Playing hooky

I'm home from work today. Not really sick, but not really well either. I've been fighting something off since this past weekend. So far I've just been pretty tired and feeling groggy all the time, but now it's gone into a stuffy nose and a little cough. I feel bad about calling in for something so trivial, but I think my body is begging for some rest. I'm hoping that maybe a day here will save me from getting really sick. So today will be spent on reading, knitting, napping, and thinking healthy thoughts.

Talk about a wrong turn

http://www.local10.com/news/17530705/detail.html

Where are the internets?

It depresses me a bit to see how innovative some libraries are concerning the Internet. I see libraries with amazing Wikis connecting patrons with library materials and services. I see libraries with myspace and facebook pages, making a presence for themselves where in the world where most of their patrons spend at least a few hours a week. Twitter is a fast and free way to advertise programs and events in less than 30 seconds. Not to mention the countless library blogs as well.

It just makes me wonder what opportunities we are missing out on. In a time when my library stands to loose so much, how many opportunities have we skipped past to gain recognition and the support of the community. Why are we so passively ignoring all of these opportunities and missing out on all the innovation?

How not to rob a McDonalds

Criminals are just getting smarter and smarter.


http://www.local10.com/news/17493143/detail.html?treets=mia&tml=mia_12pm&ts=T&tmi=mia_12pm_1_11000309172008

You say this happened in Miami?

How not to watch your children.
http://www.local10.com/news/17436177/detail.html?treets=mia&tml=mia_12pm&ts=T&tmi=mia_12pm_1_11000309102008

Big nest

Today they came and put down a ton of cable next to my work. When I went out for dinner, I saw this little guy sitting on top of one of the coils. He was still there almost an hour later when we came back. I wonder if he got confused and thought it was a really big nest.

Only in Miami

A 70 year old lady arrested for buying drugs

I'm crying

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

A dating site for Zombies.

silence in blog land

I've been noticing that the number of blog posts from people have been down. I wonder if Ravelry is the main culprit. If it is, then what is my excuse?

Where did it go?

The other day I came home from work and Daniel asked what was wrong with Milo. I looked down at Milo who was busy with his food bowl. I told him that he looked fine to me. Daniel said, "No, look at his face." I coaxed Milo to look at me and noticed that all the fur on one of his eyebrows was missing. I examined him a little closer and accessed that there was no bite or skin problem that might have caused it. There was no scratch either that would indicate a fight or excessive grooming. It's like his eyebrow just got plucked right out. It's just gone.

So for now, I'm calling him Baldy.

Look before you email

A few years ago when I opened my gmail account I decided to keep my username professional. I was just starting my job search and I didn't want to put something stupid like fuzzybearhugger1374 on my resumes. So to try and look professional, I chose an email address close to my real name. The problem is there are other people who have either the same, or very similar names.

Apparently there is another woman with my name that has a father named Steve. He writes very sweet emails, although a little personal in nature. Should I write him back and let him know that he sent them to the wrong Rebecca? It was nice of him to send such a cute picture of his dog. Then there is a guy named Robert who works for a bank or some kind of lender. i've gotten a lot of personal information sent for him. Some of them are regarding travel plans for business, but other involve information about people who are being foreclosed on. Not good. And the worst thing is that some of the emails come from his work account. I think he thinks he's sending them to a personal email account. At this point I feel obligated to track him down and let him know. But still, it's a good reminder on how insecure emails communication is.

Happy long weekend

This weekend was pretty fun. Being a holiday and all, it was filled with a lot more activity than a regular weekend. It pretty much started with Thursday evening. I met some friends out at a pub for great food, cider, darts, gossip, and great company. The next morning my friend asked me if I wanted to go get some breakfast. Being the 4th and all I figured a little splurge would definitely be in order. I had my first and definitely not last experience at the Original Pancake House. Everything was excellent. The food, coffee, and our waitress were all fantastic.

After breakfast I headed over to Mimi and Nate's house for a little 4th party. It wasn't anything huge, just a few friends, a bunch of yummy food, a little swimming between thunder storms, a little karaoke, some cocktails, some knitting, and lots of Melrose Place. Thanks again for having us over, Mimi.

