Enuff Ducks?

Sent from my Windows Phone

The Avian Theme Continues

Theoretically it may even be a Turkey Theme. I don't know if I've ever mentioned the turkey vultures that live in our subdivision. There's a flock of about 60-70 of them that roost in the tall trees. These pictures were taken around the corner from the house. Sometimes they're in the trees in our yard. This just happened to be a really clear day with a really good vantage point from which to get some good shots of these things. They're HUGE if you've never seen one up close. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_Vulture

I Can't Believe I Forgot This

We'll blame my crazed job situation at the time and leave it at that.

Here's what becomes of Bananas Gone Bad (http://uponmeetingalice.blogspot.com/2009/10/bananas-gone-bad.html) after a year goes by.

I don't have to be reminded too often what a horrible awful person I am. :P

Do You Think It Means Something?

So, to start this story, I must mention that I recently obtained employment after a somewhat short (they tell me 2 months is short in this economy....it seemed pretty long to me) break that was not of my choosing. I now find myself driving 40 miles from home to Alpharetta, GA to go to work. I started the new job the Monday before Thanksgiving. Talk about having something to be thankful for!


So Wednesday afternoon (the day before Thanksgiving) I drive from the sticks of Georgia (where I live) to Alpharetta (the big city). It was an uneventful, albeit long, drive. As I'm pulling into the parking lot, I notice that there's someone behind me. Several someones. When I get out of the car, I identify it as actually 3 someones of the wild and gobbling variety. I'm told their tempers are not to be triffled with. I want to know now if I should be concerned that I was being stalked by wild turkeys in the city and on the day before Thanksgiving, no less. Wonderland never ceases to puzzle me.

I Have Become Fearful

There's been an oil spill disaster, but not the one you think. Okay, folx this is just plain scary. The picture below is of the sidewalk from the parking lot to the back door where I work. Monday morning, (presumably) someone from the shop crew that comes in at like 6:00 am had gotten breakfast from Burger King including hash rounds. Apparently, some of those hash rounds spilled on the sidewalk on the trip in from the parking lot. Keeping that in mind, this is what the sidewalk looked like TODAY (being Thursday of the same week) after lunch. The oil slick is STILL there. If it does that to a sidewalk, what does it do to the internal workings of the human body???????

Check out this cute little tree frog

There were two of them stuck to the wall by J's front door when we came back from dinner. :)

New Toy Acquired in July

As mentioned in this post, I attended the Beginning Motorcycle Safety course and got my motorcycle license. Next logical step is to get a motorcycle. DH had been shopping around for something and finally found me a bike that we purchased on July 4. It is a 1993 Honda CB250 Nighthawk. It's a cute little thing, isn't it?



I've been riding it around some in our subdivision and have even ventured to the subdivision across from ours, which has meant getting out on the road that our subdivision is off of. I'm not great at it yet, but I'm improving!

A Passion Inspired (Possibly?)

My youngest child A fits in my motorcycle gear, as shown in the first picture. So we let her go for a ride on the back of DH's bike. I wouldn't let her ride with just anyone, especially on a bike like "Secret". She loved it. DH said she was a really good passenger and listened well to his instructions. She had a lot of fun and didn't even mind the fact that we made her wear all the gear (we wear it ourselves so she has a good example on that one....we all find that we are fond of our skin and head and eyes and such).

Another Sporting Event

The Atlanta Dream WNBA basketball team is one of the clients for the company that DH works for. As a show of support for the team, the company paid for employees and families to go out to see a game at the Philips Arena in Atlanta on Sunday, June 27 against the Los Angeles Sparks. It was a a lot of fun and I find that I have a basic enough understanding of basketball from those horror-filled childhood gym classes that I could actually follow the game for the most part. It was a good game. The Dream won 89 to 81 and it was close throughout the game so it was exciting. We had a lot of fun.

I Think There's a Hole to Wonderland in the Yard

You're thinking that I've posted pictures of a flat squirrel on my blog. And the obviousness of its location in the driveway just makes it all the worse. Then I tell you that this weird creature puts itself there and that we have nothing to do with its location or its flatness. Every other day or so, this bizarre creature flattens itself out on that same spot in the driveway and just lays there until something startles it and it leaves. Sometimes, the car coming in will startle it. Sometimes, after the car is safely stowed in the garage and no longer startling it, it comes back and once again flops down in the driveway in its spot. My daughter K is the first to have seen it and was as startled as it was when she approached it and it decided to leave. I finally caught it on camera Sunday. I think it returns to Wonderland when it leaves the driveway.

The Strange Things You Sometimes See

Monday, I think it was, DH and I were out questing for food in the lovely city of Winder, GA. We ended up at the Dairy Queen because we could see the scene in the picture above from the parking lot. It struck our interest, both being computer geeks with a strong vested interest in copper wire staying where it belongs rather than heavily loading down the trunks of cars. Go figure. Today, DH was perusing the Internets and found this ITEM regarding the photo above. The moral of the story is, a trunk-load of copper wire that obscures your license plate is probably going to attract attention you might not have been seeking.

