Rimrock Search Day Two

I came because of what Trevor said… See you tomorrow. After he said that I felt I had to be there. I got up and put on my stuff. I was bundled up well. I got to the command post at seven-thirty. There were more then one hundred people there. They were getting set up in groups to search specific areas. There was a morning briefing then the group leaders got a briefing and were sent out. There were a couple helicopters there as well.

It wasn’t very long after the teams started to go out that a hit had been made. There was a ton of radio traffic. I knew they were on to something. Then the Sheriff called me into the command vehicle. I heard him talking to someone on the phone as he was giving them instructions to find Pete. That is when I knew they found the hunter. That was not good news, because if they are looking for Pete that meant he had died.

I went sent in as the coroner. I got to the area where he was found. He was about two-hundred-and-fifty yards below the hillside from me. The teams worked to get him back up. It was a long process. After we got to the top the searchers got into two lines and we drove between them as they paid their respects.

There was a lot happening around the basecamp. People were asking how I was doing. They got me some food. I went to Adam. We shook hands and did a hug. I thanked him for helping me out. I said my condolences to Trevor. We also shook hands and hugged. I was stopped by a family member who gave me a hug and thanked me for the work I had done.

Then it was off to the funeral home for me. I worked with Pete for a couple hours to figure out what happened. I left around four to go home and get cleaned up before I was on call for the fire department. I got some dinner and went to the station to eat it before doing our daily rig checks and Monday night training.

It was a long couple days for me with the fire department and the searching. It was a sad outcome. It was the first time I had been part of something like that. It was a huge incident and it was great to see everyone who came out to volunteer their time to help search.

I started out the day as a sheriff, then changed to a coroner, and I ended the day as a firefighter.

Rimrock Search

After my brief sleep and the long night of running calls with Pullman Fire I was up and getting dressed to head to Colton for the search for the hunter. I met up with Rich and Craig in Pullman and we had a caravan down there. When I got to the basecamp there were only a dozen people down there or so. It was early on. I was teamed up with three young men. It turned out it was the son of the missing man and his friends. They wanted to put a member of the SO with each team going out searching. We were sent down the road a ways to start our search. The son was leading the way as he knew the area well. We made our way along some level ground. There was about four inches of new snow. It was covering rocks on the ground so we had to be careful where we stepped.

As we went along we got to the hillside and started to work our way down. We split up into two groups to cover two sides of a large draw. I was teamed up with a friend of the son who is in the military with him. We made our way slowly down some steep hillsides. There was brush that was hard to see through so we sometimes had to go lower on the hill to look around it. The hillside was steep enough that we had to slowly make our way down it sliding. Then we found a point where a creek made its way down the draw. It was frozen over so we were walking on the ice trying to get down in a safe way. We had to slide down parts of that. At one point we got to a place where there was a twenty foot drop. We couldn’t go up nor down. So we had to go up this side hill. There were no good hand and foot holds. It was steep and we needed to make sure we didn’t slip or we would go off the twenty foot cliff. I was really scared. At one point I didn’t have any good hand holds. I was laying on this hillside that I thought I could be a hurting unit if I messed up. There was large clumps of grass to hold on to. But those were higher up than I was. So I had me to get up to them. I was with a young man named Adam. He helped me get past that point. Then we worked our way down some more, but it was very steep still. I was thinking that we would have to make our way back up this hill side after we got to the very bottom. But the other group had already been there so we started to work our way up the hill. It took another hour or so to get up to the top. It was a relief to be up top.

We got back to basecamp and I worked on what help they needed there. I didn’t get sent out on another mission after that point that day. We had been gone for four hours as it was. Adam and I spent some time talking. I also got his facebook profile up and added him as a friend.

I was at the command post until four-thirty. I wasn’t sure if I was going to come back on Monday so I went to the son and to Adam and said goodbye to them. The son said “See you tomorrow”. I think that really help me decide that I would need to come back tomorrow.

I went home and stayed up until ten. I had to fight going to sleep, but I didn’t want to go to sleep at five in the afternoon and be up and sitting around at three in the morning.

Christmas Party at Chucks

What a day, I got up to go get the photos of the guys from the new recruit class, but they were dismissed from class at noon, just about when I showed up. So I didn’t get the photos of anyone. I went into the kitchen and talked with Tractor and VanNess about both my article in today’s Daily News as well as some history about Pullman Fire and the opening of the downtown fire station.

I was at home for a while waiting until it was time for me to head down to the fire station for daily rig checks. I got down there and worked on the rescue and engine. It was starting to snow and the roads has some snow on them.

The plan was to head to Chucks after rig checks. I got to Turner and I was dispatched to a call. So I turned around and went back to the station to run the call. After that call I went to Chuck’s. It was going well until I got a call. I had to head from Chuck’s place and it was an Echo. But it didn’t take long to find out it was a nothing call. When that call was done Turpin said he wanted to see Togs and I. He gave us each a Christmas Gift. It was a very surprised by the gift.

We went to the call and got cleared when we got there. We then went towards a second call for a gas leak, but we were cancelled. So we went to the station and I went back to Chuck’s. I was able to stay there for a couple hours before being called away. I left the house with no intentions of coming back. It was getting late.

I got a call from the Sheriff asking if I could help with a search for a missing hunter. He said I would need to head there around six-thirty in the morning. I thought it would be necessary for some sleep. But the calls would not cooperate.

I was getting called to service in a very steady fashion. There wasn’t anything that was kicking our butt, but it was just a constant stream of calls.

I finally found my bed at three-thirty in the morning only to get called one hour later.

Making the County Safer

Tonight I met up with Rich to patrol the county. We cruised around for a while. Then we were asked to go on a detail with Cooper and some other deputies. They were going to check on a trespassing complaint. The information said the person wasn’t supposed to be there and there could be some drugs in the place. We went there but no one was around. Rich started off the night driving.

