<![CDATA[A Day in the Life of Me and other Ramblings]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP en-us Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:28:52 GMT <![CDATA[The Sinking Ship has another Mate]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=712

]]> Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:28:52 GMT <![CDATA[Getting Older?]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=708 Many of us are guilty of looking at others our own age and thinking, "Surely, I can't be that old". If you've ever done this, then you'll appreciate the following.

My name is Alice Smith and I was sitting in the waiting froom for my first appointment with a new dentist.

I noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on way back then?

Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, grey-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate.

After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School.

"Yes. Yes, I did. I'm a mustang," he gleamed with pride.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.

"In 1965," he replied. "Why do you ask?"

"You were in my class!" I exclaimed.

He looked at me closely ... and then that ugly, old, bald, wrinkled, fat ass, grey-haired decrepit son-of-a-bitch asked, "What did you teach?"]]> Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:45:18 GMT <![CDATA[Lost in my new house]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=706
Just wanted to post a few lines, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth; I've only been completely overwhelmed putting this house together. By the time I finish a room I'm completely exhausted. I've taken a ton of photos and will post them soon....

As for the end of 360, I haven't even begun to look for a new blog home. I do have a friend on Xanga, I might look into that one. If any of you have discovered a blog site that's really easy to do cool things with, let me know. I just don't have time to get into a lot of html right now! I'd rather have something that's close to English for now.

Talk to you all soon!!
]]> Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:46:16 GMT <![CDATA[Pimp my TV]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=697 frame for your flat panel LCD or Plasma TV?

Last night I finally talked Phill into hanging our LCD TV over the fireplace in the living room. We had previously used a large armoire, which was nice and blended with our other antiques. However ,when the moving company broke our tube TV and then replaced it with a flat panel LCD, there really was no need to continue to use the armoire since it was taking up valuable space in the living room. And, this fireplace has been converted to a gas log, so there isn't a concern for a lot of smoke and heat like a regular fireplace to damage the TV.

I will admit I'm pretty anal about the TV blending with my primitive antiques. In fact, I will admit that we have to have one, even though I only watch it about 3% of the time the rest of the family does. But I don't like the TV being the focal point in the room so I've done my best to hide it in a cabinet all these years. Well, since we had the option of hanging this one, I figured I'd find a primitive looking cabinet to put over it so I can still close it off when it's not in use.

After we hung the TV, I was actually impressed with how it looked. It still says "tv" but it's low profile and takes up so much less room than before. I'm not sure I really need to find a cabinet to put over it...we'll see. But when I went looking online this morning for a screen for my fireplace, I found frames.

You can actually buy a wooden or ornate frame for your flat panel TV to make it look more like artwork. Now that's a novel idea. I remember watching Nanny 911 and the TV those nannies had in England had a nice antique looking frame. (At the time, I remember thinking...'huh--what Hollywood can do.' I've even found a mirrored frame system, so when your TV isn't on, it will look like a mirror on the wall. Pretty cool. And pretty pricey---over $700!!

But, I still live inside my head with the Bargain Queen, so you have to know I'm immediately trying to come up with a flea market version of the idea or a way to do it myself. I can't see spending more money on a phoney frame than the TV actually cost! I'll continue to brainstorm on that one....

But for now, we'll just have to be happy with little Nemo who's swimming around above the fireplace, thanks to Disney.
]]> Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:28:39 GMT <![CDATA[Fires and Snakes]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=691
I'm going to buy me some tall army boots to wear forever more....]]> Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:51:24 GMT <![CDATA[Thank Goodness for Cool Weather and Repaired Ceilings]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=686
On the home front, the painter is still working. Well, he's left for the day by 11:30am, because he's spread himself too thin and has too many jobs going. But he has fixed the peeling, chippy, nasty ceilings at least, and has everything primed and the trim painted. It's been going on a week that our life exists between bedrooms for sleep and the family room for just about everything else. My room is full of the bathroom stuff, and the kitchen/dining area is full of everything else. It's a royal MESS around here. I'll admit, most days I've been pretty agitated about it and in pretty much a bad mood, I have to say. I've gone from the moving company ordeal to the house that at one point was partially livable to it being all upside down again. Plus we got a 2nd shipment of some of the missing stuff from the moving company, so the garage is back to being a huge mess that you can't walk through. The two trees that were dead out back that we had to have taken down are now in huge, 4ft chunks all over the backyard, and we don't have a chainsaw to cut it up to use it for firewood. Hubby was going to either rent or buy one, but he's working a lot right now. It's crazy I tell you!!! Oh for a few less chaotic days!!!

