Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Weddings tomorrow?????????

OK, tomorrow is April 1, April Fool's Day. Just how many weddings will I have? I am thinking none. Yet I thought that on Halloween. Turns out that is a very busy day.

So how many will weddings will I do? Will I read a 300 page book tomorrow, or will I not open my book? Stay tuned. Check this blog out on Wednesday night. Remember this is Pacific Saving Time. So some of you may need to check back on Thursday morning.

American Idol

Well, how did you vote tonight? Did you vote lots of times? People I can't stand did well, some of the really good ones were so so. If Danny goes home and Scott stays I will start a riot! And Chris who we couldn't remember did real well. Matt was not good tonight, and Megan was just bad. Anoop was poor. Song choice, song choice. Lil was very good, Allison looked like a freak but sang well, and then there was ADAM. He is in a class by himself.

Adam, rocker, gay, cross dresser, so not part of flyover land. He is in your face different. He is fabulous! In spite of his rocker star stand out thing, he seems very humble. He honors the orchestra. He thanks people for supporting him. He listens to the criticism and improves himself. Every week we like him more.

I hope you voted for your favorites. Even if they aren't mine, vote. Don't let the teeny boppers take control of the world.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Weddings and more Weddings

Lots and lots of weddings today. I did at least 8 weddings, you know how I lose count. Most were so normal, so in love, so not weird. And the clerk from Hell was busy today.

We sold 37 licenses today and did 14 weddings. Four were done before I got there at 12:45. And then I did 8 and Mari did 2 in Spanish.

The weddings today were sweet, lovely, and they all were oh so in love. One couple just were so sweet and tender. When I pronounced them, they kissed and then they held each other. It was truly love. They were so tender, so in love, and not the get a room stuff. They just held each other and made everyone in the room envy them.

One wedding we did the license 3 times. Guess who was the clerk. You are correct, the clerk from Hell. ( CFH) I checked it over and saw she hadn't written unknown for father and his place of birth. She just put a dash, which the state will not accept. I took it to her and explained she had to spell it out. She looked at me and said, " They should tell us this stuff." This woman has been working the marriage desk since June. This is just basic stuff. Anyway she reprinted it. I had noticed the groom had changed his name, this happens but not often. After the wedding as we are resigning the license, the bride says, I am changing my name. Not Ricardo. Guess what CFH had put the groom, not the bride. So for the third time the license was printed. We got it right finally. The couple was very nice about all the corrections.

CFH had other mistakes on licenses. This woman is in so much trouble. All the staff wants her gone. And yet she showed a side today I had never seen.

As I was leaving she asked me to do one more wedding. She was going to American Sign it, and she asked me to read it. The bride, groom, and witness were all deaf. CFH said it was hard to sign and read the ceremony at the same time. So I put my stuff up and did the wedding. It was interesting to see CFH do something well. She smiled, she made the couple comfortable, she did this so well. In a year I have never her seem happy, comfortable, in control, to seem to care. I told her supervisor what a good job CFH did. And she confirmed CFH is excellent at American sign language. Now if we can just get that to carry over into the rest of her job.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Weddings in general

I know, too many posts again. I am stalling on cleaning house. Blogging is way more fun and not nearly as tiring.

I received an email a couple of days ago on my gmail account. I don't check that one 40 times a day as I do my Yahoo account. I checked this morning and I had an interesting letter. A woman in Louisville, where my family lives and we have lived twice wrote me. I have no idea who she is or how she found my blog. Is she a friend of my brother and his wife. A friend of a friend of mine. Does she know Mother and Papa Jack? Or did she just google weddings and I came up? Who knows?

Anyway she is working with the Courier Journal ( Louisville paper ) and springpad an Internet thing. They are working on a centralized spot for couples to plan their weddings. Vendors, shopping list, guest lists and on and on will be on this site. There will be a kick off event in Louisville on April 2, 2009. She asked me to post the invitation and so I am. The link doesn't work with a hyperlink so I am posting the whole nine yards.

http://www.springpadit.com/springpads/wedding_planner/DCBWeddingEvent.html )


So all of you in the Louisville area go check it out. And let me know how it goes. When the web site is up I will check it out. If it looks good and would be useful anywhere, I'll post it.

Hey maybe they will send me money for placing an ad. Hint, hint.

Wait there was some weird stuff Friday

Yesterday I said the couples were normal. And they were. But we did have a major weird, bad, crazy thing happen. Where they sell the marriage licenses is part of Vital Statistics for the county. They handle death certificates, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and they do other business. They handle passports, fictitious names for a business, they will swear in a Notary Public. And they may do lots more. I don't know. Some of this business is done on the Internet, by mail, and by fax.

