Another CUB Walk Through

This morning I had to drag myself out of bed to get to Lewiston for an oil change on my vehicle. I also have two things to fix. My UConnect mic isn’t hooked up. There is a piece of weather stripping that didn’t come on the vehicle on the drivers door. I was there for about two hours. As it turned out the weather stripping and the mic module are both on back order. So those didn’t get done. But the oil change did and it was free because it was my first one down there after buying a car.

For fire training tonight we did a tour of Whitcom and then to the CUB for a walk through. We hit all the floors and looked at fire related things, such as elevators for resetting, standpipes, the fire pump, etc. It took about an hour and a half to go through the building.

I was on duty tonight as well, but I was on engine. We didn’t have any engine runs at all. That allowed me to sleep through the night.

I Quit

I spent some of the time this morning after I woke up working on my column. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about, so I spent a while doing research. I ended up using an article I worked on several months ago. I finished it off and sent it in.

Then I went to get some lunch at Pizza Pipeline. I was going to go to the bank, but I held off. I am going to wait to get my check for the week and do both at the same time.

I also worked on my taxes. MH didn’t send me a W-two. And I may not get one. So I had to try to figure everything out for myself. At one point I made an error in doing a Ten-Ninety-Nine. I more or less doubled my income which caused my taxes to be nearly twelve grand more than it should have been. I was worried about that, then when I fixed the problem I was only in the hole about fourteen hundred bucks. That sucks, but it is way better than what it first looked like.

I got called in for a transfer to Lewiston with Pauly. It went off without a hitch. When I got done doing that I went to Kuhrt’s to help him with some computer problems he was having. I was there for about an hour.

I got home and did some research on jobs. I am now jobless and I never heard anything back from SR. So I guess they really don’t care too much about my departure.

Non-Structure Fire Event

I slept in until around eleven. That is the norm for me these days. I have been going to bed around four in the morning and getting up around eleven. I got into this habit when I got the new computer and I was working on getting it set up and I have been this way for about a week and a half. I need to get back to getting to bed earlier.

I worked with Derek on his engineer stuff. We drove around for a while and I had him getting into tighter areas. We also did some stuff with pumping. As we were cleaning up the area around the tower we ended up getting a call for a structure fire. I drove to the scene. It turned out to be a small oven fire that was out and smoked the place up pretty good.

I work on the SR website a little bit. I got some of the client-side error scripting take care of. It was a slower day over all. I was on engine and we didn’t get any calls for the engine to roll on.

Great, Wonderful Mood

After getting up this morning I was in great and wonderful mood. I don’t know what it was, but I wasn’t tired. And I also felt so great. So happy. Just in a good mood. I ran some errands around town including meeting with a PPD officer about a stop I was involved with recently. He asked me to do a report on it. I went to the fire station and spoke with Heston for a little bit while I was there.

I was working for Peter tonight on Rescue. I went to the fire station to get on Spillman to get some of the work completed that I needed to do. While I was getting things done I was asked if I would go help out at the basketball game because only one person was available. I said I would. I had to run home and get ready. I went straight to Beasley. The Coug women lost to the Huskies. It was a good game. They went to overtime.

After that was done I went home and got a couple things done on the computer before I went to the station. When I was there I got the things completed on Spillman and went to the dayroom where Pritch and Mully were watching TV. I sat down to watch with them. While there we were dispatched to a call. When it was done I went home.

I was there for a while when we got another call. While on the way to the hospital we were toned to a person down. We knew the call was coming in because of listening to the police. We were first on scene because we were about a block away when the tones actually hit. I took patient care to start the call. It turned out to be a release.

We got another call at the PD before we were done. Then we went to the hospital and picked up Mully. When we got back to the station that was going to be it for the night for us. It was after three in the morning. I stayed up until five watching some videos on YouTube.

No First Class Board

This afternoon I went to the fire station and met with the new station committee about getting some plans created for a new fire station. We talked about the things we needed and sizes they need to be. There is a student from WSU who is going to help us with the plan.

I went home and got my uniform on. I went to the SO. I was going to work with Ross tonight. I also had a coroner’s meeting and the plan was to have the first class board. The coroner’s meeting was shorter than normal. We covered our on call schedule. We also covered some stuff with the chaplain.

I went to the report writing room and waited for Cooper to show up for the oral board. But he was dealing with other issues on the road. While waiting a call for service came in. I was told to go handle it by the sergeant. It was a transport from the hospital to the person’s home. I took care of that.

When I got back to the station Cooper asked if I was done for the night. I said no. He said then get Ross and go get him an arrested. He said if I had to go to Pullman to get an MIP to do it. We headed into Pullman and ran around looking for something. We were not able to find anything. We made a lot of stops, but there was not a lot of people moving around.