There are moments though, gazing up at the freshly fixed and primed ceilings that I catch glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel. Just a few. I'm itching to decorate for Fall, my favorite time of year, but I just have to hold off until this is done!! I hope by the weekend??!!

Hope you all are well....
]]> Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:24:12 GMT <![CDATA[The Recovery Period]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=679
Barely.

The truck was here at the house when we arrived straight from the closing at the title office on Monday. In fact, the semi truck pulled straight into this little curvy, wooded lane on which we live. Then they proceeded to unload a zillion things into our driveway before we even got here (which isn't allowed.)

We hadn't had a moment alone in the new house before they started hauling stuff in. No time to clean or prep or plan where anything was supposed to be put. Oh well, none of our other plans had gone through anyway, right? Well, we began to notice damaged items immediately. This time the driver had two extra people with him, two hard working guys, plus the other guy, and that girl that was on the Wisconsin end was sick and asleep in the truck. (Lotta good she was going to be doing us!) We had expected some damages after we'd been told by our realtor that our stuff had been unloaded and reloaded in the rain...but what we were finding was a total nightmare, much, much worse than expected.

Almost immediately the driver grabbed me and took me to the driveway to show me a bookcase that was in pieces, he said, "I'm not sure what happened here but this wasn't built well anyway, look at those little nails (chuckle, chuckle.) No apology or anything! Later when they brought in our antique reproduction cabinet/entertainment center, the doors were off, the hardware missing and the front all gouged up, -- they carried in the TV right afterwards which was a heavy, tube Sony, a 36" --wrapped in a packing blanket and tape. Well kaboom, the TV crashed onto the hardwood floor! Right in front of us! We just stood there, dumbfounded--- and the guys said nothing, just took off the tape and then the blanket, and then shards of plastic went sliding across the floor. Nice. Real Nice! Soon after that, the driver handed my husband a piece of wood that had been the actual leg of our oldest son's headboard, and the driver said, "I don't know what happened to this, but it just looks like particle board, anyway." Uh, Hello??? We just bought a whole matching suite for him a year ago, and it wasn't cheap!! It may have had particle board supports on the backside of the headboard, but it was very nice and very sturdy! The rest of the headboard NEVER SHOWED UP.

The boxes that were coming in were crushed, some wet, some torn. It was horrifying because all I could think of was my antiques and musical instruments. Our new house has a mother-in-law suite/apartment that can't be accessed from the inside of our house so I had no idea what was being unloaded into that, plus we didn't see what was going on inside the garage for the most part, either. We just stayed pretty central in the living room in front of the picture window to see what was coming off the truck. We stayed in contact with the manager in WI off and on all day who was also very worried, but at that point he was telling us to just let the guy unload all of our stuff and get the heck off our property and that the company would deal with the damages after that. It was HORRIFYING.

Around 10 pm we noticed that they were assembling our king size bed, so we thought at least we'd have places to sleep. Next thing we know, we hear the truck starting up outside, and all but one guy (one of the new ones) was gone---the new guy shook our hands and said "enjoy your new house" and when we blankly stared back and asked if they were leaving, he RAN out of the door, and off the truck went, in pitch blackness (we live back in a woods on a shared drive with three other houses off a two lane country highway).....The truck was attempting to BACK OUT OF THE DRIVE, the curvy drive...in the dark. Before we realized what was going on outside, we headed upstairs to find our bed assembled in the middle of our room, but the other rooms only had PIECES of the bed rails and our daughter's canopy bed was missing several pieces and neither of the mattresses were in there. Our other son's room is downstairs, and his room was full of boxes, no signs of any bed at all.

