Command of Albion Call

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.

Interesting Turn of Events

This morning i got up and I left pretty well rested. I made some bacon for breakfast and hung out outside of my camper. They were playing a game that the players toss two golf balls that are attached to a string. They wrap around one of three bars. They get points based on what bar it is wrapped around. Each team has three of the ball sets. Someone accidentally got one stuck in a tree. We spent some time trying to hit it was a basketball to get it out of the tree. We came close, but the one hit of the basketball got it higher in the tree. We worked on it longer and finally got it out of the tree when someone climbed up the tree. We took some group photos and then I got my campsite cleaned up and left.

On the way home I stopped at two properties that are for sale. One seemed to have someone at it, so I didn’t stop. The other one I stopped and walked around the house and looked inside. They also had a big shop that I looked around. The shop needs a lot of work to clean up due to the birds that have been in it. The house is nice, but it is pretty far out there. I am not sure I would want to be so far from Pullman.

Brandon, Kevin, and I were playing some games this afternoon and we decided we would put together a poker game in the evening. Peter was going to play as well. I called the Peter from my softball team and he was going to come over and play.

I had a softball game. In my first at bat I had an inside-the-park-homerun. Heston was on first base. I was trying to catch up to him so I was running very hard. I ended up hurting my back in the process. That pretty much sucked. I also had a triple on the night.

During the game I noticed the third baseman for the other team. Then I heard someone say her name. I thought I recognized her and her name. I had been in an e-mail conversation with her for a length of time. I started to worry that the idea of me getting a girlfriend might cause a lot of pain if I wasn’t able to keep my eyes of the guys. So it was interesting to see her in real life. As we were congratulating each other she high-fived me but also grabbed my hand. I am not sure if she did that to everyone, or if she recognized me. I think she recognized me.

We won the game and I was on my way home to play some poker. We stayed up until nearly two in the morning playing cards. I played on my one five dollar buy-in for the night. I was up a fair amount of money for the night. I was one of the three winners of the night. It was a good day over all.

Camping at Central Ferry

When I got off work I went to get my motorhome packed and headed down to Central Ferry park. I was going to be camping for the night. I got my motorhome set up and then cracked open the beer. I had eight beers and I was starting to feel it. I stopped there and enjoyed the rest of the day.

We spent a lot of time sitting around in a circle and talking. This is the second annual trip with a lot of the Colfax Firefighters. It is a chance for us to get away and kick back. No cell phones, pagers, nor radios.

In the evening we played a lot of poker. I lost most of the games, after winning the first one. It seems to be a tradition that if you went the first pot of the night you will not do well for the rest of the night.

At around midnight I went to the motorhome because we were done playing. I was going to go back out, but I was so tired I just went to sleep instead.

Black Out Shades

It has been a long time in the coming, but I have been needing to get some blackout shades for my bedroom. This morning was the final straw. I have been telling myself that I had to do it, but I wouldn’t go do it. Today I told myself that it would be okay to spend the money on them.

Many times the bright light is coming into my room. I am always getting woken up by something around eight in the morning. Some alarm or something else is going off to wake me up. Today it was a phone call. But even though I tried to go right back to sleep I had to cover my eyes with my pillow so I could sleep.

The blackout curtains that Brandon got for his room make a huge difference. I decided to do the same thing. I went to ShopKo first. I couldn’t find any of them there. So I went to WalMart where Brandon got his. It cost me about fifty bucks for two of them plus the rods. But once I get to sleep without the light of day interrupting me I believe it will all be worth it.

I got a call from Chia. He asked if I wanted to hang out for a while. I met up with him downtown. He had his dog with him. We walked from downtown to the city playfields and threw the ball for his dog for a while. He took off around noon.

One Star Day

I started the morning off by going on a call shortly after the work day started. We had to have a police officer accompany us to the hospital in the back of the ambulance. He joked with me about my driving. When we got to the hospital I stopped. Put the ambulance in neutral and then looked down to grab a pair of gloves. Chia said “We’re moving”. I hit the brakes, but we hit the curb with the front tire and went up on it. I felt so embarrassed and like total crap.

In the hospital I got some ribbing over it. But was killed me was the was going to be written up. Not necessarily a punishment thing, but to document it. I really started to feel down. I don’t want something like that in my file. I don’t know if that is where it will go, but I just don’t see anything good coming out of them.

The rest of the day I really didn’t want to be around anyone. I did the work I needed to do and then hid away in my bedroom. I had some softball games tonight but I didn’t really feel like going to start with.

I ended up going and it was a good thing because we were playing short handed as it was. I was going to have to pitch. It was not a good start. I was pitching as bad as I did when I tried to pitch a couple weeks ago. But I fought through it and started to get my ability and confidence back. By the second game I felt like I had command of my pitching.

