CafeChatNoir

OK, the post that was originally here is not anymore.  I have no idea where it went.

But the jist of it was that I met Dicky Betts of the Allman Brothers Band.

I’ve had the interesting opportunity to observe some court sessions (and happily NOT participate) under multiple judges lately. I think I’ve figured out how the system sort of works, at least in some cases.

First, get a lawyer. Make sure it is just a plain old good lawyer and not a grandstanding twit. (Elaboration later.) If you’re lucky, the judge will kick you up to room 201 to get a lawyer if you don’t have one already, and if you’re not lucky, they’ll let you hang yourself with your own rope. Not good.  Said lawyer will also assist in trying to get a judge that doesn’t want the death penalty for everything.

Second, when you have a court date, look decent.  At least thrown on a clean dress shirt and a pair of khakis.  (Seriously, I have been amazed at the number of folks that show up in jeans/shorts/t-shirts to court.)  And take off your damn hat - there is at least one baliff who will happily remove it for you, along with your head.

Depending on your judge and the severity of the offense, first offenses will get you a suspended sentence, fines and probation.

It’s the probation violations that can get you in real trouble down the line.

If it’s a compliance issue, ie, “Do x & y in the next 6/9/12 months” and you’ve not finished yet, it seems that you have 2 tries to get your probation extended and get it done. Come back a third time and it’s not done, you’re out of luck.

If you’ve been convicted of something else and that results in a probation violation, well, you’re just screwed and you’ll be a guest of the county for a while.

If you expect that your probation officer is actually on top of things, think again. If your probation is up in January and they say, “Yes, you’re good to go, just pay the final admin fee,” don’t count on it, because you could be served with a notice of violation anywhere from 3 1/2 months to a year later (I saw that whole range) once they get caught up on their paperwork. Also, don’t expect the probation officer to say the same thing in front of the judge as they do to your lawyer 10 minutes before court convenes. The case that they are just as happy to have put to bed as long as everyone behaves suddenly becomes something they want to “make a point with” in front of the judge.

If your lawyer is a grandstanding twit, you may also suffer, given that the judge can’t really do anything to the lawyer, but they can do things to you. Like make you serve 60 days on a probation violation (traffic violation) because your lawyer had you drag your daughter into court so he could show off your single parenthood. (The baliff actually walked over to the other adult looking after the child after it was over and said, “Don’t bring her back here again.”)

I plan to never need this information, but it has been interesting.

Not that I ever really abandoned them, but it’s been a while since I was up until near 5AM.  (2:30 is usually my max.)  This resulted in my sleeping ridiculously late* today, which isn’t exactly going to help with getting to bed at a terribly reasonable hour this evening.

The upside is that I do my best and most prolific writing at night, and I just happen to have a few more pages of convincing BS to kick out, so that works out well.  I can get back on a more normal schedule next week.

Figure I should be able to finish off the content of the paper tomorrow, and Friday I can polish and edit at my leisure.

*Let’s put it this way - Donald was up, and out and about and back before I woke up.  Given that he’s even more of a night owl than I am, that’s saying something.

I think it’s finally here for real!! Ran up to the store yesterday and it was SO NICE to have the windows down and the sunroof open!

Seriously, I need to step up my “move south” plan so I can get spring sooner - it took WAY too long to get here for my taste.  There are places in OBX for under $300K…  Of course, to do that right now would entail selling this place and leaving little bro homeless unless he wanted to move south as well.  Probably need to put that off for a while.

One minor downside to spring - flying critters in the house, thanks to the dog going in & out constantly. This morning there was a hornet-like thing lazily flying about the living room. All was fine and well until I stood up to open the back screen to get him out - then it was, “Oh, HI! Where did YOU come from?! I didn’t see you before!” Eep. So I’m trying to get the back screen open while ducking his trying to buzz my head - he did quickly get out once he realized his escape route was clear. But I could have done without the “friendliness”, thanks.

I’m going to upgrade WordPress this weekend - be interesitng to see if it breaks all my plugins or not.

The day before tax day is NOT a good day to have all your lobby machines be out of service.

But, the taxes are all done, the couple bits that had to go in the mail are in the mail, the electronic stuff has been e-filed, and I can shut off my brain for a while. Maybe next year I won’t be running right up against the deadline - years past I usually have had my taxes done by the end of February - last couple years, not so much. This year I was just happy to not have to file an extension.

