Well Traveled Mo

October 26th, 2010

I didn’t arrive at work until around nine-thirty in the morning.  I wanted to get some stuff done with the SQL scripts towards the end of the day, so I stayed until around seven.  I debated on making a trip down south towards the Tacoma area to visit an old roommate from my college days, or whether I should just go straight home.  I know his boyfriend was out of town and he wants me to come down and visit.  But it is a very long drive both ways for a short visit to watch some TV and chat.  So I decided to go home.

After dinner I watched the end of NCIS and I watched the Rockford Files as I got into a conversation with a WSU Student who is from the Middle East.  He struck up a conversation with me yesterday and we are just continuing.  He is easy to talk with.  I am amazed that English is his fourth language.  He writes very well.  I kept forgetting that he was not a native speaker.  He is a gay guy.  He has lived all over the world.  He said back in his home country it is illegal to be gay.  That is just crazy to think about for me.  I had to get to bed, but he asked if I was interested in meeting up in person.  I know he has no desires other than friendship.  For me I am interested in learning more about what it is like in other parts of the world.  I think it will be great to chat with him some more.

Made it to Boise

September 3rd, 2010

After getting a phone call this morning I decided to get up and start my trek to Boise for the ASA Western National E softball tournament. I got my stuff packed into the truck and headed down Ninety-Five. It was a long trip. It was about a three-hundred mile trip, but getting stuck behind slow car after slow car sucked. At one point I was stuck behind a string a cars for nearly thirty miles. It was a sucky trip.

When I got in I went to the hotel and checked in. Then I went to the field and get checked in and had my bat approved. As it turns out it barely made it through the testing process. They have a machine and my bat didn’t make a sound on one spot and barely made a noise in two other spots. But it passed. I guess the less sound it makes the hotter it is. My bat might not be able to get used next season.

I went to dinner with Bruce and his family at Cracker Barrel. It was my first time there. It was good food. When I got back to the hotel I chatted online with Jonathan and Gunnar. I had a great conversation with Jonathan. We haven’t chatted much recently. We talked about gay relationships. He has a very solid one and is to the point where some time he may choose to get married to his boyfriend.

I am getting more open with Gunnar and more willing to talk to him about subjects that made me uncomfortable in the past. I think I am finally getting to the point with him that Nick was telling me about. Nick told me that it takes time but as you are with someone longer you get to the point where you are comfortable around them to the point where your modesty goes away and you are more of who you are.

Busy Day on Both Side of the State

September 1st, 2010

I had an MRI this morning on my ankle. This is the fourth MRI I have gotten. I hope this will show something that can be fixed. But I don’t think there is a fix for my problem. After the MRI I hit the road and went back to Pullman. I stopped at the SO and dropped off some donuts. I spoke to Cooper while I was there. He asked me about my recent felony drug arrest. I told him about the circumstances around it.

I went home and did my laundry. I was going to hang out with Gunnar tonight. I picked him up on my way to the fields in Moscow. He watched my softball game. I had two stand up doubles and a single. It was a good day at the plate. My time in the field went well also. I played second and shortstop. I made all the plays that went my way. It felt good out there today.

We went back to my house and watched Stangers with Candy. Then we spent time talking with each other. We are getting more comfortable with each other. I was finally able to open up to him some more. I was able to talk to him about things that I had not been able to say to him in the past.

BKoe’s Birthday Celebration

August 22nd, 2010

I spent much of the afternoon watching some TV. I was trying to get my DVR emptied. Around six o’clock I went to Zeppoz. BKoe was celebrating his quarter century birthday. We bowled a couple games. I did alright. By the last game I getting the highest score. While bowling we were buying BKoe lots of shots. I got him something that I thought would be gross. I got Jager and Goldschlauger in a shot mixed together. Then I got him an Everclear chaser. He didn’t think the gross shot was that gross. Maybe his taste buds were already shot.

I did an HGN on him and he was showing the effects pretty obviously. I videoed it so he could see it for himself.

When we left I watched some more TV trying to burn through more of the shows. I also started to watch a couple episodes of QaF. It has been showing on Logo. But they are doing some editing. It is not in its full effect that it was while it was on Showtime. But it is fun to relive it.

Getting Work Done

May 3rd, 2010

I decided that I would stick around the house and in Pullman and get some stuff done. The staff webpage and the photoboards and both stations needed some work. So I got some photos printed as well as new name plates for all the reserves who just became EMTs. I got those put up. I went out looking for a bolt I need to fix the motorhome. I still need to figure out how to get the alternator out and the new one it. I think I am going to be doing some searching on the web.

Other than that it was sit around and watch some TV night. I sent a text to Gunnar to see if he wanted to come over. He came over around nine o’clock. We watched House and then parts of about three other shows. Nothing else was on that I wanted to watch. We talked for quite a while.

I am not sure what to think. I really like having someone I can hold on to, but I am not sure he if the perfect fit for me. Some of the same issues I use to have with him have not gone away. Sometimes I think that getting in contact with him only is leading him on.

Got it Done

April 3rd, 2010

I was supposed to work the Palouse Thunder football game but it got cancelled. So I was free to hit the road. I told Matt I would be working again tonight and asked if he wanted to try to get his arrest again tonight.

I picked him up at his place and we hit the road. Yesterday he drove and today I drove. We hit dinner at North Arches with Matt K. I was telling Matt how Matt K. always is joking around about stuff including tons of gay innuendo. I am happy Matt K. is comfortable around me to be able to do that. While eating something came up and a stream of jokes ensued. Including something about Brokeback.

We work on getting some of Matt’s cases closed and then did some traffic. We were going to work Albion for an hour when we were asked by Keith to do a roadside. We went to Pullman and I helped him with some computer stuff.

Then he said to go get Matt’s final arrest. I had an idea of what we could do. We went to Howard street. We saw a group of underaged people drinking and found one with a beer in hand.

Matt and I spent the rest of the evening in Pullman backing up Keith on calls and looking for some of our own stuff. Matt told me I was able to do something that none of the other full-time deputies were able to do — get him his final arrest.

