Phone Talk

---I almost forgot to put this on the blog! from several weeks ago---

I just love conference calls, because they mean talking to people, and people are so much fun! This afternoon I had a nice conversation with New Jersey, here is how it started...

Sharon: Hi!

NJ 1: Hello Sharon, how are you?

Sharon: Good, how are you guys doing?

NJ 1: Good! How are you on this Friday afternoon?

Sharon: I'm good, hey guess what?! It's snowing here!

NJ:

NJ 1: It's snowing? Sharon, where are you located?

Sharon: In northern Indiana.

NJ 1: Oh!

NJ 2: Actually I think there is one county in New Jersey that has a chance of getting snow tonight.

Sharon: Ohh, how exciting for you guys.

NJ:

NJ 2: Not really!

NJ 1: Sharon, do you like the snow?

Sharon: Oh yes, I love snow, I love driving in it!

NJ:

NJ 2: Definitely not my favorite part! It shouldn't be snowing for another month and a half - there should be a regulation for it.

NJ 1: I like snow on Christmas, for the holidays.

Wrists are precious

The title is the moral of the story. I believe in starting with the moral.

We went to our big Hoyt reunion in Texas. When we have our reunions in Texas, we usually hang out at the big church gym. When we hang out at the gym, we do fun things like line tag and dancing and volleyball and relay races. It was Monday morning, first official day of the reunion, high time for relay races.

Relays - not just for running! We usually run the first one just to warm up. Then it's hopping, skipping, chicken walk, bear crawl, crab walk, leapfrog -- any momentum movement you can imagine, we do. You always get lots of laughs and great pictures and find all kinds of new muscles to be sore.

Well, we got through all the relays and the very last one was running again. Our teams were pretty closely matched (about 15 cousins on each side). So I gave it my all for my team! I sprinted down the track and tore back as fast as I could. We had been clearing the wall for incoming runners, so I figured, "Hey, I'm not slowing down, I'm gonna hit that wall running". The only problems with this plan: 1) the wall was 3 feet from the end of the track; 2) I didn't take physics. Mad dash! - throw out hands with wrists at 90 degree angles - SMACK. OUCH.

Thankfully, the left wrist was severely injured but the right only mildly sprained. Useable enough to get through the week. It was a very restful week. Did still manage to play Hunt the Gray Wolf and dance a little with my gentle cousins. Drove home - very proud of that.

In Texas the clinic x-rayed and said it was a possible fracture, treat it like one. I was hoping for closure in Indiana, homeland of orthopaedic doctors, but no such luck. But they did assure me I couldn't move the bone or break it worse (I guess barring throwing myself down on cement). So instead of a cast I opted for this nifty black splint. It's so much fun to wear that it's almost worth everything endured up to this point. You should get one and try it! But don't mess with your wrists to do it, please. Wrists are precious. You have no idea until you lose them.

Walking giggles

OK, a new post has been requested. Till I get a real one, here's what happened the other week when I was out on a walk:

[As Sharon walks past guy biking who stopped to take a drink...]

Guy: Hi, want a drink?
Sharon: No thank you.
Guy: I have clean lips, believe it or not.
Sharon: I believe you.

[... keeps walking, finally gets far enough to laugh convulsively]

Knock-Knock Joke... Not

This is a joke between Sharon (Company Director) and IDOR (Indiana Department Of Revenue).

Sharon: Knock knock.

IDOR: Who's there?

Sharon: Business owner.

IDOR: Business owner who?

Sharon: Business owner Sharon who wants to pay her company's June estimated taxes, please.

IDOR: Nice try. Sorry, not funny enough to let you in. [displays Error 404]

Sharon: Hey! You're not supposed to reject Line 5 of a knock-knock joke!

IDOR: Too bad, you already lost the joke, because you have the wrong site.

Sharon: But this was the first search result from Google!

IDOR: Well Google forgot to update.

Sharon: [mutters to herself] OK fine, let's see where I can get by smart-typing a URL into Chrome.

IN.GOV: [puts up fancy graphic] This is our official Indiana Government site, wasn't it worth the detour to see our beauty?

