The Funeral and After

My other post talks about the funeral itself, so I will not go into that here. But I started out the day at six in the morning with a phone call to WSU PD. I found out I would be able to get a ride. I got dressed in my uniform from the coroners office. I went to Tidyman’s and waited for the precession.

Following the funeral I went home and worked on a problem with the events signup that Heston had found. I figured out the problem and fixed it. I went to the house that I have been looking at buying. I did some measurements of the area. I see it will fit in the room that is downstairs. I looked around the other rooms that are out there as well. I was told today that someone else is putting in an offer, possibly. I hate it when people do that. I am going to take the stance that if the real estate agent says that to me I will have the attitude that I lost all interest in the house. One of the things about the house today is that I could smell some signs of the dogs that lived there.

I also noticed that outside of the big rec room and the great room, there was not a lot of options for how to set up my furniture. Plus being only four bedrooms I would only be able to have at most two roommates as I would have to use one room as an office.

The house on Thomas street has made me realize some of the shortcomings of this house over all. I also don’t like the appliances that are at this house. Thomas street has four bedrooms plus an office. Plus a rec room, game room, and living room. Plus two dining areas. It is a nicer house over all in my view. It is the house I would like to have. The one thing that it doesn’t have is the larger driveway that Brandon street has.

Then it was time to head to the fire department for rig checks. I got to the station and talked to Pete on the phone about the funeral and the house search. I went into the station and I was talking to Morgan about some stuff while Peter and I were texting back and forth about playing some poker at my place tonight.

Morgan said he would play. I went to get some pop and got some dinner then I went home. I was going to call Phil about coming over. Just as I was calling him he sent me a text message about play at his place. When it was all said and done he ended up coming over to my place. I also got JT and his friend. Plus Brandon. So I had a seven handed table going. I was on call with Morgan. We got called out on two calls through out the night of playing cards.

When the night was over with I had won almost thirty bucks. It was a good night for me to play some cards. I went upstairs and did some stuff in my den before going to be at two in the morning.

The Funeral of Officer Lee Newbill

Officer Lee Newbill

I have the somber privilege to attend Officer Lee Newbill’s funeral today. Starting out around 0800 hrs this morning I made my way to the staging for the procession which was at the old Tidyman’s in Moscow’s East side. I arrived with the parking lot about half full of police cars from all over Idaho, Washington, and beyond. Police Officers who did not know Officer Lee Newbill and those who did were gathering for this event. Fire engines and other fire rigs from Pullman, Colfax, Lewiston, Moscow, Whitman County Fire District 12 and others were also there to pay tribute to this man.

Police Cars fill the Tidyman’s parking lot

Patrol cars from Latah County and Moscow fill nearby parking lot

A couple of the fire department rigs lined up on the street

A close up of the officers waiting from the procession to start

At about 10:00 AM the procession started. It was long enough that as my vehicle was pulling into the parking of the Kibbie Dome the last cars were leaving Tidyman’s. Along the route people were standing on the sides of the streets and police officers on Motorcycles where blocking intersections. There were people who had their hand over their heart, American Flags, signs of support, and cub scout troops along the way.

We arrived at the Kibbie dome where a Lewiston Ladder truck and Moscow Ladder truck had their ladders crossed with a huge American Flag blowing in the breeze. We walked into the Kibbie Dome and made our way to the seating on the floor. There were about 800 chairs on the floor. Over the next two hours officers from the various agencies mingled with one another.

Officers Walk to Kibbie Dome with American Flag in the Background

Then Glenn Johnson asked everyone to the seats as the funeral was about to get started. By this time many people from the public had made their way into the Kibbie Dome, nearly all the available seats were taken with both police officers, EMS workers, and the public.

Moscow Police Chief Weaver talked about Newbill and his qualities. He got a couple laughs when telling a story about Officer Newbill and Moscow’s purchase of a Segway Scooter.

It was Officer Newbills who was testing it out riding it around the UI campus and to the police station. An event was held to show off the scooter to the public and the media. Part of the rules were that the officer riding the scooter had to have a helmet on. While Newbill was riding the scooter he crashed it, only as Officer Newbill could. Later as the public were making comments, one elderly lady said “It is nice to see the police are hiring the handicap”.

The children of Officer Newbill got up to speak. His two daughters went first, both telling some stories about their dad. Some more laughter was heard from the crowd. Then Officer Newbill’s son, who is in the military like his father was, and plans to be a police officer, spoke. He quoted a poem from the Officer Down Memorial Page. Following the poem he was getting choked up and could hardly talk. He was in his Air Force uniform. He turned to his father shrine on the stage and saluted. That caused a lot of emotion from the crowd. I could see people starting to wipe tears. I could hear people sniffling. It was touching.

