A day with some high level calls

It was around eight in the morning, only four hours after I fell asleep that the pager went off for an alpha response for someone with a swollen eye. I did not get up and get going on it because I was so tired. Then an echo response came out. I thought out it for a minute and I realized that only the ambulance was going to it because the others were going to the other call. I thought that if CPR was needed there would be no one there to help out with it.

So I went to the station and I saw a bunch of rigs already there. I thought I was going to get assed out. When I realized they were all there for the EMT class. So Brian and I went on the call. It turned out to be a BLS call when it was all said and done.

When we got back to the station I helped him wash Rescue. Then I washed Engine by myself because it was really dirty from the full-timers using it and not washing it this morning. When I was done washing it Paul helped me take off the chains and we rinsed those off. I got Paul and Tony to pose for some pictures for the knox box brochure that we are going to give out to people so they can learn about buying one for their home.

I went home and started to work on the pictures when we got another call. It was another high-level call. So I went to the station and I drove on this one. Once we were done with that Rescue did not need a washing. So I went back home and finished working on the brochure. When I was done with it I went back to the station to print it off.

I was also going to spend some time playing on the department website. I want to see if I can do something with tables and a menu. The way the site is set up there is some limitations to what I can do. So I hope I can do it.

After spending some time working on it and not getting anything to work I gave up because I was really tired. I drove to Colfax and got some food. I went to the fire station and hung out with Ken. I ended up staying there for a couple hours talking and watching TV with Ken. He grabbed a pizza from Bulldog. I think it was one that was not picked up. They will call the FD to see if we want them.

I went home and I was only there for a little while when a call came out for someone who crashed into the river. I went to the station and made the ambulance. En route we found the person was out of the river and safe. So we continued in to make sure the patient was okay and gave them blankets to keep warm.

We hung out on scene until after the car was pulled from the river. A tow truck came and we helped them out a little bit with making sure the guy was safe going into the river. We tied a rope to him and put on a life jacket. He got the car hooked up and we watched it get pulled out.

I went back to the station and got my truck. I took my truck to the hospital to get some linen to replace everything we used from the ambulance. Then I went back home and watched some TV for a while before going to bed.

Playing cards like the old days

This evening was like those I use to spend with John and Dan back in the day. But before we got to play cards I spent time trying to get the finally new feature built. I was making some headway on it. In fact by the time I was done with it I only had the database and some more GUI stuff to do. It feels like I have made real progress.

I went to the fire station around four in the afternoon to talk with Heston about the website. He threw out some ideas and we talked about what we could so to make the website better. I went with him to the deuce and on a couple errands he had to run. I helped him out as we were getting stuff done.

We got back to station one and he dropped me off. I was in the kitchen with John, Dan, VanNess, and Greg. We VanNess and I were talking about WalMart and the hearings. John and I were talking about the upcoming class to be a CPR and First Aid instructor. Having those things helps you out in the interview for the fire department job. But I don’t know if I am going to test or not. I am still up in the air about that.

John suggested that I stay and play cards. I was on call for the engine tonight so it would not be a big deal responding from station one to the deuce on calls. That is what Chuck pretty much does, distance-wise. So I went and got some dinner and came back to the station.

We started to play cards using Dan’s poker chips. We played until almost three in the morning when it was all said and done. We got two calls I had to leave for to go to the deuce. I never ended up responding on the engine anywhere. I talked to VanNess about my reservations about the fact that we put three on the engine and two on rescue when we have five people. I hope that we can get something changed on the shift so we can stop packing the engine and pack rescue instead.

I went home after we played cards. I ended up winning almost seven bucks when it was said and done. It was fun to play with those guys. We had not played together for a long time like that. I hope in the future we will play some more down there.

Our Monthly Coroners Meeting

I was pretty tired today. I spent some time trying to make EMS calls. I also spent time sleeping. I have been really tired lately. I got up in time to head to Colfax for the coroners meeting. I ordered some pizza from Bulldog. I cleaned up a few things around the house while I was waiting to go get my pizza.

Then I went to the office to eat the pizza and print out some more business cards. But I was unable to login to the computer. Pete and Patti showed up and we had our meeting. We talked about the double-murder/suicide we had last month to see the latest information.

It was a pretty short meeting. We also set up the call schedule for the next month. After the meeting I listened to the Cougar Basketball game on my way home. The Cougs lost on a bad call. Then I spent some time watching TV and responding to EMS calls for Colfax Fire.

Cleaning up the jail

I needed to get a few things done today on my bugs but it is hard to get going because it takes a lot of concentration to do the project because there are so many directions that I need to go. But you have to be able to remember everything and multi-task without really being able to do it.

I left around three to go into the jail. I got some pop on the way. I did the meal round following with getting a couple inmates to vacuum the vents around the jail. That took about an hour and a half to do that.

I decided to leave around ten o’clock to go home. I was there from four to ten. I was at home and did watch some TV before going to sleep.

Web training

Today I sort of slept in. So when I got to the office around one o’clock, after grabbing lunch I did not have a lot of time until I had to go to web training for Pullman Fire department’s website. I had to learn how to use the tools that are set up for updating and making new web pages.

The tools are pretty straight forward. But I will not be able to do some of the things we were hoping to do it looks like, unless I can work something out with the power-that-be. There could be a chance they will allow hosting of intranet services.

After that class I went back to the office. But I did not have a lot of time to really get going on too much. But I did scratch the surface on a few items before I went to Colfax for fire training. We are going to our new trailer house for some search and rescue training. They set up the smoke machine and got it all smokey in there. It was raining pretty hard out there all night so we were getting pretty wet.

During the training we got a call. Actually is for the smell of natural gas. We did not know the nature of the call so we took the ambulance and went to the scene. As it turned out we helped Ken find the source of the gas. Then we went back to training.

