Bought a Pop Machine

I did some shopping at Safeway and stopped by Al’s Auto Body to look at the pop machines. I found one that I liked. It was branded as a Coke machine, but I figured the features it had it was worth dealing with that. It has up to nine selections. It holds a lot of pop. Plus I can vary the prices depending on whether I have pop, beer, or some other beverage in the machine.

I had to run home for a bit then I went back to pick it up. I helped to do some cleaning on it and replaced the locking mechanism on it. Then the guy delivered it to my house.

I set it up in the garage. Next to the other vending machine.

I went to Colfax for fire training. We were doing our Confined Space refresher course. That went pretty quick. Carl, Jim, Tim, and I play poker. I had to get some cash from the store. While I was there I saw they had a good deal on some kinds of candy. So I bought thirty bars for the vending machine.

I didn’t do great at cards, but I ended winning a couple hands late and walked away with about fifty cents.

A Lengthy Interview

It was a good radio show today. Both Tom’s were on the show. We talked about RFID and privacy. Then Tom called and we talked about some stuff on Palousitics.com including the stuff about the Hawkins development.

Following the show I had to rush over to Moscow for an interview. It was one of the longest ones I have been in. They spent time quizing me about SQL Server and writing stored procedures. As well as building webpages. They said they would call me and let me know one way or another soon.

I got home and got ready for training. I was going to help out with the EMT class because the OTEP training tonight is one that I have already had recently. While at EMT class I worked with groups on various scenarios.

All is Alive

I was the on call coroner today and all quiet at the office. I also was working for the fire department. We had our final Sunday night rig checks. I worked with Clark on doing some of the checks on Rescue Thirty-Two.

The rig checks we pretty late into the evening. I was on engine tonight and it was quiet all night as well. I haven’t gone on a call for a while now.

EMT Extrication class

Started the day with Extrication class in Colfax. I got my turnouts from Colfax. My role was at photographer and as a trainer on some of the scenarios. I would set someone up in the car and help people with how to take them out of the car. Later on when we were cutting I mainly was taking the photos of everything. I ended up with more that four-hundred photos on the day.

I worked the Cougar Basketball game. We need to be able to beat Arizona, but we were not able to do it. I don’t know why we are having some of the problems this season that we didn’t last year.

It sucked to lose to them. That sort of put a damper on the day.

Last Day in the Old Office

Ricky and I went to Wibley’s for our last meal there when we could walk there. While there we saw Terry and Shawn. I hadn’t seen Terry in years. We all had some small talk for a while then Ricky and I went back to the office to eat.

I stayed at the office late tonight. A lot of things were being given away. I ended up getting a CRT monitor so I could set up my Windows Home Server machine. I also got a couple other things as well. I loaded up my truck with all the stuff and headed out around seven o’clock at night.

The roads back to Pullman were smooth sailing. I was able to get back a little before midnight. I unloaded my truck and put most of the stuff on my shelves in the garage.

Welcome to Canada

Got up this morning and started my trip to Canada. It started with picking up three of my co-workers along the way. In Renton, Bellevue, and Kirkland. Then we hit the road and made our way to the border. At the border I was being questioned. But I was answering the questions with brief information that should have been a little more descriptive. For instance when asked what we were doing, I said “going to a meeting.” So after getting the information he wanted we continued along the way.

But we didn’t go the exact way the directions we had included. So it took us some extra time to get to our final destination. About an extra hour or so. When we got to the office we got a tour of it.

Then it was to a meeting room. We went over their product. Showed our product. Had some pizza for lunch. Then ended the day with talking about the work they are going to have us do on their product.

We hit the road and it was a long haul back to Seattle. We talked about the people we met and the product we were going to have to work on. I dropped the people off in the reserve order that I picked them up. It had been a long day.

Later I got a call from Jon. I was meeting up with him to play poker down in his neighborhood. I got there it was very bad. I couldn’t do much to win anything. We were playing two-four dollar limit. That made it hard to push people out. But we finally upped it to ten dollar limit. I had my last buyin in front of me and I went to work. When it was done about forty minutes later I won back all my lost money plus about twenty bucks more. So it turned out to be a good day. It just took a while.

