The Big DumpTruck

The maestro of the Thayer Conservatory Orchestra went to Junior's school along with a brass quartet for the 3rd and 4th graders, and he decided he wants to play a brass instrument. He had talked about the trombone, which is an excellent instrument, don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not running out to buy a trombone for an 8 year old with the attention span of dog food. Plus his arms aren't long enough; that's what's saving me.

He changed to trumpet, which he's also too young for, but I have to say that I'm in a kind of deja vu about the whole thing. In a freaky repeat of my own childhood, I was a year older than him when they brought my class into the music room and had all kinds of instruments out to demo for us, and then we could choose which one we might want to learn to play. And I chose...the trumpet. I'm sure my parents were thrilled with my choice, but the choice was all mine, as was the responsibility for practicing every day for the two years I played. I even played a solo in the annual talent show - Close to You by the Carpenters.

Luckily, there wasn't any cost to them because I used the school's trumpet. Have you actually priced band instruments? I went to a going out of business sale that had saxaphones at half price for a thousand bucks.

SO, he's actually going to start taking piano lessons, and when he's a little older, if he want to try trumpet he can. My point about all this is that if anyone behind the project financing to have the quartet visit the schools wants to know if it was a good idea, you've got at least one little boy who is now signed up for music lessons as a result of the visit.

Blogger ate half of my template tonight. Mr. Dump is sitting and waiting for me to post a message freaking out and giving them the big stink-eye. All I tried to do is correct a spelling error on my previous post, and all of a sudden my web site was just displaying a single line of broken code.

Do you know how hard it is to piece together a template that you haven't backed up in 7 months? No? Well I do.

Grrrr.

I put an ad over there on the top of the right column, but it's not really advertising per say. I don't get paid a penny every time you click on the link, even though that might add up to two or three cents a day, if all my loyal readers become involved. No, it's an ad for design and marketing services by an old company under a new name. And I was forced at gunpoint to put the ad on the site or Mr. Dump said he was going to let the dog eat my shoes.

So you know, what choice did I have?

If you need these services, by all means go check out the site and let them know you came from here. Maybe I'll get a little love and recognition and new tires for the JodyMobile(tm). It's all about the cheese money, isn't it?

I have to go download and listen to it. Woooooo!

Luckily, we listened to the wise words of Junior. See, we caravaned to Ferncol (in Templeton MA) with my sister and parents to the fair. We should have left a little earlier than we did, but you know how we get when we're trying to go somewhere. It's impossible to actually physically get in the car and go. There are many bathroom trips, someone forgot a sweater, someone forgot a bottle of water, maybe one more bathroom trip, get off the computer, dammit! (That wasn't me, by the way) etc. etc.

As we got off the Route 2 exit, it started to rain. FANTASTIC! A conference between the open windows of the two cars occurred. Do we want to go in or not? It's five dollars per car. What's the forecast for the afternoon? Junior says we should go, that it's going to stop raining. It doesn't look that way, but that's what he said. Someone points out that all the profit from the fair goes right back into the program at Ferncol, and in fact it rained yesterday so they didn't make much money. (Example: If you go on the dairy barn tour, they have cookies and ice cream and apple cider available. Free, but there is a donation jar. I have found you tend to donate more than you would if they were actually charging for the snacks, which I suppose is why they do it. All the money that is donated goes to the client/resident holiday party. How can you not give a few bucks to that worthy cause?) So we decided minimally, we'd go, give our five bucks as a donation and just turn around. Except the rain let up a LOT so we got out. And after an initial drizzle it didn't rain again the rest of the time we were there - in fact the skies cleared and there were patches of blue. So Junior called it! I'm going to get all my weather predictions from him from now on!

The fair was smaller this year. I guess Saturday was a complete washout and with the forecast for Sunday to be the same or worse (thunderstorms and 60mph winds) many of the vendors weren't there on Sunday. They didn't have carnaval rides this year (I was perfectly okay with that. I did NOT like the quality of the rides when I saw them last year) and they didn't have the big Dollar Sale section (which was usually just boxes of stuff on the ground). I did share my fricot (chicken stew) with Junior, and my parents had the traditional clam chowdah. They said it was just as good as previous years.