They were finishing up the training. They put one more group inside. Then we packed up and went back to the station. Jimmy, Jim, Carl, and I played cards for a few hours. While we were playing card we got called out for an Omega call to help someone back into bed.

We got to the scene at Hill Ray. That is when we found the doors locked. So we called for Carl to come up with the Keys. We went in and helped the lady back into bed. Following that we got dispatched to a person who needed to get transferred from the nursing home to the hospital.

Once finishing up those back-to-back calls we went back to the station to play two more hands of cards because it was already midnight we called it a night.

A day in EMT class

This evening we were supposed to have OTEP training at station one. But to my shock when I left my office for the day it had snowed. I went to station one. I was there for about twenty minutes when I found out the class was cancelled. So I decided to make my way to EMT class.

They were doing patient packaging using the backboard and standing take down. I helped Scott out. All his help had to run off on EMS calls for Colfax. Scott also had the Pullman guys in the class assist with help the other students out. It was a pretty good time helping everyone out. In many cases the people I am working with have not been through First Responder class.

On-call Sunday

I should just call the day On-Call Sunday. I was on call for the fire department and coroners office. But it was quiet on both fronts.

I started off the day by going to the Deuce for engineer training with Chris. We worked on hooking the engine and flowing water. We also talked about basic stuff.

Following the work we watched football for a few hours. There were some good games on for the playoffs.

After the first game was done I went to the office and worked on the computer for a while. Then I decided I wanted to get back and watch the end of the Bears game. Plus it was nearly time for vehicle maintenance. So I got my uniform on and went to the station.

The maintenance went off without any real problems. Chuck and I took the engine to station one to fill out some paperwork. We were there for a little while waiting for Chuck to play a video game with some of the guys from station one.

We went back to the Deuce and parked the engine. Filled out our timecards and that was about it. It was a quiet night on call.

Seahawks won a post-season game!

I got up this morning in time to talk to Kyle and set up a time to meet up with him. We were working the WSU women’s basketball game. We met at the Deuce and got the van and headed to station one for equipment, then we were off to Beasley.

It was a bad game. The women lost again, this time to UCLA. I watched most of the game. Angie, Dan’s ex-wife, was there with the kids. They came over and said hello. Then the kids hung out with me for a while during the game. Once the game was over I went to Ben’s place. We watched the Seahawks game. It was in the second half when I got there. The Hawks won the game and people were lighting off fireworks all over the city. It was cool.

Then we watched Denver win their game. Following that I watched Wedding Crashers with Ben, Bino, and Mike. It was a pretty funny movie. I went to Safeway and got something to eat. Then I went to Mr. Z’s casino to see Russell and play some cards. I was only there for about fifteen minutes. Then I left to go home.

When I got home I watched some TV for a while but I had to get up and be in Pullman for some training on the engine with Chris so I tried to get to bed sort of early.

Dry heaves

I spent most of the working day trying to fix something that was only slightly broken, but it was broken in such a way it looked way worse than it was and my way of testing it was broken and I did not know it. So I spent more time trying to fix it that I should have. We had our dev meeting I was given the dates of the upcoming releases for the next year. So it looks like I have another year of working on these issues, assuming I still work there in a year. I don’t see myself moving on at this point, but I guess there is always a chance something could change.

I went to the fire station around six o’clock to help with vehicle maintenance. It took about an hour when it was all said and done. I met Ryan at Pizza Hut when we were finally done with maintenance. We spent a little over an hour at the pizza place eating and chatting. We called Russell and he was going to invite us to his place.

Ryan and I went to my office and watched a few things on my computer before getting Russell’s phone call. We drove up to his place. I got some of the photo’s from the boating trip as well as some other pics of Russell on his trips he has taken.

Ryan and I left about ten minutes before ten o’clock pm. I went back to my office. I had not even settled in when I got called to a fire alarm. Shane and I were on Rescue. We left before Chuck go to the station. We staged when we were told by command to set one person to the doorway of the frat we were at.

I went up there and one of the guys in the house took me to the alarm panel to see Chris. He told me to go next door and talk to a guy who worked there. He had information about who had pulled the fire alarm. I went there and got some information about the people involved. I also got a name from someone there who knew one of the people in the group.

I was told they were last seen behind the Coug. I walked behind the buildings next to the frat. I did not see anyone, but I made my way to B Street. That is when I saw a group of girls I thought were the ones. I went to the group and asked for the person who was supposedly in the group of people. They denied knowing who I was talking about. So I left them and walked around the corner to Colorado street. I went back to talk to the guys I had talked to earlier.

That is when one of them pointed and said “there they are.” It was the girls I had been talking to. I told command what I had and followed them. Command asked for a cop. I kept following them. Soon we got to Colorado and Ruby. The girls split up. Two went to a house that was having a party and the others went up Ruby towards the front door of Adams Mall. While walking up Ruby a couple guys in a frat across the street made some comments towards me. One of the guys said. “There is a fire in my pants, wanna come put it out?” I ignored them and kept going. I was standing in front on the mall when I saw them walk inside. I was watching for them when I heard someone say “there is a firefighter right there.” I looked over to see someone who had obviously been in a fight. I was looking at him when I was trying to find a pair of gloves.

I looked back into Adam’s Mall and I did not see the girls I had been following. So I radioed that I lost visual on the girls in the mall and at the same there a fight had happened in the bar in the mall. I said one person was injured. Whitcom asked if I wanted an ambulance called. I told them to stand by on that until I could find out if one was needed. I looked back for the guy and he was gone. So I walked around the area for about thirty seconds looking for him. I talked to someone who told me the guy had left. So I told Whitcom that the person involved was gone and no ambulance was needed.

