W00T! The Redskins were defeated by Packers. Ledgend has it that when they loose their last home game before the presidential election it has predicated a loss for the incumbent. Apprently this holds true for every election sense 1936. Check out snopes for more info.
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Just a quick note. I made a few minor changes to the code I use for my web log in an attempt to stop spamers from posting spam comments to my posts. In the last few days I have had a handfull of spam comments that got blocked by my software but it is still a pain to have to go in and delete them. Hopefully this little fix should help, but if you try and post a comment and it doesn’t work let me know, I tested stuff out but could of missed something.
that is all.
Happy Halloween!
Well we survived the inspection this past week at work. It ended up being a lot easier then we were expecting. My interview was only something like 20 minutes long, though I did end up talking to the inspector again the next day while I was up doing case work. But really nothing he asked was too hard, and it seems that most of the rest of the people I work with had a similar experience. In theory we will find out Monday how the lab did as a whole (and if we passed everything). But no matter what, the days of reading SOP’s for hours on end are over. Yay! To top everything off I get Tuesday off (for some strange reason) and elected not to volunteer to come in and work. I figure I have earned a day off 
Today was typical, though I had an interesting experience at the dollar store this evening. I needed snacks and got replacement cereal bowls for ones I broke in the last week. When I got to the check out the woman who rang me up noticed my Forensics logo on my jacket and asked “do you work in the forensics lab?” I said yes, that I did work for the crime lab. Then the woman said the typical “oh wow I’m really interested in that stuff. Guess what I do?” At this point I am trying not to cringe as I shrug and shake my head expecting to hear something like that she watches CSI all the time or some such thing. Instead she tells me that she is a funeral director and shows me the text book shes been reading between customers: “The Science of Embalming”. We had a nice, if not odd little chat about forensics and what you have to do to get into it. Surprisingly shes on the right track and taking anatomy and organic chemistry classes. Goes to show that not EVERYONE is a total CSI junkie when it comes to Forensic Science these days
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When the Gas company is digging up the street with jackhammers at 9pm on a Sunday night in front of ones apartment it can’t be a good thing!
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Whee for shopping. Especially when it is clothing shopping. Now I know some of you out there enjoy shopping for clothing….your called women. I am a guy. As a rule guys don’t have the same love for clothes shopping. To make matters worse it was the worst kind of clothes shopping, formal clothing. Whee again! Now those of you who know me also know I have like zero ability when it comes to dressing my self in things that match and the like. A lime green shirt goes with a orange tie right? I mean I will only be warring it to court. The sudden need for this shopping trip is two fold, one we have the big ASCLD/LAB inspection this up-coming week at work and we are expected to dress nice, shirt and tie sorta thing, though supposedly the ties are optional when in the lab it self. Second is because Alison got called for court Friday morning, and had to be there later that same morning. She was in jeans and sneakers. Luckily for her we have a lot of women working in the lab so they were able to cobble together a outfit for her in record time. But it sort of put the fear of God into the rest of us so after inspection week is over I have to be sure to keep a white shirt, tie, and some black pants in my locker. Eventually I need to get a suit or two and keep one at work but that is a tad outside my budget at the moment. So for now I went with the uber conservative two white and one grey shirt (all of dress verity), two pairs of black pants and a exciting black tie. I was eyeing a black dress shirt and going for the Johny Cash look but decided against it for now (though I think I would look dead sexy with a cowboy hat )
The rest of the weekend was un-eventful. The shopping trip to the mall was the highlight really. Today was the usual weekend stuff, laundry and food shopping. As I said before this week at the lab is going to be crazy. ASCLD/LAB (or: American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors / Laboratory Accreditation Board) is a group that goes around and certifies forensic labs. Normally this is a voluntary certification process for a lab but New York state requires all its labs to be certified. The certification is good for five years before you have to be re-certified. A team of inspectors will come in and check the whole lab and have to interview everyone who works there to make sure they know what they are doing (known in the lab as ASCLD/LAB criteria 2.2.2). If they find people who aren’t able to explain well enough what they do and why, well it would be a bad thing, both for the people and lab. The whole thing is just a pain in the ass and I will be so glad after this week is over and all the inspection stuff is done with. See they never have to deal with this stuff on CSI! Heck from watching the show I doubt they would pass the inspection so we got one up on them. Though all the available over time we have had to get ready has been nice. I actually have to go in tomorrow at 8, in theory it is to “study” more but I have 4 reports that are due Monday and have to be finished and faxed to the ADA’s, mostly because I didn’t get my cases on Friday from evidence control until almost 12pm (usually get them at 10am).
