Another Dead Day with BWil

July 30th, 2010

This morning I started working at the fire station in Colfax. It was my third straight morning there. It was only going to be half a day because I am also working the road this evening. I have BWil riding with me.

While we were having lunch we got a call for motorcycle accident. I went out on it with the ambulance. We ended up transporting. I got back just before two when I was supposed to meet with BWil. I got my uniform on and I met up with Brandon. We washed my car and then hit the road.

We hit dinner with Matt and Kelly at McDonalds. I was working on getting some of my cases closed. They were getting to McDonalds so we had to hurry down there. When we walked in they got up and started to walk away. I knew they would do something like that. They laughed and sat back down. We talked about the temp position with WSU PD. I still have not heard back from the PD. I have no idea how I am doing with the process. But based on the fact I have not heard back I think I am out of the running.

It was pretty quiet overall. We did a lot of patrolling on the county roads. I hit Hole In The Ground and Kackman roads. Nothing at all was found. It is sometimes nice to have a rider. We spent time talking about laws surrounding searching. It was nice to have someone to chat with.

Colfax Fire Day Two

July 29th, 2010

I started off the morning with a call that came out five minutes before shift change. We went to the EMS call at Whitman Health and Rehab. When it was done I got back to the station and restocked the EMS bag. Then I worked on doing rig checks on Eleven Zero Three. I also went over some more stuff with Tim.

I spent time on the phone with Jon and my mom about the job offer. I was getting their thoughts on the whole thing. I am still not sure what would be best. I am going to be working a job that will not be helpful with me financially. My mom said that she would be willing to help me out. She offered to buy my house and that I could pay her back. Because of the rates she is getting on her money she said that if she were to have me pay her the same rate she would get from the bank she is getting in interest. She is getting less than two percent. Meaning my rates would be low and it would make it easier for me to make the payments.

I ran one fire alarm with Tim. It was at the Shabby Abby apartments. It was a cooking issue. We reset the alarm and headed back. We had lunch with Bryce. We ordered a pizza. For dinner we had lasagna and garlic bread.

I contacted Chris telling her I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. She suggested that I take the weekend to think it over.

Colfax Fire Day One

July 28th, 2010

I got up and worked with Jen. It was a quiet day. I worked on doing the weekly on the ladder truck. That took a couple hours. We also did lunch together with a couple of the guys.

While working I got a call from Chris from IT with the county. I was offered the job working as the county IT guy. With the low amount of pay I am concerned over whether I should take the job.

I went over and met with Chris about the idea of doing a ten-ninety-nine. That didn’t go over as well as I hoped. But I got a run down of the things I would be doing. I told her I would need to think it over for a while. I needed to decide if working for less money than my monthly bills are would be a good idea.

I was in a conversation with Perry, Bill, and Scott over at the PD. While we were talking Bill said that if I wanted to be a part-time Colfax Police Officer he would be willing to hire me. He said he is selective and he thinks I would do a good job. I am going to consider doing that. I think it would be cool to have that job.

It was a quiet day and night. I didn’t get any calls.

Lose One and Win One

July 27th, 2010

The first game was the one game playoff for the league championship. We were playing against Coors Light. It was going to be a tough game. Based on the guys I saw they brought one of their better teams.

We battled back from a big deficit to come within a couple runs. Then they had a five run inning in the seventh. We ended up losing by five runs. It sucked to lose the game.

But we had to turn around and get ready to play Bomb Squad as a team that we had to beat to get to the championship game. I got three hits and we won by nine runs. It was a good solid victory. I went to My Office with some of the guys from the team. I had dinner then went home and got my motorhome packed to head down to Colfax Fire.

I got my motorhome set up and I planned on being at the fire station for the next couple days to work on my training to be a temp full-time worker.

A Week of Work

July 13th, 2010

This is part of a full week I spent in Colfax working and living in my RV. It starts on Tuesday July 13th and goes through Sunday July 18th, 2010.

The plan was to head down to Colfax in the early afternoon, but I got called in to do a transfer for PFD. I went on it with Chia. We hit Outback before we headed back to Pullman. It was a nice trip being able to hang out and chat with him on the way home.

I got my motorhome loaded and headed down to the fire station in Colfax. I had to be up at four in the morning to watch an inmate at the hospital. When I got to the fire station I got my motorhome set up and then went into the station and started to chat with Tim and Bryce. I let Tim know I would be responding on calls should any come in.

I went to bed only to have my alarm clock waking me up at half past four in the morning. I went to the hospital and waited around for four hours for the doctor to release the inmate. It was a long boring four hours. Actually, the first hour was not too bad as I was able to sit there and talk with Ross.

I went back to the fire station and started to work there. I worked with Jenny on driving the engine and getting familiar with the town and getting familiar with the engine. There were no calls while I was there.

Steve, Scott, Jenny, and I had lunch together. Then Jenny and I took the ladder truck outside and I flew the ladder on it. I left a little before four to work in the jail. It was a slower day in the jail. To the point where I wanted to go home early, but I don’t do that. I just pushed through the sleepiness.

When I was finally able to get to bed I was worried we would get a call because I was so tired. There was a call, but it was an ambulance call outside of the city, so I didn’t have to get up. That was good news for me.

When I finally got up on Thursday morning, I went in and worked with Tim. We did some more driving of the engine. But this time we went to several larger buildings with fire alarms to see where they are located. I also looked for the FDC’s on buildings. We had hamburgers for lunch from Rosauers.

After lunch I was trying to keep my energy level up, but I wasn’t much for getting into any big projects. I had to work at the jail again. It was a crazy busy day. I ended up working an extra hour. We had a hearing, two write-ups for hearings, and an uncooperative inmate. But the time I was done around eleven at night, I got out to my motorhome. I went to bed shortly after getting out to the motorhome. I wanted to hit the road early so I could get a full day on the road in order get a full day in before I had to be back to Pullman so I could work at PFD.

