Docwagon

The only place I could go that's more prestigious is across the room to the Homicide part of the office. I have no desire to do that. I don't want the hours, I don't want to deal with infant deaths, etc. If I ever put in for sergeant, its a promotion process based on testing, interviews, etc. LT put out his list of 5 this afternoon, and I'm not on it, so it looks like we're good. He didn't say anything else about it and was his usual self, so I don't forsee any issues.

Sorta up, sorta sideways. Same office, same title, etc. but its a vote of confidence in your abilities to be put there. Especially when they offer it to you and you didn't volunteer for it.

I suck at office politics. I think I may have just stepped on my dick. As the majority of you know, I'm a detective with a large police department. I currently work in Homicide & Robbery on the Robbery side. I take robberies and aggravated assaults involving a knife, gun, or any time someone is put in critical condition but doesn't die. Due to manning and overtime issues, the LT is splitting us up. Robbery detectives will still continue to respond to robberies and agg assaults, but a special 5 man unit will do all follow up work on agg assaults. This is the most time consuming thing we do. This will free the Robbery guys up to focus more on robberies and will cut over time. The Agg unit is supposed to be a cherry gig. Its week days only (every 6th weekend) and day shift. You don't have to go out on runs, you have all of your time for followup. Three of the five have already been picked, and they are all top shelf detectives with at least 10 years in Investigations. The LT has asked me twice in person if I was thinking about going to the new Agg unit. He had asked for volunteers, and he's got at least 5 that I know of, and like I said 3 slots are already filled. I know he wants me to take it, which is an honor because I've got just over a year in Investigations and he's putting me in the same category as the better old timers. However I REALLY don't want it. I don't want to do all followup work, I don't want day shift, I don't want weekdays only. It would also cost me about $400-$500 a month in overtime. So both times I told him I was happy where I'm at and really didn't want to move. Today he calls me at home and asks if I'm still thinking about it or am on the fence. I told him "No, Sir, I'm not thinking about it and definitely not on the fence, I don't want the schedule or just to do followup. I'm happy right where I am, I like working for Sgt. XXX, the schedule works best for my family, and while I appreciate the opportunity I really want to stay where I am." I didn't want to leave any ambivalence on the table. Now he can assign me wherever he wants, that's how detectives work. I don't have any union protection for shift bidding like I do on the street. He's a super nice guy and I don't think he'll assign me against my will. If he does I'll probably try to transfer to a different shop, which would suck, but I really like my OT and my schedule. So, guys with more political expertise than me, did I step on my dick by being so forceful? Was there some better way to remove all ambivalence on the third try? Again, the LT is a great guy to work for, he's not petty, I'm not worried about retaliation, but I don't want to create conflict out of what he sees as a compliment, either.

Doctors. Hey asshole, YOU gave ME the appointment time. If you couldn't see me at 9am, wtf did you make the appointment for 9am? I get waiting at the ER. You just showed up, triage, etc. etc. However there's no reason except overbooking for a general practitioner or specialist to be over 15 minutes late. My last SURGERY the asshole was 1.5 HOURS late.

I've had a lot of dogs over the years, but no pets right now. My wife isn't keen on animals in the house (which is fair, because she knows who'd end up cleaning up after said animal) and I don't have the time to be fair to an outside animal. We also travel overnight so often that we'd leave the animal alone too much to be fair to it. My first pet was a pit bull named "Georgie" who was bat shit crazy. My granddad bought her, I named her "George" before he told me she was a girl. One of my granddad's friends was named George, thought my granddad named the dog after him to be funny, so he also bought a dog and named him "Walter". Anyway, Georgie was, as mentioned, bat shit crazy and started tearing everything up. My granddad took her back to the breeder and traded her in, saying he'd give her back for one of her puppies from her first litter. After an appropriate amount of time we got a puppy named "Wolf." Wolf was also a pure bread pit bull, but was sweet as pie. I used to amuse myself my throwing a single piece of dog food along the kitchen floor, he'd skid after and eat it, then come back to me and we'd repeat. He never tried to take the container out of my hand and always waited for me to throw one. His only misbehavior was getting in the trash. Finally my grandmother picked him up and dropped him in the trash can and left him there for about half an hour. He never bothered the trash again. With my other grandparents I had a mixed beagle named "Sally". She was a great rabbit dog for one rabbit. She loved to track but was gun shy, and at the first shot she was running home. Sally was the eternal optimist, though, she'd always go with you again. You could almost see her thinking "Gosh, this is fun. I sure hope that loud noise doesn't ruin it all for me again this time." She honestly never seemed to connect the noise to us or the guns. She'd sit right next to you on the porch while you oiled the gun once you got back home. When I left the military and moved back to the country I got another beagle mixed and named her "Flash." Flash was a city dog, apparently, and was overly friendly but not overly understanding of the country. She didn't want to stay home and I didn't want to tie her up, and she wandered a lot. I figured she'd get into the neighbor's chickens or something and have a bad ending, but she tried to make friends with a water moccasin (poisonous snake) and it didn't end well for her. She was my last dog, as shortly after that I started prepping to go overseas. My last pet, actually my wife's, was a little turtle we bought. She named him "Dido (Dee-Doh)" and we left him with her youngest sister via a mutual friend when we left the country.

