Speaking Of Commercials...

Last night were were joined by K & J for a rather late dinner. The boys were roofing most of the day so the grill wasn't fired up until dark. We had a good dinner of steak (ribeye was the best I've had in a long time) spuds and veggies. After dinner we retired to the porch and after flipping through channels settled on Grease. Maybe because it's a upbeat movie, maybe because we can pretty much recite the movie, maybe because my husband things ONJ was hot.

This was on the Family channel, so things were cut. The commercials last night were also a little on the funny side. The unexpected, never seen by any of us before took us a little off guard. An always maxi-pad with wings is floating through the air and comes to land on a mechanical bull. The wings of course attach to the sides of the bull and the bull then starts to rock. "What the fuck, You gotta be kidding, that's just wrong, I thought the water tower one was bad" were some of the comments that I can remember. I though A was going to come unglued. I searched for the video of this to post but was unable to find it and share it with those who have not been able to see this yet. You get a lot of funky stuff when doing a search for "Always Maxi Pads" . If you add "with wings" to it you get a few things on buffalo wings. Interesting. "Always Maxi Pad with Wings in a narrowed search will bring up buffalo wings. Hmmmmm.

Winners For Effort

Dylan's game today was a complete blow out. They played the #1 team. Last year they played this undefeated team in their Superbowl and won. No such luck today. I have to give them a "A" for effort. It seemed in some cases they may have been intimidated by the size of these kids. This is a 3rd and 4th grade league. I'm almost positive that some of the opposing team members may have flunked a grade or two. The heat couldn't have been doing them much good either. At one point we were all under the impression that this was their last game. However they go on to the playoffs next weekend.

Sitting (or should I say pacing) out there brought back memories of last year when my parents were in town. My dad was able to make two games. I recall sitting there drinking hot chocolate and wearing a winter jacket. What a difference today. I was swatting at the bee's so much it must have looked like I had some uncontrollable jerking disease. Of course if one un-named husband of mine would have stood farther away from me while consuming his hamburger I may have avoided this issue. Thanks to Jodi for coming out and supporting the team.

In honor of Gambino's little ditty she posted yesterday I felt compelled to join my friends at the local watering hole. There is truth in Stb's statements that one can consume and not spend a whole heck of money. I have a collection of tickets in addition to not a big dent in my wallet. I'm still confused (?) at buying a round for 7 and getting $12.00 back from a $20.00. Once again and enjoyable time. Good company...good friends and plenty to chuckle about. I did come to the conclusion upon arriving home a little hungry and making a peanut butter sandwich that it was time to hit the grocery store.

While composing my blog I am currently listening to the sound of the nail gun that I purchased for my husband in Christmas of 05. It is being put to use on the roof right now. I pulled up from grocery shopping and saw my brother on the roof. I immediatly yelled for him to get off my roof as I cannot be responsible if he should fall. Of course the homeowners is paid but I would not be able to bear the guilt if something would happen. Now my husband is up there. I don't want to be out there, nor do I think I'm welcome out there. I guess as long as I hear the nails being fired that all is well. I did go check the color of the shingles just to assure myself that they were not some discounted funky color. They are black. That is about the extent of my involvement in this project.

Magnet For Rudeness

We started three shifts at work a few weeks ago and I was fortunate enough to stay on first shift. We also went back to 8 hours shifts, unless you want to stick around and help out the next shift. I've been exiting any where from 3:15 to 4. It just seems so weird. There should have been a gradual decrease from 10 plus hours down to 8. One's body and brain cannot comprehend this change. It's been nice though. I can now complete any errands I have and be home before I was usually leaving work. I finally feel somewhat normal. I'm sure this will change without much notice soon.

On my way home today I decided to stop at the local Walmart. I needed a few things that are less costly there then other stores. As I was walking in the cheaters door (lawn & garden doors rock) a middle aged couple must not have seen me and banged their cart into me. I managed to mumble an excuse me and went along my merry way. I would run into this couple several times more during my trip. Each time it would be that one of us was exiting an aisle and the other would nearly bump into them. I was polite enough to continue saying the thing that you say when you get in someones way. They opted for the rude person's way. Say nothing and carry on.

