T-minus Seven Hours

It is seven hours from my birthday. Yesterday Wenis messaged me and said Happy Birthday. He knew he would not be around much on the weekend so he wanted to let me know ahead of time.

Turning thirty-two is not a huge thing, not like turning thirty. Thirty was a big change, because you were no longer able to say you were twenty-something. Turning thirty-two will get me no more ignored than being thirty-one, except that I am just getting closer to the big-four-oh.

I will talk a bunch more when I have my birthday post, I just wanted to make one more post while I am not thirty-two.

Busy day of calls

This morning I was woken up at around six-twenty for a car accident. Reed showed up and we went en route. We got to the one-ninety-four and Wawawai turn off when we were cancelled. So we turned around and headed back to the station. As we were getting ready to back the rig into the station the tones went off for a sick person on Bishop Blvd. We went code to that and helped transport the patient to the hospital. We had to get gas on our way back to the station. We washed the rig because it was really dirty.

I got to work and went to work on my bugs. I was able to clear a couple of them off the table for myself. So I felt like I made some accomplishments. I still have more bugs to take care of.

I am covering for Josh, who I found out the other day has tendered his resignation. He wants to focus on coaching high school basketball. So he does not have enough time to do both the fire department and basketball. Four years ago he would have, but today, reserves are a lot more busy than in the past so I could understand that.

I am on Rescue with Erik. We were going to go to station one for photos and then get back to the deuce so we could go home and do our thing. I was planning on hanging out with Ryan because we missed it yesterday. But before leaving station one when we were done with the pictures we got a call for a fire alarm. We got on scene and were released at nearly the same time. So we went back and parked. I filled in my time card and the tones go off for a drunk person at State and McKenzie. I was the driver, but it was a bravo so we came in non-code. Going up McKenzie was so slow it looked like we were going it on purpose. But it was floored and barely made it up the hill.

I walked down and there was a guy sitting on the ground. He did not want to cooperate too well. But I made a connection with him. I got him to work with me. I ended up doing most of the medical things I needed to in order to get him kicked loose. He was all over the board. Some times being very easy to deal with, other times being nearly impossible. But I was able to do enough and work with him enough to get our job done. When it was over with Erik told me he was very impressed with what I did with him and he told me he thought I had done a very good job. I thanked him for the compliments.

After that was done I got ahold of Ryan and discussed what we were going to have for dinner. It was decided that we would get Cougar Country. I stopped there and got the dinner. I went with it to Ryan’s place. We were getting ready to watch the Bad News Bears, the new version of it. That was when another call came out. Someone hurt himself and we had to go pick him up and take him to the hospital. It sounded pretty serious when we were given updates. I was thinking broken neck. It turned out when we got there he had feeling and was getting better, but he was still worried about everything.

Following the transport I went to Ryans and we finally watched the Bad News Bears. It was a pretty good movie. I was worth watching once.

I got online and got into a conversation with someone from the UI. We talked for about two and a half hours. It was past four in the morning when I finally got to bed. I was pretty tired by that time. But it was fun talking to this guy. I hope we talk again soon. He seemed very nice.

Last Radio show of the year

The day started out with meeting up with Jeff from Motley and Motley. He took a look at my property to let me know what his thoughts were about building a road. It does not look very good. So I am going to have to find some other avenue, no pun intended.

I went from there to get some breakfast and look at one of the other possible entry points. Following that I made my way to Pullman for my final radio show of the semester. Tom was meeting me there and we were going to talk sports and politics. I let Tom lead the way with the discussions. We had a couple callers to the show today and I ended up putting one guy on the air to chat with. The other caller did not want to go on the air. It was a fun show and to top it off I got a full recording of it.

I went to the office to work on some bugs I had in my pipeline. I did that until it was time to go to the fire station. We were going to work on the yearly maintenance of the generators and fan from the reserve rigs. That took a lot longer than we had hoped it would. Then as I was walking the generator to rescue I slipped and hurt my right knee. It is pretty sore. I hope it is nothing but a pull and I will not get laid up or anything.

After we got back with Rescue I went to get some pizza and went to my office. Ryan and I had planned on watching a movie but after being as late as we were with everything we decided to postpone everything until tomorrow.

Company Christmas Party

Today is the company Christmas Party. I went to work a little earlier than I would normally because I got up early. I got ready and packed my stuff and then headed out.

At around one in the afternoon lunch was served. By that time I had one of my bus completed and out of the way. We had lasagna, pasta, garlic bread and some chicken wings. It was good food. I was full after my meal.

Roger and I went to play some Ping Pong while everyone finished eats. Then we had a Christmas Present exchange. All the gifts were purchased by the company and a number was drawn for who got to go first. But what would happen is that if someone wanted your gift they could take it or get one from under the tree.

On my turn I picked out a gift that had three flashlights. It was pretty cool considering some people got candles and book ends. So I was pretty happy. But Andrew was after me. He was going to take my gift and everyone started to laugh because earlier I talked about how I would cry if someone took my gift.

