My LE Career Diary

[tbird412]

I am a memory obsessed person (as in sentimental etc.). For instance my wife and I have a journal that we've kept from the first ultrasound (blog format, so it includes pics and videos etc.) of our now 5 month old son. We have journaled every aspect of his life, as seen from our eyes, so when he is older he can read back on it and get a good read out of it.

So in my epic career switch (computer programmer for my entire life, to now after 3 years of trying, I am finally getting into law enforcement) I decided to kind of blog my journey from day 1 of the academy all the way until .... well ... I guess once I can't log things anymore.

So no real point to this post. Just wanted to share my little personal career "diary" if you would. Most will probably shrug it off as boring, some may find it fun to read. And some of you who are veterans may really enjoy reading the thoughts of someone so new to the business (hell I am not even out of the academy yet). Maybe remind you of those days when you were first starting out.

Hope you enjoy

http://www.beckwebsite.com/mblog/

P.S. - Please don't 'spread' this site to others. I don't mind sharing my personal stories here. And I realize this does not make it "secure", as this is a public forum. There's nothing to hide on my site, no sensitive information or anything like that.

[paratroop]

Hey, that's really good. Good luck to you with the rest of your career.

[paratroop]

Hey, I especially liked the EVOC videos. I start the academy on May 14th and I'm a little nervous about the EVOC course.

[tbird412]

Oh man, EVOC was the most fun we had. Just practice driving backwards and you'll ace EVOC.

[alpha1906]

When do you all graduate?

[tbird412]

We graduated on the 27th

[IronFist74]

Hey T-Bird, what agency are you going with, I am at Clayton Cty regional academy right now in my 7th week, 3 1/2 left to go. I have EVOC down a Fors coming up. How was the written test?

[tbird412]

EVOC in general was a joke. I got a 100% on the written test. I didn't touch a single cone the entire time we were down there. Never spun out in the skids. The braking exercise was almost funny, that's how simple it is. The off road recovery was just fun really, nothing much to it. Steer off, steer on. The cone course is where most people have trouble. Just be good at driving backwards. I've been boating on a VERY regular basis for 20 years. I back a trailer up multiple times per week for most of those years. The only EVOC errors I made was the first two times (as in EVER, the first practice times) I ran the cone course I did a 2:31 and a 2:39 (both fail, as they are under the minimum). So my Capt turned on my A/C in the car and told me to "Slow the f--- down boy" and I did it in 2:54 on my actual test later that week.

Not tooting my horn. Please don't take it as that. EVOC really was just THAT easy. ONLY problem is being able to drive backwards good down a winding path. If you can do that, you will think EVOC is a joke, seriously. Parallel parking stumps a lot of people too. But the stumping part is their coordination when backing up. LISTEN to the advice of the instructors. They will tell you to point your dole light at a specific cone, turn your wheels at a specific cone, etc. If you follow their advice, you can get screamed at for finishing the cone course too fast.

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As for my agency, I prefer not to say out in public. I can say that there's nobody there that I know of that was ever at Clayton though.

[IronFist74]

Yeah Being from NY, para-parking is easy for me. I will send you a private message with my home number in it. Clayton is supposed to be the top academy in GA, its hard because its so para military but other than that they wind down when you dont mess up as much. Good luck with everything, you too Para-troop.

[tbird412]

Oh, ok. The NEGPA I went to was very NON-para-military. We rarely did any PT and DTs were pretty laid back. Basically a ton of school work and very laid back practicals.

[IronFist74]

Check you're messages. I need to ask you something.

[Rapax]

Yeah Being from NY, para-parking is easy for me. I will send you a private message with my home number in it. Clayton is supposed to be the top academy in GA, its hard because its so para military but other than that they wind down when you dont mess up as much. Good luck with everything, you too Para-troop.

Did you say "Clayton is SUPPOSED to be the top academy in GA". Now that's funny. When did that happend. I haven't been made aware!!! I have never heard that Clayton had the best academy and I work in the metro Atl.
hrm....in all seriousness I have never heard ANYTHING about them. Cobb and Gwinett on the other hand I have heard plenty about....

[IronFist74]

^Every instructor that teaches there has said so, I am just going by what they said. I have a friend in Cobb & their academy is pretty long. My LT. said that Cobb just started going to Para military. It might be just Hearsay.

[steve h]

yalls personal opinion because I have no clue, which would be harder. Clayton county academy, or GSP trooper school.

[Rapax]

Trooper school. You live eat and breath trooper school...at least you get to go home from local academies.

Cobb has been paramilitary for years, sometimes the PT is to the extreme.