The first game I started to come out of my bad feeling. By the second game I was feeling better. I was hitting the ball well. We won the first game by a run after being down by a lot. The second game we lost by a run, but we had a good come back. It wasn’t a bad day on the field overall.

Then I went back to the station. I was starting to get my bad feeling back. After I got changed I was in my bedroom when a knock on the door came. It was the captain. It was time to write up what had happened. I sat in his office as he talked to me. Then he gave me a form I had to fill out. That really sucked.

After I got it done I went back to the bedroom. I needed the day over with.

Nice Summer Eve

Working at the FD today was pretty quiet for the most part. We had a fire alarm at Stephenson… again. They are doing construction and it seems to be something we get weekly.

We shot some hoops just before dinner. We were playing Tips. I actually won this time. It is rare for me to win at basketball because I am not very good at it.

In the evening as the sun was setting I went outside. The air was calm, the night was calm. I took in a deep breath and it was great. The smell was wonderful. The ambient air temperature was great. It reminded me summers of years past. It was very relaxing.

I spoke to Bien on the phone. Today is his birthday and I wished him a happy birthday. Then he told me a story about a fire he went to recently. It included the fact the house was rocking and the smoke was to the floor. He said that was the first real big fire he has been in on. While with Pullman was had some fires but he never got to battle a big beast, just the small ones.

I Have Qualified!

Working the fire department and dealing with the call that we did in the wee hours of the morning was tiring. I first had to give a statement to the police about what had happened. That took a little bit of time. Plus we had all the normal morning details to take care of around the station.

I went to the range for AR training. I got there as we were going over the parts of the rifle. Then we started to do some shooting from about twenty-five yards out to one-hundred yards. My ankle was hurting pretty bad so it was hard to walk around, but I did what I had to do. I first tried to qualify with the rifle. I was the first to go so I didn’t know exactly how fast we had to be moving. I did well, but I went over the time limit by about fifteen seconds. So I had to do it a second time. But this time I went faster and did fine.

We also did the same course with the pistol. The only difference is some of the targets were moved a little closer. I passed that one the first time through. I hurried off from there to the City Playfields for softball.

We were playing in a softball tournament. We lost the first game when the other team took a huge lead over us. But we scored fourteen runs in the final inning and came up two runs short of tying up the game.

We had a long break before the next game. I went home and watched some TV and rested my eyes. Matt was having a BBQ at his place and I was invited. I gave Brandon a ride so he could partake in some adult beverages.

I was able to get a hamburger before going to the softball game. We played two more. I was going to go back to Matt’s when it was done. But with as late as the last game went I never made it back to Matt’s. Brandon walked down to meet up with me at the field.

The first game we didn’t even come close. We had a fifteen run deficit after the first inning. We lost that game and went to the final game. That was one heck of a game. We lost it, but we had a lot of fun for the whole thing. Both teams were scoring and hitting the ball well. A total of sixty-two runs were scored with twelve total homeruns. I had a triple, double, then single. I wanted to go for the homerun, but I was more worried about getting a basehit because we needed to scored runs. It was more than likely the case that I would fly out and we didn’t need that to happen.

EMS Week at Sunnyside

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.

Completing the Paperwork

This afternoon I met up with Macy and Jessie at Applebees for lunch. It was a nice afternoon meal to spend with some friends. I enthralled them with the story of my big arrest from Friday night.

Following lunch I was able to go down to the county to work on my paperwork from the big arrest. Jimmy was there to help out. It took nearly four hours total to run through all the items I needed to get typed up and the supplemental reports from Jimmy and Cooper that were needed. I put everything together and signed everything. Finally I was able to turn it in.

I don’t know what the future of this one holds. Maybe a trial. Maybe a guilty plea. Who knows. It will be interesting to see what happens as this case moves through the legal system.

Second Reserve Association Meeting

This afternoon I worked on setting up a meeting at Bell Square with Ricky and Chris for a lunch. We haven’t seen each other for a while. We had dinner at the “gay sandwich” shop in the mall. That is what Ricky calls it. We talked shop and I told them about the latest at NU.

After lunch we parted ways and I worked my way back to Whitman County. We have reserve association meetings the second Thursday of the month. Tonight was the night. It is my second meeting with the association. I am the secretary. I was ready to take notes. I was at the SO about an hour early. I prepared for the meeting by getting my gun belt and changing from shorts to pants.

I went to the meeting room and took notes. It was a short meeting. We have a new coordinator. So he was going over some things with everyone. I was writing down the notes. One of the things is to do a training each month. It was taking a long time to get through the training. It was a traffic stop and we had to react to what we found. Plus there was a report that we had to write based on what we found on the stop.

The Graduation Ceremony

Today was a stressful day. It reminded me of the days when I lived in Stephenson. I was the hall president or some other elected position. I usually was in charge of the Mom’s Weekend Talent Show, as well as being a big player in the Mom’s Weekend Comedy Show. Saturday during Mom’s Weekend was always a stressful day for me. I was always worried about the various things that could go wrong, whether it was the audio, performers showing up, the set up, people actually showing up, and more.