We ended the night with a stop. I could smell intoxicants. We ended up doing SFST’s and the person did fine. I cut the person loose and we left Pullman. We tried hard, but were not able to find anything.

Bowling with the Fire Guys.

I got some good work completed on the signup process for the SR website. But because of what happened this weekend I am still not a happy camper. I was able to get everything wired up and running. The sign up process is roughly done. I want to work on client side error checking next.

We had training tonight at the fire station. It was EMS training. It was pretty short and sweet. Following training a group of us went to Zeppoz. I didn’t get there until later because I worked on getting the photoboard updated and completed.

When I got there I talked with Chapman about some engineering stuff. People were drinking and having a great time. About eight of them decided to go bowling. I did bowl, but I hung out and took photos with Tim’s camera. I ended up taking about two hundred shots all together. I got some really funny candid shots. I would like to see some of them at some point.

Relaxing

I worked with Derek on his engineer stuff for a while this afternoon. That was a bigger part of the day. When I was done doing that I didn’t do a whole bunch. It was a lazy day for me.

Getting Caught Up!

I went to bed, then I got up only a few short hours later to be an BLS evaluator for the First Responder class that just got done. I got my pop along the way. I got to the station and my area was bleeding and shock control. Everyone did an okay job over all. I didn’t see any real issues. But the bleeding and shock is pretty easy. Cover the blood. Use pressure and elevation. Put on more bandages of needed and finally use pressure points. Then for shock. Lay down, elevate the lags, regulate body temperature with a blanket, and throw on some oxygen. That is the thing about trauma. If it bleeds cover it, if it is broken splint it. It is pretty straight forward.

I went home and started to work on my case report for the theft. I got about two and a half pages typed up and I have some way to go. But I have a lot done. This is my biggest case so far.

I worked on my computer programming job as well. I was doing the evaluations when I got a call from Tim. I didn’t have my phone so I missed the call. A little bit later there was an E-mail from Tim that CCed several others about getting a hold of me. I was mad. He was complaining that he couldn’t get a hold of me very easily after hours. I didn’t take kindly to it. I fired back pretty much saying that I am free Monday through Friday and that I am busy on the nights and weekends. I said if it would be a problem that we should re-evaluate my contract.

I called him and left a message. He called me later and said in reference to my E-mail that it wasn’t necessary that I was free all the time in the evenings, but we should try to find one night a week we can work together. We went through some of the code samples he sent to me to work with his web services. I tied all the fields together and put on some client side Javascript to make sure the data we are getting is correct. Everything pretty much fell into place. There is still some work to go, but I got a lot of it done.

I also got the photos of the new reserves edited and the photos for the board at The Deuce created for all the career guys and reserves. I was pretty busy on the computer getting things caught up.

I also responded to an e-mail from the editor of the Daily Evergreen. He wrote a piece saying that he wanted to work on focusing on more international issues in order to make those who are comfortable less so. He also made multiple references to race. I wrote a letter to the editor. He responded to it in an E-mail to me. I finally got a chance to read it and respond to him. I think he is off base on several things. I said so in my E-mail to him. It felt good to get some of these things completed.

Meeting with a Lawyer

I have never had to meet with a lawyer for the fire department in the past. This is my first time in a decade. We are being questioned for something involving the police. We are just witnesses. The problem it was a year ago and I don’t remember the incident very well, so I was careful only to say things that I remember happening for sure. I didn’t want to say anything I wasn’t sure about. But that being the case there wasn’t much I really remembered about the whole thing. I did the best I could.

When that meeting was done I went to Keegan’s house and hung out until two in the morning. We watched a couple episodes of Being Human. Then we chatted about unemployment as well as living in Pullman.

I got home and stayed up until around four in the morning getting some stuff done on the computer. I have been working hard to getting my computer going and set up just the way I like it. So far I found I am not a fan of this keyboard because of the way it is set up and the feel of the buttons. My scanner doesn’t work either. I would like to get that taken care of as well.

New Computer Purchased

Jon went to Frys today to get my HPE-170f model computer. It should be pretty cool. He is going to ship it out tomorrow. I am excited about getting it.

I went to the SO to write up my ticket I wrote the other day. I also got the hours for the reserves for ought-nine updated. I talked to Cooper about setting up a board for moving to first class. He at first said that until the gas prices go down he isn’t going to do it. I said that I would like to get first class so I am eligible for some of the paid things. I think he was messing with me. Then he said “we will get it done”.

Later he said that I probably wont pass my first time through. I said I understood that, but I figured that if I had one I would know what I need to work on to improve.

