The Christmas Trees are Safe

I know I haven't kept up on the blogging of late. Life has been a bit on the hectic side. I mean, none of you ever really come here for timely news or commentary. I've always moved at my own pace. And you've always stuck around. I appreciate that. Occasionally, a story comes along that moves me to write it as soon as I can. To make time when I really have none. This is one of those occasions...

Today, at just a little before noon, Nala left us. I wish I could say that she went peacefully in her sleep, but neither she, nor we, were that lucky. The trouble started a couple of days ago. She was having a weird drool problem. She would chew as though there were something tough in her mouth and her mouth would twitch and there would be saliva everywhere. I thought it was just an oral irritation and tried to be more careful of what I gave her to eat. But it increased in frequency, and yesterday, during a particularly bad bout, I tried to get her to go out to the backyard as we had just cleaned the floors.

She looked at me with little awareness or acknowledgement, and when she finally did get up to go outside, she couldn't remember how to walk. She walked in a circle three times and then lost the ability to walk altogether. That's when it got scary. She starting having a seizure. She stumbled to the ground and began spasming uncontrollably. We all stood helpless watching her. As the seizure passed, I scooped her up in a blanket and whisked her off to the vet. During the drive, her breathing was labored, but she was calm. We had prepared the kids when I left that I might come back alone.

While at the vet, she slowly started to revive. When the vet saw her, she looked almost normal. She did have one of her drooling episodes while the tech was taking the case history. Based on history and examination, the vet recommended bloodwork first. By the time that was done and the results were back, Nala was walking around like herself again. Apparently, apart from the twitching and drooling, Nala was a perfectly healthy dog. The best they could come up with on the seizure was one of two things. The more easily treatable was the bacterial infection in her mouth. The vet surmised that the pain from the infection could cause her to spasm. Possibility two was a brain tumor or other neurological problem. That would be harder to diagnose. So, the plan was to put her on the antibiotics for a week to ten days and if she wasn't better, we'd go back and decide our next move. We never got the chance.

This morning, while I was out getting last minute things for our trip to Puerto Vallarta, She Who Must Be Given Sympathy called me on the cell phone. Nala was having another seizure. What was she supposed to do? I told her to administer the valium and then call the vet. I grabbed the last few items, waited in the checkout line, and rushed home. The seizure lasted twenty minutes. We couldn't get the valium in her. I just stood there and watched her slowly die. I rubbed her fur and tried to ease her passing, but I'm not sure she was there. When it was over, I covered her with a blanket and we saw to the kids.

They took it pretty hard. It's tough to say who had it worse. Nala was originally bought for She Who Must Be Given Sympathy to help her through two consecutive miscarriages. Maya pointed out that she had known Nala her whole life. They had grown up together. Just was just appalled that dogs could die. And me, well, I'm a pretty emotional sort and a dog person. We all made little tributes and put them in her box before I took her off for her final arrangements. Maya wrote her a letter and made her an origami purse full of dog food. Josh drew a picture of her. She Who Must Be Given Sympathy and I wrote her little notes on old dirty socks. It was kind of reminiscent of the send-off a Pharaoh got. And that was it.

All that is left is the grieving. And the memories. Josh wants to know if I'll miss him when he dies. Maya just wants to know why. She Who Must Be Given Sympathy blames herself for not taking care of Nala's teeth sooner. And me. I just want to get that image of her out of my head. The one where she is lying on the ground shaking herself to death.

I'd rather remember her as she is here. As the silly dog who barked when Christmas trees rode past. Or motorcycles. Or bicyclists. Or pedestrians. She felt like she was watching the flock. We'll miss you Nala. Thanks for keeping us safe these last ten years.

In eight hours I get on a plane to PV. I'll try to check in while I'm there. If not, see you on the flip side. Sorry to bring you down. If you made it this far, thanks.

