Just a couple samples of interesting things I caught on the scanner today. My scanner records everything it picks up now… I just need the time to pick through the hundreds of daily recordings to find the good stuff. I didn’t realize until today how easy it is to just drag and drop them into a post like this. Enjoy, this is just the beginning.

I just finished reading/listening to this book today. Wow. It was very informative and explained pretty much everything about the Trump family’s entire history, including all of their business dealings, who was really the successful businessman in the family (hint: It wasn’t Donald) and how Donald came to be president.

If you only listen to/read just the first 45 minutes of this book, you’ll probably get sucked in just like I did and will want to read it all the way through just to try to understand how Donald Trump thinks and why he does the things he does. Mary explains it all in detail. She’s a well-educated psychologist and knows what she’s talking about, having actually been part of the Trump family.

Here’s Wikipedia‘s description of the book: Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man is a tell-all book written by Trump published on July 14, 2020, by Simon & Schuster. According to Trump’s note at the beginning of the book, all accounts in the book come either from her own memory or from recorded conversations with family, friends and others. Other sources are legal, financial and family documents and email correspondence as well as the New York Times investigative article done by David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner.^[7] The book details how the author was the anonymous source who revealed Trump family tax returns to The New York Times; the reporting won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.^[27] A legal battle over whether the book could be published was waged in New York’s judicial system, with an appellate judge allowing Simon & Schuster to publish the book.^[26] The book sold close to one million copies on its first day of sales.^[28]

Today and this evening were much quieter than the rest of the week. Lot of protesters, in multiple groups and in various areas around the city, but pretty peaceful according the the scanner. Most calls seemed like the regular injuries and issues I usually hear.

On the lighter side, a little after 8:00 pm someone called in a report of an injured squirrel in the street–I don’t remember the exact address or cross-street, but he was in the left-hand lane. The officer replied and said “It’s past curfew.” We got a kick out of that. Apparently that poor squirrel didn’t have a cell phone so he didn’t get the alerts and was out past 7pm. Awww.

Read this article… Facebook, Facebook, Facebook… It’s mentioned 15 times in this single article. Is it just me, or is Facebook the thing connecting ALL of this mayhem together??  OMG.  The millions who left in the “Quit Facebook” movement (like Leo Laporte) were right… The original video of the shooting was (and still is) right there on Facebook, still sparking more outrage.  I’m not saying censorship is the answer because it’s not.  People need to know, but they need the WHOLE STORY, not just a part of the act. A rational person would know that. Why are so many people irrational and must jump to conclusions and take the law into their own hands? We can wait a few hours for an “official” story to come out, can’t we?  We always did before–until the news came on the TV, or the newspaper hit the stands or our front door the next morning…Everything is accelerated these days.  Everyone wants everything right now, and it’s going to be the death of us as a society.  Facebook is destroying us.  At an accelerated pace.  Right now. We’re not being rational. Slow down, people. Take the time to THINK before you act. And be open to other people’s and other groups’ views unstead of just the view of the little “bubble” of the group you belong to, or the political party you’re in. There are other people with other views out there. LISTEN.

While the internet and Facebook are instant, law enforcement, our justice system, politics, and everything else still move at a snail’s pace and can’t keep up. Even hundreds of officials using radios and walkie-talkies still can’t quite keep up with all of crime, looting and violence happening all at once. Many try talking at the same time on the same channel, and it just delays things even more.

Boy, do I look forward to the day I don’t have to type a leading zero in my title…

We’re still hunkered down here, waiting each evening during curfew, to make sure nothing gets too close to our home. We listen as all gas stations are ordered to turn off their pumps and stop selling gas, which the criminals are apparently using to purchase the fuel they use to burn local businesses and other things (even TREES, apparently) to the ground. I can’t believe some gas stations refuse to obey and stay open anyway. I wonder if they’re actually ticketed.

We listen as huge buses with blacked-out plates, stuffed with people, ammunition and supplies, are pulled over and checked… are they arrested? Lots of buses, many from other cities and states, coming in and out of Kenosha, to and from downtown… Maybe some are military…? National Guard…? Who knows. We stay at home, in the house, listening to the scanner. Lots of people with “long guns”. What is a “long gun”, are they just referring to a rifle, or is there a specific one that is called a “long gun?”

