Ended the Co-Ed Regular Season on a Loss

Today was a makeup game against the Zeppoz team. We have not won a game against an A-league team all season. Tonight would be no different. In co-ed I have been hitting the ball very well, but as a team we were not able to hold on against Zeppoz. It was close for a little while, but then they took a big lead and did not give it back to us. We could not find a way to pull it out against them.

Tomorrow I am going to be going back to the fire department. I will have a new captain and I think my countdown to my last full-time day is starting.

Back to Back Wins!

A little bit after I got up the tones went off for a transfer to Spokane. I called in to take it. I worked with Chelsea. In Spokane we went to Red Lobster for lunch. It was very good. We talked about my position as a reserve deputy on the way back, then we talked about the fire department and ways to make it better within the budget that we have with the city.

This evening brought on the final two softball games of the season. It didn’t mean a lot in terms of standings because we are about half way down, but we wanted to beat these teams because we are a competitive team. We were playing the A-League champion who hasn’t lost a game all season. We were also playing the number two team in the league.

In the first game we were playing Coors Light. They were unbeaten. We came close the first time we faced them going into extra innings. This time we put nine runs in the first inning and lead the whole way. We let them get back into the game, but we kept the lead the whole time and the time limit of the game hit in the bottom of the sixth inning with us up to bat. I had three balls pitched to me when the umpire called the time limit.

In the next game we were playing the number two team. We took a big lead but let the other team work their way back into it. But we were home. We had given up the lead in the top of the seventh inning. We were down by three runs. We scored a couple runs. Then with the bases loaded Jered hit a double scoring two more runs for the win.

After the game Brady broke out a couple beers to celebrate our win. Brady, Cole, Faber, and I shared the beer.

Melcher, Jessie, Faber, and I went to My Office. We shared a couple pitcher of beer. Then we went to Sports Page to hang out until a little after one in the morning. It was a good end to the season.

I was thinking that I would be going to McCoy’s team next season, but I am not sure if he is still interested in adding me. I will see in the off-season. If he wants me I think I will go, I am tired of running the team with guys that seem to be undercutting me all the time. I just want to go and play. Plus McCoy is good about getting his team into the tournaments.

All Day Computer Problem

I got a call this morning from Rudy who was having a computer problem. I worked with him on the phone for several hours. We got the initial problem solved so his computer would boot, but there were still some other issues. I was at the point I could no longer do anything over the phone. I was going to have to get in front of the computer. I went to Palouse and worked on the computer for another five hours. There were some easy problems to fix, but some of them were tougher. One was incredibly hard. Everything I was searching about it made it appear that it would be very hard to solve. After working on it a bunch more I was finally able to get it solved. It felt good to get it done.

Rudy gave me some chocolate chip cookies and some money for my time. The cookie were very good.

Fairwell Peterman Two

BKoe, Timmy, and I went to see Transformers at the theatre this afternoon. BKoe had already seen it. It was a good movie.

Later on I saw a message on Facebook from Peter about going to see the Hangover. I had just seen it, but it was a good movie. Peter is leaving Pullman tomorrow so this was his last day in town. I wanted to hang out with him.

Peter was laughing so hard. I was laughing hard watching his reaction plus to the movie itself.

When it was done we went outside and said our goodbye. He gave me a hug and we parted ways.

I met Peter through Brandon a couple years ago playing poker. Since then we played more poker together and we also played softball together. We hung out and played games. Peter is a good guy and I will miss him.

No Fires for Me

Today I am scheduled to work the fire station. I was really hoping to be able to go to the park and work up there, but it turned out that no other career guys wanted to work. I was going to be stuck at the station. It was a very quiet day for the day hours.

When we went to the park to set up the ladder we were close to the time of the flag ceremony. We were going to stay through that. I planned on getting photos of the fire department honor guard doing their thing. But ten minutes before the ceremony we got an EMS call. So we had to run off on that.

When that was done we went back to the station to work on dinner. When dinner was done we cleaned up and watched some TV as it was getting closer to fireworks time. The captain said that if we go up on the hill behind the station we could see the fireworks from the park.

