Animal Control

Got a letter from the Gardiner Police Department today. Specifically, it was from the Office of the Animal Control Officer. Their records indicated that I am the owner of a dog(s) over 6 months of age, which has not been licensed. In accordance with Title 7, MRSA, 3921 & 3943, I am obligated to license my dog at the municipal clerk's office annually on or before January 31, 2009. Fortunately, the letter arrived today, on the 19th of March, 2009.

First of all, I wonder who the gumshoe is that determined I had an unregistered dog, or dogs. Apparently the Gardiner Police Department's files are so exact that their records indicate that I have either a dog or multiple dogs. Frightening perspicacity! And I don't know if it's the flu I've had recently or what, but Title 7, MRSA, 3921 & 3943 completely slipped my mind. I feel like a fool.

Regardless, I don't own a dog, and so I called up the office. I spoke to a woman on the other end of the line and told her so. She said her records indicated that I did indeed have a dog. I said, Nope, I've never had one- which isn't true, but for some reason, I said it. So she said she'd get back to me but that they might have to send someone around to investigate. And I hope they do.

Training and the Draft: Why the Army is fun

I'm trying to kick start my Olympic training. The 2009 Maine Summer Olympics are only 5 months away. I went for a jog today, about 6 miles, around a loop that included the beach. My legs felt fine- as they should have considering I hadn't used them in a month- but I was desperately out of breath at the end. I was running 6 miles on my down days in San Francisco, and it's much hillier out there. I haven't done much else in the way of training other than lifting weights. I guess that might help in the tug-of-war. I'm on the verge of getting fat, which happens every few months, but hopefully with the arrival of warm weather, I can get myself running and exercising more.
Last night was the draft for my fantasy baseball league, The Barnstorming Union. The turnout was OK, a bit better than last year. My brother drove down from Manchester to conduct his draft here- he doesn't have the internet. He brought a three-ring binder with him that had some cheat sheets in it and I think it helped because he wound up with a good team. Overall, I was satisfied with my draft. I didn't get the big closer that I wanted, but I did get four solid picks at spots 1, 14, 15, and 21, in Holliday, Bedard, O. Cabrera, and DeRosa respectively. At one point in the draft the autopilot kicked in on it's own, which prevented my drafting of Clay Buchholz, and later on I was "skipped" two rounds in a row, for reasons still unknown to me. But I can't complain, my team is looking exceptionally strong this year, lacking only perhaps in one consistent SP and a mid level reliever.
Right now I'm working on fixing that problem by moving one of my OF for a good starting pitcher.

To Do

Made a long To Do list today, and I finished everything but "lift weights." I actually finished some things today that weren't on the list. Things that I'd been putting off. A fairly productive day overall. I exchanged my new router at Target because the one I'd purchased didn't come with the installation CD. I had to get one that was 10 bucks more but I hooked it up today and it's working well. I cleaned the whole house. That ate up a lot of my day. I filled out a bunch of online applications, mostly at Maine Med. If I get any of the jobs I applied for there, I hope it's the garage attendant. I've always wanted that job. It's a lot like the toll booth job I had, I imagine, without the constant hassle of motorists and change making. Though garage attendants are almost always brutally shot in 80's action movies, I'm assuming it's safer today. But, I probably won't get the job anyway so I don't have to fret.
I made an excel-ent spreadsheet today of Scrabble scores. I tabulated averages for all the free range games (in which you have "free range" of any dictionary, word list, whatever) and challenge games I've kept track of in my Scrabble Tracker book. I only included people who have played at least 5 recorded games, which included myself, Ethan, Breb, Jesse, Manda, and Joe C. It's a good spreadsheet and I'm going to keep up with it.
I also printed off the registration forms for the Scrabble tournament, and emailed the slackers in my fantasy league.
Now I'm rearranging the house. At one time, I determined that I only performed interior decorating and rearranging when depressed. Well I don't feel depressed. In fact I feel better than I have for the last month on account of getting done at the bakery. I still have the pressure of finding another job, but it's not nearly as bad as reporting to the bakery 5 days a week in the middle of the night and trying to be nice to people I'd rather to throttle. Anyway, in preparation for the organ, which I plan to move down next week if it doesn't snow again, I'm putting all the book shelves in one room: the porch room- or as Breb and I call it, the sun room. So I'll probably be working on that into the wee hours. That's all I got.