About that time I was headed to assess the garage when I heard yelling outside. I ran the other way and out the front door, and the truck was about to back down a ravine at the end of the drive!!! Our neighbors were outside in their pajamas yelling that they were calling the cops, the other neighbor, an 82 year old woman, was in her car shining her headlights at the end of the road for the driver. We had never even met any of the neighbors!! AND, GET THIS: The truck took out parts of four lawns, and branches ripped off an apple tree and a pine tree, and he completely demolished the baby tree at the end of our lawn!!! He singlehandedly destroyed not only our entire household but all of our neighbors' properties, too, and we didn't even know them! How embarrassing. When we explained what had actually happened inside the house, the neighbors really were very nice and felt bad for us. We assured them that the company would have to take care of the ripped up grass and trees. Ugh!!!

After we were back in the house, we walked around and found all sorts of damage. They had dented my 1 year old stainless steal appliances. Broke the bass fiddle, the back of that was coming off. They took a chunk out of the side of my piano. The basement was so full of boxes head high that you couldn't even walk through it---and the garage was unbelievable. 6 feet high, sold mess of boxes and furniture and bed rails with mattresses in boxes THROWN ACROSS THE TOP OF THE PILES!!! You could physically not get through the garage to the driveway nor could you get to the apartment! It was as if all of our household had been sucked up by a tornado and just DROPPED.

We obviously couldn't stay in the house. We went back to my mom's where I emailed the company and demanded to have a supervisor or manager there the next morning to see the damage, because we weren't about to touch a thing until they saw it. I took photos of everything (I'll be posting them soon). Sure enough, the general manager of the company along with his furniture repair guy showed by 10am.

They were appalled and assured us all the damages would be taken care of. They apologized profusely. They also said they had NEVER seen anything like it in their LIVES. They ordered an unpacking crew to arrive that afternoon, and thank God for them---they stayed everyday, all day, until Friday. I was so numb, I didn't know how to even function. Not to mention I still had to get my kids registered for school which started in one week from then! Thank God for friends, my girlfriend actually took my 4 th grader for me and did the paperwork and got the teacher, etc. I went with our 6th grader, which ended up being a whole other fiasco I'll share with you at another time! (They are both in school and doing well, thankfully now.)

We weren't able to even sleep in the house until the Sunday before Labor Day. And even now, the house is still crazy. The unpacking team was able to find the basement, and all the beds, and reassemble whatever they had parts for. I still can't actually hang or decorate anything as the walls/ceilings are in such bad repair that they have to be fixed first, but at least we have clothes in closets and dishes and food in cupboards. And the entire basement is now a sea of toys! At least Jillian is happy with that, not very clean, but fun for her. I could care less about the toys..I'm just trying to make sense of the rest of the house.

The company reimbursed us for two new beds for the two that were missing. They also took our smashed TV and replaced it with a 36" LCD, which was very nice. They are having our ottoman and Lazy Boy chair steam cleaned since they are wet and stained. Our ripped leather chair is getting repaired, and the bass fiddle has been repaired. The garage is now at least to the point that we can walk through it. There are no more wet boxes and most everything is put on shelves somewhere so I can find it. They fixed the oven drawer which was dented and they are looking into new doors for my Fisher and Paykel fridge.

My husband's company has been so nice as well and they are giving him some extra money for compensation. The moving company also sent a huge plant and $1000 for an apology. I have to tell you, the extra money means a lot but in my opinion you can't put a price tag on the devastation we went through, and are still going through. It's been so exhausting, and not good for my already agitated anxiety!

The better thing is that we found out that my husband as of October 1st will no longer have to commute to work 1-1.5 hours----they are transferring him here to our hometown!! That is so exciting for us!

