The only thing worse...

...would be raccoons on caffeine!  Those nimble little "hands" of theirs can open locks.  The world would be theirs for the taking!

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ARS link fixed

Why is it inevitable that if I don't double-check a link just to be sure it's okay, it'll also be the only one that won't work?

Wasp Wars

One of Anthroslug's recent posts made me ache in sympathy.  I'd missed the original post where he'd written about being bitten on the hand by a meat bee, and in the update he'd posted a picture of that very swollen hand.

We've had a few encounters with those things ourselves.  They've chased us away from our food at picnics in several different states, and one summer we had a nest of them in the backyard that was not nearly far enough maybe 30' from our back door.  We'd always heard them referred to as "ground bees" down south, but "meat bees" does describe them pretty well.  They're vicious little bastards when hungry or annoyed.

Initially, we took a live-and-let-live stance, but about the fifth time they chased me out of that half of the yard, we decided enough was enough.  The risk of one of the kids being badly stung was just too great.  Athos is allergic to wasps, so the job of emptying most of a can of wasp spray into the entrance hole fell to me.  We'd heard that wasps don't fly at night, so we planned our attack for well after dusk.  Folks, we had bad information.  Those flying f***ers WILL come after you in the dark!  

The good news is, I didn't trip or smack face-first into a tree in my headlong flight to safety. I'm sure the local ER staff would have found the story highly amusing if I had, though.  Stupid people tricks can make their day.  Like the adage says, It's only funny until someone gets hurt . . . and then it's hysterical.

It was time to escalate the chemical warfare.  Gasoline went down the hole next, EPA rules be damned.  Unfortunately we couldn't follow the gasoline with the application of a lighted match because of the 6' wooden fence panel the nest was situated almost-but-not-quite-underneath.  Good sense prevailed for once, and we decided neither the neighbors nor the fire department would be particularly happy with us if they had to help extinguish a bug BBQ gone awry.

Result?  Ground bees, 2; homeowners, 0.

So we broke down and called in a professional extermination service to get rid of them.  The guy they sent said something to the effect of "no problem, this will be easy", reassured me that he'd been stung before and it wasn't a big deal if it happened again, grabbed a mostly-empty small hand-pumped sprayer, and proceeded to hit the wasps with just enough insecticide to thoroughly piss them off.

I really did try to warn him.  But he, being The All-Knowing Pest-Control Professional, didn't see any reason to heed the advice of a mere homeowner....

The wasps boiled up out of the ground and came after him en masse.  Now, I've been stung before.  It's not my idea of a good time, quite frankly, so Ol' Paranoid here was standing well away, watching from a safe distance.  But I was still close enough to see that if the wasps weren't intending to remove their assailant from the gene pool, they were doing a damned good impression of it!

The first half-dozen or so stings seemed to make Mr. Pest Control realize the error of his ways.  He fled the yard, announced "I'll be back with more poison...", climbed into his truck and drove off.  We didn't see him again until over a week later, when he showed up with a pumper truck and a full-body bee suit.  Turns out the stings he'd received the first time had turned him into a Michelin man look-alike and he'd spent 4 or 5 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics and antihistamines.

He suited up, dragged the sprayer hose around to the back yard, rammed the nozzle down into the hole, and pumped damned near everything he had in the big insecticide tank into the nest, at pressure.  

There was no sign of insect activity anywhere near the nest, so a couple of days later we dug the thing up.  I wish we'd taken pictures.  The nest was much bigger than we'd ever imagined and so incredibly detailed we were almost (but not quite) sorry we'd had to destroy it.  But at least we knew for certain that our troublesome wasp colony was gone.

Most of the vegetation within a few feet of the nest was gone, too; it all turned brown and died in short order, leading me to wonder just what exactly was in the toxic brew saturating the ground there.  Some days I wonder if the next owners ever managed to get anything to grow there....

Now I know I'm lost in The Twilight Zone

Squidboy voluntarily folded some bath towels I'd pulled out of the dryer and dropped onto a table to deal with later in the day.

He also offered to iron them.

This is NOT the same kid who left for Basic Training at the end of October....

One more pic, with drill team marching

And a somewhat better shot of the mural.

Graduation at Midway Ceremonial Hall, Great Lakes

The left end of the hall, with about half of the 12 graduating divisions:

Center right hall, with about 3 divisions in shot:

Hall center, with mural of the Battle of Midway (sans grads):

Right end of the hall, sans grads:

There were 12 divisions graduating, with approximately 80 sailors per division.  We're talking just shy of 1,000 young adults standing proud and tall out on that floor, and there was easily room for three or four times that number without having to intrude on the area where they'd set up the stands.  Compare the size of the people or the doors to the building itself, and you'll get an idea of the scale of this place. It's mucking HUGE!

I do have some better shots, but specific individuals possibly could be identified from them, so they're not going to be posted here.  Privacy issues.  Might get into security issues as well, although this was one of only three places on the Base where photography was not only permitted, but encouraged.  The other two permissible areas were outside of the hall, facing it, and at the statue of The Lonely Sailor, which we didn't get to see.  It's a closed base, so civilians aren't exactly encouraged to go wandering around.  Even the newly graduated sailors aren't permitted back inside the gates once they've left.

We met all sorts of interesting folks from all over the country (and some from elsewhere!) who'd come to watch their sons and daughters, wives and husbands, or grandchildren pass-in-review.  Most of them were nice folks.  Although there was one woman we encountered outside, who I very badly wanted to bitch-slap.  There were a bunch of us standing around waiting for our sailors to retrieve their seabags from the barracks, and she had her camera out, trying to get a shot well away from Midway Hall.  Well, one of the men (dunno if he was Navy or Marines) working security put his hand up and told her no pictures.  She lowered the camera, turned away from him, gave me a grin and said: "I took it anyway!"

Stupid f***ing cow.  I'm just sorry she didn't get hauled off by the MPs and have her camera confiscated.  At the time I was too shocked to say anything, but now I wish I would have.

"Spider"

Scalpel posted a YouTube video called "Spider" to his site today.  It was very well done, but isn't exactly suitable for all audiences due to the shock factor.  I would not suggest watching it if you don't like sudden surprises or have health problems that a sudden surge of adrenaline could worsen.  Impressionable young minds probably shouldn't be exposed to it, either.

Easy way to help the ASPCA

I just found out that dogpile.com is doing something pretty cool: Use their site to do your online searches, and they'll donate part of their proceeds to the ASPCA!  Click here for the info.  And it doesn't cost you, the user, anything.  Looks like a win/win situation to me....

Who'd a thunk it?

So there I was, folding kitchen towels on the dining room table, and Youngest Son comes over, says "Give me that, Ma", and essentially grabs one out of my hands.

And why did he do this?

"Your edges aren't dressed!"

At which point he proceeded to fold the towel for me, military style, edges aligned and corners squared.

