Police Work

So how will you vote? President Obama says he needs another term to finish the work that he has started. Do you think he should get another 4 years? Do you agree with the statements in this article?

I have spent the past year retired from the police department, trying to make a new living by trading the market.  I have recently been searching for employment again with another police agency.  I have taken a little flack for looking to go back into law enforcement.  I have had a couple friends growl at me so to say when they have found out.  I also have had some friends be very supportive, which I am a little surprised at, maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am none the less.

So the title of this post goes along these lines; I have been looking at getting back into law enforcement again, but in reality, I do not have to stay with this if something else comes along.  I would love to make a living by writing a post on this blog everyday, but I do not see that happening anytime soon.  As I thought about going back into law enforcement, the thought came to me asking myself, am I looking back to law enformcement as a means of defining who I am?  I think we can all agree that our vocation does have some impact on who we are in various ways.  I have some friends that have vocations that allow them to mingle with societies rich and famous.  What is great about these people I know, is that you would never know it if you spent time with them.  They do not flaunt their position.  Then a bigger question and picture came into mind.  Am I looking at law enforcement again as a means of identification?  I answered this with different answers.  First, I told myself, yes I do talk to and answer myself, I would and could go back into law enforcement and be happy with working only 40 hours a week; second, I then thought I could do just about anything at this point in my life to bring in that little extra needed income and have fun with it; then I thought, man, I would not give up this past year for anything!  I have been able to do things with the family that I had not been doing for some time, gone on all kinds of trips, spent all kinds of time with the family that I had not done so in years. So, was it worth it?  Shoot fire yes!

I have learned this past year that your friends will be there for you when you reach out to them, but your family is so much more important.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to send out the wrong message.  Friends are important, but family is our imediate mission field, our legacy.   I don’t want my children to have to sift through what I leave behind to see if they can find out that I wanted to be a strong christian father.  I want my daily life to be a strong witness of what I believe and that Christ is my foundation.  Have I been the best example that I have wanted to be?  Well, that is an easy answer that I am not proud of, as the answer at this time is no.  I have made some nice improvements over this past year, but usually it comes with a price.  That price is, I find out all the more how much I am lacking and how far I have to go.  It kind of goes like that saying when you have heard a fantastic sermon that has spoken directly to you.  You feel like you have been beaten with a 2 by 4, but at the same time feel blessed that God’s word has dealt with you.

So if you have any good job leads let me know.  I am open to looking at other areas.
Do me a favor and take a moment and reflect on this topic that I have attempted to bring out.  Is your work what you are trying to define yourself by?  Is that what is important to you above all else?  Are you willing to make some serious sacrifices if that is what is called for to work on those things that are really important?  Important things, like your walk with God, your relationship with your family, with other people?  I would love to hear what you have to say.

I guess I still have some learning and growing to do.  Actually, I already knew this, but I thought, maybe most of the lessons would not be so big at my age.  I have recently been putting in a few applications to some police agencies around where I live.  I knew I would have some struggles in comparison to some of the youngsters that I would be going up against, but then I also thought my 24 years of service would open a few doors.  I went through a couple of agencies’ written tests last week.  I passed both of those better than I thought.  I did the physical agility test for one agency and did way better than I thought, even leaving some of those youngsters behind.  Then I was scheduled to go out of the state to meet a certain son coming back form overseas when this other agency would be giving their physical agility test.

This agency said they would not be giving a make up.  I would either have to be there or be taken out of the pool of candidates.  It was not a hard decision, I told them I would be going to meet my son.  So off we go to meet the son who has been proudly serving all of us, even the not so appreciative agency that would not offer a make up physical agility test.  Now the family is sitting 1,500 miles away from home and the arrival date starts getting pushed back for this sons return stateside.  The date gets pushed back far enough that I can catch a flight home to make the physical agility test for this agency.  I show up raring to give it all this old man can give then turn around and fly back to the family awaiting the return of this son.  I do one test and do it well, then the blood pressure check.  I have never had a problem with my blood pressure at all, but now for some reason, my blood pressure is reading on the high side.  Go figure, probably nothing to do with all the driving and flying, but I tell them that I am fine.  I am not having any “high blood pressure issues”.  They let me do another portion of the test and say that they will check my blood pressure again after that test.  So I do the push up portion of the testing.  I then return to have my blood pressure checked again.  I even say well you know it will be higher now since I just finished those push ups.  So blood pressure cuff on and here we go.  Obviously the top number was higher, but the lower number did not increase, this was the number they were “worried” about.  I then joyfully said, look the lower number did not go up, so all is good, I am ok to continue.  I jump up ready to keep going with the other tests.

Then the sgt taps me on the shoulder, directing me away from the group.  He then tells me that I will need a doctor’s note to continue the tests.  Maybe it is just me, but I was a little frustrated at this point.  I said you are kidding me.  I tell him that I am fine, that I will be glad to sign anything right now showing that they would not be responsible if I fall out and kill over.  He advises that can not be done that I have to get a doctor’s note saying that I am able to perform the tests and then we can simply reschedule the testing.  Stay with me here.  So my little brain cells bang together, I say to him in a rhetorical manner, ” so all I have to do is get a doctor’s note, bring it to you and we can simply reschedule the testing?  He answers yes without hesitation.  This made me wonder why he couldn’t simply reschedule a time for me to test since I was out of state greeting my son back home from Afghanistan where he was fighting for all of us.

