D-Twelve Golf Tournament

I met up with Chuck, Chia, and Carter for an afternoon of golfing. The problem with our team is that I actually carried our team. I am not a great golfer, so for me to carry the team, you know we were in trouble from the get-go.

We played eighteen holes. It took nearly six hours for the whole things. The first round we were waiting around a lot of people got bottled up. But on the turn we had a quick lunch and went back out to the course. The bottleneck wasn’t there and we were able to move along a lot more rapidly. Chuck and Carter were drinking, and all the beer was part of the fees so they drank a lot. Chia and I were not drinking. I had to work tonight so I had an excuse to not drink.

When it was done I rushed to the SO. I got my uniform on and got a car ready to go out on patrol. Anderson and I were working together. He asked me what I needed to do to get to second class. I told him that I needed my FTO book signed off. He said I am ready for second class so he wanted to help me get there. We started by spending several hours going through my FTO book. I got almost the whole thing signed off. I only have a couple pages to go. That is great.

We hit the road for several hours. We didn’t not get into too much. We made a couple traffic stops, but there was not a lot going on where we were. A fight in progress went out in Tekoa. We had three reserves working in town up there. Anderson and I started to head that way, but when the reserves got on scene there was no fight so we turned around and started to make our way back to the SO.

Put in Offer on Colfax Property

I met up with Craig today at ReMax and put in a bid to buy some property in Colfax. It is two parcels right next to each other. My plan is to build a big shop and office plus maybe had some storage units included to help with the cost.

They want twenty-five grand for the the two parcels. I offered fourteen grand. They sold a couple other plots for seventy-five hundred in the last two years. They got it for around that amount too. I figured with the economy that they have gone down in value. I don’t know if they will take it until Monday.

I went to Colfax and met up with Jesse Two and Rich. We cleaned the two AR’s from our training recently. I also went to dinner with the guys who were working. We went to Zips. After dinner I went back to Pullman for the night. I have to work in the morning and then it is off to go camping.

Hi Scotty!

I was riding with the County tonight. We started with a car accident in Tekoa. It was a non-injury fender-bender. It was really straight forward. I had a chance to ask questions about how to handle it and what I needed to do for it.

Following that we ran traffic on SR Twenty-Seven on my way south. I was going to loop around on Albion Road. But instead we took Two-Seventy-Two so the deputy could get his coat. I made a couple stops along the way. Just gave warnings.

After getting the coat we went out on Twenty-Six. I saw a car doing twelve over. I turned on the car and followed it for a bit. Then I pulled it over on Colfax Airport road. I went up to the car. I got near the driver window and started to say “Deputy Anders…” A voice from inside the car fired back “Hi Scotty!” The deputy with me heard that and saw my reaction. He knew I knew who the person was. It was my roommate. I couldn’t believe it. I never thought that would happen in a thousand years. I am going to have to give him some crap about that when I get home.

We went back to the office after running some more traffic. I did my accident report and wrote it up. I got home a little after three in the morning.

Patroling the County

I was riding with Cox tonight. We went out to Lamont to serve some papers. But the person wasn’t home. So we cruised along the Pine City Malden Road. Didn’t find anything there. I hit SR Two-Seventy-One. We made a couple stops on that. Then we went back to Colfax to have lunch with the other guys. After that we hit Twenty-Six. I drove to the border of Whitman County and then back. It was pretty quiet out there over all. We went up to Rosalia to work that area again, but it also was quiet. There really wasn’t a lot going on around the county.

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.

I Have Qualified!

Working the fire department and dealing with the call that we did in the wee hours of the morning was tiring. I first had to give a statement to the police about what had happened. That took a little bit of time. Plus we had all the normal morning details to take care of around the station.

I went to the range for AR training. I got there as we were going over the parts of the rifle. Then we started to do some shooting from about twenty-five yards out to one-hundred yards. My ankle was hurting pretty bad so it was hard to walk around, but I did what I had to do. I first tried to qualify with the rifle. I was the first to go so I didn’t know exactly how fast we had to be moving. I did well, but I went over the time limit by about fifteen seconds. So I had to do it a second time. But this time I went faster and did fine.