Yesterday a lead clerk S. called a mail customer because there was no money included to process a birth certificate. She told the wife they need to send in the money and to have the application notarized. Then the husband took the phone and started yelling at S and accused her of stealing his money order and then started threatening her. He was going to come down to the office and he would take care of her. She wasn't going to get away with stealing his money. He would fix her good. The whole time S. is polite, and saying "Sir, are you threatening me? Are you threatening a government worker? Are you saying you are coming here to hurt me?" And he kept ranting. Now we are hearing S. talking and we are thinking how stupid is this guy? This is a mail order, she has his name, address, and phone number. She finally said, "Sir, we have deputy sheriffs here. If you come down and make a scene or try to hurt someone, they will take you straight to jail. I am going to give your name and phone number to the deputy and have him call you." And she hung up. When I left the higher ups were deciding whether to have the Alameda Sheriff''s department make a house call.

Again the guy was dumber than a red brick. He threatens her and she knows where he lives.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Friday Weddings

Today I subbed for friend Joe at the marriage factory. I was there from 8:30 until 1:30 when the next volunteer showed up. The clerk from Hell was a little better. All but one license were correct. But the the bad one was a doozy.

I looked at it. The bride and groom bought the license yesterday. They came back today with witnesses to add to the license and to get married. The couple had signed their names and put in today's date. Plus the groom had added something like retired marine. I couldn't make all of that out. I took it back to the clerk and said what is this? She says they were drunk and insisted on adding the dates and military stuff. I told her the state would not take a license dated there, especially with the wrong date. And they won't take anything besides their names. She just looked at me and then went back to what she was doing. This time I took it to the over all big time supervisor. The supervisor handled it. I have heard from several people the clerk from Hell is in trouble with every department she has worked in.

Now back to the fun part. Joe has said he never has the strange weird people I have. I think what he called me was a weird magnet. You know what, he may be right. All 9 couples were normal lovely people. What's the fun in that?

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The public is bonkers

The American public is freaking crazy. Last week on American Idol they voted off one of the best singers. And tonight, it was nearly as bad. They announced the bottom three: Michael as I predicted, Scott as I predicted, and Matt. . .wrong oh so wrong. Matt was fabulous on Wednesday. The judges loved him. I don't like him, he looks dirty to me. But the boy can sing, really sing. I give him credit for his talent. We even have voted for him, but I don't like him. If any of that makes sense.

Ryan asked the judges what they thought of the bottom three. And Simon said, Matt and Scott you are there because America doesn't like you. Lots of boos, but that is what it boils down to. Not the best singer usually, but does America like you? But that doesn't explain Adam. He is a rocker, a little edgy, and middle America has to not like him. But he is still there and in the upper part of the vote.

They put the bottom three together and then send back the third highest. We were sure it was Matt, even Michael pointed to Matt. No, it was boring, no personality, mediocre Scott who was safe. He is going to be the Sanjaya of this year. So we have Michael and Matt as the bottom two. Michael went home. Matt is safe to sing next week. I will miss Michael, he always was so happy, kind to the others, and mature. I really hope someone gives him a recording contract. He is good, just not great.

People vote for the ones you like. If you don't vote the teeny boppers have control. And you will have a cute average singer as the winner.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Followers

Just a quick word to my followers. I am thrilled you like me enough to be a follower. Thank you for signing up. But one of you I don't know who you are. Lisa with no picture. Are you Lisa M? Do I know you? If you don't want me to know, Ok. Or if just you don't want the world to know, send me an email. It is driving me crazy to find out who you are.

One special Follower, welcome back, Hoang. Vietnam's government is finally letting him access blogs again. For three months all blogs have been shut down.

Thank you for your support.

HAIR, WEDDINGS, IDOL

I hate to brag, but today I had a very GOOD HAIR DAY. I knew this going out today. I had a hair cut Tuesday. And today I left the house feeling good. When I leaned out the car window to get my parking ticket, two men standing by the machine said, "Lovely hair." Not good, not great, Lovely. A very special word. In the elevator later two men told me they loved my hair. And then several others told me how great my hair was. I may be a senior citizen, but I still have it from the neck up. Ladies, if you have white or grey hair, go pink or burgundy. Forget the boring blond. Men love pink and burgundy, all races, all ethnic groups.

