| it could be about golf, but it usually isn't |
|
find it here contact
|
Saturday, March 08, 2003 Coffee Shop I stopped in at Starbuck's to get a mocha for the wife. I am really into this Starbuck's ordering thing. If you haven't been there, you can't order small, medium, and large. I know I will be barred forever from the place if I say this, but Starbuck's is like McDonald's when it comes to size lingo. Order a small from Starbuck's and the person taking your order will look at you like you're from another planet because there is no "small" at Starbuck's, only Tall, Grande, and Venti. So, I ordered my Venti, two-pump, extra-hot Mocha and my wife's Decaf Venti Mocha (having learned her lesson last weekend about the Caf as opposed to DeCaf). From over on my right, a guy asked how I was doing. He was a lawyer I had known for some time, but had not seen for well over a year. We decided that business was slow and that we were okay. I asked how his wife, also a lawyer, was doing and how the kids were. He filled me in on his wife's move to a big firm downtown and how she probably took all the business with her and how his kids were getting along in school and the sporting world. He asked how my oldest son was doing; so, I related the success he has had changing his major, the published papers, the trip to Cancun in May to present one of the papers, the trip to Innsbruck he passed up, and the upcoming marriage we are excited about. He congratulated me and told me that we should be very proud of him. Then he asked me about my younger son; so, I told him he was doing very well and that we were having a blast doing the home-schooling gig. He wanted to know more about the home-schooling. I explained about the curriculum we had planned at the beginning of the school year, how it fit in well with my schedule, and how creative we tried to be. Then I told him that the boy was at a 12-step weekend; so, the wife and I were on our own for the weekend. "What do you mean, 12-step weekend?" he asked. I explained that the boy was in A.A., and that the 12-step weekend was something he attended every other month as a part of his program. The guy stopped chewing his gum; so, I gave him a brief run-down on the boy's trip to Utah for his wilderness rehab experience, his return to us, his hard work to overcome his addiction, and how great it is to have him back. "Oh boy, that's ... umm ... what can I say ... ummm," he stammered uncomfortably. "Well, you could say that we should be very proud of him," I pointed out. Friday, March 07, 2003 Spring Break I am doing some research for a case on appeal that might end up in the U.S. Supreme Court some day. I am going to need to go to the law library next week -- I guess that even though I have all these resources at my beck and call on the Net, I am "old school" and still need to look at real books to make sure I haven't missed anything. It is tedious, but once I get into it, I do enjoy it. The guys have been on Spring break, and I was reminded by a friend about college days and travelling with the baseball team during Spring break down to Florida. He said my picture -- nobody would recognize me now -- is up on the wall in the athletic complex (I knew that -- I've seen it). It's interesting that when I went back to the school for an alumni affair a few years ago that these guys recalled specific details of games right down to recounting what happened on certain pitches. I just nodded. Me? I remember very little about games. I remember trashing the dorm at the regional championships with fire extinguishers, but nothing about the games we played. I was approached by a junior who was on the varsity team. He asked me my name and said that he thought that he recognized me. He then asked me if what the baseball coach said about me was true. I shrugged. "What did he say?" "He said you beat a player on B-W over the head with your mask 'til he was unconscious because he tried to spike you sliding into home. Is that true?" I looked him in the eye, the right one, I think, and said, "Yes. Any other questions?" "Uhh. No, no." He walked over to a group of four or five guys and said something. They all looked over at me. I waved. Why shatter the illusion? Thursday, March 06, 2003 Tattoo An 85-year-old woman had "Do Not Resuscitate" tattooed on her chest to aid doctors in treating her. A few years back, I was introduced to the father of one of my clients. He was gray-haired, probably about 60 years old, and he wore black, leather pants, a white, tank top undershirt, and a black, leather jacket, and chained confederate flag wallet. And he sported a plethora of tattoos. There was the devil head with horns and a beard done in a black outline on his upper right arm. The eyes glowed red. He had a small road runner head done in blue on his left temple. Spiderwebs cascaded from over his left shoulder down his upper left arm to the elbow. A spider, big abdomen and small head hovered just above his left wrist on his forearm, attached by a thin black line to the web at his