When my purchases were complete I headed for the cheater's check-out (once again Lawn & Garden area). Low and behold who should be right in front of me. It was my big chance...I could ram my cart right into rude lady's very large behind. By accident of course. They had 3 things in their cart. He argued every price with the cashier. The other check-out opened and I tried to get around her to get to that aisle. I said "excuse me" 3 or 4 times. Then I nudged her. She whipped around and gave me the glare that your mother would give if you cut up in church or something. I politely explained that I was trying to get to the other aisle and asked her several times. "hmmmmphft" was all I got from her. By the time she moved her fat ass the line had other customers. They were done by this time anyway. I did my thing, walked out to my car only to find they were parked right next to me. He tried to leave his cart in back of my truck until I pointed out to him where the cart coral was. I dared not make any more stops on my way home for fear of confirming the fact that I was being followed or tested.

Stowin Away The Weekend Home

This weekend marked the last camping trip of the season. Hard to believe 5 months went by so quickly. The camper is now parked in the driveway, soon to be cleaned out and necessary repairs made and it will retire to it's winter resting spot. Toward the end of April it will be pulled out and put into use for hopefully one more year. My husband promised that he'd so some work on it as it is starting to show it's age. Plans are in the works for a new camper but it may be postponed another year. Unless of course, we should happen upon some extra $$. We did have a pleasant, low key weekend. Some good friends were absent but we did manage to have a decent fire and the TiKi torches were filled. The food as always was good and provided one lovely woman with enough gas to just about propel her from her chair several times. A side trip to the Dog Track cost me more money then I won as usual.

It was back to work this morning only to walk into a mess, or I should say several mess's. Once I got one thing straightened out we tried to work on the second problem. I knew this was serious when our Engineer was out on the line pretty much all day. I left at 3:30 and the problem still was not resolved nor did we have any production for the day so far. I called around 6pm only to find out the issue was still not resolved and he was still there. A little "joke" was going around between him and another Engineer about sending out their resumes. This issue has been holding us up for several weeks now and should have been looked at long ago. Now that we didn't make a shipment it seems to become serious. This is not entirely any one's fault as we are a little short handed in Production Support and these guys are doing more than their share of work. They are constantly in meetings and trying to juggle around a heavy work load. As operators, we can only do so much on our own and it gets extremely frustrating for us to be at work for 8-10 hours and not come close to making a production goal. But enough of that.....

Too bad for the Brewers, however they did have a winning season and provided us all with 6 months of excitement. There's always next year.
Another great Packer game yesterday. 4-0. Next week it's bring on the Bears. This could be an exciting game also. I should start getting emails any day now from my nephew the one and only Bears fan that I know. He can talk all the smack he wants to. It's not my fault he was raised corrupt.

In The Dark

Wednesday afternoon brought an out of the blue power outage for much of the South Side of Milwaukee. A power outage is never convenient, but this put a damper on my night. I had planned to get everything ready for our weekend camping trip. Instead I watched the battery operated television and lite many candles. Our power was expected back on my 8pm. Apparently the area we live in was the last to go on. From what I can figure it was around 1am. As much as I cursed out my husbands new alarm clock, the battery back-up functioned correctly. Having a power outage is live rough camping but inside your house. We found that the generator we purchased a few years ago served its purpose. We found that we are not prepared for an emergency. The generator is in the garage. I was never issued a garage key. (Man's world out there) and husband could not located the key ring with the garage key on it. We then found out how easy it is (was) to break into our garage. This has not been corrected. Then of course the brand new, never been used generator would not start. I left the area at that time. I'm no dummy.

On to Thursday...I left work to a flooded parking lot and pouring rain most of the way home. I got about a 1/2 mile from home and saw what appeared to be snow on the ground. 27th street going south was flooded, and there were small piles of white stuff all over. We had some accumulation of hail. Of course do you think I could find a camera to snap a picture. One had dead batteries and the other was out of film. The dog was a little skeptical about walking her little princess paws through the pile of hail on the deck.

It's off for the last weekend of camping this year. The weather seems promising. Hopefully the bee's will have left the area already. I seem to have caught my husbands cold so I may just plop my self in a lawn chair and let the sun take over.

Crappy Day

Why does one have to have a bad day? Is it just to off-set the good days you have? I know everything can't always be peaches & cream but come on now, what's wrong with a streak of good luck?

