The week on patrol, April 4-8, 2011

I rode solo for most of the week. Monday was the final day of the
Final Four mobilization and I was off on Friday.

The championship game of the Final Four took place Monday night at
Reliant Stadium. There were a few more calls than a regular Monday
night, but not many.

I checked by with J on a disturbance at a restaurant. It was over a
door ding. A female was sitting in her car when another vehicle drove
up and parked. The male exiting that car slammed his door into the
female's car. The male apologized, but the female did not like the
male's attitude and wanted a report made. After J explained that an
accident report would be made and that it could possibly effect her
insurance rates, she decided that an apology was good enough. The male
then gave her another lack luster apology and we left it at that.

Then I was dispatched to a welfare check in government housing. The
call slip said that two kids, ages 7 and 9, had been left at home
alone. I knocked on the front door and there was no answer. I called
the person who had called the police and after I identified myself,
they hung up. I guess it was not that important to them. There was
nothing else that I could do, so I left and cleared the call.

Later in the shift, I checked by on a disturbance with L. The call
slip said that a female had found her husband in bed with another MAN
and that she was very upset. Understandable. When we arrived, she was
indeed very upset and very drunk. Shocking. She said that she had
found him naked with another woman. I guess the call taker was trying
to make it more interesting. She told us that she lived with two men,
so she was no saint. The "husband" who cheated was currently sleeping
behind the apartment in an abandoned car. He was not causing a
disturbance, but the woman was causing problems. So, L told her to go
inside or she was going to jail, problem solved.

On Tuesday, I was the print unit. It was a slow night with very little
going on. There were no print calls to run, so I checked by with J on
an accident. My department's policy on minor accidents says to give
the citizen a "blue form" which is an accident report that the citizen
fills out and sends into the state if the accident meets certain
criteria. The vehicles have to be drivable, drivers must have a valid
license and insurance, no injuries, and the damage has to be less than
$1000. This was a minor accident on the freeway that could have been
blue formed except neither driver had a driver's license. Outstanding.

Wednesday night I rode with A. I was absolutely dead tired and once
again it was very slow at the beginning of the shift. There was not
any foot or vehicle traffic in the area. A drove around the district a
lot for the first two hours of the shift. She likes to drive, and I
have gotten used to being the passenger with all of the nights that I
have spent training rookies, so I do not mind.

We were dispatched to theft in progress at a construction site. The
guy on site said that a black male took some copper wire out of the
dumpster. The wire was indeed trash. The guy told the black male to
stop and leave the wire, and he refused. That irritated him and that
is why he called the police, because a man took trash out of the
dumpster and refused to leave it. We "checked the area" for the black
guy, but did not find him.

An assault in progress dropped at a local gay bar. The call slip said
that a large fight was going on in the parking lot. We arrived and
there was nothing going on, crickets. While we were there in the
parking lot, the same call came in 3 more times. Fake calls are very
annoying.

We checked by on a suicide in progress, a possible jumper. The
girlfriend called in that her boyfriend was on a bridge and thinking
about jumping. A bunch of units descended on the area, but no one
found the boyfriend. We finally asked where the boyfriend lived. We
got the address and went to his apartment. His mom answered the door
and acted like we just woken her up. She then told us that her son was
not home. We told her why we were there and looking for her son. Then
she told us that the girlfriend frequently makes false reports
regarding her son. We asked her to call him. She went to call him and
then returned to the door. She said that he is fact home and asleep.
So, we headed upstairs to go check on him. He played possum for awhile
and tried to act like he was just waking up. We got him awake and
start talking to him. Eventually, he finally told us that yes, he was
on the bridge earlier and was thinking about jumping. The primary unit
transported him to a psychiatric center for evaluation and did an
Emergency Detention Order. We later found out that the mom knew that
he had snuck out and was trying to help him fool us. Great parenting.

I was by myself on Thursday. There were not very many units. I was
dispatched to major accident. N and K took it for me, which was very
nice. I checked by and helped out. One driver totally blew a stop sign
and t-boned another car. Usually, that means that the driver was
drunk. Not this time. The driver said that he was looking at the green
light up ahead and completely missed the stop sign. Luckily, no one
was injured.

Later, I was dispatched to a suspicious vehicle. The call slip said
that there was a male inside a vehicle talking on a cell phone. This
was at 2:30 AM. Who is up to call the police? Insomniacs I guess. Go
to sleep, and why is someone sitting in a car suspicious? I spoke with
the "suspicious male". He said that he was trying to say goodbye to
his boyfriend. Not exactly a national security crisis. Oh well.

I was off on Friday night.

That concludes another week on patrol.

