Grass Valley Police Blotter vol. CXX

8:16 a.m. — A woman from the 300 block of Pleasant Street reported a man at her window, asking if she wants money and telling her to keep her kids quiet.

[How much money was he offering?]

8:35 a.m. — A caller from the 200 block of Dorsey Drive reported a threat had been carved into a vehicle door.

[That is a pretty determined threat]

9:12 a.m. — A caller from Glen Jones Park reported three drunken men with 12 to 15 cans of Bud Light. They were admonished to clean up and move on.

[Never too early to get started]


4:34 p.m. — A caller from a business in the 700 block of Maltman Drive reported a man bought items with one check and then returned and bought more items with a check under a different name.

[Some criminals have no patience at all]


5:45 p.m. — A caller from the 100 block of McKnight Way reported a shirtless man speaking to himself and making obscene gestures. He was reminded of proper social manners.

[Yeah, at least put a shirt on if you're going to do that!]

10:01 a.m. — A woman from Lime Kiln Road reported she was “leaking.” No response was needed, the woman was getting more medication.

[Something to stop the flow of the leak I presume]

5:44 p.m. — A caller from Mill Street reported a man drinking a Coors while driving.

[I can see his defense already. "Coors? That is hardly beer at all!"]

9:48 a.m. — A caller from the 10000 block of Mountain Rose Road reported a woman screaming. She was found to have been yelling at her dogs to stay away from her donkeys.

[Life in the country]

Source: The Union (http://www.theunion.com/)

The Critter

Florida Power and Light:

Outage reported: 08/24/11 01:17 PM

Estimated time of restoration: 08/24/11 04:45 PM

Customers affected: 15

Status: We have completed our initial investigation of your power outage and determined that additional resources are necessary to restore your power. We will continue to work until the power is back on.

Cause: A small animal touched our power lines

Last updated: 08/24/2011 03:09 PM

Father Gabriele Amorth - Professional Exorcist

I saw this short quote over at Merle Kessler's blog:

Noted Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, commented this week that the recent defamatory reporting on Pope Benedict XVI, especially by the New York Times, was ‘prompted by the devil.

And my first thought was along the lines of, "When you have a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails."

But then I went over to Wikipedia to see if Father Amorth had an entry. I mean, it says right in the quote that he is noted, so I figured that might make him, in Wikipedia terms, notable and thus worthy of an entry.

Sure enough, there is an entry about him. But that quote above hardly does him justice. The entry is rich with his beliefs.

For example, his favorite movie? The Exorcist!

Really. Aside from the over-the-top special effects, he thinks people should see the movie so people knows what he does.

Number of exorcisms? 70,000! The man is, literally, a holy terror, exorcising, on average, 8 times a day!

Leading cause of demonic possession?

People have lost the Faith, and superstition, magic, Satanism, or Ouija boards have taken its place, which then open all the doors to the presence of demons.

Most common problem after demonic possession? Curses.

Leading cause of curses?

A curse can originate from such things as maledictions by close relatives, a habit of blaspheming, membership in Freemasonry, spiritic or magic practices, and so on.

Think about that!

Pet peeve? The new exorcism rites. He says they are:

A blunt weapon.... Efficacious prayers, prayers that had been in existence for twelve centuries, were suppressed and replaced by new ineffective prayers

The man is, if nothing else, hard core.

Renewing My License

I had to go to the DMV this morning to renew my license. Picture, fingerprint, money and I was done. It just took 90 minutes.

The time was allocated as follows:

• Waiting to be called: 50 minutes (Under the G, 46. Oh, that's me!)
• Waiting to get my picture taken: 20 minutes
• Getting out of a parking lot filled with people who should not be allowed to drive: 10 minutes
• Taking the eye test, validating my information: 7 minutes
• Getting my picture actually taken: 2 minutes
• Parking when I arrived: 1 minute

I got to the DMV at 5 after 8am. This put me behind the overachievers and people who line up at 3am in front of Target on the day after Thanksgiving. They were all in there, numbers in hand. My number, which was G046, seemed rather depressing since they were on G002 when I got it. (They have letters for categories, A-J, and as far as I could determine, G was for people with easy renewal transactions.)

Then, about the time I got called, the dregs of humanity started in through the front door. Fortunately, I was ahead of that wave, so while I waited 20 minutes to get my picture taken, when I walked out I would have guessed that the line for pictures was at least 45 minutes long... probably longer given how many of those people seemed unlikely to be able to handle tasks like standing with their toes on a line drawn on the floor in order to have their picture taken.

Still, I've been through the system, I was pleasant to everybody behind the counter, and I could have passed the eye test from a good 20 feet back from where I actually had to take it. I'm free to be an idiot for a few more years.

Signs of the Times - 2

I got my W2 tax form from my company today.

As part of the pre-printed form there were ads. Ads for tax preparation, of course, but ads.

So it has come to this, ads on with my tax forms.

I just wonder who got the revenue, my company or ADP who does the payroll processing.

Sign of the Times

Traditionally, as a manager with a group that currently consists of 12 direct reports, one of my yearly performance goals has been employee retention.

I was measured as a manager by how few people left my organization for other opportunities.

Even through the last economic downturn it was recognized that keeping key people was important to the ongoing operation of the business.

