Humor

The last few days have been very busy.  We are building a new home, as you already know if you have read much of this blog at all.  And when a few days of lousy weather are followed by clear and sunny days, you can bet we take advantage of that to try to get as much done on the construction as we can.

Ultimately, the house is intended to look like a sort of medieval European manor house.  We've been searching for an appropriate door, and finally we found a company near Alpharetta, Georgia, that makes the kind of door we want in a very low-maintenance version.  We visited their showroom this past week to see firsthand what their products look like, and we were very pleased.  We'll be getting our front doors from there, and they look VERY Middle Ages European.  So much so, in fact, that I'm thinking of hiring a few serfs to hang about the place when it's done, just to give it color and so forth.

The drive back was through some beautiful mountain countryside, along Georgia Highway 140 through Canton and Waleska.  It's one of my favorite drives at this time of year--actually, just about any time of year--and we stopped at one of our favorite spots to soak up a bit of the lovely scenery.

There it was: a clear and rushing mountain stream, cascading and tumbling over boulders, making beautiful watery music.  The steep sides of the rocky gorge the stream had cut over thousands of years, were covered with rhododendron (alas, not in bloom) and mountain laurel.  But there was a new element in the picture, a somewhat forbidding one.

Every fifty feet on the trees beside the roadway were signs.  The signs read:

POSTED
NO TRESPASSING
Warning: This area infected with
Liquidambar styraciflua.

Keep Out!

Now, I could see that there were poison ivy plants growing along the edge of the defile, but there was no warning about the poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans).  My wife and I, both interested in plants, looked at each other with puzzlement.  She is more acquainted with the scientific names of plants than I, but this one seemed to be familiar to me even though I could not immediately place it.

"Do you remember what this is?" I asked her. "Is it a plant or a plant disease?"

Lara shook her head. "It sounds familiar, though." She shrugged. "We'll look it up when we get home."

After arriving at the homestead, we took one of the tree books from the shelf (yes, we did that instead of using Google!) and we found the answer immediately.

The area is infected with the (GASP!) Sweetgum trees!

Now, there is no danger from the sweetgum tree, unless you happen to step on one of its seed pods when barefoot.  That would probably result in a little bit of an impromptu dance and perhaps some colorful language, but no lasting damage unless you happened to fall down while prancing about while holding one foot.  Here is a picture of several of the seed pods, which are about the size of golf balls.

Lara and I discussed this, and the only conclusion to which we could come, was that the owners of the land had tired of people holding picnics on their lovely stream, afterward leaving behind lots of trash.  So, they came up with this way of playing on the ignorance of most folks.  And they weren't lying--there were several sweetgum trees growing all along the roadway.  In fact, in the essence of irony, some of the signs were themselves tacked firmly to sweetgum trees. 

But the warning of possibly contracting the dangerous "virus" Liquidambar styraciflua would probably discourage most people from traipsing through the woods to the stream. I can see it now...

Him: "Hey, honey, let's stop here and eat those sandwiches we brought along.  The kids would love to wade in that creek."

Kids in chorus: "Yeah!  Yeah!  Wade in the creek!"

Her: "Oh, okay George.  Pull over."  She opens the door.  "Oh, Lord!  Honey, let's get out of here!  That sign says this area is infected with some sort of disease or something!"

Him:  "Huh?!?"

Her:  "Get moving!  We don't want the kids to get that... that... styrack flu or whatever it is!  Lester just got over the chicken pox last week!"

They roar away in their minivan.

Nature can be a dangerous place, you know.

Have you gotten the news about how the Federal government's stimulus package will affect your local economy yet?  Our local paper (The Calhoun Times) had a story about our share of the Federal largesse, and I just read it today.

Gordon County released the information about our stimulus project.  Yes, project. Singular. We ended up with one stimulus project from all that money.

A quote from the local paper: "A bridge replacement over Polecat Creek on County Line road was the only Gordon County project to end up on a list of eligible projects for the federally funded Georgia Department of Transportation highway and bridge stimulus.

The road is "remote and rural" and not very well traveled, the County Manager said, but also added that the bridge "is old and needs to be replaced..." and the project is "shovel ready!"

This is being posted on April 3, so no, it's not an April Fool's day joke.  We really do have a bridge over Polecat Creek, on County Line road, and it really was the only Federal stimulus project for which we received stimulus money.

The county manager was hopeful that the county could see another project or two in later phases.

