TMBWitW's Cousin's Daughter Got Married

And the car's transmission died. Again. We were on our way to Kingman to attend N and J's wedding. About twenty miles before the ramp to I-40, there was a loud grinding, a very metallic *thump*, and lo and behold, we now had a direct-drive system to push the car.

(Casting note: TMBWitW's Cousin will be referred to as J.P., until permission is received to use his name. His Wife will be referred to as S.P., the daughter as N, the groom as J. Cute couple, actually. Their love for each other and devotion to one another was so obvious I needed to check for diabetes anytime they were near. Love you guys!)

It wouldn't be so aggravating except that we have had about a year's worth of trouble with the transmission, starting last September with Lee Myles. They were unable to satisfactorily rebuild the transmission over an eight-month period, in spite of several tries. At one point, they insisted that the problem was due to overheating, and I was dinged for a new integrated radiator. That would have been plausible, except that within a week of the new radiator it broke again.

That was the last time Lee Myles was allowed near my transmission.

We paid for another rebuild (I know, it was still under warranty from Lee Myles - but really, if they can't fix it, do you keep taking it back?) at another shop. All was well, until this trip.

Sometimes, it doesn't pay to get up in the morning.

We nursed the car to J.P.'s house. It is sitting there right now, as I wait for U-Haul to open. I need to get a hitch put on our QX4, and rent a transporter to take J.P.'s car back to them, and retrieve the J30. Can you believe that? S and J let us use their car to drive back to Phoenix last night, so our Furkids wouldn't have to spend the night alone.

That's terrific, isn't it? Thank, guys. You are wonderful.

Well, I'm off to U-Haul to get a hitch put on. I'll update you later...

Lunch!

Mistake.

Big mistake.

Real big mistake.

I ate at Garcia’s today, at the invitation of JS, a salesman here at The Big Cabinet Shop, in thanks for helping him get up to speed on the software we use here.

I’m not saying the food was bad, au contraire. It was good. Very good. Too good. I ate so much that here it is three hours later and I still feel like I just pushed away from the table.

Bloated, distended, uncomfortably full. OK, mostly my fault for ordering a large item when I normally eat a small lunch, but c’mon – this is the original Garcia’s on 35th Ave. south of Thomas, not one of the franchised locations. How can you NOT overeat there?

I highly recommend their food, especially the freshly made salsa and guacamole. Order anything, slap the guac on it, and go to town.
Just don’t have to go back to work afterwards, because that’s a criminal act.

Princess Update 2

Princess has found a home.

J and A decided to make her a part of their family. Their two boys love her so much, when we visited them last night the youngest was afraid that we were going to take her with us when we left. He cried until after we were gone and Princess was still there.

TMBWitW and I are happy, relieved, and sad. Happy that we were able to find her a good home, and we had final say over who adopted Princess. Relieved that the placement period is over. Sad that Princess just wouldn’t fit in.
It has been so hectic, that I forgot who we were working with to place Princess. I will have to dig back through my notes and post that information here, to publicly thank Carol (I at least remembered her name, just not the organization she is with) and to let others know about her.

Actual Radio Exchange

D: "S., there's a unit of wood under the side roof, do you want to get it or do you want me to bring it in?"

S: "Uhh, yeah, D."

D: "The answer requires more than just 'yeah,' S."

This kind of stuff makes me laugh quietly as I continue to work...

Princess Update

Remember Princess, who needed a castle?

She caused some damage on her sisters this past weekend. She has spent most of the time since Friday in her kennel, allowed out only on a leash and only when all others are not in the immediate vicinity. Kinda like lockdown.

Tuesday evening, through a pet adoption clearing house (I will post that info when I get it) we went to meet Mr. K and his boxer. The boxer wanted nothing to do with Princess, effectively ignoring her. Princess wanted prime rib of boxer. In the process, Princess pulled so hard and scrabbled so much on the sidewalk that she wore her nails down to the quick and tore pads on three of her feet. Stubborn. Like me.

Wednesday evening, we went to meet J and A and their two sons. Love at first sight. Princess will be the only dog in the house, sharing the animal duties with two cats. She gets along OK with cats, it's the other dogs that she doesn't really tolerate.

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World is very sad, with Princess moving out. She also wonders why it doesn't outwardly affect me. It affects me, and I am internalizing it, but I am thinking that this beats the tar out of the alternative - having to put Princess down. She has a home, people who will love her, and a place to "rule." That doesn't change how TMBWitW feels, and I understand that. The bottom line is, it wasn't fair to Princess or the other dogs with the situation where it was. Treating her like a convict was lowering her quality of life, and the other dogs were in constant fear (induced by us, probably, because we didn't want a repeat) of being in a fight with their sister.

