Friday, December 23, 2016

College Town At Christmas, 2016: Dreams, Technology and The Christmas Spirit

     BOWLING GREEN, KY. _ Today is Friday, Dec. 23, and I am off work for the Christmas holiday until Tuesday morning.
I had a horrible dream last night. So I woke up early telling my wife, Patty, about it while she was still asleep.  She barely listened I suppose.  I don't think there's anything to dreams. And I never do.  I think dreams are merely a way to work out all of the clutter and crap in your subconscious mind.  I know some people call them stress dreams. But I haven't had a whole lot of stress in my life lately. It's almost like your conscious mind shuts down when you go to sleep and your subconscious mind wakes up and drinks his coffee and goes to work as a superhero.  Or so he thinks he's one. Except, this guy is crazy!   He will always take you places far and wide and makes unimaginable things happen.  He's a nut! I don't pay any attention to him or my dreams.  They mean nothing! Absolutely nothing, okay! Lol.
     Anyway, I have to admit that I have been struggling this year to find some inspiration to write my annual Christmas blog called, "College Town At Christmas" which usually centers around our fair city of Bowling Green, Ky., with a population of about 65,00-70,000 citizens now.  Yes, our town is booming!  Our local college of Western Kentucky University is booming too! Our WKU football team just beat Memphis in the Boca Raton Bowl in Florida, 51-31.  Another great victory for WKU and Bowling Green!
    But I will say that this holiday season has been an interesting one for Patty and I.  Mainly, I would say it's about new technology for all of us living in today's modern society.  As we all know, things are not the same and never will be. (Of course, being Republicans, we have been elated that President-Elect Donald Trump won the presidential election recently! I lost 12 Facebook friends on social media because of my beliefs or because of way my way of thinking.  I guess I was an asshole to some of my friends on FB or they were an asshole to me.  I do give them my apologies though-boo hoo!)  But back to technology.  I think the biggest thing I have been thinking about this year is how we as a society are adapting and using all of the technologies available to us in general way.  For instance, Patty and I did all of our Christmas shopping on-line this year mainly with Amazon.  It appears that UPS, FedEx and the USPS are booming these days too!  Our world has become what people have been predicting for years-a virtual high tech society with people communicating in incredible ways and sending each others packages at lightning speed without even having to leave your home or office. And lately, we have been ordering our groceries from Kroger on-line and picking them up too. And Patty and I just received an Amazon Fire table as a Christmas gift from her daughter in North Carolina yesterday.  So we already have WiFi high speed-internet, a desk top computer, iPhone's and now we have the tablets!  It appears that everyone in society is connected to each other in more ways than one these days. Also, I got a new work truck a couple months ago and it came with six months worth of  free Sirius satellite radio.  I have been really in tune with politics lately listening to POTUS and Fox Headline News.  And Patty and I have not even tapped into the new television technologies yet such as Hulu or Amazon.  We're still on Time-Warner/Spectrum but they are coming along with great, new technologies also.
    But the bottom line as far as I can tell,  is that somehow, somewhere we are still able to find a lot of Christmas spirit in our college town as we muddle through our high tech society which is connected to the world in a much greater way.  People still listen to Christmas music, decorate (probably not as much as they did back in the 60's, 70's and 80's), shop at the mall, wrap presents, give gifts, bake cookies, family members traveling in from out of town, mail Christmas cards, have family Christmas dinners and parties and attend church together.  And the best thing about this year, President-Elect Donald Trump says he going to bring back saying "Merry
Christmas!"  So Merry Christmas everyone and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday spending time with your loved ones.  And please don't forget to give your pets some love and Christmas gifts too!  Remember they are you fur babies and are a part of your family also!  God Bless!

Sunday, December 11, 2016

A&E's 'Live PD" Lands In Bowling Green, Ky., Featuring The Warren County Sheriff's Office

   Warren County Sheriff Jerry "Peanuts" Gaines posted a comment on his Facebook page this past Friday night that he was proud of his deputies being featured on Live PD on the A&E network for the first time.
    "Proud of my deputies being featured on Live PD on the A&E station tonight for the first time.  The production crew will be with us through March.  If you haven't tuned in, check it out,"  Gaines posted.
(This was the first time I'd heard about it. I only take Wednesday's and Sunday's Bowling Green Daily News these days.  And I tend to listen to a lot of Sirius Satellite radio and Spotify in my work truck.  And it seems the rest of the time, I am either on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter or channel surfing.  So I get most of my local news from either Facebook or Twitter.)  Then cracker jack, crime beat reporter for the Bowling Green Daily News, Debi Highland, also tweeted, "You can see some familiar sheriff's deputies right now on A&E network's Live PD. Warren Co. SO is being featured through March."
   
