Today, I reupholstered a chair. My friend Sarah's computer chair was well... showing it's age, and the requisite use and abuse. Specifically, having been close to three small children.
It was time.
Naturally, we decided this at eleven thirty at night.
I'm sure that what Sarah's mother, attempting to sleep in the next room heard was something like "I don't know what that goes with. Maybe this fabric? No. This one? Eww. Hmm... OH! I know what this sort of pattern is good for. UPHOLSTERY!"
"Eww."
"No, not huge chairs. Like the seat on your computer chair."
(Silence)
(Already dismantling the chair) "Let's reupholster it!"
(Silence)
(Ka-CHUNK. Ka-Chunk kachunk kachunk. BAM! Bam Bam Bam! Ba-Bam! .... Taptaptaptap. .... kaChunk.)
"This might staple you in the face."
Bap bapbapbap.
"Let's go get a hammer."
The chair turned out great. Nobody got stapled, accidentaly or otherwise, and it looks professional. Kachunk is now a verb. We did make an unholy racket, but really, isn't any time always the right time to use the staple gun?
(Note from the honorary hick Sarah: Now it needs paint... And at least the staple gun wasn't a chainsaw.)
Showing posts with label anecdotes not antidotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anecdotes not antidotes. Show all posts
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Monday, September 29, 2008
Advice I never got... and that I won't tell my kids
"You can't expect anyone else to respect you until you can respect yourself."
My grandfather never told me that.
My father never told me that.
My mother never told me that.
In fact, they never told me shit. But that's okay, because most of the things parents tell their kids are lies. They tell you you can be anything you want to be. That the sky's the limit. What they don't tell you is that, to borrow a phrase, you have to paint the inside of your box the right shade of blue. They tell you that if you try hard enough, you can go to an Ivy League school. They don't tell you the truth, that you'd better work extra hard or you're stuck right where you grew up. They say that if you tell the truth, you won't get in trouble, but you always do anyway. They say that timeout is a position of shame when it really means you thought for yourself.
My dad told me that if I worked hard, he might be able to help pay my way through community college. And that I'd damn well better graduate, or he won't waste his money. My mom explained just how much shit life can throw at you when you haven't earned it. They never told me I could be anything I wanted, because they knew it wasn't true. They saiid I could be anything I made myself. There's a critical difference.
Half of what I learned, they didn't come right out and say. That wouldn't have made sense. They showed me. They made me learn that I'd better either take action to make something better, or shut up about it not being to my liking. They proved that sometimes you just had to tough it out, but you'd better not give up, because the world will just kick you in the teeth when you're down.
They also showed me that hard work can change almost anything. Grandpa was a self-made man. You might say that dad was a self-destroyed man, but that's not really a fair assessment. Point is, this man hit the road with $100, a car, and a girlfriend, and made a success of himself, despite the best efforts of physics. Between them, my parents showed me that the only one who could destroy you was you. Even if you told yourself that it was someone else.
Growing up with my parents, I learned that when you can't change the situation, you've got to get out of it. If you can't leave, you're fucked. Make the best of it.
Shit happens.
More shit happens.
So stop whining about it.
Crying at Costco doesn't help anything.
"You ain't dead, get it off yourself."
If it looked like a bad idea at the time, in hindsight it was a horrible idea that you're lucky to have survived.
Even if it looked like a good idea at the time, see above.
Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't join the Army.
People die. Death is forever. Adults can't explain this, so don't ask them to.
They didn't tell me any of this, they showed me. I don't know if they meant to, but I'm glad they did. I learned it better that way. Of course, the other half of what I learned were things I taught myself. Like when to leave a room. How to heel. How thinking for myself was the only way to keep things straight, when everyone else wants to manipulate you.
That calling someone a manipulator and then acting like the good guy, the savior from this evil manipulator, makes you just as guilty.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me... until someone picks up sticks or stones because of those words.
People lie.
Hit back.
Screaming does nothing when nobody will come running. They will ask why you didn't scream for help, like having screamed instead of defending yourself would have been better. Then you'd have been creamed by the other guy, and then offered no protection OR retribution.
Even if someone comes running, they can't be there forever. In the 15 minutes in between the call and the flashing red and blue lights, a lot can happen.
Getting the police involved rarely reduces your problems.
Sometimes street justice is the only justice.
Sometimes there is no justice.
Justice is most often about revenge.
That when it got right down to it, you were no better than anyone else. Get used to it.
You don't deserve shit. Nobody does. Earn it or shut up. But be confident in what you've earned. Don't let anyone take it. Don't let anyone tell you it's any less. If they do, don't believe them.
Lives are like national parks: people walk in and out, leaving their trash and leaving tracks, but you can't keep them out. You wouldn't want to. Whenever you're a guest in someone's life, no matter who they are, try and leave them a little better than you found them. Same with national parks.
Squirrels are good judges of intentions.
Goals are like the ice cream truck: when you finally reach it and get your ice cream, you realize it cost more than you expected and isn't as good as you remembered. But like when the ice cream truck drives by every Saturday, don't stop chasing your goals.
Live for the moment. The next one isn't guaranteed.
Grandpa practically let his kids raise themselves, just stepping in to guide them when they were truly lost. My parents didn't mean to make me raise myself, but I'm glad they did. They showed me more than they ever probably knew about themselves.
Back to the quote I opened with, "You can't expect anyone else to respect you until you can respect yourself." That's the most important thing I ever learned. School doesn't teach you the true meaning of respect. You parents sure as hell don't. They mean "blind obedience" when they say respect, when really that's not what it's about at all. Martial arts doesn't teach you what respect means. They can all teach you the symptoms, but fake sincerity is hardly sincere. You have to learn it for yourself.
I intend to raise my kids by example. Even a bad example can turn out a good kid, you know.
My grandfather never told me that.
My father never told me that.
My mother never told me that.
In fact, they never told me shit. But that's okay, because most of the things parents tell their kids are lies. They tell you you can be anything you want to be. That the sky's the limit. What they don't tell you is that, to borrow a phrase, you have to paint the inside of your box the right shade of blue. They tell you that if you try hard enough, you can go to an Ivy League school. They don't tell you the truth, that you'd better work extra hard or you're stuck right where you grew up. They say that if you tell the truth, you won't get in trouble, but you always do anyway. They say that timeout is a position of shame when it really means you thought for yourself.
My dad told me that if I worked hard, he might be able to help pay my way through community college. And that I'd damn well better graduate, or he won't waste his money. My mom explained just how much shit life can throw at you when you haven't earned it. They never told me I could be anything I wanted, because they knew it wasn't true. They saiid I could be anything I made myself. There's a critical difference.
Half of what I learned, they didn't come right out and say. That wouldn't have made sense. They showed me. They made me learn that I'd better either take action to make something better, or shut up about it not being to my liking. They proved that sometimes you just had to tough it out, but you'd better not give up, because the world will just kick you in the teeth when you're down.
They also showed me that hard work can change almost anything. Grandpa was a self-made man. You might say that dad was a self-destroyed man, but that's not really a fair assessment. Point is, this man hit the road with $100, a car, and a girlfriend, and made a success of himself, despite the best efforts of physics. Between them, my parents showed me that the only one who could destroy you was you. Even if you told yourself that it was someone else.
Growing up with my parents, I learned that when you can't change the situation, you've got to get out of it. If you can't leave, you're fucked. Make the best of it.
Shit happens.
More shit happens.
So stop whining about it.
Crying at Costco doesn't help anything.
"You ain't dead, get it off yourself."
If it looked like a bad idea at the time, in hindsight it was a horrible idea that you're lucky to have survived.
Even if it looked like a good idea at the time, see above.
Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't join the Army.
People die. Death is forever. Adults can't explain this, so don't ask them to.
They didn't tell me any of this, they showed me. I don't know if they meant to, but I'm glad they did. I learned it better that way. Of course, the other half of what I learned were things I taught myself. Like when to leave a room. How to heel. How thinking for myself was the only way to keep things straight, when everyone else wants to manipulate you.
That calling someone a manipulator and then acting like the good guy, the savior from this evil manipulator, makes you just as guilty.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me... until someone picks up sticks or stones because of those words.
People lie.
Hit back.
Screaming does nothing when nobody will come running. They will ask why you didn't scream for help, like having screamed instead of defending yourself would have been better. Then you'd have been creamed by the other guy, and then offered no protection OR retribution.
Even if someone comes running, they can't be there forever. In the 15 minutes in between the call and the flashing red and blue lights, a lot can happen.
Getting the police involved rarely reduces your problems.
Sometimes street justice is the only justice.
Sometimes there is no justice.
Justice is most often about revenge.
That when it got right down to it, you were no better than anyone else. Get used to it.
You don't deserve shit. Nobody does. Earn it or shut up. But be confident in what you've earned. Don't let anyone take it. Don't let anyone tell you it's any less. If they do, don't believe them.
Lives are like national parks: people walk in and out, leaving their trash and leaving tracks, but you can't keep them out. You wouldn't want to. Whenever you're a guest in someone's life, no matter who they are, try and leave them a little better than you found them. Same with national parks.
Squirrels are good judges of intentions.
Goals are like the ice cream truck: when you finally reach it and get your ice cream, you realize it cost more than you expected and isn't as good as you remembered. But like when the ice cream truck drives by every Saturday, don't stop chasing your goals.
Live for the moment. The next one isn't guaranteed.
Grandpa practically let his kids raise themselves, just stepping in to guide them when they were truly lost. My parents didn't mean to make me raise myself, but I'm glad they did. They showed me more than they ever probably knew about themselves.
