Bummer of a day

I went to Moscow for the Palouse Thunder practice. I was getting photos for all the players and the team photo for the website. That took about an hour overall, plus I hung out for a while watching the practice. Mike D. and I were going to go to the Sports Page to watch the Cougs play Vanderbuilt in the second round of the NCAA tournament. We got a pitcher of green beer for St. Patrick’s Day. The Page also had a couple large pizzas for everyone to chow on.

It was looking good for the Cougs for the most part, but as the game was getting towards the end, I could see things were getting bad. We were not scoring points. We were missing a lot of baskets. After a bit we were down to nail-biting time. We kept the game close and ended up with the last shot of regulation for the win, but missed sending the game into OT. That is why I knew things would not be good. We could not obatin a lead and could not get on a run. We kept it close however. Then we went to a second OT. That is when I got worried. We did end up losing in the second OT. The bar was quiet afterwords. The fight song played, but no one felt like singing a long to it. Losing this game was an upset, but it is funny to think that at the begining of the season if you said that Cougs would be a number three seed in the tournament, no one would have beleived it.

I went home and started to get my house ready for the poker game. It was a cash game. No one was showing up. I could not get a hold of some of the people who said they would be there. In fact, other than Mike, no one who said they would be there showed up. But several people came after phone calls were made by Mike and Morgan.

We ended up having five people at the biggest point of the game. I was doing very well. Wolf was knocked out. John showed up after he had some time with his family for his Birthday. After John got there Morgan stay around for a little while. But he busted out. Mike busted out. Michael busted out. Pretty soon with just John and I. I could not win a hand to save my life. Everytime we had a game were some real betting was going on John would pull it out. The last hand of the night summed up the night. I had two pair. John had an inside-straight draw. I went all-in. John called. He put his hand down saying he needed an eight. He had four outs on the river. He found an eight. He beat me. So that was that.

I went to my den and worked on getting the photos cropped for the Thunder Website. It was getting late and I had to get up early. I called it a night after a lot of losses.

Poker at Zeppoz

I went to Staples to get the stuff the was missing from when I was there yesterday. I got home and worked on cutting those items from the foam board. I also got the photos glued to the foam board.

I decided to go to Zeppoz for a while. That was a mistake however. I could not find a hand to win. I got a couple, but even on hands that I had that were good people were sucking out on me. It is hard to chase someone away when you can only bet a certain limit. I was there for several hours, but I ended up losing pretty bad. Finally I gave up. I still had some money, but I was not about to drop any more money at the table.

Coroner’s Supplies

I made my way to Moscow to look at cameras. I was seeing the prices they had on them over there. I found WalMart and Office Depot were the same price. I also stopped by Staples. I ended up buying several things that I have wanted to get including a papercutter, an exacto knife, a scale ruler, as well as supplies to start working on the foam board for my project.

I got home and realized that some of the items were left at Staples and they were closed. So I spent the time making measurements and getting everything ready to start making the cuts. It took a couple hours to get things measured and the lines drawn. I am excited about how this project will turn out.

Engineer Pump Time with Keith

Because I had all my bugs done and out of the way I decided that I could spend some time doing Engineer training with Bien. We were going to do pump training. We started by going to the tower and practicing taking hydrants. Once we got that down we went to the tower itself and set up the engine. We got a hydrant hooked up. We pumped to a FDC for a standpipe as well as a sprinkler. We got a hand line out and pumped to that. We also set up a street gun.

When we were practicing changing from tank water to hydrant water we blew an old rubber hose that lead from the discharge port to the drain valve. It was not a big deal, but we cannot use that discharge port until it gets fixed.

By the time we got everything cleaned up and put back in service it was just after six o’clock pm. We went to the station to help do rig checks with Williams. This was his first duty shift. We spent about two hours doing some Rescue drive time. Williams was getting his chance to get some time under his belt on Rescue. We started with dinner at Dairy Queen. We drove around the South West hill mostly, but we went elsewhere as well.

We did not get any calls for Williams. So just like my first time being on call, he didn’t get a chance to go on a call.

Got My Letter Finally

I got the letter that shows my OC training was completed. I am going to send that off to Mercer Island so I don’t have to get sprayed with OC again.

I delivered the laptop computer to Poffenroth today as well. At Colfax Fire we had our Board and Business training.

I did some more research on the camera for the coroners office. I am hoping that we can get them. It is a Kodak camera with a twelve-x zoom.

Real Engine Pump Time

The plan for today was pretty simple. We were going to do some drive time with Tyson and Keith. Plus we are on call tonight. We were going to do some training where we were taking things out of the tower and then spraying water.

This is because OC was used inside and caused everything to get contaminated. But before the training started we got a call for a fire alarm. Then we got to the scene. I wanted to be the engineer. I got my chance.

I had to make sure people got the water they needed. I was able to set up the FDC’s, set up other lines, and pump. That was my first chance to do those kind of things. It was nice to get that chance. When the training was over I directed a group of people to get the engine back in service. Tyson, Keith, and I went to the station to start to fill all the air bottles. That took a couple hours when it was done.

