Vacations to Afghanistan and Ghosts

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I'm catching it from all sides now. I'm glad I can entertain all of you with my grammatical errors and miss-spellings. I fear my gravestone will read "Hear lies Rod Melotte".

This started last night at the Main Street Meeting when one person asked to have someone proof read a brochure and then another person said yea she can read something she wrote over and over and not see mistakes and I was all like yea me too and then everybody started laughing at me and saying my blog would not be my blog if everything was like spelled right or something.

HEY - I had to learn English. I didn't know nothing when I got out of the womb and the first thing that happened was some crazy Doctor spanked me FOR NO REASON!! I was cold and I was tired from the move and I was early by 6 weeks.

I spent 40 years of my life NOT writing anything because of a tiny dyslectic problem . . . . but it's all coming out now (insert evil laugh). I bet you guys feel bad now right, making fun of the poor retarded boy (I think it was 2nd grade the teachers felt I had a learning problem . . .then I got rheumatic fever in 3rd grade and while at home for a year my mom found that I was dyslectic).

ANYWAY!

Speaking of bad spelling. My brothers company had the job of restoring the Illinois Capital dome a few years ago. The very top is stained glass and each section had to be taken down. The problem was that a fire many many years ago had chard and blackened the glass so it needed to be restored.

(not my photo)

Each section was about 1 ton and it was 360 feet above the ground. Long story short here. Once all the pieces were down and being cleaned there was a small problem.

Ralls (brother) was on a business trip to St. Louis or something and gets a call. "Ralls, we have a problem". He gets back and it seems the problem is that at the very top of the dome is a stained glass replica of the state flag.

The first problem is that it is the stained glass flag was the flag flown prior to ILL being in the Civil War, which differs from the modern flag. It seems nobody knew this. But the real problem was that on the flag are the words "State Sovereignty" spelled incorrectly. It was something like "State Soveriegnty"

What do you do???? Nobody knew this. IF they fix it as it they will be blamed for it. It has been covered up for a hundred years! I believe they fixed it but there was a lot of debate because NOW it was no longer a 100% historical restoration, it was not going back to what it was meant to be! They were changing it!

sigh! At least it was not MY fault.

End of story
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Ghosts - y'all know that in my past I have had run in with ghosts and witches ( I actually worked with a white witch once). At least in one house I lived in in Fort Atkinson my parents were sure there was a ghost but I was pretty young and do not remember all the facts.

We have traced my moms side of the family to the Mayflower but the problem is that in that time the "Mayflower" was a pretty common name for a ship, there were a number of Mayflowers. My dads side does not go back very far as the were American Indian's and he was adopted (his Indian name was Running White Deer, mine is He Who Spells Poorly).

And we all know that my great great great grandmother was hung as a witch . . . but I digress.

I have a Tom Tom in my car. To turn it on there is this invisible micro button on top that you have to press FIRMLY for 3 seconds and it comes on. It's the only way to turn it on. It shuts off automatically when the car is shut off.

Well, the other day I go down into the basement of DOJ to get the car. I unlock the doors, throw my backpack into the back seat, hop in the front seat and as my right hand nears the ignition I notice . . . . . the Tom Tom is on. It has not been on for a week.

We stair at each other. The Tom Tom is on, why is it on, how can it be on. Quickly I turn around to the back seat, nobody back there and some canvas prints are there along with my camera. The doors were locked.

I feel like I'm in the movie LA Story where a freeway sign is communicating with him. "What do you want Tom Tom?" No answer. It just sits there staring at me, mocking me.

I still have no idea how it came on. It was off when I left it 9 hours earlier. Ghost!

OH - in case you missed it. From my moms book Snapshots Along theWay
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My ancestor, Lydia Gilbert
was accused of witchcraft in Hartford
in November of sixteen hundred and fifty-four.
Her son was the Marshall of Hartford.
He arrested and jailed his mother.

Her accusers sat as her jury.
She was convicted and sentenced
to die on the gallows at Albany Street and Vine.

In Hartford the hanging of witches
was one of the duties of Marshall.

There's no written proof of her hanging.
That page has been torn from the records,
but in January her husband left Hartford, along
He moved to the village of Nayuag.
In sixteen-sixty he died there
Without ever seeing his son, the Marshall, again.

by E.V.Melotte
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Lots of very very interesting things happening in Columbus (I just spelled 5 out of six words incorrectly) AND - two words inside the parenthesis were also spelled wrong, Oh man!! I'm on a roll! I'm having a very dyslectic day!

Lots of entrepreneurial locations are being looked at in C-bus. An organic food store is looking into the downtown, as well as a new restaurant, a candle and gift shop plus another unknown entrepreneurial shop.
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OK - I WISH I could tell this entire story. It is what I consider one of the all time great travel nightmare funny stories I have ever heard. You could make a movie out of it.

My supervisor went on a month long vacation to Afghanistan. He has family there. nuff said about the WHY!

Anyway just the highlights and probably what the Afghanistan Tourist bureau keeps out of the brochures.

65 Warlords in the area, a beheading 15 miles away with the headless bad guy being hung upside down for two weeks. A road side bomb. His kids not being able to play outside (worry about being kidnapped), luggage coming 2 weeks late, odd and bizarre customs to ward off the evil eye, NATO bombing a small village 15 miles away and in the middle of the story (not actually the climax but the part I keep LOLing over) is the BEGINNING of the return trip.

For one thing it seems the concept of "lines" has not reached Afghanistan yet. So the family is at the airport at 5:00AM for a 6:00AM take off. The plane is not there so they wait, and wait and wait. It's now mid afternoon in an airport with no waiting area, everybody is standing around outside and the plane arrives but there are security problems. The one pressing element is that the plane MUST take off before 6:00PM because after that there is a very good chance it will be shot down.

So the problems continue and the clock is tick tick ticking away. Finally as the sun is setting everything gets straightened out and the plane opens it's doors at five minutes to six and unlike in most countries everybody, men woman and children start running to the plane scrambling to get in.

The stewardess is screaming for people to SIT DOWN SIT DOWN BUCKLE UP BUCKLE and then while people are still trying to get seated turns to the Pilot and is screaming GO GO GO and the plane starts to speed up!

You never see that one airline advertisements.

I could not stop laughing at how DJ, who is not a FAN of flying, would react to this fun jet adventure!

There is a lot more to this story with multiple bribes, luggage problems, separation from family to get the bags, problems with to many bags "why do you have so many bags" "my family is over there (other side of the airport), they told me to get all the bags" why are you not with your family" "because I was told I had to have the bags" "but why do you have so many bags and where is your two year old" "WITH MY WIFE" "why is she not with you" "BECAUSE I WAS TOLD TO GET THE BAGS" "but why do you have so many bags"" "do you have any weapons?" "no" does your family have any weapons?" "no" are there weapons in your bags?" "no" "why is your family not with you" . . . . . . . . .

It takes four days to get from Afghanistan to Chicago. I think I will pass up this vacation wonderland.
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Check out this link that tracks every sack that Aaron Rogers gets. The Packers are on a pace for 71 sacks, 5 off the all-time NFL record.

Tracking the sacks.

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I'm going to have a good number of images at Cannery Wine and Spirits in Sun Prairie. Between 3:00 and 5:00 Saturday come on in and try some Five Rivers Wine and say high. Plus they have a great selection of Craft brews.

IF I don't see you Saturday have a great weekend.

Rod