Antigrammar - Dynamite with a laser beam.

Just Because I Just Gotta Post This Year

Karen — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:37:10 +0000

I know a better blogger would know a way to chronicle my life. My life is sometimes very interesting, some have even said bizarre. Maybe I should call on the blogosphere to give me advice. Lord knows I need advice. One of my problems made front page news 3 weeks in a row so far with no resolution on the way.

I know my posts are sometimes cryptic. That does not gain readership, it is only an inside joke for the three or four folks who know what is going on. My apologies to the rest of you.

This year is unusual because I have been more doing than learning. This is not normal for me and I know it is not sustainable. But it does bring in the bucks.

If I can post something interesting soon that will not betray a confidence, I will do it. If not, I will continue to pay the bills and come back when I do have something to say. Otherwise, just give me a call.

The Great Car Project of 2008

Karen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:51:24 +0000

This story is not nearly as interesting as I had hoped it would be. I had envisioned a big old car carrier pulling up in front of my house and dropping off something nice, allowing for lots of photo opportunities. Turns out that my road is not at all suitable for an 80-foot truck, and the delivery took place in the middle of the night, in the rain, several miles from here. I did not even go to see it all happen. I am such a humbug sometimes. I will still tell ya what happened under the condition that you DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

It all started a couple of months back when my kid found a cute little sports car he wanted to buy. It was listed on E-Bay. I did my best to convince him that buying the car was little wiser than stuffing his life savings into a box and mailing it to a random address on the other side of the country. He was not discouraged and very soon had wired his fortune off to somewhere in California.

Next came the process of arranging the shipping. While it may have been easier and less time consuming to simply drive out there and get the thing, the kid instead interviewed numerous shipping companies. Our phone rang off the hook for about two weeks. The person on the other end always had a very interesting accent and talked way too fast. Finally a decision was made and the calls tapered off gradually.

Some days after that the car title came in the mail. This was rather encouraging.

A couple of weeks passed, and finally we get call from the truck driver. He told us not only was there really a car, but that he had picked it up and that it looked and handled great. The next day a lady called and said the truck, with the car on it, had been put into the shop. The repair would be delayed because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but they expected to have it on the road on Monday. After that it took about a week and a half to cross the country.

The happy day finally came and the car arrived. It seemed to be in pretty good shape. It was actually a salvage vehicle and had to be inspected by the state inspector. He came by after about another week and a few wax jobs. The car passed the test. After that the kid was able to get a license plate and insurance and actually drive the thing.

Here are some photos of the happy ending.

Happy Third Birthday

Karen — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:32:42 +0000

According to my user account, I first logged into this blog three years ago today. The posts have been hit or miss and somewhat unfocused. More often than not I have little to talk about, other times I am unable to organize my thoughts well enough to put them into words. Still, I enjoy having a home base on the web and I see no reason to abandon this project.

I may have some interesting news in the next day or two when the Great Car Project of 2008 finally becomes tangible. Check back, it might just turn out to be interesting.

Religion

Karen — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:04:35 +0000

I do not know what the word religion means. I think it may be a set of rules that people with my belief set follow. I probably break all those rules pretty often.

I consider myself a Christian. I follow in the ways of Christ. What did Christ do? He loved and forgave every individual he met. That is the challenge to me, to learn to love every person I meet just as they are.

That's all it is, folks. I believe it is not my place to judge or decide if you are a good person. It is my job to love you. It is your decision how you will react.

You Never Know when You Pick Up The Phone...

Karen — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:05:46 +0000

The phone rings a lot around here. During the day it is usually someone asking a question about the business. At night the kid gets his turn when his friends call to talk. When the phone rang tonight I automatically handed it to him.

But this time the call was for me. A lady I know was asking me if I know anything about chickens. Sadly, no, I don't know all that much about chickens.

"Well, the thing is, one of our roosters has gone mean and is attacking the kids."

"Hey I do know this much, you shoot it."

She wanted to know if she could eat it. I thought it would be ok as long as the rooster was not too old.

"So, exactly how do you kill a chicken?"

Believe it or not, I know in general how to answer this question. I have even done it, many many years ago.

