Thanx for the Memories!

Herman L. & Rose Ann

We have a lot to be thankful for and much to remember.

I have a different definition of the real meaning of Memorial Day. 

They are called America's Greatest Generation. I’m not really sure the Greatest are truly any greater than those that founded this country. It is a good comparison to make. When they came home from war the outstanding things they did were appreciated by their elders.

On a day like today it is time to step back and make sure they are appreciated by their descendants.

Rosie and Hermie were my parents. They both served in the Big One.

Rose was a Lady Marine. She remembered; thankfully she never let us forget. There are still many “Yes, Ma’am, Sergeant, Sir” stories that I have to tell DakotaDawg.

Herm was some kind of a Ninety Day Wonder. He never really seemed to want to talk about his war years or the hardships he suffered to finish college and do his duty. In this way he was a lot like Elmer T. Ask and they would answer. Normally, they just lived their lives. There were always the subtle cues that it was alright to ask.

I regret that I was away at college when the Minesweeper that my dad served on during the war came into the port. He took my younger sisters down and toured the ship. I am going to try to get one of them to tell me his stories. I am sure there was some bulkhead where he had hit his head. Most of his life, at least I thought, he was still suffering from that collision. But that was how he was raised and that is how he raised us.

My brother has some of the family heirlooms including one picture of my father with a rifle shooting at the mine they had caught in the trawl lines of their minesweeper. Since I am operating from memory this is a bit sketchy. It might not even have been dad. It is though how I remember it because Hermie would never let us have guns when we were growing up. I always thought it was ironic that he was holding a gun trying to explode a German mine in that old B&W.

I do remember the photo was taken on his minesweeper in the Caribbean. There were a lot of bare chested shots of some of the crew going about the business of finding and destroying the enemy’s mines. They had not been advised about the risks of skin cancer.

The Germans had crossed the Atlantic in their U-Boats to the tropics to place mines in strategic locations so that the tankers of Venezuelan fuel would not reach England. There is not too much in the literature or even Google about German U-Boats laying mines around Trinidad nor how successful they were at it. Dad helped a little to insure they were not too successful.

Rose did a lot of typing as a Woman Marine. I know she had to type a lot of bad news that went to families of those Marines storming the beaches of islands across the Pacific. She also got to type a few good things like discharge papers. Mom did not tell us about the bad letters. Mom could type like a Banshee.

Occasionally she told us about Boot Camp. She had several amusing stories about a woman being in a man’s branch of the military. When she was older she belonged to a local group of Lady Marines and did not live to see the Memorial. My youngest sister did get a scholarship from that group of Lady Marines to help with college. Us kids still being around and remembering her is a special kind of memorial.

Elmer T.

ET was not mine growing up but he is now. He was a B-17 pilot and a very lucky one at that. We are pretty lucky too. We still get to visit with him.

There are a lot of mistaken impressions about the allied bombing campaigns in Germany. Most of those should be laid at the feet of the British who were doling out their revenge. Kind of a what goes around comes around in spades. Some things in war are just plain nasty.

I wrote a “Tribute to ET”. It was a small attempt to honor the man and what he did. It was self published and mercifully there are a lot of pictures and not too much text. Every mission flown by ET is listed and I even know from some of his old notes what he had for breakfast at 3AM before he went to the briefing. ET delivered bombs on military targets like ball bearing plants. He also dropped supplies to the French Resistance behind enemy lines.

The belly flop landing that he survived is a vivid memory for him and us. The whole family, all the way thru the nursing grand kids to the kids and their spouses went to Rattlesden in England for the Golden Anniversary of D-Day. We went to the old field that is still there; we even walked on the runway and visited the tower where they watched his flights take off and prayed for its safe return. Because of his skill as a pilot when the flak damage to his hydraulics kept his brakes from working he slid across a lot of beet fields and hedgerows. The plane they were about to paint “Sky Queen” became replacement parts. We remember and we are thankful.

Because of the wonders of Google I found that picture on the interweb with other information about the 447th Bomb Group with that special K on the tail. The B-17 G with the nose turret.


ET had some long days during the war. ET was a hell of a man then, as he is now.

So today is a special day for remembrance.


I reminded DakotaDawg that we were not racing to the stop sign. Today of all days we had much more important things to remember. For this I am thankful; so is DakotaDawg. We want to let the Greatest Generation know how much we appreciate them and how much we remember.

We have a lot to be thankful for and much to be remembered.

My name is not Jeff!

“What is it Lassie?”

Usually it is jut not that serious. Sometimes it is. To Lassie and possibly others it might be an emergency of unprecedented scale.

Did Jeff fall in the well? I just don’t know. Bark, because I am not clairvoyant.

Jeff lived a charmed life. He always had Lassie to get him over the really tough spots. Jeff or his mom always knew if the problem was serious. I think the local constable also knew what Lassie was saying. It must have been context.

DakotaDawg is a lot like Lassie except she is a female and has no stand ins if she is tired and needs a break. She has to remain constantly vigilant. And she does.

Sometimes I think she refuses to follow a specific command because she is certain that unless she continues trying to tell us something, we will NEVER understand. Sometimes I think that she thinks we may well never understand. I continue to hope that Rosetta Stone will provide the Dawg Language software.

I am tracking a possible thunderstorm that is way off on the edge of the Doppler to see if we get really lucky can we go Kayaking. From how close DakotaDawg is hanging around I am guessing that the storm will arrive right after we have loaded the kayaks on the LandCruiser and gotten to the river to unload them. I am not sure I want to take that chance.

The morning exercise walk is complete and at least I feel like it was more than long enough. Every tree, bush and tuft of grass or Poison Oak vine has been sufficiently checked to determine who was there last. Usually a small scent marking assures others that it was DakotaDawg.

I better check the radar again because DakotaDawg has left my side and is up in the Sun Room on station atop the lateral file guarding her territory. I have chores and then the tough decision about what we should do today. A nap is not completely out of the question.

One note to DakotaDawg if she is reading: Remember to stop barking when it really gets annoying. I may not know if someone is fertilizing our lawn or if it is something far more serious. I just need to finish mopping our beautiful wood floors and don’t want to stop to make certain what the problem is.


I am pretty sure that no one has fallen in the well and that I am not Jeff.

At least I am not barking at my computer. I have gotten this far and there is not a single red or green underline. My training of Spell and Grammar checking must continue but there are still those other still to be determined priorities now including one green underline. GRRRRR!

And, GRRRRR IS NOT fragmented!

DakotaDawg: remind me with some singing, tail wagging and general running around with a ball in your mouth when you know what happens. 

It is all in the context.  And, my name is not Jeff!

Lost in Translation‽

Most of the time it seems I am either somewhere in Japan with Scarlett Johansson or in a movie.

What started out as a good day has translated into seeing everything I previously typed underlined in green. And if a sentence is started with what could be an interrogatory WinDoze is certain that the thought should end in a question mark or at least an interrobang or interabang, depending upon how you spell it that WinDoze had not yet been taught.



DakotaDawg was looking at me when I was talking to her on our walk this morning. I was trying to define for her what “Be a good dog.” meant in the context. DakotaDawg and I often have extremely long conversations. Most tend to be one sided but she does not seem to mind as long as the discussion ends in the word treat. Treat is a word that for DakotaDawg has only one meaning regardless of context.

Teaching context to a dog might sound like an insurmountable challenge but I can assure you it is not. DakotaDawg is a very smart dog.

It is my job to try to teach DakotaDawg all the nuances of the English language since I do not speak Hochdeutsch very well despite two years of it in college.

Mercifully, at least for now, that is my intention; I am going to keep this short since my sister is coming to town to visit her students. I could be wrong but I suspect none of them know what Hochdeutsch is. They are three female students who recently or will soon, graduate. My sister’s advice to them was until the economy improves; stay in school. That advice too, seems lost in translation with the possible exception of the youngest one.

I am considering the purchase of Rosetta Stone software. Making a final choice is almost as difficult as trying to figure out if I want to get the DVD explaining how to become a millionaire selling my old baseball cards on eBay or the one clarifying the nuances of WinDoze Word and promises to explain the ins and outs of trying to become familiar with a software program I have been using since I put down the hammer and chisel. Or, at least the feathered quill. With Rosetta Stone there are just too many languages I just do not know including the one I am attempting to type in. And I have not even tried texting yet.

I have some things that I want (and need) to get rid of and I am unsure if eBay is the right way to accomplish that. Do people still cruise residential neighborhoods before dawn waiting to be the first at a yard sale so they can scarf up some Billy Mays reject or a few bargain ShamWoWs?

I know the ads in the local paper are not as many, detailed or explicit since the advent of Craigslist.com. I am considering Craigslist.com too but I am unsure if I want to respond to that many rhetorical or stupid questions thru the miracle of eMail. I will have to talk to my brother about this or see if I can arrange a neighborhood Yard Sale jamboree. I need to sell some junk so I can afford to buy more computer software and hardware.


I spell eMail: eMail, despite how ever WinDoze spells email. I will make sure that WinDoze is not Lost in Translation. Right click Tools. Right click Spelling and Grammar Checker.


Some of the cats are making sleep noises so for me that is not Lost in Translation. They are snoring.

DakotaDawg is on station in the sunroom on top of the lateral file cabinet roaring at someone passing by. I am sure the dog that is out there on a leash taking a leak on our lawn is Lost in Translation because DakotaDawg is still translating that we do not enjoy patches of yellow grass. We like our grass to be green.

Apparently, none of the English versions or “Halt den Mund!” or even “Halt die Klappe!” are in DakotaDawg’s vocabulary. Maybe I need a brötchen. Is it beer thirty yet even if that is not Hochdeutsch?

Please start the remake of Shogun immediately. Scarlett can play Kiku. Bill can be Lord Yoshi Toranaga.  I want to watch it dubbed in German so I can explain it to DakotaDawg.

Speaking of Lost in Translation; that is a heck of a lot of makeup and possibly plastic surgery.


