross and go get him an arrested. He said if I had to go to Pullman to get an MIP to do it. We headed into Pullman and ran around looking for something. We were not able to find anything. We made a lot of stops, but there was not a lot of people moving around.

We ended the night with a stop. I could smell intoxicants. We ended up doing SFST’s and the person did fine. I cut the person loose and we left Pullman. We tried hard, but were not able to find anything.

Melcher and I on the Road Again

Melcher and I hit the road again tonight. I really like working with him. He will make a very good full-time cop when he gets hired on.

We did some traffic and he got a couple stops and tickets. Plus he got an arrest for a suspended driver. I took over driving. We went to Hooper and Hay. Then back towards Uniontown. We were working on serving papers. We had one down there and one in Pullman. Then we went to dinner. I called Lambley to invite her. We also had the other full-time guys join us. When dinner was done we worked a juvenile problem.

Then we went to a possible violation of a no-contact order. We were not able to get enough information while investigating that. We also couldn’t find the suspect. So that was left open.

That was the end of our night. We went back to the SO and then I gave him a ride home.

Getting Caught Up!

I went to bed, then I got up only a few short hours later to be an BLS evaluator for the First Responder class that just got done. I got my pop along the way. I got to the station and my area was bleeding and shock control. Everyone did an okay job over all. I didn’t see any real issues. But the bleeding and shock is pretty easy. Cover the blood. Use pressure and elevation. Put on more bandages of needed and finally use pressure points. Then for shock. Lay down, elevate the lags, regulate body temperature with a blanket, and throw on some oxygen. That is the thing about trauma. If it bleeds cover it, if it is broken splint it. It is pretty straight forward.

I went home and started to work on my case report for the theft. I got about two and a half pages typed up and I have some way to go. But I have a lot done. This is my biggest case so far.

I worked on my computer programming job as well. I was doing the evaluations when I got a call from Tim. I didn’t have my phone so I missed the call. A little bit later there was an E-mail from Tim that CCed several others about getting a hold of me. I was mad. He was complaining that he couldn’t get a hold of me very easily after hours. I didn’t take kindly to it. I fired back pretty much saying that I am free Monday through Friday and that I am busy on the nights and weekends. I said if it would be a problem that we should re-evaluate my contract.

I called him and left a message. He called me later and said in reference to my E-mail that it wasn’t necessary that I was free all the time in the evenings, but we should try to find one night a week we can work together. We went through some of the code samples he sent to me to work with his web services. I tied all the fields together and put on some client side Javascript to make sure the data we are getting is correct. Everything pretty much fell into place. There is still some work to go, but I got a lot of it done.

I also got the photos of the new reserves edited and the photos for the board at The Deuce created for all the career guys and reserves. I was pretty busy on the computer getting things caught up.

I also responded to an e-mail from the editor of the Daily Evergreen. He wrote a piece saying that he wanted to work on focusing on more international issues in order to make those who are comfortable less so. He also made multiple references to race. I wrote a letter to the editor. He responded to it in an E-mail to me. I finally got a chance to read it and respond to him. I think he is off base on several things. I said so in my E-mail to him. It felt good to get some of these things completed.

Another Friday Night with Melcher

I have been going to bed really late and as a consequence I have been getting up late. I contacted Melcher about hitting the road. He was up to doing it. I was happy because it had been a week since I was last out.

We started by working Albion for an hour. I sent a text to the other guys about getting dinner around six thirty at Subway. They came and so did the troopers. This time I put together a dinner I was able to make it to, unlike the last time I did that and I missed it because we were dealing with a call in Endicott.

Melcher didn’t want to drive so I drove the whole night. We patrolled the North part of Whitman County. We went to St. John and Lamont. We also hit Rosalia and Tekoa. We made several stops along the way. One of the stops was on Rock Lake Road. The guy who we stopped said “What are you guys doing out here?” I don’t think he expected to see a cop out there.

At the end of the night we stood by a car in the ditch for Cooper who arrested the driver for drunk driving. I went back to the office and wrote up my ticket before heading home. It was a little after four when I got to bed.

LETS Training

This afternoon I was scheduled to use the law enforcement training simulator. It is where I am presented with videos and I react how I would. I am recorded and I can see how I did in reference to shooting or not quickly. I did okay. I learned to recognize threats faster. It was a good training.

I got home and got my column for the Daily News completed and turned in. Then I spent several hours working on installing software onto my computer trying to get it completed. I finally quit doing that around four in the morning and went to bed. I still have about ten things to install tomorrow.

New Computer Purchased

Jon went to Frys today to get my HPE-170f model computer. It should be pretty cool. He is going to ship it out tomorrow. I am excited about getting it.

