...........................NOT!, and I mean.. NOT! EVER AGAIN give me a nasty sigh when after you say,

"But Ma'am, isn't it worth your time to spend fifteen minutes for a free quote to see if we can save you money?" To which I answer, "No, I believe I've tried to politely tell you that THREE times now!"

Any way you cut the mustard, I am the potential customer and you are intruding on my own home, time and priorities.

I'll hand you this one, it was calling for our business which IS untfortunately still allowed to happen. But ... Oh for Pete's Sake.. now another one. She's polite. Forced to be courteous while she tries to convinve me I have a free trip to Hilton Island. She was, afterall... a recording. Where is that zapper gizmo?

Aren't our judges supposed to ENFORCE the law?

Anyone I have ever known to be arrested for drunk driving was given a test of one sort or another over the years. If you did not pass this test you were arrested and would go to court. Nobody EVER questioned the constitutional rights of the drunk driver, you went to court and faced the judge and got whatever fine he handed down to you.

I suppose the presumption of innocence is almost gone when you have been caught with your hand in the cookie jar. This did not mean you couldn't hire a lawyer and attempt to have your fine reduced, even give proof that you weren't drunk if in fact you weren't. You DO go to court but paramount you simply don't drink and drive. There are laws and a court system to uphold the laws to the benefit of our communities. All traffic violations as far as I know, you are given a ticket for what you were doing because you were CAUGHT doing it.

So now, we have a judge who's thrown out five drunk driving arrests in a week because it is his belief that the current laws are unconstitional. The way the current laws are written there is, for lack of a better way of wording it, a presumption of guilt until proven innocent. On the face of it, I would agree with the judge but we aren't talking about someone arbitrarily pulled over, ticketed and assigned a court date for drunk driving we are talking about people that did something that gave a police officer reason to pull the driver over. We are talking about a person that a police officer tested and a driver that did not pass the drunk driving tests. Where is the possibility of being innocent in this?

So.. in one week five people were let back out on the streets to drive drunk again because they don't appear to have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. What happened to our right to drive on SAFE roads. What happened to the citizens right to know that our legal system will protect those of us that choose NOT to break the law? What happened to our right to know someone that will drink and get in a vehicle, thusly taking the risk of turning that vehicle into a deadly weapon, will have his/her right to drive revoked and keep our streets safe?

However unfortunate I know far, far too intimately the hazards of people driving drunk. I hope someone wakes up and puts a stop to this judge before someone is.... killed.

The other possibility is the babysitter. Will she willingly go and testify as to how long and how often the baby was left in her care for weeks at a time. My daughter knew the babysitter in school so she's thinking maybe she can get somewhere positive with her. Hoping. The mother of my grandaughter used to be my daughter's friend when they were in school... my guess is my daughter CAN maybe find out from people willing to testify as to the care the child receives... particularly the instances the mother gets drunk and drives with the baby in the car. Or.. drug use which might incur drug testing. They know of one instance but the person serving drinks is the mother's cousin so getting her to testify is going to be hard if they even can. The other times are rumor from one person to another and they don't know who would be an acceptable witness to those events. Drunk driving with the baby in the car would be enough to get my grandaughter safely back in my son's care. Hopefully a cop pulls her over before something worse happens.

So, that's where he stands now. I hate this. It would be so much more comforting if we knew the mother actually cared for her beautiful little girl..

1. My son is trying to gain custody of his daughter. Mother currently resides in home that is substandard for a child. He took her to the doctor and found out the child hadn't had needed xrays for asthma follow ups. Not the first time medical treatment has been skipped. She'd been left with him for over a month with only two short visits with her daughter BUT... you bet your hiney she kept collecting that child support. She hadn't even questioned taking her back until she was served with papers. Even then it took two weeks for her to do so... the cops came and they had to give the girl back on a technicality but there was allegedly reassurance that she'd probably be back. By the police officer. Now the mother intends to keep her daughter AND request more child support money. My son was devestated because now he doesn't know where she is... for all he knows she's out of state. But my husband pointed something out... She's been served with papers to appear in court next month it would be very bad if she had skipped town... would an Amber Alert be in my son's favour? Especially in a state that prefers a child stays with their mother. My son wouldn't take a child from her mother unless the child wasn't being cared for.