Friday morning started out and I looked for my patrol car. It wasn’t outside. It was out at the county shop. But I had no way to get to it. I was mad because I was told by Melcher that he was going to bring it back when he was done working. He used it to go get his patrol car. But he decided not to and it left me high and dry. I sent him a text and he said he would give me a ride out there in about an hour.

I got a ride out there by Curtis about ten minutes later. I left my phone in my motorhome so Melcher tried to text me and call me. I got my car and brought it to the office. I washed it and got it ready for the shift. I hit the road and went out Twenty-Six. I got some good speeds out there. I had one guy at thirty over. I was told by a trooper that he stopped the same person and wrote him a second ticket.

I got dispatched to a house alarm and went there with Dan. It turned out to be false. We went to lunch together. Then we parted ways. I went South for a while. But it was a little slow and it was getting closer to the time I was going to have to call it quits. I figured I had one hour. I was going to go to Albion and put in an hour there.

As I was driving on Twenty-Seven near the pumps I heard “Fire District Twelve, Pullman Ambulance, Delta response for an injury accident.” At this point I knew I would be in the general area. The dispatcher continued with the address of the wreck. It was very close to where I was. I actually was on scene seventeen second after I called en route to it. It took a total of thirty-two seconds from the time they started the dispatch to the time I was there.

Coming into it I didn’t know how bad it was going to be. I had heard there were injuries. They said there were obvious injuries. But that didn’t mean a lot to be because that could be a cut arm or something more. When I got there, what I saw I was not prepared for, but I knew it was bad.

Following the car accident I headed to the office. I had found coverage at the fire department. I wrote my report. While in the office a case was coming up. Several of us went to it together because of the chance the person might fight us.

It turned out to be a non-event. When that was done I headed back to the SO. That was the end of my night. I went to the mortohome and watched Rescue Me on my computer.

On Saturday morning I got back up and started another day on the road. It was a pretty slow day. I started with doing some traffic patrol. I also did an hour in Albion. We got called to a domestic in Uniontown. Scott and I went on that one. Scott was primary, but I was there a long time before he was. I started to handle the case and then caught him up once he got there. Once the bulk of it was over I cleared and did some more traffic. I wrote one ticket for sixteen over.

It was a slowish night. It was getting late when we went to a call for a runaway who claimed he would run from the cops. But he never ran from us. We hung out in Rosalia for about an hour shooting the breeze and talking shop.

I worked the road for a couple more hours, but it was still slow. I got one more stop before I finally went to the SO and went out of service for the night.

Sunday morning was going to be my final day in Colfax for this stretch because I was going to have to be in Pullman in the evening. I walked to Rosauers for breakfast then got my car and hit the road. I got several stops on Twenty-Six. People who were lying to me about things were making me mad so I started to write them tickets and wrote warnings to those who were honest with me.

I don’t write many people, but I was getting so sick of being lied to. I only worked the road for about five and a half hours. I had lunch with Matt, Ricky, and Welter from WSU. I worked my way back to Colfax after lunch. I worked to make a couple more stops before calling it a night.

I grabbed my motorhome and went back home. I unloaded the motorhome and then went to the fire station. There were some people on OT so they made dinner. They were eating at the Deuce. They invited me to have some dinner with them. I had also bought some M&Ms from Dismores to have during rig checks.

It was only Strom and I at rig checks. It took a while to get them all done, but it wasn’t too bad.

Lots of EMS Calls Today

May 27th, 2010

I spent some time sending this afternoon applying for some more jobs. I also found out the one I really wanted in Bellevue was a no-go. I sent the message about being willing to work on a short-term trial basis to prove myself. I hope that will show I am willing to do what it takes and that they give me a shot. But I am not holding my breath after I got the E-mail saying they were not going to be doing any more interviews for the position for a while. I was wished luck in my continued job search.

This afternoon while I was trying to relax and watch some TV, I heard Pullman get called out for two ALS transfers. I contacted the station about doing some drive time this evening with some of the recruits. I was told there were also two transfers from Pullman to Gritman. Not long after that Colfax got toned out for a transfer from Pullman to Gritman. So I called in and said I could meet them at the hospital if they needed. They took me up on it. We did a transfer. Returned and did the second transfer.

When those were done I went home and got some dinner before heading to station one for the drive time with the recruits. We drove around Pullman in one of the large ambulances because they need more time in it. We were out driving around until eight-thirty.

I watched some more TV and then headed to bed just before midnight. We got a call just after midnight. It was upgraded from a delta to an echo. When the call was complete I got home and took off my boots. Before I could sit at my desk to work on the stats we got called for someone who fell. Just before we had a chance to leave that call in the ambulance a second call came out for an assault victim. We left one rescue guy with the first call and went to the second one. Both were taken code-three to the hospital. That is rare for us to do that.

While at the hospital a guy who worked there asked if I was a cop. I jokingly asked if I gave him a ticket or something. He said I did. So I was trying to remember more about it. He gave me details, but I couldn’t remember it. He said it happened about two months ago. I told him I would look it up to see if it was me. He gave me his last name. When he did that, I started to remember it. I think I remember giving him a ticket. I don’t remember a lot of details around the stop. I hope that after I read my report I will remember some more.

The Blues

May 4th, 2010

I didn’t know what today has in store for me. This was one of those days with nothing except for softball planned. The way the weather was holding out I thought we might play. I was starting to make serious plans to play. But I found out around four o’clock PM that it was cancelled. The cancellation of softball left it open for me to go to OTEP training in Albion. We covered trauma assessments.

