“The first time you see a body cut in half you will probably be really shocked but after you see 6 or 7 you can deal with it a bit better”. Working at a crime lab as a forensic scientist maybe not such an odd quote…unless it’s coming from the Microscopy trainer! I mean really….not a crime scene guy, or detective but the guy who is the expert on the microscopes? Guh?!? I think it’s better not to ask.
Never Forget… »« Today’s post is brought to you by the letter C…
C being for communication, which is something we seem to be lacking at the moment at work. There are 5 of us in training right now, two in paint and three in Chemical Unknowns/Fire/Explosives. On top of that we are also all supposed to be helping out in case management. Plus a co-worker and I still are doing trace evidence case processing, while the other three people are learning trace evidence processing. We are also doing Microscope training one day a week. And we all also have several large stacks of material to read for all of the different training’s.
Sound like fun? Well the training it self is actually. The chemical unknown stuff really does interest me and is really more what I wanted to be doing when I got into forensic science as an area of study. The problem is the supervisor they put in charge of making up a schedule for all of us while doing said…well range of activities…doesn’t seem to be actually consulting with ANY of the people involved in the training. Which mind you is a good number of people ( 5 doing training+4 trainers+5 supervisors+1 Sergeant ) as well various other people scattered through out the laboratory. Now while granted that is a number of people to try and coordinate you really have to talk to…well some of then when you make up a schedule. Today we had people expecting us in one place at a certain time and others…well expecting us in some other place entirely. We all get how multitasking is an important aspect to doing this training but it is sort of hard to multitask when no one seems to know what task you should be doing. We tried to bring this up with said supervisor today but he really wasn’t listening to…well anything I was trying to explain to him.
For now we are just going to go with the flow as best we can. At the advice of a Co-worker I am keeping a daily log in 1/2 hour increments what exactly I am doing on a daily basis…you know for future reference, and just have to see how it goes.
Now that crazy overtime week is over (for now) we seriously started our chemical unknowns training. Today we met in the new lab room that we will be using and went over some stuff with the room and safety and all that sort of stuff. I am most interested in some of the odder stuff we will be learning about like the bottle bombs (woo!) and bank dye packs, which we apparently get often enough (I never realized until I worked in case mgmt. just how many bank robberies there are in a week in NYC). The rest of the week will be split among case mgmt. , evidence processing, reading the study materials, and observing our tainer process a hair+fiber / chemical unknown case. Should be an interesting week to say the least!
Today’s post is brought to you by the letter C… »« Post interview…
So teh_girl had her interview today! And all in all it went quite well. Sure she did get a bit turned around on the subway and had to walk a few more blocks then she planned on but she still managed the trains and got to her interview and back to Union Square on time and alive.
I met her at the Book Store after I got out of work and ended up using one of my blood drive gift cards to pick up a new book I saw on the employee recommends shelf:
“Russian Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)” (Aleksandr Afanasev)
Looks neat and Meg said she would like to read it too so I picked it up. After we went to the Heartland Brewery for dinner. I decided since Meg did so well with the interview and the subways and all she deserved a nice dinner out. As always the food there was great and Meg really liked the Hard Cider I ordered for her, though she was a bit of a cheap date given that she hadn’t eaten since 9am but she was fine. We even splurged on a tole house cookie pie for desert! Mmmmmm!
No real plans for the weekend other then to take it easy around here. Which after a week of work and training and OT, it will be a welcome break!
Everyone wish Meg good luck. She has her first job interview on Friday! It’s down in Manhattan and is for a “student services” position with Kaplan. She is a tad nervous, this being her first interview for a real job since she graduated, so wish her luck everyone!
Work is going well, though still crazy. We had our first microscope training class today which went well, this was more of an introduction really, covering light and waves and whatnot. It was a nice review, god knows I haven’t seriously studied any of that stuff since college physics. After that I had to go back to work on my trace evidence processing case. I started it last Friday but now someone decided it needs to be done ASAP for some reason so that is all I will be working on for the next day or so. It’s a odd case too, can’t go into details obviously but there are a few odd elements I have come across processing so I have a feeling it will only get more complicated as things go along.
