Hello folks.
I'm moving to a new host and feedreader links will likely break.
I can be found at: Bad Tea
Please excuse the mess at the new place.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Cincinnati Police are Called In
To bring yourself up to speed, you’ll want to start a couple of posts ago with one called Stupid Things. Now that were all on the same page.
Baby, if you've ever
wondered ... wondered,
whatever became of me ...
I'm livin' on the air in
Cincinnati ...
"DON'T LIE TO ME!", the angry University of Cincinnati Cop shouted at Todd. He then gave us some room while he conversed with the UC policewoman. I gave Todd an update and told him how things were looking. He strolled off.
The angry UC cop told me they were going to call in the Cincinnati Police. I can only assume that, as I'd passed the field sobriety test the list of things he could charge me with were more limited than he liked. Maybe the Cincinnati police would have better luck. Maybe I'd screw up in front of them. Maybe the whole thing was standard operating procedure.
Joe came down from the Fawn-Brown Datsun. Like Todd, he acted like he was taking a walk through the streets of Cincinnati and just happened across me. "Hmmm, this Maurice guy," the UC Cops must have been thinking, "is certainly popular. He can't stand on the sidewalk forty miles from home for more than 15 minutes without running into people he knows. If only I were that popular."
Perhaps this is why angry cop was angry. He was just a bit jealous. Then, there's always the chance that he just didn't like being lied to.
Joe asked me what was going on. Angry cop asked Joe if he'd been in the Orange Datsun. Joe said he hadn't. Angry cop said ... everybody ... all together ...
"DON'T LIE TO ME!"
Joe and I have different approaches when it comes to dealing with law enforcement persons. Right after "Don't Lie to Law Enforcement Officials (To Save Your Butt)" I list "Always Be Polite When Speaking with Law Enforcement Officials" as point number two. The whole time I was conversing with the police ... and we'd shared many sentences, probably a paragraph or two, I was all "Yes sir," "No Sir," Yes Ma'am," "No Ma'am," "No, not very smart at all."
Joe had one exchange with angry cop: "I'M NOT LYING TO YOU! I GO TO SCHOOL HERE ..." there was more to it but I don't recall it all. Angry cop walked off. I gave Joe an update. (Joe is normally a very laid-back guy.)
A Cincinnati Police Officer arrived. I could overhear his conversation with Angry Cop.
"How many has he had to drink?" asked the Cincy Cop.
"He's had twelve."
The Cincinnati Officer paused, took a look at me and said, "He looks like he could hold twelve to me."
You could tell by his tone that he didn't mean if I was all hollowed out my shell could hold 144 ounces ... he meant that it looked like I could probably drink twelve beers and not be the problem some other twelve-beer drinkers might be. At the time I was running 250 pounds and, as always, had that stretched out over a 6'4" (plus a wee bit more) frame.
Next Episode: Another Field Sobriety Test
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Never Lie to The Man
... even when the man is a woman.
From last time:
A female University of Cincinnati police officer strolled up to the window. I let out and incredibly audible sigh that was heard for what it was.
"What are you so relieved about?" the policewoman asked.
"I thought you were going to be a man," I stupidly said.
The policewoman asked, "Have you been drinking?"
I believed then, as I do now, that lying to law enforcement officials is a bad idea.
"Yes." I said.
"How many have you had?"
"Twelve"
"Where'd you drink them?"
"I-75."
"What'd you do with the empties?"
"We threw them out." (On the grassy area we'd cut across. I was surprised the officers hadn't seen that.)
"Will you please step out of the car."
And I did.
It was then that I noticed the second University of Cincinnati police person. He had been on a dirt bike.
The guy officer struck me then, and still does, like he was on a power trip. Maybe he was just a genuine ass. Maybe out-of-towners driving across UC lawnage just pissed him off. He was about 5'10, so as he'd be yelling in my face he was almost standing on my toes and he'd be looking up at me.
"Who was in the orange Datsun?" he demanded?
