Lost Softball Mitt

When I got over to the game in Moscow with Brandon we were going to throw the ball around. That is when I opened my softball bag and found that I was sans my mitt. That was a small crisis. I did not want to lose my mitt. I did not want to have to buy a new mitt. I did not want to have to break a new mitt in. I found a mitt that the umpire had. He let me use it for the game.

I got another double today. I am now two doubles and two walks from tying both records. I want to own the doubles records and I would like to tie the walks record. Sklyer has had the walks record for seven years.

After the game Brandon and I went to the Pullman fields to ask them if the mitt was found. One of the umpires was the field manager on Sunday and said he found it and took it to the parks and rec office. That made me feel so much better. But that also meant that I would have to stay in town until at least eight in the morning tomorrow. I was planning on getting out of town before that.

Back to Back Wins

In softball today we had games against My Office and Trinity Baptist. My Office is an A-league that which is unbeaten. They lead the league. We were going to have to beat them in order to remain near the top. Having an extra quarter loss due to the FFT we had last week we have to make sure My Office and Zeppoz each get two losses. Zeppoz has one, and we play them once more. My Office has none, but we play them twice. So as long as we win out, we will be in first place in the league.

I started pitching against My Office and I was having a hard time with ball control. I walked several people and with errors we were in a six run hole after the first inning. I had Jake finish that inning of pitching and go from there. We started to hit the ball around a little bit and kept scoring runs. Finally near the end of the game we took a lead. By the last inning our lead was five runs. My Office had the last ups. They started to chip away and had scored four runs. With the tying run on second base. With only one out. We finally got some stuff going and made the outs. Their tying run was stranded and we won the game.

Now we had to play Trinity Baptist. They are a B-league team that is struggling. We had nearly a thirty minute break between games because of the game before ours starting late and going to seven inning.

When we got on the field we pretty much dominated them after the first inning with a couple silly plays where we ran into each other and what not. I had two triples in the game — they only had three outfielders.

It was pretty easy for us to win the game and more or less played around the whole time once we got a handle on playing well and hitting well. With the second victory we are now in control of our own destiny. If we win out we win the league.

Near Car Accident

I started out this morning waking up without an alarm clock. I forgot to set it before going to bed. I was supposed to be in Colfax at eight o’clock AM to have breakfast with Jim and Jerrid. I got up a quarter of eight. So I had to hustle. I got to Well’s in Colfax around eight-fifteen. I had breakfast with the other guys. Carl happened to be at the booth next to us when I got there. Today we are playing softball and golf.

After breakfast it was off to Steptoe for the softball game. It was Colfax fire against Steptoe fire. On the way there I was just outside of Colfax going up Buck Canyon. I saw a truck pulling over to the shoulder, then it kept going off the road into the ditch. All of a sudden the driver corrected and was coming back on the highway aimed straight at my truck. We were on a collision course. I hit my brakes and moved over a little bit. I was getting prepared for the collision. I was not sure where my truck was going to get hit, but I was very scared.

Then the driver re-corrected his path and started to spin out, He did a one-eighty. He was facing the wrong way going across his original lane of travel. Then he hit the soft shoulder and his truck rolled. I pulled over and grabbed my radio. I was shaking pretty bad.

I got out and the man in the car behind me said he thought I was going to get hit. I said “so did I”. I got ahold of Whitcom on the radio to let them know what I was out on. Jim and Jerrid were behind me and did not see the accident happen. They stopped as well.

I walked across the highway to the truck. The man was already out and getting things from his truck. It landed on its wheels and he was okay. He said he had fallen asleep. Once Colfax Police got on scene I cleared and we continued to Steptoe. The game had just started. We were on offense. Our hitters were not able to hit the ball very well, and the other teams’ pitcher could not get the ball across the plate. But we swung anyway. I did not hit the ball well at all. One time I did get patient and ended up walking.

On defense I played right field most of the game and I played at first base for two innings. We ended up losing to Steptoe. After the game Jerrid, Jim, and I stuck around and hit the ball around. We were hitting the ball well at that time. Ralph asked why we couldn’t hit like that during the game.

After we hit around for a while we went to the Steptoe fire station for a community barbecue. Jim and I were sitting inside the office area of the fire station when a mom with a six year old came in and said he got a couple slivers. Jim got an alcohol pad and a needle so we could help the kid. He was whimpering about the slivers. I used the alcohol pad to clean the hand, and then pulled out the needle. the kid wanted to see it before I used it. I handed it to him with the cap still on.

