Rant: Hurricanes! How much more of this can the people of Louisiana (and other areas) take?

Rave: There aren't any hurricanes where I live. I've been complaining about Buffalo weather for years and dreaming of the day I can move to Florida. I'm re-thinking that whole idea.

Rant: Tinted windows on cars!!!!!!!!
For crying out loud, all these huge SUV's and other vehicles with dark tinted windows. If you're unlucky enough to be parked next to one in a parking lot, backing out is nearly impossible. You can't see anything as you're trying to back up. You have to blow your horn and hope to God no one is walking up behind you. (Phew, I feel better now).

Rave: My daddy's 81st b-day today. We're going out to dinner if my mother can handle it. Otherwise, I'll bring dinner to them.

Rant: Dad is struggling with dimentia, and I don't know how many birthdays we have left to celebrate or how many he will remember. :-(

Rave: TGIF!!!!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Rant - I've been sick and it stinks.

Rant - see what Eeva said about school. I'm praying that town officials will get a clue. One member of the finance board actually said that allowing the schools to go into receivership will not hurt property values. He could not be any more wrong. In Massachusetts the perception of a good school system is critical to property values.

Rave - Teachers like Eeva who do care and parents willing to speak up. Eeva please don't lose heart. It is a good school and can get even better if enough people speak up.

Rant - why do people dislike Roberts? He proved himself to be an articulate, thoughtful and intelligent man with a bit of a sense of humor during the hearings. I suspect its a knee jerk reaction - he's conservative therefore I can't like him.

Rave - my family is well and safe.

My prayers are for all in Houston and the Gulf Coast. Be strong.

Rant: it's been a tough first week back to work after being out for 2 weeks on vacation. TGIF!!!

Rave: Had a great time in Switzerland and France - but it was unusually hot!

I reserve the right to post personal rants and raves later today. My husband is driving home from his mother's today. My daughter flew into St. Louis for the funeral. Drove back here with my son and me yesterday. And is flying to Long Island today to go to a concert with a friend who goes to Adelphi. So I'm waiting to be able to rave about my husband being safely home and my daughter having safely reached her friend's dorm!

But I had to jump in now to thank Ellen for her good wishes. And to do two major rants.

RANT: Rita. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you being affected.

RANT: No Child Left Behind. Not only does it not help those for whom it was intended (which I've seen at the grade school where I work), but it hurts the kids on the other end of the spectrum. Because of the lack of funding, in order to comply, our high school has had to cut back honors and AP classes. That puts students at a real disadvantage for getting into a good college.

I'm so sorry to hear about its personal affects on you, OWJ. Now I understand why you were up at 3:30. As STW said, no apologies for your rant. Nor she for hers. I'll never understand how people can be so short-sighted when it comes to funding education. It has such a major impact on all of us, whether we have children or not.

Rant: RITA!!!!!!!!!
Yuck!!
Considering the number of major storms that hit us in FL last year and now Katrina and Rita within a month of one another, something is seriously out of whack with our environment.

Rave: Buc's go to Greenbay for what is probably going to be a great match-up.
Buc's haven't won at Lambeau in about 15 yrs. I think our guys are due.

btw--we saw McCartney last weekend in Tampa. Great show and the guy has absolutely incredible energy.
Maybe there is something to that vegetarian lifestyle.

rave: organizing my life lately...on line bill pay, closing credit cards, it feels good!

rave: went home this week for dr.'s appt's (everything o.k) and actually got to hang out with my mom!

rant: 45 minutes waiting for the dr.'s appt that lasted 90 seconds. what's the deal with our system?

rave: making progress selling the car...

rave: the personality of the cats in the shelter i volunteer in. last night, there were (really) sick cats, and one with one eye! but they were so fiesty and cute. it's hard to deal with (in the face of everything else in nyc) but i like the fact that i'm helping.

owj: wow! that's big. sir paul was on cbs sunday morning last week. even that was neat!

Rave: Teachers. Where would any of us be without a handful of the very best?

Rant: Rita and Senators Feinstein, Biden, Kennedy, Schumer and Durbin in no particular order.

Rave: Daughter's recent visit.

M

Happy Birthday to all who are celebrating, and well wishes to all that could use them.

Rave: Celebrating my SS's birthday tonight - pizza, cake, and hours of Texas Hold'em with family.

Rave: SIL and family are evacuating Richmond, Texas today heading, to MIL's in Arizona, hoping they have no snags at the airport. Prayers to all who are having to deal with Rita.

