Once upon a time....

Once upon a time, I was a Dispatcher.  I worked the Emergency Call Center for a local county.  All Fire, Medical, and Law Enforcement calls went through us.  Also, as we were a county wide dispatch office (instead of just an emergency office) we handled calls for other county services:  Schools, Animal Control, Public Utilities, Et Al.

This lead to some interesting calls.

Our county was...  Growing.  When I was a kid, the county was considered poor but being on an interstate some interesting industries had opened up.  These industries gave the county a nice tax base and when I was in college the county was able to install a 911 system.  Shortly thereafter the low cost of property lead to a lot of people with money moving in.

It was actually quite common to drive around and see a McMansion constructed next to a hand build shack.

Hmm...  Let's find a story for me to tell about my adventures as a Dispatcher.  Let me preface it with the fact that the county had always been friendly to agriculture.  Plenty of farms.  This county was the only local area where exotic animal farms were legal.  Suddenly they were popping up everywhere.  Lions.  Tigers.  Monkeys.  Ostrich.  You name it, someone probably raised it.  With the exception of elephants.  I never saw any elephants.  Those things are pretty hard to miss.

I was taking calls and someone called in to the non-emergency number.

Caller:  "Sorry to bother you, but this is kind of odd."
Me:  "No problem, that is what we are here for.  What is going on?"
Caller:  "I'm not too sure, but I swear that there is an Emu in my back yard."
Me:  "No problem ma'am.  I'll notify Animal Control.  You are only about a mile from an exotic animal farm."

Actually, I do find it a little odd that someone can live so close to an exotic animal farm and not know it.

DyE - Fantasy

Here is an interesting music video by DyE titled "Fantasy."  Very interesting style and subject.

First lawn mowing of the season!

Spring has sprung early.  The weeds in the front yard are above my ankles.  I've got a day off.  Visiting MIL is playing with Adorable Preciousness.  I HAVE FREE TIME TO MOW THE LAWN!

Being the first time I've had the mower out this year, normally I would do some basic maintenance.  Change the oil and filter.  Maybe get the blades sharpened if they need it.  However, due to a handful of minor emergencies last week, I am dead broke!  (So broke that I have to break out my credit card to get gas until I get paid again.)  Therefore, I decided that I can forego the annual maintenance of my mower until I get paid.

This is not really a bad thing.  The mower is relatively new, being purchased last summer.  I did winterize it so I was not looking at any major issues.  I checked it out this morning.  Everything looked pretty good.  The oil still looked clean and it was at the appropriate level.

It took three pulls to start the mower and then she ran like a champ!  I made a few passes in the front lawn and then I noticed that the mower was smoking.  There also appeared to be mud on the deck.  My first impression was that I ran it too close to the mud puddle on the side of the driveway.  Then I notice that the oil fill cap was loose.

I apparently did not attach the cap properly.  When I put it on, it was snug and I could not pull it out but I did think that it went on oddly.  It's my fault for not checking it a third time.

So, the lawn care is on hold until I break out the credit card to buy oil and change it.  I should know better than to cut corners.  It never works out for me.

Time to pull out my pith helmet and machete so I can work my way to the car.

World of Warcraft - It keeps trying to drag me in!

I recently got an e-mail from Blizzard asking me to come back.  It is a "Scroll of Resurrection."  Apparently, if you accept the offer you can get a handful of benefits.  Quite interesting!  One benefit is to get an alt up to 80.  I was trying to level a Paladin as a Tank when I left WOW and I am somewhat interested in the proposition.

This also lead me to look at the videos for "Mists of Panderia."  I was very unenthused when I heard about the new expansion.  While it is very beautiful, it still strikes me as if the developers watched Kung Fu Panda one too many times.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Now go and enjoy all the green beer you want!  Me, I'm drinking Smithwick's.

Lack of posts

I'm ten days in to a twelve day stretch of working.  Plus, the wife and I are sharing one computer because tea was spilt on her laptop.  I'll post something when I have time.

STD's are a good thing?

I'm on Facebook and a friend posted that they were excited that the STD's arrived.

WTF?

Whom in their right mind would be excited about a Sexually Transmitted Disease?

Oh, wait.  They are getting married.  STD stands for Save The Date cards.  Brilliant.

Yes, they got some ribbing on Facebook for their choice of abbreviations.

Late 70's Music Videos

Floating around on the internet I found a list of 15 Weirdest Music Videos of all Time.  I found the following video a lot of fun, even though it was from 1978!  I'm just dissapointed that there was not much more of a Robert Heinlein reference to it.

There are apparently a handful of covers of this song.  Some are pretty catchy!

Field Training Officer

I've been training a new officer at my agency.  Seems OK, a little nervous but that is what training is for.

My only complaint?  Keys.  The key ring only has a limited amount of keys on it.  If you do not know which key opens a door, try all of them.  IN ORDER!  Don't pick one random key, then another random key, then on and on.  You will never find the key.  If you start with one key and work your way through then you will have tried all the keys.  And one will work!

Fireflies, with style!

Here is a nice techno version of "Fireflies."  The video was mashed with a lot of anime.  It's a very nice mix!

Aphex Twin - Flim

This here is an interesting song.  Light techno.  Very nice!  Apparently it was published in 1997 and I kind of wish I had heard it back then.