The clerk from Hell was still making errors today. I didn't deal with her, I just gave the license to one of her supervisors and she handled it. I did a wedding today where I didn't know where to look. Clerk A brought me the license and said the bride almost has on a white dress. I went out to get them. OMG She is a lovely young woman, almost beautiful. But the dress, way too short and too tight. When she sat down the dress did not cover the sitting area. Cheeks hanging out. And the bust, way too tight and the girls were trying to escape, and they almost made it. If the dress had been just one size, well maybe two, bigger it would have been fine.

Tonight Marty and I watched American Idol. The theme was Motown. It is getting really tough to decide who to give your vote. They are all so very good. Even when they mess up they are better than Taylor Hicks who won a couple of years ago. The very very best tonight was Adam. He got rid of the black nail polish, combed his hair back, and wore a suit. He looked very Motown. And he was incredible. He blew everyone away. The judges couldn't say enough good things. Allison was wonderful also. Lil Rounds I thought did great, but the judges didn't think so. My lovely Michael did OK and that is just not good enough at this point.

I think Scott, Michael, and Megan will be in the bottom three. At least they should be. But from last week we know it boils down to how America votes. Tomorrow we will see.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Book group

Tonight my book group discussed a book set in the late 30's early 40's. It is by Craig Rice and is Home Sweet Homicide. This is a gentle murder mystery. Yeah I know gentle/murder. Doesn't seem to go together. Children solve the crime. This is a book that brought back memories for most of us. The children run through the neighborhood at night. They play, they go to the ice cream parlor, they have an innocence children today don't have.

Most of us are of a certain age: 50 to early 70's. I am from a mountain town in Kentucky, others from San Francisco, a small town in Indiana, and large cities on the East Coast. We talked about going to a soda fountain for shakes and ice cream cones, playing after dark and feeling safe, regional games and names for the games. We talked about different names for steps to the front door and the ball game associated with it. Stoop and Stoop ball. Stoop ball was a Northern name. I don't know what we called it in the South. But we threw a ball at the steps and got points for different bounces. Who knows what we called it. Nearly everyone hated dodge ball, I loved it. Most hated Red Rover, again I loved it. I must have been a violent little girl.

Some of us swung on grape vines over a creek. Others worked in the family business. We roller skated, rode bikes, played hopscotch. Much of what we did was similar while different. The main point was the innocence we had at that time. And we showed how old we are. At one point one or more of us said, "If we had talked to adults the way children today do. . ." We are educated; well read; have a huge amount of life experience; we are a group that lives in a very liberal area. And we are way deep down old fashioned people.

Monday, March 23, 2009

This will be long

First, don't hold your breath waiting for pix of the glass blowing. My shots were not close enough. And Marty is in the middle of doing taxes. Downloading pix for me is way down on the list.

Today I worked at school. I worked with two little boys and one little girl. We are learning pennies, nickles, and dimes. Money is a hard concept. They know how to count out pennies, but then they have to trade the pennies for nickles and then trade the nickles into dimes. And that stupid dime is smaller than everything, so they don't think it is worth as much. Yes, size does count to a first grader. I remember my older sister talking me out of my dimes for nickles by telling me since the nickles were bigger so I would have more. This was Saint Maryann who never did anything wrong. Well, she never got caught, I always got caught.

Back to school today. We counted pennies, then turned them into nickles. Then we counted by 5's and they were fine. I then put out 6 nickles and said how many dimes? 60, 1, 30, no clue. I had them match 2 nickles to every dime, no problem. Then again, 6 nickles, how many dimes? Bless their hearts, they either get it right off, or they don't. I asked the little girl how she had so many correct on the worksheet since she didn't understand what we were doing. " I copied them." An honest cheat. Gotta love them. I think they were beginning to get a glimmer of what we were talking about.

And this afternoon, weddings. I brought a long book today because I have been doing so few weddings. I have been finishing my books and have had nothing to do. Today I read for 30 minutes and then all hell broke loose. United Nations day at the marriage factory. We had Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Kahzastan (this may be misspelled, but spell check can't fix it ) Morocco, Ethiopia, Ghana, The Philippines, and some from Wisconsin and California. I did 8 weddings in a couple of hours. The Chinese decided they wanted a translator. The Russian groom translated for his bride from Kahzastan. She understood some English, just more comfortable in Russian. Everyone else had pretty good English.

The jewelery and some outfits today were exceptional. Big honking diamonds. One bride received a ring set with a stone at least 2 carats, and it had baguettes on each side. It was truly lovely. And trust me, I told them how gorgeous that ring was. Others made do with simple 1 carat stones. The couple from Ghana were in lovely outfits. He wore white slacks, shirt, and a large white shawl. She had on a 2 piece to the floor dress. It had beautiful embroidery work on the skirt. A lovely couple to look at.

