What's with all the Grotto?

I was digging into the internet for the previous post about Castles that maybe i'll get to visit one day, when I kept running into Grottoes.  I had only heard that term once before when it was used to describe a room on Hefner's estate.

A grotto (Italian grotta and French "grotte") is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans.

So on to some Grottoes...

The Blue Grotto

The Blue Grotto (Italian: Grotta Azzurra) is a noted  sea cave on the coast of the island of Capri, Italy. Sunlight, passing through an underwater cavity and shining through the seawater, creates a blue reflection that illuminates the cavern.

Venus Grotto

Venus Grotto

The building is wholly artificial and was built for the king as an illustration of the First Act of Wagner's "Tannhäuser". Ludwig liked to be rowed over the lake in his golden swan-boat but at the same time he wanted his own blue grotto of Capri. Therefore 24 dynamos had been installed and so already in the time of Ludwig II it was possible to illuminate the grotto in changing colours.

Fingal's Cave

Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, part of a National Nature Reserve owned by the National Trust for Scotland.  It is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns.

Dickeyville Grotto

The Dickeyville Grotto is a series of grottos and shrines in Dickeyville, Wisconsin, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison, in Grant County, Wisconsin, United States. The site is visited by 40,000 to 60,000 visitors per year. It is located at the intersection of  U.S. Highway 151 and Highway 35.

Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto

Our Lady of Lourdes is the name used to refer to the Marian apparition said to have appeared before various individuals on separate occasions around Lourdes, France. The apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes began on 11 February 1858, when Saint Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl from Lourdes, told her mother, after being asked, that she had seen a "lady" in the cave of Massabielle, about a mile from the town, while gathering firewood with her sister and a friend.  Similar appearances of the "lady" were reported on seventeen further occasions that year.

The Grotto at the Playboy Mansion

Shell Grotto

The Shell Grotto is an ornate subterranean passageway in Margate, Kent. Almost all the surface area of the walls and roof is covered in mosaics created entirely of seashells, totalling about 2,000 square feet (190 m2) of mosaic, or 4.6 million shells. It was discovered in 1835 but its age remains unknown.

Pope's Grotto

Alexander Pope's villa has gone but the grotto, which formed part of the garden, survives in Twickenham, England . The grotto was formerly at the lower level of Pope's Villa and is now at the lower level of an Arts and Crafts building which is now a school. A passageway leads under Cross Deep road to what is now a girl's school. Apart from its association with the poet, the chief interest of the grotto is large collection of geological specimens which was used to line the brickwork of the vaults. 

 

Finally,

Naica Crystal Cave

Buried a thousand feet (300 meters) below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, the cave was discovered by two miners in 2000. The cave contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found: translucent gypsum beams measuring up to 36 feet (11 meters) long and weighing up to 55 tons.

Here is a link for more information and photos for the cave-very worth while. Link

Genesis 19:30
[ Lot and His Daughters ] Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.

Maybe deep down I feel under attack so that made me look up fortifications. Castles Anyone?

I don't know, maybe since my contract with the city is under attack, as well as my pension and our budgets, that why I feel under attack and that sent me to researching fortifications.  I could use a financial castle right now.

Neuschwanstein Castle

is a 19th-centuryBavarian palace on a rugged hill near Hohenschwangau and Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned byLudwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner, the King’s personal favorite performer.

Throne Room

Grotto made to look like a cave with water fall and secrete glass door that slid into the "rock"

The Castle Tour

Hunyad Castle

The Huniad Castle is a Gothic-Renaissance castle in Hunedoara (Transylvania), present-day Romania.

The Potala Palace Castle

In 637 Emperor Songtsen Gampo decided to build this palaceon a hill, and the structure stood until the seventeenth century, when it was incorporated into the foundations of the greater buildings still standing today. Construction of the present palace began in 1645 during the reign of the fifth Dalai Lama and by 1648 the Potrang Karpo, or White Palace, was completed. The Potrang Marpo, or Red Palace, was added between 1690 and 1694; its construction required the labors of more than 7000 workers and 1500 artists and craftsman.

