BLUF

First, a story.  About a year ago, I received an email at work with some important information.  The email started out like this:

BLUF: (some important bit of administrivia here).

I had never seen the acronym BLUF, so of course I Googled it.  The first hit on Yahoo was for the Wikipedia page that explained to me that BLUF was a military term that meant Bottom Line Up Front.  Makes sense.

The second hit from Yahoo told me that it also stood for the Breeches and Leather Uniform Fanclub.  BLUF is a club for men who enjoy wearing breeches and leather uniforms, it told me.  Suffice it to say, I did NOT go to the website on a government computer.  Ahem.

However, knowing that the guy that sent me the email was a big, muscle-bound, motorcycle ridin', tattoo-sportin' kinda dude, I decided to raz him a bit. 

"Breaches & Leather Uniform Fanclub???????"  I wrote back.
"Bottom Line Up Front," he replied.  Then he said: "However, I wouldn't be opposed to such a club.  :)"
"Maybe you should check out the membership before you say something like that," was my reply.

Time passed.  Then:

"OMG!!!!!!!  I'm never using that acronym again!!!"

I will therefore never forget what BLUF stands for.
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I will go into details when I have more time to write, but BLUF is that I am flying the office solo this week and things are going swimmingly.  People have come into the office that NEVER came into the office because Alan was there. Also, Alan has called twice.  Yup. I'm also very impressed with the new company, math test not withstanding. 

Spam I Recently Received

I usually don't read the spam I get, but the subject line of this one was too funny. And, boy do they lay it on thick!
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Subject: Dear Beloved One.

I am Mrs.Catrina Hawks from England I am deaf and has cancer of the breast I lost my husband 12 years ago without a child of mine.

I have to sell all my properties left by my husband because the doctors say i have less than 2 months to live.I have deposited the funds of $5 million US D which i sold from my properties and deposit into a Bank.I want you to help me use the funds to help the charity deaf and the motherless babies home before i die.

If you are a good and honest Christian i shall give you the contact of the Bank and also the Deposit Certificate so as to claim my funds before my death.Expecting your urgent response and may God bless you as you carry out my
wish.

You can write me at xxxx

Your's Dyeing Sister

Mrs.Catrina Hawks

Picture From Work

They really could have staged this photo better.

Matthew's Commentary

"You know, I never realized that from this angle my hairline looks like I have horns. Or, if someone were feeling really artistic, they could make my face look like Hello Kitty with the ears and all."

(Me, I was giggling about the dog. Notice the teeth).

Funny Ah-Ha

I got home from work last night around 9:20 (Wednesdays are my late days at work). We were due to write out a few bills. Matt was filling out some paperwork at the kitchen table and I came up behind him to see what he was working on. It was the questionnaire from our new doctor’s office. This is what he had written:

Do you smoke? __Yes _x_No

Do you drink? _x_Yes ___No If yes, how often? Very occasionally.

Do you have pets? _x_Yes ___No If yes, type and #? Yorkie, 14

....What?

“Dear, what is ’14’?”

“Well, they want to know how much he weighs.”

(smacks self on forehead)

“No, dear, they want to know how many. “Do you have pets? If yes, type and number.”

“That’s a pound sign! They want to know how much he weighs!!”

(fighting back gales of laughter)

“Um, no, dear, that’s considered a number sign. You just told them we have 14 yorkies.”

He changed it. Can you see a house our size with a herd of 14 Yorkies? Why on earth would the doctor’s office want to know how much Max weighs??

But I did a stupid, too.

A little while later, I was writing out a check for a bill and I wanted to keep a tally of what we were sending out. Matt got up from the table to get something so I asked him:

“While you’re up, could you find the…..um…..” (makes motions like I’m hitting number buttons on a pad) “…you know…..the Add’em’up machine?”

He stops and looks at me.

“The ‘Add’em’up machine????”

“You know,” (I make motions like I’m hitting buttons again).

He’s still staring at me, now with a smile on his face.

“THE ADD’EM’UP MACHINE?!?!? Oh my god, you didn’t just say that!”

“Dammit! The calculator! That’s it! Calculator!”