More Hanging with Keegan

January 8th, 2010

Keegan and I got together this afternoon and headed down to Clarkston to do some shopping at Costco. After we got back we went to his place and sat around chatting. He is a good looking guy. I would love to do something more than just be friends with him, but I am not going to move it to the next level. I am going to let him make that decision. I don’t want to push it if that is not where he would like to go with things.

I went to the fire station and we did our daily rig checks as well as listened to a police chase that was happening. They caught the guy which was good.

We got a couple calls this evening as I worked to redo the map tests for Pullman. It took several hours to update the maps. I was going to redo the whole entire thing but I realised quickly that it would take way too much time to do that with little gain. So I just retrofitted the old tests with new streets.

Watching the Championship with the Guys

January 7th, 2010

I got up and went to the doctor for my follow up for my ankle surgery. I went to the Three Pigs to have lunch with Jon, Terry, and Jim. After that was done I hit the road to get back to Pullman. It wasn’t a bad trip. I made pretty good time. When I got to Pullman I went to TBAG to meet up with Blake, Blake, Chia, Chris, and their wives for the BCS championship game. We had some beer while watching the game. I have Keegan come down and hang out. It was nice to get him there. He fit in well with them and they told me they likes him. I just wish he was more than just a friend.

When it was done Pitch and I went to Zeppoz to play some cards. Chia came along as well. We played poker until nearly one in the morning. I was up and down most of the evening, but I ended up losing it all in the end.

Keegan and I spent more time texting back and forth for a while as I was getting ready to go to bed.

A Crazy Busy Day

January 5th, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

A New Friend

January 3rd, 2010

This evening we had weekly rig checks. It was only Parrish and I on duty tonight. We had a couple guys coming down to help us to the weekly rig checks. That was nice to have. It only took about two hours. Parrish and I had to go to the main station to get a couple things fixed before we went home.

I spent a while chatting online with a guy, Keegan, on g.com. We ended up having a great long conversation. He invited me to go have a coffee with him. He is only looking for friends. That is cool by me. He seems like a very nice guy.

Ought-Nine in Review

January 1st, 2010

JanMr. President – I wanted to be the class president. There were two possible candidates that most likely would have been voted for. Myself and one other guy who works in the jail right now. He also would have been a very fine pic. But it is something I want to do. The vote was held by Ross putting out the ballots. When the counting was done it was nearly unanimous. I am now the Ought-Eight Reserve class President.

FebFinal Mock Scenes – Today was going to be a long day. I was expecting to be done around three or four in the afternoon, but today was the day I was going to prove I could do the job, or I would prove I need more work, or that I am just not cut out for being a cop. I have spent sixteen hours a week for nearly the last five months

MarFirst Day on Patrol – Following the swearing, Jimmy was doing a couple things at the SO before we left to hit the road. We went north on One-Ninety-Five looking for speeders. We pulled over one car, my first as a reserve deputy. I was the cover officer. I went to the car and the passenger was talking with me. The person was given a warning.

AprMy Latest Oil Change – I have lifetime powertrain and bumper-to-bumper warranties. It has a DVD player built into the radio. I have a rearview camera and backup sensors. It has the Hemi with MDS so it shuts down some of the cylinders when they are not needed to help save fuel. It seems to have some get-up and go. It feel great to drive it. Plus it has the newer traction control system so I feel better about driving it on the bad roadways.

MayFirst Code Run – we got to the first address we needed to go to Endicott for a call to back up the others there. We were going code and just passed some cars on SR One-Ninety-Five. After we got past the Albion road a burglary in progress was put out in Albion. So I had to turn around and go back to Albion. So I went code past the cars I had just passed.

JunContract with MH Terminated – Since April of Ought-Four I have been working as a software engineer for NetUpdate and then I was moved to MostHome when they bought out NU. I worked with them until I got notice today that my contract was going be terminated. The application that I worked on since I started with NU was a mortgage application. That was then sold to a competitor a couple months ago. I told MH that I wanted to remain on with them. But as it turned out the project I was put on just got sold off. So they are cutting their ties with me.

JulSecond Class Reserve – I was told I was moved up to second class. They shook my hand and said they had great expectations for me. They all believe that I will do a fine job. That was great. Now, I just need to start to set up times to ride so I can work my way to first class.

AugFinal Shift as a PFD Temp – We got on scene in the ambulance and were made into the backup team. We went to the attic where the seat of the fire was. Eric, who was on his first day back, was on the nozzle and put the fire out. It was still pretty small, but growing. It was lucky that we got there when we did and that the fire was not in the wee hours of the morning when it could have really taken off. I ended up putting in an hour and a half of overtime. So my full-time tally was one year, one month, four days and one and a half hours. It has been a good run.

SeptBushwood Golfs Again – I was hot on my short game. The problem is that we would use after we all hit a drive we would pick one. From that point each person hit his own ball to the hole. I didn’t do too poorly. I was able to keep up in score. In fact my putting made me lead some of the holes. I had some very nice putts including two there were around thirty footers for birdies. It felt great.

OctIM Championship Bound – I hit the ball well, as did the team. Our defense was very good. We went on to win and go to the Semi-finals. We were playing a team that had been using an illegal bat. Once they were called on it, in the previous game, they couldn’t hardly score. It turned out we shut them out. We scored nine runs. We didn’t hit the ball as well as I would have hoped, but we won. Ryan said it best, this is the most worried I have felt in a shut out. We never had a big enough lead that put me at ease. Not until we scored the ninth run and the other team no longer had a chance to win because of the eight-run limit.

NovGay Firefighter – Then I was asked a question about how I feel I am treated being a gay in the fire department. I said since I have been outed to everyone I don’t feel that I have ever been treated poorly due to being gay. Chris let me know that he has known for years. He said that pretty much everyone on the fire department on the career side knows. He said there are probably only a couple people who don’t really know. He said that they probably have been told, but think that people are screwing with them. It is without a doubt that the information is told to everyone. I am not sure who actually tells the others but the information is freely available. But once again no one treats me differently.