If you were sucking air at any time in the '90s, you heard that song too many times. But do you remember this one?

After tinkering with it a bit more, I really like Opera Mini. The only thing I don't like is it won't display some of the picture types, and Cracked often uses one of those types. I'll see the main images, but the little pictures with captions that they put between paragraphs as a joke usually just says "image" in a box.

You buy me one, I'll make the video.

Ok, I'm proud of myself on this one. We had guests over yesterday and after everything was done I put my son to bed. He's 8 and big into zombies and monsters and whatnot, but lately he's scared himself and started wanting a night light on again. Last night he asked if I would sleep in his room with him, so I talked with him and had him tell me exactly what he was afraid of. It was mostly the imaginary monsters, with a little bit of old house noises and an odd shadow on his wall. We fixed the shadow issue by moving some stuff around, explained the house noises and the imaginary nature of monsters. I could tell this helped a little, and even though he accepted it was imaginary, he was still scared. So, imaginary guardians to combat imaginary monsters. I told him that if the bad guys are imaginary, then imaginary good guys could protect him. He agreed to this concept. I took a bunch of his stuffed toys and put them in the bed with him. We talked about the fighting prowess of the various species (shark, dragon, bear, etc.) The chicken ended up being a lookout. Santa and the Cat in the Hat were the captains. I told him he was now the general of a stuffed animal army, and not only was he excited about the "game", he was ready to go to sleep by himself. He's in there explaining his defense to his mom now.

Cupcake Vineyards Moscato D'Asti. My wife and I like sweet wines. The dry wines just don't hold any appeal for either of us. I will occasionally find wines that are simply too sweet for me, though. I expected this to be the case with this Moscato, figuring anyplace with "cupcake" in the name would be overly sweet. I was right, its very sweet, but its also sooo tasty. Its not just sweet, its got a great flavor. Expected - 5/10 Received- 8/10 http://www.cupcakevineyards.com/blog/tag/moscato-dasti/

To be perfectly honest, I win now because I fucked up so dramatically early on but eventually learned from it. I've worked hard, but I've also had some lucky breaks and God, whatever that may encompass, has smiled on me at some pivotal moments. Tiger's wrong. I did give up. For about three years, give or take. I just didn't stay there. I typed out a bunch of stuff, and then realized that it didn't matter and it didn't fit this thread. So, instead, just let me tell you a story Wayne Carter, a teacher who influenced me greatly in high school, once told me. A traveling salesman approaches an old farmer on his porch. The saleman hears a dog whimpering and moaning, and as he steps on the porch he sees a hound pup laying on the porch near the old farmer's rocking chair. He ignores the pup and starts talking to farmer about his wares, but the dogs moaning and whimpering grow and grow. The farmer never mentions the dog or pays any mind to the sounds, but the salesman has finally had enough. The salesman asks, "what's wrong with your dog, mister?" The farmer replies, "he's laying on a tack." The salesman mulls this over and says, "well, why doesn't he move off of it?" The farmer replies, "I guess he hasn't experienced enough pain yet." That's it. No moral was given. In the brashness of youth I thought the lesson was "stop bitching and moaning, fix the problem." I still think that's part of it. The other part took me some years and experience to truly grasp. How much pain will you put up with because the surroundings are familiar? Because its the status quo, because its the easiest course of action, because its all you know up to that point and you aren't willing to expand your horizons or upset the routine? Probably more than you think. Once you adapt your worldview its no longer about complain or fix it. Its discovering what the tacks are, if they are big enough to make you move, and what moving entails. Some tacks you'll live with. Some you won't. How much pain will it take you to move?

