Yesterday I headed on over to the Brittania Pub on Santa Monica Blvd.,
just steps away from the Promenade. I was on my way to meet other
Bloggers for the International Meetup Day. An event that was happening
all over the world in about 200 cities. I had checked out a few websites
from a few comments made to a specific Blog I visited. I was astounded
to find out a lot of them were born around 1980. I kept thinking all the
way from the parking structure that if all the bloggers turned out to be
21 or 22 I was going to turn around and leave and go for a walk on the
Promenade, and forget about the Meetup altogether. As I walked in the
door some people were hanging out at the bar and at the Pool Table.
There was one table surrounded by early 20 something kids. Hmm...was
that the Blogger Table? I thought better to make sure before exiting the
Pub. So I walked over to the bar and asked one of the bartenders where
the Meeting was. /Up there/ he said, pointing to the stairs leading to
the second floor. O.K. So that table by the entry door was not it.
Walked up the stairs to find one table surrounded by lovely geeks of all
ages! Wonderful news......I felt instantly at home. Introductions all
around. The evening was a lot of fun and there was an instant
camaraderie and a connected feeling of Blogger insights, talk and
understandings and shared computer nonsense. It was really cool. I met
some very interesting people. I didn't get a chance to talk to everyone,
just a few. There was Joe (37) who was sitting next to me. I explained
to him of my trepidation of coming to Meetup. He smiled and told me of a
meeting he had gone to where someone had said to him,upon finding out
his age,/Man, you're old dude!/ Nice. Another Blogger was Judy who is a
journalist for the L.A. Weekly.......great Newspaper that you can pick
up just about anywhere. For the most part it has better reviews and
editorials than the L.A. Times. Outstanding Movie Reviews and synopses
of current movies. Just about any movie you want to see, from
retrospectives to current blockbusters to museum flicks. Luigi and I
always pick one up before going to see any film. I also had a chance to
speak to Leonard ( he was 21 but I liked him any way! Hey, I just didn't
want to be with /only/ 21 year olds) He kept telling everyone he was a
Janitor......../Hey, man, those people are called Industrial Engineers/
He actually works at a University here in L.A. in the ISD. As a matter
of fact Luigi knows him because he works there also and showed me an
e-mail from him when I got home last night. Small world. Andre got up to
go to the john and everyone pounced on his digital camera. Ryan opened
up his mouth wide and shot a picture of his uvula(sp). Next someone took
a picture of Joe's ear. I didn't know it was Andre's purloined camera
but I did so want to be part of the action.....so I stuck my tongue out
at the lens. I wonder what Andre said when he arrived home to review his
'shots'? It will be interesting if he posts any of it. If he does you'll
see a ghastly picture of Peach with her tongue hanging out. I also spoke
with Chris who runs a blog about safer sex. He has tons of visitors and
his blog is 'circulated' at many schools and organizations. He is around
35 but looks around 21. When he found out about my 21 phobia he told me
he was 21. The following is a list of attendees at the First
International Blogger Meetup Day in Santa Monica: Judith Lewis
Ryan Gantz
Stepahnie Losi
also has 2 Blogs Jonah Manning
really hope I got everything right or I will probably hear it from them
on my comments. All the names and Blogs were written on a paper napkin.
I also forgot to ask if someone does not have a www in front of their
URL do I put it there anyway?..........Sorry, remember I'm computer
Illiterate. If the link doesn't work I'll have to come back and edit
it........that of course will be when Blogger won't let me post again!!
Thanks to Joe who showed me that nifty trick on how to make links. I
can't believe that button has been in my posting page the whole time and
I didn't know what the heck it was. Hope to hear from you guys soon. I
will be visiting your Blogs. And for the rest of you don't miss the next
Blogger Meetup in your Area! And now we return you to our regularly
scheduled program................./The Adventures of Encrypto: Wonder
Blogger Destroyer and his Dog Linux/ Love, Peach
What is it with Ann Coulter? And why on two different websites so far,
have I found her 'presence'? She certainly isn't the brightest of
journalists and has written a tome which from what I understand is
Democrat Bashing and nothing else. I can understand if you're a male
Republican that you find her cute. But hey, that's it! I am sure there
are other worthy Republican women who deserve your accolades. Why
doesn't anyone ever talk about Dubba's Mom.......Barbara Bush? Now there
is a worthy human with good intentions. My nephew's elementary school
was named after her. The school is in Texas so you know that the name is
pretty uniformly accepted. My little nephew came home so enthralled
because they had a mock election just before November of 2000. He told
his Dad that they were so excited about voting for Bush at school and
that he wanted to know when his Dad was going to vote. Not wanting to
let poor Ryan down too hard he gracefully and gently told him that he
was going to be voting for Gore. Oh horrors. Poor Ryan was devastated. I
suppose that was the first time he found out his Dad was a Democrat.
