Out on the Bubble

This morning I worked a WSU Women’s basketball game with Wilcox. We didn’t really talk to each other much. But it has been like that forever. We really only have small talk conversations. The Cougs lost the game and ended up tenth place in the Pac-Ten.

When I got home I spent time working on cleaning my driveway and sidewalk of rocks and other debris. I had a ton of stuff on the driveway and it looks very nice now. I also got my laundry taken care of as well. It was a good day as far as that goes. But now I need to work on finishing up the garage. I have some clutter that is being built. With a nice day I could get out there and pound it out.

Later on I went to Zeppoz for the poker tournament. It was a new tournament structure. They made us do a ten dollar buy-in. A lot less people were there. I am sure it will build back up, but I was doing pretty good. I wasn’t really losing too much. I was maintaining for a long time. I did an add-on during that period and it was off to the eliminations.

I made it a long way. I finally started to get some hands and I was winning the hands I got. Then the dealers changed. My first hand was pocket-Kings. I didn’t get anyone to call my raise on the blinds. My next hand was pocket-Sevens. There was a raise pre-flop with four people going to the flop. The flop was Seven-Seven-Ten. I had quads. I was last to act. There were two checks. A minimum bet of one-thousand. I called. The other two folded. The turn came with a check from the person who bet. I bet one thousand and I got a call. Finally the river. Another check, I bet three-thousand. No call. So I didn’t have to show my hand. I threw it away.

But I started to get bled away as the blinds were so big. Pretty soon it was down to three. I was on the bubble with enough for the big blind. One caller. I have two-three. I was hosed. The other guy had King-Two. I was out of the tournament.

I had a good time. On the way home I treated myself to a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. I watched some TV and completed my laundry before going to bed.

EMT Class Help

Started the day driving to Steptoe for the EMT class. I was doing more medical assessments. My roll was mainly to help people with doing a medical incident. I made up some scenarios and run the groups through it. I did that for most of the time there. I also helped with some check-offs on using the long bone splint for a femur fracture.

For lunch a group of us went to Colfax fire for some pizza and watched the Cougar game. Well we watched the tip-off and the first points scored by the Cougs. We were back at the school until around four in the afternoon.

When I returned I went to the Dodge dealership to look at their trucks. I found one fifteen hundred. But with what I would get for my truck and what they wanted on that truck I would not be making a good switch. I want to reduce the overall amount owed on the truck. I would have only reduced what I owe by about two grand and I would have added about forty-five thousand miles to the rig. Not a good trade off.

I will keep looking until I find the perfect truck and the perfect deal for me.

I went to the Rec center and did a cardio workout. Then I swam five laps. My legs were tired and I was really not swimming super well. But I chalked that up to having just done twenty minutes of cardio.

After the Rec center I went to the casino and played with about forty bucks. That didn’t last forever. Russell was there. He was looking at getting off pretty soon. I was going to give him a ride. But I got a call from Avalon about transporting a person from the hospital. When I was done it was after three in the morning. I went back to the casino wearing a polo shirt and slacks. At first Russell glanced at me thinking I was someone else.

He got off and I gave him a ride to Nick’s apartment. I went home and called it a night.

Bought a Pop Machine

I did some shopping at Safeway and stopped by Al’s Auto Body to look at the pop machines. I found one that I liked. It was branded as a Coke machine, but I figured the features it had it was worth dealing with that. It has up to nine selections. It holds a lot of pop. Plus I can vary the prices depending on whether I have pop, beer, or some other beverage in the machine.

I had to run home for a bit then I went back to pick it up. I helped to do some cleaning on it and replaced the locking mechanism on it. Then the guy delivered it to my house.

I set it up in the garage. Next to the other vending machine.

I went to Colfax for fire training. We were doing our Confined Space refresher course. That went pretty quick. Carl, Jim, Tim, and I play poker. I had to get some cash from the store. While I was there I saw they had a good deal on some kinds of candy. So I bought thirty bars for the vending machine.

I didn’t do great at cards, but I ended winning a couple hands late and walked away with about fifty cents.

Welcome to Canada

Got up this morning and started my trip to Canada. It started with picking up three of my co-workers along the way. In Renton, Bellevue, and Kirkland. Then we hit the road and made our way to the border. At the border I was being questioned. But I was answering the questions with brief information that should have been a little more descriptive. For instance when asked what we were doing, I said “going to a meeting.” So after getting the information he wanted we continued along the way.

But we didn’t go the exact way the directions we had included. So it took us some extra time to get to our final destination. About an extra hour or so. When we got to the office we got a tour of it.

Then it was to a meeting room. We went over their product. Showed our product. Had some pizza for lunch. Then ended the day with talking about the work they are going to have us do on their product.

We hit the road and it was a long haul back to Seattle. We talked about the people we met and the product we were going to have to work on. I dropped the people off in the reserve order that I picked them up. It had been a long day.

Later I got a call from Jon. I was meeting up with him to play poker down in his neighborhood. I got there it was very bad. I couldn’t do much to win anything. We were playing two-four dollar limit. That made it hard to push people out. But we finally upped it to ten dollar limit. I had my last buyin in front of me and I went to work. When it was done about forty minutes later I won back all my lost money plus about twenty bucks more. So it turned out to be a good day. It just took a while.

It wasn’t like the last time I was there when I took a couple hundred bucks and didn’t lose more than two hands all night long.

Super Bowl Party

Today’s Super Bowl party was held at Bryce’s house in Colfax. I purchased some peanut butter cups, chips, and dip. I brought that down with my pop. I got there around the same time Carl did. He brought his beans stuff. Jim and Connie brought their taquito’s. Everyone had their thing there.

We started by playing some poker. But I was not doing very well. I sort of just bled out money most of the night. We were rooting for the Giants to beat Patriots to ruin their attempt at a perfect season. We stopped playing cards at the start of the game. We were not very impressed with the commercials this year. They were not very funny nor ground breaking.

At half time we played cards until there was about five minutes left in the game. After that we went back to watch the final part of the game. That was probably the best part of the game as well.

We played a tiny bit more cards before calling it a night. I went home and watched the end of House.

Poker in Moscow

I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Ricky today trying to figure out the estimates of working of Kroll again. I am not looking forward to this in the slightest.

