Too busy & too late to be blogging

But I wanted to share the news that the BSU is beginning to turn the corner. She's still shaky and easily confused but she's getting better. I know so because she is begining to complain about the food, the crazy people around her, and her need for toothpaste and deodorant.

We have had two very good visits in the past two nights. Last night she was able to clearly spell out to me the things that she felt needed to change in her very small environment of the hospital wing she is in. So we talked and came up with a plan that today she would express the same concerns and requests to the charge nurse. She got to see her social worker first though and she used the opportunity to make her request for toothpaste known as well as the other things discussed the night before.

And she got what she asked for!

Tonight's visit was a small celebration of this simple improvement in her health. We talked about lots of things including what name she wants to be called by the grandson who is due in January. She has put lots of thought into this question! we also discussed what I want to be called by a grandson, (Old grouchy bastard has been ruled out) and she expressed interest in a pastoral visit which I will arrange tomorrow.

And now I'm going to bed!

Go read this. Take your hanky

John Ross has a post that is a real tear-jerker but I think its worth a read. Sadly, it has become obvious that sometime in my own near future I will have to make a similar choice regarding our Dalmation, Abigail. She is healing up from the toe removal quite well it seems but her number of days is waning.

One more thing for me worry about.

Something I discovered- perfect driving food

Most of you know that I am commuting from Ogden to Salt Lake City nearly every evening to see my hospitalized spouse. Which means I've been eating too much junk food, or too late at night and drinking coffee in the hours I normally reserve for drinking beer.

One of the things that this routine of driving has taught me is that 7-Eleven offers the best cheap coffee readily available. Sure, Starbucks or Grounds For Coffee has real lattes and Grounds For Coffee even has the butterscotch syrup I like. But 7-Eleven has fresh coffee all the time, a tolerable steamed milk substitute in the cappuchino machine and decent, reusable cups.

But I just discovered last night the best thing at 7-Eleven- the Taquitos! I had two, for 2 bucks and they were quite tasty. I purchased one of the Jalapeno and Cream Cheese and one of the Monterey Jack cheese and chicken versions. One of the reasons I liked these tasty food sticks was because they are easily consumable using one hand, while driving and without making a mess all over my shirt.

So there it is- I admit I'm a 7-Eleven customer. And happy about it!

John F'n Kerry Flip-Flops Again

And this time its about guns and what he supposedly said in an interview with Outdoor Life magazine in which he claims to own a Chinese assault rifle, which of course, reminds him of his time in Vietnam.

But in Michele's reprinting of the NYT article from the weekend, we discover that John F'n Kerry didn't actually have an interview with Outdoor Life, rather he handed a written questionaire to an unnamed staff member who apparently made up the assault rifle ownership story!

What a load of crap! Either that staff member needs to be publicly fired for making the Kerry campaign look even more like a roving band of yokels, or Kerry does own the gun! And if he does, I think that matter needs to be explored much further because its either completely illegal or its simply part of that group of scary looking guns that John F'n Kerry repeatedly voted to remove from the hands of normal, citizen Americans.

So which is it? Is the Democratic candidate a lier or just two-faced on gun ownership issues?

Conan to replace Jay in 2009

Lucky for me I'll be too old and too tired for the Tonight Show by the time of the handover. I like Jay...

BSU's condition-

She has had a hard week overall. The bronchitus/pneumonia is under control and she's improving physically. She has had to skip two ECT treatments though to give her brain a rest. She has been really confused most of the week, not even able to stay in the moment when I've been visiting but rather lost and clouded in her thinking.

She's tried to walk out of the ward a couple times because she thinks its time for her shift to be over and for her to go home. Since she has worked in hospitals for many years and is used to the nursing station environment and the scrubs that she must wear to id her as a patient, she just gets to thinking that she works ther too. And when her shift is over, she wants to go home.

In other things she has been confused too. Her brain is seemingly bouncing around, trying to grasp onto something, anything that makes sense, that she can hold onto. But as soon as she has a thought firmly fixed, 4 minutes later its gone and we start all over again trying to anchor her thoughts.