I’d love to think it has just been because I’ve had so many other things to do that were that much more fun and interesting, but I think it’s just more laziness. :)

We’re going to have a LOT of flowers around here - especially if the dandelions in the yard are any indication.  The rain is also unfortunately bringing in the ants.  So, the ant baits will be coming out this weekend and scattered about the house.  There aren’t a lot of them, and I can’t figure out where they’re coming in - I only find a few at a time, so it’s not like I have a neat line of them marching from a door or anything.

But the weather does have it’s advantages - makes for a good day to finish the taxes.  Or, start some of them.  Figure I’ve got about 2 hours left of work on mine, Donald’s should take 30 minutes once I get it going, and I have one freakin’ line item I have to report for the estate.  Wheeeeeeeee.

Still about 3 hours off kilter on my sleep schedule. It would work wonderfully if I was in San Diego, but unfortunately, I am on the other side of the country.

I also cannot for the life of me get motivated today. I have a ton of things I should/could be getting done around here, but it’s not really happening. I seem to always be able to find something more interesting to do other than housework. Certainly nothing new - but I do wonder if I will ever morph into a “neat” person.  I have gotten a couple little things done, but nothing of any great consequence.

I’m starting to think that it will take moving into a completely empty space and starting from scratch.

That I’d actually be happy with a day where I didn’t sleep through 2/3 of it. This would be a first since Friday.

At this point, I am actually feeling human again, just a scratchy throat from all the coughing. Since Vicks took the pseudoephedrine out of thier cough syrup (bastards!), it just doesn’t work as well as it did, so I’ve gone old school to finish this off. Menthol cough drops and hot tea with lemon and honey. (If I had bourbon in the house, there would be a shot of in there for good measure.) I also grabbed some Cepacol drops that are citrus instead of the nasty cherry flavor as those may come in handy as well. I can’t remember the last time I had a cold this nasty.

I have found out that my animals are LOUSY caretakers. The dog decided to get on the couch with me for a whopping 15 minutes - at the far end of the couch, with a look directed at me of, “Whatever you have, I don’t want it, so stay over on your side.” The cat felt that standing directly on my chest and chewing my nose while I attempted to sleep would be helpful. (Your misery. Let me put you out of it…) Yes, 10 pounds of cat directly on your chest when you can barely breathe to begin with is SO comforting!

I unfortunately discovered during the past 3 days that my kitchen is not self-cleaning. I also realized that I need to make a HUGE batch of chicken & rice soup and other freezable soup-y things to have stashed away for the next time I’m feeling like crap. (My fav soup, baked potato, sadly doesn’t freeze well.)

I have also found out from little bro that apparently I am not the only one to get hit with the post holiday crud. The folks at the pub were inquiring as to my whereabouts and he said, “She’s got that crud that’s going around” and was met with many somber nods and, “Ohhhhh, yeah. That.”

Yay for being awake all day!!

I pulled myself together and headed up to the store and now I’ve got drugs! I should sleep tonight for a change.

Got home to a message from dantheserene offering to make a drug run for me - how nice is that??

One incredibly annoying thing - everything I bought was age restricted and/or controlled. Had to show ID and sign to get Advil Cold & Sinus, and then needed a person to come use the “special key” on the register so I could buy cough syrup. This has to be one of the dumber moves by the FDA (or whomever came up with the idea) - honestly, I’m 35 years old. I’m old enough and smart enough to know that if I want to get high, there are much easier ways than building my own meth lab. Making it harder for me to buy cold medicine does nothing but make me a very cranky customer.

But it’s good to be back home. I feel like I’ve been gone a month.

This is the first year in forever that I have not had to answer to ANYONE as to what I will be doing on New Year’s Eve. Not that I have any plans, and will probably end up falling asleep before midnight anyway, but it’s still nice for a change to do whatever *I* want. (I’ve never thought of New Year’s as a family holiday. It’s a do whatever you want holiday.)

What I’m actually thinking about more is - will anything be open tomorrow? Starbucks? Bagel shops? Anything? Or am I just resigned to being stuck inside all day? (I know the pub will be open for the bowl games, but that isn’t going to help me with a bagel fix in the morning.)