Sharon: Look at you, aren't you gorgeous. Let's try "Taxes and Finance".

IDOR: Oh. You found us. As you can see by the fancy graphic that is still on the screen, this is the new improved Indiana DOR site.

Sharon: Now what on earth was the estimated payment under... let's try "Individual Income Tax Return Filing Options".

IDOR: See, now the fancy graphic is gone, but you can tell you're still on our new site, because that URL which you actually had mostly right, now has a nifty random number tacked on the end.

Sharon: [ignoring IDOR] Humm... "I-File" -- nope, that's the annual shebang filing... "Federal/State Electronic Filing Program" -- nope, that's for tax professionals...
"How do Hoosiers feel about electronic filing?" -- well, I would say they despise the system right now...

IDOR: You're pathetic. Can't even navigate our "fast, friendly and free online filing tool."

Sharon: Oh go away... maybe I'll go away... wait a minute, "Information for Business Taxpayers", obviously.

IDOR: Sure. Here are 20 options.

Sharon: Thanks, except none of them are right.

IDOR: That's OK. I've got all night for you to search me.

Sharon: You jerk. Fine. I'm just going to use the Search tool then. [types] "estimated taxes"

IDOR: Wait. No. That's too easy.

Sharon: Let's see, how about "ePay DOR" --> "Individual Tax" --> "Individual Estimated Payment".... I win.

IDOR: Not yet. I still have more dead-end options.

Sharon: Too late. I see it - "Begin using ePay". I win!

IDOR: Just wait till we finish remodeling our site and get the new doors on. Then we can have another Knock-Knock joke.

Sharon: I can't wait. At least I win till September.

A Midwesterner in Massachusetts, Part 2

Back to Massachusetts for Part 2...

We nearly forgot about lunch! I stepped out of the tourist shop to find Panera Bread waiting for me. It was a clear sign from God, and it was way past time to eat. I got a sandwich with turkey, cheese and avocado. No no wait, it was artichoke. I knew it was something exotic and green. Very yummy, of course it was huge so I ate half of it and bagged the rest for supper.

Back at the free parking lot, I looked for a way out and was dismayed to find the exit passed by a toll gate. Except, there was no one in the booth and no gate lowered. So I crept up (in the Toyota I mean), looked around for cops, finally convinced myself that the sign had, indeed, said "Free Parking", and pulled out as unobtrusively as possibly. At that moment, I swear a warning beeping started. It wasn't coming from the toll gate, but I got out of there quick. Within range of the speed limit of course.

The scenic drive was a slow start. There were LOTS of pedestrians walking Thames Street. I was a little sorry to be in the car at first, but it was sunny, I rolled the window down, and the breezy breezes beckoned from places away by the bay.

Once you get to the edge of Newport, you turn right, onto Wellington Avenue, past Newport Harbor and onto the little peninsula that juts out into Narragansett Bay. This is the Scenic Ocean Drive. (So it's not quite the ocean... ) You wend your way along the loveliest windy roads through beautiful hills and slopes and orchards and wall-circled properties. For about the second time in my life I was driving under the speed limit and content to do so, trying to take everything in.

When you get around to the southern tip of the peninsula (farthest from town) you suddenly find that you are driving right next to the bay! And suddenly there are lots of cars parked up to your left, and people out on the wall or down by the bay or flying kites, and you'd gladly join them, but for the life of you, you seem to have missed the only entrance to the parking area and you drive on and on for a half-mile of torture till finally there's one last entrance to parking before it ENDS, forever. Whew that was close.

There were really-truly rocks down by the water! There was some sign warning people about climbing on the rocks but plenty of people were down there, so I set right out to explore. I think maybe I clambered out a little farther than the other people. Found out pretty quick that wave-splashed licheny rocks are awfully slippery. When you get down into a crevice among the rocks where you can't see anyone else, and a big wave comes sloshing in - wheee! - it feels like being in Neverland! Which part of the Peter Pan story, I'm not sure.

Got my fill of staring at the bay, of clambering over big rocks, little rocks, flat ones and slidey ones piled in some kind of beach. And then I stooped down and saw that a lot of those little rocks were actually shells! Immediately filled my pockets for the kids back home.

