WSU Closed for First Time in More Than a Decade

This morning the snow was really falling. After my workout I was driving home and thought to myself how close today would be to a closing the school day that we had. The roads were abnormally snow covered. It was still falling and things were looking bad.

When I got home I asked Tyson to move his cars so I could use the plow to move snow that was in the area in front of the driveway and move it aside. He came out to do that plus he shoveled the sidewalk and helped a person get unstuck.

I ended up plowing Eric’s driveway and a girl up the street who needed to get her car out to take it to the doctor. I spent some time driving up and down the street plowing the road. I didn’t even try to do the sidewalks. There is just too much snow.

I was on my way to fuel my truck when the tones went off. I was in front of the station so I popped in. Soon the tones were going off for something else. Wilcox came down and we went on calls for the next couple hours. It was pretty busy. Nothing big, just lots of little things.

In the process of plowing, I was jarring my back enough that I tweaked in. So it hurt to walk or stand up. Going on the calls was hard. I was down on the ground to help someone and the others could see I was in a good amount of pain.

That morning word came that WSU was closing at ten in the morning. It was the first closing of WSU since the floods of the ninety-five/ninety-six school year.

The basketball game went on as scheduled. Cal came out and we just looked bad. We lost to Cal. It was very disappointing. By the time the game was done I wanted to get to bed so I could get up at my early time. Russell called to invite me over, but I didn’t answer it because I was already in bed.

I got to be on Rescue

Went swimming today at around ten o’clock. I had gotten up a couple hours earlier. I heard Colfax get toned to an echo response. Shortly after Steptoe got on scene they cancelled the ambulance and called for Paul-Sixty-Four. I called Whitman and let him know that if he needed help I would be willing to do what I could for him. He did say he probably didn’t need the help now, but he was thinking about getting me to cover the afternoon for him. I told him that I was doing the Cougar Basketball game and working for the fire department. Besides you are not getting two calls in one day anyway.

While swimming I was able to get the length of the pool once without breathing at all. That was pretty cool. I am going to have to work on that so it is not so hard in the future.

After the swimming I got cleaned up and headed to Beasley for the women’s basketball game. I called for KStew to come over because he was working for the police. I wanted to talk to him about softball. Specifically I was going to ask him to help me with the team. He said he would do so. We talked softball for about an hour. Heston came by like he said he would. He also plays softball with us.

KStew left and within a few minutes of leaving he called me. He said “speaking of the coroner” they just got sent to another call. I was pretty shocked. I tired to listen to the county to figure out what was going on.

After the women lost the game I went to the station to put the equipment away and went to the Deuce. While I was there a call came in. I stood by for that call. I was there for almost an hour because of the call.

I went home for dinner. Then back to the station. I was watching the Cougs. They were playing Arizona State. It was a very close game. It came down to the final shot taken and missed by ASU. So the Cougs won. That made me feel better.

I was on Rescue tonight. We went to the hospital to change out the linen from the Beasley first aid room with new stuff. We also dropped off some more boxes of gloves.

We only had a couple of calls and they were not much of anything. I made the guys wash Rescue with me after the calls. At first they didn’t want to. I said we were going to wash Rescue. They said I outrank them, so they helped wash it. They figured we would have a lot of calls and just wanted to wash it once at the end of the night.

We were supposed to get a lot of snow tonight, instead it rained. But tomorrow we are supposed to get something like seven inches of snow. I will believe that when I see it.

Cougs Roll On

There was some drama today when two reserves took a transfer. Several people are up in arms over it. They are mad because that could set a precedent for the future. I was at the station when a couple guys were talking about it.

Later I went to Beasley with the other guys to work the Cougar Basketball game. It started out slowly for the Cougs. Oregon was scoring and the Cougs couldn’t. Oregon held on the lead most of the game. But the Cougs chipped away at it.

In the final minutes of the game the Cougs were even with the Ducks. Then it went to a shot made by the Cougs putting us up with less then forty-five seconds to go. The Ducks took a shot and missed. The Cougs rebounded. The crowd which was already very loud, got very very loud. The Ducks fouled the Cougs. And from there we just kept adding points as we would make the free-throws and get rebounds off of the Ducks’ misses. It was great to see the Cougar victory.