He ended up not taking it and he got some gift he did not really want. Some people were able to trade with the gifts that were left under the tree if they got a gift that did not fit with the person. So Andrew had two choices I told him about one gift I almost took because it had the “feel” of a tool, some sort of manly-gift. He took my advise and took it. He tore a big part out of it and the expression on his face of defeat and disbelief was priceless. He turned to the rest of the people and showed a cat calendar and appointment book. Everyone started to laugh so hard. It was great. I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard.

After we were done with the exchange I had some cheesecake then went back to my cube and got ready to head to Colfax. It was going to be a bit of a trip and I was starting out later than I had wanted to.

When I got to Colfax I went to the Sheriff’s Office to work on printing out my pictures from my last two cases and writing up reports on them. It took a long to print all the pictures and to write up what I needed to write up. I left everything for Pete and went to my house. I watched some TV for a bit before I went off to bed.

Ordering a present

I helped Bill order a present for my mom when I got home from work. It was an average day at work. I got some bugs done and Roger and I played some ping pong.

After ordering the present for my mom I decided to just sit around and surf the web and watch some TV.

Birthday Week

The end of the week is my birthday and I know my mom plans on giving me my birthday present before I head back this time.

I left to go to Seattle but after a sleeping delay. I made it to the office around noon. So it was not really bad time with the road conditions the way they were.

We went out to QDoba for lunch when I got here. It was a good lunch.

I went back to the office and got some of the bugs I had assigned to me done. By this time I had four bugs in the pipeline. I got two of them done leaving the one I am dreading until tomorrow. They are not going to be hard, just busy work. I really don’t like to do the busy work bugs.

I went home around six in the afternoon after checking out some of the latest news on the murders. It was released that it was murder-suicide but they did not say much more than that. I saw myself on TV as well.

At home I hooked up my computer and had dinner with the family. I told them about my plans to develop my land and where I am in the process. A lot of it is going to rely on building the road and figuring out what the utilities will cost to include.

Murder in Pullman

The day started off with me going to the command post to report for duty. The plan was to look at the scene and photo it. Then come back after the crime lab is done doing their initial stuff and then go back and do what we had to do. Then the crime lab with finish up what they had to do.

That changed as the day went on. The place where these murders took place was the same place where a lady was murdered nine years ago. That also happened to be the last murder in Pullman.

We waited around for nearly an hour and a half before getting inside. It was getting cold, finally they let us in. We went around the house and looked at items and then finally to the room where the bodies were. It was not as bad as the suicide was from the other day that I looked at. It was not nearly as bad. In fact, I think that really prepared me for violent things like this.

After doing some initial crime scene photos we went to the living room and talked with and got more information from the police for the next few hours. We were getting hungry so we went to get some lunch. We were in our coroners office stuff so we got some looks for sure. I told Pete it was because they were so impressed with our new clothing items.

We got back to the scene and the crime scene investigators left for lunch. We stayed and got some more information. They came back and it was time for us to do our thing. We went back and examined the bodies and photoed the scene some more. Then we called the funeral home for removal. There had been media all day long outside the apartment. They had been snapping photos and gathering video. They also taped us removing the bodies.

We left the scene and went to the funeral home to do our final examination and make plans for autopsies. Once the plan was set into action I left to go home. I was still planning on heading back to Seattle today. Patti also went home.

On my way to Colfax I heard the Colfax EMT’s get called to a possible unattended death. So I knew we were going to get called to that. Patti and I met up at the scene. It was a guy who went to bed and did not wake up. It was a pretty straight forward case. We were only there for about forty minutes investigating the scene and then after the funeral home removed the body Patti went there to further examine the body. I went home and watched my Sunday night TV shows. I decided to not head back to Seattle tonight. I was really tired from working and staying up so many hours this weekend.

I decided to go to bed around nine because Family Guy was a rerun.

Three Deaths in Pullman

Quite a morning. I woke up and I was still tired, but I got moving and went to Pullman to get my uniform and some breakfast. I met up with Dearth at the fire station. We drove up to Beasley and parked. I brought my laptop to watch some movies. We ended up watching Anchorman. We were going to watch Harold and Kumar go to WhiteCastle but it kept freezing up.

While we were in the first aid room a guy walked by and asked why we were there so early. It turned out that the ceremony did not start until ten and we were there at seven. We told he we did not know why, expect that was the time on the E-mail.

Finally people started to show up closer to ten. We were both really tired. We watched TV and watched parts of the ceremony off and on through out the day. It ended around noon but there were people there taking pictures and whatnot for another half hour plus.

We were finally able to leave and got back to the station around one in the afternoon. I hung out there watching some TV. No calls came in. 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.

I went back to the station where we got another call for someone at Orton hall. When they was done I went back to the office. I was thinking I should get some sleep because it was going to be a long day. But the more I listened the more I realized we would not be called for many hours. I finally went to sleep after I got a call from Pete about it. Because I was in Pullman he was going to have me interface with command.

I went to the scene and talked with Dornes at the scene. He told me what was going to happen. I relayed that information to Pete and went back to my office to get some sleep. I was very tired and I was going to be getting up sometime before seven o’clock in the morning.

Free Day Off

I stayed up all night long working on the last of my bugs. I got them closed out and the build completed around six thirty in the morning. I loaded my truck with all my pop containers and other trash from around the office as I had plans to go to the dump. I drove to Colfax and got my new battery into my four wheeler and plowed my driveway. It took about an hour total to get it take care of. I also got the snow off the stairs.

