Happy June!

Well, here we are. It's now June, 2010 and I've been a cop for just over a year. I never could have imagined the wild ride this past year would be when I started the academy. Let's recap some of the things that have happened to me in the time I've been a cop shall we??

1) Departmental turmoil... This has been a big one. I had 20 years experience in EMS and Fire prior to going to the academy and I've never worked anywhere that was as crazy as my department was when I started. I got threatened when I interviewed that if I screwed up, then they would do everything they could to have my Peace Officer's certification revoked and that I would never work as a cop again. That threat was repeated when I was offered the job. I needed a job badly at the time and accepted anyways but I was planning on leaving as soon as I got an offer somewhere else. Then, the Chief of our department as well as the Lieutenant who threatened me were both fired for a variety of issues. Since then, we have a new Chief and one of our Sergeants was promoted to Lieutenant in charge of Uniform Patrol. I have to give my NEW Lt a lot of credit in that he has really changed my attitude about staying where I am. He doesn't micromanage and he expects us to do our jobs. He fights for us when we're in the right and he's the first one to chew us out when we're wrong. Also, once he gets done chewing us out and we walk out of his office, that's the end of it. He is getting us training which was a real issue prior to the change in administration and he's trying to improve the way we do things as a department. All in all, I'm very impressed with the things he's done. He can be very abrasive at times but he supports the guys in the trenches and I respect that a lot.

2) Time at home.... I used to work ALL the time when I was working full time in EMS. I still work a lot but I'm also home a lot more. My family doesn't see me as a stranger anymore and I get to spend more time with my wife and son which was a big deciding factor when I made up my mind to go to the academy.

3) My abilities as an Officer..... When I started working for the department, I didn't get much in the way of field training. I pretty much had to learn things on my own. Now, I'm not stupid by any stretch but it would have been nice to have someone I KNEW I could rely on to give me good information on how things needed to be done. I've done fairly well in learning how to deal with the myriad of issues that a Police Officer has to deal with on a daily basis and that seems to have been noticed by my Lieutenant. I consistently get a lot of praise on the quality of my reports and the Captain has stated several times in front of other officers that I write the best reports in the department. I'm making good cases pretty much on my own and rarely have any problems. I still screw up periodically but it's usually not a big issue and I learn from my mistakes.

Another factor in the situation is the fact that we've reduced our monthly expenses a lot and are living more within our means. The only vehicle we owe money on is the minivan and that should be paid off later this year. In addition, we recently refinanced our house which reduced our mortgage payment by about $400 per month. This has taken a lot of pressure off of me so that I don't have to worry so much about finding extra work to help cover bills AND give us some spending money. I still work overtime when I can get it plus I work a couple of shifts a month on an ambulance to maintain my paramedic skills. We are in a much better financial situation and that helps immensely.

These days, I'm keeping busy at work and at home. My garden is going well and we're starting to get some fresh veggies out of it so that's definitely satisfying. We're currently swimming in zucchini and trying to find ways to use it. My wife has been baking zucchini bread and made a chocolate chip zucchini cake tonight for dessert. I got the first cucumber out of the garden yesterday and got 3 more today. I'm probably going to take some to a buddy of mine at work since he likes it. I also got the first of the okra out of the garden today. My tomatoes are coming along well but we probably won't get any ripe ones for another few weeks. I'm contemplating taking some green tomatoes to my mother in law along with a request for some fried green tomatoes. If you haven't had these little southern delicacies, then you're missing out on a treat. Truly good fried green tomatoes are delicious and you quickly become addicted to them.

Well, I hope that this update finds you, my non-existent readers, healthy and happy. I'm busy locking bad guys up and enjoying my family time as much as possible. I'm looking forward to a well deserved vacation next month and some time away from work.

worried and depressed........

No, no, no, no I'm not about to eat the barrel of my gun. It's not like that at all. The wife and I had a big blow up Saturday evening and I'm still recovering from it. I worked a part time job Friday night. It's good money, very boring work providing security at a construction site in the same city I police in. Mostly involves sitting around, watching movies and goofing off on the internet. The wife worked Friday and was scheduled to work Saturday as well. I had been hoping that we would get to spend Saturday and Sunday together but that was before I found out what her work schedule was. Anyways, I get home Saturday morning and the wife is looking HAWT! Something about her in scrubs just pushes my buttons. I didn't want her to go and she knew it. I didn't like the fact that she had to work but I just let it go.

Well, I wake up that afternoon and she had sent me a text message saying that her parents were going to keep our son so we could go out to dinner. I guess I was in a bad mood that evening. I'm just sick and tired of not having any time with her. Granted, it's not totally her fault. I work nights and she works days so that causes problems automatically. We end up driving up to a nearby town and get into a screaming argument in the process. There are a bunch of issues and I'm not about to get into them here but we ended up talking about a lot of things. I promised to try and spend some more time with her and go to bed a bit later so we can have some time alone while our son is in school.

I plan on talking to my boss this week to ask about going back to days next rotation. I really enjoy night shifts but they aren't worth my marriage. But, I'm going to try staying up until 10am this morning and then going to bed. We'll see how things work out. I do love my wife but I'm starting to feel as if we are drifting apart. She wants me to stay on nights since I'm pretty happy there but we need to figure out how we can maintain our relationship in the process. We're planning on going away for a weekend in early March and that will help. We've both been working very hard building careers and paying bills. My oldest stepson gets married in June and will hopefully be moving out then. If we can only get the other stepson off to college then things will be pretty sweet.

We've been discussing having another baby but I'm not sure where that is going. Our son is very intelligent and full of life. He has become obsessed with wanting a baby brother AND a baby sister. I thought it was cute and have been telling my wife all the things he's been saying about it. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!

My wife texts me the other night while I'm at work and has decided the exact day that she wants to get pregnant. This being so she can schedule the approximate date of birth so she'll have the summer off work and won't have to take kids to/from school on top of dealing with the baby. Well, this issue came up in the argument and she apparently feels like I'm pressuring her for another baby. So, I'm just going to leave it alone and not mention it. I'm not sure if that's the best approach but it's the best I can come up with right now.

Anyways, I'm back to work tonight. Hopefully we'll get some bad folks off the street and help some folks. Y'all have fun and be careful. I'm going to be keeping my head down at work as well as at home.

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!