death, humor, weather

A Potpourri of Odd Things

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Yesterday could have been called Black Sunday in these parts. A friend’s mother passed away in the morning. And then one of my uncles lost his battle with cancer in the afternoon.  My sympathies to both families as they deal with death and Christmas in the same week.

Then we come to today. The temperature was close to 60 degrees and much of the snow and ice melted away. But … the weather critters are now predicting a big snow for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. (In fact, one of the weather critters is predicting a blizzard on Christmas Day for here and the area to the east.) Would it have been too much to ask for the nice weather to hang in there for a bit. Now the most reliable of the weather critters is predicting snow starting tomorrow evening and continuing all day Wednesday and then blowing and snowing for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Oh and a glorious 18 for the high on Christmas. Guess I’d better quit hoping for nice weather or it will be 20 below and blizzarding.

Now that I have been all gloom and doom and caused glazed eyes in those of you still reading, it is time for some humor. I subscribe to a great little paper full of sarcasm, humor and snark called Funny Times. It features everything from essays by the likes of Dave Berry, political cartoons, and just plain fun. One of my favorites is Jon Winokur’s Curmudgeon column. Each month he choses a topic and then presents a number of quotes pertaining to the topic. Usually I know about half the quotes, but sometimes it is a complete skunk. So I herewith present 5 quotes that I actually knew from this months column on the topic of Washington, D.C.:

Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. – John F. Kennedy

Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you come from and why you got there in the first place. – Harry S. Truman

Being a Chicago Cubs fan prepares you for life – and Washington. – Hillary Rodham Clinton

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood. – Fred Thompson

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin. – Jay Leno

So what is your favorite quote about Washington, D.C.?

coffee can, scam

The Coffee Rant

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I am sure that some of you are old enough to remember when the standard can of coffee was three pounds. No ifs, ands, or buts about it – the big can was three pounds. Then in the eighties, the can started shrinking as the price of coffee rose.

Old news you may well think. But … have you noticed how the various coffee companies now try to cheat even more? You normally assume that the large cans (or plastic jugs) of ground coffee have similar amounts of coffee contained within. Not so!

The topic came up in an indirect way the other day. Mom intercepted some of my used plastic coffee jugs before they could be recycled to wash them and use them to hold gifts of Chex Mix. We were using the Maxwell House blue plastic jugs and the comment was made by mom that she wondered how much the Folgers red plastic jugs held compared to the Maxwell House jugs.

Last night I visited the stack of cans for reuse/recycling on my back porch to answer that very question. And I was dismayed at the chicanery being practicied by Folgers. In particular the Maxwell House blue jug carries 2 lbs. 1 oz (33 oz.) of coffee while the Folgers has just 1 lbs. 11.8 oz. (27.8 oz.) of coffee. So there is 5.2 oz. more coffee in the Maxwell House blue plastic jug.

Now consider how the cans look from the front:

and then with the handle cut-out showing on the Maxwell House can:

To the naked eye, you assume they hold the same amount with the handle cut out on the Maxwell House jug making up for its slightly longer side and height. But they don’t. The Maxwell House can holds roughly 18% more coffee than the Folgers can. They generally cost the same at the local store and to me are the same grade and taste of coffee, so which one should I buy?  It seems pretty obvious to me that the sneakiness of the Folgers can loses.

What kind of packaging sneakiness have you spotted recently?

job, titles, weather

Five Oddities, Facts, and Rants

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Time for a varied bag of oddball things; some factual, some rants.

#1 – Most misleading headline:

This week’s issue of the IEEE Spectrum Online (an emagazine for engineers) featured a story with the running title “Radioactive Cyborg Insects“. Sounds like something out of science fiction or perhaps Chernobyl. But, when you click through to the actual story, you get the utterly boring and much tamer “Nuclear-Powered Transponder for Cyborg Insect.” I was really hoping to read about the mutant spawn of Chernobyl ala the comics. Darn!

#2 – Rant:

Commenters who do not hook their name to either their website or email address. It makes it almost impossible to respond directly to your comments if you haven’t connected the dots. You know who you are.

#3 – Rave:

Last I checked, it is still above freezing tonight. It was near 50 today during the sunlight. There is a good chance that the ice and slush on the streets may indeed be gone in time for Santa’s visit!

#4 – Odd fact:

Winter Solstice this year occurs on December 21 at 17:47 UTC. For those who are a bit astronomically challenged, it means that the day length shortening then begins to turn to lengthening. Yay for more daylight on the way next week!

#5 – My new job:

All the new job guessers kept heading off into the sage brush with my admitted red herring hints, so here is the real scoop.

I am now the Executive Director of the Logan County Humane Society. I was a founding board member and have been on the board of directors for years, so this is a natural step as we begin construction on our new facility thanks to the generosity of local donors. (And thus the red herring clue that I was out putting in orange stakes in a sage brush field. We were marking the new facility site so the soil engineers could do their core drilling tomorrow.)

It is an interesting and challenging time. I am the first Director in LCHS history, so I am starting a lot of activities from the ground up. Coupled with the construction our first LCHS facility, my time is going to be a bit short for a while.

