Large Wat On The Prairie

The Sniper

Police Officer Steve Romero was laying flat on the roof, his eyes glued to the screen of a small laptop. His right index finger was on the trigger of a tripod-mounted rifle that used compressed air to fire small plastic liquid-filled balls at intended targets. His left hand was tapping the keyboard of the laptop.

At his right and left were his spotters. Both of them were hunkered down behind the 30-inch high wall that encircled the rooftop. Their eyes were also glued to the screens of small laptops, but their hands held remote control units that looked similar to video game controllers.

Sgt. Brenda Gleason, the spotter to his right. manipulated a small toggle switch that allowed her to move a camera mounted on the top of a telephone pole approximately 240 yards from where she was sitting. The camera's gaze scanned the crowd of protesters, the facial recognition software in her laptop identifying several members of various anarchist groups and some well-known agitators.

Officer Daniel York was the spotter on Officer Romero's left. Like his counterpart sitting ten feet from him he worked his fingers over the controls of a remote that controlled several different discreetly mounted cameras. His eyes flitted over the screen of his laptop, the names of several people his department had expected to be at the demonstration, and a few that had not been expected, popping up as the facial recognition software did it's job. 

The sun was still low on the horizon. The morning haze had burned off and the view was now perfectly clear through the high definition screens.

It was still an hour or so before the expected appearance of the man various law enforcement agencies had started referring to as "The Big Fish," the man everyone, or at least everyone who thought of themselves as an "outsider," had grown to hate with such a fervor that they had started to band together, forming a united front against what they considered the biggest threat to their desire to live their lives as loners, hermits, and anti-social misfits.

The irony was palpable. 

The Man In The Van

Ya' know...if you have to put a large decal on the back of your van that is basically a disclaimer regarding criminal activity....well. maybe it's time to get a different vehicle.

Why Driving Around With Your Tires Out Of Alignment Is A Bad Idea

This afternoon my front drivers side tire suffered a blow-out. Fortunately I wasn't on the freeway driving at a high rate of speed - it was just as I was pulling out of a parking lot, turning left. I pulled back into the parking lot immediately and proceeded to pulling off the flat and putting on the spare,

This is the area of the tire sidewall where the blowout occurred, I have no idea how it happened - didn't feel like I'd hit or run over anything. However, while the blowout was an annoying inconvenience, it was also a blessing in disguise.

See, when I took the flat tire off the rim I discovered that the tire was wearing down to the steel belts on the inside - the result of the front tires being out of alignment, which I think was the result of me slightly tapping a curb due to a hard turn I had to make to avoid a sliding car about a month ago. 

As you can probably easily imagine a tire like that was due to give out at any moment. It could have happened on a busy downtown street going 25 mph, a relatively empty residential street going 35 mph, or on a highway going 65 mph. It was just dumb luck that the front tire caught a flat when I was only going 5 mph leaving a parking lot - a dry, snow and ice free parking lot in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

All I had to do was remove the flat, put on the spare, and then get to my local tire shop to get four new tires put on - car's an AWD, so when one tire needs replacing, they all have to be replaced. 

Bummer about having to get four new tires, but damn, a little inconvenience and expense beats the hell out of what could have been a catastrophe.

Oh, and yeah, got the front end alignment taken care of, which I should have done about a month ago...yeah.

Not Quite A Blizzard, But Still A Ton Of Snow In Lakewood

                                       Outside My Front Door This Morning

                                       My Car Looking Grumpy Under All The Snow

                                                         I've Been In Worse

                                                         Outside BB's House

                                         Neighbor Dan Has A Loaded Roof

                                                        Front Walks Clear!

                                                      Tree Branch Down

What The Heck, It's Spring

Luck O' The Irish