Step Aside Batman

A very cool law enforcement vehicle video can be found here. Some of the things that jumped out at me when I first heard about the Carbon Motors E7: There has never been a purpose built police patrol vehicle- they are all upfitted civilian vehicles. It is specd to a 250,000 mile lifespan and recycling of entire unit at the end of its service life is factored into purchase. 50 % of all LE injuries happen in or related to their patrol unit and while it is designed to be safer all around it is specifically designed for 75 MPH rear impacts. It has a diesel engine designed for a 40% savings over traditional units in fuel costs and Americans spend 4 billion dollars in fuel alone annually to power LE vehicles.

• If I had the means I would invest in this vehicle now and heavily. Once it takes off it will make the dominance of the Crown Vic in previous generations look sick.


• Carbon Motors was founded by former Ford execs.


• Really surprised this is the first purpose built police vehicle ever considering their use by LE goes back 100 years basically.


• Can't wait to see them on the street. Carbon Motors hasn't released a price only saying it will be competitive with other fully outfitted units already offered.

Mondays Missives

• I saw the Barbara Walters interview with Patrick Swayze- very sad, a sick man who is not much longer for this world.



• One of my friends met him at an Arabian Horse show. His brush broke so he stuck his head around to the next stall to borrow one- it was occupied by Swayze, he said he was the coolest, most interesting person you would ever want to meet and they chatted for over an hour.



• Interestingly, I have another 6 degrees of separation connection with him: one of my best friends sister attended dance class at his moms studio.



• Recently a Texas death row inmate tore out his last good eye and ate it. What happened to the first one? Oh, I'm sorry- after he was arrested for cutting his family members hearts out he gouged the first one out in jail where he was then promptly found competent to stand trial.



• Something that has always colored my view of our legal system: in a town within 12 miles of where I grew up someone I knew personally was beaten by police with a club while a phonebook was placed against the side of his head (to lessen bruising- still hurt) in an attempt to get a confession for a burglary. I know for a fact that person was in another state when the crimes occurred.



• The weird thing and why it made such an impact on me is I know both the police and subjects involved- well.
  
  
• On a television show the other night a character checked a bodies toe tag in a morgue cooler and after he finished you can clearly see the dead dude pull his feet together to allow the others to zip up his body bag.


• The above picture reminded me of a memory of my time in Iraq since those guys are firing from Camp Falluja. When we would get attacked Falluja would fire onto our area and our artillery battery would fire onto theirs when they got attacked- the enemy would be too close to fire at the angle the guns needed so rounds would be fired the 13 miles or so in support of each other.
• There was a two week period where we got hit by rocket and mortar fire 2 times a day. A battery fired 36 rounds (which average 98 pounds each) into the area they were coming from after getting a good radar fix. Oddly, we didn't get hit for a long time after that morning.
• High explosives can be inspirational for both the givers and receivers.
• By the time my youngest is 18 someone under the age of 18 will have been living in my house for 31 years. Good grief, what was I thinking?
• In Bullhead City AZ an eternal flame memorial has been extinguished after the city received a 900.00 dollar bill for the gas to burn it for the first month.
• No one had the fortitude (or simple forethought) to ask, How much will this cost?
• Maybe they should run for Congress.

Wednesday Digressions

• I'm frequently having dreams about a place called Sam's Independence Bar. Invariably, it starts out with a really lame commercial being filmed in it with a guy who was obviously just hanging around at the time filming started occupying different parts of the bar doing goofy moves like finger pistols- complete with blowing the smoke off the barrels and winking. The next thing I know I'm using the restroom in a potty chair on a dance floor surrounded by dozens of all the beautiful people I'm sliding it across the floor trying to get to the doors to shut them for privacy (as I shut each, the people began disappearing). Only one or two people had even noticed me, I don't know why it mattered.


• I also had a dream about being trapped in the fenced area of a car repair garage during a disaster with a police officer who had been transporting a baby to CPS after some legal problem her parents got into. He said he had been hunting that morning and shot a warthog. He continually wore me out with cop stories (which I would normally find very interesting) I helped him start an IV on the baby and he showed me how to properly perform an eye test for substance abuse with a flashlight on a bum who staggered by and then he put the baby between his legs and covered her for warmth and we all lay down on the concrete to sleep.


• Then the dog woke me up.


• None of my children have ever been afraid of the dark. I've worked with them from babyhood (is that a word?) by teaching them to turn the lights off themselves and reminding them, There's nothing in the dark, that's not there in the light. When my oldest was little I owned sixteen acres of isolated, wooded property. It was in a rectangular shape and I had made a trail around the entire boundary that crisscrossed to interesting points on the land. When he was three my boy could lead you around the entire property at night with his flashlight. I was actually more spooked than him at any given time- there was a large, deep creek and huge spooky looking trees and lots of animals we'd surprise and hear them crashing through the brush, a huge owl roosted in a couple of different trees so you never knew where he'd call out WHO WHO WHO HOOOOOOO- spooky. My children actually would ask, " What's wrong with those kids?" when children would start crying in another setting and the lights went out.


• A variation of spook was used three times in that last sentence.


• That land was isolated enough you could look around at night and not see any type of artificial light and never hear traffic however, interestingly there was a clan of hillbillies down the road who I never met but, every Friday or Saturday night I don't remember calls of,"Yee HAaaaaW", music, laughter and engines revving could be heard from around ten to exactly two am and then abruptly it would be quiet again. I never actually saw anyone there and I jogged and rode my bike down that road nearly every day and at different hours.


• I saw a baby deer on the land once. I understand often people find fawns like that and think they were abandoned and interfere when they should not, however this one was skinny and I had found a dead female the day before. I left it for a couple of hours and returned to find it covered in fireants I said to myself," Myself, I know you don't want to interfere but, maybe you should move that thing away from that ant mound at least and then watch to see if the mother returns." I nudged it with my boot to see if it would move on its own, it didn't flinch- which is the way they are programmed. I decided to pick it up and move it, when It was about an inch off the ground it made a loud noise like BWAaa-AAAH and jumped straight up about three feet in the air causing me to stagger back, trip up on some vines and fall on my keister. He ran about six feet away and lay down in the shade.


• Keister is old prison slang dating back at least to the 20s it was a kind of code word for hiding things in someones rear end to get things into the prison or moved from one area to another undetected.


• Enough loose associations for one day.

Some Things Just Rub Me The Wrong Way

In an article about the July 4 weekend in the Weatherford Telegram the police chief was quoted saying the public was "compliant and well behaved"-grrrr. Don't get me started.