It Puts The Lotion On Its Skin

My town is revaluing all of the properties due to an order from the county Board of Taxation. So a person from an appraisal company stopped by today to perform the task. Basically all she did was check off what rooms were in the house and where the unfinished sections were. She was literally in and out in five minutes.

After she left I wondered if she actually was looking at my house. After all I had spent two weeks cleaning it in preparation for this appraisal!!! I could have had "666" written on my bedroom wall in red paint and she wouldn't have noticed. I wonder if she worked in Ohio and had to stop by Jame Gumb's house how that appraisal would have gone.

"Okay. One kitchen. One door to a back room here. Long hallway with attached rooms. One pit. One girl in the pit."

Well, at least I have a clean house now. And I also found out that "Buffalo Bill" has appeared in MONK as Captain Stottlemeyer.

How?? - Part 2

On March 17, I told you about how I found a starling in my kitchen when coming home from school one day. Well, yesterday I was moving a sofa in the finished section of my basement and there on the floor was a dead sparrow. There was no odor nor any decomp. It's hard to say when the TOD was because my town doesn't have a notable coroner nor a crime scene unit. I took the little guy and deposited him in the garbage and like before wondered how he got into the house.

Half and Half

No, this posting is not about the coffee additive. I still take my coffee (and tea) black and sweet.

This posting is about mortgages. In the life of a homeowner there are three important milestones when it comes to the mortgage. The first is the satisfaction that comes when you have been approved for one. There is also euphoria when the last payment has been made. The third one lies somewhere in the middle. It comes when the amounts being applied to the principal and to the interest are the same. After that the majority of the payment will be applied to the principal (and not that bloody interest!) and it's all down hill after that.

Well, for me that middle milestone will be achieved with this month's payment. Yippee!

What the #@*%$ Part 2

It's a quiet Saturday. I got most of my errands done this morning including my running and since noon there has been a steady rain. It's 66 outside now and all of the windows are closed. I'm tempted to turn on the heat but I resist and don a sweatshirt and sweatpants. I make myself a cup of tea and settle down in my easy chair. It's somewhat dark outside due to the thick rain clouds. I turn on the light by my chair and begin to work on the Star Ledger's new 16x16 Soduko. Ah, so relaxing. Life is good. I take a break to rest my eyes and get up to stretch my legs. I walk past the calendar on the wall and see......JUNE 20TH!?!?!?!?!?!??!

DUCK!!!!!!

I had finished my run this morning and was doing my post-run walk thru Verona Park when I passed a couple of trees and heard some birds screeching. I thought nothing of it until I felt something brush against the top of my head. I turned and saw a red-winged blackbird flying away. He landed on a branch and eyed me up for another pass. Either I was near his nest or he liked sweat soaked tops of heads. He came in again but I faced him the whole way and he just fluttered above me for a few seconds and then flew away. I continued my walk without any further encounters. I'll take a detour next time!!

What the #@*%$

I settle down in my tv-watching chair tonight with a six pack and a just-delivered pizza and I flip on my old boob tube to watch my favorite show "Keeping Up With the Kranepools". And nada. Nothing on the screen. What the -----! I guess I'm going up on the roof tomorrow to look at the antenna. Geeez.









(kidding)

How?

When I arrived home tonight and entered my kitchen, the first thing I noticed was the box of toothpicks strewn all over my counter. The box usually sat on the window sill over the sink. The first thought that went thru my mind was that the house had been burglarized. But before any type of fear had time to set in, the mystery quickly resolved itself. From a corner of the kitchen came a flapping sound and a grown starling began to fly about the kitchen and occasionally crashing into the windows. While I watched him fly about I wondered how he had gotten into the house, but my first priority was to get him out. Since he was trying to fly thru the windows, I figured this was going to be easier than getting a squirrel out of the house. So I opened two kitchen windows and fortunately he stayed on the first floor and eventually flew out and into freedom.

