I'm callin' 'er done

Done enough anyway. My shoulder is hurting like a (insert your choice of explitive here) and I may just go to bed now. Here is the new home of DragonLady's World.

DragonLady's World is moving...

...to Wordpress. Actually I have mostly moved everything over, including my trackbacks link-whoring as I just found out from MacBros' who saw my move before I made it via my weekly FNFO trackbacks link-whoring. Anyway, if you're really bored, head over to the new DragonLady's World. I'm still working on the sidebar and categorization (is that a word), and the theme is likely to change as well, several times even. I decided to take TexasFred's advice and I got a webhost and a domain name. So, coming soon will be dragonladysworld.com.

Boy injured by stray bullet

First of all, I've been on this ride, though I never got shot. Boy Hit by Stray Bullet on Arkansas Log Flume, Police Say I would like to point out a couple of things from the article:

The victim, an 11-year-old boy whose name was not released because of his age, was struck in the left wrist by a .22 caliber bullet riding the Old No. 2 Logging Co. Log Flume at the park, police said.

Remember, .22 caliber bullet.

Winton said it appeared that someone fired the shotgun from outside the theme park and the bullet hit the child as it was falling.

Ok, shotguns do not fire .22 caliber bullets. I cannot imagine anyone in Arkansas who is the least bit familiar with firearms, particularly law enforcement, would not know the difference between ammunition from a rifle and a shotgun. Rifles shoot bullets. Shotguns shoot pellets (of various sizes depending on the target) or slugs. So I am thinking the writer of the article got thier firearms wrong.

The perfect BBQ

Warning: I'm drunk blogging, and should not be held accountable for misspelling. I had to run Jamie out of the family room to do it, but I finally got to jam while I got drunk bbqing. I tried just listening to XM's classic (60's-70's) rock station, but when they kept playing Eric Clapton live, I had to find something else. I like Clapton ok, but talented as he is, he isn't among my favorite artists. So, I broke out the Fleetwood Mac collection. I listened to a bit of the original Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Mick & John), but then I skipped from them straight to the Buckingham Nicks lineup. Drunk as I was, I realized how slightly inappropriate it was for me to belt out (badly) Rattlesnake Shake. LMAO! I don't know about the pork chops, hotdogs, and bratwurst, but the t-bone was most excellent! Nice and tender. Happy Labor Day!

Happy Monday! (Mostly)

Happy because I don't have to work today, don't have a homework deadline hanging over me, and bbq planned for later with a nice big t-bone waiting for me to cook (which I will be splitting with Jamie). On a somber note, though I sometimes called him a dumbass for picking up deadly venomous snakes by the tail, I was saddened to hear that Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed yesterday today. I always enjoyed his shows though in general I don't watch nature shows.

"I" before "E" except after "C"

Why does this have to be such a difficult concept for me to retain?

Day from Hell

The sound of silence. Not the Simon & Garfunkel song, but the sound that woke me up at 4:45 am yesterday. Click followed by air conditioner and computer shutting down, and staying off. So there I go stumbling around because I can't find the blankety-blank flashlight that was sitting right the blank there by my bed for just such an occasion. No problem. There is one on the counter in the kitchen. Can't find the blasted doorknob to get out of the bedroom. Damn! Finally found it, and could see just enough to make out the railing on the stairs. Made it downstairs and across the living room to the kitchen without any problems, and found that flashlight right where I left it the night before. Now finding one of the six (three fm, three am) radio stations on my clock radio that just happens to have a good battery in it was something else. Finally managed to find 94.7, the country station, and Chatham county schools weren't listed among closings or delays. Got the kids up, and remembered that James had loaded the coffee maker the day before so I was just about to go turn it on when I remembered. Power is out. Damn. No coffee. Then I remembered the $2 sitting on my desk and happily fetched it so I could stop at Donut Connection for a cup of coffee. WooHoo! That is some damn good coffee. Oh, and 1/4 mile north of us, there was power. 1/4 mile to the south of us, there was power. We were smack dab in the middle of the 1/2 mile stretch of blackout. WTF? Work was ass too, but I won't go into the geeky details. Suffice to say, the scripts were bitches. On a good note though, Shannon and I went to the super Chinese buffet and foundered ourselves. I was useless the rest of the afternoon, though I did manage to finally knock out the two batch scripts that I had planned on doing yesterday morning as opposed to trying to find and then fix the script problem that occurred every few minutes starting at midnight. So in honor of my Friday issues that made it seem like a Monday, I have sketched out a recreation of myself giving my monitors the bird for my day-late FNFO entry. Please note, I never claimed to be able to draw.

