Is That a Bluetooth In Your Ear or Are You Just Talking To Yourself?

Remember the days when you saw someone talking up a storm to themselves in a car and the only conclusion you could make was that they were stark raving MAD?

Ah yes. The days before Bluetooth. It's hard to believe that in the not so distant past humans roamed the earth without little tacky devices hanging out of their ears. But that was then.

Now they are everywhere. And they drive me crazy. Just this morning I thought I identified a crazy driver. She was laughing and chatting and apparently entertaining just herself. But of course, that was not the case. As I passed her I saw her bionic ear blinking away.

I can't get myself to go down the Bluetooth route. Not yet. Not until they can make them as small as they make other technological gizmos. I mean, REALLY...do they HAVE to be so big and gaudy? Nope. My father has hearing aids (sorry Dad, I meant hearing "amplifiers") that are so tiny they can hardly be seen even close up. My theory is that the Bluetooth crowd WANTS to be seen.

glued to your head, I do NOT understand why so many people keep them on all the time. Wearing a Bluetooth in a restaurant should be as looked down upon as baseball caps used to be. SHOW SOME RESPECT, for goodness sakes. You are eating a meal, not sitting through the company's quarterly meeting.

I saw one guy that took the cake recently. He was at his son's FIRST COMMUNION...and he STILL couldn't find it in himself to take the darned cyborg impant off. Not even for an HOUR on a Sunday in church. I bet he wears it in the shower, too. And to bed.

So I am resisting the Bluetooth onslaught. Call me old fashioned, but I would rather have a phone to my head than a metallic blue slug dripping off my ear lobes.

It's a Dirty Job, But Someone Has to Doo It

At a time when politicians keep telling us about all the jobs Americans just won't do, it's refreshing to read about a job that apparently some Americans ARE doing. Take a guess. Nope. Try again. Not even close. Give up?

How about dog poop scooper. Yes, it's true.

Think about it. If you have a dog, you have a mess. Either in the yard, the front lawn, the garage, or dog run. There WILL be doggie stuff. And who wants to deal with that? And everyone who has a dog knows that if you miss even one day, the piles begin to grow out of control. Never mind if you miss a few days or more.

So instead of putting on the gloves or grabbing the doggie bags, some people are hiring out and PAYING people to do this dirty deed.

And some people are more than willing to do it. Hey, if I had a little more time on my hands, I would consider it myself. Why not? Customers are paying between $10 and $20 a week for this service. That's chump change, you might say. But not if you have 10 customers. Or 20. Or 100. Depending on your free time and your determination to get the word out, you could make yourself some nice vacation or play money.

I HATE doing it myself. Or at least, I hate the THOUGHT of doing it. But I have to admit, once I get into the groove, it isn't so bad. It really IS almost like putting golf balls , as one employee described it. What's the big deal? Put on thick rubber gloves, grab the scooper and the hefty bag, and make some money doing a job you wouldn't dream Americans would do. But they ARE doing them. Because Americans are the most innovative entrepreneurs on earth, in my opinion.

This is the most clever business idea since the lemonade stand. Although I admit, not as appealing on a hot day as a nice tall cold one.

So don't be surprised if you see an ad one day for "Hughes Removes: K-9 Waste Removal Services".

Why not?

Woof woof.

Give Me a Signal…I BEG You!

My family and I just went through the move from Hell. The whole process was riddled with frustration, stupidity, and terrible customer service. And now that we are in our new, wonderful home…the angst continues.

Our cell phone coverage has gone from barely adequate to non-existent. It is so bad that all of our calls go straight to voice mail. We have to walk out of our house and into an empty field to get even ONE bar of signal strength.

We did not move to Mount Everest. Hundreds of families are moving into this booming community. Many have already lived here for YEARS. There is NO excuse to not have the area blanketed with cell coverage.

So what does the cell phone provider tell me? That the MAP shows we have great service! That the MAP shows we have great signal strength. Excuse me, but I don’t care what the stinking map says…we get NOTHING. Nothing but a mountain of dropped call and missed call carcasses.

Then I needed to call AAA because my car battery died.

When I complained AGAIN to the provider…the customer service agent got testy with me and told me to “let her finish and not interrupt”. Oh man, did I go crazy on her THEN.

“No, YOU don’t interrupt ME. I am the reason you have this job. I am the person who is paying your wages. You don’t talk to me like that. You talk to your customers with RESPECT. I have been a loyal, paying customer for several years.”

CLICK.

Um…excuse me?? Did she just HANG UP on me?!?! She did. I was LIVID. I called RIGHT back and reported her unbelievably rude and unacceptable behavior. The next agent was much nicer and promised me that she would report the other employee’s misconduct. They can play her back on the recorded call and hear for themselves.

Oh, did I mention that we have no service on our HOME telephone, either? Yep. Looks like the phone company not only didn’t install our phone line when they ensured us they would, they aren’t even bothering to call us BACK to EXPLAIN or RESCHEDULE. They just aren’t calling us back for some mysterious and infuriating reason.