Malbork Castle

The castle was founded by the Teutonic Order after the conquest of Old Prussia. Its main purpose was to strengthen their own control of the area following the Order's 1274 suppression of the Great Prussian Uprising of the Baltic tribes. No contemporary documents survive relating to its construction, so instead the castle's phases have been worked out through the study of architecture and the Order's administrative records and later histories. The work lasted until around 1300, under the auspices of Commander Heinrich von Wilnowe.  The castle is located on the southeastern bank of the river Nogat. It was named Marienburg after Mary, patron saint of the religious Order. The Order had been created in Acre (present-day Israel). When this last stronghold of the western Crusades fell to Muslim Arabs, the Order moved its headquarters to Venice before arriving in Poland.  Malbork became more important in the aftermath of the Teutonic Knights' conquest of Gdańsk (Danzig) and Pomerania in 1308. The Order's administrative centre was moved to Malbork from Elbląg (Elbing). The Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Siegfried von Feuchtwangen, who arrived in Malbork from Venice, undertook the next phase of the fortress' construction.[4] In 1309, in the wake of the papal persecution of the Knights Templar and the Teutonic takeover of Danzig, Feuchtwangen relocated his headquarters to the Prussian part of the Order's monastic state. He chose the site of Marienburg conveniently located on the Nogat in the Vistula Delta. As with most cities of the time, the new centre was dependent on water for transportation.  The castle was expanded several times to house the growing number of Knights. Soon, it became the largest fortified Gothic building in Europe, on an nearly 52-acre site. The castle has several subdivisions and numerous layers of defensive walls. It consists of three separate castles - the High, Middle and Lower Castles, separated by multiple dry moats and towers. The castle once housed approximately 3,000 "brothers in arms". The outermost castle walls enclose 52 acres, four times the acreage of the enclosed space of Windsor Castle.

Pena National Palace

The palace's history started in the Middle Ages when a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Pena was built on the top of the hill above Sintra. According to tradition, the construction occurred after an apparition of the Virgin Mary.  In 1493, King John II, accompanied by his wife Queen Leonor, made a pilgrimage to the site to fulfill a vow. His successor, King Manuel I, was also very fond of this sanctuary, and ordered the construction there of a monastery which was donated to the Order of Saint Jerome. For centuries Pena was a small, quiet place for meditation, housing a maximum of eighteen monks.  In the 18th century the monastery was severely damaged by lightning. However, it was the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, occurring shortly afterwards, that took the heaviest toll on the monastery, reducing it to ruins. Nonetheless, the chapel (and its magnificent works of marble and alabaster attributed to Nicolau Chanterene) escaped without significant damage.  For many decades the ruins remained untouched, but they still astonished young prince Ferdinand. In 1838, as King consort Ferdinand II, he decided to acquire the old monastery, all of the surrounding lands, the nearby Castle of the Moors and a few other estates in the area. King Ferdinand then set out to transform the remains of the monastery into a palace that would serve as a summer residence for the Portuguese royal family. The commission for the Romantic style rebuilding was given to Lieutenant-General and mining engineer Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege. Eschwege, a German amateur architect, was much traveled and likely had knowledge of several castles along the Rhine river. The construction took place between 1842–1854, although it was almost completed in 1847: King Ferdinand and Queen Maria II intervened decisively on matters of decoration and symbolism. Among others, the King suggested vault arches, Medieval and Islamic elements be included, and he also designed an exquisitely ornate window for the main façade (inspired by the chapter house window of the Convent of the Order of Christ in Tomar).

Entrance Gate

Hohensalzburg Castle

Hohensalzburg Castle (German: Festung Hohensalzburg, literally "High Salzburg Fortress") is a castle in the Austrian city of Salzburg, atop the Festungsberg mountain. Erected at the behest of the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg, it today with a length of 250 m (820 ft) and a width of 150 m (490 ft), is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe.

Château de Blois

The Royal Château de Blois is located in the Loir-et-Cher département in the Loire Valley, in France, in the center of the city of Blois. The residence of several French kings, it is also the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army to drive the English from Orléans.

Built in the middle of the town that it effectively controlled, the château of Blois comprises several buildings constructed from the 13th to the 17th century around the main courtyard.  It has 564 rooms and 75 staircases although only 23 were used frequently. There is a fireplace in each room. There are 100 bedrooms.

