Random Friday Thoughts.

--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.