I then loaded my trash cans from the house and went to city hall. I wanted to talk to them about developing my property. I got word they could not help build the road or anything, but they are willing to help out in other ways as they can. Then I went to the county and got information about the properties around mine so I could get ahold of the property owners.

I went to the dump and emptied the trash. Then it was off to the car wash to spray out my truck to get the pop and other liquids that had leaked from the bags out of the back of my truck.

I went to get some work done or at least be in the office. That is when I found my internet connection was done. I could not get anything done. I called Chris and told him that. He said that it was a sign I was supposed to go out and do other stuff. He told me he assigned two new bugs to me today.

I left my office and got some lunch then returned. I worked on doing some rough plans to see what kind of houses and how many houses I could fit on the land to get an idea of what kind of money we could get back. It looks good so far, but I have a lot of information to gather and put together before I can present it to anyone for funding.

I headed home sort of early because I was going to have to be back in Pullman at six-thirty tomorrow morning for graduation. I was really tired because I haven’t slept in quite a while. I stopped at Colfax fire for a while and watched a movie with Ken. Then I went home and watched some TV before going to bed. I was going to get about nine hours of sleep.

Two fun interviews

I got up and had to run straight to the radio station for my interviews. I had Chris Warren from the Brickwall Comedy Club in Spokane coming on to talk about his trips to Iraq to entertain the troops. It was interesting to hear it from him. We pretty much covered what was in his journal entries from the trip. It was very cool. He is a right-leaning comic and he had some good news out of Iraq to share that is not heard on the news.

Following him I had Bob Wollan from the Pullman High Greyhounds to talk about their championship football season. We spoke for about a half hour about football.

Then I headed to the office and got one of the bugs knocked out before heading back to the CUB for the meeting for KZUU. My talk show got an award for the Best Talk Show Fall Ought-Five. It was fun to get.

As soon as the meeting was over right at six o’clock pm I turned on my pager to hear them page out a fire alarm. It took forever to get to the fire station. Reed and I went en route and made it really close before we were cancelled. We went back to the station and I started on my vehicle checks. I was also watching the WSU-Gonzaga basketball game. The Zags pretty much owned the game. After the game was done Drew took us out in medic-thirty-one to get checked off. The last check off was not valid because it was not Drew or Eric who checked us off.

I got done in time to watch CSI. Then I went back to my office and surfed the web for a couple hours until a call came out. We went en route and were cancelled right away. So I washed the engine waiting for the other engine to get back from the call. I logged my time in the book and then went back to my office.

I decided that it was late enough that I would just stay up and finish the last bug on my plate. I got it done right around five in the morning. Then I was updating my boss with my bug output. But I found that my build failed. I looked into it and it turned out the build was being done while a second build was going and that made it fail. So while I wanted for the build to get complete I figured I would clean up my office. I had about sixty pop containers all over the place. It feels so empty in here without them. I actually have space to work now.

I loaded my truck with them and I am going to make a dump run. I need to get the stuff from my house and then I will go to the dump. I have been needing to do it for a while. I finally got a new battery for my quad. So I will get my drive way plowed before I come back to Pullman for the day of work tomorrow.

The Brass Rings

I had stayed up until nearly six in the morning so I slept until about eleven o’clock this morning. I got up and working a little bit on some more bugs. But I got some knocked out through out the night, that is why I stayed up.

Ryan and I met up for lunch and we went to Pizza Pipeline for some grub. We sat in my truck and talked about the suicide from yesterday, no details just generalities about suicide and I gave him my idea on how to avoid suicide.

I decided to play some poker. I played for about an hour or so. I lost. It was not a bunch of fun for me, but oh well. I will just have to win next time I play.

At about seven o’clock I went to the fire station to get the van and go to Bryan for the Brass Rings concert. I had to be up there because they were going to light some candles and I had to be available in case a fire broke out. It was a great concert. It was five people playing brass instruments. They played a lot of Christmas Songs. It was a total Christmas Experience. I really enjoyed it. They had some songs where they had the people sing along with the song. They played for two hours and played a couple of my favorites. Including Little Drummer Boy and Carol of the Bells.

Once the show was over I took the van back and headed to my office. I got some stuff ready for my interview with Chris, the Politically Incorrect Comic. I wanted to have enough material for an hour long show.

When I got home I heard on my pager Colfax fire department was out on a fire. So I went to the station but it was under control. Randy came in from Albion. So we sat around and talked for about an hour. Then the people on the fire ground returned. We helped them reload the hose they used. Then I went home and went to sleep.

Suicide should not be an option

Today was a long day as I did a lot of things. I started by going to the funeral home to look at the wounds of the person who committed suicide. It was devastating destruction. I think that is the worst thing I have seen in person in my life. Not something that is fun. I think that is someone is willing to kill themselves because life is so bad, they should instead just leave everything behind. Get on a plane and go to some far off place and totally start over. Leave everything behind. That is what they do when they kill themselves. So leaving everything behind would be no different if they just dropped their life and left to start new.