As the day started out I did a lot on my computer. I was reading up on some stuff online. I tried to find some resources that will tell me how to get the alternator out of my motorhome. I failed at that.

After training I came home and got online again. I chatted with someone online for about an hour talking about being a firefighter and houses. I was watching NCIS when they paged for a transfer. Then they paged for reserves. I waited about one or two minutes to call in. I have to get up early for my interview so I chose to allow someone else to take it so I could sleep. I knew if I took it I wouldn’t get back until late. I was the only one who called in.

I was told I was working with Chia. That would be interesting. He thinks I am mad at him right now. He tried to call me a while back and I didn’t call him back after he left a message. But what I found is that after I left the fire department working full-time I was forgotten about and not asked to participate with stuff. I came to the realization that we were co-workers who did some stuff outside of work rather than friends.

That said, when I got the call from him I know he wanted me for something other than to hang out. I figured it was something computer related or something related to the SO. I figured I would get back to him when I could.

A couple weeks ago he sent me a message on facebook saying that he hadn’t heard from me in a while and wanted to know if he did something to make me mad. I never responded, but there is nothing I am mad about. There have been many times where I sent him texts or said stuff on his facebook page with no response.

We went to Spokane and dropped off our patient. As we were coming back to Pullman, he said now that I have you trapped I want to know what I did to make you mad. I told him nothing. He pushed the issue several times, each time I told him I wasn’t mad. Later we were driving down the road and he fell asleep. I was thinking about how I could tell him what was up, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. Then he woke up and again asked if I was ready to talk. I wasn’t.

I was also thinking about things at the SO. I like the work, but I feel like every time I am in the same room with one guy he gives me a hard time. I don’t mind that because he does that to everyone and I laugh about it. But it also feels like I get “yelled” at for things. It feels like I am being held to a higher standard than some of the other guys. I am not sure if it is because more is expected of me or if it is something else. He has also given me some nice atta boy’s too. So, I am totally lost about how to read him. I know I haven’t done anything wrong while I have been there, but it feels like I cannot walk across the floor correctly. It makes going into the SO something I don’t want to do when that person is around. Who know, I am probably being hyper-sensitive.

But the whole trip back to Pullman I was very quiet. I didn’t say much of anything at all. When we got to the station I entered the call into the book. Chia completed his stuff and then left the room without saying anything. I left the station and went home to go to bed.

I need to talk to Chia, but I am not sure how to say what I am feeling. Really it is just that I feel like we are nothing more than co-workers. But that said I should be able to talk to him like I can my other co-workers. Last night was just a bad night with both of these things running through my head.

A Day at Colfax Fire

April 22nd, 2010

After getting packed I headed down to Colfax to work at the fire station. I made it on one call that came in while I was there. I was pretty tired so I went into my rig. Turned on my pager and went to sleep. I got about two hours of sleep before I had to be up for the meeting at the coroner’s office.

I got up just after five. I went to pick up the pizza. Then went to the coroners office. We had some dinner and discussed our cases from the last couple weeks.

I left Colfax to head to Seattle for training tomorrow. It was not that bad of a drive. The roads were pretty clear and I was able to cruise along. When I got home I watched some TV. I watched Trauma Life in the ER. Following that was a show called Critical Hour. It follows three or four cases along the length of the episode. One person they followed, I was watching. I was waiting for something to come of it. It was a football player who got hurt. When it was all done, they found nothing wrong and he was fine. It made me mad to watch the whole thing and have nothing come of it. It was like the story of Green Golfballs to me.

Computer Test in Liberty Lake

February 16th, 2010

This morning started off with a trip to Liberty Lake for an initial screening for a job. It was a written test that covered several topics I had no idea about. I talked to Jon about it afterwards and he pretty much said some of the things they were asking was pointless and worthless. It took about three hours of total drive time and about forty minutes when I was there.

After the interview I went to Colfax for patrolling. I went North via Endicott and St. John. I was burning some time before fire training in Colfax. I showed up a little late because I stopped by the funeral home where Pete was going over a case that had taken place a few hours earlier. He went over the findings with me.

I went to Colfax Fire and we did some stuff on ropes, knotts, and rigging set ups. When that was done I hit the road again and worked until two o’clock AM. It was a pretty quiet day. I wrote everyone warnings rather than tickets today.

Super Party for the Bowl

February 7th, 2010

After sleeping in until the noon hour I finally started my day, but I was running late. I was suppose to be at the Morgan’s by this time. So I hurried up and got ready. I got my uniform loaded into the Bumblebee. I headed off to the store to get some M&Ms. As I was getting to Dissmores I saw it was packed. The parking lot had people driving around and there was no obvious spaces available. I thought Safeway might not be as bad. But I was wrong. It was packed too. I got my stuff and headed to Ron and Heather’s place.

There were a lot of people already there. I had some food and talked for a small period of time. Because I was running late I decided that I wasn’t going to stay very long.

I got down to the station around two in the afternoon. I sat down for a game of seven-card-no-peak-baseball. I lost, but I bet a lot of quarters along the way. I ended up knocking some other people out of the game.

We stopped after that game for a while and had some food as it was getting close to game time. We watched the game for a little bit as everyone was eating. Then it back to playing. I won a couple pots, but I was draining money. The thing about poker there is pretty much everyone plays to the end of many of the games. There are very few tight people.

As it was getting towards the end of the poker night and the game there was a large amount of money in the pot. We were playing R.F. and there was a fair amount of money in the pot. I would guess around ten bucks. With the two dollar limit, it was five to one odds more or less. So I stayed in with three hearts and no wilds. That is sort of crazy to do. But I got a heart and a wild for a flush. That was enough to win. That win put me up on the night.

