Stake Out

Jim, our critter control expert (AKA Batman), showed up at our house on Wednesday afternoon. After a little walk around and walk through, he thought he saw where all the bats were coming in. Again, he seemed to think that the walls of our house were infested with bats. Since August and September are bat months (that’s when they have their babies) it wasn’t surprising to him that we would have bats now.

Ron and Batman looked in the basement to try to rid the basement of our current resident bat. Somehow, he got away, since even after a thorough search, the bat was no where to be found. Batman even looked in our coal room* for the bat! I know that’s brave, because even I won’t go in there and I live there! That door stays shut for a reason!

(*the coal room is a room in the basement that used to hold all the coal for the coal burning furnace that was originally in the house. The delivery truck would pull in the driveway, open the hatch to the room and dump the coal down a shoot and fill up that room. Then as the coal was needed, it was shoveled into the furnace. There are no windows, so now it’s just a dark creepy room that I’m positive is filled with all kinds of ookie things like spiders and bugs and stuff.)

Batman told us that we need to install these valves in the attic. The valves would let all of the bats out, but wouldn’t let them back in again. After five days with the valves, Batman would come back and take the valves out and seal up the holes. All this for the low, low price of . . . are you sitting down? For the low, low price of $1,680.00. Yeah, luckily I was sitting down when Ron told me THAT price. I’m assuming those valve thingies are made of solid gold or something.

Batman suggested that Ron and I stake out the house at night and count bats to see how many were really living in our house. He suggested starting about 8:45 and as soon as we saw our first bat come out, count how many of them come out for the next 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes were up, multiply the number of bats we counted leaving our house by 10 and that is how many bats are in the house. For the last two nights now, Ron and I have staked out our positions around the house. He took the corner so he could see the north and the east side. I took the south and the west side. We set up our lawn chairs and we hunkered down. Wednesday night, we were out there for 45 minutes. By 9:30 it was too dark to see. Last night we tried again, and I didn’t last quite long due to all of the darn mosquitos. After all that, in two nights we didn’t see one bat leave our house.

So, Ron came up with a great idea! Let’s NOT pay Batman $1,680 and instead, spend $50 or so and just caulk and plaster and fill up any and all holes that we think are there and call it good. Here’s hoping that turns out to be a great solution and that we find all of the holes. I’m done bat watching and I’m done being afraid to be in my own house.

The Bat Is Back!

This is just not funny anymore.

I’ve blogged before about having a bat in the house. Actually, we’ve had bats a couple of times. Ron has been able to catch and release the bats. Well, we have a persistent one this time.

He won’t leave our attic. I’ve been forced to call a professional. Once again, you’d think that would be easy, wouldn’t you.

I went online under pest control, exterminators and vermin. I’ve been calling for two days. Either people don’t answer their phones and I’m forced to leave voicemails which never get returned, or I’m told that they don’t do bats or if they do bats, they don’t do them in my town.

I really have been ready to pull my hair out. I don’t want to be forced to take things in my own hands. I mean, I do own a .357 Magnum and I even have enough ammo to take care of him and any little friends he might have. Sorry, just a crazy moment there. I think I’m back now.

What was I saying? Oh yes, a professional. Everyone that I have talked to that said they don’t do bats or don’t come as far west as we are, I’ve asked them if they could recommend anyone. That just led to more phone calls that didn’t get answered. Until, my new buddy Jim answered the phone yesterday. At least I’m hoping he’s going to be my new buddy.

Jim does bats. He’ll help us rid our house of bats and tell us where they are getting in at. The only bad part about Jim is the information he gave me yesterday. He said that first of all, if you have one bat, you have more. Ok, NOT what I wanted to hear. And, when I told him where I lived, and started to give him directions, he gave me that “hey! Wait a minute! I know that area!”

Ok, he was a little too excited about that. Then he said that he had just done a bat problem on my street about a month ago. Hmm. I told him that’s when our newest bat problem started! What the heck! Did he kick the bats out of the house he did on my street and just send them our way? I should get a discount for that, shouldn’t I? Anyway, he proceeded to tell me THAT bat infestation was so bad that the health department made the people move out of their house. Hello? C’mon now! I HOPE I just have one bat!

The kicker came last night though, when I went to do a load of laundry. Ron was helping me carry our two full laundry baskets down to the basement. I was going to go downstairs first with Ron right behind me. As soon as I rounded the corner to head downstairs, I told him I just saw a shadow downstairs. Of course, he thought my tired eyes must be playing a trick on me. So, he went around me and went downstairs to show me everything was fine. He was down there maybe 10 seconds telling me it’s ok when an expletive came out of his mouth and he was quickly coming back upstairs! HA! There’s a bat down there, isn’t there? He told me yes, a bat was flying around down there. Believe it or not, I was not happy to be right about this. I really wish I’d have lost this argument.

I dropped the basket I was carrying right there on the landing and we high tailed it back into the kitchen and slammed the door shut. Now what? I really didn’t want to leave my basket on the landing in full view of anyone walking up to the door, especially with my bra on top of the basket. I had to get it out of there. We waited awhile, opened the kitchen door and Ron dashed to get my basket back! Whew. It was a close call, I’m sure.

That’s all I could think about all night is that the bat is taking over our house. Ron tried to give me some cockamamie story about how the bat could have followed a sewer pipe from the attic to the basement or he could have followed the chimney, but I wasn’t totally convinced. I just know that he has me afraid to now go on TWO floors of my house. Only two left, and I must defend them with my life.

Getting ready for bed, all I could think of is the bat down in the basement. Then I remembered that there is a small space under the door into the kitchen. Way big enough for a bat to fit through and get into the remaining levels of the house! No way! I ran back downstairs, took a blanket off of the couch and stuffed it under the kitchen door that goes down to the basement. For good measure so that the bat couldn’t push the blanket away, I grabbed a box of parts that Ron got in that were in the dining room and I shoved that up against the blanket. Over my dead body and all that was I screaming at the bat down below. Coupled with a few good foot stomps on the floor which would be his ceiling, just to make sure he wasn’t enjoying himself in our house.

Ok, that made me feel a little better. Back upstairs, I climbed into bed. It wasn’t working. I lost my warm fuzzy safe feeling. I could hear the bat trying to get at me. I got back out of bed and shut the bedroom door and pulled the covers over my head. Maybe that will keep him away.

It was a rough night and we’re exhausted. Now we just wait for my new buddy Jim to come over this afternoon and make things right in my world again. Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Police Blotter

Yes, once again there has been police activity in our neighborhood. There has even been a policeman IN our house last night! Can’t get any closer than that, huh?

It started a couple of weeks ago. The neighbors I’ve blogged about before, two houses to the north of us (that have the killer dog) were broken into. All that was stolen was a 50something inch large screen television. The television I hear was purchased at Rent Way, and since the burglars walked into an unlocked back door and there was no sign of forced entry, Rent Way isn’t buying the “my TV was stolen” line and she is liable for the payments on the TV.

Well, I guess she then did what most people would do. She went back to Rent Way, this time for a 60” large screen TV. I guess if you’re paying on one TV you might as well get a second one. You’ll never guess what happened to it last night!

Yep. Someone again walked into her unlocked back door (the one by the dog as a matter of fact) and stole the second TV as well.

The kicker to this one is that it happened at about 6:30 in the evening. Better yet, I think I watched it happen.

Ron was out talking to another neighbor last night when the neighbor two doors down came over to see if Ron had seen anything a few hours earlier. She told him about the TV being gone for the second time. When Ron came inside, he told me the story. Dang, I couldn’t believe it. Who leaves doors unlocked, especially in OUR neighborhood?

I didn’t think too much about it. Then it hit me awhile later, that about 6:30 last night, I was standing at my kitchen sink doing dishes, when I saw a different car in her driveway. By different, I just mean it’s not her car. Actually it was either a mini van or a small SUV, light brown or dark tan in color and it was parked right by her back door.

I wasn’t trying to be overly nosey, like I sometimes can be. I was just watching out the window and her property is right in my line of sight. I noticed a different car in the driveway, but there is also a chestnut tree in between where I am and where she is. The best I saw was part of a vehicle, and legs in blue jeans. I couldn’t even tell you how many people were there. I’d say more than one, less than 10. No idea if they were male, female, white, black or purple. All I saw was legs.

Just after this internal revelation, Ron and I were sitting outside while Ron was having a cigarette, and the police drove by slowly. He had the spotlight out, checking addresses. I saw him pull into a driveway and turn around, and I erroneously thought he was just looking around after the report had been filed. I thought I’d do my good deed for the day and I flagged him down to tell him about the van in the driveway.

I told him I might have seen the vehicle involved in the break in next door. Imagine my surprise when he said “what break in?” I gave him a little run down of what little I knew and he said as a matter of fact he was on his way next door to take her report. I told him I didn’t know much, but if he needed me, I’d be right here.

Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, he’s banging on my door. We let him in, and I told him what little I knew. Keep in mind; I’m in a mild panic that there has been a break in. This after the wonderful little elderly couple next door just had a rock thrown through their picture window the other day and our painter just had all the windows out of the side of his van busted out the night before. (Him and 12 other cars in his neighborhood.) I’m telling you my neighborhood is going downhill quickly.

In spite of my mounting internal panic, the police officer did not seem too concerned. He even said something like “c’mon now. You’d had one TV stolen without anyone having to break in and now you’ve had a second one taken?” Yeah, he wasn’t too impressed and I guess he wasn’t buying much of her story. But, he took my info along with my name and number and he left.