A Day of Poker

The day was started with a structure fire. I got to the fire station but no one else showed up. After standing by, and seeing it was nothing major, I made my way to Dissmore’s to get some food for breakfast.

I got home to set up for the poker tournament. I had several people coming from Colfax Fire to come and play. Anthony, Jim, and Carl came down from Colfax. Dave also came to play. I ended up getting first place. It was a fun time.

I was in the office working on some random stuff when John called about playing some poker. I told him I was already done. But we got a second cash game going. Dan and Richard came to play. We played for several hours. Dan and Richard has left. John and I stayed playing for an hour or two.

After John and I were done we sat around talking about various things that we use to do including playing video games on Nintendo. John asked to stay the night at my place.

Little Tykes Wrestling

Keith and I got to Beasley this morning thinking that we were working until noon. That is when we found out this was an all day event. Because of that I called Dearth about my guys’ ambulance drive time. Dearth got the ambulance and the guys and brought them to Beasley. I took them out for a while. We got some good time done. One of the guys was new to air brakes. We spent some time around the training tower to get him time to learn how to use the brakes.

We went back to relieve Dearth. While we were gone they had a couple people to help. While I was there earlier there was nothing. Then as I was watching the kids wrestle I heard the announcer say we need medics to one of the mats. I got our stuff and Keith. We went down to the mat. A kid got hurt. We gave him a sling and sent him to the hospital with his mom.

After the wrestling we had to be on duty. Today is the first day of Spring Break so there was not a lot go stuff going on around town. We were able to be a little busy, but nothing major through out the night. Actually all our calls pretty much all came nearly at the same time.

Nintendo

Now that I got the new Nintendo games from eBay, I decided that it was about time to set up the Nintendo system. I got it installed on my TV in the den. I played several games including Donkey Kong, Tecmo Bowl, Baseball Stars and more. It was fun to get a chance to play those games.

Fantasy Baseball Owners Meeting

Ryan and I joined a fantasy baseball league that Phil is putting together. I am the team owner and Ryan is the manager. Tonight is our meeting to talk about the league rules.

When I woke up today, however, I was going to “get my day in court”. I was going to get my meeting with Heston. After last night and my conversation with Chapman I was not all that excited about it, not like I was before the Chapman talk. Instead of getting up and calling Heston right away, I worked on a bug for a while.

I was finally able to get to a breaking point where I was getting stuck. I called Heston and he sounded really nice on the phone and wanted to meet with me. I arrived at the station. He started by apologising to me for the what he said to me in the E-mail. Then we talked about some of the things that Chapman and I talked about. He said it was not like the career guys were “telling” on me, but Heston said he in some way pried information out of them. So when the meeting was done things were all better.

I got home and was able to get the bug completed and checked it in. It was after that where I got ready to go to My Office for the baseball meeting and Cougar Basketball game. I got a good seat and ate a hamburger while watching the Cal Bears and UCLA game. Cal held on to win in OT.

Our meeting started and two guys who work at KZUU were playing. Shier from the Philosophy department is also playing. We went over some ground rules for the league during the meeting.

Once that was done a couple of us hung out for the Cougar game. The Cougs started out scoring a couple, but by half-time the Huskies were scoring in the paint all the time. It was hard to watch. The second half started and the Cougs went on a big run and took the lead. From there is was a battle, but the Cougs controlled it most of the way. By around the five minute mark it looked like if everything kept going the way it was, the Cougs would win.

Sure enough the Cougs pulled it out. Joe started singing the fight song and he was next to me to get me going. I was singing with him. Soon the whole bar was in on it. It was way cool.

Cooling Off

I woke up early in hopes of getting my meeting with Heston. It turned out he said today was no good. I was stewing on everything and it made it hard to concentrate at times. I really wanted to talk to Michael about who told him what in relation to me being “mad” at him. I finally got a hold of Michael on my way to Colfax for the coroners meeting. We talked for about thirty minutes. I got a chance to better understand the issue with Heston as Michael.

It seems that people who were subbing on his shift recently were saying things that lead him to believe I was mad about things. That, of course, is not true. I also found out it was not a situation where a reserve said something around a group of full-timers who talked to Heston. It was more of a situation where different people were getting certain perceptions of me.

I also had realized my demeanor has been pretty poor lately. Around the guys and on calls it has been good, but there have been times were I was less that happy about stuff happening. I think I need to reevaluate what I have given up to be here and why I chose to do so. The overall picture is that I want to be here. I desire to be here. I would hate to not be on the department. But up some of the day to day politics are very troubling. I wish I could distance myself from the politics and just enjoy responding on calls and being part of the team.

When we were off the phone I felt better. I went into the SO to get my letter that said I have been through OC training, but it was not there. Darn it!

I went to the Coroner’s office. Patti forgot about the meeting and did not show up. So it was just Pete and I. We went over some of the stuff he did at the conference in general, but we did not spend much time on it. We spent most of the time BSing.

Following the meeting I got home and started to work on one of my bugs. When I got stuck and when Russell called I went to his house. We played Apples to Apples. I hung out there for a couple hours and had a great time. By the time I had left I had forgotten about the stuff going on at the fire department. I was finally feeling relaxed. I love having friends.