Once that was done I went to the SO and completed the last couple paragraphs of my report for last Sunday’s case. Then I hit the road. I went North and made a stop. I saw four cars go by me at between eighty-two and seventy-nine. But with all the traffic around me I wasn’t able to get to them before I lost sight of them. So I continued through Colfax hoping they would continue their speeding ways and I would pace them. But that wasn’t to be. I did get one for expired tabs on the South side of Colfax. Then I went to Albion and worked there for a while. It was very dead so I went to some other county roads outside of Pullman.

While out there I was dispatched to a Nine-One-One hang up near Palouse. Everything was okay there. I went to Palouse-Cove road. But I only saw two cars the whole time on the road. I sat and ran stationary radar and read some RCW’s while I waited.

I went South to Airport road and Two-Seventy. I was out on Two-Seventy when I heard a domestic get put out in Palouse. I started to head that way. I took it easy going through Pullman and then hit Twenty-Seven. I got on scene shortly after the Town Marshall.

The night was drawing to a close, so I worked my way back to the SO because I had paperwork to complete before going home for the night.

I am First Class!!!

February 6th, 2010

This morning it was an early morning for me. I have switched backing to being a late night guy, but I have to change that at some point in the future. But for now I guess I will let it remain.

I went to Colfax for the EMT class. I was helping Jeff with the class. He did pretty much all the teaching. I pretty much just watched and helped with the skills portion of the class. Several of us went to Subway for lunch.

After class I was off to the SO for the daylight and nighttime check off’s. I need two daytime and two nighttime traffic stops to complete my transition to first class. But no one was around. I was worried about that. Jordan showed up and Jimmy had called me back. I asked if Jordan would be able to check me off. Jimmy said that was okay.

Jordan and I hit the road. I made three stops really quickly. The final stop took me a while to find, but I got it. With those four complete I went to the SO to work on my report from last Sunday’s case. Cooper said that I can now go out on my own. It feels so great.

One of the first things I did was get the report nearly completed. That needed to be done before I went out to play. We all went to Subway for dinner. That was my second trip there.

Following that I went up North. I worked the Pine City-Malden road. I also worked in Tekoa for over an hour before calling it a night. I got several tickets tonight and while working stationary radar on the Pine City-Malden road I was able to get a lot of RCW’s read.

Transfer with Colfax

February 4th, 2010

I spent a lot of the day reading through my notes from the reserve academy. Before I was going to go to Colfax I got a call to see if I could help with a transfer. I said I could. So I went down early and did a transfer to Spokane.

When I got back I went to the SO and hoped to get my first class board. But it didn’t happen. Cooper looked over my arrests, hours, and whatnot. He said as far as he was concerned I could go up, but we needed to make it official. So one weekend when I was working they would do my board, but in the mean time I could go out on my own if I wanted. I was pretty stoked, but I still wasn’t done with the board. So I had to get that out of the way.

I went back to Pullman a lot earlier than I thought I would be back. I was on call, but I didn’t get any calls to roll on. I contacted Melcher about hitting the road tomorrow. We are going to go out around four and hit it. I am excited to get out on my own, but I also like working with the other guys. So I figured if I want to work and others don’t I will work, otherwise I will go out with the others. It is just the ability to choose that I like.

Switched to WordPress

February 2nd, 2010

After being with blogger since the beginning of the existence of my blog, I have made the switch. I didn’t want to, but Blogger said they were going to stop doing the FTP posts. That is the method in which I would put up my entries. So I first had to research the multiple blog systems out there and choose one. I was going to go with an ASP.Net version, but after finding WordPress and seeing the layout, I went with it. I want to have a similar look to my old blog as far as the right-hand sidebar goes.

I spent some time working on getting my blog backed up and moved into WordPress. That took some time and I had to fight through some issues. But it is done now and I think I am okay with it. One thing is I already received one spam comment. But I am going to keep them from being posted to my blog, I hope.

I also quit the web development stuff I had going. I pretty much submitted my first and last invoice for the sign up process. I then said I was giving my notice. I haven’t heard back from them. That surprises me. I figured they would at least try to find out what the deal was. I wrote some of my thoughts down about why I wanted to quit.

Specs from the company that are nothing more than screen shots. No direction about expected behaviour.

We are in a development period that I believe to be fundamentally detrimental to the overall final product. We are being told to develop the site, only to have a consultant group change some foundations to the site, which requires changes in multiple locations. These are such things that should have been done well before starting the site. In fact I asked about the free userlevel months ago and I was told it wouldn’t happen.

What I saw with the signup process worries me that people are not going to be willing to listen to ideas. Some of my suggestions have never been been considered and returned to me.

I had some initial concerns in this area. I spoke with several people who are elsewhere in the industry about my concerns and I got many opinions. Most of which I agreed with.

So I have been on edge over the above, but frankly Tim’s e-mail to me and multiple others about his inability to reach me after hours was the final thing. I tried to speak to David about it, but he has yet to return my phone call placed on Jan twenty-third.

I felt leaving while the sign up process was being completed was not the right thing to do. It is now complete (except for two images). I sent an e-mail to David on jan 30th about getting these two images. I have not received the images, nor an e-mail back. As of this time, I do not want to continue to wait for a response from David, I am sending all the code back, and someone else can insert the two images which will complete the sign up process… outside of the integration with the shopping cart (Page 5)….

Maybe they will ask, but I don’t know. I was disappointed by the way things were going. The money just wasn’t there. The payrate was good, but I was not seeing enough work and the work I was getting was being hurried and there was a lot of un-needed stress about getting things done on some random deadline.

I then spent time dinking around on the computer this evening. I also had training in Colfax today. It was actually in Steptoe for Colfax fire. I went down early and worked on some stuff at the SO, getting tickets written up and updating the hours for the month of January for everyone.