Categories: Personal, Family

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Nicely Nicely, Thank You

As some of you may have picked up from that reference, this is a post about the classic musical "Guys and Dolls". That just happens to be the show the theater is doing for Plays in the Park this year. Auditions have come and gone and I am happy to say that my amateur theater career is proceeding apace. Check out the cast list and you'll see what I mean. It's the Stubby Kaye role from movie version. I get to sing some of the best sons of the show. I'm part of the trio for "Fugue for Tinhorns", part of the duet for the titular "Guys and Dolls" and get "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat" all to myself. I also sing backup on a few other numbers. I'm feeling pretty good about myself on this one because this was the best turnout audition-wise I've ever seen at patio and there were some really talented people that landed in ensemble roles.

Categories: SanDiego, Entertainment, Personal

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She Who Must...

For those of you who haven't followed the comment thread, my wife, the artist formerly know as L shall henceforth be know as "She who must..." and I'll finish it with whatever seems appropriate at the moment. In general, I'll fall back on "She Who Must Be Obeyed" and "She Who Must Not Be Named", but I'm sure other situations will arrive which will afford me an opportunity for cleverness. And we all know how I enjoy opportunities for cleverness. Thanks to barbie2be and B.O.B. for the winning suggestions. Anyone have any thoughts as to a suitable prize? I could make a certificate suitable for framing, but who really wants that? I mean, seriously. I must have a whole box of those somewhere. They may be suitable for framing. But just because something can be done doesn't mean you have to do it. I mean, just cuz these boots were made for walkin'...Ok, that's a bad example. But you see my point. Or you don't. Either way.

Categories: Personal, Family

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The Karma Goodbye Song

Well, the lunch has come and gone and I sang her song. She requested "Like a Virgin" with dance moves. I think she was hoping to embarrass me into not doing it. Sorry, but THAT is not the kind of thing that embarrasses me. My only regret is that I was unable to acquire those paper snowcone cups to fashion a makeshift pointy bra. Herewith are the lyrics. There are some better verses, but they crossed too far over the line and had to be left off...

She made it to the luncheon
The least that she could do
She's here under duress
We forced her to

Likes to eat stuff that's sweet
But won't touch, bagels much, it's true
Cuz she says that they're
Yeah she says that they're
Fattening for you

Her aversions! (Hey!)
Keepin her awake at night
Her aversions.
And she knows that
She is right

Gonna eat some watermelon
My victory's no fluke
Think I ate a bit too fast
There's a bush, I'll puke

Got some base on my face
Lashes long, like all women should
That's the only way
Yeah the only way
I feel I look good

Her aversions! (Hey!)
Keepin her awake at night
Her aversions.
And she knows that
She is right

Oooh, oooh, oooh

The fast food here's not good
It's so lame, yeah it's quite a shame
Just chicken and rice
Yeah chicken and rice
They all are the same

Her aversions! (Hey!)
Keepin her awake at night
Her aversions.
And she knows that
She is right

Her aversions, ooh ooh,
Her aversions
Now we'll say goodbye
So you're leavin', no more teasin', please don't be mad

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Ooh, baby
So I had to tease you
For the very last time

Categories: Karma, Humor, Enertainment

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Name My Wife

Odd title for a post, no? After all, she already has a name. But she doesn't want it to appear here on the blog. She was a victim of identity theft at one point and is now a trifle cautious about what information she lets out. So, I've been referring to her as "L" or "my wife". I grow tired of this labeling scheme. So, we need to decide what to call her in this space. Some of you know her. Others do not. So, here are some tidbits about her that she probably wouldn't be upset to find on the internet. She works in education. She greatly values reading. She's an outdoors activity sort of person. She hates being told she can't do something. So, is that enough info to come up with an approrpiate fictional name? I hope so. I'll choose my favorite from amongst the comments. Ready? Go!