I left the SO and went to the rig checks. We went to station one to get some tarps that were missing from Rescue from when we were having the pipe breaks. We ran a couple calls tonight. It was another night where we had some calls in the wee-hours in the morning. I decided to stay up late after we got back from the last call. I was up until six in the morning. I got into an E-mail conversation with Kuhrt during this time.

Teaching First Aid

This morning I worked with Darren from the WSU PD to teach first aid to the police interns. We started at seven in the morning. I went with Darren to get him some coffee. Then we were getting the room ready. I moved the table and knocked his coffee onto the ground. That sucked. I didn’t mean to do that and I felt really bad.

The first part of the class was bad because everyone was so tired they were not really into it and they all had blank looks. But as we got closer to lunch and after lunch they were really getting into it. Darren and I traded off with some of the sections giving examples and talking about some of the key points. As the class was coming to an end an echo response came out on the radio.

I helped Darren clean up the classroom. We went to the WSU PD station where I got a copy of the class roster. I went home and started to look up information about a new computer. I’ve spent the last couple days trying to find a new computer and I’m having a hard time because of all the information I’m finding on the Internet.

I got a call from Richards. He wanted to know if I wanted to go see a movie with him. I said that I would. We went to see the Book of Eli. It was interesting. I didn’t know what to expect with it. It was an interesting movie. I was thinking in some ways it reminded me of Mad Max. But it had a different plot. It kept me entertained through out.

I went home and spent some more time looking for the computer. I decided that I would get the Gateway model I found on their site, but I couldn’t find it anywhere online. I finally called Fry’s and I learned it was discontinued. But Fry’s had a brand new HP with the nearly identical specs. It was an Intel Core i7 with nine gig of RAM. It has a one-TB HD with Windows Seven. It has one-point-eight gig of video memory with two DVI plugs. It has a DVD burner with LightScribe. It is a pretty sweet system. I asked Jon if he would get it for me and send it to me. He is going to get it tomorrow for me.

John came over and we started to play cards. We tried to get a game going but only Richards was able to come over. We played until three in the morning. We played Acey-Deucy. Blake got hose four times when he said “Pot It”. I was laughing so hard.

At the end of the night I was up about two or three bucks. It had been a while since we last played cards.

A Busy Night on Call

I went to Keegan’s and we both filled out the application for Whitcom. We turned it in and then went to Winco together. He was doing some grocery shopping for dinner. I had to be on call tonight so I had to leave, but we were talking and I just didn’t want to get out of there. Finally it was close to six and I had to run. He gave me a hug and I was on my way.

This evening we were supposed to have HazMat training. But instead we ran out on some calls. It turned out to be a busy night where we got a call. Then we had to wash the rig. We got home for about an hour and a half and then we were back out on the road. It happened until nearly four in the morning that way.

Starting a New Body for Life Run

This morning I started a new body for life challenge. But I didn’t make it to the gym. But I am making sure I stay with the eating portion. I am eating six times a day with smaller portions and less calories. But I need to get to the rec center and get some swimming done at the very least.

I spent most of the mid-morning and afternoon working on the UI for the S.R. contract. It felt good to get done what I got done, but now I have to do the hard part. That is hooking it up to the database to save data.

I had training at the fire department tonight. We were covering the SCBA quarterlies as well as some practice with the RIT pack. It took a while to get everyone through the training.

When the class was done I went home and messed around on the computer for a while before I went off to bed.

SO then FD

So there I was. Working the road with Rich. We worked a dog complaint first thing. Then we went north to help take a runaway case. After that was done we started to run traffic on SR Twenty-Six.

We didn’t have a lot of luck early on. It was pretty slow going. There was a lot of traffic of people coming back from Christmas Break. But they were not flying so much.

After it got dark we went worked the fifty-five mile per hour area. We got a few stops through that area. Rich had to be gone at six o’clock for something else. That was okay because I had to go to the fire station for weekly rig checks.

I helped finish up the check on rescue and then put the rigs back after the bays were washed out. We got a call before we left. Then we had one more in the wee-hours of the morning. It was a pretty tame night over all. But Christmas Break is over and I suppose we are going to get a lot of calls again.

Keegan the Dispatcher?

I was doing work on the maps for Pullman Fire for while and I also got the photos edited and ready to print. But I need a couple more photos.

Then I went to Whitcom for about an hour with Keegan to show him around the dispatch center. When we parted ways and I headed home.

I went to the fire station to put the maps and some photos from the badge pinning on the computer. I didn’t stay up too late because I was working the road tomorrow with Rich.

More Hanging with Keegan

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.

A Crazy Busy Day

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

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.

