Kat’s Den

Decided to celebrate tonight: Bacon-wrapped filet mignon on the grill, a pint of Yeti Imperial Stout, and a Cohiba. Why? Well, I had quite a bit left over from this paycheck, and… the lawsuit was dropped. By the plaintiff’s attorney, no less. Seems he discovered that she lost her criminal case, and realized that if they continued with the suit, they would be open for a counter-suit for harassing lawsuits; so he filed to dismiss. So, that’s over; and possibly the quickest 42 USC 1983 lawsuit ever.

And lemme tell ya, I’ve become a lightweight; a pint of stout has me buzzed six ways to sunday. Reminds me why I don’t drink. The little bits of the subconscious that float up to the surface, borne on carbonated bubbles of alcohol.

And my left foot hurts. I woke up Wednesday with what felt like a stone bruise on my left heel, but how the hell did I manage that in my sleep? I wish I could remember the dream, because it must have been a good one. Has gotten somewhat better, but still hurts; like a deep bruise across the inside of my heel just below the ankle.

Anyway. Next week I’ll be in Forsyth again, this time for Standardized Field Sobriety Testing Instructor, provided I pass the test on the first day. It’s been a while since I’ve done any SFST, so it’s a good question whether or not I remember it well enough.

[thumb:191:l]Went by the gun store to pick up the revolver… the FBI decided I was a good person after all (see last post) and grudgingly let me have the gun I purchased. So here it is- .357 Magnum Ruger SP-101, 5-shot revolver. This may annoy the Smith & Wesson fans who read, but I’m far more partial to Ruger revolvers. To me, they’re just designed so much better, much more robust. Thicker top strap, offset cylinder advance notches (although S&W finally seems to have caught on in this arena), solid frame… sure, it makes them heavy; but when you run out of ammo you can pistol-whip someone with it. Took it by the range and put a box of ammo through it, despite the gale-force winds blowing today; decent 25-yard group even with the wind blowing me around and the short barrel. I’ve got my back-up gun back.

Which brings me to the title of the post- someday I’ll find an ankle holster that fit comfortably and works. The one I have now slides down my ankle and then spins around; I always feel like I’m going to kick it across the parking lot if I swing my foot too hard. But where else am I going to stick it?

Don’t answer that.

Or, “no thug left behind”

I had some coin burning a hole in my pocket, so I tooled on over to a nearby gun store to browse around and see if anything caught my eye. There were a number of 1911’s I pawed over, but I didn’t have that much spare change. I did find a snubnose Ruger SP-101 with a bobbed hammer in the case at a good price. I’ve had two SP-101’s before; I’d buy one, keep it for a while, decide I really didn’t need it and sell it, then wish I had it again and start the cycle over. So, I said I’d take it and went up to the counter to fill out the paperwork. I had my CCW in my hand when the clerk said he didn’t need it.

Apparently, the ATF has decided that Georgia’s CCW doesn’t meet the requirements for waiver of the “instant” background check provision of the Brady Bill any longer, and that they’d have to do the check anyway. *sigh* Whatever. I haven’t got a record, haven’t been judged “mentally unstable”, don’t have any domestic violence charges. However, every time I submit one of these “instant” checks it takes forever. Someone out there apparently fits my description and they have to check files by hand.

So, of course, I’m told my check is “delayed” and I’ll have to wait until Thursday for it to come back. If I was going to rob a liquor store or shoot my spouse, I’m sure I could find someone else willing to sell me a gun without the check… never mind that I’ve had countless background checks run on me in the past, through working in law enforcement and two run by the FBI when I became a bomb tech. Someday I’m going to run across whoever it is with a similar sounding name and description and a criminal record and haul him up to the ATF to show that no, I’m not him.

ADDENDUM: I noticed that the links to my fiction stuff and the Juuhoukata book-in-progress were relative instead of absolute, so you got a 404 error. They’ve been fixed; the fiction stuff is here.

Ditto.

Got into the habit of staying up rather late over the holidays, and didn’t get to sleep Monday night until 2 or so… so Tuesday passed in a blur. As is usual with me, I was tired as crap when I got home but by bedtime, I was wide awake. I finally fell asleep, and then got woken up by the Nextel at 4am. One of the jurisdictions in our county had a barricaded gunman with an SKS rifle and was asking for the tactical team. Urrrgh… Woke up, dressed, was scraping the ice off my car when they called back- never mind, he gave up. Well, now I’m awake… got maybe another 45 minutes of sleep before the alarm went off. As a side note, it’s better to just stay awake; that little sliver of sleep just made me more tired. As a second side note, the least the inconsiderate bastard could have done was let us kick in his door after waking us up at 4am.

Qualifications (see a couple posts down) went OK, despite my misgivings. A few people took more than one try, a couple required remedial; which I did this afternoon. One of them squeaked by on the last try… after I noticed they were trying to shoot isocoles, but not locking their elbows out.

Maybe they’ll practice some more this year.

Let’s hear it for the new year… all together now… yaaaaay.

