Bart Prince is an architect that I became aware of from some work he had done in California. It caught my eye. One day I day scrolling through the TiVo guide I noticed his name and recorded the show. I was about a home he had designed for his parents in Albuquerque, NM. Because, like all his designs, it was rather distinctive, I was curious if my FIL, who lived in Albuquerque, was aware of this house.
I asked my FIL and not only did he know of the house, but he happened to know Bart Prince. My FIL is a writer, among other things, and he had recently written a magazine article about Bart Prince, and has spent a fair amount of time interviewing him.
A few weeks later a package arrived. It was a book about Bart Prince, signed to me from Bart Prince. It was a very thoughtful gift, showing that my FIL thought of me when I wasn’t directly interacting with him. I appreciated it.
The next time I went to visit Albuquerque my FIL arranged to drop by and visit with Bart. I got to see his home and studio and listen to him talk about his current project in much different tones the soundbites so common on HGTV. It was an interesting afternoon and once again proved that my FIL actually stores little bits of information about me away in his head and tries to do things for me.
We were just in Albuquerque for a couple of days this last unexpected trip, so he had us drive past Bart’s house so I could see the new structure that had been built next door on the second lot he owns. A house annex I guess.
This is the home/studio that I visited the last time I was in ABQ. Sorry the photo was so bad, but I parked the car to take a photo of the new space.
Here is a shot showing both. If we hadn’t been in the middle of running errands I would have gotten some decent shots of the sculptures out front. This is just in a standard neighborhood, built on two lots. It is not very large, although most of the homes around it are single story. Obviously it stands out, as the homes nearby are all traditional, but he has been there a long time so everyone is very used to it.
Anyhow, I have people who are related to me by blood who pay less attention to comments I make.
We went out for lunch today at a quick casual restaurant. There were five of us. When we were finished ordering and wanted to pick a table, we had a difficult time. There were a lot of tables and booths available. They were all for three or four people. Every single five or six person table or booth was taken. All but one of those was taken by only one or two people. One was being used by a party of four. What makes a single person think that they should take up a six person table? It just would not occur to me.
When I order something from you online, do not sign me up to receive your dumbass paper catalog. I do not want your catalog. I will not shop from your catalog. It is going to clutter up my mailbox, my house, and my recycling bin. It will aggravate me.
I shop online. I proved to you that I shop online by placing an order online. That is where you got it into your fool head that I was interested in your products. I found you online. I found the product online. I purchased from you online. I gave you my address so you could send me what I wanted, not so that you could harass me forever with pounds of paper. Yes the catalog has instructions on how to stop the mailings. That takes up my time and effort. I need that for other things. I do not want to jump through hoops to cancel your catalog, only to have you sign me up again if I am stupid enough to ever buy something from you again online.
Guess what? I know how to request your catalog should I want a catalog for some reason.
Stop the waste. It wastes your money, paying for the catalog, paying to ship the catalog… Who pays for all that bullshit in the end? That would be your customers, assuming you know anything about business, which is somewhat questionable to me since you are making the mistake of targeting me as a catalog customer. I do not want to pay extra for your crappy items because you don’t know how to spend your advertising dollars correctly. If you piss your advertising dollars away, next thing you know you need to throw more money into that budget and you raise your prices. Also a good way to keep me from buying. Plus, paper is a resource. It does not appear by magic. It does not simply vanish the second I do not want it.
You want to drive me really crazy? Send me things that look like catalogs, when you don’t even do mail and phone orders. (What is with Amazon sending me multipage advertisements of the crap they only sell online? Do they think I might forget how to type a m a z o n . c o m if they don’t send it to me? They would be wrong.)
I have too much to do already, I do not want to be dealing with a mountain of your catalogs that will do me no good ever. They are printed on glossy paper, so they aren’t even good for absorbing pet piss and shit.
Indy came to live with us in the fall of 1995. She is an unusual dog in many ways, and I have no idea if she was born that way or whether the unfortunate occurrences of her early life caused it, or it is a mixture of both.
We got her from a rescue when she was a puppy. She had been turned over because the landlord had told them, either she went or they would be evicted. If you are going to ignore a NO PETS rule, it is best to do it with a quieter animal that will not grow to be 50 lbs. Once we had her it was obvious there was more to her story than that.
In January of 1996 I bought a net bag shaped like a stocking (on clearance) that had dog treats and toys in it. One of those toys was a squeaky toy cat that was the same coloration as our real cat. We decided that would be a better kid toy than a dog toy and gave it to baby KFZ. The second of those toys was something we dubbed the Punk Rock Chicken. It was made from soft, but not limp rubber, the body like a paper towel tube, two feet merged into one at the bottom, and a bird head on top with hollow spiky “hair”. It squeaked. Indy loved that toy. She carried it around. She squeaked it. She would play fetch with it. She was not one to destroy things, so the toy just went on and on.
In the fall of 1999 London came to live with us.
London destroys things. That is what he does. He loves toys, all toys, and he loves them to a rapid death.
He killed Punk Rock Chicken. It was a dog toy, so I didn’t think to keep it away from him. Hindsight is 20/20. It turns out that was the ONLY toy that Indy would play with. She would not take a replacement. She has never carried around another toy. She has never chased another toy. Nothing. If I want her to chase something, I have to throw treats.
