Lititz Police Department: A Equal-Opportunity Employer?

I believe in the Americans With Disabilities Act. But isn’t it going a little too far when a police department hires the disabled?

Funny. She didn’t appear to be disabled in the past. I’ve certainly seen the individual walking about town often enough: handing out parking tickets, directing traffic. Yet there she was behind the wheel of the cruiser…in a handicapped parking space yesterday at the Lititz Post Office. Hmmm.

Now, believe me, I realize parking downtown Lititz can be a little snug at times — especially around the holidays when everyone is trying to mail all those cards and packages — but isn’t that just the point? The lot was nearly full, cars jockeying precariously for parking spaces, and here sits an able-bodied individual blithely taking up a space preserved for the physically challenged.

Perhaps I misread the sign. Perhaps it was a space reserved for the learning disabled. I mean, isn’t this the person who’s supposed to be handing out citations to people violating the law she herself was so blatently dismissing on her own behalf?

Okay, okay, I realize employees of the police department have to mail their Christmas cards, too, but perhaps they do that off duty.

I further realize this isn’t the most opportune time to “dis” the Lititz Police Department, when they’re in the national spotlight and being hailed wholesale as heroic, but — excuse me — heroes don’t park their cruisers in handicapped parking spaces. Period.

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Forget the Prom; Hold a Whorefest

Today a catalog addressed to my seventeen year old son appeared in our mailbox. That he should receive a catalog of scantily clad women would probably not displease him — that is, if he were ever going to actually see it. Luckily I got to the mailbox first.

Mailing lists are annoying, especially when a decade ago someone somewhere mistyped your son’s name and an outpouring of inappropriate cataloges and ads have been arriving in his name ever since. I have a mailing list alter ego, too, but even though — judging from the intriguing name — I should get some pretty interesting junk mail, too, I don’t. Mine? Svetlana. I’ve no idea how I ever came to be Svetlana Keyman but I must admit it does have a certain mysterious behind-the-iron-curtain appeal.

Anyway, back to my son.

Since elementary school, Travis has been receiving invitations to attend Barbizon modeling school, to audition for Miss Teen America and to purchase all the cosmetics his income will allow. With any luck, however, he’ll remain too busy fighting fires with the Lititz Fire Department and battling it out on Civil War reenactment battlefields to stock up on rouge.

Of course, that was all pretty amusing. Now it’s getting edgy. Now he’s being asked to dress like a whore.

The culprit, a certain Cinderella Shoppe* of 62 West Main Street, Hershey, PA (717.838.5861) appears to believe the word prom is short for promiscuous. They are fainly sending catalogs into our community suggesting we pay them to attire our daughters (and in some cases, apparently, our sons) as high class Hollywood prostitutes. Consider page six. Here we have a gown cut so low it makes Jennifer Lopez’s choice in evening wear look virtuous. Then there’s page fourteen. This page features a little green mid-drift see-through bustier and wrap skirt combo that would not only make it appear your prom-bound daughter forgot to put on her dress, but clearly tells her date, “why waste time disrobing after post-prom when I’m already decked out in nothing more than a Hugh Hefner-approved brazier?”

Page 44 shows us a more demure gown. Unfortunately it’s sported by a model astride a golden throne — spread eagle. And if that’s not suggestive enough for you, turn to page 48. Obviously this model plans to accomodate not only her own date after post-prom, but three of his friends as well.

What I want to know is who are the mothers and fathers who will purchase these outfits for their teenage daughters? If you are out there, I want to meet you so I can see what someone who lost their moral compass actually looks like.

Let me ask you something. Are you planning to adhere a contraceptive patch to your teenage daughter’s ass as she leaves for the prom this year? If you’re dressing her like this, it might be a good idea.

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ANOTHER MYTH BITES THE DUST!
Does Eating Turkey Make You Sleep? The Facts About The tryptophan Effect

Now, back to our original question. Does the tryptophan in turkey make you sleepy after eating a big Thanksgiving turkey dinner?

Sorry to say, that if you’re looking for the sedative effect, it’s unlikely you’ll get it from eating meats like turkey. L-tryptophan doesn’t act on the brain unless you take it on an empty stomach with no protein present. Additionally, the levels found in a turkey dinner are far too low to have such an effect. So, even though the mass media, CNN and Fox like to hype it and blame post holiday meal sleepiness on the turkey dinner… that’s just a catchy sound-bite.. not the reality. The trypophan isn’t to blame for the sudden drowsiness that hits right after the meal when the football games come on, and the dishes are waiting!

It’s more likely due to the combination of drinking alcohol and overeating – not just turkey, but also mashed potatoes, ham, creamed onions, cranberries, sweet potatoes, peas, stuffing (or dressing, if you prefer), carrots, bread, pies, and whipped cream, (and HOW many beers did you have???) – all of which have the effect of puling the blood away from your brain to help your digestive tract do it’s work, and the sugar/insulin effect.

On the bright side, more evidence suggest that caffeine is not only not bad for you; it actually helps many brain functions, alertness, learning, memory and countering Alzheimers… so as long as you don’t become a total, jittery addict… have a cup of coffee or tea! (and switch to green tea if you really want to claim additional health benefits! )!