Rave: The weather here in New England has been most wonderful, and we're getting a cool-down starting tomorrow, & the leaves will start to change shortly. Mums, pumpkins & apple-picking soon - how I love the seasonal changes.

Rants: None...just lucky to be here.

Be safe, be healthy, be happy!

Rant: Rita

Rant: Katie Couric. She is moron.

Rant: 18 miles in the morning or is this a rave? I'm tired.

RAVE: The Apprentice! Donald and his big scary hairdon't finally brought the show back to being about the tasks and not the bull$hit!

RAVE: Martha!

Rant: A "service" called Fed Ex Ground:

Last Thursday, I returned home about 6 PM to a message left at 4 PM: "we have a package we'd like to deliver between 5 and 7, please call 'this number' and use 'this reference number' and let us know if that's all right. Hmm. Did they mean today or tomorrow? I call the number and leave a message that yes I'll be home tomorrow (Friday) between 5 and 7 so they can deliver.

Friday I get home at 4:30 and await the package. By 8PM I give up and call their number. I leave a message "what gives? I was home and there was no delivery". I hear nothing until Monday when they call and leave me a message: "we don't know whom you spoke to but we never got a message you'd be home, so we didn't deliver it. And today the truck went out without your package since we didn't know if you'd be there or not. Please call and let us know what day this week will work for you between 5 and 7".

I call back Monday afternoon and say "yes, I'll be home on Tuesday between 5 and 7. Bring my package. On Tuesday morning at -- get this -- 6:05 AM they wake me up calling to tell me that I should make sure I'm home between 5 and 7 and they will bring my package. I agree and don't even scream at them because they woke me!

Tuesday I arrive home by 4:30. I live in a three story townhouse and I plant myself at my computer just inside the door on the ground floor. I will see any car or truck that enters our little parking area (we only have 6 units in our entire complex). By 8 there has been no delivery and no one has either entered our parking area or approached my door. I call and leave an angry message asking how many times this is going to happen and where is my package. I tell them I don't want it, and they should return to sender. I call the sender and tell them what has happened and tell them they need to contact Fed Ex and let them know. They agree it is fine that I cancel it and have it returned to them. But then they check the tracking and call me back to tell me that the tracking number shows it was delivered to me at 5:04 that evening and it was signed for by a C Braun (a name I've never heard before). They give me the tracking number and online I find the same information.

I call back to FedEx and tell them what I found out but assure them that I don't know this person who signed it -- it is no one in my entire complex, and no one approached by door to deliver as I was sitting right there at 5:04. I don't hear back from them.

On Thursday (notice, it has now been a full week) I call them again to see if they have any information. Gee, they don't know what I'm talking about because it was clearly delivered to me on Tuesday evening at 5:04. I tell them to check with the driver and ask him where he took it because he clearly never was at the right address -- maybe he took it to my address on 9th STREET and not 9th AVENUE or NORTH and not SOUTH. The driver returns and calls me. He is most indignant. He certainly WAS at the right address, but I wasn't home so he put a notice on door and left it with a neighbor in unit 11! Huh? We have no unit 11, there are only 6 units. Finally we figure out, he was indeed at the wrong address. I drive over to the building that it sounds like he must have been at. I ring the bell at unit 11. The door opens and a man hands me my package. He had just called me as he noticed the address was not theirs on the package and had looked my name up in the phone book. I returned home with my package. There was a message from this man who had it.

Now, do I call Fed Ex and ask them to pick it up to return it to the sender? No way -- I need to drive four miles to the Fed Ex place and stand in line and return it myself. The sender has given me a return authorization number which should work.

Moral: Never use Fed Ex ground which does not retrieve their messages from their answering machine, calls you at 6:05 AM to give you their schedule, and hires drivers who can't read street names and numbers!

Rant: I'll throw my two cents in for NCLB--bleh. My husband's on our local school board and, rest assured, teachers, school boards hate it, too. Cutting programs for high ability learners in order to comply with the mandate has me steamed. By all means, let's lift everyone to the same level of mediocrity while tying the hands of administration and teachers...

Rave: to school board members everywhere who volunteer hundreds of hours of their time each year to education. In return, they're vilified by just about everyone! Why anyone would want to do it, I'll never know...

Rave: Saw John Mellencamp in concert recently (didn't get to post on the rants and raves last week :-) ) John Fogerty opened for him--what a great concert!

Rave: John Roberts

Rant: Politicians who put the country's best interest behind their own political agenda--blech.