A few minutes later, there was another knock on the door. This time, it was the neighbor that was involved in the incident.

The officer had told her he was headed to our place as I told him I might have seen something, so now she came in and we chatted with her a bit. She told me that both TVs were stolen and both times the remote controls were left on the coffee table. She even brought the remove control over to show us. I told her what I told the police officer. To be honest, I don’t think she looked too upset about the whole thing. I think I’d have been a mess about it, but she was calm. She told us that Rent Way was still expecting her to pay for the first TV and now that the second one was gone, she was dreading telling them about that one too.

I don’t know what the whole story is, but I know I don’t like it. Whether she’s a slime that is pulling a scam with Rent Way or her friends are thieves, it stinks. I know I was up a lot last night. I’m hearing things, I’m imagining someone’s in the house.

We really do need to move. Maybe to Siberia.

Remember

I remember 10 years ago today.

I miss you Mom.

Family Tree - With A Few Warped Branches

Let’s go into a little background information.

I am the youngest of six children. The oldest sibling is 17 years older than I am. In a list, we are:

Me
Brother Jim, 5 years older than me
Sister Cathie, 7 years older than me
Brother Michael, 10 years older than me
Sister Barb, 15 years older than me
Brother Philip, 17 years older than me

Quite a group, huh?

As stated previously, Philip was in town visiting. He left this morning to head back to sunny California. So, it was time for the good byes. Wednesday night, we met up with Michael for dinner and Michael had a huge surprise for us!

He and his wife had been clearing out the basement and came across some old pictures. Now, I have been through Mom and Dad’s pictures a gazillion times. I love those old pictures. But, the pictures I’ve seen are either of Philip and Barb really really young, or pictures of all six of us. The best of which is all six of us kids, with me as a little baby in Barb’s lap!

Michael brought out whole new pictures that I have never seen before. Once again, family pictures with both parents and only FIVE kids, the youngest being Jim as a teeny tiny baby in Mom’s arms. First, that was awesome just because of the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever seen pictures of Jim as a baby. I’ve seen pictures of him as a little kid yes, but not as a baby. He was just as cute as the dickens, just like he is today!

Then it hit me. If Jim is just an infant, where am I? (Michael tried to tell me that I must have been taking the picture since I’m not in it!) Ok, I know in the scheme of things it’s an easy answer of I’m just not born yet. But then I got to think about it. Where was I?? Five years before I was born, I’m sure I wasn’t even a thought or a glimmer in my parents’ minds.

Michael and Philip were recounting stories of when they were young, and of the two of them doing things together. I’ve never heard these stories before. They had experiences that I never knew about and memories that I am not part of. I know this probably isn’t making sense to anyone else, but it was really a mind shattering wall I ran into last night with these thoughts. Before I was born. It’s a concept I’m just having trouble wrapping my mind around.

I know that George Washington was President, before I was born. I know that Napoleon had a complex about his height way before I was born. I know that the cavemen were battling wooly mammoths long before I was born. But to hear two of my brothers telling stories that I’m just not part of is just so weird to me. When we tell stories together, I either remember what they are talking about, or the stories being told are stories that have been told for the last 40 years.

Before I was born. It’s crazy, but this has just blew my mind thinking about it. It was an existential moment.

They Grow Them Big Here

Today is the last day of my current audit. This audit has not been good from day one, and I just want out of here.

I am alone here at the job site, and as it was my last day here, I thought I'd treat myself to a nice lunch. I tried to get my contact here to go to lunch, but he was tied up in meetings all day and couldn't make it. On to Plan B.

I took myself to lunch at a sit-down chain restaurant that is less than two miles away from the job site. I should have chosen better.

I walked into the lobby of the restaurant and there were two other women customers waiting on a hostess to seat them. They were nice enough to inform me that they were keeping themselves busy while waiting for a hostess by taking bets on if the spider on the floor in front of them was a killer spider or not.

First of all, we all know I HATE spiders. (Right, honey?) I know I tend to exaggerate from time to time on the size of spiders that have been in my house, but I swear, this one was truly the largest spider I have ever seen live. This gargantuan belonged on a movie screen, or in a Steve Irwin episode. It was freakin' HUGE. No lie, it had to be three inches across. His body alone was the size of a quarter.

The three of us backed up as far as we could go without leaving the restaurant. The first hostess came by and the spider was pointed out to her. She promptly screamed and then ran for a manager. In the meanwhile, a couple of other hostesses came by who pretty much yelled and stepped back with us. The manager came to the lobby and decided this was a job for a manly man. She called for a busboy and a male waiter both of whom decided that monster killing was not in their job descriptions. I suggested calling the police as they have been known to carry guns that could probably kill this spawn of evil. Surprisingly, no one really looked at me funny over that suggestion.

Finally, one of the waitresses came over, saw the spider, gently laid a menu over it and then with all the power of her 88 pounds dripping wet, proceeded to jump up and down on the menu! She got a rousing ovation from the crowd now gathered in the lobby until she picked up the menu to be sure she was successful. Ugh, she was.

I can attest to the fact that she threw the menu away so that no unsuspecting future diner would have to handle it. Even after the bloody sight I just witnessed, I still accepted a seat and ordered lunch.

Granted, I did eat a fast lunch as I wanted my feet off of their floor. However, I have a feeling that I will continue to feel things crawling on me until I can get into the shower tonight. I'm just hoping that the crawling feeling I have is only in my imagination.

Eww!

Let Me Return The Favor

When Ron and I go out to eat, Ron doesn’t always get to eat what he ordered.

Sometimes I just don’t care for what I ordered, and I don’t want to send it back since it’s not always the cook’s fault that I don’t like something. But more often than not, it’s just that Ron orders his meals better than I do!

I’ve been known to switch soups with him, or salads, or even whole entrees. What he orders doesn’t always sound good to me at the time, but when it’s brought to the table, I smack myself in the head and say “dang, I should have ordered that”. To which, Ron will usually say “do you want it honey? I’ll trade with you”. What a good guy!

After a few days of eating leftovers this week after Sunday’s birthday party, we decided to meet up after work the other night and we were going to have dinner out. Some times our biggest problem is agreeing on where we should go to dinner. Wednesday, we settled on Texas Roadhouse. It’s nothing fancy, but the food is good. Plus all the peanuts on the tables are nice to munch on while you’re waiting on your dinner.

I ordered what I always order; a sirloin, medium, topped with mushrooms with applesauce and steak fries.

Ron went out of the box. He ordered the chicken fried steak. That surprised me since I know the gravy for that is usually heavy on the black pepper and he doesn’t normally go for black pepper. But, hey, whatever makes him happy. I know the sirloin, I’ll be happy with the sirloin. Ron also ordered the baked sweet potato and the applesauce.

We had a nice chat at the restaurant while shelling and munching on peanuts. Then, the dinner arrives. I’m getting ready to start eating, and Ron tastes his meal. He is not happy with it. It’s not that it wasn’t cooked right; it was just not what he thought it was going to be.

You have to understand, Ron will eat anything you put in front of him. If it doesn’t eat him first, Ron is good with it. I have put some crap meals in front of him (hey, my cooking doesn’t always produce a winning meal) and he’s eaten them. When he said he didn’t like his dinner I thought something was truly wrong with it. I reached across the table with my fork and had a little taste. Tasted pretty good to me!

Ok, honey, I’ll switch plates with you! What? That’s never happened before! It’s always him offering to let me have the choice of meals! We did have to haggle a little on the side dishes. After all, his sweet potato was starting to look might tasty. However, he held firm that the sweet potato was staying on his side of the table. Fine. We switched the meat dishes and he was happy with my steak and I was very happy with his.

Wow! For once, I finally got to return the favor!

Checking In

What a horrific tragedy that has happened in Minneapolis a few days ago. These poor people, who were just trying to get home after work and the bridge collapses without warning. My heart is with the families that wait yet to find their loved ones still trapped in their cars under the water.

My heart and my prayers go out to all those affected.

Ron’s kids live in the Minneapolis area. They have checked in with their Dad and all are accounted for and were not involved.

Thank you, God.

Congratulations Grandpa Ron!!

Ron had some great news over the weekend! His middle son Derick and his wife Amanda are expecting their first child! This will be Ron’s first GRANDchild!

Even though the words coming out of his mouth said that he wasn’t old enough to be a Grandpa, you still can’t wipe that happy grin off of his face!

Not many things in life can top that kind of news! Congratulations to Derick and Amanda, and to you too, Grandpa!

Can’t Count

Speaking of Philip, after getting his glasses fixed at the mall the other day, we stopped at the news stand to buy a newspaper. Reminiscent of a previous post, I found out more people can’t count!

Philip pulled out his change holder, counted out some change for the paper and put it on the counter telling the clerk “there, I think that’s fifty cents”.

The clerk counted it and said “yeah, that’s it”.

Of course, I had to butt in.

“Um, that sure did look like sixty cents to me!”

Sure enough, the clerk didn’t even recount the money. He just agreed and handed Philip back a dime!

Even the great ones have a bad day, huh brother? I told you that this story had to make the blog!

Good Times For The Birthday Boy!

7/29/07 - Happy Birthday Dad!! Is he a cutie patootie or what!

Anyway . . .

My oldest brother, Philip (Hi, Phil!) flew in from California Friday for a little vacation. Well, at least that’s what HE thought it was going to be! However, Sunday was my Dad’s 83rd birthday, and we were having a family birthday party at our house. That meant that no one in the house was exempt from work detail in getting ready for the party.