First Case of Ought-Eight

After my final workout of the week today I planned on doing several things. Such as working on the frame, going to the women’s basketball game, watching the men’s basketball game, watching the Seahawks game, doing some work on the computer. I really only ended up being double booked.

I found I was on call for the coroner. But it is rare for a call. I had to go to Beasley just before noon for the women’s basketball game. But before eleven I got a call from Pete. Someone died in St. John. Normally he would take the case, but he wasn’t there. So I had to go up there. That meant I was going to miss part of the game and be late getting there.

I hit the road and started to head to St John. I went as quickly as possible with the road conditions as they were. I also got to listen to the Cougs. But they were not able to do anything against the Bruins. It was ugly.

I did my investigation the scene and went back to the funeral home to finish up the investigation. By this time the Cougs had made a run at winning, but were not able to pull it out of the fire. They were down by double-digits most of the game. But they came back to within three.

The Seahawks came on. I was expecting a lot when they went up by two quick touchdowns within the first few minutes. But that is as far as it would go. The Packers just kept scoring and scoring.

I was able to watch the last part of the game on TV at Beasley. I had made it home and back to Beasley at half time. I was able to put in my time there and watch the Seahawks. But it was ugly as well.

A. Wilcox is a Packers fan so I told him if they win he is sitting in the back of the engine for the rest of the year.

We were having a meeting when the tones went out for a structure fire. Turned out to be nothing. Later in the night we got toned out for another structure fire. That one also turned out to be nothing. In both cases they appeared to have been smoke detectors set off by cooking.

Purchased More Tools

I stopped at Pullman Building Supply to pick up some more tools for my project. I have new saw blades, router bits, clamps, and more. I am excited to get to use them.

I went out to the garage to start to use these new tools. How nice is that? I made my cuts on the frames to make them have angled corners after I “measured twice, and cut once”.

I also got the Cougar basketball game on the radio as I was working on the frames. I was getting places. The Cougs were playing the Huskies and were trailing for much of the game. I put a pizza in the oven.

With four minutes to go on the pizza, the tones went off. There was around two minutes to go in the basketball game. I had to turn off the oven. We ended up going code to the scene so we were not able to hear the end of the game while driving there.

But due to the cramped conditions inside the house we were told to stay at our vehicle. That allowed us to listen in as the Cougs won the game. We were cleared shortly thereafter. I figured I would get warm pizza. But instead we were quickly called to another location.

We were first on scene and transported. Following the transport, I got my pizza. It was cold. I heated it up a little bit, but it is never as good the second time around.

We got a couple more calls on the night, but nothing major.

Hanging with Mike D

Today was the final day of the men’s basketball pre-Pac-Ten games. It was a pretty easy victory for the men. I worked it with Nick. I spent a fair amount of the time talking to the WSU cops. We first talked about a recent death that took place on campus. It was a pretty tragic thing.

Later on I was just chatting with a couple other ones about Colfax PD. One of them was a Colfax cop for a while.

Towards the end of the game the Cougar starters were all on the bench to make way for the young guys to get play time. They got a lot of it today.

I got a text message from Mike D. He was in town for the basketball game. He asked if I was interested in going to Pete’s for Wiley’s. I was on call for the Coroner so I could not drink, but I wanted to see Mike. It has been a while. He now lives in Montana.

I drove down there in the Bumblebee when I saw that Pete’s was closed. Soon I saw three people walking down the road including Mike. He had two girls with him and that all had Wiley glasses. We ended up going to Rico’s. I saw Johnson there. I gave him a howdy.

Then I was introduced to a guy named Nick. He was blue eyed and ten-six-seven. I also got some non-weedeater-owning vibes from him. Mike, the girls, and I went up stairs and played some pool. Soon Nick and the girl he was with joined us. At first I was thinking that he was her boyfriend. Later I found out he is not her boyfriend.

Peter and Kevin showed up. We were messing around texting each other. We were making some sort-of inside jokes about Nick being gay. Or really we were insinuating that he was gay. The thing about him was he was flamboyant and he was cocky at the same time. He was beating me in pool and we were really crap talking each other. I was doing it all in fun.

As the night was winding down and we were getting ready to go he was asking me some honest questions about buying or renting houses. I was trying to give him some good information. But with his intoxication level I was thinking at best he was going getting sound bites. He did let me know where he worked. I might poke my head in there someday. I am going to not write it in here as I don’t want to give away who I am talking about here.

