Accident Report gone wrong

Well, yesterday started with a bang. 7:20 (mind you I start at 7), while in briefing, the clerk comes in and says that the chief's mom was in an accident on my beat. I ran out the door, got in the car, and sped away, arriving shortly after to find that it was in fact not the chief's wife (whew!!), but it was one of my Lt.'s. 3 car accident, car in the rear struck Lt.'s wife in the middle pushing her into the car in front of her. Sounds simple enough....long report due to 3 cars, but simple enough. Car at fault is a Hispanic female with no license (an arrestable offense). I ask the woman to step back to my car and turn around. As soon as I grab ahold of a hand to cuff her, she decides to try to fight me. Great....as if I didn't have enough to think about with my supervisors wife watching my every move. I was much bigger than the female, but couldn't seem to get a grip on her arms, finally deciding to just push her over the hood of my car and call for assistance. Meanwhile while I'm tussling with this chick, the supervisors wife is stumbling nearby trying to see if she could help. All I could think was no...please don't get hurt. I told her I was just going to wait till I got a backup car. At that time she decided to cooperate and I got the cuffs on her and tossed her in my car as backup was arriving. So I arrested her, and got the information from the other 2 needed for the report. So now I'm wondering what the Lt.'s wife will say about the situation. Hopefully the report was done flawlessly and I will get an ataboy.

Oh, yeah...and it continued to be a busy day....3 accident reports, 1 arrest, 6 tickets, and had to deal with a court case in our mayor's court.

Chicago

Well, I went to Chicago for the weekend. Love it. Lots of things to do downtown including several fountains and sites. Spent a lot of time yesterday at a place called Navy Pier. Lot of history behind it, but it has since been turned into a family fun atmosphere with lots of restaurants, beer stands, and shops....right on the Chicago River/ Lake Michigan waterfront. We also stayed to see Cirque de Shanghai, which was pretty cool. Lots of very flexible, balanced, strong people twisting and stacking themselves in weird ways, balancing themselves on slack wire, and doing amazing rope acts among other things. We had deep dish pizza the evening that we got in, which is always fantastic. The next morning, we went to a local farmer's market, which was small but cute. I bought some salsa and some freshly baked apple cinnamon bread. We leave today to go back home. It was a short, but very fun trip. Navy Pier is a fun place to hang out. Very touristy, but hey....I'm a tourist. A friend of ours took several hours to paint us a painting of the harbor and skyline of Chicago. I really like his art. He turns a white canvas into a great painting in a matter of a couple of hours. So we bought that painting from him and he will be working on another for us in the future. If you're interested, look up Nathan Mellott on facebook, or he may have a website to look at his paintings (http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ncm221/art.html). So Chicago was fun. A return trip will happen.

Show-Me State Games 2007, MO (Soccer)

Well, I played in the Show-Me State Games once again. Once again, no medal. Having all of our players from a small town, we aren't usually the best team out there, but I always think I've got a chance. This year, I went back to MO not knowing who was going to be on my team, except a few players. The regulars were there, but of course practice time was limited. All of us work regular jobs and were doing this for the fun of it. We entered the Governor's Cup Open Rec Division (See the word Rec in italics....it will come into play later). We had a good mix of guys and girls, mostly people I knew from high school back in the day. I felt good about this. Then I looked at the schedule. The three teams in our bracket were from St. Louis, Saint Joseph, and Kansas City....yeah (sarcasm). Our first game was on Friday against FC Truman (from St. Louis). I had to start the first half playing keeper, as we had no other (short handed the first day with only two subs). These guys came out wearing a club soccer team shirt......in a RECREATIONAL LEAGUE! As predicted, they began tearing us up. Because of this, I was able to make some very good saves throughout the half, though the half ended in a 0-7 score. I got to play field then. Halfway through I went on a run, seeing my buddie Stu put a nice ball through two defenders and was able to get there before the keeper, putting it into the back of the net. Now it was 8-1. Game ended 10-2 (with another goal scored by us!).

Game 2: The second game was against the Saint Joseph team. We hung with them for most of the game, though the ref sucked. Elbows were flung quite a few times, giving me a bruise above my eye. Most of there players were fine, but a few needed some sportsmanship lessons. We were in a rec league, and were the two worst teams in our bracket, let alone the division. Not worth cracking a skull to get third instead of fourth in the bracket....only the top team moves on. Game ended I think 1-4. We lose again, but at least it was a match.

Game 3: The third game we played was on a much smaller field. We played KC United. We started playing very hard, getting as many chances as them and it finally paid off. We scored. Half ended 1-0. Good yeah? Not so fast. The second half started and we took a turn for the worst or they did for the better. One of their players, I guess finally decided it was time to play and made us pay dearly. Four goals in the first five minutes of the second half making it 1-4. We lost our momentum from there even more. Game ended in a 2-9 score.
Though we lost horribly, I figured we wouldn't win and was going for the fun of it and the exercise. Got to play ball again with people I like that actually like playing. And guess what, short of people complaining of the pain of injuries and being out of shape, I heard no complaints. 10-2, 9-2, 4-1. Serious beat downs, and yet nobody wanted the other team to let up once and nobody gave up. Novel concept.
What did I gain from all of this you ask? I got a t-shirt, a rolled swollen ankle, a few abrasions on my left arm, and a bruise over my eye. Not too bad of a deal. Man, I really must love soccer. By the end of it all, it felt like I had wrestled a 500 lb. man who had everything on the line. Soccer is great.