When You're surrounded by Republicans and you find out that your Dad is
on the opposing team, it can be very traumatic for a seven year old.
Methinks I have gone off on a tangent. Ann Coulter trashes Democrats.
There is nothing else in her repertoire that defines any arguments with
true facts to back it up. If a Republican fouls, it is either not 'true'
or there is some underlying excuse why an incident occurred. When she is
interviewed on camera she comes across as chatty and 'programmed'. I
just don't get it why Republican Men praise her as though she was some
kind of Pulitzer Prize genius. I can sit with the O'Reilly factor for a
while and eventually agree with something he has said even though he
really is a spinner. (Jeanne Garofolo really laid it into him when he
interviewed her). I respect Bill Bennett because of his moral issues , I
admire Bill Buckley for his erudite views. These people deserve my
consideration. For the favored Ann who lights up the Republican Man's
dream, I say it ain't Politics guys! Go ahead and prove to me what an
awesome , scholarly , enlightened woman she really is. Or are you
looking at her crossing and uncrossing her legs? ( Tee hee, that's what
Doug Wiken has to say about what she CAN do. ) Show me a woman with long
blond hair and nice legs and the content is FORGOTTON. Heck, do you
think more people might revere Barbara Bush a tad more if she were young
and had great gams? Puuh--lease! It is the Truth. Gotta go. My dinner is
calling me! Peach
I love you Beethoven! I cannot describe the moving, swaying, romantic
rousing that has sent my soul to the sky. Your playful and joyful notes
bouncing all over existence in my small keyboard world..... I am so in
awe of you. Why can I not go back in time so that I may go to the
Premiere of your Ninth Symphony? It must have been exciting...your last
concert. But now I am listening to your Second Symphony, which leaves me
so transfixed, I am silent and dripping in awe. And now a moment later
my head tosses from side to side, as I feel my long hair brushing
against my shoulders in a warm, comforting and sensual awareness that I
don't get as much anywhere as I do from music. The Second Symphony is so
intense and gorgeous in a deep velvety and rhythmic way that floats me up
and over the world in dreams and calm ecstasy. I could have fallen in
love with you.....Herr Ludwig....you do such incredible things to my
soul! I would have been yours at the touch of fingers on the piano...I
would have been so easy to fall into any of your whims...That is how
powerful the mixture of your precious notes scan in and out of my mind
and ears and being. How much beauty can one human bring in to this
planet and still have that same intensity it did over 200 years ago? No
one should ever leave this world without knowing that exquisite state of
purity, that rapture that you create ,that incredible, indescribable
sensation that seems to capture all those little endorphins and make
them swirl around in my body , seemingly forever. As your music plays it
does seem to go on forever...........My daily stresses, my little
nothing annoyances........there is nothing that can come between you and
I , Ludwig...as the music plays..........I wait for you .........I close
my eyes, I feel my body floating over the waves of sound.........I want
to stay here in the darkened room.......the playful notes return and now
I am dancing with you down by the swiftly moving stream and the greenest
meadow in the Weinerwald. When something or someone can move you down to
your soul it has to be love. I cannot fathom living on this Earth
without Beethoven, without any Classical music. With all that is going
on , it is a necessity for me to lock away in this tight little world of
my hypnotic state..........not wanting to come out....not
now.........not for a long time.............My guest is still here and I
intend on spending all night with him............ I want to await the
sunrise with this same sense of musical rapture and pleasurable
sensations........."Gute Nacht Mein Herr...Ich warte noch,einmal mer fur
dich schon wieder morgen fruh "...................... Gute Nacht, Peach
Have you picked up the phone lately to call a business and heard these
much anticipated words: "Thank-you for Calling ACME Blow Torches. Your
call is valuable to us. Please stay on the line and a customer service
representative will be with you shortly." a wait of approximatly 2
minutes and then.... "Thank-you for holding. A customer service
representative will be with you shortly. Thank-you for your patience."