After shutting the windows, I looked around the house dreading a broken window somewhere. But all of the windows were intact and all of the doors shut. The door to the attic was shut too. How did he get in? I could only think of two possibilities: the furnace in the basement sometimes has skulls and bones near the vent from birds who try to keep warm in the winter. I went down and there was a skull. But I figured that that entrance should be certain death and since it was a warm day (50+ degrees), highly unlikely that a bird had entered there. The other possibility was a hole in the ceiling in the mudroom (where Woody's ramp once stood). I always thought it was just a hole that was shut down on each end by a joist, but upon closer examination there was what looked like a vent pipe about 8 inches away from the hole. Could he have gotten in thru there? I had no idea but I couldn't find proof of any other entrance.

So I put a temporary patch over the hole and went on with my life.

Secured

Friday I visited my local Motor Vehicle Bureau to get a replacement registration. Once again, the service was friendly and helpful. It was a bit crowded this time, but as I walked out I made sure this time that I had the right card.

While standing in line though I recalled the following exchange:

JERRY: I still can't believe, you're going out on a blind date.
ELAINE: I'm not worried. It sounds like he's really good looking.
JERRY: You're going by sound? What are we? Whales?
ELAINE: I think I can tell.
JERRY: Elaine, what percentage of people would you say are good looking?
ELAINE: Twenty-five percent.
JERRY: Twenty-five percent, you say? No way! It's like 4 to 6 percent. It's a twenty to one shot.
ELAINE: You're way off.
JERRY: Way off? Have you been to the motor vehicle bureau? It's like a leper colony down there.

Summer Reading

Wow, two posts in a week!

The Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell
Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
In the Shadows of the Sun by Alexander Parsons
Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
Reversible Errors by Scott Turow
Tenney's Landing by Catherine Tudish
We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg

Deja Vu ???

Fans of this blog will surely remember the classic from July 31, 2007. I'll wait while you go look it up and read it.

Back? Good.

Well, today I was filling out a form for a school parking lot permit. I pulled out my registration to get some needed information. And I stared at it in disbelief. It was for my old Mazda. But I thought I had replaced this a year ago. Where the %#@* did this come from? I went thru my glove compartment and besides finding several pairs of gloves, the only thing I could find was a receipt for a registration. It didn't have a date but I'm 95% sure it is from 7/31/2007 because of the cost.

So I figured two things may have happened:

1) I went there that day and they processed a replacement. I got a receipt for a Toyota. But they printed out a registration card for my old Mazda. I find this hard to believe, because since Toyota registered my car when I bought it, the Toyota and not the Mazda should have been in their database.

Or
2) I actually did get the replacement that day but maybe lost it? And somehow the old lost one that I couldn't find somehow found it's way into my wallet?

Both seem implausible. So it looks like another trip to the DMV.

This is another one of those mysteries that I'll be dying to find the answer to when I get to heaven (if I get there).

WHY?

I was driving home today and got behind a car with an out of state plate. At first I didn't recognize it so I got a little closer. The background was white with a smattering of colors near the top. It had a dealer's frame so I still couldn't identify the state. So I got even closer and then I saw it. HA-VY-YEE!!!!

I won't even ask the question here.

Had He Lived......

HAL would have turned 16 today. His real name was HAL-9000, but he was known to his friends as HAL. He was a good guy, but a bit paranoid at times. And unfortunately, that was what led to his murder. RIP, good buddy HAL.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley.....

Love that DMV

Well, it has been a while since my last post. So here's the highlight of my Christmas Vacation. My Driver's License had expired and I had to get the new picture hologram type that the state of NJ was implementing. So off to the new DMV I went. For those who enjoyed my 7/31 posting will be glad to know that it was another enjoyable experience. In and out in 18 minutes. And the help and assistance was unbelievable.

Summer Reading

Well, it's the eve of another school year. Back in May, our upperclassmen were given their reading lists for the summer. I didn't get one, so my list will be of the books I DID read during my time off. The warm summer season is always the one during which I do most of my reading (really all of it).

So here is my list. Unlike some people, I won't attempt to write a review or synopsis of any kind.

The Amber Room - Steve Berry

The Bone Vault - Linda Fairstein

Franny & Zooey - J.D. Salinger

John McGraw - Charles C. Alexander

Murder List - Julie Garwood

Nine Stories - J.D. Salinger

Offer of Proof - Robert Heilbrun

Open and Shut - David Rosenfelt

Our First Revolution - Michael Barone

Raise High the Roof beam, Carpenters - J.D. Salinger

Stealing the General - Russell S. Bonds

Wisecracker - William J. Mann

Unanswered questions

During the past week, I saw my second dead cat on the side of a road in the past month. Deer, raccoons, and possum I understand, but dead cats I could never understand. I've always had dogs as pets so I can't begin to know the mentality of a person who owns a cat.

