WHEW!

The forecast today was grim. The national radar wasn't looking very good. A cold front and storm were moving in from the west. It was obvious, we were going to get slammed. The temperatures were in the upper 20's; the forecast was for some ice.

Ice storms are beautiful. The pictures abover were taken during one last year. It's like everything is coated in glass. They look especially nice at night with the reflected glow from any light. As pretty as they might be; they are not nice to work through. The rain is cold rain and it is unfrozen until it hits something that is below freezing. I am not below freezing. Not at the beginning of such a day, anyway.

I never dread my actual work or the customers as I do my best to handle both well. I do dread the weather sometimes during these dark and cold winter months. It was with some dread that I showered in anticipation of the long, cold, wet day. At least it wasn't going to be windy; that would only be some icing-on-the-cake.

I was surprised when I went out to my car that it was not encased in ice. There was some dripping from the tree branches; tiny icicles, but the car was clear. It was raining hard and steady. My sense-of-dread wasn't helped much when mom called me five minutes into my drive and asked, 'You aren't going in to work, are you?'

I told her I was. Sometimes you just have to grin-and-bear it, ya know?

I had a normal day's schedule out in the 'zone' where I really don't like to work. Told myself just get out there and get it over with. As usual, I was the first one off the lot this morning. It continued to rain as I drove to my first job. It remained cold, too. The temperature had inched up into the mid 30's. Ugh.

I went about my day and somehow managed to stay completely dry. At the times I had to do things outside the rain had slowed. At one point, I was outside for half-an-hour, went back inside to finish up and when I came back outside it was raining again. I couldn't believe it at the end of the day. Woo Hoo!

I noticed on an illuminated sign on my way into work this morning that the Powerball Lottery is up to a $100 million jack pot. When I stopped for lunch I thought it was worth $5 to dream.

Perhaps some luck may carry through my day. It sure is fun to think about. The drawing is tonight.

Hope everyone else stayed warm and dry today.

Take Care and have fun!

A real 'kicker.'

Today I have a real 'kicker' of a story to share.

Today was a pretty typical winter day of being the Cable guy in Amishland. The skies were cloudy; precipitation was threatening all day. The people I met were all pretty cool. I tried to serve them the best I could. That was all true until my last stop of the day that required customer contact.

On paper it was a simple job. The gentleman already had one digital box and internet service. He was just adding a second box to a pre-existing cable line. I had called him ahead of time and told him I would be arriving in the next few minutes. He sounded cool enough on the phone so; so worries, right?

Wrong. I knew exactly what street he lived on in the town where I was working; just not exactly which house. After I identified it, I chuckled a little bit as I realized that it was 'THAT' house.

THAT house would be the house of a well-known local cross-dresser. I had heard many of the guys talk about seeing the guy in his high heels outside. I had heard guys that had been inside talk about how many shoes he had. Now I was going to find out for myself.

I rang the bell and he yelled for me to come in. I walked in and he smiled and greeted me. He seemed nice enough and fortunately he was dressed as a man. He confirmed what the paperwork told me, 'This should be simple.' He directed me into his daughter's bedroom and the line where I would be connecting the new digital box. I noticed immediately that there was a technical flaw in the type of cable. The box was not going to work. I was going to have to replace the line.

I began asking the gentleman questions about the route of the line through the basement. He took me downstairs into the family room. I noticed that the entire long wall of the family room was covered by stacked shoe boxes. There was an electric heating panel that stuck out from the wall a few inches. On top of that was one black woman's high heel shoe. Very interesting.

It was down in the basement we began to run into some 'trouble.' I continued to ask the questions I needed to in order to perform my job. He would answer a different question. He would go off on some tangent and get lost. At one point, in an effort to redirect his attention to the information I asked for I said, 'Sir, I don't need to know about that.'

He looked at me and said, 'Don't be a smart-ass with me.'