Categories: Personal, Poll

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The Resemblance is Uncanny

We interrupt the utter lack of news reporting to bring you this quiz. I know, there's lots of stuff going on out here and I'm not telling you any of it. I'm just trying to work my way back into blogging. So, you're stuck with this stupid quiz that I stole from someone. Sadly, I can't remember who. So, hat tip to whoever.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Categories: Poll

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A Moment of Silence

First. Yes, I'm back. Lots to tell you about, including all that transpired to keep me away. But, it took a pretty momentous event to jolt me back into the game, and I need to get to that first. No, I'm not talking about al-Zarqawi. That's big news, but it's pretty widely reported. I have stuff to add to that, but it can wait. This has a more direct impact on you, the reader. No, not L's broken leg. That's is 'impactful', but more of a cause of absense than an opportunity to write. We shall recover from the leg. Especially me. This is about Karma. She's leaving...

Allow me to paraphrase a quote from..er...well, I can't remember who. If you know who it was, do a mental attribution. If not, just know that I'm borrowing it. "I have mixed feelings about this? I'm torn between joy and elation." It's going to make my life tougher in the short term, but in the long term, it's a truly wonderful thing. The one downside is, what will I do for material?!? I mean, she was a font of inappropriateness. She was a source of nigh-perpetual outrage. She may have been, to this blog, what Dubya is to the Daily Show. Fortunately, I have not written all the Karma stories there are to write yet, so you will still get to experience her in all her intolerant glory. But it's not the same as having it happen virtually real time, is it? I mean, the sign wars were a chance for you, the reader, to help me mess with her.

She doesn't want a going away party or presents or anything like that, but my friend Robin and I brainstormed a little gift basket for her. What do you think?

Ivory soap
White chocolate
A Ream of white paper
A couple t-shirts (white)
A personal white board
A couple bottles of white-out
White Knights on DVD

What else should we add?

Categories: Karma

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Computer Troubles and Mother's Day

My computer at home is freezing up, so I need to get it looked at. The likey culprits are the power supply or the fans. So, I haven't been able to do much blogging from home of late. I'm just firing off a quick missive during lunch here to let you lot know that I havn't abandoned you. The computer won't get fixed before the weekend is out as we are taking L away for Mother's Day weekend. We are doing our YMCA campout this weekend instead of Thanksgiving this year. I'll try to catch you all up on the flipside. Be good to your Moms!

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Liveability Index

It's always interesting to me how there is this urge to rank and order things in our world. There are a number of surveys on which are the best places to live. Forbes Magazine has a list of the top 'smart places to live'. Number 1 is Nashville. According to a new book reported in USA today, the best is Louisville, Colorado. MSNBC reported on a book called "Cities Ranked and Rated" where they swear number one is Charlottesville, VA. Then there are the custom polls. They take existing data and try to organize it based on your personal preferences such that you get your own, individual best places list. Progressive Farmer will help you pick the best rural spot. And Find Your Spot will look anywhere in the country for you with an extensive questionairre.

Why the sudden interest? No, we aren't moving again. I'm just wondering where that mythical place is where the quality of life is high and the cost of living is low. Gas, home, and grocery prices out here have me wondering. I mean the Boston and San Diego areas both have high qualities of life, but are amongst the highest in cost of living. I'm sure there are some spots in Alabama and Mississippi that have rock bottom costs of living, but infrastructure and services aren't so good. So, where do you go to raise a family while still saving for retirement and college?

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Literary Phenomenon

Here's something I've pondered recently. I was reading the book "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini a few weeks back. I was about halfway through the book and was enjoying it immensely. However, up until that point, I was under the misconception that the book was nonfiction. I believed the characters were real people and felt for them as the conflicts of the story arose. At some point, I noticed that the main character's name was different from the author's and felt the need to do some research. That's when I found out it was fiction. The rest of the book was less satisfying to me and in certain places predictable. In others the author asked me to suspend too much of my disbelief. Yet, a few days before, he wasn't asking and I was believing. The only thing keeping me from blaming my perceptions entirely is that the part of the book where I felt compelled to check constituted a major change in the flow of the story. So, I don't know if the writing led me to question or my question led me to doubt the writing. I think it was still a good book and I would be interested in the thoughts of others reading it knowing it was fiction the whole time. Anyone else ever have an experience like this?

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How Could We Ever Replace Duke?

