Othello Softball Tournament

This morning I was up and ready to go around six thirty in the morning to have a nice day of softball. I went to Jessie’s house to pick her up on the way to Othello. I was playing softball with the Sports Page team. We pulled into Othello around nine o’clock in the morning. I had an idea where the field was and then in the direction I thought I needed to go. I ran into the field and found Erik and Faber as soon as I got there. I parked next to their rig and walked over to the camp that was set up.

I grabbed a chair and my softball stuff. We sat around just talking about the night before. As it was getting closer to ten o’clock we made our way to the first field of play. This was a five game round-robin tournament with the top two teams going to a championship game.

In the first game I wasn’t hitting nor seeing the ball too well. We are playing in a USSSA tournament. So the count was one and one. I am not a big fan of that count because I can’t watch a ball and get into a rhythm with the pitches. But the rest of the team played well enough for us to win the game.

After the first game we had some time before the next game. We went back to our camping site and grilled up some hamburgers and had some beverages. I was just trying to stay in the shade.

We made our way to the field for the second game about twenty minutes early to warm up. I was playing catcher for the whole tournament. So I didn’t need to throw the ball too much. My arm is pretty loose because I throw a lot during a game.

In the second game I was starting to hit the ball better and watch it better. I was able to draw a walk and got a good solid hit. We won the second game with a come-from-behind victory. It was pretty close, but we were down a couple runs. Then our sticks all came together in one inning. We took a small lead.

The defense was playing nearly perfect. We were making all the plays and making the outs we needed to make. We were not missing the cut-offs and kept the other team from advancing on us a lot.

Directly following that game we were supposed to play a second game, but we flew through our game, playing seven innings in about thirty-five minutes. There were several one-two-three innings on both side. During one of the early inning Chris, who was playing second base for us, got into a rundown as a runner. When he slid back into the base his thumb got dislocated. He was in a lot of pain. It got back into place and he kept playing. He was having a hard time gripping the bat, and as the day went on I think it was getting worse for him because he was able to hit the ball better earlier in the night.

We had to wait a little while for our third game. We hung out at the field that we had just completed our previous game on. In the third game we were playing against a “rec” team so they got a three-run lead at the start of the game. The were a bunch of younger guys, all of them looked like they got out of high school recently and all had playing baseball for their high school.

They were not very good at softball. They were not bad either, just not that good. They scored one run in the first inning, but with the three-run lead given to them they were up four to nothing. We went out and tied up the game in our half of the inning. I am seeing the ball a lot better and I am hitting it better.

We took a bit more of a lead, but our defense was still playing incredible. We held on to the lead thanks to great plays and our infield turning double plays. After that victory we had the fourth game. We were playing against a team that has lost to everyone.

We had to spot them three runs as well. But they were really a bad team. They had a couple good players, but it did not make up for the bad ones. We took a quick lead on them and didn’t give it up. It looked more like a couple larger families put together a team. There were people in the forties and kids as young as fourteen on the team. We beat them soundly.

We had about an hour break. We went back out to our camp site and sat around. By now people were getting a little tired. People were moderating their alcohol intake very well so we were not getting players who were playing poorly. That was an important key.

Before the next game we made our way to the field. The team we were going to play was waiting around and a couple of their players were playing in a co-ed game. The field we were going to use was filled, so our game was moved to an empty field. We were given the option whether we wanted to play the game or not. We were already in the championship game, so this was just for fun.

We decided we wanted to play. The other team took it to us. We had some poor defense. We didn’t hit the ball very well. We actually played really bad. They also hit the ball very well. We ended up losing the game. They were supposedly a “rec” team, but they didn’t seem like it. They played very well.

After that loss we had a break for the homerun derby. We were going to play Venom in the championship. We beat them this morning already. The homerun derby featured about half of the Venom team. That was something I was thinking about. For an “E” team that is allowed only one homerun, they sure have a lot of sluggers.