Lots of “32’s” reported. Does that mean police code for “10-32”, which is “Man With Gun”, or are they referring to a “.32 caliber handgun?” Questions questions. Doesn’t really matter I guess, it’s all frightening when you’re sitting this close. It’s just a little better than Mike, Sandy’s brother who lives much closer to uptown Kenosha than us, and posted yesterday “And Thank you Lord for taking our loved ones sooner than expected“. WTF?! He lost me there. But he often does. For once a post of his is easy for me to read and it STILL doesn’t make sense to me.

At least the construction (and regular life) continues during the day… They recently replaced several sidewalk tiles in front of our house and installed a handicapped curb ramp on our corner (we’re a corner house) and just installed sod today to replace the grass in our yard that they destroyed in the process. We were a little worried they might leave the huge gaping dirt holes around the new sidewalk sections, just waiting for someone to walk by and twist or break an ankle. But they didn’t, they did a decent job of replacing the grass. Now we just have to baby it (if they don’t) and water it often to make sure it blends in well. And we also had a bulk pickup yesterday – about 25 bags of garbage, windows, broken yard tools, and even a tire–which was a bit tricky to pile out onto the curb mixed in with all of the construction cones and stuff from the sidewalk work, but it all worked out and they took everything away. Ahhhh, breathing room…

Word of the day: Antifa – a political protest movement comprising autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing ideology.

I had never heard that word before until yesterday. Now I’m hearing it everywhere.

Well, as it turns out, my site has been screwed up for like forever – at least since I switched to WordPress, and I never realized it. It couldn’t send out e-mails, so no one would have been able to register for any auctions. One person, who I helped get logged into my site, was the only one able to bid, so she won everything she bid on.

Even AFTER all the auctions were over, no one even bothered to let me know they couldn’t register or bid on anything. So I had no clue until yesterday when I tried to create a test user on my site and never got the e-mailed password link to set a password and verify the new account. I guess that tells you just how popular my site is… No one visits, so no one registered to bid, therefore no one knew there was ever an issue. Even after posting the DVD auctions on 4 different Kenosha Garage Sale sites though…? Hmm. I guess maybe a few people just tried it, never got the e-mail and moved on. Not worth their time to inquire.

Anyway, e-mail works now, so future auctions just MIGHT get a few more bids.

I spent the evening last night sitting at home, alone, listening to the KPD on the scanner as I took some notes. Here’s my transcript:

As I first begin listening, the KPD and US Marshals are watching three men in full body armor, dressed in all black and parking near 56th Street and Sheridan Road. They are parking and two got out of the truck. Not sure what they’re planning.

100+ vehicle convoy going North on 22nd Avenue from 60th Street, about 100-150 people on foot with them. So far no violence, but they’re starting to cover both lanes of the road, disrupting traffic.

A few people with LED Strobe lights trying to blind the authorities so they can’t see.

This bit, which I don’t understand yet: “Do you have access to MBC? Yes. Call me in a minute, I’ll put my TX in a secure location.”

A person is popping vehicle tires as he walks down the street.

It sounded like the police were also going around to all gas stations in the area and making them shut down and turn off their pumps. My guess is to prevent more fires by either limiting access to fuel or preventing gas stations from being easy targets. Man, scary shit.

A man with a rifle guarding a Day Care Center. Many others like this were also announced to “Incident Command” as they were seen by the police, I guess just to document their locations and note that they’re not part of the rioting.

3 men seen on a roof, armed. I missed the location, but they apparently weren’t the authorities.

Out in the county, a group of men, all armed. Doing nothing wrong, might just be protecting something.

8547 3rd Avenue – Ambulance and Fire dispatched. Unknown problem – dispatcher was breaking up.

19,250 listeners are on the same scanner app I am, listening to KPD & KFD

2 people with long guns setup and staging – 52nd and Sheridan – 1 Male, 1 Female. Walking East. Now setting up behind cement barricades.

“Karate place” on Sheridan road, another person with a long gun. White shirt.

