- Police Civilian Academy
Most local police departments have some type of Civilian Academy but The Woo is known for having an excellent one. You take the class in the actual classroom that the cadets learn in. The course is Eleven Weeks long and you go through much of the same training new recruits do.
The idea of taking the course is so that you can learn more about policing tactics and investigation. The course includes detailed looks at certain laws as well as a thorough look at crime scene investigation and you get to interact with several officers. We were able to meet and talk with several detectives, five Lieutenants, four Captains as well as the SWAT team and multiple other investigative teams. The Chief was there for the first class to introduce us to the program.
One of the strongest classes was the live interactive shooting simulator which puts you into a situation where you have about 1/10th of a second to make a life or death decision. I was told that one certain anti-police City Councilor came in and used the simulator after complaining that police should either shoot the gun out of someone’s hand or shoot them in the leg. This particular councilor shot 6-8 innocent people during the simulator.
If you’re pro-police (and you can guess where I fall) you’ll enjoy this inside look and if you’re critical of them maybe this will give you an idea of what it’s like to deal with everything they have to deal with.
The course ended for us with a ride-a-long, but I’ll get into that in another post.
- Helpful Little Website
Birthday-Reminders.com is a handy little service that tracks important dates and more importantly if you make sure you check off what kind of reminder you get you’ll have time to send a card, write an email or send a gift.
So for the example above, this reminder is for our friend Yuka, since she’s in Japan I want to have 14 days advance notice so I can make sure a card arrives in time. The site also has advanced features which I don’t make use of like sending a card automatically for you or an ecard, you can also set reminders for any date you need to keep track of.
You can have reminders sent to your email or your phone– so you’ll never miss a birthday.
Ironically I have an almost rain-man like ability to remember numbers and dates. I can remember the number to Yellow Cab Company despite not having called a cab in 35 years. I can remember dates equally well, but this Birthday-reminders thing is invaluable because we all know how busy we get.
Best of all?
It’s FREE.
I’ve been using it for about 15 years and it’s essential.
- Watch CHARLIE BROWN XMAS for FREE
I think it’s sad that APPLE TV bought the rights to Charlie BROWN CHRISTMAS, but in an apparent melting of their icy hearts they’ll be showing it for free Dec 14-15th on Apple TV
I’ve absolutely got a soft spot for this one, but I don’t own it like I do IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN which I think is far less sappy.
I’m glad it’s available to those of us who just can’t stand the idea of subscribing to yet another channel which pretty soon makes our streaming bill higher than the cable bill we all cut when we went online in the first place.
There are a lot of great behind the scenes stories about getting this first PEANUTS Animated Special done, and much of its success is owed the the creative vision and the fighting spirit of creator Charles “Sparky” Schultz.
Find our more HERE.
- Answer Man: Planet of the Apes
Q- I was interested in your opinion on STAR TREK– like you I can’t get into any of the convoluted universe’s of the sequels and spin-offs. What’s your feel on PLANET OF THE APES? I’m guessing from your bio we’re around the same age, so surely you were into this series as well.
A- First, wow that is quite a poster isn’t it? They don’t make ’em like that anymore.
I was a giant APES Fan as a kid, loved the original five films. As an adult they all hold up to different levels but my favorites remain the first two- PLANET OF THE APES (1968) and BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970).
The original is a genuine classic, the first sequel is more B-Movie but it’s a lot of fun and very well done plus it features my favorite character in the entire series, General Ursus paired with Dr Zaius.
The rest of the original sequels are a little bit of a mixed bag, but all of them are entertaining.
A TV Series followed the original series and aired on CBS-TV in the Fall of 1974– I know I was excited but then they put it up against SANFORD & SON and even an eight year old kid knew that show was funny- so I’d tune in for the second half. The show got lousy ratings and was cancelled after 14 episodes which is a shame because the producers were working on ways to get the ratings up– first by bringing in Star Trek’s Gene Roddenberry and then to consider changing the series setting back to 3955 so they can bring back popular characters from the original films like Zira and Cornelius but CBS cancelled before these changes could be made.
It’s a shame because its a solid show if not a bit confusing to a kid– first of all every human could talk– the explanation given today is that its set 100 years past BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES which was the final film in the original series where humans could talk, but then one of the characters in the show was Dr Zaius who was in the first two films so that didn’t make sense. Today it’s explained in some of the APES Wiki pages that this was a descendent of the original Zaius, but back in 1974 without the internet there was no way to know this.
The show was arguably better than the final three sequels, but the plots were repetitive usually finding one of the protagonists captured and the other two figuring out ways to free them.
After that was a cartoon series on Saturday mornings which featured some stylish animation but once again confusion reigned as the apes now drove cars and helicopters (something that was in the original books but to a kid in 1975 who’d never read the books it didn’t make any sense). The action was limited and the show was pretty slow paced and it too only lasted one season.
I’d neglected to mention back in the STAR TREK post that I liked the animated series that followed the original show– so in the case of the APES series I was onboard with other adaptions up to this animated version.
Then along came Tim Burton and the less said about that movie the better. I’ll give him this; at least he opted to use ape makeup on real actors like the originals, because after that came the series follow up which was essentially a reboot but now with all CGI Apes who looked more realistic but lacked the character of the originals as well as the charm.
I’ve not really given them much of a chance but I own them and I plan to watch them eventually.
So to answer your question– I still prefer the originals to any follow ups (and by originals I mean 1968-1975) but I won’t rule out the possibility of the CGI films being good despite my utter disdain for the method.
- UNWANTED Author Marketing Help Offers
I don’t know what gypsy I ran over or what form I filled out that got me on an “Writers who publish their own books” list but I get approximately 4,782 of these messages in my INBOX everyday;
Hello Dear Author,
I’m opening a few new slots in my reader group for upcoming holiday features. The community has over thirty thousand active readers eager for their next favorite book.
Your book looks like a great fit.
Would you like details on how the spotlight works and what you can gain from participating?
This one came from “Isabella” at SamuelPromotion43@gmail.com — feel free to flood her inbox with nonsense.
If I ignored the email you’d think that would be a solution– nay nay. In fact what happens is they’ll send a follow up email asking why I haven’t responded.
I used to naively type “No thank you.” as my response. This would lead to the person giving me a harder sell. I know this is impossible to believe but of the hundreds of these contacts they all follow exactly the same pattern. So I figured I’d type up a proper response so I created a form letter that I reply with;
“Let me explain this to you as clearly as I can. Please READ my reply here, it will save us both time and money.
I get so many of these emails everyday someone paid money to get my name on a list and like many cold calls it’s a total waste of both our times.I have never self published, I have never self promoted, I have ZERO interest. I don’t care whatever brilliant strategy you’ve developed, you’re chasing the wrong dog here, plain and simple.
Remove me from your list— I wish you well with your endeavors but you are wasting both of our time.
Thanks”I know it reads a little harsh. This reply message has evolved over months. It doesn’t work one bit.
So why don’t I just delete them?
I do, I also block the sender, but I sincerely am trying to save them time to devote to working with people who might actually need their services, and maybe reevaluate the value of the list they’re buying.
Welcome to the new Blog– this whole thing is a work in progress, but you’ll get the latest updates here (just click the links above). It was a longtime coming but a short-time putting it together.
More soon and regularly like the old blog.
Thanks for stopping by.
Andy
It's Andy Fish! 