Hey Brent ... this post's for you!

Editor's note: I was a cop for 9 years before turning into the IT Geek boy I am today.

I'm driving home tonight at approximately 11:30pm. No other cars anywhere to be seen. I'm westbound on Airport Rd approaching the intersection with Washington St and I just happened to have a red light shining at me from the traffic signal. While slowing to stop, I noticed a shiny black sedan with white doors and roof approaching from the south, so I made sure to stop completely, before making a right turn on red. I've no more completed the turn when I see the red and blue lights activate behind me (he was still quite a ways back). I figured he had a call to go on and even though we are on a four lane road, I still obediently yield to the emergency vehicle by pulling to the right and stopping.

Does the shiny sedan with bright flashing lights go past me? No, it pulls in right behind me! Like a good law abiding citizen, I turn down the radio, turn on the inside dome lights and keep both hands on the steering wheel (the window is already down). As the officer approaches, curiosity is killing this cat, so I ask the officer "what's the problem?", with the answer being "you didn't stop long enough at the red light before your turn".

Xsqueeze me? (but it actually sounded like a very polite 'excuse me?'). "Yeah, you didn't stop long enough at the red light." Ok, I'm tired and this cop is out trolling for drunks, which is respectable even though it is a Monday night, so I decide not to ask about the required length of time prior to being allowed to turn. But I did reply, "I did stop though". Response: Barely audible grunt, followed by "driver's license and insurance please".

While digging my driver's license from my billfold, I explained I didn't know where the insurance papers were because I was driving a borrowed vehicle. Response? Another grunt. After handing over the license, my fatigue and attitude get the best of me and I fire off the following: "When you get back to your unit and run your checks, the 43 will return valid, 42 will be clear and the 44 will be negative. The 28 will return to (buddy's name) and the 29 will also be negative.***" Sometimes you just gotta speak a language people understand, and I still remember it very clearly.

His response? "Where were you a cop?" After a short conversation, he gives me back my license and wishes me a safe evening. I still wanted to ask about the required length of time for a stop prior to a right turn on red, but sometimes it is better to be smart instead of clever (right Joe? ... but that is something for another post)

***Additional editor's notes:

Unit = patrol car

43 = check for DL status

42 = check for traffic record (previous tickets / accidents)

44 = check for warrants

28 = check vehicle license plate info

29 = check if vehicle is reported stolen

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Started slow, but ended strong

Well, it is early evening of my Big 4-0 day, and I thought I would share briefly about the day.

Started with Sunday School and church. My SS class is taught by our pastor, who happens to be a very close friend (within the top five of my buddies in the whole world!). I shared with him, and the others sitting close enough to hear, the the joke about the farmer and the fly (see this post) prior to class starting. After the laughter died down, and the joke being retold for the rest of the class, I told Henry that I knew he would be telling the joke before the week was over. He said he would be telling the joke before the day was over. Fast-forward to church ... after singing, greeting and morning prayer, when Henry got up for the sermon, he said something about "in one ear and out the other", and I knew where he was going. He said "That reminds me of something from Sunday School this morning, shared to me by our very own webmaster, who just happens to be celebrating his 40th birthday day ... Ron King." He then begins to share the joke, with only the flair that Henry can muster. It gets a big laugh, and he segways into the sermon as only he can. After service, everyone comes up, wishes me a happy b-day and lets me know they enjoyed the joke.

Leave for lunch with Anthony, the Marble family and my family (Anthony is another in the Top Five group). Nothing major at lunch, other than good conversation about high gas prices and various movie trivia. Off to home we go, where I am looking forward to playing with a new toy police helicopter Sarah gave me this morning. She gave me one like this several years back (except with military markings), but is was broken beyond repair by friends unknown. As I open the box, several pieces of plastic fall out it ... which is not a good sign. After closer examination, we find that this copter will never see the open skies. Sarah bought it for me in early March, and there are no more at the store, so off we go to find a suitable replacement. While I was anxious to play with the helicopter (I had one like it when I was about ten years old), I kept an open mind for a good replacement.

Wally-World to the rescue! While strolling through the toy section, we stumbled across some small remote controlled race cars. The price of two were exactly the same price as the helicopter we just returned. Instantly I imagined hours of racing fun across the tile and hard wood floors of the house. I was hooked on the idea and told Sarah. She like it as well. We took the time to carefully examine all the different selections, and settled on a Mazda RX-8 (burnt orange with black stripe) and a Toyota Celica (white with orange stripe). After getting the correct allocation of batteries, we're off to the house for some serious racing! It was a blast ... much better than a single player helicopter game. Hope also got in on some of the fun later on.

