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On Sunday afternoon, we moved the trailer from space #71 to space #104, where we will leave it for the next two weekends. Guess what happened when we tried to close everything up? Yep, the big slide wouldn't come in. the other two went in fine and then when we tried to open them and close all three, the two small ones extended and then retracted but the big slide wouldn't budge. We just carefully drove it around the corner and into the new space. We got everything set up again, so we're ready for the party. Stella decided to stay at the park, so after Dee fixed us some pork loin on their rotisserie and sweet potatoes in the steamer, we had a delicious supper. I left for home about 6:30.
I was busy at work on Monday, having to follow-up on an auto theft case. I took two statements from the victims and got an arrest warrant for the suspect. He left the house before I could get back with the warrant. I made another arrest for a man wanted by the Webster Police Dept. for an outstanding traffic warrant. The last call for the day was an accident that wasn't hard to work at all. Maybe I'm getting better at this, but I still don't like patrol. My investigation work is piling up, but thats the way they want it I guess.
Stella decided to stay another night at the park, so I went home and fixed my own supper. It was so peaceful with no one there to bother me.....please don't tell Stella
Tuesday was another slow day at work. I got two of the reports done from yesterday and didn't have too much else in the way of calls. I left as soon as my relief showed up and went to get Stella. I visited with Gwen and Melissa and made a couple of changes to some of our reservations for Thanksgiving and New Years Eve. We stopped and picked up hamburgers at Whataburger on the way home. I ate mine and went to bed about 8 o'clock. Sucks being me, having to get up by 4 to get to work. I have never been one to sleep right up until time to go to work. I have to wake up and have coffee before I go.
Today I got finished up with my reports from Monday. I took another big report on a burglary of a motor vehicle. This seems to be the latest thing going around, to steal women's purses out of their cars with everything they carry in those huge purses. At least I got through "hump day" and only have two more days to work this week. It looks like I'll have to work on Labor Day (Monday) but at least it will be overtime.
Tomorrow is exactly one year before retirement! Hope I can last it out.....
Later
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Finally camping again
We brought the trailer up to Rayford this weekend in what seemed to be a year, although its only been three weeks. It just felt so good to be here again. It just so happens that this was the Gulf Coast RV club's anniversary rally at Rayford. We saw some of our friends that are still a part of their group, Ron and Ellen Norton, Sue Yoder, Barbara Spade, and Marilyn Kubecka.
Friday night we went out to eat pizza at Donnellys buffet with Ricky and Dee. We came back to the park and started out watching the Texans getting beat by the Cowboys and at some point I went to sleep and woke up about 1am and went to bed. This habit of going to bed real early so I can get to work at 6 is hard to break. Saturday morning I met Diane Chambers, the current president of the GCRV club, and she kindly invited us to have breakfast with them. I declined since we are not members any longer, although we are and always will be founding members.
Some of our Heartland friends came by on Saturday. Bob and Grace Stewart came by in the morning from the park in New Caney where they are staying. Grace is here for follow-up checkups with her doctors and they wanted to meet with us while they were here. Bob retired from the California Highway Patrol about five years ago when they went on the road. We stayed at the trailer until about noon when we went to the Casa Imperial for a light lunch. Stella and I went shopping at Wal Mart (where else do we shop?) and bought our stuff for the rest of this weekend and next weekend and by the time we got back to the trailer and got everything put away, Berry and Janet Sanders dropped by to chat. They have a Sundance trailer and have signed up for the October rally and wanted to meet someone thats in the club before the rally. They are a very nice couple, nearing her retirement in a couple of years. We told them about our plans and they are interested, but Janet still has awhile to work before she retires. Berry is already retired and living it.
After they left, we hung out with Ricky and Dee and later fixed hamburgers to eat. It was nice to just sit around and visit. They are meeting tommy and Susan Hathcock and maybe Harry and Judy Hartley at the Priest Gulch RV Park in Dolores Colorado in the middle of September next year and we talked about coming there to meet them. We have already made plans to go to Blue Spruce as our first destination after retirement, but could go over to Dolores; its only about 100 miles.
We came back to the trailer about 9:30 and hadn't been here more than 10 minutes when it started to rain. I don't know how long it rained, because I didn't stay awake long with the pattering of raindrops on the trailer roof.
Ricky took us to a very good breakfast taco store over on FM 2920 Sunday morning. Its hard to beat good fresh breakfast tacos on homemade tortillas in the morning.
We can't wait to retire!