It wasn’t like the last time I was there when I took a couple hundred bucks and didn’t lose more than two hands all night long.

Meeting the New Bosses

The new bosses were in town. I had a chance to meet them for the first time. We had an all day meeting in my office pretty much. It was decided that I would be going to Canada tomorrow with a couple others from the office.

I am not sure I am looking forward to the Canada trip, but it is going to take place so I will be making a long trip tomorrow.

A Change of Locations

It has been almost four years that I have been with NU. Today I had to move my cubical space. Recently we were looking at old seating charts. Through the years people have come and gone. At one time I was surrounded by people. By the time I left yesterday it was just Wil and I back there. Wil left and I was the only one left.

I was moved into the “dev conference room” which was Chris’ old office. I joked around about me being fired because everyone who has been in this office has been fired. I will be in this office for the rest of the week. Then I will be back at home. The only question I have is where I will be next time I come out here. No one knows for sure how things will be set up.

It is sort of neat to have this office space rather than the cube, but it sucks that it is only a short time. So the day was mainly spent cleaning out my cube and moving to my new office and getting it all set up.

I didn’t really do a lot at home last night. I was excited to watch House. But instead American Idol was on. I don’t watch the show. And when it preempts House that really sucks.

Nostalgia

I was watching CSI on Spike TV this evening. One of the people on the show, Katherine, was running some experiments to determine how fast paint would dry. She would write down the results as the test progresses.

That reminded me about using scientific methods for recording and testing unknowns. That got me thinking about the days of my Chemistry Labs. I then thought back to one year when my Chem lab was from three to six o’clock PM on Friday.

Many people didn’t like to have a lab that late on a Friday. I didn’t like it at first, but soon I fell in love with it. As most people were in a hurry to finish and leave the lab, it would make it so there were no lines waiting to use certain shared equipment items. I wasn’t slowed down by other people.

I spent my time calmly working through my experiments and just relaxed. Then when I was done I would walk from Fulmer to the Roto for dinner. It was still relaxing as the spring was moving into warmer weather. People were scarce on campus as they had all left to go home.

But for me I was just relaxed. I would have dinner at the Roto. I would pull out my newspaper and read through it from front to back. I would get lost in my own world. People would come and go. Crowds would come and go. I would just ignore it all and read my newspaper.

I came to realize that there was no big hurry to be ready to go at six o’clock on a Friday night. Nothing really got going until later. So I wasn’t missing anything. I was able to relax as others were doing the old “hurry up and wait” routine.

Those were some good times. Sometimes I wish I could go back to them, but at the same time what makes the special is that you don’t do them anymore. If I was still doing that stuff after a decade it might not mean very much to me today.

Back in the Saddle

I am back in the saddle as I did a workout today. I hadn’t done one all last week because I was either hurt or resting myself for the swim test. But I am back in the saddle. It felt good to get a work out in.

I also washed my truck. That was another thing that was needed. But when I washed my first wheel I got up with a lot of pain in my back again. I have not been one hundred percent since I hurt it last week. And I re-hurt it today.

I went to Staples today and got mom a GPS unit. I was going to get her one for Christmas but the one I wanted to get was not available. So I picked that up as well as stopped at a medical clinic because of my eye. Turns out I have pink eye. So I had to get some eye drops for it.

Recovering

I spent a couple hours today sleeping after my ride along with Joe. When I did get up I checked through the newspaper. I found a GPS I want to get for my mom. I was invited to go to the play a Carco Theatre because my mom wasn’t feeling well.

It was a good play. I enjoyed the experience. I really should start going to the plays in Pullman when I am back there.

Riding in Whatcom

I planned on going on a ride along in Whatcom county today. I got up this morning for a little while. Then I went back to bed to take a nap so I could be more awake for my ride along.

When I got up I got dressed and then fueled my truck and went to Whatcom County. I went to Joe’s house and hung out with him for a little bit. I helped him with his website. He had messed something up and I fixed it for him.

We hit the road and started at the office. He had to write up some reports before we went on patrol. Then we went to Wendy’s for dinner. As we were finishing up dinner we went to the report of someone shooting.