We also did the same course with the pistol. The only difference is some of the targets were moved a little closer. I passed that one the first time through. I hurried off from there to the City Playfields for softball.

We were playing in a softball tournament. We lost the first game when the other team took a huge lead over us. But we scored fourteen runs in the final inning and came up two runs short of tying up the game.

We had a long break before the next game. I went home and watched some TV and rested my eyes. Matt was having a BBQ at his place and I was invited. I gave Brandon a ride so he could partake in some adult beverages.

I was able to get a hamburger before going to the softball game. We played two more. I was going to go back to Matt’s when it was done. But with as late as the last game went I never made it back to Matt’s. Brandon walked down to meet up with me at the field.

The first game we didn’t even come close. We had a fifteen run deficit after the first inning. We lost that game and went to the final game. That was one heck of a game. We lost it, but we had a lot of fun for the whole thing. Both teams were scoring and hitting the ball well. A total of sixty-two runs were scored with twelve total homeruns. I had a triple, double, then single. I wanted to go for the homerun, but I was more worried about getting a basehit because we needed to scored runs. It was more than likely the case that I would fly out and we didn’t need that to happen.

Riding with Reavis

I rode with Reavis this evening. We didn’t do as much as we have in the past. We have been known to be pretty busy running on all sorts of calls. But tonight he had to get working on some of his paperwork so we only went out for a while. We cruised around on SR Twenty-Three. We did get a call to run up to Tekoa for the sighting of someone with a warrant. But we didn’t find the person. We ran some traffic one-ninety-five. We got back to the office around ten o’clock. I got some paperwork done and then we called it a night. It was about midnight.

Short Day on the Road

This morning I was scheduled to work for the county on the road. I decided I wanted a donut today, because it is Sunday. It is a free day for me. I went to Dissmores. They had maple bars with a strip of bacon on it. I use to joke everything is better with bacon. I had to try it.

I think it was maple flavored bacon too because it had a maple flavor as well. The first bite was interesting, but as I went on I liked it. It added a bit of a sweet flavor as well as a bit of another flavor that I could not put my finger on.

I got to the SO around eight in the morning. I waited for Brown to get there. He got called to an non-injury accident before he got to the SO. So I sat and waited until almost eleven. But that was okay because I was able to do some work on my FTO book. I had to get through the P&Ps; for the SO. So I pounded through the rest of them.

We hit lunch and then were called to a problem in Farmington. En route a second call came in about it. So we had two RPs to talk to and get the situation. I was able to use some interviewing skills as well as watched Dan do his thing and see how he talked to people. It was good learning.

We made a couple car stops. He asked me about the way I did my first one. He asked if I was doing it the way I was trained. I said that I was. He then told me the way the academy trained people. It was more along the lines of the way I did my first couple traffic stops which included introducing myself. So the second stop I did the way he described.

We went back to the SO and I wrote up my case from Farmington. Then I went home and got my laundry completed. I had four loads because I had some extra stuff that I was washing that didn’t have to be washed, but I wanted to. I also started to work on cleaning my closet. I haven’t done that since November because I had my old mattresses in there and it took up most of the room. With them gone now I am reclaiming my closet.

One of the things is I have too many shirts than will fit in my drawers. I am going to rearrange my set up to put some of the shirts on my built in shelves. I also spent some time watching some TV and relaxing.

First Code Run with the SO

I had a small project for MH. I was doing a change to the E-mail parser. I had to look for E-mails from a specific account with a specific subject line. If that E-mail was found I needed to change the subject to something else. I got the code written and then tested. I sent off the DLL file to them to get installed.

Later I was working for the county on the road. I was working with Anderson. I was driving in a reserve car. We went to Tekoa to return a cooler. Following that we got called back to Tekoa just after we left for a violent person at a medical call. Turned out we were not needed.

