Tales from the office

I work at a company that sells things. The kinds of things I like. Mostly, I spend my day fixing the royally fucked-up situations that crop up in every sort of sales. However, the last hour or so of the day I occasionally hop on the phone and take inbound calls (we don't make outbound sales calls).

I took one this evening.

"ACME distributing, this is Abby. How can I help you tonight?"

After a little discussion, we established that Mr. Guy was a return customer, and wanted to place an order. As I waited for the Evil DOS-based sales system to pull up the "new order" screen, I made a little small talk, since Mr. Guy seemed friendly.

"How's the world treating you tonight?"

"Oh, it's alright, considering I have a daughter I don't ever see," he sighed.

"Oh. Gracious. That's too bad, sir." You know, the idea behind small talk is that it's not supposed to be anything soul-baring.

"Yeah. I've never seen her. She lives in Texas."

"Oh, my. Can I get your first item number?"

"Yeah, I'll take #123XYZ. You know the singer Jewel?"

"Ummm..yes, sir. One of those #123XYZ's?"

"Yeah. One each. And two ABC789's. I'm Jewel's biological father. I tried to go see her once when she was a baby, and I ended up in a straitjacket. That was the year I dropped out of high school."

I'm not sure how I managed to finish that one, but I did. 'Cause even crazy people deserve to order our shit, I guess.

Oh, yes. This job is so on borrowed time.

Finally! A use for children!

If I haven't at any point spelled it out, y'all have probably figured that I'm not the world's biggest fan of kids. I didn't even like being a kid, fer goddsake. My stepchildren are good kids, but they're still kids, and it confuses me.

I do believe in making children do things, and making them do them right. This is, of course, annoying, because it is the natural inclination of children to do shockingly substandard work in order to more quickly get back to the important things in life - namely, drinking all the soda in the house and staring at cartoons on my TV.

So the best way to employ children is in what I think of as "Yoda tasks." You know (and I parahrase) - "do or do not. There is no try."

Found one the other night. Came into house with box, grabbed Precise Boy.

"Hey, kid. Wanna make five bucks?"

"Yes!"

"Okay. Pay attention, because I'm only demonstrating once. This is what we call a stripper clip....the ones with green tips go in this box, the other ones go in this box. Got it?"

250 or 300 rounds later, I think he has it down. Good. I need to rebuild my stockpile.

The funny part, of course, was when he knew he had a job opportunity on his hands, and I took him into the Armory.

"You want me to clean your guns?"

"I don't think so, child."

Just a thought

If you're the Department of Motor Vehicle, and you open at 0730, and you normally have a big old line of people out front when you open the door, it might not be bad idea if your employees start work at 0730. Or even 0800. Having two people on duty unti 0830...well, it just doesn't make much sense.

Anyway...ID was duly presented, paperwork was filled out. Unlike Florida, you cannot leave the DMV here with a license. I left with a piece of paper and a promise of a license in the mail. Rumor has it they're pretty quick about that, which would be nice.

Then, once I have the license in my sweaty little paws, all the good prices I've been seeing on used firearms are fair game.

Mwaaah haaa haaa!!

Because there isn't enough rage

I'm off to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles to get me a driver's license. I have several pieces of paperwork to prove I'm not an illegal Mexican, and if I'm lucky, I'll have a small piece of yellow paper (or something similar) in an hour or so.

Wish me luck!

Grownup Places

I was hanging out at Rachel Lucas' place earlier, and she had a blog rating widget posted.

Oooh! I said. I wonder what Bad Dogs is rated!

Well, duh.

Mingle² - Online Dating

Yes, we do use some adult language around here. But you what? I think that's a feature, not a bug.

There aren't a lot of advantages to being a grownup, but using salty language, drinking beer and playing with guns are a few real pluses. I think we should take a moment every so often and revel in the fact that although we have to pay taxes and buy car insurance, the trade is the ability to drink gin at noon while organzing our pistol ammo. Butt nekkid, if we so desire.

BUT...speaking of things which blow about being a grownup, I need to brush my teeth and drag myself off to the Most Mindnumbing Job On Earth.

News Flash

I'd stop with the news from Florida, but it's just too damn fabulous. Today we have...Man With Headache Finds Bullet in His Head.

Michael Eugene Moylan, 45, awoke around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday in his home with an extremely painful headache, St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said. Moylan told police the affliction was so painful, he thought that his wife had either elbowed him in the head or he was having an aneurism.

Apparently Mrs. Moylan throws a mean elbow. But, of course, that's not the end of the story.

...April Moylan eventually told investigators that she had accidently shot her husband. She was arrested Tuesday afternoon on charges of possessing a firearm by a convicted felon and could face attempted murder charges...

Attempted murder?

Nah - attempted murder would have required the use of a serious round. If it can lodge behind one's ear, it is not, I think, attempted murder.

Quick shot

Well, we're back. I'm at the kitchen counter, on a barstool. The desktop computer is occupied by some child, and this is the only other chair in the house.

[sigh]

Anyway, I've been sending house pics to relatives all evenings, so you guys are (yet again) getting the short end of the stick. I have but one for y'all.



That's the dog beating the kids in a race down the pool. And he keeps swimming and swimming...

happy happy joy!

Mr. Abby has, with his own two little hands, built us an INTERNET!

Stand by, folks, ‘cause it’s nothing but dog pictures and full front M1 carbine shots tonight!

garage battles

(In case you haven’t figured it out, there’s still no internet at the new Bad Dog Central. But I can do this cut-and-paste in about 25 seconds)

Today’s question is: How much crap can you fit in the average two-car garage? Mr. Abby, in his infinite fear of incurring the Wrath of Abby, wasn’t entirely clear that he was expected to send the old couch, love seat and chair to live with Jesus. So he brought them along. They are in the garage. Along with:
a motorcycle,
a dining room table and three chairs for it,
two lawnmowers (yet again, he brought the old, dead one),
a weedwhacker,
fifteen or so packing cartons,
five toolboxes,
two Stanley job boxes AND
a couple of 30-gallon trash cans.
Oh yes – and a chest freezer.

Did you notice I didn’t say anything about two vehicles? His truck is in front of the garage and I don’t anticipate getting the Jeep in there this evening.

We’re easing toward being “settled in,” but getting this garage issue under control is going to be a major sticking point. Fortunately, the municipality collects trash twice a week, so we can offload another stack of collapsed boxes tomorrow.

I’m still holding out for the possibility that the Internet Fairy will swing by the house this afternoon. Several of my neighbors have wireless, but they’re all smart enough to have secured their networks. Bastards.

I'm not dead

Advance apologies for any weird formatting we have going on here. We’re still without internet at the new hacienda so I’m going to cut and paste from Word while at work.

I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, but things were a little crazy and there hasn’t been time for me to go driving around to steal me some wireless.

The pack arrived without incident. Well, actually, after several incidents. But they’re here so it’s all a wash. Entities which have been added to the Beat With Stick list include the title company, Sears (bringing you Appliance Delivery Fiascos since 1920…), AT&T and possibly the gas company.

I have learned that if one has a pool and a lab puppy, the lab puppy will be in the pool. On one hand, this wears him out – he hasn’t eaten any household objects since arriving. In bad news, I have a wet puppy who needs to be hosed down about twice a day (I want to rinse the chlorine off).

Things that rock – having my own washer and dryer again. It was downright anti-feminist, the joy I took in washing clothes yesterday. “Look, honey! I’m putting things in the dryer without inserting quarters!”

Also rocking is my M1 carbine, which is in very nice shape. The stock isn’t original, and due to the internet drought, I haven’t been able to look anything up. Which chaps my ass, but I’m trying not to hate.

OK. I’ll try for some pictures later, but I had to hang this out so y’all didn’t think I’d become one of those bloggers who found better things to do. I don’t have THAT MUCH of a life.

Staying calm

I have two major appliances being delivered sometime between 1030 and 1230 (should be three, but the dryer had an unfortunate incident and will arrive Monday).

Of course, the Title Twit of earlier fame is not yet in the office, and the lenders are hiding from my calls. I assume that's because, since the Title Woman works banker's hours, she has not yet sent them whatever they require.

But I'm calm. I have no choice - at 1015 I have to leave here, go over to the house, and let the appliance people in. Whether or not anything has been "funded." I shall, it appears, become a squatter. In a house I have shelled out a significant amount of money for.

How's that work, anyway?

Note to self: People involved in the home/property buying process are not actual professionals. They seem to be people who completed some correspondence courses or a long weekend seminar at the Sheraton out by the airport. Thus, one should not expect a level of ability equal to that expected of medical personnel, accountants, or union carpenters.

In happy news, there will be electricity at the house, because I most definitely got that locked on. And phone service tomorrow. No phones until the Pack shows up, but phone service.

