In-House Training

This week has been a long one, indeed.

First of all, I was sworn in on August 11th at about 0845. That was very quick, but certainly something to remember for the rest of my life.

I have been through all kinds of training and classes, the goal of which is to familiarize me with the way this police department "does things," for lack of better words.

Let's see.... So far I have spent a LOT of time reading my Field Training manual when my Sergeant gets called away, I have sat in training rooms listening to Policy and Procedure (and reading it). I have been tested on lifting fingerprints (latent fingerprints.... actually had to lift a bunch!). I had to go through 4 bags of someone's nasty garbage looking for drug paraphernalia when I spent several hours with a narcotics detective (no, this was not training..... t'was the real deal).

Spent 4 hours learning the basics of accident investigation. Most of the accidents I had to "reconstruct" were local, so I had access to all the photographs, diagrams, and other various items of evidence. Some were simply bad crashes and some were fatalities.

Spent 4 hours learning [in Laymen's term] symptoms of drug impairment. This was wild. It was all classroom work, but the guy who taught it was very knowledgeable and it kind of blew me away at all the material that actually sunk in to my already tired head.

Anyhow, that is about half of what I've done this week. So far, everyone has been pretty easy to work with and the officers and administration have done a good job in welcoming me.

MOVED!

I finally moved to the city where I'll be working..... successfully.

My step-brother and his "hired hand" came with a pickup and a nice 15-ft contractor trailer and we got all my belongings in just fine. We loaded everything in about 20 minutes and unloaded in about 25. It was a hot one out, but we got 'er done. It sprinkled on us a little, but not enough to get the stuff that was in the back of the pickup wet.

40 boxes, a bed, a few pieces of furniture, 4 diet cokes, and some goldfish crackers later (yes, I still eat Goldfish crackers from time to time...so what?), I sit in my new apartment. I've got the big stuff set up, but have yet to get all the little things in place. I also rented out a storage unit which has MORE than enough room to store some things in there that I don't want in my place at the moment.

Cable guy came to set up service this morning (only 4 hours late), so now I have TV and internet here.

Made a stop at the local Super Walmart and picked up some things that I felt I needed that were "custom" to this particular apartment (blackout shades, door mat, kitchen stand, etc).

I *think* I might be close to being back on a "day shift" sleep schedule for the first time in 5 years. Last night I went to bed at about 9:30 and was up at about 7:45. Feels great to sleep when it's dark outside!

Getting very anxious, nervous, excited, etc, etc... for my first day of work on Monday.

Back to unpacking. More later.