The difference would be that the short-term problems that the person is running away from would not turn into a long-term solution that is final (dying).

After that was done I went to the office to get some work started. I got a call from Whitcom about someone who died in Pine City. So I met Pete up there and did an investigation on the body. So that is two deaths in two days. And two bodies I examined in one day. Pretty usual.

After that was done I met with Steve to look at a couple mobile homes on the Albion road. I was looking at buying one when it looked like my house was going to be sold.

I went to the office and tried to get some work done when I was finished looking at the mobile homes. Around five I had to get ready to go to the fire department. There was ropes training tonight and I was going to participate in it.

We met up at the deuce first. Then Reed and I went to station one for a meeting then off to the Grime Way Steam Plant. I worked with a group that was about thirty feet off the floor getting someone down. It took a long time to get everything set up and get the person down. When we finally did it, I went to the other group and watched them. They were doing a confined space drill. Once they were done I helped to clean everything up.

We were doing the post meeting when a delta call came out. Reed and I jumped in rescue and went in route. We got on scene first, beating the ambulance by about ten seconds. I helped to get the patient into the ambulance. We were on scene for about one minute.

After that call Reed and I hit Cougar Country for some dinner and went back to the station to eat it. It was about negative two degrees outside. Very cold. It was so cold the engine pumps froze on all the fire engines. So we worked on getting them thawed so we could fight a fire if one happened. They took another hour or so. When it was all said and done I had been working for six hours.

After I got back to the office I wanted to get some work done, but I was surfing the net instead. I did that until a call came out. Reed did not show up so we did not go enroute, but the ambulance got the person and went in route to the hospital so fast I don’t know if we would have made it to the scene or not.

I did finally start to work on some stuff. I got two bugs knocked out by six o’clock in the morning when I finally went to sleep.

Leaving early to go to Colfax

When I got up this morning I got my clothes down stairs so they could be washed and then made my way to work. I got a call from Pete about a suicide in Pullman. He wanted to know if I would work it with him. But I was in Seattle so that was not possible. He suggested that I go see the body when I get into town to investigate the wounds.

I went to work and got some bugs done and got some assigned to me. Noah, Chris, and I went to Qdoba for lunch. We also spent time in Chris’ office talking about playing poker. Chris is building an app that is used to tell you what you should do on certain hands depending on where you are sitting. It is pretty cool.

I decided I would leave around four to get home and get packed so I could get on the road to Colfax. It was going to be a long drive no doubt. When I got home I got some food and my clothes. I talked to my mom and played with Amber and Jen a little bit then I took off.

My power steering fluid was low so I added some at the gas station when I was topping off my gas tank.

The drive over was pretty easy, but it was slow going at points. The roads looked icy from time to time. I got to Colfax and stopped by the SO. I found out the guy who committed suicide used a shotgun. That is not going to be pretty to see. I am a little nervous about looking at the wounds tomorrow.

I went home and worked on getting files off my laptop and moving them to my external hard drive so they can be backed up. I wanted to go to bed sort of early because I planned on getting to the funeral home early enough to get to work and get stuff done.

Of course however I stayed up a lot later than I should have, finally finding my way to be around one in the morning.

Braving the commercial world

It is Christmas Season and I braved the shopping world. I started by going to Costco and parking in the farthest place I could from the door while still being in their parking lot. I sat in my truck and debated on going inside. I wanted to get some chew and I wanted to look at a few things, but I decided the waits would not be worth it to me so I left and drove to Fry’s.

I needed to look at some VCR/DVD combo units. But I took time to look at many other things trying to get ideas of things I want for Christmas and my birthday. There is always at least one ten-six-seven I see while there. In this case I saw this guy who was about six foot six with awesome blue eyes and well maintained soul-patch. I tried to watch him as long as I could, and it just was not long enough.

After checking out the items I was supposed to be there for, I left to go home. I gave my report to Bill. He is the one who wants to buy one.

When I got home I had dinner and helped to clean up. Then I wanted TV. It was the normal Sunday night shows, but tonight they were re-runs. So I mainly watched the shows off and on while surfing the net.

Hanging with Dave

Today I woke up with a sore neck. It hurt to move it at all. It made it hard to drive and do head checks before changing lanes. It also made it hard to do my work. But I got my stuff done and finished off my last bug. It was a hard one two. It took me hours to run down what was going on with it and then come up with a solution to fix it. I did and closed out my final bug.

Then I went home and got a hold of Dave. We headed out to hang out. We went to Cascade Casino. We played cards until about three in the morning. I was playing with the money I had with me. Once I lost it all I had no desire to get more. At one point Dave was up a lot of money so we went into the bowling alley section of the building and chatted about politics. Dave and I like to talk politics. I also told him about my idea for building on my property.

After we talked we went back into the casino. I lost my money and Dave lost some of his. Like I said we were there until about three in the morning when we finally left to go home. I wanted to get to bed a lot earlier than I had because I was planning on going to see the Pullman Greyhounds play in the State Championship game tomorrow.

SNOW!

I love the snow and it decided to snow once I got to work today. It pretty much snowed all day long, however, it did not start to stick in Bellevue until near four in the afternoon. More on that later.

