Indulge Me

You are getting a glimpse at the White Buffalo here because I’m having a rare sentimental moment:

My cousin graduated from the Anne Arundel County Police Academy last night and I am so immeasurably proud of him. He’s more than just a regular cousin though; he’s one of my closest friends in the world. I had been counting down to last night since he went into the police academy back in December. My cousin doesn’t know this, but while he was going through all the various police agencies and all the various application processes and physical fitness tests associated with all of those agencies, I already knew exactly what I was going to get him for a graduation gift and the only person I told was LF. When he found out he was accepted to the police academy, I bought him his graduation gift that day. I couldn’t wait until his graduation to give it to him though, so I gave it to him when he started the academy. It actually made more sense to give it to him in the beginning. Here it is. It’s a pocket token of Saint Michael, the patron saint of police officers. We’re superstitious Irish Catholics…what else can I say? He’s going to keep it in a pocket in his bullet proof vest.

So as you can imagine, my heart (I think that’s what they call it) was racing all day yesterday in anticipation of his graduation ceremony. I couldn’t contain my excitement and I was bouncing off the walls like a cracked out Washington Blvd hooker. I’m sure LF appreciated the six phone calls and thirty emails from me detailing my cracked-out jitters. 7:00 p.m. could not get arrive fast enough. I don’t even remember driving to the ceremony, come to think of it.

Once we all sat down in the auditorium, my nerves leveled off a bit because I was surrounded my other cousins, my aunts and uncles, and my mom and stepdad. I know LF was relieved to have my nervous energy re-directed. Mercifully, the ceremony started right on time and when my cousin walked down the aisle in his full dress uniform, I couldn’t believe it. I had goosebumps and my eyes started welling up a bit. I looked around at my other family members and they were all doing the same thing. We’re not exactly the most emotive bunch of people you’ll ever meet, so trust me…it was a big deal getting our emotions quietly stirred up like that. When they called my cousin’s name and he walked across the stage, my entire family stood up and cheered. The commissioner pinned the badge on my cousin’s uniform, they saluted each other and then shook hands. My cousin is now a fourth generation police officer.

Imagine that - another Irish cop let loose in the world.

I’m so proud of you, cuz. You have no idea.

Fír Na Dlí

Are You Paying Attention?

It’s been nearly seventy years since the Supreme Court has heard a Second Amendment case. A ruling on the District of Columbia versus Heller case is expected today and it could be big. The focus of D.C. v. Heller is on an individual’s right to keep and bear arms and the main issue is whether or not D.C.’s handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. There’s definitely a sense, from different sides of the gun debate, that the D.C. handgun ban will be declared unconstitutional. As a handgun owner living in the People’s Republic of Maryland, a state that’s barely a step less restrictive than D.C., I’ve been following this case closely.

One of my neighbors has been following this case from the very beginning and his Second Amendment saga is an interesting one, to say the least. Depending on how the Supreme Court rules, he and I may be in the streets of Pigtown tonight firing celebratory shots in the air. I’m kidding, of course. Doing something like that would be completely irresponsible because ammunition is just way too expensive to waste.

It will be interesting to see how people in the various blogospheres (on both sides of the gun debate) will take a sudden interest in this case and become sudden gun law experts. Let the uneducated and uninformed flaming begin!!

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UPDATE: “The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.”

This is major! Restrictive gun laws only apply to people who actually obey the law, which basically renders you, the law-abinding citizen, a victim-in-waiting. Criminals know this and use it to their advantage. So congratulations to all of my law-abiding friends in D.C. You now have the right to defend yourselves.

Unidentified Woman Identified

The unidentified woman found nude and dumped on the side of Nanticoke Street in Pigtown has an identity. On my drive home from work today, I noticed a memorial on the 1300 block of Nanitcoke Street and a flyer tied to a tree asking for information.

Rodent Pong

SSAL’s yard is so overgrown that it’s looking a lot like a rain forest. In fact, I took this picture from my office window as I was looking down into SSAL’s yard and I was frightened by what I saw. There is no option on the Baltimore City 311 service type list for lost Amazonian tribes inhabiting back yards.

Because the grass is so high in his yard, the rats have lots of cover and aren’t even the slightest bit shy about venturing out of their tunnels during daylight hours. SSAL’s yard is between my yard and Mr. Brown’s yard and Mr. Brown and I both have dogs that are obsessed with the Vietcong-esque rats trying to make their way from the tunnels of Cu Chi to the ripe garbage in the alley.

Whenever a rat creeps out into the grass, my dog and Mr. Brown’s dog start losing their minds barking at it. They run up and down along the fence, changing direction in whichever way the rat starts running. The rat, sensing one dog chasing it, scampers in a different direction only to be intercepted by the other dog. It’s just like watching Pong on an Atari 2600, except with the threat of acquiring a communicable disease. You should come over and see it with your own eyes because it’s amazing. I bet you didn’t know there was an urban version of Pong, did you?