Rant: Weather--good grief, a nice blizzard or two doesn't sound so bad right now! Rita Rita, go away...

Rant: decades of knowing how vulnerable we are re: our cities, coasts and coastal ecology, infrastructure, gasoline and highway dependence, terrorism, etc. but having all efforts to call attention, analyze, and plan accordingly greeted either by incompetence, politics as usual, or outright bullying dismissal as "hysteria."

rave: we're more than half-way through hurricane season.

rave: the retreat to Fodorland where we have a couple of nattering town fools but mostly a lot of people happy to talk about escape to wonderful places and things.

OK, ready for some good news?? They're still not here yet, BUT:

Rave: They have turned off I-10 and they are making better time on Highway 71. There is a good chance they will arrive by noon (1pm Fodor time), if the current pace continues. Gas was hard to find through the night and they waited in some long lines, but they now have enough gas to make it to Austin.

I'll post back when they arrive. This might be premature, but WHEW!!

I will now celebrate by having toast with Nutella. I don't know how I would have made it through this week without my beloved comfort food, Nutella. :-)

Rant: Patrick's FedEx anecdote. I would have behaved similarly, but SO would have locked me in my room.

Rant: DAL's $3Bil. restructuring plan includes 7,000-9,000 additional layoffs and new wage/benefit concessions. Time to spend our FF miles.

M

Vittrad: you can change the former post-you click back to your pre-posting page, click preview, click edit, change your mistake, click post- it does not double post and corrects your mistakes.

Rave: Teachers

Rant: Rita

Rant: White SOX, but Vittrad do not give up quite yet- way too early- that's why 162 games is lOOOONG. As Yogi said "It's not over till it's over."

Rant: The reports I'm hearing from the shelters about drug activity and using children as "holders" - people who abandon their children or put them into hell situations on the whole.

Rave: New TV season looks like it might have something beyond reality shows- the Invasion one looked interesting on Fox, I just caught the end. "Mommy, you smell different." SPOOKY!

Rave: I saw the end of my street on ER last night. The Davenport Iowa "Hospital" was actually the relabeled back structure of my high school. Prairies you saw all around were the ones just South of me. I didn't know I looked like Iowa actually.

Rave: Off to MI for 4 days and bringing some old furniture to people up there who really need it. Hope I make it with both highboys.

Have a great weekend everyone and please Rita- weaken, go away and give us a break.

Yay, P_M.

Rave (and guilty pleasure I only share here with some embarrassment): raisins or craisins (esp. cherry-flavored) stirred into the Nutella -- that way you can even eat it with a (little bitty demitasse) spoon in a weak moment.

Rant: the unpleasantness in another thread - most unfortunate given the posters involved.

PS to Patrick: FedEx Ground once told a sender that it had delivered a package to my house -- but it had a completely wrong addess for me -- 999 Main Street, which doesn't exist, rather than 8 Main Street, which does. A lot of calling back and forth between me, sender, and FedEx yielded the following quote from the tracking record: "Left package on porch of 999 Main Street at 4:30 pm."

Pure fiction.

The sender sent me a replacement shipment within a day, but 10 days later, the first package mysteriously appeared on my front porch.

Safe travels to Caph's and PM's families!

Rant: Rita.

Rave: It's the weekend, and I'm so glad.

Rant: This week has sucked. My husband had surgery, I got sick and missed a trip on Saturday, and I had to fire some clients.

Rave/Rant: We have over 100 tomatoes sitting on all of the windowsills in the kitchen to ripen because we're expecting snow this evening. I love the tomatoes but could do without the snow for a while!

I hope everyones friends and families make it home or to other safe destinations. Thinking of all of you!

Rant--Rita, of course.

Rave--Took a day this week by myself and enjoyed the Columbia River Gorge.

Rant--Found out that our insurance plan as a military retiree does not cover vision at all, even exams.

Rave--That my rant is minor.

Rant: I bought gas for $2.599 last night. $2.549 with coupon.
Rave-ish: That $2.549 might seem reasonable in a few days. And there were no lines.
Rant: The traffic jams of people trying to avoid Rita are truly beyond my comprehension.

Rave: went to the annual "Chocolate Fantasy" last night. You make a $10 donation to the YWCA shelter, they give you a paper plate and you choose as much as you wish from a vast assortment of chocolate items. They had chili this year, too; helped cut down the over-sweetness. Had a 15-mile bike ride before and 40 minute walk after to help compensate for consumption.

Sending good thoughts to all those in need...............