Tharrrr She Blows!!!

OK...all my little rantings have been left un-vented for a solid month so rather than subject you to 620 pages of all the gory gripes, I'm going to bullet point them and get them done briefly.

• What is with people who do their paperwork in the ATM line? I waited in line for 8 minutes behind a red Ranger today who was obviously filling in his slips, talking on the phone and slurping a drink. How rude. It's common sense. If you have paperwork to do, pull out, do it and get back in line. Don't hold up the line. The world does not revolve around you.

• The Postal Service "inhales rapidly". Yes. USPS is on my black list. The last week of December it took 14 days for Joal's paperwork to get to the office in Dallas for processing. The tracking number on the *Priority Mail* with alleged delivery confirmation was completely useless. It never got entered. Joal spent two hours at the PO with a person trying to find out what happened to the package and all they could tell him was that they couldn't find it and "that's what you get for $4." Did I mention that his entire paycheck for the week is dependant upon the contents of this envelope and it's timely arrival in Dallas? So they told him it was lost. We prepared to survive without his paycheck. Then ding ding--the envelope shows up in Dallas. As luck would have it, it was only one day too late to be processed and included in the stats for December 05. Because of the stats, the lack of that weeks work counting in December will cost us about $800. He did get the paycheck (which I am grateful for) but the points associated with the sales will be applied to January 06--a new quarter. The missing points put him in a lower bonus bracket for the fourth quarter of 05. The good news is that FedEx has a new client. I'm thinking of sending the USPS a bill.

• I live on the quietest street in America. It's really really quiet. Really. Quiet. And oddly, dark. We have exterior lighting across the front and back of our house. Every night we turn on all the exterior lights and leave them on all night. I have never liked a dark house and I don't intend to live in one. So, yes, we light up the night. Our neighbors, however, don't. Some don't even have their porch light turned on at night. I totally don't get that. I'm thinking of renting Joal out as a light-installer. Maybe they just don't know how.

• There's no Michaels sale paper this week. Bummer dude.

• I made a mistake today. I went to the Club Scrap website "just to look" and now I have a list of stuff I allegedly "need" to acquire.

• What is up with the Metro Nashville School Board and parents? The MNPS has been having all kinds of issues--issues that parents should have cared about enough to make some noise about but they haven't. Oh wait. Check that. Parents have neglected to make themselves heard on many other key issues ...Until the school board decided to consider adopting a "balanced calendar" for the 07-08 school year. And then here come the irate parents. One would think the school board was a team of Dr Evils sent to clone and dominate the world. One parent in The Tennessean was upset because the so called balanced school year calendar would have a negative impact on her family vacation plans. Come on. If you already have set-in-stone vacation plans for the summer of 2008, chances are your kid needs to be in school a little more to get away from you. If you disagree with the consideration of a balanced year--fine. But as a parent--please act civiliy and use your manners. Is that too much to ask?

• My last issue of contension is with the Tennessee Legislature. Our Governor has called them into a special session to consider "Ethics Legislation". That is--their job is to come up with more substantial rules by which they will be governed as a body. Puh lease. That's the equivalent of letting Julian plan what we are going to eat for dinner or when he is going to bathee. What's that saying that was popular in the 80s? "You can't legislate morality?" Well, guess what? Apparently legislators are exempt from things like ethics and morality. I love our form of representation of the people, for the people and by the people...but in this case, the people doing the representing have apparently lost their ability to govern themselves. Members of the legislature are in all sorts of legal trouble, including federal charges, but their peers in the club can't even bring themselves to establish new rules of conduct. What ever happened to the concept of civil service? Ask not what your country can do for you...etc.

Ahh. I feel better now.