A good day.

1. I got paid to shoot for three and a half hours, yesterday. I shot ammunition that I didn't pay for.

2. A cold front came in yesterday. The high was 78 degrees.

3. I had lunch with my father yesterday. We had Indian food. It was delicious and inexpensive and filling.

4. I took a nap.

5. After taking my kid to a meet-the-teacher thing at the middle school, I got home to find that my wife had fixed a superb green-chiles-and-rice dish.

6. I ended the day at home with an adult beverage or two, of higher quality than is commonly found.

I'm calling it: Best Day Of Summer, 2015.

17th.

We woke up with terms of affection, and consumed coffee, and my wife made sourdough bread while I documented the destruction from yesterday's snowstorm.

Actually? This was taken the evening before, but nearly captures what I saw in the morning. 

On the last day of February, in North Texas, you're actually more likely to decide upon long sleeves or a windbreaker as outdoor clothing, than to reach for a lined hooded parka, as I did yesterday. The average high temperature for February 28th at our local airport is about 60 degrees, with the average low being about 39.  Weather like this is actually kind of unusual, and just adds some spice to our lives; we don't mind it much. By February's end, I've friends up north who are very tired of the snow, and friends down south who are probably kind of bored with the lack of it. 

I was on call this weekend, and I've got: 1. The oldest car in our fleet, and: 2. The only four-wheel-drive vehicle in our patrol car fleet. I wasn't going to be leaving town, nor imbibing any adult beverages.

My younger daughter made cocoa, as she's been doing lately. She's got a good hand at it.

My elder daughter invented a reason to go to her best friend's house (to work on a video for a Spanish project), and then happily trudged over in the snow with her rubber boots on (with lace-trimmed cable knit leg warmers visible over the tops of the boots, in the style that has lately emerged here).

My wife and I cleaned some, and discussed how to redo the kitchen. Mostly I said "do whatever you want."

My chickens got extra feed. They were happy, as we had shrouded their coop with a tarp and run a shop light inside it. Marko says that he doesn't get heat to his birds, but his coop is doubtless more airtight than mine. I poured boiling water over their water tray so that they would stay hydrated.

We consumed a black forest cheesecake that my wife made from scratch, and I felt light-headed at all the sugar in my bloodstream.When you're on a near-no-carb diet, you can swoon a bit on your cheat day. For us, that's Saturday.

We went to a fire fighter dinner, and had good barbecue.

We got home, and watched some shows on Netflix.

And I looked up, and it was midnight. My 17th wedding anniversary was over. I had spent the whole day with my wife. We didn't get each other anything, but we were happy with that.

It was a good day, this year, and that. 

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.

Late-January points.

--The guys who built a 30 foot tall bronze statue of Nelson Mandela weren't allowed to sign their work. Whether this was because of unease about having white South Africans be recognized for the work, or just to maintain that the statue was for all is unknown, but they decided to add a signature to the statue. They put a bunny in the ear.

It turns out that they were pushed to work quickly, and the Afrikaans word for "haste" is "haas," which also translates to "rabbit."  Now they've admitted that it's there, and have been ordered to remove it. This seems odd to me. Would we as a nation have minded if Bartholdi had signed the Statue Of Liberty? (Maybe he did. I don't know.) Did we demand that the little o be fixed when we discovered that the engravers who designed the U.S. penny intentionally wrought "UNITED STATES oF AMERICA" on our 1¢ piece?  Heck, no. We embraced it for over half a century.

--I'm afraid that I'm going to have to buy a Glock 42.

--The new S&W model 69 5-shot L-frame .44 Magnum looks interesting. Now, can they make a 369, with an alloy frame and titanium cylinder? Oh, I wouldn't much want to shoot Magnums through it, but it would be fun for carrying Specials in, with the chance for magnums in bear country.

--But of course, the M396 has taught us that it would probably become a kinetic bullet puller. Question: If you loaded the gun with 5 light-bullet loads (say, 165g or less), and one magnum heavy load for the first shot, would it be more or less likely to make the 4 remaining loads jump their crimp? What if the first round was a Special, and the second shot was a heavy bullet? How did they deal with the problem when they made the 329PD?

--Chief O'Brien had a bad job. This one made me giggle. Well, so did this one.

--I've had the theme song to The Love Boat in my head, for the last three days, now. I'm certain that I've never actually watched a full episode of that show. I will say that my voice bottoms out in the opening words pretty well, though I can't help warbling the word "new" like a lounge singer:
"Love. Exciting and new...."

--If the weather gets warmer this week, I plan a shooting date to try out a carbine, but not a high-dollar one. Stay tuned.

--It's 14 degrees here, but no precip. Down in Houston, they're expecting about .20" accumulations this morning. Big stuff for that southern Gulf Coast Texas city. I know this makes my friends up north giggle.

The beginning of 2014.

--This day-by-day map depiction of World War II in seven minutes is fascinating. I knew that the Axis started to really begin falling in early 1944, but this map shows how the Allies stopped their forward momentum in November of 1942.

--A friend and hunting buddy this morning announced that it was 6 times warmer than it was yesterday, by virtue of the fact that his thermometer showed 12 degrees Fahrenheit today, and just 2°F yesterday. Thinking that he was joking, I mentioned that his quantities might be off. He asked why. (This guy is VERY smart. He's a paramedic and a computer whiz. So no slamming him.) I responded:
 "Well, degrees Fahrenheit don't actually measure absolute heat. However, degrees Kelvin *DO*. Fahrenheit set "zero" on his scale of temperature as being the lowest temperature that he could achieve, using ice and salt. He set 100 at what he thought was the human body temperature. (Look, it was the late 17th century. Cut him some slack.) Kelvin uses centigrade units above absolute zero. Zero degrees Fahrenheit is actually 255.37K. When it was 2 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, it was 256.483 Kelvin yesterday. At 12 Fahrenheit today, it is actually 262.039 Kelvin, which is 1.004358... times warmer than yesterday, relative to Absolute Zero."

