A Review of Ought-Eight

January 1st, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NovMet a Man – When the game was done I met up with Gunnar. We have been e-mailing back and forth the last two days and decided that we wanted to watch the movie Scream. So he called me up. We met at Starbucks. We sat there talking for a while. He is working on a project and he told me a little about what he is doing.

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

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

Last Radio Show… Ever

April 28th, 2008

Went into the studio today to do the final show with Tom. But it was clear very quickly that the transmitter was not working. I worked on it for a while, but it was hopeless. We finally left about thirty minutes into the time slot. While talking with Tom I found out he wasn’t planning on doing the show again. I also thought about it for a little bit.

This last semester or two the show has suffered from my lack of time preparing for the topics, getting guests, and whatnot. I don’t have the fire in my gut like I did. I just don’t have things to talk about like I did at one time. I also am worried about things with work and everything else. I decided it was time to pull the plug on the show. My last show was today and I never even got on the air. I may see about subbing a show next April to do my show on the Easter Massacre with Karl.

At fire training tonight we were doing more on the wildland class. It was the final day. I had missed all the other trainings because of various reasons, but I also had completed the Red Card last month in Colfax, so I didn’t need it anyway.

Turning in the Rosters for Softball

April 14th, 2008

I worked my radio show this afternoon. It was the second to last show for me for the semester. The last few weeks I haven’t had a ton of time to prepare for the show so we have sort of had to wing it.

After the show I got a couple more signatures on the rosters before turning them into the city. I stopped by My Office and I got a check from Jeff for the team for men’s.

The season for men’s and coed start around the end of this month. I am pretty excited.

The Old Rescue is Back

April 9th, 2008

I went to the Rec center today off of my normal time. Usually I go in the morning but I was busy doing some stuff on the computer, so I went in the early afternoon. While at the rec center I saw Pritch and A. Wilcox there. Wilcox and I talked a couple times while we were doing our work outs.

The old rescue was called back into service because the new one needed to get serviced. Dearth and I went to move tools from one rig to the other. When that got back to the station I got ready for my meeting with Parrish. I went over some engineer calculations with him. He was doing just fine on those.

I went to the KZUU meeting up in the CUE. That took about an hour. I was expecting a call to come out while I was there, but nothing happened.

Working the Event

April 7th, 2008

The show today I had Tom run the board and do all the production stuff. I was his whipping boy for the day. We talked a lot of protests including the French who were trying to sabotage the running of the Olympic flame due to their dislike of the Chinese.

Today I was working an event at Beasley. My job was to make sure that the part that dealt with fire juggling went off without starting a big fire. So I had to go back stage and watch that part. Then for the rest of the show I was in more normal place for it.

I watched the show for a bit, it was the Fred Garbo Theatre. It was meant for young kids. They seemed to really enjoy the show. I watch parts of it, but spent most of my time in the first aid room.

Town Crier Due Today

March 31st, 2008

I have been writing my newest town crier column for a couple days. I have edited and re-edited it several times. I want it to be well written and easy to read. I think I accomplished that. I was writing about the Easter Massacre. I had to get that turned in today.

Later I had the radio show. It was a very good show. I spent time with Tom and quizzing him. Later I read the story from the Readers Digest book that I have, it is called a “Curious Love Story”. It is about assigning blame for the death of a young lady who was having an affair.

Tonight there was no Monday Night Training. It felt weird to be on call on a Monday and not go down to station one for some sort of training.

Ladders Drill

March 24th, 2008

Before the radio show I found a couple places I would need to go after the show. A couple guys on the team were over in Bohler Gym. During the radio show I talked about some articles I found about how banks look at every transaction looking for things to report to the government for investigation. It was interesting to read. It is how the New York Governor was discovered.

After the show I went to Bohler can got Ryan’s signatures and I also picked up some money from Josh. As I was leaving I could hear one of the football players who was in there say “drug deal?” and Josh said “Yeah.” That made me laugh.

Afterwards I went to a couple places where I had been two weeks earlier looking for donations. Neither of them are biting today. Though it did look good the day we were there.

I went home until it was time to head to the fire station for training. I started by getting some photos of two of the new guys. We took the engine down to station one for the classroom part. Then it was off to the tower. We threw ladders for the training. Practicing using the different sizes and setting them in the correct places.