People throwing fireworks at the court house, crowd of around 200 people. Many people spreading out in all directions, carrying rifles, spreading out since the fireworks started getting thrown. Officer says they’re looking for reactionary response. The people with rifles are taking tactical positions.

“It would behoove us to have a {TRT} Unit.” (if it’s in brackets, I’m not sure I caught the word correctly).

56th St. & 13th Avenue, people with baseball bats and one with a long gun.

1000 block of 56th Street, group with rifles. Splitting up, one turned into park.

Officers are watching and waiting for certain armed men to separate from the group, then they plan to make contact with them one-on-one. they will not approach them while in a group.

SW corner of Civic Center Park, 5′ 8″, White T-Shirt, armed man. Watching subject closely.

22,239 listeners, 9:10 PM.

People actively spray-painting the post office.

Smoke bombs deploy from the crowd, not from the authorities. Leaf blowers are coming out, they’re directly the smoke toward the riot police.

Someone hiding in alcove, has large case, he is now opening up the case. Near karate place. It’s a long gun and he’s arming it. Asking other officers to hurry, they can corner him in if they come now.

Send squads north of Stella!  

2 in custody.  Behind Stella.

“We’re taking rocks – behind Stella, need assistance.”

“5500 block 7th Avenue, need marked squad with a cage, right now!”

KFD dispatched – 52nd street, tree on fire.

“Our rooftop pepper ball is out of commission – it’s malfunctioning”

Someone called in and reported that Big Star is on fire.

Female on 57th Street carrying red gas can with white towel over it, heading toward courthouse.  White shirt

Fortification between 2 orange street cones, on 56th street on trolly tracks.  Rocks and weapons being used.

Lost person with gas can, and police car took large rock through rear window.

2 male hispanics east on 56th from 11th, with rifles.

63 Street & 24 Avenue, large group moving and knocking over the barricades

Vehicle dropped off a load of bricks, locals are getting rid of them.

2 men 1 female, broke into back door of dinosaur museum, now has fire alarm going off. Officers report man seen going in with a red gas can. TRT came, forced a crowd of about 100 to leave, crowd is heading toward Ruether.

Small fire extinguished inside dinosaur museum by police. KFD called.

Small fire at Ruether, started by the same crowd. They are moving South toward 60th street.

Big Star was ok, no issue found there. Fire was either already put out or it was a hoax.

When I got up this morning I heard on the news that two people had been shot and killed in another shooting near Froedtert Hospital (63rd Street and Sheridan), a third person injured in the same incident is still alive.

After 3 days of this, do they feel they’ve made their point yet? Still, as always, it isn’t helping.

We finished cleaning out the garage yesterday. It took several days, spread out over several weeks, but we finally got it done. Kevin and I both sacrificed a few vacation days to work on it, and Matt even helped us out. Now we’re waiting for a bulk pickup this week and all the garbage will be gone. Most other things were donated to Goodwill, and you saw what we did (and are still doing) with the DVDs and BluRays.

It seemed, early on in the beginning of the cleaning days, like we could have maybe been on an episode of Hoarders, but then when I thought about it, we were far from the point ALL of the people featured on that show had gotten! It was way over the top most of the time, and always included their houses too, not just their garages. They were literally LIVING in it! I can’t imagine being in a situation like any of those.

Anyway, back to our garage. Among the huge piles of “stuff” were many boxes, appliances, clothes, and household items that had sat in the garage since we moved here seven years ago, as well as a lot of Sandy’s father’s things that were still in the garage when we moved in. As you can imagine, our garage has had its share of tiny “visitors” over those years, many of which made themselves right at home–they shredded all manner of clothing and created bedding for themselves, and a few of them even built a two-room condo out of a two-holed cinder block.

We ran into a few stragglers too, seemingly still very surprised that we had disturbed them and destroyed their homes, and they quickly took flight and left the garage as fast as they could. The puppies found one running through the yard one day and just had a ball chasing it around and nipping at it until it managed to find its way out of the fenced-in yard.

A few others were much less fortunate and seemed to have passed away at some point, perhaps during one of our coldest winters in the past seven years. We found at least three mice that were completely petrified and skeletally preserved. I took a photo of one, which reminded me a lot of a photo Stephen King recently posted on Twitter of one that he found in his garden. The photo of one I found is on the left.