The behaviour is typical of the ECT and exaggerateed by the antibiotics that she was getting for the bronchitus. Hopefully this week coming will be better for her.

As for my bug that kept me on the recliner all day Saturday- its not gone but I've beat it into submission with some extra sleep and that Sav-On brand NyQuil. I'm going to have a shower and another dose in just a couple minutes...

Abigail our aged dalmation seems to be improving from her toe amputation surgery last Friday as well. You might remember that she had surgery to fix a broken toenail a month ago, it didn't work and so she had to have one entire toe removed. She's been mighty miserable in pain and she has a huge bandage covering her foot that makes it hard for her to get around. But tonight she even managed up the stairs while I made dinner and back down again on her own. I keep feeding her the pain meds and she doesn't seem to mind taking them.

so that's it then. Bed time right after a shower. And 90 miles to a gallon of gas; isn't that cool?

90 miles today, 1.03 gallons!

I took the scooter on its first real ride today, into SLC to see the BSU. I took the back roads, except that I forgot that highway 89 actually joins up with the interstate 15 for several miles. Oops! 52 mph isn't enough when its posted for 65 mph! Anyway, I got back onto secondary roads for the remainder of the trip with no difficulties and it turned out to be a perfect day for a ride.

And it really did take 1.03 gallons to refuel when I got home with 90 miles traveled! I fueled up before leaving at the station at the bottom of the hill from the house and refueled again upon my return. That's incredible mileage considering that most of the trip I was running at wide open throttle.

Top speed does seem to be about 53 mph on flat roads. There are a couple hills that reduced me to below 40. For those hills, more power would be a really good thing! Overall though, its a very good ride, stable and pretty smooth. The step in the seat is just about 1 inch too close for comfort really, if it was further back there would be a bit more room to stretch out.

But its not designed or intended for multi-hour extended trips but for short hops and commuting and I'll start doing that tomorrow. I have an appointment for my driving test in the morning and after that I'll be able to get my license updated and my base pass stickers. With those, I'll be completely legal.

I've already figured out where there might be a few more horsepower hiding in my scooter but first I've got to get a few more break-in miles on it!

Still doing my part to support Scootersdirect2U...

Somebody Googled his trade name today. I hope they found what they were looking for!

Note to Googlers searching to buy a scooter- skip this rude bastard and buy from Jim at JJ's Sport & Electric Cruisers. Or call Guy at XtremeMotorToys. Either way you will find someone that is there to help and is interested in your business.

More NyQuil with your coffee?

Yes please. Make it a double. Man I am sick! I've got the achy head, sniffling, sneezing, couphing and fever bug. This bug started creeping up on me earlier this week with just an annoying tickele in the back of my throat. Yesterday it grabbed me by the throat and shoved me down to the mat.

I went to visit the BSU last evening but I felt too bad to stay but just a little while and then returned home with just one stop at Labertson's for that large bottle of generic brand NyQuil. I was in bed by 8:30 last night and I ntend to make sleeping a big part of today's plan.

Yuck!

Election Counter Update

Today's numbers are the numbers I hope to see in November, Kerry-217, Bush- 311! That is the kind of blow out that I expect to see BTW.

If it wasn't already 10:56 PM

I'd tell you all about riding my new scooter for the first time this afternoon. But its too late and the telling will have to wait.

But I like it. I really like it!

That Electoral Counter over on the right

I think its pretty interesting and worthy of taking up space in my little space. If you've looked at it, the numbers have changed every day and today it even shows John F'n Kerry in the lead. If you want to learn how the results are figured, you can click the counter and it will take you to Electoral Vote.com. There's a map of each state, the number of electoral votes they support and a description of how the different polls are figured in to the equations used on the website. Its worth a look if you're interested at all in our election process.

I'll be happier when the big numbers get back into the red box though!

Tuesdays...

You know, somehow Tuesday’s have really turned into lousy days to get real work accomplished. Right in the middle of the morning is staff meeting, at 9:00. Only trouble with that is I’ve got to get to the staff meeting, which is in another building about 400 yards from my own. The building’s inside a security fence. I have to change my badge to one I have exclusively for that building. It takes pin numbers to get into the stairwells.

