Special Day at the Pigs

May 18th, 2010

I went to lunch at the Three Pigs with Jon, Terry, and Jim. Normally they go Thursday’s but today was a special day because I was in town.

The boys had some playoff baseball games tonight. I went to Justin’s game. Jon is one of the coaches of the team. I watched several innings of the game. Then I left to go home and work on some of the code that I needed to bring in to the interview that I have tomorrow. After I was done making sure it was clean I sent it to Jon to have him look at it. He said it looked good. I packaged it up and put it on my thumb drive ready for tomorrow’s interview.

Mike Knows My Mo Friend

March 28th, 2009

With the transfer to Spokane I started in the wee hours of the morning I was running later than I wanted to be. We had dinner at Frank’s on the way out of Spokane. Then it was back to the fire station. I cleaned up and went to my house to change into my street clothes.

I went to Phil’s house for the draft. That lasted nearly five and a half hours for me. I ordered pizza for the whole group. We got five large pizzas. I was drafting my team. As always I was working on getting players I hadn’t heard of. But I also picked up some of the players who I knew, but are not great for fantasy baseball. Players like Griffey are fun to have, but they will not get me a lot of points.

I had to leave with enough time to run to my house and put my fire department uniform back on to go to the Deuce. I was taking Engine Thirty-One to Smith Gym for the Family Fun Fair. We were there to show some of the equipment to the kids. We also got dinner out of the deal. I had a couple reserves go up with me.

When we completed that I had to rush back and wash the vehicle. Then I went home to change into my county uniform. I was working with Mike. I called him up as I was leaving because I was running late getting to the SO because of the previous event.

We got on the road after he finished up some of his DUI videos. Then we hit the road. The weather sucked. We got called to Endicott for a person who said that a friend was going to hurt himself. After clearing that call as unfounded we went to dinner at Zips.

We then headed over to Pullman. We ran some traffic out on the Pullman-Moscow Highway. While out there I heard EMS get dispatched to the same address we were at earlier in Endicott. We didn’t respond because the snow was really bad and there were people closer than us.

We made our way to Colfax as we were called out on a Nine-One-One hang up. En Route we talked to the residents and got information that there wasn’t a problem. We stayed in Colfax for a while running traffic. We made a lot of stops. One stop was of a couple guys who use to have a radio show after my show.

Mike and I talked about how it seems in some ways that things are not as busy as they use to be. I talked about how Pullman PD would be dispatched on at least one beeper call each weekend night. Now it seems much more rare. They have tons of noise complaints and whatnot though. I was talking to Mike about a friend of mine who is a deputy that I met while in Stephenson together. We worked in the jail and he was at one time a reserve.

Mike told me about how that guy probably doesn’t like Mike at all because when they were in the academy together Mike outed my friend to many of his co-workers one night while in a bar together. He said he feels really bad about it and wanted him to know he is sorry.

I asked how he knew, and he said that he has a good friend who is gay. He said that he can tell based on “gay radar”.

At the end of the night I got my paperwork completed and went home. It was about four in the morning when I went to sleep and that capped off my twenty-four hours without sleeping.

Bien’s Going Away Dinner

April 11th, 2008

The plans for the morning after working out was to do the call with NU and work on my Windows Home Server. The call lasted around thirty minutes. Windows Home Server took longer. At first the install was crapping out. Finally I got it to fully install and for it to connect to my desktop. I also got my laptop set up. I then put one more hard drive into the server. I have a total of three five-hundred GB hard drives in the system. I copied all the data from my external drive to the system and have it set up to do a redundancy. I believe that my data should be pretty well protected.

Wilcox and I went to get the new rescue and get it back in service. We had to pick it up and move the tools over. When we were at station one I was given a pair of leather fire boots. I am happy about that. From what I have been told they are lighter and more flexible to work in.

We went to the Deuce to start on the BBQ. Bien was running late. So when the food was ready he wasn’t there. But neither were the guys from station one because we started to get a couple calls when the dinner was supposed to be ready.

