This week is the 2004 SWAT Roundup in Orlando, Florida. SWAT Roundups are competitions between tactical teams from around the world, and the Orlando one is one of the largest. In addition to US teams, there are squads from Germany, Sweden, and Hungary at this year’s roundup. Four of us from my department’s SWAT team came down this year, although we’re not competing- we’re taking classes on a variety of subjects.

The drive down Sunday, for lack of a better word, sucked ass. Apparently, everyone was headed back from Thanksgiving at the same time I was on the road, and the average speed on I-75 from north of Valdosta all the way to the Florida Turnpike was about 45 mph. You’d drive 80 or so for ten minutes, and then traffic would slam on the brakes before crawling at 30 for 20 minutes; apparently for no reason whatsoever. Florida drivers suck.

After a night in a strange hotel bed (note: not a stranger’s bed), I attended Explosive Breaching class- quite interesting. Explosive breaching works very well, with very little collateral damage, from the little we saw in the class. Afterwards was the Hostage Rescue competition, which we watched from the bleachers. The best teams were, not suprisingly, the local ones; they’ve had the most practice at the training facility.

Aaaand, I’m tired and time for bed… pictures and more later.

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Day 2 – Nov. 30

Day 2 was Tactical Rifle class in the morning, and the Pritcher Scramble competition in the afternoon. Tac Rifle didn’t really show me much new, other than the department’s AR-15 needs to be sighted in. The Pritcher Scramble had teams vaulting three low walls, donning gas masks, firing a gas round into a window, then breaching a door, engaging a moving target, and returning back over the walls. A vendor on another range also set the berm on fire while demonstrating a flash-bang… whoooops.

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Day 3 – Dec. 1

Day 3 was WMD for Tactical Teams in the morning, which didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know; and a competition whose name escapes me but involved zip-lining over a pond, running to the range to engage a series of metal targets, running back to the pond and getting a wounded man and yourself across the zip line, and then carrying him to the finish line. One of the Swedish team’s competitors didn’t fasten his thigh holster and his pistol went *bloop* into the pond. Whoooops. That night we went to the nightclubs in downtown Orlando… I’m waaay out of practice as far as drinking heavily goes.

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Day 4 – Dec. 2

Day 4 there were no classes, so we went to the Orlando PD’s indoor range to see how it was constructed and to shoot a lot of ammo at their pop-up steel targets. I learned that indoor ranges are expensive as hell, and that I need to go to the range more often to practice. Afterwards, we piled up and headed home.

Explosive Breaching video 1
Explosive Breaching video 2

I purchased my first bike in 7 years (as well as my first new bike) recently. Several things kept me from riding before this… my previous bike, an ’82 Yamaha Seca 650, had died a second time (the 650 mill had over 100k miles on it, and the salvaged ’83 750 engine I swapped it with had who knows how many); I really couldn’t afford another bike; most of the people I’d been riding with either drifted off or sold their bikes; and I’d never really gotten over my apprehension after a wreck at Suches a few years before. So, I fell out of the motorcycling world, ignoring the advances and the bikes that passed me every day.

Then the bug hit my co-workers over the summer. Everyone began making plans to buy bikes; once they found out I used to ride, they began pestering me to buy one and ride with them. One by one, they took the MSF course and bought their bikes; occassionally, I’d ride with them on a borrowed bike. My roommate even bought two bikes in the space of 2 months, selling the first (GS500F) to his girlfriend. But I still resisted- while I was making enough now to afford a new one, I’m still getting over credit problems from five years ago. Plus, I was still replaying the wreck in my head. The wreck was a result of my overconfidence in my riding abilities, and forgetting everything I’d been taught about riding. We were riding in Suches; I was on the GPz305 and was getting tired of being left by the larger bikes. I was riding a section of Ga. 60 that I hadn’t been on before, and entered a right-hand curve faster than I should have. Instead of leaning further, and low-siding if it got to that point, I froze up and rode off the outside of the curve. The bike stopped in the ditch and I went over the handlebars, landing on the very top of my kevlar and fiberglass Bieffe helmet. End result: A three inch crack in the top of my helmet, a gouge in the faceshield (never figured out what from), a dent in the gas tank from my knee, and a concussion. I got off light. The bike was ridable and I rode it back home, but I was bit gun-shy after that. (I’ve since determined that my last words will probably be “Ooohhhh SHIIIIIT!”, as that’s been what I’ve said in every wreck I’ve ever had, car or bike.) Even on the rides I took after my roommate got a bike, I was still nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

What began to cure me was giving tips to my roommate, who’d never ridden before. We talked about what he learned in his MSF course, and I offered my own riding experiences. We dissected my wreck, what happened and why, and what I should have done. He’d come back from rides and talk about something new he experienced, and it reminded me of similar situations I’d faced. And gradually, I realized I didn’t really have any excuse for not riding. I finally started shopping for real. True sport-tourers- the FJ1300, ST1100, etc.- were out of my price range, but the Bandit seemed to fit the bill. I rode mine home a week ago from Action Motorsports in Loganville. My roomie and I took a couple of short rides; I took a solo ride in the rain (digging out my rainsuit from the back of the closet).

