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I started watching Bones (thanks sis), and it's episode 4 on disc 1. They're doing the autopsy of the guy and girl, and you can clearly see the dead girl is still breathing.
Geez.
Meanwhile, too funny! Love the courier storyline & Angela. I'm still giggling.
Every now and then I visit the Perez Hilton site, just to catch up with what is going on the the e-world. This cracked me up.
Time for my favorite idols!
1. David Archuleta - I love how he is just beside himself when he receives the praises of the judges. Great voice. Can't wait to hear more.
2. Jason Castro - I didn't agree with Simon this week, or any of the judges. I thought he had a great performance, great vocal. I thought he was one of the best tonight.
3. Luke Menard - tough song, as most Queen songs are. He did great. Doesn't he look like Orlando Bloom?!
4. Michael Johns - Not such a great performance tonight, unfortunately. Sounds like his voice kept cracking through the song.
5. Robbie Carrico - not so great this week. Still waiting for him to pull out the stops.
Danny Noriega is definitely this years Sanjaya. Ugh-o. Waiting to be impressed with his vocal. He killed the Carpenters song. David Hernandez was good , but not a favorite. I hated the Chikezie song and the Jason Yeager song. I've forgotten one...Oh, the other David. He was okay.
Poor Simon, he keeps getting dissed by Ryan with the closing comments. I think it's been 3 episodes so far that Ryan neglects to thank Simon. Funny the first time, not so funny anymore.
Glad we didn't get hit with the massive power outage. Apparently there's a huge outage in Florida, 4.4 million affected.
In other news, a woman found half a frog (the top half) in her caesar salad from an unnamed restaurant. Someone posted this on the forum regarding the article.
What's worse than finding a frog in your food? Half a frog!
OMG that is just too funny.
Other comments: "Is she OK? Does anyone know if she CROAKED?"
"No, but she 'hopped' right over to her attorney's office!"
Life has been a little crazy lately. Bill is out of the country, the construction is in full force, work is grueling, and my child is part monster. (The other part is all sweetness and good things). The house is in shambles. Nothing is where it should be, somethings don't even has a place for it to be. The floor has crud all over it thanks to the junk being tracked in the house from the construction stuff. Plus, there's junk being tracked around from the interior areas that are being worked on. And, it's humid so the floor feels a million times worse. The kitchen faucet continually leaks ever since they moved the hot water heater. I tried to remove the cartridge from it to clean pipe-crud from it, but couldn't, thus it's still leaking a gallon every 25 minutes. I had to shut the hot water off from under the sink and have to turn it on when I need hot water. My attempt to fix a fill valve on one of the toilets was futile, it still leaks. My dumb dog took off yesterday after a woman walking her dog on a leash. Thank goodness nothing happened. Except the dumb dog (my dumb dog) is again at the top of the poop list.
The good parts are, I finally was able to strip the beds down and wash the accumulated dust off of them from when the bedrooms only had 3 walls. (Really. Two bedrooms lost a wall each last week.) My vacuum cleaner, that I thought was broken, is working again. My monster/sweetie is napping. My desk is almost clutter free on one side. The toilet that I replaced the fill valve on doesn't leak as much as it used to. I can start putting some things back in Billy's room since the drywall is done. It just needs to be painted. We've made selections on the entry doors, flooring, and pretty much have the fixtures selected.
I fell asleep with Billy last night when putting him to bed. That was around 11pm. I normally try not to sleep, but if I do take a "nap", it's usually from an hour to two. Last night, I slept until 6:15am. Oops. I knew I was tired though.
Oh well. Back to work since he's sleeping. Peace and quiet. No whining or crying. No hammering, sawing, or drilling.
Billy made me laugh twice yesterday because of the way his mind was working.
We had to tear out the carpet in his old bedroom because with the construction and the massive amounts of rain we were getting. Water kept flooding the carpet near the wall due to exposed foundation, cracks, or whatever. His old bedroom has the tack boards and nails on the floor, so I have to lock the door. I watched him yesterday as he grabbed a set of his play car keys, walked to the doorknob, and tried to unlock the door. It just shocked me and made me laugh...
The second incident again involved the room. Since the drywall guy was here, the door had to be unlocked and left open as he was walking between the three bedrooms to work on each. I have to remind Billy that he's not allowed in there, but he was determined to find a way.
