Better And Better

Hey, look. I'm apparently not dying.

2012-02-09T13:28:00.002-06:00

Well, not at an advanced rate, anyway.*
My bloodwork came back, and I had it explained to me this morning.
My PSA looked better than any he'd ever seen.
They checked my blood pressure again, and again it was good.
I need to watch the cholesterol; it was slightly high.
And the good cholesterol was a little low.
No diabetes, which is good. Given that a couple of close blood relatives have it, I'll admit to having been a bit worried about that.
Liver was good, despite occasional efforts in the past to do it harm.

All in all, I'll take this one.

_________________________________________-
*We're all dying.

That's kind of interesting.

2012-02-08T17:08:00.000-06:00

The folks at Taurus have come up with a new one that I've not seen before:
A compact lightweight snubnosed revolver in caliber .380 acp.

Huh.

It makes sense, actually, given that there are many folks out there who don't want an auto, or due to their jurisdiction or the class of carry license that they have can only carry revolvers. Also, some may have recoil sensitivity, but are not permitted to qualify with anything less than a .38/.380/9mm caliber. Finally, with the recent surge in pocket autos in the caliber, there's a source of decent defense ammunition in that caliber, much of which is designed to achieve its velocity out of short barrels. 6 rounds of .380 at 70 to 105 grains out of a 1.75" barrel may not sound like anyone's idea of heavy thunder, but it's better than an empty hand, a .25, and a .32 (excepting the .32 H&R Magnum).

It's double-action only, which means that you'd be able to fire it from a coat pocket. The rimless .380 cases are loaded in full-moon "star" clips.

Taurus calls it the M380 IB Mini Revolver. It comes in blued or stainless, and I'm curious what S&W will call their version when they eventually jump on the band wagon to make a better version.

I'm interested in the stainless version, but I wonder: if Smith could make my .38 Special M37 Chief's Special Airweight at less than a pound 30 years ago, why can't Taurus get their new .380 acp revolver out for less than 15.5 ounces? Ah, well, it should be easy to shoot.

As a proponent of carrying mouse guns over carrying nothing at all, I'm interested.

Let's see how they go.

Like a favorite tiresome old great aunt.

2012-02-05T16:37:00.000-06:00

I am of course finding that Letters Of Note is becoming a daily read. (and time-sink, damn it all)

I am tickled to see that the late children's author E.B. White had quite the sense of humor, in denying his local government the information that they demanded. Good for him.

Yet another reason why I really don't check in with Fox News.

2012-02-04T22:22:00.002-06:00

Honestly, I'd rather listen to NPR.

I've always known that NPR had a liberal bias, but bless their pink little hearts, they think that they're being balanced, and I genuinely believe that that they're trying to get the balanced story. Given the length of the soundbites, I can usually form my own conclusions. Hell, I'll say it right here and now: I've donated money to my member station (mostly because the music was superb.).

But Fox News? Their attitude seems to be: "We know that the others are putting out nothing but liberally-biased crap. To balance this, we must-- MUST! spin our news toward our vision of the conservative viewpoint!" This, to me, is actually worse than what NPR or the rest do. It's intentionally and openly putting spin on things.

But that's not what I'm here to point out, tonight. The bone that I'm picking here is that some editor with Fox Sports News missed a unique opportunity. In reporting a new world record for the number of fat-laden greasy chicken wings (337!) consumed consumed in a given period of time (30 minutes!!) with the doubtlessly unpleasant consequences, Fox Sports News did NOT post:

"Kobayashi The Victor In No-Win Contest."

This gives me a sad.

Uh, I guess that's a good thing?

2012-02-02T17:47:00.002-06:00

I suppose that it's a Good Thing when the doctor's office sends you a bland snail-mail form letter, requesting you to schedule an appointment to go over the results of all of your bloodwork that got back from the lab following your physical? I mean, as opposed to, say, a phone call with "ZOMG! You gotta get to the hospital speedy-quick!"

I've got a little something for you. It's right here in my pocket...

2012-01-31T10:01:00.000-06:00

When we say that the art of writing letters is in decline, we need reference points. I would submit that this one, a letter from a freedman to his former master who offered him a job, sufficiently makes most modern-day attempts seem feeble by comparison.

Excercise for you physics boffins.

2012-01-30T13:50:00.003-06:00

In my new hobby gig as a hose-dragger, I've been practicing SCBA drills. We've been changing bottles in the dark or with a blinder mask on, donning and doffing at speed, going through obstacle courses with wax paper in our mask plates, etc. At the end of each exercises, you go to the compressor and refill the tanks. This is a fairly straightforward process, but one can't just dump the air from the waiting storage tanks in all at once, or the SCBA tanks get hot, and the air doesn't seem to want to go in. I mentioned the issue of the liquid boiling up, and one of the younger firefighters said, "liquid? It's just air. There's no liquid." I tried to explain that, thanks to Charles' Law (and Boyle's Law), gases under enough pressure do go to liquid state*, but he didn't get it.

We use the Scott air packs with carbon fibre tanks, and I hadn't realized just how awesome they were until we did some training with a neighboring agency that uses old Scott air packs with old steel tanks. The carbon fibre tanks are slightly larger than a 3-litre bottle in diameter, and a bit longer. They are filled to 4500 psi. The steel tanks are much larger --about 11" in diameter and a few inches longer-- and weigh about 4 times more. The steel tanks only go to 2500 psi. Here's the thing: both hold 45 cubic feet of air.

Interestingly, both packs will take each others' bottles, but the more modern carbon fibre bottles have to be bled down to 2500psi before being put on the older packs. Better than nothing, but not good. Given the decreased volume, 2500 psi on one of those is not much.

Supposedly, 45'^3 of air is good for thirty minutes. In my experience, I get about 10 to 15 when laboring. Hey, I'm a big boy.

While refilling the carbon fibre bottles, the same young guy gets really frustrated at how very long it takes to get from 3800 psi to 4000psi, which we've set as the minimum amount that the bottles must be filled. The large electric compressor labors for a long time, long after the storage bottles are depleted.
I told him that I am quite sure that the mass of air stacks with the volume-- it's not a linear progression for amount of air inserted for a given volume over a given time from 2500 to 2700psi, say, as it is to 3800 to 4000 psi.

So here is my question, and Stingray, take note:

For a given cylinder of, say: 6" X 21", what is the amount of volume of air (at STP) being inserted between between 2500 psi and 2700 psi?

Then, what's the volume of air (at STP) being inserted between 4000 psi and 4200 psi?

Express your answer in equivalent cubic feet, at STP.

________________________________
*EDIT: Though, probably not in this case. Consensus seems to be that the pressure isn't high enough to achieve liquid air, in these bottles.

Well, that's cool.

2012-01-28T22:27:00.002-06:00

As I'm now 40, I finally got into the doctor's for my 40,000 mile checkup. "Check me out from head to toe," I asked.

The doc did the normal poking and vitals-taking, and looking, and ordered a bunch of blood tests to see what all was going on inside me. I allowed that I actually felt fine.

"As to the prostate exam," he finally said, "we use the Prostate Specific Antigen test. The PSA is a much better indicator than feeling, through a rubber glove, and through a colon wall, a specific gland which we have personally probably never checked before, for change. The digital-rectal exam is 60% accurate. We can do better than that. So we'll just look at your blood, and if the PSA is too high, we'll deal with it from there."*

I looked at him, realizing that I got to leave my pants on.

I pointed at my face in a circular motion. "This is not the look of a patient who is disappointed."

They should advertise this from billboards along the highway. "We'll check your prostate, without putting our finger where the sun doesnt' shine."

__________________________
*Yes, I'm aware of a fairly high incidence of false positives. But that's okay; you run it again, and if it's still positive, you run an MRI, CAT, and/or sonograph.

Awesome. Not enough, but awesome.

2012-01-27T20:47:00.002-06:00

I love a movie grill. I can combine my dinner with my movie, and have a beer with my popcorn, and make it back home to the sitter without taking all night.

Down in Austin, one of the best of them is the Alamo Drafthouse. Now, I've never been to the Alamo Drafthouse, before. But I know that they are made of win. How? Why, I know this because, not only do they kick out a teenage girl who couldn't stop texting during her movie, but when she called to make a complaint, they posted her profanity-laced voicemail on YouTube, and on their blog. (Cussing bleeped, but it's clear what she's saying.)

My only complaint? They evidently ejected her with her aforementioned phone intact.

I get down to Austin a fair bit, and the next time I do, I'm getting a beer and a movie at the Austin Drafthouse, at one of their five convenient locations.

New kicks

2012-01-22T23:46:00.000-06:00

My new fire boots. In addition to being the most expensive footgear that I've ever owned, they're the biggest, even for me. Those are 13" tiles that I'm standing on. The huge leather steel toes make it feel like I should be doing a rendition of "Puttin' On The Ritz".

Withholding participation pending review.

2012-01-18T10:56:00.001-06:00

I haven't read the text from SOPA or PIPA yet.

I've got friends and family who make or have made their livings from selling their intellectual property. They make something up, publish it, and other people pay for it, and they eat. "Piracy" undermines that. Someone who wants their product, and should by rights pay for it, gets it without paying.

Think of your favorite musician, writer, or programmer, and ask yourself what their incentive is to publish their work, if no one pays them for that work. This interferes with the free market.

A problem, of course, is that the Internet is not a national market; it is a global one. We can't control the world just because we say so.

In general, I'm against extra legislation. And of course the test to see if Sky-Is-Falling legislation is really needed is to stop for a day or two and see if, in fact, the Sky really is Falling.

I have some reading to do before I jump on any bandwagons, though.

And so do y'all.

Thursday morning random thoughts.

2012-01-12T11:01:00.005-06:00

--James Carville calls Rick Perry the worst campaigner in the history. That's not far from right, when you weigh expectations and resources against outcome. Come on back to Texas, Rick, before you blow the cred that we need you to keep while dealing with the feds on the border issue in the future.

-- ~~Officer~~ Daniel Harless has been fired by the Canton Police Department. Let's give the CPD their due: they did what needed doing. They also reviewed the question of whether they should charge Harless with a crime, and turned it over to prosecutor.

The city law department asked the Massillon prosecutor’s office to determine whether Harless’ actions warranted criminal charges. John Simpson, chief prosecutor for the city of Massillon, said that he reviewed state law for menacing, aggravated menacing and assault, but there was insufficient evidence to support any charges.

“I’m not condoning anything the officer did, because (it’s) totally inappropriate,” he said.

Simpson said he examined the question of whether “a threat (is) being made when you say, ‘I should have’ or ‘I should do this,’ but (Harless does not) fulfill any of those.”

I'll accept that. Let him walk the earth cloaked in his own wretchedness, but no longer a police officer.

--One of our officers, who is slated to go to firearms instructor's school, has taken to completely condemning the use of pistol-mounted lasers, across the board. Given the superb design of the products from Crimson Trace, which (when mounted properly) in no way impede the normal operation of the pistol, and which are activated by simply drawing the pistol, I'm confused by his position. He says that because people will become dependent on the laser, they will quickly lose their ability to use the sights, and thus will be in Deep Trouble when the laser inevitably breaks. Only the expert, he contends, should ever have one. Our differences have come to a middle on this issue.

--There's a mounting news story about a video of some US Marines that urinated on Taliban corpses. While talking about it with my wife this morning, I was split. Hey, guys in the heat of combat do strange things. My wife sensibly said, "No. When you're in the uniform and show such disrespect for corpses, people will believe you have no respect for life. Those guys' family could have been watching. What do they think of other US armed forces in uniform, now?" She's absolutely right, of course. We need a Basic Training course called "Respect Your Uniform, If Not Your Foe". Alternately, it could be called: "Ruining It For Everybody." Stuff like this turns our enemies into a Hydra.

--On the radio, they were going on and on about the anniversary of "The Catch," which was some big play in American football in 1982. So I went to look at it. Huh. I guess it was a pretty good throw, under pressure, and a good catch. But what's the big deal?

--We have 91,000 troops in Afghanistan. I know one of them. You probably know one or two, too. Don't forget them.

--I had two DWI trials scheduled this week. Both pled at the last minute. One of them, a felony Driving While Intoxicated Third Or More, took nine years. He's parole eligible after 1/4 of his sentence is served, if he's good, and then he has to fulfill the requirements of his parole for the remainder of what would be his sentence. It's humbling to realize that a case that I put together can take away a man's life for that long. I don't take that fact lightly. I'm proud of the work on that case. If the deputy who was originally assigned to the call had made the arrest and worked the case, it's very ~~possible~~ likely that the guy either wouldn't have taken the plea, or wouldn't have pled for so much time. Is that pride talking? Yeah. It is. I'm proud of my reputation as a solid DWI investigator. We're told in classes that the defense attorneys talk among themselves about which cops put up weak cases backed by weak testimony, and which cops put together strong cases that had best be pled out. When I was a rookie, I went to court all the time over DWI cases. Now, I hardly ever go. If that's my reputation working, then I'll take it.

--There's a prosecutor at the DA's office whose first case ever to present in court was a DWI 2nd that I had made the arrest in while still a rookie. Rookie ADA, rookie cop, professional drunk, and very sharp Dallas attorney all entered the room. The Dallas attorney did a great job of flustering the rookie cop on the stand, and some easy lobs that the ADA now would have objected to he didn't catch. The guy walked. Now, more than a decade later, every time I see that prosecutor, he comes over and shakes my hand and smiles and mentions the defendant in that case by his full name. I think that case haunts him just a little bit. But some good came out of it. I improved my report-writing so that I wouldn't be flustered at my inability to answer rapid-fire defense attorney questions. The ADA went on to become a very solid prosecutor. And, looking online, I see now that that the defendant has never been arrested in my county again*. All's well that ends well.

--The guy at the bank lost my license yesterday. I'm not mad; I just want that thing back. He said he'd check to see if it was in the tube. Silliness. I think I may just have to go get another one. The last time I went by the driver's license bureau, the lady behind the counter, who recognized me, gave me a line pass. I was in street clothes and not on duty. I didn't ask for it. You're damned right I accepted it. I really hope that it works out that way again this time. Everybody hates the drivers** license office.

--I've been listening to Sallie Ford And The Sound Outside. Different. I like it.

--Spell-checking this document, I see that Blogger doesn't recognize the past tense of plea, nor does it recognize the word recuse, in any tense.
__________________________________________
*And that his high-powered attorney got the case expunged, too.

**Okay, should it be "Driver's License Office"? Or should it be "Drivers' License Office"? I could make a case for either. Or should it be "Driver License Office," without an apostrophe or an S, out of consistency with the document itself, which is labeled across the top: "Texas Driver License"?***

***I just pulled out my wallet to double check that. Duh. My license is missing.

Shooting the kid.

2012-01-07T04:16:00.008-06:00

The other day, Brownsville cops shot and killed a 15 year old boy who was brandishing a gun in a school with over 700 kids in it.

The family is upset, saying it was unnecessary use of force*. The boy was just an 8th grader. He was a Good Student**. He was a Good Boy. Active in his church. Not affiliated with gangs. It was only a pellet gun. They shouldn't have shot a minor and certainly not more than once, and DEFINITELY not in the back of the head. Tragic over-reaction, says the family.

Really? Let's listen to the 911 call. Huh. People were bunkered down. The kid was roaming the halls of a school full of kids. He'd been told repeatedly to put the gun down. He was not in Taser range. He'd said that he was not afraid to die. He was displaying this:

I've posted my concerns about bullet magnets before, and written of an incident almost ten years ago with one. I recall how, at that time, when I presented the boy with his own Airsoft version of a CZ75 from my own holster, the kid didn't even recognize his own plastic gun:

In Brownsville:
The boy threatened people with the gun, which looked very realistic.
The boy talked about not being afraid to die.
The boy was mobile in a school full of potential victims and hostages.
The boy had been challenged, and refused to put the apparent weapon down.
Bullets from the gun of a juvenile kill people just as dead as those from the gun of an adult.
This was sadly a suicide by cop, performed by an unstable kid.

The Brownsville cops did what they had to do.
And that's a damned shame.

____________________________________________
*In that ridiculous story, the reporter does his Live! stand-up in Dallas, TX. Even using Google Earth to stretch a line from Dallas to Brownsville, it's 475 miles, and that takes you over the Gulf of Mexico. Google Maps says that the short route to drive it (through Victoria) is actually 529 miles. Why the network thought that it means ANYTHING to have the reporter stand outside in Dallas, TX is beyond me. It would make about as much sense to have a reporter stand outside of a mobile van in New York City to report on a shooting in Hampstead, NC. (which is the same distance by air.)

** Nothing like getting it right the third time. My 8th grader is only 13, and actually started 8th grade when she was only 12. By age 15, I was about 6'4", 200+ lbs, and wore my first beard as a sophomore in high school. Physically, I was indistinguishable from a grown man.

BEP fail.

2012-01-02T17:06:00.001-06:00

I am not superstitious. I don't eat black-eyed peas* on New Years Day because I believe that they're going to give me good luck. Heck, given the fact that I've very possibly consumed them every single New Year's Day of my life, I have thus probably eaten them on the first day of the worst year of my life.

But tradition sticks to you, like a steaming bowl from a Big Pot Of Black Eyed Peas sticks to your ribs. For what it's worth, Homesick Texan gets it exactly right; that's the (heretofore unwritten for me) recipe that I've always used, generally served with a double or triple batch of cornbread.

But some years, as with this one, I just don't have my ducks in a row, and I don't get my dried peas on to soak in time the night before, so I have to resort to a can of peas to keep my yearly tradition. Hey, some of y'all have undoubtedly resorted to expedient measures to get your dose of turkey on Thanksgiving, too.

This year, I bumped the shelf, and a can of Ranch Style brand Blackeye Peas (Seasoned With Bacon) fell into my shopping cart. Well okay. I've always liked the Trappey's Jalapeño Black Eye Peas (Flavored With Slab Bacon), but I figured hey-- let's give Ranch Style a try. After all, aren't they the good people who brought us the ("~~Husband~~ Appetite-Pleasin'") Ranch Style Beans** of greatness?

I tried them, and something was badly off about the taste. It was... too sweet. Way too sweet. Why are my black-eyed peas sweet??

I read the ingredients list on the can, and I have an announcement for one and all: avoid Ranch Style Blackeye Peas! First ingredient: Blackeye Peas. Second ingredient: Water. Third ingredient: Sugar. Sugar?!?

Wrong.

Complete fail.

Choose the greatness of Trappey's for the safest bet.

Ranch Style/ConAgra: Get your act together, or omit the Blackeye Peas product altogether. It puts a black eye on the superb Ranch Style product line that you've built over the last century.

