Mr and Mrs Caessens

I got ready for Chuck and Mirenda’s wedding. I got them a card and went to Sunnyside Park. I took more than six hundred photos through out the day. They got married on the waters edge. When the service was done they got on a small row boat and went onto the water.

Then we went up and had a BBQ. I was there for a couple hours talking with people and we were having a good time.

Chuck, Mirenda, John, and I went to My Office later on to have some beer and play darts and pool. We were there until nearly closing time. John and I played a lot of darts and a few games of pool. John helped me think through some shots. I would ask him some of his thoughts on what ball I should hit.

We spent some time talking about the fire service and other topics came up including being gay and being able to use gaydar. They asked me if I was able to tell who as the wedding was gay. I had thought these two guys I saw were gay. And sure enough I was correct.

Interesting News on the Homefront

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

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

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

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

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

Printer Shopping on Accident

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Denise is the girl from the Shining

Denise is getting kissed by a ghost (Beren)

Ghost hand trying to grab a bar

Movie Night with Peter

I spent some of the day working on watching the videos for ASP.NET page development. There are a lot of videos that I have to watch to get caught up and I also downloaded several others to watch. There are several more hours to watch.

Later in the evening I sent a message to Peter about getting together to have some pizza and watch House. He came over for that. He helped me break down a lot of the boxes at my house. We took those to the recycling center at Pullman Disposal.

After House was over we watched Thank You for Smoking. That was a really funny movie. We then spent time talking about some changes for my room and then he was looking at the collage I made for the coroner’s office. He left around five in the morning and I headed to bed.

Early Morning Class

Having to wake up early to teach the recruit class was tough after last nights call volume. I also had to do some of the powerpoint. It turned out that I was woken up early for a car accident. I went to the station and no one was around to go on it. So I ended up not going. I got some stand by hours though.

I went home and did some final preps for the class, then it was off to the fire station. I had a quiz that I gave to all the guys. It covered the last few chapters that we had gone over in the book. It was a pretty long, but it only included a couple questions from each chapter. Many of the questions were multiple-parters. It was a great chance to see how people were doing.

Many of them did not do great on the test, but I set it up so they had to do what Grimes use to have people do when they failed a test. They would have to look up the answers in the book and cite the source of the correct answer as well as answering it.

We went to the tower and started to work on all the practical things which was mainly ladders for my guys. It took a while to get people through the stations. It was a good training session.

After training Peter and I got together to watch some movies. We watched Saw Three then Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. It was a great night hanging out with Peter.

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.

Washtunca’s Interesting Announcing Location

When I arrived in Washtunca I found my way to the school pretty quickly. It was worse than I expected. There were only a small number of bleacher seating. Less than what is at the city playfields in Pullman. Because of the way the system is set up, I could not use my laptop and do my job very well. If I hooked my computer to the system, I would have to stay in the concession stand and I would not be able to see the field.

They had a wireless mic that I would use to announce the game. I spent some time trying to figure out where I should go to get a good view of the game and to be able to see what player was involved in the play. Finally after thinking about it for a while I was able to take my truck to the far side of the field and drive it up this grass hillside. Where I was able to sit over the field to a point. I could not really see yard markings, but I could see the players reasonably well. I was still having a hard time seeing them really well.

I sat in the front seat of my truck with the laptop in my lap and my papers all across my dash board of the truck. It made of an interesting day. To play music I would put the mic next to the speaker of the truck and play the CD.

The Thunder ended up losing by less than a touchdown. It sucked because after the first drive or two they could not get anything going. They had bad field position the whole day. The final Thunder drive gave me some hope, but they came up thirteen yards short.

I got back to Pullman and Ryan was in town for the draft for Phil’s fantasy baseball league we are in. Him and I are playing in a team together. Ryan got some pizza and came to my place where he was staying the night. We ate the pizza, watched some House and then the movie Shooting Gallery.

Poker with Langely

Everything was going well until I got a message asking me if I had heard about what was going on with the ASP.NET applications. For some reason something was discovered and it was causing the GFE and all ASP.NET applications to stop working. That was bad. I spent a lot of time with Brian today trying to figure out what was happening and how to fix it. In fact I spent most of my day doing that. But I had to get to the fire station to do rig checks and get ready for being on shift.

