To Admit to Failure is to Admit to Humanity

Failure is a masterful teacher. I hope I am a leader that encourages new ideas. I really try to be. I fully understand that sometimes thinking outside of the box is risky. You will fail at times. Sometimes that’s a good thing and we learn.

I’ve failed many times. I have learned a little each time. I think government has failed a lot. My own profession has had its share of failures. It’s human. 

Failure inspired this blog.

I want to tell you a quick tale of one of my failures.

You know I try to live by the adage "always do what you say your going to do". Because if you don't, your just giving someone lip service, like any snake oil salesman or other less honorable occupation.

This is a story where I failed. I failed royally. 

But first and explanation on how I think. I believe my job is to:

1. Provide a top notch police department for the residents of the City of Hollister.
2. Provide the best training, equipment for our employees to make their job as safe as possible.
3. Be accountable and as accessible as I possibly can be to the public.

I often get asked to write letters of recommendation or to be a reference for folks. I happily do it every single time because I know what it's like to need help like that, because I was in their place at one time. Well, I should say I do it every single time, except for one time, and failed to do it that time, on time. 

A dear friend's child messaged me well before the deadline for a needed letter of recommendation. I say dear friend, because she really is. She has been a friend to our little family for many years. Frankly more like family in many respects. She was one of the very first people to show up to help us after our house got turned into a drive-thru by a drunk driver. Truly she is a good friend. 

As I said, I was asked to write a letter of recommendation well before it was due. I happily agreed. I remember it was late when I received the message so, I figured I would go over what the letter needed later and get it done. Well you know what, I didn't do that. I forgot about it, well mostly. 

I won't fall on an easy excuse that I was too busy. It's true, I have things going on almost every day and night. But that's not an excuse. When you say you will do something, you do it, period. 

I got a message from my dear friend one day, weeks later. She said it was past the due date. I could tell she was upset. I was mortified and sick to my stomach. I failed a person that I truly care about. I was so wrapped up in the day-to-day things I do and failed to handle the thing right in front of my nose. The classic "cannot see the mountains beyond the trees" or vice versa scenario. 

I apologized profusely to both my friend and her child. Her child got a hold me little later and asked if I could still write a letter. I immediately dropped everything I was doing and wrote it and sent it over. 

This one stung. I still think about it and it bothers me. 

Lesson: 

1. Always do what you say will do, every time 

2. Learn from your failures and then move forward (still attempting on this one)

That is all,

Chief

50 things I’ve learned along my 50 year journey, random facts, questions and general nonsense

50 things I’ve learned along my 50 year journey, random facts, questions and general nonsense 

1. Family is your most important asset, period.
2. Time is the best gift you can give your spouse, children, family and friends.
3. The older I get the more I realize I have become my father, which is a good thing.
4. Your sister/brother will always be for there for you anytime, anywhere for the rest of your life time and will help you shovel to cover the bodies.
5. The number of hours of hard work I do now is equitable to the number of days it takes for my body to recover from that work.
6. True love, takes your breath away and warms your heart.
7. No matter how old you are, you need your mom sometimes.
8. New experiences are needed to grow.
9. When someone lies to you you never really get over it.
10. You always remember that first teacher who made it click in your head. Mine was Mrs. Ritchie at Chawanakee School - Go Warriors!
11. We all know someone that’s died in a DUI crash.
12. My first job I cleaned bathrooms and kitchens. I was a janitorial engineer. People are really gross in bathrooms.
13. I’ve never started a fight in my life, but I have finished many. 
14. Being a police officer is scary, depressing and nerve-racking but I wouldn’t change a thing about my career.
15. Being a police officer is one of the most noble professions one can endeavor to become. 
16. Being a parent is scary, sometimes depressing, did I mention scary and the best experience I’ve ever had in my life
17. My wife is my best friend she’s also my conscience and she’s also really really honest on how I dress, speak and generally appear to the public.
18. Math is hard but is the most valuable tool and skill set you can have as an adult besides manners and communication skills.
19. Physical fitness is the best gift you can give yourself
20. Ketchup, barbecue sauce and mustard are probably the best foods ever invented because they make food taste better
21. Friends, there’s always that one that knows you like their family. That person will be at your funeral or you will be at their’s - do the right thing and erase their browser history
22. If you are an animal lover you will have many dogs or cats in your lifetime take solace in the fact that you gave them all a full life, joy and happiness for their short time here
23. For me, Christmas is still the greatest holiday
24. Make sure you say something on someone’s birthday wish them well
25. A life spent outside in the woods is a life well spent
26. You’re never too old to watch a really good Bugs Bunny cartoon
27. There should be a law that requires You too enjoy good warm popcorn when you go to the movies
28. Some people age gracefully, some people don’t. The graceful ones are probably using very expensive products, just saying
29. There’s nothing better than a good pair of old jeans
30. When I was young I wanted to fly to the moon. Now that I am not young I just want to get up from bed without my back hurting
31. Never underestimate the power of a good meal together as a family
32. Always say please, thank you, sir and ma’am
33. Men always open the door for women
34. Men when going to a special occasion always remember to tack up or at least wear a tie and jacket you can always take the tie/jacket off
35. Men always make a big deal out of the ladies fingernails when they get them done, hair when she gets them done or she buys new shoes. Bonus points for noticing the new outfit as well
36. When on a long walk/hike in the mountains, the mountains you see in the distance is probably still 20 miles away
37. Fishing stories that discuss actually catching fish.....are always fishy.
38. Everybody you know is going to eventually die, it’s depressing but that’s the way life works
39. Greatest gift you can give the world is your example and your kids been awesome carrying on that example.
40. Who is in charge of the shape of a stick of butter? 
41. In Star Trek in all of the series, pretty much Klingons are all different shapes and sizes depending on of course on the years of the series. I know with the explosion of Praxis, Klingons changed somewhat but......it’s weird. 
42. The Dodgers suck and so do burpees.
43. Treat people like you want to be treated. Don’t be that guy.
44. When I was a kid I watched Gilligans Island, Bonanza, Bugs Bunny cartoons and really cool Godzilla movies on Sundays after church.
45. I own way too many ties 
46. One of my favorite country songs is Seminole Wind by John Anderson and I don’t care who knows 
47. You can never have to many/much iTunes music, ball caps or tools
48. The McRib sandwich is amazing but it only lasts like 37 seconds in your digestive tract until it wants to leave.
49. I have zero musical talent, but I wish I did
50. It would be cool to have another 50 years....

