What should you do when you are very certain someone you know well is a potential threat or danger to others? To make matters more complicated the person is already on probation, won’t take his prescribed psychotic medication, has been through the court system time and time again for serious offenses yet his lawyer keeps getting him off through court ordered drug / alcohol rehabilitation and plea deals. Daryl Stancil’s irrational, angry behavior may cause someone harm very soon.

I’ve known Daryl for years. He’s typically had a bad, paranoid attitude in between some humor and lightheartedness (bipolar?). He was put on Lithium which he quit taking. Recently I’ve had to avoid him but he still calls when he wants to play golf or if he’s in trouble and needs someone to project his shame, anger and remorse on. This was a recent voice mail he left me on the 4th of July:

Insert .wav Link (as soon as I can get it off my phone…)

During this call Daryl was blacked out, time traveling again… I later learned he screamed many racial slurs at his neighbors and flew into some kind of rage over another neighbor he is infatuated with, shook her around and broke her fence. Unfortunately he has a history of violence with women. There is an “Assault on a Female” conviction on his permanent record. He faced another of the same charge since I’ve been reacquainted with him but the woman never showed up for court to pursuit prosecution.

Obviously, in my opinion, he has become so angry, paranoid and delusional that he is an on-going danger to those around him. He probably should have faced serious jail time or mental incarceration a while ago. His lawyers and the courts have continued to give him the benefit of the doubt, addressing his cases as a substance abuse issue. The alcohol he consumes daily is only fuel on a fire that’s already burning. Ultimately his despair will lead him to hurt someone during a drunken rage. It’s really only a matter of time.

I once thought he could turn a corner. I halfheartedly believed he would reduce or stop his drinking, adjust his outlook on life, possibly go back to school and proceed to better himself. I now realize he is almost determined to be an angry, drunk, paranoid menace. His probation officers all turn a blind eye as long as he’s passing drug tests and paying his fines. Meanwhile I’m going to find a call blocking feature for my phone. He has alienated almost everyone from his life except his mother and his gay roommate who enjoys playing the roll of the battered, abused lover even though there is no relationship. Ya, it’s a whole different kind of crazy.

Update: Since time I wrote this post Daryl walked in to a halfway house, punched an innocent man in the face four times as he laid in bed, ran out and got into his mothers car who drove him away. Once again a criminal complaint was filed against him and the police went to his mothers house to investigate. Once again that’s as far as it went and nothing became of his out of control actions.

I have been a long time gangster fan. Not the wannabe gangsta thugs running around today but the real 1920’s and 30’s gangsters who invented and funded the original US crime syndicate before getting booted out of it. I was excited about seeing the movie Public Enemies because I heard it was historically accurate and I liked the idea of Johnny Depp as Dillinger.

Depp didn’t let me down in his role but as far as historical accuracy this movie could not have been any worse. From the opening scenes where Dillinger helps break his new gang out of the Indiana Penitentiary it’s all wrong. Dillinger was never present at the break out even though he did help arrange for the weapons to be smuggled in.

The scene introducing Agent Melvin Purvis was about as far off as it could be too. It’s said Purvis never fired his gun in the line of duty even though he was a crack shot. Despite this information he shoots and kills Pretty Boy Floyd at the beginning of the film. Charles Floyd was actually killed in October of 1934 almost four months after Dillinger. Three different accounts exist of how he was killed but none agree it was in an apple orchard.

The film also shows Baby Face Nelson getting killed during a chase following the gunfight at the Little Bohemia hide out which occurred in April 1934. Lester Gillis, AKA George Nelson, was actually the last of the notorious three killed in November of 1934. Purvis didn’t shoot him either. In fact, he wasn’t even there.

I can only guess these changes were made to glorify Melvin Purvis and compress the demise of these criminals into a time line suitable for a feature length film while interconnecting their associations and deaths. It made for an OK movie. It would have been a better movie if they had actually vilified Dillinger and Nelson through portrayals of heavy violence. Instead they concentrated far too much of the film on the romance of Dillinger almost to the point of making Melvin Purvis and the Bureau of Investigation looking like a bunch of buffoons getting lucky.