________________
*You will note that I say it three or more different ways here. I have always said it "black-eyed peas" or "black eyed peas," but I note that Ranch Style and Trappey's have their own ways of listing them, which I fathfully reproduce here when referring to their respective products.

**I notice in the comments at the bottom of that page, a comment made by "Homesick Texan" from back in 2008. I wonder if it could be the same one whose blog I referenced earlier in this post? Huh. What are the chances? I mean, there are a lot of Texans abroad out there, and a lot (most?) are given to homesick, but how many regularly post about legumes?

Take a breath, would you?

2012-01-02T16:11:00.005-06:00

I'm talking to you, the reporter who's looking to write your story about the murder of Rainier National Park Ranger Margaret Anderson. Yes, it's true that a little over a year after firearms were legally permitted in national parks, a park ranger was shot and killed. And it's true that it's not common for federal law enforcement to be killed. (In the decade from 1997 through 2006 for example, only 15 of the 562 cops feloniously killed* were federal law enforcement.)

But trying to link the permission of guns in the parks with Ranger Anderson's slaying is ridiculous.

Benjamin Colton Barnes, the shooter in this case, was already on the lam for having been involved in a shooting of 4 people south of Seattle. He apparently fled to what he considered to be a good hidey-hole: Rainier National Park. In fact, that's an exceptionally stupid place to go, because it is patrolled by rangers (a national forest would have made a lot more sense) and he stuck out when he tried to pass through a controlled access point. When they tried to stop him, he ran (yet another violation of the law), and when they tried to roadblock him, he shot at the pursuing law enforcement officers (a final violation of the law), killing one.

Does any part of this story suggest that, prior to 2010, Barnes would have uttered the following sentence to himself?

"Whatever I do, I mustn't enter the confines of any property owned by the National Park Service system! They've got laws forbidding firearms, there!!!"

----------
*Aside from the 9/11/2001 attack.

No good deed...

2011-12-31T20:27:00.001-06:00

I looked at the schedule. Chief was off. Sergeant was off. Rookie was scheduled to be on, tonight, by himself.

On New Year's Eve.

Huh.

I checked the schedule again. Plenty of overlap between me and the guy that I relieve later in the week.

My family are out of town. I'm scheduled off, but I'm not doing anything tonight but watching instant downloads of Battlestar Gallactica on NetFlix.

I called my sergeant. "Hey, how about I come in at 2200, or so, and help out our rookie until about 0200, and I can just shave the time off my shifts later in the week?"

I kind of thought that he would be tickled to have the extra body on, and figured that it might save him a butt-chewing from our chief, who comes off vacation next week.

"Yeah, okay. Just email me the hours you worked tonight, so we don't have you going into overtime," said my sergeant. "Oh, and hey! If you're going to be out there, be busy!"

Great.

So I guess I'll go see if I can find a drunk driver, here in a little bit. Please don't let it be you, or yours. Protect those that you care for.

And please have a happy new year, friends.

Thursday afternoon thoughts.

2011-12-29T16:25:00.002-06:00

--A north Texas Fox affiliate has started keeping a rogues' gallery of recent public mugshots from area departments. And it's greatness.

However, Sheriff Joe's Maricopa County S.O.'s page where you can vote on their best mugshot seems seedy to me. I know, I know-- both shots come from the published mugshots published by the sheriff's office. But in the MCSO case, it seems to me that THEM publishing the voting system and showing the results is unprofessional, and beyond the pale. There's a difference.

--When I mentioned to the girls that I was going to need their help grouting after a nap, I awoke to an empty house.

--Mom's coming back home from physical rehab, 9 days after the orthopedic surgeon cut out her left knee and replaced it with a titanium and silicone man-made one. The scar from her June 1 surgery on the other knee is tiny. It still blows me away that we can routinely do this kind of thing for people who aren't Steve Austin, or the president.

--Younger readers will assume that I'm referring to a wrestler when I say Steve Austin. Hang on-- [checking] He quit wrestling 12 years ago, and is now an actor? Tells you how much of a wrestling fan I am. (Which is to say: not at all.)

--If you told a kid today that a person required Six Million Dollars to get well from a major accident, they would just shrug. According to the Inflation Calculator, $6M in 1974 dollars would be $26.2M in 2010 dollars. It won't calculate 2011. While that's a big jump, I think that the bigger jump is the amount of money that we're willing to spend on medical care.

--Which is why I'm pushing my elder daughter toward medical school.

--My kids have begun taking daily walks while on Christmas vacation. The 13 year-old keeps an eye on the nine-year old. The nine year-old tells on the 13 year-old. They have a cell phone with them. It's a good system. They're actually pretty good kids.

--The wife and I are sojourning into Dallas tonight to see The Old 97s play. I've been a fan for almost a decade and a half, but have never seen them live. I'm looking forward to it. They've got some good guitar hooks, some excellent lyrics, and they can walk the line between country/rockabilly and good old fast-paced rock. Plus, I've always loved their irreverent cover of Marty Robbin's great song "El Paso."

--I like the way the drum stutters as he's making his way back to Rosa's Cantina.

--The moon last night hung like a question mark, but when I saw it setting, it wasn't bold as milk; it looked more like a tequila sunrise.

--I accepted a minor challenge from a friend the night before last, and did 12 minutes of Crossfit, thinking afterwards that I would do 12:30 the next day. Um, no. There seems to be a mass that has grown between my chest and my knees, making situps/crunches much harder than I remember them. Odd. I get that XFit is scalable to your ability. But it's probably smart to understand your baseline. We'll do 12 minutes again, here in just a bit, to see how many sets I get through. (5 pushups, 10 situps, and 15 squats, wash-rinse-repeat, during the time set aside.)

--My 13 year-old daughter came in while I was doing the sets, laughed at me, and started doing the cycles with me. The next day she wasn't laughing so much. But it still makes me a little smug that she does good pushups without a second thought. Most girls just aren't taught to.

--I need to test her for time on the disassembly-reassembly-function check on my 1911s again. She was pretty brisk at it, as a 9 year-old. I need to also check the 9-year-old out on that.

--Why is Steven Tyler suddenly in the news so much, lately? I've liked Aerosmith since I was in junior high, and he's their frontman, but they haven't really done much beyond rock power ballads for the last 20 years, and... and... okay, I'm an ageist. Tyler's a guy in his 60's who wears gender-ambiguous garb and goofy hats, and still clearly uses a great deal of recreational drugs. Grampaw should start to act his age, or sumpin'.

--

Imagine if Google Earth had to drop its pictures off at the Sooper-Sekrit PhotoMat first.

2011-12-26T23:51:00.001-06:00

Back in the 1970's, the Cold War was being fought by some bad asses with old slide-rules and new TI calculators. They wore ties and short-sleeved shirts and kept long hours and never talked about their work.

Now we know about Hexagon, the ambitious and remarkably successful project wherein 60 mile spools of camera film was loaded aboard 30,000 lb satellites, which used the most sophisticated cameras of the time to take high-speed, ultra-high resolution photographs of the ground, and to then drop buckets full of the film to be caught midair while parachuting down, to be developed and searched for clues of our cold enemy's doings.

Finally, the old farts who never talked about their jobs can discuss the most fascinating endeavor of their careers.

It makes you think about how many people performed amazing thankless service for years for our country.

More evidence that I'm a grown-up, now.

2011-12-26T22:49:00.003-06:00

Someone shared with me the link to a commercial put together by the folks at "Vooray," a youth clothing line. They made a pretty neat video by taking a Utah swimming hole, a pickup with a pulley attached to the receiver hitch, a bunch of rope and a four-wheeler, and accelerating some hard-scrubbed-but-clearly-fun-loving Utah youths down a greased hill-side Slip-'N'-Slide until they hit a ramp.

As much fun as the video looks, the whole time that I'm watching it, I'm thinking "those kids need sunblock! Were there any medically-trained responders on scene? That girl looks a little young to be out in that bikini with boys about."

I should just buy myself a walker and some Geritol, next time I'm at that pharmacy, I tell you.

_____________________
EDIT: The video is by the tremendously talented rising star video producer/photographer/videographer Devin Graham, who has his own blog.

If you've been employing a troupe of glaziers to frame your house,

2011-12-26T09:05:00.000-06:00

...then you might want to desist from viewing every stone as a hand-heaved projectile.

"We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry."

Dare I say it twice in one week? The Republican party might want to rein in and just kinda focus on the budget, because lately it's looking like mud on social issues.

__________________
H/T to Unc.

Admittedly the best.

2011-12-25T12:36:00.001-06:00

I just figured out that I'm a grownup. I'm 40, and have a family which I look around and realize that I'm the ~~head~~ paternal unit of. I'm more than halfway to my retirement.

Most important, though, is that Christmas doesn't mean that I want anything, anymore. I want to be with my family, and to see the kids open some presents. I want to see them happy, yet not overwhelmed and spoiled.

This morning, my nine year old handed me a cup of coffee and a hand-made Christmas card. On the front was a monochromatic Christmas tree and the words "Merry Christmas! Daddy." On the inside was written:
I can't be your friend, but I can be your daughter-- and I am grateful for just that. Love, [Nine Year-Old].

Huh. Could have sworn she used a Sharpie. Can't figure out why the ink seems to be blurring.

I hope your day is filled with the warmth that is in my heart, right now.

Stop it. You're just making yourself look ridiculous.

2011-12-24T08:20:00.001-06:00

Sometimes, when you've just decided to hate someone, you'll find fault with anything that they do, regardless of the reasoning. (Language warning.)

So when Sarah Palin starts criticizing the White House Christmas Card for not being thoroughly Christmas enough, it's just... well frankly, it makes her look silly, and makes me embarrassed for her.

Even if the history of the White House cards past weren't so secular, this position would be silly.

This is the kind of thing pulled by the losing team, y'all.

Christmas time conflicts.

2011-12-20T17:08:00.000-06:00

Dad called me to see about bringing the family over to his house on Saturday.

"What time?" I asked

"How about 11:00," he said.

"AM?" I clarified. "You want us there at 11:00AM on Saturday, which is Christmas Eve?"

"Yeah. That okay?"

"Um, you realize, of course, that you're planning this get-together precisely in the middle of my traditionally most-productive Christmas-shopping time?"

"..."

"It's only funny because it's true."

Wait.

2011-12-20T09:07:00.000-06:00

PigPen plays the upright acoustic bass?

It's far easier to accept that Snoopy plays the guitar.

Coffee. Make some.

2011-12-20T08:38:00.001-06:00

The crucible of my coffee roaster broke.
We ran out of coffee.
Time to roast some.

Start with the stove-top popcorn popper. Turn on the vent-a-hood over your stove. Turn the fan to HIGH.

Heat slowly. Crank that crank.

Crank it.

Really, you should probably not stop to photograph it. You'll burn some beans.You're hearing the beans popping now, as the chaff pops loose from the bean.

Darker. That's not poor focus; that's smoke coming off the beans. Crank it fast. Put down the damn camera! Cranking faster, you're knocking the hulls off the beans.

At this point, dump the beans out into a colander.

Shake the beans to cool them, and loosen the chaff. Blow on them to blow away the loose been hulls. Once they're cool, pour them into your burr grinder. Grind away some beans while you filter some water for your coffee maker. Make coffee right away.

Note: If your vent-a-hood isn't professional strength, you're probably going to want to cook this outside. It makes your house smell like there was a fire at the coffee roasting plant for a day or two afterward.

It's not such a bad little tree, after all.

2011-12-20T08:19:00.000-06:00

Little tree. Over new tile (sans grout).

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts.

2011-12-20T03:57:00.000-06:00

--The house lights were flickering all last week. The lights would dim, then suddenly brighten. I had the power company send out a guy to check the supply, and he showed me that the power coming to the meter was solid. I called out an electrician, and the guy fixed the loose screws to the common/neutral line in my breaker box in about 5 minutes flat.

--Two days later, we realized that my fancy double convection oven doesn't light up, power up, or anything, anymore. I've thrown every breaker, but that's not the issue. Need to check power to the oven, but my multimeter is dead. We're hoping that there's a fuse in the oven that I don't (yet) know about.

--Remember how I needed to get that furnace vented so that I could run it? Well, I finally got an HVAC guy to come help me. Turns out that the double-walled stovepipe stuff that I had wouldn't mate to the extant stuff, so I don't feel too badly about not being able to do it. The guy who did it for me used some skills that I was unfamiliar with heretofore. He offered to help me for free. I gave him $100. It's the holidays, and he's out of work. Now I've got heat. That furnace is amazing.

--We had been heating the house on colder nights with the application of space heaters. This kills me, because they're 1000 to 1200 watt money-burning machines, as opposed to natural gas in the furnace. But here was another thing that I wasn't really aware of until the heat was connected: I felt like a bit of a failure. Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs puts "Shelter," and "Warmth" as pretty basic needs, and I felt like I had failed my family in that respect, until the heat was turned on. Here in Texas, the winters are pretty mild, and with the insulated attic, it was pretty comfortable in the house, until, at last, it wasn't. It's funny how you don't realize that something is really bothering you, until it's fixed, sometimes. Like an irritating noise that's just insinuated itself into the background, so that you're shouting over it.

--The tile is 2/3 done. My wife is irritated that I'm such a perfectionist. But she's not doing it on the night that I work. We should have it grouted and sealed by Christmas.

--Last night I dropped by the house for lunch, and found that my wife an the girls had put up a Christmas tree. We hadn't bothered, with the living room floor in such disarray. My wife said that the lack of a tree was her own source of angst about being a bad parent. Funny what chews at you. It hadn't bothered me, much.

--Both of the girls have strung Christmas lights in their bedrooms. It's charming, but I couldn't sleep with those on. At least they don't twinkle.

--We had amazing fog last night, as the warm rains left water on the ground and cold front rolled in. I had a lady ask me about how to get to Amarillo, and I told her to just stop and spend the night in Wichita Falls. Visibility is miserable, and the weather only gets worse as you get to the Panhandle. She said that she and her beau were pressing on. I wished them the best of luck.

--Someone dropped off a bunch of .30-'06 cases at the PD for whoever wants them. Most of them have been reloaded before, and some probably several times. I shall have to check the casewall thickness before using them. I think I got about 90 of them, mixed headstamps. I'm going to throw charges and load a bunch of .35 Whelen. I've got an itch to get back to shooting that, again.

This is what I did today.

2011-12-18T00:22:00.000-06:00

Those tiles are bigger than they look like, at first glance. They're 18" by 18" tiles, very thick. We'll be putting in similar colored grout when they've cured. This is roughly 1/3 of the room, but the fireplace is about done (just pulled up the near corner piece to redo it.) . The kids are actually kind of helpful.

The mortar is the worst part. Takes a while to mix, and it takes a while to clean the buckets with the hose. The rest is simple repetition, and a powerful desire to see things square.

Bad casting, in my mind.

2011-12-14T17:40:00.000-06:00

Johnny Depp is being cast for a new Lone Ranger movie.

Yeah, this guy;

They couldn't find someone who looked a little less comfortable in mascara and eyeliner?

Apparently, someone in Disney had second thoughts about it, but it's back on.

I'll never under understand Hollywood thinking.

Sports. Really?

2011-12-14T12:06:00.001-06:00

And so yet again we have another example of sports fans* behaving badly. In today's story, some drunken supporters of the Kansas City Chiefs football team beat hell out of a guy wearing a New York Jets football jersey, after he (a firefighter and son of a FDNY firefighter) expressed concern when they yelled at him that New Yorkers got what they deserved on 9/11.

The lifelong Jet fan suffered a fractured jaw, cheekbone and eye socket, and also has bleeding on the brain.

I like to watch a good game of professional football or baseball or basketball, on occasion. I just don't kid myself that the team matters much, beyond college, or even high school. Players are swapped around like interchangeable pieces, and the guy who played hard for your team may play harder for the avowed team nemesis, next year. Most players at the professional level don't play for the town that they grew up in, except by accident. When it happens, it's a noteworthy rarity. Heck, even the move from city to city, on occasion. So it is that the fan is usually rooting for a uniform. Like the Dallas Cowboys? You're rooting for silver and blue and white laundry.

So never have really gotten the whole sports rabidity thing. It is my understanding from Cowboys fans that one is risking injury to wear a Dallas Cowboys-branded piece of apparel into a Philadelphia Eagles home game. What the hell?!? Israel and Jordan can play each other at the Olympics with less strife.

I've pointed out my dismay over such things in the past, and I understand that most sports fans aren't like this. But ask yourself, sports fan: why does this matter so much to you?

But we excuse such behavior on and off the field of play by the players, and permit them to keep their multi-million dollar jobs, so I guess that it's expected, by some Associative Property, that followers would do so, too. Most of us would be fired from our jobs for intentionally assaulting another co-worker.

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*"Fan" being short for "fanatic."

Thursday afternoon thoughts.

2011-12-08T16:47:00.000-06:00

--Why is the ATF SWAT team responding to a cop shooting at Virginia Tech? That's a local crime.

-- I'm surprised that I've only seen 29 of these 100 so-called cult movies. And some of them seem strange for "cult movies." Piranha? (saw it in the theatre as a kid) Superstar? Really? (Never saw it. Am I missing something?) How many have y'all seen? You'd be amazed at the gaps in my moviewatching history.

--Folks are worked up about the fires in the Chevy Volt electric that sometimes occur from the batteries a week or two after a major crash. This is worse than a gasoline-powered cars why, exactly? I've been to some humdingers of some fires after petrol-powered autos cracked up, and sometimes the driver have had trouble getting out* after the wreck.

--I was chatting with Stingray and Vine the other evening, and we agree that this is one of the best examples of the "mashup" genre of music that we've ever seen. As I've mentioned, Joan Jett was an early love of mine, and this "fanfaroff" guy (if he's the producer of the mashup) does a nice job of matching the hooks of some popular music. I can't figure in the RATM contribution in the bit, though.

--Appropos of nothing, what kind of computer is that with the faux wood cabinet used by the Eurythmics at 1:05 of this mashup vidjo, right after it is declared that it's Hammer Time?

--My geeky friend Susan (whose daddy really was a rocket scientist in the 50's and 60's, when they got to do cool stuff) pointed out this T-shirt as one she'd like to wear every seven years. I pointed out that someone who wore such a shirt had best know the ins and outs of what it entailed, and pointed her to this informative short documentary.

--That fanfaroff guy really does seem to have something.

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*No, not because "the seat belt trapped them." Usually it was because of injuries sustained in the wreck, which a seat belt would have helped to prevent, along with doors and windows failing to open after the wreck.

Oops.

2011-12-08T14:19:00.004-06:00

Last night my wife and I ran some errands together, and dropped by the local gettin' place. When I say "local," I mean to say that everyone in town goes to this store, and that it's kind of an informal gathering spot. One of the cashiers made some light joke about "I wish y'all would quit coming by my house all the time unannounced. Last time I barely got the guns and drugs hid in time." For some reason, this guy brings up my job whenever I come in off duty. He knows that I know that he's a pretty straight arrow, and to the best of my knowledge he's not had any problems with the law.