We had a good old Slovak birthday party with some old favorites that none of us get too often. We had Dad’s choice of Mom’s home made chicken and beef soup. I didn’t make home made noodles to go with the soup, but I did find some nice fine cut soup noodles, just the kind he likes. It was close enough.

Then we had halupki. That’s Slovak for stuffed cabbage, pigs in a blanket, what ever else you want to call them. I called them delicious! Mary Jane was nice enough to provide the creamed peas. Y’all know that’s not one of MY favorite things being made from peas and all, but it always used to be a favorite of Dad’s to go along with the halupki. Judging from the amount he ate, I’d say they were winners! To round off the dinner, we had desert. For the birthday boy, of course his favorite chocolate cake with Mom’s chocolate frosting and for the rest of us, two big batches of Chex party mix! Yeah, we were all gonna be fat and happy for this party!

Thinking back now as I’m writing this, it hits me just how truly lucky I am to have the family that I do. We have our fair share of arguments, but who doesn’t. But I don’t care how much we argue, you get any number of us together in the same room and it’s going to be fun! As brother Michael likes to say, “Our family puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional”!

Like I said, Philip thought he was going to be on vacation. After meeting up Friday night for dinner with Michael and Mary Jane, the first course of business was grocery shopping. Hey, I don’t like to do it either, so poor Ron and Philip got to join in my misery and we all went shopping. Come to think of it, Michael and Mary Jane joined in the fun as well! As true members of our family, we all took turns in the bathroom at Giant Eagle, but aside from that little bit of too much information, shopping was an experience. I did break into song, both loudly and badly, but that was towards the end of the excursion so it wasn’t too hard on our fellow shoppers. We didn’t get kicked out, so it couldn’t have been too bad.

Shopping done, it was relaxing at home for the rest of the night.

Saturday was work day. Again, Philip thought he was on vacation until I told him to scrub up; he was stuffing five pounds of hamburger into five heads of cabbage! Michael picked the perfect time to stop over (He had to bring a cooking pot I needed to borrow!) and he jumped in with us. The three of us, between tasting the raw halupki for quality control, trimmed and stuffed all that cabbage. And, worthy of making my Mom proud of her kids, after the dishes were done, we took a little break. For those not in the family, that means a rousing game of three handed Pinochle! One of these days, I really have to teach Ron that game!

It took awhile, but my brothers finally let me win the Pinochle game.

Sunday, Jim was willing to take the day off of work and make the trip with Dad to come to Ohio for the party. Dad started off his day a little rough, as he didn’t want Jim to wake him up for the trip. But once he got into the mix of the rest of us, I think he really perked up and ended up having a great time. This was the first time in a long time I’ve seen Dad eat so well. He ate and he ate and then he asked if it was time for dinner so he could eat some more! It was good to see him like that. The best part was that my Dad turned down a nap so he could stay at the table with us and just be part of the story telling. You have to understand that my Dad would rather nap than do anything. And for him to say no to that, it was awesome! It was a great time that was complete with great food.

Monday, I took the day off of work and I putzed around with Philip and Ron. We weren’t in a hurry to do anything or go anywhere, but we did run to the mall to get Philip’s glasses fixed, then we had a nice lunch at Jackalope’s, sitting outside looking out over the marina. We closed out the afternoon doing a few touristy things around town.

As most of the people in my family are serious game players, no day would be complete without some game time, so Philip and I even got in some cribbage! If I’m not mistaken (and I rarely am when it comes to winning!) I am up six games to three. Go me!

Since all of that Chex party mix ended up being consumed, Philip asked if I’d make one more batch. He even offered to pay for the ingredients. What the heck, I love it as much as he does, so I told him that by the time he got back from spending a few days in Erie with brother Jim, I’d have it cooked up.

That was my plan for last night. It wasn’t a good night.

It was late when I was working with the party mix. You end up pouring melted butter, with seasonings, over about four boxes of cereal. Then you bake it on low to bake the butter in. You bake it about 1-1/2 to 2 hours, mixing every twenty minutes or so. When it looks almost all the way dry, I turn off the oven and just let the pan of mix stay in the oven. The heat from the oven cooks the rest of that butter in. I guess I was more tired last night than I thought. I mixed it for the last time, put it back in the oven, and went upstairs to bed.

This morning, Ron was actually the first one downstairs to put on coffee. He yells up the steps at me asking if I meant to leave the oven on all night! NO! Oh crap. It’s not a cheap snack to make to begin with and the thought of burning an entire batch just really made me mad at myself. Sure enough, the butter was baked in, but so was the burnt taste. Maybe I’ll throw all that out to the birds instead of in the garbage. I hate throwing that much food away, but it really is inedible. I am lucky I didn’t burn the house down.

As a side note, I usually really look forward to Philip’s visits. Mainly because he is the best snorer I know. Whenever Philip visits, I get the BEST sleep. I keep telling Ron he has to work on his snoring but so far, he’s still a rank amateur. Philip however, used to be a professional! He could shake the rafters on the neighbor’s house with his snoring! Not this time. In order to hear him snoring, I have to plaster my ear against his door and maybe I’ll hear it a little bit. Grrr. I should be able to hear him in the basement! He has so lost some status in my eyes over this. That was truly one of the greatest perks of having Philip visit. I don’t know what he’s doing differently, but he needs to stop it! I was looking forward to the snoring filling the house!

The only thing missing this weekend was our sister Cathie. She couldn’t make it in from California for Dad’s birthday but she is coming for a visit in the beginning of September! She’s no stranger to working at my house when she comes to visit, so she made me promise that I won’t make her help me with Roshki again (Slovak for nut horns) before she’d buy her plane ticket! Geez, some guests! The good news is that we get to party all over again in September when Cathie comes to visit, minus the Roshki. The bad news is that we really did miss you this weekend. But, not to worry, Sissy! We all talked about you a LOT!

Good times!

He Didn’t Get Away

Ron and I have put a lot of fish into our fish tank. Unfortunately, not all have survived. For example, we have purchased a total of 10 angel fish. Right now, one remains in the tank. When I hand feed the fish, I make sure the angel gets his fill.

I don’t know what we’re doing wrong, but we can’t seem to keep some of our fish alive. The angels were one type, and out of 18 tetras that we bought, none survived more than a couple of weeks! This is truly disheartening.

I’ve finally thrown up the white flag. I give up! I refuse to buy more fish, just to end up flushing them down the toilet and feeling like a failure. When they all end up flushed, Mike’s getting the tank back. (Although, the one bright spot has been our plecostomus, Fred. He is almost to the point of being bigger than a turd, hence too big to flush!)

Most of our fish are live bearers, meaning they don’t lay eggs but instead give birth to live fish (called fry). The live bearers could have babies every couple of weeks. That’s a lot of breeding especially since in the five months or so that we’ve had them we haven’t seen hide nor hair of any babies. So, we’ve decided to try to help things along in order to help keep our tank populated. We bought a breeder tank. This is just a little tank that hangs inside the main tank. When you see a mom fish ready to burst (and that’s absolutely what she looks like before she has the babies!) you take her out of the tank, put her in a smaller tank and let her have her babies. Once the babies are born, you take mom out and put her back in the main tank and then the babies are separated so that they don’t become breakfast for the rest of the tank.

In a perfect world, the fry would stay in the breeder tank for a few months until they were bigger and had a better chance of surviving in the main tank. Keep in mind that we’re new at this and this is definitely not a perfect world. I know this is hard to believe, but a fish that is less than two inches long is extremely hard to catch in a 65 gallon tank! She will run and hide and zig and zag and it’s almost impossible to snag her without giving her or me a heart attack. Our first attempt was aborted short of ripping up all the plants in the tank and taking them out as well as any shale or driftwood. Ron tried again when I was out of his hair and on the road. He was much more successful. He was able to get mom into the breeder tank the night she had her babies. In the morning, in an attempt to get mom out of the little tank and back into the main tank, stuff happened. The darn breeder tanks are really cheap pieces of plastic and well, it sort of fell apart. But, before it did, Ron was able to see a bunch of babies heading towards the rocks in the bottom, so we were hopeful that at least some survived.

I feed the fish in the morning when I first go downstairs. I turn the light on to wake them up and also so that I can watch them for awhile. This morning, I was a little worried about my lonely angel fish. He was at the bottom, with barely one fin fluttering. Was he too tired to get up so early? Or was something wrong? Oh man, I was worried this morning. I don’t want to lose another fish, especially one that has more than doubled in size since we got him and so far seems healthy and thriving.

I just put some fish flakes in, and watched all but the angel come to the feeding zone and chow down.

I stood back and just watched the tank. Mike was nice enough to cut a mirror for us and it is now on the back of the tank. First, that makes our 65 gallon tank look like 130 gallons! Secondly, I can look in the mirror and get a better look at all the fish, since the mirror takes away some hiding spots behind plants and things.

I was looking at the angel fish in the back of the tank when I saw movement in the mirror. The movement was closer to the front of the tank, behind a plant. Guess what? It was a FRY!!! One lonely little teeny tiny fish! This little thing was barely ½ inch long. He was mostly transparent but did have a bit of an orange glow to him. That means that he is either a red wag or a yellow wag platy! WOW! I ran upstairs and woke poor Ron up at 6:30 this morning to tell him that we really do have a baby! A live baby! I saw it with my own eyes! I watched him swim for awhile and then as I came in closer to the side of the tank to get a better look at him, he went down into the gravel at the bottom and looked to be playing dead. No matter! I saw him!