Back to the quote I opened with, "You can't expect anyone else to respect you until you can respect yourself." That's the most important thing I ever learned. School doesn't teach you the true meaning of respect. You parents sure as hell don't. They mean "blind obedience" when they say respect, when really that's not what it's about at all. Martial arts doesn't teach you what respect means. They can all teach you the symptoms, but fake sincerity is hardly sincere. You have to learn it for yourself.
I intend to raise my kids by example. Even a bad example can turn out a good kid, you know.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Gonna buy me a Mercury and cruise it up and down the road.
I am a diehard Mercury fan. Any Merc, big, small, new, old, running, rusted out, I don't care. I believe in american cars and American bikes. I don't like the fact that they're not built in America anymore, but the Big Three are classic American marques. That's why every car that's ever occupied the driveway has had Ford, GM, or Mopar badges, even rentals. There just is no beating them. Of course, at hill climbs and rallies, I do occasionally love to hear an Italian engine wail and howl like it's tearing a hole in Hell itself. But it's the growl, roar, and bark of the American V8 that I love the most. If I can't get that, a well-tuned V6 can do a tidy job. Dare to be different, right?
You should have heard the fellow on the other end of the phone at a certain famous mail-order parts company when I asked about anything that might maybe kinda work on a front-drive 1993 60 degree six inhabiting the engine bay of a Cutlass. He tried to help, first by trying to talk me out of it, then by giving me prices and sources of parts that might not work, but might just do the trick. The target is around 400, so it might never happen, but he helped all he could. I've got my work cut out for me if I want a high-power V6, offroadable tow rig/city cruiser.
Of course, the other car is already a "little hot rod." It's a '07 Merc Milan six. 220 horse out of 183 is pretty good. But I get the feeling it's being held back. The low end is great, but the transmission is a bit shifty. It tends to pick the gear I'd like it to, you just have to speak its language. Off the line is great (even with the auto, you can pull a great holeshot. The converter stalls around 900 if you go easy on it, or up to about 1300 if you stomp on it. By the time it shifts gears, the engine is already making as much power as the four-banger does wide open. Like I said, the pull at low rpms is pretty fun.
Handling is crisp, predictable, and smooth. I find the power steering to have a good amount of resistance. I've only felt the vehicle skid once, and that was on a wet road with the traction control off. I call it "active Positraction." I mentioned the responsiveness and low end earlier, but that's on a good day. On a bad day, things are jerky, opening the throttle is just a suggestion (the computer gets final say, since it is infuriatingly drive-by-wire). Response is not crisp, but compared with the ocean-liner handling and throttle response of the Olds, it only annoys me when the person in the right seat is being impatient and wants faster starts, later stops, and general disregard for gas milage and parts longevity. Well, she should know her daughter better. When she gets impatient and says "speed up to 60 faster" she should know that that means all four windows down, pedal to the metal, engine spooling up past four grand, exhaust note loud. I may be a hotrod enthusiast, but I'm secure enough in the machine's ability to not have to show it off. My mom just likes to get there now, even if "there" is a red light. She doesn't like not being in control.
So back to what I like to call "on-ramps with a pissed off nervous backseat driver." The Milan is not a straight-line car. It does the quarter in 15 seconds at a hair over 90, or so I'm told. I intend to get it up to Bandimere soon and get timed in an E.T. class sometime this year. I'm confident it'll lose. 0-60 in nine seconds. Those numbers are bad for a car of this magnitude. Where's the lead brick?
The car itself is the lead brick. Coming in at over two tons, it's one heavy mutha. The speedometer goes to 120, the revs are limited at 133, but the car doesn't even want to do 90. I'm sure with a long enough road 133 could happen, but I don't know where that blacktop would be. I felt it complain at 87 and asked to do more last summer out in the flatlands with my dad at the helm. Besides a Corvette or a red Barchetta, I can't think of a better mountain backroads rallymobile. But if fast acceleration is needed from 55 on up, it's not gonna happen. The low end is promising, but the stock tune can't deliver.
Of course, none of that amounts to a hill of beans, the favorite thing for my family to do in that car is to cruise it up and down the road.
You should have heard the fellow on the other end of the phone at a certain famous mail-order parts company when I asked about anything that might maybe kinda work on a front-drive 1993 60 degree six inhabiting the engine bay of a Cutlass. He tried to help, first by trying to talk me out of it, then by giving me prices and sources of parts that might not work, but might just do the trick. The target is around 400, so it might never happen, but he helped all he could. I've got my work cut out for me if I want a high-power V6, offroadable tow rig/city cruiser.
Of course, the other car is already a "little hot rod." It's a '07 Merc Milan six. 220 horse out of 183 is pretty good. But I get the feeling it's being held back. The low end is great, but the transmission is a bit shifty. It tends to pick the gear I'd like it to, you just have to speak its language. Off the line is great (even with the auto, you can pull a great holeshot. The converter stalls around 900 if you go easy on it, or up to about 1300 if you stomp on it. By the time it shifts gears, the engine is already making as much power as the four-banger does wide open. Like I said, the pull at low rpms is pretty fun.
Handling is crisp, predictable, and smooth. I find the power steering to have a good amount of resistance. I've only felt the vehicle skid once, and that was on a wet road with the traction control off. I call it "active Positraction." I mentioned the responsiveness and low end earlier, but that's on a good day. On a bad day, things are jerky, opening the throttle is just a suggestion (the computer gets final say, since it is infuriatingly drive-by-wire). Response is not crisp, but compared with the ocean-liner handling and throttle response of the Olds, it only annoys me when the person in the right seat is being impatient and wants faster starts, later stops, and general disregard for gas milage and parts longevity. Well, she should know her daughter better. When she gets impatient and says "speed up to 60 faster" she should know that that means all four windows down, pedal to the metal, engine spooling up past four grand, exhaust note loud. I may be a hotrod enthusiast, but I'm secure enough in the machine's ability to not have to show it off. My mom just likes to get there now, even if "there" is a red light. She doesn't like not being in control.
So back to what I like to call "on-ramps with a pissed off nervous backseat driver." The Milan is not a straight-line car. It does the quarter in 15 seconds at a hair over 90, or so I'm told. I intend to get it up to Bandimere soon and get timed in an E.T. class sometime this year. I'm confident it'll lose. 0-60 in nine seconds. Those numbers are bad for a car of this magnitude. Where's the lead brick?
The car itself is the lead brick. Coming in at over two tons, it's one heavy mutha. The speedometer goes to 120, the revs are limited at 133, but the car doesn't even want to do 90. I'm sure with a long enough road 133 could happen, but I don't know where that blacktop would be. I felt it complain at 87 and asked to do more last summer out in the flatlands with my dad at the helm. Besides a Corvette or a red Barchetta, I can't think of a better mountain backroads rallymobile. But if fast acceleration is needed from 55 on up, it's not gonna happen. The low end is promising, but the stock tune can't deliver.
Of course, none of that amounts to a hill of beans, the favorite thing for my family to do in that car is to cruise it up and down the road.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Can you beat this?
The other day I was having a debate with a friend of mine over who was whiter-trash. We've set the bar pretty high over the course of trying to one-up each other. So here's a short list.
You might be white trash if:
You have ever watched someone beat a belligerant drunk party guest with a string of dried chiles.
You were ever on the recieving end of such a beating.
You have ever heard a tornado warning and hid under your trailer.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup at 75 miles an hour and were still able to hear the Alan Jackson song playing in the cab.
You once went two months without eating anything that hadn't been microwaved.
You have ever bought breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a 7-Eleven.
You have ever proudly sang the song "Upper-Middle-Class White Trash".
You began singing the chorus when your friend said that.
You know anyone who actually "stopped to pee, got some gas and won the lottery!"
You will drop whatever you're doing to go to a pig roast.
You have ever seen roadkill and thought "I bet that'd be good with some A-1 on it."
You keep your James Bond tapes in an A&W box.
You can name twelve barbeque joints within driving distance of wherever you are.
You have gator meat in your freezer.
You have a snakeskin belt from a snake killed by anyone you know.
You know anyone who goes by the name "Cornbread".
You know how to ride a non-riding lawnmower.
You have ever gone to Wal-Mart in search of shoes, because you accidentally left on vacation with no shoes whatsoever.
You're not ashamed to wear a bright red Rocky's Autos hat.
You will drive 900 miles to watch someone drive 500 miles.
You will drive 200 miles to watch someone drive 12.42 miles uphill.
Freestyle Snowshoe Boulder Jumping sounds like a good idea.
You have ever hit a tree. While walking. In the summer. On purpose. More than once.
And, most of all, if you have ever participated in a contest over how white-trash you are.
You might be white trash if:
You have ever watched someone beat a belligerant drunk party guest with a string of dried chiles.
You were ever on the recieving end of such a beating.
You have ever heard a tornado warning and hid under your trailer.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup at 75 miles an hour and were still able to hear the Alan Jackson song playing in the cab.
You once went two months without eating anything that hadn't been microwaved.
You have ever bought breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a 7-Eleven.
You have ever proudly sang the song "Upper-Middle-Class White Trash".
You began singing the chorus when your friend said that.
You know anyone who actually "stopped to pee, got some gas and won the lottery!"
You will drop whatever you're doing to go to a pig roast.
You have ever seen roadkill and thought "I bet that'd be good with some A-1 on it."
You keep your James Bond tapes in an A&W box.
You can name twelve barbeque joints within driving distance of wherever you are.
You have gator meat in your freezer.
You have a snakeskin belt from a snake killed by anyone you know.
You know anyone who goes by the name "Cornbread".
You know how to ride a non-riding lawnmower.
You have ever gone to Wal-Mart in search of shoes, because you accidentally left on vacation with no shoes whatsoever.
You're not ashamed to wear a bright red Rocky's Autos hat.
You will drive 900 miles to watch someone drive 500 miles.
