Every time I think I’m getting a handle on the new job, I get reminded that I still have a ways to go…another project where I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I’ll figure it out, but it’s anxiety inducing in a big way.
Ugh, marketing crap — I always hated any time I had to help on a sales call. I felt like I had to parse every word that I said and pretend I didn’t hear anything the sales people were saying.
Yup. Don’t want to say too much, don’t want to get anything wrong on the science, don’t want them to ask me any hard questions, oh, and I’m still relatively new at the company, so I don’t know what they usually say during the boilerplate slide section, which will be partially my responsibility during the pitch due to my job title.
Add in the hassle of pitching a few hours away from home while breastfeeding, and you can imagine how delighted I am at the prospect.
since ‘presentations’ have always been a large part of my professional endeavors, l’ll give you a little tip,…always believe you know more than your audience about the subject at hand…or lacking the ability to do that, just pretend they’re all naked.
also, given you’re a newbie, a dry run at your home office is always advisable as well; especially if your cohorts can act as ‘the client’. it’ll give you an opportunity to respond to any questions that you might reasonably expect and increase your comfort level with the situational aspects. otherwise, resort to #1 or 2 above.
I know we’ll go through a few dry runs between now and the big day, and everything will be fine. My big trick is to think of Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice saying “it’s showtime!” as I walk in the door. It usually works out fine. 🙂
On a totally different note, I’m watching the McVeigh tapes. What a creep.
Yeah, they were probably kept busy thinking about how to keep bears from eating their horses, or if the rats in the barn were polishing off the last of the grain and its only January. I want my MTV;-)
I wouldn’t argue that people were happier, but that maybe they were a bit more grounded in what they knew.
And truth is that they probably did know how to deal with bears and mice, but they may have lacked the resources (fencing materials, mousetraps, etc.). Or rare events turned their usual methods topsy-turvy. Which is why old people were so important, they might have seen that anomaly before and have an idea about what did and didn’t work last time around. Now it’s more a matter of keep up or get run-over.
I was lucky enough to grow up around the end of that era here, when there were still some little subsistence farms around. Some of the farm kids and I were friends, so naturally I’d be there sometimes for dinner and to help my buddy with some of the chores.
Carrying a 50 pound lard bucket full of water a couple of hundred feet from the cistern to the kitchen wasn’t much fun. We carried it between us and the small wiry handles felt like they were cutting into our little hands, but they never really did.
Feeding the animals was a lot of fun, but getting eggs out from a broody hen was not, due to the pecks on the backs of hands & wrists.
A favorite, but rare occasion was being around when a new cistern was being dug using explosives. Woooeee – lots of fun there!
We had a good friend whose parents had a dairy farm and Jim and I would go help out when they needed a lot of hands for something. Putting up hay in summer has got to be the hottest, itchiest thing I’ve ever done … but boy that milk fresh from the cow was one magnificent reward.
great photo andi…the juxtaposition of the od and decaying against the rebirth exemplified by the spring/creek coming to life, and the new growth is very nice.
It reminds me of one of our favorite activities when we were kids. We would find something that resembled a little boat in our imaginations, a stick, whatever, and follow it down the creek to see where it would wind up. Its a lovely photo and a nice memory.
We didn’t have creeks where I lived, but we did the same thing when it rained by making little “boats” and following them down the street. Now, it just reminds me of the opening scene in Stephen King’s “It” where the Tim Curry clown is in the sewer…
We liked to let little paper boats float down into sewer openings and then see if we could use a string with a fishing hook to get them out — city street fishing.
I try to avoid putting anything in my yard that has a tendency to stray, unless of course it’s native an I don’t mind pulling up the ones in the wrong beds.
We have a West Australian native tree that was planted here and it’s a nightmare in terms of coming up everywhere. We pull up the little ones and chainsaw the others.
And speaking of non-natives, I recently bought a Grevillea to plant out front. They form large bushes with lots of nectar bearing flower that the birds love. This variety is from the mainland – who knew they came in tree form? Maybe the name Grevillea robusta should have been a clue. I figure it will take quite a while to get 100 feet tall, and I’ve found it a spot a bit further away from the house.
