C.J. Griswold
From C. J. Griswold, Wife of the Blacksmith, and his keeper:
I don’t have a blog, and I don’t post much on the internet. I used to work at an ISP and did all the tech geeky stuff, now I pretty much use the internet for shopping and keeping up with my favorite authors.
I now work at a 911 police dispatch center. My job is the basis for this entry.
Today, for the first time in two and a half years, I learned to hate my job.
Now, before you start thinking, ‘Oh, just another disgruntled worker bitching about her job and how unfair it is’ hear me out…
Today, I had to listen to a friend and co-worker kill himself.
I’m not going to go into gory details, I honestly have no desire to type out the play by play. The Reader’s Digest version of ‘How I Learned to Hate My Job’ is all I’m willing to share.
Sunday nights are usually pretty laid back. People tend to be getting ready to go back to their daily grind, school, work, whatever. Sunday is a nice night to ease down from a long three day work weekend.
This morning, at about 4:00 am, one of our off duty officers called us and told us he was going to kill himself. He had his issued weapons in his vehicle with him and he, in his words, felt he was out of options. He was calling from a cell phone so we were pretty much unable to find him and he wouldn’t tell us where he was. All he wanted was for his last words to be on a taped line. He wanted his beneficiaries to know he was sorry and that everything would be left to them. He kept saying he didn’t want to hurt anyone else, just himself.
Well, needless to say, our dispatch center (Four of us working at the time) went into high alert. Nothing like a crisis to bring people together. We sent out area broadcasts and contacted the counties surrounding us. We sent police officers to his house, and the houses of people he was close to. We had a pretty good vehicle description and broadcast it to everyone in our county. We held all non-emergency calls and basically initiated a manhunt for our friend and co-worker.
Needless to say we found him. When we did he, in short, freaked.
I was answering phones at the time, and took his panicked and somewhat erratic call. I did all I could to keep him on the line (he kept hanging up on us) and try to calm him down. I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t type, so I just kept repeating what he said so that my co-worker behind me could advise the pursuing officers. I told him how much we all cared for him, that his fellow officers were there to help him, were worried about him.
No matter what I said, he wouldn’t stop.
His command officer came up to dispatch to talk with him. I handed over my headset with shaky hands and fought off wave after wave of panic and tears. Survive first, then panic. Panic never helps anyone in an emergency situation.
The officers in our county did not pursue him (as in lights and sirens stop this guy). They just followed at a safe distance, worried for him as we worried, wanting him to stop so they could help him.
He eventually made his way to a county adjoining ours. A county where the deputies knew nothing about this armed man other than that he may endanger their officers and their residents. He began to drive erratically, swerving into oncoming traffic at high rates of speed. The deputies had to stop him. I know they did. It doesn’t make the end result any easier to bear.
With his command officer still on the phone, and all of his friends and co-workers at dispatch listening in, he made one last plea for the deputies to stand down.
They did not, and a good man, friend, and police officer ended his life with the weapon he had used to serve and protect. It devastated all of us, his friends and co-workers at dispatch and in the field.
I’m not sure there is a moral to this story; there is certainly no silver lining that I can see. He is gone. He will never again come to see us, armed with a pizza and a smile. Never again call on duty with a laugh and a friendly quip. He succumbed to the feelings of despair and sadness that were in him, and passed them along to us with his dying breath.
So, maybe this, like all suicide stories, does have a moral. Think before you act. Your actions never affect only yourself. It is rarely as bad as it seems at the time. And even if you don’t know it, there are people there for you. If nothing else, there is always a soul at the receiving end of a 911 call. We may not be the person to give you answers, but we can send you help. And never think we don’t care. Never think your actions affect no one, because they always affect us.
25 March 2006
19 March 2006
Secret Project
J. P. W. Griswold
For years I have played guitar and bass for personal entertainment and to relax my hands after working in the forge. The hammer and tongs strain the fingers and forearms quite a bit, and if you do not do something to loosen them up, the next day will be worse.