More or more people were lighting off fireworks. I was getting excited. Before the fireworks were supposed to be shot off we got call to a call outside of town. On the way back to Pullman it was very close to the start of the show. I was heading towards Pullman and I saw the first couple things shot off from the park, but I didn’t get a chance to see anything else.

As we were getting back to the city all sorts of calls went out for grass fires. We hurried to get into service. Once we were in service the calls for the grass fires stopped. At the station we got toned out for one around midnight. But before we got close it was said to put out. We were cleared to return to the station. That was it for the fires. I didn’t get to see one at all. We ran two EMS calls and I didn’t get to see the main fireworks show at all.

Leg Two in the Books

A day without a single call is how this day would play out. We did go help Craig from Kimball’s with a funeral set up item. He only had one other person to help lift a heavy item and requested our help. We went to help him.

Paul was on OT as well. We decided to supply lunch to the guys at the Deuce and dinner for the whole shift as well as the reserves who were working that night. Because it was technically a holiday today we only had to work the first two hours of the shift and then we had downtime.

We spent time hanging out and talking. At one point I was getting really tired. So I went in and took a nap. I needed it after having a call in the middle of the night last night.

We made Pauly Burgers for everyone and hotdogs. We chowed on that plus chips and many other fixings. It was a filling day. Turpin’s wife brought down a spinach dip that I really like. It was very nice for her to do that.

After dinner we cleaned up and had dessert. The guys from station one left. I got on my computer. Mark and Paul played the guitar for a while. It was nice to just sit back and listen as they did that. We stayed up until around eleven o’clock PM.

First Leg of Seventy Two Hours

I have an OT shift tomorrow so this is my first leg of a three-day long shift. But the overtime pay will be nice on my July paycheck. This day has more or less drug along. There were not really any calls to break up the day. We just did administrative stuff around the station most of the day.

We did get one call at dinner time. It didn’t last long, but it made us have a slightly cold dinner. After dinner I worked on the computer looking at craigslists for motorcycles. I have been wanting to get a street-legal dirt bike. I have found a couple in Idaho for sale, but I am not sure if I should get one.

We did get one call that came in during the middle of the night so that ate my sleep and now I am going to be tired going into tomorrow. The nice thing was that tomorrow is a holiday so I will not have to work past ten and I should be able to get a nap in.

The Hangover

I met up with BKoe for lunch. We grabbed something at Subway and then went to the PD to eat it. We were in the briefing room. Jake came in and gave me some grief over the ambulance mishap a couple weeks ago at the hospital.

I went to see the Hangover with Jessie and Melcher this evening. First Melcher and I went to the city playfields to watch Jessie play some softball. Their team was winning the game, but it was close to the start of the movie so we left to go to the movie.

Jessie joined Melcher and I a few minutes into the movie. It was incredibly funny. I was laughing through a lot of the movie. It was worth watching.

Lost a Must-Win Game

This evening we were playing against Sports Page. We needed to win both of the remaining games against them. Plus we needed them to lose one other game for us to take second place. But that was not to be. We had a hitting battle back and forth. But in one inning they broke out and and scored twelve runs. That effectively sank us. We tried to come back, but we were just unable to do it.

I also had Sheila come and watch. I wasn’t able to show her my skills very well. I had one very nice solid hit. Two other hits were pretty lames infield grounders.

After the game was done I went to the fire station. We got a call around one in the morning. It turned into a nothing call. We cleared right after getting there pretty much.

Ankle is Really Hurting

The pain of my ankle has been going on all day today. Normally with some walking around the pain will subside and get to the point where it is not very noticeable, not today however. It was really bad when I went to Moscow to get some mitt conditioner. All the walking I did there did not loosen anything.

When I got to the city playfields for the game I was still a hurting unit. I ended up having to play first base because I had no ability to run. I have two triples that I only got doubles due to not being able to run full out. This is the worst my ankle has been in many years.