Yesterday for example was a good day. We did the Save the Boob's walk. The weather was good, the company was good and the Packer Game, refreshments and company after the walk was good. My hurting feet were okay after an hour or so and when we got home I did a few things around the house and actually sat down and watched some television.

Today was a different story. It started out okay, until I got to work. It was like I was being tested for just how much I could take before I blew. We all know that it's takes a little to yank my chain, and yank it they did today. I first off remembered that a girl who originally started on 1st and then went to 3rd was coming back to 1st today. I had trained her on 1st and she is hard to train. She kept asking all of us to be patient with her and apparently I was the only one who could be as I kept having to work with her. After a few hours today it hit me...she is not much further along then she was when she left our shift originally. She still asks the same questions and still has to show me every roll that she has a question on. My nerves were frayed within 2 hours.

On our schedule it stated that 1st shift was to do a change-over this morning. When I came in I inquired about this and it was confirmed that the changeover would be taking place. This required about 2 hours of switching materials and dies. Not a big deal when everyone takes a task and does it. Nooo....not today. There were only two of us that knew what had to be done. It was bogged down by having to train others. This is not a bad thing, as people need to learn this equipment. But when you have a higher up questioning your every move it can be a little tense. When you have parts of the equipment that do not function correctly it can be tense. About 3/4 of the way through the change-over the big boss comes in and is pissed that we're changing over (he wants answers as to why) as we didn't make the order we were supposed to. I stood there holding material that I was webbing through the machine, just waiting for him to tell me to change back. He mumbled something about the communication sucking around this place and left. Nothing went good. The entire work day was shit! I need to learn not to take things like that so personal, but when I have a crappy day there it bothers me. I'm constantly thinking of what I could have done differently, to make it better. After much thought today I came up with the answer. I should have stayed home.

A Day With Dylan

I was called upon today for Grandma duty. When Dylan was a baby I had him at least 5 times a week for 4 or 5 hours a day. It started to dwindle off as he got older. We had a bond. There were things we did together and memories we made. We stayed very involved in his sports activities and have a "grand kids spend the night" about once a month. Today I was asked to pick him up at his coach's house and my son would meet us back at home to pick him up. As we were having my daughter's birthday tonight I opted to keep him around until then.

I went to pick him up and realized that he's not that little baby anymore. It was around 8 years old that my son stopped giving me a kiss goodbye when I dropped him off at school. It was as we were driving up, but not in front of his friends. I walked into the coach's yard and Dylan came up to me and we walked to the truck. As we were getting into the truck without asking I got my hug and kiss. I had to make a stop at Kohls (big sale STB) and taking Dylan to the store used to entail him asking for something. Nothing...not so much as a book or toy. No complaining that I was taking to long, no heavy sighing..just idle talk. On we went to Culver's. He wanted to know if I minded if he also got a sundae.

When we got home I started thinking about how bored I used to get at my grandparents house. My Grandpa would always take us for a walk to the park, but if he wasn't home Grandma was not very entertaining. He pretty much amuses himself. We played a few games on the computer and a card game or two. Around the time my daughter and family were scheduled to arrive he went outside and sat on the front steps. This got to me as I remember when he would sit on the steps and wait for Arnie to come home from work. I went outside and sat with him and told him about how he'd wait for Grandpa to come home. As we were sitting there he leaned his head on my arm and simply said " I love you Grandma". Not to much could have made my day any better.

Tomorrow is the Race for The Cure walk. Ms. Gambino informed me tonight that she intends to sprint the last 3 blocks. I'll be the one trying to catch up to her. There's still time to donate to this cause!

What Is A Friend?

