And if you build a house and have a sprinkler system installed for the yard, hire professionals to do it.  Putting the drain valves for winterization in such a location that one can barely get their hand in is a bad thing.  Doubly so when the valves are very stiff.

My hand barely fits between those pipes, each one has a drain valve underneath. 

How stiff I hear you ask?  To turn them off I actually need to use a stick to properly apply pressure to get them to turn vertical.  Turning them back on I have to work it in the opposite direction.  Getting the valves started is actually difficult.  This year I had one that stuck so hard the handle on the valve broke.

Yes, you read that write, the plastic broke, that’s how stiff it was.  To get it to turn I had to resort to using some line and a loop wrapped around the other end of the valve handle.  I got it to finish closing however as it closed the line slipped free and I smashed my hand into the side of the box.

Immediately the pain was sharp enough I wondered how bad it was.  I stripped off my gloves and thankfully no broken skin.  However my thumb was already feeling stiff and immediately after the incident it hurt to move.  I splinted it with some scrap wood in the shop and finished the rest of what needed to be done for the sprinkler system.

As I finished up the pain subsided, but the time I got back in the house I could use my thumb again.  I’m able to push around on all sides of the impact point without problem.  Pushing on the impact point itself however hurts like a bastard.  So I’m thinking at this point I just bruised it.  I can put pressure through my thumb and grip as well, with only very minor discomfort at the most extreme of movement.

So, yeah, if you’re going to install one, do it right, or hire someone to do it right.  If you don’t, the next guy is going to hate you, doubly since he now gets to figure out how to fix your screw up.

Earlier this week an individual went full wookie.  By full wookie I mean he with the the most extreme ends saying that someone doing his job as a paramedic was equivalent of gassing Jews in a death camp.

Here’s the thing.  If you want to kill yourself, that’s your business and yours alone.  Don’t tell anyone else, just go out back and do it.  It may seem cold hearted but by god calling up someone and saying “I’m going to kill myself” is nothing more than a ploy for attention, either in life or death.  In death it is done by the guilt caused by those wondering, “Was there anything I could have done to stop them” or even worse, the looks given by family members.

Does someone have a right to take their own life. Yes, that is their decision and their choice.  That said, most often suicide is not a rational decision and done out of fear and depression.  I have family and friends who have taken their own life and the wake it causes makes me very morally opposed to it.  So by god, if you want to kill yourself don’t threaten to do so just do it.  Don’t lay a guilt trip on me by calling me up and threatening to do so.  Doesn’t mean I agree with their being a law, but the law is there.

If you do call me up you have waved your absolute rights to kill yourself.  Why?  You decided to involve an outside party.  You have decided to involve me.  You have no right to force me to be complacent to your plan.  You have no right to lay upon me the guilt I will feel every time a family member looks at me for not stopping you.

Do I agree with the fact that we have laws doing all of this, no.  Frankly I think Phil’s statements put it better than I could possibly put it myself.

AD’s job boils down to that of a care taker. He could be twice as ineffectual towards people as I am and he still would have had to do what he did. If a person truly understands emotional vampires then they’d realize that he did exactly what the guy wanted him to do, no matter how much the guy pretended to protest.

Even without the law, if you involve me in your plan to head to that undiscovered country who’s borne no traveler returns, I am going to try and stop you.  I am going to make sure that this is a calm, rationally thought out decision.  Not one made in the heat of the moment of some very bad news because as a friend has said before, “Stuff is stuff.”  Stuff can be replaced however a person cannot.

The above isn’t to say I don’t understand why some would want to take their own life.  On the contrary, I have seen pain and suffering that I wish upon no other person.  Suffering that haunts me and there was nothing that we could do but wait and let life take it’s course as prescribed by the law.

Someone who presents a clear concise rational reason as to why, go ahead, just go out on your own and do it.  In fact those who do make it as a rational decision do exactly that.  Those who make the threats however are doing anything but.  They are as Phil says, emotional vampires.  Believe me, it is not a way to make me your friend if you’re not already one.  If you are a friend and you make a threat like that, you better be mentally broken because I would assume my friends would know better and just say, “Dude, I need someone to listen than to go full drama queen.”

So the bottom line is this, if you actually want to kill yourself, don’t call me up and tell me you want to.  Just go out back and do it.  If you’re an attention seeking parasite, then by all means call.  If you do don’t be surprised when it turns out just like Ambulance Driver said it would.

Via Uncle we get to see an up and coming state sponsored criminal in the making.

Including an indemnification clause, which means Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy L. Lanier cannot be held liable for actions done on the job, is standard practice in contracts for police chiefs and other government officials, said Leonard A. Matarese, a public safety expert with the International City/County Management Association.