And mom, can you explain to me why you threw away all those pristine autographed baseball cards? If I still had those shoeboxes I could sell the contents on eBay. I would then be living in the south of France and could stop flushing my money down the toilet buying these Lottery tickets.

Where did those pens on chains go?

Really important questions like this can be brought on by a trip to the Post Office.

Initially, I did not go to the Post Office to investigate this or some of the other questions that might arise when I got there. But some did so I am going to deal with it here and now.

The second question was: what is the tally today? After research and very deliberate counting and recounting I came up with the score:

Me – 6 pieces of mail, none that I wanted to read, 4 that I probably should read and 2 straight to recycling (or so I thought at the time)

Dead Guy – 1 and I can write notes on it but it looks like he will finish last and is having a bad day

Guy whose last name sounds like he is a terrorist – 4


This brought me to the realization that the terrorists might be gaining on me and maybe the government needed to install full body scanners at every egress of every Post Office in America. Further research is indicated.


So I am confronted with a question that is not rhetorical. Should I throw this mail out?


I had a bright idea to check at the counter only after I went to the car to get a pen because I needed one to make some notes on the dead guy’s mail.  The Post Office in its effort to be fiscally responsible has determined that people should use their own pens to make notes or address envelopes when visiting.  There were no pens on the chains. There were plenty of chains, just no pens.  This was likely not a decision of the physical structure of the Post Office building itself but more likely a decision of top management or Congress.

As I am scrawling a note on the dead guy’s mail a nice lady interrupts me to tell me that they have counters inside where I could address my letter. She was concerned that it might be too hot.  It was air conditioned inside. This was useful information to one sweating so profusely.  I told her I could take advantage of that only after I finished the brief entry I was noting.  I had to get it done in the heat because there were no pens on the counters inside on the available chains. She laughed because she knew what I was talking about.  At least I though she did. She did not appear to be sweating.  She had just gotten out of line and had plenty of time to cool off while she waited to speak to a clerk.

Since the LCD clock in the lobby was still blinking I decided to check my cell phone to determine whether or not the Post Office is meeting its goal to serve me within ten minutes after entering the line. I then decided not to get in line just yet because I needed to see what was in the mail that I was about to throw away and the three cent stamp purchase could wait.

The first thing I determined came from close inspection of the PRESORTED STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE PAID CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY letter. It was nice that it was all in upper case because that indicated to me and the Post Office that this was VERY important information.

I could not then determine what class of mail it was to the terrorist or of what importance that might possibly be with the single exception of likely it was not FIRST CLASS MAIL. The title on the mail did show that information contained would help the addressee “EXPERIENCE LIFE-CHANGING RESULTS”.

I did not want to open it and I was on a schedule so I moved on to the second piece of mail: The Ultimate Collection - Flag Land Base NEWS. Without having to Google I could tell from just reading the outside that this was also from The Church of Scientology.

The third piece of mail was FLAG LOCAL NEWS. I really did not have to read further since I was pretty sure that it also came from The Church of Scientology. I decided not to check the fourth piece of literature since it was obvious from the place where there should have been a stamp that at least the mailing was paid for by The Church of Scientology.

Not being Sherlock Holmes or wanting to get on the wrong side of God, a church or philosophy or way of life or what ever, I decided I needed professional help to determine what should be done. I also guessed that the potential terrorist was either a member of The Church of Scientology or being heavily recruited.

I checked my cellphone to again help estimate if the Post Office was meeting at least some of its goals. I had been occupied in research for longer than it would have taken to get served if I had just gotten in line in the first place.

Things were going my way... time to buy a lottery ticket.  Everyone just cleared out in a hurry and I was instructed: “Next.” I told the fellow behind the counter that either he or I was extremely lucky.  I suspected that it was not him.

I asked this most helpful employee: “What should I do?” I was relieved when he did not tell me to get back in line but asked instead: “How can I help you?”

I told him it was fortunate that I was the last one in line but that could be bad for him. He did not immediately start tapping the pen he was holding that was attached to a chain on the counter. He set it down in front of me possibly thinking that I might need to write myself a note or fill out a form that required that I know the size of the underwear my Grandmother was buried in.

I told him that I was going to present what I thought were my most logical options, one at a time and he then would offer his advice or tell me what to do based on Postal Law and common sense which I might have been a little short on. I explained that I was having trouble with my Post Office Box because it just was not big enough. The first thing he did was to offer to rent me a bigger box which was completely out of the question because I was almost broke but still had enough change for the impending stamp purchase.

I asked him to be patient and outlined for him Option A. Option A was me send in a forwarding package to the Post Office informing them that Mr. Scientologist formerly known as possible terrorist had moved to another address. Possibly I could think of someone that enjoyed snail mail spam. He informed me that was not a viable option because the Postmaster General or Congress did not allow that or else kids all over America would not be texting or calling the butcher to inquire if he had pig’s feet. Only the person who is no longer going to be at an address or no longer is at an address can legally fill out and mail forwarding packets to the Post Office.

Option B included me sending The Church of Scientology a personal request to send this mail that kept showing up unwanted and unclaimed in my Post Office Box elsewhere. I thought quickly that possibly that was not such a good idea because The Church of Scientology would realize they had a live person at my address and might think I needed some information. He told me that I could try that.

As I tried to decide if I should go with Option B, I was still left with all the literature I was holding. I told him of Option C which did not include wasting his time by asking such inane questions. Option C was just throw it out. I informed him that I thought Option C might include the commission of a Federal Crime so I proposed Option D.

Option D was to throw the mail into the misaddressed mail slot with all of the correct notations through the addressee information including Alice doesn’t live here any more. Since this had not been a successful strategy in the past with regard to the dead guy, I went on to Option E. What if I handed him the mail and just let him handle what was best for the Post Office, the addressee and The Church of Scientology.

He informed me that he would just strike thru the address and put the mail in his collection container. I of course wanted to know if that would be recycled or sent to the landfill. He told me that the things put there were indeed recycled. Since I knew for a fact that the contents of the garbage cans around the Post Office that I had access to were not recycled; I decided to go with Option E.

He then made the mistake of telling me that he would have to determine if anything I was about to hand him was First Class Mail. Ruh-Roh.  If it was, he had to Return to Sender with the notation or correctly checked rubber stamp choice that addressee was not at this address. I was praying to the Gods of The Church of Scientology that something I had was First Class since that was the only thing that could possibly impact whether or not there was room in my mailbox for my mail or if I would have to go to the house and get my money and come back to rent a bigger mailbox.

Dreadfully, none was First Class Mail. I was relieved that if I had thrown it out I would not have been committing a Federal crime and decided to give the guy a break and hand him the mail.

I found out several things from this exercise. I remembered from one of the NEWS offerings from The Church of Scientology that Flag can handle any case with Standard Tech and I started to breathe easier as I left the clerk to his task of crossing out the terrorist’s name and noting that it was misdelivered mail. I felt a little guilty that I wasted the guy’s time and gave him more to do but felt comfort in the thought that I was insuring that he stayed employed.  He had not yet become an OPS employee. I was fairly certain he belonged to a strong union and therefore would not be searching for bobbins under weaving machines.

I am left with this thought: Should OPS workers join the Union or would the fact that most OPS workers were Republican preclude that? I was also thinking that the Post Office was trying very hard to serve me in ten minutes and it was only people like me that kept that goal from being realized for the other suckers still in line.

I also felt sure that The Church of Scientology had plenty of money for mail and wondered if they would ever stop stimulating the economy and email at least a few things.

I thought of Carl Malden when I opened the car door. I could see him in my mind’s eye holding up a trusty Papermate Pen and saying: “Don’t leave home without it.”

The goal of a blog post in one page will not be met today. And, I am sitting here with the dead guys mail and noticed that in the upper right hand corner where there should be a stamp there is the copy: PRESORTED FIRST CLASS U.S. POSTAGE PAID CHICAGO, IL PERMIT NO. .....

Some information is withheld to protect the guilty. I am going to go to the Post Office and ask the nice man what do I do now with mail for the dead guy that is First Class Mail and completely covered with scribble.  Should I or can he recycle it or should it go to the dead letter office to languish with all the other things that are there since 1825 when The United States Postal Service started a dead letter office to deal with undeliverable mail?

I forgot to get the three cent stamp.  I would go tomorrow but the part I need to visit is closed.  The next day is Sunday so they are also closed for stamp purchases.  Monday is Memorial Day and a Federal Holiday so unless the clerk is an OPS worker I will have to go on Tuesday and purchase that three cent stamp and ask what to do with all the scribbled mail I have in my car.

Is this what irony really is?

Warning Signs

Today I am gonna wing it. That, in and of itself, might be a warning sign. And I got up early. And I mean early.

What is it about Warning Signs? Could there ever be enough or too many Warning Signs? Did I tell you that I used to be a Sign Man?

I am not talking about only the ones in written text on the orange diamond backgrounds next to the road informing drivers that the bridge might ice if the temperature is too low. Or, even the ones printed on plastic bags so toddlers do not use the bags as toys.

Some warning signs also include the penalty for ignoring them like the Handicapped Parking Signs. The penalty should not have to be posted for potential offenders as $250 for ignoring them. Tow Zone signs usually include information about how to contact someone to retrieve the vehicle if it should not be there when the reprobate returns and the car has disappeared.

Many warning signs are nonverbal. There are the birds chirping at the crosswalks informing the non-sighted that it is or is not safe to enter the intersection. Maybe these warning signs are verbal and we just need to learn the language.

Apparently some of the warning signs of the economic disaster we are experiencing were not clear enough, soon enough. There were many of these signs. It was not just the banks and the government that did not speak the language.


DakotaDawg has her own set of nonverbal warning signs. I am beginning to recognize many of hers.

