“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”


"This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people . . . better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave." ~ Captain Malcom Reynolds

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Dirty Picture

Not THAT kind...

We've had a spot of rain the past few days, leaving the ground pretty saturated - add to that some landscaping blocks from the prior owners that I've moved & we have a couple of mud puddles out back.

And, in case I haven't mentioned it before, my partner is just a bit playful - part of what makes him work so well, but it also means that given the chance he will run, jump and play til he is exhausted & still want more.

So today I was doing some yardwork and added a bit of extra kennel cleaning to the mix, since it was nice & sunny & warm.

As soon as I let him out, what did he do? That's right - beeline to the nearest mud puddle with the remnants of a tennis ball and spend the next fifteen minutes tossing it and digging in the mud for it and having the best day of his week.

So, here he is in a pause in the action - his normal color a bit wetter & browner than it was a half hour prior. Just figured I'd share.



Saturday, March 28, 2009

Sign me up

Via a number of folks, here's one worth the read and support. I think they hit the nail on the head for a great many of us.

Who We Are

We are Simon Jester.

We are not anarchists.

We are not Far-Right or Far-Left. We are the seventy percent in the middle.

We are not Capital “L” libertarians, although we do have sympathies with their platform.

We are neither bitter clingers nor conspiracy nuts.

What we are is a group of folks that think we see liberty and freedom eroding in our beloved United States. We see the policies and agendas of the hirelings in Washington D.C. heading toward an abbreviation if not outright abrogation of the Bill of Rights.

Link goes to the whole essay, worth the read.

Plus, they have my next t-shirt....

Monday, March 23, 2009

Nada

Appreciate the concern everyone - everything is fine, just a lot going on in meatspace right now & I haven't really felt like posting along with everything else. Hope to be back to it this week.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Recap

This was apparently our week for callouts - these things go in cycles, like everything else.

It started out with an early Saturday morning phone call to go help out at a shooting in a neighboring jurisdiction, there was some thoughts the weapon involved might still be on the scene so they wanted Helix and I to give a go at finding things. After a period of time in which we were both getting more tired and hot due to the weather and running around, my partner pointed out some interest in a car.... which, none consent search later turned up a loaded gun in the trunk. So that did manage to start our week on a nice, if somewhat tired note!

The rest of the weekend was a pleasant blur of taking care of the kids, doing yard work and even getting some time with my wife.

Started out the week then with our regular monthly refresher training with the dogs. In the middle of which one of my coworkers and I are called to go do a check of one of our local churches for any bombs following some suspicious activity there... Nothing found, which in this case was a good thing.

Then as I'm just getting to some good sleep the next night I get another call - out to the airport we go to check some packages and a plane after someone left some homemade electronics on board... three more hours in the middle of the night, this one a switch to cold and rainy as opposed to hot. Again, nothing found, but we got the fun of destroying a little homemade music system since our genius didn't want to come claim it & we had to make sure it was nothing dangerous.

Following that gig I got home and got a brief nap; I'd just gotten up & taken a shower when the phone rings again - "They need you to come out on another gun search." Sigh. Three more hours of overtime at least, then I rolled into my regular work day.

Nothing more exciting to the work week than that - wish we'd had more finds but the nature of the job is about 90% false calls anyway. The other fun is that it is Federal grant time at work, so we have a bunch of money to spend upgrading equipment for the team and trying to line up things like that. Which takes up a lot of time in hunting down items, getting quotes, prioritizing and all that - fortunately I'm decent at administrative stuff, so it helps.

Ah, to just take someone to jail for something simple again - I love the change in jobs but I do miss the simple arrests at times! I am working a road check this week, so maybe I'll get lucky.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

New link

Got a link from several of the other "cop blogs" to add today:

Police Limit

a nicely done weekly webcomic which is written appreciating our point of view.

Hope you all enjoy it as well.

Spread the word

One of the current proposals to help with the Federal budget is to require disabled veterans to pay for their medical care using private insurance.

Please let your representatives know for sure what you think of this idea for our men and women who have served - many of whom, like me, couldn't afford the care for some of their injuries or conditions through their private insurance.

Remind our government of the promise they made to those who served.

Free Advice

So...

When you jump the stop sign, almost t-bone my marked police vehicle as I'm driving down the road in busy morning traffic & I'm forced to drive 10 feet off the road up a hill to avoid a collision...

and when I stop you for it your reason is "Oh I am running late getting my son to school and was just trying to jump in front of traffic."

don't act upset when I won't "cut you a break" and write you that ticket...

