So, anyway, I for one am going to try to move ahead with life and pretend as though things are normal.
We have always been a strong nation and we will get through this just as we have gotten through many things before. I understand that, years from now, everyone will remember – with crystal clarity and with a pain in our hearts – exactly where they were when they heard that Brad and Angelina were breaking up; and, trust me, I know it is hard news to take.
However, as the Good Book says, this too shall pass. And, in the meantime, we have no choice but to move forward and simply face the fact that, from this point on, “Brangelina” will forever be replaced by two separate lonely sounding words: “Brad” and “Angelina.”
As in all matters of national disappointment and grief, I think the best thing we can do is just power through it and keep our eye on the inevitably happier days ahead.
In the meantime, here are a few small distractions I offer for consultation, things which may help you take your mind off of it …
The Guilford County clerk to the board’s office is getting frustrated with me because I always call that office and ask for something, and they always kind of huff politely and inform me that the information I’m requesting is clearly listed on the county’s website.
And I have no doubt that it is; it’s just that …
Well, let me give you an example.
The other day, I wanted to know the names of the board members sitting on the county’s Animal Services Board. Now that’s information that any typical citizen might very well want to get because, you know, they might want to, say, complain about an animal control policy or express concern about something that happened at the Animal Shelter.
Now, the Animal Services Board is appointed by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, so I went to the commissioners’ section of the website and clicked on “Committees.” I found the Animal Services Committee and clicked on it, but there was nothing there except the fact that the county’s deputy manager was overseeing the committee and a couple of other things that didn’t seem even related to the Animal Services committee.
So I went up to the county clerk before a meeting, and she was like, “The list of members is on the website,” and I told her where I had looked and she was like, “No, no, no, you’re doing it wrong,” and then she told me how to find it.
This is the highly intuitive process she walked me through:
(1) Go to the county’s web page and find “Departments and Services.” Now, under there, you will see a list of the county’s departments, and one choice is “Animal Services.” But, whatever you do, don’t click that one because the board info is not there (and quite frankly I can’t imagine why in the world you even thought that it might be.)
(2) Instead, you click, wait for it …
“Clerk to the Board.”
Now, it’s weird enough that you are clicking “Clerk to the Board” to get to the Animal Services Board, but the truly fascinating thing is that, under “Departments and Services,” Clerk to the Board isn’t one of the choices. It is a county department, only it isn’t listed. This may baffle you for a while, but finally at the bottom of the page you may notice a small option that says, “View more.” And, if you click that, then one of your choices is “Administration,” and a subcategory of that is “Clerk to the Board,” which is, of course, naturally the department you want if you are looking for the members of the Animal Services Board.
The reason you are supposed to know that, I think, has something to do with the fact that both employees in the Clerk to the Board’s office are pet lovers. I told the clerk as she was walking me through this that I wasn’t 100 percent sure everyone would know to click “Clerk to the Board.”
(3) The clerk told me that the next step is to click on “Guilford County Citizen Boards and Commissions.” That’s the invisible button on the lower right of the screen. Now, for some people, this button may be hard to find because it is literally invisible. We had quite a discussion about that step, with her saying it was right there and me saying it most certainly was not. I took my computer over to her and showed her that there were no buttons on the right, and she was like “Hmmm …”
A few days later, I figured out that the buttons show up if you are in the Chrome web browser, but they are completely invisible if you are using Safari. So, anyway, if you are looking for the Animal Services Board, at this point in the process you need to load Chrome onto your computer if you don’t have it on there already and switch to that browser so you can see the buttons.
(4) Once you are in Chrome and can actually see the button that mentions committees and their members, click that and you are presented with the first page of an alphabetized list of Guilford County boards and commissions. So you see this list …
Adult Care Home Community Advisory Board
Agricultural Commission
Board of Adjustments
Board of Commissioners
And so on.
And the Animal Services is right where you would expect it to be, between the Agricultural Commission and – oh wait, I’m sorry. What I meant to say is that it’s listed under the G’s.
Here’s why. Now, those are all “Guilford County” committees’ whose names really start with “Guilford County,” but for some odd reason that baffles me completely, in listing the Animal Services Board, unlike all the other Guilford County committees, they included “Guilford County” in the name on the list, which means that the Animal Services Board is listed under G.
(5) OK, anyway, once you know to look in the G’s instead of the A’s for Animal Services, then you click on Guilford County Animal Services Board. Up in the right hand corner one of your choices is “Member Roster;” click that and you will get a list of names. Unfortunately, the list, like the button earlier, is invisible. In the county’s defense, there are some people on some computers on some browsers for which it shows up. I think it has something to do with ad blocking software some people use, but, anyway, after about an hour of trying to figure out how to see it, I still couldn’t, and I moved on to the next step.
(6) Forget steps 1-5 and pick up your iPhone and call the Guilford County clerk to the board’s office at (336) 641-4893 and make a public records request for a list of the members of the Animal Services Board. Though, be warned, they may give you some grief when you do that because you are asking them to take time out of their day to provide you with something that is right there up on the county’s web page. In fact, if it were a snake it would have bit you.
The Wake Forest football team stunned an Indiana team in a thriller Saturday, and now the Deacons are 4-0. An undefeated Wake football team may be good for Wake fans, but I believe it is also mentioned in the Book of Revelations as a certain omen of the end of times.
So the other day, I’m driving around and it’s time for me to get some gas, and I just happened to look up and see a great deal at the Lawndale Exxon. As you can see in the picture, they were selling gas for under a penny a gallon.
But I pulled up and when I got to the pump I found out they were all sold out. And I’m like, of course you’re sold out with those prices, so you might want to think about bumping them up a notch. I wanted to tell them that, if they hadn’t heard, all over town lately people were scrambling for gas, so the station could certainly charge more than 9/10 of a cent per gallon.
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson said one thing one dumb thing – “What’s Aleppo?” and the media was all over him, questioning whether or not he was qualified to be president. He said one dumb thing. ONE thing! Clinton and Trump say 23 things a day that should disqualify them from being president, but the media doesn’t care.
OK, so I just realized that this isn’t helping take our mind off things, but, you have to admit, it was worth a try.
How about this? How about thinking about it this way: Maybe Brad and Angelina will get back together one day. It is possible. Sometimes people fall back in love. I’m sure it’s happened at least once sometime in the past. Right? I can’t think of any particular examples right now, but we can hold on to the hope that it is possible and they’ll get back together and live happily ever after …
