While listening to the news this morning, I happened upon the bit about the gentleman on the ski lift who got more than he bargained for on his journey.  While the outcome was good, it could have been catastrophic.  The man was not identified and I can say with certainty that I would not want to be identified, either.  I am sure that if onlookers had the means, photos would have been snapped and videos must have been captured for youtube fodder.   Laugh if you must (hard not to) the situation must have been perilous… dangling from a ski lift while exposed for seven minutes.  Must haven been a chilling experience.

Man left dangling upside down, pantsless after Vail lift mishap

JANUARY 6–In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado’s ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning. The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail’s Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift’s fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair’s botched boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair. The images on page four and five were taken by a local photographer who happened upon the rescue scene. In a statement released this afternoon, Vail Resorts, which operates the ski area, reported that the skier was not injured after being “suspended for approximately seven minutes.” The press release did not explain how the mishap occurred, only that “the man was caught on the chair.”

Any other proud moment anyone would care to divulge?  I was the victim of a depantsing in junior high.  A group of us were on our way to the science teacher’s desk and for some reason a fellow classmate had grabbed onto my back pocket and as I was walking, I suddenly felt a draft.  It was a good thing I had phys ed that day so I had a change of pants.  I did not stand around long enogh to see if the architect of the depantsing got the typical punishment of writing spelling words 15 times.

My son (after having only daughters for the past nine years, it seems weird to say the word son) must be teething.  He will be 6 months old on Sunday already, and for the last 5 days, he’s been crying constantly.  Yesterday was the exception, but 4 of the 5 last days, he’s been crying nonstop – it’s quite taxing for both of us.  Mostly, the exhaustion comes because I just feel badly for the little guy – he used to be the happiest baby and smiled constantly.  But after trying everything to cheer him up, sometimes I selfishly think about how hard it is on me as well.  I can’t imagine the pain he’s going through, but in the mean time, I can’t get anything done around the house – and leisure time?  Forget it.  It’s hard to get anything done while holding him, and holding him offers one of the only ways to keep him from crying – sometimes even holding him doesn’t work.  Sometimes there is no choice but to put him down somewhere, like when I’m cooking for instance, and he’s not happy anywhere right now…  not in his playpen, his bouncer, his bouncy seat, his crib, the floor, nowhere, which means he is screaming, and it’s a draining form of torture to hear a baby cry all day.  The only reason I’m actually able to sit down and write this blog (YES!  Leisure time after all!) right now is because he is passed out (after a crying spell) sitting on the couch next to me.  He sometimes likes it there too, but that means I’m glued to the couch – can’t leave a baby unattended on a couch of course.  So I can sit here and type this blog, but I can’t do things like tackle my accumulating clutter or begin the task of cutting Mt. Washmore down to size.  Mt. Washmore is the never-ending, magically replenishing pile of laundry often found lurking in households with 2 or more kids – I have 4 kids, so our Mt. Washmore is taking on a life of its own.  If we have any more kids, I’m afraid people who come to visit us will just arrive at the foot of a gi-normous pile of clothes where there once was a house and a family who lived inside.

I try to tell myself that things like backed-up laundry and clutter don’t really matter in the long run.  Heck, I’ll probably even be bored and WISH I had lots more laundry to do once my kids are all grown and in school during the day.  But just as I convince my brain that this is true, my feet stumble over something that’s in the way and shouldn’t be there – clutter or a basket of laundry to put away.  Speak of the devil, the laundry buzzer just went off…  if only my son will sleep through the transfer from the couch to his playpen so I can go fold it and put it away, thereby avoiding feeding Mt. Washmore.

HE DID!  He’s asleep in his playpen!  But now the dogs are barking at the neighbor’s cat again and WAAAAA, WAAAAAA!!!  Those dogs have woken the baby again!  Sigh…

I guess today will see yet another expansion of Mt. Washmore after all.

Tonight, moments after I had locked up for the night,  a young man knocked on the door.  It was 9:05 and everything was locked up, money in the safe, ready to go home after a long day.  “I was wondering if I could get a pack of cigarettes.”  Either the person had a very babyish face or he was trying to pull a fast one.  In the first place, we were closed and someone asking for cigarettes is the LAST thing I would EVER let anyone talk me into selling them 5 minutes after the store was closed..  We are a dry store… no alcohol, or that would also be nixed.  After I politely told the rather young looking gentleman that I could not help him, the manager told me that she had waited on him before.  She refused the sale just as I would have.  In order to prove his age he asked if a birth certificate would be acceptable.  Who is this guy trying to kid?

