http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070625/ap_on_fe_st/67_million_pants
If you have not heard about the $54 Million dry-cleaner case, read the above article. It was a local issue so we hear about it about every other day.
The Basics:
Judge sues dry cleaner for $54,000,000 because they lost a pair of his pants. They were a nice pair of pants, but no pants are worth that amount of money, even with "mental anguish" as a claim.
His suit was based on a sign in their window, Satisfaction Guaranteed, was false advertising.
He got his pants a day late.
HE'S A JUDGE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Based on his filing of this completely useless case, I think he needs to have action taken against him by the Bar Association.
I'm relieved that the judge presiding over the case has common sense and ruled in favor of the dry cleaner!
June 25, 2007
June 22, 2007
Pumpkin Update
I have kept up at weeding and watering about every other day. No fertilizers yet. Definitely no pesticides.
No flowers just yet, but hopefully those will be coming soon. Here's a picture from June 20th:
For perspective I have put one of my shoes in the background. They are size 13's! That's a great start this early in the yar.
We still have not seen bees, but I think I am going to buy a hummingbird feeder today to get the scent out.
No flowers just yet, but hopefully those will be coming soon. Here's a picture from June 20th:
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| From 2007 Pumpkins |
For perspective I have put one of my shoes in the background. They are size 13's! That's a great start this early in the yar.
We still have not seen bees, but I think I am going to buy a hummingbird feeder today to get the scent out.
June 17, 2007
My Celebrity Lookalike
On this, my first, Father's Day, I decided to see who else I might be mistaken for. Umm.... I was better off being myself.
Then I thought, I should make one for Anny too....
Your thoughts?
Then I thought, I should make one for Anny too....
Your thoughts?
June 12, 2007
ABBY IS HERE!!!
It happened! We had our baby today!
This is the picture of the happy family.
More pictures are available HERE.
This is the picture of the happy family.The essentials details are these:
Abigail Carolyn Monroe
Abigail Carolyn Monroe
Born June 12 at 1:25 pm
Weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces
Length is 20 inches
Anny is a trooper, but I will not share more of the actual birth story without her express, written consent for fear of beheading!
Weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces
Length is 20 inches
Anny is a trooper, but I will not share more of the actual birth story without her express, written consent for fear of beheading!
More pictures are available HERE.
Go ahead, let me hear your applause and congratulations! I'll pass them all along to Anny and Abby tomorrow.
BTW - they should both be home on Thursday afternoon!!
June 10, 2007
Movie THEATER Review
This one is for the locals:
Don't go to the movie theater in Calverton ever again!
The theater used to be a Loews Movie theater but is now owned by AMC. Overall the theater was never the best, but was affordable and close enough to get to in ten minutes or so. I can remember seeing some of the great movies there: Titanic, Tommy Boy, Star Wars during it's second run.
Yesterday we went to see Knocked Up, and the theater killed the movie experience for both of us. The movie was good, though it had way too much foul language. I felt like I must be too old to have gotten into the see it!
But the theater!? $8.75 each for the matinee, because they no longer offer discounts for the mid-day showings. Grr. The theater has certainly never been with that much, no matter what the movie!
Worse than the no-more-matinee prices are the insanely small seats! I've packed on a couple of pounds over the life of the movie theater, but this was ridiculous. Anny had a hard time getting in and out of the seats.
The third strike was the bathrooms which were extremely sub-par. A mop would have taken care of this, but it was apparent that no mop had been seen for a while!
So - go see the movie for some food fun. Don't see it, or any other movie, at the movie theater on Powder Mill Road in Calverton!
Don't go to the movie theater in Calverton ever again!
The theater used to be a Loews Movie theater but is now owned by AMC. Overall the theater was never the best, but was affordable and close enough to get to in ten minutes or so. I can remember seeing some of the great movies there: Titanic, Tommy Boy, Star Wars during it's second run.
Yesterday we went to see Knocked Up, and the theater killed the movie experience for both of us. The movie was good, though it had way too much foul language. I felt like I must be too old to have gotten into the see it!
But the theater!? $8.75 each for the matinee, because they no longer offer discounts for the mid-day showings. Grr. The theater has certainly never been with that much, no matter what the movie!
Worse than the no-more-matinee prices are the insanely small seats! I've packed on a couple of pounds over the life of the movie theater, but this was ridiculous. Anny had a hard time getting in and out of the seats.
The third strike was the bathrooms which were extremely sub-par. A mop would have taken care of this, but it was apparent that no mop had been seen for a while!
So - go see the movie for some food fun. Don't see it, or any other movie, at the movie theater on Powder Mill Road in Calverton!