Later on I was driving. I was on the Pine City-Malden Road when I went by Boozer Road. I saw a car on it. I turned around to get a twenty-eight. But I didn’t pass the vehicle and it also wasn’t on Boozer road. So I hurried up to catch up with it. But after about a mile I hadn’t seen it. I turned back again and went to Boozer road. As I was going down Boozer road I found some dust in the air.

I went around a corner and saw it was darkened out in the road. I stopped and it moved off the roadway. I came behind it and debated whether I had a social contact or a stop. I decided a stop. So I turned on my lights. I made contact. Both people had glassy looking eyes. I asked about drinking. They denied it. I did a modified HGN. I saw one sign of lack of smooth pursuit, but it wasn’t very obvious. I asked him to do the PBT. He did and it was zero’s. I asked some more questions before letting them go.

I then talked to the other guys to find out if what we did was right or what we could have done differently. It sounds like everyone had a different idea of what they would have. No one said what we did was wrong.

Coming in Early for the Meeting

I went into the SO early to meet with Cooper to cover the things that were going on in tonight’s association meeting. I have a CISD to go to so I cannot be at the meeting. I showed him my gun was clean. Then I gave him my idea for training for this upcoming year. Cooper was asking everyone if we had any complaints so we could air them out one on one. I didn’t have any to speak of.

I went back to Pullman and to the CISD. It was for the suicide in Pullman from a couple weeks ago.

Gun Cleaning Party

This morning I worked on my column for the Daily News. It is about how people substitute the word Holiday for Christmas and pretend nothing has changed.

I got a transfer to Lewiston around three. I went down with Pritch. When it was done I went to Papa John’s to get some pizza. The profits are going to be donated to the Lakewood police officers’ families.

I got home in time for the gun cleaning party. Only one person showed up to clean his gun. That was perfect because just after cleaning our guns the tones went out for reserve callback. I went to the station. I was there for several hours chatting with one of the new guys. We joked about lots of different things. He talked about his oral board and how the room was set up. He said it was pretty intimidating.

After I left the station I went to Kuhrt’s house. We played video games until around one-thirty in the morning.

More Flooding

This morning I was dragging but I had to hurry to make it to the staff meeting. But what I found was it was cancelled in favor of shift meetings with the chief’s. So I called up Ben and we started his engineer drive time early. We drove around for a couple hours to help knock out the drive time he needed to be an engineer.

When we were done I went home and started to watch the funeral for the Lakewood Police. Within a couple minutes a call went out for a smoldering cushion. I didn’t want to go, but I had told the others I would be responding and I didn’t want to not show up. While we were getting to the station to go a second call came in. We ended up going on that. It was for a water flow at an apartment building. We ended up working that scene for nearly two hours trying to mitigate the water flow as well as get some of the water out of the apartment.

When the call was done I got to see the very end of the funeral before going home to get ready for HazMat training. I went to the station. I helped get some stuff set up for Drew.

The new reserves were having their training. I gave Tyler a bit of a hard time for missing a call. He said he was having pager issues. I looked at Chuck and said “Chuck, how long were you on the department before you decided to skip your first call?” Tyler took the ribbing well.

The HazMat training started to get interrupted by multiple calls. So finally we just cancelled the rest of the training.

Drew left, but then called to see if I was interested in going out for a beer. I took him up on his offer. We were at My Office. We had dinner and a couple beers while talking about all sort of things. But one of the major topics was the changes going on at the fire department.

I hadn’t talked to Drew about it before so it was interesting to hear things from his perspective. It was a nice evening hanging out with Drew and shooting the breeze with him. I thanked him for the evening as we left.

A Very Long Day

This morning I had planned on working out but due a horrible night sleep I turned off my alarm clock, but I was woken up by the coroner pager going off and a phone call from Pete. I got out of bed and I was on my computer when I heard Pullman Transit talking about someone being on the ground and needing an ambulance. I heard it get dispatched out. Then when I heard more about what was going on I went to the station. I called Victor and he came down. A car had hit two people. They were about one block apart.

We got to the scene and helped with one of the patients. He was taken to the hospital and I helped to clean up the ambulance before leaving. It was a very long call.

I went to Moscow to get the food for Gribbon’s last day on the fire department. The plan was to do it at The Deuce. But after talking to Mark we ended up changing it to station thirty-one. I dropped off the food and went home. A fire alarm came out and I went to the station. Turned out to be a broken sprinkler due to the cold and water was flowing. We helped clean up for about ten minutes.

I went home and then back to the station to start with dinner. Due to a call I was stuck trying to do everything by myself for a while. Help finally arrived. I was able to get to the station to pick up the engine and get it back to station thirty-one for dinner and then training. Due to the cold we were not going to do any spraying of water like had been planned. So it was a classroom training only.

After that was done I went back home to complete working on my computer. Earlier in the day I upgraded my IE from six to eight. So the CSS from the duty calendar website needed some upgrades. I worked on those upgrades in order to get the page to appear correctly. Just before I was done a call went out for a structure fire at the trailer court where we had a fire last week.

We got to the place. It wasn’t a large fire but it took us a while to do all the overhaul. When it was done it took another two hours to get everything totally back in service. The cold weather was causing havoc with freezing.

I got home and I was in bed for an hour and a half before we were dispatched to a fire alarm. That totally sucked.

Mr. Lightweight

I got a phone call this morning to go over a couple work related things with the company that is looking to give me a contract. That was only a five minute phone call.

I got cleaned up and put on my Class-B uniform for the fire department. I got my boots and headed to the Deuce. I needed to show two new guys around Beasley because we had no one else to work the events with the badge pinning ceremony going on.

I spent the time when I got there shining my boots and watching TV. I waited around watching TV until the guys got to the station to start the training. I showed them what equipment they needed and headed to Beasley with them. I helped them get the beds set up and walked around some of the places they needed to know about. As it got close to two I had to run out to the badge pinning ceremony.

When I got to the Pioneer Center I gave my camera to Ryan who was shooting the pics. We started to get our seats and the ceremony started. It was one career and about twelve reserves getting their badges. I had asked Gollnick to pin me but he wasn’t able to. I also asked Chia, and he wasn’t available. I then asked Turpin. He did it. The whole ceremony took just over thirty minutes.