"Never thought you'd hear those words from me, did you?"

Well, quite honestly, no.

Something else I never thought I'd see:

He's learned how to iron.  And was even doing it voluntarily!

Who is this industrious young man, and what has he done with my son?!?

Squidboy is now a legitimate Squid!

Youngest Son graduated from Navy Basic Training on Christmas Eve morning, so on the 23rd we drove more hours than we'd counted on though snow and heavy traffic (will have to post a pic of that clusterf***k later), and saw far more wrecks than I hope to ever encounter again. Semis on their sides are NOT a good thing. The roads coming home the next day were better for the most part, but we still got into some nastiness. More semis off the road, more accidents (including a four-car pile-up on an on-ramp that had happened shortly before; no apparent injuries, tho' - everyone was out of the cars and walking around), a lane of traffic that was shut down on the interstate so an overturned semi could be winched out of the center ditch by a couple of heavy-duty wreckers, and a mid-size SUV that had run up an embankment and then flipped back onto the roadway onto its side.

Other than the going to and coming from, the trip and the graduation ceremony were all right.  It could have been very weird, but turned out okay.  See, his girlfriend went with us. You have to bear in mind that we'd never met her until we picked her up at her house Tuesday morning, and it wasn't until shortly before he left for Basic Training that he even told us her name! So us spending two days with The Girlfriend, and she with The Parents, was potentially a rather uncomfortable situation for all. Well, damned if it didn't work out just fine!

She's cute, she's sweet, she's smart, she seems to be very down-to-earth and sensible, and once we got her to open up a bit, we discovered she has a good sense of humor.  I like her.  And I approve of her, even if the kids don't really need my approval.

But most importantly of all, my son lit up when he saw we'd brought her with us. That tells me all I need to know. If she makes him happy, I'd try to be nice to her even if she were some high-maintenance airhead bimbo. And thank the gods, she's not!!

Some people may think I'm nuts (and maybe I am; you'd have to ask my shrink about that), but I told her I like her.  Don't know that it makes a difference to them, but it may.  Sometimes just knowing that The Mother likes The Girlfriend can certainly make a young man's life much easier. (Unless they gang up on him, of course, and then he's quite thoroughly screwed! LOL) I don't know exactly where Youngest Son's relationship with this young lady will end up, but I will be go to hell if I'll be the kind of Boyfriend's Mother (or MIL) that I've dealt with for all these years!

You see, after 24 years of marriage to her son, I have yet to hear those words from my MIL. When she found out Athos and I were engaged, her response was somewhat less than enthusiastic (her exact words were "We should have seen this coming"), and when he got him alone she told him, "I see you've chosen her over me."  WTF?!?  I wasn't aware that it was a one-or-the-other choice!

She snubbed and insulted me at every opportunity before we got married, publicly turned her back on me at the wedding rehearsal dinner, and continued making it obvious to everyone that she considered me an interloper for way too many years. (Things are somewhat better now; at least we have what could best be referred to as an armed truce.)  Making her a grandmother just two years after the wedding didn't make things any better between us, either; she wasn't old enough to be a grandmother, according to her, and took it out on me.  Never mind that her son bore half the responsibility for such an event!

And what kind of vicious person tells an first-time expectant mother, "Don't get too excited, anything can happen"?!?  I kid you not, those were her exact words to me in the second trimester.  I got the feeling she was actually hoping something would go wrong.  Maybe she thought a dead baby would precipitate a divorce?

The only thing keeping me from telling her to shove her attitude up her ass and refusing to set foot in her house ever again was my FIL.  He never treated me like anything but his own flesh-and-blood.  We lost him 6 years ago, on Dec. 23rd, and I don't think any of us will ever stop missing him.  I certainly won't.  RIP, Dad....

Handicaps

There's a heartwarming story over at zootoo.com: 'Hind' Over Matter:Paraplegic Cat Learns to Walk.  It's amazing how readily animals will adapt to situations that could traumatize a human.  I suspect many of us would consider losing a limb, a hand or a foot, or an eye to be a life-altering event.  (I know I certainly would!)  We consider our intelligence to be superior to that of our four-legged companions, yet they are often far superior to us when it comes to adjusting to life with a physical handicap.  Maybe it's because humans know what "should" be, while they exist in a world of what is.  Whether or not they are able to comprehend just what it is that makes a handicapped creature different from others of their kind, I have no idea; that's a question better left to scientists and animal behaviorists.  I can tell you that I have yet to encounter a handicapped, but otherwise healthy, creature that behaves as if it is wallowing in self-pity.  Instead, they just adapt and get on with it.

Why do I say this?  Experience.  See, over the years, we've had a number of handicapped cats: Edward, who'd been injured before we adopted him and had to have a badly infected rear leg amputated after the shredded ligaments refused to heal . . . Gabby, who came to us with half of her front paw missing . . . Butterscotch, who lost an eye to glaucoma . . . T.C., who'd been hit by a car and had a hind leg that would no longer bend after the shattered knee joint fused  . . . Charm, born with skeletal and joint deformities that might've prevented her from ever walking.  (She walks, runs, and navigates stairs quite nicely all on her own, thank you.  She also bosses her humans around - and is damned good at it too!)  None of them let their handicap be a handicap, if you understand what I mean.  Edward could get from one end of the house to the other faster than I could.  That missing leg kept him from jumping up onto the kitchen counters, but that was about it.  (Put a chair next to the cabinet, though, and he was up there in a flash.)  Gabby never noticed that she only had half of a front paw with which to grab food off of my plate; she only knew that she could do it.  And Butterscotch and T.C. kept right on doing what any "normal" cat would do.

Charm's the only one who can't quite do everything the others can - but that's why she keeps us around!  She tells us when she wants up on the sofa or the bed, or onto the ledge of an open window so she can sun herself and enjoy a warm breeze . . . in winter she leads me to the fireplace and lets me know she wants up in her chair (which used to be mine until she appropriated it grumble grumble) . . . she calls for us to carry her up the stairs if she doesn't feel like climbing them herself.  And climb them she can, make no mistake about that!  Her back legs may not work quite right, but her front legs and chest muscles are damned strong and give her an advantage over the others at times.  They also come in handy when it comes to bullying and intimidating the dogs.  They may be much larger than she is, but they fear her - and have somehow never even noticed that the soft little paws she smacks them with have no razor blades in them!

Attention caramel corn fans!

Epi posted her mom's caramel corn recipe on her site - with pictures, even!  It's a good, reliable, tasty recipe.  Heck, even *I* couldn't screw it up too badly, and I usually do not have any luck with candies, other than fudge.  Oh, and just as an additional testimonial to the recipe's worth . . . my hubby's been munching on it, and he doesn't like caramel corn!  Guess he does now that he's got the good stuff available.  Thanks, Epi!