I was tired, so sue me.

Work Photos, Part 2

Another round of photos from my work computer. I noticed when uploading this batch that I seem to have a lot of fire and disaster pictures. I wonder why?

This is from one of the several wildfires that hit El Cajon in the past few years:
Loved this one, my Navy cousin sent it to me. It is referring to the Seal team that took out the Somali pirates that were holding the US crew of the cargo ship:

I can't remember where this bridge is, but isn't the picture gorgeous?

Obviously photoshopped, but still fun:

One of my favorite artists is Daniel Merriam. I had no idea he was so cute. Always colorful, you could look at his work forever and always see something new:

Another fun artist is James C. Christensen. This work is entitled: Sometimes the Spirit Touches Us:

Another wildfire in California picture. If I'm ever in a wildfire, I want this to be my house:

Not a huge fan of snakes, but loved this picture. Notice the eyes aren't where you first think they are:

Still another wildfire picture, this time of the smoke layer:

So! I may do this with the items on my home computer this month sometime....I hope you enjoyed.

Work Photos, Part 1

I was going through the 'My Pictures' file on my work computer the other day and decided to share some of the pictures I've saved over the years. These are (mostly) pictures from news stories that struck my fancy for whatever reason. I sometimes peruse through them and get a laugh because they are so random.

This photo is from the Lebanon/Israel conflict that happened a few years ago. This shows the Lebanese(?) troops and their...pack llama. Assault llama? Whatever, I thought it was funny:

This shows South Korean soldiers playing in what I'm pretty sure is some aqueous firefighting foam:

Sometimes I'll caption photos. This is the woman who was the Secretary of Education under Bush II at the news conference after her appointment. I caption this photo: ...you do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around...." But I love her glasses:
This is a photo of a terrorist and the bombing that he was supposedly responsible for. A very serious subject. I don't get why people don't really look a the pictures they publish for serious topics. This one looks to me like: ....do-do-do-do do-do! Gotta sing!!!

I saved this pic to use as my desktop in October:

Sunset in Afghanistan:

A crab-looking spider:

One of my coworker's daughters spent some time working in Yemen. She took this picture. I think it was in Yemen, but she did travel a bit so it could have been somewhere else:

I saw this ad in a local paper online, and I just giggle every time I read the job title:

Stay tuned for part 2!

March NaBloPoMo: Strange(r)

The National Blog Posting Month website has named March the month to post Strange(r) stories, so I think I'll do that. It just so happens I have a great story to tell. This recently happened to a friend.

Duane stopped by on Sunday to drop something off. Duane is 30-something and still lives with his parents. He asked us if he told us about their cat. No, he hadn't.

Duane was working the night shift and when he pulled into their driveway he noticed their cat laying under their mailbox, dead. Duane stopped and checked. He told us he hunts enough and he knows dead, but apparently it had just happened.

He loaded the cat into a box he had in his car, drove the remaining 50 yards to the house, put the cat and box into the garage, and he went up to bed.

The next day he got the cat, box, some hay, and a shovel. He went up the hill, dug a three foot hole, layered it with hay, and buried the cat.

2 days pass.

Duane's dad runs into the house: "Duane! You've got to come out here and see this!"

Duane does. The cat is walking calmly out of the garage.

"It had hay on its back," he told us. "That's the part that really got me."

Duane's dad was freaked out. "You told me you buried that thing!" he said.

"I buried it three feet down!" Duane told him.

2 days after that, they finally found out that the neighbors apparently had a cat with almost identical markings. They didn't know that for two very strange and interesting days, though.

Duane said he even walked up to the grave to see for himself. He said if an animal had been digging there then he would have seriously been spooked, as it would have looked like the cat had dug itself out.

So, that's my most recent strange story. Since then I've been singing the Muppet Show version of The Cat Came Back.

Snowmageddon

It is a running joke around here that Washington, DC, shuts down at the first snowflake. Well, that isn't exactly true.

Now, Atlanta does. First snowflake, they cave.

DC really got hit this past weekend and they're getting hit again, which has lead to the following humorous terms being thrown around:

Snowmageddon.