Château de Pierrefonds

The Château de Pierrefonds is a castle situated in the commune of Pierrefonds in the Oise département (Picardy) of France. It is on the southeast edge of the Forest of Compiègne, north of Paris, between Villers-Cotterêts and Compiègne.  The Château de Pierrefonds includes most of the characteristics of defensive military architecture from the Middle Ages, though it underwent a major restoration in the 19th century.

Egeskov Castle

Egeskov's history dates to the 14th century. The castle structure was erected by Frands Brockenhuus in 1554.  Due to the troubles caused by the civil war known as the Count's Feud (Danish: Grevens fejde), general civil unrest, and a civil war introducing the Protestant Reformation, most Danish noblemen built their homes as fortifications. The castle is constructed on oaken piles and located in a small lake with a maximum depth of 5 metres (16 ft). Originally, the only access was by means of a drawbridge. According to legend, it took an entire forest of oak trees to build the foundation, hence the name Egeskov (“oak forest”).

Psalm 31:3
Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.

I am at a loss for Post Material...So Here are Steven Wright Jokes

Here are some Steven Wright Jokes.  Thanks to http://www.weather.net/zarg/ZarPages/stevenWright.html

• All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.

• The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

• I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.

• OK, so what's the speed of dark?

• How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

• Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

• When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

• Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

• Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

• Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.

• Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.

• Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.

• I intend to live forever - so far, so good.

• Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them.

• If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

• Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

• Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

• When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.

• Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!

• Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?

• What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

• I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

• I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

• Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

• If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

• If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

• A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

• Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

• For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

• The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

• The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

• The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.

• To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

• You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

• The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

• Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

• The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

• A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

• If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.

• Change is inevitable....except from vending machines.

• A fool and his money are soon partying.

• Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

• If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

• Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it's the scenic route.

• I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

• Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

• Borrow money from pessimists-they don't expect it back.

• Half the people you know are below average.

• 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

• 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

• A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

Steven Wright's Site

Genesis 17:17
Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”

Catch Them Before They Fall

I was speaking with a friend of mine who is on a different department when he told me about this incident.

The construction of one of our State buildings is in the shape of a cylinder.  The offices, elevators and the stairwells are affixed to the inside edge of the cylinder leaving the entire center of the structure open from the roof  to the floor, approximately seventeen floors.

A distraught middle aged woman pulled a chair to the railing, climbed to the rail and jumped to her death, falling seventeen stories to the floor.  Her body remained intact, thou broken, but upon impact her skull split open and her brain slid two to three feet across the floor on the floor lubricated by her own cerebrospinal fluid.  It takes about four minutes to achieve cellular death due to oxygen starvation.  If her brain did not suffer massive structural damage and from what I was told it was totally intact with little to no sign of bleeding, she would have been conscious and aware sitting as only a brain on the tile floor for the four to six minutes till she passed.  A grim, to say the least, ending.

On her body was a note as to where her vehicle was parked, what to do at her apartment and who got her pets and personal property.  Her family and friends received the letter she sent prior to her jump, explaining her reasons for suicide and her hopes for their futures.

As a Police Officer you run into suicides in many forms, using many methods for many different reasons.  But in the final analysis they are all the same in the end.  It is a story about a depressed individual who soon becomes overwhelmed by their real or perceived problems, isolates themselves, erroneously believes their personal issues insurmountable and escapes in the only way they know how.

We need to catch them before they fall.  You know that friend/family member you had that you just somehow lost contact with?  Contact them, find out how they are doing, not over the phone, but in person.  Be brave, ask the real questions, have a relationship that goes deeper than the weather and sports.  Get them moving, get them in the shower, get them running on the street, take them to lunch, have them meet your friends.  Get them to the doctor, the hospital, have them meet some great firemen and Policemen (Trust me we all love alive people even if they do not want to see us-the dead ones tend not to do anything really fun).  Intervene, be someone's savior.  Give them Christ!  Before their last act is to sit dying on the tile-truly and permanently  isolated from us forever.

John 5:24
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Surviving Zombie Attack starts with preparedness and proper gear.

This was sent to me the other day.  It has all the elements Cops love...well this Cop at least...Survival horror, gear and humor.  What a cool marketing idea for a gear site...below is a little bit from their page.  The link http://tacticalgear.com/zombie-gear-guide.

