The call that makes it worthwhile.

Almost twelve years ago, I wrote this, and it still rings true: 

I'm just looking for that right stop. The guy burgling cars. The drunk side-swiping parked vehicles, while trying to get home. The runaway 14 year old sneaking out to meet her new Internet boyfriend ("...so dreamy. He's 29!") at the street corner. Something to give tonight's patrol some meaning.

This last shift, it was the end of 2021, and the beginning of 2022. New Year's Eve, on the end of a pretty bad year. I have a habit of almost always volunteering to work on New Year's Eve, because I like to take drunks off of the road. I also will admit to a minor thrill at "winning the toaster," or finding the first case report of the new year, preferably by arrest. I've gotten it many times. DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), DUI By Minor, Assault Causes Bodily Injury Family Violence, Public Intoxication, DWI 2nd, Possession...

So this year, I've got a rookie to train, and sergeant's stripes, and another unit out (we would have had other units out, but for COVID). We've been stopping everything. Inoperative headlamp? Stop and issue a warning. Rolling stop sign? Stop and cite. But so far, no drunks. No fights. No arrests. 

Toward the very end of the shift, we roll up on a fairly new passenger car, parked at the pumps of a closed gas station. My rookie checks out on a suspicious vehicle after seeing the driver fail to move. He walks up and speaks with the driver, and it turns out to be an elderly man. My rookie invites him out of the car, and the old man has a moment of trouble. Too much to drink? No, he has a bad hip. The old man is a charming fellow (a retired engineer), and he explains that he got lost after delivering a package to a family friend, and after his phone died. He lives about 20 miles away. I ask him about medical problems, and he mentions diabetes... and Alzheimer's. 

When we run his name through dispatch, bells and flashers go off. His wife is worried sick, and has put out a missing person report. I call her, and explain that her husband is good, and inquire if he is a good driver. "He's an EXCELLENT driver," she assures me. "He just gets lost."

So, with her assurances and his, we slowly lead out, with an amber flasher atop our vehicle, and drive to his house. He does a beautiful job of driving in following us there, just as promised. My rookie and I briefly meet his lovely wife and their terrific dog ("he's never met a stranger, yet"), and I suggest to her that it's past time to have the talk with her husband about giving up the keys. I suggest that she bring the kids in on the discussion. She agrees. 

We shake the old gentleman's hand, and leave. 

"This was the call," I tell my rookie. "This is the one that we've been looking for all night. This is the call that gave the whole shift meaning. We've had a good night. Let's go home." 

We didn't burn a case report number. Nobody went to jail. I don't care. 

The opportunity

I was on patrol, and saw a little car pull through the parking lot of the convenience store to avoid the stop sign. I shrugged, and pulled it over at the next intersection. The driver dutifully pulled off the state farm highway, and onto a residential surface street. I approached from the driver's side, and introduced myself and explained why the driver had been stopped. He began to contest it, but I told him that I would need his driver's license and insurance. He handed over the insurance right away. Huh-- that's what most people have to look for. I asked him for a driver license. He hemmed and hawed a bit, and I asked him if he possessed one. With his palms up, he admitted that his was under suspension.

"Go ahead and step out, Jerry," I told him, as I stepped back from his door.

I could see it dawning on him: I had never asked his name, and he had never given it during this interaction. Yet I knew who he was.

I could hardly mistake those prison tats, and his scars and marks. I had been a jailer who had hated him, once.

"Hate" is a strong word. I don't use it a lot. But I had felt that emotion for this man, whom I had served many a breakfast in his solitary cell. Jerry couldn't be with other inmates, because he stirred up too much trouble. Maybe that was just the way he liked it, and something that he had figured out in the 22 prior stints that he had done at our jail. Jerry was an equal-opportunity criminal, who, in addition to dealing drugs, seemed to be working his way through the index crimes, though he hadn't yet committed murder, to my knowledge. Bored and in a cell all day, George would figure ways to screw with the jailers. Noisy arguments, spreading rumors to other cells (they could talk to each other), false reports about other inmates, false written complaints about jailers-- he did it all and more. And he had focused on being a particular ass to me.

