OK, I’ve got nothing to say tonight. I’ve spent the last half hour reading other blogs and generally wandering around the internet looking for inspiration. At least that is what I told myself I was doing. Guess what? Didn’t find any. Come back tomorrow.
Every Monday I print out two images on the departmental color printer and pushpin them to the outside of my cubicle. The first is the eleven year old Calvin and Hobbes Sunday cartoon and the other is a photograph I have taken over the weekend. For the last couple weeks I have been posting Cannon Beach photos, but last Friday my wife said, “No more.” Seeing those images has become to painful because we had such a good time in our two days there that it seems as if our normally “exciting” life here has lost some of it’s luster. So, today, to go along with Calvin and Hobbes I posted a picture from our walk in Hitchcock Woods on Saturday morning.
We are already planning a return trip to the Oregon Coast in May. To tide us over until then, we will have to settle for a trip back in time to there: A 1940 Oregon Coast Tour
I went to the Patent Office trying to register some of my inventions.
I went to the main desk to sign in and the lady at the desk had a form that had to be filled out. She wrote down my personal info and then asked me what I had invented.
I said, “A folding bottle.”
She said, “Okay, what do you call it?”
“A Fottle.”
“What else do you have?”
“A folding carton.” “What do you call it?”
“A Farton.”
She sniggered and said, “Those are silly names for products and one of them sounds kind of crude.”
I was so upset by her comment that I grabbed the form and left the office without even telling her about my folding bucket.
Here are some excerpts from a 3-page letter that came in the snail mail on Saturday for my deceased mother-in-law:
Dear Friend:
My name is Dick Hollman. In September 1991 my car was repossessed. Bill collectors were hounding me like crazy. I was laid off and unemployment ran out. In October I received a letter telling me how I could earn $800,000.00 anytime I wanted to!!! Of course I was skeptical, but because I was so desperate, and had nothing to lose I gave it a try. In January 1992, my family went on a ten day cruise and in February, bought an Escalade with cash. This program works perfectly as long as everybody is honest and enjoy not working again!!! THIS IS NOT A CHAIN LETTER!!! This is a perfectly legal money making opportunity. Please read the letter carefully, follow the instructions EXACTLY!!!!!
Whoever sent this forgot to advance the dates by a decade when they changed the vehicle purchased, Escalades weren’t manufactured until 1999.
1. Immediately send $1.00 US funds to each of the 6 names on this page.
Include with you dollar a request to be put on their mailing list. THIS IS THE CRITICAL STEP THAT MAKES THIS PROGRAM PERFECTLY LEGAL!!!!!
Bolding mine, doesn’t just putting this instruction in the letter invalidate this loophole?
4. Purchase a mailing list from DATA LINE, THEIR NUMBER IS 1800-497-2912. Ask for a list of opportunity seekers. This list is $40.00 and comes on address labels ready to go on envelopes. They will ship C.O.D. and take Master Card and Visa.
Internet searching reveals no company called DATA LINE that sells mailing lists. I also got no hits using a couple of toll free reverse look up directories for that number (I was scared to actually call it…) So this is probably not a way to scam people out of $40.
1)Steven Clewis
5453 Stewart Dr.
Virginia Beach, VA. 23464
…
6)Richard Creamer
Rt. 1 Box 2025
Ray City, GA.31645
The address label, a lick to apply kind, listed Mr. Creamer and that address. So, did Richard actually follow the written instructions in hopes of getting $800,000? Or did Steven Clewis have the return address labels printed up along with the
3. Copy or print 200 (or 500 if you are ambitious) copies of this 3 page letter.
in hopes of speeding up the income? As far as I can tell from my rudimentary internet searches, no one by the name of Steven Clewis lives at that address. There were 4 different names with 4 corresponding, but different, phone numbers that I could find listed at 5453 Stewart Dr.
Anyway, whoever hoped to profit from this “solicitation to join their mailing list” is going to be at least one buck shy of their goal as the letter went into our shredder. Right after I scanned it, so I wouldn’t have to retype these excerpts.
On our drive up to the upstate the fall colors ranged from none, to some, back to none, into really great to just a touch. My plan to take a picture of the car with a vivid fall backdrop was forgotten because the only time the leaves were what I might be looking for was in the middle of the drive up into the mountains at the NC border and I was busy driving like a mad man to even think about stopping for a photo op. This is usually how it works on our trips to the mountains, the really good scenery is reduced to a blur and not captured photographically as it unfortunately falls during the best sports car driving segments.
Tomorrow morning it is supposed to be raining, so depending on how long it looks like it will continue, we may forgo further leaf peeping and just head for home. Either way there will probably be no picture taking tomorrow either.
We live in a little subdivision called “Dunbarton Oaks” that is one of the first ones built in Aiken when the bomb plant went in down the road in the mid-fifties. I’m not sure if the sign has been there since then, but it was there when we moved in in 1989.
About 5 or 6 years ago the sign disappeared. Pranksters, college initiation, giant oak leaf haters, no one knows, but Police Chief Clancy Wiggum was stumped. After a month or so when it was apparent the sign would not return, the neighborhood took up a collection to buy a new one. The original sign was painted brown with white lettering, but when we got the new one, the lady with the nicest yard for miles and resident subdivision entrance-way gardener painted the leaf green with cream lettering.
About a year ago, sometime after the bars closed, a drunk ran the stop sign on the other side of the intersection and plowed into the sign, smashing it into little pieces. There were no skid marks, but the little dip at the edge of the road in front of the sign was scraped pretty good from the bumper or whatever. The residents of the two houses at the corner heard nothing. Police Sergeant Lou is baffled as to who the perpetrator might be. A friend of a friend of the gardener lady fixes the sign and it is hung back up after a couple weeks.
About a month and a half ago, poof, the sign is gone again. Stolen. Police Officer Eddie has no leads or suspects. For a while there it looks like this is the straw that breaks the gardener lady’s back. When we ask about the sign she just says, “Thieves and drunks can get away with anything.” A couple weeks later when we ask if she is going to take up donations for a new sign, she tells us that a retired gentleman in the neighborhood is going to make a replacement and wants no money. Yesterday afternoon when we turned onto Boardman Road on the way home from work, the new sign is there.
Tonight when I went rollerblading I took my camera. No telling how long this on is going to last…
Next Saturday is the MMC‘s Leaf Peeping Trip. Trouble is it might be too late for leaves. According to the Weather Channel’s web site’s Fall Foliage Report, this weekend should be at peak in the southern Appalachians. Not wanting to miss out Donna and I are planning a little overnighter for tomorrow to try and catch the show. We are still going with the Club next weekend even if the trees are bare, no way would I turn down a chance to drive on some windy back roads.
Tonight I washed the car in case we find that perfect Kodak Picture Spot for the Emperor’s fall portrait this weekend. I want to do another Miata calendar for 2007, but I’ve only got maybe 3 shots that are good enough to hang on a wall and time is running out. Maybe I’ll get some cool pictures on our Thanksgiving trip to FLA.