I called up Lief at the radio show and I did the show with him on the phone. We talked about the way people are taking Santa, Christmas Trees, and other Christmas icons and turning them into “holiday” icons. I spoke about how people use the word “holiday” in place of Christmas, and pretend like it is the same thing.

We talked sports and some technology news. Then a guy messaged the show and was questioning me on my view that business owner rights are being taking away with minimum wage laws and the smoking law, but I am saying people should boycott businesses because of their views on Christmas. I explained to him that the difference is the government forcing the business to do something, whereas I am just a person who is telling the business owner that I will vote with my feet and wallet. If you don’t do things like I like, I will not go there. It is still a choice the business owner has.

After the show I was in the office and got one final bug taken care of. I left around five to go home. When I got there, snow covered the ground. There was about an inch at my mom’s house. It just kept snowing all night.

I went to Jon’s and he helped me with a bug I had. We got that knocked out in about an hour or so. Then I left. When I went to his place from my mom’s. By the time I was a mile from my mom’s the snow was rain. It was raining at Jon’s.

When I got home, there was even more snow covering the ground. I stayed up watching some TV and getting updated on some of my favorite Websites.

Missing SouthPark

When I got to work Brian was here already. We worked on some of the issues that we usually have to work on. We spent time chatting about things as well. It was a typical day for us. Today we were talking about and trying to fix the sort order of loan programs. After some work I discovered what the problems were and we were able to put a theory in motion and run with it to a tester on Thursday.

After I got done working I headed home. I just hung out and watched some TV with the family. We watched CSI:Miami which means that I had to miss SouthPark tonight. I hope to catch it later this week.

Ready to Launch

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.

It started with getting up early and meeting Jon in Eastgate to take the bus to Seattle’s Convention Center. It took about twenty to thirty minutes to get there. We had to walk a couple blocks to get there.

Once inside we got checked in. Then had a roll for breakfast. It was time for the keynote speech. I was so tired by the end of each event along the way I was falling asleep. I was having a hard time staying awake. We got a lunch supplied to us. Then we had more events to go to. Jon and I ended up leaving before the last one. We walked to the bus and took it a few blocks to where he works. We were only there for a few minutes then we went to catch another bus to get back to Eastgate.

At the event I saw Todd Otis and Michael Langford. Some old faces from college. I also ran into Ricky and Andrew from work.

After I got to Eastgate I got in my truck and Jon lead me around some back roads to get to the Newport Parkway without having to drive through all the lights.

I got home for dinner and watching House on TV.

Feeling Sick

I am waking up early because of my coughing. It is no fun for sure. I do not like waking up because of coughing. Because I was up so early I decided to head to work early. There was a lot of traffic because of how early it was. I hate that. I love driving in Pullman where traffic is very light to non-existent.

I started by getting some dev work completed today. I am hoping to get all my bugs closed out by the end of the month and being done with it.

After work I headed home. I was waiting to hear back from the realtor to see if the guy will accept the counter-offer on my house. I also talked to Dave finally. He has been without his cell phone all weekend so I was not able to get a hold of him. We made some plans to hang out later this week.

A day without power

The breaker box at my mom’s house was being upgraded today so we were without power when I woke up this morning. There was not much to do around the house so I decided I would go see a movie. I was thinking Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds would be a good movie with some possible eye candy.

I drove to the theatre, but it did not start until almost five. It was about three o’clock. So I sat in my truck listening to the Seahawks game and the battle back and forth with the Giants. It went into overtime and I had to go into the theatre so I missed the third missed field goal by Feeley. I also missed Brown’s game winner.

The movie was pretty good. I mainly went because Reynolds was in it and I was hoping to see something like this:

Ryan Reynolds from Blade Trinity

Instead they did not show anything close to that. So I was disappointed. I am not a big fan of the beard he has in that pic, but everything else is just fine. Oh well, maybe his next one will have something more.

After the movie I went home and the power was on. So I watched my Sunday night TV shows and cooked some dinner. I actually went to bed early. It was about one in the morning when I finally went to sleep.

Saw II is disturbing!

I really slept in today. I tried to get a hold of Dave again, but I was unsuccessful in my attempts. I planning on going to see Saw II today. It was as bad and in some ways worse than the last one. It was still along the same lines of punishing people and the hard thing is knowing that they could live if they followed the rules and *listened* but many times people hear you, but they don’t listen to you.

After that was over with I decided to play some poker at Diamond lils. I was doing well for most of the night, then I ran in to a spell of bad hands. The hands I did get that I could play always had really poor community cards. It was hard to see my stack dwindle to nothing. So I rebought in. Just as the table I was on was starting to break up around three-thirty in the morning I made my way back to being even. Then I went to a new table and played for about a half hour. I left down a little bit of money, but not as bad as it could have been.

It was funny this guy sat down with two hundred and forty bucks. He called every hand and played most of them to the end. In some cases he would bet on after the river, but when someone raised him he would fold. Sometimes he would call the raise then show his cards and a lot of the time he had a horrible hand. After losing all that money, he bought in another hundred bucks. He lost that the same way. So then he bought in another sixty bucks and lost that too. He was there for about an hour and a half and dropped about four hundred bucks. It was so bad. It was like taking money for my nephew.

