Your preference...
 

I started out toward my game with plenty of time, but on the way there it started to snow, which absolutely no one had predicted. Literally no one. it was a long drive, and the snow got heavier and heavier and traffic got slower and slower and by the time I got to the game, well, I was late, even though I really had left plenty of time.

Okay, so here's the question. Would you rather have your partner who is arriving late come in the gym all ready to run and just step right onto the floor, or would you rather have your partner arrive and then spend three or four more minutes getting ready (attaching whistle, fastening back hair, tying shoes)? I had done all the prep stuff in the car, and I just walked right into the game, but other times, I've arrived not yet floor ready and gone on in. Which is better?

All that matters is being there in time for the game. That is all I care about. How you get onto the floor is not my concern or something I think that much about.

Peace

I don't know level of your situation, but to to expand on JRuts comments, being there in time for the game for me is a min. 60 minutes before for tipoff for a typical HS varsity game. Anything less is unusual and communicating that with your partners prior to is a must. With cellphones/texting/email not communicating is unacceptable.

Point being that even if you were late, you would of been early.

The same thing could be said if the visiting team ends up getting to the site late, due to unforseen circumstances.

Unfortunately with the changing weather conditions it doesn't help much. Not everyone has a cell phone to call ahead to warn about showing up late.

What does that have to do with anything. :rolleyes: If the visiting team shows up late, are you still going to tipoff at the scheduled time? :rolleyes: No, your going to let them dress and give them 15 minutes to warmup.

You can't take this avocation seriously and not have a cell phone. It's part of doing business.

I can understand where Juulie is coming from, having driven through the same storm to get to and from my game today. The snow was not forecast and caught everyone by surprise. It also started late enough (mid-afternoon) that there wasn't enought time to compensate.

I made it on time, but my assigned partner got caught in a major traffic jam and didn't make it. Fortunately one of the officials from the earlier game was able to stay and work it with me.

It took me 3 hours to get home from the game site - normally takes about 20 min.

Very true about the cell phone, however with strictler regulations coming out against the use of cell phones while driving means that more time is being used in having to find a safe place to pull off the road to make the phone call.

Normally, hopefully, in the case of the visiting team showing up late they should have a way to get ahold of the host school's AD to alert them to the fact that they're arriving late.

I was stating about the visiting team because of the fact that if it can happen to the officials, it could also happen to the teams.

Juulie,

My preference would be for my partner to be ready to step on the floor and go. However, living in a state that bills itself as having "The Greatest Snow On Earth", I have to say that coming in from the snow wearing your court shoes and going right onto the floor is a bad idea. So in this case (delayed by freak snow storm) you've pretty much got to come in and at least swap shoes before you step on the court. Just keep the delay as brief as possible.

Personally, I think cell phone laws are stupid, as more people are distracted by their radios, lunch, makeup, cigarettes, books, magazines, etc., then cell phones. I don't bother pulling over for a phone call, because talking on my cell phone is no different than talking to a passenger.

Hopefully you have no plans on driving in Oregon as they just passed a new law there that makes talking on the cell phone a primary infraction for getting pulled over.

Yeah, more people are far more distracted by eating, smoking, or beautification while driving than cell phones.

I use a headset when it's required. I drive on military bases (usually Air Force) often, and it's been a DOD regulation for years. Personally, I understand the concept, but I find it useless and arbitrary.

Texting laws, I understand, even if I think they're just going to lead to more accidents due to people placing their phone where it can't be seen from the outside while they text.

CO just passed a law on it, too. Under 18, no cell phones period. Adults get added to the no-texting laws.

Like others I try to get to games very early - hr for V, 45 min for JV, 30 min for Rec and everything else (it's the military in me).

If I am even late (as above) I will use my cell to call my partner, whose number I have readily available for just that occasion - traffic, weather, accident, breakdown, etc. I have used it several times. Partners are greatly appreciative if you are not there to at least know you are enroute and just a few minutes out - I know I am.

That being said, if I am working by myself, I would like my partner to jump on the court as quickly as possible - if that means you're dressed already, GREAT! Just a change of shoes - DO IT FAST! But, whatever you do, don't dilly-dally and take your time.... :mad:

The Oregon law doesn't generally ban talking on the phone while driving, it just requires the use of a "hands free" device. There are also a whole bunch of exemptions....

How do you know that? There's nothing in Juulie's post that indicates that the trip DIDN"T take more than an hour longer than she expected.

I agree that if she had a cell phone, she could have called.

You act like that's the frist state / locality to pass such a rule. It's probably not in the first 50 to do so.

