Amy’s Gripping Commentary

I am wearing my candy corn socks! But I turned off the automatic porch light because we aren’t giving out candy. I guess that makes us scrooges. That’s not true; we just don’t like kids much.

The weather is nice today so I rode the bike to work, but managed to lose a nut and bolt on part of a pedal (shops guys at work hooked me up) and my bike computer flew off somewhere. Now I don’t know how fast I’m going, what time it is, or how far I’ve gone! I’m also out $55. I have another one but I’m hoping I’ll magically find the lost one on the way home today. I also broke the shower when I got to the locker room.

Something cute I found while clicking around: Tofu for Obama

This ties in nicely because I was reading a Mallard Fillmore comic last night where kids were complaining about trick-or-treating at houses with Obama signs (we have one) because they gave out tofu (ate it for lunch), baby greens (also had it in my lunch), and CFLs (got some of those too). Gotta be able to laugh at yourself. But I wouldn’t give out markers and Dentyne like that too-responsible lady in our neighborhood did when we were kids.

Coming very soon:

Well, I drafted this post last Friday but never finished it, and then it became more than complaints anyway. Today’s excitement: I got a new keyboard at work (my fourth this year) and as of 2 p.m. I have 11 protocols and a 30-page evaluation to review before I go home. Not likely.

Someone smushed the Obama sign in our yard less than 24 hours after we posted it.

Saw this last night. TWO awesome mistakes! I made David turn around so I could take the picture.

David found rabbit poop in his pocket and blamed me.

Quotable janitorial services!

Did you know you can go to jail for virtual murder if you try to cover it up?

I think apparent reductions in meth labs/sales aren’t due so much to the pharmacy limits on quantities purchased, but rather the hassle of waiting forever to buy Sudafed. It took me ten minutes to wait in line behind people getting real prescriptions, and then the cashier had to fill out a book on her screen with my driver’s license info, then I had to sign a bunch of stuff. I’m going to have to pay more attention to Breaking Bad to figure out how to make this process more efficient–that kid had to go around buying a lot of Sudafed (and I’m not breaking into warehouses to get raw materials to make my own!).

The final rant became so long that it deserves its own post, mostly because if this gets any longer no one will read it. It’s about exciting email domain changes! Now I know you’ll be back.

This weekend we attended a Halloween pub crawl on East Washington Street to benefit NESCO, an org to promote/preserve history for the east side of Indy (we live in Irvington, a historic district about a block from their eastern boundary, but we share an interest in east side happenings). Our friend George organized it and has been part of the event for several years. We went to Zonie’s, Golden Ace, the Liederkranz, Butler Inn, and the Catalina; there were two staggered groups and a bus transported us to each bar. It was a lot of fun, but the Catalina had some seriously creepy locals. We had to circle the wagons a few times, and while I haven’t been out to dive bars in awhile, my women’s college training kicked in quickly and we kept track of each other closely during bathroom trips and such. The only semi-creepy guy on our bus was Indiana Jones, so we helped our single friends avoid his boob grabbing and (sometimes successful) attempts at making out with others on the bus. At the end of the night we went back to Zonie’s where we stayed for part of the drag show.

Boarding the bus, just like elementary school!

Goth girl helps Ashley Todd reapply the B scratched in her face. (Ashley/George organized our trip)

Choir at the Liederkranz, a German-language singing club. This place reminded me of going to Belgian Club with Dad when I was a kid. They served us dinner, and while our organizer helpfully arranged for them to have a non-meat soup available for me, everyone else had eaten it before I got to the serving line! I had a hotdog bun, coffee cake, and bundt cake for dinner. (We hit Steak-n-Shake after it was all over to supplement my remaining alcoholic dinner.)

Ms. Star Trek borrowed someone’s pimp hat

Mr. Star Trek, the Joker, and a runner guy at Butler Inn. I think the guy at the jukebox was some kind of hipster. He noted that his Hot Topic pants were awfully tight.

