Well, the female hiker, who wandered over the boarder into Iran, has been released after over a year in captivity. Her two friends remain in custody.

While the US news is shocked at their treatment, I have just one question; What were they doing there in the first place???? Did they accidentally wandered away from their KOA?

It is not like their plane crashed and they found themselves in a dangerous situation. No. They paid good money to be transported to an unstable region so they could hike along the border knowing that they could be shot an any moment.

Well, guess what? They got captured. Enough said.

You can’t fix stupid.

My car pooler is out with a broken foot. So, since we are not carpooling at this time, I take the back roads to work. Well, this morning, as I was cruising down the back roads, my paved road suddenly turned into gravel. There were no signs, no warnings. The county simply removed the asphalt.

I guess the county decided that they didn’t need to put up any signs. I hope that they are planning on replacing the asphalt.

This has to be a difficult time for the retail businesses.  Having to prepare for the next holiday while waiting for the present holiday to pass can be a challenge.

So, when I was in the building supply store last weekend, there were two displays right side by side.  One featured Halloween supplies including a life size skeleton.  And the other had Christmas decorations with a life size Santa Claus.

I guess Thanksgiving is now an insignificant holiday.

Due to economic problems, many schools in Michigan have had severe budget cuts. It is so bad that many teachers have turned to purchasing their own classroom supplies. So, when the state announced that there was an extra 200 million left in the school fund, teachers rejoiced at the news.

But then, the governor decided to put that money into the general fund instead of giving it to the schools.

I wonder if the MEA made a mistake by endorsing the governor in her last election?

As a member of the music team at church, I get a lot of perks including bagels and cream cheese on Sundays. So, when they announced a work day at church for the musicians, I agreed to help out.

When I arrived, I was assigned to the Tech Team lead. The Tech Team lead is a full time position that is responsible for audio, video and lighting for the church. No problem, I can handle that.

The first thing that the Tech Team lead needed was a ladder set up in the auditorium. It was a big aluminum step ladder that reached 22 feet to the ceiling. It was hard to move and I could understand why the Tech Team lead needed help. No problem.

Once the ladder was set up, the Tech Team lead announced that he needed me to cut four “gels”. No problem.

“Gels” are those colored translucent plastic films that they put in front of spot lights to color a given area. And, the Tech guy wanted me to change the color on four of the lights. No problem.

I can cut out four blue “gels” for the lights. I just needed to know what size. Pointing to the top of the ladder he said to use the gel holder on one of the lights for a template. Problem!

I am not fond of heights and I hate aluminum ladders. But, not willing to be a wimp about this, I ascended the ladder one wobbly rung at a time.

When I got to the top, I discovered that the gel holders had a latch that held them to the light. Unfortunately, my efforts to release them failed.

So, I yelled down to the Tech Team lead and asked him if there was a secret to unlatching the gel holders. The next thing I knew, he was climbing up the ladder with me.

I could see the headlines now; “Two found dead in church lighting accident.” But, he showed me how to unlatch the gel holders and then went back down the ladder. After I regained my composure, I climbed back down with the gel holder.

When I finished cutting the gels, the Tech Team lead pointed to the four lights that needed new gels. Of course, all four of them were 22 feet in the air! But, I was determined. So back up the ladder I went. Twenty minutes later, I came back down the ladder having changed the four gels. Mission accomplished.

Of course, I still hate heights and aluminum ladders but at least I didn’t wimp out.

When I go out for my morning walks at work, I often see interesting sights. These six wooden stakes in the grass appeared one day this spring.

At first, I thought that some thing was going to be planted there. But, when summer arrived, there was no sign of a planting. Then I thought that maybe some sort of wild flower was growing there. Or, maybe there was an exposed electrical wire or some sort of chemical spill. But no. When I examined the site, I saw nothing unusual.

I will probably never know why the stakes were put in the ground.

When I was a child, I was told that cobwebs and spiderwebs were the same. Then, when I got into high school, I was told that cobwebs and spider webs were different. Cobwebs were the result of electrostatic charged particles while spider webs were the result of, well, spiders.

Now, I understand that cobwebs are really spider webs. After all, cob is an old term for spider. So, Cobwebs must be the same as spider webs because they both refer to spiders?

Now, when I research this on line, I get the same comments that cobwebs are really just spider webs.  Well, so much for science and the charged dust particles.

Last Friday morning, as I went for my daily walk, I noticed, what appeared to be the contents of a woman’s purse, lying on the side of the steps outside of our building. There were 4 tampon with applicators, two still in their wrapper, a tube of hand cream, a hair brush, a tube of lipstick, a packet of Kleenex, several sticky notes and a ball point pen.

Now, in the normal world, most people would think this odd. But, state workers are so used to seeing strange things that I doubt that any one gave it a second look.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera on Friday. Rats!  However, knowing my fellow state workers, I was fairly certain that the contents would still be there come Monday morning.  And,  so they were.

Since this is the area where the smokers hang out, I can only guess that some frantic woman went digging through her purse looking for that loose cigarette.

We got new paper towel dispensers in the restrooms at work. So, along with these, we got a memo as to how to use them.

Now, for most of us, this would just seem intuitive: Grasp the paper towel by the bottom and gently pull down. But, since this it the state, we needed to send out a memo with paper towel dispensing instructions.

The instructions said to grasp the paper towel at the bottom and to gently pull down. Gosh, why didn’t I think of that?

Maybe they will offer a 3 day class on how to use the new paper towel dispensers.

Recently, a woman passed her written driving test. While she was ecstatic, the rest of us should be concerned. You see, it took her 971 tries.

Now, you might think that it was a long and complicated test. But, in all actuality, the test only had 40 questions on it.

If she had just missed passing by one or two questions, she should have been able to guess the right answers long before the 971st attempt.  But, it would appear that she didn’t know the answer to most of the questions.

I wonder if she could read?