-Abilene, Texas

Arrived today for the SWAT Competition, checked into the hotel formerly known as the Embassy Suites. Not a bad hotel really. Unlike typical SWAT trips, we somehow have a 1:1 man/bed ratio. Being serious about competition we go to the Outback Steakhouse -conveniently located next door, and order like we mean it. I give the San Antonio guys a look of disdain as I notice the dinner salads and water glasses scattered across their table. San Antonio’s android-SWAT cops stop by on their way out just as the second round of 22 oz. drafts arrives and they have a nice laugh. Well, what would pass for a laugh in a human anyway.
A bit later we come dragging back to the hotel and I can see the lights in room 360 (our robot friends) are already out. I ask the clerk for the location of the ice machine.

<Clerk Lady>: What room you in hon’?
<Me>: 360
<Clerk Lady>(pointing): Just up to the left and down that hall.
<Me>: Thank you very much ma’am.
<Me>: Oh, can I get a wake-up call?
<Clerk Lady>: Of course, room 360, what time hon’?
<Me>: 3:45… No, 4:00.
<Clerk Lady>(writing): Gothca, hon’.

So, I’m on mandatory vacation again today. No not the kind you get when you get in trouble, just the kind where your sergeant realizes that you have several weeks of vacation to burn and if it doesn’t get burned… Well, no one really knows what happens if it doesn’t get burned, but it’s bad.
I hate working half the day because the hard part is getting out of bed, and that’s already done.

Anyway, I did get to drive my / / /M3 to and fro without having to work all day, so I’m not too upset. I could wax philosophical about my commute being the high point of my day recently, but I guess I won’t. I will say that I’ve had a lot of cars that I enjoyed having, but this is the first one I’ve really enjoyed driving. Nugget invited me on a nice drive through the scenic hill country tomorrow, but he steadfastly refuses to get out of bed before noon. I, of course, will be hitting our one, and only, training day for the T.T.P.O.A SWAT Competition by that time. I know Dallas’ team of knuckle-dragging cash-cows has been training all year, and I know the Florida hand-picked all-star team will have been sweating it out, but I think we have this on our side: “Freshness”. (And a positive attitude helps too, right?)

Picture of the day. (I say that as if I’m constantly providing pictures)
The thing about this guy isn’t that he was out “‘-wheeling” in the middle of the night and got caught in some kind of slough, the thing is that when he got stuck last night he was “‘-wheeling” with his “friend”. So our boy here gets stuck in this foul-smelling industrial morass in the middle of the night and the aforementioned “friend” has to go. “He has a girlfriend.”
Disgusting. Was this guy watching Jane Fonda movies instead of The Lone Ranger during his formative years?

So there I was, minding my own business as usual: I had this call about a kidnapping, complete with failed rescue mission, and I got that cleared up and I’m walking out to my car, just minding my own business, and I see these dudes next door to the kidnapper’s place loading up some equipment into a VanHool bus. Being friendly, as I’m prone to be, I stop and talk to these guys, ask them if the bus is for sale, blah blah blah. As it turns out these fellers claim to play with Monte Montgomery and are headed out on a big trip to spread musical goodness across the fruited plain.
Of course I call them on this obvious lie, as any fool would figure out that Monte Montgomery wouldn’t ride on a bus, he would just use his magical powers to appear backstage at the approximately appropriate time. But, as it turns out, Monte appears, as if on cue, to prove them right (or did he prove me right?).
Anyway, I did get to meet Mr. (and Mrs.) Montgomery and some other cool guys. And that’s the story of today’s installment of “Brush With Greeaaaatnesssss”.

Upgraded to Perl 5.8.0 today. …But I was using those bugs!

So I go to this estate sale today to look at some guns, and I’m digging around in a gunsafe and open a pistol box and I see a Taurus PT-92 that I had owned when I was a teenager. High-profile, adjustable Bomar sights meant for something else still shimmed on it, an eraser from a #2 pencil still glued to the back of the trigger to provide overtravel adjustment, and my first checkering job: 20lpi on the frontstrap done with a thread-chasing file. Definitely a blast from the past. I thought about buying it, but I think I didn’t much like it the first time I had it.

Fence Update: I got the cease and desist letter today (it was bold like that in the letter too -weird), Seemed kind of weak to me but, of course IANAL, so I’ll up a few bucks and have someone look at it.
The Fence issue is down to the letters section today, There was a really nice, well-written letter of support for my cause followed by a guy expressing concern about the driveway closing “if there were” a water or sewer line on my driveway. (yes, I know that sentence doesn’t make sense)

In other news I did switch from Right-Guard “sport” deodorant to Right-Guard “eXtreme sport” today, so perhaps things will brighten up a bit.