elbow. He had two small blue teardrops falling from the outside corner of his right eye. A small spiderweb design followed the curve of his skull from the right temple to just above the ring in his right graying eyebrow. There was an elaborate eagle emblazoned on and around his right lower arm. His right elbow was covered by a spider web design. Strarting behind his right ear and reaching its end point just above the chain link tattoo around the base of his neck was a dagger with a skull on the top of the handle, blood coursing down the blade and dripping off the tip of the knife into a small pool on his clavicle. The chain around his neck was drawn of heavy blue almost 3-D links. Where his neck met his hairy upper chest, two smaller chains were attached to an ornate name plate, curly-q's around the rectangular shape. There was a word written in Olde English print. The word was: Diabetic. What? Is this place called New York still part of the U.S.A.? I'm having a little trouble with this one. Give Peace a chance. Wednesday, March 05, 2003 Blogger Control! Come In, Blogger Control! I filed the appeal for the guy who got convicted of telecommunications harassment. The jury found that he made a call to his ex-wife's work place very early one morning that she would hear on her voice mail. She did. It was not a very pleasant message, which the prosecutor played over and over and over, again. And over. There were times when I thought I was in a bad B-movie. The voice was very raspy, but the ex positively identified the voice as belonging to Mr. Ex-husband. It was a very bitter divorce -- she obviously had an axe to grind. She did want to chop his head off -- I could tell. Her boss, who knew Mr. Ex for many, many years, was unshakeably sure that it was, in fact, Mr. Ex's voice on the tape. He was 100% positive with no doubt in his mind because he had known Mr. Ex for 15 years. Yes, it was Mr. Ex all right, the guy sitting over there with the very shiny silver-gray suit, black silk T-shirt, fancy gold chain around his neck, gray hair slicked back (with streaks of black here and there reminiscent of a sku ... No, be nice, Billy-boy), and gray mustache and a little, close-cropped beard on his chin that looked like something that Joe Mantegna would wear if he were a gangster. Mr. Ex-Husband did not testify -- why would he want the jury to hear his voice. His clever lawyer had Mr. Ex-Husband's son listen to the tape and asked if he knew the voice on the tape, to which he replied, "I never heard it before in my life." The time-stamp on the tape was the issue because, at 1 a.m., Mr. Ex was at a bar drinking with a friend. The barmaid served him and the friend until 1:30 so it couldn't possible have been him on the phone, the caller I.D. of which having indicated that the call came from Mr. Ex's trailer (Gangster? No, I doubt it.). The likeable guy from the phone company testified that the voice mail service was an old, unreliable one. The time was not accurate. In fact, he checked it just the morning he testified and it was 17 minutes off. It very easily could have indicated that the call came in at 1 a.m., when the real time of the call could have been as much as an hour later. No, he didn't know that for a fact. Yes, he was only guessing about the hour. Yes, it could have been only 10, 15, or 17 minutes off. No, he didn't remember when he re-set the timer before or after the date this supposedly occurred. No, he kept no records of how much time it lost in a day or if it lost the same amount per day. No, the phone company only has a couple customers with that kind of a system -- very antiquated. But the date was correct on it -- never been that far off. I filed the appeal after he trashed me in court at his sentencing. Oh, well. The judge will be appointing another lawyer to continue on with the appeal, since he can't afford a lawyer, being behind bars and all. Oh. Almost forgot. He refused the plea bargain made the day before the trial started (the prosecutor called me at home), in which he would have gotten no jail and a $150 fine. He was adamant that the bitch be taught a lesson -- no deals. There is a lesson here -- Be very nice to the ladies; they are all beautiful creatures. I am having problems with the Blogger boys. Here's the e-mail to Blogger Control: I have made several changes to the template for my blog over the past several days (including a complete change in the template). When I publish my blog, I receive the [more info] link instead of the usual successful publish indicator. There is no error reported next to [more info] on most occasions, although every so often, there will be that "java.null...." error message. When I create a new post and publish it, my blog index page is updated to reflect the change in content (the post shows up), BUT the layout/template of the page remains unchanged. I am getting fairly frustrated as, on several occasions, my template, after an unsuccessful publishing attempt, has mysteriously been reverted to its previous state. I know that