I was at the station for a while. We were hanging out down there chatting about random things, like normal, until around eight o’clock pm. I was at home with Loren got a hold of me to invite me to come over and play some poker. Several other guys from the football team came over. They were not great players, it looks like they just played for the fun of it, but they threw around money. I ended up winning about twenty-five bucks on the night.

It was midnight when I got to Russell’s for our Wednesday night get together. I got dished up some chicken and rice. The tones went off for a call. I was able to eat the food and I was heading to the station. By the time we were done with that call I went back to Russells. This time I was there some time longer, but before I was able to really get relaxed we got toned out for something else. I was off to the races again, but it was getting near two in the morning, and by the time the call would be done it was going to be late. Top that with the problems with the stuff at work I told them I would not be able to make it back.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ryan Came to Town

Ryan came down today to see the Cougs play the Bears. We met up at Cougar Country for lunch to start the day. Then it was off to the game. The Cougs went out and pretty much dominated the whole game. They lead the whole way and really played well on defense. It wasn’t until late that the Bears got some points going, but for a while the Bears were averaging seven points every ten minutes.

After the game we went to my truck and off to Safeway. I got some groceries for the poker game for tonight plus I thought I would get some other items that I needed around the house. I ended up spending about one hundred bucks. I got the stuff put away and started to set up for the game. I had Kelly coming over with a bunch of other guys. I also has some of my friends coming over including Ben and Dave from the softball team.

I gave Ben a hard time when he told me he got a job working over in Tacoma starting in March. He may come over and play one week with us or maybe two. I hope. I will miss having him around.

We had enough people that we broke into two different tables. I moved the furniture around in the living room to make room for the second table. We had about six people per table. I was doing well to start with but things started to go down hill after that.

Kelly brought over some guys from his softball team. But after winning some hands early on I started to lose, and pretty much spent the evening losing money. The game finally broke around midnight. Ryan helped me clean up a little bit and get my house back in order. Ryan left a little bit after midnight to go home. What is funny is I asked if he would play cards, at first he said no. Then later on he decided that maybe he would play for a little while. Then he ended up playing all night.

I had a good time having everyone over. I hope to do another game in the near future.

Move in Poker Party Part Two

I was woken up by a call from Michael this morning. But once I was up I decided to stay up. I tooled around the house working on getting it ready for the poker game tonight. There was also the Cougar Basketball game on today against the Huskies. I knew it was going to be a wild game because they were calling in cops early due to all the people and problems they were having around Beasley.

I went to Safeway and got some regular groceries and some stuff for the poker game. I got home and I realized my trip to the hardware store was forgotten. I was going to get a screw to fix my pantry door that has had the wrong screw since I moved in. I was down at Turner when a call came in for a cardiac problem at the coliseum. I went to The Deuce. Michael showed up as well. We went on the call, but it did not turn out to be too much. We fueled up on the way back.

I went to the hardware store to only see they had closed. So I went home and started to get ready for the poker game. I was setting up the Tournament Director software I had. I got the cards counted and made sure the decks were good. I then got the table set up and the food ready to go. I made some last minute phone calls.

Russell was the first to show up. He got a pop and we started to talk about who all was coming. Soon others started to show up. Andrew and James showed up. Then a couple more people showed up. We all started to get ready to play the game.

I paid for the buy ins for most of the people because they had helped me move and missed my last game. Dan and Denise were there along with Andrew, Russell, James, Brad, and Tyson did not make it.

I was doing pretty well through out the tournament. Andrew bought in a couple times. When he was near the end the final time I talked him through the “chip and a chair” thought process. He started to earn his way back into the tournament.

But soon Andrew, Brad, Denise, and James were out. It was Russell, Dan, and I. But I was not getting any cards to speak of. I was finally eliminated in third place. Dan and Russell went head-to-head. But Russell was going to have to get going. Dan was going to be playing by himself and that would mean that Russell would lose his chipstack to blinds and Dan would win.

But Dan was nice and decided to play with Russell on the next couple hands. Russell ended up finding a hand. Dan went all-in. Russell covered and won. So Dan pretty much let his first place finish go to second place.

After the game I cleaned up a little bit and went to Zeppoz with Dan and Denise. We play a couple different table games. I ended at Texas Shootout. I started to win some money there and walked out near even for the evening at Zeppoz.