A few times a week I will receive emails with all this stuff about being friends. At the end of these email is always the message "If you are my friend I will get this back". They're all cute and say meaningful things but chances are if you send me one you will get my standard reply. "I do not have to prove I'm you're friend by sending this back to you". That to me proves I put more effort into the friendship then just clicking and forwarding back. I received one today which really got me thinking. What is a friend? Am I a worthy friend? I came up with some thoughts about the friends I have and why I care for them:

I'll do the mushy ones first. You hurt when your friends hurt. You can talk to your friends about anything. You can laugh and cry with your friends. You care enough about your friends to inquire as to the state of their spouse, children and parents. You can joke about misfortunes but yet realize the seriousness of them. You can be a sounding board and a listener. You will go out of your way to hook up with them. You will fill their Ti Ki torches. You will give it your all on you first pudgy pie cooking experience. You will make sure your friends are warm and have enough to drink. You do not lie to your friends. You will not let harm come to your friends or someone will be in the doghouse. You will accept phone calls at any time and under any conditions from your friends. Even though you don't care for their favorite team you find joy in their celebration of victory. You don't have to talk to them everyday to know your friendship in intact. You don't hurt them. You can tell when your friend has had a bad day and can usually talk them through it. You appreciate the friend that talks you through it. You all like the same drunken songs( or at least you pretend to). You have similar morals. You pick out the same clothes from catalogs. You can pass on shopping tips.

And that my friends is all I got!

Woke Up...Fell Out Of Bed

This song was in my head all day (no points for the artist as I'm on it). The story is simple...Around 1am this morning I heard a loud thud and a groan. Yes folks, once again my husband took a tumble. As I try not to laugh while writing this, I remember rolling over and seeing him on the floor flat on his face. I did not laugh!. I had concern as he didn't move for a moment. He then made a hasty run to the bathroom. He came out moments later with a nice gash right on his eyebrow line. The man was injured. I still did not laugh ( I was a bit groggy which could explain that). I inquired as to whether or not the ER was in need. He said he'd let me know in the morning. There wasn't really any blood, just a nice gash. Morning rolled around and at first I didn't remember it. That is until I was in the shower and immediately started chuckling to myself. When I got out and woke him up I could tell he was in a little bit of pain, so I had to compose myself. I also expressed my concern in him going and having this checked out, which I knew was falling on deaf ears. Upon my arrival home tonight I noticed that it was not taken care of. Some Neosporin was blobbed on it. This is a good thing. I was told that no doctor visit was in order...."It will heal". I then noticed a large rip in his pants. He had a bad day!

My drive to work found me switching radio stations as usual. I held up through the long commercial break only to be amused by the Beatles much fitting for the day song. I haven't figured out how to tell him that yet. Not sure he's in that kind of mood. I'm also not real sure how to pad the floor and night stand next to the bed to prevent this from happening again.

Who Turned The Heat Off?

Yes folks, it was cold. We've camped in mid-September before but this was late October weather. On the way out there I discovered that I had brought along the wrong tennis shoes. Hey we were meeting up at Cousins and how convenient that Kohls was a few doors down. I sent the hubbie in for the subs and made a bee-line for the store. I got a great deal on the shoes and while walking to the check-out saw an entire rack of thermal shirts on sale also. Picked up two which totally came in handy for the frigid weekend. A bargain was had.

Friday night was nippy, but with good company and a nice roaring fire I managed to stay warm. The heat was turned on in the camper and I had my crocheted blanket from my mommy. I'm sure I looked like a mummy as my hood from my sweatshirt was up and the blanket was covering my face. I sleep the furthest from the heater on the outside wall of the camper so I'm always the coldest. Sometime you gotta take one for the team.

Saturday we were joined by P & K and we hit the picnic area. Sweatshirts came off as the sun was warm and boche ball was played. R & I took the win. I must again apologize to K for the bobbled throwing of the Palino. Hope she's healing well! Somehow I managed to get a little sunburn on my face despite the cold. It wasn't as chilly Saturday night due to no wind and again a roaring fire. We must have all had our share of fresh air as everyone pooped out early. The mosquitoes were out for awhile but the bees were annoying. Once again, good friends, good food and a good time.

Next camping trip is planned for the last weekend in September. Hopefully it won't be snowing by then. The only thing that could have made this one bad would have been rain. Cold and rain don't mix well when camping. You just get the "never can get warm again" feeling.

Don't forget the run/walk Race for the Cure this weekend. A group of us are walking with my sister-in-law Gambino and in support of many others. You can donate to this cause by visiting

Komen Milwaukee Race for the Cure® . We registered and picked up our shirts today. I chuckled when the woman asked me if I wanted to be timed. I shall walk with my friend and try to keep the pace. There's a Packer Game to be watched by noon so that will get me
motivated to keep my ass moving.