I walked back down Ruby to the Rescue and Engine that had come down to where we were. I saw Chris in front of the house where the party was. He was talking to the two girls who had gone inside the house. The cops still had not made it to Greek Row yet. Chris did not really have a way at that point to pin it on the girls so he left them with the message that it is not a joke to pull the alarm.

I got back in Rescue and the girls walked right in front of us. I radioed Chris, who was in the Engine, and let him know. He said there wasn’t much more we could do and we did not deal with those girls.

We went back to the station and Chris asked me more information about what I had done during the “pursuit.” I looked up information on the Internet and using some of the resources I know about to find the girl who had been identified to me. Through her I found three of the others as well. So I was able to identify four of the five involved in it. I gave that information to Chris who forwarded it on to Rich for follow up. I hope something comes from it.

Everyone was hanging out at the station after the call talking about what had happened and some recent calls we were on. Chris told us how he confronted the girls. He went to the house where the party was and told the people at the door to get the girls. They were not cooperating to well. That is when Chris said he would get every cop in Pullman up there to break up their party unless they got those girls. Within seconds the girls were escorted to us. The girls claimed no responsibility and claimed they had no idea what we were talking about.

Tadema and I lifted some weights and Shane took off. Everyone was getting ready to take off and call it a night. Then a call came out for someone who was unconscious at Ricos. So I had to wait for Shane to get back and we went to the scene.

The person was in the bathroom and had been throwing up all over the place. While in the station a little bit ago we were talking about my inability to deal with puke. I was doing just fine with it and the smell in the bathroom. When we got the patient to the ambulance I was inside when the patient threw up some more. I started to have some big dry heaves. Greg looked at me and asked if I was okay. I said yes. But he was worried about me so he had Shane grab a convience bag for me. Greg thought I was going to throw up. We got the patient to the hospital.

Shane and I took the Rescue back to the station and washed it. As I was motioning for him to back it up I heard the tones going off inside the rig. I ran and jumped in. We were getting dispatched to CCN for someone who was really drunk. We were the first unit en route and the first on scene by a long shot.

I was dealing with the patient when the patient fell over and started to puke. I was doing well until about the third time puke came flowing. Then I started to dry heave hard core. My second one was so bad. I was facing a cop who jump and got out of the way because he thought I was going to puke. After having my dry heaves keep going, Chris got there and saw me. He asked if I was okay. At first he thought I had gotten hit or something. Shane told him what was going on. Chris said I should just go downstairs. My pride was hurt hardcore. I did not feel really bad, it just sucked going downstairs with people watching.

But after I got composed I went back up to help. I want to work through my dry heaves when I see, hear, or smell puke. I got the patient to the ambulance. I did my assessments and talk to the patient. I hope I was able to help in some way on that call.

We got back to the station and washed Rescue. That was it for the night. Shane and I washed the rig and called it a night.

Working out with Ben

It was great to get together with Ben and work out with him. We did an upper arm work out. I was pumping out more bench presses than him. But then as we moved on to other exercises, he was doing better than me. Most of the lifting I did today was to the point of failure. Ben normally would like to do eight to twelve reps per set of four. But I was having a hard time doing many more than eight. I was trying to do twelve on each one. By our last few I could hardly do eight.

After that was done I dropped him off and went back to work. I had a hard time washing my hands. I could hardly put my hands together. It was painful. But it is one of those good kinds of pain.

After work I went to Beasley for the Women’s basketball game. Tadema and I were working EMS at it. I got some dinner from Cougar Country and got the equipment we needed. I watched some TV until it was game time. Then I spent most of the time watching the game. The women got beat pretty bad. Then it was on to listening to the men who were playing UCLA. The Cougs had a chance to tie it up with an easy lay up, but it was missed and the tip did not work. So both the men and women lost their games today. That was a bummer.

After we got back from the game, I went to the office and did a few things there before heading to Colfax for the evening.

Website for Pullman Fire

After speaking with Jerry on Monday he forwarded his concerns to Heston who got in touch with me about the Website. We are going to have a training coming up to update the current Website. It is an .net based solution, but I don’t think I am going to be able to do everything we were hoping to do. I will see during the training that is set up for next Tuesday.

Ben and I are going to start to go to the Rec Center and lift weights. We were going to go today, but things did not mesh. So tomorrow should be our first day.

I was on call tonight. I went to the station and hung out for a while around the seven o’clock hour. We got a call while I was down there and after the guys got back from EMT class. I am not good with puke. And the guy we transported had to puke. So I had to deal with it the best I could. Following that call Shane and I were at station one. Shane was talking to VanNess when a call came out for someone who was unconscious on the sidewalk at Grand and Main. We went there and got the guy up. We transported him to the hospital. He had a cut that I dealt with.

After that call it was quiet until about three in the morning. There was a call for water flowing from the sprinkler head at Zeppoz. We went to it, but ended up doing no work on it at all. We were released from the scene.

Poker Night after training

Actually at Colfax fire it was Board and Business tonight. That always makes for a short meeting. I figured that would be playing cards tonight as Carl was on duty. And that was the case. We played for a few hours following our meetings. I did okay. I think if anything I lost a couple bucks.

Ken told a joke during the meeting that cracked me up.

A Jewish girl asked her dad for five dollars. He said “Four dollars?!? What do you need three dollars for?”

Feeling less sore

I am feeling less sore but I slept in very nicely today. I did not get up until around noon. It was refreshing to sleep so long. We had fire training tonight as well. It is the first of our two training nights on the PL.

I headed down there around the time I was supposed to be there. It was a pretty short training. In fact no one from B-Shift was there at all. They were either at EMT training or just gone all together.