It is sort of a big day, I left a job, but it wasn’t like I quit because I really wasn’t doing a whole lot.

Fun Night of Poker

January 26th, 2010

This evening I was in Colfax for training. It was EVAP refresher. With being on two departments many times I get the same training from both departments. That is just the way it is. I have considered reducing my weekly requirements by leaving Colfax Fire. But as of right now I am not going to do that.

After training we had a great night playing poker. We had a full table and a ton of laughs. We had some new blood as well as the regulars. I was only able to stay until around nine-thirty because I had to be back in Pullman because I was on call tonight as well. I am only on engine and we didn’t have any calls for the engine.

A Crazy Busy Day

January 5th, 2010

It turned out my trip to Seattle today was delayed until tomorrow. I was going to get going in the morning, but due to the fact I really didn’t get my day started until after the noon hour I was behind the eight-ball. I started with a phone call for my new contract web job. It was clear that I should have read the e-mails. But from the ones I had read I was under a different impression. There are still issues with exactly what I need to get done. I guess I will get the UI work underway and work on hooking stuff up later on.

I went to Sprint to have my phone looked at. The year of some of my texts are coming back as twenty-sixteen. That was fixed by doing an update that was sent to my phone. I also considered updating my phone plan which will reduce my overall cost by about twenty bucks a month.

I went to the fire station to get some parts for a manikin for training tonight. I also talked to Ryan about getting the new maps made up for the map tests. I spoke with the chief about getting the career timesheets set up to work like the reserve timesheets I did. While I was showing the chief how it worked I found an error in a formula. The cells that I was looking for only covered about an eighth of what they should have covered. That meant I had a couple hours of work to update all the timesheets. That sucked. So when I got home I worked on that. It took me until nearly six to get done. But it is complete and I was able to update the server with the new timesheets.

I went to Colfax for fire training. We went over the King Airway. After practicing that I went to the SO to work on my supplemental report from the DUI from the other day. I also got my ticket written up and turned in.

When I got home I got a hold of Keegan on the computer. We went to Rico’s and sat there talking for about two hours. It was good to chat with him. He is a good looking guy. But he is just looking for friends, so I am not going to cross any lines. After we were done I went to shake his hand and he preferred to hug. So I gave him a hug.

Daytime on the Road

December 15th, 2009

I worked the road today with Melcher. We met up at ten o’clock and hit the road. We took a nine-one-one hang up. That was about the extent of our major responses. We hit lunch in Pullman. I drove for a while. We drove south towards the state line. I also drove us by the search area on Rimrock Road.

I was going to make a stop. But the driver stopped just after I got turned around and we were in a dead spot. I was able to get out as I was making the stop, but nothing more. So soon they were sending units to check on us. The Sheriff, the chaplain, Colfax Police Chief, and a trooper were all coming. Melcher took the stop and wrote a ticket as fast as possible. Then we got into radio communication where we were able to let them know we were okay.

I was supposed to have a meeting on the phone with the company I am doing the contract work for. But before the meeting time I got notified that it was cancelled. So Melcher and I stayed on the road longer. I got back in time for board and business at Colfax Fire. We covered the end of the year things such as the Fireman’s Toybox and the yearly elections.

After the meeting I went to the SO and worked on some reports that I had to complete from previous nights out on patrol.

DUI Crash Demo

November 3rd, 2009

Parrish woke me up this morning with a phone call to let me know the guys are coming over to start work on the installation of my new heater. It is a gas forced air furnace. It is made by Carrier. I went ahead and went with the upgraded model because with rebates it turned out to only be five hundred more than the lowest model. In the long run it could be the best option for me.

I left the house around ten-thirty to head up to the CUB mall for the DUI demonstration. The reserves are going to work on extricating some people out of a car as part of an example of what could happen in a car accident.

When I got up there WSU PD had booth and they had drunk goggles. I tried on a couple pair. I was amazed how those made it hard to walk.

I was talking to Garner who was up there as well. He said he is going to stick around Pullman for a while. He got a job working at Les Schwab. That is great for him.

I was thinking that Les Schwab seems to hire a lot of ten-six-sevens. Including the one I had written about several years ago who worked in Clarkston. They should do a men of Les Schwab calendar.

As it got close to the event the guys from the fire department came up. They were looking over the scene to make plans on how to do the work they needed to do. I got my video camera ready and started to video tape the whole thing. I got them coming to the scene with the sirens. Then the whole job of the extrication.

When they were done we went into the CUB and had lunch together. I went home afterwards and got the video downloaded to my computer and working on putting the video to some music.

I went to Colfax Fire for training tonight. We were doing OTEP. It was spinal injuries. The guy did a good job with the presentation.

Triple Layer at Colfax Fire

October 27th, 2009

I spent a lot of the day working on my music collection. I have been working on trying to standardize my collection. I am getting all the album names, song names, band names, genres, and what not. It took a long time to go through all the songs. Then I also standardized the naming convention. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time. But with the purchase of my Durango that stores music on the radio, I wanted to make these updates. The system uses the band name, album name, and genre to list songs. So I wanted things done correct.

I got a long way through but some songs were messed up and the tags were not being saved or they were not reading correctly. So I had to go through all the songs on the radio and see what ones were not displaying correctly. Then I had to use a program to run through those and fix them. Then I had to re-enter the data. It really was a big under taking. But now that I am done, it feels so good. Now my car has my whole music collection so I can listen to my favorites on the road without having to switch CDs.

I went to the Fire Station in Colfax for fire training. We were doing some work with the dump tanks and drafting. We also were working with the new hose loads. They are trying out the triple-layer loads.

