Thur's no muny like us - an they're a' deed!

Yesterday was Thursday. Thursday, February 21st to be exact. It was an uneventful day. Totally normal in every aspect. No major news. No big announcements. Not really worth mentioning. Except... that two years ago, on another February 21st, I kissed my father for the last time, I told him I loved him for the last time, and I watched him as he slipped the bonds of his ragged, battered, beleaguered body and kissed the face of God.

I can't explain how much I miss him. He is the reason I am the man that I am. He may not have had the education, the style, or much else others desire, but he had a heart full of love, a head full of dreams, and a soul full of genuine kindness. He could be incredibly stubborn, opinionated, and even down-right annoying, but everything he did - he did it for or with us. He loved trains, planes and automobiles. He liked to fish, hunt and garden. He loved to swing a hammer, swing dance and swing us in his arms. He could be cute and embarrassing all at the same time. He loved the attention but never sought the credit. He worked hard, played hard, and at times, celebrated hard. He gave soft, warm hugs and was a closet romantic who adored our mother till the day he died. Above all he was my dad. I will always miss him.

"G' oan yer sel' wee man!"

Crap...I'm getting older!

Last night I was driving though one of the more rural communities we serve when I came to a 4-way intersection. As I sat at the stop sign waiting for cross traffic I looked at the house across the street and had one of those "chuckle memories". You know, a memory where you recall an incident or event and you can't help but audibly chuckle at it. The kind of thing that makes anyone nearby look at you kind of sideways and say something like, "You okay?" or "What was that?"

Anyway, I saw this old house with a huge front and side yard surrounded by a four foot high wooden plank fence, kinda like the ones you see at fancy horse ranches, and I remembered answering a call of a fight at that residence and the male half being armed. When I arrived I wanted to approach stealthily so I parked down the road a short ways and walked back to the side yard of this home. The chuckle part came when I tried to jump the fence. I stepped onto the bottom plank and began to swing my other leg over the top of the fence when the plank gave way and popped right off the posts. The top plank hit me hard on the inside of my thigh and I was bruised there for weeks. More immediately, though, my attempt at stealth sucked because when the plank let go it made an awful clatter and then I let loose with some manner of short, loud expletive!

Anyway we handled the call no problems and the guy ended up not having any weapons in the house (they were in his truck). But the sudden flash of that memory made me chuckle and it was then I realized something horrible...

That happened over TEN YEARS AGO!!!!!!! WOW!!

I have become the veteran cop I never thought I would be when I was that fresh, new, 2 year Deputy trying to sneak up on a home and bustin' the guys crappy old fence. You know it's really true though, what they say, time really does fly when you're having fun!

March!...Already?

Holy cow! Where the heck did this month go! I'll tell you where, meetings, more meetings, and typing, typing, typing. This has been the first month since I made Sergeant that I have spent more time in the office than on the road. Don't get me wrong I know that as a supervisor I have administrative responsibilities - but GEEZ!

I'm just lucky I have a decent squad of Deputies under me. I fortunately have a crew that I CAN supervise from my desk if need be. I had my radio on my desk, cranked up so I could at least feel like I was "working" and hammered out the admin pile that never seemed to shrink. It got to the point I didn't want to touch my home computer - I was done with computers! Unfortunately, that meant no blogging. Well, I had to come back to it today because I suddenly realized it had been almost a whole month - NOT COOL! I don't know how both of you, my faithful readers, survived this long!

Anywho, I'm back and ready to blog again. (This is the part where you all cheer and jump out of your chair with excitement) I live to serve!

The Aussie Invasion

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the TV without being bombarded by "The Wiggles" my little Princess has found a new, more potent form of Kiddie Crack to get addicted to. THE UPSIDE DOWN SHOW is a pantomime of improvised, imagination games and problems hosted by two hyper-silly lads from the land down-under.

The Upside Down Show stars Shane Dundas and David Collins who portray two brothers who live together in a strange house with a variety of unusual rooms (windy room, sandwich room, bicycle room to name a few). The show is aired here on NOGGIN but Shane and David are supremely Austrailian. They share this house with "Puppet", a striped legwarmer puppet, and the Shmuzzies, little, muli-colored flufballs with eyes. These guys are physical comedy pros and are very physical each and every second of each and every episode.

But it is not the on screen antics of Shane and David as it is the effect this show has on The Princess. She is so into this show she actually "shooshed" me this morning because I was distracting her by asking about breakfast. When not being "interrupted" by daddy The Princess sits en-tranced by this show like it has some super spell that makes kids sit down, shut-up and want to be left alone with Shane and David and Puppet and the Shmuzzies.

I don't know what it is with kids and Austrailians but I think we should import as many as we can and everyone gets a Super-Aussie Kinder Keeper 3000 to entertain, enlighten and enthral the little cherubs. At least for a half hour so we can all get some peace.

Incidently, Shane and David started as "The Umbilical Brothers" and still tour and perform regularly. Their site is a goofy as they are:

http://www.umbilicalbrothers.com/whoswho/index.html