Happy New Year “Oh-Ten”

I went to the fire station and put the timesheets I created for the reserves into their folders on the computer. I also had some scans for my Pullman Fire History archive that I placed onto the computer as well.

I worked on my annual review of the year. It is where I look at all my posts for the whole month and choose one to use as a highlight. Some months it is easy while some months have multiple options and I have a hard time choosing. It usually takes and hour or so to go through everything. It was clear being a reserve deputy was a major part of my year last year.

At around six I went to the fire station and did rig checks. Scott and I hung out there for several hours watching some bowl games on TV and talking. Before we left we got an EMS call. We transported and Rescue went to the hospital as well.

When we returned to the station we cleaned the rig and called it a night. That happened to be the only call we received for the evening.

Ought-Nine in Review

Jan – Mr. 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.

Feb – Final 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

Mar – First 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.

Apr – My 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.

May – First 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.

Jun – Contract 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.

Jul – Second 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.

Aug – Final 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.

Sept – Bushwood 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.

Oct – IM 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.

Nov – Gay 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.

Dec – Search 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.

Final Day of the Decade

I went to the fire station and met with Brenda about the reserve timesheets. I also met up with Ryan about the map tests and the upcoming fire academy. I am going to be making the timesheets for the reserves this year. I also was integrating the timelog into the timesheet Excel workbook. But more importantly something I have been working on is the ability to fill out the timelog and have it automatically fill in the timesheet. That is now completed. I also let Ryan know about some of the things I didn’t like about the academy in the past. I also let him know the map tests are worthless for proving guys know the roads. So often they pass the test with one-hundred percent, but still are clueless when they get on the street.

I went home and started to work on the new spreadsheet. I had the basic stuff done for the timecard. I just did some tweaking on it to make it closer to the ones we currently use. The timelog has some updates to it. Then I started to put the two together.

I was trying to create a master workbook that would have every one’s name and employee number. It would also include the pay. Then if information needed to be updated on any reserve it would only have to be updated in one spot and the workbooks would get that information by linking to the master. But I was running into problems. That is because I didn’t want to hard code each firefighters workbook, I wanted to be able to have one spot where I put the firefighter number in their workbook and Excel would then take that number and concatenate it with the column number in order to get the correct data. But that is not nearly as easy as it sounds. I found a function called INDIRECT, but it only works when the master spreadsheet is also open. That is not going to work for what I want to do.

Finally I had to give up on that idea for this year. I just made a master in the workbook and the data would be updated there. So it is still only one place to update the pay information for people. But if four people need their pay information updated it will require opening up four spreadsheets rather than one. But I got the whole set done. I hope the guys like it. I know several thought it was cool with mine, because I was testing out the process. Now that I know it works I asked Heston about doing it for everyone. He said go ahead. Several of the guys who saw me using it this last year wanted me to do that for them. So I am sure for the most part guys will like it. But as with all change there are some guys who hate change and will complain about it no matter what.

I went to the Deuce and met up with Suggy for working the WSU Men’s Basketball game. They were playing Oregon in the Pac-Ten opener. The first half was not very solid for the Cougs. But in the second half they started to come alive. They had an eight-zero and a ten-zero run. Soon it was tied up. With about thirty seconds to go the Cougs had the ball. But they ended up wasting too much time on the clock. That caused them to have to take a poor shot and it was missed. That put the game into OT. In the first OT the Cougs had a five point lead, but it came down to a dunk by Casto in the final second of the game. The Cougs were up by two and the crowd went crazy. There was three-tenths of a second left on the clock. But the Cougs were assessed a technical foul for celebration. They gave the Ducks to free-throws. The guy made both and they tied it up and went to a second OT. The second one was closer. But the game ended when the Cougs had the ball with less than ten seconds to go. It was tied. The Cougs missed the shot. The Ducks got it and drove hard to the bucket. They made it and got fouled. They celebrated without penalty. They made the freethrow going up by three with, again, three-tenths of a second. But the Cougs couldn’t come back and lost. I was so mad. It was crushed. It felt the highest of highs only to be crushed.

During the game I talked to Kuhrt and he was seeing what I was doing for New Years. I told him that I had no plans. He said I should come over. He said he would get in touch with me after the game. I went home and completed my project to work on the timesheets. I got a text from Kuhrt to come over. I headed that way. When I got to his place we watched some TV and talked shop. I asked him questions about the way he learns and remembers traffic laws. We had a couple drinks. At midnight we toasted the new year. It was a nice evening with the Kuhrt’s and their pets.

Movie Night: The Hangover

I was supposed to be on my way to Renton today, but due to the coroner’s case last night I stayed in town an extra day. I worked the coroner’s case for part of the day. I went to Moscow and got a Christmas gift for BKoe. I also got myself a copy of the movie the Hangover.