And nothing, nothing applies to me. The meeting eats up an hour of my life every week and I get nothing from it except a walk.

This afternoon is going to be clogged with some equally boring training. Ugh.

ECT- What it's all about

The XSU kindly left this link in the comments today and it has some very good explanation about what ECT is and isn't. From my experience with the BSU, this is a very accurate description and may be informative to anyone that wants to know more about it.

On the second page there is a description of Vagus Nerve Stimulation as another treatment recently approved by the FDA. I actually posted about this treatment in the past and have asked the spouse's docs about the procedure. Apparently, locally it is being tested but is not in regular use.

I did ask the doc to just Sharpie the spots on the BSU's neck where the implants need to go before she leaves the hospital. On the way home I'll take her to a 'tat & piercing parlor to have some studs installed then hook her up to the battery charger at home to keep her peaked up...

Thanks for the link, and I'm buying that book. Maybe two copies, one for home and one for our very helpful therapist.

Scooter purchase is Imminent!

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I've changed my mind. In response to an email exchange that I had with Jim at SECruisers overnight, he suggested that if the deal I was offered for a Vento Phantom for under 2000 bucks was legit, I probably should take it. I've scratched my head and compared final delivered prices, delivery time and warranty lengths and I have to agree, buying the Phantom semi-locally makes sense.

The owner of Xtreme Motor Toys, Guy Standing has really done his best to earn my business and he seems to have a thriving shop with some quality help, so I'm comfortable spending my money with him. And I can get the scoot hauled home as soon as I can get the tonneau cover off my truck!

UPDATE: Here's a picture of the scooter that I'm waiting on.

That's the good news today. I've got some money in my pocket, more in the credit union and even more in my PayPal account from the sale of the bike. I've got an agreement on a price and the money will transfer to Jim at JJ's Sport & Electric Cruisers later today.

The bad news is, Jim is waiting on the arrival of a fresh container load of scooters to arrive before he can deliver mine. Bummer. It looks like two weeks will pass while the container gets off loaded in Portland, the container gets unloaded in the warehouse, my box and my scooter gets pulled out, checked for damages, and then, finally sent on to me.

Lastly for now, I can't even link to a picture for you to see what my shiny new scoot is going to look like. Secruisers doesn't have a link to it from their main website and the link that I might be able to show you has the dreaded EBay word in it and so the base network server guards won't let me access it to add the hyperlink.

Hey Jim, throw us a link that everybody can see, would you please?

BSU Update- in case you're keeping up

Its been a busy week for her actually. First she was moved out of the first unit into a quieter unit with an older, depressed population instead of the crashing, shrieking drug and alchohol addicts. That's good because that first hall she was in was stressful just because of the tempo and noise level.

She had a CT scan because the Doc's thought she might have or be susceptible to pulmonary embolisms due to her exaggerated idleness. That test resolved that she did not have any embolisms but that she did have a partially collapsed lung due to her inactivity. And she apparently has some underlying pneumonia that has been affecting her health without making itself evident so it could be treated.

She also had a visit with a public defender and today another trip to a conference room in the main hospital to see a judge, making it official that she is now a non-volunteer patient. All that really means is that she will have to make steady progress in her health to be released from the hospital in a few more weeks.

I did visit her this afternoon for about an hour but I had to jet out to get back for one of my classes that was meeting tonight so that we could skip two nights week after next. Once I woke her from a nap she actually seemed more relaxed and animated than she has been in the past few weeks so that seemed to be a good thing. She's had 2 ECTs and is on the schedule for 3AM tomorrow morning for her third treatment.

Remind me to find and post a link to just what this treatment is all about for those of you that might want or need some of your own. Tomorrow.

Anyway, much of her distress and panic and danger is reduced and that's a good thing. I'll be visiting her again tomorrow and I must remember a People magazine for her!

Now, I'm going to bed. No alarm clock but hungry dogs in the morning!

Frank is still singing

Yesterday I received a link from a friend to his latest song Strangers on my Flight You'll need speakers for this one.