Nursing Myself

Today was spent just allowing myself to relax and nurse all my sore muscles from yesterdays football practice. In someways I am glad I did not go to practice today because I am hurting all over. But I am sure I would have felt better once I got going.

I pretty much watched football games and some movies. Then as the evening progressed I got some chow and get to the fire station and spoke with Ken for a little while, but it was close to seven o’clock and I wanted to watch my Sunday night TV shows. I went home to do that when we got a call for an unknown injury accident on SR twenty-six. I went to the station but it took me a while to get there so I missed the ambulance. It turned out to be non-injury.

Family Guy was giving me some great laughs through out the show. I loved it when Peter said “I us’ed them down to five-hundred”.

practicing with the Thunder

I headed to Jerry’s after I got up this morning to pick him and equipment up to take to Lewiston for the practice. We got there early so Jerry could talk with the coach and listen to what he had to say to some of the players who were requested to be there early. I started to get my stuff on. It was fun to put on my gear and get out there. I was a little bit worried about everything as I am one of the smallest guys who plays the line.

We started by running around the field. It is about the same distance as running a lap around the track. Actually it is probably a little less that that. Then we started to stretch. I was feeling like I was having a hard time getting all the air I needed so I took off my helmet when I got to the lines to stretch. I was not the only one. We did our stretches. Then we had to run lines. We did five yard increments form the five to twenty-five yard lines. We did that four times. Then we started to work on some different tackling drills.

I was blocking against some of the different guys or working on making a tackle. It was fun to hit some of the guys. It was not hurting at all. Then I went against Jerry one time. That is when I hurt my thumb. I cowboyed up and kept going and forgot that it was really hurting for the rest of practice.

We broke into groups by position. Linemen in one place and backs in another. They worked on passing and we worked on some of our blocking drills. That went on for a while. We finally got back together and put the stuff together and did blocking plus running some plays. I was having a lot of fun doing that. After practice was over we did our final running. It was a fifty-yard dash with a game of tag included. The loser would have to do ten up-downs. I lost on the first one. I was running down the field when I saw Stu was it. I was one of the last guys around. I turned on the after-burners but Stu had the angle on me. He tagged me as I fell to the ground and slid across it on my shoulder for about five or six feet. It was fun.

Then when I got up and crossed the line someone said who lost. I said I think that would be me. I started to run in place and do the up-downs. On my fifth one I was having a hard time getting up. But the team rallied around me and cheered me on. A couple guys acted as spotters helping me get up. Then when I was done the next run started. They said I did not have to do that one. Another lineman got lost that run. They came back towards me again. Yet another lineman lost. Then I ran the last one. A lineman lost that one.

After the practice I got out of my uniform and was cold and sore, but I had fun. My thumb was now killing me. We went to the Super China Buffet for some lunch/dinner. I got one plate of food and some salad on another plate. There was about six of us there. We just talked football.

Jerry and I headed back to his place. I helped him unload his stuff from my truck and went home. I had to take a shower because I was muddy and dirty for practice. I went to the fire station and the store. I talked to Jenny for a tiny bit down there. When I went home I just relaxed and watched some TV. It was my first night not being on duty in a week. So I did not do anything hard. Around midnight a call came out for an unknown-injury roll over accident North of town. I went on it and it turned out to be non-injury.

Ty leaving town.

I left Pullman to go to Colfax and I was going to clean up and get a few things before starting my day. I decided to lay down for a few minutes. That turned into falling asleep on my bed. I ended up sleeping until around five. So it was almost time to be back in Pullman to be on call.

I got up and went to the office to get in my uniform and then I went to the station. I did maintenance with the others. I talked to James a little about the website stuff. Then we all watched the final episode of Band of Brothers. That is when we got a call on the other side of town. We transported the person to the hospital.

After the call I went to My Office to meet up with everyone from the softball team. We were having a going away party for Ty. He is heading to Moses Lake with his wife-to-be. When I got to My Office they were leaving to go somewhere else to get more service. The service at My Office was bad that night.

We ended up going to Pullman Grill and Bar. Craig was there. He is family. Several ten-six-sevens where there and they all seemed to know Craig. One of them, Riely, was a big time ten-six-seven. He was very friendly and very nice.

I hung out with them all until about two in the morning. I had to leave once for a call for a smell of gas. That was, of course, when I ordered food and was waiting for it to be delivered. They put it in the oven to keep it warm until I got back. That was good to have warm food when I got back.

Two days until Practice

It is only two days until I got out and practice with the Thunder. I am looking forward to it. It has been a while since I put on pads and ran around hitting people. It should be a lot of fun.

I also spent some time getting my bugs worked on today. Everything is so slow going right now. Once I get something fixed, I have to send it off and wait for it to return. It is not speedily, like if the testing was only on something local. I am hating it right now because it is so slow.

I was covering for Blanks tonight. One of my last covers for the week. It will be a full week when it is all said and done and I have enjoyed it, but at the same time it will be a nice break for a few days.

More time on my side projects

I spent more time working on my side project today. That side project is the Quad-City Thunder website. I am trying to get things squared away on it. During the actual day time I did work for my Bellevue company.

After that, however, I went to the fire station to do rig checks. Then I got working on the Thunder website. I got a few more things taken care of. So I am good to go. But I have a lot more things to get finished quickly. The season is fast approaching.

Bad sleeping schedule

The last two weeks or so have been bad for my sleeping schedule. I have been staying up later and later. To the point where I was staying up all night long. Then I would sleep here and there as I could through out the day. I am working Pullman Fire seven straight days. It makes it hard when I am at the office all night working on stuff to do my day job which important. Plus with the fact that I am hating what I am doing right now it makes it worse.

With all the work I have been doing in the ASP.NET and SQL I really like it so far and I hope that soon we will be able to start to build our new stuff and get it going. I will like to do that stuff. This continuous fixing of things that are written in a googolplex of standards makes life difficult. Not that I have not learned a lot, but at the same time it gets old.

