The Big DumpTruck

I'm not wearing socks today. Or Sox, as I started to type. People who write it that way are probably either from Boston or Chicago, I suspect.

That means it's summer. I know it isn't really summer, it's just the last day of April, but if I go to work without socks, I'm in summer vacation mode, my friend.

The quote I put up last night (keep reading down)? I want that on a t-shirt. I think I'm going to find a picture of Chuckles on the web, put the text over the picture, and print that puppy out. If we were allowed to have screensavers (there's a corporate one everyone gets) I'd use that image. I wish I had written that...it's just so...absurd, and so me. It's great, and if you don't think so, well, I won't be able to explain it.

"I'm not a moose, I'm a pig wearing an origami hat with antlers!"

- The Dark Lord Chuckles, the Silly Piggy on Dave the Barbarian

As a follow-up to yesterday's accident coverage here at the dump, I wanted to take a moment to mention that as a parent, I want my son to see these things himself so he can be scared to death of the thought of driving a car.

Because quite frankly, it's that "invincibility" factor that makes a 17 year old boy the equivalent of a large, junkfood-eating torpedo.

I want him to be properly respectful of other drivers. I want him to realize that it only takes two seconds for death and destruction to occur. I want him to realize that even if he is a good driver, chances are the person in the next lane is not, so get the hell out of his blind spot, and always assume someone is going to pull out in front of you. Never assume people will stop for a red light. And if it's late out, beware of the tired, drunk, or both.

He has hazy memories of the Halloween Eve accident where Mr. Dump hit a truck that had run a stop sign, but not enough for it to be useful for scaring him. And he remembers the guy who backed into us at the YMCA, but he had no concept that this small fender-bender did $1500 worth of damage and caused me no end of phone calls dealing with insurance and the rental agency.

I think he's getting the idea, that people who don't pay attention and follow the rules are "bad" people who shouldn't be driving because they could cause an accident and hurt someone. I want him to be a good driver, or I'm never ever going to let him leave the house without me. And you can quote me on that.

Got to witness an accident yesterday. That's always fun. What's more fun is being able to think to yourself "Man, you totally brought that on yourself". Four cars in the high speed lane of 495 had to be doing 75 or 80, based on my speed. All four of them had less than a car length between them. Um, hello, you're doing 75MPH and you've left yourself zero room for error. Tailgating is illegal and dangerous, or did you miss that class in driver's ed?

What I think happened (and I'm not entirely sure because I was keeping my eyes on my own lane, thankyouverymuch) is that the first car tapped the brake (maybe to make the 2nd car back off? I didn't see what was in front of car 1.) and the second car hit his brakes harder. The pickup behind the 2nd car swerves mightily into the median, kicking up a cloud of smoke. But then the stupidass tries to just move back into the space he used to occupy in that lane, even though a)he'd moved out of that space, which wasn't very big to begin with, and b) he was not moving slower than the other cars in the left lane because, well, he'd gone off the road. So he sticks his nose back in and BAM, car 4 slams him, spinning him around backwards back into the median.

Now keep in mind that all this happened in nanoseconds. Basically, car 4 was still trying to slow down from the initial disruption but hey, he was doing 75 when this all started and I'm positive he never expected the guy in the pickup to try to get back into that same little wedge of space. That no longer existed.

I hear those commercials for the cops being out watching for aggressive driving, and these 4 were the poster children for it. And the runner up was the guy who passed *4* of us on a double-yellow line going up a hill with a curve at the top, because he didn't want to be stuck behind a construction vehicle (who, I might add, was almost going the speed limit). I was just physically preparing myself to witness a horrific head-on crash, but luckily, the arsemobile made it back into our lane before he hit the curve. It must be something to be SO FREAKING IMPORTANT that you don't have to follow the rules or even drive safely. That double yellow line probably doesn't apply to you, because you're an important person with someplace to be. Unfortunately, the place you will end up is in the back of an ambulance if you're lucky, the morgue if you aren't. Where are all the cops when you need them to see this stuff?

I'm the first to admit that I kill plants without having to give it much effort. I'm a plant killer. And many times, I'll plant things that should come up year after year, and they, well, don't.

