There’s been a whirlwind of stuff going on in my head … a couple of which I won’t talk about here … a couple of which I can’t talk about here … and a couple of tidbits of other random other stuff.

• LilBro started the process of putting up the Halloween fence today. Two of my existing fence posts broke off putting a huge monkey wrench in the plan. Once I figure out a new plan, I’ll let you know.
• The phone hardly rang at work today. Is it a coincidence that this is the first day in several months that I didn’t get a headache about an hour after getting from work.

Jeanne stopped by yesterday to give me some more of her homemade peach jam. Have I ever told you how much I love my sister for giving me peach jam? It is most delicious.

Hey! I love her for other reasons, too.

Anyway … when she was here she was looking at my dogs’ neckerchiefs and said I should make some to put for sale on Etsy. I am afraid to do that. My logic is that it is going to be a huge bomb or a huge success. Either one would stress me out. Plus … I’d need a sewing machine that isn’t gonna give me issues.

There’s a spot in my basement that is starting to look like a sewing machine morgue.

I was in Jeanne’s office earlier this week discussing how much I have sucked at making football picks. I told her randomly picking and choosing might make me do better. She joked that I should toss a coin … heads for home team, tails for away team.

For grins, I did that. Here’s the results (pick bolded):

Atlanta at Green Bay
Chicago at Detroit
Indianapolis at Houston
Kansas City at Carolina
San Diego at Miami
Seattle at N.Y. Giants
Tennessee at Baltimore
Washington at Philadelphia
Tampa Bay at Denver
Buffalo at Arizona
Cincinnati at Dallas
New England at San Francisco
Pittsburgh at Jacksonville
Minnesota at New Orleans

Here’s the actual picks I made:

Atlanta at Green Bay
Chicago at Detroit
Indianapolis at Houston
Kansas City at Carolina
San Diego at Miami
Seattle at N.Y. Giants
Tennessee at Baltimore
Washington at Philadelphia
Tampa Bay at Denver
Buffalo at Arizona
Cincinnati at Dallas
New England at San Francisco
Pittsburgh at Jacksonville
Minnesota at New Orleans

It was odd yesterday when Betty called me at 8:12 and asked me if I was busy. I was busy getting computers powered up and making coffee. She said, “Good. I’m coming to pick you up and we need to go look at so-and-so’s jobsite.” *click*

Even though Betty & I have a lot of work we have to do together, it is usually by phone or e-mail or that archaic thing called an inter-office memo. Betty is the Office Manager for Public Works.

I was curious as to why this particular jobsite was a huge matter of importance on a random Friday morning in October. If we even do build on it, the construction process won’t start until next summer.

I told her to give me a few moments to make sure that the sky hasn’t fallen yet and get the little bit of crew I had there moving along to their jobsites.

Getting the crew (the 4 I had there because the rest took a vacation day) going involved me going down to the shop and telling them “I am pissed off that I keep getting texted and told about the headlight and taillight that’s out on my work truck. Fix it. And while your at it, check all of the other truck’s lights and fix them.”

Betty picked me up a short while later and we took off to the jobsite in her POS (bad brakes, slipping transmission) worktruck. On the way to the site she told me that she didn’t sleep all night because she was stressed about work. She called me because we deal with a lot of the same work issues.

So there’s me … with a hangover … and Betty … that didn’t sleep all night … in a POS 4wd in the middle of a field. I told her “Do a donut. If the truck dies, we will have to hike this field and then hitchhike back to work. But … we will have a great story to tell instead of bitching about work. If the truck lives, we have a lot of other jobsites to visit.”

The truck didn’t die, but 2 hours later we were both at our desks with smiles on our faces.

LilBro is going to start subbing on Ern’s bowling team tonight. LilBro hasn’t bowled in 10 years. When he bowled regularly his average was a 186.

He’s gone the the bowling alley a couple of times in the past few years, but only as a spectator. He hasn’t been able to bowl since he ripped his finger on a table saw.

A couple of weeks ago, Ernie gave him one of his old bowling balls fitted with fingertip attachments. LilBro had it fitted and re-drilled for himself this week because Ernie needs him as a sub tonight. As each day passed this week, LilBro’s emotions varied from nerves to fear. The bowling alley called yesterday to let him know the ball was ready and it was open bowling night if he wanted to practice.

He practiced. His first four throws were gutter balls. They made some adjustments to the thumb hole and he started firing them off like rockets. That first game he bowled a 200.

He averaged 206 for the night (4 games).

During the domestic violence parade at work today, I could not help but shed a tear when Loretta friends and family walked by. I’ve seen a lot of blogs going pink for breast cancer awareness. Born In A Zoo is going purple because I’ve seen my friends and family have go through the trauma of domestic violence death.

I had a really good idea for a float as soon as I heard the theme “paint the rez purple”. Of course, being a construction manager, I am always dealing with different phases of construction.

So here was my idea … our float would have plywood sized R-E-Z letters in different phases of construction. The R would have been fully painted purple. The E would be getting painted during the parade. The Z would be getting cut out and stood up during the parade. (Yes … we have the freakin’ awesome beautiful powerful cordless tools to do that.)

The only thing that I couldn’t come up with was a catchy tagline.

The problem is … nobody wants to help with the pre-parade stuff. They all want to be in the parade, but don’t want to help out before. There was one year I did it all myself and I said, “Self, never again.”