True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

Christy took the kids to church and I went to the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Newhall. The batteries went dead in the digital camera so I had to use the Mechanical one, I am really spoiled by the digital camera, it will take days to see if the pictures came out now… I get all my pictures developed overnight as 5X7’s at CostCo. The only cost about a buck more and they are much more pleasing to look at…

I had volunteered to help out there so I checked in, being a volunteer gave me a free ticket to the grounds, I had a purple badge that let me in anywhere… cool…. The kid at the desk where you are supposed to check in couldn’t find me anywhere in their records so I just wandered around taking pictures… I managed to resist buying anything but it was hard to do. They had a lot of premium stuff there. I was impressed by just about everything that they had on sale from the music to the art, what really got me was the quality of the clothing for sale, apparently the number of people who like to dress up in period costumes and relive the 1800’s is large enough to justify people going into business to keep the outfitted. These people go first class, their “costumes” are authentic down to the button down fly’s on their trousers. There were dressmakers making dresses from actual patterns from the 1850’s, tailors making Mourning Coats fancy tailored trousers, fancy western shirts, and anything else the “re-enactors” wanted, and they were buying stuff off the racks too…

Most everybody was dressed in some sort of western gear but about 200 of them were dressed to the nines… (What does that mean) … there must have been 50 guys dressed like Wild Bill Hickok or Doc Holliday (Couldn’t tell which and I didn’t want to embarrass them by asking) there were guys dressed like Custer’s Calvary, Buffalo Bill, Roy Rodgers, John Wayne, Hopalong Cassidy, even two guys dressed like The Cisco Kid and Pancho. I talked to one guy who was dressed in a Union Uniform that I didn’t recognize, and no wonder, he was dressed as one of the Fort Tejon Dragoons it was a 100% replica of the actual uniform worn by General Beal’s Dragoons in 1853… to be precise. He even talked to me as though it were the 1850’s… until we started talking about the internet… There were lots of dance hall girls and some others dressed in Paris gowns from before the turn of the century. There were several hat makers but one was really impressive, he had “Automatic hat sizing machines” from the 1880’s and all sorts of paraphernalia from over a hundred and 25 years ago, and it all still works and according to a guy that bought a hat there last year, they made him the first hat he has ever owned that really fit, “worth every bit of the $275.00 he paid for it.” Damn… I almost bought a “Shady Brady” they are virtually indestructible straw hats… had one a long time ago, it lasted me for about 8 years, one of the dogs finally chewed it up. but I gritted my teeth and walked on.

I met Tony Natoli and his wife Sharon… or is it Sharon Natoli and her husband Tony… I get confused… anyway…I talked to them a bit, I thanked Tony for hooking me up with this show and helping me get volunteered… I had been there since about 0930 and had just about seen it all… twice… so I left them to wander about…

I had left my phone in the truck so I took the bus back to the parking lot and called Christy… She had had an interesting day, in the way back from church the red light came on in the Bucking Fuick warning of engine trouble, she pulled off the freeway and parked it. She called our friend Ned and he came to pick them up… he said that the drain plug had come out and all the oil leaked out… I went back to the festival and told Tony I was going home… I stopped a Kragen Auto Parts and bought a new drain plug, some oil and a cheap tool kit… and drove over to the car… I got there and discovered that the truck I bought had had the jack ripped off, and I didn’t have the keys to the Buick so I went home and got a jack and the keys, I went back down to the car, jacked it up and looked at the underside… the drain plug was in, I looked and looked and just as I was about to give up and call AAA I looked at the oil filter from the correct angle and saw it was on crooked, I took it off and tried to put it on and it wouldn’t screw on, I called Acton Auto and had them pull one off the shelf and got there just as they was closing, he checked it against the one I pulled off the Buick and the threaded hole was a fraction of an inch too big, the experts down at the Lube Shop had put on the wrong filter…

Christy said Autumn had a seizure at church, it lasted quite a while and was one of the bad ones involving the whole right side of her body…

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

Got to get the house cleaned up… I used to think we needed a larger house but I suspect that if we had a bigger house we would just have a bigger mess.

