Update

The subject of the previous post has been dealt with (gloves, Christmas light box, plastic bag).

The sink has been bleached and cleaned. The lint trap is replaced.

We're back in business.

Laundry night derailed

(Warning... kind of gross photo below)

I watched Lost tonight, then got ready to do laundry.

My laundry set-up is a bit unusual. The water from the first rinse is pumped into an adjacent sink, where it is stored and can be pumped back into the washer for a second load. If it's not needed, there is a little pump that pumps the water up into the outflow pipe out to the septic system.

On Monday I did one load of laundry, and left the unused water sitting in the sink for the past couple days.

Tonight I went down, saw the gray water and decided I didn't want to reuse it after two days, so I flicked on the little motor and the sink started to drain as I sorted clothes. After a couple minutes, I heard the suction sound that indicated the sink was empty, went to flick off the pump and saw, to my horror...

Nooooo! 

I knew there were mice in the basement - they had scarfed up some spilled dog food before I had a chance to clean it up, and thwarted my attempts to catch them in a live trap. I wanted them out... but not like this. My used laundry water became a water-filled pit of doom.

So I've hit the brakes on laundry night, and I'm stalling and stalling going back down there to deal with the carcass. I know it's just a mouse, but I'm squeamish about these things. I'm about to go out to the garage and assess my garden tools to see what might be the least-gross way to get this thing out of the house. Garden shovel into a box into the trash container outside is the likely choice.

I'll never be able to look at the laundry tub the same way again.

Dreaming, Vol. 5

Last night's dream:

I am at home. I get a call. "You're going to be in a cooking contest."

Then I'm at a loading dock, with a crew of people unloading boxes of cooking supplies.

I walk in, and there are two identical kitchens set up. I think it was on a sound stage, so this may have been a TV event.

The other cook is already at work, and we have like an hour to put together the meal. How did he get a head start? Annoyed.

The meal is Italian. But wait, that other cook looks like the maitre d' from the Chinese restaurant in that famous "Seinfeld" episode. He's cooking Italian? But wait, what am I saying, I can hardly cook anything at all.

OK, I start looking through the cabinets. What, no pasta! I have to get to a grocery store.

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That's it. Either the dream ended, or I just don't remember the rest.

Explanation: After some thought, I realized that I had left the radio on overnight. At 6 a.m., Minnesota Public Radio switched from the BBC to.... "The Splendid Table." I looked on the program Web site, and there was some talk of Italian food on this week's show.

But the maitre d'? That remains a mystery for now.

Random music notes

Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You" was released right about when I turned six - and I was obsessed with that song at that time.

I had a little radio - wooden box, cloth-covered speaker, metal knobs - in my room, and I remember being very excited when that song was played.

I'm not sure how long the obsession lasted, but even now, if that song comes on an oldies or light rock station, I leave it on.

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Yesterday I sang along to "House of the Rising Sun" in the car on the way home and totally nailed it, or at least it seemed that way to me. And I've tried to sing that song a number of times before and it usually comes out as some terrible, strangled, wailing mess (no shock there - the song treads a very narrow line on that point).

But for some reason, and I don't know why, it really sounded good yesterday. Alas, no one was there to hear it.

Who is this for?

I've been seeing these billboards all around town for months:

Who is this aimed at? Does anyone really drive past these things and think, "I gotta get me some Canadian whisky!"? Well, I guess some people might - so is this sign just one big reinforcement for alcohol addiction?

I guess my thinking applies to all billboards that are not on major highways. I can see the return on promoting a McDonald's, or a motel, to people driving down the interstate. But these city-street billboards seem to me to be a totally ineffective way of getting your message out.

The good old days

A Wrangell boys basketball player puts up a shot just before halftime of the 2004 Region V Class 3A fifth-sixth place game against Haines at B.J. McGillis Gymnasium on the Mount Edgecumbe High School campus in Sitka, Alaska. The shot was good. (Andrew Krueger / Juneau Empire)

It's been only five years since I covered this tournament, but it seems like an eternity - for me, for technology, for the newspaper industry.

