The Rally Experience

Hey, Friends.

So, Bernie Sanders had a rally here on Tuesday, and I was able to go.  Now, before you start freaking out and getting twitchy that I am going to start a whole political debate here and try and convince you that you should vote for him -- I'm not.  I'm not going to tell you not to vote for him either.

I'm not going to try to tell you who to vote for at all.  Your a grown-ass adult, capable of making your own decisions.  (Well, I assume you are.)  With the primaries here in New York next Tuesday I think everyone is already getting inundated enough with email, mailings, and phone polls.

This is more about my experience of attending, and I think it could be helpful if you plan on attending an event for any of the presidential candidates.

1) It may be free, but if they suggest you RSVP to get a ticket confirmation:  DO IT!

It still might not guarantee that you get in, but trust me: those few minutes of clicking on the website and registering are worth it.  Yes, the event is (probably) free and open to the public, but they still need to have a rough estimate of how many people are going to attend.

I was glad I had the email confirmation, as it turned out they were splitting people into two separate lines to wait to enter: one for people with the tickets, and one for people who just showed up.  Real talk -- the line for people with tickets was so long I'm not sure that even they all made it in, much less the people who just showed up. Get the tickets.

2) Get there early!

I left work early, and assumed that getting there when the doors opened at 4pm would be early enough, since the rally didn't start until 7pm.  I was very wrong.  I'd like to thank my friend Lori for letting me know that the one held near her was swarmed with people hours ahead of time.  If I had left any later I'm not sure I would have gotten in.  By the time we found somewhere to park, walked all the way down to the McCann Center where it was being held, got directed to the proper line, and then finally reached the end of the forming line?  That was probably a good half hour all on its own.

This was my view from the end of the line when we (we being my mother and I) finally reached it, a little before 4 pm.

Hello, from the far side of the building by the batting cages!

So, from where we were, the line wrapped around the batting cages, down the side of the baseball field, up the side walk along the building, over the hill and behind the other side of the baseball field, before turning and heading back along the sidewalk to the entrance of the building.  

And we were there early-ish.  Before we ever made it out of that field, the line for people with tickets wrapped around about 3 more times, and it just kept getting longer.

Get there early, Friends.  

3) Be prepared to wait, and enjoy the nice weather.

Try not to stress over whether you are waiting in line for an event you might not even make it into. They take security pretty damn seriously, and getting in is going to be a slow process.  There are police and Secret Service all over the place.  Bring as little as you possibly can, because it is kind of like airport security when you finally reach the doors.

For real.  I'm not kidding.  The Secret Service is running the security at the entrance.  You have to empty your pockets of everything and go through a metal detector, just like at the airport.  (We did get to keep our shoes on.)  If you set off the alarm, they will pull you aside and use the wand on you -- I saw it happen.  

4) You finally made it in!  Now wait more, but indoors!

That moment of euphoria you feel because you made it in will be brief.  Now you have to find somewhere to sit or stand where you actually have a chance of seeing the person.  Yes, there are big screens up so you can see on the monitors, but I wanted to be able to see in the flesh as well.  I ended up sitting in the bleachers behind television cameras.

It's not the best picture, but that gives you an idea of my vantage point.

5) Enjoy the speech you came to hear!

It started pretty close to on time at 7pm, which meant we only had to wait an hour or so after we finally made it indoors.  Bernie got to the podium around 7:45 pm.  Not too bad in the grand scheme of things.

6) Tip: Eat before you go, or bring something to eat while you are in line.

I'm not going to lie, Friends, I had some poor planning on that part of things.  I left straight from a meeting at work that afternoon and didn't bring anything to eat.  I was more than a little hungry by the time I got to have dinner around 9:30 that night. Bring something to eat. You probably can't bring the food into the venue with you, but you should have plenty of time to it while in line.

7) Enjoy the people-watching opportunities.

And they are plentiful.  It was a diverse crowd of folks.  And apparently the people without tickets must have seemed like trouble, because when we finally got to a point in the line where we could see that side of the venue?  They were roped off with police tape and barricades, as their line went through the middle of a parking lot.  I wish I had a picture.