Lumpy went up to the broken house and fell down a hill… he skinned up the back of his right side… kid is going to look as scared up as the Frankenstein Monster before he’s out of grade school… I took pictures for posterity, but they are too grizzly to put here…(kidding)

I took Calie and Mokie to WalMart to get inflating needles for her soccer ball, Calie is all jazzed to play soccer and so is DaMoke. One of the coaches of Desert Winds Soccer League is affiliated with the school and he has “scouted” Calie for his team, Calie is outside practicing kicking the ball… she is so adorable…

I’m starting to psyche myself up for the shoulder surgery… I’m a little nervous now, I have even told myself “It’s not so bad, I can live with it, maybe I ought to call it off…”… then I pick up Autumn and realize I need to get it done… Surgery is on the 4^th, I will be out of commission for a few days I guess, then back to the grind…with one arm taped to my side…

Still psyching myself up for the operation… I got Autumn to therapy, apparently the seizure has affected her more than I thought, she wouldn’t walk on her own at all and she seems pretty weak on her right side…

While I was at Therapy West waiting for Autumn to finish, I got a call from Christy, in tears, her friend had called her and said that her husband said that her kids can’t play with our kids, Christy asked “Why” and she said “Because of what Pete put on the Internet” Christy had read my Journal so she asked “What did he say?” She said “Just read it you’ll see” Christy said “I did read it, what are you talking about” She said “Well he put pictures of your kids on the Internet!” Christy said “So…? They are our kids, and they are adopted… “Not "B"!” she said (Thinking "B" was a Foster Child, it’s illegal to put the picture of a Foster Kid on the net, or anywhere else) Christy said “"B" is a Legal Guardianship child, there are no restrictions” She said “Well, now that he’s read your husbands page he knows things about your kids I didn’t want him to know…”

So, screw it, I took the page down, I will put it up later at another address…

…Christy’s folks arrived on time and she and I drove to the hospital to get checked in at about 0930. The operation started at about 11:15 lasted about 2 hours, I was up in my room by about 15:00. The student nurse that was dealing with me used to work with Christy when she was at High Desert Medical. The actual nurse was competent enough I guess but she had 13 patients to care for and some were pretty demanding. I was hooked to an IV and a blood pressure machine, at one point I needed to use the “facility”, they had not left a receptacle for me to utilize. I pushed the button to call the nurse and waited about 20 minutes, nada, and the need to get to the bathroom had become an urgent, pressing matter. I tried to move the blood pressure machine out of the way but the cord was too short, I managed to reach behind the bed and lift the cord over the bed, that provided enough slack to allow me to move it out of the way. I managed to untangle the IV and made it to the bathroom on time. I made it back to bed and was lying there in bed when the nurse finally came in to turn off the paging light. She was very nice to me after that, brought me lots of Jello and custard… the next nurse came on at about 2000 and I talked her into removing the IV. I thought I would sleep better without it in me… silly me.

…I did not sleep very much at all, they took my blood pressure every two hours, and took my temperature. There were two ladies across the hall that were talking as loud as they could, one was hard of hearing I think. They were at it till after one in the morning. I would get up and shut the door and a nurse would come in and leave the door open and leave the lights on… hospital workers are pretty insensitive to the patients comforts, it’s as though patients are really just a bother. The crowning event of the evening was being awakened at 0445 by a very pretty young Hispanic girl who felt that I needed to be informed that she was affixing new paper trash bags to my tray.

Christy had to teach in the morning but she got to the hospital about 15 minutes after her class ended and we left for home at about 1300. We had to stop at Kaiser to get my pain pills first, we got Christy a bit to eat and got home about 1445, Grandpa was just leaving to get the kids.

…Pain today was the worst it has been since the operation but not intolerable, I am a bit surprised at how relatively pain-free this process has been, I am glad for the Vicodin though.

I have noted that my ability to write coherently is inversely dependant on how much time has passed since my last dose of Vicodin.

…Went to Don Cuco’s by myself, the food was good but the company was uninspiring, I hate eating alone.

…I had the kids, except for Cindy and Autumn, we went to breakfast and got the mail… then I took a nap… I tried to work on this and do some e-mail but the discomfort in my shoulder makes it hard to sit still, if I take a pain pill I can’t concentrate… rock and a hard place… damn.

To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.