Rich people poker

Each month on Friday people in Newport Shores play poker. Newport Shores in on the shore of Lake Washington where the “cheap” houses are three-quarters of a million bucks to start and as you get closer to the water it is considerably more. On the water you are talking multi-million dollar homes. The last few games have been a guys house that is on the water. It is a huge house. It is sort of weird to be in a house that costs millions of dollars. Needless to say I don’t go to many of them.

I sit at tables where people plop down twenty or thirty bucks for a buy-in where that money is mere pocket change. We played two-five Texas-Hold em for several hours. Then everyone left except for me and one other guy, plus the home owner. I was up for the night and doing well.

We changed to no-limit poker with a five-ten blind. We played for another hour or so. Finally on a hand I had that was okay, I ended up losing to someone who got pocket aces. So I walked out even on the day.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. I got up around noon and went down stairs. I watched some of the Cowboys football game before getting ready to head to Jon’s for dinner. We were meeting at two in the afternoon at his place. I was the first there. I watched the football game there.

People started to show up within the next few minutes to the next half hour. We sat around talking and watching football. They had paper on the table with pens so all the kids could draw. I started it out with making an Apple Cup drawing. Once I started to draw all the boys wanted to draw too. We did that until dinner started.

We ate in the dining room and the kids ate on the kitchen table. We had the normal adult conversations. I found out that Andy Savage was a neighbor of Bonnie and Larry. But he had moved out about a month ago. I wish I had known he was their neighbor before.

After dinner we watched some more TV and the boys started in a poker tournament. I helped Justin out. He does not have a poker face at all, but with my help he was doing well. Justin ended up winning the tournament.

While I was at Jon’s, Russell called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving. He had been in Seattle and had a dinner with his family yesterday. He was on his way back to Pullman when he called me.

After I left Jon’s I went home and watched some evening shows and got on my computer and did some Internet surfing.

Sleeping forever

I had planned on getting up early and making my way to Seattle. But I was so tired that when my alarm clock went off an hour and a half after getting up I decided to keep sleeping. I finally got up around nine in the morning and got going. I got my clothes from home and packed my truck. I found the order for the coroners office came in but there was a problem with the order. All the words that should have been white where yellow. I gave the order to Fran to take to Pete and let him see them.

I finally got out of town around ten o’clock in the morning. That meant at best it would be around two in the afternoon when I would get to work. I cruised along on what promised to be one of biggest travel days of the year. With the pass down to one lane near the rock slide I was worried about the traffic. As it turned out, West-bound was not bad at all. I made it through without any real interruptions.

I got to NetUpdate finally a little after two in the afternoon. I spoke with Roger about the work that needed to be done and did a few odds and ends, but I did not dig in to any real work at all.

I left around five in the evening. The traffic was very light until I reached NE Fourth on the freeway because on an accident. So I got off there and took the back roads. Those were really light as well. I got home in no time and just hung out around the house for dinner.

I did not go out, but I stayed up sort of late doing stuff online and chatting with people.

My Thanksgiving Break starts after tonight

Today is the last day over here for about two weeks. I am going to be staying out there for the time because of the Visual Studio.NET release party. Plus I am going to be able to hang out with my friends and family.

At work today I did some touch-up work on a bug. I also was requested to do the rig checks. So I went down to do those. I hung out at the station for several hours between doing the rig checks and playing poker with Shane, Brian, Jay, and I, as well as watching some TV with everyone.

After watching House I took off. I wanted to get to bed so I could wake up nice and early in the morning, but I could not get to sleep. Soon, the tones were going off for a delta response. It was not a big deal. Following the call, Shane, Chelsey, and I hung out in the bay talking about our first structure fires and other big calls.

No Training, no nothing!

I was still not feeling great. I slept a total of eleven hours today. I went to the office but I did not really get much done today. When work was done I had no fire training, so I decided I would go to the Coroners office to get the business cards made.

I got them printed off then I went to the control room and hung out up there for a while. We chatted about the people in the jail and the officers and what they are up to. I found out that Brian got a job working as the new Colton Town Marshall.

I feel sick today

I did not feel very well today, but I got up and watched some TV before heading to Pullman. I got some lunch from Dissmores then I went to my office and played some poker. But it turned out that I was feeling worse and worse as the time went on. I finally decided to take a nap. When I was asleep I did not feel too bad.

My phone’s alarm clock was set to go off to get me up for vehicle maintenance. I did not want to get up, but finally I had to. I was feeling light-headed and I felt just icky. I went to the station and started on maintenance. I called around to find someone to cover for me. Finally I got a hold of Chelsey and she said she would cover me.

After maintenance I went home and watched some TV and just tried to relax and keep warm. I finally went to bed at midnight.

The Apple Cup Stays in Pullman

I got up this morning and went to Colfax for the EVAP rodeo course. I had to do it with one of the Ambulances and Engine Three. They were running a little behind, but because I was scheduled early in the morning I did not have a problem getting it done pretty quickly.