This reminds me of a tale I have heard related about cast members from a production of Scapin (the best show no one saw… myself included as I had yet to become involved in the community theatre as heavily as I am now) going to a convenience store trying to buy some alcohol.  My 21 year-old + friend was still in heavy costume makeup giving him the appearance of an extremely old man..  If memory serves, the clerk was not going to allow the sale until identification was given.  I do not believe he had his license with him at the time.  Hilarious. [poll id=”8″]

Recently I’ve been trying to respond to one person’s blog, and I’ve gotten errors.  Then I try on another browser and can make 1 reply.  Then on to a third to make another reply.  Then I have to log completely off my computer to make another reply.  Just weird.  Of course while testing all this out it looks like I’m making very weird comments.   Of course, sometimes I do make weird comments, so nobody really notices the difference. 😉

But, I wonder is anyone having trouble commenting on my blog.  Am I loosing the opinions, views, and comments of others?  I can’t be sure, unless they contact me in some other manner.  

The other thing I notice this past week, I’m getting more spam type replies.  Since I do some moderation  of all the replies, most don’t get through, but I see them.   I don’t like them, they add no value to my blog.  That is important to me.   I would like this blog to be a place for me to share, inform, rant and maybe entertain.  Both my initial post and the responses to them help with this.  Spam replies do none of this.

Then I noticed that some blog themes like certain browsers better than others.  This is to be expected, since some browsers handle the coding differently.   It is my hope that my current blog works well with all browsers.  It certainly works with the ones I use, on the screen setting I use.  Input on what you see would help out.

Finally I started using a few polls.  There is one poll on this site that I’m guessing our wonderful Admin put on when he was testing the poll plugin install.  Here it is for your pleasure, and my education.

[poll id = 1]

In my previous post I was looking for the title of a song and the artist who sings it, and I promised a prize to anyone who could provide me with the info.  Two readers and fellow bloggers, justj and derek, successfully completed the challenge.  So what’s their prize?  A blog post of recognition, of course!

Alright, that’s dumb.  It’s going to make sure that people never take any challenges I offer again.  Isn’t just knowing that you helped a friend enough?  Of course it is, but you were promised a prize.  Maybe I can treat your ears to a round of Senorita Mas Fina (that’s the name of the song I was looking for in case you’re wondering, and it’s sung by Kevin Fowler).

Just kidding!  I won’t make you listen to the song.  It really seems like something only a country music lover would like – cheesy lyrics, hokey theme, obscene amount of twang – the kind of song I can really use to tease my friends who hate country music!

Well, thanks again derek and justj for playing and for coming up with the info I was looking for.  And it’s ironic, I did do searches myself, and I did come up with the name Kevin Fowler, but before I was able to listen to the song, I had to do something else (the baby has been crying for 3 days straight – teething), and I guess I forgot I was close to a result when my computer crashed.  So thanks for helping me, and you will get more than the blog post recognition I had planned – I will have a real prize the next time I see each of you – something small, but maybe a little better than blog recognition and being made to listen to an extreme lesson in the country music technique of twang.  Thanks for playing!

But a prince ain’t bad either.  First rehearsal after the read through.  It is interesesting how everyone is getting into their characters.  We have a good cast, and we already developing some very intresting personallities.  Should be a lot of fun.   

I have some verly good lines and good interaction with the other actors.  As with all my acting experiences, I hope to learn something in this stage experience.  With the actors on stage and the directors out in front, I’m sure it will happen again.

Now just a bit of trivia, while the line “It’s good to be the king” is not said exactly in this play, the sentiment is there.  This line was said often in a couple of Mel Brooks’ movies and one of his stage plays.  Extra point for any who can name all three and another movie that used the line.

From dictionary.com:

gringo [gring-goh] –noun, plural -gos. Usually Disparaging.
(in Latin America or Spain) a foreigner, esp. one of U.S. or British descent.

Sorry – didn’t mean to be disparaging, but I am of U.S. descent and I need help.

