ACAB

 I got in a solid half hour or 45 minutes on octaves on the headjoint last night, and went to bed at maybe 6AM. I woke up a few times, finally getting out of bed at 2. 

There are new details on the latest school shooting. It would not be anything new if the cops had merely stood around, keeping the scene safe for the shooter to kill as many as possible; that's standard. We treasure our mass shooters, and the cops always do their best to help. Generally it involves keeping do-gooders out, and keeping the scene contained until the shooter runs out of ammo or runs low anyway and then one of two things happen: 

The shooter kills themselves, or, if the shooter is white, they're handled by the police like a dignitary, taken *gently* into custody, with such things as a stop-off for a meal at the shooter's preferred restaurant, maybe a hot shower at the police station before being put into a cell, with profuse apologies I'm sure. 

But in this case, the police not only "tackled" parents trying to get in to save their kids, but the police actually went in, got their own kids out, then kept everyone else out for the maximum damage to everyone else's kids. 

This is being talked about all over Reddit, "going viral" as they say, so it's the very opposite of a secret. It's been no secret for years that cops tend to be people who can't pass the physical, and more often mental, tests to go into the military. And it's been long known that they're generally cowards. But this crosses a line. 

This is a good massecre, and by that I mean a big one. Lots of lives lost. So there will be those diagrams and timelines and so on, right up to when the shooter was finally neutralized by Border Patrol agents. And why the Border Patrol? Because the shooter was brown with a Hispanic name, of course. 

I got going at the usual time, dropped off trash at my Super Secret Trash Can(tm) and dropped off 7 packages at the downtown post office. I had to wait in line for a while and the guy working at the counter position I was in line for was a black guy with dreadlocks in his face. All well and fine, but he seemed to be doing things in such a way as to allow for lots of time to engage in a conversation with another black guy who he was helping, about some kind of EEOC dispute. I wish I could tell these guys that the post office "hazes" everyone starting out, and considering the large number of workers there who are black (with just about all the rest first-generation immigrants) there's not much chance of the kind of plot against them they think there is. I finally put my box on the counter by the Indian guy asking quickly if it's OK - "You're just dropping it off?" "Yep -thanks!" and I was outta there. 

Next was the bank, and while I'd calculated my balance would be 3001-something, it was 2998.89. A few dollars off. So I either fat-fingered a number or, more likely, I've been charged the fee I agreed to to get paper statements each month. In my experience with banks, once you have enough in there they stop charging the fee. 

I went to Whole Foods next and this is where two weird things happened. They had "chili lime" chicken wings so I got those and some steamed broccoli, and a Lagunitas near-beer. And when I checked out, the price was insanely low. The young guy at the register didn't say anything; was just like "Eh, that's how it goes". What would normally be a plate of food well over $10, was $3. The total was $5.48. I went upstairs and got a glass with ice to pour my beer into, Southeast Asia style, and enjoyed my wings and beer. 

Then I went back in for normal shopping and picked up a bunch of stuff which with $20 cash back was a bit over $80. I went out and loaded up the bike and rode out of there and saw something odd, a bag with something inside, and not too far from it a beer can. I checked it out and the story was obvious: Someone had bought a 6-pack of this Lagunitas "Hazy" IPA which at 9% alcohol probably tastes more "strong" than "good". They'd decided it was disgusting, set their can down on the curb and set the bag with the other 5 beers down for some random person to find. 

I was the random person. I picked it up and rode off, thinking about who to give it to. My panhandler friend who hangs out a few doors down from Original Joe's was an obvious answer, but I rode over there and he wasn't around. Bums in general seemed scarce, because something called Fanimecon is going on and the cops like to clear the bums away from "paying customers". I ended up riding up by Dai Thanh and gave the beers to a couple of bums hanging out in front of the now-closed Bo Town. 

I rode over to the Amazon place to pick up my 3C cornet mouthpiece but they'd just cleared out the trash cans so no free bubble mailers today. Oh, well. I did pick up 5 books that I think might be worth something in trade credit at the used book store on my way over to Nijiya where I did some more shopping. 

The ride home was really nice and in fact riding around all day had been - it's been overcast and had cooled down a bit. And the wind wasn't crazy for a change. After putting things away I went out to check the nearby place I've found that tosses out medical stuff and didn't find much, but took a part off of this big printer they had by their dumpster, and took that back here and got the motors and some other odd bits off. 

I finally got around to checking my receipts and the guy at Whole Foods had charged me for .27 lb when it was probably 1.27 lb of hot food. That was nice of him. Some of the area back there had a power problem or something and a large section of the cooler shelves were empty, and some of the hot/cold bar, so maybe the order of the day was to just charge "whatever" for stuff from there.