Footnotes

Paint Stripping:

If you buy an old home, don't decide to strip the paint on your own. Eddie started stripping the paint on his stair railing a while ago and is still working on it. His house is about 80 years old and the stair railing appears to have at least six layers of paint on it that need to be stripped so that it can be stained. The worst part is that it wasn't originally sealed before painting and that paint of all varities has been used on it (oil-based, latex, etc.). I went over Saturday to help and even with some nasty chemical strippers it still was taking a long time to even get the top layers off. His dad suggested the project in the first place and I am sure that he is laughing manically as Eddie works on it. The other project suggested was to strip the wallpaper, but he said that the railing would be a better project--wrong.

The Worship of the Packers:

Friday night was an exhibition game for the Packers where they got their butt kicked. We got to the Box (our favorite sports bar) at about half-time and it was as close to dead silence as a bar gets. It could be reasonably expected that it would liven up after the torture was done, but it stayed quiet. We went out to several other establishments--all of them quiet, even for Sheboygan. The only explanation was the Game. It's only the preseason folks. It was fun to torment the fans about losing to the Lions--not that that looks likely given their performance or lack thereof last night. It will be a long season for both teams.

Living Models:

While I was walking through the Fox Valley Mall in Appleton on Sunday I was surprised to see live models at Abercrombie and Fitch. Now I don't usually pay attention to that store since it is a little beyond my income and snobishnish level, but I was suprised to see a female and male model posing just inside the entrance to the store as I walked by. The guy was just standing there is his jeans, but the girl was wearing a shirt with her pants--that's not fair. Also, I thought the sign on the mall door says no shirt, no shoes, no service. I guess that only applies to mere middle and lower class mortals. It was weird.

I will note that the mall felt a lot like Oakland County. There were a lot of rich high school and college kids shopping for back to school as well as a lot of other none too poor folks around. The parking lot was packed. You would have thought it was Christmas.

Curtains:

My whole purpose shopping was to seek curtains for my bedroom windows. I was sleeping Saturday morning when I dreamt that someone was shining a flashlight in my face and it hurt. Low and behold it was the sun and I wasn't dreaming. The sun has moved far enough south in the sky to be out from behind the other building at 6am. Even with the blinds shut it is still difficult to sleep once the sun comes up. Given this curtains seem like a good plan. I thought this would be easy. Nope. First there was sizing. My windows are 4 foot square, but the curtains only come in 5 foot or 7 foot lengths and the 5 foot size is relatively rare. Then there was finding a simple design and reasonable choice. In the end I visited 8 stores in person and several online before finding a compromise choice online today. All that for curtains.

Work:

I will note that I am not the guy to run your popcorn training. My burning distaste for the program comes out in my presentation no matter how hard I try.

We played kickball as a staff on Monday. That was a lot of fun. Our staff is rather more competitive as a whole than I thought. The teams were north versus south with the DFS and Scout Exec on opposite teams. The south team (I am part of this) was the Scout Exec's team and we got beat 20-15 in a 9 inning game. The best quote was from the Scout Exec "a leader should be honest, so I will say that I suck (at Kickball) which I do. Now I can say that our team sucks." It was a great team pep talk that met with universal agreement on our team.

One positive note is that I finally have a district chairman after 7 months without one. It was one of the shortest recruitments ever--not even two minutes. It will be nice to have a lead volunteer to work with who I am also becoming friends with.

Ta, Ta for now.