We found the people involved. It was nearly midnight. They all got cited for disturbing the peace. We went to a house party where some people were taking DXM. It is in many cold medicines. It causes euphoria at a lower dose and at higher doses it can cause some other problems. It can kill you in an overdose situation. The ambulance had to get called on this one.

We went on one more shooting call but were unable to locate the shooting noise this time. We went to the dispatch center and hung out with Doug for a while. It was about four in the morning when I called it a night. I rolled home and when I got here I pretty much peeled off my clothes and went fast asleep.

Grandpa Patterson’s Funeral

I started the day off at a swimming pool on Mercer Island. I had to do a swim test for the boat patrol. We started with a two-hundred-and-fifty yard swim, but they ended up having us swim five-hundred yards. That wasn’t that big of a deal because that is what I have been doing at the rec center. After the swim there was a thirty minute treading of water. When that was done we practiced some recovery swimming techniques. It lasted a total of two hours.

I got home and cleaned up for the funeral. We went to the Greenwood Cemetery for the funeral. We had the service. Jon and I were pallbearers. We went out to the gravesite for a graveside service as well. The VFW was there they did a gun salute for him. When that was done we all went back to our place for the wake.

Later in the evening Dave and I went to see Rambo. When it was over Dave and I sat in the parking lot for about an hour talking about my efforts to make life changing habits that will lead to a more healthy life for myself.

Smooth Sailing

If I had to come back to Seattle last week or the week before it would have been bad. But coming back today wasn’t a big deal at all. The roads were pretty much bare and dry the whole way. I was able to cruise along nicely.

I got to the office around eleven in the morning. We went to QDoba for lunch. I spent some of the day working with Ricky on some stuff dealing with a non-development realted server problem.

I was there until around seven at night. When I got home my mom had me go to Papa Murphy’s to get some pizza for dinner.

Thats a lot of Change

I too my change to Dissmore’s today to use Coinstar and turn it into cash. I had so much change it took about ten minutes to get it all counted. The machine kept stopping me from adding more as it would try to catch up. I ended up putting in more than two-hundred bucks in change.

This morning I did a workout for the first time since hurting my back. It was just swimming. But I got that done and it felt good to get that done. I was starting to feel like a slug not getting out there.

I made it to the fire department and got the photoboard updated with the new reserves that I have photographed as well as updating the shift changes and the rank of some of the reserves in the EMT class. It felt good to get that done. I was about four months out of date in some cases.

Transaction Completed

I met with the crew leaders and the Lt’s about some issues and where we stand in the whole order of things. I went to Colfax a little bit later to complete the transaction for the boat. I met up with Eric at the Auditors office. I signed over the boat to him. He paid me the final portion of the bill.

I went to the fire station and stayed there until they were back from the call they were on. I talked to Ralph about getting into the Red Card class they were going to have coming up. I also got information about the CISD training. There is a class coming up in April. I am thinking about signing up for that. But the class will be in the Seattle area.

I spent some time with Bien on the engine. Once I am satisfied with his knowledge of the engine he is able to get checked off with it. We went down to HazMat training. It was fairly short. I spoke with Chapman about the meeting we had this morning as well as some of the issues we have had with some of the guys.

Transmitter Down

The transmitter was down when I started the show. It was time for Tom and I just to chat about various topics including a time to train him how to use the equipment. He had to leave at about one o’clock pm. The transmitter came back about fifteen minutes later. I completed the show, but I was not as prepared as I would have normally been.

In the evening we were having fire training. I had hurt my back yesterday and I was a little on the slow side. I wasn’t able to work out today. I was happy to hear we were only going to do table top stuff. We were going over the SOP covering Incident Command.

Pizza Dinner

I bought pizza from Pipeline to be picked up for dinner at the station. I invited the reserves down to eat with the duty crew from the Deuce. I got a party pizza plus a chicken pizza. I also ordered two orders of breadsticks. It was running very late. The guy picking it up told me that they didn’t have it done on time. They forgot one of the pizzas. So they have me thirty-five bucks in gift certificates. That was cool.

Heston taught the hydraulics class and I watched it while Bien and Parrish worked on Rescue. After the class I went out with Clark and worked with him on checking off parts of the engine as well as showing him how we do the weekly pump test.