The accompanying instructions and commentary are a treat, too.  Go check it out.

I'm an onion:

I have layers!  Of clothing, that is.  And it's a chore to peel and then re-layer when the call of nature comes.  But it beats freezing off body parts I might miss....

Don't you love that scene from the original Shrek when Shrek's trying to explain Ogres* to Donkey?  The first one's still the best of the three movies, IMHO.

*Am I the only one who thinks that word looks like it's wrong even when it's spelled correctly?!?

More medical humor

Epijunky has found another gem:

Oh, but I do love her blog!

Winter sucks

Found this in my email this afternoon, courtesy of a friend. I keep
wondering if I'll get home from work one day and discover this has
happened to our dog:

Could happen, for all I know.  It's been damned cold (some of you might disagree, but this ol' gal would be happier if it stayed above 40F all winter!) and we're going to be getting a lot more snow in the near future, according to the weather people.  As in, over a foot of the stuff before the weekend's over.  Yeah, it's pretty.  Yeah, it's going to give us a traditional Dickensian white Christmas (and a white New Years, and a white Valentines' Day, and maybe even a white Easter), because at this point it won't be disappearing before Spring.  Yeah, if it's going to be cold, having a good snow cover helps protect the plants.  And the septic tanks.  And the water well heads....

But it still sucks.  Maybe moving to the Conch Republic wouldn't be such a bad idea after all....

Speaking of well heads, one of hubby's coworker had his well head freeze up recently, so he got a couple of buckets of warm water from a neighbor so he could thaw it enough to get the water flowing again; wrapped it with heating tape and insulation; and upended a trash can over the whole mess.  Great plan.  Sensible plan.  Except at the same time he also managed to create a nice, safe, warm winter retreat for every field mouse in the vicinity.  I'm sure the hawks and owls will appreciate having fat, juicy mice waiting for them when the Rodent Snow Lodge gets opened up in April or May.

Medical humor - drink alert!

My friends know I have both a warped sense of humor and an interest in most things medical.  Hence the doctor/ER/EMT blogs I regularly surf.   Well, today GruntDoc put up a link to Dr. Wes' blog entry,  "Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin".  After watching the video twice (there are two versions available), I really don't think I can improve on Dr. Wes' observation,

"Be prepared to laugh. Hard."

Version 1:

Version 2.  This one is more developed and probably isn't appropriate for young children or work environments. (Unless, of course, you're actually *in* medicine.)

Quote for the day

After watching me splutter in irritation and frantically try to undo an "undo" command that went bad, Athos observed:

"There ought to be a CTRL+ALT+WTF key."

That'd be a really useful item when it comes time to administer the "three-fingered salute" to a balky computer.

Of kittehs and kids

One of our cats was up on the kitchen counter this morning (where's he's not supposed to be, BTW; not that any of them think rules apply to them) and was sitting there with on forepaw raised.  I didn't know if he'd hurt his leg or paw, so I started talking to him.  Athos started chuckling and said, "You're talking in Kitteh to him."

Well, um, yeah.  I'm a mom for chrissake!  It comes naturally.  Baby talk and Kitteh (or lolspeak) are basically just different dialects of the same "language".  I can't do the baby talk thing with the kids anymore (unless I'm deliberately trying to annoy the hell out of them), so it's either use it on the "four-legged children" or save it up for the grandchildren we hopefully won't be welcoming for several years yet.  Our preference would be for the boys to become self-supporting, with stable jobs (in this economy?!?); add daughters-in-law to the family; and THEN give us grandchildren.

You know, the traditional lifestyle model.

The one we followed to keep from being permanently disowned.

Only life doesn't always go quite the way one hopes or expects it will, so I'm not going sit here and spout any crap about tradition should always be followed, because equating "tradition" with "right/correct/proper" can be A Really Bad Idea.  The practices of both slavery and back-room abortions could be referred to as "traditional" simply because that's the way our antecedents did things, but I don't think any rational individual could argue that such "traditions" shouldn't be relegated to history books and the WTF were they thinking?!? file . . . and never practiced again!

But somehow I got off topic.  This post was supposed to be about lolspeak.  Although, oddly enough, even that is slowly making its way into the realm of "tradition".  Did you know that there are lolspeak wedding vows available?  How much more traditional can you get than *wedding vows*?!?  Apparently a lolspeak Bible is in the works, too, for those who wish to read and reverence the words of Ceiling Cat.  For pure mind-warping amusement, wander on over to the PAWS Universitee Library to check out the lolspeak adaptation of The Odyssey.  (Yes, I'm referring to the one many of us slogged through in high school English or Literature class.)  It's . . . unique.  And if you want to learn how to actually learn lolspeak as a second language, you aren't left to your own devices: There are classes.  Seriously.  Even I can't make this stuff up!

But back to Kitteh language.  Athos adopted a proper British accent and went off on a rather entertaining spiel about how cats probably listen to thier hoomans their humans speaking lolspeak and would like us to know that they actually speak The Queen's English perfectly well, and so on.

So what do I find later?  This:

more animals

Kismet in action.

Why the printer won't work

One of my wonderfully warped, fellow crazy cat lady cat-owner friends sent me the link to a very funny cat-vs.-printer video.  What a hoot!

Unfortunately, I can't get the video to load here and I don't know why.  I've been having a LOT of trouble that way lately.  It's getting to be extremely frustrating (gawd knows I have quite enough frustration in my life right now thank-you-very-much without blogger headaches too), and since I don't happen to have any valium in the oh-so-handy 55-gal drum size on hand, I'm afraid you're just going to have to click here to watch it....

Unhappy bird!

I've been having a helluva time getting this to load from the LOLcats site, here, so I had to go to "plan B" to get it here.  It's been one of those days....

Actually, this pic been pretty representative of my mood regarding work lately.  The Enforcer has it in for me.  Fine, I can play dominance games if that's what she wants.  But I think she may discover that she's picked the WRONG person to pick on.  I won't kiss her ass . . . but I damned sure will piss all over it if she pushes me any harder!

Great pic

Beautiful, isn't it?  I found it here.

"Why Mom Drinks Rum"

I don't know how many of you read Holly's blog Why Mom Drinks Rum.  She has a wicked sense of humor and an in-your-face style, which I rather enjoy.  I only found her recently, so there's a lot to catch up on.

Well, last night I ran across a series of posts that she calls "The Mommy Dearest Files".  You can find Part One here.  I have to warn you, though: This is not warm-fuzzy feel-good writing.  There's nothing humorous about it.  If you have issues from childhood abuse, or are already depressed, you may not want to go there.  It's very powerful -- and well worth reading.

On a lighter note, I can happily recommend several of her posts to get you started if you're looking for humor: "Attention Seeking Fur Missile", for cat people; "Here They Come Again" for those of us who get fed up with Christmas cards . . . and other things; "Therapy-erapy-erapy" for us moms; and "Is that normal?" for anyone who's ever been sick and had a chipmunk--  Oh, never mind.  Just go read, and you'll understand!

