When my wife was rid of her wheelchair and allowed to drive again, this is the custom license plate I put on her car (extended entry): more...

Posted by: Ted at 05:05 AM | category: Boring Stories
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Spoiler Alert – This includes the story of how I wound up on my back, being read my rights, with a police dog standing on my chest (#45 on my Cornucopia of Ted list).

After collectively graduating from our police "tech school" training, we were presented with our dark blue berets and given our orders for assignment. In the Air Force, you keep a form on file commonly referred to as your "dream sheet" which lists the top ten places you'd like to be assigned. Theoretically, when it comes time to send you to your next assignment, they start with your first choice and see if thereÂ’s an opening there for your specialty and rank, and if not they go to your second choice, and so on.

The main thing about my dream sheet was that California didn’t appear on it at all. I didn’t want to go back home, I wanted to see some of the world – well, some of the US anyway. I wasn’t ready for overseas yet.

I can guarantee you one thing though - Minot, North Dakota was not even remotely on my list of places to go. Maybe you’ve heard the standard joke: “Why not, Minot? Freezin’s the reason.” Uh huh, exactly.

Now the Air Force does something kinda cool at this point. In this room of brand new and entirely interchangeable newbies, you can trade assignments with someone instantly. Just find some sucker one else willing to do it, and it happens. Of course, nobody is going to trade for Minot, because the only people who want to go have already put it on their dream sheet, and you can bet that those people get their wish.

So IÂ’m standing there with my orders, wondering where Minot is (and for that matter, where exactly is North Dakota?), when another guy comes up looking to trade. See, his girlfriend is going to Minot, and heÂ’s going to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and he wanted to know if I would trade orders with him? Sure, what the heck. North Dakota is North Dakota. This turned out to be a huge decision, since I met my wife in Grand Forks, and the guy I traded with broke up with his girlfriend within a month.

Before traveling to the Great White North, I went home for leave, my first Christmas as a military man.

December 26th, 1977. Nice day in northern California, temperature in the 50Â’s, chilly enough to need a heavy windbreaker. At the airport Mom cried, Dad was proud, and Ted is off to live his life. I donÂ’t remember much of the flight, but as we were descending into Grand Forks that night, the pilot mentioned that the ride was bumpy because of the blizzard just kicking up, and that we were lucky we hadnÂ’t been diverted. I found out later that we were the last plane to land for almost three days.

In those days, Grand Forks International Airport earned it’s name from the thrice-weekly flights to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hey, it was ‘International’, how small could it be? As the plane stopped, the stewardess stood at the front of the plane and told everyone that once the door was opened, we should all closely follow in single file to the terminal, because visibility was really bad and they didn’t want anyone getting lost in the blizzard. Huh? What about rolling the little accordian thingie up to the door and walking down the ramp into the terminal? Yeah, right.

We filed off, struggling with our carry-ons into the wind and blowing snow (and I’m in a windbreaker!), and my mind is running a mantra, “…what the hell did I get myself into?… what the hell did I get myself into?…”, over and over again. Out of the darkness loomed a one-story building – the terminal. We hustled inside and stood around shaking the snow out of our hair and stamping our shoes (sneakers in my case) and trying to warm up. An announcement was made that our luggage would be coming in at the baggage claim at Gate 2 (there were only two).

We all shuffled over to Gate 2, and suddenly a big garage-type door rolled up and the blizzard was inside with us. Through the blowing snow you could make out two guys frantically heaving suitcases and whatnot through the opening in the wall, trying to get done as quickly as possible. Then the door slammed down and shut and everyone started rooting through the pile to find their luggage.

“…what the hell did I get myself into?… what the hell did I get myself into?…”

Half in shock, I located my stuff (everything I owned), and dragged it over to a chair. Now I needed to find a ride to the base, but for this I was prepared. Hell, they even had a courtesy phone on the wall to call the base taxi. Five minutes later I slouched back in the chair, totally dejected and resigned to spending at least the night in the terminal. It was going to be a cold hungry stretch, because the vending machines were all empty, not that I had change anyways. Concessions? Yeah, right.

