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. 

We aren't playing the music just to hear the applause of others.

Domestic disturbance. A teen boy put hands on his mother. I arrived, along with a couple of other cops from our shift, because it was shift change, and I was the swing shift supervisor.

I found the shrugging mother, who was unhurt and refused to give a statement or press charges,  and the almost-unhinged 17 year-old son, who was carrying his stuff downstairs to put into his pickup. The mother told him that he could not take the pickup. He protested profanely that he made the payments of said pickup. I informed him that the pickup, and his possessions, until he was 18, were under her control. I told him to sit down.

He stood stock still for a minute, and then sat down reluctantly at the tall kitchen table.  I sat down, too. I've found over the years that both of us sitting down seems to bring a chance of calmness, even though it destroys any tactical superiority that I might have. Well, there were some other cops there, too. I asked the kid to take a breath. He was shaking. I told him to try to calm down. His jaw was clenched. He was furious. He asked if he could leave.  I told him that he could, but not with the pickup that his mother had decreed was not to leave. He walked out.

I spoke with his mother for a bit. She was at her wit's end. I told her to keep her chin up, and asked a few more questions about the event, which really was pretty much a non-police matter.

I walked out, and found my fellow officers talking to the boy on the sidewalk. He looked a little lost and somewhat petulant. His clothes and boots were in his arms, and we was going to carry them... where?  It was 104 degrees out. One of our officers, who was past her shift's end, offered to give him a ride to his father's house, in the next town over. It was a kind offer, typical of her, but also a savvy way to clear the call. I had 6 hours left in my shift, and asked the boy if he had eaten anything. He had not. I offered to buy him a Coke and a hamburger. He responded, barely in control of himself, that he did not wish to have anything to do with me, at all. It was clear that he was furious at me, which I didn't understand.

One of my officers, who is junior in rank to me, walked me away from it. "You told him to 'calm down,' Matt. You know that doesn't work. You told me that!" He wasn't wrong. The other officer, whom the boy was responding well to, gave the boy a ride home. I tried to figure out how I knew this kid.

Wait. Context!
For some reason, I hadn't focused on his name, and I had never actually been to this house before this. I had only met him once, at the high school, when I had interviewed him. I had worked for a month on his case about 8 months before, when his out-of-town girlfriend had accused him of raping her. I had worked hard on that case, and over weeks of investigation with witnesses and phone reviews and site visits had proved up that he had NOT raped the girl who had made an outcry. If the initial officer's report had been a little stronger, I would have charged his accuser with perjury, in fact. I had obtained an affidavit of non-prosecution from the "victim," and had cleared his name entirely, and labeled the case report "Unfounded."  I just had not associated that boy with this boy-- one and the same.

I was befuddled. Why was this kid focused on me as a thorn in his side? I had busted my butt to save him. The answer, of course, is that for 4 weeks, I had interviewed, and investigated, and collected evidence, and put off his mother's anxious calls for updates... and he thought that I had been gunning for him. In his mind, I had come after him with everything that I had, and missed. I thought back to my interview of the accused, which had taken place in a conference room at the high school. It had been more of an interrogation than an interview, to be honest. But it had given me some leads that I pursued to prove that the accusations against him were groundless.

In the end, do I want to be appreciated by the people that I serve? I think that's pretty natural to want. But honestly, there is NOTHING that I would have done differently about the rape case, because I arrived at the truth. In this case, I would have skipped telling him to "calm down."

Sex crimes

People ask me how I like my new job as an investigator. I tell them that the hours are nice, but I had no idea how much of my life would be spent sitting at a desk, going through pictures of phalli.

We live in a very, very different world than we did, 30 years ago.
When I was in my teens, I did not have a device in my possession which could pull up websites capable of meeting people around the globe, chatting with them anonymously in real time, and letting us take pictures and video of our genitals to send to each other. So there were not 13 year old girls getting extorted by foreign creeps who had talked them out of their clothes as well as their identities and social media accounts. There were not men posing as boys, meeting girls online. There were not men posing as fathers of pre-teen girls, soliciting sex from other women with their alleged daughters online. There were not men meeting up online with confused girls who had [literally] infantile fantasies.

We live in a very, very similar world to what we've had forever.
We have teachers having sex with students. We have brothers molesting their sisters, and making them cover it up. We have juvenile rape. We have adult drunken rape. We have buyer's remorse "rapes," in which the victim decides later to call the sex rape. We have enticing of minors. We have family members groping other family members in their sleep. We have teen boys stealing women's underwear.

Honestly? I'm thankful for the residential burglary and the identity theft cases that I've got to break of the monotony.

One of the common themes that I've seen has been repression of sex by the victim's family. In the last year, I've caught one and a half (just helped on one) cases involving a young woman from a sexually repressive family, declaring that she was raped when her family found out that she was having sex. I had a case in which the child's parents had chided the victim as a toddler for being immodest because she took her shirt off around the house, which seems to have contributed to the child not making an outcry for years of her brother molesting her. I've had a retraction of a victim's outcry, when her grandmother told her that she was going to ruin the family.

I'd frankly like to get back to putting other kinds of bad guys and gals in jail.
Please.

Pursuit of happiness.