I was asked by Reed to cover him on the fire department. So I invited Melcher, Rose, and Gecas over to watch the movie with me at my place. So it was an impromptu movie night. The guys came over and we watched the movie.

The only calls we got were all for a fire alarm at the Village Centre Theatres. We were dispatched there three times tonight. We only ended up responding once, but we kept getting toned out and waking me up.

Three Hats Today

This morning Melcher and I hit the road. I was working out there until five o’clock. I am on call for the fire department starting at six. We hit the road and ran some traffic on twenty-six. We met up with BKoe, KStew, and Monte for lunch at Cougar Country. We ran a fresh arrest to Colfax for BKoe. Then we went north and ran more traffic. We made a couple stops along the way. We got back to the station and I was out of there around five. I got to the station and rig checks were done.

Robinson and I hung out at the station for a couple hours. But we didn’t have any calls while we were there. I went home and I was online chatting with someone on facebook when a call came in for an injured person with blood. As I got to the station I heard the person wasn’t breathing and was cold. We got cancelled quickly as it turned out the person was dead.

It wasn’t very long before I went to the scene as a coroner. I told Pete that I was on call for the fire department and I might need to leave if a call came in. I worked the case for a couple hours on scene and then at the funeral home. After I was done with the funeral home the tones went out for a fire alarm. I went to the station and we headed out on it. We were cancelled nearly right away. That was all we had for calls, but because of the coroner’s case I didn’t get to bed until late.

Happy Thirty-Sixth Scotty

This morning I had a critique for a car accident. It was the one where the guy hit the two pedestrians. When the critique was over I stuck around for a little while talking to some of the people there. A couple people wished me a happy birthday. I was also getting a lot of birthday wishes on facebook as well.

Ryan met up with me at my house right about eleven. We took my truck to get the alternator worked on. Then it was off to my place. We made some fudge. But the first batch was not right. I cooked the base ingredients too long. It was dry. I tried a second one and more or less did the same thing. So I messed up back-to-back batches. We went to Moscow to Hastings to look at some movies. I wanted to buy the Hangover. We then went to Walmart. But they didn’t have the unrated version available.

We went to my place and I tried a third batch of fudge. But because I was scared to cook it too long, I think I went too short and it was a little too creamy for what I like. But overall it is going to work out.

We then got ready to go bowling at Zeppoz. I met up with the Young’s, Richards, Gollnick, Keeton, BKoe, the Caessens’. Ron and Heather came down as well as Dan and Michele. Jessie also came by. She brought me some crack for my birthday. We bowled several games. I wasn’t bowling very well. But BKoe did awesome. He had two games over two hundred. He also got a game with no open frames. After bowling for several hours we called it a night at Zeppoz. Ryan had to leave to drive back to Spokane. Richards, Gollnick, and I went to Sports Page. We played several games of pool over the next couple hours. In the first game I played I nearly ran the table on John. I was sinking all my shots. But as the night went on I got worse and worse, without the help of alcohol to get worse.

It was a good birthday. I was happy to get a chance to be with friends. They make it special.

Happy Twenty-Fifth Pritch

This morning we had a critique for one of the two recent fires at Terrace Estates. It really didn’t bring out a lot other than some communication issues and dealing with the cold.

Later on I had a transfer in the city with Chuck. I got a rescue crew to come along to help us with lifting. It was a round trip to the hospital and back to her residence.

After the transfer I had some time before I had to head off to the Rimrock Search critique. On the way down I called Chia to see what he was doing on Friday. He then said they were out with Pritch at Zeppoz for his birthday. They said I needed to come. But because I am going to the critique and on call I didn’t think I would make it out.

I was near Zeppoz when that conversation took place. I popped into Zeppoz and wished Blake a happy birthday. I said hello to the other guys who were there before hitting the road for Colton.

This critique was a lot more involved than the one from this morning. We started with a slide show the Sheriff put together. Then they talked about how the search was started. Then on to things that went well. That was pretty brief. Then we talked about things that didn’t go well. There was a bit of a longer list.

Several of the things they came out with were valid. One was communication problems. One was not having an ambulance or a visible designated EMS team for the searchers. Then there were a couple things that caused some grief that I was involved in. One was the use of the Spokane mountain rescue team to help with the recovery. I spoke up as to what my thoughts were. Pretty much when we are in recovery mode, there is no hurry and safety is of the utmost importance. Then there was one issue I brought up where I blocked the only pathway to get people out of the area where they searched. I got committed and I couldn’t move. That caused some people to get upset because they wanted to get out of there and they were forced to wait. I explained what my mistake was and how I intended to correct it in the future. Pretty much, it was, me being the last unit out of an area like that.