It turned out only the reserves were there without Bien. It was sort of funny that the dinner just wasn’t working out very well. I invited Heston to come down as well. He was going to work the baseball game until we could get a couple people up there to relieve him. Chipper and I ended up relieving him.

The Cougs were getting blown out by ASU. We were standing at the top watching the game and talking. Heston left after a little while. While we were there a foul ball came right at us. Chipper got out of the way really fast, I sort of leaned to the side. It hit less than a foot from where we were standing. It then bounced off the top of the brick wall and towards the crowd.

People saw us get out of the way and one guy was giving us a hard time that we were supposed to protect the people yet we were getting out of the way. I said that if the ball was on fire I would have run to it. He then said out loud to other in the crowd to give us a round of applause. As they clapped Chipper and I were a little embarrassed.

Following the game it was pretty dead. There were a couple EMS calls but nothing for the engine to do.

Better Weather for Softball

April 6th, 2008

This afternoon the weather was not snowy and it was a lot better for softball. It was a little on the wet side still. I worked the WSU Baseball game first. The Cougs had a big first inning with seven runs, but then let the game slip away.

Later I was on my way to the Valley Road Playfields for some softball. The first game was coed. It was a FFT because not enough women showed up. That is part of the reason why I hate running the coed team. But as a returning championship team I had to put it together again.

Then it was off to our men’s games. The first game my hitting woes continued. I have been having a hard time seeing the ball or something. I am swinging and missing when I shouldn’t. Then there is the whole not making good contact on the other times I am hitting it. We won the game pretty easily. Dave pitched a one-hit shutout.

The second game was against a better team. We battled after being down by eleven runs. We got two back and then battled some more. We had an eight run inning getting us closer. But they were still scoring runs.

We were having some issues with the field umpire hesitating on calls and making a blatantly bad call. That took us out of three innings. We still came close. We put the winning run to the plate with two guys on. But when the batter hit the ball, the umpire didn’t see the play at first. He hesitated on the play. Didn’t know what happened and called our guy out for the final out of the game. That was madding. We were not very happy about it. We ended up losing that game.

Ryan came over to my place. We watched the Sunday night Fox shows and ate some pizza.

Fantasy Baseball Draft

March 29th, 2008

I made my way to Phil’s house for the baseball draft. I wasn’t sure how it all worked as Ryan did this last season. This year it is me running the team because Ryan didn’t want to do it. After getting my computer set up and on a wireless network the draft started.

It took almost six hours in all. We stopped for some pizza from Pipeline during the event. We ordered six pizza’s in all. I ended up making this my free day as I had both pizza and some cookies. I used some guidelines I downloaded from a website showing what each player should go for assuming it was an auction style draft. I payed around what the site said the players were worth for the most part. I got some of them cheaper.

Overall my team was made fun of for being a ninety-eight all-star team. More or less they are saying my team is old and out of the prime. I don’t know how it will do.

After that I called mom to talk to her for a while. It was her birthday today. I bought her a GPS for her birthday and gave it to her the last time I was in town. She really likes it.

I went to the Keeton’s and played poker with them until around midnight. Denise was doing well and she ended up being the big winner on the night. I think I ended up down about ten bucks.

We had a good time playing cards and laughing at the stories we were telling.

Day Two of the Emerald City Classic

July 1st, 2007

We had our first game at ten in the morning again. So I was up at the field at nine in the morning for warm ups. We were in the rec C-division. It is a single elimination tournament from here out. We lose we go home. Our first game was against another Seattle team.

We should have really beat them down, but we allowed them to scored eleven runs in one inning which game them a huge boost. But we battled back and ended up beating them by a couple runs. We then went to play Chicago.

They scored early and often against us. We could not get runs going. We had a play at second base where our guy was running to second. Their shortstop was in the way and they collided. The short stop was down for a minute. Then he got up. Later in the game he was hurting bad and was having a hard time breathing.

I had hit a ball to the new shortstop. He made a throw across the diamond. I ran out the ball and was safe. When I got to first I looked over and he was on the ground being helped by a couple EMT’s. Then an ambulance came and took him to the hospital. We ended up losing.