Ugh

There were twists-and-turns in my mind as I debated whether-or-not to REALLY be a SMART ASS and make some comment about the 'wall-full' of shoes in the adjacent room. He impressed me as exaggerating his own self-imortance. He had dropped names, mentioned he worked for the State Police, yada, yada, yada. I sensed early on he was someone I would not like.

He suggested I call his buddy 'Jimmy' that works for the Company. I knew who he was talking about and went out to my van to call him. I asked him...'How do you communicate with this guy?' JIM told me he usually just let the guy say all that he had to say and then try a different angle to get what you need. He reassured me that, finally, I would get there.

I went back in and took a different approach. I just did what I had to do quietly. I was as polite and respectful.

When I went to leave he apologized. I told him I was sorry, too, that we had miscommunicated. I told him I try to speak clearly-and-directly when performing my job. He responded by going on-and-on about his wealth of experience and said, 'all I was trying to say was, 'I don't know.''

I smiled and looked at him and said, 'and that's all you had to say.'

I guess I finally did 'get there' in the end...lol.

I just thought that was a real 'kicker' of a story for the day.


Hope you all had a good day.

Trouble in 'da 'hood.'

I live on the fringe of what I jokingly refer to as the local 'micropolitan' area. My development is a large on of almost identical homes. All the homes are duplexes; I am attached to neighbors on one side. The development is situated in such a way that in one direction it is urban/suburban; in the opposite direction it is all open country-side.



The people that know me best know that I lament about the culture of the local people here. My freinds usually here me complain about the locals' bad driving habits. For some time now there has been 'trouble' brewing in my immediate neighborhood; definitely something of a cultural clash.



About a month and a half ago I woke up in the very early morning and thought I was hearing some obnoxious child's toy. I live immediately next-door to the neighbor-from-hell. You know? The ones that have too many kids for the size of their house. The ones that whenever the weather is nice the overflow crowd is ushered outside, shattering any peace-and-quiet there may have been before. The ones who have consistently shown a blatant lack of consideration for their neighbors. Of course, I immediately wanted to point the finger at them.



A few days later, I overheard the awful noise again. This time I was able to more specifically identify what it was. I could not tell where it was coming from. It was a rooster. I was stunned. Someone in the neighborhood was keeping a rooster in their yard. I couldn't believe it. In the 'world' I come from that is completely unacceptable in a neighborhood like this.



Over the next week-and-a-half I heard the rooster crowing at many inopportune times in the early morning. One night when I got back to the office I decided to call the local township office about the situation. Certainly, there had to be an ordinance. The township office was closed, so I called the police. A woman answered the phone there. She laughed when I asked about my problem and told me I would have to ask the zoning officer. She said, 'If it was something criminal, that I could help you with. I replied, 'Ma'am, this easily could become something 'criminal.' She laughed and said, 'Please, don't do anything stupid. I promised I wouldn't and said, 'good-bye.'



I called the township office the following morning. The gentleman told me that given the suburban/rural nature of the township the odinance was specific to various lot sizes; he would require an address to know if they were in violation. I told him I would get back to him. I was having difficulty from inside the home locating the source of the wretched sound. One morning I got lucky as it was still crowing after I was showered and dressed. I immediately walked outside and to the end of my driveway. It was pretty clear the sound was coming from my neighbors' house on the opposite side of the street, a bit further down on the inside of the curve.



I noticed that they had recently put in a six foot privacy fence. From my driveway I could see slightly above the fence to notice not only a shed in their backyard but also two suspicious looking structures. Chicken coops?

I called the township guy back and provided him with the address. He advised me that he would do the research and make a phone call to them to try to take care of the 'problem.' He advised me that if he got no response to his phone call he would write them a letter. That was about two weeks ago; before the holidays. During this time the rooster has continued to crow anytime from 3:45 AM until 10AM. It is somewhat indiscriminate. It is VERY annoying. I can't believe that people would think it is appropriate to do something like that in a neighborhood like this one. There is little doubt in my mind that they were born-and-raised in Lancaster County.