When the critique was over with I think people were overall happy with the command and the decisions made. We learned a little.

I came back to Pullman. I called up another guy on the fire department to see if he would cover for me so I could go out with the guys. I was able to get coverage. I went to the hill. I met up with the two Blakes, Chia, Chuck, Timmy, and Mully at the Coug. I had two beers while there.

Later we went to ValHalla for some more action. I didn’t drink anything there. Ross was working and we talked for a while before I made my way to the other guys. Chuck and I were talking about his upcoming promotion to Senior Firefighter. Chia was getting ready to go so we said goodbye to him.

After we left there we went to Mike’s. While at Mike’s a guy who Ben introduced me to a couple weekends ago was there. He saw me and came over to say hello and wish me a happy birthday. He is ten-six-seven and a very nice person. I enjoyed playing pool with him when we were at Mike’s before. He told me to remember him when it came to softball season this Spring. I told him I would for sure.

Blake, Chuck, and I went to TLD after we left Mike’s. We got a burrito to go. I went home and went to bed.

Rimrock Search Day Two

I came because of what Trevor said… See you tomorrow. After he said that I felt I had to be there. I got up and put on my stuff. I was bundled up well. I got to the command post at seven-thirty. There were more then one hundred people there. They were getting set up in groups to search specific areas. There was a morning briefing then the group leaders got a briefing and were sent out. There were a couple helicopters there as well.

It wasn’t very long after the teams started to go out that a hit had been made. There was a ton of radio traffic. I knew they were on to something. Then the Sheriff called me into the command vehicle. I heard him talking to someone on the phone as he was giving them instructions to find Pete. That is when I knew they found the hunter. That was not good news, because if they are looking for Pete that meant he had died.

I went sent in as the coroner. I got to the area where he was found. He was about two-hundred-and-fifty yards below the hillside from me. The teams worked to get him back up. It was a long process. After we got to the top the searchers got into two lines and we drove between them as they paid their respects.

There was a lot happening around the basecamp. People were asking how I was doing. They got me some food. I went to Adam. We shook hands and did a hug. I thanked him for helping me out. I said my condolences to Trevor. We also shook hands and hugged. I was stopped by a family member who gave me a hug and thanked me for the work I had done.

Then it was off to the funeral home for me. I worked with Pete for a couple hours to figure out what happened. I left around four to go home and get cleaned up before I was on call for the fire department. I got some dinner and went to the station to eat it before doing our daily rig checks and Monday night training.

It was a long couple days for me with the fire department and the searching. It was a sad outcome. It was the first time I had been part of something like that. It was a huge incident and it was great to see everyone who came out to volunteer their time to help search.

I started out the day as a sheriff, then changed to a coroner, and I ended the day as a firefighter.

Christmas Party at Chucks

What a day, I got up to go get the photos of the guys from the new recruit class, but they were dismissed from class at noon, just about when I showed up. So I didn’t get the photos of anyone. I went into the kitchen and talked with Tractor and VanNess about both my article in today’s Daily News as well as some history about Pullman Fire and the opening of the downtown fire station.

I was at home for a while waiting until it was time for me to head down to the fire station for daily rig checks. I got down there and worked on the rescue and engine. It was starting to snow and the roads has some snow on them.

The plan was to head to Chucks after rig checks. I got to Turner and I was dispatched to a call. So I turned around and went back to the station to run the call. After that call I went to Chuck’s. It was going well until I got a call. I had to head from Chuck’s place and it was an Echo. But it didn’t take long to find out it was a nothing call. When that call was done Turpin said he wanted to see Togs and I. He gave us each a Christmas Gift. It was a very surprised by the gift.

We went to the call and got cleared when we got there. We then went towards a second call for a gas leak, but we were cancelled. So we went to the station and I went back to Chuck’s. I was able to stay there for a couple hours before being called away. I left the house with no intentions of coming back. It was getting late.

I got a call from the Sheriff asking if I could help with a search for a missing hunter. He said I would need to head there around six-thirty in the morning. I thought it would be necessary for some sleep. But the calls would not cooperate.

I was getting called to service in a very steady fashion. There wasn’t anything that was kicking our butt, but it was just a constant stream of calls.

I finally found my bed at three-thirty in the morning only to get called one hour later.

Coming in Early for the Meeting

I went into the SO early to meet with Cooper to cover the things that were going on in tonight’s association meeting. I have a CISD to go to so I cannot be at the meeting. I showed him my gun was clean. Then I gave him my idea for training for this upcoming year. Cooper was asking everyone if we had any complaints so we could air them out one on one. I didn’t have any to speak of.