The flag was presented to the family and a 21-gun salute was given. That is when Whitcom (the dispatch center) got on the air. So soon as people hear the sound of the mic keying up, I saw heads quickly drop. We all knew was coming.

“149 – Moscow”
“149”
(the police emergency tones go out)
A couple words are spoken in honor of Officer Newbill then it was said:
“149 out of service”.

Following the funeral a large number of bikers were outside near the ladder trucks each one holding an American Flag.

Bikers Line up with American Flags

Jeresy Night

My alarm clock went off at eight o’clock this morning so I could call Gollnick and have him help me put the desk into the back of my truck. I am making a trip to Moscow to get my boat. I figure I will stop by the Goodwill and leave off some other stuff for donation.

John came over to my place and helped me load my desk and then he was off. I loaded the rest of the stuff later in the morning when I was closer to being ready to head over. I wanted to go through a box of stuff before I gave it away. I found several thing I had no idea why they were in the box. I pulled them out and set them aside.

I went to Moscow and first went to get my boat. It was just before noon and I wanted to make sure I got it before Dale closed for lunch, because I was planning on buying a device so I can run my boat at home. I hope to use it before I go to the river in the future to make sure the boat will run.

I stopped at Goodwill and the guy said they don’t take metal desks. I told him I was told on the telephone that you did. Oh well, I did get rid of the rest of the stuff. I drove back to Pullman and called up Bien to see if he would help me unload the desk.

I got a call from Pete from the Coroner’s Office. He was in the meeting at the SO where they were talking about what was going on. I had called a couple guys to see about getting a ride. I was going to represent the jail. But Pete asked if I would represent the coroner’s office. I told him I would. He also said that the deputies are all working the event, so they were going to not be in the procession. I decided to see if I could get a ride with someone from WSU PD.

It wasn’t long before it was time to head to the City Playfields for the softball double header. We were playing Palouse Tavern followed by Palouse Multiple Services. Palouse Tavern only have nine guys, but so did we. They have not had a great year to this point in the season, but that did not stop them from destroying us. We lost by twenty-four runs. We went on to face PMS and they just hit the ball. We also made a ton of errors, but they hit the ball, scoring almost five runs every inning. At the end of every inning they had two men left on base. It showed they were doing well. We had one good inning against them hitting, scoring fourteen runs, but that was the end of it for us.

Following the games it was time to start Jersey Night. That is a night where everyone goes out to the bars until the wee hours of the morning, wearing our softball uniforms. We normally go to My Office after the games, but this is different.

I got to My Office with Brandon. We went in and I ordered some pop and food. I wasn’t going to drink at all. Brandon ordered a pitcher of beer. Soon a round of shots happened. And then another, and another, and another. Soon I got a pitcher of beer. Oh things were good, but I also had to be up around six in the morning, so I was not going to be able to stay out late.

Dave, the Jeopardy Champ, and I played the NTN trivia, but he kept beating me pretty badly. There was a question or two along the way that I won. But for the most part Dave was the man.

As everyone was going to head to ValHalla, I decided that I was going to go home and go to bed. I have a funeral to go to tomorrow and I wanted to not be too tired.

Interesting News on the Homefront

So I get a phone call from my real estate agent. She told me the people who are trying to sell their house on Brandon were planning on renting a place on Clay Ct. But the place they were going to rent is still being rented by the previous renters. So they have no place to rent. They would like to be somewhere for the next three years. So there is a chance that they would rent my place and I would buy theirs. Don’t know if it will happen, but that is what is happening there.

I got my boat dewinterized today. I will go pick it up tomorrow.

I went to the fire station planning on doing rig checks and then heading back home to talk to my mom. But then I found out we had to do the oil changes and maintenance on the small gas engine items from the rescue. That took us a couple hours to work through all of them. So I was out and about until almost ten at night. I talked to my mom while we were working. I told her what had happened.

I went to Russell’s place after I was done with the fire department. We were talking about the Seattle Pride parade and what happened in Seattle last year. I pulled up an article that I read and I read it to him with some of the comments of the people who were there.

Once Beren showed up, we changed subjects and just hung out and had some dinner. I left around one o’clock in the morning. It was pretty quiet, except for one call at nearly four in the morning. That was hard to get out of bed for.

EMS Week at Sunnyside

It is the start of EMS week and today we were going to Sunnyside to visit with the first graders. I was going to be taking photos and moving around between the two groups. But then I was told to do the tours around the back of the ambulance. That made it so I could not take photos.