You will drive 200 miles to watch someone drive 12.42 miles uphill.
Freestyle Snowshoe Boulder Jumping sounds like a good idea.
You have ever hit a tree. While walking. In the summer. On purpose. More than once.
And, most of all, if you have ever participated in a contest over how white-trash you are.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tips for salesmen
Funny story. Don't be this tool. Seriously.
A few weeks ago we had just pulled into the driveway and gotten out, when a door-to-soor salesman walked up to us. Of all the rotten timing, we manage to get home just as this guy's walking through the corner of our lawn, now making a beeline for the car. Too late, he's spotted us. We can't just throw it in reverse and gun it. Remove your hand from the gearshift please.
I figure we'll let him say his piece and scurry off, since that's usually the fastest way to get rid of a salesman, short of acting like you're not home, or audibly cocking a gun.
"Have you ever considered vinyl siding?"
My mom says, "No, we don't want any."
"You never have to paint it, it's weatherproof, and affordable."
"I really don't think we're interested."
This guy just wasn't getting the hint. Then he said it. "It's available in a variety of colors. It'd be real easy to cover up some of this ugly brick."
The whole neighborhood is brick ranch houses. No siding to be found. This tool just didn't get it that he might be barking up the wrong tree. There's a reason we live in a brick house. Mom's approach wasn't working. My turn to talk.
"I don't know who you think you are, but let me give you a word of advice. Don't go callin' my house ugly and expect me to want anything from you except to leave. Now get out of my driveway. And stay off my grass while you do it."
He didn't want to leave, but this time he got the hint. I don't think he ever called someone's house ugly again. At least not that day.
A few weeks ago we had just pulled into the driveway and gotten out, when a door-to-soor salesman walked up to us. Of all the rotten timing, we manage to get home just as this guy's walking through the corner of our lawn, now making a beeline for the car. Too late, he's spotted us. We can't just throw it in reverse and gun it. Remove your hand from the gearshift please.
I figure we'll let him say his piece and scurry off, since that's usually the fastest way to get rid of a salesman, short of acting like you're not home, or audibly cocking a gun.
"Have you ever considered vinyl siding?"
My mom says, "No, we don't want any."
"You never have to paint it, it's weatherproof, and affordable."
"I really don't think we're interested."
This guy just wasn't getting the hint. Then he said it. "It's available in a variety of colors. It'd be real easy to cover up some of this ugly brick."
The whole neighborhood is brick ranch houses. No siding to be found. This tool just didn't get it that he might be barking up the wrong tree. There's a reason we live in a brick house. Mom's approach wasn't working. My turn to talk.
"I don't know who you think you are, but let me give you a word of advice. Don't go callin' my house ugly and expect me to want anything from you except to leave. Now get out of my driveway. And stay off my grass while you do it."
He didn't want to leave, but this time he got the hint. I don't think he ever called someone's house ugly again. At least not that day.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Kiteboating
If we had wind and water (mostly consistent sea-breeze type wind), I'd probably be first in line to attach a boat to a kite out on the reservoir. But since we don't, I'm trying to design a ducted-fan-powered wagon-like-object to take out on the plains. Like an airboat, only funner. But since Tim Anderson is out in California, where sea breezes are common, him and all his friend kitesurf. So it makes sense that they'd decide to attach a big kite to a little boat and see what happens.
That's what happens.
No, actually, I hear that it worked pretty well. they did drive to the beach like that, though. Note the guy riding hood ornament up top of the truck. Who knew anything would be able to make a Ford F-series pickup look small?
That's what happens.
No, actually, I hear that it worked pretty well. they did drive to the beach like that, though. Note the guy riding hood ornament up top of the truck. Who knew anything would be able to make a Ford F-series pickup look small?
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Redneck decoration 101
http://myredneckworld.com/
Ran across that the other day while I was looking at the Google Analytics for this page. I want that wooden motorcycle! That is badass. The real "riding" lawnmower is pretty cool, too. If our yard weren't so damned hilly and obstructed, I'd have to see about getting me one of those. But the last thing I'd need is to lay it over, 'cause we all know it'd be too heavy to pick up alone, and the mower blade would be spinning.
In fact, WAY too many of those photos look really familiar.
I like the gingerbread trailer, too. The front lawn on that one is spot-on perfect. And it's not just trailer park folks that do that, either. I've never had to live in a trailer park myself, but I've crashed with a lot of relatives who do, and it's true, everything you hear. We all have stuff in our front yards like a gigantic truck, or a car that's getting washed, or a car up on blocks. One feller (whom I believe is my 2nd cousin's husband, or maybe he's my second cousin, I'm not sure) who comes to my uncle's Thanksgiving party every year really likes old tractors. So we sold him one. It was an old Ford that had been used as a mountain logging tractor. See, they'd put the wheels on backwards so they got the most grip going backwards, then they'd drive up the hill in reverse, since that was the lowest gear. My grandpa bought it in the late 40s or early 50s for use in his construction business. One time he nearly ran over my dad with it. He parked it on the hillside that day, in 1956, where it sat and rusted for fifty years.
Then my dad told cousin Jim the tractor story, and Jim said he'd pay cash for the tractor if it was for sale. Why what a coincidence, it just happens to have gone on the market.
So the nest weekend, it's still hot as hell, even though it's November, and now the whole family is up halfway up the hill looking at this tractor. Jim brought his wife, his truck, and a trailer. You guessed what that means: papa's goin' hunting and bringin' back a big'un. And what a catch this tractor was. Thing is, it was about 40 feet from the road, grandpa parked it in gear, and now we can't get it out of gear. Oh, this thing was going nowhere.
It took a couple of hours, four people, a truck, a tow chain, and a prayer, but we got the tractor off the mountinside and onto the road without tipping it over. We just had to drag the stubborn hunk of rust. Then, with more effort, we got it onto the trailer and got it chained down. Tractor in his possession, cousin Jim payed up in cold, hard cash.
The next Thanksgiving, Jim had wallet-sized photos of his new favorite tractor to pass around. He had gotten it back out to his kustoms shop way out in flat ranch country, wrestled it off the trailer, and left it where it landed.
Right in front of his porch, next to the mailbox. It had a couple of field-find cars and what might have been some sort of railroad equipment to keep it company. Over turkey, he informed us that it was quite a conversation piece.
The final test will be next Tuesday. It will be multiple-choice. A score of 70% or better means you pass Redneck Decoration 101 and will be able to move on to Redneck Decoration 102: Proper uses of cinderblocks.
Ran across that the other day while I was looking at the Google Analytics for this page. I want that wooden motorcycle! That is badass. The real "riding" lawnmower is pretty cool, too. If our yard weren't so damned hilly and obstructed, I'd have to see about getting me one of those. But the last thing I'd need is to lay it over, 'cause we all know it'd be too heavy to pick up alone, and the mower blade would be spinning.
In fact, WAY too many of those photos look really familiar.
I like the gingerbread trailer, too. The front lawn on that one is spot-on perfect. And it's not just trailer park folks that do that, either. I've never had to live in a trailer park myself, but I've crashed with a lot of relatives who do, and it's true, everything you hear. We all have stuff in our front yards like a gigantic truck, or a car that's getting washed, or a car up on blocks. One feller (whom I believe is my 2nd cousin's husband, or maybe he's my second cousin, I'm not sure) who comes to my uncle's Thanksgiving party every year really likes old tractors. So we sold him one. It was an old Ford that had been used as a mountain logging tractor. See, they'd put the wheels on backwards so they got the most grip going backwards, then they'd drive up the hill in reverse, since that was the lowest gear. My grandpa bought it in the late 40s or early 50s for use in his construction business. One time he nearly ran over my dad with it. He parked it on the hillside that day, in 1956, where it sat and rusted for fifty years.
Then my dad told cousin Jim the tractor story, and Jim said he'd pay cash for the tractor if it was for sale. Why what a coincidence, it just happens to have gone on the market.
So the nest weekend, it's still hot as hell, even though it's November, and now the whole family is up halfway up the hill looking at this tractor. Jim brought his wife, his truck, and a trailer. You guessed what that means: papa's goin' hunting and bringin' back a big'un. And what a catch this tractor was. Thing is, it was about 40 feet from the road, grandpa parked it in gear, and now we can't get it out of gear. Oh, this thing was going nowhere.
It took a couple of hours, four people, a truck, a tow chain, and a prayer, but we got the tractor off the mountinside and onto the road without tipping it over. We just had to drag the stubborn hunk of rust. Then, with more effort, we got it onto the trailer and got it chained down. Tractor in his possession, cousin Jim payed up in cold, hard cash.
The next Thanksgiving, Jim had wallet-sized photos of his new favorite tractor to pass around. He had gotten it back out to his kustoms shop way out in flat ranch country, wrestled it off the trailer, and left it where it landed.
Right in front of his porch, next to the mailbox. It had a couple of field-find cars and what might have been some sort of railroad equipment to keep it company. Over turkey, he informed us that it was quite a conversation piece.
The final test will be next Tuesday. It will be multiple-choice. A score of 70% or better means you pass Redneck Decoration 101 and will be able to move on to Redneck Decoration 102: Proper uses of cinderblocks.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The redneck garden & lawn
It's true: I garden. I'm secure enough to freely admit it. Thing is, I don't garden like most people do. I also apparently don't garden like most rednecks, but that's because I encourage plants, then let them adapt to neglect. It works. Just neglect the yard that came with your house, and you'll get a dirt lot. The lawns that developers and homeowners plant are like your ex-girlfrined: high-maintenance and moody. Don't mess with that. Get a new one.