June 06, 2007
My OTHER Summer Project
I've been writing so much about Anny and Abby that I've neglected to post pictures of my other summer project: competition sized pumpkins! Last year we stole some straight-from-the-carving-table pumpkin seeds and I planted them in the spring. This year I've decided to use the more traditional from-the-pack seeds.
I have planted in three places, but only two are doing much of anything.
Bed 1 - Actually started out as a plant bed anyway. I added some compost-ish leaves and hay and such from last fall over top of the dried dirt. I planted four seeds directly into proper planting soil. One plant has sprung forth quickly, and one has grown some but has been lagging.
I've been watering every other day or so, and we had some good, soaking rain over the weekend. We have begun to harvest rain water to use around the yard, so I use that water as often as possible.
Last year we only got one small pumpkin. Bigger than a softball, but smaller than a bowling ball. I found out afterwards that bees are needed to pollinate between the flowers that become the pumpkins, and we didn't have any bees until September. WAY too late to be fruitful!
So, this is the first in (hopefully) a series about my great pumpkin adventures. Wish me bees!
I have planted in three places, but only two are doing much of anything.
Bed 1 - Actually started out as a plant bed anyway. I added some compost-ish leaves and hay and such from last fall over top of the dried dirt. I planted four seeds directly into proper planting soil. One plant has sprung forth quickly, and one has grown some but has been lagging.
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From 2007 Pumpkins |
I've been watering every other day or so, and we had some good, soaking rain over the weekend. We have begun to harvest rain water to use around the yard, so I use that water as often as possible.
Last year we only got one small pumpkin. Bigger than a softball, but smaller than a bowling ball. I found out afterwards that bees are needed to pollinate between the flowers that become the pumpkins, and we didn't have any bees until September. WAY too late to be fruitful!
So, this is the first in (hopefully) a series about my great pumpkin adventures. Wish me bees!
June 04, 2007
Visit Your Farmers Market!
Okay people.
I grew up in the house that I now own. Less than two miles from my house is a local Farmer's Market. Until last summer when we were bored one Saturday morning we had never been.
Oh my! GO!
I can't eat a lot of vegetables because of their potassium content, so the idea going was not appealing. At the grocery store there is no one in the veggie section as Anny and I argue about what is and what is not on "the list" of bad things. At the FM, though, there would be tons of people hassling me to buy all of their stuff, good for me or not.
Wrong.
They family that has the biggest spread is just that, a family. The kids don't want to be there at 7 am on a Saturday, but they are and they try to be cool about it. They always have a mix of locally grown fruits and veggies, as well as staples from other areas of the country. (i.e. cant elopes, which are good in Florida right now, but not here)
We even save money on the food that we buy versus buying it at the grocery store.
There are other goodies from other vendors, though, and you don't want to miss those either! Our local FM has a plant person, a (cut) flowers person, two people with baked goods, and a smaller, all-local fruit & vegetable person. (by person I sometimes mean people)
While our original visit was for veggies for the house, we quickly discovered the goodness that is "Farmers Market Breakfast!" Always said with the "!". Now we look forward to each Saturday morning just for the freshly made cupcakes and pastries in many varieties. We each have our favorites, but are trying to branch out.
We also have been buying a loaf of sourdough bread each week from the baker. Really great bread! This past Saturday I challenged Anny to branch out and we got a load of Rye bread too. Also really great!
So - moral of the story is that you need to go and seek out a Farmers Market near you! Some are only open on weekdays, and that's a pain. Ours is Saturday mornings from 7 to 10 (might go later, but we're early people) from May to October.
Stop by. It will be worth your time!
I grew up in the house that I now own. Less than two miles from my house is a local Farmer's Market. Until last summer when we were bored one Saturday morning we had never been.
Oh my! GO!
I can't eat a lot of vegetables because of their potassium content, so the idea going was not appealing. At the grocery store there is no one in the veggie section as Anny and I argue about what is and what is not on "the list" of bad things. At the FM, though, there would be tons of people hassling me to buy all of their stuff, good for me or not.
Wrong.
They family that has the biggest spread is just that, a family. The kids don't want to be there at 7 am on a Saturday, but they are and they try to be cool about it. They always have a mix of locally grown fruits and veggies, as well as staples from other areas of the country. (i.e. cant elopes, which are good in Florida right now, but not here)
We even save money on the food that we buy versus buying it at the grocery store.
There are other goodies from other vendors, though, and you don't want to miss those either! Our local FM has a plant person, a (cut) flowers person, two people with baked goods, and a smaller, all-local fruit & vegetable person. (by person I sometimes mean people)
While our original visit was for veggies for the house, we quickly discovered the goodness that is "Farmers Market Breakfast!" Always said with the "!". Now we look forward to each Saturday morning just for the freshly made cupcakes and pastries in many varieties. We each have our favorites, but are trying to branch out.
