Month: December 2018

I traded my pickup truck in for a more family-friendly SUV.

I bought that truck new in March of 2001. I wanted a pickup truck so that I could haul video games. I’d bought an upright Thunderblade off of eBay, and I hoped to pick up some other games at auction and maybe start a video game or vending route in my spare time, so I got a small, economical truck that could handle them. I did haul a couple back from auction, but I never did start a business around them.

I did, however, eventually learn that it was not a half ton pickup truck. Not the hard way, fortunately, but someone told me and set me straight. It could still handle over a half ton of soil and landscaping material as I built the famed gardens of Old Trees and Nogglestead. Without destroying the suspension.

I didn’t put a lot of miles on it. I started working from home not too long after I got it, and it was not arrayed to ferry children. It had a jump seat in the back, and it’s only since my boys have outgrown their car seats that I could drive them around in it. They were very excited to ride in Dad’s truck, briefly. Unfortunately, often when they rode in it, we had to accommodate two boys, two backpacks, one or more brass instruments, and/or three or four gym bags full of martial arts uniforms and equipment. Suddenly, it was not an effective conveyance.

I can’t help remember the people who’ve ridden in that truck. My friends Doug and Brian from Wisconsin visited the week after September 11, 2001, and were among the first to ride in the back. I spent a Saturday going to yard sales with my Aunt Dale before she passed, and she thought my plan to have a vending machine route showed I had “hussle.” My sainted mother fit into the back seat once or twice before she passed away and rode in the front seat other times.

Look at those bumper stickers: A “I’m Proud Bush Is Our President” sticker I thought of removing once or twice and might have tried. A Packers sticker. A foil-backed flag sticker that faded to nothing but the foil. The RIC decal. A Webster Groves Historical Society member sticker (a membership that I have kept current whenever they have bothered to send me a renewal). Little reminders of who I’ve been for almost two decades.

It was starting to show its age. Well, it was starting to accumulate little things that I didn’t bother to fix. The rear window clasp on the passenger side had been broken for a long time–I held the window shut with duct tape. The third door opener was broken, so anyone getting into the back had to climb between the front seats. The CD player didn’t play–although it had quit on me for a while once before and healed itself. The air conditioner failed on it last summer or the summer before, but I don’t need air conditioning unless my beautiful wife rides with me–I even had told the car dealership when I bought the car that I didn’t need it, and I wanted to pay less for a truck without it. But the dealership would have had to order one from a lot in Alabama to get me a truck with no air conditioning, so I ended up with the amenity. The bed of the truck was starting to get a bit rusty, and the paint on the walls of the bed was getting scratched up. A little was due to the time I scraped a Love Tester machine when putting it into the bed after an auction, but most of it was because the boys started using it as a fort for Nerf wars.

My beautiful wife could not drive it; it has a manual transmission, and although she tried to learn a couple of times, she grew very frustrated with it. So when I had the boys in the family vehicle, she couldn’t go anywhere. So it really was probably past time to replace it.

I didn’t use the truck that much, but it certainly came in handy when I did need to haul something. Even now, I still think about picking up some lumber, and I think, no, or I fancy throwing my bike in the back to take it to the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield for a ride, and I think, no.

The former family car is getting high in mileage, so we’ll replace it in the next year or so, probably with a full size pickup truck with a crew cab and automatic transition. But the odds are pretty good I won’t drive it for almost twenty years.

Or a winter classic, I reckon. “Jingle Bells” lyric sheets contain one or more grammatical errors.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way

is incorrect. The singer is addressing the bells, so it needs a comma for the noun of direct address:

Jingle, bells; Jingle, bells; Jingle all the way.

It could probably use a semicolon or two as well.

The misunderstanding of the song has made people think there is a class of bells called “jingle bells,” but in the song, the class of bells is probably sleigh bells which jingle.

Actually, I have no idea of if any of the preceding is true. I’m just sitting here trying to do my Grammar Virtue Signalling, wherein I expound upon some fine point of grammar that no one disputes because nobody knows grammar like I think I do and because nobody continues listening when I go into Grammar Nazi mode. You yourself are probably not reading these words.

There’s a light display in Camdenton that includes a police car:

Does that look like a reindeer police officer to you? Or does it more resemble another animal?

The designer should really have gone with another color for the horns as they’re lost in the frame of the car.

This morning, I received a communication from the Director of the FBI:

Office of Christopher A. Wray
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI)Anti-Terrorist And Monitory Crime Division.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation.
J.Edgar.Hoover Building Washington Dc
Customers Service Hours / Monday To Saturday
Office Hours Monday To Saturday:

Hello,

We hope this notification arrives meeting your good health and mind.Series of meetings have been held over the past 7 months during Federal Bureau of Investigation with the secretary general of the United Nations Organization. This ended months ago when I took to office as the FBI Director. It is obvious that you have not received your COMPENSATION FUND which is to the tune of US$10, 500,000 (Ten Million Five Hundred Thousand US Dollar) due to past corrupt Governmental Officials who almost held the fund to themselves for their selfish reason and some individuals who have taken advantage of your fund all in an attempt to swindle your fund which has led to so many losses from your end and unnecessary delay in the receipt of your fund.for more information do get back to us.