With my foot in the walking boot I didn’t do much of anything except for watch. The people are new with the triple layer loads so one person who pulled it allowed a lot of the hose to just drop to the ground and got it sort of tangled up.

When we went to reload the hose there were some other issues involved. They are still new at it, so getting it set up and ready to pull aboard it was slow going. I helped make that go faster.

Fire Training House

September 29th, 2009

I went to Colfax Fire for training today. We had a training where we had to crawl around the training house. I went in with a new guy. We had to crawl in and do a wall search to find the area of the fire and spray some water. Then we continued the search without the hose and went through some obstacles. I had not been in there before so it was all new to me. We finished by exiting through a window and down a ladder. It was a good training.

We finished by washing a couple rigs and getting all the hose reloaded.

Three Hats Today

September 23rd, 2009

I ran a call with Pullman fire early this afternoon. We took it all the way to the hospital. When I got home I heard a call go out in Albion. So I went out there for that call. Due to manpower needs we called for D-Twelve to come and help. When they got there we got things taken care of. Parrish made a comment about my hat changing.

This evening I worked the sheriff’s office. I went out with Zehm. We had a call for some goats on the road near Palouse. We took care of it, it turned out they were not located. After some looking we found a neighbor who said he chased them back where they went.

I ran some traffic on some county roads. I got a couple tickets out of it. I also learned some more from Zehm. It seems like I learn things from Zehm. This time it wasn’t in reference to something where I messed up. He told me about asking people if they looked at their speedometer.

The night was pretty uneventful again. It seems to be uneventful whenever I go out on patrol. I seem to have the white cloud around me.

Back at Colfax Fire Training

August 11th, 2009

With the reserve academy and working at the fire department as well as Men’s softball, I haven’t been able to make it to a training in Colfax for ages.

I went to Colfax early so I could go look at the Suzuki. I had the money and I was ready to buy it. First I bought a helmet at the Honda dealership. But while in Colfax there were some issues with the bike. It took a while but we worked through them and got the bike going. The guy who was selling me the bike had his son helping us out. He is probably in his early twenties. A rugged ten-six-seven. I didn’t mind that the motorcycle was having problems because it allowed me to spend more time trying to fix it with the ten-six-seven’s help.

When the bike finally started to work I rode it around Colfax for a little bit, but I had to hurry because of fire training. I went back and told the guy that I was interested but I wanted to have more drive time with it when I am dressed for riding the bike. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt on Airport road doing fifty. I was thinking about what my arms and legs would look like after a crash.

Tonight at Colfax Fire it was the monthly board and business meeting. Those don’t typically last too long. When it was over I went back to Pullman. I was tired when I watched Rescue Me and missed the second half. So I went up stairs to my computer. And I watched it on TV next to my computer while I was doing some web surfing.

Command of Albion Call

June 17th, 2009

After getting a call at seven-thirty in the morning, I was running late for my dentist appointment. So I rushed there and got my teeth cleaning. It only took about fifteen minutes. Probably my quickest appointment ever.

I was on my way home when I heard about a structure fire in Albion. I wasn’t going to go until I heard Scott from Colfax request that D-Twelve and D-Eleven Colfax and Steptoe stations get dispatched. I called Colfax to have my turnouts brought in.

I drove to the scene and I knew no one was there, so I thought I might be first on scene. So I upped my response a little bit. An Albion unit with one person got to the scene the same time I did. I went to the rig and gave a size up of the scene and took command. D-Twelve got there. I sent two in to check for signs of fire or smoke. There was nothing. When an assistant chief from Albion got there I handed over command.

We spent the next twenty minutes going through the two apartments with a TIC and checking for a source of the smoke that was witnessed by the residents. We were not able to come up with anything. So everyone was cleared.

Tonight was Heather’s birthday at the Moose. I went down there after taking a nap. I made her a birthday card after I went to buy one. It was a big hit at the Moose. Her dad was there so were Dan and Michele. We sat around joking and laughing for several hours. I finally left around ten o’clock at night to go home.

Big Photo Shoot

June 2nd, 2009

I have been wanting to do this for a long time, and finally I got my fire department uniform to my house so I could set it up. I wanted to take a photo of myself in each of my uniforms. Then I would put it all into one photo to make it look like I posed for the photos all at one time.

I spent some time trying to get the lighting and other set up things just right. Then I put on one uniform after another. It took a long time to go through all the uniforms. One by one I had to put it on and use the ten second delay to take three photos. Then sometimes I had to change out the badges and other brass to other uniform parts for another photos. It was a long process. But the photos all turned out well.

I then started to go through the photos and chose what post to use for what side of the photo the pic would be on. It took a lot of time to cut out the background even though I was using a solid colored background. The whole process to make the photo took about six hours.

I then had to run off to the softball game. We were playing against Spellman’s team. It was crappy because we couldn’t hit the ball. Some of our best hitters didn’t have a hit on the night. We ended up losing after only scoring five runs. Spellman’s team scored twelve in the first inning alone.

I ended the night by watching Rescue Me. It is the first episode I was able to catch in the last three weeks.

EMS Week at Sunnyside

May 19th, 2009

After leaving the fire station Chia and I went to Tam’s Place for breakfast. We hung out for a while talking. We were going to work EMS Week at Sunnyside Elementary school. We were burning some time before we had to be back at the station.

We got back around nine-thirty and got our uniforms on. We took Ambulance Thirty-Two up to the school. I did my normal task of showing the outside of the ambulance. I felt really comfortable doing it and ran the kids through it.

After showing the ambulance to four groups we went to lunch with them. Then out to the playground. We played some wall ball and tag. The kids are full of energy and I was having a fun time as I always do.

