Camping in the Tahoe National Forest

We went spur of the moment camping this past weekend with our new friends Jed & Ayla and had a super great time. Having lots of things to still get done at home, we only went for one day & night, but now knowing what's there, we'll stay longer next time! Only an hour away, and right by the Yuba river. Jed has his own secret place which he discovered years ago, and it's perfect. Lots of woods, right be the river and just nice. Here's a shot of the camp spot:


Before that, we went to a jeep crawl, and it was pretty interesting. Lots of red-necks and whooping it up, testosterone was everywhere. And tattoos! Keystone didn't really seem to like the noise and climbed right up in the chair, his sanctuary I guess.


Picture of one of the crawl areas:


Oops.


Heave HO!


This is steps away from our camp. The river opens up to an Olympic size pool, that's T on the right, Ayla on the left.


Certainly no delay in getting in!



Jed and Sydney.



Another angle:



Abbytail:


Amber-Boo:



The Stone man:



Stones likes getting up on things, especially with Daddy:



In ya go!!



I love this Close up:


Cruise missiles:


No doubt you've heard of the fires in California, it was very smoky:


All of the pictures can be seen here: CLICK HERE

Can't wait to go again!

Growing slowly

1st part of it is being impatient, 2nd part is putting them in the ground late, 3rd is the dirt here, 4th is the weather. Seems like my toms should be three times as tall as they are, but as I look at my blog, it has ONLY been a month, and maybe I expect too much. But then again, it's been a whole MONTH! My tallest plant is maybe a foot tall, I'm thinking it should be three. Sigh. We water every day, and they are mostly planted in a combination of Home Depot bagged stuff, so I don't get why they aren't moving. Certainly plenty of sunshine!!

Looks about the same, don't it?

Is that a bunny? The peppers seem to be happy, much happier than toms really:

An "Ace" and a coupla Early Girls already turning:

Volunteers from the compost, makes me smile!

Today I'll dig through the cabinets and find some fertilizer. I know I've got plenty of STUFF, why not use it? Today isn't windy thank God, so it's a good time.

How many plants does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Uh-One, Uh-Two, Uh-Three! Three HUNDRED I guess. Jiminy Christmas have we gone a bit nuts with plants? This is pretty much last week's haul from Costco, a local nursery and the Garden Club's fund raising sale, about 25 plants there alone. We've got about 50 others planted (including mostly the toms and peppers, but a dozen plus on the hill too) with all these left to go. Plenty on my plate, tons of holes to drill. Drilling holes sucks, rocks and boulders. More fun when it's windy too, which is most often. I think I can do tops 10 holes a day before I'm worn out. Dig, chip, pry, repeat. My hands are sore, my back is taking it fine.

Sleep Mr. Stone man... Sleeeeep.....

To disclose, I think my pups spend 90% of their day sleeping, and of course we try to make them as COMFY as possible, with at least 6 dog pillows scattered throughout the house (among 27 thousand dog toys). But ain't he CUTE! Don't it make you want to say something like fuzzy-wuzzy? Yeah, it's just Keystone on a dog pillow, but he's ma' boy and I'm proud!

Let the garden grow!!!

I like the look of my gardens so far. They ain't fancy, but I like 'em. The eventual plan for the back wall is to totally cover the cement blocks. Today, things in the big garden are a week old. Once again I probably crammed too many too close, but it's always worked, hopefully here too!!

Things are growing (OK, so three peppers have bit the dust), already got some Early Girls, and scattered other tomato buds. Basil is still teeny in the garage (planted a bit late from seed), but it grows fast. Hoping to put it in the ground in a few weeks.

I still got work to do. Cages, drip line, more rocks, and I have to figure out how I'm going to plant the bunch of onions I have, wasn't thinking of them in my design.

We've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 tomato plants and 20 peppers, which is a lot higher pepper percentage than past years, but last year the peppers were poor and I'm trying something different with them. Lots of herbs around too! Basil, thyme, rosemary, sage. Ah, I love this time of year!

