Jake’s Life

First off, I really need to start carrying around my actual digital camera with as many pictures I take during the week. That’s my new week resolution.

I had a craving for sushi the other night at work. Of course the only place to get sushi in the middle of the night is a grocery store, and it was slightly disappointing, but it still worked.

Sandro came over and we watched 28 Weeks Later, which was okay, although it seemed to se things up for a third movie. I hope not: The first one was great, this one was okay, the third (if any) I estimate will suck.

Kitty likes to clamp her teeth on my skin somewhere and not let go. It must be a safety blanket reaction.

We went to The Ram for dinner the other night. Their Buttface Amber Ale is one of the best beers I’ve ever tasted, and washed down a garlic swiss burger quite nicely. Their Total Disorder Porter is pretty good too.

This morning (well, afternoon) we went to this little cafe Downtown that we’ve never been to. I’d never even heard of it until Sandro told me that he was making reservations for us for brunch. Overall, it was pretty good, except that he ate a Lamb Burger which makes baby Jesus cry.

Most of my readers have either commented on or e-mailed me about the disparaging comments being left on my blog lately. Like everyone else in the world I have people who don’t like me. It’s a fact that everyone has to deal with. A few of the people who don’t like me choose to use fifth grade school yard tactics against me, but generally those who I don’t get along with usually at least act like adults.

If you haven’t already noticed, the comments here and here were left by someone at work. I think it’s a bit funny that while he hates me so much, and doles out his threats and anger at me, that his most recent visit at 0129 this morning, according to my access logs on my server, show that he has read several of my posts tonight, not counting all of his other visits. Wow. That’s a lot of interest, and I’m flattered.

Moving right along, part four of the coming out posts is a day or so away…running behind because I’ve been working a lot lately.

Regarding the comment on my previous post, don’t worry. I have CTU’s finest, Jack Bauer, on the case. Chloe’s at CTU running a reverse IP lookup, checking the uplink, download stuff, and aligning the DOD satellites to see if they picked up anything on thermal imaging. Tac teams are also on the way, but something tells me Jack will have things cleared up before they get there.

Okay, not really though. When I get notification e-mails from my Wordpress installation it includes some nice information about the poster of the comments.

I did however run a simple IP lookup and found this:

I know of one person who works at Fred Hutch, who also happens to know someone I work with. It appears this is part of the issues that people are not able to let go of, and if I am right, this is the same person who has sent me threatening text messages, shown up at my job to “intimidate”me, and overall not been able to let last year be last year. I think it’s almost sad how people misunderstand the internet because his company’s client’s name is now all over that post. And I think it’s downright funny that he bashed me being gay because he’s gay himself.

And before anyone asks, no I won’t be taking the comment down. I believe this is the best post for that sort of comment. One major reason I am relaying my coming out story for readers to see is to help people understand me. Sure, people walk around and think that they already know me. They say I’m young, inexperienced, emotional, or not trusting enough but the truth is that they have no clue who I am. I think I can safely say that I have been through things that, compared to other my age (and even older) would have quit if they faced them. I made it though, and I will continue to do so.

My shirt tucking in skills are superb.

Working at night has its quirks. You have to have the right kind of light for the laptop. Up until this week I had a standard soft white light that rested at the top of the screen facing the keyboard but recently bought a red snake-like LED light. Now my car seems dark! But it’s a lot easier on the eyes.

Well, the other day I was called into work to have a meeting about the situation a few months ago. I won’t go into detail about it in a public post, but it wasn’t good and included many bullshit allegations against me which have continued through the voices of one (two counting the lovestruck lackey) even up until a few weeks ago. We set the issue to “Dead” and went on, but mouths kept going and things evolved into other issues, other allegations which had no involvement in the original situation. There have been several attempts to close the book on this thing, but it kept getting brought up, other things were accused, and all of them determined to be the last straws that people felt they needed to grasp onto.

Anyway, I met with the person who was looking over all of the documentation and deciding disciplinary action. To make a long story short (it was a 4.5 hour meeting…on my day off at that) I was told every small policy–relating to the situation or not–that I have broken since I have been promoted to a supervisory position. Many were issues which are part of the “office culture” if you will, things that evolve and develop as time goes on finding that following the “pick your battles” philosophy goes are small taters. For example, technically at the end of our shift we are to clear out belongings from our patrol car to leave a vehicle ready to go for the next officer. I work several days per week in the same car as the only driver, so I usually leave my duty bag and seat organizer on the passenger seat. While this was in no way related to the investigation into the allegations, it was brought up.

As the meeting went on, I noticed a printed copy of several weeks worth of my blog in the file. I was itching for someone to bring something up about it because I have never used my employer’s name, other officer’s names, I always blur out my badge and vehicle decals in my photos, and have ever violated anyone’s privacy surrounding any incidents I have been involved in. Once the person reached that section in the file she told me that there were several things which originally caught her eye in my blog, but after re-reading it, looking at policy, and a little something called the First Amendment, that nothing would be done about that. She told me that a few entries included references to people who believed it was them and complained about it. Whether or not I was speaking about them, or they just have a guilty conscience, that’s not my problem and she agreed. Overall, as far as jakeslife.net goes, I don’t need to do anything differently (which I already knew). She even commended me as to how much I was already aware of the legality of blogging and the steps I had taken to protect privacy even before this issue came up.

All in all, it was a beneficial conversation on some levels, and bullshit on others. But…I know where she was coming from. She let me air my frustrations about the impact that these mouths have had on my work environment, causing it to be hostile according to EEOC standards, and my personal feelings about what went on. I won’t go into what was said after the meeting outside of the building, or the other things in the works, but all-in-all it was a positive experience in itself. And I got one more reader to my site!

Well, tonight is my Friday. The night before last was very busy for us…I cleared 14 incidents on my own. While I have worked busy nights like that before, on the weekends, I haven’t worked the weekends for months now. With Summer being here people stay out later all week, and of course, schools are out.

Last night on the other hand was pretty slow. I took some time at a car wash to clean the patrol car out, vacuum it, clean the seats, the inside glass, and organize things.

My school courses are going okay so far. Both classes don’t run very traditionally. Whereas before we would have one assignment per week, usually an essay, one of my current courses has one every other week (four total), the other only has the midterm and final projects. It’s a nice way to end my schooling for now.

Jakeslife.net is now fully back up. For the past week it’s been either down or short of several entries. Once I got it back up Wordpress was having some issues finding everything due to an upgrade. Anyways, that’s all fixed now. I’ve restored all of my posts, although many have been protected now. If you need the password and aren’t a douche, let me know.

Sandro gets back from Peru next week, and I can’t wait to see him. We’ve been sending video messages back and forth from our phones via e-mail since text messages are about $4 per for Peru. Nasty. He’s also been taking pictures of some sights in Lima. I also switched up my schedule some to spend more time with him when he gets back.

Upgraded my Dash to Windows Mobile 6. Good stuff, even though WM6 leaves me wanting to ditch my Smartphone for a PDA, like the new T-Mobile Wing. The only real difference is touch screen and screen real estate, but my Dash works great for me right now.

Mint, a new free online personal finance manager is in “Elite Beta” right now ad I can’t wait until it opens. It looks like it’s going to blow most others out of the water. Well, right now there aren’t many others out there. Sure, I have online banking, but I am in the process of figuring out how to track everything I do on my laptop on my mobile device. So far, financial software is lacking for Windows Mobile aside from basic checkbook apps. A web solution would be great if it displays right on my device’s browser.

I’m almost done with this school term too. I finished my rough draft for my Effective Writing II final (148/150), which can be viewed along with the final draft at Scribd.

Well, off to another night in paradise.