Joe the Plumber opens beer at the Catalina with her hat-mounted opener

I went with Father Thyme, who was going to be Father Time but didn’t have an hourglass (I suggested a wall clock around his neck but the idea wasn’t supposed to get too Flava-Flav). He also considered being Jason Priest-ly, pairing the clerical collar with a Jason hockey mask (and probably fake sideburns) but we figured it would be hard to drink beer through a hockey mask. Also, he was trying to do all this an hour before we had to leave.

80s Rocker Guy (we were calling him Richie Sambora, couldn’t think of a better match) dug my costume, which at this point included Bud Light bottlecap earrings I won on the bus raffle. He wore black and white tiger-striped tights and by the end of the night couldn’t stand them any more, switching to jeans at the drag show.

Joe the Plumber, Mike TV, and a shrouded-skeletony-guy drinking crappy beer

Shadeland-area Indy grammar finds!

Seriously, GALARY? Is it for gals? (Or is that gal’s perhaps?)

Overheard at the Vatican Museum in June (yes, I record random things on slips of paper and then lose them for months):

One gay guy to another:
Are you kidding? I harvest artichokes every eight days. We’ve been together three years and one month and you didn’t know that?

In other news, David and I went to Oktoberfest as hosted by Nicole and family, where I was famous amongst those who had seen me on TV. More dorky pictures of me at KNH’s site! She brews her own beer for this mostly-annual occasion AND made vegetarian sausages. Cook those in butter and top with buttery sauteed onions and garlicky beer gravy, and I dare you to complain about the lack of dead animal!

Next weekend is a pub crawl, costumed, in the (I assume) crummy bars along East Washington Street, a location which has come up so frequently lately it practically needs its own blog. I need costume ideas or it’s Raggedy Ann again! I’m thinking I’d make a good hippie but I refuse to spend money on that costume and yet don’t know enough local closets to raid. I also considered going as Stevie Nicks on a recent PBS concert but I lack a top hat and witchy looking outfit.

My dog may have an eating disorder.

Those are our tattered bedsheets, which Casper has been tearing and eating. This was the day after she had eaten another sheet. I thought maybe they just smelled dirty (kind of like how she likes to eat dirty socks and pants crotches), so I put these clean sheets on and she ate them too. Now I’m out of top sheets. She gets on her bed and scratches at the end of ours until she has something to shred. We used to have a dust ruffle around the bed but she ate that too.

This would be in addition to the other weird things she’s eaten lately, not to mention raiding the recycling bin to chew up junk mail. At least it wasn’t another zipper (from these shorts).

I discovered David does not know how to make the bed (not a shocker) because the comforter is on sideways in the picture.

This weekend a pet club at work rented out half of one of the local bark parks. I used to take the dogs to the parks but now it’s $75 PER DOG each year, and that’s only for a single park’s access, not any of the others. I can’t afford it anymore. We were glad to get the free day!

Hi! Can I eat your clothes/bed/vegetables/mail/Kleenex/coasters?

Walt navigates the pack while Casper and a therapy-dog-in-training do tail synchro. Yes, that’s a hairless dog in the background

Walk this way

Triumvirate

Fat vs skinny snout

Done smelling butts

For my first media appearance NOT associated with rabbits, I bring you: bike lane press conference.

(No, not the prostitution arrest. That’s a different headline. Nor am I the pregnant mother who gave drugs to her kids.)

Due to limitations in software at work, I can’t link to the video directly, but let’s just say I was interviewed (and also by another station, Channel 13, which I also can’t see). Check back later for the words of wisdom.

Channel 6 story/video Quoted and videoed (~1:35), geez

(Mark Twain)

I think my Halloween costume will be a hobo who has lost all her money in her 401(k). Suze Orman gives me hope; she says we’ll have a healthy economy again around 2015. I already lost an offer on the house thanks to the economic mess. Guys in my office are giving blow-by-blow accounts of the market’s happenings, buying and selling from their desks. I’m sitting tight and getting further from retirement every moment (lost over a third of my plan so far this year), but trusting the idea that since I have twenty years or more to wait it out, it’ll be good in the end. Right?

I wanted to use this quote as my philosophy on money, but the Mark Twain one is honestly closer to the truth.

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.
Cree Indian Proverb

I guess I still have room for growth if I only value the important stuff after my retirement and savings are funded.