…Today is the Bridal Shower for Debbie, Jeff’s Fiancé… , it was in Camarillo, about an hour south and west of here. So I had the kids again… they were pretty good. About the time Christy had to leave I noticed water running down the driveway, actually I was on my way to see if there was something wrong with the pump because there seemed to be a lot of air in the lines. I sent Christy on her way, called a plumber and started digging with one hand, lifting the shovel with my foot, it was pretty creative of me, hard to describe but it worked, Lumpy, Moke and Calie came out to help dig. We finally got down to the main line and it was leaking right in the middle of a joint. Who ever put it in put too much of a bend in the pipe and the stress fractured the joint. With my arm screwed up there was no way I was going to fix it so I waited for the plumber… Are all plumbers greedy little crooks or just the ones here in the Antelope Valley, he charged $90.00 to put on a rubber sleeve and 4 hose clamps. He will be back Monday morning to do the job right… for $160.00…

The Bridal Shower was poorly attended but it appears that they had fun, Christy’s Mom and Sisters were supposed to attend too but Pat had to meet with her new landlord, and Karen had to stay home with Blaine, and without Karen Grandma is sort of stuck… too bad, Christy is the sole member of the family that made it…

I think the wedding will be an interesting affair… Keagan, Jeff and Debbie’s son, is giving the bride away. The wedding will be in Ventura at the Pierpoint Inn, a pretty plush place as I recollect.

When Christy got home with the mail she handed me my Jury Duty notice, I hate Jury Duty. When I was younger, I got one of those notices, I was so upset by the wording that implied that I was a lazy, irresponsible slacker and I had damn well better fill out this form and mail it back or they would fine me and put me in jail,… I filled it out in crayon, using my left hand, mailed it back and never heard back from them. Till now….

The plumber came… late… but he finished the job… I paid Lumpy two bucks to fill the hole in…

We also received notice that "B"’s hearing at Children’s Court set for the 17^th, the day I have to get my stitches out and Autumn has to be at therapy… damn. Christy talked to Sandy and she will come over and ‘sit’ the kids. Christy will go to Children’s Court and I can get my stitches out…

Christy and I talked with Lisa, the Program Director at Devereux, and scheduled some dates to visit "B" starting this Friday… I am anxious to see him.

Lucky Too, one of Christy’s cats is up a tree, it’s 22:00. She is in heat and made a mad dash to passion, as it were, and got waylaid by Spot, Blackie and Cocoa. Lucky Too, true to it’s name. Escaped the ambush and clambered to the top of the tallest Cottonwood tree. Lumpy scampered up the tree after it and got clawed pretty good in repayment for his compassion and came down the tree, with a bloody thumb, catless, muttering something that sounded like an impassioned pep talk for the canine trio of assassins to redouble their efforts.

Lucky too was still in the top of the tree when I took the kids to school, when I got back to the house with Autumn I noticed Lucky Too was trying to get out of the tree, She got down low enough for me to reach her, so I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and took her in to sanctuary. I put Autumn on the bus, at the regular time, she looked pretty bad. I couldn’t change her clothes with one arm, If she would have cooperated I might have managed but Autumn wasn’t in the mood to help so... I hope the teachers are able to clean her up a little, and are not cussing me under their breaths for being a bad daddy.

When I picked up the kids I noticed that Christian was mad at the world again, he is fine about an hour after he gets his 15:00 medicine. I hate walking around on eggshells so as not to antagonize an eleven-year-old boy but not tiptoeing is worse. In a less enlightened home 40 years ago he would have spent a lot of time getting educated behind the barn.

I got a call from VIP Valley Institute of Prosthetics. They want me to take Autumn to Bakersfield to get her re-cast. The devices will be sent back to Art at Lancaster to be fitted… damn…Bakersfield… an all day excursion.

Christy got home with the Bucking Fuick… coolant boiling out the overflow. It has a rinky-dink electric radiator-cooling fan this is the third one we have had to replace. I took it down to T&J and they had it fixed in about three hours.

I talked to Jeff about coming up to… (I was going to say ‘help me’, I hold his wrenches and say things like “Oh really” and “Son of a gun” and “I had no idea”) get the Motor Monster running again. I paid a plumber $90.00 for something I could have done in 15 minutes for $5.00 if I had the use of two arms, so I guess I can pay him to do something really productive. I charged the batteries and it wouldn’t turn over the levelers worked and the emergency motor starts… sitting for a year is probably not good for it…Duh.