Press hard, there's four copies.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Long day ahead

Got called out after three hours of sleep last night to go do some work. Which my partner did a FANTASTIC job on, making me very proud. I'll try to come up with something to relate about the story later when I am more lucid.

Spending the morning with my wonderful children, so caffeine is in order now. Wish daddy luck.

Friday, March 6, 2009

musing

One of the greatest responsibilities in being a police officer is the fact that we hold the legal power to take a life to protect others. Mind you, self defense and the defense of others is an inalienable right as well noted by the founders of this nation - but law enforcement officers are placed in the position of having to proactively do so at times. This is one of the reasons society, the courts and the legislatures hold us to a higher standard in terms of training and understanding of what this entails - to do the best we can to ensure those entrusted with that responsibility make the right choices.

Along with this, as I've told a number of recruits and new officers over the years, you will have far more times in your career where you COULD have ended up using deadly force than you actually will use it - and each and every time is different and (at least for me) thought-provoking.

I was reminded a bit about this recently on a call. This is one of those that the details will stay vague on, but the point of the post is the same either way.

We had a bomb-squad callout for items which had passed the point of "suspicious" and jumped straight into "alarming and serious." As we are working on our plan to deal with said things, we also attempted to gather what information we could on who the owner was, location and all of that stuff. Which led to their showing up on the scene with a potentially valid explanation, but still very much a concern as to what may or may not be. So we make the decision that the individual can best work with us by bringing the items out under our view where we can better examine them.

Given again our still-valid concern of a threat, we want to keep him under a lethal force cover throughout all of this - anyone who doesn't think that a suicide bomber isn't going to hit the U.S. sooner or later is naieve in my book. Since I've got the background and the rifle on scene, that falls on me - to find the position to have some sort of cover but still be able to take the shot if needed. Part of this too involved making sure the person was absolutely aware of this - that should they take any action we would interpret as hostile, they were getting shot to protect everyone else.

Like I said, I've had a number of times as a cop when I came close to using deadly force - fortunately I haven't had to so far on any of them, but it's been close. This was one of the very few times though that wasn't a rapidly-evolving, making decisions in an instant situation. This was me very calmly, very patiently having to focus on another human being through the sights of my rifle, having to watch every movement and consider it in my mind, as well as keeping an ear on what the others saw. With this person knowing that I was doing so the whole time - seeing the glance up now and then towards me in full awareness of what could happen I'm sure. And realizing (more so in retrospect than at the time - I was focused on the job then) how very very close at any point it could have switched from the ending we had to a different one, where my finger moved to the trigger and squeezed those few pounds of pressure. Fortunately, that didn't happen - everything worked out, and everyone went home safe at the end of the day.

But it can be very soboring to think about having that much responsibility entrusted in you by society, and by your comrades in arms and the people you wait to go home to.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

New links

Up early and have a baby needing daddy, plus off to work in just a bit. But wanted to mention new links updated, including my brother's first blog post.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Things Sean Should Know By Now...

- Went to Sears for a set of new tires for the Jeep yesterday; given the others were well past due & a bit of a sale was on. The answer to "How long will this take?" was "Oh, just about an hour." Yeah... 3 hours later I finally got out of there. And not a wifi site to be found around there.

- Those following the news may have noticed we got a spot of snow on this side of the country today. This is relevant because I stopped at the grocery store for our biweekly run yesterday on the way home from said tire trip. Where everyone and their dog was shopping because ZOMG!!!!!!! it's the end of the world and groceries shall never arrive again! Seriously - there were FIVE loaves of bread left on the shelf, that's it. Fortunately the things we needed were in good supply, but that was another hour of frustration.

- Then came driving home. I believe that I've mentioned before that residents of this commonwealth completely lose the ability to operate a motor vehicle when water falls from the sky; should that water be in a white, solid state of matter things just become exponentially worse. The most fun parts are when you are stuck behind two idiots doing 10mph side by side, so no one can get around them. Seriously folks, it wasn't even that bad yet - things were just starting to stick. I managed to finally find my way around most of them, and proceeded at a faster but still prudent pace to my wonderful home.

- The snow is quite nice, our one good storm of the past few years. Fortunately I'm scheduled off today so unless some crisis happens I will get to play with the kids in it some & watch the dogs frolic. The wife - not so much on the snow, but she can enjoy the pretty views!