I finished getting dressed, while telling Ron all about the new baby, then went downstairs to leave. As I was walking up to the tank, I saw it. My precious angel fish was CHASING something really small! And, um…well, let’s just say I can’t see the little fry any more. AARGH. I was so disappointed I wanted to yank that angel right out of the tank and go down his throat after my little baby fry!

Talk about the highs and lows all in one morning. I think the angel fish fell off of my favorite fish list and now is in the dog house so to speak. Hopefully there are more fry in the tank, other than the one that didn’t get away.

Million Dollar Question

I have been working from my local office last week and the first two days of this week. That is a tough assignment since I’m wedged in a small office between dufus # 1 and dufus # 2. But, I digress.

Most days I’ll bring my lunch to the office and sit and read for awhile and just not answer my phone during my quiet time. Other days, like today, I’ll just grab a sandwich somewhere, pick a deserted piece of a parking lot and read and eat my lunch. Besides, it’s gorgeous out today so the windows were open, and the piece of parking lot I chose at least had a view of the valley to the west of me.

My sandwich was finished, and I was working on finishing the last Harry Potter book. (HOLY CRAP! What a book!) Suddenly, this elderly woman who was barely tall enough to look over the steering wheel of her car pulled up in front of me, the drove in a circle around me until she pulled in the spot next to me with her driver’s window right by mine.

She asked me if I lived around here. I said, sorry, no I don’t. I know the area around here a little bit, but not that well, so I was afraid to ask what she was looking for. No worries though, since she offered it up anyway. She said she was meeting some friends and she couldn’t find the restaurant. It was called “Steve’s something or other with a couple of more words.” Hmm. Yeah, that helps. I told her I didn’t know of any “Steve’s” and she really looked sad. She said she was really looking forward to meeting her friends.

Believe it or not, I had a brilliant idea! I know, that’s unbelievable, but it’s true!

I told her to hang on, and I pulled my Garmin GPS unit out of the console. I said to her that if she waited for the GPS unit to boot up, I might be able to find “Steve’s something or other with a couple of more words”. She looked at me kinda funny but waited anyway.

Once booted, I went to restaurants and typed in STEVES. It brought up an automotive repair shop first, and I didn’t think that was it. Then it brought up a Steve’s family restaurant and I asked her if that was it, and she said maybe . . . but then I realized that was over 20 miles away. She said no, that it was supposed to be around this neighborhood somewhere.

So I said well hang on, it’s still searching. She asked what I was holding and looking at and I gave her a quick explanation of a GPS. I said I travel a lot and this thing tells me how to get where I’m going and then back home again. I also added that it has a feature to help me find restaurants, or hospitals or places of interest. I told her that at that moment it was still searching for restaurants in the area that matched “STEVES” and the info was bouncing from the satellites so it was taking a minute. I swear, she must have thought I was an alien or something! She was absolutely astounded!

I think for a minute she thought I invented this contraption. I told her that no, I just bought it like everyone else from the store. She asked me how much one of these things would go for and I told her and she was shocked. Ok, I agree with her on that part. Anyway, after a minute or so, I had a nice list of “STEVE’S” in front of me and started rattling them off to her. I got to Steve’s Dakota Grill and she yelled YES! I had a winner! Once I saw that name, I actually knew where it was, so I gave her directions to just drive two miles south on the road right in front of her and she’d see it on the left.

She was so happy with me. I did my good deed for the day I guess! She said she was going to mail me a check for $1 million. I told her that needs to go from her mouth to God’s ears! She might have been a crack pot, or she might just have been a nice old lady happy for a little assistance from a crazy machine or the crazy lady reading her book in the silver Honda. Either way, I’m watching my mailbox for the $1 million. Just in case!

Harry's HERE!

My new best friend, the UPS man, just delivered my new Harry Potter book!! I KNEW I got up early this morning for a reason!

Now I'm curling up with my book and I don't plan on moving until I know all of the secrets it holds. Wish me luck!

Close Call

Thursday evening, I really think I had a near death experience. Or, at least as close to death as I want to come for the time being.

I am actually in town for a couple of weeks. On the way home from the office Thursday, I was thinking about dinner. I decided to heat up the leftover city chicken, but after that, I was at a loss for what to have with it.

Then I remembered Fenik's Produce stand. They are locally renowned for their sweet corn and I drive right by them on my way home. Bonus! What a great idea! 'Tis the season and all that. I know the stand just opened within the last few days and I was anxious to christen the place.

The stand is close to the road, and on the north side of the stand is a small parking lot. I pulled into the lot and went to look over what they had. I ended up with a pound of green beans and a half of a dozen ears of corn. Sounds great for dinner. With my bag of produce in my left arm, my right hand is holding my car keys. I am walking through the small parking lot back to my car when it happened.

This b*tch in a mini van just started to back up, rather quickly I'd say, and I was RIGHT behind her. Before I could think of anything, my right hand immediately went up and she hit my hand and my keys clanked on the back window glass. Luckily she heard it and she stopped immediately, what seemed like inches from my face. (Believe it or not, my right hand alone did not stop a mini van.)

I walked to the driver's side of the car to find a woman probably in her sixties luckily with her window rolled up. I yelled something like "THANKS FOR LOOKING!" to which she shrugged her shoulders and said something like "you better not have scratched my window".

Hmm. That's when you find out what you are made of. I just wanted to kick her car door. Scratched her window?? Is she for real? She almost ran me over and now she's actually threatening me? Gee, so sorry. Too bad I didn't leave blood and guts all over the back bumper.

I was shaking. She continued to back up and started to drive out of the parking lot back onto Lake Avenue as I just stood there, staring at her. If I could have at least got an "I'm sorry" or even an "oops!" from her or some sort of remorse for almost cutting my life short, I'd have felt better. But for her to just shrug her shoulders and tell me that her window has better not be scratched was too much for me.

Now that I'm writing this two days later, it seems like it wasn't such a big deal. But at the time, wow. I really did see my life flash before my eyes!

This incident is not going to stop me from stopping at Fenik's Produce for sweet corn. However, I will make sure that there isn't a silver mini van in the parking lot first. After all, even good corn isn't a good enough reason to give this b*tch a second chance at finishing me off.

# 300!!

I opened up Blogger to talk about a few things on my mind when I saw it! THIS is post # 300!!! I can't believe it! Who'd have thought that I could ramble on and on about 300 topics! Ok, probably anybody that knows me.

This blog started on 8/18/05 and now less than two years later I'm 300 blogs into it.

That was so awesome, I had to devote a whole blog just to that fact!

I have a lot on my mind today, so stay tuned. We'll be on our way to 500!

It's Ron's Fault!

Ron is always right. At least that’s what HE says! Ok, if I’m being honest here, I guess most of the time he is right. However, every once in awhile when he’s WRONG, I do need to sing about it! Guess what?? Yep! This is one of those times!

Let’s talk about laundry. Most times I do laundry on the weekends, and just spend a few hours running up and down the stairs every 30 minutes to move clothes from washer to dryer and fluffing and folding. I hate wet clothes left in the washer.

This week however, I took the weekend off. That just means that now I seem to be doing laundry all week long. I put a load in the washer in the morning, after work I go downstairs and put them in the dryer and fill up the washer again. Maybe before I go to bed I move another load around. I can’t seem to be as diligent about it if it’s not the weekend.

Last night I had a surprise! I had put a load of Ron’s blue jeans in the washer before I went to work. After work, I went to throw them in the dryer. There was crap everywhere! I know sometimes Ron gets his hands into ookie stuff. He’s played with glues, paints, solvents, cement, yes, all kinds of ookie things. So when I went to grab a pair of his pants out of the washing machine, this “stuff” went flying everywhere. The only thing I can liken it to is when you wash a Kleenex. That crap gets everywhere. Sort of like that, but brownish.

I immediately called Ron to come downstairs to look at it because I was afraid to touch it. He came running downstairs to find a half hysterical me holding a pair of jeans over the slop sink. Smart aleck takes one look at it and says “oh, I think I left a pack of cigarettes in my pocket.” Say it with me, people! EWW!

For anyone interested, the tobacco in cigarettes is pretty long. I found this out as I picked all of the long stringy thingies out of the washer. Also, after a full wash cycle, the cotton filter part of the cigarette remained completely intact. Interesting.

From now on, I’m gonna start checking his pockets. And, any money I find in there . . . I’m keeping!

4 YEARS!!

Four years ago Ron and I moved in together! Wow! Can it really be four years already??

Happy Anniversary, honey!

The Good The Bad And Me

There are good neighbors and there are bad neighbors. Hopefully in all of our lives, the good outweigh the bad.

We have been lucky to have a few good neighbors. Our neighbor immediately next door has been VERY good to us, letting us hook up to his water when we moved in when I was too stupid to know I had to go to the water department and have the water turned on. They have been great to us since day one and I am truly thankful that we are lucky enough to have them as neighbors. Most of the rest of the neighbors around us are nice and we are on first name basis with all of them. They are the neighbors that will stand and chat with you when you're outside, or will wave as they are coming or going. Yes, our immediate neighbors have been nice.

Except for the red house across the street.

We've lived here three years and to honest, I thought only teenagers lived there. (These are the teenagers who believe they have the right to play in OUR yard!) I don't think I've ever seen an adult there. Until recently.