No, really, I’m not that much of a humbug. I just haven’t gotten that much of a thrill out of holidays for a while now; for me, most of them are just another day. Unless I’m purposely out with other people who are celebrating it, most holidays are just an annoyance because nothing’s open. This particular year is the first since 1990 or so that I’ve had the holidays off; usually I would have worked Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, but since I’m an office bitch now, I have to take the holidays off. Maybe that’s why holidays aren’t anything particularly special for me. My big New Year’s Eve celebration? Made some pasta, drank some beer, smoked a cigar. Thus the year ended not with a bang, but a whimper.

And I get to take a new gift into the new year… a shiny new 42 USC 1983 lawsuit! For those not familiar, that’s the federal rights violation civil lawsuit aimed at law enforcement if, for example, they use excessive force. In this particular case, someone I arrested two years ago for a DUI filed at the last second (statute of limitations is 2 years) claiming I used excessive force in arresting them. Now, I don’t believe the case will even get to the deposition stage before it gets thrown out; it’s patently absurd and I documented the arrest meticulously… but anyone can sue anybody for anything in this wonderful nation of ours, and plaintiffs hope for that big settlement from government entities. I know this case has no merit… but it still sticks you right where live when someone accuses you of something you never did and you get that federal subpoena.

Reading the weather.com forecast for tomorrow, I was struck by the wording. I quote:

As upper-level energy begins to scream eastward, the area for potential severe weather will extend to southern Alabama, southern Georgia, and the panhandle of Florida through Wednesday afternoon.

OK. Now, I realize that weather forecasting isn’t exactly the sexiest thing on television, Hurricane Katrina notwithstanding; but I see a trend here. We can’t make a cold front as daring or controversial as something like The Shield… or can we? All we need to do is follow the examples from prime time TV… and throw in some of those porn-ad email spams; they seem pretty successfull… I can see the forecasts during sweeps week:

“A strong, thick cold front will be thrusting eastward from the fertile midwest tonight… It will mix with sultry, moist air from the Gulf and EXPLODE into the unsuspecting Southeast with a FURY not seen since last spring!! WATCH to see if the cast of 24 will survive this- and the SHOCKING ending that will leave you DAMP!!!”

Well, maybe not. There’s still hope for topless weather girls.

Being the paranoic control freak I am, I enjoy reviewing the website statistics generated by my hosting provider every now and again; if for no other reason to reassure myself that someone somewhere looks at the site. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell. Some of the things I look at are referrers and search terms… I think the photo gallery gets more hits than anything else; I know the hit count on the bloody tampon Halloween costume picture goes through the roof every October. Anyway, while perusing the referrers, I noticed one with a return link for the cpanel webalyzer statistics page of rustedtusks.com… someone checking their stats and referrer links. Except I recognized this URL… one of the web comics I read regularly, Slop. Waves to Mulefoot, who doesn’t know me, but I guess now knows I appreciate his comic enough to visit it daily.

Some of the search terms used that resulted in hits on this site:
grendel p10
bedroom webcams
firearms concealment techniques
grendel firearm p10
skull tattoo sketches
werewolf tattoos
painful thoughts tattoos
intel cs430
black and gray tattoos
kat s pet services

I feel sorry for the guy who searched for “bedroom webcams” and found mine. Not what you were expecting, eh? Heh. The firearms hits reminds me that I need to get off my ass and finish the handgun manual…

Well, at least somebody looks at the site. No, I’m not that insecure. Let’s face it, most weblogs are boring crap… who cares what you ate for breakfast today? I keep this one up because I’m too stubborn to care that no one cares what I had for breakfast. Which was the usual, a Coke and a Prilosec. You gotta wade through a lot of crap to find one gem on most ‘blogs. Maybe I’ll drop a gem or two every now and again; maybe not.

Holy crap, it’s cold. Yeah, I know it’s December, but damn. Thursday we accumulated about 1/4 inch worth or ice that knocked out power first to the house and then to the office, so I spent the day looking for trees blocking the road. Watching the transformer blow up outside the office was interesting, though. As usual, weather forecasters were baffled by southern winter weather predictions and smugly claimed that we wouldn’t get any ice the day before, then acted like they knew it was coming all along. I usually plan on the opposite of whatever the prediction is during the winter.

Coming up this week, firearms qualifications! Joy. All week out at the range, freezing my butt off in the morning, listening to people who should have been practicing complain about not being able to shoot. One would think that if you knew your job depended on being able to perform one action, you’d practice. Not so, apparently. And who will they blame when they can’t qualify? Me, of course. Let’s see how many of the 90 pass.

Well. At least I get Friday off for Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, this is the first one where I’ve had money to buy presents for the family.

Fixed some of the nagging CSS and table-layout issues that had been bothering me… of course, while they look fine in Firefox, they probably look cocked-up in Exploder. Oh, well… Daily News page and Webcam page got the treatment.

Still haven’t gotten the front LED turn signals yet, but here’s the accent lights, LED tail light and integrated LED rear turn signal. The only camera I’ve got is a fully-auto digital, so I really can’t adjust the aperture or shutter speed to show the tail light well. The turn signal is very yellow and very distinguishable.
[thumb:188:l] [thumb:190:l][thumb:189:l]
And work is… still insanely busy. For the next ten days, I’ll be filling out a detailed timesheet, noting what I’m doing every 15 minutes, as part of an efficiency study. Maybe… just maybe… it’ll show the need for a second person in training full-time.

Maybe.