I have the great fortune to live in the California 50th Congressional district. That's the former home of Congressman for hire Randy "Duke" Cunningham. You remember him. He recently went to jail for taking millions of dollars and a hooker or three in bribes while steering contracts to those who paid. He ran for reelection and won easily in spite of the fact that he was under investigation for political corruption. In fact, the race was SO not close that he didn't even show up for the candidates debate. We loved us some Duke. And when I say "we", I mean the North County population at large...

I have to admit, I was surprised to discover how conservative the area of California I moved to is. I mean, Duke wasn't just a Republican Representative, he was a lockstep Bush Republican. He parroted talking points and sold whatever the President wanted. And people loved him. And this fall we will replace him. But who with?

Well, we had a special election a few weeks ago to see who would replace Duke. The way it works out here is that if nobody gets 50%, the top two have a run-off. And this run-off is just to finish Duke's term, which ends in December. They'd have to basically start running again before doing anything so as to be ready for the November election. Thanks, Duke. Well, nobody got 50%. Francine Busby, the Democrat, got 44%. The next closest competitors were Republicans Brian Bilbray (15.4%) and Eric Roach (14.6 %). This decisive victory makes her only a slight underdog in the general election.

What? You heard right. Registration out here is 50% Republican, 32% Democrat, and 18% everything else. So, Busby is running a close second to Bilbray. This is especially infuriating because Bilbray is a former Congressman turned lobbyist. He has ties to Abramoff and Delay. When in Congress he voted against regulating ephedra based supplements such as Metabolife in spite of the evidence directly linking Metabolife to deaths. Oh, did I mention that he received tens of thousands of dollars from Metabolife? So, we are replacing Duke with a younger version of himself. Way to clean house North County.

The RNC is getting involved as well. I get a mailing a week from the RNC telling me about Francine's vices. Allegedly, she laid off teachers while giving bureaucrats pay raises and praised a teacher fired for possessing child pornography. She's a member of the school board and they are Swift Boating her. The ads come across as though she is anti-education and supports pedophiles. Meanwhile, a lobbyist is seen as a good choice for cleaning house. Great.

I will be campaigning for Francine and hoping she can pull it out. I will put a Democrat sign on my lawn in Republican central and debunk all the nonsense they throw my way. Wish me luck.
Categories: Politics, Rant

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Holy Crap The Man is Scum!

Sorry. I realize I may have lost my cool there, but the Criminal-in-Chief has managed to shock me. I found this tidbit on a site praising Steven Colbert for his roast of all things establishment at the press corps dinner. It seems that Dubya doesn't feel that following the law has anything to do with enforcing it. That's why I say he is a criminal. Apparently, the reason he has not vetoed anything in his tenure is he doesn't want Congress to have the ability to weigh in on the issues. So, instead, he appends "signing statements" to the newly signed laws after everyone has left. These statements tell the rest of the government how to follow the law. The provisions for how usually entail which parts can be ignored because the President feels they are Unconstitutional or because he feels they infringe on his rights as Commander-in-Chief. Funny. I thought it was the Court's job to decide questions of Constitutionality and Congress' jobs to write and re-write the laws. Here's an example. Congress has twice declared it illegal for the government to divert money from approved projects to secret torture camps. Bush has signed it twice. Both times he added that he was not bound by the law as C-i-C. Anyway still think we aren't slipping toward a fascist state?

Categories: Politics, Rant

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Karma on the Protests

I don't know if it affected where you live or not, but here in Southern California, yesterday was a huge Hispanic protest day. The Hispanic community across the country was staging a work and consumerism boycott to show how big an impact they have on the economy. I think it's a very positive and effective way to influence the debate in Washington. So, I went in to work yesterday not knowing what to expect. I suppose I should have known. It was 9:50 and our boss had not yet arrived for a scheduled 10 am meeting. Karma was concerned...