Today was fun over all, in spite of the clerk from hell. We have one who doesn't pay attention to details. Under country she wrote Africa, and didn't see why it had to be changed. Then on the new license I found another error. And she told me she was going on break. This is while the couple has been sitting 20 minutes waiting on her to correct things. I got all huffy and grand lady and told her to fix it before break and to bring it upstairs. I then had to apologize to the waiting couple and I took in another couple to marry. It finally worked out and the couple were really nice about the wait. This clerk drives me crazy. She just doesn't care if things are correct and gives attitude when asked to correct the license. Rules don't seem to apply to her. But I think her comeuppance is coming. Others have had it with her and are keeping track of her errors.

I warned you, long. But it was a busy good day.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

If I had only known 20 minutes ago

Have you ever had something change your day? You plan your day and then the phone rings. And after the call you think, why didn't you call 20 minutes ago? Today I had such a call.

As I have said, on Saturdays I sleep late, putz around, and may or may not do some house work. And I don't dress until mid afternoon. Because I have been so sick, I am still dragging around everyday. Today I slept late, did some laundry, ran the sweeper and a dust mop. And I was exhausted. So I took a shower, I didn't wash my hair because we weren't going out tonight. And I just was too tired to fool with 30 minutes of hair care. I put on minimal makeup and had started to use the curling iron on the wayward bedhead. And then the phone rang.

Marty asked if I felt like going out to a fundraiser for a glass blowing non profit. It was in 5 hours. I of course said yes. I also told him, I wish you had called 20 minutes ago, before my shower. And then I went back into the bathroom, used the hand shower attachment and washed my hair bending over the tub. Of course the water messed up my makeup and I had to redo that. I looked presentable when he arrived home.

We went to Public Glass and saw demos by Paul DeSomma and another artist who did flame work. There was wine, beer, soft drinks and appetizers. For your entry fee you had your pick of blown glasses, goblets, pitchers, jars, or containers to drink out of. Many were really attractive, but some poorly made and dangerously sharp. Some were fairly well done. We took pictures, which may or may not be good. It is really hard to capture hot glass in a picture. Neither of us have downloaded our pix yet. Too late and too lazy. Tomorrow if they are any good I will post the pictures.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Weddings and Idol

Today was soooooo slow at the marriage factory. I sat from 12:45 until 3:40 without a couple. Then two couples finally showed. And they were so normal, there is nothing to write about. Sorry Noemi.

But tonight we watched the results of American Idol. There were some wrong people in the bottom three. Boring Scott should have been there. Adam ,who I adore, should have been there, he had to have offended everyone in the middle of the country. And my lovely Michael was there.

Michael is so wholesome, cute, and almost really good. He is the weakest link. But he has personality and that is part of being an Idol. He can't last much longer because the others are so much stronger. But he is in the top 10 so should get a recording contract out of this and get out of the oil fields.

Adam, who is an incredible singer, went weird last night. He sang a Johnny Cash song, Ring of Fire, with instruments from India. Not good, but well done. We were really surprised he wasn't in the bottom three. When Middle America heard him they had to have said WTF?

Scott is boring, a weak singer, and blind. And I think his handicap will keep him in longer than he should be. He has no personality, just is a lump. He really needs to show some emotion.

And the girl who went home, Alexis? She is a fabulous singer, entertainer, great looks, and great personality. But she had a bad night, and people didn't get out the vote for her.

And that is what it is all about, who got the vote. As we say in the South, "Vote early and vote often."

Monday, March 16, 2009

SCHOOL AND WEDDINGS

Today was almost a normal day. I worked at school this morning. The first time in two weeks. I did lots of paper work for Ms. H and I worked one on one with two little boys on handwriting and math. It felt good to be back. And it also really tired me out. I came home and rested a little and then took off for the County Building for the weddings.

It was a fairly slow day, only 4 weddings. One couple had bought food and the groom was much more interested in his lunch than the wedding. He was cramming his sandwich in his mouth when I picked them up, in the elevator, and even in the wedding room. He did put it down for the ceremony.

I called a couple's name and the bride walked up to me and said, "Can you do the ceremony here?" I said no and took them upstairs. She explained they were getting married in order to adopt. I did a down and dirty ceremony in about a minute and a half and they were done. The child is hers and her husband couldn't adopt him unless they were married. And there were other regulations that just seemed way too strict. But they went off happy and ready to begin the process of adoption.