There is the one, the dog barking around the corner that lets DakotaDawg know it is time to awaken from her slumber and defend her property against invasion by the TerribleTriplets. These three Scottie Dogs pass with their owner usually about the same time every morning. As far as I know DakotaDawg is content to just wait for the warning of Sarge instead of continually checking every clock in the house. DakotaDawg has not yet learned to read time. Since I am learning the language I think that may be a verbal warning sign.

DakotaDawg is learning English. It is a case of an old dog learning new tricks. I attempted to purchase the world's #1 language-learning software, Rosetta Stone, for dogs but found none available for her. Instead we are taking it one small step at a time. I know DakotaDawg knows some Hochdeutsch since she responds to some commands in Hochdeutsch. She is not a German Sheppard. I am not sure where she learned this but we are working on helping her through her Bill Murray moment.

DakotaDawg has many of her own nonverbal warning signs that I and the kitties are becoming familiar with. One is that she is in charge. Often this is not true and the Force is greater with either the kitties or me.

When DakotaDawg takes up station in the “Kitty Control Area” we all pretty much understand that no kitty shall pass while she is stationed there. If it is not clear enough to the kitties DakotaDawg is willing to offer translation help with a gentle nip on the butt for all that do not understand.

The Cute Little Orange Talking Kitty does not believe in nonverbal warning signs and tells DakotaDawg and anyone else in earshot whatever it is that they need to be informed of. Often this applies to DakotaDawg taking up station. This is a case of whoever can yell the loudest getting their way.

I am about to send the Cute Little Orange Talking Kitty to congress to see if he can show them how it works. Teddy Roosevelt understood how all of that worked but he also carried a big stick in case the people he wanted to know something only spoke Hochdeutsch.


From what I am seeing on the news about gunk floating in the gulf it must be time to take out the Big Stick and use it.

Some states and politicians so gung ho about “Drill Baby; Drill” are having second thoughts. Hopefully they did not hear or see the warning signs too late.


“Could there ever be enough or too many Warning Signs?” is not a rhetorical question and it does have an answer: Apparently not.

I want to continue to hear the chirping of the birds. I do not want to be a non-sighted person. Hopefully the chirping will not only come from electronic devices and speakers attached to warning signs at intersections.


With “About 3,020,000 results (0.37 seconds)” Google and that many other people do think that Sarge is a word. MicroSoft, please remove the warning sign.

Is That a Rhetorical Question?

Is That a Rhetorical Question?

Often when I am working on my computer I have to ask myself this question. Sometimes even twice. Frequently, my computer is asking me if I am certain that I want it to do what I just told it to do. This is very polite and it is kind of it to inquire.

Excuse me while I change the options again so that “When selecting, automatically select entire word” is not selected. :ROLLEYES:

Did you want to change the default font to (default) Arial?” All this time as I click the Yes button I am asking myself if that might or might not have been the reason I had Arial 12 Pt selected and depressed the Default Radio selecting button with that left click of my mouse.

It is possible I intended to do something else. But, if I could find it in the first place and then consciously depress it; possibly it is a good bet I wanted to select it. I think computer programmers could dump a little code if they thought that what I did was likely what I intended to do rather than the other way around. Whoda thunk?

However, this also might be a case of the worker insuring that he collects his pay for an entire 40 hours instead of for 39. What does that have to do with anything?

George used to do that when he worked for me. God Bless his soul. George knew at all times precisely how many hours, minutes and milliseconds were required on any given Monday so that the total after working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (and of course the previous Friday when he left early) would total 40 or more. George always hoped for more than 40 because then he could get deeply involved in high math calculations. George was a Math Major when he graduated university. If you have a little time I can try to explain his Theory of the Universe. Also how he could utilize his knowledge of this theory and the added bonus of you not knowing how to build a perpetual motion machine, to make a full week. “Can I tell you about my theory of the universe?” Would you hit me between the eyes with a hammer?

Like government and private enterprise (in this day in time); I caught on quick. I made George a contract worker. George would decide if he wanted to do something by a certain date. Once he accepted the task I did not care if he got it done in a day or if it took a month. As long as it was done by the agreed time; he would get the agreed remuneration. If not, we were deep into high math and contract renegotiations. Are you ever going to finish that?

I would not monitor the time he came and went or some other Federal Labor Law and IRS regulation dealios. This insured George was not someone that got a W-2 but instead he would get a 1099. George was not an employee. George was now a subcontractor. There was still a lot of paperwork and contracts and things to do and attempt to keep up with. But, it changed me from an employer and the tax collector for the government (a person that collects the money, does all of the work for the government so they need fewer employees, then sends the checks to IRS... of course, also fills out numbered forms, lots of filled out numbered forms and some with DASH vowel or consonant and then becomes legally liable and punishable by the full weight of the law if a mistake appears in calculations or some other related form is not filed or is filed late). This also stimulated the economy because it kept a large number of CPA’s and attorneys very happy, busy and rich as they figured out ways not to have to pay taxes themselves. Am I missing a form? Do I have to file even that form? Am I missing anything?  Jesus, will You please throw these people out of the temple?

When I did it; I required my subcontractors to get their own occupational licenses and sign all kinds of documents and have insurance. Then, it was called illegal by an IRS directive to stop the underground economy it fostered under the Ronnie RayGun administration. Can a service industry have a subcontractor?


Now they just call it OPS.


This gives our governments (it is not just the feds) ways to circumvent our own Federal laws. Retirement, insurance and other benefits can be averted. It is cheaper than the old way when government workers were always employees instead of how it is now when government is less and less likely to have employees.

Private enterprise has also jumped on this OPS thing with both feet. It enables them to dance around the new requirements for health insurance.  Not that it took decades for the ruling parties even to reach a compromise. All that work simply won’t mean a thing. Not that it is all that great any way. But, before we have a chance to see if it will work; we already have the methodology in place to insure that it won’t. Do government workers really work 40 hours a week? Most that I know, if they don’t, sure work hard enough to get the job done even if, like George, they took off early the previous Friday.

This also means Mr. or Ms. Average OPS worker has no paid Federal Holidays. When it is time for vacation, instead; there is a family visit. This is why small town America is dying! People are trying to get as far away from family as possible. They ask: "If we live further away than Phyllis, do you think they will drive that far?” Will the cost of gas seal her fate? OPS workers usually can’t afford real vacations so now they are freeloading all across America, the nearer to home, the better.

A real vacation will cost even more because OPS workers will be losing money because they are not back at the grindstone. There is a lot about this OPS thing that looks like what was happening to children at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Or, right now where ever they are making our shoes, clothing, and tools or painting our toys with lead based paint. Except now, this time, it applies to adults. Mr. Smith can you crawl under that machine and reach that bobbin there?


So does that matter? I suppose that could be a rhetorical question.


I am constantly bombarded by rhetorical questions. I feel obliged to answer most of them. I do on occasion pop back with a question in response to a question rather than an answer. This can be real fun. Do you really want to know?

Do you think it can work? Are you really going to wear those pants? Does this milk taste bad to you? Is that a rhetorical question?

And the Ultimate Indignity: a rhetorical question in answer to a rhetorical question. Typically what happens in Congress when we are faced with a national emergency or crisis.  Can we insure there is accountability?


Are you going out? Is your zipper up?


Under one page following an outline (Default font to (default) Arial, Size 2. Left click the Default radio button. Left click the Yes radio button.)… Thanx editor.

Are you sure you really want this webpage to access your clipboard?  Is this what I really wanted to do?  Should I left click the Allow Access radio button or the other Don't Allow button?

Can you hit me between the eyes with the really big hammer?  Will the indentation look like it was made by a peanut butter cookie?


I am so confused.


The heck with it.  Left click:  PUBLISH POST

It’s gonna be a lovely day!

So as I became conscious as it was getting light outside I was planning my day but decided to get up instead because planning for some of us means something different. I threw up a thanx to St. Jude Thaddeus knowing that some googling and printing might be required at some point. One of the things I got from Rosie’s estate when we divided things up was the “OH GLORIOUS APOSTLE,” pamphlet. It was kind of like the NFL Draft where each member of a team picked a personal item or piece of furniture and then the next was up to announce his or her selection.


I suggest every family avoid ‘most’ squabbles like we did by, after the funeral sitting on the floor and doing something like this. IIRC the oldest male went first not because he was the oldest male but because he was the oldest. The youngest female went last as usually happens in a large family; the youngest normally goes last.

I have to get the poison out of my body first. But before that, the good news and then the bad news. I went to Google and as is wont with them on the Very First Hit of the properly submitted search we hit the jackpot. "Lovely Day" song lyric (exactly as typed) yielded a multitasking soul raising opportunity if I clicked on the blue arrow in the blue outlined box under: Lovely Day by Bill Withers. AND, the Posting about the HTML stuff is not going to happen today, so do not fear. The wonders of multitasking began to come out of the speakers on the pRotable and it was delightful. Then the NOT so much happened. Multitasking ceases and the song is not like the other one that was in my head for almost a week. The thing stops playing. I knew eventually this was going to happen. I was hoping it would happen at the end of the song instead of in that particular bar where I was singing along. I immediately stop typing because I am almost certain there is nothing wrong with the pRotable yet. Give it a couple of more months because resistance is futile and it will crash just after I have forgotten to back up some really crucial stuff. After all, it is a WinDoze machine and by then it will need a nap and some software tweaking or OS reinstall.

So I go back to the original tab to see what the problem would be hoping that it would not be $139.99 for an immediate fix or $239.99 for either the one or two year support option. This will be fully explained in some future post but not here. I can see after a little investigation that the blue bar has migrated to the end of the road and there is now a black selector box under the blue bar. In the black box is the copy Buy MP3. So as not to spoil my mood I decide not to turn this into a crusade.

