Funny/Odd things heard on the scanner

[Benkasey]

Heard today on the local PD channel.
"Units respond to a call about a male possibly carrying a handgun walking near the DMV. Suspect is wearing a manbun."

Advice to perps. Stay away from extreme hairdoos.

Dragnet TV Show. Sargeant Friday interviewing a witness.
Friday: "Was the suspect wearing anything unusual? Any scars, tatoos, marks of any kind?"
Witness: "He was wearing a manbun."
Friday: "Excuse me, a man what?"
Witness: "A manbun".
Friday: "Would you please spell that for me."
Witness: "m-a-n-b-u-n".
Friday: "Thank god I only have one more year before I can retire and collect a pension."

 

[JDKelley]

For sure, indeed.

I fairly recently retired from one of the three-letter agencies. Obviously worked with many such agencies throughout my career, some well-known, some extremely obscure to all but those who cared to know.

We had access— as needed— to technology that was far ahead of anything being hinted at or theorized in the media. Heck, thinking about it for a moment…fifteen years ago we were using things that an online search today will not even give results about because it’s been kept hidden. There’s not even conspiratorial websites making guesses at some of it! It’s just completely unknown to the public. I think everyone from the developers to the end users knew to keep their mouths shut in the best interest of everyone, and honored that commitment.

I was very new at the job when one of the senior technical gurus pulled me aside when he saw me in awe of what a certain system would do. He explained to me that while we had working, functional, proven tools available— not ideas or prototypes, but the working end product— we were receiving the crumbs and leftovers claimed by the military, who had the really super impressive stuff.

I know - I was Air Farce. Thirty-five years ago, satellites that could read license places were "a couple of generations ago." Thinking about the curve technology was moving along then, I can imagine what they have now - I'm sure they can read whatever novel I happen to be reading outside without any difficulty. I could look at pictures of Daytona Beach spring break and tell you measurements on the girls without any real trouble - as long as I had something in the frame of known size for reference (it's an old party thing - one of the guys who bring a girl up I hadn't seen before she was walking up to me, and I could scan her up and down and start rattling off her measurements - bust/waist/hips, cup size, bicep, collar, shoe size, glove size, hat size - basically, anything that had a size to it. Weight, if she was interested, I whispered into her ear, but I don't understand how dress sizes work. There are too many numbers involved in measuring a woman, how can they all be reduced to a single number?)

But I could do the same thing with pix of Daytona Beach (or any other spring break destination,) from LEO, 35 years ago. Now? They could probably tell you which hand is dominant from how the bikini top is tied...

 

[ratboy]

One of my favorite things to listen to back in the Conrail days were the arguments about the condition or cleanliness of locomotives, at least the leading ones. A lot of them went like this:

TC(train crew): TV1 to dispatch.
Dis:Go ahead TV1.
TV1: Uhhh, we have 6424 as the leader on this train, and it's just not acceptable.
Dis: (sighing) TV1.....what's the problem?
TV1: This thing is just disgusting and we aren't going to take it.
Dis: What is the problem?
TV1:The toilet is a mess and the reek is too much.
Dis: TV1, there is nothing else available until Elkhart.
TV1: Well, this train's not going to Elkhart or anywhere else!
Dis: Ok, let me make some calls....(20 min goes by, at least)
Dis: TV1, Walbridge.
TV1: TV1, go ahead.
Dis: TV1, the trainmaster says to take the train to Elkhart!
TV1: WE AREN'T TAKING IT ANYWHERE! I'M CALLING THE UNION REP! THERE'S CRAP EVERYWHERE AND WE ARE REFUSING IT!
Dis: Stand by....
Dis: Someone is coming to clean up the mess.
TV1: Ok....jeez, why was that such an ordeal?
Dis: Well, Conrail.

The alternate subjects of problems were:
Loco can't be a leader when it gets to Chicago.
Train is very underpowered. That happened a lot. When one of the strings of light power(A bunch of just locos heading the other way or passing them) would pass them, things got real tense, "Why can't we have one of those?" "Well, you can't!". The early days after the split weren't much better.