Mondays....

In case I hadn't mentioned it before, I'd like to state for the record that I hate Mondays.  I might be able to like them if they didn't almost invariably lead to four-more-days-just-like-it, but no, Mondays do seem to set the tone for the entire work week.  And friends, I have to tell you that I find this disheartening.

I changed departments about 6 weeks ago, so theoretically I'm still under the authority of a single department head (aka "Manager A"), as well as the company owner (who gets to order me around by virtue of the fact that he signs my paycheck).  The reality is that I seem to have gained three more people who think I'm their bitch too.

This is not good.  I'd dearly love to be able to shoot them the bird blow them a resounding raspberry and just ignore them, but it ain't happenin' as the saying goes.  All three are in a position to make my life a living hell miserable if they so choose.  And trust me, if I don't follow their orders, they will choose.  There's a reason I think of them as The Enforcer, The Bitch, and The Predator.  The first two I have to deal with daily, and at least for now, we seem to be practicing a little deterrence theory in lieu of actual détente.

And just what does any of this have to do with Mondays, pray tell?

It's very simple: Those are the days I usually get loaned out to another dept. head.  (Let's call him "Manager B".)  He's not the problem; he's easy to work for/with and the job duties I perform while under his direction aren't onerous.  The problem is, that's the day The Predator has the most opportunity to order me around as she pleases once the company owner leaves the premises.  She leaves Manager A alone (a wise decision on her part), but she doesn't mind playing dominance games with Manager B.  In fact, she and the other members of the Bitchy Estrogen Brigade (aka "BEB") show damn little respect to or for him most of the time, and it really ticks me off to see a nice guy treated so shabbily.  Hell, the BEB seems to think *he's* their bitch too, despite the fact that he's on the same level as they are in the corporate structure!  The owner really ought to put a stop to such crass unprofessionalism, not that anyone there cares what I think....

Now, I could understand someone further up in the company hierarchy reassigning me if I were standing around with my thumb up my arse, but when I'm obviously working?  And following Mgr. A's order to follow Mgr. B's directions, like I was Monday before last?  And she's not even in my so-called chain-of-command?  Not acceptable!

I know, I know, I could've told her to *piss off* as politely as I could manage (although considering past encounters and the brusqueness with which she'd addressed me, those would probably have been the exact words I'd have used) and then later taken the matter to the owner for an executive decision.  Unfortunately, she has the owner's cell and home phone numbers and I don't, and with him gone much of the time, she'd get to make her case for public insubordination and rudeness by phone, well in advance of any opportunity I would have to present my side of the issue.

I have a feeling that before long, the owner's going to find me in his office, telling him things he doesn't want to hear.  Yet again.

Oh, the things you can find!

You know how it is.  You're wandering around the 'net, bouncing from link to link, not really looking for anything specific so much as just exploring the terrain, so to speak.  It can be a whole lot of fun or very frustrating (depending on how many dead links show up), but is a good way to screw off be able to claim you're doing "research" when what you're really doing is delaying (or avoiding completely, if you get lucky!) some bullsh*t assignment doing something else.  Some of what you'll run across out there is pure dreck . . . much more of it is fun/interesting/useful . . . and occasionally there's a real gem to be had.  What I found falls at least into the fun/interesting category, if not higher.

Not that anybody cares, but what started today's cyber-wanderings was a curiosity about just what the heck "OpenID" is, because I knew absolutely zilch about it.  The info at blogger led me to the OpenID site, which linked to Sam Ruby's OpenID for Non-SuperUsers, thence to protocol7, where I found the link to this:

Fun, isn't it?  Check out the artist's site, with more info here, and commentary/discussion here.  I'd suggest downloading the hi-res scan of it for closer examination and/or printing.

Today's bonus?  I found something geeky my computer-nerd son hadn't seen before!  Now if I can just resist the childish urge to go na-na-nuh-na-na at him.  LOL

Miscellaneous stuff

* Congratulations to our buddy "Big D" at TCG!  His sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy on  Tuesday and made him an uncle for the first time!  He was seriously hyped about it when we spoke yesterday.  I'm betting that kid is going to be thoroughly spoiled by his Uncle D!

* We got 2 short letters from the squid-kid yesterday.  We'd been spent the summer trying to convince him to visit our family dentist for a check-up, but noooo.  So guess who got his wisdom teeth yanked Thanksgiving weekend?  He says the vicodin and 800mg ibuprofen they gave him afterwards are really good....

* I love it when I can tell someone something that'd freak most people out, and the response is a relaxed "yeah, okay, whatever, no big deal".  My current supervisor at work is pretty damned mellow.  It's going to make working for/with him a lot easier if things get weird.  (No, not "weird" in that sense -- get your mind out of the gutter!)

* Our bathroom ceiling's leaking again.  It's done this off and on for the past 2 or 3 years, and we've tried to fix it, but no such luck.  There's a vent tube up there that keeps leaking because of the way it runs.  The warm, moist air from the bathroom hits the cold metal of the tube and condenses before it gets exhausted to the outside . . . and then trickles back down the tube and drips out at the bend.  One of these days we're going to have to climb up into the attic and figure out a different way to run the thing.  I just hope a certain someone gets it done before the sheetrock gets soggy and collapses again.  Last time he tried patching it with Durham's.  Stuff's rock-hard and weather-proof once it dries.  We've successfully fixed everything from siding to a table with it.  Ceilings that repeatedly get wet, however, don't seem to be good candidates for that kind of fix.  I'm tempted to start taking bets on how long it'll be before the hand-sized Durham's plug breaks away from the drywall and hits the floor....at which point I'm going to hire someone to come in and replace the whole damn section with blueboard whether Himself likes it or not!

I'm an idiot

I owe a HUGE apology to a dear friend who happens to be a sweet lady, a talented writer, and a culinary pro: Cynthia Bowan.  She's been writing food columns for quite awhile now, in both print and electronic mediums, and I thought I'd written about her before now.  Mea culpa!

Anyhoo, some of her older columns are available online here and here. There's lots more available, stuff I wouldn't advise missing (blatant plug) including her newer writings, but those links are MIA at the moment, dammit.  She also publishes at CynthiasCornerCupboard.  

Cyndi, honey, if you're reading this, please please please post more of your links in the comments section!

One of these days I hope/expect to see a cookbook bearing her name on the market, too....

Food porn!

I just found Taste with the Eyes, and am glad I did!  Go check out the recipes and the beautiful photography.  Drool alert!  Time to cover your keyboard with a towel!

*sigh*

I just realized I have 5 blog entry drafts in the file, some of which have been waiting to be finished for days.  I'll get them done . . . eventually.  Right now, tho', I'm writing Squidboy a long letter.