DecSearch for Missing Hunter – I was teamed up with three young men. It turned out it was the son of the missing man and his friends. They wanted to put a member of the SO with each team going out searching. We were sent down the road a ways to start our search. The son was leading the way as he knew the area well. We made our way along some level ground. There was about four inches of new snow. It was covering rocks on the ground so we had to be careful where we stepped.

This years review shows many things that were related to being a reserve Deputy. I guess that is the major thing that has happened to me over this last year. I am now a sworn reserve law enforcement officer. Many of the writings I had through out the year dealt with the class or going out to patrol. I also had an unusual suicide where I was able to trace the night leading up to the death of a young man. It was very unusual and probably affected me more than any other death I investigated. It didn’t make the list this year because the fact that I am a gay man who is a firefighter is something I am always thinking about. When it was finally brought up with some people I have never talked to about it before it was a big conversation to me. It was nice to hear his perspective. Ought-Nine was a good year overall. I had some frustrations at the fire department, but they were overall small in the grand scheme of life. I am jobless, but I do have a new contract where I will finally start to bring in some money again. It has been a year that I am happy with.

Seeing Pond After Ten Years

December 27th, 2009

I went to Burien to meet up with Chris. He was taking me on another ride along. It is so a great pleasure to be out there with Chris. I love to see him working. He has found his calling by being a cop.

It was pretty quiet over all. We responded on some minor calls, nothing too major. A call for harassment, a truck that hit a fence when it rolled after it popped out of gear, there were a couple warrant checks on people, and we looked for a car that flew by us. We found it parked next to a house. The guy lied about the car. He said it didn’t run, but it was warm. Then he said it runs, but he doesn’t drive it because the tabs are expired.

After riding with Chris, I drove South near Spanaway to see an old roommate. I had not seen him for about ten years. It had been a long time. We had been roommates at one time while I was staying in Pullman for the summer when I was first staying in Pullman for the summer. He is a mo. He always was interested in me, but I wasn’t so interested in him because back then I was not a big fan of being gay. Not that a lot has changed, but I am a little more comfortable. But I still have issue with being with another gay guy. I would love to find someone who I would love to be with, but I have yet to find that guy.

Boys at Girls Night

November 6th, 2009

This morning I was a little on the tired side. I was up late with Blake and Young. We had a good time, but now I had to be at resume and cover letter training. It was just like the class for filling out the application. It is set up for someone who hasn’t really finished college. It is for the person who may or may not even have a GED. I showed my resume when it came time for us to write resumes. After looking at it, I was asked a couple questions, then I was excused for the class.

When I got home I was looking at posts on Facebook I saw one from Casi. She said she something about girls night. I joked about bring me along. She said tonight they are going to Wehrungs at six o’clock. She said I should come along. I wasn’t for sure I should just show up to Wehrungs place, so I texted him.

I realized the funeral for Officer Brenton might be played live on TV. So I checked NWCN and sure enough they had it. I sat down and watched the funeral. Seeing the people who came and showed support was great.

When the funeral was over, some two and a half hours later I turned off the TV for a few minutes. When I turned it back on they were showing an aerial view of some people on the ground near a police car. They had a heading showing there was a shooting. At first I was thinking that it could have been a cop shot. They showed about fourteen cops cars filling up a nearby street. More and more were coming. I started to think that maybe this had something to do with the guy who killed Officer Brenton. As the coverage continued more cops were showing up. Cops from at least eight different agencies were all showing up in Tukwila. I continued to watch the coverage as the time went by more information was coming out. Sure enough they were getting the cop killer. He pulled a gun on the cops and got shot. He was down, but taken to the hospital.

What a turn of events. To spend two and a half hours watching the funeral and learning about the life of the officer killed, to almost right away watching the cops arrest the guy responsible.

I got a text back from Chris about his party. I headed over to his house around six o’clock. I was the first there. But soon everyone else started to show up. We spent a lot of time chatting and laughing about various subjects as we mingled. The guys usually grouped up and the girls usually grouped up. Then we would co-mingle. It was a good time. They were fondue party. It ended with chocolate fondue.

While I was there I got a call about a job I had sent in my resume for. It would be a six to eight week contract to do web work. I got a little background on the job and I was asked some questions about my experience and availability. I was told I would get a call in the next couple days to let me know one way or another about this job.

As the night was coming to an end we were talking some politics-like stuff in reference to department and fire services in general. It was interesting to talk about how some other fire departments do things.

Then I was asked a question about how I feel I am treated being a gay in the fire department. I said since I have been outed to everyone I don’t feel that I have ever been treated poorly due to being gay. Chris let me know that he has known for years. He said that pretty much everyone on the fire department on the career side knows. He said there are probably only a couple people who don’t really know. He said that they probably have been told, but think that people are screwing with them. It is without a doubt that the information is told to everyone. I am not sure who actually tells the others but the information is freely available. But once again no one treats me differently.

Chris said when I lost all the weight I gained a lot of respect from a lot of people on the department.

Silly Faggot

November 1st, 2009

I spent much of the morning watching football. I watched Farve go to Green Bay. He is my starting QB for FFL. My team was doing okay, but this week, like every week this season I have been matched up against the team that scored a lot of points. There are eight teams that scored less than me. There are three that have higher scores. I am paired against one of the three. This is a bad season for me.

Tonight is weekly rig checks for A-shift. I went to the station around six o’clock to do rig checks. It only took us about an hour and a half to get everything done. I went home and watched some TV. My normal Sunday night shows were not on tonight so I had to choose to watch something else.

I got a response to the message I sent yesterday about being called a faggot. The response said that he didn’t know that I was there, that he didn’t remember making any mention of me, and that no one there knew me, so why would he reference me.

I responded back with a better run down of what happened and pointed out that he was talking to someone who did know me. I also pointed out that I was close enough to hear the whole thing very clearly. There was no doubt about what I heard.

I asked him straight up if he thought that way about me. He didn’t answer that in his response back to me. All he said was “I can’t take back what I said. It was obviously stupid and incredibly disrespectful. All I can do is apologize.”

So, he didn’t deny thinking that I am a faggot. I think that the only thing he is sorry about is that I heard him, and he may not even be sorry for that.