Freakin' Outstanding

I'm giggling down deep inside.

Y'all need to head over to Chris' place, and see the results of his family's what-do-guns-do-to-a-refrigerator experiment.

There's a video. Watch it.

I felt as though I'd gotten vengeance, if only vicariously, for every wrong done to me by a shitful refrigerator in the past three years.

That's good shit. Wonder if it's too late to have Mr. Abby bring the fridge from Florida?

Did you know

that if you're closing on a house, and using a power of attorney, on the space provided for your spouse (or whoever) you write "[Mr. Abby] by Abigail B. [Last name]," and the title agent will say that's what you're supposed to do.

Then you'll leave, assuming you'll get the call saing the closing has been "funded" in two or three hours.

Instead, however, you will get a call at 1647 during which you will be told that every time you signed for your husband, the words "attorney in fact" should have followed. That, it will be explained, is very important.

It is, in fact, so important, that the lenders will not "fund" the closing until those words have been appended to every single page.

Thus motivated, you drive around Fort Worth like a bat out of hell (after more or less just jumping up and leaving your desk at work) to get to the title place by 1713.

"We close at 5!," they had chirped.

Only if you want me to burn your fucking business down, kill your pets and slash your tires, you explain. So they stay open for you.

You write "attorney in fact" 7,492 times. Then, as you leave the title place, you call your lender and explain about the place of business, the pets and the tires. It would be best, you explain, if "funding" this transaction is the first thing that happens in the morning.

Then you drive back up to North Fort Worth and check in to yet another motel. Where you sit, and you smoke, and you hate.

It's here!

Or, rather, it's THERE!

Phone calls we love involve Mr. Abby opening a box-o-carbine for us. Of course, it arrived as the movers are at the Crackhouse collecting our stuff, so they must have thought that was odd.

(Then again, the movers already think we're nuts. They called me this morning, trying to get ahold of the Mister. When the phone rang, I assumed it was Mr. Abby, and answered, "hey, baby!" The moving guy, it seems, does not normally get addressed that way. "Uhhh..." he responded.)

For all his expertise, my husband is not very helpful with this. I asked him to open it and ensure the wood was intact, since apparently there's an occasional cracked stock. So he did.

[sounds of box opening, etc]

"Hey, it looks great," he said.

"Great?"

"Well, about like your other one."

[sigh]

So apparently it's intact, and the stock isn't an utter dog. But the movers have taken his computer, and so it will remain a mystery until they show up out here.

Question for my relationship experts - how bad is it, when your family and pets roll up to your new house, to simply nod and say, "hey" to them, then shove past and burrow through the truck to find and fondle your new gun?

What? You want MORE HORROR?

I got your horror RIGHT HERE, folks. The kitchen wallpaper is bad, but I don't know if it can hold a candle to the Death of A Zillion Red Flowers.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...the guest bathroom.



These two locations are the only offensive wallpaper areas in the house. We have paper in the Grownup Bathroom, but it's normal.

Worst about the wallpaper situation is this - it's very well done. See, I know about these things.

My mother is a Wallpaper Woman. And she's always had a pack of Wallpaper Friends. Whenever there was a redecoration or a new house, I was dragged to Kid Hell. Kid Hell is any store that sells nothing but wallpaper. And they exist. Anyway, I'd get dragged to Kid Hell, often several times, while she plotted the exact paper and border the situation required.

Then the Wallpaper Ladies would descend with their dipping trays, and there would much swearing and use of razor blades.

And when all was said and done? What did you have?

Fucking wallpaper. That's what I thought even as a kid. All that effort and you end up with wallpaper. Bummer deal.

But I did learn enough to know that whoever put this crap up did a good job. Images meet neatly enough at the seams that they're hard to see. Even the switchplates are sharply done. Too bad it sucks.

I just don't get it. But one of the great things about being a grownup is...I don't have to. That wallpaper is on borrowed time.

Through the storm

we occasionally catch a little ray of sunshine.

I was slogging through another day in the Salt Mine of Stupid, field phone calls as surreptitiously as possible and darting into the bathroom to get updates and give feedback.

(We'll keep it short tonight - thank God they accepted the power of attorney because they did NOT get their shit together in a timely manner. Bastards)

Then I sat through a meeting.

Then I real quick and sneaky pulled up the CMP E-store.

SHIPPED! Hitting Tampa tomorrow! Little ol' 5,107,518, made in '44.

It actually got me through the rest of the workday, past the part where I had to find a place to stay near the closing place, and past the part where the underwriters suddenly decided they needed more documentation of what was apparently a questionably large deposit (which was, actually, a CD that matured). This required me to bring the printer in from El Jeepo (which I really did not want to do), hook it up, print pages of bank records, scan them, and send them off.

Of course, would any of that have been remotely possible ten years ago?

But, more importantly, who gives a shit if it may have been possible? My M1 carbine shipped!

Now excuse me, I must go do the Happy Gun Dance.

By the way...

0801 CST - I receive a cc of an email from Mr. Abby with scans of the power of attorney sent by the lender, and of your standard gov'mint "special" power of attorney for redundency.

Then I got a phone call as he was on his way to the FedEx drop box with the originals.

The potential rage level is high today. It's probably a good thing I tend to let any calls that come in on my cell at work roll over to voicemail, or you guys might catch me on the evening news.

Packin'

and no - not the kind that involves any sweet shootin' irons.

The kind that involved schlepping all my shit back out to the Jeep. Mostly done in the wee hours of the morning, my shit has migrated out of Ye Olde Cheape Motel. I'm outta here. Since they only charge a weekly rate here, the next night (or, god forbid, two), will be spent in an equally cheap normal motel.

I did not get enough sleep last night - might have had something to do with the pot of coffee and bottomless pit of boiling rage about this whole closing thing.

Am I going to be a treat at work today or what?

Off to load the last of the Great Pile of Crap.

Huh?

So my new job...well, it is involving the serving of the customers. You buy things from my company, we screw up, and I fix it.

It's dull as hell, but provides the occasional moment of levity. I am, however, not comfortable enough there yet to start sharing stories. Perhaps when we have a minimal acceptable amount of furniture and getting fired would anything but financial suicide...

But we do have a company inbox. And since it's a public address, just hangin' out there on the web, we get spam.

Today I got one titled lumberjack untangle. Although I was a little concerned it would contain naked picture of my Dad playing Twister (pardon me a second while I go boil my eyes), I opened it.

I'm married to your cousin, so . I'd be delighted to attack it all from a different direction...

Huh? Well, I guess being married to any of my cousins would be enough to make anyone think about a different direction. I skimmed on.

What are the physicians doing or saying that you are thinking of as resistance? There are a few reasons that could be argued against as being a bit disingenuous, but for the most part, the reasons seems believable, even if some would be relatively short term problems.

Okay. Sorry. You lost me again. Let's try one more paragraph.

As a result of the simulation, participants learn to apply the principles of visibility, feedback, communication, and collaboration to increase their rate of delivery. A flexible reporting tool has been implemented to provide the information needed by decision makers and with unprecedented levels of grannularity.

Now I can't tell if we're dealing with some sort of hippie shit or something involving spreadsheets. And WTF is "granularity," if we're not talking about making Jell-o?

I totally fail to get it. But it did provide me with about 20 minutes of entertainment in my otherwise boring-as-shit day.

And I promise I'll never subject y'all to my spam again.

It's been a long time

since I've said, on the phone, "that is fucking unacceptable."

And to a civilian, no less.

Even I am aware that one of the things you need to close on a house is a survey. A current survey, really, since I don't know anyone who's ever gotten a house without getting a new one.

It seemed, however, to come as a surprise to our title agency (that would be Land America Title Co., for all my Google monkeys). Which is how I found out today that our closing was in trouble because the survey - which the title people had ordered Thursday - was "not in."

Ordered Thursday? Like four days ago? When we set this closing date like two weeks ago?

It was not a happy discussion that I had with ol' Title Lady when I got out of work today and headed to the walkthrough.

"We can push it back a day," she sniveled.

"No. That's not an option. We are going to close Wednesday, and I don't give a shit what you have to do to make that happen."

You gotta understand, people, I'm not a rude person. I've worked with and for folks with a lot of different styles and, Parris Island aside, confrontational, browbeating interactions really have a limited role in getting things done.

However...Mr. Abby is a very nice man. Cheerful, happy and always looking for ways that he can help you help him. Heck, hint that you can't do your job and he'll probably find a way to do it for you.

Occasionally, I am therefore required to be the member of our household you don't want to talk to. Perhaps after a couple of conversations with Abby the Raging Bitch, you'll be a little more amenable to dealing with Mr. Abby the Very Reasonable.