Gotta run .... it's time for some brownies and ice cream!
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Hippo Birdie to me

Well, its finally here. The Big 4-0! When friends and relations have a bday, I normally send them an email with subject line of Hippo Birdie. (copy of message)

I was afraid the width of my blog template would screw up the effect, so I posted it in another page as plain text.

Being I've already had the BDay party (see a few post back), it will be interesting to see what today holds.

(posted with my SX66 device – which may explain why it is short)

 

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Today was a day of mixed emotions

Today was, essentially, Joe's last say at OSU. While he is officially on the payroll until next Friday, he is taking annual leave Mon-Thur next week, returning on Friday to complete the needed paperwork.

If you will look about four entries below, you will see where I posted about him leaving, and how he is more of a friend instead of an employee or co-worker. We had an official "Joe is leaving" lunch earlier this week, but we had a more "just the buddies" lunch at EJ's today.

Make sure and visit Joe's blog, unclebubby.blogspot.comto wish him good luck on his new job.

Joe, while I know you will, I just have to say: Bubby, keep in touch!
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One legged cop catches druggie

There is a web site named m90.com that I look at every now and then for various videos.  Sometimes they have stuff that is classified as NSFW (not safe for work), but something I saw this morning that had to be shared.

Check out the video, it is almost 3 minutes long and about 4MB in size, so it may take a while for the video to load.

I wish I knew where there deputy was, cause I would love to chat with him.  He is a RBK (right below knee) amputee and chases down a criminal.  I love at end when the guy asks the deputy shy he is breathing so hard, and the response is "cause I'm outta shape buddy, but I still got you though!" One of my buddies at work saw the video on Cops, and told me the best part was chopped off the end, because the cop ended his statement with “ …. and I only have one leg”.  That is simply priceless!

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Where do I begin?

Saturday night, while I thought I was helping a close friend with a work-related seminar, I was being setup for a surprise 40th Bday party. Now the background:

 

A couple of months back I received a phone call from Jonathan, my CP (the guy who builds/maintains my prosthesis), and asked if I would help out with an upcoming CP seminar, as they needed a ‘patient model’ to demonstrate new feet from a leading prosthetic distributor. Of course I said I would, and was looking forward to it. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I get a call from a salesman from Otto Bock, the company manufacturing the feet I was going to demo. The conversation was short, but he gathered all the needed info so that he could bring the appropriate equipment for the seminar (I even found his contact info online when I was going to call him a week ago). During our conversation, I was told that I would be a ‘contract employee’ for Otto Bock for the day, and I would either be paid for my time, or I could pick one of the feet I demo’ed and keep it. That decision was a no-brainer, as prosthetic feet run in the thousands of dollars. Needless to say, I was pumped for the seminar, and had spent several hours reviewing the line of feet from Otto Bock (that just sounds weird, doesn’t it?).

 

Saturday comes and I spend time fixing up a rider lawn mower donated to me by a good friend and then I mow both my lawn and my neighbor’s. Get cleaned up and head south to OKC … to help out a friend. We were supposed to meet at his clinic office to gather needed tools. We were also supposed to do some needed maintenance on my present foot, as I had blown out the shock earlier in the month. After spending a few minutes in his office, we proceeded to the seminar. Jonathan’s wife was with him, but she was just dropping us off and then going to see her parents. When we got to the hotel of the seminar, she decided to go in with to see if there was anyone she knew there. As we entered, Jonathan mentioned it was in the "Appaloosa Room" and I looked at the display case for directions. Imagine my suprise when I saw “Appaloosa Room: Ron King – Happy Birthday”.

 

Major rewind in time: Three years ago my brother turned 40 and in celebration, my mom threw a suprise party for him. I knew mine was coming, I just had no idea it would be two weeks early or that Jonathan was up to his eye-balls in it!

 

Back to Saturday: Turns out we went in the front door because Jonathon was afraid we were too early. At one point while headed back to the Appalooa Room, Jonathan’s wife stopped to go to the bathroom (another attempt at time stalling). While she was away from us, I asked Jonathon what my mom had put him up to … he acted all innocent and said he didn’t know what I was talking about.

 

We get to the room and everyone yelled SUPRISE!, which it was, and we had an wonderful evening. The only sad part was:

I didn’t get my new foot!

 

Turns out mom made an appointment with Jonathon about three months ago to start this whole thing. Jonathon even got the guy at Otto Bock to play along, since he knew I would probably look the guy up for some reason. It really means a lot that so many people knew about this but went out of their way to insure it was a suprise.