Other than that it's back to work tomorrow. I'm still wondering how weekends can go by so fast.

The Possum Has Left The Yard

I'm pretty much thinking that the trap can be returned. It's pretty obvious that the possum has either left, is way to damn smart for that trap or different bait needs to be used. There in my driveway sits one big old empty lonely trap.

Had a pretty busy weekend. I just know that when my alarm went off at 5am this morning I wanted to throw it. My drunken Omega dinner did not sit well. Someone neglected to hang the phone up on the charger all the way and it kept beeping every 1/2 hour or so. Rather than reach over and fix it, someone just moaned every time it beeped.

I think we need to train Sadie to handle a few things around this house. Kind of like earning her keep. This laying around all day long crap has got to end. She needs a purpose in life, a goal, something to do all day. I seriously thought about setting up a video camera just to see what she does. She is in the same spot when I get home that she was when I left in the morning. There's nothing chewed or out of place and she'd pretty much penned in the same three rooms everyday. Our bedroom is off limits as she thinks she owns the bed. What cracks me up is when she gets up and moves from one area to another, lays down and lets out this huge sigh. Is it boredom, is she depressed? I also can't figure out how they say that a dog will forget what they did within a few minutes, but yet she will sit by the basement door and cry until we open it. Down she goes and retrieves the bone she left down there the day before.

Good weekend in sports except for Dylan's game. They lost 31-20. The coaches forfeited in the 4th quarter as three of the players were injured. Not seriously, but enough that they didn't want them to play. All that matters is that the kids had fun. I'm not quite sure I'm going to make it through the season listening to the step-grandfather trying to call all the shots from the sidelines. I'll just have to do a lot of walking up and down the sidelines so as not to hear his big dumb ass mouth. He is the equal of the annoying fan in the stands minus the beer.

Lean & the 5 S's

We are going through some changes in our manufacturing practices at work. At first, I was a little doubting that this would work. I still am. Don't get me wrong, I am all for finding a way to make things run smoother because Lord knows I am getting tired of the overtime. When I started my working career it was as a papergirl. My own boss I was. If I didn't get my ass out to collect I didn't have money. If I didn't treat my customers nicely, I didn't get tips. Things were good for a short time until I wanted more money and all my friends worked at the local Arthur Treacher's. I joined the team. For 1 1/2 years I was the smiling girl behind the counter. I reeked of fried fish and found that my life would not be in the fast food industry. I then went on to work at a Hardware Store. That was short lived as the manager of the store was a fucking pig and hit on everyone that worked there. I don't think there were many laws supporting sexual harassment back then or I know my dad would have had this guys ass in jail. I took a little break , graduated High School and went to work full time the day after my graduation as a secretary. Seven years. I did like that job but the company was going downhill. Had second child and went on to work in the manufacturing industry.

I can't say I don't like this industry as I do. I more so enjoy the R&D part of it. I'm into wanting to know how things work and trying to get them to run more smoothly and efficiently. I have learned that this is not possible without the support of everyone involved. When I worked at ET they would constantly implement new programs only to have them wash away within a month or so. As Production Leaders we were constantly required to attend self-improvement meetings/class's only to have that all wash away also. So at times I may go into something with not such a positive attitude. Yesterday I saw this negative attitude from one of my co-worker/friends.

We have a fairly new Process Engineer who was given the job of trying to make some sense of our new line. I like the guy, but he needs to assert his authority rather than shrink back. I like the fact that he is all for input from the operators and does listen to us. He has his butt out on the line and is known to help out. We run several different products on this line and yesterday we were changing products. He had a plan. His plan came from a book. I was also given this book to read and read it I did (Lean Manufacturing & the 5 S'S). My co-worker was also given the book, claims she read it but I have my doubts. I could see what he was attempting to do and I went along with it. She fought it tooth and nail. He came to me a little upset and expressed his anger toward her not wanting to cooperate. No one else but her had a problem with his plan. I told him that if he could get this change over more organized and down to 1/2 half the time it was taking us that he should consider it a success for now. My attempt to explain to her to just go along with it and if it does not work it's not our fault, fell on deaf ears. I'm thinking that she may has just been having some major PMS issues or that this was a power struggle. At any rate I was out of there at 3pm yesterday and things were still moving slowly. I guess on Monday at the changeover process meeting I will be filled in on all the details.

