Driving

I've been thinking about the numbers a bit the past few days: At a minimum I drive 150 miles a day in my patrol car. Often I travel over 200 miles in a day but I'll just leave it at 150. I work four days a week and this doesn't include my weekends that I have to go into town for court or to get my vehicle serviced. I have only taken a day off here and there since I started working at the Police Department. So we'll say 150 miles a day, four days a week, 51 weeks a year. 30,600 miles minimum in a year. During that drive time I'm not just getting from home to the coffee shop to the office and back. Often when the roads are so bad no one should be driving I have to be driving (God bless whoever bought rear-wheel drive Crown Vics for our icy roads).
When I drive I'm not listening to my favorite CD (though sometimes I have that radio on). I'm listening to a radio keeping track of where at least four other officers are at. I'm listening to know where people are going and for where I should be going. I'm also looking at a computer reading the call I'm going to, running the names of the people I'm about to visit at that call and running license plates. I'm watching people on the sidewalks and stumbling into the street; I'm watching side streets; I'm watching the vehicles near me and looking for vehicles in places they don't belong. Occasionally I'm doing paperwork for the call I was just at.
Sometimes when I'm driving I'm going a little fast. In the winter I've had my car up to 110 mph... in the summer 120 mph (I was going downhill with a good breeze to my back). I've driven in the suicide lane, up on the sidewalk, the wrong way on streets and backwards for almost half a mile while running code. I've driven across medians and on two occasions I've intentionally collided with two vehicles.
So its not a matter of 'If' I'll get into an unintentional collision; Its a matter of 'when' I'll get into that collision. And the answer is: last week. Oops. Damage was very light on his truck... as for my car, well, it was old. It might have been her time anyways. It sounds like they are going to part it out to fix other cars. Oh, and the important part... nothing injured more than my pride.

Global Warming!?! III

Matt M, thanks. Hopefully that was just a comment that came across much more dick-like than you intended. I'm pretty confident we'll be looking back and laughing about it over a beer. But even if Global Warming is real I'm not going to worry about until I can grow bananas in my backyard.

Karma

In Alaska news... well it all happened in Anchorage... The state doesn't allow much in the way of gambling. Bingo and the rippie cards are it. But lotteries are allowed if they benefit some non-profit. Someone put together a lottery with a chunk of the cash going to a group that helps victims of sexual assault. The winner was announced and a news group picked up that the winner was guilty of three different sexual assaults himself. To his benefit he said he'd take $100,000 of the $350,000 and donate it. Still a lot of people were wondering where the karma was.
Yesterday in busy downtown in the middle of the day someone took a tire iron to the winner/sexual predator.
Supposedly the Anchorage Police have the suspect in custody. At the first release of this news it wasn't clear if their suspect was a serious one but since I've read the updated news the suspect made a confession. The sexual predator is fine (in case you had some concern for him).
I just don't understand why this guy is out. The article lists the assaults and it also list some additional charges that were dropped in the plea deal. Sometimes I hate the courts up here. Article

Global Warming!?! II

Comment from the last post:
"Matt M said...

There is a difference between weather and climate. I could go into this a bit, but I am afraid I would be wasting our time."

I say: Way sound like a dick.

Global Warming is Bullshit. I don't want to mention what town I live in or else I'd link to the articles about the weather... but in short last winter was colder than the average. Last summer was much colder (and wetter) than the average. This winter is much colder than the average. Then nearly the entire US was blanketed with snow over Christmas. Last winter Europe received some very cold weather along with snow.
I strongly believe that humans may try but they fail to affect something as massive as the Earth's climate. Especially when over 100 years of burning coal, forests and trash are nothing compared to one day of volcanic activity.

Global Warming!?!

Global Warming is Bullshit. Need evidence? Look at Alaska. I have been residing in temperatures that for a high are 0 degrees for the past two or three weeks. Normally the temperature is -20 degrees. We had some warm winds a few days ago that brought it up to 0 degrees. The weather people think this will break on Friday but I've been looking at the maps and I don't think it'll break for at least several more days. I missed work the other day because my truck was so frozen the engine wouldn't start - no it was not the battery. The battery kept cranking the engine but the engine wouldn't turn over and start. Over a hundred dollars to have the truck towed to my house so I could plug it in for eight hours before it finally started.
I'm surprised we haven't had a domestic homicide lately. With the economic troubles, the rampant alcohol problem, the holidays, and then this cold keeping everyone inside having to listen to each other for days on end... Someone has to have been killed; we just need to wait till spring (if it ever comes) to find the body.

Grrrr!