Russell over for Dinner

I spent the day working through my “office” supplies. All the stuff that was sorted out in my spare bedroom. I went from about thirteen boxes to about six piles of stuff. Now I have to go through those items. Today was the office stuff. Pens, pencils, paper, etc. I got my writing desk all set up, but there is going to be some more to go yet. I have a stack of file stuff to go into the file cabinets. Plus more stuff to add to the scan pile. Then I have a huge computer pile, an electronics pile, plus my baseball card collection pile.

I decided to make some cookies today. They were very good. Much better than my last batch. I had used a much newer batch of flour and a slightly different recipe.

I invited Russell over for dinner. I made tacos like I have over at my moms. We fry up the flour or corn tortillas. Then put the meat, cheese, beans, and other toppings on it. It turned out well.

More Being with Ben

After getting to bed so late last night I thought I would get some sleep before starting my day off, but instead after a short amount of sleep I ended up getting a phone call from E. Dearth about an echo call in Palouse. We got en route, but it sounded like things were getting better for the guy. When it was all said it done, it wasn’t that bad on the EMS side of things.

After we cleared the hospital we got the rig washed and I went to my house to get ready for the day. I was planning on working with Johnson with the HazMat billing form. He wanted to work with Excel and I told him I could help. I made lunch, took a shower, and got changed before getting to the station. When I got there a football game was getting ready to start. We watched the first half and then Johnson and I decided to get to work on the project.

We got about four pages completed and that was a good start. It got him going in the correct direction. Ben had also called about going to see a movie.

We went to see Blood Diamond. It was about conflict diamonds from Africa. It was a pretty good movie, some good action, some unbelievable escapes made by the main characters. If they portrayed it correctly, it would really suck. The rebels kill and maim people. The government kills and maims people. The ones who are not part of either of those groups are always on the edge of getting killed or maimed in the fighting.

When the was done we were in the parking lot of the Eastside Theatres where three vehicles were messing around. Doing donuts and just being wild. We watched them for about five minutes and finally the cops showed up and stopped the show. I went home and just watched some TV before falling asleep on the couch.

Being with Ben

I still cannot get a hold of Peter. He can be so frustrating some times. One week he is there and easy to get a hold of, then the next week he falls off the face of the Earth and does not return calls nor answer his phone. We needed to contact each other all week about our show time. He has not returned my calls nor E-mail, so finally I just filled out the application and sent it in for myself. I am going to try to get back the Monday eleven o’clock AM to one o’clock PM show.

Ben called me today and asked if I wanted to hang out with him. I sure did. I had dinner in the oven, so I waited until that was done and had some pizza before heading to Ben’s. We were going to watch Nacho Libre and Cannonball Run. Nacho Libre was one of those movies that was okay to watch once, but I probably would not own it.

Following that we watched Cannonball Run. It has been a while since I last watched it. There were a lot of big names in that movie. I think some of the things they do in that movie is lost of younger people.

After those movies we hung out and started to talk about guns, police, and some stops we were in. Then Jordan came over after the drag show from Moscow. He was going to contact a guy he had met there. We were giving him advice on what he should say when he sends the texts back and forth. He did not know that I was the same guy he had spoken with online in the past.

After he left Ben, Ashton, and I were talking a little bit about homosexuality. Sounds like Ben was sort of freaked out by it at first but has warmed up to it. It is funny, because Ben is very hands on and has given me friendly hugs from time to time. He still doesn’t know that I am gay, but after last night and the things I said, I wonder if it made him wonder.

CISD Team

I started the evening off going to Colfax for a CISD team meeting. They were looking for new members, so I thought I would see what it is about. Now it seems that I am on the team and they are looking at having a training class come in soon to get the new people trained.

Afterwards I went to Safeway and did some shopping for some food items I was running low on. When I got there Richard texted me about going to Val Halla. So I decided I would go there after I was done shopping. When I got there it was not too packed. I met up with Richard and Tyson was there. He came over and said hello.

Richard and I stood around chatting about various things, then at one point he asked me about tops and bottoms. He said he recently learned about that concept and was wondering how gays knew who was a top and bottom when trying to meet someone. I told him one was in mannerisms.