He pulled it out the cap and tried to recap it when he missed the cap and hit his finger with the needle. He screamed bloody-murder and cried like crazy. Then he would not go near me so I could clean the blood. It was pretty much a finger prick like when someone does a blood sugar check. It was nothing major, but he was going to have nothing to do with me after that. His mom took him to the bathroom to clean the blood.

The food was getting served so Jim and I got in line for the food and sat down with Jeff and Ralph. We ate and talked about fire department stuff for a while. This was also the day the big ball was going to get rolled down Steptoe Butte. We were planning on going to watch that. I went to get some gas. When I got back I found they were not going to go do that for a couple more hours. Jim and I decided to just go back to Colfax. I dropped Jim off at home and then I went to the jail.

I went to the Coroners office to drop off my case report from the death yesterday and then went to control and hung out until just after four o’clock. I updated a couple forms we use. The incident and infraction report has a margin on the left side that when it gets holes punched into it, the words are punched out. So I got that fixed by making the margin wider.

I went to Rosauers on the way to the golf course to get some pop and water. I went to the golf course and practiced some golf putting. I put on my new golf shoes and went into the clubhouse to pay for the tournament stop.

We got golf carts which was nice to have because I did not want to have to walk the whole course. We played a shotgun start, best ball tournament. We started on hole number six. We played nine holes and then went to the clubhouse for dinner. Once all the teams were back we ate and held the raffle for a lot of items that were donated. The golf tournament is put on by the Colfax police department for raising money for the Special Olympics.

After dinner and the raffle we went back out for the second round. We played with glow balls and had glow sticks on the flags and markers around the course. It was my first time playing in a glow ball tournament. It was fun to do. We had to watch the ball go because it was harder to see the ball when it went into the grass. I ended up losing one ball on the ninth hole, hitting it onto the road way. I had to use a second ball for the next five holes. I was doing very well today on my drives because I was not trying to crush the ball. In fact if I tried to over swing my ankle would hurt, so I had to ease back and that made a big difference in my game.

When I was done on the golf course it was almost eleven-thirty. I went to Pullman and waited until just after midnight for a poker game at Peter’s. We started playing near one in the morning. We played until four in the morning. I did very bad. I was calling on a lot of things and ended up losing about twenty bucks. That sucked, but it was a good day over all.

I got home and went to bed shortly after I got home. I was very tired.

A Win with Nine guys

We only had nine guys show up for softball and we were playing a team that already beaten us this season. But our defense was very good and out hitting seemed to be even better. It has carried over to my city league. I was getting solid basehit after solid basehit. It was nice.

The sun was out and it was pretty warm, but we kicked some butt and won the softball game. After the game several of us went to My Office for a couple hours and watched some TV and hung out.

When I run, the wind stops

With a knock on the window of my truck it was time to get up and get into my softball uniform. I went into my tent that was set up to use as a changing room and got on the uniform. I grabbed a granola bar and some pop. I was very amazed that my ankle was not causing me a great deal of pain this morning after having allowed it so much time to rest and get tight. But I was able to move around with very little pain to show for it.

We headed out to the field for our eight o’clock in the morning game. The field we were on had a strong wind from right field. I was playing catcher. For the first little bit Jake worked on learning the wind so he could put the ball in the strike zone. Then he was grooving them in. We were making good defensive plays. We also played well offensively. We consistently hit the ball well through out the first game.

Just like with any video game, as you move level to level the competition gets harder. That was the case today. We then faced the team that beat us in the first game to put us in the loser bracket, Ameritile. We went out there and really kicked some butt. Ameritile had just come from the other field having scored thirty-eight runs. We did not let that scare us, as we went on to hold them scoreless for the first three or four innings. In fact Jake was pitching a one hitter behind solid defense. In the fifth inning they started to hit the ball and scored a couple runs against us, but the mercy rule kicked in ending that game.

Following that we had to face the Pounders, which was a team that had beating Palouse Tavern in another tournament by ten-running them. They also chose to be the away team. They wanted to go out and set the pace and put the other team in the hole early on. They scored several runs quickly, but our defense really turned it on, and we started to turn some double plays. Jake’s pitching was really good as we now had played two games with the wind and knew how to play with it, that was our home field advantage. While playing the Pounders their catcher was joking about my speed. Then when I got to first base after a base hit, he yelled out to me when I run the wind stops. It happened to be a lull in the wind and people laughed.

