Daytona 500 Excitment

This year's Daytona 500 was unlike any other Daytona 500. First, the race was pushed backed this year to avoid any conflict with the Superbowl. Second, for the last 53 races that have happen, all of them have started on a Sunday and ended on a Sunday. This year's race was rained out, finally started at 7p.m. on Monday and was finished at 1a.m. Tuesday morning. The race officially was the longest Daytona there has been lasting 36 hours, clock started at the original starting time for Sunday. The reason why it lasted so long, beside the rain, was that during a caution lap Juan Pablo Montoya was traveling pretty fast around the track, to catch up, and when we was close to one of the jet drying trucks something happened to his car which made him slide in to truck and causing and explosion and a massive fire that involved diesel and jet fuel. Talk about a hot race. Everyone was medically okay both vehicle were destroyed. The fire did however ruin the racing surface so the track crew had to pretty much reconstruct that part of the track which was another reason for taking so long. In the end, Matt Kenseth won his second race.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1iHU6TfMfs

Final week before spring break

I hope this week goes by fast. I have a three midterms before Friday, one page paper to write for another class, and finish Annotated Bibliography. I hope everyone's week go by as fast as they would like and have a great spring break.

Heorin a huge problem where I come from

http://articles.southbendtribune.com/2012-02-23/news/31093668_1_heroin-overdose-heroin-death-laporte-circuit-court
I am from LaPorte Indiana which is located in Northwest Indiana by Lake Michigan. For the past few years heroin has becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the community. Just alone in the last year there have been two individuals, that I know of, who have died due to a drug overdose. Their choice of drug, heroin. The most recently one was earlier this week and the other a few weeks before graduation. Also in October of last year, a man killed another man just to obtain the heroin. Besides these three incidents there have been much more overdoses then just the high school individuals, and it is now a larger problem then unemployment in LaPorte. Finally, turns out most of the overdoses are not due to overuse but these people buy it from dealers from Chicago, and the dealers are lacing the drug with rat poison. I knew one of the high school students really well and it is a very weird feeling to know that someone who interacted with everyday at school is now gone forever, and the only thing harder than having that feeling is getting on Facebook and seeing other friend just break down about what has taken place. People are pleading on Facebook for everyone to stop using heroin and praying the drug dealers just stop.
This is exactly one of the reasons why after college I want to pursue a job at South Bend Police Department and then reach my ultimate goal of having a career in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). I am tired of hearing about my hometown being a terrible place to live, and its time for a major change in LaPorte and I want to be a part of that change.

Citizen Police Academy

I have been attending the Ball State Police Department's Citizen Police Academy for three weeks now. Every week has been some thing new and exciting. The first week was just an introduction and history to policing and since it was on Super Bowl Sunday we rushed through the material so we could all go home and watch the Patriots lose. Last week we discussed the hiring process for the campus police department, and then discussed the details about the Indiana Police Academy, which was cool. To end the night the K-9 officer and his dog came in to do a demonstration and talk about K-9 policing at Ball State. The dog was surprisingly nice and friendly which one does not normally see when they see a K-9 unit.

 -One of the K-9s on the department. Tara.


Then last night we discussed traffic enforcement and patrol among officers. It was interesting to learn more about how the everyday cop works and how he or she goes about working. Then for our activity for this class was demonstrating field sobriety test using fatal vision, drunk goggles. Since it is Ball State, the police here to deal with a lot of this behavior and it was quite humorous to see some of the other classmates attempt a test.
Dr. Phil Demonstrating Fatal Vision Goggles

2/17/12

Yesterday we started our second session of intensive reviews. I hope the were beneficial to those who papers were up for discussion, as it helped me. I think the peer review groups and the intensive reviews does help because it can help you look at it from another angle that a class mate can see, and from that other angle can really help your paper.

2/15/12

I thought yesterdays group review session was very beneficial. After that I thought the highlight activity really help me reflect on my work when it came to see if I had a voice in my writing. Also I do not believe that this assignment will be as hard I as initially thought it would, and I think it will really strengthen by ability to write. Finally tomorrow is the second session of intensive reviews, so time to review eight other pieces of work.

2/11/12

Time to get started on the next paper, whose with me? I think tat this paper is going to be a much more difficult paper, but I could be wrong. I know in 103 we had to use the same subject on htree paper, so this concept of using the same subject for two papers is not new to me. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

2/9/12

Wow, I can finally say that my National Gaze paper is finished and I am happy and relived. Overall it was a good writing and earning experience for myself. Now I am waiting to see how this next paper is going to be. I am sure that I am not the only one looking forward to the weekend, as I will be returning home since January 8, and I'm ready for a short break from campus.

Weird Start to the Weekend

Wow, a shooting right off campus to start the weekend off. Glad it was not on Ball State’s property. A little confused on why the alert email we received stated that the suspect was alive and under custody of the police while The Daily News, The Muncie Star Press, Wish TV, Fox 59, WTHR, and WSBT had confirmed that the suspect was dead. I think Ball State should have the facts straight if they are going to send an alert email out dealing with a shooting that happened very close to the campus. What do you think?

 http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/east_central/police-reportedly-involved-in-muncie-shooting

2/1/12

Wow, the first month of 2012 is over. I know it is only February but the year is going by at a good pace. I hope this will seem to make the semester flyby. Although it a tough semester I am gaining a lot of knowledge and resources from all of my classes and I do like being here at college instead of at home, which some people do not understand. So far it has been a good first year.