Friday Morning Notes...

Alert the press: I have taken the day off so my wife and I can get some much needed pre-Christmas actions completed. Most importantly, I need to hit the Walgreen's and purchase some Christmas presents before all of the last minute people get the good gifts.

I took our dog Gracie, to the groomers just moments ago and have a nice stream of blood coming out of my arm where she inadvertently scratched the crap out of me. I suppose it really is time to get her nails cut. Oh, and if any of you fall for that scam called PediPaws or whatever, I'll be happy to sell you ours. It has never been used, not even once. Yea, that's $30 plus shipping I'll never get back - unless one of you would like to buy it from me.

The thing is, those dogs they show on TV are apparently trained professional model dogs who have also probably been heavily sedated. The instructions actually tell you that the dog won't be happy about it (so much for the TV commercial), and they recommend you physically lay on top of the dog to restrain it. Yea, I didn't see that in the commercial either. Oh well.

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Remember the other day I posted a picture of the street closure signs for Timber Path? Okay, and remember the time a reader sent in a theory about the Pizza Hut that was being built across the street from the old one? Well my neighbor Gus has a theory about the bigger story.

We had already established that in fact, they are building a new Pizza Hut directly across the street from the old one. What we didn't know was that the old Pizza Hut will be torn down. Why wouldn't they just open a new Mexican restaurant there? Well, Gus has looked at an aerial view of the area and concluded that perhaps the new bridge being built over the low water crossing is in fact going to come out directly on top of the old Pizza Hut.Look at the picture and tell me what you think of this theory. It works for me. Though I won't be happy unless they also move the other side of Timber Path to meet the new road.

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I didn't really want to mention it until I had gone at least a month without giving up on it, but I am back to walking on the tread mill again. I know it would be better to just go out and run a marathon or something, but my wife is afraid of me getting a few miles from the house and losing consciousness or something. When I was walking before, I had a few seriously low blood sugar incidents that warranted me calling her - slightly disoriented - to come and pick me up on some street starting with Timber. Not very helpful even if you are familiar with the area. So for now, I'm on the treadmill in the safety of our home. And I keep a donut handy in case I feel queasy. Just kidding.

Anyway, I had this bright idea of building a shelf in front of the tread mill so I could set my laptop on it and listen to podcasts of my favorite radio programs. My wife didn't like that idea at all because she had this image of me putting up some huge desk-sized shelf there. Then, she promptly moved the treadmill to the side of the room where you can either stare at pictures or look out the French doors into our front yard (or neighbors can drive by and see the fat guy walking).So something caught my eye and I moved a few pictures over and sure enough, I can fit the laptop on top of the shelf already in place! I turned on the computer, turned on one of the podcasts I had been saving and things were good to go. Then, it hit me. The shelf was at the perfect height to where I could walk and actually look straight up into the screen. Oh sure, you can't surf the net while walking on a tread mill (well, I can't), but after my neighbor Myrl showed me something called Hulu TV, I was in like Flynn!

So there I was after work yesterday, walking on the tread mill, watching the pilot episode of Sons of Anarchy. Just how lazy are we as a society that we have to watch TV while exercising? Hey, I just call it good time management.