Speaking of mosquittos...I think had I stood in the Applebee's parking lot for one more minute they may have carried me away. Holy Crap! Next weekend is a camping weekend. I'm hoping for a frost before that. The weather is supposed to cool down a bit and stay dry. I was told today that the requirements of each camper is one can of Yard Guard. The little bastards are so hungry that I doubt it'll help.

Dylan has his first football game of the season today, grandma must go cheer.

The Trap Is Set

I had some crappy hours today. 9am to 7pm. The day went by fast as we're short-handed and a little busy. Actually the last hour dragged by. That's the point when we're all stocked up and just waiting for the next shift to come in at 6:59. Then of course you have to go through the events of the day and hear some boring chit-chat before you can leave. I got myself a little extra ot by not actually punching out until 7:20. I was immediately attacked when I walked out the door by the giant blood thirsty mosquito's. That's pretty much the topic around Milwaukee and outlying areas this past few days.
I managed to get myself behind a sheriff pretty much the entire way home. I was fine with that as he was cruising between 65-70 most of the way. I just chuckle at the brake lights when people see a cop. It just says "I was speeding" all over it.
I was informed when I got home tonight that the "trap has been set". I need to "stay away from it" when I got out in the morning. If I hear hissing or squealing I should just ignore it. Between us...I have not intention of messing with the trap or what's in it. It's baited with the neighbors tomato's as they figure that the possum is the creature eating all their tomato's. Duh..why should he go to the trap for them when they're right out in the open. I'm not sure what's to become of the ugly rat but I'm sure it will make it's way back eventually. It's probably out there right now sitting on top of the trap, legs crossed and munching down some delicious tomato's fresh from the garden.
It appears that we have vandals in the hood. Two cars on our street had their windshields smashed last night. This isn't the first time. It seems every couple years someone goes on a little window smashing spree. They don't take anything, just cause you the inconvience of shattered glass, calling the travling glass man to fix it, and your loss of work or $$. Some people have to get their rocks off in different ways!

Booing the Boys

Does a die-hard baseball fan boo at their team? Do we boo because of a bad decision a manager made or is it at the actual players? I could see if they were standing in the outfield counting the blades of grass or staring at the girls ta-ta's in the stands( that job is for STB and his friend) but these guys seem pretty intent in winning a game. While watching the game Monday I was a little angered at the booing after the game. What kind of fans does Milwaukee have? It's actually disrespectful and down right rude. I'll admit I booed in the past for players on other teams, but I've never stood with my hands around my mouth booing my own team. How rude! Good game tonight.

So who wants to wager on how long the possum will take to get back to our house once it is trapped and let loose elsewhere? I was chatting with someone at work today that told me that they had trapped a raccoon once and first took it 1 mile away, then about 2 1/2 and the third and final time took it over 5 miles away. He claims he knew it was the same one. They all look the same to me. (no pun intended) So maybe this weekend when the great possum hunter sets out the trap and then wonders what the mess to do with the hissing animal the next morning I should just stand back and not say I told you so. Somehow I picture him running past the window several times with this thing stuck to his body. Here's to you Mr. Excuse Me But Can You Get This Possum Off My Back Man.

Baseball It Is

I can't even say it was a dilemma. Pre-season football vs. the Brewers playing the Cubs. I choose the Brewers. I tuned into the game at the end of the first quarter, checked the score, saw that Rogers was in and switched back to the Brewer game. Not a big fan of #12. There's money involved in the football game but not much excitement in watching it.

The wonderful people I work for were so gracious as to let us out at 3pm today. That's twice this week. I am so rushed when working until 5 that I didn't know how to handle getting out 2 hours early. My first thought was to do some shopping. That was short lived as I can squeeze that in this weekend. Second thought was go home and read an Operators Manual that was given to me at work. That went down the tubes. I opted to catch Dylan's football practice.