Feet on These Chairs are Wearing Shoes

This is a funnel cake shop in Helen, GA. I almost want to go to Goodwill and find some baby shoes. :P

I Miss My Opposable Thumb

I took the Beginning Motorcycle Safety Course through the Department of Driver Services (formerly DMV) on June 12 & 13. I passed the course both written and track and got my waiver for my motorcycle license. I have been back to DDS and gotten my license too. So, based on that, anybody who doesn't already know is looking at these pictures and thinking what did you do to your hand if you passed? About 3/4 of the way through Sunday's class, I was clipped from behind by the runaway rider (DH asked me at the end of Saturday's class if we'd had any runaways so I guess experienced riders expect such things). She hit me on the left side of my stopped bike and threw me off the right side of my bike. I instinctively (stupidly?) threw out my right hand to try to catch myself. I had on good gloves so at least it's not covered in road rash. It's not broken but the wrist and thumb are sprained. In the above picture, that's a bruise not a shadow across the palm. I did get back on my bike and pass my road test after the injury though. After being out on that blacktop for 2 days in the blistering heat sweating in places I didn't know I had and frying my brain like an egg, there was no way I wasn't going to finish the class if I could. DH says he's very proud of me and is now shopping for an inexpensive used bike for me to spend more time learning on. The class was fun other than the heat and the crash. :)

One Whopper of a Bruise

Savagely attacked by wall pictures that were propped up behind my supervisor's office door. That's the back of my right thigh. Ignore the translucent skin that displays all of the veins. Yes, I know that's the palest skin anybody's ever seen (disregarding the bruise, of course). One wonders if I have some vitamin or mineral deficiency to bruise like that.

The Newest Baby at Our House

This actually occurred on May 17, but I'm only just now getting around to posting anything about it. This is the newest edition to our household. DH says it's sexy. :) I agree. It's a 2009 Honda CBR600RR. Brand new when we got it. DH loves it. Ain't it pretty?

Cutest Little Dog

I'm such a slacker blogger. I expect to put several things up today, not necessarily in chronological order. Starting with this little dog. She's awfully cute and the tiniest thing. She's a yorkie-chi I think they told me. She's 6-7 years old so she's full grown. That's my hand holding her. I don't have particularly small hands so much as skinny fingers, just for a size comparison.

Like When We Were Kids

Back when my brother and I were kids, my father used to always take us to car shows and boat shows and showrooms to see the new Corvettes and such. So when I found out the 28th Annual Atlanta International Car Show was happening, I made a call to my brother and asked what he thought of the idea of us taking Dad this go around. He thought it sounded like a great idea. :)

We went last Sunday, with my brother's son B joining us just because. We started out by gorging ourselves on sushi at a place called Tokyo in Conyers (the Super Crunch Roll was awesome, btw) and then headed downtown. The car show was good. The Stingray concept was gorgeous. I still want an Audi R8. There were some awesome classic cars there too. It was a great day overall. I think we should do it again.

And now for some pictures:

My First Supercross

Sometimes I get a bit behind, as most anybody who reads my blog will know. So I'm only just now getting around to mentioning that DH and I went to the AMA Supercross race at the Georgia Dome back on February 27th. We had a great time. There was great racing. We had cheap tickets WAAAAAY up in the nosebleeds, but that gave is a great view of the track. I got some awesome pictures.

Tree Frogs but No Trees

There was a tree frog stuck to the door at the office this morning. I like tree frogs. Seeing him there made me happy, since it seems like you don't see very many frogs anymore like I remember from when I was a kid. It appears to be a Gray Tree Frog of one variation or another. There's swampland off the back of the company's property, so I'd bet that it's prime breeding ground for such things as tree frogs. :)

My Office this Morning

The view from the other direction is just as bad. Fortunately, it's only temporary. I'm getting a horizontal file cabinet to hide most of it in. :)

As seen in Wal-Mart tonight

One wonders if maybe someone might wet themselves upon finding the bank closed early on a Friday evening when going to cash their paycheck?

Sent from my Windows Mobile phone

Cheerio Blogging

So yesterday I started a new weight loss diet using the SparkPeople site. It's a really cool site with lots of resources. Of particular interest to me was the menu plans based on the caloric intake range the site established with the information I provided. I "diet' much better when I'm being told what to eat. What's weird is that given a framework of a menu, I'm able to run with changes just fine and eat like I should. So anyway, today was Cheerios with blueberries. They said use fresh but all I had was frozen and blueberries aren't in season (read $$$). I thawed out my frozen blueberries and set them on top of my Cheerios before I added the milk. I was entertained enough by the blotchy purple Cheerios in the purple milk that I had to take a picture to share. ;)


Next week I start the fitness portion of my weight loss plan. Wish me luck!!

The MINI Got Wounded

Things have been nuts so I'm a little behind on my posting. So let's flash back to after work on Christmas Eve. Work got out at 12 pm. I had traded vehicles with my supervisor so that DH and I could take his SUV with a trailer with us to Alabama for Christmas to bring back a king sized bed we were getting from DH's sister. Supervisor made it to the off ramp of I-85 southbound at exit 126 and was rear-ended by a Jeep Grand Cherokee. After I got over the initial shock of knowing "my baby" had been hurt, I could be forgiving and glad that no people were hurt. Apparently there wasn't much going on in Braselton, GA because all the local police showed up at various points during the process. I must say that all of them were very pleasant for having to be working Christmas Eve, so I can't complain a bit there.

Meanwhile, pictures:


And the update, as of today, is that the initial estimate on the damage of $1700 was low and the body shop found more damage when they got the back end of the car taken apart. I'm told it will be roughly two weeks before I have the car back. I'm sad. I intensely dislike the rental 2009 Toyota Prius I have. Not the least of which is the inadequacy of the stereo system. It does not play burned MP3 disks. It does not have an auxiliary jack to plug my Zune into. It has such a lousy antenna that it only picks up 4 stations. 2 rap and 2 classic rock. I MISS MY MINI!!!!