Da Bomb

By sheer chance, I happened upon the Peoria Emergency Response Expo this evening. The highlight of this was getting to check out the bomb squad robot and spend some time asking a bunch of questions about the bomb squad program, uses for the robot, the cost of such a rig ($200,000 including training and spare parts), and the average number of times the bomb squad is dispatched each year (about 30 - not well publicised). This was by far the coolest thing I did today. And now, when we have a jar of picric acid that's become dried out and unstable, I can call up the Peoria PD and ask for an officer by name. "Hi, remember me? The one with 30 questions? About that robot...we're gonna need it."