My elder daughter, when in high school band, was very tight with her section members. She and several other horn players would literally have parties, exclusive to their section. As such, my wife and I got to know all of them. These were great boys and girls. I was professionally aware that NONE of these kids had ever gotten in any kind of trouble, and thus I approved highly of the friendship. One boy, whom we will here call Larry, graduated a year before my daughter, He went to college, and got a job. Lately he's been also helping out a lot with the youth group at the local church, as a youth leader. He had interviewed me about my work for a Criminal Justice class, and I just recently found out that he's majoring in that field. He's been dating a sweet young lady whom we will here refer to as Eva, who joins him in assisting with the church youth.

So, yesterday afternoon, while I was at work, I got a text from him:

"Hey Officer G, I have a favor to ask you. I want to ask Eva to marry me and I was wondering if I could get your assistance to help me." 

I asked what he had in mind, and ran it by the chief. I prefaced my ask with my personal perceptions of Larry to the chief. He consented. I told Larry that the gig was a Go.

After my shift, I picked him up at his house in my patrol car. I had him sit in the back seat of my patrol car. He was dressed nicely. We drove to a street corner near her house, and parked in a subtle location. He texted her mother to have her come over to his house. When she drove by, I fell in behind her, and pulled her over at a parking lot. I got out, unlatched Larry's back door, and stepped up to speak to Eva: "Miss, would you mind stepping out of the car?" She got out. I pointed at the rear of her car, and babbled for a few seconds while giving Larry the sign (I pointed at her). I told her that this was important, and then asked her to turn around. Larry was there behind her, on his knee, with a very large diamond ring held out. He had told me before that they had talked generally about marriage, but he had never gone through the formality of asking her before. She said "yes", and they wept as they hugged each other. I took a couple of pictures, and asked her to drive her fiancé home safely.

I went home, and informed my daughter of the role that I had just played in her good friend's engagement. I went back out to my patrol car, to make sure that the camera system saved the event in the highest resolution. Our new digital camera systems assign different storage resolutions for different types of patrol events, pulled from a pre-selected list of headings. There wasn't a listing for Marriage Proposal. I selected "Pursuit," which I knew saved at high-level. This pursuit had gone pretty well.

Range week.

My week was pretty good. Of the last 5 days, I got to shoot on four of them. Of those 4 days, I was paid to shoot other people's ammunition on 3 of them, and on the one day that I was unpaid, I shot with my father.

The new Glock 19 is reliable, and easy to shoot, but I'm having accuracy issues with it. Even with the new sights, I'm not getting groups under 4" at 25 yards, from a rest. I honestly am not sure if the problem is me, or the gun. That said, shooting from the holster while qualifying with it yesterday, I was fast, and centered on the silhouette target. I went to a plate rack, and was shooting it fast. It will be great for off-duty carry, but I'm saddened that I'm not shooting better with it, even with fancy new sights. (Trijicon HD XRs).

We had a challenge match at qualifications, in which each officer fired at a bullseye target with their pistol (four shots at 15 yards), shotgun with slugs (2 shots at 20 yards) and patrol rifle (4 shots at 25 yards), all in 10 seconds. Highest score wins. I'm embarrassed to say that I came in second, and that I wasn't sucking up when the chief came in first. I will say that my scores were abysmal not least because the wind was steady at 29 mph, gusting much higher, during the shoot. But it was for most of the other guys' shooting, too. It's shameful not to be making all 9's or better, with a carbine, at a mere 25 yards.

I also taught an hour block on Use Of Force and Officer-Involved Shooting Post-Incident Procedure, as regarding our new policies.

The next day, I took out the officer who wasn't able to come (because he had to work that night) to group qualifications, and we went shooting.

Yesterday, my chief and I went to qualify, and I got my little BUG G42 qualified along with my G19, duty G31, duty shotgun, and duty carbine. After he finished, he noted that he had a few mags still loaded up for his SIG P220, and suggested that we hit the plate rack, at the side range. We went there, and happily knocked down plates at speed.

I noticed an older man a few lanes over, shooting at a paper target with a Beretta PX4 Storm full-sized .45. At 10 yards, he was barely hitting the 3'X5' silhouette  target paper. It was hard to watch. He had a very low grip on his pistol, with the better part of an inch of air between the web of his strong hand and the upper part of the tang of the pistol. His support hand was in a teacup grip. As a result, the muzzle flip was utterly uncontrolled, and he tried to fight the recoil by pushing back into it, "helping" the round by another one foot per second down range. It also caused his shots to go low, on average.

My chief and I picked up and went toward our cars, discussing work scheduling as we went. We stopped for a minute to converse in the parking lot before leaving, and as we parted, the older gentleman came walking up, new pistol case and new box of .45 in hand, with his ear muffs over his forearm. "How's that Beretta Storm working out for you?" I asked.

He sucked his teeth, and said, "Well, I've been around firearms all my life, but never much handguns. My wife and I got our license to carry, but I'm having some issues with this gun."