On the way to Red Robin to have some lunch with the team I had a message from my mom. She said that Hargrove quit the M’s. That was a shock with the M’s on a seven game win streak and being four games out of first place.

When we were done eating we were sitting around the table talking. I remember something I just learned about the diameter of the opening of a glass compared to its height. That it is usually quite a bit larger. So I was showing everyone. I ended up putting the glass on top of a container with the packets of sugar, plus a cell phone. I measured it out and the mouth opening was still bigger. Then the glass fell from about three inches off the table and actually broke. Everyone was laughing.

When the food was done I went to Best Buy and got some CD-R’s that do lightscribe for my new burner. I went home and watched the M’s game. It was Hargroves last game. The M’s won again.

Going to an M’s Game

June 27th, 2007

In order to make it over for the baseball game I got on the road early, but I had to wait until eight o’clock in the morning because I had to go get my softball mitt which was up at the parks and rec office.

I pulled into Issaquah close to the time the guys were leaving on the bus. I called Jon and he said he was putting out a fire at work so we was going to be late. I went to Dairy Queen in Eastgate then I stopped in at the park and ride to wait for Jon.

We got underway, but with the traffic and parking we were not going to make it for the first pitch. We did make it without missing too much of the first inning. We were able to listen to the game as it was being broadcast on the speakers.

Around the seventh inning I got a call from JT in Bellingham. He asked if I was at the M’s game. I told him I was. He said he saw me on TV. Later on that night while the game was being rebroadcast I got a text message and a second phone call from people who saw me there.

I was on TV second time was a ball came down to our seats. It was a pop-up and it was coming right to my brother. I was next to him. He had his mitt up. The ball was coming right to him. Then a guy, who was a Boston fan, stuck his hand over Jon’s mitt and caught it.

The Boston “fans” in Seattle… that is something else. I cannot believe there are so many people who live in Seattle and for some reason are all fan of Boston. In fact it gets loud in Safeco with all the Boston fans. They are annoying. I think next time I am going to wear some Yankees stuff to just make the Boston fans mad. Because if the person is a real Boston fan he will not like seeing the NY stuff.


Safeco Field

The view without Zoom on my Camera

Using my camera for the same shot with a 12x zoom

Ichiro making a play in center field

Pitcher is in the pitching motion

A little in front of the ball. The ball has a red colored highlight around it to make it easier to see

Working Cougar Baseball

May 18th, 2007

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

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

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

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

Washtunca’s Interesting Announcing Location

March 31st, 2007

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.

Fantasy Baseball Owners Meeting

March 8th, 2007

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.

A Year in Review

January 1st, 2007

JanI 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.

FebGrandma 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.

MarMariners 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.

AprChampionship 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.

MayI 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.

JunTory 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.

JulBecoming 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.

AugSold 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.

SeptCrew 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.

OctMercer 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.

NovBuying 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.

DecThirteen 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.

Umpiring Baseball

April 19th, 2006

After spending time getting the roles taken care of for my Sollen work. I went to Logan’s baseball game. I got there before the game started. Jon was doing some warm ups with the kids on the team.

Jon got me to be the home plate umpire. It is weird rules. They use a hand operated pitching machine. They get ten pitches or four strikes where there was a swing and a miss or a foul ball. The coach had me be very lenient. So we would ignore strikes if the pitch was really bad. So some kids got five and six strikes. They can score up to four runs an inning then it is over.

So I had to keep track of pitch count, strikes, and runs scored. It really wasn’t all that hard. It was interesting being a homeplate umpire when you don’t actually have to call strikes. You only have to observe them happening.

I went home when that was done and we had hamburgers for dinner. I watched Southpark and I tried to watch one more show but I fell asleep.

Spring Training Day Three

March 8th, 2006

Again we got up early to go play golf. Today we were playing at the third oldest golf course in Arizona. It was cold and my back started to hurt so I only played the first fourteen holes or so. Then rest of the time I drove the cart. Early on when I was playing I lost several balls in the water. I seemed to always be able to find the water.

After golf it was off to more baseball games. The weather was getting warmer. I was feeling really bad and I started to feel really sick after a while. So I walked around for a while and stayed in the shade. The Mariners lost again. We had some time before the evening game against the Japan National Team. Ichiro is playing for it. It was weird to see him play against the M’s.