Bah! The wheels of justice and all I guess. I could make some sad joke about justice not being blind but just slow, but I don’t think anyone wants to hear that now do they.
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Well looks like I don’t have to go to first aid training tomorrow after all. For reasons that make since to the NYPD (which means they may not match our Earth logic) I got cut off the list. Which is just fine with me. I have too much work to do already and I will get to watch Lost tomorrow night instead of counting on my TV,VCR, and Cable Box to all play nice together and tape it. Lost rocks!
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Yah, today is a monday all right. Went into work at 8, two hours early so I could work on that big case thats kicking my ass (and that I still can’t talk about, sorry). Thankfully it’s done for the most part, just have to deal with the report and packaging it up. Thing is that it’s due tomorrow so I have to go in early (8am again) so I can get the report reviewed and then faxed to the ADA, whee! Today I also got half way to work before I remembered that my lunch was still in the fridge, DOH! So Quiznos it was for lunch, which isn’t that bad in it self. Now comes the fun part where I am told that Wednesday I have to come in at 1:30 pm because I have to go to some place in Brooklyn for first aid training. In it self it sounds cool, I will be certified in first aid and stuff which is a good thing, but its from something like 3-11pm! Er….they claim to be getting van’s to get us there, which is fine but I am sure said van’s will take us back to the lab after, which will be at like 11:30, then I get to take the subway home which at that time of night will probably take me an hour and a half, IF I am lucky. Luckly one of my friends from the lab has to go the same day and he has a car and lives sorta near me so he said he could drop me home…yah! Thanks Jay! If he couldn’t do it I would of just totally taken a taxi (or would have to try to suck up to some of the cops I work with ) heheh. I would bribe them with coffee!
Ok enough ranting for now, that’s all I have to bitch about for now. Oh wait on top of it all I get 5 cases tomorrow to do too. NOW I am done!
On a very un-related note I downloaded William Shatner’s new record “Has Been ” which is a odd mix of spoken word and music. It was a joint project with him and Ben Folds. While I don’t think I would of paid for it (I have herd Shatners attempts at music before, think his famous spoken Rocket Man bit…shudders) the record for the most part is disturbingly good. Which is NOT something I thought I would ever be saying about a Shatner album.
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So no real posts in over a week. Why you ask? Well mostly because there really hasn’t been anything worth posting about. Been working alot, getting some over time in which is good, but nothing too interesting case wise. Well that’s not totally true but sadly nothing I can write about at the moment because it is still in progress. At some point after it’s done, or if (god forbid I get called to court) you can hear all about my fun case. Till then sorry!
This weekend was all right. It was nice just to relax after a crazy week. Though I was productive today and cleaned the hell out of stuff here, even the fridge! So if nothing else my apartment is in good shape.
In the next day or so I hope to post a early x-mass list so I don’t get yelled at again this year by my family and GF who have no idea what to get me. Yes it’s early but if I don’t do it now I will never remember.
I guess that’s all for now…
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“To show our solidarity as Americans, let’s all get together and show each other our support for the candidate of our choice. It’s time that we all came together, Democrats and Republicans alike.
If you support the policies and character of John Kerry, please drive with your headlights ‘ON’ during the day.
