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About 150 refugees from Louisiana are here in Keller at the First Baptist Church.  Our CERT was activated to provide organizational assistance and coordination to the church members as they set up their shelter.  Fortunately, the church has lots of volunteers to handle all of the operational tasks, since our CERT is still a fairly small organization.  We were brought in because we’ve had training in the Incident Command System.  Many of us also took a last-minute crash course on Red Cross shelter management on Friday.

The refugees arrived late last night (actually early this morning).  So far, everything is going fairly well, and I didn’t see anyone causing trouble.  Everyone I’ve seen has seemed grateful to have a place to stay along with meals, air conditioning, and showers.

Our CERT is covering their office from 6:00am to 10:00pm each day to provide whatever assistance they need.  I’m going to be doing four hour shifts at various times through Tuesday.  We’re still working out the logistics beyond that, as it appears that the shelter could be open for up to three months.  Although quite a few people have left the shelter, new people are being sent over as the old ones leave.

It seems that there’s a meme afoot regarding the music that was popular when you got out of high school.

Click below for the full horror of 1988.

Key:
   Strikethrough = hate the song
   Bold = like the song
   Bold + underline = favorite (of the set)
   No highlight=no strong opinion

1. Faith, George Michael
2. Need You Tonight, INXS
3. Got My Mind Set On You, George Harrison
4. Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley
5. Sweet Child O’ Mine, Guns N’ Roses
6. So Emotional, Whitney Houston
7. Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Belinda Carlisle
8. Could’ve Been, Tiffany
9. Hands To Heaven, Breathe
10. Roll With It, Steve Winwood
11. One More Try, George Michael
12. Wishing Well, Terence Trent d’Arby
13. Anything For You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
14. The Flame, Cheap Trick
15. Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car, Billy Ocean  (need a different indicator for freakin’ played to death!)
16. Seasons Change, Expose
17. Is This Love, Whitesnake  (Is this singing?)
18. Wild, Wild West, Escape Club
19. Pour Some Sugar On Me, Def Leppard
20. I’ll Always Love You, Taylor Dayne
21. Man In The Mirror, Michael Jackson
22. Shake Your Love, Debbie Gibson
23. Simply Irresistible, Robert Palmer
24. Hold On To The Nights, Richard Marx  (Richard Marx still gives me hives)
25. Hungry Eyes, Eric Carnen
26. Shattered Dreams, Johnny Hates Jazz
27. Father Figure, George Michael
28. Naught Girls (Need Love Too), Samantha Fox
29. A Groovy Kind Of Love, Phil Collins
30. Love Bites, Def Leppard
31. Endless Summer Nights, Richard Marx
32. Foolish Beat, Debbie Gibson
33. Where Do Broken Hearts Go, Whitney Houston
34. Angel, Aerosmith
35. Hazy Shade Of Winter, Bangles
36. The Way You Make Me Feel, Michael Jackson
37. Don’t Worry, Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin (Is there an indicator to use for “OK the first 2000 times it was played, but a bit irritating after that?”)
38. Make Me Lose Control, Eric Carnen
39. Red Red Wine, UB40
40. She’s Like The Wind, Patric Swayze
41. Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
42. Kokomo, Beach Boys  (Just say Koko-NO!)
43. I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That, Elton John
44. Together Forever, Rick Astley
45. Monkey, George Michael
46. Devil Inside, INXS
47. Should’ve Known Better, Richard Marx
48. I Don’t Wanna Live Without Your Love, Chicago
49. The Loco-Motion, Kylie Minogue
50. What Have I Done To Deserve This?, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield
51. Make It Real, Jets
52. What’s On Your Mind, Information Society
53. Tell It To My Heart, Taylor Dayne
54. Out Of The Blue, Debbie Gibson
55. Don’t You Want Me, Jody Watley
56. Desire, U2
57. I Get Weak, Belinda Carlisle
58. Sign Your Name, Terence Trent d’Arby
59. I Want To Be Your Man, Roger
60. Girlfriend, Pebbles
61. Dirty Diana, Michael Jackson
62. 1-2-3, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
63. Mercedes Boy, Pebbles
64. Perfect World, Huey Lewis and the News
65. New Sensation, INXS
66. Catch Me (I’m Falling), Pretty Poison
67. If It Isn’t Love, New Edition
68. Rocket 2 U, Jets   (Hmm…  I can’t remember this one?  Am I suffering from lost time?  Or was it so horrid that I blocked it out?)
69. One Good Woman, Peter Cetera
70. Don’t Be Cruel, Cheap Trick
71. Candle In The Wind, Elton John
72. Everything Your Heart Desires, Daryl Hall and John Oates
73. Say You Will , Foreigner
74. I Want Her, Keith Sweat
75. Pink Cadillac, Natalie Cole
76. Fast Car, Tracy Chapman
77. Electric Blue, Icehouse
78. The Valley Road, Bruce Hornsby and The Range
79. Don’t Be Cruel, Bobby Brown
80. Always On My Mind, Pet Shop Boys
81. Piano In The Dark, Brenda Russell Featuring Joe Esposito
82. When It’s Love, Van Halen
83. Don’t Shed A Tear, Paul Carrack
84. We’ll Be Together, Sting
85. I Hate Myself For Loving You, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts (You should hate yourself for singing this song!)
86. I Don’t Want To Live Without You, Foreigner
87. Nite And Day, Al B. Sure
88. Don’t You Know What The Night Can Do, Steve Winwood
89. One Moment In Time, Whitney Houston
90. Can’t Stay Away From You, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
91. Kissing A Fool, George Michael
92. Cherry Bomb, John Cougar Mellancamp
93. I Still Believe, Brenda K. Starr
94. I Found Someone, Cher
95. Never Tear Us Apart, INXS
96. Valerie, Steve Windwood
97. Just Like Paradise, David Lee Roth
98. Nothin’ But A Good Time, Poison
99. Wait, White Lion
100. Prove Your Love, Taylor Dayne