The dad came knocking on our door about a month ago. Keep in mind, in three years we have never as much as gotten a wave hello, a nod or even the finger from this guy. I didn't even recognize him as a neighbor. He came knocking on our door at 10:00 on a Friday night, when there were no lights on in the house, and he's down there banging away until we answered. What did he want? Money. Can you believe it? To have the balls to knock on a dark house of people you have NEVER spoken to, just to ask for money. We found out that Ron is a better person than I am since I'd have kicked the guy to the curb.

The next Friday night, the same thing happened. He knocks on the door of a dark house, again, almost 10:00 at night and now gives Ron some sob story of him being out of food in the house and he really needs money.

I really had problems with this one. Every church in the neighborhood has a food bank. He could have gone to any one of them, asked for food and been helped out. No. He waits until 10:00 to knock on OUR door to ask for another hand out. Once again, Ron is a better person than I am.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in charity. We support quite a few local and national charities. If it had been any of my neighbors who are neighborly and actually give us the time of day, or a nod or a wave or even, dare I say it, say HELLO to us, I'd have gladly helped out any one of them that told me they were having a hard time. But for someone who has never as much as flipped me the bird to ask for money to me is beyond chutzpah.

So that's the bad neighbor.

Believe it or not, the good neighbor then came knocking on the door a few weeks later. He actually lives on the cross street a block to the south of us. He told Ron that he is a painter and he was currently between jobs and needed money. He saw that our three dormers on the house needed painted (BOY did they need painted!) and he told Ron he'd paint them for a price. The price was very reasonable and he was hired on the spot! Then Ron got to work negotiating even more jobs that needed done that we haven't had time to do.

Not only do our dormers look awesome, our front porch floor has finally been painted! That's been on our list of things to do since the day we moved in to the house! And, the garage was scraped, primed and painted and I'm tickled pink over here.

Not only did we put him to work, we helped him find more work. Right now he's working on our next door neighbor's garage and his next job is for our friend Larry. The guy is very good and very reasonable.

I have a lot of respect for this man. He didn't come knocking on a stranger's door asking for a hand out. He asked for work. I can sure never fault anyone for that. You can be sure any time this man knocks on our door again, we will always help him in whatever way we can.

I'm Wild About Harry

I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I don’t think that’s a secret to anyone.

The newest, and unfortunately the last, Harry Potter book, book 7, is to be released later this month. Of course, I’ve long ago been to my buddy Amazon and requested that they send me my own copy of the book the day it’s released! In preparing for this great event, I have started reading all of the Harry Potter books again, from start to finish just to make sure I remember who everyone is and what’s been going on in their lives. I am almost done with book 5, The Order Of The Phoenix, then I’ll zip through book 6 and hopefully be ready the day I receive book 7.

When I thought of this plan, it sounded easy! When you get to the later books, I’ve forgotten how intense they are, especially at the end. I was flirting with finishing book 5 last night and I came perilously close. However, after working 11 to 12 hour days, I can’t stay up late to play! It was already midnight and my eyes were slamming shut and I wasn’t sure anymore what was going on.

I closed my book, grabbed my phone and called Ron to say good night before I fell asleep. Let me tell you, I was cutting it close! I remember talking to him, although I really don’t remember what we said. I was just totally exhausted last night.

I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until this morning, getting ready to leave for work.

I am up, showered, dressed and ready to walk out the door. I grab my laptop bag, and my work phone, but doggone it; I can’t find my personal phone. I know I had it since I talked to both my brother Jim and to Ron last night! It has to be in that room somewhere!

I started tearing everything apart looking for it. I finally got smart and just used my work phone to call my personal phone. Luckily, I knew I had actually turned on the ringer last night, so I should hear it ring this morning. Yes, I hear the tinny ring that is my phone! Unfortunately, it sounds like it’s coming from somewhere on my bed, which is a huge king sized bed with a luxurious thick duvet cover now all rumpled on the top of it. Yep, somewhere in all that white fabric is my phone.

I really tore the bed apart trying to find it and yes, it was in the duvet cover somewhere. So, that made for a little bit of a slow start to my day. Put me a little behind, as the dufuses were down in the lobby waiting on me.

Let’s brush ourselves off and move on. I get into the job site, sit down, boot up and start to work. It’s maybe 15 minutes later or so and I get a warning pop up on my screen that I am almost out of battery power and I had either better plug in or save all of my work because my laptop will shut down. Duh! I started to check my cable connections and sure enough, all were plugged in. The light on my monitor that lights up when it’s plugged in was lit, as was the external wireless card I have plugged in to the side of my laptop. If these items are receiving electricity, why isn’t the rest of the laptop? Hey, this is the extent of my laptop knowledge. While I was checking that all of the cables were plugged into the proper places, my screen goes to black. Crap. I again verified that everything is plugged in as it should be and hit the ON/OFF button. The first screen to appear when I boot up is the logo screen. It says “IBM ThinkPad” and in the bottom left corner it will say press F1 to boot up one way or F12 to boot up another. Yeah, right, like I have ever in my life ever contemplated doing something stupid like that! I waited and I waited. Usually that screen disappears after a few seconds and the Windows logo comes on. No windows, it’s just stuck on ThinkPad. I’m scared; really scared. I’ve been through getting a new laptop before and I DON’T want to do it again! (Ok, we never get “new” laptops, we just get ones that other auditors have turned in for whatever reason and IT has had a chance to hopefully fix them.)

I sat there looking at my screen praying for it to change. You know, you should really be careful what you wish for! It changed to a screen that I have NEVER seen before. It told me that there was no date or time programmed. The screen I was taken to had spaces for me to type in the date and time. Cripes, what more can they ask of me?? This is way beyond my expertise! But I sucked it up, and filled in all the little squares and hit enter. Then it was back to the ThinkPad screen.

Then I did one of the things that I do best. I called for help, first from my boss sitting right behind me and then a call to my corporate IT department guru. The guru wasn’t at work yet, as I was causing all of this trouble at the unholy hour of 7:30 am. My boss gave me a few suggestions, such as “try to reboot”. Ok, I might have come up with THAT one on my own! But, I held the button until the ThinkPad screen went away and it returned to black. I waited a few minutes and even rebooted the damn power strip! Then I pushed the almighty ON/OFF button again. It was slow coming around, and it stayed on the ThinkPad screen for a long time, but it did boot up.

I was afraid to touch anything for awhile! But, I got brave and started reopening all of my programs and working away. All seemed well after that slow start.

My guru called me back right after 8:00 and I gave him the lowdown. His response was “hmm, that’s unusual”. You have to know this guy. You could stick a firecracker up his nose and explode it and that would probably be as excited as he ever got. He’s not a Ben Stein type of flat, but more like that painter on PBS with the afro that used to paint happy little trees here and there! That’s our guru! Always calm, always cool and my panicking in no way makes him nervous! He’s awesome to talk through when bad things are happening to my laptop. Somehow, he always talks me through it and never loses his patience with me.

His answer unfortunately was to be prudent and send me a replacement laptop. NO! I don’t want to go through that mess again, as I’m the one that has to transfer everything then! I have put some of my templates, and letters and faxes and spreadsheets on a flash drive, but all of my Approach files are too big to put even ONE of them on my flash drive and I have at least 30 of them on here. Grrrr

So, I had a little talk with my laptop today. It was allowed one bad day. Now I promise to dust in between its keys and clean the screen more often if he’ll agree not to break down on me. We’ll see how this agreement works tomorrow morning. If all is well, I’m telling the guru I don’t wanna be prudent. Let’s throw caution to the wind and let me keep this laptop. This dang machine hadn’t better make me regret this decision.

Made Me Go "Hmm"

I had a few days off last week. Some people call it a vacation, but it was more than that. It was a mental health break. I didn't get much accomplished during my mental health break, but I did do one thing that has been on my list of things to do for about the last six months.

Friday I headed to Best Cuts for a quickie hair cut. I've been growing my hair, so it's not like I needed a "do", I just needed about 2-1/2 to 3 inches whacked off the ends to get rid of those darn dry and dead ends. Easy, right? Should have been a five minute job.

I jumped up into Mario's* chair and told him what I wanted. As he was running the comb through my hair, he immediately said "wow, you could sure use some color". Hey, gray IS a color! His tip was getting smaller and smaller by the minute.

He kept reinforcing in me that they were having a sale. Seven foils for $25.

Um, what is a foil and how do I know if seven of them are too much or not enough? Or, so I need to order three sets for 21? That sounds like a lucky number.

Ok, I was NOT going to admit that I didn't have a clue what the hell he was talking about. Yeah, I stuck with my story: gray IS a color. I'm keeping it.

*Mario's name has been changed because he's an idiot and didn't deserve the publicity of having his name out there to all of my three readers!

I Can At Least Boil Water

Due to a water main break down the street, we are to boil our water before drinking it. I checked our official city website to find instructions on how to do this. All I saw were notices that we were to boil the water!

Silly question, but for how LONG do we boil it?! Anyone know?

There's An Angel In My Tree

You know, I do believe in a little relief in life. Whether it be from a $0.99 margarita night or just an evening of good libations. However, you gotta sober up sometime.

There is a couple in Georgetown, IL that had a soft maple tree on their property that needed cut down. They hired a tree service, and had the tree brought down. Then (and I'm guessing this is after a night of $0.99 margaritas!) they see an "image" in the cut edge of one of the limbs. I know, unbelievable, huh?

The image this couple claims is the image of an angel. Hey, I want to believe in miracles, too. I want to see an angel. This angel is said to have two eyes, two legs, two arms, a halo and wings. Sounds pretty good to me.