Ah well, at least it’s a bit more interesting then just testing crack pipes all day!
This parrot MOUSE is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!!
THIS IS AN EX-PARROT MOUSE!!
Our mouse visitor is no more. I feel a tad bad that we had to kill it, but sadly it had to be done. Now I just hope that it was the only one we had and there wont be any more uninvited furry visitors!
So I tried…no really. I went to 5 different stores looking for a live mouse trap, I even tried a simple paper towel tube trash can trap I read about on Make but my patients for being nice has run out and this morning I set two “traditional” mouse traps we picked up last night at K-mart. I still feel a tad bad killing the little guy but I am pretty sure that he has been on our kitchen table so he has to go…now! Meg isn’t too happy but understands why we have to do it. It doesn’t help that she has named the mouse and worries that his mouse friends and family will miss him if he dies. I told her she’s been watching too many disney movies.
On the plus side of things while we were at Kmart I sort of splurged and got the one thing on my Christmas list I didn’t get, a bread maker. It was a sign from the gods it was that the model they had was on sale just this weekend for 25% off so it ended up costing me something like 43$ (which is a good hundred dollars less then what the one I got for my Mom cost about 10 years ago). So that was nice!
Nothing much on the agenda today, laundry and taking it easy mostly. Then tonight Battlestar Galactica comes back from their midseason break…W00T!
Monday it’s back to work…no idea what I will be doing exactly. Friday I started my training for Chemical unknowns but what with people going to court and other training and my work in case management what exactly I will be doing on a day to day basis I a bit up in the air so I just will have to wait and see.
…power house…he’s the quickest…he’s the greatest…he’s the best! Well maybe not.
Story is that Saturday night (well Sunday morning technically) Meg comes to bed after having played on the computer for a few hours, to tell me that she thinks she saw a mouse in the kitchen. Having been woken up I just replied…”thats great…we will deal with it in the morning, I want to go back to sleep”. Well in the light of the morning I was still doubtful, I mean she had been looking at a screen for a few hours and it was late. So after a few days of debate I performed a uber scientific test of “floor cheese”, a small chunk on a paper plate. Come this morning, the cheese was gone, so unless either Meg or I are sleep eating cheese off the floor I guess we have a small furry visitor. Now the next mission I guess is to find some live traps (neither Meg nor I are that keen on killing him is need be, and really he/she/it hasn’t done anything to bother us, no chewed boxes or anything) I think it just visits from time to time and lives elsewhere in the building but still, long term we will have to deal with him. But for now Meg decided we have to name it “Danger Mouse”.
Other then furry visitors everything is going alright. Work is going alright, a bit crazy with training and case management, and drugs, and trace evidence processing. Been making phone calls all day for case management and found that most of the detectives in the NYPD seem to be working 4-midnights this week, which makes trying to get in touch with anyone problematic at best. Still I did get some stuff accomplished so that was a plus I guess. We also found out that we will be starting our training come Friday, with a slight change. We will start with “General Unknowns” first, which is what it sounds like…trying to identify a mystery substance (from what we were told we get a lot of bank dye packs and pepper spray type liquids), then we will move on to either Fire Debris or Explosive Residues. It all should be fun! Or at least different!
Anyway back to watching the downfall of human society, aka American Idol Tryout show and try and plan how exactly I will outwit a small furry creature with a brain the size of a pea!
