A Working Adventure

Covid has really limited Sheila and I's "adventuring."  Now that we have the time and money to travel this blasted disease is still keeping us prisoners.  We have cancelled two winter cruises and two summer mountain cabin stays plus numerous smaller adventures like nice dinners with our partners in crime Pam and Wayne.  (Pam is recovering from Covid right now BTW and her mother has it as well.)

The closest thing to an "adventure" we have had in quite a while was our short stay in the Ft. Worth area while I took Instructor training for law enforcement level Verbal De-escalation.  We stayed at the Hyatt in Hurst.  It was nearly empty.  The service was superb and and lovely little Tejano lady who cooked the morning breakfast bar was a real gem.  Tejano cooking is something special and this lady was an artist.

Sheila pampered herself as you only can in a high class hotel while I learned how to teach our security students how to talk down violent and crazy people.  She slept in, read a couple of novels and raided the local WalMarts until she located a hard to find locally toy our grandson Ben wanted for Christmas.

The training was conducted by Blue Shield Tactical.  They are the best and most commonly used law enforcement training organization between the Mississippi and the Rockies.  Our instructor was a tough as nails active duty St. Louis cop who also still serves as an Air Commando in the Air Force Reserve.  The class was held at the Hurst police station.  It was the cleanest most modern police station I have ever seen and Hurst PD went out of their way to be good hosts.  

Our class was a truly interesting group.  We had the chiefs of many of the smaller departments from the DFW/North Texas area, the chief training officers of several of the larger departments and agencies and a good mix of patrolmen and detectives from several more.  We also had a lady who identified herself as a consulting psychiatrist from an institution on the east coast.  She was also staying at the Hyatt. 

The training was intense at times, hilarious at times and overall very practical.  The hardest part for me was conducting a session of the class.  Each instructor candidate was required to set up a short scenario, run it, address the class and then sit through the class critique of your performance.  The very thought of taking the front of the room before all of these senior cops and hard bitten serving officers was daunting.   But, I got through it and my reviews from the audience were encouraging.  The overall opinion was that I was calm and organized.  Somewhere in my office I have the class picture and a diploma.  I even have not just the tee shirt but the golf shirt proclaiming that I am a certified law enforcement level de-escalation instructor.

There was only one hitch for the entire trip.  TRAFFIC.  I-35 was down to one lane through a big chunk of southwest Oklahoma and about the same time it opens up you hit the REAL DFW traffic flow.  75 is messed up at the Red River and we missed our exit for the Indian Nations turnpike on the way back.  Seven hours plus each way.  On the way home we got lost  thanks to our GPS and spent an hour winding our way through the Oklahoma hills trying to cross over to the Indian Nations Turnpike to avoid the nightmarish traffic.

Having said that, Sheila got in an almost week long rest in reasonable luxury and I acquired some very valuable training.  And we both had a good time doing it.