Cast of Characters

Shellie

After several years as the Administrator of a busy False Alarm Reduction Unit for a county Sheriff's Office, I am going on to my next adventure--law school. I will share my struggles and triumphs over the next three years. To make things even more interesting, I am going to a law school 500 miles away from home and will be living in the dorm. Wish me luck!

Hubster
A retired military officer who stays busy with work, but even busier training for triathlons and marathons. He successfully completed his first full Ironman before his 50th birthday. While training for his second Ironman, he qualified for the national triathlon championships for his age group.

Eldest
Our first child who is forging his way in the world.

Youngest
Our champion fencer who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of 14.

A. E. Ferret

Sadly, A. E. has left us after a valiant fight. We miss him every day!

Bella (named for Bela Lugosi, the actor who played Dracula)
Ferret with panda coloring who joined our family on February 24, 2017.

Count Chocula
Ferret with black mitt coloring who joined our family on February 24, 2017.

CiteBlue

I have been enjoying participating in the MSU College of Law Social Media Contest . I have learned (and am still learning) a lot. Because of my activity, I have been able to connect with organizations and people that I would never have come across without social media. For this introvert, it has been like opening a whole new world. (I know, most people would never guess that I am an introvert; they probably just think that I am a snob. In social settings, I am a complete misfit, but put me in front of a classroom or conference room and I shine. It is strange, I know, but that is me. Perhaps we will dissect that in a different post). It has been interesting to see what posts attract followers. It has also been eye opening to figure out that followers also appear with an agenda--for example, some follow hoping to be followed in return to build their own group. This week, a company called CiteBlue "followed" me on Twitter. I wasn't familiar with the company, so I clicked o...

Queen of the Dairy

Did you know that the Dairy Queen Blizzard turned 25 last year? I remember when the Blizzard was introduced which makes me officially...old. Anyway, there was no Dairy Queen in the town where I grew up but there was one where my great grandfather lived. Do you remember when a trip longer than 15 minutes lasted fuh evah? When I was little, the 65 minute drive to my great grandfather's small town felt like an eternity. Maybe it felt so long because I was hoping for that extremely rare occurrence of a stop at the Dairy Queen. My parents were teachers and the budget was always tight, but occasionally we would stop at DQ and we could get a small cone. We never got to choose--it was always just that small vanilla cone, but it was a treat nonetheless. Once I was able to drive and had a job, those stops at DQ were almost mandatory when I ventured on my own to my grandparents house. I probably tried something different each time-...

What is that Binocular Button anyway?

Sometimes we get so busy doing our jobs that we fail to take the time to learn more about the tools that we use everyday. For alarm administrators, that tool is often CryWolf® or another similar program. Once I had discovered the Text Select tool, I began looking at other items on the tool bar. In doing so, I found that clicking on the Binocular Button at the top right of a report (red arrow to the left) opens a search box. This makes sense because the binocular button is officially called the Find Text tool. To find what you are looking for, simply enter the word or number that you want to locate in the "Find What:" box (blue arrow below). If you want to limit the search, click on the search parameters boxes (green arrow below). Click the Search button (red arrow below) and the magic begins. In no time at all, the results of the search will be displayed in the results box (circled in black below). Here, the sample shows that I searched for t...

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