Today was a flashback. I spent the morning working on my speech and getting my laptop set up with the class video. But after I copied it to the laptop I came to realize that it wasn’t a complete video. I had made some changes to it, but I never had it completely exported. So I had to start the export of the video from the video project, then I had to copy it over to my laptop. But it takes a couple hours to export such a large movie.

In the process of doing that I decided that I needed to figure out how to make the sound loud enough to be heard by a room full of people. I plugged in the old speakers that I bought about twelve years ago. They didn’t work, but I figured it was because they were not plugged into power. I had to look hard for a power cable, but I had a hard time finding one. I gave up for a while and tried a different pair of computer speakers. But I found that was a problem as well.

I looked more for the power cable for the other speakers. Finally I tried the power cord from my old Zip drive. I found it fit. So I power the speakers only to find they still didn’t work.

I then realized that I could use my old stereo and speakers that were in the living room. So I went to look into that working while at the same time looking for a microphone to use. But the only real mic I had was an small mono mic. It only had a two foot cord. I thought I could couple it with a longer cable to make it longer. But I needed to go from a eighth inch jack to RCA jacks. I went to Radio Shack and found a coupler, but then I wanted to look at their microphones. I decided to get a new one all together.

I went back home and plugged it in. At first it wasn’t working. Then I tried to plug it into a different input and found it was working. That was something going my way. Now I had a way to use a microphone and play audio from the video I made. I was also trying to create eight DVD’s with the photos and video from the academy class for all my classmates.

The clock was still ticking. My mom and Bill were on their way over to watch the graduation. I contacted my Mom to get an idea where they were. I had to be at the Pioneer Center at three to work with Macy and Malakowsky to get the room setup.

It was about one in the afternoon and I talked to Jessie. She was in charge of the cake and food supplies. I went to Colfax with her to get the cake and also so I could pick up the video projector.

We got back to my house just in time for me to pick up my rig and head up to the Pioneer Center. Once there Macy was waiting and Matt was right behind him. I opened the door to find the room empty of chairs. That caused me some concern, but I quickly found they guys were able to get everything set up quickly.

I worked on getting the computer, screen, speakers, microphone, and other A/V equipment set up and tested. The guys really wanted to watch the video. I finally relented and let them watch it. When it was done we left to get ready. We were supposed to meet up again at the old school building, the Pioneer Center, by five o’clock.

I got home and cleaned up. I got my uniform put on. Then I made my way back to the Pioneer Center. I stopped at station one to let Foster know about the graduation. He said he would see if they could come up. I didn’t think they would be coming.

People started to roll up and I got everyone their ties. Soon McNannay and Myers showed up. We had our meeting to cover the items that McNannay wanted to cover. We also took the class photos. As people started to file in, I was a little nervous, but I had everything ready, so I felt a lot better about how every thing was working. While taking the photos the fire engine and ambulance showed up. I was very happy to see them come.

We made a plan that we would start at six and as Sheriff and McNannay walked up I would call the class to attention one last time. They made their way to the front of the room and I called everyone to attention. The ceremony started with Myers doing his speech followed by Reavis. When Reavis was up front he called me to the front of the room. I was presented with a plaque for my work as class president. I wasn’t expecting that at all. It was billed as being from the class for me.

Then it was my turn for a speech. I did my speech without a hitch. I thought it went well and it was recited without me tripping up over my tongue. After my speech we did the badge pinning. I had my mom pin my badge on. Then we were sworn in.

After the swearing in we did the class awards. Pelissier gave away a knife to the best shooter, who was Jesse. Melcher got a nice flashlight for being best overall academy. The Sheriff got up front and called me up again. He recognized me for having been in the academy when I was twenty. And for working hard to lose weight. He said that I came to him a year ago about doing the academy the next time he had one. For that he gave me a challenge coin. I am going to carry that coin with me everyday I patrol. After those awards were given I did the awards we voted on.

I showed the class video. That went over very well and it got a lot of laughs along the way. Then Chaplain did the benediction. It was over. It went off awesome. After that Dean from the Daily News, who was there taking photos, got us outside for a class photo. We got several of those taken.

I got some cake and we did a lot of hand shaking and getting a lot of congratulations from a lot of people. My Mom and Bill went back to the hotel while I worked on getting the room cleaned up. I went home to change. I went to the hotel to pick them up and then we went to Cougar Country for dinner. Rhonda gave us the meal on the house. We sat around and talked for a while before I took them back to the hotel.