I suppose “working vacation” is something of an oxymoron.  Anyhow, I’m going to be taking vacation from my regular job in order to attend a CERT Trainer course in Denton for the rest of the week.  Posting here will likely be even lighter than usual.

With this class and the other activities I have for this week, I may need a vacation to get over my vacation.  At least I’m free over the weekend (although I’m contemplating redoing my closet and putting in an organizer system).

Last week the Keller Lions Club held their annual fair on their property at the corner of Keller Parkway and Cindy St.

I mention all this because of something interesting I saw at the local Sonic, which is only a block and a half from the fair.  It’s only in the context of the fair that this sign can be fully understood:

Normally, I don’t think any sort of food establishment would want to associate itself with the word “barf.”  However, all things considered, I found it fairly amusing.

Perhaps I’m insufficiently open to “diversity of opinion”, but I think I have a better solution to this situation.  SNIPERS.  Lot of snipers.  Lots of snipers with high-powered rifles.

Phelps and his ilk make me want to hurl. 

It appears that this asshat is somewhat unclear on the concept of community service:

A 19-year-old man from Salisbury was supposed to be cleaning up a cemetery last week as part of court-ordered community work after he broke into an apartment building last fall.

Instead, officials said, Neil J. Goodwin Jr. invaded the tomb of a Civil War veteran, pulled apart the 142-year-old skeleton, and then played with the bones, balancing the skull on his shoulder and posing for pictures.

‘‘It’s bizarre, absolutely bizarre,” said Lieutenant Richard Siemasko of the Newburyport police. ‘‘I can’t even imagine what was in his head. This is just a whole new level of weird for me.”

Whole new level of weird, indeed. 