I asked him if he would mind if I offered him a couple of pointers. He said that he welcomed them. I started to show him (with a half-empty water bottle) how he could help his grip, and then said, "Hang on." I grabbed some of my personally-purchased extra ammo for my G19 and my duty G31, and took him back to the plate racks. It took him two magazines, and then, everything clicked. I loaded a magazine for the Glock 31, and had him shoot a hostage plate target with it. It had a 5" red plate on either side of a reduced-sized black silhouette steel target, which swung back and forth to either side of the head of the silhouette when hit. With my 9mm, I could just get the heavy steel to swing around, if I shot it at the outside edge of the plate. He was hitting it on the near edge with the .357 Sig rounds, and was flipping right smartly to the other side. Bang-clink flip. Bang-clink flip back. Bang-clink flip... and so on for 16 rounds, missing ONCE.  I began to think that I'd been set up with a ringer. All of the bullet splashes on the recently-painted plate were slightly low of center, in a 2 or 3 inch group.

This was costing me a little bit of money, and I was low on ammo. I said, "Sir, you keep doing that, safely, and I think that you need to start shooting local pistol matches. Consider it." He told me that he and his wife were mostly interested in being able to defend themselves, and I pointed out that the stress of being timed and shooting against others while being watched was pretty good practice. I looked at my watch; my chief had left an hour before. Time to go.  We shook hands and left. I think his name was Larry. I'm not going to lie; bringing a guy from "barely on paper" to reliably hitting a 5" plate at 10 yards in two magazines was pretty damned fulfilling. Worth every cent of the box of ammo he shot.

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.

This, that, and the other. Guns.

I just tonight had a cover officer from another agency arrive with a 1911 on his belt, and three Wilson 8 rounders on his belt. On his external vest carrier, he work six Wilson 8-rounder magazines. He said that he rounded that out with a tenth in his pocket. That's 80 rounds, beyond the 9 in his sidearm. Meanwhile, I had two spare magazines, for a total of 46 rounds, between the gun and the spare mags. Oh, I suppose that I could count the 7 rounds of .380 in the Glock 42 that I had on me, but really, that gun is in the all-too-appropriately-named-holster for it.


----
The circus came to town. No tigers, this time, but we had a dancing elephant. I was stationed at the circus for the evening. Y'all know that I have zero interest in shooting a circus animal, right? But a man is a fool if he doesn't prepare for the worst. I parked the squad near the tent, and had an extra box of slugs in my pocket. Yes, that's the sum total of my preparations, beyond caffination for the long standing session. The fact is, should Jumbo suddenly go rogue into the stands, I was not going to have time to fetch a long gun, and standing there with a long gun on me would just have been too alarming. I suppose that I could have stuffed a few mags of FMJ into my pockets. Maybe I've gotten complacent. The elephant did some neat tricks, and she was charming. Both crowds at both shows loved her. She may not have been dangerous, but in that arena, she killed.

------

Tuesday, I administer Firearms Qualifications to our department. Every officer will qualify with duty pistol, patrol rifle, shotgun, and backup or off-duty piece. I'm also teaching a short bloc of training. I've gotten an extra 50 rounds approved to be issued to each officer, and we will be shooting the Dot Torture Drill, in memory of the recently-late, great Todd Green. Everyone who shoots it clean will  get their names thrown into the hat, and whoever wins the draw will get a new set of Howard Leight electronic earmuffs. (These things are possibly the best deal going in firearms. They hold up at our county range, and yet they're almost cheap enough to be throw-downs. Put them in your fast-response kit with the jumper cord to your radio, and you're instantly ready to respond to an on-duty incident, and can shoot indoors.) My chief was surprised that I bought these out of my own pocket. Guys, your instructor has to have some skin in the game.  I never got to train with Todd Green, but I gathered that his dedication and caring, combined with his interest in having fun, made him immensely effective.


------

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.

Old tools

Way back in the day (30 or 40 years back), my Dad made up a transport belt. It wasn't much-- it was just a large leather belt with a large brass ring tacked on with a strip of leatherr and two rivets. He kept it all through his years as an investigator. While clearing out a storage unit of his recently, I saw it and asked if I could have it, since he's retired now. The other day, I put a large prisoner into it before putting him into my car. It's simple: you just buckle buckle behind him, with the belt passed through the brass ring in front. Then the handcuffs are passed through the brass ring, and his hands are cuffed in front. It's very safe, but FAR more comfortable to the prisoner. I am a fan of not hurting my prisoners.

A few days ago, I had a low-risk warrant to serve on my day off. I put on some blue jeans and a department polo shirt and an ID card, and put my pistol on my hip. I reached into my sock drawer, and got Dad's old sheep's leather 'cuff carrier from his days as an investigator, and put my cuffs into it, and looped it over my belt. It all went swimmingly, and the guy got booked in, in no time flat, without pain or injury. 

Dad's old leather is still working. 

Work Stuff.

--I got called in on my day off. A woman had been threatened by her boyfriend. I took the report. During the time that I got her statement, I learned from the victim that he had struck her in the face, breaking her nose months ago. She had hidden it from her family and friends, and stayed with him. Her late previous boyfriend had also beat her up, and been convicted of it. It may not have helped my case, but I stopped in the middle of the interview to tell her:

"I don't care what you've done in your life which makes you think that you don't deserve better-- you deserve not to be victimized. You should have the expectation not to be struck by someone who says that he cares about you. It would appear that you don't think that you're worth that, but I assure, you are worth that. Your children deserve not to grow up believing that this is normal. It's not normal, and you must rear them to not put up with it. The only way that they will take that to heart is to see you not put up with it." 

She was crying at this point. Well, it was a thought worth crying over.