Imagine my surprise when I walked around the corner and saw this:



I planted that last year, and it's BACK! And EARLY! I am buying more of those!

p.s. It's really kind of nice out right now. Before it got dark Junior was out scootering around the neighborhood. It's very odd to have the Red Sox game on right now...they are having a rain delay because it's POURING in Boston. Here? Nothing. I mean, we're only about 35 miles away...

Fran the Singing Psychic was on WXLO this morning, and she told the world the news we've all been waiting for: that the Red Sox will dominate the Yankees all season.

Now I am very careful to note that she didn't say that they would win the World Series. Hey, she's a psychic, not a miracle worker.

Of course, the next best thing to winning the World Series is beating the tar out of the Yankees, so this season has been great fun thus far.

I took this picture a couple of weekends ago at my sister's house. The quality stinks because I used the crappy camera attachment that came with my phone. But if I didn't have quick access to it, you would never be able to see this craziness:





They often walk down her street from one of the local riding schools, to get to the conservation land she lives next to. But it's so funny to see the kids standing there waiting to finish their game. It's like a cross between baseball and polo.

It's going to be a long day today. It was pouring rain and dark as night out when the alarm went off. I was cocooning in bed and didn't want to get up. I missed getting the last bag out into the rubbish before the truck got there. I *hate* when that happens.

It was such an outstanding weekend all-around. Tee ball was great, we went up to NH for lunch and stopped by a model train store in Amherst (Route 101a) that had an outdoor exhibit of trains running. And then of course we had to spend a million dollars at Target. It was just one of those days. We all picked out swim goggles in anticipation of my sister's pool opening in mid-May.

Yesterday we scootered, went mini-golfing, and gave Junior batting practice at Grandma and Grandpa's. It was such a great weekend that I totally forgot he had homework to do until after his bath last night. Oopsie! I need to be better about having him do it early so he'll be done with it. I don't want him to be a 2am Sunday Night paper-writer in college.

Today is just the polar opposite, weather-wise, and it's a good thing because we and just about everyone else in town put down fertilizer yesterday. I hope it's fairly dry by tomorrow evening because it's time to do the first mow of the year. Time flies when you're busy drinking coffee coolatas and dreaming of winning the lottery.

If you got here because you did a search for T-Mobile Sidekick, can you post a comment if you've found websites out there with non-javascript games that we can play? Non of my favorite Yahoo games work in this browser. I'm looking for a Bejeweled or TJ's Blocks or Bookworm-type game.

There has to be SOMETHING out there.

Weekends should be 4 days long. I'm going to start a petition.

I thought I wrote something yesterday but apparently I didn't. So consider the first paragraph thee Saturday entry and this one Sunday's. Thanks so much.

It's Phood Phriday here at the dump. Pull up a chair and I'll get you a barqs.

Item 1 - Work Muffins. Every once in a while, I decide to get a muffin from the cafeteria for breakfast. And every time, I think to myself "My God, how do you consistently make muffins that self-destruct on first bite?" They taste pretty good, I mean, I've had better and I've had worse. I went for the pistachio today because, well, it's green. Green like they make food on St. Patrick's day. But I just wish they wouldn't fall apart. I have to eat them with a fork, and that's just wrong when you're talking about a muffin.

Item 2 - Carrots. Junior, all of a sudden, has added raw carrots to his list of foods that will not kill him instantly. They have to be cold and crunchy, and he has to do a bugs bunny imitation, but HE'S EATING CARROTS, PEOPLE! Combined with his fruit consumption (massive), that recently added pineapple, I think he may actually be eating, dare I say it, healthy! He's eating more chicken, and he decided that orange juice isn't all that bad (or oranges themselves). He eats peaches, apples, bananas, pears, watermelon and grapes all week long. He still eats a lot of pasta, but I point out that it's only with tomato sauce, not butter and/or cheese, so he's getting a ton of tomato anti-oxidants. The only area that could use improvement is dairy. He's not a big fan, so anything I can possibly buy that is high in calcium, I do. All his juice is 100% vitamin C and 10% (or higher) USRDA Calcium. We try to get a grilled cheese in when we can, but he's not always open to them. But it's better than a diet of Doritos and Ring-Dings!

Item 3 - Last Monday my sister grilled some food for lunch and the grownups had cheeseburgers. The only cheese she had in the house was jalapeno havarti. (Ya, I know. Who on earth has this and only this in the house with a 5 year old and a 3 year old?) She sliced off a couple of chunks for the burgers and....mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! I highly highly recommend it. Just enough of a little pop to make you want to take another bite.