More music from YouTube

This is an interesting song.  "Never Alone" by Barlow Girl.  The uploader set the music to anime art.  Very nice!  

Derpy Quinn

"You got your My Little Pony in my Batman!" 

"You got your Batman in my Little Pony!" 

Munamies, performing Pomppufiilis

Here is the ear worm of the day!

Procrastination

One of my problems is that I will put stuff off. 

For example, this morning I woke up with my daughter and we spent a delightful morning together!  She is crawling all over and pulling herself up on anything that won't tip over or run away from her.  Keeps me busy.  But I'm not getting time to do much and I barely got a bowl of cereal in me.  (I never got the coffee started.) 

Thus, Adorable Preciousness went down for her first nap just before 10am.  She tends to be a little fussy when going to sleep so I just got on the computer and listened to her over the baby monitor.  I figured that I would check my mail and bank accounts as she fell asleep and if she ended up not sleeping then I could stop what I was doing and take care of her.  Well, Adorable Preciousness did fall asleep.  But I never finished up what I had gotten online to do.  Valentines Day is coming up thus I was looking online for some ideas, plus I had not been online for a few days so I wanted to catch up on reading several blogs...  Et Al.  Suddenly, it's two hours later and A.P. is up with a vengeance! 

And I had not even started my coffee.  /sigh  I know better!

LMFAO-Mr. Bean mix!

A non-functioning iPod

I woke up this morning and found that my iPod Touch would not turn on.  It was quite frustrating.  I have an Otterbox for my iPod and the last use it got last night was that I updated my checking account on Balance. Playing with the home and power buttons got no response.

I was determined not to get upset.  I plugged my iPod into my PC in order to charge it.  It would not charge nor would iTunes register it.  I searched online for an answer and found very little useful information.  Finally I found a site that recommended that I hold down the home and power buttons together.  I had done that but I tried it again and held the buttons down for about 10 seconds.  That worked! 

When it came back on, my iPod had very little power in the battery.  It was odd because I had over half a charge when I used it last night.  I don't keep any programs on in the background and I always turn off my screen so I can not account for the power drain.  It is only a year old.  As a matter of fact, I purchased it in January of last year.

Technology.  Heh, first world problems.  Am I right?

A Witness to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

My Great-Great-Great Grandfather fought in the American Civil War.  We have very little from him.  However, my father and uncle will tell me stories of my Great-Aunts talking about the wounds that he carried from the war.  I found that amazing that I am hearing from a witness to a witness from a grand historical event.


I would like to point out that there is audio and video recording of Civil War veterans and civilians out there.  A bit of it is on YouTube but it is sparse and often mislabeled.  Recently I came across this gem.  The man was 5 years old, but he was in the theater the night that President Abraham Lincoln was shot!

Lincoln Assassination Eyewitness (Feb 9,  1956)

Wine Review: Chateau Ste. Michelle Harvest Select Riesling 2010

I am not a wine snob.  I'm barely a fan of wines.  My tastes go towards the sweeter wines, which is quite opposite of the dry wines everyone seems to think so highly of.  Thus, here is my absolutely amateurish wine review. 

I recently picked up a bottle of the Chateau Ste. Michelle Harvest Select Riesling 2010.  Chateu Ste. Michelle also makes a straight Riesling but I currently have not tried that one yet.

The first thing I get was a strong citrus taste.  I mean strong.  My first glass had not aerated very much and I was unprepared.  Letting the wine aerate made it much smoother.  Now, they pushed that it was sweeter and that it had a finish of peach and apricot.  All I could taste was grapefruit.  It did not seem all that sweet to me.  But I do appreciate that it was not dry nor did it have an oaky taste. 

I will state that I did try it with food pairings.  It went very well with salmon and also with stuffed peppers.

In conclusion, it was not a bad wine.  However, it was not a wine that really did it for me.  I can see other people purchasing this wine and enjoying it.  However, I don't see myself picking this one up again.  However, I am not a very prodigous purchaser of wine thus it is not really a negative thing.  Therefore I do not want to discourage others from buying this wine.

Where is the post-holiday break?

Where is the free time? 

Things always seem to get very busy with the holidays.  Spending the time with the family such as having them over or going to visit them.  We also hosted a few "get togethers" at our place, such as our annual Christmastime Chili Party. 

Our friend who was to host a New  Year's Eve get together had an illness in the family, thus we ended up inviting everyone over to our place.  The benefit of that was I saw the New Year rung in and then I was able to get to bed right at 12:30 AM.  The drawback was that I got a phone call at 3AM from work and I had to go in.  I've worked straight through since.  I work 12+ hour shifts and it can burn you out.  Most of the stress has come from not being able to accomplish anything at the house.  It's been difficult to clean and it took me two days just to take down some simple Christmas lights that I had outdoors.  (I still have the lights along the gutter to remove.)  One of the poles to our clothes line rusted through and fell down, and today is the first day I've even been able to see it in daylight. 

I just have to sit back and relax and keep it in my mind that I am not going to get everything done today.  There is only so much that I can do between the house, the clothes, and the baby.  Heck, I can't even afford to buy what I need to fix and/or replace the clothes line.  (Well, I can charge it but I won't.)  And yes, I am going to take some time out today to do some relaxing and get myself mentally centered before I have to go back to it all over again tomorrow.