So, after many nights of work, I pick up the guitar. I've had one around the house for about as long as I can recall. My grandfather played guitar when I was very little, but by the time I have memories, the arthritis in his hands kept him from playing much. I still have that guitar, and many others as well. My wife also had a few acoustic guitars when we were married, and we have purchased another since that wonderful day.
My wife likes me to play as well, even though she is probably a better player than I (my internal meter seems to be off, so my phrasing is sometimes choppy - hers is much better, as is her voice). But it makes her happy, so I try to learn new songs she likes, and play things she likes. It has expanded my ability, and playing on a steel string acoustic is not as forgiving as a steel string electric can be.
Now I've had electrics for many years, getting my first in High School. I have had bass guitars nearly as long, and even played pro for a while as the bass player in a polka band on sundays while little old ladies played bingo. Lately, I have even begun to build a pair of new electrics, both in interesing designs.
Why do I bring this bit of history up? Ah, there is the fun part!
A secret project is perking, rapidly comming to a boil. Recently, we picked up the last few new tools we had needed to complete the home studio. This has finally opened the door to full blown recording once again. I have had the computer to do so for quite some time, and have done some music in the recent past, but with the last few bits we will be able to really do pretty much anything. And the secret project is just the first. Once the first rough tracks are finished, we will put up a link so everyone can hear what we have been up to.
Thanks to my Mom for making the studio possibile sooner that we expected, and always having music around the house, and even tolerating it if I was the one making it!
For years I have played guitar and bass for personal entertainment and to relax my hands after working in the forge. The hammer and tongs strain the fingers and forearms quite a bit, and if you do not do something to loosen them up, the next day will be worse.
So, after many nights of work, I pick up the guitar. I've had one around the house for about as long as I can recall. My grandfather played guitar when I was very little, but by the time I have memories, the arthritis in his hands kept him from playing much. I still have that guitar, and many others as well. My wife also had a few acoustic guitars when we were married, and we have purchased another since that wonderful day.
My wife likes me to play as well, even though she is probably a better player than I (my internal meter seems to be off, so my phrasing is sometimes choppy - hers is much better, as is her voice). But it makes her happy, so I try to learn new songs she likes, and play things she likes. It has expanded my ability, and playing on a steel string acoustic is not as forgiving as a steel string electric can be.
Now I've had electrics for many years, getting my first in High School. I have had bass guitars nearly as long, and even played pro for a while as the bass player in a polka band on sundays while little old ladies played bingo. Lately, I have even begun to build a pair of new electrics, both in interesing designs.
Why do I bring this bit of history up? Ah, there is the fun part!
A secret project is perking, rapidly comming to a boil. Recently, we picked up the last few new tools we had needed to complete the home studio. This has finally opened the door to full blown recording once again. I have had the computer to do so for quite some time, and have done some music in the recent past, but with the last few bits we will be able to really do pretty much anything. And the secret project is just the first. Once the first rough tracks are finished, we will put up a link so everyone can hear what we have been up to.
Thanks to my Mom for making the studio possibile sooner that we expected, and always having music around the house, and even tolerating it if I was the one making it!
16 March 2006
Happy Irish New Year
Redheaded Blacksmith
Howdy invisable readers, just a quick note on this Irish New Year's Eve.
Drinkin' and Leprechaun chasin' is not really what Irish New Year is all about you know. Sure, the greeting card companies and beer merchants want you to think that it is, but in reality it's all about beating snakes with sticks.
You see, Saint Patrick is credited with driving the snakes out of ireland. Now, of course I realize that what they mean by that is that he brough Christianianity to the isle, and drove out the older pagan religions, but I would like to see a more 'merican take on that old parable.