When a person adopts or buys a cat, does he or she say to themselves....

"I know this cat will go out on its own at night, prowling around the neighborhood. It may even come to the "big road". It will try and cross it for some reason. It may make it. Or maybe not. I accept the fact that my pet will not return alive."

Or when that pet does not return in a day or so, do the owners drive around looking for it expecting the worst? Or do they just sit back and hope it returns someday?

And when the police or dead-animal-picker-uppers remove the dead from the roads, do they go around notifying the neighborhood of the newly found dead?

Just some questions I've wondered about.

Greenhouse?? If not, what?

I mentioned in a previous entry in this blog that I never water my lawn. And how it is always green, just as green as my neighbors' lawns which are watered constantly throughout the summer. My dad had a great philosophy regarding lawns which I wholeheartedly subscribe to: "as long as the lawn is green, it doesn't matter if it's weeds or grass."
And usually after a hot summer (especially a hot August), the grass tends to grow slower and take on a shade of brown. But today when I cut the back lawn, it was high, lush, and green, just like it is in late April or early May. Not sure what's going on.

Matewan it's not, but it's close

Sunday morning in the hill country. Blue skies, bright sun, pleasant temps. A good day as any to go work up in Mine Shaft #19. I walked off down towards Clem's house and he was sitting on his front porch with his dog, Blue. "Clem," I said. "Ready to head up to the mine?"

"Yep," replied Clem. "Be with you in a sec." He disappeared into the house and came back out with a big smile on his face.

"Let's go! Had to kiss the wife g'bye."

We trudged up the long winding dirt road that led to Ol' 19. We finally arrived at about 11. This was the last mine that we owned. We used to have two open mines over in Old Bridge County. We did a lot of open strip mining on those two, but we had to sell the land last year. Now all that's left is #19.

The big black door that barred the front of the mine had shifted over the years and some of the contents were leaking out. Clem and I got the door away from the front and saw the rich contents of the mine.

"Gotta be careful this year," I said to Clem. "You're right. We lost two guys when we were up here two years ago."

That tragedy was caused by the ever dangerous cave-in. This year though I had a plan. We started excavating the black gold from the front of the mine. After we had gone about a fourth of the way into the mine, I got a large piece of plywood. We shoved it in at the height of the opening. With large rubber mallets, the wood was shoved all the way to the back of the mine. As we dug deeper into the mine we supported the wood ceiling with beams of wood.

"This will hold it up real good," said Clem. I nodded back to my partner.

We finally reached the back of the mine but I wanted more. More black gold.

At the bottom of the mine was a grid of wooden planks that served as sort of a sieve floor. Not sure why this was installed in this mine, but the wood had rotted over the years. We managed to get all the rotten wood out, and then excavated even more down to the original floor.

All total, we excavated about 7 or 8 pails full of black gold. We then replaced the old floor with a new one of bricks.

Now came the tricky part. We had to get the beams and the partial ceiling out and avoid the eventual cave in. We had to be quick and fast.

"Fire in the hole," I yelled.

Clem and I grabbed all the wood and ran. The top of the mine thundered down where we had just been. Some of the contents of the mine fell out, but we shoveled it back in and replaced the front door. To fasten the door more securely, we roped it up good and tight.

"Well, lunch at the tavern, Clem?"

"Yup"

And off we went to quaff our thirsts after a hard day's work.

(For the gullible, this is a story of how I made a withdrawal from my compost maker. And it's pronounced "Mait-wan")

Real life re-boot

I went to sleep last night to the pleasant rumblings of an oncoming thunderstorm. I woke up in the middle of the night and I realized something was different. I didn't need to visit my favorite watering hole; rather I noticed that my ceiling fan was not turning and the room was quite warm. I strained my eyes to try and see what the comforting red digits on my alarm clock read. But all I saw was black. Had I gone blind? No the power was off. So I moved down stairs to the sofa where the room was quite cool due to the aforementioned rain storm. Around 8, I arose and the power was still off. So I decided to kill some time and went out for a paper and breakfast. Upon returning home I realized that the status had not changed. I knew this because I saw quite a few people sitting out on there porches. I guess they were forced out of their AC'd sealed-up cocoons which were now quite warm. Haaah, flushed out of their little holes like a hose down a chipmunk's lair.