I am feeling pretty mad

The day started off well. I got a couple things around the house done, including the dishes. I went to Colfax to help Ingalls with his computer. I made a ton of stops in Pullman to get my checks deposited, got a new garbage can, and got my turn outs from station thirty-one. They were on Rescue when it was taken down to the station for work.

I got to Colfax and talked to Parks about my letter about OC training. He said he is going to write something up. I should have it tomorrow. I am stoked about that. I really don’t want to get sprayed with pepper spray again. I talked to Poffenroth about her computer and got the check as repayment for the parts I bought for her. I also got my license tabs renewed. I was on a roll.

I went to Ingalls’ house and worked on getting his new computer set up and all the data from his old computer to his new one. That took a couple hours in all. He only has a dial up connection so it took us a while to download anything.

We were finished as dinner was being served. I had some babyback ribs, potatoes, and corn. That was good stuff. I had to run because of the EMS training in Steptoe. I got up there just in time for training to start. The training was part of the training van. It was OTEP trauma training.

When that was done I was thinking about whether I should stop to see if House is on or not. It turns out it was, but I didn’t stop. Ryan hit me up online and let me know that House was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. That should be interesting to see where they go with that.

I also saw an e-mail from Heston. He wrote:

I am getting some negative feedback again that the reserves (specifically you) are not happy with the progress of the rescue equipment placement. I have heard it from three different career people this week. Before we started this project I asked for your input and help and got some but did not hear any further. I assumed that you were good with the direction we were going with it. I am confused as to why I am hearing this from other people and not through your liaison person Michael. The equipment on the unit will be in limbo for a little bit while brackets are made and attachments are ordered. I would appreciate you to squelch any negative issues in open discussions with other members of the department. Just like the officers and as a crew leader I expect and demand you to control these issues and discuss them in the appropriate arenas. I cannot allow these types of negative discussions to continue from any department member especially from a crew leader. It is not productive or healthy to the department and if it continues any further, I will be forced to make a change in your status with this department. I hope you are hearing me on this.

You can imagine my surprise on this. I was mad when I read it. The first time through I missed the part about him threatening to fire me. Then I saw it and was even more mad. I was going to write an e-mail to explain things, but I wanted a face to face so I asked for a meeting.

He said that three career guys came to him with the same message that I was mad about the changes. First off that is not true. When three people come to you, what makes you think they did not hear it from the same source or at the same time. I have not talked to the career guys about Rescue. I don’t talk to them about that kind of stuff. So I know that is not coming from me. Therefore someone is taking what I did say out of context.

He uses that as a basis to say that my negative comments are not welcome especially from a crew leader. Then when I read the part about the change in my status, I was not sure if that was to demote me or fire me. I would think it would be to fire me.

As you can imagine I am not happy. I also had Chapman come up to me and say I was mad at him over it. I said nothing was further from the truth. So it is clear someone is putting words in my mouth and they are making their way around the department and it is getting people mad at me and making me look bad.

The only thing I did say was “I wish someone would have let us know.” I don’t think that is anywhere near being mad at Chapman and complaining about the movement of things around Rescue. That comment was made in relation to the fact that the new tools were getting new brackets build. But when they were unable to finish it all the old shelves were gone. Therefore all the equipment had to be put on the bottom of the cabinet and it was just stacked on each other. Letting us know ahead of time would have just been keeping us in the loop. I think that is a reasonable comment. I am not sure how it is getting so stretched from what I said.

When I meet with Heston I want to let him know that, plus I want to track down the source of the comments. Because everyone is hearing it from one source. Once we get to the source we can re-educate him as to what I said and that is not not right for him to spread information that is false. You can see I am mad.

Two times on the Radio

Today I spent a lot of time not at home. I first had to get a thumb drive to replace the one that died on me the other day. I started with my radio show for my normal time. I went up the studio and knocked that out. I wasn’t feeling super while I was on the air. For a while I was jittery. Then I calmed down. It was not due to nerves. It was because I was feeling sick. Once that show was done I had time to go home and do a couple things before it was time to head back to the studio for my next show.

This one was an interview of the ASWSU presidents and vice presidents. I spent a couple hours preparing questions and going over them last night. I think the show went over very well. I did not really stumble too much and I think I looked pretty good while questioning the candidates.

I got done just in time to run back to the station. I am on call as well as it was a training night. I got there a couple minutes late. We were going to do some quarterly SCBA stuff. Just as we were going to leave we got toned out to a call. But we were not there long and got back to the tower before the training up there started.

Several of us were given a group of people to lead around on various activities. We were on air and we got to see how well we would do with our air consumption. It was not the same as the work rate test we have done in the past. Because we were in groups the weakest link caused the whole team to have to be done.

After the class we went to the station to fill air bottles. That took some time to do. We took some time to teach some of the new guys how to use the cascade system. When we were finally done with that I made my way to Mike’s for poker.