Getting ripped off sucks

May is going to be remembered for me as the month people ripped us off. I hope it's not a trend. If I sit and dwell on it, I get really ticked, mainly at my own stupid self cause I'm smart enough to know better, but also with people. How can some people purposely commit such blatant fraud and live with themselves? Honestly. We're talking 4 instances. The first is the one I'm most pissy about. I got conned, in the parking lot of Costco of all places, for a "We'll fix that dent and make it good as new for $200". Sure ya will. It looks like crap, worse than before, and they even cracked the paint. I fell for the "Ya need to let that white stuff (hiding their crappy work) sit for a few hours before you wipe it off". Yeah, I'm an idiot, and $200 poorer. What makes me doubly mad is that this dent is one I caused due to my own action, while getting fold up tables for a garage sale. The garage sale didn't pay for my dent so far!

The 2nd and 3rd are identical, I ordered two magazine subscriptions via eBay. Months later when I've gotten nothing, I see that neither did anyone else, and both accounts are closed. Here's how they get ya, their disclaimer is it can take 2 months for the magazines to start arriving, and you only have 45 days to file a PayPal claim or it's too late. These people did this on purpose, they set out to steal. That's pure fraud. And maybe it's not over, I was able to file claims anyway, we'll see. I'm also going to write a letter to Consumer Reports, cause ironically one of the three year $34.95 subscriptions I paid for was for them. I don't expect them to do anything about it, but maybe they'll warn others.

The last is "OUCH, I HURT MY NECK!". The insurance adjusters were out today to take pictures of the "damage" to the Ford when Tracy bumped another lady in rush hour traffic a week or so ago. Being third party, I only know it was a bumper to bumper hit and the license plate frame came off, and supposedly dented her bumper with my tow rings. If you look at the Ford, you can't tell anything was damaged. Here's the thing. It was a bump and Tracy got a little upset, enough so that the lady she hit and swapped info with actually hugged. The police didn't see that it was enough to warrant a report or ticket, and everyone went on their merry way. Right? No. Our insurance company says: "she has sought medical care and is now claiming an injury from what appears to be a very minor accident". Yup, let's con the insurance company!! The good news is of course we were insured and USAA has got a spine. The insurance adjuster was out today and wrote up a claim for $12.83 worth of damage, that's the retail price of a license plate frame. He says false claims are up. Maybe, just maybe she just went to the doctor, and she should, she wasn't at fault, but somehow I smell something a LOT different, and I checked my shoes.

Yeah Yahoo, have you got your balls out of your wife's purse?

Wow. They even used verbatim the Wikipedia description I posted previously.

What will Yahoo bring for Memorial Day?

Mother's Day had their ducky for about three days. Here it is Friday and nothing yet on Yahoo. Will we see anything? Are American Flags offensive? Some would say war is. But is honoring our dead soldiers? Patiently waiting....

Memorial Day is a United States Federal Holiday that is observed on the last Monday of May (observed in 2008 on May 26). It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in military service to their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include those who died in any war or military action.

The twins come home

I had to do it:

The best part about this? In today's corporate world, which thankfully I'm not a part of, there is no doubt this is "sexual harassment". Certainly not "politically correct". I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think she'd be OK with it, and she of course was, and had a good laugh. Lighten up world, it's funny. SO glad I'm not a part of that two faced crap any more.

What's Shakin'?

All this free time on my hands and I've not mentioned the earthquakes!! It's been almost a month, but we did feel "The Big One" that happened on April 25th at nearly midnight. It was a 4.7 magnitude and we were both up and the house shook, like an egg in a frying pan. Amber stood straight up, don't think she liked it at all. The other pups I didn't notice. It was a very weird feeling. At first I didn't know what it was, and it happened so fast I didn't have time to think. No damage at all, not here anyway. 15 miles away where a friend of mine lives in Mogul, he's literally on top of the activity, and he's had cracked walls, broken dishes, computers knocked over, etc. He works for the Reno police, amusingly enough the DEA and they are calling their home "the crack house". That's taking it well.

For a map of Mogul and the quakes: http://www.seismo.unr.edu/feature/2008/mogul.html

and a list of recent quakes: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/38.40.-121.-119_eqs.php

Isn't it amazing how many there are? We might have beach front property yet!

Da Pepper Garden

Using leftover concrete blocks from last year's temporary garden, we have this:

Four types, Yellow Banana, Red Bell, Jalapeno and Italian Roaster. Some creature already plucked one overnight, hopefully that taste was good enough. Pups are there sniffing for bunnies, there were six babies there along the fence line.

