Pleasure Reading Your For Posting

I ran off to Deep Creek Lake this past weekend.

Noteworthy: More button copy signage is disappearing. Some mileage signs along I-70 and I-68 have been replaced with reflectorized BGSes. Also along I-68, the "Watch for Maryland Wildlife" signs have been replaced with the text in black on a yellow background, opposed to the former brown on white with the old signs.

Also, Frostburg has a "Paris N. Glendenning Recreation Center". Amazing. I would have never thought that anything in Allegany County would be named after him.

The DC area flooded while I was gone. Oh well. Apparently there was over 5" of rain at Andrews AFB in the past 24 hours. My parents said they had trouble sleeping due to the wind driven rain hitting their house all night. US 301 was closed at Western Branch. Just a total mess. My trip home from Garrett County was uneventful. Thank god.

My prediction for the West Virginia primary tomorrow is Clinton 59%, Obama 41%.

Whew

At least my throat infection is getting better.

At work today, I did some gardening, tried to figure out why the sound was not working at that guy's house where I installed the TV yesterday, cleaned up some dead baby birds, bugged Verizon about the low hanging wire in the yard, replaced seats, springs and stems for a faucet and did some vacuuming.

On the way to the hardware store, when I walked by the Eastern Market Metro station, I heard this guy spewing off religious nut job stuff over an amplified megaphone. So I dialed 411 and tried to get the number for the US Park Police. The wonderful Verzion 411 person put me through to the Kennedy Center Security desk. So I had to call my brother and have him look up the number. I hope the USPP came by, because he kept spewing off "A doe, a deer, a female deer" and "bird, bird, bird, bird is a word", which now reminds me of the scene from Pink Flamingos where a contortionist who "lip syncs" the song with his exposed anus. Thank you John Watters for ruining this song.

This will probably be my last post until I get back from Western Maryland on Monday May 12th. See you all then!

The Dog Would 'er Done Got Ya

I did a second ride along with the Maryland State Police, this time at "W" Barracks, which is in Garrett County. The Trooper I rode with was a native of Alleganny County, and was a eight year veteran of the department. He was an excellent Trooper to ride with, he kept quizing me on where we were, what the speed limit was along the road we were traveling on, what the lookout is for that was just broadcast on the radio. The first thing we did was pull over a car traveling on US 219 South near Northern High School. He was traveling 71 in a 55 zone. However, we let him go with just a verbal warning, because we got dispatched to a domestic dispute in Friendsville. We were the first unit to show up on the scene. The woman was injured, and the Trooper asked for an ambulance to transport her to a hospital. The the Garrett County sheriff's office responded to the call, and took over from there. The gentleman who assaulted the woman came back to the scene and was arrested. This incident made the local radio station this morning, which was kinda a surprise to me. Then we ran some more traffic stops using moving radar in the cruiser. What is interesting about that is the fact that the radar can get a clock in about half a second, which would make a radar detector useless. Then we stopped and ate dinner, which was obtained from the drive thru at the Burger King on US 219 and I-68 in Grantsville. Then we rode down to MD 495 (not the Beltway) and ran more radar with a canine Trooper. The first thing I noticed is that the Trooper looked a lot like K9 John. That was interesting to say the least. Then the second thing is his dog was verbal. We clocked a car traveling 93 MPH in a 50 MPH zone, and the Canine Trooper went after them. We followed suit, because it could have been a chase in the making. About a mile down the road, the man driving the car lost control and went into a ditch. Both the driver and passanger were not injured, but the car was probably totaled, even though the body of the vehicle looked fine, the undercarriage had a lot of damage. The driver of the car asked about if the dog was trained to sniff for drugs, and the Trooper I was riding with responded. "Nope, that dog is for if you ran in the woods, the dog would `er done got ya." That's probably the most notable quote I have ever taken from a ride along. Then we finished the tour of duty running more radar, and then entering traffic stop stats into the state police database. Overall this ride along was one of the best I have ever been on. The ride along I did last week (which I did not blog about) was an excellent one too.

Virginia decided that they prefered Democrat Tim Kaine over Republican Jerry Killgore. Jerry Killgore spoke at my niece's high school graduation back in June. I was not impressed with him at all then, and as the campaign geared up, the negative tone turned off a lot of voters, resulting in a Democrat winning office. Virginia is a very conservative state, and this win might signal what could happen next year in other states.

Well, I'm enjoying Garrett County. I hope everyone is enjoying their weekends.