He is very keen on dragging me by my finger to whatever it is that he wants, so he grabbed me from wherever I was and dragged me to the kitchen. I assumed he wanted a cup of juice. He let go of my finger and started pushing me into the kitchen. When he stopped, I was standing by the kitchen doorway, he didn't take me all the way to the fridge. I turned around, and he was sneaking his way back to the hallway to go to the forbidden room!!
What!? Sneaky indeed. What a funny kid.
Then all day he would watch me, waiting for the moment when I wasn't paying attention to him and then furtively make his way down the hall... *sigh* I think this child is going to be sneaking out of the house.
My dog has been on the verge of being sent back to the pound, and this morning she really could find herself on the way there.
It's raining. She's freaking out. I put her in her kennel. The rain subsides. I go to take her out, and in the process she manages to bend my ring-finger nail halfway back, away from my finger.
It hurts, and it's bleeding.
Damn dog!
So, a couple of months there was that whole homicide thing in my neighborhood... right around the corner from us. Here's a follow-up article from the local paper.
BY KAUSTUV BASU
FLORIDA TODAY
Mariceli Acevedo wanted her husband to get a job. His inability to find steady work was straining their marriage.
Juan Torres found one.
He dressed for work and left their middle-class neighborhood of South West 97th Court in Miami every day.
His job: Tending marijuana grow houses 180 miles away in Melbourne.
Torres' new occupation didn't register even a blip on police radar screens. That changed Dec. 12 when Torres killed 24-year-old Omar Garcia, his cousin-in-law by marriage, near Turtle Mound Road. He then drove to Lake Washington Road, where he shot dead Elieser S. Alfonso, his 36-year-old brother-in-law, before turning the gun on himself.
Investigators can't say for sure whether it was problems within the drug business or just bad blood in the Cuban-American family that sparked Torres' deadly shooting spree. But when guns were fired that December morning, it exposed a clandestine marijuana grow network in the middle of a quaint rural subdivision.
Grow houses were found in both locations. Within days, investigators found four more grow houses in the Melbourne area linked to the clan.
The men's wives, who live together in Miami, told Brevard County Sheriff's Agent Carlos Reyes they were unaware what business their husbands were involved in.
"Without this incident, we might have never known about them," Reyes said.
But Brevard County investigators know now.
They also know that Torres, Garcia and Alfonso represented a kind of criminal enterprise adept at avoiding detection and increasingly likely to set up operations in places like Melbourne.
Agents said they're seeking three more people, all thought to be from South Florida, who may be connected to the Melbourne grow operations.
"We are seeing a trend of Cubans branching out throughout the state to establish grow-house operations," said Special Agent Jeannette Moran, who works at the Miami office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Stealth is wealth
Goats and horses. Five Chihuahuas. Even a canary. And Christmas lights.
These were all signs of typical, domesticated life in two leafy Melbourne neighborhoods where houses are built on spacious lots, tucked away from busy roadways and curious neighbors.
Yet for Torres, Garcia and Alfonso, it was an act.
In contrast to the outward signs of domesticity, inside their living arrangements were frugal, Reyes said. There was little food in their refrigerators and meager furnishings.
And they were only "home" a few times a week when they traveled up from Miami to tend their weed gardens.
"They establish themselves as very good neighbors," Cmdr. Doug Waller of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office said. "And they pay their bills on time."
Grow houses consume enormous amounts of electricity because they use hydroponic lights usually installed in greenhouses, air handlers and machines that produce carbon dioxide.
To avoid any suspicion about high electricity consumption, the operation tapped power lines illegally.
The grow houses used artificial nutrients in place of soil, and lights around the clock, leading to rapid growth of the plants that were harvested three to four times a year, investigators said.
Waller said the marijuana grown locally had very high THC content, the chemical that gives the drug its mind-altering characteristics. Each harvest could have yielded as much as 40 to 50 pounds, he said, netting between $4,000 to $6,000 a pound.
Once the marijuana was harvested, agents believe it was transported back to Miami, usually in cars.
"There is no sign of their use and distribution in Brevard," Waller said.
"There was nothing potentially to bring law enforcement into their houses. They had no connection to the county except for the operations at the residences."
And their records were clean: Torres, Garcia and Acevedo did not have criminal records. And there were no reports of police visits to the homes.