My buddy made a rude noise.

--It staggered me, the first time that I found out that there was a temperature below which nothing could go.

--And I didn't know until today that the Triple Point of water is used as part of the scientific definition of the Kelvin unit. ("The kelvin is defined as the fraction 1⁄273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water (exactly 0.01 °C or 32.018 °F).")

--Every year, my wife and I hold off on giving each other Christmas gifts, and then agree together to buy something that we both want in January or February. Well, this year, she broke the agreement, and surprised me by unilaterally purchasing a Rancilio Sylvia espresso machine. I've owned small consumer espresso machines before, but they were the sub-$100 sheet metal stamped variety that turned out indifferent results. This thing is superb.

When you turn it on, it will build up the pressure, and then turn out the light like a waffle iron to tell you that you're good to go. You then punch the switch for espresso, and the double spouts will begin to push out dark rich espresso with a bit of crema atop it. Hit the switch for foam, and open the valve and vigorous foam makes milk magical. Flip the switch to hot water, and you get water perfect for tea or to add to your espresso for an Americano. 

It weighs a young ton. 

It takes up very little counter space. 

There is a bit of a learning curve to pulling a perfect shot. 

It's the nicest thing that I've been given in a long, long time. 

We're going through about a gallon of milk a day in this house, now. 

--I have yet to have built a "Gay Cynic Special": 8 shots of espresso served over ice. Even in Seattle, the barrista's eyes widened at that order. 

--In terms of style and distinctiveness, I think that the other states envy the Texas flag. Well, Arizona, New Mexico, and Alaska don't. And probably not Tennessee.

--What's the deal with the crescent moon on the SC flag? 

--One of our cats two went missing 6 days ago. We've since had several sub-20 degree nights. I suspect that the neighbor shot it. I have not approached him; I cannot be objective. He told my colleagues that he threw out a firecracker to make the cats stop fighting at night. Semi-outdoor cats run a risk, and we knew that.  My younger daughter, who had a serious cat crush on that animal, wakes up crying and saying that she dreamt that he was on her bed. I've had offers of a new cat. I can't. I don't need another creature in my heart, or in my daughter's heart. I need a break.  

--One of these days, some boy will make my daughter this sad. And I'll have to deal with my initial reaction there, too. 

--Here's a well-rendered map of the contiguous continental United States yesterday, showing that the average temperature was 14 degrees Fahrenheit. I like how they put clear delineations at the freezing point of water and at zero degrees F. 

The best month.

This is the best time of the year. It was 47 degrees this morning, and will be a high of 79 this afternoon. The leaves are green. What breeze there is is mild. Not a cloud in the sky.

We made it through the long death march of summer.

My okra are producing. My squash are producing. My tomatoes and peppers are... well, the PLANTS are flourishing, but they're not making much in the way of fruit (I think that I've got a soil imbalance that I need to correct).  My green beans and peas are going great guns. The pecan trees are laden with nuts that will probably open in early December.

I don't sweat everywhere I go. I'm about to switch to a larger off-duty pistol.

We've got outdoor projects that I will actually attend to.

October is my birth month, and I celebrate it the whole danged month.

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.

When it hits you.

Usually, I can distance.

"Hey, it sucks to be them. These things happen."

And they do. Happen, I mean. Tornados are pretty low on the list of things that kill us, nationwide.

But I watched this video, and found myself putting myself into the place of the parents looking for their missing child at the school, or of the teachers having to round up kids for a count.

And suddenly I'm in tears. And when I try to discuss the impact with my wife, she refuses to discuss the issue with me. So here you are, Internet: my raw and exposed nerve.

I ask you to watch the very short bit of raw video above, so that you will not do as I was doing last night and this morning, and distance with a flippant dismissal.

Those people are you and me. Their loved ones are yours.

They found her.
From The Oklahoman. Retrieved 21 May 2013.  

So, I'm texting some money. It's all I know to do. They are up there. I am down here.
Maybe you could text some, too. *


_____________________________
*"This has been a major disaster, and the Red Cross will be there for the people in this state and this community. People who wish to make a donation can support American Red Cross Disaster Relief, which helps provide food, shelter and emotional support to those affected by disasters like the recent tornadoes in Oklahoma and Texas as well as disasters big and small throughout the United States by visiting redcross.org, dialing 1-800-REDCROSS or texting REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation."

Monday midday.

--I missed getting to go the Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival this weekend, darn it. Sometimes my wife and I will get a room right on Main Street, overlooking the fest, and enjoy it at our leisure. Being in April, it is sometimes bad weather. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it is 98 degrees. On Friday, the first morning of the fest, it frosted heavily, here. They had some wind, but it was beautiful, as witnessed by the camera phone picture that my elder daughter sent me from Main Street, while I was at work:

Main Street, Fort Worth, Texas, April 20, 2013.  That's the 90 year-Blackstone Hotel on the right, where we usually stay. Some glass and steel wonder to the left. (Click to embiggen.)

Not a bad day to be outside.

--It amuses me that Blogger Spellcheck does not recognize the word "embiggen," as Blogger and Wordpress are most certainly the vehicles which transported that word to its current position as a term of common [Internet] parlance.

--While I was at work, my wife painted the inside of the back door black. (No, it had theretofore been red.) When I got home last night, I kept thinking that the back door was standing open.

--I'm going to miss being with my friends in Houston. I talked with my sergeant. There's no way I can get out of working that weekend.

--I have lost 12 pounds since my hunting trip, minding my carbs. I would step over my own mother for a plate of biscuits and gravy. (Sorry, Mom!)