2. I am unsure if I want to pay for my daughter to go back to school. I do but right now she's not behaving in a manner that leaves me comfortable about dropping ten grand or more. In fact, she's talking about getting married. We all know that once you move out and start living life ... life happens and you have to deal with it and more often than not these kids don't end up finishing school. But we won't get a reimbursement for the money spent. And IF she gets married during any part of the year we can't offset some of the cost of the school with taxes because we won't be able to claim her as a deduction. She's not being terribly intelligent about all of this BUT, a good step in the right direction is that she does want to go back to school.

3. I forgot what else but .....oh, my dad's house. He made his wife of FIVE whole years before he died ten years ago the trustee of all the money he left and the house .. all of which was to go to my brother and I after three years. The house, which was paid off plus had money to cover expenses.. is now in debt. She's charging her water even to the estate which deepens the debt that will need paid off when she dies and we can sell the house. Now, she wanted out of the house but she wanted us to sell the house, pay off her debt and then split the proceeds in three.. giving her one third. We said no. My brother is next in line. Every year he's going to get a lawyer. Every year I tried not to step on his toes and now.. because we waited it's an implication that we waived our rights and the way she was spending the money was okay with us. Of course, when it comes to.. which one of us would take over the trust if she was out, he stepped up to the plate. But we wait on him and when he gets around to things. I'm fed up and have considered being taken off the trust. Money isn't worth the stress. Anyway, my guess is because we won't give her a third of the proceeds she won't leave and is fighting it so the trust.. which is the loan against the house.. has to also pay her attorney. So, our inheritence is being rapidly depleted and it's money I know my dad would have wanted spent to make sure I could pay my son's attorney and ensure my dad's great grandaughter's safe return to his son so the little girl isn't living with someone that doesn't even think holidays are important with her little girl. There's more but.. there's this matter of his favorite grandaughter and her school that needs paid for. He'd have a cow if he knew all this was going on and his money was spent on the widowed wife is spending it on fountains and new carpeting so her dogs can use the house to use the bathroom instead of walk ten feet out the door.

Doesn't ANYONE ever question "the voices" when they suggest you toss your kids into a bay? I mean.. come on sometimes those voices are wrong.

Michael Jackson was called for jury duty?? But he's now a permanent resident of Bahrain so he's not serving. Has he moved yet? I know, uncharitable of me but I can tolerate alot but NOT anyone that messes with children. Oh..yeah.. allegedly. Found Not guilty which doesn't mean he didn't do it.

And now there is yet another hurricane in the Gulf heading eventually to Florida. They said on the news this morning that it is a storm that will kill thousands. Uhm... have we not learned?? Hasn't anyone figured out..GO INLAND!! Go wait out the storm and leave the towns empty .. there will be nobody to kill if everyone evacuates for the duration. It's not like there's not enough notice. I HOPE people will be okay.

That's more than enough.. plenty. Now, after the news is on I need to make my blog rounds and say hello...

Now, to understand the idiocy of such a question it's important to note that there IS faxing capabilities between his fax and mine on LOCAL .. no charge service however, he wants it faxed... ready for this? To his truck.

Faxing to the truck is MUCH slower and ties up my fax longer and of course now there are long distance charges to incur. More importantly when a person works from his truck all day he's not getting out of the truck to make sure the most important part of his job is done.. making sure houses are ready, and cabinets are there in a timely manner so the cabinet installer can install them with as little or no disruption to a construction schedule as possible. At least that's what I think the supervisor of cabinet installations should be doing.

Originally he wanted me to scan all this to my computer and email it to him. He was suprised I don't store this on my computer. Quite frankly it sounds like one virus away from disaster to me, not to mention the disk space it would eat up. Since this is something I would make a hard copy of even if I did scan it into the computer... I just stick with hard copy. But, I might have to change my thinking on that. Have the hard copies for me but figure out how to make it work for him to get email rather than be charged for his slow arsed machine.

