Not as metal as it could be

One of my favorite events of the year is here again: the annual ILEETA training conference.

ILEETA stands for International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Association. ILEETA was founded several years ago by Ed Nowicki and a group of other dedicated law enforcement trainers. Simply put, it's the best organization I've ever encountered for anyone in the law enforcement community involved in training and education.

One of the cool things about the conference is the swag. While this year's haul is not as impressive as in years past (times are hard, folks) it's still pretty cool.

This year I opened my official ILEETA duffel bag and found this knife:

Pretty sweet, huh? Now, check out the box it came in:



"DARK SILENCE"! If you ask me, that's pretty f*cking metal. The only way that knife could be more metal would be if they spelled "silence" with a "y".

Whew...

See that?

That's a clean desk top, complete with a desk blotter that's already had the inked-up, coffee-stained March page torn off. April's page sits there, a tabula rasa, because I won't walk back through those doors until April 6.

Yep. That's my office, the way I left it at 7 pm last night

The last 6 weeks or so have wrecked me. I'm about 15 pounds overweight, the result of too many surveillances, too many schedule changes, too much fast food and too many jibaritos while driving around Chicago looking for the last few pieces of the puzzle that we need to solve our open murder. My skin looks pale and saggy and I'm just getting over a wicked cold. I've only run a couple of lethargic 2 or 3 milers in the last month. The shitty gray weather has suited my mood most of the time.

But things are looking up, now that I'm away from the desk you see pictured above and everything that goes along with it.

I leave for Dallas tonight, shoot a training video tomorrow and then come home Thursday. Hopefully I'll have time to visit the Book Depository and the grassy knoll along the way.

This time next week we'll be eating a big-ass southern breakfast at the Blue & White Restaurant in Tunica, Mississippi, on our way down to New Orleans. I might even have pie after breakfast. When we're back from spring break in New Orleans I head right into my favorite job-related event of the year, the ILEETA conference, where I will shift gears from gorging myself on rich food to gorging myself on law enforcement tactical swag.

Now it's time to get the youngest to school, get a haircut and pack my bags.

See you later, alligators.

Power Rings and Coffee

Those aren't donuts.

Those are power rings.

This is how I started my day.

ILEETA Conference, Day 5: Time to self-medicate

There's nothing wrong with me that handfuls of ibuprofen, glasses of bourbon and 12 hours of sleep can't fix. And maybe some massage, and a few visits to my chiropractor.

Today was the last day of the ILEETA conference, and I spent the day (8 hours) attending a class taught by mixed martial arts fighter Frank Shamrock. What a nice guy! There were about 80 guys (and two or three gals) in the class, and Frank came around and personally talked to and coached every person in the room at least 6 or 7 times by the time the class ended. I was pleased and surprised to see not a hint of arrogance or ego. What an excellent coach.

The class was a distilled version of Frank's mixed martial arts for law enforcement program. It was a blast. We did lots of stuff that looked like this:



And now I'm paying for it. Oww. My balls got mashed, the insides of my thighs and my upper arms are covered in bruises, and my back and shoulders are all seized up. But God was it fun!

So now the conference is over.

I won a final raffle prize yesterday, a $50 gift certificate for a law enforcement book publisher. I need to go to their website and pick out some stimulating reading.

Tomorrow I return to work and start thinking of ways to apply my newfound knowledge to our training program there.

Good times!

ILEETA Conference, Day 3: Look ma, I'm an armorer

I am now a certified Glock pistol armorer. That's how I spent my day--disassembling and reassembling Glock pistols, and learning fixes for common problems. So, uh, if any of you readers need a Glock pistol cleaned and inspected, or need any simple repairs done, let me know.

ILEETA Conference, Day 1: high on swag

Well, day one is over, and I'm sitting here looking over my swag from today. The conference organizers really outdid themselves this year. Here's the haul so far:

-2 ILEETA logo polo shirts

-An ILEETA sweatshirt

-An ILEETA hooded sweatshirt

-A laptop computer briefcase (this saved me some money, because I was about to buy one this week.)

-A black nylon gym bag with the ILEETA logo tastefully displayed on the side, containing:
-A Princeton Tec mini flashlight
-A 1gig flash drive
-2 pepper sprays
-A notebook/binder
-A whole bunch of free pens, carabiners, mini-lights, stress balls and assorted brochures and publications.

Then, while going around the vendors, I picked up a Magnum Claw. The Magnum Claw is a cool tire spike contraption that you can place under the wheel of a parked car; the car drives over the spikes and is deflated. Good times! I also got some more flash drives, a little stress ball shaped like a hand grenade, a canvass tote bag and some gun cleaning supplies from OTIS and a bunch more stuff than I can remember. Finally, I won a coupon for half off the price of a groundfighting class I'm interested in.

Oh, man, I bought some stuff too. Two new KA-BAR knives: a TDI law enforcement knife, and a new product called a TDI-LDK, that's a small knife that can be worn around the neck, or laced into a boot. I also picked up some new neoprene shooting gloves.

Cross your fingers for me, or chant nam myoho renge kyo, or something, because they have a kick-ass raffle later this week. The Bubs family arsenal could really expand if I get lucky.

TRAINING, SIR!

This is going to be a good week.

Starting later this morning I will be attending the ILEETA International Training Conference and Expo in Wheeling. ILEETA stands for International Law Enforcement Educators And Trainers Association. The conference runs 5 days, and it's the best variety of workshops, classes and instructor certification courses assembled in one place that I've ever seen. I've been a police defensive tactics instructor for about 10 years, and it's really good to have programs like this to help stay sharp.

As an added bonus there's an expo that runs the first two days where you can check out lots of cool new equipment; maybe I'll even get to pick up one of those cool rubber slappers. Oh, did I mention the goody bag? ILEETA, without a doubt, gives out the best swag of any conference I've been to. I can't wait to see what I get today.

Here's what my schedule looks like:

Tuesday-attend the vendor expo in the morning, then an afternoon presentation titled "Characteristics of the Armed Individual."

Wednesday-official opening ceremonies. The guest speaker is Officer Marcus Young. You can read his amazing story here. In the afternoon I'll attend a presentation by Bill Lewinski of the Force Science Research Center.

Thursday-I'll be attending the Glock pistol armorer's course. At the end of the day I'll be a "factory-trained armorer capable of servicing all models of GLOCK pistols."

Friday- Another 8-hour class, this one from Phil Messina, on takedown techniques and "how to better adapt and adjust to unexpected environments, weapons and extra assailants, as well as the chaos of a violent confrontation." That should be fun.

Saturday- If Phil Messina doesn't beat me up good enough, this should finish me off. Frank Shamrock is presenting an 8 hour class titled "Mixed Martial Arts for Law Enforcement."

So, my week in a nutshell--two days of shmoozing and free stuff, followed by one day in a classroom, followed by two days of rolling around on the mats. I hope everyone has a week as fun as mine!