I don't know if its much of a story, but I've increased my net worth by a fuzz over $200,000 since I started keeping track in '02. I grew up without much money and was completely ignorant as to how to handle it. At that time, I had owned three Camaros and a Corvette (one at a time, I traded "up" often), was about $36k in debt, and living off of the GI Bill and an entry level IT job. I was actually living off of credit, but too ignorant to realize (or possibly to depressed and drunk to care) the long term impact. For person reasons I think I've explained in the past, I wanted to hit the "reset" button and went overseas as a contractor. I was instantly making a lot more money and having a lot fewer temptations to spend. I realized that I now had surplus money and had no idea what to do with it. I decided I should educate myself and started with Ric Edelman's book, "The Truth About Money." That book fascinated me and lead me to "The Richest Man in Babylon." Both books contain the simple concept of "no matter what you make, someone is getting by on 10% less. Find out how, live like that, and invest that 10% in your future." So, I did. Because I seldom half ass get interested in anything, I continued to educate myself. I read more books, I took online classes, I subscribed to a few periodicals on personal finance, etc. This was the single most important thing I've done educationally speaking. Now some will doubtlessly say, well of course its easy to increase your net worth when you suddenly get a high paying job. is is easy to continue that when your pay is cut dramatically? Because that's what happens next. I contracted for two years, which let me put the lid on a lot of my debt and get some emergency savings put up. I came home with about $40k net worth, including the equity in a house that I put a reasonable down payment on, cash savings, and the starts of my investment funds. When I came back stateside I worked two part time jobs. My total income was less than $22k for the year, and I had a new wife and son. I still increased my net worth by $5k that year. After that year I got on the police department, which required a move to a new city. While the salary was reasonable (especially after the first two years), I couldn't sell my old house and it sat on the market for a year. Plus I had the expenses of moving. I reluctantly became a landlord. Today, not including my pension and 300 hours of accumulated time off the dept has to pay me for if I leave or retire, my net worth sits at around $165k. $8300 in ready cash, $66,000 in stocks, gov't bonds, and other investments, and $91,000 in equity in real estate. I have one property paid off, and two still with a mortgage. The only non-mortgage debt I have is my 2012 Dodge Ram truck loan at 1.39%, the first brand new vehicle I ever bought. Not bad for a single income household. Some of it has been skill and education, without that I couldn't have continued to be disciplined and invested, but I've also had some great luck. I've wasted money, I've made mistakes, but overall the past 10 years has been a success. At this point in my life, I could save more if I wanted to, but I've struck a nice balance between saving for the future and spending on today, but without the knowledge and discipline that would be a lot harder to do.

I've always found that punching myself in the balls really hard takes my mind off insomnia. It won't help you sleep, but you won't be so worried about not sleeping any longer. In all seriousness, I seldom suffer from the inability to sleep. When I do its usually because some priority run has jacked my sleep schedule by keeping me on the clock well past my usual bed time. Melatonin has worked well for me with both shift issues and with jet lag. Adult "activities" also help. I quit drinking for a couple of years because I was having issues with quantity control, but now that I'm older I find I can drink as little as I want with no issues. You know you better than I know you and should make that decision carefully, but a glass of wine also helps me. It also often transitions into those adult activities, so win-win there. Again, no real claim of expertise here and I seldom have what would be termed insomnia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBLDBDFRp6E

Might as well just rename the shout box to "perv box" and be done with it.

I'm still tinkering with it, but I like the controls and how easy is it to get to bookmarks, etc.

I finished "Average is Over." While the book occasionally gets bogged down in the world of Chess, the overall takeaway on the direction of the economy is well worth it. Its also a good reminder of how we shouldn't over simplify complex issues, and how often the simple realities of a situation are much more powerful than the politics surrounding it. I also like his ideas that self-motivation and determination are going to be more valued commodities in the economy of the future, as there is so many resources available but no one is making you take advantages of them. Think of how much information Google puts at your finger tips, the Kahn academy, etc. People willing to take advantage of the free or low cost resources out there, and who interact with technology well, will likely be the higher paid workers of the future. Next up is "Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East." I read Lawrence's own book "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" years ago, and while its a very good book it is from a very personal perspective. It is as much autobiography as it is history, and while fascinating it does lack a certain width of viewpoint. It could also have used a good editor, someone who would have mentioned to Lawrence that indepth descriptions of camel feces could probably be safety edited out of the final transcript. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how an author with a longer view interprets the events. Has anyone read any of the "History in an Hour" books available on Kindle? Its a huge series and at $1.99 each not a huge investment, I just wonder if they go into enough detail to warrant the purchase. I'm considering picking up the one on the Russian Revolution.

Alright, I got mini downloaded. I will try it out tomorrow and see how it goes.

I had a buddy I worked with overseas who called it "that wet dirt I just can't stop eating." My wife makes it fresh at home sometimes and its outstanding.

I am really tired of the stock web browser on my Stratosphere. Its a memory hog and I constantly have to restart my phone to get it to work. It will run fine and load quickly after a restart, but after several hours it gets sluggish until I finally have to restart the phone again. Any recommendations? I'm thinking of trying Opera mini.