The tours went okay. I did have one group that had no interest in what was in the ambulance. They was sort of annoying. Most of the groups were good though.

We had lunch with the kids and went out to the playground to have recess with them. I played some football with the kids. I also watched a couple on the monkey bars. They all wanted me to watch them do something.

When that was done I went to home to order my toner for my printer and headed to Colfax. We got an omega call that turned into something more. I got to do patient care and do the HEAR report on the way in. When I did the BP I got a super low result. I had someone else do it and he got the same values as I did. That is why we decided to transport.

We were having the second day of our wildland fire class. I missed the first day. Today we deployed the shelters and learned about communication and some watchout situations.

A New Roommate

I now have a roommate at my house. Today Tyson and his dad worked on moving stuff into the house. I had to move my things out of the bedroom and I put it into my den and my bedroom. That may be enough to get me on the ball.

We had fire training tonight. I also set up a meeting to discuss the reserve association once again. I also set up a meeting with Bien and Stallcop to work over the constitution and bylaws. I also did a training session for the new events page plus we did the sunglasses order.

After training Bien and Stallcop came over. We started to work on hammering out some ideas for the association and I worked on getting the Eastside Fire and Rescue constitution and bylaws scanned into the computer.

I am hoping that by next month we can go before the other reserves and get this association started.

An Officer Died

I woke up this morning and I found out that the SWAT had, just an hour before, made a raid on the church. They found the shooter had committed suicide and he also killed a guy who lived there.

I went to Moscow for the game. I got to the field and no one was there yet. I hung out for about fifteen minutes and people started to show up. At one point during the game Jon called and asked me about it. I had just finished getting hit in from second base. I told him what I knew in about twenty seconds. He said an officer was dead. I hadn’t heard about that until he told me. That sucked to hear.

I had to get out on defense so I hung up with him and took the field. That team had hit around three times on us in the first inning. We didn’t score much. I hit the ball well, getting some doubles and a homerun. We stood no real chance against these guys. We ended up losing by about twenty-two runs. We scored six runs in the final inning, but it was not nearly enough.

After the game I took Michael B home and went home myself. I got online and watched as much as I could about the shooting and read what I could find. I got cleaned up and planned on responding to fire calls.

I took a small nap, but kept getting woken up by phone calls and the pager. Finally I went to look at a house up on Thomas. I like it over-all better than the house on Brandon, but it was more money. After the house viewing I went to Brandon’s to play poker.

We played for about five hours. I won seventeen bucks with five dollar buy-ins. When I was done at Brandon’s I went home and watched TV as well as started on my laundry. I was so tired I was dozing off while watching TV. I finally went off to bed around two in the morning.

Big Shooting in Moscow

Our first game this morning was at nine o’clock am. I made my way to Moscow and to the field. We played against a team that hit the ball well, unlike us, who could not hit the ball. We got tagged for thirteen runs, nine of which were scored before we made an out. We went on to lose that game.

We hung out at the field until our next game… four hours later. I had a couple beers with the rest of the team. We were playing against the Coors Light team. Greg Frisbee, from the Palouse Thunder plays for them. I was talking to someone else there and Greg said hello to me.

In my first at bat against Coors Light, I saw Greg was playing Right-Center. But he was playing me way in. I planned on hitting it over his head. I ended up doing that, I actually went yard. Overall there was not a lot to celebrate for the team. But we would take anything we could get.

We had a total of three games today and we lost by over fifty-two runs in those game combined. I did hit very well through out. After losing the final game I hung out at the field and did some scoring for the game after mine. Our next game is again at nine o’clock in the morning.

I went home with the thought that I would get up early tomorrow, so the plan was to go to bed sort of early. But as the night wore on I watched some TV and I was talking to Jon on IM. I was about to go to bed when I heard something about fire on the scanner. It was a Latah frequency. They I heard something more, it was not fire, but it was firing of a gun at the Sheriff’s Office in Latah County. So I listened in some more as the cops were going to the scene.

As I listened in it because clear it was turning bad. I heard them trying to get to one of the cops. I was not totally clear about what was happening, but it seemed the cop was shot. They asked for five cops “heavily armed” and ready to get the downed officer. Then I heard about another person down, a civilian. Then I heard about another officer down. He was talking on the radio. I could hear how he was having a hard time talking on the radio. The ambulance was called for them. But with the scene not safe they were not able to go in.

They tracked the guy to a church near the sheriff’s office. He was inside. A bunch of shots had been fired through this whole situation. Finally they got the civilian out of there. The cops took the down officer to the hospital themselves, because they were about two blocks away.