Welcome to the moonscape

Last weekend we started landscaping the back yard, and literally worked on it every day this week (except Monday, I was sunburned). I gotta admit: it's fun. Tracy and I have always liked working our butts off outside and getting dirty and feeling exhausted, and with the back yard a blank slate, we've got plenty to do! No, I don't like the rocks, and digging is a BEYOTCH, and when it's windy the dirt in your eyes suck big time, but it's a good creative outlet and so far so good. Our focus right now is to get areas to PLANT things, tomatoes, peppers, flowers etc, but mainly the toms. Gotta have my toms. So the first project should be an easy one:

Here's my fatness contemplating a circle (actually I broke the damn rake)

Only a few hours later, complete!! Five different tomato plants, Early Girl, Better Boy, Super Sweet 100, Ace (new one on me) and Beef Master.

Stones says: "Where the 'maters!?"

Full view, next project under way. Bigger, better, MORE PLANTS!!!!

Hmmmm.... How's this look... Nah....

Oh, what to do, what to do......

Here's what I settled with. Kinda weaving around and mindless, like me! I wanted to come out further like in the first picture, but I would have had to dig too much and this was going to have to do. The back row of concrete blocks (I REPURPOSED THEM!) should be hidden by the time I'm done (dirt and decorative rock). The next step is to rake out the rocks, the big ones anyway, fill it full of dirt & nature's goodness, till it all together and plant!

Fortunately we're going to a pinball show tomorrow so my hands and back will get a break.

Yahoo follow up

I didn't grab a screen shot, but for Mother's Day weekend, we had baby ducks! How cute. Santa however, is NOT cute and is banned.

Yahoo is scared of Jesus

This has been bugging me for awhile, but I've kept it to myself. But no more. Today, with Cinco de Mayo on the calendar, Yahoo changed their splash screen. The wording in the tab is even "Yahoo! Celebrates Cinco De Mayo 2008". Check it out, tribute to millions of illegal immigrants in the United States:

And earlier this year, get this! We changed it for Chinese New Year! Oh yeah baby:

And you bet, Saint Patty's Day? Damn right, Pot O' Gold and everything. We're not offending anyone? Right?

I think we MIGHT have had a pumpkin on Halloween (no witches, that's baaaaaaaaaaddddd!) , and a cornucopia on Thanksgiving, but certainly not Pilgrims, that's offensive. Valentines Day was hearts (no blood). Groundhog day was certainly a fucking gopher, but I didn't take a screen shot. New Years Eve? Oh, you bet. Party whistles and fireworks, what else? The holiday Yahoo change has has been going on for years, and it wouldn't bother me if I hadn't noticed one thing last year. Christmas. Here it is:

That's right. Nothing. Zip. Zero. No tree, no presents, no baby in the manger, no nothing. No Santa Claus, no elves, no candy canes, no notta. No snowflakes, no stockings, no ANYTHING that would offend anyone for it being what it is. Pisses me off.

I've got my own religious beliefs and I don't pawn them on anyone, but give me a break. Christmas is, and always will be, December 25th and recognized because of Christianity. But whether it's Jesus Christ, Santa Claus or snow, it's going to happen the day after the 24th. We stopped recognizing Lincolns Birthday and Washington's birthday and merged them in to Presidents day. Why? Why is it at the same time to we still have Martin Luther Kings day as a Federal holiday? Columbus Day is on the chopping block, you just watch.

As always; Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Having a baby is a glorious thing....

Ever have one of those situations where the outcome is CERTAINLY not what you expected, but it sure makes sense now that the truth is known. Usually it means a happier outcome than it coulda been. Well, I got a story.....

I was outside watering plants, yeah, I do it. I spot the mail truck down at the cluster o' mailboxes 4 houses down, figured I'd hang around and carry my buckets to Amy or the other dude that fills in when they stop. I'm not paying close attention, when I catch him driving by and not stopping, whoever HE is, he doesn't look familiar. Crap.

So I grab the buckets and proceed to walk down to where he's unloading, and it's a guy I've never seen before. "Hey there!" (I pleasantly say), "These are for you!". He looks at me and says "3813?" meaning of course my address. "I was going to come back" and he points to a laminated, LAMINATED I TELL YOU, little card that says "Pick Up Daily at 3813 Desert Fox Drive!"

