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Monday, April 25, 2011

4 Days Off

It is finally raining like it is spring.  The back yard looks more like a full pond than green grass.  We needed rain badly.  But why does it have to go from drought conditions to flooding? It also made it difficult to take Easter photos when it would not quit raining. 
There were a few moments when it was just sprinkling that we snuck in a few with the use of an umbrella. 

Aren't they just the cutest little family?
I took this one in Rob and Carrie's back yard.  Theirs does not look like a pond.  It is just pretty and green.

The trip to Missouri was nice.  My baby girl went with us this time and her Hubby dog sat for us.  It was nice to have her along. 
On the way there she slept and I took pictures. 

On the way home she only took a short nap and then I got to sleep. That was a rare treat!  It rained the whole way home.  Most of the time it was a hard rain too!  It is always nice to get home after a trip.  This time even more so cause we played way too hard all weekend! 
It started Thursday night at a club in Tulsa called Crow Creek.  My little brother's band played there and I finally got to hear them!  I enjoyed myself so much.  As the night went on I noticed something.  My little sister Lisa and my little brother Joe have many of the same mannerism.  The only time they lived together was one summer for a few months.  They have different mothers.  They had completely different upbringings.  But I kept noticing similarities.  Strange what we can inherit.  
Friday night was the George Thorogood concert.    Excellent concert!  We stayed out way too late considering we were getting up early the next morning for a road trip.  Going to bed after 2:00am when the alarm goes off at 7:00am was painful!  Who would have guessed we would run into my little brother Joe after the concert?  So, after seeing him last summer for the 1st time in almost 20 years, I saw him twice last week. 
We need to make plans to spend time in a place that does not have a live band playing so we can talk more!  There are so many things that I want to ask him about.
We made good time on the trip down and it was so nice to spend time with Cohen and his Mommy and Daddy.  Mattie hogged the baby.  I think she might like babies almost as much as I do.  I have several pictures of them playing together.  Here are a few of my favorites. 



It looks like he might like his Aunt Mattie a little bit too. 

Carrie's sister lives right around the corner from them and we were invited to their house for Easter Lunch.  The food was wonderful!  They made us feel so welcome.  She let me use her tri-pod.  Plus she didn't mind if I took a few pictures.  Her little boys were adorable!  Long eye lashes, cute smiles and such friendly little guys.  I only got to snap a few pictures before the youngest had enough.  He was not in the mood to cooperate. 


He may not have wanted to hold still for a family photo session but once they sat him down he got busy showing off.




See what I mean about the long eye lashes?  Such handsome boys!  I enjoyed meeting some of Carrie's family. 
 
 
 
I am so glad I took today off.  I needed it to recover from last week.  Too much stress and playing too hard.  I had several doctor's appointments, they were the cause of my stress.  Some good news and some unanswered questions still.  The x-rays show the bones are healing fine but the nerves are still causing me problems.  I had another EMG test.  It was on both arms this time.  Another reminder that I still do not like needles.  I am also not very fond of getting shocked.  Go figure. 
I really hate letting strangers touch me.  It makes me a nervous wreck.  I am such a wimp.
Hopefully the test will give them some answers as to why my hands and arms are still going numb. 
So now I wait until they call with the test results. 