I went home and Victor gave me a ride up to the WSU police station. We were doing the Wet Lab drinking in the old WSU Fire station. We played some cards and ate a little bit while drinking drinks as Matt made them for us.

I was supposed to be the most drunk. After a double-shot, I was blowing a just under a point-zero-two. I was going to have a long way to go to get where Matt wanted me. His plan was to have me at a point-one-two. But as I was getting towards the point-zero-eight, the legal limit in Washington, I was really feeling the effects. I am a bit of a light weight.

We made our way to the CUE. I was feeling pretty good, but Matt also had me get a couple more shots. While there I had a point-seven-three reading near the start and a point-seven-eight at the end. I wasn’t legally intoxicated, but people would argue I was under the influence. I hardly could stay in the starting position.

I knew my eyes were not doing well, I could feel them spazzing out at max. dev. I figured I would not do too well when they decided whether to arrest or not.

Sure enough at the end they saw I had six clues in my eyes. That is the most possible. I also had about two to four clues in the other tests on average. Most people put me at a point-one-three or so. I was nearly half that. When they heard what level I was they burst out in laughter. It was a good time.

When we were done I got a ride to ValHalla to meet up with Ben. He was in town for a turf club Open To Close event yesterday at the Coug. I got to ValHalla and start to drink water. That was my drink of choice for the rest of the evening. We at ValHalla with a couple others guys Ben knows. Brandon, was one of the guys with Ben. He plays softball with Barge’s IM team. Ben is telling me I should try to steal him.

Brandon was very nice. He was easy to chat with. Ben said he is competitive and a good player. We walked to Mike’s and played some pool there. I could see Brandon’s competitive edge come out. We stayed at Mike’s until just before two o’clock.

I walked back to ValHalla with the group but I broke off with them. Ben gave me a hug and said good bye. I went downstairs and waited for my taxi to show up. I ran into Mully and Pritch. We all shared a taxi to get home.

Almost Wrecked a Patrol Car… Darn Deer

I stopped in at Pullman Fire for a while and chatted with Reiber and the guys for a little while. Southern came in with some goodies that he got from an event the city of Garfield put on.

This afternoon Melcher and I had planned on hitting the road. I got to the SO around four-thirty. We got our car ready and hit the road. We first tried to do some paper service. A car went by us at ten over. I turned on it, but it disappeared. We think it made a quick turn on a side road and darkened out. We drove some side roads but didn’t find anything.

We went to the SO and then to Subway with the others for dinner. Then we hit the road again. We went up north and worked Tekoa. Then we worked a bunch of county roads. It was very dead on some of them. We didn’t see any cars for several hours.

We were finally heading into Colfax. I was driving down Buck Canyon when all of a sudden Melcher said something. I see the deer running right in front of the car. It is bigger than life. I thought for sure we were going to hit it. We missed it, but as the deer kept running it got tagged by a box van. It was laying in the middle of the road bleeding and kicking. It didn’t take long for it to die.

The box van sustained minor damage, but not enough for it to meet the damage threshold for being reportable.

It was pretty much the end of the night. We drove to the Albion road and then back. I rinsed the car because it got pretty dirty on the county roads before going home.

Engineer Training with Victor

This morning I got ready for a trip to Pullman a day early. I was going to work with Victor. I went to Three Pigs to have lunch with Jon and the other guys.

Then I hit the road. It was a typical trip there. Nothing of note happened.

I got to Pullman and got ready for Victor’s training. I got some engineer calculations ready for him to do. Then I waited for him to get there. First we worked on the calculations. I helped him go through them.

We hit the road and drove around. We did about an hour and a half of city drive time.

Another Shot in the Ankle

At my doctors appointment today he saw the swelling that still existed. He decided that I needed to have a shot of steroids in order to reduce swelling long enough to allow some of the tissues to grow back. Then the swelling would be reduced over time. I asked him about complete recovery time and he said it can take upwards of ten months.

This evening I was on the boat patrol. The ankle was feeling good because of the shot. I am a big fan of not having ankle pain.

While I was out on the boat I had a chance to drive for a while. I hadn’t driven the new boat yet. It went smoothly. The Christmas Cruise went off without a hitch.

Christmas Cruise Ought-Nine

This morning I got up and started to get ready for my trip to Seattle. I was doing some stuff around the house. I responded on a call to the fire department, but no one else showed up for it.

I home and packed. Then I went to the bank to deposit a couple checks. I needed to stop by the fire station to get a photo of our new Training Officer, Ryan. I stopped and chatted with the guys there for a while. I stopped and got some pizza slices on my way out of town.

The trip itself was uneventful. I listened to a lot of talk radio, where the subject was mostly about the shooting of the Lakewood Officers.

I got into Renton. I stopped at my parents’ place and dropped off my clothes. Then I went to the Eagles for dinner. I forgot how far I was from Mercer Island. Normally not a big deal, but there was a major back up on Four-Oh-Five from Newport to Renton. So I had to take surface streets. I found my way behind all sorts of slow cars. I would finally get out from behind one only to have a new one move into my way.

I got to the police station with about ten minutes to spare. I got my uniform on and headed to the water for the Christmas Cruise. I was pretty tired. But the cruise was uneventful. We went to Lake Union. There were about fifteen yachts following along.

Happy Birthday Wendy!

This morning I woke up to my scanner on the Pullman Fire frequency. I heard “Delta response for a structure fire.” I got up and started to collect my things. Then I heard BKoe on the radio and running. I didn’t totally hear what he was saying, but I knew by the fact he was running and talking on the radio that the fire was real. So I expedited my response to the station.

I was joined by two other reserves and we went to the scene. We got there and got assigned to a back-up line. Soon we were sent in to help with the overhaul. We pulled ceiling and put water on the hot spots. We were asked to help with the investigation. There were some interesting findings.

I went home and cleaned up. There was about two hours before training. I went to the station early. It was ICS training. It lasted about two hours.