When the game started the sun had pretty much gone down and the ball which had been pretty squishy was starting to get more firm. The team they put out the second time seemed like a different team from the first one. It seems like they picked up a couple crushers. It was a really close game. We were not scoring nor hitting great, but we were playing defense well enough to keep the game close.

But they had a break out inning scoring around eight or nine runs. That game them a lead we couldn’t overcome. I had a couple strong hits in the game. We lost the game and came in second place for the tournament.

Over all the day was so much fun. An afternoon of six softball games is a lot of fun to me. I love playing and to get a chance to play so much is great fun. I was hitting the ball well and seeing the ball well. I was able to obtain a couple walks along the way.

After the game I went to dinner with Brandon and his girlfriend as well as Jessie. The whole team ended up coming with us to dinner. We went to a little Mexican place near the fields where we played softball.

When dinner was done I got some pop and headed home. Jessie was telling me about her and Ben. She gave me the whole story. We listened to some music along the way as well.

I dropped her off in Albion. Then I went to my place. I was getting the photos from the tournament downloaded from my camera when the second alarm tones came out. It was for a transfer to Spokane. I was going to do it, then I decided not to. I was going to wait about five minutes before calling in. Finally when I did call in I found I was the only caller.

I was told that I would get a call back to let me know if I was going or not. After about ten minutes I had not heard anything. Then the second alarm tones went off again. It said “FF Scotty Anderson landline station One”. I picked up my phone and found it was frozen. So I got that resolved and found I was getting the transfer.

We went to the hospital and picked up the patient. We headed for Spokane. It was pretty uneventful. After dropping off the patient we went to breakfast at Perkins and then headed back to Pullman.

By now I was getting tired. I tried to talk to Blake to keep me going. We talked about several political issues. When we got back to Pullman we went to the hospital to drop off some equipment. I cleaned the back of the ambulance. Then we got back to the station. I was ready to go home. I completed what I needed to get done and headed home. I found my bed to be very nice. I turned off my pager, cell phone, scanner, and radio. I wanted nothing to wake me up.

The Day After

Today is the day after I found out that I am going to be jobless in about one month. I will have some part-time work, but I will not have full time work. So, it probably has not fully set it because I am not feeling too horrible about the whole thing, but at the same time soon I will have very little discretionary spending.

One purchase I had almost made was a property in Colfax. If I bought it and got a loan for it, I would be hurting because I would have lost my savings by purchasing the building and property. If I had a job, it wouldn’t be a big issue, because I had some plans on ways to help pay for the loan via self-storage on the property which would, most likely cover the whole cost of the loan. But right now I cannot take that chance and lose everything.

But I think about the time that were are in with the economy. Maybe now is the time to act. Get the property while the prices are low and then get this project going. But I would hate to lose my house and everything else should things go poorly. I still want to do it, but I don’t see how I can get it done. I think I will call the owner of the land and see what his thoughts are.

At the fire department there wasn’t a whole bunch of calls. In fact we ran two calls and they both turned out to be nothing at all.

In the evening Tim and I were talking about some stuff. When I first came to the shift I didn’t know what he thought about me. In fact I sort of thought he did not like me. I thought that he “tolerated” me. But as time went along it seems like we have become people who more than tolerate each other. I told him that for all my shortcomings he seems to have accepted me. He said that he has not heard anyone say anything about me nor that I have shortcomings as a firefighter. He said the only thing that people say is that I can be moody. That is sort of funny, because I try to not be a moody person, but it happens. As I have written about before in the blog, certain things have happened to me over the time at the fire department that has caused me great grief. That has caused me to get into a bad mood. But it was a great talk we had.

No Longer a Software Engineer

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. Things could be a lot worse. I have saved up a lot of money over the last six months or so and I have a bit of a saving that can help hold me over. Now I have to get the fire department job to sustain myself. As of right now I have the fire department for about one more month. Then I am done with them full-time.

I will have to work odds and ends until something comes up where I can make a good amount of money. In the mean time I will have the fire department and my savings to hold me over.