Some interesting things I learned on this trip courtesy of USAirways:

When doing a pushback on a large commercial aircraft, if the trailer or plane turns too sharply, the pin holding the two vehicles together will shear right off.

Things you don’t want to hear 45 minutes into a 5 hour flight: “If there are any medical professionals on board, please hit your call button.”

If you are flying USAirways into Sky Harbor, stop at the Einstein Bagels between the gates and baggage claim. In the time it takes to sit down and have a bagel and a drink, half the bags will have been picked up and the crowd will be gone.

Makes it a lot easier to kill time in an airport.  Our airplane has been sitting empty at the gate for about an hour now, so in theory we should be getting out of here on time, except because of some noise abatement rules, there are delays leaving of 15-30 minutes “and increasing” according to flightarrivals.com.

Other than the addition of a Starbucks and a Trader Joe’s, Sun City AZ has not changed a whit since I was here 22 years ago, except that the entire population is 22 years older. I can count on one hand the number of people I saw under the age of 60.

While it’s an easy enough place to drive around since Phoenix is laid out on a grid, the drivers here are as bad, and in some cases worse, than the drivers back east.

You know those jokes about older folks eating dinner at 4:30PM? They’re not jokes.

It’s very strange to walk into a CVS here and see an entire aisle for liquor.

I’m going to be optimistic and think that we’ll be boarding soon, so I’m going to pack up.

Heading out in 3 days. Mail is taken care of, animal boarding is taken care of, 1 present left to buy, transportation to airport is done. The only other thing I can even think of at this point is doing some laundry and that’s it.

It seems like there should be much more to tend to before leaving - so, what on earth am I not thinking of that is going to come back to haunt me at 6 in the morning on Thursday?

Gentlemen: Women talk to each other. About almost anything and everything. Remember this, and do not be shocked when it happens.

The weather is too cool to leave the back door open for the dog. This has resulted in his doing his very best to make me insane as he cannot decide if he wants to be in or out.

If you have not seen this yet, and have a cat, you must watch: http://www.neatorama.com/2007/10/17/wake-up/ (SFW)

How long will it take all the candidates to get their trash signs off the roads after tomorrow’s election? Some helpful links for Virginia voters.

And finally, if you’re looking to redecorate a bit and have many millions burning a hole in your pocket, Christie’s is having an auction of Impressionist and Modern Art.

Seriously, wasn’t it just Sunday night? The week totally got away from me to be sure. Not because of anything of any great import, it just seems that I blinked and it was already over. I hate it when days just run together like that.

I have discovered that when it rains for the first time in 34 days, people are afraid to leave their homes. Went out for the usual Friday night pints last night, and of all the late regulars, there were only 3 of us there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the place that dead on a Friday night. Frankly, it was a little disturbing.

My Caps are now 3-4… And the season had started off SO well.

It seems I am continually underwhelmed by any and all service industries, so when someone actually does their job well or does something extra, it’s a really nice surprise.

My real estate agent has been completely on top of everything with getting everything done for today’s closing. Everything on our end is totally locked down and under control, and I’ve only had to do a very few things. Very nice. When I bought the place, I recall the seller’s agents were completely out to lunch most of the time.

Talked w/my grandmother’s broker this morning (first words out of his mouth were “nothing is wrong, everything is OK!”) and my grandmother is making a couple changes to an account and he needed some info from me on that, and when she needs to sign the papers, he’s going to go to her house for it. I know that will make my grandmother feel better cause she’ll know that she’s signed on all the right lines. It will also apparently keep her taxes simpler, and her broker knows how spooled up she gets at tax time and that was the big reason for the change. Good to know he’s looking out for her. (We’ve known him for years, this move doesn’t really surprise me, but it’s still very nice.)

Shame everyone can’t work that way.

I don’t know who at Entertainment Weekly had to sell their soul to Satan to get Stephen King as a regular columnist, but it was worth it.

The Great Escape

I must have slept in a weird position last night, because this morning there is not enough Advil in the world to make my back stop hurting. It’s extra annoying because who really wants to admit that they screwed up their back by sleeping?