If you support George W. Bush, please drive with your headlights ‘OFF’ at night.” -Found on the internets
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a post just because it’s been a week… »« Of phones and films
Well no court notification so far so I may of dodged that bullet. The rest of the week at work went fine. Friday I finally got some somewhat interesting cases, or at least a semi-big case so that was good. Yesterday, I did all the usual Saturday junk: laundry, shopping, cleaning, etc. Today I took a trip down to the Union Square area to see a movie and get a new cell phone (my old one sorta died). I saw Shaun of the Dead which was funny but not AS funny as I had hoped. Still it was good. I also got to explore the area a bit and found that there is more there then I ever knew, lots of different stores and stuff. I also checked out a great used bookstore Strand Books which is just huge. I could of spent hours in there and still only seen a small part of what they had. Definitely have to plan a trip back there soon.
Well work tomorrow, normally we have the day off but they needed some people to come in and its a sweet deal, 7 hours of comp time and I work at time and a half so how could I say no?
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A Message in the Public Interest »« day three and already a reputation
Well to start off I guess I ought to mention that yesterday we finally had our little graduation thing. It was just a quick little meeting with the director of the lab. We took a group picture and got our certificates that said we completed training and were real criminalists now. Then we each got a personal picture taken with the director, one of those handing the certificate while shaking hands sorta pose. Whee! I also got three more cases yesterday, nothing too exciting but they still want to try and go a little easy on us, for now at least.
That brings us to today. Because the people yesterday were offered over time to finish stuff and read some to get ready for our inspection we were given the option of coming in at 8 to do two hours of OT before our normal shift. It’s actually a nice set up, knowing in advance the OT and not having to stay any later at the end of the day. Though it made me realize that while I only have been doing it for two days I really sort of like getting to sleep till 7:30 am So we came in at 8 and I finished some random stuff while I could because we had some meeting later in the day. At some point my old supervisor/trainer Tom came by just to see how we all were getting along and stuff and he comes to me and tells me that apparently, after only 2 days, I already have a reputation. Of course this worries me at first, because he didn’t initially say if it was good or bad. Turns out what that was all about was that a case came in, and on the request form from the ADA was written “give to Criminalist Andrew O. if possible”! Guh?!? At this point I have done a total of 6 cases you can see how this would be a tad unusual. I did the case and got the results faxed to the ADA this morning but still have no idea why he requested I do it personally or how he even knew who the hell I was. All I can figure is that the case must of some how been related to one of the 3 I did on my first day but after looking them over there really isn’t any obvious connection (different defendants, dates, and types of evidence). My fear is that the case was some how connected to one of the other ones and that they wanted to try and keep the same criminalist, which COULD indicate there is a better then usual chance that the case will go to court. Not that it would surprise me any to have to go to court on my first week of cases but I really hope I don’t! We will just have to see what tomorrow brings, but rest assured I will keep you all updated
Well it’s official! I got my first three REAL cases today. No more found property for me, no sir. Now my actions help to put people in (or get them out of)[but mostly put them in] jail. The first three were nothing too exciting. Two crack cocaine cases and a heroin. They went fine and I was done with the lab part of things by lunch, leaving only the ever exciting paperwork part. Whee! Still it is nice to finally be doing for real what I have been training for, for all this time. Today I also started my new 10-6 shift and so far I have to say I like it. Sleeping till 7:30 am was oh so nice and not having to start work till 10 am meant that I was way more awake then I used to be when I started at 8 am. True this is just the first day so we shall have to see how it works out over time I guess but so far I don’t see any problems.
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Well today is our last day down here in the training room. (sniffle) come Monday I will be in a new room with a new desk and supervisor and stuff and have real cases to work on. It’s nice to finally be done with training and getting to do real work at last. We’ll see how long I go before I start bitching about the work load upstairs and regret ever going up there. My desk and work area is nice and the people in my group seem cool too. I had a quick little chat with my new supervisor and she seems nice, quiet, but nice. I guess the plus side of that is she’s less likely to yell at me when I mess up.
An hour passes…
Eh I just got stuck doing the fun file cabinet project. Sorting through all the files in a drawer looking for ones out of order, it’s as fun as it sounds! Whee! But on the plus side it killed an hour so I guess that’s something.
That’s it for now, have a critique form to fill out for training and stuff so I’ll go do that and keep my self busy for the last 50 or so minutes.
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