My smart phone doesn’t make me feel very smart.  I don’t like the constant chirp alerting me to new email.  I don’t like the inconvenience of a touch screen keypad when responding to in-call key prompts.  I don’t text, ever, and I don’t like responding to emails requiring lengthy explanations on a 4″ QWERTY keyboard.  I feel bad for allowing myself to become so mentally dependent on a device.

I really want a phone that has good battery life, doesn’t require a slide and 10 taps to dial and makes noise only when it’s suppose to.  Like when a call is coming in.  The problem is I’m an IT Director.   I’m suppose to be “geeked out” with this hi-tech stuff.  The owner and CFO of the company carry smart phones, an iPhone and a HTC Tilt 2 like mine.  Wonderful.  Now we can all struggle to communicate at once.

Does anyone care if I update Facebook or Twitter announcing what restaurant I’m in?  Is it critical I take pics of my kids with a poor resolution camera to upload immediately (I don’t do that anyway)?   And how has it gotten to the point where I feel obligated to pick up my phone and check an incoming email whenever I’m driving the car.  Which is really cool since it’s illegal now.

Truth is I want a phone to be something unique in the modern world of technology – a phone.   Because of corporate image and communication expectations I will carry this convoluted gadget around so all the high school kids will think I’m important because I’m a really connected guy.  You know, hangin’ out, texin’ whanot…..

It’s just after 10 AM on April 19th.  A date near the top of the Dept. of Homeland Security’s domestic terrorist watch list.  Will we make it through the day without a major, newsworthy event spawned by anti-authority activism?

• In 1995 Tim McVeigh blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people including children in the buildings day care.
• In 1993 the Branch Dividians burned themselves up, and took the lives of 20 children, ending a standoff against federal agents.
• In 1992 Randy Weaver gave newspaper reporters an interview to state that he had not fired on Geraldo Rivera’s helicopter flying over his Ruby Ridge cabin, then surrounded by federal authorities who later killed his dog and 14 year old son.  The helicopter pilot himself, Richard Weiss, gave the FBI FD-302 interviews denying that Weaver fired on his helicopter.   Rivera’s false media reports of coming under fire became a large part of the justification later cited by federal agents when drawing up the Ruby Ridge Rules of Engagement, a major event spawning anti-federal activism.
• In 1775 Minutemen in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts stood their ground against tax collectors sent by the King of England and the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired.  Although Minuteman Captain John Parker orders the colonists not to fire unless fired upon to this day it’s not clear who shot first.  Modern day anti-federal activists use the anniversary of this event to represent justification for resistance to what is perceived as unjust government authority.

Let’s see what the rest of today brings.  Whatever the wingnuts do, let’s hope they keep the kids out of it next time.

“Ask yourself this, when was the last time you thought seriously about a problem this country has (political, economic, health care, taxes etc) and found yourself changing your mind because you discovered some new fact you previously did not know or you arrived at a different understanding. If you can’t remember the last time this happened, then you are part of  America’s problem. Strict ideology has no place in a well run nation and that includes strict adherence to our constitution, a document that was written hundreds of years ago when society had no cars, planes, TV, internet, railroads, or anything else that makes up our modern world. Not to mention the fact that it permitted slavery and did not permit women or blacks to vote.” – Guest @ cnn.com

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/14/tea.party.rally/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

I haven’t had much time to write lately.  I’ve been too busy at work, playing with kids and playing golf.  But that doesn’t mean Raleigh’s gotten any smaller.  And since it’s growing relentlessly I’m more amazed every time I have a close connection to a local event.  This particular event rubbed a bad nerve with me and those directly effected may not appreciate my opinion.  That’s not unusual is it?

Some friends of mine, Daryl and Scotty, live in a big house on Glenwood Ave. which is divided into five apartments.  The girl that used to live next door, Shawntel Pichardo, was dating a self indulging high roller, Daniel Barillas.   Shawntel worked (or works?) for Lainie Panos, who owns the Primp Salon Bar and lives in the apartment unit above Daryl and Scotty.

I only saw Daniel Barillas one time in my life when he was getting out of his red Maserati parked in front of Shawtel’s apartment.  I’ve heard some wild rumors though.  There were stories floating around about how Daniel owned part of a professional sports team and some other potential fabrications.  He was actually a partner in a local fire protection company.  Daniel had a 6 year-old son, just like me.  He recently got Shawntel pregnant and she gave birth to his second child not long ago.  They were engaged.

