The Big DumpTruck

Spent two nights up in Manchester Vermont and got back home last night. I love me some vacation. I'm rather bummed to be home but to be honest, I ran out of cheese money on Tuesday. I will chalk this one up to just being lucky to get away from home at all. And I was thinking of taking The Boy to the beach but now it looks pretty chilly and rainy the next couple of days. That's no fun for anyone.

Actually, I have to go through all the photos and videos now, or it will never get done. But if today is the nicest day remaining this week, shouldn't I "do" something fun and save that for the rainy days? It's 9am, I'd better decide soon!

Labels: Vacation

I'm pretending I'm a radio show with a week vacation. Here's a re-run "Best of the Dump" from 2005...

What's Lacking in My Life
You know what is seriously ticking me off right now? That nowhere, and I mean nowhere, am I referenced as "an important voice of [my] generation." What the hell is up with that oversight? What do I have to do to fix this problem, anyway?

I'm going to write a book, and damn it, each and every one of you is going to buy 10 copies. You will send them out to people you know who live in foreign places west of 495 (like, even maybe Indiana or someplace freaky like that). Do you hear me? You people are just not holding up your end of the partnership!

First Day As Your Voice
Okay, so now that I am officially an important voice of my generation, I would just like to welcome you all here and offer you some leftover Girl Scout Cookies. I know what you're thinking. "What is a leftover Girl Scout Cookie?" Right. Because such a thing does not normally exist in our universe. But I swear, they are GSCs and they are leftover. Actually, what happened is last year I hid a box and I didn't actually find them until recently. I think it was last year. It might have been 2003. But I think they're still good, because they aren't green.

Okay, so now that we're all cozy, I suppose I should take a poll about some of the things you find important, because as your official voice, I should know those things and be able to speak about them. Right? That's part of the job description, no? If the list is good, maybe I'll give it a whole chapter of my groundbreaking book of humorous essays that you are all going to be buying and distributing, along with the 2006 Magnetic Poetry Calendar with the June page proudly featuring my poem. So really, what I'm doing for you, in addition to being your voice, is helping you do all your holiday shopping 9 months early. No need to thank me, I can just see the gratitude in your smiling faces.

Whew. This is hard work. It's a lot more responsibility than I thought. Can you guys pass the cookies?

Labels: funny, rerun

This time it's not me, though. It's The Boy. He starts 6th grade (Middle School!) in less than two weeks. In discussing how you have to pick a stereotypical [my term] group of friends to hang with, he defined the difference between geeks and nerds for me.

Geeks are into gadgets and electronics
Nerds are into math

You know, I think that works for me, so henceforth, this will be a rule of the Sorting Hat. And before you start up with the "crossover" comments, I'll just say that if you are a geek who is into math, you get tagged as a nerd. Geeks not into math remain geeks. The only other accurate measure we could use as a tie-breaker is how many hours of the Sci-Fi channel you watch a week. 0-3 = Geek, 4 or more = nerd.

So I say it, so shall it be.

Labels: geek, kids, nerd, rules

Man oh Man, I love Leominster during baseball season! Kicking ass and taking names we have the following status on Tournament Titles:

Jimmy Fund Massachusetts Division 3 Tournament Winners
North Leominster 12s
North Leominster 11s (Willie Sinclair Tournament)
North Leominster 10s
[The North Leominster 9s did a great job as well - barely missing the top in their championship game to Pepperell.]

Stacey Bradley Tournament Winner
North Leominster 8s

Babe Ruth All-Star Tournaments
Leominster 14s - Western MA Champions
Leominster 13s - play Wednesday for the New England Championship and a spot in the Babe Ruth World Series

Basically North Leominster owned these tournaments, and I'm very proud of each and every kid who played this summer, and of the ones who didn't make the teams but cheered on their friends and teammates just the same. You kids rule.

Labels: baseball, Leominster, Little League

Congrats to North Leominster, winners of the newly-formed Massachusetts District 3 12-year-old division 2009 Jimmy Fund Championship! The team beat Athol 10-4 at Winchendon on Monday night to win the tournament. The local papers of course haven't had any coverage of the game, so I thought I would at least mention in here, in case anyone was doing a search looking for info.

I understand that the local papers have fired most of their staff and just hope for the best when it comes to these stories, but it's still disappointing to the kids to see other games getting full coverage with nary a mention of their winning the tournament (regardless of how few teams were participating at the 12yo level). So I am writing this for them, because they worked just as hard as every other team in Jimmy Fund this year, raising over $1200 for the Jimmy Fund in the process.

Labels: baseball, contest

It's "Shark" week, not "Shart" week. I had to make this my Facebook status because it is important that people understand why my pants are all stained and stinky. I totally got the week wrong. Shart week is NEXT month. Duh. I do this every year.

Thank God for this box of baby wipes. Let's hope the bag of prunes works its way out of my system sometime soon so I can get back to the serious business of running my worldwide tying-licorice-laces-into-bows empire.

Labels: funny, oops

Went horseback riding with my sister, her kids, their friend and my son. I knew they were going to have to give me a horse to fit my riding experience, so I picked this one. The kids all thought he was awesome. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me have this one. Instead I got something akin to a Clydesdale. I'm pretty sure Domino could have easily plowed the back 40. He knew he had an easy mark on his back and went out of his way to eat everything he saw. "Don't let him eat anything!" Oh, easy for you to say. Domino disagrees with you!

Labels: funny, photos, Vacation

Yup, it appears to work. Strange, because normally I require some sort of caffeinated beverage to be able to string together letters into words. But no, this is working and I have not yet had my coffee. It could all fall apart any minute, though, so I'm going to end this test and grind up some beans.

Labels: coffee, writing