Lawrence in Alabama
New member
The last couple of weeks have been...unusual, to say the least. It started with me and the High School SRO (School Resource Officer) being taken out of the schools (I am assigned to the Middle School)and reassigned to Patrol. The reason for this action was because we have had 5 officers retire or transfer in the last few months and they have not been replaced by new hires. We have a major shopping mall opening tomorrow with stores like Belk, Parisian, JC Penny and Best Buy. The traffic in the area is already heavy because this shopping mall is built on the hill above another mall with stores like Target Super Center, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Pier 1 Importers, Academy Sports, Books A Million and Home Depot!! So we went from working 7am to 4pm Monday thru Friday to working opposite shifts working 2pm to 2am!!!
It has been a long time since I have a)worked a 12 hour shift and b)worked nights!! I have never been able to see very well in the dark and it hasn't improved with age!!! I worked Monday - Friday from 7am to 4pm and then worked Saturday and Sunday 2pm to 2am. Then I was off 2 days and then worked 2 more days 2 - 2 and then was off 3 days and then worked yesterday 2pm to 10 pm. The reason for the change was due to the huge number of calls to the Mayor's and Chief's offices from very upset parents! Of course, the timing of the move was terrible with students being killed in Colorado and Pennsylvania. So now, I work bus duty from 7am until 8am then I leave and work Beat 3 until 11am when I go back to the school for Lunch Duty. I leave again around 1pm and patrol Beat 3 until 2:30pm when I return once again for afternoon bus duty!!! Then from approximately 3:30pm until 4:00pm I patrol Beat 3!! I am not complaining, I like this new schedule much better than the 2-2 shift!!!
In the mean time I went treasure hunting with James last Saturday and I found a few wheats and a silver dime and a rifle band. The last 2 times I went detecting with James I got poison oak or ivy. Both times I had to go to the doctor and get a shot and some tablets to get rid of it. Well, James told me he and General Ray and Bubba had hunted a different area and he didn't see any poison plants at all!! And he tantalized me with reminding me the General found a silver quarter and a silver dime in the area!! OK, I was hooked!! I met James and he lead me to the area. We parked and he pointed up the hill where the guys had hunted the weekend before. I walked around to the passenger side of my truck and happened to glance down and realized there was poison ivy right there where I parked Well, we went up the hill and I didn't see anymore poison plants and I thought maybe it would be OK. I found some wheats and three Alabama tax tokens and the band from a rifle. We went back down the hill for some lunch and something to drink. We decided to hunt some yards of military housing that we had permission to detect. I found a wheat right away, but then started finding clad dimes, quarters and memorial pennies. We hit a yard that had been scraped and while I was finding more clad, James found a Roosie dime. Things were looking up. He found another Roosie a few minutes later. Then I went to the side yard and got a good signal and looked down and saw a Roosie lying on top of the ground!!! Well, James started hunting from one end of the back yard and I started on the other and we were going to hunt toward each other! James called me over and there in the bottom of about a 2 inch deep hole was a beautiful 1952 Franklin half dollar!!! (I always start on the wrong end!!!). That was pretty much all the good finds for the day...and I realized my ankles were itching. I thought maybe it was just hairs tangled up in my socks....wrong!! Not only did I get poisoned again I also have about 60 or so chiggers mainly on my upper legs!!! I bought some clear fingernail polish and put it on all the ones I could see and reach! Unfortunately, though I don't have much hair on my head, my legs are fairly hairy!! Fingernail polish and long hairs don't mix!!! It has been a very uncomfortable few days!!!
As if all that isn't enough I have been reduced to using a laptop on dialup to go on the internet!! The reason for this is because I am a big dummy!!! Saturday night I decided my computer wasn't running fast enough, so I went into the Setup and changed the CPU clock speed from 133 mhz to 165 mhz. When I hit the "Save and Close" key, the screen went black and did nothing else!! I started to freak out!! I tried everything I could think of to return it to the slower speed, but could not get it to even try to boot. Then I remembered I had downloaded a pdf file with the motherboard information on the laptop I use at school. I pulled up the file and saw I needed to change a couple of jumpers!! I did that, and it started to boot...sort of!! It started showing the new frequency and then would go no further!! I still cannot get it to go back into Setup and it will not boot past that initial point!! I imagine I burned something up by overclocking it!!! So for now I am stuck with a very slooooowwwwww dialup!! Oh yeah, it also looks like I will have to get a doctors appoint tomorrow because my poison is getting worse!!!!!