The Region V tournament was - and is - one of the biggest regional events of the year in Southeast Alaska. In addition to basketball, there is competition in cheerleading and dance, bands perform, etc. Hundreds of kids from cities, towns and villages, all in one place.

I got to cover the tournament three times - once each in Ketchikan (2003), Sitka (2004) and Juneau (2005). The first time, I was still shooting film; the third time, we were at home, so the Empire's photographers handled most of the photos. But in Sitka, I was armed with my digital SLR camera. I covered all the games in print and with photos.

Times were still pretty good for newspapers, but budgets were in place and I took cost-saving steps to make sure I could make the trip. I took an hours-long (possibly overnight - I can't remember) ferry trip from Juneau to Sitka. I slept on the floor of a friend's house for four or five nights. I walked more than a mile one-way back and forth across a big bridge from the main part of Sitka to the island where the gym was. And for my return trip to Juneau, I latched on to the Juneau students' chartered ferry and slept amid instrument cases and gym bags.

I covered all the teams - not just Juneau - and filed reports and photos for print and Web via my Mac laptop and balky dial-up modem. I'm afraid that the coverage area has diminished since I left. It's really too bad, because there were always great stories from the little outlying villages. It was fun being the "big-city paper," if only for a brief time.

I alternated between the press box and the sidelines, writing and taking photos. The gym was a converted World War II-era aircraft hangar, and it was LOUD for the big games. I'd have to concentrate amid the noise; once I got smacked by a T-shirt blasted from a cannon on the court during halftime (I still have the shirt). My last story, after the Saturday night games, was filed as the lights were turned off and the basketball court turned into a dance floor for a big end-of-tournament party.

Out of all the photos I took, I like the one above; it seems kind of Norman Rockwell-ish to me. I have better action shots, closer to the action, but that one just seems to offer more of the scene.

I've gone on to other papers, done cool stories, taken thousands more photos and still enjoy what I do. But I always have a bit of nostalgia for that particular tournament. It just seems like things were a lot simpler and more fun back then. It was exciting being the lone correspondent, sending back photos and game stories, rushing to meet deadlines. The good old days.

OK, I could have prevented this. But...

Driving home tonight, as I made the transition from city to country, an SUV zoomed up behind me and tailgated me for a bit. I was going at or maybe a shade over the speed limit (55), which anyone who knows the area would know is, if anything, too fast to drive at night with so many deer around.

After a very short while, the driver zipped out into the other lane and gunned it, passing me as we rounded a curve - gentle curve, but still a curve. Idiot, I thought. Now, when I'm driving out at night and somebody passes me, I generally wait maybe 10 seconds before turning my high beams back on, to give them some distance. If they tailgate me and drive like morons, I might wait only 5 seconds - I'll give them a little distance, but I won't go the extra mile. That's what I did tonight. In retrospect, kind of a mistake.

As soon as I put the high beams on, the SUV - by now maybe a tenth of a mile ahead - braked. Big time. I hit the brakes. The SUV started going. I slowly started going. Then he braked again and came to a dead stop. I wasn't going fast, but I had to brake hard and swerve onto the shoulder. He swerved onto the shoulder in front of me. I swerved back on to the road. He swerved back on to the road. At some point in this, he had a shot at bashing me on the passenger side and I thought he was going to (his SUV was an old beater; I say "he" but I didn't get a look at the driver), but it didn't happen. Also at some point in this, I did turn off my brights. The SUV started going down the road again.

I followed - giving plenty of distance. OK, this was really dumb, but after giving that driver the normal amount of time - he was way down the road - I turned my brights back on. The SUV's brake lights went on again. I pulled over and called 911. The SUV kept going, passing someone up ahead while going up a hill.

I had his plate number, and I gave it to the dispatcher along with a description of the SUV and its direction of travel. She said if any squads were in the area, they'd look for it. About a mile down the road, I saw a sheriff's SUV in a bar parking lot. As I passed, its lights (regular, not emergency) went on and it started pulling out. I turned and kept going on my way down a different road. I'd like to think they tracked the guy down.

I'm fine. My car's fine. As the title of this post says, I could have prevented this. But...