But no difference here except for the absence of any working fans. So to kill more time, I decided to tackle some more tasks which required either muscles, a hose, or both. Speaking of using a hose, I'd like to make a comment in response to a posting that appeared on my N-I-L's blog. She mentioned the need for going green and one of the ways is not to run the water during the brushing of one's teeth. Well, that's nothing compared to some of the knuckleheads on my block. It amazes me as to when they water their lawns. The weather man could be saying that there is a 50% chance of rain at night but they're watering their lawns in the early evening. I guess I could give them some slack on that since we're talking about percents and probability, but the ice-hole three houses down takes the cake. After a night of heavy downpours, he had his sprinkler going full blast this morning. Unbelievable. And I don't know why people water their lawns so much. I have not watered my lawn ONCE this summer and it is just as green as anyone else's on the block. Oh, well. Thanks to my venting, I now have a posting for August.

Well, around 1 PM, the power finally came back on and except for missing a few hours of the Louis Armstrong Birthday Broadcast, it wasn't such a hardship after all.

It pays to be a safe driver

Next Wednesday, August 8th, marks the two year anniversary of the purchase of my Toyota Corolla. Yesterday, I needed to retrieve some information from the registration for said car. As I pulled the card from my wallet I was shocked at what I found. The registration card in my wallet was for my previously owned Mazda Protege. Where was the card for my Toyota? Had I been driving for two years without the proper registration on my person? Had I been so fortunate not to ever have been pulled over?

A search of my glove compartment (which does not contain any of my gloves) and my house failed to turn up the missing card. I figured one of two things had happened. One, the DMV never sent me a card after I bought the new Toyota. If they had, I most certainly would have replaced the old one in my wallet with the new one. Or two, as I do with a lot of mail, I discard junk mail without even opening it. But I'm pretty sure that DMV envelopes are clearly marked.

So today, I made a trip to my favorite DMV agency. I've made the one in Wayne my favorite because I feel very comfortable with it. Car Inspections are one of those activities that you have to play the game if you want to get out of there quickly and with minimum aggravation. Mechanics are another. Maybe it has something to do with cars. But you don't want to argue or complain to a mechanic or a car inspector. And I've had mostly good luck with the Wayne location.

I dread having to go to the DMV building for two reasons. One, it could be very crowded and you could spend a good part of the day there. Two, I always fear getting in a wrong line and spending wasted time when I am supposed to be in another line.

This was to be my second visit to the Wayne building since the State out-sourced the control of the Motor Vehicle Agency. Five years ago I needed to get a photo licence to serve as a photo ID for a job search at the time. I had to do this since the county had stopped issuing plain photo IDs. From what I remember, the process of getting the photo license was quite painless.

So today around 10 AM I entered the building as if I was going to the dentist (which I will be doing this Friday). I noticed right away that the room was not crowded at all. I immediately got onto a line that I noticed several people who entered the building ahead of me had gotten onto. But then I noticed that the sign on the line said it was for everything but registrations. Oh oh. Fear was setting in. But then I noticed a girl walking along the line talking to everyone to make sure that they were in the right place. Ahhhh. She asked me what I needed, I replied a replacement registration, she handed me a small form to fill out, and then pointed to a line on the other side of the room. Ahhhh. The form was filled out, and then after a short wait on the new line, I had my new registration in hand. Some pleasantries with the clerk surely made the process go quicker. I didn't even have to wait for the card to be printed up at another location--she had it right there for me. Beautiful. I walked out the door after only twenty minutes, which would have been even shorter if I didn't have to walk out to the car to find out what my licence plate number was!!!

And now with a valid registration in my possession, I didn't have to drive like an altar boy anymore. On the way home, I drove 50 MPH thru the suburban side roads of North Caldwell honking my horn at every pedestrian!!! Kidding.

Sorry, Wrong Number

No, not the Burt Lancaster-Barbara Stanwyck film. Rather the reference in a comment below to 45s. Oliver and Django recorded on 78s (10 inch).