As usual, it seems like these types delight in taking advantage of lenient judges:

Goodwin’s recent problems with the law began in September 2004, when he was charged with breaking into and entering an ice cream shop in Salisbury. That October, he was arrested on charges of breaking into and entering an apartment building in Newburyport with the intent to steal. Goodwin was placed on probation after both arrests. He broke the terms of his probation earlier this year by neglecting to appear for a court date. He then tested positive for marijuana on a drug test a few months later, again breaking his probation, court records said.

After all that, he was out of jail again and serving community service.  Obviously, he just can’t get his stuff together.  Some people may be serial killers, but this guy seems to be serial screw-up.  But he’s now charged with two felonies for this tomb escapade.  Let’s hope the judge is through being lenient and this piece of excrement gets some serious jail time.

Oh, and it turns out that there was a good reason this body was interred in the crypt:

Officials have not yet identified the Civil War veteran, Siemasko said, but according to court documents those interred in the crypt had died of tuberculosis, which is why they were placed in the tomb. Town officials could not say how many bodies were buried inside.

I don’t know how long the bacteria would have survived, but I certainly wouldn’t play around with bones without some kind of BSI gear. 

Lest anyone think that socialism isn’t festering in the United States, a look at the latest foolishness from Hawaii should rapidly correct that misapprehension.

Hawaii will begin enforcing a cap on the wholesale price of gasoline next week, hoping to curb the sting of the nation’s highest gas costs.

The limit would be the first time a state has capped the price of gasoline – a move critics warn could lead to supply shortages.

Someone give those “critics” a cigar.  We have a winner.  In any situation with a commodity that isn’t unlimited, the market has an automatic control in place to determine who will get that commodity:  price.  Should pointy-headed politicians try to muck with these controls, the market will respond in one form or another.  I expect that we will shortly see long lines at the pumps in Hawaii as gasoline ends up in very short supply.  If the producers are unable to make a profit at wholesale, then they will naturally produce less or even no gasoline for the Hawaii market.  In the above linked article, one expert even predicted that one of the refineries might even be shut down and that companies would leave the market. 

Perhaps that would be a good lesson for the pointy-heads in the Hawaii state legislature.  Let’s see how well the state economy handles having no gasoline at all available.

My flight last night from Chicago to Dallas was on an American 777.  This was the first time I’d been on one, as most of my trips seem to be on S80’s and 737’s.  One of the good things about it was the in-seat video screens throughout the cabin, which included a status channel, which showed the position of the aircraft as well as altitude, speed, and outside temperature (we went from -56°F at 38,000 ft to 95°F on the ground;  I wonder how much stress that kind of temperature swing puts on the aircraft?).  However, I was in seat 43C, which is way in the back and has no visibility to any window.  I think a neat addition would be a channel with an outside view.  That way you could have sort of a virtual window in your seatback.  Of course, I have no idea how much it would cost to add something like this.  But the 777 already has tons of electronic bells and whistles, so it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to do it.

Maybe I’m weird, but even if I’m not in the window seat, I like being able to see what’s going on outside of the airplane.  The view from the ERJ-145 I took on my connection into Chicago was great (although a bit disconcerting at the end, as the pilot landed the plane just barely across the end of the runway; I was expecting us to land in a field for a minute ).

It was an efficient morning…  I walked the dog, mowed the yard, and got ticked off, all by 9:00am.

After my early morning activities I turned on Fox 4’s Saturday morning news, where I found myself shouting at the TV because of a story they were running.  Fox 4 isn’t good about putting their stories online, so here’s the rundown from the Dallas Morning News.

A convicted child molester who was wanted on a new charge was fatally shot Friday after fleeing from police into a Duncanville park and pointing a gun at a Dallas detective, authorities said.

Douglas H. Blackstone, 24, died about noon Friday at a Dallas hospital from gunshot wounds. He was convicted of the aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl in 2004 and ordered to serve 10 years’ probation.

Friday morning, two detectives from the sex offender apprehension unit were trying to arrest Mr. Blackstone on a warrant alleging aggravated sexual assault of a child. They were also seeking him because he had moved without registering his whereabouts as required by state law.

