Tuesday, October 26, 2004

I’ve got a long list of bosses. You see, I’m on the bottom of the totem pole- slick-sleeve deputy- and over me are a sergeant, a lieutenant, a captain, and then the major and the sheriff. The sergeant is new, and I’m not sure he’s figured out the best way to motivate his troops yet… the stripes are wearing a little heavy. Police departments may be quasi-military in their rank structure, but middle-aged cops are definately not 18-year-old army recruits and can’t be treated as such; not if you want any sort of morale. The sergeant, I think, is afraid that if his unit doesn’t produce, he’ll lose his stripes; a conclusion that may be reinforced by the lieutenant and captain- or may not be.

I’ve been in his position before- at my previous department, I was a sergeant, and there was a period where I was paranoid that my every action was being scrutinized and that my officers would screw up and have it reflect badly on me. I’d like to take him aside and offer him advice; get him to see that there are other ways of motivating your guys, other styles of leadership, but I’m not sure how he’d take it. I’m sure he’ll grow into the position, same as I once did… I just hope no one gets too disgruntled before then.

In other news (there’s always other news), my roommate’s bought his second motorcycle. He bought a Suzuki GS500F over the summer and taught himself to ride. The 500 was a good bike to learn on; handles well and not too much power. I figured he’d want to step up after a while; just not this soon. He bought a Suzuki SV1000S and has been pleased with it- of course, now he’s got two payments to make. Here’s hoping he hasn’t bitten off too much. And, now, I’ve got the motorcycle bug again. It’s been several years since I’ve ridden- the Yamaha Seca on the Garage page wents tits-up long ago- and I’ve forgotten how much I liked it. I have just paid off a bunch of stuff I owed on, so I’ve got the money for a monthly payment; but do I want to get in debt again?

And since I’m stuck in the 80’s, I’ve been looking at standard bikes- either the Suzuki Bandit 1200S or the Kawasaki ZRX1200R (which is pretty much visually identical to the GPz 305 and 500 I used to ride). We shall see.

Monday, October 18, 2004

Sitting in bed with the laptop, as I usually am when posting here, watching TV (“Silence of the Lambs” on Skinemax; I’ve thought all of the movie adaptations of Harris’ novels have been well done, although, like all adaptations, they had to leave out a lot of the internal dialog that really makes his characters unique… I also thought Edward Norton was miscast as Graham in “Red Dragon”; what’s his face was a better Graham in “Manhunter”)… pretty much stoned out of my gourd on Stadol, the migraine medication I’ve been prescribed for several years. I hadn’t seen a doctor for migraines in a couple of years; figured I’d get around to it when the county settled their medical insurance mess. They have, and I had a migraine Tuesday night. The subsequent headache lasted well into the next day, so I bit the bullet and made an appointement with a new doctor in town; hadn’t switched doctors since the move to Braselton. I felt the beginnings of another tonight, hence the medication.

Now, when I talk about having migraines, I’m not talking about just a bad headache. I hate hearing someone say “Man, I’ve got a headache; I think I’ve got a migraine.” If you had a migraine, you wouldn’t have to think about it; you’d know. My migraines started when I was about 14, and weren’t all that frequent; once every couple of months or so. As I’ve gotten older, they’ve decreased in frequency to every six or eight months. They start with numbness in one of my fingertips, moving from finger to finger and sometimes to the end of my nose and lips. After the numbness, I get sparkles- sort of like an afterimage, like when someone shines a bright flashlight in your eyes- that start like annoying little specks in the corner of my vision and spread to the entire center of my vision. The sparkles shimmer as zigzag shapes, a herringbone pattern that flashes red and yellow. The sparkles, “scintillating scotoma” I think they’re called, move to the outer peripheries of my vision before vanishing. Then there’s waves of overpowering nausea that have me heaving my guts out. Following these precursors, which last 20 to 40 minutes or so, comes the headache. A headache for which terms like “crushing”, “pounding”, and “blinding” are inadequate descriptors. The headache lasts for several hours, and over the next few days, I’ll have a “regular” grade headache.

