Morning all:

“Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.” — Doug Larson

Welcome to the last weekend of winter. Even though our week started in the high seventies and has gone downhill ever since, I have serious hopes that the Queen of Spring will kick-start her flamenco dance real soon. Last night on my walk, just before it got dark, I spotted several batches of little flowering crocuses; I whistled louder.

Boy the coffee tastes good this morning and I didn’t even think to dye it green—happy St.Patty’s Day everyone.

Have any of you been affected by the time jump to Daylight Savings Time the way I have? I can’t understand it. Multiple time zones when traveling I shake off like nothing, this 1-hour event I’ve been fighting all week.

A week ago I had the amazing experience of a drive-along for the Saturday evening shift with a local police officer. During Roll Call we got dispatched to a domestic dispute occurring in our beat area. From there to an accident where a car had flipped over, this dispatch was cancelled for us since we were re-directed to a location where it was reported that a female was being assaulted in a car.

Oh, and I’m just getting started.

We did a mental health run where we ended up taking a person to the psych ward of University Hospital. Made one arrest, 5 traffic stops, went to a crack house. Five hours into the shift I was asked if I needed to make a pit stop or get something to eat or drink. I had absolutely no idea that those hours had flown by.

And I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet. That being that I was told that I had the misfortune of riding along on the slowest night he’d worked since last September when he was assigned to this beat. My impression of how these guys and gals spend their day has changed dramatically.

Now that I’ve started the Citizens on Patrol training I pay a little more attention. And it was the sad news out of New York City that did catch my eye and made me sit up a bit. Think of the families involved and that city’s loss.

My brother Pieter has become quite serious about his photography and posts regularly on what I like to think of as the GCJPBC ‘great circle jerking photo blogging club’, since each spends as much time making wonderful comments on the other’s work as they do on their photo efforts [strike-through expression used as a metaphor only – no other inference is implied]. Jason has now joined this club—take a look by clicking here. Nice work to both of you, my early morning seeing ‘what’s new’ is a bright spot in my day. Oh no, I just realized what I said, does this mean that I am also a secret member of the club?

Unlike our common meaning of ‘mano-a-mano’ in France the phrase is used more in the sense of reaching out and physically touching someone, be that in person, by phone, or by mail. After you finish being Irish for the day, try being French for a day. Make it a great week everyone.

Cheers,
Dirk