Friday night we went out to eat pizza at Donnellys buffet with Ricky and Dee. We came back to the park and started out watching the Texans getting beat by the Cowboys and at some point I went to sleep and woke up about 1am and went to bed. This habit of going to bed real early so I can get to work at 6 is hard to break. Saturday morning I met Diane Chambers, the current president of the GCRV club, and she kindly invited us to have breakfast with them. I declined since we are not members any longer, although we are and always will be founding members.
Some of our Heartland friends came by on Saturday. Bob and Grace Stewart came by in the morning from the park in New Caney where they are staying. Grace is here for follow-up checkups with her doctors and they wanted to meet with us while they were here. Bob retired from the California Highway Patrol about five years ago when they went on the road. We stayed at the trailer until about noon when we went to the Casa Imperial for a light lunch. Stella and I went shopping at Wal Mart (where else do we shop?) and bought our stuff for the rest of this weekend and next weekend and by the time we got back to the trailer and got everything put away, Berry and Janet Sanders dropped by to chat. They have a Sundance trailer and have signed up for the October rally and wanted to meet someone thats in the club before the rally. They are a very nice couple, nearing her retirement in a couple of years. We told them about our plans and they are interested, but Janet still has awhile to work before she retires. Berry is already retired and living it.
After they left, we hung out with Ricky and Dee and later fixed hamburgers to eat. It was nice to just sit around and visit. They are meeting tommy and Susan Hathcock and maybe Harry and Judy Hartley at the Priest Gulch RV Park in Dolores Colorado in the middle of September next year and we talked about coming there to meet them. We have already made plans to go to Blue Spruce as our first destination after retirement, but could go over to Dolores; its only about 100 miles.
We came back to the trailer about 9:30 and hadn't been here more than 10 minutes when it started to rain. I don't know how long it rained, because I didn't stay awake long with the pattering of raindrops on the trailer roof.
Ricky took us to a very good breakfast taco store over on FM 2920 Sunday morning. Its hard to beat good fresh breakfast tacos on homemade tortillas in the morning.
We can't wait to retire!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Another week on patrol
Well, another week on patrol has gone by. Wednesday morning started out with a bang-literally-as a two car minor accident was reported. A car had hit a utility trailer in the dark as the guy pulling the trailer tried to make it across the highway. The accident was not a problem to work, it was the reporting afterwards. I'm not familiar with the new format of the report which is on the computer now and not done by hand like we did it back in the "olden days". I guess the new way has some good points, especially the fact that no one needs to try to decipher my handwriting.
Thursday was non-eventful, but Friday morning started out with another accident to investigate. One of Judge Vasut's court clerks got run into in a service station parking lot by another customer. No biggee, but more paperwork that I hate. Then about noon I got a call to assist a prison van with prisoners aboard that had broken down. The van was in the truck lane at a large service station with a flat tire. When I got there, they began taking the female prisoners out-two at a time-to use the restroom inside the station. Security for these prisoners seemed to be really lax, but everything went well, and after about an hour and a half to get the tire changed out, they were on their way. Then, guess what? Another traffic accident. This one involved a friend of mine who is a retired Investigator from the Brazoria County SO. He was at fault, which made it even worse, but I had my job to do and he understood.
Friday night (Saturday morning) about 3:00AM, I got called out to a suicide that had occurred at a new home in Rodeo Palms. I went to the Memorial Hermann hospital where I found out the victim was DOA. After speaking with a nurse who had cared for her, I was on my way back to Manvel. I went to the scene and met with the officers who had responded. We picked up the evidence and cleared the scene about 5:30. We all went back to the PD where I did my report and went off duty about 7. It rained on my all the way home. It made for good sleeping in my recliner that morning but not too much else got done. Stella went shopping with Kim and the boys for school clothes and supplies. It was the no tax weekend, so they saved a little more and many of the stores lower their prices that weekend too, so it worked out pretty well.
Sunday was yard clean up day. I swear that yard gets bigger and bigger each time I cut it. I think I'm up to about two acres now! It's really not that bad and I got it all done in about two hours of actual work time. We stayed home today because Mark had come to get the boys after they came back from shopping and we later learned that he had taken them to Lumberton to meet their other grandmother-his real father's mother.
Monday work was pretty easy. I got some more information on a large investigation that is being done in the area, and some real interesting information about the suicide victim. I can't go into that here right now, but it's juicy information. Remind me later and I'll tell you more about it.