We had a lead on these guys going into the seventh inning. They had the first at bats. They strung a couple hits together and cleared the bases scoring several runs. They were one run from tying up the game. That runner was on second base. The ball came in to left-center. Kenny came charging the ball, I could see the guy round the bag at third. Kenny let loose with the ball, and it was a strike coming in to me at catcher. I got ready for the play at the plate to end the game. I caught the ball, and kept my mind on where the baserunner was. Then I turned and made the tag. He was out and the game was done. It was a fun ending to the game.

After three straight game we were moving to a different field. The next field over had two undefeated teams playing each other. We were playing the losing team for the right to play in the championship game. Those two team that had just played had a see-saw battle with the runs. They both scored into the twenties. With the Donks down, they went into the final inning and put together a rally, scoring the winning run on a nice single. So we had to play a team with these bright orange shirts.

They looked like they had several homerun hitters. Turns out they did. Defensively we were solid, on offense we couldn’t get anything going. It was zero to zero for a couple innings which surprised me. Then we broke it open with a four spot. They went up and loaded the bases for a grand-slam homerun. That tied the scored. We then scored two runs. And we would continue to tack on runs for the rest of the game. Finally we had a nine run lead going into the seventh inning. The first guy to the plate hit a homerun. Then the next couple guys we some basehits. Then another guy hits a homerun, and finally a couple batters later, another guy hits a homerun. That was three disallowed homeruns for outs in the seventh inning to end their day. We were in the championship game.

We had played four games straight without a break. We were going to game five. I could see by now, the sun had come out and the energy level of everyone was draining. It was to keep the energy level we had early on. The outfielders were tired. The infielders were tired. Peoples’ arms were hurting. We were thirsty. But we were hungry for a championship.

The Donks were a local team. They were undefeated, for us to win, we would have to beat them twice in a row. They were undefeated for a reason. But we ignored that and went out to play some softball. We did our part with the sticks making a lot of good basehits and scoring some runs. But on defense I could see the hours of play was wearing people down. Matt didn’t get to a ball that normally he would have gotten to. The outfield was just a bit slower on some plays. The infield has a couple of uncharacteristic errors. That coupled with an out call at home that ended our inning, plus an out that was never called because the umpire said our outfielder dropped the ball caused us some hardships.

But we had an eight run lead going into the seventh inning. They were the home team because they were undefeated. In the bottom of the seventh all we had to do was to get three outs and go to the second game. But they started to hit the ball. I knew our team was hurting when after the inning the jumping back slaps that Kelly and some of the other would do turned into just back slaps. The jumping was over with. In my second to last at bat, there were two outs and I was on first base. My quads were sore and I did not want to run. But I brought up my positive mental attitude by thinking about the fact that I want this. That I had gone this far and I just have to do it.

Physically I was sore, but mentally I was building back up. It paid off as during my last at bat, I hit a ball well, and went the guy bobbled it for a second I ran for second base. But now the task was defense. But it was not to be. We could not make the outs we needed, like I said one out was taken away from us. But they still hit the ball well enough to score nine runs and beat us. We ended up second place for the tournament. I hope that in the future I will get invited back to other tournaments with Kelly.

We went back to camp, cleaned up the area, and said our goodbyes to everyone. It was a neat tournament. We had an average age of the outfield of twenty-one, and the infield’s average age was about thirty-six. With two of the players over fifty. I learned to be a lot more aggressive on the basepath. I stretched several hits into doubles because of a bobble, where in the past I would not have. I also scored from second on single because I ran hard and was aggressive about running. It was also said that I had the highest batting average for the team. One of the guys, George, said that it was good playing with me. He said I was a real professional. That is from a guy who had played for the twins back in his prime.

I got on the road and went home. It was home, showered and ready to be on call for the fire department. We did not get any calls from seven o’clock on. It was very quiet. I was very tired as well. I actually went to bed around nine-thirty in the evening.

Waitsburg Softball Tournament

Our first game this morning was at nine-fifteen am. I was up around five in the morning. I could not sleep because I was pretty warm in my truck. I got up when I saw Jake was up and about around six in the morning. We made a fire. I sat around the fire with some of the others while I was having some granola bars from breakfast.

We went to the fields early to do some batting practice. Then we went to our first game. We were playing a team we should have won, but we could not get our sticks going very well. We ended up losing by a couple runs, nothing major. Because of the loss our next game was going to be out at field three. That was a baseball field. So the bases were actually on the grass rather than the dirt.

