So it's not as flowery as Cogito, ergo sum, I feel the need to rant. Before the ranting begins though I want to welcome young Isaac Jacob Howe into the world and our family. You have been born of goodly parents into a very large family that loves you and are glad you are here. Hopefully you were able to say "see ya" to miss Charlotte who will be joining us soon.
Let the ranting begin! Do keep in mind that I'm an old fart.
First off, pants. Now I'm all for them in general because I really don't have the legs for skirts and not even Robin Hood looked good in tights. My complaint is aimed at who-the-heck ever designed dress and "Docker" type pants. Why on this green earth do we need a button tab, a clip thingie, AND another bleeding button tab to secure the pants around our waists? That's not even counting the zipper and belt! I'm old. There are times when I could really use velcro. Then I have to remember the entire sequence in reverse when I'm done. I don't like it. Also, we have put men on the moon and peanut & jelly in the same jar, why in the name of all that is right with the universe can't they standardize the number of belt loops? Light bulbs fit in any old socket. The little pointy things on the end of electrical cords fit into the holes in the wall. Why not the number belt loops so all I need to do is count. It's hard enough just having to do stuff when you can't see what you are doing.
Expiration dates. I noticed the other day that my shampoo has expired. I fully understand it since I have been shaving my head for almost three years now, but an expiration date on shampoo? Really? What does that mean? My hair would still be dirty? No silky shinyness? All my hair would fall out (too late)? I know some things need expiration dates like dairy products and such. In fact I noticed the date of August 10, 2009 on the tub of fake butter I opened this morning. I still put it on my toast. It tasted fine.
Daylight Savings Time. It's a yankee concept that has absolutely no useful purpose in the modern world. China does quite well with only one time zone for crying out Pete's sake. Ben Franklin should have been shot the day before he thought of it.
Pinatas. Don't get me started. Kids, sticks. blindfolds, a moving target? They should just let them run with scissors and play in traffic.
Hair. This has nothing to do with the shampoo one. I am all for hair especially when it would grow spontaneously on my head. Is it fair at all that it should quit doing that just because I have "matured?" I don't think so. But, such are the adversities of life I can live with (without) that. But why, oh why do I need to have it growing out of my nose and EARS? What kind of evolutionary joke is THAT? Isn't it bad enough that us old farts lose our hearing, we should get hair blocking the sound? What? We've smelled enough too? Getting old is not for the faint of heart.
Negative political ads. I want to vomit. If it weren't for that "Freedom of Speech" thingie and I was king of the world, I would institute the Thumper's Mom's law: "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."
Ranto, ergo sum.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Justice is Served (Cold)
My blog is early this week for two reasons. First, the Oregon-UCLA football game is Thursday night and I don't want to be distracted from watching the Bruins get their hats handed to them. Second, something happened today that was a long time coming; the thief who broke into our storeroom (there's that dopey storeroom again) was finally sentenced.
I wrote about his breaking in (twice) last July if you want to get the complete background. I was quite surprised when he was caught so quickly but had no idea it would take so blasted long to give him his just desserts. I lost track of how many times I traipsed down to the courthouse for one postponement after another. All the time waiting for my turn to speak.
Another surprise for me was that in this case, and all the others I witnessed while waiting for his turn in court, I was the only victim who sowed up. Today the judge even said that hardly any victims ever appear in court. I really wonder why they don't.
We had to wait for a while today because his lawyer (Barney Fife in drag) was late. After reading all the counts, convictions , reimbursements, etc. The judge thanked me for coming so faithfully and said it was my turn to speak before she passed sentence. Holy cow! I've had all this time, what the heck do I say? Thumpity-thump-thump goes my heart. Which also surprised me too because I'm usually quite a ham.
Once I started, the thumps stopped. Basically I told the court, and him, that it had been a long time since our chat in my back yard before he drove off with our stuff. "I told you then that I understand how hard it is to support a big family and I would help you get a job." "That offer still stands." "I am a Christian man and have forgiven you." "I hope and pray that you will use the time you serve in prison to improve yourself and come out a better person with a new line of work." "You need to know though, that you didn't just take things from me and my family." "You took our feeling of safety and security." "That is extremely difficult to get back."
I then thanked the court and especially the judge for the way she handled the case and the courtroom and I would definitely vote for her in November. Her name is Terry Chandler so if you live in Pima County, please vote for her.