I feel like Bruce Willis in THE SIXTH SENSE…I keep talking but people act like I’m not even there. Maybe I am starring in the sequel and nobody told me.

I am now convinced that we will make contact with intelligent extra terrestrial life before I get a signal from my home or a call back from the phone company. Oh wait…I think I see the mothership now.

It’s The Story…of a Man Named Spencer…

If you didn’t sing the title of this blog entry to the theme of “The Brady Bunch” then I am either too old or still living in the 70s.

My Better Half and I are expecting our 6^th child between us this November. All we are missing is Alice the housekeeper. The Hughes Bunch indeed!

Yesterday we discovered that we are having a baby girl. We saw her through the magical eyes of medical science and technology. She squirmed. She kicked. She sucked her thumb and scratched her head. And we now can call her a SHE, officially, although all of our instincts were right all along. She even has a name now, which we will keep to ourselves for privacy reasons.

Collectively we already have 4 boys and 1 girl so the balance HAD to give to the females who are greatly outnumbered in our family, right? Besides, I am not sure I could handle any more testosterone in our home. Girl Power prevailed yesterday as Mom, Nana, Abuela (for the Gringos, that’s grandmother in Spanish), older Sister, and the females at large in the family let out a collective HURRAH!

So it looks like we will be buying lots of pink things. But that is ok. And lots of blue stuff would have been ok, too.

What really matters is having a healthy baby, regardless of its sex. You always hear people say that, but it’s so true.

My parents watched in amazement at the ultrasound images. It was my father’s birthday and what better present than to give him front row seats to the first glimpses of his grandchild. This technology wasn’t around when I was born and it goes to show you how far science has come. It wasn’t that long ago that doctors were limited to feeling the baby through the mother’s skin and making as many determinations as they could from that.

And if you are expecting and have the option of seeing your baby though newer 4-D technology, do it! It is INCREDIBLE. You can actually see the baby’s FACE. Even fingers and toes become more alive with this type of ultrasound. It’s takes current images to a whole new level.

So hello there sweet Baby Girl. Already you are making Daddy so incredibly happy.

Moving Along

Moving isn’t fun. Sure, getting to your new destination can be exciting, heartwarming, and refreshing. But the actual MOVING part of it can be awful.

In one week, we will be in our new home. More than half of our stuff has already been packed into those huge storage bins they drop in front of your house. Stuff we can’t even remember is sitting in a warehouse somewhere, wondering if we will ever claim it again.

And that leaves the final week’s worth of stuff. You know, when the whole family is camped out on blankets because the beds are being put into a truck?

I guess there are some satisfying moments during the ordeal. Like when you find something behind the dresser in the closet that you swore was lost forever. Or the sheer joy of loading up a dumpster full of junk you convinced yourself for YEARS you couldn’t live without.

Moving can be sad, too, depending on how attached you were emotionally to the place you are leaving. Friends, family, and memories wave at you from the curb, as you drive away for the final time. Maybe your kids were born in that house. Maybe your marriage ended in that house. Maybe the bad memories outweigh the good and you are glad to be moving along.

The most important thing to remember is that the stuff in the moving vans and storage bins is just…well, STUFF. It’s the people sitting with you in the truck that matter the most.

And remember…wherever you end up with them is ultimately your home. No matter where is it, or how much moving along you had to do to get there.

Celebrate Multiculturalism...NOT

My 10-year-old cut school today. And I let him. Mom let him, too.

Why on earth would we condone such truancy?

Because it’s one of the most politically correct days at his school today. Drum roll please…It’s Multicultural Day!

YIPPIE! Not.

I live in a very liberal part of the country. In fact, the town I live in is among the most liberal in the United States of America. This is one of the side benefits of moving soon—getting away from this cesspool of stupidity.

So what will my child miss today? Mathematics? Nope. History? Well, maybe. But it won’t be American history. It will be everyone ELSE’S history. Science? Not a chance.

Luckily, our children are bright and don’t fall for most of this nonsense dished out by the institutions of supposed learning. But my 10-year-old came home recently crying because some idiot was brought into his class who told them they wouldn’t live to see their 21^st birthdays if adults didn’t get their act together and clean up the planet.

Can you imagine telling a child that? Is it any wonder that so many kids come home from school depressed and sometimes even hostile?

What else would you expect when the bulk of the lessons are about how bad America is and how irresponsible all the adults in their lives are?

So my child will miss loads of indoctrination today. After coming home the other day claiming that the lesson of the day was that America doesn’t really HAVE a culture (man, the radicals have been using THAT one for a LONG time now), he can use the day off.

He will learn multiculturalism from US. He will understand his heritage, both Mexican and European in origin. He will understand about other places and people. But over my dead body will he learn it from some wheat germ chomping sociopath who has a degree in marketing.

Maybe if more parents protested these events by having their child take the day off, the schools would finally get it.

Nah. Probably not.