Thanks, Atticus

I'm back on the blog trail this morning, following vacation.  Atticus did a fine job filling for me on The Chief's Corner.  His posts were thoughtful and well done, and judging from the number of comments, pretty darned popular.  I see in one of the comments that someone suspects Atticus is actually me in disguise.  That got a good laugh.  I had to ask my kids who Chris Gaines was.  I vaguely knew Garth Brooks was some kind of country singer.  Atticus obtained an anonymous gmail account, and that's the only way I've had any contact with him.  As he reported, I gave him full control over my blog (he could have deleted the entire thing).  I'm as curious as anyone as to his identity, but it remains a mystery.

Atticus has been dropping plenty of clues, though.  We know this:  he is old enough to recall Officer Don Stacy's stint as a school resource officer in the early-mid 1970s.  Assuming he was somewhere between 8 and 12 during that period, I think that would put his birth year roughly between 1961 and 1968.  We also know Atticus is male, and his intimate knowledge of the field training process is informative.  He is clearly either a current or past FTO.  He was definitely a member of the department in 1994 (Atticus, I recognize that cluster of stars reference).  He was hired by Sgt. Jim Hawkins, which helps a little.  Assuming that his career began at the age of 22-25, he was probably hired between 1984 and 1993.  Putting all this together narrows the field to around 40, but there are plenty of people meeting these criteria who think and write clearly.  So, I'm still stumped.

Back to vacation:  it was great.  Aside from the fun of Friday afternoon rush hour traffic escaping San Francisco, we had a marvelous time.  Highway 1 along the coast in northern California was an adventure, and the wine country was beautiful.  We particularly enjoyed a farmer's market in Calistoga, our drives through the Russian River and Dry Creek valleys in Sonoma County in a rented Pontiac Solstice, and a leisurely visit to Sausalito. 

While the cell phone only rang four times, the inbox contained 237 emails between August 7 and August 15--and that's not counting spam, which I filter pretty effectively.  It will take some serious work to sort those requiring my attention and action from among the deluge that I am simply copied in on.  Trouble is, you have to read each to figure that out.  My calendar this week is already bursting with appointments, and there is  no doubt an impressive stack of phone messages awaiting me when I get to my desk later this morning.  As a result, The Chief's Corner may be a bit lamer than usual for a while.

I should have had Atticus stick around for the recovery week!