I got dealt a hand and as we were playing it I got called out on a EMS call. I was able to finish it out. I did a raise from four to five bucks. The guy thought I meant five more bucks. So he folded only to find I meant one dollar more. I got a good laugh out of that.

Structure Fire? I think not

I woke up this morning feeling sick. I went back to sleep for a while and then I got up again. I went back to bed a third time. It was then that I heard a call go out for a gas leak with possible patients at Sella’s. Within a minute or so another call for a structure fire goes out at Eastlick.

I got up and went to the station. I was there and then Chapman show up. I went to check the map for the location of hydrants. When I got back to the bay there were about six people in the bay.

I got into the Engine as the officer and we went en route. Upon our arrival we heard a call go out for a fire alarm in Heald hall. We were asked to check the building for smoke. After checking each floor we were not able to find anything that was a concern. We waited outside until the scene was done. There was a fan belt that over heated causing all the problems between these two buildings that are connected with each other.

The rest of my day was spent hanging out at home and trying to not upset my feeling of sickness too much.

Working Most the Day with the PFD

I was woken up by a phone call around seven-thirty in the morning asking if I could help with the first responder class testing. I said I would, and I was told to be there at ten in the morning. I was tire so I was happy about the extra sleep. I showed up to city hall. My task was to help Michael with one of the stations. My role was to do CPR and assist with what the testee was asking me to do.

After the testing Keith and I went to Cougar Country for lunch. We were planning on going out doing Engineer training. When we were getting the Engine ready we were called to an EMS call. We went on that. It turned out we both got dirty on it, so we washed out clothes at the fire station and went home to shower. When we finally got back to the station we were only going to have about one and a half hours to do some drive time. But we made the most of it. We drove a lot of the more narrow roads around the city.

We also made our way by Beasley a couple times to see the score board in the walkways. The Cougs were playing USC. When we went by the couple times the Cougs were losing. It was getting near time for us to start our rig checks. Keith and I got the rig back to the station.

Anthony was already there and the Cougar game was in its final moments. We watched the game get tied up. It went into overtime, and then a second overtime. The Cougs finally pulled it out and won.

Keith, Anthony, and I went out and washed Rescue and Engine. The rest of the evening we were on call. It was a slower night, but we were getting calls most of the night. We would get them about every two hours. In some ways I hate nights like that more than just getting slammed and then nothing.

Another Poker Night at My Place

I started out earlier in the day with going to the fire station and getting some photos of Tyson and the new paramedics for the photoboard and the website. It was after that that I had to go to the dentist for a teeth cleaning.

But after work I was going to have some fun. I am having a poker party at my house. Dave was the first one over. Then Mike and Andy came over. I also had some other guys, Loren and Dan made it over. It was a good night. At one point I hit a run where I couldn’t lose. I kept gaining money and doing very well. Soon I was up a couple of tens. Loren finally busted out as did Dan. Dave left while he still had money. I took what I could from Mike and Andy and had myself a half-a-C-note night.

UCLA and WSU Playing For First

Ryan came down from Spokane to meet up with me to go see the Cougs take on UCLA at Beasley. With a win by WSU and UCLA losing against the Huskies the Cougs could be in a tie for first place in the Pac-Ten. It was nice Ryan was able to come down. We met up at the Valley Road Playfields and walked to the game.

It was not to be, the Cougs got beaten pretty well in the second half. The Cougs could not score on a fast break and they could never get a sustained run. So UCLA kept a few points up on the Cougs the whole second half.

I had Anthony cover for me on Rescue until the game was done. Once it was over I got my uniform on and worked the rest of the night. It wasn’t super busy for us. There was not a lot of partying out of the students after the game. I think a lot of the were tired after waiting outside for seats for up to nearly fifteen to twenty hours.

Purchasing a Poker Table

Tyson and I were supposed to work an event at Beasley. When we got up there I was starting to think there was a mistake. Sure enough someone saw us and said she thought the event was in Bryan Aud. We loaded our equipment in the mini-van and drove over to Bryan. When we got inside we talked to the performers. They directed us to the person in charge of everything. That is when we found out they we were not even needed at the event. Tyson and I fueled the rig and called it a night.

Mike brought over the poker table and the folding chairs. I decided that I was going to buy it from him. He has a nice table and with the folding chairs I will have enough chair to fit more than ten people for poker games.

Mike invited me to go out to Rico’s with them. It was a good night out on the town. Andy and Mike were there. We played a lot of pool. There was a ten-six-seven who had a perfect square for a soul patch. It was well trimmed and the dark hair make it stand out. I spent some time looking that way. Then another ten-six-seven came in and was a friend of Mike’s. He played some pool with us.

We left around midnight and I went to Russells. A group of people were there and we played Apples to Apples and had some pie. I won the first game of Apples to Apples when we could argue for our decisions. Then one girl who I had not met before was complaining that it was no fun to debate whose card was the best. She just wanted people to lay the cards down and have it chosen without any reasoning.

It was fun to play that way, but I thought it was funny that she seemed mad that we had to debate points.

Monthly Coroners Meeting

When I got to Colfax I wanted to get a couple things taken care of, so I started at the SO and I talked to Jodie about my OC spray training records. I also saw Tom. I was debating about asking him how he knew about me, but I opted not to.