It's worked before.

But now, since our immediate situation is being theatened by blinding incompetance, we've had to be proactive.

The big problem here is there's FedExing involved. Let's reverse-plan. In order for the documents to be here for a 1030 closing on Wednesday, Mr. Abby needs to send them out of Tampa by around 1800 Tuesday night. Which means he should probably get them by 1400 on Tuesday. Which means they need to be sent...well, see? That already doesn't work.

I didn't get a warm fuzzy from Title Twit about the whole 21st century thing either.

"But emailing is harder," she whined. "He might not sign in all the right spots..."

I was not entirely polite when I pointed out that my husband is phenomenally more competant than the title people, and thus I trusted him to do his part if they could do theirs.

So there I stood, in the driveway of Target House, with the realtor. We'd concluded the walkthrough, during which I had been required to low-crawl through insulation in the attic.

We traded remarks about the level of distrust we had in the Title Agency of Satan. Then a light came on...

"Hey," said I. "Just curious, but can Texas people deal with a power of attorney?"

Her face lit up, and she got on the phone with the lender (who, because it's a good, professional company, was still at her desk not making excuses, but trying to find a solution). Conversation ensued.

Long story slightly less long - yes. It appears they can. Which simplifies things greatly. I immediately received a PDF of the appropriate document, forwarded it to Mr. Abby, and followed it with a phone call. Seeing as he is a pretty bright guy (entirely capable, I remain convinced, of signing in the right places on emailed documents), it will be no problem for him to sign it, get it notarized and return it via FedEx in time for the scheduled closing.

I feel much better when the slippery bits are in the hands of those I know won't fumble.

Fucking idiots.

Anyway. I felt y'all deserved a picture of what was distracting me from the normal posting. And, just because I think it's funny, I have a picture for you.

You know how no matter how much you like a house, there's always something that makes you wonder what the hell was up with the previous owner. Well, in this one, it's the kitchen wallpaper.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you'll laugh, you'll cry. May I present...the Most Hideous Wallpaper in Texas!

Blah.

Sorry for the weekend silence - I had a bit of the melancholy, so I just picked up a stack of paperbacks and read.

I think it's all related to the fact that I did not receive a tracking number from CMP on Friday. [sigh]

But! Onward and upward - there are many things to do this week and many moving parts. The potenital for hilarity and/or disaster is high.

Open letter

Dear Civilian Marksmanship Program,

Today is my birthday. I'm not going to be doing much to celebrate, but that's okay, because I'm kind of over the birthday thing, and next week I'm getting a new house. However, your organization is in the unique position of being able to give me something really cool.

All I want for my birthday, CMP, is a tracking number. I've been "processing" now for a day or so, so it should be just about my turn. Y'all don't have to wrap the box or put a bow on it or anything, just scan the barcode and put it in the truck.

Thanks,

Abby

This could have been me

providing I was a Lebanese news anchor, that is.

The NBN anchor, who has not been identified, did not realize her microphone was on.

"So, why did it take them so long to kill him?" the anchor asked a colleague on live television Wednesday, the same day as Eido's death. She begins laughing, and the colleague joins in.

We make fun of our media for being one-sided (and, oddly, there are people who think the MSM is entirely owned and a pawn of the far right - go figure), but ours at least pretend to be impartial. Most of the time.

Thunderfoot...

I haven't seen whoever lives in the room directly above me in Ye Olde Cheape Motel, but that individual...walks more loudly than anyone I've ever run across.

It sounds like a pissed-off teenager stomping across a basketball court in cowboy boots. And it seems he/she does a fair amount of lurching - this is not a person walking normally around a motel room. It also sounds like a large person person...

I just thought I'd share. It's the last thing I hear at night and the first thing I hear in the morning. Sometimes I like to give y'all a little sense of ambience...

Tappin' my foot

...waiting on this house thing to go down. All day long, from Mr. Abby and a variety of real estate people, I receive documents. Big old honkin' documents. About 98% of them are "FYI," but there are always a couple that I need to initial and send back to someone.

How annoying. I don't remember doing this the last time we bought a house - I think there were just two, maybe three, big festivals of signing and initialing.

It doesn't help that every state is different. I received some 15-page monster when I got home tonight with the exceptionally useless message, "See attached your commitment for title insurance."

Huh. Well, sure. I see it.

Looks about seven times longer than the last set of title insurance documentation I remember, but whatever. I had to email it back to the sender with the message, "I don't know what, if anything, you need me to do with this. Please explain."

Good lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll do the final walkthrough Monday and we'll close on Wednesday. That is, if the week in between doesn't drive me nuts first.

Happy Dance1

I'm getting my carbine! My order is processing! The wait is ending!

[sorry - if you think this is annoying, you should have been sitting next to me when I checked E-store around lunch]

My glee is almost overpowering.

The 51% minority

I grabbed a hard copy of the Fort Worth Star Telegram today to take to dinner. On the front page, a story about women in this next election. Women running for things, women voting, etc.

Hmmm, thought Abby. That might be an interesting read.

Interesting, yes. Interesting in an intelligent, thought-provoking sort of way? No. Seriously - somebody better tell me this newspaper hires "journalists" through some sort of help-the-special-kids program, otherwise there's no excuse for this shit.

Read the story in its entirety here. I, of course, shall selectively excerpt and rant.

Real quick, though, we're going to visit the U.S. Census Bureau for some 2005 numbers. At that point, we had 295,734,000 people in the U.S. 150,425,000 were female, and 145,309,000 were male. That's 50.86% of our population that's female. [please see note at end of post]

They are mothers, daughters, sisters and wives.

We can tell from the lead that this is going to be precious, can't we? They are also grandmothers, aunts, nieces, waitresses, actresses, people who are referred to "she," "her," and a variety of other feminine pronouns... Wading on through the curdling bits of triteness...

...candidates are already creating campaigns to woo the female vote and strategists are tailoring campaign issues to focus on women's concerns, including health care and education. [just for fun, I'm going to ask you to imagine some sort of dramatic flare of brass orchestral sound every time you see the word "women" in bold type - like Storm Trooper music]

Yeah! Nevermind security and immigration and government spending and the environment and civil rights and all that. Women don't care about any of that.

They will do whatever is needed to gain support with the one demographic large enough to swing the election, political observers say.

This is the part that makes me insane. Women are not "one demographic." Well, not anymore than...hell, tall people. We are slightly more than half the country, and there is some slight variety of opinion amongst us. Among the issues "we" care about, that is. You know, health care and education.

Further, the above is an entirely inaccurate statement. The margin of victory in the 2004 Presidential election was...3,012,497. But that's nationwide, and it's generally accepted (I think), that since Ohio was the last state to come in, Ohio was the deciding factor. Bush took Ohio by 118,599 votes.

So, looking at some Ohio demographics (from 2000), we can see that yes, seeing as women consitute 51.4% of the population, they could indeed "swing the election." However, since we assume monolithic demographic voting habits when we write for the Fort Worth paper, so could:
A) black people (1,301,307 of them)
B) asian people (but they'd all have to show up - there are only 132,633)
C) hispanics (easily - 217,123 of them)
D) the always-wild-and-crazy 85+ age group (176,796)
E) the "institutionalized population" (172,368), although I suspect that group is largely made up of those who may have lost their voting rights.

Yes - women can swing an election. But these days, so can pretty much any group. You get the over-90 crowd and the Pacific Islanders, and you're probably in.

Back to the World's Most Atrocious News Story.

"Women will have a critical role in the upcoming election," said Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "They are a huge segment of the public."

Please tell me that this doubtlessly bright man didn't say anything this inane. Yep. Hugest segment of the public, really. Moving right along...

Although some may be influenced by their sex and thus likely to vote for a woman on the ballot, others are just as likely to vote for a man, observers say.

I can't really figure out the meaning of this sentence, which is never a good thing in a "news" story, but no matter how I look at it, I want to pound my head on the table. Notice there's no mention of anything other than gender that might influence the voting choices of women.

Then come many, many paragraphs of "you go, girl!" type stuff. Suffice it to say that while I'm sort of neutrally pleased to see women in government in increasing numbers, it's the same sort of pleased I am to see someone from Michigan become a stunning success. Yeah, it's the home team, but...there are other, stronger allegiances. At least there should be. One would hope. [shudders]

I'm almost too irritated to continue with this, but there is one really choice quote from Sen. Obama's wife.

"My husband is a man who understands the struggles of women and families," Michelle Obama has said. "This campaign believes in the women of this country and envisions a government that doesn't just encourage women to dream big, but to know they have the support and the resources to pursue those dreams.

"I want that for my daughters. I want that for your daughters. And I want that for this country."