People-watching amuses me to no end.  I made a ton of notes on my phone, and took a couple of pictures, cause that's how I roll. I'll try and keep this in chronological order from my point of view. Anything in quotes is the bits of conversations I over heard. Sound good, Friends?  Fantastic, because that's what we're doing.

"This would have been the best crowd to bring a didgeridoo to!"

"We should have been doing a full-on livestream just of this wait in line."

And then this happened:

Person in front of me in line doesn't know who Michael Stipe is or any REM songs. I'm horrified.

— Tammy Myers (@tammyshampoo) April 12, 2016

And she went on to say she only listens to Taylor Swift and One Direction, but only 1D's most recent album, and the person in front of her was trying to name REM songs she might recognize but she had never heard of any of them but "maybe if someone played one I might know it."  And I really wanted a wall to bang my head against.

Some of the people waiting in line  formed their own band on a hill to entertain the line:

The flag says: "Nuclear? No Gracias!"

I was bored, so I texted my friend who was going to see where the heck he was at the time, since I had been cooling my heels in line for over an hour at this point.  He said he was inside already, and they got to sit right behind the podium. And I assumed he was lying.

That sounds harsh, but you need to know that he (and his brother) make crap up all of the time and try to convince me that it is true, and I kind of suck at telling the difference.  Example: they once edited (and changed back - nothing permanent) a Wikipedia entry to try and convince me that one of our coworkers had been on a television show as a child.  In my defense I assumed this was more bullshit, and that he was going to tell me next that he and Bernie had breakfast together as well and were now BFFs or something.  This will be relevant later, promise.

Verizon Fios News van.  Super-excited at this point, because that meant we were getting near the entrance.

"Did you see that guy?!  He must be Secret Service!  He was wearing a suit, and he has the curly wire thing coming from his ear piece!  I thought that was just from tv and the movies!"  

"I don't think the people still in the baseball field are going to get in."

And then we made it inside, and found some seats.

"How many people do you think are in here?  I bet we are breaking fire codes."

"I get all of the television cameras, but what are all of the people with the laptops doing sitting behind them?  They can't possibly see anything from down there."

"Do you think there are any protesters here?  I didn't see any outside."

"How long do you think it took that girl to get all those different colors done in her hair?"

And then I had a moment...

Holy shit -- he wasn't lying!

Zoomed in from my super-awesome view on the other side of the universe, there sits my friend and his family.  Right behind the podium where he said.  

I think we shall end it on that note, Friends.

If you have a chance to go to a rally for the candidate of your choice -- you should absolutely go!  It's an experience.  Get there early, and bring a lot of patience and a sense of humor with you.  My tips from me to you.

Well, That Was New and Different

Hey, Friends.

So, I received what appears to be comment spam on 5 of my more recent posts, but not the most recent two. That isn't new and different, in and of itself.  Weird that they skipped the more recent entries, but not that different.

What was odd was that they were in Arabic.  How do I know that?  Google Translate.  I thought it was Arabic, but Google Translate confirmed it.  Good thing they have auto-detect when you copy and paste the text in!

I was pretty sure it was spam since it appeared to be the same exact thing in each comment.  So I had Google do its thing and translate.

It all appears to be for a home improvement company in Jabail.  Well, I assume it was for a home improvement company.  There was no company name indicated, or anything that appeared to be a link to a website.  It just listed things like "water removal in Jabail", "insulation repair in Jabail", "bug removal service in Jabail".  It was more like a string of search terms than a comment, although maybe it made more sense in the original language.

Do you know where Jabail is located, Friends?  In the United Arab Emirates.  Yeah, I totally had to look that up.

I'm a little confused why they thought the comments on my blog would be a super-awesome place to attempt to advertise.  I welcome readers in all languages and countries -- don't get me wrong.  That's why I include the little option to "translate" on the side.  It just seems like a blog written in English might have a largely English-speaking (reading?) audience who wouldn't be able to understand the comment without translating it.  Translate does tend to make things a bit more interesting to interpret, sometimes losing the original meaning and intention in the process.  And really, who scrolling through the posts on my blog is going to take the time to translate a random comment that was left in a different language?  That's a lot of extra work to expect from the casual passer-by.