Most people have gardens that involve plants that would normally not be caught within thousands of miles of each other, require constant attention, and tremendous amounts of water. These gardens are often immensely beautiful to look at, but I wouldn't be caught dead having one. The effort of maintaining it alone would probably kill me.
I don't see how they do it.
I can't say that we don't have some out-of-place plants, but the ones that we do have fend for themselves. Between the front and the back, our yards have two grape vines, three maples, one locust, two stands of aspen, two apple trees, two cherry trees, a plum tree, an apricot tree, a pear tree (no partridge, though), incredible numbers of evergreen shrubs, seven dwarf spruce, a peach tree, enough lilac bushes to form a wall of lilac 100 feet long and three feet deep, sumac, five rose bushes, one "wild tea rose," at least thirty crocus flowers, a planter full of King Irises, one small iris of unknown origin, three snowball plants, blue columbines, three huge clover plants, lots of grass, dandelions, huge amounts of morning glory growing in the sandbox (of all places!), an unknown blue wildflower (a lot of 'em), and the most thistle you have ever seen in your life. Huge amounts of moss, too.
Some of those are "weeds." The only one that I'd get rid of, though, is all the thistle.
None of those get watered, except by rain and snow, and with a very light shower with the hose if we haven't gotten any rain in two weeks, and right before the 4th of July (we want it damp in case a firework goes awry).
All of them are thriving. Last year we had so many grapes that we literally couldn't give them all away before they went bad. We had three crispers full of grapes in the fridge for a while. We froze some. And I'm not even counting the parts of the vine that have grown onto our neighbors' properties. In fact, we talked to them and said that all the grapes that grow on their side of the fence are theirs. Feel free to cut the vine at the fenceline if you choose, too. They chose the first option. That vine is 15 years old, and has never gotten more water than Colorado naturally provides for the last ten of them.
The grass doesn't even get watered. How do we do it? First of all, we didn't buy grass from the hardware store. We got it from the side of the highway, when that grass went to seed. That grass knows what's up. Most of the grass grows in partial shade from our house or one of our huge maples, which, I'm sure, helps.
I don't know how much water fruit trees are supposed to get, but I'm sure it's more than ours get. They are all 15 years old, but still very small in comparison to what a "properly cared for" one would be. The fruit is smaller, too, but that trees are used to it, and the fruit's just as good!
In fact, most of what's growing in our yard got to be there by natural selection: that is to say, it was planted next to a lot of other plants, watered unti it took hold, and then very carefully and strategically ignored. They had to earn their spots. Now the surviving, hardy plants have choked out the less hardy ones. In fact, I feel that we are very close to perfecting the Emerald Green Zero-Water Colorado Yard.
It's true. Every spring, I let the grass grow as tell as it wants until it goes to seed, and once those seeds drop and have been rained on, I mow. The H.O.A. bitches about it every year, but we just ignore them. We don't rake our fall leaves, or our grass clippings. We let them insulate the ground and trap water. The un-raked yard, come spring, sprouts faster than the raked yard. I checked. The un-raked grass clippings help hold hater in the soil in between summer rains. They kae a big difference, too. Both of them put nutrients back in the soil, meaning no need to fertilize. That alone is invaluable.
Come the height of summer, the grass turns brown, except after rains and the obligatory two-week sprinkle. Then it turns green and grows a few inches. The rest of the plants, being green at High June, balance out the brown highway grass in between storms. If you're considering this method, mow right before a certain(!) rainstorm, or a regularly scheduled watering. Don't mow it when it's grween, and definitely don't mow the brown stuff and then let it sit without water. That's very bad for it. You'll sprout dirt.
Remember how the H.O.A. would always bitch about my yard looking like an abandoned property? Well, once we showed them our water bill for July of one year that our yard was particularly green, greener in fact than most of our neigbors' yards, they backed off. The yard is ugly as all hell in spring, but come summer, this style of gardening is cheaper than xeriscape (and looks better, too), uses less water than any other yard in the area, and frees up enough water to do better things with.
Any of ya'll remember the watering restrictions we had for five years a little while ago? We filled a swimming pool, ran a swamp cooler, washed two cars once every two weeks, had a very green yard (including the grass!), and continued all our usual household water use, and still came in with the lowest water bill. We even got a letter from Denver Water thanking us for using less than the target they had set! Go figure.
You should have seen the neighbors steaming mad after they saw us do all all of that!
------------------------------
Funny story, in fact. For a while there it was actually a ticketable offense to wash your car in your driveway, but we could legally water the lawn on Mondays and Wednesdays for an hour or two. Car was dirty, lawn was brown. Solution?
You guessed it, repark the car on the front lawn, wash, dry, repark in driveway. Park other car on other part of lawn. Wash. Dry. Repark in driveay.
In fact, one time Denver Water came around while I was washing the car, did a double take, and started fixin' to write a ticket. I just told them that we park that car on the lawn, and I was just watering the lawn around the car. The guy thought about it, chuckled, and asked why we park on the lawn when we have a two car driveway with only one car in it. I just explained, "Park it on the lawn, don't gotta worry 'bout bumping doors, got all sorts'a space, an' plus, it ain't like we was gonna park it on the street, where it's more likely to get hit or sumthin'."
I'm sure he didn't believe me, but it was plausible deniability for both of us. He just siad, "Alright, that's a new one" and went on his way.
--------------------------
So that's green gardening: the redneck way. Using mostly native, hrady plants, even a semi-arid zone can be green with almost no effort or water.
Ya'll have a great day!
Most people have gardens that involve plants that would normally not be caught within thousands of miles of each other, require constant attention, and tremendous amounts of water. These gardens are often immensely beautiful to look at, but I wouldn't be caught dead having one. The effort of maintaining it alone would probably kill me.
I don't see how they do it.
I can't say that we don't have some out-of-place plants, but the ones that we do have fend for themselves. Between the front and the back, our yards have two grape vines, three maples, one locust, two stands of aspen, two apple trees, two cherry trees, a plum tree, an apricot tree, a pear tree (no partridge, though), incredible numbers of evergreen shrubs, seven dwarf spruce, a peach tree, enough lilac bushes to form a wall of lilac 100 feet long and three feet deep, sumac, five rose bushes, one "wild tea rose," at least thirty crocus flowers, a planter full of King Irises, one small iris of unknown origin, three snowball plants, blue columbines, three huge clover plants, lots of grass, dandelions, huge amounts of morning glory growing in the sandbox (of all places!), an unknown blue wildflower (a lot of 'em), and the most thistle you have ever seen in your life. Huge amounts of moss, too.
Some of those are "weeds." The only one that I'd get rid of, though, is all the thistle.
None of those get watered, except by rain and snow, and with a very light shower with the hose if we haven't gotten any rain in two weeks, and right before the 4th of July (we want it damp in case a firework goes awry).
All of them are thriving. Last year we had so many grapes that we literally couldn't give them all away before they went bad. We had three crispers full of grapes in the fridge for a while. We froze some. And I'm not even counting the parts of the vine that have grown onto our neighbors' properties. In fact, we talked to them and said that all the grapes that grow on their side of the fence are theirs. Feel free to cut the vine at the fenceline if you choose, too. They chose the first option. That vine is 15 years old, and has never gotten more water than Colorado naturally provides for the last ten of them.
The grass doesn't even get watered. How do we do it? First of all, we didn't buy grass from the hardware store. We got it from the side of the highway, when that grass went to seed. That grass knows what's up. Most of the grass grows in partial shade from our house or one of our huge maples, which, I'm sure, helps.
I don't know how much water fruit trees are supposed to get, but I'm sure it's more than ours get. They are all 15 years old, but still very small in comparison to what a "properly cared for" one would be. The fruit is smaller, too, but that trees are used to it, and the fruit's just as good!
In fact, most of what's growing in our yard got to be there by natural selection: that is to say, it was planted next to a lot of other plants, watered unti it took hold, and then very carefully and strategically ignored. They had to earn their spots. Now the surviving, hardy plants have choked out the less hardy ones. In fact, I feel that we are very close to perfecting the Emerald Green Zero-Water Colorado Yard.
It's true. Every spring, I let the grass grow as tell as it wants until it goes to seed, and once those seeds drop and have been rained on, I mow. The H.O.A. bitches about it every year, but we just ignore them. We don't rake our fall leaves, or our grass clippings. We let them insulate the ground and trap water. The un-raked yard, come spring, sprouts faster than the raked yard. I checked. The un-raked grass clippings help hold hater in the soil in between summer rains. They kae a big difference, too. Both of them put nutrients back in the soil, meaning no need to fertilize. That alone is invaluable.
Come the height of summer, the grass turns brown, except after rains and the obligatory two-week sprinkle. Then it turns green and grows a few inches. The rest of the plants, being green at High June, balance out the brown highway grass in between storms. If you're considering this method, mow right before a certain(!) rainstorm, or a regularly scheduled watering. Don't mow it when it's grween, and definitely don't mow the brown stuff and then let it sit without water. That's very bad for it. You'll sprout dirt.
Remember how the H.O.A. would always bitch about my yard looking like an abandoned property? Well, once we showed them our water bill for July of one year that our yard was particularly green, greener in fact than most of our neigbors' yards, they backed off. The yard is ugly as all hell in spring, but come summer, this style of gardening is cheaper than xeriscape (and looks better, too), uses less water than any other yard in the area, and frees up enough water to do better things with.
Any of ya'll remember the watering restrictions we had for five years a little while ago? We filled a swimming pool, ran a swamp cooler, washed two cars once every two weeks, had a very green yard (including the grass!), and continued all our usual household water use, and still came in with the lowest water bill. We even got a letter from Denver Water thanking us for using less than the target they had set! Go figure.
You should have seen the neighbors steaming mad after they saw us do all all of that!
