There are a couple of reasons those companies have those safety rules and regulations.

It's all idiots at their company getting injured and making outrageous claims (lawyers) followed by lawyers and insurance companies trying to keep the company and the insurance companies from being bankrupted. Lawyers were intentionally named twice!

We had a case from Louisiana where a well site blew up in a ball of fire killing the worker on the site.

In LA you can't use evidence or findings from other cases on the same incident in a case. So what happens is lawyers, on the behalf of the injured party, sue every manufacture of every piece of equipment on the site. Most oil and gas companies just write it off as part of doing business and settle out of court. The lawyers end up getting most of the settlement amounts paid not the injured party or their survivors.

Our company's product could not have caused any kind of explosion or fireball so as a matter of principle the founder spent as much or more than a typical settement to keep from paying off the wrongful suit. The lawyers had already gotten 10's of millions in out of court settlements from the other manufacturers. The case was drug out by the dead guy's lawyers (they receive most of the settlement) for over 15 years trying to get more money "for the family"!

Finally I made a video animation showing how our products worked on the site and what would happen if they failed. Once the Jury saw the video and understood our products that were used on the site the case was thrown out.

Interestingly enough it was a production gas and oil wells site with separators and treaters that heat the goop coming out of the ground to separate out the petroleum and gas. Oil and gas on productions site is under pressure and can be very volatile. The guy was found laying dead and burnt on the site with a lighter in his hand and traces of a cigarette in his mouth. The were signs all over the site, caution flamible, explosive, etc, no open flames and no smoking. Personally I don't feel any of the manufactures should have paid a penny.

It's the lawyers getting involved in incidents like that that make insurance premiums higher, cause stupid saftey regulations, and drive up the end user costs of things.

I don't have any lights on visible from the front of my house. So far two groups of trick or treaters have knocked on my door (they couldn't even see the door bell button). Both times their parents were in a car out in front of the house. If I had some eggs I would have gone out my back door and egged the parents car from behind my stockade fence for sending their kids to darkened houses!

Last year there were only 5 or 6 small groups of kids actually from my neighborhood so decided to not hand out candy. Went out just after dark and got my mail and there were no neighborhood kids trick or treating, none. In fact, the two closest houses with kids the kids were out playing in their yard and had no intention of going trick or treating. Pepper and I went and asked. So I don't feel badly at all.

Sure is a lot different than when I was a kid. Even different from when I first moved here. I moved into this house on Halloween and gave away two huge bowls full of candy our first night here. And most of them were kids from this neighborhood.

We had some trick or treaters last night (3 of my co-workers kids).
Tonight=0

My son didn't want to participate this year so he handed out candy. He thinks we had less than 20 kids. My daughter went with a friend's family to a "rich" city and brought home a pillow case full of candy. Full size bars , toys, and grab bags!

Wife and I stayed in the house on puppy patrol. I think he got too much sleep today because he was out of control wild around 830. Even talking back to us when we were trying to discipline him. Little farker!

Careful with the discouraging barking thing. After I had Pepper stay for a week with a trainer while i was on vacation she is reluctant to make any sounds. Have really had to coax her to get her started again so she will ask. Now she is getting pretty good at coming to my and very plainly saying I want out. Especially if I am asleep and she needs to go out.

I try to use the theory of dog training I learned when my friend got a Blue Healer back in HS. He had a training book written by the guy that trained most of the animals used in Disney films back then. His main thing was if a dog had a behavior you didn't want, train the dog to do it on command. Then the dog tends to not do it unless commanded to!

This was especially apparent when trying to keep my dogs from digging up the yard. Typically go out with a shovel and pic a place and turn it over with the shovel to get the top loose. Then I command the dog to dig. I've even buried treats and toys to encourage digging while giving the command. After not long I could just go point somewhere and tell the dog to dig. Amazingly the random holes quit appearing in the yard.

The only exception to this with Camber was the neighbor Dalmatian taught her do dig up toads. Ever once in a while in the spring there would be a couple of places she would dig a hole a little over a foot deep. When I checked it out there would be a toad in the bottom of the hole!

Pepper is still digging up every bug, grass snake, etc. in the yard. Most times she is just making divots, but need to work on it.