I was there until after one in the morning. We started to play pool and we kept on winning. We won three games in a row, and the last two were ugly wins, but we won. Finally a new group of guys came and won. That was my cue to leave because I was going to meet up with Russell for the Wednesday night dinner.

I got there and the food was still warm. I got some potatoes and gravy with meat. It was grub. We watched Snakes on a Plane. It wasn’t a horrible movie, but now that I have seen it I will not have to watch it again.

Peter is Back

After getting to sleep for a couple hours we got a couple calls at the fire station. Starting out with a car accident. Then we had a fire alarm. I stood by for both. Then I went home and went back to sleep for a couple hours.

I got up and thought about calling Peter to see what he was doing tonight. I did not call him, but within a couple minutes he called me. We made plans to hang out when he got to town.

I worked on getting the last of my boxes gone through. That is now done and I am going to start the process of going through those items and putting them away.

Peter came and he brought some pop. I got a pizza put into the oven and we had dinner while chatting about Christmas break. Then we decided to watch a movie. We watch Hostel. That was the first time he had watched it.

Following the movie he was going to have to get going, but we started to talk about Peter’s future plans. We also talked about RHA and ASWSU government. We were talking about things that happened in ASWSU while he was here for his first degree. I knew bits and pieces but I did not know the whole story.

Then we talked about his future goals of being a lawyer. It sounds like he is moving away from that and is planning on something else, but he does not know what as of yet. He is thinking real estate. It was pretty interesting because as long as I have known him, his goal was to be a lawyer.

We started to talk about trading stocks and planning for the future. He told me about his trading in the Foreign Exchange market. That is a really complicated thing that can be pretty risky, but you can also make money if you know what you’re doing. He had planned on leaving around ten, but he ended up leaving after one in the morning.

A Year in Review

Jan – I Have Problems with Vomit – I was dealing with the patient when the patient fell over and started to puke. I was doing well until about the third time puke came flowing. Then I started to dry heave hard core. My second one was so bad. I was facing a cop who jump and got out of the way because he thought I was going to puke. After having my dry heaves keep going, Chris got there and saw me. He asked if I was okay. At first he thought I had gotten hit or something. Shane told him what was going on. Chris said I should just go downstairs. My pride was hurt hardcore. I did not feel really bad, it just sucked going downstairs with people watching.

Feb – Grandma Dalen Died – After about thirty minutes of trying to sleep the pager went off for a call. But it was about seven in the morning so I decided not to go. I was way too tired. About fifteen minutes later I got a phone call from Mom. I had a feeling what it would be. I was correct. My grandma had died over-night. So now I had to figure out how to get to North Dakota.

Mar – Mariners Spring Training – You can get really close seats at Spring Training. We got to see a lot of the Mariners players. It is a pretty neat experience. Everyone is very laid back. We were always sitting close to the field. Close enough to hear the umpires and players speak. Very strange in deed.

Apr – Championship Game – We got to the South Fairway fields into for our game. Don’t Care is our opponent. They are a very good team who have not lost a game yet. We had to be on our A-game. We started off well. And early on had a small two-run lead. But as soon as we got it, they went to work, coupled with several errors, cost us eight-runs. So we were down by six. After that it is like the team gave up a little bit. We could not hit the ball and ended up losing the game. We are the number two team in the competitive league this year! So we are happy about that.

May – I Have Sleep Apnea – Dave and I left around midnight. We had chatted through out the day about the CPAP machine and his situation. He also has a CPAP machine. I got some distilled water for the humidifier. I went home and had it all set up.

Jun – Tory and Brandt Died – I thought about Tory. He fit all the descriptors. He lived on Merman, he had past medical problems and he is about twenty-nine. So I got this sinking feeling in my gut…I met Brandt through Garrett a couple years ago out boating. I have written about him in my blog before. He loved to go balls to the wall on the tube. He was fun to have around boating. I have been trying to find out when he is coming back to the area to get him out boating again.

Jul – Becoming an Engineer – We went to the tower and pumped water for about an hour and a half. I took a hydrant. I flowed water and simulated the foam. I set up the relief valve and calculated friction loss and the whole works. I passed the test so now I am an engineer.