No cows were born, but the manager of the dairy is the guy who led our tour so he thought it was cool that we said we were there when it happened a couple of years ago. It's fair lore that one year a cow gave birth during the fair. And I have photographic evidence!

Deep breaths. Okay? Okay.

Target has Christmas stuff out on the shelves.

I didn't buy any - let me make that clear. To snub my nose at the Christmas stuff I spent a few bucks on Halloween stuff. That'll show 'em.

*sigh*

[Geez, this post title is actually like the implied title of every blog on the planet, isn't it? But still, we'll go with it for this one post.]

• There should be more hours in a day. Not more to spend at work, but more before work, more after work, and a couple more to be used for sleeping. So my day would look like this:
  8:00am - Wake Up
  8:00-B:30am (covers new additional morning hours, A and B) Shower, dress, do a Sudoku puzzle, check e-mail, eat breakfast, leave for work
  8:30 Arrive at work
  5:30-C:30 Leave work and arrive at home
  C:30-6:30 Eat dinner
  6:30-E:00 chores
  E:00-10:00 fun stuff like Toontown, watching movies, going shopping
  10:00pm-8am sleep
  
  I think this could work. If we could just convince the sun and the earth's rotation to cooperate.
• Yesterday junior handed us a classic line. They are getting fewer and further between, now that he's getting older, so I treasure them. He asked "Can I wear short-sleeved pants today?" Now he knows they are shorts. I blame his being half asleep when he said it, but what a great line that we will now use until we've driven it into the ground!
• I downloaded some software to try to enter a contest to win a MacBook, because we really need a Mac for Mr. Dump to do design work. The contest was to do a 30 second promotional piece for the Opie and Anthony show. What I realized is that while I know in my head EXACTLY what I want to do, executing my vision is a completely different thing. It's not pretty. At all. Plus, I have to work from downloaded versions of their show that I had to pay for, because I have no way to punch a button and just record something I just heard that would work. I think that all this work I'm doing is not going to get me a MacBook - I am not a very good radio engineer.
• If I already HAD a MacBook, it would be a lot easier to WIN a MacBook, because it comes with that iLife software. If they made that for a PC I would have already purchased it.
• I've been driving by the fairgrounds where the Bolton Fair is taking place this weekend. The rides are all set up and will be up and running at 5pm tonight. That means today and tomorrow I need to leave work early enough that I'm not going that way any time after 4:40 or so.
• This weekend is also the Ferncol Fair. We love that fair. It's very simple, and you get to try free ice cream that they made with their own milk. (Remember a couple of years ago we got to watch a cow give birth? That's a great fair!). I don't think I can handle doing both. Junior wants to do Ferncol. I lean toward Bolton, but I'd probably spend more money there. It's supposed to rain this weekend, so I don't know if I want to do either in the rain. WWJD?

I am considering making a new Christmas holiday page for the site with all sorts of Chri holiday gifts. But not good gifts. gifts that make you sit back and say "really, did more than one person buy one of these, or did the manufacturer go out in flames because of the losses incurred by the product.

You know, the kind of stuff only the creator's mother would buy.

Here's a sample - an iPod case. What do you think?

As astute readers have pointed out, I seem to have a very close and chatty relationship with God. They are right. God and I talk all the time. I was thinking I should document more of our conversations, but someone already wrote a book called Conversations with God. (By the way, I have that first one I just linked to - and I actually really liked the book.) But that book isn't about MY conversations with God, which involve things like fire drills.

Okay, I went and entered "God" in the little Google search thingy I have over there on the right, and I saw that word a lot. I apologize. I'll try to be better. On the other hand, I didn't find what I was looking for, which is why the previous paragraph just ends with "fire drills." What I did find, though, is this fantastic little paragraph I wrote back in Nov 2003. It made me giggle so I'm going to share it with you. God told me you'd like it. (See how I did that?)

"Wow, I was going to just post a link, but there's a commercial on right now
to try to convince people that they can make money raising alpacas. I had no
idea it was that lucrative. Go to ilovealpacas.com for more info. (I'm not
building the link, because I don't want them to know I'm talking about them.
Those alpacas are mean and they spit, you know? I don't need that.)"