I went out to Hans’ place on Wheelen road for our after party. Macy, Melcher, and McCleary were all there. Dan and Michele were also there. I said hello to them. Tory came up to me and shook my hand and said hello. I was a little surprised by that because I have seen him many times in the last few years and it seemed like he never acknowledged me.

i was there until midnight talking with everyone and hanging out around the fire. I had plans to meet up with the parents for breakfast so I went home to get some sleep before breakfast and work for tomorrow.

Opening of the Ought-Nine Softball Season

This afternoon I spent some time on a telephone conference meeting. We were discussing some of the new code that I will be in charge of and what I am going to need in order to get my computer set up for the dev environment.

Tonight was the opening of softball season. Ryan was coming down from Spokane. I started to make sure my equipment was all together and ready to go. I got my cleats traded out with some new plastic ones. The old ones had rubbed way down. I made sure my uniform was all together and then I started to change into my uniform.

I got the score sheets, the schedule, and drove to the field. I walked down to the field we were first going to play on. I had three new players who were going to meet up with me there.

Our first wasn’t the greatest. We scored two runs per inning as they were. Then one inning we only scored one. But in the final inning we took a nice one run lead. But we were not able to hold on to it and lost in the bottom half of the inning. That did suck as they had their bottom three batters coming to the plate. The first two got out quickly. Plus they only had nine fielders.

The second game was worse. The team was good and crushing the ball and our outfield struggled to make all the outs that we were able to make. We had one guy with no cleats. He did some good slipping and sliding.

We ended up losing both games. Ryan and I went to my place and talked about life in general. We were going to go see the Fast and Furious around ten o’clock.

We headed to the theatre around nine-thirty. We got to our seats and the movie previews started within a minute of us walking in. The movie was good. It was great to see Paul Walker on the screen. He is looking great still.

BBQ and Game Night at Matt’s

I worked on moving the Bumblebee from the street to the driveway so I can take a look at the waterpump. I was having a hard time doing it because the truck will not start.

I used the quad and winch to move it around for the most part, but being by myself posed challenges to not run it into other cars and the house. I worked that for a while and finally got it in a funny position on the driveway.

When BKoe got home he helped me get it better situated. He steered while I used the quad.

BKoe also said that he was going to Matt’s house for a BBQ and game night. He invited me over to it. I decided that I would go. We went to Safeway first to get some meat and then to Matt’s. At Matt’s we got there as the food was getting ready to come off the grill.

He said that he had enough food so we didn’t need to cook our stuff. We had dinner and conversation before going inside and playing a game. It was one where you had a word to get people to say. But you had to do it without using the word nor acting it out. The other part is that there is a timer that keeps counting down. If it was in your hands when the timer went off you would lose.

We played that for several hours while having a great time laughing. The first three rounds I was the first person out. Everyone was laughing really hard about that. It seemed to tickle their funny bone when I got out.

We left just before eleven. I hurried home to watch Rescue Me. It was the season premiere.

Mom’s Sixty-Seventh Birthday

I slept in a little bit, but not too much. I got a call from Russell and Nick. We planned on getting breakfast together. We ate at the Old European. I have only been there a couple times. It is good food. We also spent a while checking out the ten-six-sevens all over the place.

When breakfast was done we said our goodbyes and I went to the fire station to get a file that has information for me to get files from the YouTube website for Chuck.

I went home and started to do some stuff around the house. Nathan and I are getting together this evening. Before we met up I called my Mom to wish her a happy birthday. She was out to dinner with everyone over in the Seattle area.

I went in to Starbucks and met up with Nathan. We sat there talking for about two hours. We were hitting it off pretty well. He has some effeminate features and he definitely has his fruit flies aka fag hags.

We went to dinner together. We hit Quiznos. We sat there for about an hour talking some more. He is into sports and likes guns. He is not overly politically correct and he seems more along the lines of what I am looking for in a guy.

We went back to Starbucks because he rode with me to Quiznos. We sat in my rig for about forty more minutes talking. As we were talking he took my hand and we held hands. Then he reached across towards my seat and gave me a peck on the lips. He did that several more times as we sat there. We are planning on getting together again.

Mike Knows My Mo Friend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Gay Day

I made my way to the Red Dragon casino for a poker tournament that my old softball teams was putting on to raise money for the team. I got to the casino about an hour early. I got signed up for the tournament and then waited around for it to start. I was disappointed that none of the older players from the team were there.

The tournament was set up that you had to qualify to move to the next round. Any money you won didn’t matter, because you would restart at three-thousand chips during the next round. I didn’t qualify the first time through, so they had one rebuy round. I was bleeding my money away. I was getting a lot of Queen-scrub hands. I threw a lot away. I was down to my last six hundred.

The big blind was coming at me. It was four hundred. I put it in. I had a four-eight off-suit. I had to decide if I wanted to throw in my last two-hundred and hope of the best, or wait with the two-hundred for the next round. I decided to throw it in.