I got the Eric Bogle CD from Amazon today… Small Miracles… http://www.windbourne.com/ebogle/ the title song still chokes me up… the rest of the songs are pretty powerful too, apparently the Australian equivalent to Bob Dylan’s “Eve of Destruction” was a song called “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, he wrote it. His humor and poignancy reminds me a lot of John Prine,.

I took Autumn down to PT and when I got there Beth took one look at her and said “Does she have Pink-Eye” She took her to Tam so she could have a look… yup by golly Pink-Eye it is… I loaded her up in the car and took her home… 2 ½ hours on the road and nothing… Autumn was really disappointed she didn’t get to “play” with Beth… It was my fault too, she had PinkEye last Sunday and the drops appeared to be working but I was in such a hurry to get going I forgot the drops and forgot to look at her eye…

Christy was teaching till noon. With Pinkeye I couldn’t send Autumn to school so I took her to Palmdale and met Christy for lunch at the Olive Garden… I ordered Pasta… really blah… this is the second disappointing meal I have had there…

Christy took Autumn and I picked up a part for the car, a radio to take to "B" tomorrow, got the truck washed and waxed. I bought Mike a CD called “Eiffel 65”, I listened to most of it… pretty typical 12 year old music, nothing much has changed… this could be termed Techno-Pop-Rap Computer music… Even the voices are electronically altered… as near as I can tell no human actually had to touch an instrument in the production of this masterpiece. … I stopped at Albertson’s for some milk and went home…

I cleaned up as best I could with one hand and changed into some clean clothes and headed out to the ROF… I missed it last month because of Christy’s whatever it was, so I was anxious to see everyone again…there was a pretty good turnout… it was a pretty subdued party for some reason, can’t figure it out… it was probably just me, I am still a little down about being partially incapacitated I guess, I just couldn’t perk up. Ken Winte came over after his conference call, that livened things up for a while. Ken is a great guy to have at a party, he is the most up-beat person I have ever met. To paraphrase Will Rodgers “I’ve never man a man (or woman) that didn’t like Ken.”

Christy, Autumn and I went to see "B" today. It went about as I expected… "B" is very insecure, we had a nice lunch, and he was on his best behavior, saying goodbye was hard on all of us but hardest on him. He is pretty confused and unsure of his place in the world, I am concerned about our visits upsetting him unnecessarily. We will see him again next Friday for the IEP and be able to spend a little more time with him, We had less than two hours with him today, I felt like it was bordering on cruel somehow. The poor little guy has no real understanding of why he’s there, we have explained it to him and so have the people at Devereux but he doesn’t really comprehend… he knows the words but he doesn’t understand.

Jeff Worden called and said he could probably come up and get the Motorhome started Saturday. Cool…

Hope none of you are burning the midnight oil on your Taxes… still not due till Monday.

I picked up the house because Jeff said he would be up around 1300… I would have been uncomfortable if had seen the house like it was… He made it here about when he said he would and started in on the batteries all three of them were no good, they would charge up but couldn’t withstand a “load”… one of the cables was corroded so bad current wouldn’t even flow through it. We bought some new batteries and a cable and a new end for the cable that goes to the starter… It started right up and he adjusted the distributor, we noticed that the air-conditioner compressor was loose the clamp bolt was missing and the pivot bolt was hanging by about 2 threads. I need to get a new gasket for where the air-filter sits on the carburetor and that’s about it… I will try to take it in to get a couple new tail-pipes put on next Wednesday…

Not a big day, it has turned very cold for some reason… I hear there is a storm coming in from the South East…

Christy took off at about 0630 to go to Children’s Court on "B"’s new placement, I don’t understand all this maneuvering but I guess it’s part of the process… I know we have to stay in the loop. "B" is now officially a Foster Child again I think, we are still his legal guardians and we have stressed that we want “Family Reunification Services” and this is the 30-day hearing in that process… I believe.

I got up and got the kids moving, we had to make the house reasonably presentable because Sandi Rountree is coming to baby-sit while I go to the Dr to get the stitches removed and get further instructions… I drove down to get Sandi and left Mike in charge for the fifteen minutes I was gone. Risky business… he did well, even had Autumn dressed by the time I returned.