So after going to bed around three in the morning and getting up and nine I was pretty tried with the fact that I did not have a lot of sleep all weekend anyhow. A little afternoon I decided to take a nap. I slept until around five. That is when I got an IM back from Jon about the problem I was having with the QCThunder site where the update of a textarea was not working. It was a PEBKAC problem. Wow, I have not used that word in a long time. Pretty much I was saying on page_load to set that textarea to a specific value. But that would wipe out my changes. I needed to wrap the page_load in a check to see if it was a postback. I put in the necessary code and it worked. Then after I got up I went to station two for vehicle checks. But Travis was already there and gone and had them done. I did not know that though when I was down there. So I was watching some TV with Tony while I was waiting for Travis. Then a call came out. He came down and that is when I found out that he had already had done the checks.

I watched some more TV after the call. Then I went to my office and I was able to get help with the other problem I had been working on where I was trying to find the username of the person who was logged in. I was able to get that solved and now I am off to the races again. There is one other thing I need to deal with and that is making paging work for the blog entries. I am going to have to spend some time on that to get it to work. I know what I need to do. It will have a fair amount of work involved.

Tom from Palousitics is back form his two week vacation. He said one of my entries about the City of Seattle suing the makers of shower heads that put out too much water had been picked up by a NorthWest blog site that displays blog entries and news stories from various sources around the NorthWest. I thought that was pretty darn cool.

Bringing me down to Earth

I went to my house and did some laundry today. I needed to get some things washed as I was nearly out of clothing items to wear. While I was there I relaxed a little bit. It was very nice.

I was on call though so I had to be back in Pullman by around six o’clock pm. I got changed and went to the station to do some maintenance. Chuck and I were talking about several different things. One of which was about the position of Crew Leader. It is one of those position that we will probably be losing soon and I don’t know if I will be asked to move up or not. Being that I am not an engineer I have a feeling they will not ask me to move up. But if they do I don’t know if I would want to accept it. I like running Rescue calls and I have a feeling as a crew leader those days would be pretty much over. That is not a change I am ready to make at this time.

While talking about that we were talking about a few other things when James came over. I asked him about a log book for Reserves to track things the way we use it. It is one of those things that has changed since our station had full-timers added to it. He said we would have to send that request up the chain-of-command and that if I were just to get a log book so we could start to do that, it could cause problems.

Then we were talking about rig staffing. If we have five people on we would put two on rescue and three on the engine. Which to most of us in the trenches did not make sense. We have way more EMS calls that fire calls. By having a third on rescue we can still be in service if one of us gets in the ambulance. Also for labor intensive calls like extrications we have more manpower. But they want the third on engine so if there is a call outside of the city or we are out somewhere and a fire comes in then we have more people on the engine. I told James what my concerns were. Then he told me that extrication is not a real priority to the department.

He mentioned that we don’t take the extrication tools off of rescue when it goes in for maintenance. Also that there is no guaranteed response of rescue during the day. So for many years I view extrication as a thing at the department they saved for reserves to do. That was our baby. But now I see it is just that it is not something of great importance. So I was feeling sort of crappy about that. The one thing I thought made us important, is not quiet as important as I thought it was.

Another trip around the sun.

Thank you for riding the friendly skys with Earth Airlines. I hope you enjoy your day.

Today is the day where I go through my whole blog for the year to discover what blurbs from each month I should post in this post as my review of the events that make me who I am.

Jan – Heading to the Super Bowl – A radio station I listen to has a contest for 8 people to ride on a shortbus from Seattle to the SuperBowl. Along the way people would be kicked off, Survivor style. The winner gets to choose one of the remaining two people to go into the game with them.

Feb – Murder in a Small Town – At seven o’clock am my phone rang, it was a number from Pullman. It was Whitcom and the dispatcher said “Hi there has been a murder.” I thought for half a second still in a near-slumber I said “in Pullman?” referring to what Pete told me last night. I was told that it was in Endicott.

Mar – Friendship with Ben Blossoms – I got a call from Ben to start out my morning. We planning on meeting up and doing a short golf lesson and hitting the a bucket of balls. I met Ben at the golf course I paid my fees and bought a bucket of balls. I pulled out the seven iron and he started by telling me a lot of things about stance, holding the club, and the swing.

Apr – The Reason for Creating PA Announcer – I had a real hard time at first trying to say the offense and defense players when they made the play plus all the announcements. Finally I decided that I would only do defense if it was quick and easy. Other than that I only announced the offense. I think I started to better after that. I still made a few errors with saying things. I got tongue tied at times. But over all I think I did an okay job.

May – Bombs Away Tournament Against the Tax Dodgers – My first at bat I saw they had the right fielder playing in and about ten feet from the line. They know where I like to hit too well. So I had to look somewhere else for a hit. I found an hole. I hit it hard. In the following innings I got more pitches across and we were getting outs. I came up with two guys on base looking for a hard hit, I hit it to center field where it flew out. It was a homerun. Then an inning or two later, I came up with the bases loaded and hit a grand slam to left field. I was hitting the ball well this tournament. We beat them sixteen to three.

Jun – Working from Home – After lunch Chris had his meeting with Diane. Then he asked to talk to me. The company decided to give a ninety day trial where I would work the Pullman Fire Schedule. So it would more or less be about fifty percent of the month there and fifty percent here. I was stoked.

Jul – Officially On Duty with Pullman Again – We went back to the station and knocked out the maintenance on Rescue thirty-two. We also cleaned the floor in the bay. Then we went to station one to fill the cascade system. Following that we headed to the training tower. I worked with the Junk Yard Dawgs to get some training on those. I had seen them the other night but I did not have hands on training on those.