His co-worker then teased me that she had seen my mother (who is my next door neighbor) the other day, and that Mom had all kinds of bad stuff to reveal about me. Also clearly a joke. She finished with something to the extent of: "Oh yeah. She and I sure brought up old times!"

Good-naturedly, I responded, also tongue in cheek: "Old times? I didn't know you were on her caseload from before she retired from CPS."

Instantly, she ducked her head into her shoulders, turned her back toward her co-worker, and said, wide-eyed and sotto voce, "Is that where I knew her from? You know, that was all a big misunderstanding, and we got that straightened out, and they finally closed that case on me, you know..."

I quickly said that I had just been joking, but she kept talking, "I never realized that, the whole time we were talking..."

Cue the crickets.

I explained quickly that my mother had never discussed cases with me, and I fled the store. I found my wife halfway to the car, already. She turned to me, and we exclaimed, in sing-song unison: "Awk-ward!"

And we left.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

2011-12-08T01:02:00.000-06:00

--The Brit sailors on the HMS Ocean have a pretty funny Christmas schtick. The ending was actually pretty good.

--A ship named Ocean seems kind of odd. Like naming a car the "Highway," or "Road." Well, there was the "El Camino," but at least we jazzed it up with a Spanish name.

--Former Chicago governor Rod Blagojevich just got 14 years. Given that he has to serve at least 85% of that, he'll be in federal prison for at minimum just shy of 12 years. He did a great job during sentencing of making himself look like someone to feel sympathy for. He acted like he didn't know that it was wrong. He pointed out that his family would suffer, and his kids-- "It's not like their name is Smith." I mean come on, think of them, wouldja? All this to distract from the fact that the former Governor tried to auction off 1% of our nation's Senate, and get himself a Cabinet seat in the process. There's a reason why people have zero faith in their government in and around our nation's third most populous city. When you catch a fish that big in your corruption net, you don't throw him back. He should have gotten still more.

--Chicago's often called "Second City," so I had to look it up to see how it ranked in population. (I'll bet that the population density is a lot higher in Chicago than in sprawling Los Angeles.) Look at the changes in ranked cities from 2000 to 2010, and you see some trends. Houston (still #4) increased in population by 19.8%. Phoenix: 34%. San Antonio: up 22%. Charlotte: +36.6%. Las Vegas rose from the 63rd largest city to 30th, garnering 85% more population in ten years. Tuscon (+20%), Fresno (+20%), Colorado Springs (+28%), and Arlington, TX (+27%). Most are in the south. Most (with the exception of Charlotte, NC and perhaps Colorado Springs) are big gathering places of Hispanic populations. People seem to be fleeing a lot of the colder older population centers (Philadelphia -4.3%, Detroit -7.5%, Baltimore -11.5%, Milwaukee -11.5%, Cleveland -5.4%.).

--Rick Perry doesn't seem to realize that he's been written off. He's not yet quite as irrelevant as Michelle Bachman, but he's running a close second. I've never understood the silliness of a candidate looking into the camera, and after having delivered a 27 second spot himself, saying "I approve of this message." Well no pshit, Sherlock. You just said it. The line wasn't completely pointless when it was uttered after an actor had made a campaign advert for the candidate. But when the candidate gives the advert himself, and then utters it, it makes him sound like either he's dumb, or he thinks that you are. Oh, and for what it's worth, Rick? Your religion wasn't your big selling point before.
--I wish that sex had as much to do with my straight marriage as RINO presidential candidates seem to think that it has to do with gay ones.

--I got re-measured for bunker gear this evening. Maybe someone didn't believe the measurements. Given what they're about to spend on the gear, maybe I'd measure twice, too, before ordering. This stuff is off the hook.

--They're kinda touchy about firepeople being armed, for some reason. I assume that I wasn't considered to be on duty while getting fitted.

--We had a brief discussion about how I felt about split duties. I was fine with it. I get the concept of Area Of Responsibility quite well, actually.

--If you're 23, and you've been drinking, and you've got warrants, having a 16 year old in your pickup at 2:00AM isn't helping your case any. I'm just saying.

--

Tuesday Afternoon Random Thoughts

2011-11-29T15:11:00.002-06:00

--If you're going to try to kill yourself, don't do it in a way that will take out people that you've never met before, such as driving the wrong way down the highway. And if your car's been involved in a minor accident on a highway, do everything you can to stop that minor accident from becoming a major accident. Get your hazard lights on immediately. Get the vehicle well off the road. Don't stand in traffic or between vehicles if you're on the side of the road. Recognize that just because you can see the cars, they don't necessarily see you.
--I wonder if that guy Brooks is going to be regretful of giving a full interview to the Fort Worth Star Telegram later, once lawyers are involved. I hope not; he's a victim in this.
--Active gunwriter and retired Texas lawman Jim Wilson (a longtime friend of my father's) was collecting input from people's experiences with full-length guide rods, to include in a piece that he was writing for Shooting Illustrated's blog. I sent him a link to my thoughts on the subject, written... can it be three years ago, now?!? I think he'd pretty much finished his post before he saw my post, though. :)
--Speaking of gun stuff, I've yet to ask my .32-obsessed friend if she's played with any of the new Buffalo Bore .327 Federal loads, yet. Given the sectional density and the velocity, that load actually has some promise. Sadly, most don't seem to appreciate this interesting concept, writing it off as "just another .32."
--I wonder if the pressures are low enough for a 6-shot airweight J-frame in .327 Federal? There's room enough for 6 rounds of .32 H&R Mag, but I wonder if the chamber walls are too thin at the .327 pressures? Increasing your capacity by 20% would certainly create a viable argument for the round. Come to think of it, I'd be in the market. Carry with the .327 rounds in it, shoot matches with .32 S&W Longs in it. Carry in my existing J Frame holsters.
--I just got off the phone with a DA who, along with me, cannot understand what would be going through the mind of a person who would take a solid DWI case to court, when there's good video of the infractions leading to the stop, good video of the roadside investigation, and a warrant issued for the driver's blood, with high BAC results. Generally, the rule is, "If she bleeds, she pleads."If I were such a driver, I'd be afraid of a year in jail, in a jury trial. You just never know.
--Due to a portable greenhouse that my wife erected over a garden plot in our yard, we've got good-sized tomatoes ripening on the vine, despite a couple of hard frosts that we've had here. We just brought in the squash and okra and zucchini that was outside of the greenhouse. Their time is done.
--My daughter has a rabbit, now, for FFA. As it is a "show rabbit," it came with a lineage printed out. Don't think that didn't cost me.
--Until the outside hutch is built, the rabbit is in an indoor cage, with a slide-out tray with kitty litter in it. This is in direct violation of the "no litter boxes in my house" rule. That hutch needs to go up, in a hurry.
--If you're keeping track at home, that means that the G household now has: Three chickens scratching (only one laying), two cats a-lounging, one rabbit pooping, and a five year-old goldfish named Alice.
--I just got fitted yesterday for bunker gear, and now have a shiny new pager. We'll see how this goes.
--I went to a class yesterday put on by a prosecutor on juvenile legal procedure. I wish all such in-service classes were as genuinely useful to my job as this one was.
--I also wish that haters of the criminal justice system could have seen that room full of professional men and women of various corners of the CJS, who all were trying to get it right, rather than just to get the conviction. The prosecutors talked a lot about fairness, and giving the juvenile offenders their due rights, and the cops nodded to that, a lot. But the stereotype persists, of the cop who cares about nothing more than the arrest and the prosecutor who cares about nothing more than the conviction. I don't think that I saw anything out of the ordinary, but it's not talked about a lot.
--I watched the live-action version of my childhood favorite cartoon Star Blazers on YouTube the other night. When I first had heard of the Japanese live-action movie Space Battleship Yamato, I was excited. They have no plans of making an American version, and are contractually forbidden from dubbing it into English. So subtitles in English are as good as you'll get. ~~Derek Wildstar~~ Susumu Kodai is cast as darker than the American take of the cartoon. ~~Nova~~ Yuki Mori is at the same time less the token female (she's a fighter pilot), and more so (she's predictably Kodai's love interest) in this version. There's some cheesey stuff going on there. For all that, I liked it, and my wife caught me walking around humming or even singing the old theme to Star Blazers, which was used throughout this movie. (The music, not the words. And Steven Tyler of Aerosmith did the closing theme. Odd.)

Mobs

2011-11-26T11:40:00.002-06:00

--Any large group of people can become a mob. The difference between a crowd and a mob is how unruly they are. Mobs actually can be celebratory, and some people are strangely drawn toward happy mobs. But not all mobs are angry or happy-- some are just persons simultaneously focused on a goal. There's a reason that schools conduct fire drills; if you don't put order to an evacuation (that crowd's goal), then even a bunch of kids can become a mob, and people get hurt or die.
--The masses of shoppers flocking on store deals? They arrive as individuals, but often become a mob, if there's not some sense of order imposed. Despite some effort to control them, some people get hurt.
--Often a mob will then turn on those who try to control it. That makes life difficult and indeed often dangerous for those who are charged with establishing order among the mob's constituents. This has direct ramifications on the safety of individuals within the mob.
--To counter such situations, often the people attempting to keep order with large groups will use a show of force, to either turn the mob, or keep the group of people from becoming a mob*.
--Such shows of force are often criticized by:
A: Rabble-rousers within the mob,
B: People who do not know what they are talking about,
C: People who see an opportunity to get on the news
D: All of the above.
--When a person joins a mob, he or she temporarily loses his individuality and personal identity. As such, he or she quite often drops his or her sense of right or wrong. Peoples in mobs will destroy, attack, and even kill without the sense of individual consequence that most people would feel, taken alone.**
--Some people like to take advantage of this, and utilize mobs toward their own ends. Anytime that you go to a political rally and someone starts up a chanting cheer that is taken up by the crowd, you're seeing a crowd of people giving up their individuality. This is not to say that rallies are always (or even usually) mobs-- let's not forget that orderliness aspect of the mob.
--People like to join such crowds, sometimes, because it feels good to be taken in as "one of them." People say all the time of such rallies, "I liked feeling like I was a part of something." That need drives people more than you'd think.
--Thus, I'm not a fan of big crowds. I'm not saying that nothing good ever happens from them. (Because something good can come from them.) But I myself tend to give them a wide berth.

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*The best way to deal with a mob is to predict where they will form, and either impose enough order that they cannot become an effective mob, or to plan to have enough people on hand to disperse them when they form.

**While working security at large events like college football games, I have often politely insisted that attendees remove masks that they have worn to such events. Some variations of these have become quite popular. My reasoning is that crowds create enough loss of individual accountability as it is, without having the second behavior modifyer of a mask thrown in, too. Wish to wear a mask? Not a problem-- just do it outside, please.

Take what you will from it, I guess.

2011-11-24T13:43:00.002-06:00

The history of our national day of giving thanks is disputed.

It has become fashionable lately for people with (Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" playing on infinite repeat) to tell us that Thanksgiving is a terrible celebration of the massacre of the trans-historic indigenous peoples of North America. There's quite the movement afoot to banish the holiday, or to reinvent it as a day of sorrow and atonement.

Hey, if that's all you've got in your box, then I guess it's going to rattle around a bit.

If you're an atheist, then the question arises: to whom are you giving thanks? Certainly not to God. Okay then: how about just appreciating how you got the things for which you may count among your blessings? Somebody likely helped you get there. Thank them. If you did it all by yourself, thank the person in your mirror. Saying "thank you" is polite.

I've always liked the way that William Bradford looked at Thanksgiving: as a celebration of capitalism as a way to get through the harsh winters. It seems that before, the Plymouth Bay Colony had tried collectivism of corn, and that hadn't worked out; the hardest workers got no more than the shirkers, and they had almost starved the year before. So when they tried the concept of working for one's self, and trading for whatever was needed, the colony flourished.

It is interesting to note that some of the colonists worked for the local Indians, planting and such, to get their seed corn. I've heard one reference to them working "as slaves" for the indigenous people, but slaves don't generally get to walk away with any profit for their labors. This was an exchange of labor for commodity. That yellow seed corn was truly their specie.

Here at Better And Better, we try to see the optimistic side of things*. So on this day of Thanks Giving, I'm asking you all to simply see what is good in your life, and spend at least part of the day loving that.

______________________________
*We've also been known to fail at this, on occasion.

Random ThanksWednesday Thoughts.

2011-11-23T23:52:00.002-06:00

--I'm halfway through my second six pack of Left Hand Brewery Milk Stout beer in as many weeks. Not only does it not suck, but it is my favorite stout, now. Yeah, it's that good. And they live up their tag line: "Dark and delicious, America's great milk stout will change your perception about what a stout can be." I like many bitter beers, but most stouts out there can taste too sour for my preference. Not this stuff.
--I stayed up until past 2:00PM after a 12 hour shift last night that ended (ostensibly) at 06:00AM. Why do I do that to myself?
--Well, part of the reason was that I just realized that Having A Kindle Means Never Having To Delay Gratification, so when I saw yet another reference to The Guns Of The South and yet again realized that while I knew the story, I hadn't yet read it, I clicked Download, and started reading it 30 seconds later.
--My sergeant called me at 4:30PM to borrow a .22 LR rifle to put down a sick cat. How the hell is it that: A: Our P.D. doesn't have one, and B: A sergeant in a Texas Police Department doesn't have one? 20 minutes later he brought it back with only one round left in the 7 round magazine. I didn't ask.
--My brother dropped by shortly thereafter, and started digging through my refrigerator for a soft drink. All I had to offer was Topo Chico. He was unfamiliar, which was odd to me. What Texas boy, who grew up eating in taquerias, doesn't know the greenish-glassed goodness of that mineral water? I mixed him up an orange Italian soda with it.
--Looking at the link to Topo Chico, above, I was surprised to notice that they were advertising it in a twist-off cap plastic bottle, which admittedly was the traditionally greenish clear color. I've only ever gotten it in the returnable lift-cap bottles that feel so cold in the hand when you're hot.
--The tag line that they say in their little video on the Topo Chico site is "¡Siempre cae bien!" This means something like "Always falls well," which I suppose means that it's a good pour. But I thought that I heard them say, "Simply dive in!" I've always heard that the tiny bubbles created by waterfalls create an aerated water that will not sustain buoyancy, and people have been known to drown when diving into waterfall pools. I looked it up once, curious of the myth, and found out that there's something to it. But what of carbonated beverages? They actually can lift things to the surface that don't normally float. Example? Toss a grape into a glass of champagne or fresh club soda. Bubbles form on the grape, lifting it up to the surface. At that point, the bubbles pop on the surface, and the now-unsupported grape sinks, and the cycle continues until the drink goes flat. So which is it? Would I float or sink in a vat of Topo Chico, were I to Simply Dive In? What if I dived into the pool at the bottom of a free-fall waterfall of Topo Chico?
--How much would that experiment cost me?
--I'll bet it'd really tickle to do that if you did it while skinny-dipping.
--Having thought that thought, I'm afraid that I can't drink anymore TC until I've verified the source of it isn't a bottling plant at the base of a heavily-used waterfall.
--I recently found out that a mentally-ill guy that I put in jail for an illegal weapon, just so that he could get some social services, got 37 days. A gang-banger that I arrested for Agg Assault Deadly Weapon plead it down to Deadly Conduct and got two days. That's not fair.
--My daughter just got a "Show Rabbit" for Ag this week. That means that, while she's out of town with her sister and my wife, I've got a rabbit. If you're keeping count, the menagerie is now: 1 gold fish, 2 cats, 3 chickens, and a black (pedigreed) rabbit.

Music with Phlegmmy.

2011-11-21T16:56:00.001-06:00

My bride and I went to visit LawDog and Phlegmmy, and we all found ourselves cruising about in Phlegmmy's car. She had a nifty stereo in her vehicle that synched up with her SuperDooperPhone, so that we listened to her collection of music while we drove about. At one point I asked what the band was, and when she explained that it was Tones On Tail, I inquired if she had "Slender Fungus." She was shocked that I was familiar with the song, and queued it up right away.

How could I have forgotten the only song that I have ever heard that used the sound of someone hocking up a loogey as part of the music?

When a train passed, Phlegmmy wondered aloud something. My hearing being so bad, I didn't hear her, and asked her to repeat it. Finally, I realized that she was wondering if the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was still in business.

I could only give her two verses of the song* before I ran out of steam.

I'm tickled to surprise my friends with my musical variety.

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*Though perhaps you're a fan of the Johnny Mercer version? Or Judy Garland's version?

Lest we forget...

2011-11-21T12:01:00.000-06:00

Daniel Harless' disciplinary hearing is scheduled for December 1, 2011.
The guy he threatened and cussed out has been cleared of wrong-doing (beyond a traffic offense), when the judge threw out the State's case against him on November 9th.

There's still time to write the Canton, OH PD to express your disgust and concerns as to what message they're sending if they don't dismiss Officer Harless. Remember to address it also to the IA bureau.

File that under, "Probably no longer a problem for you."

2011-11-17T12:38:00.003-06:00

Anthony Hardwick was bummed, because his job with one of the nation's biggest retailers required him to work on his anniversary, which happens to fall on the single biggest shopping day of the year. Because he also worked deep nights, that meant that he was going to have to sleep on Thanksgiving day.

So he started a petition! Right on, Tony! Power to the People, babe! He's gotten 80,000 signatures to his petition entitled: "Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving,"

But hey, it's all good. Because now:

"Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said Hardwick is not currently scheduled to work on Thanksgiving or Black Friday."

Or, most likely, any other day, either.

See, despite what you may have heard, Target doesn't owe you a job, Anthony. They're trying to make their nut for the year, just like their competitors are. And here you are, joggling their elbow, when they're trying to do that.

While I have long been disgusted with the whole Black Friday shopping construct, I am also fiercely in favor of letting capitalists sell their wares whenever they feel like it. If you joined up to work at Target with visions of sleeping in over the long Thanksgiving weekend, sir, then I believe that you were mistaken. What did you think that the job entailed, petition-boy? Just modeling your own rendition of red over khakis on free afternoons?

Then, too, perhaps I'm just having trouble mustering much pity for people working away from their family on holidays, because I've had to do it for so long, myself.

Even dead guys can remember to Remember.

2011-11-11T08:55:00.001-06:00

Ambulance Driver pointed out that the newly-late William The Coroner must have pre-loaded a post into Blogger to commemorate Remembrance Day / Veteran's Day / Amistice Day.