I suggested she call him. "He never answers when I call." Maybe he waits for the message when he is in his car and calls the important ones back right away? "He never calls me back." Oooops. Well, he's probably just stuck in traffic. He lives pretty far south. "There shouldn't BE any traffic. THEY all stayed home today." And there it is. I shouldn't have been surprised given her history, but this one still caught me off guard. She followed it up, in front of the department manager no less, with this gem. "Today is the perfect day to go to Wal-Mart." Why? "Well, THEY aren't working or shopping so the place will be empty." How she did not get sent to HR on the spot is beyond me. But she wasn't done. As we walked to her cube so she could give me the phone number so I could call, a member of the janitorial staff walked by. She happened to be Hispanic. A member of the cleaning staff passed in the opposite direction. Same ethnicity. As we walked on she said "What are they doing here?"

Clearly, she has a bug up her butt about the current immigration debate. A few weeks back, she cornered a janitor and demanded to know if he had his green card. Because, you know, his life is all sunshine and roses. I mean, he gets to work from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. emptying her trash and cleaning our messes for slightly better than minimum wage. I'm glad she straightened him out.

She also recently vented to a coworker of Mexican descent that these protests were on her nerves and she was tired of seeing the Mexican flag being waved everywhere. He offered her a deal. Because, you know, one Hispanic has the power to speak for them all. "We'll agree to stop with the Mexican flag as soon as the people down South get rid of the Confederate Flag."

Categories: Karma, Politics, SocialCommentary

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The Wisdom of Youth

I cut my finger this evening while doing some handyman stuff in the kitchen. Josh was assisting me a little too closely, so I delegated the task of getting a band-aid to him. He agreed only if he could take my flashlight with him as the bathroom was dark. That seemed fair. I handed him the flashlight and off he went. A few seconds later there was a thump and a crash. "Oh, shoot!" This was not followed by any screaming or crying, so I decide to wait and see what happened next. Nothing. Odd. "You all right, Josh?" I called. "I'm a little wet," he answered in a pitiful whine. "How did you get wet?" "Well, I standed on the stool to get a band-aid..." "Um, Josh? There is no stool in the bathroom." "I know. Sadly, I standed on the potty and I fell in."

Categories: Kids, Humor

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What's the Opposite of Recognition?

I'm honestly not sure what single word could be the antonym of recognition, as in "voice recognition". Why am I fixated on such an important issue when there are bigger and better things to post about? Because I wanted to rant about my cell phone and it's voice recognition feature and I can't do the rant properly without this information. I even went to dictionary.com and used the thesaurus feature. No luck. There are antonyms for recognition, but not in this context. And as we all know, context is king. Or something. Do I make up a word? Let's break it down. "Re" is a prefix typically meaning "again" and the root word "cognition" evokes "thinking". So, re-cognition would literally be to think again. Did anyone else just have a Michael Keaton "Night Shift" moment? I'm so off track here. Let's just go with discognition and an apology from the fine folks at BriWise for an inadequate rant...

Wouldn't it be funny if you clicked and the whole rant was "my voice recognition doesn't"? And that was it? All that buildup for nothing? You'd feel cheated, and we don't want that.

So, in case you hadn't heard, my cell phone has a voice recognition feature. This is not the kind where you record the name and it matches when you say it that way ever after. This phone matches what you say phonetically to the names in your phone book. It's good for hands free car dialing. Or it would be if it worked better. Oh, it works great if I want to call Bob...er...Kidd, assuming I knew a Bob Kidd. But trying getting it to recognize Arnold Schwarzenegger. (What? Like I couldn't call the Governator?) So, I have to learn how to say things so the phone will understand. Great. Instead of me training the phone, the phone is training me. This is better how? So, now I have to say names in odd ways. Typically in public. The entry "Bube & Zade" in my phone has to be pronounced "Boob Zehyd". It isn't smart enough to translate the ampersand as 'and'.

