Perpetual Monday

Well, we survived the tornados and other weather, though there was a tornado touch-down a few miles from us; we heard the siren, but we both were too out of it to get up, I guess, because we didn't. We ended up only getting 1.5" of rain here, but other areas got dumped on. We got more with Hurricane Dennis in July - 3.5" over 2 days. We'll see what the next couple of months hold for this hurricane season.

A couple of weeks ago at work, the air conditioner in our part of the building broke, which is bad, because the IT folks are in our area, and one of the server rooms was affected. Well, it was the first day in weeks that I was actually comfortable; I am cold-natured, as everyone at work knows. Well, the maintenance guys came in and got it working again, and then it didn't shut off again for 2 days - it was arctic in our area. All of us girls were running around in sweaters and sweatshirts, in the middle of August! It was 95 outside, and we were all freezing. Then it broke again, temporarily. Well, it's working again; some kind person brought in a big thermometer, and it read 67 today. Now, I have a heater in my office, but me and the girl in the office next to me cannot run our heaters at the same time, or we blow the circuit. Well, we had our good HP printer swapped with a big Ricoh printer/copier/scanner, which they had to hard-wire into the wall; she and I pretty much print out a few pages at most - e-mails and whatnot - so no issues. Lately, a person from the other division has been running huge manuals on this printer, and it keeps causing the circuit to blow if I have my heater on.

So basically, we're sitting in a building that is 67 degrees (we sit behind desks, doing computer work - not a whole lot of movement there), freezing our asses off, with or without sweaters, and for some reason, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, when we say anything to any of those "warm" people, they give us 20 kinds of shit, usually beginning with what could possibly be wrong with us medically to make us cold all the time. Why is that? Why is it when the temperature in an office isn't comfortable for everyone, it's the cold people who always have to do the suffering? You know, when someone is complaining about how hot it is in the building, I don't make any snide comments about how if they lost 20 pounds or got their blood pressure under control, they wouldn't think it was so hot; that would be rude. But it sure is okay to do it to me and the others. And it's not like I can get up and do calisthentics periodically - I'll need a much bigger office for that. I eat lunch outside every day, so I can be warm for 30 minutes, smog or no smog. I think we should have a few days a month designated as "warm Days"; I hate to use the D-word, but they do kind of discriminate against us cold-fearing people. It's not fair, dammit!

On a completely different subject, I hate to discuss the politics involved in today's Youth Athletics, mainly because youth athletics should not contain any politics, but I guess I need to bring it up, if for no reason other than a sanity check for myself. With all of this ridiculous Select/Premier/whatever you call your upper-level travel teams that we seem to feel are a necessity for our kids, why do the parents all seem to compete more than the kids do? "I spend more on my kids than you do on yours" or "I travel more with my kids to games than you do" or "my kid scores more points than your kid does". And these parents that get in fights, with officials and/or the kids themsleves - what the hell are they thinking? Morons. It makes me sad to be a part of it - if it weren't for keeping my kids busy and out of the bad stuff, we would not be involved. And I love to watch them play, because they are both very talented (I know, all parents say that, but mine really are. They obviously get it from their dad; I'm the Trivial Pursuit Champion of the Universe - no bodily contact there. Usually).

I guess I really want to know why we, as parents who write the checks and put out all of this effort, have little or no say in what goes on with coaching decisions. Now, I know your average parent doesn't have a clue about the game, and that's not who I'm directing this question to. For instance, my oldest son's team has the head coach, chosen by the association after an application and review process, a new assisstant coach this year, with many years of experience and training, a manager who is also a coach with many years of experience, and at least one other coaching parent. I have played the game myself, Varsity in HS (okay, I wasn't very good, but I did play, so do have some point of reference), and a good number of the other parents have played. We do not pay the coach, but we do pay a professional trainer, and I think that, because we pay him, his word should maybe carry more weight than the coach's. The trainer does not get to come to many games (his college games are the same time as our games, so that's where he goes, naturally), so whatever he goes over in practice the week before, it's up to the discretion of the coach to use or discard that training, and ours pretty much discards it. Now what the hell are we paying the pro for? We've had 2 scrimmage games in the past 2 weeks, and he keeps switching the kids around to different positions; I'm sure he's trying to find the best combination, but that is what practice is for, not the middle of a game. The boys are so confused by the end of the game, it's a wonder any of them have any clue what they are supposed to do. But you can't say anything to him; he'll cut you off, or if he sees you coming, he'll do his best to avoid the confrontation.

