Hot

We are not allowed to run our a/c  until the man that installed it this past winter (with the furnace) comes to test it to make sure it is safe to run.  So, with the recent humidity and heat, I ran into Target and bought a fan.  I thought I'd pull it out of the box, plug it in and be able to enjoy it instantly.  

Not so. 

Assembly required.  

This was not clearly labeled on the box.  

Ridiculous.

Here is a picture of the parts as I took them out of the box...

I briefly considered following the directions until I discovered it was listing of parts that had been labeled up through "F" and I had four parts labeled "A" and one part labeled "B."

It doesn't look too bad, so I decided to ignore the directions.  After all, how hard could it be?  

Only 15 minutes later, I had put it all together (sans directions, of course).  I plugged it in.  It worked.  Just one minor detail....I put the base on backwards!  

I don't care....it still works and maybe on a cooler day I will adjust the base...maybe.

the Boys

Meet Duke:

Meet Satchel:

They live just down the street from Billy the Beagle.  I watch them when their humans go out of town.  We have become quite good friends.  =)

pretty

One of the surprises of living in a new house is the flowers that you didn't know you had until they pop up in the Spring. Here are a couple of pictures of some sort of rose bush outside our front room.

We also had some daffodils in the back yard.  No pictures though.

Jury Duty

While I have my own story from a jury duty summons I received...I am going to share this one that my sister Elizabeth saw last night on the Colbert Report.

Erik Slye is a 36-year-old man from Montana that really, really didn’t want to have to do jury duty. When he received his summons for jury duty, he took a unique approach to the whole issue. He sent a notarized affidavit to the court explaining why he should be excused from jury duty, in NO uncertain terms.

The caustic notarized statement that Slye wrote, with his wife’s assistance, resulted in him having to apologize in order to not be cited with criminal failure to appear. However, he was excused from having to serve.

Slye is an automobile painter who lives in Belgrade, Montana. He received his jury summons in January 2009 from the Gallatin County District Court. Here is his response…

"Apparently you morons didn't understand the first time. I CANNOT take time off from work. I'm not putting my family's well being at stake to participate in this crap. I don’t believe in our ‘justice’ system and I don’t want to have a god damned thing to do with it. Jury duty is a complete waste of time. I’d rather count the wrinkles on my dog’s balls than sit on a jury. Get it through your thick skulls. Leave me the f***alone.”

I can’t believe someone actually notarized this! Ha!

Insurance Salesmen Strike Again!

We have had two insurance salesmen stop by our office within the past two days. They both sell cancer insurance (from two separate companies) and they are both looking for our Cancer Facts and Figures booklet that is published by our division office. Despite telling these gentlemen the booklets are not expected until the middle of May, they both came this week...the beginning of May.

Enter Duane.

When Duane first came to our office at the end of March, he was looking for information he could share with perspective clients regarding the statistics of cancer incidence for men and women. (Note: Duane reeks of cigarette smoke! He just walked into the American Cancer Society as a cancer insurance salesman seeking information about cancer. Hello? We stand for healthy life styles. Um, smoking...not so much.) As tempted as I was to give him information about smoking cessation or a Quit Kit, I refrained. We gave him a booklet full of facts from Illinois and told him this data was from 2006, but in May we should be getting a version with 2008 data. Duane ran to his car to get us some information about his fabulous insurance plan and since he was without business cards, he wrote his contact information on the brochure. One hour later, our office closed and as I was exiting the parking lot, I see Duane across the drive at another business. Duane was apparently finished purposing his spiel to the tax associates and he was in his car. However, as he drove out of their parking lot, he drove right over a tree stump! His car was stuck on top of this tree stump, which was about 15 inches high. As he tries to accelerate, his wheels just spin. Duane exits the car and surveys the situation. Both of his front tires are in the air and one of his rear tires is slightly off of the ground as well. Duane gets back into his car and floors it. His front tires spin vigorously, but his car remains perched on the tree stump. By now a line of cars had started to form behind me so I had to drive away. When I returned to work the next morning, Duane's car was gone, the tree stump was significantly marred and broken plastic and glass lay around the tree stump. A couple of weeks ago, Duane returned to our office smelling even stronger of cigarette smoke. He was checking to see if we had received our new data. Um, yeah...it is April and they are not going to be ready until May. MAY! After we assured him we still had his address and we could mail him a copy of it, he left...in a different car than what he had been driving in March.

Enter Dennis.

Dennis and partner in crime stumbled into our office about 3 1/2 weeks ago. Dennis somehow knew my name was Mary. They asked for information, so I gave them our last copies of the Cancer Facts and Figures booklets. I told them we would have 2008 data sometime at the end of May. Dennis strikes up a conversation with me and proceeds to pretend he knows me. He asks me to write down my address so that he can come over and show me his "wonderful plan." He also asks me to write down my husbands name. Hmm...my husband? Dennis handed me a notebook and I promptly wrote down Billy the Beagle's neighbors address. (This neighbor has caused nothing but grief and all I can say is...he deserved a meeting with Dennis.) They tell us they will be leaving town a week from next Thursday, so they hope the information is in by then. Within four business days, Dennis returns to the office and he is looking for Mary (me). Luckily for me, I had just taken a package to one of the girls in a back office. I called the front office and instructed Eileen to tell Dennis that I was gone! She told him I was in a meeting. He sadly turned around and pouted as he left our office. Whew! I am completely out of the woods! Or so I thought...

Today, Dennis walks in the office. Unfortunately, I am sitting there, so I cannot pretend to be in a meeting or dead. Dennis asks about the 2008 data. I reminded him it would be the middle of the month or possibly even the end of the month before the books would arrive at our office. Dennis then tells me that wanted to meet with me, but he had the wrong address. Hmmm...the fake address I gave you was wrong? Hmmm...imagine that. After telling him I wasn't interested, twice...he left.

Can we get a No Soliciting sign please?