Calls Getting in the Way of Driving

I just couldn’t get out of town today. It started in Pullman. I was up and getting cleaned up. I was thinking about the things I needed to pack to take with me. While doing that a call came in for someone who had fallen at Kamiak Park. I had never been there before so I was actually looking forward to heading there. I got a call from Dearth who also wanted to go, with some of the same feelings that I had about going to the park.

While en route it sounded like they didn’t know exactly where we needed to go. The call was a relay from Latah County Sheriff. We were one of the last units to get on scene. We helped to get the equipment loaded onto a John Deere Gator that was being taken up a trail. The first units on scene split up on the trail where it forked. One crew found the person and we were sending the Gator in. We were told to get the ambulance ready by turning it around and heating up the back.

We went into the hospital with the person and then Dearth and I went back to the station. I had said that I am not responding on any additional calls. It was around noon when that one came in. It was nearly a two hour call. So I was getting behind the eight-ball in terms of getting home during the daylight hours.

I started to pack my stuff. I got everything prepared for me to be gone for almost three weeks. I loaded my truck. Dearth had asked me if I had chains for my truck. I am glad he said something. That helped me remember there were not in the truck. I put them in the truck and took out my Coroner’s stuff.

I hit the road. There was a bit of snow on the roadway and it was snowing. It was slow going to Colfax. One truck decided to take his sweet time driving down there. But like I say, there is a reason for everything. I drove past Island street and looked down the road to the fire station. I thought that a call would have to pretty much come out right now for me to be able to go. Colfax had actually been out on a couple car accidents already.

Just as I was going to turn into the Rosauers parking lot we got dispatched to a roll-over car accident on Airport Road. The car was fully engulfed in flames. I went through the parking lot and got to the station. I put on my turn outs and hopped on Engine One.

We went to the scene. As we were getting to Airport road I didn’t see a column of smoke. I said that outloud to Carl and Jenny. Shortly thereafter Carl said “Hey Scotty, there is your column.” I could see a big column of brown-black smoke. We got on scene. I was packed up and ready to go. I grabbed a blitz line and went into the field where the car was burning.

It was about one hundred feet into the field. I called for water. Approached the car from a corner and started to spray the water. I got the fire on the ground put out. Then worked my way up. One thing I had to be aware of was that we had no hydrant. Only tank water, so I couldn’t be wasteful. I got the passenger compartment of the car put out. Carl opened the hood of the car so I could put all that fire out as well.

I was able to get the whole thing extinguished on tank water. That was a good thing. Really this was my first real car fire that I started, attacked, and put out without anyone else doing anything.

After we got back to the station I helped to clean up everything. I went to Rosauers. I got some stuff for dinner. I hit the road. The Cougs were playing basketball. I was able to listen to the game on the way back. The roads had snow on them causing some slow going at times. Actually the pass and into Issaquah were the best parts of the drive. I was able to cruise along at a good clip most of the way anyhow. The Cougs won and I got home safely.

The One-Hundredth Apple Cup

Today was the one-hundredth Apple Cup. Ron invited me down to watch it at the Moose Lodge. I was excited about going down there. I put on my Cougar hat and shirt and made my way there just before kick off.

The Huskies ran it back for a quick score. Ron made a big deal about it. All the Cougs were thinking this was going to be a long day. The Huskies got a fieldgoal. Finally the Cougs were able to get on the board with a touchdown.

After a while everyone in the Moose was yellow “Woooooo” every time the Cougs did something well like Ron had been doing earlier.

We went into half time up by one point – twenty-one to twenty. Michele had a big spread of food there for a fundraiser. I had my fill of food.

The second half added to the excitement. The game was a sea-saw battle back and forth. The Cougs finally scored the tying touchdown. With only thirty seconds to go they scored the winning touchdown! The Cougs went on to win the game.

I went home fulfilled with the victory.

I went to gay.com and looked around on there to chat. While I was there I did a search of local people. I found someone that I recognized and I had no idea was gay. I finally purchased a premium account. I was able to look further at his profile. I was shocked to see he was gay. I want to talk with him because I also found out he use to be in the college Republicans.

I also found a former cop that I knew. I contacted him via a message. I finally went to bed in the wee-hours of the morning.

Spending the Day with Ken

I went to Colfax fire today because I had the day off of work and because I wanted to help Ken with his report and follow up from yesterday’s case. I advised Ken on things to write in his narrative and checked it when he was done writing it.

