7 More Mondays

Time to Panic?

Fiona Coyote reminded me of a very important lesson that I learned back at the MCPS training academy, switch up your patrol routine.  Our laundry room is located outside, a small three step walk away from the back door.  Fiona is an indoor cat that craves the outside.  Whenever you go to the laundry room she waits at the door and cries at you to let her join you.  Whenever you open the door, she typically runs away…and then talks to you a bunch in the kitchen.  I went out to check on my clothes in the drier this morning, they weren’t ready yet, but Fiona was.  I opened the door and she bolted outside…for about 10 feet.  Then she turned around and talked to me.  She’s so funny, has no idea what to do out there.

She'll never run away, she loves cuddling with me too much

In my last update I told ya’ll I was sucking up this back injury and getting back into PT.  I made it through the warm-up but our last exercise was our two legged frog jump thing; it felt like a firework was exploding at the same point on my back every time I landed.  The class had to do a 2 mile run but some of us had to work out in the cardio room while that went down.  Most of the equipment in this little cardio room is broken; it actually sounded like I was changing gears when I was riding one of the stationary bikes.  I was talking to one of my classmates while trying to figure out what was wrong with the bike he was on when this old dude summoned me with “Yo!  Yo!”, I looked up and he waved me out of his view of the wall mounted Sportscenter.  I sarcastically responded, “Oh I’m sorry…am I in your way?” as I stared at him for a seconds waiting for a response before moving.  He’s lucky I was in my uniform shirt or I would’ve had a lot more to say…”Yo”ing me like that.

 Before leaving the cardio room I got a bit of good news.  I stepped on the scale and discovered that I’ve officially dropped below 260 for the first time since college.  TOUCHDOWN! That was immediately erased from my memory once we headed into the weight room.  I haven’t practiced our bench press test since our initial pretest so I wanted to see where I stood.  I helped coach one of my classmates on Friday to passing so I wanted to see if I could do the same.  There’s a little confusion over how much I actually have to bench.  I thought I overshot it in the pre-test, which I failed, so I tried a lighter weight this time.  I got the heavier weight at the pre-test up higher than I got the lighter weight this time.  I’ll go ahead and blame it on my back injury, the fact I haven’t lifted in a week, and it was my very first attempt of the workout session.  All decent excuses that aren’t that bad considering I got the weight about halfway up.  Then I found out that I was about 15lbs lighter than I what I need to qualify…total kick in the nuts.  Trying to put a positive spin on it, if I keep mysteriously losing weight I’ll have less to bench and I have 7 more weeks, 14 more PT classes, to make it all happen.  I’ve got to stay positive even though this entire trip to Flagstaff will be wasted if I don’t get this weight up…time to panic?

Transitioning from PT to class is soooo very annoying, good thing there’s only 14 more days that I have to do it.  I got sort of a strange text when I got out of PT.  One of my bosses from Holmdel Park reached out to me out of nowhere and told me that he could hire me back there seasonally until I got my job back.  That’s pretty strange and some of you may be saying that’s a good deal but tell me if you still think so when I tell you that you do the same job as the rangers, my old position, for about $11 less an hour.  I thought the money I was making when I was there was crap but at least I had benefits & a pension building.  I’m not sure how long it would take to get my job back but I know they’d take me back anyway so I’d probably work a lot more concerts & at Chili’s in the meantime.  If I was going to work for $7 an hour I’d apply to Best Buy or Champs Sporting Goods (none in Flagstaff) because I’d at least get a sick discount. 

On our way back to class I got a call from my great friend Eric, the gentlemen that pointed me in this direction if you recall.  He called to check in on me and as it turns out, he had some training with our lead D-Tac instructor a while ago.  I’m not sure exactly what happened but she accidentally shot him with a less than lethal bullet and he now has a permanent bruise on his arm…small world! Funny thing about our conversation, I answered all of his questions followed by “sir”.  He stopped midsentence after saying it one time with “what’s with this sir crap, you’re talking to Eric.”  Hahaha bad habit.  It turns out that he’ll be doing some teaching at Delaware Water Gap around the same time I’ll be starting there…if I ever start there…which I’ll know if I ever have my interview….but that’d be cool!

We’re really starting to get into the business end of things in class. Today’s lesson was preparing to go out on patrol and we had the same instructor we had a month ago that completed this program two years ago.  He’s one of the last ones because as I found out tonight, only 8 students from the past two classes (ours and last fall’s) have gotten jobs.  Time to panic? Whatever happened to that “only 2 students in the past 3 years never got jobs” talk that we got on orientation day?!?!? The course content today was pretty much common sense but then the instructor took us outside to show off his patrol truck.  I couldn’t care less because it was raining and snowing on us and I wanted to go back inside haha.