I went to Colfax fire and hung out there for quite a while. I looked at Tim’s CAD drawings of the well incident. They are doing a critique on it today. But because of the Coroners meeting I couldn’t stick around.

I went back to the SO and down to the coroners meeting. It was pretty much same ol’ stuff. We got our schedule done for next month, followed by covering some of the cases we had over the last six weeks or so. We have not been too busy on the weekends lately.

Bad Night at the Table

The fire training scheduled for today lasted all of thirty minutes so that meant that I was going to get to Mike’s house quick tonight for poker. I was excited to get there early and have more time to play. The problem is that also gave me more time to have a bad night. I had a run of cards that I could not win with. Even when they looked decent I was losing, and after a while I started to play dumb hands because I was not seeing anything at all.

But then after I did things like that other guys would play crap hands. That did not help the situation. Other guys on the other hand were playing bad hands and beating me or others. It sucked, but I had fun. I got the word out a little bit about my upcoming game. I hope to get some of the people there.

Falling down a well

So my plans for the whole day were to sleep in and then work on the material for my radio show. As it turned out I was able to do that, but I also did a few other things.

I heard Colfax get toned out to a boy down a well. I figured I would not be able to get there in enough time to help. Reed called me and asked if I could cover him at Pullman for the night. I told him I would. Right after that call they toned for more manpower. I decided to head to the scene.

I got there about twenty-five minutes after the tones went off for the additional manpower. I was on one of the lines helping to hold and pull the people in the well. Then I was asked to go above and get on a different line.

I helped to hold the line and then pull when it was finally time to start to get the people out of the well. According to the newspapers he had fallen about forty feet down and was only about fifteen feet from hitting water.

As soon as he was out I helped to package and transport him to the hospital.

Firefighters Look Down Well

I was just done with that when I had to get to Pullman for being on call here. I made some dinner and went to the station. We had to do rig checks. I worked with Chris D. on some engineer basics and had him do the pump test. We worked on getting through the system when we got toned out to a fire alarm.

It was nearly an hour and a half long because we could not find the problem to start with, then finally once we found it, it was water hitting the detector head. So we put Chris in the ceiling to find the source of water. Between us trying to mitigate the problem and finding the source it took more than an hour.

We got back to the station and finished out the rig checks. We only got one more call on the night at around three in the morning. When I got back from the rig checks however I used that time to get the prep work for the show taken care of.

A long day at the PFD

I had signed up to work the Family Fun Fair at WSU today. I had to be up and ready for that. I got dressed and down to the station. I got the rig ready. Keith was working today’s event and he wants to be an engineer. He was starting to get in the passenger seat. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was putting his stuff in the rig and then asked who was driving. I said “You are.” His mouth dropped and his eyes went wide open. He was very excited.

When we arrived at Smith Gym we set out some equipment to show the kids that stopped by, but it was so cold very few people actaully stopped. They all just went straight inside. Some WSU police interns were there and I talked to them for a while including Brandon who is coming on my show this Monday.

The Family Fun Day was winding down around one in the afternoon. He got some extra sandwiches and put away our equipment. Then we got a call for a person having a seizure. We went en route from Smith Gym. It was my first time driving engine code on a call.

After the call I had Keith drive. We went around the city. He drove for about three hours. He did very well. We looked at FDC’s are various buildings around town. We got done around five-thirty and went back to the station. Tyson met up with us and helped wash the rigs and do rig checks.

We had to go fill some air bottles. We stopped by Station Thirty-One to do that. When we got back to the Deuce some of the guys wanted to do some one-minute drills. Tyson and Keith also wanted to participate with them. We spent about forty-five minutes doing the one-minute drills, discussing the one-minute drills, as well as practicing with the buddy breathers.

I actually left the station a little after eleven o’clock PM. I had been with the fire department for more than twelve hours through out the day. Much of it standing. My ankle was in a great deal of pain.

Travel Time

So my time in Seattle is done and I am ready to head back to Pullman. I made plans to hang out with Ben tonight. He got a new job and is leaving Pullman on Tuesday. When I got to town I got my truck unpacked.

I got a hold of Ben and he came over around eight o’clock. He brought his computer and we came into my den and looked at some stuff on his computer including sharing some stuff back and forth.

Then we went down stairs and watched some episodes of Mr. Bean and started to watch The Wall. We got almost all the way through the wall when Ben had to go get the girlfriend from the bar. As we was leaving he gave me a hug and told me we are going to play some golf at his new employer this summer.

I Hate the Ducks

Oregon did it again, beating the Cougs at basketball. It seems like we don’t have an answer for some of their guys. They just score and score. Granted our defense still does a good job and keeps the scoring low in comparison to the opponents’ normal scoring output.

We lead most of the first half but struggled to break out with a long lasting lead in the second half. It was disappointing for us to go down to Oregon and most likely drop us from the top ten in the polls. I am sure we will be ranked, but not in the top ten. Only if we can finish out the season with wins we may get back to number ten.