Was talking w/someone last night about the marijuana bust over in Centreville (let’s face it, there isn’t a lot going on around town, so of course it’s a topic of conversation) and then of course we launched into this long discussion on “where did they go wrong” and managed to get caught. It occured to me later that god help us if there is an off duty cop sitting around when we have these discussions - it probably just doesn’t look good.

CNN ran an interesting piece on the continued poppy/opium farming in Afghanistan. I can only describe it as an exceptionally messed up situation. The government has tried to give them “alternate livelihoods” via assistance with growing other crops, but there is no market for them. So, they’ve gone back to poppy cultivation because it’s pretty much the only way they can eat. If you’re a farmer and you’ve got the choice of growing something that is actually going to put food on your table, or growing something that is just going to sit around and never be sold - which way are you going to go? I can’t help but think that with the amount of money that has been spent on eradication and such, just saying “Look, whatever the Taliban or local druglord is paying you to grow opium, we’ll give you twice as much NOT to do it” - might be cheaper and more effective in the end.

But, as long as there is a market for the drugs, (and I can’t imagine a day ever when there won’t be a market somewhere in the world) and people that need money that can’t earn it with other farm crops, they’re going to continue to grow.

Makes me wonder if maybe we should just legalize it and take the all the money spent and put it into prevention and rehab. Some days I don’t think the result would be a whole lot worse than things are now.

I do have to wonder what the future holds for Afghanistan - they have such a rich history and culture, and all I can see is the place just completely imploding in on itself at some point.

Well, all the critters are back in home and seem to be none the worse for wear.  Target is in his spot near the back door watching the the rain come down, Snoopy is around somewhere, and Mox is in the basement with Donald.

Managed to get to the kennel with 90 seconds to spare - normally it takes 4.5-5 hours to get home.  Today it was 6 hours and 20 minutes.  Not even heavy traffic, just lots of little cockups that added up quickly and will frustrate you to the point where you’re reminding yourself that you have 3 cold Coronas in the cooler and no one would blame you a bit for cracking one open the minute you hit the house.

One thing you notice when you’re at the beach is how little you need in the way of stuff to be comfortable.  I think the task for this coming week will be to see how much crap I can get out of this place.

TiVo Alert: BBCAmerica will be running 6 episodes of Creature Comforts from 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM on Monday morning.

Careful with the topical sports cremes: Teen dies from too much use of it. They don’t specify exactly how much is “to excess” - but I’m guessing it would have to be a lot.

ESPN is doing all day horse racing coverage from the Belmont track - no mentions at all of any dippy blonde chicks.

And just some cuteness (courtesy Yahoo):

Courtesy gerg:

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool

Opening Credits: Mysterious Ways - U2
Waking Up: Jenny Says - Cowboy Mouth
First Day At School: Separala Tambien - Tito Puente (I suppose if I was going to school quite some time ago…)
Falling In Love: It Had to Be You - Harry Connick, Jr. (Yes, it really came up next.)
Fight Song: Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Breaking Up: Nostalgia - Cracker
Prom: Sway - Dean Martin (Again, if I had gone to prom oh, 40+ years ago)
Life’s OK: Don’t Stand So Close to Me - The Police
Mental Breakdown: Inside Out - Eve 6
Driving: Just a Girl - No Doubt
Flashback: Shine - Meat Puppets
Getting Back Together: Talent Show - The Replacements
Wedding: Dancing with Myself - Billy Idol (Given the chances of my ever getting married again, pretty appropriate)
Birth of Child: Hoodoo Voodoo Doll - Brian Setzer Orchestra (damn I will have some screwed up kids)
Final Battle: Different Drummer - Black 47
Death Scene: Best of You - Foo Fighters
Funeral Song: In My Mind - Yamakazi
End Credits: Kiss It All Goodbye - Garageland

I was ready for riots in the streets, exploding transformers, burning cars, animals escaping from zoos! Instead, I have none of this.

I am of course, speaking of the early changeover to daylight savings time. I am utterly disappointed that the world does not seem to be coming to an end today. The computer time changed, the cable box changed, and I’m assuming my cell phone changed as well (it’s in someone else’s car at the moment) - the only thing that could be considered a glitch would be the fact that the TiVo changed over at 2AM GMT, so it was actually 10PM when it changed.

So, I guess going to DST 3 weeks early wasn’t the end of the world they were predicting afterall.