--I got a warrant for a search of a house. The actor was a violent felon, who had guns and was part of a drug distribution ring. Because we didn't want anyone hurt, we used a nearby SWAT team. Yes, I could have been part of the warrant service, but I don't train on this every day, and they do. I made clear that I did NOT want a no-knock warrant. (Per my philosophy on this issue.) They knocked, announced, and then used a distraction device to the back of the house before hitting the door. They weren't home. We seized some evidence, and left a list of what we seized. Our felon absconded, with a felony warrant in his wake, which is really as good as if he had been home. Better, even: he's gone away. Let him run.

--I learned of a warrant extant for a violent man who had stopped in our town at a local convenience store. He was a former member of one outlaw biker gang, and was a prospect for another. This second OBG is a much larger one, and was one which made threats against my father and his family, back in the '70s when I was a kid. (I wasn't permitted to ride my bike on the street until I was about 11. You know how much that sucked, in a country community without sidewalks?)  I found the guy, and verified his warrant, and arrested him and found some contraband on his person when I did so. I impounded his motorcycle, which belonged to the club. One of the clubmembers was present when I went about this, and I had to address him in a sharp tone. I have been told that I have inspired the ire of the club. Oh well.

--I have been trying to make peace between two families in town for years. They have squabbled, and I have listened to both sides. Neither can see the other's point of view. I have reached out to both sides, asking for understanding. Finally, one of the sides came to us and said that they would be willing to come to our peace talks. So, my chief and I are going to moderate some kind of neighborhood arbitration. We'll see how this goes. I'll admit that while I know what I want, I'm not sure that I'm skilled at getting us there. This is new to me. But if we can pull this off, we will have stopped a feud which has plagued the lives of people in two households for more than half a decade.

--I have trained up two rookies in the past 6 months. On the last day of Field Training Officer preceptor-ship, I told both of them a variation of this short speech:

"I was part of your hiring process. I know you, warts and all. I have ridden with you by my side for weeks and weeks, often in the middle of the night. I trust you. I trust you so much, that I am willing to let you be responsible for my family's safety. You won't have me looking over your shoulder to tell you what to do, anymore. That can sometimes make it hard to do the right thing. I'm probably badly paraphrasing C.S. Lewis when I say, 'Ethics is doing the right thing when there is no one there to see you do it.'  Your integrity is the most valuable thing that you own, and it may be sold, only once, and very cheaply. Guard it with your life." 

--One of the most valuable pieces of paper hanging up in our P.D. is a Post-It note which my chief put up a couple of years ago which says: "Don't be afraid to be somebody." It is hanging on the monitor of one of my co-workers' computers. I'm thinking of matting it and framing it.

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.

This and that: February 9, 2015.

--I worked an off-duty job last week, and am expecting a little bit of mad money from it. I'm going to buy me a Canon Rebel body, and then go lens shopping. It's embarrassing that I don't have any kind of DSLR, with my family.

--I took the helm for a week as the OIC of my P.D, while the chief was out of town. Nothing happened.

--I went to a Traffic Incident Management school for a couple of days, put on by the North Texas Council Of Governments. The instructors were great, and passionate about what they were teaching. They were fervent in teaching that, if you want to contribute to the safety of first responders and the public at large, you MUST clear the roadway quickly. Statistically, for every minute that a traffic incident continues, there is a 1 to 1.5% chance of a secondary event occurring. That's astounding. They had plenty of evidence to back it up, and were proponents of taking a quick picture of the crash, and using push-bumpers and-or chains to clear disabled vehicles out of lanes so that traffic could get moving again. The instructor said, "My dream is to see push bumpers put onto fire engines. I may retire the day that I see that happen."

Firefighters like to block off extra lanes for the safety of the first responders. The doctrine that these guys were trying to push was to get the firefighters on board with clearing the lanes, in the name of preserving the safety of the motorists upstream of them. I get that.

-- I've been working out again, trying to bring back the physical gains that I had made before the holidays. That left rotator cuff is telling me that I'm stuck at the amount of weight that I'll be benching for awhile, but I'm making nice gains on the eliptical machine, and on the abdominal curl machine. I'm trying to get my wind up, and strengthen my core. Everything else is gravy. Well, losing some more weight would be nice.

--Spending time on the eliptical machine got a LOT better, once I realized that I could use the little Galaxy tablet that my mother gave me for Christmas to watch Archer episodes on, with my Bluetooth headphones on. I, uh, had to turn it off in a hurry the other day when my Bluetooth wireless connection failed and the speaker began blaring the unfortunately blue dialogue at Missus Grundy, trudging away on the machine next to me.

-I taught my 12 year-old daughter the painless-until-resistance-is-encountered come-along hold we call "the Gooseneck." It's mostly used for escorting drunks away from a location. I should make sure that my 16 year-old is good with it, too. Lots and lots of times, just getting a belligerent drunk out of a confrontation will deescalate a tense situation into nothing.

-The Open Carry Movement guys in Texas have a very, VERY vocal minority who are frankly assholes. These asses will ruin it not only for the open carry proponents, but also for regular 2nd Amendment people. The most common method of the OCM activists is to carry (legally) long guns in public places in a prominent manner. It's one thing to carry a gun, and it's another thing to carry a gun at someone, as lots of these guys are doing. The nice thing about the Concealed Handgun License in Texas has been that the guy who wasn't being an idjit, and was following the law in keeping their gun concealed, was going to prevent a lot of foolishness in other ways. More on this, later; it deserves its own post.