I spent some time going through my blog and getting the labels added for some old entries. I need to go through and do it for more of them, but it is a slow process. I got about eighty completed out of the six hundred posts yet to do.

Poker at Diamond Lil’s

Today would have been my Dad’s Sixty-Eighth birthday.

I have been wanting to get back to Diamond Lil’s for a while. I finally decided tonight I would head down there. When I arrived it was pretty busy. I had to wait for a while to get a seat. Finally when I did I was playing my game. Very tight. I was doing well, infact I had more than doubled my buy-in.

Then my name was called to move up to the higher limit tables. That table was not as nice to me. I called a couple hands and I was not doing very well. I was down to my last forty bucks. I got pocket nines. The flop was an Ace-Four-Four. The turn was a Four. Someone got me all in. I went ahead and called. I realized my only hope was a nine hitting, because the others were playing with an Ace. A nine hit on the river giving me a better full-house than everyone else at the table. That put me back into the game, but I was down from my starting point of coming to that table.

While I was sitting there a ten-six-seven was seated at the table. When I first saw him I was thinking he was younger and dressed a little like he was a G. Then when he sat at our table I was able to get a better look. I loved his haircut. It is very short. I don’t know what it is about guys and long hair. It looks horrible. I have seen some guys who I thought were butt-ugly get a good haircut and all of a sudden they were actually very good looking.

So after seeing his widows peak and his hands and arms I could see he was a little older than I thought. Now I put him around his mid-to upper-twenties. His fingernails were very nicely trimmed, almost look manicured. He didn’t have the blonde hair that makes everything so much better, but it was a nice light brown. Gave me something to stare at when I was not playing a hand.

Finally a little after midnight I decided to cut my losses and leave. I walked out of there only down fourteen bucks on the night. Not too back for going all-in at one point.

Ho Hum

When I got home from work yesterday it was funny because my mom asked why I was home early. I told her that I was getting back at my normal time. It was my eight o’clock arrivals last week that was abnormal.

With code complete starting this week I am finding all my bugs are done and turned in. There is not really a lot for me to do at all. So I helped Will, our new guy, with some stuff on his computer. Other than that I am not doing much at the office but waiting around for bugs to get handed off to me.

I got home and had dinner. We had tacos. I helped to clean up and we watched NCIS. House was not on due to American Idol. I hate it when House is pre-empted for American Idol.

Poker at a New Place

With today being President’s Day I did not have to work. I started by making me way to Fife to get sized for my shirts for the Boat Patrol. Then it was off to Seattle for the shorts and pants. But when I got they were closed. I guess I will be going there tomorrow.

I got home and just hung out until dinner time. I was just waiting until it was time to head out for the poker game. I was playing with a bunch of people I have never played with before. After reading the house rules I realized that it was going to be a lower level of players. When I got there that is what I found.

I was about even for the whole night. Then on the final hand I was in a couple bucks and then I ended up going all in for another eight bucks. I won with a flush. I took down about thirty bucks from that pot and walked away up a little over ten bucks. Not a bad night for playing with new people.

Just Sitting around the House

I wanted to hit Diamond Lil’s for the poker tournament today, but I found the tournament started around ten in the morning. I guess that isn’t happening after all.

So it was time to just sit down and do some stuff on the computer. I pretty much watched movies on TV and played on the computer.

As the day wore on I wanted to go to Diamond Lil’s, but I also did not want to lose the money I won the other night. So I decided to stay in the house after watching my Sunday night TV shows.

Hanging with Joe

The plan for the day is a ride along with Joe in Whatcom county. I stayed up late last night to work on my ability to stay up late tonight. I headed up his way around four o’clock pm. I got up there just before six. We went to dinner. Then back to his place. We watched some TV before heading to the station for a briefing. It was about an hour long. They just covered some stuff that the sgt’s discussed in their meeting and things to pass along.

Joe and I headed to our district. We pulled over some cars and looked for some drunks. After about a half hour driving back and forth on this one road we stopped at a store to get some pop. Two other deputies just arrived there. We stayed there for about an hour and a half talking shop and telling war stories.

Then we got on the road. We backed up one of the cops who made a stop and arrested a guy for DUI. We looked around for a DUI for several hours more without any luck. We made several stops, but it was very quiet that night. Our final call was to a guy who was stalking his girlfriend. We assisted the arresting officer.

It was past three in the morning and I was ready to call it a night. Joe took me to his house. I got my truck and some pop from a store and then headed back home. It was a good drive and I was not tired at all.

When I got home I took my laundry down stairs then went to bed. It was around six in the morning.

Good night at Diamons Lil’s

I worked on my bugs and got a lot of them retired. Ricky, Noah, and I went to QDoba for lunch. After we were done I had some time to get my database updated. Then we had our meeting. I was telling them about my problem with the GFE and Shawn told me that he made some changes and that I needed to update some stuff and I would be good to go. I did those updates and got the remaining bugs fixed. Then I worked on finishing off Shawn’s bugs. I got those done as well.

I went home after spending some time talking to Ricky about the future of the company as well as the upcoming product we are going to start to build soon.