Some guy, whoÂ’s name I donÂ’t remember but who shall always be my hero, walked up and asked if I needed a ride to the base. Seems the person he was there to pick up didnÂ’t make it (connecting flight grounded), so if I needed a rideÂ…

This guy went above and beyond, and I later realized he was more than a little crazy. See, Grand Forks International is located almost exactly halfway between the city of Grand Forks, and Grand Forks AFB. Ten miles in either direction on US Interstate 2. So this good Samaritan, in what was working up to be a whopper of a blizzard, gave me the grand tour of the city first (not that I could see anything at all, let alone make sense of it – I remember him showing me the college campus), before driving back twenty miles to the base.

I told him I was a cop, so he took me to the ‘cop barracks’ so I could get a room. I unloaded my stuff from his car and thanked him with all my heart (and never saw him again) and went into the barracks. It was now about 11pm.

I found the day room where a bunch of guys were playing pool and watching TV. One of them was the Dorm Chief, and when I talked to him and showed him my orders his response was “I ain’t got no room.”

At this point, Leavenworth wasnÂ’t looking half bad. I argued with him for a few minutes, and finally one of the guys playing pool told the Chief to put me in with him, since he didnÂ’t have a roommate. Done.

I walked up to the 3rd floor with my new roomie, dumped my crap in the corner and crawled into bed. It had been a long, bad day, and I needed some serious down time. Suicide was not considered, desertion wasÂ…

Dog-breath. In my face, panting hot like a bellows. Opening my eyes, I stayed otherwise still and looked into a mouth full of yellow teeth. The teeth were obviously attached to a dog, but why was a German Shepherd in my room? In North Dakota, I remembered. And why was the dog standing on my chest? I realized there were words being spoken:

“…if you refuse this right anything you say can and will be used against you…”

And at this point I noticed an Air Force policeman attached to the dog by a leash, and as he read me my rights, the dog stood over me, breathing into my face.

My new roomie (forever blessed as well, but I’m not giving his name here although I do remember it), called out from his rack across the room, “Any drugs you find in the room are mine, he just got here!”

Whatta pal.

The cops tore the room apart while searching it. No drugs were found. My roomie was busted for having a sugar dispenser he stole from the chow hall. Roomie was trying to get out of the Air Force, and it was not an amicable parting. The dog probably never alerted on the room door like they claimed, the cops were just hoping to get lucky and find some drugs on him. I just happened to be there, they had no idea who I was.

That was my first day in tropical Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Posted by: Ted at 05:28 AM | category: Boring Stories
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1 I don't know how anyone survived the military...

Posted by: Paul at February 18, 2004 08:15 AM (tM+BM)

2 Aaah, that brings back memories! Though, it wasn't drugs dogs they were looking for, but 7.62mm ammo. I guess us many combat arms instructors weren't trusted for the actions of a pilferring few.

The only way to deal with a dog trained to be aggressive is to dominate him with an air of dismission. Pet him and ignore him at the same time - you'll confuse him into respecting you!

Dogs and ammo I understand. It's MPs that scared the shit outa me.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at February 18, 2004 11:23 PM (yBop3)

3 Nice way to start a tour of duty.

Posted by: Starhawk at February 19, 2004 12:00 AM (SoO2k)

4 Great story. I love these...more about number 5, please.

Posted by: jim at February 19, 2004 12:13 AM (lN8eP)

5 Ah yes, dorm sweeps. Looking for everything from ammo and contraband guns to cooking gear (not allowed in the dorm) and fireworks and drugs. IIRC, someone from the armory got busted once for having a Claymore (the mine, not a sword) in their locker.

I'll write more about my experiences with a certain dog-handler sometime. And #5.

Posted by: Ted at February 19, 2004 08:45 AM (blNMI)

6 Rule #2.2 You cannot be sitting on my bed. The reason isn't because I hate you or anything, Its just that I need to sleep tonight and I don't want to sleep the day through. The group was looking for a way to confirm that two very fast high flying re-entry planes were doing an excersize at Vandenberg AFB last night. I've never been to anyplace but California, but I speak 18 languages. The cool thing about working with nuclear materials is that you get to talk about subspaces and superstrings. This includes the story of when I was visited by extra-terrestrials when I was taken to a county jail for looking at porn on the web.