We did well in that game going on to win. Kelly had redone the batting order. I was hitting ninth, but I did okay in the first game, so I was moved to eighth. One guy who was doing really bad was moved to tenth. He also moved a couple other people around in the line up. That line up we seemed to score more runs so we kept it for the next game. We won the second game and had a four hour break. We went back to the camp and had some food. I also took time to rest in my truck.

We got on the road and to the field in time to see we were nearly thirty minutes early because the game on the field before us was going long. I found out there were no time limits. Because of that we were able to play the whole game. But there was a mercy rule of ten runs, not twelve.

The umpire had a strike zone that was nearly impossible to hit a strike. Jake struggled for a long time. After the first two inning they had seventeen runs against us. We were down by thirteen. But we went to work finally with our sticks. We got patient at the plate and allow the umpire to issue some walks and got some well timed hits.

Then we made a run in one inning and scored a lot of runs. Soon we were up. The game went all seven innings with us winning twenty-eight to twenty-four. We also had played in what felt like the longest game I can remember playing. When it was done we play nearly an hour and fifty minutes.

When that game was done we went back to camp. Got the fire going. We had dinner together. Sat around the fire and talked about a lot of different things because finding our way to bed. It was around eleven o’clock at night when I went to sleep.

Heading to Waitsburg

This morning I got cracking on the login controls as well as the other parts of the demo I was scheduled to create. I was working away at it. I was a step ahead as I had just done this stuff in my learning process, so I was able to set it up quicker than normal. But I was running into a problem when I was told we are not going to use a database for this demo. That meant I had to figure out another way to do the profiles. After much searching and not getting anything to work, I finally decided to talk to Ricky about using session variables. He said we will be using those, and because of that, I was able to get my stuff done.

I spent some time getting packed for going to Waitsburg for the softball tournament. I also would check the computer for new messages. I was able to get a few things tweaked as I was getting that done.

I went to Jess Ford around six o’clock to meet up with Jake, Kelly, and Matt to head to the park. We pulled into Lewis Clark State Park around eight o’clock. I got my tent set up. Everyone was impressed with how easy it was to set up. It is a Coleman with all the poles built in. All you had to do was snap one object into place. It was super easy.

We talked to the park ranger who did not want us to use the cement pad for a fire pit. He said just pull up the grass and use that. So we built a fire pit after carefully taking out the grass and setting it aside. We got a fire going and then spent part of the evening sitting around the fire and talking with everyone as we waited for the morning for the softball tournament to start.

Back Playing the Game

After nearly a week without softball, I was weak. Okay, that was pretty gay, but seriously, I was excited to get out there. I worked in the office this morning. I got the new wheel and tire put on my truck. As I was getting ready to leave I ended up getting myself into something that went on for forty-five minutes. It put me behind when I wanted to leave, but I still had time before the game.

When I got home it turned out I was just fine, arriving quicker than I was thinking I would make it. I did some stuff on the computer, brought in the mail, and started to get ready to play softball.

We went against Smitty’s team. We held them scoreless for four innings, then they scored eleven. They put two more on later to beat us by two. I had a very bad game going one for four. I could not get ahold of the ball.

After the game I went home to get my stuff done around the house. I had to update my budget spreadsheet with the money I spent in Seattle. I had to go through the sunglasses order that came in and figure out what items belonged to what people. It was nearly a thousand bucks in orders, so I want to make sure everything is just right.

I finally got to bed around three in the morning. Normally I spent a whole day working on getting caught up, but this time it only took a couple hours.

Zeppoz Beat us like normal

Tonights softball game was going to be one where we were probably going to lose. We did. Zeppoz scored eleven runs in the first inning and never looked back. We did make some come backs as much as we could. We scored about two to three runs an inning but that was not enough.

After the game we went to the bar and hung out for a while. It was good to get out with the team. I bought a pitcher of beer because I hit a solo homerun. As usual when I hit a homerun, it is not that I meant to do it, but it went out on me. It felt good to hit it. I was trying for a hard hit, but it just flew out.

Three Hours Later

I went to bed and only three hours later my cell phone was ringing. It was six-thirty in the morning. I was being called to an unattended death near Hooper. That is in the western-most part of Whitman County. In fact while driving there typically you drive into Adams county then South back into Whitman County. I was on scene for just under an hour. Then I went back to the funeral home and did my work there. I went to the coroner’s office following that to do my report and print everything off. By the time I was done it was after the noon hour. I went to Colfax fire and hung out for a few minutes.