I was also hanging out waiting for a call to come in. Before I had to leave we did have a call come in. It was a low level call. We didn’t do a lot, but we did transport.

I had to head back to Pullman to work the WSU Volleyball game. It was the last game of the season. They were playing Oregon State. When we got to D street and Colorado I saw lights flashing inside Bohler Gym. I said it looked like a fire alarm. Reed said “they haven’t dispatched one.” Then it was dispatched. We investigated it. It was burnt popcorn. We helped to get everything reset and watched the matches.

The Cougs went on to win in five games. It was need to see.

The Boys see Cougar Football in Pullman

Today is the first time that Justin and Logan got to see a Cougar Football game in Martin Stadium. I woke up in the morning, but I was still a little tire. Jon took the boys out to find some ponchos. I stayed at home.

Later on I got up and worked on stuff for NU. I had breakfast with the guys when they got back. We started to get ready for the game. We stopped at McDonald’s for lunch. We planned on parking in the old Sigma Chi parking lot. There was room so we did park there. We walked down to the fieldhouse. John called me and let me know Rob was in town.

I went to the ambulance that they were on. Rob was doing a ride along. I sat in the ambulance for a while talking and listening in on the stories. This is the first time I have seen Rob since he left the reserves to become a trooper. It was neat to see him. In someway it was just like the old days with him and John. Laughing and joking and having fun.

I went back to the fieldhouse to meet up with Jon, Logan, and Justin. We watched some of the UW vs Cal game. Cal was getting beat. It was close to time to head to our seats.

We made our way there. We were at the twenty-yard line, five rows back. While there I noticed a ten-six-seven. Blonde hair, blue eyes, with well defined arms. Number Thirty for OSU. He was on their special teams. He looked very ripped.

The game started with heavy rain. We all wore our ponchos to keep dry. The Beavers went out to a quick lead and never looked back. We turned over the ball so many times, seven interceptions and one fumble. It gave the Beavers short field all day long. The Cougs scored two touchdowns, but each time we scored the Beavers would quickly score. It was a horrible day for the Cougs.

After the game was done we left. The stadium was just over half full when the game started. It had maybe one-tenth the seating capacity filled when the game was done. With the poor showing and the bad weather a lot of people left early. But not us.

We went to Pizza Pipeline and got some dinner. Then back to my place to eat it. I went to my office after dinner to work on the NU Application some more. John, Rob, and I were going to go out, but they ended up bumming out.

I stayed at home doing work into the early morning hours.

The Boys are in Town

I volunteered to work a security shift at the burnt out building on True street. I was working it with Blanks. I brought my laptop and a couple movies to watch as the night went on. I was tired and was Blanks. We watched my movies which took us through the night. Blanks also went to Dissmore’s and got me some pop and himself some drink. We started our shift at three in the morning and worked until eight. I went to bed when I got home.

In less than three hours I was up talking on the phone call meeting. It was short. I then started to work on some bugs I had to complete. I didn’t have much time to do that because I was covering someone elses shift on KZUU. It was a noon to two o’clock shift. I talked a little bit about the fires, only things that were in the newspapers. I also played music. I had a couple callers who challenged some of the things I was saying about WalMart and building in Pullman.

I was working on stuff for work when Jon got here with the boys. I showed him around the house. The boys and I played some video games before going to Cougar Country to get some dinner. This is the boys’ first time to Pullman.

After dinner we went to watch Cougar Basketball. They were playing UI. The Cougs went on to an easy victory.

We went back to Cougar Country to get the boys some ice cream. Then it was back to my place. They watched Shrek III. I went to my office to get some work done that I needed to do during the day, but I had to put off because of the radio show and Jon getting to town.

A Cougar Football Victory

In the morning I made my way to the fire station for rig checks. When that was done we went to station one for brunch. It was pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, and hashbrowns. It was very good.

We took the rescue to the stadium. Williams and I worked together. We stood in the corner we normally stand. I made my way to the first aid room to get some hot cocoa. It was pretty windy and it was getting my nose to start to run.

Once the game got going the Cougs seemed to hold their own very well. We were playing Stanford. We were taking the lead and moving towards and easy victory when all of a sudden, they scored a TD. The following kick off lead to a turn over on the four yard-line. But the Cougar defense put up a good stand, keeping Stanford out of the endzone.