Later I went to Moscow to play poker at Jeremy’s apartment. It was a little difficult to find it because there was a lack of street signs and house numbers in the area. Finally I narrowed down to the fact I was at the correct spot and went to find his apartment. There was no indication of apartment numbers from the parking area. So I went to the first opening I found. In the hallway I entered, I immediately found his apartment. What luck.

I knocked and was let in. No one else was there and it was almost exactly the start time. I was thinking I was at the wrong place until the guy asked if I was there for poker. I said I was.

Other showed up. One guy was a ten-six-seven with dirty blond hair. That gave me some good eye candy. He was also a big fan of Omaha. He spent some time teaching others how to play it. I helped it with some of the rules and how things worked. He said he was still new to it himself.

We played a simple ten dollar buy in. I wasn’t getting much of anything along the way and I just ended up giving money away on the night. I stuck around until the tournament was done. There were only six people anyway. We threw some darts and watched the action until Jeremy ended up winning the whole thing.

We played some Omaha for the fun of it, teaching everyone else how to play. We gave everyone a stack of chips and played for about twenty minutes. Those guys were going to go to the bar. I decided to head home.

Poker Night at Dan’s

The plan was to get together earlier than normal to play poker at Dan’s. John and Denise played as well. Denise did well with it. I also left up around ten bucks. We played dealer choice like normal. It was pretty amazing that we saw two hands with quads and one hand that was a straight flush in Texas Hold’em or Omaha. John and Dan didn’t do too well however.

I got my battery for the quad. I installed it and used it to plow what was left on my driveway. I also hit the sidewalk down my side of the road to the mailboxes. I need to do the other way as well. We are supposed to get snow soon. I will do it after it snows next.

Ken is Senior Pastor

Being as tired as I was I hard a hard time getting out of bed for getting to Colfax for Church. I got cleaned up, dressed up, and drove to Colfax. When I got to the church I shook the hands of the greeters and found my place near the back.

Joy saw me and gave me a hug. I also saw Tim, both chiefs, and Milt. Ken also saw me and came over. The church service was nice. They played a couple modern Christian songs. During that time everyone stood up. Some people sang along. They would raise their hands. Some of the songs were good ones. I guess I should say they were all good. But a couple got me tapping along with it.

Then they did a ceremony for accepting Ken as the pastor of the church. Following that Ken did a sermon on Time. There were some good points that he brought up. What is interesting to me is that this blog is called “Shorter of Breath”. Which is part of a line from the Pink Floyd song “Time”. I have included the whole verse in my blog description. It is big to me.

There was a period of time where I feel like I wasted my life. I spent my early twenties working every evening. I missed out on a bunch of things that my other college friends did. Maybe it was all for the best, but I still had the feeling of lost time. But I look back over my life and I feel like there is more that I could do.

I don’t know if that is really the case. Maybe I can work harder and filling my day with less down time. But I don’t think it is about quantity of things done, but the quality of the time I spent doing it. I have a blog from several years ago when I was with the old softball group. We ended at Lester’s house. While there it just felt like we were having a high class party.

I find many times I have the best and most memorable time when I am out of my element. When I leave my comfort zone. But many time I have a lot of fun while in my comfort zone as well. I should sit in a corner and dwell on what makes it so I have a good time and work on trying to fulfill that.

When church was done it was back home. I went with Russell to pick up Nick from the Flag lane. He was coming in on the bus. We drove down to Cougar Country for lunch. Then I took Russell and Nick to Russell’s place. We looked at some photos from a party they were at.

After I got home, I worked on the photo board project for the fire station. I got my list ready of things I needed to buy at the store. I went to play poker at Zeppoz. I came in ninth place. That is a drop of two places from times past.

I stopped at Safeway and did my big shopping. I purchased a lot of fruit and vegetables. Plus many other things I was going to need to start my Body for Life twelve week program. This is something I can continue to do, over and over. To me each start and ending point will be a nice goal period. I get my weekly goals. With each Sunday is a “free” day. One were I can relax and not stay so regimented with the food I eat. Can you say Pizza?!

Also at the end of the twelve week period I will hopefully see a change in my health, weight, stamina, strength, and softball power hitting abilities. My first twelve weeks will be done at the end of March. I will be nearing the end when Softball season is going. I hope that I will see some positive improvement by then.

I started to work on my meal plan for tomorrow. They have the first week plotted out for you. I am going with that, and making minor changes along the one.

Tomorrow is the start of a new path. Since moving into my house I have done things to be cleaner. I have always been bad at leaving things laying where I last used them. I always had a clean kitchen, but my bedroom is always covered in clothes and other things that just never found a home. I have worked hard to keep the house clean. I wash my truck weekly. With the snow and ice I haven’t washed it lately. But keeping a clean truck is important.

I have kept that up longer than anyone in my family thought I could. Longer than I thought I could. I also have kept my budget tracking going the whole time too. I think I am ready for anther change in my life where this is not a fly-by-night one time work out. This is going to be a change in my life. I am trying to ease into it rather and shocking the system too much. So for the last week I have been eating less and more healthy on my own.

I thought about going to bed a little earlier. Then I will take a power nap after my work out to get a little more sleep before starting my day.

National Treasure Part two

I went to see National Treasure down in Renton on the East Valley Highway. I have been going to that theatre since it opened. For a while I have had some really rude experiences at the hands of other customers. Many times I would hear people talking through out the movie. I would hear cell phones ring. On top of the ring, the person would answer the phone and talk on it. When did people become so self-centered that they could careless about anyone around them. Now movies have to play reminders on the screen to turn off the cell phones.

The movie itself pretty much was the same as the first one. Using tricks and high-tech gadgets to get information to find the treasure. In this movie like the last one, the bad guy would get there at the end demanding to have the treasure, and then something would happen where he would not get the treasure. But it was still a fun journey to get the treasure.

After the movie I went to the Silver Dollar casino. I didn’t do very well at all. I pretty much raked one pot, and it was only the blinds after everyone else folded. I tried some four card poker, Paigow, and Spanish Twenty-One. Nothing worked for me tonight.

I couldn’t get a hand while playing Texas. I did get pocket Queens. I raised, and I kept betting. The big blind played along. He had four-five off suit. He called six bucks to see a flop and kept calling to get his straight. I lost a lot of money there on someone who was just calling and calling. That is how my night went.