Um, I don't get it. I don't see anything but a blob. I don't see arms, legs, halos, nothing. A blob. In case this picture isn't clear enough, you can read the article here and get a better picture of the angel.

Personally, I think these people need to stay off of the sauce. Either that or I need a new pair of eyes.

Neighborhood Is Going To Pot

Ron called me as soon as he saw this sign! According to him, it says the same thing on both sides. I told him I'd love to have a picture of this to post on the blog. Thanks, honey!

Is this just truth in advertising? Or has the neighborhood really gone to pot?

Auditor On Duty

There are just some people you should just make sure to stay on their good side. Like bartenders, the people that cook your food, housekeeping at the hotel, the policeman that pulls you over. . . you know, the people that have the power to really f* with you.

Today I made an egregious error in messing with the cafeteria lady.

They have a decent cafeteria here on site. There are a few vending machines plus a staff that serves a hot breakfast or bagels and then sandwiches or a hot lunch for reasonable prices. It’s not the Ritz, but it will do in a pinch. This morning, all I needed was a soda. There are soda machines in the cafeteria, but all I had was a $20 and the machines only takes singles. So I went to the cooler to grab a bottle and had to pay for it at the cash register.

There is a gentleman in front of me with a plate full of breakfast. His bill came to $2.20 and he handed Cafeteria Lady $20.25. For those of you trying to do the math in your head, he should have gotten back $18.05 in change. However, I watched her count out $17.05 and hand it to him and he was happy as a lark putting his bills back in his wallet.

Um, I really have a few problems here. Number one, I am nosey. Number two, I am anal retentive. And, number three, I have a bad habit of talking to strangers. So, I actually said out loud, “that should be eighteen”. He kind of looked at me funny and said, “yes, eighteen, nineteen, twenty”. I hope this shirt and tie guy wasn’t from the finance department.

I said, “yes, but you also gave her a quarter, so your change should have been $18.05 and not $17.05”. He pulled his change back out of his wallet and sure enough there was only $17 in there and not $18. Shirt and Tie Guy and Cafeteria Lady looked at each other for a minute and then the light dawned on them. They both realized I was right (geez, I do love when that happens!) and she opened the register to give him another dollar.

Well, he was stupefied that I figured out this error. Then I held up my badge which clearly states, “Visitor – Internal Audit”. I said it’s a good thing I’m an auditor. I’m just doing my job!

Ok, he got the joke and laughed and made a little to-do about welcome to the company and all that. We had our little chuckle and then it was my turn to hand over a $20 for a $1 bottle of Diet Pepsi. Cafeteria Lady told me I should go away because I’m costing her money! Duh! She was a little reluctant about giving me my change and then complained about the fact that too many people are paying with $20s and she should start refusing them. She really was not happy with me once Shirt and Tie Guy left.

Ok, I got it. Yes, ma’am. I understand. I pissed you off; you have every right to take it out on me. Now may I please have my soda?

Yeah, I think it will be awhile before I eat in the cafeteria again. Perhaps going out to lunch every day isn’t such a bad idea.

In Conclusion

Just an addendum to yesterday's post. Today my air conditioner had to be fixed again AND I once again left my freakin' key in the room when I left to go to dinner! Maybe I'm getting that nasty old-timer's disease!

What Next?

You know, some days are good, some days are bad, and some days just really feel bad, even though you can't put your finger on just one thing that made it bad. Today was like that. A bunch of little things just all added up to make a not so great day.

It started off early this morning when I woke up. It was very chilly in this room (I do love air conditioning) so I turned the A/C down while I was getting ready for work. Well, after all that getting ready, I realized it's getting very warm in here, so maybe I should turn the A/C back up a little. Guess what? Nothing happened. I think I broke it! I can live without a lot of things, I do NOT want to live without air conditioning.

So, on my way out the door, I stopped by the front desk and put in a maintenance request. She kinda looked at me funny when I asked maintenance to fix my air conditioning. She said "now??" Um, ok, maybe not right now but before 5:30 pm would be good! She seemed surprised that I wanted maintenance in my room when I'm not planning on being in it. Hmmm. I don't know what I should have thought about that. I guess if he went through my underwear, I'm going to have to be ok with it, since my A/C is now working!

My company I work for changed cell phone providers. So, we all got new cell phones. Y'all know I am not technologically savvy. Two days with this phone and here is what I can do with it: answer it. I can't find the phone book to look up any numbers, and I can't figure out how to change the sound of the ring or even to make it ring at all. Like I said, I can answer it. Call me, I'll prove it to you!

Work was one of them days too. I won't even go there now, let's just say I was never so happy to see beer o'clock!

Dinner went ok, but when I got back to the hotel I realized that I left my key to my door right on the bed. So, I'm stuck! Back downstairs to the front desk for new keys. Luckily after five weeks, they recognize me. When I finally got into my room, I thought a nice shower, and I'll be in and relaxed for an evening of chilling out and forgetting about everything.

I seem to be shedding lately as hair is coming out in handfuls. One of the times I really notice that is when I'm putting conditioner in my hair in the shower. I end up with a lot of hair in my hands as I'm rubbing in the conditioner. I'm afraid of all that hair going down the drain, so I generally rub my hands together so that all the hair in them clumps together. Then I take the hairball and put it on the edge of the tub so when I get out I can throw it out. (Too much information yet??!!)

All that just for this punchline. I put the hair ball on the edge of the tub then finished my shower. I know I've posted before that I can't see a thing when I don't have my contacts in, so everything is a little blurry. I shut the water off, whipped the curtain back, and the hair ball must have been touching the curtain because when I whipped it back, the hairball fell into the tub. Well....

Me with my bad eyesight, all I see is this big dark thing jumping into the tub with me! You know I think it's a huge spider and I did what I do best. I screamed!

Good news/bad news is that no one came running. I'm still not sure if that's good or bad. But, needless to say as soon as I got done screaming I remembered putting the hair ball there and then felt like an idiot.

So, before I cause any more problems in this hotel today, I've got the lights shut off, the tv is down low, and I'm going to sit here in my corner very quietly and try not to cause any more problems! I don't think I could take one more little bad thing happening!

Come For Dinner And Stay For The Show

The title of this blog beat out this title by a hair:

With Friends Like This I Don't Need Enemies

Since we've been here at this audit site, we found a great restaurant called Mi Tequila. It's not just the fact that the margaritas are $.99 on Mondays, we also go there because they have good food. Tonight we had a show with dinner.

We were about half through with dinner when from behind me there was a bit of a "thud". My boss who was facing me started a bit of a laugh, so I knew whatever happened behind me was not good.

Before I knew it, I saw one of the waiters walking this girl that looked to me to be about 18 through the restaurant towards the bathroom. Suddenly, what little power the girl had was gone and she was down on the floor. She half fell onto our table before hitting the floor so we had ring side seats. The poor waiter who spoke no English didn't know what to do with this girl. He tried to get her back to her feet but he probably weighed as much as she did at maybe 110 pounds.

Finally a couple of waiters went running to her as well as one of the patrons in the restaurant that had some kind of medical training. Between all of them, they got her to a chair but couldn't bring her around at all.

The restaurant has an outdoor patio that you get to from inside the restaurant. Finally, a few of her friends came in to check on her, but then would go back outside. This went on for quite awhile! The patron that ran to her when she was on the floor was still with her trying to bring her around but the girl's friends kept going back outside to continue their party.

I think management finally stepped in and two of her male friends from outside came inside and each of them grabbed her under one of her arms and more or less carried her happy ass outside.

We talked about the show we saw for awhile, then we realized that her friends were all back on the patio, so how did the drunk girl get home? We HOPED these morons had enough sense not to give her car keys and let her drive herself home! She couldn't even say her own name for crying out loud, let alone drive herself home!

It was maybe 30 minutes later by the time we finished up and headed out the door. In line ahead of us to pay are her friends from the patio. I guess finishing up their $.99 margaritas was much more important that worrying too much about their friend.

We paid our bill and headed out to the parking lot and who did we see?? Drunk girl! These people actually dragged her out of the restaurant and propped her ass in a car to wait for them until they got done with their party. I just couldn't believe it. It's 90 degrees outside and humid as all get out and she's sitting in a car in the sun.

So, little girl, if you're reading this, here is a life's lesson from someone that's been there, done that and got the t-shirt:

1 - learn how much alcohol you can hold. It ain't for everyone.
2 - get a BETTER CLASS OF FRIENDS.

But Can Ya Fry An Egg?

Most people know I’m a reality TV junkie. My favorite reality show changes from time to time, but I really do love most of them!

One of them playing now that is on the top of my list at the moment is Hell’s Kitchen on Monday nights on Fox. Hell’s Kitchen has chef Gordon Ramsay taking a bunch of wanna be high end chefs that range from executive chefs to short order cooks and putting them through the paces on the race to see who gets to run a multi-million dollar restaurant on their own along with a nice salary of $250k per year plus a portion of the profits of said restaurant. Who cares about the prizes though! It’s the journey getting there that sucks me in every week!

Chef Ramsay is a task master. There are various challenges that the contestants must go through every episode, and then there is one contestant kicked off the show every week. This, in my opinion, is the best part of reality TV! This guy, Chef Ramsay, is unbelievable. He swears like a marine and every week will make at least two chefs cry in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s freakin’ awesome.

