Have no fear --- your humble author is still alive.

It's been a month since my last post on Blogster.  It's 4:04am on Sunday, July 1 as I type this, and my last posting was on June 2 as I wished a happy 50th birthday to my brother.  Someone might think that I succumbed to the ribald heat we've had over most of the country in the past week or so.

Since then, I have been working, sleeping, chasing down auctions on the Auctionzip website and selling stuff on eBay.  I bought a 1996 Ford Aerostar panel van on June 16 for $550 to use in that regard.  Checking the Carfax website reveals that it was bought new by a local power company and I am the seventh owner.  At 261,088 miles, it runs great.  But I think I'll be its last owner.  It does not have AC, cruise control, power locks or windows or tilt wheel.  The vynal seats get rather sticky in the summer heat!  But it has a ladder rack on top that I've already been offered $150 to sell, and a fence between the cargo area and the cab to keep things in back from killing me when they fly forward in a head-on collision.  It does the job and keeps the hard use off my 2000 Pontiac Montana, my "good" minivan.

My ex-wife Nancy applied to the local court to have her maiden name restored.  I got the notice of its approval in the mail on June 21; the court hearing was June 13 and no one told me about it.  My immediate thought was to shrug and wish her all happiness and success.  After all, we've been apart since December 22, 2005.  More curious than that, however, was that she removed me from her Facebook and then blocked me from accessing her profile!  That brought out the "WTF??!" in me.  I can only surmise that she has a boyfriend now and he has pressured her to sever all ties with me --- but I stress that's only a guess.  Texts and Facebook page posts sent to J-3 and Jen have gone unanswered as yet.  So I don't know what the deal is.  Still, as I said, I wish her all happiness and success.

This past Friday the 29th, we had forty percent of our 3rd shift staff missing from work.  The temps here the day before made a new record at 106 degrees!  The prevailing assumption is that those forty percent who missed were drinking beer to keep cool during those 106 degrees, then found themselves too drunk to go to work that night for their Friday shift!  Obviously, nobody from 1st shift would come in early to fill the vacant spots --- can't say as I blame them.  The supervisor Rich was like a one-armed man juggling twenty flaming chainsaws in a fuel depot to keep the production quota up to par.  He threw in the towel at about 2am and just spent his time making sure no one passed out.  It was 97 degrees on the production floor at 4:30am with the outside temp at 83.  Quite a torrid night!

Several towns in this area of northeastern Indiana have delayed their July 4th fireworks displays until September because of fire concerns.  The rainfall tally for June is something like point-four-two of an inch (0.42") for this area, when normal rainfall is something like four-point-zero-eight (4.08") inches.  I heard on the TV news that a state trooper in nearby South Bend pulled over a man for throwing a cigar butt out of his car window.  That $120 ticket should teach the dunce a thing or three.

Hopefully it won't be another month before I post again.

Cheers!

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