This post is an appeal to country music fans to please help me figure out the details of a country song I want.  I don’t know the name of it or who sings it.  It’s an older song – maybe from the 1980’s or ’90’s…  I wouldn’t even rule out the ’70’s.  Just about the only lyrics I can remember are “…be your little gringo…”  or something like that.  The song is uptempo and sung by a male.  If you can get me the name and artist of the song I’m looking for, you’ll win a prize.  Something tells me Carol might know this…  or my dad…  WHAT IS THIS SONG?

As I was making lunch today, I heard the following fascinating story on the radio, so I had to look it up and read it for myself:

The following article is from baltimoresun.com:
DANBURY, Conn. (AP) — On the day that Donald Peters died, he unknowingly provided financial security for his wife of 59 years and their family.

Peters bought two Connecticut Lottery tickets at a local 7-Eleven store on Nov. 1 as part of a 20-year tradition he shared with his wife Charlotte. Later that day, the 79-year-old retired hat factory worker suffered a fatal heart attack while working in his yard in Danbury.

On Friday, his widow cashed in one of the tickets: a $10 million winner which, in her grief over her husband’s death, she had put aside and almost discarded before recently checking the numbers.

“I’m numb,” Charlotte Peters, 78, said at Connecticut Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill.

Donald Peters usually bought the tickets for 10 weeks at a stretch, so the winning ticket he bought Nov. 1 for the Dec. 2 drawing was among several that Charlotte Peters put aside as she, their three children and two grandchildren coped with his sudden death.

“I was in the grocery store and I had it checked and they told me I was a winner,” she said. “I had no idea how much it was.”

She said she thought she had won $6 million but was surprised to learn from lottery officials she’d won $10 million.

Charlotte Peters has 60 days to decide whether to take a $6 million pre-tax lump sum payment or stretch the winnings into 21 yearly payments of almost $477,300 each.

She does not yet know what she will do with the money.

“I’ve always wanted a Corvette, but I don’t think I’ll buy one. I’ll stick to a small car. I might go to Mohegan Sun,” she said, referring to the casino in Connecticut. “I’m going to go home and sit and think.”

The Peters children think their father would have appreciated the irony.

“He’d be very mad, he just passed away and she won a lot of money,” said Brian Peters, one of the couple’s three children. “He’d say, ‘Figures!'”

Even though Mr. Peters was not aware of his “luck”, in effect he paid the ultimate price to win the lottery.  Was it worth it?  Probably not.  Any sane person would rather have his life, health, and loved ones rather than an extremely large windfall if there was a choice.  Since that’s a poll I’d rather not take, here is one about what you would do if you won a huge amount of money in a lottery.

[poll id=”4″]

I’ve always tried out new (free) browsers as they are released since the inception of a browser as a program.  I remember the first Mosaic browser.  Quite a change from text based newsgroups and bulliten boards.  Text and pictures all at once. 

Currently I’m using Windows XP and have Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome loaded to run.  Most of the time I use Chrome, because it is just a bit faster to load.  Firefox follows closely as to what I use most.  I have Explorer just in case something doesn’t work on the other two browsers.    

So of course this lends itself to another poll….

[poll id=4]

In another sign of the weak economy, I received an email from a dinner theatre in Akron, Ohio which has cancelled its 2009 season, putting 150 people out to work.  I attended a production of West Side Story a few years ago and was once again enchanted by the power of live theatre.  The Carousel began in a converted supermarket in 1973 (what a coinkidink) and moved to its current location in 1988).  The theatre has created a buzz in New York as it has recruited talent from the Big Apple.  Each musical was self-produced using equity performers.  Quite a shame to see artistic venues come crashing down during this economic crisis.  I also hear that New York theatre is not doing well, either.

The Carousel Dinner Theatre, LLC has cancelled its 2009 season and closed its doors effective January 4, 2009.

For the past year, the economy has materially affected the theatre’s attendance and its ability to make cost adjustments to keep pace with the decrease in attendance. The final tipping point became the reversal of certain stakeholders’ written or verbal promises that would have had a major impact on the theatre’s continuance for the 2009 season and beyond.

Mr. Joseph E. Palmer accepts full responsibility for this action and regrets the impact on one hundred fifty employees and their families and all others affected by this closure.

If you have made any advance purchases on your credit cards, you should should immediately contact your credit card company to process a full refund.