Various Friday prattle.

--I lost a thousand words on this post, when my daughter logged me off when I wasn't looking, and it didn't auto-save. Ah, well. I go on too much, anyway.

--Elvis died 36 years ago today. I never understood those who worshipped him. But then, I never much understood worshipping a human that they didn't personally know. But he was admittedly talented. This one's for you, Elvis.

--The ol' boy could put together an earworm, when properly edited.

--It just now occurred to me that I'm older than Edward James Olmos was when he played Lt. Martin Castillo here. And now I feel really old.

---And do you remember when weapon-mounted lasers were as big as this one? That's like putting a VHS camcorder on your carbine.

--I'm not really big into sports. Tam, who loves baseball, tells me that what most people call sports are actually games, and that the only true sports are big game hunting and racing. There was a time when Sports Illustrated would post real stories about such sporting. I wish I could have met Papa Hemingway. I only tend to think that during the summer, when I'm reading something alone, or having a drink on a Caribbean beach, like I was when my wife took this picture:

My wife and I were betting who could get a better picture of the full moon with our tiny-apertured Nikon CoolPics point-and-shoot digicam. Obviously the flash had to be turned off, and I was sitting on a padded bench, trying to stabilize the long exposure. My wife sensibly set the camera on a low partition wall, set the timer, and let the camera take this exposure. She won. :)

--You could do worse than to sit and drink coffee and listen to my elder daughter pick scales and strum chords on her bargain-priced 6-string guitar.

--Taser has put warning boxes in their literature warning of heart captures and other potentially fatal effects of use. Some administrators are pulling Tasers off the line, as a result, because they perceive that the Taser is a "deadly weapon". This is over-reaction. You know what's a deadly weapon? A baton to the head. A shot of pepper spray to an asthmatic. A beanbag round to the head. Sure some departments have over-used tasers, but that's a misuse of force issue, not an equipment issue.

--Although there are those who consider me something of a student on the subject, I will occasionally have questions on Texas Code Of Criminal Procedure that I need to answer right away and don't have time to look up. If an assistant district attorney isn't available, I tend to call my buddy LawDog, like I did last night. I always enjoy my chats with LawDog. I should call him way more often.

--I'm pretty sure that I've never seen a corner store product come from an internet meme, but if my younger daughter has anything to say on the subject, we will be the first people on our block to have bottle (or even a case!) of Grumpy Cat coffee drink in our house.

--Tell me this is a farce. I refuse to believe it until it is checked out. I'm a cop, and a volunteer fireman. When I'm on a fire rig, I leave my cop self at home. You're going to have to beat your kids or slap your grandmother, before I'm calling the cops over what I see. As for acting as police? Nope. Not while in my fireman's hat.

--Sunday morning, I take a girl out shooting. She just graduated with a degree in criminal justice, and is putting applications into local police. My graduation gift is a couple of sessions of firearms instruction. Her daddy's a cop with a local department and a friend, and he's gotten her a decent pistol and rig. I just want the shooting part to be the least of her worries, when she's in academy.