Speaking of the young'un, he didn't call over the weekend, and we were mightily disappointed.  Well, turns out the holiday screwed up the schedule at Basic -- he called on Monday instead.  When his dad was at work, so he didn't get to talk to our son.  Hopefully, he'll be able to call this coming weekend and talk to his dad.  But the Monday call worked out: Technogeek and I were both home, and it was the first time the two brothers had had a chance to speak to each other since Squid shipped off to Great Lakes.

The latest:

* The worst of Basic is over, now it's more routine for him, and he does sound far more relaxed and a whole lot less homesick.  But he's says he's (in his own words) "going stir-crazy being stuck in one compartment for 20 hours out of 24!"

* He's planning to take leave after Basic is through.  Graduation's Xmas Eve day.  Lovely time to be traveling, with a good chunk of the country on the move for the holiday.  Meh.

* But he may have to stay in the Chicago area "on hold", whatever that means in military lingo.  For us it means we'd be staying in Chicago for awhile in order to visit with him.

* Ordinarily the Navy would pay to ship him to his next duty station (submarine and "A" schools in Groton, CN), but since he's taking leave either he or we will have to pay for his plane ticket.

* His plane ticket will have to be out of ORD (not the major airport nearer us, dammit) since we won't know if he'll be staying in Chicago or coming home until Week Six of Basic, when he gets his orders.  That's the week before graduation.  He has to have a copy of the itinerary for his Petty Officer by 8 Dec or he might not *get* leave.  Inconvenient for us, but necessary for him.  So we may be driving him back to Chicago around the New Year; it'll be much cheaper than a plane ticket from Closer Airport to ORD.

* This also means we won't have any idea whether we'll need a hotel room for one night or a week-plus, not until the week before we actually drive down there.  This doesn't bode well for making reservations.

* We also have to make plans for someone to take care of the cats, the dogs, the birds and the fish if we'll be gone for awhile.  The diabetic cat will be boarded at our vet's so she can receive at least one dose of insulin a day -- but our vet and her office manager need to know how to plan, too!

I just hope I'm in better shape before Squidboy's graduation.  The thought of all those hours in the car, all the traffic we'll be dealing with, and all the people we'll be crammed in with for the ceremony, would be making me twitch even without the returning depression.  BTW, have I ever mentioned how much I really really hate big cities and crowds, even at the best of times?  Good thing I have a terrific therapist to keep me grounded.  After I talked to him yesterday evening, his office called to say he's "found an opening" for me in his schedule tomorrow.  Knowing him, I suspect that's the polite version of  "I'm *making* a spot, get your arse in here!"  Not that he'd necessarily phrase it that way to a patient.  Professional behavior and all that.  LOL  Good guy.  Very much appreciated....

Attention fellow geeks and Star Wars fans!

Orac, over at Respectful Insolence, has made it impossible for me to accomplish anything useful for the rest of the evening.  I just saw his "What holiday does a Sith Lord celebrate..." post, and I'm going to be laughing my ass off for the next hour or so.  Then I get to have the fun of introducing the other two resident geeks in the household to them!  Very funny stuff!

Kitchen (mis)adventures

The Screw-up Fairy graced us with yet another visit yesterday.  When I started writing this entry, it was after 7 p.m. and Thanksgiving dinner was still an hour or more away from being ready.  I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised; I can't recall when (if ever) we've managed to serve a turkey dinner that's not hours off schedule.  That's one "family tradition" I could do without, you know?  Anything but turkey, and we're at least within a half-hour of the projected time.  Roast beef, rinderrouladen, duck, chicken, pork roast, you name it.  I just don't know what it is about that big frickin' bird that does us in every time.

The day had been a comedy of errors from the start.  I'd decided to try a new dessert recipe, and unfortunately the folks who market the specific brand of pre-made graham cracker crust called for didn't bother to say which size crust to use, the 9 oz. or the 6 oz.  So, silly me, I assumed the product pictured on the recipe card was the correct one.  I should have known better.  First there was too much filling for the crust, and then it tried to climb out of its shell in the oven before it set up.  I dunno, maybe I over-whipped the filling or something, but it just seemed odd.  And it took about 15 minutes longer to cook than the recipe indicated; it's not a good thing when you have to increase baking time by another 50%.  It tasted great, though, so I guess it wasn't a complete FAIL.

Athos had decided to follow a recipe he'd found in Cook's Illustrated for the turkey.  So far, every recipe of theirs that we've tried has been a keeper.  He prepped all the veggies for the seasoning mixture, cut the turkey into the requisite parts (leg quarters and breasts are best cooked for different lengths of time, after all), set them on a rack over the veggie mix, basted the bird with butter, and popped everything into a slow oven per the recipe.

Four hours later, the leg quarters were barely done, and the breast meat was still reading much too low to be anywhere near table-ready.  So he put everything back in for another 20 minutes or so.  OK, better results that time: Legs and thighs had passed the magic number on the thermometer, so they were ready . . . but the breast was still underdone.  So back into the oven with the white meat.  Twenty minutes or so later he checked internal temps, pulled it out, said screw it and just nuked the breast to finish it off.

That's when we finally got to turn the oven temp up and cook the damned dressing.

We'd both been thinking something isn't right here for awhile, so Athos dug one of our old, everybody's-got-one, inexpensive bimetal thermometers out of storage and stuck it into the oven.  Damned if it didn't tell us we were running a good 50°F below what the set-point thermometer in the oven claimed!  Well, that explains everything.

Problem now is, what went wrong?  It was just over a month ago that the entire oven unit*, along with all the sensors, heating elements and convection fans, was replaced.  The repair guys checked it post-installation and it was working just fine.  We double-checked the temp readings; no problems.  We've used the oven in the meantime without unexpected difficulties. So WTF?!? 

* That's what the manufacturer recommends for the heating element failure we had, and it was still under warranty, so the 2-guys-for-four-hours labor charge was on their tab, thank gods.  We have it on good authority that the mfg. had received a short run of not-quite-to-spec parts from one of their suppliers, and it took awhile for problems to show up. Some components from that run have developed problems, some haven't, and likely won't. To the mfg.'s credit, they've been repairing the affected units as soon they receive notification, pretty much without question.

Bonus: Our repair guys left us the here's-how-you-take-it-apart-and put-it-back-together manual from the mfg. (but not the instructional DVD, dammit), as well as the old oven unit, with all the still-working goodies attached.  So now we have two spare convection fans, the halogen lighting units, probe thermocouples, two top and one bottom non-defective heating elements, etc. on hand should we need spare parts in the future.  That adds up to several hundred dollars' worth of stuff we won't have to buy later on.   And we know we'll need them eventually; lights burn out and fan motors fail, given time.  Sometimes heating elements burn through.  That's just how it is.

