Pawprints From Space

Rumba is a goofy cat.  You may recall she is a foundling from the local park who had her 15 minutes of fame in The Lima News thanks to the wonderful Tom Harrison. She is now 4 years old and has gone through the wonderful kitten and terrible teenager phases to end up an extremely affectionate goofball. She chatters (as all feline members of the household do) out the window at the birds and seems desperate to get out there and go after them. In fact the screens on the porch need to be replaced due to SOMEone's dexterity with her claws. She has successfully escaped the confines of the porch to go after the aforementioned birds. But Rumba's relationship with a certain indoor bird is really amusing. Figuring it out all by herself, Rumba has decided that the game of "fetch" is fun. She picks up her bird and wanders around the house crying until I come to play with her. She drops it, I throw it and she goes through amazing acrobatics to catch it (which she alway...

If you know me you know I have little tolerance for voluntary stupidity.  By "voluntary stupidity" I mean the sort of stupidity that people willfully, gleefully it seems, embrace. There are several kinds: The ones who choose not to read the announcement, ad or other printed documentation and then ask a question CLEARLY answered in said documentation. Such as:  Sign posted Hours 10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. Question asked by a person who has the sign in their field of vision: So when are you open? That sort of thing is annoying enough and since I manage several Facebook pages for folks I see those kind of questions a LOT. Post some information and people will ask questions that clearly indicate they did not bother to read what you posted beyond the first three or four words. Really? Obviously you are literate enough to use a computer/smartphone/tablet to access the page and type in your question. Can you not perhaps maybe READ what we posted BEFORE you ask your si...

July 8, 2013 Verizon Wireless Attn: Correspondence Team PO Box 5029 Wallingford, CT 06492 To Whom It May Concern, I am so furious right now I can NOT begin to tell you. Your chat online service is “unavailable”, the idiots at the local store are well ... idiots and you have no email contact on your web site. Therefore I am forced to write a letter that will not get me swift action and no doubt result in you telling me that I should have spoken up sooner or some other such bunk. I purchased a new phone on July 1, 2013 as my old phone had finally died. I have been a loyal and happy customer of Verizon since I purchased my first cell phone in 1997. Cell #xxx.xxx-xxxx. I am NOT happy now and seriously considering switching providers. When I purchased my new phone all of a sudden I was not allowed to keep my previous plan DESPITE your own announcements that those of us with unlimited plans would be grandfathered in and still allowed to keep our plans. Okay I was annoyed an...

A few thoughts on Egypt and the current situation there. Warning: it is going to be a ramble ... Some call it a coup by the military. Others say no signed petitions led to the ouster of the president. Still others say it is a bit of both. Thomas Friedman for example in today's New York Times is going for both.  Ambassador Twafik says no it wasn't a coup , that the military had to step in to keep the violence from getting out of hand. Of course he sort of has to say that because if there had been a coup by law they would lose the $1.5 billion dollars in aid America sends them. Meanwhile the news out of Turkey is saying ... yup it is a coup and it happened Monday not Wednesday. And all parties in Turkey's parliament have issued a statement condemning the situation. I'm inclined to go with the coup theory myself. Why? The elected president is in custody of the military who have appointed an interim president. Sounds like a coup to me. Military calling the shots i...