This same guy when I sat at the table really caused me to be confused about his background. He was a white guy around twenty-four years old. He had a well groomed beard. He wore a baseball hat with a very curved bill and it was on straight. He had well manicured fingernails. He had on a designer-looking denium coat. He voice sounded like he thought he was a G. Sort of like Eminem. But as the night wore on, I was starting to think it was more of a gay voice that gangsta. Soon that drifted into thinking he sounded southern. Maybe a gay southern. I was not sure.

Big Night at Poker

After work I met up with Jon to play some poker at Mike’s. He is one of the guys who puts on the games at Newport Shores. We got there around nine o’clock PM. There were six others already there. I was getting some good cards, but my community cards were really doing well.

As time went on I just kept winning. While I was there I only went to the showdown once and lost. I had a couple split pots. I had one situation that really burned me up.

I had a three-four offsuit. I was in an early position. I was only in due to being in the blind. A three-five-six rainbow came on the flop. So now I am one card from the straight and I have a pair. So I stick around for a little bit. A ten was on the turn. It was checked around. A three on the river. I had trips, but when the seven dollar bet was quickly raised to twenty-seven bucks. I felt that he had trips with a better kicker. So I threw it down. He let me know he had a ten. I told him that he made a good bed.

We played until one in the morning. When the card game was done I was up three-hundred and thirty-five bucks. Jon found some dice. We played some four-five-six. We only rolled a couple times. The first round Jon won with boxcars (trip sixes). Then I played again. He got a point of two. I rolled a four-five-six. I took bank. I got some bets and rolled a four-five-six again. I had sixty bucks now. Jon played sixty. I rolled trip-fives. I won again. I was on fire. Because of four-five-six, I ended up leaving with four hundred bucks.

While at work today we had our company Christmas Party. We were told we were being bought by a Canadian company. It was sort of a shock. Our future is known. My future is unknown. They want to be closed by the end of the year. So that means that by the second of January I will have a new boss. I spoke with my CEO to find out some more. She said that I have a great skill set. I can do all parts of the new code set, plus I can work on all of the old code. I am a valuable person.

Plus I proved to her that working from home is a viable thing. I proved to her that I do a good job without coming into the office. She said that our potential buyers has a president who works from home. So the new bosses are all for it. She pretty much told me I don’t have anything to worry about. I told Jon about that tonight while we were playing poker. He told me about a job opportunity at his company. I also told him I have yet to hear anything back from SEL. I don’t know how I am doing there. He told me that I could possibly get a job working for his company. I might look into that one way or another.

A Grand time at the Casino

The plan today was going to be going to some RV places and look at campers for my truck. The problem is that I didn’t make it out and about like I had planned to do.

I got together with Jon and Jim around nine o’clock PM. We ended up going to the Silver Dollar Casino on the West Valley Highway. It turned out to be a good move.

I have a bad head ache and I drank a lot of pop and took some Motrin to try to make it feel better. It wasn’t until nearly four in the morning that the pain was pretty much gone.

We started playing at a poker table with two others. I started out winning the first two hands. After that I did okay. I never really was down all night. Jon and Jim were also doing really well. Between the three of us we ended up almost a grand. I was only around one-hundred and fifty of that. Jon had the most. We were just winning a lot of hands. I really couldn’t lose.

We were there until nearly four in the morning. On the way out we got some of the free cards that they give away.

More Zeppoz poker

After only about two hours of sleep I was woken up by a phone call from Pete. There was a call waiting in the wing. I had guessed it had to do with the call we had this morning. Later on in the morning I called Pete and it turned out to be what I was thinking it was. As it turned out I had transported the same person to Spokane about ten days prior. So I was familiar with him.

In the rest of the day Wilcox, Dearth, and I responded on EMS and fire calls. The first one was a pretty bad looking accident. Turned out it wasn’t much of anything when it was done. A lot of people stopped to help. I was talking to one person who was there. I got the vibes and the gaydar was going off. I found him on Facebook and sure enough he is family.

I was running really late for poker. Sign ups were at five-thirty, and it was almost that time when we got back to the station after our fourth call of the afternoon. With the heavy snow covering the road we had a long day. But now it is raining and the roads are getting all slushy.

I got to Zeppoz in time to get a seat at the table. Due to the weather, I believe, there was a limited number of players. We ended up having three full tables, but it took almost until six o’clock to get there.

A ten-six-seven who has been in all the tournaments since I started to play was there. He is not the normal blonde/blue but, he is still ten-six-seven.

Towards the end of the night I was knocked out in seventh place again. The ten-six-seven was in the final four. All of a sudden there was a small uproar at the table. I was playing a table game right next to the poker table. I turned around and saw the ten-six-seven with tears in his eyes. Someone said he would chop the pot with him. I didn’t know what had happened.

Later on I found out his dad had died and he was called about it during the game.

Got my Shopping Done

I got up this morning and there was a response from the cop I knew on gay.com. He answered my question and pondered who I was. I didn’t tell him straight up, but I responded to his question of me.

I went to Safeway and did my shopping. I had been needing to go there for quite a while. While there I saw Bruce. We stopped and chatted for a while. Later I saw C-Bass. Coach Doba was there shopping. I also saw the Pullman Fire ambulance crew buying some stuff for dinner.

I got home and put everything away. I had some time before I had to go back to Zeppoz. I got the IM address of the guy who I know that is gay. I also responded to the cops’ message back to me.

Then it was off to Zeppoz for the tournament. There was a ten-six-seven there again. I have seen him the last three weeks that I was there. I finally found out who it was. He is a local. I always want to play on his table, but we get different tables.

In today’s game I decided that I would not do more than one re-buy. That is all I ended up needing. I made it longer that I had in previous tournament. I was out in the seventh place. They paid the top four, with more than two-hundred going to first place. I was the second lowest in chips on the final table. But I won a big hand. Only to lose it later on. Then I had only enough for one big blind. I only had three hands to get something to play. I got K-9 suited. I went all in. I got two-pair, but I lose to someone with trips. That was my night.

I played a table game. I lost nearly twenty bucks, but I changed tables. I won back my money and walked out of there even.

Another Day in Jail

Another shift working in jail. I worked with a new person today. I helped him book someone in and did a round with him. I worked there until around six o’clock pm. It was pretty uneventful for the most part.