I went back to Pullman and to the CISD. It was for the suicide in Pullman from a couple weeks ago.

Gun Cleaning Party

This morning I worked on my column for the Daily News. It is about how people substitute the word Holiday for Christmas and pretend nothing has changed.

I got a transfer to Lewiston around three. I went down with Pritch. When it was done I went to Papa John’s to get some pizza. The profits are going to be donated to the Lakewood police officers’ families.

I got home in time for the gun cleaning party. Only one person showed up to clean his gun. That was perfect because just after cleaning our guns the tones went out for reserve callback. I went to the station. I was there for several hours chatting with one of the new guys. We joked about lots of different things. He talked about his oral board and how the room was set up. He said it was pretty intimidating.

After I left the station I went to Kuhrt’s house. We played video games until around one-thirty in the morning.

More Flooding

This morning I was dragging but I had to hurry to make it to the staff meeting. But what I found was it was cancelled in favor of shift meetings with the chief’s. So I called up Ben and we started his engineer drive time early. We drove around for a couple hours to help knock out the drive time he needed to be an engineer.

When we were done I went home and started to watch the funeral for the Lakewood Police. Within a couple minutes a call went out for a smoldering cushion. I didn’t want to go, but I had told the others I would be responding and I didn’t want to not show up. While we were getting to the station to go a second call came in. We ended up going on that. It was for a water flow at an apartment building. We ended up working that scene for nearly two hours trying to mitigate the water flow as well as get some of the water out of the apartment.

When the call was done I got to see the very end of the funeral before going home to get ready for HazMat training. I went to the station. I helped get some stuff set up for Drew.

The new reserves were having their training. I gave Tyler a bit of a hard time for missing a call. He said he was having pager issues. I looked at Chuck and said “Chuck, how long were you on the department before you decided to skip your first call?” Tyler took the ribbing well.

The HazMat training started to get interrupted by multiple calls. So finally we just cancelled the rest of the training.

Drew left, but then called to see if I was interested in going out for a beer. I took him up on his offer. We were at My Office. We had dinner and a couple beers while talking about all sort of things. But one of the major topics was the changes going on at the fire department.

I hadn’t talked to Drew about it before so it was interesting to hear things from his perspective. It was a nice evening hanging out with Drew and shooting the breeze with him. I thanked him for the evening as we left.

A Very Long Day

This morning I had planned on working out but due a horrible night sleep I turned off my alarm clock, but I was woken up by the coroner pager going off and a phone call from Pete. I got out of bed and I was on my computer when I heard Pullman Transit talking about someone being on the ground and needing an ambulance. I heard it get dispatched out. Then when I heard more about what was going on I went to the station. I called Victor and he came down. A car had hit two people. They were about one block apart.

We got to the scene and helped with one of the patients. He was taken to the hospital and I helped to clean up the ambulance before leaving. It was a very long call.

I went to Moscow to get the food for Gribbon’s last day on the fire department. The plan was to do it at The Deuce. But after talking to Mark we ended up changing it to station thirty-one. I dropped off the food and went home. A fire alarm came out and I went to the station. Turned out to be a broken sprinkler due to the cold and water was flowing. We helped clean up for about ten minutes.

I went home and then back to the station to start with dinner. Due to a call I was stuck trying to do everything by myself for a while. Help finally arrived. I was able to get to the station to pick up the engine and get it back to station thirty-one for dinner and then training. Due to the cold we were not going to do any spraying of water like had been planned. So it was a classroom training only.

After that was done I went back home to complete working on my computer. Earlier in the day I upgraded my IE from six to eight. So the CSS from the duty calendar website needed some upgrades. I worked on those upgrades in order to get the page to appear correctly. Just before I was done a call went out for a structure fire at the trailer court where we had a fire last week.

We got to the place. It wasn’t a large fire but it took us a while to do all the overhaul. When it was done it took another two hours to get everything totally back in service. The cold weather was causing havoc with freezing.

I got home and I was in bed for an hour and a half before we were dispatched to a fire alarm. That totally sucked.

Mr. Lightweight

I got a phone call this morning to go over a couple work related things with the company that is looking to give me a contract. That was only a five minute phone call.

I got cleaned up and put on my Class-B uniform for the fire department. I got my boots and headed to the Deuce. I needed to show two new guys around Beasley because we had no one else to work the events with the badge pinning ceremony going on.

I spent the time when I got there shining my boots and watching TV. I waited around watching TV until the guys got to the station to start the training. I showed them what equipment they needed and headed to Beasley with them. I helped them get the beds set up and walked around some of the places they needed to know about. As it got close to two I had to run out to the badge pinning ceremony.