10.14.08 ETA: In the event of rain, this announcement and breakfast will be held inside the Athenaeum, specifically in the Kellersaal Room located in the Rathskeller Restaurant.

A little more on the bike plan/lanes announcement next Wednesday. Join the group downtown by coming on a group ride and having free breakfast! RSVP by Sunday, Oct 12 for the food.

Bicycling Announcement by Mayor Ballard – Wed, Oct 15th

Mayor Ballard will be holding a press conference on the morning of Wednesday, October 15th at 9:30am announcing his intention to make Indianapolis a bicycle friendly city and endorsing a bike lane plan for the City of Indianapolis. It is critical that we have a strong showing of Central Indiana cyclists attend this press conference showing support for the Mayor’s commitment. There will be eight organized rides into the city from various points (similar to the routes on Bike to Work Day – 2008) which will all converge downtown at the Press Conference at Mass Ave and Michigan Street. Plan to ride, bring along a friend or co-worker, and show your support of bicycling in the Greater Indianapolis Metropolitan Area. A free breakfast will be served! If you will be joining us for any of the eight group rides to downtown and/or will be attending the pre-Press Conference Breakfast, please take the time to RSVP here by Sunday, October 12th.

Schedule of Events – Wednesday, October 15th

7:00am – 8:00am – Bicyclists commute downtown to the triangular park formed by Mass Ave and Michigan Street (click here for start locations, routes and ride leaders)

8:30am – 9:30am – Free breakfast provided by LePeep Restaurant – Coffee, Juice, Pastries, Bagels and Fruit

9:30am – 10:30am – Mayor Ballard’s Press Conference

If you will be joining us for any of the 8 group rides to downtown or will be attending the pre-Press Conference Breakfast, please take the time to RSVP here by Sunday, October 12th. See you there!

From bgindy.com

First she discovered the rotten tomatoes we’d pitched to the side of the yard. Then she started staying out longer, coming in smelling like tomato plants. Sometimes juicy seeds and flesh would fall out of her mouth as she came up the back stairs. Now, instead of being sneaky, she just stays buried in the plants, eating the fruits as she finds them. Even green ones.

Last week she ate David’s pajama pants and pooped out a sock immediately after, plus she has a poop-eating ritual as well, so I guess tomatoes are the least of her GI’s problems.

A couple of exciting announcements in the last several days: Indy is looking to be bike-friendly and environmentally sustainable! I received these press releases through various email lists.

Indy Bikeways

Important Bicycling Announcement by Mayor Ballard on Wednesday, Oct 15, 2008, 9:30am

Mayor Ballard will soon have a press conference where he will announce his intention to make Indianapolis a bicycle friendly city and endorse the 4-phase bike lane plan for the City of Indianapolis. This plan, currently dubbed Indy Bikeways, will provide over 200 miles of bike lanes in Marion County over the next 15 years.

We want to make sure that as many cyclists as possible come to this event to show our support for the Indy Bikeways Plan! This is the best way to say thanks to Mayor Ballard for this endorsement and to assure him this is a popular decision among his constituents. His announcement will occur on Wednesday, Oct 15th at 9:30 am and will be held in the triangular park formed by the intersection of Mass Ave and Michigan Street (just north across the street from the Athenaeum). His announcement coincides with the start of the bike lane striping for New York and Michigan Streets. This project, along with the bike lanes on Allisonville Road, represents Phase 1 of the Indy Bikeways Plan.

I’m going to try to make it to the bike announcement, though it is during work hours. Gotta flex the schedule a bit.

Environmental Sustainability Initiative

MAYOR UNVEILS AGENDA TO ESTABLISH CITY AS ONE OF THE MIDWEST’S MOST SUSTAINABLE

INDIANAPOLIS – The City of Indianapolis will join several leaders of the environmental community to announce the City’s aggressive new greening plan and sustainability initiative.