there was a change in the template "servers," or whatever they are called, from reading the blogger status page. It seemed to me that issues relating to that change have been resolved, at least on a global level. Do you have any suggestions that can help me resolve this? Or must I, as the title of my blog suggests, go "over the edge?" Thank you for your time, We'll see what happens -- on both fronts. At Least Someone Is Getting Published Matt got an e-mail earlier: Congratulations! Your paper ["Edge Detection Using Minmax Measures"] has been accepted for presentation at the IASTED International Conference on Circuits, Signal & Systems (CSS 2003), which will be held May 19 to May 21, 2003, in Cancun, Mexico. We cordially invite you to attend the conference and to present your paper. Maybe we'll go to Cancun!! test Tuesday, March 04, 2003 Vet Visit - The Updated Happier Version We're back! He found that she had a growth on her upper gums on the right side, which was probably infected because she was running a low-grade fever. She was wagging her tail and all happy with the vet. Then he said, "I need to take her temperature." He turned around and pulled a thermometer out of a drawer. Betsy clamped her tail down so hard, I thought she was going to hurt herself. What a memory! He examined her around her face, neck, and mouth because I said that when I touched her face, she whimpered a little. He found the growth. She goes under the knife on Thursday after a course of antibiotics and pain killers, the same kind that the elderly pile onto busses to get in Canada for cheaper prices that in the U.S. There are two vets in this practice. I was afraid that we were going to get the young guy, who is not as empathetic as the guy who we've been taking Betsy to for almost 12 years. We didn't have to deal with the young guy. I've been worried about this all day and taking out my worries on everyone all day. I feel so much better about Betsy, but not about my behavior. I need to grow up a little. Vet Visit I'm taking Betsy (she of the red nails) to the vet in a little while. I hate taking my dogs there. He's going to say, "I think you should kill her because she's old." He'll then cheerfully volunteer to do it for me. I will say, "No." She still prances in after she goes outside, wanting her little Milk-Bone treats. I know she hurts and that it's tough to get in bed at night, but she's not unhappy. How can I "euthanize" her. Monday, March 03, 2003 Phone Manners So, I decided to take some time out today to get some work done; but a situation has arisen that raises my dander. I got a message from Kathy (Cathy, Kathi, whatever) to call an attorney, who is on the other side in a case. You know, I'm a big shot lawyer in this case -- I represent one of the major auto-makers in the world (LOL -- okay, okay, calm down out there. I can't hear myself think above all the laughter. Stace, I see that you've spread the word very effectively.). Anyway, getting back to reality (You all are laughing, again?), I returned the phone call. And the receptionist told me that the attorney was not in and took my name and number (She, at least, called me "Mister." You all didn't get to her, yet.) and said he would get back to me. He got back to me, in a manner of speaking. I got a call from someone purporting to be the attorney's assistant, who told me to hold for the attorney. The attorney's time was important, I guess; so, he had his assistant make the call while he was doing important stuff (Either that, or he didn't know how to work the phone system). My time was, apparently, even less important than his assistant's time because I was sitting there with a phone to my ear, listening to some advertisement about how great this attorney's law firm has been for 30 years in representing persons injured in auto accidents, by malprac -- I hung up. He can check his caller I.D. Handicapped Parking and Other Things I have ranted about the lack of handicapped parking spots, people violating the law by parking in the spaces that are available, and snow plows using the spaces for storage of snow. Yesterday, a woman was pushing her grocery cart (and don't give me any grief about being at the grocery store, which has been a common topic, also) toward a van parked in a handicapped spot. The van had special handicapped license plates. The temperature was about 28 degrees F., and she did not appear to have any problem breathing as she hurried over to the van. She threw open the side door. She hoisted a 40-pound bag of dog food into the van. She hopped up into the van and moved the bag over to the driver's side. She hopped down from the van and started putting her plastic bags into the van. Nobody else was in the van. The question is: Did she think there was anything wrong with her parking there, even though she was not disabled? Of course, if she had some kind of disability that permits her to get the special plates and park in the reserved area and hoist 40-pound bags of dog food into a full-sized van, then I apologize.
|