It popped up this morning, to the surprise of those who use blog readers. Kind of strange seeing him post, post-mortem. (Hope to see more 'dem post-mortem posts, William.*)

__________________________
*Stop looking at me like that. The guy was a known punster. He'd have approved.

No need to jazz it up.

2011-11-11T08:41:00.002-06:00

I know that it's cute to have Corduroy Day on the day with all the vertical lines in the date.

But maybe it's better to use today to remember warriors and wars past. That's what we set this day aside for.

If you (like me) never took on the duty, there's certainly nothing to keep you from appreciating the securities provided by those who have done so. If you are a pacifist, then now is the time to reflect on the horror of war, and be glad that it isn't coming to your home. There's a reason for that, you know.

I look forward to the day that we celebrate armistice, yet again.

Until our men and women come home --and even then-- remember.

Cowards all.

2011-11-07T10:20:00.002-06:00

If you don't do something to stop an adult from abusing children, when you have full knowledge of it? You're a coward.

When you read the findings of fact by the grand jury investigation against former Penn State coach Gerald Sandusky, you see a pattern: Again and again and again, adults caught the guy sexually forcing himself upon young boys, and they did nothing. In at least two of the instances listed, adult men actually personally observed the retired coach engaged in sexual assaults of a prepubescent or adolescent boy, and they walked away. I wonder how they felt later about doing nothing to interrupt the activity?

Some called his organization. Some talked it over with their own co-workers. Some talked to the university (where some of the actions took place). The first case reported was from back in 1994.

Sandusky had started a program called The Second Mile, which took at-risk kids in. He had a lot of access to kids of that age. No one knows how many children he victimized over the years.

If you find out that someone is being hurt, and you do nothing to stop it, then* you're a coward.

Be better than that, please.

_____________________________________
*regardless of the fact that failure to report the abuse is in itself a violation of the law...

Random Friday Thoughts.

2011-11-04T12:58:00.004-06:00

--I would LOVE to have a news cameraman come along to video People Behaving Badly while I conduct traffic stops, like a highway patrolman in San Francisco had, recently.

--The other night, I had a dream in which I dreamt that I shot heroin. I've never used illegal drugs in my life, and I have a particular disgust for IV drugs. In the dream, the needle was even borrowed from SumDood. The whole time, I was panicking, until I woke up, upset, panting. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a dream. I couldn't go back to sleep for a long time. I know that lots of y'all cross all kinds of boundaries in your dreams, and it's okay, because it's just a dream. But I don't. I may have to visit the ramifications of this Never Crossing The Line Even In A Dream" thing in another post, sometime. Days later, the shudder is real.

--It was well below freezing when I got off duty last night at 3:00. This morning, the house was cold. Really cold. I really need to hook up the vents to the furnace so that I can run the new furnace that I installed back when I put in the new air conditioner.

--Last night was the only night expected to freeze this coming week. We covered the tomatoes and zucchini with tarps and blankets, and turned on a light under them, and other stuff just got comforters and buckets put over them. About 90-95% of our stuff survived a pretty good frost.

--Okay, let's see who had the better breakfast: I had a pot of fresh coffee and half a pint of Braum's Chocolate Almond ice cream. Never mind what you had; I win.

--I took a day-long class on mobile-field reporting, on how to use our new proprietary computer system. They flew in this guy to give teach us in a class of 6. The quality of the instruction was actually really quite good, and breaks were at a minimum and lunch was short. The guy gave us full measure. I was pretty impressed. I talked to the trainer, who said that he had all kinds of technical certs that he thought that he would be using, but in fact, he uses few of them, now. He got tapped out to train one day, and it turned out that he has the gift. Knowing how doesn't necessarily mean that you can impart it efficiently to others.

--I'm about to go purchase a bunch of fencing materials to repair my mom's fence. I had put in cattle panels in the back yard during the ridiculous heat, but now's the time to do it right, and put in posts and such. I have sworn never to sink wooden fence posts again, when I can put in steel posts into concrete. I'm about to test-dig to see if the little bit of rain that we've gotten has softened things up enough to let me hand-dig the 4 post holes. Otherwise? I'm renting the gasoline-powered auger. Call me a sissy if you want. I've done my time over a post hole digger in rocky hardpan. I'm not in prison.

--I discovered this week that, with a skillet, a big wok, a pound and a half of good grass-fed beef cubed, some bok choy, lemon grass, coconut milk, home-grown basil, hot red peppers and peanut butter? --I'm an evil genius of a fusion Thai cuisine. There were other ingredients, but that was the basic foundation.

--When you're at training, and realize that the speed loader in your pocket is a 6-shot one for a K-frame, and the revolver on your hip is a 5-shot J-frame, it nags at you, and makes it harder to concentrate.

--A couple of weeks ago, I was planning on trekking over with my best friend Scott to see the Alliance Field Air Show on Sunday. The night before, it rained heavily. They cancelled the Sunday air show, because they didn't have a contengency plan for when the grass parking area got too soggy to park in.* Part of my irritation with this came from the fact that an old school chum that I've not seen in 21 years is the lead pilot of the Air Force Thunderbirds, who were to fly that day. Kind of interesting when you find out that the guy you used to make fart noises with in the lunch room is now arguably the best precision F16 pilot on the planet. Would have liked to have seen him fly, and said howdy.

___________________________
*Interestingly, Alliance Airport is just a couple of miles south of Texas Motor Speedway, which had no events going on that day. Would have been an easy thing to have parking be diverted to TMS, and just shuttle people over to Alliance, for a small fee.

Remember when...?

2011-11-03T12:41:00.001-06:00

Remember when real freedom fighters didn't have to throw themselves under the 11" wheels of police scooters moving at 2 mph* to get attention, like a malingering ball player?

Remember how, back in the early-to-mid 1960s, the folks fighting to stop oppression didn't have to invent oppressive acts? They were attacked by police with truncheons, and firehoses, and dogs, and unstopped mobs with bricks.

Remember how they did not whine to get out of going to jail, because they felt that they were doing the right thing by going to jail?

Remember how real protestors for freedom have really risked everything?

Quit blocking the streets. Grown-ups have things to do. Call us when you've got something real. It's not like there's no way to do so.
________________________________
*Seriously, in one video that I saw of one of the Occupy Wall Street incidents, the scooter was moving so slowly that I was impressed that the bike actually could stay upright.

In the interest of promoting manliness.

2011-11-03T00:35:00.000-06:00

I direct you to 1001 Rules For My Unborn Son.

I did not write it, and I will never have a biological son.

But I approve.

Damn.

2011-11-01T14:50:00.006-06:00

I first became aware of William Zeus Bligh-Glover, MD back in late 2007. He posted on my blog and on others, and started up his own, under the moniker "William The Coroner." Thy guy was laser-sharp, and a fierce proponent of civil liberty. Science was science, without regard to politics. Pathologists are the ultimate Crime Scene Investigators, and of course I found myself drawn to read this guy. He tried to give me a bubba'd-up SMLE once. Anytime that we had discussions, I found that his take on civil liberty was even more stringent than my own. How could I not like him?

I always meant to call him. I had a case study that I wanted his professional opinion on, and meant to mail him some stuff and chat with him about it over the phone. Why didn't I?!? I guess that I thought that his time was too valuable for my prattling.

Yesterday I started to hear in the blog community that William Zeus Bligh-Glover, MD, a.k.a. William The Coroner had passed away. I went to Breda, and she gave me the bare details that she had: he had been sick for a while, and was found on Saturday to have passed. I was stunned. He had just blogged on Friday afternoon!! The man was only 43! Friend Rabbit and I raised a glass last night to his memory last night. Euripides had a point about debts.

When I got the confirmation today that it was true, I read his brief obituary, and learned that his family requests that any memorial gifts given in his name go to Heifer International. Hey, if Bill was like me, he'd rather you spend the money on something worthwhile rather than flowers. So I looked up what this worthy organization is about. They have a project where they get dairy cows and chickens and goats and the like to starving people to manage and help themselves. Their motto is "We give a hand up, not a handout." I like that.

I'm going there to donate right now. I don't have much. But hell, I'd have at least bought the man dinner. That's worth $25, right? Can I get you all to kick in just $5 each? Make sure that it's known that you're doing it in the memory of William Zeus Bligh-Glover, MD.

We lost a good one, this week. Make it count.

"'We're all worm bait waiting to happen. It's what you do while you wait that matters.'” --Kinky Friedman, quoted on William The Coroner's Forensic Files.

__________
EDIT: Okay, there doesn't seem to be a dedication place, though you could register your donation as coming form William Bligh-Glover, and then fill in the credit card stuff from yourself. Or just make mention on your blog or to a friend that you did this thing in his memory. BTW, though they would like you to buy a share of a heffer or a flock of ducks or trio of rabbits or a llama or whatnot, they'll also do whatever number of dollars you want to donate, to wherever the need is greatest. I trust that Bill's family chose this charity for a good reason.

Random Halloween Day Thoughts.

2011-10-31T18:09:00.007-06:00

--The Eighth Grader In The House carved up a jack-o'-lantern that was better than any that I've done in 40 years. My wife, a sculptor, was impressed. Not fancy; just well-executed. I don't have a picture because the effect is lost without darkness and a candle, and I forgot to take one last night.
--I still need to finish cleaning guns from Blogorado. Next year we should put together a gun-cleaning table to sit and chat at while cleaning guns at the end.
--While working the crosswalk during the city-sponsored Halloween event this weekend, my partner and I wondered how else girls would learn to dress up as sluts in public, if they didn't have their hot moms to show them how at Halloween.
--Yard decorations for Halloween have gotten out of hand. I don't think Christmas-style strings of orange house lights were even seen before about two or three years ago. Now they're ubiquitous. Front yard graveyards are thick on the ground. Stupid inflatable fabric lighted yard decorations? All over.
--My daughters are terrified that I'm going to wear my kilt and pith helmet while accompanying them and their pack of friends trick-or-treating this evening. I've let them believe that I'm going to. Talk about the scariest thing that they can think of on Halloween! Heh.

--While in the front yard spattering stage blood (left over from my graduate studies) onto the white lace garage sale dress that The Fourth Grader In The House was wearing, I thought to myself that the greater horror for me was seeing my kid in a bridal gown.
--My younger daughter, while standing outside with the blood drying on her bridal gown, saw the cat playing with a mouse. She tried to save the mouse, and got bitten for her trouble. Didn't break the skin, and the mouse was healthy as could be. I told her that she was lucky that I got to see the rodent, or I would have her getting shots. Do they still do that? I also threatened her with a thrashing if she ever again tried to touch a wild animal of any stripe. I killed the mouse, which did have a broken back already. The cat looked at me disgustedly, and ate it.
--My elder daughter dressed in black, painted her nails, eyes, and lips black, wore a giant silver cross and a chain belt, and made her face white, and went as a Goth Girl. She practiced sighing and rolling her eyes as she announced, "Trick or treat" in a voice dripping with irony.
--My neighbor thought that it was AWESOME when I put Burglar Bob, the reactive shooting dummy, on the front porch. He liked it even better when I put the words "Free Candy" on my skeevy old van parked out front. I took some pictures, and then chickened out. I gotta work in this town.
--At the last second I had to run get some candy. The door hasn't been knocked on yet.
--I should probably fix that doorbell.

The passage of time.

2011-10-22T14:56:00.002-05:00

This month marks 5 years since I started this blog, and also half a million discrete visits to my blog.

I've met some good friends here, whom I identify with.

Thanks for the good times, friends. Let's continue to try to see the other side of the issues that we discuss, even if we don't ever believe that we'll agree with them.

And let's continue to laugh. You people crack my happy ass up.

It happened again.

2011-10-21T03:05:00.000-05:00

In the sallyport at the jail, this time. The acoustics are great, in there.

Curse you, Phlegmmy.

Might want to check those stats....

2011-10-19T11:44:00.001-05:00

According to the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, there are no cougars in the state anymore.

They have admitted that there have in the past few years been some sightings of bears in the eastern end of the state, but they're still not considered to be reintroduced.

My research, however, has found ZERO evidence that the O.D.N.R. is willing to admit the presence of Face-Eating Monkeys in their midst.

As our constant friend Phlegmmy reminds us, there are deeper traumas that can be inflicted to a person by a monkey.

Ear Worm: CURSE YOU, PHLEGMMY!!!

2011-10-17T22:16:00.009-05:00

Y'all might not know this, but the esteemed Phlegm Fatale has some vocal training. And you thought that she just studied punning.

The songs that stick in her head get sung, say, around the campfire at a certain southwestern blogmeet, and then, ta-dah!, it's stuck in your head, too.
__________________

This weekend has been work for me, but the good kind of work that I signed up for. I broke a felony case, and performed a LOT of interviews, and got confessions, and recovered stolen goods, and wrote case reports and probable cause affidavits, and catalogued evidence. Today, I was supposed to be off to go to the fair with my family (we went, but later in the day), but I had to drop off evidence at the lab, pick up warrants (the judge complimented me on my PC affidavits), and drop the warrants off with our dispatch department to input into the system.

While not in regular uniform, I was wearing a decent khaki twill shirt and slacks, with decent leather showing, and a badge, J-frame and ID completing the "investigator" outfit, as I ran these official errands. I felt pretty good about finishing up a good weekend's work, and didn't mind that I looked... well, maybe not sharp (no tie, and my creases weren't razor sharp), but pretty respectable, anyway.

So it was that, as I got out of my patrol car with a handful of warrants clutched in my fist at the sheriff's office, I noticed a woman checking me out. I wasn't smug as I noticed her eying me surreptitiously. After all, an attractive young lady such as herself was only human. How could she be expected to resist noticing... what was that sound?

It seemed to be... coming from my own mouth. What...? What could it be? I just kept listening to figure it out, even as I drew closer to the lovely lady standing, now slightly agape, next to the open door of her car in the parking lot.

"...easy 'cuz you're beautiful...." went the falsetto. What was that? Then to my shock and horror, I heard my voice attempt the whistle, and I realized what had stuck in my head.

Because Phlegmmy had been singing it.

The hottie in the skirt hopped into her sports car and slammed the door.

I heard the door locks click.

I didn't feel as suave as I had exactly 10 seconds before.

I'll get you for this, Phlegmmy.

BR3 - personal contributions.

2011-10-12T11:55:00.002-05:00

We had some achievements and contributions this year at Blogorado.

The Nerds LabRat and Stingray brought more beer, and in more varieties than I'd have thought. Their contribution to the event is unquantifiable, but if you wanted to try, you'd start with beer, anime, tech support before and after, trucking equipment and persons in and out, area expertise on things biological, technical, and physical, and couture.

Old NFO brought a Yukon full of aePilot, cans full of ammo, highly accurate and well-scoped rifles (My fave this year was the SCAR-17 with the ACOG), AEP's Barrett .50 BMG, and both of their densely-packed bags-o'-anecdotes, knowledge, and experience. When I grow up, I want to be Old NFO. Maybe in the meantime, I could be AEP. AEP also brought with him a disturbingly specific disdain for personal boundaries. (Ouch!) They did the major range set-up and planning, along with...

LawDog. He had just presented his ladyfriend Phlegmmy a new CircuitJudge, and wanted to have a safe place for her to shoot it. I will have to say that a great deal of planning goes on, when there are several type-A personalities, all with strong wills and valid points, planning a safe range, with the added bonus of a fall-out zone for a .50 BMG, on a drought-hardened, flat landscape. (LawDog, like me, is a TCLEOSE-certified firearms instructor. Neither one of us did much (if any) instructing, but we were all on board with regards to keeping it safe.*)

As mentioned, PhlegmFatale arrived with LawDog (or did he arrive with her?). She brought her new play-pretty. She brought her abilities as a social coordinator. (As FarmGirl is the Founder of the Blogorado social event, Phlegmmy is the event's de facto Social Secretary.) Phlegmmy also contributed a gift of a cute little wookie doll to...

Tamara. Tam had been invited for years, but the distance combined with her disdain for flying made it a bit problematic. She finally met us half-way, literally. She drove down to my house, and I drove her the rest of the way to Blogorado, after an overnight at Chez Phlegmmy's. Every time we started a trip, the wookie doll (firmly affixed to Tam's turse**) would be given a quick squeeze, and we would begin rolling with the echoing of a small Chewbaca roar. As God as my witness, Chewie was my co-pilot. Tamara also brought lots of pistol ammo, and some very neat pistols that she shot and shot and shot, very well. The rest of us shot and shot and shot her ammo, too. Tam left an M&P on her hip the entire time that she was there, unless she was sleeping, bathing, or shooting the thing. I never thought that I'd see the day...

Me. I like to think that my main contribution was wheedling Tam into coming. I brought a few guns, and some ammo, but mostly I got the 5'12" redhead gunnut BroadRiparrian to make the event. (Not that I could have gotten her to do anything that she didn't want to do, but hey, having your friends hassle you until you can't put them off has caused more than one fun get-together to occur.) I also brought some fine single-malt scotch sent by Accountant Bill.

ChristinaLMT arrived with Sci-Fi and his wife (Dang it, I know her name, but not her online moniker). Christina brought a massage chair, table, and lots of ability as a licensed massage therapist to the event. Sci-Fi and B. brought Christina and their charm. They came from Massachusetts, which means that they had the furthest to come, and had the biggest culture shock of anyone there, I think.

Evyl Robot and his lovely wife Jennifer arrived with kids in tow. The kids got to shoot a lot. E.R. brought some great holsters of his own making, some for practical purposes, and some for serious show. They also had some great Performance Center Smiths, a Winchester .22 that I'd really like to steal, and Jennifer's FN pistol. I didn't shoot the FN. It was getting rave reviews, but was giant. I was afraid that I'd fall in love with it, and then have to buy one, and a new holster, and then change my carry style, and...

Ambulance Driver brought me my bithday present, made partially by his ex-wife, and partially by his own hands: a kilt. (I thought that it paired nicely with my pith helmet and a Webley Mk IV.) Seriously, it is well-made. Ambo Driver also helped me enormously, by carting my half-a-butchered FarmFam steer home in the back of his pickup. Do I have to mention that AD brought his own Bag-O-Anecdotes, honed and rendered with Old World Craftmanship?

Salamander brought his gentle self and his kneebeards to the table. He wielded a small crossbow.

My Dad JPG brought his bride Holly with him, for the first time. He also offered to tote some of my gear home with him. (My car's small, okay?)

Spear brought a dadgummed handcannon, crafted by his own hands. It was purely awesome to shoot. He also brought some other guns that he's been tinkering with at gunsmithing school. He also brought a very nice bowler hat and a very nice bit of facial hair. He also brought another gunsmith (I promised him that I'd try to remember his name, and look at me fail).

Farmgirl arrived. She brought her new (to her) Winchester levergun in .22 WMRF. Despite the perfectly-correct-for-the-model horrible open rear sight, we all found it to be a very accurate rifle, and easy to shoot well. FarmGirl, you will recall, was the impetus for this whole wonderful gathering.