When the game was completed the engine crew was working the Doobie Brothers concert. I got Heston to send us there because no one else had signed up for it. We ordered a pizza and enjoyed the show. They were a lot of fun. The music was really good. A lot of songs that people knew. It was neat to look around the place and see people with grey hair and young students all singing along to the same stuff.

It was dead as far as engine calls went. We ended up getting nothing at all to run on, but that was okay with me.

Took the Day Off

Because of the basketball double-header I wanted to work it in Pullman. I decided to see if I could take the day off and head this way. It was okay with work. This morning I got up sort of early and got ready to head out.

As it turned out I was running later than I wanted to. I needed to be in Pullman by two-thirty in the afternoon. I got on the road, but I wasn’t able to do some of the things I wanted to do before I left.

I got home in time to get my uniform on and get the things ready to work the basketball game. Wilcox and I went to the station and got the equipment necessary to work the game.

We got in with a couple career guys and went to Beasley. The women’s game was pretty bad. They were getting crushed. Wilcox and I traded places from time to time working out on the concourse level.

After the women’s game the men played. That game was a lot better. The men went on to win pretty darn easily.

When we were done working I went home did some stuff around the house to get caught up on the things I needed to do while I was gone.

Callers on the Show

The radio show included the topics of NBC’s green week. Where they are sending crews around the world on jets, but they are doing the right thing and buying “Carbon Offsets”. Also the usage of a gas-powered mower and what it does to the environment. When checking with various websites I found that no one agreed on the amount of damage.

I ended the show talking about the upcoming election and voting. That lead to the topic of whether students who do not register to vote in Pullman should have a say in the city government. A couple people called up and gave their opinions on the subject. It was a good show.

I ended up getting out of training tonight because I needed to work the WSU Women’s Basketball game. I worked it with Bien. While there we talked about him becoming a crew leader. I asked him what he would do differently as a crew leader. He had a hard time answering the question. I was thinking there was something he wanted to say, but was afraid of saying it to me. He did say there was very little he would change about the way I do things.

Doing a Transfer

Shortly after I got up this morning I was in my den when I heard the tones for a transfer. I was waiting for the reserve tones when I got a phone call asking if I could do the transfer. I said I would.

I went to the station and we went to Spokane for the transfer. When it was done we went to Outback Steak House for lunch. On my way back I was in Colfax when I got a call about the men’s basketball game at Beasley. I said I could work it.

Heston was up there manning the first-aid room until I was able to get there. I called a lot of people and I was finally able to get Parrish to work it with me. We went to Beasly and signed in.

Heston stuck around until the game was over with. Parrish and I went back to the station and dropped off our stuff. The men’s team was playing LC State. They had no problem beating them.

After having been gone almost all day. I went home to watch Shark and Cold Case.

Work a small wildland fire

This morning Bien said he could not do the drive time so I decided that I would go to Colfax and hang out. I was hoping that I would get to go on a call. after a couple hours of watching movies with Ralph a call went out for Steptoe for a wildland fire. It was close to the Colfax/Steptoe line so we went out with one rig.

When we got there we got the pump started. I got into the catwalk and started to spray out the fire as Clark drove. I was getting the head of the fire extinguished as we drove up the field. I got a lot of fire put out.

Then we were sent to the barn that was starting to burn. I was able to get some water on it pretty quickly. We were able to stop the barn from burning. I helped to build a fire line around the barn and we put out some hot spots before leaving.

I did not have a lot of time before I had to be in Pullman to be on call. The Cougars are also on TV so I wanted to watch it. Bien, Dearth, and I were going to watch it at the station. We got some pizza and watched the game against Cal.

The Cougs did not look very good through out the first half. Then in the second half we started to do some scoring. The TV showed a stat that the Cougs have the fifth longest non-shut out streak in college football. It dates back to eight-four against Ohio State. After the Cal game it is at two-hundred and seventy games.

We went to the final seconds to of the game. We were within a field goal after a late touchdown, but we needed to get an onsides kick. But it was a poor attempt at the kick.

I went home and started to work on my web application. I was able to figure out how to get the calendar to display correctly. It felt good to get it done. Now I need to work on a portion of the web site where I need to add a couple of new tables. But I need to think through how that will work to make sure that I design things to work nicely. I am working on the training and check off reporting. I am not sure exactly how I want it to work, so I decided not to continue working on it until I think it through a bit more.