I figured this day was going to come. I just didn’t know when. When I got a call from my company’s CTO and he started to tell me that my product was sold off, I figured that I was going to be out of a job. I had been saving for this day and it is a good thing I did.

I guess I will have to figure out how to apply for unemployment so I can collect some benefits from that as well as working some to make ends meet, without chipping into my savings, if at all possible.

So that is how my mid-morning started. I also had a CPR class that I taught this afternoon. I am going to have to work every overtime shift I can get my hands on for the next month.

When I got home Brandon, Peter, and Kevin came over and we played some games and hung out for a while.

Win One and Lose One

Today at the fire department we did a walk through of the new bio-sci building on campus. We saw the fire protection devices through out the building. We didn’t have a lot of call activities during the day.

I had a couple softball games this evening. The first game went well. We took a lead and never lost it. We went on to twelve run the other team. But in the second game they beat us. We really needed to win the game to have a chance to take second place.

In the game I hit a ball that went to the second baseman. He let it get by him into shallow center field. I kept going to second base and when I got there I saw he was still getting to the ball and no one was at third I kept trucking to third. I slid in under the tag. That was fun.

Later I made an out at home. I also was part of a double play where the left fielder caught a ball and went home. I got it and made a perfect throw to third for a double play. It was great.

Low Energy Day

I did not have a lot of energy today. I woke up late, as my alarm clocks, yes clocks, went off, and I still slept until I only had twenty minutes to get to work.

In short order we got started on the rig checks. I was working on the ambulance with Chia. Drew was covering for Blake on the engine. I just didn’t have a lot of energy to be moving as fast as I normally do. I didn’t get through as much as I would normally do. I also didn’t feel like going above and beyond. I just wanted to relax. Chia did compliment me on how well I did Engine on a previous shift. He said he is not finding anything wrong with it.

I was volunteered by Chia to do the PL weekly ladder test. I wouldn’t have done it, but Chia said that I probably wanted to and he asked Drew to wait until I am back. The captain asked what I needed to get done for the engineer status. I told him and sort of pointed out how this would be worthless for me to work on because now I only have one month left. But I did it anyway. Drew was great and walked me through everything like I had never done it before. It was nice for him to spend his time helping me.

We ran one call today. I took a nap in the afternoon. I also called my mom and Bill. I wanted to say happy fathers day to him. He has done a lot for me over the years and I felt that me not calling him up would be a bad thing. My mom mentioned that she had not heard from me in a while. I am very bad about calling and writing.

Firefighter Stand Down

Today was the firefighter stand down on B-Shift. But as we were doing our morning workout we got called out an EMS call. So that didn’t last too long. When we got back to the station we did some classroom lecture on safety and health.

Then we had a long lunch. Bob and I went to Safeway to get stuff for dinner. We were having lunch when a call came in for the North ambulance. It wasn’t long before that where we were called out. Then shortly after that a third call came in.

The afternoon was also some more safety and health lecture. At five o’clock I went to the city playfields for my softball game and batting practice. I hit the ball around in hopes of working out of my nasty hitting slump. I haven’t been hitting the ball very well in the men’s league.

We played Bomb Squad. I was one for two with a walk. My hit was a double and it was hit well. We won the game and I headed back to the station.

We didn’t have any more calls for the rest of the evening. We watched Rescue Me as a crew. The episode was really funny.

Doing some OT

Sitting at home a page came in for a transfer to Spokane. I called in on it and ended up making a trip North. I was the driver. We went to Spokane and when we were done we were going to catch some dinner. But we were having a hard time finding a place open for dinner. We started with pizza. The place we went to was closed. Then we tried Italian and they were closed. So we tried Irish and then American. Soon we were at this other pizza place South. But when we got there they said they were closed. But they were just closing and they decided they would serve us. So I got some pizza and breadsticks. We didn’t get back to the station until after midnight. It was a long night because I was going to have to work in the morning.

Thinking about Camping

Most of the day I have been thinking about camping. We started the day with doing hose testing. We had to work on the five inch hose from the PL. We were able to knock that out pretty quickly. We ran a couple calls through out the day, but over all it was a pretty quiet night over all.