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Minute Maid Panorama

This is 19 pictures taken and stitched together with the iPhone.

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More Metro Dash pictures

Over the wall

The 12' wall with rope

The log carry

The Winded Warrior, post Dash

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Metro Dash Pictures

Bobby, Rusty, Jeff, and Christian, The Winded Warriors, before the Dash

The rope ladder

The cargo net

The tire flip

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The Metro Dash

This past Saturday, I participated in the Metro Dash. This is the
original race the Courtney got me excited about, and then had to pull
out of for a convention. Metro does not involve mud, and really, not
very much running. The course is only 800 yards, but there were 30
obstacles. You can participate as an individual or as part of a four
person team. I thought that it would be more fun being part of a team.
I was able to talk Bobby, a 27 year old officer, Jeff, a 47 year old
officer and Marine, and Christian, a 37 year old gym owner and former
military man into joining the team. When it was time to register the
team, I had to come up with a name. So, I called Courtney and I knew
that she would come up with something good, and she did not
disappoint. Courtney named us The Winded Warriors.

Then I had to choose a start time. We needed to race in the afternoon,
since Christian's gym (where I do Crossfit) is open Saturday mornings.
The team times started at 2 PM, with 2 PM being the start time for the
"elite" wave. The website said to choose that time if you felt that
your team was competitive. I reasoned that we had one Marine, one
youngster, and two Crossfitters, so 2 PM it was, in the elite wave.

Jeff and I thought that it was be cool to wear matching shirts for the
race. We found a very appropriate Under Armor shirt that supports the
Wounded Warrior Project. Jeff chose dessert tan as the shirt color and
then provided us all with a pair of dessert tan tiger strip BDU pants.
At least we were going to look good.

Race day arrived and we all met at the race location which was in the
shadow of Reliant Stadium. The course had been set up on black top in
a parking lot. It was sunny and warm, with the black top making it
feel that much warmer. We all got registered and received our t-shirt
and timing chip. Then we began to walk around the course to get an
idea of all of the obstacles. We all thought that it was odd that the
competitors seemed to be walking between the obstacles without a sense
of urgency. A short time later, we would come to understand why.

They called for our wave color to enter the holding tank, and it was
time for us to get ready to race. We were the third team to start in
our wave. After the team in front of us got 5 obstacles into the
course, it was our time. The first obstacle was a 20 foot tall rope
ladder. You climb up, touch the top, and climb down. On my third step,
my foot slipped off the rung. Thankfully, I had a good grip on the
rope. Otherwise, it would have been a very inauspicious start to my
Metro Dash. The ladder was followed by a ball sprint, high wall,
tunnel crawl, stutter step tires, and then a cargo net. The cargo net
was 15 feet tall. You climb up one side, cross over the top and climb
down. It was my first experience on a cargo net. It was fun and would
be a great addition Christian's Third Coast Crossfit gym.

Then it was on to box jumps, tire flips, an 8 foot wall, and then
push-pull. For push-pull, there was a weighted sled with a rope
attached. You pull the sled to you using the rope, and then push it
back using the handles. Sounds easy enough, but the handles were very
low so leverage was hard to come by when pushing it back. The
push-pull which closely followed the tire flips, made me realize why
some competitors were walking by this point of the race. A shuttle run
was next, then over/unders, high hurdles, balance beam, and monkey
bars rounded out the first half of the race.

The second half started with some low walls, a sand bag carry, low
crawl, strongman shuffle, and then a wall traverse where you had to
traverse the wall horizontally without touching the ground or using
the top of the wall. That was followed by a window jump, farmer's
walk, and 12 foot wall where a rope was provided to help you get over.
A log climb, black hole crawl, log carry, and rope swing rounded out
the obstacles.

So, how did we do? We all finished and no one was injured. I thought
that it was very fun. It reminded me of a Crossfit workout. It took us
about 15 minutes, utilized functional movement, and was done at a fast
pace. I wish we could have done it more than once.

A special thanks goes out to my wonderful wife, A1, A2, and my parents
who braved the sun and heat to cheer us on. It was great to hear A1
and A2 yelling for Daddy to go faster. To Mike for taking some great
pictures of us. My Dad got some good photos as well, thanks. To
Courtney and S1 for rooting us on, and finally to Terry, who had
volunteered to take the pictures, until we found out that Mike would
be back in town and was let off the hook. I appreciate the support.
Can't wait till it comes back next year.

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The week on patrol, March 28 - April 1, 2011

I rode solo for most of the week. The number of officers on the street
fluctuated dramatically during the course of the week, and the Final
Four mobilization began.