My, how your trees form such orderly rows. Our bush fits it’s name, bushy and bedraggled. Plus, nothing here loses its leaves, so no periods of sun lit openness.
You can tell just how solid the canopy there is by the lack of undergrowth. In areas where there are larger breaks, there’s are tons of scrubby things growing. If we could make money from greenbriers, we’d be filthy rich.
I don’t think I could live anywhere that didn’t have deciduous trees.
Great picture as always. I am sort of glad it is Wednesday myself. No appointments today and no errands to run unless I decide to go out. LOL I might just go play with the camera instead.
As you can tell, I am still learning my way around the camera. You can click on it foe more detail.
I hope everyone in the Frog Pond has been doing fine. I’ve still got half a ton of metal stapled to my leg. I was supposed to have all the staples taken out yesterday, but the doctor had emergency surgery and rescheduled with me. So I’ve got another week before they can be removed. I keep thinking I’ve got a paper clip remover, but, but, nah. 😉
I think the pine trees have given up most of their pollen. I’m glad to see there aren’t more yellow clouds drifting by the house. Now I’ve just got to break the garden hose out and try and get all the pollen off the car and everything else.
On the medical front, I finally saw the neurologist yesterday and got diagnosed with essential tremors. After consulting with a nurse from the pain clinic (where I’m also a patient) they’re going to up my dosage of anti-spasmodics and see if that helps.
In the mean time, just don’t ask me to thread a needle.
Me too. It’s quite the pharmacopoeia I’ve got at the moment.
I’ve got an appointment with the physio from the Pain Clinic next Tuesday, and then, starting next month, I get to attend weekly group sessions where they’re gonna train us to “deal” better, which is good, since I’m the type of person who benefits from structure.
Actually, a lot of what I’m getting from the Pain Clinic is I’d be better off if I learned to lower my expectations and start employing strategies to make the best of what I’ve got. Woo hoo! It’s hard not to be jazzed about that. Not.
Actually it’s a little better than that, like learning to pace myself, and trying to get some level of fitness back, and all the other long-slog crap that we all know we should be doing but rarely do.
I’ve always been so smug about being hale and hearty. Karma’s a bitch.
Very sorry to hear about your trouble. I hope you’ll be able to minimize the bad effects and perhaps someone in research will come up with better answers for you soon.
I’ve been going to a Pain Clinic for my back for a good while now. One thing they have me down for, of which I would have never thought of, is called –
You can do better than “keep[ing] up”; you can be cutting edge. Here’s a refrigerator that answers all your needs:
Magnetic cooling
The first successful permanent-magnet, room-temperature refrigerator is now operational at the Astronautics Corp. of America Technology Center in Madison, Wis.
The magnetic refrigerator cools without the use of ozone-depleting gases. Instead, it uses a material based on gadolinium, a metallic element that exhibits a large magnetocaloric effect (i.e. heats up when exposed to a magnetic field). The material is alternately magnetized and demagnetized by rotating a wheel containing the material through a magnetic field. The process is said to be much more efficient than typical vapor-cycle refrigeration. The heat-transfer fluid used in the prototype is water.
The refrigerator is both quiet and virtually vibration-free, due to the permanent-magnet motor. The unit is now being tested and optimized to achieve larger temperature swings, and is being tailored to provide cooling power required for specific markets, such as home refrigerators, air conditioning, electronics cooling and fluid chilling.
(Get all your nerdy knowledge freely distributed here.)
I guess it’s like they always say, “Everything has a price.” Now I’ve got to figure out how much I’d be willing to endure and be paid to become someone’s personal stapler. 😉
I wish you hadn’t used “personal” and “stapler” together.
In doing so you’ve made me remember a story about a guy who was leaning into some vibrating machinery for personal gratification purposes. When parts of his anatomy got torn by moving parts of the machine he then used a power stapler to hold the flesh together until he could get to the hospital.
I’m not sure if that got a Darwin honorable mention or not, but that might have been the source.
There’s lots more actually. The fish ones came from when Imogen worked for the National Oceans Office, and the wetlands one came from when she worked as the State facilitator for fresh water issues. We have an equally good collection of canvas shopping bags.
