The Results

I had my Maryland State Police agility test at 8 AM today at the Wayne Curry Sports and Learning Complex in Landover, Maryland. You had to do 18 pushups in a minute or less, 27 situps in a minute or less, a sit and reach score of 16.4 or better, a 1.5 mile run in 15:19 or less and then do 10 trigger pulls in each hand. Well, guess what? I PASSED!!!!!!! I banged out my pushups in about 25 seconds, my situps in about 30-35 seconds, my sit and reach was about 17.5", and my run time was somewhere between 11:30 and 12:00. When I was on lap 12 of 12, they called out the last five minutes warning. One person lapped me around the track, and six others passed me, but generally I was only slightly behind them. Out of the sixty or so taking the test, about 35-40 were left afterwards. While the test was only geared to the 40th percentile, I have some doubts to what type of person they were using to evaluate with. But overall, I am satisifed with the results of my test. I have definitely come a long way since August when I first started working out at the gym. Between loosing about 35 pounds and just overall working out, it helped me obtain a passing score.

Then at 1:30 today, the written test was administered at the Maryland State Police headquarters in Pikesville MD. The test was tricky, but nothing someone who studied the guide could not pass. I will know those results in 1-2 weeks.

I am proud of my progress, but I still need to do more conditioning to be ready for the academy.

Well, I am off to dinner with a friend here in Baltimore. I will post something else later.

Goodbye Independence Air and Z-104

Goodbye to two dear friends, who departed the metaphysical world in the past two days.

Z-104, DC's top 40 station, and later "Modern Music" station of the past ten years signed off at Noon on January 4, 2006. WGMS, the local classical music station, which had been at 103.5 ever since I could remember, moved to 104.1 Waldorf and 103.9 Frederick. WTOP moved to 103.5. That's the only good thing that came of the move was the DC area can now get WTOP reliably, which before had spotty reception. Traffic reports are very important. However, the loss of one of DC's radio stations has led me to decide to get sattelite radio installed in my truck. Sirius is compatable with the factory head unit, so I will go that route.

Independence Air, the low cost airline, based out of Dulles International Airport, restored my faith in flying. My previous expirence with flying, on Southwest, was not pleasurable. The cabin pressure in the plane was not kept under control, and my ears were clogged for nearly a week. When I flew to Chicago to go to Kenosha back in April, my mom and I flew on Independence Air, and it was a great expirence. I had a sinus infection that week, and when I walked off the plane, I felt like I had been on the ground for the past few hours. My parents flew on Independence Air, in September 2004, when their car had issues and it was questionable if it would make it to Wisconsin. The flight was super easy for them. In July 2005, my parents used Independence Air to fly back home. Again, great flight, great service. My mom and dad have limited mobility and the airline worked with them extremely well. I enjoyed flying with them a whole lot and their prices were normally the best around. I will miss their customer first philosiphy towards flying. I will miss their (loss leading) low fares. The DC economy will miss their economic benefits. A sad day there.

My thoughts go out to the coal miners that died in West Virginia. The mine should not have been operating due to the numerous safety violations present. However, this may not have been prevented, even if the mine was opperating at 100% safety. This brings forth the question, should the US go back to strip mining, which is more enviromentally damaging, but significantly safer for people working. I'm more inclined to allow strip mining with strong enviromental protections, to hopefully prevent another tragic mine collapse or explosion.

My Christmas went pretty well. I got an iPod Video 60 GB. It needs to go back to Apple for a warranty repair. I tried to buy an interface cable to go between the stereo in my Ram and the iPod. However, it was not compatable with the RBQ stereo installed. Vince had a 2004 Dodge Ram and had the other stereo in his, and when he traded it in for a 2006, he kept the post assembly Chrysler navigation radio installed as opposed to putting the tape/CD back in. So he ended up with this extra stereo lying around doing nothing. I plan on installing it and getting an interface cable. The only thing is, it may interfer with my plan to get sattelite radio. So we will wait and see what is done exactly. I got my brother's house a 42" Plasma ED TV, a Panasonic one, with high ratings from CNet and Consumer Reports. My mom got him a new Onkyo home theater system, so now his basement is pimping out good sound and great pictures on the TV.

I guess I am going to call tonight a night.