Our search for a house. Part Two
We think we might be in a house. It's on a street spelled Meagher and pronounced Mar. Those wacky Irish.
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We think we might be in a house. It's on a street spelled Meagher and pronounced Mar. Those wacky Irish.
<img src="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/dilbert200101.jpg">
My sister and brother-in-law, <a href="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/Emily/Emily1019/taylorsem-101902-01-web.jpg">Dora and Brent Taylor</a>, just moved back from England. Their company allows them about 3 months until they have to report back so they are taking that time to roam around the country, visiting people. We were the first stop on their ‘tour’.
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<a href="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/Emily/Emily1019/taylorsem-101902-01-web.jpg"><img src="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/Emily/Emily1019/taylorsem-101902-01-insert.jpg" title="Brent and Dora Taylor" name="DavePatti" alt="Brent and Dora Taylor" name="Brent and Dora Taylor" width="110" height="102" border="1"></a>
The other night I was at a light. The car in front of me, a young woman driving and a guy in the passenger seat, had their left turn blinker on, which is very unusual for this intersection. After a minute, they turned the right blinker on, which would have been bad since they were in the left lane of a two lane intersection. Then, when the light turned green, she turned on her hazards and stopped. Now, at this time, I thought she stalled, so I went around her. But as I was passing her, she started going, so I moved back behind her. The road quickly forks and I go to the left with the cars in the right lane going to the right fork. The driver was in the right lane, but moved into my lane without looking or, frankly, having any clue there were two lanes, almost hitting me. I happened to be in a good mood that day and, realizing this person had no idea what she was doing, didn’t even beep. Not beeping at something like this is a big step for me. Hey, realizing I have a problem is the first step toward recovery.
Getting back to my story. Now I am stuck behind her on a one lane road. The speed limit is 30 and she was going 10. And as she approached every intersection, she would turn on her left blinker, then go through the intersection. This really got annoying when, at a red light, she would have her left turn blinker on, then not move when the light turned green, making me think she was really turning, then finally get the freakin’ car in gear, and go straight through the light, with me already going around her to the right. At two of the lights, she stalled with a jerk, indicating she was learning how to drive a stick shift. What I really wanted to know was why did she put her blinker on for every intersection. It definitely wasn’t a case of someone looking for a street and realizing it was not the street they wanted. Neither she nor her passenger was looking down the street she indicated she was turning down. Strange.
Emily is now pulling herself up and is able to stand while holding onto the edge of something. I think she is planning a break out from her crib.
My brother-in-law Brent mentioned something the other day that made me think. Him and my sister Dora just moved back from England and he said the traffic lights in England, when red, turn to yellow before turning green. That way people can get ready to move. I first thought this would be great. But after thinking about the drivers in <i>NEW </i>England, this would never work. I could just imagine every, single, driver using the yellow light to get a jump out of the starting gate like some kind of Mad Max Boston driving fiasco. They would use the yellow to get a 5 foot lead on the guy in the next lane because all Mass drivers know that you have to be one car length ahead of everyone or you are a LOSSA. Never would work.
It's been a while but I finally added another picture page. <a href="http://www.dobrindts.com/emily-17.htm">Click here</a>for latest pictures.
"Hey, Brandon? Michael? I need you guys to do me a favor and get off the shed. Need you to be a buddy and get off the shed. Okay? Thanks."
"Hey, guys? I mean it. Let's get off the shed."
"Get off the shed!"
"Get off the damn shed!"
"Get off the shed" skit, with Will Ferrell from Saturday Night Live, is the most underrated skit of all time.
The Angels. Are going to the World Series. Instead of the Yankees. Instead of my Yankees. This is wrong. So very, very wrong. The freakin we-will-leave-to-beat-the-traffic Angel fans, who don't know baseball from grilled quail and kir royals at Spago, will get to watch their team play in the World Series while my Yankees play in the annual Red Sox October golf outing. AHHHHHH!!!!
Today, Sunday October 13, Emily fully crawled (she has been moving around for some time by flopping forward, but now she gets around on all fours) for the first time from one end of the living room to the other.