This evening was fire training at Colfax. We are doing the red card refresher class. We watched the same material I got a couple weeks ago with Pullman so this was a review of the refresher stuff for me.

Following that I went to the SO to put the meeting minutes in the folder and send them out to everyone. I also saw Jordan. He was telling updating me about my Friday arrest. Like I said I am excited to see the process that happens as it goes through the justice system.

I went home and went to bed early so I could get up and go work out. I am in real need to do something as I am getting into some bad habits. I am not eating as well as I should. I need to get back into a routine. The fire department really hurts my routine, so I have to work extra hard to combat it. I have allowed the fire department and the SO to be excuses, but I cannot continue to use those excuses.

Dual Transfers

March 26th, 2009

I was hoping to work at the SO today, but I wasn’t able to get something set up. So instead I did two transfers with Colfax. We first went to the hospital to do one to Spokane. But when we got to the hospital they were not ready, so we left to go to Spokane and get someone from up there to bring them back to Colfax. But after we got outside Steptoe we got called back to the hospital in Colfax.

We turned around and picked up the patient from Colfax. Then off to Spokane. After we got to Spokane we went to pick up another and drove back to Colfax. I was the attendant for the second patient.

Before we left to head to the hospital a rep was there selling fire related items. They had some very nice structural gloves. I asked about the kangaroo gloves. I was told they are not good because when they get wet they get really slippery. I tried on a very nice pair with some good dexterity. I bought two pair. One for each department.

I was at Colfax fire for a while longer. We were listening in to the missing kid search from near Malden. They think he may have fallen in a creek.

Later we had the coroner meeting. That lasted about two hours. We discussed recent cases and then did our schedules. I got home and wrote up the schedule and sent it off to Whitcom and updated the Google calendar with the schedule. I brought up the idea of using the calendar to the group after Annie’s husband brought up the idea to me.

Another Colfax Structure Fire

March 25th, 2009

I slept in today because I was up pretty late last night. I talked to Pat about the property out on SR One-Ninety-Four. He is thinking about re-listing the property and wanted to give me a chance to make an offer before he puts it on the market. I told him about the things that I have done to learn about the property and what it would take to build on it. I am going to do some more work and then we will meet to discuss it. I think the only way I will get it to work is if I work out a deal to buy it via owner financing.

Around six o’clock today a call went out for a structure fire outside of Colfax. They called for Albion and Steptoe to respond. I went to the station. I made it to the scene in Brush One.

We were there for several hours. I was able to throw some water on the fire in the mop-up mode. It was pretty much out by the time I got there in the Brush rig. I helped to clean up the scene and took the rig back to the station. I was out of there around ten o’clock.

Got An Oil Change

March 24th, 2009

I was excited this morning to go to Lewiston to look at a Durango I found online the other day. It appeared to be exactly what I wanted. It was a fully-loaded SLT model. Last night, however, I noticed when I was online that it didn’t have leather seats. That made me a little nervous. I figured that would be one thing I can overlook.

But when I got there I found there were other things it didn’t have. Including navigation built into the radio. It has DVD, but not rear DVD. There were a lot of things like that. But the two biggies where the leather seats and navigation.

So we negotiated. I was able to get more money for my trade in. They offered to have leather seats installed. I still wanted the navigation. So we worked out a deal that we would install the radio with the navigation built in. But then I wouldn’t get the leather. As it was the rig was discounted about nine-grand.

So I made the deal that the leather would get installed at the cost the dealer was going to have to pay. I would pay that. The radio would be installed and I would have the rig. So I have to wait about one week to actually pick it up. In the mean time they are letting me “borrow” my old rig until the new one is ready. So the rig I am driving actually now belongs to the dealership.

It took several hours to do this deal. I was down there for a while. But I am excited to get it. I like the new rig.

I got home and then headed down to Colfax for fire training. We were doing stuff on fire alarms and sprinkler systems. We went out and looked at sprinkler heads and wedges to get the sprinkler shut off. We also looked at the alarm panel in the station. Then we talked about all the buildings with FDC and Knox boxes in Colfax.

After training I went home and I was working on my computer when I heard Colfax get dispatched to a structure fire around eleven o’clock. After I heard the update and a request to dispatch Albion and Steptoe, I went to the station. I didn’t get to the fire itself, but I did stand by the station until three in the morning.

I went to the hydrant that was set up to refill the water trucks. I was up there for about an hour helping to fill the trucks. Then they didn’t need a lot of water for a while so Tim and I went to the station. I left around three in the morning.

Training at Colfax Fire Again

March 17th, 2009

With fire training tonight I decided that I would see if I could set up a ride with Paul. We started by going to meet up with Vinny. We did a walk of one mile to see how long it would take us. This was to help with an accident investigation Vinny was doing.

Then we went to deal with a dog bite problem near Tekoa. It was a pretty quiet day with Paul. But he had some good information for me. One was that he uses the odometer. He resets it every time he passes a mile marker that ends with zero or when he starts on a new road so he can easily tell someone exactly how far he is from a known point to have people more easily be able to find him.

Fire training in Colfax was building construction.

Final Day of Academy Classroom

March 3rd, 2009

After nearly five and a half months of training tonight was the final class for the academy. We had a video for EVOC and the final test. I scored the highest on the test so I was happy about that.

Earlier I came down to Colfax. I was able to go on a call to Spokane on the ambulance. It was a pretty straight forward transfer. I spent a lot of my time talking with the patient on the way up.

After the class was done I was going to the Zuu for a celebration of the end of class. I invited everyone else to come with me. All the Pullman people ended up showing up for the celebration. We had beer and tacos. I also sang a couple songs. I got one with Peter and one with Jesse Two.

