Friday

I thought I'd share my schedule for the next few days - it's going to be a ton of fun and I know I'll come home with a ton of blog fodder.

9:00 a.m.


- Registration begins at GTCC


10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Police Department Demos

Local police and sheriff's departments demonstrate tools and equipment

- K-9 demonstrations

- Police vehicles on display

- Fire equipment, trucks on display

- Ambulance and other EMS equipment on display

- Motorcycles

- Dive team

- SWAT

- Emergency Response Team

*This is your chance to sit behind the wheel to see how things really work. Talk to the officers, firefighters, and paramedics. Have your questions answered.


10:30 - Noon

Why People Kill - Bill Lanning, Associate Professor of Criminology - GTCC faculty


- A fascinating workshop about why and how criminals justify their behavior, and how they choose their victims. Learn why the killers sometimes say:

The devil made me do it.


I can't help it, I was made that way.


I come from a broken home.


Everything I do, I learned from you.


If you call it a duck enough times it will quack.


Why me, Lord?

1:00 - 2:15

EMS workshop - Randy Yow

A first responder's take on murder scenes. Learn what they do, and how they do it. Do they have to wait for a detective's okay to enter the scene? Find out who's in charge, the M.E., the paramedic, or the cops?

Yes, you will be loading a body into the vehicle.

Fire Station Tour

Visit a real working fire station. See how the firefighters prepare their life-saving equipment. Meet the instructors who train the recruits.


3:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Autopsy Seminar

Dr. Jonathan Hayes - Senior NYC Medical Examiner

Details TBA


7:00 - 9:00

Wine and cheese reception (cash bar)

Entertainment by Atlanta recording artist/author Stacy Allen. We may even talk Jeffery Deaver into bringing along his guitar to join in on the festivities!


9:00 until...

Night Owl Session with Lee Lofland

A Wilted Rose: The Tina Mott Story

A story of love, death, and dismemberment. A walk-through journey of a real crime scene. Meet all the players - the loving victim and her friends, the killer's family, the couple's child, the tireless investigator who never gave up, a psychic, and the killer who thought he was too smart for the authorities.

Bring plenty of tissue. This one's a tear-jerker. Oh, you might want to leave a light on in your hotel room, too, because you'll be viewing real crime scene images.

- D.U.I. monitoring/alcosensor demo ongoing throughout the evening.

Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis

I had a couple of questions the other day about Digger's disease and I realized that I had never addressed it head-on here, just mentioned it in passing in a couple of posts.

All of my kids have an inherited disease called Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis (HypoKPP) which they inherited from their father, who inherited it from his father, who inherited it from his father...as far back as anyone can research.

It affects 1 in 100,000 people statistically (unless you happen to inherit the lucky gene) and causes signs and symptoms ranging from periodic extremity weakness to full-on paralysis, sometimes involving the respiratory muscles.  It's what's known as an ion channelopathy, specifically affecting the sodium/potassium and calcium channels in the cells.  Potassium must be pumped out of the cell and sodium pumped in.  It's all a very complicated way to maintain homeostasis (or balance) within the body.  Calcium is the necessary ion for muscle contraction, without calcium to activate the troponin and tropomycin, which then allows the actin and myosin heads to be released, no contraction can occur.  When those channels don't work, it throws a monkey wrench into, well, pretty much everything.

In a family with HypoKPP, each offspring has the following chances or not of inheriting the disease:

• 25% will inherit the trait and will exhibit signs and symptoms
• 50% will inherit the train, but will not exhibit signs and symptoms, but may pass on the trait to their offspring
• 25% will be home free; they won't inherit the trait, won't show any signs and symptoms, and won't pass it on to their kids

I knew that my husband had the trait (and exhibited all signs and symptoms) and expected that if I had kids, they would probably have the disease.  The degree to which patients are affected varies.  For example, Digger has mornings when he wakes up a quad, but Ashinator's disease manifests itself via muscle weakness and drop attacks.  Ash tends to recover faster from attacks than Digger, who can take days to fully recover.  Monster complained of muscle weakness when he was younger, but no longer seems to exhibit any signs or symptoms.

It's much, much worse in puberty, but can be brought under control in adulthood.  Digger currently controls his with an assortment of prescription medications designed to help control his potassium balance.  Ashinator and Monster have such mild attacks, that they don't take any daily medications and will take prescription potassium only during an attack.

I worry about him living so far away with his roommates because I've seen the worst of his attacks and they're not pretty.  However, he's managing them pretty well for now.

We've developed a pretty good sense of humor about the whole thing - in fact, Digger's got about a 10 minute routine in which he re-counts the story of the day Ashinator tried to move him from his bedroom to the couch using a skateboard.  If I can get him to let me film him telling it, I'll be sure to put it up.

True Story Tuesday - Pardon?

It's back!  Boy have I missed True Story Tuesdays, the laugh-a-thon hosted by Rachel and Mr. Daddy over at Once Upon A Miracle.  Head on over there to link up and read more stories of hilarity or plain embarrasment. *Potty mouth alert*

I think that I've established that Sunday was not the best driving day ever, what with the bicycle thing and all.  Even when I got back into town on Sunday evening the stupid drivers were still out and I swear they were out to get me.

At one point some idiot darted across a four-lane highway in front of me, which was mildly irritation.  What was down-right infuriating was the second idiot who decided to scoot across behind the first idiot.  In a little alien green bullet traveling fifty-five miles an hour, I was not a happy camper and hit the brakes while fumbling for the horn.

I stabbed what I thought were the horn buttons with both thumbs and nothing happened.  In frustration, I yelled "where the fuck is the horn?!" not realizing that I'd pushed my bluetooth button and Ripley was waiting for instructions.  You know, simple instructions like "call Lodge", not cursing because I couldn't find the horn.