Aug – Sold My Colfax House – I got a call today from my real estate agent. He said the paperwork is signed and I can start to move my stuff from the house. I have set the plans in motion with renting a new storage place that is larger. I also sent out an E-mail to a lot of people looking for help. I am willing to throw a kegger with a free-roll Texas Hold’em tournament for those who help.

Sept – Crew Leader Anderson – I will forever remember the day I became crew leader. It is “the day.” September Eleventh. Five years after the terrorist attacks on America.

Oct – Mercer Island Boat Patrol – While at work today I got an E-mail from Heston regarding employment on a Mercer Island boat patrol. I jokingly asked Heston if he would miss me this summer. He sent me contact information for the Sgt in charge of the boat patrol. I called him up and he wants me to meet with him when I got to Seattle next week.

Nov – Buying a House – Following the show Peter and I went to Moscow to get my boat. We took it to my place and put it into the garage. It fits in there. I was happy about that. Peter and I went around the house. He thought it was a nice looking place. I think over all I am going to be happy with it.

Dec – Thirteen Deaths on the Roads – I got on scene of a truck that had rolled pinning the victim. I did my photos and investigation. Following that I went to the funeral home to complete the investigation. I also went to the coroners office to do my paperwork and print the photos. Pete showed up there and we went over the case and the photos.

This was pretty hard there were about four different things I wanted to post about in September, but I think the longest lasting is my promotion to Crew Leader at Pullman Fire. Over all one thing that has been big the final three and a half months is the high number of traffic fatalities in Whitman County. We were averaging about one death a week. I also had my chance to be the IC on a major call for Colfax Fire.

It has been an interesting year that has allowed me another job with Mercer Island. I also got a lot of experience with the coroner’s office on two suicide hangings and many car accidents as well as other deaths.

Today, to start off the new year Brian and I were on Rescue running some calls today. We started with three calls for the night. We broke the ought-seven ice for both EMS and fire calls. But they were all pretty minor calls.

Happy New Year!

I spent a lot of the day in the house working on going through my papers and other items. I mainly got through a small stack of Evegreen’s and scanned the items I wanted to keep. I also had the lady coming from Spokane to get my computer parts. I can’t wait until they are all gone. It has been a long time coming to free myself of a ton of the items that I had laying around for years. This is all part of my campaign to free myself of being a pack rat. I still have a long way to go however.

Around nine o’clock I decided that I was going to go out and I was not going to spent the whole day in the house. I made myself some dinner. Then I talked to Ryan on the phone for a while. I sent him a copy of an article he wrote for the Evergreen a while back about how to keep cool in the summer time.

I got cleaned up and I headed to the fire station to turn in my time card. I talked with Sugden and Volk for a few minutes. It was just ten minutes until the new year. So I high tailed it to Zeppoz. I caught up with Dan, Michele, Ron, Heather, Brian, Diana, Michael B, and the others. We watched the drop of the ball. Then everyone cheered and drank. Michele game me a beer to celebrate.

I went into the casino and talked to the guys in there. Russell was working. Denise, Baron, Sauce, Zach, and some of the others were there. Several of us went to the Zuu for the final hour before two o’clock there. Baron and I had a shot of tequila. We played some pool and darts.

Following the Zuu closing I went back to Zeppoz and played some poker and talked with Russell for a while. I got home around three in the morning. I was doing some stuff online and watching a TV show and did not get to bed until four in the morning.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas! It was a nice day. I was up late and I woke up late. Bill made breakfast. We had french toast with bacon. It was very good. We opened up our presents. I got a second set of metal mixing bowls. I got a second blender. I also got a Far Side Calendar, slippers, and cookie sheets. I am going to have to make some cookies now.

Pat came over for dinner. We had ham and all the fixings. I talked to Dave and we decided to go see a movie. I went to see Casino Royale. Dave had not seen it. This is the second time this week went to the East Valley Theatre. Again there was a guy who sat in the theatre and talked through out the whole movie. It was so annoying. It is like the standard that people just talk through out the movie. I wish people would be nice and considerate about others.

Rocky!

Dave and I met up and decided to make our way to see Rocky Balboa. It is a pretty good movie. Dave has a feeling that the guy Steps in the movie will be trained by Rocky to be a boxer and the Rocky movie line will continue.

Happy Thirty-Third Scotty!