As a side note, this is the first time I have ever had a use for those FEMA ISC certificates I collected via training over the years as mayor. Who knew they were required for things like AEMP training?

mama kat, writer's challenge

The Cross and Other Things

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This week’s Writer’s Challenge from Mama Kat offers these finger tickling topics:

1.) Summer’s recent post “I’m Sensitive And I Want To Stay That Way” talks about how her sensitivity works for her and against her, but that she embraces herself for the way she is. What is your cross to bear?
(inspired by Summer from Le Musings Of Moi)

2.) What is one of your life mottos?
(inspired by Marcy from The Glamorous Life Association)

3.) How do you deal manage the “death” talk with your kids?
(inspired by Ashley from Ashley’s Closet)

4.) Describe a funny or favorite gift that you’ve gotten or have given.
(inspired by Kat from I Play It By Year)

5.) Is your husband a gamer? Does your child have an obsession with dogs? (ahem) Does your friend talk constantly of her undying love for Edward? Write a poem to the item your loved one is obsessing over.

So off we go to the writing races.

#1 – My cross is that I cannot stand to not know and understand. I am driven to know how things work and why. I read and study voraciously – especially science and math. Thus far you are probably shrugging your shoulders and asking how in the heck that is a cross to bear. Well, the bearing comes from the fact that when you have ingested so much knowledge, you cannot help but answer questions.

When someone rhetorically asks “Why is the sky blue?” you cannot help but answer Raleigh scattering. Which then often leads to the exclamation “I can’t believe you knew that!” But after about the ten thousandth time you take all the fun out of it by answering the question, people are apt to either groan or to stop believing. And then when you prove it to them, it becomes even more intolerable.

But I have learned to live with this cross. Anymore if I give someone the answer and they refuse to believe, I just tell them to look it up. It is enough for me to know. And I can also use my skills for other things, like this:

This is our Trivia Bowl Team holding the trophy after winning the annual contest for the third or forth straight time earlier this year.

Actually, I introduced the picture primarily to introduce some of my fellow afflictees. From left to right, we have:

1) A lawyer, CPA, and high school classmate from 37+ years ago
2) A high school teacher who taught one of the Son’s AP courses
3) Me in all my wondrous glory
4) Another person of many arcane knowledge facets
5) A financial advisor, CPA, and high school classmate from 37+ years ago
6 A surgeon and fellow animal lover

We have been the champions 5 out of the last 6 years. (One year we had too many subs and came in second by *one* question.) This is one way to turn a cross into an asset.

#2 – My life mottos are simple:

“Be the best you can be.”
“If it is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly.”

#3 – We never really had a “death” talk with the Son. It was more the passage through experiences with death as he lost both of his grandfathers. In both cases there was a period of increasing debility from cancer in one case and Alzheimer’s in the other. When my dad died, my mom had a very good idea and took all the grandkids aside and had them chose things to be buried in the coffin with their grandfather. Thus dad had the things the grandkids deemed important to him and their relationship with him placed in the coffin with him. Things like fishing gear and … It seemed to help them accept the finality of his death and make them feel like they had a chance to say their good-byes and participate in the send-off. I think it was very effective for all of the grandkids no matter what their age.

#4 – One of the funniest and more memorable Christmas gifts came from a beloved aunt when I was in college. This particular aunt had a wicked sense of humor and great ability in handcrafts. So that year she hand knitted warmers for “that certain part of the male anatomy” and the associated hangy bits in correct anatomical form and interesting colorations. She then stuffed them with paper so they held their shape and wrapped them up for all the males in the adult gift exchange. The looks on everyone’s face as people pulled their gift from the wrapping and realized what it was made it all worthwhile. I always figured it was fitting. And boy did I have stories to tell when I got back to college after Christmas – especially when I could pull the real thing out of the dresser to silence the scofflaws. {*grin*}

#5 – It’s getting late and I’m giving in to my obsession with the bed.

city council, weather

The Ghost of the Past

5 Comments

I was back in my old stomping grounds tonight, appearing before the city council on behalf of my new job. It would give all the habitat-for-humanity guessers false hope if they knew that much of the time was spent on the intricacies and failings of the current zoning code in the city.

You’d have been proud of me. I kept my presentation short and to the point. (Especially since the water engineers in front of me were scheduled for a 35 minute talk and it ran to over 100 minutes – not that I was counting or anything. {*grin})

I did get a chance to give the new council and city manager a hard time. At the entry to the council chambers is a rogue’s gallery of photos of the council and the mayor, etc. I noted that according to the rogue’s gallery, I was still the mayor as it was still my picture hanging there. That got a couple of mutters of “Omigosh, we haven’t changed that yet!” out of the staff. That is what happens when you are mayor for three terms – they forget how to handle the transitions. {*grin/2*}

After that, I stopped by mom’s on the way home to pick up a bunch of stuff from her freezer. I’d promised her I’d do so. That way she’d have space to clean one of her freezers. More to get things organized than cleaned – at least so it seems to me. In any case, my solo freezer is now full to the brim with all the additional stuff. I have even begun to suspect that there is creature living on the bottom of my freezer. It has been that long since I’ve seen the bottom. Probably won’t until summer gets here and then it is time to reload.

Today was wonderful since the temperature finally got above freezing for the first time in a bit and some of the snow started to melt. I keep my fingers crossed in hope that it will finally get rid of the sheets of glare ice covering the roads and parking lots. It would be nice to have that cleared away before the next snow storm wonders in. We’ll have to see. I still don’t think it will be warm on Christmas Day, but a man can hope.

The next hint for the job guessers: I was a founding board member of the organization and think I have actually mentioned it here on the blog once or twice.

Things Done Right