Posted by: mike at November 06, 2004 02:04 PM (GPR8C)

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I'm seriously tempted to buy one of these.

We keep a stocked bird feeder in our back yard, and there's nothing more relaxing than sitting quietly on the swing and watching the birds come and go. We bought a book on birds of the mid-Atlantic states so we could identify our little friends, and we now recognize almost two dozen regular visitors.

Of course, the squirrels and I match wits constantly, and I often win. They destroyed one feeder by gnawing through the line holding it up in the tree, so I replaced it with another hung with plastic-coated braided wire. That was fun to watch, because they chewed through the plastic, then figured out it hurt to bite the wire.

When I moved the feeder to a pole away from the tree, they learned to make dive-bomber leaps from overhanging branches, grabbing at the feeder as they hurtled by. With practice, they've improved their accuracy and success rate, but it has to hurt when they miss.

Up to now, common practice has been to hang on to the feeder and rake the seed to the ground below, searching for the occasional sunflower seed like a kid going for the peanuts in a box of cracker-jacks.

But now, one of them has accidentally stumbled upon the secret of the new feeder, and they've learned how to hit the jackpot at will. more...

Posted by: Ted at 07:36 AM | category: Boring Stories
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1 Damn clever, those rodents. Betcha they figure out how to beat the 'squirrel-proof' feeders sooner or later.

Posted by: Victor at February 08, 2004 10:06 AM (16A49)

2 After years of losing the squirrel battle - including several "squirrel proof feeders, my neighbor acheived success. He hung an ordinary feeder on a wire from a tree. About 10 inches above the feeder he suspended a used blade from a curcurlar saw! The squirrels would make it down the wire to the blade but quickly learned that there wa no way past that point.

The squirrels were left withnothing but to hunt for what the birds might have dropped below.

He later replaced the blade with a smooth sheet of metal without a shrp edge. The suirrels could get to that, but if they trid to get to the edge their weight would cause it ti tip and would nothing to hold onto they would fall to the ground.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at February 08, 2004 11:36 AM (CSxVi)

3 I've heard of similar tactics using a castaway vinyl record, but in this day and age of CD's I don't know how successful you'd be at finding the materials. But the circular saw blade sounds like an even MORE effective idea!

Another friend of mine did something similar with a large downward-pointing cone of sheet-metal that hung over the feeder. The squirrels would try to stand on it but would slide right off the cone, well beyond any reach of the feeder, and onto the distant ground below. It not only kept the fuzzy-tailed tree rats away, it also kept the rain off the feeder--and off of any birds who stopped by to eat.

--TwoDragons

Posted by: Denita TwoDragons at February 08, 2004 02:07 PM (GFPIS)

4 I just bought a bird feeder, but I haven't hung it up yet because I am to lazy to trek through the snow to my tree. When the snow melts I will hang it up, but I hope I don't have as many problems as you od Ted.

Posted by: Rocket Man Blog at February 08, 2004 06:29 PM (/X52Z)

5 Rocket Man, make sure you make it easy to refill. Our very first feeder needed me to climb a small ladder to do that. What a pain.

So far I've seen two types of 'automatic' squirrel-proof feeders. Both types use the weight of the squirrel, one closes a contact which electrifies the tray (uses batteries), the other closes the access to the seed.

I don't mind the squirrels too much. They only eat the sunflower seeds, and the birds have learned to look around at the base of the feeder for seeds. Plus, they live in my neighbor's attic, and he's a jerk.

Posted by: Ted at February 08, 2004 08:43 PM (2sKfR)

6 Thanks for the tips Ted. I had planned on hanging it about head level so I could reach it. I guess I will have to play around with it over time to see how it works out.

Posted by: Rocket Man Blog at February 09, 2004 02:07 AM (/X52Z)

7 The other consolation to keep in mind as the damn squirrels hoover out your feeder is that they don't eat what they harvest - at least not right away. Most of it goes into the cheek pouches to be stashed away in some hiding place for later. Fortunatley the poor buggers have really lousy memories, so the birds usually get to the stash first anyway. A more roundabout route, but the birds do benefit in the end.