Quite a few people were flying kites in the open field behind the parking area. One of the kites was incredible. It was like a two-winged bird, and the kite-flyer had two handholds on separate strings they could use to pull it down one way, then another, only it looked more like a roller coaster ride because the wind was so strong that the kite tugged back for every tug of theirs, they could lean back at a 45-degree angle!

On with the drive. Wellington Avenue had long since turned into Halidon Avenue, into Harrison Avenue, into Ridge Road, into... humm... maybe after that they ran out of Avenue names and just call it Scenic Ocean Drive. Once you get to the southeast corner of the peninsula, you start passing some very decided mansions and their fine lawns. For a minute I tried imagining I lived here, that this was my neighborhood, and some afternoon I might run out to see my friends up at one of the other mansions.

If you go to Newport, you have to go on the Cliff Walk. This is on the east side of the peninsula. You turn off the Scenic Ocean Drive onto Bellevue Avenue. I'm pretty sure this is a famous street. Anyway, it would be incredible to walk down. Tree-lined, side-walked, huge-mansioned avenue. Well, at some point, when it feels right, or maybe when you see the sign for the Forty Steps, turn right AGAIN and cut straight back till you see open sky between the trees. Park somewhere along the street and walk down till you see the bay. The Forty Steps are a steep rock stairway down to a ledge overlooking the bay. I forget their significance. Or you can head off in either direction on the Cliff Walk - yes, it's a walkway along the "cliff", bay on one side and mansions on the other. So lovely. You can get your lungs very full of fresh, open-water air. And you may very well pass people talking in French or German or British English or some other language...

My goodness, this is sounding way too much like a tourist guidebook. Let's get back to the story.

It was now approaching 5 p.m. and someone was getting very decently worn out, and decided to start the hour's trek to Raynham and the hotel. First she had to get out of Newport. This was not easy. Tourist towns are never easy. And frankly, Eastern roads are royally difficult. I think I gave the Eastern drivers a couple of good surprises: "But how does she not realize that the left lane is allowed to become a turn-only lane with absolutely no warning? Don't they drive by sheer Road Instinct in other parts of the country?" Yes, it was very fun. Somehow, eventually, I escaped Newport.

I know I'm not the most brilliant with directions, but this time my sense of time and space got way off. Once back in Providence, I knew I had about 45 minutes to drive to Raynham. But by the time I thought I had navigated the first half of Mapquest directions and had 10 miles left, I was just leaving Providence. Mapquest told me about 10 times to take this or that slight turn onto this or that street... finally I realized this just meant "Stay on 44 East" and after that it was a piece of cake.

How lovely to reach the hotel and crash! The hotel was way too easy to find. Next thing to right off the highway.

I guess most hotel rooms have two beds, but I just could not believe it when I stepped into the room and realized this was all for me. Yikes. I was ecstatic to find that my room did, indeed, have an iron and an ironing board!

I went to scope out the neighborhood. WalMart was right across from the hotel. The DePuy facility was down the very same drive as the hotel and WalMart. This all sounds delightfully handy, except, here's the quaint part: this drive was divided. So the only way I could get to WalMart was to... well, to be honest, I no longer remember what convoluted turns and turn-arounds I had to do. I do recall that the very last day, when I returned to the hotel before heading out, I suddenly figured out how to do it, and wanted to beat the steering wheel and scream with laughter, or maybe hysteria. But, at least driving to DePuy in the morning would be easy.

Lights out on Part 2, as Sharon happily irons out her travel-wrinkled clothes for the big day tomorrow.

A Midwesterner in Massachusetts, Part 1

First of all, that's how you spell Massachusetts.

Secondly, I promise I'll finish this story. But you know I can't sit down and type up the whole story at one sitting.... that's something a brilliant writer would do, not me.

Once upon a Friday, at work, they asked me how I felt about travelling. Duh... Would I like to take a business trip? Heck yes! However, I did try to talk them out of it. I didn't feel the trip was necessary. But no such success. There you go, Sharon , off to Raynham Massachusetts with you!

