Lunch Monday's

Well, today Heather and I got a nice little change of pace from the usual week. Grandpa and Grandma called and wanted to have lunch with us today. So we set up the meeting time at Culvers and went to have lunch. It turned out to be a small party. Adena and Gladys came too, and we had a regular good old time just visiting and having lunch. When we left, Heather and I were commenting about how much fun we had and how nice it was to get some company down our way for lunch. Mind you, we've had other visits from other friends, but it was nice none the less. I told Heather that we should cut out that lunch time and save it for Grandpa and Grandma to come for more often Mitchell Lunches. Maybe we can squeeze a few more in through the summer.

Also, this post in honor of Grandma who got on me about never updating the blog. Here you go Grandma!

Sick, and getting stuck

When I'm referring to getting stuck, I mean with needles. I hate getting stuck with anything, but every time I end up at the doctor's office it seems like I'm going to get stuck by something. I figured that was really going to be the case this past visit, which was Friday. After last weekend, I came home not feeling too hot. After struggling through work with stomach aches and headaches on Monday, I stayed at home on Tuesday, and returned the next day to work to struggle all the way through the end of the week. Of course, I was waiting to wake up one day and be ready to roll, but Heather kept telling me to go to the doctor, but I didn't want to thinking that I would just get told to go home and endure it. Well, on Saturday morning, I finally went because a week of feeling bad is enough. Upon arriving, I got stuck for a blood sample, which of course I complained about. Then, a little while later, I was told I was badly dehydrated and needed an IV. So, to a different room I went and got an IV. I didn't like that one bit either, but the IV made me feel better, for a while. I was told to go home and rest for the weekend, and today, and get back to full strength before returning to work. So, I'm feeling a little bit on the cabin fever side and want to get moving and doing things. One other way I knew I was sick was the loss of appetite. I didn't feel like eating much of anything all week. I'm now almost 10 pounds lighter because of that. Today, I'm wanting to eat about everything in sight, but am refraining. Heather isn't here to keep tabs on me, so I snitched a couple items, but very little because she has a knack for figuring those things out. Anyhow, I think I'm better and will probably have this scar in my arm from the IV forever to show for this trip to the doctor.

Rice-a-Roni Oops

"Tyler Ross!"

That is what I came into the house to a couple of days ago.

"What?" I asked knowing that I'd better be sure I know what I'm being accused of before admitting to anything (even though there was no accusing).

Heather - "How long have you had this box of Rice-a-Roni?"
Me - "I don't know? I know I had it at the other house...."
Heather - "You don't remember because it expired in 2007!"
Me - "Uhhhhh....."
Heather - "And who knows how long you had it before that if it expired then!"
Me - "Uhhhhh.....What do you think goes bad in Rice-a-Roni??"
Heather - "The packet of seasoning was stuck to the side!"
Me - "That is probably not good"

Needless to say, we didn't eat that, and there were some other items found in the cupboard that were thrown out because of expiration dates were 3 years ago. I do kinda wonder when I did buy those......and if Rice-a-Roni does go bad. Ya know, If I were single, I bet I'd have still tried it.

Don't Tase' Me!

Ok, you've maybe seen the video from a while back. There was a young man was harassing John Kerry at a debate, and got a little out of hand, and was asked to calm down by police and escorted out by several officers. The part of the video that was most known was the part where the young man was begging the police men to not turn the taser loose on him. If you didn't catch that, you can go to youtube and find it, but be weary that the language is severe in the video.

Fast forward to last night when a Phillies fan runs onto the field. I've never been a fan of this behavior at all. One that is memorable from a few years ago was that the bat boy at the Metrodome laid a kid out who wanted to slide into home plate. Several years ago, a Royals coach was assulted by two fans in Chicago at a White Sox game (go figure). And, now, the national news is this Phillies fan gets tasered.