The best part of Hell’s Kitchen is the perfection that Chef Ramsay demands. If a dish is not perfect, he will throw it out (or at the chefs in training!) and make them start again. Granted, I’m sure that my specialty of orange spaghetti would never pass his scrutiny, but I appreciate his demanding perfection.

All that background just to tell a story. We went to dinner the other night and the experience was horrible. It was a local place that we had been to before. While it’s not a Gordon Ramsay five star restaurant, when we had been there previously, the food was good and the service was ok.

This time, service was awful as was the food. My chicken was passable, but the pasta side dish that came with it was all clumped into one big clump and cold. The service was downright horrible. Again, this isn’t a five star restaurant, but my $20 meal should be a little better than it was. Who’s the kitchen manager? Where is quality control? How could a dish that looked as badly as it did make it out of the kitchen and onto my table? Why can’t life be more like reality TV? Where is Gordon Ramsay when I need him?

The Straight Poop From The State Police

In some ways, my boss is kind of like one of my brothers. Not that my brothers are soul-less, evil, amoral, racist, sexist pieces of crap. However, in the sense that we do our share of arguing on certain subjects, he is like my brothers. Mostly I just let him spew his crap and I just shut up, but when I know I can prove him wrong, I do it with gusto! I love to be right in an argument.

He has been picking me up and driving me to this out of town audit we are currently working. That gives us a good four hours a week in a car to fill up with inane conversation.

On Fridays when we leave for home, we do leave a little bit early since we have travel time to get home. From this audit, we are usually on the road just after 3:30 p.m. That’s good that I’m not getting home at 8:00 at night, but the last few weeks we’ve had to deal with school buses taking kids home in the afternoon because of leaving at 3:30 p.m.

We were on a non-divided four lane road with a school bus in the oncoming traffic lane, stopped with lights flashing letting off children. Three out of the four lanes were stopped for the bus. My boss, who has absolutely NO patience, moves over to the outside lane and blows right on through.

Of course, I have a smart aleck comment such as “nice going; so much for stopping for a stopped school bus”. He replied that in the state of Ohio, you do not have to stop on a four lane road if you are in the opposing traffic lane. I called shenanigans on that statement. I would have bet my paycheck that he was wrong.

Insert a little background info here. My dad was an elementary school bus driver for many years. When we learned how to drive, the safety instructions for when to stop for a school bus were one of the first things learned. Had my Dad ever seen me blow by a school bus, I know he’d have taken my keys away. He was that serious about this subject. I really thought if I don’t know nothing about nothing else, I know school bus law.

Instead of arguing with him all the way back to my house, I decided to let it drop and then just prove it to him! Some time that Friday night, I did a little web surfing on the Ohio Department of Transportation web site. Here is what I found regarding passing a stopped school bus:

If driving on a 4-lane roadway, the driver need not stop if on the other roadway.

This made absolutely no sense to me. So, I followed a link to e-mail in a question. I explained the situation and asked for clarification as I did not understand the website.

Last Friday, I received a very nice reply from Lieutenant Tony Bradshaw of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. He replied:

Thank you for your question about stopping for a stopped school bus. Ihave highlighted the portion of the law that will answer your question.Yes, according to Ohio law, in a four lane roadway, the opposite trafficdoes not need to stop when the school bus is stopped to let passengersoff the bus. They must stop if they are traveling in the same directionas the bus. If traffic is on a two lane road, all traffic in bothdirections must stop.

Wow. Who’d have thought.

I do so hate losing an argument to him.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Saturday seemed to be our day for good deeds.

We started out with driving to my nephew’s house in Pennsylvania to help them move. We had beautiful weather for it and a decent sized crew to work, so all went extremely well. We got most of the stuff out of the old house and into the new house. Hey, putting stuff away was not in my contract, so once the moving vans were unloaded, we boogied on home.

Perhaps the word “boogied” is too much of a stretch of the imagination. Actually, I collapsed into the van and Ron started the drive home.

Some time when we were still in Pennsylvania, Ron woke me from my nap to tell me that the van in front of us was having a lot of trouble. That’s all I needed to hear, I was now wide awake!

It was some kind of Jeep minivan/small SUV type vehicle, pulling what looked like an empty boat trailer. The road we were on was a four lane divided highway, so two lanes in each direction. This was not enough real estate for this crazy woman in front of us. We watched for awhile as she went from the guard rail on the right over into her proper lane, then into the left lane and then back to her lane.

I was terrified of Ron trying to pass her, so he stayed back and we watched. The more we watched, the worse it got. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I actually called 911. I explained that it was a dark colored, green or black, mini van pulling an empty boat trailer. I stated the mile marker we were at as well as the direction of travel. The State Police asked a few questions to verify, and then said they’d post a car up ahead to pull her over. It couldn’t happen soon enough for us, I’ll tell you.

We stayed behind her for almost another 10 miles. It was harrowing just watching her weave all over the road. Finally, Ron couldn’t take it anymore and when she zigged to the right, Ron zagged to the left and went around her and hopefully out of harm’s way.

It was almost 15 miles from where I made the 911 call until we saw a State Trooper on the left side of the road, in the shoulder, waiting for her to go by. We were now a good mile or so ahead of her, so we missed the excitement of any action while pulling her over, but hopefully it turned out to be a good deed after all. Otherwise all we did was really piss off a driver with Indiana plates trying to head home.

Meet Me On The Moon

A long, long time ago in a land far, far away, my sister Cathie and I used to live in the same time zone. Heck, not only the same time zone, but the same state, city, and zip code even!

Cathie is older than me by seven years. That is a huge difference when growing up. That means as the baby sister, I absolutely idolized her. She was blond, skinny, beautiful, independent, strong and in my fourteen year old eyes, everything I ever wanted to be. She was perfection.

And then she left. She loaded up the truck in a move to Beverly. Ok, maybe not Beverly Hills, but she did go to California. Do you realize that California is 3,000 miles away from Pennsylvania? That was definitely the worst thing that I had gone through so far in my first fourteen years of life. How do I say good bye to my sister? My idol?

Back in these olden days before cell phones, long distance calls were not so easy to come by in my house. They cost a lot of money to call that far. Phone calls were few and far between. No internet yet, so it was only snail mail. They never came fast enough or often enough.

I did have a hard time adjusting to the separation. So, Cathie came up with a corny solution. Yes, I know it's corny, but it helped.

At a predetermined time, Cathie and I would both walk outside and look up at the moon. It wouldn't matter if it was a full moon, or a sliver of a moon. As long as we could see any part of the moon, and we were standing outside at the same time, looking at the same moon, it was like being magically together even for a short time. Looking at the moon with Cathie would be like a hug from far away. I could go out there and cry a little, but knowing Cathie was doing the same thing as I was, it made it a little easier to cope with her being so far away.

As the years have gone by, we have changed a little. For one, I grew up. I still think Cathie is awesome, and still miss her like crazy, but contact is easier now. If I have a secret I need to tell someone, I call Cathie. If I have a concern I want to talk about, I call Cathie. We still call each other if we see an awesome full moon. That always makes us think of the other! But other than that, there haven't been any planned dates on the moon in a long time.

Until last week.

Last Thursday night was a blue moon. That's what happens about once every three years when there are two full moons in a month. For this auspicious occasion, Cathie and I decided to meet on the moon at a certain time Thursday evening. I waited all week, counting down to the big moment. When the appointed time came, I walked out of the hotel a few minutes early so maybe I could find a nice piece of grass around here with a great view of the moon and then Cathie and I could have a nice long chat looking at the blue moon together!

And, horrors of horrors, the town I'm in was extremely overcast that night. There was not a moon nor a star to be seen. I called Cathie at the appointed time to give her the bad news. I could see nothing. I'm in tears over here with the disappointment, but Cathie worked her magic and made me feel better anyway. We chatted until way past my bedtime but that was ok! We had a great time.

After our phone call, Cathie took the picture above in her driveway so I could see what I missed.

Thanks, Sissy! I still miss you. I'll meet you on the moon any time.

ZAP!

One of my famous sayings is “I don’t know nothing about nothing”. Trust me; what I don’t know could fill up a couple of libraries.

Sunday, Ron and I went and caught up on some overdue shopping. I know, a few days before a holiday is never a good time to go shopping, but we were out of almost everything. It was now or never.

We started our adventure at Sam’s Club. Sam’s Club seems to have gotten some new shopping carts. These were the nice, large, plastic coated carts that were still big and wide but not so deep. In case no one has ever been to a Sam’s Club before, it’s a very large warehouse with a cement floor, and everything is displayed on simple steel shelving. Nothing fancy.

When we’re shopping in a store, I am usually the cart pusher. I am walking through the store and ZAP. My right palm suddenly felt like I was pushing a needle into my hand. What the heck? I looked down, expecting to see a spider or some other creature that I was going to have to scream for Ron to kill. I saw nothing. Just the plastic covered handle. It must have been my imagination.

Walking, walking, walking and ZAP. Again, someone is jabbing me with a needle! I have a vivid imagination but c’mon, I don’t usually get that excited about canned vegetables.

About the third time I couldn’t take it anymore. I no longer thought that this was my imagination, and I still don’t see a bug on the handle so what the heck is going on? I stopped the cart, showed Ron my hand (which looked as normal as it gets) and told him that something keeps biting me on the handle of the cart.

He looked closely at the offending handle and said that there was a little piece of the handle where the plastic has been scraped/worn away and bare metal was showing. I was just getting shocked from the metal on the handle.

Hello? Did I mention that I don’t know nothing about nothing? In my feeble mind though, I should NOT be getting shocked on a cement floor while just walking through the store holding on to a plastic coated shopping cart while wearing sneakers.