He got to speak next and was nervous but well spoken. He was very apologetic and seemed sincere. It turns out someone broke into his place not long after our theft, so he does have an idea of what it feels like. Barney Fife, bless her heart, got him to the right psych Dr. who has him on the right meds. He does appear to be headed in the right direction (prison).
Judge Chandler listened but told him she'd heard it before. She admonished him to indeed use his prison time to improve and to take me up on my offer when he gets out. On to the sentence!
Here's where it gets confusing. He got six-and-a-half years for the burglaries he did the same day as ours (there were seven others); four-and-a-half years for three on a different day; and two-and-a-half years for attempted robbery in a shoplifting gone wrong. If my Atomic City math serves me that's 13.5 years. BUT, the 4.5 is to be served concurrently with the 6.5 and he got credit for 480 days served. That should work out to about seven years which, with good behavior, comes to five or so.
He should have plenty of time to read so I plan to send him a Book of Mormon. Maybe I'll see him in 2015.
I wrote about his breaking in (twice) last July if you want to get the complete background. I was quite surprised when he was caught so quickly but had no idea it would take so blasted long to give him his just desserts. I lost track of how many times I traipsed down to the courthouse for one postponement after another. All the time waiting for my turn to speak.
Another surprise for me was that in this case, and all the others I witnessed while waiting for his turn in court, I was the only victim who sowed up. Today the judge even said that hardly any victims ever appear in court. I really wonder why they don't.
We had to wait for a while today because his lawyer (Barney Fife in drag) was late. After reading all the counts, convictions , reimbursements, etc. The judge thanked me for coming so faithfully and said it was my turn to speak before she passed sentence. Holy cow! I've had all this time, what the heck do I say? Thumpity-thump-thump goes my heart. Which also surprised me too because I'm usually quite a ham.
Once I started, the thumps stopped. Basically I told the court, and him, that it had been a long time since our chat in my back yard before he drove off with our stuff. "I told you then that I understand how hard it is to support a big family and I would help you get a job." "That offer still stands." "I am a Christian man and have forgiven you." "I hope and pray that you will use the time you serve in prison to improve yourself and come out a better person with a new line of work." "You need to know though, that you didn't just take things from me and my family." "You took our feeling of safety and security." "That is extremely difficult to get back."
I then thanked the court and especially the judge for the way she handled the case and the courtroom and I would definitely vote for her in November. Her name is Terry Chandler so if you live in Pima County, please vote for her.
He got to speak next and was nervous but well spoken. He was very apologetic and seemed sincere. It turns out someone broke into his place not long after our theft, so he does have an idea of what it feels like. Barney Fife, bless her heart, got him to the right psych Dr. who has him on the right meds. He does appear to be headed in the right direction (prison).
Judge Chandler listened but told him she'd heard it before. She admonished him to indeed use his prison time to improve and to take me up on my offer when he gets out. On to the sentence!
Here's where it gets confusing. He got six-and-a-half years for the burglaries he did the same day as ours (there were seven others); four-and-a-half years for three on a different day; and two-and-a-half years for attempted robbery in a shoplifting gone wrong. If my Atomic City math serves me that's 13.5 years. BUT, the 4.5 is to be served concurrently with the 6.5 and he got credit for 480 days served. That should work out to about seven years which, with good behavior, comes to five or so.
He should have plenty of time to read so I plan to send him a Book of Mormon. Maybe I'll see him in 2015.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Bees. The Final Chapter
I wrote three blogs back in July and August of 2008 about the invasion of bees in our storeroom. Yes it was over two years ago that I killed the bees. I intended to clean the bee mess out of the storeroom at that time but things got in the way. Evidently a LOT of things.
A few weeks ago Babs set the date. Last Saturday was it. We wanted it to coincide with the "Brush and Bulky" trash pick up for our neighborhood. The pick up isn't until next Monday but Babs and the other female folk are going to Phoenix Friday night and Saturday for "Time Out for Women" and she wanted to be here for the project. I'm all for women being in time-out so I agreed.
Aaron had come down from Apache Junction the night before with his kids so he could help before the football game. Jen is great with child and unable to travel or she would have been here to help too. Benjamin got here bum-early to begin the attack so the rest of us joined in the fray.