I really enjoyed what I heard of Click and Clack the Tappit Brothers yesterday on NPR. I did not have a chance to listen to it on Saturday. Realizing I had forfeited the chance to ask them just what they thought was wrong with my car yesterday and since I missed so much of the show talking to Jim and trying to figure out what was going to happen to the lady that was pulled over in his parking lot with the two FHP cars notifying all that they had got their woman by flashing enough lights to induce seizure. I got the idea to do a Google and see if I could instead of wondering about what warrant might be out for the lady continue to make this a Lovely Day. Thank you Steve Jobs and NPR for the freebie and Ray and Tom for the acronym – AAADD. I will not start typing that because it is more letters than ADD. They both have it, maybe they are running out of time or they are spending too much on FaceBook.

So to keep the ball rolling I turn down the volume. I cannot make the processing of all of those unrelated facts my highest priority. Besides, I can’t call them to find out what really is wrong with my car but this is almost like TiVo® or taping Dancing with the Stars and watching it at my convenience instead of when it is broadcast. This could lead to gray matter meltdown because I likely would think it was Tuesday when I got up the next day to attempt to have a lovely day. The nice thing for someone with AAADD, AOADD or someone younger with only ADD is if they record a show, they can rewind if they are distracted.


I am holding probably one of the best presents I have ever gotten in my entire life. It is the custom designed tumbler now holding my coffee. It also does not get slippery if it gets cold and sweats. Since I am having coffee, the appropriate liquid levels are glazed inside the cup in contrasting colors. I may be like Meg’s boyfriend before Tom Hanks and write an entire article on it.


So, I was reading an article in National Geographic the other nite and the GLORIOUS APOSTLE was featured in an article about violence in Mexico. Convergence since Ray and Tom are going to, I’m not sure what it is but it is a song and it does not appear to be a commercial. No, they are back talking about last week’s puzzler about geography. Although they have not mentioned the GLORIOUS APOSTLE; it is geography. It is not a bogus question and there is an answer.

So I remain curious as to how the veneration of a guy who has been long dead and may or may not have ever really lived or some skeleton with a scythe, neither of which was or is really recognized by Holy Mother Church as a saints, is possibly related to geography. It is not as if I don’t enjoy the articles. But I can remember nothing about killers, prison and veneration of real or imaginable saints as part of the curricula of any of my college courses, let alone geography. We did talk about St. Jude in Theology and English when I was in the Seminary. Never in geography though. And the discussion of Jude Thaddeus was only a recommendation by the Father Professor of English Composition that I should start throwing up a few Novenas to him so that I might end up with a passing grade. Musta worked, although it is like the geography deal and may not be obvious here.



We are coming up on the third half. “Half of baseball is 90% mental.” Yogi was right.


My Grandma (that is what I called her) told me that for the mumps and pain that was excruciating, praying to St. Jude would be hopeless. Grandma never lied to me so I followed her advice and clutched the Rosary and I prayed to the Holy Mother. This does not necessarily mean that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and all those Protestants are SOL. Possibly modern medicine can help them… that is unless they live in an undeveloped country still waiting for FedEx to bring the serum from Mr. Bill. BTW, thanx Bill and the other guy with all of that money. Thankfully, Mary, Holy Mother of God, cut me a break. I had overheard what the guy, as he left the house (the same one that delivered Marg on a dark and stormy nite), said: “It will just have to run its course.” Even in the second grade I knew what that meant. Some might be thinking this guy is ancient or lived in Provence where doctors who carried bags came to the house to deliver babies. I think the c in Provence is supposed to have a worm hanging off of it, IIRC. Well, Google does not think so. I do not remember the alt code for it as I remember when I need to do an ® symbol. I think you might possibly be able to put the ® symbol behind any word that WinDoze thinks is misspelled and the red line may disappear. Let me check. Doesn’t work for Marg. I decided that the chances were slim that I might want to be typing Marg when I intended to type one of the other offerings from WinDoze suggested so I told Word to add Marg to my personal dictionary.


I see I have misappropriated another hour and hope it has not taken quite that long for you to get here. The DakotaDawg really is starting to warm up to these English Lessons. Stay tuned.


Gotta start a day. Musta is now added to spellchecker. Today I decided to be a conformist since I am interviewing an editor.


Hopefully, I will not have to throw up a novena to St. Jude Thaddeus or the Holy Mother.

Tech Support

Do not be frightened and stay tuned: 
formatting errors and composing in AND editing HTML is scheduled. 

Appointment made.  I am going to find a new editor.

Got to get the correction made before I finish this post... I'll warn you and you can be away from the computer.

Genetics, Honey and Hermie

I just told the spellchecker that Hermie is the correct spelling of something that I know how to spell and intended. I did not misspell hermit, which was first on WinDoze’s list of possible corrections I might consider of the four total selections it offered up when I told it I wanted the red underline to disappear. I understand how this misimpression possibly might have happened since E and T are pretty close together on the Qwerty. I am not confused about the rest.


If you mistakenly hit the change button and accept one of the offerings: well, you have… since I am trying not to use those words, just insert another analogy. Or use the one in the forefront of your mind that I was going to type before I was so rudely interrupted.

Spellchecker is not as smart as you might think. Although I sometimes think of Spellchecker as an old woman with warts on her nose and several moles, wearing a red bandanna (either on her head or around her neck as a scarf), sitting in a darkened room in front of a Crystal Ball; Probably not. What I mean here is spellchecker gets stupider and stoopider every time I accept one of its selections.

If AutoCorrect is then left On, I will additionally have no choice in the future. Unless I win the disagreement. It is disconcerting to know that every time I mistakenly type Hermie, AutoCorrect will them immediately insert what I had accepted as left and since it is AutoCorrectingly making the change... hopefully you get the point OR then you TOO are going to have to quarrel with your spellchecker if you ever really need to type Hermie. The options of Hermes, Hermès, hermeneutics, Herman, Hermione or hermit may never be available to us again. As far as the stuupider part (which would have automatically changed to stupider), it lurks under the spelling and grammar tab and is labeled: “Change spelling as you type”. This is the true MicroSoft acceptable definition of AutoCorrect.


EXCUSE ME! Just a minute and let me go up to Tools, Options, Edit tab and uncheck (No, I really did not mean to type upchuck although I am getting ready to) the “When selecting, automatically select the entire word”. For like the billionth time already.


To make my point: Some of THEM or LEFT (or right or correct as I prolly meant to type) and those other really dreadful errors that could cost you your degree or job, will never be found even if you run the convenient and totally unreliable Spelling AND Grammar checker. Right now I am trying to figure out how one spells the sticking out the tongue noise of a motorcycle being revved up. A raspberry, IIRC. If anyone knows what this is, please post it as a comment so I can add it to my spellchecker. Dorothy gets an automatic exemption here.


God forbid if you have typed Hermie if you really wanted to type Herm.


The implications for those with ADD are huge. I.e. or E.g. - Herm did not even show up as a possibility since it was not one of the WinDoze accepted recommendations if I had typed Hermie, but had meant to type Herm. For research purposes only, when I did type Herm, spellchecker did think that possibly it was NOT what I intended to type but hadn't typed correctly since Herm obviously is an accepted spelling or variation of Herm. Thankfully, I did not intend to type Herman. Artificial intelligence, ha.


I did, in a previous post, speak of the possibility of ‘Positive Rants’‽


So, to avoid what my computer might think should be substituted for what I really did want to type; I added Hermie to the spellchecker with DakotaDawg. For me it is all about being able to do something the way I want to rather than the way someone else, including my laptop. MicroSoft or WinDoze thinks I should be doing it. Avoiding those red and green underlines that seem to be affecting how fast and what I think has been a life goal. Arguing with everyone and everything is not, despite how it might appear.

Back on point or off to another one: if I had mistakenly accepted hermit I would be in a world of hurt. Worse is the spellchecker is dumbed down (NO NOT dumped down, the p key is a long way away from the b key). The real tragedy is that now if I force my computer to accept that I want Hermie by adding it to my personal dictionary it stay there. It will not underline it in red but when I run the Spelling and Grammar checker in the future it will forget the four other possible correct things it thinks I might have been attempting to type, it will offer only offer up two.

Explaining how I arrived at this is difficult, so I will just say my spellchecker has more stoopidly made another incorrect assumption forcing me to either ignore all of the Red Underlines or just go and open NotePad and type in it. Or, accept that it is grammatically incorrect to put a capital in the middle of a word. Phew. Waiting patiently for the CC&S red code marking because possibly that is not clear. Don’t get too hung up on it. I am certainly not. CC&S was all over my freshman English creative writing submittals. It stood for Combine, Condense and Subordinate, not Fragmented.


Bingo: Hermie was my dad. We also called him Herm, not as frequently as mom. We did find out that with extensive training Rosie started calling Herman Hermie instead of the perfectly acceptable Herm more frequently. Hermie started calling Roseanna Rose more often instead of Rose or Rose Ann. Mom must have had a heck of a time with the driver’s license folks well before she ever got married and changed her surname. Rosie liked Rose more than Roseanna and likely before she learned to drive. We just called her mom, mommy or Rosie after we hit our teen years. Rose only when very serious and we were in our twenties.


I am pretty sure dad had ADD because he frequently called Rosie honey.


Being only moderately confused about genetics; for the moment I am not going to try to deal with it. Instead, I am going to cut and paste what precedes in its entirety by a Control A into NotePad and work there.

Initially, I had intended to start a sentence with a capital A but since my pRotable has decided that I am sick of typing words in WinDoze Word with all of this hostility, it has prolly gotten at least one thing correct this morning. I have left and will again Control A and be back to edit all of the red and green underlines before posting. (Order of words, consider revising) Maybe not.


ADD is now like breathing. Everybody that is a student in HighSchool has it. I was informed by a most reliable teacher that no one in her high school that has been tested for it showed negative. It is like a social disease and I suspect it is transmitted not by sex or genetics. We are going to have to stimulate the economy and fund some grants to see if it is spread by computers and the nefarious Tweet, MySpace or FaceBook. I must have only a mild case since I refuse to do the first and appear cured of the second. The third I do not do so much but occasionally I will check what I spent far too long setting up to monitor. Control S.

