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THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Chronological Account of the Weiss family with contextual remarks, some weather, sports and other news. You can write to me at: mhw20854@yahoo.com The people in the Weiss family are: Martin, Ann, Beth and George. I also sometimes write about other people or our pet.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Can I interest you in any of our other fine services

G noticed there was a mysterious $10.99 charge on his credit card bill two months in a row. It was from "United Marketing". The website of the company indicates that it provides marketing services for small business. Probably a pop-up window triggered the charge. He called them up to get the charges removed and get them to stop billing us. The 'customer service' rep agreed then asked, "while you are on the line can I interest you in any of our other fine services?". This is a modern version of the accused criminal charged with murdering his mother and father who pleads for mercy because he is an orphen.

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:37 PM

G ODs on caffeine

G ran off to a campus event Sunday evening (Feb 26). He took his books and things and decided to work on a paper that was due at midnight (after the event). When he came home, he finally got to sleep and woke up 2 hours later feeling sick. Turns out he had had two 1-litter bottles of Mountain Dew while finishing his paper; this would be the equivalent of 3 2-litter bottles of Coke.

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:34 PM

Ann Blames the Cat

I couldn't find my slippers. I looked upstairs, downstairs, in closets, under things. Ann did too. Finally I looked in the dirty laundry basket. They were there. Ann said, "maybe Soda (our cat) left them there." A few days later her new story was, "I was going to clean them for you."

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:31 PM

Saturday, February 25, 2006

SAC in town

Fourth visit by SAC for sabbath. We had a 3 main course dinner on Friday night - also about 300 people in the main sanctuary (about 3x the normal). We had a blended wine - first time we've tried that (part merlot, part 2 other things).

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:27 PM

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Borf vs. the Anti Borf

Washington D.C. has a number of practicioners of graffiti. None was more notorious than a character called Borf. Borf had been on a two year rampage having defaced hundreds of walls, statutues, lamposts, streetlight poles, mailboxes, newspaper vending machines, street signs, etc. with 'art' (including Borf's face) to which he signed his non de graffiti, Borf.

A few months ago he was apprehended. He is an 18 year old Northern Virginian attending the Cocoran College of Art and Design. He mouthed off to the judge during his trial and refused to apologize. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail plus a monetary judgement plus community service. He apparently is something of a celebrity in jail - the other prisoners bring him stuff to draw.

The anti-Borf is also from Northern Virginia but is 46 and has a day job as an office assistant for a company that does court reporting and related services. Since early in 2005, he has painted over Borf's work. As of a few weeks ago he had painted over about 100 of Borf's works (he gets around town on a bicycle. The DPW people like the anti-Borf but the anti-Borf has stopped working because he doesn't want Borf to mistakingly get credit for community service.

The Borf is scheduled to leave jail March 9.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:06 PM

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Some Shafskoft (sheepshead) Records

Had a game today: me, Berg, Art, Walrus and George. G picked 4 times and called no partner each time (lost on 3 of them). On a Walrus pick, I called shafskoft as partner. Berg had nothing to eat or drink (we began game at 7pm). First game we played that someone served Carob (berg speculates it was the first shafskoft game ever where Carob was served)

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:25 AM

Monday, February 20, 2006

Tree gone

As the Feb 12 entry said, Big snowstorm Feb 11-12.....Our apple tree was a causualty of the storm and it will have to be removed eventually.

Today we had the tree cut up. It cost $100. It would have cost about $40 to rent a chain saw and the machine rental places aren't open on Sundays; also the nearest place is in Gaithersburg (4 trips; about 12 miles each). It took me and George another 2 hours or so to get rid of the cut up branches. It was cold (max temp was below 30F) so the ground was nice and hard.

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:26 AM

Sunday, February 19, 2006

M vs. the Peabody Hotel

I am the co chair of a national (actually international) conference which is to be held at the Peabody Hotel (formerly the Excelsior Hotel and the location of the incident involving, then Gov Bill Clinton and Paula Jones) in Little Rock, Ark. Our conference is Mar 28-31 with the main conference activities on Mar 29 and 30.

Registration, for the conference and more importantly at the hotel, has been slow. We only had 20 registered for the conference on Jan 24. We were, at COB yesterday at about 100 but still with only about 180 hotel nights registered. We had reserved 500+ and if we don't reach 80% of the reserved level, the hotel levels a fee of about $100 a hotel night. The hotel had told us they were going to asses the fee at COB today (the fee was in our contract with them but not the date). I called them and said that if they executed the fee we might drop the conference and it would be a huge embarrassment for everyone (including the Gov and Senators - which is true) and would people would remember the Peabody negatively within the transportation community (also true). They agreed to delay assessing the fee until March 20.

Yay me.

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:19 AM

Friday, February 17, 2006

G's dry year

George hasn't had alcohol now since Feb 17, 2005.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:18 PM

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Snowstorm and Car Repair Update

Big snowstorm Feb 11-12. About 8" at our house but up to 22" in Columbia and near Balt. NY Central park did 26.9" for 1st place all time 24 hr storm. The big totals were due to a 'snow burst' convection band which formed am of Feb 12 and dropped up to 10" in 3 hours. Eric Gilbert was staying here overnight to manage a food service function at CES JDSchool but the function was cancelled. Eric helped a lot with the snow shoveling. Our apple tree was a causualty of the storm and it will have to be removed eventually. The early part of the storm had east winds which built up a lot of snow on the east side of the tree and then the late part of the storm had strong west winds which pushed the trunk over. Fortunately it didn't hit the house or the car and it doesn't block the driveway (a small part of the sidewalk is affected.

As of the end of the week, the car repair company was working on the body of the Hyundai. About $1600.00 of work was needed. When they finish, they'll drive it and see if the transmission or anything else was messed up.

posted by Martin Weiss # 3:46 PM

Sunday, February 05, 2006

M in Laredo; G in a car crash

M left BWI Thurs (Feb 2) am; gave short presentations, went to Shabbat services at Agudas Achim of Laredo (from morning benedictions to Adom Olam in 90 minutes). Got home a bit after midnight on Feb 5. A few minutes after getting in the door, there was a call from George. He had skidded onto the median (in the Maroon Hyundai) on Randolph road about 5 miles east of home (on his way back from Shabbat at U of Md). Car was towed to Gathersburg. Got to bed about 330am.

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:03 PM

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