Friday, the roommate wanted to go for a longer ride- he wanted to go to Suches. Here it comes- would riding that curve again be a problem? Yes, I had 10 years of riding under my belt; but a big gap since the last time I’d ridden. For all intents and purposes, I’m a new rider again. I agreed to go, and cautioned him to ride his own ride- don’t worry about if I or he is falling behind; ride the pace he’s comfortable with. The advice was mainly for myself.

It wasn’t too cold; mid-50s or so. I warmed up gradually up Ga. 60, remembering the fun I had on this stretch of road years ago, and built my confidence up. I didn’t let it get built up too far- and a wreck on Ga. 180 helped; a younger rider on a Gixxer low sided his bike off the side of the mountain. He was OK, and we helped him get the bike up the hill again, but it reminded both of us what our limits are.

And I found that moment again- where I went into a curve faster than I thought I should. This time I told myself “Lean it this time, idiot!” I did, and Bandit held the curve as nice as you’d want. After a few more fast back-and-forth curves, I remembered why I started riding in the first place.

Despite the amount of time I’ve spent riding- a drop in the bucket compared to a lot of folks- I’ve still got a lot to learn. One of them, one I think I’ve realized, is that obsessing over a long-ago accident isn’t productive. Learn from it and move on. I think I’ve calmed down enough from when I first started riding, at 19, to realize that I’m not invulnerable, and when I start to think that I can ride any curve is when I’m the most dangerous to myself.

And most importantly, riding is a damn lot of fun.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Been about 7 years, but I’m back on a bike. My last bike died peacefully after a long illness, and I never got around to buying another one; although I often looked lustfully at other’s bikes. And then… my roommate bought a bike. And my neighbor. And several of my co-workers. And I got tired of hearing of how great the last ride was, while remembering how much fun I used to have riding. So… Friday I bought a silver 2003 Suzuki Bandit 1200S with 2 miles on the odometer. Maaaan… things have changed since the last time I was riding. I’m quite pleased so far. See the Garage page for a pic…

Wasn’t in the office this week, as several deputies from Lowndes County were up training with us on I-85. Fairly productive training- 5 arrests and 14 kilos of cocaine seized. Lot of long nights. Luckily, I now have a bike to ride to unwind!

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Well, starting Monday, I’m an office bitch. I’m still on the traffic unit, but I’ll be flying a desk. Did I get injured and put on light duty? Did I finally snap and pull that annoying, shrill bitch who told me she hoped I had a shitty day for giving her a ticket through her car window and beat her senseless? Did those pictures of me naked in a hot-tub full of lime jello with an underage donkey finally surface? No, no, and not yet.

You see, the traffic unit was originally created as not only an enforcement unit, but an educational one. Programs for high schools and the public, press releases, informational pamphlets in conjunction with concentrated patrols, etcetera. After a while, though, the unit ended up just writing tickets- that’s easier than creating educational programs, after all. The Sheriff, however, doesn’t really care about tickets- the educational aspect was his deal. So, after a review of the unit, he decided that it should start getting back to the reason it was created- safer roads through enforcement and education. Which means that the unit has to create all those programs, which involves researching what other traffic units have done, decide what elements we want to use and what we want in each program, and then create the programs and actually present them. That’s going to take some time, organization, and computer time. And since I’m the only one othe traffic unit who can turn on a computer, I’ve been drafted to create the educational programs.

Which is ok by me, actually. I’ve been getting a little burnt out on doing nothing but writing tickets. Wearing a polo shirt instead of a kevlar vest for a while will be a nice change.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Halloween’s over, and we didn’t have as many trick-or-treators as I thought we would, with as many kids as there are in this neighborhood. Used a dremel tool to carve the pumpkin- a lot quicker than a knife, although it makes pumpkin puree.

On the topic of last week’s post, my sergeant has lightened up some- I think someone had a talk with him. Things are a lot more relaxed. On a completely different note, I bought a set of 5.1 speakers for my desktop and turned on the surround features of my Audigy sound card. I don’t have perfect speaker separation, as there isn’t a good spot to put the rear speakers, but Infiltration sounds reeeeeealllly good. I’ll have to screw around with making dolby 5.1 videos now.

And don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

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.