On Monday night we had a bunch of units. You could not swing a dead
cat without hitting the po-po. It was just when we needed them as
well, a Monday night, NOT. It was a painfully slow night. Only one
call dropped in the beat all night and I did not get it.

It rained Tuesday night and we had a decent number of units. Fewer
than Monday night, but enough to cover a Tuesday. I was dispatched to
some baby mama drama, other wise known as a family disturbance. A guy
who had just gotten out of jail serving time for city warrants, came
to his baby's mama's house and picked a fight. He wanted to leave with
his stuff. He not only wanted his clothes, he wanted everything that
he had paid for that was in the apartment, including the baby stuff.
Very mature. She responded by getting mad and throwing all of his
stuff out on the porch. He looked through the stuff but did not find
his Gucci watch that he said was in the apartment. She said that she
did not know the location of the watch. I told him to grab his stuff
(not the baby stuff), leave, and do not come back tonight. She said
that he had been violent in the past, which was not surprising. Why
can't we all just get along?

Late in the shift I found out that H has to go to phase 5 for report
writing. He failed that category during phase 4 evaluation. Report
writing was his strength while I trained him. This is my first rookie
that I have trained that has had to go to phase 5 of the training
program. It was bound to happen sometime.

We were short handed on Wednesday night. On the nights that I work, we
have our fewest units on Wednesday. It is just the way that the
schedule and days off has worked out. We have too many officers off
either Tue/Wed or Wed/Thurs.

I was dispatched to a disturbance. A female and her 4 year old son
were staying with a boyfriend who lives with his aunt in government
housing. The aunt sold a Lincoln Navigator (remember they live in
government housing) to the female for $5000. She even had a signed
bill of sale. So far, the female had paid $2000 of the $5000 owed. The
female wanted the keys to the Navigator since she was being kicked out
of the apartment for stealing from the aunt. The aunt would not give
up the keys. I spoke with a district attorney who confirmed that this
was a civil matter that a justice of the peace court could handle.
After we told her that she was not leaving with the Navigator, the
female wanted all of her stuff out of the apartment. She had lots of
clothes, a child, and 2 flat screen TVs, and no vehicle. Her mom was
nice enough to come and pick her up. The mom loaded everything into a
car while the female just cried. I felt bad for the mom and the child.

I checked by with J on a disturbance at a Jack in the Box drive
through. A Mini Cooper stopped in the line to look at the menu. He was
not by the call box. He took his time and was there for awhile while
cars started to back up behind him. The car behind the Mini honked
their horn. The guys in the Mini threw up one finger salutes and
called her a bitch in response. Then her boyfriend got out of the car
and approached the Mini. The guys in the Mini got scared and they
called the police. J told them, "don't throw the finger if you can't
back it up."

A little later, J and I were dispatched to a person down at a very
nice apartment complex. The call slip said that a male was sleeping
outside the caller's door wearing just his underwear. We arrived,
found the correct apartment, and sure enough, a black male wearing
just his tighty whiteys was asleep in front of the door. He was using
his jeans and t-shirt as a pillow. It took us awhile to wake him up
and to get him moving. He had a very difficult time following
directions or giving us any answers. We asked simple questions like:
Why are you here? Where do you live? Why are you only wearing tighty
whiteys? He could not come up with a home address or phone a friend,
so he went to jail for public intoxication.

Thursday was the first day of the Final Four mobilization. It was all
hands on deck. No one could take off, but regular days off were still
in force. This was scheduled to last until Monday night, the night of
the championship game. I rode with G, the first time that we have
ridden together.

We checked by on burglary of a business. The alarm was for the
pharmacy that is on the ground floor of a 17 floor medical building.
Two glass doors had been shattered, but the pharmacy had not been
breached. The stair well doors were unlocked and the elevators were
still on, so we had to check all of the floors. We called for a K-9 to
help out. He started on floor 2 and we started on floor 17 and we met
in the middle without finding a suspect.

Later we checked by on a major accident. A guy blew through a stop
sign and slammed into another car. Then the guy that ran the stop
sign, got out of his car and ran off. D was primary officer, and as
soon as he arrived he told us that he had it under control and that we
could go look for the suspect. It was a not so subtle way of saying
LEAVE. We know when we are not wanted, so we desperately tried to find
his suspect, but were unsuccessful.

I was by myself on Friday as the print unit. There were not any print
or picture calls during the shift.

I checked by on a major accident. A drunk guy from Kentucky who was
here for the Final Four failed to yield the right of way while turning
left and turned right in front of another vehicle. The one ton work
truck that he was driving was hit hard by the car that he turned in
front of. There were tools scattered everywhere and the truck's drive
shaft was broken. The driver of truck was charged with DWI. It was not
the way he planned to start the weekend.