So, that's the news up till now. Soon I'll tell you just how much STUFF we're finding out that this house needs, like the huge dead oak tree out back that has to come down and the fact that the well water SUCKS and how much dough I have shell out for city water!!!

We're glad to be back, though.....sure missed my good ole' Michigan for its familiar faces and deep rooted friendships!

And I've missed 360....glad to be back here too!!
]]> Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:34:46 GMT <![CDATA[Oh No!!!]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=672
"First of all, the packing team was excellent. We were very pleased with their services.

We had a phone call on Tuesday, Aug 21 from the driver, that he was going to come that evening to do a walk-thru, but he never showed up. On Wednesday he apologized for not coming because his room mate overdosed on medication. With the driver came only two other loaders, a young man and a small-framed woman, which surprised us as we have a 2300 sq foot house full of belongings, and the last time we moved, there was a team of 5 or 6 men.

The driver estimated the total loading to be done either by the end of Wednesday or early afternoon Thursday. We had a rescheduled closing on the new house set for Friday, Aug 24 at 4:30 in Port Huron, Michigan, so with the loading completed by early Thursday at the latest, we would have plenty of time to drive the 8-10 hours and still be ready for the closing on Friday afternoon.

By the evening on Wed, the loading was far from completed. The driver, a very pleasant, optomistic personality, told me in no uncertain terms that he was sure they only had a little left and that it would be finished by early afternoon on Thursday. I asked when they would return, and he said around 9am on Thursday, I told him anytime was fine, our daughter gets up at 6am, but he was concerned about his sick son at home in Shawano, WI (and hour and a half from our location) and he didn't want to wake him up too early so he'd come to our house later in the morning. He also communicated to me that his orders said he was unloading at the new location on Friday, Aug. 24. That was a surprise to me, as we had been told delivery was Aug. 27. I explained to him that we wouldn't even have the keys until dinnertime on Friday. He showed me his printed orders which included delivery beginning Friday morning. He also told me he had to be back for a karaoke contest in Wisconsin on Sunday and that he had another move to begin for another client on Monday Aug. 27.

Thursday sometime around 9 they arrived and got back to work. It was obvious to me at that point that this by far was not enough people to load our entire household in the time allotted. At one point they had our piano stuck half way up the stairway for over 2 hours, which inhibited any access to the family room, laundry or basement. Later in the day, two other loaders showed up and the piano was dislodged and loaded onto the truck, and I was pleased to see additional team members to complete the load. But then the two left.

By late in the evening on Thurs, the driver asked if they could come back Friday morning that they were not completed. I was very nervous at this point, I had fully planned on driving back to MI Thursday night to be prepared for the closing on Friday. Also, the beds were already dismantled and the mattresses were in boxes. He told me he'd only need an additional couple of hours and that he could come back at 4am. They left.

After they left, I assessed what was remaining in the house. The basement was full of boxes and furniture, three sets of mattresses were boxed plus a headboard in the bedrooms, several chairs, our dining room table, area rugs, blanket chests, etc. There were at least 15 boxes left in the family room, a bedroom suite plus tools, bikes, lawn furniture, ladders, etc in the garage. I was appalled. I had no idea how in the world he thought he could finish in a couple hours. I knew I not only had to have the house completely loaded before I vacated, but I also had to have time to completely CLEAN the house as we would not be returning, an Prudential Relocation was taking possession of the house on Aug 24. So, I did what any other flaming mad woman would do: I put my child to sleep on the floor of her cleaned out room and went to work. I moved the mattresses out of a son's room so I could clean it top to bottom. I organized all the boxes in the family room in the dark since the lamps were packed, and I then carried up all the boxes out of the basement to the family room to save the loaders time. This took me almost 3 hours. I was able to vacuum and clean around the furniture in the basement. I finally got to bed around 11pm. I set an alarm for 3:45am and already heard the truck outside.

