I love to photograph nature, especially flowers. I like to get down in the dirt and take the picture from an angle that you wouldn’t get to experience if you were just walking by. The desktop wallpaper on my computer is always changing between my favorite photographs. This picture was taken at the Kennesaw National Battlefield Park. Michelle and I spent part of the day at one of the large fields having a picnic and throwing a frisbee. The large fields are actually where some of the Civil War battles took place. It’s odd that people go there and have picnics, but at the same time there aren’t many other places in the area to enjoy a picnic. 

Michelle tossed the frisbee a little too hard, and the wind caught it and took it into a tree on the opposite side of the road. I had to climb through a briar patch to get to the frisbee. When I got through I noticed a beautiful opening in the woods covered in little purple flowers. It would have been the perfect place for fairies and the like to gather. I crawled back through the briars after retrieving the frisbee, only to climb back again with my camera. I took plenty of pictures, but this is one of my favorites. Click on it to get the full sized picture (perfect for a desktop wallpaper). You’ll notice in the full sized picture all of the pollen covering the leaves and petals. 

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I’ve added a couple of features to my website. At the bottom of each post and page you’ll notice a “Share This” link. Clicking the link will open a pop up menu that enables you to share a link to the post through a number of services including Facebook, MySpace, Google, Yahoo, etc. There is also now a link to the right under the links called “Subscribe”. Rolling your mouse over the link will let you subscribe to my RSS feed through every imaginable RSS reader.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”
- Anais Nin

“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”
- C.S. Lewis 

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Michelle and I went out for dinner Saturday night, and then stopped by The Daily Grind for some coffee and tea afterwards. When we walked in there was a musician, Matt Thien, singing and playing his guitar. I purchased a CD on the way out, and when I got home I went to add his website to my Links page. That’s when I realized that I never started or completed the page. 

 

So the Links page is now complete. If you read my journal and your website is not on my links page, send me an email and I’ll add it.

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Click the image below to visit Matt’s site:

Michelle Graduates

Last week, Michelle graduated from Kennesaw State University! I never realized how big of an accomplishment this was until recently. We originally thought Michelle was graduating Magna Cum Laude, but when they called her name, they announced “Summa Cum Laude.” (That’s a GPA of 3.9 or higher.) Mom said, “Did they say Summa Cum Laude? She’s so smart it’s disgusting.” After the graduation, we all came back to our house for a cookout. It was good to see the family again.

High Falls State Park

We left around lunch time on Friday to go to High Falls State Park in central Georgia. We love to go camping, but haven’t been in months. Before leaving we went to the newly opened REI in town. We purchased a few items for our trip. When we got back to my truck, it wouldn’t start. Though old, my truck always starts right away. We were very worried, reminiscing about one of our other camping trips where the car broke down. (Click here to read about that trip.) Thinking I flooded the engine, we walked to Chick-fil-a for some food. Luckily, the truck started up and we headed out. 

When we arrived we picked out a campsite and set up our tent and hammocks. We spent most of our time on Friday in the hammocks. We cooked hotdogs over the fire for dinner and went to bed.

It was pretty chilly in the morning. Eggs, grits, and hot Tang made a welcoming breakfast. After lounging and napping in the hammocks, we packed lunch and went to the lake. We rented a canoe and set out on the lake. After paddling for a little while we found a nice cove where we ate lunch. While we were eating, a bird flying over the water caught my eye. I watched it land on a fallen tree that was in the water. When it landed, part of the log fell into the water. Then I looked closer and saw that the log was covered in turtles who were sunning. We got as close as we could to them, but they all jumped into the water. We paddled around the edge of the lake and came across a couple more logs with turtles on them. I took these pictures:

After our canoe trip we gathered firewood so we could cook our dinner. We cooked what we call Hobo Dinner. I think I got the name from Dad or the Boy Scouts. It consists of ground beef, corn, peas, carrots, potatoes, green beans, salt, and pepper. Wrap all of the ingredients in aluminum foil and throw it in the fire. We also wrapped a corn on the cob in aluminum foil and tossed it in the fire as well. The Hobo Dinner is one of the best meals ever. Michelle and I always look forward to that meal when we go camping. 

Sunday morning we laid around in the hammocks even more. They’re really comfortable and relaxing, but after a while we started getting restless so we packed up. On the way back we stopped at the Tanger Outlet Mall and a Dairy Queen.

My truck made it all the way there and back without a problem. 

We get a lot of “fight in progress” calls, but I’ve never arrived to find someone in an actual physical fight. One of the reasons for this is because we respond to fights with the lights and siren on. The siren can be heard from a mile or more away, and people tend to break it up when they hear the police coming. Monday evening a fight in progress call went out in my beat. I was busy on another call, so I quickly finished it and sped off. The dispatcher said that a person called 911 and said that a black male, 240 pounds, wearing a white t-shirt and black sweat pants, was hitting a black female wearing white shirt and blue jeans. It was taking place in a parking lot next to a restaurant, and the caller was inside the restaurant.

I arrived at the same time as my sergeant, but from a different side of the parking lot. The male described as the one hitting the female waves down my sergeant, and I pull up with him in time to hear their conversation:

Sgt: Are you the one that called?
Male: Yes.
Sgt: Is there a fight?
Male: No.
Sgt: But you called and said there was a fight?
Male: Yes.
Sgt: Turn around, you’re under arrest.

They guy looked completely dumbfounded as I cuffed him, and asked me what he did wrong. I explained to him that calling in a fight, when there was no fight, is false report of a crime. I explained to him that I drove over 90 MPH to get there and save the woman that he was supposedly hitting. He then changed his story to say that he told someone else to call in and say what was happening. It’s not who makes the call, but who causes the call to be made. 

When I asked him why he would call 911 and describe himself as the person who was hitting another person, he told me that he needed the police to escort him to his ex-girlfriend’s house so he could pick up some of his belongings. He explained that he did not know of another way to get the police to respond other than to call in a fight in progress. I told him that he could just call 911 and ask to have an officer escort him–it’s something we do on a daily basis. 

We were two beats short on Monday, and it takes a couple of hours to arrest, transport, book, and take a warrant for a person. I told the guy that I was going to let him go home and I was going to take out a warrant for him. He said he would turn himself in at the jail the next morning. Before I let him out of my car, I ran him on the computer. His driver’s license came back suspended for failure to appear. Meaning he got a ticket as some point in time and did not go to court for it. If he didn’t go to court for a ticket, then he probably wouldn’t turn himself in at jail.

So I took him to jail. When we got there, I found out that he had just left the jail the day before. It’s completely absurd that someone would do what he did. I was irritated with him at the time, but looking back it’s really funny.

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That same night I arrested a woman for D.U.I. I also charged her for endangering her child’s life by having him in the car while she was D.U.I. I typically hate dealing with drunk people. She wasn’t much of an exception, though we did have an interesting conversation on the way to the jail:

Drunk: Don’t leave me.
Me: Don’t leave you where?
Drunk: Don’t leave me at the jail. Just stay with me.
Me: You want me to stay with you at the jail?
Drunk: Yes! I’m claustrophobic, and I need to you stay with me so I don’t panic.
Me: Ma’am, I’m not going to stay with you. I’m going to drop you off and then get dinner.
Drunk: But just don’t leave me, okay? You can just let me out here, I won’t tell anyone.
Me: Um, no. 

She was at least slightly entertaining. I was talking with Michelle on the phone while the drunk and I were having this conversation. She thought it was funny and suggested that I stay with the drunk at the jail.