That is correct as the year marches on I always get closer to my birthday. This year it came on December Eighteenth, just like every year before it. I had planned on a Monday Night Football party with a celebration on my birth.

I went out and bought some supplies. I made Chili-Phily and nachos. Ryan came from Spokane. It was so good to have him come down! Russell came over and Ryan asked him to be a groomsmen at Ryan’s wedding. Dan came over with two of the boys and we hung out eating and talking about stuff while watching the end of the Monday Night football game. Russell and I joked about making Ryan perform in a drag show for his bachelor party. We also said it would be a “fabulous” party with us doing it.

Russell and Dan left as the guys from the fire training come over. Aaron and his girlfriend, Jen, came over. As did Tyson, George, and the Uskoski’s made it over as well. I showed them around the house. We all hung out in the kitchen drinking and laughing. It was so great to have the Dan and Michele make it over.

When everyone left Dan and Michele hung around a while longer drinking some more beer. We were talking about homsexuality and what is it like to be gay and trying to hide it for the most part. They left around one in the morning and I went to my den. I was pretty tipsy and I drank a ton of water and chatted with a couple people online for a while before making my way to bed. I was talking to Joe about being gay a little bit. I was hoping he would tell me something, but he is still not saying anything at all.

PFD Christmas Party

I spent the day working on taking apart the bed I built years ago for the apartment. It took some time to un-screw each screw. I had a ton of screws all over it. I was finishing up as the sun was going down.

I then got ready for the Christmas party. It was being held at Keeton’s place. I showed up around six-thirty. I was the first one from the fire department there. Soon others started to show up. Dan made a punch with four different kinds of alcohol.

I had some punch and ate food over the next two hours and talked to many of the people there. Nothing of substance was discussed, just lots of chatter.

Peter and I met up at my place. We watched some TV and talked about the idea of being able to store files using labels, like Gmail does for Email messages. We spent time in my office watching videos. He is flying to Colorado early in the morning so he left around three in the morning.

I am the Best Man!

It is something I have always wanted to do. Being the best man is something that does not happen to everyone. You have to have a super strong bond with another man, who is your best friend. That is what I have with Ryan. He called me up today and asked me. I was so excited that he asked me. I am thrilled that I am going to be the guy. Now it is time to learn about everything I need to do on top of getting ready for the wedding, which is still almost nine months away.

The power was out all over the Puget Sound region so I did not have the ability to VPN into work. I had my dentist appointment this morning. I got my crown installed. It feels good to have that in.

I went to stand by a tree that appeared that it was under imminent falling earlier in the day. I stood by it for about two hours keeping people away and waiting to be relieved by Avista. A couple time people just drove over the cones and up the road. I stopped one guy who said he saw them, but he just didn’t think it meant the road was closed.

After that Peter and I went to go see Stranger Then Fiction. That was a pretty good movie. Later we came to my apartment and watched Saw II while having some pizza. He also helped me do some cleaning in my den. I have a lot of clear floor space. I am able to move around and things are a lot better organized. There is still a lot to do, but I am trying to always be working on something.

My First Poker Party

I was excited by the fact that this evening would be my first poker party at my new house. I had the people who helped me move come over for the poker game. But before the party I had to get my house all set up and ready. The morning, however, started off with a phone call from my mom. She told me Gary’s mom, Natalie, died. I found the obituary online and read about it. I don’t know much about what happened at this time.

When I went out shopping for stuff for my poker party, I got a card for Tom. I am going to send it to him.

I got my house cleaned up and set out all sorts of things for people including my hard-A collection. I got some beer and pop at the store as well.

Peter came over early and we watched Four Brothers on DVD. Shortly after that was over Mike showed up and we got the computer set up for the poker party. John, Andrew, Russell, as well as Peter, Mike, and I were here for some cards. We started at around six-twenty in the evening. I got wiped out early by Russell on an all-in bet. I had to rebuy. The game carried on. My plan was to have a break at seven-forty-five for pizza. I had ordered it earlier in the day.

But they showed up thirty minutes early. So we took our break early and had pizza. We knocked out all the pizza’s before getting back to cards. After the fourth round we had the final re-buys and add-ons. Then it was time to knock people out. We had already knocked out Andrew. He chose not to rebuy. Then we knocked out Russell, John, and Peter. Finally it was just Mike and I playing heads up, but I was not getting anything at all and he had about ten-times my stack. I slowly lost my money mainly to blinds.

