Sunday, May 28, 2006

It's been busy!


Do you remember when you graduated from high school? I don't. It's all a blur. All the ceremony and the protocol have been erased from my memory (or maybe it's senility setting in?). I wonder how much Greg is going to remember? It was a beautiful ceremony, but probably the same as a million others.

I'm so proud of him. He has turned into a wonderful young man. I hope that he fulfills all of his goals and has a wonderful time at college. I'm going to miss him when he's gone next year. I know that he's not going to miss us nearly as much.

I do remember what it was like to be young, with your future ahead of you..... I have to look at the next phase of my life the same way, I suppose. In three years, Chris will graduate and my job will be obsolete. But what a wonderful job it has been. Not much pay, but you can't beat the benefits!

Friday, May 19, 2006

This one is for Morris

I think we need to enact an Anti-Social Behavior Order law in this country, too. It is much less demeaning than calling it blatant criminal behavior! We wouldn't want lunatics to have self-esteem issues now, would we?

LONDON - A retired businesswoman accused of vandalizing her neighbors' property and blocking local roads with dead animals and dog feces was served with an order Thursday banning her from engaging in anti-social behavior.

Jeanne Wilding, 57, is accused of clashing with at least 15 individuals and organizations in the idyllic rural hamlet of Bottomley in northeast England.

Prosecutors said Wilding repeatedly and loudly played a choral work "about rape, pillage and the trashing of villages," caused extensive damage to neighbors' vehicles, beamed floodlights into a neighbor's home and tipped oil over his driveway at night.

She also deposited dead animals, rubbish, dog feces, glass and nails on the road, obstructing other homes and communal spaces, they said.

In all, there were more than 250 alleged incidents involving Wilding in less than 16 months.


And all these years I have been under the impression that the English were models of understated decorum!

At Halifax Magistrates' Court, Deputy District Judge Sandra Keen granted Calderdale Council's application to give Wilding an anti-social behavior order, or ASBO.

"It's clear she has little or no appreciation of the effect her behavior has on other people," the judge said.


Ya think?

Under the ASBO, Wilding is banned from damaging property, from entering domestic properties without the owners' consent and from spreading trash anywhere outside her property.

She also is banned from playing loud music and from maintaining or installing lighting or closed-circuit TV equipment that covers anywhere outside the boundary of her property.

Wilding also was ordered to pay 75,000 pounds ($135,000) toward the council's costs.


Somehow I thought that all of the above would already be covered under basic laws like, oh I don't know, mayb vandalism, breaking&entering, littering...? But I guess there is a need to lump all of these offenses under one blanket offense and call it "anti-social behavior". Damn, that's just so efficient (not to mention obvious)! But I'm not familiar with English laws, so maybe all of that behavior was once legal there?

Introduced in 1999 to counter "loutish and unruly conduct," anti-social behavior orders have been used to ban thousands of people, some as young as 10, from associating with certain people or engaging in activities as varied as shouting, swearing, spray painting, playing loud music and walking down certain streets.

Breaching an order is a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison.


Wow.... that's a pretty broad range of behavior, isn't it? So, Morris, when you head back to England for a visit, don't shout or swear at the ex-wife or your daughters' boyfriends, okay? Or you will be convicted of "anti-social behavior". And we know that would be an injustice because you would never in a million years be thought of as 'anti-social', would you? (It's a good thing he doesn't have my address. LOL)

Ah, where the hell is Morris anyway? And perhaps this explains why Ally has disappeared! He is always so happy when he has to go to England and would never think to engage in anti-social behavior..... just sayin'.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

They're still looking for Jimmy Hoffa?

Why?

He disappeared when I was in high school (fuck, has it really been 30 years?) and it was a running joke for a long time. I remember they thought he was buried under the Meadowlands Stadium. And now they are in Michigan for two weeks, tearing up a horse farm?

I know that 30 years is long time, but the teamsters weren't driving horse-drawn carts back in the 70s....

And there goes the neighborhood....

More than one billion people in the world have access to the Internet, with a quarter of them with broadband, or high-speed connections, according to a survey.


Source: Breitbart.com

Remember when it was our little secret? Those were the days, weren't they?

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Random Things in Texas

The one thing that I miss in Texas is good pizza! There are only two places to get good pizza here, and both are at least 20 minutes away through really bad traffic. But here in our little town of Round Rock, one of these great pizza places finally opened a restaurant! Saccone's Pizza is now a short hop away. They will be delivering as soon as they can hire some drivers, but it's close enough that I don't care. Pizza with a Jersey attitude. Oh yeah, that's me! Jersey-born, Philly-raised. That's attitude that the Sopranos would recognize!

Yeah, how boring can I be? Well, I have nothing else to write about tonight. Busy cleaning this week. Next week is Greg's graduation and we have company coming from Pennsylvania. So the house is getting cleaned. No, I don't wait for company before I clean. It's just that different kind of cleaning that you do when you are going to have houseguests for a whole week! You know, the real heavyduty move the furniture, clean out the refrigerator, shave the dog kind of cleaning.

Good night everyone! I assume someone is still out there.....

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Gonna be stormy again

Spring storms in Texas can be really scary. We're fixin' to have another one tonight. (Am I gettin' good at the Texas lingo or what?)

Thinking I would share some links tonight, because my brain is fried. Graduation is two weeks from Thursday. My baby is going to be off to college in the fall. We went to our last band banquet on Friday night. It was bittersweet. He got all teary-eyed about it. It's starting to sink in. Oh, he did get a $500 scholarship from the band boosters. That will help buy some books. We'll take it!

Okay, you all have to go to Rudy's BBQ and get some sauce. Not the sissy sauce, the real sauce. This is the absolute BEST barbecue sauce you will ever taste. The people at the UPS store know me by name because I'm always sending it back East to my family. It's great in meatloafs, use it on your burgers and hot dogs, in your eggs, on your brisket, or just chug it from the bottle. Seriously, the best barbecue sauce you will ever taste. You will never use ketchup again.

I've been diddling with geneology for a couple of years. Trying to trace my family back to Poland, Czechoslovakia, England, Wales, etc. It's fascinating and frustrating at the same time. Have you ever been to Ellis Island? Great source of information on immigrant arrivals back in the 1800s. Just in case you might be interested.

I put out my hummingbird feeder a couple weeks ago, and they've come right back. The greedy little buggers. I love them - they are so cool. Here is a site that traces the Birth of a Hummingbird. Be sure to click through on each page. Cool stuff.

Good night.