Oh My God . . . .

This car ad is not PETA approved:



But wait - it gets much much worse:



ROFL

Long Week

I’ve been working outside on project sites all week. The temperature and humidity made it difficult. I’m glad it’s over. We still have a number of University projects that we’re pushing to get completed before school starts at the end of the month. The next couple of weeks will be busy, but shouldn’t be non-stop outdoor work like this week was.

Most of my time was spent in Butner. I have a 45 minute commute to Raleigh and the trip from Raleigh to Butner is another 45 minutes. The older I get, the less I like to drive. The hour and a half trips between home and Butner have been especially irritating with north Raleigh traffic to deal with and then the drive back after working all day in the heat.

Like I said – glad this week is over.

Thermospas

Let me recap the hot tub status. The light switch in the control panel has been malfunctioning. And causing a short which trips the circuit breaker.

I had a service call appointment with the technician – which he didn’t keep. He came a day early (when I wasn’t home) – decided the control unit was OK (which it isn’t) and didn’t replace it. It’s still broken

I called last week. After a bit of phone tag I finally hooked up with the technician. He said he’d have to look at his schedule and would call me back to arrange another service time / date. He never called.

I was able to reach him this week - Wednesday morning. Oh yeah, I was the guy with the control panel problem. He thought he might be able to get back out to the house this week but he wasn’t sure. He’d have to look at his schedule and would call me. Confirmed he had my home, office and cell numbers. Guess what? Never heard back from him.

I’ll call him again Monday.

I like the Thermospas hot tub. It’s designed pretty well and the materials and equipment is first rate. Like any device with electrical and mechanical parts – they require occasional maintenance. Being a bit of a specialty hot tub – Thermospas will only warranty work performed by their own technician. Parts are covered by 10 and 20 year warrantees – which is pretty much a lifetime for hot tubs - pro rated of course which is understandable. But all work must be done by Thermospas technicians. So I’ve got to deal with this guy who doesn’t seem to be organized at all. So far I haven’t been able to rely on his showing up or calling back when he says he will. I’ll keep trying to work directly with him for another week. If things don’t get fixed by then – I’m going to have to call the factory in Connecticut and see if they can get the problem resolved.

My nephew and his wife have moved back to Japan. It can get down right annoying with his “all things in Japanese society are superior to America” spiel. But I’ll say one thing – this kind of shitty service (or lack thereof) wouldn’t happen in Japan. Over there – the technician would show up – on time – probably wearing white gloves – and wouldn’t leave until the problem is repaired. And apologizing the whole time for the control panel malfunctioning in the first place.

If the Thermospas technician doesn’t get his act together – Maybe I'll introduce him to the concept of seppuku. I have knives. ;-)

Weather and a follow up word about Fashion

It's hot. 99 today. Forecast is 101 tomorrow and Thursday. Naturally, I'd scheduled a week of field work on the hottest week of the year. Drinking a lot of water to stay hydrated. Then again, I work outside in the winter too, when it's sleeting and below freezing. I guess it evens out.

Hot Tub

Haven't had a call back yet from the Thermospas technician. I stop by the office before I head out in the field so I'll call him tomorrow morning to find out what’s up. More likely, I'll end up leaving a message and start the whole phone tag game.

Fashion

I referred to the fashion industry as the silliest waste of time and money on the planet in an earlier entry.

I was talking with a friend last night (and who reads this blog). He's pretty funny and we drifted onto my little quip about the fashion industry.

This is sort of a paraphrase of part of the phone call.

He pointed out that almost everybody wears clothes and that without style and fashion - we'd all be wearing sheets draped over us. Hmmm - well, the burka look is the 'style' of many in the Middle East. I guess it works for them. Plus all the easier to hide the explosives strapped to .....

My friend also pointed out that lots of people have to make their living at Target selling clothes, shoes and accessories and such and that there sure are damn sight worse things to do for a living.

Although we were joking around (in a very rude way) - He's right.

I amend my derisive put down of the fashion industry as applying to what is commonly called haute couture. Overpriced and over hyped. And leave it at that.


There are a lot of 'jobs' one can do which are much sillier and far more useless than being part of the fashion industry.

Avant-garde performance artists come to mind. Talk about people who need to get a job. And a life.