The cards were coming and I ended up going head up against someone who had me dominated. The flop didn’t help. But the turn gave me a small glimmer of hope. I had to have a seven hit on the river to win the hand. It had to be a seven. It was a seven! I won enough chips to allow me to survive.

I made it through that round and went onto the next round. The next round I had to make it to the top three on my table to go to the final table. But on the third hand I had a K-J off-suit. I ended up getting trip-kings. But I lost to a guy who had an ace-high straight. My tournament was done.

I stopped at Nordstroms on my way south. I was up in Mountlake for the tournament. I was on my way to downtown Seattle for Nick’s birthday. I got him a gift certificate. Then I called Russell. I was invited over to hang out until the party started. Nick had many of him extended family members over at their apartment.

While there another friend of theirs came over. He was a younger guy who was very skinny. That was the story of the night. All the guys who came over were all Mo’s. They were all skinny as a rail too. I recognized several of the people from their MySpace profiles. I have seen through Nick’s MySpace. A lot of them were ten-six-seven.

I got to Russell’s around four in the afternoon. I was there until after eleven o’clock PM. It was a huge gay fest.

Friday Night Poker at Jon’s

I spent most of the day at Mom’s getting some stuff set up for my insurance. I was told by my company last night via E-mail they want me to get my own medical insurance and then they would reimburse me. I had already completed the leg work, so it was mainly a matter of signing up for it.

But when I called my insurance agent I found out that I had to have the money and the paperwork turned in today. So I had to drive to downtown Seattle to turn it in directly to the office of Group Health. I had to print off the forms and get them filled out. It had to be turned in today if I wanted to have coverage starting the first of April.

When I completed that I went home and waited until it was time to head to Jon’s for the poker game. It was their normal monthly game at the clubhouse. I didn’t do too hot at all. I couldn’t get a hand to save my life. I won about three small hands on the night. Other than that I threw my money away.

Traveling to Renton

Brandon and I met up at Tam’s Place for breakfast. We both had the same thing and talked shop including about the recent shooting that happened in Pullman.

When we were done I went home and got ready to head to Seattle. I got my rig loaded and headed out. The roads were clear and the traveling was nice a fast. I found that my speedometer was off by three miles per hour. I found this out by using a GPS to watch my speed. Now I know why it seemed like I would get passed more often than I use to. Normally on any given trip I am the one passing others.

On the way I got detoured by a semi truck fire near LaCrosse. There was a road construction related detour near Othello.

When I got home I got my rig unloaded and hung out. We had pizza for dinner and I watched TV most of the night.

Study Group

I invited the class over to my place to study for the test that we have coming up. Due to the snow our EVOC was cancelled. I thought getting together to study would be a great idea.

I have several people come over and we spent several hours getting the studying done. It was a very helpful session to ask questions and discuss some of the answers.

During the studying I opened a bag of M&Ms; that Jessie gave me. Macy had several in front of him. I grabbed one. He looked down and said “Hey! I was saving that one! It was a double M&M;!” Everyone at the table started to laugh so hard.

After they left I started to do some more studying. I also spent time going through my slides and choosing what information I wanted to record into my notebook for easy reference later on.

Final Day of Academy Classroom

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.

Conclusion of Video Editing

I spent the majority of the day going through the video, tweaking things, editing the swear words, and more. It is a very slow going process. I suppose it would be quicker if I was more advanced in doing it. I am self-taught, so it is very slow going. I did figure out something today on Premiere. It is a way to take an image and have one color disappear to make the words display on the screen and the to do the opposite and make video only appear where the words are.

I am mostly done with the video. I need to re-do the photos. I think I am going to just make it a more simple video. Instead of changing photos on the beat of the music, which looks awesome when it works, but horrible when it doesn’t work, I am just going to have the photos change every half second or so. I am now just trying to figure out what music I would like to play.

I went to Rico’s and had beer with Davolt. He was in town this weekend. He is currently working in Vegas for his company from Montana. He said he will be there for at least a year. He invited me to come down in June for the World Series of Poker. I wouldn’t mind doing that assuming I had the money and time.

All Day Class

I had a class today where we were learning tactics and strategies for firefighting and reading what the fire is doing. There was a lot of science behind what we were learning and we were exploring how it applies to structure fire. It was an eight hour class.

After the class I went home. Brandon asked what I was doing in the evening. He invited me to see Taken at the movie theatre. We went to the late showing. Peter and Kevin were also there. It was a good movie.

Following the movie I worked on some stuff on the computer before I went off to bed.

Starting Mock Scenes

This afternoon I went to shoot hoops at the rec center with Connor. We played some two on two with a couple other guys. The game went down to the final point. We were tied. I had the game winning shot and it didn’t go down. The other guy shot one and they won.

I hurried home and got in my uniform for the academy. I picked up Melcher and Ross. We went to Colfax for training. Today was the first day of mock scenes. We did a traffic stop. I did well at that, but there are some things I need to work on when contacting the driver. Mainly the things I say when I am explaining the ticket.