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I've been had

I will explain later (after I get to a fullsize keyboard), but for right now .... let's just say you have to get up pretty early to pull one over on me!

(Sent via my Siemens SX66 device ... which may explain why it is brief)
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What is your favorite.....

First, this isn’t a shameless call for comments to be left on my blog. This is how much of a sentence Sarah, my 15 year old, will get out when she gets ready to ask what my favorite (insert anything here) happens to be. She then remembers that my mind doesn’t process favorites like hers. Instead of a particular favorite color, song, movie, etc, I tend to classify items as really like, kinda like and don’t care for. But I do have some favorites …

Some of my favorites, in no particular order: Joe F has been my right hand man since August 2000, when he came to work for me in the Training and Office Automation (TOA) group. He is mentioned within my blog on the first day I started it (How I Got Started). He was the one at the office I was trying to call the day of my accident (6/25/01) and was at the Stillwater hospital everyday to check on me and see if Renee needed anything. He went out of his way to give me a ride to work when I was in a wheelchair (he claims he did it for the premium parking permit). Through all of the TT comedy routines, we have been working together, until recently. The latest re-org split up Gimp-boy and Bubby. We still would visit and discuss various work issues on a daily basis, but we didn’t officially work together. Joe has a blog I have as my first entry in my ‘morning read’ group of Maxthon. Thursday of last week, he shared on his blog a definition of success and how he didn’t feel he was part of something worthwhile. Being as close as we are, needless to say, it hurt to know that was how he was feeling.

Enter another favorite, Todd J. Away from work, Todd has to be one of my absolute best friends and confidants. A friend of his was looking for an IT guy for a small group of dental offices. After a short talk, I realized their starting salary range wasn’t enough to lure me away from OSU, but I instantly thought of Joe. Long story short: After I interviewed the friend of Todd’s, I got the friend and Joe together, and by mid-day Saturday, Joe had a sweet job offer (within approx 48 hours of the Success blog entry). Joe was able to sweeten the deal a little and announced his resignation from the University yesterday via a letter to his supervisor and CIO, as well as within another blog entry (The Big Announcement).

The third favorite I will mention: Kevin S. Kevin has been Joe’s office-mate since he came to work for me on the Second Level Support team. The positioning of the office-mates was no accident, as I knew Joe would be a good mentor/friend to Kevin. Another long story short: Kevin has felt stagnant in his current organisational location, but loves the job he is supposed to be doing. I have shared with everyone above me (as far as I could go up the chain) about Kevin needing to be placed within a different department of OSU, so that he would be able to be more productive as well as happy. Yesterday, a few minutes after Joe shared with our CIO about him leaving (a meeting I just happened to be present for), Kevin came into my office and shared he was being transfered … to the department I had made the recommendations about. While it wasn’t 100% directly related to my recommendations, I do believe the passion I shared about the needed change, and the amount of times I talked about it, had something to do with the decision.

There ya go, three of the very few favorites I have …..

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Oklahoma Quarters!

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Hang on to any of the new State of Oklahoma quarters.  If you have them, they may be worth much more than 25 cents. The U. S. Treasury announced today that it is recalling all of the Oklahoma quarters that are part of its program featuring quarters from each state.

"We are recalling all the new Oklahoma quarters that were recently issued," Treasury Undersecretary Jack Shackleford said Monday. This action is being taken after numerous reports that new quarters will not work in parking meters, tollbooths, vending machines, pay phones, or other coin-operated devices.

The quarters were issued in the order in which the various states joined the U. S. and have been a tremendous success among coin collectors worldwide.

"The problem lies in the unique design of the Oklahoma quarter, which was created by a University of Oklahoma (OU) graduate,” Shackleford said.  "Apparently, the duct tape holding the two dimes and the nickel together keeps jamming the coin-operated devices."

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Testing PocketBlogger (v 1.1)

If you can read this, it works!!! 

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It might just be spam if....