A quick description of the storeroom, It is built along the end of the house enclosing the space between the house and the alley wall. Roughly seven feet wide and thirty feet long with a small window at one end and a door at the other. At least I was pretty sure there was a window at the other end. I hadn't seen it for ten years or so since there is so much stuff crammed in there we only had access to the first six feet of space.
Some time ago Scott went on a search for the pieces of a triple bunk bed that I had made and got in far enough to bring out a board with roughly twenty pounds of honey comb attached to it. I was sure that all the contents at the front would be completely ruined by all the soapy water and poison crud I had pumped in there to kill the bees.
I was especially concerned about the doll house that Babs' dad had made for Amy. It is huge and a marvel of craftsmanship. Imagine my surprise when we found it relatively intact. It will need some repair and the honey cleaned out of it but, all in all, not bad. It and the rest of our "treasures" were saved by the fact that the floor is made of paving blocks that allowed the water to pass through the gaps between them.
We cleaned so much junk out that it would be too much for the Brush and Bulky guys so Dan and I took a truck load to the landfill on Monday and we still have plenty to put out for them this Saturday. The place is quite spectacular now with a pathway all the way to the other end. We filled the Shop Vac with dead bees and bird poop (I hadn't realized the window at the other end was open and had no screen). It does now. Many thanks to all who helped. It was TONS of work but well worth the effort.
The doll house is in the process of being cleaned and repaired. It now resides on the back patio to supply hours of enjoyment for our grand kids instead of languishing at the far end of the store room inaccessible to all but the termites.
A few weeks ago Babs set the date. Last Saturday was it. We wanted it to coincide with the "Brush and Bulky" trash pick up for our neighborhood. The pick up isn't until next Monday but Babs and the other female folk are going to Phoenix Friday night and Saturday for "Time Out for Women" and she wanted to be here for the project. I'm all for women being in time-out so I agreed.
Aaron had come down from Apache Junction the night before with his kids so he could help before the football game. Jen is great with child and unable to travel or she would have been here to help too. Benjamin got here bum-early to begin the attack so the rest of us joined in the fray.
A quick description of the storeroom, It is built along the end of the house enclosing the space between the house and the alley wall. Roughly seven feet wide and thirty feet long with a small window at one end and a door at the other. At least I was pretty sure there was a window at the other end. I hadn't seen it for ten years or so since there is so much stuff crammed in there we only had access to the first six feet of space.
Some time ago Scott went on a search for the pieces of a triple bunk bed that I had made and got in far enough to bring out a board with roughly twenty pounds of honey comb attached to it. I was sure that all the contents at the front would be completely ruined by all the soapy water and poison crud I had pumped in there to kill the bees.
I was especially concerned about the doll house that Babs' dad had made for Amy. It is huge and a marvel of craftsmanship. Imagine my surprise when we found it relatively intact. It will need some repair and the honey cleaned out of it but, all in all, not bad. It and the rest of our "treasures" were saved by the fact that the floor is made of paving blocks that allowed the water to pass through the gaps between them.
We cleaned so much junk out that it would be too much for the Brush and Bulky guys so Dan and I took a truck load to the landfill on Monday and we still have plenty to put out for them this Saturday. The place is quite spectacular now with a pathway all the way to the other end. We filled the Shop Vac with dead bees and bird poop (I hadn't realized the window at the other end was open and had no screen). It does now. Many thanks to all who helped. It was TONS of work but well worth the effort.
The doll house is in the process of being cleaned and repaired. It now resides on the back patio to supply hours of enjoyment for our grand kids instead of languishing at the far end of the store room inaccessible to all but the termites.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Lower Education
There seems to be lots of discussion these days about how best to educate the young ones. Full day vs half day kindergarten, pre-school, pre-pre-school, nursery school, womb school, and the like. Back in the wilds of Atomic City school started when you were six years old and was called the first grade. Before that you were left to wander around like coyotes and pick up what you could from ultra-violent cartoons on black and white TV. They were the BEST! Neither Sesame Street norThe Electric Company were around yet and Morgan Freeman was probably still in high school.
I actually started my quest for enlightenment in a one-room school in Lone Mountain Lodge, Montana. My dad was a diesel mechanic and was working some kind of construction job there. I'm not sure where it was/is. I vaguely remember hearing the word Bozeman. We were only there a year then moved back to Atomic City. I was quite happy to leave because it was even colder than Idaho and the school had no indoor plumbing. It did make me glad to be a male.