The Doctor visit was painless, well… painless until he showed me the exercises I have to do. My arm is pretty sore, I need to raise my arm up over my head using my left arm to do the raising, I can’t use the muscles in my right arm for another 4 weeks… from the amount of pain I feel just raising my arm to shoulder level it looks like I will need all four weeks. He did say I could take a shower now, it’s a small thing but I really like my morning shower, I was washing at the bathroom sink and that allows me to meet my minimum social requirements but is not like a real shower. When I got home I waited for Christy to get back and she took Sandi home, when she got back I got in the shower and showered till I ran out of hot water… how luxurious…

It started raining a little when I got home from the Doctor yesterday, it got to raining in earnest at about 2100 last night and it rained till about 1100 this morning. Christy went out early to do some exercising by walking in the AV Mall, She took Cindy with her because Cindy needs a little exercise too. I was going to walk too but Christy didn’t get back till late, I took the other kids and went to Home Depot for some doors and a ladder, I took them to Wienerschnitzel for tube steaks and fries then went home.

Christy bought Stewart Little and Star Wars, Episode One, I passed on Stewart but watched Episode One with everyone. I wasn’t impressed… it seemed to be a real stretch, too cartoonish… Oh well.

I have an ingrown toenail that has become infected so I went to Kaiser to see what they can do… the nurse says “Looks like it has to come off” yuck… my brother-in-law just has it done and said it is a pretty painless process… I find that hard to believe… Oh well.

Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche-

German philosopher (1844-1900)

Thursday April 20, 2000

…Calie went with me when I took Autunm to Therapy. Autumn passed her eye examination (No PinkEye) and got to stay.

Calie and I went to breakfast while Autumn had her work-out.

Autumn actually got a poor read-out from Beth on this session, she wouldn’t focus at all… I probably distracted her by taking Calie along to help me, I can’t lift Autumn in and out of the truck yet or put her in her seat if she doesn’t want to get in it. Actually, Arnold Schwarzenegger would have a hard time putting her in her seat when she puts up a fight, damn she’s strong.

I took everybody to the Poppy Preserve in Lancaster… Not as lush with poppies as I have seen it but it was pretty… I took some pictures and we went home…, the pictures came out poor, I had the resolution set too low and they were sorta fuzzy… damn.

Cindy is having a harder and harder time staying in control, she can be quite a trial when she is in one of her manic phases, and she was a serious handful today.

Friday April 21, 2000

… Grandma and Grandpa came over from Riverside to watch the kids while we went to Santa Barbara for "B"’s IEP. There was something called an ISP afterward the first meeting was to reach an agreement on his education needs and how they were going to be met and the second one was on his needs outside the realm of education. Since he has only been there a month the second meeting was a bit preemptive. This was like an outline, it needs to be fine-tuned, I was encouraged to hear that the timeline for his stay there may be considerably shorter than we had been originally warned. "B"’s problems are deep seated but they are definable and they do have a pretty comprehensive plan to deal with them…

This time I got a faint feeling from "B" that he was feeling a little better about himself, it could have been wishful thinking but it seemed real enough at the moment.

Christy took "B" shopping for clothes to wear to the wedding and then we went to Chili’s for a late lunch, nobody was hungry so it was a bit of a waste of time and money.

Christy still needs to find a place to get her hair done on the day of the wedding…

I was getting a little punchy on the way back to Acton, we hit Rush Hour in Santa Barbara, it took an hour to go 12 miles, damn, how do those people put up with that… Anyway, I saw an ISUZU SUV and said ISUZU aloud and heard “Is you Sue” and said to Christy “My sister needs to get one of those and a license plate “YES I IS” or “NO IZ SUE” or “I IS SUE” … seemed funny at the time… guess you had to be there.

Saturday April 22, 2000

…I hurt my shoulder this morning. I was just leaning against the shower and it just started to hurt… I wish I knew if I tore the stitches out or whether or not anything is really wrong. Back in the “Good Old Days” (Hmmm, note the acronym for that phrase, ever get the feeling you had come close to uttering something poignant and have it slip away?… it’s happening to me now) I could talk to my Doctor and find out if something was wrong or if I was just having hypochondriac episode.