I'm thinking, Dude, you SO rate!

"Oh cool", I say. "Where's Amy? She sick?"

He shrugs and says no, but strangely, I sense a smile on his face.

"Wassup? She's not on vacation". I'm more stating a fact here. She was just gone for a few days to Napa, and she almost always tells me when she's going to be gone.

Another head nod and "Nope.... you'll find out in two weeks"

Two weeks? WTF is that about? Huh? "Two weeks? Not sick, not on vacation... She all right? What? Get in trouble or something?"

Another smirk and "You'll find out in two weeks"

Weird. And confusing. I go home. I have her number, I'll call.

I do, I get her voicemail and leave a short message just asking if she's OK.

Tick tock.... hours pass. It's later, and my phone ringy-dings. 775 number (local), unrecognized, and it's not Amy, at least not Amy's cell.

"Hello?"

"Hey Todd itCRRRRsssassa-ME!" Conenction is not great.

"Huh? Hello?"

"Hey Todd it's Amy!"

"Oh! Hey! How are ya!??"

"I got a neccrwCCRRRb job"

Oh great. My fav mail lady is moving on with a new job. Peachy.

"You got a new job?"


Scroll please







A little more......

"No! I got a BOOB job!"

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Now it all makes sense!! So the world welcomes in a new set of twins. Life is good :)

The wussification of corporate America

I seem to be saying this a lot lately, what is WRONG with people? And what is wrong with companies? My wife tells me you can't hug at her place of work, it's a big no-no. That's not far off from forbidding shaking hands, because that *IS* physical contact you know. How about the good ol' boy pat on the back? Only in baseball (butts allowed too!). When did everyone get carpel tunnel, ADD, restless leg syndrome, acid reflex and autism? Who decided a little ass wiping was a bad thing? Not my Mama, I can tell you that!

It particularly bothers me about the businesses, the entire "that's the way it is" and "it's what's best" mentality, without hurting anyone's feelings except for the accused. What happened to doing what's right? I love the anonymous phone lines for reporting inappropriate dress or performance. Think about it. If it's THAT bad, it'll be obvious and SHOULD fix itself (if the company isn't afraid of firing or some kind of discipline, but they are). But the phone line is set up in case ONE person is offended, but it's not bad enough to publicly complain about it. I heard a story recently about a guy that had to lay off his entire department. One person sued for discrimination cause she was mexican. One of the guys I used to deal with works for a major auto manufacturer, has been reprimanded for stealing from his company, and to this day still appears to sell stolen items on eBay. The company is afraid to fire him. That makes sense.

It seems to be getting worse. I've griped about eBay, in that they're changing their feedback policy so that sellers cannot rate the buyers as anything but good. That's just wrong. PayPal, an eBay company, is doing something similar yet different. If someone has gone past the 45 days to file a claim, they can still report that to PayPal, PayPal will note it and warn you, but you have no recourse. It's like our HOA "courtesy letter violations". The PayPal thing came out of the blue for me, someone who bought something a year ago, unknown to me, never got it. The email from PayPal indicated something to the affect of "While this claim was not processed, we've noted it on your record and it has no affect on your account". What a minute!? If it doesn't, why are you telling me? Where's my trial? How many anonymous strikes to I get before it DOES make a difference.

Now, the other day, I get something from Amazon. Seems like I stepped over the line again. What did I do? I don't know!! But by golly, they're letting me know I did bad!

From Amazon.com Seller Performance Team
Subject: Notice: Policy Warning

We have received a complaint about an inappropriate email contact that originated from your email address. Please note that sending excessive email is against our policies. Please consider the privacy of Amazon.com participants to be of utmost importance and refrain from sending unsolicited or excessive email.

So what did I do? Did I send someone their tracking info and they thought it was spam? Did I Respond to an idiot that was whining about something stupid and they reported me for responding? Was it sending the guy a link to my pinball site as he bought a pinball price guide (we all know solicitation is a BIG no no). Or what? Who was it to? What was it about? When did I send it. I'll never know, you want to guess why? Because the Amazon Seller Performance Team is a send only, never respond email. When I emailed asking what I did, I got this in response:

Thank you for writing to us about the notice you recently received. Please note that this is an automated response to your message. While we cannot provide a personal reply to messages sent to this address, please be assured that you are a valued member of the Amazon.com selling community and we value your communication with us.