I was on the ambulance with Chia. I let him drive and I did patient care. We had lunch from Cougar Country. We ate down at Reaney Park. After lunch we threw the football around for a little bit, but got a call for service. It was a fender-bender car accident. We didn’t do any patient care.

One Star Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cows on the Loose

At the fire department today it was pretty quiet for most of the day, but once the evening hit we got a car accident. It turned out to be pretty tame. No injuries, but it is was crazy to see a car on its side along Main Street. When we cleared we drove around Forrest Way. When we were coming down Olympia Ave I saw a bunch of cows.

I called the dispatch center and two WSU cops came. Between Chia and I and the WSU cops we spent an hour trying to herd the cows into a fenced area behind the Orton basketball court.

At one point we were following the cows, early on. They were on the backside of Rogers hall. They were getting surrounded. One cow stepped on a metal manhole cover. It moved making a loud noise. The cows turned and started to run. It was in my general direction. I went for high ground by jumping on a bench and I was making my way for a retaining wall. Chia was making fun of me for that.

Later we started to get them moving to a fenced area. But that wasn’t as easy as it sounded. We had them go past where we wanted them and they spread through out the magic forest. We had to run past them and get them turned around. Then we got them moving again. This time they went past the fenced area and headed towards the Stephenson Complex. I again had to run around them to get them moving back towards the fenced area.

At one point they were hanging out in the upper Gray parking lot behind the Complex. One cow was starring us down. The she looked to her left. Then she looked to her right. Soon a cow came down next to her on each side. It was like she called for back up. The cop jokingly pulled out his taser and yelled towards the cows “stop resisting”.

Finally we were getting them close to the fenced area when some students who worked for the vet school showed up to try to figure out who the cows belonged to. They asked for a description. We said they are black and white with a yellow tag in their ears. He said that pretty much describes all of them. I laughed and said I suppose that is like describing a suspect in Pullman as a 20-year-old white male.

Chia helping to herd the cows

Nice Summer Eve

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

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

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

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

Big Photo Shoot

I have been wanting to do this for a long time, and finally I got my fire department uniform to my house so I could set it up. I wanted to take a photo of myself in each of my uniforms. Then I would put it all into one photo to make it look like I posed for the photos all at one time.

I spent some time trying to get the lighting and other set up things just right. Then I put on one uniform after another. It took a long time to go through all the uniforms. One by one I had to put it on and use the ten second delay to take three photos. Then sometimes I had to change out the badges and other brass to other uniform parts for another photos. It was a long process. But the photos all turned out well.

I then started to go through the photos and chose what post to use for what side of the photo the pic would be on. It took a lot of time to cut out the background even though I was using a solid colored background. The whole process to make the photo took about six hours.

I then had to run off to the softball game. We were playing against Spellman’s team. It was crappy because we couldn’t hit the ball. Some of our best hitters didn’t have a hit on the night. We ended up losing after only scoring five runs. Spellman’s team scored twelve in the first inning alone.

I ended the night by watching Rescue Me. It is the first episode I was able to catch in the last three weeks.

Hot Day Running Down a Smell

We got dispatched to a gas leak at Clark Hall. We spent about an hour in the hot part of the early afternoon wearing turn-outs going up and down many flights of stairs trying to find the source of the smell. It was very hot and we were really sweating up a storm. Turned out the smell was due to a chemical being used in a lab and not by a gas leak.

That was all we had until the wee hours of the morning when the police called us for someone they were dealing with. At the hospital I was able to chat with Corey one of Pullman’s newer cops. We was involved in the case. It was the first time we have had a chance to chat for a while.

Holiday at PFD

Holiday’s at the fire department are not too bad. You get to work and spend the first two hours doing the normal morning duties such as checking the rigs, getting your gear on the rigs, and doing station chores. After that it is free time.