I stayed in the car and slept for most of the time between the game. Finally it was close to game time and the others who were at Hooters came and got me. We went to our seats. Dan Wilson was in the dugout for the game. It was neat to see him.

The M’s lost that game. They were in it for early on. Then Japan took a big lead. Only for the M’s to come within one in the last inning. But they could not do it.

We went to a Bar-B-Q place near the stadium. It was good food and huge portions. I could not eat everything.

After eating we went back to the hotel and relaxed for the evening rather than going out like the nights before.

Spring Training Day Two

March 7th, 2006

Today was a long day starting out by getting up early to go golfing. It was my first time out since playing in Pullman last fall. We rented carts which was nice. We played eighteen holes. It cost about fifty bucks for the green fees and the cart. A lot more than I am use to paying at Pullman. I did okay. I shot my normal one-thirty-ish on the holes.

I liked the course. Jon, Jim, and Terry did some skins and other bets on the course. I stayed away from the betting. I would have won one hole with my par. But for the most part I cannot keep up with them very well.

After golfing we had to hurry to get to the baseball game. It was being played at a different park. We had been in the sun all day yesterday and today. Jon was starting to get sunburnt pretty good.


Jon is really red

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.

The Mariners lost again. It is becoming a pattern this spring training. But it is fun to be there all the same. I found number Sixty-Five, Rob Johnson, is a ten-six-seven. At least that what I can see from the stands.

After the game we went to a casino for a few hours and then we went to some gentleman’s clubs. We got in for free with our baseball game ticket stubs.

Spring Training Day One

March 6th, 2006

It was weird to not go to work today. I was up early and I got ready to go to the airport. We are playing to Arizona for Spring Training for the next four day. Jon and I went from my place to get Jim then terry. Both live in the highlands. We got to SeaTac and waited for the flight.

It was not too bad of a flight down. When we got to Arizona Terry and I went to get the rental car. Jon and Jim got the luggage. We were running late and went straight to the stadium for the baseball games. We pulled into the stadium as they opened the parking for anyone to take. So we parked for free and we were in the front spot. It was nice. We got to our seats.

We were so close you could hear the players and see the action well.


Close to the action

The Mariners actually won this game. It was fun to see them win one. You could see all the young guys who were trying to make the team as they ran back and forth around the infield area. There were a lot of ten-six-sevens. I wish I could have taken a lot more photos. I want to get a press pass should I go back. I need to work with KZUU about getting me one.

After the game we went out on the town. We drove to a casino and everyone played table games. I only watched. I was not going to play. I was watching at one table. There was a ten-six-seven. I could not get enough. I just stayed there for ever.

Then we went to a strip club. It was not my idea, but I was the designated driver for the whole thing. So I had to drive everyone there. I was trying to stay entertained as well as I could until my brother bought me a lap dance. Wow. That is not my cup of tea on so many levels. The girl was nice and we were able to talk and I felt sort of normal. My brother was laughing.

We headed back and got to bed around three in the morning. We have to be up around seven. I am going to be tired tomorrow I would guess.

Playing Umpire

April 27th, 2005

At work today I finished up what I started yesterday. There was a question I got answered to know what way I needed to fix a stores procedure. It turns out I had it going correctly. But I love how I have to get from one value to another. I have the number of the loan application. From that I get the loan officer’s number. Then I use that to find the loan officers’ office. I use that number to find whether a certain value is a one or a zero. Depending on what it is, it will tell the system what E-mail we should send.

Jon asked if I could help him launch the boat. So I left work around three o’clock pm. We dropped the boat into Lake Washington. We cruised around for about ten minutes. Then we went back to Jon’s and had some dinner. Logan had a baseball game. He is in the first grade. They just got out of T-ball last year and now they have a machine pitch league this year. I was the base umpire.