Then the next evening I got together with a few friends. Just some card games (complete with hats), a few rounds of Scatagories, some yummy cocktails, more food, and great company.

Thanks to all my friends for a lovely weekend.

Now for a day of cleaning, and possibly going to the gym to start working off all the nibbling.

how not to serve the customer

Tonight my friend and I went to eat at the Ale House in Hollywood. Along with dinner, we ordered a pitcher of beer. When we got the bill, I noticed that we had been charged for 2 pitchers when we had only ordered (and been served) one pitcher. No big deal, right?

Wrong!

When I pointed out the mistake to the waitress, she immediately became defensive and basically accused me of lying. After a couple minutes of arguing she even said, "I'm not trying to call you a liar or anything, but I just don't know how I could have rang one up by mistake." By about this point I was livid about being accused of lying. I calmly asked her if I could speak to a manager. She then said that she would take the pitcher off, but she just didn't see how she could have made a mistake. I repeated my desire to talk it over with the manager and she mumbled that she was going to take the pitcher off, but she's trying to figure out where the mistake was made.

Several minutes later a manager came up and asked us about it. He immediately agreed to remove the extra pitcher. I have the feeling that he came over to us to try and feel us out more than anything. What should have been a 30 second correction ended up lasting over 35 minutes. After the manager came we waited another 15 minutes for the waitress to come back and I still had to ask her again for our check. She then continued to try and confront me.

You know, I understand that people in the service business probably have people try to swindle them out of paying for drinks all the time. Heck, I was a bartender for a couple of years. But come on. In the end, we were talking about a $5 pitcher of beer. I was never upset about the over-ring of $5, but it was all about being accused of lying and essentially stealing.

When it was all said and done, we ended up paying for exactly what we ordered, we left a $2 tip (which I feel was generous), and we got a 1-800 customer service hotline number which we were encouraged to call (we will be rewarded with a voucher for a free desert for our trouble). They also received an email to their corporate office, and were featured in a couple of blog posts. And I'll never be going back there... not even for my free desert.

You know that papaya tree I told you about?

My landlords came over to take care of it yesterday. Guess what they did with it....

They put it back where it was! It's standing back upright in the ground like nothing happened. They put a couple of stakes in the ground to give it a little support, but that's about it. It's kinda cool because I like the tree (especially when it gives me fresh papayas for breakfast), but I'm not too sure about parking in front of it anymore!

When's the next storm supposed to roll in?

Saved by the fence

A summer thunderstorm rolled through our are this afternoon, bringing wind gusts of around 60 m.p.h. One of the papaya trees in my front yard didn't make it. My car is really grateful that there is a fence in front of it!

Bye bye babies

The lady who originally owned the bunnies that live in my yard came and took the babies. She said that she's worried that my landlord will get mad at her because the bunnies will eat all their plants. Not true at all. James said that he was going to try and trap the babies and give them to someone who wanted them for pets because he didn't want to see them killed by a car or predator.

While the lady was over here she basically told Lynlee that the bunnies were her pets and they lived in her yard until we started feeding them. Then the bunnies came to our yard and they don't go to her yard as much any more. WTF? What sane person would try to keep bunnies loose in their yard. HELLO! They aren't even spayed and I would seriously doubt it if they've ever had shots. She's had over 2 years to take control of her "pets" and she's just let them run loose.

Now she's come and taken the babies, probably just because they are cute little babies. Mind you she still hasn't even attempted to take care of the adults. She just blames us for stealing her pets.

How low can you go?

While we were out in the Himmarshee/Riverfront area this weekend, I witnessed an event that got me wondering just how low a person will go to swindle a few bucks.

On the big bar nights, all the bars will have bathroom attendants. These are women (usually Haitian Immigrants) who make a living sitting inside a bathroom all night long. They not only hand you your paper towel after you wash your hands, but they make sure all the stalls are stocked with TP, soap, paper towels, and any other necessities. Most of the women will supply a whole bunch of different supplies such as deodorant, mouthwash, body sprays, perfumes, hair spray, etc., so you can fix yourself up if you come a little undid during the night. And quite possibly, one of the most important things that these women will do is keep the restrooms in order. They clean up messes from untidy women, and keep the bathrooms from getting totally disgusting. And any woman who has had to use a bar restroom on a busy night can appreciate a service like this.