I will tell you that I never retaliated. Not once. Not after having to explain away BS complaints about me (thank GAWD for CCTV and stored video) by Jerry. Not after having been made late going home to write him up (at my sergeant's direction) for starting another disturbance.

So, when I came across him on this traffic stop, I thought, "Huh. This feels like one of those tests which we sometimes have to give ourselves."

I decided not to arrest him for his suspended license. I issued him a citation for Failure To Present Driver License. I did not impound his vehicle. I asked him about drugs in the car, which he denied having. He offered to let me search his car, and I did. He then shook my hand, thanked me, and drove away.

I thought: man, there was your opportunity for a little payback. John Van Maanen might have been a bit disappointed with me; I had not kept "The Asshole" in check.

At some points, though, you just have to let a thing go, and I guess that I had. I'm a little embarrassed that it even occurred to me to turn the screws on old Jerry, just because of how he had been.

Gotcha.

It was 01:30, and I was doing some serious neighborhood patrol. We had recently been hit with a series of overnight car burglaries in our neighborhoods, and I was damned if I was going to let it happen again, even though I had case reports stacking up on my desk. I was slowly driving up and down the neighborhood streets, shining lights into parked cars. Either I was going to find some car burglars, or I was going to scare them into stopping their activities. Or I was going to waste my time. It was so far looking like the last possibility was the most likely.

As I slowly approached a car parked on a corner of a residential street, I saw that it was occupied, and that the person in the driver's seat was in his late teens or early 20s, and was facing lighted screen in his lap. He cut his eyes at me as I passed. He looked scared. I turned around and parked behind him. I got out and approached, making sure that my body camera and car camera and body mic were all turned on. At the driver's door, I opened with, "Whatcha doin'?" This isn't actually part of the 7 Step Violator Contact, but this wasn't actually a traffic stop, and I had no evidence that the young man sitting there texting was actually a violator of any kind. He was actually free to leave, without answering my question. This was what we call a Consensual Contact. That he chose to roll the window down and speak to me without a stop command was his own decision.

"I'm, uh, waiting for a friend," he answered quickly.

"Oh, okay. A friend. Who is your friend?"

"Nadine."

"Nadine who?"

"Nadine, uh, um, Perez."

"Oh, a new friend! How old is Nadine, sir?" I inquired.

"A-about 16," he answered. You notice that hesitation? That means that she's 15.

"And where did you meet her?" I asked him.

"On the PlayStation Chat Board," he answered, and I believed him.

"And you were just now texting her," I said. He nodded. "May I see your cell phone?" I asked. He handed it over to me. I looked at his text conversation:

Her: "So, are you coming over, or not? I'm not staying up all night."
Him: "I'm leaving the house now, headed down Hwy 830 from [location 35 miles away]."
Her: "Where are you...??"
Him: "I'm coming around the loop toward you."
Him: "I'm now on Farm Road 1234, headed toward Smalltown."
Her: "OK."
Him: "I'm outside your house, parked on the street next door."
Her: "OK. I'm coming out in a sec."
Him: "Wait. Someone is coming down the street, really slowly."
Him: "I think that it may be a cop. If it's a cop, I am soooo busted."
Him: "OMG, it IS a cop. He's about to pass me. Oh God, he passed me and looked right at me!"
Him: "He's turning around!"

I asked him, "So? Let's go meet Nadine's parents!"

He got out, and we walked up to the door of the house. I knocked loudly on the front door, and found that it was standing ajar. A minute later the lady of the house answered. I introduced myself, and asked her if her daughter Nadine was permitted to have visitors at 1:30AM. She answered no. I asked that she go fetch her daughter as well. She returned with her husband, but no Nadine. Nadine was missing from her bed.