I'm not going to hold my breath.

That is, unless I'm crossing Polecat Creek.

Today I received this exciting email!  (Actually, it's exciting in the way that having a dog lift his leg on your shoe is exciting, but sometimes any sort of excitement is good.)

Dear Author: [Why is this person addressing me as the literary equivalent of "Occupant" if they are so interested in my work?  (read on below...)]

We are interested to speak with you about the possibility of publishing or distributing your book.  [Ah-HAH! They're addressing me so vaguely because they are interested in publishing OR distributing my book! How marvelous! But... which of my books???  If they are interested in it, don't they know what the title is? And don't they know whether they want to publish it or distribute it?]

Only a select number of authors are called upon each year to submit their work for Hyper Publishing Company's consideration. Your book has been recently brought to our attention and we would like to open a discussion for publication or distribution of this work.  [Ooh! The first big hook--"Only a select number of authors are called upon...." That sounds a lot like those overhyped and absolutely worthless "Who's Who In xxxxxxx" solicitations that come around a couple of times a year.  They want to recognize my eliteness!! How COOL is that?!?]

Please click here for submission guidelines or go directly to our website http://hyperpublishing.org and click on the Submission link.  [Now it starts to get REALLY sleazy here. The link that is in the email actually masks a totally DIFFERENT link that hides an ASP script, although it does take you to their 'Submission page.'  But read this unbelievable disclaimer that is there:  "Your Submission does not guarantee acceptance into Hyper Publishing Company or any of its divisions (“Hyper Publishing”). In the event that you do submit any remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, data, names, text, addresses, phone information or other information or materials (collectively, “Submission Materials”), you agree that all Submitted Materials shall become the sole property of Hyper Publishing and will not be returned. Submitted Materials will be used for review purposes only to determine whether your book will be accepted by Hyper Publishing. After Hyper Publishing performs its review of the Submitted Materials, the Submitted Materials may be destroyed or otherwise disposed of at Hyper Publishing’s sole discretion. Hyper Publishing will not treat any Submitted Materials as confidential or proprietary and will not incur any liability as a result of any similarities that may appear in other books published by Hyper Publishing." 

See, they tell you that whatever you send them becomes their property and they can dispose of it as they see fit... and not only that, but they won't treat anything you send them as proprietary and they won't be liable if anything you send them "may appear" in other books they publish. "We will keep what you send us--it's ours, and we won't treat anything you send us as confidential or like it belongs to you, and oh, by the way--we may publish something very similar later but you can't do anything about it--neener, neener!"

You have ten days to complete the submission package and mail to our office.  ["Dude, you better act quickly, or we may withdraw this wonderful, stupendous offer!" NEVER, EVER accept high-pressure.]

We look forward to receiving your submission package and communicating with you in the near future.

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Michael J. Duckett
President/CEO
Hyper Publishing Company

We support responsible and ethical email marketing practices. Please know that we respect your right to be purged from this marketing campaign. Removal from this email distribution list is automatically enforced by our email delivery system. Please click here to start the process for email deletion.

This correspondence may be a newsletter, press release, solicitation or advertisement. We encourage and support best practices in responsible email marketing.
 [I had to gag over their little disclaimer here.]
Breaking the Money Barriers
5665 Atlanta Highway, Suite 103-137 - Alpharetta, GA 30004 US

END OF EMAIL FROM SLEAZEBALL

Okay, serious stuff here: If you get such an email, get rid of it. Trash it. Delete it. And don't click on the "click here to start the process for email deletion" link, because that just confirms to this lowlife that you actually read your mail and that the email address is to a live person.

No legitimate publisher or distributor will approach you like this.

It's A Scam.

I'm beginning to believe my blog is haunted.  Yep.

Lately, I've written two very long, involved, erudite and illuminating blog posts... the kind that would probably change the world, inspire people to live peacefully with one another and even foment research for a cure for stupidity!  But what happened?

They disappeared!

POOF!! Like bipartisan support during an election year, the posts simply vanished.

Now, if I didn't know better, I'd say that somehow, no matter how irrational it may sound, I made a... well, you know... a mistake. But that can't be right!

So, I'm going to post this one really quickly, before something or someone decides that my words are too powerful and too revolutionary to allow them to stand.  But be warned, little Gremlin of Blog Erasures, your butt is MINE! I shall find you and crush you.

There will be ink.