All this is annoying, but still manageable as it is a form of recognition. What vexes me is the command recognition. There are only a handful of commands, so it shouldn't be hard. Of course, many things shouldn't be, but are. The most common command is "Name Dial". It even displays that command on the phone screen as soon as you press the command button. And yet, when I say "Name Dial", no matter how slowly or clearly, it says "Calling." Who is it calling? Why the last person I called of course. It thought I said "Redial". It thinks this consistently. Even if I insert a two-to-three second pause between name and dial, it will still redial. And of course, there is no command for "disconnect" or "hang up". So, I have to grab the phone and press and hold a hard-to-press button on the outside phone before it makes the connection. Occasionally, I miss and hang up on someone just as they are saying hello. Then they call back and I have to explain that I am incapable of operating my phone. All of this defeats the point of going hands free.

And yet, fool that I am, I keep pressing the button and saying "Name Dial". Often, I say it like those cliched people trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English. If I say name dial loudly and slowly enough, surely my phone will understand. One day, I had to punch in a number for a conference call. It was not in my phone, so it had no associated name. I needed to make the call from my car, though. So, clever person that I am, I dialed manually and hung up. Then I could just tell the phone to redial when I was ready. I pressed the button and announced "Redial". I'm sure I detected a smirk in the mechanized voice as it said "Say the Name".

Categories: Rant, Humor

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Aaron and the Eggs

Over at Aces Full, James was recounting a story about an old prat of a coworker and this tool's idea of a clever joke. I reflected on how the situation would have been handled had he and I been working together at that place. After all, in the past when he and I worked together, we were generally merciless with the arrogant. The whole exchange reminded me of the summer that he, Bull, and I were working at McDonald's together...

One of our fellow crew mates was a fifteen year old named Aaron. He felt cool because he was one of the first fifteens to be allowed to work a regular job under the revised child labor laws. And he got to work at McDonald's. It was a pretty playful environment and we all spent lots of time ragging on each other. He wasn't quite as good at it as we were, particularly when we tag teamed. After one particularly harsh exchange, he vowed revenge. Playful teenage revenge, but revenge nonetheless. Aaron concocted a couple of clever jokes to play on us. He tied my jacket in knots and dropped a rotten tomato in James' hat. Like I said. Clever.

We decided we had to show him what clever truly was. A couple of weeks before, we had played a little egg prank on one of our weekend breakfast shift buddies. We had carefully drained the egg out of a whole tray of eggs. We didn't waste it. We scrambled it and set it aside in the walk-in. Then we carefully put all the eggs back with the open side down and watched the fun as our foil tried to fill the requested order for a dozen McMuffins. There are around sixty-four eggs per tray. James had also taken to writing messages like "Help!" and "Let me out!" on uncracked eggs. So, we were in an egg frame of mind.

Our egg draining technique was well honed by this point. So, we made short work of twenty or so eggs and hid them where Aaron would not notice them. We left all but two empty. Then we waited. Aaron went on break at a fairly slow part of the morning. James was on biscuit detail and I was supposed to be setting things up so we were ready to switch to lunch at change over. Both of us had legitimate reasons to be in the stock room. We might even have had legitimate reasons to be in the door of the break room. But we didn't. We stepped into the door eggs held high and spares cradled in our aprons. Aaron saw us. We paused for effect. "Yeah. Like you guys are gonna throw eggs at me. Psssh." That was our cue. We let fly and he ducked down trying to get under the built-into-the-floor McDonald's table. He got pelted with empty eggs and gradually began to realize he had been had. He sat up. "Ha ha," he said. And stood up to show he was no longer afraid. By this time we had unloaded all but two of our eggs. He stuck out his chest to make a better target. After all, what was the big deal about being hit with empty eggs. We grinned back at him. I let mine go. He barely had enough time to register the shock of being hit with a water filled egg when James' hit him and he disappeared in a cloud of biscuit flour. Biscuit flour and water makes a nasty mess on ones apron. We beat a hasty retreat laughing all the way.

The best part was that the manager on duty thought it was funny. He just asked that we take some time when the rush died down to clean up the egg shells, flour, and water. Ok, that wasn't the best part. The look on Aaron's face as he realized we'd set him up was the best part. Not getting in trouble was a nice bonus.