Good Start, Bad Ending

October 31st, 2009

Today is Halloween and I am looking forward to having a good time. I am going to one party and then I will probably go to a second one with a guy I work with, finally I am going to hopefully go to a bar.

Last night the fire department was very busy running from call to call. I listened to a lot of it last night, and I was up this morning. It was a nice day. It is a Saturday. I was thinking about going to Moscow Fire for a pancake feed, but it was late enough in the morning and with the Vandal Homecoming parade gearing up I didn’t want to get stuck in tons of traffic.

Chia called me and we talked for a little while. I am happy he called me. I was getting concerned that he was mad at me for some reason. In the early afternoon I went to the store to get some M&Ms; for the party tonight. They were packed so I figured the guys would be busy tonight.

As it was getting close to time to go to Mike’s place for the beer tasting Halloween party, I got a call from BKoe. Some of the guys were at My Office. I came down and had some water with them. CBass and Kuhrt were there as well.

I left as it was getting close to six. I went home and got my costume put on. I go to Mike’s and Heidi was there. Kuhrt showed up later. I got some food and gave them my M&Ms.; I sat at the table and everyone was talking and we were also watching the Cougs play Notre Dame. The Cougs lost.

I was there until around nine o’clock. Then I drove to Dan’s house. I did some trick or treating there. I looked around at Dan’s set up and we talked for about half an hour.

I texted Togs and then went over to meet up with him. We talked by the road for a while and got a couple photos. I went into the backyard of the house party when I overheard a guy calling me a faggot. Sort of caught me off guard. He knows I am gay, but I would not have thought that you felt that way about me.

This is why I hate it when I know that people know. Because I think about what they think about me. When I don’t know, then I don’t have those thoughts and I don’t get preoccupied. It is just so much easier to be in the dark.

So, after that I just wanted to leave. I wanted to confront him a little bit as well, but with him having been drinking and being at the party, I didn’t want to get into it. The wind had been taken out of my sails for the night. I decided not to hit the bar and just drove home.

Overheard at a Party

October 31st, 2009

This is a letter that I wrote to someone who I use to work with…

[Censored] had invited me to his place tonight to hang out for a while on Halloween. When I was ready to come over he had gone to your place up the hill. Him and I chatting outside on the street for a while. Then he went inside and to the back yard. I made my way there too. I was standing near the back door for a while. Then I started to make way over to the fire.

As I was walking up there I saw [censored], he was chatting with a girl and you. Some sort of joke was being made and the word faggot was being used pretty liberally. I was not offended by that at all. That didn’t even bother me.

But what I heard you say heavily disappointed me. Enough so that I decided not to say hello to you and I chose to leave and go home.

In reference to the word faggot you said “Just like the A-shift crew leader”. I am not sure if you go around outing me to people, but that is purely disrespectful, that is not your place to do that.

But for me what was so disappointing is that I thought there was some level of respect, even if only on a professional level. Clearly it appears there is no respect at all.

If he had known I was there and was making the joke to mess with me, I would have been fine with it. I was not upset about the word faggot being thrown around in a general way.

But what disappointed me is that I was being degraded in a specific way. The person doing it had no idea I was standing right there, due to the fact it is Halloween and I was in a full costume. I am happy to know what he really thinks, because at least I know where I stand with him. I hate being around people who are fake.

Anyway, I wasn’t quite sure if I should confront him on the spot or just walk away. I figured in the party setting and with the alcohol being used I should deal with it later. Plus, I don’t know if the person who I was meeting up with knows about me or not, but if I had confronted him right there he would have known for sure.

An Day of Movies

October 18th, 2009

Watching TV all day long during recovery can get old, but I kept looking for movies I had not seen. There was one that had started about ten minutes before I turned it on. The movie is called Backdraft. I know, don’t say it, how can a fireman take seventeen years to watch that movie? But I don’t know. I never got around to it. Finally it was on cable and I was going to see it uncut and unedited.

Of course being Hollywood there were some inaccuracies with how we really do things, but at the same time the message of the movie was pretty strong. I really had no idea what the movie was about. I didn’t know it was about a couple brothers who are firemen and they are dealing with an arsonist. I am happy that I watched it. It actually had some pretty powerful scenes.

Ryan and I chatted online about Ref Seventy-One. He is posting a couple articles online. One was supposed to be unbiased. He asked me to read it to see if I thought it was free of any slants. He said he was going to write one that will show his support of gay civil unions. I told him he was a hater of all gays. I told him that it was not nice to support that. Right now the guys can tell their boyfriend “you know I would love to marry you, but we can’t”. Really he doesn’t want to get married, but he has the law to fall back on to be able to pretend that he wants to get married. With R-Seventy-One, now he will not have that protection. Now gays will all get as miserable as married couples. What a big jerk. He was laughing.

I watched a second movie at the end of the night that was based on a true story. It was called Bully. It is about a high school guy who abuses his best friend making him do homosexual acts. he also was raping some women. One girl wanted to kill the bully. Then others got in on it. Finally they lured him to a rock pit. One guy stabbed him. Then his best friend slashed him and stabbed him multiple times. Other guys helped out beating him, stabbing him, and finally one guy bashed in his head with a bat. They threw his body in a pond. It wasn’t long before they were discovered and all arrested. Several are serving life sentences in jail. The movie took the side of the killers. They did make the guy out to be bad and almost deserving of death. The movie itself was very graphic with its sex scenes. It seemed like half of the movie was spent surrounded with sexual images including the guys in the movie being shirtless all the time.

Coming out to Trailbuddy

September 16th, 2009

This afternoon I decided it was time to get my rig washed. It was all cleaned up and looking nice. I went to my bedroom when I heard my coroner’s pager beep. I was the guy on call and I forgot to carry my pager. I looked and the call was only about ten minutes old.

I called Whitcom and got sent out to a house near St. John. It took me about four hours to do the investigation. Due to the death my planned movie night had to get cancelled. That sucked.