Your inspiration for the weekend...

As always, thanks to Echo for Star Trek Inspirational Posters.

Just when I think I am head geek in the family...

...I find out that my son is an admin on a forum. TeamTrippleThreat TTT

What's wrong with your neck?

Sunday mowing left its mark on me. As soon as I finished with all the mowing, I took a shower. Once I got out I stood in front of the mirror inspecting the damage the sun did to my face and shoulders. Face not so bad. Shoulders, not so good, but not real bad. But I noticed at small area on my neck that looked like a rash. I really hoped it was heat rash, and didn’t think more about it because it was pretty faint and didn’t itch. Not so faint Monday morning. About 9am Monday morning it began to itch. It looked worse as the day went on, and I became totally convinced that despite all my efforts to avoid it, I had managed to come in contact with some more poison ivy. Woke myself up that night 3 times scratching it. Bad. Yesterday, one of the guys at work noticed it and asked. I wasn’t expecting that and totally forgot my prepared answer and told the truth. Not so today. Yep, it looks a hell of a lot worse. All kinds of people asked me what happened in that “Aren’t you a little old to be getting hickies?” sort of way. So they got my answer: “I’m allergic to James now.” Why the neck? Why not my arms or legs? Granted at least it’s not on my face.

Looking for a whore?

Sorry to disappoint, but you are only going to find a link whore here.

Hola Ernesto!

According to the above predicted path, I'm going to have an ass drive to work Friday morning. The earlier map had Ernesto sitting almost on top of Greensboro at 8am Friday. Looks like Diane's loss is my gain. Update 9/30: Still won't be as bad on NC Thursday as SC on Thursday.

For my childrens' enjoyment...

What cartoon are you? Family guy

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Hat tip to Sam.

For Pete's Sake...

...just quit showing his creepy ass mug. Finally this morning I was able to go to Fox and Drudge without seeing John Mark Karr's creepy image. Now the charges are dropped so I guess I am going to have to look at his creepy ass for another freaking week. I shit you not, I would rather look at Helen Thomas all day.

Anyone care to guess...

..why I captured this screen shot? By the way, Diane put the Dead Guy on the Sidebar game on its own site now.

Stick a fork in me...

...'cos I'm done. 5 hours. That's how long it takes me to mow the whole yard, not that I did that one little patch on the north side of the house. That's a 14 min job I might tackle tomorrow after work. Needless to say, I feel a lot better today. I woke up with a headache, but the motrin and coffee took care of it as they usually do for my sinus headaches. My whole family says I stink. LOL. I told them that is the smell of hard work.

The Open House Trips

First of all, thanks to all the well wishers on my mystery illness that screwed up what should have been a fun-filled drugged-up-on-vicodin weekend. It is definitely sinus. I can feel it in both ears today. It's like my head is underwater, except I can breathe. So, last Wednesday was open house at both schools. Ah the joy of having kids at different schools. We hit Chad's first. I was already sick as a dog before we got there. Naturally everybody else got there before we did and we had to park out in BFE. Found Chad's class list and met his teacher. She seemed really nice...and young. I just thought Jamie's teacher last year looked young. Damn, it sucks when your kids' teachers are younger than you. Anyway, we filled out a buttload of paperwork, as always, and headed out without checking the bus assignment because the sick one was not going to stand in that long ass line in the office. Next we headed over to Jamie's school. Again, we were in BFE, which in both cases was located downhill from the schools. Finally we made it to the sidewalk, and there was a group of people, probably 6 or 7, mostly kids, but at least 2 moms standing across the sidewalk--blocking it. I had the urge to push every damn one of them out of the way, but I just looked at the one mom in the middle all disgusted like and walked around them. Note that by walking around, I left the sidewalk and walked on the grass and dirt. But being sick, there was only so much I could restrain myself from. I started talking loudly to my kids: "See why I get on your ass about staying out of people's way on sidewalks?" Hubby: "Yes, you all had to walk around them on the dirt, but I walked right through the middle of them." Me: "That is what you call rude, blocking a sidewalk like that." Hubby (being just as loud as me: "I used to get into fights with people like that when I was in school." Assholes. If the mom's didn't get it, maybe their kids learned something by us using their mom's as bad examples. Anyway, the middle school office was just as packed as the elementary, so we agreed we would call the friend down the road since thier son is in the same school and rides the same bus. There was a very nice young boy who told us where the 5th grade building was. That started to bring me out of some of my hostility. That and seeing the principal. Dude has dreadlocks halfway down his back. But he has a smile that makes you smile too. Made it to the 5th grade building, and had to wait in line there to meet Jamie's homeroom teacher, and then sign her in. She had 4 laptops (all iBooks for you few Mac fans), and they were all occupied with a family waiting in line. So we popped down to wait until one opened up, and finally one became available. Now, the woman who had been sitting there had done so for a good while. She was there when we first arrived at the room, and the whole time we waited. Anyway, she got up, and I made a dash, and noticed a wet spot where she had been sitting. I thought "Damn! I am not sitting my ass in that!" So I parked myself on the very front edge of the seat, and started filling everything out. It was a one page form. Took me a little bit to add comments, but that was just a matter of trying to properly word that Jamie's allergies make her eyes get all red, itchy, and burn, but that it isn't pink eye. I decided the lady before me must not be at all comfortable in front of a computer. As we left, I told the hubby about the wet spot. He laughed and said he noticed that too, but he had left one also in the seat he was sitting in. As we were traversing the sidewalks, we approached a group of people headed toward us, and I grabbed Chad by the scruff of the neck to get him back in a single line with us. Then I noticed the people we were meeting on the sidewalk were also in a single line, and all were just as nice and friendly. Just the opposite of the sidewalk hogging assholes from our arrival.