A Way With Children and Animals

My neighbor, Mr. Brown, has quite a way with words and hurling insults - especially when they are directed at children and pets. This is why he is one of my favorite people in the world. Recently, Mr. Brown has been on fire with his heckling of small children as they ride their bikes up and down the block. The little kids love it though. They go out of their way to get Mr. Brown’s attention because if Mr. Brown insults you it means he likes you.

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Fitness Trail Symbols Redux

(This is a recycled post from a year ago, but the symbols still have absolutely no explanation.)

Walking around the Carroll Park fitness trail each day, I come across these random wooden signs that have no explanation. I assume these signs are meant to demonstrate the exercises you’re supposed to do at those locations. Then again, since this fitness trail is here in Pigtown, I can’t be 100% sure. So taking the Carroll Park fitness trail in the context of my neighborhood, I had no other choice than to interpret these signs for myself.
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The Stare

Some of you may not know this about me, but I have a superhero power - The Stare.

I suppose I’ve always known I had The Stare, but I never knew how to harness its power until I got older. Living in a place like Baltimore for so many years has helped me focus my superhero power into something I never dreamed could be so potent. Some friends and family members are familiar with The Stare and I’m told it is a little scary.

Now that the warm weather is here, people are out and about on the streets which means The Stare comes out of hibernation. Each winter, I’m always afraid I’ll lose my edge in the staring department but now I’ve come to understand that The Stare just gets stronger. What makes The Stare so powerful is the silence that goes with it. I don’t say a word to anyone on the receiving end of The Stare and this makes them extremely uncomfortable.

Flip This Crack House?

Something is going on with one of my next door neighbors, whom I’ll refer to as Sir Smokes A-Lot. I call him Sir Smokes A-Lot because he has had a crack problem since well…the dawn of crack. This is according to another neighbor who told me that Sir Smokes A-Lot has “been chasin’ that white ghost ever since I don’t know when.” Several Saturdays ago, there was a lot of banging going on in SSAL’s house, which was strange because the guy hardly ever makes a sound. We didn’t hear any screaming during or after the banging, so we figured all the noise was legit.

The next morning I was sitting in the upstairs office/back bedroom, hoping to finally reach the end of the internet, when all of the sudden there was SSAL standing on the roof of his back porch just six feet away from my window. He scared the sweet bejesus out of me! He had a cigarette dangling from his lips and appeared to be pulling the end of a dresser out of one of his windows. He was grumbling instructions to push and I heard the all too familiar screech of one of our friendly neighborhood hookers from inside of the house, “I am fuckin’ pushin’!! This fuckin’ shit is heavier ‘n fuckin’ hell!”

Hi.

It’s a little strange logging on to this blog after a couple of weeks of not logging on at all. I feel kind of shy and self-conscious after being gone. It’s been a really difficult couple of weeks and the reality of what’s happened with my neighbor is only starting to hit me now that the shock has worn off a bit. My head is not even close to being clear on things and there’s a good chance it never will be. I’m not sure if or when I’ll even write about my neighbor. I know some of you were worried it was Mr. Brown, but it wasn’t. I probably should have mentioned that in my last post. Mr. Brown is fine, but he’s not quite right these days either after what happened. He was the person who broke the news to me when I came home to that scene two Mondays ago.

Anyway. I think we’re all trying to get back to normal, whatever that means. I guess for me, part of getting back to normal is a return to putting up D+/C- blog posts.

Right now I am at a nerd conference (is that redundant?) in Filthadelphia, PA. It’s kind of nice to be out of Pigtown for a few days, although I know I will not be able to sleep because it’s too quiet in this hotel. I almost fell into a deep sleep walking down Market Street when an ambulance and fire truck went by. Sirens are my crickets - so relaxing and soothing.

Speaking of soothing, here is a list of the sessions I attended today and the ones I will be attending tomorrow:

Today:

• Content Analysis Tools and Structured Authoring
• Migrating to Topic-Based Documentation: Content Strategies
• Love Thy Developer: Becoming an API Writer

Tomorrow:

• Writing as an Asynchronous Conversation
• Designing for Search
• Architecting and Classifying for Better Information Retrieval
• Creating Task-based Navigation with DITA
• Making XML Technology Accessible

I am a completely out of the closet nerd, in case you were wondering. This kind of shit turns my crank.

Pause

One of my very good, very kind neighbors committed suicide. We (the residents of this block) just learned of this about five hours ago, as we watched the medical examiner remove the body from the house. I’m not able to process any of this right now. It’s shocking and it’s devastating for all of us here and I need to pause for bit. Once I gather my thoughts about things and about my neighbor, I’d like to share some of them here. I’ll be back sometime soon.