I’m not sure where the pink fish lives, but the Leafy sea dragons are found locally.
CG I don’t know how long they can leave the staples in, but my brother said when he had them the doctor didn’t take them out for a month and a half. 🙁
Keres I wish I hadn’t had used the words together too. The guy with the personal gratification purposes and the power stapler hurts just to think about it. Another 🙁
ID I like those refrigerator magnets. Maybe I could get them to stick on the outside of my jeans and say it’s magic. 🙂
Jim the Madonna and child are really goo, but I think the Seahorse edged it out for me.
Hey Andi I would be proud to wear it. Heck I would be proud to just see it. 🙂
I hope everyone is doing fine today and take care.
You can come up to my house and look at ID’s magnet on my fridge any time. I’d say you could wear it too but I’d rather your staples get taken out right away.
It was from a whole series that used 50’s images of women, distinguished by their use of line drawings with benday dot coloration, with up-dated text- and thought-bubbles. I’m pretty sure I’ve had that particular one at least 20 years.
Okay, I confess — the Hoosier Pass photo isn’t in Brown County. Jim and I took a photo there years ago (it’s in Colorado) to give to my mom so my mom and sister thought it would be fun to give one back to us.
Pete has been cleaning our chimney for about 25 years — we quickly realized that what he charged was nothing compared to the pleasure of getting rid of the scariest job in the house.
As for the bearded guy, he’s still gray-haired, not white … a testament to his bravery. 😉
We’re were pretty good at getting clean but we weren’t very good about liking being on the top of a 12-12 pitch roof. I think Pete must be just about fearless.
That break was nice but it sure wasn’t long enough.
This is Ben 15 years ago when we lived in Bailey Co. He’s holding a big white plastic bowl behind his back, and shaking the aspen tree. The goal was, of course, to dislodge a bird and have it fall into the bowl where he would capture it and keep it for a pet. An ingenious plan for a 5 year old.
I actually cleaned this off a few weeks ago. It was much much worse.
So, how did that work out for Ben? Did he ever get his birdy? If not may I suggest the more conventional pet shop route. I was very fond of my Grey-cheeked pocket-parrot.
Oh, he’s always had pets. The domestic kind and things he would capture outside and keep for a few days. The best was a spider colony that he kept in a clear plastic tube that a bunch of army guys came in. Stag beetles that he tried to teach how to fight but just ended up pinching him. I miss little boys instead of these tall, bearded, tattooed men I have now. They’re still adorable, of course, but they don’t smell as good. And they definitely don’t think I hung the moon anymore.
Great photo and Ben story! For myself, I feel more comfy in the midst of clutter. Every couple of years I go through everything on and around my desk at home and get rid of all the crap I finally realize I’m never going to need for anything again. Never discard a photo, though.
Seems like every time I post at dkos there’s some smartypants/know-it-all/obnoxious person that comes along within seconds in response. Maybe I’ll just stay in the cafe for a while. Sigh.
Hah. A testament to the old g3 ibook that it still works, and those bozos totally miss the point with their need to be on the cutting edge of everything and let everyone else know that they’re woefully out of date, even if that wasn’t the point. Sigh.
Every time I think I’m getting a handle on the new job, I get reminded that I still have a ways to go…another project where I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I’ll figure it out, but it’s anxiety inducing in a big way.
How was everyone else’s Monday?
Yep, it’s the curse of the modern world – the rapid changes in technology and methodologies mean we’re constantly behind on the learning curve.
It wasn’t much over a hundred years ago that you only saw completely new things a few times in your whole life.
I bet people were much happier back then. :/
I like learning about new stuff, but I’m not so crazy about pitching for new business. I haven’t done enough of it to feel comfortable doing it.
And of course, there’s the fact that I’d rather be playing with my Finny than working…
Ugh, marketing crap — I always hated any time I had to help on a sales call. I felt like I had to parse every word that I said and pretend I didn’t hear anything the sales people were saying.
Yup. Don’t want to say too much, don’t want to get anything wrong on the science, don’t want them to ask me any hard questions, oh, and I’m still relatively new at the company, so I don’t know what they usually say during the boilerplate slide section, which will be partially my responsibility during the pitch due to my job title.