--I look at a picture that Tamara took of an old F11-F1 in Blue Angels livery on display at the Grissom Air Museum, and I remember watching these F11s perform over me at an air show in 1985, and thinking "this is stupid. Those aren't even current fighter jets anymore. Like anyone would use a thirty year old design for fighters, in this day and age!" The next year they went to the new (10 year old design) Hornet. Which they are still using, and which are still current.

--While flying with my friend Rich a few weeks ago, he had some amazing aps on his iPad, which was suction-cupped to the windscreen of the cockpit, which would take into account current weather conditions and advise his best aircraft settings for optimum efficiency, saving hundreds of dollars per trip. Rich is a great pilot, but he's also a techie, and knows that it's better to measure-and-know than to guess-and-suppose. Seven years ago, I was impressed at the glass cockpit avionics that he had installed in his Baron 58. In this Pilatus 12, there were such ameneties factory installed.  My friend Scott (a computer tech business owner) tells me that, once you get to a certain minimum level of hardware, it's ALL about the software. Apparently, this is very much true in aviation, too, these days.

--Meanwhile, I would dearly, DEARLY love to have a Cessna 180. A 56 year old 182 brings $42,500 asking price, but I'll bet I could wheedle him down to $42,000.

--I should probably get a pilot's license, first. And pay off my student loans. And pay the mortgage.

--Comes now the Internet groups of people who are giving backlash over the Boston bomber apprehension. While I completely agree that the populace should have been armed and were unreasonably prevented from being so, I am frustrated at what I'm seeing. Folks, in an instance where there is an armed bomber in a known small area, who is exchanging gunfire and throwing bombs at cops, the police would be fools not to wear every stitch of armor that they've got while searching HARD for the guy. When people say the police on such a mission then look like military with such weapons and soft armor and helmets on, they sound like the hoplophobes that are scared of weapons that look menacing.

I am a traditionalist cop. I like police patrol uniforms to look like police patrol uniforms. I do not like BDUs on patrol officers. I hate black gloves except when it's cold out. (I like rubber gloves for pat-downs.) I am repeating myself here; I have written before about my views on the militarization of law enforcement. But during a specific special duty like that manhunt, I'm fine with cops dressed like this.

Yes, it was a private citizen who found the bad guy in his boat. But the bomber was hiding in that boat because of the full-court press looking for him. I am a Libertarian. I want limited intrusion in my life by governmental authority. But when there is an emergency, I want the cops to do their jobs. It looks like they did that in Boston. I'm not going to call them heroes, because they were just earning their pay, last week.

We need to think about where we actually stand. This reactionary after-the-fact anarchist point of view frankly looks a bit childish.

--I have seen no violation of the Posse Comitatus Act with regard to the Boston incident of last week. If someone has a verified instant, I would appreciate it if they would put it in my comments here. Pictures of cops in APCs are not valid responses.

And we're back. Monday.

--My home machine caught a little virus. I fought it, thought that I won, and finally went Slash And Burn, and used the recovery discs to reset my hard drive to factory settings. Man, I wish I'd created the recovery disk when I bought it. For $30, I was able to get the discs sent pretty quickly to me from Acer. Apparently, that's cheap, these days.

--Today is the birthday Leonhard Euler, who among other things came up with the most simple equation to utilize the mathematical constants e, i, pi, 1, and zero. A trig professor I had once offered a free A for the semester to anyone who could write a proof for that identity. I checked out 3 books on the subject, and went to work. A week later, I got tired-head, and quit. I got a C in that class.
--As our greatest generation fades away, I cannot stress enough how important it is that we view such pieces as this amazing video, and realize that Granddad and Great Granddad were young, once.
Also, to help us remember what it was like to see an end to a war.

--A company called Myriad is arguing that a patent should be issued for its isolation of the BRCA1 gene. I'm a fan of patents for medical discovery and processes, because that creates the profit motive which stimulates new R&D. But you can't patent nature. Myriad did not create this gene-- they simply discovered its bounds. This is akin to patenting a star which one found in a telescope. Name it, sure. But it ain't yours to charge usage fees for me looking at it, after you point it out.

--High of 87 degrees here today. Humid.

--I heard a "Welfare Concern" call go out over the radio, of a topless woman walking down the highway before dawn. I'll bet that got some response from the cops in her area. But  what were they going to do? It's not illegal to be topless in public in Texas. Maybe they were going to call her a traffic hazard. Or use the tired threat of Disorderly Conduct. (Behavior others might find to be offensive.)

--The Eleven Year-Old In The House had a birthday sleepover this weekend, and invited 5 other 11 year-olds to the house. As a buffer, The Fourteen Year-Old In The House invited her best friend over for a sleepover, as well. We had 5 pizzas, lots of soda, a birthday pie, some spooky kid movies, and Just Dance 4. There may or may not be an MP4 extant which documents my own entry into the dance-off that occurred in my living room. The Nentendo Wii declared me to be the loser of that event. There was also a stationary bicycle sprint race, which I won (I had to redeem myself somehow.).  The girls then held (I'm not kidding, here) a spelling bee and a geo trivia quiz tournament. Then they played "Slender Man." I didn't know what this was, and one of the girls whipped out an iPad to show me the creepy first-person game derived from the apparently ancient (by Internet standards) meme. How did I miss this? The girls played a version that involved notes left around the house, as they played hide and seek.

--I fell off the wagon with regard to my little diet, this weekend. Before that, I was losing about a pound a day. I'm back, though.

--Tax day. We had some complications, but filed about a month ago. We got $1000 back, which went directly into debt abatement. My wife is irritated that the refund isn't bigger. I'm irritated that we made a no-interest loan to the federal government for so long.

