Good times at work

This evening I worked with Buddy and Jojo, and we had a most excellent time. Joanne made me “sketti and balls” which was delicious, and there were cookies laying around too for Todd’s birthday. It was another slow night, but we survived by making fun of each other and everyone else (as is standard), and telling funny stories (like about our parents doing the unmentionable).

It was a bad night for drifters and hobos… our officers had to deal with one in our jurisdiction who was inhabiting a building he shouldn’t have, and we assisted a neighboring agency with getting photographs of a guy they think lives out in the woods and steals food. Like a hermi.. hermi… hermit crab? I don’t remember if that was the word I wanted or not.

A writer for USA Today came and spoke in my journalism class this morning about the Jason Blair scandal at the New York Times. He told us how, on several occasions, he noted obvious lies in Blair’s articles but it didn’t occur to him that they were actually fabrications, believing there was some explanation he wasn’t aware of. In retrospect, it was plain as day.

Some of my classmates couldn’t wrap their heads around this, thinking it was just too obvious and didn’t understand why Blair wasn’t caught. I understand what the guy means. I remember a very nice lady I worked with at a grocery store back home. One day she was hauled out in handcuffs for some type of a coupon-fraud scheme. In hindsight, there were a lot of questionable actions on her part that should have clued me in to the criminal plot unfolding in front of me over a long period of time. I was blind to it, because she was a nice lady, and why would I be suspicious? It’s human nature I suppose.

Editors at media outlets now have to find a balance between being respectful of their journalists, and being overly suspicious. Sometimes, when a story seems so good, you don’t see the flaws as an editor.

Sorry about the journaspeak… return to your regularly scheduled program.

Seacrest out.

Sitting around

It’s 5am, and the end of my shift is approaching. FOX News is jabbering in the background (eyeroll) and I’ve spent hours reading news and blogs this evening. Monday nights aren’t known for being action-packed.

I finally turned in my officially-signed drop slip for the French class I decided to ditch at the last minute, getting in right before the deadline. My professor and I had an awkward “nice doing business with you” conversation as he signed it – in which I tried to convey that I wasn’t dropping it because it was a horrible class, but for other reasons.

FOX has six commentators on right now, all in little boxes on the screen. If I was in the control room, I’d be cueing the Brady Bunch theme right about now.

Some things I forgot to cover recently:

You can browse some recent pictures from the last Miami U football game I worked with MUEMS right here.

The game was during fall break (beautiful planning) so the crowd was light and we had a few less EMTs than normal, so it was a relaxed time.

Hm, what else…

I’m getting a laptop soon and deciding on what kind is proving difficult.

I need to find a place to live next school year. There are a few pricey but nice new apartments in town, but do I want to drop that much money, and do I want to live with random people? Decision 2005.

It’s COLD outside. Damn you winter, damn you.

New Job, (Sorta) Big Changes

I am guilty of rarely updating my journal, and for a couple reasons. Usually it is because there is some major thing that has already occurred that I have yet to cover, and when a little thing comes along I don’t post about it because god-forbid things are out of chronological order. I’m gonna get over that.

Secondly, I spend way too much time reading my friends blogs and journals and then don’t post in my own, so I think I am going to enforce a ‘post in your own before reading others’ rule.

On to the (sorta) big life changes….

As many of you know, I’ve worked in a student position part-time as a dispatcher at the university’s police department. I’ve been in the hiring process for a part-time dispatcher spot at the city’s police department as well.

Rather unexpectedly, a full-time position as dispatcher came up and was offered to me at the university. At the same time I was offered the part time job with the city, and decisions had to be made.

I’ve accepted the full time spot with the university. It is going to make life rough, as I will now be a full time worker and full time student, and I will most likely be working 3rd shift (at night).

I accepted the job because:

• As a full time staff member of the university, my tuition is free.
• I already know and love my co-workers
• It’s the same job I already do so I skip the training period and go right into the regular full-time pay
• The full time pay is a significant raise, and with the big increase of hours worked, I will have more money than I will know what to do with. I will drink champagne for breakfast every day, just because I can.

It certainly will make life hard… I will be working at night time, going to classes in the morning, and sleeping when the sun is up fairly regularly. For right now, I only work four days a week with ten hour shifts, so I get three days off… so that won’t be every night.

Other updates to come… for now I am off to one of my classes on the Middletown campus.

Comment if the spirit moves you.

The problem with French (class)

So, I don’t speak French. This has been, and forever will be, a hindrance in French class.

I took three years of French in high school. During that time, we changed teachers and text books, and at the conclusion I knew French curse words but couldn’t speak worth a damn.