Good Show about Cars

March 17th, 2008

This morning I woke up and I still had a wobble about myself. I didn’t feel bad however. I think the water I drank afterwords helped out a lot. I didn’t get my work out done at all though.

I made my way to the radio show. I wasn’t sure what I would talk about, but it turned out that I had a great show. I spent one hour talking about “The Game” played when you buy a new car. The other hour I spent talking about the stories that are currently posted on the Paloustics.com webpage.

After the show I stopped by Station one to see if I could get a alphanumeric pager. The Captain wasn’t around but he said I would be put on the list of people who want one.

Later in the evening we had Monday night training. Tonight’s topic was Excite Delirium. BKoe was there for the training as well because it was a joint police and fire training. The night was dead though. We didn’t get any calls at all.

Buying a Ford?

March 3rd, 2008

It was a great radio show today. We touched out a couple topics, but Tom and I were just flowing off each other. It was great. As the show was completed I was on my way to the Ford dealer. Jake called to let me know to stop by closer to four o’clock PM. That way I could talk to a specific salesman.

I changed course and headed off home. I got a couple things down around the house before four o’clock rolled around.

I headed out to the Ford dealership. I talked with the salesman that Jake set me up with. He got an idea of my goals with the vehicle purchase. He didn’t have anything on the lot that fit what I wanted. So he will call when something comes up.

I made dinner and relaxed instead of rushing to get to fire training. It was moved back a half hour. Today’s training was on forcible entry.

A Lengthy Interview

February 25th, 2008

It was a good radio show today. Both Tom’s were on the show. We talked about RFID and privacy. Then Tom called and we talked about some stuff on Palousitics.com including the stuff about the Hawkins development.

Following the show I had to rush over to Moscow for an interview. It was one of the longest ones I have been in. They spent time quizing me about SQL Server and writing stored procedures. As well as building webpages. They said they would call me and let me know one way or another soon.

I got home and got ready for training. I was going to help out with the EMT class because the OTEP training tonight is one that I have already had recently. While at EMT class I worked with groups on various scenarios.

Transmitter Down

February 11th, 2008

The transmitter was down when I started the show. It was time for Tom and I just to chat about various topics including a time to train him how to use the equipment. He had to leave at about one o’clock pm. The transmitter came back about fifteen minutes later. I completed the show, but I was not as prepared as I would have normally been.

In the evening we were having fire training. I had hurt my back yesterday and I was a little on the slow side. I wasn’t able to work out today. I was happy to hear we were only going to do table top stuff. We were going over the SOP covering Incident Command.

Welcome Tom Two

February 4th, 2008

Had the radio show today with the new co-host, Tom W. He was a two time guest last semester. I asked him to join me this semester. He accepted. We talked about Super Tuesday. He tried to get me to answer certain questions, but I refused to answer. I ran him in some circles. I was having fun with that.

Tom F. called in and we talked about the Whitman County vote to allow the bond to go through for Hawkins. That was great news as it would start a major development on the corridor.

Tonights Monday Night training we covered the engineer sheet. It has some new information about how you do the calculations when looking at water pressures under three-hundred-fifty gallons per minute.

The training went well. Afterwards Michael, Reed, and I met with Mike about some reserves issues and what we need to start to do about them.

I was getting some crap from people about being Mr. “Standing By With One”.

Last Show of the year

December 3rd, 2007

Today was my last show of the semester. I had Tom on the show, as a follow up to his appearance last week. We talked about the Republican debate. He had to leave at one. I had Forbes on the phone as well. We talked for nearly an hour about local politics.

I finished off my pop. I made a big noise crushing it and I was going to throw it in a garbage can that I saw just inside the door of a gym across from hall from the KZUU studio. But as I made all the noise and stepped inside the door, I had about twenty women looking at me. I was sort of self-conscious when I threw away the pop can and went down the stairs quickly.

I was going to have to walk a way to my truck parked out by Beasley. As I was heading out the door. There was a young lady standing there looking out the window at the snow and ice on the ground. I figured she was waiting for a ride. I thought I would be outgoing and I said “horrible time of year to be on crutches.” She then said, into the cell phone that I didn’t see that she had “I couldn’t hear what you just said, can you repeat it.” I just went out the door and chuckled to myself about those two events that took me by surprise.