I went out for some last minute shopping to fill the Easter Bunny’s coffers so he could go about his appointed rounds this evening, pretty slim pickings for eleventh hour shoppers…

Sunday EASTER April 23, 2000

…The Easter Rodent (Sorry Jack) arrived at 0430 and did his dirty-work. The kids were well on their way into a self induced sugar high by 0630. Calie was the first one up and had the whole caboodle racing around by 0645. They had fun, They even went outside and hid their own Easter Eggs… we had corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast, couldn’t make enough of it.

I called my sister in Arizona to get an update on the election, seems the opponent is getting desperate. The suspicion by the opponent and her minions is that if Ross wins he will clean house, has them shaking in their collective Gucci Cowboy Boots. It has been my experience that desperate people take desperate measures, and I get nervous. I’ll be glad when it’s over… if you have any relatives in Scottsdale call em up and tell em to vote for Dean.

Monday, April 24 2000

… I got my butt out of jury duty, no way Christy can teach and take care of Autumn with out my participation…

We got Autumn an appointment for new braces… in Bakersfield.

I got Autumn to Therapy, she was a bit obstinate but better than last week. Autumn got a “time out” for slugging Beth. Beth was amused, the time out lasted about a minute and Autumn hung her head and pouted pathetically… but the time-out worked and she settled down.

We called Acton School and tried to figure out the IEP situation, we have been informed that if Acton holds an IEP on "B" then it will supercede the IEP we just held in Devereux… I will let the two school districts deal with it…

Tuesday April 25, 2000

… I dropped the kids off at school and Autumn and I drove to Santa Barbara to get "B"… I had such an exasperating time getting him out of there I forgot to get his clothes and I forgot to get his medicine… We had a quiet trip back, "B" was very good, he played with Autumn and talked quite a bit about his friends at Devereux… It was a pleasant trip home.

"B"’s visit was so hectic I think he was a little disappointed. I suspect that he had pretty high expectations for his first return in a month. I took the girls to dance class on the way to Kaiser so Christian could see Dr. D. and came home with pizza’s.

Dr. D. seems to be under the impression we should be more in control of the kids. Sorta irritated me but I got over it… He’s right, we do need to get more control… but how… funny. I offered to let him rent a room so he could try his hand for a month or two but he declined…

Wednesday April 26, 2000

I took "B" to his Psychological Evaluation appointment in Lancaster.

I made it home before the bus got there for Autumn and managed to get her cleaned up a little before we put her on board. As soon as the bus left I drove "B" back to Devereux… it’s a long drive… I managed to talk to Lisa, his “Program Manager”?, and told her he may be a bit bummed because the visit didn’t live up to his expectations. He seemed happy to get back there…

Thursday April 27, 2000

…Got a letter from Mercury Insurance saying that they had deemed me to be 100% responsible for the damage to the car that I hit in the twelve car pileup on Christmas Eve, Then I got another letter saying that the people in the car I hit hired a lawyer and wanted to know the extent of my coverage…

Christy took Cindy and Mike to therapy, a typical session I guess, Cindy just smiled and said “I don’t know” to every question, and Mike was his usual self-centered preteen snotty self. Doctor Doane told Christy that Pete is “ too cerebral”, I analyze things too much, I need to get out an play with them and quit being so analytical. He’s probably right to some extent, I try too hard to understand where they are coming from and by the time I figure it out they have passed me by… I am really hoping I can get the MotorMonster on the road this summer… I have expectations… It’s not good for me to have expectations… expectations lead to disappointment…

Friday April 28, 2000

…Christy and I were both home today… I can’t remember the last time that happened… We cleaned the house a little after we put Autumn on the bus we went to the post office, bank (ATM), and out to lunch at Don Cuco’s.

At Don Cuco’s we had to wait for Carlos to deal with a customer. He was a big (tall), fat (fat), whining, rude, petulant, Bermuda short wearing, gold chained, putz. I believe the word to describe his behavior is chutzpah, the theory behind Chutspah is that if you’re rude enough, long enough, loud enough you will get what you want just because the person you are inflicting your petulance on will eventually relent and give you what you want just to get you the hell away from them… in this case Mr. Putz wanted a free salad with his lunch order. Carlos carefully and patiently explained that the salad comes with a dinner order not with a lunch order, this went on for about 15 minutes (We had been seated by the buss – boy, he also took our order). When it was all over, Mr. Putz left without his free salad and Carlos got a round of applause from the diners.