------------------------------
Funny story, in fact. For a while there it was actually a ticketable offense to wash your car in your driveway, but we could legally water the lawn on Mondays and Wednesdays for an hour or two. Car was dirty, lawn was brown. Solution?
You guessed it, repark the car on the front lawn, wash, dry, repark in driveway. Park other car on other part of lawn. Wash. Dry. Repark in driveay.
In fact, one time Denver Water came around while I was washing the car, did a double take, and started fixin' to write a ticket. I just told them that we park that car on the lawn, and I was just watering the lawn around the car. The guy thought about it, chuckled, and asked why we park on the lawn when we have a two car driveway with only one car in it. I just explained, "Park it on the lawn, don't gotta worry 'bout bumping doors, got all sorts'a space, an' plus, it ain't like we was gonna park it on the street, where it's more likely to get hit or sumthin'."
I'm sure he didn't believe me, but it was plausible deniability for both of us. He just siad, "Alright, that's a new one" and went on his way.
--------------------------
So that's green gardening: the redneck way. Using mostly native, hrady plants, even a semi-arid zone can be green with almost no effort or water.
Ya'll have a great day!
Bring your own beer... to the steakhouse
While I was in Alamosa, chowing down on some prime rib, two men walked in. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I could have met one of 'em before... his face looked so familiar.
He was the one carrying the six pack.
And they let him do it.
He was the one carrying the six pack.
And they let him do it.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Der uber-pumpkin
Have you ever had a pumpkin last seven months without rotting? Neither had I, until this year. Last October, we went out to the pumpkin patch to buy a pumpkin, which we intended to carve into a jack-o-lantern. What wound up happening was we set the pumpkin in the kitchen and proceeded to walk around it while we did other things.
Such was the state of things for several months, until some time after New Years we realized that that really was a pumpkin from two months ago, and it hadn't turned to mush all over the floor yet. At that point, a friendly competition began over who could guess the date of the pumpkin molding the most accurately.
Even our furthest prediction only got us into mid-March.
So we proceeded to watch the pumpkin carefully for a few weeks. Weeks turned into a month, and a month into several. Finally, between Cinco de Mayo and Memorial Day, the pumpkin (which we had now dubbed the Uber-Pumpkin--I'd like to buy an umlaut, please?) finally got a few spots of mold. The mold didn't actually compromise the structural integrity of our friendly neighborhood uberpumpkin until Memorial Day weekend, at which point we declared an end to the experiment and proceeded to remove the toxic gourd from our back patio (we had decided to put it out there) in "the best way possible." You know what I'm getting at. Moldy Pumpkin Machete Baseball.*
Originally invented by Wes Sturr of Eastern Wyoming, the game consits of taking turns lobbing the moldy pumpkin (usually a jack-o-lantern in November, but this was a special case) at one another, and swinging at it baseball-style with a machete. Once the peices are too small to hit anymore, or all the parties are too grossed out to continue, the game is over. Whoever got the last hit wins.
We don't keep machetes around (shame on us), so we just ground a coarse edge onto a peice of steel flatstock. Ta-da!
With der uber-pumpkin eliminated, life could continue.
*I honestly thought I'd never get to use that tag again, but I actaully did.
Such was the state of things for several months, until some time after New Years we realized that that really was a pumpkin from two months ago, and it hadn't turned to mush all over the floor yet. At that point, a friendly competition began over who could guess the date of the pumpkin molding the most accurately.
Even our furthest prediction only got us into mid-March.
So we proceeded to watch the pumpkin carefully for a few weeks. Weeks turned into a month, and a month into several. Finally, between Cinco de Mayo and Memorial Day, the pumpkin (which we had now dubbed the Uber-Pumpkin--I'd like to buy an umlaut, please?) finally got a few spots of mold. The mold didn't actually compromise the structural integrity of our friendly neighborhood uberpumpkin until Memorial Day weekend, at which point we declared an end to the experiment and proceeded to remove the toxic gourd from our back patio (we had decided to put it out there) in "the best way possible." You know what I'm getting at. Moldy Pumpkin Machete Baseball.*
Originally invented by Wes Sturr of Eastern Wyoming, the game consits of taking turns lobbing the moldy pumpkin (usually a jack-o-lantern in November, but this was a special case) at one another, and swinging at it baseball-style with a machete. Once the peices are too small to hit anymore, or all the parties are too grossed out to continue, the game is over. Whoever got the last hit wins.
We don't keep machetes around (shame on us), so we just ground a coarse edge onto a peice of steel flatstock. Ta-da!
With der uber-pumpkin eliminated, life could continue.
*I honestly thought I'd never get to use that tag again, but I actaully did.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Spare some soap?
It just hit me that my parents keep a glass jar full of soap next to the bathroom trash can. I've walked past it for years. I've stubbed my toe on it. But it just registered that it is the soap equivalent of a spare change jar, only more useless.
Every time we'd empty one of those big jugs of Softsoap, we'd trun it upside down on top of this spare soap jar and let the last few drops drip out. Over the past 15 years, we've saved--wait for it--alomst a half a gallon of soap! A buck-seventy-five! And we never have used this soap, either. In the process we've stubbed our toes countless times, wasted probably what amounts to an hour just trying to get the one bottle to balance on top of the other, and managed to totally forget about what this little redneck modern-art sculpture was originally for. Maybe we're saving it for the apocalypse, or when the store is sold out of soap. Yeah, right. You spend three decades dead broke poor, though, and I guess old habits die hard.
I got to thinking, what is this even here for? Nobody could tell me. It just seemed like a good idea to keep doing. Why are we keeping this? If we got rid of it we'd have a lot more space.
So of course I emptied the trash and turned another bottle upside down on the jar.
Gotta be good for something, right?
Every time we'd empty one of those big jugs of Softsoap, we'd trun it upside down on top of this spare soap jar and let the last few drops drip out. Over the past 15 years, we've saved--wait for it--alomst a half a gallon of soap! A buck-seventy-five! And we never have used this soap, either. In the process we've stubbed our toes countless times, wasted probably what amounts to an hour just trying to get the one bottle to balance on top of the other, and managed to totally forget about what this little redneck modern-art sculpture was originally for. Maybe we're saving it for the apocalypse, or when the store is sold out of soap. Yeah, right. You spend three decades dead broke poor, though, and I guess old habits die hard.
I got to thinking, what is this even here for? Nobody could tell me. It just seemed like a good idea to keep doing. Why are we keeping this? If we got rid of it we'd have a lot more space.
So of course I emptied the trash and turned another bottle upside down on the jar.
Gotta be good for something, right?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Apparently I'm a freak.
I recently had to fly to Sacramento for some urgent family business. That meant four hours on a plane each way. I hate airports. Last year I flew back from D.C. through Chicago-O'Hare. I'm never going there again. O'Hare, I mean. Even if that means a five-stop redirect. That airport has the largest number of delays, and those delays are on average the longest in the country. It's up north and near enough to the lakes to get very consistent foul weather. And y'know what the best part is? The seats they have at the gates are not designed for long-term seating. They're not like the seats at Dallas, Denver, Sacramento, San Deigo, Washington-Reagan, Phoenix, Ontario, LAX, and all the other airports not managed by Catbert. The seats at O'Hare are designed to get you up and out of that seat as quickly as possible and, since your plane still isn't here, into the shops to spend money you can't afford to part with.
That said, I love flying. I'd rather not have had to fly at all these past couple of days, but you take what life gives you and make the best of it. And that means the opportunity to enjoy being in a large metal object on top of thousands of gallons of fuel, going 600 miles an hour eight miles above the earth. That scares most people shitless. It makes me happy. I don't know why. Ever since I saw an airliner coming in for a landing, I've liked that concept. Then when I got to fly in one I discovered that there really is no feeling quite like the one you get just after the plane has left the runway, where it settles and then --whoosh!-- powers into the sky. That is really an unmatched feeling of raw power.
Flying is such a fragile state. You're either flying or you're not. There's no grey area. If any of the precious set of circumstances that sustain flight go awry, the flight ceases and the forcible reaquaintance with the ground begins. There's not a damn thing you as a human can do about it. Much like life itself. But you're high enough in the air that you get to enjoy the ride in a somewhat macabre way. Every time you leave the earth in an airplane (or on a motorcycle, for that matter), you are gambling. You have bet everything you have that that fragile set of circumstances will hold. And that's actually kinda comforting. It's impossible to have a bad flight that landed in the intended manner.
But here's what's really bizarre. Apparently I'm the only person on the planet that finds airplane seats comfortable. I'm not talking about just the sort of comfortable where you can live with it, but the kind of comfortable where you begin to seriously consider buying one and installing it in your car. Really comfortable. And I mean coach seats. Not even business class. I flew Southwest this week, which is all one class and open seating, but even on United where coach packs you in like you're in the backseat of a mid-90s extended cab pickup, it's comfy. Ya'll can shoot me with the tranquilizer dart, radio-tag me, and take me in for further study now if you want.
This wasn't always the case. When I was younger I practically had to schedule a chairopractor visit at each end as a part of a vacation. Now I'm five foot four and not getting any taller (I come from a large family of small people). Seriously, our family reunions have an average height of 5'5".
My point is, airplane seats were apparently designed for someone with my precise build and set of bone/soft tissue injuries. For everyone else, they are desgined to give you those injuries. Seats in cars nowadays are like forward controls on a motorcycle--a big fuck-you to short people, since both assume you're at least 5'6". The one pleasant exception is the Chevy HHR, which has sensible seats and a headrest that doesn't actively attempt to break your neck. Seats on airplanes are a big fuck-you to all human beings, or at least they're supposed to be. I'm sure if the airlines read this, they'll commission a redesign of the seats. But until they do, the infamous airplane seat is incredibly comfortable to me.