Not all of my migraines exhibit each of the precursors. Most of the time it’s the scotoma followed by the pain. Bright lights and loud noises seem to aggrivate the symptoms. I’ve never really figured out what triggers them, exactly; for a long time I was convinced that MSG and nitrates, like from a hot dog, would trigger them; but then I’ll eat a hog’s worth of weiners with no headaches. Sometimes stress with trigger one, sometimes not. Not having eaten for while seems to make me vulnerable to them, but I’ve never found any one thing. Science seems to be at a loss to explain what causes them, too; they’ve noted vasodilation (or constriction, I forget which) in the brain during migraines but feel these are symptoms and not causes. I’ve had a MRI that found nothing unusual; no brain tumors or anything like that. And as science progresses, I’ve tried each latest miracle drug- ergot based drugs like wigrain (sp?) and Midrin, the new tryptan drugs like Imitrex, Amerge, Maxalt, Zolmig… my last doctor had wanted me to try one called Frova. None of them stopped the migraines. The only drug that works, that stops the migraine within 15 minutes, is called Stadol.

The only problem with Stadol, otherwise known as butorphenol tartrate, is that it’s a synthetic opiate- a narcotic. It’s usually used as a painkiller, and is used as a veterinary drug. It’s also apparently abused for its narcotic qualities, and therefore restricted. It stops the migraine, all right; it also zonks me out to the point that I end up asleep and drooling. While I can’t do anything useful while having a migraine, I also can’t do anything useful while taking Stadol. It’s taken me the better part of an hour to write this (moving from “Silence of the Lambs” to “Futurama” on Cartoon Network); I have to chase my thoughts down from wandering all over the map and nail them down with the keyboard.

Speaking of which, where was I going with this blog entry? I filled in my new doctor with my past history; something that gets old after several new doctors and re-tellings. I mentioned wanting to find a medication other than Stadol, and that my last doc wanted me to try Frova. He made a couple of cursory notes and said that while he didn’t like to prescribe narcotics for chronic pain, my migraines weren’t chronic. He also said that if the other tryptan drugs didn’t work, Frova probably wouldn’t either; and gave me another prescription for Stadol. And here I am… the migraine’s gone, but so’s my sobriety. Not an unpleasant feeling- quite the opposite, actually. I can see why it’s addictive. Just not the worth turning yourself into a zombie.

Monday, October 11, 2004

On the Front Porch page, I vent a little about speeding tickets and the whining folks do when they get them. You were speeding, you got caught, face it. Or at least come up with a clever excuse… I’ve heard enough of the same old excuses that a funny one might get you arbitrarily issued warning. I wish I could give you some examples, but good responses are rare and I really can’t think of any. That, and “Family Guy” is diverting my attention at the moment. More sad than funny is the guy who told me he was speeding because he really, really had to get to a bathroom… as the unmistakable smell of fresh feces wafted from the car. Possibly he was lying to get out of the ticket; but anyone who’d crap their pants on cue to get a warning has gone above and beyond the call of duty in my opinion. Then there was the woman I pulled over after seeing her stopped at a red light… on the wrong side of the road. It was around 2:30 in the morning, the perfect time for drunks to be out. She seemed rather tense and more than a little annoyed, and told me she’d been at the Kroger pharmacy. I couldn’t smell any alcohol, so I asked her what the medication was for; thinking she had taken something that had affected her driving. She screwed up her face, looking like she’d sucked on the ass-end of a lemon-filled weasel, and said “Bladder infection.”

She got a warning.

“Operation: Organize Garage” is complete- there’s now a cabinet-workbench area, and plywood up in the attic for all the junk that was in the garage. All for a mere $800- thanks, Home Depot credit card!- and a nice gash on my head when I stood up into the corner of one of the cabinet doors. And I finished CT’s website wishes. Still no closer on finishing the throw phone, though.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Yeah, not much happening. Long work week, lot of tickets written; too short a weekend. Put up some more edging on the flowerbeds, some low voltage lights, and a workbench/cabinet type thing in the garage. Finally got around to seeing CT, who wants some changes made to his website; nothing too arduous, but I’m just not sure when I can get around to it.

In short, life’s dull right now; but then again, it could be interesting, as in the Chinese curse “may your life be interesting”.

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Well, after searching through the registry on my laptop, running adaware and winpatrol about 2000 times, and minutely examing the program files folder, I think I’ve cleared out all the ad, spy, and browser hijack-wear. And started using Mozilla Firefox. Ironically enough, it was my roommate who suggested Firefox instead of exploder… er, explorer.