My frustration continued, I can get that way, I said, I can do this mess, I am fine.  Hello, red flag, he then said he takes the testing very seriously and that this is not mess.  I had one of those, Hello Mcfly moments, I then said, I take it seriously too, I just flew in from California to take this test.  You know the saying, he who has the gold makes the rules.  Well he was wearing the gold badge and therefore, made the rules.  I left very disappointed, I called my doctor’s office telling them ever so briefly what had occurred.  They agreed that I had never shown any problem with my blood pressure, but I would have to make an appointment for next week since I did not have time to get anything done today.

Now I would ask that you pray for me that I come to an understanding of what this means.  I know God opens and closes doors and that is where I want to be, going through the doors that God opens.  My head is flat enough from banging it on closed doors.  So what do you think, should I have just quietly walked away to come back another day with my doctor’s note in hand?  What are your thoughts in general?

To Niche or Not To Niche?

I have been working at this blogging thing for a whopping five weeks, give or take a day or two, as my first post was March 9, 2010.  From the beginning, I have racked my brain in search of a niche.  Everything I read says that you have to have a well defined niche and if you can be extremely specific in that niche, all the better.  Sometimes it’s hard to get these old brain cells fired up and working.  Of course, I thought you spelled niche as n-i-t-c-h.  Oh what an uphill battle I have.

I looked up niche on the computer to see what it had to say. Under the definition for niche, this is what it says:  pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specific appeal: niche advertising.  So, I look at that and think, not too bad, this is what I was thinking.  Work with a specific target subject.  Then I read a post today off one of the biggest ‘how and what to do in blogging sites’, ProBlogger.net.  After I read the post off the ProBlogger site, I was somewhat troubled.  The person that wrote the article was a guest writer for the day.  What I gleaned from reading the post was you had to “push a product” to have a successful blog and make money at it.

To Continue Reading….

Are Girls Smarter Than Boys?

Come on, are you serious?  Maybe this is the case in Canada, but it can’t be that way here in the U.S.  This article that I saw in The Vancouver Sun, on line edition, raises some good points, but I believe it may stretch a few things out of proportion.

The article starts off by saying that boys are lagging behind girls in school when it comes to language skills and as a result are falling behind in their careers and even their relationship prospects are suffering.  Well, I’m not a scientist ( just in case no one was aware of that), but I am learning that there is something to the old adage, ‘with age comes wisdom’.  I have been around the block a few times, to put it another way.

To Continue Reading….

My “Sweet 16″ Wife To Be

When I last wrote about how I met my wife, I believe I left off with describing how I met her at Sears, while attending college.  I had just described how I made the phone call for the first date.  So, time passed and we went out on several dates.  I had been spending a lot of time at her house and when at work, we were always taking breaks together.  We had been having the usual dates, sometimes just us and other times doubling up with friends . Then I took her to what I had been told was the nicest, fanciest restaurant in town, The Cotton Gin.  See, I had fallen for the girl – hook, line and sinker.  There was no hope for me.  I asked her out on this night, to this restaurant, in a further attempt to woo her into feeling the same way.  Though we had been spending a great deal of time together, I had never asked her how old she was.

If I may impose on you first, before I start the real post, if you are looking at this through your email, would you please click on the title of the post in the email so that it takes you to the actual web site?  I get more credit in the “internet blog world” when the post is viewed on the actual site.  Thank you very much.

After graduating from the police academy in early July 1985, I started my training on the street with a different field training officer on each shift.  I was in my third phase of training, working night shift.  The guy I rode with on night shift was a monster at finding “rollin’ stolens” as we called them.  These were freshly stolen cars that were being driven around by the suspect.  We started off the night racing around fifth ward checking every car that was moving to see if it might be stolen.  We found one and with the help of another pair of officers, we got the vehicle stopped without a chase and arrested the suspect.  We brought him to jail, did all the paperwork, then we were back on the street.

We had stopped at a local gas station to get something to drink and a “healthy snack”.  While we were at the store, a call went out just a few blocks away – a shooting in progress.  We rushed to the call, but were too late to see the suspect.  This ended up being a real shooting.  When we arrived, there was a female on the ground with multiple gun shot wounds.  The paramedics checked the female.  She had passed away.  We secured the scene by keeping everyone away and off the yard where she lay.

We called homicide division to notify them of the murder so they would make the scene.  Here is where I made my silly, rookie mistake.  When we left the store, I had not had time to eat my “healthy snack”.  Since we were just waiting on someone from homicide to come out to the scene, I went back to the police car and got my drink and snack.  Wanting to continue to learn in my training, I was walking around the scene, being careful not to disturb any evidence.

We had been out on the scene for a good 30 minutes when I was walking around, looking at the scene, trying to see if I could tell what might have happened.  As I stood over the deceased, looking for evidence, I continued eating my snack from earlier.  (The light bulb should have come on for you by now).  This is when my trainer walked over to me and said, “You might want to go put that drink and food in the car.  It doesn’t look real good with you eating over the body”.  Yes, that was one of those, ‘wish I could get away’ moments.

Fortunately for me, the news cameras either were nice enough not to show my lack of respect, to put it plainly, or just didn’t catch my bad move.  Needless to say, I never made that mistake again.  I learned to keep my drink and or snack in the patrol car.

Now the question I have for you is, should I have even shared this story?  I have attempted to keep it as non-offensive and non-abrasive as possible.  Let me know, good or bad.

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