Hate for Hates Sake

In the wake of the horrific event in Las Vegas this week, I found of few nuggets of wisdom, truth and looked within.

First off I must say, Las Vegas Metro Police Department and their public safety partners did an excellent job managing this enormous crime scene. They were better than textbook and credit should go to the Sheriff directly and those managing the incident in its infancy. Amazingly brave, solid and steady work by those heroes. 

Here in Hollister we have a large public gathering once or twice a year. We plan, discuss, go over possible scenario’s and train almost all year for the rally. It is a huge undvertaking by our staff to handle this event and keep it as safe as we possibly can. I am barely able sleep for the week prior and during the rally. I age like 6 years each rally I work as the Chief (last year was my 5th rally as Chief). In Las Vegas, a large event, is a Sunday in autumn....perspective.....

I often talk about my love for people, community and always struggling and trying to be a good example. I try to see the good in every person, situation and to truly learn from the experience. 

With what happened on October 1st in Las Vegas. I don’t have much of anything. We did see tremendous acts of heroism. We saw destruction. We saw our worst fears. We saw death.

Ambassador Sarek in Star Trek IV surmised it was difficult to come up with an answer if one did not understand what the question was.

I believe we are there. We are seeing these atrocities and terrible things that are occurring all over the world. We ask ourselves why, but we don’t know the answer because we’ve never asked the right questions.

Questions like causality. How do we come up with answers if we do not know what causes people to do these things. Is it ideology? is it because we listen to heavy-metal music? Is it because we have been desensitized as a nation and really as human beings in general because we’ve allowed violence to permeate our lives through video games,the media, through movies, through books and other sources? In the last 25 or 30 years what breakthroughs have we made in mental health? What have we done for these folks that suffer so long hard? How much funding is there for the study and treatment for folks with mental health problems? I don’t know the answers to these questions. I do know that we are suffering. Our hearts are hurting and many families out there tonight are in a state of unrest because they’re missing their loved one(s). 

We must study Causes. We must ask the right questions. We must be smarter than a problem. That is the battle and the war we must wage.

The low hanging fruit in this is of course guns. Many folks will argue that if guns were not there then this tragedy would’ve not of occurred. That’s correct, the person in Las Vegas use firearms to commit these horrific acts. I would ask what about IED’s? what about Timothy McVeigh using fertilizer? What about the knife attacks in 2014 in China that left 29 dead and over 130 injured. How about a group of men wielding box cutters that together took down four airliners, killing 3000+ people. Moral to the story is, killers will always find a way. 

Endless possibilities; It’s about motive, it’s about hate, it’s about ideology, it’s about mental illness. it’s about a lot of things.

 I think, like Aristotle said “true knowledge begins when you realize you know absolutely nothing.” We actually do not know much about causality in this arena. If we did, we could start addressing the problem. 

I’m not gonna say that instrumentation in these attacks doesn’t matter. Firearms, knives, fertilizer and other materials for IED’s were used in attacks in recent years. To me the important question is “How did we arrive here?”

Once again we grieve for the losses. We pray for the victims, the families and friends. We pray that someday we can make sense of this and reduce or eliminate these acts of violence. 

I hope I live long enough to see the day that those in my chosen career are no longer needed in the world. I hope we can live in peace someday. But for now I’ll stay prepared, I’ll be ready, I’ll stay vigilant, train more heroes and WE will run towards the threat, towards gunfire every single time.

Be good to each other,

Chief