We went to Rosalia to serve some papers. And then down to Pullman to have some dinner with Heidi and Matt. Just after dinner we were going to serve some papers in Pullman. But before we got to the first address we needed to go to Endicott for a call to back up the others there. We were going code and just passed some cars on SR One-Ninety-Five. After we got past the Albion road a burglary in progress was put out in Albion. So I had to turn around and go back to Albion. So I went code past the cars I had just passed. Turned out the call in Albion was not much of a call. I was getting ready to find someone and put my training into action. But all I was able to do was use my observation skills to come up with what had happened.

We tried to pull over some cars on One-Ninety-Five, but everyone was going slow. In many cases eight miles-per-hour under the speed limit. We went back to the office and I worked on my paperwork. I didn’t get out of the office until nearly four in the morning.

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.

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.

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.

Second Reserve Association Meeting

This afternoon I worked on setting up a meeting at Bell Square with Ricky and Chris for a lunch. We haven’t seen each other for a while. We had dinner at the “gay sandwich” shop in the mall. That is what Ricky calls it. We talked shop and I told them about the latest at NU.

After lunch we parted ways and I worked my way back to Whitman County. We have reserve association meetings the second Thursday of the month. Tonight was the night. It is my second meeting with the association. I am the secretary. I was ready to take notes. I was at the SO about an hour early. I prepared for the meeting by getting my gun belt and changing from shorts to pants.

I went to the meeting room and took notes. It was a short meeting. We have a new coordinator. So he was going over some things with everyone. I was writing down the notes. One of the things is to do a training each month. It was taking a long time to get through the training. It was a traffic stop and we had to react to what we found. Plus there was a report that we had to write based on what we found on the stop.

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.

Most WCSO Work with Paul

It seems like when I ride with Paul we get into stuff. I have been at an accident investigation, burglary, prisoner transport, dog bite investigation, and more. Tonight would be no different. We started with a burglary. It was crazy. We are having a hard time trying to understand what happened due to the evidence not making a lot of sense.

We then went to an airplane crash. It was cold, but we still did follow up and wrote a report. Before we were done we went to a nine-one-one hangup. We ended up going code twice last night. It was a pretty busy night. We were pretty much working calls the whole night.

We did make one stop for someone who ran a stoplight. It was the first time I was involved in a traffic stop with Paul.

An Evening with Anderson

This evening I was leaving the night open, but I decided that I wanted to ride with WCSO. I called up Sgt. Anderson. He said I could ride with him. I started the ride around six o’clock PM. I washed his rig and then we went to dinner at SubWay. I was the one in charge of where we went.

We made some traffic stops. We drove out to Lamont. I also went down to Penawawa where a frat was having a party. We contacted them and all was peaceful. Then we ran some traffic on Twenty-Six. I stopped several cars and gave warnings. One car however was speeding. When I turned on him most people slow down. He kept moving along and actually sped up.

I paced him for a little bit and then stopped him. He already had one recent ticket from ought-nine. So I added to that and gave him another one.

Accident Investigation

I worked the county tonight with Paul. This is my third time with Paul, and I have yet to stop a car. It is not the lack of trying tonight. There was just no one speeding.

We started the shift with a transport of a juvenile to Martin Hall. It my first trip up there. I also got a chance to see where we go when we hit Eastern State Hospital. We stopped at Franks Diner for dinner.

As we were coming into the County we heard a car accident get toned out for the Pullman area. Then they asked for a deputy to back a Pullman officer on a call for two intoxicated people. We were out of position for both of those calls. But we also found out at that time that Pullman Fire was at a structure fire.

We made our way down to Pullman to see if we could help at the car accident. We went to the scene out on SR Two-Seventy. I got a chance to help the State Patrol with measuring the scene and the car in the crash. It really didn’t appear to be a really bad crash, but it was bad enough.

I got back to the office and completed my paperwork for the transport and assisting the state patrol on the accident investigation before going home to get to bed. I was going to get about four hours of sleep before heading to the FD in the morning.

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.