David, Craig, and I were there. I was pointing out the last time it was just us and the guy on duty we got… then Craig said “don’t say it.” David and him both remembered that we got that fatal accident that I was IC of.

I went back to Pullman and down to the fire station for daily rig checks. We got those knocked off in a couple hours of time. It was very hot outside and inside the bay. We had a total of four people helping. For about a half hour of the shift neither Brian nor I could be on duty. That is why we did the rig checks early.

I went to my softball game and Brian was finishing his up. Brian left to be on duty and we took the dug out. We were playing our first regular season game after nearly three weeks off duty to a rain out and a week off for Memorial Day.

We started sort of slow, but then picked it up and hit the ball well. We went on to twelve run the other team and currently, with pre-season included we are undefeated.

I went home and got ready to be on call for the fire department. Then I went to Brandon and Peter’s to play some poker with them. At one point I lost a lot of money on one hand where I had the same hand and someone else by I got out-kicked.

I went down to under a dollar and sat around that level for quiet a while. Some people thought I would just go all-in on nothing. But I waited for my hand then I would play it. I ended up winning each time I did end up going all-in. Finally it was nearing the end of the night. I walked out only down four dollars. Not too bad for having been sitting at thirty-five cents for a little bit.

Road Trip Cancelled

I had thought about finding someone to cover my shift tomorrow on the boat patrol because I did not like the idea of going to bed late tonight and getting up early tomorrow to drive to Seattle and then work the boat all day. Then I finally got settled in with that idea and was okay with it. But a while later Keith called and said that the boat I was going on tomorrow was cancelled. With my trip cancelled I was a little more at ease.

We had a softball game tonight. I was two for three with two RBI and a double. I am working towards taking the record for doubles in a season. I am more than half was there. It is not like I look for hitting doubles. But I just do. On my double in this game, I saw the right-center and right fielder were playing in a little bit on me. I hit it over the right-center fielders’ head. When I strolled into second the shortstop for Bomb Squad was mad and looked at McCoy and asked why they played me in so far. The know I can hit it out there.

We went on to lose the game. I went to My Office with the team and we had some shots and I had my pitcher of pop. We went to Pullman Grill and Bar afterwards and played some Golden Tee Golf. Joe beat the rest for us. But it was pretty fun to play.

Back into the Win Column

This evening we had our first regular season game in Moscow. We were playing Gropps. Our team was hitting poorly in the first three innings, but then we started hitting around. The bottom of our line up hit the ball awesome. I had three hits and a double myself.

On defense we were mostly solid with a couple errors, but nothing too major. We scored twenty-two runs. It felt good to go out there and play a good game and really play up to our potential.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ouch, I hurt my back

First I went to the city playfields to do some softball practice. I had invited Brandon to come along as it appears he is going to joining out team after two of Kelly’s teammates decided to return for the season. Brandon came and we mainly did BP. I pitched some and the rest of the time I worked on some fielding as people hit.

One play I was going back for ball and Brandon was running in. He went into a slide and sort of ran in to me. I fell over and used my arms to keep me from crashing down on him. I knew I tweaked my back in the process. As it would turn out, as the night went on, it would get worse.

I then went to Springfest at WSU. There were four of us there. It was a good time. Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell was there. He was taking photos with people and signing autographs. He had a long line of people. I was standing near the front waiting for my turn. He had to leave early in the event because of somewhere else he had to be. As the last people were getting their photos I showed interest. He said “I gotta take a photo for the firemen.” Bien and I got a photo with him. Before he left he also signed some photos for us. It was pretty cool.

We spent most of the time watching the events as they were happening. They had some skiers and snowboarders doing some tricks. They had Mad Chad doing his chainsaw juggling. They also had Kyle Cease from Comedy Central doing stand up comedy. The capper of the night was the band Everclear. They did about an hour and a half long performance. It was pretty cool. I only knew a couple of the songs they did.

I got a chance to do one of those strongman games where you hit a sledge hammer down on a board that would send a weighted slider up to a bell. I got it to go on my first try. I also got some photos of some of the reserves who were off duty. They got into a human bowling ball and we had some fun with them.

When we got back to the station my camera fell out of my pocket. I had run it over with the car. It was broken. That really sucked.

CISD Team Meeting

We had out CISD meeting this afternoon in Pullman. That made it nice not having to drive to Colfax. We discussed the upcoming training the new members need as well as some organizational things.