Zombie Survival Gear Have the people in your life started to act a little … strange? A friend came down with a mysterious flu and now only craves rare meat. Yesterday, you caught a coworker attempting to gnaw off your hand. These unexplained events cannot be resolved in a hospital or a human resources office. It's time to stockpile essential zombie survival gear. Because there's no such thing as too prepared.

A Snap Shot of the History of American Law Enforcement

Via: Criminal Justice Degrees Blog

NASCAR

My first NASCAR Race.

Day one-was a rain out.  The BBQ'ing and our attempt to ride it out only succeeded in getting every ounce of my clothes soaked and new found appreciation for deodorant as the six of us huddled under a tiny canopy.

Day two-the track was about 1/3 full and it was a great time.

Ecclesiastes 9:11
I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Impermanence

If you have read the blog for any amount of time you would have noticed that I post tickets, pamphlets, things which have a very temporal existence.  Watching the history channel, Antiques Roadshow, Pawn Stars and the like, there always is a section about an item that no one knows about and no one preserved an example of one.  It struck me about the impermanence of everyday items we take for granted.  I scan and post something I ran across, found or attended so I can, in a very small way, add to the collective archiving of our lives of the things that have no permanence.

Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

I haven't Stopped Blogging I Just lost track of time...for a month

Wow neglected the blog there...but I'm back...

Survival starts with Preparation-Unconventional Attack-Maps

A lot of intelligence was flying around about possible terrorist attacks and it got all of us put on alert for the weekend of 9-11.  But it got me thinking about how should we respond to the consent threat of attack but the rare execution of the threat.

It's through preparation.  It allows you to be ready and yet live your life outside of consent fear. Its not expensive  and it provides for a piece of mind.

*Disclaimer*  I am not an expert.  I just have a bunch of low level training and like basic research.  These should only be considered suggestions and not recommendations in anyway.  Further if I miss something let me know and I'll add it in.

There are two basic kinds of attacks.  They are conventional (bomb, armed terrorists) and unconventional (Nuclear, Biological).  You really can think of it this way:  conventional your radius of escape is relatively small and the duration of the danger is relatively short and unconventional, your radius of escape is long and the duration can be very long.  Further, if it is biological, contact with your fellow survivors can put you at further risk.

What you need.  I will start with unconventional terrorist attack.  I am going to assume that you have escaped from the epicenter and managed to find your way to your vehicle.

1.  Map.  Find out your gas mileage and your gas tank capacity.   Draw a radius on your map, this will be you r operational range.  This is what you need to mark.  Find all military bases, national guard depots (a careful internet search can reveal major fuel depots), BSL-3 and BSL-4 biological research centers, small local medical clinics, veterinary clinics, water pumping stations, food pantries , nuclear power plants and rural college campuses.

Break down:  Military bases is an obvious one it can provide protection, medical, fuel, water, gear etc.  But in an attack their number one priority is to remain operational so that they can provide a continuing response to the attack and its after affects.  They may or may not let you in.

National guard depots-they tend to be lightly manned but chock full of useful stuff.  Fuel, food, vehicles, medical supplies.  They tend to be tucked away and not well known but once again a ten second internet search will provide you with the details you need.  The downside is they are very lightly or if at all manned if you need help you are probably on your own.

BSL-3 and BSL-4 biological research facilities.  They are the one place you can run to and be fairly assured that the Small Pox or Ebola can not get in.  They will also become the epicenter of the coming response.  The major problem is lack of food, water and their existing security.  In a crisis they will be very hard to enter.

Small local clinics and Veterinary clinics.  If its a biological release it will take very few inflicted or radiated patients to shut down even the largest of hospitals.  If you want to read a scary bed time story, look up for largest local hospital and find their on file preparedness plan.  What you will find if that in the case of Small Pox for example it will only take 3 or 4 to shut the whole operation down.  So, you need medical supplies and maybe someone to perform a service to fix that which is broken, these will be the only places operational in the short term.  (Dogs leg, you leg really not much of a difference).

Water Pumping Stations:  They tend to be in industrial areas with little actual population.  They are built to protect the area in case a pipe blows and their power supply is dedicated so it would take a major local disturbance to cut its power.  So they are fortified, they will probably have power, they have no one around and now you have water.  Hunker down and wait.

