Well, we made it.  We arrived in North Carolina around 9:30PM last night.  We were beat after driving straight through.  Tomorrow or the next day I’ll post some pictures of us.  The Ocean is pretty choppy due to Hanna passing over, but that just makes it more fun.

The house that we are staying in is HUGE.  The humidity down here has to be one hundred percent.  You step ourside and you immediatley start sweating.  Its great!!  Theres a hot tub here that my family is using as I type this.  The only thing is all the liqour stores are closed on Sunday so we have to wait until tomorrow to but some happy juice.

I’ll post pics tomorrow…

-Dan

I have smelled skunks before.  Driving down the road and seeing road kill of a skunk and then you drive by and the smell hits you and gets into your car etc…  I think everyone knows what that smells like.

Saturday morning around 6 AM my wife wakes me up and says that our Golden Lab / German Shepard mix jumped the fence in the back yard.  The dogs wake us up wanting out to do their business every morning.  Sam is less then a year old and her name is Samantha (Sammy) for short.  Luckily the other yard was also fenced in so she was trapped in our neighbors back yard.  I went in our back yard to keep her next to our fence while my wife drove over to the other street to get Sammy.  I was right there with her and didn’t notice any smells.  My wife got in the other back yard and got Samantha and drove back home.  When she pulled in the drive, she tells me that Sammy had been sprayed by a skunk.  Being an older puppy that didn’t surprise me as she probably didn’t know that this could happen.  I am thinking great, just great how the hell do we get the smell off of her now?

We have an enclosed front porch so when my wife brought Sammy up and closed the front gate, the smell hit me.  She must have had a direct hit on her from that skunk.  There is no way I can describe the smell, I’ll try but your probably thinking you know what a skunk smells like.  Let me tell you, you do not.  Being that close to an animaly that has just been sprayed with a direct hit on the face is the worst smell that has hever came into contact with my nostrils.  My wife and I immediately went inside the house and left Sammy on the front porch.  I made it inside and I just closed the door when I started gagging.  I gagged 3 to 4 times before getting my reflexes under control.

Again, if you have ever driven by a skunk road kill, your only getting about 10 to 20 percent of the full experience.  It smelled so strong that you could actually smell (at least what it smelled like to me) some type of chemical mixture that was so potent, that my eyes were literally burning and watering (not from breathing it in but just from the normal air that came into contact with my eyes).  My nostrils were on fire not to mention the immediate gagging of almost throwing up.  I don’t know how else to describe the smell.  It did not smell like road kill skunk at all.  The hint of road kill skunk was there sure but being that close it was more of a violent sharp stinging chemical smell.  It felt like it could literally kill you if you inhaled to much of it.

Poor Samantha was drooling really bad and her eyes were watering extremely.  Thats one hell of a way to wake up on a Saturday morning.  We started researching on what the best course of action would be to remove the smell.  What we found and used was almost to good to be true.  It worked so good that Sammy only needed one bath in this concoction to remove the smell.  She got hit in the face and right leg/paw.  Below is what we found and used.  I highly recommend this if you need to remove the violent smell of skunk.

This solution was supposedly invented by Paul Krebaum, an Illinois chemist:

• 1 quart of hydrogen peroxide.
• 1/2 cup of baking soda.
• 1 teaspoon of liquid dish soap.

Combine the ingredients at the time of use. This solution works to remove skunk odor because of a chemical reaction initiated immediately upon combining the ingredients. If it sits for too long, it will become ineffective.

Apply the mixture to the affected areas, let it set for about five minutes and rinse. If you need to repeat the process, you must create a new solution, as the chemical reaction quickly expires. Avoid getting it into your pet’s eyes, nose and mouth.

Dealing with a dog that has been skunked is a miserable experience. No matter how horrible the skunk odor that emanates from your dog, keep in mind that he/she was only fulfilling an instinctual curiosity. Your dog is probably suffering from this encounter more than you are; being sprayed by a skunk, especially in the eyes, is very painful, not to mention that a dog’s sense of smell is much keener then that of humans.

This may also lighten your animals coat but it is better then the obvious.

We also got some eye drops for the puppy because this mixture does harm your animal so make sure you use soothing eye drops on your dog after its bath.  That alone made the difference from a scared puppy to a happy one.  This mixture worked so well that we didn’t have to repeat the wash.

Our neighbors dog across the street got hit two years ago and used the tomato juice recipe.  It didn’t work very well according to them - FYI.  Take it from me, this mixture listed above is the miracle cure for removing skunk odor from your animals.