I am going to go see a doctor for this yet uncured disease of Blogging. If I and a few others are not cured of this the Chinese will soon be building a car manufacturing plant on just a small piece of America that they already own. They will be foreclosing on the others soon. Curing Greece, Italy and Spain may be more difficult.


Where was I sidetracked? Green lines disappeared when I figured out without an intervention that I meant to type a QuestionMark. OK, I made the mistake of coming back into Word. Control A. Control Insert. I thought I was done so I apologize.

Does even Gawd know what colour the line would have been if I had used an interbang‽ Although Word knows what it is; MicroSoft’s SpellChecker does not appear to know how it is spelled. And no; I did not want a question mark or even an interbang after the last sentence.

As I sit here pondering why; ‘Although’ is underlined in green and thank gawd it disappeared with that last reedit, I am certain of at least one thing: Google is smarter than MicroSoft. If you were paying close attention you must have realized there were six computer generated suggestions above instead of only the four MicroSoft proffered, even though none of them were correct either. There is going to be a test later.

“Now that is funnay, I don’t care who you are.” So you know, MY creative writing priest would have forgiven the possible misspelling of funnay if it had been underlined in the submittal because in his code that meant it had been intended. Is there an option in word like that and what tab is it under (insert interbang here to avoid confusion and the green mile of underline)‽


I better go Google.


Dare I go back and run Spelling and GrammarChecker once again‽

Ignore the extra spaces between the words and the quotation marks because Spell and GrammarChecker will not remove the spaces because it thinks you really intended the quotation marks to be in another place and will not remove the spaces.


I will not Google to find a cure. I will not Google to find a cure. I will not Google to find a cure.



Control A. Control V. Left Click correct Favorite. Left click ‘Sign In’ then Left Click correct Favorite again (only after that did the miracle of cookies work). Left click ‘New Post’. Left Click in the correct text box. Right click the correct text box. Control Insert or just right click there and just left click ‘Paste’. Highlight first line of text and right click. Left click or let’s just hit Control X. Place cursor over title text box. Left click there, and then, right click ‘Paste’. Go down and then left click the Publish Post Button. Left click the View Post text link or the smaller View Blog text above and right of the tabs.


I am now published. Editors and readers around the world can now begin banging their heads.


For some real fun if you have absolutely nothing else to do cut and paste this post into WinDoze Word and change the color or background of your paper or the text so you can see it on the screen. You can Control A or just Left Click Tools and then right click Spelling and Grammar. Forget that, just hit F7 if you are not on an iPad and need to get the correct keyboard up in front of you. If you are on an iPad, call Lee or Rita or DD.


You are now cured of ADD. This cure may last fewer than 24 hours so begin the process again.


Based on advice from your doctor you must not read your own blog. It is far too convoluted and this might cause another full round of clicking and shortcuts that will begin the endless cycle of arguing with your editor once again. AND, you will be reinfected.


In the mean time I am hopeful that in the future I do not inadvertently type DakotaDawg when I meant to type North Dakota, South Dakota or even Sioux or Sue.


Jo put that hammer away I am going to see if I have enough money left on the gift cards to buy Dragon Naturally Speaking at Beast Buy and just let the artificially intelligent software make the call. This typing is too tedious. Neanderthals never had this problem or the other one IIRC.

It’s not hurricane season so I decided to do that later.

Some of you might suspect I am losing my memory. Not my sanity. Most are certain that was lost long ago.


I am sitting in my recliner trying to think of a good excuse. It is not that I can’t. But, I may as well go do it now. I have an easier time dealing in the present or even the past than the future.



Leaving the pluperfect to the dead Romans and my sister the English teacher. She is so dedicated she is hammering at the keys of her pRotable so that she or some IT wizard can post a test for her students. It is a Saturday! That is one of the two days; one even specified by God, when many people with jobs are not even supposed to work. Teachers are not covered by these guidelines because it is one of the few things not specifically addressed in their contracts.

I was glad to talk to her. It gave me another excuse put off doing something that should already be done. I talked to my brother, too. We still do not know the results of his wife’s tests. We are getting a little angry over that. After all, a promise is a promise. But, they just did not say which Friday they would give the results.

A little bit like the vendor on eBay who charged extra for expedited shipping. I am certain the shipping will be expedited. There was a small chance a vendor on eBay would lie according to numbers he has posted in the upper right hand corner of that webpage. What really has my steam up is that he failed to mention in the fine print that the expedited shipping would not occur until AFTER he actually put the battery in a box or envelope, and called the expediting shipper to expedite it! Or, until after the expediting shipper picked it up.


How many different plans can you develop to empty a box of nails? My editor indicated that all should not be completely elaborated upon if I wanted to build a readership. I will not mention those with the red line through the text.


Deciding not to follow the advice of a non-paid professional… I had Plan A thru Plan F on paper before some suffered the indignity of being labeled as not worthy of mention. I will not let that hold me back.

I went through all of Plan A and all of the subsets of it before I had to finally disagree with one of my now dead mentors.


George Wilson used to say: “The dreading is usually far worse than the doing.” I had rarely found George to be wrong about anything with the possible exception of the time when he said: “Your girlfriend won’t mind a bit, me dumping all these dead frogs in the kitchen sink. At least not after she has eaten some fresh fried bullfrog legs.” I will also mention that some of the legs were still moving and attached to the monster frogs. We did not have a Vet handy to pronounce death by gigging. So we attempted dissection and autopsy ourselves at 3 AM one morning without the death certificates.

Since George was rarely wrong I followed his advice and went straight for the new fangled electric 18 volt drill and screw gun that hides behind the piano. Since it was daytime I did not notice any flashing colored lights on the wall from the charging units also hidden there. I will have to Google or find the Owner’s Manual to translate what message these charging units were constantly sending to the outer edges of the universe when it was dark in the living room.

I only pass through that room if it is light outside. Otherwise I try to slip out the back door. If we return from some special First Friday or giddy-up with some friends after dark; I close my eyes passing through the living room. If I do not, I will not get a wink of sleep. I will be on my back listening to sleep noises from a couple of species of faunæ. I may try to guess if the blinking red light emanating from behind the piano means the battery is charged or if the battery is too worn out to charge; complicated sometimes additionally by a mysterious green shadow cast up the wall. I think that could mean that possibly one battery back there might be suitable to use.

But since it was daytime, I did not have a clue… that is unless I pulled out the piano and started testing each battery one at a time by sticking it in the drill I thought it fit in and pulling the trigger. I did exactly that to the small army of these batteries hidden there. SCORE. I hit the lottery. One of the six batteries worked when I slammed it home in the handle of a drill.

Personally, I don’t want to know if one of the batteries can never be charged again. If it will have to wait for burial on city hazardous waste amnesty day. Or, if I could, since it is a battery, sneak into one of the Big Box electronic stores or home repair centers and pull it from under my coat to smash it down through the recycling slot. I can’t just throw it in the garbage. It is far too hot to wear a coat now so the spares will remain behind the piano. George mercifully died before the advent of portable electric tools.

Drill in hand I went to the last known storage place of the rubber bit holster for the variety of bits that might be needed for my electric drill. I think I had eight in it, a failed attempt to bridge the gap from the slot head thru the Phillips; the hex head thru the tamper resistant. Or, just one that fit some old screws I had lying around. FAIL.

I did locate another device that would work in place of the correct bit that might or might not be in the rubber bit holder that should have been wrapped around the barrel of the drill… but wasn’t.


Tamper-proof varieties of screws are designed to stimulate the economy by forcing the thief or vandal to go to the home repair store to buy one of the correct bits to remove them.


I have inadvertently come upon the new fool proof tamper resistant screw. I take a Phillips head screw and drive it almost completely into the wood just leaving enough out so it looks like the guy who screwed it in did not know how to properly drive a screw.

This has never been a conscious decision on my part. It is made by the woods I am trying to fasten together and Chinese screws. After not going all the way in, I attempt to remove said screw by backing it out so I might attempt again to drive it home. At this point if I am successful I should realize that I have a predrilled hole of about the right size. It is time to get the hammer and a nail. Instead I normally attempt to drive the screw all of the way down by rotating it in a clockwise fashion with the Phillips head bit and my trusty cordless electric drill driver.

I know this is a FAIL the moment the screw stops rotating in a clockwise direction and it makes that noise that makes zombies run. I am then unable to then reverse the direction of the screwgun to remove the metal Beelzebub because the Phillips head slot in the screw is completely stripped. Since it is not quite 100% countersunk I knew it is not a perfect tamper resistant screw… it might possibly be removed with a pair of vise grips.

So I am standing in front of the fence scratching my head wondering if I can hang a plant on that screw that is still sticking out and did not do its job properly (or so I think).

Abandoning Plan A, I am starting to feel that the doing is going to end up being way far worse than the dreading by the time I finish the job of getting a small gap in the wood closed so that critters do not have a home in my fence. This is the fence that has stood the test of time and looks good from two sides instead of just one. My neighbor put a one sided fence completely on his property. It is against the law for me to nail anything to that fence, let alone screw it. Fortunately for you we are not going down that road today.

I manage to find what I think is enough nails necessary to complete the job and the BIG framing hammer with the engraved face on it from the darkened dungeon I call the ‘utility room’. Plan B starts with me first attempting to dive in the formerly galvanized too darned long not quite countersunk stripped Phillips head deck screw. FAIL. I have inflicted some round scars on the fence that look a little like the top of my mother’s peanut butter cookies after we decorated them with fork impressions. So Joe was also wrong too when he told me the slots in the top of the screw were for removal only. “All screws should be put in with a hammer instead of a screwdriver.” Not in this case anyway.

Plan C is breaking off this defective tamper resistant screw. It did not go well and the fence now has many peanut butter cookie scars in the vicinity of the screw. Since Plan C did not include finding my vise grip pliers and I want to complete this job before next Saturday I figure it is time to develop a Plan D. Of course, yet another FAIL.