I found myself seated on my lawn chair in between my son and his current girlfriend and Dylan's mom and her husband. They all get along well but the subject of who gets Dylan on what days for Christmas came up. This is a hassle that I went through for years with my ex also. After listening to them for awhile my head started to hurt. I thought to myself...this is 4 months away, let's let it go for another few months. She has a large family that needs to understand the Dylan can't be at every one's house. My family understands. But when her husband busted in with "My parents and grandparents want to see him on Christmas also" I snapped inside. I have natural grandparent rights. There are a lot of times that I back off as I don't want Dylan to feel this pressure. He's a kid and shouldn't have to. But if you tell me that I have to step aside so a step-grandparent is not unhappy it jerks my chain. My son's girlfriend has the right idea-she takes him to her families home a day or two before the holiday so as not to add anymore visits to the boy's already full plate. The final outcome was to find out who's doing what and when and talk about it at a later date. Let's focus on the reason we came to the football practice. We then switched to the bickering over who he was going home with after practice. It seems he's been with his dad for the past 4 days and mom wanted him to come to her house before she turned his bedroom into a den. As we were leaving I decided to settle the whole thing and told him to hop in my car. His plan was that I'd take the day off tomorrow and we'd go fishing. It was tempting. In the end the torn between his parents child went home with Mom. His parting words to his dad "Pick me up at 7am tomorrow Dad". Ahhhh the memories.

Buy A Truck!

I had to make a stop at the local garden center after work today. During my shopping I happened to notice a couple purchasing a large tree. The thing was hanging out of a shopping cart. I wondered why as the store has several wagon type carts that they could have stood the tree up in. As I was loading my four bags of wood chips into my truck (I am so glad I'm not a girlie girl and can hoist these things up) I saw the couple attempting to load the large tree into the back of some type of hatch back car. It wasn't going to happen. They were arguing quite loudly. She wanted to call someone, he was sure they could get this thing home. I overheard her say they had to go all the way to Highway 100 and Morgan. Ding!! There is a Steins Garden Center on Highway 100 and Beloit. I thought of mentioning that to them but I figured why add fuel to the fire.

I've come to the conclusion that all the weathermen should say on a daily basis is : A chance of rain. That would cover their ass. I watched the weather this morning and heard nothing about rain today. I listened to the weather on the way to work and heard "chance of rain tomorrow". It sure did rain. I'm not sure what was going on but the weather radio at work was going nuts around 11 am. Obviously there was no need to take cover or someone would have run out and told us.

The camping trip was a good time. The hot firemen at Muster Fest were pleasant to the eye. A fan may have come in handy a few times (to keep the bees away). I found the Grumpy Troll Bar to be a little stuffy. I found the dive bar to be fun. Thankfully we only had rain upon our arrival, the rest of the weekend was great weather. I had doubts that raccoons still existed as we hadn't seen any evidence of them so far this year. They made a little visit to us on Saturday night. Ken was able to save the cake but the little rats made off with a bag of Doritos (we never found them) and a bag of bad peanuts (which we found a few feet into the woods). I partially blame this on us for leaving the stuff out in the first place. See what happens when E doesn't come and Ken goes to bed early. There is no one on food patrol.

I have found my Bible and highliter and will be reading and highlighting all the "knows" in the Good Book. I found that bit of trivia to be quite interesting and amusing. I must though share one verse I have found so far: Genesis Chapter 4 vs 1- And Adam knew Eve his wife: and she conceived, and bare Cain. This is as much as I read today

L

No cook, no cleaning person, no gardener, no pool boy, flat out no win. I am a looser once again in the Powerball drawing.

The other day I was browsing and read some stories about previous lottery winners. These stories make want you buy tickets so you can prove statistics wrong. There was a story about a woman who won twice and is now living in a trailer park. Apparently she gave a lot of money to family and now they're all living it up while and won't help her. After further investigation (another article on her) it is revealed that she gambled away a large portion of her winnings. What the articles fail to tell you is how these people got into these situations. Take for instance the man who suddenly became a cocaine dealer. He was shot. Hello?? On the lighter side, the Mormon people in Utah that won built a house across the street from their old home, still have the same friends and live a little better. Their big thing is to take a family trip every Christmas. They all looked pretty happy. So for now, I'll just continue to spend my measly two dollars on Powerball tickets. I'm 0 for 245 now. How bad can it be?

Off to camping tomorrow. Hopefully we won't need to take a pontoon boat to our site. I'm a little nervous about the amount of mosquito's we may encounter. So far this year it hasn't been bad. There's some prime breeding ground for the little bastards now. We will certainly miss our friend E who won't be joining us this time. I feel a song coming on. Something to do with Spam, filling torches and gas.