--That $150 riding mower that I bought a couple of months ago is working like a house afire. The guy that I bought it from said that he felt that it cut too rough. He must be picky; it is made of win, from what I can see.

--Due to work conflicts, I may have to miss the NRA convention this year, and it's in Houston. I has a sad. I mostly want to see my friends.

--Flirting with the statewide Child Protective Services intake lady over the phone is just another little service that I perform for people with soul-crushing-yet necessary jobs. I'm afraid that I do discriminate based on gender, though. Sorry.

--I talked to a CPS investigator today who said that her job was way better than teaching, for her. I told her about my friend who told me that he found combat in Afghanistan to be less stressful than teaching urban high school kids. But then I've got friends who should always be teachers. It takes all kinds.

--I've been watching my carbs. I can't express how much I want a PBJ and a bag of Cheetos, right now.





 

Monday. First Day of Spring Break.

--I wrote this yesterday, and then got up to have dinner with the family before watching movies. I apparently never hit Publish. So consider yourself on Monday, 3/11/2013, when reading what follows:

--I slept in this morning. It was glorious. I was awaken late in the morning in that bestest of ways: my co-worker called me to tell me that he had some money for me from an off-duty gig that we had worked together recently. (Yeah, the definition of "best way to be awaken" seems to change, with age.)

--The sun is brilliant, and the wind has died down. A long-sleeved shirt or a sweat shirt still feels good. This is the best part of the spring.

--It's really green, out:

 

--The cattle and the verdant field make me think about this amazing talk given by an ecologist, about how to stop desertification, using more cattle.

--My elder daughter has been trying her hand at composing music for the French horn, this week. More impressively, she's writing duets. For a couple of days, I'd find pieces of paper like this lying around:

But she since has downloaded a composition program called MuseScore, which allows her to put it up much faster and neater, including multiple instruments. I haven't complimented the results, yet, because I've not heard anything that I much care for, yet. But I am impressed that she tries this stuff, and she's not even a week into it. I'm looking forward to hearing a piece that I'll love for its own merits.

--My 10-year-old daughter decided to bake blackberry muffins, this morning. I've had worse mornings than drinking coffee, listening to one daughter arrange a duet for herself and her friend, while my younger daughter pulls muffins out of the oven and serves them with hot butter, as the sun streams in the open doorway.

--We cleaned the house. When I pulled the rug out of the sun room to sweep and mop under it, I expressed with dismay that "we could just about grow tomatoes in here", while looking at the dirt on the tile where the run had been (for just a few weeks. Yeah. Should be pulled weekly. It's a big heavy rug, and a chore.). My younger daughter looked at me oddly, and pointed out that we are growing tomatoes in the sun room. We've got a flat of tomato puppies by the window.

--I have a big industrial strainer mop bucket. It's oddly comforting for me to use it and clean the tile throughout the house. When I used to work at an eatery 20 years ago, mopping was of course one of the many jobs around the place, and no one much cared for it. I never minded it. It was a necessary task, with immediate results. No one bothered you when you mopped. Now, on my big ceramic floors, I just try not to fall on my butt.

--Today's cleaning agent: Fabuloso Citrus Fruit. Now, with baking soda!

--My younger daughter employed a school project, this afternoon. She had made a solar oven out of a pizza box, some foil, and some black construction paper and plastic wrap. She put some wienies in it to heat up. Unfortunately, the Family Cat (Oliver, the fat one) was impressed at the hot meal of meat just laid out for him. He came in with his nice hot hot dog. My daughter went to spank him, but I stopped her. How could he be expected to do otherwise?

--A neighborhood border collie has been worrying my daughter's show rabbit in the hutch. It was bad enough when she was pacing back and forth in front of the hutch; now she has taken to chewing on the frame of hutch:

My younger daughter decided to deal with the matter by painting the lower frame member with a paste made with cayenne pepper. The bratty neighbor kid whose family owns the border collie protested that this would hurt her dog. When my younger daughter told me about this, I rolled my eyes, wondering what she would think of the fact that the last time I saw the dog doing her thing, I borrowed my kid's Red Ryder BB gun, and bounced a BB off the dog's butt. (Sadly, this bit of operant conditioning alone wasn't enough to convey to the dog what I'd hoped to convey.) But we don't mention that to the neighbors, because people aren't always rational about their pets. Put a cigarette out on their kids' faces, and it's no problem, but kick their biting dog away from you, and they lose their minds.

--Fresh Brussels sprouts with roast chicken and baked potatoes tonight. I used to only be able to get down Brussels sprouts by imagining them to be cabbages, and myself a giant. But now, I guess they're okay, with butter.

--Root beer floats for desert, which is funny, because I just wrote that I almost never buy sugar soft drinks, and then later today I bought a two litre bottle of root beer.
    

Weather post 2-25-2013

Mostly just a bookmark of what the weather has been doing, the past few hours. It's howling, and those two bad shingles on the windward side have been heavy on my mind, lately.

 

Last night at about 19:00 hrs, they seem to have had a singularity point up in McAlister, OK.

That low spot is moving east, and the winds at the periphery are even stronger, now:

Still breezy, here. But worse in the Panhandle.

 

Record blizzard

No, it's not a big deal for Amarillo to get a blizzard. It's just that this one is particularly heavy, and for the second time in two weeks.

Meanwhile, in Corpus Christi, TX, it's only getting up to 72, and might be too chilly to swim. 15 years ago this week, I swam on the beach at Corpus Christi. The water was warmer than the air around me.

And if I hear the term "blizzard-like conditions" again, I'm going to make some noise. (That's a blizzard.)

Thursday is thirsty.