We found Nadine hiding between two cars in the driveway. She was in fact 15 years old. My young Lothario was almost 18. I demanded of him, "So you chose to take it upon yourself, to tempt this girl whom you have never met, into leaving the house and protection of her parents, after they were asleep? Just WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, MISTER?!!?" I glanced at Nadine's father, standing  shirtless, wearing just a pair of pajama bottoms. For a middle-aged man, this guy was in great shape. His chest rose and fell a little bit too rapidly for the boy's safety. Big puffs of steam entered the cold night air from the man's lips. Nadine's papa was pissed off.

"I'm nobody," answered the boy. "Nobody. I don't know why I'm even here. If you will permit me, sir, I will go, and never come back..." He was beginning to babble. I filled out a Criminal Trespass Warning on my clipboard, and witnessed Nadine's parents' signatures on it. I had the boy sign receipt of it, and gave him and the parents each their copies of the document which ordered my young Lothario to leave the property and to never return, under penalty of being arrested should he return again.

My junior officer had by this time arrived, and asked if I wanted to do anything else with him. "Write him for violation of Restriction G on his driver license," I answered. The boy wasn't yet 18, and was driving after midnight for a social visit. The boy signed it gladly, declaring that he would pay the citation the first thing in the morning.

I think that it's important for parents to know who there children are dating.

A note for "helpful" people.

When you see the police officer on a traffic stop in your neighborhood, yelling to him, and getting his attention, and asking if "everything's all right"-- that's not actually helpful. If things WERE getting tense, you're not then a reassurance; you are a distraction.

Please don't do this, good citizen. Please.

Blogorado... 7? I think???

I went up to Colorado on Thursday, and came back on Monday. I had a great time.


My wife, who did not go, thinks that all we did was talk guns and shoot guns and be manly men, or something.


She doesn't realize that I participate in more hugs in that weekend than I do for the rest of the year.


I ate well. I communed with friends, old and new.


I enjoyed watching my friends' successes, and joked with them about their insubstantial failures.


Yeah, we shot at dynamite, and we shot a bowling ball mortar, and we blew up a car and a kitchen appliance. But mostly, it was about The Exchange.


Farewell, my tribe. Until next we meet.

Another dog call.

I responded to two reports of a large pit bull acting aggressively. I arrived, and couldn't find it. I was informed that it had run off toward the highway. As I walked around the area, he showed up, and attacked the wheels of the complainant's Jeep. Literally, he bit the tires, snarling. He wheeled and ran at me, barking, ears down.


I drew my duty weapon, and had a few ounces of pressure on the Glock 31's trigger before he finally checked up about 4 feet from me, barking. He wheeled around, and I transitioned to Taser. I really didn't want to shoot the dog.


Taser still in hand, I phoned the animal control officer, and told him that I really needed a response. He was half an hour out. I set to calming the dog down.


My chief and I tossed him sticks, and talked nice to him, and generally wanted him to know that we thought he was great. He wouldn't kennel up in the back of my car, and periodically would get very aggressive again. My chief took my Taser, I kept my ASP out.


We called out the owner. She arrived right after Animal Control showed up. We asked for the dog's shots and registration, something that the owner had been warned about the last time that the dog was found running loose. She informed us that she HAD gotten he dog vaccinated, but that I just wouldn't believe her because it was a pit bull. It's funny-- I have long known that one of my tender spots is to be accused of being a racist. Here, I felt that same anger rise up. I swallowed it. Huh. Apparently my irritation at being called a racist translates into irritation at being called a "breedist." Or something. Good to know.


We got the dog put up. The owner got a ticket. She insisted that the dog was NOT aggressive. I pointed out that it had been to us, and that it had tried very hard to kill a cat in my presence (damn near managed it, too). "That's what dogs do," she said. "They get out, they kill cats, they kill chickens... big deal!" I pointed out that it was a big deal to the owners of the cats and chickens, and to the parents of the children in the area.