Looking at Property

This afternoon I met up with Craig at ReMax to look at a piece of property on banner Road. I am not impressed with the dirt road. Plus the house sites there would leave me close to two other house. Having ten acres you should be able to have a lot of distance between houses. Plus I would have no place to shoot a gun. We went to lunch at The Emerald.

In the afternoon I went on a ride with Zehm. It turned out he had a call before I got there. I got the reserve call fueled and washed. But I never ended up going out on the road because by the time get got to the office he had to write it up. I spent the time doing my FTO book. I got several things signed off. It sucked I didn’t get on the road, but I got a lot done in the FTO book.

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.

The Graduation Ceremony

Today was a stressful day. It reminded me of the days when I lived in Stephenson. I was the hall president or some other elected position. I usually was in charge of the Mom’s Weekend Talent Show, as well as being a big player in the Mom’s Weekend Comedy Show. Saturday during Mom’s Weekend was always a stressful day for me. I was always worried about the various things that could go wrong, whether it was the audio, performers showing up, the set up, people actually showing up, and more.

Today was a flashback. I spent the morning working on my speech and getting my laptop set up with the class video. But after I copied it to the laptop I came to realize that it wasn’t a complete video. I had made some changes to it, but I never had it completely exported. So I had to start the export of the video from the video project, then I had to copy it over to my laptop. But it takes a couple hours to export such a large movie.

In the process of doing that I decided that I needed to figure out how to make the sound loud enough to be heard by a room full of people. I plugged in the old speakers that I bought about twelve years ago. They didn’t work, but I figured it was because they were not plugged into power. I had to look hard for a power cable, but I had a hard time finding one. I gave up for a while and tried a different pair of computer speakers. But I found that was a problem as well.

I looked more for the power cable for the other speakers. Finally I tried the power cord from my old Zip drive. I found it fit. So I power the speakers only to find they still didn’t work.

I then realized that I could use my old stereo and speakers that were in the living room. So I went to look into that working while at the same time looking for a microphone to use. But the only real mic I had was an small mono mic. It only had a two foot cord. I thought I could couple it with a longer cable to make it longer. But I needed to go from a eighth inch jack to RCA jacks. I went to Radio Shack and found a coupler, but then I wanted to look at their microphones. I decided to get a new one all together.

I went back home and plugged it in. At first it wasn’t working. Then I tried to plug it into a different input and found it was working. That was something going my way. Now I had a way to use a microphone and play audio from the video I made. I was also trying to create eight DVD’s with the photos and video from the academy class for all my classmates.

The clock was still ticking. My mom and Bill were on their way over to watch the graduation. I contacted my Mom to get an idea where they were. I had to be at the Pioneer Center at three to work with Macy and Malakowsky to get the room setup.

It was about one in the afternoon and I talked to Jessie. She was in charge of the cake and food supplies. I went to Colfax with her to get the cake and also so I could pick up the video projector.

We got back to my house just in time for me to pick up my rig and head up to the Pioneer Center. Once there Macy was waiting and Matt was right behind him. I opened the door to find the room empty of chairs. That caused me some concern, but I quickly found they guys were able to get everything set up quickly.

I worked on getting the computer, screen, speakers, microphone, and other A/V equipment set up and tested. The guys really wanted to watch the video. I finally relented and let them watch it. When it was done we left to get ready. We were supposed to meet up again at the old school building, the Pioneer Center, by five o’clock.

I got home and cleaned up. I got my uniform put on. Then I made my way back to the Pioneer Center. I stopped at station one to let Foster know about the graduation. He said he would see if they could come up. I didn’t think they would be coming.

People started to roll up and I got everyone their ties. Soon McNannay and Myers showed up. We had our meeting to cover the items that McNannay wanted to cover. We also took the class photos. As people started to file in, I was a little nervous, but I had everything ready, so I felt a lot better about how every thing was working. While taking the photos the fire engine and ambulance showed up. I was very happy to see them come.