Sold my Boat

I got an e-mail yesterday from someone wanting to buy my boat. I e-mailed him back and told him that he could come look at it on Sunday. He called me today and came over. It turned out it was his parents who bought my house in Colfax last year. Pretty funny. I was thinking that was the case when I saw the name.

He spent time looking it over. We made a deal and it was sold. I helped him load it onto his truck and away he went. I am a little nervous about being upset about selling it. Sort of sellers remorse, but I think it was the right thing to do for me and my situation. Now I have a garage that is more cleaned out and I can fit stuff into it better. I plan on now getting some carpet and setting up my poker table. That is pretty exciting.

Grandpa Patterson Died

I got an e-mail from my mom today telling me that Pat died today. I called her to ask about some of the details. Sounds like he was sick and in the hospital for a couple days. But it was known by people that it looked like there was going to be a poor outcome. He died during the day on Saturday. So I have a funeral to go to when I am back home.

I made plans to meet up with Brandon and Kevin tonight. Russell also wanted to come over and watch the Devil’s Rejects. Kevin and Brandon also came to watch that.

In the morning I woke up in time for going to the Cougar Basketball game. I went up there with the fire department. Only four of us worked the game. The Cougs were playing a great game. They crushed USC. If they had played like that during the last couple games they would have won those games too.

On the way back from the game they toned for reserves to call the station for a transfer. I went on it. So that pushed back the time I met up with the guys. Because I was in Colfax I stopped by the fire station to pick up my W-Twos. I washed the ambulance when I got back and went to pick up Russell and Nick. Brandon and Kevin came over.

We had pizza and watched the Devil’s Rejects. Following that movie I took Russell and Nick home. When I got back Kevin, Brandon, and I played Racko and Mexican Train Dominoes. We stayed up until around three in the morning playing games.

It was a great time with them.

Completed the Photo Board for the Deuce

I completed the photo board for the Deuce. I have been working on it for a while now. I got the final parts for it and put it together. It looks good over all. I met up with Clark to get his photo for the photoboard and for the website as well.

I went to the Deuce and found a spot to put it. I hung it up. I was happy with the final product.

There wasn’t much going on tonight. I was tired from last night, so I didn’t stay up too late. I also had to get up early for the basketball game tomorrow morning.

Another Loss, Not Good

The Cougs should have beaten UCLA today, but that did not happen. It was sucky to watch as they could not get anything going. The shooting was poor. We couldn’t play great defense. We couldn’t score when it mattered. We went on to lose again.

I spent a lot of time on the phone today with Ricky trying to get my computer set up and running with the certs and receiving credit reports. This is a problem that until it is fixed I cannot do anything about fixing the issue in my inbox.

Seven and a Half Straight Hours

I took some photos last week when WSU closed, but I didn’t post them until today. After tonights snow it is starting to look like this again.

The sidewalk getting to my house, had to duck under the tree.

The view of my house and the car buried under snow.

The snow started to pile up. It just kept snowing and snowing. We were supposed to get around one inch. But it was nearly around fix inches when I went to bed.

I was coving on Rescue until the guys got back from EMT class. I was down at the station and we finished up rig checks. On my way out the door I asked if they had gotten any calls today. Just was we were discussing the fact that one call happened this morning the tones went out.

Turpin had a can of food in his hand. It turned out to be a call to Palouse so he didn’t need to go. He said “you’re lucky Anderson!”. I was laughing as I checked the map. The snow was bad and it was slow going getting up there mainly due to the traffic. We transported to Gritman because Pullman went on divert.

Normally Rescue will not go to Gritman, but the Medic wanted one in the back with him, so they said they would bring him back. Bien and I went back to the city and I told him I had been to a lot of hospitals in the area, but I haven’t been to Gritman before. I have always wanted to go.

While we were cleaning Rescue, the tones came out for another call. We were pretty much on scene the same time as the ambulance. We transported and I was in the back. We ended up getting diverted to Gritman. So I was able to make my first trip over there.

When we got back we stayed at Station Thirty-One standing by for additional calls. A third call was also going on at the same time as the others. For a while we had all the reserves on duty out with the ambulances because we were spread pretty thin.

I didn’t get home until after one in the morning, and we ended the night with a fire alarm after five in the morning. I was dragging when I went back to bed.