The man next door is selling his house. I have a sneaking suspicion the Jetson's might move in!

There was a poker run. The entire ride was through country. Eighty two miles through country roads and since I just sit on the back, it's a peaceful serene ride for me. Unfortunately, the camera was at the hotel for that ride. There was one gas station on the route and it was out of gas. Luckily I started this journey off the right way and told my husband to get off the wrong exit. For some reason he thought it prudent to gas up at that stop. Good thing or we'd be stuck out in the boondocks of Pennsylvania somewhere.

There was shopping to be done. When you go to several bike functions a year you basically start running in to the same things.. just different year. Only this year, I had managed to save some money aside for him to get a few of those things I knew he'd been wishing he could get.

One, he wanted something to break up the black on his bike and he got some old school tribal design painted on. I thought it was going to be decals given on most things there are two different sides. To get it as close as they do, they surely must use decals. Nope. They get paint and a brush and with one stroke they are off. Their work was awesome in it's perfection. Yeah, yeah.. the design was cool too but I was most fascinated with the process of painting, and having two sides appear to match perfectly. Because it's hand done, no two are really the same.

There's been some other things he wanted and of course we have a slew of kids to get something for. Usually we wait for Sunday when things they wanted to get rid of went on sale but that didn't much happen. These events seem to have a lifespan. After so many years it seems as if they all start to dwindle and this one is no different. I swear it seems as if there was not the business there once had been, not as many bikes, not as many vendors..just.. less. Before we give up on this one we are going to assume that possibly the hurricanes affected the participation in this.

However, we love that area and go often. Lancaster, Bird In Hand, Intercourse, Paradise and OH OH.. How can I forget the model train set up they have. There are soldiers marching, there is a house that starts to catch fire complete with a firetruck that leaves the station, rides to the house and firemen climb off the truck and go to put the fire out. A barn raising with a bunch of Amish men on top of the roof all swinging hammers. A road accident, circus, wedding AND funeral.. it was all there.. including day and night. The trains were awesome and it was only five bucks.

Business entertainment on Saturday night with some of those he works with since one of the companys he contracts from is out of York, and of course the business meeting at breakfast hoping to fix ..or rather make known a few problems without pointing fingers.

There was the bike tipping. A matter of some child that my husband waited and watched this family next to us and nothing deterred them or made them move so he started out moving carefully and keeping an eye on a particular child that jumped out [in front of him?] and my husband tried to brake fast. The bike started to tip and he was getting it back up, only I never stopped sliding and fell off, tugging the bike part way over with me. I was helped off the ground and two men helped him get the bike completely upright and when he looked back to make sure the child was okay? They'd split. Didn't hang around to make sure we were okay, just... vanished. So, my husband is left to hope the kid is okay. The little girl I presume was okay as he never said anything about her moving. It's good to take your kids out but take proper precautions for their sake or the safety of others. You might not think your son will move but it's a risk you don't take. You just have to hold his hand. I saw the family and remember before my husband finally started to pull out thinking it odd they didn't take the kids' hands and the next thing I knew I was headed toward the ground. Allow me to explain.. it.. HURT!! But, only until about 12 Motrins later and if I don't move odd I'm okay.

Other than that, we figured out there is a Mexican restaurant we won't go to again but we ate far too good. I hate throwing food away but was eating myself sick! The food was good and there was enough in one meal to feed both of us. Around the Clock Diner has the best chicken pot pie, or macaronni and cheese but it's way too much. We normally ate at Outback, but this diner was better. Yes.. a diner. There is a diner in Lancaster that I loved. In fact my husband took me there one day for dinner. The last time we were there I noticed it wasn't nearly as crowded, new menu's were given to us and we should have just left then. New management just changed the place. Anyway, it was an eventful last five days. Probably our next trip will be to South Carolina.. who knows. Maybe we'll take a trip and leave the bikes behind. We've been known to do that but he still manages to hit up every bike shop he can... I know..! A cruise! I love our trips but it's becoming repetitive and honestly only a reason to take off for the weekend. Mostly, I love the time away from here and alone with my husband. So.. guess it doesn't matter what or how we go just that we go.