Diesel prices have certainly come down! Thank goodness, I thought we might have to pick up aluminum cans along the road to be able to buy fuel if they didn't come down. I bought some diesel last week when we went to Camping World and paid $4.23, which is way down from the $4.69 we paid the last time. It is going even lower and I've seen it as low as $4.09 around here. Thats a good sign for us.
My rallies are going well. The Boomer weekend-after-Labor Day rally has filled up at 15 people coming. Thats good for me, because the regular Boomer rally for Labor Day only has 16 coming. The Heartland rally is at 17 now but should explode soon. Joe French from Camping World sent out 183 emails and 164 telephone calls to his customers that bought Heartland products. We'll have to wait and see how that works out.
Time to sign off now, work is calling me.
Thursday was non-eventful, but Friday morning started out with another accident to investigate. One of Judge Vasut's court clerks got run into in a service station parking lot by another customer. No biggee, but more paperwork that I hate. Then about noon I got a call to assist a prison van with prisoners aboard that had broken down. The van was in the truck lane at a large service station with a flat tire. When I got there, they began taking the female prisoners out-two at a time-to use the restroom inside the station. Security for these prisoners seemed to be really lax, but everything went well, and after about an hour and a half to get the tire changed out, they were on their way. Then, guess what? Another traffic accident. This one involved a friend of mine who is a retired Investigator from the Brazoria County SO. He was at fault, which made it even worse, but I had my job to do and he understood.
Friday night (Saturday morning) about 3:00AM, I got called out to a suicide that had occurred at a new home in Rodeo Palms. I went to the Memorial Hermann hospital where I found out the victim was DOA. After speaking with a nurse who had cared for her, I was on my way back to Manvel. I went to the scene and met with the officers who had responded. We picked up the evidence and cleared the scene about 5:30. We all went back to the PD where I did my report and went off duty about 7. It rained on my all the way home. It made for good sleeping in my recliner that morning but not too much else got done. Stella went shopping with Kim and the boys for school clothes and supplies. It was the no tax weekend, so they saved a little more and many of the stores lower their prices that weekend too, so it worked out pretty well.
Sunday was yard clean up day. I swear that yard gets bigger and bigger each time I cut it. I think I'm up to about two acres now! It's really not that bad and I got it all done in about two hours of actual work time. We stayed home today because Mark had come to get the boys after they came back from shopping and we later learned that he had taken them to Lumberton to meet their other grandmother-his real father's mother.
Monday work was pretty easy. I got some more information on a large investigation that is being done in the area, and some real interesting information about the suicide victim. I can't go into that here right now, but it's juicy information. Remind me later and I'll tell you more about it.
Diesel prices have certainly come down! Thank goodness, I thought we might have to pick up aluminum cans along the road to be able to buy fuel if they didn't come down. I bought some diesel last week when we went to Camping World and paid $4.23, which is way down from the $4.69 we paid the last time. It is going even lower and I've seen it as low as $4.09 around here. Thats a good sign for us.
My rallies are going well. The Boomer weekend-after-Labor Day rally has filled up at 15 people coming. Thats good for me, because the regular Boomer rally for Labor Day only has 16 coming. The Heartland rally is at 17 now but should explode soon. Joe French from Camping World sent out 183 emails and 164 telephone calls to his customers that bought Heartland products. We'll have to wait and see how that works out.
Time to sign off now, work is calling me.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Weekend and back on patrol
Well, as I left off last week, I had put in my first week back on patrol. I still don't like it, but I'm hanging in there, at least for now. I just don't feel comfortable on patrol any more, I guess because I've been out of it for so long.
Stella had her foot operated on to remove the callous or corn inside the sole of her foot on Thursday. She hobbled around on Friday and came home after lunch, big baby.....I would probably have stayed off all together, but I have sick time coming and she doesn't. Please don't tell her I called her a big baby.
The weekend was pretty good. I got up on Saturday morning and cut the grass. It was so hot I had to stop several times to cool off but heck, I'm not getting paid for this so why kill myself doing it? After getting it done we went up to Camping World for two reasons. I wanted to see a couple of new models of Bighorns, the 3385 and the 3580. The 3385 has a living room/kitchen that is exactly like our trailer, with an enclosed bathroom. I didn't like the bathroom because it feels so cramped and the bedroom feels very small too even though they only come with a queen size bed. I want the enclosed bathroom, but a little larger. The 3580 is one that I could live with, with an island kitchen and enclosed bathroom that is accessible from two doors. One door leads around into the bedroom and the other into the bathroom and then another door into the beedroom. I liked this floorplan better but Stella didn't like the fireplace under the TV with no actual desk. There is a small area under the TV to use as a desk, but you'd be sitting right in front of the screen. This trailer weighs as much as the 3670, which is what we really wanted but couldn't pull with this truck. Thats probably be our biggest problem, not enough truck. We really want to stay with this truck because of its great mileage and of course it will be paid for when we retire.
