Trick-or-Treat?

Well, it’s Halloween Time! Whether I like it or not it is time for all the little kiddies and not so young teenagers to come knocking at our doors. Fortunately, I live out in the country and for the past several years this has kept the number of knocks down to a minimum. In fact, over the last several years I have had less that 20 trick-or-treaters combined.

I have learned that due to my remote location I still need to stock up with something. The rare child, transported by some parent that might or might not know me, is dropped off at the end of my driveway to come a knocking. A quick treat and back into the car they get and away they go. In the dark I am not sure whose kid that was.

This year looks like it will be different. I noticed a sign posted at an intersection near me that area neighbors and their costumed kids are invited to attend a Halloween bon-fire on Saturday evening. Then, afterwards they plan to trick-or-treat through the area homes. Maybe I need to stock up on more candy this year?

I grew up in the days that Halloween was fun. You went through the neighborhood knocking on everybody’s door, even people you didn’t know. There was no worry about what you might get, everything was safe. And, you could do “tricks” if you needed too and not get in trouble. If you found a neighbor with their lights out, and you knew they were home, you could always TP their tree. How about soaping the car windows? That was fine. Place Doggie-do in the burning paper bag on the front doorstep and ring the bell on the grumpy old man down the street? Not a problem. I got to admit they didn’t like “egging” a house. It smelled too bad in a day or so.

Now, your parents follow along to check every new treat you receive and to make sure you don’t get in trouble. You have one “safe” bag in the car and one bag to carry from door to door. Every couple of doors your carry bag is checked and the ok stuff goes into your safe bag. The unsafe candies are placed in a trash bag for disposal. Another problem is that if you do something wrong, like the tricks I listed above, you risk having your parents pick you up at the local police station.

My kids are grown now and soon (hopefully not too soon) will have kids of their own. When my kids were younger, I lived in the big city. Halloween there was for the adults. Halloween Party attendees were all adults who wore serious costumes, most quite expensive, to most of the events. Kids on the other hand were restricted in trick-or-treating at a few trusted neighbors’ homes, then off to the mall to trick-or-treat from store to store.

And the mall scene was sad. A long line of kids going from store to store and all they get for their efforts is a lousy piece of candy. Most kids didn’t even say “Trick-or-treat”. The line went down one side of the mall and up the other hitting several stores with each line while another ran on the other side of the mall.

Call me a Halloween Scrooge. I think society has killed Halloween, at least for the kids. Now it is only for the candy companies selling tons of sugar to overweight kiddies. Maybe we should bury Halloween and forget about it?

Warning! The holiday season is upon us. Don’t get me started on that, yet.

The Leaves Blow The Wrong Way

Now that summer is over and fall is upon us the annual event to rake the yard has begun. Since I live in the middle of a forest, I have a couple of dozen trees on my property and hundreds of trees in the surrounding woods and it seems as if most of the leaves end up in my yard. Since today was such a nice day, partly cloudy, 65 degrees with a nice breeze, I decided to rake some of the leaves.

The one thing I forgot to remember is never try to second guess Mother Nature. I took into consideration the direction that the wind was blowing and started raking from the upwind side of the yard to the downwind. I thought that was a smart move. Just before I was halfway done the wind shifted. What was once blowing from the west now came from the south. Ok, I started raking in different direction staying with the wind. A few leaves started to blow back to where I had already been but I kept most of the leaves under control, so I thought.

Suddenly, a big wind blew from the east and my piles of leaves moved back to where they came from. As hard I as I raked, more leaves blew back.

So, I decided to give up. Mother Nature won today. I'll wait for another day to rake.

Who the Hell is Boback?

I get this question now and then. Boback (pronounced Bo-Back) is a nick name I got many years ago while in college learning computer programming. Back then we did it with computer cards. Anybody remember them?

We had to submit our programs to the operations class to get the programs run on the computer. The next class session our programs were returned with our printouts telling us how our program worked. Back in the days before PCs, programmers didn't get their hands on the computers very often. They just wrote the code and the Computer Operators ran the jobs. In order to identify our decks we wrote the first 6 letters of our last name plus a 2 digit number with magic marker on the top to that our deck of cards (usually 100+ cards).

My problem is that my last name is Ackerman and we had an Ackers. Too similar. So I decided to put "BOBACK" for BOB ACKerman on the top plus the project number (BOBACK01, BOBACK02, etc.). Now my projects would not be confused with Ackers' projects.

When our projects were returned the next class night one of the students got the job of passing out the card decks and reports. While passing out the card decks, she said, "Who the hell is Boback?" After a couple of times calling for Boback I finally realized that it was me she was talking about.

And the name stuck.

Boback

P.S. I still have people calling me "Sarge" but that was another life.

I got a ticket

I got a speeding ticket. I haven't had a traffic violation in 20+ years but I got one last month. I was on my way home from vacation and I was traveling through Illinois as I approached a construction zone. Since the entire trip will filled with Highway Patrol Officers on the sides of the road with someone pulled over I had been trying to stay safe and traveling with the cruise control on usually a mile or two over the speed limit but well below most other drivers.