Locos with major problems. One time, I was passed by a train pulled by whatever they could find that ran. Two of the 4 locos weren't loading and had alarm bells as they passed. There was the smell of a cooking or cooked traction motor, and soon after it got past Swanton, Oh, something finally died and the train was going nowhere. Lots of heated talk back and forth. About an hour later, a string of then new locos passed me in Holland, Oh, and the train was soon moving west again. About an hour after that, a local passed by eastbound, with the 4 locos towed dead in back of the two engines pulling the train. One of those locos was an older Geep, and it never made it back into service, it got sold and ended up being chopped up. Someone put pics of it's final hours on one of the early pic websites.

Another funny deal was when a CSX track crew was called for a minor derailment in Walbridge. The foreman was a guy I went to high school with. I don't know the whole story, but he was on the radio a bunch of times, seriously frustrated and angry, and he kept saying that the minor derailment should have been done "hours ago", but he couldn't get something he needed and was waiting for a crew to bring one from Columbus. He waited a long time, and was snapping at the dispatcher every time the dispatcher called to check on the status of the repairs. "Listen, I will CALL YOU when I know something, or when the part gets here, OK?". The dispatcher told him that someone "upstairs" was asking him, so he got asked. "Tell that....guy to just call me, OK?". About 6 hours after the wreck happened, the part showed up and an hour later, the train was on it's way out of Walbridge.

 

[BinaryMode]

And SR pilots were borderline astronauts anyhow, and a different breed of cat (just like A-10 drivers - those guys are whacked! But stand-up fellas in a bar fight... My three favourite pilots: any sled driver, any A-10 driver, and any medevacker. All those guys are crazy, just in different ways.)

Oh, I'll take your word for it. Can't imagine what medevac pilots are like when they have to get in there, you know.

Or the hypersonic (M5+) they've got in the works at the Skunk Works. You know they're in the practical stages now - they had it on the drawing boards 15-20 years ago.

Always figure that Defense is a good 10-20 years ahead of the stuff that you know about...

Ever since I went to the library for the first time as a child I immediately made a bee line to the UFO's and aliens books which they did have for kids in c. 1990. Then a couple years after I would watch the X-Files and after that a show called Sightings narrated by Tim White. I was dedicated to those two TV shows every Sunday on Fox I think it was. It was the show Sightings that introduced me to this so-called "Dreamland" since it was about that time Bob Lazar really put the place on the map so to speak. From that day forward I wanted to learn more about this cool place and did realize at the time that with the U-2, SR-71, F-117A, B-2, Valkyrie et al they were most likely several decades beyond what we see now. Heck, for a moment we (the general public) saw stealth helicopters thanks to Operation Neptune Spear and a snafu...

I personally think that what they may be working on now is autonomous aircraft. That's what I'd do. Stuff that fly's by its self and at high speed and altitude. I'm wondering if one day they'll make the F/A-22 unmanned. Now you can pull the code out that limits the pilot from killing themselves and that jet will be THAT much more awesome to say the least. LOL

While living in California I got a taste of what it must be like to be at Area-51 when I went to KEDW a few times to watch the Shuttle land. Remember that? Kids now-a-days have no idea. I also built Area-51 in FS2004 using real Sat imagery. It was like I was really there and I did test MY aircraft there and whatnot. Today, with the prevalent nature of AI I can "dream" up anything, run it in a CAD-like program and throw it in the Sim. With that being said, you have to wonder what AI has done for the three letter agencies and DoD. Stuff is getting better by the month, let me tell you.

Anyway...

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Mechanical issues are one thing but why people have to be such disgusting pigs when it comes to potty habits in another.
Thanks for the interesting story.

 

[JDKelley]

Oh, I'll take your word for it. Can't imagine what medevac pilots are like when they have to get in there, you know.