Something's on their minds.
I saw them mutter.
What that in their hands?
Looks like box cutters,

Go listen to the whole thing, its good.

U R Stupid Dumbass If U Pay Retail Pri-cee

Is Teresa Heinz Kerry writing spam emails these days? That header was in my email a few minutes ago. I was so encouraged to read the entire email and see what's available-

- What you bought previously was go to shop & buuyy a WIND0WS XP Pro that comes with a BOX & serial number & the manual cosst 299.00

- What you will get from us is The full W1ND0WS XP Pro sofftwaree & serial number. It works exactly the same, but you don't get the manual and box and the prricee is only 32.00 . That is a savviing of 254.00

Why, why, why does anyone in the world think that I would be encouraged to do business, to spend my money, with a person as dumbass as this? Come on folks, isn't there anything else that these idjits could be doing than insulting me into buying their pirated software? Maybe Mr. Algore who invented the internet and is now unemployed could figure out a way to take away the internet connection forever to stupid people like the ones that sent me this email. Good Grief!

My Scooter Choices- Feedback Wanted

Please click the link to JJ's Sports and Electric Cruisers and then take a look at the pictures of the EC-150 scooter and the RC-150 scooter. I'd like some feedback on which one I should buy. If I buy the EC, I think I like the blue color as shown, the RC would have to be that bright red as shown in its pictures.

If I buy the retro RC, I think I would have to find an artist to do some fancy pinstriping and perhaps a reproduction of some WW2 airplane nose art on the rear fender. But the EC has dual headlights and weighs 60+ pounds less which is a significant amount when its only 150cc doing the work of hauling the scooter and my portly carcass around.

So what do you think? Feedback in the comments please.

BSU had her first ECT today- bad day

Its been a long day for both of us but its probably been harder on her than me. She will be receiving 8 planned treatments of ECT, that's Electro Convulsive Therapy. Yeah, that. She actually had it two years ago when she was last hospitalized and it seemed to do her some good, so expectations of a good outcome this time are high.

But she didn't have a good day today. Had a very bad headache that they wre treating with something with codeine in it, which she doesn't tolerate well. She also had two blood thinner shots and tomorrow she must go have a CT scan for possible pulmonary embolisms! Yikes! Her O2 level was running low all day just to make matters worse and so they had her breathing some oxygen from a tube until that improves.

The ECT is a really effective treatment for lots of extreme circumstances of mental illness. It doesn't look anything at all like the scary movies might make it look. The patient gets knocked out, paralyzed and shocked all in a matter of minutes and then after recovery they are often feeling well enough to want breakfast. It is done very early in the morning for some reason that deals with serotonin levels or something like that.

Anyway, I hope tomorrow is a better day for her.

As for me, well I sold the CETME to Bob the religious artifacts (gun) dealer, took a test in my computer class that required me to explain to the instructor why a couple of true-false questions were so ambiguous as to be answerable either way, took in a very short review in Purchasing class and made the round trip to Salt Lake City to see the spouse and return. Its not quite 90 miles round trip.

And tomorrow promises to be another day of chasing in circles with precious little real work getting done... But there is a trade show to attend, with food, and a meeting and then getting the sold gun and ammo into Bob's hands, and another trip to SLC to see the BSU before studying 7 chapters worth of notes for Thursday night's mid-term in Purchasing. No problem.

One problem, perhaps. The winner of the EBay auction for my mountain bike requested a week to get his money together. Which I agreed to. But now he's gone silent for two nights and is not answering his emails. If I don't hear from him by tomorrow night, I'll be relisting the bike and filing a complaint against him as a deadbeat bidder.

That's it. Bedtime!

UPDATE: The bike buyer responded overnight with email from a different address. He is promising the money by Thursday. If that pans out, I'll be shipping the bike by Saturday and ordering my scooter.

Just as soon as I decide on a color and model!

CETME 308 Assault Rifle for sale

I bought the gun back in the spring but don't have the time to play with it like I wish and I need to make a show of compromise with the current BSU circumstances. (Details later)

So, $450 buys the rifle with 7 magazines, 4 of which are those deadly 20 round scary ones and 3, 5 round magazines all of which have been stripped, cleaned and painted and verified to feed. There is also a sling, the required sight adjusting tool and 670 rounds of ammo in 2 ammo cans.