Ironic, because whereas I’ve always championed the open-source route, he’s always toed the Microsoft line. I dabble in php and java, he programs asp and VB. The only reason I’ve been using explorer is that nutscrape… er, netscape fell way behind in implementation of newer web features. Actually, that’s not completely correct; explorer just went it’s own way in interpreting html while netscape tried to stick to strict html specifications. Microsoft had more people using explorer- thanks to the tactics drug out in interminably long lawsuits- so more pages were written the “explorer” way than for netscape. You see the results. It was a pain in the ass to write pages that would work reliably on both.

Of course, that popularity meant that just about all browser exploits were written to take advantage of holes in explorer; and firefox is, so far, exploit free. And here I am. Works fine, so far; except that the javascript I use on the webcam page to refresh the images doesn’t load.

The last tropical storm (Jeanne? I’ve lost track) blew through without too much damage. I noticed a small wet spot on the bottom corner of the doorframe molding for the back door. If that’s just from wind-blown rain, no big deal; I mean, how many tropical storms can you expect when you’re 5 hours from the coast? Yeah, yeah, I know; three this year. If it stays wet when it rains I’ll have to have a long heart-to-heart with the warranty agent; the house is only 6 months old, ferchristssake. Shouldn’t be any leaks. At some point I’ll have to inspect the attic to make sure nothing leaked on the roof.

In other news, Ian’s (my roommate) girlfriend Patty (my other roommate) backed his car into the neighbor’s car and chipped some paint off of Ian’s bumper. This is why she’s never driving anything I own. Had a no-knock warrant last week (another dry hump; nothing found… glad I’m not the case agent) where I was point man on entry. Porch with a screen door, which was locked; breacher yanks it open (tearing out the frame; he’s a big guy), waits about half a second- just long enough for me to start in- and then goes in himself to hammer the front door. OK, OK, he’s just anxious and hyped up, as usual. I’m supposed to go in and provide cover while he breaches, but whatever.

However, when we get done, he bitches that he waited “forever” for me to move, and then finally went in. “Forever” my ass; he jumped the gun. Team commander doesn’t care, said he didn’t see any problems with the entry, so I shouldn’t care; but it just gripes my ass that he jumped in front of me and then complained that I was too slow. And, some tiny part of me is worried that I was too slow, even though I know it was only a half second from the time the screen door came open until I moved, and getting into a hurry on these things just leads to fuckups. Yes, he’s been on this particular team longer than I have; yes, he’s made more entries than I have, but I still think I was right.

Anyway. Not worth brooding over. I’m dropping the whole thing. Really, I am. Really.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Yup. Third time in a month, and we’re in line for another tropical storm. Yeah, so Florida got the banging for a fourth time with a hurricane. Who cares about 100 mph winds? My yard’s going to get soggy!

Oh, and I figured out the Excel thing.

And if any of you out there develop spy- and ad-ware, you can bend right down and kiss my wrinkled scrotum. I religiously scan for adware, use pop-up blockers, etc. etc. ad nauseum; and just spent the last couple of hours tracking down and deleting ad-ware that somehow snuck onto my laptop anyway. Fuckers.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Ivan the Terrible came through last week, with much the expected result in my neck of the woods- lots of rain and wind. Which meant lots of trees down across the road and power outages, but surprisingly few accidents. Which also meant that I spent a lot of time in the rain directing traffic, fun fun.

On the home front, I’ve almost entirely de-crabgrassed the yard. I never thought I would live somewhere where I gave two shits about the state of my grass; usually it’s “Oh, the weeds in the front yard are at knee height; better mow”. For some reason, having decent sod has short-circuited some part of my brain and I’m now obsessive about getting the yard perfect. TruGreen ChemLawn (and you thought bizarre all-caps-ing names was an Internet fetish) comes by every month and a half and sprays chemical glick and every weekend I get down on all fours (!!!) and pull up crabgrass. I’ve worked my way around the front and side of the house and am now on the back. It’s not quite putting green quality, but it’s getting there. Ahh, the vanities of the first-time home owner.

Side note: Anyone know how to use visual basic to change the formatting of one Excel spreadsheet cell based on the value in a different cell? I’ve found several macros that will change a cell based on the value in that cell; and Excel’s bulit-in conditional formatting will change a cell based on the value of another cell- but only for three conditions. I need a macro to do it for 6 conditions. Leave helpful comments below. Or hateful, whatever.

