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.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
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!
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!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
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!
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.
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!
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!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
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!
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!
Monday, July 16, 2007
4 YEARS!!
Four years ago Ron and I moved in together! Wow! Can it really be four years already??
Happy Anniversary, honey!
Happy Anniversary, honey!
Saturday, July 14, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, July 09, 2007
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!
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!
Saturday, June 30, 2007
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?
Silly question, but for how LONG do we boil it?! Anyone know?
Sunday, June 24, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
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?
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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.
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!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
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!
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!
Monday, June 18, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, June 15, 2007
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?
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?
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, June 11, 2007
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)