The rodeo was not that hard. Engine three is a very bad turn radius and it was harder to do the serpentine in it. Then I did the ambulance and that was easy. After that was done I went to my house and get ready for the football game at Martin Stadium. The Greyhounds were playing the Cardinals of Orting. They are in fifth place and they have an eleven and zero record. Pullman is eleven and zero but I believe they are ranked number one or two in the state.

The game started with one of the Cardinals getting hit really hard. Sanders from PPD and I were watching him on the sideline and we were worried about him because he was having a hard time standing. A little later I was called over to check on him. It was good that they wanted me to look at him. It was sort of a cluster, but while I was dealing with that Pullman was getting dispatched to things left and right. They had a structure fire, a car vs. ped accident, and someone who fell in Palouse.

The car vs. ped accident turned out to be fatal. I was worried I would get called out so I got a ride from Lester, District-twelve’s fire chief, to get my truck. I went back to the stadium. As it turned out Moscow Ambulance transported the person to Moscow.

I finished watching the game and Pullman beat up on Orting. Through out the game the announcer would give updates on the Apple Cup. If the Huskies were winning you would hear all the Orting fans cheer. When the Cougs were winning all the Greyhound fans would cheer.

When it was all said and done Pullman beat Orting forty to seven. Once again Pullman dominated the other team. It has been like that for them all season. We were standing on the field when the announcer let us know the Cougs had won the Apple Cup. We all cheered some more. After the game was done Jesse invited me to respond on calls through out the night if I wanted to.

I went to station one and worked on my paper-work for the refusal. After talking with one of the paramedics about it, he scared me about the whole thing. He told me how he would have handled it and how I should write it up. I ended up writing about two and a half pages about it covering all of the things that transpired around the event.

Then I went to my office and played some poker online. I responded on a call with them around nine o’clock. After the call we sat the the Deuce and watched the end of the UCS – Fresno State football game. Fresno was beating USC late in the game, but USC came back and won.

I went to my office and played some more online poker. But I wanted to get to bed pretty soon so I was going to call it a night. That is when a call came in. I decided not to go on it. But as it turned out things got really busy at one time. Like earlier today they started to get a lot of calls at once. They called for all full-timers to come to the station. Then they called for all reserves. I was down at Safeway getting gas. But I went to the Deuce and hung out for about forty minutes, until everything went back to normal.

Then I went to Whitcom. I saw Jamie and Merinda there. I talked with them and the other dispatchers for a couple hours and I talked to Jamie about the game and the injury to see how she might have handled it. I left around three in the morning to head home.

The start of Thanksgiving Break

After having a nice four in a row off from the fire department today I will be on duty as well as working the women’s basketball game.

I met up with Travis around three o’clock to head up to Bohler. When we got there it did not appear a basketball game was close to being started so I talked to Phil on the phone he said it was at Beasley. So off to Beasley. We had equipment, but Travis forgot to grab the keys. So we had to find someone to get us into the first aid room.

When the game started I watched the game from. I would go back to the EMS room from time to time to make sure all was well in there. Travis also watched the game with me. The Cougar Women won the game pretty convincingly.

After the game we went to station one to return the equipment. I dropped Travis off at the Deuce and did my rig checks. I hung out at the station for a while, but it was pretty dead there. I went back to my office and played some poker before calling it a night. I had to get up for the EVAP rodeo in the morning, plus I need to remember to call Brandon and wish him a happy birthday.

Radio Show on the air with Leif again

After not working with Leif on the air for a few weeks because either he or I were gone we were back on the air together. We spoke about the recent votes that happened because we had not had a chance to discuss them. Then we talked about the XBox that he won and the trip to LA for some huge XBox convention. Lucky him.

After the radio show I headed to the office to get some stuff done before I had to the volleyball game. Ben and I were working it. We got the equipment we needed and then went to Bohler Gym for the game. The Cougs have not been great this year but they won in five games. So it was neat to see a victory.

Also, the Cougar Marching band played Turn the Beat Around for me. I was happy about that. I asked Andy if they would play it. He did his magic for me. After the game was complete we dropped off the equipment at station one, then dropped the van off at the Deuce before heading home.

A day of nothingness

On my schedule for the day? NOTHING! Well, I have to do my normal job, but that is all. There was nothing else planned for the rest of the day. I got some bugs completed and saved.

I did get a call from Kyle and he asked me to cover for him. I told him that I would do that. After a call had come out, him and I were outside talking for about thirty minutes. I let him know that I was happy he was discrete when he was mentioning that he saw me out and about once in Seattle. So he had probably seen me at R Place. He did not say that but left it to me to figure out what he was speaking of.

I told him that though several on the department know about me I don’t want the new people to know and I hope that over time it is a mostly forgotten fact. I think for the most part people do not know either that no one brings up the conversation at all. Either way I am happy with them not knowing. I let Kyle know that.

EVAP Training

With Pullman’s EMS training cancelled I decided I would hit fire training in Colfax. When I got down there I found out it was the EVAP training. So it was good that I decided to go to it. The training was pretty short over all. Ken went through all the slides and discussed everything. The actual driving portion will be completed on Saturday.