The game was pretty ugly. I was thinking we could do something in the first inning when we scored several runs, but that production did not keep up. We ended up losing the game against Sports Page. We were out matched.

When we were done playing I went to Cougar Country for some dinner. I went home and watched some TV for a while as I sat around in pain. It sucked. I actually was using my softball bat as a cane to move around with less pain.

Othello Softball Tournament

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FTO Book Turned In

I went to the SO to get the final sponsor signature for my FTO book. Then I turned it into Cooper. I will have to go through a board review in order to pass along to second class. Once in second class I will be able to ride with any other second class or any first class reserve. I am looking forward to that step. I have worked hard to get there. I am sort of holding off on riding anymore until I get my new status so I can apply my hours towards the needed check offs to move to first class.

I hung out at the fire station for a while. Whimpy was out and I played with its siren a little bit. It has a growler-like siren on it.

Tomorrow is the softball tournament in Othello so I am going to go to bed early.

The Day After

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

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

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

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

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

No Longer a Software Engineer

Since April of Ought-Four I have been working as a software engineer for NetUpdate and then I was moved to MostHome when they bought out NU. I worked with them until I got notice today that my contract was going be terminated. The application that I worked on since I started with NU was a mortgage application. That was then sold to a competitor a couple months ago. I told MH that I wanted to remain on with them. But as it turned out the project I was put on just got sold off. So they are cutting their ties with me. Things could be a lot worse. I have saved up a lot of money over the last six months or so and I have a bit of a saving that can help hold me over. Now I have to get the fire department job to sustain myself. As of right now I have the fire department for about one more month. Then I am done with them full-time.

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

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

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

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

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

Win One and Lose One

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

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

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

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

Got the FTO Book Done

I had a goal to complete my FTO book today at the SO. I was with Zehm. We spent several hours going through the final couple pages getting the final check-offs completed. With that done I can apply to go to second class status. I will be the first in my class to do that. In second class status I will get a chance to work with another second class reserve and the other first class guys. Then I can work my way to being first class. It is at that level I will be able to take my own car out and be on my own. I think that I can get there in the next three months or so.

After we were done with the book we hit the road. He said I could do what I wanted. So I went out twenty-six. I saw someone walking down the road. I stopped and spoke to the person. They were not doing anything wrong, but I barely could see them due to the darkness. So I tried to talk them into taking a ride with me to someplace to get them off the road. It took a while but I was able to do it. I gave the person a ride to Dusty. But I made a couple mistakes along the way. I didn’t search the bags for weapons as well as I should have. I didn’t get the ID as quickly as I should have. I should have run the person right away rather than waiting to run it after I dropped the person off. Then at Dusty I opened the trunk to let the person get their things but I turned my back and they could have gotten to a weapon case I had in the trunk.

We talked about all those things on the way from the call. I knew about some of my mistakes, but I wasn’t sure about what I was able to do in some other ones, like running the person right away. At the end of the night Zehm said that I really didn’t do bad. He said I did fine, but he still had to put that down on my evaluation. Even though I have a lot of ride time in, I had not dealt with something like that before so I didn’t know all the things I should and could do. This was a great learning experience, because I still went home that night.

Low Energy Day

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

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

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

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

D-Twelve Golf Tournament

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

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

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

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

Jersey Night Ought-Nine

Today is the last scheduled Thursday softball game. With the re-alignment of the league we lost the rest of our Thursday night games and pretty much only play on Tuesdays. We played the Whammers. I thought it was going to be close, but it wasn’t. We pretty much controlled the whole game and won it. We have been on a nice win streak.

After the game I hung around the fields to watch Sports Page play. They have several guys who I know on the team and it was Jersey Night. Joe is the leader of it and I was going to be participating in it again. I have gone to almost every Jersey Night since its inception a couple years back when Joe was with My Office still.

We started by going to Sports Page. Things were pretty tame there. Then it was off to My Office. I got myself some dinner. I wasn’t drinking tonight because I was the on-call coroner. We went to Thai Ginger following My Office.