So, one week later, I went home on a Friday, to pack on a Saturday, and leave early Sunday morning. With business planned for Monday through Wednesday, I figured I could sightsee on Sunday without adding an extra hotel night.

Sunday morning, out the door at 5 a.m. I was scared stiff my car would break down on the way. Not because there was much chance, just because I couldn't help thinking about that slim chance. You know, for my brother's first flight, I drove him to the airport (4 hours into my 8-hour drive), except we developed a flat tire on the way and he barely walked into O'Hare as they were boarding his flight. Needless to say, it was a slight nightmare, one that sticks with you for future travels. But no such excitement this time. I reached the airport, only turned around twice before getting into the right parking lot, locked and left my car without even kissing it goodbye.

I ask you, is there anything more fun for a little blond girl, than hopping on a flight with your black coat and laptop bag, just like the businessmen. Which reminds me that I didn't see many businesswomen travelling. Actually, come to think of it -- none at all! What's up with that?

Fort Wayne to Detroit is barely a half-hour flight. No sooner are you settled in a horizontal flight pattern, than they're beeping at you to prepare for landing.

When we flew into Providence, Rhode Island, I was exhausted, awfully hungry and quite thirsty. But the first thing to do was pick up that rental car. I had told them I drive a Honda Civic and they said they had a comparable car, a mid-size. The rental guy points it out to me with some difficulty - it's that white one 4 cars down. WHAT??! What is this huge white space shuttle? So that's a Toyota Matrix, huh? So maybe it wasn't so huge, but felt like it after my no-frills Civic. Everything became all right when I turned the key in the ignition and felt it glide smoothly and silently under me, out of the lot... I suddenly thrilled and realized it was going to be an incredibly fun business trip.

Right out of the Providence airport, you jump onto Interstate 95 and head out of Providence. North takes you to Massachusetts and Boston. South takes you to New York... eventually... and Newport. I headed south because my Raynham colleagues had recommended Newport for a day's visit. All I knew about Newport was that it was supposed to be a scenic city out by the ocean, and home to some of those fantastically rich mansions.

Unfortunately, 95 got me out of town so fast that there was no place to get a drink or some food. These small trials are nothing to a dedicated traveler. Make the most of every moment, get on your road, and trust that you'll find something on the way, hopefully before you pass out. Also, it's easy to forget about food and drink when you're driving down a beautiful curvy highway on a sunny day and start seeing signs for all those towns you only read about in your early American history textbooks.

Beautiful huge bridges! I crossed one and started seeing signs for Jamestown. Then I saw there was a toll bridge on the road to Newport. Recalling that I had no cash on me (dumb), I delayed that problem and headed down the road to historic Jamestown. Very delightful to drive into town, past the harbor, along the quaint roads! Very delightful, but I finally realized that there was no back road to Newport, given that it was across the bay... the road to my planned Sunday sightseeing lay over that huge toll bridge.

Well, I thought, let's give it a try. Maybe it's not one of those ridiculously expensive Eastern tolls, and my $1.something will somehow be enough to get me across, and then I'm not sure how I'll get back but we'll figure that out later.

Well it was not cheap, it was $5, which I most certainly did not have, not even in quarters, and no, the lady said they didn't take credit cards. But she did tell me that since I had a rental, there was an automatic EZ-pass option which I could use, might just cost me a couple extra bucks when I returned the car. This was a timely surprise! I zipped on over the huge bridge over the bay to Newport.

First gas station I saw, stopped, got two bottles, water and Cappucino to stay alive.

After some twisty driving which left me a little perplexed regarding how the city planner had done his job... I finally ended up at the Visiting Center and found free parking and decided I'd be a regular tourist and ask what to see. There were lots of lovely streets and shops to stroll around and see, but let's face it, that's more fun with company than by oneself.

Never feel bad about asking questions, especially in a new town. I hit the jackpot - got a map, was told that having a car was perfect, was instructed how I could drive all around the edge of town jutting into the bay to see the scenic parts, and there would be places to get out and go down by the shore! Yippee!! For a Midwestern girl, one of the highest joys of a trip East is to see Water.