I went to training in Colfax. It was a pretty short one. We went over the cascade system in the rescue and in the station. We learned how to hook up bottles and how to hook the rescue to the in-house system to refill it.

When that was done Carl, Scott, Chris, and I played poker for a couple hours. I won the first hand of the night and couldn’t do anything after that.

Zeppoz Poker Tournament

This morning started out with breakfast. Then I spent time working on the application for work. Jon, Logan, and Justin were still here. They ate breakfast with me. Jon helped me with a problem that I had with something. It worked so I was able to get it checked in.

They decided to take off around noon. I spent time doing the dishes. Then I made some cookies.

It was off to Zeppoz’s for the poker tournament. I was doing okay at first, then I lost. I went to the three-six table. I went up pretty well and built a stack for a long time. Then I hit a wall. I was getting people sucking out on me. We you cannot chase someone off, they catch cards on you. That is why I hate playing low stakes poker. It is all about the cards you have and not how you play the game and how you bet.

I then played some high/low poker. It is a new card game. I did good at first, then I started to lose like crazy. It wasn’t very long before I lost all my money. I went from being up to losing it all in about an hour. I was there for almost five hours in all. Over all it was a good time. I am going to have to tighten up the poker playing for a bit though.

Lots of Fires Today

I heard a faint knocking at my door. It made me more aware but didn’t totally wake me up. Soon I heard another knock on my door. I got up. My pager had not gone off, but I only had it on the second alarm tones. I opened the door. Tyson asked if I was going to go. I asked him what was going on. He said there was a structure fire with a couple cars involved.

I got up and went to the station. I didn’t make a first out rig because I wanted to go pee. When I got back to the bay they second alarmed it. I was going to call Bien, but I saw him roll into the station. Chapman also showed up. We took off in the ambulance.

On our arrival to the scene I could see a five inch across Spring Street. We parked in such a way to protect the hose. We walked up to the scene. While walking up the road a man asked us if the smoke coming from his garage was a normal amount. Because he was a neighbor of the fire, he figured some of the smoke was from the fire. But it was pouring out, and I could tell it was not from the other fire. I looked inside the door but could not see flames.

We went to command and let Thompson know we had a second fire a couple houses away. He sent some of us to staging to wait assignment. Van Ness was in charge of staging. We got called down to work overhaul on the first fire. While doing that another fire came out on Nye Street. A building was fully involved. A bunch of units broke free from our fires as they were out.

We also called in for Colfax, Moscow, and District Twelve. We stayed on the overhaul detail as the others fought the other fire. I listened to the radio traffic. It seemed like a bad fire. We all wanted to go to that one, but we had our assignments and worked it and got the overhaul done.

I could see the column of the smoke from across town. I could tell the fire was big. After we were done with our scene, we cleaned up the hose and went to the station to wash it and get the PL back in service. That took a while to do. We also had to fill out arrival reports. We sat at the station filling out our paper work and having some food. I was able to see the photos from the Nye street fire. It was really big.

After we helped to get Engine Thirty-Three back in service as well.

I went home and made my phonecall to the meeting that we have daily. I let them know what I was working on. I was pretty tired. I got up around four-thirty in the morning and had only three hours of sleep.

I also had the poker game at six o’clock tonight. I had about ten people in total show up. We only had about six people at any given time however. I had to rebuy once. But then I started to really kick some butt. I was winning some good hands including one where I had two people call an all-in. I had pocket aces. I had about eighteen bucks into the pot. Two people called it.

I was up fifty bucks when it was all said and done. I went to bed after I got the house put back together. I had to be at the Nye street fire location and work it from three in the morning until eight in the morning. It was going to be a long day.

The Poker Tournament

After bumming around this morning without a poker game at Jason’s I decided I would play in the Zeppoz tournament. I thought it started at four. It started at six. So I took the opportunity to go to Moscow and look for swimming trunks. I did not find any that I like so I went back to Zeppoz. I played some Texas Shootout. Loren was there as well. We played for a while and talked about playing poker.

We got in line for the tournament. I ended up sitting on a different table. During Texas Shootout I won about twenty bucks. I used that and some more in the tournament. I raked a couple pots, but I couldn’t catch cards when it mattered. I ended up going out shortly after the final buy in round.

I talked to Russell for a little bit while I plays some cards on his table.

I went home and watched some Sunday night TV shows and got a couple new things done with the duty calendar application.

Poker at Dan’s

Tonight Dan, John, Denise, and Denise’s’ brother, Adam were playing poker at their place. We started around eight o’clock. But I had to do some parking lot patrols around nine o’clock. That lasted an hour so I missed some poker.

After getting back we played until around two o’clock in the morning. I won on the night but I gave Dan money to pay for all the snacks they have had for us the last couple times playing there.

Russell got drunk

I started off trying to get some things done on the fire application that I started to develop last night. Before long I needed to head to the Moose to watch some football with Ron, Heather, Dan, Michele, and CBass. I watched about a quarter before Russell called to get a ride from the airport. We were going to go to Jason’s and play some poker when he got back.

I picked him up from the airport and he had a couple glasses of wine while on the plane. Then we were off to Jason’s. When I got there Peter was there playing. It was six handed poker for a while. Then one guy finally lost his money and left. Russell was drinking more while we were there.

The game broke up because everyone wanted to go to Zeppoz for the free roll. I had to be on call and do weekly rig checks so I couldn’t go.

I went home and got ready for the rig checks. Then it was off to the station. The rig checks went pretty quick over all. The Rescue kept getting called out. We were done around nine o’clock. I went home and watched Shark and had some dinner.

I worked on my application for a little while before going to bed. But before morning would hit we got dispatched for a structure fire. I ended up standing by the engine for the whole incident. It turned out to be more of a situation where we spent most of the time getting people in and out of the retirement community as well as clearing the smoke from the hallways.

We got done around six-thirty in the morning. I went back home and went to sleep for a while.

Mike D Homecoming Poker Tournament

I set up a poker tournament for Mike D’s return to Pullman. It was scheduled to start after the bon fire on campus. We were taking the engine up there to man it. I got everything set up before going up there. It was a good thing because the bon fire went late. I ended up calling Mike to have him run it until my return.

The bon fire was pretty cool. They had many people from the sports teams. Elson Floyd was there. He thanked us for coming up there. I recognized him and then when he was done shaking our hands I looked at Bien and asked if he knew who that guy was. He said no. I told him who it was and he got a look on his face like he was surprised as to who it was.