The hospital then went on divert as they had three people with gun shot wounds there. It was a tense situation, the chief of Pullman, WSU, and the WCSO sheriff were all up and they all called a lot of officers in to help. They got the peacekeeper and the SWAT team going over there.

At one point a second call for a physical domestic goes out in Moscow. The cop said “We’re not going”. They were going to have to solve it themselves. But it turned out a couple of Pullman cops and a WCSO deputy went to it. That would have been interesting to see the reaction of the people involved to see the Washington cops there.

I was up and listening to it for about two and a half hours. Finally around two thirty in the morning it was quieting down so I went to bed.

Working Cougar Baseball

I put in a lot of work between yesterday and today to get the events something I can show off. I made an appointment to see Heston and show him what I have done. He had a couple suggestions that I put into place.

I was also working the WSU Baseball game tonight. Bien and I went to the field. The Cougs jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. They went on to beat UCLA. After the game Bien and I got some food from Jack in the Box and went to the fire station to chow.

We washed and fueled the van so the guys could take it to California for extrication training tomorrow.

I spent most of the evening at home working on the application for signing up for events. I also took some time to watch some TV.

Fell Again

After starting off well this season. We fell again in a softball game. I had a good game going three for four. With a double.

I spent some time working on doing my events application for the fire department. I also was looking up some stuff about some properties that are for sale. There were two I wanted to look at.

Pam called while I was at My Office and told me one of the houses that went up for sale is already off the market in less than one week.

I have been thinking about getting that one house next to the Fire Station again. I thought about using the downstairs as both my bedroom and my office. Leaving a couple rooms upstairs. I don’t know if I will do that. I would also be able to use the room upstairs. But then I would have to share a bathroom and I really don’t want to do that.

Running calls all over

Starting with a call around eleven in the morning Wilcox and I ran a lot of calls today. We did some daytime responses. The first call we actually get on location as the ambulance went en route to the hospital. Van Ness asked us to come to station one to do some stuff with the hose on Rescue. Just as we pulled into the parking lot we went on a second call on campus.

We went to the hospital with them. Then we headed back to station one for the hose stuff. We had to pull it off and put it in the bay. Then we got all the hose from the hose tower and rolled it up. This is the stuff from Monday when we were washing it. We took it up the tower for storage.

It was pretty quiet allowing me to get some work done. I got a message that they wanted to me to do a special side project at work. I got a start on it, but ran into a small wall. So I sent an e-mail to the boss who gave me further direction much later on.

I went down to the station around five forty-five for rig checks. We did not really even get started when we were toned out to a fire alarm at Terrell Library. We got on location and started the building search. It took a while for us to make it through to where we needed to go, but we couldn’t quite get far enough because the doors were locked and we could not get through them all. The alarm was reset by command while we were still looking for the source. Because it stayed reset we called it good.

We waited for an alarm tech to come to the location for about twenty minutes. After a while command made some calls and we cleared the library. Wilcox and I talked about the greek system and some of the issue with it.

We went to station one and loaded a bunch of the hose that needed to be on Rescue. That took some time to get it all on. We went to The Deuce and started to go through the firefighter one books the guys have to do. I got them signed off as I could see they knew what they were doing. We finished off with doing scene lighting and using the different things on Rescue. We were doing different things with the lighting for about thirty minutes.

We got back into the bay do to rig checks. We found a couple problems with different things. One was the bypass value was not working on an SCBA system. We drove down to station one. Just as we were going inside I could hear the pre-tones. We got sent on an injury accident. It was on one-ninety-five at the North Pullman Bypass. We got on location. There were four people, but only one injured. We ended up not transporting anyone.

While on scene I said we need to get a fire alarm now. We headed back to the station to fill our low air bottles and put one out of service when the tones went out for a fire alarm. It turned into nothing at all.

Following the fire alarm we went to get fuel, and headed to the station. It wasn’t all that late, but Wilcox and I had put in almost ten hours at the FD today.

When I got home I saw the reply from my boss about what I should do with the task I got assigned. I spent some time before going to bed, getting the task completed and turned in.

The Sun Went Dim

I sun set on me and my hot hitting streak as I went one for three with a single, sac, and one RBI. We also lost our fist regular season game. But I think that we are going to have a strong season over all. I just couldn’t get my pitch to hit. I am not sure what my problem was today.

After the game I went to the bar with the rest of the team. We had some suds, but I left early so I could work some more on my events application. I also talked to Pete about moving our coroners meeting to a later date so I could make it to the game on Thursday.

Recruit Check Offs

Wilcox and I responded on one daytime call, but we didn’t get a chance to do anything on it. By the time we got on location we were being cleared. For training tonight we were having the guys doing check offs for their firefighter one training books. I had a group of guys. We were washing and hanging hose. We got the washer out and used that. We also pulled out some ground ladders to use those.