I spent some of it going through the call log and pulling out calls into the D-Twelve area. I was trying to get some stats from those calls. Later I shot hoops with the other guys on the shift. We were playing a variation of Twenty-One calls Tips. At thirteen you go back to zero. I did that several times in one game. We played two games that lasted forever because none of us are that great.

After basketball we cooked dinner. We had a guy on OT so he bought dinner for the crew and we all helped to cook. I then went to my room and spent a lot of time watching TV. I was pretty tired and I didn’t feel like getting started on any projects.

Staying at Home

Today was a nice day, but I was in bed until around noon. I didn’t get to bed until four in the morning so I was sleeping in. I heard some radio traffic on my pager, which meant they did a second alarm. I sent Keeton a text. He said that if I want to work to call the station.

I came in and spent about four hours at the station. Keeton, Bobby, and I played some basketball. I left around six. I was going to go out, but I ended up not going out, because I was going to get up early. I spent time relaxing on the couch and watching some TV.

Call Free

Today was call free at the fire department. With the weather getting better you expect to see some calls happen, but nothing was coming in. We did our normal things. I did some work on the SCBA Access DB that I have been working on.

We played some hoops for our workout. But that was about the extent of the day. We didn’t get any calls for service out of this station at all.

It still looks like we are on the timeline for be to go back to being a reserve in the middle of July. I have mixed feelings. I like the extra money that I have been bring in, but I also would like to be a reserve and work with those guys. But with the way they seem to get cancelled on a lot of stuff now, I don’t know how cool that would be.

EMS Week at Sunnyside

After leaving the fire station Chia and I went to Tam’s Place for breakfast. We hung out for a while talking. We were going to work EMS Week at Sunnyside Elementary school. We were burning some time before we had to be back at the station.

We got back around nine-thirty and got our uniforms on. We took Ambulance Thirty-Two up to the school. I did my normal task of showing the outside of the ambulance. I felt really comfortable doing it and ran the kids through it.

After showing the ambulance to four groups we went to lunch with them. Then out to the playground. We played some wall ball and tag. The kids are full of energy and I was having a fun time as I always do.

This evening was fire training at Colfax. We are doing the red card refresher class. We watched the same material I got a couple weeks ago with Pullman so this was a review of the refresher stuff for me.

Following that I went to the SO to put the meeting minutes in the folder and send them out to everyone. I also saw Jordan. He was telling updating me about my Friday arrest. Like I said I am excited to see the process that happens as it goes through the justice system.

I went home and went to bed early so I could get up and go work out. I am in real need to do something as I am getting into some bad habits. I am not eating as well as I should. I need to get back into a routine. The fire department really hurts my routine, so I have to work extra hard to combat it. I have allowed the fire department and the SO to be excuses, but I cannot continue to use those excuses.

Summer Time Deadness?

I was running in Ambulance Thirty-Two today because our two main ambulances were getting serviced. It was sort of fun to run out of it. It does have some get up and go off the line.

We ended up heading to one call, but that was the extent of the calls we ran today. We worked some hydrants.

After dinner I sat in on the new reserves’ fire training. Today was the first day and they were covering firefighter safety.

Completing the Paperwork

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

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

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

An Hour of Sleep

After working for the SO all night I had about ninety minutes to get some sleep before going into work. I figured we would burn through the rig checks and I would take a nap.

We started with breakfast. It was a simple meal of eggs and french toast. I helped to make some of it.

After the breakfast we went to the rig checks. I was in charge of one of the ambulances. I am very thorough in my rig checks so I tend to take longer than a lot of the other guys. I like to check to make sure everything thing is there and it appears to work, not just that it is there.

When they were done with their rig the other guys came to help my with my ambulance. When it was done I went to lay down for a nap. It was a nice one, but short. It was three hours into it when I got called to a medical call.

I got back to the station and stayed up until after dinner. I also stayed up until after COPS was over with. I went to bed around nine o’clock at night. I didn’t sleep straight through the night, but I didn’t get out of bed until seven in the morning.