This is a short term offer to my friends on the blogosphere, good until I negotiate a price with my local gun dealer. And you pay shipping. The cost to ship the ammo is about $14 per ammo can.

More Scooterdirect2u fun.

Which I'm not at liberty to divulge for a little while. But this humble blog may have had a much bigger impact on the bright fellow's bottom line than I could possibly have dreamed of.

Details when cleared for release...

Neutralize your EMF!

For everyone out there with a cell phone, this must be the next purchase you make, a Biotron Cell Chip Cover!

Commands transmitted from the brain are executed incorrectly, and tests show that EMF waves radiated by cell phone can even damage DNA! These results are just the beginning, but with the BIOPRO Cell Chip you finally have a way to protect yourself!
• Ground-breaking invention after 20 years of research
• Developed by German Scientist
• Backed by research study from Research Institute for Vital Energetics Germany
• Based on modern physics' guiding principle of energy and information

from our friends at Gizmodo.com.

Hey, scooter guy, check this out!

This is terrific! Somebody did a Yahoo search for ScootersDirect2U and they found my post from the other day about this braggart, undereducated goofball! He told me to put a billboard up in Times Square but all I needed was this little bit of free BlogSpot space to get this dimbulb's sales skills made public!

Hey heh heh!

Update on the BSU

She is actually doing much better. The first day was mighty rocky but that's to be expected in the circumstances of an intensive care psych unit. Yesterday she was feeling better and had actually had a number of hours of uninterrupted sleep which is critical right now.

Monday is a meeting with her Doc, her therapist, a social worker or two and her and I to get a treatment plan figured out. She has already been tenatively approved for ECT treatments starting Tuesday. If she doesn't get involved with the courts and her conditions improve in present order, she might be coming home by the end of the month.

There is a possibility that she might be entered into the legal system based upon what she told her therapist and if so she will have to in the hospital at least 30 days and perhaps more. That will turn into a problem because the hospital won't be recognizing my insurance after 30 September. That could get spendy quick...

Anyway, son Kye came to visit her yesterday, unbidden, and that really made her afternoon. I had stopped at his and Sara's house on my way to visit the spouse to ensure they were completely informed of the circumstances and Kye, in just a little while got himself a shower and drove across town to see his mom. It was really good and she was so pleased to see him.

So more to follow. I'm holding up ok. My homework is falling behind but I'm going to remedy that as soon as I finish this post!

Pictures of a hummingbird nest!

This was in the BSU's email box this morning, a link to pictures of a hummingbird nest and babies! I think my hummers have moved south for the winter already though I did see one at the feeder 2 or 3 days ago. Anyway, these pictures are very cool and I'm envious of the author's rare opportunity to observe these hummers up close.

More fun with Scootersdirect2u!

UPDATE: It occurred to me that this portion of this post was not clear, hence the update. This is my email to the Scooterdirect character- "I'm trying to do my part to promote your business and so this afternoon I shared our recent email exchange with the readers of my blog, Wasted Electrons. Its a small group of folks that routinely stops by to read what I have to say but it will also show up in Google soon if anyone searches for your name there. The link to the post is: here. Regards, Nate" And this was his response:

