Brave guy

Guess what Chad let Nimue do last night...

entertaining street

Another Friday, another surprising neighborhood experience... This time, Nimue and I were minding our own business, making Halloween cookies, when it sounded like there was a marching band out front. We rushed outside to investigate, and lo and behold, it was indeed the Fremont High School marching band, along with a veritable parade of cheerleaders, drill team, fancy old cars with girls in tiaras (must be the homecoming court), and decorated floats and chanting crowds of students from each class, along with a City of Sunnyvale police escort. One nice kid threw a handful of candy at Nimue, which brightened her afternoon.

Truly Peculiar

About 10 minutes ago, I heard a big boom. Then another, and another. As I was standing in the dining room assessing what direction the sound was coming from, I caught a glimpse of something bright through the windows through the atrium and garage, so I went out front and realized that the noise was fireworks. Honest-to-goodness real Fourth-of-July style fireworks. Coming from the neighborhood on the other side of the street. They were just high enough that I could see them through and over the shorter redwood trees across the street. Bizarre. Peculiar. I stood in the driveway watching for about 10 minutes until they were all over. Sort of cheery for a quiet Friday night.

Best guess: something going on over at the high school. I can't believe it was coming out of someone's back yard, though that's what it looked like from my driveway.

UPS sucks!!!!

So I don't normally need to rant, but my latest experience trying to get a package from UPS was egregiously bad...

I was waiting for a delivery of some GPS units for work, and because they were reasonably expensive, a signature was required. And I'm often in and out of the house, so of course I wasn't home when they tried to deliver.

After getting a notice of a second delivery attempt on Friday, I decided to help them out and pick the package up myself. I called UPS and was connected to an annoying automated voice system that told me someone would call me back. After wasting an hour waiting for the call, someone called and informed me that I could pick up the package between 7:00 and 7:15 that evening. Rather inconvenient, but I could do it, so no problem yet.

However, when I arrived, they could not find my package, and kept telling me to keep waiting. After waiting almost 2 hours outside in the dark with a grumpy 6-year-old, I was told that they could not find my package and could not give it to me. The woman who was helping me was very apologetic and promised me that they would deliver the package to my house on Monday, and leave it behind the gate without needing a signature.

Aside -- some other things I oberved while waiting outside in the dark:
1. The guy kept calling names and addresses of people who were not present in the gathering crowd of those waiting for packages, despite the fact that he had the very clear sign-in list of those present.
2. Several others were told their packages were missing, and then noticed that they could see their supposedly "missing" packages just inside the door. This included one guy with a box that was about 10 feet long, and another who was picking up a large black bike case. How does one miss multiple items that are that large???
3. Poor woman who was waiting for her package of medication, clearly not feeling well. I couldn't help but feel bad for her, as she clearly needed her stuff more than the rest of us did.
4. UPS employees badmouthing each other, within earshot of the customers and the other employees who they were dissing. Just added to the Friday night fun...

By Monday afternoon, I still had not seen the package, so I checked online, only to find that instead of being out for delivery as had been promised, it was still being held at the facility. I called again, got the stupid automated voice thingie, and eventually got a real voice on the end by pressing 0 repeatedly. She said she personally couldn’t tell me what was going on, but would send an “urgent” (ha ha) message to a supervisor at the Sunnyvale site and have them call me right back. Another downright lie, as no one ever called me back.

I drove back over to the UPS facility on Tuesday and finally was able to liberate the package. When I asked how to register a formal complaint, I was given the phone number that routes you into automated voice recognition hell. Oh joy.

I wasted several hours on multiple different days trying to receive this package that was to be delivered to my doorstep. I got to drive to the inconvenient UPS facility twice. I finally got my package 5 days after the expected delivery date. And they charge for the experience. Argh.

Nimue's School for Stuffies

Nimue has been conducting school for her stuffed animals -- lately, the subject has been zoology. Thank goodness for many large pieces of paper and a virtually unlimited supply of crayons and markers.

Actual positions of the Libertine

As Chad gives his positions, I'm updating this map -- so check back later for further progress...

From North to South, and then East, the blue outbound points are:
--10am 9/26/08 departure from Oyster Point
--8pm 9/27/08 sleep at Stillwater Cove
--morning 9/29/09 pass Morro Bay
--afternoon/evening 9/29/08 lunch and beer and sleep at Port San Luis
--5pm 9/30/08 to 10/1/08 sleep and explore Cuyler Cove, San Miguel Island
--10/2/08, Ford Point, Santa Rosa Island
--10/3/08 Painted Cave, Santa Cruz Island
--10/3/08 to 10/4/08 sleep and explore Cueva Valdez, Santa Cruz Island
--10/4/08 chased by wind to Smuggler's Cove, Santa Cruz Island

from South to North, the pink inbound points are:
--evening 10/5/08 Santa Barbara
--10/8/08 Port San Luis
--10/11/08 San Simeon


View Larger Map

The planned route is on the map below, and the expected return date is around 10/15/08.

View Larger Map

for those of you interested in Chad's boat trip

He's posting tidbits when he has phone reception at his other blog (http://blog.chadfrost.com/).

Skunk Hand-stand

Over dinner, Nimue stated quite confidently that skunks perform a hand-stand when spraying their opponents... this was not a behavior we had heard of, so some follow up research was quickly undertaken to determine if the six-year-old was in fact correct.

And indeed -- according to an article (Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 2, No. 2 (May, 1921), pp. 87-89) the spotted skunk, Spilogale interrupta, as well as the Northern skunk, Mephitas putida, display this behavior as a warning in advance of spraying their malefactors!

The Western spotted skunk (Spilogale gracilis) seems to also do the handstand (a great sketch in this article) -- my guess is that they do this so they can engage the enemy while keeping them in view! The hand-stand allows the skunks to look forward at their target, while still aiming their nether regions forward. Seems like a useful adaptation to me! I am, however, in no hurry to witness their acrobatic prowess first hand.

A Quiz

I ran across these pictures from an event earlier this summer -- can anyone remember or figure out what we were up to? (No fair if you were one of the lucky ones who could make it this time...)

Hint #1: I just made reservations for the location for the repeat of the event next summer.

Hint #2: My friend Sarah deserves credit for thinking of and bringing the colorful objects, and my mom was the photographer.