Following the show I got home to get some of my work done before making my way to the station. We had the fire critiques from the night of the arson’s. It was a pretty tame night as far as critiques have gone in the past.

When it was done Irving and I sat at the station talking about the critique followed by looking over the fire engine hose lays. I was there until around two in the morning chatting with Irving.

The Ron Paul Show

November 26th, 2007

On today’s radio show I had a couple guests who were talking about Ron Paul as a candidate for president. One of the two guests was ten-six-seven. I didn’t know that he was going to be that way until he got to the show. I tried to do some research on the guys before they came on the show, but his facebook account was set up so you had to be a friend to see his photos.

The Boys are in Town

November 16th, 2007

I volunteered to work a security shift at the burnt out building on True street. I was working it with Blanks. I brought my laptop and a couple movies to watch as the night went on. I was tired and was Blanks. We watched my movies which took us through the night. Blanks also went to Dissmore’s and got me some pop and himself some drink. We started our shift at three in the morning and worked until eight. I went to bed when I got home.

In less than three hours I was up talking on the phone call meeting. It was short. I then started to work on some bugs I had to complete. I didn’t have much time to do that because I was covering someone elses shift on KZUU. It was a noon to two o’clock shift. I talked a little bit about the fires, only things that were in the newspapers. I also played music. I had a couple callers who challenged some of the things I was saying about WalMart and building in Pullman.

I was working on stuff for work when Jon got here with the boys. I showed him around the house. The boys and I played some video games before going to Cougar Country to get some dinner. This is the boys’ first time to Pullman.

After dinner we went to watch Cougar Basketball. They were playing UI. The Cougs went on to an easy victory.

We went back to Cougar Country to get the boys some ice cream. Then it was back to my place. They watched Shrek III. I went to my office to get some work done that I needed to do during the day, but I had to put off because of the radio show and Jon getting to town.

Callers on the Show

November 5th, 2007

The radio show included the topics of NBC’s green week. Where they are sending crews around the world on jets, but they are doing the right thing and buying “Carbon Offsets”. Also the usage of a gas-powered mower and what it does to the environment. When checking with various websites I found that no one agreed on the amount of damage.

I ended the show talking about the upcoming election and voting. That lead to the topic of whether students who do not register to vote in Pullman should have a say in the city government. A couple people called up and gave their opinions on the subject. It was a good show.

I ended up getting out of training tonight because I needed to work the WSU Women’s Basketball game. I worked it with Bien. While there we talked about him becoming a crew leader. I asked him what he would do differently as a crew leader. He had a hard time answering the question. I was thinking there was something he wanted to say, but was afraid of saying it to me. He did say there was very little he would change about the way I do things.

Two Fire Critiques

October 29th, 2007

This afternoon I had my radio show. I spent the whole time playing heavy metal. I wasn’t broadcasting again, so I did not want to waste my material with a web-only broadcast.

In the evening we had two fire critiques where we talked about the grain elevator fire and the Spring street fire. They went pretty well, but the problem was those things happened so long ago, there wasn’t a ton that I got out of it.

Pretty much everything had been talked about so much that there wasn’t a lot of new information.

With my telephone interview tomorrow morning at eight in the morning I decided to go to bed early tonight.

New Job on the Horizon?

October 18th, 2007

I had the normal Scrum meeting today then we had a company meeting and finally another meeting. Following the last meeting an e-mail went out to everyone to discuss what we had talked about in the meeting. Sounds like the Scrums are still on the scope. Ricky is in charge of technical issues, and Wil is more or less the project manager. I am not doing anything because of my work from home schedule.

I responded to a couple calls at the fire station but no one else showed up as normal. It is so frustrating that people don’t want to go on daytime calls. So many of the guys are adrenaline junkies and if the call is not high level they will not go. Some guys don’t even listen to the pager during the day at all.

I spent part of the day working on getting my ThePES.com site updated with all the audio from all my past shows that I have available. That took a while as many times I had to listen to parts of the show to give a couple topics in the post with the audio file.

I was cruising the WSU HR website and I also looked at the SEL website. I found a job opening with SEL. Tom works in the same department. It doesn’t have a lot of information about the position, pay scale, and whatnot. But the requirements are right down my alley. Tom said he would push my resume to the hiring manager. I don’t think SEL will pay nearly enough nor offer the kind of freedoms that a normal coding job has. But you should always be willing to listen to what people have to offer.