The other guys were using the power tools. They also went to the tower to run through an evolution. Other than that it was a quiet night for calls.

When I was at home I spent a lot of time really nailing down the events login. I had met with Heston and showed him what I have done so far. He liked where I was going with it, so he kept me working on it.

Fun in the Sun

Today our game was fun! I was on fire some more. I started with a triple. A well hit shot to right field. Then my next at bat was a solid homerun to center field. Each inning I lead off. I only got three at bats because we were doing so well. My last at bat was a single.

When the game was done a big group of us went to Cougar Country. We talked some war stories. Hanna was also talking about being a Pullman Fire Reserve. I talked to her about doing that. We were there for about thirty minutes.

I got home and did some more work on the events application. I asked to meet with Heston on Monday so I could show him what I had done with it.

I was up pretty late getting some of the logic to work. There is some really involved logic in doing it.

Final Thunder Home Game of Ought-Seven

I allowed myself to sleep in today. It was nice, but I missed the autopsy it. I decided to get some work done on my garage. I moved everything from the one side near all the cabinets over to the other side. I also picked out a lot of things to get photos of and put onto Craigslist for give away.

Jerrid came over and we went to Lapwai for the Palouse Thunders’ last home game of the season. When I got there I decided to take my camera and go take photos of the guys working out on the field. One of them, Ten-six-seven, was doing a lot of kicks. I got a lot of photos trying to get a perfect one of him making the kick, but I was either too fast or slow on the button.

While working the booth, Jerrid and the others were up there. I made a comment about how Trevor Ball is always making big plays. I said I say his name every other time I talk. Then Jerrid made a comment about him being my boyfriend. From that point on they were all ribbing me about that.

When I would say Trevor Ball, they would all laugh which would make me laugh. Then one time they all knew it was coming, so they were really laughing before I got to say it. I had to turn off the mic before I even said anything.

After the game I told Jerrid I was leaving him down there for saying what he did about Ball. So I moved my truck and hid from him. When he finally went to the parking lot he could not see my truck. I went running to get into a position where he could not see me. My first step was into a small hole in the ground.

That caused me to fall. I did a full roll and got back up and continued to run. Jerrid called and I told him I was on the Lewiston Grade. Then I came around the corner. It was fun.

But it is funny how he was pretty close with the whole comment. I guess maybe I was obsessing.

Nice Poker Game

I was really starting to get going on my events sign up website for the fire department. Time was ticking away. I called Ross and talked to him about the prospects of what would happen if I lost my job. Trying to get some worst case scenarios going.

I got my room ready for poker. I got the chip sets changed around so all the black and green chips are in one case with some white and reds. I got the cards counted and then people started to show up.

We had about six or seven people at the high point of the game. I bought in for ten, but other bought in for more. It was pretty clear I was doing okay. I kept winning and growing my stack. One guy who came with Brandon would get into pots against me. I would always split it with him as we would have the same hand. It was pretty funny.

We ended up playing until around midnight. I spent some more time working on the application after I was done cleaning up the living room and done eating dinner.

Solar Powered

Phil noted a couple years ago that during the summer I seem to become a much better hitter than during IMs. The joke is that I am solar powered. So far this summer that seems to be the case. It feels very good to be hitting the ball so well. Today I started off with two doubles. Very well hit balls to the gaps. I also had a basehit for a total for three hits and three RBI. John’s team was playing after mine. I stuck around and watched his game. They ended up winning. Randy and I spent most of the game chatting with each other while the Tax Dodges were playing defense because he was playing extra hitter.

It was a nice relaxing summer night. I also confirmed Brandon is going to come play some poker tomorrow.

Strange Coroner’s Case

I spent several hours today working on the softball stats Excel workbook. There are a lot of little changes I was making. I added some new columns. I also added in some new calculations. It took a while to get it done, I am happy now that it is done. As I was working I would make a change, save everything, then I would find something small that was messed up, so I would have to fix that, but every little small detail had to be duplicated time and time again, so even small changes were actually large changes.

I also responded to fire calls. We had two nearly back to back. On the second one Wilcox joined Dearth and I on it. We went code through town. They took Wilcox with them to the hospital. Dearth was closest to the door of the ambulance, but he deferred to Wilcox saying he didn’t have the correct shirt on. I told Dearth that if he was going to not do the work he has to do, because of wearing the wrong shirt, he should not respond on the call.