A VERY good suggestion from a friend

She wrote:

Christmas Card List

When doing your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it
to this address. If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think
of how many cards these wonderful special people who have sacrificed
so much would get.

When you are making out your Christmas card list this year, please
include the following:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001

The brave men and women who have put their lives on the line for the rest of us deserve to be remembered and honored.  Let's see if we can make this holiday season a little brighter for them!

City, 1; Senior Citizens, 0

I was perusing regional news today and found an article at The Post-Crescent's website.  An 84 year-old resident in Appleton, WI is being held responsible for a $3,000 water bill from earlier this year, a period of time during which his house was vacant.  City workers removed a water meter with visible damage from the house and rebuilt it without determining whether the meter was functioning properly or not.  According to the city, the man and his wife used 44,700 gallons of water over a 3-month period.  The city claims broken water pipes in the house are to blame, yet no water damage is visible.

WTF?!?!?  How do you run that much water through a building without there being water damage anywhere, unless it's contained by water pipes???  (The ones the city claims leaked.)  Think about this: A 30-foot by 15-foot swimming pool that's 12 feet deep holds less water than the city says ran through that house.  Looking at it another way, if you ran 20 gallons of water out your faucets, every hour for 24 hours a day, for 90 days . . . you'd still be shy of that 44,700 gallons.

My MIL suffered a broken water line once when she was gone for the day, and had to replace flooring and drywall in a number of rooms.  The estimate for her water loss was well short of the 44,700-gallon mark, so you can imagine the havoc that would ensue if a swimming pool were emptied through someone's living room or basement.  (BTW, her city's water department wrote off most of the bill, even though there was no question that the leak occurred on her side of the meter.)

How convenient it is for the city water department that they failed to test the water meter for accuracy, knowing that the city would likely be left holding the bag on the bill, so to speak, if the meter was faulty.  And how inconvenient for a pair of senior citizens who have to defend themselves against the city's allegations, when potential evidence that might have been in their favor has been destroyed by the very people who stand to gain financially from the outcome.

You can follow the ongoing saga here, here, and here.

In all fairness, if you leave a water tap running for that same length of time, you'd lose down the drain far more than 44,700 gallons. My kitchen faucet puts out just shy of 2 GPM. So it's within the realm of possibility that an open tap could have been responsible, without causing damage.  The problem is, the city is not claiming that's the cause, but rather that cracked and broken pipes in the home are to blame.  If you take file a police report alleging someone hit you over the head with a baseball bat, and it was really a pencil, you've filed a false report, and that's illegal in every jurisdiction I know of.  If you take someone to court, alleging they caused damage to your 2008 Lexis, and it turns out you own a '74 Ford pickup instead, well, guess which way the judge is going to rule?   

I realize a city council is not a court of law, but the members -- individually and as a group -- should be honor-bound to serve the public interest, and to do so in a fair manner.  Allegations have to be backed up with facts, not conjectures.  One could certainly argue that in deciding for the water dept. and against the homeowner, the "public good" is being served by adding to the city's coffers.  But I doubt anyone would call it fair.  There's certainly no honor to be found there.  If the pipes did, indeed, leak, then the homeowner could rightfully be held responsible for the bill.  But evidence to support the city's claim (photographs of water damage, repair bills for the damage, the untampered with water meter, etc.) should have to be presented as evidence.  The "it's so because we say it's so" attitude that seems to be displayed by city employees and council members has all the olfactory allure of three-day old carp left to age in the summer sun.

I'm tempted to nominate the City of Appleton for Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons in the World" segment.

Antigravity cat

Found this over at the Motivational Poster Blog.

California wild fires

I know you've all heard about the Hell many Californians have found themselves in.  Well, this morning I received an email from a dear friend, Mimi Hiller.  I'm sure most of you know her, or at least know of her.  She's run Mimi's Cyber Kitchen, Recipe Circus and MimiMart in cyberspace for I-don't-know-how-many years, and opened a physical-location bookstore called Cookbooks Plus just within the last couple of years.  (And Mimi, if my memory's failing on the time frame, please correct me!)

Anyway, here's the message, reprinted with her permission:

Friday, when the fire broke out, it was on the other side of the freeway,
moving away from our direction. With gusts up to 75 mph, it didn't take
long to consume thousands of acres. We could see the flames on the ridge
and lots of smoke.

Yesterday, they closed the two intersecting freeways close to us (I-14 and
I-5). You could still get in or out, but you had to go all the way
around...a 3-hour trip vs. 15 or 20 min. Going home last night, the whole
side of the mountain was ablaze, but the scary part was that it appeared
the winds were shifting back toward us.

By this morning, the fire was much closer, and this afternoon, when April
came to visit, she said it was up to Golden Valley Road, which is just up
the hill from us.

She left a little while ago, but she came back to tell us that as she was
leaving Friendly Valley, she looked across Sierra Hwy and there was fire.
We talked to the security people and they said it was a controlled burn.

The high winds have diminished, but we're still seeing gusts 25-30 mph,
and worst of all, humidity is only 7%. Yes, that's seven per cent!

Once more, we have the cat carriers ready, my cello is waiting at the
ready with a brief case full of important documents. We're gathering a few
more things and waiting, hoping, we'll just have to put everything back
tomorrow.

One sad note. If you're familiar with this area at all, you'll remember a
house that sits on hill on the east side of the I-5/I-14 interchange, next
to the aquaduct. Quite noticeable, because it's the only domicile within
view, and quite beautiful, especially at night when the water is cascading
down the hill next to it, changing colored lights making the water appear
to be something more appropriate in the Six Flags park up the road.

The house is no more. So is the tall mast that stood before it, proudly
displaying the red, white & blue.

I imagine the landscape will look like a Hollywood depiction of hell for
some time to come. But winter rains are just around the corner, and it
will turn green again, then brown as summer drought kills off the
vegetation and produces more fuel for future fires.

I want to believe we'll be okay. I really think we're safe, but if we have
to evacuate, I'll be back in touch.

Pray for everyone affected by this.

Mimi

That's scary as hell if you ask me.  I've seen a number of grass fires and wildfires over the years and have helped put several out, but have never have I personally witnessed anything that even comes close in comparison to the infernos that have been raging there.  That's a sight that could give the most psychologically stable of individuals nightmares.

I don't know how firefighters can go up against something like that without wondering if they maybe should have chosen a less exciting profession -- but fight them they do, and God bless them for having the courage to do it!  I'd like to think that I could run into a fire if someone's life was at risk, but can't help wondering if I really would have the courage to do so.  I hope and pray I never have to find out.

Yes, Mimi, we'll be praying for everyone's safety....

Foodie porn!

There's some lovely stuff up over at TasteSpotting.  I'm thinking the baked macaroni and cheese (recipe linked from another site) should be on the menu tonight....