Add in the hassle of pitching a few hours away from home while breastfeeding, and you can imagine how delighted I am at the prospect.
since ‘presentations’ have always been a large part of my professional endeavors, l’ll give you a little tip,…always believe you know more than your audience about the subject at hand…or lacking the ability to do that, just pretend they’re all naked.
also, given you’re a newbie, a dry run at your home office is always advisable as well; especially if your cohorts can act as ‘the client’. it’ll give you an opportunity to respond to any questions that you might reasonably expect and increase your comfort level with the situational aspects. otherwise, resort to #1 or 2 above.
good luck.
Good advice. Thanks!
I know we’ll go through a few dry runs between now and the big day, and everything will be fine. My big trick is to think of Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice saying “it’s showtime!” as I walk in the door. It usually works out fine. 🙂
On a totally different note, I’m watching the McVeigh tapes. What a creep.
I am watching the tapes too, wanted to change the channel, but I am riveted. Just happened to see your comment, so hi CG.
“I bet people were much happier back then.”
Yeah, they were probably kept busy thinking about how to keep bears from eating their horses, or if the rats in the barn were polishing off the last of the grain and its only January. I want my MTV;-)
Kidding aside, I hope all goes well!
I wouldn’t argue that people were happier, but that maybe they were a bit more grounded in what they knew.
And truth is that they probably did know how to deal with bears and mice, but they may have lacked the resources (fencing materials, mousetraps, etc.). Or rare events turned their usual methods topsy-turvy. Which is why old people were so important, they might have seen that anomaly before and have an idea about what did and didn’t work last time around. Now it’s more a matter of keep up or get run-over.
Anyway, it was different.
I was lucky enough to grow up around the end of that era here, when there were still some little subsistence farms around. Some of the farm kids and I were friends, so naturally I’d be there sometimes for dinner and to help my buddy with some of the chores.
Carrying a 50 pound lard bucket full of water a couple of hundred feet from the cistern to the kitchen wasn’t much fun. We carried it between us and the small wiry handles felt like they were cutting into our little hands, but they never really did.
Feeding the animals was a lot of fun, but getting eggs out from a broody hen was not, due to the pecks on the backs of hands & wrists.
A favorite, but rare occasion was being around when a new cistern was being dug using explosives. Woooeee – lots of fun there!
We had a good friend whose parents had a dairy farm and Jim and I would go help out when they needed a lot of hands for something. Putting up hay in summer has got to be the hottest, itchiest thing I’ve ever done … but boy that milk fresh from the cow was one magnificent reward.
great photo andi…the juxtaposition of the od and decaying against the rebirth exemplified by the spring/creek coming to life, and the new growth is very nice.
kudos.
ps: like the deep dof too.
It’s just an amazing photo.
Wow, thanks for the wonderful compliment, dada.
It reminds me of one of our favorite activities when we were kids. We would find something that resembled a little boat in our imaginations, a stick, whatever, and follow it down the creek to see where it would wind up. Its a lovely photo and a nice memory.
I’m glad to have provided the stimulus (I’m no Republican!).
Though I have to admit that part of the creek is much has so many rocks and usually much less water than nothing would float very far.
We didn’t have creeks where I lived, but we did the same thing when it rained by making little “boats” and following them down the street. Now, it just reminds me of the opening scene in Stephen King’s “It” where the Tim Curry clown is in the sewer…
We liked to let little paper boats float down into sewer openings and then see if we could use a string with a fishing hook to get them out — city street fishing.
A beautiful day here, although a little on the chilly side. Everyone’s allergies are going full bore. Woo-hoo!
Finn is being his usual happy camper self this morning, and it makes it so hard to leave the house.
Hi CG! Mid 40s here but I’m told we’ll see 70 later on. They are adorable at that age. Then they grow up. Sigh.
Morning all!! was in the high 50’s when I woke up but will be in the mid 70’s later.