Then during the building search I went too fast around the room and missed the guy I was looking for. He came up behind me and shot me. That meant I failed that mock scene. But right now we are in the learning stage. As the instructors said, now is the time to make mistakes.

Better Shot Left Handed

After going to bed last night around eleven o’clock PM. I was woken up at one-thirty in the morning for a call at the police station. That would be the official start of my day. I would not get back to bed due to calls and training and friends.

First I dealt with two calls at the police station tonight. After dealing with the first person, I more or less was the lead on patient care and I got the refusal. As I was leaving the PD, Khurt said that BKoe was in a foot pursuit. I am going to have to hear more about that when I can.

When we got back to the station we were not even backing into the bay when a call went out for a fire alarm at a frat. We got up there first and started command. I ended up running the call and worked as command. When we got back to the station the Captain said he would write the report on the call so I could do my EMS report.

Just like Chia and I talked about while we were getting dinner food yesterday, I had just got into bed. I put my head on the pillow. Then I readjusted the pillow for maximum comfort when the tones went off for another call. It was in our part of town so away we went. We transported on that one. Before we left the hospital we called back to the PD.

I helped do some of the patient care. The guy didn’t want to work with us, but I talked to him and got him to consent to working with us. During that time I found out BKoe got a small abrasion on his knee from the foot pursuit. I gave him a bandaid and an alcohol wipe to clean it up. We transported from the PD to the hospital.

After getting back to the station I was started to restock the ambulance. But I had to go to the bathroom pretty bad. It was a good thing I did because I got back into the stock room when the tones went off for another fire alarm on campus. I grabbed the stock supplies and got them on the ambulance.

The fire alarm was a bit of a cluster because we did not have the key to get into the room where the problem was. So we waited around for a while until we were finally cleared by fac-ops.

We got back to the station in time for me to wash the ambulance and change into my uniform for the academy. I went to Ace to meet up with Melcher to carpool down to Clarkston. Today we were going to qualify on our handguns. We spent the morning doing more practice.

After lunch we did the qualification. I shot number four in the class. I passed on my first time through. Two people didn’t so we had to give them a second chance. I did a qualification again, but I shot it left handed instead of right handed. After shooting it I found I scored higher left handed. Plus I held up both targets and showed them to people. I asked what target overall was better. I didn’t tell people which one was which until they said what one was better. It turned out everyone thought my left handed target was better. One of the instructors said I should think about getting a left handed holster and practice drawing from it so I can switch over to the left handed holster. I think I should do that. I feel most natural when I hold the gun left handed.

After we qualified we did some other shooting practice with different scenarios. One included holding onto the slide and frame of the gun while shooting it. That didn’t seem like a good idea because I figured we would hurt our hands. But it doesn’t do the pain that I thought it would. It does cause some very minor pain, but for the purpose we do it for, it is worth the pain.

After the shooting was over I got home and I wasn’t all that tired. They did a career callback to the fire station. I went down on it and got some overtime. While I was there I got a message about several people meeting up to celebrate the two D-Twelve guys passing their First Responder test. I said when they head to the Zuu to call me. I was tired by that time because I had been up for nearly thirty-four hours with only one and a half hours of sleep.

But I have a rule that friends are important and when you have a chance to hang out with them you should. I know that if I want to keep getting invited to things I need to show up. If I never show up to anything people will stop sending invitations. I went to the Zuu and spent a couple hours up there. I had some pop and water. I also sang a song with Larry. It was a good time over all. I finally went home around eleven o’clock pm to go to bed.

Gun Not So Clean

At the class this evening all guns were checked for being clean. I had cleaned my gun, but it was still a little dirty and it was discovered. I was made to do twenty-five push ups. That sucked. I was mad that it was dirty. The class got out a little early today. We talked about suicide and para-suicide. Then we went over the test.

Today was Peter’s birthday. It always brings me up to a dilemma. I have a situation that has been going on for years. I am too much of a wuss to actually ask Peter point-blank what happened.

I met Peter when he was a freshman at WSU. We became friends then best friends. We were always together. Going to football games, playing basketball, watching TV, playing on the computer, talking politics, and even doing the radio show together. I actually came out to him towards the end of the school year. That was tough because he was a Southern Baptist and very conservative. But he said he didn’t care and had actually figured out I was gay long before I told him. He said “you don’t become as good of friends as we are without figuring out that kind of stuff.”

The following school year things started out okay, but then one day he stopped calling, responding to e-mails and voice mails. He just stopped communicating with me. Once in a blue moon I would get a hold of him, but he would blow me off. That went on for a long time. I didn’t know what was going on and I was very sad about it.