This should have been added to my book “That’s Just Wrong” because it’s just wrong!

Let Are Kids Walk

It's been over the news recently that students and parents are protesting schools that are not allowing seniors to walk across the stage at graduation and get even an empty diploma if their grades will not pass them through the grade or if they fail the skills tests.





This picture, from WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth, is of seniors at Trimble Tech High School picketing the Fort Worth Independent School District on their decision to not allow the students to walk across the stage at commencement because they did not pass their TAKS, (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills,) tests.

This student should be ashamed as should her parents. Are these our future leaders? Heaven help us all.

Mrs. Lavenka Revisited

Since no one is in the office but me, I'm having a hard time concentrating on anything productive other than surfing the internet. Lucky for me, I told my boss not to call here after 3:00 since I also plan on leaving early!

Anyway, I wrote recently about how I thought I was turning into a junior Mrs. Lavenka. Then I read this article.

I don't know if my grass is worth all that.

What's In A Number?

Traveling does get old after awhile. One of the hardest things for me is remembering where I am or where I need to be.

When I’m staying in the same hotel every week, the first room I am assigned in that hotel sort of gets imprinted in my head. Last week, our first week at this audit, I was in room 316. Nice room, right off of the elevator.

We are up to week two, and I still have room 316 on my mind. However, I am down a floor and across the hall in room 219.

Monday night, I was exhausted when I was climbing into bed. I figured since I was so tired, I’d need more than the alarm on my phone to get my happy ass out of bed in the morning. So, I called down to the front desk and asked for a wake up call for room 319 at 5:30 a.m. The attendant downstairs told me she’d be happy to enter my wake up call for me before she added “but ma’am, you should know that you are actually in room 219, not 319.” Fine. Whatever.

I mean, what am I supposed to say? I had $0.99 margaritas at dinner and I’m not exactly sure of my room number? Even if you know I got it wrong, did you have to call me on it? I don’t need it pointed out that I’m an idiot that doesn’t know where she is!

So there. That was that.

Until last night.

I went down to the front desk last night to make a couple more reservations for my stay here as I know I’m going to be here at least six weeks. After we dispensed with all of that, I said, “oh, since I’m here, how about a wake up call in the morning at 5:30 a.m.?” She answered sure; she’d love to help me with that. She asked what room I was in. I told her 316.

Needless to say, this morning my phone never rang so I ended up taking one heck of a fast shower, just washing every other body part in order to meet my audit team on time in the lobby. I hate starting a day like that, in such a rush.

I think room 316 was good to me. Room 219 is also very nice, but I just don’t seem to have an attachment to it (obviously!). Wait until next week when I’m just going to walk up and down the halls trying my key in all of the doors until I find one that opens!

On the plus side, I had another nice note in my room tonight from the housekeeper! I didn't think the tip I left was THAT big! But, she does do a great job on my room, my things seem to be left alone, and she doesn't throw out my started bottles of shampoo. I see another call to a hotel manager about a great staff member in my immediate future. Perhaps I can keep her on retainer so she can leave me a trail of notes so I can find my room in the evening.

Uh Oh!

I’ve had sounds that go crunch in the morning, and now I’ve had a sound that I can’t even put into words to describe it in here!

The company we are auditing has all of their documents on microfilm. For the record, this is NOT my favorite medium. I usually have to take a dose of Dramamine in order to read the films and not throw up from the motion sickness and then I am fighting to stay awake to analyze them as the Dramamine just makes me want to sleep. At least this company has a better microfilm reader than most I’ve worked with.

The reels of microfilm come in a little box. I open the box, take the reel of film and insert it into a plastic horseshoe shaped holder. The holder is then slid into the microfilm reader and the reader automatically threads the film into the machine preparing it to be read. There is a keypad on the machine that all I have to do is punch in the appropriate number for the frame of film I want to see and the reader will advance the film to the exact frame I requested. Since most of it is automatic, I don’t have to watch the film roll by, therefore reducing my motion sickness.

Then it happened. I put the reel into the plastic horseshoe shaped holder. I inserted the holder into the machine. The, as the automatic threader took over, I suddenly heard the most horrific sound. Sounded like glass and bone being put through a wood chipping machine. Everyone came running and guess who was sitting in the chair, at the machine, looking guilty! ME! Talk about wanting to crawl under a desk and hide.

We realize we are guests when we are on an audit site. We try to act accordingly. We are respectful of others, and we try not to make a mess or leave anyone’s desk in disarray. Then I go and break the toys.

Luckily for me, (I mean them) there is a service contract on this piece of machinery. Service was called and a few hours later a nice person fixed what was broken and they gave me the word that I can go back to the machine. Are they kidding me? Like I’d risk breaking something twice in one week! Oh heck no.

I will wait until next week to get back on the machine. That way we can have some excitement next week too. Lock up the copy machine and the fax. They could be next.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles And Smoke Alarms Too

Ok, two out of four isn’t bad seeing as how I only have something to say about two out of the four listed.

We all know there are good train crossings (the ones with the lights and gates) and there are bad train crossings (no lights or gates). Has anyone ever seen a flashing light on a door that goes outside that signifies a passing train? I can now say that I have.

Most of our work is done in one building. But we do have a few contacts that we must meet with that are in the next building. Going out the side door, you have to first notice if the red lights are blinking that are over the big yellow sign that says “CAUTION! TRAINS”. I thought at first that was a typo. It’s not.

There is enough room to open the door if a train is on the tracks, but that’s about it. You have about two feet of room out there and then there is the train! Needless to say, it shakes the building as it goes by. I’m a little apprehensive about standing outside when a train is going by as it would only take a small shove from my boss to put me into the train. I’m not that willing to give him such an easy shot.

Today I did stand inside the building though as the train was going by. And for some reason, it made me giggle that I actually had to stand there, inside of the building, and wait for the train to go through so I could cross the way to go into the next building.

Yes, this job is sometimes an adventure.

And you know how I’ve been lately with fire alarms. I heard another one today, but this time, not at the hotel. This one was right at the audit site. To say I was indisposed when the alarm went off is an understatement. (Read: in the bathroom) I hurried to finish what I was in the middle of and hot footed it back to the department I am working with. The alarm is blaring and everyone is going about their business like nothing is happening. I did ask our contact if this was something that we should be worried about. She sort of looked around and said “oh, the alarm is going off.” Hmm. I took that as it was nothing to worry about!

A short time later, my audit team and I left for lunch and there was a fire department SUV parked outside. I’m assuming they were here testing the alarm which is why no one was worried about it. I guess I was too busy in the bathroom to get the memo on that one.

Have I mentioned that some days this job is an adventure?

Small Town America

It’s a new day and a new audit. For once, this one is west of me, so I’m not the one that was stuck driving since I was the farthest one out. This time my boss had to be the one to leave an hour early on Monday to come and get me, and on Friday he’ll get home an hour after I do. I like it! I’m on the right side of town this time!

This is a new audit for us, and it’s the first audit our client has had. It’s in the middle of nowhere, or at least close to it. The drive down showed us a lot of farm lands and a lot of nothing. I was definitely okay with that. Beats the hustle and bustle of downtown Buffalo for sure!

So far, the staff seems very nice and is really showing us the ropes around here and around town. They seem to feel badly for us since our hotel is “way on the other side of town!” After all, it takes us a whopping 10 minutes or so to get here in the morning! Darn those cross town drives!

Two other warnings I’ve received since yesterday:

1 – If you’re in the bathroom washing your hands, and someone flushes the toilet, get your hands OUT OF THE WATER. The cold water all seems to go to the toilets and the hot water is funneled to the sinks. People have been burned. I appreciate this advice.

2 – If you choose to go across the street to one of the two restaurants located there, you must walk to the corner and cross at the cross walk. Otherwise, you run the risk of a $95 jay-walking fine and from what I’ve been told, this street is monitored closely just for that purpose. Small towns gotta generate revenue any way they can, I guess.

As a side note, I wonder how much a speeding ticket is through town. I bet it’s cheaper than that jay-walking ticket!

Other than that, not much else is going on. I am back on the road again, so hopefully this will bring out some good stories from on the road.

Taa Daa!!

I really did win a major award!

There was an award ceremony at work today in which I received the award to the left. It's a hand blown crystal gadget about 7-1/2" tall. Ron wiped my name off of the picture version of my award to protect the innocent.

The VP gave a nice speech of which some of it was factual.

It's kinda hard to get a good picture of a crystal award. Some may think I'm a good auditor, but I'll never be mistaken for a good photographer!

The Sweet Sights of Spring

Ahh. It's finally spring. I truly believe that summer really is just around the corner.

Some nights after work, I like to take the long way home. Lots of farm land, lots of trees and no turnpike, very little traffic. Yes, it takes a little longer but it's much prettier and much more peaceful. Today was one of them days when I really needed a nice, peaceful ride home.

On my peaceful ride home, I happen to drive by our friendly neighborhood correctional facility.

Here's how I really know it's spring time.

The guys are out in the yard, some playing softball, some just sitting in the stands watching the game. The last group is always seen standing on the fringes of things, arms crossed across their chests, and the lot of them just staring through the concertina wire out at the road.

I like to beep and wave at the guys. Just like our neighborhood firemen, the convicts will always wave back too! It does wonders for my ego when even someone like me can make a bunch of guys wave at her.

Ahh, the sweet sights of spring. Convicts out in the yard.