I turned on all the lights and opened up the doors. It was about 20 minutes before anyone came in the house. (I have to admit, during the whole loading process, the only one who acted like he knew what he was doing was the driver, though to not have brought more help, was odd. He did tell me that this was his first time as a driver though.) After awhile they started hauling things out to the driveway, the rain really started coming down and I was getting even more nervous about the time and having to get on the road for the closing. The driver suggested hauling everything to the garage so we could finish cleaning the house and get on the road. I told him about all the work I had done the night before, and he had nothing to say about it, which surprised me.

As they hauled the rest of the stuff out to the garage, I finished cleaning the house and began to load my car with our clothes, etc. My husband had to move his car out of the driveway, so the driver pulled the truck ahead so he could back out. When the driver backed the truck up, several boxes then fell out of the truck and my filing cabinet tipped on its side. That's when we noticed the pile of bikes on the driveway, all at once I was nauseous. Two the bikes are brand new, 1950's Schwinn reproductions, pink and chrome with wide, white walled tires, and there they lay heaped on concrete. Seeing the boxes falling out of the truck, and several sitting in the rain, all I could think of were my antiques! I have no idea what the damage is going to be but I can only imagine. As it was, the driver failed to notice that my appliances were included in the move, and I watched as they hauled my stainless steal imported Fisher&Paykel fridge out the door, the driver barking at the loader who had no clue that he was about to hit the door frame.

Knowing we were already running behind on time, I called our realtor to come over and keep an eye on the final loading. We made sure the house was cleaned out completely and locked up, so all the only access was the garage. We headed out. What our realtor found was even crazier. He called us immediately from his cell phone. Because it was pouring rain, he just sat in his car on the curb to watch. After we left, the driver and his two people BEGAN TO UNLOAD THE TRUCK INTO THE DRIVEWAY in the RAIN! There was still stuff in the garage and the grill, furniture and toys in the backyard. I guess the driver wanted to repack?? They threw blankets over the boxes but our realtor knew that thin blankets were not going to keep the pouring rain from soaking those boxes. He did manage to take some photos of the chaos from his car window.

By 5pm, they were still there!!! At that point, the truck left but there was still stuff in the garage, and the girl who was working with them sat in my office chair covered up with a packing blanket and fell asleep. Soon my realtor got out of his car and approached her, he asked where how it was going. She replied, "It's gone pretty well, except for the piano." When he asked her were the truck had gone, she said they'd left to go find extensions--which, none of us seem to know what they are. She didn't bother to explain, she just laid her head back and went back to sleep.

I'm not sure at what point the truck finally left. But you can imagine, we are very, very upset with how our belongings have been treated, and I'm terrified to find out what condition they'll be delivered in.

And, to top it off, we MISSED THE HOUSE CLOSING! As I said, we'd planned to leave Thursday to insure we were prepared for the closing on Friday afternoon. But with the loading not finished, we couldn't leave. We ended up leaving around 7:45am, but hit severe traffic in Chicago, stopped on the highway for 5 hours, and finally detoured around northern Indiana on side roads. We didn't arrive back in Port Huron until 8:30pm! Our closing had to be cancelled and rescheduled for Monday morning at 11am. We are so angry. We are now homeless, renting for the weekend, and as it is, when we close on the house, we won't even have an opportunity to clean it before the truck is there to unload. On top of which, I have no idea where the truck is as I type this, he thought he was unloading Saturday morning as per our last conversation before we left WI and I've not heard anything.

I wish I could request an entire new team to unload our belongings. I'm not confident at ALL in the three people who have handled our household up till now. Just the fact that they would come in the house yelling "Marco!" and the others would disclose there interior location by calling back 'Polo!" seemed just a little odd for professionals."

Gee, I just can't wait for Monday to finally close on the house.........


]]> Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:36:47 GMT <![CDATA[Moving Madness]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=668
Well, I'm sitting here in my packed up, trashed-looking house in WI while the packers continue packing the garage and bedrooms and the loaders are loading onto a huge Mayflower semi-truck. I have Jillian with me, and my mom in Michigan kept the boys. My husband was here to help me out but his boss in Michigan has asked that he come back to work tomorrow so he just rented a car and took off. I'm now feeling kind of upside down.