To this day I still don’t know what happened. Why he did that to me. Since that time we have hung out more after he moved to Bellevue. It is sort of like it never happened, but I still am very self conscious about it when I am around him. I have a hard time looking him in the eye. I need to know why he did it. During his twenty-one run several years ago he invited me out on it. After the end of the night he was very drunk and he said that he was sorry for being such an “asshole” to me. I wanted to ask him more at that time, but I never did.

I wished him a happy birthday and he said that when I am in town next time we need to hang out. He said it has been too long since we last hung out. I want to get with him, but I have to get the courage to ask him what happened. Why he just stopped being my friend and dropped me like a dirty whore.

Poker Party

It was decided at work today that I would go to Zeppoz this evening with Blake and Young. I am looking forward to that. When I got home I was tired. I went to bed and fell asleep for about two hours. It was a nice nap.

I got ahold of Jessie. Her, Ross, and I got together to watch some video’s from the defensive tactics day. We worked on that until around four o’clock. I also got some of my guns cleaned. Brandon came home and suggested a poker night tonight. Ross said he would come over. I was planning on contacting others.

I went to Zeppoz and met up with Young and Blake. We played Spanish Twenty-One. I was winning at that pretty good. Then I played in the tournament they have. I didn’t do to hot there. But I wasn’t planning on going well. I wanted to just screw around in it. I talked with Loren for a while. I invited him to come over and play cards.

I was at Zeppoz until a little after nine o’clock. Then I went back home and got my house ready for the poker game. Before long people started to show up. Weese, Ross, Loren, Blake, BKoe, and Kevin all played. It was a great time. We played a dealers choice game. We ended the night around four in the morning. By then it was Loren, BKoe, and me.

Qualified… For Now

Started this morning at fifteen of five o’clock in the morning due to an EMS call. Due to the fact we transported I didn’t get a chance to go back to sleep. I knew I would be tired during training today because I had only slept for about three hours.

I picked up Ross and Melcher at Ace and we headed down to the shooting range in Clarkston. Today is the first day we are doing any shooting. We started with some shorter distances. My very first shot was at five yards. I hit the small “X” in the middle of the target. I thought I should call it a day because it couldn’t get better than that. But I still had to keep shooting.

As the day went along the targets were moved back more and more. Finally ended up at twenty-five yards. My first ten shots at twenty-five yards were bad. I was all over the place only hitting the target four times. Jimmy worked with me and had me work on my trigger pull. That made a big difference.

We spent some time doing some weak-handed shooting. I was doing very well left handed leaving a decent grouping at seven yards.

The last thing we did was shoot a practice qualification round. It involved fifty round at distances between three and twenty-five yards. I was doing really well. I ended up shooting the third best in the class. I got four hundred and six points out of five hundred. That was good.

When we were done shooting we headed home. I was tired but I stayed up for a while watching some TV to include COPS. I talked to Ryan for a while on the phone. He was in Seattle and had seen Russell. He heard about the boyfriend. But I told him the whole story to include the fact we are not together anymore.

Transfer Rather than Training

I was going to be going to training this afternoon with the fire department. Just before training I was going to get some lunch at Dairy Queen. It was while I was there that the tones went out for a transfer.

I called in and was assigned the transfer. Keeton ended up going with me. He made me do the patient care. I really didn’t mind it so much, it is just the way he uses his seniority to make me do the things he doesn’t want to do. It makes me made because no everyone is like that.

We had lunch at Rocky’s. I called Ryan and he met up with us there. The pizza was good as always.

When I got back I went home and watched some TV. I just enjoyed my night. I have class in the morning so I didn’t stay up too late.

A Review of Ought-Eight

Jan – Body for Life – While I was researching that [number of calories in a Big Mac] I hit upon (I should say hit BACK upon) the Body for Life site. I am going to give their twelve week program a try that combines weight training, cardio, and nutrition into a program that lasts twelve week. That is eighty-four days.

Feb – NU Sold to MH – Today was the day I was going to get fired from NU. But it was one where I was told I would be fired. It was more of a formality than anything. They had to “terminate” everyone to close out the books. Then start the new company. I was hired back on.

Mar – Truck Traded for a Durango – I test drove two of the Durangos. One was a Ought-Seven and one was an Ought-Three. I like the color and seats of the Ought-Three. Plus the cab reminded my of the look and feel of the old Dakota. But the Ought-Seven was nicer over all, had many less miles and some other things I just couldn’t pass up. Plus it wasn’t a ton more than the older Durango.

Apr – Last Radio Show… Ever – This last semester or two the show has suffered from my lack of time preparing for the topics, getting guests, and whatnot. I don’t have the fire in my gut like I did. I just don’t have things to talk about like I did at one time. … I decided it was time to pull the plug on the show.

May – Multiple Softball Tournaments – Brandon came to the camp site and I got to see him for the first time a while. He got his uniform from Kelly and went to put it on. The team went to do some warm up hitting. I didn’t do so hot there. Brandon was crushing the ball as normal for him.