In 2004 we moved. During the packing we found the squeaky cat that came from the same package. We gave it a squeeze and it squeaked. Indy came running into the room, totally excited, tail wagging like crazy. She looked expectantly at us. We squeaked it again. She cocked her head to one side, looking at what was in our hand. She stopped wagging. We offered her the cat. She put her head down and just wandered out of the room. This was more than four years after the damn Punk Rock Chicken met his doom. The cat had the exact same squeaker, but was not the same thing.
I have tried barbell toys based on their similar shape to the Punk Rock Chicken. I have tried other chicken and bird shaped toys. I have tried and tried. No go.
Anyway, here is a photo of the dogs with the toy. If anybody ever sees this toy for sale, please tell me ASAP. We’ll see if the power of the internet can be harnessed to make Indy wag.
Ha!
Forecast from chinese.astrology.com – the bold portion emphasized by me:
“Pig’s Yearly Horoscope
Pig Overview
The Pig is the last of the 12 signs, so maybe it should not come as a surprise that the Pig just can’t catch a break. True it’s your year, but unfortunately there are many unlucky stars in your palace. That 49% rating is an average that masks the fact you are likely to have some very good and bad luck this year.
You only have two extremely good months this year, although you have many good to very good ones. You may not have a lot of great opportunities, but there should be plenty of decent ones. Water — your fixed element — and Fire spell disaster, so don’t take any unnecessary risks.
Pig Rating
49% (6 favorable and 6 unfavorable months)
Pig Career
Steady progress is your most likely outcome. Those Pigs in academia, however, could really shine.
Pig Relationships
It’s a wonderful time for family, including a new addition. Your love life should show some improvement. Certainly your passions are going to be aroused. The single Pig is likely to find a new love interest.
Pig Health
Alas, Fire and Water (your fixed element) spell disaster. Actually we’re not talking disaster here, but we are talking problems. Either an existing condition is likely to worsen, or you could find yourself with a new issue. Stress and high blood pressure are two possible candidates.
Pig Wealth
It’s ironic that the Pig brings luck to many other signs but not to itself. You’re not really in danger of a big loss, but don’t buy any lottery tickets, either.”
The Dogs – The dogs have recently crossed that line from little bad behaviors on occasion to being willfully defiant of long standing rules. This is my fault. I know how to raise dogs and live with them. You have to be consistent, and you have to nip the little things in the bud and not let them grow into big things. You have to make time to deal with it. It is your responsibility to help them be the companions that you want them to be. By “you”, I mean ME. These are my dogs. They are my responsibility. The husband is a cat person. That is not to say that he does not love the dogs, however they would not live in this house if not for me. I am the one who wanted to get dogs. Also, I am the one who works from home and spends the most time with them. I am not unaware. I knew that they were developing little bad behaviors. I knew. I had it on my list to put in the time to work on it. I just never got around to it. Every single time they would do something wrong, take too long to come when called, every time, a million times a day, when things were not quite as they should be… I knew that they needed some time and attention to just nudge things back into place. However I never managed to make the time. Now, they are NOT completely unruly terrors, but they have crossed over the line where I can really tolerate it, and who is to blame? Yeah, that would be me.
The Printer – A couple of years back HP decided change their practices. It used to be that their ink cartridges and print heads were one piece. Every time you replaced an ink cartridge, you replaced the print heads. They decided to make them separate parts. The ink cartridges stayed the exact same price (which is already too damned expensive) but the print heads are atrociously expensive, and now that they are not regularly replaced they are a weak point and quite prone to clogging.
The last time I bought a printer, I did not know this. I had always had good luck with HP, so I bought HP again. However I found out soon enough about the problem. When my ink gets low, I tend to just keep running things until the pages are totally unacceptable. What is unacceptable of course varies depending on what it is I need to be printing out. Also once it becomes unacceptable, I don’t usually replace the cartridge until the next time I need to print. I let the cartridge stay there. Now with the new print head situation, that is very bad. You let it dry out and it clogs up. Actually just not using all the colors on the printer regularly enough will cause clogs.
I found all this out the hard way last year. I had to do research to find a way to fix the print head problem because if I was going to spend the money to replace the damn things, I was just buying a new printer. I researched, found the various codes I needed to clear things out. Got instructions on how to physically clean things. Had to go through many steps for more in depth cleanings in order to finally get it working again.
A few weeks back the printer was very low on color ink and I made a mental note to change the cartridges, and then failed to do so. There is a definite downside to making mental notes if you are losing your mind. I did not change the cartridges until I needed to print something and couldn’t. Once I changed them, I could not print because the print heads were bad. Yes, I had let it go on too long and had fucked things up. Also, I apparently lost the piece of my mind where I noted where I had saved off the information I researched last year so now I need to do the research again in order to get the printer working. Of course there was no way I could get that done prior to printing out the thing I needed right that minute.
It is still blinking angrily at me because I still have not dealt with it.
My To Do List – With each passing day it gets longer. I never make any progress. If I finish something on it, ten new things have appeared in the meantime. I am so damn tired. How can anyone be this tired? It is totally fucking ridiculous. I can work my ass off and accomplish nothing because I can’t think straight, or sideways or at all. Also, I am easily distracted by the internet, but of course I work on my damn computer. The number of things on MTDL that I don’t even gain anything from doing is mind boggling. I should take a class in how to say “No, I really don’t have the time.” I’ll put that on the list.
Me – See above and add a few hundred thousand other reasons.
The Dogs
The Printer
My To Do List
Me
I resent the last one the most.