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Wishy washy fluff stuff

Because I am no different than any other human.  Well, maybe not all others are like this, but I know at least a few are.  I have seen them so I know that makes them real.  No really.  I think. 
What I am trying to say is, I don't think I am the only one that wants what I don't or can't have. 
If it is boring at work I want excitement.  If it is too challenging then I want things to go back to boring.  When I was off recovering from surgery and couldn't make it through a day with out a nap, I was sick of them.  Today at around 2:00 I would have loved to be able to take one.  One thing I never wish for is winter.  I might wish for spring or fall on the hottest summer day, but never winter. 
It makes it sound like I am never satisfied with what I have.  But I am.  I would like to have a few things different but that doesn't mean I am unhappy.  I have a nice car but if I had to give it up tomorrow I would be alright with that.  If someone asked me if I would like a nicer car I could honestly answer, sure, but I won't be upset if that never happens.  I take pleasure in nice things but they are not what makes me happy. 
Sitting at my daughter's dining room table after she fed me dinner this week and watching the pleasure she got from having her family at her house, that made me happy.  Getting a phone call from my oldest daughter just cause she wanted to talk to me about a good purchase she found makes me happy.  Watching my stepson sing nursery songs to his child makes me happy.  Seeing that "guilty little boy" look on my husband's face makes me smile every time.  Spending the evening with my Grandmother playing cribbage makes me happy.  It doesn't matter how many times I see or hear these things they always touch my heart.   
There are things that I long for desperately.  I long to hold my children as babies again.  When they were young I was often too busy to truly appreciate them.  I long to eat one of my Grandmother Clark's warm homemade sugar cookies.  Her memory has failed her and she can no longer cook.  Cooking for her family was the easiest way for her to show her love.  I would love to give my Grandmother Lottie a hug again.  She was such a gentle person.  But God has already taken her. 
So while thinking about all of this I have concluded that while I might be wishy washy about some stuff, it is just the fluff stuff.  When it is the things that make my heart skip a beat, I don't have any doubts.  What I do need to do is pay more attention and enjoy each of those moments.  They never last very long.  The child grows up, the cookies get eaten, and the hug only lasts for a few precious moments.  The memory might be all I have of these things but they are such good memories.  I have to pay attention so that I can remember the things that I enjoyed this week so I can add them to my list of good memories. 
Maybe if I write them down. 
Take pictures of them. 
Re-live them in my mind. 
Dream of them. 
Share them. 
Maybe then it will help keep the thought of that child fresh when they are grown.  It might help me to remember the taste of crab apple jelly in the center of those warm sugar cookies.  Or to remember the gentle heart that always made me feel accepted. 
So I loved the way baby (or toddler) Mik ran around me in circles while I sat on the floor.  I liked his smile.  I liked grabbing him up and stealing a few kisses before I sat him back down.  I loved hearing him laugh when my sister pretended to eat his fingers.  I loved watching him crawl around under Gram's dining room table.  I remember his dad crawling under that table.  I LOVE the history of that.  I love that my Grams was in a good mood tonight and seemed to enjoy her great great Grandson. 
I will probably always be wish washy about the fluff stuff.  After all it is only exciting if it doesn't happen all the time. I am ready to be bored at work again.  It can start next week.  I might even be happy with it being boring for several weeks before I start looking around wondering what could I possibly stir up. 
I think I might go take me a nap now. 

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Rain

Thank God it rained tonight!  It has been way too dry for spring.  How are things supposed to turn green or bloom in May if it don't rain in April?
I enjoy listening to the rain.  We have a corrugated roof on our covered patio that the rain sounds so cool hitting.  It does get loud when the hail hits it.  Thank goodness it was just pea size.  There has been some cool thunder too.  But the lightening has been wicked.  Two houses have been hit in town.  It reminds me of my fun in dispatch.  I have the back door open listening to the rain and sirens.  Enjoying the fact that I am NOT answering 911 anymore.  A shout out to the ones that are working in there tonight!  I hope it didn't get too crazy!  This type of crazy keeps the dispatchers, officers and firemen busy but it doesn't usually make much paper work for me.  Other than trying to edit the call list for the media in the morning.  That might be a bit longer with all the weather related calls.  Thunder Storms sure set off a lot of false alarms.  That can add to my work.  But 1st I still have to figure out a better way to track the false alarms on the software.  What I've got is not good enough.  I might need to think of something else.  Seems like the more I think on this the more I realize how much work the weather is causing me after all.
Hmmmgh
I had a customer this week that reminded me of something.  Smile.  Enjoy life.  Grumpy people are ugly no matter what they look like.  I wonder how much better she would have looked if she would have smiled?
 
I should wrap things up and start getting ready for bed.  I haven't felt good this week and it was really hard to get up this morning.  I do get to sleep a bit later in the morning since I don't have to be at work until 8:00.  I also took a long nap after work.  So maybe Friday morning won't be as bad with all that extra sleep.

I need to check my gutters.  It was raining pretty hard, but I might need to make sure they aren't clogged up.  Pretty sure the gutter is supposed to divert the rain to the down spout.  Not fall out along the length of it like this. 
I need to start a to do list.   

Saturday, April 9, 2011

This day was good.

I spent the afternoon at Philbrook Museum taking pictures of a beautiful little girl.

  I love visiting this place.  It is hard to imagine that at one time this was a residence.
The formal gardens look so lush and green.