Ever since I went to the library for the first time as a child I immediately made a bee line to the UFO's and aliens books which they did have for kids in c. 1990. Then a couple years after I would watch the X-Files and after that a show called Sightings narrated by Tim White. I was dedicated to those two TV shows every Sunday on Fox I think it was. It was the show Sightings that introduced me to this so-called "Dreamland" since it was about that time Bob Lazar really put the place on the map so to speak. From that day forward I wanted to learn more about this cool place and did realize at the time that with the U-2, SR-71, F-117A, B-2, Valkyrie et al they were most likely several decades beyond what we see now. Heck, for a moment we (the general public) saw stealth helicopters thanks to Operation Neptune Spear and a snafu...

I personally think that what they may be working on now is autonomous aircraft. That's what I'd do. Stuff that fly's by its self and at high speed and altitude. I'm wondering if one day they'll make the F/A-22 unmanned. Now you can pull the code out that limits the pilot from killing themselves and that jet will be THAT much more awesome to say the least. LOL

While living in California I got a taste of what it must be like to be at Area-51 when I went to KEDW a few times to watch the Shuttle land. Remember that? Kids now-a-days have no idea. I also built Area-51 in FS2004 using real Sat imagery. It was like I was really there and I did test MY aircraft there and whatnot. Today, with the prevalent nature of AI I can "dream" up anything, run it in a CAD-like program and throw it in the Sim. With that being said, you have to wonder what AI has done for the three letter agencies and DoD. Stuff is getting better by the month, let me tell you.

Anyway...

Hey - I'm old enough that I watched Challenger happen, live, on TV, in middle school.

What got me hooked on the written word was my mom had a book on unsolved mysteries, and I found out about the Oak Island Money Pit. Kickstarted me on both reading and engineering.

Autonomous aircraft, I am sure, have been in the works for at least ten years. The limiting factors for the maneuverability of aeroplanes is the tolerance of the pilot for G-forces - and how much the pilot can handle before a "red out" or a "grey out"/"black out." If you can put the pilot on the ground and outside of the airframe, you've just removed the biological limitation from the aircraft, and you can effectively design something that can make right-angle turns in the air without any real trouble. Granted, you lose the "seat of the pants" flying intuition that is afforded to the pilot (having flown aerobatics in a Stearman, I can attest to just how important that "feeling" can really be!) but you pick up hypersonic manuverability, where the only real limit is inertia.

I haven't really played with AI (yet...) but I'm sure that DoD et al has something a lot smarter than ChatGPT4 to talk to, given the hardwarde they've got to run things on...

 

[JDKelley]

The dispatcher told him that someone "upstairs" was asking him, so he got asked. "Tell that....guy to just call me, OK?". About 6 hours after the wreck happened, the part showed up and an hour later, the train was on it's way out of Walbridge.

"I will be done when I am done and not one damned minute before! And the more you pester me, the longer it will take me to finish. Pester me enough, and I will deliberately drag my feet on the job out of spite. Now, go away until I call you..."

(Actually, I think I said, "I don't want to hear from you until I call you," but the sentiment is largely the same.)

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Oh, I'll take your word for it. Can't imagine what medevac pilots are like when they have to get in there, you know.




Ever since I went to the library for the first time as a child I immediately made a bee line to the UFO's and aliens books which they did have for kids in c. 1990. Then a couple years after I would watch the X-Files and after that a show called Sightings narrated by Tim White. I was dedicated to those two TV shows every Sunday on Fox I think it was. It was the show Sightings that introduced me to this so-called "Dreamland" since it was about that time Bob Lazar really put the place on the map so to speak. From that day forward I wanted to learn more about this cool place and did realize at the time that with the U-2, SR-71, F-117A, B-2, Valkyrie et al they were most likely several decades beyond what we see now. Heck, for a moment we (the general public) saw stealth helicopters thanks to Operation Neptune Spear and a snafu...

I personally think that what they may be working on now is autonomous aircraft. That's what I'd do. Stuff that fly's by its self and at high speed and altitude. I'm wondering if one day they'll make the F/A-22 unmanned. Now you can pull the code out that limits the pilot from killing themselves and that jet will be THAT much more awesome to say the least. LOL

While living in California I got a taste of what it must be like to be at Area-51 when I went to KEDW a few times to watch the Shuttle land. Remember that? Kids now-a-days have no idea. I also built Area-51 in FS2004 using real Sat imagery. It was like I was really there and I did test MY aircraft there and whatnot. Today, with the prevalent nature of AI I can "dream" up anything, run it in a CAD-like program and throw it in the Sim. With that being said, you have to wonder what AI has done for the three letter agencies and DoD. Stuff is getting better by the month, let me tell you.