Walgreens

on Wednesday I received 5 calls from an 877 number that I didn't recognize. I was at work all day and always leave my cell phone at home or in the car. There were no messages, so I didn't think much of it. Thursday morning, I received two calls from the same number before 7 am. Finally, the eighth time they called, third time that morning, I answered. I was half in bed, half on the floor (I sleep on a mattress).

Me: Hello?

Them: Hi, this is Walgreens. We specialize in...blah, blah, blah... (I listened to them extolling the Walgreens chain for about 30 seconds)

I hung up, turned the ringer off.

When I got up a few hours later, I had 3 more calls from the same number and a new message. I punched the buttons to get into my mailbox and sure enough the message was from Walgreens.

This time, instead of going on and on about how great their store was, they cut to the chase and told me I'd won a $30 gift certificate and they would be mailing it to me.

Well that's great, but I'm still confused.

1. Why couldn't they have just left that message the first time they called?

2. Why didn't the person I spoke to on the phone tell me that immediately?

3. Oddly, the message was left after the 10th call, and followed up by an 11th call. Why did they call again after the message?

New Job

Been doing a shitty job keeping up with my blog. I got a position as a loader at a big bakery. I've been working weird shifts, mostly 3:30am to noon at the moment, which really does a number on you. It doesn't leave me with much energy and sees me under the covers by 8 at the latest. I've got better hours this week, going in at times like 1pm, 2pm, and 4pm. I have Monday off, which will be dedicated to finding a better job. I looked for a job in San Francisco for 6 months without success, so I'm sure I can find a job in the greater Saco area in one day. No problem.

The job isn't good, but at least I'm getting some hours right now. I think I worked overtime this week (6 days out of 7) but I'm guessing there is some type of loophole that will keep me from being paid extra. Numerous employees at the bakery have encouraged me to look elsewhere for work, and not in a threatening way. From several employees I have heard (not that I needed to be told) that the job is a dead end and a bad place to work. The pay has actually decreased in the last 10 years, the benefits are awful, and the hours are inconsistent. In my case, I applied for an "on call" position, though I'm working full-time at the moment, and I'm told that if I wasn't scheduled but then called to come in, saying no is not an option. That's not really what on call means, but, what can you do. About the only good part of the job is that my friend Jesse is a supervisor there so I get to see him occasionally if I work second shift. Regardless of how bad the job is, I'm lucky to have employment. As everyone knows, the economy isn't the strongest right now, and Breanne told me that she has four female co-workers whose husbands are out of work right now. That's rough. But on the other hand, I have quite a few plans coming up in the month of March, and it would be a shame to have to cancel all of them. That's the catch. I know that work is what people do; they work then they die. Well, I don't really care for that. I'll work when I'm dead, or however that saying goes.

On a side note, last night Breanne and I went to a USM hockey game. It was the first time I'd sat through an entire USM game. I saw Ray Jean, a guy I went to high school with, and talked to him during the second period.