Following the training I went to Zeppoz. Wendy was celebrating her fiftieth birthday. I was invited to have some cake. When I got there the Uskoski’s and Peterson’s were the only ones left. I stayed and had some pop with them as well as some cake. I wished Wendy a happy birthday.

Cops Executed in Lakewood

This morning my alarm clock goes off then I decide to sleep a little more. I got woken up by a call from Melcher. So I was now running late. I rushed around to get all my stuff on and meet up with Melcher.

We got to the SO and started to get a car set up. We are planning on working part of day shift and some of night shift. Just before we were going to get going Rob came out and told us there was a police shooting over in Seattle and we should come in to the SO and watch the news. We went inside and saw that four Lakewood cops had been ambushed and executed in a coffee shop. They were in uniform and getting close to going on duty. There was now a big manhunt for the killer.

We hit the road. The goal was to hit a bunch of small towns looking for banks and schools. We hit Palouse, Garfield, Farmington, and while we were en route to Tekoa we got called for a civil standby in Rosalia. We handled that. Then looked around the town.

Melcher took over as the driver shortly after that. He made a stop and it turned out to be a suspended driver. Lucky for Melcher. He got an arrest out of the deal. We cleared the arrest and started to head out SR Twenty-Three. We were getting a lot of high speeds. We made some stops on our way to Lamont. We looked at the school and drove a couple streets in town before I took over driving again. I headed to the county line on Twenty-Three to see where it was. As we were coming back I got a guy at twenty-one over. I stopped him and gave him a ticket.

I hit Twenty-Three for a while and then switched back to Melcher. He made a couple stops as well on our way to One-Ninety-Five. We made our way to the SO for a short period of time.

We got some tape and put it over our badge. It is my first time I have done that as a cop. It was a powerful statement to me.

While there a suspicious call came out in Tekoa. We had one deputy in the area. Melcher and I left from the SO and headed that way. En route we were told the call was unfounded and we cleared. We drove down SR Twenty-Seven to Pullman to get some lunch. We went to New Garden. On the way back towards Colfax we ran into a couple more speeders. We made a couple stops and I got one guy at eighteen over. He got a ticket too.

We headed out SR Twenty-Six and worked it for a while. Melcher found a spot on the side of the road and we stopped people. Melcher got one ticket and I also got one. Both were for seventeen over. By this time we had worked more than ten hours and Cooper sort of was calling us back without ordering us to come back over the radio.

When we got to the SO he said that we can only work ten hours unless on a case. He said it in a very nice way. I would like to have the option to work a few extra hours and not be limited to ten hours every time.

When we got back we got the equipment out of the car. We worked on our paperwork before heading home.

Apple Cup at the Moose

I was invited to go to the Moose and watch the Apple Cup with the gang. I got there just before kick off. I was invited to help myself to some food they had there. I ate and had some pop. I am on call tonight so I cannot have anything more than pop.

As the game was going on I thought the Cougs had a chance. They were down by thirteen after half, but I was mad they didn’t try to score when they had the ball and some time on the clock to at least try something.

The second half things went down hill. We ended up losing by a shutout. I cannot believe how horrible things are right now. But I believe we will see things look up in the next two years.

I had to leave before the game was done to get my uniform and do the daily rig checks at the station.

I went home. Brandon, Kevin, and I played some games. We played for a couple hours before Brandon had to go to bed. I went to bed myself around midnight. I need to get up and patrol tomorrow.

Before I got to sleep, I tossed and turned in bed for a while. Finally I was drifting off to sleep when a call came in for a Delta Response for a Structure Fire at the Elmhurst apartments. Pretty much every firefighter in Pullman knows that is a bad news place. It is very old building and it would be a big fire should one happen.

This time it was only an overcooked pizza.

Feels like the Weekend

I received several responses from people about the messages I sent out to everyone. Several people responded thanking me for the messages and letting me know they felt the same way. I had stopped by the Deuce and John was there. He called me over and shook my hand. He thought what I said to him was very nice.

This afternoon I had a meeting with the other coroner’s to discuss cases that we have done recently as well as covering our schedule. Both cases were mine with the help of Anna.

The meeting lasted a couple hours in all covering the cases and a couple other procedural issues that Pete wanted to cover. When it was done I went into the SO and talked with Jordan for a little while before going home.

I am the on-call coroner for half of today, so I didn’t get into anything that would keep me too busy.

I was totally confused about the day of the week. It felt like a weekend day, but instead it was a Friday.

I went to the store and got some stuff to make Fanny Farmer Fudge as well as some of the orange dessert. I made up both of those things.

Not Spending Thanksgiving Alone

After being up until nearly five in the morning I figured I would sleep in until noon or later. But at nine-thirty I got a call from the VanNess. He said that he wasn’t sure if I was clear that I had been invited to Thanksgiving dinner. I wasn’t clear about that at all. I sort of got the feeling otherwise. But I was very happy to hear that. So now I am going to get a Thanksgiving dinner. My alternate plan was for pizza.

I went back to sleep for another couple hours. My mom called and she wished me a happy Thanksgiving. I spent time on the computer and watched football to burn time. Around four I went to the fire station to do daily rig checks. I was meeting with my partner on Rescue at four-thirty to head to station one.

When we got there I jumped in and helped out. I was assigned the gravy making detail. I was doing strong work. I was joking with Drew about getting toned out while making dinner. He said, no, the tones will go out when we are dishing up.

I put the gravy on the table and the youngens started to get served. We got toned out on a structure fire. It turned out to be someone who had a fire in the fireplace with the flue closed. We opened the flue. Put out the fire and removed the smoke from the building.

We finally got back and started dinner. It was very good. I was very happy to have been included in the meal. After it was done we were sort of talking and telling stories when a second call came in. We ran that one and went to the hospital. I got the back of the ambulance cleaned up. Then went back to the station and helped to do the dishes.