Accused, tried and convicted. And don't do it again, whatever it is, we're not telling you, you should know better.

A Hair Above the Rest

What other business seems to have witty names besides hair cut places? You ever notice that? It struck me a week ago and then even more so when I saw something on Family Guy (which I forgot of course). There's one by one of my favorite taco places, and for the heck of it, I just checked the Yellow Pages:

Shear Bliss
Hair It Is
Shears 2 U
The Happy Lookers
Best Little Hair House (for Reno, that's funny!)
Urban Tangles

And I know I've spotted some other funny ones around town that are not in the book.

Just an observation.

The biggest change....

I've been in Nevada for 9 months now, and sometimes still can't believe we made the move. It doesn't seem like 9 months, yet in some ways it does. To date I'm still fighting the overcharges with the moving company, still don't have nary a tool or most garage items unpacked, haven't found (or looked for lately) my crock pot or EPROM programmer. When I do open up a box, I'm often struck with a sense of "Huh! Forgot about that!". Since there are no built in bookshelves like the old house, most books are still packed up. As are lots of things I probably don't need. Will I ever be unpacked?

But it's feeling like home. I no longer flip three light switches looking for the right one, and I can drive home without really looking for my street. My dogs are happy. I love my kitchen. But I tell ya, I'm still lacking PEOPLE. Some KC friends still seem close, others dropped me before I left town, it was kinda weird. Why is it that some people that you rarely saw in person, can no longer pick up the phone or email just cause you moved? In some ways I guess they were never good friends. And I'm not finding good friends here, but I've also kinda given up trying, at least as much as I was 6 months ago. Yeah, there are people that I like & seem OK, but too often I feel like I'm a third wheel, which is a feeling I've ALWAYS hated. One guy has turned out to be a real loser, and it's sad cause he could be OK if he wasn't always so full of bullshit. Another squirrelly guy has actually turned out to be pretty OK, despite being a bit of a loner and a conspiracy theorist. Thankfully we have pinball in common. I know my neighbors about THIS MUCH more than I did when I got here, but I've gotten to know my mailman fairly well. Who woulda guessed?

I'm looking forward to the warmer weather, and that means outdoor work. I actually miss mowing, and a garden is right around the corner! I was a long cold winter and I'm ready for a change. It's supposed to hit 70 today to really give us a taste of things to come. I'm sure in 4 months I'll be bitching about the 110 degree temperature, but I'm going to enjoy the time between.

Looking at my life, this is definitely the biggest chance & change I've ever made. Quitting my corporate job, getting married, buying a house, etc were all huge events, but nothing like this one. I'm still surprised.

(This ramble was brought to you by early morning Folger's)

Game over....

The title is about as witty as I want to get. I guess it happens to a lot of people, a little life changing moment that makes you slow down and think... I was coming back from a friends house about 20 miles North of me, two lane highway, speed limit 65. I had slowed down a bit for the car in front of me when I noticed the guy behind me approaching fast. Fast he was, and passed he did, both of us without using his signal. I then passed the vehicle in front of me and two miles later crested the hill and came upon this:


Unfortunately, the person in the picture is not the driver. The driver is in the ditch, dead. For some reason he lost control and flipped at least 2-3 times, and not wearing his seatbelt, he was ejected. He must have died quickly because it couldn't have been minutes. Life is that quick. I was home an hour later, seatbelt as always, but driving a little slower.

Is it Spring yet?

Today (Sunday), we actually started to get in the MOOD! No no no, not for that. That's later. I'm talking about outside busy work. It wasn't exactly warm, I don't think it cleared 50 out, but it was nice enough and the mood struck that we worked in "the yard" (Note 1). It was kinda nice. The back yard need a LOT of stuff done to make it livable, but I can picture it a lot nicer. Last summer we got rid of the hideous child prison, and now we've got plans & thoughts for a real garden, bigger patio and more plants. I'm looking forward to it. Paul? Send more round rocks please. (Note 2)

(Note 1): When I say Yard, I mean back property filled with dirt.

(Note 2): Flat Rate Priority is only $8.90! For whatever weight! You could fit maybe two in there!