OHHHH SIR,

IT SEEMS LIKE YOU HAVE A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT MARKETING. I ASSURE YOU THE LOSS IS ALL YOURS. YOU MAY FEEL FREE TO POST YOUR MESSAGES ON A BILLBOARD IN TIMES SQUARE AND NO ONE WILL CARE. YOU SEEM TO BE A VERY EDUCATED PERSON,BUT OFCOURSE WITH NO COMMON SENSE. YOU MAY BE ABLE TO READ A BOOK AND I'M SURE YOU HAVE PUBLISHED A FEW IN YOUR DAY. BUT IN THE REAL WORLD YOU WILL NEVER MAKE IT. YOU MUST RESORT TO BELITTLING WAYS AND DEMEANING LANGUAGE TO OTHERS. IT SEEMS LIKE YOU WILL BE A BOOKWORM OR A COLLEGE PROFESSOR ALL YOUR LIFE. TELL ME HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LIVE ON A FIXED INCOME AND LIVE LIKE AN ANT ALL YOUR LIFE. NEVER TAKE CHANCES AND JUST WAIT FOR THAT CHECK TO COME IN EVERY OTHER WEEK. WHEN YOU SIT BACK AND THINK ABOUT YOUR LIFE YOU REALIZE ONLY THAT YOU HAVE NOT DONE A THING AND ARE STILL PAYING OFF A MORTGAGE. YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE MUST BUDGET THEMSELVES TO AFFORD ANYTHING AND YOU MUST THINK TWICE BEFORE SPENDING ANY MONEY. KINDA BORING LIFE YOU LEAD, IS IT NOT?

SO LET ME CONCLUDE BY TELLING YOU THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT EBAY, MARKETING, SALES OR PROMOTIONS. STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW BEST: NOTHING. SIT IN YOUR ROCKING CHAIR, WAIT FOR THE CHECK FROM THE UNIVERSITY YOU WORK FOR AND CONTINUE LIVING ON YOUR FIXED INCOME.

NOW LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT MYSELF. I AM 27 YEARS OLD, I'VE OWNED AND OPERATED A 40 MILLION DOLLAR A YEAR BUSINESS AT THE AGE OF 20. I'VE TRAVELED FIRST CLASS AROUND THE WORLD AT LEAST THREE TIMES. MY ACCOUNTANT TELLS ME THAT I FRIVOUSLY SPEND $250,000 A YEAR ON NONSENSE, BUT HE ALSO TELLS ME THAT MY NET WORTH IS $80 MILLION DOLLARS. I HAVE A TENTH GRADE EDUCATION, I COME TO WORK IN CUTOFF SHORTS, BASEBALL CAP, SNEAKERS, BUT I DRIVE A $100,000 CAR. I THINK THESE FEW DETAILS SHOULD MAKE YOU REALIZE THAT YOU WASTED YOUR LIFE WITH NONSENSE. POST THAT ON YOUR WEBSITE. WHEN I SIT BACK IN MY ROCKING CHAIR AT THE AGE OF 65 WITH A WOMAN HALF MY AGE AND THINK BACK ON MY LIFE, I KNOW I WILL HAVE ONE BIGASS SMILE ON MY FACE. CAN YOU SAY THE SAME??

Of course, this marketing genius uses AOL for his email, has a busted CAPS lock key on his keyboard, does NOT have a secretary to manage his business correspondence and doesn't have a name. He thinks a 10th grade education is acceptable and he doesn't dress presentably enough to be employable by anyone but himself.

Note that in his earlier email, I was too ignorant to understand scooters and he recommended that I get a bicycle. In this email I'm very educated but with no common sense.

He probably wears his baseball cap twisted sideways on his head and thinks that is a fashion statement too! Heh, I'm done.

SCOOTERDIRECT2U@aol.com

You know, its just so much fun to deal with people sometimes. Like the friendly folks at Scooterdirect2u from Brooklyn NY. They have an EBay auction going on for, surprise- a scooter!

Yesterday I sent them an email asking if the measured seat height in the advert was accurate and measured with the wheels on the ground and not with the bike on the centerstand. I wrote the email as polite as possible and this is the response I received today:

-------------- Original message --------------
this is a big bike
it is not a toy

And so I sent back this response, still polite as I could be.

"I think I recall asking you for some specific answers, not a silly, disparaging, mispunctuated and simplistic response. Which tells me everything I need to know about my imminent scooter purchase and who I will not be buying from.