When everything was cleaned up we left and went back to the Deuce. I went home and started to write to my friends. I was writing a letter of thanks to many people who I feel I need to recognize for positive things they have done for me. They were heartfelt and I said things that I felt, but I usually cannot tell people. I ended my final one just before one in the morning.

Patrolling with Kramdaddy

I went to the SO around four to get a car set up for patrolling tonight with Rich. I had grabbed a bunch of civil papers to serve. We were able to get two of them served out of six. We did a Cougar Country run for dispatch. Then it was dinner for us. We went to AppleBees with Phil. We were there for about an hour having dinner before we hit the road. We worked SR Twenty-Six for most of the evening. We were getting some good speeds.

One thing I have found is when someone is pulled over and they have five expired registrations and four expired insurance cards inside his glovebox which is full of other crap, I get annoyed. I would suggest to throw away the old items. Have your paperwork readily accessible and quick to get to.

I wrote some tickets and gave some warning through out the night. When we got done patrolling, we went to the SO. I worked on my paperwork and got it turned in. I got the meeting minutes from last meeting written up and e-mailed out. I got home and in bed around five in the morning.

Spending Thanksgiving Alone

I was on call for the fire department this evening. I went through the December schedule and got it posted online.

I called down to the station about Thanksgiving. I was going to see if there were plans for a big dinner for everyone or what was going on. I was told last week it was brought up and all the guys made their decision about what to bring. I sounded like it was going to be just a small thing with the career guys and their families. I let Robinson know that we would not be taking Rescue down for Thanksgiving on Thursday.

Around six I went to the fire station and we were about to do rig checks when a fire alarm came in. We rolled on it before heading back to the station to do daily rig checks.

Following that I didn’t have a whole lot to do. I played around online for while before going to bed. I got woken up for a call around four in the morning. We had just gotten out the door when we were cancelled. I went home but could not get to sleep. I got up and watched the remainder of House online. I had started to watch it before I went to bed. I finally went back to bed around six in the morning.

Getting Sick

It sucks but I am getting a little sick. I have a cough and a running nose. I don’t like to be sick. It doesn’t stop me, just makes me a little miserable.

I completed my coroner’s report for the suicide I worked. It was the longest report I have done to date. In total it was five pages. I think it would have been preventable if one person had the whole picture. It was tragic.

I went to My Office this evening and hung out with CBass and BKoe. Richards from the FD came down as well. We watched MNF. Jeff, the owner of My Office, was there and we all talked. Jeff shared some funny stories about somethings that happened with in here in Pullman.

Richards and I played pool. We played about five games. I won three of them. I shot pool very sharp when we started, but I got worse as the night went on. I am not sure why.

Patrolling with Melcher

I was excited because this evening I was going to patrol with Melcher. I got up and went downstairs. The boys were up. We watched some football on TV. It was snowing outside pretty good. There was about an inch on the ground and more was expected.

We had breakfast and then they started to load up and got ready to head out of town. I was at home and watched some more football as the snow was piling up. At one point the tones went off for a bus rollover on Davis Way just outside of the city limits. They called for four ambulances. I went to the station. But it turned out there was only a bus driver on the bus and it never rolled. So everyone was cancelled. But that put me behind the eight-ball. I had planned on going to get some long johns.

I drove to Shopko and picked up two pair of long johns and got home. I got my uniform on and headed to pick up Melcher. This is his first patrol as a second class reserve. I was excited to patrol with him.

The weather was bad and I thought we would deal with a lot of car accidents. We ended up dealing with none. We got dinner with BKoe in Pullman. We traded driving after a while. The snow had stopped and the roads were starting to get better. We worked twenty-six for a while. Then we went north on One-Ninety-Five. But it was dead. We made it all the way to Pullman. I took Two-Seventy to the state line with no luck. As we were leaving Pullman I head a PPD officer getting ready to transport someone to Colfax. I offered to bring the prisioner to the jail. He happily took me up on the offer.

That was the final thing we did on the night. It was near two in the morning. We fueled the car and called it a night.

Final Cougar Football Saturday of the Year

I had breakfast with the boys and Jon before heading to the fire station. I went to The Deuce and picked up the minivan and some EMS equipment. I went to station one. I hung out there having some lunch and talking with some of the guys as we waited for the briefing. After which we headed to the stadium. I was working as the runner.

I spent the whole day in the South Aid Room, aside from the times when I walked to the top of the seats to see some game action in person. The Cougs looked good for the first half, considering all other factors. We were only eleven points out. But the second half belonged totally to Oregon State. The number of people at the game is horrible. I heard there were about eight thousand total. I am not sure if it was that few for sure, but it surely was empty.

We got some free pizza from Pizza Hut. They gave away all their remaining pizzas to people around the concourse level.

After the game I went home. We ordered some Pizza Pipeline. We also got Tricky Sticks. The boys love it. We ate the pizza and watched some TV. Before it got too late I went to my den and worked more on my suicide report. It is a very long report. It took a while to write it up and I still have some more I need to do.

When I was done I was looking at the Seattle Times website. There was an article about suicide awareness. I read it. There was one person talked about in the article. I soon realized it was a case that happened here in Whitman County.

I stayed up reading some suicide resources before heading off to bed around one in the morning.

Long Term Soluntion, Short Term Problem

Here it is again. This morning the pager goes off for a Bravo response, for a possible suicide in Pullman. I went to the station. It was pretty clear early on that it was done with a gun and the person was probably not going to be alive when people got there. I waited around the station until the ambulance crew returned. I found that it was a young male who ended it all.

I was tapped to investigate the death. Due to the circumstances surrounding the death. I went to the scene. It was not pleasant. The reason for the death, the method of the death, and the outcome all are frustrating to me. I didn’t know this person and I probably never would have. But due to the event, now I do know who he is. I have learned a little about it. I have to shake my head at the waste of a perfectly good life. I suppose one could argue with me about this being a perfectly good life. One who is perfectly good probably wouldn’t kill himself.