Another Cancelled Colfax Training

The snow hit hard this afternoon. I was watching it pile up when I heard D-Twelve get toned out to a car accident. Soon I heard it had three cars involved. They asked for Pullman Ambulance and Rescue to get toned out. I knocked on Tyson’s door and went off on the call. McPherson came down as well.

We got to the scene with three cars. We did pop a door on one car, but that was about it as far a rescue went. It was a long scene as we called for an ambulance from Lewiston because we didn’t have career guys to run the other two ambulances in Pullman.

As we were clearing the hospital I heard Colfax get an information tone about the fact that training was cancelled today. That made my life easier. I wouldn’t have to drive down there.

When we were back at the station we cleaned Rescue and I stuck around to chat with the other guys for a little bit before going home. I had some dinner. Plowed the driveway and watched House before going to bed.

Welcome Tom Two

Had the radio show today with the new co-host, Tom W. He was a two time guest last semester. I asked him to join me this semester. He accepted. We talked about Super Tuesday. He tried to get me to answer certain questions, but I refused to answer. I ran him in some circles. I was having fun with that.

Tom F. called in and we talked about the Whitman County vote to allow the bond to go through for Hawkins. That was great news as it would start a major development on the corridor.

Tonights Monday Night training we covered the engineer sheet. It has some new information about how you do the calculations when looking at water pressures under three-hundred-fifty gallons per minute.

The training went well. Afterwards Michael, Reed, and I met with Mike about some reserves issues and what we need to start to do about them.

I was getting some crap from people about being Mr. “Standing By With One”.

Super Bowl Party

Today’s Super Bowl party was held at Bryce’s house in Colfax. I purchased some peanut butter cups, chips, and dip. I brought that down with my pop. I got there around the same time Carl did. He brought his beans stuff. Jim and Connie brought their taquito’s. Everyone had their thing there.

We started by playing some poker. But I was not doing very well. I sort of just bled out money most of the night. We were rooting for the Giants to beat Patriots to ruin their attempt at a perfect season. We stopped playing cards at the start of the game. We were not very impressed with the commercials this year. They were not very funny nor ground breaking.

At half time we played cards until there was about five minutes left in the game. After that we went back to watch the final part of the game. That was probably the best part of the game as well.

We played a tiny bit more cards before calling it a night. I went home and watched the end of House.

Another Cougar Loss

I worked the men’s basketball game today. I had to be at the station around ten in the morning. I had worked last night for the fire department, but it was pretty dead.

The Cougs didn’t do very well on the court. The first half they were rebounding well. They were making it look like Stanford would be going down. Then in the second half we couldn’t do anything to work towards a victory. We ended up losing by two. Taylor had a chance for a lay-up at the very end of the game, but missed it.

The evening I was going to be on call for C-Shift. I was looking forward to being on Rescue. We got calls steadily through out the night. I helped to find the cause of a fire alarm in a frat. Plus every time I went to bed, I would get woken up by the tones. We had calls to the point where I was up for every hour through out the night even though I had gone to bed twice.

Got Fired.

WSU got cancelled again. It was announced last night. It was weird because I was someone who had to work even though everyone else didn’t.

Today was the day I was going to get fired from NU. But it was one where I was told I would be fired. It was more of a formality than anything. They had to “terminate” everyone to close out the books. Then start the new company. I was hired back on.

When I had my conversation with the guys it seemed the idea of me working from home was very good with these guys. On top of that, the need to have me back there monthly was also a thing of the past. So I think this summer you will see me in Pullman a lot more than years past. So today is my first day under the management of the new company.

Tonight on call at the fire department was dead. I spent a lot of time over at Brandon’s in the evening playing cards. I went to Russell’s to see the snow cave that Russell and Nick built. I also spent time talking to Parrish and Bien about fire department related things, as well as heating ideas for my garage.

WSU Closed for First Time in More Than a Decade

This morning the snow was really falling. After my workout I was driving home and thought to myself how close today would be to a closing the school day that we had. The roads were abnormally snow covered. It was still falling and things were looking bad.

When I got home I asked Tyson to move his cars so I could use the plow to move snow that was in the area in front of the driveway and move it aside. He came out to do that plus he shoveled the sidewalk and helped a person get unstuck.