It was a very warm afternoon.  More like summer than spring.  I loved every warm minute of it.  I should have worn some sunscreen.  I am just a bit pink on my arms and face.  My youngest daughter was also there sporting her new hair do. 
She looks so cute!
It was Mattie's friend's little girl that I was taking pictures of. 
The little angel's Daddy was there too.
We were all tired by the time we left.  I need to remember to pack drinks next time.  That was thirsty work out in the sunshine and wind. 

If I hadn't been so thirsty I would have begged to stay longer.  After we stopped and got something to drink I was able to convince the hubby to stop at Woodward park so I could take just a few more pictures.  All of the Dogwoods were blooming and it was riot of color.  It was also very crowded.  We only stayed long enough to take a few more pics.  Have I mentioned that I think MY baby girl's new hair do is cute?

She looks good in red.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Numbers

 My weekend has started. Just in time too! I left work Thursday with my brain swimming in numbers. The new software is not made for the old UCR report. (UCR = monthly crime stats sent off to the OSBI/FBI.) The new software is based on IBRS, an updated version of UCR. IBRS is diffently a better system to track accurate crimes that happen each month than UCR ever was! OSBI expects our Department to turn in the old UCR until we can turn in 3 consecutive months of IBRS reports with less than a 2 percent error rate. I was thinking no problem. We will just print off reports from the new system and transfer it into UCR. How I wish it had been that easy. My co-worker spent the better part of 2 days working on it before he threw in the towel. He just could not get everything to balance. Not his fault. He put the numbers that he got from the reports ran from the new system. Problem is the new system did not give good numbers for UCR.


The biggest problem is that UCR will only let you score one crime for each incedent.

So if you break into your old girlfriends house and steal stuff (Burglary), beat the ever livin snot out of her (Aggravated Assault), and steal her car (Auto Theft) you only get to pick one of these crimes to report to the OSBI/FBI. Yep, just one. And you do not get to pick the one you think is the worst, you have to take the one that OSBI says is the highest scoreable offense. So the only crime reported for this incident would be the aggravated assault.

None of the property will be scored as stolen that was taken while he rummaged through her house after he knocked her out. Not the laptop computer or her cell phone or her money, not even the car he stole. Now don't get confused and think we did not take a report documenting all of that crime. A report was sent to the DA's Office with all the charges. The DA will get to decide what they will charge the old boyfriend with. This UCR report is just the stats that get turned in. This is what "they" base a city or areas crime stats on. UCR is not an accurate count of crimes committed in an area. It is old and outdated and I look forward to getting rid of it.

But first I will need to learn how to do IBRS better.

Until we all learn how to do IBRS right we get to keep doing UCR. Since the new system will not give accurate reports for UCR I had to break out the old hand written way. Now I have this tendency to forget things that I don't make use of regularly. So I was more than a little bit out of practice. I haven't done the hand written form of the report since my brilliant co-worker coded the old software to count every bean and do almost every bit of UCR automatically.

I was able to figure out how to get a report out of the new system that showed every reportable crime that happened for the month. It took me half the day to get all the data written down. Then it took me the other half the day to get everything to balance. I finished it with 10 min to go before the end of my day. It shouldn't have taken me that long but I was out of practice. It wouldn't have taken as long to balance if I didn't make those 5-6 errors that had to be tracked down. It would have been much easier to add all of the columns if I hadn't gotten rid of the 10 key calculator. Plugging in over $53,000.00 dollars worth of stolen items in three different ways, and making sure they all balanced, on the computer's calculator added a bit more to my headache. But it is done. Done on time too. It has to be done by the 7th and that was Thursday's date. When I walked out the door my co-worker was filling out the last of the forms that all those stats get turned in on. He will have taken them to the Chief to sign and out the door they can go.

Now when I get back to work next week I only have to worry about figuring out how to do last month's IBRS, the daily log from over the weekend, the arrest log for the previous week, and at some point we need to figure out a solid practice for checking in all of those supplemental reports that have been piling up for almost 4 weeks, the new alarm procedures that have been left unattended for the last month, and punch list of items that need to be fixed with the new system for the meeting on Tuesday with the programmer. It may not sound like it but this week was easier than the last few have been.

My desk is buried in papers. I need to get some of it cleaned up or I am going to run out of room to work on anything else.

