In summer, the song sings itself. ~William Carlos Williams

Had fun teaching tonight and am still a little too wound to sleep so as always, blog it is :)

So have to admit I was very impressed with the "live chat" feature on The Source's website this am. Browsing along looking for something very specific just about at the point where I'm going to give up and up pops a window "Hi, I'm Chris, I'm a live agent. Is there anything I can help you with?" So I'm a little dubious about this, but I type my question in and it responds with an msn style message and... get this -- actual service! Now they didn't actually have what I was looking for, but he was helpful and friendly and even gave me some ideas of where to try next. Overall, very impressed.

Ok well day two of the wire assembly was far more successful. Turns out it's a fine line between patience/finesse (which I've usually got) and brute force (which I generally do not). Since rarely do those skills combine it doesn't surprise me that nobody wanted to do this. Once I figured out the brute force aspect of things though it went much better and by the end they were all working on the first try. Woohoo! Of course now that I know how to do it, we're done that project. Classic eh?

So at lunch today had some interesting experiences...

Walking down a fairly busy street past the resident speed trap (it's there 8 times out of 10) and have to admit I was sort of amused. The camera was set up in its hidden location, but there was no officer behind it -- that's ok, sometimes it's there and the officer is on the side of the road (the camera is always on the divider in the centre of the road). Well his *car* was there, and running. But the person in question? Nowhere to be seen. So that led me to thinking -- I wonder what type of personality it'd take to steal a police car? *g* Definitely not one I have, but there have got to be people out there (probably teenage, male and slightly intoxicated would be my guess) who would take advantage of this opportunity. Obviously would be caught pretty instantly, but even more entertaining would be the report the cop had to file. I mean seriously, how do you justify having your cop-car stolen??? "And where were the keys officer?" "Well sir, they were in the ignition." There's a duh-squared moment if I've ever seen one. hahaha and typing that just brought back tons of memories as I don't think I've even *thought* that phrase since high-school!

With the city workers on strike, there's no trash collection. Today I noticed all the public trash bins have been saran-wrapped with signs saying "temporarily closed"; however, the one that made me laugh was the one that says "temporarily closed" juxtaposed directly beside the one that requests "please don't litter". Can't put your trash here, but don't put it anywhere else either!

Walking back from lunch up said busy street, and it's over 30 deg out so as is typical drivers are a little impatient. Well the light turns red on the high-traffic street to let one of the side streets cross, and this poor little car has obviously been sitting too long in the heat waiting its turn cause it makes it about half way into the intersection and sputters to a stall. And won't come back to life. But now it's off the traffic sensor so of course the light changes back to the high-traffic direction. 4 lanes of traffic are now effectively stopped due to this one car; the the driver hops out to push it - but of course pushing and steering at the same time is a challenge. Well w/in seconds the guys in both of the stopped cars in front of the north traffic line hopped out to help -- one a uni age guy dressed appropriately for the weather and pushing cars around, but the other was nearing retirement age and clearly on his way to a fairly important business meeting -- or at least was dressed as though that's where he was heading! Had to have been sweltering once he left the confines of his air conditioned car, but he did it and all involved seemed cheerful about the whole process. Once the little car got rolling the driver hopped back in w/ a wave and a thank you and steered it as it coasted to a stop out of the way. But the part that shows signs that there's help for civilization is that not only did these two strangers willingly go out of their way to help solve the situation in a pleasant manner, but the people waiting waited patiently -- there were no horns honking and when traffic did start moving again, none of the obnoxious "let me out front" aggressive driving that had been evident even just before the enforced "take a break" moment. The entire drama was less than five minutes -- by the time I got to the intersection the car was coasting to its resting place and all were back in their cars and off again.

And on the plus side -- my horse was sound tonight! Woohoo :) And I'll tell ya, if you have to ride a young fit TB who's been off for nearly a week and is finally feeling good again, doing so in desert temp is not a bad idea. We had wheeeeee moment for about a lap and a half and then it's "ok that was fun; I'm done now." Obviously didn't work hard or long, just wanted to feel if she was right (looked ok yesterday). And she was :)

Saw a city bunny on my drive home. Sort of amused by this. What's a city bunny you ask? Well it's an urban rabbit -- as in one who, given the choice between the field of dandelions on one side of the sidewalk and the field of clover on the other side of the sidewalk, choses to nibble at whatever was growing out of the crack IN the sidewalk. Sitting in the middle of the paved pathway apparently content as could be. hahaha

Ok well that's enough -- I'm off for now.