We stayed home on Sunday and just hung out here. We cleaned up a few items and took some things out to the trash but this cleaning out the house is going REAL SLOW!! I think we should just call Goodwill or one of the other services like that and tell them to come pick up stuff until we tell them to quit. At the rate we're going, we won't be out by next year when we retire.
My first two days of patrol this week, by myself, have been very uneventful. I hope I'm not jinxing myself but there hasn't been anything much going on. Of course, my investigation work is not getting done, but the administration understands.
So long for now.
Stella had her foot operated on to remove the callous or corn inside the sole of her foot on Thursday. She hobbled around on Friday and came home after lunch, big baby.....I would probably have stayed off all together, but I have sick time coming and she doesn't. Please don't tell her I called her a big baby.
The weekend was pretty good. I got up on Saturday morning and cut the grass. It was so hot I had to stop several times to cool off but heck, I'm not getting paid for this so why kill myself doing it? After getting it done we went up to Camping World for two reasons. I wanted to see a couple of new models of Bighorns, the 3385 and the 3580. The 3385 has a living room/kitchen that is exactly like our trailer, with an enclosed bathroom. I didn't like the bathroom because it feels so cramped and the bedroom feels very small too even though they only come with a queen size bed. I want the enclosed bathroom, but a little larger. The 3580 is one that I could live with, with an island kitchen and enclosed bathroom that is accessible from two doors. One door leads around into the bedroom and the other into the bathroom and then another door into the beedroom. I liked this floorplan better but Stella didn't like the fireplace under the TV with no actual desk. There is a small area under the TV to use as a desk, but you'd be sitting right in front of the screen. This trailer weighs as much as the 3670, which is what we really wanted but couldn't pull with this truck. Thats probably be our biggest problem, not enough truck. We really want to stay with this truck because of its great mileage and of course it will be paid for when we retire.
We stayed home on Sunday and just hung out here. We cleaned up a few items and took some things out to the trash but this cleaning out the house is going REAL SLOW!! I think we should just call Goodwill or one of the other services like that and tell them to come pick up stuff until we tell them to quit. At the rate we're going, we won't be out by next year when we retire.
My first two days of patrol this week, by myself, have been very uneventful. I hope I'm not jinxing myself but there hasn't been anything much going on. Of course, my investigation work is not getting done, but the administration understands.
So long for now.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
First Week Back on Patrol
Friday was my first day back on patrol with my new-hire Steve Burt. Steve is a very experienced officer who came to Manvel from the Houston Community College PD. He is a former Robbery-Homicide Detective at the Humble Police Dept. so he brings a very good background to the department. The first day was spent showing him around the city, all the city limits and such. We had a few calls, but nothing major.
Saturday morning, Stella and I went to Cameron's first baseball game which started at 8 AM! They came from behind and won the game, and then completely dominated the second game of the day. They didn't have to play a third game and went into Sunday's game in first place! We got our week's shopping out of the way Saturday between Cam's games. We went to the new Best Buy in League City and bought a USB hub for the desktop computer and a card reader so I can download our pictures onto the computer. Stella bought another hub for her work computer to add more USB outlets. We looked at some really nice laptops while we were there too, a Gateway, a Toshiba and a Qosmio brand that I've never heard of. We're trying to find something to use when we go on the road. Today its twelve months and 21 days to go......!
The team they played on Sunday in the semi-finals game spanked them, beating them 15-0, so the we came home for the day. We cut grass and hung out at home for the rest of the day.
Monday I gave Steve the day off so he could take care of leaving HCC PD. He said they ran him all over town, turning in uniforms and getting his retirement taken care of, but he got it done. He said that people are dropping like flies at HCC; they have lost 6 officers in the last two months. His Lieutenant was very upset with his decision to leave. He had just been offered the training officer Sergeant position.
Tuesday patrol with him began early because of T/S Eduardo. We came in at 6AM as a precaution for high winds, but it was a non-event. There were no winds at all and only a small amount of rain. We needed the rain, but it just didn't come. Then there was more showing him around town and trying to familiarize him with the metropolis of Manvel. Manvel is actually the second largest city in Brazoria County in area. The population has doubled since I worked there before and should continue when the development begins sometime next year.
