Last Call?

"Hmmmm, I wonder where I could get some liquor?" Fortunately, my local gas station is there just in case I need an early morning jolt. I know it might be a little hard to see (had to take the picture with my surprisingly crappy iPhone camera), but the sign in front of the Shell station says, "LIQUOR SOLD HERE". Sweet! Although it's not as good as the gas stations where I grew up in Nebraska. There, you could get gas, beer/liquor AND ammo. At least during hunting season. They kept the 12-gauge shells on the counter next to the male enhancement and/or diet pills. I don't think there's much of a hunting season in Orangevale. I guess we could have peacock season or something. Hear they taste a little like squirrel.

Lucy's New Friend

No, we haven't gotten a new puppy. We had some serious storms here a couple weeks ago and our neighbor's fence blew down. Leaving just enough room for their new puppy to squeeze through. Lucy is extremely happy to have a new friend to play with, but Bo doesn't like other dogs. He doesn't like Lucy much some days, much less a tiny, wiggly puppy that wants to play. They fixed their fence last weekend and Bailey can't get over anymore. So sad for both of them. She's managed to dig a very small hole under the fence. Big enough to get her head through, small enough that she can't make it all the way through.


Lucy hasn't given up hope, though. She goes to the bedroom window when she hears the neighbor dogs are out. It's a little frightening that we have a dog big enough to look out the window without standing on anything but the floor. It's not like it's a low window, either. I'd love for some perv to try peeping in the bedroom window and come face-to-face with her. Lucy, not Rachelle. Lucy's a little scarier looking.

Travelin' Man

I've been on the road a lot lately with my new job, which gives me plenty of opportunities to try the local restaurants. Sometimes you find a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican or Thai place that has some of the best food around. Then you have the other places. I found Tony's Spunky Steer in Redlands, CA, and was tempted to give it a shot. Almost. I'm assuming it's a steak place, but I was a little concerned about how tasty a "spunky steer" would be and chickened out. Unfortunately, I ended up at Long John Silver's instead. Probably not a good call. Any restaurant that serves deep-fried lobster "bites" is a little suspect, and the chicken/fish/whatever all taste the same. My hotel in Redlands is right across the street from Larry Flint's Hustler Club, where I've heard that the $6 steak is only $2 on Tuesday and you get a free lunch with any drink purchase during the week. Looks like I might have to try that next time instead of the Spunky Steer.

AT&T Sucks

So I'm pretty sure I only have myself to blame, but I decided to switch from Earthlink to AT&T DSL a couple of months ago. I'd been paying double what AT&T said they'd charge me, and it wasn't that difficult to let the 8 people who email me know I'd changed my address, so I was easily swayed by the sales pitch when THEY FRIGGIN' CALLED ME! I was promised a free DSL modem (with rebate) and no start-up fee. Sounded good. Fast-forward to last Friday. I get a notice in the mail that says I have to pay $108 or they're going to disconnect my phone. WTF? First of all, we pay everything electronically, so our bank sends out a payment as soon as it's due. Kind of hard to not pay your bills when they're friggin' AUTOMATIC, but it turns out they never even sent a bill for October. The only bill we got (via email, which is how AT&T sends bills to us every month) came the day before the mailed disconnect notice. You may notice all the bolded and italicized caps in this post. That's because I have been on hold with AT&T for ONE HOUR AND FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES AND COUNTING to try to figure out how they screwed up my bill so badly. I would have hung up roughly one hour and fifty minutes ago, but I'm so friggin' pissed at them that I want to talk to somebody. That and I'm curious how long they'll actually leave me on hold before they come back.

Updates to follow.

Happy Halloween?

I met up with Ken at the Powerhouse Pub in Folsom for Monday Night Football (Note: It still doesn't seem right to have MNF on ESPN, but maybe I'm just old school). There is usually just one "Powerhouse Princess" to host the half-time putting contest, but this week we had a cornucopia of hot(ish) chicks in bikinis. Instead of the one (1) scantily-clad chick, there were three (3) young ladies wearing nothging but a bikini and a smile. And about 40 leering pervs, but that's another story. This was our first trip for MNF since the regular season started and we were a little disappointed that none of the regulars seemed to be there. Ted McGinley, The 3 Geeks, etc. I don't want to know what they call us. Don't really care.

I did see this sign on the way in/out. I especially like the "MUST BE LEGAL" disclaimer. Considering this bar is part of the same property where they have nude body-painting on a regular basis, I'm really curious about the costume contest. I'm trying to decide whether I should go as a drunk and shirtless David Hasselhoff (with my bag of Carl's Jr. burgers) or a drunk and shirtless Orangevale resident. Not really a costume per se, more of a life-style choice. Depends on how hungry I am.

One of the things I really like about my new job is that I am spending a lot of time in San Diego. Being away from home a lot isn't the greatest, but there are worse places to be. My old job had me in Texas and Oklahoma on a regular basis. I could find at least one nice thing to say about both places, but there weren't a lot of places to surf. Not that I actually "surf", but I've always thought it would be fun and I (in theory) could take it up. I bet I'd be a really good surfer, too. I wonder if they have wet-suits in "Extra Fat"? Probably not a good idea for me to be seen in something skin-tight. I've seen my skin. There seems to be lots more of it than there used to be.

One of my nieces is working on a school project based on the book "Flat Stanley". I'm not 100% sure what the whole plot of the book is, but it seems to be about a kid (named "Stanley") who is actually just a piece of paper (I don't know if he actually is paper or if he's just as flat as paper, but I don't think it matters much. At least not to me.) Anyway, my tie-in to the whole thing is Hannah's class had to make their own Flat Stanley and get pictures of them having "adventures". Since I travel a fair amount, I was asked to take Flat Hannah on my trips and get some pictures of her in exotic locales. So far, Flat Hannah has been to the beach, Petco Park (Go Padres!), Las Vegas and Tijuana. At first I felt a little uncomfortable taking pictures of a paper doll in public, but I was taking Flat Hannah on a photo-shoot in Vegas and a woman stopped and said, "Is that a Flat Stanley?" So, apparently, Flat Stanley is something of a celebrity in the soccer-mom circles. I'm not so sure the waitresses at Taco Bell - Tijuana really understood why I was taking pictures of Flat Hannah, but I guarantee they've seen stranger things on an average Friday/Saturday night in TJ. I've been told that the picture of Flat Hannah drinking a Pacifico probably won't make it into the school project. (Not flat) Hannah was actually worried that I'd taken Flat Hannah out of the country. She didn't know if that was against the rules. It's probably OK.

Interesting New Product

I was at Walgreen's this morning looking for birthday cards for my sister (3 days late) and my mom (still got a couple weeks) when Rachelle wanders on over with this product. My intitial thought was, "Why does she think I'd be interested in a product called Bald Guyz?" Then I remembered. I'm a bald guy. I was too offended to buy them while we were there, but I'm reconsidering. After visiting their web-site, I'm actually somewhat intrigued. Not only do they have the head wipes ("Cleans and Freshens"), but they also have sunscreen gel ("highly sweat resistant") and moisture gel ( with "Green Tea and Grape Seed extracts". They also have t-shirts for ladies who love the baldies ("Bald Guyz are Sexy!"). Might have to order a couple of those for Rachelle. I'll be giving a complete product review soon.