Here's the video clip of Junior forgetting he has to use the bike brakes if he doesn't want to kill himself and others. Some day, I'm sure he'll be delighted to know I shared this with the world.

Junior's first tee ball, er, minor league game is Saturday! I'm SO excited that we were able to finally figure out how to get in touch with the people running the league and get him signed up! He's on the Turnout team - I can't wait to show you all a picture of the man in his uniform!

Okay, so we were minding our own business expecting a week of 50s and 60s with rain for most of it, and then today I glanced at my Yahoo weather and it said 81. 81? My goodness, who invited him in here? It was only 52 at noon, so does that mean it's going up 30 degrees in a few hours and then back down again to a low of 47? Tomorrow's low is 39 with a high of 53. So this 81? An unwelcome intruder.

I say we get the pitchforks and run it out of the week.

It is? Good. I'm ready for Wednesday. I'm more ready for Friday, but I don't know how to manipulate time and space. Yet.

My cold is in a manageable place right now - I can function, and most of the time, I can breath. Junior, on the other hand, is having a bad time with the whole breathing thing. I always hate to give him medicine during the day because it makes him out of it. Well, it's school vacation so he's not going to have any kindergarten pop quizzes to worry about. Medicine it is!

Over the weekend I made nachos, because that's something I do when the kids are up. I use canned chili, Mexican cheese, etc. It's a tasty treat. We never make it when they aren't here - I guess it just makes it a special thing. Tonight I decided to nuke a few of the Tostitos with just the Mexican pizza cheese, but it wasn't the same. I guess we'll just have to buy another can of chili and wait for the kids to come back!

I'm stuck today with limited internet access. My faithful sidekick, Sidekick, isn't communicating at all with the world of T-mobile. Makes me sad, it does. So if you've emailed me, I'll get it eventually. Maybe even today!

In other news: who invented French dressing, and why? And what exactly makes it "French"? The color? I had some Russian dressing on my sandwich today, and it tasted suspiciously like modified French dressing. That's not cool, for the record.

I declare the first bbq of the 2004 season a complete success. Mr. Dump did a stupendous job on said burgers. I just wish I'd had the fixings for a macaroni salad on hand...nothing better in my book.

Junior is still working on the bike thing. He had two crashes - one of them involved his sister. I happened to catch it on videotape. If I can get it small enough I'll post it.

Today we spent most of the day flying things. Air Hog copters, then our kites. Picks to come. The cow kite was hysterical!

Okay, grocery shopping, oil change, new wiper blades, all done. Junior got in his swimming lesson and some bike riding.

All we need is a refill on the gas tank for the grill and we are good to go.

Where did the day go? I can't believe it's already 4pm.

Before you ask, no, I won't be running in this year's Boston Marathon. Someone could pull me in a wagon if they wanted to, but running is right out.

Here's the excuse I have prepared: "I don't have good sneakers."

Works, doesn't it?

Okay, the 2004 flavor of Power Rangers is out and about, and after 300 viewings of the first two episodes, I have a couple of thoughts.

1. Lamest red ranger yet. Interesting that they were able to find an Ashton Kutcher look-alike.
2. Kira, honey wash your hair, cut your bangs and remove the racoon eyes. If you're going to be a Power Ranger, look the part.
3. Tommy's back. Rrrrrow. He's aged well. He's got enough going for him that he could still be an active member of the Power Rangers. He's my favorite part of the show.
4. I need to get a freaking life.

I'm wearing a Hello Kitty mood ring today. Right now it's aqua. I didn't start off wearing it, but my brother-in-law bought one for each of the kids last weekend (because that's exactly what the two boys would have picked out) and Junior decided he didn't want to wear his to daycare today after we'd already arrived there. He also gave me a handful of Matchbox cars, which I forgot to take out of my pocket.

Anyway, I put Hello Kitty on my pinky, and I'm still wearing it. If I were twenty years younger, this would be trendy and acceptable. But for a woman pushing 40? I don't know. In my head, I swear, I'm in my mid-20s. At worst, early 30s. I don't accept the fact that I'll be 40 next year. I don't accept that I won't be one of the "cool kids" anymore. I don't accept that when someone says "young people today" they aren't talking about me anymore. So I'm keeping Hello Kitty on for the time being. At least until my 3pm meeting.