Overheard

"Aren't you glad I took my Smart-Ass pills this morning?"

Hmm, wonder where I can get some of those...?

Motivational poster for the day

I'm probably the last person on the planet to find this site, but just in case I'm not, go check out a good place to create your own "motivational" posters. I plan to have some serious fun with their tools!

Yep, that's one of my spoiled-rotten dogs.  I've given up on keeping the four-legged members of the family off of the furniture, it was a losing battle....

Space technology and the "ick" factor

Endeavour (STS-126) launched launch this evening and, needless to say, we've been watching it. Hubby and I think shuttle launches are some of the coolest things ever.  The first manned orbital missions took place when we were young; I remember watching the first live broadcast from the Moon while still in elementary school.  To our parents' generation, space exploration was pure science fiction; to ours, it's established fact.  My mother still recounts how she was hanging clothes out to dry when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to step onto non-Terran soil, and how she looked up at the Moon and couldn't believe that it was actually happening.  (And my father's still half-convinced that the whole thing was filmed on a  Hollywood soundstage.  Sheesh...)

Anyway, during the scheduled hold at T-minus 9 minutes, NASA TV aired an interview with one of the engineers attached to the Water Recovery System (WRS) project, which is finally on its way to the ISS in Endeavour's cargo bay.  He explained the process, and where the "reclamation material" will come from, then had the interviewer sample the device's output.  The result:  "It's not that bad."  Despite what they quite accurately termed the "ick" factor.

OK, so I'll admit that I might be a tad squeamish myself were I required to knowingly consume a glass of what, until very recently, had been urine.  It's purely psychological in nature, since once the particulates and various chemical compounds our bodies excrete have been removed, it will no longer have either aroma or flavor.  (Ever sample laboratory-pure deionized H2O?  Flat and very boring.)  Yet I'm willing to bet that many of us would still hesitate to take that first sip.

If we stop and consider where our drinking water comes from, every water molecule in every mouthful we've ever swallowed has potentially (and very likely actually has) been consumed by another living creature, to then be released by respiration, decay, or excretion.  Living in a city, where drinking water comes from an anonymous source and has been processed in a treatment plant few actually bother to visit, using processes that the average person probably couldn't describe, doesn't compel one to pay attention to what they're drinking.  We turn on the tap and (presuming we've paid our water utility bill on time) potable water flows out.  Only if some unusual event affects what's in our glass do we take note.  In some areas, summer (over)growth of  algae in the water-source lake imparts a distinct and sometimes disgusting taste to the water; hydrant flushing can temporarily discolor the water with non-hazardous, stirred up sediment; bacterial contamination can result in an inconvenient but very necessary "boil order" being issued.

Living where one is on a well-and-septic system brings the reality a little closer to home.  I am well aware that the waste water from every septic tank, "gray water" drainage field, and barnyard in the area will percolate down through the soil and eventually return to the water table in time, where it will then be pumped back up and flow into our homes for use.  Mother Nature really does a remarkable job of removing or neutralizing biologic by-products if we don't screw with or overload her processes.

Once we leave the surface of the planet, however, all bets are off.  One cannot take for granted the basic necessities of existence: Air, food and water.  You can survive a hell of a lot longer without food than you can without air or water.  Conveniently enough, water is composed of two elements that can be separated to produce oxygen (a definite must-have when one is sealed into what's effectively an air tank surrounded by a whole lot of vacuum) and hydrogen (a fuel/energy source).  

Humans require a minimum amount of water each day simply to survive; add on more for basic hygiene and for cooking or the rehydration of dried foods.  By the time you figure in the additional volume needed for the animals, plants and experimental needs of the scientific team, it doesn't take long to realize that it's not a matter of tucking a few extra water jugs into a locker somewhere; any mission lasting more than a few days will necessitate schlepping a lot of water into orbit.  One gallon of water weighs 8 pounds.  Multiply that by however many hundreds -- or thousands -- of gallons of water needed.  It takes a lot of energy to get that much mass out of a gravity well.  (And remember, in a low- or zero-gee environment, the weight may be nil, but the mass is still there when you try to move or stop the object, so getting your water to your destination will still take a fair amount of energy.)  Under those conditions, recycling and reusing water on the space station -- much less on future missions to the Moon, Mars, or other destinations -- is a no-brainer.  It will also be an absolute necessity for the ultimate survival of the ISS project, on long missions, and at bases established elsewhere in the solar system.

You need to do your research in the low-gravity environment found at Mars Base Alpha?  (You know, the one we should be building by now?)  You're taking a contingent of, say, 20 along to make the project feasible?  You won't be back for 4 to 5 years?  You have to schlep all your water along with you, you can't extract it from the native environment?  And you're not going to reclaim and reuse as much water as possible from biologic waste and gray water?  Guess what: It can't be done.  Not with the technology and equipment we have today.  Maybe not with any technology or fuel source we might develop within the next 10 or 20 years.

OK, so I could be wrong on that last comment.  I don't have the inside scoop on what's in development at NASA, JPL, or any other aerospace-affiliated organization.  Maybe you could fill a dozen or more external fuel tank-sized containers, strap them to the current equivalent of Saturn V rockets, and get all that mass successfully transported to its destination.  But even if you can, you're not going to be able to take enough H2O to cover any and every eventuality.  If you run out of water because you won't recycle, you are going to be seriously screwed.

Don't worry, your coffee won't taste of mouse pee....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

In all fairness, I do have to point out that there is a certain percentage of water that is non-reclaimable, even in a closed environment.  So you can't just take a bare minimum of x liters of water and call it good.  It's going to have to be x plus some factor that you actually transport.  Having that extra water available for use will make life in space much more tolerable.  And any amount that you can reclaim and reuse makes the energy costs of getting you to and from your destination more manageable. 

Today's Motivational Message

Courtesy of one of DH's coworkers.

Science vs. religion; should one trump the other?

I usually try to focus on entertaining posts when I point readers to other blogs.  But I just read two very interesting pieces (here and here) that Orac has written about the ethically thorny situation that has recently arisen in the wake of the tragic brain death of a 12-y.o. Orthodox Jewish boy, and I feel compelled to suggest in the strongest terms that you go read them, as well as the linked articles he's provided.  Read the comments, too.

How to reconcile science and religious beliefs when they come into conflict has always been problematic for those of us who see things in shades of gray.  I know where I stand on the issue, and what I believe to be true, but I also know that I could be wrong.  My "answers", such as they are, might not work for you, just as yours might not work for me.  Recall if you will the adage: Your rights end where my nose begins.  What happens when those rights come into conflict?  And who decides?  If there are extant laws, or even legal precedent, the issue might be settled on that basis . . . but what if acting in accordance with the law violates a person's core beliefs?

I am very glad that I will not be the one who has to make the final decision in this case....