A guy I knew back in the day found me on facebook recently. I always liked him. I thought he was a ten-six-seven, but back in those days I really tried to ignore my homosexual thoughts and I suppressed it as much as possible. It was back at that time that I had been with a girl. Unfortunately, that girl also was his girlfriend. We sort of had a love triangle going, but I was with the wrong person in the love triangle.

We had been writing back and forth lately, and I decided to come out to him. This is what I wrote to him:

It has been a long time since it happened, but I still feel bad about betraying your trust like I did.

This is sort of weird, but I was having internal struggles back when we knew each other. I tried to hide from who I was, who I knew I was, but I still knew that there was nothing I could do about it. I totally ignored it back then. I even tried to pretend that it wasn’t true. I sort of believed that I could wish it away. But it wasn’t possible. Even though I had been with a girl, I wasn’t physically attracted to her.

It wasn’t until I got older that I started to accept the fact that I am a gay man. I was very uncomfortable with it. I am still uncomfortable with it, but as time has gone on, I have gotten a little bit more comfortable. There was a time I wouldn’t even admit it to myself. Now I finally can admit it to myself and I can tell some people.

I am not even fully out to people. I haven’t told a lot of people. Most of my old friends are still in the dark about it. Even some of my newer friends are in the dark about it. It seems like most people I know tend to find out from other people. I have actually only outed myself to a relatively small number of people. You can count yourself as one of those people now.

He said that he was pretty surprised by my coming out to him. He said if I was worried about him passing judgment on me, that I shouldn’t worry because he will not do so.

Later I was looking at the site fmylife. It has all sorts of people who write about something that just sucks about their life. I saw this one and laughed very hard:

Today, I realized that when my new roommate said we could both use the condoms he bought, he didn’t mean separately. FML

Working the Palouse Fair

September 10th, 2009

This morning I was up by six o’clock in the morning to head to Colfax. I got some maple bars from Chuck’s and topped off my fuel. I hit the road and made reasonable time. I got to the fairground just after eleven o’clock. I gave out the maple bars to the people there. I got my shirt and stood by at the first aid booth. We pretty much did about the same as normal when I am there. Minor things like bee stings was about all we had happen. I was there for about five hours. It was nice to hang out with the others there.

I left to go into Colfax around four in the afternoon. I got on the computer and I saw a bunch of E-mails that had been flying around all day. One was from my manage who was getting frantic about things not saving. But that wasn’t on my end. Everything I had done was fine, but for some reason he thought it was. Later in the e-mails I saw there had been a network issue that actually caused the data to not get saved. Part of me is sort of looking forward to being done there because of stuff like that.

After doing the e-mails and taking care of some of the photos in the coroner’s office I went upstairs to the SO. We have our monthly meeting tonight.

I got some paper and went to the meeting room. I took the meeting minutes. I was also the highest ranking officer there so I was in charge of running the meeting. We had one vote come before us, so I had to run the vote.

After the meeting our training was building searches. I did a with Macy. The last time we searched together I ended up getting us killed. This time I found the guy but I didn’t do it the best way possible. We also learned some tactical things about moving around the building. It was a good training.

When the training was done I typed up the meeting minutes and sent them out. I also got the hours for August typed up and put into the Excel spread sheet.

I headed home and picked up Gunner. He came over and we watched some TV together. He was here for a couple hours. It was getting close to one in the morning and I was getting tired so I took him home and I went back to the house.

Are We Born That Way?

September 7th, 2009

I made plans to see Russell and Nick today. I got a call before I went down letting me know Russell was going to have to work, so Nick and I were going to get together.

I drove to Seattle to Nick’s condo. We walked up the street to the Honey Hole for some dinner. We ended up ordering the same sandwich. We had dinner and talked about health care and socialized government services. When we got back to Nick’s he showed me a video on YouTube that was made about health care. It compared health care to that of firefighting and other government services. I disagreed with what they said. Health care is something where taxes go to pay for one specific person where as the water system is made to serve the community as a whole.

If you say that the government should supply individuals health care, then you should argue that they should supply housing and food. Those are needed by everyone as well.

Then we spent a lot of time talking about being gay and homosexual relationships. We talked about whether someone is born gay or becomes gay. Whether that is a choice that is made the makes someone gay or the way things happen. What we both know is that we find men attractive and we find a sexual attraction to them. We can see beauty in women, but we do not have any sexual feelings for them. That is the part that doesn’t make it a choice. We don’t choose to have the sexual attraction, it is just there. But why? Was it something that was molded into us as young people or was it there from the time of birth?

Just before midnight we went to go bowling at the place where Russell works. We bowled two games. My second game I was very close to breaking two-hundred. It was great. We also sat in the casino for a while talking to Russell. He was glad we stopped by to say hello. It was great to see Russell. He is looking great.

How do you Say Taco in Spanish?

September 4th, 2009

I arranged to hang out with Joe and Doug today. I haven’t seen Joe in a long time. I first had to run to the doctor to have him look at my MRI and give me the results. Pretty much I am going to be going in for a surgery something in November or December.

I went from there straight to Bellingham. I put in Joe’s address to the GPS and it lead me directly to his house. There was some bad traffic near Everett and it was able to get me on some surface streets and got me around all the traffic.

When I got to Joe’s place he gave me the tour of the place. It is a great house. They had it built for them. They also own several acres around it. It had lots of trees and makes you feel like you don’t have any neighbors.

Doug got home from work a little bit after I got there. We went to a Mexican place for dinner. We met up with another family couple. We had dinner and conversation. Joe was going to order another chicken taco. They were talking in Spanish a little bit. One guy said what the order would sound like in Spanish, something like “dos tacos con pollo por favor”. When that is said the word tacos stands out because it is so Americanized. So I jokingly said “What is the Spanish work for taco?” One guy at the table said that is the Spanish word. Taco is a Spanish word. He was tyring to explain that. Then everyone started to laugh and someone explained I was making a joke. They told me later on that guy is pretty much always like that.

After dinner we went to a bowling alley and bowled a couple games. I was bowling mainly in the mid one forties. It wasn’t too bad for having not any bowling practice in the last couple months. Doug beat me on two of the games. It was a fun time at the bowling alley.