Then we were acquired last year by a very large corporation, of which software development in general, and my part of the development in particular, were such tiny parts of the overall revenue stream as to be invisible on the balance sheet.

For this year, retention disappeared from my goals.

I was just given my goals for next year. I now have an attrition goal.

I will now be measured as a manager by how well I can drive a specific number of people to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

I suppose that takes the pressure off of my worries about morale in the software development group.

Grass Valley Police Blotter vol. CXIX

2:05 a.m. - A man from the 300 block of South Church Street reported his roommate had been drinking and was "disillusioned." He said the roommate believed he doesn’t exist and was in his room with a machete.

[So we're primarily concerned with the existence of the machete then?]

10:22 p.m. - A caller from the 14000 block of Nutmeg Court reported an ex-employee embezzled a vehicle.

[I think when they end up with a vehicle, it ceases to be embezzlement and moves more into fraud and theft.]

10:12 p.m. - A caller from the 14000 block of Pleasant Valley Road reported a Volkswagen Beetle was spinning doughnuts in a field.

[I'm going to guess it was one of the "new" Beetles and not your classic pre-1975 VW.]

7:48 a.m. - A caller reported a large amount of bullets had been spilled onto the roadway at Charles Drive and Grass Valley Avenue.

[Ammunition spills are pretty rare.]

10:06 a.m. - A caller from the 12900 block of Amber Street said a neighbor was outside screaming that he was going to burn down houses and kill everyone. The neighbor's wife was at the caller's residence. Responding deputies restored the peace.

[What gets a man that riled up at 10 in the morning? I can't get that worked up until at least mid-afternoon most days.]

1:24 p.m. - A man from the 12700 block of Brunswick Road said someone put on Craig's List that he was having an estate sale Sunday and he did not place the item on the Internet.

[The classic "and what do you want the police to do about it?" situation.]

9:49 p.m. - A caller from the 11700 block of Upper Circle Drive reported a golf cart went by his residence and a person was throwing lit matches out of it. The caller said he reviewed his surveillance tapes and recognized one of the people in the golf cart.

[This seems amusing, unless you live in Grass Valley and it is fire season. I was surprised to not see an additional report about teens stealing golf carts to joy ride again.]

10:58 p.m. - A caller from the 14000 block of Torrey Pines Drive reported a golf cart had rolled over. A person was arrested on unknown charges.

[But no theft report.]

9:31 a.m. - A caller from the 100 block of Cornish Lane reported a large tool theft at the residence the prior evening. The caller said a neighbor heard a vehicle around the home between 10 and 11 p.m. Officers took a report for theft.

[And how large of a tool did they take? Ambiguity, a humor essential. Plus there is potential sexual innuendo.]

3:45 p.m. - A person in the lobby of the police station reported a possible fraud by AT&T. The person was urged to contact AT&T to clarify the charges on their bill.

[I bet this person is even now complaining how the police are totally in the pocket of the phone company.]

12:58 a.m. - A caller from Nevada City Highway reported seeing a mountain lion. No mountain lion was spotted, but a dog the color of a mountain lion was seen.

[A big dog presumably.]

8:45 a.m. - A caller from the 11000 block of Alta Sierra Drive reported a man sitting in a vehicle for several hours. He was out of gas.

[And hadn't realized it? Being out of gas is a problem solved rather easily, but you have to leave the vehicle.]

11:55 a.m. - A woman from the 13000 block of Wood Rose Way reported a toddler loitering by the mailboxes the day before.

[Can a toddler actually loiter in a legal sense?]

8:42 p.m. - A caller from the 13000 block of Blank Court reported people were firing shots over a wheelbarrow. A person threatened to shoot the caller earlier in the evening over the wheelbarrow. The suspect was leaving in an SUV with the wheelbarrow on top. The caller agreed to put his gun away and would wait for a deputy. Neither party wanted to be "the victim."

[I hope that wheelbarrow was worth it.]

Source: The Union (http://www.theunion.com/)

Fake Steve Returns!

Now that Fake Steve has his new iLiver installed and running, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs is active again and telling the truth about Apple, its competitors, and the valley in general.

Welcome back Steve!

Dame Edna Reads Shakespeare's Greatest Sonnets

I have a subscription with Audible.com for audio books. With my subscription I can download any two audio books a month.

After nine years I have fished all the gems out of their catalog and now have to scan the new releases every month. Fortunately they have quite a few new releases on a regular basis.

To facilitate search the list, I subscribe to their new releases RSS feed which allows me to go through the titles and a brief description.

My eye caught and read one of the titles as, "Dame Edna Reads Shakespeare's Greatest Sonnets." As a concept, that made my mind stumble and I had to go back and read the full entry.

At which point I read the title correctly as, "Dame Edith Evans Reads Shakespeare's Greatest Sonnets," and was slightly disappointed.

Not that I am down on Dame EE, but she was reading Shakespeare back when Kaiser Wilhelm II looked like he still had a long and glorious reign ahead of him. Plus the picture they chose to represent her has more than a bit of the "air of dried prune" about it.

All of which brought me around to thinking that Dame Edna reading Shakespeare might not be such a bad idea after all.

United Breaks Guitars

The tale of a musician who has a bone to pick with United Airlines. They broke his guitar and gave him the run-around, so he promised their rep that he would write three songs and create videos for them about his experience. This song is the first.



The full story is available here.