Being the parents of Furkids isn't easy.

Logan Update

Logan, the cutie little guy, is not permanently crippled for life. Whew! Turns out he fell victim to a little known disease, sisterus rambunctious. We think Princess pushed him off the sofa and he landed wrong, bruising his spine, and causing swelling which shut off motor control. A little medicine, a little rest, and now, a week after the diagnosis, he's relearning to walk, but not running yet. Baby steps, baby steps...

He gets tired after a bit and sits down. It's very cute.

My commute was different today...

I was almost late for work this morning.

I didn’t leave the house overly late, although I was out the door a minute or two later than usual; since I had built in between five and seven minutes of cushion to allow for heavy or different traffic patterns, I still had plenty of time.

I ended up behind an old yellow pickup that was following a backhoe. I figured he was running traffic safety for the backhoe, but I couldn’t go around them because of heavy traffic in the left lane. The yellow truck turned south when I did, and I thought, “My cushion is taking a beating this morning!” He moved into the left lane, where I needed to be to make the next turn, and he was moving slowly enough to cause back up, but fast enough that I wouldn’t be able to pass him before my turn. I went around him anyway, thinking I could just take the next street south to make my punch-in time.

God works in funny ways sometimes.

As I pulled into the turn lane for the next street, a soaking wet female German Shepherd walked in front of my vehicle. She had the last two feet of a cloth tie out attached to her collar, and there was a gentleman and his wife trying to convince her to get out of the street. I stopped, put on my hazards, and did my dog-whisperer thing. She came over to me, I held onto her tie out, and the gentleman read off the phone number on her tag. The lady who answered was not awake when I called. She had no idea her baby was out running around loose. The gentleman and his wife offered to hold the dog at the corner, since they lived right there; they figured I was probably headed for work. I thanked them, got back in, and continued on. Clocked in on time, too.

If I had been patient like I have been trying to do lately, I would not have been there to help the dog.

God works in funny ways sometimes, using you in ways you don’t realize.

I hope God uses you today for someone else’s needs.

Logan Berry Pie (cutie little guy)

Logan is now 31 ½ pounds. He’s going to be big. He’s only five months old. With his leg problems, he lays near the water dish and whines until someone pets him, then he drinks a lot of water and then whines until someone takes him outside so he can piddle.

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World is even more amazing. When the little guy needs to do more then piddle, she will help support his hind end so he doesn’t end up sitting in it. Let’s hear it for her, folks – you just don’t see that kind of love and devotion every day!

Anyway – I am concerned, because if this turns out to be some massively expensive operation that he needs, I don’t have the resources right now. If it turns out to be a viral thing, and drugs can knock it out, great. But I am, by nature, a bit of a worrier.

Pardon me while I go and cuddle with him before I have to run off and do more “life” things…

Well, I USED to be a nerd!

I was going to start a missive about Logan – and realized that I don’t have enough HTML experience (OK, I have none. That’s bad, considering I used to be considered a Computer Nerd of the First Order back in the day) to make a “link” to a “previous post” so you could “click” on it and see his “picture.” I think it’s so cool when you are able to instantly reference something like that.

I also need to figure out how to start putting links on my side bar to other blogs that I find interesting. Not that you would find those blogs to be of interest to you just because I do, but to let you know where my thinking is.

Now, I feel the need to go out and get an “HTML For Dummies” book. Any suggestions?

Time keeps on slippin' - slippin' - slippin' - into the future...

Sorry. I meant to make a few entries this week, I really did, but things happen.

Like life.

I work full time at a Big Cabinet Shop. I get a couple of ten minute breaks and a whomping half hour for lunch, when I do my BlogExplosion surfing for credits whilst munching my Choice of the Day. That doesn’t normally leave time for entries while at work, and besides, I’m concentrating on work, so these would be boring, unless you want to hear about cabinet layouts and design.

Wednesday, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World and I had some errands – she to the chiropractor, myself (with Logan) to the vet. She had a much better visit than Logan and I did. Turns out he has something wrong with his back legs. Remember, he’s only 5 months old. (We are no longer sure of his heritage, since the vet didn’t see any mastiff in him, but that’s another story…) Logan is on some drugs to maybe head of a couple of possibilities, and blood tests results are due back either tomorrow or Monday. We are hoping it’s something fixable, and not something that will wind up with a 110-pound dog that needs to be carried around…

So much for an entry on Wednesday.

I drive the shuttle for our church, a small-yet-growing fellowship called Harvest Christian Fellowship Arizona, a Church of the Word. I make the runs on Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons.