When we were walking outside. While out there Joe asked if I had to get running. I said I am not in any hurry. So we walked to a bar. It was a place called Rumors. It had rainbow flags and other such decorations around the place. It was a gay bar. I had some pop and the others were having beer. We sat around a table talking about various subjects. Joe and I talked about stuff from when we were back at college including a mutual friend. I asked Joe how he know about me so long ago. Back when I was heavily closeted. He said he has great gaydar. Then he said one day when we were at the mutual friends’ house something happened that solidified it. The friend came into the kitchen shirtless. He was ten-six-seven in every way. I guess I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Joe noticed that. He said that was the thing that made him realize that he was correct about him thoughts.

After the bar closed I gave them a ride home and drove myself home.

First Show in Years

August 29th, 2009

This morning I had to be up early. With the number of calls and when we got them I was running on just over three hours of sleep. I went to Pullman for the first softball game. As it turned out we had four games. The first three were round-robin. When those were done we started the double-elim tournament. The first few games were pretty ugly for us. We were not hitting the ball very well. We lost several of the games by a pretty big margin. We had a two hour break. I went to Cougar Country for some hamburgers and then drove to Moscow for our first double-elim game. We were playing a team that we should have no problem beating.

But it was not to be. We had a battle back and forth. We would score and they would answer. A couple runs at a time. Finally we had a one run lead. The other team hit a three-run shot and went up by two. We ended up losing the game. That put us in the loser bracket and playing at nine in the morning tomorrow.

I hurried back to Pullman and got my fire department uniform on. I was working the event at Beasley. It was a play, the same one I went to last night. I was working with Walker. We spent most of the time chatting about testing for different fire departments. Then I put on Transformers. We got about half way through it when the play got over.

Then it was off to my place again to change for the drag show in Moscow. I am not into drag at all. It is not my thing. But the show is sort of a gay get together. I don’t really know many gay people in the area, but I thought I would go and see what it is like. I got cleaned up and went to pick up Gunnar.

We went to the show and they were in the middle of a set. When it was done we went into the main room and sat down at a table. We spent a lot of time people-watching. There was a group of ten-six-seven’s dancing with their shirts off. It is a time for them to show off their stuff. So the scenery was good, but I had a boy there with me so I didn’t really want to not pay attention to the hotties dancing. I haven’t been to a show in many years. It was when Russel and Scotty were still in the area. It was a little different because of the venue.

We watched and talked about the various people we saw there. Some faster songs came on so he went out to dance a little bit. I watched him do that. When he got done it was very hot inside the place and he wanted to get some cool air.

We went outside and walked towards my rig. It was near the end of the show anyway so we headed home.

I went to his place to drop him off. We sat outside for about ten minutes talking about stuff. We had dated a little back in December. He wants to get back with me. So we talked about getting together again. I went home and got some dinner before I went to bed. I was pretty tired and I had to get to bed for our softball games in the morning.

Going Out with a Structure Fire

August 19th, 2009

As I was waking up this morning I wasn’t sure how my final couple hours would end. I was thinking that I should have ended the night of the Staley fire so I could end on a fire. Before seven o’clock rolled around the tones go off for a structure fire. We could see the smoke from the station.

We got on scene in the ambulance and were made into the backup team. We went to the attic where the seat of the fire was. Eric, who was on his first day back, was on the nozzle and put the fire out. It was still pretty small, but growing. It was lucky that we got there when we did and that the fire was not in the wee hours of the morning when it could have really taken off. I ended up putting in an hour and a half of overtime. So my full-time tally was one year, one month, four days and one and a half hours. It has been a good run.

I got back to the station and got the last remaining items from the station cleared out and headed to Tam’s Place for breakfast with Chia, Keeton, Young, and Pritchett. I left after I was done eating so I could get a couple things done before meeting up with the guys to go to the river. I dropped off my turn outs at the station and went home. I got a couple things taken care of at home and packed my stuff to go to the river.

I went to Pritchett’s place. We were meeting up there. From there Keeton, Pritchett, and I rode together to the river. We got there and made our way to the beach. It is a long haul from the parking lot. I didn’t know how long it was because I had never gone there without being on a boat.

We set up our area. I put on some suntan lotion and we went into the water. We played fetch with Chia’s and Pritchett’s dogs. We were there for hours watching as more and more people showed up. As the college students started to arrive the scenery was great. You couldn’t look somewhere without finding a couple ten-six-sevens. I really enjoyed the scenery while playing with the dogs.

Brown showed up with his boat. We hung out for a while near his boat and then went for some tubing. I hit the water and the rope on the tube was really long, so I was getting whipped around pretty good. I had a couple good wrecks along the way. Including one where I went about twenty feet sliding on the water before rolling.

It was getting close to five so we started to pack up and make our way back home. It was a good afternoon on the water.

I got cleaned up. I waited from BKoe to show up but as seven o’clock was rolling around he was no where to be found. I texted him and he was in Moscow. He forgot he was going to give me a ride to the bar. So I called Pritchett and he gave me a ride down to the bar.

We got there just after seven o’clock. Guys filtered in over the next two hours. It was a going away party for me from the career ranks. It was very nice to see some of these people stop by and wish me well and let me know they enjoyed working with me.

I had a couple guys over the last few months let me know that at first they were not sure what to think about me coming on at first. But they said that I have been a great addition. They really have enjoyed working with me and think that I am a pretty darn good guy.

One guy and I talked for a while about stuff. I remember when we would go on calls together I didn’t know what to think. We talked and all was good. But when we were on shift together at first I think there was the feeling that we didn’t know each other. And as time went on he warmed up to me and got to know me and the same of me towards him. I really think he a good person and I really enjoy talking with him.

As the night rolled on I got some beer purchased for me and we sat around talking, playing pool and darts. When it was nearly eleven o’clock we made our way to TBag. Pritchett was already there. I was given a couple shots of hard-A. I wasn’t really wanting to have them, but I cowboyed up and drank them. We played pool and sat around talking.

Then one guy came up and said the words that I know will lead us to a specific conversation. It was, something along the lines of “It doesn’t matter to me, you’re a good guy, so it really will not make a difference, but…” That is the start of someone wanting to know if I am gay.