And then there was the couple who were gigglers. Picture the bride and her mother in traditional silver saris. He was in a matching outfit. He had recently come here from India and his English was poor. She was a true American girl but of Indian heritage. When we did the vows they fell apart. He tried to pronounce the words in the vows, and they were funny. Her Mother started giggling and then the bride and groom started giggling and laughing. By the end of the ceremony we were all howling. The more he tried the worse it bacame. One of the most fun weddings I have ever done. They later came to one of the counters and asked for a copy of the ceremony. They wanted to see what they had laughed through. A very sweet fun couple.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Miss Riley

First a little background about my family. This is not to be seen as a downer, just factual. My family does cancer, we have no speciality. We do all kinds, lungs, breasts, skin, lymph glands, stomach, leukemia, liver, we do it all. And both sides of the family. Some times we beat it, sometimes not. But always the victim has been an adult. They have had a life of some sort. And then there was Miss Riley.

I was reminded what a miracle child she is this weekend. Her mother writes the blog Tomorrow is another day. Her March 13 post talks about Miss Riley. It is all about her 8Th birthday. It sounds like a great party and I wish I could have been there.

And Riley, as a fetus it was discovered she had cancer. How can an unborn have cancer? The good news, they found out before she was born. If it hadn't shown up on the sonogram, it wouldn't have been known until symptoms happened. And that would have been too late. Riley had incredible care, Churches around the country prayed for her for months and months, and she is fine.

Riley is the miracle child in our family. We are blessed to have her.

Friday, March 13, 2009

I'M BAAAACK

First thanks for the emails and comments checking on my health. I was so out of it, I wonder what I wrote back to some of you. I wasn't tracking real well for several days. A couple of days I didn't even go on the computer.

It has been an awful week. Lots of bad stomach problems, we won't discuss that. And lots of weakness. I would be up 10 minutes and sleep 4 hours. Some days I slept close to 20 hours. This was a mean nasty bug. How mean was it? I haven't had any chocolate since last Saturday afternoon. One really good thing from the great illness. . . weight reduction. A hard way to do it, but I figure I lost 5 to 10 pounds. With my weight problems, I take it anyway I can.

I hope that next week will be back to normal, school and weddings. I missed both.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Sorry no posts for a while

I have been very sick since the last post. Commode hugging, weak as a kitten sick. I will live, but for a while I didn't care. I have a few more days of getting back to normal. So check back. When I have something to say other than I feel awful, I'll start writing again.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Scattered Thoughts

I say scattered thoughts, because it is that kind of day. I have lots of different things to do, some related, some not. And things happened while I was out. So here goes.

I am preparing for a company dinner tonight. We invited the guests last night. At 10:00 PM we figured out a menu. I changed part of it at the grocery. Marty is blowing glass, so I am head chef and bottle washer.

This is Saturday, I don't dress until the afternoon. I don't make the bed period. I sleep until 9 or 10. By 10:30 I had dressed, read the paper, made the bed, and was off to run errands and go to Safeway. Not particularly thrilled to do this.

First I went to the library to pick up some books on hold. I pulled into a parking spot and the meter had failed. Oakland will still ticket you on broken meters. So I pulled out and started into the next spot. As I was pulling in, a man and a toddler on the loose started to get in the car to my left. I was moving and he let her run to the car and wait for him. And then she kept moving around. I sat there for a couple of minutes while he unlocked the car, put his books in, and finally he put the child in the car. This is a busy lot. I was not the only car pulling in or out. Some people shouldn't be allowed to have children.


At Safeway they had nice green beans, so the wild rice and asparagus plan was tossed. I got home about noon and grabbed a quick lunch. And then I started breaking beans. For non Southerners, we string them, break them, and cook them slow for a looooooooong time, with ham and bacon grease. It was a lot of beans and an hour later before they were ready to be seasoned and simmered. They are now doing their thing. Later I will throw potatoes in on top of them.


I have prepared a fresh fruit dessert, a shrimp salad, started my appetizers and I still have lots to do. But it is break time and I need to play on my computer.

Thoughts about Safeway. Why do people stop their carts in the middle of the aisle blocking both ways. OR stop across the aisle from another cart blocking everything. Why do idiot people ( men and women) leave their purses in the cart and wander off? Why do check out clerks seem to not like my reusable bags? They sell them. Maybe because I have everything in the bags on the conveyer belt.