Sorry again for the looooooonnnnnnggggggg tale of woe!!!
HH Lawrence
It has been a long time since I have a)worked a 12 hour shift and b)worked nights!! I have never been able to see very well in the dark and it hasn't improved with age!!! I worked Monday - Friday from 7am to 4pm and then worked Saturday and Sunday 2pm to 2am. Then I was off 2 days and then worked 2 more days 2 - 2 and then was off 3 days and then worked yesterday 2pm to 10 pm. The reason for the change was due to the huge number of calls to the Mayor's and Chief's offices from very upset parents! Of course, the timing of the move was terrible with students being killed in Colorado and Pennsylvania. So now, I work bus duty from 7am until 8am then I leave and work Beat 3 until 11am when I go back to the school for Lunch Duty. I leave again around 1pm and patrol Beat 3 until 2:30pm when I return once again for afternoon bus duty!!! Then from approximately 3:30pm until 4:00pm I patrol Beat 3!! I am not complaining, I like this new schedule much better than the 2-2 shift!!! In the mean time I went treasure hunting with James last Saturday and I found a few wheats and a silver dime and a rifle band. The last 2 times I went detecting with James I got poison oak or ivy. Both times I had to go to the doctor and get a shot and some tablets to get rid of it. Well, James told me he and General Ray and Bubba had hunted a different area and he didn't see any poison plants at all!! And he tantalized me with reminding me the General found a silver quarter and a silver dime in the area!! OK, I was hooked!! I met James and he lead me to the area. We parked and he pointed up the hill where the guys had hunted the weekend before. I walked around to the passenger side of my truck and happened to glance down and realized there was poison ivy right there where I parked
Well, we went up the hill and I didn't see anymore poison plants and I thought maybe it would be OK. I found some wheats and three Alabama tax tokens and the band from a rifle. We went back down the hill for some lunch and something to drink. We decided to hunt some yards of military housing that we had permission to detect. I found a wheat right away, but then started finding clad dimes, quarters and memorial pennies. We hit a yard that had been scraped and while I was finding more clad, James found a Roosie dime. Things were looking up. He found another Roosie a few minutes later. Then I went to the side yard and got a good signal and looked down and saw a Roosie lying on top of the ground!!! Well, James started hunting from one end of the back yard and I started on the other and we were going to hunt toward each other! James called me over and there in the bottom of about a 2 inch deep hole was a beautiful 1952 Franklin half dollar!!! (I always start on the wrong end!!!). That was pretty much all the good finds for the day...and I realized my ankles were itching. I thought maybe it was just hairs tangled up in my socks....wrong!! Not only did I get poisoned again I also have about 60 or so chiggers mainly on my upper legs!!! I bought some clear fingernail polish and put it on all the ones I could see and reach! Unfortunately, though I don't have much hair on my head, my legs are fairly hairy!! Fingernail polish and long hairs don't mix!!! It has been a very uncomfortable few days!!! As if all that isn't enough I have been reduced to using a laptop on dialup to go on the internet!! The reason for this is because I am a big dummy!!! Saturday night I decided my computer wasn't running fast enough, so I went into the Setup and changed the CPU clock speed from 133 mhz to 165 mhz. When I hit the "Save and Close" key, the screen went black and did nothing else!! I started to freak out!! I tried everything I could think of to return it to the slower speed, but could not get it to even try to boot. Then I remembered I had downloaded a pdf file with the motherboard information on the laptop I use at school. I pulled up the file and saw I needed to change a couple of jumpers!! I did that, and it started to boot...sort of!! It started showing the new frequency and then would go no further!! I still cannot get it to go back into Setup and it will not boot past that initial point!! I imagine I burned something up by overclocking it!!! So for now I am stuck with a very slooooowwwwww dialup!! Oh yeah, it also looks like I will have to get a doctors appoint tomorrow because my poison is getting worse!!!!!
Sorry again for the looooooonnnnnnggggggg tale of woe!!!
HH Lawrence