Standard practice?  See here's the thing, it's complete horse crap.  It's an effort to skate around the laws that cover "under color of law" when an officer does something wrong.  Guess what, as an engineer I'm held responsible for my actions.  Just the same a cop, no matter their position in the department should be held accountable for theirs.  If you can't take it, if you're afraid you might make a wrong decision and can't handle the consequences it's quite simple, get the hell out of the kitchen.

Now it isn't giving her free reign to commit murder while on the job.

The contract states the District “shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless” Chief Lanier in any civil or criminal proceedings so long as she was “properly exercising or performing her duties and responsibilities within the scope of her employment” and “acted in good faith, did not act in a way that violates an applicable law, and did not act in an intentionally tortuous manner.

"Did not act in an intentionally tortuous manner."  So in other words you now must have an intent-o-meter to go after her for doing something bad.

Here's the problem with these types of things, including qualified immunity.  It is they exist specifically to prevent thinking and bringing consequences to bear on those who decide not to think things through. 

I've said it before, but I will say it again.  You know who has more of a right to go home at the end of the night to their wife and kids?  Any innocent law abiding citizen.  More often than not however some innocent is caught up with some cop who instead of thinking just reacts.  Well the reaction results in injury or death to the innocent person. 

Who is at fault for this?  No it's not the officer who committed the act.  For you see that would be silly in a world where we blame inanimate objects for the actions of others.  You see it was the fault of the department for improper training.  No one is actually at fault.  Then thanks to things like qualified immunity like that you get incidents like this.

Wait, he was never charged or convicted of a crime.  They fired him, but they couldn't prove intent.  Maybe in fact that clause does allow for murder.

State Sponsored Criminal Count Honorable Mention: Chief Cathy L. Lanier

Because everyone who works in law enforcement should be able to work outside the law.  We wouldn't want them to have to arrest their own you know.

There is no advanced warning.  You don't know when it could happen, and it may not even be for a two legged varmint.  The problem could be of the four legged variety.  The life you save may not be your own either, but the life of your pet.

According to Lewiston Police, Renee Carter was walking her dogs in front of a home when the Pit Bull ran across the street and grabbed her small dog by the neck. Carter was bit on the arm while attempting to rescue her dog. At that time, a passerby scrambled out of his car to help.

Thankfully there were a couple bystanders in the area who intervened to help.  The dog is currently in quarantine for 10 days.  Since the attack killed the other animal it has been declared a dangerous animal and if a home isn't found outside the city it will be put to sleep.

That aside, thankfully there were others around to help this woman but that is not a assurance.  The only assurance is that this could happen to you and you are not immune and some how special and exempt from the possibility.

Stand tall, be ready, and carry your damn gun.

Robb asks the following question:

What is the most fun firearm you own and why? Which boomstick puts a smile on your face every time you take it to the range? If you have another gunnie coming over, which piece from your armory to you ensure you pack in the bag to show off?

You know, I have a lot of fun toys.  All of them put a smile on my face in one way or another.  However there is only one I refer to as my baby.  There is only one that I lovingly look after like a protective father.  Others do experience the bliss that is my baby, but for them it is no where near what I feel settling in behind that stock.

The Very Beginning

Let me tell the story from the beginning.  You see, when I was about three and a half years old my dad took me to the range with him.  I do not have the luxury of actually remembering this experience.  However my father did.  My father told me numerous times years later of sitting on his lap and lining up the sights to squeeze that trigger.  After which I was grinning from ear to ear.  Which that story does strike me as interesting given when I was little me and loud noises didn’t exactly get along.  I actually cried at the beginning of Top Gun the first time I saw it… At least so I’ve been told.

DeKalb County is back again, their previous incidents are here.  I've noticed that much of the time bad actions are all within the same area.  Take Seattle PD for example. This incident has holy hell written all over it.

A DeKalb County police officer is under criminal investigation after being accused of kicking a woman who was almost nine months pregnant,

What was her grievous offense that provoked a response like that from the officer?

Raven Dozier said she was trying to help her brother calm down during a child custody issue that involved police. She said she started crying and questioning officers after a Taser gun was used on her brother.

The officer claimed he didn't know she was pregnant, possible but doubtful, and that she came at him threateningly.  The prosecutors dropped charges against the woman.  It really is telling though given the following.  It ends up though that Jerad Wheeler is the officer from one of the previous incidents in the count.

Two other complaints about use of force have been filed against Wheeler, including when he allegedly shot a family's dog after responding to the wrong address, the report said.