--After staying up until 4:45 this morning watching Netflix videos to keep myself on my night shift schedule, I got a call at 10:00am from an assistant district attorney, who wanted to discuss a family violence case that I had filed. She was shocked that I had put my cell phone number on the cover sheet, and apologized for waking me. I told her that I would much rather be awakened by an ADA with a question than have the question go unanswered, and have the case suffer. I don't think she fully believed me.

--I woke up with a completely stopped up nose. I took a Zyrtec (well, a store brand cetirizine HCL, anyway), and feel so much better, now. I think that pill cost me a bit less than 50¢. It's good for 24 hours. No side effects. I like living in the future.

--Slate is putting up a graphic depiction of deaths by gunfire since the Sandy Hook shooting. Even though I'm politically opposed to the editor, there. I find the map pretty interesting to look at. Looks like Chicago has a problem.

--Speaking of graphic depictions, check out the weird wind here in north Texas.









Depending upon which end of US Hwy 82 you're on, the wind may be blowing briskly at 20mph from the north in Wichita Falls, or freshly from the south at 10 mph in Gainesville, which is about 80 miles to the east.

--It's really nice outside. I'm going to do some outside work today. To believe the East Coast-obsessed newsies, though, the Only People Who Matter will be buried in a blizzard today.

--This past weekend, my good friend Joe Speer, proprietor of Jackalope Rifle Company, was coming through town, and dropped off my elder daughter's custom Mossberg Chuckster model 620K .22 WMRF single shot bolt rifle. He had done it as a project rifle, starting with a heavily used old rifle, and did some lovely things. The barrel and receiver are reblued, the stock was refinished, a purple heartwood stock end tip was put on, an ebony pistolgrip cap was put on, and a buttpad was installed. He filled the wallowed-out sling swivel holes, and the hole where the tang sight (sadly not to be found!) had been ripped out. You can just see the wood plugs, but you cannot detect them by touch. The inletting is very good. The trigger is quite good. My daughter has something that I'd never had given me: a custom rifle.

Joe and I and my dad all went over to Big City to Cabella's, and found that there not only wasn't a round of .22 WMRF to be had, but due to panic buying, there was almost not a single round of any common caliber. But Joe, a rather strident fan of the .30-'06, happily reported that there were decent stocks left of his favorite caliber, even in the Remington Core Lokt 150g and 165g load-- arguably the single most popular load for that caliber. Smirking, Joe said, "That's because a man with a .30-'06 doesn't panic."

--I need to order a part from Numerich for my daughter's best friend's Ruger Mark II safety. Her dad bought it, took it apart to clean it like the good former Marine he was, and put it back together and couldn't get it to work. He gave to me to fix. Oops. We've got Missing Parts Syndrome. He's a great guy, and his daughter's like family for us, so I'm happy to buy the part for him.

--While we were running around, we let Joe's dog Butcher run around in Mom's back yard. Mom got home and texted me that the dog was gone. We bailed out of Cabella's and began the not-insignificant drive home, slightly panicking. Mom called me back. Butch was sitting on my front porch, patiently watching Joe's vehicle to make sure that he didn't go anywhere without his companion. I called off the search party, and we stopped and got some Whataburger. Apparently, they don't have those everywhere. Odd. Here, they're on every corner, seems like.

--My beloved burr grinder broke. We're getting another. In the meantime, I'm drinking coffee that came pre-ground, out of a big can. Huh. So this is how you people live, is it?

--I watched Shooter last night on NetFlix. It's almost unrecognizable as an adaptation of Stephen Hunter's great thriller Point Of Impact. I'm still amazed at how Hollywood flouts the rules, and lets a violent felon like Wahlberg handle every gun that they've got in their inventory. I'm amazed that BATFEIEIO gives him special dispensation to do so. But it's okay; he's on the side of the angels now*.  I could stand to see that Kate Mara chick a bit more, though. As learned in Starship Troopers, if you're going to completely stray from the book which the movie is based upon, you might as well put some hawt chicks in the flick.

--Speaking of the Robert A Heinlein novel Starship Troopers, someone has put up the unabridged audio book of it on YouTube, and it's a guilty pleasure to listen to while tending to other things around the house or while driving.  It won't last very long; someone will cry copyright violation**.

--It was getting kind of late last night when my wife and I decided upon pork loin for dinner. We thawed the three-pound hunk of meat in about 13 minutes, split it sagitally, dusted it with salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic powder, and coated it with olive oil. Then we put it into the oven at 350 for an hour, and programmed the oven to turn itself off. Then we went to the store. We returned to a fantastic dinner, with which we prepared mushroom gravy and peas and carrots. Total prep time for everything couldn't have broken 20 minutes. Again-- the future? She is tasty.

--When I learned that a DWI Third Or More case that I had filed got a conviction, I was pleased. When I saw that the driver got several years of prison time, I was impressed. The driver had been represented by a very good attorney, and the evidence, while solid, was circumstantial. This was a first felony DWI for the driver, and no one saw the driver actually driving. However, the investigator did a fine job. :) I sent an email congratulating the prosecutorial team for excellent work. I don't know if it makes their day to hear praise from a lowly street cop, but it makes my day to get positive feedback from them. Believe it or not, I don't believe that most of those people are in it for the money, nor the power.

--My wife and the girls have infected me with an earworm. Those Walk Off The Earth people, who got internet fame for doing a superb version of Somebody That I Used To Know using five band members and one acoustic guitar, have put up a new song. It's one-take live acapella dubstep version*** of Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble".  I have never taken anything remotely beatbox to be a serious artistic style, but dang if their visiting artist ("KRNFX") doesn't actually kinda impress me as having a talent.

I stress that this normally would not be my cup of tea. Uh, it's just something the kids had on. :rolleyes:

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*By which we mean to say, he wants to ban all guns.

**And well they should. The people who produced and published that audiobook deserve to get paid for their work. I'm a fan of defending intellectual property rights. But, yeah, I listened to the audiobook all the way through. Does that make me a hypocrite?

