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We were minding our own business, going to stop by the Walmart plaza to run into the grocery store when we see something very freaky…27 police cruisers (we counted) lining the road up the hill on toute 13 toward Leominster. Talking to one of the hundred or so people standing at the edge of the parking lot, we learn a suicidal man is holding 5 kids (or so) hostage, and 10 minutes before we arrived there’d been 7 shots. Someone was carried out on a stretcher, and within 20 minutes everhting seemed to be over.

Now none of this is verified fact, but was fed to us because someone in the crowd was on a cell phone with somebody who had a scanner. Damn the luck, I’d left my little phone camera on my keychain and my keys were at home.

I ‘m going to go see if there’s anything on the news…

The Boston Patrolmen’s Union got the 14.5% (over 4 years) raise they wanted. That’s nice, I’d like a 1% raise, but hey, who’s complaining?

No, the problem is that the union [dick-]head has announced that they will picket the DNC anyway.

Excuse me? You got what you wanted so you’re going to complain about…getting it? I’m telling you, if the police discover that they’ve suddenly lost the love and trust of a lot of people, we can point to this moment as the beginning of the end. It is truly sickening. Hey Mayor Menino…aren’t you sorry you gave them their 14.5% now? It bought you…nothing.

Hey, Thomas Nee, union spokesperson, I don’t give a crap if the process leaves you “feeling betrayed”. You agreed to binding arbitration, no? So get that puss off your face and act like a man instead of a 3 year old throwing a tantrum. “I got ice cream but I didn’t get two scoops so I’m going to hold my breath until you do something about it.” Mr. Nee may be the lowest form of union slime right now. The patrolmen have said they are happy, but this guy wants to take his ball and go home because he didn’t get his two scoops.

Won’t this violate some contract terms or something, if they picket? I’d pull a Ronald Reagan and fire the lot of ’em for insubordination and playing like they’re the mafia.

You can’t swing a dead cat (or a live one, come to think of it) without finding a Boston blogger talking about the DNC. I’m going to talk about it anyway, in case the Boston Globe finds my site, sees how brilliant I am, and offers me a contract to write columns for them. Cause I would.

Yesterday, Mr. Crunchy posted a comment about the trash barrels being removed for our safety and protection.

Call me silly, but if trash cans are good bomb hiding places, wouldn’t someone have already done that? Just because the DNC is in town, would any more people be killed or hurt than on any OTHER day in town? Seems stupid to me, and not only that, because people still require a place to dispose of their coffee cups and newspapers, they are using the empty holders and trash is blowing all over the city. That makes a nice impression, doesn’t it?

The paranoia is amazing, but what makes it insulting to boot is that we didn’t bother taking these measures for the ordinary humans who spend every day working and living in Boston. If it’s so high-risk, why wait until now to make these changes? Is the head librarian from Cleveland who is part of the Ohio delegation that much more important than any one of the thousands of people who visit Boston or the Fleet center, or ride the subways with bags and boxes any other day of the week or year? Will democracy cave in if a bomb detonates at the Fleet Center next week? I doubt it. It would be a horrible, horrible thing, but not any more horrible than it detonating during a Bruins game, or an RV show. Politicians are not more important than the rest of us. They are supposed to BE the rest of us. So why aren’t we being “protected” as much as they are? Are they not replaceable? We do it all the time – every November some politician somewhere is being replaced.

Sorry, didn’t mean to go off on that, but reading about people being forced to take a week off without pay so the DNC folk can frolic at Fenway, have concerts, and go through the motions of picking John Kerry (over, huh, is there anyone else up for the position?) sickens me.

They say having the convention in your city brings in millions of dollars. I’m guessing that with all the extra expense (police overtime of $108k to protect us from…picketing police officers? Are you freaking kidding me?) breaking even is a pipe dream.

We’re going on a Grand Gathering vacation [editor’s note: At Walt Disney World] this fall with my sister’s family and my parents. I’m beyond excited about the whole thing, as it’s the first time since my honeymoon that I’m actually spending a week down there. Every other time we’ve gone in recent memory it’s been a long weekend or a short week (5 days) and I always feel so rushed. I reach the point where I don’t do some things I want to do because of some other things. And you feel like you’re wasting time if you just take an hour to relax by the pool.

Anyway, the reservations have been made for a while now, and we recently bought the plane tickets. This week’s focus is on deciding if there are any “must visit” restaurants so we can arrange priority seating. With 9 people in the group, I don’t want to leave it for the last minute, even if we are going during a slightly slower time of year.

Just read a news story about the stupid DNC problems, and this one just screams paranoia. I mean seriously, is this all part of the GOP’s secret plan to tick people off so much that they change party affiliations simply because the democratic national convention has turned life around here into a bloody nightmare? Seriously, are they causing this much problem in New York?

The story that set me off? They are changing the operating hours of the Somerville public pools. Are you kidding me? Are you seriously kidding me? Are the terrorists using public pools as headquarters?

What happened to that crap “If we give in to our fears the terrorists have won” that we were hearing over and over again in the early post-9/11 speeches? Suddenly it appears we not only gave in to our fears, but we’ve rolled over in submission to expose our bellies.

I’m thinking that if I lived in Boston, I would never ever never ever want another convention to come to town. Period. This whole thing has become absolutely moronic.