You know what I want for all our daughters? I want them to have opportunities. And I want them to have encouragement. I want them to have options. I do not want them to have the sort of "support" and "resources" we saddle every "disadvantaged" group in this country with, the sort dooms them to generations of suspicion about whether they attained their positions through talent or through unearned handouts.

I'm all about women. I is one, you know. I like us (in theory. In practice, I find many of us catty). However, I resent any attempt, at any level, to treat us as one giant single-minded Borg. I also resent any attempts to put half the damn country in the "oppressed minority" bin.

And this sort of drivel in a major metropolitan newspaper...as well as making it seem as though they're letting high school sophomores write A-section stories...it's just idiotic.

Phaaa...[spit]. I'm done.

** NOTE: Incidentally, this appears to be a fairly natural distribution, and hold true in much of the developed world. It seems, however, that China's "one child" policy has skewed this distribution slightly in recent decades. Interesting, but not germane to today's discussion. **

Post 9/11 annoyance

We've all noticed the big changes afterward. The airport security idiocy. The requirements to present 47 pieces of ID to open a bank account. Etc.

But...until today, I didn't notice one of the other, insidious anti-terror measures that seems to have been implemented just to annoy the shit out of me.

They took the mailboxes away. It's damn near impossible to find a regular, blue, freestanding mailbox these days. And that, when you have paychecks but your direct deposit hasn't yet kicked in, is annoying.

I know it's evil to take other people's mail from their mailboxes, but do you also go to Hell if you add your mail in with theirs? We may find out...

Promising Week

Some weeks loom ahead with little or nothing to offer, just five days of stupid followed by two of naps.

Not this one, though. This week shows potential for being chock full of meaty goodness. Or something.

1) We're getting close on the M1 carbine. The CMP is processing orders from May 2, so I'm hoping they'll hit mine in the next day or two.

2) We've got the house appraisal on Wednesday. It's not very exciting, but it's one step closer.

3) Mr. Abby is lobbying hard back in Florida to get his household goods pickup date moved up - he's got nothing to do, the house is too small, and I'm bored out here. So we're trying to see if we can get him and the Pack here sooner.

So by the end of the week I could have assurance that closing will go off, a new rifle (or at least a FEDEX tracking number), and the promise of my Spider Killer In Shining Armor showing up in short order.

Or I could have all of those things go badly, but I think I'm going to err on the side of optimism just this once.

So there I was...

...having a nice, scorching hot shower this morning.

There's a little sign on the wall here at Ye Olde Cheape Dive, and it says, "When taking a shower please turn on your bathroom fan to avoid setting off your smoke alarm from steam."

So. I was taking a scorching hot shower. I had the fan on, but because I am an idiot, I also had the bathroom door open.

I was fully soapy when the alarm started shrieking. I launched myself out of the shower and dragged a chair under the alarm so I could fan it with a folder. I was busily doing that when it occurred to me that the alarm might bring some sort of hotel maintenance people. I realized that I didn't want to be naked on a chair should a band of heroic Mexican housekeepers come through the door.

Then I realized that there was a .45 sitting on the little table by the laptop (gotta be a close at hand if the goblins come). Which I figured might be awkward if the purely-theoretical-hotel-rescue-squard showed up. So I picked it up, and looked for a spot to stash it and for a towel to wrap around myself.

I ditched the gun in my sock drawer and found a towel, then managed to shut the alarm up. No Mexicans showed up to see if there was indeed a fire, and I finished my shower with the door firmly closed.

But for just a second, I was wet, soapy and buck naked, with a pistol and a postage-stamp hotel towel. I'm not sure how I would have explained that to anyone who showed up to check on the alarm.

"I don't know what this looks like, but whatever it looks like, that's not what it is." Only in Spanish.

Things I've learned

Venturing into a nice, cool, dark bar in the early afternoon for a couple of beers has a way of turning into a monster hangover.

Why is it that a "couple of beers" tends to turn into "many, many beers" whenever loud country music is present?

Ugh. I'll be back later after some more coffee.

Cars and happiness

Alright, gang. Everybody needs to head over to Jim's place and give him props for buying a Jeep. Or, if you're like me and afraid of MySpace, leave him a comment here and give him props.

Jeeps rock. Jim notices that men compliment the platform and women compliment the color, but...Jim, everybody is complimenting something.

The vehicles we drive seem to say something about us. Before the Jeep, I drove a '97 S10. Which was fabulous and practical and served me very well. But...every time I saddle up El Jeepo, I smile. I can't help it. I love my Jeep.

I picked it up before I actually got demobilized. I drove it up to Fort Bragg and my fellow soldiers said, "[Abby], that's the perfect ride for you."

Driving a Jeep says, "I don't care that I get shitty mileage. I don't care that this thing rides like a '74 Dodge pickup. I don't care that I can't hear anything when I'm on the freeway."

They're just fun.

Also, other people dig 'em. I've told Mr. Abby this, so I'll share it with y'all. I occasionally will fall into a converation with a guy. Usually, they're pretty average guys. I'm a pretty average woman, that's how it works. But...the Jeep...

I was in the Keys, and had just put real clothes on over a bathing suit. I took the picture I posted a while back of El Jeepo serving as a towel rack. I was suddenly approached by a guy who was probably a couple years younger than I am. He was a little hottie. And with him, he had a no-shit beer-commercial smokin'-hot girlfriend.

"Hey," he said. "That's a nice Jeep."

"Thanks. I like it."

"I've been thinking about getting one..."

I smiled and nodded and finished the conversation, all the while thinking, dude - stop talking to me. Your chick is getting pissed. I'm an old married lady, and she's going home with you. Focus!

But such is the power of the Wrangler. I don't know if Jim's a single man or not, but he's in for a good time either way.

Back home

Mr. Abby successfully retrieved the Bad Dogs from Uncle Buddy's. Apparently, Jack was so overjoyed to see him that he pissed on Mr. Abby's foot. That's love. Or something.

Then the kids arrived, so there's a tiny and very full house in Tampa.

This is the part where I should go on about how much I miss my Pack and wish I was there, but honestly - five people and three dogs in a house the size of your average garage? Umm...really, I'm entirely cool with being the one-woman Advance Party.

I do look forward to their arrival once we've got the house thing under control - the move-in should qualify as an Adventure, and in the end there's room enough for everyone to escape each other when it's required. Which it occasionally is.

I feel for the kids. We bought a nice house in Minnesota on a dead-end road with a platoon of neighbor kids in their age group. Being a good area, all the neighborhood adults were entirely OK with all the children running wild together all summer, as long as someone over five feet tall saw them every few hours. Which is as it should be. They got one summer there.

Then we moved to Tampa, and the Crackhouse, and in addition to the dramatic reduction in space, there were also no apparent children (that is, who weren't dealing crack) and the area was just creepy enough that more than 30 minutes without laying eyes on them was cause for concern.

I think we've improved on that this time. It's still not acreage with a barn and pond, but it'll do, I think.

Fabulous political ad

No shit. I'm not kidding.

Of course, it's an issue ad - no candidates for anything involved.

I just caught this on the Glenn Beck show. An organization called Grassfire.org is running a spot called "Where's the fence?" that features old ladies and illegal immigrants. And it's funny.



Obviously a ripoff from the old "Where's the beef?" ads, but hey - I don't care. I'm all about the humor. Beats the Hell out of that awful scary music they always lay over the my-opponent-is-Satan-incarnate candidate ads.

Bitching...

I sat down last night at the rickety table in Ye Olde Cheap-Ass Lodge to wander the internet before hitting the rack. Brought the laptop to life...fired up the internet...wtf???

Friendly cheap-ass hotel log-in page, it announced. Please log in.

Crumbs of profanity flaking from my lips, I gave up the info.

Not recongnized, it sighed. No internet for you.

Of course, one of the things that enables this place to be cheap-as-hell is the staffing. There's someone at the front desk roughly from 1400 until 1830. Maybe. I hurried back today and confronted the little dude behind the desk.

"Yeah. I'm in room 527. And I have no internet."

"Yes, the internet it is only being for a week." He blinked rapidly and smiled.

"OK. Didn't you just automatically renew me for another week?"

"Yes, but the internet is being only one week at a time."

"OK." I took a deep breath. "Write this down. No, really. Go ahead. Every time you renew this room, until I check out, you will renew the internet. With the same password. Got it?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am!"

Why, why, why must it always be difficult? Can't the UN make itself useful for once and launch some satellites to provide the entire goddam planet with wireless internet access? They don't seem to be able to do anything else, but that would make everyone happy and provide plenty of opportunities for nepotism and graft, which I think would put it very nicely within their capabilities.

What I've been reading

I've been toting around Gen. Rupert Smith's The Utility of Force the past week or so, and I'm getting pretty close to finishing it.