I need to now set the table, find cocktail napkins and plates, and give the house a lick and a promise.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

I know, too many posts.

Yes, I am posting every 20 minutes. I am so happy to be able to post when I want to. So when I have a thought, no matter how trival, I am there today. I will calm down tomorrow, maybe.

Did you see Idol tonight? Oh my goodness, some of them were really good. And then there was Tatiana. She did sing well, she even looked fairly decent for her. But the judges said no. Of course she fell apart. She cried and like fools the judges consoled her. They told her she will be a recording star, to just hold on, yada yada yada.

I am sorry. So she was kicked off. So were 4 other people. The others smiled, they thanked the public and the judges, and they sat down. It was painfully embarrassing to watch Tatiana do her drama queen sh*t. She is crying with her hands over her face, except no tears. I loved when, I think it was Paula, said you will record and be an actress. Yes, she is an actress.

Thank goodness she is gone. Now on to the normal people.

Did I tell you we love Hell's Kitchen almost at much? Maybe that should be another blog.

AMERICAN IDOL

I confessed several weeks ago that Marty and I love American Idol. We Tivo it and watch it every night it is on. Sometimes it is hours after it shows when we get home. We watch. Which is three times a week right now. That might be a little much. We even vote for our favorites. Well Marty and I decide and he does the repeat dialing to get in to vote.

This week the final 12 are being picked. Nine have been picked by the public. And tonight they are bringing back 8 singers who the public rejected from the top 36. The four judges will pick three wild cards to make up the final 12. Wow that is a lot of numbers.

Anyway, the American public is enraged by one of the 8 picks. (are you keeping up non fans) Tatiana was selected. She is the drama queen, horrible laugher, bad dresser, whiner, crier; she has only one redeeming feature. As much as everyone dislikes her, she can sing. The blogs on AI are full of outrage toward Tatiana.

The bloggers want to know why Tatiana over Ju'not. He is a total package, sings, likable, personality, can talk and chew gum at the same time. There are a couple of other favorites people wanted back. At least it wasn't Nick/Norman. Non fans just don't even worry about this guy.

IT'S HERE! HAPPY DAY

I am no longer sharing a computer. I am writing this on my laptop. MINE, all fixed and working so well.

Now I can write at leisure, no hurrying, no guilt because Marty needs to work. MINE is back.

More later today.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

MORE GOOD NEWS

I am having such a good day. The computer arrived at THE OAKLAND AIRPORT at 3:00pm. Marty tracked it while I was at dinner. They flew it home. No long haul truck trip. I just might have it by late afternoon Thursday.

I am such a happy girl. And Marty, he is so thrilled he gets his computer back full time.

Keep your finger crossed that it all works when we put the hard drive back in. I can't even go there.

GOOD NEWS, GOOD NEWS, GOOD NEWS

Finally some good news in my world. The Dell hospital called a little while ago, my computer is coming home. It is on the truck headed from Texas to California. I, of course, am hoping it gets to go by air, but probably it won't.

By ground FED X took 7 days to get to the middle of Texas. I have done the drive in 33 hours. (I did have Marty helping to drive.) And we had a small child to entertain. So you would think a professional driver could make it in 4 days if they only drive 8 hours a shift. But 7 days? When weekends come, do they stop the truck and party all weekend at those huge truck stops in the dessert?

Just asking.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

FACEBOOK POLICE

I have decided I just don't understand Facebook. I thought I did. You ask people to be your friend; you take silly quizzes; you send virtual gifts. Some people post about their business if they are trying to network in a business world. You post your status every now and then. You become fans of people, businesses, causes. You comment on friends' Walls. And there are lots more fun and silly things to click on and to write about. Sounds fun, mindless and harmless.

I did most of the things above, except the business (I don't have one). Well the Facebook police , known as FBP from now on, have been active for the last couple of weeks. Articles after articles have been in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune about Facebook abuse. It looks like I am doing nearly everything wrong.

The FBP don't like collectors of friends, those who have hundreds and have never met them. I am OK there. They don't like people who send gifts, take quizzes, join causes, fans of everything ( I just have a few in that category), post their status more than every couple of days, or make lots of comments ( OK there also). FBP don't want you to brag even a little, write sad things, be perky, share your illness, share any emotions, or just share.

So what is the point if all of the above is wrong? Yes some do give TMI. Some will not stop throwing pillows, or giving gifts. But does anyone really take this seriously? It is a fun silly way to reach out to people you don't see often. I will control my throwing hemorrhoid pillows at family members and close friends. But loosen up Facebook Police.