I'll take 500 stars on that bathing rama....

This Tuesday was hands down the worst pain I have ever experienced. As a class we were sprayed with OC or Pepper spray. Lets see how I can help you imagine what this felt like... Okay, imagine you call up the local radio station to win a free trip only to find out that luxurious trip is a one way ticket straight to hell. When you get there you are met by Satin himself, and he cordially invites you to stick your face (eyes open) into his oven. You are almost there, he then takes his pet cat Lucifer and lets him use your eyes and throat as his scratching post. Alright, I will spare you any further description.

Really, here is how it went down. You close your eyes, while three people in front of you are armed with cans of OC spray. They count to three and than you open your eyes while they rain down loads of spary right onto your face and in your eyes. You than have to locate a punching bag, and began striking and kicking it until directed to stop. Once you stop you are asked a Legal question which you must answer before you can move onto the next station. The next station consisted of using a stick to strike a dummy , only the catch is the instructor has hidden the stick somewhere in the parking lot. It is all I could do to pry an eye open and track it down. Once I made it through this station you had to find another instructor answer another legal question at which point you could than move onto the final station. This station required that you pull out your plastic gun take a person into custody (handcuffs and all), put them in the back of a patrol car, and than get in the front seat find a license on the dash and run the name. One would hope that the name would be something like Joe Smith, but instead it was a 15 letter first name and a 12 letter last name that you have to read using the phonetic alphabet.

Phew, you were done. Ya right the fun was just beginning. You now had to decon or try and get teh stuff off of you. This involved washing your eyes with soap, scrubbing your face, etc... Honestly, more than 30 hours later, and multiple washings I can still feel the effect.

My words of advice if you ever find yourself staring down the nozzle of a can of pepper spray, do the right thing and comply.

Sincerely,
Spicey Eyes

Go Speed Racer, go Speed Racer.........

Wow what a blast last week was. By far the highlight of the academy. I actually got paid to go drive around a race course and get professional driving instruction. This is only slightly more interesting than hours of push-ups. The course was located at the Washington State Patrol Academy located in Shelton, WA. We spent the whole week there learning how to make emergency lane changes, evasive stops, high speed backing, lower speed skills, and how to handle corners at top speeds.

I must say on day one as the instructors took us on laps around the track and through the different obstacles, I honestly thought there is no way I will be able to pull this off. Many of the obstacles seemed manageable as long as you could use your brakes and pick the speed that you wanted to go. However, they picked the speed and brakes were not allowed. They often referred to the cones that you hit as pedestrians, and if that was the case on day one I took out a whole village. It did not take long before I was quickly being referred to as Ricky Bobby from Talledega Nights, if you have not seen the movie check it out and you will appreciate the dubious honor. Although, once I got a few laps under my belt, and some quality instruction I started to turn it on and everything slid into place. Before long I was flying around the track, leaving all the cones right where they started. As the week went on we took on other parts of the track, where my top speed coming out of one corner was right around 97. Every time I got out of the car, I some how found my face frozen with a smile. It was quite a rush that I will soon not forget.

Next week is 10 of 19. I am officially half way done. It has flown by, but at the same time there is quite a bit of road still ahead of me. I can hardly wait until I get to hit the street and go to work for real.

until next time Shake and Bake...