Sandstone Reach

Our walk was along the Sandstone Reach, which follows the St Vrain Creek as it meets up eventually with Boulder Creek and other Front Range waterways. It is open land, with plenty of wetlands and the birds and wildlife that goes with it. 

There was one bald eagle right on the waterway who flapped painfully up until it caught a current and then it circled higher and higher until we couldn't see it when it presented sideways to us and could only catch the black flash of its wings when it was headed away from us. It was amazing to watch it just ride the wind up without a single flap after the initial flurry.

It's about a two mile walk from the parking lot we've found to Sandstone Ranch proper, and another two back, all as flat as creek side paths can be, and Longmont City has paved it all with cement so it's smooth, easy walking and we can make distance at a good pace for aerobic work. There were a lot of people on the path, today, and nearly everyone wore masks when we passed each other. I'm not sure how much that's needed in open air with a path that's a bit more than six feet wide; but it was oddly reassuring to have everyone conscious of each other.

The view going back to the car from the ranch was spectacular on a constant basis. We'd stop here and there to take pictures. The sun is far enough south to not interfere with any of the photos of Long's Peak and all the ones around it. 

I particularly love this one with the long shadow of the trees from the low southern winter light. I may have to make a very large watercolor painting from it using the techniques a Boulder painter taught me in one of his classes where I was the only one who showed up.

The afternoon and evening were pretty quiet after that, and dinner was simple, just leftovers: turkey, potatoes from the GB Fish and Chips we'd gone to on the way to delivering Jet back to Mines, gravy from the turkey, and roasted asparagus. And after dinner I did my usual gaming, playing a bit of TF2 with FiTH on their server, doing a bit of Immortal Redneck before playing some Risk of Rain 2. Syncheart joined me about then, and we played a chapter of Lego Batman 3 for the lols, but decided that it was much more fun doing Risk of Rain 2 together.

He helped me get the achievement of opening the timed chest on Rally Point Delta. The chest locks itself after 10 minutes, so it was fairly quick to fail and try again when we went to the wrong level. The second time we got lucky and hit the right level and Sync helped get me there with three minutes to spare!  That was really great. And then we went and did the final Boss now that the game has an actual ending instead of just looping as many times as possible through all the environments. 

That was very satisfying. 

I also managed to put up a Happy Birthday post for John on Facebook, and was reminded by another poster of our Puerto Rico trip in January. It seems like a world ago instead of just earlier this year. I want to make a go of writing about that trip, with the perspective of being here and now rather than then. There is much I'm grateful for about that trip and I want to capture some of it, even half a year away.

Hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful time with Jet, even for just the few days we had him, and I'm super grateful for the ease of COVID testing at Mines and here for us.

Mondays Mondays Mondays

I've been going into 911 on Mondays for more than seven years, now. I have been staying constant with that, no matter what, even when my left hand hurt when I touched a keyboard, I'd go in an do nearly everything with my right hand. 

To detail more of what I do... there are eight phone lines into Dispatch. There is one police coordination radio channel, a data radio channel for confidential records information, half a dozen tactical channels along with the SWAT channel, and two fire coordination channels (only one of which is usually used unless someone has to set up a command center for a big fire or, of course, our 2013 flood). Most of those aren't running most of the time, but the capacity is there for when a disaster hits and then all the lines can be going at the same time. And all of them are recorded whenever they're used. My job starts when an officer, the court, a prosecuting attorney, a PI, or a private individual asks for our records about a specific incident, I winnow through all the records for anything that pertains to that incident.

I tag them all, collect them into an audio file and it used to be that I burned a CD, but finally, this year, they went all digital and now I can just throw that file into the court records for that case and they get to whomever needs them. 

I love the job. In part because I get to help put into place a little tiny piece of what goes for justice on an everyday basis. I get to help prosecute everything from domestic violence cases to murders to shoplifting. The other part of it is that the dispatchers are a very interesting bunch of people. Who else would want to interact with people, constantly, on the very worst day of their lives and talk them through the few things that can help save them? And I get to see on an ongoing basis the kinds of people who, when shots ring out or a fire starts, run toward the danger, not away? 

I also love that I have control over lot of small aspects of the job, things that I can do to streamline and simplify and ease how I search, how I save things, how I shape the single machine that can get me the records I need into what I need and want to make it easy on me. And the dispatchers all hate hearing themselves and having to do the records, so they're all very thankful when I do it.

But nothing, ever, will top the time I was sitting there, listening to my channels in the midst of Dispatch and I hear one of the lady dispatchers say, deadpan, "No, sir. You cannot just shoot him."

I swear now that the Mom Voice is Omnipotent. 

When COVID started ramping up in March, I called in to tell them that I wasn't going to come in, and they thanked me. They were telling all of their dispatchers to self-isolate, if at all possible, and at work they would still be in the open seating arrangements, but the stations are so big, they've always been a good eight to ten feet apart. The air flow was increased and huge air cleaners were put in, and no one wore masks in dispatch because communication was super important when lives are at stake. They basically treated the dispatch center as one family unit, which meant that at home they mostly did their best to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. A hard choice, but it kept everyone healthy. 

It's why when the media gets all outraged at a police chief mandating no masks in his department, I suspect that they're not telling the whole story. Mis-communication kills people when they're running toward a bullet or having to teach CPR on the fly...

In July, the numbers were down far enough, they emailed me to ask me if I wanted to come back in, so I did. No one in dispatch had come down with COVID, and on top of that, no one in our police force or firefighting corps did either. Safety and Justice implemented the masks and distancing orders early, and everyone took their temperature before entering the building. Tests were readily available to everyone. And I was really happy working with them again. 

Just before Thanksgiving, though, with the numbers going back up again, I asked to be excused for a while again, at least until the numbers are down. They didn't ask me to go this time, and I believe they have enough of a handle on it that it would be safe for me, but...

I am simply acting through an abundance of caution for now, and with the vaccines coming on-line soon, I'd rather be cautious now and have years of going back to do what I love rather than doing it now and risking dying and never getting to do it again.