Although I could use a facelift myself, my house is getting one instead. In a project that began last spring, the work continues. There’s still much to be done, but I’ve learned a lot about how important integrity is when hiring workers. Of course it’s important that you not worry that those you trust to do construction work on your home not steal from you (neither group that I’ve hired would ever do that!), but I’ve found it’s just as important that they not cut corners to save time and money — but yet charge you full price anyway.
I’m not into the whole slop it up, and leave more work for me to clean up when the job is done. That isn’t what I pay for, and it makes the whole project nothing but a huge pain in the ass. Gone are the Les Kovert’s of the world. Still, I’ve found a crew that I’m extremely happy with and that actually show up when they are supposed to and do a good day’s work at a reasonable price. Lloyd Jent and family have yet to disappoint me. I’ll post a few before and after photos a little later — you won’t believe the transformation out here…
My day started early with school bus inspection. Bus inspection is one of those things that you think I’d get used to after 20 some odd years of owning a bus, but it simply isn’t. There’s nothing like a good ole’ bus inspection for raising my blood pressure into the unhealthy range. Today was no exception.
I find it very odd that our school’s corporation buses aren’t required to have the same inspectors as we are — C’ville’s superintendent schedules the school owned ones to be inspected in his hometown of Austin, while he schedules the owner operated buses to be inspected in Seymour. I’ve been through the drill in both places — and let me tell you — Austin’s inspections are cake. I’m not sure if any of us passed today, I know that I didn’t, and I know of 2 others that didn’t pass either. I’m all about child safety, but c’mon …let’s be fair.
One of the things that I was written up for today was that my windshield washer shooter wasn’t positioned right on the window. Perry commented that he wondered if the safety issue there was the fear that a defenseless child might have an eye put out from a sudden blast of windshield wiper solvent. Heh. I’m also having a window replaced per their requirements that is too ‘foggy.’ It’s a side window that has been like that for at least 10 years and passed every time previously. I’m all for child safety — but some of the things that are checked are downright petty. For example — checking expiration dates on iodine swabs in a first-aid kit. Certainly there other issues a tad more important when you’re hauling children to and from school!
It’s the time of year when dogs shed. Libby is no exception. Her hair is course and thick, and the past few weeks, I think I’ve swept up pounds of the stuff floating around on the ceramic tile. I was told that a good bath would help loosen the old stuff that I couldn’t seem to get rid of, even though I was using a ‘shedding brush’ at least once a day.
Yesterday, was bath day. We scrubbed for about 15 minutes and rinsed for another 30. Libby didn’t protest; I’m assuming it felt pretty good to her since it was such a hot day. The very second the last bit of soap was rinsed from her, she took off in a mad dash for a couple bio breaks, and then promptly rolled in the grass. She finally pulled a towel to the sun and finished drying, basking in the hot rays.
A couple more brushings and she and her shiny, good-smelling new body was allowed back inside. She was worn out from all the commotion and slept most of the evening on the couch. A dog’s life ain’t so bad if you’re Libby.
I live in the United States of America. My country is diverse in that while my descendants may be Irish, yours may be German. Yet, we are Americans and we speak the American language — English. Those who came to live in this fine country many moons ago abided by the law of the land, shared and learned our culture, AND learned the English language — no matter if they were Irish, English, German, etc. But in this age of being ‘politically correct’, that my friend, is changing.
You’ve noticed it — ‘press 1 for English’ blah blah blah. You don’t hear, ‘press 3 for French’ or ‘press 5 for Japanese’ do you? Oh, but you do hear the option for Spanish. If you are an English speaking, US citizen, you probably don’t like it any better than I do. So here’s the deal in my opinion… if you live in the good ole’ US of A, speak our country’s language! It’s English!
Obama, at a recent campaign event in Georgia, said that we, as Americans, should make certain our children learn to speak Spanish. Uh, no. If I move to Mexico, I will learn to speak Spanish, share and learn their culture and abide by their rules (as not to end up in some Mexican prison) — if they choose to live here, then those same principles should apply.
Obama’s tag line, “Change we can believe in” doesn’t represent the kind of changes I want. Not just because of this one issue — there are others — this is simply one small instance where I disagree with him on an issue that HE felt was important enough to address at a political function.