Considering this officer is too stupid to figure out if he's at the right address and then threatens the home owner, is it really that surprising that he would kick a pregnant woman?  I mean he's obviously mentally deficient and heaven forbid they actually can someone who love his Authoritah!

If anyone has information on the third complaint mentioned in the article please contact me.  Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three or more times is enemy action.  At this point he's writing checks his ass can't cash and obviously should not be employed in law enforcement.  That just means he'll be promoted and given more Authoritah.

State Sponsored Criminal Count #333: Jerad Wheeler

Because the scowl of a pregnant woman about to pop is so fearsome it requires physical force.  Doubly so if she's crying since she's obviously hysterical!

Today's Earworm, Breaking Benjamin - The Diary of Jane

I’ve highlighted the WTF moment on this page:

YouTube needs to fix their recommendation listing.

Not to mention Rihanna up top.  WTF!? Really

Wichita police are investigating an aggravated attempted robbery at a northeast Wichita restaurant that may have been a prank

It happened at the Subway restaurant, 3200 N. Rock, around 11 a.m. Monday. Police said two teenagers, 15 and 16-year-old boys, walked into the building with their hands in their pockets, ordering everyone on the floor.

One of the suspects started counting people on the floor, while two other teenagers ran out of the restaurant, police said. The third teenager ran away a short time later. No one was hurt.

Assuming this is a prank.  Talk about a quick way to end up with extra holes god didn't intend for you to have.  Is there some type of idiot game going on that is under the radar?  Just late last week there was the incident of the kid trying to rob a police station as a "prank".

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three or more times is enemy action.  Thing is, I don't believe in coincidence.  How this appears is: rob some place, when you get caught, claim it was just a prank.  Too bad the judge most likely isn't going to care and neither will the prosecutor.

Lucky doesn't even begin to describe the situation for those kids.  They were trying to appear as they were armed and if anyone had decided to react, they could easily be dead.  At no fault of the person who was defending themselves.

Seriously, what happened to the bucked of water balanced on the door?  When did robbing people become a "prank"?  When the hell did our youth become so monumentally stupid?

I just stumbled across the perfect example of what government does, exemplified in a single quote:

Mark Duffy, who has operated the dairy farm at the state-owned park for 26 years and has a lease with the state to run the stand, said armed Environmental Police officers showed up at stand on Friday evening and stood guard throughout the weekend, turning away customers craving delectable sundaes and frappes.

He's been improving the farm every day for the past 26 years, and all the sudden it's a problem.  It reminds me of an incident some friends had after "remodeling" their restaurant.  See, there was this crappy ugly board put up in the middle to separate the dining area and kitchen.  Instead of leaving it, they ripped it out and actually put in a nice finished wall.

There were no structural or electrical changes involved in the change to the wall.  The owner of the property was actually happy with the changes.  The state however declared that their inspector must come in for you to have customers.  Thou shalt pay us our kick back to do business.  They have since got everything straitened out and business is good.

Going back to the original story, I find it telling they sent armed jack booted thugs to do "code enforcement".  Have to justify that funding somehow right?  No one though for the state is actually saying exactly what codes were violated and what improvements were a problem.

Looking on the bright side though, some kids have gotten an awakening to exactly what government is:

There are 13 high-school and college students who work at the stand who are now without jobs, said Duffy. While there are 140 milk-producing cows at the farm, the ice cream is shipped in from Bliss Bros. Dairy, an ice-cream manufacturer and distributor in Attleboro.

They lost their summer employment because some petty jackbooted tyrant wanted to get his rocks off.  On the upshot those young kids who worked there have now received a strong lesson in how government thuggery works.  Hopefully it's a lesson they will take to heart and understand the answer to problems is never "more government".  Government is nothing more than a necessary evil that should be restrained and shackled as much as possible.

Just remember as well, just because you own the property doesn't mean you can do with it as you please.  I had some buddies who while building their place had to play games because they were living there as they built it.  You see the state won't allow you to do that.  [sarcasm]Your property so what?  It's their property and the sooner you figure that out the better.  [/sarcasm]

Go read the other details of the incident.  This though was the most telling thing about the incident:

"But one thing the second officer said to me right after he took the cuffs off was,  'You know why we did this?  You know why we did this, right.'"

Because you're a bunch of authoritarian tyrants.  He has pending litigation against your department so you proceeded to harass him and threaten him.  Good job fellas on costing the tax payers even more, I just wish it came out of your pocket instead of the public's.

State Sponsored Criminal Count 331: John Doe

332: John Doe

Because the fact that the public can record us to hold us accountable is a serious problem and scourge.  To battle this scourge we need CCTV cameras on every corner and unmanned drones flying 24/7 monitoring the public!