Oh, and just for the record:

 * if my brain stem no longer shows demonstrable electrical activity;

 * if my body requires external assistance to continue to function;

or

 * if I am (in the common parlance) a vegetable due to the (probable) irrevocable cessation of my higher brain functions . . .

Then I am dead.  I do not wish to be kept on extended "life support" as that is not life!  I do wish to have any transplantable organs harvested, and to that end temporary mechanical and/or chemical maintenance would be acceptable.  Otherwise, schlep my corpse off to the morgue and be done with it! 

Just in case anyone's interested.

Blog "find" of the day

WhiteCoat.  "What NOT to Yell Over The Intercom".  'Nuff said.

This one's a drink alert, kiddos.  If you spray soda, coffee or alcohol all over your computer because you didn't put your beverage-of-choice down before reading, I'll be more than happy to laugh at you while you clean it up.

One piece of advice:  Milk's a lot harder to remove from a keyboard than is sticky soda, sez The  Voice Of Experience.

Holy crap, I have readers!

And not just the few friends who I've guilted into visiting occasionally.  LOL  

Best of all, the ones I know about are bloggers I read, whether they're listed on my public blogroll or not.  Welcome . . . and thank you!

There ought to be a law #2

Call me Scrooge, but radio stations should not be allowed to switch over to Christmas music before Thanksgiving.  Especially the ones who play all-Christmas-all-the-time for two months straight.

And speaking of radio stations, don't you just hate the ones who use a national/regional programming service, but then break into the feed in the middle of a song to air local news or commercials.  At least wait until the song's over, guys!  Use some common sense, not just a preprogrammed timer, fer chrissake.  If my son's car radio can tell us how much time is left in a given over-the-air song, I know damn well your controlling software could be tweaked to adapt....

Square pegs and round holes don't mesh

Yesterday evening, Athos and I were having an involved discussion with a gentleman I first got acquainted with nearly 2 years ago.  He has a unique perspective on things, a wicked sense of humor, and a Bullshit Detector that I try not to set off if I can avoid it.  I'm tempted to refer to him as Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult, or maybe as Tigger In Disguise.  (Why Tigger?  If you knew the individual in question, you'd understand.  Catch him in a playful mood and you'll see his inner Tigger sneaking out for a bit of fun.  It's very entertaining.  And a bit contagious. lol)

Anyway, let's just call our friend Cleverly Disguised.  He usually has good advice to offer, and sometimes we even take it.  At one point, the subject of my dissatisfaction with my work situation came up, and CD brought up the square peg/round hole analogy . . . and damnit, he's right.  I am a square peg, always trying to fit in where I can't.  I have yet to find an employer who knows what to do with an employee who's passionate about their work and gets emotionally invested in it, much less actually seems to want one.  I know they have to exist, but I fear the jobs they have to offer are above my pay grade, so to speak.  At any rate, it leaves me not knowing whether it's my failing for caring too much; theirs for not comprehending that not all wage slaves are there with the sole intent of extracting a maximum amount of pay in return for a minimum amount of effort; or a little of both....

I really had high hopes for the business when the new owner took charge.  He brought in a couple of experts to assess both business operations and staff . . . and then nothing of real substance happened despite repeated promises of change.  It's been sufficiently long enough since the takeover for him to have successfully turned the place around if he was actually going to do it.  I find the whole situation to be very frustrating.  

CD reminded me that the business decisions are not mine to make, and that having expectations regarding other people is foolish.  (OK, so I don't recall him specifically using the word foolish, but that was the gist of it.)  He's right, as usual.  I'm just glad he's not prone to saying I told you so because I'd probably hear it far too often.  He may well be thinking it, just not loudly enough for me to catch it.  (Thanks, CD!)

So now I'm not sure if I should stick it out a little longer and hope that things actually will change, however unlikely that seems at the moment; try to find employment elsewhere (in this economy?!?); or find some way to become self-employed.  The first scenario is the safest, but the last is probably the best option for long-term satisfaction.  The biggest problem is what to do.  Athos and I have some ideas, but living in Duck Crossing limits our options unless we want to regularly commute to TooDamnFar everyday or open an internet business from our home.  The last could be problematic if we didn't live in an area where there are few zoning restrictions.  Any place where you can legally discharge firearms just for the hell of it (within reason; safety has to be a primary concern or you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near projectile weapons!) and hunt in-season in your own backyard is unlikely to have a whole lot of restrictions on conducting business out of your own home, so long as you keep the tax collectors and appropriate state inspectors happy.  Manufacturing foodstuffs for sale in my kitchen is a no-go.  Unduly irritating the neighbors would be a bad idea, too, but I can't see us having semis making regular trips down our driveway.  (For that, we'd buy the place just down the road that's up for sale again.  The building's already set up for a manufacturing operation and has a truck-accessible drive.  We think it'd be a wonderful spot for an upscale restaurant, but neither of us is really interested in getting into that kind of operation.)

Whatever we do, we'd really like to be able to steal a few friends away from their current employers.  We're already know several of them would jump ship if we could offer them a position.  One might be a harder sell, but good people are worth pursuing, right?

Is it April 1st already?!?

So my first thought when I saw Let's get Hurricanes Right First: FEMA Firefighters Manual Covers UFO Attacks, Crashes over at TOTWTYTR was that somebody, somewhere, is pranking us.  But apparently it's legit.  If you follow his link to YouTube in the header, it turns out that one of the ABC affiliates actually did a story about it.  Gizmodo.com has a link, too.

Gee, I feel safer just knowing that if we're invaded from space, FEMA's ready to handle it.  *snort*

Gotta hand it to our nation's firefighters, tho'; they do tend to be prepared for damn near anything.  If they can't keep FEMA from screwing up a First Contact situation, nobody can.

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Update:  According to a comment left on TOTWTYTR's blog, it wasn't FEMA who put of the "Firefighter's Manual" in question, it was Fire Engineering Magazine.  Somehow DeFrance is tied up with it; do they publish that mag?  I guess the fact that most of us decided FEMA's a joke after the screw-up job they did on Katrina, made us a little more gullible than we would normally have been....

I couldn't have said it better

Ambulance Driver is one of the bloggers I read every day.  He's a damn good writer*, and when he's being humorous he can leave me rolling on the floor.  But sometimes he gets serious, as with today's post, "Thank You, Veterans". Well said, A.D., well said....

Pic from http://www1.va.gov

God bless our servicemen and women of all generations.

*Check out his book, Life, Death and Everything in Between.  Well worth reading.  Better buy your own copy, though, because I'm not loaning mine to anyone.  (Sorry, guys!)  FYI, the revised edition is due to be released early next year in hardcover; I've already preordered my copy at amazon.com.  (Legal disclosure: I have absolutely NO financial interest in any of A.D.'s stuff, I just like to see really talented (but perhaps lesser-known) authors get the exposure they deserve.)