Tag: police

That Moment When…

That moment when you’re running a little late getting through your morning routine and you remember you don’t have enough gas in the car to get you to the office.

Ugh.

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Fortunately the traffic was awful but normal levels of awful (unlike yesterday which was awful times two) and I got to my desk with a few minutes to spare.

I have a story from the road too. Want to hear it?

You know that old saying, there’s never a cop around when you need one?

I was stuck in a 1.5 mile long line of gridlocked traffic trying to exit route 93 South and merge onto route 128/95 South. Some jerk off in a pickup with Pennsylvania plates decided to drive up to the exit ramp in the breakdown lane. Prick. Schmuck. There’s never a state trooper around when you need one, I thought. At that very instant, an unmarked state trooper pulled into the breakdown lane behind him, put on his flashers, and pulled said prick/schmuck over.

Finally! I’ve been driving for 37 years and that is the first time I can ever remember seeing karma kick some jack ass in the teeth like that. It was glorious.

Lunch Time Post

Hello and welcome to today’s lunch break blog post.  Enjoy!

There is a lot of stuff going on today.

Last weekend I found two scary looking problems in our cellar.  We have a water leak somewhere and it’s ending up underneath the floor tiles.  It doesn’t seem like a lot of water, but it’s damaging the tiles a little.  I think I know where it’s coming from but I need to get a plumber in to look at it.  While I was investigating that I noticed that some of the HVAC duct that runs along the basement ceiling was actually coming apart.  There was one spot where the duct was detached from the ceiling and it looked really, really scary.  It looked like the ceiling wanted to collapse.  That’s not in any way what was going to happen, but that’s how it looked.

So step one is get the scary looking duct checked out and step two is bring the plumber back.  The HVAC folks came this morning just before I punched in to work.  All set.  It was just a couple of brackets that popped lose and there was nothing wrong with duct itself.  Sigh of relief.  The problem was fixed, some extra support was added, and life is good.

While the guy was here working I heard from my step son that he left his insulin pod at home.  Yikes!  I told him I’d bring it to him once the tech left.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find it.  I looked everywhere.  He said maybe it was in his car and he went out to look.  Nope, not in the car.  I ripped the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and his bedroom apart.  Nothing.  Where the hell is it?  I retraced my steps and looked everywhere again and finally found it.  It seems like he kicked it way under his bed.  All set.  I had to take a little personal time off from work while I drove up to the high school but that was okay.

When I got to the high school it was a little weird.  A police car followed me into the parking lot.  I don’t mean that to sound ominous, we were just driving along and he just happened to be behind me.  No big deal.  I parked in the front parking lot and he parked in the driveway… next to another police car.  Okay, two cops.  I then noticed that across the lot from me there were two more police cars.  Okay, four cops.  Was something going on?

I don’t think so.  The two parked in the driveway walked into the building together and they were super casual.  Just two coworkers hanging out.  I didn’t see the two cops from the parking lot, but no one inside was acting like anything out of the ordinary was going on.  I wonder if there was a D.A.R.E presentation or something.  Still, given the atmosphere in our country these days, seeing a bunch of cops at the high school was a little bit unsettling.

152/365 - Why so many cops at the high school? I saw these two and two others.

Back to the house, I pulled into the driveway and parked as close to the house as I could.  With a snowbank still on the side of the road, we are parking three cars into a driveway that is more or less exactly the length of the three cars end to end.  We need to park as close together as we can.  No wasted space.

I think I could have gotten a little closer today.

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And that’s my day so far. Fascinating, eh? Still need to schedule something with the plumber. It will likely be for next Thursday because telecommuting makes stuff like this easy.

Oh yeah, and I setup a trello board for RPM2020.

Tonight’s plans include making dinner for Jen and Harry, WATCHING PICARD EPISODE TWO (SQUEEEE!!!!!), and practicing the effin’ guitar!

HoHoHo, everyone.  Hope your day is going well.  Happy lunch break!