It was funny, when we got into San Diego, I stood up to let the people next to me out. Quickly. In the middle of this motion, I began to anticipate a sound whack on the head from the overhead bins. As it turned out, the bins were barely higher than the top of my head and I did not crack myself in the skull. I did literally come two paper-thicknesses away from it, though.
Wild, huh? I never woulda thunk, but this little discovery of being the same size as the crash dummy they designed the plane around means that the actual act of flying is a blast.
Well, except for the bathroom. So damn tiny you can't even put both feet next to each other, but have to put one foot half on top of the other.
That said, I love flying. I'd rather not have had to fly at all these past couple of days, but you take what life gives you and make the best of it. And that means the opportunity to enjoy being in a large metal object on top of thousands of gallons of fuel, going 600 miles an hour eight miles above the earth. That scares most people shitless. It makes me happy. I don't know why. Ever since I saw an airliner coming in for a landing, I've liked that concept. Then when I got to fly in one I discovered that there really is no feeling quite like the one you get just after the plane has left the runway, where it settles and then --whoosh!-- powers into the sky. That is really an unmatched feeling of raw power.
Flying is such a fragile state. You're either flying or you're not. There's no grey area. If any of the precious set of circumstances that sustain flight go awry, the flight ceases and the forcible reaquaintance with the ground begins. There's not a damn thing you as a human can do about it. Much like life itself. But you're high enough in the air that you get to enjoy the ride in a somewhat macabre way. Every time you leave the earth in an airplane (or on a motorcycle, for that matter), you are gambling. You have bet everything you have that that fragile set of circumstances will hold. And that's actually kinda comforting. It's impossible to have a bad flight that landed in the intended manner.
But here's what's really bizarre. Apparently I'm the only person on the planet that finds airplane seats comfortable. I'm not talking about just the sort of comfortable where you can live with it, but the kind of comfortable where you begin to seriously consider buying one and installing it in your car. Really comfortable. And I mean coach seats. Not even business class. I flew Southwest this week, which is all one class and open seating, but even on United where coach packs you in like you're in the backseat of a mid-90s extended cab pickup, it's comfy. Ya'll can shoot me with the tranquilizer dart, radio-tag me, and take me in for further study now if you want.
This wasn't always the case. When I was younger I practically had to schedule a chairopractor visit at each end as a part of a vacation. Now I'm five foot four and not getting any taller (I come from a large family of small people). Seriously, our family reunions have an average height of 5'5".
My point is, airplane seats were apparently designed for someone with my precise build and set of bone/soft tissue injuries. For everyone else, they are desgined to give you those injuries. Seats in cars nowadays are like forward controls on a motorcycle--a big fuck-you to short people, since both assume you're at least 5'6". The one pleasant exception is the Chevy HHR, which has sensible seats and a headrest that doesn't actively attempt to break your neck. Seats on airplanes are a big fuck-you to all human beings, or at least they're supposed to be. I'm sure if the airlines read this, they'll commission a redesign of the seats. But until they do, the infamous airplane seat is incredibly comfortable to me.
It was funny, when we got into San Diego, I stood up to let the people next to me out. Quickly. In the middle of this motion, I began to anticipate a sound whack on the head from the overhead bins. As it turned out, the bins were barely higher than the top of my head and I did not crack myself in the skull. I did literally come two paper-thicknesses away from it, though.
Wild, huh? I never woulda thunk, but this little discovery of being the same size as the crash dummy they designed the plane around means that the actual act of flying is a blast.
Well, except for the bathroom. So damn tiny you can't even put both feet next to each other, but have to put one foot half on top of the other.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Laundry day... and the next three days
Sunday is laundry day. On sundays there is not a cloth towel to be found anywhere in the house. So of course it is logical to hang up a replacement towel. But after you've cleaned the towels, should the paper towel still be on the towel rack on Thursday? You be the judge.
I think it's classy, though, that my dad actually went to the trouble of hanging the paper towel on the rack, rather than just letting us exert the tremendous effort of PULLING ONE OFF THE ROLL that is literally four inches above this towel rack.
It didn't even register for me that a paper towel on the towel rack might be a bit odd until after I had washed and dried my hands, at which point I had to grab a camera and do a writeup.
I think it's classy, though, that my dad actually went to the trouble of hanging the paper towel on the rack, rather than just letting us exert the tremendous effort of PULLING ONE OFF THE ROLL that is literally four inches above this towel rack.
It didn't even register for me that a paper towel on the towel rack might be a bit odd until after I had washed and dried my hands, at which point I had to grab a camera and do a writeup.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
If you're in a hole...
...Stop digging. Don't get me wrong, I loved Boyd Coddington's taste(rest his soul) and thought he was a good, salt-of-the-earth man (ironic, no?), but this guy did everything ass-backwards when he went out to Bonneville.
For the past 40 years, there has been a mining operation going on near the Bonneville racecourses, where the miners collect the water runoff from the flats and direct it into huge setlling ponds, collecting potash from it. Then the salt would just sit there, when it should have been sitting out on the racecourses, building up a foot and a half thick. At one point, there were just a couple of inches of salt on the Flats. That's nowhere near enough to have Speed Week. That's the recipe for Stuck in the Mud Week.
Salt, when it has been wetted and allowed to dry, forms a surface very similar to concrete, or maybe plaster of paris. Anyone who went to Southmoor while they still had the Upper Field is familiar with this--it was dirt, but practically concrete. Out on the Slat Flats, though, the mud underneath the salt is frikkin' quicksand, just about. We can't have vehicles breaking through to that at five miles an hour, let alone 200.
Starting in 1997, Save the Salt was started; a program where the water from the holding tanks would be pumped back out over the Flats. In other words, they been repaving.
Of course, if rain hits right before Speed Week or the salt pumping hasn't deposited enough, the courses and the whole shebang have to be moved somewhere else.
You standin' on unstable ground, boy.
Here's the story of Boyd Coddington's visit in 2007, as published on the Bonneville website, http://www.saltflats.com/
_______________________________________
For the past 40 years, there has been a mining operation going on near the Bonneville racecourses, where the miners collect the water runoff from the flats and direct it into huge setlling ponds, collecting potash from it. Then the salt would just sit there, when it should have been sitting out on the racecourses, building up a foot and a half thick. At one point, there were just a couple of inches of salt on the Flats. That's nowhere near enough to have Speed Week. That's the recipe for Stuck in the Mud Week.
Salt, when it has been wetted and allowed to dry, forms a surface very similar to concrete, or maybe plaster of paris. Anyone who went to Southmoor while they still had the Upper Field is familiar with this--it was dirt, but practically concrete. Out on the Slat Flats, though, the mud underneath the salt is frikkin' quicksand, just about. We can't have vehicles breaking through to that at five miles an hour, let alone 200.
Starting in 1997, Save the Salt was started; a program where the water from the holding tanks would be pumped back out over the Flats. In other words, they been repaving.
Of course, if rain hits right before Speed Week or the salt pumping hasn't deposited enough, the courses and the whole shebang have to be moved somewhere else.
You standin' on unstable ground, boy.
Here's the story of Boyd Coddington's visit in 2007, as published on the Bonneville website, http://www.saltflats.com/
_______________________________________
Back to USFRA Home Page
Bonneville can be a tough place.
As you may have heard, at SpeedWeek 2007, Boyd Coddington star of TV’s American Hotrod show had a very tough couple of days. Boyd and his wife Jo were running a beautiful roadster, hoping for a class record, with a full TVcrew recording their racing efforts. As you will read, things went from bad to much much worse for the Coddington crew.
Ron Christenson (long time USFRA volunteer) was working the Speedweek 2007 Event in his usual position as Radio Announcer on 1610 AM radio announcing the event. He captured these photos and this inside story from his ringside seat.
Photos and Narrative by Ron Christensen
Thursday afternoon the Boyd Coddington race team, complete with a film crew for Speed TV's "American Hotrodder" was heading from the starting line to the 3- Mile after Jo Coddington (Boyd's wife) had just spun their roadster at about 180- MPH (and come really close to backing into the Timing Slips stand at great speed.) The motorhome headed for the return road just as it was supposed to do. Unfortunately it broke through the thin salt (the SpeedWeek tracks had to be relocated to a risky area after the rains a couple of weeks before the event). We normally wouldn't have been driving in this area as it is quite a distance east of the usual location of the track.
With the "American Hotrodder" film crew shooting away, the Coddington group tried to get the motorhome free but it had sunk in up to the axle and even with lots of digging it would not budge. So they called a tow truck to come and pull them out. The mood of the Coddington crew was sort of giddy . . . the seriousness of the predicament hadn't seem to have sunk in nearly as well as the motorhome had. They were all standing around laughing and drinking beers, having a great time.
Two vehicles (a very large wrecker and a flatbed) arrived about two hours later like the Lone Ranger and Tonto to the rescue . . . . The Coddington crew was certain it would be out of there in minutes and heading back to the casino in Wendover for dinner, gambling and more beers! Plans didn't quite work out as hoped as both rescue vehicles promptly got stuck not far from the motorhome. It should have been obvious that if the motorhome broke through, a big heavy wrecker didn't stand a chance. So there were now three stuck vehicles. The wrecker crews were heard to say something like "We'll just get 'Big Blue' in here . . . no problem!" More beers came out and the party continued.
At about 6:00 PM, I had to leave the salt about that time to go to the workers dinner at the Nugget and a party at an old friend's home in Wendover.