Oh, almost forgot: Clocked a yellow and black rice rocket at 144 mph in a 65 zone. Yes, I gave chase. No, I didn’t catch it; as he was lane-splitting through heavy traffic at around 80 to 100. I’m confident that he lives nearby and that I’ll get another crack at him… in the meantime, I had to take a picture of the radar unit. Not likely to see that speed in the display again anytime soon!

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Not the first bizarre dream I’ve had, and certainly not the last. Actually had this one several days ago, but it’s been a busy week.

I’m in a large room with a peaked ceiling, held up by wood beams. I get the impression it’s sort of an attic area for a house (that’s the nice thing about my dreams, the backstory’s taken care of- I knew in the dream that this was a workroom of mine without anyone telling me). In the center of the room is a huge table, taking up most of the room, covered in tools and bits of machinery and electronics. Windows ring the room, high up on the wall, and it’s night outside; the room itself is dimly lit.

And, scuttling about the room, are metal millipedes- ranging from a couple of inches long to almost a foot, made up of “I” shaped segments with a pair of thin legs on each segment. I have to take a tiny screw and jeweler’s screwdriver and screw it into the end of the millipede to de-activate them; but the problem is that on the opposite end are a pair of nasty-looking pincers… and, when you pick one up, it starts shooting pale blue lasers from each leg tip. So I’m scrambling around, snatching up millipedes, trying to fiddle a tiny screw into the end of each one, while it squirms around trying to bite me and zapping me with tiny lasers.

Don’t ask me what this one was about. Dream analysts, have a field day. Personally, I think it was the NyQuil gelcaps I took before bed.
In other news, Florida’s looking at another assraping courtesy of Mother Nature. What struck me about all the hurricane news was the number of retirees who lost their mobile homes. Crap, folks, if you’re going to move to a hurricane prone state, make sure your house is built to withstand one. Plan your retirement, in other words.
Being somewhat of a weather junkie, I’m actually hoping it takes a path similar to Frances and drops some storms on us.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

So, the traffic unit got shanghied for a dignitary protection gig, escorting the former Chief Justice of the Alabama supreme court, who was in town for a fundraising dinner to support the legal battle the county is in – a lawsuit filed by an anonymous person to remove a copy of the Ten Commandements from the courthouse. If that sentence didn’t wear you out, try standing around for 7 hours while a couple of hundred people eat dinner around you, then work traffic for a couple more hours.

Now, the whole ten commandments fight doesn’t really interest me- while I consider myself religious, or at least “spiritual”, in the sense that I believe there was a creator God; I can’t consider myself Christian, as I don’t think the Bible is the literal word of God. Some good ideas, yes, but filtered though the prejudices and biases of its human writers. Nor do I think that Christianity is necessarily the only way to know God. Had I voiced those opinions out loud at this dinner, I doubt I would have made it to the door. Which is, in a nutshell, my problem with this whole movement.

You see, while the Chief Justice spoke about how this legal entanglement isn’t really about separation of Church and State, or even the Ten Commandments per se; but really about the ability for governments to acknowledge God- he also made it clear that he didn’t consider other religions to be valid or acknowledgeble. Don’t worry, the government doesn’t care if you’re muslim, or buddhist, or jewish…

But it was obvious that he did, as did everyone in that audience. And that’s what bothered me. While they’re fighting to keep the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, they’re also fighting to say that christianity is the religion that founded this country and is the only one that counts. That bothers me a bit. How far do they want to go with this? How far will they go?

As for the title of this entry, there was a little dance number at the beginning of the dinner, featuring several late teen boys, with closely shaved heads, dressed in wildly colored camoflauge pants, black t-shirts, and black army caps, singing about being the Army of God while miming firing rifles, swinging sticks, and lifting weights. Aside from being laughable- my roommate was reminded of the Monty Python “gay army” sketch- it reminded me of certain ’30s propaganda films featuring an organization for young men wearing red armbands. The skinhead haircuts didn’t help, either.

In other news… there isn’t any other news. TruGreen came and aerated the yard, but left the dirt plugs scattered around like goose turds. We’re waiting for the rain promised when hurricane / tropical storm Frances finishes fist-banging Florida and makes it’s way through Georgia. I re-installed the webcam in the office. And that’s about it.