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.
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*I rarely ever use barbecue sauce of any kind.

This and that

--And other duties, as assigned. A cop has probably made a hundred undercover busts in his career, but this one makes the national news wire. That's gotta suck. So to speak.

--In another story about Indiana cops, IMPD lost one with some grit, this week. When hearing the screams of a distressed citizen, there are cops who will wait for a cover unit, and there are those who will take the door. Officer Bradway made the tough call, and passed away falling toward the bad guy, shooting back. There are worse ways to go. EDIT: I just now found that Tam's words almost perfectly reflected my own sentiment.

--Phlegmmy's a little concerned about her puppies when large raptors are around. I thought it was a little unrealistic to worry about them, until I saw these pictures from Siberia, of a golden eagle taking down a deer. Awesome.

--I have some kind of extra duty every day for two weeks. (Court, grand jury, vehicle maintenance, mandatory off-duty job by direction, fire shift, cover another shift.) Meh.

--I really like the pewter stocks on the Blackhawk Oleg shows here. Truth be told, I like the whole setup.

--I need to pick up some ammo for a match this weekend.

--We just had three or four days where the temperature in the morning was under 65. One day, it was 52. That's a HUGE deal, here, in September. Nothing's better than a fall day.

Wednesday night random thoughts.

--So apparently a pretty funny spare actor named Daniel von Bargen decided to check out, and shot himself in the temple with a .38 , only to find that it didn't work.  Still alive and now blind, the guy called 911 and summoned help. This confounds me. First, because all the news reports reference his work in Seinfeld rather than in Malcolm In The Middle, but second, because the guy had to put down his gun, find his phone (he was blinded by the shot) and call 911, and then wanted them to come help him. Amazing. He had been unhappy about needing some toes amputated, before. I would not have guessed that he would find life more worth living after having caused brain damage through a failed suicide attempt. Huh. I'm not trying to make the case that he should have just shot himself again; I'm merely pointing out that the logic that had him shoot once would seem to me to induce a second shot. Perhaps he didn't have a second round chambered?  Interesting.

--Well-cooked lentils are worth eating. Seriously.

--I have to evaluate what best plan to use to bolster my mom's fence against my brother's dog that he's leaving there. She's my next door neighbor. I don't want to have to chase the damned hound whenever it gets out. This means some work today. And money. I'm thinking about buying an Invisible Fence setup and running the wire along on the fence with staple gun.

--Why don't we standardize the buttons on the device that we swipe our credit cards or debit cards in? The questions are always different. The soft keys are in different places. One machine says: "Your total is $25.81*. Is  this okay? Push 'YES' if you wish to proceed." The next machine says: "Your total is $25.81. Do you want cash back? Push 'YES' if so." And so on and so forth. Look. I just want to swipe the card, get my receipt, and go. Why am I having to look at each proprietary system? When I get into another manual transmission vehicle that I've not driven before, I don't need to study on the fact that the accelerator is on the right, the brake is in the middle, and the clutch is on the left. Can't we just standardize these things?

--It was 80 degrees today.

--My shift partner and best work friend is leaving to go to another agency soon. I have cracked the ice and permitted him to see this blog. It's kind of fun finally letting someone from work know about this thing. He's sworn to secrecy, and I know that he won't tell. He's a great guy.

--There is some evidence that I've been burning the candle from both ends. I don't buy it, though. I've been pretty lazy.

--What's your experience with the durability and corrosion resistance with the firearms finish known as "French Gray?"

--I'm going back to sleep. Need to bank it for the weekend. I should actually be working on my take-home test on Homeland Security.


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*Note: This is the root of all evil.