Boogers! Green boogers! I wrote a post with a book review in it, yammering on and on about how great the book I was reading is, but it got sucked into the void. Double crap. I knew I was having trouble with "BlogThis" but I assumed it had worked. But the post isn't there. I should have checked at the time. Boogers.

So anyway, the book in question is by Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. It's called Digital Fortress, and for my money, it's everything I wanted The Da Vinci Code to be. I thought TDVC was good, but it was stretched out too much, and some of it was predictable. And then there's the whole "what are the odds of them finding XYZ" aspect. Dumb luck, really. I hate dumb luck in books.

But Digital Fortress wasn't like that. I never figured out the twists and turns; in fact, I thought I had something figured out, and I was totally off. I like when that happens, it makes a book worth reading. So I'm giving it two dumps up. (heh).

I wrote a blog entry early this morning, and I thought I posted it. But now it's not here. I have no idea where the bugger went. I know I republished the whole blog because I changed the location of the Amazon.com search box (my only real source of "income" for this site is when people use that box to get to Amazon when they buy something) back into the right column. And that change is reflected, but the blog entry isn't. *sigh*

I mailed my taxes (state of Massachusetts) this morning. I know, a whole day early! But I wanted to beat the rush. I mean, what's one day? And this way, if there was some small glitch, at least I have a one-day buffer. So that's all done...now I can get back to paying the regular bills. This time of year stinks because in addition to income tax, I get the excise tax for the car and my insurance renewals all in March and April. Gah. Bu-bye money!

Oh, man, on the way to work today, a tortuous journey that took 45 minutes longer than usual for no discernible reason, I came up with something good to talk about here. I swear it. And then, in the parking garage, I thought of something else.

And then, two seconds later, it was all gone.

Oh wait, I remember the parking garage thought. It was about a radio commercial I heard on the way home last night. One of those things that you listen to and think "I wonder if anyone tried to talk them out of saying that?" It was for some HVAC company advertising their air filtration systems. A woman claiming to run a daycare said, and I'm paraphrasing a little (because I don't remember the whole thing): "No more green boogies."

That's right, we got to thing about little kids with green boogie noses. I'm a mom of a 6 year old, I know from green boogie noses. But would I use that image to try to sell something on the radio? No. I'd talk about it here, but I wouldn't say it in a radio ad. I have my standards, you see.

I don't know how many of you have been following the Many Adventures of Junior in Lunchland, and my son's aversion to most all foods.

We had an Easter miracle yesterday. I, being a horrible mother, often force him to try a bit of a new food. I'm just a witch that way. Yesterday I forced a bite of ham and a bit of carrot into him. He ate the bite of ham...and asked for his own piece. I get all excited and Mr. Dump takes the "I don't want to make a big deal because I don't want to scare him off" approach. Junior eats the equivalent of a quarter of a slice of baked ham, and later asks for a little bit more (which I don't think he ate because it's too distracting to have cousins to play with). This is not my child. Two weeks ago he decided he loves "chickenturkey" sandwiches (baked turkey - from the deli - on a roll, no mayo, no nothing, just bread and turkey) and ate three of them in two days. This week, ham. My brother-in-law announced his plans to sell his Barilla pasta stock, as pasta consumption will plummet if Junior will no longer be eating it seven days a week, sometimes 2 meals a day.

It's the little things that make me happy. Asking for a piece of ham and winning the daily lottery are about equal on that scale.

Happy excuse to eat chocolate for breakfast day!

We've done the egg hunt, and eaten the traditional donuts for breakfast, and now we're watching the traditional Disney Channel on Tivo.

Okay, I made up that last part. I was looking on the web trying to find the golf set that the bunny left for Junior, but Target doesn't have it...hell, neither does the manufacturer. I guess I'll have to take a picture of us playing later and post it here.

To be honest, we've spent quite a bit of time this week talking about the real meaning of Easter, just so you don't send evangelicals over to the house to beat us with pamplets.