I hope you are also video taping Finn so you can embarrass him later in life. LOL
My mom still thinks I am wonderful but I think it is mainly because she lives on the East coast and I am in Texas. LOL
Don’t tell the teenagers, but I still think they’re wonderful…
..when they’re sleeping. 🙂
Yep. I’m trying to remember how quickly it goes by and just enjoy it.
Remember the blue mystery flowers in Andi’s FFF photo last week? Mrs. ID’s office manager (and resident flower expert) clued me in on what they are.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thanks to the flower expert, too. I hate not knowing what a plant is.
The flower expert says you can move them, but they don’t always stay where you put them.
I try to avoid putting anything in my yard that has a tendency to stray, unless of course it’s native an I don’t mind pulling up the ones in the wrong beds.
We have a West Australian native tree that was planted here and it’s a nightmare in terms of coming up everywhere. We pull up the little ones and chainsaw the others.
And speaking of non-natives, I recently bought a Grevillea to plant out front. They form large bushes with lots of nectar bearing flower that the birds love. This variety is from the mainland – who knew they came in tree form? Maybe the name Grevillea robusta should have been a clue. I figure it will take quite a while to get 100 feet tall, and I’ve found it a spot a bit further away from the house.
I think I’ll just leave ’em where they are and see how much traveling they do on their own.
click for larger
My, how your trees form such orderly rows. Our bush fits it’s name, bushy and bedraggled. Plus, nothing here loses its leaves, so no periods of sun lit openness.
You can tell just how solid the canopy there is by the lack of undergrowth. In areas where there are larger breaks, there’s are tons of scrubby things growing. If we could make money from greenbriers, we’d be filthy rich.
I don’t think I could live anywhere that didn’t have deciduous trees.
I tried living somewhere without deciduous trees…fail.
Is that picture from yesterday? If so, I think we’re ahead of you greenery-wise. Which is odd.
Yay, it’s hump day. Too bad CBtY is sick enough that I need to make a doctor’s appt for him this afternoon.
Sorry CBtY is sick. Hope he feels better soon and that your day is not too stressful.
I hope that he’s feeling better soon.
Nope, the picture was from the 13th so we’re probably about the same place — the oaks and beeches are coming on now.
Poor CBtY. I hope he feels better soon.
Great picture as always. I am sort of glad it is Wednesday myself. No appointments today and no errands to run unless I decide to go out. LOL I might just go play with the camera instead.
As you can tell, I am still learning my way around the camera. You can click on it foe more detail.
You seem to be coming along quite nicely. Have you started playing with aperture and shutter priority modes yet?
Good morning everyone.
I hope everyone in the Frog Pond has been doing fine. I’ve still got half a ton of metal stapled to my leg. I was supposed to have all the staples taken out yesterday, but the doctor had emergency surgery and rescheduled with me. So I’ve got another week before they can be removed. I keep thinking I’ve got a paper clip remover, but, but, nah. 😉
I think the pine trees have given up most of their pollen. I’m glad to see there aren’t more yellow clouds drifting by the house. Now I’ve just got to break the garden hose out and try and get all the pollen off the car and everything else.
So now you’ve got another week to try experiments to see how strong a magnet it would take to stick you to a refrigerator. 🙂
Just avoid the Hadron Collider and any MRI machines and you’ll be fine.
You’re always an excellent source of good advice. 😉
Good, but rarely useful.
On the medical front, I finally saw the neurologist yesterday and got diagnosed with essential tremors. After consulting with a nurse from the pain clinic (where I’m also a patient) they’re going to up my dosage of anti-spasmodics and see if that helps.
In the mean time, just don’t ask me to thread a needle.
I’m so sorry keres. I hope the medication helps.
Me too. It’s quite the pharmacopoeia I’ve got at the moment.
I’ve got an appointment with the physio from the Pain Clinic next Tuesday, and then, starting next month, I get to attend weekly group sessions where they’re gonna train us to “deal” better, which is good, since I’m the type of person who benefits from structure.
I’m sorry you’re going through this, and I hope that whatever they’re giving you helps.
Actually, a lot of what I’m getting from the Pain Clinic is I’d be better off if I learned to lower my expectations and start employing strategies to make the best of what I’ve got. Woo hoo! It’s hard not to be jazzed about that. Not.