So much for an entry on Thursday.

Today, instead of a nice four hour workday, since I work nines the rest of the week, the department manager asked us to work a “full” day. Well, seven and a half hours is full enough for me. If not for that, I would have been doing quite a bit more on this than I am.

I’m enjoying this so far, how about you BlogExplosion surfers? How do you like it so far? Leave a comment. Say something witty. Tell me something that no one else knows. I promise, I won’t share it with anyone.

Running Out Of Time

I ran out of time this weekend - didn't get the picture posted of The Most Beautiful Woman in the World. I'll see what I can do sometime this week.

The Things You See..

As I mentioned previously, I work at a Big Cabinet Shop in Phoenix, AZ. We get very little rain, compared to most of the rest of the US, but we do get some now and again. For that reason, the original builder of the building that Big Cabinet Shop is located in had a dry well installed in the depressed loading dock. There are no floor drains in the rest of building. This dock is covered, so it doesn't get direct rainfall, but the chainlink fence closing it off from the general populace does very little in the area of waterproofing. Unless the rain comes in sideways from the north, not a whole lot of water is drained off through the drywell. The building is more than thirty years old, and it is doubted by the old-timers that the drywell has ever been cleaned.

Being a commercial building, the entire complex (50K+ square feet) is plumbed for fire sprinklers. Being a container of highly costly and resaleable woodworking equipment, it is also alarmed. Being old, the two systems don't communicate to each other very well.

6:20 am yesterday morning (Sunday), the big cheeses get a phone call from the alarm company: "Is this (name of big cheese being called)? You have a fire alarm in your building."

Two of the four cheeses race to the plant. The other two are not responsive to their telephones. The fire department beat them there (thank you, PFD, for the fast response time) but it turns out there are no flames - the alarm was triggered by massive water flow caused by a sprinkler head that finally aged beyond redemption. The two cheeses and several of the fire crew spent a couple of hours sweeping water out the loading door and into the pit (remember, dry well). Soon, the loading dock pit is under about two feet of water.

Enter the Biggest of Cheeses. BoC has owned the company just over two years, has spent just over three years in the building. BoC orders the maintenance crew to call Roto-Rooter to snake the pit. Two of the big cheeses remind the BoC that the pit is serviced by a dry well - no drain to snake. BoC insists that Roto Rooter be called anyway.

The rooter guy, not knowing any of the history of this particular building, is doing his level best to snake the drywell. The frustration is evident on his face when his snake keeps getting stuck on "obstructions." I happened to notice his efforts, and, being the curious type, asked him how many dry wells he had successfully snaked in the past - prefacing the question with the disclaimer of my not being a plumber, since wood was my specialty. He looked at me and said "This is a drywell?" and followed with a string of strong language.

Well, the pit is dry again now - and the Big Cabinet Shop just paid a Roto Rooter guy to play with his snake while the dry well did what it was supposed to do - slowly release water into the ground. BoC is so intelligent - no wonder he owns the Big Cabinet Shop.

Family Tree

ancestry.com is a pretty nice little geneology site. I've got a tree started, based on grandpa's book, "The Wisconsin Cartters." I called it, oddly enough, "The Wisconsin Cartters." I'm going to try to have a great big chunk of it entered by this weekend.

I am also going to try to have some more pictures up this weekend, this time running through the cats. I may even have a photograph of the most beautiful woman in the world to show you all.

Welcome, Blogexplosion!

Just got confirmation that this blog has been accepted in the Blogexplosion world (www.blogexplosion.com). I hope this guides many a reader through here; I even more hope that one or two of them will leave a comment so I know I'm not just talking to myself. I know, that's the only way to get a decently intelligent conversation, but I am hoping there are others out there who can hold up their end...

I'm going to try these again...

With a little fine tuning, I'm going to try the ads at the bottom again. Be a good blog reader and check them out if they interest you...

The More I Blog, The More I Learn

I started out with the idea of using this as a forum for the Cartter Family, but it seems I needed an outlet for myself. So – please note the open thread discussion that I will try to keep at the top of the page each day, where you, the visitor, can record your thoughts, ask a question, start a conversation… please, keep it civil, and I will edit and/or remove entries that I deem offensive. By offensive, I mean anything I would be ashamed for my mother to read. I know, your mother probably taught you some really good words, and how to use them; I myself used to make sailors blush with my level of worldly language. I have since matured, and grown in Christ, and seen the error of my ways. I hope you have too.

Anyway – these daily entries will continue to be my mind’s overflow.