I honestly don't get the point of it.

I obviously don't speak Arabic, since this little blog is written in English.  If the comment had been left in Spanish I would be okay for the most part, and I could probably figure out a bit of French before I had to translate.  I took Italian in college, but strangely that is the one I remember the least.

Okay, so maybe the language is not an obvious clue. This is the internet and I could be anywhere writing this, but if you click on my profile it does say I'm located in the United States.  Which I suppose could be a lie as well.....but that really would be giving me too much credit for trying to be sneaky and having the foresight to try and fake this stuff.  I lack the time, energy, and ability to give a shit about trying to create a fake online persona.

Secondly, Jabail?  Really?  Does this person honestly think I have the money to own property there?  I still have years and years of mortgage payments to make on my house here.  I'm also not going to contact a nameless company in Jabail for any home maintenance issues that should arise.  I think a local company would be far more cost-effective.  Thanks for the offer, though!

So, dear random spam person:

I reported your comments as spam and made them go bye-bye. Nothing personal, but that was literally the most irrelevant comment spam I have received, and that's saying a lot.  I don't know all of my Friends here, of course, but I can check the stats and see what countries the majority of them are from -- and you definitely would have been better off commenting in English or Spanish.

And then there was this interesting little thing I noticed in the stats.

None of the views logged today are even from the United Arab Emirates.  However, 14 today were from Saudi Arabia.  Maybe that is where the internet provider is located, maybe it's just an odd coincidence. Maybe you were incognito so I will never really know.  Just another reason to make your comments disappear.  Again, nothing personal.  I would do the same thing if it was someone advertising home improvement services from any other country and there was no sign of anyone from that country viewing my blog today.  Honestly, I would have deleted spam from a home improvement business in another state as it would be of no interest to me.

In closing, I don't like spam.  I don't care what language it is written in.  If it makes you feel better you get the prize for being the most irrelevant and unexpected.

Snow In April

Hey there, Friends.

So this time last week I was happily wandering Main Street at First Friday in a t-shirt, as it was in the 70s.  Two days later it decided to snow.

And then it kept snowing.

In fact, we have gotten more snow so far in Spring in April this week than we did all winter long.  

I was not amused.  And then one of my coworkers started with the whole, "Still believe in global warming?  Ha ha ha!" shenanigans.

Yes.  Yes I do.  The two things are not mutually exclusive.  Did you not notice that the rest of winter sort of never happened this year?  Don't even get me started on this.

Back to my point.

It snowed.  While I did not enjoy the return of cold weather and having to clean off the car, I will grudgingly admit that it was very pretty. I decided to try and capture some of the beauty rather than just be miserable about it all.

The rest of this post is going to be pictures, Friends.  I'm telling you this for two reasons:

1) If you don't want to look at them you can skip the rest of this right now.  You won't hurt my feelings.  I'll never even know!

2) If you're on a really slow connection and are wondering why in the world this is taking so long to load?  You can probably blame the pictures.  My bad.  Probably should have mentioned at the top. Sorry.

Now, on to the pictures. Most of these were taken in my yard or at work.  RIP to my flowers that may never recover.

From the yard:

And now on to the work views:

Ah, Memories

Hey, Friends.

So, last night was the inaugural First Friday in the city of Poughkeepsie.  It was a fun evening and a good time with friends.

Anyway, a few drinks were had.

By the time we were at our third establishment of the evening, and I was halfway through my drink, I knew I had crossed the line into tipsy territory.  Luckily I did not have to drive any more that evening. (Thank you Juan Murphy's for being within walking distance of my house!)

I toddled on home and left everyone else to continue on their merry way.  I knew I was done at that point.  It wasn't until I was home, snuggled up in my pjs on the couch watching television, that the craving hit.

Sometimes when you have had a few drinks of the alcoholic variety, you really just want some greasy food that you know is totally shitty for you.  You know I speak the truth, Friends.  Sure, I had falafel earlier in the evening, but that wasn't cutting it any more.

