Sunday

Wow!!
What a mess those 2 games were yesterday!
Unbelievable. Underdog teams win - the Cardinals handed a roasting to the Panthers, definitely some entertaining games.

Gets me to fretting about today's Steeler's game. Charger's fans will undoubtedly be hoping their team is going to win, but I would think most people would definitely give the greater odds to the Steelers in pulling off a victory.

Considering yesterday's games, that's definitely up in the air.

I left Mary 3 notices on her door last night. One was a notice of doubled rent - she has both rooms locked and I am not going to just sit here and do nothing about it. If she wants to occupy both rooms, then her rent is going to be doubled.

Second was notice of peaceable enjoyment for the other tenant, ie: excessive noise to stop after 10:00 pm with the story printed on the notice of what allegedly happened.

Third was final notice to either give me a key to the new door or the door lock is going to be drilled out. I'll do it, too, with Caleb videoing the event on my digital camera - it takes almost 25 minutes worth of video on that thing and certainly good enough quality to see clearly what's going on.

Mary left me a another message saying she would give me a key today and demanding a receipt. I didn't give her one in December - she can have her receipt, in fact, already typed and printed. I have my recorder not terribly far away as I am getting this "feeling" that things may start to escalate. No way am I going to leave myself unprotected. One of those situations where video surveillancde will be recording whenever she's around me and audio tape will be push-buttons away from recording any nasty verbiage.

I am not hoping for such, of course, but I am not going to leave myself unprepared.

I accomplished in planting fully 5 plants yesterday. I sorta stopped for a while cause' I was just tired of digging holes. The plants have done fine in the planters - yes I still have plants from that auction that are sitting in planters, waiting for me to plant them. They are flowering and doing well in the pots, so no big deal. I still have more to go, too, but I don't know that I'm going to get all that done today. I also removed that fencing I put up to keep the dogs out, rolled all of that up and put it off into a corner.

Still plenty of work to do around here, some of it I can accomplish, the rest will wait on finances - maybe a LONG time on the finance issue. I am hopefully getting the Safe Driver Award bonus - which is a full week's paycheck, but - that's just bill money. If I thought I could get 4 or 5 tons of landscaping rock over here for the east side of the house for $200, I might consider doing that with some of that money. But - alas - bills take precedence.

In the news:
5 pirates drowned and lost their ransom money when their boat capsized. I actually didn't laugh at that, but plenty of people did at work and here. I tend to take the scripture that says something like not laughing at another man's calamity quite seriously - as the scripture goes further to say that the Lord can stop the calamitous effect on that person and turn it on YOU. Hmmm. I'll have to get that out and read it again, I don't want to be muddying up the Word.

Apparently Microsoft "got the message" and is putting out a new version of windows. And how much will this OS cost? I have a $100 disc sitting here for Windows XP, doubt I'll be rushing to any stores to shell out probably at least $200 for a new system. It isn't available commercially yet, they are supposedly giving away free beta test runs of it. I never even considered Windows Vista because out of the 50 plus people that I had personal encounters with it over the span of time it has been out, only ONE said they liked it.

Israelia forces are in the "suburbs" of the city of Gaza, apparently. The world is denouncing the offensive. I don't much care for the civilian casualities on either side, but consider this: If Mexico or Canada suddenly decided one day to start launching rockets from their border into ours, does anyone honestly believe we would just sit here and take it without launching a MASSIVE counter-offensive? No, I didn't think so. Would any of these nations that are denouncing the Israeli offensive just sit there and take it, either? No, I didn't think so. Israel has the right to protect it's borders, period.

And then there's the bizarre news. The week has been full of it. For example, this guy that waits in line at a bank to do a bank robbery with a toy gun. Undoubtedly, that will end up on the "World's Dumbest Criminals" show or whatever it's called. A lot of weird killings, too. And the little boy that showed up to school with a loaded .45 caliber gun. Poetic justice, I guess, since the gun was stolen, if I remember the story correctly, and then the dad was arrested on warrants.

I'm waiting for the arrival of the 2 Chinese destroyers and supply ship in the zone near Somalia where all of the piracy is going on. What I'm wating to see is what kind of absurdity they will enact on any "caught" pirates. Shoot em' down? I just don't see the Chinese military having any kind of patience in waiting for ransom notes or paying off pirates with anything but 60 caliber rounds in their heads. My question is: will their reaction be worse than the action that caused them to want to come over there in the first place?

As for now, I need to start laundry. Mary claims she is going to give me a key when she gets up. I'm bracing myself for any kind of verbal offensive. She can be very nasty, condescending and a list of other appropriate adjectives when she wants to be. Considering the fact that no-one has done anything to the woman, it's a bit befuddling. As I stated in a reply on another of my sites, I am considering that much of her problem is in her head and was started when her husband committed suicide. I'm no psychologist, but I would have to guess this is where her problems began. I can imagine the kind of mind games that might play on a person's psyche. Whatever the case, I don't want to be on the receiving end of it and I don't want other tenants or children in the house to be on the receiving end of it, either.

But, none of that will stop me from having a great day. It's a little cool, but it's beautiful outside. I will be going out there in a little while and continuing to clean up from yesterday's messes. My little plant oasis on the east side of the house - well the effort was certainly worth the trouble. It's very peaceful and very inviting. I could only wish that some of the fiolage were mature fiolage, at the same time, it's fun to come out and see the progress on each plant as they continue to put out some new shoots here and there. Certainly encouraging that they aren't all dying, especially since it's winter time and not exactly the best time to be planting. In a couple of years, much of this plant life out there will be at least starting to get mature and will have grown considerably. So many plans for that portion of the property - so little money to accomplish it.

Oh well.

Hope you all have a great Sunday.

ben