I had written a blog this past April about a possible police reality show should come to Bowling Green to film because we've have had so much usual criminal activity this past year and local police have done incredible job fighting crime while making headlines in our local newspaper.  Also in that blog, I wrote about a car chase with police that had been reported by Debi Highland in the BGDN where a young guy was chased from Portland., Tenn., all the way to downtown Bowling Green where he was finally stopped by Kentucky State Police and local authorities. I made the suggestion that it would have a made an awesome segment for "America's Dumbest Criminals" and I wondered if their had been cameras recording the chase.http://acriticfromthesouth.blogspot.com/2016/04/recent-bowling-green-ky-police-chase.html
 
Highland also recently wrote a story for the BGDN that was published in yesterday's newspaper. "A film crew began riding along with Warren County sheriff's deputies earlier this week and will continue filming through March."  And then she quotes Warren County Sheriff "Jerry" "Peanuts" Gaines, "It just shows what we do and what different departments do."  Highland wrote that Gaines informed her that the series includes both live and previously filmed segments, along with commentary about what is being shown.  The show follows several departments in each episode. Highland also quoted Deputy Chris Shelton, one of the deputies to be featured on the show and he said he is "looking forward to giving the public real life, front-seat access to police work."
   "From a lot of folks, especially here lately, law enforcement has been painted in a negative light, and this will show that the Warren County Sheriff's Office is very transparent in everything we do, and it gives everybody a chance to see it, not only here but across the country."
    I think it's a great idea to have a national show from a major cable network of this caliber such as A&E to come to our town to set up production and film.  Just think about all of the national and international exposure that Bowling Green and Warren County will receive.  Like Shelton said, the Warren County Sheriff's Department will not be shown in a negative light, but in a transparent way where the world will see where our boys have been doing a damn good job in law enforcement by fighting crime and keeping our county safe here in Southcentral Kentucky!  They already have been making the headlines in our newspaper to prove it thanks to Debi Highland's excellent reporting for the Bowling Green Daily News.  Mainly though, I can't wait to see my first episode of "Live PD" featuring the Warren County Sheriff's Department next Friday night on A&E!
    

Monday, December 5, 2016

Jude, The Australian Shepherd From Bowling Green, Ky.

     He's wild, energetic, spunky and crazy!
He's Jude, the Australian Shepherd from Bowling Green, Ky!  He even has his own Facebook page. Check it out at https://www.facebook.com/judetheaussie/  Patty and I took Jude, an American Kennel Club Australian Shepherd dog into our pack in May of this year. Currently, he is eight months-old and he is a beautiful Red Merle Aussie with awesome markings.  This is our third Aussie to own.  The first two were Foster, a male, a National Stock Dog Registry Aussie, and Katie Red-Dog, also from the National Stock Dog Registry, who was Foster's mate.  They had two litter of puppies together and gave us many years of pleasure and happiness until they both passed away of health complications at 12 and 13 years-old, about the average life span of Australian Shepherds. Besides Jude's wild side, he has a sweet, calm side. He loves to have his belly scratched and songs sang to him in his ear while holding him on your lap and on his back.  He loves to play with his toys in the backyard especially any kind of game of fetch with a ball or frisbee and he loves to go for long walks while he is on the lease in our neighborhood and on the Greenway which is a wide, concrete bike/walkway path located down the street from our house next to the CSX railroad tracks.  But mainly Jude is a great  friend and protector and gives us lots of love and affection. He is very loyal and protects our home letting us know when strangers come onto the property or ring the doorbell, day or night.  
   
 Most of all, Jude loves going to the "Bark Park," located in our City of Bowling Green on old Cave Mill Road next to Lost River Cave.  There, Jude gets to socialize with other dogs and Patty and I have learned that dog people are crazy just like us!  Many people in our city, regardless of skin color, political background, sexual orientation or social or income status love dogs!  We are very fortunate to have a "Bark Park" in Bowling Green a.k.a. a "dog park" where dogs can socialize and mingle with other dogs in a fenced in area while the dog owners talk amongst themselves about their favorite pet or pets. It's amazing how a dog can neutralize any political affiliation or social status amongst humans where nothing negative in conversation hardly ever comes up because everybody in Bowling Green loves dogs it seems!

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