This bring me back to a suicide that I wrote about some time ago. It was another young male in Pullman who decided to end it all. The effects that it has on the survivors are not very good. I have heard many people talk about the people who commit suicide as being weak. They are selfish. Those comments are from people who don’t fully understand the ins and outs of the situation. It is a simplistic and sarcastic answer to something that is causing someone a great deal of pain.

Unlike people who make such comments, they don’t investigate those deaths. They don’t get to know what is going on in that person’s life. They don’t really understand the situation. They cannot feel what that person is feeling and they could not ever really get into the mindset of the person who is at the point where they feel like killing themselves is the only option they have. That is utter loss of all hope. The tough thing about suicide is many times with the proper help and counseling those lives could be saved.

Jon and the boys were coming to town today. I had planned on getting some stuff done around the house before they came, but due to the suicide I spent the whole day doing the investigation. Jon got to town. I had a chance to see him for a couple minutes and then I had to leave again to complete the investigation.

When I was done I went to Cougar Country to meet with Jon and the boys. We then went to see the movie Twenty-Twelve. Logan wanted to see it. It was alright. I hadn’t planned on seeing it myself, but because Jon and the boys were going, I decided to go along.

When we got back I started to work on the write up for the suicide. It is going to be a really long write up.

SWAT Training Helper

Today is BKunz’s Thirty-Second birthday. I met Brandon when he was eighteen. He was a freshman at WSU. I have had such a pleasure being Brandon’s friend. He is a sincere and honest guy. He went to school to be an engineer which he did for some years, and now he has become a fireman. It is great to talk to him. I also love playing softball with him. I had the opportunity last summer. It was incredible!

I worked with the SWAT team to play a bad guy for their scenarios. I was slightly uncooperative. I was able to get beat by these guys a little. They only went as far as I did. If I cooperated they didn’t have to work to keep me in line. I had a lot of fun. We did it most of the day and ended with one last scenario after it got dark.

It was a good day out doing the training.

Video Game Night

I started the day with my doctor’s appointment with my eyes. He found the pressure in my eyes were higher than normal. He wanted to check my eyes to see if there was something wrong. The eye test included dilation of my eyes. The left eye was left seeing blurry for a couple hours. It was crazy to close my right eye and see the world as someone who needs to use glasses. There was nothing I could do to see clearly through it. That sucked. The good news was there is nothing wrong and life goes on.

I went to Loco Grinz with BKoe for lunch. Then I went home and did some work on the computer. While at home I heard them call for reserves to call for a transfer. But I had a meeting with Heston and the other crew leaders. I was called directly by the captain to see if I could do it. I let him know that I was supposed to do the meeting. I said he would need to clear it through Heston.

I was cleared to do the transfer. I was supposed to do it to Lewiston. I was told the meeting would be moved back. But when I got to the station I was told that transfer was cancelled and we were going to Spokane instead. I went with Tony.

Following getting to Spokane we hit dinner at Chili’s. We got back and I went to Kuhrt’s house. CBass’ birthday was today and they were out celebrating. People went back to Kuhrt’s place. When I got there CBass wasn’t there, but BKoe and some others were.

We played Wii bowling and Scene It on the Xbox. It was fun times. I was there playing Scene It until nearly two in the morning. Kuhrt and I played two games after everyone else left. He won the first one. I won the second one. I won on the final question. I was down by about two-thousand points, and got the final question correct.

Blast from the Past for the Bumblebee

After sleeping in ever so slightly I got cleaned up and started my day. I went to Schucks to get an alternator for the Bumblebee. While at Schucks Hampton from D-Twelve was helping me. He said, you bought the Bumblebee. So he knew the rig, but it seemed he didn’t know I always had it. So I let him know I have always had the Bumblebee. That is when I found out that we knew each other back in the day through the CB. We use to play CB tag and hang out. He was bringing up the names of all the people who were around back in the day.

I ran a couple EMS calls with Winter and Irving. After the first one we went to Heros and Sports for some food. Just before it was served we got another call. We loaded up in the Bumblebee to go to the call. We finally got back to our late lunch which turned into an early dinner.

I went home until it was time to head to the station for First Responder training. I wanted to observe the class to see if some of the reports I have been given were true. As I watched the class for about an hour and a half. I didn’t see anything that I thought needed correcting, but I think there is probably a chance the behaviour that was reported probably did happen. I just hope it was a one time occurrence.

I went home and watched some TV for the remainder of the night.

Pool Playing Fun

This morning started with a meeting to discuss streamlining the response to calls to better utilize the resources we have. Ideas we brought up to use all our resources, to include the reserves before calling help from our local partners. Many of the things brought up universally accepted by the task force. It is good to see we have some positive ideas that can help make Pullman Fire more streamlined.

After the meeting I started to type up the notes from the meeting but the career guys started to go over reports on the Zoll’s. I decided I should participate in the training, just to get better at reports and because a couple examples had my name on them.

When the training was done I went to the Deuce to meet up with John to go to Jefferson Elementary school to show off the fire engine to the second graders who were going through a book on firefighters. They kids had a good time looking at the fire engine and its tools. They all had a chance to get into the drivers seat and take a look around from there.

Tonight’s OTEP training was infectious diseases. It was a short training. Chia did the training for it.

When it was done Chia, Blake, a couple other reserves and I went to Val Halla. We played some pool and had a couple drinks. I only had a couple because I planned on driving home. After my couple I didn’t have anything more for four hours so it had plenty of time to go through the system. I was mainly out to hang out with the guys and have a good time.

As we were leaving to head to Mike’s I checked my phone. There was a missed call from the fire department. They had tried everyone else on the career side. They needed someone to come in and cover for someone who needed to go home sick. They called to see if I would finish out his shift. I was so stoked. This would have been a big step to have a reserve work a shift. I wanted to do it, but I had drank a couple beers. I had to turn it down. It killed me.

At Mike’s we played some more pool and shut the place down.

New Guy on the Shift

I worked the women’s basketball game and when it was done I went to the fire station to meet up with the new guy who is on my shift. He is an EMT and in the current recruit class. Because he is an EMT he has been put on shift and is starting to go on calls as an observer for the most part.