I went to the SO to write up my ticket I wrote the other day. I also got the hours for the reserves for ought-nine updated. I talked to Cooper about setting up a board for moving to first class. He at first said that until the gas prices go down he isn’t going to do it. I said that I would like to get first class so I am eligible for some of the paid things. I think he was messing with me. Then he said “we will get it done”.

Later he said that I probably wont pass my first time through. I said I understood that, but I figured that if I had one I would know what I need to work on to improve.

I left the SO and went to the rig checks. We went to station one to get some tarps that were missing from Rescue from when we were having the pipe breaks. We ran a couple calls tonight. It was another night where we had some calls in the wee-hours in the morning. I decided to stay up late after we got back from the last call. I was up until six in the morning. I got into an E-mail conversation with Kuhrt during this time.

Follow Up in the Valley

Because my computer crashed on me I didn’t have work to do and I wanted to do some follow up. I contacted Melcher about going out and doing the follow up. I went to the SO and made some phone calls and set up one interview.

We went down and did some interviews. We looked up information while we were down there trying to find evidence. We also hit Panda Express for dinner again. This case has been interesting because it our first we have been able to investigate with people to interview and leads to run down.

On the way back I saw a car going pretty fast. Turned out it was fifteen over in a forty-five. I stopped and had a chat with the driver. Then we got back to the station and I headed home because it was nearly eleven and I had to get up early for the first aid class tomorrow.

Solo Patrol

I got up this morning to deal with my computer problem. I went to get a new IDE hard drive. But those are not as easy to find as they use to be. I had to go to Cactus Computer to get one. I put it into the computer. But the machine wouldn’t go. The fans fired up, but the green light showing the computer is on wouldn’t light up. I worked on it for a while, but it wouldn’t work. I finally unplugged everything and started with pretty much just the base computer but that still wasn’t working.

After talking to Cactus Computer I found it that the socket nine-three-nine motherboards were made when there were bad capacitors. It turned out nearly all them were bowed out. I was told that was the reason it was bad. So I went to R-Tech because he had some new motherboards that would work for my computer, but they didn’t have the right video card slot. So I didn’t get one. I speced out a computer there. But it would run about five hundred and I am not sure that is the best way to go. So I thought I would look at some new quad cores.

I went home and started to look up new computers. But it was information overload. There are so many different models and I don’t want to get a no-name computer.

I left to go to the SO for our meeting. When it was done we did our training. Then I went out on the road with M. Brown. We went north on one-ninety-five then south on twenty-seven. He was feeling bad. He got permission for me to continue the night by myself. I was so stoked to be in my own car. I did an hour in Albion then hit two-seventy. I made a stop and wrote a ticket. On the way to the station I got one more. Both were double-digits over.

I wrote up my tickets and it was nearly three in the morning. I called the Nez Perce jail about listening to some phone calls that the jail records. I was told to see a specific person on dayshift. So my plan it to go tomorrow.

Starting a Theft Case

Because I didn’t have the direction I needed to get work done today I called Melcher about hitting the road. He said he was good to do it. I picked him up and we went to the county. We went north and west in the county. While in St. John we got a call for a theft in the Port of Wilma. We responded and got a signed report. Then we started the investigation. It was pretty neat. We worked with a cop down in Lewiston. We did a couple interviews of people.

On the way back Melcher and I spent time chatting with each other. We both enjoyed the day and where the investigation was going. We spent nearly six hours doing that in the valley. It was a great time. I have more work to do on it, but I am looking forward to the challenge.

SO then FD

So there I was. Working the road with Rich. We worked a dog complaint first thing. Then we went north to help take a runaway case. After that was done we started to run traffic on SR Twenty-Six.

We didn’t have a lot of luck early on. It was pretty slow going. There was a lot of traffic of people coming back from Christmas Break. But they were not flying so much.

After it got dark we went worked the fifty-five mile per hour area. We got a few stops through that area. Rich had to be gone at six o’clock for something else. That was okay because I had to go to the fire station for weekly rig checks.

I helped finish up the check on rescue and then put the rigs back after the bays were washed out. We got a call before we left. Then we had one more in the wee-hours of the morning. It was a pretty tame night over all. But Christmas Break is over and I suppose we are going to get a lot of calls again.

A Crazy Busy Day

It turned out my trip to Seattle today was delayed until tomorrow. I was going to get going in the morning, but due to the fact I really didn’t get my day started until after the noon hour I was behind the eight-ball. I started with a phone call for my new contract web job. It was clear that I should have read the e-mails. But from the ones I had read I was under a different impression. There are still issues with exactly what I need to get done. I guess I will get the UI work underway and work on hooking stuff up later on.