When I got to the Pioneer Center I gave my camera to Ryan who was shooting the pics. We started to get our seats and the ceremony started. It was one career and about twelve reserves getting their badges. I had asked Gollnick to pin me but he wasn’t able to. I also asked Chia, and he wasn’t available. I then asked Turpin. He did it. The whole ceremony took just over thirty minutes.

I went home and Victor gave me a ride up to the WSU police station. We were doing the Wet Lab drinking in the old WSU Fire station. We played some cards and ate a little bit while drinking drinks as Matt made them for us.

I was supposed to be the most drunk. After a double-shot, I was blowing a just under a point-zero-two. I was going to have a long way to go to get where Matt wanted me. His plan was to have me at a point-one-two. But as I was getting towards the point-zero-eight, the legal limit in Washington, I was really feeling the effects. I am a bit of a light weight.

We made our way to the CUE. I was feeling pretty good, but Matt also had me get a couple more shots. While there I had a point-seven-three reading near the start and a point-seven-eight at the end. I wasn’t legally intoxicated, but people would argue I was under the influence. I hardly could stay in the starting position.

I knew my eyes were not doing well, I could feel them spazzing out at max. dev. I figured I would not do too well when they decided whether to arrest or not.

Sure enough at the end they saw I had six clues in my eyes. That is the most possible. I also had about two to four clues in the other tests on average. Most people put me at a point-one-three or so. I was nearly half that. When they heard what level I was they burst out in laughter. It was a good time.

When we were done I got a ride to ValHalla to meet up with Ben. He was in town for a turf club Open To Close event yesterday at the Coug. I got to ValHalla and start to drink water. That was my drink of choice for the rest of the evening. We at ValHalla with a couple others guys Ben knows. Brandon, was one of the guys with Ben. He plays softball with Barge’s IM team. Ben is telling me I should try to steal him.

Brandon was very nice. He was easy to chat with. Ben said he is competitive and a good player. We walked to Mike’s and played some pool there. I could see Brandon’s competitive edge come out. We stayed at Mike’s until just before two o’clock.

I walked back to ValHalla with the group but I broke off with them. Ben gave me a hug and said good bye. I went downstairs and waited for my taxi to show up. I ran into Mully and Pritch. We all shared a taxi to get home.

Engineer Training with Victor

This morning I got ready for a trip to Pullman a day early. I was going to work with Victor. I went to Three Pigs to have lunch with Jon and the other guys.

Then I hit the road. It was a typical trip there. Nothing of note happened.

I got to Pullman and got ready for Victor’s training. I got some engineer calculations ready for him to do. Then I waited for him to get there. First we worked on the calculations. I helped him go through them.

We hit the road and drove around. We did about an hour and a half of city drive time.

Christmas Cruise Ought-Nine

This morning I got up and started to get ready for my trip to Seattle. I was doing some stuff around the house. I responded on a call to the fire department, but no one else showed up for it.

I home and packed. Then I went to the bank to deposit a couple checks. I needed to stop by the fire station to get a photo of our new Training Officer, Ryan. I stopped and chatted with the guys there for a while. I stopped and got some pizza slices on my way out of town.

The trip itself was uneventful. I listened to a lot of talk radio, where the subject was mostly about the shooting of the Lakewood Officers.

I got into Renton. I stopped at my parents’ place and dropped off my clothes. Then I went to the Eagles for dinner. I forgot how far I was from Mercer Island. Normally not a big deal, but there was a major back up on Four-Oh-Five from Newport to Renton. So I had to take surface streets. I found my way behind all sorts of slow cars. I would finally get out from behind one only to have a new one move into my way.

I got to the police station with about ten minutes to spare. I got my uniform on and headed to the water for the Christmas Cruise. I was pretty tired. But the cruise was uneventful. We went to Lake Union. There were about fifteen yachts following along.

Happy Birthday Wendy!

This morning I woke up to my scanner on the Pullman Fire frequency. I heard “Delta response for a structure fire.” I got up and started to collect my things. Then I heard BKoe on the radio and running. I didn’t totally hear what he was saying, but I knew by the fact he was running and talking on the radio that the fire was real. So I expedited my response to the station.

I was joined by two other reserves and we went to the scene. We got there and got assigned to a back-up line. Soon we were sent in to help with the overhaul. We pulled ceiling and put water on the hot spots. We were asked to help with the investigation. There were some interesting findings.

I went home and cleaned up. There was about two hours before training. I went to the station early. It was ICS training. It lasted about two hours.

Following the training I went to Zeppoz. Wendy was celebrating her fiftieth birthday. I was invited to have some cake. When I got there the Uskoski’s and Peterson’s were the only ones left. I stayed and had some pop with them as well as some cake. I wished Wendy a happy birthday.