Breaker - Breaker

Bacon in the microwave yesterday morning - set the timer, pushed start and started to walk away when it shut down.  
That has happened before, and the culprit has always been a tripped breaker. This time it was not.
I trouble-shot the thing as far as I could, then called in a neighbor who is a licensed master electrician.  He started out re-checking everything I had already checked, the re-checking it all again.  After four hours, he was no closer to fixing the problem than I was, but he is coming back this morning to start again. 

Can't Get There From Here

We do almost all of our banking on line, so we run out of deposit slips long before we run out of paper checks.  I could use my phone to process deposits, but I haven't even advanced to the point where I  am willing to make deposits via the ATM, so that means I have to have a supply of paper deposit slips.

I recently ordered deposit slips on line, and when they arrived, Honey noticed that the pre-printed account number was correct, but the routing number - that first eight digit string of numbers on the lower left - was totally different.  I called the bank last Saturday, and the lady I spoke with assured me that the  deposit slips were perfectly fine and would work like they were supposed to.  When I asked her why they had a different number, she said she didn't know, didn't understand it either and, "I work here." 

That satisfied me, but at Honey's urging I called again this morning.  The customer service rep at the bank transferred me to the group that handles orders and printing of checks and deposit slips.  The lady there told me that they always use an alternative routing number on deposit slips and they would work just like the ones in the back of my checkbook.  Again I asked why and her reply was "That's just the way it's done."

Rubber Dolly

I never could jump rope worth a darn - couldn't do it if the rope was lying on the ground - but I woke up this morning with jump rope songs/chants skipping through my head.
"Not last night, but the night before..."
"Mary and Tommy sitting in a tree..." 
and-
My Mother told me
If I was goody
That she would buy me
A rubber dolly
My Auntie told her
I'd kissed a soldier

Now she won't buy me

A rubber dolly.

Turns out that last one may or may not have had anything to do with jumping rope.  It's an old bluegrass fiddle tune that often accompanied buck dancing.

Did you ever jump rope to "Rubber Dolly?" 

I never did, but, like I said, I couldn't jump rope to anything.

Beautiful

Today started out almost perfect - crystal clear blue sky and a temperature of 50⁰.   Azaleas are beginning to bloom and the saucer magnolias are, too. Trees that were totally bare a week ago seem to have leafed out overnight.
I think I can safely say that Spring has finally arrived.

Camping Tip

Sliding Scale

Years ago, I worked for a copier company called Allstate, which was later acquired by Ikon Office Solutions.  Shortly after I retired, Ikon was purchased by Ricoh.

Back in the Allstate days, we got a new employee who was already trained on all the copiers we serviced but had recently moved to Houston from Louisiana.  One of the reasons he moved was because the company he previously worked for paid overtime on a sliding scale.

I had never heard of such a thing, and when he explained it I was sure that it couldn't be legal.  

Here's how it worked:

Assume he made $15 per hour.  For 40 hours, he would make $600.

If he worked 50 hours, you would expect him to make $600 plus 10 hours at time and a half or $225 for a total of $825 for the week.

Under the "sliding scale" approach, he would still make $600 for the first 40 hours, but the other 10 would be paid at 4/5th of his base pay (40 hours/50hours), or $120 for a total for the week of $720, which, in effect, drops his hourly wage from $15 to $14.40.  If he worked 60 hours, the time over 40 would be paid at (40/60X15) or $10 per hour for a grand total of $800 - effectively dropping his hourly rate from $15 to $13.33.

I did some on-line searching today and as far as I can determine the practice, while rare, is still alive and well today.  While it may be a reprehensible way to treat employees, it apparently isn't against the law.

The Great Raid

The Harris County Sheriff's Office and what appeared to be at least one other agency staged a raid this morning about a half mile down Bearden Road from the Boggy Thicket.  
There were several Sheriff patrol cars, several black SUVs and at least one ambulance.
The raid, just before dawn, had the road blocked, and at least one school bus had to turn around and head back the way it came.
We have no idea what the raid was about, but it was the second one on the same residence in the past couple of months.

