Why does every post need a title??

Sup people.  I haven't posted since November 1 of last year.  that's really sad.  oh well.  It's currently 6:45 am on January 11, 2009.  I've been up since 4pm yesterday.  I know, 4pm.  Weird time to wake up.  Especially since I went to bed early yesterday.  I got off work early, so i was able to go to be at like 5am.  that's really early.  so yeah, i slept for 11 hours.  that's the longest i've slept in a very long time.

To explain the bizarre sleeping times, I've been working night shift for the past two weeks now, and I have one more week to go before I can switch over to Evening Shift.  That will either be 2pm - 10pm or 3pm - 11pm.  Again, not entirely normal shifts, but whatever.

So yeah, I did graduate from the Houston Police Academy, and yes, I am a police officer now.  It's been what, a month and a half since graduation?  It's awesome, let me just say that right now.  I love putting on the uniform, I LOVE getting to wear a gun to work, that's just plain cool.  It's an amazing job.  I never understood the amount of power that cops have.  It's crazy, we have the only job in the world where we can take away a person's freedom of movement.  That is a ridiculous amount of power. I'm not saying the job shouldn't be there, it's just a responsibility that cannot be taken lightly.  My first couple weeks I had a really hard time stepping into that role, because it's not normal for me to walk into a stranger's house and start asking very personal pointed questions.  And it's also not normal to walk into a building and have everybody start staring at you just because of what you're wearing.  People are intimidated by the uniform and the position the badge represents.  It's... pick a word, bizarre, strange, freaky, weird, abnormal, unsettling.  But it's still a good job.  those are just some of the things that i thought about a lot my first couple weeks on the job.

If you don't mind, I'm just gonna fill you in on a few things that happened over the past few weeks since it's been such a long time since i last posted.

Day shift was really fun.  you work either 6am - 2pm or 7am - 3pm.  that second shift is the one i had and it's awesome.  lots of stuff to do all shift; never a dull moment.  we covered a lot of accidents for some reason, and day shift gets a lot of burglary calls.  people show up to work and find the place has been burglarized.  not a great start to their morning.  that's another thing i forgot to mention in my last mini-soapbox.  people are NEVER happy to see you.  that's something i had to get used to.  people don't want to have to call the cops, and that's understandable, because having to call the cops usually mean something bad has happened.  i've been to burglaries, assaults, robbery's, thefts, accidents, deaths (those suck), stabbings, forgeries, and i have pulled over countless people for traffic violations.  in all those scenes, not one person has said "boy am i happy to see you."  NOTE: I'm not surprised at this, I'm just saying.

Night shift has been good, but there are a lot of slow times.  for example, it seems that even the criminals go to sleep around 3 am.  this means, there's noooooothing going on.  it also means if you're driving around at 3 am, i'm gonna figure out why.  who the heck is driving around at 3 am??  OK, other than the cops.  

So Katelyn is, gosh, 9 months old.  she is crawling everywhere, and pulling herself up on everything she can reach.  she'll be walking before we know it.  she has three teeth now, and three more working their way in.  she's so amazing.  i can't believe how wonderful parenthood is.  there are few better feelings in the world that coming home after a hard day and seeing your child smile at you.  her face lights up so bright every time i come home.  i love it.  to make it even better, Melissa is pregnant, so we have another baby on the way.  YAY!!  another wonderful bundle of joy.  I love kids.

Melissa and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary last month, that was really cool.  we went on a double date with James and Lynne. we went to dinner at Vic & Anthony's Steak House.  NOTE: don't go there without a LOT of money.  But hey, it was reeeaaally good steak.  best I've ever had.  Then we went to see the Nutcracker ballet.  that was pretty cool.  we had orchestra-ish seats that were really really close to the stage, so that was neat also.  we then spent the evening at the Hilton Americas hotel downtown.  that's another place to go only with a lot of money.  it was money well spent, but probably won't be happening for a while.  That was a great evening.

what's new with you??  seriously, leave a comment and tell me something that's new with you.  doesn't have to be completely exciting, just something.  i gotta go get ready for church.

Later,

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