The way I was training her to not go nuts barking was to work on the speak command. Then when she barks at someone or something I say speak and good girl while she is barking. Then after a couple of barks after I say speak and the good girl I tell her that's enough and hush. When she stops I praise her, then after a few minutes I go thru the speak and that's enough thing. Get where the that's enough works pretty good without completely discouraging speaking.

We turned off the lights outside and had zero trick or treaters. Bah humbug. There is a family with kids in the neighborhood I guess since I see a school bus cruise through the neighborhood. I almost never see kids around here. That is ok with me.

I went Trick or Treating with the kids. They wanted to go with 2 friends. One thing led to another and we wound up with about 9 kids/5 families. They had a blast. I think they had as much fun divying up and trading candy afterwards as they did going door-to-door. My 3 year-old was running the entire time (last year I carried him the entire time).

My wife stayed home with another (hot) mom to hand out candy. Unfortunately she said it was kinda slow. Out of our block with 21 houses, only 3 of us have little kids. :(

Mertnin.

Back early morning it.

Took Pepper with me to the corner convenience store last night. She told them hello at the drive up window and they gave her a Beggin Strip. There were no costumes involved. Does that count as trick-or-treat?

Hey, Monday is over!

Back in my bachelor days I lived in a neighborhood infested with kids. I actually knew some of them, well I knew the parents and saw they had kids. I was a total bachelor and keeping or buying candy never even occurred to me. I always wished I could do a Cone-head routine and serve beer and fried eggs but I figured that would not work out real well so I just handed out a handful of pennies. That was the only thing I had around that a kid would want.

I did volunteer at the local zoo once for their haunt the zoo event. It is great because it is a controlled safe environment and the kids can get a lot of candy. They assigned me to hand out popcorn. I am pretty sure not one kid wanted popcorn but 90% of the moms did.

I hear ya Richard.

He wasn't barking so much as he was tearing around like he was on speed. He must have been worn out, though because he went right into his "house" at bedtime.

I'm working on some basic commands now that he seems to understand how it works.

BTW-what did the phone store fix on your phone when it wouldn't charge? Mine won't charge this morning and I've tried 2 known good cords. Thx

Oh, when puppies start tearing and running around we go outside and work on fetch AND the command RUN. Gotta teach them to get it out of their system when you tell them while the "energetic" time is fairly short before the sleep time sets in. Sometimes Pepper asked to go out and just runs around the yard for several minuets, then she is ready to come back in.

My first golden, Penny, I would let outside and she would just stand there and look at me. I would point into the yard and say RUN! She would tear it up running circles in the yard. She was an awfully smart dog. Really spoiled me.

My phone had gook in the charging hole and the charger would not plug in far enough to charge. It only took them a couple of minutes to clean it. It was pretty obvious to me that the charger plug wasn't going in the hole far enough.

Same thing when it got to where it was not very loud unless I put it on speaker phone. The speaker hole was gooked up.

That is just one of the reasons I keep my iPhone in an Otterbox. It has rubber plugs for the charging port and headphone port. The speaker is open but since I am a total geek I carry it on my belt and it stays clean.

Had the phone since the 6 first came out and this is the first time I has been a problem. Keep it in my shirt pocket and it helps a lot if I don't put it in upside down so the port are up.

Well, nevermind. It's charging fine now.

Thanks anyway guys.

Sometimes ya gotta hold your tongue to the left.

then a step to the right. Put your hands on your hips...oh wait a minute, that's The Time Warp.

Speaking of time warps, I thought you guys were getting ready to "do the Hokey Pokey."

We survived our first Halloween in over ten years. Too bad we have candy bars left over. Any of you guys want to become diabetic? I'll even pay shipping!

morning all. Well sleeping in a hotel I had not trickers and the wife at home had just as many. Told her to take the candy to work.

sure my office can make them go bye bye. LOL

One year a guy in my office brought in left over Halloween candy. It was accumulated over several years, no telling how old it was. It was all the hard candy stuff that kids usually don't eat. We put it in a bowl on our department's counter. It took about a year to get rid of it all. Don't think anyone in the department would eat it.