When I returned at about 10:30 p.m. to my radio trailer to spend the night I noticed there were lights in the area of the motorhome so I drove over there. Things had gone from bad to critical at the scene. The Coddington crew's mood had made a 180 degree change from when I left. They looked very sullen and an air of gloom hung over the group. I then surveyed the scene. "Big Blue" (the wrecker that would save the day) had arrived after I left and had been trying to pull the big yellow wrecker from the nice soft mud into which it had become so comfortable. The yellow wrecker which had been sitting so peacefully with the salt surface firmly against the undercarriage when I left was now at about a 40 degree angle with mud coming up about 6 feet to the door of the cab on the left side. It was wedged firmly into the landscape with its right side tires about a foot off the ground and about 100 feet of 4-foot deep trench indicating where Big Blue had dragged it in an attempt to free it from the clutches of the desert.
The dragging had only gotten it deeper into the mud. And to make matters even worse, Big Blue had gotten itself in about the same situation, sinking into the mud about 4 feet as it attempted to pull the yellow wrecker free. And in a last ditch effort to get the motorhome out it had managed to damage its boom winch and a tow cable was now stretched tight like a huge steel guitar string between it and the motorhome. The damaged winch would not release and they could not remove the cable. It was about 3 feet above the salt and about 1050 feet long which created quite a hazard. One of the Coddington crewmen had borrowed some orange cones from the race course return road to mark off the cable so no one would drive into it. Unfortunately one of their own crew drove their mini van right into it as he attempted to drive between the cones!
I struggled not to laugh at this comedy as it unfolded. Another pair of cables stretched between Big Blue and the yellow wrecker. Big Blue was sitting at an odd angle with its right rear wheels buried firmly in the mud. It looked a dog cleaning its backside on the carpet. Somehow they had managed to free the flatbed which they had backed in to try to free Big Blue and it too had become stuck again, this time much worse than before. The three rescue vehicles were in a nice tidy row, half buried and held in the firm grip of the clay-like mud that lies just below the surface of the salt. The scene resembled some sort of elephant hunt with three slain carcasses lying dead on the playa. The motorhome sat unmoved in the same spot it had found itself in when it started this fiasco, no doubt chuckling to itself at the mess it had created!
The muddied and sullen Coddington crew divided up and some of them stayed in the motorhome while another group left in the mini van with a fresh cable burn on its nose. It was pitch black out with no moon and they had no idea how to find their way back to the access road. I explained that they just needed to drive to the dike behind the starting line then follow it around until they encountered the row of cones that marked the route to the access road. I returned to my radio position at the starting line where I started to prepare the Cherokee Hotel for the night. I watched as the Coddington crew left in the mini van and drove past the starting lines then proceeded to head off in a northerly direction instead of following the dike to the west as I suggested. I could imagine them driving off into the darkness and getting stuck in the muddy area towards the mountains. A perfect end to their evening!
I decided to rescue them from another disaster and I chased them down in the Jeep then guided them to the coned route to the access road. They still had the water hazard at the end of the access road to negotiate. I explained that they MUST keep the relocated row of cones to the immediate right of their vehicle at all times as there were now 3 to 4 foot deep holes hidden under the surface of the water if they ventured off the marked path. I returned to my trailer and wished them luck.
The next morning the scene at the motorhome was revealed in all its glory! You can see the carnage in the photos. I wonder how or if they will "replace their divots." About 10:00 a.m. ANOTHER huge wrecker arrived. This one was even bigger than the big yellow one and it was equipped with a third axel on the back. They carefully backed it up and removed the motorhome, the flatbed, then "Big Blue." When I finally left they were still working on pulling the big yellow wrecker.
Your friends at the USFRA encourage you to be careful out there. Bonneville can be a very tough place!
______________________________
These folks have obviously never lived in real snow country. Treat the mud like deep snow, respect it, and it might not swallow your truck. Trouble is, unlike snow, mud doesn't go away by July. I mentioned a while back that if you get stuck in Colorado, wait and we'll dig you out, it's what we live for in the wintertime. Well, that and summer. That's really what we're doing, filling time while we wait for summer. Anyway, after all of this, we coulda gotten these boys out of that jam, without the huge three-axle wrecker and all the to-do. Of course, the mountain contingent might not dig 'em out, they were just so daggum stupid. But you can't just throw big iron at a break-through problem, just like you can't just floor it on the salt. One'll eat your truck, and the other will eat your tires.
Merry racing!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
More tornado fun!
First of all, all ya'll Coloradans, remember that twister up Ute Pass a while back? When I saw the news about that I didn't believe it at first, until they showed the section of Highway 24 that goes past Scenic Acres and our cabin. Then the praying and frantic calling began, but it didn't hit anything me or my dad grew up with.
Alex C. commented with a really funny story about a friend of her brother's. Apparently he was in his dorm room in Washington D.C. when his friends decided to play a joke on him. They told him a tornado was coming and he flipped out, turning on the shower for some reason and hiding in the closet. They found him later. I assume he got them back worse later.
Back in the mid-late '60s a dust devil went through the Palmer High baseball field. It came through the backstop, over home plate and the pitcher's mound, and exited the field between first and second base, in the middle of a game. All the guys, including my dad, decided to se what it was like andrushed into the dust devil. It was windy.
Also, if you're ever in Cascade, don't buy anything at the Swis Miss. Neighborly feud over a cross burning.
Alex C. commented with a really funny story about a friend of her brother's. Apparently he was in his dorm room in Washington D.C. when his friends decided to play a joke on him. They told him a tornado was coming and he flipped out, turning on the shower for some reason and hiding in the closet. They found him later. I assume he got them back worse later.
Back in the mid-late '60s a dust devil went through the Palmer High baseball field. It came through the backstop, over home plate and the pitcher's mound, and exited the field between first and second base, in the middle of a game. All the guys, including my dad, decided to se what it was like andrushed into the dust devil. It was windy.
Also, if you're ever in Cascade, don't buy anything at the Swis Miss. Neighborly feud over a cross burning.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Brainstorming and more serious storms
You've probably heard about the tornadoes yesterday in northern Colorado. One of them wiped out the Kodak plant in what I believe is officially Windsor. My cousin's husband works at the Budweiser can plant less than half a mile from there, in Milliken. Severe winds hit their house, and the family hid in the closet, since they apparently have no basement. Go figure. No major damage reported. The really criminal thing, though, was that the managers at the can plant did not even inform the workers that there was severe weather outside or that they were under a tornado warning, and the tornado could be seen decimating the Kodak plant. They waited until the shift was over, and mentioned causually "Oh, yeah, we nearly got hit by a tornado earlier. Have a nice day." They weren't given the opportunity to take shelter, nor did they even know that their families were in severe danger. As you can imagine, the workers were pissed off.
Milliken was without power or phone service for several hours. When our call finally got through, we learned what happened.
Lemme tell you about the process of making aluminum cans. In order to finish them, they must be cleaned with hydroflouric acid. This is evil stuff. Unlike most acids, HF does not cause burns to the skin. It penetrates through the skin without you even necessarily knowing that you have any on you, and binds to the minerals in your bones and blood. Imagine your bones dissolving from the inside out. That's what this will do if you get too much on you. The first aid is to cut off the blood supply so that it doesn't spread through your body, and then to apply a calcium cream to hopefully bind most of the HF. The toxins from dissolving your bone, though, can kill flesh in and of themselves, and the combined effect is similar to a snakebite and frostbite, where you have flesh dying, severe pain, tenderness, and swelling.... all from the inside out.
My cousin's husband once had an extremely dilute HF solution (less than 0.005%) drip a drop onto his hand while he was rinsing some racks. He didn't think anything of it until half an hour later, when it felt like someone had smashed his hand with a nine pound sledge. Since it was dilute and it was too late for the cream, he had to suffer that pain for almost a week while his body eliminated the toxins and repaired the damage.
Now imagine this stuff flying through the air at 200 miles an hour. Damn straight you're scared.
This Budweiser can plant employes almost a thousand people per shift. Let's disregard all the people downwind. If that plant had been hit during production, which came within a hair's bredth of happening, imagine now having all that uncontained acid in the air, with all these people near it. That's not something I would wish on my worst enemy.
_______________________________
Now here's the brainstorm part. I've got a third of a gallon of gasoline that has thermally degraded too much to use in an engine, but is still basically gas. I need to get rid of it. I've thought of a few ideas, but I'm sure there's a better way. How would you get rid of it?
Milliken was without power or phone service for several hours. When our call finally got through, we learned what happened.
Lemme tell you about the process of making aluminum cans. In order to finish them, they must be cleaned with hydroflouric acid. This is evil stuff. Unlike most acids, HF does not cause burns to the skin. It penetrates through the skin without you even necessarily knowing that you have any on you, and binds to the minerals in your bones and blood. Imagine your bones dissolving from the inside out. That's what this will do if you get too much on you. The first aid is to cut off the blood supply so that it doesn't spread through your body, and then to apply a calcium cream to hopefully bind most of the HF. The toxins from dissolving your bone, though, can kill flesh in and of themselves, and the combined effect is similar to a snakebite and frostbite, where you have flesh dying, severe pain, tenderness, and swelling.... all from the inside out.
My cousin's husband once had an extremely dilute HF solution (less than 0.005%) drip a drop onto his hand while he was rinsing some racks. He didn't think anything of it until half an hour later, when it felt like someone had smashed his hand with a nine pound sledge. Since it was dilute and it was too late for the cream, he had to suffer that pain for almost a week while his body eliminated the toxins and repaired the damage.
Now imagine this stuff flying through the air at 200 miles an hour. Damn straight you're scared.
This Budweiser can plant employes almost a thousand people per shift. Let's disregard all the people downwind. If that plant had been hit during production, which came within a hair's bredth of happening, imagine now having all that uncontained acid in the air, with all these people near it. That's not something I would wish on my worst enemy.