Gorham Scrabble Club 2/08/09

The second Sunday of February, and that spells Gorham Scrabble Club. This was my second time attending. The second Sunday of January was snowed out.
It was a much better turnout than my first appearance. 8 people all together, if you don't include an old confused looking man with a deerstalker cap on in the corner. I played my first game against Mary, though she preferred either Mary Lee or Mary Lou- I didn't catch it. She started slow and spent most of the game playing catch-up. I scored a bingo with LIZARDS and ended up beating her 393-302.
My second game was against Kassandra, the club organizer. I'd played her two months ago and beat her badly. It was closer this time around but I still got her by almost 100: 405-314. I played two bingos with HORRIBLY and FANCIES. I also played afronts, not sure if it had two f's, and she challenged it off the board.
My third game was not pretty. I played Sean, a guy in his 50's or 60's, who was clearly my superior. He beat me 477-264, but in fairness, I had the shittiest tiles this game. At one point I had three consecutive draws of only vowels. Sean also drew both blanks, all four S's, and the Z, X, Q, and J early enough in the game to not be stuck with them. I had a bingo with ESTEEMED late in the game, which isn't bad considering my tray was E T M E E E D. He played multiple words I hadn't heard of including LOX, CHEEP, CROZE, and LANAI. He had three bingos against me: MISSION, CROONING, and RAIDING. Had the letters been more evenly distributed, he still would have beaten me. It wouldn't have been such a crushing though. However, you won't always draw the best tiles and you have to make due with what you get. Needless to say, I didn't do that.
My last game was another against Kassandra. I walloped her again, this time 389-319. I had two bingos in this game too, both occurring within my first four turns. ADULATE and DATELINE, the latter landing on a triple word.
I am discovering that there is a gigantic gap between the skill level of players at the Gorham Scrabble Club. Sean, for example, has played against some of the best players in the world, including Matt Graham from the movie Word Wars, who at the moment is ranked 10th in the world. Other players would be considered kitchen table players, rarely scoring above 400 and not looking to expand their vocabularies through study and memorization. I think I'm somewhere in between, though probably a lot closer to the kitchen.

Answering

Got an answering machine. Now I can collect all those automated messages from Sally Mae, looking for Beverly. I'm sort of an answering machine right now. Sounds like something Bukowski would say. Or, "My dick is a white mamba and I'm sort of an answering machine right now." That's better.
I read The Road to Wellville in San Francisco and finally got the movie in the mail today. It was cracked, almost from the hole to the edge. The rating on IMDB is terrible but I was really hoping to watch it tonight.
More importantly, I took the biggest icicle from the eave out back and froze it, point up, on the rail of the back porch. Something Andy Goldsworthy probably did when he was 4. Just took a little snow and tap water. It looks neat. I'm hoping a blue jay will land on it tomorrow.

Mind Teaser

Breanne gave me a couple brain books for X-mas jr. The Great Book of Mind Teasers & Mind Puzzlers by George J. Summers and The Book of IQ tests by two guys named Carter and Russell. The puzzlers book I actually had as a kid. I think it was my brothers but we all used it. I remember the illustrations because they're scary. The men all look like dark apes with big brows and penetrating eyes- the artist uses lots of shading and cross-hatching.
I took one of the IQ tests this morning and it was much harder than the one I took in San Francisco. I should probably be devoting my brain to trivia for the 12-week challenge at Jimmy the Greeks' instead. We've finished 3rd and 4th so far in four weeks, so we're doing OK. Unfortunately, Breanne is going to miss the next two Mondays because of work so our best days are probably behind us.

Updyke

John Updike died two days ago. I didn't find out till today. That's what happens when you don't pay attention to the outside world. I'm surprised I even found out though- all the articles I skimmed today online were about the fucking keyboard player from Lynyrd Skynyrd dying. I can't even think of a single Skynyrd song with a keyboard in it. The guys name was Billy Powell. I hate that band anyway. They might have the best lyrics in music history though.
Here's an excerpt from Sweet Home Alabama. It was written in response to Neil Young songs like Alabama and Southern Man, which deal with racism and slavery and bible touting in the south.

Well I heard Mr. Young sing about her
Well I heard ol' Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don't need him round anyhow

Wow, way to put ol' Neil in his place. And to think, Ronnie Van Zant, you died in a plane crash, in your "prime." And people think this is a good song. Jesus Christ.
My point is, John Updike died.
I told Breanne about it and she was surprised. She didn't realize he was so old. Then we talked about it for a bit and I realized she was thinking of John Irving. All confusion could have been avoided if I'd just said the keyboardist for Lynyrd Skynyrd had died.
"Not Billy Powell!"

Kristmas

Recorded two new Christmas tunes for next years KKKristmas album. One is called "Santa Claus is Real" and the other is "A Christmas Prayer." Neither one is great, but I'm getting better at using the Sessions program that came with my MIDI keyboard. I just discovered a better way to cut and paste tracks that helps the drums sound better. Because I don't like to use loops, drumming can be very difficult and even with the help of a metronome it's easy to fall out of rhythm. Now I can get a couple bars of a steady rhythm I like and cut and paste it.
And the KKK stands for Keyes Kids Kristmas, so, don't get your stockings in a bunch.