We hung around until it was over. The heat from the fire was pretty hot. At one point you could see the whole crowed move away from the fire. We used the water from the engine to put out the fire.

When I got home the game was already underway with ten guys playing. Soon one more person showed up and we made two six man tables. One was a Omaha table and one was Texas. We play for a while, but I could not win an Omaha hand. I switched tables. That is when I started to make a comeback. I was up a little bit of money. Then I started to lose it again.

A couple more people showed up as some left. Pretty soon we went back to one table. It appeared that everyone was going to break up at midnight. But at eleven-thirty I got a fire alarm call. I was hoping it would go fast. But instead I spent the next three and a half hours running from call to call. Some medical and some fire. One was actually a fire in a dumpster. We were at the station. I asked if we could come along. Turpin said we could.

We got to the scene and a dumpster at CCN was on fire. We got it put out and the rig put back together I got home around three in the morning. I put my house back together and went to bed.

Got a New Truck

Got up early and got my stuff put into the truck and picked up the boat trailer. I went to Jon’s and picked him up. We went to pull his boat out of the water. I took it back to his place and backed it into his driveway. He followed me to the Dodge dealership. The guy wanted to know if I wanted it. I went back to the whole issue about not having the radio controls on the steering wheel.

The guy asked why don’t I look at a new truck. He had me write down some of the things that are important and did some searching. He found one or two trucks with a gas engine and the steering wheel controls but did not find the color I liked. He had me go to the lot and see the other colors. I wanted a blue truck. Plus we were adding nearly ten grand. I didn’t want to do that. I made it clear if I were to get a new vehicle it would be one-hundred percent of what I want. The junior car dealer was trying to tell me I could not get one-hundred percent. I told him that I could. I said that if I were to get a new truck it would not be today. I realized that this deal was either the used truck or no truck.

The sales manager came over to assist. I made it clear that I was apprehensive over getting this vehicle because of the missing audio controls. Plus the additional debt load. The sales manage asked if I would do it for twenty-one-five. I thought about it, sort of waiting for a reaction from Jon. Jon finally spoke up saying that if I was taking so long to accept the deal then obviously it was not exactly right.

We left and Jon said to me outside he thought he was going to have to grab me by the back of the coat to get me out of there. I told him I was waiting for his reaction. I made a plan for what I was going to do.

I told the dealer I was going to look into a couple of things and then get back to him. After lunch I called him and said I would do the deal for twenty-three-five with a one-hundred-thousand mile warranty included. He called me back and said he could not do that. The warranties were out of his hands. I asked to speak to the finance division to find out what a warranty would cost. He called me back later and said twenty-four out the door with a lifetime drivetrain warranty. I told him I would think about it.

I told Jon and Jon thought the drivetrain warranty was not enough. I agreed. I called BECU to find out what their warranties would cost. I got a price of eighteen-hundred-and fifty. I called the dealer back and said I would do the deal for twenty-one-five out the door. He said that offer was not on the table. I said it was earlier. He said the sales manager was trying to see if I was worried about debt or the audio controls. That was not a real offer. I said to find out if it was and call me back.

By this time in the day I realized that I did want to get the truck, but only if I got it for twenty-one-five. A while later the sales manager called back and said I could get it for twenty-one-seven, plus a full tank of fuel. I said I would do it.

I went to the dealer and moved all the stuff from my truck to the new one. I then started to sign all the paperwork. I thought I was almost done, but I had more negotiating to do for the warranty. They wanted twenty-four hundred. I said I could get the one through BECU for eighteen-five. He trying to tell me that the dealer warranty is better. I did want to get the dealer warranty, but I did not want to pay twenty-four hundred.

After some negotiations I got it for twenty-two hundred and a fifty dollar deductible rather than a one-hundred dollar deductible. I left in my new truck.

I went back to the office and got my stuff. By this time it was nearly nine at night. Because it was so late I decided to go to Jon’s neighborhood poker game for a while. I told Jon about the latest dealings. Then a tournament was being organized from the cash game that was going on. I got in on the tournament. There were sixteen players. They were paying the top four. I was on the bubble, but I was way behind. I ended up going out on the bubble.

I then hit the road at about eleven o’clock at night.

Poker Night at Dan’s

I spent much of the day working on my shelf project. I was actually assembling the wood framing and getting everything screwed together. Towards the end of the night of my work I got a phone call from John. He asked if I wanted to play some poker tonight. I told him that I would like to play cards.

Around eight o’clock I went to Dan’s house and we started to play. Dan had a bunch of Diet Pepsi for me and he got some M&Ms; for everyone. He paid us our money from last time and we started to play.

I was hot again like the other night. I was winning and winning money. When someone would buy more chips I would take three black chips (one dollar chips) and exchange them out of my stack because my stacks were so big. We were doing five dollar buyins. I was up twelve bucks alone in black chips. Plus all my winnings in the other chips. I ended up walking out about twenty bucks richer. Dan also won back some of his money that he had lost before.

I think my biggest loss all night was a buck-ninety-five.

Poker Night at Peter’s

I was supposed to go to Colfax for fire training, but I just couldn’t get up the energy to go. I was too into my garage and the building I had going on out there. I was building away when I got a call from Peter about playing poker over at his place.

I went there and just won hand after hand. I slowly built up my stacks. I only lost a couple big hands. But I won way more than I lost. I left up about fifteen bucks. That is good for Peter’s place because buy-ins are only five bucks.

FFL Live Draft

This morning I scheduled to work with James on driving the engine and pumping on it. We planned to put in a total of four hours including one hour pumping. We first went to the tower to pump on the engine. We talked about how the pump works and how to run it for various hose lines. Then we went driving. I started on the bigger less crowded streets.

As the time flew by we went all over town. I also got him to think about roads and go onto road he didn’t know very well. We got a couple fire alarms. We responded to both of them. But both times we pretty much got called off for one reason or another.

Around one o’clock I spoke to Chapman about keeping the engine one extra hour. That caused us to get two more calls. One of them was weird. The guy was running away from us even though he should have been seen. I explained to him that it wouldn’t cost anything to take a look. He still ran off. Then a few minutes later it became clear there were other issues. There was also a verbal domestic going on at the same time with him and someone else.