I just don’t have an assertive bone in my body. This sort of behavior is alien to me, I can’t do it, I am a little envious of people who can though, people who bang their fist on a counter, My friend John, in England, calls it having a Brass Neck (the etymology of that phrase must be interesting)…or get really stubborn and hold up a line and demand to see the manager, or just rant and rave to get what they think they want/need. I must have some Quaker in me or something, I can do subtle things to show my displeasure like get up and leave, or stiff a waiter for indifferent or bad service, but I would never make a scene, too civilized I guess.

Saturday April 29, 2000

… Christy went to church with Cindy and Autumn, the rest of the kids watched cartoons and I played with the PC. I read on Yahoo that a huge fire was devouring a forest NorthEast of Phoenix so I called my sister, to see if she was OK. Ross answered the phone, he was unplugging a toilet so right away I deduced that the fire wasn’t a major concern. Apparently Yahoo sort of sensationalized the extent and location of the fire, it’s about 100 miles away and close to Globe… Oh well… we had a nice chat, Ross likes to take a few shots when we talk. I mentioned that I got the MotorMonster fixed and he said “OH NO! You’re not bringing it over here are ya. I said No, he sighed a big theatrical sigh of relief. I mentioned that I had made note of the fact that Dave (His son in law) had improved the Ross Dean for Mayor site by making his picture smaller.

… Ya had to be there, I did read a letter to the editor that his daughter Christine had written to the local paper… I think Ross had better thank his lucky stars she is on his side… whew… scathing little rant she wrote… must have been a Lit Major… see for yourself:

"http://ross.deanpage.com/News/Editorials/enough.htm" (Link is dead... I will try to get a copy)

Calie and I went shopping at CostCo, then I took her over to her buddies house for a sleep over and I took Cindy down to the Acton Market, she had her nose bent when I took Calie… this whole business about appeasing the bent noses is so tedious

Sunday April 30, 2000

I woke up with an ominous feeling of vulnerability hanging over my head; the letter from my insurance company informing me that the people in front of me in the 12 car pileup had hired a lawyer really has really gotten to me. I sent out a “Joke” a few days back;

LAWYER: Someone whose job is to protect his clients from others of his profession.

Seemed funny at the time…

I think that there are people in the world who see their fellow man as fruit in an orchard just waiting to be harvested; they are so detached from their humanity that they think that what they are doing is their divine right. I am starting to get that persecuted feeling… can you tell? You can sit in your little world thinking that you are safe and secure with a bank account, a pension, a safe home, insurance and all of a sudden someone decides they can make a buck off you and they hire a lawyer. Some mercenary with a law degree detaches himself from the rafters and swoops down out of the hills in his silver Mercedes and starts a process that could potentially destroy your live.

Well, it’s Sunday… Donut Day… got to get the spirits elevated a bit… I think the thing that has gotten my goat is that I don’t know what’s going on, once I have determined that, I can make a plan of defense, or attack. I will feel better then… I think.

Christy and I have initiated allowances, we have been just giving them money for chores when they did them but now we are giving them a real allowance, Each kid gets a slightly different amount. A portion of it is at risk and can be deducted if they don’t do their chores. I handed out the money and took Mike and Christian down to the Swap Meet at Four Corners… Christian spent his whole wad in about 10 minutes on Pokémon cards, Mike spent 66 2/3%of his on two necklaces and a “Finger Bicycle”.

Those little pictures of Calvin taking a whiz on a Ford/Dodge/Chevy/Toyota emblem are fairly common and have been around for years, they’re pretty harmless, but lately I have been seeing a lot of Calvin taking a leak on the word “EVERYONE”, not only does this dis-incent me to want to have anything to do with the driver it makes want to give him wide berth. What would possess someone to assess their personal self worth and determine that it was time to advertise to the world the fact that they are antisocial losers.