We covered what calls he responds to and what he doesn’t respond to. Things we do when we respond, etc. Then it went into rig checks. I had been thinking about going to Seattle for marine firefighting training, but due to the response committee meeting tomorrow I decided to skip it, because the response committee is important to me.

Another Cougar Loss

This morning with only four hours of sleep I was up and getting ready for Cougar Football. I got my uniform on and drove to The Deuce to give the van keys to Michael. I had forgotten to put them in the keybox when I left the station last night.

I was going to the station when I got a call from the developer lead of the contract I was interviewing for. It went about thirty minutes total. Kittelson and I went to station one together in my rig. We went down for lunch and the game briefing. I had a couple hamburgers and enjoyed the company of everyone until the briefing started.

I am working North One with Kittelson. Bien is going to be coming to the game to meet up with us and hang out. We stopped at Safeway to get some pop and supplies for the game. I found that Safeway switched from Pepsi to Coke. I was very annoyed by this. I am going to write some letters about this.

We got to the stadium and made our way to our place over the tunnel. It wasn’t too bad on the weather side of things to start. I was wondering how my ankle would deal with the standing around. I was a hurting unit by the end of the game. Without a doubt. I hope things will get better. Kittelson and I talked about being a reserve sheriff. Keith showed up and we watched the game together. Bien made is way around a little bit going to see Reed and a couple others. For the most part he stayed with us the whole time.

The Cougs were not doing too well. They threw three INT’s in the first quarter along. UCLA scored on their first possession because of the first INT the Cougs gave up. UCLA had a short field for a lot of the first quarter. The Cougs were only able to score one touchdown the whole game. The Cougs were having such a hard time they fans cheered for firstdowns. By half time many of the fans had left this extremely cold game. Near the end of the game one could almost count the number of people left. The Cougs went on to lose.

When it was done we went back to the station and turned in our equipment. I went home and took some medicine for my ankle and had some dinner. I was meeting up with Victor for working Jeff Duhman at Beasley. I was looking forward to working that event. We made our way to Beasley. The doors were open and people were pouring in. It looked like a lot of people were going to be coming. I hung out in the first aid room for the opening act. Once it came time for Dunham to come on I went to the place where we stage on the concourse level. He came up on stage to a lot of cheers. There were a couple bits it was doing that was cracking me up. I was laughing really hard. He did a couple things on the local area and poked a little bit of fun at the football game.

It was a good show and people were having a good time. Once it was done I went home. It was nearly eleven-thirty at night. I got a hold of Keith who was over at Reed’s. He had me come over and bring some batteries. I went to Dissmores to get the batteries. They only had two lines open so it took a while to get through the line.

I got to Reed’s and we played some Rock Band. It was my first time playing. I had a good time playing that. I had a couple beers while I was there. Keith was crunk in a big way. He was starting to go down hill while I was there. I think he is going to be hating life. Before I left it wasn’t liking life too much as it was. I went home around two-thirty in the morning. I didn’t stay up too late before going to bed. I was really tired because I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

Interview in Spokane

The plan for the day was to drive to Spokane and interview for a contract position for a company based in Spokane. I would work from home with the position. The trip up to Spokane went just fine. The roads were good. I saw some snow flakes hitting when I was getting close to Spokane.

The interview lasted about thirty-five minutes. I went to get some pizza from Rocky Rococo’s downtown and then hit the road. But the snow was falling pretty good. The drive home went a little slower as people were driving a bit slower. The more South I got the more the snow was falling and sticking on the road. After I left Colfax it was really slow going. The traffic was backed up from Pullman to near Shawnee road. That really slowed me down. I took the Albion road to cut off the traffic.

I got home and got my uniform on and went to fire station. I got the minivan ready to go and waited for Walker. We went to Beasley and worked the men’s basketball game. The Cougs were playing in their first regular season game and they won it pretty easily, but they didn’t look great. It was a win all the same.

Just before six o’clock the tones went off for a rollover accident with extrication required. Rescue rolled on it. One of the people from the accident needed to get to Spokane. But Spokane had no beds, so we ended up needing to go to Kootenai Medical Center.

I got a call from Foster to see if I could drive. I said I was at the basketball game, but if it could wait until the game was done I would drive. I was told it needed to go out now. I was told he could call a couple others. When no one was able to do it, he called me back to see if Heston was good with me going out now and leaving only one at the game. It was nearly over, so that was okay with Heston.

I went to the station and we grabbed the ambulance and hit the road. It took about thirty minutes to get the transfer moved to our cot and to get going. It was a code run. It was one-hundred-and-three miles. The roads were in bad shape until I got close to Spokane. It was slow going at time. I was really concentrating on making sure we got there safely. Then on I-Ninety the road was fine. We were able to cruise along there very well. This was my longest overall code run and the longest on a multiple lane highway.

We didn’t get back to Pullman and back in service until almost four-thirty in the morning. I didn’t get to bed until five in the morning. I was not going to get a lot of sleep tonight.

Working without the Boot

I worked rig checks today without the walking boot. I pretty much have it off totally. Now I am get waiting until Thursday for being back to full service.

Rig checks went pretty well. I worked on the engine and helped Togs do the pump test. Everything went swimmingly.

Winning at Z’s

I got a call from Gribbon about some stuff that happened last night while they responded on calls on the fire department. When we were done talking he asked if I want to go see the Fourth Kind with him and Gecas. I said I would. I wasn’t planning on seeing the movie, but I wanted to hang out with the guys.

The movie reminded me of the Blair Witch Project. It was a let down to me. When I started to look up some information I found out the setting of the movie and the real Nome, Alaska were very different. So some of the “actual” footage were fakes. It included it being light outside when it should have been dark based on the time of day and the time of year. There were tons of very tall trees in the movie where Nome doesn’t have that.

While looking that information up I thought about what it would be like to live in Alaska and maybe thinking about getting a job around there doing programming. I started to look for places looking for people. I found one that sounds like they pay well and it would be based in Anchorage. I e-mailed the contact to ask about softball. I wouldn’t go anyplace were there is no softball. I was thinking about moving south were softball can be played all year long as well.