It has nothing to do with me being dissatisfied with my pay right now. I am being paid fairly. It is the new system we are using, the Agile process with the daily scrums, the sprints, and whatnot. I really preferred that we get work handed to us and I get to code on it. I guess that would be something that I would need to know about at SEL. If they are big into Agile, then I don’t know if it would be a good fit for me.

Full Circle

October 15th, 2007

This morning my pager was going off for a echo response for a CPR in progress outside of Pullman. Bien and I went to the scene. I assisted in doing chest compressions for a while on scene plus in the back of the ambulance to the hospital. I did more chest compressions at the hospital. After more than an hour since the incident starting the doctor called it in the hospital. This is the second time in Pullman since I started when I have been there in the hospital when it was called. I had the same reaction. Sadness. I was hopping we could keep fighting until we won. But we didn’t.

I went back to the station when Pete called me about it. I started to do the investigation with the help of one of the new deputy coroners, Bill. We did a full investigation. When I went back to the hospital the respirator therapist gave me a look like he was surprised to see me back. I looked at him and said, matter of factly, “My brother works for the fire department.” Later on when I was in the nurses area he was looking real hard at me. Later a nurse told me the respirator therapist was amazed how much me and my “brother” looked. He couldn’t tell us apart.

When the case was done I went to the radio station to do my show. I had a guest coming in to talk with me about an article he wrote for the Evergreen where he supported Thompson for president. I spent nearly the whole time talking to him on the radio. At two o’clock PM the guy who was supposed to replace me never showed up. I stayed for a little bit, but I finally had to leave.

While at home I responded on more calls. One was a fire alarm. One was a car accident. One was a motorcycle accident, and finally someone who fell. I got back in time to get ready for training for tonight.

We were doing airway for OTEP tonight. It was the same class I had last month in Colfax. When the lecture was done I was able to do some evaluations on people doing their skills. It was my first time to do that since taking the EMS Evaluator class.

George thanked me for taking the role seriously and doing a good job evaluating people. When we went over the test I knew two answers we had from the Colfax class was different from what everyone agreed to in Pullman. So I looked up the answers and pointed them out to George. He said he would update everyone on the correct answers.

Playoffs Day One

September 30th, 2007

The plan was to include spending time on my garage. But instead I was on the phone with Russell. He invited me to go to coffee with Jason. I accepted the invite. Russell told me that Nick and he broke up. That was a surprise to me. They have been together for a bunch of years. In gay years, it has been like twenty years.

Due to the trip to Cafe Moro I decided I only had time to wash my truck. I got it washed up and then went to get Russell. He noticed that I washed my truck. Then he quickly noticed it looked longer. Once he got in, he knew it was a different truck.

We met Jason down at Cafe Moro. I got a hot cocoa and they got some coffee. I told them the story about buying my truck. When we were done they it was off to Blockbuster to get a movie to watch.

We got Wild Hogs and watched it at Jason’s on his projection TV. It was a pretty funny movie. We were done around four in the afternoon. I took Russell home and went home myself.

I got ready for softball tonight. We had a men’s game in the first round of the playoffs. We were playing the Bash Brothers. We hit the ball well. I was pitching because Dave was out of town. I was enjoying pitching. During the first batter my first three pitches were balls, then I came back with a good pitch. After that I did very well pitching. They were not very patient. No one walked and many people hit some pretty awful pitches.

We went on to win pretty easily. I was two for three with a walk. One well hit ball to deep right field but the guy was able to track it down at catch it. We went on to win.

Ryan and I went to the KZUU meeting. It lasted about thirty-five minutes. We went to Cougar Country and got some dinner. I was trying to relax, but I knew I had a big softball game on Monday. I didn’t know if I had enough women for it. We went to Russell’s to give him a ride to work.

Russell was able to talk a little bit about his situation. Earlier in the day we talked about it. He said he was thankful to have me around to talk to about it.

Last Poker Night at Mikes

April 23rd, 2007

I did my last radio show of the semester. Ted, the guy who has the show after me also came in early because I had to get out of there for the meeting for work. I spent a while talking to Jerid from the Evergreen Football League. Then I spent a while talking to Ted about Springfest and getting his point of view on the music and the Everclear who performed out there. I left around thirty minutes early.

