Thursday, August 14, 2008

A little bit of life
Strangeness upon strangeness
Got a call today from the St Paul Police department, there was a little girl that got molested in a library basement somewhere there the other day, and when they searched the records of cards for witnesses, they found that among others, my card had been used that day.
IN ST PAUL!!!
What the heck??? I haven't lived in St. Paul for a year.
So I gave them all my info and dates of when we moved - it's horrible. I guess that's a lesson that even library cards aren't safe to throw away, makes me feel like buying a shredder.

I've been spending the last week in training with the WACLEA campus security training group for IED recognition, an overview of terrorism, bomb squads, gangs, sexual assault and rape, and all sorts of depressing things.
I found out there is a gang problem in WA (still not like Minneapolis), got some info on the local gangs/sets/cliques, watched graphic videos of gang violence, and learned the origin of the major gangs and their symbols/codes.
Before and after that we saw graphic footage of people getting blown up trying to defuse IED's (NOT pretty! people looking fine one moment on video, then with half their face blown off and body on fire the next, still twitching in shock)
We learned that Bin Laden's 100 year plan for war is going just as He predicted and that when we pull out of Iraq & Afghanistan they will follow us here, as that's the next phase in his long-term plan. So we will have to deal with domestic terrorism more and more frequently as a nation, and especially as an extention of law enforcement.
The IED/terror presenters were an englishman who has been dealing with IRA terrorism for the past 15 years or so, and a trainer for the FBI academy who's seen a lot of action out in Afghanistan/Iraq, they let us know that the IRA, of all people, have been training all the terrorists around the globe in explosives, and that Thailand is the worlds hotbed of IED terror right now, and it's -you guessed it-musilms who are responsible there too.
Anyhoo, I am now paranoid. I had to look up a bunch of verses on fear, courage, death and immortality to regain some larger perspective on it all.

Then Brandy calls me and tells me she got a suspicious package in the mail with my name on it, she was afraid to open it - so much that she decided to conquer her fear by...OPENING IT!!!
I asked her never to ever ever do that again, and that I want her whole, not in pieces. There are better ways to overcome fear!

The package turned out to be some saldalwood "worry beads" that my dad sent me from Korea. Oh yeah, he's being forced to come back to the states to re-up his visa, so I may actually see my dad for the first time in a decade and a half sometime soon!!!

Well, there's a lot going on. We've been visiting with my wonderful relatives down in Centralia, we camped out in their front yard (they live on a wooded hill overlooking a beautiful valley in lush green WA) and Brandy spend the next couple days down there while I would go to the classes here in Lacey and come down in the evenings.
Got to chop up some dying fruit tree branches with my cousin Aaron, that was fun. I like Aaron, it seems like we have a lot in common but he's even quieter than me and he's got a girlfriend he really loves so I never get to talk with him. So that was good stuff.
My aunt is using E-Harmony.
My other cousin is leaving for London on Saturday, going to her going-away party on Friday
Got to hang out with my old friend Ian last week, we ran six miles and swam in Lake Washington, then went back to the house & ate curry & drank some champagne, played the Wii for a bit (video games bore me easily) then we went out for some midnight frisbee with his glowing UFO disc out in one of U-district's stunning parks while all the constellations set the backdrop.

My Aunt found an old audio tape of my dad's worship songs, which I converted to MP3 and burned to disc. I am very very happy I have them.

Currently reading:
The Jesus I Never Knew (Philip Yancey)
The New Testament Text, It's Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Bruce Metzger)
Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis (C.S. Lewis)
He Shall Glorify Me (Oswald Chambers)
1 Chronicles (Jewish inspired compiler)

And I finally finished 1st responder training and got certified for all kinds of emergency medical stuff.

Overall, it's been a very, very busy couple of weeks.
But I think I said that already.
Well, that's the update so far, or at least a small summary.

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