We made a plan that we would start at six and as Sheriff and McNannay walked up I would call the class to attention one last time. They made their way to the front of the room and I called everyone to attention. The ceremony started with Myers doing his speech followed by Reavis. When Reavis was up front he called me to the front of the room. I was presented with a plaque for my work as class president. I wasn’t expecting that at all. It was billed as being from the class for me.

Then it was my turn for a speech. I did my speech without a hitch. I thought it went well and it was recited without me tripping up over my tongue. After my speech we did the badge pinning. I had my mom pin my badge on. Then we were sworn in.

After the swearing in we did the class awards. Pelissier gave away a knife to the best shooter, who was Jesse. Melcher got a nice flashlight for being best overall academy. The Sheriff got up front and called me up again. He recognized me for having been in the academy when I was twenty. And for working hard to lose weight. He said that I came to him a year ago about doing the academy the next time he had one. For that he gave me a challenge coin. I am going to carry that coin with me everyday I patrol. After those awards were given I did the awards we voted on.

I showed the class video. That went over very well and it got a lot of laughs along the way. Then Chaplain did the benediction. It was over. It went off awesome. After that Dean from the Daily News, who was there taking photos, got us outside for a class photo. We got several of those taken.

I got some cake and we did a lot of hand shaking and getting a lot of congratulations from a lot of people. My Mom and Bill went back to the hotel while I worked on getting the room cleaned up. I went home to change. I went to the hotel to pick them up and then we went to Cougar Country for dinner. Rhonda gave us the meal on the house. We sat around and talked for a while before I took them back to the hotel.

I went out to Hans’ place on Wheelen road for our after party. Macy, Melcher, and McCleary were all there. Dan and Michele were also there. I said hello to them. Tory came up to me and shook my hand and said hello. I was a little surprised by that because I have seen him many times in the last few years and it seemed like he never acknowledged me.

i was there until midnight talking with everyone and hanging out around the fire. I had plans to meet up with the parents for breakfast so I went home to get some sleep before breakfast and work for tomorrow.

The Secretary, I Am

We had our monthly reserve association meeting down at the SO. I was going to be riding with Reavis after the meeting.

I went to the SO around five in the afternoon. I was going to spend time working on my speech for the graduation ceremony. But I never got to that. I was doing a couple other things along the way to the start of the meeting.

We met up at six o’clock in the basement. We had some pizza and went over some things. One of the first things said was by Jordan. He was that we need to have a new secretary. He said that we should nominate a new reserve for it. He looked right at me and nominated me. Then they voted and it was unanimous.

So I was handed the yellow notebook to start to take notes. We covered the topics of the meeting which was pretty brief.

Following the meeting I typed up the meeting minutes and sent them out to everyone. I was riding with Reavis. We didn’t hit the road right away, but we finally went out. We were heading to Pullman watching traffic and chatting along the way.

When in Pullman they were getting sent to a person who possibly was involved in a robbery earlier today. But before we got there they decided the person was not involved. But we then heard about people breaking into the Armory. We were at the other end of the viaduct from the building.

We pulled into the gas station parking lot and waited for the Pullman cop to pass us. He was just up the road. We followed him in. We then learned the suspects were around the corner. We ran around the building and stopped them. I pretty much acted in the role of a cover officer.

After they were taken in I went to the Police station and got my handcuffs that were used to cuff one guy. We cleared the PD after hanging out for a little while and went back to Colfax.

Five Hour Airport Transfer

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

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

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

Fifteen Year Old Video

I worked on finishing off my Town Crier column. I got that sent in to the Daily News. I went to the rec center to work out. It has been a while and I could feel it. I was weaker, but I have to get going with it. I am going to start to do my Body for Life program again. With the academy completed I would like to get back on a good sleeping routine so I can get my workouts in.

I got a hold of Rick and I arranged to work with him. We met up at six at the SO and I went out with him. We got asked to help PPD with a case they were working. On the way we stopped at Rick’s house for dinner and I also saw some of the video for the academy that we were in together back in Ninety-Four. He son is going to get a copy created for me tonight.