If you want to see it in full detail, just click on the thumbnail. He even still has his whiskers! Kinda creepy, and as I mentioned, much like Stephen King’s own find. Stephen King’s is on the right. Same deal, click it to see it in full detail if you’re not too grossed-out. The ones we found found were pretty dried-out and fossilized. King’s looks like it might have been a bit more “juicy” from being preserved outdoors in a garden. Who’s is better?

Anyway, in the end our garage is fully cleaned out now and we can even park a car in it! We haven’t been able to do that since we moved in, so it’s a nice feeling. It’ll come in handy in the Winter. And being able to very easily get the lawn mower and snow blower out when needed will be great too. We do have a few small holes to patch up where those pesky freeloaders worked their way in though, definitely need to get those patched by Winter.

The information below was posted last night (08/23/2020) on the Facebook Page “Kenosha County Scanner”. It’s a sad day for Kenosha…and the rest of the country. Our society is crumbling. I really don’t see how so much violence helps the situation or the state of our country. It only breaks it down more and weakens it. One person takes action in the spur of the moment–whether right or wrong–and everyone else pays for it. We don’t even have all of the facts yet. As a society we have built a system of justice we must follow, but too many people refuse to allow it to work.

***Unrest in Kenosha starting. KPD vehicles vandalized and people throwing bottles at officers***

***any updates will be on subscribers page but will be limited on BOTH pages for officers safety. Posts will be delayed and some left out. Check this post for any information***

***delayed – OFFICER DOWN – 28th ave/40th st – officer being extracted to safe spot. Rioters now throwing fire at officers
***delayed – groups now moving towards downtown vandalizing buildings. Groups have been very aggressive known to ambush officers
***delayed – vehicles are now smashing into storefronts downtown. NG deployed
***delayed – groups are now surrounding the safety building and throwing rocks, projectiles at the building. Boost Mobile has been looted
***there is now a Dump Truck on fire at 56th st/10th ave KFD is not responding due to unsafe scene
***there is a second dump truck in fire at 56th st/11th ave now. KFD not responding as scene is unsafe
***KPD has 2 in custody for looting the liquor store at 7944 Sheridan
***BLACK P/U Truck lifted w/blacked out plates is suspect vehicle for the liquor store and the Boost Mobile
***rioters are now looting multiple stores downtown. One business owner is barricaded in his store as rioters loot his store
***SW corner of the courthouse poss on fire. KFD cannot get near the scene
***reports of Molotov cocktail thrown into dinosaur museum
***everything being looted uptown per KPD
***rioters walking SB Sheridan and looting/vandalizing
***rioters looted the car dealership at 58th st/Sheridan and lit vehicles on fire
***rioters are now lighting several businesses on fire in the city

There was a horrible shooting in Kenosha today. Someone captured it and posted it on Facebook, and now everyone’s in an uproar again. Here’s the video if it hasn’t been taken down yet. It’s pretty shocking, so be warned.

The thing that bugs me much more than the actual shooting is that we don’t know the whole story yet. Maybe the officer was completely justified. What was the officer saying to the guy who was completely ignoring him and walking away? What was the guy reaching for in his car, or what did he already grab when the officer fired?

Wait for the whole story people. Please. We’re a civil society. Let the legal system work. Please.

Well, we were able to auction off 12 of the DVD bags, with no bids at all for the other 9 bags. No bids for ANY of the BluRay bags either, which I find interesting. I thought at LEAST the BluRays would go, since those are much better quality HD movies than regular DVDs, but I guess more people have already gone fully digital than I thought. I posted on my Facebook page, at least one person shared my post, and I posted in 5 different “Kenosha Garage Sale” groups, so I figured that would be good enough to find someone interested in each bag, but I guess not.

I also had one person that was interested in only a few specific movies or TV shows, so I told them I’d consider individual sales after these 21 auctions ended, if there was any left that weren’t bid on, so I reached out and provided a link to “The Leftovers“, a little album contain just the contents of the leftover bags no one bid on, but as it turned out, everything that person was interested in was in the bags that were bid on, so that was a wash.

Feel free to click on The Leftovers link and if you see anything that interests you, just let me know. I’m sure we can make a deal.

