NaNoWriMo 2005

Registration for National Novel Writing Month begins Oct. 1; the event begins Nov. 1. Haven't decided if I'll sign up this year. It's pretty easy to hit 50K in a month, but, in my experience, little will be salvagable. More than anything, it's a good exercise in self-discipline--reason enough to sign up, I suppose. NaNoWriMo gives me a good excuse to scale back on the volunteer work that's consumed my designated writing time. Although, the time might be better spend on my current manuscript revisions....

Problem neighbors

No matter what state or country we live in, there's alway at least one problem neighbor. My list of annoying neighbors includes:

• An obsessive-compulsive woman, living in the apartment above us, who repeatedly slammed her front door which was adjacent to my children's bedroom. The door slamming was followed by lock checking. She repeated the cycle of door slamming and lock checking until she was satified the door was securely locked. Repeated cabinet slamming followed soon after. Our pleas for her to stop waking the baby were ignored. Instead, she'd cram over-ripened bananas through our mail slot--a well-intentioned gesture that we didn't appreciate, especially when the unwanted gifts landed out-of-site.
  
• A young woman with the morals of an alley cat, who expected us to babysit without advance notice.
  
• A group of college guys who put Animal House to shame.
  
• An overweight, peroxide blonde stripper with rotten teeth, who liked to parade around in next to nothing. The maintenance men loved her until she skipped out on the rent.
  
• A twenty-something troublemaker who convinced an elderly neighbor that he belonged to his gang. The boy scammed the man out of a bunch of money and even accompanied him to the bank to ensure that he paid the money he supposedly owed. Fortunately, the bank notified the family that something was wrong. And things were much worse than anyone imagined. The boy and his fellow gang members forced the old man to drive them around town in the middle of the night. No doubt he unwittingly aided and abetted their criminal activities. What's really sad is that the man told the police the hoodlums were his friends. His family had to put him in a nursing home so he'd be safe. The old man, who probably served as a getaway driver, is essentially imprisoned in a nursing home, while his gang "friends" are free to take advantage of others.

Most of our problem neighbors were merely annoying. We never expected to find strippers or criminals living in middle-class neighborhoods....

Old beer tax rules

A snippet from One Hundred Years of Brewing (1903):

The Internal Revenue Department had decided the question as to the legality of taxing beer drunk by brewery employes in the following words:

Beer drunk by men regularly employed in a brewery during their work, when the same is drunk by them in the cellars or vaults connected with the brewery, but has not been removed therefrom, is not subject to tax, and the vessel containing the same need not be stamped, unless the brewer receives a consideration for the same. If the beer be given to the men as a part of their wages, or as an inducement for them to work for less wages than they would otherwise demand, it amounts to a sale and the beer is liable to a tax.

Old health advice

Here's an excerpt from a children's health textbook published in 1888 titled First Book in Physiology and Hygiene, written by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of cornflakes.

7. Eating too many Kinds of Foods.--Children should avoid eating freely of flesh meats.They ought also to avoid eating all highly-seasoned dishes, and taking too many kinds of food at a meal. A simple diet is much the more healthful. Milk and grain foods, as oatmeal, cracked wheat, graham bread, with such delicious fruits as apples, pears, and grapes, are much the best food for children.

8. Avoid Use of Cold Foods.--We ought not to take very cold foods or liquids with our meals. Cold foods, ice-water, and other iced drinks make the stomach so cold that it cannot digest the food. For this reason it is very harmful to drink iced water or iced tea, or to eat ice-cream at meals. These things are injurious to us at any time, but they do the greatest amount of harm when taken with the food.

9. Things sometimes Eaten which are not Foods.--Things which are not foods are often used as foods, such as mustard, pepper, and the various kinds of seasonings. Soda, saleratus, and baking-powders also belong to this class. All of these substances are more or less harmful, particularly mustard, pepper, and hot sauces.

(Note: This book is public domain.)

Katrina spares S.S. Hurricane Camille

Friends from Gulfport report the S.S. Hurricane Camille, a boat that washed ashore during Hurricane Camille, remains landlocked along Hwy. 90. Hurricane Katrina destroyed most everything around it, but left the Camille untouched. A bit ironic, Mother Nature's mercurial hand...Katrina flattened antebellum homes and museums yet left an essentially worthless old boat standing.

You get what you pay for

I finally browsed the contents of my Adobe disks and still couldn't find the clipart. A visit to the Adobe site revealed that the educational version of the software doesn't come with the clipart and stock photos. If I want those I have to fork over another $450!

Pesky critter redux

The bug that devoured my tomato plants is similar to this one--I caught two of them on my remaining plants before they did much harm. The previous culprit was fatter and I don't believe it had the pointy appendage.