It’s really nice to have today off. Some how I had ended up working the past 3 Saturdays in a row so finally getting a full weekend feels like a little treat. Saturday we went do to the Atlas Park Shops here in Queens. I wanted to go skating at the tiny little rink they have there (Meg was less then thrilled with the idea) but it was raining so Meg got her way…for now. But we had fun none the less, hung out at the book store for a few hours and went to check out the new amish market they built there which is sort of like a Trader Joes, upscale-ish mostly healthy type food and what have you. Prices were a bit high but then they did have some really good stuff you can’t find other places. Meg was quite excited over the flat pretzel chips that she hasn’t had since we were in FL, so we got two bags of those and some nice smoked cheddar to have as a little snack Saturday night. We also got lunch there which was nice, Meg got veggie sushi and I got some curry chicken salad, both were really good. Definitely plan to go back there from time to time but it really is a bit too pricey to make a habit of it. Saturday night all we did was have our snacks and watch “A Scanner Darkly” on DVD. Movie was…alright, the big deal with it was the cartoon/reallife style they shot it in, but the movie it self was only so-so.
Sunday was just errands, shopping, and a little cleaning around the apartment (I finally tackled the linen closet, which is ALOT easier to deal with and find stuff in now, but still…we got way too much crap.
No idea what we are going to do today with my day off, other then enjoy it. I’m working next Saturday and then the week after that is “Mandatory Over Time Week” at work. Um…whee! Though to be hones I usually do at least 5 hours of OT a week anyway so it’s not like it’s gona be a big deal for me but still, its the principle of the thing damn it! Plus the next few weeks could be a little crazy. I am starting my Explosives residue training soon while still doing the case management, trace evidence processing, and drug cases for OT and Saturdays. Should be interesting to say the least.
So I am waiting in line for my coffee and doughnut this morning and there is some guy behind me, and this other guy walks up to him and hes like “hey…um…im looking for my friend”…the first guy is like “what?” and the other one says again really like obvious “Im looking for my FRIEND”…to which the first guy replies “Shit man get out of here…its only 7:30″. I am sure the second guy was wanting to buy drugs from the first one but I just found it funny how, drug dealer or not, everyone needs their morning coffee first! 
Ahh the joys of working in Jamaica Queens!
Had to work today…whee! This was my third Saturday in a row so um…extra whee! The work it self wasn’t so bad I suppose, easy cases and what not but still. I blessedly have next weekend off (which is a long weekend so I guess that almost makes up for working today and missing out on the 70 degree weather we were having, really 70 in January? WTF?!?)
When I got home Meg still wasn’t feeling well, she has had a head cold for a few days now. So when I got home I ran out to CVS to get her a decongestant. That was fun. Any of the stuff you can buy in the isles is the new “PE” stuff which doesn’t have the Pseudo Ephedrine in it, IE worthless. But you can get the real stuff by asking the check out person so I go and ask and she gets me a box of just regular Sudafed. Then she said I have to fill out the page in their little “Sudafed” binder. You would think I was buying a WMD or something. Then she want’s to see my Drivers License with my address on it. Um…it’s CVS I walked there so no license. But I did show her my work ID which is a photo ID though still no address. Well a co-wroker and then store Manager later I was aloud to buy the 24 pack of Sudafed. Because you know, I look like the type there in the story buying 1 box of Sudafed wearing my NYPD Lab jacket, to go home and make up a batch of Meth in my kitchen. Sigh.
On the plus side my amazon.com books arrived so woot for that! I just have to decide what I want to read first, I guess I will start with one of the Dexter books since people at work got dibs on them after I am done. Though the books on conning could help earn a little extra cash so…. 
I just had to share that I finally used my Christmas gift certificate for amazon.com that Sarah sent to get 2 books about a forensic scientist serial killer (Dexter), and a book I have had my eye on for a while about Scams and Con artists from the 1940′s.
I truly feel I am honoring the spirit of Christmas with my choices
Well it’s 2007…where the hell is my flying car eh?
New Years Eve was nice and laid back. The girl and I just hung out here at the appt. and had some snacks and champaign while we watched “Monty Python” on DVD. Were geeks I know! But we had fun. Today we just hung around here, it was raining all day! Blah! But it was nice just to relax and do nothing on a Monday. Tomorrow it’s back to work and back to case management (and finishing up my case from Saturday)
Anyway dinner time, made 15 been soup and bread…mmmm!