While we're on the subject of those responsible for the whole get-together, I need to mention FarmMom and FarmDad. When I arrived, FarmMom gave me a big hug (Note: hugs are actually kind of contagious at Blogorado.), and FarmDad gave me a firm handshake and told me "Welcome home." And I believe he meant it. Their contributions were everything. A safe and empty place to shoot, enormous amounts of good food for supper and lunch, a happy place for evening conversation each night, prepping the range, dragging out a DADGUMMED CAR to shoot at from about a quarter mile.... it goes on and on. They made special efforts specifically on my own behalf, too. Farm Mamaw was feeling under the weather, some, but she provided the gathering spot locale, and participated in the conversation, too. Farm Mom got me and Phlegmmy a cake, and it was lovely, and tasted good. We washed it down with coffee.

What a fine birthday weekend trip for me.

While the decompression was palpable, my PBD set in pretty firmly by noon, yesterday. This was about the time that our little caravan broke up, and Tam and Ambulance Driver simultaneously drove away from my house.
___________________
*We ended up using a basic radial pattern of shooting stations for trap, handgun, short-range rifle, and long-range rifle, with a car park and rest area in the middle.
**Tactical purse. You should see what comes out of that thing.

Self-Justification

2011-10-02T17:42:00.007-05:00

Tam, as she often does, hit the nail on the head:

"Having a dedicated Agency responsible for "gun crimes" creates an incentive to find and, if necessary, manufacture gun crimes in order to justify their existence."

It is not because I'm a generalist that I am annoyed at the BATF. Hey, I'm all for specialization, in complicated areas. I just recently did a sexual assault investigation with the assistance of a larger city investigator who specializes in that, specifically on children. (And bless his heart for that. I would get burnt out within about 2 months of that work.) Two weeks ago, I provided some intel to a detective who specializes in copper theft. (Note: detectives who work in such areas are GOLD MINES for info on the meth trade in their area.) When I have a financial crime, I know just the detective to call on for help, and she's brilliant. Time to lift fingerprints? I call a neighboring crime lab. Specialization makes sense, in a lot of areas. Those fellows are better at it than I am, due to their familiarity with the topic. They are all subject matter experts.

Large cities generally break down their police department's investigative bureaus into sections like Property Crime, Violent Crime, Sex Crimes, Juvenile Crime, and Homicide. That's fine; there has to be some way to delegate cases. But when you create an entire agency that specializes in a specific type of crime, you run into problems. What if that type of crime is down that year? Their budget could be in jeopardy.

The problem is compounded when the premise of the crime fighting is in question, in the first place.

But we have a system in this nation, good or bad, that dictates how guns are sold from dealers. It's hackneyed, but it's followed. As FFL licencees are generally quite law-abiding folks, the prospect of committing felonies rightfully scares hell out of them. So obvious straw purchases are not permitted. Clear felonies in firearms purchases are denied. Unless. Unless the aforementioned hackneyed system is intentionally sabotaged by the agency ordering its use, to create more crimes for that agency to investigate.

This would be akin to the FBI ordering that the back door to banks be left unlocked, and the vaults be left ajar, with the alarm passcode be scrawled in pencil on the wall next to the door.

I believe that I've mentioned before that using numbers to try to promote your own crime-fighting agency is a double-edged sword. Trying to pump them up is a Bad Idea, friends. Look, you chief administrators: You're spin doctors, right? Right. If crime stats are down, we all know that you can just say "Look at what an effective job that we've done! Our agency needs more resources to continue in our quest to stamp out crime!" And if crime stats are up, you get to sound the alarm that "Now, more than ever, we need more resources to fight the growing trend of crime!" You can serve it up either way. We all know that.

You don't have to make more. Got it?
_______

While at a nearby police range recently, I had to wait for the local ATF agents to finish their stuff. One of them, a friendly lady agent, chatted with me for a few minutes. I enjoyed our talk, but wondered if she was as annoyed by my shirt as I was by her hat. Her aftermarket custom hat was similar the standard ATF ballcap, but with the words "Mt. Carmel" embroidered in smaller letters below the agency letters. Marvy.

She didn't remark on my shirt, which I had ordered a decade ago through the assistance of the now-famous author and then fellow TFL denizen, Larry Correia:

I don't know if she understood the meaning behind the words "MOLON LABE." If she did, I suspect that she would have been confused as to why I, a cop, ordered the shirt, and why I, a cop, still wear the shirt.

Meanwhile, I don't have to guess whether the sentiment would have been understood by the Texas Ranger recently seen in the area with the Gonzales battle flag scrimshawed on the outside grip panel of his ivory stocks of his 1911 pistol.

But there I go, taking up for generalists. :)

Just stop it.

2011-09-10T10:21:00.005-05:00

My mother and I were talking today about the public reaction to the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001.

And we're appalled.

"Commemoration" isn't such a distant cousin of a word from "Celebration." It would seem that many have forgotten that there actually is a difference, and that those that know it seem to be blurring the lines pretty heavily.

I get that no documentarian worth his salt would fail to comment on the tenth year passing since our nation suffered an attack that had such ramifications. But the goal of those watching, and the goal of those showing the documentaries seems to be a type of entertainment.

Like a horror movie. "Ooh, it gives me shivers to remember where I was when I heard..."

I'm disgusted, and I'm not participating.

You want to wave our flag? Push to bring back most of our troops from the errands we've sent them on. Push to sunset the Patriot Act for good. Push to fire the TSA. Push to strengthen our borders (still as porous as they were 10 years ago, from what I see.).

But don't use some arbitrary tenth anniversary of the death of our countrymen as a day to be entertained. Do something GOOD for your country for a change, would you, please? We've spent the last 3,652 days dismantling it.

What's important to you?

2011-09-08T13:15:00.006-05:00

Last night, either by some mechanical problem with their vehicle, or through mischief, someone set a chain of fires along a stretch of highway near town. I was on duty, and was called to assist. When I arrived, the flames were 12 to 15 feet high, and running south with the 26 mph wind (and 25% humidity) at about the speed of a child running, or a man jogging. By this point, my sergeant was already driving a brush truck across the prairie while its lone fireman fought the fire from the rear deck. I looked at traffic, decided that directing traffic (on the north side of the fire) was pointless, and hurried west of the fire to flank it and get south of it. There were houses a mile south of there.

As I moved west on the highway, I observed several smaller fires that were smoldering in the south ditch, luckily stopped by the recently plowed fields just across the ditch. I grew angry.

I got to the south side of the fire, and started notifying homeowners. My spiel went like this:

"Howdy, I'm Matt G with the Podunk Police Department. There's a fast-moving, growing wildfire north of here, and it's coming this way fast. Pack up what's important to you, right now. No furniture. Get ready to go. I recommend that you leave immediately, but if you stay, please leave when you see the flames. Please know that our fire departments are doing everything that they can to protect your house, and more fire personnel are en route to do just that."

Then I would move to the next house.

What mildly impressed me was that no one argued. They got right to it. At one point, I parked my car in the driveway of one family, and after I spoke with the ~50 year old man there, I moved to the three houses next door on foot. After having warned those people, I walked back to my car, and saw that first man fast-walking with two apparently heavy suitcases to his pickup. He gave me a quick nod before tossing them into the bed and quickly going back to the house. I could hear a woman and a child speaking to each other through the screen door. "Good man," I said. I went on to other houses.

We got a few dozen rural houses notified before the sixth or seventh alarm seemed to turn the tide. They got the fire line slowed, and started mop-up a few hours later. To the best of my knowledge, no habitations were burned, and only minor sheds and such went up, along with fences and a lot of dry vegetation. (You recall that we're in something of drought, right? Worst one in more than half a century?)

So last night, I was touched when I saw that my friend Don Gwinn had written:

[I] realized something today that's kind of trite, but it hit me hard: I don't have any problems I can't solve. I'm rich. I may acquire new problems I can't solve tomorrow--an aneurysm could burst in my head tonight--but I have no debts I don't have a plan to pay off early, no work I can't do, no loved ones I can't connect with.

Which is not to say I have no debts, or that there's nothing I'd like to have and don't, or would like to do and can't right now, or that all my relationships with my loved ones are perfect, or that my work is easy or even always makes sense. But today I have the sense that I have way to handle all of it, even the stuff that's going to be hard, painful or boring while I'm doing it.

What's important to you? What would you take if you had 15 minutes?
Are your problems really so insurmountable?

Regimental gentlemen.

2011-09-06T12:47:00.005-05:00

We don't like talking about it. We don't want to think about it.

But here's the thing:
One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. If I've got 360 male readers of this post, 60 of you will get prostate cancer.

What's worse, about 1 man in 36 will die of prostate cancer. It's the second leading cause of cancer death among men, following only lung cancer.

I say again: 1 in 36 men die of this detectable form of cancer.

But then look at testicular cancer:
1 in 270 men get testicular cancer. But great news: the fatality rate for that form of cancer is falling. Why? Because of early detection and treatment. We can beat it. (Currently only one in 5,000 die of it.) And if we can beat that form of cancer, then we can beat prostate cancer.

The answer to the question "then why don't they...?" is invariably MONEY.

Kick in a bit. I'm not just interested in "raising awareness"-- I want to raise cash for this.

My good friend Ambulance Driver is all in on this one. For the month of September, he's going to dress every day in a fashion that makes it easier for a medical professional to check him for signs of prostate cancer (or testicular cancer, for that matter).
He's wearing a kilt.

Now, I didn't get my own kilt put together quick enough to join in on AD in the Kilted To Kick Cancer campaign, but I wish that I had; he's got some dandies put together. He's wearing them to work. He's wearing them to the store. He's wearing them to the airport where they will likely be probulating him.

That's dedication to the cause.

I want you, gentle reader, to weigh your discomfort at the thought of getting checked, against your discomfort at the thought of someone dear to you suffering from prostate cancer. Statistically, it's going to happen to someone you care about.

Click on my link here, and put in a few bucks. It's quick and easy. The money goes straight to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, without stuff getting siphoned off for "lobbying," or overhead.

You can do this without even having to leave your doctor's office without making eye contact.

Ruh Roh, Hraggy. Brahd Shience!

2011-08-26T04:50:00.003-05:00

See now the imminent storm to the eastern coast.

The importance of this hurricane Irene isn't its speed. It's not that this is the umpteenth storm of the year. It's just that it's bearing down on a raking path through some of the most populated portion of our nation. That's it.

This is not a notable climate event.

This is weather. Just like this long hot spell for us (we missed the record, darn it. Who wants the silver? Bah!), is just weather.

Just like that long icy period that we had at the end of January here in north Texas was just... weather.

I'm not a climatologist*, but I've taken Research Methods, and I've taken Statistics, and outliers happen. We tend to throw them out.

Trying to take anecdotes and turn them to prove your personal theories on climate is NOT GOOD SCIENCE, people.

______________________
*It's amazing how many folks do tend to want to argue with them that are. I'll listen, but really, if your argument is based on anecdotes, your science ain't up to snuff, y'know?

Thinking about tragedy.

2011-08-19T01:35:00.005-05:00

I just got off the phone a few minutes with my friend Ambulance Driver. If you're not aware, this is a practitioner of emergency medical response who has dedicated his life to teaching its effective application in the field. Last year, I was telling him on the phone about a CPR case that I had worked until we shoved the guy into the ambulance. He pointed out to me some changes that have recently been made in protocol, and said derisively, "Some paramedics are still treating cardiac cases like it's 2007." I made him repeat that. It was 2010. "Para medicine has made some real advances lately," he told me. "Especially in cardiac cases."

So when I read his recent blog "To Jennifer," I thought back to the compilation that we worked on together. I have in the past few years met the people affected by that wreck, and I promise you that AD has, too, from his end.

I just wish that I could write as well as he can.

_______________
For what it's worth, I think we'll just put together a little Perspectives post again, soon. Too many of our experiences dovetail.

A time to listen.

2011-08-17T03:35:00.004-05:00

19 years ago last month, I took a trip with the woman who would eventually become my wife. We didn't know where we were going, really. We had a Ranger pickup, and some camping gear, and a very little bit of money, and a desire to go see some countryside.

We headed south, because we wanted to see the Hill Country. And we headed west, because we wanted to camp in the desert. We didn't know where we were going to camp until we pitched our tent, the first night, in the Monahans Sandhills.

We went on to explore the petroglyphs among the great climbing rocks at Hueco Tanks, because my father had told me of some interesting ones that he had found there. I went right to the ones that he was talking about. I had listened.

We went north from there, and, running on fumes, stopped at the entry to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park for directions for gas. The desk ranger laughed with a friendly smile, and advised me not to give up driving north; I had stopped 400 yards shy of a gas station just around the bend from the entrance. She invited us to come back to the park. 11 years later I did, and wished that I had come back earlier. But I had listened.

We got to Carlsbad, and saw the Caverns, and continued north to Carizozo, where we met the friendliest people I've ever met, who helped us with our ailing tire, and provided us shelter from a passing thunderstorm before giving us instructions to a (then) new campsite called Red Clouds, up in the mountains north. In these days of GPS, it is surprising to think that I found the remote campsite, up a gravel track miles off the secondary roads. But we did, and we marveled at the beauty of the oasis in the mountains, green and cool above the desert below. We had listened, and were glad.

We went on to Taos, and up into the Kit Carson National Forest, where another tire let go on us. We couldn't change it because the previous owner had put lock lugs on the tires, and they had been wallowed out by over-enthusiastic air hammering. We used a repaired foot pump every mile or so until we made it to a mountain general store, and learned that the last plug patch had been sold. A passing fly fisherman heard my plight, and pulled out from his truck an enormous tool kit, from which he removed a hammer and chisel, some giant Vise Grips and a breaker bar. He saved our trip, because he had listened. (The vacationing mechanic from Clovis would take no money.)

We went on to part of the Cibola National Forest, where if we had listened better, we would have donned some clothing before the National Guard helicopter flew over us at treetop level. We still laugh about that.

Then we drove home, across the droning emptiness that is far eastern New Mexico and West Texas. This is the Llano Estacodo that has worn out many a traveller with its sameness. It is miles and miles of miles and miles. For the first time in our trip, my someday-future-bride-to-be and I got snippy with each other. It was just the irritation that the nine-day trip was over, and our money was gone, along with our vacation time at our respective crappy jobs. But looking back, I fell in love with my wife on that trip. We listened to audiobooks on tape during that trip together (I recall Scott Turow's excellent Presumed Innocent was one.), which helped, but we also listened to each other. We told each other stories and anecdotes which are now old to each other.

Hear me: the roadtrip is an experience-building opportunity for you and your companion. In this case, my companion eventually became my lifelong companion. But I think back to trips that I've made with my father, and my best friend, and my roommates, which are benchmarks in our relationships. They're a great time to talk, and to listen to others.

Space. I can't help that I love it.

2011-08-15T00:24:00.002-05:00

Today I listened to a broadcast of RadioLab, in which they did several quick audio essays about space.

Look, I know that it's pushing it a bit to say that the Constitution authorizes our government to spend my money on space exploration. But I love that we're doing some of it. The very last story in the one-hour show is about trying to get private companies to explore space.

The first one was about the meaning that, Ann Druyan, widow of Carl Sagan, puts into the golden record that she directed the production of, just before it was launched with Voyager. I have to admit, her story got to me.

It's a quick hour, divided up into short essays, if you'll give it a listen.

Define Tea Party Movement for me.

2011-08-12T10:27:00.003-05:00

I'm seeing very, very wide variation in perceived planks of the Tea Party movement.

I personally have considered it to be a movement that I would affiliate myself with, because it was based on the idea that we are overtaxed, and that our governments had best not be using our taxes on things not directly mandated in their mission. Fiscal conservatism, in other words.

But I'm being told that Tea Partiers are:

1--Pro Gun (Well, why not? But is that a mandate?)
2--Pro Republican (Wait-- I thought that the Tea Party movement was critical of the Republican Party?)
3--Anti Democrat (Wait-- more so than the Republicans?)
4--Pro Christian (Why? Did Christ say "No taxation without representation!")
5--Anti Gay (You know how they love to spend, spend, spend! That's why all gays are poor, as opposed to us Breeders...)
6--Pro-Whitey
7--Anti freedom of speech
8--Pro War (but wait-- war costs money)
9--Anti Abortion
10--Pro-Death Penalty
11--And maybe, if they get around to it, pro-balanced budget and pro-reduced spending.

So what is it, folks? What's absolutely intrinsic to the Tea Party Movement? Please note whether you identify with it, in your answers.

Misplaced enthusiasm for failure.

2011-08-09T09:04:00.005-05:00

I was working security for a Drunken Barn Dance on Saturday, and an inebriated local businessman sidled up next to me.

"'D'd'ja hear wha' happened to our economy yesterday?" he asked me, with fumes of Bud Light stinging my eyes.

"You mean the downgrading of our loans by S&P from triple A to double A? Yep. Heard that," I said.

"Well, it means.... we're screwed," he wheezed. "'Cuz you know who owns us? You know what's gonna happen to us?!?"

"Are you implying that China, who owns a large portion* of our debt, is going to suddenly call in our markers, now that they see us at a moment of economic weakness?" I asked.

"Yeah! They got us by the short hairs! We're screwwwed!" he said, as he tipped back his coozy-covered can.

"Okay. Let me ask you: Who is China's biggest market?" I asked levelly.

"Huh?" he asked, with his beer still draining into his mouth.

"Think about it. Where is China's biggest market. Where do they sell most of their cheaply-made products?" I asked him, speaking slowly.

He looked at me searchingly with wet, rheumy eyes, before venturing, "The U.S.?"

"Right. Their best customer is the very country whose debt they hold. It is in their interest to see our economy do well, so that we can buy more of their crap, right?"

He slowly nodded, "Right. Right."

"And, honestly, when China does get paid back, they'd rather the dollar was a bit stronger than it is, so that those billions of US dollars would bring more value, right?" I don't think that he got this part, but the other part had hit home.

"Yeah. Yeah! Sir, I want to shake your hand. You're the smartest guy I know," he slurred.

I laughed out loud as I shook his hand. I didn't mean to insult the man. He had been worried, and now he felt a little better. "Not hardly, sir. Not by a long shot, I promise you." As he over-shook my hand, I began to worry about him having a sober ride home.

_____________________

A self-confessed north Texas liberal (they exist, but they're rare, and most of them, unlike Barry Green, are rabidly irritating) wrote today:

"I don't think I ever seen so many people (who happen to be President Obama haters) so giddy about unemployment and a stock market crash."

I have to admit that I agree. Hey, I don't want the guy as my President, either. But he's got the wheel of the ship that we're in, so why should we be gleeful about him putting us on the rocks?