From Morning to Night

This morning the pager went off at just before four-thirty in the morning for a transfer to Spokane. I took the call and came in. As it turned out it was a hurry-up-and-wait thing. We were told to be at the hospital at five in the morning only to leave just after six. The trip up to Spokane went without a problem. I was working with Bob. We went to Frank’s Diner for breakfast.

The ride home always seems to take longer than the trip up to Spokane. When we got home I got the ambulance taken care of and back in service. I went home and did a couple things before taking a nap. I had only four hours of sleep between last night and this morning.

I was able to squeeze in another four hours before getting ready to work the road. I went to the SO and started to get my things ready. I was working on my FTO book when a call for service came in. The other deputies who were there told me to take it. It was a fraud call.

I was waiting for Jimmy to get to the SO. When he got there we worked on the fraud case. It turned out to be something from many years ago, and the guy was pretty much looking for some information because something else has come up. We really have nothing to do with it. We are pretty much just giving him some information.

Following the phone calls for that case we went to lunch at Subway with a couple other deputies. We were there for just over an hour eating and chatting. I was excited to get out and patrol. We started by taking a trip out to Endicott to look at a building that is for sale. It is a large shop building. After driving out there I realized it was much too far from Pullman. I saw where it was. The property looked more rough than the photos.

We went through several other small towns working our way up to Rosalia. We were going to work that part of the county. We didn’t find anything big. I did make a couple stops for poor driving and speeding. It was after one in the morning and we were driving south on One-Ninety-Five. We followed one car that turned off on rarely used road. Then we went back out to One-Ninety-Five and went North. I passed a car speeding. I turned on it and pulled the car over. Found the driver had a felony warrant. I ended up making an arrest. Due to the arrest I didn’t get out of the SO until after four-thirty in the morning. I got home and went to bed nearly six in the morning. I wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep before I would have to get up to work at the fire department.

Multiple Calls around Two

I was supposed to be in on a phone call at two in the afternoon, but instead I ended up running back-to-back calls starting at one-thirty. It started with a car accident. While at the hospital we got sent off to another call from there.

In the evening I sat in on the reserves’ OTEP training class. It was a class on Death and Dying.

Movie Night at the FD

We ran only one call today on the ambulance out of this station. It was for a sick person around noon. It was a quick call. We had dinner down at the Deuce because someone was working overtime.

On the way back we stopped at the video store to get a video. We ended up watching Righteous Kill. That was a pretty good cop movie. We were the only ones that ended up watching the movie.

Pay Backs

Tonight I paid back Chuck for a trade I did with him many months ago. It ended up being a very quiet four hours. I had dinner with the C-shift crew. It was my first time eating with them in a while. That was about all we did this evening while I was at the fire station.

Me, The Medic

Today Chia and I reserves roles. I was the attendant on the EMS calls and he was the driver. I had a fun time doing that. I got a couple calls to work. They were all BLS so we didn’t need a medic in the back. The final call of the night was an assault. There were two people I had to deal with. I was the one making the decisions and calling medical control. It was a lot of fun to have the role-reversal going on.

Forwarding to the PA

I went to Colfax to pick up my newest gun. I had to pick it up from Greyman Guns. Due to the timeline I was getting on the edge of running late for EMS rounds. We were going to discuss the EMS call from last month where we ended up doing a “transfer” to Spokane where we never left the hospital. We were there for about five hours.

I rode with Zehm tonight. I started with being the “uniform” on a warrant service. My role was to be the officer presence when we did a knock and announce. I pretty much watched the people while the search was done.

We went to serve some papers in Palouse and then drove around the city for a while because we though the person we were serving were going to break the order. We were not able to find anything.

Following that we did a report in Tekoa of an assault. I went and got witness statements and went to talk to the suspect. At the end of the call I went to the station to write it up and forward it off to the prosecutor.

Twenty-Four Hour OT

I was going to be getting off shift when I got offered a twenty-four hour overtime shift. I was worried about missing softball and the autopsy that was scheduled for today. But I was able to go to the autopsy and the softball game was cancelled.