A Cougar Football Win

The day started by going to the fire station. It is Cougar Football Saturday. I took Heston to get the Chief’s car. I got some gas then went back to the fire station. We had some food and went over the job duties for the day. I was working North One. That is where I wanted to work.

It was pretty quiet for most of the day. We had one call where someone was sick due to alcohol. We only dealt with that for a little bit. The Cougs went on to beat UCLA. It was a close game so people stuck around until the very end of the game.

When it was done I went to get my coat out of the First Aid room. But it was locked. Khurt was there. He said he would get the keys for me and meet up with me later on to get me inside.

I talked to Pete in the morning about being on call. I was supposed to be on call so I told him I couldn’t cover for a while during the game. He got Patty to cover for me. And as it turned out we ended up having a CPR call in Pullman. The coroner got called.

I called Patti up and sarcastically ask “have things been quiet?” She laughed. I talked to Pete about something else when he called me. I told him he must have known something was going to happen. He didn’t know something was going on. So I filled him in with what I knew about it.

I called up Khurt and met up with him at the stadium. He let me inside to get my coat and then game me a ride back to my truck.

The Ankle Doesn’t Hurt

Ever since I got my shot in my ankle the pain has been gone. My ankle appears to have full range of motion again. After standing up for a couple hours last night at the football game, this morning I woke up pain free.

I spoke to Heston and I am going to help out with the Physical Agility test for the paramedic list. Turns out it was a good thing I helped out because several other guys ended up not coming because they ended up going to the PHTLS class. The test went well even though we were down on the number of helpers. We only had four people to test.

I washed my truck and listened into the Cougar football game. Jon asked that I send him updates, but Oregon was scoring left and right. I was a little worried that the Cougs were going to get shut out, but we got one touchdown.

Russell and I met up. I took him and his bike to the bike store downtown Pullman. We went to Safeway where I picked up some groceries. I also got a pizza for us to have later on.

I took Russell home for him to get a nap before we watched the movie and had dinner. I put in the pizza. We ate pizza and watched Thank You for Smoking. After dinner I gave Russell a ride to work.

All of us hangiong out with Russell

The Cougar game was a one o’clock PM starting time. I got to the station early for lunch with the other guys. I was working North One for today’s game. We got up to the stadium. I went into the North booking room. BKoe was in there. I said hello to him.

We went to our spot over the tunnel. Arizona State was ranked number eighteen and the Cougs looked good today. But as the game wore on ASU started to work towards taking a lead on us. We had a chance to tie it up with a field goal, but missed it with only seconds on the clock.

We waited around for thirty minutes after the game. When I got back to the station I helped to take the chief’s car back to his house. I ordered some Cougar Country. I took it home and ate it while getting ready to meet up with Russell, Ryan, and Moe.

Ryan and I took Moe on a drive around Pullman to see some of the changes that have happened since he was last here. We went all over town in a span of about thirty minutes.

We went back and picked up Russell to take him to Zeppoz for work. We hung out there for a while. Ryan was in town on Saturday because Moe came to town to be with Russell to show support to him.

Ryan and I sat down at a table Russell was dealing on. I was going down at first. But then I started to win some. By the time Russell left the table everyone at the table had almost cleaned him out of one dollar chips. But the next dealer won many of them back. Ryan lost his twenty bucks, but I started to win money back.

Finally when I decided to quit I was up twenty bucks and I had given some tips away to the dealers. So it was a good night at Mr. Z’s for me. Moe, Ryan, and I went out to the bar area. They ordered some dinner. I was getting late and I was getting tired so Ryan and I called it a night and Ryan came over to my place. He was spending the night here.

Palousitics Party

I was only asleep for two hours when I got a call from Avalon about giving someone a ride to the hospital for getting a blood draw. I told them I would do it. I was able to get one more hour of sleep before the time I had to be there.

I got up an hour later and got ready to take the person on the ride. It took about an hour total. I went home and was doing some stuff online when I got a call about another transfer. I had planned on going to Dodge about getting floor mats for the truck before going out to the Paloustics party.

I did the transport. Then I went to the Dodge dealer. I found out the floor mats would cost me around a hundred bucks. I thought that was more than I wanted to spend so I decided to go and find if I could get them online cheaper.