With the guy who was asking, I wasn’t sure if he knew or not. But he has been around for a long time so I had to assume that he had heard through the grapevine. He said he had heard some stuff, but he didn’t believe it until he heard for himself. I told him that I hit for the other team. I told him that I don’t really tell people because I don’t want them to act differently around me. I told him I like the fact that when I have been around him for all this time he wasn’t afraid to say things and not worry about offending me. I told him I wanted him to remain feeling that way. He is one of those guys who always says “That is gay” or things like that. He said he sort of knew that something was probably up because I am not interested in the hot girls as everyone else is. He could tell so he figured something was up. I am glad that he asked and now I know that he knows.

I had asked Chia a while back if others on the shift knew. He said he didn’t know. He said that no one would care. I believe that is true, but I wanted to know. I would like to think they all knew and still were the way they were around me. Which would show they are comfortable with me. I just feel like if I walk into a room and people feel like they have to watch what they say, that it would be a strain to be around me and they would just choose not to be around me. I don’t want that. I really don’t care what people say, because I believe you have to choose to be offended. I choose not to be offended by that kind of stuff.

The other Blake came up to me and started to say the same thing. I thought it would all be coming out that night. But before I confirmed anything I had to know exactly what he was asking. As it turned out with him he was talking about something totally different. So I don’t know if he knows. I guess thinking about it now, I am not sure if I just want to come out to those guys and that way I know that they know and I can just get on with things, or continue to play the game I have been playing. I am not sure if I want the reserves to know. I know that some do know, but I always hate it when the new reserves find out about me because it is always something that someone else brings up. Over the years I have had a couple guys ask me straight up. I always will confirm it if they ask. I like it when they ask, because if they are willing to ask they will typically not make a big deal about it at all.

More Blog Readers

August 4th, 2009

This morning I was called into a coroners case in Pullman. I was listening to the beginnings of it on the scanner because the fire department had been dispatched to it. Anna and I went to do the investigation. She took the photos and I took the lead. It was an interesting case and we spent some extra time on scene trying to sort out everything we were finding in the apartment. I also spend nearly an hour making phone calls with various people trying to get information.

When I was done with the case I went to the fire department to do the Night Out in the Park up in Palouse. It is a year event. It brings in the Red Cross, the SO, the Posse, the PFD, Palouse fire, and some local high school kids’ bands.

I was manning the ambulance and talked to the kids who wanted to come by and look at it. It was a pretty easy gig compared to some of the events that we do.

Whitcom also had a booth there. One of the dispatchers said they her and one other dispatcher read my blog from time to time. She said one thing they didn’t know was what I meant when I write ten-six-seven. I got that question a couple weeks ago by a friend who saw it on my blog too.

At first I wouldn’t tell her what it meant. Later I let her in on it. She was hoping it was going to be more exciting than it was, but now she knows. When I have a friend or someone I work with tell me they found my blog I always ask how they found it. I don’t have links to it from anything I have. You have to be told where it is, or find it via a random search. I also wonder how much of it they have read. I don’t write about being gay a lot, but enough that if they read enough of it they will find out that I am gay. It is one of those things I don’t advertise. I never ask if they know, just in case they didn’t see the posts that include that information, but I am guessing they know. I got that impression when she asked how the ten-six-seven related to hot guys. So, yeah.

I have been writing this blog since ought-three. It is pretty interesting to go back through some of my old posts. There has been a lot of stuff that has happened to me over those years. Job changes, boyfriends, new vehicles, and becoming more comfortable with being gay and letting more of my friends in on it.

No Time to Eat

July 18th, 2009

At the fire department today I bought everyone breakfast. We first went to look at a couple parking structures. Then we came back and started breakfast. Before we got far into it, we got toned out to a call.

When we got back breakfast had been made and was starting to cool down. But it was still good. After breakfast I sat in a recliner with the other guys and watched the end of a show that we started to watch while eating. This is the first time I have sat in a recliner. I was waiting until I put in a year. My one year anniversary was on the fourteenth.

We went out and worked on the ambulances for the weekly checks. Once done some guys took a nap. I stayed up.

For dinner we were having burgers and tater tots. I got three bites into it and we were sent on a call. I got back to a cooled down burger. But that happens.

After dinner we cleaned up and watched some TV. The plan was to watch COPS and have some ice cream. I just finished my ice cream when we got toned to another call. It seemed like every time I had something I wanted to do I got called away.

I also spent time talking with James a mo from Moscow. He and I spent time talking online for quite a while. Then he called me and we chatted on the phone for a little bit. He is a nice guy, but he was hard to understand on the phone.

I was getting tired after watching the Red Green Show and went to bed.

Undefeated in Softball Day One

July 11th, 2009

The plan for today was to have some fun playing softball. I was hurting for men, which is unusual. I am normally trying to find extra women. But today I had to get the men. We had one pick up that Jessie got and Joe played with us too.

In the games I was hitting the ball very well. I had two inside-the-park-homeruns plus some other strong hits through out the day.

I also helped with the score keeping, but as I was doing that someone went down on the next field over, and I was asked to come over an help. There were already two EMT’s there. That is the second time the fire department had to get called to the field today.

It was a nice afternoon at the park. In the first game we were playing we won it pretty easily. The second game was not so easy. We had brought in Kelly, but we lost an outfielder so we were playing with only nine players. That really hurt. But we were scoring runs and we went on to win the game.

In the end we won both games. After the game Sheila and I went to Cougar Country for some dinner. We sat there talking for a while. I have a hard time around her. I am very nervous. I feel bad because as much as I would like to get be a straight guy and lead a straight life, I kept on checking out the guys that would walk by. I guess at some point I need to tell her, but I guess that would be before we get to the point where it would be clear she is interested in me.

When I Know That They Know

July 10th, 2009

After leaving the fire department this morning I decided that I would be on pager. But so far there has only been one call and it is one that the guys on pager don’t respond to.

I washed my rig this afternoon. I got the weedeating completed. I also got my garage swept out and the driveway washed off. It was a productive day and it felt good to get those things completed.