Personally, I think they should remove all similar laws and just pass one that replaces the airbags in the sterring column with barbed spikes.

Stupid law for stupid people.

I think DC may have been the first.

If it weren't for stupid people, we wouldn't need laws. Just think of how many out of work politicians we'd have laying around, clogging up the arteries of society. ;)

Well, maybe if there weren't so many accidents resulting from texting and driving we wouldn't need stupid laws.

Juulie,

The main premise in your post for me is you arrived safely. Everything in between is not as important. Who is to say your partner had a cellphone readily available or they could get reception? This is a mute point.

Personally, if you come in ready fine or you take a few moments to get ready that is fine too.

If you were the partner, what would be your approach to a late arriving partner?

We wouldn't start. We can't start a game in WI with one official at any HS level.

And it doesn't matter either.

With no cell phone, the point may well have been mute. :D

Exemptions: using of a hands-free device, calling in an emergency, other exemptions.

How the news up here is reporting it is how I was stating it, that there in Oregon if you're holding your cell phone & driving, they can pull you over just for that alone.

Not the same here in Washington, they have to pull you over for something else (speeding, reckless driving, etc.) & catch you talking on your cell phone while the infraction is happening.

What if you're an ambulance driver? Can you talk on your cell phone to get directions to pick up an injured player? You should hurry because some states won't allow a parent to check on this player in the meantime.

Yeah the one exemption that doesn't make some sense, emergency vehicle operators can actually talk on their cell phones while holding it while on the job. I can see if they're getting directions to an accident scene, but not to talk business other than what they need to be doing.

Here our ambulance crew is volunteer, most of the time the driver is on the phone, it's due to their farm business or family calls them while they're driving the ambulance.

Around here the most prevalent "driving while celling" offenders are police officers and state troopers.

Hadn't heard about that in this part of the state. Wrecks or just "citizen reports?"

How often are the most guilty ones, law enforcement, in any violation?

No, just my personal observation. It's not against the law down here, but I swear, every time I see a state trooper on I-64 they are gabbing on the phone, and they never look like official calls.

As I posted earlier, there is a whole list of exemptions, including employment related activities - here's the url of the actual bill that was enacted.

http://www.leg.state.or.us/09reg/mea...r/hb2377.a.pdf

Good to know.

My son goes to CNU. I detest 64 between Richmond and Norfolk if there's more than one other vehicle on the road! Especially on a Friday during the spring/summer months. :)

I don't know, how often? As a former military policeman, I await your well informed, statistcally backed up answer.

Juulie - was your game at the Nike Interstate Shootout in L.O.?

No, I'm not back up to that level yet. Maybe next year. This was freshman girls at Lakeridge. I left plenty of time, knowing that Lakeridge is tricky to get to in the best of times, but didn't expect to arrive more than about 20 minutes early.

So are you going to adjust your game day routine to allow for freak snow storms? :D

At the risk of running totally off topic-- I'm a firm believer in global warming, and these kinds of freak storms are proof. If the weather were the same as 100 years ago, I'd have allowed for it, since it wouldn't have been anything like "freak". This stuff happened fairly often and a winter with no snow (especially from Christmas forward) was extremely rare. These days, we've got mostly pretty mild winters with maybe one or two storms, generally very light and quick. Just not worth planning for. Especially not for a single freshman girls game in the middle of the afternoon, on a day when every weather forecaster in town is calling for dryer warmer weather for the next three or four days! ( And I was on the floor within about 30 seconds of the tip!)

I wouldn't know personally, haven't been around quite that long, so I'll have to defer to your greater experience:D:D:D:D:D:D:D gotcha!

Juulie - if we were scheduled to work a game together and you were even 30 seconds late, I would be furious. After all, you're just taking precious time away from me getting to be in ecstasy working with you. :)

Such lovely traffic!!!
 

I agree. Weekend traffic on 64 & 95 around the River City (Richmond) is horrendous.

What does an official call look like ?:)

I've heard that the coppers are now using cell phones to receive info from the dispatch. It some areas it's now SOP to use the cell phone versus the old Squad 54 method.

Communicating with dispatch and other officers/supervisors to discuss calls for service via cell phone is pretty common now a days. It is a lot easier to call dispatch and relay details of a call for them to enter into the computer logs and close the call than it is to relay this information over the radio. There are also plenty of times when the field supervisors or watch commanders want a heads up on a situation before the officer writes the report out.

I'm sure there are also some personal calls being made too but multi-tasking behind the wheel is a fact of life in law enforcement. :)

Car 54 ...
 

Where are you?

http://thm-a03.yimg.com/image/be9ecb9df3488c78

Thought of you guys tonight over dinner......
 