The opinions around the sports world are almost exclusively that this was handled properly. However, apparently, the public doesn't feel that way. It's about a 50/50 split on whether the police should have used that kind of force. What I don't get is what deterrent the police should use to keep people off the field. Threats or not, apparently jail time isn't enough of a deterrent for these idiots. I sure hope the threat of being tasered is now enough for these bums. Keep your rear end in your seat and off the field! The worst part was this kid, who was 17, called his dad to ask about doing this before he did it. His dad's response was that it probably wasn't a good idea. Hmmm. I'm thinking this kid got exactly what he deserved.

Instant Replay

Well, I'm going to way in on this topic. I've been on the road all week, and I've been watching the NBA playoffs a bit. I realize that I've watched cumulatively 1 quarter of the NBA this entire season, but, now I'm watching the playoffs. It's the "second season" after all, so why bother with the first one? Anyhow, I've finally drawn my concusion about instant replay. GET RID OF IT. I watched the referees go to the monitor to determine who gets the ball that gets batted out of bounds. We waited 4 minutes while they watched, rewound, watched, rewound....oh give it up! Just call it a jump ball if you don't know! That's what all the other levels do. It was a major waste of time that could have been cleared up by the simple jump ball. The second was a shot at the end of a quarter and it went out of bound. The referee said put up 3/10ths of a second, but then they spent 3 minutes at the monitor to determine that .8 should have been up. Wow. Just put up what you think and get on with it! The NBA is a great example of why people HATE instant replay.

I need my mower!

A while back, I acquired an old riding lawn mower to assist with the job of mowing the large yard. Of course, I've got some other plans for the back part of the yard, but will need an alley back there, or at least city permission to operate out of that particular area. I'm not sure if that will happen or not, as the lot next to me had blocked the back alley off and thus made it abandon, or it was never an alley to begin with, just a grass patch. So, anyway, I mowed the other day with a borrowed push mower. And while I appreciate the gesture, never again will I use a non-self propelled mower on a lawn that size. I spent 1.5 hours mowing that thing. And, while bagging makes the lawn look nice, I'm thinking that is going to get the kibosh put on it too. I'm told my mower will be done soon and delivered next weekend. Now all I need is Forrest Gump to come and mow, because it's exactly like the one he used at the beginning of the movie.

This weekend has been filled with projects and things going on all over the place. I'm happy that they are completed, however, this week I'm off to Florida. This trip has been postponed several times and I'll be returning often over the summer as this is a new client for our department. I'm wishing we'd have made these trips in the winter for 2 reasons:

1. It's cold here in the winter and not so much there,
2. I wasn't married in the winter.

Maybe I can get a "stowaway" on the plane one of these times.

More Awful Service - Dish Network Tanks It

Ok, I don't know what has set people off to just be plain awful at customer service, but now, we have a new leader if you're scoring at home. Dish network now tops the list of worst companies you can do business with. Here is the story behind that. My mom was checking through some bill for my grandparents, and came across some thing odd on Dish's bill. She found the February bill to be over $25 dollars higher than the January bill and found March's to be around $100 more than January's. Now that caused some alarm, so she called it in. After speaking with a few different people, she was told that the reason the bill was higher was because my grandparents had ordered Cinemax in February from their remote and then upgraded to the Premium-super-duper-gold package or something like that. That also was done from the remote according to Dish's statement. Now, let me get one thing straight here, because at this point if you work for Dish you probably don't realize how absurd that sounds. There is no way on God's green earth they would know enough to order channels from their remote. Wow. Simply unreal. My mom fought with them about it, and they refused to remove it from the bill stating that grandpa and grandma had ordered it, so it stayed. So, apparently Dish Network isn't into the whole customer retention phase of customer support. I'm going to call them tomorrow to help them understand their billing system and a bit about customer service. Looks like I get to lead some training sessions early this week. I should also submit a bill to them for my time on this training. At my face value of $125 per hour, I'd say I'll come out nicely here. So, if you are coming to the end of a contract or considering switching away from Dish Network, I strongly want to encourage you to switch to someone else. I'm so enraged at Dish Network, I recommended my grandparents take Qwest cable. Yeah, if you know where Qwest ranks on my scale, you know that's pretty bad for Dish Network and their extremely bad customer service.