Actually it’s a little better than that, like learning to pace myself, and trying to get some level of fitness back, and all the other long-slog crap that we all know we should be doing but rarely do.
I’ve always been so smug about being hale and hearty. Karma’s a bitch.
Very sorry to hear about your trouble. I hope you’ll be able to minimize the bad effects and perhaps someone in research will come up with better answers for you soon.
Hiya Keres,
I’ve been going to a Pain Clinic for my back for a good while now. One thing they have me down for, of which I would have never thought of, is called –
Deconditioning
All these years I’ve been thinking I was slackerly and reality it was Deconditioning. Go figure.
Hope you get to feeling better.
Hi Keres,
Peter Parker got bitten by a spider and he becomes Spiderman. It would seem to me that having to endure 85 staples I should get something. 😉
A really cool set of scars?
Sorry about the lack of superpowers. My advise is to go see “Kick Ass”. It will make you feel better about being an “average” guy.
Morning Andi
Since I’ve gained some weight, it might work better the other way around. See how many magnets it would take to stick a refrigerator to me. 🙂 Hah!
Ha! I can totally see you dragging around an old ice box from your leg.
Morning SN,
Yep just me and my old ice box. But nah, I’d have to go with a small electric fridge. Gotta keep up with the times. 🙂
You can do better than “keep[ing] up”; you can be cutting edge. Here’s a refrigerator that answers all your needs:
(Get all your nerdy knowledge freely distributed here.)
Hay FM! I’d avoid office supply stores for the time being.
Morning Boran
I guess it’s like they always say, “Everything has a price.” Now I’ve got to figure out how much I’d be willing to endure and be paid to become someone’s personal stapler. 😉
I wish you hadn’t used “personal” and “stapler” together.
In doing so you’ve made me remember a story about a guy who was leaning into some vibrating machinery for personal gratification purposes. When parts of his anatomy got torn by moving parts of the machine he then used a power stapler to hold the flesh together until he could get to the hospital.
I’m not sure if that got a Darwin honorable mention or not, but that might have been the source.
Yuck! How long can they leave those things in there?
I hope you get them out soon. And yeah, you should stay away from magnets and hadron colliders and such. 🙂
We could all send Family Man a refrigerator magnet to stick on. It might start a new craze in punk circles.
I could send these to you to pass along.
Not only would he look tres kool, but he’d be down with the Global as well.
Wow, you have a superlative collection. I love the pink fish one.
There’s lots more actually. The fish ones came from when Imogen worked for the National Oceans Office, and the wetlands one came from when she worked as the State facilitator for fresh water issues. We have an equally good collection of canvas shopping bags.
I’m not sure where the pink fish lives, but the Leafy sea dragons are found locally.
Those leafy sea dragons are so cool! They had them at the Baltimore Aquarium a few years ago.
And just think, Finn gives us a reason to go all over again. 🙂
Madonna and child is my fav.
Me too.
We got two of those with our orangutan “adoptions” last Christmas. And bumper stickers as well.
I still have one from your running for assessor. I think he’s be proud to wear that. 🙂
Click here for this week’s theme of Quiet.
Sounds like a good topic.
CG I don’t know how long they can leave the staples in, but my brother said when he had them the doctor didn’t take them out for a month and a half. 🙁
Keres I wish I hadn’t had used the words together too. The guy with the personal gratification purposes and the power stapler hurts just to think about it. Another 🙁
ID I like those refrigerator magnets. Maybe I could get them to stick on the outside of my jeans and say it’s magic. 🙂
Jim the Madonna and child are really goo, but I think the Seahorse edged it out for me.
Hey Andi I would be proud to wear it. Heck I would be proud to just see it. 🙂
I hope everyone is doing fine today and take care.
FM
You can come up to my house and look at ID’s magnet on my fridge any time. I’d say you could wear it too but I’d rather your staples get taken out right away.
As much as I like ID, I would have to agree with you on getting the staples taken out right away. 😉
Now don’t be too hasty, Family Man. You haven’t seen our tres chic refrigerator magnet collection yet;-)
But I’m shocked that your refrigerator is missing the critical magnet, oh mighty assessor!