Without giving you the long version of the story, I will tell you that we still haven't closed on the new house in Michigan, though it was scheduled last Wednesday. It was canceled because the appraiser LOST the appraisal, and when it finally came back, there were several things that had to be fixed before closing. Not to mention that since we are getting a VA loan (Phill was in the Navy) there are a list of requirements including that if city water is within 500 feet of the house, it has to be installed prior to closing. But there's a very large expense to that. So, in a nutshell, it's not only been a stressful week watching the house get packed up, but even more stressful knowing that the truck is going to unload on Monday Aug. 27th when we don't even have a house to put anything in!!!

I've spent the last two days on the phone and online trying to get everything done. There are so many different people involved, the whole thing has become quite chaotic. We the have the railroad, the relocation company, our WI realtor, our MI realtor, the listing agent for the new house, Fannie Mae who holds it in foreclosure, and a host of curious minds (family and friends) to keep updated. It's INSANE. I'm so freaking out, you have NO idea.

At close of business yesterday, we actually had a closing date of Friday at 4:30pm. That's IF the well water test comes back that morning and IF there's nothing wrong with the well water. I found out that we could request the city water not be hooked up by contacting the VA directly (duh, wish we'd have known that a week ago!) If all goes well, I'll have Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday to clean and paint. I had planned on a whole week. But oh well, I'll take what I can get!!

When the dust settles, I'll pop back on and give you long version..... I know someday I'll laugh about it (someday in the way far off future!) But it's amazing to me I have enough sanity left to actually know how to use a computer let alone anything else!

SO happy end of summer everyone, send happy thoughts my way!!
]]> Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:37:49 GMT <![CDATA[A Fish Tale Full of Bologna]]> http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-JKu6tl81bqrhsAH2T7Kw6XrP?p=665 Still in Michigan.....

Yesterday I was invited to play my dulcimer in a music jam at the Yale Bologna Festival. Yale is a village about 30 minutes west of my hometown of Port Huron. Yale is my husband's hometown, and as he likes to tell people, it is the center of the universe. My parents were also from there before adulthood as were most of my relatives. It's basically a farming village and I think there may be 7000 people nowadays. Anyway, there is a famous bologna factory there, and every year since God knows when they host a bologna festival, complete with carnival, huge parade, and crowned Bologna King and Queen that ride through town on a float with fake rings of bologna on their crowns. It's quaint and cultural. I have a friend who's brother owns a realty office on main street, and every year he has us play music and provides a huge spread of food and shade for us, and it's a ton of fun. While I was playing dulcimer (boy was that fun!!!) with my friends, Phill and his sister happily dragged the children through all their old stomping grounds. Jillian was given a mini beach ball during the parade by a clown, and she was in seventh heaven! The boys collected pocketfuls of thrown candy off the streets and went to bed late after a sugar high.

After the bologna festival, and Jillian in bed, Phill decided to head back down to the river to fish. My mom lives on the St. Clair River. He's taken the boys down there off and on in the last few days and did catch a couple of small fish, but threw them back. Well, last night, he caught two hefty Walleye, and put them in the kitchen sink. When my parents and I came back from the festival (we drove separate), I was walking in after Mom had made her way to the kitchen, and there she stood and screamed. She didn't know the fish were flipping around the sink! She walked up to wash her hands and one of the fish tried to jump out at her! It was hilarious!!! Later, the boys convinced my dad to pick up the fish and put them in the bathtub to swim around, although one was already belly-up. All I could think about was poor Nemo from the Disney movie.

Phill's new hobby of fishing has since landed him some severely sunburned feet, though. Birkenstock are great for all kinds of activities but obviously don't protect against the sun. He can barely walk---but this morning I found him some Solarcaine spray with aloe, and he's not only loaded up, but he's managed to put on some socks under his sandals and as I type, he's back fishing!

At least we're having a little bit of adventure while we wait for more news about our new house!
]]> Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:39:43 GMT