Police Presence

A combination of today being a Massachusetts holiday and the kids needing to be in school early has placed me about 90 minutes early for work with only 10 more minutes to go before I get there.

On times like these I stop at the rest area next to route 16 and have a little breakfast while watching Netflix.

Right now the rest area is swarming with Massachusetts State Troopers.  I’ve never seen so many badges in one place.  This can mean only one thing:

It’s Marathon Monday.

No one had better mess with Boston today.  No one.

Security

It’s a holiday in Massachusetts today so there is no traffic anywhere. I am so ridiculously early that I stopped at rest area on 128 to get a bite for breakfast.

I’m one exit North of the Boston Marathon route. There is a convoy of state police cars here. I can see 11 from this spot, but I think there are more.

Do not eff with my city today. These guys will break you into tiny pieces if you mess with us.

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Bank Robbery

There was another bank robbery in Methuen today.  According to the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, that makes four in six weeks.

I don’t get it.  Most banking is electronic today.  How much money do branches even have on the premises, and of that, how much is in each teller’s draw?  I can’t imagine it’s a very large amount.  Let’s say this douche went into the credit union branch, waved his symbolic penis gun around and made off with a couple of teller drawers full of cash.  Let’s also ignore little things like die packs and marked bills or whatever banks do these days to keep stolen money from being used.  What does he get out of it?  A couple months rent and something shiny for his best gal?  Is it even possible for a bank robber in the 21st century to make a five figure score?  How big of a bag do you need to carry $10 grand if you’re stealing from a teller?  Would you be better off knocking over a McDonald’s?  How much time does it take for a teller to put $10,000 into a bag?  I’m guessing more time than it takes the police to respond to the alarm.

Then there is the repetition factor to think about.  The Methuen police are already investigating three of these things.  How pissed off are they going to be when they catch you?  Supremely pissed, I would guess.  It won’t be good cop/bad cop when they interrogate you.  It’ll be bad cop/super crazy Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon cop.  You risk getting thrown off a building like that jumper did in the movie.  Why don’t we be objective.  Think about it… what would Robert DeNiro’s character in Heat have said if some one asked him to be bank robber in one city in six weeks.  There’s no way a professional super thief like that would ever even consider taking a job like that.  No way!  Even if he didn’t have Al Pacino on his trail.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is this:  It’s not worth it.  If desperation drove this guy to do this today, or in any of the other three bank robberies, then the reward of a successful job is going to be tiny compared to the risk, and then inevitable retribution.

It’s a simple matter of balance.  Does a small short term gain balance out a large long term punishment?  Not from where I’m sitting.

Threat

The kids and I were all packed up and ready to go to school this morning when my beloved wife, who was sitting at her desk feeling sick as a dog, told us to hold on a second.  She had just checked her email and there was something from the superintendant of schools.  Apparently, there was some unspecified threat made against the school system and the super was forwarding the information on to all of the parents.  The FBI had been notified and there would be police present at all schools today.

A quick discussion was had between my wife and the kids father and it was decided that we should keep them home today.  It’s the last day of school before Christmas vacation, so it’s not like we would be depriving them of any vital knowledge.  Nana and Papa were coming over today anyway, so we figured we’d try as hard as our sick bodies would allow us to have a bit of an early Christmasy kinda day.  When Jen called the schools to let them know the kids would be absent today, she got busy signals.  It sounds like our kids won’t be the only ones MIA today.

I know this is going to amount to nothing.  It’s just some asshole trying to feel important in the wake of Newtown, CT.  Still, why even mess with it?  If the risk of danger is 0.01%, that is too much risk.  Better to keep them home where the only danger is catching this bastard of a cold/flu/whatever it is bug that Jen and I have.

Now on a personal note, during the mom and dad discussion it was decided to not let the kids know exactly why they were being kept home.  So if you read this, you have to keep it to yourself, okay?  No telling the kids.  Thanks