Pritch was working OT as well today. So we bought dinner for the shift. Bob and I were on the ambulance. The only call we got was during the autopsy of course. It was a call up on campus. We were not able to see the end of the autopsy and that is where they found the findings that showed the cause of death. Now I am only going to get to see the photos which are never as good as seeing things in person.

Overall it was a pretty quiet day. There were a couple calls in the middle of the night but they were both for the Deuce. So I never had to get up. That was good because I was pretty tired.

Final Weekend Before Finals Week

When I got to the fire department I had about four hours of sleep last night. one of the guys asked me why I wasn’t out at the murder. I then found out they ran on a call where it appeared that someone was hit by a car and then left to die. An investigation went through out the day. It sounds like they think it was a fall from a cliff side and not a hit and run.

It was thought at the fire department that we might be busy tonight. It is the last party night before finals week. Last week was pretty quiet overall. Friday night was bad. There were a lot of calls. So they are staffing up the station today.

I also was moved from the engine to the ambulance. That was a happy thing for me. I prefer to be on the ambulance most of the time. But it was really quiet. We worked on ambulance checks. Then we did hydrants to finish off the hydrants that we had not completed the other night.

I took a short nap because I only got fourteen hours of sleep over the last seventy-two hours. We ran one call before dinner. After dinner Chia and I went to the Gladish center where there was some mixed martial arts fighting. We checked out the area for the best location to come in with a cot and get around if we are needed. Then we cruised through campus to see what things looked like. There was one place where it looked a big party was going to happen.

We also looked at the place where the kid fell off the cliff side. We were trying to figure out where it happened and what the area looked like. I went to bed around ten o’clock. I was still tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep I was getting woken up by various things happening, whether it was the phone ringing, the pager going off, or a guy playing a practical joke on me.

We had one other call that happened at the place where we identified a possible big party spot on campus.

Summer League Men’s Softball

Tonight we had a double-header to start off the Ought-Nine Summer Men’s Softball season. We were playing My Office #Two tonight. They are sponsored by the same bar that our team is. This was our first meeting with them. We also have been in a higher league than them. So we didn’t want to lose to them. We wanted the bragging rights. We ended up beating them by four runs. It was a little closer than it should have been.

The second game wasn’t even close. We all were hitting the ball very well and took a nice lead and beat them pretty soundly. It is part of last season’s Tubbs team. They are now called Sellas/Coug.

Following the games I went back to the FD to complete my shift. I had taken some time off without pay in order to play softball.

During the day we were doing hydrants. While we were going to one of the last hydrants I saw a guy standing in the road next to a cat that was laying on the road. I thought that cat had been hit, then I was a coyote. I knew what had happened.

We went to assist the cat. It appeared that it was hurt pretty bad. It was bleeding and appeared to have difficulty breathing. We got it to the WSU vet school and they worked on the cat.

I learned later on the cat’s owner had been notified. The wounds were cleaned and the cat went home. It wasn’t as badly hurt as we thought. That was great news.

Missing Sweatshirt

This morning when I got to work I found my sweatshirt that I had left on the ambulance was missing. I searched all the ambulance’s, the whole bay, then the rest of the station. I was not able to find it. I E-mail everyone and Heston said it was on an ambulance and he moved it from the ambulance so it would not get lost. It was set on the hydrant maintenance bins. But it wasn’t there. So I had to work the shift without it. With the cooler weather, it would be nice to have it.

Buying a New Boat?

This morning I went to Genesee to take a look at a boat I found on Craigslist. The guy who owned it was a nice person. I stopped in at his house and looked around the boat. It is old, but it really good shape for its age. It seemed like a nice boat.

We took it to the river. It seemed like it was taking on some water. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think it did. That was a big strike against it. The boat had a good size engine, but it ran at about thirty miles per hour at its fastest. The steering seemed really tight. It would make a great cruising boat and fishing boat, but it is not exactly what I was looking for.

We went back to Genesee. I rode down with him. We had a chance to talk about about web development. That is what he does for WSU.

