Creative carving

Saw these outside of a house on W Alabama. People were inside carving more.

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Rain-n-Drunks

I worked an extra four hours of patrol overtime yesterday. The city should have to pay double for overtime in the rain. Working patrol in the rain sucks. First call was, you guessed it, an accident. This one was in-bound on Allen Parkway at the Waugh exit. It was in a horrible spot just around a curve. I parked the patrol car behind the accident and hopped out quickly. I immediately heard screeching tires and turned around to see a car going sideways toward my car. Luckily the driver saved it in time to avoid my patrol car. I told the wrecker driver to pick up the wrecked car in a hurry before we all get hit. He picked it up and we got off of Allen Parkway. You would think that in the middle of a monsoon people would slow down on the roads. Nope.

Later in the shift an on duty officer responding to an accident on US 59 was involved in an accident. His patrol car no longer has a trunk. The officer was in the car at the time, but he will be ok. A short time later a HFD pumper truck was struck by another car while responding to a different accident on US 59. The freeways are crazy in the rain.

Ten o'clock could not get here fast enough. Carol is in her last day of evaluation. She is doing well. We were dispatched to a criminal mischief report where the boyfriend was the suspect. We arrived to find a drunk lady wearing a robe. She said that her boyfriend got locked inside of her BMW 335 convertible. The boyfriend was so drunk that he could not figure out how to get out, so he broke the window and climbed out. Wow. So drunk that you can not get out of a locked car. She said that he usually will drink 20 to 30 Miller Lites every day of the weekend. I would call him a heavy drinker. The best part of the call was the complainant calling Carol my probationary, "ladybug". I could not help but laugh.

Next, Ladybug and I were sent back onto Allen Parkway to provide traffic control for another accident. This one was a roll over. The drunk female bartender that was driving tried to exit where there was not an exit ramp. She drove onto the concrete embankment and then rolled back down onto Allen Parkway.

Last but not least, Ladybug and I responded to an assault call. An intoxicated doctor was assaulted by 4 Asian males. In his words "They jumped me for no reason. I just went into the fetal position and they hit me. Then I got up and ran away". He asked Ladybug what she would have done in the same situation. All five feet of her said "I would have fought back and kicked their asses". Great answer.

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A quick funny from Addy

Just before the kids shower time a few nights ago, I was sitting at the computer in our bedroom. Shocking, I know. When I hear Austin yell from the living room "OW, Addy!" They had been wrestling. A better description is Austin had been throwing his sister around on the couch. I left my perch by the computer and walked into the living room. I calmly asked Austin what had happened. He said that Addy had pulled is hair. I looked over at sweet, precious, little innocent Addy. My little girl would never do such a thing. Even after being terrorized by her big brother. I then asked Addy what had happened, she said:

"I pull Austin's hair, he goes ow, funny funny."

All I could do was turn around and leave the room, laughing.

Another day, another rookie

My department is about to dramatically slow down the flow of cadets from the academy. The city has only approved two classes for the next fiscal year. This is after a few years of at least 5 cadet classes a year. Even with that number of cadet classes, our department has only had a net gain of 150 officers. Our department workforce is old and many officers are retiring. Slowing down the academy does not seem like the correct choice, but the powers that be did not ask me. It will just mean more patrol overtime programs once our numbers start to dwindle.

Since the slowdown was announced, the academy has been in overdrive. New classes seem to be coming out every other week. That means that I have been very busy, when I am at work at least. I am one of only three evaluators on night shift at my station. Lately I have been in demand. The current rookie is Carol. She is in the middle of her final week of evaluation. She is 5 feet and 110 pounds of smiling hispanic female with an attitude. Her first night shift trainer said to her on their first day, "The cute smile is not going to get you anywhere with me, it is time to get to work." She responded with "If you have made this long being as big as you are, I think that I will be fine."

I have always wondered why any female would want to do this job, as a patrol officer. I am by no means saying that they can not do this job. On the contrary, I have worked with some excellent female patrol officers, my sister-in-law being one of them. When she was on patrol, she was an excellent officer that had a fantastic work ethic. However, I was always worried about her. I knew that she was a very capable officer, but the people that she came into contact with did not know that. I feared that she would get into more physical confrontations because she was a female. Thankfully, this did not come to pass.