I also had my softball playoffs tonight. It sucked because we could not get hits strung together. Defensively we made a lot of errors that we don’t normally make. Kelly’s team beat us and now they are going to play for the championship. Joe, Ryan, and I went to Cougar Country for some dinner.

While there I got a call about playing poker at Jason’s house. Russell was not going to be there. I hope this summer he starts he get-togethers again. I miss those. I went to Jason’s and we played cards for a couple hours. It was a dealers choice day.

I was doing well, but then started to lose at the end on some silly games. I ended up losing about two bucks on the night. I can’t complain for the fun I had. One hand we were playing a game like Indian Poker. I had a Six and Nine. But with that game you don’t know what you have, only what everyone else has. A six-six-nine came on the flop. Beren bet two bucks. I called. Then a nine hit the board. I bet four bucks. Everyone folded really fast. They started to laugh and told me to look at my hand. I bet four bucks because I was trying to get Beren out. He had an Ace. I figured if I could get him out I could split the pot. Instead I crushed everyone. It was funny.

In The Playoffs!

I had a couple guests on the show today to talk about the Outside the Wire movie that was shown by the College Republicans on campus. The “open minded” Democrats and Progressives took up seats in the front row and staged a walk out before the movie was shown. How nice that they actual see what they hate.

We had our softball playoff game. We were playing a team we beat in the regular season. We went out there pretty much easily beat them again. That means that we will be going to round two of the playoffs against Kelly’s team. Ryan said he is going to come down for that game because he wanted to play against Kelly.

I was at home and working on the stats for the team. I also was cruising around the net as well as watching some TV. I finally found my way to bed at three-thirty in the morning. Before I was even deeply sleeping I got a phone call. It was about four in the morning it was Pete. There was a death in Pullman he wanted me to look into.

It appeared to be a natural involving an elderly person. But there were some questions about why there was a delay in contacting us from the time of death. Pete said to let Pullman PD know what was going on. I called Whitcom to let them know what I was doing.

I got on scene and I got a call from Pullman PD. They were going to have to investigate because the person was not in hospice. So I waited for the first officer to show up. It was Heidi. When she got on scene she started to run my truck plate. I heard her over the radio. I looked back and then she said disregard. I also hear the Sgt request Pullman Ambulance show up.

We went to the house and introduced ourselves. We did our investigation. The ambulance showed up. I made sure they did not do anything to the body, like running a strip, like they like to do. They pretty much showed up and left.

I spent the next couple hours getting information and waiting for the detectives to show up. They got on scene around six in the morning. We went to the room to investigate the body and get photographs. I was out of there around seven in the morning. I went home and got a bowl of cereal before going to bed.

Pete was thinking it would be a quick hour or so, but it turned into nearly three hours.

Cutting it Close with Poker

My poker game started at one in the afternoon. I was scrambling to get players. I was nearly ready to cancel when I found I was going to have a fifth player. So I kept it on.

We started to play at one. I was doing alright for myself. I was holding my own not having to rebuy. A couple others had rebought before the final rebuy round. A few people also did add-ons at that point. I went from the chip leader, to someone in the middle of the pack. I did not do a rebuy nor an add-on.

As the day went on we were getting closer and closer to softball time. I gave Ryan some money to go get some pizza because we wanted to eat before the game. He had been busted out by this time and was bored watching golf on TV anyway.

He went off and was gone for a while, I was starting to wonder where he went. Then he came back with some pizza from Pizza Pipeline. At it turned out Little Caesars was closed today. So he had to order and wait for the pizza from Pipeline.

I was eating and trying to play cards at the same time. It was working out okay. But the others started to bleed me a little bit. I wasn’t getting anything to work with and soon my stack started to go fast. The clock was getting close to time to go to softball. As it turned out Dave, Ty, and I were the only ones left. But we all had to be at the field by six for the softball games. Ty played for a different team but he also had the same game times as Dave and I. I started to push on some bad hands because I still needed to get my uniform on.

I finally got busted out. Dave and Ty decided to split the pot between them with some extra going to the person in the chip lead.

We actually got to play two softball games today. Normally we only get one at the most. The first game we kept up with the other team just fine and started to get a lead on them. They would have some innings where they would score some runs, but they were not a great team. We went into the final inning. I got a clutch basehit and I was standing on first. Nick came to the plate and hit a walk-off three-run homerun for the win.