We went to Albion to talk to someone involved with a case in Pullman. After that we went into Pullman. We were heading South one One-Ninety-Five. We made a stop there. Then Rick had me start driving. It was my first chance to drive.

I made my first stop out on Two-Seventy. I walked up to talk to the guy. I got his license and I thought I recognized the name, but it wasn’t until I started to talk to him. I asked where he was going. He said he was on his way home. Then I asked where he was coming from. He said work. I asked where he worked. He said the City of Pullman. I asked what he does, then he said he is a cop. That is when I realized why I knew who it was. I cleared that stop.

On the way out Two-Seventy Rick was telling me a story about what happened with him over in the academy while he was there. The point of it was that he was family. I got some fuel and we worked Two-Seventy for a while. I made several stops. I wrote one ticket for speeding. The driver was doing fourteen over.

We started to make our way back to Colfax. I got one car doing ten over. We stopped him. I radioed in saying the license plate and instead of saying Xray I said Xword twice. The dispatcher confirmed I meant Xray. I talked with the driver. He was in a newer Mustang. When we were getting back in our patrol car after clearing the call he started the car. It sounded great. I mentioned that to Rick and he agreed. I cleared the call by saying “clear of the scene.” Cooper got on the radio and said “was there an incident that I am not aware of?” He was making fun of me saying clear of the scene.

We went to Ricks house to get my video and then back to the office. I got my ticket wrote up and I went home.

Mike Knows My Mo Friend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long Tiring Day

I was pretty tired a lot of the day today at the fire department. Having stayed up pretty late last night was keeping up with me. I was trying to keep myself active. That wasn’t too hard. We one had one call during the day. It was for a fire alarm. We cleared that just as it was turning into lunch time.

I spent most of the day getting work done on the computer. I wanted to make a web application where I could enter data that I have to type up for tickets. That would be saved into a database. This could be done while in the car or at the station. Then it will take that data and print off all the reports without having to type them up later on. It would take the few pieces of data I wrote up and it would merge it into a Word template. The nice thing is that I would have to save separate Word docs. It would all be in the database so if I did need a copy of it, I could have it reprint it.

It took some time to write it up and find the necessary resources on the web, but I was able to find it. I don’t have it polished, but I have proof that it will work like I hope. So now I just have to do the work to make it nice and save the data to the database, etc.

I had to stay up until midnight to sign my softball team up for this coming IM season. For the first time in, probably a decade, my team will be playing on a night other than a Sunday night. We are going to do Thursday night so I can make all the games.

Patroling Twenty-Three

When I got back to Whitman County from being in Renton I went straight to the SO. I hung out for a little bit. Then I decided to go get some food for a late lunch. I was working the road tonight.

I was working with Jimmy. We started by taking Jessie to do her shooting qualifications. We went to the county range and set it up. She passed, so officially we all have passed the academy. We took her back to the SO and Jimmy and I hit the road.

We headed out SR Twenty-Three. We were stopping cars for speeding mainly. I did all the contacts. Jimmy and I switched off on the tickets. We wrote a total of eight tickets, having stopped thirteen cars for anything from poor lane travel, no use of turn signals, and mostly for speeding. We only wrote people who were doing twelve MPH or more over the speed limit. The fastest we got was someone doing twenty-one over the limit.

We worked that road until almost ten-thirty. We were going to head out Twenty-Six for a little bit. When we go to Colfax we stopped for something to eat and drink at the food mart. As we were leaving we got a call for an open nine-one-one line. We went to the scene. I talked with Jimmy about how we would handle the situation. It turned out to be nothing.

When we got back to the SO I spent the next hour doing paperwork for the tickets as well as typing up a report for the nine-one-one open line.

Training at Colfax Fire Again

With fire training tonight I decided that I would see if I could set up a ride with Paul. We started by going to meet up with Vinny. We did a walk of one mile to see how long it would take us. This was to help with an accident investigation Vinny was doing.