More to the point, he got ejected the last game of the last tournament last spring, so he is auomatically out for the first two games of this fall season, which happen to be this weekend at a major Southeastern tournament (we were div. champs last year!!!). If he shows up to the venue - anywhere on the premises, and is found out, we forfeit those two games. He has said several times that he plans to be there, incognito, so he can help the AC and Mgr handle the games (being coaches themselves, there's no way they could do this alone?). Both the AC and the Mgr said he shouldn't risk it, but as usual, that's just brushed off - Head Coach knows best! Well, today, he let it slip to a new parent, who came back and, stating rules from the official rulebook, begged him to not do it, because it would not be fair to her son if they ended up forfeiting. And he acted like he hadn't thought of it that way before, and that he really should reconsider going. The really sad part is, we ( a group of us) don't really think he can advance these boys any further; he doesn't teach them anything new, ever, and if the trainer is getting anywhere, it'll be reversed by the end of the gaming weekend. What do we have to do to vote this coach off of the island?

Oh, and I got some beads done last night; the purple stones I can't remember the name of are strung and hung, and I finished 2 sets of green twist beads - emerald and olive green. The olive ones include a strand of peacock fw pearls; I love pearls. Now, if I could just get some decent pictures of them - I'm going to lay them on my scanner and see what I get. I guess I really need to get off my butt and go see Bob the Wolf Camera Guy....

Katrina Has Landed

It was pretty nice here all day, though we knew it was coming. Now, at 7:00 at night, there are tornado warnings all over - there is one in almost every county around us right this minute - flood warnings, too, but it is only lightly raining here right now. I haven't even heard any thunder in the last half-hour or so. When one of the bands comes around again, I bet we'll get more then. I check the rain guage around 5:30 each day, and it had just started raining here then, so it'll be interesting to see what's in there in the morning when I leave for work.

I moved KittyKitty's food into the garage - she wasn't happy, and Ripley ate most of it before she finished pouting. I assume she'll go in the garage if it gets bad out (if we remember to leave the door up for her a little) instead of hiding in the canas. The other three are all huddled here in the house. I am sure the silly dog is out standing in it; as thick as his fur is, I'm not sure how wet he has to get before it actually gets to his skin. It doesn't seem to bother him - he sleeps through a lot of the rains, laying out there in the mud. Dumber than a bag of hammers, that dog. Good dog, but dumb.

Well, it'll be interesting to see who's office has a leak tomorrow morning; there seems to be a new one every time we have storms, especially now that our new buildings are nearing completion. Man, I hope the rest of hurricane season doesn't delay our moving - they are completely inside now (except the landscaping, of course), so hopefully we'll stay on schedule. The new buildings are only 3.5 miles closer to home, but those 3.5 miles are at least 20 minutes in the morning, and often 10-15 in the evenings. Guess I should finish up, in case anything moves this way, and we lose power; it would suck to lose my post. I hope everyone involved with Katrina comes out okay, especially my nephew, who is down at Keesler AFB in Biloxi at his Tech School. I bet I know what he'll be doing for the next few days - GI Party all over the base, and into town, if necessary!

Bead Show Survival

So I went to the Intergalactic Bead Show today. Man, what a lot of cool stuff. I had to keep telling myself no more purple or green beads, but ended up with one strand of purple something - I, of course, have forgotten the name of the stone (it is Charoite, from C&S Beads) -but that's all. I found some cranberry pearls, both in potato and blistered flat squares; they are very pretty, and the potatoes just feel good next to your skin. I will hand-knot the potatoes on some silk; the squares, I probably need to mix with something gold. I also got an assortment of donuts - I like those, but have never had the chance to pick the ones I like from a huge bin until today. Will I ever get back to my cross stitch? Yeah, eventually, I'm sure.

Hurricame Katrina is on it's way to New Orleans, and I'm sure we'll get slammed with rain for the next couple of days; good thing, since we've only had 6.35" so far for the month of August. Not sure how much we're supposed to have, but I bet it isn't 6.35". Hopefully we can get the ribs barbequed before the thunderstorms start tonight. That little kitty that has decided to live here had better make her way into the garage, or she'll get washed away - she isn't coming in the house with the other ones. I guess we've decided her name is KittyKitty - how original.

