Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to one and all!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I managed to get off a bit late this morning since I was forced to arrest someone this morning. If you know that you're going to argue with your dad when you drink too much, why wouldn't you just go to sleep instead of continuing the argument? That's all this guy had to do was go to sleep and it would have been fine. Instead, he elected to punch out the window in his bedroom and tell me to arrest him now or else I was going to have to come back and arrest him later.

Folks............for the record, that's NOT a wise thing to say to a law enforcement officer. That results in you being arrested, carted to the hospital since the jail won't take you with the cuts on your hands and then carted to jail once your medical treatment is finished. Not that his injuries were serious but the jail won't take somebody who has injuries if they haven't been medically cleared. Needless to say, I got off late and managed to get home shortly before 7am so all was well and I made it in time to have a wonderful breakfast, watch my family open their presents and open some myself. Then I crashed about 9am and slept until about 3. All in all a wonderful day well spent with my loved ones. Christmas dinner consisted of homemade Brunswick stew courtesy of my mother and father-in-law along with homemade bread, coleslaw and a congealed salad. Toss in some german chocolate cake for dessert and I was about set for the evening. Now it's time to settle down and watch some TV before my friend's podcast kicks off in about an hour. Have a wonderful evening!

Identity crisis?

I finished my first post on this spiffy new blog thing that I've decided to do and was comfortably ensconced here in my recliner buzzing around the web when I had a thought strike me. Why did I leave EMS and decide to become a cop? I figured that someone may EVENTUALLY find their way to my little corner of the web, read my ramblings and wonder what I was thinking. To be quite honest, there were a number of factors involved in that choice. After 19 years in EMS, I'd gone almost as far as I could go without moving into management. I've been a paramedic for 13 years now and I was TIRED. I've worked in busy urban areas where you run your tail off for the entire shift and I've worked in small, quiet rural areas where you can easily go 24 hours without a call. I spent 2 years working as a flight paramedic on a helicopter in a large metropolitan area and I even started doing a little teaching as an adjunct instructor for the EMT program at my local community college. Short of getting promoted to a supervisory position, things weren't likely to get any better for me in EMS.

I have several friends who were EMTs that I worked with that made the jump into law enforcement and they all loved it. What it boils down to is I think I needed a change of pace and something to get me back interested in my career again. I enjoyed EMS and I still do enjoy it, but I also enjoy law enforcement. Granted, I'm still a rookie cop but it's nice to get in the car, do my shift and then go home. There's no getting woken up after I've been asleep for 10 minutes to go run a call. When I'm asleep, I'm asleep and I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful wife who understands how important it is to get enough sleep when you're working nights like I am now. I've only been on nights for almost 3 months now and I enjoy it. Less traffic, better calls, less of the brass around, etc. The only problem is that my sleep schedule is now tuned to nights so I sleep a good part of the day and I'm up all night. Oh well, can't have everything I guess! I'm going to mosey back to browsing the webs and I'll be back later.

Welcome..........

Well, after a lot of thought and contemplation, I've decided to start blogging as a way of documenting where I'm going and where I've come from. I have absolutely no preconceived ideas about the type of blog I want, just need a place to write down what I'm thinking and how I feel. I've spent a lot of time reading other peoples blogs and have no illusions that I could ever write as well as they can. However, it should be a fun way to spend some time.

To begin with, I guess I should introduce myself in some way. I am the Reformed Yankee. I was born and raised in our Nation's Capital by a pair of democrats who worked for Uncle Sam pushing paper. I quickly saw the error of my Yankee ways and moved to the South as quickly as I could. Consequently, I'm the only one in my family who is conservative, likes guns, drives a pickup truck, hunts and used to chew tobacco. Politically speaking, I'm a middle-of-the-road type of guy. I typically vote Republican because the Democrat stance usually nauseates me but I do have some sympathy with the Libertarian side of things. This WILL not be a political blog because I feel that everyone is entitled to make their own way in that arena. I also am pretty moderate on religion. I don't try and shove my religious beliefs on anyone and I expect the same courtesy in return. If you're easily offended, vegetarian or overly left-wing then this is probably not the blog for you.

What I am is a married man, in my 30s who lives somewhere in the South with my wife and 3 kids. I enjoy hunting, fishing, guns, cooking and spending time with my family. I spent a total of 19 years in EMS before I moved into Law Enforcement. I work as a cop but I'm a father and husband first. Anyhoo, I hope to share some of what I go through as we go along. Thanks for reading!