Food Pantries-You need food.  You need food that will not easily spoil and in a place most people will not think to pillage.  It is here.  Churches would be the best bet.

Nuclear Power Plants.  They are never near populated areas.  They have their own armed security force. They have their own water supply to cool the uranium rods.  They have limitless independent power.  They are fortified-once from attack and once for accidental detonation.  They have mandatory food and medical supplies.  Some even have air purifiers and bunkers.  Problem is getting in and if their staff is first to be affected by whatever has happened, this perfect escape place becomes a secondary detonation.

 Lastly Rural College Campuses.  They are away from population centers.  They tend to be agriculture based so now you have the ability to sustain your food supply.  If they are pre-1970 they will have the then mandated bunkers.  They will have on site food preparation and supply centers.  They have a huge knowledge base.  Most have their own armed police force.  They have the ability and equipment to sustain complex mechanical and chemical systems.  The downside is getting to them due to their location and they are usually unregulated as to entrances and exits.  If your running from the biological hazard its going to find its way over to you, eventually.

End of Part One

1 Kings 18:4
While Jezebel was killing off the LORD’s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.)

1996 White Sox Tickets...Vintage Memories

Christian Cops of the Old West

When I was writing the previous post I started wondering, who were the Christian Law Enforcement/Sheriffs in the Old West, and why don't I know about any of them.  I knew I had to fix that issue.

Here is a brief summary of what I found.  My occupational forbears who sought to provide justice in the shadow of the Cross.

John Oliver Allen (1850-1928) - A cowboy and Texas Ranger, Allen was born in Kaufman County, Texas on June 22, 1850. Raised on the frontier, he became a cowboy as a young man and enlisted in Rufus Perry's Company D of the Texas Rangers in early 1874. Though he served less than a year in the Rangers, he was wounded four times in Indian skirmishes and would later say that in one battle, every ranger other than himself had been killed. After leaving the Texas Rangers, he later settled at Cookville, Texas and became a chaplain for the Texas Ex-Rangers' Association. He died at Edinburg, Texas on June 7, 1928.

And...well that's it.  I spent two hours combing the internet and that's all I could find.  There most be a book in here for a group of men that clearly have not received their proper recognition.  I couldn't even find a list of famous old west preachers.  I think I have found a hole in the research into the American Wild West.

The Second Half of a Cops Working Life.

The defined benefit pension that most Law Enforcement Professionals enjoy is a two edged sword.  The positive side has it attracting higher caliber individuals that understand that the offset of the lower pay and limited promotional opportunities is a guarantee of a set payment at retirement that adds a huge net value to your personal wealth upon retirement that is independent of economic up/down turns and is free of most fees and taxes.  The negative is that once the maximum benefit package/requirement are reached (most by 30 years of service and 50 + years of age) continued employment in Law Enforcement accomplishes little financial gain.

So anyone in Law Enforcement has to consider, plan and execute a second twenty career before they can truely retire.  The following is a quick list, in no particular order, of some of the second careers my fellow Officers have chosen.

1.  Dennis Farina-Chicago Police Officer-Actor (Law and Order, Midnight Run, Snatch)

2.  Charles Fredrick "Chuck" Adamson-Producer/Writer (Created Crime Story, the movie Heat was based on one of his cases)

3.  James Byron Huggins-Huntsville Police Department-Author, Christian Activist

4.  Patrick Floyd "Pat" Garrett-sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico-Customs Agent, Saloon owner.

5.  William Potts-Detroit Police Department-Inventor (Traffic Light (3 way))

6.   Patrick G. Ryan Jr.-Chicago PD-CEO at First Look

7.  Robbie Roberson-Inventor of the SOG SEAL Revolver knife

8.  Phil Queller-World Record Holder-Most Holes of Golf in a 12 hour period.

9.  Bryan Hammond-UK Police Officer-Painter (Not the wall kind)

10. Daniel Rodríguez-NYPD-Opera Singer

11. Bernard Ching-HPD-Actor (Hawii Five-O)

12. Theodore Roosevelt-NY Police Commissioner-President

13. Riding in the Squad with Christ Blogger-Law Officer-Zombie Killer

Ecclesiastes 3:22
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Most of the time we go to them but sometimes they come to us...