After dinner I spent time watching TV with the family. I had planned on staying up late because I am getting ready for the ride along with Joe. Joe was online and we chatted for a while. He said that he wants me to start to work for his company again. He wants to pay me five bucks a month now. I went to Diamond Lil’s a little bit after midnight.

I got some cash and found a seat at a four-eight table. My name was on the list for a eight-sixteen table. I had lost some money at four-eight early on. But I won a couple good pots and I was back near even.

Then when I went to the eight-sixteen table I bought in for more money because I wanted to be able to compete. I was playing tight after the flop but loose before the flop. One guy at the table was kicking butt. He was playing really loose and always betting. He won pot after pot after pot. He was up around eight-hundred bucks at one point.

A couple ten-six-sevens came in. I recognized one of them from playing there before. He was ripped and very fit. He started by playing at a different table. Then he moved to my table. When he was coming to my table I could not take my eyes off him. Then I looked down and realized that everyone was watching for me to do my action. Oops! Oh well I spent the rest of the time playing cards and watching his arms flex and show off his muscle as he moved.

I won a couple nice pots after being on the ropes at one point. I was getting some good start cards but the flop was bad. But sometimes it would be a good flop for me. At one point I had pocket fives. I was going to fold. I ended up staying. The flop was all cards under nine. With how loose people were I played. And on the river I caught a five and busted a guy who had jacks.

I finally left after three-thirty. I was up two-hundred-twenty-two bucks. It was a good night for me.

It’s like being on vacation

After staying up to the wee hours of the morning I made my way into work around eleven o’clock again. I was only there for about fifteen minutes then I was off to lunch at the Three Pigs with Jon, Terry, and Jim. The normal crew.

Following lunch I went back to work. It was pretty much the same as yesterday. I spent the day working to get my bugs completed as well as some of the new bugs that were coming my way.

When I got home I just kicked back and relaxed. It is not normal for me to be able to do that when I am in Pullman. Over there I am always doing something in the evening. So doing nothing here is like being on vacation.

Working Late

So I made my way to Bellevue today. The trip wasnot too bad coming across the state. The roads were in pretty good shape without ice and snow. I got to Bellevue around eleven o’clock. I decided that I was going to get a lot of work done, or as much as I could.

I was working with Brian on some stuff. As always when working here people will stop by and get me side tracked on some other things. Which is okay. I usually have two or three things going at a time when I am over here it seems like. Always getting little things thrown my way as I am working on the bugs.

One of the things Brian and I were working on kept me preoccupied. So I worked on it a little after eight o’clock. I started to listen to the Cougar basketball game as well.

I decided I needed to get home and watch it on TV, plus there was not much more I was going to be able to get done. I got into my truck listening to the game. For most of the game the Cougs lead the Huskies. When I got home I watched more of it. But the Huskies started to play better after half time.

The game went down to the wire, but the Cougs stayed on top and ended up winning the game. That will help keep the Cougs ranked going into the final two weeks of Basketball.

An extra day in Pullman

I was supposed to be in Bellevue today but because of the busy weekend with the lack of sleep I pushed it back one day. So I spent the day working on stuff from Pullman once I finally got up, which was around eleven in the morning.

I made my way to Safeway to get some gas for my truck because I had the ten cent discount that expired today. I also decided to make some dinner at my place. I invited Russell over for Tacos and he asked if Nick could come. I said it was okay.

Nick and Russell showed up. We had tacos while I was telling them about Sunday. They thought that was a pretty funny story about how the whole thing unfolded. When dinner was done I got the dishwasher loaded and I ran a load through it. I met to go to bed early, but I ended up getting to bed after midnight.

Incredibly Tired

After getting to bed and sleeping for about four hours I was up again. I was very tired and I got the last few things done with the HazMat CD’s. Shortly thereafter I had to get to the radio show. I went to the studio and I forgot my cell phone at home.

I was dragging as I started the show and I did not have my “A” game going. So I was just being loopy but I got through the show. I did not think it was all that good. I had a little bit of time at home before I had to get to the fire station to work on the Rescue and where to put the new tools. When I got home there was a message from Pete about a suicide down at the river. He ended up going on it.

I met up with Erik at the fire station and we put the new tools and Rescue and rearranged the tools that existed on it. It is cool that we are running the new tools now. With OTEP training coming up at seven o’clock I just decided to hang out at the station.

Pete called me and told me that if I had some time to go to the funeral home and investigate the wounds to get an idea of what happened on this case. It was interesting because now I have seen shotgun, handgun, and rifle damage to the human head. There is a lot of differences between each one.

The OTEP training was pretty short over all. We covered burns. Once we were done with the training I went to Mike’s house for poker. I was there until midnight. I ended up walking away with an extra thirty-one bucks.

When I got home I wrote back and forth with Matt and Monte about the call from yesterday. I told Matt that I was not offended and that he could not offend me. I asked both to keep the information secret. I also asked Monte how Tom knew about it. It was Tom who told Monte. Monte said he heard about it several years about and it was a non-issue to him. I was surprised to hear that Tom has known about it for three or four years. Monte said “remember it is a small world”. I wonder if the Evergreen article is how Tom found out.