I was reading a magazine and some celeb (I can't remember who - no wait, it was Quentin Tarrantino) has all these arcade games in his house. It made me think how cool it would be to have a home arcade. He's even got a photo booth. I don't think I'd need one of those. I don't see a lot of need for taking crappy little 1x1 pictures of myself, even if I do happen to have a good hair day.

I'd definitely have a pinball game or two. I know some people have a favorite pinball machine ("Oh, I'd get one of the classic "Dukes of Hazzard" machines. It's a dream of mine") but I don't have a preference. A friend's husband is an aficionado - he owns a couple, fixes them, etc., so I could call them and get advice.

I'd want one of those crane machines, where you try to pick up fifty cent stuffed animals by putting about twenty dollars into the machine. And maybe one of the ones where you flip quarters up into little buckets to win tickets. Would I have to have a redemption counter? I'd price everything for 1000 tickets or so, just so I won't have constant lines from my son and all his friends cashing in 5 tickets at a time. "Oh, ya, that pencil? 1000 tickets. 2000 for the yo-yo."

Maybe I should get started on building an addition to the house for my arcade room.

Grabbed a screen shot of the following image from the Worcester Telegram. The caption doesn't quite match.

You might think I named my site The Big DumpTruck because I drive one. Or because I really, really like them. If you've been here long enough (since 1996? Or 1998 when I registered the domain?) you know that it's called BDT because I used to have a really long commute, and I used my website to complain about it, and things like being stuck behind those mammoth dumptrucks that spew sand and rocks as the rumble along the highway. My website was me, throwing those pebbles and rocks at your screen. Or something like that.

I find those big dumptrucks hugely annoying when I'm trying to get to work. They take forever to get up to speed, and scare the hell out of me when I see one coming up behind me because I figure they have the stopping ability of a freight train. And they ping rocks off my windshield at 65mph.

I realized this morning that because it's spring, all the construction projects are starting. Fantastic. Yippee.

The past two days, I've gotten stuck behind dumptrucks and other construction vehicles on my commute, and today it took me TEN MINUTES LONGER than usual (40 instead of 30), simply because the construction truck 4 cars ahead of me couldn't get up to speed in my lifetime. I know for you Boston commuters 10 minutes is a laugh, but think about this - there was no other reason for my delay than this truck. When he slowed because the car in front of him was turning left, he couldn't get back up to speed again. The on-ramp to 495 is a hill...I was only doing 20mph when I pulled on. Ten extra minutes because of ONE vehicle. So ya, I'm ranting about 10 minutes.

I take route 117 to 495, and just after the light at the junction of 111, there's a huge hill. If you get stuck behind a dumptruck that was stopped for the light there, you're dead. It's been a dumptruck on the hill week for me.

I stopped at Target on my way to work this morning, because I thought it would be more efficient for me to stop before work than to leave in the middle of the day. I can't go at the end of the day because I have to pick up Junior by 5:30pm or incur the wrath of the daycare people.

It was a good decision. When I saw the parking lot, I thought "Oh, crap, they aren't open yet." I did the slow cruise by the door to see the hours. Huh. They were open already! Duuuude! I was one of maybe 6 cars in the lot (not in the area where the employees were obviously parking). I had the whole place to myself!

Now I'm not telling you WHICH Target, because I don't want you people ruining a good thing for me. But hey, I got in and out as fast as humanly possible, given that I had to look for something in the corner of the store furthest from the door, and it's a very large store.

If Natalie can tell you about her bad dreams, so can I!

Okay, so there were two of them. One was a pretty standard bad dream. The other is a bad dream because it made me think there is something wrong with my psychologically. You get to decide which is which.

1. Someone broke into the house and stole all the cool stuff - the computers, the television, anything electronic. At some point during the dream it went from being our house to this sort of condo complex that was under construction, and apparently the door being open for the workers was the security flaw. I woke up thinking "Man, I really need to do another backup on the laptop hard drive."

2. I was writing a screenplay. Actually, it was going to be The Beverly Hillbillies reconfigured as a dark, serious drama. Same characters, but none of the funny (I mean, if you thought the original was funny. And not funny in a "why does the lesbian secretary have a thing for Jethro?" way.)

So I woke up trying to figure out if it's a brilliant idea to take old sitcoms and turn them into dramas or not. I have no idea what the licensing would be like, but it's an interesting though. But the Beverly Hillbillies? Yeesh.