Later, I went by on an assault. A male was bleeding from the head. He
was found in the street by residents. He would not tell us what
happened, other than that he "fell and hit his head." He would not
even let the ambulance clean him up, so the primary unit took him home
and left it at that.

That concludes another week on patrol.

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More Boondock Battle Pictures

At the bottom of the General, the large mud slide.

The over unders.

After the Battle.

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Boondock Battle Pictures

See the full gallery on Posterous

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The Boondock Battle

A few months ago, my sister-in-law Courtney began casually bringing up
obstacle / mud runs. Initially, I was not interested at all,
especially in the mud runs. As lame as it sounds, I do not enjoy
getting dirty. I know, here is my man card. On top of that, I hate to
run. Then one day she told me about an obstacle course race that does
not involve mud. I checked out the website, and was immediately
interested. It looked like fun. You could race by yourself, or as part
of a four person team. We chose team and began looking for teammates.
However, a few weeks later, Courtney remembered that she was going to
be out of town for a convention the weekend of the race. Suck. I
rallied and found some teammates and we are looking forward to the
race.

In the meantime, Courtney started hearing about all of these other
obstacle races, some in the mud and some in the sand. I decided to
bite the bullet, and we signed up for the Boondock Battle, a 5k mud
run with obstacles in Navasota. It was not my first choice, but I
figured that I can always rinse the mud off. This was going to be my
first mud run, and Courtney's second. She did the Warrior Dash a few
weeks ago and aside from 2 black toes, came out unscathed.

Courtney thought that it would be fun to run in a costume. I agreed
after hearing her idea. She wanted us to look like escaping prisoners,
and I pictured O' Brother Where Art Thou in my mind. After quite a bit
of searching, she was able to find some striped prisoner garb at a
local costume shop. On the package, the costume said "one size fits
all". NO, it does not. The pants, lets just say would have been
obscene for me to wear. For my comfort and everyone else's eyes, we
decided to go with the shirts and caps only. Courtney then added
"Outlaw In-laws" to the costume with a black Sharpie.

We told our families about the race, and most thought that we were
crazy. But, they were also interested in watching. So, on the morning
of the race, Jen, A1, A2, and myself caravanned with Courtney, Mike,
and S1 the 90 or so miles to Navasota. The last 40 or so miles were on
two lane country roads. About 30 miles from the race, we came over a
hill and ran into traffic. Traffic? In the middle of nowhere, what
could be causing traffic? How about six Model T era vehicles driving
25 to 30 MPH in a 65 MPH zone. I would think that when they noticed 20
vehicles backed up behind them, they might pull over to let people
pass, NOPE. It was like driving in a never ending school zone.
Painful. We finally arrived at the ranch where the race was held. We
had left in time to arrive an hour before our race time, but the Motel
T's ruined that for us. We ended up being a little late and our start
time was pushed back an hour. My parents decided to come watch us
race, but they were lucky enough to miss the Model Ts.

After arriving, we got into our costumes. Then we all boarded a
trailer and sat on hay bales for the 2 mile trip to the start of the
race. Once there, we signed in, gave them a signed release of
liability waiver, and received our gear bag. There was a t-shirt,
bottle cap, and race bib in the bag. The bottle cap was good for a
free drink after the race. We took a few pre-race pictures and then it
was time to get ready to run.

Our wave had 50-70 runners, and we all lined up at the starting line.
There were some other costumes in the group and one guy volunteered to
wear a helmut mounted camera for the race organizers. They said "Go"
and we were off towards the first obstacle. The crazy thing is, only
two short days later, I do not remember the first obstacle. I do
remember that we ran about .75 of a mile before reaching it. That was
the longest run without an obstacle. In all, there were about 20
obstacles. A few of them I will mention here.

The mud pit. It was in the first half of the race. When you arrived,
you saw a pit of muddy water about 3 feet below ground level. The pit
was about 10 yards across. I jumped in, and the water was over my
head. So, I am swimming across. They had a rope in the water which was
tied off to a tree on the other side. You had to use the rope to climb
up and out of the pit. Of course, the bank was higher on this side. It
was a 12 foot climb up a muddy bank using the rope. Courtney was right
behind me and we were completely drenched and muddy, but we were
running again.

A few obstacles later, was the creek bed. We ran about 150 yards along
a flowing and muddy creek. At the end, we found two ropes and a 15
foot climb up a muddy bank.

Sand, Sand, and more Sand. Right after the creek, was the sand. The
sand obstacle was about 30 yards long, with small hills on each side
of a 20 foot dune. We were wet and winded before, after we were sandy
and our feet were 5 pounds heavier. We did not run quite as fast after
the sand.