We should have a day where we just send our kids out with sticks to try to find snakes and drive them out of 'merica. Now don't get your trousers in a knot, I am joking of course. Beating on real snakes is not very healthy for the serpents in question, and we need those to keep the rat and mice population down so we don't get a major infestation of ratflu going around again. But in the same vein we have screwed up lots of other holiday rituals, we should make paper mache' snakes and club them like Piñatas. Or at least hide some garden hoses in the bushes and watch the little ones go at it. Why? Cause our parents did it to us, and their parents did it to them. They had often forgotten the reason for the ritual, but they carried it on anyway.
I fondly remember a bright, warm Easter Sunday as a very small child, looking in my Grandmother's flowers for brightly colored Easter eggs. As I was quite young, my understanding of the holiday was a little vauge, and I entertained everyone by finding the largest easter egg ever, and tried to haul a bowling ball sized pink granite rock out of the flower bed and out into the yard. It probably weighed as much as I did.
Would it not have been fun for the wee ones to have been given sticks and sent out to find the bits of shredded garden hose left over from a lawn mower mishap of the past? I think it would have! Then I might have grown up believing that snakes were full of candy well into my adult years, just like I believed that snow came with holes in it for quite some time... but that is another story.
Off to make something!
Howdy invisable readers, just a quick note on this Irish New Year's Eve.
Drinkin' and Leprechaun chasin' is not really what Irish New Year is all about you know. Sure, the greeting card companies and beer merchants want you to think that it is, but in reality it's all about beating snakes with sticks.
You see, Saint Patrick is credited with driving the snakes out of ireland. Now, of course I realize that what they mean by that is that he brough Christianianity to the isle, and drove out the older pagan religions, but I would like to see a more 'merican take on that old parable.
We should have a day where we just send our kids out with sticks to try to find snakes and drive them out of 'merica. Now don't get your trousers in a knot, I am joking of course. Beating on real snakes is not very healthy for the serpents in question, and we need those to keep the rat and mice population down so we don't get a major infestation of ratflu going around again. But in the same vein we have screwed up lots of other holiday rituals, we should make paper mache' snakes and club them like Piñatas. Or at least hide some garden hoses in the bushes and watch the little ones go at it. Why? Cause our parents did it to us, and their parents did it to them. They had often forgotten the reason for the ritual, but they carried it on anyway.
I fondly remember a bright, warm Easter Sunday as a very small child, looking in my Grandmother's flowers for brightly colored Easter eggs. As I was quite young, my understanding of the holiday was a little vauge, and I entertained everyone by finding the largest easter egg ever, and tried to haul a bowling ball sized pink granite rock out of the flower bed and out into the yard. It probably weighed as much as I did.
Would it not have been fun for the wee ones to have been given sticks and sent out to find the bits of shredded garden hose left over from a lawn mower mishap of the past? I think it would have! Then I might have grown up believing that snakes were full of candy well into my adult years, just like I believed that snow came with holes in it for quite some time... but that is another story.
Off to make something!
15 March 2006
Soon to be "POD casts"
Let the POD casts begin
Howdy again, etheral readers. Again, we stumble toward the 21st century with bleary eyes and heavy feet. Though I have yet to post my rant on the lowbrow term "blog", I will refer to that here for a moment...
Like "Blog", there is another dumb net word made up by semi-geeks and latched onto by the talking heads of the world. Podcast. It's a friggin MP3 you can transfer into your MP3 player of choice and listen to while jogging, traveling to work or in the bath tub. Sort of like radio shows of old, but on your schedual.
The only reason this word irritates me, is the iPod is a marketing hook for an MP3 player not unlike the hundreds of others out there, including the ones that came before the apple version. Now I wish them luck, and am quite glad to see that someone other than Sony or Microsoft is doing well (though Apple is 51% owned by Bilbo Gates, holder of the One Disk to rule them all). Anyone who has dealt with the happily colored but under useful iMac's was probably a little wary of the iAnything idea...
So why the hell could we have not called this a WebCast or that 90's classic "CyberCast"? I do not know. Oh well.