I got home in time for the meeting. I called in and it lasted a while. During the meeting I got a call from Pete. So I called him back after the meeting and he told me of a possible case getting ready to happen in Pullman. A possible overdose. It never ended up happening.

I went to the fire station to return some of the tests that I had corrected for the guys. I found one person did not do a very good job on his correction of the test. The correction was open book and there was no reason to not do well on it, other than not caring. I stayed there for about an hour. Then it was time to head to Mike’s house for the poker tournament.

I got some pizza and then went to his house. I played on the main table then more people showed up. I went to the low limit table for a while but I could not win a hand. I was losing more and more money. I had to rebuy for another ten bucks.

I went to the higher stakes table to hope to see some new cards. As I sat there I started to win more and more. Pretty soon I had won back all my money plus more. Towards the end of the night I lost a couple hands that cost me some of the winnings, but I still left with fifteen bucks.

In The Playoffs!

April 16th, 2007

I had a couple guests on the show today to talk about the Outside the Wire movie that was shown by the College Republicans on campus. The “open minded” Democrats and Progressives took up seats in the front row and staged a walk out before the movie was shown. How nice that they actual see what they hate.

We had our softball playoff game. We were playing a team we beat in the regular season. We went out there pretty much easily beat them again. That means that we will be going to round two of the playoffs against Kelly’s team. Ryan said he is going to come down for that game because he wanted to play against Kelly.

I was at home and working on the stats for the team. I also was cruising around the net as well as watching some TV. I finally found my way to bed at three-thirty in the morning. Before I was even deeply sleeping I got a phone call. It was about four in the morning it was Pete. There was a death in Pullman he wanted me to look into.

It appeared to be a natural involving an elderly person. But there were some questions about why there was a delay in contacting us from the time of death. Pete said to let Pullman PD know what was going on. I called Whitcom to let them know what I was doing.

I got on scene and I got a call from Pullman PD. They were going to have to investigate because the person was not in hospice. So I waited for the first officer to show up. It was Heidi. When she got on scene she started to run my truck plate. I heard her over the radio. I looked back and then she said disregard. I also hear the Sgt request Pullman Ambulance show up.

We went to the house and introduced ourselves. We did our investigation. The ambulance showed up. I made sure they did not do anything to the body, like running a strip, like they like to do. They pretty much showed up and left.

I spent the next couple hours getting information and waiting for the detectives to show up. They got on scene around six in the morning. We went to the room to investigate the body and get photographs. I was out of there around seven in the morning. I went home and got a bowl of cereal before going to bed.

Pete was thinking it would be a quick hour or so, but it turned into nearly three hours.

More Reserve Training

April 9th, 2007

After the longer than expected night I did not have the time to get my prep work done for the recruit academy class. That meant I was going to have to spend the time after my radio show working on that. And speaking of the radio show, I did not have time to do that last night, so I had to get up early in order to have time to get through that.

When I got to the radio station I was not sure what I was going to talk about, but I was able to go on nearly an hour long talk about the WASL, school teaching, WSU’s education department, and more. Then the second hour I talked about the WSU Police Chief stepping down and the fact he is a scapegoat. Following the talk on that I was starting to discuss the Seattle School District claiming that future time orientation and summer break are racist. How laughable. Tom called in and I did a quick recap.

I went home and started in on the reading assignment for class for today. We are going over hose loads and fire streams. I was not doing a PowerPoint presentation, so I was able to sit back and just watch what people were doing. I also had been assigned to respond on Rescue if there was a call. We got one for a roll-over accident, that turned out to be nothing. But when we got to the scene, in the South part of Pullman, there was about two inches of hail on the roadway. It was like it was covered with snow. The hail coming down was a little smaller than a marble.

I did help out with some of the hands on stuff. I also did some talking, but it was mainly just adding on a point here or there.

The class lasted until almost ten-thirty. When it was over with I went home and started to look at the Ventilation PowerPoint slide show. I am going to be teaching that one on Thursday.

Andy Savage in the Morning

April 2nd, 2007

For a long time I listened to Andy Savage while I was spending my days in Seattle. He would get me to work every morning. Then there was Jack-FM. A crappy radio station that killed K-Rock and with it Andy Savage. After being off the air for a couple years he is back with an Internet based radio show. It is called bigbuttradio.com. It is a show dedicated to getting people in shape. He worked with a personal trainer and started to get into shape. He was feeling better and decided to work on this show.