So I had a plan, water, caffeine, and now it was time to stroll around on a hunt for food. First I felt impelled to visit a tourist shop: Only in Rhode Island. I looked through a book with pictures of the Newport mansions. Yikes. First you feel awe, then you feel a sudden brief intense bent toward communism, then you wonder what kinds of people live in mansions like that, and does it change their personality or character or morals or worldview at all?

And that's all for today's storytelling.

Another Let's-pretend-we're-IT Night

Ha ha ha ha! I figured it out all by myself. How to take a horizontal full-size picture and edit it to exactly the desired size for a blog profile photo, and all without leaving any annoying black, gray, or white stretches where it was "re-sized".

It's these little joys that make you fall asleep with a smile on your face!

About a screw or two

I'd like to introduce a new acronym, by way of a brief boring story. The acronym is NVCAA, and it stands for Not Very Cute At All. Now, to illustrate this acronym's use... if there's one thing about my Civic that's just Not Very Cute At All, it would be the air filter screws. Here's the story.

My car needed a new air filter. So, one day when I finally remembered, I stopped by NAPA and picked up a nice dandy new one.

Now after my dad's demo, I knew that changing the air filter would be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, if you work during winter, there's usually not much light left outside work hours to do your car maintenance. So that's when you borrow a friend's handy lantern and handy screwdriver set, go out in the cold wind and pop your hood to do the job in the dark. By the way, this screwdriver is one of those one-size-fits-all - one "driver" with a nice selection of screw "heads" you can pop in, depending on what type you need. This is an important detail in the story, so please take note.

I got two screws nicely loosened, only to find that the third was, yes, nicely rusted and the screwhead rapidly losing its distinct insignia. So I screwed 'em all back down with rapidly numbing fingers.

At my dad's suggestion, next day after work I bought some WD-40. Yes, I did find it all by myself in WalMart, thanks for asking!

Enter Saturday. Sharon applies WD-40 before taking a walk. Returns from walk to happily set about unscrewing all three screws, including the third now de-rusted one, which doesn't take to the screwdriver well but cooperates with pliers.

Time to pull off the air filter, except, it doesn't pull off. Darkness is now descending. Thoroughly puzzled, I dash off to fetch the lantern and discover a fourth screw, and yep, this one is nicely rusted too. Dash off to fetch the WD-40. Apply liberally. Sigh. Remove all the tools, take a last look around to make sure I've got 'em all before dumping the hood. Oh wait! Maybe I should screw down the air filter again, since I'm obviously not going to get this done today. So I twist 'n screw down two of them. I reposition for the third, only to find that the eject-able Phillips screw head has quite disappeared, without even a clatter. I hunt around, no success. Find the next-sized Phillips and finish the job.

Sunday morning dawns very wet and muddy, and daylight does not reveal the missing screwdriver head. And so, I drove off to church, wondering if that piece of metal was sitting under my hood somewhere - if it would melt, or maybe get lodged in the engine and explode my car. Unlikely, but these are the things that keep me up at night and keep me alert on the road.

To be continued... But hopefully that's enough to illustrate why air filter screws are NVCAA.

How did it come to this?

How did the world move on from blogging? That is, blogging in the sense of individuals blogging as a means of communicating to their family and friends.

The only ones who have survived are the entertaining writers, like my mother. Her blog will never die as long as the Internet lasts to host it!

And the only other ones are the stubborn ones, like me, who don't necessarily write anything worth keeping a blog for sharing, but who hang onto their blogs just the same, maybe because they're second-oldest children and they have that instinct to... umm... to be stubborn.

Facebook versus blogs. Humm. I refuse to say anything that people will shoot down with sniper fire. Facebook is a different landscape than blogging. It seems much more adapted to communication. You can post your immediate thought... you can ask a friend a question... you can invite people here or send them to read that... you can have the nearest thing to a live chat that isn't. A blog is more static. Where you think about what you want to say, you say as little or as much as you like, but regardless, you're making a post out of it, a post that will sit there for at least a day if not for weeks (that's for you blogging slackers) before it gets replaced by anything else. It doesn't zoom down a home page till it's buried beneath a kajillion other thoughts within two hours.

Well, I need to go do the dishes. Some things in life haven't changed hardly one degree in one hundred years.