911?  Can you please send someone over to please arrest me?  Thanks.

Article Link http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-self-reported-parking-violation,0,616750.story

Man notifies Conn. police that he parked illegally in handicapped space, gets arrested


By Associated Press

6:33 a.m. CDT, August 26, 2011

SHELTON, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut authorities say a 29-year-old man was so upset about the lack of parking enforcement in his town that he parked his car illegally in a handicapped space and called police more than a dozen times before officers arrived and arrested him.

Shelton police say they had to subdue Michael Andes with a stun gun Thursday morning after he screamed at officers that they weren't doing their job and became combative. He was charged with breach of peace and interfering with an officer and was given a parking ticket.


Authorities say Andes first called police at 2 a.m. and yelled at a dispatcher.

Andes posted $1,000 bail and is due in court Sept. 6. There's no phone listing for Andes and it's not clear if he has a lawyer.

______________________________________________________________

Job security

Little Big Planet Enters Real Life

Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time soon realizes that I am a gamer.  Beginning with an Atari 2600 for my tenth birthday to my Playstation 3 that currently sits in my office, hours and hours of gaming has gone by.

That said, I just stumbled into Little Big Planet.  I came to this party so late that Little Big Planet 2 is already out. A friend of my son gave a copy of the game to him so that they could play together on-line.  So I reached out grabbed by ten year old self by the roots and pulled him out and played the game too.

Loved it, usually do not like "plat-formers" but this was so unique and so well done that I play it even though I have to stop myself from throwing my controller into a wall every ten minutes or so.

The game got me thinking if anyone had replicated this game in real life.  Its aesthetic of a sock puppet in a diorama world should be able to be reproduced in the real world.  Sadly this was as close as I could find but it's really cool.  My kind of minds.  Enjoy.

  

Product Review 5.11 XPRT Tactical Boot 8"

Police Boots, they mean business.  It's the first piece of equipment that you spend time on and it signifies the beginning of the shift or the beginning of the operation and a physical marker for the mental shift from off, to on duty.  Good boots are made to be quickly forgotten, while bad ones will spend all their time reminding you they're on your feet and your feet, well, they'll remind you about bad boots for the next week.

I have had to opportunity to try 5.11 XPRT Tactical Boot (Link) for about two months.  I have and continue to recommend them to any Law Enforcement Professional without any fear that they will come back with a negative report.

My current assignment offers a unique testing ground for swat boots, since we are a soup-to-nuts contained unit.  We set perimeters (long standing time), we make entries (dynamic impact, quick movement), we hold the scene (very long standing time), contain and process evidence (bending, flexing), searches (a lot of walking), we interview (long periods of sitting) and just about everything a boot can be put through, we put it through.  My current record is thirty six hours on a take down and we did everything without outside help (long long day).  But we also spend a lot of time in "soft clothes" and don't have our feet conditioned to our boots 24/7.

Here's the point.  Most "good" boots do one of the previously mentioned things well.  They are excellent to stand in and offer some modest protection but the second you have to run in them or quickly kneel on the ground for cover, they cut and chafe.  Other boots offer maximum protection, an angry upright bull could not make you notice him while he trampled your toes, but stand in place for thirty minutes you soon find your feet, ankle and calves cramping and trying to escape.  Finally, there are the boots that try to fill in all the gaps and end up doing most things fine but excel at none of them.

However I have found that the 5.11 XPRT excelled for my every need.  I got the protection I needed, I got the flexibility and wear-ability I needed and I did go home raw and bleeding because I only put my boots on twice a week (calluses go quickly once you get out of day-to-day wear).

A couple of things I really liked.  They're Bloodborne pathogen resistant.  I was third in the stack, our entry teammate put the ram through the glass harder than he wanted.  Glass broke, cut up his arms and I crunched through the door on glass and his blood,  Great guy, but knowing his lifestyle I really, really, didn't want any to make permanent contact, if you know what I mean.

Second, the reinforced non-metallic toe.  We made entry and were greeted with a house full of steel entry doors, each had to be popped open.  Hit the door, door hit's the wall, hits my feet, feet fine.  I stopped wearing steel toed boots because of all the reports of accidental amputation once the force of the blow was great enough to curve the steel back into the foot. It was very nice to get that protection back without that worry.