I left his place and went home. I was pretty tired because I was up late last night. I layed down on my bed and took a little nap. I made myself some dinner and I was watching COPS when the tones started to hit for calls. Before long they toned for people to respond to the station. I went down there and I was there for about two hours.

I never rolled from the station, but it was close. Today was Springfest and there was a lot of minor calls going on up there. At one point though, the police set up a command and started to call in more cops because it was looking like it could get ugly. Nothing ever happened. I went home and watched some SouthPark before I fell asleep on the couch.

Second Arrest

We got called for a fire alarm just before shift change. So I ended up getting a little bit of overtime out of it. I was also going to be going to the ropes training. We were removing a guy from a crane that is at the WSU Olympia residence hall. I was doing photos and photos during the training. It took about two hours from the time I got there until I got back.

I hurried home to get into my uniform for working the county. I went to the office. I gave Paul a ride from the county shop back to the office. Then Tim and I headed up to Tekoa for a report of an attempt car prowl. We took a report and some photos.

When we went to serve some papers. One was on a house that was going to be repoed. The place was trashed. It will probably cost a lot of money just to throw away the trash from around the place. Then we served papers to someone in Pullman. I also pulled about six warrants from around Pullman that I wanted to try to serve. Most of them were bad addresses. We were striking out on that.

Then we drove south on SR One-Ninety-Five. We stopped several people and I wrote some tickets. We started to head North. We stopped some more cars along the way. Tim said that he wanted to head to the gas pumps in Colfax to get fuel. It was on the way there through Colfax when we stopped a car for not dimming its headlights. The driver was suspended. I arrested him and brought him into jail. I spent the next hour and a half writing the report on that plus all the tickets that I wrote through out the night. I didn’t leave the SO until after four in the morning.

Final Day of SFST

We had six at the fire department so that meant I was on an ambulance all day. I was working with Tony. I really like working with him. We ended up working the South part of town. As it turned out every call save one was on the South side of town.

It was a pretty typical day around the station. We did our normal morning chores and rig checks. I had to get my EMS OTEP bookwork done today. That was what I was doing in the afternoon. But just as I got done and before I could print it off we got called out on an EMS call.

We got back to the station in time to have dinner. Then I had to run off to training at the CUE. We were doing the final day of the standardize field sobriety testing. We were doing the wet lab.

I have been doing some practice of the things I am going to say if I do the field sobriety tests. I did my practice on three of the subjects. Then I did my final test on the fourth person. I passed it. Now I am certified in doing SFST’s.

After I got back to the station I sat in on the end of the new reserve class. I got some dishes done. I got to the bedroom and I was going to start to get ready for bed. Before I even got my boots off we were called out to the CUB. I actually got to bed following that call only to get another call an hour later. After that call I was able to actually go to bed for the rest of the night.

Only Calls While on Ambulance

I was supposed to be on the ambulance. But because I have training for the SO tonight I was moved to the engine to make it easier. But for a short period of time in the afternoon I was put on the ambulance with Tony so some of the others could do some drive time training on the engine.

During that time we were doing hydrants. As luck would have it we got one hydrant done and then got called out on an EMS call. That was followed up was followed up with a second call. So the afternoon was shot. I got back to the station and then it was off to SFST training on campus.

I stopped to get some pop and headed up to training. We were doing our final day of classroom training. We watched some videos and worked on grading what we saw based on the videos. We also did a written test. I missed two on that test.

The rest of the evening at the fire station was quiet.

SFST

We hit the floor running at the fire department today. Within five minutes of the start of the shift we were out running on a call. Then we went from that one directly to a second call. We had some time but ran a couple more back-to-back calls in the afternoon. None of them were very big.

We were having sloppy joe’s for dinner. Tony and I bought the food for it and I started to cook it when I got back. I had to leave around five-forty-five for training class on campus. We are learning standardize field sobriety tests.

The class lasted about four hours. Matt is teaching it. All the recruits from my academy are in the class on top of a couple older reserves.

When class was done I hurried back to the station to go back on duty. I also watched Rescue Me after I returned.