I got home and finished up my stats sheet. I was going to get some dinner when Pete called about a case in Colfax. I told him I would respond down to it. I got to the hospital parking lot. I talked to the RP and Colfax Officer. Then I took my photos and had the funeral home come for the removal.

I went to Paul’s Place afterwords. I went through the deceased’s room looking for information and things that could explain what happened. Following Paul’s Place I went to the funeral home and checked the body. I did not find anything of note. We are going to have an autopsy due to the fact that the man is pretty young to just die.

Plus, the interesting part is that he was in a van coming back from Spokane. He was with several other people. He threw up. Then later on the driver asked another passenger if the deceased was okay. The passenger said, “yeah, he is just sleeping”. It wasn’t another half hour until the death was discovered.

When that was all done, I didn’t get home until after midnight. I didn’t have plans for the evening, but that didn’t give me a choice.

Making Measurements

Today I went to the NW Brandon house again and made measurements of the house. The big room is over twenty-seven feet squared. It is a lot of money so I really have some thinking to do.

I went to the fire training tower for about an hour to watch the guys do some of their training check offs. I spent some time taking over two hundred photos. When I got home I put fifty-seven of them on facebook.

I took my rental agreement to Summit Realty. They are going to try to rent out my place. They came over to take some photos and put it on the website. A little bit after leaving I got a call that someone would be looking at it tomorrow. I guess depending if they want this place or not could be a big factor in me getting the new house.

I called up Ross to talk to him about some worst-case scenarios. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that if things went really bad it could be sold. I have money in reserves that would allow me to buy some time before the payments would be late. Plus if things went down the tubes, I could always move back to my current house and just keep-on-keeping-on there. So it is not as bad as it sounds.

I called and talked to my mom on my way to My Office. I was telling her about the place. She thought seemed like a nice place, but she reminded me that I have a very nice place already.

I went into My Office. We hung out until it was time to head to the field. We were playing PSPT. Their pitcher was having a hard time getting the ball across the plate. It was so bad that we had a lot of walks on our side of the line up. I had a double plus two walks. We went on to twelve run the other team in the fifth inning. As we were leaving it was starting to look ugly outside. A lightning storm was moving in. We got out in time.

I went home and started to work on a .Net application. I am building a sign-up system for the fire department. It has been slow going. I finally decided to jump in feet first and just build it as a first version that will be throw away.

More Houses

I went to look at a couple more houses today. They were both on NW Ventura. One had a three car garage, but it was not very deep. I would not be able to park in it with my vehicles. So that wasn’t going to do anything. The other house on NW Ventura had a decent layout, but I did not like it too much. So I have pretty much marked all the NW Ventura houses off my list. I am back to the NW Brandon address and maybe the Grand Ave address. But I don’t like the size of the Grand Ave house. I am going to have to think about it some more.

We had the recruit academy tonight. It was the main written test tonight. I helped to administer the test and correct them when it was done. Everyone passed the written tests.

Starting of Coed Softball Season

I went to help Chapman’s dad and their family with a computer problem. Chapman’s mom had died the other day and they could not get a computer to boot that she used. They wanted to see if there was anything on there that they needed to take care of. I was there for about two hours.

We had our first game today. We were playing Dental Pain. We had a good first inning batting around. Then in the fourth we went crazy and scored sixteen runs. We were up by so much I finally told everyone that we were going to go station-to-station meaning we were not going to run the bases aggressively.

For the last inning, Matt our shortstop, who totally reminds me of Brandon and is a big ten-six-seven, let me play shortstop. I said something to him and then went to tap him. I hit his stomach, and it was hard as a rock. Holy smokes! I had one play at shortstop and made it. That made me feel good.

After the game I met Pam to look at a place on NW Ventura. It has a wonderful view of the Palouse and sunsets. It has really small bedrooms however. I am going to look at a couple others on NW Ventura tomorrow.

I went to the fire station. While I was there talking with the guys doing their weekly rig checks a fire alarm came out. Within about one minute of that call a second call for a structure fire come out. Chapman came down. We took Engine Thirty-One to the scene. But it turned into nothing. While we were getting ready to clear an EMS call came out. We drove to the scene and were first there.

It turned out that Loren from the WSU football team saw this lady in need of help, helped her out and called for us. When that call was done we went back to the station and that was all for that.

Looking at Houses

I had practice for the softball team today. Only about five people showed up, but it was a good time to get some BP taken care of. Heidi is brand new to playing and she did well with her hitting.

After practice I went with Pam to look at some houses. One was on Grand Ave. It has a ton of parking, it is more than half an acre. It has a hottub, an awesome kitchen, and some other nice features. But it only has one bathroom upstairs for three bedrooms. I don’t like that.