I went out to Sunshine road to do the shooting. I met up with Tom and the other Paloustics people. I had my Glock, Ruger, and ten-twenty-two. I put nearly a hundred rounds through the guns. I was wearing safety glasses. One of the shells from the Glock landed between my glasses and my eye. It started to burn I ripped off my glasses. That hurt a little bit.

While we were getting close to being done I got a call from the hospital to take the guy back to Avalon. I did his transfer. I went to Dissmore’s and got a couple things for the rest of the Palousitics get together. I went to Paul’s house on Valley Road. The others were already there. I had some beer and chips for the party. I had a couple beers and some chips plus other food that other people supplied.

I was there for a couple hours with everyone. It was fun to chat about various politics. I left around eight-thirty. I watched the remainder of the Cougar football game, but the Cougs were getting blown out by Arizona. They ended up losing the game. I got to bed pretty early tonight because I was really tired after getting so little sleep.

First Wildland Fire in Pullman

It was going to be a long day today with CPR class and Cougar Football, but I got a couple more things packed in. I stayed up later than I wanted to, so I was tired this morning when I did get up. I get dressed and was off to CPR class at the hospital.

I thought it was an all day class, but it only went five hours, which was an hour longer than it was supposed to go. After the class the reviews from people were good. I got some very positive reviews from the students about my attitude and humor.

I went home to start on my shredding party all on my own. Dearth wanted to respond on calls today if we got any. I told him I would go on them once I was done with CPR class. So shortly after I started the shredding a delta response for a wildland fire went out. It was up by North Campus Heights. I got the station fast so we could take the Rescue. When Foster saw me come in he told me to take the rescue and
he was going to take the engine.

Dearth and Gribbon showed up. We went en route and were told to come in off of Northwood Drive. We went into Aspen Village. It was huge. A couple acres involved. We were told to start to attack. I got the guys going with some hoses and water. I then started to hook to the hydrant. But I also was trying to deal with the requests of the guys on the line. Monte with WSU fire also helped me get set up on the hydrant. I also made Dearth’s line three hundred feet long only to find we needed more. So I told him we had to shut down long enough to add line. He did and I got the new hose on there.

We had D-Twelve come out as well as more Pullman units. It was pretty intense for a while with a lot of people watching in. When the fire was finally over with we started to clean up. I was told to take Rescue on a sweep around the fire taking care of the hot spots. So I got to go in four-wheel drive and use the ground sweeps and walk and roll attack. Pretty cool.

We went to the main station and washed all the hose we used and got it all reloaded on the rescue. It was back in service around seven o’clock that night.

The football game had already started. At first it was close, then USC started to run away with it. But the time I left the fire station USC was in control. I went home to watch it from there and continue to finish my shredding.

I got all the shredding done, filling up three big garbage bags. The Cougs lost.

Cougar Football Saturday!

It is that time of year again… COUGAR FOOTBALL SATURDAY! I have a busy day planned for me. I am working with someone on the engine. I am working the football game. I am on call for the fire department.

I started out crawling out of bed in time to get to the station to do drive time with Wilson on Engine Thirty-One. The plan was to drive for four hours. But one other crew leader wanted to get out with one of his guys, so we took the engine back early. Wilson and did the normal things I did with the guys. I quizzed him on roads and some locations of buildings. He did well driving. I had to work with him on the hills and making sure he downshifted some more using the engine to slow him down and not just the brakes.

When we were done I hung out at the station for a while until it was time to head to station one for the lunch and briefing. Following those things it was off to the new location with Rescue. We are parking closer to the IT building.

The game was against the UI. We got called out a couple times for people who were unresponsive here and there around the campus. We also had a situation where someone was waving us down to his area. Turned out to be a police call, so Stewart who was coming down behind me, took the lead and I went back to my position. Turned out they had to eject a fan for disorderly conduct. The crowd cheered when the guy was taken out.

On one call, near the end of the game we were getting out on Stadium Way. A lot of people were walking on it because they now close off part of Stadium Way around the stadium except to emergency vehicles and buses.

Andrew hit the siren really fast and all of a sudden the crowd parted like the Red Sea. It was funny to watch. On one response we going code and one guy saw us and decided to cross the street anyway. He did not try to go fast. He slowly walked across the street. I hit the siren and horn. He just stared at me like I should have come to a complete stop for him, because afterall the world revolves around him.