Jun – Snow and Fire in June – I opened the door and saw snow. I thought to myself “Am I more shocked over the fire or the snow?”. Then I looked up and saw heavy brown smoke coming from the south-east area behind my house. On the way to the station the guys leaving Station Two quickly called or a second alarm. I drove by the scene and saw the whole front of the building involved in fire.

Jul – Pullman Fire Temp Full-Time – I went to Heston’s office and said I that I am going to take it. He shook my hand and we scheduled my first day to be Monday of next week. I am going to only have three more shifts as a reserve. I am sad about that. I am going to miss working with those guys. I am now in a little bit of a haze as this is a big event in my life and I have a lot to think about now.

Aug – Playing in Nationals for Softball – We didn’t score enough runs and lost the game ending our hopes at the Western ASA D-league Nationals. It was fun to be here and I have my t-shirt to show for it.

Sep – Passed my Physical Test for Sheriff’s Reserves – I crossed the finish line in thirteen minutes and fifty-eight seconds. That was so huge. I passed the test. It felt great. I finally did it. We had some rest, then we had to run a sprint. That was seventy-one seconds for three-hundred and thirty yards. I knew I could do that without a problem.

Oct – I am a Sheriff’s Reserve – The first day of class I got a chance to meet up with some of the other students. We had the Sheriff tell us about ethics and what he expects from us. It was mainly a day of introductions and laying some of the groundwork of the academy. I am excited for the academy to get over with so I don’t have to worry about getting days off from work and then I can go out on the road and work on becoming First-Class solo patrol.

Nov – Met a Man – 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.

Dec – Treating Myself Well – I don’t usually splurge in the way I did over the last week. I have spent thousands of dollars on a new Tempurpeadic Rhapsody bed, a fifty-eight inch plasma TV, a new TV stand, and a new Sprint Touch Pro cell phone.

Looking back over the year some months I had a hard time picking out one thing because several things could have been listed as big events for me. But if I had to pick out three major things from the year I would say being a Pullman Fire Temp, a Sheriff’s Reserve, and making it to Nationals in Softball were the real big events.

Merry Christmas!

I got up this morning. We had a nice breakfast before opening up the gifts. I got some tools that I wanted plus the mint set that I get every year for my collection.

I spent some time going through my dad’s guns. Jon and I are going to split them up. I got a list to take down to Jon’s.

We were having a Christmas dinner with the extended family down there. We had a big dinner and then opened the presents. The kids got a ton of stuff. They all liked it.

After everyone started to leave I stayed and Jon and I made decisions on what guns he wanted and I wanted. I let him pick the ones he wanted. I took the others. I wasn’t too worried about what ones I was going to get. I also got the gun cabinet that mom had he her house.

Christmas Shopping

I went to Renton today to do some Christmas shopping. I had to get a couple things for Bill. I also got a picture frame for mom and a new cordless mouse for her laptop. It was raining in downtown Renton at Fred Meyers when I was there. By the time I got to my mom’s house it was snowing pretty hard. There is about twelve inches of snow at her house and it is snowing everyday.

Dave and I met up at Shari’s. We hung out for a couple hours talking. I told him about the hybrid and got his opinion. He said the hybrids are good, but I need to pay off my vehicle and work towards my goal of buying some property and a new house rather than paying tons of money for a hybrid.

Happy Birthday Eddie

I sent my normal yearly e-mail to Eddie wishing him a happy birthday. It is something I do every year on his birthday. I update him on what I have been doing and see how things are going for him.

I spend some time in the evening with Gunnar. He came over and we watched a movie and then sat around talking for a couple more hours.

IC on Second Fatal Wreck

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.

Thanksgiving at the Fire Department

This morning went by very fast. We didn’t have to work the whole day because it was a holiday. So all we did was rig checks and cleaned up the place. We got called out on three calls, one after another. Mine turned into a slight trauma. It was interesting.

I was working on making some more stuffing because I didn’t make enough the first time through when I made it yesterday. We also were making some breakfast for everyone to enjoy.

As the evening started to get closer we were getting set up for dinner. BKoe and two other cops were invited. They all came in as well as the guys from the Deuce and their families. It was a good dinner.

We had a couple hours of “My Time” after the dinner. We sat around talking and joking and laughing. I had a really good time.

First Twenty-Four Hour OT Shift

Today is the first day that I had a full overtime shift. I was working on A Shift. I helped to do the rig checks. We had some hose testing to do.

Because I was working an OT shift I bought dinner for both stations. I also invited BKoe to come down and eat with us.

He stopped in and ate pizza with us. After dinner I cleaned up the dishes. Brandon and I went into the training room. I was showing him some of the video from the SWAT training. We spent time talking about different defensive tactics. Then Keeton got all of us to play some video games. We played several rounds but that was about it. It was pretty late by the time we started to play.