It's been a wonderful read, and I recommend it to any military policy geeks I've got out there.

Writing a book in 2005 dealing with "non-conventional" warfare and future conflict does enable an author to seem especially prescient - let's understand that. But Smith frames the current situations in Iraq and Afghanistan interestingly.

Sometimes a change of terminology can cause you to look at things differently. In considering recent non-industrial warfare, he refers to "confrontation" and "conflict" as two different beasts which may actually occur at different levels.

Viewing our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, in fact, Iraq in 1991 and bombing Libya and showing a presence in Beiruit) as tactical or theater-level conflicts within a larger confrontation is interesting. It leads me to think of goals - what are the goals of these conflicts, and how do they support the desired outcome of the larger confrontation? How does failure to meet a goal (that is, failure to achieve success in a conflict) impact the liklihood of meeting our larger goal?

And, by the way, what is our larger goal? Even if we take the fifty-years-from-today long view, what does "victory" in the War on Terror (or the conflict with militant Islam, if you prefer) look like? A middle-east populated made up soley of respresentative governments? A middle-east with no Muslims and lots of recent converts to Lutheranism? A middle-east full of angry despots who are content to leave us the Hell alone?

I dunno. Interesting to think about. Hard to achieve goals that haven't been defined, and even harder to applaud them when they support an overall mission that's never been clearly articulated.

Anyway, I'm disgressing too far from the book report. I'm rapidly closing in on the part where General (Sir) R. Smith (Ret) will pose his solutions to our modern confusion about the wars we fight. That may be interesting, but the framing has been fantastic, and I recommend the book. I've been turning down clever pages as I've gone along, so perhaps I'll share some tidbits later to further tease you into laying out some cash for it.

Ahhh...geeez...

A big thank-you to the Squeaky Wheel (Seeking Grease) for calling me a "Thinking Blogger." I stuck that little picture over on the sidebar, 'cause I think it's cool. No shit - thanks.

I shall endeavor to strive to think pass that along.

I appreciate y'all bearing with me during this cross-country stagger that I refer to as "The Move." I keep promising a return to "regular" blogging, but I don't know that there's ever been much "regular" here. I'll keep working to get back on track and at least diversify beyond the day-to-day. Then again, half the fun of reading blogs is giggling at other people stumbling through things you have also lived through, so I don't think there's an absolute zero value here these days.

Tuesday morning

I dropped Mr. Abby at the airport so he could catch his 0700 flight back to Tampa, then returned to Ye Olde Weekly Motel and ran a couple of miles. I'm working 1000-1830 today, since I'm orienting in the warehouse these couple of days. Another two hours of coffee drinkin' for Abby!

I assume I'll be back at 0900-1730 tomorrow and thereafter.

And I have nothing to do but kill time and try not to spend too much money between now and the beginning of July. Oh, there'll be a couple of calls to the Realtor, and I have to keep yelling at the appliance people, since every irate phone call somehow makes it possible to deliver said appliances one day earlier.

There are a couple of beers in the freezer and if I hurry home this evening I should catch most of the Republicans screeching at each other in New Hampshire.

Let the good times roll, hey?

"You hired an idiot."

That's what I felt like saying to the New Employer today. See, Monday is the day when we review our time sheets. See, this is one of those jobs where you "clock" in and out. And in and out for lunch. And in twice for breaks. Or something.

Which I totally goatfucked. Fortunately, there seems to be some slight sense of humor, and mostly I was roundly laughed at as I pointed at the sheet and tried to make sense of it.

"See, that's where I wasn't sure if I clocked in right or not, so I did it eight times."

The last time there was a time clock in my life, it was one that actually "thumped" the card, and it was in a barn.

However, I am trainable, and the lady who was fixing my sheet looked like she wanted to give me a lollipop when I pointed at Friday and said, "but see - by the end of the week I figured it out!"

AARP and its vile new ads

I'm going to walk out on a limb here. Y'all seen these new AARP commercials?



The theme, apparently, is "I'm too young to vote..." but, we're told, if these children could toddle down to the ballot box, they'd support fabulous health care for older folks, not altering the Social Security system, and offering free liquor and nude dancers to people over 55.

"I'd vote for the candidate who'd support Social Security!"

That seems...sneaky. I think most of us know how this is really taking shape, right? The biggest voting bloc in the nation is beginning to retire now, and there aren't enough of us "younger workers" to support these "Boomers" through their golden years in the style to which they've come to expect.

I sympathize. They paid into Social Security for years to support the Greatest Generation and those who preceded it. And they supported Medicare for years when people didn't live anywhere nearly as long, and before every single American over 60 took $47,000 worth of prescription drugs every month.

But those in my age bracket - we'll call it 20-40 - well, some of us have done the math. If we can somehow manage to sustain the Social Security system for the Baby Boomers, there won't be pocket lint left when we get to 65, or 70, or 75, or whatever age they've raised the bar to by the time we retire (and trust me, "supporting Social Security" as it stand is going to be a lot lower priority once the members of this giant voting bloc all feel they can safely be grandfathered).

I've resigned myself to planning for my own retirement. I'm trying to do the right things, although I'm sure I'm not doing them at the right level. I keep an eye on the "pension issue" as I wander along my weird little career progression path.

These ads just chap my ass because they're so simpering and dishonest. C'mon, AARP, if the 9-15 age group actually knew what was going on, they'd probably say, "hey! Grandpa! Can't you keep your greedy, golfing, sailing, nicely tanned hands off the Social Security cookie jar for a few more years?"

Some age group is going to take it up the ass with the pending Social Security meltdown. We can probably guess where that's gonna fall, and sometimes things just work out badly. But these ads - they're just wrong.

Thoughts provoked

I'm watching the Democratic candidates debating. There was significant discussion of whether or not Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were wrong in waiting until the last minute to vote AGAINST the recent re-vamped military spending bill.

Then I watched Bill Richardson do the world's most awkward tapdance around a question likening the Darfur genocide to what we could see in Iraq if we pulled out precipitously.

And now I'm watching the candidates talk about Iran and how they'd handle a nuclear weapon there.

It got me thinking about seriousness.

I tend to think most of these candidates are, in reality, serious people. The problem is, a significant portion of the Democratic "base," to which they must appeal in order to win their party's nomination, are not serious people.

I don't really think any of these candidates would yank us out of Iraq if elected (and let me point out that when I say "candidates," I'm not talking about the nutjobs. I'm talking about the real possibilities). They might run things differently, they might distribute forces differently, but I don't think they'd pull us out and let everything go to Hell.

But - and this is the awkward part - they have to pretend they will. I think that's a lot of what we saw with that war funding bill. It was always going to pass. It was always going to pass without timelines.

A couple of total whackjobs aside, most of our national leadership realizes we are in a situation we can't run away from in Iraq. However - since there really are powerful forces in the Democratic base that believe we can bring all our folks back from Iraq and that country will immediately have a collective Coke-and-a-smile, Democratic politicians have to make meaningless gestures - voting against a funding bill after they've run the numbers and know it's a lost cause.

"See! I voted against the bill (even though I knew it was going to pass but I figure it'll fool you idiots with your paper mache puppets)!"

Would a Democratic presidency mean a foreign policy based on capitualation and feel-good dreams, or does the Oval Office force a certain gravity on the decisions an individual makes?

I tend to think it's the later. But maybe I'm just being hopeful.

Bill Richardson might actually try to hand Iraq over to the UN. Bad idea. John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would keep working the issue, I think. I can't quite get a read on Barack Obama, but we're not going to elect him, so it doesn't matter.

I wish the primary process worked differently, so we could hear more discussion of how these candidates would actually handle problems, rather than simply wasting months listening to them pander to the ANSWER crowd.

I love the internet

Because on the internet, you can find whatever you want.

You can buy a complete tiki bar.



Or instructions on how to build one.

Or just extra tiki bar materials.

And that's just one website. How did we ever survive without all this information?

I don't think we're going to be buying the complete assembled $8,000 tiki bar and paying to have it shipped in from Pennsylvania, but I think it's going to be entirely possible to put one together.

What fun. I probably should be worrying about a dining room table, but what fun would that be?

Off we go!

To this "Stockyards" area of Fort Worth. We're in search of cold beer, so I think we may be in luck. If y'all never hear from me again, it means we found too much fun, and I'm either:
A) in the county lockup
B) fleeing to Mexico

Heh. I love it when I can drag Mr. Abby out for the evening.

Asking for info

I didn't realize that 90% of my readership was in Texas. But since y'all are here...I need some input if any of you are my gun people.

I can carry here on my Florida permit, since technically, I'm not a Texas resident. However, once I have a house, I'll get a Texas DL so I can buy more guns. At that point, it'll be pretty hard to pretend I'm a Florida resident.