This evening I was doing some ego-surfing. I think that is the term for it. It is where you search yourself out on the web. I was looking for references to me out there. Then I wanted to see if there were any references to me and being gay. I didn’t find any of myself, but I did find one where a guy named Scotty was killed, and it is thought his sexuality was partly to blame for it. I started to go down that path.

Then I decided to look up gay athletes. On outsports.com they had a listing of gay athletes. I was reading about some of them. They had two stories that took place about ten years ago. In one case a co-captain of a high school football team was outed and his life was made a living hell. He dropped out of school. The other story was about a high school football player who was accepted and life was good.

I started to read about a college-level football captain who also was outed. Things went well for him. There were many other stories I was reading about athletes who have had their share of success and failure after being outed to their team.

The gay college football player said one of his biggest concerns was that he felt the others guys might be uncomfortable in the locker room around him because they know he is gay.

It is funny, I am the same way. When no one knows you’re gay you can blend in and no one is uncomfortable around you. But for me when I know that someone else knows that I am gay, that makes me uncomfortable around them. I think about what they might be thinking about me.

Every time something happens, I wonder if they think I did it because I was gay. I have found most guys don’t think about it most of the time. Many times they don’t remember that I am gay at every moment of the day. But living the life of a gay man it is always something that is on your mind. It is sort of like living in a fishbowl. I always think that my actions are being judged by the others due to my homosexuality.

The funny thing is that even those who are “okay” with me don’t fully understand homosexuality. They think it is a choice. They think that it is cool as long as I don’t hit on them.

Interesting Turn of Events

June 14th, 2009

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.

A Night With Gunnar

May 31st, 2009

Today was day two of the softball tournament. We played on game and were sent packing. We didn’t really hit the ball well and several of the players we had didn’t came back the second day for various reasons. It was this tournament that made me decide not to spearhead any more tournaments. It was took much work to call people over and over to find people to play. I am then questioned why we had so many people in one game. I am getting annoyed that every step along the way I am being questioned. First the question is about me not winning the toss and getting Home team. So I win the toss and get home team only to be told we should take Away from now on. Argh!

Later we had co-ed. There were five women and seven guys. So I just did the managing and let the others play. After the game I stopped by Starbucks and picked up Gunnar. We got some pizza and then went to my place. We watched the Italian Job and then watched some TV. We were together until nearly two in the morning hanging out and watching TV. We saw a lot of shows on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network that were very strange.

It was fun to hang out with Gunnar again. But I am starting to wonder already if we are right together. I am going to give it some time. I think communication is important. We talked in some E-mails about that. I think it is important that if something is bothering me that I say what it is rather than letting it boil over at some point in the future.

I keep thinking I want a boyfriend, but then when I have someone I wonder if he is right for me. I don’t know if I have dysfunctional issues of having the boyfriend or if the situation is that I just haven’t found the right guy yet. I just don’t know. At times I like the ability to have someone to call “mine”, but then other parts of me feel like it is all wrong. I don’t know if that is the part of me that doesn’t like being gay and that I want to not be gay so it ruins any chances of a relationship. I sometimes look around thinking that “if that guy was my boyfriend I would be happy”.

My New Durango

April 2nd, 2009

After I got off work I went to Lewiston to pick up my new Durango. I worked on getting the things transferred over to it. It has leather in all three rows. That was nice to see, because I only negotiated the first two rows. It must have cost less to do all three than they thought it was going to cost to do the first two rows.

I have lifetime powertrain and bumper-to-bumper warranties. It has a DVD player built into the radio. I have a rearview camera and backup sensors. It has the Hemi with MDS so it shuts down some of the cylinders when they are not needed to help save fuel. It seems to have some get-up and go. It feel great to drive it. Plus it has the newer traction control system so I feel better about driving it on the bad roadways.

When comparing my Ought-Seven vs Ought-Four it was night and day. My rig has traction like the Ought-Seven. The Ought-Seven was one I would try to put sideways on the snow covered roads and soon as it started to move sideways it would straighten out. I was easily about to put the Ought-Four sideways. I didn’t like that in terms of safety.

It looks very nice. I also have the navigation system installed. I have a huge hard drive so I can input songs and play straight from my hard drive. It also have satellite radio. I have enough space to put all my music on the hard drive.

I decided that I would find an application to update the ID3 information on all the songs. Then I am going to go through and clean the directory. I am going to work on properly naming all the songs and fixing the errors in naming of the songs. I am going to get rid of all the duplicate songs as well. I expect this project to take many hours.

After getting the rig I went to Costco to get some groceries. I hadn’t been to Costco in a long time. But I was able to get several things that I needed including paper plates, a push broom, and a sixteen gig thumb drive. I spent nearly four-hundred bucks in all.

Nathan came over and we watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. We were not able to watch the whole thing because he had to go to a meeting, but we were going to get together after his meeting.

My softball games that were planned for the afternoon were cancelled so I didn’t have to worry about those.

A call came in for a transfer to Spokane. I decided to take the call. I went to Spokane with Blake. It was an ALS transfer. Following that call I went home to continue to working on my music. I ended up staying up until nearly two in the morning.

Five Hour Airport Transfer

March 31st, 2009

I got about four hours of sleep and I made my way for my ride along this morning. I was told to get the reserve car ready and fill it with fuel. I was ready to go but told that due to the fact I worked last night and only got four hours of sleep I couldn’t work this morning due to safety reasons. I was disappointed. But I went home and went to sleep for a while.

I was sitting at home when a call for a transfer went out. I came to the station to go on it. We ended up never leaving the hospital. I did some CPR while at the hospital and instead of driving to Spokane I drove to the airport with a the Medstar crew. It was almost six hours of being there when it was all said and done, never making it to Spokane. But the nurses were very happy with the work we did there and wanted to give us an atta boy to the Chief.

I then spent about an hour talking to Nathan on the phone and chatting with Jon on IM.

Mom’s Sixty-Seventh Birthday

March 29th, 2009

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

March 28th, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Gay Day

March 21st, 2009

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.

Final Day of Academy Classroom

March 3rd, 2009

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

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

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

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

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