After the game we only got a couple minor calls. It was a pretty tame night over all. The Cougs went on to beat the Vandals.

Gridiron Classic

Peter and I hooked up around noon to head down to Seattle for Cougar Football. We got to the big parking lot just North of the stadium. We were told no tailgating. And unlike years past, this year they meant it. The parking lot was pretty empty.

We walked around for a while then made a lap around the stadium, up to an upper street and back around by King Street station. Then we stood up there for a while just chatting.

We walked down to the stadium and we just people watched. I got a hold of Hawkes as well. We met up with him. On the way there we found where the big tail gate party was. It looked like CCN. It was packed full of people and it was a huge area. We got to Hawkes with only a couple minutes to spare before we had to leave to the game.

We got way up to our seats. I think we chose the row with the most people who had to come and go through out the game. The game was good over all. For a while the defense showed signs of weakness. Sort of what it looked like against Wisconsin last week. They are really going to have to gel and grow rapidly if we want to compete with some of these good teams.

We went on to a pretty easy victory.

We went off to Peter’s. We got dinner on the way and ate it at his house. While we were there we were talking about a new board game called “Welfare”. It would have some basic Monopoly-like ideas, but would reflect today’s society with gas prices, lawyers, sports teams, political clout, and other things that living in today’s world at times messed up. We spent about two hours talking about ideas and rules for the game.

Engineer Training at the Tower

I was tired after being up so late last night, but I got to the fire station at ten this morning to work with Gribbon on his evolutions. We did several different lays, including a dwelling lay, standpipe, crosslay, and a street pipe. He did a good job. We were running later than I wanted to run. It took about an hour to reload all the hose we unloaded with only three people doing it.

We stopped and got some pizza and pop from Little Caesers and watched the Cougar Football game. They were winning for a while, but Wisconsin started to come back and then they took a lead and extended the lead as our defense looked out matched. I would say that will be our big question mark this season.

I was on call tonight, but it was pretty quiet for the most part. We got a couple calls where we got to play and I had the first drunk of the school year for me. We also spent time watching a movie at the station. But over all it was a quiet night because it was Labor Day weekend and a lot of people left town.

Working Cougar Baseball

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.

Bummer of a day

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

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

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

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

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

Fantasy Baseball Owners Meeting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Working Most the Day with the PFD

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

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

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

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

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

UCLA and WSU Playing For First

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

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

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

I Hate the Ducks

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

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

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

Working Late

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

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

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

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

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

Ryan Came to Town

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another Men’s Basketball Win

Stanford, number twenty-five in the country, came to town to play the Cougs. I was working for the fire department at Beasley. As far as work went it was a pretty quiet day. I was disappointed that we did not even have a packed house. But the Cougs did just fine against Stanford. We didn’t really have patients to deal with.

In the end the Cougs won by thirteen avenging the loss earlier at the hands on Stanford.

WSU Girls Basketball

Tonight the women were playing basketball at Beasley. I went there to work EMS. The men were on TV. I was watching that game in the first aid room and working on my homework for my Firefighter Instructor I class that I am going to be taking this weekend in Colfax.

The women lost, but the men went on for a victory. It was close near the end, but it was nice to see them get away with a victory. They are climbing up the polls after each victory.

Cougs Lose a Close one to Oregon

I wanted to work the Cougar basketball game and it turned out I was able to. Because of the number of people going to the games they want more EMS working. We had a total of six people working it.

Clint and I were one team. We started off in the student section watching the crowd and the game. The Cougs started off good and kept the lead nearly the whole game. But in the final minute of the game Oregon got the game very close and with less than a second on a the close the Cougs were called for a foul that put Oregon to the line for two free throws. That put the game into overtime. Oregon had a ten to zero run and held on to win by three. It was very disappointing.

After the game I went to Zeppoz to play some poker. I was able to get a seat at a table that opened up. I played for several hours. As normal there is one guy who thinks he is a pro. He does everything correct and someone else is always dumb for a move they make. I hate people who are like that.

I played until nearly four in the morning. I was up about sixty bucks when I went against another guy. We were heads up and I had trip queens. I thought I was strong and that he was trying to push my off my hand. But he had a full house due to the river giving him an eight. So I lost that hand. That cost me most of my winning. I played a while longer after that. But I walked away with the same amount of money I came to the poker table with.