Aug – Softball World Series in San Diego – Then my last at bat the bases were loaded. I was looking for a good base hit. The team we were playing against were watching us yesterday and knew I could go to right field so they were playing that line pretty tight. So I was looking to go to left field. I just swung away. I was not trying to crush it, but I did. It burnt the outfielder. Then with the short grass it rolled and rolled. It went to the next field over. The field we are playing at have four fields and they share the same outfield. So when you hit one long enough it would go to the next field. Up to that time I had not seen someone do that. But mine kept going all the way to the infield of one of the other fields. I was running hard until I got to second base. I saw they were still running for my ball so I slowed down and jogged the rest of the way home. It was an inside the park grand slam.

Sept – Doing my Radio Show Again – I had my radio show again today. I talked a little about the hurricane that hit New Orleans. I talked about other political topics. I talked about sports – Cougars, IM Sports, and the NFL. It was a good show and I got it recorded. I was going to record it using Mini-Disks. But I ended up using the Internet stream and Total Recorder on my computer in the office. That worked out really well. Better than the old way where I used cassette tapes.

Oct – Couging it all season long – Then the Cougs let UCLA back into the game only to go to overtime and lose the game. It was another case of Couging it. It was very bitter to say the least.

Nov – .Net Launch Event – Ready to Launch is the Microsoft’s launch party name for Visual Studio.NET Ought-Five and SQL Server Ought-Five. For attending the all day event I got a copy of each of those applications. Both of which are expensive items.

Dec – Double Murder/Suicide – But around seven in the evening a call came in for us to stand by at Stadium and Richie. We were waiting and listening to the police band. That is when I heard a cop says “two DOA?” The other responded “yes.” Then after listening some more I found out that once they entered they found one more person. I was really freaked out because it is odd to have that many people die in Pullman at once. I figured I would be doing a coroners case soon.

Once again it is hard to only pick out one thing each month. Some months I wanted to add more things. But I fought with myself over the entry I was going to choose and chose only one. I am sure that if I did this on a different day I would probably choose the same thing. So I am pretty sure my list is a good one for this year.

It was quite a year where I saw myself working from home, in Pullman. Getting back on Pullman Fire. Doing my radio show again and more. It has been great.

Today however was a good day. It is the new year and I spent the day working on my Quad-City Thunder website. I have put in a ton of hours on it over the weekend. I actually worked on it until about eight this morning. I was going to go to Colfax and do some laundry but I ended up sitting down in my chair in the office and falling asleep until my realtor called and said someone wanted to look at my place.

After that I got up and started to work on the application some more. I worked on it until it was time to go for vehicle maintenance at the fire station. That lasted for nearly three hours. While at station one we got free stuff from Papa Murphy’s. So we went to the deuce and cooked it. We got cheese bread, cinnamon rolls, and lasagna. It was good food. When I was done eating I watched some TV and I was going to leave in about five minutes when we got a call.

It was an alpha and we transported the patient to the hospital. Once we were done with that I went to my office and a little bit later we got called to another call. It turned out the cops caught someone red-handed breaking into apartments. I hate thieves. When we got back to the station I found that I left the caulk at the scene. I went there POV to get it. The cops were wondering about me so they sent someone to get me, but they got Travis instead because he had come to get the caulk as well. So they did not see me turn off and pulled Travis over instead. It was pretty funny. I talked to him on the phone a
bout that.

Eight Hours on QCThunder

I spent the day working on my work. I was able to discover there were a few more bug I could not fix as of right now. I got those removed from my list of things to do. I also wrote up my report on bug. I am up to nearly sixty completed for this release.

After I got done working on those bugs I started to work on the QCThunder website. I started to get some stuff done and I just kept trucking along. I am really digging ASP.NET Two.Oh. I kept getting ready to leave, but I wanted to do one more thing. I was having problems along the way. For a while the CSS did not want to work, but then it just started working. Soon I was telling myself I would grab some dinner then I would head back and work. Finally at about twelve-thirty in the morning I decided to call it a night. I forced myself to leave. I could have kept working but I wanted to get home.

I got some dinner at home and watched some TV then I got a call from Colfax. It was about two in the morning. I went on it and went back to my house. I watched a TV show called Stripe Search. It was about getting a group of guys to perform in Las Vegas. And they were eliminating people as time went on. I was going to go to bed after the episode, but another one would come on. I ended up watching it until six in the morning when I went to bed.

A big coroners meeting

I slept until noon today. I was that tired. When I got up I had no will to work. But I sat down and looked at some stuff anyway and got a couple things done. But I decided to head to Colfax early so I could print my report and pictures from the call from yesterday.

While I was there I stopped by some offices and said hi to people at the county. I also went to the jail and talked to the Sgt for a bit. Then I had to run to the meeting at Eddy’s. We discussed several cases we have had over the last month. Plus the double murder-suicide. We talked about the other suicide, but we did not go over the photos from that one.

We were there for about three hours. Then I headed to Pullman. I was on call. It was quiet all night though so I did not go out on a call. I did get my computer put together and removed the noisy fan. I also got a new one ordered. I got Visual Studio.NET and SQL Server Ought-Five installed on it.

I imported my Quad-City Thunder application on it. I also got my data backup set up on it. I am happy with the new setup and how it is working.

Long day with a Coroners call included

Having been up all night long, I got to Colfax and got my new hard drive for my computer to bring back to Colfax. I also hung out in town for most of the morning. Having worked all night I figured I could do that.

While I was in Colfax I thought I would get some sleep before I had to be back in Pullman to be on call. I got a call from Pete just two hours after my nap started. I ended up having to go out on a death. So I was dealing with that for a couple hours. I got back to Colfax and got ready to come to Pullman.