How sad is that?

Local news showed your "freak snow storm" and all the abandoned cars along side of the roads. Made me feel like DC drivers aren't so bad after all (they are though). ;)

And now we do...

Freshman game or not....20 minutes before tip is setting yourself up for issues.

And how the EFF do you know this? Do you ride around w/ them on every call? Do you stop at car wrecks and point out their mistakes like you do to referees, I mean you are an expert at everything. It's not true what they say about ***-U-MING. The only person you are making an *** out of is yourself, and you do it quite well. I swear you know everything about everything and everybody and nobody does anything right enough for you.

I have tried to tolerate you and your stupid *** posts full of assumptions and general know-it-all-ness but I can't anymore. You are an annoying pain in the *** and I will now be trying to locate some kind of an ignore button on here.

The "edit ignore list" feature is located under "User CP" feature in the upper left of the forum.

He Has It Memorized ...
 

Sounds like grunewar has some experience with this feature. He probably won't be reading this because I'm sure that I'm on his ignore list.

Billy who?
 

Actually, I've never used it. But have had a recent PM discussion with an esteemed colleague about it and have looked into it.....

Before the insurance changed to where only the ambulance crew is with the patient, I rode shotgun when my wife was being transported the 65 miles to the hospital. Like I have stated in a previous post, the ambulance crews here are volunteer, since this area is high in agriculture it's common place for the driver or other ambulance crew members to be involed with farming.

Bermuda Triangle or Twilight Zone?
 

Where am I?

Unfortunately, my hospital insurance coverage is about as good as my hospital gown coverage. :p

http://joe-ks.com/archives_jan2004/HospitalGown.jpg

Sorry, Grunewar.

I was explaining how I knew about the ambulance crew being on their cell phones talking about farm business when driving the ambulance, to Biggravy.

In this case, I would say the Twilight Zone, Bermuda Triangle, & The Outer Limits LMAO :rolleyes:

You might as well have said you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

I haven't had the luxury to stay at a Holiday Inn Express. So that commercial doesn't apply LMAO :)

I quit reading this thread after my last post, but I agree with this.

Are there really more accidents caused by this than by, say, dicking around with the radio, eating a Whopper (tm), or talking to other passengers?

Seriously, you make a comment like that based on one trip?

:howling: Provides the same exact amount of expertise as riding along one time.

I'm just curious, but what does an official call look like? I work with a lot of troopers, and they make a lot of calls on their cell phones; to each other.

I'll state here that my experiece is limited and thus not conclusive. But in three shifts riding along with them, their combined personal phone calls amounted to....wait for it.....



2.

I think official calls look like that pic of Ed Hightower in the other thread.

Serious question here. Is arriving at the site 20 minutes prior to tip-off acceptable/common in your area?

More like 8-12 trips, not just one.

Some of the trips were with one crew (one city's crew), some were with a different crew (neighboring city's crew).

Your wife was transported by ambulance 8-12 times for 65 miles? I'm sorry you've had such difficulties.

It's actually been more than that, basically too many times to count :( All in the 5 years we've been married.

The 65 miles one way as that's the closest Emergency Room.

I can say the same thing for myself as for trips to the emrgency room via ambulance, for the same time frame :(

I totally disagree. Over the past couple of years, everytime I find myself sitting behind someone who doesn't recognize a green light or someone driving 15 miles under the speed limit, they have a cell phone attached to their ear. They're jabbering non-stop on the phone and are focused just enough to keep their vehicle in the proper lane. :mad:

Here it is not that uncommon for a game played in the mid-afternoon. It's usually a question of availability of officials at that time. And that varies day to day sometimes. If you're short-handed and you need to use someone coming directly from work to cover the game, the last thing that you worry about is whether they get there in time to have a thorough pre-game. You just want to cover the game; everything else is gravy.

And most assignors will also give the school AD's a heads-up that if they want to play in the mid-afternoon on a busy day, their game might be a few minutes late starting the odd time.

So imo it is acceptable under those circumstances. Not only acceptable but necessary in some cases.

I think the answer is "yes" (at least as a percentage of time spent doing those activities) -- with the Whopper eating coming in second.

With that many visits to the emergency room for both you and your wife, have you considered moving closer to an area that can provide proper medical care. This sounds pretty serious to be 65 miles away. You mentioned farming in a previous post so it sounds like your tied to that and a move wouldn't be feasible.

Unfortunately, I don't have much options for living areas due to lack of finances due to the cost of rent around here. Also we do have some livestock. Our health is improving thankfully.

Thanks for sharing...