It’s been seven or eight years since I’ve done real_police_work, but I’m starting to get the hang of it.
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I had some pithy observations about the differences between where I work now and where I worked the last time I was on the street, but thought better of posting them right now. <g>

Yesterday was my last day with The Team. I’m going to miss those guys. It’s a filthy story of political expediency that you probably wouldn’t believe anyhow, but if you want to hear it you’ll have to buy me coffee. The short answer is that The Spearster and I are just a little too insensitive to be pointing rifles at people.

So, tomorrow I take my insensitive self out to meet the public and try to learn how to be a real cop. I’m not kidding, if you beat your old lady or rob a store or something and I show up don’t pretend I didn’t warn you about my insensitivity.

But enough about that. The other thing is The Fence. When I bought this house it came with a newspaper office and a small road that ran in front of the newspaper office. Now how and why this road happened to be on my property I don’t know, but I guess it would be convenient if I were running a newspaper. Which I wasn’t. So being as I wasn’t the only person using this road but I was the only person paying taxes on it and, as my insurance man pointed out, the only person paying insurance on it; I asked Mrs. Mick to call the county and see if they would take it over. The county said that there was no road there and if there were a road there (which there isn’t) they wouldn’t want it. Why wouldn’t they want me to pay taxes on it.
So I stopped thinking of it as a road and started thinking of it as a driveway that other people happen to drive down sometimes. Now a few months ago we finally got rid of the newspaper office (Did I mention I’m not running a newspaper?). In order to get that thing out of my yard the fence between the yard and my driveway (yes, the strip of tarmac formerly known as “the road”) had to come down, and being properly lazy and having a bit of hubris, I realized it would be easier to run a little fence across my driveway on each side than to run a fence all the way along my driveway. So once again I approached the county and got the same story about there being no road and if there were a road they wouldn’t want it. Mrs. Mick talked to everyone we could imagine this change might effect and I talked to a few people in the know about our newly-formed-city structure and politics as to whether there be some procedure for informing …someone that I was closing my road driveway. No, of course there wasn’t by-golly. In this freedom-loving burg you do what you want with your property.
My insurance man threw a party.
So I get a guy to build a fence (Those of you that are my true friends know this about me: I don’t help people move no matter how much I like them, and I don’t dig post holes.) and I leave on a nice vacation.
I guess you probably guessed this but when I got back from vacation I had been on the front page of both local papers (neither of which I run, having no newspaper office) as “the grinch who stole ‘The Extension to Church Street'” and “a righteous land owner that the city had singled out for it’s own socialist agenda”. Obviously the two competing newspapers disagreeing on the nature of this story hasn’t made the news die down any quicker. The mayor has been by with mildly threatening letters and there have been special city council sessions, but no real action yet.
So anyhow, stay tuned for updates and if I can get copies of those “twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with the circles and the arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is to be used as evidence against me” I’ll post ’em. 🙂

Okay, so I haven’t posted anything in a while. I’ve been busy and I’m in a bad mood.

I am organizing a small party to bust Bruce out of the joint. If anyone’s interested drop me an email with “Bruce Perens Rescue Team” in the subject line. We are looking for a couple more demo guys and some drivers. Anyone with access to a good helicopter is always welcome.

We saw Jesse, Mike, Doug and Big-Head Steve out cruising Saturday. Robert snapped a pic since they were all duded up.

Go Lance!

We got to do some work with the dog the other day. It’s really great to have a guided missile that bites.

I hate to turn into the electro-harmonix poster boy, but my equipment guru at Strait South turned me on to the Holy Grail reverb.

Holy Grail reverb mini review: Get it, get it now.

So I’m minding my own business, hacking some Perl on a lazy Sunday afternoon and and my lovely wife walks in and asks: “What are you doing?” It was at that moment I had to come to grips with the fact that what I was doing was writing a program to play a game. Not only did I have to admit to myself that this was what I was doing, I had to consider the implications of it. I had to admit to myself that I had gone above and beyond mere laziness and entered a whole new realm. It was, needless to say a sobering experience. I had to dig deep within myself to muster my reply: “Aw, nothin’.”

Monroe stopped by yesterday and we did a little recording. We apparently have some latency issues with the equipment that we need to work out, but it was a good excercise. Just one take per track and the exacting production standards are evidenced by the 10 seconds of virtual tape hiss at the beginning, but I’m posting it on the Music page because I want T.F. Miles to see that we need a drummer. Also a personal note to Malford Milligan: We don’t work cheap, but we’re dependable.

Update: fixed bad links. (Thanks [Cadet])