--I called my best friend (a small business owner) and asked his advice on starting a small business. Two hours' later, we were kind of at an impasse.

--I refinanced the house, with cash back.  Just because you have cash sitting in the bank doesn't mean that you're wealthy. Not. At. All.

--When we refinanced, they made me sign my "signature" about 75 times throughout the hundreds of papers worth of documents. I say "signature" because the rep from the title company insisted that I had to write in script my first, middle, and last name each time. Who does that?!? I then had to sign a sworn affidavit that this was my "normal and true signature," and give and exemplar above the signing. I wrote for the exemplar my NORMAL signature. The lady with the title company pursed her lips and said that might not work, "because they're all supposed to be the same." I made clear that if I were swearing to the validity of the statement, I would see that it was true, and the only way to do that was to actually sign my actual normal signature on the exemplar line. I pointed out that her own signature below her notary stamp only included her first initial and last name. She countered that it was okay, because she had a letter from her attorney saying that this WAS her normal and true signature. I laughed and said that her attorney held no power to grant such status. But I signed the rest of the documents the way she wanted me to, to keep the title company (and my now-irritated wife, also present) happy.

--They had fresh Otis Spunkmeyer cookies on a plate in the middle of the table in the signing room of the title company. I thought that was odd. The lady from the title company urged us to take them, but we declined, as my wife and I are both on a low-carb diet. We finally took them home to our children.

--I've got to make a site plan for the new fence and deck that I'm putting up. Not one in five homeowners in my city gets a permit to do such work, but I'm getting one, because our municipal ordinance calls for one.

--I want a new backup holster for a J-frame, to put on my body armor. This is easier done when I wear the body armor under my uniform shirt than when I wear it in the external carrier. But I'd like to do it either way. Suggestions? I'm reevaluating.

--I'm also getting the itch for a new subcompact auto. I've been considering a Kahr PM9, or a Glock 42. I will say, though, for being a quality little carry gun, that PM9's magazine protruding from the butt by an 8th of an inch irritates me. Not flush, yet not obviously intentionally protruding. Ugh.

--Brian Williams' claims should not blow over. He has one job: tell the news. When he was on the trip in which he claimed to have his chopper hit by an RPG, he was covering a story. When he tells of what happened on that trip incorrectly, he is changing the story. This is a journalistic ethics issue.

--I contacted Tamara for help yesterday, to see if she had another outlook at a problem that I have: I've got a stolen gun report in which the victim DID write down the serial numbers and caliber and make of the guns, but not the model. Sadly, several common gun manufacturers (not Ruger, thank goodness) re-use serial numbers. So when I get "S&W .38, S/N XXXXXX," I can't put it into TCIC/NCIC, absent the model. I had several like this, which I can't put into the system. If the guy had a Model 36 stolen, which shares a serial number with a Model 10 and a Model 42, I cannot in good conscience enter the serial numbers as stolen, and risk the innocent possessors of the other uninvolved firearms being held as a suspect for Theft Of A Firearm (a felony, no less.). Tam tried to help me, but we just couldn't do anything. It's a shame-- the owner didn't remember much about the guns, and a thief may well get away.

--My favorite practice for logging guns is this: Take your driver license out, put it next to the gun, and photograph it in strong light next to the overall gun. Then put it next to the serial number, and take a closeup picture. Email the photos back to yourself along with a description of the gun, the caliber, the value, and SN and model, along with where you got it. Save the email in the cloud, to be found later.

--My Dad is en route to my house right now, so that I can take him to lunch. Then he'll proctor me to make me do a couple more modules of my EMT training.

--I reward myself after a module by watching an episode of Archer. I reward myself while working out by watching the show, too.

Power line down.

Just when you think that you're getting used to the random arcing, the transformer will blow. I don't care how many times you've seen it; that'll still get your danged attention.


The hot wire literally catches the dirt on fire. The sand in the dirt begins making glass bubbles which remain on the ground until crushed the next day.


Live loose trailing wires in windy conditions are an ongoing problem. Blowing past the fire and police barricades to get to your family because you heard that there was "a fire in the yard" makes you a new source of problems. Prepare to meet Mr. Crankycop and his friend Firefighter SourFace. Seriously, you're better off stopping to ask the firefighter how best to approach your house. Sure you're worried about your family. But if we have to deal with a new problem, we're distracted from helping your family.


I love the smell of a freshly-popped road flare.


35 degrees? Not a problem. 35 and a 20 mph north wind? Kinda raises your skirts a bit.

Multiple language barriers.

I speak a little Spanish. Not a lot, but I can usually get basic concepts across.
I do not know sign language, beyond one or two very simple phrases. I can't "get by" in it.


A few months ago, I had a traffic stop in which the driver, a Spanish speaker, was deaf.


My daughter had started drawing in my pocket notebook when she found it on the table while I was doing laundry. I found it in her possession, and confiscated it, because the contents are not her business. (Mostly data without actual connection to specific charges, but still, that's mine.) I found part of the conversation that I had had with the driver when I issued the citation, in the notebook, which I attach here:

It's interesting to me that if I knew sign language, it would cut across that language barrier.
It's handy having access to Google Translate in your patrol car, too.

