★ February 20. 2013 ★

Well THAT didn't work out as planned. LOL! Yesterday started out ok, but boy did it turn fast. Ups & downs, good & bad, fun & stressful ... on & off all day. I got some crocheting done 1st thing & that was nice because is set the tone for a nice calm day. To many people, including myself, crocheting is therapeutic. It's a stress reliever, as most crafting is. That's why I enjoy it so much. I love the calming effects of crafting & I also love the finished product which is often something useful. Out of the 10 different crafts I do, most of them are productive. There are a couple, like beading, cross stitching, & needlepoint, that don't produce anything useful. They only produce decorative items, where the rest of the crafts like knitting, crocheting, etc create useful items such as clothing & afghans to keep warm. After crocheting for a bit yesterday morning I paid my 1 bill that I have, a small one that accumulates through small eBay purchases throughout a 2 week period & is then paid off in full twice a month & then I went to work on eBay. I got a lot of my office cleaned out while doing this. I had 4 huge boxes of stuff in here that had to be listed. When I finished listing what was in the 5th box that I was already working on, that box left the room & I opened up the 4th one looking for more books to list. They're the fastest & easiest items to list for a whole list of reasons from pre-filled info, a photo already provided based on the ISBN, easy shipping calculations, etc. If no pic was provided with the ISBN, I simply scan the cover. No camera needed. Super fast & easy. Shipping is also easy too. A large manilla envelope in most cases & I'm done. No finding the correct size box, no packing peanuts, newspaper, & bubble wrap, etc. Anyway, the 4th box contained books, but they're my private collection ... books that I do NOT want to sell! I was wondering where all of these went! Years now they've been hidden away in a box! Why?? I was so happy to find them! I put them aside to sort through & put back in my bookshelf later. Opened the 3rd box. Lots of odd misc stuff in here. All those small plastic bottles that I had saved knowing I'd one day need them for sorting crafting stuff. There they are! And there's a shelf full of beads that I now use ... all in plastic bags. Beads ... bottles. YAY! Put the bottles aside to sort all the beads into later. Lots of misc crafting materials & also some class books & DVDs from a crafting class I took a few years ago. OK, keeping all of that. Put it aside to sort later. (I have a LOT of stuff to put away "later"). 2 (very large) boxes to go. Open the 2nd box. Ah HA! Stuff to sell! The timer goes off. Work on eBay is done for the day. Oh darn. I was really getting into all this. OK, I'll continue selling tomorrow (which is now today). When am I going to sort through all the "keep" stuff I found? Put the books up? Sort the beads into the bottles? So much to do & I'm already out of time. I have 10 things I need to do, 10 things I want to do, & only time to do 5 things. See the problem here? I need more hours in a day. Time for work, time for de-stessing, & time for just plain enjoyment. Oh well ... someday I'll get it all done, barring disaster. I hope I live long enough to do it all. At least I'm not bored & I'm anxious to start each new day because there's so much I want to do. That's a good thing. I made myself stop because I knew if I ignored the timer & kept going, I'd end up doing nothing but that for the rest of the day & as I said, there were so many more things I wanted & needed to do still. For example, I wanted to check facebook ... so I stopped going through the boxes, didn't sort all the stuff I'm keeping, & checked facebook. Caught up with all my friends & family, got a few laughs from funny pics people posted, saved a few beautiful pics that I use as desktop backgrounds that change on both my monitors every 15 minutes, etc. When facebook was done, the mail came so I sorted through that. Lots of great stuff in there! A few items I bought on eBay came including a desktop calendar from last year, still brand new & sealed, with a cross stitch chart per day (actually every 2-3 days). Loved it! Over 100 cross stitch patterns. better than any book or magazine I have because each one is relatively small & can be used in ANY craft I do. I love collecting chart patterns because I think all 10 crafts I do either NEED or can USE a chart pattern. My collection of chart patters & geometric patterns that I can put a grid over & convert to a chart pattern is huge now. I love it! I cataloged every single pattern in the calendar, the magazine that came, etc. I almost finished in time to pick Josh up from work, but not quite. Went & got Josh & then came back to finish cataloging everything. When that was done I did a quick check of Google+ (They want to be as cool as facebook, but it never really took off). It was now 4:30p. The FD meeting starts at 7. 