I finished my outburst, still not realizing I'd activated my bluetooth.  There was a pause, then, very politely..."Pardon?"

I thought Monster was going to pee his pants he was laughing so hard at the absolute perfect timing my mild mannered car had.

Flyin' The Coop

Digger's moving out today.

I haven't decided if it's a good thing or not.  He is 19 and by the time I was his age I was married.  Of course, I thought I was a grown-up, being married an all, but I was so unprepared for real life.

I hope I've prepared him for the real world - that's all a parent can do, right?  Keep them safe, nurture them, and hope that they turn into the good humans we all want our kids to be.

He's got a job.  He's got a place to live (with two roommates, Lord help us) in Wyoming.  And he has switched to on-line classes so he can continue with school (which he'd better not screw up or I'll kill him - I swear I will).

He's going to live life a little bit.  I know there will be parties; drinking, pot (that's as far as the drugs better go) and women.  I know there will be times when he has to live on the Ramen noodle diet.  I know, with his disease, it's going to be hard when he has an attack and only has his roommates to help him.

But I hope he knows that home will always be here for him.

Stay tuned...it's going to be a ride, I'm sure.

Why Yes, You A-Hole, You're Welcome

I was driving along today, thrilled at the clear blue sky (finally smoke-free-ish, another fire in RMNP this morning), not even caring that there were bicyclists on the road.  Typically, their mere presence raises my blood pressure and drives me to homicidal rage.  It's not that I hate all bicyclists, per se, but I definitely hate the ones on Highway 7.  There's no shoulder to speak of and the typical Hwy 7 flock of cyclists likes to ride several abreast, failing to yield to cars.

However, today was just glorious and I was just enjoying the ride up in Ripley.  About halfway up the canyon there were two cyclists riding up, side-by-side, but still as far in their lane as possible.  The line of cars began passing without incident.  Suddenly the minivan two cars in front of me swerved into the bike lane and slammed on his brakes, essentially blocking the cyclists and leaving them no place to go.  I passed the minivan and watched in my rearview mirror to make sure the cyclists got around without a problem.

The car behind me passed the minivan.

The car behind that one passed the minivan.

The driver of the minivan stuck his head out of his side window just as one of the cyclists made his move to go around it.

The lead cyclist cleared the minivan just as the second made his move to go around, but didn't have enough room and - BLAM! - hit the minivan at roughly forty miles an hour.

I watched the cyclist part from his bike and launch ass-over-tea-kettle.  He was just a mass of flailing arms and legs in my rearview mirror.

Luckily there was a pull-out immediately ahead of me and I slammed on my brakes, skidding into it.  The two cars behind me continued on, oblivious to what had happened behind us.  I grabbed my jump kit out of the back of Ripley and headed back to the accident, expecting to see much carnage.

To my surprise, there wasn't a body plastered on the road like I expected, so I rounded the minivan and saw the cyclist sitting on the side of the road, his biking partner standing over him.  No visible blood and all parts seemed to be attached and working the way they were supposed to.

I squatted down in front of him, made eye contact and introduced myself.  Asked if he was okay and if he needed anything.

Nothing.

Nada.

No acknowledgement that there was anyone in front of him, invading his personal space.

I looked up at his friend for support and looked back, making eye contact again.  Again, I asked if he was okay, told him I saw the hit he took and that he took a bad spill.  He very pointedly broke eye contact and looked away.

Oh-kee-doe-kee.

I can take a hint.  He didn't want my help, but some form of acknowledgement or even a "get the hell out of my face" would have been nice.  From him.  From his friend.  From the driver of the car he hit.  But no...I got...nothing.  I did not exist in their world.

I picked up my jump bag and headed back to Ripley getting angrier at every step at the ungrateful bastard.

So, because I'm a woman and I have to have the last word...

You're welcome, Asshole!  When you bleed out and die tonight, it won't be on my conscience.

PS - I know he was probably in shock from his "incident" but there was no excuse for his friend's lack of manners.  Bastard.

Five Days and Counting...

Remember this?  When I took the leap way back in February and registered for the Writers' Police Academy, it seemed like it was forever away.

Now it's just around the corner and I'm starting to get excited/nervous about the trip.  One of my co-workers who is also a writer is going, too.  I even decided to ante up the money to go to the dinner with Jeffery Deaver.  You know, just me and the hundred other people who also forked out the money to dine "with" him.  I'm not sure I'd like to be in his position - you know, up on a pedestal with people watching my every move, asking the same questions everyone else has asked a million times and having to be "on" all the time.  Yet I still paid the money just so I can say that I dined with him (and the other hundred people) and had him sign my books.

I've been waffling about whether or not to take my laptop.  In my blogging heart I know I should, but my physical body says "oh hell no, that's just one more thing to lug around the airports".  So, the laptop stays.  I'll be off the grid for about five days starting on Thursday, but after looking at the schedule we're going to be following I'm pretty sure I'll be too exhausted to even open the laptop anyway (much like I recently have been).

I'm going old school to the WPA - I bought some ultra-fine tip multi-colored pens and a spiral notebook.  It's been a long time since I took notes by hand, and they may not be legible, but they sure will be pretty and colorful :)

My Apologies, Mother Nature

Dear Mother Nature,

I apologize for blaming you for our wildfires.  It wasn't your fault.

While I'd love to see some moisture to help with the wildfires, I understand why you allowed the fires to burn so quickly.

People are stupid. 

One fire was started by a volunteer firefighter and the other by two people burning brush without a permit.  I get that people are stupid and screwed up, but do you think that we might have some rain to help put the fires out?  No sense continuing to punish the people who had nothing to do with their neighbors' stupidity.

Sincerely,
She Who Puts Her Foot In Her Mouth