two minutes of a Johann Strauss Waltz, or some 40's American Swing or
maybe you might even hear Billy Idol(which wouldn't be so bad...heck I
dance in my chair to White Wedding) "Thank-you for holding. A customer
service representative will be with you shortly. Thank-you for your
patience." Now after about 20 minutes of this, even Billy Idol couldn't
make you feel any better. This kind of mania has been happening a lot to
me lately. And the two most hated words in the English language for me
now are'Customer Service'. I have been cool; I have been kind; I have
maintained my dignity and integrity . But last Monday at the Post Office
I totally lost it. I will get to the Post Office fiasco. But I must
inform you what else was going on in the last week or so. We rented a
U-Haul Van to move stuff out of one apartment to move most of it to
Storage. The next day we walked into the U-Haul Office at the designated
pick-up time of 4:00 P.M. When Luigi was all finished with the forms,
the woman (Michelle) behind the counter gave Luigi a very long receipt
with a lot of printed info. It was a contract she said. As soon as he
finished signing the receipt he noticed that the return time was
7:00A.M. the next day. "What is this? We have to turn the Van back at
seven in the morning?!" "Yes" Michelle says sweetly. "That's when the
next reservation comes in." We proceeded to explain to her that no one
had told us we had to have it back by 7:00 when we made the reservation
on the phone. A'slight' detail that a customer should know. It really
was poor service, you see, but obviously Michelle didn't see the
common sense of it. In her little brain it did not occur to her that had
we known about the time limit we would have called somewhere else.
Eventually she told us to call her supervisor in the morning. When I got
home I called back and told her that the whole thing was insane and that
it was totally unfair to us. She finally agreed(no supervisor necessary
apparently) but insisted Luigi come back to sign a new contract. Oh
great....we have so much time to kill, we would love to come back in
this traffic to sign another contract. I figured out the other day why
there is so much widespread inefficiency and irresponsibility when it
comes to---ug!---Customer Service. It's very simple. Most of these
people are making minimum wage and have very little, if any, training.
It just costs the businesses too much money to train when there is
turnover constantly. And they don't ever fire anyone because of
lawsuits. Anyway on Monday afternoon I went to the Post Office(no
minimum wage here) to find out what had happened to my overnight Express
Letter I had mailed on Saturday. The office I sent it to never received
it and Post Office Tracking Service claimed it had been delivered at
5:00A.M. in the morning? There was a very long line, so I asked the
person in front of me to save my place and walked up to speak to one of
the Postal Clerks.(Actually the same clerk who had helped me with the
Express Mail on Saturday) I had been advised to give the tracking notice
to someone to research in the back on their computer. I gave her the
notice and she said something about someone would be checking it. I hung
out at the counter for about 5 minutes. "Is someone going to take care
of this?" I asked. She said someone would be with me 'shortly'(don't you
just love that word?). I waited another 5 minutes. I asked her again.
"Would it be better if I waited in line again?" . She caught someone's
attention but the help wasn't for me. So I continued to wait at the
counter as she had indicated to me not to go back in line. In the
meantime a very irritated and angry s.o.b. in line starts yelling at me
and telling me I am holding up the line and he is just trying to buy
stamps and not Express Mail. I tried to explain I had only handed in my
form and was waiting. I do not know whether he thought I cut in line to
get an Express Package mailed or what. But he was so hostile and nasty
to me , you would have thought I had gone over there and smacked his
face. Time was moving and I wasn't! I was getting very perturbed at this
woman and finally asked to see her supervisor........another ten
minutes. By this time the line could have been around the block and been
finished for all the time I was standing there. When theSupervisor
finally made her entrance I explained that the postal clerk had written
2nd day instead of Overnight and that she had kept me waiting. You would
assume that this was a simple matter but the Supervisor didn't get it.
At some point I really did lose it and said in an angry voice that all I
wanted was to have my package delivered on time and why did I spend
$13.65 when I could have done the 2-day Priority Mail. "Don't raise your
voice to me" she said very calmly. I was so frustrated that I walked out
of there even though I heard her mention to the clerk to refund my
money. I had been waiting there for 45 minutes. That week was not a good
one for me. The cleaners lost my favorite pair of black capris and
didn't have a clue as to why they were lost. People with minimum
wage?..........nothing against it.........I just wish they had more
responsibility and been taught better manners, no matter what they earn.
Peach
The following is a quote from Writers.Com and ties in to the comment
made by Justin to the "Brainless at 2:00A.M." entry to my Blog. "Be a
scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft....You are one
who sits grandly in your house;your servants answer speedily; beer is
poured copiously; all who see you rejoice in good cheer. Happy is the
heart of him who writes; he is young each day." -Ptahotpe, c. 2350 B.C.
Can anyone tell me where my brains went? Especially the part that has to
do with blogging. Doesn't anyone out there ever run into a wall? I am
being bombarded daily with tons of ideas and thoughts. Wild
conversations with myself and others.........and all of it running
around my head at a million miles an hour. And then I come home and
something interrupts my thoughts with 'things to do'. Then I get
prepared to sit down at my computer and I think "I'll have to think
about this first"................And then .........and then
what?........not sure. And now I feel like blogging but it's after 2:30
A.M. and I'm really tired! I'll try tomorrow. Pleasant Dreams, Peach
