"C" for Crusade

I am on a crusade.
This particular crusade is against our inept, incompetent, indifferent and (unfortunately) ONLY grocery store.
Probably better than 30% of the time we shop there, we are either over-charged or an item is double-scanned.
I have spoken three times to the store manager and written several emails to the corporate office. Each time, they apologized for the error and promised to fix the problem(s).
When I spoke to the store manager, he gave me the item for free. I'm not interested in getting stuff for free, I just want them to get it RIGHT!
Right now, in fact, there is a $20.00 gift certificate with my name on it waiting at the customer service counter as restitution for all the screw ups. I wasn't going to pick it up, but after being over-charged again today by $1.50, I changed my mind.
I've never before encountered a grocery store that was so consistently screwed up. If the wrong price isn't programmed into the computer, the check out person enters the wrong code or double-scans an item.
Maybe I'm the only person who checks their receipt, but I doubt it.
What really freaks me out is when I bring a glaring over-charge to their attention at 5:00 in the evening and they act like I'm the first person who noticed all day!
My neighbors and co-workers don't shop at our local grocery any more. Without exception, they all say they drive 12 miles down the road to shop at a different store in a different town.
I'm not ready to do that yet.
I'll gird my loins, saddle up my trusty steed and carry this battle to the state attorney general's office before I furl my flag and sheath my sword... so to speak.
Besides, I find certain pleasure in hitting them over the head with their own mistakes again and again. Ain't I a stinker?!!

Greenhouses

Greenhouses are pleasant, aren't they? Even on rainy days, the inside of a greenhouse is pleasantly bright, quiet, and fragrant. I like working in the greenhouse.
At this time of year, denizens of the greenhouse are beginning to stretch their leaves. Innumerable pots of lilies are spread out on the floor beneath the rows of tables. Their leaves are beginning to poke through the slats in the table tops.
Geraniums are beginning to blossom, but the gardeners are quick to pinch them off (along with the buds) to keep the plant's energy in the leaves and roots awhile longer.
There are hundreds of baby plants called "Statice" that look like nothing more than two tiny leaves poking out of their little beds right now.
Mature fuchsias, on the other hand, are waiting in 2'x2' containers for the day when they can go back outside.
Inside a broken refrigerator, dahlia bulbs are waiting in the dark for the earth to warm up and dry out.
There are all kinds of flowers in the greenhouse that I'm not familiar with and I'm looking forward to seeing what they turn into as the season progresses.
I understand now why greenhouses are called nurseries. Caring for baby plants and baby humans are similar in many ways.

Dear Granny

I think I've already mentioned Bill Bryson's book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything". I found it fascinating. One chapter starts out with a simple mathematical calculation that really took me aback. Here it is:
If your two parents hadn't bonded just when they did - possibly to the second, possibly to the nanosecond - you wouldn't be here. And if their parents hadn't done likewise, and their parents before them, and so on, obviously and indefinitely, you wouldn't be here.
Push backward through time and these ancestral debts begin to add up. Go back just eight generations to about the time that Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born, and already there are over 250 people on whose timely couplings your existence depends. Continue further, to the time of Shakespeare and the Mayflower Pilgrims, and you have no fewer than 16,384 ancestors earnestly exchanging genetic material in a way that would, eventually and miraculously, result in you.
At twenty generations ago, the number of people procreating on your behalf has risen to 1,048,576. Five generations before that, and there are no fewer than 33,554,432 men and women on whose devoted couplings your existence depends. By thirty generations ago, your total number of forebears - remember, these aren't cousins and aunts and other incidental relatives, but only parents and parents of parents in a line leading ineluctably to you - is over one billion (1,073,741,824, to be precise). If you go back sixty-four generations, to the time of the Romans, the number of people on whose cooperative efforts your eventual existence depends has risen to approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, which is several thousand times the total number of people who have ever lived.
Clearly something has gone wrong with our math here. The answer, it may interest you to learn, is that your line is not pure. You couldn't be here without a little incest - actually quite a lot of incest - albeit at a genetically discreet remove. With so many millions of ancestors in your background, there will have been many occasions when a relative from your mother's side of the family procreated with some distant cousin from your father's side of the ledger: In fact, if you are in a partnership now with someone from your own race and country, the chances are excellent that you are at some level related.
Whoa! Granny! Is there something you wanted to tell me?
I'll share more interesting factoids from Bryson's book later.

