Thawing your turkey

There are many who warn against thawing your turkey. See why police say it is a good idea to keep your bird frozen! (Click on Blog title - "Thawing your turkey" - to read the story) Another prime example of a dumb criminal!!
I love my job!!

Education and Criminals

I have had many interesting discussions with people the past few months regarding our children’s education. We argue the pro and cons of both public and private education. I have my opinions, but I will keep those to myself for the time being. That being said there is one fact we can not ignore. Our educational system is failing. Our schools are producing students who are -- to quote from the conclusion of an 858-page report issued in 2001 by a distinguished blue-ribbon Presidential Task Force on Educational Quality -- ``stupid.'' The drop in our national IQ has caused many problems, including Limp Bizkit, feng shui, the U.S. Department of Education and the growth of ''reality-based'' TV. But the most serious problem is that, as our population gets dumber, it becomes harder and harder to find qualified workers. Nowhere is this disturbing trend more evident than in the field of crime. Not so long ago, American criminals ranked among the best in the world. Foreigners were terrified to come here because our criminals were so good at making our streets unsafe. Today, however, we are producing incompetent criminals who not only have allowed the crime rate to drop, but who also, when they DO attempt to break the law, commit crimes of a quality that is, frankly, embarrassing. Consider a story from The Capital, in Annapolis, Md. According to this article, an alleged parole violator was about to be taken into custody in the county courthouse in Annapolis when he suddenly ran from the courtroom. So far, so good; criminals are supposed to flee. The suspect, pursued by sheriff's deputies, ran into the nearby Maryland Inn, where he hid in a closet. This is still acceptably competent criminal behavior. But then, according to The Capital, the man decided to disguise himself by ''putting on a bunny suit.'' I am not making this up. For some reason, which is not explained in the Capital article, the closet contained a full-size bunny suit, with large pink ears, and the suspect climbed into it. Maybe he thought this would fool the deputies. FIRST DEPUTY: He ran into that closet! SECOND DEPUTY (opening closet door): Nope! There's nobody in here but a giant bunny! FIRST DEPUTY: Darn! But the deputies were not deceived, and they apprehended the suspect after a struggle. The Capital quotes an inn employee as saying: ``It looked like they were attacking the Easter Bunny.'' As pathetic as that criminal was, he was Albert Einstein compared with our next example, whose story is told in the Albuquerque Journal. This article states that a man armed with a knife held up a Taco Bell and got $2,300. The robber wore a ski mask to disguise his identity. This plan would have worked flawlessly, except that, during the robbery, the robber made one teensy mistake: He pulled one of the Taco Bell workers aside, lifted his mask and said, ``It's me, Tim.'' Yes. It turns out that the robber used to work at this Taco Bell, and he chose that particular moment to say hi to a former co-worker. This meant that the police had a pretty good clue as to the identity of the robber -- namely, his name -- and thus were able to apprehend him, which is good, because a person of his apparent mental caliber should not be walking around with a sharp object. Speaking of weapons, another excellent example of the modern criminal mind is reported the Billings Gazette in Montana. This article concerns a man who tried to hold up a Billings gas station by pointing his finger at the clerk. According to a police spokesperson, the would-be robber 'took off running when the clerk said `no.' '' What a moron! You'd think our educational system would at LEAST have taught this man that, if he's going to scare people with his finger, he must demonstrate its menace by pointing it at the ceiling and going, ``Bang! Bang!'' I could give more examples, but you get my point: The once-proud American crime industry has become a joke. To turn the situation around, we need better-educated criminals; to produce them, we must give our schools - all schools - more resources, in the form of money. That's why I want you to put cash in an envelope and mail it to me, so I can give it to the schools. I'm talking about ALL your cash. Do it RIGHT NOW. Or else. Because this finger is loaded.

Erin's new hair cut

Sweet little Erin is not looking so little, she got a hair cut tonight and now I think she could pass for 10. What do you think. She is one pretty child!!!

First day of school

The kids finally had their first day of school, AHSJ is moving into a new building and had some set backs that forced them to postpone school until they finished up construction. In the end the building still wasn't ready so we started at the old building for a couple of weeks. The kids are very excited to get back to school and the routine of things. I started teaching 2nd grade at their school and so far so good. Overall my experience this summer with the staff has been wonderful, it really has been what I needed. Bennett is with my mom and doing very well, (I miss him so much and feel so bad leaving him). Erin is doing great, the first week is always stressful, but she loves her class, her friends, and her teacher. And sweet Wilson, the one who lead us all there in the first place, is doing perfect. I have worried about the first day of kindergarten for him since he was 3 and first diagonised. It was so hard on me having to send him to class by himself and walk away since I had a class full of students of my own, otherwise I don't think I could have. I still run to his teachers wanting every detail, and I'm dying to be a fly on the wall and watch him. I do get to see him briefly at lunch and he's always happy, he wants to tell me about what he doing, about his friends, and he's so excited about his packed lunch. Just like every other 'normal' kid. The joy that I feel watching him interact and behave so typically is overwhelming. He is truly a miracle. Thank you for all the prayers on his behalf (since the 3 people that read this blog are all family members).