The dog had gotten out because she had it tied up in the back yard without a dog house this morning when she went to work, and he slipped his collar.  It was 30 degrees with a 25 mph wind outside this morning. I warned her of the Health And Safety Code: Unlawful Restraint Of Dog.


She shook her head ruefully and told the animal control officer that I just had it in for her and her poor dog.


I have very little enamel left on my teeth.

Get off of my side.

Look, neighbor we've got some things in common, you and I. We both like to shoot. We appreciate nice guns. Heck, we even have a certain appreciation for not-so-nice guns. We both also hold our current administration with some contempt. So, common ground, I guess?

But you see, my contempt for our sitting President isn't based upon the color of his skin. It's not completely based upon his origin*.  It's not based upon his religion or lack of it**.

As a matter of fact, it is actually his pandering to race which is one of the reasons that I'm annoyed by our sitting President.

I don't like racism. I find myself irritated by racists. But I try, for the most part, to live and let live.

But you know what really pushes my button?

Imply that I'm a racist.

And here's the thing: when you and I, recent acquaintances, are having conversation between almost-strangers, and you casually drop the N-word and other racial remarks about our sitting President-- you're making some assumptions about me. You're assuming that I'm complicit with your speech, and your way of thinking. You're assuming that I'm not offended, and will continue this conversation. By implication, you are saying that you believe that I'm like you. A racist.

I'm not. And while I may appreciate the courtesies that you may have shown me and mine, I'll be taking my leave. Because today I can't stand talking to you, and your racist friends.

_____________________________
*Hawaii? No. Kenya? I'm not a birther. Politically, he's from Chicago. There's a lot of righteous disdain to be held for Chicago's political system.

** Although his attendance to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church, and support (until called on the issue) of a man who is patently racist, bothers me.

Don't make assumptions.

I'm not saying "Get Off My Side!", but I'm damned close to it.

I went to the NRA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, a week and a half ago. It was a great time. I met lots of friends, old and new, and wished that I had showed up earlier, and could stay later.

While there, I saw some news media types on the sidewalk, and about halfway hoped that they would ask me for a quote. Of course they didn't, and probably wouldn't have even if I had not been wearing media credentials.

What I would have said was, "70 to 80 thousand NRA exhibitors and attendees have come to town. Most of us are armed. And come Monday morning, if you're honest, the lede for your story will be '70k Armed People Invade Indianapolis: Nothing Happened.'"

I skipped the political speeches. I barely even watched them on the live CCTV feed in the media center.

Then I saw some politico talking about ObamaCare at the NRA Annual Meeting, I question what he's doing there.  Is he likely to find a welcome ear to such discussion? Sure! But he was crossing the streams. Why should I be beleaguered if I wasn't on board with that?

"They're winning!" declared a political candidate, declaring that we are, despite our advances in the Supreme Court to recognize the 2nd Amendment as an individual right, despite the advances of more and more states expanding rights to concealed carry or even open carry, are basically losing the battle for our rights to be armed.   (By flying with a pistol to Indianapolis, it had cost me precisely one extra minute, to open my suitcase, open my locked gun case, show unloaded, and pitch in my personal ownership card to the case. One minute.)

Then another political candidate came up and gave his stump speech. And another. And another. Sarah Palin came on, and I heard the occasional odd silly catchphrase from her, but ignored her. I heard some talk about the Democrats and the progressives.

I bumped into Tam, and she showed me the text that she had just gotten from Caleb: "Sarah Palin just said 'waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists' word for word."  Don Gwinn was there with me, and we gave forth the stereophonic sound of simultaneously striking our palms against own foreheads.

What if I don't believe in torturing people?
What if I don't go in for any type of baptism?
What if I don't have anything against progressivism, but do want to advance the cause of the Second Amendment?

I didn't get as much time as I'd like to hang out with a fierce proponent of the 2nd Amendment who is gay. I'm sure that lots of pro-2A people there don't approve of his "lifestyle," but that's a red herring; he's on their team. I didn't get to have a drink with Ken Blanchard, one of "those people"* from Detroit, like I did at the 2012 Annual Meeting in St. Louis. I shook hands with a renown gunwriter who has, tongue in cheek, taken on the nickname of "The Camelback Kid" for cowboy action shooting. I spent some time in the company of person who exhibited phenotypical male characteristics, but preferred the female pronoun.