Who doesn’t love a good monkey pic?

Cotton-Top Tamarin monkeys, from left: Rio, Baby and Pinkie are pictured back home at Drayton Manor Theme Park and Zoo in Tamworth, England, in Feb. 2005, after being stolen in an overnight raid earlier in the week. The trio was recovered during police raids on 2 locations in the Erdington district of Birmingham, England, and are being assessed by keepers. (AP Photo/PA, David Jones)

WASHINGTON, DC – Free Swimming Night in Portland, OR. Open gym at Shakopee Area Catholic School, near Minneapolis. A Hobby Fair in Park Ridge, IL, outside of Chicago. A children’s fair in Mendocino, CA.

What do they all have in common?

They are some of the ways that local organizers plan to mark TV-Turnoff Week 2004, the 10th anniversary of the Week which will take place April 19-25. TV-Turnoff Network, the nonprofit organization that coordinates the Week, projects that about 7.6 million children and adults in all 50 states and numerous foreign countries will participate.

Well Ma, life on the ranch has been pretty exciting these past few weeks… the heifer had calves….

Damn, sometimes I forget whose diary I am writing, ha ha. It’s been a long while since my last entry, I hadn’t realized how long until I took a look at my home page. On the baby front, things are progressing nicely and we are looking forward to the next visit with the doc in a few weeks… we should be able to hear the heart beat and cool stuff like that. Robin thinks she can already feel the little guy/gal moving around in there, but it might be a little early for that–have to ask about that when we see the doc. Last night I told Robin she had to come up with some bizarre cravings soon, every guy I know that has a kid has some crazy story about late-night runs for exotic foods, but Robin hasn’t had any of those yet. That means that I don’t have any cool stories to tell either, a definite draw back.

In the past few weeks the “move back to the homeland” lobbying has been pretty strong from her family. I understand that they want to be close to Robin and their newest relative but the way to do that isn’t to have us move back to their hometown. I don’t know why they think we are gonna pick up and move–our lives are just as set as theirs are, and our friends and jobs are just as important as any that they might have. That sounded pretty whiny… definitely not intended. I am just amazed at the lack of respect their attitude shows towards us.

So I resolved that run-on page thing with those handy-dandy PREV and NEXT buttons, I guess eventually i will have to come up with some kind of index or calendar, but for now while the site is small they will do.

So I have been doing some more reading from The Expectant Father and some of the stuff in there makes a lot of sense… and I was surprised to learn that I am not the first father-to-be that feels a need to journal my thoughts during the pregnancy. I was able to breathe a sigh of relief as I really understood that literally billions of men have gone through exactly what I am going through now and that it is unlikely that my reactions will be too far off the mark form the norm. As a matter of fact, all of the reactions to pregnancy may have already been done at least once–so I am not even breaking any new ground. That’s a little tough to take since a good part of my ego is invested in being an individual.

Last night, Robin and I played a game called Farkel for the first time. It is a game played with 6 dice and Robin tells me it is similar in concept to Yahtzee!, which I have never played. She beat me twice in a row, but that wasn’t so bad. We are usually a little lopsided in games, like chess. But hat is to be expected since I taught her to play. She now knows most of my moves and uses them against me (is there a lesson there?) So back to this Farkel game, it was pretty easy and all you need to play is six dice. Here’s the instructions.

One of the other things the book suggested is that we chronicle the state of the world today so that we an our child can look back to reminisce when they are older. So just for grins here are the current prices of some things in Lititz, PA as of today:

Gas, 1 gallon: $1.03
Milk, 1 gallon: $1.93
Soda, 1 can: $0.60
Bread, i loaf, sliced: $0.79
Movie, 1 ticket: $6.50
Rental Movie, 3 nights: $2.75
Coffee, 16oz. cup: $0.69 – $1.25 (depends on store…)

In the same vein, here are some recent or on-going world events…
Kosovo: NATO continues to think an air-war will make a Hitleresque dictator come to his knees while 100,000+ refugees suffer miserably.
Littleton, Colorado: 2 (maybe more) misguided teenaged boys walk into their high-school with pip bombs, assault rifles and pistols and proceed to execute 20+ students and 1 teacher before killing themselves. Biggest school massacre to date, the country and the media are still reeling with shock.
Washington DC: The Microsoft anti-trust suit continues its ridiculous and interminable course towards nothing.

So none of that stuff was very positive now was it? Well, maybe in the next 9 months I will have some more positive things to say.

On a more humorous note, we left a frozen cake out to thaw on the counter last night for dessert and Liza & Casey, our two Dalmatians, proceeded to lick the icing off of one side of it. They couldn’t get to the other three sides because it was too far back on the counter and seemed to be pretty depressed about the whole incident.

On a totally different tack, I am super-happy that we are finally going to be getting our 2 new Sony laptops from CDW, that damn 4 week back-order was driving me crazy. Now I can keep this diary form the house instead of having to do it after hours at the office.