See the real problem people dislike about those who make more than them, is they're fiscally responsible.  Barring those who are our elected representatives.  They couldn't save a penny even if it was surgically attached to their body.  They'd sever the limb to spend it.  But this helps provide a better idea of the issues with fiscal responsibility in this country.

Visa's survey finds that a jaw-dropping $2,635 per prom will be spent by families making less than $30,000 a year. That compares with $842 for families with a yearly income of $75,000 or higher.

Can someone explain to me why the people making less are spending more than the people making more? It doesn't make any sense why someone needs to spend $2,600 on a prom night.  I think total I spent about 500 bucks, I didn't rent my tux I bought it, and my buddy and I split a limo.  I can still fit in my tux by the way, I actually wore it for my wedding.

I know some parents have trouble telling their kids no, but honestly that's what has brewed this group of spoiled children screaming about the 1%.

Know what pisses me off, me working my ass off, trying to save money, and then being told I need to pay more of my "fair share".  Except lets look at who's really profiting from this mess.

Sounds fair to be fiscally responsible and work your ass off doesn't it?  You know, I know life isn't fair.  Evidently we must be robbed by the state at gun point, try not paying your taxes if you don't believe me, and have money go to a bunch of people who don't want to work and think life's unfair to them.  There's random parts of life that are unfair and out of people's control.  That's the luck of the draw.  However taking someone else's hard earned money isn't you evening the score, it's theft.

Now notice the breakdown of who's going to be spending the most on prom and who's getting the biggest kick backs from the Fed.  It all comes down to how much you value the money you earn.  If you don't earn your money, you don't really value it since it didn't take blood, sweat, and tears to earn it.

God I need a beer cause this is horse crap.

If you're wondering what I mean by Rooks... Go here.  My dad watched the fall of Siagon from the front seat of an EA-6B, VAQ-137 to be exact.

via OldNFO.

So today while at work Pandora crapped out on my phone.  When I say crapped out, it refused to play any station.  When I restarted the app it looked like it puked all over itself.

For me, music is life while at work.  It drowns out the outside noise and prevents unnecessary interruption.  I was now in a tail spin and trying to recover.  Then I remembered Slacker Radio.  It was already installed on my phone so I decided to give it a shot.

Dear lord I should have switched over sooner.  The Android app for Pandora was lacking.  I couldn’t easily alter stations and add extra artists manually.  I couldn’t easily block a whole artist or say ignore this for a month.  Well Slacker has all that in their app and I’m much more impressed by their selection algorithm.

After doing a quick initial artist selection I’ve only had to thumbs down a few times.  Even more awesome is I can create sister stations that will bring in new artists more regularly as well as less well known music.  That way depending on my mood I can lock it to the stuff I know I’ll want to hear, or I can switch into adventure mode and find something new.  Not to mention when seeding a station you can easily grab all similar artists as it lists them. 

So yeah, that little glitch that Pandora had today at least for me was actually a good thing. 

When you have one of those really vivid dreams that seems like months pass. 

You actually go to sleep and wake up again and again in the dream.  It goes along just like your normal life.  It seems like you're actually awake and it's reality. 

Then all the sudden your normal reality turns to hell.  It goes from dream to nightmare and you don't really know why.  You then continue living in hell for a couple months until you actually wake up.  The thing is, when you wake up you don't know if you're in the dream or reality.  You reach over and discover it was a nightmare and you hold just a little bit tighter not wanting to let go.  Afraid for some reason that this is the dream and not reality.

Yeah, last night was one of those nights.  Why can't I have awesome dreams like this?

This one came across the wire this weekend.

A felon with a lengthy history of violence against women, Jackson was sentenced to 10 years in prison April 13 for sexually abusing an 18-year-old woman and holding her against her will for days inside a cheap South Seattle motel last year. The woman told investigators Jackson forced her to audition for a porn film and at one point choked her so hard she almost lost consciousness.

What does this have to do with the ATF I hear you ask?  Quite simple really.

For all of this, the 34-year-old Jackson would be just another habitual criminal except for one startling fact: He was working the entire time as a paid informant for the Seattle office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The agency made Jackson an informant even though he had come out of prison early last year with a documented reputation as a violent, mentally unstable inmate who had been arrested in nearly every state and posed a serious threat to law-enforcement officers.

It's so good we have geniuses like the ATF around to protect the innocent and law abiding.  Oh wait, they criminalize ownership of inanimate objects.  Their sole purpose is to make criminals out of as many people as possible.  The upshot of hiring thugs like Jackson is it helps intimidate people into compliance.