Where's Noah When You Need Him?

 Rain rain go away come again some other day!

Preferably to a place where you're really needed. Day 5 of the rain, while the last 4 were on and off it's been pretty constant today with some pretty torrential downpours. At least there's only been one bad storm cell with 50 mph winds. Large sections of the garden are trashed, mulch is all over the yard and a lot of plants have been broken off, blown over or just plain washed out. The work never ends.

Getting around is getting to be more difficult because more and more roads are getting closed due to flooding, even some of the major routes have standing water on them. It's fun to come out of a curve at 40mph and slam into 9 or 10 inches of water on the road. Damn near gave me a heart attack!

My pool has overflowed, I already had to go out and open the drain plug on the filter pump so I could drain out a few hundred gallons just to get it down to it's maximum fill level.

Along with all of that mess, my absolute favorite thing has happened, my basement is flooding. I can hardly wait to stay up all night dealing with that then rowing my truck to work tomorrow!!

I hope your week is off to a better start than mine.

I'm baaa-aaaack! Woot!

I have a new computer now. This one works so it's way better than the compucorpse I just trashed. I guess technically this means that I'm back.

I guess now I'll have to resume writing stuff here. Great, now I'll have to be thinking again. Oh the pain, the agony!!
*convulsing while writhing around on the ground in pain*.

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week.

R.I.P. Computer

My computer has officially committed suicide. Something internal causes endless cascades of system failure error messages, if I can even get it to boot up at all. See ya eventually.

Gardening Time

Spring has sprung and my plants are growing like mad already. There's not been much to speak of in the way of flowers yet, but they're coming.

Since I seem to always be working in the yard or garden I figured I may as well show everyone some of what's in it. I'll try to keep the photos organized chronologically so you can see it as it progresses. There's a few in the Garden album now if you wanna see the real early stuff.

Just remember that I have an ancient relic of a digital camera, and the wind doesn't always cooperate and let everything stay still when I'm trying to photograph a plant. Bottom line .... some inevitable poor quality pictures. Send me a new 13 megapixel digital with 20x zoom and I'll be happy to take better ones. And a tripod too! Maybe some lights while you're at it. Some other lenses would be good too. Yep, I'm greedy.

Of course, this probably won't make a bit of sense since I copied this post here from another site and there are no photo albums here.

Yay, Excitement! zzzzz.......

Well, I just learned that you need to be really really really careful what you wish for sometimes. It's been kind of dead at work, normal for this time of year, and I was getting pretty bored and wishing something exciting would happen.

Well, it did. Our ceiling collapsed. There had been an ongoing plumbing leak on the floor above us which had been soaking the extremely old plaster ceiling over my head until it finally got so heavy and so soft that it just couldn't hold on any more. CRASH!! Fortunately there were no injuries and little damage to anything but the ceiling. It sure is one hell of a mess though, there's plaster dust everywhere.

On the bright side, my weekend just went to about a week long! I suppose most of that will be occupied with maid duties though, oh well. Add in a few small projects around the house and my long weekend just vanished. C'est la vie.

State of the Union Address

Did anybody watch the talking chimp's bs speech? What a crock! I managed to watch about 45 seconds of it then I got so irritated I had to turn it off. I really hope the world doesn't think that King George is an example of the typical American. Really, we're not all that stupid. What the Hell are nucular weapons anyway?

Here's how the State of the Union address should have gone. "My fellow Americans, I'm here tonight to tell you that you are fucked. Completely and hopelessly fucked for generations to come and it's all my fault but I don't care because my friends and I are getting oh so very rich. Screw you all, and goodnight."

How sad is it that impeachment isn't even worth considering? President Cheney? Umm no, I'd pick up an accent, learn to say "eh" and move way North. Molson isn't a bad beer, I could deal with it.

Let It Go

I got an odd e-mail today, well yesterday actually since it's now 3:42am, a mass forward that looked like the rantings of what seemed to be a combination of several different types of people all wrapped up in one. An illiterate, drunken Southern Baptist preacher who had authored cheesy self-help books and was filling in for Ann Landers or Dr Phil and had just done too many bong hits. That'd be a good way to describe it. After reading it several times and filtering out the nonsense I noticed that the meaning of it seemed to hold especially true in regard to internet based friendships. If I paraphrase, cut and paste, and throw in a bunch of my own words I think I can give you the idea behind what was said along with a shitload of my own rambling. Here goes:

"There are people who can walk away from you. When people can walk away from you, let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. People leave you because they are not joined to you and if they are not joined to you, you can't make them stay. If it takes too much sweat you don't need it. Stop begging people to stay. Let them go!! It doesn't mean that they are a bad person it just means that their part in the story is over. It's like that old 'Reason Season Lifetime' thing that went around forever ago. (google it ) You've got to know when someone's part in your story is over so that you don't keep trying to write a chapter that can never be finished."

I've got the gift of good-bye. I believe in good-bye. It's not that I'm hateful, it's that I can usually sense when someone's part in my life is over and understand what that means. There comes a time when you just have to let it go. I can do that. I don't always like when I do it, and tonight was one of those times. I may wonder if I did the right thing, was I too hasty, etc... but it's done. The goodbye was said even if it was not said literally. That's the second time in a week that I've felt I needed to do this, another goodbye in a long series of goodbyes that I thought would never be said. It's ironic that the very people whom you think are the ones that you'll never say goodbye to are invariably the ones you do say it to.

Internet friendships can be tough. They require (in my opinion) a few things that are not always easy to accomplish. Respect, not just for a person but for their thoughts, opinions, beliefs, lifestyle, etc... Just because you live or think differently doesn't mean they're stupid, wrong or anything else. Do what you have to do to be sure that a respect issue does not become a bigger issue, then let it go. If someone does something which offends you while trying to respect you and themselves at the same time, understand the big picture and let it go. Honesty is another big one. Not total, complete, unerring brutal honesty either, that's rubbish and it rarely if ever happens. Everybody tells little white lies. It's the big ones I'm talking about. Who or what you are, what someone else is to you, major changes in your life, these are important. If you can't be honest about those, you'll lose the third and probably most important requirement, Trust. Damaging this trust can take a long time and a lot of work to repair. Losing it altogether usually can not be repaired.

In no way am I claiming to be perfect here, I'm sure I've screwed up several times along the way. These are just observations, my opinion be it right or wrong. With that, I will end this ramble, it's taken an hour for me to put my thoughts into words, see what happens when I think?