I had him on my show today. It was a fun experience. When I was in the studio waiting for my show time, the girl who is on the show in front of mine had never received a caller. I even asked if someone had called in. She said “no”. A few minutes later the phone rang. She lit up, and I was very happy for her. Then after talking for a few seconds it was clear it was not for her. She looked all sad and then handed the phone to me saying “it’s for you.” The other person in the studio and I both had a good laugh over that one. It was Andy Savage on the phone. I was so stoked.

We did the interview on the air. I had him about twenty minutes. It was a lot of fun. Following him I had Jared from the Evergreen Football League on the show. Then I spent time talking about some of the issues that are floating around including the murder over in Moscow.

When the show was done I called the station to find out what the plan was for training. I was told that I was going to do the PPE slides and assist on other parts. I went to the station to get the slides and a book. Then it was off to go home and work on my teaching notes.

I got to the station about fifteen minutes before the training and all my A-Shift guys were there. That made me happy in the face of the E-mail I sent out letting them know my expectation that they were on-time. In fact I said “If you’re on time, you’re late”.

The class took about four and a half hours to do. We spent about half the class working on tying knots. I like to do that and it was a great refresher for me. In a lot of ways I am looking at these classes as refresher for me. I am able to practice some of the basics again.

A Day with Ryno

April 1st, 2007

With Ryan staying the night he was around all day. We started with playing some video games. We played a couple games of Baseball Stars and Tecmo Bowl. I blew him out on Tecmo Bowl and we beat me a couple times in Baseball stars, but I did get him on one game of Baseball Stars.

We had some breakfast and hung out until it was time to get ready to play softball. We had week two scheduled for tonight. Like last week we only got nine players. That sort of made me mad. We ended up only playing one game because a different team did not show up tonight. But there is a chance that the team that had the forfeit with us last week will show up the final week of the season because they were there today.

We won the game by ten-running the other team. That was fun to do. I only got one basehit. Kurt and Jake both had at least one home run, and after two games they both have three homeruns, which is the team record in the current era.

After the game was done Ryan and I went to Cougar Country to get some dinner and I tried to relax but I felt like I had so many things that I had to get accomplished in the next few days I was sort of stressed.

I went to the fire station after dinner for rig checks. Rescue had gone to station one to get some air bottles filled and I helped get the bay washed out and went through the engine with one of the new guys as well as Bien. We were there until a little before eleven o’clock.

I then went home and started work on the stuff for my radio show for tomorrow. I am going to have Andy Savage on the show and I wanted to sound like I knew what I was doing.

Magic Show in Todd Aud

March 26th, 2007

This morning was my radio show. Daniel from the College Republicans. They did a demonstration on the CUB Mall about having English as the official language of America. We talked about it for over an hour. I finally figured out what was going on with the telephone not working correctly. I figured out that there is a button on the Mic slider where I have to turn on the Tel button. It was a good conversation.

After the radio show I went home and waited until it was time to go to the Magic Show in Todd Aud. It was Brian Bushwood. He is a younger guy and he had an assistant who was a big time ten-six-seven. After the show was done I went up and talked to both of them. I also got them added to MySpace.

During the radio show Bushwood showed some tricks about how you can win at different events. He was doing one for Simon Says. When I was one of the guys who was still in play, he said for everyone to come to the stage to continue the game. I didn’t want to go to the stage so I just stood there. Everyone else went walking up there. Then he said “Simon did not say”. I sort of laughed because the only reason I did not go up there was because I didn’t want to go up there at all.

Pushed back a week

March 19th, 2007

I started with a bug on my plate this morning. I got it quickly fixed and turned in. Then it was time to head to my radio show.

My radio show went really well today. I did some good stuff. I had several topics that I touched on and when I was listening to the audio I thought I sounded good. Better than normal.

I got back to the house in time for the meeting. When I got there I found a second bug. I worked my rear off trying to get it completed today. As it was they moved back release to web by one week for testing purposes. So if it took me extra time to finish my bug we might have to push it back even more. I finally ran down the problem to something I was told to do earlier. I got permission to revert my changes and got it checked in.

We had the Reserve Association meeting today. Things went pretty well, but there were a couple people doing some scare tactics about the career guys getting us fired over it. I thought that was crap that it was even brought up because that is so far from the truth.

