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Wednesday, Jun. 19, 2002 - 6:15 p.m. What am I so �great� for? Our niece Tara gave birth to her first child today. The newborn is a girl, and her name is Riley �something something� (Tara�s last name). This makes me a great-uncle (I think). After I learned the GIRL�S name was RILEY, I forgot what the two middle names were. I think they were beautiful girl�s names, and I imagine whenever she goes through a rebellious stage in her teens she will want to be known by one of them. The baby�s size and weight? Don�t know. That�s the kind of stuff women are very good at remembering, and since I am a member of the male portion of the species�. Now, if you want to know how many home runs Ernie Banks hit in his career with the Chicago Cubs, that�s easy. 512. Sorry, but that is how most men�s minds are wired. Mother and daughter are doing fine. When Lease gets off work tonight, we will be heading up to the hospital for our first look at Riley. Maybe if I keep saying that name enough it will start to sound right? Bonus changes to today's entry! It's now 9 pm, and I just had to change a couple of things about today's entry. 1. The new Grand Niece's name is spelled RILEY, not REILLY.I blame that mistake on my program's spellchecker. Musta thought she was from Ireland or something. 2. I have to show you what she looks like,don't I? Tara is still under the influence of those wonderful pain-killing drugs, so the photos I took of her holding Riley didn't turn out so hot. She looks happy in the background of this shot, so it's the one I used:
(insert your "Ohhhh"'s and "Ahhhhh"'s here) One more quick item: Our Kirby� Generation 3 vacuum sweeper is officially toast. I took the bottom off of the machine, and several small pieces of broken plastic fell out with the gear unit. I took the old broken axle up to Kirby�s store her in town, and the slightly-smarmy looking manager (open necked silk shirt with a couple of gold chains�you know what I mean) was nice enough to give me a free replacement axle. Considering that the sweeper is about 10 years old, he didn�t have to do that for me. But��(there�s always a but)he did say that it was very hard to reassemble the unit once you take it apart. He brought out a new gear-drive unit for me to study, so I could see where all the tiny parts went in the drive train. He told me if I had any trouble getting it back together to bring it to the store. He said they could get it back together for a �small amount of money�. This, from a company that charges over $1300 for one of their new models. I was able to reassemble the axle and get the gears back together, but that was just the start of my troubles. The on/off switch was one of the sources of broken plastic shards. So were the cooling fins of the motor. As a matter of fact most all of the internal plastic parts had become brittle and started to disintegrate. Without an on/off switch, and with the motor fins broken and crumbling, I figured that it was time to join the real world and buy a Hoover� or Eureka� sweeper for about 1/7th of what this thing set us back when we bought it. Why did we buy one of these overpriced suckers? The same reason why most people end up with one: A relative (in my case, one of my step brothers in one of the few jobs he ever has held) talked me into �helping him out�. It has served us decently for 10 years. It has always been a pain-in-the-ass to drag up and down the stairs because it weighs so much. It tended to keep a constant �doggie smell�, no matter how hard I try to clean its innards up during bag changing. So it won�t be missed. Something much lighter will do the job for far less money. Anyone out there want to give me their thoughts on what is the best vacuum sweeper for the money? Tell me in my guestbook or just send me an email. One more thing about the Kirby� store: in several small rooms off of the lobby area I could hear women working the phones, trying to talk people into letting �our associates� into their homes with the offer of a free room or furniture shampooing. They said they were being called because �they had won this month�s drawing in the year-long free grocery giveaway that they had registered for, sometime in the past.� Yes, telemarketing at it�s finest. If you saw the 20/20 �hidden camera� show about the hard sell tactics that these salesmen use, once inside your home, you would never open your front door for a stranger again��
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