I want to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if it is just a group of my co-workers standing at the other end of the hall with their flashlights on.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The best option

I meet some interesting people at my job.  There is such a wide variety of people in this world!  The most challenging ones that show up at the Record's window can make for great entertainment a long time after they have left.  If you show up at our window and say or do something silly we laugh about it for a long time.  A really long time.  This happens at other places/business' where a customer shows up at a window requesting something. 
I promise you it does. 

I would like to share a memorable one from my job.  Please understand that we never expect people to know all about the process.  Unless, of course, they are a repeat customer.  I don't mind when someone calls up and asks if I will explain things for them.  They aren't always pleased with the answers but they are usually pleased that someone took the time to explain it.  Some people are way more lost than others.  I will share this example to show you what I mean.

There is a father that shows up at our window that has been involved in a child custody dispute with his ex-wife for years.  Every time he thinks she has done something wrong he would call the cops out to his house, file a police report, then show up to get a copy at the Records window.  This has gone on for years.  He would regularly lose his copy of any of the dozens of reports he filed and would show up wanting the newest one PLUS all the others he had filed.  Of course the longer this went on the longer each visit would take to make all those copies. 
Finally he thinks he has a report that may get his ex-wife charged with criminal charges.  He was all but dancing in the Record's window when he came to pick up the report.  There was such an excited gleam in his eye.  You could just tell that he thought that he would finally win the war.  I can tell you when he found out that the District Attorney's Office declined to file charges he was devastated.  He had to have half a dozen different employees explain it to him over and over before he gave up hope of the ex getting criminal charges filed against her from that report. 
He did not give up hope for the future.  He did keep calling, filing and picking up reports.  The ex did keep him hoping and frustrated.  She had......ummmm lots of "problems".  Problems that he hoped to take advantage of to get custody.  The frustration was when time after time he just couldn't catch her doing anything bad enough. 
The day did come when the ex's problems finally got out of hand.  The father was again very excited.  He expressed great joy at the ex's problems finally getting the best of her.  He had a hard time being patient while the charges were forwarded to the DA's Office.  He called regularly and he showed up at the window regularly to check the status of this report (his newest most dearest hope).  One afternoon he felt that it had taken long enough and he demanded that someone do something.  So while we were trying to explain the whole process, again, to him he made a very silly comment.  He said, and I quote, "That is not how they do it on TV." 
Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a straight face, when you hear a comment like that, AND your co-worker is failing miserably on his restraint AND is cracking up laughing right next to you?  I didn't laugh out loud but I couldn't keep the smile from sneaking back on my mouth every time I wiped it off.  I tried, I really tried but the father could see exactly what I thought all over my face.  He did finally leave and I was able to laugh with out feeling guilty.  For weeks EVERYTHING was explained as "That is not how they do it on TV! 
He did finally win the war and get custody.  The ex finally self destructed (much to his pleasure) and we seldom see or hear his name any more.  My heart goes out to the children.  Their mother fell apart in front of them and they watched as their father openly celebrated it.  Can you imagine the example this set for these children?
Now you may feel that I was on the mother's side, but you are wrong.  I was on the children's.  The ONLY positive thing I can say about the mother is that she never celebrated her ex's pain publicly in the Record's window.  To try and be fair it could be that she was too busy falling apart to find the time to do that.  The children are safer with their father. 
How many of you share my opinion that sometimes the best option is just not very good?

Monday, April 4, 2011

Been there

Have you ever watched someone do something stupid?  OR... Thought you were a casual observer to the ridiculous, only to come to the conclusion that you have to admit (at least to yourself) that you recognize the ridiculous behaviour because you have done it also?  Ever been irritated by someone, then realize you may have done the same thing? 
I will be honest and admit that I have to answer yes to all of the above questions. 
Good thing I realized a long time ago that I was a dork or my self worth would take a horribly crippling blow. 
But since I accepted that as fact (the whole dork thing) things are not quite as painful.  Still not pleasant. 
I have never been sorry that I kept my mouth shut. 
There have been so many times that I was sorry that I didn't. 
So why is it still so hard for me to not make a comment?
I know the answer.  Really I do!

It
is
cause
I
am
a
dork! 

I do still laugh at myself harder than when I laugh at others.  It helps to take the edge off.