I ended up plowing Eric’s driveway and a girl up the street who needed to get her car out to take it to the doctor. I spent some time driving up and down the street plowing the road. I didn’t even try to do the sidewalks. There is just too much snow.

I was on my way to fuel my truck when the tones went off. I was in front of the station so I popped in. Soon the tones were going off for something else. Wilcox came down and we went on calls for the next couple hours. It was pretty busy. Nothing big, just lots of little things.

In the process of plowing, I was jarring my back enough that I tweaked in. So it hurt to walk or stand up. Going on the calls was hard. I was down on the ground to help someone and the others could see I was in a good amount of pain.

That morning word came that WSU was closing at ten in the morning. It was the first closing of WSU since the floods of the ninety-five/ninety-six school year.

The basketball game went on as scheduled. Cal came out and we just looked bad. We lost to Cal. It was very disappointing. By the time the game was done I wanted to get to bed so I could get up at my early time. Russell called to invite me over, but I didn’t answer it because I was already in bed.

Got a New Modem

I decided to go to Moscow and just pick up a new cable modem. I was around eleven in the morning and the guy wasn’t even here. I wasn’t going to sit around all day waiting for him. It is a good thing because it turned out he didn’t make it here until almost three.

I stopped at the cable office and switched my modem. I went and bought a piece of rope I needed to get. I also bought some goggles for swimming.

When I got the modem hooked up at home it worked and I had internet again.

I stuck around until it was time to head out to Colfax for the coroner’s meeting. I got there and it was just Bill and I. We talked about some cases and the reasons why he is leaving the office. Pete and Ken showed up and we did our meeting. We really didn’t go over many cases. We did get our coverage set up for the next month.

I got back to Pullman and took over being on call. It was a slow night anyway.

Lost the Cable Modem

Last night my internet stopped working. I figured it was due to the snow we had been getting. This morning when I still didn’t have connectivity I called work and let them know what was going on. Then I went off to Colfax.

I contacted TimeWarner about the problem. There were not outages, so to me that meant the modem went bad. An appointment was set up for me for tomorrow.

I decided to work in the jail followed by a trip to Colfax Fire for training. When I got to the fire station I hung out for a little bit. I helped Hickman chain up his car. He didn’t quite know how to use the chains that he had. I had them both on in about five minutes.

I told them I would be responding on call from the jail. I was told there was no training tonight. So I have not been to a training all year due to them either being cancelled or me being gone.

I went over to the jail. The snow had been falling and things were getting bad. The county sent people home for the day. Roads were getting closed. We were getting calls from people asking about the roads. I didn’t get to book anyone today, but I did get a couple teletype warrants sent out.

I worked eight hours in the jail and left shortly after dinner. As I was walking out the tones went off for an unknown injury rollover accident. I made the ambulance. We went en route, but firefighters who got on scene before us said that it was non-injury. So we cancelled and went back to the station.

Lunch with Forbes

I went to lunch today with Tom. We went to Rancho but they were closed. So we ended up going to Neuvo. I had a taco salad and we spent time talking about a couple Pullman-related issues. It was a nice lunch with him. We were gone for about an hour and a half chatting.

I ended up getting a transfer to Spokane shortly after lunch. I was down for a call when the call for the transfer came in. I said I could do it and went off to Spokane. The roads were really bad. The last seventeen miles was like driving on a dirt road full of pot holes.

After I got back I met with George about reserves issues. I was supposed to meet with the other crew leaders as well, but that ended up getting messed up because I was gone. So George ran down the things they all talked about.

A Productive Day

Today was a productive day for me. I started out with the early morning wake up. Today was a “free” day on my Body for Life workout regimen that I am doing. That means I don’t have to do a workout and I can gave a treat or two if I choose.

I started off working on the frame for the photoboard for The Deuce. I made some additional needed cuts, and started to put on the L-brackets to hold it together. I made sure the glass would fit. Then I did some sanding. After the sanding it down I put a layer of stain on it. I will need to put a couple more layers on over the next couple days.

