Wednesday, July 30, 2008

To Disturb And Protect

As a pleasant change of pace, last night I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
However, about an hour and a half later I was awoken by the sound of someone yelling outside my window.
After hearing things like, “I have a dog in the cruiser and I will sic him on you,” and “Hands behind your head! Get down on the ground! Face down!” I realized that the person yelling was probably a cop.
After the person being yelled at complied, the cop brought his voice down to a lower – but still high – volume and began asking questions.
The person he was talking to explained that he was 19, from around here, and was simply out for a walk.
A while later another cop showed up and began asking the same questions, then they explained to the guy why they’d stopped him.
Apparently there have been a lot of break-ins lately, so they’ve been patrolling the neighborhood and immediately responding to any suspicious activity.
That was kind of a good news/bad news thing. I mean, the good news is that the cops are being vigilant. The bad news is that they’re being vigilant because there have been a lot of break-ins in my neighborhood.
Actually, from what one of them said, it seems more like they’ve been walk-ins, with not all that much breaking; basically someone – or someones – has been going around to back doors to see if they’re unlocked, and, if they are unlocked, letting themselves in. Presumably this would mean that they’re not putting any extra effort into the endeavor if they find the door is locked. As I always lock my back door, I’m hoping that I won’t run into any issues with this.
Anyway, I’m glad that the cops were doing their job, and that they did it in a relatively calm and level-headed fashion, preventing the whole thing from turning into some sort of “Don’t tase me, bro!” YouTube spectacle.
I just wish they hadn’t been doing their job right outside my window on a night when it was finally looking like I was going to get a decent night’s sleep.
On my way home today, I had a run-in with the cops, as they were doing some sort of driver’s license checkpoint. This time around I wasn’t told to have a “cheerful” day.
After getting past that I hit the comic shop, then came home and watched some recorded TV and tried not to fall asleep on the couch.
And that’s pretty much been all of the excitement since my last entry.
I got to leave at the normal time today, as my Wednesday 4:00 conference call has been rescheduled due to a conflict one of the participants has. Unfortunately, it’s been rescheduled to 4:00 on Thursdays, so I haven’t really gained anything. I could have been a jerk and selfishly accepted the other proposed time, which was 3:00 on Wednesday, which would have meant that there’d be no day on which I’d have to stay late, but I couldn’t do it. Why? Well, as it is, there’s a person in New Zealand who’s on the call at 8 AM his time, and I couldn’t bring myself to make him get on a call at 7 AM, so I accepted the proposal to just move the call to Thursday.
Oh well.

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