"I don't know anything about an orange Datsun." (As I said in yesterday's entry, the Datsun was Fawn Brown in color.)
"DON'T LIE TO ME!!"
(Hmmmm. I seem to have broken my own Don't Lie to Law Enforcement Officials rule. The Fawn Brown vs Orange argument is sort of weak. Maybe that should be amended to say, "Never Lie to Law Enforcement To Save Your Own Butt." Lying to protect your buddies is somehow noble.)
I was given a field sobriety test. Lean back, spread out the arms, close the eyes and touch the nose with the fingertips. I also walked a straight line, did a spin, and walked back. I did a very good job. In different circumstances I'm sure I would have been given a gold star or certificate of achievement.
Todd, one of the guys from the Fawn-Brown Datsun walked down to see what was going on. He acted like he was just walking by and stumbling across me was a great coincidence.
"Maurice, what's going on?"
As I started to explain Cranky Cop got in his face and asked, "Were you in the orange Datsun?"
"No. I don't know what you're talking about," he said innocently.
"DON'T LIE TO ME!"
Next Episode: The Cincinnati Police are called in.
Friday, July 17, 2009
The Lighthouse, Cincinnati and The Man
Alright. You've all read the disclaimer from the other day. The one where I say I don't condone a lot of the stupid things I did when I was younger. Good.
It was probably 1982 and a group of us had decided to go to a bar called The Lighthouse in faraway Cincinnati. Well, it was about a 40-mile drive. I had Flying Fred as a passenger in my VW Beetle. My buddy Joe had his orange Datsun (the color was Fawn Brown according to Datsun... now Nissan).
We made it to Cincinnati without any problem -- it was a straight shot down I-75 -- and were able to get really really close to The Lighthouse, which was in the University of Cincinnati area.
Anyway, we kept driving around The Lighthouse, always able to see it but never able to get near it due to the configuration of one-way streets. I'd finally had enough and told Flying Fred that I was going to hop across a small grassy area so that we'd have a better angle on the bar. It was a really stupid thing to do.
As we hit the curb going onto the grassy area Fred said, "Lookout, it's the cops!"
"Throw all the empties out," I suggested as I continued across the grass. Fred complied.
"What are we going to do?" Fred asked.
Assuming the cops were University of Cincinnati cops and on foot, I said, "We're going outrun them."
And then luck turned her head my way. As I came off the far curb the car died. Had it not, I would have preceded right, down the road and away from the UC police. They were not all on foot.
The Bruise (the name of the Beetle) had a problem of dying occasionally. When it died it took about 10 minutes for her to decide to start back up. I didn't even try to turn the engine over.
I rolled down the window and waited.
A female University of Cincinnati police officer strolled up to the window. I let out and incredibly audible sigh that was heard for what it was.
"What are you so relieved about?" the policewoman asked.
"I thought you were going to be a man," I stupidly said.
Do you detect a theme?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Stupid Things
I am not going to defend any of the stupid things I did when I was younger. Some of them, while possibly considered stupid by others (skydiving) were rather fun. Others there is no defense for; these are the ones I lie awake at night trying to figure out how to keep my kids from doing.
Under the category of "others" falls having a few beers and then getting into a car to tool around with some buddies. Maybe that should say, "drive around with buddies"; I've been advised that "tool around" means different things different places.
Anyway, drinking and driving is a bad idea. You don't need me to tell you that.
There was a comedian on the other day commenting on George Bush's arrest for drunk driving. The comic said something like, "This was back in the early 80's. Do you know how hard it was arrested to for driving under the influence in the early 80's"?
Bush's arrest came in '76 according to the link above. But I believe I started that last paragraph with "There was a comedian on the other day" and not "I was having coffee with Bush's autobiographer." We need to cut the comic some slack -- they're not all as good at being funny and historically correct as Eddie Izzard. (Yep, I said, Bush's Autobiographer. What. You think he's going to write it himself?)
