Here's the thing about drunk driving: you've just blown smoke up the ass of your cerebral cortex and got behind the wheel of a two thousand plus pound wrecking ball. Women, children, elderly can now be killed by you in a half-second misstep. And why? Because you're lazy or cheap and have to get your precious car home. There is no excuse. It is indefensible and closed for debate. I've seen what it does to a person's body, I've seen what it does to the people who knew them afterwards and I've seen what it did to me mentally and physically. It is a straight-up horror you will remember every hour of every day of your life. If you drive a car drunk, fuck you and hopefully you die first and only.
After dealing will all the BS and money on my first impaired driving ( again different from DUI/DWI/OUIL) I haven't done it since, about 8 years now. About a year after I had got out of the pokey for probation violation I was at the bar with friends and being responsible I passed out in the passenger seat of my truck and slept it off in the parking lot. I got woken up by being dragged out of my truck and cuffed, spent an hour in the back of the cop car, only to be given a warning. A warning for driving drunk, again, I was sleeping in the passenger seat. So when some of you jump all over Dixie for his fuckups and hatred of the cops, there is a small part of me that agrees with him.
Yea, I wouldn't drag Dixies good reputable name into this discussion. The guy had at least 6 arrests for DUI. He also always blamed the Po-Po for his problems. Because of his choices, the son he adores gets to visit his Dad in jail. He not only put other people at risk, he jeopardized his sons future by poor role modeling. He is probably the person you most want to leave out of this conversation. I can understand not trusting the cops, and I can understand once you're in the system life gets harder, however I can't agree with the way he thinks at all.
Not to mention the whole "Going to Mexico to pick up illegal shit just because I want to get high" thing...something about that just really pissed me off at the time. Oh yeah, it was doing mind-numbingly stupid shit like that while raising a child.
I never understood his thinking, for many reasons, but most of all was that he loves his son but he'd do stupid shit that could land him in jail, which obviously would hurt his child emotionally..
My point was more along the lines of having some hatred of the police, recent discussions on the board seem to back this up, dragging me out of my truck for sleeping on private property seem reasonable to anyone? Again I wasn't defending Dixie's behavior, just that common sense and decency in some police departments seems to have gone out the window. Much like punishing underage designated drivers for driving their friends home after a party, all they are told is to be responsible, don't drink and drive. Then they end up getting in trouble for doing exactly that.
For every shitty story you hear, there are thousands of polite ones, not diminishing anyone's shitty experiences by any means. It's just the bad ones you hear about.
You know, it's funny. I remember when I was a social worker, working with a lot of kids in the juvenile probation system, and holy shit did they get away with some fucked up stuff, with little more than a slap on the wrist. Examples: One kid repeatedly beat the shit out of his mom because she would dare to try to tell him what to do. Took 5 times before he finally saw the inside of a detention facility for more than a week. One kid, on probation for child molestation, beat the hell out of his girlfriend in their church parking lot; because Jesus? I guess? Anyway, slap on the wrist, no restraining order, they were dating again in a week. Another kid (on probation for having weed at school) stole a shopping cart and, pushing his friend, filmed it. He was waived to adult court for theft and assault (apparently he "assaulted" his friend that was in the cart, despite the friend not wanting to press charges) and spent about a month in big boy jail. My point is simple: our justice system itself is all kinds of fucked. I kept preaching to my kids that there would be consequences if they fucked up, but then the judge would yell at them a bit, and they'd go back home with maybe an extra month of house arrest (besides school, after school activities, and other ways for them to be out from dawn til 9 or so at night). Kind of hard to explain to a kid that actions have consequences when those consequences never materialize. Fuck, "consequences" were about as real to some of the kids I worked with as Santa or the Easter Bunny. There was often little rhyme or reason to punishments short of "PO is in a shitty mood and is gonna try to throw the book at me" or "PO is in a good mood and I'll get a warning." Maybe some consistency would be nice.
Well, I mean yeah, police are supposed to be polite so why would we talk about them for doing something that is expected from everyone?
I have a folded American flag on my wall that reminds me every single day just how much someone can lose because one person didn't want to call a cab.
Eh, it's a liability thing and trying to cover their asses. If it were found out the police had let you off with a warning and you woke up twenty minutes after they left and then plowed into a couple of pedestrians they'd catch major shit. My friend who is a police officer said he's seen it multiple times where they'd wait for a ride to pick up a line call drunk driver only to have the idiot return to his car not ten minutes later to try and drive it home again. As much as I share the opinion that cops can be dicks I also realize they fucking deal with the dregs of society day in and day out. Hard not to become jaded or and asshole when you interact with low life criminals and liars int he majority of your interaction with the public.
Here they will book you for DUI the second you enter the car. They don't care about what seat or if you have keys. Sleeping in the back seat is drink driving to them. Drunk driving has no excuse. Never. You drove your car and got drunk? Too. Fucking. Bad. These fuckwads who say. "We'll, I couldn't just leave my car there!" Honestly sicken me. Lie in the bed you make before you kill somebody.
I know, right?! I have found the same thing to be true. Wow. So, this conversation just happened between me and a construction superintendent. (All of the address below changed to protect the innocent, except the letter in question.) Me: "Give me your email address and I'll send it to you." Him: "Okay, it's all lowercase, j t f chem, short for chemistry, at mindspring.com" Me: "Sorry, the wind was blowing while you said that. Did you say jtf, j as in John, t as in Tom, f as in Frank, chem @ mindspring.com?" Him: "Right." <email doesn't go through, I call him back> Me: "Hey, it didn't go through. I must've typed it wrong or misheard. I've got j as in John, t as in Tom, f as in Frank, chem @ mindspring.com" Him: "That's it." Me: "Okay, how about I give you my email address and then I'll just reply back?" <I get the email from him> His address is jpfchem @ mindspring.com. WTF? Did he think I was saying p as in Pom? Who the fuck is Pom? Isn't that point of using common names to sound out the letters. Shoulda used Tango, I guess.
Have fun saying that with a straight face! Yesterday I was sent an email from a prospect and CC'ed in was someone named Starr Brown. Their name showed up as Brown, Starr. Is it bad if that was a highlight of my day?
Ive never actually filled out an NCAA bracket. I might give it a try this year. Odds are good Im winning a billion dollars.