The fact that this guy was shot (provided that the facts were reported correctly) didn’t bother me.  It was the way the Fox 4 reporter treated the incident.  He interviewed a relative of Blackstone, who thought that the police were wrong to shoot him.  She thinks they should have shot him in the shoulder to make him drop the gun and that they should have brought his mother in to talk to him.  I can almost forgive a relative for thinking that, but the uncritical way that the Fox 4 reporter treated her claims is what bothers me.  He didn’t appear to make any effort to ask the police about this sort of situation, nor did he appear to have done any research on tactics for dealing with an armed person. 

All of us who have ever considered the issue of confronting an armed person know that shooting to wound is impractical at best, and deadly stupid at worst.  But, let’s consider a few of the issues and myths surrounding the concept of shooting to wound:

• Myth: shooting someone in the shoulder will make them drop the gun.

  While this might work in some cases, not all bullet wounds are equal.  Depending on entry angle, distance from the shooter, clothing, and the phase of the moon, the bullet might do serious damage to the shoulder, just go through, or ricochet off a bone and hit the heart.  It’s unpredictable.

• Myth:  shooting to wound is better legally, since it shows you weren’t trying to kill the other person. 

  Not true.  Commonly, the law only allows the use of deadly force when confronted with someone else using or attempting to use unlawful deadly force.  The use of less than deadly force could be construed by a DA as a sign that the shooter wasn’t really in fear of his life (it would also open up a huge liability issue in civil court in the hands of a plantiff’s attorney).

• Myth: it’s better to shoot the gun out of someone’s hand.

  Unfortunately, there was one case where a police sniper did just this, and it’s been seen a lot.  That was a special case, where the guy in question was sitting in a chair and not pointing his gun at other people and the sniper had plenty of time to line up the shot.  In the heat of the moment, and with handguns, this sort of policy would end up getting officers killed, and possibly cause injury to innocent bystanders.  Most cases of police shootings where the gun was shot out of the offender’s hand seem to be the result of the officer focusing on the gun, rather than the offender, causing him to shoot the gun.  This is an accident, and not part of any official policy.

But the ultimate myth is the very concept of shooting to wound.  While popular in movies, it’s stupid, deadly, and legally risky in real life.  When adrenalin is flowing and people have to make split-second decisions, the best that anyone can do is shooting to stop the threat, which may or may not end up in the death of the threat.  Further, shooting to wound often involves shooting at extremities, rather than center mass, which carries increased risk of missing the target, which could result in innocent bystanders being hit.

Contrary to popular conception, neither the police nor private citizens who carry guns set out with the intent to kill people.  However, if that is the side effect of stopping someone from using unlawful deadly force against yourself or another innocent party, then so be it.

This seems to be a common thread with reporters.  They have no idea about tactics for armed defense and credulously accept whatever the “poor victim’s” family has to say.  Police departments probably need to look into giving an intro to tactical shooting for reporters, so that they can have a better understanding of why officers react the way they do.  It seems simple enough to me that if you point a gun at a cop you’re going to get shot.  Why more people don’t understand this has always been perplexing.

My manager contacted me yesterday to tell me to knock off early today, since I have to travel this weekend for a business meeting that starts on Monday.  This was something of a shock, to say the least, since my old organization’s manager would have been after me to make sure I billed the project for the travel time (and to heck with knocking off early to compensate for it).

Anyhow, I’m off to run errands and put things in order.  I have to leave at the ass-crack of dawn on Sunday to get to the airport for a 7:00am flight.

Wish me luck, as I’m leaving for New York state (with a connection in Chicago; Ack, spit!).  There’s just something weird about knowing you’re in a place that makes it a felony to do what you do everyday at home.  And knowing that you’re not any different in your disposition or capabilities between those two places.  I’ll be glad to get back home to a semi-sane state on Wednesday night.