Neighbor's daughter is visiting her mother, and brought along grandchild. Grandchild is a toddler at that stage where she can say individual words, but not complete sentences (but can understand sentences). She went into grandma's kitchen, spotted the garbage and bleach under sink, gave a happy gurgle and made a dive for both at the same time. Mama snatched her up. Granddaughter gave Mama an angry look and burst into angry sobs. You know the ones that say "I need that bleach and garbage as nummy treats and wonderful toys. mean mean Mommy.".

So Mamma, having closed the cabinet put her down. She sobbed as she toddled out of the kitchen to grandma. And as soon as Mama was out of sight instantly stopped crying. Mama followed her, came into sight. She began angry sobs again. Mama shrugged, went back to the kitchen and the tears dried up again. Grandtoddler knew who her intended audience was.

MM, how many experience points for vanquishing the washer?

A bajillion.

Seriously, I can thank my buddy Bob for teaching me not to be afraid to take shit apart. "Dude, the worst you can do is hand a repairman a handful of screws and shit. 'Here, it's apart...half your work is done.'"

That's pretty much the same spirit my dad taught me.

I fixed our dryer a few weeks ago with hints and schematics found on the internets, and then ordered the $5 part from a local repair shop. The most annoying thing was the gazillions of screws to get the whole f-ing bottom off, only to find I had to reach down from the front anyway.

• sigh* I need to tackle the washer, soon. I think it needs a new belt.

Oh, and did I mention our furnace/AC is acting up again? I'm calling a pro on that. When your electronic control module on the furnace starts blinking continuously and also buzzes? time to hit the kill switch and let someone else deal with it.

Grandtoddler knew who her intended audience was.

Many toddlers I've met are wonderful little actors. It's like some know instinctively how to use the innate frustration at not being able to speak yet to turn off and on the waterworks at will.

Some, of course, are much better at it than others. I think a lot of people forget how fast you learn at that stage.

Imagine if the human race kept learning at the pace it does the first few years of life. Flying cars, with intergalactic warp by now.

Hopefully, DCJ, your problem is like ours and isn't a belt, but a coupler. Simple and cheap to fix.

Sign #1 I live in Minnesota, a headline:

Man robs Burnsville bank and isn't very nice about it

Sign #2 I live in RURAL Minnesota, police report excerpts:

3:01 p.m., damage to cornfield from someone driving through it in the 11000 block of Union Lake Trail.

10:22 p.m., just south of the person calling, gunfire shots of 10 rounds, then some time passed and there were five more, then another seven-eight rounds, caller believes it was from a handgun in the 22000 block of Albers Avenue. [note: edge of town with cornfields beyond]

Incidentally the last actually turned out to be a group of buddies trying to shoot bats flying in the trees with shotguns.

Not all hunters are responsible.

This is either creepy synchronicity, or my brother lurks here:

We're going up to visit him, leaving tonight. When I talked to him today, he said, "I thought that one day I could take you and [The Boy] to the shooting range up the street...is [The Boy] okay with guns?"

After I stopped laughing, I told him that yes, The Boy is okay with guns. My brother said, "Cool. We can go any time, since I'm a member."

My brother is Dale Gribble.

Grandtoddler knew who her intended audience was.

I was babysitting for my (spoiled rotten) nephew when he pointed to the MacDonald's and started chanting FRIES. When I declined to stop he started howling. I calmly looked at him and said, "that doesn't work on me." He stopped instantly.

Washer repairs don't work well for me. I'd fix a dozen dryers before tackling the washer again. Too many parts.

I never learned to fix anything; as a very precocious/destructive child, I learned to disassemble things.

Putting them back together was never as interesting.

This life-philosophy has been expensive and damaging to my long-term prospects, but very satisfying.

Got my haircut!! [link]

So work today was interesting. It's weird how I can find out all kinds of inter personal stuff but I'm usually slow learning the big news.

There's some big meeting this weekend about the budget and lots of people are freaked about jobs being cut. According to what I've heard there haven't been layoffs before, even in the 80s but times are different. I think my job is secure but some generalized job ma will be good.

One thing I'm going to do is talk to my boss about doing some archiving that's tied into one of my responsibilities. It's not really important but it's something I could do that will need to be done some time so I'll always have something to do, but low enough priority that I can help out other departments as needed.