On March 28th Daniel decided to speed through downtown Raleigh at about 1 AM and then proceeded to run from a NC State Trooper on Capital Blvd. Daniel tried to exit on to the beltline from Capital and lost control of his red Maserati, hit a group of trees next to the on ramp and got killed.  WTF was he thinking?

I hear Daniel was quite a player.  Daryl said one of the things he verbally confronted Daniel about was his apparent flirting with some of the wait staff and bar tenders at Tobacco Road while Shawtel was probably home with their kids.  Don’t know if this portrayal of Daniel accurately describes his common behavior but here’s what I do know: the state Highway Patrol believes alcohol was a factor in the speeding and wreck that killed the guy.  They are waiting for the toxicology report from medical examiners to confirm.  While I feel sorry for Shawntel and horrible for his kids I have no remorse for any ass-clown that thinks so very little of his children and their mother.

If alcohol was a factor one day his children will learn the reason their father died:  He decided to get drunk and tried to outrun a cop in his fancy red sports car.  In the past I have been guilty of driving drunk.  No state secret there.  Recently I was literally yelled at for not willingly drinking more than a beer or two when I knew I had to drive.  When Amy and I go out I am the designated driver.  I make this sacrifice, if you care to call it that, strictly because I don’t want my children to grow up knowing their father died a stupid, avoidable statistic.

Daniel Barillas, an otherwise successful guy with a beautiful fiancee and kids, died a stupid statistic because he didn’t want to go to jail.  He died because alcohol fueled bad judgment.  You’ve got to wonder why he couldn’t put others in his life ahead of his next drink and a wild joy ride?  He didn’t go down in flames of glory.  He went out like a joke with a really bad punch line.  I doubt I’m the only one who shares this controversial, yet unspoken opinion.

There are so many reasons Blackberry’s suck that it’s not even worth the effort to generate a yet another list on the interwebs. You can just Google “blackberry sucks” and you’ll see what I mean. Their parent company, Research In Motion or RIM, has been responsible for more data service outages to the phones than any Exchange server administrator would be allowed while keeping his job.

RIM puts obscure middleware servers between the phones and mail servers, called Blackberry Enterprise Servers, which connect to the RIM network.  The polling process by these systems put a lot of overhead on the Exchange server(s). Meanwhile the users are stuck with God awful handsets with unintuitive user interfaces, evil scroll wheels, lack of quality document support for Word and Excel, and very few units support 3G which doesn’t matter because the browser makes the surfing experience pathetic anyway.

The Blackberry brand will fail for RIM very soon without drastic changes. Compared to other smart phones they just don’t match up. Most younger consumers who are in “touch” with technology realize the limitations and clumsy interfaces of the Blackberry OS and laugh at it. Meanwhile I can tell you from direct corporate experience the only people who continue to want them anymore are old men. To define old I mean the 55+ crowd. They don’t know any better, they’re scared to be misinterpreted as hip or cool with a modern touch screen smart phone when their fellow executives (also old men) whip a Blackberry out of their golf bags with strong, conservative business pride.

That’s why I now call Blackberry’s “hearing aids”. They’re for old men who think that an iPhone’s and Droids are just toys for teenagers who want to watch Hulu videos all day. The blackberry will go the way of the aging members of its support base.  And just like the hyper-conservatives who carry them Blackberry won’t make a comeback because anal-retentive is not something that’s going to come back into style for at least a few decades.

It looks like many mobile versions of facebook and google gadgets that depend on the mobile interface are broken today thanks to new code introduced by facebook.

I really think that in terms of user interface changes, consistency and reliability facebook is one of the absolute worst web 2.0 site in development. It’s like they constantly fix what isn’t broken just to keep people employed.

Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning said he doesn’t oppose extending the programs — he just doesn’t want to add to the deficit.

via Lone senator blocks unemployment benefit extensions – CNN.com.

Why is it that many Republicans have no problem running up the meter to fund illegal and unnecessary wars of aggression but have an issue with increasing the national debt to help fellow Americans?