2½ hours is more than enough time to go to the station, completely catch up on Quicken, get the Treasurer's reports printed & ready, stock the fridge, clean up around there, neaten the tables, etc. I get there, get everything taken out of the safe that I needed ... my inbox folder, the filing folders they'll go into after stuff is processed, got the mail, sorted that, had the desktop checkbook out, logged into the PC, opened Quicken, sorted everything in the inbox folder so it would be easier to get through & enter ... had my Dr Pepper & Doritos ... I was ready. I entered ONE item, passed it from the inbox folder to the filing folder, & the tones go off. A smoke investigation. REALLY?! Ugh! Pile all the folders quickly on top of each other, slam them shut, put them inside the desktop checkbook, slam it shut, lock the computer, shove everything in the safe, lock the safe ... grab my radio, phone, & keys ... run over to the station radio & check in with the county, run over & gear up, jump in the truck, here comes Sean, he's ready, we're ready, GO! We never did find anything. There was a LOT of black smoke in the distance, all the way over in Blue Ridge from a 10-acre grass fire they were fighting. I think the caller saw that & called it in. We were unable to locate anything in our district. We got back, Sean headed back home & tried to finish dinner since he stopped in the middle of prep to make the call. He said he may be a little late to the meeting, but he will make it. I understand, I may be a little late & I'm here at the station! LOL! After getting everything put up from the call, I went back & took everything back out of the safe, set it all back up neatly across the desk, logged back into the computer, got a lot more done this time, but the tones went off again. This time a vehicle fire. Same routine as before ... slam everything closed, shove it all in the safe, lock the safe, lock the pc, grab my radio, phone, & keys, catch the county, & gear up. Different truck ... the engine. Get it started up, Sean came, another member came, we rolled. The fire was out on our arrival. We directed traffic, did our report, & headed back. Put my gear up, put the truck back in order, plug it in, & the meeting was starting. CRAP! I didn't finish Quicken, I didn't get the Treasurer's reports done, nothing. I mean I got a lot of entries caught up & my inbox folder isn't as thick, but I still wasn't done. Out of time. I went to the station 2½ hours early to do this & still ran out of time. My luck, I go to the station & we get toned out. TWICE! LOL! The meeting was great. A full house with standing room only. All the original crew was there & it was just like old times. It was really wonderful to be with the original crew again that hired me on. Flashbacks. Happy ones. As with any business, there's turnover. Old faces retire, burn out, move, etc. New faces join in their place. Now I'm not saying ANYTHING against the new faces. They're all good people! But you never forget the original crew that was there when you started. The one who hired you, the co-workers you worked with originally. It was like a family reunion. I loved it! Unfortunately though, not everyone felt the same & I got some serious negative vibes for being the one to coordinate the reunion. Actually, I didn't. I called ONE person. Apparently they also called one person, who then called one person ... but I got blamed for it. Oh well. I don't care. It was great to see the old crew back together in one room again!!! It just made my night. :) The only thing that was missing was staying at the station until 3 in the morning playing with a RC helicopter. LOL!!! We only did that ONCE, but that's one of the memories that stick. We had fun, we learned a lot, we were productive, & we worked very well together. I'm sure the new crew can say the same. I'm just not part of the new crew. The next generation has taken the helm & we, the previous generation, are now the old farts who come in & say "remember when ...?" :) I'm sure the crew before us feel the same way. I'm not sure how many "generations" there were. I'm sure there were many. Of the ones I'm familiar with personally, I'm in the 2nd of 3 groups with the 3rd being the newest. Pete got in from work just as the meeting ended & stopped by the station. We headed home & started our nighttime routine. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep all week & I'm exhausted! I can short my sleep 1 night ... that's easy. 2 nights & I'm feeling it hard at my age. 3 nights in a row & I feel like going face down on my keyboard right now. Pete only needs about 5 hours sleep a night. I need 8. I've been going to bed & waking up at the same time as him since Sunday & it's starting to really wear on me. I think I may go back to just sleeping the normal amount of time for me & let Pete head off to work on his own in the morning. Originally I had wanted to be up when he left. New job, new routine. I forgot that he needs less sleep than I do. Oops. This week is free & clear! A straight shot of nothing on the calendar until next Tuesday ... LCFD training. That gives me 7 days to catch up on the previous week where I got completely backed up with Pete being between jobs. If I get a little caught up every day starting today, it will take me 8 days. Ugh!