I remember most of the things I had been taught. But I was dealing with first graders. So I was a little worried about how I should call things. Young kids seem to cry a lot. So in one inning there was a really close play at third base. When I was learning to be an umpire I was told that on the close calls you are loud and clear and I dropped the hammer and yelled “OUT!”. After the inning was over Jon came up to me. He held his heart and laughed. He said he thought that call would have caused the first grader to cry. I started to laugh. I guess that is because I am so evil.

After the game we went back to Jons. We had some ice cream and I hooked up the boat trailer to my truck and brought it to my moms house where I parked it by the shop. I went inside to watch CSI:NY.

During CSI I saw a commercial for Cold Case. I was thinking about how Cold Case uses popular music from the era when they do their flashbacks. It sort of goes along with that I wrote about earlier today.

Coaching little league baseball

April 5th, 2005

I got the LPX XML validator working correctly, so I started in on the console application that will check the date on a file and E-mail our network admin if it is wrong. I got most of it written, but at four o’clock PM I had to head out for a baseball game.

I went to the baseball field. I helped to line the field first. Then I worked with the boys. I did grounders to the second baseman who would throw it to first. But these are all first graders so it is pretty hard to keep their attention. Like Jon said it is like herding cats.

The game started and I hung out in the outfield helping the kids stay focused and telling them where to throw the ball when a play happened. I also played first base coach. It is funny these kids have such a different level of experience and ability.

When the game was complete I went home and got some dinner. I watched House and I tried to watch Deadwood, but I was so tired I kept dozing off. I finally decided to call it a night and went to bed.

Mariner’s Opening Day 2005

April 4th, 2005

I woke up before five o’clock am today so I could get a few things completed before Ryan and I were to meet up at Rosauers. I went to the coroners office and checked out the new computer in the coroners office. It is a four-hundred MHz system. Pete wanted me to see if it would work for what we need. It needs a CD-burner and a card reader but it should do okay. It is maxed out with two-hundred-and-fifty-six meg of RAM. So it is slow, but for what we need to do that should be okay.

I went to Rosauers and I was ahead of schedule so I got an omelet for breakfast. Ryan showed up and he grabbed a donut. I ate and then we headed out. I had my personal radios so we could talk. He kept up with me just fine. We cruised across the state talking about everything.

When we got into Bellevue he followed me to my work. I made him instructions on how to get back. He was going to meet me at noon for the Mariners game. Terry gave me permission to skip a meeting so I could hit the game. I spent some time at my desk working until a little after noon. Ryan showed up and we headed out. I was in my truck and he drove his car. We planned on going to the Bellevue Park and Ride and going from there. But it was packed so we went to the Factoria Mall. I parked my truck and got in with Ryan. There was a lot of traffic on I-ninety when we got close to the field so we went South on I-five. But it was not much better on the surface streets.

Finally after finding no free parking and no place to park for pay, we drove to the Seahawk Stadium parking garage. We parked there and got inside about ten minutes before game time. We missed the Presidents of the USA concert, but we did see the salute to the ninety-five season and we saw Edgar throw out the first pitch. In the first inning Sexson hit a three-run homerun. In the third he hit a two run homerun. That was all the Mariners scored. Jamie Moyer pitched really well and got the win. The Mariners beat the Twins five to one.

Then we left and got a polish sausage for each of us. They were pretty spicy. When we got back to Ryan’s car at the top of the parking garage we sat there for a while. Ryan talked on the phone and I took two more pictures. I had a water. We thought about waiting for the traffic to settle down but I said we would be better off going. I expected to sit for an hour to get out. It only took about fifteen minutes. Then we got on I-ninety and cruised to the Factoria Mall. I got my truck and headed home. Ryan called and said his parents wanted me to go to dinner with them. But they were eating back at Factoria and they were all there. I said that I was pretty much home and my parents were expecting me for dinner there.



Before the game Boone was given his Gold Glove Award.


Edgar throws out the first pitch. It was a little outside.

Jamie Moyer throws the 1st pitch of the 2005 season. It was a ball.

Ichiro gets his and the Mariners’ first basehit of 2005. A single to right.

A Moyer pitch is fouled off. You can see the ball above the hitter.

Richie Sexson hits his first homerun as a Mariner. The first Mariner homerun of 2005 and earns the first Mariner RBI’s of 2005. You can see the ball near the first base line. The ball went out in left field over the hand operated score board.