I'm going to be looking for a Texas CHL class in the DFW area. Any recommendations? Anybody know if I can take class before I have a Texas DL (maybe during the next month before the family comes back)?

Now I remember

why I hate civilian work. Man, that's four days of my life I won't be getting back. But it could have been worse.

We wrote a contract today on a place in North Richland Hills. Apparently the schools are good there. I dunno - all I know is they can close quickly, and that makes me happy. Further, this place is simply begging to have a tiki bar built by the pool, and so I now have something to think about.

I could, of course, spend time figuring out what sort of furniture needs to go inside (since the stuff in Florida is on its last legs, for the most part), but I'd rather try to think of the appropriate outdoor drinking setup. And outdoor lamps, since we're wired for them...

More pointlessness

Nobody is talking about anything useful lately - the news is full of crap. Rosie leaves The View? Don't care. TB patient flies to Canada, drives across border? Don't really care about that, either.

There are some more televised presidential candidate debates coming up next week, which might be a good reason to sit around and drink beer and yell at the TV.

I think we're finally done driving around looking at houses - we've got one that will work just fine. It's also currently unoccupied, which is pretty darn handy.

Alright. I'll stop now. My rule is - if I have nothing to say, I will say nothing. Thanks for bearing with me during this transition. Mornings and evenings provide plenty of time for bloggage - more so in the evenings now that I don't have to go rule on houses in the evenings.

Republicans

So it appears that Fred Thompson is super-definitely going to join the race. That's nice, but I'm not one who has been rabidly awaiting the announcement of the pending announcement. I do find Fred appealing, but there are months yet for all these guys to melt down, freak out, and have evidence of their youthful dalliances with livestock surface.

So I'll wait.

But I do get a kick out of the fact that it appears that the morality-and-goodness wing of the party is just going to have to suck up a sinner this time around. Unless they want a Mormon. Which, Hugh Hewitt aside, I don't they do.

Heh. Sorry guys - the party of small government is not entirely the party where everybody is a deacon in the local Baptist church. Abortion, making fun of gay people, prayer in schools and the Ten Commandments in local government buildings are not the big issues facing our country, and it's about time the Republican party started selecting its candidates appropriately.

Mornings

are not bad in this new situation. In order to be at The Job by 0900, I have to leave the Temporary Location by about 0840. Very handy.

I've never been a sedentary person, and this is a very sedentary Job. I'm not certain yet how that's going to work out.

Super Realtor called last night to tell us that, after some market analysis, the house we're looking at is a bit overpriced, so she and Mr. Abby are going to work that issue. Unfortunately for him, it also means he may have to hit the road to look at more houses.

You don't have to do that very long before every one of them begins to look exactly the same. I'm not particularly helpful, since I insisted on the "no HOA" rule, and yesterday, when taken to a very nice place, I walked out in the backyard, looked at the sea of roofs that comprised the entire view, and said, "nope."

I really do have them looking for the Hermitage in a highly developed area. I should probably watch my back - one of these times, I'm going to rule someplace out because I think there are too many neighbors, and Mr. Abby, after looking at 23 houses that day, is going to plunge a combat knife into my kidney.

Well, there we go.

I think we found a place. Mr. Abby and Super Realtor have been trudging the past couple of days, and I got presented with two tonight. One will do, and so tomorrow will bring paperwork.

Alas, it's not a small cabin with a loft and an outhouse and kerosene lamps, ten miles from the nearest neighbor up a road impassable seven months of the year, but I think it'll do.

There is a pool (which, somehow, became a priority during the search), and a park with a nice running trail directly next door.

And a real water heater. And no sign of rats. And the windows don't have bars.

I think I'm about to have to give up the laptop again so someone can "arrange financing," but I'll try to get back to y'all later with a little look at events in the Big Old World.

Weather competition

What is it about people that makes them want to tell you how bad their weather is? I do it, too, with the hurricanes, so I'm not preaching - just curious.

And you can't talk them out of fixating on it, either. Since I announced the move, people have been looking at me and saying, "Texas - well, it's really really hot."

And I nod, and say, "okay....and what else?"

"No, you don't get it - it's really hot."

Yes. I get it. It's hot. However, there's nothing I can do about that, and I have a passing relationship with "hot."

I have a dear old friend down here who, in response to my question about packing for the move ("should I bring a jacket?") sent me a long lecture on the heat and dressing for it.

[sigh]

Which was fine, because that's just him, and his way of being helpful. But people, the last two places I've spent any significant time have been central Florida and Iraq. Really, stop telling me about the Texas heat. I'm sure it's hot, but it's not as though I've spent my entire life in Buffalo and don't own a pair of sunglasses.

Why is it we feel the need to brag about the awfulness of our home climates? I bet if we'd been moved to Iowa, I'd have heard about tornados for these several weeks.

Welcome to Texas...

Now that I've relocated, my focus on awful and creepy news stories will have to change to those more local.

Which is a downer, because every screwed up weirdo on God's Green Earth eventually found his or her way to Florida.

I'll start off with an easy one: Mom hangs kids, self

This does not look like a happy woman. In fact, she looks like she's being forced to sit for this picture and is looking to see if she's being watched too closely to engage in some family hangin'.

Less than five years earlier, another Hudson Oaks family was torn apart when Dee Etta Perez, 39, shot her three children, ages 4, 9 and 10, before killing herself.

Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family's Houston bathtub in 2001. In 2003, Deanna Laney beat her two young sons to death with stones in East Texas, and Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her daughters in a Plano bathtub.

Dena Schlosser killed her 10-month-old by severing the child's arms with a kitchen knife in 2004

We've been over this before, but apparently it hasn't sunk it yet here. Listen - if you have children, you're not allowed to kill them. Or do anything else truly awful to them. No killin', no pimpin', no starving, no torture. Seems pretty clear to me.

Crazy people - they're everywhere.

The Dogs

One of y'all asked in comments, "how are the dogs?"

Hell if I know. They're shacked up at Crazy Uncle Buddy's. According to the Mister, Jack was so excited he launched himself over the raised tailgate of the full-sized pickup in his hurry to play.

They have a three-room suite they share, and - I shit you not - a bathroom. Uncle Buddy allows drinking from the toilet, so they're at Dog Disneyland. It's a good arrangement for the dogs, and a very nice arrangement for Crazy Uncle Buddy, who should be buying an adjoining house and couple of acres, largely with funds we've provided.

Another commenter asked for some specifics about my issues with Florida, and I'll expand on that theme tomorrow morning.

Well, here I be

Sorry about the delay - one laptop between the two of us isn't quite enough - Mr. Abby keeps thinking it's more important that he find us a house than that I hang out reading blogs and whining on my own. Geez...

Started the New Job today. No sunlight, no physical activity, not a whole lot of challenge. But I did get to pee in a cup. It'll do. For now.

I was nearly hit by a giant pickup today while I stood in a gas station parking lot staring at a bird I'd never seen before. Turned out to be Tyrannus Forficatus - the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Cool.

I did get settled into the extended-stay place, and tomorrow when I wrestle the digital camera away from Mr. Househunter, I'll share a pic.

We have arrived

26 hours on the road, and we're in Fort Worth. Tomorrow Mr. Abby starts surveying houses, I start working, and I move to what looks like an entirely decent extended-stay type of place.

It's greener here, and there are hills. Both of those are good things. But one of y'all did hit the nail on the head in comments a while back - I do miss the ocean already.

That was, of course, pretty much the only non-foul thing about Florida, so mostly I'm just thrilled to be gone.

More tomorrow, and a gradual return to normal excessive bloggery as my schedule settles down.

Pascagoula

is one of my favorite place names. I giggled hysterically leaving Florida. A pretty drive tomorrow across Louisiana and east Texas, so I leave y'all.

I hope you're all enjoying your Memorial Day weekend, and sparing a thought for the men and women who'd have probably traded anything for one more backyard BBQ. Nothing wrong with having a good time on a long weekend, but on this one, we can all spare a thought and a moment of thanks for those who don't get to enjoy those things anymore.

The madness begins

I think we can call today the official "line of departure" for what I assume is going to be a couple weeks of sheer jumping through my ass.

I'm flying up to Pittsburgh for MC's wedding, and I'll be back in Tampa on Sunday morning. I've already packed pretty much all my folding clothes in a giant green bag, so the turnaround will be quick.

The turnaround? Yeah - I return Sunday, take the dress (thank you, thank you, MC, for requiring merely "black and formal" instead of some godawful hellish pastel monstrosity that I'll never wear again) out of the garment bag, put the hanging clothes in it, put the bags in the car, and then Mr. Abby and I hit the road.