Thanks for clearing that up. Nate McCord"

And whover is at the other end of that AOL email account wrote me back:

well sir,

You have a $3000 bike that we are selling for $1299. If you noticed all the specifications are very plainly listed on the ad. the is listed in the most simplistic way possible, so even a person of lower education will understand it. providing you with all that information and seeing you still have questions makes me question your ability of comprehension.

please, go buy a bicycle IM sure it will be easier for you to ride, they even supply training wheels

And a few minutes later, this email arrved from the same enthusiastic salesperson:

now that we have the insults out of the way. the answer to your original question is yes. the measurement given is with the front wheel on and it is for the primary passenger not the second. for the second passenger you have extended footboards. it is also fair to say that it will be approximately 3 inches higher. i do not believe you will be buying it from us, but at least you have the info you needed.

You know, I think this person is right, I don't believe I will be buying a scooter from them.

I will however send them one more email with the link to this post! And I have considered asking them why, if they say right in the header of the auction DO NOT BID MORE THAN $1299, they haven't ended the auction already since sombody bid $1324. Maybe they haven't figured out the "Buy it Now" feature that EBay promotes for items with a fixed upper price like their scooters.

Too bad about their attitude though, their bike was almost on my short list...

Ah, Houston- We Need a Backhoe...

You probably didn't hear anything about this story yesterday. It was just a little spacecraft that fell out of the sky. Seems that it made a multiyear trip around the sun and all the way back to this planet only to have its recovery system fail.

It fell like a rock. And hit the ground at 193 miles per hour. "Some settling of contents may be expected due to shipping and handling." Do ya suppose?

BSU is AFU and a Patient at UNI

UNI is University Neuropsychriatric Institute. You already know the other acronyms. She hasn't been doing so well lately, a transition to a different medication and a swing into her manic mode seem to have intersected and has caused her to become unstable which made hospitalization necessary. Its not been ruled out that the new meds may have caused the behavior swing but it doesn't really matter.

What matters is that she's not been sleeping and she is having dangerous thoughts and she needs some immediate attention and so she became a patient again last night. I suspect she may be there a week ot two to get her meds and moods stabilized.

BTW, this is the post that went AWOL. Blogger was broke again last night for a bit.

There's a post missing this morning,

I made it just about midnight last night. If you find a missing post filled with several acronyms, please send it back here immediately. If it doesn't show up by lunch time I'll have to declare it AWOL, give it a Bronze Medal and promote it to get rid of it.

Or I'll just rewrite it. It is important.

Nigerians want to buy mountain bikes!

I received this email today in response to my EBAy auction which is item # 3697695091 if you would like to see it.

Dear timone84401,

hello, My client is interested in buying ur item and he wants to pay via Cashier check,he will issue a cashier check which will include the money for the item,my commission as an agent and also the shipping charges,Immediately u get the check,you will go straight and cash it at a local check cashing point in which u will send the excess funds thru western union money transfer to my client shipper in africa the same day u get the check ,If u agree on this,kindly send me ur contact mailing address to send the check to with ur phone number. N.B ; He will be sending u a check of $4500 in which u will cash instantly and send the excess funds of $2000 thru western union to my client shipper the same day u get the check. I await ur reply. have a great day. Pls if u agree end the auction imemdiately and send me ur name and address to send the check to

My only question is- do I taunt him for a bit?

Somebody else emailed to say the the bike I'm selling is the unicorn they have been searching for; and could I discuss a delayed payment if they win... If they win, I can discuss it.

Of Mountain Bikes and Motor Scooters

Nobody has bid on my Schwinn Homegrown 4-Banger mountain bike yet on EBay. The auction ends tonight and I’m hoping that there will be a flurry of bidding in the final hour or minutes. Nineteen folks have added the link to their “watching” page and I have answered a number of emails requesting further details, so I know there is some interest. Since I can’t browse EBay from work without a great deal of effort, I guess I’ll just have to see how things play out tonight.

If the bidding jumps up anywhere near my “Buy it Now” price of $1200, I will be closing in on the purchase price of a new scooter! I’ve been watching, and looking and asking some questions and I’ve discovered that there are not as many different brands of scooters available as I once thought. Several of the scooters I first looked at, like the Del Ray by TN’G are available under different brand names, with different colors and considerably different prices.

Take a look at this Del Ray and then this Bullet EC150. (ed note- you have to find the link on the left. Sorry) Do they seem mighty similar to you? They do to me. Differences are that the EC150 has a bigger motor and none of the blinky-flashy LEDs that the Del Ray is festooned with. But they are the same machines, built by the same company in China and configured as each importer requests.