Second grade we were back in A. C. enjoying big city life. There were around 150 people living there then. We had school in an old barracks building that had a pot-bellied stove and actual flush toilets. My Dad thought it was inadequate so he bought the old grocery store and converted it into a rather nice school that we could use for church on Sunday.
There were two big room in the front, one for the class room and the other was the play room. It gave us a place to go when it was too bleeding cold to go outside for recess. It had TWO restrooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. It even had quarters in the back for the teacher, Mrs. Freckleton, who was from Moore, Idaho but lived there during the week with her son Danny who was in my grade. He was an overachiever when it came to living up to his last name. I have never in my long life seen anyone with that many freckles.
Mrs. Freckleton was an absolute gem as a teacher who somehow managed to keep 25 or 30 kids in 8 different grades anxiously engaged in a good cause all day long for the whole school year. She could play the piano and taught us to sing. I attribute my love for reading to her. She was my only teacher until the fifth grade when she retired.
Anything I learned in the fifth grade was purely accidental. We didn't start school that year until after an election to decide whether we could keep the school there or be bused thirty miles away to Moreland. There was some difficulty finding a teacher to replace Mrs. Freckleton. My sister LeAnna who had graduated from High School a couple of years earlier started the year and was replaced by my mother's cousin, Mrs Rowe. She was nice and did a fine job until she had a nasty car wreck in January or February and had to quit.
Then came the evil Mrs. Heck-I-forgot-her-last-name. She was a huge pain in the behind. Her only redeeming social value was that we were able to drive her crazy. So much so she decided she couldn't stand to have all six grades all day.so for the rest of the year, the first three grades went in the morning and the last three in the afternoon.
It was the best thing since Sugar Pops cereal. I could sleep in until cartoons started and watch them every day. I was in heaven. But alas and alack, that was the end of our little school in Atomic City. The next school year we were all bused to Moreland and the Snake River School District. We still managed to get a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
I actually started my quest for enlightenment in a one-room school in Lone Mountain Lodge, Montana. My dad was a diesel mechanic and was working some kind of construction job there. I'm not sure where it was/is. I vaguely remember hearing the word Bozeman. We were only there a year then moved back to Atomic City. I was quite happy to leave because it was even colder than Idaho and the school had no indoor plumbing. It did make me glad to be a male.
Second grade we were back in A. C. enjoying big city life. There were around 150 people living there then. We had school in an old barracks building that had a pot-bellied stove and actual flush toilets. My Dad thought it was inadequate so he bought the old grocery store and converted it into a rather nice school that we could use for church on Sunday.
There were two big room in the front, one for the class room and the other was the play room. It gave us a place to go when it was too bleeding cold to go outside for recess. It had TWO restrooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. It even had quarters in the back for the teacher, Mrs. Freckleton, who was from Moore, Idaho but lived there during the week with her son Danny who was in my grade. He was an overachiever when it came to living up to his last name. I have never in my long life seen anyone with that many freckles.
Mrs. Freckleton was an absolute gem as a teacher who somehow managed to keep 25 or 30 kids in 8 different grades anxiously engaged in a good cause all day long for the whole school year. She could play the piano and taught us to sing. I attribute my love for reading to her. She was my only teacher until the fifth grade when she retired.
Anything I learned in the fifth grade was purely accidental. We didn't start school that year until after an election to decide whether we could keep the school there or be bused thirty miles away to Moreland. There was some difficulty finding a teacher to replace Mrs. Freckleton. My sister LeAnna who had graduated from High School a couple of years earlier started the year and was replaced by my mother's cousin, Mrs Rowe. She was nice and did a fine job until she had a nasty car wreck in January or February and had to quit.
Then came the evil Mrs. Heck-I-forgot-her-last-name. She was a huge pain in the behind. Her only redeeming social value was that we were able to drive her crazy. So much so she decided she couldn't stand to have all six grades all day.so for the rest of the year, the first three grades went in the morning and the last three in the afternoon.
It was the best thing since Sugar Pops cereal. I could sleep in until cartoons started and watch them every day. I was in heaven. But alas and alack, that was the end of our little school in Atomic City. The next school year we were all bused to Moreland and the Snake River School District. We still managed to get a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
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