I expect to clear the Bay area within 90 minutes of my plane landing. We'll drive Sunday, then hit DFW Monday night. Then I will be starting the New Job Tuesday.

While I try to readjust to working for a living, Mr. Abby will be screening houses and doing mortgage paperwork. We have through June 4 to find something we like, then he'll be flying back here.

The dogs, of course, are headed to Crazy Uncle Buddy's (who's made a pile of cash off us this spring).

Y'all know me well enough to know I have no problem spending time blogging even when I have more important things to do. But please bear with me when we come to those inevitable couple of days when I won't be able to muster anything but a thin whine. Things will improve.

War Dogs

Sometimes you'll catch something of TV about war dogs. Normally, there are pictures of German Shepherds, Dobermans, etc. Jack points out that labs also served with distinction in Vietnam and continue to serve today (last article on the page).


But it's not all about the badasses and bomb-sniffers.

Sparky would like to point out, as Memorial Day approaches, that Yorkies have made their own contributions to the national defense. Well, at least one.


Smoky was found on side of a road in New Guinea, and spent the war as the sidekick of an Army Air Corps aerial photographer. She made some pretty significant contributions as an early sort of therapy dog, but also served on the ground, under fire.

Smoky once pulled a string with phone lines attached through an eight-inch pipe under 70 feet of runway. Every four feet was a couple of inches of sand that Smoky had to dig through.

If the pipe had been hand-dug, the planes on the strip would have had to have been moved to an area that was constantly being bombed. The job would have taken three If three days had it been dug manually. Smoky finished it in two minutes.

Smoky went on to live a long and happy life, appearing on television and touring the country with her person.

We dog people know that deep in the heart of each German Shepherd, there's a war dog snarling to get out. Little did we realize our Yorkies also have martial inclinations.

Good reading

I caught a news report about mental health statistics from Iraq recently. Seems there's been ongoing tracking by Army Mental Health Advisory Teams, and they recently released their fourth report.

The report, in its PDF entirety, can be read here.

A nice summary (courtesy of Slate.com) can be found here.

I'm not going to dig through it and comment a whole lot. I'm not a psychologist, and I'm not comfortable taking my weird and limited experience and using it as a podium on this particular subject. I'm going to point out a few helpful things from this summary (which I chose because I can copy and paste from it).

“The most stressful part of my job is going out every day and waiting to get blown up.”

This is comment from a junior NCO, and it gets to the heart of one of the most frightening things in this war - you can do everything right and still die.

...the Congressional Research Service reported in 2005 that IEDs caused about half of all U.S. combat fatalities and casualties in Iraq and are killing hundreds of Iraqis

That's from a different report. But the randomness of the single largest threat in this particular theater makes it a heavy burden - soldiers and Marines are, by training, inclined to be aggresive. Dealing with a constant threat that can't be shot, often can't be seen and can exist pretty much anywhere takes a vastly different toll than engaging an organized force of enemy riflemen. Not necessarily a greater toll, or a lesser one, simply a different toll.

Another stressor cited...

Being in threatening situations where you were unable to respond due to ROEs

This is touchy. Strict ROE are vital in this kind of weird-ass war. But there are times when you don't want soldiers to hesitate. And once they watch a couple of vigorous 15-6 investigations over warning shots...it's going to stick in their minds.

OK. Enough parsing through this. It's good reading, and whether or not you support what we've got going on in Iraq, you should take the time to skim through it.

I'll add that the Army deserves a pat on the back for at least trying to get a handle on mental health issues. They are making an effort - there are Combat Stress Control teams deployed at the battalion level in theater, and they're doing good work. Returning soldiers fill out surveys including mental health information. It's not perfect, but it's much better than they've done in the past.

Read it and think about it. We owe it to our warriors to try to understand the repercussions of what they're doing for us.

Oh yes - one addition from pages 17 and 18 of the long version (the first link). Silly rules about the specifics of wear for the PT uniform aggravate the shit out of everyone who is supposed to be concerned with fighting a war. Go figure.

In which Abby is reminded of a song

You heard that new country tune by Brad Paisley? The one where he's using "I'd sure like to check you for ticks," as a pickup line? (Yes, it did occur to me that once upon a time, that's the sort of pickup line that I'd have bit on).

Anyway. He's a guy, singing to a chick. Which is normal.

I, however, spent the last couple hours humming the tune as I picked damn near 20 ticks off the dogs. WTF???

They had their last Frontline on the 10th - they're hardly overdue. I got most of them off Jack, four off of Sparky and a couple from Casey. I've found a few in the past couple days, and finally went on the warpath tonight.

I don't get it. Maybe it's super-intense tick season right now? Maybe Jack washed most of his Frontline off swimming (even though I try to keep them dry for 48 hours after application)? None of the ticks were really latched on that hard - they came off very easily. All were behind ears and on chests and necks.

I've been using Frontline for years, and have never had tick issues while the dogs have been on it. Very odd.

So I hit 'em again - the vet told me early this year that unless one gets really crazy, it's pretty much impossible to harm your dog with Frontline. And tomorrow the clumps of tall grass by the fence they like so much will be gone.

I do not approve of ticks. If I whack the grass tomorrow and Mr. Abby continues to discovers these things, I'm going to insist he put some sort of scorched-earth chemical on the lawn to kill everything while we're househunting.

Immigration bill details

So, apparently, when an illegal is trying to get one of these "Z visas," after being here for a while, there's an automated background check. 'Cause you know, the government is here to protect us - ensure these folks aren't terrorists or anything.

I know I got me some gun nuts out there. We gun nuts know a little bit about these automated background checks, don't we?

Now, please consult a lawyer before you head out to buy a gun, but I've done this a few times and I think I've got a pretty good handle on it. This also varies from state to state.

But here in Florida, it works like this. I troop down to Guns N' Joy, pick out a firearm, and fill out the paperwork. I have a concealed weapons permit, so there's no waiting period for me. The dude behind the counter calls in the background check. If I pass instantly, I can leave with my gun. If I'm a convicted felon and it's clearly on file, I don't get my gun but perhaps I get a ride in a police car. There's a third possibility, and it's not uncommon. Perhaps there's something wrong with the system, or there are two Abigails out there with my last name and one is a convicted felon.

Under those circumstances, I can get delayed (also called "conditional disapproval" here in Florida). Then what? Well, I don't walk out with my gun. Then...

If you get a "conditional non-approval" or a "delayed" response and there is no additional response from the system, the Brady law provides that you may transfer the firearm after three business days have elapsed. However, under Florida requirements you must contact FDLE prior to transferring the firearm if the initial check went through the FDLE. [emphasis is mine]

In short, if there's confusion, and after three business days there's no clear resolution, my dealer may be able to transfer me the firearm.

I used to deal with the "delay" response all the time. Mr. Abby has the most common name on earth. He always gets the gun, but it takes 24 or 48 hours.

Now, why the long discussion of the pain-in-the-ass part of buying a firearm in an immigration post?

Well, because that plan also involves one of these super-dooper guvmint background checks. Same idea, apparently. You can either be good, bad or delayed.

If Jose J. Reyes triggers a "delay," becuase, oh, I dunno...someone else has the same or a similar name, the process is a little different. If there is no absolute resolution pointing out that Mr. Reyes in an evil bastard, he must be given the visa. And how long does the system have to figure out the reason of the delay? 24 hours.

Ladies, and gentlemen - the chapter and verse.

(1) IN GENERAL- An alien who files an application for Z nonimmigrant status shall, upon submission of any evidence required under paragraphs (f) and (g) and after the Secretary has conducted appropriate background checks, to include name and fingerprint checks, that have not by the end of the next business day produced information rendering the applicant ineligible -

(A) be granted probationary benefits in the form of employment authorization pending final adjudication of the alien's application;

(B) may in the Secretary's discretion receive advance permission to re-enter the United States pursuant to existing regulations governing advance parole;

(C) may not be detained for immigration purposes, determined inadmissible or deportable, or removed pending final adjudication of the alien's application, unless the alien is determined to be ineligible for Z nonimmigrant status; and

(D) may not be considered an unauthorized alien (as defined in section 274A(h)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(3))) unless employment authorization under subparagraph (A) is denied.

That is, as near as I can tell, section 601 (h).

Now, yes, they call that "probationary Z visa status," but...well, look what it gets you.

We, as a country, apparently need to be less concerned about unknown persons who've wandered over the border than about me buying another .22.

Bad idea. Back to the drawing board, gang. Lots of "temporary workers" like to bring their extended families across the border. Perhaps we could agree to maintain possesion of one child or elderly family member while such "delayed" reponses were worked out? I like the idea of having some leverage if we're going to turn loose folks about whom we have serious questions.

Random BS

I have got Things To Do.