Thursday morning Randoms.

--While I agree that we should absolutely brook no foolishness, and should arrest judges and cops alike for DWI --as apparently has been happening in Broward County, FL to three (!) judges this year-- I am impressed at the foolishness of Public Defender Finklestein's comments:

Finkelstein said he doubted Judge Rosenthal’s claim of the Ambien CR affecting her. “I have a little bit of experience with drugs. That is not from an Ambien at 10 o’clock at night,” Finkelstein said. “The fact that she refused the urine and the blood test is gonna keep people wondering.”

Way to get all prosecutorial, Mr. Public Defender! Hope you don't find yourself on the judge's blacklist...

--While watching an old Magnum P.I. episode (Look, don't judge me.), I see Magnum checking his load in his Government model while in the middle of a gunfight in a dock warehouse. He drops the magazine, and we see that he has two rounds left in the magazine. More importantly, we see... that it's a 9mm!  No! Say it ain't so!

In almost the next scene, he's firing, and you can clearly see the muzzle is not a .45.
So disillusioned. This of course is why he almost immediately gets shot and spends the rest of the episode in "Limbo".

--Wait-- Jeff MacKay is dead? But, he was the best sidekick!

--Wait-- Zsa Zsa Gabor is still alive? At 97, she's still ki-- er, ticking. (She lost a leg a couple of years back.)

--My patrol car suffered hail damage last month. The state insurance agency has totaled the car, for minor peens on the top surfaces, which didn't even crack the paint. Yeah, the car has some years on it, but it runs great! I understand the insurance company's math (the cost of refinishing the surfaces costs more than they reckon the car is worth), but this does NOT work out well for the department. The check that we get will nowhere nearly get us a new patrol car.  I wish we could take back the claim. But we can't. The insurance is dropped. That car will never run another patrol. Honestly, I'm thinking about following up on where the insurance company sells it; it's a good vehicle.

--I shot a police pistol match on Friday with my newly-issued Generation 4 Glock 31, shooting our new duty ammo, 147g Hornady XTP .357 Sig. It shot very well. I put the ski-jump big grip swell on the backstrap, and it felt good, so I'm leaving it on. I plan to purchase the Gen 3 Glock 31 that I carried for 7 and a half years. Interestingly, the Glock-branded steel tritium night sights were dead-on. As I have complained for years about the lack of quality of the Glock factory sights, let's hope that this kind of sight quality is the new standard. No scores from the match yet, but I didn't completely cover myself with shame. (At 30 seconds a miss, I shot slow.)

--I'm putting off taking my car in, now that I've cleaned it out to be turned in. Heck, I even threw a little Armor-All on the dash.

--Measles cases are at a 20 year high in the U.S. Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield can choke on a bowl of oversized phalli.

--You know that crazy woe-is-me narcissist who killed people at UCSB? Two observations:
1. When you show his videos and pictures and repeat his manifesto and say his name, you're putting out sugar for the ants (other people with issues who want to go out in a big enough blaze of glory that they reckon will make you HAVE to say their name.).
2. It was people with guns who stopped the rampage. Wouldn't it have been nice if someone had shot at him even earlier? Keep in mind that the shots at the bad guy don't have to kill him. This guy got hit in the hip, and then shot himself in the head.

--I finished The Watchmen, after having slowed my reading to about a chapter a night (well, maybe just a little faster). It was interesting. My brother was excited that we had something to talk about, and wants me to get into Daredevil. I don't see why not. But I'm not buying this over-priced thing.

--We are out of coffee. Except for that canned stuff, which doesn't count. Friday afternoon is payday, when I get more. (We've been paying huge surplus payments to our standing debt, to make it go away, which means that I suddenly long for Friday.)

--The weather is FAR better than what we usually get in late May. It's not even in the 90s. Blue skies with the odd fluffy white cloud for decoration.

--My daughter was inducted to the National Honor Society last night. Lots and lots of good and great kids are NOT so inducted. But I will say that of those NHS members on stage last night, none of them were regular "customers" of mine. Good kids all. I can be pretty glad that my kid is a member of their little local chapter.
 

Qualification day again.

Friday morning, I made a great breakfast for the family, and saw my kids off to school, and then got my stuff and went to the range under a bluebird sky the likes of which would make one F. Beuller take a day off.

First we shot duty pistols. Since I had a new duty gun, I was interested how the backstrap on the Generation 4 Glock 31 would shoot. It was okay, but I'll try the bigger ones, next.  I did actually have one delayed feeding, which had the earmarks of a hollowpoint catching on a feedramp. This would be unlikely, given that this is a bottlenecked cartridge (.357 Sig). I suspect that the gun just needs a proper first cleaning. As it was in the middle of a timed string, I didn't evaluate it; I just slapped it, got it running, and finished the string of fire. Its predecessor (a Gen 3 Glock) has never in 7.5 years hiccuped.

We switched from Gold Dot to XTP, which is a heavier bullet. I frankly didn't notice any difference.  (It was a Gold Dot round that caught, though.)

