An Erie Veterans Day

Busy day of work today with a meeting in the burbs, so with the commute, I was occupied all morning. The meeting went well at least.

LL and I went to dinner at Erie Cafe to celebrate 10 months together and had my favorite waiter of all time, Hugo. He understands what being a good, no great!, waiter means: don't interrupt, know the menu, be honest, know when to be attentive and when to leave the diners alone, get some extras when asked for and clean up a bit. Hugo gave us measures of a 20 year old port as an aperitif and it was tasty!

On a separate note, Ricardo, who spent Monday and Tuesday in Atlanta, is now sick. We were supposed to go up to his Wisconsin home and cut up trees and split logs for the winter. Since he is pretty sure it's just a cold, we'll probably still head up there, but maybe not if he doesn't come around.

Two more kills in Basra last night by T-Rex! That brings the total to 13 for the latest surge. The last 4-5 have been juveniles, but a rat is a rat. Not as many of the holes have been re-dug after I closed them up. You have to close up the holes to see which of the holes are still active. If the holes reappear, then they are active. You don't want to be baiting too far from the active holes otherwise the rats will never get to the trap: there is easier food to be had in the garbage can. Part of the problem now is that some of the active holes are in the middle of the yard and the traps work best near walls and where I can tie them down. Still, if the active holes are in the yard, then that's where T-Rex will go!

Finally, I was happy to see this story have some closure for the families. The murdered girl's sister is my age and was in my school at the time. Naperville was a much smaller town back then, probably less than half the size that it is now. The murder really impacted people throughout the town.