Paul

Posted by: Light & Dark at February 09, 2004 08:27 PM (Hrm9v)

8 I was going to do an entry on this subject! Now you have beaten me to it.

1. Don't get a wooden feeder - they are useless and squirrels will chew them. Also they are harder to clean.

2. Don't hang your feeder from a tree. Get a pole from Wild birds unlimited with a baffle to prevent squirrels and racoons from climbing up. Place the pole far away enough from a tree so that squirrels can't jump to it. Birds will like it because they don't like the feeders to be so close to a tree that they can't see cats or hawks hiding there.

3 buy a squirrel proof (weight activated) feeder. This can also be used to control larger birds if you have a lot of starlings.

4 Get a dog. My dog has huge prey drive and is more than happy to chase squirrels away.

5 Set up a diversion feeder. One far away from your main feeder and fill it with corn (squirrels love corn). The squirrels will congregate there.


BTW:Ted my yard species count since October 15th when I moved here is 27 species.

Can ya beat it?

Posted by: The Meatriarchy at February 10, 2004 02:53 PM (x3H0D)

9 Our wooden bird feeder has lasted longer than any other before. The squirrels do chew on it some, but not too bad. Also, I don't clean them very often. Once in a while if we've had a long rain we'll get some seeds sprouting at the bottom of the tray, that I'll scrape out and take a quick brush to to prevent mold.

I like the idea of diversion feeders. Unfortunately, my yard is small and completely overhung with a giant maple, so the dive bombing continues no matter where I hang the feeder.

We don't have a problem with Starlings, but we get lots of doves and pigeons at times. They're not agressive, but tend to chase the other birds away because they're so much bigger and come in flocks.

The dogs love chasing the squirrels.

I'll start a list of what we've seen and post it soon, hopefully I get find some links to pictures. I don't know if we seen quite that much variety, but it has been wonderful.

Posted by: Ted at February 11, 2004 10:54 AM (blNMI)

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(Ha! Now IÂ’m a theatre critic, eh?)

Last night I attended the Cardinal District Theatre Festival. This is what Mookie has been so swamped with lately, on top of regular schoolwork and the spring production of MidsummerÂ’s Night Dream.

The festival is a competition where various schools put on one-act plays before judges and audience. They get constructive criticism from theatrically-trained people, which helps them put on better shows in the future. Each play must run less than 35 minutes or be disqualified. The top two schools from each district move on to regionals, and from there on to state-level competition.

If you care, the rest is in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Ted at 11:02 AM | category: Boring Stories
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Michele is going through it. Paul is too. Some kid at school is picking on your kid, and how do you handle it if the teacher/principal/school system won't?

My solution was simple, although it took a long time before I finally implemented it. I tried the reasonable parent approach, talking to the various authority figures involved and giving the system time to work.

It didn't work.

One afternoon I got a call from the principal. She was a nice lady and we got along well enough, although in this matter she'd been ineffective. I'll never forget her first words:

"You can't teach your child that!"

I knew exactly what I she was talking about. She was upset. My son had informed his 3rd grade teacher that his new policy was "massive retaliation". When the startled teacher asked what he meant, TJ gave her the whole littany that I'd drilled into his head over the weekend.

"The next time (bully) picks on me, I'm going to hurt him. I will kick him in the groin. I will hit him with a book, or I will hit him with a chair. I will hit him with anything I can find. And I will keep hitting him until a teacher pulls me off of him."

The teacher was horrified and immediately called the principal. TJ repeated it to her, and that's when she called me. I also let her know that it applied to my daughters as well. If any of my children witnessed a sib having trouble, they were to immediately jump in with "massive retaliation". The crap was going to stop, once and for all. I figured once or twice would be all it took. It worked even better than that, because the school staff decided to do what should have happend in the first place, namely deal with the bully instead of blaming the victim.

Interestingly enough, a year later my son did get into a fight with a different kid that cut into line ahead of him. The kid outweighed my son by 30 lbs, but was so surprised when TJ fought back that it never happened again. They all thought my son was crazy.

Posted by: Ted at 07:33 AM | category: Boring Stories
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