Back to Carol. She grew up in two district and went to Waltrip High School. She took some classes from UH and changed her major numerous times. One day she decided that she was bored and since the Army would not take her, she applied with the department. That is not the best reason that I have heard for joining the department, but it is not the worst either. Luckily, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders. I hope that her smart mouth does not get her in trouble. It is one thing to smart off to someone when I am standing beside you and quite something different to do it by yourself. Hopefully she will work at a station that encourages officers to ride together.

So far, our days together have been rather boring. We have made numerous traffic stops without getting any drunks and we have written many reports. Tomorrow will be her last night and then I am sure that the next rookie will not be far behind her.

Need a little practice

Along with in-service training, there are a few other things that the
department requires of officers during their birth month. One of
them is to renew extra job permits. They have made this really easy.
All you have to do is log onto the intranet, pull up your permits, and
there is a button to renew. Very easy. In the past you had to refill
out the entire form even though the department already had all of
the information from the previous year. In this case, technology has
been implemented in a useful manner.

The other major thing that must be accomplished during the birth
month is firearms qualification. Amazingly the department only
requires us to qualify once a year. I have read that some other major
departments require every six months or even once a quarter. Not us. Once a year.

Crazy. Even worse, I have done what I said I would never do.
Tonight was the night I decided to head out to the outdoor range to
qualify. The outdoor range is a little different from the indoor
range. Outside the targets turn slower. Outside there are no
barricades between firing lines. Outside, you move back instead of
the targets moving back. The lack of barricades is the biggest
change. Without the barricades, the brass shell casings that the
pistols discharge arc through the air to the right and sometimes hit
the next shooter. The brass is very hot right after it comes out of the
pistol. It can be very distracting and uncomfortable if the brass hits
you in the face.

The qualification course is 60 rounds from 4 different distances. 12
rounds from 2 yards from the hip. 6 rounds with each hand from 5
yards. 12 rounds two hand grip from 7 yards. 12 rounds two hand grip
from 15 yards and 12 rounds two hand grip half from left and half
from right side of the barricade. You must draw from the holster and
reload where appropriate. The targets turn to face you and then turn
away. The time they face you gets a little longer as the distance
increases. During most target facings 2 rounds should be fired. The
target has concentric ovals. The middle oval is worth 10 points, the
next 9 and so on.

There is a total of 600 possible points. Seventy percent is passing. A
score of 570 earns you an Expert badge and a score of 594 earns the
Distinguished Expert Badge. During the academy, I shot a perfect 600
once. It was not during qualification so I did not get the
Distinguished Expert Badge. However, I still have the target. It is
hanging in the garage. Every year since the academy I have shot in
the Expert range. Not this year. What I said I would never do was to
shoot only once a year during qualifying. That is what I did this year.
I almost got away with it. I was in position to shoot Expert again
until the last line, the barricade. From the left side I made a nice
small group with my six shots, but they were all in the target's right
elbow earning 0 points. Suck. All six from the right side of the
barricade were in the 10 ring, where they should be. I am actually
glad that I missed those shots. Shooting is a finite skill. That will
encourage me to shoot more this year so that I do not have a
repeat next year.

Austin won!

Austin had a tough match yesterday at his tournament. His opponent had a two to one lead and Austin rallied to win 3-2. His opponent kept jumping and trying to hit Austin on the top of the head.It was funny to see. Two of Austin's friends from his karate class, Colt and Raven, stayed after their matches to watch Austin. He had his own cheering section. After the match, Austin said it was tougher than he thought it was going to be after seeing is opponent. It was an easy teachable moment explaining to not judge a book by its cover.

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Red belt tournament

It is that time again. Austin's karate tournament. This is his first tournament as a red belt. He is a little more anxious than normal. He is worried that he will have to fight a bigger second degree red belt. I had to reassure him a few times that he will be fighting someone that is his size, possibly Colt who is from his class. He will do fine if he just remembers to get his three points first. Every tournament we get a snack that I tell him he will get if he wins or at least tries his best. So far he has earned the snack every time. Today he choose Sour Patch Kids as his prize. He just asked for a sour patch kid for good luck. Nice try buddy.

It is very dusty in the gym. They recently re-finished the wood floor and there is dust everywhere. Oh well, what can you do?

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