Plan D includes using the five nails that I got out of the dungeon, to pull the board down and close the gap. FAIL. The board ends up cracking but it is not going anywhere because it is being firmly held in place with enough nails the Chinese could remove them and recycle them to manufacture a new tool for America; plus that one tamper resistant screw. But I did close the gap. At least in that board with only five nails.

The problem now is the partial success of Plan D results in the necessity to develop Plan E. Plan E is to go into the dungeon and retrieve sufficient nails to pull down the rest of the boards that are now kind of hanging there loosely in this twenty-five year old fence. Thankfully there is no board in the world left that will match or fit in as a replacement of the cracked board with all of the hammer dents that looks so atrocious to me. To make it match the adjacent boards I decorate all of them with the pretty hammer dents and if I get far enough away from it I do not notice the defects in the repair.

Plan E at least got all the boards close to where they were supposed to be. The right thing to do would have been to take all the boards off and put in a new horizontal stringer between the posts and then put the original board back on. This is now Plan F.

I decided it was just too darn hot to initiate Plan F and had two good excuses not to, already at hand. No, at least ten when I think of it. One excuse includes the swarm of mosquitoes that are buzzing around my head and making it hard to see. Since Plan C had been a FAIL I could at some future time restart Plan C1 which included searching the dungeon for the vise grip pliers. Unfortunately, Plan F will also have to include a trip to the hardware store to buy a new box of nails to replace the empty one still inside the dungeon.


I went inside the house and got some water. I felt lucky I did not have to visit the Public Library to get some. The stainless steel water container was indeed inside the refrigerated safe in the kitchen. I was feeling very good.


As far as it not being hurricane season and what that had to do with anything: this job confirmed my suspicions that no matter how hard you pray, prayers sometimes are just not answered. It did not rain and no hurricane was in sight to take down the fence so the insurance company would pay for all the nails used for the repair. Minus my deductible, of course.

This valuable research confirmed something else I thought… mentors are not always right. It also reminded me that if I take some kid frog gigging (if there are any left that are not extinct (frogs, DUH)… bring the big hammer. Instead of just dumping the croaker sack into the kitchen sink it would be better to FIRST decorate the head of each frog outside the apartment and then put each one individually into the sink. That way you don’t have to keep trying to catch all of the escaped frogs that are bleeding all over the nice rug in the apartment.


Put that hammer away! I am taking a breather and promise to edit before posting rather than after.

“It’s five o’clock on a Saturday.” Or What day is it?

It is a curious thing to know what time it is without looking at clocks or cellphones (and I am sure at least in common usage cellphone IS one word). I don’t usually find the red or underlined characters useful or enjoyable and if I typed it... Unless my fingers did not start on the correct keys, it is pretty much how I wanted it to read. It really is not five o’clock as it was earlier and I suspect that I will not have to explain the reference if you read more than this paragraph.


The keyboard designer did not put tall enough ridges on the homekeys (I know that homekeys is underlined in red and the spellchecker is incorrect again IMHO). I suspect the computer manufacturer is either saving plastic or the Chinese have a better sense of touch in there nimble index fingers. Chinese Engineers will be discussed in another posting.

For brevity, I wish I knew lots more initials that everyone is expected to know. At least the definition, by now. I have decided I do not know enough languages already so there is no reason to attempt to not know two more now. So I am boycotting Texting so it is not obvious that I am a NUB. Besides I could get the electric chair if I get caught doing it while driving.

I thought I had a bad memory, but this MS program has been out there for like forever and it still gets on the internet and looks for updates or patches. AND, I guess everyone at MS likes the entire word selected option when editing. Personally, I do not. I might want to just cut and paste a part of a word. Who’d A thunk? It certainly does not help speed me up when I have to go back to tools, options, edit tab, and then uncheck ‘When selecting, automatically select entire word’; then and only then hit OK. This happens every time I reboot the computer and open Word or sometimes extremely often when I am working in the same document.

I wonder if this happens on a Mac. Is it what is behind the recent resurgence of their product? But since the iPad is giving them a run for their own money I am not so sure of that. Now that MS knows of this glaring error, surely, they will fix this damn thing that has continued to persist thru the four versions I have owned, at least. I know it is at least four versions because I remember googling it and now being able to make the daily correction when required. Good, it appears to be working AND I did not inadvertently change any of the other settings that Options might have thought was how I wanted them. Like not AutoCorrecting… GRRRRRRRR!

I think I used to, no, I am certain I used to tell time without clocks. I did not use the Sister Mediatrix alarm clock substitute method either, where you said a lot of prayers before bed and told God what time you wanted to wake… and then if you woke when you thought you were supposed to or prayed you would, you said a lot more prayers. Or, if you were a nun, could wait until Reverend Mother woke you with the screaming and then say a lot more prayers that this time you would not be punished further and have to say a lot more prayers because God forgot to get you up at the right time.

I am sure the Josephite sisters never saw 5 o’clock in the morning on their backs with their eyes closed. With 85,000 search results, other people, including the Josephite sisters, do not think that Josephite is a misspelling. Phew. Those nuns could never have slept. It must have taken all night to starch the penguin head attachment holding up the veil, iron the rest of the habit and get into it making sure that no child would ever be able to figure if they had hair on their head or what color it might be. Sister Mediatrix had short beautiful auburn hair. I know I spent almost the entire first grade researching it. I figured since she was a woman it would be the same color as her eyebrows. It was.

And, it was not until in college that I found out that there may be no correlation at all. You may think it but I am not going to go there. Besides, back then if you wanted to get rich you owned stock in the company that manufactured the pins with the black plastic bead heads. I think it would take more than one super tanker to deliver all of those pins that went into a few nuns getups. Mother Superior’s at least.

Although my cell phone is vibrating, I know it is not an indication that I don’t know what time it is even if I might be mistaken because it is not the special tune allotted to the one contact who frequently is required by law to notify me of the fact that I am supposed to be somewhere or doing something. And, NO, that special tune is not Piano Man. But since it was not ringing but vibrating instead I had to check to see if I needed to answer because it might be her and she did not take her cell to the pool for her Saturday workout. Possibly, she might be calling from some landline that is not yet entered as one of my allotted 1,000 contacts. So, that at least confirms it is Saturday.


Answering confirmed that a lot of people don’t get jokes about words that sound the same but are spelled differently.


Homophones. Not that kind of phone but a basic English kind of problem some people have. I too have had that problem once or even two times to (I really do know the difference but embedded this to see if Stinky is still reading). Besides, Spelling and Grammar Checker found nothing wrong with that sentence so it MUST be right and I can just go on.

Yes, Homophones… She lost it when I asked if that was with an E or an A and then she waited in silence as did I. I decided not to speak and breath softly to see it she might check her digital display to see if we were still connected to the network and the counter was working on her cellphone. She must have decided the connection was broken. She dialed the wrong number again after the phone went dead. I did not speak but answered the phone. My timer indicated I was not still adding seconds. Then for confirmation she decided to call yet again. I replied to her question that Uncle Rick was not here right now and I did not expect to see him soon because he did not live here. Again the trusty LED indicated she had hung up. I am glad because I might still be holding the cancer generator to my ear because I had not realized that the line had gone dead without my lighted display and trusty timer.

I decided to let the phone go to the answering machine go to Voicemail to insure that she knew POSITIVELY that she had dialed the wrong number once more. She certainly was persistent. She left a VoiceMail. I am not sure how I am going to let Uncle Rick know that he has a message hiding somewhere in my phone or possibly on the network.

When I slept thru the Sister Mediatrix wake up alarm procedure the first time I was going to go fishing with my grandfather. I achieved a maximum FAIL with the Josephite approved internal alarm clock method. I abandoned it. Luckily I did not get yelled at by Mother Superior and did not have to any additional prayers to my repertoire. Grandpa just left in the boat without me since he was a firm believer in the “learn by experience” (or a good beating will cure him) method of child rearing. If I wanted to go fishing at 5 AM I had better figure something out.

It took until high school when I realized the fifty billionth method was also not successful. The one thing Dad always did was wake me when I asked him if it did not require screaming. Dad was a mailman and got up to get ready to get in before the crack of dawn. He used to hit the lever on the electric can opener to let Kai know it was time to get up and run to the kitchen because there was a good chance there would be food in her bowl.

Ladd’s dad obviously was not a mailman. He was not outside and there was not a light on in the house. I gave up on pounding on his bedroom window because that was obviously not working. Since I did not want to teach him a lesson and wanted his company fishing that day, especially since we were using his brother’s boat, I came up with the solution. Shock and Awe. Instead of just ringing the illuminated door buzzer, I went to the 7-11 and deposited a dime in the pay phone. Luckily I had some change laying on the transmission hump. These were the glory days before cell phones or crack had been invented and there were still payphones available where you didn’t have to drive to the bus station to find one. Just to the 7-11 and there was almost one on every corner like the drug stores of today

Ladd’s mom answered and it did not sound like when I got back to the house that she would be cooking eggs or serving coffee. It was doubtful too that she would have her precious Irish wiener dog in her lap singing while she accompanied it on the piano. Ladd though, was sitting on the stoop when I did get there. He even took a shower. I asked if his mom had made any coffee and got slugged in the arm. He was pretty much still too asleep to talk.

After further experimentation I determined that the only way to have Ladd ready to go fishing was to wake his entire household (more kids than a basketball team kind of family) before I left my house. Until she died, Mrs. Ladd expressed her eternal gratitude to me about finally finding a way to get Bill out of bed. It was not the phone calls; she started throwing water on him if he was still asleep and should be up.


Lots of time I used to just see if it was light out or look at the sun to know what time it was. Boy Scouts taught lots of useful information including what time it probably was based on the relative position of the sun in the sky. That was simple except when you threw Daylight Savings Time into the equation or if inside a building that wasn’t the library where there were lots of analog clocks around. Not always three in a room, mind you, but usually at least one.