Imagine entering a house that is as bad as your worse nightmare. Something out of a scary movie. Freddy Kruger bad. One that has paint peeling from everywhere, dark wood on the walls, rotting. Imagine dust as think as cake icing in every corner. Spiders dropping from the ceiling like miniature SWOT team members. Imagine the toilet sitting at an angle because the floor is rotting. Rust on the faucet handles. Imagine windows that are cracked and window frames rotting away. Imagine the smell of a place that hasn’t been cleaned or changed in a generation, desperately neglected. Imagine years and years of filth in a kitchen. Your feet sticking to the floor everywhere you walk. The house surrounded by garbage and junk. Years and years of junk. Imagine walking out of a house feeling like you narrowly missed getting into a terrible accident.
Now imagine it being for sale at $300,000. As-is.
And our house hunting continues. Therapy can’t reduce this kind of pain. The end.
Before I display the exchange, some background: Verizon called the other day to let us know DSL was now available in our area. Since we were waiting for DSL, we told them to sign us up and to send all the paperwork. The following day I called to find out when it would be activated. The service department had no record of us and transferred me to the sales department.
<b>Verizon Sales Guy </b><i>(after some of the initial fact gathering)</i>: The problem is that we don’t offer DSL in your area yet.
<b>Me</b>: So they why did you sell us it?
<b>Verizon Sales Guy: </b>I didn’t sell it to you.
<b>Me</b>: You are right, you didn’t. But your telemarketers did.
<b>Verizon Sales Guy</b>: They are a separate group and we don’t have control over them.
<b>Me</b>: So you are telling me Verizon telemarketing department sold something Verizon doesn’t have?
<b>Verizon Sales Guy</b>: All companies do that.
<b>Me</b>: You think all companies sell products and services they don't have?
<b>Verizon Sales Guy</b>: I would think so.
<b>Me</b>: Really? I actually think the opposite. I think most companies sell only things they can deliver.
<b>Verizon Sales Guy: </b>I was just responding to what you said.
<b>Me: </b>Huh? Anyway, goodbye.
<a href=" http://www.dobrindts.com/yoga">Patti's yoga information</a>
When posed with the question “If money didn’t matter, what would you do for a living”, I had to really think about it. I’ve already identified <a href=" http://www.dobrindts.com/movabletype/main/archives/000041.html">a couple of jobs I would do</a> but find it easier to come up with doing stuff that is more like a hobby (wood work, gardening, music) or something I don’t have the skill for (playing professional baseball). But since this is a hypothetical question, here are more of the things I would do if money didn’t matter.
1) <b>TV critic. </b>To me, channel surfing is like scanning the beach with a metal detector, you have no idea what gem you might find. Last night I came across a show on the Food channel about snack food. It was unbelievable. It showed how Cheetos and Twinkies are made as well as all other kinds of useless trivia about snack foods. And every now and then I come across a goofy show on Lifetime about some true story involving a bunch of idiots that keeps me captivated for hours. I couldn’t make up the topic for some of the shows I come across. I just wish I could write about the shows so I could justify wasting my time watching them. Good stuff.
2) <b>Wood chopper</b>. Ok, I say this knowing d**n well I don’t have to do it for a living. But last weekend I spent the entire day cutting and stacking wood. At the end of the day (and more so the following morning) my back hurt, my muscles were sore, I had calluses on my hands, but I felt great. There’s nothing more manly than cutting and stacking wood in October in northern New Hampshire in the middle of the mountains. At roughly 80 bucks a cord, it won’t make me rich but will keep beer in the fridge.
I was at my office gym (small but clean and functional) yesterday. There were two other guys in the gym and we were listening to sports radio. A young woman walked in, turned off the radio, put on a CD and got onto the stairmaster. Never asked.
Thought I'd share.
If you are going to read only one web log, besides mine, <a href="http://whatgreentasteslike.blogspot.com/">read this one.</a> It's warped, but it's funny.
<i>We found a really beautiful house to buy with a large fireplace near the front entrance and a stair case that went to a big bar when all of a sudden one of my friend’s parents bought the house instead of us and then I had to go be the ambassador to Saudi Arabia and was worried that there weren’t enough bags of milk in the freezer. </i>