Well, we got a few bids so far, 13 to be exact. There are some more coming after these too — We’re still cleaning out the garage and finding more and more music CDs, so the next bags will be stuffed with those. We will be pretty much done with the garage some time tomorrow, so then we can start assembling the rest of the bags.

Someone also asked if I would allow them to pick and choose which movies or box sets they wanted, and I said we might be able to do that with any bags that aren’t bid on at all. If anything’s left after tomorrow, sure, that’s a possibility.

I’ve been testing my smartwatch for the past month in “Essentials Mode”. This is a low-power mode that only uses the LCD screen, which contains the date & time, my daily step count, battery level, and pulse rate (pulse check available with a button push, not constant). With this mode enabled, I’m supposed to get about a month of battery life out of my watch before I need to charge it again.

I started the test on 07/06/2020 and it just died at some point overnight last night. I attempted this test a couple other times before this one, and the first time my wife found my watch with a low battery so she threw it on my charger (nice favor, but it blew my test) and the second time I tried it I was working on something at home in a tight spot, and accidentally long-pressed the top button, which turns the watch on and takes it out of Essentials Mode. So it lasted for exactly 36 days on a single charge. Ironically, the same number of days I’m into my 365-day blog post challenge. I think that’s great for a smartwatch! And there’s even a newer version of the TicWatch available that has a faster processor and provides even better battery life. When this one breaks or dies, I might just stick with this brand. I haven’t seen any other smartwatch with a two-layered screen that provides the regular smartwatch WearOS features as well as the awesome Essentials Mode that also looks great in sunlight, and it’s very reasonably-priced compared to other WearOS-based smartwatches.

I’ll let this test keep going and I’ll post again when it finally completely dies on me.

Ok, so either no one we know is interested in any of the DVD or BluRay bags we have up for auction, or everyone’s going to wait until the last day or even the last few minutes of the auction to make any bids at all. I guess that makes sense when I think about it. The earlier you start bidding, the better chance of higher bids being made during the week, or again, just before the auction ends. So if you wait until a minute before the auction ends, then place your $5.00 bid and no one else is around to bid more, it’s yours for $5.00.

I guess I should worry about a DOS attack… Someone could technically make a first bid on each bag a few minutes before end of auction, then hit my site with a DOS attack so no one else can get in and outbid them, then remove the attack after the auction ends. Well, if it’s that important to them, I guess that’s one way to do it, and that’ll work. We’d still be glad to get rid of the bags, and we’d get to meet the hacker in person… or at least have their full mailing address for any legal follow-up we might need to do.

Or maybe there is really no interest. Maybe DVDs and BluRays are history and everyone has already gone 100% digital. We’ll find out for sure this Sunday. All 21 auctions end at the exact same time, so lunchtime will be pretty interesting. Or not. Maybe there’s a different issue with my site and no one can actually create and account or login…I’m probably overthinking it.

I just published an ad containing all DVD photos on 4 different “Kenosha Garage Sale” Facebook pages. We’ll see if that helps. Next time though, we’ll definitely set a much shorter time period for each auction–like 1 or 2 days.

Looks like Wil Wheaton will be reading Ready Player Two, just as I had hoped! This is gonna be great! Not that I’m obsessed with Wil Wheaton or anything…

‘Star Trek: Next Generation’s Wil Wheaton To Narrate Ernest Cline’s ‘Ready Player Two’ Audiobook

Wil Wheaton recently posted about a new horror movie called “Host”. It sounds awesome and I’m going to watch it this week. It’s one of the first new movies that take place in present time, during the pandemic. Here’s Wil’s synopsis:

“Six friends get together during lockdown for their weekly zoom call. It’s Haley’s turn to organise an activity and instead of a quiz, she’s arranged for a Medium to conduct a séance. Bored and feeling mischievous, [I removed something here that’s kind of a spoiler. It’s better to discover this in the narrative]. The friends begin noticing strange occurrences in their homes as the evil presence begins to make itself known, and they soon realise that they might not survive the night. A SHUDDER ORIGINAL.“

Sounds awesome to me! It’s only an hour long, but that’s ok. If it’s as good as he says, I’m all in!