1. If the e-mail comes from a guy named Midshipman L. Returnable or
Polytheist H. Communicators, it's probably spam.
2. If you've won anything, it's probably spam.
3. Unless it comes from your sweetie, any e-mail that begins "Hi Sweetie"
is probably spam.
4. If it involves any account anywhere, it's probably spam.
5. If the English in the e-mail appears to have been written by a monkey
with a typewriter, it's probably spam.
6. If the e-mail is dated three months ago, it's probably spam.
7. Only plastic surgery will make your you-know-what bigger. It's probably
spam.
8. If anybody identifies themselves as "Barrister" in an e-mail, it's
probably spam.
9. Buy your drugs at the drug store. It's probably spam.
10. Your PayPal account doesn't need upgrading. It's probably spam.
11. The widow of an African diamond merchant isn't likely to have your
e-mail address. It's probably spam.
12. Your Inheritance in the "From" box is probably spam.
13. Chinese banks don't usually mine for credit card applicants in the U.S.
It's probably spam.
14. If the "Subject" line says something like, "In fit my obdurate
kerosene," it's probably spam.
15. There is no such thing as an "OEM SOFTWARE NEWSLETTER," and if there
was, why would they send it to you? It's probably spam.
16. Your computer isn't a "selling machine," so the e-mail telling you to
make it one is probably spam.
17. Your home doesn't need refinancing. It's probably spam.
18. Your BIOS doesn't need updating. It's probably spam.
19. And nobody from the dating site told Nicole about you. It's probably
spam.

(Sent via my Siemens SX66 device ... which may explain why it is brief)
�

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One to beam up.....

'Star Trek' Star James Doohan Dies
LOS ANGELES -- James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

He had said farewell to public life in August 2004, a few months after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

So long Scotty.......

(Sent via my Siemens SX66 device ... which may explain why it is brief)
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Shared this with a friend ... thought I would share it here as well

Did you hear about the farmer who was milking his cow?
He was on the stool beside the cow, milking away when a fly came buzzing around.  All of a sudden the fly went straight into the cow's ear.  Well, the farmer keeps milking away , not worried about the fly.  A few minutes later, while the farmer was still milking, the fly comes out with one of the squirts of milk.  Seeing the fly, the farmer said, “I guess you can say he went in one ear and out the udder!”
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Hope-ism

Raising kids usually provides a valuable sampling of misquotes or unique sayings. This morning was no exception. While in the car this morning, we passed the pool where Hope (my five year old) is taking swim lessons. This prompted her to tell me about the lessons and the others in her class. This morning's Hope-ism was how she shared about the number. "There are three girls in the class and two of them aren't me!"

Another classic!!!

(Sent via my Siemens SX66 device ... which may explain why it is brief)

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Training is about to commence

As a result of my Document Imaging project, I am about to spend the majority of my next few weeks in OKC training for my CDIA+ (Certified Document Imaging Architect plus) certification.

This post was for both sharing that & testing the ability to post via email.

(Sent via my Siemens SX66 device ... which may explain why it is brief)
�

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Can you say busy?

I have wanted to share a few things via my blog all last week … but there haven't been enough hours in the day (or enough days in the week, for that matter).

Highlights/Lowlights:
– Got a new "toy" that I am having to support the powers to be with … it is a Siemens SX66 combination cell phone & pocket pc device. My hours of personal support to the President, his Chief of Staff and various other high ranking administrators has gone through the roof.
– The Document Imaging project is going forward at Mach speed
– Grad Admissions DI project is rolling along nicely
– Home Improvement actions continue to take up precious evening/weekend hours
– A few items on the amputee/prosthetics home front (one really cool item in particular)
– Two new directors in OSU IT

I will try to expound on these later.

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Happy Birthday!

I just want to wish a Happy 15th Birthday to a very special young lady in my life!

Sent using my Siemens SX66 device (which may explain why it is brief)

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From late night monologs......

"The Army announced this week they are now training mine- sniffing dogs to go to Iraq. How bad do you have to screw up at obedience school to get that job?"
--Jay Leno

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It's been a neat morning

Got an IM (instant message) from my brother late yesterday afternoon asking for some information for my nephew.  My nephew was going to be on campus today for the enrollment/orientation process, and my brother was needing some information on various locations.  Due to the late signup for the enrollment, my brother wasn’t going to be able to attend the day with his son.  During our conversation, I offered to ‘hang out’ with Chris, and make sure he got where he was supposed to be, after clearing it with my CIO.  Needless to say, my brother took me up on the offer.

I met up with Chris and his girlfriend a little after 8:00 am, and made sure he was parked in the right place (in case the parking nazi were on patrol).  We got to the registration area and started the day off right.  Without getting into a lot of detail, the morning went fine, and was a good “bonding” time with my nephew.  It was also good, in the idea that this will remind him that Uncle Ron is around on campus, in case he needs any help, or just needs to talk.

Right now Chris is in the actual Enrollment process, where he will be talked through enrolling in his first semester, then we may go over an introduce him to one of the faculty members in the major he is looking into.  After that is a tour of the Residential Life housing options.  Looks like it is going to be a full day of “information overload” for him today.

Who knows …. I might even have to miss one of my meetings this afternoon …..  :-(

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The "Lost Liberty Hotel" project

Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Caf�" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
    Complete Article

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