Then we went to deal with a dog bite problem near Tekoa. It was a pretty quiet day with Paul. But he had some good information for me. One was that he uses the odometer. He resets it every time he passes a mile marker that ends with zero or when he starts on a new road so he can easily tell someone exactly how far he is from a known point to have people more easily be able to find him.

Fire training in Colfax was building construction.

First Arrest Made

I set myself up to ride with Bogenreif this evening. I got down to the department around four in the afternoon. We had the swearing in of the other new guys as well. I helped to hand out their BDU uniforms. Then they got their swearing in. I took photos of that going on.

Then Bogenreif and I hit the road. We talked about law enforcement. I worked to see how he did things and asked questions. We were told to do things the way the deputy we are with tells us to do things. So I spent most of the time listening to him and taking advice on how I should make contacts, say things, sell things, and more.

On the first stop he took the contact. Then I took the next one. We sort of switched back and forth on the contacts. I only wrote two tickets. One was for running a stop sign. When we went to pull the vehicle over the driver threw a lit cigarette out the window. I warned for the thousand dollar ticket and gave the stop sign one. The driver was thanking me for the ticket.

I also had one person who had expired registration for twelve months. I wrote for that and forgave the running of the stop sign. On the way back to the station we found someone speeding through Uniontown. We stopped him. He was suspended. I arrested him and searched him. I ended up doing a cite and release rather than taking him into the jail.

I got back to the sheriff’s office and did my reports before heading home for the night.

First Day on Patrol

I was excited today because I passed my written test yesterday and I very well could be out on patrol today. I started by heading to the sheriff’s office to see who was working today. I made a phone call and got myself a deputy to work with. Then it was a matter of waiting. I was very excited to get out on the road. It had been a long journey to get where I am today.

I had my uniform with me and as it was getting closer to time get sworn in I put my uniform on. A couple other guys were also getting sworn in. Craig was riding tonight with Jordan. We started with getting sworn in by the Sheriff.

Getting Sworn In

After getting sworn in I got my badge and put it on. I was getting some crap from people because I was wearing the Class A uniform. Many people prefer the BDU style or the jumpsuit uniforms. I think the Class A looks sharp. Plus I wear a leather basket weave duty belt instead of the nylon. I think that also looks nicer.

In uniform after being Sworn In

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

Then we got someone else speeding along. I ran that person’s name through the dispatch center. From that point on I pretty much did all the radio traffic.

We headed back to Colfax and met up with a couple troopers and some other deputies for dinner at Subway. We hung out for a while and talked shop. We were going to go to Whitcom and give Jamie a paper with the names and phone numbers of the new reserves. It took nearly two hours to get there because we kept getting side tracked.

The first thing that happened was someone was doing forty-eight in a twenty-five in Colfax. We pulled over the van and I took the lead. After running him I was going to ticket him for speeding, but the ticket book was at the SO. I ended up giving him a written warning. He got lucky, but it is in the system so if he gets stopped again the fact he has been warned will be known.

When we got into Pullman we witnessed someone outright run the stoplight at Davis and Grand. We pulled over that driver and I ticketed him for failure to stop at a stop sign and for no proof of insurance.

We got to Whitcom and I gave Jamie the paper and we hung out at dispatch for a bit talking with Jamie. When we left we went up Terre View to Merman and down to Valley. We stopped someone for having an obstructed window due to the snow that was not removed. That guy got a warning.

We headed out to SR Two-Seventy for some traffic. We stopped one car for speeding. forty-eight in a thirty-five. I was going to do a warning, but when I ran the ADR I found lots of tickets. So I wrote the driver for speeding. Later we stopped someone else for doing thirteen over. I also cited the driver because I wanted to be consistent. If I ticket one, I should ticket the other person for the same speed today.

We stopped another car for no brake light and speeding, but gave that person a warning. When we were done I ended up ticketing three people and giving one warning. We had a total of ten stops. I did the contacting on most of the stops and all the radio traffic. Jimmy said if we had finished the driving course in EVOC he would let me drive because he felt I was ready for that already.