I spent time getting a the new hard drive formatted and Windows Two-Thousand-Three Server installed on it. Then I put in my external hard drive enclosure. But the fan was so loud that I decided to stop using it.

I actually stayed up until about midnight when I finally decided to get some sleep.

Up all night

Through out the day I did not get a lot done but as the evening wore on I was moving on getting my computer working nicely with my video capture card and trying to get the video for Jon made. So at about three in the morning I got going and closed out about five or six bugs working to the wee morning hours. Ending with a call for service about three minutes after six o’clock in the morning.

I also had to make a trip to Radio Shack to get an audio cable and I stopped at Shopko to get a VCR as my old one was eating tapes. I got those hooked to my computer.

After it was done I helped to wash Rescue and headed to Colfax.

A holiday from work

Today is the official holiday for Christmas from NetUpdate. I took the opportunity to relax for the most part. I slept in. Then I went down to the Colfax Fire station to hang out for a little bit.

It was a very lazy day until I got to Pullman. I spent most of the afternoon trying to get the football game my brother played in that was televised back in the eighties recorded on to the computer. It went well. I think in two hours of footage I dropped about six frames. That is good compared to what I was dropping before.

As I was playing the stuff back I found the audio was off pretty badly at some points. I worked on it for a while trying to figure out how to make it better. Around seven I went to do vehicle maintenance, but Dearth said he had already done it.

I went to the station to hang out for a while. Then I decided to come back and work on my DVD project for a few more hours. I spent many hours into the night trying to get it working but I was unable to get it perfect, but I came pretty close to getting the audio to match up with the video.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

I got up this morning and grabbed my DVD and headed home. I watched some TV and got something to eat. Then I decided to head to the jail. I dropped off the paper and picture paper for the coroners office then I went to the control room. I helped out up there with visiting and when an inmate eat some mushrooms that he was allergic to. I also ran control for a while during the time a guy was brought in for booking.

I was there for about four hours and had some lunch with them. It was a nice Christmas Dinner. I went home a little after four and just hung out there all day. I tried to call my mom but they were getting ready to eat so I was told she would call me back.

I opened my presents. I got a three-hundred-gig hard drive, I got several shirts, I got a new bat bag, and I got golf shoes and golf balls. I spend the rest of the evening watching Dodgeball and some other TV shows including a made for TV movie called John Christmas. I headed off to bed at one-thirty.

My new capture card

I woke up after a series of strange dreams. Including seeing some buildings at the water front and seeing one being dismantled. When it was being worked on it fell over onto the roadway. Where the space shuttle and an airplane were tripped up on it. Then Carl was driving the Pullman fire engine around trying to run over people who had Cougar stuff. I was working on keeping them safe. o

I went to Colfax fire and hung out with Carl. I told him about the dreams I was having. I hung out there for several hours before I had to get to Pullman for being on call.

When I got to Pullman I hooked up my video capture card in my video editing computer. I was able to capture high resolution video without dropping frames. I was pretty happy about that.

I met up with Chuck at the fire station. We were going to go to station one for a big dinner with those guys. There was turkey, ham, potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and more. It was a very good meal. I was full when we were done eating. Chuck and I hung out some more while we were chatting with the guys from station one. Chuck and I helped to clean up and then we went to the Deuce to drop of the Rescue and go home.

I worked on my video editing stuff some more. I wanted to make a DVD with my Boating on the Snake video and a few other things to see how it would work. I am excited to try it ou. We got called out around one-thirty in the morning. It was at Bishop Place. We were there and packaged the patient. When we got outside we found out we were getting called on another call. So the PL went back to the station. The Rescue guys stayed and the medic went to the hospital with the first patient. The medic from the Deuce went to this call. I was the primary EMT and dealt with the patient until Medic Thirty-Two got to the scene.

We helped transport the patient to the hospital. Then I went back to my office to finish working on the DVD that I was making.

Short Work Day

Today was a day the office planned on going off duty early. I showed up around eleven in the morning. They planned on shutting down around two in the afternoon. I was working on the LP import problem. I was able to finally figure out what the problem was. We were sending in some null values when we sent all the information necessary to send a request. So I had to code for that and figure out how to find the null value and get rid of it. It comes in XML. So I just look for that node and if it is there, then I see if a value is null, if it is I remove that node. Otherwise I can leave it because life is good. That fix did the trick. We don’t lose the data anymore.

After I got that completed. It was about three. I locked up the office and headed to Colfax. I got into town around seven-thirty pm. I stopped by Colfax fire and hung out with Carl. We were chatting and I was getting hungry. I was about to leave when Bulldog Pizza called with an extra pizza if we wanted it. I went to Bulldog and got the pizza. I got back to the station. I set down the pizza and was ready to eat when the tones went out. So I went on the call and we transported to the hospital. I got back and the pizza was sort of cool. I did have one hot slice however.

We stayed there until around ten o’clock when I headed home. I stayed up until around three in the morning.

Birthday Celebration

I spent the whole day at work trying to figure out the problem of us sending off data to LP and having it come back to us and wipe out data from our database. I have been checking on the returns and they don’t look different, between good ones and bad ones. But I narrowed down the reason for getting the good and the bad returns. It is a strange problem where if I send it an application with all the required data, then I get a bad return. If I send in an application where I need to add some data before submitting in their application then I get a good return. I also discovered that if I send them all the data they need, and simply “view” the application before submitting it, and not change anything I will get a good return back. It is very strange indeed.

I went to dinner with some of the family for my birthday. I got some gifts. Then I went to Jon’s house to work on some ASP.NET stuff for the Thunder Football website. I am making it with the latest and greatest technology. It should be pretty cool. We worked on that until around midnight. I also got a pointer from him. After talking him through the above stuff he asked me what data was being sent to FNMA. I had only been looking at what we get back. But our stuff will parse through the data for a bit and then sent something to FNMA. That is where the error happens. So I need to compare what we send to our FNMA component and see what is being sent in.