Unfortunately for me, I had none of that in my house.  The best I could do was microwave some popcorn and think about what a sad replacement it was for what I really wanted, what I was absolutely craving and could not tear my mind away from.

Not pretty, but so damn good

I'm pretty sure I would have sold my soul to whomever would have brought me a Garbage Plate last night.  Too bad Nick Tahou's is like a six hour drive away.

And that started the memories of getting garbage plates at the Brockport Diner, and the hot dog man who was always conveniently located directly outside NorthBound.  Of the trippy fire alarms at R.I.T. that really freak you out the first time you are there to experience one in an inebriated state. Of randomly driving to Rochester late at night in search of the only 7-Eleven in the area because only a real Slurpee would do -- not any of this Parrot Ice stuff -- and then parking in a random parking lot to watch the lights of the city and just chill out.

Those were some good times.  I think a Phi Sig reunion should be in order ASAP.

And seriously:  some place around here needs to get a garbage plate knock-off going on. Preferably with delivery service.

I Think My Bathroom Is Trying to Destroy Me

Hey, Friends.

Did you have a good day yesterday? Good, good.

I did, too.  In fact it was quite lovely until last night. I made the mistake of thinking a nice, relaxing shower before going to bed was just what I needed.

I was so, so wrong.

I'm pretty sure my bathroom is trying to destroy me.  I won't go so far as to call it the Vortex of Doom, but it's pretty close.

Let's examine the evidence, shall we?  Awesome.

First, it was the middle of the night repair job. Not fun, but I managed to handle it.  Still a bit proud of my latent plumbing skills on that one.

Then it was the sizzling sink.  I maintain that the sink should never make noises like that.

Then it was the spiders.  The giant, creepy, ninja-spiders that will totally show up as an unwanted guest when you are in the shower.  I really hate spiders.  I cannot stress that enough. And yes, I am still paranoid that another one will show up and try to attack me.

Last night the bathroom apparently decided that sleep deprivation would be a fun new twist to bring to its little torture game.  Why yes, I am talking about my bathroom as if it is a person.  I'm starting to believe that the room has a mind of it's own, and it is filled with evil intent.  It would explain why the previous owner of the house left a couple of rosaries hanging in the basement.

I wish I was kidding.  And yes, I left them right where they were.

So, I decided to take a nice, hot, relaxing shower last night before bed.  It seemed like a great idea. Just ease on into the work week on a good note.  Totally normal, right Friends?

The bathroom thought otherwise.  

I got out and was in my pjs, ready to toddle on off to bed, and I could not get the door to open. Apparently the bathroom decided that we had not spent enough quality time together that evening, and it wanted to prolong my stay a bit.

At first I thought maybe the door knob was just slippery, and maybe  I hadn't really turned it enough. I dried off the knob and gave it another try.  No dice.

What the heck?  This has never happened before.  The door doesn't even have a lock, so it's not like I accidentally locked myself in.

I tried giving it a harder tug.  Nothing.  It creaked, but that was about it.

What the heck is wrong with the door?!

Have I mentioned that I live alone, Friends?  Yeah.  There is no use even attempting to pound on the door and call for help.  Only the two cats would hear me, and of the two only Jazz-kitty would actually show any interest in the noise.  Unless she has gained some dazzling physical and mental prowess that has heretofore gone unnoticed -- she is not going to be much help.  

I decided that the door must have swollen up from the humidity in the bathroom.  That's the only thing I can come up with.  Maybe there was enough difference in the temperature and humidity between the bathroom and the rest of the house that it just stuck shut.

I couldn't call anyone.  For a start, my phone was not in the bathroom with me.  Kind of kills the whole idea right off the bat.  Even if it was, who the heck was I going to call?  My parents?  They are the only ones with a spare key to even get into my house.  It was literally midnight by this point. Even if I had my phone I wouldn't call them at that hour unless it was a dire emergency.

Do you know how long I was trapped in my bathroom, Friends?  A little over an hour.

Do you know how boring it is to be trapped in your bathroom?  No phone.  No music.  No way to entertain yourself.  Just you in a steamy bathroom, randomly tugging on a door and praying that this will be the time that it opens.  