Abandonment of a time keeping device on my side of the bed had everything to do with the fact that I always woke up when I needed to (and the fact that I woke at all). Not that I always woke up at 6 AM or even 5 AM. It was more like, if I needed to be sleeping I was. If I needed to be up, well, I was typing on my pRotable.

I have a wonderful watch in a drawer not because I have the cellphone that I can open if I really HAVE to know the exact second of the exact minute of what hour depending on where I was on the earth. Most other people do seem to still have this need.

I am curious to know what time it is in Singapore right now. Well maybe not because I already know when it is noon here it is midnite there. Besides at the house I either have all those clocks where it is three different times in one room. Or, the time is displayed based on where I told the computer I was in relation to what it is in Greenwich. The pRotable always makes the proper adjustment for my time zone according to how much we are behind GMT. I know it is behind because the International Date Line is not between us and London… and we don’t want to get into what day it is somewhere else. My pRotable displays those little numbers or the analog clock, where ever I want, depending upon which gadgets I am using or what preferences I have set.


My good friend did email me too: “I tried to leave a comment, but couldn't figure out the drop down menu which said I had to pick a format to leave it in.” Yes, thanx Google! The free site for the blog is nice but I expect better software from you.

…And: “Blogs have to be pretty short + concise, as readers are busy & limited in their time and attention span, they have to be about a certain theme or subject that both you and the reader feel passionate about." Well as soon as I know what that theme is I will let you know but I will try to follow that advice and try to not go off on as big a tangent as yesterday.

Ignoring my on advice, in my reply I typed: “Tell me what time it is in the casino and promise me you won't open your cell phone OR look at your wrist.” (Thank goodness I am not working on a first Gen iPhone that needs its next OS update to multi-task.) I did not admonish her not to lie or quote what Sister Mediatrix told me about lying in regard to some of her other comments which were kind.

Fortunately, I slept thru the five o’clock hour this morning. Someone else did not. But the vet did tell us that the Not So Cute Little Orange Talking Kitty was going to live. He is getting old but not too old to let me know that at least he is thinking that I should be out of the bed by at least 7. I think he was letting me sleep in on the weekend.

I am going to turn on the stereo or find that damn pad that has the priorities set for what I need to do around the house so the entire house does not fall down. IIRC it is on the yellow legal pad on the clipboard. I would really just rather listen to Click and Clack the Tappit Brothers but the Not So Cute Little Orange Talking Kitty was either barfing in the living room and preoccupied or snoring next to the “Purrfect Kitty” on the couch and forgot to say his prayers so he would be awake to let me know.

Maybe I should make sure first that Piano Man is not on the shuffle on the CD player. I will put your minds at ease and assure you that it will NOT be on somebody else’s iTouch.

I am going to ignore all the green and red underlined words. Deal with it MicroSoft and I am not going to even bother to add them to the spellchecker. You Knever no when I might need to type another word that might be exactly like Josephite except one letter is different. Too much to think about twice.


And, at least it is not like last week where I lost an entire day.


I hope that wasn’t too long for you Dorothy but at least you will not have to be the first leave a comment. I will consult with Steve Jobs about what to do. I forgot he and Google and even Adobe don’t seem to be getting along so well lately.


“Sing us a song”…. AAAAAARGH!

At least AAAAAARGH is not underlined in red. I added it to the spellchecker. Leave out one A though.


If you are reading, Uncle Rick: Call your niece!

2:19 on a Thursday – not a song but you can hum along with

The King of Cheese does not reside in Wisconsin! Or even some remote region of France where the goats are delicious and the sheep are nervous.




NewsFlash……. And the dot de dot noises. Wired Magazine has crowned the new King of Cheese. This is old news to some of us. For me I am still looking for the magazine.



I really should start making the salads because a promise is a promise but it’s like I’m doing a Google search and feeling lucky. I have an anticipated arrival time and I do want to have dinner ready when somebody gets home. The one buying all the food shouldn’t have to prepare all of it for consumption. Some of you know what it is like to have thoughts running around in your head until it feels like it will explode or start spinning around like in a movie that has not yet suffered the indignity of having a clone or clone II.



I hope the guy is not sitting on the porcelain throne because I think Dakota Dawg is thirsty again... The King of Cheese is Ben Huh. That is what I thought at first, HUH? I was trying to read something that I am sure is in some pile somewhere in the house but instead I was sitting in the Public Library reading a worn out magazine. My mother used to warn me about things other people touched. I had to go to the Public Library to do research because I did not have my computer handy. People really do still do that (go to the library) although it is harder and harder convincing those folks that write the checks to sign some.



I was not sure if I had misplaced, misfiled, thrown away or just lost my old Wired magazine. It could be at the old folks' home or even my doctors’ office because I have taken to dropping off my old magazines at the hospital and such places instead of just sending them to the recycling center for burial at the landfill. Maybe I recycled it or thought I did and they didn't. I know it is kind of a lost cause hoping that the next time I go to the doctor it will still be there for me to reread. Besides I am not sick enough right now to go to the doctors to check unless you count mental illness as a disease and not an asset.



I think all of the notes I was going to review in the paper devil I call a notepad or in the margins of that magazine are probably safely stored in a remote drawer. But the inexorable need to have immediate access followed the need that got me to the library in the first place. Yup, Huh.



Before I started my vain attempt to gather notes and have another pen run out of ink just as I needed it most, I was in the Post Office. Why was I there yet again? I had already been there once and had gone thru all of the mail that was addressed to the dead guy that used to have that particular PO Box... And all the other junk that was addressed to Y.A. sounds like a terrorist’s last name. I have given up on the placing that stuff in the misaddressed mail slot with pleasant notes to my friendly and helpful Postal employees including the fact that this guy has been dead MORE than six years now.



I decided not to try to send it back to the senders because that would almost be like opening the email and then confirming to the spammer that it was a valid address. These guys would probably start just putting my name on the letters and sending that junk to me. Not one to stop the stimulation and enrichment of our economy and now privately operated postal service; I decided to just start throwing it out. I am not going to ask my friendly Postal Inspector if I am doing something illegal. I am just going to take the consequences (if they rear their ugly heads) and charge me with something I was ignorant of. For serenity I would just rather be bliss and continue to fill the landfill since I don’t think they are shredding and recycling the stuff in the garbage cans at the PO. Not that this wouldn’t be the topic for another rant.



So as I was in the middle of my second visit to the PO after confirming what I thought to be true. That old key that had the raised copy cast into the brass key blank that informed me that I did not own it complicated matters by opening my own mailbox. I can’t remember why I would need two keys since I was the only one that ever opened that PO Box since I rented it unless the dead guy or Y.A. still had a key and were opening up the bills I got there and carefully resealing the envelopes. If so, they certainly were not collecting their mail.



So I stood waiting in the line under the sign that informs me that it is their objective to serve me within ten minutes.



I had gotten to the point where I was figuring ten minutes must have passed a long time ago. I couldn’t be sure because the digital clock on the wall was blinking and some nutjob installed it where they will need to get a dolly lift down the stairs or around the handicapped ramp and behind the counter so someone can reach it to reset the time. IIRC that thing has been blinking for years… oh and since I gave up wearing watches and left the cell phone in the car I am uncertain if I might even determine what day it is, let alone the time.



Wait, American Idol elimination round was on last nite at nine so it’s gotta be Thursday. (Damnit, gotta and Damnit are correct spellings or is it Dammit? – Apparently not according to WinDoze). And especially since I have not one clue as to when I started standing in line; how the heck would I know if I had already been there for ten minutes? I guess I could have asked the lady in front of me (with that plastic basket filled with registered mail she is going to post) what time it was when I started asking her other inane questions. I think this is the true definition of the sign that reads: "YOUR LACK OF PLANNING DOES NOT NECESSARILY CONSTITUTE AN EMERGENCY ON OUR PART."



Well, anyway; I started dancing. Not just a little Irish Jig like grandma used to pull off once in a while with Aunt Liz and Mary. No, this was a full blown Whirling Dervish kind of thing (thanx for that one mom). I was standing there dancing in place because I desperately needed to find a public restroom in a hurry. Before the ten minutes had expired I realized there was no public restroom in the Post Office. There was one however at the Public Library. I finally got to talk to an agent and got the sad news that to get the refund on the key I had to close my account and give up my box. He was kind enough to come from around the counter with my (or their) key in his hand and go to the box to confirm what I already knew. The key opened the box. He explained how the refund deal worked. I made an executive decision not to close the box to get the one buck refund for the key since I would have to give up the box and the other key I had that fit it. Besides I would then have to get on the waiting list to get another box, new keys and more deposits.



I would likely get another box that got different people's mail because the forwarding information was improperly entered on the 3x5 card that was used to inform them that the old tenant was not receiving mail at that box any more.



I rushed to the car and headed straight to the Public Library. The Public Library is an excellent place to relieve yourself because it is frequently clean and unlike many of the fast food joints the employees at the Public Library kept their soap dispensers full. Usually too, there are paper towels at the library and not some wall mounted toaster that blows hot air. I also needed to avail myself of the clear liquid refreshment because I had somehow forgotten to bring with me the special stainless steel water bottle I keep in the refrigerated safe in the kitchen.



SCORE, I thought as I punched the button to open the gate and ran up the steps of the library though the door. I decided to skip the handicapped ramp since the one foot long per inch of rise above grade meant that the entrance to the ramp was somewhere in the next county. I wondered why the library had to be where it was and was it really the ground floor I was finally standing on after climbing all of those stairs.



I raced in and around the corner to where I knew the restrooms were hidden. Down the little hallway I did not see any warning signs indicating that I might slip on the wet floor. I did however notice a janitor's cart just outside the door as I put my shoulder to the door to avoid contact with places where people might have left life threatening bacteria. It was then that I noticed the sign on the cart that the restroom was being sanitized. I had visions of strips of paper across the toilet seats and my grandfather who used to put them on the toilet seats at the Ola Beach Motel at 4816 N Orange Blossom Trail or US 441 in Mount Dora, Florida. At some point all of this stuff will become clear to the reader. No promises, but I am pretty sure.