I got the police down there and we clear as a no patient found. While on that a second call for a guy who fell from an apartment building came out. We went along on that. We did the transport. So, it was after three and I was a little worried that Chapman was going to be upset about us still having the engine out and about.

I also had my FFL draft at four o’clock. The last two years the coroners office has had calls right at draft time. I was hoping that would not happen this year. Turns out it didn’t, but the EMS call almost made me miss part of it.

After the hospital we had to fuel up the rig. Then it was off to the FFL draft. That took about four hours. I got Farve like I do every year.

Following the draft I went to Dan and Denise’s to play poker. John was over there as well. We played nickle, dime, quarter stuff until the three o’clock in the morning. It was a long day at the end of a long weekend for me. I couldn’t wait to get to bed.

Infectious Disease Training

I was asked to cover for Chapman for a while tonight because he was going to go play with D-Twelve on their fire.

I went to the fire station to do our daily rig checks. Then down to Station one for training. It was infectious diseases.

When it was done Chapman called to have me cover the rest of the night. I went to my place. John came over and we played poker. It was small stakes dealer’s choice. I was up and could not lose for a while. It was bad for John. They we started to play the silly games, like Acey-Deucy etc. He won back some of his losses and when he called it a night at two in the morning he was up about two bucks.

Winning again

It has been a little bit since I was winning at poker. The last couple cash games I was at, I have lost. But today would be different. After getting permission to leave early tomorrow so I could make it back for softball, I got some work done on our product.

Then it was off to Eric’s condo in Bellevue for a tournament. Eight people played in it. It was a twenty dollar buy-in with rebuys for the first three rounds. I did one rebuy, but no add-on. I was in fourty bucks.

I wasn’t catching hands, and I was the short stack all night long. Even as people were going out before me, I was short stacked and the guy who would go out would bet all-in, only to lose to someone with more money so the bet could be coverd.

Over time people were starting to go out, but it took a while to see people starting to drop out. Once that happened however, it started to go pretty quick.

I was short stack, as I was all night, and I only had about three times the big blind. I was nearing my exit when the number two chip leader went all-in. I could not believe my eyes. I was hoping the chip leader would call and win allowing me to get second place. But the chip leader did not call.

I ended up going out shortly thereafter winning third place and taking home an extra twenty-two bucks on the night.

Renton Old Timers Picnic

Some of them will be up this morning around ten o’clock in the morning. I decided text Jon to see if we were going to go to the Renton old timers’ picnic. He had not gone yet so him and I run a ride together. We met up at Ron Regis park and carpooled to Lions park from there.

Cost twenty five dollars for the entry fee. I covered the cost of food and drinks. They had hot dogs, barbecued spareribs, salmon, corn on the cob, a couple kegs of beer, and a case of whiskey. There was a horseshoe tournament that Terry and Jon were participating in. They only made it one round before they were knocked out by another team.

At noon everyone gathered around the main area where the American flag was presented. We were led by the oldest member of the Renton old timers’ and saying the pledge of allegiance. After the pledge, the president of the Renton old timers’ club and other executives members started draw ticket stubs for winners for the whiskey.

Anybody who won a bottle of whiskey would be cheered on to open up the bottle take a swig and pass it around. There were people of all ages people as young as in their twenties all way to people in their eighties. They went through twelve bottles of whiskey. I did not end up winning a bottle of whiskey although my number was one off. After the whisky was given out we went to get some food. I had a couple spareribs and I had already had a couple of hot dogs.

As soon as most people were done eating we all started lining up around the four-five-six table. I only had brought out sixty dollars with me. I did okay for a couple rounds and then it was my turn to be the banker. I risked all the money I had which was sixty dollars. I rolled a three. The first guy to my left had tapped me. He rolled a natural and beat me.

Jon asked me if I wanted to make a withdrawal from the bank of Jon. I told him know I did not and I watched him roll the dice for a while. Finally I did get some money and I played on the same table as Jon. I was winning money pretty well at this table. After a few minutes of playing I was able to pay back Jon the loan I had taken. We were at the party until about five-thirty.

We had consolidated the two different tables on to one. Jon was on fire, he could not lose a roll. As I watched join at the end of the night his stack of money was growing and growing and growing.

There was one younger guy there. He had blue eyes, and was a ten-six-seven. He seemed very nice and dressed well. Maybe next year I will get a chance to chat with him.

After we got back to Jon’s vehicle we spent some time counting his winnings. He had won over eighteen hundred dollars. A stack of dollars was almost an inch and a half thick.

I was very tired from not having a lot of sleep between last night and today. I still stayed up for several hours watching the Simpsons marathon before I went to bed.

Staying up Late for Joe

I am doing a ride along with Joe tomorrow so I wanted to stay up really late tonight so I can be prepared for staying up late tomorrow. The last few days I have been going to bed pretty early by my normal standards.

After waiting around for hours of waiting around the house I finally went out the door and headed down to Diamond Lil’s. I was going to play poker to the wee hours of the morning in order to not be tired tomorrow for my ride along.

It took awhile before I got to sit at a table. There were a lot of people there. Finally I found a table to sit at. I was playing very conservative. Finally I found a hand and I moved. I made bets and raises. One guy said that I had been quiet for a long time and now that I was betting he knew I was playing a good hand. he was giving me respect. Two other stayed in. I had the nut straight, ace-high on the flop. As it turned out one other guy got the same one.

So I ended up splitting the pot with him and only taking some money from one guy. I guess that is better than what could have happened.

I came close to busting out totally, but I caught some all-in moments and crawled back. I did walk out down about forty, but I had been down a lot more for a while. I made it home around four in the morning which was the goal, anyway.

A lucky day?

With the date being seven/seven/seven people thought it was going to be a lucky day. I wouldn’t say it was a lucky day for me, but it was a good day and I didn’t get struck by lightning, so it couldn’t have been that bad.

Starting out this morning with golf was fun. I was running late getting down to Colfax. I was pulling into the parking lot as the group was heading out to the first tee. But we had two groups and I was able to get part of the second group. I was playing with Carl, Brian, and Diane. My first tee off was very nice. But the day was about normal for my kind of golf. I got a one-thirteen on the eighteen holes. I actually did worse my second time through.