I believe that I've spoken to this topic before.

____________________________
*Actually, only about 26% of our foreign-held public debt. Which is a lot, but it's not the Whole Enchilada, or anything.

We can't trust until we've unearthed the corruption.

2011-08-05T21:32:00.004-05:00

Thanks for nothing, NOLA P.D.

You've helped create a national distrust of police that affects me every day that I work.

While the five New Orleans Police Department officers convicted today weren't found guilty of murder, they were found guilty of improper actions resulting in the unwarranted deaths of citizens, and the cover-up of the shootings on the Danziger Bridge.

I live a few hours west of New Orleans, and regularly am told that I simply have to visit the place. For the culture. For the food. For the history.

Y'all can keep that stuff. I'm not voluntarily going to a place where, when you're in trouble, you don't dare call the cops, because you're afraid that they're crooks, too.

Having never been to New Orleans, I have thus never left anything there, and have no reason to go there. From what I can see, it is our nation's greatest shame. Why didn't we just quit the town, after the hurricane?

The time it never rained.

2011-08-05T16:28:00.006-05:00

Dad has more than once referenced the terrible drought that Texas went through in the mid 1950's. Friend Art, who lives in Terlingua, TX, actually indirectly got some land out of that. The Terlingua Ranch was a very large ranch (by which I mean to say hundreds of sections) in the Big Bend area. While it was desert out there, it could support cattle, so long as the rancher did his part to put in guzzlers and windmill-fed stock tanks. But water catchments don't work when it stops raining, and even springs and wells will dry up, when there's no water trickling down to the groundwater. The ranch fell on hard times, and the land was subdivided and sold off in parcels. Art bought some of it back when the original buyers subdivided again and sold it again, and then again bought some when the descendants of the original buyers sold off what seemed to them to be a questionable inheritance.

My wife has twice been down there in that desert country with me, and she refers to it as a "mudhole." It seems that her visits are very good for the wildlife down there; she attracts rain. The running joke out there is "We only get 7 inches of rain a year... but you should be here the afternoon that it falls!" I have seen some torrents out there.

This year is dry in north Texas. Actually, that's something of an understatement; it's on track to become the driest year this state has ever recorded. It's impressive that they're talking about the drought as state-wide, because we share little in common here in NE Texas with climate in SW Texas, which has little to do with the Panhandle region or the Piney Woods or the Gulf Coast or the Rio Grande Valley. It's 689 miles as the crow flies, from Amarillo to Brownsville, TX. It's 729 miles for that crow to fly from Texarkana to El Paso, TX. From the northwest corner of the panhandle to the SE corner of the state, it's a straight line flight of 799 miles, according to Google Earth. So when we say that "the state is in a drought," that's a point of significance.

Cattle owners are sending this year's beeves to slaughter, but more importantly, they're sending next year's heffers up, too. There's no more grass and hay, and water's now a consideration. This is good news for the consumer purchasing beef in the very near future, but next year, I expect that it's going to sting when you buy a T-bone. When I chased a young bull back into its pasture after he had pushed through a decrepit barbed wire fence to get at the meager ditch grass, I spoke to the landowner about fixing up the fence. "It don't matter," he told me. "They're all going to the feed lot tomorrow, anyway. Hay is $128 a round bale, when you can get it. I can't afford to keep 'em. I'm selling out." This from a cattle owner with diverse investments, like the bar that he was running while he spoke to me over the phone.

We're noticing the heat more than most years. I read that the state average temperature for the month of July was 87 degrees. Well, that doesn't sound so bad, does it? It does when you realize that it's the 24 hour average, from July 1 to July 31. I cannot recall the last day that it wasn't triple digit temperatures, here, but I know that it's been more than a month. The bank sign shows the highest temperatures at about 7:00 PM. My wife started to pull over and take a picture of it when it showed 112° F, but then decided not to take the picture when it dropped back down to 111°; it's just too common around here. 108° was cool enought that my elder daughter went out to wash and decorate her little sister's bike, just for the fun of it.

Foundations are shifting. My back door wouldn't open until I lay a soaker hose at the junction of the patio and the house, and ran it for about 6 hours to re-hydrate the clay soil to get it to push the foundation back up.

My yard has long since turned yellow, which grass crushes into a beige ash under my footsteps when I go to water the trees. The tomato plants are almost denuded of vegetation because they are the only green leaves near the grown. Grasshoppers have turned into brown locusts that are three inches long, which explode from under my feet as I walk. As they swarm, my thoughts turn from their polymorphism toward the plagues of Moses. This spring, we had some terrible hail storms that took out windows and destroyed the local blueberry crop. Now the drought and the plague of locusts. My cats brought fleas (not unlike lice) in, and I had to repeatedly bomb the house to get rid of them. So far, I've not had boils, but if I see too many frogs, I'm going to worry about my elder daughter's health.

I think I'm joking.

I just got a fancy new vest from SafariLand for work. It has better coverage, but it has a sealed cover over the panels that makes them feel like they're wrapped in shower curtains. Frankly, I'll take my chances tonight; I'm not wearing it when it's this hot.

Remember the collar-bomber bank heist story?

2011-08-04T15:57:00.005-05:00

Back in August, 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Wells robbed a bank with a bomb locked around his neck. When the cops caught him, he sat on the ground in front of a police car, while they all waited for the bomb squad. On camera, he exploded 15 minutes later.

Well, Wired Magazine writer Rich Schapiro wrote a superb story on that case, which really, finally gives us The Rest Of The Story.

Go read.

When disaster strikes, you're on your own.

2011-07-26T15:42:00.003-05:00

Staghounds tells the story of how the Norwegian massacre could go, if we taught our kids to respond and think.

If it has to be your last act, stop the threat.

The written word is more powerful.

2011-07-22T18:33:00.003-05:00

If you would like to lodge your distaste with the Canton Police Department over Officer Daniel Harless' actions on 8 June, 2011, may I suggest that you write them a letter?

The appropriate address would be:

Dean L. McKimm, Chief Of Police
Canton Police Department
221 Third Street S.W.
Canton, OH 44702

Please be courteous. Please use calm, acceptable language.

Worthy talking points are the Canton P.D.'s Officer Code Of Conduct, Officer Harless' apparent cowardice, Officer Harless's continued rant beyond his initial surprise, the potentially criminal nature of his implied threats, and the damage that it does to the public respect for police.

Mine is mailed out.

We can do better than this.

2011-07-21T03:43:00.006-05:00

I've cussed people while in uniform, before. I'm not proud of it. As a matter of fact, I'm generally ashamed of it. But it's happened.

The most recent circumstance was as I was investigating a Visiting Burglar who was loitering around downtown at 3:00 AM, with a car full of burglary tools. I casually asked him his name, and he lied to me. I knew it. He knew that I knew it, and my cover officer knew it. When a check of that name and date of birth came back as "No Record Found," (strange for a guy covered with prison gang tattoos), I investigated until my cover officer discovered V.B.'s real illustrious past, and that V.B. had a warrant. I told V.B. to turn around, so that I could pat him down. I asked him carefully and clearly if he had anything on him that could cut me or poke me. He assured me that he didn't.

The last pocket that I checked had a used syringe in it.

"What the f**k?!? G*dD***it, you said that you didn't have anything like that! S**t!" I blurted out. He began to apologize profusely.

Now, I have to admit that I'm scared of being poked by used needles from a guy like this, who was in fact a bug-carrier. Still, I should have conducted myself more professionally. If my chief or city council or one of my citizens ask me about this, I shall have to apologize for my actions. I already have apologized to the arrestee, just before I took him to jail, as a matter of fact. Apologizing for unprofessionalism doesn't excuse it, but it's the second step* in beginning to make it a little better.

_ _ _ _

Friend Gay Cynic passed on this little video of a Canton, OH police officer losing his mind over what he perceived as a late notification by a concealed carry license holder during the traffic stop.

I haven't watched the whole video, because I got to 9:08 before I couldn't listen to any more.** This isn't a "days off" offense. This is a "pack your stuff, and move on" offense. I would actually consult with the city attorney to consider charges against the officer for terroristic threats made against the driver. As a street cop, I'm disgusted at this.

______________________________
*Everyone knows the first step, right?
**Okay, I've listened to a bit more. It gets worse.

Climate vacation

2011-07-18T15:01:00.021-05:00

I was caught at a weak moment.

My wife and I had been talking about where we were going to go for our vacation. Somehow we had managed to get the same 10 day period off in July. We had talked about how we didn't have much money. We had talked about maybe taking the kids up to the foothills-called-mountains up in northeastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas.

I got distracted from finishing this conversation, when I was returned to it abruptly whilst in an attic.

Attics in Texas are not very fun places to be, in the mid-summer. In this one, I had just finished blowing insulation into it, and was cutting a hole for a gable vent. Because I was doing this in the morning, the temperature outside was still just under 100 degrees. The temperature inside the attic was a little hotter.

*Ring* [I scrabble to get my cell phone out of my pocket.]
"Hello?" [Sound muffled by my air filter.]
"Matt? Is that you?"
"Yes."
"It doesn't sound like you."
"It's me." [Getting a little annoyed, and trying not to fall through the ceiling from the joists that I can't see, buried under blown-in insulation. Finally, pulling up the filter and taking a gasp of dusty, insulation-enriched air.] "Now, can you hear me?"
"Yes. Better. So I've been thinking about where we're going for our vacation."
"Do we have to do this now? I'm in..."
"Yes. Now. Our elder child's in band camp that week, and our younger child can stay with your mother, and..."
"What?"
"I want to drop the hammer on tickets for you and me to Seattle."
"What's the price?" She told me.
"What about a car?" She quoted me a price for a rental with unlimited mileage.
"What's the weather doing up there?"
"Highs in the 60's. Unseasonably low temperatures."
"Do it."
___________

A week later, we were both moist in the face from our dash to the gate. (The remote lot that we had first gone to turned out to be full.) It wasn't dawn, yet, it was 81 degrees Fahrenheit. Today was going to be warm.

We finally landed in SEATAC airport at about 3:00PM their time. It was 64 degrees. I checked back home, where it was 5:00PM: 105. More than 40 Celsius. I felt no regrets for coming.

After getting our car and assuring the lady at the desk that we did NOT need the spacious luxury vehicle or the satellite radio, or the GPS, or the upgrade in insurance (good lord, the upgrades would have been double the price of the car rental), we headed south. I was a bit tired, so we stopped in Tacoma for a cuppa coffee.

Friends, they drink gooood coffee, up there. And the barristas know the name of the guy who roasted their bean. And the latte art is amazing. My wife laughed at herself for getting her mocha iced, out of habit. No need. It was cool out.

In Portland, we stayed at a friend's house. She was actually not there, but had left a key. She also had left a tiger trap. It seems that she'd been looking at replacing the wooden (!) grate over the updraft floor vent. I walked to the window to look at the view, and fell through, with my legs dangling into the basement. A small and ultimately unnecessary patch of skin the size of Montana was removed from the love handle covering the crest of the right ilium. As I flailed, I managed to chicken-wing my right elbow into a ceramic pot (RIP) and its brass stand (RIP). I like to think that they slowed my descent, ultimately caught at the right armpit and left leg.

Ever had the floor just fail to be where it should have been? You feel rather shocked and unable to explain yourself as you stop your descent. In this case, the crashing sound of me going through the sheet metal below the vent (removing about a yard of unnecessary skin on my right shin) made me terrified that I had oafishly broken the 1920's vintage Gibson banjo hanging on the wall about one foot from where I had fallen. I notified my friend (en route to a music festival), and she responded, "Holy crap! You're there for five minutes, and you're already breaking stuff!" I informed her with a sniff that, in my defense, I had actually been there for eight minutes.

Ibuprofen cures many ills, friends.

We continued south to Eugene, Oregon, and stayed with dear friends of my family, and ate like kings. Blake characteristically was cooking for his neighbor's wedding, which my wife and I were invited to. It was held outdoors. The groom wore walking shorts, and the bride wore a sun dress. The music was performed by a band of kazoos. As a man who's played a little kazoo in his time, I sat in with the band. The vows were moving. House finches played in the hemlock. We ate Texas barbecue. It was a great wedding, and I had only met the bride and groom 2 hours before the wedding. May they always be happy.

The next day, my bride and I went with friends to the Oregon Country Fair. This is not like a little local county fair, like I had grown up with. It's a gathering of hippies. Honestly, it's fun to step into their world, and see what they'd like to believe the world can be like. It was very clean. People were very friendly. They wore amazing costumes, or nearly nothing at all. (A cache sexe was required.) The food was good, the music was good, and the art was good. The weed was smoked only in designated places. No alcohol was served. Great coffee was. I met a friend from my youth (my best friend's little brother), just strolling around the 40,000 people, 1900 miles from home.

We came back to my friend's house tired and happy, and my friend Shannon brought out some GREAT local wines. (May I suggest the 2007 Gold Note Zinfandel?) We ate locally-caught grilled fish of four varieties. I had never eaten grilled sturgeon, and was surprised that it was every bit as good as the grilled tuna steak. Who knew? The salmon and the haddock were both good, too. My friend Shannon and her parents fought over who got to host us that night. That's a mighty hospitable position to be in, friends.

We went back north, ate pie and drank more great coffee with tiger-trap owner Meredith, and had her give us a tour of downtown. We went to the local Chinatown, and then couldn't resist an hour in Powell's. Don't know Powell's Bookstore? That's a shame. It's several stories on a city block, of what a used bookstore should be.

We continued on to Olympia, Washington, to visit my friend Billie Jean at her new house. It was cool and wet, and after an incredible dinner prepared by her boyfriend, I borrowed a jacket (forgot to pack one) to go for a walk with the dog with them. Olympia is a lot like Austin used to be-- small, friendly, easy to get around, and still the state capital. Austin, alas, is now overgrown and is hard to negotiate.

The next day, we visited my wife's neice in the oddly-named Sedro-Woolley, and held her new baby. Then we continued north to Canada.

The crossing was easy, as I had no weapons other than a Spyderco that John Shirley gave me for Christmas. We exchanged some money, and were shocked to realize that the U.S. dollar is now worth $0.95 Canadian. All my life, our dollar has been worth a fair bit more than the Canadian dollar. Now? Theirs buys more. Sad times, friends.

We stayed in Vancouver, and found it to be an interesting city. The Asian population there seems to make up half the city, and our hotel was in the Asian district. We had some congee soup. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. Probably my last bowl.

We took the ferry to Vancouver Island to Swartz Bay.

These things are huge. Large trucks on deck level with the water. Passenger cars above that deck. Passengers in the decks above. The three lowest surface decks load at the same time. 30 miles for $15 isn't bad for passengers ($2 for your bike), though $60 seems pricey for a car. We left our car and cruised at 21 knots to Swartz Bay, and took a cab to Butchart Gardens. I can't do justice in explaining this place. It's a theme park for gardens. Each garden is like a ride. They do things there with flowers and color that I've never seen before. Good lord, it's lovely, and worth the trip. People come from all over the world to see these gardens, with good reason.

Well, for example, check out this view as you come through a tunnel in the trees to the Sunken Garden, a former limestone quarry that the owner's wife had started fixing up after it played out back in 1907:

It got better. My little Sony CyberShot literally could not process the depth and pop of the reds of some of the flowers, as witnessed by this washed out pic:

I cannot describe the fragrance. Intoxicating.

We bussed to Victoria, and found it to be a very pedestrian and bike friendly city. We stayed outside of downtown, and just walked in the next morning. We went to an organic bakery and coffeeshop and ate and drank things the likes of which I'd never had before. I demanded to speak to the baker, to thank her. The night before, we giggled when we saw the weather forecast, where they literally apologized for the cold weather, but reminded us that it could be worse: we could be in Texas, where it was 41 degrees (C) or hotter. I'm not kidding.

We bussed back to Swartz Bay and took a bigger ferry back, through the San Juan Islands, in what is now called the Strait of Juan de Fuca, lately called "The Salish Sea."

This trip is worth it for the sights to be seen on it, in its own right. Though it was chilly (64 degrees, humid, and with at least a 22 knot wind) out on the observation deck, it was worth stepping out to see the sights there.

Wear a sweater or a windbreaker.

We arrived back at the Tsawwassen ferry port, and drove back to the U.S. We coordinated on the way, and met up with Gay Cynic, who directed us to a fantastic seafood place (Duke's) where he took us to dinner. He let me buy dessert at a place on Capital Hill that he described as being like "a gay Denny's." We ate very, very well. He then showed us a very nice view of Seattle, where I stretched my camera's capability of taking night shots.

(Okay, okay-- the reason it's tilted is that I sat it on a post to take the timer shot.)

The next morning, as we were leaving the motel in Renton, my wife pointed up at a cellular tower over the motel parking lot. A nesting pair of osprey were flying to and from their giant nest of sticks built atop the tower.

I waited until I got the picture that I wanted:

We boarded our plane back to the heat of Texas very unhappily. We had ended our climate vacation.

We landed back in Texas just before midnight. It was 83 degrees. Back to life. Back to reality.

The next day it was 105 degrees again. That's 40.5, to you Canadians.

Relax.

2011-06-28T18:24:00.004-05:00

Some of the people that I respect keep calling me a "Mother Hen."*

Whoever is ~~sharing my shameful secrets~~ disseminating these falsehoods about me shall be dealt with accordingly. (In this case. See next blog entry.)

For now, relax. The winds blow the clouds where they may.

__________________________
*So sue me for caring. :)

Today's earworm: 1984

2011-06-26T09:22:00.002-05:00

Count the '80s references in this awesome video by No More Kings: "Sweep The Leg."
I turned 13 later that year.

I count three early-eighties references right off-hand. Anyone else see more?

The thing about freedom and equality...

2011-06-26T09:10:00.003-05:00

...it spreads.

My co-worker came into the police department this morning to relieve me. While I finished up on a DWI report, he checked his web-based email, which popped up the news. “So,” he said with what I perceived as a smirk, “New York state has made it legal for gays to marry…!”

“Good. Maybe we’ll be next,” I said.

“I know, right?!?” said my conservative, VERY hetero, recently-married cop buddy.

Despite the stereotypes and the expectations of the opposition, many, many of us stand behind equality. More than the bigots know. That’s part of their downfall.

My friend may well have been trying to set up a derisive joke, but the things he said over the next few seconds told me that really, he'd just been waiting to hear someone else say that they support equality. I'm glad that I could answer that call. I think that he'll feel more empowered to next time start that discussion with, "It's about damned time."

The connections

2011-06-20T16:57:00.002-05:00

I keep pointing this out, because it's so damned amazing: most of my friends I know because of modern communications.

I believe in my friends' willpower and intense dedication to do right, and to come together, sometimes to do great things, and sometimes just to have great times. All because they moved some pixels around on a screen, hit SEND, and caused some pixels to move around on other person's screens.

