Safety Options

A terrible thing happened yesterday at a California High School. A 17 year old boy brought a gun to school. It accidentally discharged, and the bullet hit another boy in the neck, as well as a girl in the head. As a result, the school and the local police have decided to increase security.

This has been going on for years ... decades, actually. Long before Columbine occurred, security in public schools was a hot topic. I remember being surprised when I started high school (many moons ago) and found we had two campus security guards and one local police officer (armed). A few years after I started high school, we heard about the installation of metal detectors on some campuses in the LA area. At that time, my school went from "open campus" (we could leave school for lunch) to "closed campus" (no one was allowed to enter or leave other than at the start and end of the school day (unless they went through the administrative office. After I left, they took the lockers off campus (for fear students could store/hide weapons and/or drugs therein). Still, violence increased.

I remember when RoboCop 2 came out: the murderous drug lord in that was a 13 year old kid, and we all thought, "Oh, my gosh, that is so ridiculous!" Last year a 14 year old boy was arrested in Mexico and charged with being the most ruthless hit- ... um ... boy? person? employed by a drug cartel there. Life imitating art?

So we're going to, as they say, "hell in a hand-basket." What to do about that? How do we make schools safe again?

Option 1: Tele-commute. There are no schools. Everyone stays at home and has to log into each class live, via webcam (imagine the scene in Real Genius where all the students were just tape recorders recording the lecture being given by the reel-to-reel left by the professor, but substitute webcams and monitors). If a student disappears from their monitor for more than 30 seconds, they are considered absent, and absences are charged at $5 per class. Teachers get paid $1.95 per minute per student, but on the up-side, hospital stays are very short when you've been hit by a virtual bullet.

Option 2: Build 20 foot tall concrete walls around all schools, with doors that would make a bank vault jealous. Nothing is allowed to be brought on-campus. The official school uniform is a bikini for girls and a Speedo for guys. I know, it will suck in Denver in the middle of January, but that's the price of school security.

Option 3: Give up. Realize all security measures can be defeated (after all, a really determined thug going to the school in option 2 will learn to clench his or her butt-cheeks around that 9 mm). Any student using a weapon on campus is shot first, after which they are handcuffed and taken to wherever their medical condition requires. And isn't the fact that they are gunning each other down just part of nature's plan? It's just survival of the fittest, after all.

Hope some of this made you laugh, but I also hope it makes you think about what needs to be done, not in reaction to, but rather proactively for the safety of our children in public schools.

Until then, I think I'm putting my kids in Hogwarts. At least there the only one using Avada Kedavra is You-Know-Who.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
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Cats ...

So I don't understand why they say cats are a gay man's pet. It's not about being gay, it's about living in an apartment. I love animals, and wanted to get a pet, and I actually didn't live in an apartment, I had my own house. But my house had a very small yard, so I didn't feel right getting a dog.

I could have gotten a dog...though probably would have needed to get a small dog (tell me that doesn't scream "gay"). I prefer big dogs - I wanted an Alaskan Husky or maybe a Labrador. That would have been borderline cruel, trapping a dog that big in a house that small. Even if I took it out for a walk twice a day, the poor thing would be cooped up the rest of the time.

On top of that, my uncle died, leaving an orphaned cat, so I "took it in."

See? Nothing about being gay ... just about being considerate to your pets.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
Hopefully I'll have a novella available by the end of this month! Tell a friend!
And please write a review on Smashwords and/or Amazon.com.

Love of Water Sports

Get your mind out of the gutter! I'm talking about boating, skiing, SCUBA, etc. I didn't even know about the other kind until my first year of medical school. I couldn't figure out how SCUBA diving was at all a risk for HIV. Someone had to explain it to me.

Anyway, I love the water, and my dad has owned several boats over the years. The first one we got was a rubber raft with an outboard motor, and the last one was a 26 footer with a queen bed and small galley.

I thoroughly enjoyed those boats, but I don't think I would ever own one myself. When we would go out, we had to hook up the boat trailer, check the lights, drive this massive thing down the freeway (another point: you'd better be going local, because it's not like you can have your 26 footer as "checked baggage" on your flight ... even on Virgin America), pay for the use of the boat launch, park your truck (another side point: have to have a truck big enough to haul your boat) and trailer, and finally you could enjoy the boat. Once the day was over, it wasn't really over, because then you had to take the boat out of the water, drive over to the boat rinsing area to give her a terse cleaning, drive back home, then give her a real cleaning (or else you have a stinky boat that may even start growing things, and if you went into salt water, you can't let that sit in the engine).

[gasp]

Then there's the fact that you had to buy the boat, and unless you are rich, you've probably got a loan on it, which means interest payments, plus vehicle registration, onto which they add a luxury tax. Don't forget you have to maintain proper, functioning safety equipment aboard, plus boat insurance, and we always carried Vessel Assist in the event of an emergency (we never had one, but we did cross another boat that was stranded - without safety equipment or a radio - and we radioed for help for them ... didn't envy their rescue bill, nor probable coast guard citation).

Bottom line, for as much as I would probably use a boat, it would be more financially sound for me to rent rather than buy. Not that I've tried to rent a boat ... though back in the day, my family rented boats for a week at a time out on Lake Mohave in Arizona. We weren't rolling in dough, so I imagine it wasn't Bill Gates-type expensive. I calculated it once a few years ago, and I found that I could rent a yacht for a week for what my dad paid annually to maintain his boat. Granted, then I'd have to crew the yacht, but the point is that owning is very expensive.

If you own a boat, make sure you use the hell out of it every year, or you're throwing money down the ... poop deck.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
Hopefully I'll have a novella available by the end of this month! Tell a friend!
And please write a review on Smashwords and/or Amazon.com.