Mr. Abby and I will depart the area Sunday evening to head to DFW - I start my new job on Tuesday.

I get to attend MC's wedding in Pennsylvania this weekend - so that takes me out of the loop from Friday PM until Sunday late morning. So, before Friday, I need to pack the clothes and stuff I'm going to need to live in Texas for five weeks. This, of course, will require the Mother of All Laundromat Trips.

Mr. Abby has today off, which is very handy. He's off doing something, I think mostly so I don't keep looking at the ceiling and hinting he should do something about the rats.

To make things better, Dumbass Realtor will be here later today with some people dumb enough to want to think about buying this place. I've long ago given up really cleaning for these people - I just ensure there are no loaded weapons sitting around. I'm sorely tempted to prop the ladder up against the exterior attic entrance and hang a sign on it that says "You MUST check out the attic!" and stage a nice bright flashlight there, as well. But that would be evil, so I won't do it.

Worst of all, I have two MagPul PMags sitting here. They showed up in the mail Monday, and I would just love to take them to the range, but I don't think there's any way I can justify that use of time.

But I'll probably do it anyway, most likely tomorrow.

Need to know...

Good job, ABC.

One can hope ABC doesn't really think it's appropriate to publish classified information, and that this is clever disinformation, but I don't have a lot of faith in that.

With friends like this, who needs Islamists?

It just keeps getting worse...

You ever been in an old, midwestern-style barn? The kind with a hayloft with a wooden floor? You ever been on the main floor of one of those barns while barn cats were playing in the loft?

It makes a certain sound. A scurrying, scrabbling sound. With the occasional thump.

I'm hearing that same sound right now, but I'm not in a barn, and it sure ain't cats. I know what's in our attic/crawlspace, but I've never heard it before. Fucking rats. Having a goddam rat rugby match up there.

I saw one run along the top of the fence one night shortly after we moved in. I had a repairman up in the attic/crawlspace once, and he pointed out the presence of rat shit. And Sparky killed one in a twisted incident last summer that involved shrieking children and me standing in driveway with a P22 and a Surefire, dripping sweat and ready to open fire.

I'm sure they've been around, but they've stayed appropriately under the radar. Until tonight.

I don't have a fear of rats. But I sure as shit don't like them. I really don't like the fact that it sounds like they're large and lively and plentiful eight feet above my head.

I have less than a week left here. There's nothing we can do about them, and the landlord isn't going to take any action. I'm just going to sit here and cringe and hope the leaking, weak ceiling doesn't collapse and dump a torrent of rats into my lap in the next 100 hours.

EDIT TO ADD: Oh, yes - I am having a very hard time resisting the urge to be the Worst Wife Ever. Mr. Abby is sleeping the sleep of the jetlagged, but I am sorely tempted to wake him up, explain the situation, and whine until he goes up the ladder with a flashlight. I won't - I'm not that mean - but that doesn't mean I don't kind of want to...

Useful Information

I've learned a couple of very valuable things in the recent past. I figure it's a public service to share them.

Item #1 - Courtesy of Mr. Abby - Buy two carwashes, don't extend one. At the local do-it-yourself carwash, it's $1.75 for four minutes. It's 25 cents for each additional 30 seconds. If you've got a lot of washing to do, let the time run out and buy another wash.

I had no idea. I figured it had to be a better deal to just keep adding quarters. That's what I get for not doing the math.

Item #2 - Courtesy of some dude who called into a local radio station - Pantyhose stretched over a sponge do a bangup job of removing lovebug guts without damaging your paint. It's true. It's not a miracle - you still need to apply elbow grease, but it works. It works really really well on glass.

Lovebugs are a Florida phenomenon from hell. It's common to see motor homes on the highway here that are almost entirely black on the front. It's almost impossible to scrape enough of them off to be safe using only gas station squeegees. But the pantyhose thing was a dandy trick when I removed their guts today. Gut removal is important - for some reason, they're particularly hard on vehicle paint.

There you go - hope you learned something. Take a second and do the math at your local carwash, and there's a good use for the old pantyhose the dogs clawed a run into.

The immigration thing

I came home the other day and noticed that this immigration bill issue is the big news.

I read Hugh Hewitt's breakdown by section.

Complex does not even begin to describe it. Hugh points out, among other items of interest, the vast amount of paperwork mandated by this bill and the distinct lack of funding or personnel increases to handle it. That's always a recipe for stunning, spectacular failure.

The immigration debate makes me scratch my head. I cannot fathom why we haven't secured the southern border - it strikes me a basic responsibility of government and I'm quite certain that it's another one of those problems that should be solvable if we used the throw huge amounts of money at it solution.

The Border Patrol is woefully understaffed. It seems there's authorization and money for it to grow, but it's just not happening. I wonder why not...

There's a helpful online outline of the Border Patrol Agent hiring process. An excerpt:

If you pass the written test, your name will be placed on an inventory. The inventory is maintained in score order by geographic location regardless of when you took the test. Referral for a position in a selected geographic location is dependent on the scores of the applicants that are available on the inventory when a list is issued. If you are selected, you will be sent a tentative selection package. That package will explain the further requirements for forms submission, the oral interview with a panel of Border Patrol Agents, medical and vision examination, drug test, background investigation, etc., which will need to be satisfactorily completed before a firm offer of employment can be made.

I'm counting about 14 weeks to get from Step 1 through Step 4 of the process as they outline it. And there are more steps. I'm thinking that might be part of the problem. How much time do you want to put into getting hired into a position that pays $35,595 and for which you have to relocate (with no reimbursement)?

I don't have a idea for fixing the entire immigration problem. I recognize we've got people in this country illegally, and we need to find ways to either normalize their status or get them out. Although it's convenient for business and, at the far end, consumers, to have a pool of super-cheap labor, it's not worth the cost in security, and it's not right to place desperate people in a position of doing our nation's bitch work for far less than we'd pay Americans.

It's not right to put anyone through what some folks I know went through to get here illegally. The "coyotes' who smuggle people across are vicious, evil people. The crossing is not easy - people die lost in the desert. Getting here is not cheap - these immigrants sell everything they own, sell their bodies, sell their futures into indentured servitude, to get here.

We have to find a way to do this better. Step one is closing that goddam border. Step two is unfucking the process to come here and work legally.

We've got to hold our representatives' feet to the fire on securing that border. There's money involved - so they're not going to want to do it effectively or decisively. But we have to remember that the border isn't just a "Mexican issue," it's a security issue. Undocumented workers are a problem that pales in comparison to what we need to worry about coming across that border.

Our elected officials chuckle about our provincial concern with undocumented workers and take campaign contributions from companies and people who profit from that cheap labor. They spend months crafting bills that placate us and provide loopholes big enough to drive a Ryder truck through. At the same time, the next group of terrorist savages may well be slinking across that stretch of empty desert, from Nogales up to Tuscon, from Tuscon into Vegas, with far worse intent than picking oranges and sending money back home.

Canine reading lists

A couple weeks ago, I was throwing Jack's retrieving toy into the lake. Between tosses, he noticed a bird wandering around about 30 yards away. He prompty sat down, stared at it, and trembled with excitement.

Because I'm a bad person, I said, "go get it!" with the same inflection I use when I send him after his throw toy. He took off, the bird saw him coming and departed the ground well before there was any danger. He returned to me looking quite bummed.



I explained that the bird he'd chased was an ibis, and not the sort of bird he'd ever be expected to hunt, and that the point of being a bird dog is not to actually catch live birds.

Little did I know he would take this as a hint he needed to study up.



I snapped the picture, then took the book away. This is my super-good bird book, and I wasn't leaving it in reach of puppy teeth. If he wants to study more, I think I have an old paperback guide he's welcome to use.

Another pointer

Once, I quoted Bill Whittle, and one of the readers I sent there responded, "I was interested, then I saw the part about being a reformed liberal on the sidebar...."

[sigh]

So many of us were much more liberal before 3,000 of us died. Some of us are still "liberal," in the classic sense - I count myself among them.

It's not about "liberal," and it's not about "conservative." If you've been paying attention, you know that. It's about those of us who buy into the Dream, and those who disparage it. You know where I stand.

Go see Bill. He'll break it down. You can read my favorite of his essays, but you should read his most recent.

AFTERNOTE: If you're one of the three people who don't know about Bill Whittle...brew some coffee and click over. It will take a while, but please, please, read the whole thing. It's worth it, I swear.

Heads up

I don't think I have many readers who aren't alreadly aware on this one - Rachel Lucas is back.

For those who don't know, this is the phenomenal woman whose blog made it clear to me that people liked to read about guns and dogs. She's also one of the blogs I read when I didn't know what "blog" meant.

So, for my three readers who haven't checked in already, go forth.