The other place was on Brandon. It has big bedrooms, a huge master suite, a huge downstairs room. I really like that place, but it is a lot of money. I spoke with Ross for a while about money and buying the place. He brought up a good idea. I could buy this place and try being a landlord for a year. If I don’t like it, then I can sell my townhouse and put that money towards my house that I buy.

I really want to buy it, but I am so worried about my job being here next year at this time. It is hard to say what will happen.

Looking at Pam’s House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peaceful night

Tonight I did not have a lot going on. I went to lunch with Jon and Terry at the Three Pigs. Around the office I spoke with Barb about the idea of getting a loan where I would do owner-occupied. Sounds like I can do it, but BECU will not do the loan. Barb explained that they are mainly into the vanilla loans. They don’t do a lot of work to get people loans in the harder situations like mine would be.

When I was at home I watched my normal Thursday nights shows and went to bed early so I could get up nice and early tomorrow for going to work.

Second Place in the Tournament

I spoke with Pam about her house last night. We had to figure out how to come up with ten percent of the price of the house plus closing costs. I don’t think I am going to be able to do that, so it may not happen. I may just wait a couple years with my place, once I get the truck paid off, then I will sell the house and roll it into something that is larger. That may be my best bet.

After work I went to Eric’s for the poker tournament. I got to his house and backed into a parking spot. As I got out of my truck some lady was yelling me about my truck needing to be turned around. I told her no. She said “Are you going to make me come out there?” She was probably in her late sixties or early seventies. I just walked away.

I played some cards. It was rebuys for the first four rounds. I did not rebuy. I was doing okay. After the fourth round I was only down five from the original one-thousand. But after changing up I got that five with the rounding, so I was exactly even.

The rest of the night was going well. I went on a run of a couple hands and took a couple people down. I went up pretty good. Pretty soon I was in the money. Then it was me and one guy left. We battled for a while, but then I stopped getting hands and I was bleeding out my chips. It did not take long before I would get a reasonable hand, but the other guy got some nice hands and he would beat me, or the flop would totally miss me.

Finally I had less than a big blind. I went all in with a King-X. The other guy had Queen-Two. He ended up getting a Queen on the flop. A queen on the turn. A two on the river. He won it all. I still got nearly four times my buy in. It was a good night of poker.

Getting to see House

It has been a while since I was around where there was FOX. I was able to watch House tonight. I didn’t have much going on at work. I did get my final check offs for the work I had done on the hot fix for the product. I was able to get the whole thing fixed and checked in to the new branch created for it.

The people at the company were happy that I was able to get the stuff done and excited that it was ready for testing.

No Patrolling

I stopped in at NU for a while before I had to go to Boat Patrol. I didn’t really have much to do, so everything was all good. I headed out and got to Mercer Island. I got my uniform on and then as it turned out I just sat around the office reviewing the County EMS Protocols and the book on safety rules and laws for the water. Keith had so much stuff to get done around the office that he was unable to get out and patrol. I spent about five hours going over all the book stuff.

Finally he said I could head home. When I got home I got some dinner. Then just mainly hung around the house. There was not much to do after that in the evening.

My First Marine Patrol Shift

I was excited about working today and I was also nervous. I drove to Seattle. I then went to my mom’s house and got my uniform. Then it was off to Mercer Island.

I put on my uniform. I met up with the officer I was working with, John. We spent some time getting my duty belt put together. I got a new belt with cuffs, peperspray, and a glove pouch. I also got a new set of keys with additional keys.

We spent some time talking about what he expected out of me and what kinds of things I needed to do. He talked about what he likes to do and how he likes to patrol.

Then we went to the boat. We went through some things about the boat and then we were underway. We made a couple stops of people who were breaking the wake zones. I saw him do an inspection. Then on the next stop I did the inspection. We spent some time driving along the shore line of Medina, Hunts Point, and we were working our way to Yarrow Point.

Then we got called to a boat that was stuck in the water. We towed it back to Mercer Marina which is next to Newport Shores. We dropped off the guy. Then we went back to port and tied up. We drove to get some dinner. After dinner was done we were near the end of the shift so we went back to the boat and got it all secured.

We went back to the station. That was the end of the shift. We had some time to go fast in the water. That was fun. I can’t wait to do some more.

The Thunder Back in Lapwai

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

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

Small Fire at NU

Today I was planning on cutting out early and heading to the jail to put in some time when I got a call about a major problem with one of our biggest customers. We had one week to fix it or they would have to shut down the site which would mean we would lose them. Because of that I stayed at work. I also got a call from Pete about someone found at the river.