***Does that even make sense?

Tuesday Random Thoughts.

--This morning, just before my alarm went off, my daughters got me up, and the coffee was ready. They were watching a movie on World War II. They made witty, funny conversation as I drove them to school. These, friends, are the good times. I never thought that rearing a 14 year old and a 10 year old would be this easy.

--My 14 year old got her class ranking yesterday. She's in the top 5%. All but one of her close friends are in the top 10%, including the girl ranked #1, who commented last night that, after maths, they should study for the upcoming Spanish quiz. My daughter laughed and asked why she would want to study for a class that she has a 99 average in, when we had plans to go visit with friends at Fuzzy Taco's Shop? That's my girl.

--I FINALLY got my dad and his wife's Christmas present installed yesterday. A pecan tree, with a bonus nectarine tree planted. I've never seen nectarines around here, but peaches and plums and apricots do fine here. At the very least, it will bloom pretty for them. I put it across from their entry/exit door. I'm very embarassed that I was this late. I had wanted to plant a pecan from Womack Nursery, but they were completely out of their amazing Podsednik variety, which yields nuts that go 20/lb, and are the size of Grade A Medium hen's eggs. I put the pecan tree to the southwest side of their house, to provide shade for the house. Such things really make a yard more comfortable.

--I sent in my new order for another custom holster to Michael's Custom Holsters. I'd been sitting on the fence about whether to get a K-frame holster, or another J-frame holster. I've been wearing one of Mike's J-frame holsters for over two years, and I decided to get a second one, in black this time, for admin days and training days. This one will have no exposed stitching, which is very different for me.

--I've been meaning to put up a review of that holster. Maybe this next post...

--I also sent pics of a beautiful old S.D. Myres (El Paso) floral carved holster that Rabbit gave me (to Dad, really). I finally got that to Dad last night. Check it out:

 

That's a good half-century old. Looks good on a K-frame 4", like a M64:

 

While I'm not a fan of cut-aways on holsters for trigger guards, this is a classic style that is distinctive of about a quarter century of holster design.

--It's so damned humid, I finally turned on the air conditioner yesterday. It was about 80 degrees, with a brisk wind blowing the Gulf air into us. Other Texans are not pleased with this turn of the weather. Right now it's quite windy, with gusts making moaning sounds outside occasionally, humid as hell, with the barometer dropping:

This is restive weather.

--Oh, good. Marko got my payment.

--By the way, those homicides by gun type charts (which show rifles OF ALL TYPES only are used in 4% of all homicides)? They include lawful shootings by police and citizens.

--When an interplanetary bounty hunter points a blaster at you, you shoot him the first chance you get, without waiting for him to shoot first. End of discussion. I can't believe that there's any confusion about whether Greedo shot at Han. If in fact he did, then Solo took a huge unnecessary risk. I

--The weather finally turned. Ah. Finally rain.



Blustery.

I was down in Austin watching a very good friend get sworn in as a trooper today.

Driving back north, the wind went from a 20+ MPH tailwind to a 30 MPH crosswind to a 30+ MPH headwind.

Well, here's what it looks like now:

I am fascinated by the Wind Map.

Cold December Morn.

--The temperature is in the mid 20s, this morning. We had a wet front come over at about about 5:00 this morning, and we found this when the kids left for school:

Y'all up north may not believe this, but this , but my daughters literally were excited about this as our first snow of the season.

--I have my final for Public Administration tonight.

--The morning news talk guys are talking about how the Dallas Cowboys had another player get arrested after he rolled his Benz and killed his teammate. I'm curious about the decision to charge him with Involuntary Manslaughter, rather than Intoxication Manslaughter. EDIT: They reported it wrong. It's Intoxication Manslaughter.

--The football player's defendant's attorney is claiming that the bond of $500,000 was 17 times too high for the charge, and that this was more appropriate for a capital murder charge. Bond is set to secure attendance at trial, and not as punishment. When you have a person likely to abscond, the bond is set higher. When someone has a great deal of money, the bond is often set a good deal higher, because the intent is to make it significant. The judge may well have been aware of the minimum salary paid professional football players.

--I shaved my moustache off last night. My wife cheered. I kept going and buzzed my head again. My wife booed.

--Careful observation will find the Anti-Feline-Disruption Device which we have installed on our Christmas Tree:

We lost a pretty good number of glass ornaments last year.

--The good weather has had a lot of people putting up Christmas decorations. It's cheery. But I'm not a fan of the inflatable lighted yard decorations. A popular one this year is a helicopter that has spinning blades and Santa, and is emblazoned "Holly-Copter." I've seen it on the ground, on a black wire stand to make it appear to be hovering over the lawn, and perched on the roof near the chimney of houses in my town.
--One of our officers at qualifications this week feels that .45s just shoot better. His proof? He turned in a better group with his Glock 21 than with his issue G31, and I turned in a better group with my Kimber 1911 than with my issue gun. Hey, I'm all for people getting their confidence from whatever magic feather they've got to hold onto, but the opposite of data is anecdote.

--My wife bought a 100 count case of Tillamook individually-wrapped 3/4 oz Sharp Cheddar, and another of Colby-Jack. She was embarrassed, but pointed out that they were only $10 a case. I had her get another case, of Pepper Jack. Our refrigerator crispers are packed with over 14 lbs of handy slices of quality cheese. We thought they'd go for lunches, but it's amazing how handy those are for quickly slapping together a Quesadilla without dirtying a knife. At some time we may have to admit that we have a problem.

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Tuesday is also Tuesday is sometimes Tuesday.