“… a time traveling Doctor from 1800 would be blown away and totally useless in today’s hospital but a time traveling teacher would be right at home in any classroom in America. I received a translation of a document originally written in Latin, transferring title from the widow of a Mr. John Bogays to a consortium of gentlemen including Mr. John Doggett. It was written by Mrs. Bogays and her Lawyers in the year 1520, it seems to me a lawyer from that era would be right at home in any law firm of today also. He may even be able to teach them a few tricks…

Breaking up Microsoft, what a colossal bonehead idea that is… We are hearing the same rhetoric that we heard when they broke up the Bell System, lower prices, more competition, increased availability, new innovations… all crap. The prices are higher, competition is creating a nightmare of lawsuits and backbiting over territory and the customers pay the lawyers…. All services used to be provided to everyone no matter where you lived, try to get ISDN,DSL, Cable, Fiber Optics if you don’t live in a metropolitan area. Innovations, well maybe, there are about 60 ways I can get a message from here to Guam, as long as the guy in Guam has the same device I have… We have innovated ourselves into a hodge-podge of technology that is obsolete almost before it is manufactured.

I remember the world without Microsoft and I don’t want to go back to it. I like the fact that I can cut a spreadsheet out of Excel and paste it into Word or Access or damn near any other program. I like an operating system that will allow virtually any program to run on it, I know that there are operating systems that are faster, some are very sophisticated but there is no OS that is as accessible as Windows, there are no other OS’s with as wide a rage of developers and therefore there is no OS with the ability to deal with diversity than Microsoft. I was looking forward to the day when the cyber world would unite and everyone would be able to talk to everyone else, share ideas and work. It seems to me that the lawyers and politicos have got their teeth into Microsoft’s flank and they can already taste the kill… makes me ill.

I made the observation that Microsoft headquarters is only a few miles from the Canadian border, what would happen if Bill Gates said, OK DOJ, it’s not worth the price, you win, we’re moving to Canada… It’s only intelligence that has to be moved, it’s not like they have to disassemble a huge factory or anything. Microsoft employees are pretty fed up with how they have been treated and I don’t blame them, I hope Microsoft survives intact.

There is a medical history form you have to fill out every time you go to urgent care at Kaiser. The first four blanks on the form if taken literally are amusing to me:

I always put, my name, my Dr.s name; “Kodell”, “About 45”, and “A Doctor, I hope” I keep hoping that one of these days they will actually read the form, I guess it’s possible that perhaps they are reading them and they all think I am an idiot…

Two guys died and they went straight to hell. Arriving they found a receptionist just like a hotel with a world map in the wall behind the clerk. The first guy asked why the map and he was explained that in hell they group the people just like here,by countries.

The guy asked what is going to be the difference between lets say Germany and any country in South America. "Well ,the clerk said, if you chose Germany; they will drop a bucket of shit on you once a week and in South America they will do the same but every day"

Without any doubt I want to go to Germany the guy said. The second one asked "Can I do the same, I mean chose a country" Yes, of course was the answer. Well, then send me to Venezuela.

A few days later the two guys met together and the one from Venezuela was clean as usual and the one from Germany was all dirty. His immediate question was how come they drop you a bucket of shit every day and once a week on me and you are clean and I am dirty??

In a restroom at IBM's Watson Center, a supervisor had placed a sign directly above the sink. It had a single word on it --

The next day, when he went to the restroom, he looked at the sign and right below, immediately above the soap dispenser; someone had carefully lettered another sign which read --

News of Phil Katz's death was just made public earlier this week. You may never have heard of Phil Katz, but chances are, you've used the product he's known for. Back in 1986, Katz developed a file format--which he called "ZIP"--that allowed files to be compressed to a fraction of their original size and later restored, unscathed, to their previous state. He designed a simple but effective program to do this and named it PKZip, using his own initials (and ensuring for himself some degree of immortality in the process). The program was a massive shareware hit, and ZIP quickly became the industry standard compression format. More dreamy innovator than businessman, Katz was never able to fully capitalize on his ubiquitous creation, and when he died on April 14 of complications from alcoholism at the age of 37, his passing was largely ignored. But his legacy lives on. Nowadays, most files downloaded from the Internet bear the suffix .zip.

A city slicker moves to the country and decides he's going to take up farming. He heads to the local co-op and tells the man, "Give me 100 baby chickens."

A week later the man returns and says, "Give me 200 more of those baby chickens."

Again, a week later the man returns. This time he says, "I need 500 more baby chickens."

"Naw," said the man with a sigh. "I'm either planting them too deep or too far apart!"