Eye Infections

WTF!!!! Ever since I was a little boy, every year at this time without fail I get some sort of eye infection related to allergies. Usually pink eye...and this year I got it again. I got it last week and it hurt like hell. The eye has cleared up and I was on my way to recovery, but now I think's its coming back! WTF!!! I have to call my doc and get a referral to a specialist, my eye jst doesn't look or feel right.

So how do I cope....I go to South Park Studios and check out one of my favorite show. Season 1 had an epidose about pink eye which you can catch here. South Park Pink Eye. Enjoy!

Old Friends..New Friends

Had the opportunity to get out last night and hang out with some friends at a local bar. Ran into another friend I grew up with and last saw at our high school graduation - Go Falcons! Anyway, Steve, immediately recognized me and gave me an good ole bear hug. After the obligatory 'what are you doing now" intros, it was nice to chat and shared some beers and reminisce about the old neighborhood. A totally different experience than the last school friend I ran into.

I also wanted to give a shout to a new friend for checking in on me last night. She is the best!

Heroic Cops Save Lives

On a day when we honor our fallen police and firefighters at the Living Flame Memorial, I found this story of three heroic police officers in the 22nd Police District making me feel very proud of our men and women in blue.

The officers - Ryan Sullivan, Michael Pazdan and Ryan Clement, from the
22nd district in North Philadelphia - were on their way to the scene of a street
fight when they rode past 19th Street near Susquehanna Avenue and spotted a
frantic Ida Jackson outside the burning house.
The blaze was accidentally
caused by one of her grandsons, who left the stove unattended while he ran out
to pick up a tux for his prom, she said.
"Oh, I was just in a tizzy!" said
Jackson, 68. "Everything had happened so quickly, and [the girls] were trapped
in there."
Pazdan, 26, said that he and Clement forced Jackson's front door
open, thinking that they could dash in and rescue the girls. They were repelled
by the thick smoke and intense heat.
"It burned my lungs, so I thought,
'There has to be another option,' " Pazdan said.
Thinking fast, Pazdan yelled
up to Bianca. "I said, 'Sweetie, I can't get up there. You have to jump. I
promise I'll catch you.' "
Pazdan figured that the girl would feel about four
times her actual weight if she made the jump as he prepared to make the catch of
a lifetime.
"Sure enough, out the window she went," he said. "She fell right
into my arms and didn't budge. It felt great."

Click the link bvelow to read the rest of the story from the Daily News.

'Mighty men' cops save 2 girls in 'heroic' fire rescue

My only dissapointment is that the Daily News buried this on page nine of today's issue. With all of the front page bad press the Philadelphia Police have been given in the 22nd, the Daily News should have given this story front page coverage. But I should know better than to expect the Philadelphia Daily News to publish anything good about our police.

Congratulations officers Ryan Sullivan, Michael Pazdan and Ryan Clement for a job well done!

Back to School..

Two weeks ago I started an online course for my job. This course is designed to certify me to be an Instructor to teach an industry standard Public Safety Telecommunicators course.

It's been many years since I've took classes and now I am doing this in an online environment. I'm usually pretty good at managing my time but I seem to be waiting until the last minute to turn in my assignments.

I have been an instructor in various criminal justice topics for years at my old job with the probation department and I am actually looking forward to being an instructor for a police agency.

Twenty years ago it was parties and holding down two jobs that always resulted in my waiting until the last minute to turn in my assignments. Now it seems to be that I can't concentrate and focus on my school work until after I make sure that the boys have their homework down and then only after the family is off to bed and the house has quieted down.

Thank god for cherry-coke zero and itunes to keep me going into the night.

No longer a President

For the last twelve years I have been a member of Custodes Pacis Lodge, #2085, Order Sons of Italy in America. We are a lodge that represents Italian-American Law Enforcement Professionals and their families. Our website is located at http://www.custodespacis.org and you can find out some of the things that we do there.(I am the webmaster :) )

For the past ten years I have been an officer in the lodge having served in several different capacities. In 2001 or therabouts, I became the financial secretary of the lodge which basically meant I collected any monies owed to the organization, mostly membership fees.