But over all people do want to have it, so I am going to do more work to get it figured out and have something.

We had our OTEP training as well as a couple calls, but it was quiet after around eleven o’clock. In fact we never even got out of the vehicle on either call, both of which were fire alarms.

Two times on the Radio

March 5th, 2007

Today I spent a lot of time not at home. I first had to get a thumb drive to replace the one that died on me the other day. I started with my radio show for my normal time. I went up the studio and knocked that out. I wasn’t feeling super while I was on the air. For a while I was jittery. Then I calmed down. It was not due to nerves. It was because I was feeling sick. Once that show was done I had time to go home and do a couple things before it was time to head back to the studio for my next show.

This one was an interview of the ASWSU presidents and vice presidents. I spent a couple hours preparing questions and going over them last night. I think the show went over very well. I did not really stumble too much and I think I looked pretty good while questioning the candidates.

I got done just in time to run back to the station. I am on call as well as it was a training night. I got there a couple minutes late. We were going to do some quarterly SCBA stuff. Just as we were going to leave we got toned out to a call. But we were not there long and got back to the tower before the training up there started.

Several of us were given a group of people to lead around on various activities. We were on air and we got to see how well we would do with our air consumption. It was not the same as the work rate test we have done in the past. Because we were in groups the weakest link caused the whole team to have to be done.

After the class we went to the station to fill air bottles. That took some time to do. We took some time to teach some of the new guys how to use the cascade system. When we were finally done with that I made my way to Mike’s for poker.

I got dealt a hand and as we were playing it I got called out on a EMS call. I was able to finish it out. I did a raise from four to five bucks. The guy thought I meant five more bucks. So he folded only to find I meant one dollar more. I got a good laugh out of that.

Incredibly Tired

February 12th, 2007

After getting to bed and sleeping for about four hours I was up again. I was very tired and I got the last few things done with the HazMat CD’s. Shortly thereafter I had to get to the radio show. I went to the studio and I forgot my cell phone at home.

I was dragging as I started the show and I did not have my “A” game going. So I was just being loopy but I got through the show. I did not think it was all that good. I had a little bit of time at home before I had to get to the fire station to work on the Rescue and where to put the new tools. When I got home there was a message from Pete about a suicide down at the river. He ended up going on it.

I met up with Erik at the fire station and we put the new tools and Rescue and rearranged the tools that existed on it. It is cool that we are running the new tools now. With OTEP training coming up at seven o’clock I just decided to hang out at the station.

Pete called me and told me that if I had some time to go to the funeral home and investigate the wounds to get an idea of what happened on this case. It was interesting because now I have seen shotgun, handgun, and rifle damage to the human head. There is a lot of differences between each one.

The OTEP training was pretty short over all. We covered burns. Once we were done with the training I went to Mike’s house for poker. I was there until midnight. I ended up walking away with an extra thirty-one bucks.

When I got home I wrote back and forth with Matt and Monte about the call from yesterday. I told Matt that I was not offended and that he could not offend me. I asked both to keep the information secret. I also asked Monte how Tom knew about it. It was Tom who told Monte. Monte said he heard about it several years about and it was a non-issue to him. I was surprised to hear that Tom has known about it for three or four years. Monte said “remember it is a small world”. I wonder if the Evergreen article is how Tom found out.

Glenn Johnson Interview

February 5th, 2007

Today was my interview with Glenn Johnson, the mayor of Pullman on my radio show, The PES. We caught up on some of the old things we talked about and I was able to see the progress. We then went into some new items. It was a good interview, but I did not get him for the whole hour like I had hoped because he had to get going early for a meeting he had to be at.

After the show was done I made my way home until it was time to head to extrication training. We were using the new tools and getting some hands-on time with them. At the training we discussed the vehicle placement for the tools. All the A-Shift guys wanted to have the best tools on Rescue. That is the way the crew leaders want it as well. I am happy we are going to have more than just the combitool on Rescue.

Mid-day Coroners Case

January 29th, 2007

I tried to get to the show early to get my laptop working for the interview with Jerrid of the Evergreen Football League. I could not get the wireless to work on my laptop then I thought that I could just hook the laptop to the headphone jack and have it record directly. I did that and it worked out well, but I was running up against the clock because I started it so late. I was able to get on the air and the computer recording.