On January 2, after the passing of the holidays, I resurrected my Neighbor-to-Neighbor 'public awareness' campaign. I passed out a flyer, ONLY to the offending househould that reads, 'Neighbor-to-Neighbor' on the outside. Open it up and it reads like this....

Are you--

Waking up irritated and grouchy long before your alarm goes off?

Concerned by the thoughtless actions of some neighbors?

Ready to choke the crowing rooster, too?

If so, please contact:

Since I delivered this message to them I heard the crowing the following morning but not this morning.

I will keep you posted.

Wish me luck.

Hope all's well with everyone.

Happy New Year!

I just spoke on the phone with a guy I work with. He is in young, exploring the world and is in Manhattan right now. He is at some event on W. 50th St. between 8th and 9th Avenues. Sounds like he is having a great time.

He and I work together and he told me he was buying tickets to this event in Manhattan on New Year's Eve. He also told me he had never been to Manhattan before. I was like, 'Dude, that's not a good night to 'familiarize' yourself with Manhattan. We made arrangements and I drove him to Manhattan one Saturday morning.

It was a nice drive, two-and-a-half hours or so to the Staten Island Ferry. The trip was going to be fun for me as I knew his eyes would 'light-up' at the sight of the city. I am familiar so I knew would be fun to see the city to through a novice eye. It was.

We parked at the Staten Island Ferry and took the boat into lower Manhattan. That trip takes you right past the Statue of Liberty. The parking is $7/day, the ferry ride into Manhattan is free. There is a subway stop right at the ferry terminal so the city is your's. It's great.

Marcos had been in the Marines for four years before he became the Cable Guy. He is young and very eager to explore and make his mark in the world. He joined the Company back in February when I was off work. I met him in May and liked him right away. He is very personable guy.

Marcos spent some time working at the Apple Store in King-of-Prussia. He is an Apple fan, for sure. After taking him past the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan we got on the subway to go up to the flag-ship Apple store at 5th and 59th.

It was great! He loved it. He saw people he knew there.

We walked down 5th Ave; through Rockefeller Center Promenade. I had called friends there; they knew I was coming to the city that day. We walked across mid-town, met my friends at their apartment and had lunch with them. It was fun for my friends to see the city for the 'first time' through his eyes, too.

I made sure he knew where he wanted to be tonight. I showed him where the subway stops were. I wanted to be sure he was comfortable and not overwhelmed by the city. I showed him the subway, the buses. How to get around there. I wanted to show him the public transit is great there, don't be afraid to use it. I am sure I taught him well.

He is now in Manhattan and told me this will be a New Year's he will never forget. He told me he walked up to and through Times Square...like we had when I 'initiated' him to the city. He said he took some pictures and walked up to where his ticketed-event was. He told me he began speaking to a woman and is now inside as part of the 'staff' for the event.

Good for him, I am so glad he got there safely and is obviously having a good time!

I told him he was crazy for wanting to go up there tonight. Times Square is an area that is to be avoided even on 'quiet' nights as too many tourists. I am glad to know he is there, safe, and having a great time. Hopefully, I contributed in some small way and wish him and all my friends out there the happiest of New Years!

I think I am safe in saying that we will all be glad to see this year pass. As with so many others, this was not a particularly good year for me. At least I was able to get some travel in.

In 2008 I was able to get to Savannah, GA, Saugutuck, MI, Lansing, MI, Mackinac Island and Sault Ste. Marie, MI, Washington, DC, and many trips to Manhattan. As many of you know, in my opinion one of the best things about living here in Amishland is getting away.

The pictures listed above and below are part of the chronicle of this year’s travels.

Year in Review

I am still playing around with how this new site works...

...I am glad I seem to have successfully uploaded some pics.

Here are some more...

Year In Review