If I can’t have riots, I’ll can settle for the extra hour of daylight in the evening.

UserFriendly’s take on early DST Sorry guys - yes, I’m sure this was a pain in the ass to deal with it, but it’s not like Congress made the change last week - you did have lead time on this one.

Oh what a beautiful mooorning…err, well, afternoon. OK, so I didn’t exactly get out of the gates like a rocket this morning, but I also no longer want to throw myself in front of a moving vehicle, so the extra sleep must have done me some good. I also woke up to the tow truck finally taking away my brother’s old car. (The charity we gave it to, not the county impounding it - it could have gone either way.) THANK GOD. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all is OK in my little world.

Made a few phone calls and I’ve got a rental laptop waiting for me, so I won’t have to try to work off the server while my laptop is being fixed. If I’d had half a brain in my head I would have thought of the rental option as soon as the DVD died on this one rather than putting it off until I was between classes… Yes, I am just a little bit attached to my laptop, why do you ask?

So, a little more coffee and it’s off to hop about town and get some things done and most importantly - hit the market. I’ve not set foot in the kitchen since Friday cause I’ve felt so lousy and it’s time to cook again, woohoo! This weekend I’ve discovered that my brother can apparently survive on Eggo waffles. Don’t get me wrong, nothing like a good waffle (or just a fast waffle in this case), but the quantities that he can eat these things in as an actual food is impressive and somewhat disturbing. But tonight, the tunes will be cranked, spatulas will be flying and there will be real food on the table.

Lordy, I feel like holy hell, there is no other way to describe it. Tomorrow I will find out exactly how much DayQuil you can consume and still remain upright. Ton of stuff to do tomorrow and I’d prefer to be numb while doing it if the way I feel at the moment is the only other alternative.

Watching Gordon Ramsay’s F Word right now, can’t say I’ve seen him look like he was about to cry within the first 30 seconds before… (Get your mind out of the gutter - the F stands for food, despite the fact that his favorite word seems to be fuck.) I’d kill to be able to watch him work in person.

I’ve never seen Hell’s Kitchen so I have no idea if it was similar or not, but this is a good combination between the actual psychosis in the restaurant kitchen and other “human interest” stuff - right now he’s doing a segment on Sunday lunch. “Get off your mobile and get your ass in the kitchen.” (He’s actually quite pleasant in the outside the restaurant scenes, and to me, fucking hilarious in the kitchen…) The stuff they’re cooking isn’t horribly complex, the premise is that it’s something anyone could make at home - but throw folks into a restaurant environment that they’ve never experienced and watch it all implode… (Or hopefully go well.) I know if it were me, I’d be totally screwed. I have no idea how on earth anyplace gets all the timing right without ending up with half the stuff on a warming shelf.

He does actually defend the guys in the kitchen when folks decide they don’t want to pay just because they don’t like what came up on the menu, which is pretty cool - he doesn’t seem to really want anyone curled up in the fetal position in the corner of the kitchen.

I’ve had a hell of a time getting back into any real routines since everything was thrown into disarray before Christmas.

Though things are getting done, it’s just not in a manner that is at all satisfactory to me.

Training is happening, progress is being made on the townhouse, and the estate may actually be settled in my lifetime. Tonight I managed to kick out nearly 3K words on a piece I am working on. So, it’s not that things are at a standstill, it’s just been very scattershot and it’s annoying the hell out of me.

Here’s to attempting to reverse the trend this week.

Still kinda tired, but not as bad as it’s been, thank god. Still no answers to anything.

Did some minor retail therapy this evening. Hit the gun show and scored a Kershaw knife. Been in the market for one for a while now, but had only seen them at the gun shows, and had never bothered to actually locate any other retail establishment that had them. It’s purty.

Except the blade is black instead of silver. Also think I have finally nailed down what I want as far as a gun goes should I ever get around to actually buying one - H&K’s USP & USP tactical series seem to fit the bill just right. The USP compacts are nice, but the grip is just too short.

Picked up a smartwool tank and a very pretty & soft olive green sweater with my REI money.

Both the DMV and Social Security decided to be bastards and remind me yet again of my upcoming “what the fuck is the point” birthday. C’mon, both in one day???!?!?! Asshats.