Then we loaded up in Jessie’s truck and my rig and headed up to Val Halla. While there I was talking to a guy named Chris. He plays with Sports Page now, but use to play on Palouse Tavern. He said that Kelly wanted to put him on our team, but I wouldn’t allow it. So now he does what he can to get me out every time he can. He also said that I never wave at him when I see him and he only lives a couple houses away from me.

I finally understood why he never seemed to like me. I don’t remember the situation where Kelly wanted him on the team. I think that Kelly made up the story so he had a “reason” why Chris couldn’t play with us. I am not sure what happened. But Chris had a chip on his shoulder. I tried to let him know I don’t remember it happening that way. But now that I know what the problem is, it is in the open.

We moved on to Mike’s bar at the end of the night. By the time we got there several people were really drunk. We started to break up there. Some people went along on their own. I had Hanna and Ryan with me. I took them to their car downtown. I also took Chris home. He thanked me for the ride. I think that we might be good now.

Command of Albion Call

After getting a call at seven-thirty in the morning, I was running late for my dentist appointment. So I rushed there and got my teeth cleaning. It only took about fifteen minutes. Probably my quickest appointment ever.

I was on my way home when I heard about a structure fire in Albion. I wasn’t going to go until I heard Scott from Colfax request that D-Twelve and D-Eleven Colfax and Steptoe stations get dispatched. I called Colfax to have my turnouts brought in.

I drove to the scene and I knew no one was there, so I thought I might be first on scene. So I upped my response a little bit. An Albion unit with one person got to the scene the same time I did. I went to the rig and gave a size up of the scene and took command. D-Twelve got there. I sent two in to check for signs of fire or smoke. There was nothing. When an assistant chief from Albion got there I handed over command.

We spent the next twenty minutes going through the two apartments with a TIC and checking for a source of the smoke that was witnessed by the residents. We were not able to come up with anything. So everyone was cleared.

Tonight was Heather’s birthday at the Moose. I went down there after taking a nap. I made her a birthday card after I went to buy one. It was a big hit at the Moose. Her dad was there so were Dan and Michele. We sat around joking and laughing for several hours. I finally left around ten o’clock at night to go home.

Firefighter Stand Down

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

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

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

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

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

Doing some OT

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

Interesting Turn of Events

This morning i got up and I left pretty well rested. I made some bacon for breakfast and hung out outside of my camper. They were playing a game that the players toss two golf balls that are attached to a string. They wrap around one of three bars. They get points based on what bar it is wrapped around. Each team has three of the ball sets. Someone accidentally got one stuck in a tree. We spent some time trying to hit it was a basketball to get it out of the tree. We came close, but the one hit of the basketball got it higher in the tree. We worked on it longer and finally got it out of the tree when someone climbed up the tree. We took some group photos and then I got my campsite cleaned up and left.

On the way home I stopped at two properties that are for sale. One seemed to have someone at it, so I didn’t stop. The other one I stopped and walked around the house and looked inside. They also had a big shop that I looked around. The shop needs a lot of work to clean up due to the birds that have been in it. The house is nice, but it is pretty far out there. I am not sure I would want to be so far from Pullman.

Brandon, Kevin, and I were playing some games this afternoon and we decided we would put together a poker game in the evening. Peter was going to play as well. I called the Peter from my softball team and he was going to come over and play.

I had a softball game. In my first at bat I had an inside-the-park-homerun. Heston was on first base. I was trying to catch up to him so I was running very hard. I ended up hurting my back in the process. That pretty much sucked. I also had a triple on the night.

During the game I noticed the third baseman for the other team. Then I heard someone say her name. I thought I recognized her and her name. I had been in an e-mail conversation with her for a length of time. I started to worry that the idea of me getting a girlfriend might cause a lot of pain if I wasn’t able to keep my eyes of the guys. So it was interesting to see her in real life. As we were congratulating each other she high-fived me but also grabbed my hand. I am not sure if she did that to everyone, or if she recognized me. I think she recognized me.