-Dan

I am not sure where to start this story…

July 31:

I’ll just start it back when we got a US Postal Certified letter a couple of weeks ago.  We ignored it thinking it was a debt collector of some kind and I was not going to waste my time and fuel to drive down to the post office to pick it up.  Little did we know it was going to cost us a butt load of fucking money by not picking it up.

This morning after my wife left for work I was getting ready to leave when the door bell rang.  It was a Summit County Sheriff’s Officer.  He proceeds to tell me that he has warrants for my wife and mine’s arrest.  Apparently, that certified letter was to show up in court regarding our un-payed taxes.  Are you ready for this?  The unpaid amount was $10.12.  They sent the sheriff after us with warrants for ten fucking dollars!  Are you fucking kidding me?  Ten dollars!  It was really for the missed court date but only because of the ten dollars.  It’s not like my wife didn’t file for the city of Barberton taxes.  She filed but something got messed up on the form and was off by $10.

The sheriff told us that we could just make an appointment for later today.  We are apparently one of two hundred Barberton residents that they went after.  The officer told us that he spoke with the judge and that if anyone gave him a hard time that he was to just serve the warrant and take them in.  If they were nice, that they could just make an appointment to go downtown Barberton later that day.  Which is what we did.  This whole time, I am not believing my wife about the ten bucks.  In my mind (of reasoning and common sense) there’s no way in hell the City of Barbertucky is going to issue warrants for our arrest for a measly ten dollars. We looked up our names in the Barberton city courts and we are now listed as CRIMINALS.

Check it out:

http://24.123.45.19/cgi-bin/mcaseno.cgi?num=0801911&sub=&pre=CRB&type=CR

Here is our Warrant info:

http://24.123.45.19/cgi-bin/mwarrant.cgi?pre=CRB&num=0801911&sub=&type=CR

So around noon we head downtown Barberton (were taking off of work to do this by the way) and had to be escorted in by the Summit County Sheriff Officer who served us the warrant.  We did that and now were sitting in court waiting for the judge to return.  Once court started, he called a few names and those people went ahead of us and then called my name.  I approached the bench and he asked me if I knew what this was about.   I said “I think so.”.  He proceeded to tell me that we were only one of seventy people to take care of our taxes.  He said all charges will be dropped if we just go to the financial office and pay the taxes that we owe (all that the judge knew was that we owed money he didn’t have the amount and I still don’t believe this is all over ten dollars).

We head over to the financial building and had to wait one hour since the only person that could pull our information was out at lunch.  She finally comes back and pulls the information and says “Wow.  Ten Dollars.  Okay…” with a surprised expression on her face.  So we pay it.  $10.12 to be exact.  I take the receipt and have to show it to the judge in order to drop the charges.

We end up doing that and when it was all said and done, our $10 tax turned into a $420 dollars that we owe now.  $100 each for both my wife and I for court costs, $70 each for the issued warrants and some other minor court fee…  Altogether it adds up to $420.00.  Whats the moral of this story you ask?  Go and pick up any fucking certified letters you get in the mail.

There should be a story in the Akron Beacon Journal this week sometime.  They came out to our house and interviewed us and took pictures.  I am not sure what they are going to say but should be interesting.  When I find the article, I’ll post it as a reply here for all to read.  Should be more or less about the warrants for our arrests for ten dollars.

- Trying to stick it to “THE MAN”: $10.12

- Warrants for our arrest and court fee’s: $420.00

- Having the city of Barberton bend us over and fuck us in the ass: PRICELESS.

-Dan

=================

UPDATE: Thursday August 7Th:

Channel 5 news just came by and interviewed us regarding this rediculous situation.  They are in partnership with the Akron Beacon Journal and will be airing the segment tonight August 7Th at 11PM.  Tommorrow, the story runs in the Beacon Journal.

This is with out a doubt the most hilarious video I have ever seen. To appreciate it, you must work in the Internet Industry. I watched this and was actually crying I was laughing so hard. I may have pissed myself in the process too. Its that funny. Check it out at (click the link):

The Web Site Is Down!

-Dan

This is a true story. I did not even believe it at first. My parents were vacationing in Kentucky when they pulled into a dollar general store to grab something (unrelated). When they got out of their car, a convertible pulled in next to them. They waited until the people went in the store and then my parents snapped this picture (see below, click to enlarge): This is TRUE.

Click image to Enlarge

My parents keep telling me this is what I need to do to my convertible to fix the tears in the roof - LOL.

-Ruger