Drive By Cellphoning

I was so tired I just couldn’t get myself out of bed. I had planned on getting up around ten o’clock am to call George. I finally got up around noon and called him about getting my truck seat fixed. I left a message and he called me back a while later. By they I had planned on going to play some poker at Mr. Z’s, but I wanted to get my truck seat fixed. He gave me directions to his place and I headed there. He has a really nice house over looking the LC valley. I helped him remove the seat and chatted with him while he was fixing it. It did not take very long compared to what I thought it would take. It was a total of two hours. He glued all the foam back together as well as added reinforcements to it so it will not happen again anytime soon.

After he was done he took me to his house to show me around. he had a very large house that he built himself. His downstairs had twelve foot ceilings so he can display all his hunting kills. He has a ton of those as well. I got back to Pullman with some time to spare before rig checks. I made myself some dinner and kicked back ever so slightly.

Before long though I had to go to the station. I first spent time with the new guys on their map tests. We got several of them knocked out. While working on the map tests a call went out so I asked Tyson to go on it in my place. It was only a fire alarm. By the time they got back I had started to wash out the bay. We got another call. I went on that one and had Tyson go over some of the tools on Engine while we were gone.

Finally we were able to get back and just work on the rig checks. We were nearly done. Tyson and I did the pump test while Keith and Brian showed the new guys how to use the tools.

When we were all done I went home and started on the project for the HazMat team. I have a bunch of DVD’s they want copies of. I wanted to go to bed because I have to be up for the radio show, plus I am leaving town and wanted some sleep before I would have to prepare for the road.

As I was working away on the DVD copying project I was also working on my organizing of the boxes of files and papers I have that I need to get put away in order to complete the move-in process.

I was able to get a fair amount of that complete as I started the next DVD in the machine. But on the last DVD I was having problems with it not finishing the read.

Before I got to that point, however, I got a call. When I got onscene I was helping with the patient and Matt, from WSU PD, made a joke about the patient having the same issues that I was. I had heard why we were there and then when he said that wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. I was taken aback slightly because I was unsure if he said that because he knew about me or if he was just making a joke. It because clear to me it was a joke at the time. As we were walking out of the apartment he said he was sorry. I then told him I heard he gives reach-arounds, something Kelly, yesterday, said I need to joke with him about.

That was that as far as I knew. But when I got back to my place and I was working on the DVD project I decided to check my facebook account and there was a message from Carl.

I was talking to Matt who told me what he said to you at the Medical call. He said that he felt really bad about it and it was not his intention to offend anyone. He always jokes around but wanted me to tell you he was sorry.

So when I saw this I figured he must now know, if he didn’t already know. I tried to get more information from Carl. It seems that somehow Monte told Matt about me. What really surprised me is that Monte knows. I am not sure how he would have found out. I am curious as to how Monte found out, unless he remembers it from that one article that Rob wrote for the Evergreen. So now Matt knows.

I hate it when people find out. It causes me concern. It is the whole idea that when only I know they other person is normal or what they do to me is them acting out who the are. But when they know I am gay and I know they know then I seem to be hypersensitive about it insofar as I am always wondering what they are thinking. Because now everything I do will go through their “gay” filter. They will wonder if I did something because I am gay. That will be on their mind, and because I know they know I am gay, then I know that they are thinking certain things, therefore I get concerned about what they are thinking. So rather than them being themselves around me they will self-censor and I can never really have good friends if they are always afraid of being who they are.

They should not worry about making any kind of jokes. I don’t want them thinking they need to keep their back to the wall around me. I want them to judge me on being a softball player, or a firefighters, or whatever I am doing. Not based on the fact that I am gay.

How do you explain that to someone? John G. seems to understand what I am saying and he gives me a hard time. Which is how John acts, so he does not treat me differently. But what about Matt. How can I explain to him the concept of being gay I don’t fully understand it. I can explain that I am not happy that I am gay. That it is not something where I make a conscious choice to be attracted to certain guys. I can try to let him know that I would love to be attracted to women and that I could live out a normal life. But because I cannot the only thing that will help is if people don’t stop being themselves around me.

I want him to understand that I believe that you must choose to be offended. And in no way was I offended on the call. He probably thought that because of my reaction, but my reaction was because I was concerned that he knew.

I now have to try to talk to him and hope that he doesn’t start to act differently around me. I hope that I can also get him and Monte to not say anything to anyone as I want the information to not make it out to everyone. I like having my own little secret.

So to top that off we got two more calls. One was for a rollover car accident. Turns out that no one got hurt, but we were on scene for a bit. We got the rig cleaned up. It was nearly five in the morning I figured that we were done for the night, but nope. We had a drive-by cellphoning. That is where someone sees what appears to be a car accident and rather than stopped to see if people are okay, they keep driving and call it in on their cellphone.

The problem is that many times no one is hurt so we all go out there to find the person is fine, or that no one is even there anymore. I wish people would just stop for a couple minutes and see if the person needs an ambulance before calling it in. That would help everyone involved in the situation.