After the training I watched House with Ken. Then he brought up the Bible and accept Jesus as my savior. We spoke about the different topics for several hours. One thing I danced around by tried to get Ken to speak about it was homosexuality. Finally at the end of the night when he was talking about some religions that allow for gay clergy, he said it was wrong to do that because you are letting a sinner like that lead. So I now know where his view on homosexuality is. I have thought about bringing it up with him, but I am afraid the word will get out to everyone else on the department. What is amazing is that with such little separation there is between Pullman and Colfax and all the people who know me, that the city of Colfax and all the people who work there seem to not know about me.

Hose Testing

Man, I did not want to get out of bed this morning. I kept sleeping and sleeping. I think this weekend really got to me. Finally around noon I got up and started my day. But I was un-motivated. Plus my PayPal-like account was set-up so I could play some cards. I pretty much did things other than work today.

Around six o’clock pm I went to the fire station. I went with the engine to station one to do some hose testing. It only took a couple hours because we were testing the five inch hose only. All the rest had been tested. We also spent some time rolling hose that had already dried in the hose tower. In all it was a pretty short day for me.

I went back to my office when I was done doing the hose testing to play some more cards. I did not do great today, but I must get more patient. I am playing too many hands.

Lots of cleaning

I slept until about two o’clock pm when I received a phone call from Pete. He had a few questions about my field report from my last case. After clearing it up for him. I decided it was time to get up. I made some lunch and watched TV for a couple hours. I was going to go to Colfax fire and hang out, but I decided to stay at home until I had to go to Pullman for vehicle maintenance.

I wanted to get to the fire station a little early and get a start on my work. I knew it would take a while because we needed to take all the equipment out and clean them and the compartments then put everything back. The compartments were horrible. The middle one where we keep a larger number of hand tools had hydraulic fluid on the floor of the compartment where a sixteen ounce bottle spilled. It took almost a half hour to just get it cleaned up, let alone the tools that are kept in the one compartment. After doing just one side of the rescue I helped with the cab. That took a total of nearly two and a half hours. Normally it would take two and a half hours, give or take, to do the whole rig.

After we were done cleaning, we had to go to station one and get some supplies. Then we went to the hospital where I got my yearly TB test read. Negative again.

When we got back I hung out for a while at the station. I was starving so I was about to leave when we got a call. It was up at the rec center. We did not transport. So we went back to the station and that was it for calls for the night.

I decided to write another entry in the Palousitics blog. It is a local political blog that I was asked to join last week. It can be seen at http://palousitics.blogspot.com/.

Final Cougar Home Game

I woke up about five hours after going to bed. I decided it was time to get up and get ready to head to Ben’s place for the pre-game activities. Ben gave me a call and let me know things were underway.

I went to Rosauers for some lunch and then headed off to Pullman. I got my ticket from my office and got my warm clothing from my truck. I drove towards Ben apartment and found a place to park really close. I walked to his place from there and went inside. There were several people there playing games and watching TV.

Ben poured some rum in my pop. We played a card drinking game for a little bit, then people moved on to playing with Ben’s plastic BB guns. He shot me with one and I shot him back. It was a lot of fun. I also got a beer to go down after the hard A. But I had to stop drinking early on because I was going to be on call after the game and needed time for the alcohol to work through the system.

We had some dinner at the apartment next door with someone who was going to be coming to the game with us. I headed up early with some other people. They were sitting in assigned seats in section two. I went to section twenty-seven and went to the top row. I was there until kick off. I called Ben and found out where he was sitting. He was in the end zone so I went down there to be with him, Ryan, and Mike. It was a good game, as have been all the games this season so far.

Ben was pretty drunk and he kept hold onto me and he would hug me a lot. He is one of those people who likes to touch. Towards the end of the game Ben and his girlfriend left to go back to the apartment. Mike and I went near the tunnel where some reserves seats are for the marketing people. We sat there because he knows the people. They were neat seats. But as the second half wore on Oregon scored a lot of points and took a lead. The Cougs tied it up with a field goal, but needed a defensive stop. Oregon however drove the field and scored a game winning field goal with four seconds to go.

I walked back to my truck and went to my office where I got into my uniform for the fire department. I went to the deuce and waited for rescue to get back. Then I found out I was going to be on the engine. I left a little after midnight and got some pizza then I went to my office and played some ESPN poker. I did that for about two hours and I was falling asleep. So I went to sleep only to be called out about seven minutes later. It was a delta call. I did not go on it, but I had to go to the station and stand by. I slept on the couch until the guys got back. Then I went back to my office.

Around five in the morning we got a call for a fire in a backyard that someone was trying to put out. I was unsure if we were supposed to go on it, so I went to the station. We ended up going, even though it was an open burn, something reserves don’t go on. When we got to the scene we were asked to come up and help. The fire was out, but we had to break it apart and make sure it was extinguished. I used the trash hook and pulled the plastic pallets that they were burning. It was probably not the smartest thing someone has done in the world. They had run out of wood and decided to keep the fire going with something and they had the plastic pallets right there. We spent a while pouring water from their garden hose on it.

Finally we pulled the trash line and put about two hundred gallons and foam on the fire area to make sure it would not rekindle. As we left around seven in the morning, it was starting to snow. Michael, Kyle, and I met up at Dissmores and got some hot cocoa. I went to my office and changed back into street clothes and headed to Colfax where I would go to bed.