In 1976 I was 16. I can't say I was really doing any drinking then. Well, about that time I had a bottle of wine one night. Several of us camped out and had some alcohol. The most memorable thing was one of the guys getting sick on warm Little Kings (that's a 7-ounce bottle in the picture) and having dry heaves most of the night. It was awesome.
When I look back on a particular period of time it seems like my friends and I were getting pulled over fairly often. We were never horribly smashed and we weren't getting pulled over for weaving. Until this minute I'd never given this much thought -- maybe the police would get wise when they'd see the same group of boys drive by time and time again and they'd pull us over just to see what was going on. We'd always have beer. Somebody might have to take a field-sobriety test. We'd often be told to be careful. We'd be sent on our way and told to go home. Given how the law has changed over the years it isn't hard to believe that, by today's standards, we would have been over the blood-alcohol-content line. By 1980's standards, maybe not.
The police may have been cutting us some slack as we lived in small-town Ohio. A person didn't have to go but a mile or two to be out in the county where there isn't too much to run into. Maybe it's because a lot of these officers grew up in the 50's when there was even less to do and they knew... well, just knew. Maybe it was because none of us were hardcore hoodlums.
I should point out that the Thugs I ran around drinking with were a pretty tame group by anybody’s standards.
What have we got here?
Alcohol and autos are a bad combination. I am not saying otherwise. My buddies and I are lucky we didn't get hurt or hurt someone else.
Having said that, there are some, in retrospect, interesting things that happened in which alcohol was involved.
(Other observations: I rarely drink anymore and have a been aging the same six-pack for about two months in the fridge. The guy that almost killed me may have been hammered; but that's another story.)
Technorati Tags: Small-town Ohio,Bad Ideas
Thursday, July 9, 2009
On The Road Again
I took this from my cell phone not long ago as I was driving near Cincinnati. Sorry the image is so crappy.
I don’t think this picture does justice to just how much it looks like someone’s drawn a penis and testicles on the Warren County water tower. It’s actually a big “W” … a testicularly-shaped “W” which also has a bit of penis working in it.
My inner 12-year old laughs at this each time I pass it.
Technorati Tags: Warren County Water Tower
Monday, July 6, 2009
Hung
I have a Dell Latitude C800 Notebook. I had to flip the unit over to make sure it was a C800; that point seems insignificant now but will make a bit more sense in just a minute.
The notebook is at least six years old.
About four months ago it fell out of my bag, roughly waist high, and dropped three feet or so; the latch broke.
The touchpad has been replaced twice to fix a drifting mouse pointer -- both times under warranty and neither time fixing the problem for too terribly long. Unplugging and replugging the touchpad connector fixes the problem for a short while. Using a PS2 mouse is a better solution.
Maybe a year ago the notebook started freezing when it was bumped a bit. I took the keyboard off and remade all the connections I could see. The problem went away for about a year.
When it reappeared I did the same thing. I took the keyboard off and remade all the connections I could see. This did not fix the problem. I repeated. Repeated again. Rinsed once and repeated a third time.
Well, I repeated a couple of more times, each time I'd try to take a little more out of the notebook. Once or twice I found something I'd missed.
Two days ago I sneezed with the notebook on my lap and it hung. I rebooted and ... and ... and I'd like to say I was browsing porn and the same thing that caused John Belushi to fall backward while on the ladder in Animal House caused my PC to hang .... but I wasn't browsing porn and besides, it would be giving me too much credit. (The hang/hung joke is too easy to make and I refuse to go for it.)
So, I got back to work making sure to do a save every minute or so. Eventually I overpunctuated and the extra pounding on the keyboard caused a crash. I started the reboot before coming to my senses and grabbing a screwdriver.
I took the whole thing apart. I had the screen off, the drives out, RAM out, the modem out, daughter boards were removed, if there was a screw to be unscrewed I unscrewed it and removed whatever it was holding down.
Sort of satisfied I slapped it all back together. The whole thing took about 20 minutes.
Thus far there have been no problems. And I should point out that between tying "Thus" and "far" I took a break and juggled the C800, a bowling ball and a kitten while whistling The Sabre Dance.
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