REPLACING WINDOWS

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive double-pane energy-efficient kind. Yesterday, I got a call from the contractor who installed them. He was complaining that the windows had been installed a whole year ago and I hadn't paid for them yet. Hellloooo? Now just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid. So I told him just exactly what his fast-talking sales guy had told ME last year... namely, that in just ONE YEAR these windows would pay for themselves! "Helllooooo"? (I told him). "It's been a year" There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I finally just hung up.... He hasn't called back, probably too embarrassed about forgetting the guarantee they made me. Bet he won't underestimate a blonde anymore.

Totally messed up

Today should have been spent "enjoying" the effects of the vicodin. But no. I got "swimmy head" and a horrible case of motion sickness, and spent almost all day in the bed. Now that said, I think perhaps the reason I have been sick all week has been due to some kind of sinus problem throwing my equilibrium off a tad, and my nausea has been damn motion sickness. Ugh!

Have a Happy Friday

Remember, drugs are bad mm-k? Now head on over to MacBros' Place and flip that bird!

First Day of School

And I got pissed off right off the bat. Since the kids are in different schools now, they ride different buses. I knew Jamie's bus would be first as last year, the elementary bus was always the last bus to come by. So, there we sat waiting, and I saw the bus top the hill. Jamie got out and stood in front of the car (I was still in my pj's under my bathrobe), and as the bus approached, the driver put on the warning flashers and began to slow down. Just before reaching our driveway, the driver turned off the flashers and sped off without stopping. Now once I managed to shut my gaping mouth, I managed to say "What the fuck?!" before remembering the kids were right there in earshot. Jamie said "That was kind of stupid to just drive away." Chad piped up "Jamie, don't call the bus driver stupid." I added "That's right, Jamie. That's my job." Fortunately for that driver, another bus pulled up a couple of minutes later, and stopped for Jamie. Poor thing, she tripped getting on the bus too. What a way to start middle school. And the elementary bus is still the last one, but it's the same bus and driver, so Chad was happy.

Vicodin or Homework?

Right like that is a hard choice to make. I've wanted to try vicodin (hydrocodone) for a while, but never had occasion to obtain a prescription--until today. Yeah, the root canal hurt like hell, for a little while. I knew it wasn't going to be good when it hurt while he put the rubber dam in. I really expected to be gagging the whole time, but surprisingly I didn't. Lot of drooling though. As soon as he started drilling, I thought "Damn, this is really going to suck." But once he got down through the crown, he gave me some more shots inside the tooth, and the drilling pain stopped. It did hurt there at the end when he was poking those last things down into the roots. More of a burning sensation though so probably the numbing was just about to wear off. One of the women who works there lost her husband last night rather suddenly. I was able to overhear part of the conversation when she stopped by, but only caught enough to know someone very close to her had passed away. One of the other women told me later that it was her husband. They are originally from New York, and have no family here, so her co-workers were her family this morning. I'm thinking I will take off sick tomorrow as planned given the trauma my tooth received today. Heh, I sure as hell won't be working on this vicodin. The kids start back to school tomorrow. WOOHOO!

Root Canal #3

In just over an hour and a half from now. I'm actually looking forward to it because I know it is the beginning of the end of the pain. I'm feeling better today, so far. Perhaps last night was the worst of whatever plague I caught.