May 13, 2007 News Items
The following are odds and ends from the news this week ending May 13, 2007.
Minister Arrested, Charged With Cocaine Possession (from TBO.com)
TAMPA – A 70-year-old minister faces drug charges after police said he was found with 16 rocks of crack cocaine at his church Sunday.
David Brian Anton of Land O’ Lakes was approached by an officer in Living Word Fellowship church’s parking lot at 8216 N. 13th St., according to an arrest affidavit. Anton agreed to be searched and the officer noticed a plastic baggie with 16 rocks of crack cocaine in Anton’s left shirt pocket, the affidavit states. Police also recovered a crack pipe, according to the affidavit.
I’m just never really sure about these stories. If you knew you had a bag of crack and a crack pipe on you, why would you submit to a search? These kinds of incidents just always sound fishy to me.
No Time to Collect News
I just did not have much time last week to collect news. Heck, I didn’t even have time to read much news. I was on the road from Monday afternoon until about 1pm Saturday morning. This week was Chicago and Atlanta to work some software user-group conferences.
Not being clear what time we could take down the exhibit Friday afternoon at the Atlanta conference, I’d scheduled my flight for 8:15 getting home about 11pm. We were able to tear down fairly early, so we got to the airport about 4pm. The other guy with me had choices to get back to New York on a pretty much hourly basis, and plenty of seats available. There were only two earlier flights to Tampa, and both were book solid, as was my flight.
I don’t have status on Delta, so not only was I in the last row of seating, I knew I didn’t have much chance of being on one of the earlier flights. I tried to check in at the automated kiosks, and had some trouble. I got in the line for the agents, and noticed that my 8:15 flight was already delayed by 45 minutes. This is never good, and the delay is never just 45 minutes.
Lay called while I was waiting, and he had a good suggestion. We decided I’d probably wind up getting home about the same time if I rented a car and drove. Sounded like an OK idea with me. I had a good Audio Book (The Camel Club) on my phone, and new hack that will let me listen through a blue-tooth headset. I rent from Avis all the time, and called them, however they were saying they had no cars for one-way rental. I asked the supervisor to call the manager at the Atlanta station and ask him or her directly. I then got a car.
The drive went pretty well, and I was home about 1:30am, Saturday. I did get some traffic getting out of Atlanta, and I stopped to eat. I talked to a guy today that was on that flight, and he didn’t get home until nearly 1am taking the flight. It was further delayed.
The smoke from the wildfires was really thick in south Georgia and several miles into Florida. I stopped at GA exit 2 buy lottery tickets (Mega Millions was $122m…I figured I could get by on that if I won.), and just walking from the car into the store and back out made my clothes smell like smoke. It was really thick.