Anyway...

That makes sense. Nothing dark or sinister but just secret research on new technology for aircraft.
HEHE, I'm convinced that if they ever have open house at Area 51, you'll find warehouses full of pens, combs, ice scrapers, and socks. That has to be where those things end up.

 

[sonm10]

Can we please keep to the topic of the thread - the past couple pages a filled with gibberish.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Lighten up Francis.

 

[hill]

Heard a dispatch for local the County Fire Department this morning for a 400 LBS man stuck in his recliner.

Never a dull moment for the Fire and EMS crews.

 

[EAFrizzle]

I hear lots of calls to first responders for "lift assistance".

 

[sonm10]

I hear lots of calls to first responders for "lift assistance".

That's normal

 

[BinaryMode]

That makes sense. Nothing dark or sinister but just secret research on new technology for aircraft.
HEHE, I'm convinced that if they ever have open house at Area 51, you'll find warehouses full of pens, combs, ice scrapers, and socks. That has to be where those things end up.

I wanted a better image but this is all I got while wearing my full spectrum invisible suite...

 

[Randyk4661]

I wanted a better image but this is all I got while wearing my full spectrum invisible suite...

How did you get out alive with a picture of the North Korean missile defense system?

 

[TGuelker]

a 400 LBS man stuck in his recliner.

Son’s friend is a volunteer firefighter. Had a call to take a large man to the hospital. They ended up using a chainsaw to his front door to get him out.

 

[chrismol1]

Happens occasionally

Some time ago, EMS responded and requested fire priority 1 for assistance. Patient had fallen in the bathroom and wedged between the wall. Fire chief got there and requested a re-tone for all available manpower. Patients weight was told as 600 pounds and they ended up ripping out the toilet and tub and then the entire wall around the bathroom and subsequently the front door. There was talk of cutting a hole in the exterior building wall closest to the bathroom just to get out there quicker. They were on scene for hours

 

[JDKelley]

Happens occasionally

Some time ago, EMS responded and requested fire priority 1 for assistance. Patient had fallen in the bathroom and wedged between the wall. Fire chief got there and requested a re-tone for all available manpower. Patients weight was told as 600 pounds and they ended up ripping out the toilet and tub and then the entire wall around the bathroom and subsequently the front door. There was talk of cutting a hole in the exterior building wall closest to the bathroom just to get out there quicker. They were on scene for hours

I have never understood how people let themselves get that big. I know I need to lose weight - I'm 300#, at 6'3". It's a challenge, since my thyroid shut down when I broke my neck, but I'm working at it (it doesn't help that it hurts to move, I've gotten awfully beat-up over the years....)

 

[CrabbyMilton]

I hear lots of calls to first responders for "lift assistance".

Sadly that happens more often than you think. My mom was in decline for about the last 2-3 years of her life. She passed away at the age of 81 in a hospice facility earlier this year. She wasn't a heavy person at all but she fell a few times and once she couldn't get off the toilet. It just wasn't practical for one person(me) to lift her without hurting her. So with her consent, I called it in.

 

[TGuelker]

Sadly that happens more often than you think. My mom was in decline for about the last 2-3 years of her life. She passed away at the age of 81 in a hospice facility earlier this year. She wasn't a heavy person at all but she fell a few times and once she couldn't get off the toilet. It just wasn't practical for one person(me) to lift her without hurting her. So with her consent, I called it in.

Years ago my wife took a bath and couldn’t get out of the tub. She was considered obese at the time (she is on Mounjaro now and has slimmed considerably) so she called for my help. Imagine trying to get a slippery woman out of the tub. We ended up laughing and she managed to get out by herself.
When I hear a dispatcher call for lift assistance at a nursing home, I presume that is because the employees at the nursing home are not allowed to lift because of a possible lawsuit from being lifted incorrectly, but who pays for the lift?