We won the game and I was on my way home to play some poker. We stayed up until nearly two in the morning playing cards. I played on my one five dollar buy-in for the night. I was up a fair amount of money for the night. I was one of the three winners of the night. It was a good day over all.

Camping at Central Ferry

When I got off work I went to get my motorhome packed and headed down to Central Ferry park. I was going to be camping for the night. I got my motorhome set up and then cracked open the beer. I had eight beers and I was starting to feel it. I stopped there and enjoyed the rest of the day.

We spent a lot of time sitting around in a circle and talking. This is the second annual trip with a lot of the Colfax Firefighters. It is a chance for us to get away and kick back. No cell phones, pagers, nor radios.

In the evening we played a lot of poker. I lost most of the games, after winning the first one. It seems to be a tradition that if you went the first pot of the night you will not do well for the rest of the night.

At around midnight I went to the motorhome because we were done playing. I was going to go back out, but I was so tired I just went to sleep instead.

Thinking about Camping

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

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

Put in Offer on Colfax Property

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

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

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

Black Out Shades

It has been a long time in the coming, but I have been needing to get some blackout shades for my bedroom. This morning was the final straw. I have been telling myself that I had to do it, but I wouldn’t go do it. Today I told myself that it would be okay to spend the money on them.

Many times the bright light is coming into my room. I am always getting woken up by something around eight in the morning. Some alarm or something else is going off to wake me up. Today it was a phone call. But even though I tried to go right back to sleep I had to cover my eyes with my pillow so I could sleep.

The blackout curtains that Brandon got for his room make a huge difference. I decided to do the same thing. I went to ShopKo first. I couldn’t find any of them there. So I went to WalMart where Brandon got his. It cost me about fifty bucks for two of them plus the rods. But once I get to sleep without the light of day interrupting me I believe it will all be worth it.

I got a call from Chia. He asked if I wanted to hang out for a while. I met up with him downtown. He had his dog with him. We walked from downtown to the city playfields and threw the ball for his dog for a while. He took off around noon.

Still on the Winning Track

After a start that caused us frustration. We were not playing to our full ability. We won several games in the pre-season only to lose the first couple in regular season. We have now won the last two games and we are still within striking distance from the top of the stack. I don’t expect to be first place as the team that is there would have to lose four games. They rarely lose one game in a season. I hope that we will beat them in our next game. We have the ability to do it.

The game was in Moscow. I picked up the jersey’s and spent part of the day looking for people to come and play softball as four of our guys were not going to be there. This is turning into such a pain. Always having to find people. I really am done doing the managing.

We had a sea-saw battle with the other team. We were going back and forth with them passing the lead back and forth. It turned out that we took the lead in the fifth inning and never game it back.

After the game I watched Jake do some umping on the next field. I thought about wanting to ump. But as I sat there watching I started to think about why I didn’t want to do umping. But as I sit here writing this I think that I would want to ump. I cannot make up my mind.

When I got to Pullman I picked up my motorhome and got it leveled in front of the house. It needs to get ready to go on the trip to Central Ferry this weekend.

Hi Scotty!

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

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

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

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

One Star Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patroling the County

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

Cows on the Loose

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chia helping to herd the cows

Eleven of Me on Facebook

I posted my photos from the other photoshoot on facebook. I have received a ton of comments from people about it. It has been a lot of positive feedback. Keeton asked how my mom tells us apart. That is because I posted a photo of me where I Photoshopped eleven different photos of myself into one.

Introducing Scotty

I got my softball line up completed at home and went to the field. We were playing Bomb Squad. I have been having a problem with hitting lately. I have been afraid of just hitting the ball and letting it go where it goes. I feel like I have to try to push it to right field where I am making a lot of fly outs. My goal was to hit the ball hard.

I did that and got two basehits. I hit once to right field and it was a fly out. We went on to win by one run. It was a lot closer than it seemed. They scored a lot in the last inning, but we lead them the whole game.

Nice Summer Eve

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

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

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

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

Big Photo Shoot

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

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

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

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

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