At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself. They scripted you. Did that make a difference in your life? What if you were a positive scripter, an affirmer of other people?

Challenge your property taxes. According to the National Taxpayers Union, 30% of houses or more may be overtaxed. During the real estate boom last decade, tax assessments climbed, but then home values tumbled, & many local governments haven't adequately reassessed or have raised rates. Challenging a property bill is typically a free (if lengthy) process. The 1st step is to study your property card for any mistakes in the specs. Then compare your home's value & taxes with houses sold nearby. (Valueappeal.com is a great tool.) Use the tops at ntu.org/tax-basics to help build a case before filing an appeal with the town's assessor. Potential savings: hundreds to thousands of dollars/yr.

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Fire engulfs nightclub during Great White show (2003):

The most famous contract rider in rock-and-roll history may be the one Van Halen used that stipulated that "There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation." The most tragic contract rider in history, on the other hand, was the one sent ahead to the small bars and nightclubs on the 2003 tour of  "Jack Russell's Great White," the touring remnant of the group behind late-80s hits like "Once Bitten, Twice Shy." That rider led, in a very direct way, to the deaths of 100 concert-goers in The Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island, on this day in 2003.

Even in its heyday, Great White was no Van Halen. Yet one can be sure that the contract rider enumerating their onstage and backstage needs circa 1988 must have looked rather different from the one they were using 15 years later. The latter document was a model of restraint. Beverages? Bottled water, orange juice, coffee, tea and a few Red Bulls. Lunch? Something from the venue kitchen, or sandwiches from Subway. The rider specified gel colors for the lights and dimensions for the merchandise table, but in the detailed stage diagram it made no mention of three pyrotechnic devices—spark fountains called "gerbs"—that the band's tour manager liked to set off just as Jack Russell's Great White tore into their opening number. Those devices would start the fourth deadliest fire in American history, killing 100 patrons of The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, on the night of February 20, 2003.

It was an awful combination of bad decisions by multiple parties that led to the disastrous loss of life at The Station, from the local fire authorities' decision not to require sprinklers at the club, to the club owners' dangerous and illegal decision to use cheap, flammable packing foam around the stage area rather than fire-retardant soundproofing. Nevertheless, if there had been no sparks from the unplanned-for pyrotechnic devices, there would have been no fire in the first place. This highlights the importance of strict adherence to contract riders by performers and concert venues—the very point Van Halen was making with their famous M&M provision. As David Lee Roth explained in his autobiography, "When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl...we'd line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening."

For the 1st time 100 years ago yesterday, Cracker jack includes its secret toy prizes in boxes. Since then, young & old alike have enjoyed more than 16 billion prizes.

Hollywood ... is a community unto itself. Where else would you find a funeral home with a complimentary salad bar? -Johnny Carson 1982

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Types of visual arts top 10:

1. Architecture
2. Decorative arts & crafts (My #1 specialty)
3. Drawing
4. Computer art (My #2 specialty)
5. Graphic arts (My #2 specialty)
6. Painting
7. Photography (My #3 specialty)
8. Printing
9. Sculpture
10. Film/video making

Visual arts can be a tricky pursuit: as John Singer Sargent once said, "Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend."

What did George Washington do after he retired from presidency? He built one of the largest whiskey distilleries in America.