So, I’m moving this blog to the following URL:

http://ericalj.wordpress.com/

Blogsome has been good, but I find a ton more features and themes through wordpress…

http://blog.elj.us/ is set up to go to the appropriate place though.

During the holiday season, I can’t help but think about the many people who have paid the ultimate price during this previous year.  How many families are without their loved ones because of the selfless acts of these people.

So far, for the year 2008, the numbers actually look better than they have in a while for law enforcement:

As of this date, 123 police officers have died in the line of duty for 2008. So far, that number looks like it could be lower than it has been in many many years.

As of this date, 107 firefighters have died in the line of duty for 2008.  That could be lower than last year, but looks to be about on par with other years.

Sadly, there isn’t an easy way to glean the same information for the EMS personnel that have died LODD as well.  But it’s important to remember that that does happen as well.  This is often the first forgotten.

What I find most tragic is that with the 123 LEOs that died…1 of them died from 9/11 related illness.  It grieves me to see how that day is still taking people from us. Unfortunately, I don’t quite have the same info for firefighters or EMS personnel, I’m sure there are some there as well.

What can we do though? We can help to remember the families of the finest and bravest.  There are several organizations that help to support the families after:

• Honor Every Responsible Officer’s Eternal Sacrifice (HEROES)
  
• Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS)
• National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF)
• National Fallen Firefighters Foundation

"It is not how these officers died that made them heroes; it is how they lived" - Vivian Eney, wife of Sgt Eney, USCP

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:13

Last night, I went to a bar in Fairfax for "open mic night".  A friend’s band was going to play during this and I’d been wanting catch a live show of theirs for a while now.

While they only had approximately 25 minutes to play, they were pretty good!   Definitely going to have to catch a longer live show of theirs.

So, I recommend checking them out here: Pollock.  That is their myspace music page.  While they only have 4 songs up, they are definitely worth checking out.

 Amusing note of the night: There was a spoken word artist there…basically, think a more artistic version of eminem.  At least, to me, the guy sounded like eminem.  One "song" of his began with "When you put people in boxes, they end up in boxes"  I get the metaphor, but damn that was stupid   Also, the other artists there have now made me hate the djembe I think.

I came across a project an old friend has been working on that I find just so incredibly ingenius.  It’s such a simple yet good idea:

 Need a place to meet? For suggestions, check out THIS

It’s…a very simple site, which I like incredibly.  Put in one address, put in a second at minimum…and it will provide a list of places that would be in between…

Such a simple idea, yet, incredibly innovative.

Work has been anything but boring lately.  It’s definitely been challenging which makes work only slightly more bearable.  A couple of months ago, I was put in charge of the architectural planning of a huge project at work that impacts our entire platform.  At the time, 20% of my time was to go towards the planning for this project (I’m being borrowed by our platform architect for this), and then implementation end to end would be various people (likely including myself) in our group.  Originally, I was really only building out the "prototypes" for someone, and then someone else was theoretically going to take it from there with the documentation I would provide.  However, somewhere along the line, things changed.  I suddenly was the lead project engineer on this, and doing pretty much everything end to end.  This….is rather overwhelming and much more than one person can do.  I’ve been given 2 of my peers who are to assist me.  I’ve been told to delegate work to them to the point that they go crying to our boss that they have too much to do.  Um, yeah, these are my peers?! I am not okay with the idea of assigning my PEERS work.  I am NOT their BOSS.  However, I will and have asked them to take certain things…

Yet, when I ask if I can come crying that I have too much work to do…the answer is no.  Um. wtf?

I think I’m being tested.  I have to wonder how much of this has to do with the job I’d applied for that would have moved me to the architecture group. I really wonder if they are "testing" me to see if I could do the job or not.

Damn those inconvenient truths:

An inconvenient truth: Fire & police funerals snarl traffic.

This woman really needs to just get a life.  I’m so incredibly sorry she was inconvenienced when going to an appointment, but uhh, I think the family and the community was inconvenienced even more by the permanent loss of that person.  So. Deal with it.  It’s not like these funerals aren’t well publicized in those neighborhoods.

The sad part is, she’s probably whining more because it’s been a rough couple of months for the public safety community.  Between a couple of FCFRD personnel dying from cardiac related issues way too young, the crash of the MD state trooper medevac unit, the drowning of a FCPD officer, another LODD in Frederick MD, and I think a couple of others in MD that I am missing, it’s been an unusually tragic autumn.  Most recently, a volunteer EMT died in training to become a firefighter.  None of this has been normal…and most tragically, most of these deaths were preventable.

There is quite a bit more thought put into the procession/parade routes than she realizes, and consideration IS taken into things like rush hour, etc.

For some reason, I kept seeing the paper "bag o apples" at the store..and I kept thinking it might be neat to get one of the bags and try my hand at applesauce.

So, I did.

I bought a bag of Cortland apples, peeled, cored and diced them up and threw them in a crock pot along with half a cup of water.  I also threw in a vanilla bean from the very beginning…and turned it up to high for an hour or so…then back down to "low" for several more hours.  I came back almost 5 hrs later…and they were PERFECT.  I dumped  the crockpot contents into a bowl, added some cinnamon as well…plugged in the mixer and mixed away.

Holy crap.  It’s GOOD.

And I highly recommend trying it warm, it was just what I wanted this evening, and was really great with some whipped cream on it.  I threw 2/3rds of it in the freezer, and the rest in the frig.

Definitely doing this one again.

HAHAHAHAHA This is AWESOME:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

OMG. I ♥ The Onion!

LoCo Fire released a video related to a fire in Leesburg a couple of months back:

http://www.loudoun.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=2384

….Wow. There really aren’t words.

Recently, I managed to find the sister of a close friend from years back on facebook.  As much as I hate social networking sites, it’s been so great to be reacquainted with friends from years back.  Friends who mostly just couldn’t keep up with my moves   Much of the loss of contact was my own fault admittedly.

She is a fantastic person, and her entire family was always just as great.  While our dreams and goals in life were/are polar opposites of one another…I’m ecstatic that it seems she has gotten everything she ever wanted.  She is married to the guy that I knew she had a crush on for years…even as a teenager it seemed.  They are very happily married with 2 and 2/3rd kids…and a dog.   And I’m not sure they will be done after 3 kids…actually, I’d be fairly surprised if they were!  She is the oldest of 9 or 10 kids…and while there was rarely a quiet moment in their house when you were there, you couldn’t meet a more genuine family.   When you’re that large of a family, you can’t hide any dysfunction either…and there just wasn’t any.