Note: Name blurred to protect politicians from rampaging taxpapyers.
click for larger
P.S. I hope you like the other fine Indiana magnets you’re keeping company with.
You nearly had me with the Hoosier Pass photo. I don’t recall the name and I was pretty sure we didn’t have any 11K+ elevations in Indiana;-)
Pete The Sweep is an old friend from the late 70s and a darned good sweep, from what I hear.
Does the handsome guy with the beard still look the same after his Bradford Woods trauma?
My assessor magnet is around the left side, along with the magnetic note pad for stuff needed from Bear Hardware.
If we’re doing in situ displays now, here’s ours.
My favorites are this group by Alison Bechdel.
Imogen’s favorite:
Mrs. ID will chortle when she sees this one.
It was from a whole series that used 50’s images of women, distinguished by their use of line drawings with benday dot coloration, with up-dated text- and thought-bubbles. I’m pretty sure I’ve had that particular one at least 20 years.
Alison Bechdel was supposed to be a link. Obviously I got my coding wrong.
She’s a regular contributor to Funny Times, where we see her work just about every month.
Okay, I confess — the Hoosier Pass photo isn’t in Brown County. Jim and I took a photo there years ago (it’s in Colorado) to give to my mom so my mom and sister thought it would be fun to give one back to us.
Pete has been cleaning our chimney for about 25 years — we quickly realized that what he charged was nothing compared to the pleasure of getting rid of the scariest job in the house.
As for the bearded guy, he’s still gray-haired, not white … a testament to his bravery. 😉
“we quickly realized that what he charged was nothing compared to the pleasure of getting rid of the scariest job in the house.”
Not to mention the even scarier prospect of a flue fire. I’ve seen some that resemble mini-volcanoes.
Good morning, BTW, looks like we have at least a momentary break in the weekend downpour.
We’re were pretty good at getting clean but we weren’t very good about liking being on the top of a 12-12 pitch roof. I think Pete must be just about fearless.
That break was nice but it sure wasn’t long enough.
This is Ben 15 years ago when we lived in Bailey Co. He’s holding a big white plastic bowl behind his back, and shaking the aspen tree. The goal was, of course, to dislodge a bird and have it fall into the bowl where he would capture it and keep it for a pet. An ingenious plan for a 5 year old.
I actually cleaned this off a few weeks ago. It was much much worse.
That story and picture of Ben is just priceless.
I’ll have to clean my fridge off before I can post a picture.
So, how did that work out for Ben? Did he ever get his birdy? If not may I suggest the more conventional pet shop route. I was very fond of my Grey-cheeked pocket-parrot.
Oh, he’s always had pets. The domestic kind and things he would capture outside and keep for a few days. The best was a spider colony that he kept in a clear plastic tube that a bunch of army guys came in. Stag beetles that he tried to teach how to fight but just ended up pinching him. I miss little boys instead of these tall, bearded, tattooed men I have now. They’re still adorable, of course, but they don’t smell as good. And they definitely don’t think I hung the moon anymore.
“And they definitely don’t think I hung the moon anymore.”
Aw, you might be surprised. They’re probably just being big & tough on the outside. I’m an old geezer now, but I still think of my mom that way.
Great photo and Ben story! For myself, I feel more comfy in the midst of clutter. Every couple of years I go through everything on and around my desk at home and get rid of all the crap I finally realize I’m never going to need for anything again. Never discard a photo, though.
Our fridge looks similar. Great story.
Seems like every time I post at dkos there’s some smartypants/know-it-all/obnoxious person that comes along within seconds in response. Maybe I’ll just stay in the cafe for a while. Sigh.
Hah. A testament to the old g3 ibook that it still works, and those bozos totally miss the point with their need to be on the cutting edge of everything and let everyone else know that they’re woefully out of date, even if that wasn’t the point. Sigh.
I rarely read comments over there any more.
How was your weekend otherwise?
Pretty good. I got to spend lots of time with the b2 boy yesterday. Did Finn enjoy watching the Yankee game with his dad?
Yeah, until he fell asleep. 🙂