In the same vain as I put my shoulder to the door to get into the bathroom I had mashed the door bell at the entrance to the library that was illuminated and labeled Handicapped entrance. If you push the buzzer the door magically opens. I always try to avail myself of these additional services because I enjoy burning up as many kilowatts as possible especially if I think I might not be the one that is paying for their usage.



I did not see a sign noting an objective to serve me in ten minutes but still hoped that the sanitizing would take slightly less time than ten Post Office minutes. I really had to go!



I eased pressure off of the door and decided I was not yet out of breath and had good stamina and could dance a little longer in the hallway until the cleaning was completed. When I got to the point that I could dance no longer I decided it was 50/50 as to whether the sanitizer was male or not and put my shoulder to the door again. FAIL. It was a woman and she was in the handicapped stall.



The most courteous sanitizer stated that she would only be a moment. I told her I did not have that long unless she wanted extra things to clean up as I waited outside. The thought entered my mind that maybe I could use the women's restroom like the ladies do when they use the men's facilities at the civic center. I immediately crossed that idea off the list and began negotiating. I asked if it would be alright if I just used the other stall since it had a door on it that I could close. I was sure she could not be in the little stall too since she could not be God and be in two places at once. Her voice was clearly coming from the stall that was bigger than my living room.



She did not seem wild about my proposal and asked me to wait outside once again. I mumbled something as I slipped into the little stall... and I mean little. I heard her leaving the restroom. I was pretty sure it was not some other woman that was in the men's room because the women's toilet was just too crowded. I never even considered that she might be offended by the sound of tinkle. I shouted that I would only be a moment and wondered if I should ask my doctor if I ought to be on some kind of prescription so I didn't have to dance so often. And, if my insurance would subsidize the drug usage so I did not have to go so often. Was I old enough to qualify yet? I knew that kind of stuff was out there because I noticed the commercial on a Monday night right before Buzz was kicked off 'Dancing with the Stars'. I am trying now to remember if Depends also used to sponsor that show.



I was a little startled when the friendly sanitizer lady pushed open the door and asked if I was done. I always found it awkward talking to someone over the metal walls of a stall and managed in my best Elaine voice to just say, "In a minute." Fortunately, I did not have to ask her if she could spare a square. The courteous sanitizer lady was waiting patiently outside the door as I managed to open it with the paper towels our government was nice enough to provide. In a flash I deposited those same paper towels in the garbage can that should have been just a little closer to the door than it was. Since she had stopped tapping her foot I decided to ask her if she knew the location of a water fountain. She unfolded her arms, pointed and grunted.



I drank like a camel finishing up after a hard day that ended with an overnite at the oasis. Although the restrooms location and directions to them had been marked; there was only one sign over the water fountain. It did not identify the big stainless thing hanging on the wall as a water fountain. Did I mention I used to make signs?



I may not have intended to read anything when I first hit the buzzer to open the door to the library but since I was so close to the elevator and the LED light indicated it was on the ground floor ready for launch, I decided to use a little more free electricity. I punched the illuminated button and the doors flew open. I would not pretend I was a homeless Luddite and leave right after my sink bath. I was a little relieved when I heard someone shout; "Hold that!" as I stuck my arm out to notify the infrared sensors that they should open the doors before they crushed my arm.



I gave up on the idea of using a computer as I noticed how many people were waiting to burn up their 15 allotted minutes. If it was Post Office time the guys on the machine had nothing to worry about. I decided instead to search in the stacks for that issue of Wired magazine that I guessed was likely correctly cataloged and filed in its proper place (unlike the mess at my house). This was something that was very high on my A-D-D addled priority list. I was pretty sure I remembered the artwork on the cover because I take note of those kinds of things and I did not remember too much other cover art because I usually just read Wired online. I had purchased that issue of the magazine to read on one of the trips to visit the father in law. It had an adjustable wrench on the cover and the article was in that magazine, likely listed somewhere in the table of contents.



For some reason at that very second I came to the realization I was in the library so I probably ought to put the cell phone on vibrate. I was pretty sure the Orchestra was not going to make an appearance and that a ringing phone might cause the cymbalist to wake from his coma and crash things together at the wrong time... possibly though the tunes coming out of my phone might interfere with others' quest for knowledge. More on this later.



I then awoke to the fact that there was a time limit on my visit since my car was in the gated corral outside. Unless I wrapped it up in less that one hour I would have to pony up with some cash to help pay toward the attendant's retirement account. I opened my cell phone again to check the time and figured there was at least enough left to locate the magazine. As I headed to the stacks I became aware that there were analog clocks everywhere. This confirmed my suspicion that I was not in Las Vegas or on some Indian Reservation in the casino. All those books seemed to support that hypothesis.



I knew I had to hurry because I was on a mission and the free parking was only for an hour. I had left my money at home. I did not know either what the upcharge was or when more money was added and in what increments. I had a quarter in my pants but doubted that there was any change safely hidden in the glove box. Around my town we have to hide excess change from sight because if it is in the cup holder there is a good chance some crack head will break the side window or windshield to get it. I knew I did not want to have to call home for someone to come bring bail money to get the car out of parking lot jail. Also, I was not sure if I had a magic marker and some spare cardboard to start a panhandling career. Make a note to put magic marker and cardboard in car.



I found the magazine and the article so I could start entering the salient facts about Huh there in the trusty notebook in my top pocket. No sense writing in the columns here in the magazine since that was likely against some of the small print in some state or local statute and/or against Public Library usage policy.



I found a table that I did not have to ask permission to share and sat down. So his name was Huh. I found that right off the bat and that he was the King of Cheese. Great. It would be easier for me to find all of the details about Huh in this printed wired than information that I might have wanted back when I was in college and found the issue of the Braille Playboy on top of the garbage can when I was in New York near Gramercy Park. Huh? Yup. They really did make a Braille Playboy. They made it for all the blind guys who really wanted to read the articles. I am sure the year was 1967 if you doubt me on this. Long before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed into law.



As I was searching for the facts in Wired that I was willing to have my car towed over; I found a lot of useless stuff (kind of like what you are reading now), several obviously posed pictures, some informative graphs, who wrote the article and the name of the photographer. What seemed to be missing was: the find on this page option or a Google search box. Even Bing or Yahoo would be better than trying to read every sentence and then hand notate what I though I just had to have in a notepad I would likely lose track of.



Yep, a Web Phenomena gone mainstream (I remembered that much anyway from the first time I read the article). I was starting to fear this was going to be yet another exercise in Post Office Déjà Vu. If you wanted another piece of useless information: A search for “post office déjà vu” on Google yields - About 35,900 results (0.45 seconds). Cheezburger? ™… (and is that © too?) and this child wears Andy Warhol replica sunglasses... with his money he could likely but the real deal. Jeans and tee shirts... also redundant because I could see that in the pictures. I started to at least get curious about Kiki Kane. I will not be a stalker if I just Google "Kiki Kane". Maybe I could check her out on FaceBook. Since I had gotten thru maybe a couple of paragraphs did I have enough time to decide something besides the Wired editor did not mind run on sentences. So: "Where's the Beef?". At this rate BlueBird was going to an impoundment yard.



As I got up to leave, someone's phone started playing the Piano Man. A guy that obviously had also used the public facilities started talking in some kind of code more complicated than Enigma could break. Way more complicated than the stuff I remember from when I had a CB. So I picked up the pace figuring that Lee probably still had the old issue. I was somewhat doubtful though since Lee has not lived in her house nearly as long as I had lived in mine and Lee recycles. Hopefully she hadn't loaned it to Bob.



Besides Lee is in IT and keeps most of her really important stuff on her iPhone or in the cloud courtesy of some free App and 3G. I ran back to the table to make sure I noted at least the year and month of the magazine since Lee might remember things differently than I did. I flipped back to the article and noted pages 053-055, February 2010. I went with my original decision and put the magazine back on the table due to time constraints and the desire to spur the economy by making sure the library kept employed someone to put things back in the stacks.



I was sure that they would not allow the sanitizer lady or the contract OPS Security man overtime and make that part of either’s job description unless they could figure a way it would not cost them extra salary or benefits. I cruised up to the water fountain when the elevator doors opened on the star floor. Although I could not read the Braille tags in the elevator I was pretty sure that ★ meant #1 or the main floor. Proudly above the water fountain was a sign installed with some quality scotch tape. It read: “GET YOUR GREEN ON!” It was printed on plastic material. No where on the sign was there a recycling symbol that if translated would identify what king of plastic the sign was made of or what kind of paint was on it. It did not have any Braille on it nor was it in location prescribed by law by congress for ADA signs in a public building.



I looked around outside as soon as my eyes became accustomed and I saw that the Gate Keeper Attendant was not in evidence. The gates were all open. SCORE… damn budget cuts. I noticed the gate that was the most convenient exit for my way home had a sign next to it that said “NO ENTRY” with the international symbol on a light reflective aluminum blank. I wondered for a second if that also meant ‘NO EXIT”. I decided not to chance it but would make a note to stop on the way home and buy a lottery ticket anyway. It is part of my financial planning before retirement.



As I walked further toward BlueBird in the scalding sun I knew that it would be a furnace inside when I opened the door. I was humming “Piano Man’. And, I don't want to be humming that in the AM.





More useless information... so now, I am sitting here on my laptop and part of a wireless network and the targeted search: ben huh can I haz cheezburger "wired magazine" article = Advanced search About 359 results (0.32 seconds) AND the first result is the article. I am so wired.



Curse you Google! Since we have no Tonic in this downtown historic urban forest neighborhood abode I may as well stop pounding these keys, fighting with the SpEElchecker and mashing the backspace key. Curse you too Billy Joel… I hope I can get the lyrics outta my head before it impacts with the pillow.



I sure hope I don't have to pee again when I am checking my mail. Lee: Can I hold that iPhone again for a few?