What if these don't meet with your idea of who ought to be there?

Tough. They're on our side. So stick to the issue at hand.

You may just find that this is a theme of mine: Don't Cubbyhole Me.

I am not a peg; quit trying to make me fit in the shape hole of your choosing.

I don't care about RINOs at the NRA convention. You know why? Because it's not Republican convention.

When you mix your other politics into this issue, we end up with people making assumptions about the lot of us, and making ad hominem attacks on speakers with otherwise really good points about our liberties.

Feel free to talk about your issues elsewhere, but at this convention, you're confusing the issues, and being divisive, by trying to be OVERLY inclusive in too narrow a world view.

My name is Matt G, and I was there to talk about guns. Period.


_______________
*He's not gay; he's black.

Unwanted email.

I'm sorry about the Captcha on the comments. I hate it, too. But with Comment Moderation on, evaluating the comments was turning into a daily part-time job. I had been throwing the email notifications of spam into a folder in my email, and just now deleted the contents of that box. I had to keep doing it, 200 emails at a time. I deleted over 1200 emails, from a very short period of uninterrupted bot-hosting. Each one of those, I opened, read, denied for my blog, and moved to a folder. Too much work. That's why I have the Turing test, to prove that you breathe and think on your own before you submit a comment. Sorry to make you work for it.

While I was in my email, I looked in the Spam folder for the first time in a LONG time. One was from an email with my own moniker in it, and I idly opened it. This is what popped up:

Good day my new friend!
I for the first time try such a way of dialogue, and I really don't know what to tell right now even though I understand that this first message have greater importance. My name is
Lubov. I look for the friend on the web. I liked your
form. And I decided to write to you. On the Internet I did not
communicate earlier. My friend told to me to communicate on the
Internet. Now I decided to find the friend. I Hope we will
communicate. Then communication can outgrow in that bigger))).
Thanks for time found by you! I am wait your answer!
My mail box l_[redacted]@ymail.com
Your new girlfriend Lubov.

I picture it being spoken in the voice of a female Latka Gravas.  Man, I should write her back, and let her down easy, and tell her that I'm married.

Don't cubbyhole me, part n + 1

I was visiting Texas' capitol city, Austin, for the second time this week. The first was to see my close friend be sworn into service as a Texas Department Of Public Safety State Trooper.* This second time, was to visit family.

Saturday, while my wife and kids went shopping, I went to get a cuppa with an online friend/old high school acquaintance. In the Austin fashion, I got a hug coming and going.  The coffee at the White Rabbit Coffee House was very, very good, and I asked them about their roaster. They sent me to Texas Coffee Traders, at 1400 E 4th St.

That's a rough part of town, but sometimes, the rough parts are where the innovation is...

...and this was definitely the case, here. I arrived, and found them busy, but not too busy to help me. Ron showed me around, and even gave me a quick tour of their roasting facilities. I got to see how they load up 66 lb batches of green coffee beans,

...and put them into one of their hot-air roasters...

...to make perfectly roasted beans.

They even have some awesome museum pieces, that look ready to be put into service. Note the old drum roaster:

Also, check out the old high-volume coffee grinder:

Honestly, these would need a fair bit of cleanup to get to the standards that they have. But I'll bet that they could do it.

So I bought a pound of their excellent Ethiopian Sidamo and half a pound of Costa Rica Cafe Monteverde each in water-processed and "Natural".

I also picked up some coffee-making/bar supplies (stirring spoons, measuring glasses), and was pleased to be rung up by their nice staff.

With my brown paper bag full of incredible-smelling goodness, I headed out. I stopped to take a picture of the front of the place, and apologized to a customer whom I captured petting the shop cat. I asked if if it was okay to put the picture on the blog. She laughed, said it was fine, and invited me to sit with her boyfriend and herself for a bit, at a table in front of the roast house.