This Is More Like It

With two days of volunteering at the park under my belt, I feel confident in saying, "Ahhh. This is more like it."
The first half of my first day was spent touring the park, going over safety requirements, seeing where tools, plants, pots, dirt, stakes, and other equipment is stored.
The second half of the day I helped repaint the interior of the upper men's room. (There are two mens rooms - an upper and a lower)
The morning of my second day was spent in the greenhouse potting baby plants. I mixed potting soil, potted the plants, and gave all the plants in the greenhouse a drink.
In the afternoon, I went along on a parts run to Bellingham so I could see where the park service gets their supplies in case they need me to make parts runs in the future.
The park has two vehicles assigned to it. One is a Ford Ranger pickup. The other is a 1-ton truck. The Ranger has a manual transmission which apparently only 3 of the 5 regular employees know how to operate. So, it is likely that I may indeed be called upon to drive it sometime.
The grass at the park is long enough to need mowing, but the ground is still so soggy that the mowers would just churn everything into mud. The paid staff is anxious to get started with outdoor cleanup and planting but it's way too wet. The soggy sod problem is caused by a thick layer of clay beneath this entire area. It acts like a giant rubber blanket beneath the top soil. After awhile, the top soil can't hold any more water and the clay won't let it soak deep into the ground so the water just sits there.
Today I expect I will help take down one of the slides in the playground area that apparently developed a crack. Then, we're going to go through several piles of stored lumber to decide what should be tossed and what should be saved. Then, weather permitting, we may edge some of the walkways.
'Sounds like fun!

Super-Jumbo

The monstrous A380 Jumbo Jet is scheduled to arrive at LAX tomorrow morning. I'd like to see it up close and in person just to get a realistic grasp of its size.
According to the LA Times this morning, the A380 is "an eight-story-high behemoth with a double-decked cabin and a wingspan nearly the length of a football field."
But it was the opening sentence of the next paragraph that got my attention. It read, "We're planning for the largest turnout since the Concorde came in 1974," said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for Los Angeles World Airports.
'Remember the Concorde?
'Remember 1974?
That was 33 years ago, when a lot of people, including me, believed we were poised on the brink of fantastic advances in aeronautical engineering and space exploration.
I remember thinking that my career as an air traffic controller was destined to include an opportunity to work in a space station before I retired 30 years later. How could it not?!! We had already put men on the moon and super-sonic passenger planes had become a reality.
Well, obviously it didn't.
For reasons that I still don't completely understand or accept, the momentum ceased.
Air traffic today has changed little. Controllers are still using 70's technology to control 70's era aircraft.
The super-sonic Concorde was retired in 2003.
Why didn't super-sonic passenger service succeed? One reason may be this: According to Wikipedia, American opposition to Concorde on grounds of noise pollution was orchestrated by, or at least encouraged by, the United States Government, out of spite at not being able to propose a viable competitor, despite President John F. Kennedy's impassioned 1963 statement of commitment.
Gee, I wonder which political party was in office in 1974?
Oh yeah, now I remember.
Now I understand.

Physical Schmysical

I went to see a doctor today for a bi-annual (by which I mean once every two years) physical. I wouldn't go see a doctor at all if I didn't need to get my prescriptions renewed. I consider it a necessary evil.
The doctor was fine. He didn't pressure me to have a colonoscopy or PSA test. My blood pressure was high, but it's always high when I go to the doctor. (That's why I measure and record my BP at home for two weeks prior to seeing a doctor so he can see that, under normal circumstances, each value is 10 points lower.)
I mention the PSA test because the last time I had a physical, in '05, I had a PSA test which indicated my PSA level was out of tolerance. PANIC!! But when my PSA level was checked again 5 weeks later, it was just fine. CEASE PANICING! I thought, "what a crock!"
My prostate is slightly enlarged but not alarmingly so. Apparently it's an "age-appropriate" enlargement. My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer when he was 72-ish. He decided NOT to have surgery and to let the chips fall where they may. By the time he was 76-ish, there was no sign of cancer in his prostate. Why am I not surprised.
My blood test indicated that my "bad" cholesterol was a bit high, but my "good" cholesterol was so good that it canceled the negative value of the "bad" cholesterol. I asked the doctor how my good cholesterol would be so good? He said, "Genetics." Gee, thanks mom and dad. I thought it might be the brand of peanut butter I gobble each day.
I left feeling pretty good about receiving a generally clean bill of health, but I can't get over feeling that the diagnosis was based largely on a lucky game of blood-test-roulette.