I won a prize for hitting the most trees during my round. I didn’t realize how many times I hit trees, but I counted and I hit about seven per round. That is nearly one per hole on average.

After the golfing it was off to Colfax Fire. I hung out with Ken for a while watching some TV and having lunch. We were watching Mythbusters. Around four I had to leave to get back to Pullman to be on call here. I told Ken that I was done keeping it quiet for him. I was going to be heading out.

When I got home I heard Colfax get dispatched out to a car vs motorcycle accident. That had to have been dispatched shortly after I left. I really was keeping it quiet.

I got cleaned up and went to the station for rig checks. We were talking about Rescue and being a driver. A. Wilcox asked if he could ever go on the ambulance and not be the drive all the time. I told him that because of the fact he doesn’t have all the Rescue training he shouldn’t be the driver at all.

We then went out and did some training at the tower with setting up the rig, putting water on the fire, doing pump and roll attacks and other such scenarios. We did a good two hours of training.

Afterwards Bien bought the ice cream he owed for getting into the newspaper. We went to Dissmores to get that. Back at the station we had some cake and ice cream. I went to Peter’s afterwards for poker. I was not doing too well. I had one big win, then I had a big loss where I tried to push someone off a hand when mine was weaker. But he did not get off his hand and ended up beating me. I re-bought a couple times. I was sort of up and down on my third buy-in.

When the tones went off for a call. I quickly went all-in and Kevin called me. I ended up winning that all in and left. I was only down two bucks on the night after that point. I had the best hand after the flop and took it to the river as the winner.

I went on the call followed by a second call just as the movie Desperado was starting. I was hoping to watch to the scene where the bar is shot up. But I got called out to a second call at the very beginning of the movie. That was it for calls. I went to bed around three in the morning.

No Poker Game

I spent time working on getting the CardSpace to do a password and CardSpace without typing in the user name. What I am finding is my Vista box is running really, really slow via Remote Desktop. I have not found anything about fixing that. It is to the point I cannot work very well. I think I will have to bring it here to work locally on it. I am not sure what I can do, but I cannot get real work done with how slow it is going.

I went shopping today and got a bunch of stuff. I have needed to get out there for a long time but I have been putting it off. Finally today I made my way to Safeway. I got everything unloaded and put away.

Andy showed up for poker but it did not turn into a game because no one showed up. We sat around talking for about an hour and a half. He left and I made some hamburgers on the grill. It is so nice to have the grill.

This is a pretty laid back day, without a lot of things going on. I am going to go golfing in the morning. So I will get to bed early tonight.

Big night at poker

Tonight we had a poker game down at Newport Shores. They were playing two dollar/four dollar limit. That was killing me because I could not get anyone bluffed out of a hand, not that I bluff, but that a weak hand couldn’t push off a slightly stronger hand. I kept bleeding away my money. I was doing twenty dollar buy ins one by one. After eighty bucks I had no more cash. Then I got a small loan from Jon.

That is when my fortunes turned. The limit was raised to twenty bucks. So I could push some people at times. That was big for my game. Now I could play without the necessity of having the best hand, but being able to play cards.

I started to win back money. Soon I paid Jon back and just kept winning. One hand I got a ton of money when I had Ace/Nothing spades. The flop was three spades. I checked and Jon bet. Myself and one other person called. The turn did nothing to change the board. I bet about nine bucks. There was a call, then Jon raised. I called. The other person folded.

The river did nothing to change the board. I had the nuts. I bet a little bigger. Jon raised twenty bucks. I re-raised him his final eleven bucks. He called. I showed my nuts. After we were done playing for the night he told me I did a great job on that hand, he didn’t think I had nuts.

When the night was done around two in the morning I was up nearly a hundred bucks. I played one hand of four-five-six with Jon to give him a chance to win some money back from me. We got a natural and took the twenty bucks. But I went home with a lot of money.

Near Car Accident

I started out this morning waking up without an alarm clock. I forgot to set it before going to bed. I was supposed to be in Colfax at eight o’clock AM to have breakfast with Jim and Jerrid. I got up a quarter of eight. So I had to hustle. I got to Well’s in Colfax around eight-fifteen. I had breakfast with the other guys. Carl happened to be at the booth next to us when I got there. Today we are playing softball and golf.

After breakfast it was off to Steptoe for the softball game. It was Colfax fire against Steptoe fire. On the way there I was just outside of Colfax going up Buck Canyon. I saw a truck pulling over to the shoulder, then it kept going off the road into the ditch. All of a sudden the driver corrected and was coming back on the highway aimed straight at my truck. We were on a collision course. I hit my brakes and moved over a little bit. I was getting prepared for the collision. I was not sure where my truck was going to get hit, but I was very scared.

Then the driver re-corrected his path and started to spin out, He did a one-eighty. He was facing the wrong way going across his original lane of travel. Then he hit the soft shoulder and his truck rolled. I pulled over and grabbed my radio. I was shaking pretty bad.

I got out and the man in the car behind me said he thought I was going to get hit. I said “so did I”. I got ahold of Whitcom on the radio to let them know what I was out on. Jim and Jerrid were behind me and did not see the accident happen. They stopped as well.

I walked across the highway to the truck. The man was already out and getting things from his truck. It landed on its wheels and he was okay. He said he had fallen asleep. Once Colfax Police got on scene I cleared and we continued to Steptoe. The game had just started. We were on offense. Our hitters were not able to hit the ball very well, and the other teams’ pitcher could not get the ball across the plate. But we swung anyway. I did not hit the ball well at all. One time I did get patient and ended up walking.

On defense I played right field most of the game and I played at first base for two innings. We ended up losing to Steptoe. After the game Jerrid, Jim, and I stuck around and hit the ball around. We were hitting the ball well at that time. Ralph asked why we couldn’t hit like that during the game.

After we hit around for a while we went to the Steptoe fire station for a community barbecue. Jim and I were sitting inside the office area of the fire station when a mom with a six year old came in and said he got a couple slivers. Jim got an alcohol pad and a needle so we could help the kid. He was whimpering about the slivers. I used the alcohol pad to clean the hand, and then pulled out the needle. the kid wanted to see it before I used it. I handed it to him with the cap still on.

He pulled it out the cap and tried to recap it when he missed the cap and hit his finger with the needle. He screamed bloody-murder and cried like crazy. Then he would not go near me so I could clean the blood. It was pretty much a finger prick like when someone does a blood sugar check. It was nothing major, but he was going to have nothing to do with me after that. His mom took him to the bathroom to clean the blood.