I got a call from Richards about going to Zeppoz. I decided to go and play some cards. It has been a while and I had some money that I could spend on gambling. I grabbed that and went up there. I sat down at a blackjack table. I was close to being busted out then the dealer changed. All of a sudden I went on a win streak that brought me way back from the bring. I ended up winning cashing in one hundred bucks for a winning amount of sixty bucks, including fifteen bucks I gave away as a tip.

We went to the Sports Page to play some pool. The Vandals were on TV as well. I watched the game and we played a lot of pool. I won a couple of the game. But I wasn’t doing too great. Blake was on pager for the fire department. He got called in. I went with him. We sat around for about thirty minutes and watched a fight on UFC.

I went home and worked on my map book. I got the final pages colorized before heading to bed.

Boys at Girls Night

This morning I was a little on the tired side. I was up late with Blake and Young. We had a good time, but now I had to be at resume and cover letter training. It was just like the class for filling out the application. It is set up for someone who hasn’t really finished college. It is for the person who may or may not even have a GED. I showed my resume when it came time for us to write resumes. After looking at it, I was asked a couple questions, then I was excused for the class.

When I got home I was looking at posts on Facebook I saw one from Casi. She said she something about girls night. I joked about bring me along. She said tonight they are going to Wehrungs at six o’clock. She said I should come along. I wasn’t for sure I should just show up to Wehrungs place, so I texted him.

I realized the funeral for Officer Brenton might be played live on TV. So I checked NWCN and sure enough they had it. I sat down and watched the funeral. Seeing the people who came and showed support was great.

When the funeral was over, some two and a half hours later I turned off the TV for a few minutes. When I turned it back on they were showing an aerial view of some people on the ground near a police car. They had a heading showing there was a shooting. At first I was thinking that it could have been a cop shot. They showed about fourteen cops cars filling up a nearby street. More and more were coming. I started to think that maybe this had something to do with the guy who killed Officer Brenton. As the coverage continued more cops were showing up. Cops from at least eight different agencies were all showing up in Tukwila. I continued to watch the coverage as the time went by more information was coming out. Sure enough they were getting the cop killer. He pulled a gun on the cops and got shot. He was down, but taken to the hospital.

What a turn of events. To spend two and a half hours watching the funeral and learning about the life of the officer killed, to almost right away watching the cops arrest the guy responsible.

I got a text back from Chris about his party. I headed over to his house around six o’clock. I was the first there. But soon everyone else started to show up. We spent a lot of time chatting and laughing about various subjects as we mingled. The guys usually grouped up and the girls usually grouped up. Then we would co-mingle. It was a good time. They were fondue party. It ended with chocolate fondue.

While I was there I got a call about a job I had sent in my resume for. It would be a six to eight week contract to do web work. I got a little background on the job and I was asked some questions about my experience and availability. I was told I would get a call in the next couple days to let me know one way or another about this job.

As the night was coming to an end we were talking some politics-like stuff in reference to department and fire services in general. It was interesting to talk about how some other fire departments do things.

Then I was asked a question about how I feel I am treated being a gay in the fire department. I said since I have been outed to everyone I don’t feel that I have ever been treated poorly due to being gay. Chris let me know that he has known for years. He said that pretty much everyone on the fire department on the career side knows. He said there are probably only a couple people who don’t really know. He said that they probably have been told, but think that people are screwing with them. It is without a doubt that the information is told to everyone. I am not sure who actually tells the others but the information is freely available. But once again no one treats me differently.

Chris said when I lost all the weight I gained a lot of respect from a lot of people on the department.

Perfecting Applications

This morning I got up with enough time to get my Toyota to my mechanic. Not that I should be spending any money right now on the Toyota, I want to be able to drive it around this winter. It might save me some money in the long run. But I doubt it.

Anyway, I had to be at the Mechanic at eleven-thirty. I know… Call me lazy. But it has only been real recent that I have been going to bed so late so I want up so late. I am not doing anything important. Just screwing around. Last night it was listening to old recording of Paul Harvey on YouTube. I really miss listening to Paul Harvey. Every now and again I see it is noon and quickly look for a radio to tune him in, only to realize that he won’t be on. I learned about Paul Harvey when I was a freshman at college. He was on the radio station the Roto had playing on their speaker system at lunch time. One girl in the group I use to chow with pointed him out. I started to listen and fell in love with his story telling and his comments. So I wanted to make recordings of those so I could listen to them in the rig from time to time. So I was doing that plus colorizing my county map and that kept me up until nearly four in the morning, which is why I got up so late.

A fuel line that was leaking was fixed plus a vacuum line was fixed. I was able to get the noise happen for him. He listened with a mechanics stethoscope and he was able to determine that it was my alternator. It sounded like some bearings were going out. I am not sure if I have replaced it since high school. So it has had a long life. Anyway, I might have to put out a couple hundred more.

From there I had to go to the WorkSource office for a perfecting applications class. It is part of my unemployment training I have to take to be eligible for benefits. The classes are setup to help people learn how to market themselves. But I think the classes are geared towards people who have no college education. Many of the topics we dealt with were very basic. I think it was good training for some of the people, but for others I think it was probably just telling them something they already do and already know.

After that class I buzzed down to Colfax for a meeting with the prosecutor to discuss search incident to arrest of a car. It is a new topic that affects those in law enforcement. So he met with the SO to tell everyone his opinion of the case law out of the Washington State Supreme Court.

Following the meeting I went home and had some dinner and watched TV. Richards from the fire department called and invited me out to have a beer. I took him up on his invitation. We met at My Office. I had a couple beers and played some pool. Young also showed up. It was a good time. We were out until about one in the morning. I really like spending the time with the guys. I am happy that they haven’t stopped doing stuff with me. Every since I left being a full-time guy I have tried to keep the relationships going with those guys. I don’t want to be forgotten.