The Sick and Injured

Well, the good news, if you can call it that, is that the three people responsible for the homicide in Dublin on Feb. 13 were arrested last week and currently sit in jail.  A lot of people put in a lot of long hours to investigate that crime, and with these three off the streets at least two robberies, a burglary of a gun store and a homicide have been solved.  There's no way that I could sit here and give credit to everyone who worked to make this happen, but I'm proud to be able to say that the department I work for has never had an unsolved homicide.

But with all the work that went on for a little over a week investigating this, it would not have been the best week for people to end up sick and/or injured.  But, as fate would have it...

We have a staff of 12 dispatchers.  Out of those 12, one person just recently underwent back surgery.  One is preparing for back surgery that will keep her out for several weeks.  One just went through surgery that she expected to keep her out for a couple of days and, because of complications, is now looking at being out until the middle of April.  In addition the "funk" has taken over the communications center.  Working in close proximity to each other, in an enclosed room, means that when the sickness invades the center, it hits pretty much everyone in the room.  Staffing in the center for a Monday is typically 7.5 eight hour shifts.  So, out of the eight people who normally work on a Monday, 5 of them were out sick. 

I was able to fight off the funk last week, and hopefully will be able to continue to keep it at bay until it passes and moves on to another part of the building. 

3rd Week Under my Belt

Well, I finished up week #3 of my 14 week 1/2 Marathon training program today with a 5 mile run on the treadmill.  Like last week, I worked an 8 hour shift, ran my long run, then headed back to the radio room to work some overtime. 

Increased criminal activity in the town where I work has resulted in an extra effort by our department to deal with, not just an increase in crime, but a spike in violent crime in our community.  For many communities violent crime is a normal occurance, but that's not the case here.  So, when the week started with the clerk at a gas station being shot and killed during a robbery, we knew the dome had been blown off our little corner of Franklin County.

This month started with an armed robbery at one of the local McDonald's.  Fortunately that was solved pretty quickly, and the suspect was arrested the same day.  Then two armed gunmen robbed a local Max & Erma's retaurant while employees were closing up for the night.  Fortunately no one was injured, but the gunmen are still at large.  Then an armed robbery at the local UDF.  On top of that, other communities around us were experiencing spikes in armed robberies also.  But Monday night got worse with the robbery and murder at the local Sunoco Gas Station while the clerk was cleaning up and getting ready to close for the night.  We don't know if these were the same people who committed any of the other robberies, but we do know that they need to be taken off the street, and hopefully it will happen before anyone else gets hurt. 

The running helps to deal with the stress that can come with this job.  We know when we take this job that we're gonig to deal with some people at their worst.  People don't call us to let us know they're having a good day.  If they're calling it's usually because something is wrong.  Dealing with that every time the phone rings can be stressful.  Running really does help to deal with stress.  It doesn't matter where the stress comes from, the exercise helps to deal with it.  Stress can do terrible things to your body, and coming from a family who experienced heart problems on both my mother's and father's side of the family, I need to minimize those effects as much as I can.

In other news....invitations went out today for my parents' 50th Anniversary party which my brothers, sister and I are hosting next month.  Most of the pre-party work is done.  There are still some loose ends to tie up and a few other purchases to make, but things are still moving smoothly.

Don't Let the Little Stuff Bother You

I remember hearing or reading somewhere:

"Rule #1 is...Don't sweat the small stuff  and Rule #2 is...It's ALL small stuff."

While I don't necessarily agree that it's ALL small stuff...I do agree that the vast majority of stuff is SMALL STUFF. 

Yesterday I left work with a headache, and by the time I got home the headache was even worse.  While work wasn't particularly busy yesterday, it was not a normal day at work by any stretch.  I walked in to work to find that we'd just started investigating the City's 4th homicide.  That does not mean the 4th homicide of the year..that means the fourth homicide EVER in the history of Dublin, Oh.  So for us, it was not your usual day work.  But fortunately we have things in place that help to spread the workload and things ran pretty smoothly.  But I ended up with a headache anyway.