Fortunately performance art isn't nearly as pervasive as fashionistas are in the world. I guess even the idle rich (the patrons who fund that sort of crap) have their limits. LOL

Then - there's Modern Dance. At least that's athletic and, I guess, creative. Not sure how its useful - but it's better than performance art.

So, yeah, there are far more useless things one could do than be a fashion designer.

Come to think of it, my brother-in-law writes articles for the tabloid magazines. So who am I to judge what a worthwhile job is?

:-)

Raccoon Photos

The raccoon family came by early this evening while it was still light so I could take photos of them.


Here, the smallest one came up to the screen door to check out me and the camera.

This is natural light, not a filter or photo editing. It's almost dark - essentially twilight. I came right in and uploaded the photos. In the 10 minutes it took to do - it was dark outside.

Fake Steve Jobs

It's lunch time and I'm at the office computer - so I'll make this a quick entry. I was perusing the news and I saw an article where the Fake Steve Jobs blog author has been revealed. I've been reading it for about 2 or 3 months now. I can't remember who turned me on to the blog but it's a beautiful thing. Like an iPod. Have you heard of it?

It's been sort of like Primary Colors was; a guessing game as to the author. Difference is the FakeSteve site is actually funny. Irreverent and just close to, but not quite, going over the line. It's a lot of fun watching someone pop the pretentious balloons of the self absorbed.

The entries about the 'cleansing diet' and 'leakage' are coarse but left me laughing so hard my eyes watered. I also like the recurring Google entries. I think my all time favorite entry was the one where Hillary Clinton came to a secret meeting to extort campaign money. Classic.

Along the same skewering line (but definitely not in the cerebral category) is my guilty pleasure - I watch The Soup religiously. Don't tell anybody - it'll ruin my snooty image.

Peace out.

Racoons are cute - but . . . .

Raccoons are cute – but they are wild animals.

I’ve been watching the raccoon interact with her offspring this week. She has some different behavior patterns from the previous mother raccoon from a couple of years ago.

The previous mother raccoon was very patient and tolerant of her offspring. She would let her kitts eat first and was generally pretty gentle with them. She was also very wary of me and would take off if she saw too much movement by me in the house.

The current raccoon is much more aggressive. She doesn’t share the dog food with her offspring and will snarl and fight with them if they get too close while she’s eating. She’s also less wary of me. She’ll come up to the screen door where I’m watching and isn’t bothered by my walking around in the house or coming up to the door.

I had been putting out some yogurt for her when she came up to eat. I had to shoo her away because she wouldn’t run when I opened the door to place the bowl on the deck. I’ve quit putting the yogurt out because I felt she was getting far to acclimated to my presence and because she generally has a more assertive demeanor.

The 3 kitts have different personalities as well. There is one that is most assertive. He, she, it – whatever it is will fight back with the mother at the food bowl and snarls and fights with the other 2 kitts.

One is the meekest and gets pushed around a lot by the aggressive kitt and mother raccoon. Not surprisingly it’s also the runt of the litter – obviously only gets leftover food. The runt of the litter also makes the baby raccoon trilling sound a lot – which is a call for the mother and siblings. Seems as though it needs or wants more attention and security – which it doesn’t get. It’s also the most hesitant to explore and hides a lot while the others check out food and eat.

The middle baby raccoon is just that. Kind of in the middle when pushing for food, asserting itself, exploring and such.

The previous raccoon would keep a close eye on her babies. When they would make sounds she would immediately go and investigate what was up.

The current raccoon doesn’t bother. She just lets the kitts fight and cry and ignores them. I’ve watched the whole family take off for the woods and simply leave the runt behind.

Last night for example, the mother and top 2 offspring left the food bowl, went to the water fountain to drink and clean up and then left the deck headed for the back yard and woods. The runt stayed near the food bowl to find whatever food was left and didn’t see the others leave. When it realized it was alone, it immediately started to call for its mother and family. The rest, in the yard, made no answering calls and the mother didn’t come back to find the one left behind. The runt eventually saw where the others were and took off to follow them.

It’s interesting how sounds elicit responses. When a baby cries or even when a puppy or kitten cries, there’s a natural tendency to want to help. The sound a baby raccoon makes does the same thing. Last night, when it was crying and calling, I wanted to go outside and shoo it off the deck and towards the family. But you have to resist and let nature take its course.

They’re fun to watch – but they are not pets.

I have to limit my interference to putting out food 2 or 3 times a week.