The second game was against a team that had a very bad pitcher. But the guys would not be patient and allow for some walks. No one was getting any hits. In fact when the game was done, as a team, we had four hits. There is no way to win a softball game on four hits. I was pretty mad about the whole thing. Some of the guys were saying softball is a hitters game.

I don’t disagree, you have to be liberal with what you choose to swing at, but when guys are swinging at pitches over their head and popping up all the time, we have to do something. We lost that game because really no one cared to win it.

When that game was done I was heading home so I could get my uniform off and head to the station for rig checks. As I was coming down Terre View from the fields I could see people were leaving the station. I figured that rig checks were done. I called Bien and talked to him. He told me what had transpired on the telephone with Jacob so I could get the full story.

Because rig checks were done I went into the house and got my uniform off. I was sitting at my computer when I head Pullman and D-Twelve get dispatched for a car accident. It went out as Bravo-Injury. But I listened in and I could tell it was worse as time went on. There was one person trapped and barely breathing. As I listened in more, Tyson and Reed were both on IM chatting with me. I heard a call for two more ambulances.

It was fourteen minutes into everything when I got a call from Pete. I knew then what was going on. I was given the message to call Whitcom. I then went in service and went to the scene. As it turned out an elderly lady had been involved and killed by the car accident. When I got on scene I also found out the people in the accident were related to some firefighters. That caused many people at the scene to be more stressed than normal.

I got on scene before the first person was even transported to the hospital. I started to look at the scene and make my impressions of what happened. I photographed the scene and then spoke with Vinny about removal. I was given the greenlight by him. He needed to do his investigation and I did not want to mess up anything he was doing.

I got Kimballs to come out and got the removal done. I spoke with IC and a few of the cops there. Pete had also called me a couple times while I was out there wanting to know what was going on. He decided to come out. He met me at the funeral home. After I had a chance to make my determination of the cause of death, Pete went over it on his own and did the same thing. When it was done he concurred with what I had found and what I said was the cause of death.

By the time that scene was done and the funeral home part was done it was pretty late. I still had to get back and write my report about the rest of the incident and what I had found.

No sleep for the tired

This evening I went to My Office to start the night off. It was to get people signed up for the softball team. I was there to help Dave find Brian when he got there. Then I had to head to Colfax for our Coroners meeting. We had been trying to schedule one for several weeks and finally got this one going. We talked about my case earlier last month. We also got the on-call schedule set for the next two months.

After the meeting I got back to Pullman to be on call for the fire department. It was one of those nights where we ran calls most of the night getting very little sleep. I have the recruit class in the morning so I had to make sure I was up in time for that and I knew I would be dragging due to my lack of sleep.

First Aid Class

Today I spent working with John to see how he teaches the first aid class. I have not done one in ages so I was getting a refresher. It was a good group of people but as the class went on I got the feeling that all first aid teaches them in this class is to say “I know first aid, relax, I am going to call nine-one-one”. There was some stuff that they did to help, like stopping bleeding, but for the most part it seemed like everything was based on calling EMS.

After the class I went to the meeting for softball. When I got there I learned that I did not need to be there for Co-ed until later this month. But as it turned out no one from My Office went so I registered as being there for My Office.

After that was done I was hanging out at the Deuce so I could talk with Howell about the training class on Thursday. I am going to help with teaching it and I wanted to get to know what items I needed to teach.

A Day with Ryno

With Ryan staying the night he was around all day. We started with playing some video games. We played a couple games of Baseball Stars and Tecmo Bowl. I blew him out on Tecmo Bowl and we beat me a couple times in Baseball stars, but I did get him on one game of Baseball Stars.

We had some breakfast and hung out until it was time to get ready to play softball. We had week two scheduled for tonight. Like last week we only got nine players. That sort of made me mad. We ended up only playing one game because a different team did not show up tonight. But there is a chance that the team that had the forfeit with us last week will show up the final week of the season because they were there today.

We won the game by ten-running the other team. That was fun to do. I only got one basehit. Kurt and Jake both had at least one home run, and after two games they both have three homeruns, which is the team record in the current era.

After the game was done Ryan and I went to Cougar Country to get some dinner and I tried to relax but I felt like I had so many things that I had to get accomplished in the next few days I was sort of stressed.

I went to the fire station after dinner for rig checks. Rescue had gone to station one to get some air bottles filled and I helped get the bay washed out and went through the engine with one of the new guys as well as Bien. We were there until a little before eleven o’clock.

I then went home and started work on the stuff for my radio show for tomorrow. I am going to have Andy Savage on the show and I wanted to sound like I knew what I was doing.