I pulled out the quad and did my driveway and the sidewalks on the street. The snow was falling pretty hard. I was a little nervous about doing the sidewalks. I wasn’t sure what someone would say, if anything. There always seems to be someone who complains. Later on in the evening I did it a second time due to the additional snow fall. The second time through I just pounded through it.

Brandon and I were going to meet up for dinner and then play card at the Zeppoz tournament. We hit Golden Teriyaki. It is owned by the same family as the Emerald and New Garden so the menus looked identical.

Following dinner I drove to Zeppoz. I hit every green light along the way, except for the one at Bishop. But that helped me make good time. I went into the casino and the tables were full. They started a different tournament today. It was for today only, but that really bummed me out. When Brandon got there I told him what happened and we decided to leave. I was disappointed that happened.

I went to Safeway to get my weekly shopping trip completed and out of the way. On the way home from Safeway, as part of my freeday I got myself a small Blizzard with Reese Peanut Butter Cup. It is the best of both worlds! I also got home and finished up my laundry.

I got to be on Rescue

Went swimming today at around ten o’clock. I had gotten up a couple hours earlier. I heard Colfax get toned to an echo response. Shortly after Steptoe got on scene they cancelled the ambulance and called for Paul-Sixty-Four. I called Whitman and let him know that if he needed help I would be willing to do what I could for him. He did say he probably didn’t need the help now, but he was thinking about getting me to cover the afternoon for him. I told him that I was doing the Cougar Basketball game and working for the fire department. Besides you are not getting two calls in one day anyway.

While swimming I was able to get the length of the pool once without breathing at all. That was pretty cool. I am going to have to work on that so it is not so hard in the future.

After the swimming I got cleaned up and headed to Beasley for the women’s basketball game. I called for KStew to come over because he was working for the police. I wanted to talk to him about softball. Specifically I was going to ask him to help me with the team. He said he would do so. We talked softball for about an hour. Heston came by like he said he would. He also plays softball with us.

KStew left and within a few minutes of leaving he called me. He said “speaking of the coroner” they just got sent to another call. I was pretty shocked. I tired to listen to the county to figure out what was going on.

After the women lost the game I went to the station to put the equipment away and went to the Deuce. While I was there a call came in. I stood by for that call. I was there for almost an hour because of the call.

I went home for dinner. Then back to the station. I was watching the Cougs. They were playing Arizona State. It was a very close game. It came down to the final shot taken and missed by ASU. So the Cougs won. That made me feel better.

I was on Rescue tonight. We went to the hospital to change out the linen from the Beasley first aid room with new stuff. We also dropped off some more boxes of gloves.

We only had a couple of calls and they were not much of anything. I made the guys wash Rescue with me after the calls. At first they didn’t want to. I said we were going to wash Rescue. They said I outrank them, so they helped wash it. They figured we would have a lot of calls and just wanted to wash it once at the end of the night.

We were supposed to get a lot of snow tonight, instead it rained. But tomorrow we are supposed to get something like seven inches of snow. I will believe that when I see it.

Poker in Moscow

I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Ricky today trying to figure out the estimates of working of Kroll again. I am not looking forward to this in the slightest.

Later I went to Moscow to play poker at Jeremy’s apartment. It was a little difficult to find it because there was a lack of street signs and house numbers in the area. Finally I narrowed down to the fact I was at the correct spot and went to find his apartment. There was no indication of apartment numbers from the parking area. So I went to the first opening I found. In the hallway I entered, I immediately found his apartment. What luck.

I knocked and was let in. No one else was there and it was almost exactly the start time. I was thinking I was at the wrong place until the guy asked if I was there for poker. I said I was.

Other showed up. One guy was a ten-six-seven with dirty blond hair. That gave me some good eye candy. He was also a big fan of Omaha. He spent some time teaching others how to play it. I helped it with some of the rules and how things worked. He said he was still new to it himself.

We played a simple ten dollar buy in. I wasn’t getting much of anything along the way and I just ended up giving money away on the night. I stuck around until the tournament was done. There were only six people anyway. We threw some darts and watched the action until Jeremy ended up winning the whole thing.

We played some Omaha for the fun of it, teaching everyone else how to play. We gave everyone a stack of chips and played for about twenty minutes. Those guys were going to go to the bar. I decided to head home.