After an hour of chatting, Jessica and Vincent and I were treated by RC (the business owner) to some holiday caramel popcorn before he locked the gates. During the last hour, I had explained that I didn't actually have anything against the independent businesswoman who had attempted to open negotiations for her private itinerant business. I listened to their personal views of the world, and found them quite loving. I learned that they were both artists and musicians. When my wife called to tell me to remember to find a "White Elephant" gift for the family exchange, Vincent ran to his car to bring me some art. I said, "I couldn't give fine art as a white elephant." He laughed and said "this isn't very good art, though!"

One piece? It was so completely inaccessible to my narrow brain, that I absolutely had to give it as a white elephant. Another, I'm putting up on the mantle. It's pretty damn good. Come by my house, and I'll show it to you. Vincent is actually a pretty eclectic, capable artist. I don't know about his rapping. It's not a genre that I'm a huge fan of.

We talked about the pleasure of making the days of strangers, and I thanked them for inviting me to join them. I mentioned an occasion (witnessed by Don Gwinn) where people gave me free cupcakes in the streets of downtown St. Louis. Vincent asked what I was in St. Louis for, and I told him that I was there for an NRA convention. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed.  There had been a similar statement when they learned what I do for a living.

We went our separate ways with hugs. I took my art, and was smiling.

I dropped by the HEB grocery store, and stopped to sample some ham presented by Tamara, a nice lady. I asked about where the jalapeno dip was, and she shut down her booth to take me to it. We chatted along the way, and she told me that I was a blessing to her day. Well, hell, she was to mine, too. I hugged this woman and was damned happy for it.

Tamara, whom I requested permission to blog.**

She and Vince and Jessica, and Kendra-- they made my day. Hell, they might have made my Christmas, whatever that may mean.

Love your neighbors, friend. They're Real People. You can be the best part of their day.

___________________
*More on that later.
**NOT Tamara K, referenced here often.

Made.

I was getting my ammo together to shoot a local tactical match, when the range officer mentioned casually, "I didn't know that you had a blog."

Me: "A... 'blog', did you call it? Isn't that where geeks write down their inanities for imaginary people to read?"

Him: "Something like that. I found this blog with an author named 'Matt G," who is a gun-friendly Texas cop, and it occured to me that you must be him."

Me: "'Matt G', you say? No last name listed? Huh. Sounds like he's trying to stay somewhat anonymous."

Him: "I'll be sure and respect his privacy, then."

He's a good man.

Green Flags.

Cliff Pervocracy (confusingly named) puts up this excellent post on Green Flags When Meeting Someone New.

We all talk about Red Flags, but why not talk about the green ones? (Hint: the absence of a red flag does NOT automatically equal a green one.)

Very much worth the read, and re-read. 

Epic weekend.

This past weekend was my three-day weekend off.

On Friday evening, Scott, my best friend of 29 years, called me and said that he and his parents and kids were having dinner and seeing movies nearby. I hopped in the car and met them at the cinema to see Act Of Valor, which I had it on good authority was worth seeing. It was. I found that the reaction to the movie by the packed theatre was almost identical to what Tamara observed: no one moved for 5 - 10 seconds after the lights came up, and what slight voices were heard were very hushed, as about 300 people (?) left. Something about a dead warrior's best friend telling the dead man's son about his father's outlook on life, and quoting Tecumsah to him, that hits you (well, me, anyway) right in the middle.

I won't reprint those strong words here. I suggest that you read them all (just three short paragraphs), because there is iron and tenderness in the admonition there.

Scott and I went with the kids for ice cream afterward, and who doesn't like to watch kids enjoy ice cream? I ask you.