Why not climb out the window?  That's an excellent thought, Friends.  It would at least have given the window in the shower a purpose. 

 **Side note: why the heck do they always put the window in the shower right next to the shower head?  I mean, I'm all for letting in the natural light, but does it really have to be placed right where you are going to be standing naked in the shower?  It could at least be at the other end to pretend that privacy exists. My window opens onto my driveway, and my neighbor's house is like 15 feet away. We don't need to know that much about each other.  Ever.**

I digress.  I had a lot of time to contemplate the mysteries of the universe, as you can imagine.  Back to the point: climbing out the window would be useless as the doors and windows were all locked, and I did not bring my house keys into the shower with me.  Silly me. I did contemplate just opening the window, but it was cold out and I didn't want to get sick.  Everyone at work is already getting sick, and I did not want to weaken my defenses against whatever plague-like germs they have been spreading around.

I did briefly toy with the idea of trying to unscrew the hinges using my nail file.  MacGyver would totally be able to pull that shit off.  Of course, he probably never would have been trapped in his bathroom to begin with.  I decided that was way too much effort for the middle of the night.

Finally, mercifully, the door opened. I may never latch it all the way again.  At the very least I may start bringing my phone in with me so that I have a source of amusement if I should be stuck again.

And that is why I think my bathroom is trying to destroy me.  Just when I think nothing else could possibly go wrong in there, it does.

Oh well.  Gave me time to go through all of my nail polish and weed out the old ones.  Maybe it also acted as a giant full-body steam treatment.  Silver lining, I guess.

There's a Hole in the Wall

Hey Friends.

Let's start with the boring back story first, shall we?  Fantastic.

We had to move a fire extinguisher at work yesterday.  It was built into the wall in the Children's area near the activity wall.  Even though it was in a case with a lock on it, we couldn't actually keep it locked. If a fire were to break out it would be silly to have to find the key to be able to put it out. Needless to say, little patrons with small fingers found it intensely interesting.  Obviously, it had to be moved.

I knew maintenance had been doing some work over there, but since it is all the way across the building I hadn't really been paying attention to it.  It wasn't until a coworker told me it looked we cut a hole in the wall, changed our minds, and then patched it up that I wondered what the heck was going on.  Another coworker then explained what had happened.

Being a curious person, I had to see what exactly they were talking about.  This is what I found:

Very attractive.  Not noticeable at all.

We started discussing that we were really missing an opportunity to get creative by just patching it up and making it a boring old wall again.  Someone said we should have a Library Elf who lived in there, and we could make it his little house.  Another person said we should make it a cabinet of interesting things for little kids to play with or touch.  Both very sweet ideas which will never happen.  I took it in a different direction.

**Friends:  I feel the need to explain here that none of my following suggestions are to be taken seriously.  They are jokes.  Maybe not funny if you don't work in a library, but they are jokes. People misinterpret shit all of the time on the internet, so before anyone starts freaking out about child endangerment or the likes let me be very clear:  NOT SERIOUS.  JOKING!  I WOULD NEVER HURT OR ENDANGER A CHILD IN ANY WAY.  We clear?  Excellent.**

I thought they were missing an excellent opportunity for a way to control story time behavior. It could be a teaching tool.  Just think of the possibilities!

Idea #1:  For the child who cannot control their frustration/anger

"Jimmy.  Jimmy!  You cannot hit other children during story time!  That's it, young man.  Now you have to sit in the hole in the wall for the rest of story time and think about what you've done."

Idea #2:  To encourage parent participation

"I don't know, Jane.  I don't think your Mommy was really singing along today.  I'm pretty sure she was just lip-synching.  Sorry, kiddo.  Looks like you have to go in the hole.  Maybe Mommy will learn how to participate better by next week."

Idea #3:  For the over-zealous participants

"Bobby!  This is Toot & Scoot, not a demolition derby!  Smash into one more kid on purpose and it's off to the hole with you."

It would work for the older kids as well.  It might be a tight fit, but I think it would still be doable.