Softball Season has Started!

We first had a poker tournament. There were nine people who showed up for it. It lasted a couple hours. I was doing pretty well through out the tournament. Dan had to rebuy one time, and he kept getting sucked out on. When we were getting to the end of the tournament Andy had to leave so he was playing very loose. He was going all in on several hands. There were only three of us left. Andy called all-in and I called him. The flop was his cards. I had him dominated up until the flop. Once he took me out he had to go, so he got second place. Richie got first place.

I ran over to Moscow to get some softball pants. I left mine in Renton. But when I got to Moscow I went to four places and did not find them anywhere. Tri-state and WalMart did not have any at all. Big-Five had some, but they were all small. Sport Shack in the mall did not have anything but basketball shorts. It was terrible. I ended up using the old Cougar Men’s Baseball pants I bought to play on Kelly’s team with.

I got to the field with Ryan. We ended up having the first team not show up. So we sat around for an hour. We did some BP which was good. I was playing first base and Ryan was at second. With Bryce gone there was a shake up of the infield. In the second game I had to make some plays. One was a dive as the ball was getting ready to go out of play. I had to dive right on the first baseline’s out of bounds marker. I saved it from going out.

Then there was another play where I had to go hard to my right, more or less a dive and scoop a ball. When I came up with it I looked down at home where someone was running, but I did not think I would be able to make the play, so I held on it the ball. We were playing A Bunch of Old Guys, which use to be Don’t Care. We lost to them by three runs. It sucked.

After the game was done I went home to work on the radio show as well as getting the Website updated for the Nadirs. It was a pretty good day over all.

A Full Schedule

After getting to bed so late I was not awake until just after ten o’clock. I was supposed to have a flooring estimate. But either the guy did not show up, or he rang the doorbell and left. Either way he did not leave a card nor call me up.

I spoke to Nick about softball. It turns out his team did not get created so he will be playing on my team and bring a guy along with him. That is good news for us. Neither of the two guys from the free agent I e-mailed about playing on the team got back to me.

I was supposed to have a managers meeting today for the team I also had plans to do drive time with the guys. So I got someone else to do the managers meeting. I got together with Tyson, Andrew, and Morgan. We did a lot of stuff with driving around the cones and practiced doing some of the things they would have to do in the cone course.

I also hit the WSU Surplus auction today. I saw Kelly and Matt there. Matt is the one who reminds me of Brandon. He is a ten-six-seven and a very nice guy. He plays shortstop and does a very good job at it. They were getting pants for the softball team. They had a lot of old WSU baseball pants. They all got some and Kelly told me to get some if I was going to play in some of their tournaments. I picked up some pants and socks. There were some file cabinets but I did not get one. They are going to be expensive, but they are better and cheaper than those at Office Depot and Staples.

Softball Signups!

Getting up this early, I had to get to the rec center to sign up for the softball team. I was the first one in the Men’s Comp on Sunday nights. It is not like it use to be when there was a line down the hall of the CUB with people waiting to get a team. Now you can show up hours after the sign ups start and still get your team.

My schedule showed a Coroner’s meeting as well as a meeting to get signed up for teaching recruit classes. That meeting started at one o’clock pm. I got to the station just in time for the meeting to start. It lasted about an hour talking about the schedule of the academy as well as getting people signed up for it.

I was at home working on some stuff there before heading to Colfax for the Coroner’s training. I stopped by the fire department in Colfax to let them know I would not be there for training because I was going to the coroners meeting. I also had Ken’s pocket knife and returned it to him. He gave me a lot of crap, in jest, but it was fun.

I went to the coroners meeting and no one show up. After a while I called Pete and there was no meeting tonight. So I went to the Colfax Fire training. I was a little late but I was able to be there for most of the training. We were doing stuff with setting up Command.

Batting Practice

I was tired this morning, but I got up and made a call to schedule the ambulance for drive time. I set it up to happen after I had batting practice.

I went to the bat lab where Joe works. I got a chance to hit about one-hundred-thirty-five balls. It was a good times. My first swing was a whiff. But after that I had some nice pokes. But not as many I may have liked.

When that was done a couple of us went out in the medic for drive time. We spent about two hours on the road. When I was done with the drive time I went home. I pretty much hung out there for the evening. I worked on the foam board project some more.

I was able to sell one of my items that I have on craigslist. I have a couple more things for sale. I am selling it all cheap, but it is more than if I had given it away like I did some of the other stuff.