Don Wright on the mark

Don Wright continues to hit the mark with his political cartoons. Here is one of his latest that I found particularly insightful. A picture like this really does say a thousand words:

Thunderbolt Kid

Several months ago, my life-long pal CB, who now lives in sunny San Diego, recommended a book called, " The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson. When I checked the library web site for its availability, I was number 36 in queue. Undaunted, I put my name on the list and forgot about it.
Then, last Friday, I got a notice from the library that a CD version of the book was waiting for me to pick up.
It was worth waiting for.
It turns out that the author is the narrator on the CD!
If you grew up in the '50s, you have got to read or listen to this book. Tom Brokaw described it this way: “Bill Bryson’s laugh-out-loud pilgrimage through his Fifties childhood in heartland America is a national treasure. It’s full of insights, wit, and wicked adolescent fantasies.”

I Owe, and I Owe a Bit More

I've been preparing my income tax forms on Turbo-Tax this morning. As much as I already hate paying a significant portion of my income in taxes, I was particularly angered to find that I am being charged an underpayment penalty of $13 simply for owing more in taxes than was withheld throughout the year. Understand this, the $13 is IN ADDITION to the tax I owe. Gee, do ya think I would have been paid interest on any excess funds withheld? Hell no! 'Dirty rotten conniving, greedy, low-life REPUBLICANS!!

Brief Impressions

I have been surfing through various on-line news services this morning. Here are a couple of impressions I am left with that have absolutely nothing to do with the articles themselves:

Here is a quote from a student at the Enterprise, Alabama high school:
"I was right by a skylight, so I was able to look up," said student Brooke Shroades. "Me and another girl said, 'There it goes.'

Me thought, "Brooke needs more learnin about proper grammer."

Several reporters from the Rochester, NY newspaper reported on a meeting about the city's bus system. Their comments included:
We arrived at RGRTA headquarters on East Main St. We took the bus, boarding downtown after a 15 minute or so wait in the cold. Fortunately, there was a bus shelter and, yes, the heater was working. Unfortunately, the monitor that was designed to tell passengers how far away a bus might be and it's arrival time wasn't working.

and this:

... the board is hearing about automatic stop enunciation, which would relieve the bus driver of the duty of announcing stops. It's a relief to be welcomed, as drivers too seldom perform this service, as we encountered during our bus ride over here this afternoon.

So Rochester has heated bus shelters that are equipped with real-time arrival information and the bus drivers announce (supposedly) each stop. Those sound like significant conveniences for patrons. But guess what:

We never learned why the meeting room was crowded with citizens with concerned looks on their faces. The meeting lasted nearly three hours and by the time it was over the citizens had all left. As we walked to a nearby bus stop a woman who had been at the meeting said the citizens represented disabled and poor people. They believe the bus company had been unfair to them...

Give me a break.

I Love Crackers

"Hey, Cracker!" That's what you hear homeys call white folks back in the 'hood. 'Places like Nebraska and such.
But it doesn't bother me. Ya know why? Because I love crackers!
Right now, I'm devouring a whole stack of saltines. But more than saltines, I love cheeeeeeese crackers. Now, some of you may wonder which is better, Cheese-Its or Cheese Nips. Well, I'm here to tell you, "Who cares?! They're both great!" I mean, it's not like anybody makes their own cheese crackers, so ANY brand is better than none! Right? Right!
Speaking of crackers, I am reminded of my college days - brief though they may have been - when my three roommates and I would share a box of saltines and a gallon of milk. Funds were, shall we say, sparse. So we pooled our money to buy a box of saltines and a gallon of milk. Each of us had our own quart jar ready to receive the bounty. When the crackers and milk had been procured, we each took one package of crackers from the 4-pack and crumbled them into our quart-size jars. Then, we tried to divide the gallon of milk into four equal portions by pouring limited amounts into every one's jar over and over until the gallon jug was empty. In a few seconds, the crackers and milk became four more-or-less equal quarts of delicious mush! GOD, it was good!
I suppose I should confess that I've had a "thing" for crackers ever since. Store brand or name brand, they're all good. I should know, I've tried them all. And while they all may be crumby, none is crummy.