Idea #4:  For the kids who like to push the boundaries

"Look, Elena.  I know you know the rules about using the computers, but you choose to keep trying to skirt around them to stay on longer.  Keep it up and you're going in the wall.  You think Harry Potter had it rough?  His cupboard under the stairs was freaking cozy compared to what you'll find in the hole."

The beauty part is you wouldn't even have to do any of them -- just the threat should be enough to deter any problems.  Make that hole in the wall look creepy as hell and no one will ever want to be sent there.

Idea #5:  On a less traumatizing note, it could be made into a game.

Put a little door knob on it.  Every few days you switch what is behind the door when you open it:  it could be a picture, a toy, a book -- anything that would fit inside.  You make up a little bingo card and each square has an item that could potentially be behind the door.  The kids can pick up a card, and every time they come to the library they have to check what is behind the door.  They get a staff member to initial the correct square verifying that they really checked the door on the proper day. (There are a lot of cheaters out there.  Trust me.)  When they get a Bingo they get a prize.  Like a reward for coming to the library regularly.

What?  I'm full of all kinds of ideas, Friends.  I'm not an evil person.  My sense of humor just skews toward the dark side at times.  It was a long week.

It's all highly irrelevant, however.  Soon it will just be a boring yellow wall once again, although it did make that last hour of the work week a lot more amusing.  

Note:  None of the names used in the examples are actual specific patrons.  They just popped into my head as random names to use.  

Phone Notes Part III

Hey, Friends.

I've been neglecting you, I know.  I'm a terrible person.  I feel bad.  Promise.

Worse yet, this isn't even a real post.  I mean it is a post, but it really isn't because it is more phone notes -- drivel I saved in my phone with every intention of expanding on it here, but then I got too busy or distracted by something and didn't ever get around to doing anything with it.  If you been hanging around here for a while you know the drill.  If you are just finding your way here?  You can check out my earlier installments of blathering here and over here.

I wasn't really sure about doing yet another set of phone notes, but I've got to get this stuff off my phone.  The poor thing needs to be coddled and it's storage space needs to be respected.  We're trying to save the life of my iPhone, Friends.

So, without further ado, please enjoy the things I thought were amusing and/or interesting at one point, and then chose to forget about entirely.

1) When someone refers to a coworker as your "work husband": sometimes that is okay.  In certain cases you have to bite your tongue to keep from explaining -- in great detail -- why there is no way in hell that is true, and how you never want to hear a reference to said person being your "husband" in any way, shape, or form ever again.

2) I think there should be a television show set in a public library -- like The Office or Parks & Recreation. (If such a thing already exists, someone please point me to it!) It would need a snazzy theme song, though.  On more than one occasion I have found myself pondering the possibilities.  I'm not a composer myself, so it has to be an existing song.  My favorite of the moment is this one:

3) Just missed a call that my phone tells me came from Tonganoxie, Kansas.  To the best of my knowledge I don't know anyone from Tonganoxie, but I do like the name.  

4) The Christmas season brings many gifts.  Among them (depending on how you look at it) is the gift of learning which of your friends/family/associates have no idea of the difference between Merry, Marry, and Mary.

5) Have you ever been in the line at the grocery store, started reading the headlines on the scandal/gossip magazines, and felt like a loser?  Forget the truth or accuracy of said reporting, because a lot most of it is completely made-up crap.  (I really don't understand how some of these things haven't been sued into non-existence, but I digress.)  According to the headlines, this one celebrity has gotten divorced, started dating, and gotten pregnant in the same amount of time that I have been on two dates that went nowhere.  I seriously begin to question what is fundamentally wrong with me and have to remind myself that most of this shit isn't true. Plus, it must totally suck if you are the person this stuff is being written about.  How must the people in those headlines feel when they are waiting in line at the grocery store?

6) Just overheard a coworker tell someone that they should refer all the "Big, scary people with lots of tattoos" to me because "She's fine with it, and they seem to like her better." -- Honestly, this explains so much. I can't even begin to describe how much sense this makes of my life at work.

7)    

I have issues sending flowers to Texas.  Click here if you want the story.

I think I have wasted enough of your time now, Friends.  I'm honestly kind of surprised if you made it this far. Thanks for reading...you know, assuming you still are at this point.