Star Trek Trippin’

October 2, 2013

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city_edge_forever_fallout

Ok, fellow Star Trek fans, here’s a mission for you.  Can you spot the technical error in this screen capture from the ST: TOS episode “City on the edge of forever”?  If you’ll recall, the story involves Kirk, Spock, and McCoy travelling to 1930 New York City by way of the Guardian of Forever.  First aired April 6, 1967, our intrepid heroes must right McCoy’s interference in history in order to restore the timeline, and save the world from being conquered by the Nazis.

Well, I’m sure the sharp eyed among you have noticed the More

The ‘Trophy Wall’ has an addition

September 28, 2013

Jim Reeves Gay, News, Personal, Pictures , , , , Leave a comment

vtd_hate_article

On Saturday, September 21, 2013, the local newspaper, The Visalia Times Delta, published in the print edition an article I wrote on September 18 and posted to my blog “Alternating Currents” (where I post as one of three community bloggers on their website.  You can read “Hate in a small town” here).  Partially visible is another Times Delta article from 1996 that mentions me and other HAM radio operators as we were preparing for Field Day.  The two identical looking plaques are the 2012 and 2013 proclamations issued by the City of Visalia, proclaiming June LGBT Pride Month in the city.  These proclamations were signed by the Mayor Shuklian and the four other City Council members.   (Take that, Porterville!)  Also on the wall is my certificate from the Visalia Police Department’s Citizen’s Police Academy, issued in May 1999.  Down in the corner is my Starfleet Academy diploma, certifying my status as an officer in good standing in the Federation Starfleet.  Not visible are documents and diplomas that are work related, including POST training certificates, Dispatcher of the Year (2005), my HAM radio license, and other work related items.

Local paper prints my online blog in their Weekend Edition

September 21, 2013

Jim Reeves commentary, Personal , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

blog_printed_09212013

Here’s the link to the Visalia Times Delta’s site where my blog “Alternating Currents” is posted. I was not notified that they were planning to publish my blog in the print edition, but I’m tickled they did! One minor correction to the printed edition, in the intro, they say I was at the Porterville City Council meeting that ousted Mayor Gurrola and Vice-Mayor McCracken from their ceremonial posts. I didn’t make that meeting, but I was there for the three involving the LGBT Pride Month proclamation, and it’s rescission.

Hey! Donkey! (said in your best Shrek voice)

September 18, 2013

Jim Reeves 9-1-1 , , , , 1 Comment

Donkeyshrek

So every once in a while, the routine stuff gets to be a bit fun to play with.  Even if most of the funny is only in my own head.

NASA Johnson Style

September 7, 2013

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And you thought rocket science was boring!

2:30 am, in the drive-thru

September 7, 2013

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drive_thru“Hey! Guy in front of me!”

Yeah, that’s probably not something I want to respond to at 2:30 in the morning in the drive-thru lane.  I’m figuring the guy yelling it is somewhere on the high side of a blow into a breathalyzer, and it’s better I just pretend I don’t hear him.

“Hey! You! In front of me!  Don’t act like you can’t hear me!”

Oh, joy, this is not looking like a good time to be stuck between the car in front of me, and the one behind me with the guy who’s probably feeling no pain.

I’m really not sure what to expect, as I was in my pickup, not my car.  My car has a couple of LGBT related stickers on it, but the truck does not, so I knew i most likely wasn’t about to be gay-bashed, but I really was wondering…  maybe it was the Obama magnet on the bed-mounted tool box?  Maybe it was someone who recognized me from a blog posting?  Why is this guy yelling at me in the drive thru?

I really didn’t expect what happened next.

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Moment of geek

September 3, 2013

Jim Reeves geek, Personal , , , , , 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2013-09-03 at 4.42.23 AMThis is a picture of an interesting mystery.

Well, it’s interesting to me, and it’s my blog, so I’m going to babble a bit about it.  (This is the “your mileage may vary” part of the ‘Wit, Wisdom, and Whimsy’ subtitle.)

The scene is my driveway, the view from a cheap security camera.  The mystery presented itself tonight, when the light bulb in the fixture overlooking the vehicles burned out.

The dead bulb (so much for the 15 year life expectancy!) was one of the newer, power-saving fluorescent contraptions that screw into a regular light socket.  It “burns” about 20 watts of electricity, and is supposed to produce an amount of light the equivalent of a 100 watt incandescent bulb.  Here’s where the mystery presents itself.

The image with the fluorescent bulb was dimmer than with the incandescent bulb I replaced it with.

A frosted incandescent bulb of only 60 watts.

The second part of the mystery is even more odd.  If you walk outside and take a look yourself, the driveway is noticeably darker with the 60 watt bulb than with the brighter power-saver.

Except to the camera.

I’m getting a brighter image with a 60 watt incandescent bulb than with a fluorescent with the “equivalent” lumens of a 100 watt bulb.

So now I’m wondering…  why does the camera see with less acuity under the brighter fluorescent light, and better under the dimmer incandescent?  A mystery for the ages.

(If you know the answer, just keep it to yourself. That would ruin the whole “mystery for the ages” thing, and throw off the “Wisdom” part of this blog. Thanks.)

 

Full Moon Effect Disproven

August 21, 2013

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Screen Shot 2013-08-21 at 5.14.47 AMI’ve been steadfast and firm in my conviction.  For years I’ve maintained, in the face of unrelenting public opinion to the contrary, that the full Moon has no effect on “the crazy”.

People claim that emergency room nurses and police officers all swear by the “full Moon” lore, that insists everything goes nuts on a full Moon.

Well, last night I disproved it.  Or, I should say, my dispatch center’s traffic levels disproved it.

Last night, at 6:45 pm Pacific Time, the Moon was full.  It was a calm, peaceful night.  No shootings, no stabbings (well, no stabbings by one person on another. There was one troubled kid who tried to stab himself, but for this discussion, he doesn’t count.  He’s just a troubled kid, not a lunatic.)  A few fights, a couple of loud music calls, a couple of badge bunnies, and a computer at one of the facilities that decided to let all the magic smoke out of it’s innards, setting off smoke alarms and scaring the DSOs.  A really easy shift, all things considered.

Now, the night BEFORE the full Moon, that was just crazy town!

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A madman in a blue box

August 17, 2013

Jim Reeves fiction, geek, Humor, Personal , , 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2013-08-17 at 7.57.54 PM

The strangest thing happened earlier today.  He tells me we weren’t gone long at all.  It seems like it was, to me, though.  Did you miss me?

Oh, I didn’t just say that…

August 7, 2013

Jim Reeves 9-1-1, commentary, Personal , , , , Leave a comment

dohI can’t believe I said that to the 9-1-1 caller.  It was unintentional, totally inappropriate, and had everyone in the room in fits of giggles.

Other dispatchers will understand the sometimes dark humor we express in our jobs, and how something that to an outside observer (or the brass) will seem completely humorless, but will have us guffawing and giggling for hours afterwards.  Something like that happened to me yesterday, and it involved a crashed aircraft and it’s pilot stuck on a rockface above a lake.

I really meant it to be reassuring, but it sure didn’t come out that way!

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