_______________________________
Now here's the brainstorm part. I've got a third of a gallon of gasoline that has thermally degraded too much to use in an engine, but is still basically gas. I need to get rid of it. I've thought of a few ideas, but I'm sure there's a better way. How would you get rid of it?
Monday, May 12, 2008
Ha!
Having apparently lived under a rock, I was just in process of filling out a Digg registration form, and it apparently it asks for your gender. But instead of just giving the options Male and Female, it gives an entire list. Guy, Girl, Dude, Lady, Fellow, Bird, Chap, grrrl, Gentleman, Damsel, Beau, Belle, Male, Female, Transgender, and None of the Above. One can tell these folks have a sense of lightheartedness. I had to look up a couple of 'em. I wonder how they came up with the list?
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
You ain't in Washington no more
I got this email the other day... rang so true. Folks, when you go to the South (primarily redneck country), you're not in your element anymore. Don't make fun of 'em, okay? Especially not in front of no 10-year-olds (you'll see why). I ain't from the South, Colorado born and raised, but a lot of this is true all over the country to some degree. I might amend the "four men in a pickup truck" one, though, to also include:
"If you get stuck in a snowstorm anywhere near civilization, don't worry, two or more people (odds are, they're going to be mountain rednecks) will be along with shovels and tow chains. 'Ya'll ain't from aroung here, are ya? See, we don't go uphill this time of the year.' It's what we live for. In the winter, at least. Even if the folks in question only have cars, trust me, they'll get you out of three foot snow. We know what we're doing; don't interfere."
The North and SouthThe North has Bloomingdale's, the South has Dollar General.
The North has coffee houses, the South has Waffle Houses.
The North has dating services, the South has family reunions.
The North has switchblade knives; the South has Lee Press-on Nails.
The North has double last names; the South has double first names.
The North has Indy car races; The South has stock car races.
North has Cream of Wheat, the South has grits.
The North has green salads, the South has collard greens.
The North has lobsters, the South has craw fish.
The North has the rust belt; the South has the Bible Belt.
FOR NORTHERNERS MOVING SOUTH . . . In the South: --If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.
Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store.... do not buy food at this store.
Remember, 'Y'all' is singular, 'all y'all' is plural, and 'all y'all's' is plural possessive.
Get used to hearing 'You ain't from round here, are ya?'
Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it.
(I've been made fun of for this, but it's true. Bacon grease is an excellent foodstuff, and should not be wasted.)
Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't understand you either.
The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective 'big'ol,' truck or 'big'ol' boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it. The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.
Be advised that 'He needed killin.' is a valid defense here.
If you hear a Southerner exclaim, 'Hey, y'all watch this,' you should stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say.
If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.
(except here in the Rockies, instead of the HILLS, where if anything less than three feet is predicted, your presence is required at work. Don't worry, we'll dig you out the first few times.)
Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.
In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.
(Seriously, you want green stuff, act like you don't give a damn about it)
AND REMEMBER: If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn't call 'em biscuits.
"If you get stuck in a snowstorm anywhere near civilization, don't worry, two or more people (odds are, they're going to be mountain rednecks) will be along with shovels and tow chains. 'Ya'll ain't from aroung here, are ya? See, we don't go uphill this time of the year.' It's what we live for. In the winter, at least. Even if the folks in question only have cars, trust me, they'll get you out of three foot snow. We know what we're doing; don't interfere."
The North and SouthThe North has Bloomingdale's, the South has Dollar General.
The North has coffee houses, the South has Waffle Houses.
The North has dating services, the South has family reunions.
The North has switchblade knives; the South has Lee Press-on Nails.
The North has double last names; the South has double first names.
The North has Indy car races; The South has stock car races.
North has Cream of Wheat, the South has grits.
The North has green salads, the South has collard greens.
The North has lobsters, the South has craw fish.
The North has the rust belt; the South has the Bible Belt.
FOR NORTHERNERS MOVING SOUTH . . . In the South: --If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.
Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store.... do not buy food at this store.
Remember, 'Y'all' is singular, 'all y'all' is plural, and 'all y'all's' is plural possessive.
Get used to hearing 'You ain't from round here, are ya?'
Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it.
(I've been made fun of for this, but it's true. Bacon grease is an excellent foodstuff, and should not be wasted.)
Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't understand you either.
The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective 'big'ol,' truck or 'big'ol' boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it. The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.
Be advised that 'He needed killin.' is a valid defense here.
If you hear a Southerner exclaim, 'Hey, y'all watch this,' you should stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say.
If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.
(except here in the Rockies, instead of the HILLS, where if anything less than three feet is predicted, your presence is required at work. Don't worry, we'll dig you out the first few times.)
Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.
In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.
(Seriously, you want green stuff, act like you don't give a damn about it)
AND REMEMBER: If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn't call 'em biscuits.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Mower update
This past weekend I got together with my dad over fixing this dang mower (hopefully two people are less likely to make a dumb mistake), and we set about dismantling the carburetor. A complete caburetor rebuild should fix the issue... right? We know it was fuel or air, and we know that the way it's delivered is the carb. We've seen carb rebuilds fix this before. It took a day and a half to get it all done (including an evening at the Golden Super Cruise eyeballing rare vehicles).
50 combined years of mechanical knowledge. Oh, we should have shorter crabgrass by now. Not.
The mistake we made was to forget the float valve seat. Have you ever had your toilet tank overflow because of a stuck shutoff? That's what happened to us, except it was gasoline, and it was because we left the hole too big. Oh that wasn't embarrassing. Half a gallon of gas everywhere was perfectly safe, too.
Long story short, we found our mistake, fixed it, and apparently put the governor (automatic gas pedal) back on wrong. We didn't need no stinkin' notes on how it was before we took it off.
Now the motor lugs at idle, or sticks at high revs. Think, above redline. Mower blade blowing up by your feet? Nah.
Now it's personal. It'll get fixed, even if we just have to kick it until it behaves.
50 combined years of mechanical knowledge. Oh, we should have shorter crabgrass by now. Not.
The mistake we made was to forget the float valve seat. Have you ever had your toilet tank overflow because of a stuck shutoff? That's what happened to us, except it was gasoline, and it was because we left the hole too big. Oh that wasn't embarrassing. Half a gallon of gas everywhere was perfectly safe, too.
Long story short, we found our mistake, fixed it, and apparently put the governor (automatic gas pedal) back on wrong. We didn't need no stinkin' notes on how it was before we took it off.
Now the motor lugs at idle, or sticks at high revs. Think, above redline. Mower blade blowing up by your feet? Nah.
Now it's personal. It'll get fixed, even if we just have to kick it until it behaves.
Friday, April 25, 2008
The Last Honest Place in America
Have you ever gotten a wrong-number phone call from a pharmacy saying your prescription is ready? Did you call them back and inform them that you don't have a prescription there, and they have the wrong number? Why?
How about when you got your photos back from the one-hour-photo place; have you ever gotten someone else's by mistake? Even if you had all of yours, did you go back and tell the people at the photo shop? Did you try and find the person and inform them that you had their photos and were giving them to the photo place until they can come pick them up? Did that person call you back and thank you? That took effort, why'd ya'll do it?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, might it be because you know that whatever you had really meant something to somebody?
See, like all ya'll rednecks already know, we were raised to know right from wrong, and to always do the right thing. Sometimes we slip and do some evil, but when it comes to hurting someone we don't know just by being lazy, we can't really live with ourselves until we set things right. The "well, the other person might be an asshole and deserve it" theory doesn't really hold water. When you do the right thing, you'll meet good people.
Recently, I accidentally received an envelope of another lady's photos when I went to get my latest batch developed. Rather than ignore them, or do the easy thing and throw them away like she expected whoever had them would do, I made a point of returning them to Costco's photodesk and calling her and letting her know that I had gotten the photos and returned them to the photodesk. She was so glad she called and thanked me profusely, but that's not the point. The point is, she had photos of her son she thought she'd never see again, and my conscience is no longer nagging me, "Hurry up, don't just ignore them, they mean something to someone. That's what you'd want."
Turns out she is a very nice lady, and didn't think modern big-city people would help her. Apparently, though, she has lost jewelry at that same Costco before, and it was returned to the lost and found promptly. Who'd have thunk? We rednecks do like to look out for each other.
Do a good deed, accept a good deed, pay it forward.
How about when you got your photos back from the one-hour-photo place; have you ever gotten someone else's by mistake? Even if you had all of yours, did you go back and tell the people at the photo shop? Did you try and find the person and inform them that you had their photos and were giving them to the photo place until they can come pick them up? Did that person call you back and thank you? That took effort, why'd ya'll do it?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, might it be because you know that whatever you had really meant something to somebody?
See, like all ya'll rednecks already know, we were raised to know right from wrong, and to always do the right thing. Sometimes we slip and do some evil, but when it comes to hurting someone we don't know just by being lazy, we can't really live with ourselves until we set things right. The "well, the other person might be an asshole and deserve it" theory doesn't really hold water. When you do the right thing, you'll meet good people.
Recently, I accidentally received an envelope of another lady's photos when I went to get my latest batch developed. Rather than ignore them, or do the easy thing and throw them away like she expected whoever had them would do, I made a point of returning them to Costco's photodesk and calling her and letting her know that I had gotten the photos and returned them to the photodesk. She was so glad she called and thanked me profusely, but that's not the point. The point is, she had photos of her son she thought she'd never see again, and my conscience is no longer nagging me, "Hurry up, don't just ignore them, they mean something to someone. That's what you'd want."
Turns out she is a very nice lady, and didn't think modern big-city people would help her. Apparently, though, she has lost jewelry at that same Costco before, and it was returned to the lost and found promptly. Who'd have thunk? We rednecks do like to look out for each other.
Do a good deed, accept a good deed, pay it forward.
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