| Water filters and work |
[08 Jul 2008|03:15am] |
So a few years ago, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) goldiebear and I went a hiking trip on Isle Royale, which was magnificent. We used baldsky's water filter, which did a very fine job- fast pumping, great-tasting water. While pumping water from Siskiwit Bay, we met this middle-aged guy who extolled the virtues of his own filter while looking off into the sunset with a smug smile on his face. His filter was an MSR Miniworks. I pumped our water (faster than his, in hindsight) and he pumped his, all the while blathering on about how great his filter was. Fast forward a couple of years. After some research and remembering this guy's testimonial, I shell out the cash for my own MSR Miniworks, convinced that this filter really IS the best you can buy, for both reliablity and safety.
I don't know why I was so sure- this damned filter is slow, finicky, and fragile. Sure, you can field strip it in thirty seconds, but what good does that do you if the fucking ceramic filter is cracked? And do you really want to take it apart to clean it for every two Nalgenes you pump? What really galls me is that when we used in the BWCAW last week, goldiebear and I weren't even asking it to work very hard- we PROBABLY could have done what Dashiell did and drank water straight out of the lake without any problems, and this stupid filter *still* took a couple of minutes to fill a single Nalgene. And I haven't even told you yet that the first filter I bought cracked the very first time I used it on the Superior Hiking Trail, rendering it useless. I don't want to say that it's a piece of junk, because it does manage to pump good water at a middling rate when it wants to, but god, what a piece of crap. I'm sorry I bought this thing.
In other news, I had a guy run from me the other day, and I never found him- the miserable little rat escaped into residential alleys. All he had to do was jog on the walking path instead of the biking path, but now he has to worry about going to jail whenever he goes to Lake Harriet. Poor fellow.
Later that day, another dude ran from me and some other agents at Hidden Beach, but my coworker caught him. We were dispatched to Hidden Beach on a call of a white male wearing a black t-shirt and black shorts riding a bicycle while drinking vodka and swearing at neighborhood residents. When I and another car arrived at the beach, a white male wearing a black t-shirt on a bicycle took off into the woods. My partner clearly ordered him to stop, but he kept going, so off we went in pursuit. My partner and I were in one car, and the guy who caught the suspect was following us in another car. My partner and I went tearing off down the path in an attempt to head off the suspect, but what apparently happened is that once our car had passed, the suspect peeked out of the woods and then went a different way, not seeing our coworker coming up behind us. Our coworker then zipped up and scooped him up. He initially wouldn't tell us why he ran, ("I was just stupid, I guess."), but eventually he indicated that he had beer, and that he didn't want to get caught. It was a half-truth, but it was better than nothing (and probably all that I was going to get out of him), so we tagged him for that and let him go. If he hadn't been full of shit, I would have felt very bad for tagging him. When making an arrest, a standard question is to ask the arrested person if they have any marks, scars, or tattoos on their body (which helps identify the person in the future). I asked him if he had any scars, and he said, "... well.. I have scars on my wrists. mm.. from.. uh.. I'd rather not say." I felt bad for him, but I couldn't tell where the act ended and genuine emotion started, so I figured a liquor tag was an even balance between compassion and justice.
On a similar note, another agent and I found a felony warrant today. This guy was sitting on a park bench by the river, head down on his arms crossed over his knees, a 24oz can of Steel Reserve Malt Liquor between his legs. My partner shook him down, I ran him for warrants, and he came back with a confirmed 3rd degree assault warrant out of Hennepin county. He didn't give us any trouble- we had him cuffed and secured quickly and without problem. I once heard a cop say, "For some reason, their balls always get big once they're in the back of the car." This is true- once this guy understood that he was going to jail, he suddenly had alot to say. I am generally okay with this- it helps me learn about people. I learned three things about this particular individual: 1)He has had a hard life and made very poor choices, 2)he is seriously depressed, and 3)he was charged with third degree assault because he threw scalding grease on his ex-girlfriend and her pals. According to him, he was at home, cooking some grits when his ex-girlfriend and her two burly male friends burst through the door and tried to kill him (How did he know they were trying to kill him? "Cuz dey had dey hands all ovah me, 'round mah neck.") so he threw hot grease on them because he couldn't get to his gun. He must not have kept up on his court dates, because it was a good warrant, and he went to jail. I felt very bad for him, because the symptoms of depression were very clear in his behavior, but he was also full of shit, too. I felt it was a proper balance of justice to send him to jail to work out the former problem and not to charge him with the liquor violation for which we had originally detained him.
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drained
accomplished
contemplative
numb
