simple reminder

tonight we sent a few officers out to a call that included some people trying to hold down a man who was intoxicated, acting violently & claiming to be satan. as i sent the officers, i sent a message to one of them, joking that he (the officer) should try & get a straight answer from the crazy guy, seeing if he really was claiming to be satan. he later said that the guy was just yelling a lot, nothing in specific. i quipped that i'd hoped i'd be able to go to church tomorrow & let everyone know that we'd taken satan into custody. :)

the officer reminded me how much of a better world we would live in if it weren't for sin & destruction in the world. how much more often i should remember & reflect on our personal and global need for redemption. every day, i have a very clear view of all the trouble in the world... and it only gets worse, not better. yet God's mercy prevails, despite all we do that gets in the way. we have a generous, gracious & magnificent God!

thanksgiving and the day after

Thanksgiving was wonderful. My family followed along traditional lines and met up with my mom's side of the family at my aunt & uncle's house. I think we had 23 people there... it was a whole lot of fun. My cousin Lydia (10 years old) made up placards for everyone so we all had assigned seating. She's the best - she wrote on the inside of every person's placard the things she was thankful for, regarding that particular person. I can't think of a whole lot of 10 year-olds that would come up with that kind of a plan & implement it all on their own! Anyhow, all the "adults" (my grandparents, their children & spouses) were at one table, and all us grand kids & great grand kids were at the other table. I must admit... we had a great 'kids' table! My favorite food part of the meal - the mashed potatoes, hands down. I think they were THE very best mashed potatoes I've ever eaten. Really. They were spectacular.

Then, for a light supper, we headed over to my dad's parents' apartment. (They live in a retirement home.) Not that we needed more food... certainly not by any means! But it's important to go see them too. My grandma makes the best sugar bread. Actually... I've never had sugar bread that anyone else has ever made. But it's still the best! We visited with them for awhile then jetted. We had plans to make.



Black Friday plans, that is... It's been a part of our Thanksgiving-weekend routine for the past couple of years. This year was fairly understated, which was good. Past years have included a 5-way phone call the night before... and past years also may have included a spreadsheet. :)

This year, thanks to some internet shopping (thank you, thank you Al Gore/whoever actually invented the internet), the only stores to hit in the morning were Target and ABC Warehouse. Since I've been on a much different sleeping schedule than the rest of the fam (I generally sleep from 2 or 3am until 10 or 11am), they were all gracious enough to let me sleep this year! I met up with them for breakfast, of course... some things are indeed worth getting up for.

non-update

i don't have much to say. scratch that... i don't have anything to say that's suitable to post on the internet. i've decided that i really can't post much regarding work... gotta be careful with that. and i don't do a whole lot except for work. this is a sad reality.

ok - so i lied. one minor thing at work (see?? nothing to talk about except for work...) is that the test i've been waiting to take has finally been scheduled for tuesday afternoon. it's the cumulation of all the training i've had for the past 2 years. i'm not really that nervous about it. no one (and i mean NO one) ever fails the test... they prepare us pretty well. but still... just a tad nervous. i don't want to be the one person in the history of city employment to fail the test. that would suck.

also - i get to sleep in tomorrow! getting up to work day shift these past 3 days has been brutal... for as much as i complain about being on 2nd shift, i really, REALLY like to sleep in. :)

the young have spoken

i really don't consider myself politically minded. that's mostly because i really don't like politics. i can appreciate a healthy debate, but too many opinionated people all together is a recipe for making me stressed out. one thing you may not know about me, however, is that i enjoy statistics. here's a set of statistics that i was looking at (analyzing, if you will) that i consider very interesting:

presidential vote by age*:

*statistics were taken from www.cnn.com, exit poll numbers, approx 1130 hrs, 5 nov 2008

there is a 20% difference between those above age 65 and those below age 30. these groups are separated by 35 years and over 20% of the vote. a simple generalization - by these numbers, the younger you are, the more likely you were to vote for obama. the older you are, the more likely you were to vote for mccain. there are dozens of ways to interpret that very generalization. there are obviously many other conclusions that can be deduced from the numbers, but i'll look at just the one.

the younger generation is more likely to push change. they are more adaptable, more open to new ways of doing things. the older generation is more likely to want to keep things the same, or take change at a a slower pace. they go for the tried-and-true, the familiar, the "safe" route.

on the other side of the coin, the older generation has experience & wisdom on their side. they have lived through more experiences and have had to adapt to more changes. they could be more realistic in their view point, having learned (a lot of times, the hard way) that change is very difficult and doesn't happen without consequences - both the expected & unexpected. the younger generation is more idealistic in their approach - seeing what they don't like and pushing to change no matter what the consequences, for better or worse; we'll live through the consequences by dealing with that when the time comes.

it's clear that those desperate for change in our country outnumber those who are more reserved on the matter. one thing is for certain - the imminent changes will certainly shape the future of our nation. we have taken the fork in the road and we are branching out from our previous path. will we regret taking this path, once we get far enough to realize the trouble & chaos e have gotten ourselves into? or will we marvel at the amazing revelation of relief we feel once we get to a point of order and peace, wondering why the heck it took us so long to get there?

fall back

i love daylight savings (in the fall, of course) just the same as the next person. what could be better, actually!? a whole extra hour of sleep... or (even better, in my opinion), staying up a whole hour later without the quantity of sleep being compromised!

i walked into work this evening (at 5pm) remembering that i was working OT - as the extra person answering phones from 1am-4am. about an hour later... I realized this meant i was still working 4 hrs of OT as I had to sit through 1am twice.

*sigh*

still... it could be worse... i could've had to stay for "4" hours originally and ended up with 5 hours of OT. or, i could've ended up like Sal... who got forced for a double & thus ended up working 17 hours in a row.

poor Sal. :(