I was at the Zuu until nearly one-thirty in the morning. While we were there a lot of homoerotic joking was going on. One thing happened with Jessie. I jokingly said that I would switch for her. One of the D-Twelve guys, Neils, was there and heard me say that. He made mention that there have been rumors around D-Twelve and Eleven about me being gay, but he didn’t know it was true. I sort of laughed it off. I am not too surprised that they know, but I guess I am also a little surprised.

I think that at least some of the people at Colfax have to know because I heard about one person there saying that during the wildfires last year that she found my blog and they were reading it while sitting on the fireline trying to pass the time. If they have read it, then they had to have found some of my posts that point out my gayness.

Nothing at Colfax Fire

February 25th, 2009

I went to the county today to look up information on the land that Pat has for sale. I am trying to find out what it would take to build on the land to include crossing the seasonal creek, flattening the land, and putting in an engineered sewer system.

It sounds like it may cost a fair amount of money to start, but it sounds doable. I had to see people in several different departments.

I went to the fire station and hung out there for several hours. I chatted with Carl, Scott, and Tim while I was there. Tim and I were talking about him and Jim’s project for monitoring live fires with equipment to watch the fire growth, heat production and more. It is pretty interesting.

He did some work at the live fire we had in Pullman a couple weeks ago.

Yearly Superbowl Party

February 1st, 2009

Today was the Superbowl. I did some shopping for some pizza and M&M;’s and then went down to the fire station in Colfax for the poker party. We get together every year to play poker and watch the game. I made the pizza and put out the M&M;’s with we like to call crack. Because once you start you cannot stop eating them.

The poker went well. I was losing pretty bad for a fair amount of the day, but I made a pretty good comeback towards the end of the night and I think I ended up doing pretty good with the game.

The whole time I was there I got skunked on calls. But that is pretty normal for me to get hosed on calls when I hang out at Colfax Fire. I will listen to them get toned out all the time, but when I am around, there is nothing.

Lunch with Colfax Fire

January 26th, 2009

I heard Colfax get dispatched on a call that would take them to Pullman and it was around lunch time so I called Scott to see if he would be interested in catching lunch. He said he was.

I went to the rec center and did some lifting, but my shoulder was hurting a lot so I wasn’t able to do certain lifts. I was shooting some hoops when I got a call from Craig saying they were going to Cougar Country. Craig, Scott, and Steve were already there when I got there. We had lunch and BSed for a while.

I went home afterwards. BKoe and I were going to see Gran Torino. I drove us to Village Centre theatres. There were only two others in the theatre with us. It was a pretty good movie.

When it was done I fueled up the car and went home. I was pretty tired but I wanted to watch House and Kyle XY. That pretty much summed up my night. While resting on the couch I was counting my pulse. It was down to fifty while at rest. I thought that was pretty good.

No Calls at Colfax

January 4th, 2009

This morning I wanted to go to Colfax fire. But I had things to do around the house. So I worked on getting caught up on some of the chores. Finally after spending time getting things taken care of I went to Colfax Fire.

I was there for several hours and we didn’t have any calls I could go on, because there was only one. That call was out to LaCrosse. I was there until around nine o’clock before I finally went home.

I watched a little TV before deciding it was time to get to bed.

IC on Second Fatal Wreck

December 13th, 2008

I was down in Colfax for my reserve class. I was sitting in Ross’ truck waiting for class to start. I was reading my notes for the test we had coming up. A phone call came in. I looked and saw it was Jessie. I was going to give her a hard time when I answered it because I figured she was running late. But I didn’t.

She said that someone spun out in front of her, she T-Boned them. She said to get the ambulance and rescue and get up there now. I ran to Colfax fire. I jumped in the first out ambulance and we went to the scene.

It wasn’t long after we were en route that we were getting updates. I wasn’t clear whether we had no injuries with all the patients, or one non-injured with others being injured. But I did get notified that there was one death. I started to feel really horrible for Jessie.

When we got to the scene I set up command and made sure our resources were coming. I had two people, including myself, check on the deceased to make sure. We got everyone transported and then I went back to Colfax so I could get to class.

We had Anderson doing the teaching. The class went by fast. We got through everything shortly after the two o’clock hour. So we got out of class early.

I got back to Pullman and we were busy there. I got on an ambulance and went to the hospital so Blake could finish one of his reports. But then we started to get more calls. It was a very busy day.

We had a very good dinner together. We ran calls together. Blake bought everyone a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. It was a stressful and long day.

Met a New Man

November 29th, 2008

The plan for the day was pretty simple, go to the Colfax football game and meet Gunnar. The first part went well as did the second part.

I heard the ambulance leave Colfax on their way to the game. So I talked to one of the guys on the Ambulance and then headed to Martin Stadium to watch the game. It was a semi-final game between Colfax and Asotin. Early in the game a player of Colfax got hurt. I ended up transporting him to the hospital. In the end Asotin was too big and over powered Colfax. They lost.

When the game was done I met up with Gunnar. We have been e-mailing back and forth the last two days and decided that we wanted to watch the movie Scream. So he called me up. We met at Starbucks. We sat there talking for a while. He is working on a project and he told me a little about what he is doing.

Then we went to Blockbuster. I bought a couple movies but we didn’t find Scream. We went to Video Quest and found it. We rented it and went to my place to watch it. Following the movie we sat around and talked as the TV was on in the background. In all we talked until nearly two o’clock in the morning.

We talked about a lot of different subject. It was very easy to talk to him. He is twenty-one years old and going to WSU and is planning on going into law. We have that in common. Well more so that I wanted to go into law. We talked about our homosexuality, but that was not a huge part of the night, it was just a small part.

When it was time for me hit the hay, I gave him a ride home. He was impressed that I was real and was true to my word about who I was and the way I acted.