I don't want to go in to specifics, but I'll just say that I'm sure the headache was a result of letting the small stuff get to me.  Letting actions that did not affect me bother me and letting other people's issues bother me. 

Now that I think back on it, it seems kind of silly.  There was a man my age (exactly my age as it turned out) who was dead..the victim of a shooting.  Throughout the day officers were trying to make sure that his family was notified of his death, working hard to gather the information that will hopefully result in the arrest of whoever did this, and I'm giving myself a headache of piddly crap.  What did I possibly have to complain about?  I woke up that morning, this poor night clerk at a gas station wasn't that fortunate.  I wasn't notified that my father, brother or spouse was killed, the family of this poor night clerk wasn't that fortunate. 

Yesterday was one of those days when I forgot to simply not allow negative people to get to me.  They got to me.  Sometimes the negativity was aimed at me.  Sometimes it was aimed at others in a successful attempt to pull me in.  I have to remind myself not to allow those attempts to be successful.  I have to remind myself what's important.  How others live their lives is not my concern until it affects me, and I do have some control over how much I allow it to affect me.

2 Down - 12 To Go ... 14 Down - 9 To Go

I finished up the 2nd week of my half marathon training today with a 4 mile run on the treadmill.  I probably should have brought some outdoor running clothes to work with me and gotten outside so I can, in addition to getting used to the distance, get used to the terrain.  But it's pretty cold out this weekend, so I opted to do my running on the treadmill between shifts at work. 

I came in to work at 645am and worked until 245pm.  Then ran my 4 miles, did a little "window shopping" and came back to work at 645pm - 1045pm. 

I'm still trying to pick up as much overtime as I can at work, but now I'm working more on building up my comp time bank so that I have a little more flexibility with time off if I need it (or just want it).

It seems strange to think that in 9 years I will be eligible to retire.  I really don't feel like I'm that close to retirement age.  But in 9 years I will be 55 years old with 26 years of service credit.  By rules I can retire at 55 years old if I have at least 25 years of service.  I will have worked for Dublin 23 years at that time, and I "bought" 3 years of service for the time I was in the Army, so I'll have 26 years.  I really don't see myself retiring at 55 years old though.  Never say never...in 9 years I may be more than ready to get away from going to work every day and dealing with some of the stress that comes with this job.  There will be a lot of things that will go in to my decision on retirement and those questions can't be answered 9 years out, but I have to admit that I'm really hoping that, by the time 2021 rolls around the only question that will need answered at that time will be "Do I WANT to retire?"

Facebook and Life Saving

I had to laugh a little bit this morning when the subject of Facebook came up here at work.  More specifically, the fact that I am not on facebook came up.  My supervisor was telling me a story about how her step daughter saved a friend's life at school yesterday, but started the story with "If you had facebook you'd already know this."  I had to laugh at that comment because what I heard was, "Since you don't have facebook I've forced to interact with you on a personal level."  Yet another advantage of not taking advantage of some of the "advancements" in technology.

Now to the story of how my supervisor's step-daughter saved a life.  Apparently she was in line for lunch at her school when a friend began choking on a carrot.  Classmates began hitting the boy on the back trying to dislodge the carrot and Emma (my supervisor's step daughter) who is ten years old, walked up behind the boy and did the Heimlich maneuver, dislodging the carrot.  Now here is the mentality of the ten year olds in line.  Since they are not supposed to be talking in line, after this incident was over, all the kids quickly got back in line and stayed quiet, because they were afraid that if they were caught talking they would get in trouble and lose their recess time. 

Apparently 10 year old Emma was watching the Disney Channel just a few days prior to this event and whatever show she was watching was showing viewers how to perform both the Heimlich maneuver and CPR.  In my opinion it was devine intervention that Emma was watching that show just days earlier.

WAY TO GO EMMA!

Back to Work

Well..I'm back to work today.  I went to my Opthamologist appointment yesterday and, having dialated pupils, decided not to try and go out in the sunshine and run.  So, I was up at 4am this morning, heading in to run before work.  That is after being off work for about a week and a half.  It was nice to have some time off and just relax.  As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I took one day to go do some family tree research, and took some other time to just relax and get away for a while.