Sexson comes around after his homerun.

Sexson stats. Including his 1.000 batting average.

Sexson’s second at bat and second homerun. You can see the ball above the umpires head. The ball went out in dead center field near the 405 mark.

Sexson touching home after his homerun.

Sexson’s stats, including his two homeruns, five RBI and 1.000 batting average.

Everyday Eddie comes in to finish the game.


The final score of the first Mariners win in 2005.

T-Ball Practice with Justin

March 23rd, 2005

Jon is down in Arizona for the Mariners Spring Training. I was asked to take Justin to his practice because Lisa would be taking Logan to his practice. I got off work a little early and drove to Jon’s to get Justin.

We started to go to the field and I asked Justin if he knew where we were going. He said he did not. So I said, let’s drive around until we find it. He said okay. So I went to where it was. And then he got all excited. He said we were in the right spot. Then we got his stuff from the truck and he hurried to the field because he thought we were late. We were the first ones there. I threw the ball with him for a while. Well it was more like ran after the ball when he threw it and rolled it back to him. Then the practice started. That takes a lot of talent to work with a bunch of five-year-old kids with an attention span of about thirty seconds.

Follow practice I took Justin home and waited for Lisa. Justin and I played a Scooby Doo video game while we waited. When Lisa got home she fixed pizza for us. Justin, Logan, and I played some board games. The last game we played was sorry. I lost to Logan on it. I think he played with some rules that were not regulation, but that was house rules, I guess.

I headed home after that. I watched my CSI TV shows. I decided to go to bed earlier than normal because I wanted to try to get a decent night’s sleep.

Hanging out with Ben

March 12th, 2005

I got a call from Ben to start out my morning. We planning on meeting up and doing a short golf lesson and hitting the a bucket of balls. I met Ben at the golf course I paid my fees and bought a bucket of balls. I pulled out the seven iron and he started by telling me a lot of things about stance, holding the club, and the swing.

After getting through the bucket of balls my back was really hurting, but I was ready to get going. Ben’s friend showed up and we started with our three-some. After the first hole there was a solo golfer behind us. We invited that guy to join us. He did so for the rest of the way we had a four-some. I was not having the best of days but I was holding my own. Ben would give me some instruction on the course when certain situations came up. He taught me how to get out of a sandtrap. After we were done with the round of golf Ben and I decided to go to the WSU baseball game that was underway.

We went inside and saw Mark from our softball team. We sat behind home plate a few rows back. The score was seven to zero in the first inning. The Cougs were doing well. But while we were there we only saw good pitching, with no offense to speak of. Towards the middle of the game Ben asked if I wanted to go to his place and get something to eat real fast then come back.

So we drove to Ben’s and I had a beer and a TV dinner. We started to watch some of the Best of Will Ferrell. As we got into it Ben said we would go back to the game at three pm. So we left and walked back into the stadium. We got our seat. Started to get into the game. A guy from the other team hit into a double play and the game was over. We sort of laughed about the fact we came back for one more play.

We went back to Ben’s apartment. We were going to watch a couple movies. When I got there he had the idea to hit the softball for a while. So we went to the playfields and hit the ball about thirty times each. Then we went back to Ben’s apartment. We watched Caddyshack and Anchorman. I had never seen either of those movies. I was laughing so hard during them. Ben made a couple bags of popcorn. I could not believe how funny those movies were.

I talked to Ryan and we decided to go to dinner at Applebee’s in Moscow. So Ben and I rushed over there. We sat down and ate. JT was our waiter. He gave us all free pop. That was nice of him. After we finished eating we decided to hit the bars in Pullman. Ryan was the one who really wanted to go. So Ben got his car and drove us to My Office. We got on the trivia and I had one more beer. We played trivia until about two in the morning. Ben offered me a place to stay for the night, but I decided to head back to Colfax and sleep there.

Today was a blast. I have not had a day like this for a while. Just being busy doing fun stuff, one thing after another. And on top of that getting a chance to hang out with Ben so long without other people around. It was just a wonderful day.