• I'm ready for the Genom corporation to finish the Showham Project, so that we can get some clean power. We don't even have the Genom Tower built, yet, more less the Umbrella or the Dragon Line. Sigh. 
• The Westboro Baptist Bunch did their stuff at a Baylor football game recently, and got infiltrated. I would have to know whether they were playing the Aggies to know whether the guy in the middle was one of them, or one of the guys doing a schtick on them. This is a perfect example of Poe's Law: 

• At the tender age of 41 and with a 14.5 year marriage, the thought of separate beds doesn't sound that unappealing. The thought of separate bedrooms sounds Awesome. Anyone you know do this? Results? 
• Mixed feelings about Elmo dying because his puppeteer resigned. I'll admit that I've always hated the character he made on Sesame Street. (Whose idea was it, to have a popular character speak with subject-verb agreement issues, refer to himself in third person, and then give him his own segment on a children's educational show?). No, I'm not happy for the reason that he left. Maybe they can have him die in a fire, or something, and do another program dealing with death, like they did when Mr. Hooper passed on to that corner store in the sky.
• Friend of mine on a VERY fixed income just had her oven die. Due to dietary restrictions in her family, she has to come up with a Thanksgiving dinner menu that is gluten-free, lactose-free, and beef-free, without an oven-baked turkey. My first thought would be strychnine, but I suggested cocktails all day long. 
• It's very popular among the hipsters to remind us that Israel is disproportionately responding to Hamas rocket attacks out of Gaza. Hey, has everyone forgotten that Hamas is the ruling Palestinian party, and its platform includes the downfall of the nation of Israel? When a nation stands on such a platform, and pitches wobbly rockets into your cities, you kind of have license to go off on them. Hamas is currently demanding that Israel quit making surgical strike attacks on their military leaders. The reason that Hamas isn't throwing more bombs and rockets at Israel isn't because of restraint. It's because they don't have more to throw. 
• Two things from work keep springing up, again and again lately: 1. If your intimate relationship has devolved until you are literally physically hurting each other, get away. End it. 2. When in crisis, seek the advice of the persons you respect most, and then take it.
• Heath has a really beaut Savage Model 24 D.L .22 mag/20 gauge combo rifle added to the raffle to help out Tam with her nose. At $25 a ticket, it's a steal. Get in on it. I'm about to. Hit Tam's PayPal button,
  
  and forward the confirmation email to Jennifer ( jennifer@injennifershead.com ). Do it before Thanksgiving, QUICK!!!!!
• Jay has the rest of the stuff up for raffle here. Last chance! 
• The awesomeness of the prizes and the very real likelihood that you will win (there's not THAT many [not nearly enough!] people donating and putting in chances) can distract from the fact that you are doing my friend a solid. This is your chance, at Thanksgiving, to help out a member of your community. 
• I don't know what it's like for the rest of you this Thanksgiving, but we're getting a high of 76, and may well eat out on Mom's deck. Wearing T-shirt and shorts. But we don't eat until after I get off my 12 hour shift. 
• A very close friend of mine is going through a large police academy (evn though he's a veteran cop) at his new job. They just hit him with Sabre Green spray. Different from [now] traditional Oleoresin Capsicum (O.C.) spray, which is made from peppers, this stuff is made from wasabi, and my buddy says that the difference is amazing. He and I have both been hit with pepper spray, and the thing about it is, even though it's painful and lasts a long time, it takes a few seconds to take effect. He said that this Sabre Green is IMMEDIATE, and that it hits you hard. Think about the times that you've bitten into a pepper and said "Oh, this isn't so hot. Well, actually, I'm beginning to notice OH MY GAWD!!!"  That little wait seems to be avoided with the wasabi spray. It goes straight to effect. As a big plus, he noted that it was very quick to decontaminate from, too, which is a big issue from pepper spray. Understand: if you use pepper spray on someone, you are extremely likely to receive a secondary hit from it, too. I told him that they should have waited for December, and sprayed them with both Sabre Green and Sabre Red, and called it "Christmas Seasoning." 

Monday Morning Coming Down.

--I got home last night to find that my younger daughter had picked enough pecans off the trampoline (fallen from the neighbor's pecan tree) to shell over a cup and a half of pure pecan halves for me. Then she toasted them for me and had them waiting in a bag. That girl. She will go FAR.

--My Public Administration class is not going well. It's like they expect you to do all the readings, or something.

--I'm waiting to see the enhanced footage of Felix Baumgartner going supersonic. I'm still skeptical. There should be something interesting to see/hear, there. Consider this footage of aircraft going supersonic (the Atlas rocket launch at the end is the most impressive.).

--We got a couple of big tubs of mascarpone cheese from the grocery salvage store a month ago, and made some stuff with it. This stuff is incredible. I'll never use ricotta for lasagna again, if I can get this stuff. Spreads like soft cream cheese, but has more texture. Very rich flavored. It goes great with fruit, too. The reason I feel like I'm being held out on is because you people are holding out on me.

--I am rocking the copstache in ways I never have before. I grew it out somewhat at Blogorado, and just never really shaved my upper lip. I've trimmed it twice already. I'm strongly considering shaving my head, too. Just because. My wife isn't really happy about this, but she doesn't permit me to give any input on her hair styles. And this isn't permanent. I don't think that the moustache will cause me to go insane. This will, though.

--My daughter wants to get into skeet. I can train her on safe shotgun loading and use, but I'm a terrible wingshot, so I'm going to pay professional trainers to teach her, with a family 20 gauge Remington 1100.

--Given that I've yet to hear any justification for the DPS helicopter shooting of two unarmed Guatemalan aliens in the bed of a fleeing pickup down on the border, it doesn't look real good for the shooter. While I'm proud of our Texas Rangers as an investigative unit, I don't actually think that it's entirely appropriate for them to investigate this one. Time to invite some outside help, guys. If the shoot was good (which would involve new evidence that I've not yet heard, but is certainly possible), then you want it untainted by suspicion. If the shoot was bad, then it doesn't matter; just take out the problem and deal with it accordingly.

