I arrived home from Meridian yesterday at about 5pm. I managed to keep it under 100mph on the drive home, but not by much. (There's a distinct advantage to driving a car with a light bar on top. The troopers tend to merely wave as they pass.)

Upon arrival at my home. I learned that in my absence (and probably sometime on Friday judging by the level of residual coldness) my refrigerator ceased working. I bought this fridge last November, so needless to say, I was Not Happy. Yes, it's still under warranty, but there is no one to take my call at the GE warranty service center until Monday morning. I do hope they will reimburse me for my lost food.

So I have no fridge and no stove. Good thing I don't cook.

I also discovered that my car battery was dead on my POV (which I had half-expected since I haven't gotten the faulty brake-switch fixed yet.) Therefore, since I was already aggravated about the refrigerator and didn't feel like messing around with jumper cables right then, I took my police car to go pick up Zeus. He was, of course, outstandingly glad to see me, and actually pulled the leash out of my hands in his haste to get into the car. It was actually a helluva lot easier for me to have him in the police car, because I didn't have to deal with him trying to get into the front seat--the cage in the back of my unit is perfect for him. Plus I think he was having fun pretending to be a K9.

After getting home with Zeus, I attempted to get online and collect mail and possibly do an entry. However, my ISP was extremely uncooperative, and I only managed to stay on--in repeated attempts--long enough to do one or two emails. I am leaning more and more heavily toward getting a cable modem.

Anyway, the school I went to was outstanding. The one I attended this time is called TCAP, which stands for Traveling Criminal Apprehension Program--but it's basically a highway interdiction class with the emphasis being how to find dope in cars. The first two days were all about the actual stop on the roadway/highway. We learned that it's possible to pack a whole lotta dope into a tiny car, and that there are innumerable places to hide dope in cars, especially in hidden compartments--and of course we learned how to find those compartments (there are some nifty tricks, which I'm not going to mention here.) We also went over the fact that there is no "profile" that you can work from when doing interdiction; mules (drug runners) can be anybody, and in fact the latest trick is to use retired couples. Another is to use women with small children.

Ya gotta love it.

We also got to see a bunch of pics of some very impressive busts, including one bust of 2540 pounds of marijuana, and another bust of approximately $9 million in cash.

You definitely gotta love that!

One of the things I love about going to these schools is that I come back all fired up and ready to get back on the road and "handle up!" Slidell has three interstates coming through it, as well as a number of major state highways. We are right smack on the drug corridor. The drugs are coming through here--probably several tons a week. Sure would be nice if something could be done about that. Unfortunately, NAFTA (which we call the Narcotics Free Trafficking Agreement) is going to make it about a thousand times easier for drugs to come into the US. I had the opportunity to see the movie "Traffic" right before I attended this school, and there's a line in the movie about how the war on drugs has been lost. Perhaps it is lost; I sure as hell know that we're never going to beat it all back, because there are way too many people in this country who want to shove that crap up their nose or into their arm or suck it into their lungs... And I also think that people who think that drugs should be legalized need to work in a treatment center and ride with a narcotics unit for a while, and SEE what this shit does to people, see what a crackhead looks like after only a few months of being addicted. Addicts will be addicts whether it's legal or not. Anyway, I could go on and on in that vein, but I'll spare my readers.

One of the instructors of the class (actually the main instructor and head of the course) came into the classroom on Thursday and said, "I just realized that we've lost the war on drugs." This statement pissed off pretty much everyone in the class. We were like, "If that's true then why the hell are we here??" Yeah, we sure as hell ain't winning, but you sure as hell don't get up in front of a group of people who are on the front lines, and who are in a class to improve their techniques and tactics, and who want to win their battles... you don't get up in front of those people and tell them to keep fighting, but oh, by the way, we've lost the war... but hey, keep fighting anyway. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I figure (as does everyone else in that class) that as long as I keep fighting, that war ain't over.

...

Okay, I really got off onto an unintended tangent/rant there. Anyway. Day three of the class was all about interview and interrogation, how to read body language and non-verbal cues, and how to use body language to your own benefit when trying to get information. That was a fascinating section, and I now want to try and get into the week-long interview and interrogation school.

Day four was Survival Spanish for Interdiction, which also included an overview of the hispanic culture, the geography of Mexico, and Central and South America, as well as a study in where the drugs come from and how they get here. We were taught about 20 or so phrases that would come in handy in a traffic stop and interdiction investigation. For some reason all the guys in the class (yes, I was the only female) really liked the phrases "manos aqui" (put your hands here) and "separe las piernas" (spread your legs.)

Day five was Search and Seizure, or "The Fourth Amendment is your Friend." I'll go into my commentary on the Fourth Amendment and how the average citizen is woefully ignorant of his/her rights under the Fourth Amendment and how such ignorance is criminal considering that we are incredibly fortunate in the US to have these rights and that most of the rest of the world does not have anything even close to it... umm.. I'll go into that commentary another time. Perhaps I'll team up with John Savage on that one.

Wow, this is turning into a long entry!

Forgot to mention that while I was in Meridian, instead of being housed in the usual dorm-type barracks (the classes are held at Meridian NAS), I was instead put up in the officer housing, which was a two-bedroom apartment, with full kitchen, dishwasher, washer and dryer, large-screen tv, vcr, tvs in the bedrooms as well... It was nicer than my house! (Not to mention the fact that I had maid service!) Needless to say, my "pad" was the evening gathering spot for the other guys from my department.

However, staying there drove home to me just how dissatisfied I've become with my own home. And, I decided that a good portion of the funk that I've been in can be attributed to my living environment and my increasing dislike of same. So, I did some thinking on this, and came to the conclusion that I've lived in that house for almost three years, it was high time I spent some time/money on the place, my finances are in pretty good shape and will probably never be as perfect as I'd like them to be and I have a lot of breathing space as far as money goes and can certainly afford to make some changes even though it may not be the most mature or responsible thing to do...

Fuck it. I bought furniture. I spent $500 on a new dining room set, and another $100 on a bookshelf/cabinet for the living room (which I then spent the majority of the afternoon assembling, a task made more difficult when we lost power during the thunderstorm and I was attempting to assemble while holding a flashlight.) I also spent about $50 on curtain rods and will probably spend another $50 or so on curtains or drapes or swags or some such things in the next week. I charged the dining room set (well, actually I did a 90-days same-as-cash dealie) and I figure that as soon as I get that paid off (which will probably be next month since I'm sure I can snag a few extra details) I'm going to drop a bigger wad on the bedroom furniture. And I'm upgrading to a queen-sized bed, dammit, because I barely fit on the double that I have now, and I'm short, and since I still hold onto the dream that someday I might maybe have a sex-life again...

Well, that could have been another tangent/rant, but luckily I stopped myself in time...!