We also have been buying a loaf of sourdough bread each week from the baker. Really great bread! This past Saturday I challenged Anny to branch out and we got a load of Rye bread too. Also really great!
So - moral of the story is that you need to go and seek out a Farmers Market near you! Some are only open on weekdays, and that's a pain. Ours is Saturday mornings from 7 to 10 (might go later, but we're early people) from May to October.
Stop by. It will be worth your time!
June 01, 2007
Getting Ready All Over
It may seem like an easy task:
Make sure that everything runs smoothly while I'll be out of the office when Abby is born.
It's is easy, but it's not.
If all goes according to plan, I'll only be out of the office for two weeks, and am accessible by phone or email.
I spend a lot of my day working for different people in the office. I keep trying to put on the persona that it's not too big of a deal that I'll be gone. I work with extremely competent, working adults. Everything should continue like clockwork. There seems to be a sense that it's not going to be such a nice clock, though.
I have written down in detail all of the operations that I typically do that others don't: web-calendar, voicemail controls, overnight delivery instructions, et cetera.
I think that the key to the anxiety is that the time off can't really be planned. Will it start in two days or ten? Will there be false trips to the hospital that trigger panic but are essentially just smoke and mirrors?
I think that doctors should stop using due dates. It focuses everyone onto one specific date, when we know that it's not in the realm of beign true. Only 5 percent of women deliver on their due date. ONLY 5%!!!
But anyway - in addition to the chaos of getting things done at home, I also am working hard to get things ready at work. Good news is that I get to reevaluate the way that some things are done!
There's always an upside!
Make sure that everything runs smoothly while I'll be out of the office when Abby is born.
It's is easy, but it's not.
If all goes according to plan, I'll only be out of the office for two weeks, and am accessible by phone or email.
I spend a lot of my day working for different people in the office. I keep trying to put on the persona that it's not too big of a deal that I'll be gone. I work with extremely competent, working adults. Everything should continue like clockwork. There seems to be a sense that it's not going to be such a nice clock, though.
I have written down in detail all of the operations that I typically do that others don't: web-calendar, voicemail controls, overnight delivery instructions, et cetera.
I think that the key to the anxiety is that the time off can't really be planned. Will it start in two days or ten? Will there be false trips to the hospital that trigger panic but are essentially just smoke and mirrors?
I think that doctors should stop using due dates. It focuses everyone onto one specific date, when we know that it's not in the realm of beign true. Only 5 percent of women deliver on their due date. ONLY 5%!!!
But anyway - in addition to the chaos of getting things done at home, I also am working hard to get things ready at work. Good news is that I get to reevaluate the way that some things are done!
There's always an upside!
May 30, 2007
Power Struggles
We’ve been fighting with the power levels in our house for about two weeks now.
No wait, that makes it sound like Anny and I have fought over who gets to do what. That’s not right. (we all know that Anny has the power!)
We have been fighting with ACTUAL power…you know, electricity…. for about two weeks now.
Let’s start with fun things earlier this spring:
Our local water utility has been going around our town and replacing both the water and sewer lines in the streets. Very good thing for the long term use of the system. Very bad thing in the time it is taking them to get the work done.
They have managed to shake electrical connections loose in almost all of our circuit breakers, and apparently on the connection from the pole to our home. Last night they came out and fixed the connection at the pole. When I got home this afternoon to meet with the satellite repairman, the lights continued to flicker.
With the loss of reliable power we don’t have many of our creature comforts. The two biggest are the television and the internet. (I’ve hijacked someone else’s wireless connection to post this!)
I’m the first to admit that I “watch” too much TV. I don’t know that I really do, but it is on often enough that it seems that way. I’ll leave the TV on while I do many things. Actually, almost anything that is inside the house. You could say that I use it to tell time, or at least time elapsed. (“That project only took one episode of Trading Spaces to get through.”)
It’s really playing games with our heads because the power is neither on nor off. The power is either low, at normal, or surging the daylights our of our appliances and such. I would almost rather have the power out completely, so that I didn’t get the notion that it’s okay to work in the workshop. No, it’s really not safe to work in the light-dark-dark-light-BRIGHT-dark of our surging power.
So now I sit here waiting to yell at the power company over the phone when they return my call. I think I hear the phone ringing now……
No wait, that makes it sound like Anny and I have fought over who gets to do what. That’s not right. (we all know that Anny has the power!)
We have been fighting with ACTUAL power…you know, electricity…. for about two weeks now.