What: Press conference to announce new sustainability initiative

Who: Mayor Greg Ballard

When: Friday, October 10, 2008
3:30-4:00PM

Where: City Market Courtyard
222 E. Market Street

Mayor Ballard recognizes that environmental sustainability is a key strategy to make sure that Indianapolis continues to be competitive in a changing world. Cities that are successful in addressing these matters have found that they can:

* Deliver long-term cost savings
* Build the local economy
* Improve community quality of life
* Enhance the local environment and public health

These objectives support The Ballard Rules, and specifically further three key Mayoral priorities: taxpayer cost-savings, community economic development, and improving neighborhood quality of life.

This one is quite lofty and vague, but you have to recognize the merit of the idea before you can get anywhere with it, so I choose to think positively!

In related news, I toured Republic’s Montcalm St. recycling facility a couple of weeks ago through arrangements from a group at work. They process 100 tons of recyclable material daily, and plan to build a new facility that will handle ten times that much! It’s a very loud, thankless operation, and I am glad the workers are willing to do such a hard job. Some general info here and a pdf with facts and figures here. Things I learned:

I’ve been taking my #3-7 plastics to IRF on West St. Apparently Republic is now picking up this stuff from IRF, so I may as well put it in with my #1-2. The #3-7 is harder to process but at this time they are able to set it aside and get it to a facility that will take it. One of the biggest issues with these plastics is getting them clean, since they often have food residue (yogurt, butter) remaining.

Republic can take some phonebooks after all, just not a lot.

Indianapolis residents using Republic’s curbside recycling service will soon be getting big wheeled toters for their recycling instead of the small bins. They will be picked up biweekly with automated trucks, which saves on trucks/drivers/gas/emissions. And they will take cardboard! That’ll save me another trip to the cardboard satellite dumpsters.

Downstream (at other facilities) the machinery can accept plastic bottles with lids still on, but if you send in your water bottles with water still in them, the Republic folks have to hand open and empty them! Don’t send partially-full bottles please.

The new facility will have sorting machines to segregate colored plastics from colorless, which can be sold at different (higher) prices, and there are also machines that can visually sort different colors of glass.

Don’t segregate your recyclables in plastic bags. They have to be hand-opened or the bags clog up the machinery.

The facility operates with a series of conveyor belts. Items pass along conveyors with shakers (to shake out loose broken glass and prevent injuries to workers), then past an inspection line of workers who pull out trash and odd items (we saw them removing a metal porch railing from the belt). Then the belt goes under a big rotating magnet that pulls out the steel items. Next a blower sends all the lightweight stuff (plastic bottles, aluminum cans) up one way and the heavier items (like glass) go down another belt. The huge cage of lightweight items separates cans from bottles somehow (weight again? charge? I forget), and then workers have to manually separate the #1 and #2 plastics to different streams. In the end they have big piles of each type of recyclable. Items like foil are recycled separately from cans, and big heavy plastics like kitty litter containers are separate from water bottles. Some items have to be paid to be taken away; it’s not all profitable, but it does keep 100 tons of waste out of landfills daily. They bale each type of item and ship to processing facilities, some in the Chicago area, but overall they try to use Indiana facilities as much as possible. They do all this with about 65 employees on 2.5 shifts. It’s loud, smelly, non-climate-controlled work. At one point bits of broken glass rained on our heads as we walked through the plant.

Even with limitations on what actually makes money (and it’s no joke we pay a fair amount each month for the curbside service), the facility is able to recycle 93+% of what comes in the door. Think of all the trash people include in their recycling–I found this number impressive. They even set aside those weird items like porch railings that never should have been in the recycling dumpsters in the first place, getting them to the metals recyclers that can handle the material.

Keep on saving the planet! Perhaps we should work on reducing, since we seem to understand the recycling part?

and everyone else on East Washington Street during rush hour,

Sorry I fell off my bike in front of you. Thank you for not laughing so I could hear it.

To the person at work with the contraband first aid kit,

Thanks for the gauze, tape, and ointment!

The Good:
It’s World Vegetarian Day!

Be nice to your animal friends and the earth today by skipping meat in your meal. It’s good for you, too! (Missed it October 1? Don’t worry… we’re observing all month.)

The Bad:
James McMurtry sings this excellent song. The Bad is the truth it spells about our country, but I care so much that I vote.

The Random:
Why does Tom Bosley keep sending me spam?

Those pants are unfortunate.