I converse with extremely smart people on a fairly regular basis, with no other passcode or birthright than that I send them an email and they write back. How amazing. I've been doing this for a quarter of a century.

See now the brief lecture of Jim Gilliam, who had the same epiphany but on a MUCH more significant level. While I may owe my social life to the Internet, Jim owes his physical life to it.

Project A Kon

2011-06-15T17:26:00.010-05:00

And speaking of Larry Correia, that reminds me-- I ran into a guy dressed out as one of his characters out of his excellent series of Monster Hunters International books.

He was very nice, and let me take his picture. I mentioned that I'd been a moderator with Larry at The Firing Line and The High Road for some time, and he asked if I wanted a patch. I've never gotten an MHI patch, so I was excited to get this one. I think that I'm going to sew it onto my patrol bag. I may put velcro on the back, and put it on my department gas mask bag, or on my fast response bag.

I ran into the guy at A-Kon, an anime convention for serious nerds. What was I doing at A-Kon, you may ask? Well, I think that I was being a good daddy. See, my elder daughter and her best friends have gotten deep into reading all manner of Japanese cartoon books called Manga. They watch videos of Japanese anime. They copy hundreds of Japanese pop songs in MP3 format to trade among each other to play on their iPods and phones and convert to CD format to play on my dadgummed car stereo when we go places.

So when my 12 year old daughter, who had just been recognized by Duke TIP as a really bright kid for doing exceptionally well on the SAT in 7th grade, got all A's for the six weeks, the semester, and the school year, she was getting a big reward. And she wanted A-Kon. I took her and her two best friends.

Folks, I've been to a few county fairs, a goat ropin', and I've seen ducks copulate, but I've never seen anything like this.

We drove into downtown Dallas to the hotel. No parking for blocks. We finally drove into a parking garage that was almost full, for $18 to park. We walked into the hotel amidst hundreds-- nay-- thousands of people dressed in various costumes. My daughter was not in costume, but she had dyed her bangs aqua (hey, they grow out). She was so normal-looking, that she was almost invisible. I just wore khakis and comfortable shoes. I was invisible.

We walked in as the conga line of several hundred passed us. The leader was a belly dancer with 8 foot butterfly wings of gold. Following her were all manner of costumed nerds who were in their natural habitat, mostly between the ages of 14 and 30.

It was as if, repressed of their chance to be social during their daily lives, these youngsters had finally found Their People, and took the opportunity to crawl out of their shells. They were jubilant. When they found someone in a similar costume, depicting the same character that they had come dressed as, they didn't get upset. Indeed, they would happily embrace, as would long-lost friends who had finally reunited. I saw this over and over again. They minded not at all if you asked to take a picture of them (or better yet, with them). It was a high compliment, and the most popular had worked on their poses. My daughter was a little jealous of her friend who was repeatedly recognized for the character whose costume she wore.

I paid the registration fee for all four of us. But that was it. (Besides snacks, lunch, supper, and a little help with a pin when a girl came up short.)

We saw furries, cross-dressers, perverts, and robots, both real and imagined. We saw storm troopers. We saw girl storm troopers. We saw video game characters. We saw faux Florentine fencing demonstrations. We saw people dressed as stone angels. We saw browncoats. We saw steampunks. We saw movie heroines. We saw superheroes. We saw strange mixes of culture that defied explanation. It was a throng of nerd-dom, taking up three stories of the hotel.

And next year, if she gets all A's, I'll take her to do it again.

TANSTAAFL

2011-06-15T17:15:00.004-05:00

Longtime internet friend Larry Correia writes his hilariously on-point reactions to a Yahoo article about people who are getting out of paying their mortgages due to their own misplaced values, and are spun as heroes for it.

I laughed out loud. Seriously.

Another life lesson, learned at work.

2011-06-10T04:39:00.003-05:00

"Sometimes, You Just Need To Know When To Give Up On A Case."

Important lessons like this are learned, when cleaning out your desk and file cabinet in preparation to move to a new office.

The argument goes on in my head: "Let it go."
"But if I could just find that other witness, we could..."
"That case is from 2008, Matt. Let it go."
"Maybe I should hold onto this tape for a bit longer...?"
"That case was adjudicated in 2010. Let it go."
"This training information would be useful..."
"...If you had a time machine, and needed to know about legislative updates for the session ending in 2009. Let it go."

The blank tape supply got a much-needed influx of newly-wiped tapes, and the shredder needed emptying twice, and the trash bin is overflowing with dead trees that gave the ultimate sacrifice sometime early in W's second term. And so it goes.

You want to fix the medical system? You want reform?

2011-06-09T17:07:00.004-05:00

I've got a very simple law that we could pass that will go a LONG way toward medical healthcare reform.

Require that, within one business day, the healthcare provider give you a straightforward answer to this question:

"How much is this going to cost?"

Mom is in rehab for her new knee, which she had put in last week. The orthopedic surgeon called it one of the worst --if not the single worst-- knees that he's ever had to replace. He told me that Mom should have come in 10 years ago to get that knee swapped out. Mom's answer (she walked 150 yards in to the pre-op room, unassisted) is simply, "Yeah, but think of how far that replacement knees have advanced, in the last ten years." Good point.

Mom's a super star at rehab, and is actually being released early. This makes her cranky elder son very happy; we've been missing her next door. (Yes, I've been visiting daily, but it's not the same.) But when her family liaison person called me to ask me if I had any questions, I asked her, "What's the cost of this? How much are we saving daily by having her come home early? What is the average daily cost of her care?"

She didn't know, but turned me over to a person at their facility who could "better answer my questions." That lady didn't know, either. "We don't do any billing here," she told me. "That's done from the corporate offices in Pennsylvania."

But she went on to assure me that the bill was to be sent to Mom's insurance companies, who typically covered most of these things, before we'd ever get a bill.

"But somebody, somewhere, knows what this costs," I protested.

"No, we won't really know, until we bill the insurance companies, and see what they pay," she told me.

This is ridiculous.

The attitude that it doesn't matter, because there is insurance, is the reason why the costs are spiraling.

On the first of this month, I changed over from my old PPO to a new Health Savings Account*. Thus, when it's medically-oriented, I want to know what EVERYTHING costs.

I know what I make per hour. I know what the overhead is for my job. I could, after checking a few figures, answer the question "How much does it cost to run the police department in Matt G's little town for a single day?"

Why is this so hard?

________________________________
*I've got a $3000 deductible to fill each year, before my account turns into a classic PPO. My job kicks in $180 a month to a savings account that I pay out of.

Liberally Lean In The Land Of Dairy Queen.

2011-06-06T11:31:00.003-05:00

Barry Green is a former district attorney in Wise County By-Gawd, Texas. He still practices law there, and he just doesn't seem to give a damn what you think of him. You kind of have to admire that in a man. Funny stuff.

He also has some decent off-the-cuff local news updates and thoughts for north Texas.

That which should be viral, but isn't.

2011-06-02T06:57:00.003-05:00

I have printed LabRat's Rules For Relating and posted them on the wall at my PD. Then I promptly pulled them down.
They absolutely deserve attribution, but with attribution, I would shortly be "outed" as a blogger. (The guys I work with are nothing if not tenacious.)

I've similarly considered printing them in small pring, and handing them out to Select Customers as a public service.

At any rate, go read, and know that LabRat is wise beyond her years.

A Worrisome Gap, Indeed.

2011-05-29T09:00:00.006-05:00

I didn't serve.

I should have. I regret that I didn't. I believe that I would have made a good serviceman. But for whatever reason, I did not.

I now attempt to serve my little community as a patrolman. I don't kid myself about what the job is, and I get paid, so I refuse to accept praises beyond my actual worth.

But every serviceman who signs up for the armed forces of this nation puts himself or herself at risk of being put in harm's way. Yes, even the pogues and the REMFs and the supposedly non-combat support personnel. All may be sent into a hostile country, wearing our nation's uniform. And in truth, our D.O.D. is famous for taking a physicist or an engineer, handing him a rifle, and telling him to march in the front of the line instead of plying his preferred trade. Guys that sign up for easy duty might not get it. That's the risk. They've all got that in common.

But we who do not serve don't often think about those who do, unless someone close to us is in the military. Even now, with our servicemen and women scattered around the globe on two and a half fronts, we forget. Yes, we do.

So I find that the words of Admiral Mike Mullen (head of Joint Chiefs Of Staff) hit home when he describes a gulf between our military and the nation that it serves. He said that we who are on the outside are more and more failing to grasp what those on the inside are experiencing, and what their needs are.

"This is important, because a people uninformed about what they are asking the military to endure is a people inevitably unable to fully grasp the scope of the responsibilities our Constitution levies upon them," he said.

Our jobs on the home front are varied, but we all have a duty to this nation. The first duty, it would seem, is to remember.

Maybe, in between the pouring of drunks back into their houses or into jail cells this three-day weekend, I can remind one or two citizens of why we have the holiday weekend. Because frankly, it's easier to forget than it should be.

I've always wanted to know that.

2011-05-25T12:00:00.005-05:00

Falling under the "science that we're not real sure we can use, but darned if it isn't interesting" category, some Harvard boffins with good high-speed video and X-ray motion cameras have answered the question of how a dog's drinking mechanics works.

This footage shows that as the tongue touches the surface of the water, the liquid adheres to it, creating a water column as the tongue is drawn back towards the mouth. The dog then snaps its mouth closed just as the water begins to fall backwards towards the bowl.

Go click on the short video-- it's pretty cool.

...And other duties as assigned.

2011-05-23T12:32:00.012-05:00

(Minor gore warning: a dead snake is pictured in this post.)

Another snake call.

I was taking a fraud report at the PD when I was notified of an Animal Complaint. I clarified that that it was a snake in the back yard. Big deal. Probably a rat snake or something. I finished taking my report.

My partner came in. I briefed him on the day's events, and mentioned that we had a snake call holding. He handed me the catch pole, and we drove to the house. The call was now half an hour old, so I didn't expect to find anything.

We were ushered through the house by the residents, who mentioned that their dog had been barking at a snake on the back porch. They sensibly brought the dog in, and called us. When we looked, the snake was gone from the back porch. We checked under and around shrubs, bushes, barbecues, a lawn mower, and pretty much everything in the back yard. The yard was surprisingly big, considering the suburban housing development that it was in; call it a third of an acre for the back yard alone. There was tall thick brush growing along the fence line, which I walked through, poking with my four-foot snake pole. The residents were in the back yard, with my partner with them, and the dog came out with them.

"Uh, Matt! The dog seems to be alerting on this lawn mower!" my partner told me. Unpossible. I had rolled it back and forth about a foot, and nothing had come out. I was sure that there was nothing under it. But it sometimes pays to check again. The mower was pushed up under some brush, almost to the chain link fence that separated their yard from the neighbors' back yard, in which another dog was very excitedly barking.

I pulled the mower back, and found a coiled cottonmouth water moccasin. He let me see his white mouth, while I tried to grab behind the head with the catch pole. Problem: The catch pole was about four feet long. The snake was a bit longer. The snake struck, turned, and fled through the bracken toward the fence, with the now very excited dog dog behind it. Just before the head probably got to the fence, I made a blind grab at the snake, and caught it on the tail. I caught it.

Note the orange paint on the pole. Through the magic of foreshortening, it really doesn't look like it, but trust me when I say that the snake was able to reach that painted portion. This view nicely shows the pits behind the eyes. Click to embiggen.

The snake was unhappy at these events, as I pulled it out of the brush line. Hissing and striking, it made clear that it was impressively strong (it could strike up the length of the pole straight at my hand, with only the last few inches of tail being held), and that it was very urgent in its desire to bite me. The head stopped just a few inches from where my hand held the pistol grip of the catch pole.

Now what? No garden utensils around. I pulled my ASP expandable baton, but didn't feel like I had a reliable method of killing the snake without risking my precious skin being pierced by fangs, as the baton only extended to 26".

My partner went to get his 870 and some bird shot from his car.

So I took a couple of pictures.

When he got back, we reenacted a scene from Cool Hand Luke, and only THEN did I find out that they had a sharp shooter shovel. I buried the head, and put the snake body in a grocery bag.*

That hole in the turf on the right side of the picture shows where the load of 7.5 shot from a Winchester Super Speed dove load went into the grass that my partner was using as a backstop as he fired at a downward angle. He did a good job; just a bit of skin holds the head on.

I tell you, no cuppa coffee ever got my nerves strumming as tightly as having that snake repeatedly strike at me did.
_________________________
*Note: I don't hate snakes. I regularly move them to safer places. But there wasn't a way to do that here, and there were dogs all around. Dogs get curious and sniff at snakes, and get bitten near the airway, causing swelling that kills them. We have no shortage of cottonmouths in Texas. If I could have moved it safely, I would have.

The continuing saga.

2011-05-23T10:19:00.004-05:00

The copper lines are now silver-soldered on.

Note: on a Sunday evening, it's dammit hard to find real silver solder. And the guys that they've got answering the phone at Lowe's and Home Depot will tell you that they have it, 4 oz for $13. Given that silver is currently sitting at $34.84/Troy ounce, that didn't make sense. "I mean elemental silver! Ag!" I growled into the phone. "Comes in sticks, not rolls of wire!" They insisted that it was silver (in color, I'll grant), and that I should make the 20 mile drive to get it.

Bullsh.

I texted an AC man that I know, and offered him double price for 5 sticks of silver solder. 20 minutes later, I was handing him $40 for five little sticks.

We barely got it done before the rain hit. This is good, because silver solder doesn't like water, when you're asking it to stick to copper.

I got the plennum adaptor built out of that aluminized foam board stuff. It seems too cheap and flimsy to do any good, but it's easy to cut in the shape that you need (in this case, a weird prism with a turn in it, to go from the AC cabinet to an off-centered (in two axises) plenum sticking out of the ceiling), and it stiffens right up with the application of enough aluminum tape. And really, it only has to withstand the stress of air moving through it, and some temperature gradients. The board actually has some R value to it.

I'm not very good at this, but I will say one thing-- every bit of air that flows through this system is going through that filterbox first. I caulked every joint (filterbox to new false floor, false floor to walls, filterbox to furnace, furnace to AC coil box) before using rolls of alluminum tape.

I'm about $2600 in, but I think that all the costs are sunk.

Today we pump out the lines with a vacuum pump for an hour and a half, and if they hold a vacuum, we'll charge them with the 13.5 lbs of super-duper new freon that the outside Puron unit is precharged with . Then we'll hook up the power and thermostat wires, and see if this thing will run.

Air conditioning project.

2011-05-22T11:08:00.009-05:00

Supposedly, the hardest part of the project is behind us. I ran the ridiculously-expensive 7/8" copper freon lines ($259 plus tax) and a3/8" partner (~$60), which I coated in the best insulation that I could buy (~$120 worth), through the attic last night. They barely reach the utility closet without an inch to spare, which is good, because they only sell the copper A/C lines in 50 foot lengths at my local A/C supply house. This was particularly arduous because the attic was very warm, and I had about 24" of blown-in insulation covering the joists that I was trying to walk on so as not to fall through the ceiling, while directing a very delicate pipe through the attic around ducts and trusses and such. Whot phun.

Today, I need to build out the ducting from the coils to the plenum, reconnect the stovepipe to the heater (need more stove pipe. Why do the sections keep coming apart? It's not supposed to be this hard.), connect the copper to the outside compressor and the inside evaporator, and connect the electrical, and see if it turns on. We shall see.

Total price tag thus far for a new 5 tonne gas furnace and 5 tonne a/c unit is about $1900, but I reckon with the cost of incidentals like fuel to and from the store, some tools, and such, I'll be well over $2k.

By the way, the Shark Bite water connection devices, which simply push onto the pipe to connect copper to copper, or even copper to PVC, are pretty nifty. They made the re-installation of the hot water heater take less time than it took to even cut one of the copper pipes that originally connected it to the house water system.

My partner's dad needs a special thank-you when this is done. The guy is working like a dog for me, for free, because he apparently just wants to. I can't express my gratitude to the guy enough.

Demolition man.

2011-05-21T02:04:00.003-05:00

Two leaks ruined my hardwood living room floor. That's been pulled up, and is in the back of the van to go to the dump.

The old AC unit that leaked all over my living room floor is pulled out. It's on my lawn. The furnace is still good, and I'll probably Craig's list that old thing.

My living room floor has a 6 foot trench that I jackhammered into it, to replace the rusted drain pipe from the washing machine to the main house sewer line. That was the second leak: a slab leak. Of course I managed to hit the supply lines whilst hammering out the concrete and digging out the drain pipe. The plumber only charged me $251, which I actually was grateful for.

I'm currently in the processes of removing the floor from the utility closet that the updraft AC/Furnace was in; it's been waterlogged. I've pulled the gas hot water heater, and the furnace and AC and jerry-rigged plenum adaptor, this evening. This would have been a LOT easier if the SawzAll hadn't died on me today. I didn't know that they did that. I've never seen one do that. Poor old SawzAll. It served me well. This is the first time it's given me reason to cuss it.

I'm painting the new floor (made of doubled 3/4" CDX) with exterior "oops paint" that I bought at Home Depot for $5. It's brick red. Whatever.

The new A/C, new furnace, new exterior unit, and new copper lines are all at the house, ready to install today. My partner's dad is generously helping me for free.

Gotta get back to it.

Occasionally, NPR comes through.

2011-05-17T22:25:00.001-05:00

To toughen their image or something, the other day they interviewed the moderator of the blog "Badass Of The Week."

Very entertaining. Profane, but entertaining.

"Hey, she said she was 18!"

2011-05-11T12:37:00.000-05:00

North Texas attorney Richard Gladden is trying to get the statutory rape law repealed. His argument is that if an adult didn't know that the juvenile was under-aged, then it shouldn't be a crime for him to have consensual sex with that juvenile. The stories told by the reporter are very compelling*. Innocent servicemen, preyed upon by sexually-advanced teens with women's bodies who claim to be full adults. Their lives ruined by felony convictions and lifetime sex offender registration.

They showed some pictures of girls with developed figures and their faces blurred out, as evidence that you just can't tell. How were these men --properly the victims themselves-- to know that these little seductresses weren't adults?

Hey, I know that the average age of the onset of puberty has dropped remarkably in the last 100 years or so, but this sounds the same as those morons who whine, "How can you even tell if she wanted it? I mean, I was getting mixed signals from that bus driver..." The fact is, if you're grown up enough to have consensual sex, then you need to be grown up enough to know who you're potentially making a baby with, or trading your next infection with.

If you can't tell that this kid isn't 18, you're not doing any kind of due diligence between your ears.