"Well, you get you a stick of firewood that can stand up on end. You get you a hatchet. You put your chicken in a burlap sack, with the head sticking out. You put the neck on the wood, take the hatchet, and chop it's head off. Then you hold on to the sack, hard."

She took it well. She even asked the next logical question: "What do you do next?"

My experience does not extend to plucking chickens. I am pretty sure it involves boiling water.

The Internet is a big place. If any of my gentle readers has a clue as to how to get the chicken from bag to fryer, please speak up now.

Think of the children.

To The Person Whose Child I Treated Rudely

Karen — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:59:54 +0000

I can offer no excuse. Rudeness is a terrible way to deal with a situation. I do know that I tend to be direct by nature. I am often able to tone that down a bit especially when the person I am talking to does not know me well. It helps a lot that I do not allow myself to get angry very often.

I did let myself get angry at you. I flew hot when you winked your eye at me and suggested I let a certain rule slide. The rules I follow were put in place by the people I work for. These are hard working people who are trying to make a living and provide for their families. They trust me to make sure nobody takes unfair advantage of their hard work. I found out earlier this summer exactly how far I am willing to go to protect their interests, and it is scary.

I am sorry that your son suffered collateral damage in this. Young folks should be encouraged in their ventures. I believe that I did say something to that effect at the time. You would have done much better to back off and let him handle the situation, even if the result would have been the same.

Sunday Social Outing

Karen — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:44:47 +0000

We all have events we attend to connect with the people we know and meet new folks with similar interests. Maybe you do the girls night out, the boy's night out, or the barbecue on the patio.

I do the annual farm tour.

I know, no geeky creds here, but I can flat out show you which squash blossoms you can stuff without reducing the crop, tell you when yer lettuce is pretty well past it, and tell you which weeds are good for foraging.

I volunteered this year at Charles Church's place. It is close to the house and totally awesome.

You need to think about where your food comes from. It is important.

A List Apart Survey - 2008

Karen — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:54:31 +0000

As in 2007, A List Apart is surveying all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. They will analyze this year’s data and publish the results and also provide an “anonymized” version of the raw data. I took it, and so should you.

Any Club That Would Have Me As A Member....

Karen — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:29:27 +0000

So I joined another social networking group. Actually I joined maybe a week ago, and just now got around to blogging about it. Here I was, trying to work up the energy to drop the networks I have joined, perfectly good networks, all of them, I just don't have the time.

But this one is going to be different, or so they tell me. This network will make me famous and well loved, and I think they mentioned cute and skinny too.

No not really.

What group organizer Laurie did promise was that I would have to do nothing at all, and I was all over it like white on rice.

So today, I removed all my poor neglected blog networks and replaced them with the new button. Here it is right here:

There is any number of things the group has planned to do, for instance we are not going to hop on a plane and fly somewhere expensive and get drunk. We have, however, chosen which shoes we will wear when we don't do any of this. Is this a great group or what?

I am looking forward to visiting all the individual blogs of the people who make up the group and leaving lots of witty comments and maybe enticing them to come back here and comment and then maybe we can all be BFF and swap shoe care tips. In the meantime, I will link to the blogroll that Laurie has painstakingly assembled. I loves me an alphabetical list.

Until we replace all this with an email list,

~anti

Hey You Disgusting Slob, You better Take The Trash Out

Karen — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:10:29 +0000

I have been using Akismet for spam protection for a little over a year now. It has been pretty good.

It has just missed some spam over the last couple of days. Obviously, somebody has tweaked their spambot. The thing is, anything not caught by the spam filter is sent to Friendfeed and God knows where else. My apologies if you have been subjected to random characters on my behalf. I do what I can to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio.

And so, I have switched spam prevention. I now use Mollom for my spam prevention needs. I am kinda excited about this, as the same awesome guy who wrote this very blog software that I use here is responsible for Mollom.

Thing is, Mollom requires a specific privacy policy. I don't think Mollum is worse than Akismet in the privacy department. They just require more disclosure.

Anyway, if you are wanting to comment on this post, or maybe one a little older, you will be subject to the Mollom policy before I have spelled it out for you here. Sorry. If you already have an account on this site you will not be affected at all. Let's hear it for old friends.

Here's hoping the Internet can continue to be usable by humans.