Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Here we go



This is me, about to light the fuse, and I have that same sense of fierce determination and anticipation.

One of two things is about to happen: I'll either be shot forcefully (and successfully, I hope) into the holiday season and all its activities, joys and demands...

Or I'll crash headlong over the side of a cliff, the firing Acme rocket still strapped to my carcass.

Either way, there's no turning back now, and I kind of like how that feels.

...

I work rotating shifts and change hours each month; today marks the first day of working evenings (3:30pm to midnight.) I just finished a month on days, and one of the advantages of investigations is that I no longer work midnights. Working evenings is great--you get a lot of stuff done during the day, you're not bothered with as many administrative tasks, and you meet more interesting people at work.

This month, though, is shaping up to be even more of a chaotic blur than last month was. The downside of working evenings is that you still have plenty of work-related stuff to do during the day: court and training, for instance, so that you frequently end up working 12-16 hour days, you end up being awake from 7am until 1 or 2 am, and there's always the possibility of staying late or getting called in early. In a couple of hours I'm heading down to the Daley Center to testify in a civil trial that's related to a forgery arrest I made nearly 2 years ago.

I've got to prepare for firearms training tomorrow. My department uses an outdoor range in Wisconsin about 6 times a year; the outdoor range days are great. We shoot all the long guns (MP-5, AR-15, M-14 and shotgun) as well as running a lot of handgun courses that we can't do on an indoor range. It's a whole day outdoors, and we usually grill while we're up there. It's a good time. I usually try and bring up some of the compound arsenal to keep my skills up.

Tomorrow's training will end with a night shoot after dinner, and I'm in charge of dinner-- chili for 20+. So I need to get my propane tank refilled and my turkey fryer ready to travel, since it's got enough capacity for 15 pounds of meat. One of my friends gave me a bunch of venison steaks to cut up into the chili grind, and I'm looking forward to that. Tomorrow will run from noon until 9pm, but that counts as my workday.

Friday is a normal workday. Nothing extra planned there. Yet.

Saturday I'm heading out to Mooseheart, Illinois for a police and fire honor guard competition. Not to compete, just to observe and see how other departments structure and run their drill teams. Most important, Saturday is the night of the girls' Halloween party. OH, that reminds me. Friday will be for cleaning the house before I go to work.

I took two extra days off next week so I can work a side job for a friend of mine and generate some extra lettuce for the holidays.

The weekend of the 17/18 is Crispin Glover at the Music Box. That same weekend some of MizBubs' family come up from Texas, and we all have an early Thanksgiving here. Then on Sunday morning we all get up half-hungover and run the Lincolnwood Turkey Trot. After the first time when we all did the 10k, we got wise and now run the 5k.

Then it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving, and our annual trip out to Iowa. This year's event is complicated, though. There's been some upheaval in the family there, and it's not clear how any of it's going to play out; one of the people involved hasn't really spoken to anyone else in the family about it yet. We'll see what happens.

My coffee is finished. It's time to get going.

See you next month.



3 comments:

Tenacious S said...

Hope your rocket came from a reputable company. That Acme stuff is total crap.

Joe said...

I swear by Acme. How dare you impugn them.

Tenacious S said...

OK, Mr. Coyote. Meep! Meep!