The funny thing is, I think that we've got too many felonies, and I think that it's pretty dumb that there's no graduation between "illegal, but not a felony," and "wholesale felony."

Just this month, I had to turn down a complainant's case of Sexual Assault Of A Child, which the victim's mother had brought to me. It seems that her kid, at 15, was having sex with an actor who was 18. Sexual Assault, right? Well, Texas Penal Code provides an affirmative defense if the actor is not greater than 3 years older than the victim. In this case, the actor was 2 years and 9 months older than the complainant's kid. Had the kid been 4 months younger, then I would have had a third degree felony case to deal with. Just 100 days one way or the other made the difference between a felony and no crime at all in this state. Can't we graduate it a little bit, like Theft and Criminal Mischief?

What bugs me about this is that, should Counselor Gladden's proposed legal change be made, every dadgummed pedophile with a van, a bag of candy, and a map to the parks and elementary school bus routes in the state is going to claim "Hey, I didn't know! She said she was taking classes at State U when I complimented her tricycle and offered her some Jesus Juice!"

________________________

*You've got to laugh at the graphic, though. When they mention that the Marine was arrested with the girl in Yuma, AZ, the screen filled with a map showing the location of Yuma. Not that this had any real bearing on the story. They just thought that you might want to know where Yuma was, apparently.

A happy ending.

2011-05-05T13:26:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I did some checking. I came across a phone number for the landlord of the now-empty rent house across the way where the little dog used to live. I called but couldn't reach the landlord. I left a message with several contact numbers for me, and why I wanted to speak with him or the previous tenants. No call.

I have of course already left a letter on the door of the house, with my number and address. No call.

Today, my wife took off of work. I woke up to find her sleeping beside me late this morning after she had taken the kids to school. (I had gotten off late last night.) Later I woke to hear her puttering about the house. The little dog yipped. I hoped that my wife had let her out to pee. (We've been slowly training her to be housebroken, and she really does prefer to go outside. ) I went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, my wife walked into the bedroom to announce, "I just made a puppy deposit!"

As my last thoughts on the dog were concerning its need of house training, I of course immediately thought that she was referring to a deposit, from the puppy. Look, I was sleepy.

"Huh?" I asked.

"The girl who owned the puppy just knocked on our door. She asked for her puppy. I gave the perrita to her, and she said 'thanks' which seems to be about the only English that she knows. The puppy is gone!" my wife gushed.

I sat up quickly. "She's gone? And we didn't have to let those vile thieving children have her? The communists and terrorists don't win? Huzzah!"

To celebrate, we walked to the diner, and ordered the specials. I had meatloaf. She had chicken-fried steak. Hers was better. The tea was strong, the coffee was fresh, and the terrorists hadn't won.

A good day.

The cute dog on my day off.

2011-05-04T12:28:00.006-05:00

The neighbors across the way have a cute little brown puppeh. Really cute. No, even I can't handle the cute. They work all the time, and are almost never home. The puppy runs loose. While this is a violation of our city ordinance, I don't care; she's adorable, and she's harmless, and when I'm home, I'm off-duty. And since she runs across the street to play with my family and the other neighbors, it's like having a puppy dog on time-share. Remember how it used to be-- the neighborhood dogs that everyone knew? That everyone petted and even fed, but at day's end, they went home? That's kind of how this is amounting to be.

We are after some thought growing a little afraid that the puppy would get run over in our street.

Friday, some girls come by my house and ask me if they can take the puppy, because it's not being taken care of. I look at the dog's taut little belly, and silky coat, and look across at the pan of food and pan of water, and tell them that I don't see how the dog's being mistreated, though it would be nice if she were kept in an enclosure for her safety. They say that she will get run over, and beg my permission to take her. Hey-- I'm just an off-duty cop. Who made me that dog judge? No, I tell them. That dog belongs to those people. Leave her alone. They point out that she is sooooo cute. I agree. I go back inside.

Sunday, we learn from my other neighbor that they came and took the dog Saturday night.

My wife is FURIOUS. "You don't just come take someone's dog!" she complains. "That's not right!"

I happen to agree, but it's not my call. Perhaps there was an agreement made with the neighbors across the street, who are NEVER home. Maybe they put the dog out for someone to take. Maybe they were hoping to leave it, as I hear that they're about to move. I look for the chance to talk to them. They're never home. Finally I see one man loading up a car. He's clearly nervous about talking to me, and I gather that it's because he's not technically legally here. He's full-on south-of-the-border Mexican. I make myself approachable, but he says nothing, and leaves. Well, I hoped that someone would say something. I got nothing. I go inside.

My wife is madder than ever. If only I had a complaint? I have checked at the P.D. twice to see if they had made a complaint about the dog missing or stolen. Nothing.

Then my mother calls. A note was left on her door Monday night when she was asleep. The girl who owns the doggy wants her back. She's moving, she says, and thinks that maybe my mom has the dog. (Mom lives next door to me, and the kids played with it in her yard a lot.)

Finally, this is the request for help that I've been looking for! I grab my daughter and put her in the car, to guide me to which house the girls reside. It turns out that they live in a multi-family dwelling about 4 blocks away. I park well away so that my daughter can't be seen, and make contact. I keep it informal, but explain that they can't just take a person's dog, and now the owners think my family has it. Five minutes later, I have the dog, and I take it home. I'm a minor hero with my wife and kids.

Mom wants to buy the dog. The people who stole it want to buy the dog. I put a note on the dark front door of the neighbors explaining the situation. Mom calls me over to put HER note on the front door. I put my phone number in the note, asking them to call to get their dog.

They don't call.

The dog pees on my rug and sets to chewing things, and barking at the cats.

Turns out that this pitch of dog bark resonates quite well on ceramic and stone tile. Ow.

I put the little bitch into a dog kennel and put her in the laundry room. (Ceramic tile.) I cover the kennel with a large rug. I go to sleep.

This morning, still no call.

It's possible that I moved too late.

It's a cute dog and all, but it's still a puppy, and needs training, and Mom's house needs better fencing. I don't have a fence. I don't feel like signing on for this.

"So now what?"

2011-05-01T23:33:00.004-05:00

A suggestion, Mr. Nobel Peace Prize-Winning President.

What do you do, after you announce that the most powerful nation in the world finally just knocked off a third-world-living thug, 9.5 years after he masterminded an effective attack on our nation?

You tell your military to pack up, come home, and stand down. We're in a recession, and we need to save money.

Announce the following, and note the respect that you can engender:

"We just focused the reach of our angry nation on killing one man who attacked our nation. Having killed him, we bring our troops and resources back home. My suggestion: Don't become the next target of our ire."

Then dismiss the TSA.

You might be amazed at the votes you find in the next election.

Necessary evils.

2011-04-25T17:02:00.003-05:00

Every once in a while you run across a piece of bureaucracy that is not only needed, but which does its job pretty well.

I called TCLEOSE today with a couple of questions about my peace officer's license, and was struck yet again by how courteous and helpful their small staff always is in helping me with finding out the information that I need. I've heard that their staff is around 20 people, managing the licensing, credentials, and certificates for:

74,913 Peace Officers
283 Reserve Licensees
24,047 Jailers
2,366 Temporary Jailers
8,843 Telecommunicators
940 Temporary Telecommunicators

By my calculator's count, that's 111,392 police, jailer, and telecommunicator licenses that they keep up with. (Note: many of those licenses are redundant. It's not uncommon for a jailer to go to police academy and get his peace officer's license carried, and then also to occasionally work as a telecommunicator as well.)

Every time that I've talked to those people, they were able to get me the information that I needed, and were pleasant. Not just "human," but genuinely pleasant to deal with.

Look, so long as we're going to be licensing peace officers and jailers and the ilk, we'd better have training requirements and such. And if we're going to do that, then we've got to have people administering the licensing. So isn't it nice that these people, paid by taxpayers' dollars and licensing fees, are actually doing a decent job of it?

I may actually send an attaboy letter to their director, I'm so impressed.

Blow you away.

2011-04-15T15:24:00.006-05:00

We got a little bit of rain last night, but given the record-setting drought that this March was, it's not enough. Unfortunately, it's probably just enough to make it muddy for brush trucks trying to get out to fight the wildfires that are burning out of control in these winds (note that this weather station is nearest my house!): Yeah, you're reading it right; sustained winds in the mid-40's, with gusts approaching 60 mph. Probably not the very best day to go over to Fort Worth for their Main Street Arts Festival, but that's where we're headed. Y'all have fun going where ever the wind blows you.

Reassurance to a rookie.

2011-04-13T12:11:00.010-05:00

One of my former rookie trainees called me last night, and we had a nice chat. John* has moved on to another department, and has been making a name for himself.

John described a situation that he had the other day, which frustrated him. He had stopped a girl for a significant traffic violation, and had smelled the odor of alcohol. It being a weekend night, he had her step out, and administered the Standardized Field Sobriety Tests. As he finished them, another officer with a PBT drove up. My friend hadn't been able to see much in the way of Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, which really is the gold standard of tests. She did somewhat poorly on the Walk And Turn, and One Leg Stand. But it bothered John that he hadn't seen the three clues for each eye. After some thought on the clues that he had, he let her call for a ride

While they waited, he asked her to blow into the PBT (Portable Breath Test device, not admissible in court because of inability to guarantee calibration in the field.). She blew a .21 BAC into a device that he had found to be very accurate, when the results were checked against credible instruments. John was shaken. This "girl" as he kept referring to her, apparently was a professional alcoholic, with almost 3 times the legal limit for blood alcohol content. He had barely been able to show that she was drunk, and had decided that the evidence wasn't good enough to go to court with.

After she was driven away by her ride, John told the other officer what the reading was. The other guy told him that he would have taken her to jail, John said. John felt like maybe he had done the wrong thing.

"Stop right there!" I interrupted. "Your buddy out there-- did he offer to take that woman to jail? Did he offer to do the report? No? Well it's funny what other cops may say they 'would've done,' when they don't have to carry the paperwork. He doesn't know what he would have done if he was in your skin," I said.

"When you arrest a person, you take them to jail, and then you write a charging document in which you list the reasons that you believe that she broke the law. You --not anyone else-- are the man who then signs his name below an oath that you make before God [John is deeply religious], swearing that everything you have said above is the Truth, as you believe it in your heart to be," I continued.

"If you had doubts, then you didn't fully, completely believe it. That's the time to cut. her. loose. Sure, after you've gotten more experience under your belt, you probably would have zero doubt in the same situation in the future. But this time, you had doubt, and you did the right thing. You got her off the road, and you didn't file a charge that you weren't SURE of. John, this is not a bad thing. We'll catch her some other time, trust me."

We went on to talk about other things. He's a good man, and I know he'll make a good officer. He already is one, actually; he just needed to hear it.

__________________________________
* Not his real name.

Duty.

2011-04-08T10:47:00.005-05:00

Duty's a slippery term. (Okay, okay: get the giggles out now: Yes, "duty" sounds like "dootie.")

I consider it my duty to attend to the most important needs of my family. So do my peers. But some guys I know with will literally rearrange their lives and work schedules and sleeping schedules, to see their children perform in a school play, or musical performance, or sports performance. As for myself, I make the effort to attend if at all possible, but if I have to work, or sleep, then I'm afraid I'm going to miss some of their performances. They know this. They're disappointed, and so am I. But my duty to their needs often means attending to the duties of my job first. I'm not saying that my interpretation is the right one. I'm simply saying that there are reasonable differences to be had on the issue.

There are some interpretations that run to the question of duty in the face of danger. As we've discussed before, the question of whether an armed citizen should hold his position or search and destroy an active shooter comes to mind. I've friends on both sides of that issue. Frankly, my interpretation is that you should tend to the safety of those under your charge, and let others tend to the safety of their own*. If you're in a room full of people, and you're the only one armed, I think your first priority is to hold that room. If, on the other hand, you're a teacher who stepped down the hall to the copy room to run off some copies, your duty is to resume your station in the room full of kids whose safety you are charged with.

What of the captain of a sinking ship, who has dependant family at home, but crewmen yet aboard? That's a tough one, no? Best to figure your duty before setting sail, and to alert your family of them, too.

I recently chastised an officer about neglecting his Area Of Responsibility as a cover officer during a roadside investigation. Depending on your specific role in a given situation, duties change. I think of Jane Harrison (GC), who on this date in 1968 perished aboard a burning airliner as she sought to get every passenger off, including a disabled passenger who also died. Her citation for the George Cross ends simply with: "Miss Harrison was a very brave young lady who gave her life in her utter devotion to duty." Note that the citation doesn't say that she went above and beyond her duty.

Duties on some days are harder than others.

_________________________________

*But note: different roles change the duty. For the police officer, everyone that he can reasonably protect is under his charge. For the person who has requested an exit seat on a plane, many others are under his charge. Don't like it? Don't take on the duty. With long legs can come great responsibility. :)

This and that.

2011-04-02T20:43:00.004-06:00

Sorry I've not been feeling it in the form of good blogging, lately. We'll try the shotgun approach:

--I bought a '94 Dodge van last week for $500. It runs like a top, has good A/C, a trailer hitch and working trailer lights connections, good rubber, and a stout luggage rack. It doesn't have any seats behind the front seats. Time to do some chores that I've been meaning to tend to, and I may just put together some kind of business with my shift partner. We'll see. In the mean time, the ride makes me look like a prime suspect for any future abductions. The word "skeevy" comes to mind.

--I bought my wife an iPad 2 in 32gig 3G. It was difficult to find. The guy at Radio Shack was so customer friendly, he put me on a list and called me and held it for me when it came in. That guy needs a raise. The wife loves the iPad. I don't know yet just how useful it is. I can't type on it very well, though Marko says that he can, pretty well. Marko does not have hands as big and clumsy as I do. Neither did the silverback Lowland Gorilla that I saw today at the Dallas Zoo.

--When we took my daughters and friends to the zoo today, we found parking was $7 per car (we took two), and admission was $12 a head. Then there was the cost of food inside. The animals ate well. Giraffes eat romaine lettuce and RyeCrisp crackers that you can buy from a vendor there. The bald eagle ate fresh quail. The fossa had a very nice looking rabbit. I don't recall my parents spending so much when they took me to the zoo as a kid. Still, we liked it.

--Dunno what other heeled visitors were carrying, but with the temps in the high 80's, I just wore my standard J-frame stoked with +P .38 Spl, with a NY reload of a P3AT in my pocket. The roundbutt .38 rode VERY nicely in my new but steadily-being-worn holster by Mike, which I need to do a review on soon.

--I found myself the other day able to compare Tamara's favorite Stone's Ruination IPA with my old standard Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. The Ruination has a more pure note of bitterness all the way from the initial sip through the fair-thee-well. The Dogfish Head has a more complex flavor, with more malt and mouth feel. The head is almost crunchy. This will require more study. --I used the van tonight to fetch home 24 bales of Owens Corning pink insulation and a blower, so that in the morning I might blow in about 12" of insulation into my mom's attic and perhaps another 6" over my garage.

--My wife made a wonderful curry with venison on Thursday, and it suffers not one whit as leftovers, served over fluffy basmati rice. It seems that pressure-cooked venison makes a superb base for curry. If you're concerned about the gamey flavor of venison (we're not), may I heartily recommend you try it in a vindaloo?

--I was able to help a local family out recently, after their kid went on the lam, merely by picking up the phone and calling a fellow law enforcement professional. It seems the run-away son got himself picked up (in Texas, you can be a runaway at 17, but can still be held in grown-up jail for your criminal actions) for a minor misdemeanor (fibbing about his age). LawDog made sure that, while his stay may not have been comfortable or fun, it was at least safe and reasonably smooth. Classification is something of an art, and sometimes it takes a nudge from an artist with LD's knowhow to keep the puppies out of the wolves' dens. Problem child is back at home, mending fences. With a little help from some people he's never even met, he'll get by. (Thanks, 'Dog.)

That's not fair! You've got more!

2011-03-14T12:17:00.003-06:00

It's not fair that I don't have a new car, but you do.
It's not fair that my house is old, but yours is bigger and newer.
It's not fair that my hair is receding while I'm still in my 30's.
It's not fair that I can't fit in the same clothes as you.
It's not fair that I have a size 18 boot (when I can find one) without FULL compensation elsewhere.
It's not fair that, as a child, I had an allergy to wheat.
It's not fair that I had to work when my friends played.
It's not fair that I work nights while my friends work regular shifts.
It's not fair that you have more money than me.
It's not fair that you have more than I do, and I have less than you do.

It's not fair.

And now you're telling me that we don't have enough money to give me more, when you clearly have more than me? That's not fair.

First, we are not either broke. And second, it's not fair that you have more than me:

As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy in December, “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can’t even think about raising their taxes.

Well, duh! There's PLENTY of money-- it's just that you elites* have taken it all.

This, my friends, is how we delude ourselves into giving up capitalism for socialism.

__________________________________________
*Defined as "those who have more than I deem to be appropriate."

Livin' the dream.

2011-03-01T23:07:00.008-06:00

Okay, I have to admit that the latest news accounts on Chuck Sheen A.K.A. Carlos Estevez have been kind of entertaining. Who can't watch as this train-wreck-in-progress declares that he's so awesome, he's tired of hiding his light under a bushel, and hires porn stars for house help and part-time nanny work, along with mixing him up the perfect speedball on the side?

Comes now the quote generator. I hope these guys make some money off of this; it's made of guilty win. "WINNING."*

I'm in for July 22, 2013, on his Death Pool. Anyone with any other squares? The board's open...

______________________
* There is evidence that Sheen has decided that the word "gnarly" needs taking back.

What do you do when both parties spout nonsense?

2011-03-01T15:55:00.003-06:00

Roberta X throws out some nice barbs on Newt Gingrich. I particularly like her analogies of the two parties as our crazy uncles.

Then Tamara pens this one: "Newt Gingrich criticizing Barack Obama's position on the Sanctity of Marriage is like Nick Nolte giving PR advice to Donny Osmond."

Hey, guys? Refusing to discriminate against an entire class of Americans is one of the few things that I actually agree with Obama about.

And who misinformed Gingrich that he was still relevant?

Can we move on to issues more pertinent to the business of running this country, please?

Ridiculous off-duty.

2011-03-01T15:36:00.003-06:00

Pretty much, every day this next two weeks that I'm not at my day job, I'll be working off-duty. I've signed up for 80 hours' worth.

The good news is, this is one of the sweetest off-duty gigs that I've ever had thrown my way. I wish it could go on for many more weeks. If I get every single shift that I've signed up for, I will be set for this semester and next semester for my grad school (this should finally end this lengthy ride), and pay for my wife's school this semester and next, along with paying off a lingering credit card debt that we haven't been able to retire since our vacation last year.

I didn't set the rate. I would have been embarrassed to ask for that much, given how easy the work is.