My father (David Kellogg, son of Bruce Lanpher and Elizabeth [Fitch] Cartter) passed away September 3, 1992, on his and my mother’s (Done Rae [Couch]) 42nd wedding anniversary. He was 64 years old. Over the following year, I was mentally lost – I had lost an anchor of my life. Dad and I weren’t as close as some father/son relationships are, but still – I started missing him more and more. Then, I realized that I was at my halfway point in life – in my state of mind, I thought that since Dad passed away at 64, and I was now rapidly approaching 32, I was halfway finished. And I started thinking about what I hadn’t done in my life. I hadn’t made my mark in the world. I hadn’t accomplished anything of importance. I had graduated from high school, but hadn’t even attempted to go to college. In high school, I worked for GT Wolfe Awning and Tent, a small provider of tents and other canvas materials in Greenville, Ohio. I remember the owner’s name was Pete – he was married to the daughter of the founder, and they had inherited the business when her father had passed on.

(will I have anything to pass on when I leave?)

After high school, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. Served honorably (3/5, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton), nothing extraordinary (I lost many friends, buddies, guys I went through boot camp with, in Beirut, on Granada, and one guy I served with who was going to serve in all five branches was killed in Mogadishu) and I was discharged before Gulf War I. Wandered up to Oregon, tried to start a business or two, failed, wandered back down to Arizona. Bounced around a bit, worked in an auto parts store, owned a quarter mile stock car (driven by Rob Olivier, a buddy of my younger brother’s).

Drove a truck cross country for a few different companies, even tried to be an owner/operator for a while. Ended up working at a truck stop (met my first wife there one winter) for a while, then drove the fuel tanker for the same truck stop. That ended when a tourist in a motor home on the road to Vegas pulled over to let me pass, and pulled back out in front of me when I started to go around. I slammed the brakes, gave him a love tap, and managed to jackknife the (empty, thank you God) trailer around so hard the landing gear punctured the fuel tank on the tractor. The rig bounced off of two guard rails, one on each side of the road, the right side guarding a drop of fifteen feet or so, the left side guarding a drop of seventy-five plus feet down a rock-strewn vista towards the Colorado River… the tourist was not injured, so naturally he was indignant that I was allowed to endanger people on the road. Who was it pulled back onto the road after motioning me around? End of trusting other drivers on the road…

Went back to driving cross country, then settled into driving for a cabinet shop in Paso Robles, California. Actually, the shop was small enough that everyone who worked there did a little bit of everything. That re-awakened my love for wood working. It would also lead to a back injury that ended my time in the working world for several years. In the process of learning a new trade, I got hooked on computers just as Windows was being forced on the free world. I ended up back in Phoenix again a couple years after Dad died, and started working at a small, private college. Worked my way up from computer lab assistant to Registrar – then shifted gears again and held the administrator position for the music department at a mega church. When the director who hired me was let go, and the new director through I would make a dandy personal assistant, the resultant clash of personalities led to me being let go – with a six month severance package. Not bad for only being there for eighteen months.

I worked for a bit in an insurance office, and ended up back at the college. When the registrar that I was covering for came back from maternity leave, God opened up another door – the opportunity to get back into cabinets at a large semi-custom shop. Just before I left the college, I divorced my first wife. I was at the Big Shop for a while, married my second (and last) wife, left the Big Shop when work was cut back, worked in commercial millwork for a while, and was lured back to the Big Shop when a new owner took over. And here I sit.

Still haven’t accomplished anything to be considered a “mark” in the world. I’m sorry, Dad – I feel like I have somehow let you down. I’ll keep trying, though – you taught me to never give up.

Princess needs a Castle

Remember Princess, from a few posts down? Well, she doesn't like to have a bunch of sisters in the same house. She's OK with Logan, the little guy, but so far she has been less than pleased with all four of the older girls. Two of them, Mackenzie and Cinnamon, are downright afraid of her.

So - if anyone out there knows of a family who is looking for a very loving and loyal boxer mix, drop me an e-mail. Point any interested parties to this blog, so they can see the pictures. Princess is up to date on her shots, has been microchipped through Avid, is spayed, and has been through Basic training at Petsmart. TMBWitW and I want to make sure that she goes to a loving home, one that will treat her as a member of the family, and one where she is the only dog.

I promise she will love you forever.

Let me clarify...

I just re-read the "tried it but didn't like it" post. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was finished with Adsense completely. I am going to wait until I get a more varied assortment of posts on here, and then see what I can do with fine-tuning their ad filter.

Sorry I confused myself. And, anyone else who may have read this - although the counter keeps going up, no one leaves a comment. Perhaps I am not controversial enough?