I realized that DirecTV's Freeview channel was showing Blue Man Group's "The Complex" in concert...oh my God, I could watch them for hours and hours. If I could see a Stomp/Blue Man Group double-bill, I could die happy.

So now I have the show and the songs (specifically the one Dave Matthews does on the CD) stuck in my head - which means it's pretty bouncy and happy in there. I just think it's cool that we got to see an hour and a half of this excellent show for free! I realize it's a marketing dealie for BMG, but hey, I'm now going to buy the CD, so I think it's a pretty successful marketing campaign.

"If I sing a song, will you sing along?
Or should I just keep singing right here by myself? "

Are we expecting a blizzard? The first sign of trouble was the total chaos in the parking lot. I grabbed a cart that was in the corner of the space I grabbed. Good thing, because when we got inside the store there were no carts to be found. And people standing there dumbly waiting for someone to magically hand one to them. I smirked at one woman, because I had watched her walk by the one that was in "my spot" and I had silently cursed her for not taking it and making it easier for me to park. I don't get people who don't grab a cart out of the middle of the lot on the way in. Do yourself and everyone a favor and pitch in.

I should have turned around when I saw the lines, but sometimes when the lines are horrendous, by the time you're done shopping, things are back to normal. Well not so today. In fact, some women had apparently formed some little pre-line line. I didn't know that's what it was so I walked by it. I've shopped at that store for over 10 years now, this was something I had never seen before. Some older woman yelled at the guy behind me that there was a line. I can't repeat what he muttered under his breath.

Oh well, we got out with our lives and a hundred dollars worth of food that probably won't even make meals for the rest of the week. I have a bad habit of not wanting to make dinner, so I don't buy stuff I need to make dinner. But I'm aware of it, so that's half the solution to the problem, right?

Start by saying "diet be damned" and have donuts for breakfast. You heard me. Extra points if you live near a Krispy Kreme, which I do not.

I'll let you know about the rest once I figure it out.

More rain. We're headed out to Target in a few minutes to look through the new DVDs. I read that The Point (11 bucks at Amazon), Harry Nilsson's wonderful cartoon about Oblio the round-headed kid came out last week or the week before. Junior is filling his morning with cartoons based on video game characters. The Sonic one was decent, but the Kirby one reminds me (in a scary way) of the old Pac-Man cartoon. Luckily, Marty Ingalls doesn't do any voices.

Which reminds me, we had a conversation about the full-length cartoon All Dogs Go To Heaven, which the three kids were watching at my mom's house. I want to know who thought Burt Reynolds as a dead dog obsessed with gambling was a good idea for a kid's movie. I'm picturing shades of The Producers - "we'll pitch the worst cartoon ever, nobody will buy it but we'll meet our requirement for movie ideas for the studio." "Ya! Let's have the dead dog try to build a casino with a big bar in the middle with his track winnings!! Kids love alcohol and gambling!"

And yet, they do like it, because the little orphan girl is cute (she looks like my niece) and well, dogs are cool. But cripes, what the hell were they thinking?

You know, working on this stuff at 10 o'clock at night just isn't going to work. I sat and stared and sat and stared and I just couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong. And then I couldn't figure out where I'd stored a file that I know I saved the other night...the one with the old BDT template. Grrrr. So do I want to piece it back together (not necessarily as hard as it sounds, except for one piece) just so the old archives have the old look and feel, or do I say "to heck with it" and have all the archives use the new template. Which is kind of how it is right now.

And for goodness' sake, what the hell was I thinking when I replaced the template in the blogging software for the "old" content? Okay, I know what I was thinking, because I'd JUST republished the archives. Or so I thought.

I know, you don't care. But it's raining for the 4th straight day, and you'd rather me not crab about the weather, right?

Hmmm. Well, it looks like some of the files that I *thought* had successfully moved from the old server to the new may be sitting on my hard drive at home. If you were looking for the Open Letters, I'll repost them tonight.

(See, I told you it was going too smoothly.)

Mr. Dump had never heard the following; I was more than happy to be the one to introduce him to the classics.

Q: If April Showers bring May Flowers, what do May Flowers bring?
A: Pilgrims.

I may have been a little goofy at the time I told it, because it gave me giggle fits last night. I was also using an Elmer Fudd voice. I'm not sure why.