--I don't know what your weather looks like, but I doubt it's as good as mine:

-- Heard from prisoner whom I had just arrested, talking on the cell phone to his girlfriend: "Yeah, be sure and get my truck and trailer out from impound right away, or the wrecker company will charge extra days. And hon? Put on some makeup and dress real pretty, and try to get 'em to drop the price some on getting our stuff out. Have mom drive you there, and tell her to put her leg on."

--The lemons on my Meyers lemon tree are finally ripening:

--It's getting hard lately to find the great Buffalo Bore Heavy .38 loads. Anyone got a line on them? Especially non-+P?

Halloween.

• --On September 13th this year, I turned off the word verification Turing test on my blog. I've put most of the spam that I've gotten into a folder on my email. As of today, there are 444 such spam messages in there. The majority of my email now regards this blog, from "Anonymous," and exhibits one of three different characteristics:

1. It will compliment me as being such an extraordinary writer and providing such a useful blog.
2. It will be full of sentences mined from the net or just put together its own sentences with subjects, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and such pushed together to make a sentence that almost makes sense. Reading a paragraph of such sentences and trying to determine content will drive a person mad. End of line. Jump.
3. It will simply be full of links. Actually, they ALL have links. But this third variety will have nothing but.

• --I propose new legislation banning any October advertisement that includes any variation of the sentence: "[Nouns] so [adjective], it's scary!!!"  EG: "Prices so low, it's scary!!" "Food so good, it's scary!!!" Pull the advert; they're done for the month.
• --My high school freshman is making a mask to go roaming trick-or-treating tonight. She's taking her 10 year old sister, who is making some kind of raggedy witch costume. She makes pretty good costumes. Check out her dead bride costume from last year:

The dress was a costume dress that she'd picked up at a Goodwill for three dollars. The blood was some of her daddy's stage blood left over from graduate level blood spatter experiments.  She's miserable in that pic, because the stage blood, having been left in the garage, was about 55 degrees, and she was made to stand out in the fresh Halloween air to let it dry. She was cold.

• --Kids over 11 who arrive at my door tonight out of costume get no candy. Kids under 11 may get some candy, but they'll be told we disapprove, and that they need to sing for their supper. Also? They get the crappy candy, like Dumdums, or Good-n-Plenty.
• --I will actually be working an off-duty gig this evening for a couple of hours, controlling car access to an affluent community. Seems that the rabble locally less-affluent have discovered that their high-rolling neighbors give out the Good Stuff, and they all like to bring their kids. Problem: left to their own devices, man parents won't walk the sidewalks with their little kids; they will drive along beside them. This results in the hazard of people driving the streets while looking out their passenger side window, on the very night when there is the highest likelihood of a sprog darting out in front of their vehicle. My job will be to direct such parents to park their cars at the convenient lot near the entrance to the 'hood, and invite them to take a stroll with their costumed charge.  Such service will be rendered with a big ol' Officer Friendly grin. I have been assured that I am to be compensated quite well for this.
• --It's to be 73 degrees at 6:00 PM today, with a dry 5 mph breeze from the north, and not a cloud in the sky. The moon is only waning two days past full. It will be a delightful evening for a stroll with friends.
• --When I was about 13, my best friends' parents attended a church that taught that Halloween was evil. I was invited to a Halloween party with their youth group, and found to my dismay that they were all praying for the souls of all those kids who were caught up in the Satan-worshiping that surely accompanied the act of dressing up and unintentionally celebrating dark arts. The television show 20/20 had just done a big exposé on the apparent rampant spread of Satanism and people were wringing their hands all over. In retrospect, I think that there could have been no greater reward for the mullet-wearing teens with cans of spray paint and hopes of getting the townsfolk all scared, than that they would receive such coverage.
• --When I was 12, I was on a Boy Scout camp out on a fall night, when I went for an unsanctioned midnight walk with a friend*. I can't recall now if it was a Friday the 13th, or a Halloween night, but we came across a group of older teens in the woods who clearly were trying to work themselves into a tizzy. They had a girl screaming, and shouted. It was midnight. At one point, one of the young men stepped onto the dirt road near where we crouched and yelled the refrain to "Shout At The Devil!" I don't know about my companion, but I was rather impressed. It was right at midnight. I was pretty certain that if we were detected by the revelers, we would be murdered. I sharpened a large stick and we sat in the shadows, about 80 yards away. I suggested to my friend that we should go rescue the girl. My older friend pointed out that such an attempt would be foolhardy. I permitted him to persuade me. Later, we heard her talking and laughing. We crept away. To quote Robert Earl Keen in "Shades Of Gray": "...these are just some sorry kids/ They ain't the ones."*
• --I've just had that crappy Mötley Crüe song playing in the background while typing. It's no longer scary, nor does it sound that hard (it was mostly unlistenable to teen aged Matt G). It just sounds kind of crappy. Also? The metal umlauts are dumb. Yeah, I know-- I'm getting old.

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*I had seen him get up and walk out of the campsite, and I hopped up and ran to catch up. He was a couple of years older and a minor hero of mine, but I was aware that he also had a naughtier streak, too. To this day, I have no idea if he actually had a destination in mind. I think maybe he was hoping to get the two miles to the highway and get to a convenience store for some cigarettes.

**Yeah, this is the Richard Shindell version with Cry Cry Cry, but I think that the lyrics are clearer than the original Robert Earl Keen, Jr version. Also, yes, I'm aware that the song was written later in 1997, about some kids who almost got implicated for the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, but the phrase has resonated in my head many times throughout my career, when I have run across some light-runnin' malefactors who distracted me from my search for real evil-doers.