Isn't that fantastic? Okay, now that I've entertained you, we can both carry on with our days.

Did you ever have an email conversation with someone that upon re-read just makes you giggle out loud? Allow me to share, then.

Jody:

As a reward, we had a fire drill! Woo hoo!

Mr. Dump:

WOO HOO!!!

Jody:

Apparently we all got out of the building in 6 minutes.

What I like about the fire drills here is that they announce them about 45 seconds before they happen - it's the only time I have ever heard them use the speaker system. Some of us didn't even know it existed until the first time they did that.

"God says he's going to test the fire alarm system in conjunction with the Marlboro fire department!"

Mr. Dump:

Wow. So, what's He like?

Jody:

He's very interested in getting us out of the building quickly.

Mr. Dump:

He's like that.

I think this person sums it up perfectly. I had my own thoughts to deal
with, and didn't feel the need to share them. I also didn't want to use
the anniversary to try to get traffic to the site.

If you have 5 minutes, it's a great read.
http://liz-marcs.livejournal.com/206303.html

Man, is there something related to my allergies flaring up, or did I catch the 8 hour flu? I spent most of today curled up in a ball on the couch with the worst head/sinus thing I've had in a while. My ears were blocking and unblocking and hurting, and my nose hurt right along the edge. Now I'm used to sinus headaches, but this one just felt odd. Like someone had stuffed the Inflate Your Tire for a Quarter hose into one nostril and fired it up.

But I feel much better now - so who knows. I'm still going to turn in early tonight. I thought it was like, ten pm because of the whole getting dark way too early thing, but it's only 8:30pm. Well, that's late enough to find a book and cozy up. Let's all hope I don't wake up with the same thing tomorrow because I'll be very very sad.

I got an email from Amazon that they had a new tool for folks like me trying to make a buck or two by sending folks to spend their money at Amazon. So I played with it and came up with my very own Be like Jody store.

So go ahead, give it a look. And feel free to Be Like Jody

It's Wednesday now, right? Good. Only a couple more days until the weekend. I still feel shakey from having to un-weekend myself yesterday. I ate some grapes, so maybe that will help. Oh, and a peach I bought at Clearview Farm on Monday. I bought 3 of them, so I have one for Thursday and one for Friday. That works out well, doesn't it?

I took a photo while I was there. I'd show you, but then I'd have to kill you. Okay, I'll show you. If you're reading this today (Wednesday) the link will work. You are going to be looking at the photo on the shell of my new website. Think of it as a pre-preview. Don't link to it, because it's going to be moving once I'm happy with everything. Ready? Okay. [Link deleted because you waited too long] Now aren't you glad you stopped by today?

Commutewise, I just sent Mr. Dump an email that said "I'm going to ya-mo burn down the work crew who has been trimming tree branchs in the same stretch of road for 4 business days now, FUBARing traffic headed east on 117 well before 7:30am and on."

Sure, I finally got to see 40 Year Old Virgin over the weekend, why do you ask? By the way, I loved it. Fantastic characters and character development. I give it two toes up. "If I hear 'Ya Mo Be There' one more time I'm going to Ya Mo Burn This Place to the Ground." is one of those classic lines that will be repeated endlessly, everywhere. At least by me.

"If I hear 'Ya Mo Be There' one more time I'm going to Ya Mo Burn This Place to the Ground."

Why is the Tuesday after Labor Day the hardest day to get through? The traffic is back to being horrific in the morning (since changing jobs back to Marlboro in July I haven't had to deal with the school traffic). Someone could tell the fine people running the tree trimming in Lancaster that they could maybe, just maybe, not start until 8am or later. Seriously, on a major commuter route like 117, they are down to one lane so they can cut down tree branches 3 days in a row? It wasn't even 7:30am and already traffic was screwed up because of it.

Well, at least it's a 4 day week. Maybe by Thursday I'll be out of my fog.

I'm sorry, but I can't stop playing Toontown Online. I blame them for sucking all the free time out of my life. Blame Disney.

We braved the rain today to go to the Lord's Acre Corn Festival today. It is worth the rain and mud for their corn and chicken BBQ. I'm hungry again just thinking about it!

So any of you eat corn or play Toontown? I'm Queen Curly Bananaflinger...