Since 2007 I have served as president.

I have found my membership and service to the lodge to be rather rewarding and fun most of the time. Although frustrating at times, I enjoyed my stint.

About six months or so ago, I decided I wouldn't seek a second term. My main reason is to free up time to spend with my wife and children.

Our organization is rather large and it takes a committed team to do what needs to be done. Although this worked out most of the time, I felt that sometimes, I was the only one doing the work. This may have been only a perception as I also am sympathtic that everyone has a personal life to attend to, but many times I got frustrated because I didn't seem like I was able to get everyone on the same page.

Tomorrow night(actually tonight) we will have our monthly meeting at which time our new president and his administrative council will be installed. He is hesitant to take on the role, but is doing it because he does not want to see our organization without a leader. I also promised him that I would help and guide him along the way.

Tomorrow night will be the last time I have to conduct a meeting. Although I will be a part of the executive board, my duties are limited to voting on motions.

I am excited to free myself of this work and spend more time with my boys and my wife. My boys are getting so big and I feel like I missed alot of their growing up. My wife has dealt with all my frustrations of being in charge of this organization and I know whe will appreciate the break and the extra time that I will now have.

I will be going to bed feeling really good, knowing that after the meeting tomorrow, that I will not be president of the lodge. I look forward to my free time and wish our incoming council the best of luck!

The kitchen and Pushing my buttons

This must be my week for 'patience testing.' In an earlier post, I mentioned we are working towards a new kitchen. We finally got the contractor out to the house and he advised us of some construction issues regarding our design and gave us a few suggestions. Now that we know which way we are going to go with this(i think), we gave Victor our sales person at Lowe's on the Rooselvelt Boulevard a call to set up an appointment.

Victor gave my wife a hard time and complained that we already changed our design several times and he is off the rest of the weekend. My wife asked if someone else could finish the design for us. He insisted that it could not be done.

Now here we are ready to spend several thousands of dollars on cabinets and counter tops and he is acting this way. My wife would have nothing to do with it and hung up.

She called me at work very upset and I told her we could go somewhere else with our business. In this economy I am sure someone would accommodate us. But I wasn't ready to let it go at that. I'm very patient when it comes to my own tolerance with things but if you mess with my wife and kids all bets are off.

I was about to leave work and drive to Lowes to have a 'talk' with this guy, but my wife called me before I had a chance to leave. Apparently one of the other employees got wind of how this guy talked to my wife and complained to the store manager. The store called my wife my wife to apologize and offered her an appointment time with another kitchen designer that was convenient to us. We are eager to take advantage of the great cabinet sale so we accepted his apology and scheduled the appointment.

I feel like I have a target on my back! Clearly this must be 'lets eff with Moe' week. WTF!

Swine Flu Pande-mania

My oldest son has had a sore throat all week. Although he has been complaining, he's been a real trooper and went to school. Today, he woke up and cold hardly talk, he had a fever so I kept him home from school so that I could take him to see the doc. Diagnosis, most likely strep(waiting for the culture result to come back) and he gets some penicillin and he gets to stay home until Monday.

My son's teacher called shortly after 9am, inquiring about my son. He knew my son had a sore throat and he was 'checking up' on why he didn't show up at school today. At first I thought, 'oh that's cool, the teacher is concerned'. But before I could finish that thought in my head, the teacher said, 'You know, could you keep us posted at the school, especially with this swine-flu thing going around.........WTF! I really didn't hear the rest of what he said, I was so freaking annoyed!

Mind you, I would have no control over notifications to the school, if God forbid my son had swine flu(thankfully he doesn't), the CDC would be sure to take care of that. But what's going to happen now at the school? Every kid who has the sniffles or a sore throat is going to be suspected of being a carrier of swine flu? What concerns me is the power of the teachers' unions and next thing you know they will be demanding that the CDC open containment and quarantine camps for sick kids.

My son's teacher wasn't worried about my kid, he was only worried about himself! My kid will go back to school with his doctor's note on Monday and we will just hide behind HIPAA and let them wonder why my son was sick.

I blame the same media that put our president in office for creating all this this Pande-mania!