My shift partner, who had some problems with his 870 shotgun last time, had none this time. In fact, I took a picture of his target. This is 5 rounds of buckshot and 2 rounds of slug at 10 yards, with three slugs at 25 yards:

That mark just outside of the A zone at 5 o'clock is a wad impact. The right two holes were slug shots at 25. What impressed me, again, was how tightly 5 rounds of double aught buck went into a compact hole at 10 yards. This is a testament to the greatness of the Federal FliteControl Premium buckshot load, of which I have commented before.

Oh, I suppose that I should post mine, too. I took it as a matter of pride that at the whistle I was first on target and first to finish my string, but this meant that my group opened up a tad. But I reiterate: it's a high-brass buckshot load at 10 yards; a mediocre hit is still a pretty good hit.

Well, of course I put all the slugs (two at 10 yards, three at 25 yards) into the head. And never fear: that punch to the right side of the head is just a wad impact; I'm not missing a headshot with my shotgun at a piddlin' 75 feet. We got some Federal low-recoil 1 oz slugs which performed very well. I was very pleased at accuracy and gentle thump to the shoulder. We just started with these, and they beat our old stuff all hollow. 

I shot my S&W 637 Airweight Chief's Special with some UMC 125g +Ps that I had paid too much for at WalMart. Shooting it from the holster, it was gratifying to be first on target, just about every string. But I griped at my fellow officers when, in a fire-five-reload-fire-five-more string, I was first to get rounds on target after the reload (at 7 yards). Everyone else (there were six of us on the line) had auto guns. 

I shot my Kimber Stainless Classic (Series 1) .45. As expected, it gave me the same 100% as I had gotten with the Airweight Chief.  That's not saying much; the off-duty course of fire is LAME.  But there are timed reloads and I turned up the volume with the Kimber. 

For rifle, I turned up the volume a LOT more, and I'm embarrassed to say that I threw one round. There's really no excuse; I was showing off. I hadn't even gone down to check my target, but later found that one just barely missed the neck/shoulder junction, likely when firing rapidly from kneeling at 100 yards. 

After three hours of shooting and running others through strings of fire, I talked guns with the rangemaster, who showed me his pretty new .300 Blackout AR, and I went home. 3 hours of overtime. Half of the ammot that I shot was paid for by the city, and I was paid to shoot all of it. 

Some days at the office are better than others. 

While loading up, I commented to the sergeant that I'd love for us to go from twice a year qualifications to four times a year. He snorted and said that some people would quit if that happened. I'll be honest: I can't understand why. We were paid to go shooting.

Busy month.

--The Sophomore In The House has to raise money for a band trip. I've bought cars on several occasions for less. This means raffles, and fund raisers and volunteering to work at the booster club food booths at football games, and frankly, I'm almost ready to just say "take the damn money."

--I've been going to court a lot, lately. It never fails: work days, and you go a year between trips to wood-paneled rooms presided over by attorneys wearing black gowns. Go to deep nights, and you're suddenly testifying more often the Paul Drake did.

--I did some fire training on Friday night. I started by doing the agility test for new firefighters, while in full bunker gear. I passed it, but damned if I didn't have a lot taken out of me. Then, for the past several days, I've been having a couple of vertebrae out of alignment, probably just from the unequal tightness that I put on my back. I think that I'm going to the chiropractor. That's a shame, too, because I've spent up my Flex Spend medical account with voluntary eye surgery, back in June.  But I can't do much good like this.

--A senior asked the Sophomore In The House out to a school dance, in a pretty cool fashion. My daughter had not planned to go to the dance, but could not turn down such a sweet invitation. Uh huh. Very nice. And that's all the effective persuading that you're going to be doing, sport.

--This weekend promises to be excellent. No clouds. No wind. High of 74. PERFECT. But I have to work it.

--A bunch of work that I've done at work has borne some fruit (that in no way benefitted me, of course).

--Being an effective cop is not without its repercussions.

--I start EMT classes this month.

--I'm rolling my eyes at the sides-taking on the issue of the current government shutdown. The Republicans are saying "We don't need Obamacare! It's still more government on top of the enormous amount of government that WE want!" The Democrats are saying "The obstructionist Republicans have stopped government!" But we Libertarians are saying, "Notice how, when the federal government shuts down, life doesn't end?  Anyone else want to try some more of not paying for what  we apparently can survive without?"

--I've said it before and I'll say it again: You want to stop the out-of-control spiraling cost of medical care? Mandate that all medical providers and insurance companies give a definitive price of what a procedure or treatment costs before it is done. No more "we'll just have to submit the claim, and find out what the insurance will pay." That's like taking a check in for $10,000 and asking "How much will this buy me?  When you do it that way, it won't buy much.  We have a flawed market that doesn't permit competitive shopping. The market has no incentive to fix itself, at the current rate.

--My friends are worked up about the play of the Texas Rangers Baseball Team and the Dallas Cowboys Football Team. They don't seem to care about the Dallas Stars Hockey Team or the Dallas Mavericks Basketball Team. Loyalty is a fickle thing, dependent upon winning. Each those players make more in a year than I have in the past 10 years of working. I just don't care.

--My wife made the finest gumbo that I've ever eaten, two nights ago. That's impressive, because I've eaten a lot of great gumbo in my life. I could point to the excellent Holmes Andouille sausage, or the chicken, or the homemade chicken stock, or the home-grown vegetables and herbs that went into it, but really, the greatness lay in the roux. My wife's grandmother grew up in New Iberia, LA, and she taught her the importance of a good home made roux to the texture and flavor of a good stew or gumbo.