And there is at least the difference in price of $281 but the seller on EBay is actually selling his scooters for substantially less than the listed price on his web page. The last EC150 I watched sold for $1217, pushing a delivered-to-the-house price to just $1500… Hmm.

I haven’t settled on the EC150 model just yet though. The RC150 has the retro, cruiser chrome plated look going for it and it is pretty in red. There’s another bike that doesn’t appear on JJ’s website that looks more like a sport bike and it has 12” tires instead of the 10” tires of the other models that I’m also partial too. I’ve been assured that parts are available and just a couple UPS shipment days away if I buy a scooter from JJs so that just might be the kicker to buy from them. Once I get my money in my hand I’ll get serious about picking a model and color and wrangling for a straight purchase at the price of some of their recent EBay auctions.

Cross your fingers that that mountain bike sells!

House for sale- Check out the pics

Check out this house for sale. It has nice drapes. Maybe the drapes should have been pulled for one of these pictures!

Update to last night's ball game.

I read in the paper at lunch that Justin Ruggiano not only hit last night's final homerun to end his first season of professional baseball but hit his first professional homerun on opening night of the season back on June 21. How cool is that?

Justin's homerun last night cleared the centerfield fence, at 387 feet with at least 5 feet to spare. It was maybe the sweetest hit ball I've ever had the pleasure to see.

Thanks for a great summer Raptors!

I'm not dead!

Contrary to the way it might seem due to the lack of posts recently. Its just life intruding but in a good way, not a bad one. Business insists that I not fill in all the blanks with great detail but here's the Cliff's Notes:

Baseball season over. No playoffs this year. Won their last game of year with bottom of the 11th, first pitch, over the center field fence HR. It was beautiful.

Hiked with Vicki at beloved Powder Mountain Ski Resort. Glorious day. Saw lots of deer.

Mountain bike on EBay drawing lots of attention- no bidding yet. Auction ends Thursday. I suspect it might just jump up to a reasonable price in the last couple hours.

Winning the war on wasps. Gasoline involved. Found a second fortress and hosed it down with foamy nerve agent. Battle continues.

School continues.

Son Kye and lovely, pregnant wife Sara came for a visit. First in 10 months. They liked their Christmas presents... Baby due in January. Sara's got 2 jobs now, Kye may become stay-at-home dad after baby arrives.

Dad and Carol, Brother Tim and family survived Frances. Dad has 80 feet of fence to replace and a tree to clear. Tim had to move pigs to higher ground as they don't swim well for extended periods. More trees to cut up and haul away.

Renee is speaking to me again. The BSU- not so much.

Now work continues...

Damm, I hate that I missed this speech...

by Zell Miller at tonight's convention. Man, what a speech! I've just read the entire thing with my mouth hanging open and cheering! I don't know which part is my favorite but I really like this bit:

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations.

Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending.

I want Bush to decide.

Yeah, me too.

This part is good too.

George Bush wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip.

I like what this guy has to say1

Public Service ads showing right now...

I guess those ads on the right really expect to see new content every day!

Sorry for the posting dearth today.

I've been busy. Work, school, homework. You know the routine. And then there was the previously mentioned scooter discussion and a truce and dinner at Sizzler. Yumm!

Anyway, I'm tired now. And I missed the convention- again...

Awesome Mountain Bike For Sale!

I've put my Schwinn Homegrown 4 Banger up for sale on EBay. I kinda hate to do it but I'm really not using it and although it is beautiful to look at, selling it will finance a motorscooter purchase. I've got another mountain bike in my shop, it is a hardtail with a lot of sentimental value and so the sexy painted, carbon fiber suspended, disc braked beauty has to go.

I've also had at least the first gruff discussion of the purchase of a scooter with the BSU tonight. She has lots of opposition and a few weak arguements about why I shouldn't/can't buy a scooter. None of her arguements were convincing and so we argued to a draw. Now I'll go do what I want to do...

Selling the bike will help.