The food was getting served so Jim and I got in line for the food and sat down with Jeff and Ralph. We ate and talked about fire department stuff for a while. This was also the day the big ball was going to get rolled down Steptoe Butte. We were planning on going to watch that. I went to get some gas. When I got back I found they were not going to go do that for a couple more hours. Jim and I decided to just go back to Colfax. I dropped Jim off at home and then I went to the jail.

I went to the Coroners office to drop off my case report from the death yesterday and then went to control and hung out until just after four o’clock. I updated a couple forms we use. The incident and infraction report has a margin on the left side that when it gets holes punched into it, the words are punched out. So I got that fixed by making the margin wider.

I went to Rosauers on the way to the golf course to get some pop and water. I went to the golf course and practiced some golf putting. I put on my new golf shoes and went into the clubhouse to pay for the tournament stop.

We got golf carts which was nice to have because I did not want to have to walk the whole course. We played a shotgun start, best ball tournament. We started on hole number six. We played nine holes and then went to the clubhouse for dinner. Once all the teams were back we ate and held the raffle for a lot of items that were donated. The golf tournament is put on by the Colfax police department for raising money for the Special Olympics.

After dinner and the raffle we went back out for the second round. We played with glow balls and had glow sticks on the flags and markers around the course. It was my first time playing in a glow ball tournament. It was fun to do. We had to watch the ball go because it was harder to see the ball when it went into the grass. I ended up losing one ball on the ninth hole, hitting it onto the road way. I had to use a second ball for the next five holes. I was doing very well today on my drives because I was not trying to crush the ball. In fact if I tried to over swing my ankle would hurt, so I had to ease back and that made a big difference in my game.

When I was done on the golf course it was almost eleven-thirty. I went to Pullman and waited until just after midnight for a poker game at Peter’s. We started playing near one in the morning. We played until four in the morning. I did very bad. I was calling on a lot of things and ended up losing about twenty bucks. That sucked, but it was a good day over all.

I got home and went to bed shortly after I got home. I was very tired.

Big Shake Up at Work

Today there was a lot of stuff going on today. I had several meetings plus a poker game scheduled for today. I got a message from Chris saying that we were all called to a company meeting for two o’clock pm today. When I called in the CEO said there was good and bad news. The bad news was there a couple people were let go. The good news was a lot of positive things were around the corner. But the CEO made it clear that we were all going to have to pull out weight and that if it appeared someone was not up to the task they would be let go.

Let me tell you that was a scary thought for me. As I have learned, you get job security and low pay working for the government, and you get high pay and no job security working for private companies. It makes you realize how fragile your job and financial situation is. I was meeting with a loan officer today to discuss what it would take to buy a piece of property and then build on it down the road.

But with the whole situation at work it made me realize that I should not be doing anything with big purchases which would include buying the house next to mine, even though I do want to get it. The CEO also asked that I get over to Seattle a little bit more. She said that I have been very good about working from home and that I was pretty much the poster boy for people working from home. I also talked to my boss, Chris, who was one of the ones let go. He said that same thing. He was kept on as a dev though. But it is pretty much a contact position.

I had a poker game scheduled for my place. Philip, Brandon, JT, Peter, and I were playing here today. I didn’t do very well and lost about ten bucks on the night. It wasn’t too bad for me, but I could not get a hand to save my bacon for most of the night.

Washington Poker Tour

After work I went to Jon’s and Jim came over. We went to play in the Washington Poker Tour’s latest tournament. It is an eighty dollar buy-in. That covers the beer, food, pop, and equipment. It was pretty neat.

I started out okay and kept growing my stack through the first four rounds of play. After the fourth round of play we got to do an add-on. I did that. I was sitting near the lead on the table, but really, most of us were pretty even.

Once the fourth round was done people started to fall out of the tournament pretty quick. I hung around for a while, but I finally got knocked out. I went in with the best hand, but got busted on the river.

I went to a cash table. I did pretty well there. I was on the table for a couple hours playing and winning some money. At one point I was up one hundred bucks. That would have meant that I was even for the night. But in one hand, I lost everything. I had top pair, Aces, with a ten for a kicker. But the other guy was betting and I figured he may have had me out kicked.

Then on the river there was a nine. Turned out he had an Ace-Nine. That gave him two pair to my one pair. He beat me on the river. I had about thirty bucks more. I played some more. Once again I lost on a hand where I was doing the best, but someone caught up to me. We left around two in the morning.

It was fun, and I hope one of these days I can do it again.

Three Hours Later

I went to bed and only three hours later my cell phone was ringing. It was six-thirty in the morning. I was being called to an unattended death near Hooper. That is in the western-most part of Whitman County. In fact while driving there typically you drive into Adams county then South back into Whitman County. I was on scene for just under an hour. Then I went back to the funeral home and did my work there. I went to the coroner’s office following that to do my report and print everything off. By the time I was done it was after the noon hour. I went to Colfax fire and hung out for a few minutes.

David, Craig, and I were there. I was pointing out the last time it was just us and the guy on duty we got… then Craig said “don’t say it.” David and him both remembered that we got that fatal accident that I was IC of.

I went back to Pullman and down to the fire station for daily rig checks. We got those knocked off in a couple hours of time. It was very hot outside and inside the bay. We had a total of four people helping. For about a half hour of the shift neither Brian nor I could be on duty. That is why we did the rig checks early.

I went to my softball game and Brian was finishing his up. Brian left to be on duty and we took the dug out. We were playing our first regular season game after nearly three weeks off duty to a rain out and a week off for Memorial Day.

We started sort of slow, but then picked it up and hit the ball well. We went on to twelve run the other team and currently, with pre-season included we are undefeated.

I went home and got ready to be on call for the fire department. Then I went to Brandon and Peter’s to play some poker with them. At one point I lost a lot of money on one hand where I had the same hand and someone else by I got out-kicked.

I went down to under a dollar and sat around that level for quiet a while. Some people thought I would just go all-in on nothing. But I waited for my hand then I would play it. I ended up winning each time I did end up going all-in. Finally it was nearing the end of the night. I walked out only down four dollars. Not too bad for having been sitting at thirty-five cents for a little bit.