Talked to Laura a bunch on the way home after class.  Nick wanted to get a chicken for dinner with our corn on the cob and tater tots.  I worked on some stuff and then ran some late night errands before stopping at Circle K for my first ever Red Box experience; I used it on the last Shrek…those movies are done so well haha.  I caught up with Brother DuB before hitting the sack, it turns out he & my father are looking into getting a sandwich shop in one of the NJ beach towns….so I may have somewhere to work afterall.  I’m already planning on featuring the DuB CLuB Sandwich hahahaha.

You’re a Life Saver

Tuesday morning, my favorite time of the week.  Normally I get to sleep in but I had a lot of business to tend this morning since some of my errands flopped last night.  Priority #1 was delayed because I got lost looking for the store I needed to go to and ended up on the desolate highway heading toward Phoenix.  I can’t tell you what I was doing because it involves a certain somebody’s birthday, which is exactly one week from today. Okay here’s a hint, she’s the mother of my German Shepherd.  The entire trip was a bust because people are ridiculous AND I missed a chance to ice skating. POOP!

As suggested, I swung by Auto Zone to figure out this “check engine” issue and to FINALLY look into this burned out headlight plug thing.  I got the adapter but there’s no way I can wire this thing myself and the manager checked my engine deal.  He tried explaining the possible problems to me like I had half a clue what he was talking about.  The only thing that stood out to me was when they fix it my car will go super fast.  He suggested a place up the road to get all of these issues squared away so I went to check it out.  I got there, waited 5 minutes inside, stared at the cow skulls on the wall while nobody said anything to me so I left.

I stopped by the Red Box to return Shrek and I took out Dinner For Schmucks.  When I was returning to my car, a dude in his early 20s made his way over to me.

“Excuse me sir?”

“Yea, what’s up?”

“I’m trying to catch the bus but I’m a little light. Can you help me out?”

I didn’t say anything.  The last time I gave money to a stranger on the road I won $250 playing Hold’em in AC. I opened my door and the dude made his way to my side of the car.  I used my eyes to hold him up at the same spot our instructor showed us to when my group messed up our vehicle stop scenario…pretty cool.  Gave him a dollar in quarters to which he said “You’re a life saver”, then he ran to the bus stop.  He actually went to the bus stop.  I rule.

I had to scramble to finish up some things when I got home, got dressed, and headed out to class…at no time this morning did I eat anything.  Luckily, or because I hooked that guy up with some change, Nick Money’s mom sent him some fudge & cookies which he shared with us.  Fudge is my favorite sweet/cake thing and it was delicious.  We learned about accident investigation today and it was the first time our instructor was teaching a course, and it showed.  He worked for Arizona’s version of NJ’s State Troopers but that’s what they call them here.  I started getting pissed about how much procrastination I’ve been doing lately so I got a head start on our next test’s review sheet…got just under half of it done. WOOOOOO.   We’re only a few days away from Spring Break but when we come back, it’s on like Donkey Kong.  Two tests, a presentation, aannnndddd OC DAY all in the first two weeks back.

This cracks me up. I wonder which of my classmates will be like this lady

Because 1 just isn't enough...but what is this close your eyes crap? This looks more important than the MCPS and we had our eyes open!

An hour after getting OC sprayed at Monmouth County Park System's academy back in 2008...I've been warning my new mates all about it hahaha.

I stopped by Barnes & Noble on the way home, got nothing. I beat everybody home so I got the mail, Monmouth County Park System sent me their little updating letter thing, and then Fiona struck again…this time out the front door.  It’s a good thing she only goes like three feet and then rolls around waiting for you to pet her.  Aquaplex was calling my name tonight so I headed there instead of going bowling with some of my classmates.  Damn I missed bowling & ice skating today! There was a sausage party in the hot tub so I headed into the lazy river until some of the wieners cleared out.  The jet felt like it worked wonders on my back.  I showered and went to work upstairs.  I did some of my old physical therapy exercises for my back, banged out some perfect pushups, did some triceps exercises I saw some meat head doing at NAU’s gym during PT, and then ran an awful 1.25 mile. 

I got home just behind Jane and Fiona struck yet again; she’s got our routines down pat!  Jane and I compiled the stuff we need to fax out for my health insurance, watched Dinner For Schmucks and now I’m going to bed.

Nothing too exciting, sorry guys.

Good Night

Two Reasons to Love Mama Jane

1.       She’s awesome

2.       She talks like Beavis & Butthead and Quagmire from Family Guy.  Nick & I were laughing at each other down the hallway and then Jane joined in laughing like Butthead, pausing to work in a “slut”.  I almost fell over laughing.

MOUNT UP!!!