I went to Sprint to have my phone looked at. The year of some of my texts are coming back as twenty-sixteen. That was fixed by doing an update that was sent to my phone. I also considered updating my phone plan which will reduce my overall cost by about twenty bucks a month.

I went to the fire station to get some parts for a manikin for training tonight. I also talked to Ryan about getting the new maps made up for the map tests. I spoke with the chief about getting the career timesheets set up to work like the reserve timesheets I did. While I was showing the chief how it worked I found an error in a formula. The cells that I was looking for only covered about an eighth of what they should have covered. That meant I had a couple hours of work to update all the timesheets. That sucked. So when I got home I worked on that. It took me until nearly six to get done. But it is complete and I was able to update the server with the new timesheets.

I went to Colfax for fire training. We went over the King Airway. After practicing that I went to the SO to work on my supplemental report from the DUI from the other day. I also got my ticket written up and turned in.

When I got home I got a hold of Keegan on the computer. We went to Rico’s and sat there talking for about two hours. It was good to chat with him. He is a good looking guy. But he is just looking for friends, so I am not going to cross any lines. After we were done I went to shake his hand and he preferred to hug. So I gave him a hug.

Happy Birthday Partner.

Melcher and I went out to work the road today. We went to Albion to try to arrest someone on a warrant. We were not able to get the person, but we thought the person was there, just we couldn’t get him. We did an hour of time in Albion. Then we went to serve some papers. I was starting to feel horrible. I got some pain killers and my headache was not going away.

We went to McDonald’s for dinner. As we sat there for about an hour I started to feel much better. We ran some traffic on Twenty-Six. We found a guy doing twenty-five over and was failing to yield at first. Finally he stopped. Melcher wrote him.

When we were done we went to My Office. I bought Melcher a couple beers for his birthday. As we sat there I saw this guy shooting pool. Looking at him I was thinking he was barely twenty-one. After a while of shooting he came over and asked me if I had a dip. He didn’t see me having any, I think it was just an off chance that I would have one. I gave him a dip and then he sat down with his friend. Both were ten-six-seven. The guy who got a dip from me was blonde and looked like he was muscular. We were talking about what they were studying at WSU and what not. When they asked what we did, I told them I am a computer programmer. Melcher said he worked for a local company as an advisor.

All four of us stayed talking until the bar closed.

I am a WSU Cop… For the day-ish

This afternoon I patrolled with Melcher. The only plans we had were to have break with Matt and Shane in Pullman around nine-thirty PM. Melcher started out as the driver. We went West a little bit, then we went North. There was a lot of traffic coming from Pullman because of the basketball game, but they were all doing a little under the speed limit over all. I started to drive after about two and a half hours. I took us on the Oakesdale Road. Then we went on Hume Road. My plan was to hit Dry Creek and sort of zigzag between One-Ninety-Five and Twenty-Seven on our way to Pullman for break.

But before we got off Hume road a traffic offense came out in Endicott. Jimmy answered up for us. So we started to head off that way. It was about someone who was drunk and driving. When we got to Endicott saw the car and stopped it. Melcher took the lead and did his first SFST’s in the field. He made the arrest. So when it was all said and done it was too late to have break with everyone else and we headed to Pullman to get ourselves some food.

Due to the fact it was after eleven o’clock and it is Christmas Break nothing was open but the grocery stores. We grabbed a sandwich. I drove out Two-Seventy and then back in on Airport Road. The frost was getting really bad on the roadways. It was so thick it looked like it had snowed. The roads were getting pretty slick. The major roads were not as bad because they were getting driven on.

I was getting ready to leave Pullman by driving up Davis way when we heard the Pullman cops asking for help looking for a vehicle involved in a burglary that just occurred. We stuck around and went out to the places they told us to look. We spent about an hour and a half looking.

It was getting late and everyone else was starting to do other things so we headed out and back to Colfax. It was getting close to three when we had to check-out of service. En route the radio traffic from Pullman was pretty broken but we heard some references to the deputies and then reserves. But nothing more. We fueled the car and got to the county shop to put it away. We opened the gate as the dispatchers requested all the county units to landline dispatch.

Melcher and I were asked to work WSU while all the local police were dealing with the burglary. So we returned to Pullman and went to the campus. We drove around looking at parking lots and various buildings. We hit pretty much every part of campus and their apartment buildings. We spent about two hours driving around checking stuff out. Then we were asked to do a transport of someone to jail. We completed that and returned to campus. Within a few minutes we were told we could clear as the others have been cleared as well. So then we went back to Colfax… again. And this time we were able to check out of service.

I went to the SO and did my paperwork for the evening. I was able to crawl into bed at seven o’clock in the morning.