I tried to get Jerrid on the air, but we were having a problem with him hearing me. So we did the three-way call method that Peter and I have used. That was able to work but it gave off a slight echo through out the interview.

I also got a call from Pete about a coroners case in Pullman. He asked if I could go. I told him I could get out early if I could get a replacement. I was not able to find one, but I still ended up going after my show was over with.

I got the scene, it was a natural death. What was interesting is that unlike many of my cases I had to look for evidence all over the place to try to determine what happened and when it happened. I was able to come up with a timeline that Pete agreed with, that the cops agreed with, and that fit all the evidence. It was interested to get to use those kind of skills.

Following the coroners case I went to Mike’s for poker. It was a full house with Loren, the kicker from the football team as well as Robbie and a couple other guys from the basketball game. I was doing well for most of the night, but then I lost a close hand where I got trip aces and someone else got the straight. That cost me some of my winnings. But I ended the night up almost twenty bucks.

Being with Ben

January 12th, 2007

I still cannot get a hold of Peter. He can be so frustrating some times. One week he is there and easy to get a hold of, then the next week he falls off the face of the Earth and does not return calls nor answer his phone. We needed to contact each other all week about our show time. He has not returned my calls nor E-mail, so finally I just filled out the application and sent it in for myself. I am going to try to get back the Monday eleven o’clock AM to one o’clock PM show.

Ben called me today and asked if I wanted to hang out with him. I sure did. I had dinner in the oven, so I waited until that was done and had some pizza before heading to Ben’s. We were going to watch Nacho Libre and Cannonball Run. Nacho Libre was one of those movies that was okay to watch once, but I probably would not own it.

Following that we watched Cannonball Run. It has been a while since I last watched it. There were a lot of big names in that movie. I think some of the things they do in that movie is lost of younger people.

After those movies we hung out and started to talk about guns, police, and some stops we were in. Then Jordan came over after the drag show from Moscow. He was going to contact a guy he had met there. We were giving him advice on what he should say when he sends the texts back and forth. He did not know that I was the same guy he had spoken with online in the past.

After he left Ben, Ashton, and I were talking a little bit about homosexuality. Sounds like Ben was sort of freaked out by it at first but has warmed up to it. It is funny, because Ben is very hands on and has given me friendly hugs from time to time. He still doesn’t know that I am gay, but after last night and the things I said, I wonder if it made him wonder.

I was Hired!!!

November 13th, 2006

The PES today was great. Peter and I were on fire. We were talking about a lot of the big issues that have happened over the last week. We really fed off each other well and it was great.

Following the show Peter and I went to Moscow to get my boat. We took it to my place and put it into the garage. It fits in there. I was happy about that. Peter and I went around the house. He thought it was a nice looking place. I think over all I am going to be happy with it.

As I was dropping off Peter I got a call from the Sgt from Mercer Island. I was not sure how my polygraph came back. So I had been nervous all weekend. He asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said that I would in a few minutes. I wanted Peter out of earshot when we talked in case I had to explain anything or whatever.

I went to the office and took care of some stuff online while I waited for the phone call. He called up and said the polygraph and my background came back good so I was being offered a position! I set up some times in late November and early December to do some training and even work a couple shifts. That is pretty neat.

I had fire training tonight with Pullman. We are doing more extrication training. That was taking place at the Deuce. Before the training I asked E. Dearth how his hiring process went with Mercer Island. They were interested in hiring him. It turned out they did hire him, so I will be working with him over there too. I don’t know why, but he is going to have forty hours of different kinds of training before he is going to be able to work, where all they are doing with me is some boat drive time and equipment familiarization. It could be my background that is moving me along faster. When the Sgt. heard I was a corrections officer and whatnot he was very excited about getting me hired.

So far I have not told anyone that I have been hired by Mercer Island. I think I will leave that unspoken. Not that I am trying to hide it or anything, it will just be a fun little thing that no one will know about.

Training went until nine o’clock in the evening. Then we had to fill some air bottles and get Rescue back in service with the things we used. By the time we were done it was after ten-thirty. I got some pizza from Pipeline and then went to Mike’s to play some poker.

I was going to play for about an hour and leave, but it turned out to be a couple hours before I left. It was nearly two in the morning went I finally got to sleep.