Spinning my wheels

I spent the day spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to fix the LP problem. I think I am finally on the right track. So it will be a matter zeroing in on the problem. But at least I am playing in the right playfield.

I talked to Jon about helping me with the ASP.NET application, but we decided to work on it tomorrow so when I went home I just watched some TV and played with Amber and petted Jen.

Nice drive over the pass

I slept in to about noon today. Then I decided that it would be best if I got on the road and over the pass before it got really late. So I jumped on the computer and got just a few things done, mainly e-mail related. Then I hit the road. I got my stuff packed from Colfax and I was off to the races.

When I got to the pass it was bare and wet with slush in places. It was a quick drive. I went to Jiffy Lube in Renton when I got here to put oil in the truck. I had been needed an oil change.

I went home and played with Amber and Jen for a while before we ate dinner. Then I watched TV for the evening.

Eddie’s Birthday

I called up Eddie to wish him a happy birthday. He is one day younger than I am. I did not get him only an answering machine. I left a message.

I was on call tonight, but it was so dead. There was nothing at all for us to go on. We went to Sella’s for Nicks last night. Then Brian and I had to go to station one to fill the cascade system. It was low on a couple tanks. After we were done we went to the Deuce and watched some TV. I headed to the office and stayed up pretty late online.

Eleven Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty Days of Greatness

Today is my thirty-second birthday. I got up to a text message from Mirenda saying happy birthday. I jumped in the shower and while I was there Brandon called and left a happy birthday message. I was so happy he called.

The plan was to go to My Office to watch some football games. I went to my office and read my e-mail. Matty from G-Shack started a thread and wished me a happy birthday and told me to drink a shot of whiskey for him. I went to my collection of booze and grabbed some Jack Daniels. I poured what was probably two shots. I downed it.

I went to My Office and got a pitcher of beer and pop. Ryan got there when I did. Ron was there as well. Heather and C-Bass showed up as well. We watched the Seahawks and some of the other football games that were in progress. The Hawks won as I worked on my beer and Ron also got me a shot of whiskey to toast my birthday.

We were there for a couple hours when everyone decided to head out. I went to Ryans apartment. He got some ice cream and cheese cake for us to have. We watched the TV shows from last Sunday that he recorded for me.

When they were done I went to my office and got online and chatted with a couple people before I headed back to my place. I planned on watching the Sunday night TV shows. After Family Guy was over I went to Subway and got some dinner and then headed to the jail to eat it. I hung out there talking with everyone. I went back home around eleven-thirty because I still had some laundry to get finished that I started earlier.

Mom and Jon had also called me today to wish me a happy birthday. On my facebook account I also got these messages:

Bryce Cuello wrote
Hey Scotty, Hope you had a great Birthday and that you didn’t drink too much. Have a great Holiday.

Nick Anderson wrote
Happy Birthday Scotty, did your present come yet? I paid him double to make it extra special. I hope you like whip cream!

Leif Kvalheim wrote
Happy Bday!

Josh Olson wrote
Happy B-Day big Scotty. Hope everything goes well. Best wishes.

Matty Hendrix (FSU) wrote
HAPPY BDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chris’ Big Christmas Party

I got up around eleven o’clock am with a phone call from Pete. He was just checking on my status for being on call. He also wished me a happy birthday. Reed is covering me tonight so I can got to the party and drink at midnight when I get off call and my birthday starts.

I called Ryan up and we planned on going to Moscow for lunch and I needed to get a couple things for the coroners office. I went to the fire station and cleaned the Rescue from last night. It had gotten dirty and was not cleaned. I hung around the station until I got a call from Ryan that he was ready. I picked him up at Beasley and then we went to Taco Bell. I stopped at Staples to get some paper and photo paper as well.

Then we went to Beasley for the mens basketball game. I only had seven bucks and Ryan did not have any. We tried to get tickets and the lady at the booth said she could not take plastic. So she was saying we would probably have to go to the main ticket office inside. Then I asked if we would be able to sit together if he bought a ticket there. Then she just gave us a free ticket with mine. So we got to sit together and got in cheap.

We sat a few rows up from the court. It was a good game. It was close in the first half, but then the Cougs lit it up. I sat on the side where Drew, one of the cheerleaders, always stands. He is a ten-six-seven.

After the game Ryan was going to go see a movie. I went to my office to hand out for a while. The party did not start until about six o’clock pm. So I got online and chatted with some people as well as checked my E-mail.

As it got close to six I went to Dissmores and got some cookies and some corn dogs. I went to the liquor store and got some mini-bottles of tequila for a birthday shot with people. I also picked up a few things I was low on.

I went to the party and there were a handfull of people there. As the night went on more and more people showed up. Pretty soon it was packed and people were having a good time eating and drinking.

Then later in the evening people started to take off. But there were some plans to play some games. We played Dirty Mind followed by Wheel of Intoxication. Midnight hit close to the time we were playing wheel of intoxication. I passed out the shots to people who wanted them. Tref, Chuck, Susan, and I all had one. I actually had two. Tref toasted to my birthday. I also had a couple glasses of beer.

While playing Wheel of Intoxication there is a space called CHUG OR DARE. Chuck got it and thought it said HUG OR DARE. So he got up quickly and turned to Vinnie who was right next to Chuck. He gave Vinnie a big hug. Then we realized Chuck thought it said hug. We were laughing so hard. It was the funniest thing. We played a little while longer and soon people were pretty much gone. We finished off the game with one more round then the party was breaking up around one-thirty in the morning.