We have a new camera

On Wilson's birthday back in June, I let him take some pics around the house. He was swinging it and it hit just right and broken the lens. We couldn't afford a new camera and thus we haven't taken any pics of the kids all summer. We just bought a new camera this last week, so here is what our kids look like one summer later.

Dancin' with a man.......or something like that!

This is a true story - the names have been changed to protect the innocent...or guilty...or whatever! I love my job!! Ask Amber....ask anyone - "can I ask anyone right now, how about my mom, can I call my mom and tell her how much I love her" - sorry, I got distracted with a classic line from one of my favorite movies. Anyways, back to the story - so I love my job - however there are a few parts of my job that bug me. One of those is the week I am on call it is my "duty" to fingerprint the citizens and criminals of WVC. We fingerprint people on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 to 16:00 (or 10am to 4pm for those who struggle with military time). The criminals are the majority of the people we fingerprint - about 8 out of every 10 people. The civilians (employment, background checks etc) are typically friendly and have some over all decent hygiene. A lot of the criminals however do not follow suit. Many of them I am pretty sure would not know a bar of soap, or deodorant if it hit them in the head.....also, a lot do not speak English - and I do not speak much Spanish - needless to say, it can put me in a bad mood. So a couple of months ago, it was my turn to fingerprint people. It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon and there came a knock on our door at the Forensic Unit. I answered and there stood, what I would consider a pretty good looking woman, who informed me she had been ordered by the court to be fingerprinted. She was very nicely dressed, and very well groomed - hair was cut and combed, and she smelled pleasant - like she had showered and put on deodorant and perfume. I could tell she was a woman because the shirt she was wearing was very tight fitting, and also had a very low cut neck. Many would agree with me if they were there - that this woman was very well "endowed". I was very professional and maintained appropriate "eye to eye" contact. I verified she had the correct paperwork needed to proceed with fingerprinting. Anyways, I was typing in all her information into the computer, and came to the screen where it asked for "sex, race, hair color, eye color, height and weight". I typically will ask for each of these and then type in the information as they answer me with. Below is our conversation as I remember it:
ME - Sex
HER - Female
ME - Race
HER - White
ME - Hair color
HER - Brown with blonde highlights, I just got it done....do you like it?
ME - I can only list one color so I will put brown, and yes, it looks nice.
ME - Ummm eye color
HER - Brown
ME - And your height
HER - 5 foot 6 inches
ME - And weight
HER - 145 pounds

I then proceeded to the next screen where I type in the arrest information. She asks me if it is possible to return to a previous screen on the computer. I told her I was able to do so, and that any information could be changed until I "locked" the record and printed out the fingerprint card. She asks me to return the previous screen and said:
"I should probably change the female to male, since I have not had the final surgery yet."
I was shocked, but hid it fairly well. I ended out listing her, not as a male, and not as a female, but as a "female impersonator". Every part of him/her was female, the long hair, painted fingernails, high healed shoes, chest etc....all except for .... yep you guessed it!! I got a bit sick to my stomach thinking that I had admired this woman....who it turns out was really a MAN!!!
Have you seen Ace Ventura? I did go home and shower that night and scrubbed my body with scrub brushes and even then still felt dirty! My co-workers laughed and laughed and thought it was quite funny.
So enjoy this little video, and think of me while you watch it!!!

One of my co-workers, Amanda, told her parents about this incident and they too laughed. Later her dad sent me an email with the video posted above. They still tease me about it to this day!!

Golfing

I like to Golf - I do not golf as much as Christian or talk about it as much, but I do enjoy “smackin whitey” around. I have not been out as much as I would have liked to this year - and I blame a lot of that on the fact that it is difficult to get a good tee time unless you plan way in advance. I am concerned about the future of one of my favorite pastimes, because there are more and more golfers and fewer and fewer tee times. There used to be a better golf course-to-golfer ratio, but then bowlers found out they could drink beer, drive electric carts into trees and get a tan by switching to golf and combined with the fact that young people think golf is a hip, retro thing to do, golf courses are way too crowded and most cities just don’t have enough space to build more of them.
So I would like to suggest in the future we combine golf courses with cemeteries. Cemeteries have everything you need for a golf course. They are often conveniently located right in the middle of town, they have lots of grass and trees. The only problem is all those dang headstones.
So what you do is this: take out the headstones... leave the bodies cuz’ nobody takes a divot that deep... and put all the headstones representing bodies buried in that fairway, around the tee box. For example, one headstone would say "Ray Finkle, 1918-1988. Par four, 440 yards. May he rest in peace. Replace your divots."
Traditionally a golf course has bushes alongside or markers imbedded in the fairway to tell you when you are 150 yards away from the green, but now you could have a lone headstone that says "You’re a 150 yards from the green and directly over Ed Harley, 1912-1978."
And of course the mourners could still come to visit their dearly departed because mourners are generally quiet, which is perfect for golf. If while they are mourning they see a good shot perhaps they’ll applaud and wave their flowers. It will help them reaffirm the notion that there is joy in life and to carry on without whomever they have lost.
Right now this may seem to be a crazy idea but they laughed at Edison. You watch--20 years from now, some of us will be buried on golf courses, while those we left behind will be making bogeys over bodies.