We went to the SO and I did the paperwork that goes along with writing tickets. It includes writing a short narrative and getting the tickets turned into the sergeants. I went home after having worked a successful first day.

I am Bacon!

This morning I was called by Pete about a death in Colfax. I was asked to take it, but I was working at the fire department until eight o’clock in the morning. But when I got done I would go to it. In the mean time he got Annie to go take it. I called her up later on in the morning and we made an arrangement to meet up at ten at the funeral home in Colfax.

I helped her do the exam and take lab samples. She did a fine job with what she needed to do. We both went to the coroner’s office. She was working on her report. I worked on my final sections of the bookwork for the academy. I have been going through all the notes and rewriting all sorts of things into a notebook if I think that I was to be able to reference it in the future. Plus it was helping me study.

I was really tired due to the day at the fire department yesterday. I was yawning a whole bunch as I was waiting for the test time. This was the final test, either we would be reserve deputies or we would have to retake the test.

I was pretty confident, but I wanted to score well. That was the part that made me nervous. The Sheriff came over to give us some final words before the test started.

I was going through it slow at first, but then I started to bust through it. At one point when I was done I needed to get clarification. It was on question ninety-five. Macy said later on he was only on question number forty at the time.

Melcher and I turned in our tests at the same time. Then we went out and had a piece of cake from McNannay’s birthday cake that the Sheriff’s wife made. We talked about the test while waiting for everyone to complete their tests. Finally the last guy, Jesse Two, was done and turned in.

Before long we started to correct them. I was doing a little better than I thought. There were several questions I was not positive about. But it turned out many of them I was correct on.

In the end I scored a ninety-two. I was the highest scored tied with Melcher. As of now I am bacon! It has not quite sunk in yet. I think I will have to do my first ride to really understand this feeling, but as of right now I have passed my final test. I am going to get sworn in tomorrow and then I will be able to ride. I am going to try to set up my first ride for Thursday. Then again on Sunday.

After the test we went to the Zuu. Melcher and I bought the first round of beer and tacos. We hung out for a couple hours talking and celebrating. I finished off a pitcher of Blue Dolphins by myself.

I cannot wait to get out there on the road. It just doesn’t seem real yet though.

Studying All Day

I took the day to spend studying for the test coming up for the reserves. I went through my notes and re-wrote all the information I wanted to be able to review from time to time without having to go through all the slides.

It was a lot of work, but it was a great chance to study things along the way. Through out the day, as I studied, I would take some breaks to watch some TV to relax for a while.

Study Group

I invited the class over to my place to study for the test that we have coming up. Due to the snow our EVOC was cancelled. I thought getting together to study would be a great idea.

I have several people come over and we spent several hours getting the studying done. It was a very helpful session to ask questions and discuss some of the answers.

During the studying I opened a bag of M&Ms; that Jessie gave me. Macy had several in front of him. I grabbed one. He looked down and said “Hey! I was saving that one! It was a double M&M;!” Everyone at the table started to laugh so hard.

After they left I started to do some more studying. I also spent time going through my slides and choosing what information I wanted to record into my notebook for easy reference later on.

Poker Party

Today I went to Moscow to get an order placed for a plaque for the Sheriff for this years reserve academy. I have the wording on it say “With great respect and sincere appreciation, the 2009 reserve class recognizes Sheriff Myers and the Whitman County Sheriff’s Office for the generosity and opportunity to serve and to protect the citizens of Whitman County.”

I got called by Pete about an autopsy happening today. I went to that and was able to see what a major brain bleed looks like. I was surprised how it damages the brain. It is like using a hose to spray into the dirt. It just digs away. There was a large hole in the brain. It was very interesting to see.

Following that I went to the sheriff’s office to drop off some announcements for the graduation and then went back home for the poker tournament we have tonight. Brandon and Matt were making dinner ahead of time. Heidi, Steven, Dan, BKoe, Michael, Matt, and I all played for several hours. The game finally broke down around two in the morning. I ended up losing about one dollar on the night.