Hey Noah!

I had bad timing today. I turned on my niceness and stayed a little past 5 to help out our Process Engineer with something he wanted to run. I could hear the weather radio going off and figured I had time before the mess hit Wauwatosa. At 5:20 as I was walking toward the exit door I saw that is was very dark outside. For one moment I had a flashback of working 2nd shift. Of course today I was loaded down with not only my purse and lunch bag but a box with Kringles that came today. As I part-ran, part-swam across Bostik Lake to my car my only thought was to protect the $7.50 soccer (I hate soccer) fund raiser Kringles. To my fellow campers you will be happy to know they made it home safe and sound and not even soggy.

I opted to take Highway 100 home verses the freeway as I could see traffic was moving very slow. This is where driving a truck may have been a good thing. Many cars were having great difficulty in the lakes that had formed on H100. In some areas the water was up to the curb. The closer I got to home the less severe the weather was. As I pulled onto our street I was a little shocked to see tree branches laying in the road. Hubbie confirmed that our area got hit pretty hard in about a 10 minute span. According to weather man Vince...there is more to come and it may be worse. (why or why am I so responsible that I just put new batteries in my alarm clock in case of a power outage).

Saturday's weather looks good for camping. We're hoping that we miss Friday's rain. It sucks setting up camping gear in the rain. Although the nice little sports bar near by would make a good waiting area.

A Little to Much of The Boxer, Joe

We've had this college kid working with us for the summer. This is a fairly new program that was started this year in the production area. He's been with us since early June. Since early June I have seen his boxers hanging out of his pants every day. I could tell you that he has 4 different pair and hopefully duplicates or he does his laundry often. The boy is tall and needs to possible wear a tall size tee shirt. Today marked the first day that someone mentioned the showing of his drawers. One of the guys on the line mentioned that he may want to wear a belt or hoist up his pants as we were all getting tired of looking at his drawers. He turned a little red and actually came over and apologized to me. He has two more days of work left. I kept telling my female co-worker that it could be worse, it could be butt crack.

I've come to the conclusion that I hate working until 5pm. By the time I get home it's 530-545 depending on traffic. I'm usually hungry when I get out of work, and will plan out what to make for dinner. By the time I get home, it's all down the drain. I walk up the drive way in complete hope that maybe, just maybe my wonderful husband either took pity upon me or is so hungry that he made something. Tonight there is nothing. So I have consumed to a piece of salami and cheese. He is at his other job and probably ate something quick. I see no evidence of cooking.

I'm beginning to think that the first thing I may do when winning tomorrow night's Powerball is hire a cook.

Soggy Lambeau

The trip to Lambeau to see the Packers in preseason was actually quite fun. The nasty misting rain only lasted until the middle of the first quarter of the game. My trusty Totes raincoat kept me dry except for my arms. That I could not figure out and it was annoying as hell. I was warm except for the wet soggy arms on the shirt under my raincoat.

I find Lambeau very interesting. It doesn't matter how many times I go but when I walk into the stadium I still get the chills. Kind of like at Miller Park. It was my friend's first trip to Lambeau and she mentioned the same thing. We had some slight nose-bleed seats but had a great time. The ride back to Manitowoc was a little long and frustrating. I guess we haven't been there enough to know all the little short cuts yet. I do need to mention that when I got to the game my sub-sandwich was safe and sound in my cooler.

I don't want to steal anyone else's post but I need to second the motion that Milwaukee radio sucks. On my way home the other day I was switching between 3 stations at 5pm. This is when a lot of people are getting out of work and just don't want to hear 6-8 commercials in a row, then the weather, then the traffic and continuous promises of commercial free music. It was truly 12 minutes between songs and then one song and back to about 5 more minutes of commercials. We drove up to Green Bay and picked up radio station right before Sheboygan which had two commercial breaks for about 2 minutes in over two hours. They also played some good music. What is the problem in Milwaukee?

I forgot to mention the tailgaters we were next to. Two guys in their early 20's that were cooking these burgers that had to be 6 to 8 inches thick. One guy kept complaining that these things were taking forever to cook. He had to yell to the other guy over their blasting Iron Maiden music. Sweet!