Internment

Why Hitler?

Saw this on Facebook today, and it illustrates something I've been thinking for some time.  

Folks on both ends of the political spectrum are constantly comparing individuals on the other side to Hitler.

Why Hitler?

Why not Stalin, or Mao, or any of a dozen other evil rulers who appear throughout history?

Sure, he is an easy target, but, evil as he may have been, he was no worse than some others.

Maybe it's the silly moustache.

Preteen Girls and Tigers

My Friday post got several replies from Shanna's friends, many recalling special friendships and happy times they shared.
Their responses brought to mind a day that was special to me.
When Shanna was ten or eleven, we had a Dodge Caravan, and one day - it may have been her birthday - I took a whole van load of little girls to the Houston Zoo. 
As we walked in the gate, we heard a tremendous ROAR. The tigers were breeding, and tigers are not subtle!

The girls rushed to the tiger enclosure and watched in fascination, impressed as only a group of preteen girls could be.
Eventually, things settled down, and we toured the rest of the zoo.
On the way home, one of the girls let out a roar and the rest collapsed in a laughing fit.  A few miles later, it happened again, and the entire ride home became a series of roars and giggles.
I wonder how many of them remember that day.  I know that I will never forget it.

On the Road

Every Friday, the CBS evening news concludes with a segment called On the Road.  It's almost always a "feel good" story designed to make you feel like maybe the world isn't so bad after all.
The other, darker, side of On the Road, this week concerned the South Texas Trail Ride, currently on the way to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  Two of their horses died this week after someone put antifreeze in their drinking water at an overnight stop in San Antonio.  Police are treating it as an intentional poisoning.
Yesterday, the CBS story was about an entire neighborhood that is taking ASL classes so they can communicate with a cute and outgoing toddler who is deaf.
Just to maintain our sanity, we need a lot more stories about cute little deaf girls and a lot fewer about dead horses.

Shanna

Our beloved daughter Shanna lost her fight with breast cancer and left this world on this day in 2006.  She left a space in our hearts and in our lives that we will never be able to refill.
Love you, Bumper, and I miss you.

Health Alert

Our parakeet is dead.

He was suffering from CHIRPEES,

It's a  CANARIAL disease.

It's UNTWEETABLE.

He probably caught it from contact with an infected COCKATOO!

If You Can't ....

Since I started this site, I have posted almost three thousand posts, a little over three hundred per year.  
Lately, not so much - this is the first post in almost a week.
It isn't that I've lost interest, it is just that there are some days when what I'm thinking is better kept to myself.

Hints of Spring

Yesterday actually hit 82⁰, and this morning's low was 70.  It won't last - there's another cold front coming in this afternoon and tomorrow we'll be back in the 40s.
Still, it was nice while it lasted.
 

C W O T

The Super Bowl LIII match-up between the Rams and the Patriots drew a 44.9 overnight rating on CBS. Making it the lowest-rated Super Bowl in the history of the game. 
Still, that amounted to millions of Americans wasting several hours on what proved to be a colossal waste of time.  The game featured the worst collection of commercials and the worst halftime  show in history, along with a lackluster performance by both teams.
 The fact that the Rams lost was almost an afterthought, since they probably shouldn't have been there anyway.

Whatever Happened to Good Versus Evil?

I'll preface this by admitting that Camelot never actually existed, there never was a Utopia and our memories of a happier, simpler time are largely figments of our imagination.

That being said, I do seem to remember when choices were easier to make - when things came down to Good versus Evil.  

In today's society, that is no longer the case.  More often than not we are forced to choose between Bad and Worse, between Misinformed and downright Stupid, between Embarrassing and Disgusting. 

A case in point is the Governor of Virginia, who is currently being called upon to resign.  If the news could be believed, members of both political parties want him gone, but they are more disturbed that he once wore blackface at a college party than with his recent statements in support of infanticide. 

How did we ever get to this point?

Ground Hog Day