I worked until I got the problem solved. I was unable to get away to even help Pete by going to the river. But I did make plans to meet him at the funeral home. I then had to find someone who could come over and run my poker game until I got back. I called Andy, and he said he would do it.

I went to Kimball Funeral Home and waited for Pete to arrive. There was an odor from the garage when the person was, but Craig had sprayed some pleasant smelling stuff all around.

I put some Vics under my nose. Actually, I put a lot there. Then we opened the body bag. The sight was bad. The person had been dead for about forty days in the water. This is my first “floater”, as they say. It was pretty graphic. Pete and I checked everything over to see if we could find any markings or damage that would make us believe that there was some perimortem trauma involved. But we did not find any.

I left there and went to my house to find a full table of poker players. They had been there for about two hours. I got in on the action. It took a while but I finally started to win a little bit. I ended the night winning a little bit of money. *knock on wood* I have been doing pretty well at poker lately. I am playing a little more aggressive, but I am still playing smart. I am not making bad plays. I am making some good plays, and I am getting to know people and how they play.

Softball Preseason game one!

As always softball games are great. I love playing softball and I always look forward to playing softball. I will get out of everything there is in order to play softball because it is very important to me. I had a reasonable day at the plate today, going two for four with two runs scored and an RBI. I also played the whole game at first base. I think I have reclaimed first base as my primary position. I think I will end up sharing it from time to time, but overall it is mine.

In the past I had it, then Dan came back to the team taking first most of the time pushing me to pitcher. But with the other pitchers I ended up playing catcher a lot as well. But it sucked because I had to share playtime there with another guy who couldn’t play anywhere else.

We ended up winning the game and it looks like we are going to have a very strong team. I think we can make a serious run at being in first place.

Printer Shopping on Accident

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Denise is the girl from the Shining

Denise is getting kissed by a ghost (Beren)

Ghost hand trying to grab a bar

A former co-worker died today

I was at home doing some work on my computer. I bought a new webhosting account. I wanted to get some more storage space and it was cheaper to get a whole new account than to buy extra space. So I did that. They were having special where I could get more space and free setup. I took advantage of those specials.

While that was going on I heard a call go out in Colfax for a CPR in progress call. From what it sounded like the person was already cool to the touch so I figured the ambulance would show up and then leave. But then I heard them ask for Steptoe to come and help. Then I heard them go en route to the hospital.

A while later I was getting ready to head to Colfax and I got a call from Pete. A guy I use to work with at the Sheriff’s Office, Kirk Banks, was the deceased. I was sort of shocked. He was still pretty young.

I went to the Coroner’s office to get some stuff turned in as well as download some photos that Pete asked me to download. I also picked up the new camera. I got the one with the big zoom and everything else. I was stoked. I started to read about how to use the features.

I went to Taco Time for some tacos then to the fire station. I ate my food and waited for the meeting to start. We were doing stuff with the new tower we are trying to get put in. We were mainly at the meeting for support. It was a hearing to determine whether we could get a conditional use permit to install the tower that is needed to get what we need done. There were some nearby homeowners who were not happy about it and they were there to try to stop it. But in the end we got the tower approved.

Then I went to the SO and did some time on the treadmill and watched House before coming back to Pullman.

When I got home I worked some on my asp.net applications as well as trying to get the stuff from Will to work. I am not having any luck on it.

Last Poker Night at Mikes

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

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

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

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

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

My own poker party

I had my poker party today. Mike came over around ten in the morning to deliver my table. He helped me get it set up. My back was hurting pretty good. It was not so bad last night, but today it sucked.

I called Pete and let him know about the camera. He wasn’t mad or anything. He also told me that he planned on talking to Pullman PD about some cases like we had the other day where there probably did not need to be the big dog and pony show that we had. Sounds like I am going to get the new camera that he bought recently. I am really excited to get it. It had a big zoom on it.

People started to arrive for the game. I had six people play in the tournament. I did not do so hot. I had to rebuy, and by the time we got to the fourth round I did an add-on to get some more chips in hopes of playing with everyone else. As it turned out it did not help. I was not finding any hands that I could play. It sucked.

I went out of the tournament just as a car accident happened. I went to the station but it turned out to be non-injury. I just did my timecard and went back home. When I got there only two people were in the tournament. They were playing about another thirty minutes and then it was over. I got some help putting the table away and I cleaned up the area.

The rest of the day I worked on my asp.net applications to try to learn a few things. I am having some problems using the new way of keeping the controls lined up. The videos I watched talked about using absolute positioning. That was working but Will at work said that I should use relative positioning. Also that I should make use of the style sheets to line up everything. That is the part I am having some troubles with.