Categories: Humor, Stories

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Recent Comments Broken

By the way, I noticed this evening that my recent comments feature is busted. It looks like my digest feed went away. I'm looking into it and will get it repaired as soon as I can.

Categories: Blogging

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Maya's Back On Stage

She had an audition for Charlie and the Chocolate factory last Wednesday and made callbacks. They wanted her to read for Veruca, Violet, and Mike Teavee. She was given three monologues to practice and told she would have to perform those as well as do some cold readings. We worked on different interpretations for each character until bedtime and then she kept working when she got home from school the next day. Some of the older girls were a bit shocked that she got called back and told her so openly. She handled it with great aplomb. She ignored them and went to talk to some people who were nice to her. I have to say, I enjoyed all three of her monologues and she got some good applause after each. Still, there were a lot of kids there and we told her not to get her hopes up. She tried psyching herself up for an Oompa Loompa part. We checked for the cast list Friday. Not there. Saturday. Not there. Sunday? Argh! We looked at the calendar and saw that it was scheduled to be posted on Tuesday. We looked today anyway. Here is what we found. In case you don't want to follow the link, she's Mike Teavee!

Categories: Kids, Hobbies, Entertainment

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People Suck - II

I'm feeling surly about life still. Ok, not really. But I am up in arms about some stuff. Where's the common sense in this world gone? Where's the customer service? I recently attended a time management class to improve...well...my time management. We are hoping it helps me be more focused and productive at work. One of the things that came out of the class was that I need a planner, as opposed to a PDA. It's interesting that the time management trainer concluded this. He said I was a personality type who would get a Palm, fill it with addresses and data, and then never use it. I'd say he is dead on since that has already happened. But I digress. I needed to get a pen and paper style planner. So, I went to Office Despot knowing full well that finding a 2006 planner was going to be tough, it being April and all. My plan was to find one of the handful of leftover planners they had that was now 1/3 useless and get it at a deep discount. I wanted to make sure it worked for me before I invested in a more serious system...

Luck was with me. I searched for close to half an hour, but found a plain, black, 2006 calendar that had all the features I wanted. It didn't have a price on it, though, and wasn't in the discount aisle. So, I brought it up to the checkout to find out what the damage would be. The woman behind the register was working another task, but stopped to attend to me. The exchange went something like this

Me: Can you please tell me how much this is?
Her: *Boop* Thirteen ninety-nine.
Me: (incredulously) It's not marked down? It's a 2006 planner.
Her: (like I'm a moron) It *is* 2006.
Me: Yes, but we're partway into the year. A third of this planner is useless.
Her: I'm sorry, but that is the price.
Me: There are some planners that run from August '06 to August '07 that are similarly priced. Why would anyone pay the same price for something that is obsolete?
Her: Well, I can't mark it down.

I shook my head and started to walk away. She was a manager. If she didn't have the authority, who did? I was just thinking to myself what a stupid store Office Despot was when she returned to her previously abandoned task. She had a price gun with ornage labels in it and was tagging merchandise. And what did the orange tag mean?

Her: Oh, I'm marking this stuff down.

But no, my disgust was not yet complete. What items was she marking down? 2006 planners.

Categories: Rant, ConsumerRights

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What Time Out Is For

We were in the car driving the other night and I teasingly commented "There are some people in this car who don't understand the meaning of a time out." I was referring to and incident the previous day where my wife and I had a bit of a disagreement and I gave myself a time out to calm down. The trouble was that the door to my time out seemed to be a revolving door, so it was hard for me to move past it. Anyway, I was teasing my wife about it when Maya chimed in. "I know the meaning of a time out." I think she thought I was teasing her. I decided to play along. "You do? Please. Share it with the rest of us." She smiled. "A time out is when you have to go to your room so you don't turn into Dick Cheney." I have no idea where it came from either. Mom decided to press her. "And who is Dick Cheney?" "Well. He's the President's...um..what's the word? He's like the assistant President."

So, go to your room when you are sent or you may turn into a surly assistant President. Wonder what political leanings her parents have.

Categories: Kids, Humor, Politics

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