Finally they were comfortable.  They fit, they stayed in place, they did not rub and they still held everything in place and tight.

They only thing I can not speak to is their durability.  I have had great boots and other equipment that I loved for the first couple of months but as the wear and tear built up they began to fail faster than they should have and became the same as substandard new equipment.  I do not see this in these boots but I will be writing a update to these boots six months from now followed by a third and final a year later to see how they fared in the long run.

Bottom line?  Pay the money get the boots. 

Police Resource

I was recently emailed by Chris who writes for Criminal Justice Degree (Site Link)and he has written an article called 40 Informative Forums for Law Enforcement Professionals (Link) that has a bunch of good links that any P.O. could use.  I think its worth a look.  There is never such a think as too little information.

I'm Back...wet and a little poorer, but still back.

Well its been interesting.  The hole in the roof, followed by the flood in the basement and the passing of my wife's Great Aunt have made for an interesting time.  My house looks like its owned by a hoarder with a split personality, one side as nothing the other side is stacked to the ceiling.

But I have managed to dig my computer out and posting will resume as things normalize around here.

We have kept a few things of my wife's great aunt to remember her by.  I have a large glass lamp (3' 2") sitting on my desk as I write this, that was in her home (pictured).

We are not defined by our things but sometimes, for others, our things can be signposts of places we have been and people we had once driven by together and one day will again.


Joshua 4:6-8

6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

8 So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the LORD had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down.

Lick my...history or Why I love history.

I have a love of eccentric history because it usually is better and more unique than any fiction out there.  I have not had many converts that have learned to love history as I do but here is just a sample of what they/you are missing.

From Wired Magazine...  Wired Link

FYI one of the Mozart Cannons is Leck mich im Arsch and Difficile lectu

Prototype: Gotz of the Iron Hand—Fierce Knight, Fearsome Prosthetic

• By Chris Baker  
• June 28, 2011  |  
• 12:00 pm  |  
• Wired July 2011

Photo: Gemeinde Jagsthausen

The Six Million Dollar Man, Darth Vader, Robocop—we have a passion for badasses who restore their mortal bodies with machinery. One of the earliest and most badassy cyborg action heroes was born 500 years ago in Württemberg, Germany. Gottfried “Götz” von Berlichingen grew up to become a knight of the Holy Roman Empire who robbed nobles and merchants in his free time. In 1504, he was struck by a cannonball during the Siege of Landshut. The impact ripped off his right hand and blew shrapnel from his sword and armor clean through his arm. It’s a miracle he survived. A normal man would’ve retired to a farmhouse on the Danube. Not Götz. He had an armorer fashion an iron limb with articulated fingers controlled by gears inside the prosthetic. With the appendage, he was able to grip anything from a sword to a quill pen. The handicapable warrior went on to cut an unholy swath across the continent for another 40 years, pillaging, murdering, and basically flipping the metal bird to authority. Götz became a Robin Hood-like figure in Germany, and his pioneering prosthetic was a symbol of the nation’s mechanical ingenuity. Goethe wrote a play about his exploits, and his famous battle cry, “Leck mich im Arsch!” (Lick my ass!), was celebrated by Mozart in not one but two canons. (True fact, look it up.)

PS:Wired magazine a great magazine...was reading it in the wire room between calls.

Status Update

Okay, things are normalizing at the homestead and hopefully regular blog posts to follow.  Threw more than 40 35-gallon trash bags into the alley, along with two play-school slides, a play-school wagon, a treadmill, an exercise bicycle, financial documents from 1991, a baby bounce up seat and well stuff to damaged to identify.

Further climbed on the roof with a buddy to tarp up the hole to keep water from rolling in, which went a little longer then projected when I made light of his weight problem and the ability of the roof to withstand it .  The work stoppage was cancelled when negations reached the correct ratio of apologies to free beer.  Meanwhile we are in a waiting pattern because of a conflict between the roofers and the insurance company.

So all that to say a couple of quick hits and a review of a great pair of tactical boots that I just tried from 5.11.  And by Friday hopefully normalcy and posting.

And as I am typing a storm just came in and what to do know?  Water is coming into the second floor playroom...yeah, home ownership, embrace it.

James 1:2
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,