Wednesday patrol was interesting. I let Steve start driving, thinking that he will learn faster by actually driving the area. He did just fine, as expected. Again, we had a few calls but nothing major until the afternoon when it began to rain pretty hard. We got alarm calls back to back, and then a call of a red truck parked in the road on FM 1128. The truck turned out to belong to Mark, Kim's ex-husband. We had the truck picked up because it was a traffic hazard and later learned that it had been stolen from the park and ride on SH 288. Mark was a jerk when I saw him, and later he took the truck without paying the towing company for picking it up because his credit card was denied. One of the guys with him paid the bill and he went on his way. It all worked out in the end, his stolen truck was returned to him with minimal damage and it only cost him $75.00. He's still a jerk.
So long for now,
Saturday morning, Stella and I went to Cameron's first baseball game which started at 8 AM! They came from behind and won the game, and then completely dominated the second game of the day. They didn't have to play a third game and went into Sunday's game in first place! We got our week's shopping out of the way Saturday between Cam's games. We went to the new Best Buy in League City and bought a USB hub for the desktop computer and a card reader so I can download our pictures onto the computer. Stella bought another hub for her work computer to add more USB outlets. We looked at some really nice laptops while we were there too, a Gateway, a Toshiba and a Qosmio brand that I've never heard of. We're trying to find something to use when we go on the road. Today its twelve months and 21 days to go......!
The team they played on Sunday in the semi-finals game spanked them, beating them 15-0, so the we came home for the day. We cut grass and hung out at home for the rest of the day.
Monday I gave Steve the day off so he could take care of leaving HCC PD. He said they ran him all over town, turning in uniforms and getting his retirement taken care of, but he got it done. He said that people are dropping like flies at HCC; they have lost 6 officers in the last two months. His Lieutenant was very upset with his decision to leave. He had just been offered the training officer Sergeant position.
Tuesday patrol with him began early because of T/S Eduardo. We came in at 6AM as a precaution for high winds, but it was a non-event. There were no winds at all and only a small amount of rain. We needed the rain, but it just didn't come. Then there was more showing him around town and trying to familiarize him with the metropolis of Manvel. Manvel is actually the second largest city in Brazoria County in area. The population has doubled since I worked there before and should continue when the development begins sometime next year.
Wednesday patrol was interesting. I let Steve start driving, thinking that he will learn faster by actually driving the area. He did just fine, as expected. Again, we had a few calls but nothing major until the afternoon when it began to rain pretty hard. We got alarm calls back to back, and then a call of a red truck parked in the road on FM 1128. The truck turned out to belong to Mark, Kim's ex-husband. We had the truck picked up because it was a traffic hazard and later learned that it had been stolen from the park and ride on SH 288. Mark was a jerk when I saw him, and later he took the truck without paying the towing company for picking it up because his credit card was denied. One of the guys with him paid the bill and he went on his way. It all worked out in the end, his stolen truck was returned to him with minimal damage and it only cost him $75.00. He's still a jerk.
So long for now,
Friday, August 1, 2008
A change at work
I had some very unwelcome news yesterday at work. I knew that one of our officers had resigned to take another job, but a former officer had been recalled and seemed to be doing a good job. It seems that she wasn't satisfied with the new position, and to make a long story short, she quit suddenly. The bad news for me was that I have to go back to the Patrol Div. for awhile. We hired another new man with lots of experience and I start field training him this morning. He and I will go on patrol at 8 AM today. We'll see how this works out.
Cameron plays baseball again this weekend, playing in a tournament at the Field of Dreams park in League City. These are baseball fields made to look like famous major league parks scaled down for Little Leaguers to play on. It will be our first time to go there so I'll have to make a report here after checking out the park.
Not too much else going on here. Last weekend we worked some in the yard and cleaned up some of our boxes and sacks of "stuff" that came out of the old trailer. We're planning garage sales to get rid of much of this stuff, so hopefully we'll be able to sell the house soon.
Until next time,
Cameron plays baseball again this weekend, playing in a tournament at the Field of Dreams park in League City. These are baseball fields made to look like famous major league parks scaled down for Little Leaguers to play on. It will be our first time to go there so I'll have to make a report here after checking out the park.
Not too much else going on here. Last weekend we worked some in the yard and cleaned up some of our boxes and sacks of "stuff" that came out of the old trailer. We're planning garage sales to get rid of much of this stuff, so hopefully we'll be able to sell the house soon.
Until next time,
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