These women work on tips alone. The bars pay them nothing at all, they just simply allow them the privilege to sit and clean their restrooms all night. I imagine that maybe some of the bars might tip the ladies out, but I think that most of the women are left to make their own money. I'm sure they actually make pretty good money doing this, but I genuinely do feel for these people. They are people who probably work 2 or 3 jobs to make a living. Just think of it. Would you really want to do this for a living?

So last night while I was in a restroom, I saw a couple of girls trying to rip one of these women off. The girl bought a lollipop from the lady for $1. The lady stowed away the dollar and then the girl asked for her change. The lady said that the lollipop was $1, and the girl said, "I know, but I gave you a $10 bill." The argument went back and forth a couple of times before the lady opened up her stash to show that there were no $10 bills in it at all. The girl's friend finally told her that she made a mistake and it was actually a $1 bill. Then the girl started yelling at the lady that she had made a mistake, but now she wanted an apology because the lady was rude to her and gave her attitude, and yelled at her. Excuse me? I believe that not only did you try to swindle the lady, but you were the one who started yelling at her first.

Come on. How low do you have to be to try and steal from and verbally abuse one of these women? No pun intended, but these women have to put up with a lot of crap to make a few bucks.

You should get one too

One of the best purchases I have ever made was my HEPA air filter. I originally bought it when Daniel and I first started dating so that he could come over with out having a major allergy attack. Prior to the air filter he could only stand it in my house for maybe a half hour before the allergies would make him completely miserable. He would start sneezing his brains out to to the point where he would get a bloody nose, his eyes would get red and puffy, runny nose, and the whole nine yards. Once I got the air filter, it was an immediate improvement. He still has have random sneezing fits, but that could be any number of things, mostly out of my control.

In order to extend the life of the filters, as well as keep the performance up, I regularly vacuum off the surface of the carbon filters and air intake. I can't believe how much junk comes off there! That's the point when I realized that even if I didn't have allergy attacks, I was still breathing in that stuff. And even though I don't have the major symptoms that Daniel did, I still feel like it has made an improvement. I don't wake up quite as stuffy as I used too.

They funniest part of having the air filter in the house is Milo's reaction to it. It's almost like he knows that it has something to do with him. He frequently comes up to it and sniffs it, and check it out. He will also jump up and sit on top of it. It's pretty humorous because the fan blows the air out of the top. He just sits there for a bit with a puzzled look on his face. I don't know why he likes sitting there, unless he likes a healthy breeze on his privates.

what bunnies do best

Last night I was walking to the laundry room porch and I spied a little white bunny. I had to do a double take. It looked exactly like the little white bunny with grey ears that we have living in our yard, but could it be? It looked exactly the same, but it was miniature...

We have babies! I know this might not be an ideal situation, but they are so cute! Funny enough, there are three of them. And they are a matching set for the adults. We have 2 white ones with grey ears (one smaller than the other), and a little grey and brown to match the papa.



This was the best picture I could get. Obviously, being bunnies, they are a little skittish.

bowl o' legs

Last weekend Daniel and I went out for a special dinner to celebrate the end of his quarter at school. They put the winter and spring quarters back-to-back, so he's essentially been going to school without a break since the beginning of the year.

We decided to go to the Rustic Inn Seafood restaurant. It's a crab joint where they serve the crabs in large bowls on a table covered in newspaper. Proper attire is required (bibs), and the only real silverware were got were wooden mallets. It was great. Daniel and I got their "World famous" Golden Crab clusters cooked in garlic butter. When they came out to the table I realized that I had ordered a bowl full of legs for dinner. Half of me was a little horrified, but the other half thought it was hilarious. I got over it quickly though, and dug in.

When the restaurant says that it's rustic, they aren't kidding. This is no classy joint. They don't even bother pumping in music, because the sounds of pounding mallets would drown it out anyways. It was fun to see everybody beating the crap out of their food before they ate it. I especially got a big kick out of seeing out waiter tie a bib on Daniel.



And boy oh boy were those legs good!