As I approached the construction zone I popped the cruise control off to slow down. I passed the new speed limit sign for the upcoming construction zone and as I was slowing down. pop, out comes the Highway Patrol to pull me over. "Speeding in a Construction Zone" the ticket said. Required Court Appearance! Yes, REQUIRED COURT APPEARANCE!

So, it is now one month later and I had to take off work, travel back to the middle of Illinois, to show up for court at 8am (according to the ticket) which didn't actually start until 8:30am. Fortunately, this made me 1st in line. Not knowing how long this would take, I loaded the parking meter with quarters to the max 10 hours. Hopefully, I would be out.

For the last month I was worrying about what the judge could do. Yes, he could fine me. Jail? I doubt it. Take my driver's license and suspend my driving rights? Possible. If that happened how would I get home? I didn't know and I tried not to think about the options.

Have you even notice that when you try not to think about things you end up thinking about that one thing all the time? Bummer, isn't it?

While half listening to the judge as he gave he opening "rules and rights" speech I heard him say something like, "For most of you facing jail time for your traffic violations ..." What! "Most of you ...?" Jail for a speeding ticket??? Boy are they tough. I figured I needed to get a lawyer fast.

This was only a preliminary court appearance to determine if they need to schedule a jury or judge trial for me (if I contested the officers citation), or pay fines and fees and be on my way. But, I didn't know which option was for me. Jail time?

Finally, I got called up to face the judge. Even though I was first in line and I only waited for about 10 minutes while the judge gave his speech, it seemed like hours. He told me since this was a first offense it would be a fine only. I remember the signs along the road that the fine was a minimum of $375 and I was prepared for the worse.

The judge told me what the fine and the approximate court costs would be if I gave a guilty plea. I plead guilty and accepted the fine. Down to the cashier to pay the fine and court costs. The total fine and court costs was not up to the expected $375, but close enough. The interesting thing was that they receipt for the fine listed each part I paid. Here are some of the topics to which part of my fine was paid toward:

Fine
Clerk
State's Atty
Court
Automation
Surcharge/LEADS
Drivers Ed
Violent crime
Judicial Security
Document storage
Trauma Center
T&CCSF

Now I don't know what some of those items are but it is a strange way to break down the costs on a receipt. Maybe this is their way of documenting which division and/or department gets what amount from each fine. Maybe I can claim a tax break on some of that?

I'm home now after traveling the entire way home right at the speed limit. Boy, I think I saw every cop on duty between there and here. I think I will be more careful when I travel. I'm going to let the other guy fly past me on the interstate. I would hate to be several states away and have to go back for a court appointment! There was no way not to show up (I checked) unless I wanted a warrant out for me for failure to show.

And yes, I can understand the heavy fines for speeding in construction zones. Those workers do work in some of the worst conditions, many times at night, and with cars and trucks speeding by just a few feet away. I don't think I could do it.

So yes, I was speeding within the construction zone, but no, I did not speed through any work area. I was in the buffer zone before the work area. Maybe the officer needed another ticket to write, maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I do think he jumped the gun.

So, be careful out there. I tried to be but I wasn't careful enough.

BoBack

Is It Over Yet?

Is this election over yet? No, I am not going to tell you my election choice. But has this campaign come down to the "lesser of two evils"? The presidental election process has been reduced to spending large amounts of money on bending the truth. I'm not going to say what truth got bent or not. That is not my point here. And no, I don't want to hear opinions from people saying their choice is better or my choice is bad, I'm just tired of hearing the commercials. Tired enough to turn off the TV, turn off the radio and avoid the mailbox.

I think what people fail to remember is that our system of government requires the President to work with Congress to get things done. With a Democratic President, and a Democratic controlled Congress, things will get done for the Democratic party. Also, if you have a Republican President and a Republican controlled Congress, things will get done for the Republican party.

Now, if you have one side a Democrat and the other side a Republican, do they get anything done? Candidates always promise many things and without the support of Congress, they can't get them done. We have to look at the big picture. Can Kerry get things done with this Congress? Can Bush?

That is for each of you to decide. What everyone needs to do is to become involved, become informed, and look at the issues. Did one candidate really vote for an issue? Or vote against it?

I'm ready for the election process to be over. I'm ready to cast my vote for the person of my choice. I'm not going to listen to anymore commericals or read anymore junk mail. Regardless of who wins, that person will be the President, the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, the recognized big-boss of America for the next 4 years. If my choice wins I will be happy. If my choice doesn't I can complain and vote at the next election.

If you want your choice to win, vote. But vote carefully and vote informed. If you don't vote you can't complain. And I believe that.

This is a heck of a way to start a blog. No, I don't want this blog to be a political blog. I just wanted to say that I am tired of listening to the campaigning and I'm ready for it to be over. But, I got other topics to discuss in the future.

Thanks for reading .... And vote

BoBack

Starting a Blog

Someone told me that everybody has a blog. I asked a few friends and none of them have a blog but the question still comes up. Ok, since everybody has one (except me and most of my friends, I did find a couple of people with them) I guess I will start one.

What am I going to do with this blog? I don't know but I think I will spend some time thinking on that subject. We will see what happens.

I called this blog "Bob's World" because, hey, it's my blog and I'll most likely talk about me and my stuff. Maybe I'll ramble on, maybe I won't. We will see.

So for now, this is a start.

BoBack