The 12-year-old had a scrimmage soccer game yesterday, against the Dahlonaga U-14 team; they held them the first half 1-0, but the second half, I think they got tired, and lost 2-1. That U-14 team was huge - they had one kid on there, I bet he was 5'8", 150 pounds or better, and let me tell you, he could move. I think the goalie drove himself to the game, and he had a big manly voice when he was hollering at his teammates. We have the Atlanta Cup next weekend; we were the Div. IV champs last year; I hope we do as well this year - we've got the potential, for sure, though we have moved up to C-2 now. We'll see - hopefully no hurricanes or other adverse weather will interfere like last year; most of the Florida teams ended up canceling last year because of Ivan? One of the 4 last fall. Gee, I had all summer to get a website business going, so of course, I start right before soccer season starts.

Another Thursday

I am working on green beads tonight; got a twister strand of peacock green pearls done last night, now need to work on the Czech Druks and seeds. I need to get back to my pumpkin cross stitch; I finished the sign section and got some more backstitch done. The moon in the sign is pretty cool - I added glow-in-the-dark thread by Kreink to it.

There is a bead show at Gwinnett Civic center this weekend; I'm planning on going Sunday, whether I have any money to buy, or not. I haven't been to one yet, so I'll be curious to see what's there. Even if I don't have much to spend, at least I can soak up some ideas, and possibly find sources for stuff, when I get established.

I have yet to make my pictures of the beads work - the ones that all look as good as I can get them are all around 1 Mb or better, which is a lot of space to take up on the site. I might just try my old rickety Minolta SLR (you know, a film camera), make myself get the roll developed, and try scanning those and/or getting the film digitized. I gotta get up to see Bob the Wolf Camera Guy.


And just what exactly is up with people refusing to use turn signals? If you're too freaking lazy to tap that little lever there, then you definitely shouldn't be reading, eating, or talking on the phone. You know, way back when I drove manual transmissions, and when I smoked, I was able to do all of these things while simultaneously using the blinker! Yes, I am skilled, but still. And no, it isn't completely obvious that you are going to cut over in front of me. Repeatedly. Are you an asshole all of the time, or only on certain days?

Is it just me...?

Is it just me, or does every neighborhood have a house where all the stray animals congregate? Well, in our neighborhood, that house must be ours. Now, we have a lot of animals there by choice - today's count is 3 cats, 1 hamster, 1 dog, 3 fish, and 2 turtles (the last mouse died last week). We have recently acquired a feral kitten, who shares Ripley's food out on the front porch; she's warming up to us, but we still can't pet her for more than a second or two; she's not going to join the crew inside (I will fight you all the way, boys) because I want new carpet and furniture - not kitten-friendly. And then there is our neighbor's dog.

Now, they take a bit of explaining, these people next door, but suffice it to say they are not very social, and I am not really sure why they have a dog at all - she should probably be taken away from them, because they do not take care of her at all. Well, it didn't take too long for that dog to realize that our dog, who lives outside almost exclusively, has a 24/7 meal arrangement, so every time she was free, she spent all of her time in our yard. She's a nice dog, so not really a problem, except that she is always there when she is free. She waits with my kids to get on their buses, she watches me get the groceries out of the car, she chases the cats around, and we think she had a litter of our dog's pups (she had somebody's pups) last summer, but have no clue what happened to them (knowing them, they probably dumped them along a road somewhere - long story). This poor dog either needs to come live with us permanently, or her people need to chip in an occasional bag of dog Chow, which I know they would never do.

Does this happen to anybody else, or do all these animals see us coming a mile away? There must be some underground railroad for animals, and we are the only stop....

My First BLOG!

Well, now I've gone and done it. I have created a Blog. I have read many avidly, beginning with Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams Designs' Dragon Musings, and that is pretty much where I got the idea to do this, too! Surfing the web, looking for cross stitch anything, and see what I found!

With any luck, I'll have my web site together soon, in a way that is both great to look at and produces the results I intend for it; I want a little bit of business from my creations, but not so much that it becomes a job instead of what I enjoy doing. Time will tell, I suppose. Now, if I could just find that can of extra time that I thought I had set aside....