Snowmygod.

Snowmongous.

And, my personal favorite, Snowpocalypse. As in, Snowpocalypse DC.

Stuck On You

Looks like we're going to get whumped on again. Last I heard yesterday was anywhere from a foot to two feet or more of snow, plus gusts of 30mph which would lead to blizzard-like conditions.

Now, we are expected to work out our shift today and we are open until 5pm. Snow is supposed to start anywhere from 10am through 2pm. Which means there is a good chance I'm not going home tonight.

Fortunately they have dorm space for us. I'm packing a 2-day bag.

Hooband isn't happy about this. I warned him Wednesday night that I might stay over.

(unhappy look from Hooband).

"Dear, if it comes down to me not getting home safe, I'm going to stay. I *want* to come home, you know!"

(less unhappy look from Hooband).

"Of course, there are worse things than getting snowed in with 300 firefighter on Super Bowl weekend."

(VERY unhappy look from Hooband).

"Oh, dear, I'm just kidding. I'll take my crocheting, and a good book, and probably go to sleep early."

(Hooband looks a little happier about the whole thing).

"Unless I grab the three bottles of wine I have stashed in the trunk. Then, who knows??"

He knows I'm kidding on this one. I actually have a sled stashed in the trunk. THAT would be a blast, sledding on campus with firefighter?

I'll let you know. I'll bring the camera.

Strange Dreams

I have a friend who often asks about dreams. Have I had any interesting dreams lately? Well, have I ever! I usually don’t remember my dreams, but this one was….strange. There are elements that you will probably recognize, but I’ll mention a few things at the end. *names changed to protect the innocent*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was at work, but in our breakroom finishing up lunch. One of my coworkers, K, was there. 8 bags of dead leaves were also stacked in there for me. I was debating with K whether I should go ahead and move them to where my desk was or not because E (the fed in charge of our contract) didn’t want me to but, hey, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?

So, I hoisted 4 bags over my shoulders (superhuman strength in dreams, apparently), and started to carry them back to my desk with K tagging along behind me, worried. But it turns out I had trouble getting through the hall to my desk because of all the women doing inventory on the books on shelves lining the hallways.

But they weren’t the only problem! For some reason, they’d also routed the lines of refugees through the hall, too. I don’t know where the refugees were coming from or going to, but there were a lot of them and they were going in one door, through the hall, past my desk, through another door and out.

It was overcast outside, the lights were out in the building, women doing inventory, refugees in various states of disrepair walking through the building, 4 bags of leaves, K fussing behind me, and now E appears and I’m struggling to move the bags of leaves from room to room so he doesn’t know I have them up there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About then I woke up. It was a very strange dream. The leaves are obvious. We’re doing an inventory in the basement of the building right now, and it is dark and dingy down there. I’m guessing the refugees are in response to Haiti, but to tell the truth I haven’t seen much footage about it so it may be something else and these people tromping through the library weren't Hatian. Really, really strange. Sometimes I wish I remembered my dreams more.

In order to lighten things up here a bit, I want to share a video with you.

On an island off the coast of New Zealand lives a colony of Kakapo. The kakapo is an extremely rare and endangered species of flightless parrot. They have a problem mating. In Douglass Adams' book 'Last Chance to See' he describes it thusly:

The ways in which it goes about mating are wonderfully bizarre, extraordinarily long drawn out and almost totally ineffective.

Here's what they do:

The male kakapo builds himself a track and bowl system, which is simply a roughly dug shallow depression in the earth, with one or two pathways leading through the undergrowth towards it. The only thing that distinguishes the tracks from those that would be made by any other animal blundering its way about is that the vegetation on either side of them is rather precisely clipped.

The kakapo is looking for good acoustics when he does this, so the track and bowl system will often be sited against a rock facing out across a valley, and when the mating season arrives he sits in his bowl and booms.

This is an extraordinary performance. He puffs out two enormous air sacs on either side of his chest, sinks his head down into them and starts to make what he feels are sexy grunting noises. These noises gradually descend in pitch, resonate in his two air sacs and reverberate through the night air, filling the valleys for miles around with the eerie sound of an immense heart beating in the night.