Ok, if you’re here for the Auctions, just click “Auctions” in the top menu. I added 21 auctions yesterday, each containing a selection of DVDs or BluRays. Take a look, and feel free to bid on one if there’s something you like. We would be perfectly happy even if we get only one bidder for each bag, as long as we get someone interested in every bag. That would still be great, and would help us out a lot. All 21 auctions end at noon next Sunday, 08/23/2020.

Online auctions are perfectly legal and don’t require a license. A simple raffle for the whole pile would have been so much easier all around, but for some silly reason it’s considered gambling and auctions aren’t. Now I have to ship back the huge roll of 2,000 raffle tickets I just got from Amazon. Good thing Amazon returns are so simple and only a couple blocks from our house. Ok, enough said about that, I already went through all of this in my last non-auction post.

Well, the raffle is off. Please disregard my previous post. Fortunately for me, my cousin Wayne is a frequent visitor of my site, so he was one of the first to read my last post and promptly informed me that it might just be illegal to hold a raffle without a permit. I quickly googled the question and there it was. Click on the thumbnail if you want to read the official document.

Apparently, in Wisconsin, only Religious, Veteran, Fraternal, Service, or Charitable organizations can hold a raffle, if they obtain a Raffle License. You can’t just decide to have one and have one. It says, specifically, “Is it not legal for an individual, business, or national/out-of-state organization to conduct raffles in Wisconsin.” Wow. I had no clue. Apparently this is a form of gambling.

It also states, however, that “a silent auction is not a raffle and does not require a raffle license”, so that’s something to consider I guess. Back to square one. At least we learned something today.

Thank you, Wayne. You probably saved us a bunch of legal trouble, not to mention the trouble we might have had trying to figure out how to return everyone’s money to them once the raffle had started.

Over many years our family has accumulated a HUGE mass of movies and TV shows on physical media – DVDs & BluRays mostly. Over the past month or so we’ve been doing a slow, much-needed clean-up of everything, and wound up with boxes and boxes of these movies and TV shows. Since everything went digital, we have pretty much re-purchased everything we really want to keep in digital format and we’ve found that we no longer have a use for the original DVDs and BluRays we purchased over the years.

We know there are plenty of people out there that still prefer their media on physical discs, so we’ve decided to hold a simple raffle and just give whole whole lot away to one lucky winner. We could probably make a lot more money selling everything off one-by-one, with everyone looking through everything and picking and choosing what they want and just paying for those items, but then we’d be stuck with all the “bottom of the barrell” leftovers we still need to get rid of, and we’d have a lot of visitors and strangers coming and going just to take a look. A rummage sale was a thought, but again, that’s about the same situation.

So we settled on a simple solution of a raffle – $1.00 per ticket, $5 for 6 tickets. Simple as that. A raffle seems like the simplest and cleanest way to just get rid of the whole lot, unconditionally, with the least hassle. Maybe we get back a little of our investment, maybe not, but at least we’ll get some space back. So far I’ve taken a photo of each box, from the top, 7 boxes so far, to give you an idea of what you’re bidding on. You can see a few top items, but each box is packed full to the top with original DVDs and Blu-Rays. NO RIPPED COPIES. These are all original, purchased DVDs, BluRays, and box sets.

The raffle tickets arrive tomorrow, so I hope to be able to publish the raffle officially on Facebook some time tomorrow, maybe even in a local garage-sale site or two, just to drum up some interest. I think we’ll even be able to take digital payments using Paypal, which accepts credit cards, so people can fully purchase tickets online and I’ll e-mail them their ticket numbers and drop them in the raffle bucket for them and keep their contact portion on-hand until the drawing.

I’m thinking a Halloween drawing would be perfect. Easy to remember all around, and this year Halloween is on a Saturday, so it’s perfect. Maybe do the drawing live on Facebook…

I’ll get the photos up on my website today, and get some more stuff prepped, including a flyer. Stay tuned for more info.

Here’s an exclusive video from Kevin… I had to assemble and edit the video, and it needed several hours to render and upload to YouTube overnight, so I thought I’d post it here as an exclusive way before Kevin gets his lazy ass out of bed on his day off… Enjoy!