Outsourcing
In the past year, 13 grow houses in the county were reported to the DEA. But many more have been discovered in Brevard, including at least 12 discovered by Palm Bay police in 2007 and another 13 by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. Other police agencies have also found grow houses.
Statewide, law enforcement agencies busted 730 grow houses from January to November 2007. Nearly half were in Miami-Dade County.
Brevard County is an ideal setting for grow house operations. It's rural, there's less heat from law enforcement agencies and there are fewer rival groups, investigators said.
In South Florida, groups prey on each other and rob their competitors. It's easy because robberies like these are never reported, Reyes said.
A November incident in Grant-Valkaria, where one gang tried to hit the grow-house operation of another, is more the norm in Miami. Four men have been charged with first-degree felony murder, home invasion robbery and kidnapping with a firearm for the Nov. 19 incident where Jose Corcho, 43, was found slain at his Grant-Valkaria residence, which also housed a marijuana grow-house operation.
In June, the DEA started a database about grow houses and how they might be connected to one another.
"It is an effort to tie in all the information to see if one grow house is connected to another," Moran said. "The aim is to take down an entire organization instead of taking down one grow house at a time."
In the weeks since the December incident, additional grow houses have been busted in Rockledge and Merritt Island, where investigators found more evidence of people covering up their criminal enterprise with the appearance of quiet domesticity.
Contact Basu at 242-3724 or kbasu@floridatoday.com.
Woohoo! What a great finish for the Giants. I'm thrilled another Manning has won a Superbowl!
It's been pretty busy here, and lots to write about, but no real motivation to write. I've started countless entries, and either never find it in me to finish them, or my attention is required somewhere else.
Some things I've meant to write about
1. The continuous stream of crappy news from O'ahu. Cyrus Belt, most of all.
2. Construction
3. Movies: Stardust. The Invisible. Live Free, Die Hard.
4. Tantrum Boy
Well, I was highly emotional about the news I read of Cyrus Belt. He's the toddler, 23 months old, that was tossed off a pedestrian bridge over H1. I haven't seen what the latest news on that is, but last I read, the murderer pleaded not guilty. I'm sure the thing will go in the way of 'unfit to stand trial' or something like that. I don't care if the murderer is someone's son. He killed a baby by THROWING him into traffic from a bridge. I won't spend much more time thinking or writing about this. I can't think of what the worst punishment should for this man. Whatever it is, he should get it. Other bits of news included the woman that was beaten on Maluniu Ave and the tragic death of Lisa Matusmoto, well known in Hawaii theater.
Construction has started on our house for the addition. Things have been shaping up pretty quickly. We got the concrete slab(s) poured on Tuesday. The cinder blocks went up on Friday. Pictures are being posted to Picasa in increments. The house is chaos. That is the best word, I think, to describe it. We ended up moving the office to the existing living room, most of the living room furniture went into the sun room, the gym equipment moved to the baby's room, and he moved to the office. I love having the office in the living room. The layout is temporary, at least until the new windows are installed in the existing rooms. We were stuck entering and exiting the house from the sun room, which was highly inconvenient. Thankfully, for now, we can enter and exit from the front door again, since the concrete was poured. The crappy part about that is all the concrete dust, dirt, etc that is getting tracked into the house. I think the worst part was when I found Billy's bed, which had been taken off the bed frame so that we could move it, sitting on wet carpet. Rain water and maybe faucet water was seeping into his room, making the carpet wet, along with the box spring which was directly on it. Ugh. We've finally gotten it under control, but what a wet, smelly problem. Anyway, I think the next step is the trusses. Then hopefully walls and a roof!
We've recently watched 3 great movies. I loved Stardust. A great fantasy movie with humor and suspense. It's based on Neil Gaiman's book of the same name. Never have read that one, but it's on my list now.
Billy is in full tantrum mode. Oh. My. God. When he's happy and sweet, all is right in the world. When he doesn't want to do something, oh boy. He's a sweet and smart boy though. He gives us kisses and seems to understand much of what we say. Words are limited though. Gymboree will probably be a thing of the past soon. I don't know. He also doesn't enjoy Little Einsteins much these days. His favorites are Monsters, Inc., Super Why!, Handy Manny, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
That's all for now. No promises, but will try to update more often than once a month. ;-)
Happy February!