The booming noise is deep, very deep, just on. the threshold of what you can actually hear and what you can feel. This means that it carries for a very great distances, but that you can't tell where it's coming from. If you're familiar with certain types of stereo set-up, you'll know that you can get an additional speaker called a sub-woofer which carries only the bass frequencies and which you can, in theory, stick anywhere in the room, even behind the sofa. The principle is the same - you can't tell where the bass sound is coming from.

The female kakapo can't tell where the booming is coming from either, which is something of a shortcoming in a mating call. `Come and get me!' `Where are you?? 'Come and get me!' 'Where the hell are you?' `Come and get me!' `Look, do you want me to come or not?' `Come and get me!' 'Oh, for heaven's sake.' `Come and get me!' 'Go and stuff yourself,' is roughly how it would go in human terms. [...]

It's not that they're not willing. When they are in breeding condition, their sex drive is extremely strong. One female kakapo is known to have walked twenty miles in one night to visit a mate, and then walked back again in the morning. Unfortunately, however, the period during which the female is prepared to behave like this is rather short. As if things aren't difficult enough already, the female can only come into breeding condition when a particular plant, the podocarp for instance, is bearing fruit. This only happens every two years. Until it does, the male can boom all he likes, it won't do him any good. The kakapo's pernickety dietary requirements are a whole other area of exasperating difficulty. It makes me tired just to think of them, so I think we'll pass quickly over all that. Imagine being an airline steward trying to serve meals to a plane full of Moslems, Jews, vegetarians, vegans and diabetics when all you've got is turkey because it's Christmas time, and that will give you the idea.

The males therefore get extremely overwrought sitting in their bowls making noises for months on end, waiting for their mates who are waiting for a particular type of tree to fruit. When one of the rangers who was working in an area where kakapos were booming happened to leave his hat on the ground, he came back later to find a kakapo attempting to ravish it. On another occasion the discovery of some ruffled possum fur in the mating area suggested that a kakapo had made another alarming mistake, an experience which is unlikely to have been satisfying to either party.

So, anyway, the BBC is filming another installment of Last Chance to See, 20 years after Adams did his book. Stephen Fry and the original photographer went to visit the Kakapo (which is doing much better, by the way). Here's what happened:

Someone commented that they thought it was nice that the parrot returned for a post-coital cuddle. After I sent it to Matt, he called me. He said he'd gotten the video, he liked it a lot....did I want him to get out the turkey wings tonight??

When You Think You've Heard it All

I got a Bargain Books catalog in the mail. I found these two gems while I was parusing the 'Mysteries & Detectives' section:

Three Bags Full: a sheep detective story, by Leonie Swann. (novel).

One a hillside near the cozy Irish village of Glennkill, the members of the flock gather around their shepherd, George, whose body lies pinned to the ground with a spade. George had always cared for the sheep, and now they set out to find his killer.

I actually thought this sounded cute, and I bought it when I was out today. The beginning few pages were fun to read. I'll let you know.

The second one is one I will not be looking to buy, but I wanted to share with you anyway:

The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, by Mario Acevedo (novel)

Felix Gomez went to Iraq a soldier. He came back a vampire. Now he finds himself pulled into a web of intrigue when an old friend prompts him to investigate an outbreak of nymphomania at the secret government facilities in Rocky Flats.

Boy, I need to be careful! We have several secret government facilities around here!

People write this stuff? And get published???

Silent Monks Sing the Hallelujah Chorus

When I was in the high school concert choir, we used to sing this. We. Were. Good. Really good. This is better.

Another One Bites the Dust....

A second bra has broken right in the middle of the underwire. These were cheapy Lane Bryant bras I've been using as 'work' bras, so more for gardening and building work than go-to-work work. Unbelievable.

Just Between Us Girls...

Something happened to me recently that I feel the need to share because I think it is funny.

I've been needing some new bras for a while and I've been putting off ordering them because it is just such an ordeal. You see, I'm what is commonly referred to as a well-endowed lady. I think the politically correct term is 'bodacious ta-tas.'

