Be The Pigeon

"The disposal is clogged." That's not really the words I'd like to see on an instant message from Jo. And yet she sent them anyway. The nerve. Actually, this is the first time we've had any such backup problems with that plumbing, so I count myself blessed. For my lunch break today I got to disassemble the innards of the sink drain. From that, I learned a few things: Celery clogs things. I'm grateful for easy plumbing that required no tooling to remove. It was actually a pretty easy fix, despite my ugly mood from work (as a recommendation, don't ever work with people who are in the protected-minority of " stupid people "; pretty soon they'll be lobbying for special treatment, mark my words). Here's your sign... I'm even more grateful that it was just fresh veggies that clogged the drain. It could have been mushy, nasty bread, sour milk, and all sorts of disgusting crud we tend to wash down the drain happily without a second th...

Congrats to my dad and his bride Christine. It turns out now, though, that since she goes by Chris as well, that there's some identity theft starting in our family. I'm figuring it starts with a name, and soon I'll notice that she's "borrowing" my social security number! Gotta watch those Chris-es, you know. Kind of weird to have two people with the same name in such close proximity. Maybe I'll be the one to borrow a SSN! I had a great weekend in Phoenix and got to spend time with my dad and brother. Kevin and I hadn't spent any time together in a couple years, and it was fun to kick around like the "old" days. Dad had a great time watching us trash talk one another. (Took us a couple hours to put up a new ceiling fan outside, so you can imagine the jokes about how many college grads it takes to hang a light bulb.) One thing that's too bad about living all dispersed is that we don't have a chance to do stuff like that often ...

I'm participating in a local citizen's police academy with some friends. It's a 12-week course that provides some insights into the operations of various police agencies. Last night we went to the Weld County Jail in Greeley (about an hour north of here). They have a brand new wing that is going to open very soon, so we got the full tour (nice to see what our $20 million bought us). That's the sheriff in the center of this shot, taken in one of the "pods" of the new wing. They separate the jail into pods of somewhere around 15-20 rooms, each holding 2-4 inmates. The jail holds something like 700-800 inmates total. The new wing is built from prefab'd steel cells that more or less just plugged in, saving lots on building costs, especially since the units were purchased and stored back when steel prices were lower. The sheriff was more than happy to impress how much money he was saving "us". :-) With the setup in the new wing, the inmates don...

Well, it's spring break time in Colorado. We decided to take a road trip to somewhere warm, and the closest place we could get some nights on my mom's time-share was St. George, UT (thanks Mom!). Based on the weather reports we've seen from CO, we aren't missing much in the nice-spring-break-weather department. We've had a nice time here, and thanks to my fruit-phone (aka blackberry) which Jo loves to talk smack about, I get to blog about it before she does. You see, she mocks my phone, but it tethers nicely to the laptop and gives us online access from wherever, even on vacation. Mocking me now, sweetie?! We didn't exactly start out warmer than CO. We drove out to SLC first for a day, and managed to get 50mph winds. Then, on our drive down to St. George (commonly called Utah's Dixie), we got to drive through lots of snow, though thankfully none was sticking. Didn't get much above freezing until we were only 20 miles from St. George. Then it rain...