The planning is coming along for my parents' 50th anniversary party, which will be next month.  Once the last piece of the puzzle is confirmed (the where) I'll be able to get the invitations started and sent out.  My nephew, who is an excellent photographer, is planning on taking my parents' 50th anniversary picture this weekend, and that will help me to get moving on some other parts of the preparation.  But overall, I'm happy with how things are coming along and am keeping it as stress free as possible. 

Taxes are done and I even got my state tax refund back in just a few days.  I'm expecting my federal refund no later than Feb. 14, but from what I remember in past years, they tend to come in even quicker than expected if you e-file early, which I did. 

The next task is to make a list of the "projects" that have to be done around the house and start working on making those things happen.  Probably the most expensive of those projects will be stopping the water leaking in to the basement when it rains and making sure that the basement walls, which are bowing some, get taken care of so that they don't collapse on me some day.  I've also got an old window style air conditioner still in the wall of my kitchen.  It doesn't work and was long ago replaced by central air, so it needs to come out and hole either covered over and sided on the outside, or a window installed there.  Another project will be to do some work on the front deck of the house.  Some of the boards are showing their age and are starting to rot, so I need to get the older boards replaced or just replace the entire deck.  At some point I want to replace the fixtures in the bathroom and paint the walls something other than the ugly pale yellow that they are right now.  The kitchen has needed remodeled since long before I moved in to the house ten years ago.  The carpet needs replaced in most of the house.  The walls need painted.  And one day, when I'm feeling really ambitious, I might do some structural remodeling inside to expand the living room.

Not a single one of those projects is going to be inexpensive, most of them NEED to happen.  Fortunately, none or SO drastic that they have to happen today, although the sooner they're done, the better.  So I'll set down, make a list of what needs done.  Prioritize what needs done.  Then put a plan in place to get each project completed. 

Relaxation Week

I took this week off work.  Tomorrow will be my last "paid day off" and then I go in to my weekend (Sunday and Monday).  Tuesday I'll head back to work.

I started my training for one of the two half-marathons I'm registered to run in this year.  The Cap City Half Marathon will be in May and the Columbus Half Marathon will be in October.  I also got an email saying that the full Columbus Marathon in October had a slight change to the route.  Now, instead of running past the outside of the south end of Ohio Stadium, the full marathon will actually enter the stadium and run along the south endzone and out the other side.  I think it'd be even better for those running if they could incorporate the entire stadium in to the marathon, but the fact that they've routed the runners in to the stadium is, in itself, going to be a fun experience for those running the full marathon.

On Tuesday my dad and I took a drive up to Tiffin, Oh.  My dad's family is from the Tiffin area and there was a particular gravestone that he's been searching years for up there.  We drove blindly around Tiffin for a while before finally stopping and asking directions to get to Greenlawn Cemetery.  Once we found the cemetery we made our way to the office.  As it turned out, part of the reason we were unable to locate the grave in the past was because the areas are not marked, and even if they were, the area numbers that we had were not correct.  A cemetery employee was able to look up family name for me and then lead us right to the grave site we were looking for.  The site is where my great-great grandfather, John Jacob Burkhardt is buried.  It made for some interesting additions to the family tree that I've been researching for a while.  And added to some confusion since some names were either changed or misspelled over the years for other family members.  The research of this may take some time to figure out, but that's part of the fun.

Last night I went to dinner with a friend who shares my birthday.  I asked the waitress for a box to take home my dinner.  Well, apparently she thought that meant we were both done and started boxing up my friend's dinner too and brought the check without even asking if we wanted desert.  So, I had to ask for a menu so that we could order desert.  We were going out to celebrate our birthday...and what would a birthday dinner be without cake?

Today I went to see a movie.  A Joyful Noise, with Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton.  I wouldn't recommend it..at least not for the acting.  The music was terrific, but the acting was horrendous.  Save yourself the misery and just buy the soundtrack.