It is a pain in the anatomy for me to buy new bras because I cannot walk into any store and just buy them off the rack, so to speak. I have found few styles in my size in the US and most of them look like they were designed by Nazi engineers: they're ugly.

I have found, however, that beautiful bras in my size are available by the truckload in England. So, I get my bras on Ebay UK AND have them shipped 'Royal Mail' for less than the Nazi bras in the US would be. And they're pretty and they do the work that is needed. But I usually don't order very often because it is still a chunk of money and I tend to have very specific style and color needs, and I like to order two from the same seller to save on shipping, so it sometimes takes a bit of work to find them.

So, this is what I've been putting off. I've been saying for months that I needed to do it, I've been then repeatedly NOT doing it. Repeat. Repeat.

So, I then got a kick in the pants to get moving on this when my husband did some laundry a couple weeks ago. One of the hooks got caught in the washing machine and pulled into a pointy metal death stick that would put someone's eye out at 20 paces. So, there's one bra down for the count.

I still put off ordering....until....

The day we poured concrete for the new garage, I sat down to eat some lunch....and the underwire in the left side snapped in half right in the middle. I'm lucky I didn't cut myself, but fortunately it didn't cut through the fabric.

So, now I'm down two bras....and I finally got online and ordered two replacements. There's something about getting lingerie in a package marked 'Royal Mail.'

Mysterious ways, indeed....

Lure Course Trials

Matt and I and our friend Angie met up for breakfast recently and then went to a nearby soggy field to watch the local Saluki club host its Sighthound Lure Trials. It is a very interesting thing to see, especially when the field is somewhat under water.

They hook up a rope to a motor, string it along the field, and attach 3 plastic bags to it. Those are the lures. Then they set lose, turn the dogs loose in heats of 1, 2, or 3, and the judges figure out scores. I have little idea on score, I don't believe it is a timed thing.


Above are some (I think) Ibizan hounds. Below are the two Afghans they had.And another view of the Afghans, waiting to be turned loose. Did I mention it was in the high 30s?

You can see how wet the field was here:I think this is a Borzoi or possibly a Saluki. I can't keep them straight. He/she is watching the races, intently:

This is a Rhodesian Ridgeback, also watching...very intently.
I think this is another Ibizan:
And some greyhounds:
I have another set of pictures, I'll post them later.

Disney Bought Marvel

Click here for some links to some really great pictures. Really, it is worth it to take a look at them all....

A Few Max Stories and Photos

First, to get us started, a nice action shot of Max shaking after his most recent bath.

Next, a story of Sir Max vs. The Dragon. Yes we have a dragon in the house.

Matthew was on-call a couple weeks ago and, wouldn'tcha know, he got called out on Sunday night. Max and I went on up to go night-night, and I was pretty much asleep when Matthew got home. Max ran downstairs to greet him, though. Matthew let Max outside, then Max went and got a drink of water. Matthew plugged in his phone, turned out the downstairs lights, and then came upstairs.

Max was still downstairs, though. For some reason, Max decided to access the stairs by way of the back of the sofa, which he has done hundreds of time before. I don't know what made this time different, but he fell. It sounded like *scrabble*whump*clackity clackity clackity clackity*crash*boom*

Max fell directly on Dragon.

Dragon is the Kirby vacuum cleaner. Max HATES Dragon. We don't chase him with it, but he just doesn't like it.

What makes it worse is Max hit his lip on the way down and skinned it. It was bloody and he kept licking it....for an hour and a half. It's not loud, more like a constant lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick. Try getting to sleep during THAT.

But it was so cute, after we heard the scrabble*whump, Matthew (who was in a state of undress) ran down the stairs in his underwear yelling "MAX!! MAX!!! ARE YOU OK MAX?!?! I'M COMING, MAX!!" and then came back up holding our shaken dog and cooing to him.

We were next door recently feeding beet greens to the neighbor's pheasants, and Max wanted to keep an eye on us so he climbed up on the outside plant stands that Matt built.

Awww...
Double aww....

The Great Spaghetti Harvest

My mom told me about this over and over, she saw the original broadcast.

The Great Swiss Spaghetti Harvest of 1957