One of the first times I went on a field call, Cortney went with me. I was still in training for the most part and still needed introduction to the nuances of acquiring video evidence and the places I’d be going to do it. On this particular occasion we needed a lot of video. Days of it. So, the plan was to pull the hard drive from the DVR and bring it back to the lab where I could process it. The location was a particularly nasty motel along the strip and having the two of us there was better than being alone. Oftentimes with places like this one, the protocol would be to call for “back”; the man or woman with a uniform and, more importantly, a gun. Two people is good, but two people and a gun was better when you had meth-heads, heroin addicts, or whatever other…
The Lottery
There is the old saw that says the lottery is a tax on people who don’t understand math. And, to be honest, that is the absolute truth, albeit a bit harsh. Sure, people win. But considering that most of the time it’s a single person and there are millions who play, those are pretty long odds. Besides, it’s not about how many people play. You knew that right? I’ll get to that in a minute. But there has been a recent uptick in the revenues that lotteries across the country are seeing. It’s really no surprise with the economy in the tank like it is. People just want a little of that magic to take away the sting of the headlines or that mortgage bill or the feeling that their retirement savings are just not going to cut it in the end. But what about that math? Wait, time out! …
The Myth of Quality Time
About a year ago, I wrote an essay called Living the Hyperopic Life. It was a dissertation on the ideas of balance, living, for now, living on purpose, and making sure, when you looked back at the end, you are certain in your heart that it was a life well-lived. One part dealt with taking time and making it worth something. Blocks of time, snippets of time, anything you could carve out between the important things and responsibilities you had. These little bits of time strung together, would weave the tapestry of your life. The more meaningful the time spent, the tighter the weave. If you could paint a picture of this tapestry, it would not be pretty. It isn’t one of those neatly woven, ornate fabrics you see in stores. The resemblance is more like a rag but with different kinds of thread and materials all woven together in…
Crash II: The Invitation
It was a Friday in March and the Spring was just trying to scrub the cold bleakness of Winter from the world. Cooler days would come back in a last-ditch attempt to keep Winter’s grip. But it would be without vigor as the inevitability of warmer weather made any real effort futile. Spring was going to win in the end anyway. It always did. The skies were clear and bright with the sunlight that had become decidedly more yellow and warm, promising the awakening that I liked so much about Spring when it wasn’t raining or gray as Springtime in Colorado often is.
The Cat and the Camera
The bag in my inbox was different than what I was used to seeing. It wasn’t flat and it wasn’t a small manila envelope with tape around it. This was a real piece of evidence in a bigger bag with red tape and marker over the tape to indicate tampering should it be opened. There was a barcode label as well; official, clean, intimidating. As the new guy in the lab, there was still much that I needed to learn. I knew the basics but I could sense daily that there were things I needed to know but didn’t yet. It was unsettling but exciting at the same time. A life-long learner, I never get tired of finding out something new. Especially when I was interested in the subject from which that information flowed. However, I felt tentative whenever handling something I wasn’t quite sure I should be handling; no…
Crash I: Cracks in the Armor
I was not expecting to break down when Darla and I went to Home Depot, but I did. We were there to pick up wall hooks or shelving or some such minor item to fulfill an equally minor need. When it happened it felt strange, sudden, and utterly foreign in the moment. I had cried before; I wasn’t immune to feeling emotion. But there was the oddity of being in that place, so public, hard, and yet feeling such a surge of raw emotion was seismic in its duality.
Like Alfredo? Eat This!
My 11-year-old has taken a keen interest in cooking and one day announced he wanted to make fettuccine Alfredo (these pronouncements have come often of late…always something new.) So we did. What we didn’t expect was how incredibly delicious it would be. It is, by far, the best I have ever had and this coming from someone who in younger years actively sought out a better and better source of fettuccine Alfredo…some search for ribs, for me it’s flat pasta in cheesy cream sauce. It’s finally here. At last, we can get that silence that comes with the mainstream media looking around and asking themselves, “what now?” And as you watch the returns of the election or if you are reading this after things have been written in stone, I have something for you. It is a symphony for your tongue, a celebration of flavor, a soothing salve for the…