There is another device out there, made by a company called Line6, called a POD. It is a red, kidney bean shaped box, about a foot wide with lots of knobs and buttons. It is intended to process an electric guitar for recording or a live performance. You have heard this device if you listen to any modern music at all, as they are everywhere in studios being used for guitar, bass, keyboard and even vocal processing. Mostly the POD digitally emulates famous guitar amps, but it does a whole lot more.
So why do I mention this? Soon we will start putting out PODcasts; music and spoken word works processed entirely through our mixing boards and POD's, for people to listen to on their iPod's.
Or any other MP3 player they might want to use.
Stay Tuned!
Howdy again, etheral readers. Again, we stumble toward the 21st century with bleary eyes and heavy feet. Though I have yet to post my rant on the lowbrow term "blog", I will refer to that here for a moment...
Like "Blog", there is another dumb net word made up by semi-geeks and latched onto by the talking heads of the world. Podcast. It's a friggin MP3 you can transfer into your MP3 player of choice and listen to while jogging, traveling to work or in the bath tub. Sort of like radio shows of old, but on your schedual.
The only reason this word irritates me, is the iPod is a marketing hook for an MP3 player not unlike the hundreds of others out there, including the ones that came before the apple version. Now I wish them luck, and am quite glad to see that someone other than Sony or Microsoft is doing well (though Apple is 51% owned by Bilbo Gates, holder of the One Disk to rule them all). Anyone who has dealt with the happily colored but under useful iMac's was probably a little wary of the iAnything idea...
So why the hell could we have not called this a WebCast or that 90's classic "CyberCast"? I do not know. Oh well.
There is another device out there, made by a company called Line6, called a POD. It is a red, kidney bean shaped box, about a foot wide with lots of knobs and buttons. It is intended to process an electric guitar for recording or a live performance. You have heard this device if you listen to any modern music at all, as they are everywhere in studios being used for guitar, bass, keyboard and even vocal processing. Mostly the POD digitally emulates famous guitar amps, but it does a whole lot more.
So why do I mention this? Soon we will start putting out PODcasts; music and spoken word works processed entirely through our mixing boards and POD's, for people to listen to on their iPod's.
Or any other MP3 player they might want to use.
Stay Tuned!
Bonehead move
Bonehead
Well, well. I learned something else today. That you have to change the title on each post, so someone browsing back over the blog can more easily understand what that entry is about, and have a direct link to send ad infinitium to their friends all over the internet.
So, yea. I was a bonehead to not have noticed that in the last few posts...
However, any day you learn something new and end the day above ground and still breathing is a pretty damn good day.
Well, well. I learned something else today. That you have to change the title on each post, so someone browsing back over the blog can more easily understand what that entry is about, and have a direct link to send ad infinitium to their friends all over the internet.
So, yea. I was a bonehead to not have noticed that in the last few posts...
However, any day you learn something new and end the day above ground and still breathing is a pretty damn good day.
Still alive and doing fine
Still alive
So much to build, so little time... And who turned the calendar back to Novemburrrr!??!?
I suppose, at this writing, very few people are reading this, as I just noticed that there is no link from the main site to this log... something else to fix on the next update.
So much to build, so little time... And who turned the calendar back to Novemburrrr!??!?
I suppose, at this writing, very few people are reading this, as I just noticed that there is no link from the main site to this log... something else to fix on the next update.
14 March 2006
Bob Vila has nothing on us
IronAngel Forge
Bah! It's not that I have nothing to say, it is more I have no time to write or my hands will not work well enough to do so. At any rate, we are working on orders, getting stock ready for the upcoming season and trying to remodel the bathroom. Did you ever see the film "Evil Dead"? Well, even if they did not show you what the bathroom looked like, you can imagine, right? Yea, that is our old bathroom. The rusting walls of the aged steel shower made it look like dried blood. Nice touch when you are trying to feel clean.
So at any rate, we are alive and making stuff. And that is the important part of life; living it.
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