A Tree Falling in the Forest

By the time I got to work this morning it was 67 degrees in Richmond. Not bad for the last day of November. It's also the last day of a very mild Hurricane Season. Al Gore just can't seem to catch a break.

If I were in charge of hiring new employees I would ask, "have you ever used 'reply-to-all' to respond to a routine e-mail sent to a large number of employees?" If so, I suggest you apply as a greeter at Wal-Mart until you prove yourself competent.

My stomach has not been quite right for several days. I blame Big A and Mrs. A. You see, Friday night MLW, OBB, and I went over to the A's House for dinner. Big A made pizza. The pizza had a certain Giovanni's quality only tastier. He even made several tasty varieties, none of which included that weird greasy sausage Giovanni's puts on its pizza. I had one plate full, then I had a second plate full. Keep in mind, this is one day after Thanksgiving. Oh, and before the Pizza, we had several varieties of chips with tasty dips and salsa.

Then Mrs. A brought out a warm chocolate brownie souffle served with vanilla ice cream. Commonly referred to as a "super mom" and "wife worthy of sainthood," she is actually a calorie wielding temptress. Being weak in the self-control department, I had two servings. Towards the end of the second serving I started to come to my senses, and not just because MLW was making comments about my intake. I was stuffed beyond capacity. I went to bed stuffed to capacity. When I woke I was still full. I may need to fast for a couple days to shrink my stomach back down to its normal volume.

On the trip back from Maine I felt a level of exhilaration commonly reserved for senior citizens when they buy their prescription medications in Canada. My sister, a pediatrician, gave us two and half cases of baby formula. Woohoo. That's real money... no fooling.

Today my lovely wife (MLW), our brilliant baby (OBB), and our emotionally disturbed dog (EDD) returned home from a trip to Maine for Thanksgiving.

Having a beautiful sunny day around the house was a pleasant surprise after driving all night. So after a nap and feeding OBB, I decided to go clean out the gutters of our new home. About halfway up the fiberglass extension ladder I started to think about Rich and his recent accident. My courage started to wane. In my head I was going over the physics that were preventing my plummeting to the ground and certain breakage of limbs. I did my best to push it out of my head and continue up.

Once on the roof I paused for a moment to survey my new perch about two and quarter stories above the ground. As a neighbor approached I decided I better look busy and get cleaning otherwise I would be the freak neighbor that hangs out on his roof. Our gutter covers made it a quick job and it was about time to get down. As I started my decent the ladder wiggled... uh- oh... maybe I will just hang out for a minute and try again. Or maybe I will call MLW on my cellphone to come out and hold the ladder. Thanks a lot Rich. I am sure my new neighbors were making fun of me from inside their houses.

Wal-Mart is moving about 4 minutes closer to our house. I should be able to get the new store in about 5-6 minutes. That seems reasonable... paving over 20 acres of farmland to avoid five or so traffic lights on my way to get some socks, an oil filter, and a bag of Twizzlers. I hope I can manage to wait until 2008.

Wal-Mart, Penney's head to Hull St.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Nov 17, 2006

Wal-Mart plans to open another Richmond area location -- about fives miles from one of its existing stores.

The world's largest retailer plans to build a 204,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter in the planned Hancock Village.

The shopping center, at Hull Street at Winterpock roads, is about five miles from the chain's store at state Route 288 and Hull Street Road.

Hancock Village also likely will have a J.C. Penney store -- the area's first Penney's not connected to a mall. The center would open in the spring 2008.

My new workplace has TPS reports. It makes me chuckle every time I hear it.

Dom Portwood: Hi, Peter. What's happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it.
Dom Portwood: Yeah. Did you get that memo?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I've already taken care of it so it's not even really a problem anymore.
Dom Portwood: Ah! Yeah. It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right!

Last night's epsiode of The Simpsons was a rare disappointment. I hope the writing staff isn't getting burnt out from working on The Simpsons movie.

I can't imagine what life was like when people only bathed once a week or even once a month.

This weekend I was in charge of taking care of Our Brilliant Baby (OBB) while My Lovely Wife (MLW) was out of town.

So Saturday morning I fed the baby, got him dressed, and rushed around in an effort to get to an auction out in the country before 9:00 am. I managed to get there about 9:15 am, but I had to skip getting a shower. The auction was interesting, but I didn't buy anything. OBB and I just enjoyed the sunny 75 degree weather on a country farm.

Sunday, my back was aching so OBB and I just hung out at the house. But around noon, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to have a shower. I set OBB up with a Baby Einstien video so I could get myself together. After the shower, my back still hurt, but I felt a lot better. I can't imagine going a whole week without a bath or a shower or a swim or something.

Later Sunday I realized OBB had missed his bath as well. He didn't seem to mind, but OBB was developing some Baby Body Odor (BBO). My back was smarting too much to lean over to give him a bath, but thankfully MLW has returned home and rectified the situation. She said he didn't make any fuss when he got his bath... I suspect it made him feel better too.

Living in the south means living with heat pumps. They keep us cool in the summer and warm us in the winter. At least that is what they do when they are working properly. For some reason, I think the heat pump demons have it in for me.

I won't go into the long history of my battles with heat pumps, but I will give a brief history from the last 12 months.

About this time last year, the heat pump in our old house began rapidly turning on and off. This was the equivalent of a "death rattle." With the help of a HVAC engineer I learned more about heat pumps than I really wanted to know. Long story short, in the end it had to be replaced.

One would think that would be the end of the battles for that particular house. Not so. Six months later, when we put our house on the market, someone decided to take a pair of pliers to a coil in the new heat pump. Apparently, someone was none to happy with us. Several HVAC companies said it would have to be replaced (again), but we were able to find someone to fix it... for the a fee of $350.

Fast forward a few months to our new house. We moved in a few days ago on a beautiful 70 degree day. Yesterday, the temperatures began dipping down, and so did the thermostat reading. The heat pump has stopped working. Tonight it's supposed to be below freezing and the earliest appointment I could get with a technician is Monday afternoon.

A brief list of other heat pump battles:
1. College Dorm... broken A/C in 90 degree heat.
2. Grad School Apartment... no heat in December.
3. Richmond Apartment... no A/C in July.
4. Alexandria Apartment... cold all the time.
5. Fairlington House... clogged drain, leading to damp basement
6. In-laws House... A/C broken on guest side of house in July in South Carolina.
7. Alexandria House... see above.
8. New House... see above.

A construction crew is using a jack hammer on the base of the building I work in. It feels like a woodpecker trying to hammer his way into my skull - an angry, malicious, terrible woodpecker.