The fly in my office… the follow-up

Today I was sitting in my office – decorated in post-modern warehouse – with pretty blue walls, a rather comfortable wicker chair and a fabulous flat-screen monitor and who walks in but the Terminex guy. I’ve heard good things about the Terminex guy from those who have worked here longer than I. He hates bugs, doesn’t mind mice, despises rats. An exterminator who has a passion for his job – you don’t see many of those these days.

Our Terminex man was called because my boss thought he smelled dead mice in the ceiling and walls. I just thought the smell was normal as I haven’t been here that long and who’s to say what’s normal here? As Mr. Terminex examines our drop ceilings for ‘droppings’ he asked if I had seen any flies. What a question! I respond with a ‘Yes!’ and say in fact, I have noticed a few flies the last couple of weeks and the day they annoyed me most was Thursday, August 4th. He says, and this is where it gets gross, that the flies show up when the carcass of the mice are decomposing, hence the reason he does not see mice carcasses in the walls and ceilings.

So not only was I bothered by ridiculously large flies for about 2 weeks, I was actually sitting below the dead carcasses of mice.

Saints want to resume negotiations with Louisiana??

ESPN.com – NFL – Saints want to resume negotiations with Louisiana
New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson wants to resume negotiations with the state, possibly by the end of the summer, on a deal to keep the team in Louisiana.

What the heck? This is making me nuts. Can someone back home fill me in on how the fans are handling this? It seems like a rollercoaster.

In other news, I will cheer when Aaron Brooks takes the bench and Gamblin’ Adrien McPherson comes on the field tonight.

Saints want to resume negotiations with Louisiana??

ESPN.com – NFL – Saints want to resume negotiations with Louisiana
New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson wants to resume negotiations with the state, possibly by the end of the summer, on a deal to keep the team in Louisiana.

What the heck? This is making me nuts. Can someone back home fill me in on how the fans are handling this? It seems like a rollercoaster.

In other news, I will cheer when Aaron Brooks takes the bench and Gamblin’ Adrien McPherson comes on the field tonight.

The fly in my office…

My office. A standard office in a warehouse building. It’s a large room, enough for a good-sized, L-shaped desk and all of the standard office accrutrements. This office, being the front room and the only room air-conditioned in the middle of August in Atlanta, gets plenty of visitors, including Atlanta’s most obnoxious fly. It’s huge, the fly, landing on the rolodex, the flat-screen monitor, my coffee cup. I’ve attacked it with my phone message book, tried to pin it between the window and the blinds. I’ve tried to coax it out the door – to freedom! – to no avail. At most, I’ve been able to shoo it into Dave’s office but it always comes back to annoy me.

I thought these things we’re supposed to have a life span of 24 hours.

It’s the fly from hell. It’s been here since Monday. And it likes to fly near my ears.

Something done right

Deuce signs rich 7-year extension

Deuce Deuce McAllister agreed to a seven-year contract extension with the New Orleans Saints on Thursday, a deal that McAllister said would make him one of the highest paid running backs in the NFL.

“I basically know that they’re putting everything on my shoulders and I’m big enough that I can carry it,” McAllister said. “I want the pressure. I want the ball because I want to get us in the playoffs where we haven’t been” during McAllister’s four years as a pro.

The deal was announced a half-hour before the Saints’ first mandatory meeting of training camp, although McAllister said he never planned to hold out.

Pay the man, dammit. He’s worth it.

Oh, and:

Jammal Brown, the Saints top pick in this year’s draft, did not show up Thursday night. He became the Saints’ sixth top pick in a row to report late because of a contract holdout. Brown and injured fourth-round pick Chase Lyman, who is injured, were the only two players who did not show up.

There should be a set salary for rookies, depending on the round in which they were taken. They get that salaray for one year, then they can negotiate a better deal, depending on how well they played their first season.

Dear Publix Bagger Boy

I love you.

I was watching you as you bagged my groceries. I watched you separate and combine like with like. I saw you push the pork to the side and keep it there until it was the right time to put it in the cart. I watched you delicately place the eggs in their bag. I watched you gingerly bag the fruits and vegetables so there would be no unisghtly bruising. When I saw that you had placed the bread and rice cakes on their end, backed by the flat pack of bacon for support, I thought I was in heaven.

Thank you thank you thank you, Publix Bagger Boy.

Cool map thingie

This is way cool: http://www.webdevref.com/wjr/. It’s a web app that works with google maps to measure distances. It’s billed as a running/jogging/exercise thing, but some of us actually walk to get to places, and its useful for us too.

You can zoom in and get pretty exact. My walk to work is 1.18 miles according to this thing. .04 miles to the bar where we play trivia.

Which we tanked at last night.