Near the end of the race, we found the General, a monster mud slide.
Using a large hill, an excavator, plastic sheeting, and water, they
created a gigantic slide that ended in a mud pit. Courtney and I went
down together. It was fast and fun. After some muddy over unders and
crawling through mud underneath chain link fencing, we found the
finish line. After crossing the line, they gave us a dog tag to
commemorate the occasion. A1 was at the finish line and wanted the dog
tag. He has been wearing it since the event.

Courtney and I then walked over to the shower area. Using well water
and PVC pipe with holes, they had created four showers. The water was
extremely cold, but effective at removing most of the mud. We walked
back to our group and got onto the next trailer to ride back to our
vehicles.

Overall, I had a great time. Thanks to everyone that came out to watch
and cheer us on. I can see quite a few of these types of races in my
future. Courtney keeps finding them and we keep signing up. I think we
are scheduled for three more, 2 beach and 1 mud, and are seriously
looking at a tough one in the Austin area in October. If this is my
mid-life crisis, I am not doing too bad.

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The week on patrol, March 21-25, 2011

I rode solo this week until Friday, when J and I partnered up. Most of
the calls this week involved either drugs or alcohol, in large
quantities.

Monday night was very slow until around 3 AM. That was when a car
being driven by an intoxicated male ran a red light and t-boned
another vehicle. That vehicle came to a stop inside, yes inside, a
nearby boat dealership. Then the drunk guy tried to run off. He was
detained by wrecker drivers for a few minutes until officers arrived.
He went to jail for DWI.

Tuesday night was almost a carbon copy of Monday. It was slow until
another drunk driving accident. A male had just left his investment
banking job downtown and was driving toward the freeway. When a car
being driven by a drunk female ran a red light and slammed into his
car. He had some minor injuries and she smelled like a brewery and
could hardly stand up. She said that she drank three beers earlier in
the evening. That was possible since she was small and everyone
processes alcohol at a different rate. When given the opportunity, she
refused the breath test. But, since she was involved in an accident, a
blood draw was mandatory.

We had very few units on Wednesday night. That turned out to be ok,
because the call volume was still low. At 5:50 AM, I was dispatched to
an assault / just occurred. I arrived to find that the assault
actually had happened 5 hours earlier. A male had been riding his
bicycle in a high crime area while trying to buy drugs. Two males
jumped him and then they hit him in the head with his own bicycle.
Eventually, he got home and then went to his neighbors house at 3 AM.
Then she waited to call the police until 5:50 AM. It was a little
strange. He had a bump on his head, but refused medical treatment. I
think that the neighbor called because she was tired of taking care of
him. She wanted him out of her house. With the help of some buddies, I
was able to gather the necessary information, write the report, and
still get off on time.

On Thursday, I was dispatched to a suicide call at a residential
treatment facility for schizophrenia. A male left the facility and
then came back on campus where he lives and told the caretaker that he
had just consumed 3 beers and 30 Vicodin.  He told me that he was not
trying to hurt himself. An ambulance arrived and transported him to
the hospital. I went ahead and wrote a report, just in case something
unfortunate happened at the hospital.

As I was driving around, I found an unconscious male. He was laying
partially in the median, but mostly on the road. I stopped to check on
him. He did not look homeless, which was surprising. He was in a tank
top and was sunburned. He woke up and immediately started talking
about leg pain. He was moaning and groaning, ramping up the drama. I
called for an ambulance. He said that he and some friends had come up
to the area from the island a few days ago. His friends left him
there, because he was drunk. Nice friends. He had been walking around
ever since because he had no one to call to come get him. The
ambulance guys ended up feeling sorry for him and took him to the
hospital for the leg pain. The pain turned out to be real, he could
hardly walk. That made the ambulance guys feel better about their
decision.

On Friday, the regular print unit was here working for someone and
rode the print unit, so I rode with J. We ended up with no reports for
the night. J did lots of driving in circles. It was fairly slow for a
Friday night, with the usual load of loud noise calls and minor
disturbances.

One of the loud noise calls was at house that is in the middle of a
neighborhood. The owner rents out the house for parties. I am sure
that the neighbors do not appreciate it. We arrived to find a birthday
party that resembled a Kappa weekend on the island. The music was very
loud and there were people outside yelling and screaming, your basic
drunk people behavior. The person in charge of the party came out
quickly and apologized. She said that she would get things under
control, and surprisingly, she did. She turned down the music and got
everyone inside, at least while we were still there. I thought for
sure that we would get called back out later, but did not. Amazing.

That concludes another week on patrol.

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