Fast-forward to college, where every major within the College of Arts and Science requires the completion of a foreign language up to the 202 level. As fate would have it, my major is within CAS and I was doomed to more non-english struggles. I decided to stick with French, figuring the years in high school would count for something. I took the placement test my freshman year, and by the third question I couldn’t even read what they were asking. At that point I placed myself in French 101.

I’ve muddled through and am in 202 now, but I am doing oh so badly. During the last test, it took every ounce of strength and pride not to cry like a three-year-old girl with a stubbed toe.

We got that test back yesterday, and I got a 22. I had hoped that was at least out of 50 points, but alas, it was a percentage. I was rather set on dropping the class at that point and taking another crack at it next semester, but the professor offered to the class a chance to retest by the end of the week. I will make an effort, at least, and evaluate the situation at that point.

On the bright side, I found forty dollars in my pocket I didn’t realize I had. That is pretty awesome.

Later, I got a call from Allison Truax, former Miami EMT extraordinaire. She is all graduated now and working like an adult. It was very nice to hear from her. She wanted to know all about the wedding between the two crazy kids pictured here, Buddy and Teri.

Yes, Buddy is a man now. It is hard to believe after knowing Buddy for a few years now that he is all married and the world may one day contain little Buddys. Lord help us.

Trying out WordPress

I got the golden ticket in my mailbox today inviting me to try the beta release of wordpress.com, the latest contender in hosted weblog publishing. I like what I see so far, it certainly rivals Blogger, which I have long been devoted to.

It includes several no-brainer features I’ve been dying for Blogger to add, like categories for posts and password protected entries.

At the same time, it lacks some critical features I use every day with Blogger, like the ability to FTP your blog so it is on your own site rather than their hosted spot.

I’ll be watching this closely to see how it matures. If there was a way to import my posts from Blogger, I might be tempted to have my journal here instead. Not yet, though.

Home for a day

I came home to spend a night with the family because it had been a while since I’ve been back (and also to make use of the washing machine).

My sisters Sarah and Ellen had their homecoming dance on Saturday night. I was charged with taking their pictures before they left.

My parents ordered me some food from my favorite pizza place, Flyers, which I miss greatly while at school.

Yum.

Tomorrow: The wedding of Buddy Jackson.

Standing in the rain

Yesterday, after a Criminology exam in Middletown, I came back to work the second half of the Miami football game vs. University of Cincinnati. Our new uniforms were in, and the embroidered name strip on the front had in big bold letters “B. VERDA”. For those of you just joining us, my name was spelled wrong.

It is only five freaking letters. If people aren’t pronouncing it that way, they spell it that way. It’s Vedra. Vee-druh. For the love of god. Kes, whose last name is crazy-long, has his spelled correctly. Oh well, it will be fixed. I might as well just change my name.

Last night when the storm started… storming, some electrical wires at Talawanda and Church Street started sparking all crazy-like. I had the pleasure of standing in my fire gear in the rain for three hours, directing cars away. We called the electric company and their response was “30,000 people are without power and we have 12 other powerlines doing what yours is doing. It will be a while.”

So we had to wait for someone to be called in from the street department to block the intersection. It actually wasn’t too bad because the shield on my helmet kept the rain out of my face and it didn’t soak through to my clothes. And I got paid, so I like the sound of that. It did make me sleep through my 8am class though. What did anyone ever need to know about Shakespeare anyways?

Today was warm out, but it is clearly transitioning to sweatshirt weather. Goodbye summer.

I’m about to go see Corpse Bride. When Laura announced the approach of corpse-briding, I found it amusing that the phrase is one letter away from corpse-riding, which is very different.

To the Big Apple

I’ve done a crappy job of updating recently. Maybe I will catch up on that, and maybe that portion of my life is lost to history for ever and ever.

I’m leaving for New York City tomorrow morning. The annual trip to the CMJ conference with WMSR. Panel discussions with industry leaders, new music, promotional schwag galore. All this and more awaits me in the city that never sleeps.

I’ll be back on Sunday night. Leave the light on for me.

Labor Day Weekend

I invite you on a visual look back over my Labor Day weekend.

On Sunday, Mike and I hit Miami Whitewater Forest in Harrison, Ohio.

After a trip to the local LaRosa’s for some Italian eatery, we headed for the park and embarked on some biking… water-style.

On Monday, Jon and I decided upon a Labor Day picnic. We hit up Kroger and Subway for eatables, and then it was off to nearby Hueston Woods State Park.

After lunch, it was exploring time. The title of a nearby trail alluded to the presence of a waterfall, so we went looking for it.

After climbing a mountain and climbing back down, we found the waterfall. The little waterfall that could.

A most excellent weekend.

Catfish Car

Does this car look like a catfish to anyone else? It does to me. Add whiskers and fins. It is SO a catfish.

Silly old Chrysler.