Let’s start with fun things earlier this spring:
Our local water utility has been going around our town and replacing both the water and sewer lines in the streets. Very good thing for the long term use of the system. Very bad thing in the time it is taking them to get the work done.
They have managed to shake electrical connections loose in almost all of our circuit breakers, and apparently on the connection from the pole to our home. Last night they came out and fixed the connection at the pole. When I got home this afternoon to meet with the satellite repairman, the lights continued to flicker.
With the loss of reliable power we don’t have many of our creature comforts. The two biggest are the television and the internet. (I’ve hijacked someone else’s wireless connection to post this!)
I’m the first to admit that I “watch” too much TV. I don’t know that I really do, but it is on often enough that it seems that way. I’ll leave the TV on while I do many things. Actually, almost anything that is inside the house. You could say that I use it to tell time, or at least time elapsed. (“That project only took one episode of Trading Spaces to get through.”)
It’s really playing games with our heads because the power is neither on nor off. The power is either low, at normal, or surging the daylights our of our appliances and such. I would almost rather have the power out completely, so that I didn’t get the notion that it’s okay to work in the workshop. No, it’s really not safe to work in the light-dark-dark-light-BRIGHT-dark of our surging power.
So now I sit here waiting to yell at the power company over the phone when they return my call. I think I hear the phone ringing now……
May 28, 2007
Can't Say I was Lazy This Weekend!
Anny has a habbit of telling people that I am good at starting projects. She leaves it at that. Okay okay, I might be guilty of leaving a few projects in the air as days and weeks pass with no completion.
Several times this spring I have decided that I would start AND finish a project in the course of a weekend. The problem is that each project gets stopped because something else should be done to improve the overall use of the entire house, not just the one room/project.
We were telling the lurker-extroidinaire last night that we got a new freezer six months ago and just now is it resting where it will be for the forseeable future. Here's how it went:
Got the new freezer
Moved out the old freezer to friends house.
Tried to fit freezer into the closet where the other fit. Didn't work.
Ripped out shelving in closet to get better fit, and it was time to redo shelves anyway.
Painted said closet and realized at once "This would make a great office!"
Moved the desk to the new Office, former closet.
Put freezer into furnace room.
Discovered moldy flooring under the tiles in the furnace room. Must be dealt with.
Ripped out plywood and replaced.
Decided that furnace room would be better suited for tools rather than food!
Moved shop stuff into furnace room.
Moved freezer into newly designated storage/craft room.
That brings us to this weekend. The original freezer move was back in early March.
We heard from two doctors to plan on having a baby in the next two weeks, not four. We immediately took to writing down all of the projects that need to be finished (and some started and finished) in preparation for baby arrival. It's a long list room-by-room on post-it notes. BIG post-it notes!
One of the projects was to make the craft bench/storage for stuff shelving. I started with just lumber and two Ikea As-Is desktops. This is how it turned out:
Several times this spring I have decided that I would start AND finish a project in the course of a weekend. The problem is that each project gets stopped because something else should be done to improve the overall use of the entire house, not just the one room/project.
We were telling the lurker-extroidinaire last night that we got a new freezer six months ago and just now is it resting where it will be for the forseeable future. Here's how it went:
Got the new freezer
Moved out the old freezer to friends house.
Tried to fit freezer into the closet where the other fit. Didn't work.
Ripped out shelving in closet to get better fit, and it was time to redo shelves anyway.
Painted said closet and realized at once "This would make a great office!"
Moved the desk to the new Office, former closet.
Put freezer into furnace room.
Discovered moldy flooring under the tiles in the furnace room. Must be dealt with.
Ripped out plywood and replaced.
Decided that furnace room would be better suited for tools rather than food!
Moved shop stuff into furnace room.
Moved freezer into newly designated storage/craft room.
That brings us to this weekend. The original freezer move was back in early March.
We heard from two doctors to plan on having a baby in the next two weeks, not four. We immediately took to writing down all of the projects that need to be finished (and some started and finished) in preparation for baby arrival. It's a long list room-by-room on post-it notes. BIG post-it notes!
One of the projects was to make the craft bench/storage for stuff shelving. I started with just lumber and two Ikea As-Is desktops. This is how it turned out:
(click on the photos for larger views) I am really happy with the way it turned out. I have already put the shelvable items on the shelves! It ended up only costing about $50 to do. ($28 for both of the as-is desktops!) I already had the plug strip, it was just a matter of mounting it. You can see that Anny's sowing machine is already on there, too. So THERE, Anny. I CAN do a big project in a weekend. Now I guess I should hang the door on the nursery that has been ready for three weeks...... |
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