Then we broke out the change and started to play a nickel-dime-quarter poker game. It was dealers choice. Peter, Mike, John, and I played until one in the morning. When we completed our final game Peter, John, and I hung out for a few minutes talking and I got my kitchen and dining room cleaned up and everything put away so I did not have to do it in the morning.

Final Day of Mini Vacation

This is the final day of my vacation from NU. I have been working on moving all week long with yesterday being the big day where most of the stuff was moved to the house. Today I moved a couple small things. Peter met up with me and helped me get some adjustable shelves purchased and put up. It looks really nice. I was happy he was here to help.

I actually was surprised that he showed up. He has been sort of there and not there as a friend since he came back to Pullman. We have hung out on an average of about once a month since he return. But that is more than it was after he just stopped being my friend for so long. I still don’t know what caused the blackout from ought-two to ought-six. Someday I want to know.

But we went to see Casino Royale and worked on the shelf like I has already said. It was a good night with him. I was also on call for the fire department. We were pretty busy for much of the night. We were getting called all over the place for fights and drunks. Tyson got to drive code for the first time now that he is checked off to be second on Rescue.

The Big Move… Again!

This is my second big move this year. I hope it will be the last one for a couple years. I had a lot of stuff in storage, my office, and my apartment. I had been working on getting everything ready to go for today’s move.

I started by getting a U-Haul truck. I went to my storage at noon. Andrew and James were there to meet up with me. Keeton showed up a few minutes later. We got my storage done in no time. I also had Richie coming from Montana to put his stuff in the apartment. Now I had to get a hustle on the apartment clear out. We went there and had the couch fun. That is where my couch is too big to fit out the door. The guys joked that the building was built around the couch.

At the apartment some guys had to leave, but Peter and Davolt showed up to help. So I had three guys helping at any given time. Tyson also came to help too. It was a nice moving day. I bought some pizza for the guys and we were able to get everything from the storage, my office, and my apartment sans a few small items in a matter of six hours. I was shocked at how well things went.

I was Hired!!!

The PES today was great. Peter and I were on fire. We were talking about a lot of the big issues that have happened over the last week. We really fed off each other well and it was great.

Following the show Peter and I went to Moscow to get my boat. We took it to my place and put it into the garage. It fits in there. I was happy about that. Peter and I went around the house. He thought it was a nice looking place. I think over all I am going to be happy with it.

As I was dropping off Peter I got a call from the Sgt from Mercer Island. I was not sure how my polygraph came back. So I had been nervous all weekend. He asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said that I would in a few minutes. I wanted Peter out of earshot when we talked in case I had to explain anything or whatever.

I went to the office and took care of some stuff online while I waited for the phone call. He called up and said the polygraph and my background came back good so I was being offered a position! I set up some times in late November and early December to do some training and even work a couple shifts. That is pretty neat.

I had fire training tonight with Pullman. We are doing more extrication training. That was taking place at the Deuce. Before the training I asked E. Dearth how his hiring process went with Mercer Island. They were interested in hiring him. It turned out they did hire him, so I will be working with him over there too. I don’t know why, but he is going to have forty hours of different kinds of training before he is going to be able to work, where all they are doing with me is some boat drive time and equipment familiarization. It could be my background that is moving me along faster. When the Sgt. heard I was a corrections officer and whatnot he was very excited about getting me hired.

So far I have not told anyone that I have been hired by Mercer Island. I think I will leave that unspoken. Not that I am trying to hide it or anything, it will just be a fun little thing that no one will know about.

Training went until nine o’clock in the evening. Then we had to fill some air bottles and get Rescue back in service with the things we used. By the time we were done it was after ten-thirty. I got some pizza from Pipeline and then went to Mike’s to play some poker.

I was going to play for about an hour and leave, but it turned out to be a couple hours before I left. It was nearly two in the morning went I finally got to sleep.

Day Two on Jeopardy

Dave was on Jeopardy for day two. He is the returning champion and Ben and I have gotten together to watch and root Dave on.

As the game moves along Dave builds a big lead and goes into final Jeopardy with a victory sealed up. Unless he pulled a Cliff Claven he could not lose. He indeed won and will move on to day three.