The National Central Bureau of Interpol enhanced by the United Nations and Federal Bureau of Investigation have successfully passed a mandate to the government of the States and Nigeria the exercise of clearing all foreign debts owed to you and other individuals and organizations who have been found not to have receive their Compensation, Contract Sum, Lottery/, Inheritance.

We are happy to inform you that based on our recommendation your outstanding COMPENSATION FUND of over-due payment in tone of US$10, 500,000 (Ten Million Five Hundred Thousand US Dollar) has been credited in your favor in Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Having said all this, we will further advise that you go ahead in dealing with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, accordingly as we will be monitoring all their activities with you as well as your correspondence at all levels.

NOTE: There are numerous scam emails on the internet, imposters impersonating names and images. We therefore warn our dear citizens to be very careful with any claim email you receive prior to these irregularities so that they do not fall victim to this ugly circumstance anymore. And should in case you are already dealing with anybody or office claiming that you have a payment with them, you are to STOP any further contact with them immediately in your best interest and contact the real bank (Federal Reserve Bank of New York ) only where your fund is laying, with the below information:

Bank Name: Federal Reserve Bank of New York
E-mail: fed-reserva-bnks-new-york@outlook.com
Phone: +1 209-248-2297
Contact person: William C. Dudley
CEO/Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Department Code:63804

Contact the bank today and furnish them with this information below for processing of your payment/funds accordingly.

FULL NAME:
CURRENT ADDRESS:
CELL PHONE No:
OFFICE PHONE No:

NOTE: In your best interest, any message that does not come from the above email address should be nullified and avoided immediately for security reasons. Meanwhile, we will advise that you contact the Federal Reserve Bank of New York office immediately with the above email address and request that they attend to your payment file as directed so as to enable you receive your payment/fund accordingly.
Ensure you follow all directives from Federal Reserve Bank of New York as this will further help hasten up the whole payment process in regards to the transfer of your fund to you as designated. Also have in mind that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York equally has their own protocol of operation as stipulated on their banking terms.

All modalities has already been worked out before you were contacted and note that we will be monitoring all your dealings with them as you proceed so you don’t have anything to worry about. All we require from you henceforth is an update so as to enable us be on track with you and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Without wasting much time, we will want you to contact them immediately with the above email address and phone number so as to enable them attend to your case accordingly without any further delay as time is already running out.
Should in case you need any more information in regards to this notification, feel free to get back to us via email so that we can brief you more as we are here to guide you during and after this project has been completely perfected and you have received your payment/fund as stated.

Thank you very much for your anticipated co-operation.

BEST REGARDS,

Christopher A. Wray
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
601,4th Street,
935 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW Washington, D.C.
20535-0001, USA

That is the most meta Nigerian scam I have ever seen.

So as I was going to get my children from school yesterday afternoon, I opened the door in my garage and found a large stuffed frog laying against it.

This stuffed frog does not belong to my children; I am familiar with their stuffed animals, especially the large ones.

It was set against the door where the postal carrier tends to leave packages, so I checked it for shipping labels in case someone had mailed us a frog without a box; there were none.

Which leaves me a little mystery, gentle reader: From whence came this frog?

As I am prone to wild speculation, I can only create increasingly outlandish scenarios in my head:

• It is a warning from the frogs that we should not open our pool in the summer, as too many of their kind jump into the pool and die when they cannot get out.
• It is a MacGuffin in some plot, laden with drugs or microfilm.
• It is a gift from a stalker who has, for some reason, nicknamed me “Froggy.” Perhaps because I once looked like this:

  

  But that would have to be someone who knew me way back when.

• It blew into the back yard of our next door neighbor, and she or her daughter assumed it belonged to my boys and “returned” it.

To be honest, I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. We’re not bringing it into the house–as one of the unmentioned possibilities is that it is a Trojan frog filled with frogs hoping to invade my home or, slightly more likely, full of bugs of some sort that we don’t want in. I haven’t talked to my newest neighbors of a couple of months yet, and I haven’t talked to most of my other neighbors for years, if at all. If you think I’m going to use it as an excuse to introduce or re-introduce myself to them, well, think to yourselves how you would react to a strange man knocking on your door to ask if this was your stuffed frog. Yeah, I think that, except probably with more 911 calls and gunfire.

And, to be even more honest, I’m posting about it to keep myself on the amused side of the amused/seriously weirded out line.