On Saturday, after fire training, I dropped by my shift partner's house to drop something off. He had out cases of quality Belgian, American, and German beers, and entreated me to try a sample, with his old roommate. Never one to insult a gracious host, I had a sample. He pushed another into my fist. I explained that I had to drive home. Nonsense, he argued. His bride would be happy to do so. She smiled and said that she would be glad to do it. I looked at her face, and saw the love of a good woman spouse for her life partner. She really wanted me to stay, because it gave her pleasure to see her husband happy. We ordered pizza a spiced mussels from a local Italian place, and commenced to enjoying great beer, and better stories around the kitchen table.  My shift partner's friend had some great ones about his time in the Navy, and he appreciates good beer like I do. Before long, my partner and I were conducting SFST's on each other, and laughing about the outcome. It was all very silly, I assure you.

It was 3:00am when his wife dropped me off at my house. I had dropped by their place at about 6:00pm. 

I woke up on Sunday feeling great. Seriously. I haven't had a "choir meeting" like the one on Saturday night in years and years, yet I felt as right as rain.

And I was late. Dad wanted to go see a matinee with me. We picked up my car, and went to luncheon on Mexican food, and went to see Act Of Valor again. I watched for tactical techniques. Word is that a lot of the scenes were shot with live ammo. The operators were for-real operators. Many of the scenes were shot with Canon SLR digital cameras, from first-person perspectives, so that you see what the operator sees. I thought it a shame that the director had the guys in low-light using IR goggles but red-dot lasers, when he could have shown the IR beams that they all had on their M4s, through their goggles. But that was a very small criticism. I almost never see movies twice. This one was worth it.

I thanked my wife and my partner's wife for making Saturday night possible. Understanding spouses make a huge difference.

I'm about to go to work, and I'm looking forward to it. Such is what a good weekend can do for you.

What a pleasure it was

What a pleasure it was to have my dad ride along with me last night.

What a nice day it was to do some fire training on roof ventilation. I never realized before how dangerous that stuff could be, even in training.

Showing some 3/4 CDX plywood decking who's boss with a fire axe can get out some great pent-up aggression. *

Getting home to a nice bowl of my wife's beef stroganoff after dropping off yet another person at the jail who insisted that they would have [my] job is good for a bit of schadenfreude, especially when you know what that person is having for breakfast.

________________________________
*NOTE: More fireman talk in comments.

The passage of time.

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.

A time to listen.

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.

The connections

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

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.

Pardon me while I get a little defensive for our state.

You know who we see moving here in Texas? Californians. They marvel at the low (read: realistic) cost of housing. They like the lack of state income taxes. They buy a house here, enroll their kid into our schools, and then get busy complaining.

Not enough services. Our schools are rated too low. Texas is made up of a bunch of hicks. (That last one's pretty general, and, to a great extent, true. But we hear the complaint a lot.)

Funny thing, though. You Californians and other immigrants to our state seem to be complaining about our state at the end of a conversation that started with "Where's the nearest U-Haul dealership? I need to turn in my moving van."

I can't blame you for fleeing Cali. If it weren't for Miami, you guys would have "top five crappiest towns in the U.S." locked up.

As for schools, I have often wondered how anyone could miss that 1254 miles of our 2000 mile border with Mexico is the Rio Grande River. In my personal experience, the Rio Grande averages about a foot or two deep, most places. So we get a few international immigrants, too. It is estimated that we have 70,000 undocumented aliens in the Texas school system. In the college system, most of the 12,000 aliens in Texas receiving in-state tuition are illegal.

We educate about 700,000 ESL kids a year, at an average cost of around $7500 per kid per year. Count the zeros. That's a good five billion bucks. Which we come a lot closer to paying than the folks in California do.


Hey, your revenue is welcome. And if you'll give it a shot, you might just find that you like our redneck ways. But if you're running down your new home as soon as you get here, that's just foolish.

You incoming folks have already run up the number of digits on our license plates to seven, just like you had it back home. Maybe that'll feel more homey to you.

Haiku #15: "Lift Assist" Call

My back is too tight.

Four dozen stone is HEAVY.

Diet incentive.