Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Law Lessons #1

I had every intention of posting yesterday. But, intentions are not necessarily reality in my world.

Excuse #1...busy.

Excuse # 2... uhh, I'm going to wax eloquent on #1.

Reasons I didn't post yesterday. Work. Came home. Cleared a section of my room for a piece of furniture. The section was full of craft stuff that had found home in the "craft closet". However, since #3 wanted to move back home, and the new "craft closet" was her bedroom we decided that #3 was more important. After the displaced items were put in a corner, my desk was moved into my bedroom. A couch was carried downstairs, a TV carried up, and items were moved in an attempt at organization. This was abandoned due to time issues, most of it on my bed. (At 10:15 p.m. I was regretting that choice. ) Dinner was thrown together. & made a delicious potato lentil curry sauce. I'd give you the recipe but it got a little crazy, spices were flying/veggies hurtling across the kitchen. We killed the cumin and curry. Toad-Man dropped by to pick up some stuff for his service group's rummage sale. He stayed for dinner. Nice surprise. Then & and I headed out for our first Citizen's Police Academy class.

Yes. Citizen's Police Academy.

Can I tell you how excited I am? No? Too bad, I'm going to. Our city does a once a year 12 week class that covers our department breakdown and details. We met at a training facility with three firing ranges and several class/training rooms. It's pretty state of the art and we will be doing some serious hands on as we get into the classes. Last night was the overview and tour. Amazing! Apparently the gun cleaning room is so awesome that one of the FBI agents who used it said he'd never been in one that nice, even at Quantico. Did you know lead dust from bullets is wicked bad? And when you fire you get engulfed in smoke, containing lead. Who knew? Apparently a metro area firing range owner died not too long ago from lead poisoning because he didn't have a good filtration system. The training facility has a filtration system that is top notch. I didn't even have a clue that lead was still even in bullets. And our tour guide says it takes 7 years for the lead to be fully purged from your system once you come into contact with it.

The chief of police did most of the talking last night. If ever I wrote a police chief character for a book or movie I'd use ours, the man was perfectly cast. He wore his 30+ years on the force on his broad, slightly slumped shoulders. The importance of his job and the weight of caring have cast a patina of weariness around his eyes, but his silver cookie duster mustache softened the serious set of his countenance. A rumbly growl tinged his voice and his colorful word choices which were a mix of insider lingo and civilianese.

I learned that our police department is a lean, efficient force that does an amazing job. The coverage of police officers for a city our size is mind-boggling tiny. The biggest concern the officers and chief had was the difficulty in finding good men or women. Integrity is their primary concern and out of the last batch of 212 applicants they found 11 who made it through the process. Not great statistics.

I cannot wait for the gun handling and CSI classes. This is going to be SO interesting. I will, of course, share some of what I learn. : ).

Was. But not is...picture the contents spread around a room in various assorted places. That's reality. But...the closet is now being used by the one person I'd hoped would eventually come back home.