--Speaking of cooking, I need to pick up a beef brisket next week. I've got to uphold the dignity of Texas barbecue in the presence of out-of-staters. I'd probably better plan on doing it twice. It's been a while.

--Note: The secret is not in the sauce*. It's in the rub, and the smoke and time that you put into it.

--I know that I said it before, but I've been watching a lot of old British Top Gear episodes, lately, and they're great. I have been watching the early episodes of the reboot from back in 2002, and it's fun seeing how the silly stuff evolved. I went to watch the American version of the show, and it really doesn't translate very well. AEPilot got me started on this show, mostly to see what they did a 1988 Toyota Hilux pickup that rests on a plinth in the Top Gear studio.

--I have zero explanation for a mild interest in owning a Ruger 77/357 rifle. I won't even try to justify it.
______
*I rarely ever use barbecue sauce of any kind.

My desk.

I don't recall if I had mentioned it, by my friend Rabbit gave me one of my very favorite cups, recently.

I'm betting that it confuses 'em her at the office.

Let them wonder. :)

Thursday's Prattlings.

--We're due to reach 100 degrees for the first time this year today. That's actually pretty late, for us.
Edit: We broke into triple digits with a bang:

--I write this as much for my future reference, and for my kids' future reference, as for anyone else.

--I have a decent blog-worthy story that I can't post right now. But it ends with the question: "What caliber for douchebag?"

--It's pronounced /puh Kawn/. PEE kan sounds like what you put under the bed at night.

--I worked a 24 hour shift with the fire department yesterday, and not only ripped the tags off of the new wildland firefighting apparel* that they got me about a year ago, but also got it smokey and covered with soot. A welder caught some tall grass while putting in corner posts for a new fence, in the dry 17 mph wind. Right next to him was a stack of sections of old fencing that had probably 10 years' worth of weeds and brush growing up amongst it. I can think of no finer way to start a fire without accelerants. We had to unstack the flaming pyre and douse each level of stacked fencing one by one, and then get the particle board beneath it, and then go moving old rusty farm implements to get under all that. Finally we got all that done, and went to mop-up. When we finally got all the flaming cow turds busted up and stomped out, I climbed dirty and sweaty and ash-stained into our brush truck with our paramedic firefighter, and remarked that the hymen on my new brush gear had been perforated. Startled, he said what?!? I suggested to our best medic that he had heard me just fine. He laughed.

--I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men on my Kindle. I reviewed the movie five years ago, in which I said of the main character, aging sheriff Ed Tom Bell:

I know this man. I've been around him for years, wearing different faces, standing different heights, and carrying different weights. They mostly all spoke with a drawl, and they all wondered sometimes how it all got to be so crazy. Between McCarthy, the Cohens, and Jones, I saw the bewildered squint of people that I've known personally, perplexed and aghast.

 Having read the book, I'd have to say that the Cohen brothers kept the movie's dialogue very true to McCarthy's original work. Sheriff Bell knows that the nation is doomed, and feels like he has lost control of the part of it that he is supposed to keep peaceful. He feels like a failure. I have to admit that I thought a little about whether I help the big picture. I don't take it as personally as he did, I don't think. I know my limitations. The job of a law enforcement officer is to limit damage; he rarely gets to stop it altogether.

I just downloaded Blood Meridian. The reviews show that it's a pretty dark portrayal of the American West in the mid 19th century. We'll see if I start it anytime soon.

--A family member and friend of mine is grieving the passing of a close friend of hers. I've been pretty poor about helping her deal with it. Recently, my wife pointed out the meaning of the lyrics to the Grateful Dead's song "Box Of Rain." I've never much been a fan of the Dead, but I've got to admit that there's a gentle calmness that one can feel from auditing this (first) song.

"What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through? 

A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through." 

--Speaking of music, my daughter was singing the title music to Singing In The Rain, and I wanted to hear the original, so I played this video. I come away thinking: (1) Gene Kelly was a genius dancer. (2) Even accounting for the poor synching of the sound to the video by YouTube, it's obvious that they dubbed in the tap sounds. But Gene Kelly was still a physical genius. (3) That street was a giant sound stage in Hollywood, right? Where they had to make their own rain? That was a BIG budget movie scene. (4) I cringe seeing Kelly dance through the puddles in his brown leather shoes. I can not stand having soaked shoes.

--Lately at work, I'm plagued with subpoenas to get. Think I don't beg help from the DA's investigators? Haw.

--I need a best location along the coast of Oregon or Washington (Olympic Peninsula?) for two things this summer: Tide pools and yerts.

--I'm planning an epic vacation with the girls and my wife.

--My friend Susan makes a good point: "When hanging around with drunk people...if the topic of conversation takes a turn toward Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories...it's time to leave!!"


_____________________________
*Typically abbreviated to "wildland gear," which then becomes "Wild man gear." This is tough, light Nomex jeans and topshirt (usually comes with work gloves and boots, but I just use my fire gloves and bunker boots) that one pulls on over street clothes, which prevent embers from immediately burning through, but which have no insulative properties. Combined with a light plastic helmet (kept on the brush truck) and light goggles, this gear actually provides some protection without causing your firefighter to succumb to heat exhaustion in regular bunker gear.